180 Made his way through the fores (1/2)

”Then she should also be capable of surviving it right?”, Ivan asked. He wasn't trying to reassure the other person since he seemed to be very calm.

”Yeah. It is truly a miracle. Not only does she manage to always get into trouble she also manages to get out of it. And in the few cases where it didn't seem likely, it was weirdly exactly when I arrived there to fetch her back.”

”Wow, she really is a handful.”

”You don't even know half of it.”

He then told Ivan some stories about what his little aunt had done or gotten into. It was very entertaining to hear those stories and they made time flow by.

While they talked, Vlada had carried them over the grassland and the forest came into view at the horizon.

A look at the compass revealed that the girl was still somewhere in front of them. She should have entered the forest.

”I knew it.”, Ivan's new companion exclaimed, ”There is no way she would just stay in the peaceful grasslands.”

”Well, as long as she is only in the forest we can still find her swiftly.”

”Thank you once again for your help.”, he thankfully told Ivan.

”No problem. It is on my way anyways.”

While they were flying over the forest he slowly got nervous. Until now he hadn't been worried about his aunt but now that they went further into the forest he started to get worried. The danger here was much higher than further out towards the grassland. Especially when the terrain got more mountainous.

”Damn, how far did this girl get?”, he said in a worried tone.

”Could she have something to ride on?”, Ivan asked. He didn't think that a small girl would be able to get this far without any steed.

”I checked beforehand and she didn't take any of our families steeds.”

”Then could she have gotten it somewhere else?”

”I can't eliminate this possibility. But let's hope not, or it would get much more difficult to catch up with her.”

Sadly it got more apparent as time went on, that the girl must have gotten her hands on some kind of steed, as they hadn't caught up even after flying over the forest for a long time.

Slowly the ground below them changed as the trees got less and less and the terrain got rockier and rockier. The mountain peaks that had seemed far away before also got closer and now completely filled the horizon.

There was also an increasing number of black spots visible on the sky before them. Meanwhile, the compass still pointed straight ahead.

”We will have to land.”, Ivan said when he saw those black spots. He knew that they were the monsters that inhabited the skies above the mountains. And they weren't something he wanted to mess with.

”Yeah.”, a sound of agreement came from the other rider.

With Ivan's command, Vlada started to dive towards a small clearing in the forest.