The Ryvern

Edging further and further back, he was waiting for a distance at which his running hopefully wouldn't be noticed.
'I've got to get out of here, and warn the others. Even if it's to just to take off, leave this world and never come back.

'It probably doesn't want me here anyway. He doesn't need a pest primitive being like me watching it.'

But then it happened!

The Ryvern slowly turned his head and eyes, and looked straight at the small Eldorfin.

'Zanuti!' Thought Eduda, and immediately bolted for it.

Clambering along the ground wasn't easy, especially as this worlds' gravity was slightly heavier than his people were used to. The argon breather over his mouth also wasn't designed for this sort of energetic speed. It nearly fell off in the first twenty yeleps, letting in toxic oxygen. One of his hands instinctively began gripping it, pushing it onto his face with excessive force.

Despite fear and worry coursing through his body, a strange curiosity was filling his head.

'I wonder if it didn't want me to see something.'

Edu kept running though. He'd now passed over a field and wasn't too far from the outskirts of the archaeology camp.
'It could've been doing something really important. And I typically ran away from it!'

A small native mammal saw the hurtling Eldorfin and scampered out of the way, but Edudas' thought train continued.

'Zanuti! It might've wanted me away from it, so I didn't see!'

Edudas pace had ceased being a breathless running, and was now a slow walk.

'Wait. IT wanted ME away. Telepathy, of course! I bet it made me THINK to run away, so I did!'

He stopped dead in the field

"I've been manipulated!"

Thought set in, and Edu took several moments to compose himself and think straight.

Making sure his breather was on tight; he turned around and began walking back to the house.

'I'll discover what he wanted. Ruin his plans and then make one of the most astounding reports to the Institute ever!'

His pace stepped up a gear to a jog.

'Ha! The gods sure did pick on the wrong species to manipulate. Us Eldorfins must be more resistant to mind control than they give credit for!'

As the ruin of the house could be seen once again, Eduda found himself running full pelt.

'I better get there quick, otherwise he'll of gone and I'll have missed what he came for.'

Approaching the house, he saw the tall shadowy figure still standing near it.

'Foiled your plans this time, mythical creature!'

But there was a problem; Eduda ran passed the garden wall, away from the safe cover of where the Ryvern wouldn't see him.

'What am I doing??'

Eduda was shocked to run straight up to the Ryvern. And the Ryvern in turn turned around to regard him. Its slit-pupil eyes almost pierced his soul in reading him.

Realization hit the Eldorfin in a sweeping wave like a tsunami hitting his conscience.

'I've been manipulated ever since he looked at me! Even when I thought to come back! Even now!'

The Ryvern, its only distinguishing features being its head and two grey tasselled strips of material on its cloak, nodded once very slowly.
Edus' eyes widened. 'You made me think all this, to get me back here. To...to...'

It was like he was being fed the missing gaps.

'to' sadness, shock, numbness and horror filled him. 'to kill me.'

The Ryvern didn't want Eduda telling his archaeology team about him.

Edu felt a twinge; his bones and entire body were beginning to crush.