[Firetra]

Zaniphon soared through the sulfur smelling air, trying his hardest to no breath through his nose to avoid smelling the rotten eggs stench. He kept his head down eyeing the terrain below him, keeping watch for random bursts of lava that shoot up into the air. He questioned himself on why he was here, and how he was goaded into taking on this mission. That blasted captain of his, Madlin, always seems to have a way of convincing him to go out into these dangerous places in the name of "reconnaissance". Zaniphon just thought to himself that she probably just wanted him out of her hair for a week or two, she never really seemed to like him anyways for some reason.

[Firetra]

Anyways, he was here for a reason, and he better come back with some results or else Madlin was going to just send him back out here and tell him to "do it again, but better". As if she knew how hard it was to get detailed information and maps of the areas she sends him out to. She just sat at her desk all day and complained about Z's work and how he needs to do better, then she would go and yell at the recruits some more during their practice drills. Hell, he could do her job! And he could do it a lot better that that blasted overgrown woman.

As Zaniphon was lost in his thoughts on how he would be a better captain than Madlin, the lava bubbled underneath him and suddenly burst in a jet of fire and magma. The spray launched itself hundreds of feet into the air, just barely clipping his right leg and searing his skin. The pain overwhelmed him as his altitude dropped faster and faster, and the ground beneath him came more into focus as he plummeted towards the basaltic rocks below.

[Firetra]

Just before hitting the ground at a dangerous speed, Zaniphon bit through the pain and spread his wings out as much as possible, trying to catch an up-draft to slow his fall. The pain in his leg flared up as he strained all his muscles to prevent himself of becoming a red splat on the rocks below, and somehow, what little luck he had left allowed him to catch the hot air from a nearby steam vent. His speedy decent slowed to a quick fall as he landed on the sharp black rocks. He rolled into his shoulder when he hit the ground, and the jagged edges of the basalt tore into it, leaving large gash marks on his back. The edge of his eyes flickered black as the pain drew in faster and harsher, the only thing stopping him from blacking out was the adrenalin pumping through his blood.

[Firetra]

Zaniphon tried to stand up in order to drag himself away from the flowing lava about 30 feet behind him, but when he did the burn scar on his leg flared up. He felt his conscious fade slightly and he brought himself back to the ground. He tried moving his right arm, but the scrapes also brought searing pain across his body.

"Great, this is how I die." He said outloud, the warmth of the burning magma cast upon his back as he laid there in agony. "At least its on Madlin's conscious that this happened to me. I can at least die knowing that I made her life just slightly more inconvenient." He chuckled to himself as his mind faded and his head slowly rested on the hard ground.

And then, he blacked out.

[Firetra]

"Hey..."

Zaniphon stirred a little bit, his mind in a haze.

"Hey, wake up!"

There it was again, that strange voice calling to him. He wanted it to go away, he was taking a nap and didn't want to be disturbed. He tried moving his right arm to shoo the nuisance away, but a quick jolt of pain brought the man back to he senses. He bolted straight up, opening his eyes and looking around at his surroundings. What he noticed immediately was that he wasn't in his original form, he had somehow shifted to his human form. The second thing that Zaniphon noticed was that he was in a different place than before, a small cave by the looks of it, and a young child sat on a rock with his elbows on his knees and his hands on his chin. The child looked at Zaniphon with curiosity and awe.

Zaniphon stared back and waited for the child to speak, but when it was apparent that the child was waiting for him to talk first, he then opened his dry mouth. "Ok kid, who are you and how did I get here?"

[Firetra]

The kid's smile grew wider and it jumped to it's feet. "Oh good! Your alive!" It cheered as it bounded around the cave, moving to what looks to have been a shelf of some sort with various pottery and jars lining it. In fact, the more Zaniphon looked around, the more apparent that he was in some sort of primitive dwelling, possibly this child's own home.

