Chapter 5 - The Second Encounter

Chapter 5

The Second Encounter



`What's going on...? Why does my head hurt?....'



Nel slowly opened her eyes. Albel's face was the first thing she saw, followed by the cave ceiling passing by above her. Albel looked down and noticed that she was awake, so he stopped walking and put her down. He had been carrying Nel with one hand around her back and one tucked under her folded knees (a.k.a: Bridal style.), with the ever lit torch in his hand that came out from under her knees.



-“It's about time you woke up! I've been carrying you for nearly half an hour!” he said with false anger. There were some strange things running through Albel's mind just then. They confused him, making him desperately want to cover them up.



He felt this pulling at the side of his mouth, almost as if it wanted to smile, that alone was very out of the ordinary for Albel the Wicked. He had to cross his arms over his chest tightly, because it felt as if they wanted to spring loose and hug Nel half to death. That's even more out of the ordinary then smiling! Biting his lip, he managed to keep all thoughts of being happy Nel was okay to himself... What the hell was going on!



These were all things that Albel Nox would never think of doing, and he planned on keeping it that way. Why was he feeling this way all of a sudden? What was the cause? These were all questions Albel couldn't answer, or was afraid to.



Nel held onto her head with one hand, hoping it would ease the pounding of her temples.



-“Don't start with me now, Nox. I'm not in the mood for your smart comments.” she said quietly, although it sounded 10 times louder through her ears. Albel watched her frown and rub her temples in circular motions.



-“Are you okay?” he heard himself asking, trying to sound as uninterested as possible.



-“It feels like a million people are going to war in my head, but besides that, yeah, I'm okay.” Nel mumbled, sarcasm leaking into her voice.



-“Well, can't you just heal yourself?” Albel asked hesitantly. Nel shook her head..



-“No, I can only heal physical wounds. Even if I could heal this stupid headache, I'm running so low on energy that I'd probably pass out again afterwards.” Nel said and looked around for the first time since she'd woken up. “Where are we?” she asked, not recognizing the part of the cave they were standing in.



That's when Albel got a little more of his old self back. “Well, when you decided to have a little nap in the middle of nowhere, I decided that we needed to get out of that area quickly, whether you were asleep or not, in case that dragon had been defending a nest full of those little fire breathing maggots. So, I ended up having to carry you for the last half an hour. I was just lucky that I didn't run into anymore dragons.” he paused and uncrossed his arms before adding, “I blame you.”



Nel turned on him and put her hands on her hips, resuming a much used pose.



-“You blame me?! It wasn't my idea to faint and have you carry me all over the place! You're just blaming it on me to take the heat off yourself!” Nel accused loudly, instantly regretting it because of the pain that punched her in the head afterwards.



Albel opened his mouth to fight back but lost his motivation when he saw Nel holding the side of her head again.



-“Do you want to sit down for a minute before we keep going?” he asked, once again trying to keep the concern out of his voice, and failing.



Nel glanced at him abruptly. `There it is again! I could've sworn I heard concern in his voice.'



Albel noticed her look and quickly covered up his previous statement. “Well you're no good to me in battle if you've got a headache, fool!” he said in his normal tone. Nel just looked at him before sitting down on the spot.



-“I guess you're right, but next time I could do without the name calling.” she muttered.



Albel crossed his arms over his chest and waited.



Albel waited for 10 minutes, standing beside Nel as she sat on the cold ground and breathed in deeply, trying to regain as much energy as possible in the time given. Neither of them knew what time it was, but they could guess that it was already night fall, judging by how it had recently gotten a lot colder then before.



Nel had grown hungry and tiered but didn't want to say anything, for fear of angering `Albel the Wicked'. Albel was tapping his fingers on his clawed arm, doing all he could to keep himself from complaining about how much time they were losing or how the kid they were looking for could already be out of the cave and miles away from them.



