I don't remember much of that night's passing, only the morning when I work with a start. I must have been having bad dreams, for my head was resting on Angel's lap, as my mother used to do when I was little. After my eyes adjusted to the dimness of the cave, I regarded Angel's face and said very slowly. "After we go to the next town's shrine. You must guide me to your shrine."

The reaction I got was completely unexpected. Not once in my eighteen years, have I seen Angel look afraid. Not once. She faced down even the biggest and mean tempered monsters my father and I have raised, and never once flinched. I quickly found my head laying on the cave floor, and Angel backing up to the cavern wall with a look of abject terror on her face. She was even making strangled noises in her throat. Needless to say, I was surprised.

After I sat up, I repeated the last part. "You must take me there." My first actual demand of any monster I've come to train.

The look on her face became one of a prisoner begging to be given a different fate. "Please, Angel. My father wanted this. You must take me there." I opened the box, and showed her the fragment. This changed her expression again, into that of resignation. With a sad nod, she stood and started getting ready.

Maybe my mind was too clouded at the time with the events of the night before to notice, but that was the first time she ever looked depressed too.

Gathering our things, stamping out the fire and making absolutely sure we didn't forget anything, we left the camp site, heading northeast towards the next town. Not wanting to risk anyone from our old home finding us, we walked off the road toward our destination.

The trip would take almost a full day. If we didn't stop we would arrive by nightfall, in time for dinner. Even with the slightly more difficult conditions, we still made it about an hour after sunset.

But the walk gave me time to think. What would be so horrible, that my father refused to tell me outright, and would shake Angel to the monster equivalent of a human wetting themselves in fear? Why would the villagers burn my home down for the secret my father and Angel held?

These questions repeated themselves over and over in my head. I even thought once to turn back and find out, but the instant I started to turn, Angel was standing in front of me, that same resigned look on her face, blocking my path back. I remember feeling a bit embarrassed at my mental looping, as I turned back in the right direction and kept walking.

As we came into sight of the town, I remember just how tired I was. Angel looked about the same, her wings drooping, her eyes half open. We headed to the only place with lights on, an inn, and entered. The room wasn't much, and nobody gave Angel more than a second glance as we made our way to the room, and readied for sleep. I remember though, Angel stumbling once on a wrinkle in the small carpet of the room, and then her desperate dive to catch the sacred disk she was holding. Catching it at the same time as her, I felt something slide across my mind. A single whispering word, Duuuuuurrrrrraaaaaaahhhhhhaaaaaannnnnnnn.

Shocked, we both dropped the disk to the floor. That had never happened to me before.

After putting the disk away, we both went to sleep. Seeing how tired Angel was, I told her to take the single bed in the room, while I slept on the floor in my sleeping roll. Tired as she was, she still gave me the 'but you're the master' look. In return, I gave her my best 'yes I AM your master' look, and she took the bed.

I remember the next morning waking with stiff legs and a sore back. Amazing how clear things like pain stand out in one's memory. As I got up and stretched, I looked over to Angel, curled up into as small a ball as she could be, and sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. In the early morning light, I looked out the window and at the town we had arrived in. Small, not unlike the village I had just left, it had no stone buildings at all. Just wood cabins and a couple of sod huts on the very edge of town. Odd really. Most towns with a shrine prospered quite well, the monsters helping with trade, building, and entertainment. As I watched the people of the town wake up and go about things, I saw why. Nobody in this town had a monster with them.

Angel woke up about an hour later, after my legs had stopped complaining about yesterday's hike. Going down stairs with our gear, I paid the innkeeper for the night, and some food fit for travel. At the mention of 'travel' Angel once again took on that expression from the cave. Hopelessness.

Leading poor Angel to the shrine, after a stop for directions, we arrived to another surprise. The shrine was abandoned almost completely. Save for a few small animals, a barnyard cat, and a rather interesting pattern of moss along the walls, this shrine was empty. Making our way through the half collapsed halls and to the main room, we found the shrine's once beautiful domed ceiling and marble statues in the same state of disrepair.

Looking closer however, this wasn't just weathered stone. Claw marks along the walls and pillars. Scorched stone under the moss. And worst of all, lost discs buried under the fallen ceiling. A battle had been fought here. We also found rusted spearheads and swords, bits of armor or dropped monster items. So that's why nobody in this town had a monster. This shrine was a burial ground.

It was almost a days work in itself to clear the shrine of rubble, enough so that it was useable. But finally, we were ready to bring forth the monster in the disk.


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Come on people. comment or somthing. Please?

This was chapter 3 right?

I like it so far, but I need to pay more attention as I completely missed chapter 2.

Whoops... knew I forgot to do somthing when I made the title... Sorry about that.