The Chasm
Darkness.
That was what she opened her eyes to, and she immediately regretted it. A dull pounding in her head started up, and Sakura grappled for a moment to remember what exactly was going on as she stared around, finally noting the far off blue light in the distance which provided some scant amount of light wherever she had ended up.
Groaning, she pulled herself to her elbows, noting the fact that she had been placed on some soft mossy substance which was actually rather comfortable in the grand scheme of things. Instinctively, she drew on her chakra, blinking when she found her stores depleted and almost dangerously low. The headache, and general all over ache was staying for the foreseeable future apparently. “What the…?” she trailed off, peering at the shape she could see moving closer. Moving towards her. She stiffened, a yelp escaping her at the sharp bolt of pain which ran through her leg at the barest of movements.
“Peace,” a low, masculine voice grumbled, the source of the blue light growing closer and closer. “You are safe, healing, and amongst friends, young Quester…”
Abruptly, Sakura was reminded of the wyvern and the crevasse. The same crevasse she remembered falling into, though she didn’t quite remember hitting the bottom. Either she passed out in the fall, or there had been some head trauma which might’ve affected her memory of the impact – and it was obvious she had impacted, if only from how her chakra levels were and how very injured she was. “Who—” she trailed off, blinking at the sight she was met with.
The creature before her wasn’t human. That much was obvious. Sakura could only peer at the creature, noting the feathered wings tucked against its sides and the lion’s head, body and feet it otherwise bore.
“A winged lion,” she murmured, earning a low chuckle from the aforementioned winged lion standing before her on all four paws.
“You are well learned, Young Quester, despite not having come from this world,” he spoke, the blue crystal around his furry neck being the source of the light she had seen approaching. “It has been a while since another has survived the fall as you have done. Despite how you look, you appear to be made from sterner stuff than one would think at first glance…”
A bark of laughter escaped her at the mention of that. “You don’t need to remind me of how I look,” she muttered. “Do you know how bad my injuries are? I can’t see particularly well in this dimness…”
“Your leg was broken and you had a few mild scrapes, but those have been tended to, and your leg had been set and wrapped by our resident healer, Virgo.”
“A broken leg…” Sakura trailed off, remembering how far she vaguely remembered falling down before things went dark. “After a fall like that?” she muttered, sitting herself up.
“Indeed,” the winged lion rumbled. “You are made of sterner stuff, and all of us down here can only be grateful for that much.”
Sakura frowned. “I suppose the sight of me wouldn’t have been particularly nice if I hadn’t… survived the fall,” she muttered, the reminder of how very lucky and unlucky she was coming to bite. “Thanks for setting my leg,” she said. “It will be a while before I can heal it myself.”
“You can… accelerate the speed of your own healing?” he asked, peering at her with eerily pale blue eyes which looked so out of place on something which looked like a lion. They looked so human for lack of a better descriptor. “How curious… Neither I nor my kinfolk sensed any mana upon you…”
Her eyes narrowed, remembering all the grief that not having mana had brought her. “It’s not mana that I use,” she grumbled. “Not that anyone here seems to have guessed as much…”
“Ah,” the winged lion said. “So it is a different form of energy. You might be surprised at how rare of a case that is – because if both we and those who summoned you here cannot detect it, then it must have a vastly different energy composition to what we are used to – namely what we call mana.” He tilted his head, seating himself down and looking curiously at her. “You might be surprised at how many Questers from different worlds have that energy or something very similar, hence why it’s oftentimes detected. Most usually either have a form of mana or nothing at all… Though I suppose you having a source of energy that you can use… that’s all the more better for us…”
Sakura felt her frown deepen, brain working more now that her body was out of action – and would remain that way for some time to come. “You keep going on about how good that is for you…” Sakura trailed off, peering into those eerie blue eyes. “What exactly do you mean by that? I doubt you’re simply pleased by the fact that I wasn’t turned into strawberry jam after my fall.”
Blue eyes narrowed. “Strawberry jam…?” the winged lion muttered in confusion, shaking his head, mane and all moments later. “You would be correct. Tell me, Young Quester, how much do you know about my kindred? About winged lions? Specifically, perhaps, our supposed habitat?”
She wracked her brains then, trying to remember anything she had read about where winged lions were supposed to live. He had given her a hint, and she was going to go off on a limb and say—
“Not here?” she tried, earning a rumbling chuckle. “You have wings, and though I can’t remember the specifics of where you’re supposed to live, I can guess it would be some place where you can stretch them and fly.”
“Correct,” he said.
“But why don’t you simply fly out from here? The crevasse here is quite wide…” Sakura asked, wracking her brains for a possible answer, but the winged lion before her only shook his head once more.
“The crevasse here, at the very top at least, is the hunting grounds of wyverns and wild dragons,” he explained, and Sakura could only sigh at that.
“I wish someone had told me that before I decided to use the crevasse to navigate,” Sakura muttered, remembering those yellow eyes and the bronze scales which had gleamed in the light as the wyvern had focused its attention on her.
A soft bark of laughter had her scowling. “Nevertheless we are grateful you are here, because at least now we have a chance,” the winged lion said, and Sakura could only stare in confusion at him. At her blatant look of confusion – which he must have saw, despite how dark the very bottom of the crevasse was – he spoke once more. “Young Quester, do you really think my people would stay here out of choice when we could have sunlight and open plains to roam across?” he asked, and her face must have told him her answer. Or perhaps it had just been a rhetorical question. Sakura didn’t know. “We cannot fly out of here, nor would the air currents allow us to safely fly over its nest, and even then the blasted thing can fly as well…”
“It’s nest? Blasted thing?” Sakura echoed, chills running down her spine at the odd sense of foreboding she felt. Whatever the winged lion was about to say, Sakura had the distinct impression she would not like what that meant for her.
