Crashing through the forest, Squirt didn’t give herself time to limp, letting the pain from the open wounds on her leg and side from the spiked hyenabear drive her faster. Her neck prickled followed closely by a snarl as she dropped to the ground, letting the umberwolf sail straight over her as she pushed off, weaving through the trees as quickly as she knew how.

  She was close. She’d seen the feathery roots. Any second now, any second—

  With one last push, she dove into the clearing for the jewelbird, rolling to a stop as she gasped in air. Ignoring the blinding flashes of pain, she grasped for feystones, her hands bloodied enough to not need to do more but hold them.

  Just in time, as the beast that approached her wasn’t a jewelbird—a diamond crane.

  Gods. Two evolved levels above a jewelbird already.

  Lifting her hands in a trembling offering, she kept her head lowered and held her position despite the agony in her leg. The sharp beak carefully nudged her cupped hands, and she drew in a sharp breath, waiting.

  Satisfied with her offering, it accepted it, gently scooping up the stones and swallowing before using its razor-sharp beak to preen her short hair.

  She collapsed against the ground, gasping for breath.

  Gods. Fuck. Shit. She was so exhausted.

  Not only had she encountered another chameleon leopard—though this one had been her prey instead of the other way around—she had been found by a spiked hyenabear, stumbled on a phoenix hive and ended up covered in minor burns, then was chased by a pack of umberwolves.

  Just one umberwolf was as bad as the chameleon leopard, but they were never alone. Technically, as far as she understood it, they were one being in several different bodies. If one evolved, they all evolved, but to kill them you had to do so individually. And they’d know when you killed the first one.

  She was not equipped for that.

  Mechanically, she boiled some water to give herself a thorough, warm cleanse. With as many wounds as she had sustained, she needed to clean each and every one, which would be moderately more bearable when using warm water to do. The wound in her side had bled through the bandage, and she grimaced, knowing she would need to stitch it herself.

  The night moved quickly, and she barely managed to finish bandaging her wounds before she all but collapsed on her bedroll and passed out, more than ready for this nightmare to be over.

  She didn’t wake from her dead sleep until well into morning the next day. The diamond crane hadn’t kicked her from the flock yet thank the Goddess, though she’d certainly bled over enough of the clearing the night before to hope for a few extra hours of leniency. Just in case, she presented the beast with another handful of feystones with some of her blood as her first task when she woke.

  By the time she finished assessing her wounds and having a full, uninterrupted meal to replenish her strength from the repeated injuries, it was almost noon.

  Time to go. She set off to veer west first before heading back south, her goggles in place as she watched for chameleon cats, something she’d learned from the last two days. They were annoying, as to hold them in place effectively they were tightly strapped to her face, but as the minutes passed and she started to sweat, she had to stop to wipe the fog from them.

  By the third time she had, it was starting to become an issue, and she paused long enough to add a thin bit of cloth around the outsides of the rims. It would look stupid, but all she really needed to do was break the seal enough to let the evaporated sweat escape.

  She would need to make glasses or a shield or something. Maybe she could connect the scales together to make a bigger surface to see through by melting them down. Jul might be able to burn them hot enough for it, though it very well might ruin the scales entirely.

  Fighting her gag, she swallowed her annoyance. Really? Thinking of Jul? Now? She couldn’t… Gods… be grateful for his presence, could she?

  Revolting.

  Resetting the goggles, she continued, focusing back on her surroundings rather than thinking about the people waiting for her.

  She couldn’t wait to be out of here. Gods. Maybe she’d actually take that bath waiting for her in the cabin—

  A noise she had never heard before drew her eyes up to the cloudy skies threatening another spring rain. The noise was odd. Rhythmic. Like the beating of wings, only it lacked the whoosh of feathers, the subtle shifts in natural rhythms of the living.

  Eyes wide, she darted silently through the trees, climbing the tallest one she could find until she could actually see the skies above. Scrambling up the branches, ignoring the bugs and beetles and spider webs of the upper canopy, she held onto the tallest branches as she finally cleared the tree line.

  The sound was distant, of course, but directed. She swore she could hear the clash of steel on the winds as they whipped around her.

  Finally, there. A break between the clouds gave her a flash—a Skye airship. The hull was battered and aged, patched from years of battles. Her eyes narrowed as she pulled out her notebook, sketching the few glimpses she could see.

  As far as she knew, military airships were not so decrepit, but she sketched out every detail she managed to glimpse just in case. There could be hundreds of reasons it was here: smugglers, perhaps recon soldiers hoping to be unnoticed, traders, even refugees.

