Kind of

The beast seemed to reel for a moment, Vel could tell both by feeling its mind and seeing it physically flinch. It did not, however, fuck off. At least not immediately. Vel registered surprise in its mind, and then oddly, satisfaction. The presence he felt pulled back and Vel lost the connection and insight into the beast’s mind. He tried to push his own to follow, not knowing how he knew to do that, but encountered a wall of some kind. Perhaps it had thrown up some defenses. A moment later, it turned on its heel and, blessedly, fucked off.

Somewhat shaken, they had agreed to turn around and head back the way they came. With them being halfway around the estate this wouldn’t be any faster than just continuing, but retreading the path they knew to be monster free seemed a lot more appealing right now. Apart from the short conversation where they agreed on that, they had been riding in silence for the last few minutes, both trying to come to terms with what they had seen. In an unusual turn for the twins, Vel was actually the first to break the silence “So what the fuck was that?” Adeline let out a kind of nervous sounding laugh. “I don’t know brother, you’re the scholarly twin not me, have none of those big tomes mentioned something like this?” Vel was indeed an avid reader, on bad days when his leg pained him to the point of being unable to leave his bed, there wasn’t much else to do after all. And unlike fighting, it had always been something he did purely for his own enjoyment, he knew his father would never approve of having a scholar as a son. But no, no book had mentioned something exactly like this, however… “No, no book I’ve read has described a beast like that. The Elflands are supposedly inhabited by creatures we can scarcely imagine though, perhaps it came from there?” Adeline seemed skeptical “That’s pretty far away, and like, is that how you imagine a creature from the Elflands? I always assumed they’d be all nice and bright looking.” Despite how it sounded, Adeline had a point. The Elflands and its inhabitants were usually described with terms like fair, beautiful, and enchanted. Not dark, terrifying, and haunting. “That’s actually a good point Adi, but I don’t know what else it could have been." Vel thought he heard Adeline mutter something about his use of the word “actually” under her breath, but after that they lapsed back into silence.