“Yes,” the winged lion spoke gravely. “My people have been trapped here for nigh on five-thousand years,” he continued, and she could only blink, wide-eyed at the apparent timeframe the winged lions as a species had been trapped in the crevasse for. “We have been separated from the rest of our kindred who were fortunate enough to not be trapped here. My mate still waits for me on the outside…”
“You’re… over five thousand years old?” Sakura asked, disbelief lining her words.
Blue eyes took in her shocked and confused face. “Yes, Young Quester. Perhaps you did not have the unaging phenomena of this world in your last one… It is why they summon so much fresh blood every quarter century. For while our lives may be long lived, perhaps eternal lest we are killed, many creatures here do not procreate so easily.”
“Oh,” she mumbled, the statement almost blowing her mind. Sakura wracked her memories, wondering if Kaida had told her anything like that. Though, going by the fact she could barely comprehend the idea of not really aging and dying of old age, she doubted it. Or, if she had, Sakura hadn’t been listening.
“Though I am getting off topic – what I mean to say is that our only option, our only route out of this crevasse, is guarded by a being even we winged lions fear…” he trailed off, and Sakura was abruptly reminded of how high up the food chain winged lions were. The only beings which could really hunt them were the ultimate predators of the world, and ironically, the mostly unintelligent ones which could not speak: wild dragons, wyverns, hydras, and manticores.
“Wild dragons, wyverns, hydras, and manticores,” she said, heart sinking at the pointed silence which indicated she was very much correct with one of her guesses. All of them were very much deadly, and would be ridiculously hard to fight, though that was without considering… “Please,” Sakura murmured. “Please tell me it’s not one of the venomous ones which I just named,” she said, thinking of those venomous snakes she had barely beaten. She didn’t have any way to fight the venom, and she doubted the winged lions had created an antidote.
The winged lion was silent.
Sakura swore. “Hydra or manticore?” she demanded, silently wondering if she would be able to climb up the side of the crevasse by herself. But it was probably miles up, and even then, once she reached the top there’d probably only be more wyverns awaiting her. Or perhaps a wild dragon instead. Knowing her luck, it would be just as tricky as whatever was awaiting her down there.
“A manticore,” the winged lion answered, and Sakura cursed her luck once more. Of course, if there was any creature blocking her path it would be the one with a venomous tail.
“Brilliant,” she muttered.
“It gets worse,” the winged lion said, and Sakura only blinked dumbly at that.
“What?”
“It’s the same manticore which has been trapping us down here for five thousand years,” he continued, earning another frown from her. “It has found itself trapped as much as we have, and though we have been trying to outlast it… well, it has survived. We are only fortunate that there are other creatures to hunt down here, along with an underground river…”
“The same manticore,” Sakura mumbled, wondering why that was worse as she struggled to remember everything she had read about the beasts. “Don’t…” The thought struck her. “Don’t manticores and other creatures usually get stronger with age…”
The winged lion inclined his head. “Indeed,” he said. “This one can now breathe fire, and its venom only grows more potent by the year… though we have a way to survive it…”
“Great,” Sakura muttered with false cheer.
“Are you quite alright?” the winged lion asked, peering at her and the cold grin now stretching across her lips.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Broken leg aside, and the fact you’re all but implying that I’m going to have to face a five-thousand year old manticore to get back to the surface and continue my quest… I’m feeling great.”
“Ah. While I understand that most manticores on the surface are hunted before they can even reach five-hundred years of age—”
“Saying that makes me feel worse,” she grumbled, fingers going to push back her greasy, dirt-ridden hair. “You’re all but implying that no one has really faced a five-thousand year old manticore before.”
“Well, in the times of old, before the clans became more adept at hunting them for their venom and other body parts… there were those who defeated the ancient manticores of old. Though I suppose they were those who’ve since become the gods of this world.”
“Oh. Goodie,” Sakura muttered, another frission of dread creeping down her spine. “I guess I’ll just have to pray my abysmal luck decides to turn itself around.”
“It is better to rely on skill than luck,” the winged lion answered. “I will get Ardelia to bring you your meal. You must be hungry after all of this,” he remarked, turning around then to pad away back down the tunnel – there was nothing else it could be, deep in the crevasse as she was – he had come from.
Sakura stared after him, something burning inside her, mind overheating as it tried to process all the information which had been dumped upon her lap. “I never caught your name,” she dimly heard herself call after him, part of her demanding the name of the one who had dumped far too much information about her future on her.
“Adelais,” he replied, and that was the last she saw of him for a good while.
Left to the less than tender mercies of her own thoughts, she sunk back on her soft, mossy bed, staring at the darkness of the tunnelled room she was in. What was her life becoming? Sakura could only ponder that much as she wondered about the fantasy world she had fallen into. A world she was desperately trying to survive in and fit into, at least until she could figure out a way home.
But that prospect was slowly becoming nothing more than a fleeting thought in the back of her head. There were more important things for her to be doing in that place – such as trying to survive in that unfamiliar, mad world which was evidently trying to kill her.
There was no other explanation for how she had gone from facing a wyvern to facing a five-thousand year old manticore in the space of… a few days or less? She didn’t know how long it had been since she had fallen. It wasn’t like Adelais had told her how long she had been unconscious for.
Sakura wondered what it said about her mental state that she actually missed the wyvern, of all things.