“Fight or Fly are the choices you have when facing your enemy. But when the darn thing is more than twice your height I hope you can fly fast”

-Ignia Falco, Daughter of the Sephiroth Chief

Time appears to move as fast as they move. By the end of it all, they were at least a few kilometers away and William was about ready to throw up everything he had eaten this week.

When they finally landed somewhere, he immediately pushed Ignia away to run to the nearest tree to throw up. The bile tasted bitter against his tongue making him throw up more. He also had a pounding headache that made even thinking hurt.

Thankfully, Ignia let him rest for a while to calm himself and let the dizziness subside.

But afterward, he regretted giving thanks to Ignia because the older teen hit him square in the head with her fist.

He let out a yell in pain and clutched his head, which showed signs of an even bigger headache coming.

“What the heck was that for!?”

He exclaimed with indignation when he looked up and saw the pissed expression marring Ignia’s face while the girl was cracking her knuckles ready for another punch.

“What the heck was that for!?” 

He exclaimed with indignation then he looked up and saw the pissed expression marring Ignia’s face while the girl was cracking her knuckles ready for another punch.

“You absolute idiot!! What were you thinking going near that place or that creature!! Were you looking for death!? If you are, then just say so! I have a fine blade right here!”

As if to prove her point, Ignia pulled out her dagger in front of him.

The cold blade reflected his wide eyes expression. He felt fear shot through his body as he scrambled away from the dagger.

“O-Okay! I’m sorry! I didn’t know what had gotten into me. O-One thing I know, I was about to go back then the next se-second I found that I had walked at least a mile away and was in front of that place. T-Then I didn’t go anywhere near that creature! I was just going to get the cat away from there because I had a b-bad feeling about the place!!”

William hurriedly explained and found himself stammering out the words.

He placed his hands in front of himself to shield him away from the possibility of being beaten by Ignia but he knew that she wouldn’t do that.

During their journey, he had experienced her personality first hand. She was a mischievous teen who was quick to anger. But her anger goes as fast as it came, thankfully.

His bet paid off because after a staring match with the older teen. Ignia deflated and folded her wings back, the long feathers smoothing themselves down.

“Why do you always get to the most troublesome situations? First, it was with the Flesh-eating Vines, then those Fate fires, after that was the Celestial tiger and now this! Never has my travel on the Hollow Woods been this complicated”

She ranted to him while helping him stand up again and drink a gourd full of water to clean his mouth.

William didn’t try to argue and just let Ignia nagged him.

After an hour of talking, she finally completely calmed down enough for her to assess the actual situation of what happened to them. She then plopped herself on the ground and took out a piece of parchment along with a bottle of ink. She plucked one of the longer feathers on her wings and dipped in ink. Ignia soon used the inked-soaked feather to write on the parchment paper.

“What are you doing?”

He asked while he also took a seat on the ground in front of the girl.

William observed that Ignia was fully concentrated on the current task and didn’t even bother to answer him. It was only after she had finished writing that she answered him.

“I’m writing a letter to my father. I need to report what we had just seen earlier and what the Mundus had told me. Cause if my speculations are correct then what we had just faced earlier is probably going to cause the destruction of Hollow Woods if nobody does anything about it”

Ignia let out a shrill noise from her mouth and soon enough a large falcon with light brown feathers dotted with black spots came into view and landed on her outstretched arm.

She placed the parchment on a tube made of bamboo that had a long string connected to it.

She tied the string on the neck of the falcon and urged the bird to fly up. The large bird of prey did as she instructed and flew south at a fast pace towards the tall trees of the Hollow Woods.

William was too shocked by the information given by Ignia that he wasn’t able to appreciate the action that she had done.

“W-what do you mean that!? Can you please explain it? H-how can-“

“Hush it! Calm down. I’ll explain why”

He was cut off from his stammering by Ignia and was forced to calm down because the girl had promised not to tell a word unless he does so.

When he did calm down, Ignia started explaining.

“It started when I talked with the Mundus t-“

“Are the Mundus alright!”

William felt worry crept up to him as he remembered the nice three men that he had met earlier. Due to the previous event of being whisk off from possible death by Ignia she had forgotten all about the Mundus.

“They’re fine! You disappear long enough that they already left, they were in a hurry in the first place too. And Don’t interrupt me again”

She hissed at him with annoyance and a sharp glare. William nodded in return to avoid possibly being the target of retaliation if he were to cut her off again.

“As I had said before you rudely jabbed in” she looked at him sharply while he just rolled his eyes to his friend “It started when I talked with Mundus. They showed me an Abyss rock and said that the Abyss might be spreading. That means that cursed place is infecting the other parts of the Hollow Woods which is a big problem since everything about the Abyss is capable of fatally harming all creatures without any problem, I’ll explain later why. Then they left to ask for more information about the matter to an elder. After that, I waited for you for a while but about half an hour had passed and you still weren’t showing up so I searched for you to see if you had gotten in trouble or something. And guess what? I was right”

She depicted her part of the story when he wasn’t around and continued to explain more under his listening ears.

“That creature was clearly standing on the side of the Abyss and it had the same aura as that of the dark place, so I concluded that it must have been the creature that everyone was talking about in the legends. Although I’m not sure why it didn’t chase after us, I have a suspicion that it couldn’t leave the Abyss so I guess we’re safe for now.  But as I have said, the Abyss is spreading, it means the places that the creature can go to will also be expanding”

For a second he was relieved to know that the creature couldn’t leave but then his throat constricted and he felt the air leave his lungs when again he was told that the domain of that creature was growing larger.

He didn’t know why it tried to capture him or if it even specifically targeted him but the thought of the towering being in a dark cloak taking hold of him let him feel a chill that burrowed deep into his bone. The deep yearning to go home again increased in his chest and threatened to overwhelm him.

“S-so what do we do now?”

He whispered lowly more to himself than to Ignia.

“Usually at emergencies like this, I would have immediately flown back to Nidus. But we are already more than halfway to Azure Lagoon and I think that it would be better to find a way to send you back to your realm faster so that you wouldn’t get dragged into this mess”

William felt himself almost tear up at the knowledge that Ignia had cared upon him that much. He was really ecstatic to finally have had a friend despite knowing that he wasn’t going to stay at the Hollow Woods and that he’d probably never see Ignia again after this. It was the first time he had ever had a friend after graduating elementary school. Despite only knowing the teen for almost a week he knew he had a greater bond to him than all his classmates of three years combined.

He was proud and happy to have a friend like her.

“Thank you”

The boy mumbled shyly. Ignia heard the whisper-like sound and grinned up before ruffling the boy’s hair.

“No problem, what are friends for?”