"Look at this!"

"Aw, he's so cute!"

Wygar Von Greire, the third son from the honorable Von Greire family, scowled at the two humans who were making cooing sounds at him. Cooing sounds! As if he was an infant or some sort of baby animal! His scowl deepened when one of the humans dared to lower itself on the ground and pick him up with its hands.

"Do you have it?" the infant female who held him in its hands asked, and the other one smiled.

"Yes! Yes, I do! Here." Wygar barely had enough time to breathe before one of the females showed the other a pot and, with care, proceeded to slip the two of them slid him into it.

Wygar sighed. It was the third time he had been met with just such a situation since he woke up on that pile of straw, exactly three hours ago. What was it with the human race that they thought honorable beings such as himself were collectible? Still, a great being such as himself wouldn't find the situation troublesome – maybe annoying, or even irritating at the worst - if he hadn't much worse things to worry about.

So he once again swallowed the desire to explain to those humans that no, he was not 'cute'. What he was was a legendary warrior from the great Ascardia, the land of gods. He was a lugyeri, and an adult one at that, mind you, a being of legends that was temporarily gracing their realm with his imponent presence.

These humans should have been amazed, honored to have been one of the few to be in the presence of a warrior of the lugyeri; they should be bowing, revering him as their better, their superior. They should not be putting him inside a pot made of glass, nor carrying him away from his temporary home and definitely not thinking that he was cute.

Because he was not.

So, the humans were a tad bigger - ok, a lot bigger. The first time he'd seen a human, eons ago, he had been a tad intimidated. After all, it was hard not to be intimidated by beings that were triple, even quadruple your size.

But he hadn't faltered - a warrior of the lugyeri race did not falter, no. They often faced death with a smile on their face, following the brave God of Air and Storms' commands and fighting until either victory or oblivion.

Now, after spending quite some time with his pet human - a tiny female named Nephelle - he found that he no longer thought of them as being threatening.

Well, maybe his pet was a little more threatening. He felt a little pride when he thought of it, as he had mentored his pet into growing both as a magic user and as a fighter. Of course, it was never going to be as good as he was - it was human, after all, even if it did earn a few perks from the Gods, it would always be just a human.

And it didn't even have the advantages that most humans had - while it was bigger than him, it was still tiny close to most humans - which was why he called it his tiny pet.

Nephelle found it funny for some reason - he could remember his pet laughing at him the day he gifted it with an explanation, the silly human. It should have felt honored to have been graced with his presence alone, never mind an explanation - and she dared to laugh at him!

Well, for some reason he didn't feel as offended as he ought to have been... Probably because he felt a certain kinship to it, as Nephelle - much like himself - had soon found itself locked away from its world. No family, no friends, no nothing.

Its laughter felt a bit like a gift itself... Not that he liked his pet. No. It was just...

Yeah, he understood his little pet.

So, maybe that was why he had decided to adopt Nephelle. He admired the way that it never complained of loneliness, even though anyone could easily see it on the way it talked to plants, carved animals, curtains and... well, nothing sometimes. Even he had never resorted to that...

But then again a warrior of the lugyeri race never felt loneliness. It was a weakness that they did not have. Though a proud race, the lugyeri were not afraid to admit their weaknesses – 'the one who resists owning to their faults is owned by them', Wygar remembered Master Kyan, his favorite, saying. During his long life, he had been called many things but never stupid nor coward... Even if it had definitely been stupidity that had led him on this path he threaded right now, on more ways than one.

What had prompted him to interfere, he wondered, even as he glared at the human girls who dared to carry him - him! Of all people! A noble, honored warrior of the Von Greire lineage! He couldn't bear to think of what his antecessors were thinking of him, they must be turning on their graves. He knew his limits - he was barely an inch tall, on a world of giants. Even the little flying things people called birds seemed to be out for him, only giving up - sometimes - when they learned that he, as well, was a master of flight.

He could use air magic - which was proving to be bloody frustrating. Sure, he could whip a tornado or cause a storm, but to what purpose? He would surely be carried away to yet another place or another time.

And he would still be alone.

Not that he cared. A warrior of the lugyeri race was never lonely, not ever. And if he ventured closer to every human village and city - even after being captured in a glass made prison by a couple of particularly nasty humans - well, it wasn't because he was looking for his missing pet.

