“Quick! We must hurry!” I yelled as we made our way through the fog, flying towards the other side of the bridge. “I can still sense one of them!”

“Stay behind me when we reach them!” Dad shouted sharply. Obviously, he hadn’t let me go without him when he found out what happened. Neither did Summer Moon, of course.

“Dad! They are my kirins!”

“And you are my daughter!”

I was too worried to get into an argument with Dad, so I just didn’t react to that. Instead, I looked over my flock of luftirins and the three runehorns they were carrying. Summer Moon, Fertile Desert and Rapt Glance. The last two because they were the closest we had to doctors in my merriment, and we might need them dearly. And as per my order, they were all armed with at least a club or similarly primitive weapon. In contrast, Dad and Rythil remained empty clawed, but the reason why seemed rather obvious.

“And you are my Goddess’ Godchild,” Rythil, now back in his longer form, added while catching up. “I will stay by your side too! It’s my duty!”

“We need to find them, not protect me! Focus on that!”

“Fortuna would rip off my tail if I do that! I have to stay by your side!”

“She will watch over me if she wants! Your duty is to help me find my kirins!”

“But I…”

I hissed before sharply yelling, “I will tell Fortuna that you are a pain in the rump if you refuse to help me find Bliz and the others!”

For several seconds he stayed silent, watching me, obviously having trouble deciding on what to do. In the end he grumbled,” Fine, I will help you search for them, but we have to talk about this later.”

I just snorted. He can lecture me all he wants when this is over, for now though, it was of no concern.

The moment we arrived at the other side and my claws touched the ground, I wasted no time in roaring out for my kirins. I couldn’t see far, but my voice would probably carry for some distance.

“Shh!” Dad shushed me, but I didn’t listen. Instead, tears started to form at the corners of my eyes.

“Fiery, what is it?” Rythil wondered, throwing his gaze back and forth between me and the path ahead.

“I can sense the kirin ahead now, with the taste on my tongue instead of my merriment sense.”

“And?” Dad turned his attention to me too. “What is the problem?”

“It doesn’t have the sparkling taste…”

While Rythil looked at me with confusion, Dad licked over my cheek while releasing calming and comforting sounds.

“What does that mean?” Rythil asked.

“That Blizzard Silence didn’t make it,” Dad explained quickly.

A great deal of sad whimpers could be heard from my merriment after Dad said this. I couldn’t help but imagine what else I would be hearing if I hadn’t forced Bliz’s parents to stay back and convinced Illu to watch over them. I shook my head and forced those thoughts away. I couldn't handle the idea of telling them.

I felt Rythil’s claw on my back, rubbing slowly over my scales. I think it was his way of showing compassion.

However, I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her! She was my friend! So despite all the evidence to the contrary, I clung to the spark of hope that Bliz was still alive.

Forcefully, I rubbed my nose and wiped the tears away. “We must go on, one of them still needs our help!” I gave Rythil a thankful nod but shook off his claw. Then, I lowered my nose to sniff the ground and search for where they had gone, but my clogged nose prevented me from finding any clues. Dad and Rythil didn’t have such problems though and quickly began to lead the way.

It didn’t take us long to find the forsaken bunch of carriages, and in no time at all, Dad and Rythils noses led us directly to the hidden path that drove deeper into the wild parts of the swamp.

“Looks like they stood here for a while,” Rythil said after lifting his head out of a reedbed. “Their smell is particularly strong here.”

“But only Flittering Echo went ahead,” Dad added. “ The other two remained here.” He sniffed through the reeds to the left and right of the path. “This is strange. I can’t smell them leaving, nor can I smell another creature. It’s like they dissolved into thin air.”

“We have to search the surrounding area!” Windswept Granite hectically spat out. “They have to be here somewhere!”

Once more, I simply roared out for my kirins. Dad gave me a look, but didn’t say anything. If it was me or my brothers that were missing, he wouldn’t be silent either.

