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Chapter VII, Two worlds one cave

At first Marcus was absolutely certain that what he was seeing was a dream, or at the vary least the product of the blood that had dripped into his eyes. Ayden on the other hand was blissfully unaware of the human staring at him.

"This must be a dream... this can't be real..." Marcus thought to himself "Any Minute now I'm gonna wake up in the hospital..." He blinked expecting the image of the man-fox to disappear and wake up in a rubber room or hospital bed... "Great now its tail is in my face..." Ayden's tail gently brushed against Marcus face.

"Wait a minute... that felt too real..."

Ayden sat facing away from the human, he watched the fire flicker and cast its soft orange glow. His tail swished gently back and forth, an old habit his family had unsuccessfully tried to break.

First the first time since finding the creature, his mind was off the thing. His thoughts were "What now?". Once the creature was dealt with what would he do? He doubted that he would find himself in Gaillen any time soon. And he could forget being a normal denizen of the realm; the mark of a slave would see to that, plus from what he understood fox's were prized property. But another problem was how long could he hide in this cave?

How long would it be before another traveler came across this oasis? He had no experience in the desert whatsoever and he found it, so how likely was it before another did. And when another found his way across the cave what could he expect? It was highly unlikely that they would sit and sing. It was vary possible that he may just encounter another slaver, he may even encounter the same slaver from which he just escaped!

It was becoming painfully clear that he should leave while he still had the option before his rations ran out. But where would he go? Where could he go? He had never even learned the name of the closest realm to Gaillen, let alone the other side of the world! He did not even know if he had run north, south, east or west!

Ayden sighed softly, his mind turned back to the creature, he turned to check on it and froze, and it was staring right at him...

For a moment the two simply locked eyes, but the frightful nature of each other to the other set in soon enough and both screamed and backed too opposite walls. For Ayden it was like running into a werewolf, and for Marcus it was well... more or less the same.

After the two had screamed themselves raw Marcus shot out "What the hell are you!?"

To Ayden this sounded like "W(??)t the (????) (?Are?) You!?"

He replied with a lovely "What are you!?'

To Marcus this sounded a little something like "Weir tih ueil!?"

Both stared at each other for roughly ten minuets until Ayden got tired and Marcus's adrenalin burst died and his weak muscles collapsed. Both sank to the floor, neither taking their eyes from each other. Ayden was aghast that such a large creature stared at him, and Marcus was well, Aghast as well.

For another six minuets they watched each other. Ayden broke the terrified silence "Well... What are you?"

Marcus heard "Wae... Weir tih ueil?" he was greatly unnerved by the 'fox's' stare. He may as well attempt to communicate, he pointed to himself, and the fox said "Weir tih ueil?" Marcus now understood (what are you?)

"...M-A-R-C-U-S... Marcus," the human pointed at himself.

The fox looked at him for a moment before trying the word "maarcoose?"

"Mar-cus,"

"Marc'oose?"

"no, no, no, Marcus,"

"Marc'uus?"

Marcus pinched the bridge of his nose before finally saying "Mark,"

The vulpine looked at him sideways "Marc?"

"Fine, Fine, Marc..." he gave in. he looked at the 'fox' it accent sounded almost Welsh or Scottish. He opened his mouth one more time "now... what are you?"

to Ayden this sounded like "(???)... (?What?) are you?" feeling confident that 'Marc' asked him his name and he proudly said "Ayden,"

Marcus cocked his eyebrow "A'din?" he tried but found that he had difficulty pronouncing the fox's name.

The fox shook his head "Ni, ni, Ay-den,"

"Aaden?"

"Ayden,"

"Aeden?"

"Ayden,"

"Aden?"

The fox sighed, this was as close as they would get and he gave in "Aden,"

This continued on for a few hours, eventually they managed to get down the rudimentary of each others speech, like 'yes' 'no' and of course 'it'...

• + + +

A week later...

"Aden... (?are?) you sure (?that?) we go (?This?) way?" Marcus asked.

Ayden looked at him he had understood most of what he now knew was a 'Humon' "Yih [yes] Iss [this] wevv [?way?]"

Both watched each other carefully, despite a week to learn more of each other, neither really trusted each other to a good degree. But if Marcus wanted to find his way, in this world he needed a guide and 'Aden' would do, on the flipside Ayden would be less likely to be harmed well traveling with a large monster next to him.

Ayden had successfully broken the minor language barrier between them... sort of; they still had a great deal of difficulty understanding each other, Ayden said that 'Marc's' tongue was to archaic, and Marcus said that 'aden' sounded like a drunk Irish sailor.

Of course over the week Marcus had regained much of his strength and the 'fox' had convinced him of the urgency to leave...

"Aden, where are we (?even?) going?" Marcus called as they began to march into the desert, water rations full to the brim of coarse.

Ayden thought for a moment and said "Gaillen," which was technically not a lie.

"well where the (????) is that?!" Marcus persisted...