Tales of a Shifter (P6) - Child of Sun & Moon

Chapter 33 - A Broken Novice

Chapter 33– A Broken Novice

Brandon lay in a painful heap before her. He seemed to have fallen from the portal just like her and by some good luck he had only fallen a few dozen from away from her, but unlike Ann he had landed beside a large crop of trees, near the edge of a shallow pool, beyond the field of tall grasses.

His Aurora was in tatters; his Will was barely a spark in the wind. This Druid who had always seemed to blaze like the sun in her senses now felt like something far beyond her own small understanding as an Alchemist. She couldn't quantify what she was feeling or sensing. It was not an energy that she could truly touch or see....not like Mana at all. The man was glimmering, not like a flame or a star, but there was a strange shroud of thick squiggly runes and lights slinking over his form, floating off of his flesh...dancing over his eyes and lips and hair...like white sparks and broken smoke.

Is this Ether...?

Ann asked herself as she felt her temples throb, and some of her mind darken as she reached towards her Acolyte, towards the Will of her fellow Mana User and Ann felt absolutely nothing in return. Like whatever was gushing and bleeding out of Brandon into the world around him had absolutely nothing to do with his Alchemic being.

....and yet there was this dense storm of pure buzzing unseen tension that Ann could feel and sense like hot electricity dancing all over a 6th sense beyond the base comprehension of her Mortal body. She could almost feel a zing along her tongue and skin, as she drew one step closer and closer still. Infact by time she was beside him she was sure that something or someone was gripping her chest in a vice.

His gossamer eyes were locked on her the moment she appeared from the brush to stand at his side....but these eyes that watched her were not the green glittering jewels that she had come to associate with the Druid. These eyes were pupilless. Nothing but solid black orbs of such uncanny stillness that Ann felt her skin crawl just to look at them. Eyes like slabs of pure obsidian carved into balls and jammed into his face beheld her, but soon enough his gaze flicked and his eyes fluttered closed and he gasped out past lips that looked frost bitten and blue.

"An...n....Im glad...you...re ok..." Every syllable was a staggered breath of weak pain. It hurt her to hear him speak. Ann started to move towards him, but a moment later she paused as her Acolyte groaned again, tried to shift and he let off a thick gasp and gritted his teeth...and the moment Brandons lips shifted Anns belly flipped as she saw the thick ugly fangs sitting at the left and right side of Brandons mouth. Ferociously long, thin like a snakes and a shocking startle to see as the sight and shape of them transformed his visage from one of soft allure to a much more vicious beauty.

Ann shuddered as that strange sense of eyes on her seemed to intensify and she had to shake her head slightly as that odd buzz in the center of her head started to tremble. Something seemed to be hiss along her left ear, and a small voice tried to scream into her right. Ann took a step back, as her feeling of unease and unwelcome began to grow....

Ann so heavily sensed that she was in a land and perhaps standing in the presence of a creature she had no right to stand beside. For the first time the name Druid shook her.

But then suddently Brandon choked and he shifted his left hand on the earth, his weak hand grasped at the earth, clutching and then clutching again as he hacked and his head tossed to the right, his eyes were closed but he seemed to know exactly where she was standing with out needing to see her because he seemed to implore. "Ann...wh..at are you doing? Your so quiet....please...Say something...its so cold....its so LOUD...."

Confused by his last statement, but not wanting to retreat from his pain Ann forced her self to move closer. The hand gripping, tearing at the earth was gently grasped in her hands and she ignored the javelin of pain that lanced over her arms as she lifted Brandons dirty fingers and interlaced their weak hands.