A/N-I'm so sorry for not updating! I just wasn't motivated until now. I will try do regular updates if I can but no promises.
Word pronunciations are after  any new (made up 😂) words.
Also gay_turtle_laurens suggested I do  Percy Jackson style chapter names so that's what I'm gonna do! If you don't know the chapter titles of Percy Jackson books are really funny and random. 
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My eyes flickered open for the third time. I groaned and put a hand to my head. I swept my eyes around my surroundings. I was still in the field although I was now sitting propped against the large rock. My leg had stopped bleeding but it still hurt like Helhiem (I'm a Magnus Chase fan sue me)

"Ah you're awake!" The voice startled me and I quickly swivelled my head to the source of the voice. Sitting on the other side of the rock, sheltered from the sun that was beating down above our heads was the tiger. My mouth went dry and all I could do was nod.

"Ok, let's do this again. I'm Rheagar. What's your name" he said, getting up and padded towards me.

"Um I-I'm Ash W-Winters" I said stumbling over my words and struggling to get the them out. I had to be dreaming. Or dead. I could be dead. Is this the afterlife?

"Well Ash I'm guessing you have no idea where you are, who I am and how I'm taking to you. Well all will be explaining but first I need to see to your leg. It's quite a nasty cut. That good with you?"

Words escaped me, again, so I simply nodded.

The tiger. Wait. Rheagar, nodded. "Don't talk much do ya? Ok, how are we gonna do this?" he muttered the last part to himself. "Get on my back. That will be the easiest way to move you. Unless of course you can walk?"

I shook my head, "I d-don't think I'll be able to w-walk." I said stumbling over my words again.

"Right" Rheagar said as he knelt down beside me. I got the idea and used my hands and one good leg to manoeuvre myself closer to him. With a lot of struggling and pain from my leg I finally managed to get onto Rheagar's back.

"Ready" he asked. I nodded before remembering that he couldn't see me. "Ye-yeah" Flipping stutter.

He rose to his feet and started walking moving across the field through the tall grass to the stone wall that was constructed around the field. He slipped through a gap in the wall, almost knocking me off. On the other side of the wall was a small river that I hadn't seen before because of my position on the ground. The river was at the bottom of a slope. There was a path down the side of the slope which Rheagar walked down. At the bottom there was a small cave set into the slope. There was a layer of grass that fell down over the cave almost concealing the entrance from sight. Rheagar slipped inside and basically dumped me on the floor. It hurt, obviously.

"Oh sorry. Shoulda been more careful" he said grinning sheepishly at me. How a tiger can grin I don't know but he did.

I was sitting in the middle of the cave which was relatively small, about 10 metres deep and 7ish across. I scooted back until I was leaning against the side wall, gritting my teeth at the pain in my leg. I was trying to move slowly so I wouldn't make the wound bleed again. I was genuinely surprised that Rheagar dumping me on the floor hadn't made it bleed.

I watched Rheagar as he padded the back of the cave and pick something up in his teeth. He turned and walked back towards me and dumped the object at my feet. It was a roll of bandages. Why a tiger has bandages I don't know but I was grateful.

"Think you can wrap that up yourself?" Rheagar inquired, "I can't, obviously"

I nodded but I doubted that I could properly tie a bandage.

"Wait let me get water so you can clean it" he said as he padded back towards the back of the cave.

"Be right back" he called, he voice muffled sounding as he had grabbed a small water container that he now held firmly between his teeth. He then slipped out of the cave entrance.

When Rheagar returned not 2 minutes after leaving the container was filled to the brim with water. As he walked towards me he spilled quite a bit over the edge. He slowly lowered it to the ground beside my leg. "There you go"

I leaned forward, ignoring the pain in my leg, and pulled the container towards me. I gritted my teeth and got to work cleaning the wound. It hurt. A lot. But I managed to make the cut half presentable. After cleaning it out a began wrapping  the bandage tightly around it. I stayed silent, watching Rheagar out of the corner of my eye. He was sprawled out by the back wall of the cave and was dozing.

My mind was still trying to process the events of the day. How did I get here? Where was here? How can a tiger talk to me and how can I get home. Can I get home? All these questions raced through my mind. I pushed the thoughts away and continued wrapping my leg in the bandages. The finished product wasn't pretty but it did the job.