He didn't care for it at all.

He wasn't missing the sound of its voice as it chattered at nothing at all or the little house that it had built for him. Nor the little chair it had carved, or the little bites of a thing it called cookies that it left for him to find.

He didn't miss it at all. He was used to having little or even nothing, so this wasn't something new.

With a sigh, he stared around himself. The little females were carrying him around a path filled with flowers and there were some blueish lights hanging from the trees. It would be rather pretty and he would have admired the human's ability to make something already beautiful even more striking... if the little females weren't shaking the glass with every cheery step they gave. He could probably slip away from this place and dodge the humans - for all they were tall, their brains didn't always seem to grow with their sizes, it was almost laughingly easy to slip away through their big fingers and hide away in the grass.

Still, after this long of a hunt, he couldn't help but feel deflated. Yet another village, yet another human, yet no pet.

Where was his pet?

His belly rumbled and he sighed. He knew he was hungry, but had no will to try to leave his glass prison... not yet. Yes, he was a great warrior of the lugyeri race, but he was no longer a youngster. Were him at home, he would have quite a bunch of kids and grandkids to surround him, all begging for tales of his many adventures.

Unbidden, came the images to his head. His little pet loved hearing the stories of his adventures, particularly the ones that involved his lovely Lariah. How was she now, that he had been gone for so many years? Had she married again? Had she beheaded their children in their sleep when she married again, as the custom demanded?

Or had she remained alone to raise their six babies?

She would be able to do either, he knew. Lariah was a force to be reckoned and he wouldn't be surprised to discover that not only had she raised their babies but that she had also been looking for a way to bring him back home.

It wouldn't surprise him if she succeeded.

He watched as the girls reached a place - a place he guessed was their home, as they walked into it with no fear. Laughingly, they ran inside so fast that he couldn't quite take note of his surroundings. Soon, however, they opened a door and arrived at a place he guessed was their bedroom, because it looked a lot similar to his pet's. Their giggles became even louder as they dropped him onto a bed and rushed towards a dresser to revolve inside it, seeming to search for something.

Taking a deep breath, he dropped to the floor. Soon, he promised himself, soon he would venture out and grab some food. He would go to whatever stood for a resting spot for travelers, listen to the music, to the voices, and hope to discover something. A whisper of a name, a voice, maybe even a physical description of someone like it.

Like his pet.

Not that he was missing it, mind you.

After everything that had happened to him, Nephelle had listened to him. It had given him freedom and also, in a way, a home. A place to come back to, that he knew was safe, warm, and that had plenty of food.

Nephelle had kept him safe for so long, he felt like he owed his pet a little something.

Not that he needed Nephelle's help, mind you. He had been completely able to chug along, as he had just been, proving to any who might have doubted him. He was perfectly able to survive without any help.

But Nephelle might not have been. He didn't remember much from that awful night, but he remembered having seen it, he remembered it had been badly wounded... dying.

It smiled at him - a peaceful, accepting smile. He would never forget that sight: he had seen it far too often from his comrades during battles. It was the peace that came with knowing that you had died for something that was right, that was fair. You died for your cause.

He remembered thinking that it was wrong. His pet was a happy little thing, it was rare the moments he caught her staring at nothing, her eyes filling with tears. And when it was sure there wasn't anybody around, it cried.

Of course, he had been around - his little pet was just a human, after all. It didn't have his perception of the ambient, honed by his intense training and the sheer wonder that was being of the lugyeri race. He had been blessed with many gifts, the one of hiding unnoticed and being able to detect another's presence was just one of them.

But he couldn't lie and tell that he didn't feel a bit of pride at witnessing the tears of a warrior - he might even have shed one or two of his own, not that he would ever admit it out loud. It hit him then that he respected Nephelle, one warrior to another.

The fact that she was of an inferior race didn't diminish her feats, quite the opposite, really. And if Nephelle was able to impress him, a great warrior of the Von Greire lineage, she would be able to do great feats indeed.