He looked down at the red head when he heard her stomach growl. Nel's cheeks went a light pink as she wrapped her arms around her middle, trying to drown out the noise. Her stomach rumbled again, and Nel hastily stood up.



-“Well, we should get going now. The sooner we find Michael, the sooner we can get out of here.” she said, pretending she hadn't heard anything. “You want me to carry the torch?”



Albel just looked at her. “Only an idiot wouldn't of heard your stomach. I know you're hungry so don't try to cover it up.” Nel looked down at the ground, at a loss of words. “I'm hungry too, but there's not much we can do about it, now is there?” Albel continued on. Nel looked back up at him and nodded.



-“Anyway, like I was saying, my headache's almost gone and I know that I'd be able to help fight if any more dragons showed up, `and I'm positive more will', so do you think we should keep going until we find somewhere to rest for the night?”



Albel nodded in agreement and handed over the torch, thinking it was a good idea to have both hands free for combat.



They walked down the tunnel for quite a long time. They hadn't had much choice in a change of direction because they hadn't seen any other tunnels besides the one they were walking down. After searching and not finding any suitable place to rest, they decided to just sit down in the middle of the tunnel to catch some z's.



They found a stray stick of wood on the way and lit the end of it, so now both Nel and Albel had a torch.



-“I'm going to go see if there's anything we need to watch out for up ahead.” Albel said as Nel plopped down on the cold ground. “You stay here, I'll be back in a minute.” Nel grumbled a “Okay” under her breath and watched Albel until all she could see was the light of his torch in the distance.



Nel sighed and put a hand on her stomach as it growled again.



-“I hear you loud and clear, but I can't help it. There's no food in this cave unless we eat a dragon...and I can only imagine what that would taste like.”



She waited for Albel to come back for nearly 10 minutes. Nel just sat there, in all her uncomfortableness, and stared at the flame of her torch.



-“Nox had better come back...Now that I think about it, I wouldn't put it past him to just find the nearest exit from this cave and leave me in here.” Nel frowned and stood up. “I'd better go-” She stopped as she saw her torch flame flicker violently, as if someone had turned a fan on and off in an instant.



Nel slowly turned towards the direction her and Albel had originally come from. Another warm gust of foul smelling air hit her face and Nel came to realization of what she was dealing with.



A dragon.



She raised her torch higher in the air as she frantically fumbled for her dagger. A low growl sounded from in front of her and Nel just caught a glimpse of huge sharp teeth and red eyes before her torch went out, plunging her into sudden darkness.



Nel quickly dropped the burnt stick and assumed a defensive position with her dagger out in front of her. Not that it did any good though. The now almost invisible dragon swiped it's sharp claws at Nel, catching her off guard and sending her flying across the tunnel and smashing into the cave wall.



Nel cried out in pain and held onto her side as she fell to the ground. She had three decent sized slashes that ran from her left hand side all the way around to her belly. Nel blocked out the extreme pain and swiftly started to prepare a healing spell, but the dragon was on top of her before she could finish it. The dragon swiped down at her and Nel screamed in agony as its claws sliced her upper chest, like three overly large paper cuts.



~X~



Albel had been walking down the deserted tunnel for nearly 5 minutes now, and he hadn't seen anything that could pose as a threat.



-“I'd better get back, that fool will probably think I've abandoned her and come looking for me.” he mumbled and started walking back to where he had left Nel.



He walked until he could see Nel's torch burning brightly near the ground of the tunnel in the distance. The torch then shot up as Nel supposedly stood up, flickered a few times and raised up higher in the air, before abruptly going out.

Albel portrayed a confused look and continued walking towards where the flame had been. `Why would she put her torch out? That's just stupid...'



A cry of pain caused him to speed up to a jog. He heard Nel scream in agony soon after and broke into an all out run, pulling his katana from it's sheath with his hand. `She must of run into a dragon!' he thought as the struggle scene came into view.



-“...Oh shoot....”

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