I glanced up at Rheagar. I really needed to talk to him but I wasn't sure how to wake him. I was scared of startling him. I opted to just cough quite loudly in the hopes that it would stir Rheagar from his doze. Thankfully it worked. His eyes flickered open and he looked over at him drowsily. He yawned, showing off two rows of huge teeth. I noticed that one of the bottom canines was missing.

"Ah you're finished. How's your leg feeling now?" Rhaegar asked, getting up and walking towards me.

"It's good" I said, "Less painful. But that doesn't matter right now. Where am I?"

Rheagar nodded "I'll try to explain as best I can" he said.

"Right now your are in Javelina, (Javel-Lina) the largest of the five countries. The others are Saflin, Dari, Endori and Latinian " (Latin-nian)

"Latinian? Like the Latin language?" I asked, recognising the start of the word.

"Yeah. Latin stemmed from Latianian. Scholars went to you your earth and spread the language. It was vice versa with English, which is why we speak English."

"My earth?"

"I'm getting there" Rheagar said, "The five countries make up this Earth. But you're from the other earth. There are 2 for some reason. Just go with it. There are 3 portals leading to and from the Earths: the Inta Portal, the Canta Portal and the Halmar Portal. I'm going to assume that you came through the Inta Portal as the Halmar is the countries capital, Redox, and most people aren't allowed to use it and the Canta is unstable. Most people that use it end up stuck in limbo forever."

"Well is the Inta perfectly circular, filled with a liquid and said liquid looks like glass?" I asked.

"That's the one. The Inta is strange. It appears randomly and for a few hours at a time. Some think it's appearances are related to the cycle of the moon but since it never appears in the same place twice it's impossible to tell. So you now know where you are and how you got here. Any more questions?" he asked.

"A few" I said with a small smile, "How can you talk?"

"I thought  you'd ask that. In the animals of this earth there are 2 genes: Davanrian (Da-van-ri-an) and pavanrion (Pa-van-ri-on). The davanrian gene allows the animals to speak and makes them self aware while the  pavanrion gene does the opposite.  I'm davanrian, obviously. Approximately 50% of animals are davanrian and 50% are pavanrion."

"Does that mean that all the animals on earth, my earth that is, are pavanrion?" I asked, curious.

"Yeah. The davanrian gene died out some thousand years ago on your earth from what I've heard"

The thought that animals used to talk really weirded me out. Everything about this day has weirded me out.

"Last question: How do I get back home?" I asked.

"Only option I can see is to go to Redox and basically beg the king to let us use the Halmar Portal"

"Will he let me use it?" I said, slightly alarmed that we would have to beg to use a portal.

Rheagar shrugged dismissively as if saying we'll worry about that later.

"You should sleep" Rheagar said, breaking the awkward silence that had occurred, "Portal travel really drains you, especially if you're unprepared."

I nodded, only now realising that my limbs felt like lead and my eyes were stinging from lack of sleep.

"You got any blankets?" I asked but I wasn't very hopeful. Why would a tiger need blankets?

"Nope"

Guess I'm going blanket-less then. I lay down on my side , making sure I didn't put any weight on my injured leg. It was quite warm in the cave which was nice but the rock floor underneath would soon begin to hurt.

I closed my eyes when on last question popped into my mind.

"How do I know this isn't all some weird dream or hallucination? I could've tripped in the forest and knocked myself out? Is this real?"

Rheagar who had moved to the back of the cave again grunted.

"The pain in your leg was real enough, wasn't it?"

"Touché. Speaking of my leg, do you know how I cut it in the first place? I saw blood at the top of that rock which doesn't make sense."

"Ah." Rheagar said, "The Inta Portal also sometimes...dumps people from the sky on the other end. You just so happened land on that rock. You're lucky it wasn't higher, you could have broken some bones."

I nodded although I knew Rheagar probably wasn't looking at me. My head felt like it was going to explode trying to process all of this information.

"Goodnight" I said, stifling a yawn.

"It's not night"

"Good evening then"

"Not evening either"

"Good afternoon?"

"You got there eventually"

"Shut up and let me sleep"

"You're the one who was taking to me"

"But still, shut up"

"Shutting up"

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I tried to make this chapter as long as possible to make up for my absence. It's over 1400 words longer than the first chapter which is good! I hope you enjoyed this! I'm sorry it was mainly dialogue but I needed to explain what was happening and thought it would be easier to do it in one go.  Ok that's it from me.

Cya 🤟
(🤟-ASL for I love you)