"Don't let him get away!"
Those were Randulfr's orders to Giulia. They were orders only in name, for the girl didn't feel compelled to follow them. She did what she was told because she wanted to do it.
"Yes!" she responded full of vigor.
Why the man was now flying above her, although he should have been on the bottom of the ocean, she didn't understand. Yet frankly, she didn't care either, at least not now.
The bear who was this close to doing Giulia in was now running from her like its life depended on it. No, its life really depended on getting away from the white-haired woman.
Almost as if trying to yell "Stay away!" the bear ran with all its might, half terrified and half confused. She could tell from the way it was running that this bear too was shocked by how the tables had been turned that quick. What's more, the animal was yet to notice the flying Fjordheimer above them.
As she ran, Giulia saw the bear get smaller and smaller. Suddenly, it wasn't the alpha predator of the fjord anymore. It was now the size of a big wolf. Now it was a scrawny dog. Now it was as big as a rabbit. Giulia envisioned herself following a brown rabbit, and a fat one at that—one that could keep her and Randulfr fed for many days to come.
Looking at all of that running meat, Giulia's eyes lit up. A small flame shone in her pupil like a spark of newfound courage. She knew what she had to do, and she wasn't going to let her prey run away.
She followed the bear through the dense forest. She jumped over rocks, ducked under trees, and at one point even climbed them. She flew from one tree to another until she was just above the bear.
"Woah! Since when can you do all that?" Randulfr's voice resounded above her, but she paid it no mind. What she cared about was what was going on below.
Truly, her moves were far above what an average human could pull off. Even for her solid body—which she'd trained in order to protect and better serve her old master—such moves should have been impossible, yet she pulled them off with ease.
As Giulia jumped from one tree to another, her skin red from how much blood was being pumped into her muscles, she noticed that the bear was making a sharp turn to the left. Soon after, she noticed in her peripheral vision that what awaited her in a couple of jumps was a fall into another fjord.
"—can't cross it! Be careful, Giulia!"
Her hungry grin turned into a curious look, and only then did she hear the man flying above her as he shouted his warning. The fjords in Fjordheim were of many different sizes and heights. The largest among them were big enough to even host a whole village and never let it see the rays of the sun, and Giulia was about to fall into one such fjord. She only had one more tree branch to land on.
Now back to her senses, the woman used the time she had while midair to calculate her chances of stopping.
"None!" she shouted upon figuring it out. She had no way of stopping once she stepped on that branch. Were she to try, the inertia would take her much further, straight over the edge of the cliff and to her doom.
Looking across, the cliff on the other side was at least a hundred meters away, and while it was narrow for the standards of such a massive fjord, that was no jump a human could make on a whim.
"But that's not for me to decide! Randulfr! Can I make that jump?"
The man flying above her widened his eyes when he heard himself being called by name. His mind went blank for a second, knowing full well there was no way for a human to jump 100 meters.
Still, the flame in her eyes reflected all the way to the Murdering Wolf, and with a confident smile, he answered her.
"I don't care whether you can. You will make that jump!"
If she failed, Randulfr would catch her regardless. But she wouldn't fail. The man was sure of that, and that confidence reached Giulia soon enough.
"RAAAAAH!" the woman shouted. She pushed into her legs with all of her strength, tears ripping her pants as they were being stretched by Giulia's leg muscles.
With her inner flame dropping to her quads, Giulia pushed as hard as she could, and that push was more than enough to take her to the other side. Were things to truly go her way, that is.
Reaching the other side would have been easy, were it not for the branch failing to hold her the moment Giulia's legs were almost fully stretched. As thick as the branch was, the force Giulia pressed down on it with was too much, and together with the branch, the tree itself tilted back, leaving the woman with not enough support to push into. Thus, Giulia only managed to jump halfway.
Smack above the middle of the fjord, the woman was now in the worst possible position. The water below her was shallow, and the rocks waited to greet her for the last time. Still, her heart beat fast, not because of the fall, but because of the excitement of the hunt.
Now that the hunt was no more, Giulia's body relaxed. She spread her arms and fell while facing the sky.
"Ha…"
The gray clouds were now of a bright orange, the light of the early sunset reflecting on them from the ocean. No, what they reflected must have been the spark in her eyes, for that one burned brighter than everything around.
"Hahahahaha!"
With a loud, confident laugh, the girl was content with her free fall. No, she was enjoying it, giving Randulfr a sight he may never forget.
*****
Her waist felt warm—much warmer than the human body should have been.
The moment he grabbed her, he panicked, thinking that he may have burned her skin with his magic. Upon checking again, Giulia was fine, if only a little shocked now that reality started sinking in for her too.