  The ship pitched as it sank under the clouds, fully visible. An explosion on board heralded an impending crash. She watched in stunned horror as the ship fell with deceptive slowness towards the forest. Black dots of fey jumped overboard, some managing to fly away.

  She braced herself as one black dot hit the earth in a thundering boom of power, a cloud of dust pluming in the fey’s wake. Seconds later, the ship crashed as well, the balloon of air magic bursting with fiery vengeance, an explosion that leveled several acres around it of trees. Beasts of normal and fey variety screamed, caught in the destruction. Birds took to the skies with panicked cries, not all of them fast enough to escape the fires of the broken magic.

  Gods.

  She swallowed. If anyone survived that crash, they wouldn’t for long. Already, the forest was stirring. Powerful beasts could sense the impending feast.

  She hesitated long enough to call herself all kinds of stupid before she shoved the notebook and pen into her pouch, drawing the chameleon cape over her as completely as possible, and began rushing towards the site of the crash. They could be innocent. It could be a failed ambush. It could hold the key to keeping the war from their borders.

  She shoved those thoughts away, the thoughts of Stalf and Havoc and their families beaten and bloodied and bleeding out from a border skirmish.

  If it was too bad, she’d use the beacon.

  Keeping to the canopy, she scrambled over the trees and branches too flimsy for the larger predatory feybeasts to climb. Leaping from tree to tree, the leaves and branches shaking in her haste, she made too much noise to just be wind. Fuck, she was making herself a damn target and she knew it.

  Even as fast as she was, it still took almost an hour to get to the wreckage. The feybeasts stayed back as the inferno of the wreckage engulfed what was left of the ship. The clouds, heavy with their rain, finally opened and dropped their bounty on the scene.

  It wouldn’t be enough to put out the fire—only time would do that. Once those fires went out, the beasts would feast on anyone left. The destroyed part of the forest was littered in bodies of unmoving fey whom would only feed the already overpowered beasts, furthering their unnatural evolutions.

  And it was possible this wasn’t the first time. Hells, it could even explain why they were so overpowered in this remote area. As devastating of a wreck as this was, it wouldn’t take long for the forest to recover and hide any sign of the crash.

  Quickly, she flitted from body to body, checking them for anything that might tell her what the ship was, who these fey were. Few were armored or had weapons. Most were in civilian clothes. One, she rolled over just as the light died from his eyes, the move spilling the remainder of his guts from his open belly.

  Body parts were strewn everywhere, and repeatedly, she was forced to swallow her bile as she worked. What she could grab quickly and easily, she tossed in the raging inferno. The rain would prevent it from spreading into a forest fire, but the magical fuel was unlikely to let the fire go out anytime soon. In that, she counted herself lucky.

  Most were too big for her to move herself.

  The worst were the children.

  Gods. Children.

  Those she carried to the fires, injuries and wisdom of the time spent be damned. Their souls deserved freedom, not to be consumed by ravaging feybeasts. The work was brutal, bloody, and haunting as midday turned to midafternoon.

  She found nothing of any real meaning on the fey, though plenty of jewels and gold. Gold was cheap and plentiful, meaning that these fey were likely poorer. The jewels were less so, making for an odd mix that hinted at possible smugglers.

  Smugglers with children, though?

  She continued to work without pause, piling up the bodies she could physically carry on the fires, taking anything that might identify these people for the lord to deal with later. Each trip had her going farther and farther from the crash site.

  Already, some of those who had jumped sooner, who had chosen the quick, sure death of the fall, were being ravaged by the beasts in the area. Several carcasses were open and feasted upon as she went farther into the forest. She wasn’t even sure why she bothered. None of them were alive. She should run. Let the beasts descend on these people, use it as a distraction to escape without herself dying.

  As the sun began to descend behind the mountains, she came across an enormous pit of sand in her search. She swallowed at the pure amount of magical energy radiating from the sand, telling her that whoever had done this was a powerful magic user.

  She cursed them as she jogged, slipping and sliding down the sloping sand to the middle of the pit, the rain having turned it to mud that seeped into every pore not already coated in blood or soot.

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  There, in the center, were two fey. Another child, this one with bright silver hair, and a pixie wrapped protectively around the girl child, their bodies half sunk into the mud.

  Swallowing her bile at the scene, she reached forward as the little girl fluttered her bright blue eyes open.