A moment later, a reply came! It was Flittering Echo!

Without hesitation, I burst forward in her direction, spread my wings, and flew towards her as fast as I could. Or that had been my plan, till Dad caught up and grabbed my tail, pulling me back. I wanted to turn around and hiss at him, but he let go of me almost as fast as he caught me, satisfied with simply flying next to me.

The rest of my luftirins were quick to follow after Summer Moon issued the command, shifting into two lines that flew above and to the left and right of the path, with three luftirins carrying our runehorns.

“Flittering Echo! We’re here!”

“Fiery?” The surprise in her voice was clear as she emerged from the fog in front of us. “Fiery, what are you doing here?” Her gaze wandered over the others. “Where are Bliz and Heat Wave?”

Instead of answering, I rushed at her, grabbed her head, and started to lick over the scales on her forehead. Confused as she was, she not only let it happen, but welcomed my caresses with happy purrs. This and her question made it obvious that she was about as in the dark as we were.

“What happened to Bliz and Heat?” Agitated Harmony pressed. “Where are they?”

“Uhm, they were supposed to wait for me, right where all these carriages are. Bliz sent me ahead to see where this path was going.” Flittering Echo had to stop for a moment to enjoy the affection she was receiving from me. “From what it looked like, these merchants, at least that's what we think they were, got attacked by something. So I was supposed to find out by what, so we could,” she looked me in the face, “report back to you.”

“Heat Wave and Blizzard Silence are missing,” Dad informed her. “Fiery isn’t able to sense them anymore.” He rose to his hindlegs and scanned our surroundings. “Something must be lurking around here. Probably the same thing that attacked these carriages.” He also began sniffing the air, but like with my merriment, no one smelled anything suspicious.

“What do you mean you can’t sense them anymore? They were right there, not even half an hour ago!” She pointed back down the path. “I left them right there!”

“But there is no trace of them anymore,” Agitated Harmony said and shook her head, “No smell, no hoofprints in the mud, nothing!”

“Maybe they flew off?”

“Then their smell would linger in the air,” Dad pointed out. “Also, if that were the case, why did Fiery lose her connection to them, and where would they have gone?” He looked down at Flittering Echo. “It is very unlikely that they would leave you behind in such a potentially dangerous situation for no good reason.” He turned to me and dropped back down onto all four legs. “It would help a lot if you manage to learn this mindtalking thing soon.”

I wrapped a wing protectively around Flittering Echo. “I tried, Dad! I just can’t do it now!”

“We should keep the next azure-kirin we find who is able to do so and get them to teach us,” Roary said.

Distracted by my inner dialog, I noticed too late that something was moving in the thicket to our right. However, by the time I focused on it, it was already gone, but there was now rustleing coming from between the reeds. Dad also heard it, and before I could even react, he had already rushed into the thicket himself. My kirins instinctively formed a ring around me. Flittering Echo wanted to join them, but I held her tight, so she, I, Summer Moon and Rythil were in the centre.

“No creature is here,” Dad yelled after a moment. “But I found this…” He emerged from the greenery with something small in his claw. It was revealed to be a stone. “This one has a certain smell on it.” His eyes became slits and he suspiciously looked around us. “Somecreature threw it to distract us.”

For some reason, this seemed to put him at ease.

Now my merriment threw suspicious glances at the greenery around us too. The ring around me contracted.

“Means we have to deal with some sort of sentient creature, too weak to fight us head on.” Dad tossed the stone over to me so I could memorise the smell. It was a mix of fine woody nutmeg below the dominant smell of reeds. I passed on the stone so everykirin knew what we had to look out for.

“Hey that smells like the strange overgrown building I found,” Flittering Echo said when she sniffed at the stone.

“What building?” I wondered.

“The one this path leads to. There’s a stone building not that far ahead. It’s in surprisingly good condition given the surroundings, and it smells just like this stone does. Without the smell of reeds that is.”