"Get off!" he heard her shout, and through the magnetic field around them, Randulfr felt a wooden pike approach his hand—the only part of his body that hadn't transformed into electricity.
Reacting soon enough, the man transformed his left hand, which was being attacked, into energy, and unable to hold her with a single palm, he let Giulia fall again.
With widened eyes, the woman twisted her body and faced the incoming ground, looking for a place to land. Whether she'd found it or not mattered little, for Randulfr wouldn't leave her survival up to fate. He dived after the Reman lady and caught her by the hips.
While at first he used thunder magic to get to Giulia quicker, now that he was close enough, wind magic would suffice. Using this type of magic to shift the currents around his body also had the advantage of not having to transmute it, and while it was much less efficient at flight, it wouldn't shock Giulia as much.
Having decided on the right course of action, Randulfr grabbed firmly onto Giulia and pulled themselves up into the air.
*Crack*
Only when he heard the horrifying sound of Giulia's body not agreeing with the way it had been swung around did the man look down with a terrified expression. What he saw was hard to understand at first, and it made Randulfr's heart freeze, for he thought that he had only pulled up half of the woman, since he only saw her hips and legs.
Fortunately, upon taking another moment to look and register what he'd seen, he noticed the woman's head and torso were still well attached. The only issue was that they were folded over her legs.
"Randulfr, is that you?"
Or maybe she'd been bent even more than that, for the woman was able to look above at his shoes from that bent-over position. Regardless, the Fjordheimer quickly understood that he had pulled way too hard. Both of them were lucky that Giulia was surprisingly flexible despite her strong build.
In a rush to land and check on her, Randulfr quickly landed in the narrow fjord and let her down on her feet.
"Giulia! Are you hurt?" he asked in a hurry, but the woman only turned her head and looked at him with wide eyes. Was it the adrenaline from the chase? Was it the shock of free-falling? Was it fear directed at the man who had hurt her? Maybe she was only disappointed in failing to catch the bear.
A multitude of questions ran through Randulfr's mind, and no answer seemed more probable than the others. Not knowing what to say, he reciprocated Giulia's expression, and they both stared at one another with the same airheaded look. Even though the fjord was extremely narrow by now, allowing for only the two of them to stay uncomfortably close to one another, neither of them moved a muscle. Both of them were terrified of what the other may think if they did.
*Crack*
Or that's what went on in Randulfr's mind. For Giulia, the emotional shock was minimal, amounting to nothing compared to the anxiety she felt when she was truly alone.
What truly bothered the woman was the aftermath of her gymnastics session, and the crack that came from below her midriff was the confirmation for that.
"I'm never falling down a cliff again…" she whimpered, falling on her hands and knees to deal with the pain.
Randulfr also bent down, trying to comfort the girl whom he himself had hurt. Not being surprised by her girlish demeanor was normal, for in his head both the Giulia of now and the young princess who would do something like this coexisted.
After patting her on the back for a good minute, the man decided to speak.
"Giulia… Does it hurt that bad? Can you walk?"
"No… It doesn't hurt anymore. I'm fine."
"Then why are you sitting like this—"
As he was posing his question, the man noticed red stains below the lady.
"You're bleeding!?" he shouted, panicking and trying to get a better look at her, but there was no wound on her body.
"Then…"
"It's bear blood," Giulia answered before the man could ask anything, analyzing it with the eyes of a predator.
They rested in that fjord for the night and followed the trail through narrow passages the next day. It was a trail wide enough for only a person to pass. By now, Randulfr understood that this wasn't a naturally formed fjord.
"Bear fur," Giulia said, pointing at what lingered in a blood stain as she led the way.
"It's been hurt for a long time."
"It must have fallen off the cliff after it lost us. But why would it go through the effort of squeezing that large body through here?"
Randulfr's question went unanswered until the narrow passage opened into a wide open area surrounded by tall cliffs. The sun shone directly above the hole, shedding light upon a giant corpse that took its last breath right in the middle.
"It's still warm. It must have died this morning," Giulia added, unintentionally flaunting her hunter skills to the already plenty experienced man who walked up to her and pointed further ahead.
"And I doubt that that's got nothing to do with it…"
What Randulfr pointed at was a hole in the cliff right on the other side from where they had entered. No, to call it a mere hole would be naive, for it was clearly a carved-out entrance.
The sun was shining brightly on them, letting the two know that spring wasn't that far ahead anymore. However, for Giulia and Randulfr, that moment felt like the coldest one they had experienced all year.