Things Lost and Found (a Waglington and Mianite fanfiction)

Chapter 60

The song of the day is "Up and Up" by Relient K.

*Donella's POV*

The meteors had fallen for a whole day and part of another before anyone could safely leave the tower. After Matt and Phil's rescue mission to bring the horses inside narrowly avoided disaster, no one else dared exit. After several days on the road, no one had complained about captivity. Those who weren't on bed rest were kept busy exploring the tower or writing essays. (Apparently someone had made Tom angry.) For my part, I had several students and Winter to keep an eye on in the makeshift infirmary.

After several hours with no further meteors falling and Kay's assurance that her sense of impending doom had faded, the Fyre wizards cautiously ventured into the town alone. The town was in bad shape to say the least. I could see enough from the windows on the upper floors to know they were devastated before they returned. They tried to hide it from their apprentices when they walked back in, but Matt's and Phil's wings drooped low.

Normally they would have leapt straight into rebuilding, but duty to get their apprentices somewhere truly safe trumped that. After the early blood moon and the meteors, they were worried the world's dissolution was accelerating. I had come to help bring them home, after all. Now that everyone was in one place, the wizards turned their energy to helping me do just that. Tom and Matt were eager to help me with setting up a bridge. Phil insisted on working "a different angle," and Tom advised me to leave him to it. When he got his mind set on something, no one could shake it loose. Those who dared try usually found themselves chased out of his workshop by animated machinery.

Aside from the Fyre wizards and their apprentices, I also sought Dianite's advice in our meeting a few nights later. True, he was no expert in bridging spells. Through our mental link, he could at least sense how far apart our two dimensions were, and it was good to see him. What he'd told me was not encouraging. Our worlds were still flying further apart by the day. His unspoken concern was that he wouldn't even be able to contact me in a few weeks' time. I didn't tell him, but I wasn't sure we had that long to worry about it. If I didn't find a way to get us home soon, we wouldn't escape this world before it collapsed.

Dread and what ifs followed me through the day like crows mobbing a hawk. None of us had worked a bridge spell from the ground up before. We all knew the proper words to activate such a spell, but the runes, their order, even the depth they were carved into the ground were important. I had thought I had known all I needed to before I left Mianite, but there must have been some subtlety I had missed. When several attempts to create a minor bridge between this world and a neighboring dimension called The Twilight Forest failed, I called it quits for the day. Something was horribly wrong with our formula if it wouldn't work for such a short jump. Hopefully a few hours away would bring me fresh perspective.

Akatena met me outside the vast room we had been experimenting in. She had wanted nothing to do with untried magic ever since that time Seto turned her into an endermite. Normally when I got this frustrated, we'd go to the Nether, but this dimension's Nether would be too great a risk without its Dianite present to rule its unusual assortment of mobs. My deer scraped one hoof on the tiled floor to get my attention and sent me a mental image of the Wizardly Arena we'd seen next to Matt's house in town. I remembered Matt telling me that they had a zombie spawner in there.

"I like how you think, darling," I said and affectionately rubbed behind her ears. "I'll get my sword and meet you over there." I decided to teleport to my quarters, worried I might snap at one of the apprentices if pressed. I had inherited my father's temper along with his magical skill. I hadn't truly lost it since the war, and I had no wish to relapse. I grinned at the familiar irony of my father teaching me my first forbidden spell—which was the underlying cause of our family's short temper. I shook those thoughts away as I snatched up my sword belt and strapped it on. No, he's dead and gone. He's paid for his mistakes; I best not repeat them.