Waking up from his dream, Nyx sits up and stares at the dark winding road in front of him. Rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, Nyx turns to his side and watches as Ari leads their cart down the road. Miles away from the capital city, the sky now clear of rain clouds and full of stars in the night sky, for a couple hours now Ari and Nyx have been tracking the caravan that took his family away. Ari had managed to pull a favor with one of the royal stable keepers back in the city, making their pursuit much easier than if they had been on foot.

“How are you able to see where they are again?”

“Did you forget already? I told you about him.” Looking into the night sky Ari points out a small dark figure that occasionally will blot out a star, seemingly following the same direction as their cart.

“Asu is keeping an eye ahead. I have decent vision, but his magical perception from up above is even better and he can see the caravan travelling about one and a half miles ahead of us.” Soaring above their heads is Asu, Ari’s peregrine falcon companion.

“Where’d he even come from?” Nyx says as he struggles to squint his eyes and see the falcon up in the dark of the night.

“He’s a beast from the spatial plane. Don’t you know anything about marks?”

“No not really. Didn’t exactly have a royal tutor growing up ya know.”

“Well my student, Elundis marks can be developed to use spells from three magical stages. The first stage is Enhancement, allowing you to use traits from the animal your mark represents. The second stage is Summoning, letting you form a pact through the spatial plane with a beast that matches your mark. The final stage is Fusion, which only a select few of the strongest warriors have attained. My father used a low tier stage three spell to attack you earlier. Asu there is my stage two falcon companion. Usually depending on your ancestry, different people have marks from specific animal groups. For example, elves typically have birds, and humans mostly have mammals. Judging by how sneaky you are, I’d say you probably have something like a cat mark? Maybe a fox?” Ari says as she studies Nyx’s physique.

“Well close but no. I actually have no mark. My mother and my younger siblings have a cat mark, but it's pretty weak.” Ari looks at Nyx surprised that he’s markless despite the obvious skills he had displayed earlier. Perhaps he was just naturally talented?

“Really? Are you sure you just haven’t seen it? What mark does your dad have?”

“My dad always told me that he had lost his mark somehow, I was curious about it but didn’t really know what to make of it. Well he died before I could really ask him much about it.” Nyx says staring into the dark of the night.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“No it’s fine, it was a long time ago.”

“I kind of understand. My mother passed away when I was a little girl.” Ari says as she grasps her purple necklace. “She had gotten really sick and my father had been desperately trying to find a cure, but he was too late.”

“Ah, guess that explains why he’s such a jackass.” Nyx scoffs. Ari chuckles softly.

“Well... that’s not wrong, but you did try to steal from him.”

“Not like you stopped me or anything though.”

“Yeah, well I think he’s a jackass too.” Ari says. “Hold on.” Nyx looks at her confused as Ari slows down the horse and stops the cart. Ari closes her eyes for a moment and Nyx sees a magical aura gathering in the same way her father had done. Her eyes reopen with a blank pupil-less stare.

“Umm, Ari?” Nyx murmurs, waving his hand in front of her face. No response.

“Ari are you okay?” Nyx pokes her in her side.

“Ow, I can feel that! Just hold on a moment I’m looking through Asu’s eyes.” Ari says, still looking forward with her blank stare.

“You could’ve just told me that first.” Nyx says as he leans back in his seat and waits. After a few moments Ari comes back to her normal state and releases the magic.

“Sorry about that, but Asu had lost contact with the cart, it’s getting too dark out to keep trying to track them. Luckily, I was able to look through his eyes and direct him forward to find them. The two people driving the cart pulled off to the side and made camp. They’re a lot tougher than they looked before too, I saw them putting down magical traps.” Ari says as she pulls their own cart off the road into the grass.

“Wait what are you doing? If they stopped then now is the perfect time to get them!”

“No, I have a falcon mark and it’s even hard for me to see in this darkness, I know for sure you can’t see anything. And besides, we need to rest, it’s late and we’ve been travelling for a while. We’ll keep tracking them in the morning and find a better time to rescue them.” Ari responds, climbing out of the cart.

“But what if they’re gone before we even wake up?!” Nyx wails. Ari leaps over to him and quickly covers his mouth.

“Quiet! We’re only a little over a mile away, they could still hear you if they use any high tier detection spells. Now look. I told you I saw them laying down trap spells, and even with my eyes I would not be able to get us past them in the middle of the night. Asu is a magical beast, so he doesn’t need sleep. I’ll have him watch over their camp through the night and wake me up when he sees that they are getting ready to leave. You don’t even have a mark; do you really think you can get past them? You couldn’t even get past me if you tried.” Ari quietly says. Certain that she was not as invested in saving his family as he was, Nyx grabs her hand from off his mouth and attempts to throw her behind him. Using the momentum of Nyx’s pull, Ari ducks down and uses her more concentrated center of gravity to reverse his grapple and pull him down instead.

“Don’t think that because you knocked me down outside your home that you can take me when I’m serious.” Ari says towering over him as he lies in the dirt. Upset, Nyx pretends to get up and then quickly sweeps at her legs with his feet. Reacting quickly, Ari hops over the attack and responds with a swift kick to Nyx’s knee. Nyx falls back down into the mud, annoyed but impressed with her combat expertise.

“You done yet?” Ari asks, extending her hand to help him back to his feet. Still distressed, but understanding the gap in their skills, Nyx accepts her help to stand up.

“Fine. I guess we’re tied now.” he answers, spitting out the mud in his mouth. “How are we even supposed to make camp, we didn’t bring any supplies.”

“Well YOU didn’t bring any supplies. Don’t worry, I’ve got it.” Ari says as she removes her necklace and holds the pendant up in front of her. Ari pauses for a moment, and with a flash suddenly a campsite appears in the grass in front of them.

“Woah! What the hell is that?” Nyx asks excitedly. The pendant vibrates with a faint hum before Ari puts it back on her neck.

“This was my mother’s. It’s an interspatial pendant. We use them to store items in a magical space. I spend a lot of time alone outside the city, so I always make sure to have camping supplies with me.” Ari says as she uses a piece of flint to start a fire and lays out a blanket to sleep in.

“Don’t worry about the merchants, Asu is keeping an eye on them.”

“I’m sorry for lashing out. I just have to get them back.” Nyx voices, taking his own place in a blanket by the fire.

“It’s okay, I understand. I promised I’d help you get them back, that hasn’t changed. We’ll find a better time to rescue them tomorrow.” Ari insists. They both take a few moments to look up at the stars, until the fatigue of the long day lulls them into a deep sleep.