Intrigue

Chapter 20: Wild

Okay, first things first, I am SO INCREDIBLY SORRY FOR THE EXTREMELY LATE UPDATE! I KNOW, IT'S BEEN A MONTH, WELL, MORE THAN A MONTH, AND I HAVE NO REASON, BUT I'M SURE YOU GUYS DON'T MIND. RIGHT? RIGHT? RIGHT?

But in any case, I really am sorry, but I'm also really happy-"Intrigue" has officially reached 1K reads! I know-not much compared to other books, but hey-it's progress! Anyways, I had a giant writer's block about what to do next, which is really weird, because the entire reason I actually wanted to write this book in the first place was for all the action and fight scenes, and the monthly tournaments are the perfect setting for that, yet I was running out of ideas. Sigh...so pathetic.

Anyways, I'll hopefully be able to get onto a somewhat regular updating schedule, but I don't have high hopes for that. I hope that people are still reading! Enjoy!

PLEASE

VOTE

COMMENT

GUSH

ENJOY!

Wildness is an elusive technique, almost as abstract as Crafting, perhaps more so. In general, it is nothing more than the heightening of the physical senses, but not necessarily hyper awareness at all times. In fact, Wildness manifests in many different forms, but in a recent survey, two times out of three, the user will have some sharpened sense, be it sight, touch, taste, sound, or smell.

-Derek Potentia Gilliad Des Moines, Volume W of series: Encyclopedia of Elemental Techniques, Chapter 182: Wildness

Chapter 20: Wild

Fiera faltered slightly the moment she stepped out of the waiting room. That one moment of weakness was enough to cause the horde of participants to knock her down as they stampeded past her towards the arena.

Fiera had split up all the people in her group so that only four different base powers would be in one area at a time. That way, it would be more advantageous to both counter and attack.

In official Dances in a monthly tournament or the Dancing of the Elements, Elementals would attack each other until one surrendered or was unable to move. Otherwise, it would be extremely hard to determine who was directly hit by a purposeful attack in all the chaos. Because of the dome, there was no way for someone to actually die, but just in case, it was encouraged that Elementals pull back just a hair away from murder. The dome had never been tested to see whether it would be able to sustain a death, so it was best not to push its boundaries.

Fiera had never found much enjoyment in beating her opponents to a pulp-it was a bit too intense for her, but she had to admit, it was fun to see how long an Elemental could last under her attacks.

Fiera lay on the ground for a little longer than needed. Only Earth and Air Elementals would be able to tell that she was still hanging out near the starting point, but for now, that didn't matter. There was a one-minute period in which all fighting was forbidden at the start, so Fiera would use that time to look around. In the limited amount of time she and her team had had, they had chosen which region to take. As they had walked towards the waiting room, which was roped off from the audience, Fiera had caught a glimpse of the arena.

Interestingly enough, there were only three regions this year-a sea, which she had assigned to Reed, Dana, Oliver, and Shane, a meadow, which she had assigned to Easton, Irving, Antoinette, and Trent, while the last of the three, the imposing Faerie Tree that sent shivers down Fiera's spine, was the domain of she, Yves, Wanda, and Victoria.

Fiera had never liked faeries, though they seemed to like her. They would always chase her around, with those green-tinted fangs of theirs glittering and their misshapen wings whenever she accidently went a little far into the borg known as the lawn of her mother's home. Whoever said that faeries were pretty-that person was lying. They had green fangs that protruded past their upper lips and wide eyes with no whites and no irises-just this deep, unfathomable black that raised Fiera's hackles. They had wings, yes, that sprouted from their shoulder bones and were the color of muddy brown speckled with black and white, all crumbly and shifty at the edges, and their skin was a sickly white tinged with green. Nothing about faeries made them physically attractive to anyone, but at least the part about being unable to tell lies and loving petty trickery was spot on.