The Anima [completed]

6.

6.

"Are we there yet?" I groaned, trudging my feet through the muddy undergrowth.

"No!" The fae men shouted, neither of them surmounting the power to turn and face me.

Lucius had healed quickly once Alvar had applied the same ointment onto his wounds that had healed my neck. Within an hour, he sprung up and was ready to take off into the trees. Neither of them said much to me as we travelled quickly along the trail, busy wrapped up in their argument about the Gryphon. But I knew we were closer to the centre of their civilisation. If I stared long enough into the trees, I could see little wisps of colours, wings, and horned creatures darting after one another. As we got closer to our destination, I could see the creatures all around us, but never close enough that I could identify exactly what they looked like. The idea of them didn't scare me anymore, the Gryphon, as scary as it looked, did not attack me and had shown Alvar mercy. Unless they gave me a reason too distrust them, I had begun to hope that I would stay for a week or more to gather information and then return it to my parents. They would be so proud, and more than that they would finally receive the relief of certainty; that all their research was correct and all they had to do was look into our backyard. And finally they would realise that there were more important things in this world than their research, such as their children.

A splash of colour fluttered in front of my eyes. Large butterfly wings flapped hastily in front of me as my eyes adjusted to its close proximity. It was no butterfly; it was a creature of the fae. Beautiful blue wings opened to reveal a tiny cat like body, with pointed grey ears and black whiskers as long as its wings. I stared in amazement and lifted a curled finger towards it. It flinched backwards, but I kept my hand steady. After a moment, it sniffed my finger and then sneezed. Its eyes widened and I giggled. It reminded me of Eclipse and my sister and home. I frowned and withdrew my hand from the creature, my stomach churning. It did not fly away and instead fluttered closer to my face, its tiny paws stretching out to touch my nose.

"Don't kill it!" Alvar shouted, appearing suddenly to shove me to the ground, away from the creature.

"I had no desire to kill it!" I exclaimed with a shriek, pushing myself off the ground.

"Oh, really?" Lucius too appeared, hands on hips, with eyebrows raised.

"I have a desire to kill you!" I snapped at Lucius, my fists clenching at my sides.

The little creature hovered in my peripheral vision, blue glistening in and out of the light. It seemed frightened by the scene of violence and landed delicately on my shoulder. I sighed, suddenly feeling a rush relief and comfort as Alvar stopped Lucius from storming towards me.

"You really feel no desire to kill it?" Alvar asked, eyebrows drawn together as he gazed at the creature nuzzling my neck.

"No. Why would I?" I threw my hands into the air in a mixed atmosphere of confusion and anger.

"It is a Periwinkle. One of the few fey that can travel into the shadow plane and back again. It can heighten mortal's darkest tendencies..."

"Shadow plane?" I was genuinely confused and lifted a hand to my brow. My brain was combusting with all the information it had begun to process in such a little amount of time. Any more and I would have surely slipped into a coma.

"Seriously? That's the thing you picked up out of that sentence? Not even a little concerned about your 'tendencies'." Lucius looked flabbergasted, finger quoting with crazed, wild eyes.

"There is a lot we have yet to explain to you." Alvar sighed, scratching the back of his neck. His cape was cast aside, and the hem of his shirt lifted to reveal a muscled lower stomach, shining sliver in the sun. My eyes cast down, embarrassed at my itching curiosity to discover the source of his scars. "But for now I think we should begin with you handing us the Periwinkle."