“Then we know where our observer went,” Dad said. “Still, the question remains as to where Blizzard Silence and Heat Wave went. Since Flittering Echo didn’t see them, they couldn’t have gone this way at all. The same goes for what attacked them.”

“And… if they are just dead, laying somewhere in the swamp around us?” Rythil hesitantly suggested. My throat tightened from his words, but it was a question that needed an answer.

“There was no blood on the ground, no sign of a fight, no trail of their smell. Even if someone managed to overwhelm them, dragging the body into the swamp would surely leave a trail. And killing them both, two kirins that were prepared and on guard without spilling some blood, or at the very least trampling down some grass, is nearly impossible,” Dad explained.

“How do you kn…” Rythil stopped mid sentence, staring at Dad for a second. “Oh, uhm, yeah.”

“We don’t have the time to make assumptions,” I said and fetched a fortune cookie from under my wing. “We need to find them quickly!” Without delay, I broke the cookie and retrieved the piece of paper from within. After all, these cookies were from Fortuna herself.

• When walking an unknown road, if one wishes to see things to their end, it is necessary to first lower one's head.

“Lower one’s head?” I wondered and exchanged a look with Summer Moon and Rythil. “Well, these cookies were never wrong before, so…” I bowed down, and not a moment too soon, as the moment I did so, an orange ball of magic shot over my head, missing me by the width of a feather, and crashed into Summer Moon instead, sweeping her off her hooves!

“Summer Moon!” I yelled and rushed over. I could already feel her presence in my merriment fading. The moment I reached her however, I was pushed to the ground by the weight of Dad who had sprung on top of me. I was still able to crouch forward, so I did. “Summer! Are you alright?” I couldn’t see any blood or signs of injury, but she wasn’t moving!

I laid a claw on her chest. . . and felt her heart beating below her rips! She was still alive!

“I just want to help!” Fertile Desert yelled suddenly. “You need to let me through!”

It took me a second to realise what was happening. “Dad! Dad, let her through, Summer Moon needs her help! She is on our side!”

A moment later, Fertile Desert slid under Dad’s belly and started to examine Summer Moon. “She’s breathing,” her hooves wandered over Summer’s body. “She has a pulse, I can’t find an impact wound.” She turned to me. “Whatever hit her seems to be purely magical.”

“Over there!” One of my kirins suddenly yelled, and a few seconds later I could hear something wooden colliding with the trees around us.

“Watch your aim!” Windswept Granite shouted. “Only throw if you are sure you will hit!”

“Wha… what happened?” Summer Moon whispered and slowly opened her eyes. “What was that?”

“You’re alive!” I rushed forward, pushed Fertile Desert aside by accident, and licked over Summer’s headscales.

“Eughh, that's disgusting!” She pushed me aside. “Stop that!”

Well that was strange! I only doubled my effort to get a hold on her and check on her well being.

“Fiery!” she yelled in anger, “leave me alone!”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “But, but… “ I took a deep breath, calming my nerves. Summer was hit by some strange magic, I couldn’t feel her in my merriment anymore, and she was acting very very strange. Though, I had no urge to claim or fight her either. Something definitely was off! My gaze wandered to Fertile Desert, but she just shrugged.

That was the moment Dad jumped up into the air, spread his wings, and crashed into the tree line in about two seconds. What followed was a cry of pain before a body impacted with some force on the ground a few metres to my left.

It was a kirin! A runehorn, but none like I had ever seen!

He was wearing face paint and had attached some feathers to his mane, making him look kind of tribal-ish. Also, he had tried to camouflage himself by dappleing himself with mud, though the huge bleeding claw mark on his belly was now ruining the effect. I didn't have much time to examine him though, as Dad’s loud, challenging roar resounded through the swamp, followed by him jumping off the tree he had collided with and flying in our direction. This kirin had attacked one of his bornling, and had to pay the price.

Without thinking, I stormed forward and threw myself onto the unconscious kirin, protecting him from Dad’s attack as best as I could. This wasn’t entirely intentional though. I didn’t know what he had tried to do to me, I just wanted to save his life out of instinct as a kirin myself.

