"Beryl! Beryl! Can you hear Mama?! We're on our way!"

The sound of snapping twigs and rushed movement through the forest could be heard as Sophia slithered as fast as she could manage. 

"Beryyyl? If you can hear us, please respond!"

Cressida called out, barely keeping pace as she did her best to leave a trail for the guards following them.

"Cressida, we're getting close!"

Sophia yelled to her partner as they continued advancing. As they moved through the woods, the scent of something odd caught their attention.

"Sophia, do you smell that?"

"Burned flesh, yeah!"

Cressida and Sophia followed the scent to its source. Having covered most of the distance already, it was barely another two or three minutes until something odd came into sight.

Is that a building? 

Sophia squinted as she asked herself this.

"Hey, somethings over here!"

Approaching the out-of-place steeple, a much more apparent clearing came into view. She could not see much of it initially, but as she got closer, its size became more and more apparent, just as the building did. She called out to Cressida and what guards that managed to catch up to them. 

"Beryl? Are you here? Beryl?"

Sophia yelled out as she approached, Cressida now joining her. As the two continued whilst awaiting a response, a weak call to them was heard. Their daughter calling back to them in response to their yelling.

"Moth-Mama Sophie! Mama Cress!"

 Her voice was strained and weak, terminating from beyond a section of brush that obstructed their view into the clearing. The same thought ran through each Lamia's head.

What could make our daughter so weak as to call them by their in-house names?

"Beryl! We're on our way!"

Sophia yelled out, suddenly rushing forward to the brush. Cressida attempted to stop her or slow her down, but Sophia was absorbed in checking on her daughter too much to hear her partner just at that moment.

"Sophia-wait, careful!"

"Beryl, I'm almost- Ahhh!"

Sophia shot through the brush, greeted by a sudden decline that left her scrambling to maintain her balance as her body broke traction and she slid down into the clearing. 

"Sophia! Be caref-... ful... By the Gods."

Cressida ceased her speech; her eyes caught on the source of the smell. The burnt flesh of a monster was inevitably the culprit; she assumed this. Yet the true source, the smoldering corpse of an absolutely massive Bulette, was a virtually unbelievable sight for her. She'd never seen one of this size, let alone expected to see it so far from the plains region to the west. Of course, who else was located in its proverbial shadow other than their daughter, Beryl. Coiled around her two friends, one of which was unconscious and the other bordering on it just as she herself appeared.

"Beryl!"

"Mama!"

 

---

 

Shortly after the fight ended, Beryl's parents and a group of guards found us in the clearing. It was maybe ten minutes after Beryl's second strike killed the Bulette. Now we were sitting in a tent alongside Beryl's family tent. On one makeshift bed, Beryl was laying down, now asleep from the exhaustion. She looked comparatively more sick than she should have been, at least by my experience so far with mana exhaustion. On another laid Vaughn, who was still unconscious. He seemed to be coming around as he mumbled things in his sleep and wasn't appearing distressed. I, however, was very stressed, sitting in front of two very distressed Mothers who were actively pressing me for some sort of explanation. 

"Kiyomi, we can tell you're hiding something. Hesitancy is not easily hidden with you."

Cressida spoke to me as she and her wife, Sophia, sat on their coils across from me. Thankfully, they weren't angry but rather worried.

"There is nothing you need to hide from us, Kiyomi, regardless of how the monster's end came about. We need to piece together what information we can. That monster appearing so close to town is our largest concern."

You wouldn't exactly believe something like that, would you?

Sophia's tone took a much more pleasing tone than her counterpart.

"Let's start from square one, okay?"

Sophia leaned forward, propping her elbows on a portion of her coils that she'd propped up.

"What were you doing before the Bulette appeared?"

Leading with her first question, Sophia's patience appeared to endure slightly longer than Cressida's.

Hah, fuck me... what can I really tell them?! That we were supposedly alerted BY the system and thrown into some shitty chickenfight by some Gods? I can tell them, and they probably wouldn't believe me... why do I feel like I want Lorn to be here, though? And I feel like there's something I'm forgetting. 

Taking a moment to breathe in, I did my best to keep in line with their questioning. 

"We were training in the clearing, in front of the Temple? I got sick from forgetting to eat this morning."

Strangely enough, that felt worse to say than it should have. Embarrassment? 

"Beryl had us go back into the Temple to eat some lunch, and I'd gone to get some air."

Cressida and Sophia continued to listen intently.

"We all suddenly got an alert from the system? Something about Orion and Solah. The system said 'the Goddess, Solah, has formed you party' or something like that. It said to escape or kill the monster - Beryl and Vaughn started arguing after Vaughn said he'd distract it while we ran... Beryl and I wouldn't have it. Beryl said we couldn't outrun it. So we made a plan... a bad one... but what else could we do?"

I paused for a moment, trying to find a way to explain further, but Cressida spoke her mind.

"Kiyomi, do you take us for fools? Are you trying to spin some kind of yarn? Solah? Orion?"

Cressida appeared irritated; aside from her expression, her tail actively sweeping the floor was a further cue. 

"I'm not lying! Beryl and Vaughn will say the same!"

I tried biting back, holding my ground on what I said. 

"Bullshit, Kiyomi, this is serious. Usually, we would be more careful about language and such with this, but such a claim is extremely dangerous. You need to understand the weight you're throwing around with your tall tale."

Cressida continued asserting her thought that the explanation wasn't truthful.

I knew they wouldn't believe a word!

"It's not, okay?! I thought about giving you a lie, but what exactly am I supposed to do? You think it's hard to believe for you? Imagine actually getting the message! Beryl was terrified, and Vaughn said some stuff that made me think he was prepared to do something idiotic!" 

I reflexively stood from my own bed as I retaliated.

I can't take the bullshit of following people along anymore. I need to put my foot down on this. Would telling them something else even have a better end result?

Initially, I expected some kind of negative reaction. It was almost surreal, given it was probably the first time in a while I've directly spoken my mind towards an adult other than Lorn or Mother. Unexpectedly, Cressida didn't press on me for a 'better' explanation. Instead, she appeared hesitant, looking to Sophia for some kind of backup from what I could presume. Looking at Sophia, I was surprised to see that she was almost staring into my soul with her eyes giving off a strange red glow that contrasted with their normal appearance.

What the fuck?

Seeing the change in form as Sophia nearly stared through me was unnerving; I actually felt myself shift in stance slightly. I was about to take my seat once more before Sophia sighed heavily, and her expression became deathly serious.

"She's not lying..."

"Are you sure?"

Cressida asked, visibly hoping for a different answer. Meanwhile, Sophia, who continued sporting the expression, shook her head in affirmation. 

"We'll continue this discussion with Lorn present. We may as well not delve further for now. Kiyomi, I'm sorry we lost patience with you."

Sophia 'stood' from her coils before gently wrapping her arms around me. 

"Rest up; we'll need you to be there with us. Okay?"

Sophia asked as she pulled away, waiting for a response. 

"Yes, ma'am."

Sophia nodded at my response before leaving the tent, Cressida following immediately after giving her own apology.

"Let us know if you need anything, okay?"

Cressida leaned through the door as the rest of her body snaked through. 

"Thank you."

I gave the shortest response I felt appropriate in response, prompting a nod from her as she fully left the tent.

Of all things, still, I'm forgetting something... why?