@Gligar
It had been a long time since Kiara had been forced to travel on foot. A small, petty, selfish part of her wouldn't stop complaining about it in the back of her mind--how without Kit, she was forced to trek over the ground.
Without Kit.
Her chest went tight, stomach dropping down to her toes.
He could be hurt. Or--She had to stop walking and physically shake the thought away, wrapping her arms around herself in a feeble attempt to hold the rising panic in.
He's fine. Kit's fine. He's fine, and I'll find him.There weren't many places for dragon hunters to hide, after all. Especially in these mountains. She'd been steadily making her way down toward the plains for the last two days, ever since her partner had been taken, following the signs of heavy travel through the barren, rocky landscape. She may not be
used to ground travel anymore, but she was still a decent tracker.
She just had to hope it was enough.
It was getting dark. Too dark for her to move safely through the treacherous rocks, even with the slight advantage to night vision that her fae heritage gave her. She knew she should stop, find a place to camp, conserve some strength for first light, but she couldn't make herself do it. Just a little further. If she could just go a little further...
In the dark, she took a misstep. She barely had time to register loose rock sliding sideways under her foot before she was pitching to the left, arms pinwheeling as she desperately tried--and failed--to regain her balance. She just had time to think,
If I fall and snap my neck, Kit will never let me live it down, before she pitched over the edge of a small lip of rock and went tumbling down the previously hidden slope.
She hit the ground hard, but luckily the slope had been shallow enough that she didn't
think she was too badly hurt. But her head was reeling, and she certainly felt bruised all over--she was actually seeing flickering lights, so maybe--
Wait.
That was a campfire.
She had somehow tumbled right into someone's camp.
Groaning, she tried to force herself upright, but the world tilted sideways in abrupt warning and she let herself flop back down again.
"So, uh...hey," she muttered to the sky, praying desperately that whoever she had nearly fallen on top of wasn't readying their weapons.