  Squirt fell to her knees, reassessing the child immediately. She was breathing. She was alive.

  And so was he.

  Fuck. Okay. New plan. They were sunk into the mud enough that digging them out was going to be a chore and a half. The child whimpered, saying something in Valuvian, a language spoken by one of the tribes in the Skye Kingdom. Squirt recognized the language vaguely, but not the words.

  Holding up her hands, she said calmly in Common, “I’m here to help. I’m going to dig you out. Can you understand me?”

  The little girl nodded, whimpering and crying softly.

  Shit, Squirt was no good at comforting. Biting her lip, she glanced up at the skies. They were darkening quickly, the light fading, and the beasts would be worse than ever.

  Their only hope was to reach the diamond crane before night fell.

  Back on the girl, she reached in her bag and pulled out a waterskin. “Here. Drink. Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head.

  “Okay. Drink, slowly, then I need you to help dig yourself out.” The fey with her was still breathing as well, so Squirt pulled out a trowel and started digging him out as quickly as she could. The bastard had landed feet first, and twice as she worked, her arms aching and screaming in pain, he sank deeper into the mud as she cleared out some of it around him.

  The little girl helped, digging herself out with shaky hands at first, then gained confidence as she did so. She was young, likely around the age of ten, but as a full-sized race she was the same size as Squirt herself.

  Howls went up around them, the beasts scenting prey.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck—

  The little girl got on her knees, holding the man under his armpits as she pulled. Squirt dug around his legs, and with a final pop, he came unstuck, his boots sinking further into the mud.

  Squirt wasted no time. “We need to move. Now.” Shit. The sanctuary was over an hour away, and she had both of these two to care for.

  The little girl’s limbs were shaking, clearly exhausted already as she whispered in accented Common, “My friends?”

  Squirt ignored her, grabbing the other pixie and throwing him over her shoulders. “Can you run?”

  The little girl nodded, though she stumbled as she stood, her legs shaky.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck—

  Another, much closer howl, followed by a myriad of other beast calls and a shiver down her spine.

  A surge.

  There was no way. They were going to die.

  Wide eyed, the little girl stared at Squirt with a desperate kind of fear, her hope flagging.

  Squirt swallowed, her eyes hardening. “Stay close. We’ll make it.”

  Pulling out her knives, she handed two to the child. “If a creature comes near, stab it. Got it?”

  The child swallowed, then her spine stiffened. She nodded, determination in her eyes even as her fingers trembled in their hold.

  Squirt grabbed her hand, her voice firm as she tightened the girl’s grip. “Be strong. You can do this.”

  The girl nodded. Squirt pulled her slingshot out, as well as an extra shirt, grateful the fey on her back was a pixie even if he was still bigger than her. Ripping the shirt, she tied it under his hips and around her own, shifting her quiver to her chest. Ripping another section, she tied his wrist together, then his ankles, then connected them. He groaned, clearly injured, and she hoped this wasn’t making his injuries worse.

  The little girl whispered, “What are you doing?”

  Squirt muttered, “Tying him to leave my hands free.” Though she tried not to think about how she was likely signing her own death warrant. “When I tell you to hold your breath or close your eyes, do it, understand?”

  The little girl nodded, more resolute.

  “Good.” Squirt swallowed. She’d been gathering plenty of ingredients, but she hadn’t made most of it into ammo yet. She would only have so many shots.

  Slingshot in one hand, some laughing mushroom powder shots in the other, her handkerchief and goggles in place, she wrapped her arms around the fey’s knees and began scrambling up the muddy edge. Heavier than before, she almost lost her boots twice to the mud trap they had been stuck in.

  The little girl scrambled, eventually putting the blades in her mouth to climb up using her hands. Her long hair was gray and streaked with mud, the original color and shape of her clothing unidentifiable.

  Another chorus of howls, yowls, and screeches sounded from the other side of the sand pit. They glanced up just as the mass of rampaging feybeasts started rushing into the crater.

  “Run,” Squirt breathed out, as she turned and fled through the trees. There was no time for stealth. No time for hiding and waiting it out. The man had blood on him, and that would call the beasts. The little girl was fast and tenacious, but not stealthy.

  “Duck!” she shouted as she spun, the little girl dropping down and covering her head as Squirt aimed a shot of powder at the closest beasts, little weasels that jumped from the trees. She landed a hit but didn’t stop to see how effective it was as she shouted, “Run!”