"Man, I wasn't sure you were going to wake up for another few days mister! That burn on your leg was pretty bad, and the gashes that you have on your shoulder were also deep. What happened to you? Did you stick your leg in a steam vent? Did you fall while climbing a cliff? Oooooh, oooh, did you try jumping over one of the lava rivers and get blasted by one of the random jets?"

The kid kept on asking Zaniphon various questions as to how he got his injuries. But every time that he tried to interject in order to give his story, the kid would just either ask a new question, or go off on a different tangent. While spurting off at a million miles an hour, the kid seemed to be making something out of the various plants and materials he had on his shelves. Mixing them together and pounding them into some sort of paste, and once it was done, they came over and knelt next to Zaniphon.

[Firetra]

"Alright, now this is going to sting a little." The child said as they applied the paste onto the burn on Zaniphon's leg, not giving him time to brace himself. Zaniphon gasped in pain as the burn was being touched by the ointment, but soon he calmed down as the area cooled down and became more comfortable.

"There we go, that should heal up a bit faster than if you just bandaged it up, though you might still experience some blisters. Looks like you just barely got knicked by something hot though, if you got any of the magma directly on you, it probably would have burned down to the bone and then we would have had to amputate the leg!" The kid said this with such sincerity and deep understanding that Zaniphon knew the child wasn't kidding around.

"Oh, I forgot to ask, what's your name?" The kid asked, finally giving Zaniphon some time to respond.

[Firetra]

"The name is Zaniphon kid, though if that is a mouthful you can call me Z." He said, trying to shift some of his weight of his leg and shoulder. "Now, since I said my name, what's yours?" Zaniphon stared at the kid, waiting for them to respond.

The kid stepped back, brushed down their pants of dirt and grime and said. "Hello, my name is Alse, nice to make your acquaintance!" Giving a slight bow after making their statement.

"Your mocking me aren't you?" Zaniphon replied back after waiting for the bow to end.

"Just a little." Replied the kid smiling as they returned to a normal standing position.

[Firetra]

"Ok Alse, nice to meet you. But I do have one question, actually, probably a few questions." He shifted himself so his back was a little bit more comfortable against the smoothed out rock face behind him. "First, is how and why are you here. Second, how did you get me into this..." He motioned to the cave they were in, "room of yours. And third, is there anyone else here that you are with?"

Alse paused for a second, putting a finger to her chin as she pondered on how she was going to answer the questions. "Ok, I'll answer your questions so long as you tell me what happened to you after. Deal?"

"Deal." Zaniphon responded back, waiting for a long winded answer from the child.

[Firetra]

"So, the answer to the first question is... I was left here. No further questions on that part." The kid looked a bit saddened when she answered that part, and rubbed her hand up and down her other arm. She paused for a bit before returning to answering the questions.

"Second question, I carried you... duh! I am a stronger than I look. And the answer to your third question is that my sister is currently out on the lava flats trying to get us some food. You will meet her when she gets back!" She put her hands on her hips and made a motion that seemed to say, 'now its your turn' to Zaniphon. He took in a deep breath, trying to decide how much information he wanted to give up. Mainly to avoid having to answer more questions rather than trying to hide anything.

[Firetra]

"Ok, where do I start." Said Zaniphon, externally expressing his internal thoughts. "Well, I was sent here by my boss to scout out this area. You know, get a lay of the land, see who lives here, or if anyone lived here for that matter. Just normal routine scouting, ya know." He paused for a second expecting to be bombarded with question after question about his boss and why anyone would want to scout out this area, which still puzzled him to this very moment.

"So there I was, flying in the air just taking notes when BAM! I was hit by a rouge lava plume that shot about a hundred feet into the air." He paused and turned to the kid before pointedly adding "I am not making that up either, there was no way I was getting any closer to the ground than necessary in this place." He then continued his original story.

