Arablest/ Prototype

I opened the flap of my tent, stepped outside, and stretched. I was the last one up, like I expected; the sun was already up in the sky. We were camped just outside the cave because I didn’t wanted to be inside, due to a rotting burned corpse still inside.
But before I could reach the others, something landed right in front of me, causing me to instinctively fall back. I looked up, and stared in surprise.
“WTF?” I said rather loudly. Durand look in my direction, a single eyebrow raised. “Is that… a unicorn?” I asked weakly. There was no way there could be a unicorn here. What’s more, there was someone riding it.
“Yes, it’s a unicorn,” said the Durand.
In fact, Durand didn’t seem surprised at all about the unicorn. ”What is WTF supposed to mean anyways?” he asked me.
“Uh, nothing!” I said quickly. “It’s just… slang from where I come from.”
“Oh! I’m sorry! I didn’t see you there!” The unicorn rider said. According to the description and images I remembered from that book about weapons, she was holding a javelin, and there were many more attached on the animal. “I was exploring the mountain regions and I saw a camp here, so I’ll though I’ll stop by.”
“Well, next time, try not to land on people….Wait, unicorns can fly?”
“Yes they can! They have magic of their own… It’s almost like an evolved form of the horse! Say, where did you come from, anyways? Are you not from Lehrail? Anyone should know that they can fly.”
I was saved from answering that question by Leona.
“Look! It’s a unicorn rider! I never thought I would have seen one! Where did you come from?” asked Leona.
She looked pack at everyone else around the camp. Durand was the closest, he was right outside his tent, which was next to mine for some reason; Garrett and Joseph were getting up, following Leona, probably to keep her safe in case she was a threat, and Kal was lying on the floor, staring at the sky, eating something.
Well, then again, Garrett probably got up to flirt with the unicorn rider.
“I’m Veronica, a unicorn rider from the Northern Isles! And I never thought I’ll see the Thrycia knights here! What are you doing all the way out here in Raalte?”
“I’ll like to ask the same of you,” replied Durand. “Why are you in Raalte?”
“I asked you first!”
“Milady! Please excuse him for his manners. We’re…” said Garrett. I decided to stop listening around there, for obvious reasons.
Ignoring their conversation, I got up, dusted myself off, and turned around to pack everything I had. I didn’t have much, really.
That’s when I realized something.
“Leona, where is my stuff?”
“Your stuff? I left them at the inn back at Kuassana; I didn’t think we would need it. Oh, wait, you must be hungry. Here, I’ll get you something to eat.”
Turned out I have nothing with me at the moment except my rapier, the tent, and the violin. Well, that, and the same old clothes I was wearing, of course.
Nothing much else happened that morning, besides Veronica nearly landing on me, and agreeing to temporarily travel with us until Thanti.
After getting over my initial shock of finding out the existence of unicorns, I thought about how useful she would be in battle. She’ll probably be a good ally for now though, since she’s the only one in our group who can fly, which also means she can easily scout on ahead. Probably weak to ranged attacks, though, like the bow and arrow. The Javelin also means she can throw it, although throwing didn’t seem to be very accurate, especially when compared to the bow.
But this was only to be temporary, so I shouldn’t rely on her too much. She’ll leave after we reach Thanti, after all.

Wait.