  The girl burst into motion as they ran through the forests, Squirt desperately keeping her eyes out to make not just the most direct path, but the one with the best footing. If the little girl tripped and twisted her ankle, they were done for.

  The girl cried out in pain and Squirt grabbed out a blade, using it to slice the damn moss-weasels from where they had leapt onto the girl’s shoulders. Shoving her slingshot into the quiver, she tossed the ammo directly, shouting, “Run!” to the girl.

  Brave little thing she was, she ran despite the blood running down her shoulders and mixing into the gray tangled mess of her clothes.

  Squirt lobbed a blazing ant bomb behind them, not pausing long enough to relish in the scream of the creatures as she did. They crashed through the trees, twice the little girl tripping and falling but scrambling back up before Squirt needed to say anything.

  Squirt, meanwhile, was dying. Gods. Couldn’t the pixie have been any smaller?

  He cried out, arching with a scream as she cursed, diving off to the side and falling as his body weight threw her off balance. Whatever creature had landed on her back jumped off as she drew the short sword, swinging it wildly as it sliced through several creatures, soaking them in blood.

  Squirt didn’t pause to pick up the feystones that fell, just turned and kept running. Sprinting after the girlchild. Her eyes went wide, and she screamed “Duck and go left!” reaching into her sack and pulling out a paralyzing shot—her only one—and lobbing it at the chameleon cats that the little girl had almost run straight into.

  “Drop!” she screamed, and the little girl dove to the ground, covering her head as quilled beasts shot at them with deadly needles. She lobbed another laughing mushroom shot at them as she ran to the girl, who took her cue, scrambling up and sprinting forward.

  “Left!” Another mushroom shot to take out the flamebats.

  “Hold your breath!” as they ran through a patch of laughing mushrooms.

  “Jump!” over a blazing anthill.

  She ran out of ammo. She lost her slingshot and half her arrows when a rhino like beast almost gutted her during a charge. A cut on her forehead from a grazed claw of a moonwing bled profusely, coating one of the lenses and leaving her half blind.

  Her hands clutched the sword as she was reduced to wild slices through the air, thanking the gods for the enchantments on it that cut through bone like butter. She beheaded umberwolves. She knocked away quills. All three of them picked up more injuries as they went, but the adrenaline kept them moving.

  They were close. She could see the feathery roots when something crashed into her, sending her several feet to the side. The little girl screamed as Squirt rolled to a stop, her eyes up on the creature before them.

  A fucking basilisk. A giant snake, its eye bigger than Squirt’s whole head, its venom so toxic that one drop on an open wound would kill them.

  Reaching into her pouch, she grabbed out a fistful of feystones as the little girl stepped closer, smartly not turning her back as the snake hissed at them. Grabbing the stones, she put them in the child’s bloodied hand and sliced off the bindings holding the fey to her. “Take these. Get his blood on them. See that thicket about a hundred paces that way? Run in there, fall to your knees, and hold up the stones in offer. You’ll be safe.”

  Her voice trembled as she whispered, “But you—”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped. “I’ll distract it and be right behind you,” she lied. “Grab the male and be ready to bolt. Got it?”

  The child trembled.

  Growling a little, Squirt said, “I got you this far, didn’t I?”

  That seemed like the confidence boost the little girl needed.

  “Slowly now. Reached down and grab him.”

  She did, even as she shook.

  “Ready? On my mark.”

  The beast’s neck curled into the ‘s’ shape, poised to strike.

  “Now!” she yelled as she jumped forward, shouting and brandishing her weapon.

  The child took off as Squirt landed a hit on the basilisk’s sensitive nose, making it hiss and snap at her. She dove as venom dripped onto the ground with a hiss, then ducked under the thing’s massive body that was curled around the trees, shouting and taunting the creature to keep its attention on her. She sliced through some of its belly just as the tail came back to slam into her again, and with a decisive crack she knew her ribs were broken.

  Furious, she stabbed with her blade as the tail coiled around her, making the creature screech and rear back, more drops of venom flying and landing with acidic hisses on the foliage. Squirt didn’t stop even as it continued to squeeze, because if she was going down, damnit, she was going to go down fighting.

  Then something white and ethereal slammed into the basilisk’s head, glowing in the dim light of the evening. The coils around her moved as the basilisk thrashed. The diamond crane screeched in rage as it slashed down with its talons, holding the basilisk down with one foot as it steadied itself with its wings and ripping into it with the other.

  Squirt watched in stunned awe of the battle taking place before her eyes between feybeasts she could never hope to match until, finally, the snake disappeared in a plume of purple smoke.

