Chapter Text
The cave was dark but shallow, and if the fearsome monster that had struck such fear into the poor farmer that sought their aid was here, they would know soon enough.
Dupre stood at her shoulder, alert and at the ready as she cast the light forward.
Nothing came lunging at them out of the darkness. A large bramble of sticks and fluff, like a bird’s nest, was clustered in one corner, but appeared empty.
The warrior at her side hummed in thought.
The Avatar glanced behind her, to the cave’s entrance, where Iolo stood, crossbow in hand. Shamino stood across from him, relaxed but with his hand balanced on the pommel of his sword.
She looked back to the cave, searching for any clue to the farmer’s plight. A small form on the floor caught her eye; she angled her head, and stepped closer.
“Ah,” she said.
Letting the light hang over her, she crouched down for a better look. Dupre visibly relaxed, prompting Iolo to abandon his post and come have a look for himself.
“Some fearsome monster,” he remarked.
The creature was small, breathing still but unconscious. A tiny, tawny feline body, with blackened brown bat-like wings curled from its back and a sharply curved tail that ended in an underdeveloped barb. Its features were leonine, too, but flattened drastically and covered in a short pale fur that made its face stand out.
It must have been quite young yet – its claws and tail were still sheathed in a protective fuzz.
“What of the thing’s parents?” Dupre asked.
The Avatar glanced up at him, then over her shoulder to the ranger still posted at the cave’s entrance. “Shamino?”
“I would say there hath been no tracks for days. The animals may still avoideth this place, but whatever might hath been here appeareth to have gone.”
“Well, then,” Dupre announced, “‘Twould appear the villagers’ fear hath been vanquished.”
The Avatar lingered behind as he and Iolo rejoined Shamino. She ran her fingers through the creature’s fur, and, with a frown, slipped her fingers into the pouch fastened to her hip.
A soft mantra fell from her lips, augmented by the roots crushed in her palm and turned to ash.
“How tall a tale willeth this become, eh?” Dupre prodded Iolo, glancing at the Avatar as she strolled past them into the sunlight.
He glanced again. Shamino’s eyes too, widened, and Iolo didn’t even deign to suppress his grin.
“A tall one, yet,” the bard surmised.
The manticore cub peered over the Avatar’s shoulder at them as she walked away from the cave, then disappeared from view as she shifted it in her arms.
“Thou canst not be serious,” Dupre insisted.
Shamino blinked, and shook his head, and finally fell into step to follow the Avatar.
“I canst not be certain why the surprise,” Iolo remarked, moving to follow them.