Fire Fox

"Well, now that we're here, how do we actually leave?" Kai paced back and forth in deep thought with his arms crossed—the feather he had found sticking out of the waist portion of his cloth.

Mei grabbed the feather and quickly surveyed the area, looking for the creature that it belonged to. She clicked her tongue as all her eyes landed on were more small spatterings of blood to the west of them. "Well, I hoped that whatever this belonged to would be around. Judging by this feather, I think it would be able to fly."

"Do you know what it belonged to?" Kai stopped anxiously pacing and stood next to Mei.

Mei shook her head. "No, I've never seen anything like this before. This feather is huge, and its color… it's not like any of the flying creatures around here."

"Would you just be able to fly us up?" Kai suggested, half seriously. He knew she definitely couldn't do that much.

Mei heaved an exasperated sigh, not really in the mood for jokes at the moment. "I don't know. Do you want us both to die? I wouldn't even be able to make it a third of the way over there before running out of energy. What about you? Can you make a vine bridge so we can walk over there?"

Kai rolled his eyes dramatically. "I don't know. Do you want me to die?"

"Better than both of us dying, right?" Mei snapped back.

"Okay, wow." Kai turned back toward the forest and scratched his chin, unbothered by the snarky remark. "The other people must have gotten off somehow…"

"Kai, shut up for a second." Mei appeared behind him and put her hand over his mouth.

Kai opened his mouth, preparing to speak the quip he had quickly wracked his brain to come up with, but stopped when he saw the intense look of focus on Mei's face and a glowing red ear over one of hers.

"What do you hear, Mei?" His demeanor immediately shifted from playful to serious.

Mei started jogging in the direction they had seen the spatters of blood moments before while motioning Kai to follow. "I hear ragged breathing and some brush rustling down this way."

Kai nodded and hurried behind Mei without hesitation even though he was exhausted from running around this place. He knew better to speak his complaint, though, lest he get an earful from Mei.

"Kai, look here." Mei slid to a halt, her feet burying themselves in the mud. Grunting in annoyance, she shook her feet before Kai, who had done the same maneuver, shoved her into a tree beside her.

Kai pulled back and winced. "Whoops. Sorry, Mei." He tried to hold in a small chuckle that began to force its way through.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, cave boy. Come on." She dusted herself off and began to push through the large rose bush in front of them, dragging Kai behind her.

The prickly thorns brushed off their tough skin like feathers as they passed through the dense brush, which quickly parted to reveal a small clearing on the other side.

Among the scattered clumps of red and white hair and pools of blood laid the woman they had confronted hours ago, gasping for air with ragged, pained breaths. Her clothes were torn, and deep, long gashes adorned themselves all around her body, some with bits of branches still left inside.

Mei and Kai paused in silence, assessing the scene before them. Kai's face turned stoic, his jaw clenched, and his eyes darted around. Mei covered her mouth and whispered, "Oh my god…"

Upon making eye contact with each other, the woman on the ground grimaced and flipped over onto her back. "Please… don't kill me…" She managed to squeak out between labored breaths.

"What should we do?" Mei instinctively turned toward Kai, only to find that he was no longer standing next to her but was already approaching the woman on the ground. "Hey!" She shouted after him.

Kai remained silent and knelt down beside the woman. She winced as he reached his hand down toward her head and lifted it up from behind. She opened her eyes with a look of shock on her face as Kai reached behind him and underneath the cloth flowing at his back.

He pulled out a glass bottle filled with a viscous yellow liquid splashing around inside and removed the top with his teeth. He sighed and shoved the substance in her face. "Drink it or die here, your choice."

The woman glanced back and forth between Kai, Mei, and the bottle in a frenzy as Mei ran up to Kai and placed her hand on his shoulder. "What are you doing? It took you forever to produce that much; if you use it now, there's no telling how long it'll take until we have enough to use!"

As the woman gulped and reluctantly took the bottle from Kai's hand, he turned to Mei with an intense stare and held his finger up to his lips, telling her to be silent. Mei sighed, she knew there was no reasoning with him when he got like this. "Just don't regret it later and come complaining to me when we need it."

With a hefty swig, the woman downed the liquid in a single gulp. She gasped and dropped the bottle on the ground. "I feel… warm?" She questioned as she looked down at her body; the wounds that had ravaged her flesh quickly began to close and disappear.

Kai sighed and stood up, cracking his back along the way. "You should be all healed up now and also a little revitalized."

The woman opened and closed her hands a few times and wiggled her legs, checking if everything felt okay. Once satisfied, she nodded and then quickly positioned herself on her knees and stared at them, then down at herself with a contemplative look on her face.

"This is crazy; I'm really all better. I had even fallen ill not too long ago, and that's gone, too. What was that stuff?" She questioned out loud amid her amazement.

Mei and Kai shrugged, and then Mei stepped forward. "We have no idea; we just know that it does that. You also just took the rest of it, so now there's no more left."

The agitated and frankly annoyed tone that carried in Mei's voice caused her heart to jump. "Ah, that's right, you did say that earlier…" The woman placed her hands on the ground and reared her body back into a stretch with her head facing down toward the ground, away from Mei and Kai. "I'm sorry we all got off on the wrong foot earlier. My name is Lunareina Feroxia. Thank you very much for saving my life. "