Dad altered his course so he didn’t crash into me, and in anger roared at me the moment his claws touched the ground. Just the thought that this kirin would be killed the second I backed off gave me the strength to hold my ground and even fend Dad off when he tried to pick me up. Luckily, Rythil intervened and came to my aid.

“This guy isn’t a threat anymore!” Rythil yelled, trying to get between me and Dad. “Your child isn’t in danger from him anymore, there’s no need to kill him!”

Dad just roared straight in his face and presented his fangs.

Rythil returned the favour, presenting his own fangs while growling. His fur also began puffing up, making him look a little like Grünchen when he got upset, and just like him, it failed to help him argue with Dad. If anything, it only served to make him look more cute in Dad’s eyes.

It still wasn’t enough to prevent Dad from attacking though, and so I flinched when Dad reached back to hit him. However, the moment before he went to do so, he slipped, missing Rythil in the process. Not that it stopped him from trying again, and another time. It took like six tries before Dad realised whose priest Rythil was, and that he would not be able to harm him.

“Dad! Stop! He’s on our side!” I yelled.

With a frustrated roar, Dad stopped his attack. If nothing else, it had at least given him the time to calm down and no longer consider the unconscious kirin as a threat.

Though, that didn’t mean I could really care for him yet. As soon as Dad left his ‘kill anything that could be a threat to my bornlings’ mode, he instantly changed to ‘must check on my bornling’. He picked me up and laid his wings protectively around us while he sniffed at me to see if I was hurt. “Fertile Desert!” I managed to spit out, “throw a look at our newcomer! Rapt Glance!” I peaked my head above Dad’s wing, “throw a look at Summer Moon, she’s acting quite strange for some reason!” I knew that Fertile Desert had already taken one, but the more eyes the better. And while Fertile Desert was skilled with herbs and tinctures, including some to stop bleeding, Rapt Glance was more of a formal physician than her. I also assured Dad that I was alright, but as you can imagine, he had no interest in listening to my assurances.

“She looks to be alright,” Rapt Glance said when Dad finally let go of me. “I share Fee-De’s opinion though. No injuries of the physical kind, a purely magical attack. Whatever it was seems to have only affected her mindset.”

“And he,” Fertile Desert stood up and nodded at her patient, “is in quite bad shape.”

Dad snorted proudly.

“He will survive, probably,” she added.

“Can,” I ruffled my nose, “can you say something else about him? I couldn’t sense him at all, nor could I sense Summer anymore after his attack.” I perked up when the realisation hit me. This meant Bliz was probably still alive and just got hit by whatever this magic did too! “Dad! Bliz could still be alive!” I turned around and addressed everyone. “I can’t sense Summer Moon anymore after that attack! The same could have happened to Bliz and Heat Wave! They could still be alive!”

The news was received with happy purring!

“Does that mean she’s no longer part of your merriment?” Rythil asked, still keeping his position between Dad and the strange kirin.

“It seems so for the time being.” I tilted my head. “I have no urge to claim her though. It feels a little bit like it feels with Autumn Blaze. Just, I can’t feel her presence. With Autumn I still know that she is around. Summer Moon, on the other claw, has vanished from my kirin senses completely.”

“So just like it was before the call, right?” Summer Moon stated. “Doesn’t sound so bad to me.”

This earned her a growl from the kirins closest to her.

“What nonsense are you talking about?” Flittering Echo said, surprised. In all the chaos and worry about Summer, I had completely forgotten that she was here. She moved closer to me and rubbed her head against my side. “Being part of the merriment is the best thing that has happened to us in a long time.” She underlined her words with some purring.

“Having free will sounds better to me if I’m being honest,” Summer retorted. “Supporting you isn’t a problem, Fiery, but being your loyal subject without a choice is something different.”