Why am I thinking like this? I’ve been too long away from home already, thinking about tactics and all. I didn’t want to change that much. I didn’t want to become someone else when I got home either… I hoped we could get over this soon so I can get back, somehow. I have to get back.
It also turns out that she was on her way back to the Northern Isles after scouting the mountains for some unknown reason, so she’ll be travelling with us until we reach Thanti. She refused to tell us why she was scouting the mountains.
She also told me that it was impossible to fly over the mountains because they were too high.
“Any higher, and the riders will start not being able to breathe and lose conscious… I wonder why…” She had said. “But we can travel between the mountains, at least.”
Of course I knew why, but explaining would take forever, so I didn’t.
Because of this, the mountain ranges in Raalte were the only place not scouted and mapped by the Northern Isles. So, I think it is obvious why she’s scouting the area, although I could be wrong.
Well, Veronica was pretty nice, actually. She let Leona ride the unicorn because Leona wanted to try it out, and offered me to ride it to compensate for nearly landing on me—“You’re lucky I didn’t land on you, I’ve accidentally landed on many people before”—but I politely refused. I was still not used to the unicorn.
But that also meant a long hike back down, with short intervals of climbing in between. Except for Veronica and Leona, of course.
We made our way to Kuassana without incident, except for me tripping, which also saved my life again, because when I tripped, a boulder fell off a ledge and nearly missed me. Garrett had said that if I hadn’t tripped, I would have been killed.
“Too bad he wasn’t squashed by the boulder,” said Durand. “Then someone compatible can lead. You must be one incredibly lucky kid. And that’s all your tactics rely on: Luck. This means you’re not reliable.”
I never used to be this lucky. Sure, when I first got here, I survived the bandit’s attacks by luck more than my reactions, but this? Today I’ve been incredibly lucky. Maybe it’ll really suck tomorrow. Who knows.
Of course, except for Veronica, everyone seemed to be used to Durand not liking how I was leading the group. Well, actually, many protested to Durand that my tactics were good. I still think Durand was right, though. Veronica was surprised for a short bit, “Jeremy is the tactician of the group? But he’s so young!” but she quickly recovered and accepted Durand’s negative attitude towards me.
Garrett wasn’t particularly happy about both women being so far away from him; “Now I can’t talk with them”, but the rest of us knew why. If only he knew who Joseph really was… I laugh, thinking about how Joseph was right next to him.
But otherwise, we pretty much reached Kuassana without incident. Absolutely nothing interesting happened on our way back. Except for when I asked Veronica about unicorns.
“Could you tell me about unicorns? I’m a foreigner to Lehrail, so…”
“Ah, so that’s why your speech and mannerism is really strange compared to anything else I’ve seen. ‘WTF’? I have never heard that phrase before in all my years of scouting. “
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Could you tell me about unicorns?”
“Oh, right! Well, basically, our theory is that unicorns are an evolved version of the horse. You know how some people can use magic, while others can’t? Well, we think unicorns are pretty much the same way. Does that make sense?”
“I think it does… But that’s a theory, not what you know happened, right?”
“Well, that’s true… But the first unicorn found was a wild one, and they were rare, so we thought we would breed them. That was centuries ago… And that’s all we know, really.”
“So the unicorn is basically a horse with magic that uses it’s magic to levitate or fly. Am I hearing this right?”
“Pretty much.”
“That’s rather… hard to believe.” I said.
“I thought so too as well when I heard this. Unicorn riders are only for the apostle to command and the apostle rarely sends us out except for scouting missions. So I myself have never heard of a unicorn rider until I decided to join the apostle’s ranks.”
“I…see.”

We made it to Kuassana in half a day, and I was the only one who was exhausted. We picked up my stuff, paid the innkeeper, and then set off into Thanti, also picking up our horses.
Ok, well, since Kuassana was on the border, after a few steps we already were in Thanti. But we still had a rather long way to go.

Leaving Kuassana led us onto a trail trough some hilly areas. Not too interesting really, I had Veronica fly around to scout ahead periodically, to which she agreed too, but every single time she reported nothing,. Out next destination was a city called Ethridge, located in Thanti. It was there Veronica would depart, going to the nearest port, as the Northern Isles were too far to reach by just flying on a unicorn. That was the plan, at least.
There was no incident while we were traveling, either. Again, everyday was the same.
There this one time where we were attacked by bandits, but it was nothing, with everyone’s help this time. We could actually match them in numbers, even though I shouldn’t really count. I was a bit too scared to fight, but it was already over, and no one got hurt too badly. Veronica and her unicorn’s ability to fly seemed very effective against the bandits, especially since she could always just throw one of her javelins.

However, the first interesting thing that happened was when Veronica finally saw Ethridge on one of the scouting missions I sent her on.

When she came back, she told us that she could see Ethridge. And that the city of Ethridge was under siege by a massive army.