Illica had stayed with me for several days as the great storm rattled the town and damaged the forests. I was glad to have the two of us in a sturdy structure with plenty of food and firewood to sustain my lizard lover and I.
But that was a nearly a month ago and now it was no longer forces of nature I feared I needed to protect my lovely Illica from but something far more dangerous; The legions.
For the last few days warriors of the empire had came and left my temporary home of Meridia, speaking to locals, warning travelers and scouring the forest for an evil beast that was ordered captured or killed by the local governor of the region. I knew before they even showed me the sketch that they had to be talking about my Illica.
Fortunately the fates seemed to have smiled on our love lately and Illica was no longer in the forest for them to find her. I had convinced my lovely Illica to join me in town the night before the soldiers arrived and she had been hiding with me ever since. I could tell how nervous she was and how much she wanted to run from the 'bad' men (as she called them) but their patrols made that too risky.
Until now.
I had been on my way home when the soldiers tacked up their orders in the central market and alerted who ever they saw as to their plan. Tracks had been found leading towards the city the previous night, tracks of something large, clawed, and unnatural. It had been decided that the only likely explanation for the tracks had to be the monster they were searching for and that since it couldn't be found someone had to be hiding it. Effective at the following dawn if whom ever was hiding the creature hadn't turn it over to the authorities the soldiers would begin searching every building until they found what they wanted.
Most of my fellow merchants and citizens were terrified at the thought that someone might hide such a hideous creature. I, on the other hand, was confused as to the where the set of tracks had come from since I had carefully destroyed them after she had entered town. More importantly though I was concerned not that they wouldn't find Illica like the other people but that they would.
As the sun set and I returned to my temporary home for what I assumed might be the last time I stopped off at a local food vendor, purchasing enough food for a large meal for Illica and I to share before we made our escape. I was hardly prepared for what was waiting for me in the small apartment though.
As I opened the door a crack and slipped inside I could feel a pair of cold, scaly hands grab my shoulders and drag me into my own room, knocking both myself and my food onto the ground. Illica had never been so agitated before but as I looked up from the floor at my attacker I began to realize her size and shape and color were wrong; It was not Illica that had attacked me but another reptilian.