“We need to claim her again, now! Such insolence can’t be tolerated,” Roary roared furiously. “She belongs to us, our will has to be her will as well!”

“At least she is still willing to support us and not rebel instantly,” Calmly said. “Could have been worse if that magic ball had hit some kirin that would have been less loyalty to us.”

I could feel a moment of realisation going through my head. Not my own, but Roary’s.

“We could use that against our opponents! If we hit enemy kirins with this spell, they would not follow their azure leader anymore!” I felt his mighty, hungry laugh in the back of my mind. “We would be unstoppable!”

“This spell could also be used against us!” Calmly retorted. “If the knowledge of it slips out, anykirin could use it against us as soon as we claimed the throne! The knowledge of this spell must not be known by the common kirins, or worse, other spellcasters like unicorns!”

“Fiery!”

I shook my head and focused back on the here and now.

“Fiery,” Fertile Desert repeated. “What should we do with him?” She pointed at Summer Moon. “And her?”

“Keep him! Claim him and force him to tell us how to cast that spell!”

“Ask him where Bliz and Heat Wave are, then let him go.”

I rubbed my temples. “Agitated Harmony, you and Windswept Granite take Summer Moon back to our carriages. Make sure she doesn’t run away. Fertile Desert, see if you can wake him up,” I said, pointing at the stranger.

“We can only hope that this spell is not permanent,” Flittering Echo whispered while we watched them leave.”

I fetched another fortune cookie from under my wing and turned it around in my claw. I didn't have an endless amount of them though, so I placed it back after a moment. I could still use them later if I had to. “Yeah, I hope so too.”

*

Before us was an old building that looked like it had seen better days. Vines and moss dug into the stonework and were starting the long process of devouring it entirely. If I had to take a guess, this building had been sitting here abandoned for the better part of a century. Though on a closer look, it turned out that it was just the entrance to a long hallway slowly leading underground. The tunnel we were facing had a walkway in the centre and two streams to either side that nature had already taken over.

“They have to be down there!” I looked down the tunnel leading below the surface, hearing as my echo sent my words back at me. “They just have to!”

“It is possible,” Rythil said. “But we don’t know who else could be down there with them.” He sniffed the air. “If there are kirins down there that your kirin senses can't detect, who knows, a hundred or more could be lurking down there.”

“So far we only saw one, and that one isn’t a threat anymore,” Fertile Desert threw in. She nodded at our tied up visitor who was still unconscious. “Though, even one more could be dangerous. I don’t want to be hit by whatever that was that turned Summer into… into… whatever her condition is called.”

“And we don’t know what happens if this magic hits you,” Dad added with worry in his voice. “The first shot was aimed directly at you. Either these kirins dislike azure-kirins, or, perhaps, your connection to your whole merriment would collapse if you get hit.” He stepped closer and licked over the side of my neck. “You are the heart of your merriment. Without you, it may crumble to dust. That could have been the plan all along, and it makes sense with Blizzard Silence being attacked.”

“If this is true,” Calmly piped up,” it could also be our way out of this whole Shakirin-La thing! No one would be able to force us to submit to their will if we knew such a spell ourselves. I take back what I said before. Thinking about this again, this spell could be a great benefit!”

“A way out,” I mumbled.

“What?” Dad asked as he rubbed his cheek against mine.

“This could be a way out for me.” I turned my head and looked up to him. “Calmly pointed out that if I get disconnected from my merriment by getting hit, this could be my way out of this whole Shakirin-La adventure. No more Call for me, no one else who could force me to do their bidding.”

“You would lose your opportunity to claim the throne though. And the fate of the kirins would lay in another’s claws too,” Dad retorted. “Having you back home in the lair safe and sound doesn’t sound bad, though, I doubt that Fortuna and the gods would allow it to be so easy.

A worried whimper from Fertile Desert pulled me out of my thoughts. She had approached me and was now searching for comfort from me.

“Don’t you worry,” I said and laid a claw on her head. “It’s currently just a thought. I haven’t decided anything yet, and we need to find Bliz first anyway.”

