|8x Featured| Wonderful cover created by @MissRoseDesigns
In the heart of the misty woods of Väria, 10-year-old Kiäna Yolngu comes across three peculiar children. The oldest one, a teenage boy, has odd circle tattoos all over his hands. The two gir...
The wild zvierah swiftly approached, shooting through the air toward them. Chadwick made the first move. He darted toward Thea and held Stella up to her. Thea pulled something from one of her pockets and began to enlarge Stella. Kiäna gasped.
She had seen Stella large enough to ride plenty of times, and she knew how stunning she was, with her yellow scales and fluff and her beautiful butterfly wings. But when Thea enlarged her to such a size that she could fight off this gargantuan wild zvierah, Kiäna couldn't help but gasp in wonder.
Chadwick said something else to Thea while he patted his own chest, but the wild zvierah landed and his voice was drowned out by the crashing noise.
Thea shook her head, but Chadwick started arguing with her, as Stella approached the wild zvierah. She roared so loudly Kiäna put her hands over her ears. Then the wild zvierah roared back, and Kiäna screamed.
Tajana ran up to her. "You must keep trying! We can't defeat it! We need you to tame it. Please!"
Kiäna's face tingled and went cold from the shock. She would have to somehow calm herself down while a battle waged around her.
You can do it! Vespera said. You must save us!
"I can do it!" Kiäna told her.
But then she got distracted by the oddest sight. Thea had decided to listen to Chadwick, and he was now growing at an alarming rate. He grew to the point that he could climb up on Stella in her giant size. Chadwick became as large as a Fulgarian!
He took out his sword and stepped forward with Pax in his hand. He put the teeny tiny winged panther into one of his pockets.
"Stay focused," Tajana told her. "Don't watch the battle. Just calm yourself and awaken your spirit."
But that sounded like an impossible feat when Chadwick climbed up on Stella and they surged forward to defend everyone from the wild zvierah.
Ganli came up. "If you're not going to tame the wild beast, then let me have my zvierah, and we'll stand a chance of succeeding in battle!"
"No! I can do it!" Kiäna insisted. She closed her eyes and focused on a memory of a calm day, back before Kiäna knew her new friends. She had run through the meadow near her people's forest, on her way to the lilac field so she could make a circle of lilacs and mist walk back home.
When she had found the field of lilacs, she had picked just enough to create a circle in the grass.
Something crashed, and Stella and the wild zvierah both roared. Kiäna tried to drown out the noise with her memory.
She had sat down in her circle of lilacs and awakened her spirit with ease. How had she done that so easily? She focused on the memory and it came to her. She had been still and simply contemplated her day and the peaceful feeling of turning into mist to head home where she would get to see her father and mother, who she loved more than anything.
But with a battle waging on around her, thoughts of her parents and her home were not enough to awaken her spirit. She must think of something else!
She breathed as calmly as she could while Chadwick shouted so loudly she ducked her head from the noise. She opened her eyes to see him tilting precariously on Stella's saddle. Rather than try to stay on her back, he shoved hard and jumped off. He landed and pitched forward in an agile roll in the grass, while Stella wheeled around and swiped at the zvierah.
The gigantic winged lizards both roared again as they paced in front of each other. Stella made sure to stand in the zvierah's way, blocking the beast's path to her friends.
Chadwick shouted something, and Tajana and Thea surged forward and enlarged themselves too. Kiäna could not believe her eyes as her friends all stood as tall as Fulgarians and enlarged their own mythical companions to fight beside them. For a moment, she forgot that she was supposed to be trying to save them all. Beside them, the two Fulgarians joined the battle, enchanting their fists with lightning.
Focus, Kiäna! Vespera demanded, and she closed her eyes and breathed in and out and then calmly, she slowed her breathing down. She visualized herself in the Ruma Tapu when she first met the Kohatu Stone. She felt the rumbling noise of the Stone as it spoke to her, like she was there again. She breathed and opened her mind to the spiritual stone that had sent her on this mission in the first place.
As she sat on the grass in front of the raging fight between Stella and the wild zvierah, she felt a whoosh engulf her. She took a breath and willed her spirit to swirl up her spine to her second sacred circle, and then her third. She took a moment to ground herself again and then her spirit ascended to the fourth sacred circle. Just one more! But she couldn't force it. She had to keep calm and allow the spirit to rise on its own.
Finally, after a brief moment, her spirit swelled with power at her sacred circle of the voice, the fifth sacred circle, and Kiäna opened her eyes and reached out to the fox-sized tame zvierah.
"Tehn, haer mah kih ahau e te pakao mokomo!"
Her spirit tugged hard and spread out to the wild zvierah before her. The wild beast stopped, and Kiäna looked up to see it about to rake its claws all over Stella's neck. But her words captivated the beast and caused it to stand back and approach Kiäna. Tajana ran up and reached out. In an instant, the beast shrank down to the size of a fox.
"Quick! Ganli, tell Brandir he needs to make a circle of hair!" Tajana said, and then she waved her hand, removing the enlarging magic. She shrank down with a whoosh.
While Ganli repeated the words to Brandir, Chadwick, still giant-sized, stumbled up to Stella and collapsed against her. She held him up as he stumbled around. A gash on his forehead and a few scrapes on his hands seemed to be his only injuries. Thea ran up, and Stella shrank herself back down to the small size of a lizard.
Thea shrank herself, caught Stella, and performed some sort of magic on the yellow winged lizard. Chadwick came down to his knee and waved his hand, removing the enlarging magic. He shrank back down so quickly, he flopped forward onto his face.
"Chadwick!" Thea and Tajana called out.
"Is he alright?" Kiäna called out as she came jogging over.
Thea and Tajana came down next to him. Tajana put her hand on his back to feel his chest move in and out with his breaths. He didn't sit up.
"Just passed out, I think," Thea said as she held back a grin. "Growing small like that so suddenly can be overwhelming. I nearly fell over, too."
Kiäna thought about how it had felt for Thea to make them both tiny, back in the tainted forest when the owl beastman had hunted them. It was certainly overwhelming to suddenly shrink that tiny. It had been rather dizzying.
By then Brandir has cut his long hair off and was twining it together to make a braided circle. Ganli sat with him in the grass to help. The Fulgarians spread the braided hair around the new zvierah.
While Chadwick snored in the grass, Thea walked up to perform the magic that would bind the giant to the winged lizard. Then with the magic complete, the four of them had paid their debt to the Fulgarians for their amulets.
Their Windtalker's Amulets were now theirs tokeep.
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