Olimpia

"Any day now, Green," Kanieta chimed as she skipped around me to stand with the rest of the group, making them seem like some kind of united front. "meandering through the forest is getting boring. That's our quarry right there, right? Go ahead and lead us to them."

I kept my mouth shut and eyed where the group of humans was disappearing, quickly constructing a detector while ignoring the vixen. Saying anything would only encourage Kanieta. Saying nothing would also encourage her, as she could tell how much her words irritated me, but her comments came less often, and it was more time spent glaring and stalking around me before appearing in strange places to startle me than comments.

Bottom line, I either chose to enter into a verbal spar I could not see the end of or tried to ignore her impressive acrobatic acts while she sporadically mocked me.

At least this way, I got to focus more and occasionally see something impressive, not that I would tell her. And I got to walk around and look at the nature around me. You always had to focus on the silver lining in a shitty situation.

I was long past beginning to question the worth of how I spent my life with the way this day was going. And I had the feeling that it was just going to get worse when… ahh, fuck. I mentally grumbled as I felt a ping on my tendril. I couldn't even enjoy a sense of accomplishment at the speed at which I constructed my detector tendril, as it only confirmed that the one I wanted was in the group Kanieta found.

I knew the one I was chasing was near. I now knew how many there were, and I could find their trail, but I was trying to cut them off so as not to spend days we didn't have running them down with an exhausting endurance chase.

That wasn't an option. And neither was giving up. Because, at this point, giving up now would be more embarrassing than continuing what had been a pointless chaise up until now.

Every decision I made ended up being wrong. If I tried to get in front of them by taking what looked like a shortcut or pushing us to a speed to overtake them, I found more often than not that I was farther away than before.

Tracking their trail wouldn't help in the short term either, as they spent more time walking along the bare ground and rock than fields of grass and over leaves, making me wonder if they had in-depth knowledge of every inch of this valley.

Whenever that thought popped into my mind, I immediately called kawrashit on it and pushed it away.

Because there were no signs of anyone living in this valley. Sure, I would bet my life on hunters coming through this area occasionally, but other than them, humans walking between these hills must be few and far between. And these people were not hunters.

Sure, people who like pointing out other's faults and mistakes would say that I was not looking like the most credible source at the moment. And then those three stupid-tailed individuals would go on to point out every time I had to change directions, but that had nothing to do with their abilities as hunters.

No one in the group we were pursuing was a hunter or scout. One look at what I now knew was their trail told me that. And if any one of them had been into the heart of the forest more than once, I would be surprised.

This had to be the first time they were inside this valley. So how the hell were they dodging me so well?

There could only be one explanation, and as I watched my prey suddenly change directions before me, it was confirmed.

I knew the ripple wasn't a pulse or any other use of mental energy because I would have felt it. And it wasn't that the ripple was somehow the ambient energy controlled by will, as I was reasonably confident I would have detected that too. Everything was leaving me at a loss for what to call it, as it didn't fit into any one category.

It was the energy of the world with no mental energy or willpower I could detect. Over the course of the day, I eventually broke down and asked Kanieta if she knew how they were manipulating the world's energy, and her response was surprising. Because she actually responded.

She stopped mocking me for a moment, a look of contemplation coming over her face. "It shouldn't be possible. The only way I know of your people's affecting ambient energy is to create a dome of your mental energy and push it away, but it isn't a direct effect. And it only spreads a small distance." Then she said something snide about how I must be missing what was really happening, completely ignoring how she couldn't feel anything at all. Not that it stopped her from getting the last laugh in the end, as she did find them…

The thing was, despite everything I was detecting, it still felt like a pulse to me. And the group's reactions pointed to that, too.

But that was impossible. We weren't chasing a knight or a city lord. Having that amount of mental energy and willpower to keep up a series of casting for hours was just impossible for average citizens, not even considering all of the other factors.

Another point was that it seemed to be coming at the same interval, a consistency you only saw in machinery. Though again, I couldn't be entirely sure, as according to Kanieta, I was 'having trouble keeping my little antenna erect.'

…Should have never described what I was doing to her. Couldn't even say anything to contradict her, as she was technically correct. The worst type of correct when on the opposing side.

Still, I was fairly sure I could detect one about every minute. I did not know the exact time, but it made sense that I detected it at all if it was happening fairly often.

The question still remained of why and how it was happening at all. I had a theory, but it didn't make me feel any better. It actually made this all worse in… a lot of ways. Though better in some.