"So the lava plume just shot up into the air and grazed my leg," he said pointing to his right leg where the burn was. "And then the pain kinda just caused me to black out for a second and so I started to fall. Before I knew it, the ground was almost to my face and so I had to spread my wings to hope to catch and up-draft. Thankfully, lady luck found me and gave me some hot air to lift my wings enough to slow my decent so I didn't end up as a strawberry pancake on the rocks." He paused again, waiting for more questions, but when none came he started to wrap up his story. "So I then rolled onto the ground, scraping my shoulder on some nasty rocks and passed out from the pain. Nothing too glorious as you may have thought, just a rogue event happening to a passerby."

[Firetra]

After finishing his story, Zaniphon looked up to Alse to see what she thought of the tale. But when he saw her face, he almost burst out laughing as the girl's face was furrowed into a frown and she had puffed out her cheeks. She held this for a few seconds before exclaiming "boooo, that was boring! I was hoping that you were running away from someone and that's how you got some of your injuries. Instead your just a loser who wasn't paying attention in one of the most unpredictable places in Lambastia."

Zaniphon was briefly caught off guard at his accurate assumption of the reason for his injuries. "Now you see here." He said as he tried to stand up, but the pain made him quickly sit back down. He opted to just waggle his finger at her instead, "It was not negligence! How was I suppose to know lava could shoot up so high into the sky?" He exclaimed as Alse rolled her eyes at him.

[Firetra]

The two of them kept arguing with each other, Alse poking fun at Zaniphon's carelessness, and Zaniphon trying to state that it was out of his control. This continued on for a good number of minutes when another figure appeared in the entranceway of the cave.

"Alse, stop pestering our injured guest and get over and help me drag in this meat. I've had to lug it around for about half a mile and my arms are killing me!" Zaniphon and Alse stopped their bickering to look at the new person joining them in the cave. She looked very similar to Alse, except for the fact that she had snow white hair compared to Alse's stone grey hair.

Alse pouted for a second and then rushed over to help the other kid with dragging in what looked like a boar carcass. How the small child hunted it was a mystery as it looks like the throat of the animal was cleanly slashed.

As Alse pulled the boar along the ground to what looked like a butchering table, the other girl came up and squatted down in front of Zaniphon. "Hello! My name is Lillia, what is your name?" She said with a smile.

[Firetra]

"Hello, Lillia. I am Zaniphon." He stuck out his hand for a handshake which the young girl reciprocated. "You are much more hospitable than your sister over there." Zaniphon remarked, "all she did was ask question after question, and when I finally gave her my answers it seemed like it wasn't satisfying enough for her."

From the butcher table Alse responded "I heard that Mr. I don't watch my surroundings and have to be helped out by two children!" She punctuated her statement with a chop of what looked to be a piece of obsidian carved into the shape of a butcher knife. Zaniphon flinched at the sound of the strike, ready to dodge out of the way of any incoming attack from the small girl. Lillia only quietly giggled at the exchange of the two.

"Looks like you two have already got to know each other. Say, would you mind recounting your story again to me? While you do that I'll go ahead and replace the bandages on your shoulder." The girl moved over to the shelves and pulled out some homemade bandages from the various tools and pottery on the shelf and started to redress the wound on Zaniphon's shoulder.

[Firetra]

Zaniphon hurriedly recounted his story again, though pausing to wince every now and again when some pain flared up from his shoulder. After finishing the tale, Lillia thanked him for the story and said, "thankfully it looks like no infection has set in on your shoulder. Otherwise we would be in big trouble if you got sick from the wound."

She stood up and walked over to her sister who had finished categorizing the various cuts and meats from the boar she just slaughtered. Lillia looked over the pile and selected a small cut before turning back and saying, "give me a little bit and I will make us some stew for dinner. Rest up a bit more, time heals all wounds you know." She smiled as she moved over to a small makeshift pot over what looked to be a primitive fireplace. As she cooked, the smell of the meat wafted through the cave as Zaniphon tried to close his eyes to rest, and soon found himself asleep again.