Astoria Pendridge

Four

Their work completed at the pond, Astoria rode upon Pendridge's back as the wolf ran. The world passed them by in a blur, the beast beneath her winding between trees and escaping other creatures she could barely make out with nothing but a gentle gust of wind. Strangely, though she wasn't gripping his fur all that hard, she didn't fall as a cove of wind surrounded and protected her.

"You're fast!" Astoria spoke.

"I am the Guardian Beast of the element of wind," Pendridge replied as his fours paws struck the ground soundlessly, "Naturally, I am fast."

A river bisected the forest ahead, and he crossed it just the same as everything else, his feet running over the body of water as if he were stepping upon solid ground.

"You can run on water!"

"When I move, I am the wind itself." Pendridge scoffed as if her surprise was unwarranted. "There are very few things capable of stopping the wind's path."

Astoria tried to make sense of that and concluded he was someone capable of running on almost-any terrain. She wondered if he could run in the air? As she giggled to herself at this imagination, Pendridge's form ran up a mountain in seconds until he was halfway to her shock. It wasn't a direct vertical ascent, as it was a strange shape and there were many protruding points, and rocks littered about, but it was all the same to him as he crossed ten meters in one second with each step.

"How can you run so fast up a mountain?" She asked, shocked once more as her eyes widened.

"It is the passive ability of my aura."

"So like a superpower?"

". . ."

He stopped abruptly, the wind blowing softly.

"What? Why did you stop! It was just getting good!" It seemed she enjoyed riding on his back.

"We're here," Pendridge's voice rumbled out.

". . .here?"

Astoria jumped down from his back as she looked about the place. It was a dark cave located at the near-top of the mountain. She walked slowly to the edge of the cave and the world came to view. Before her, an endless ocean of trees spread with sparse mountains about here and there. She spouted strange birds in the air and far, far out, she squinted at what seemed like a village at the edge of the forest.

Then, she turned her sight about and spotted a black wall that seemed to extend from the mountain out in a circle. . .an infinite circle that spanned around everything she could see and perhaps also everything she couldn't. As for its height, it stretched further than her eyes, as well.

Astoria looked on in curiosity as a soft draft blew through the cave.

"What is this wall?" She asked.

"This world, Altera, is in the shape of a disc and the wall you see makes a ring around it, forming a boundary. Right now, we are at the western boundary known as the Western Winds, and I am its guardian," Pendridge said. He stood beside her and narrowed his eyes into the world she thought unknown. "There are 3 others like myself."

He turned to face her.

"Though none quite like you. As far as I am aware, you are a Guardian Beast without a place to guard. Attached to nothing."

Astoria's face scrunched as Pendridge stared at her. What exactly did that mean?

"So I am special, after all," She said, then wagged a finger between his eyes. "Tsk tsk, Pendridge, you're not honest enough."

Pendridge scoffed as the wind tussled his fur.

"That is enough introductions to this land," He said, "Turn your gaze below."