I had to accept that however it worked or how it was being done, the result was a pulse. There was no other explanation. With that line of thought, the person was detecting me… No, detected us every minute. And that would mean… Crows take you.

Standing up from where I had crouched, blankly staring at the hillside the procession was on, I turned to those gathered behind me.

You know the people who — regardless of their intelligence and demeanors — were still beastkin. It didn't matter what they called themselves. With any means of detection, be it with mental energy or even sight, you didn't get a person's entire backstory.

And when you find yourself traveling through hostile territory, trusting in stereotypes and first impressions generally keeps you alive. They existed for a reason, after all.

How would they know that these beastkins didn't mean them harm?

Eyes settling on Franklin and Hurring, my eyes narrowed in thought.

"Are you finally going to give up on your pointless fascination with this group? I guess that we do have better things to do." Rang out Kanieta's voice from where she stood off to the side, lounging in a tree like the first time I met her.

"No," I said, turning to look at her, giving her an overly pleasant smile that made her fox ear twitch and eyes narrow in suspicion. "I need my handicaps to leave."

"What?" Kanieta said, sounding affronted.

"Whatever I'm feeling is detecting us," I stated with a wave in the general direction of where I last felt the ripple, though it had probably already moved. "And they aren't running from me."

Her eyes narrowed, and her ears laid back like she was angry at me for a few seconds. Then she threw her head back and gave a cackling belly laugh.

Looking at her blankly for a moment, I felt my heart pound and my face flush with embarrassment and irritation. "When did you know?" I ground out through my clenched teeth.

"Know?" Kanieta asked, "I still don't know. But I suspected a couple hours ago."

I had nothing to say. Really, if I wasn't so distracted trying to time the source of the ripple and then become so invested and focused trying to catch up to it. As if it had personally wronged me, I would have seen the signs. They were right there in front of me.

If it wasn't me, I might even say it was funny. "Stay here," I said, my voice somewhat tight with embarrassment as I turned and started moving through the brush, hardly a sound to mark my passage. Though the ringing bell of Kanieta's laugh and the rumbling chortles could be heard wide and far.

Pushing the sounds of laughter from my mind, I focused on my mission. Self-imposed that it might be, I was not going to fail. I would rather die than fail at this point!

I stumbled as I took a step, coming to a stop as I fought with an overwhelming urge to run forward without the slightest care of what or who I might run into. The internal struggle lasted for seconds, and my body started to shake as adrenalin spread through my body with my pounding heart.

With a gasp, I slumped forward, falling to my knees and hands. My fingers dug into the soil, causing tiny pricks of pain as the small thorns on the dried leaves dug into my palms and fingers.

My chest heaved as my mind processed the spike of my emotions before flat-lining. In some ways, the drastic shift in emotions was worse than suddenly having my mind filled with rage or fear. Because the fall was farther, and I just felt hollowed out afterward.

I heaved a deep breath, getting my breathing back under control, then staggered to my feet. Looking at the trial, I was plain as day that it was heading south, across the valley again, but that meant little.

The group I was pursuing has crisscrossed the valley over the last few hours. But my instincts were telling me that they were going to head back north.

There was a small ripple in the contour of the northern hill, and it could easily contain a gorge running up the length of its slope. It was a complete guess, but the worst thing that would happen was losing a bit of time.

It was kind of hard to lose a person who was constantly sending a beacon out into the world. Which only makes not being able to catch them all the worse…

Shaking my head, I focused on gliding through the forest, having less effect than a gentle breeze on this surroundings. I enjoyed the sounds of nature as I traveled, as it had been a long time since I had been in a forest without the pressure of a mission hanging over my head.

Sure, there was still the danger of the Crescent Moon, but for whatever reason, it just felt distant to me.

In less than half an hour, I traveled the four miles to the dip in the hillside.

Breaking out of the forest edge, I saw that I was right. Up close, it became clear that what looked like a slight dip in the landscape initially became a sharp ten-foot drop that ran up three-fourths of the hillside. Even then, it would be easy to miss figures moving up that section unless they happened to be right in front of the gully.

From my angle, I could not see all of the rocky depths, meaning it would be easy for people to hide, but I didn't even need to look to know if my guess about their path was right. I could hear a clattering of stones and curses coming from the gully.

"Leeroy," Echoed a tired voice from its confines, "Why are you slowing?"