“And Heat Wave,” Rythil added.

“And Heat Wave, I agreed.”

“So what are we going to do?” Flittering Echo asked.

“We have no choice but to go down there and see if we can find them.”

“And if they are like Summer? If they refuse to come back with us?”

“Bliz is my friend, she will come with us anyway. And I don’t think Heat Wave would like to stay in the swamp anyways. They may have trouble following my orders for the time being, but they surely wouldn’t mind us rescuing them.”

“Then your dad should go first while I stay next to you to protect you from any harmful magic that comes your way.” Rythil stepped next to me. “Black Death, you are the most protected of all of us, you should take the lead while I use my luck to try and protect my goddess’ godchild as best as I can.”

“What about us?” Fertile Desert hissed as she raised her tail and wings, enraged. “We’re here to protect her too!”

“You are vulnerable to this new spell. It doesn’t make any sense to use you as shields for Fiery when you could potentially turn on her if you get hit.”

Dad raised an eyebrow.

“Oh, yeah, that makes sense,” Fertile Desert quietly said while looking at the ground.

“I don’t think any of them would cause any problems, even if they get hit!” Quickly I wrapped a wing around Fertile Desert. “They are all from our or Bliz’s village after all. We know each other. They’d listen to me, with or without the Call.”

“The confusion alone would cause problems,” Dad said. “If we run into a trap or an ambush of some kind, kirins who just stand in the way with no clue on what to do would be a problem.”

“Still better it hits us than Fiery,” Rapt Glance proclaimed before moving next to us. “Based on what we saw, this spell does no physical damage at all. If one of us gets hit, that's bad, but if Fiery gets hit, as you said, the whole merriment may collapse. So the best course of action would be you, sir, as a dragon, walking in front, and behind you, in a circle around Fiery, are us kirins. And as the last line of defence, our friend the luck dragon Rythil stays next to Fiery to intercept everything that may get past us.”

We all considered the plan Rapt Glance had just presented to us, and since no one presented another one, I decided we would go with it for the time being.

“Alright, then that is what we are going to do,” I decided. “Our top priority is finding Bliz and Heat Wave still. We go in there, deal with any problem we may come across, and get them both back safe and sound!”

“I don’t like this,” Dad growled.

“Dad, we need to find them! I know you are always worried about me, but we can’t let Bliz and Heat Wave stay behind if they are down there!”

He moved his head next to mine and pushed everyone else a bit back with his wings. “I know how much Bliz means to you,” he whispered. “You consider your kirins nearly as close as if they were your eggs. That is the only reason I’m allowing this attempt at rescuing these two in the first place.”

“Dad…”

“I am not done talking.” He licked over my head scales. “We will go and search for them. But, if anything seems to me like a real threat to you instead of just some fancy magic, I will pick you up and bring you to safety without a second thought, even if it means leaving everyone else behind.”

“Dad, we can’t leave Bliz and Heat Wave behind, I told you!”

“This isn’t up for discussion, Fiery. I will make sure you come back home safe and sound no matter what, you are my bornling.” He now started to purr fatherly.

Evil Dad tricks! Oh no, he wasn’t just purring fatherly, he was also using his ‘I am your dad and you have to obey my will’ emergency purr! One day I’ll be immune to it for sure! However… that day was not today.

“Fine,” I just mumbled unhappily. “But we try to save them first!” Then, an idea came to my mind. “Fertile Desert?”

“Yes?”

“Say, did you bring some of those new plants you found with you?”

“Uhm, yeah. I have some in my pocket.”

“Good, I think we have a use for it…”

Author's Note

As you guys can see I hired a new artist for this chapter, and he did a great job!
SweetStrokesStudios
Also Schattendrache was very dilligent again and edited this whole chapter in one day
Pre-readed by QueenChrysalisForever

And here is a little bonus artwork by Meadow Breeze Cute Fiery and Illu