A Kind of Magic

Five

Leodhais didn't rest well that night. Unused as he was to sleeping out of bed, he tossed and turned for hours, making Gilderoy, whom he kept awake by his disquietude, complain in low whispers so as not to wake Peregrine, who lay among the grasses calm and motionless as if he was a statue carved out of the finest Goblinican obsidian. 

When he finally drifted off to sleep, he kept being stirred back to consciousness by voices whispering among the grasses he was convinced he could hear at intervals, there and then gone only to return to haunt him again just as his eyelids began to droop. He would sit up each time, feeling frightened, his eyes scanning the vast, deserted moor covered by an iridescent veil of moonlight, the sea of grasses swelling in the cool wind, the long stems leaning into the caress of an invisible hand offering a hauntingly beautiful spectacle.

He finally fell asleep when the sun pierced through the blue velvet of the night far in the east, sprinkling the first flickers of the new day where the stars had been, and it took Gilderoy a long time to wake him up again an hour later. 

The dwarf sighed deeply upon receiving his tense and irritable friend's first frown. Leodhais wasn't the best company when he didn't get his beauty sleep, and Gilderoy had had more than enough occasions to learn this. Alaric's castle was full of women swooning over the attractive elf, who thought it rude to refuse the attention of any pretty member of the gentler sex. There, at least, he could stay in bed until lunch on the day following the sleepless night, a thing their dark companion would hardly allow him now...

"I couldn't sleep, dragon. I want a bed tonight," Leodhais announced, disturbing Gilderoy's train of thought. He pulled himself to his feet with difficulty and joined the other two by the small fire which Peregrine had kindled for Gilderoy to warm up after the long and cold night, accepting a cup of mulled ale and a slice of stale bread topped with strips of dried meat from the dwarf. "And I require proper breakfast tomorrow morning," he added, frowning at the offered meal.

Peregrine shook his head in desperation. Great friendship seemed to bound his two companions, but they couldn't be more different. Even as his affection for the eager-to-learn, easygoing, never-complaining dwarf started to grow, so did his dislike of the posh, vain elf.

"And I wish that our paths had never crossed, elf," Peregrine grumbled around a mouthful of bread and cheese philosophically. "See, finding a welcoming settlement in the Black Forest is just as likely as undoing what had already happened." He motioned towards the southeast where the first trees of the infinite forest, their misty outlines gilded by the rising sun, came into view. 

They looked so far... It would take them half the morning to reach them, Leodhais mused. "I'll find us beds to sleep in for tonight," he told his two companions, his words laced with an unshakeable determination, making them exchange a raised eyebrow look. The elf frowned at seeing the camaraderie beginning to form between the dwarf and the dragon shifter. Just what did Gilderoy see in this dark and brooding entity was beyond him. "I never see you eating meat, dragon," he said after a while, chewing on his slice of meat, salivating at recalling the stews and roasts served daily at Alaric's court. He couldn't wait to return to the castle in the civilised Lundenwic; he had already had enough of this adventure through wilderness to last him a lifetime. 

"That's because I don't." Peregrine grinned as if at some private joke before he continued. "If I indulged my desire of meat while human, it would turn into habit which I could not control when in my dragon form. And that could happen to be very, hmm, unpleasant for many creatures," he announced, looking Leodhais straight in the eye as he stood up. The lively flames of the fire burning between them made his black cloak look as if it was thrumming with life, a pair of dragon wings ready to unfurl and take flight. 

The image made the elf shudder. Peregrine must be impressive in his dragon form... Leodhais knew that it was under him, but he admired the dragon shifters, and even more the mythical Highlanders ever since he was a little boy who read about them in story books. 

Peregrine turned away, making Leodhais realise that he was still staring at him and set to folding his blanket and saddling his horse, Gilderoy following his example without a word. "Pack and put out the fire. Ten minutes elf, then I'm off," the dragon said without turning back to make sure whether his words incited Leodhais to move. 

Herds of heavily built wild horses and pairs of eerie, ethereal unicorns, silvery white like the ghosts he was so afraid to glimpse, rushing close past them too often to his liking, kept stirring Leodhais from the doze he was slipping into as they rode across the vast grassland. Finally he shook off the remnants of sleep with quiet determination-- it just wasn't worth it-- and focused his eyes of the black mass on the horizon growing bigger as they drew nearer, until he could finally distinguish the single trees. They were enormous and thickly grown, their trunks and branches turned black with age where they weren't covered in patches of bright green, luminescent moss, but to Leodhais they looked more welcoming than the creepy ghost moor they were leaving behind.

Peregrine let the others enter the shelter of the first row of trees before he reigned in his horse and made him turn around, facing the wind blowing towards them from the Bleak Moor. He closed his eyes to focus better and smelled the swiftly moving air, separating and analysing the thousands of scents it was carrying. His life of a wandering knight who had had to fight for his life more than a few times had taught him to be careful. He ignored the irritable elf shouting irritating questions in his direction as well as the dwarf's well meant but useless attempts of persuading his friend to wait patiently in silence, until he was satisfied with what he had learned from the wind. 

Only then did he urge Shadow to turn around again and enter the forest at a gallop, calling over his shoulder as he rushed by Leodhais, "Shame, elf, we're not being tracked. See, I might just be the only vegetarian Highland Dragon left, and I definitely wouldn't stop a brother from having a bite before the fight..."

"You... You awful..."

Whatever the elf wanted to say was drowned in Peregrine's laughter, and a chuckle masked as a coughing fit coming from Gilderoy.