  Leaving behind a massive feystone.

  Squirt fell to her knees, her trembling hands clutching the sword as she gasped in desperate gulps of air. The crane turned towards her, still glowing faintly.

  She swallowed, trembling, as she dropped her head and bowed.

  Tense seconds passed. Then, the sharp beak gently ran through her hair once, twice, preening her, claiming her as flock, before it picked up the giant feystone in its beak and presented it to her.

  Squirt stared at it numbly. The thing was as big around as her chest was.

  The creature pressed it more insistently into her arms, and she took it. Then it shook out its feathers, trilling, before it calmly started stepping towards the thicket and its earth tree.

  Dazed, she stared after it until she heard a startled cry from the girl child. Shit. Right.

  Lurching to her feet, carrying the feystone, she stumbled into the clearing with the little girl, who clutched the fey male to her, her eyes wide and terrified on the bird. They snapped to Squirt before her face crumpled into a wailing cry.

  Shit. Had he died?

  Squirt stumbled forward as the little girl rocked herself, holding desperately onto the fey in her arms, but to her relief the male’s heartbeat was slow, but steady.

  Alive.

  Nodding to herself, she had to clear her throat several times before she managed a strangled, “You’re safe now, little one.”

  The little girl just nodded emphatically as she continued to cry great sobbing tears.

  Squirt found her lips quirked up in a smile as she realized what this was. Relief. The event was over, and now the child was crying.

  Shifting her bags around, she knelt carefully next to the sobbing child and inspected the little one’s wounds. She would have scars from this event, but already they were healing. Whatever type of fey she was, she was a strong magic user.

  Still, Squirt carefully cleaned each one, bandaging them before setting her bedroll at the base of the earth tree where it was driest. She managed to usher the child over to it and lay her down to rest.

  Hiccupping from the remainder of her sobs, the child said, “He’s hurt.”

  Squirt gave the child a tired smile. “I’ll do his wounds next. Sleep now. You’re safe.”

  She’d barely finished when the child’s eyes fluttered shut, her breathing already evening out. Exhausted from the ordeal, but miraculously alive.

  Squirt stumbled back over to the pixie still passed out, managing to move him across the clearing to where it was drier. She pulled out the tent, using it as a makeshift bedroll to lay the man on his stomach as she took off his clothes to inspect his wounds.

  He had deep gouges that bled sluggishly from where he’d been hit during their desperate race. She frowned as she noticed he had other wounds, too. Older ones by a few days, bruises that were already yellow and fading.

  None of the wounds needed her to stitch them up, though she found she was dizzier now than before as she tended and cleaned his wounds, using the last of the salve on them.

  Finished, she covered him as best as she could to keep him warm, standing and noting the odd dark spot under her.

  Oh.

  She was bleeding.

  Badly.

  Whoops.

  Even with the pain, she was struggling to keep her eyes open. Not a good sign. Now would probably be a good time for that beacon, actually. She pulled it out of her pouch in case she didn’t make it through the night, setting it on the ground and tapping it with the pommel of her knife.

  It took several lethargic tries before she was able to crack the glass and make it shatter into glowing white dust.

  Nodding to herself, she cleaned out the wound of her leg that was still bleeding before she began stitching it up. Blood still dripped down her back from a wound there she didn’t remember getting, one she couldn’t reach. She cleaned it, removing her torn armor and clothes one piece at a time despite the darkness creeping in the edges of her vision. Reaching into her bag, she paused and heaved a dry laugh.

  Of course. She was out of bandages and salve now.

  She was going to bleed out before help arrived. She shifted to stand, only her legs wouldn’t cooperate, leaving her to drag herself over to the tree and lean back against it. Shakily, she pulled out the board, parchment, quill, and ink, and began writing down instructions. Then observations. Notes. Whatever she could think of as her vision began to fade.

  Eventually, her hand stopped moving despite her urging, her heartbeat slowing in her chest just as movement drew her eyes up to a shape emerging from the trees. Whatever it was, it kneeled, the diamond crane approaching to glance at its offering.

  Oh good. Help was here.

  She’d done it. She’d saved someone.

  With a smile, she leaned back and let darkness take her.

  Everysekai

  by Bluesycobalt

  > Female Lead with cast of developed side-characters

  > A lot of poking at Isekai tropes

  > Rational and Underpowered Protagonist fighting for her life

  > 1500-2500 Word Chapters

  Updates MWF at 7:10pm EST