Adventures of Jessa: the Adventures Continue

3

Jessa and Dhiren had gotten quickly to the stream and they each were more than happy to take long drinks. Jessa hears the guards coming and decides to teach them a lesson that hopefully they won't forget.

Fortunately Jethro had given them the promised help once they successfully transformed. Jessa hides in the forest and makes her way to the noisiest of the guards. She puts her knife to their throat.

The guards lift hands in chagrined surrender each time she does that.

She makes her way back to Dhiren and manages to get Sorsha by surprise but she reacts far better than any of the others. She immediately does counter measures and they have a mock fight until she surrenders as well.

"Princess, it's good to see that you have lost none of your skills." Sorsha tells her smiling widely.

"Only thanks to Lord Jethro. Congratulations on being the only one to make it here silently." She turns to the others that come shame faced into the small clearing. "As punishment you will need to find two decent sized deer or elk for us to eat." The other guards nod and melt into the woods far quieter than they'd been before.

"What did you do to them, Jessa? They are far more quiet than they'd been before." Dhiren says, even with his enhanced ears he hardly hears them.

"I held knives to their throats. I'm not sure they were sure that I wouldn't slice them a bit."

Dhiren and Sorsha both look at her with unsure looks. "Would you have?" Dhiren finally says.

"Sorsha, what do you think I would do?" Jessa demands.

"You just scared the shit out of them. You had no intentions of killing them. You've been working with them too long to actually kill them."

Jessa smiles at Sorsha. "Very good, Sorsha." Sorsha pleases her more and more. She just wishes that there was some way to remove the dark shadows that are in her eyes. Sorsha has come a long way in the years since she became a guard. Both as a guard and as a person.

She hopes that taking down the sun elves the same way that she took down the moon elves, only on an  escalated time scale will help Sorsha regain the happy eyes she had before that epic fight years ago, the one that the father of her children didn't survive.

Sorsha needs to find someone to love. Perhaps on this trip, in between the subterfuge and fighting she might find love. Then whoever it is that wins her heart will survive the coming fight. 

That sobers Jessa up a bit. She hopes that they all will survive the upcoming fight, but there are no guarantees. There are none in life.

Jessa's now depressing thoughts are interrupted by Kelton when he returns to the small clearing where they are resting. "Prince, Princess, we have the meat that you requested. Since they are rather decent sized animals, we thought to leave them in a larger clearing."

Kelton blushes when both Dhiren and Jessa focus their attention on him. He explains himself further. "We thought you might want to eat as your dragons and there would be more room in the glade, more room than here."

"Thank you, Kelton, you are correct. For the amount of food we need it would take us days to eat in our original forms. Once we get there, you and the others won't want to watch so you'll need to make a perimeter around us and look outwards." Jessa doesn't even want to watch, but the need to eat a large quantity of meat is making itself known rather demandingly at that moment. 

They make their way to the large clearing and indeed there are two decent sized animals waiting to be eaten. At the smell of their blood Jessa has a hard time not running towards them and fall on them immediately. With the smell of the meat distracting her it does take her a minute or so longer to focus sufficiently to make the change once more.

Dhiren manages to control his instincts long enough to wait for Jessa to change. She is shocked at hearing his voice in her mind once she does. She hadn't realized that she would be able to, it wasn't something any of the dragons had told her would happen. She smiles, it is a good thing to happen.

"Jessa, you are even more dazzling as a dragon as you are in your natural form." Dhiren's warm words and affection that come through make her smile and if she had been in her human form she would be blushing like crazy.

Jessa tells him thanks before the smell of the meat has their absolute attention. They are barely able to restrain themselves from falling on the dead animals like mindless beasts, their instincts nearly completely overriding everything else.

Jessa is less than thrilled at how messy she ate. "I'm going to wash up from this nasty, are you coming Dhiren?" Jessa asks moving back towards the creek.

"Of course, love. I have no desire to keep this bloody look than you do." It doesn't take long for them both to return to the creek, drink some more water and wash up a bit. There Dhiren practices the spell to return him to his elven form.

It takes him more than one try, but eventually he gets it right and the Dhiren she had come to know and love was once more before her. He's smiling at her as much as she's smiling at him, both filled relief that the other made the transformation and that they'll have at least a little bit more time together. How much? No one knows, not even Lady Fate.

"We need to get back to the others. I want to know how many others those traitors killed and if they managed to capture them all." Jessa says nearly snarling. She doesn't like traitors and Snodgrass has proven himself as such more than once to her way of thinking. Then there is the whereabout of Selnick. She had thought he was long dealt with and to over hear them saying that he actually escaped. That angers her more than a little.

"Peace, love. It will be taken care of, I'm sure." Dhiren didn't like the thought of the traitors having killed others of his people or not being taken into custody just as maddening as Jessa. He finds that his temper is more angry than before and suspect the same is true of Jessa.

Jessa has the patience of a saint when it comes to others, but Snodgrass has long been a problem to her. He also suspects if might have something to do with her now fully wakened dragon side. Gold dragons have a strong sense of law and those that break it are hunted down and dealt with.  He doesn't understand why Selnick hadn't been dealt with sooner, he'd heard the deities talking as well. Didn't make much sense to him since he was dealing with turning and not dying at the time and he couldn't afford to pay attention to what they were saying.

"We'll be finding out alright. Are you ready to go back and get some answers now?" Jessa softens her demand as she looks at her new husband.

Dhiren smiles at her and takes her proffered hand and the walk out of the forest. 

Dhiren is confused at the new comer, but he's even more confused at the angry reaction Jessa has to him. 

"You again," Jessa says coming back to the camp and seeing the sun elf deity exclaims, her voice filled with contempt.

Jessa practically growls.

Dhiren looks at the new comer and smirks. He has a feeling he knows who the person is and can't wait to see how Jessa deals with him.