Determined, he had tried to yell at her. To shout at his pet, telling it to hang on, to keep fighting... but it felt as if the whole world was crumbling around him. The world was melting into nothingness, and he was falling... His last memory of his pet was of her smiling at him, that peaceful, sad little smile of acceptance of its fate.

But it wasn't dead.

He was very sure of it, his little pet wasn't dead. Wygar had to find it so he could see if it was alright, if it needed food, if it had found shelter.

It wasn't dead.

It didn't matter to him that Nephelle was badly wounded, or that they had tumbled into Philtria, the human continent. It didn't matter that he couldn't even calculate how far they had fallen - until he found his pet's body sprawled somewhere, he refused to believe it.

He was going to find his human pet.

But not because he missed it or, the gods forbid, because he was attached to his human pet. It was just a pet, and like he had adopted one he could easily adopt another clueless human.

Still, it wasn't the honorable thing to do - and his pet deserved this. It had been a good pet.

And he was an honorable warrior of the lugyeri race.

He still remembered clearly his mother telling him, with pride in her voice, of all the things she was expecting of him. She would want him to take care of the human pet. So that's what he was going to do.

And to do it, the first thing he had to do was to leave his little haven of glass.

Suddenly bursting with determination, he got to his feet and started to plan for a way of leaving the pot. He could maybe summon a great wind, but chances were that he would be hurt by a shard of the broken glass; if he made it a soft breeze, however...

Breezes were easier to control - not that he had a hard time controlling even the strongest hurricanes, mind you, but as a man grew older he often learned the uses of subtlety and grace.

He had started to prepare a soft breeze when one of the girls slipped its hand inside the pot and grinned even as it surrounded him.

"Look, he's so cute!"

"He's going to look adorable in this!"

It was with a mix of panic and despair that he noticed that, beside him on the bed's surface, carefully displaced, were quite a couple of different clothes. Some were even dresses! When would a warrior such as himself actually lower himself to wearing dresses? What would Lariah say if she ever heard about this?

In a fit of panic, he bit the finger of the girl who was holding him - and inching closer to the dress, the disrespectful little thing - and dashed past her towards what he expected to be the exit.

It wasn't.

Unfortunately, for all of his good plans and smart thinking, he had forgotten a detail – the giant humans would need an equally giant house. Not all of them would be like his gentle pet and create adaptations for the honorable beings of the lugyeri race.

Thanking his lucky stars that the girls didn't have any pets - not that he was scared of them, he was more than able to get rid of them if need be, of course – but it would take time he didn't have. He had just finished crossing the long corridor as the girls started after him, yelling for their parents to catch their 'pet'.

How dare they, name such a dignified being as himself, a pet? If anything, they would have been the pets, had he decided to keep them.

However, as he already had a pet and had no wish for another, Wygar summoned a burst of wind to help him run faster and slide through the crack between the door and the ground. It was with a huge breath of relief that he found himself once again able to explore freely this land of giants.

Philtria. Who would have guessed?

He took a deep breath, suddenly recognizing the mouthwatering scents of a pork roast, accompanied by mashed potatoes and... he'd guess it was red wine. Making a decision, he summoned a stronger air current and allowed it to guide his body towards the scents.

Humans were quite predictable, really. They tended to gather in places where there was plenty of food and drink, and when they gathered they enjoyed talk – not that different from his race, really, though where the great lugyeri would share tales of their battles and adventures, the humans tended to enjoy talking about each other.

Especially if said other wasn't present.

He surely would discover many things in such a gathering, and information was the first step in any successful quest. Surely a human would have noticed his little, wounded pet.

Glancing at the sky, Wygar, the third son of the proud Von Greire line, did something he hadn't done in so long, he had almost forgotten about its existence entirely. He made a warrior vow, hoping the currents of air would carry the noise to Nephelle's ears.

"I'll find you pet. This I do vow."

A/N: Hi there! 

So, this story started as an entry to a contest where we were supposed to write from the point of view of a fantastic creature - something I had never attempted before. Clearly, I had way too much fun with it and it ended up being longer than it was supposed to be /scratches head/. But oh, well. I hope you've been enjoying this story so far. I'd love to hear your thoughts on it! In case you're interested, I should be uploading the next chapter on Wygar's adventures at the next Tuesday, February, 5th. Thank you for reading!