Spirit Animals: The Fifth Beast

Chapter Three: Lenori's Vision

An middle-aged Amayan woman, with a green cloak draped over her shoulder. Feathers were braided into her blue and long hair, and several beaded necklaces and bracelets hung from her neck and wrists. She wore a silver dress. A peculiar bird roosted on her shoulder. The bird had had a slender neck, a brown-curved bill, and vibrant plumage of every shade. Lenori and her spirit animal, Myriam were in their herb garden, in Greenhaven Island.
Every time she comes here Myriam spoke in a rhythmic voice, but  lost in the cadence of her words. A melodic pulse that steadied her and calmed her.
Myriam started speaking again, her voice is soft and sweet, the words lost beneath the gentle swish of the the breeze from a misty tunnel. Where did that come from? She soared down the hazy passage without any sensation of movement. At its end, she saw the Amayan Mountains, or the Stormy Mountains.
In the Amayan mountains was a pretty Arctican fourteen year old girl with wavy and medium-length beige-blonde hair, her eyes are stunningly blue, crossing the color of the sky and the ocean with a bright twinkle, tender beige skin, long and graceful limbs, a streamlined, slender, and strong body structure. She wore a Amayan brown and blue tunic, trousers, and gloves, around her neck was a beige talisman with a carving of a snow leopard and its rope is threaded in gold (the Beige Snow Leopard. thought Lenori, both startled and amazed) and a amber and silver talisman with a carving of a wildcat, a black threaded  bracelet with five snow leopard teeth and a five glass-beaded and different colored bracelet on her left wrist, a quiver of arrows and her bow, a traveling backpack, and a emerald green cloak that flowed freely down her back.
The girl bore a expression that she had lost her family, friends, and her home. But with enough experience about living by herself in the Stormy Mountains.
The girl ran and jumped, the wind boosted her leap, and skipped off the targeted ledge to a smaller one. She only touched the next ledge once, then stretched forward and clung to a knobby outcropping with both arms, earning her usual stinging scrapes and bruises from her wrists to her elbows. The wind howled and roared into her ears and chilled her to the skin. The girl hoisted herself to the top of the outcropping and sprang again. This time the wind slowed her, and even with the power in her leap, she barely caught her next handhold. Lenori knew she can't look down or she probably fall to her nightmare. There was nothing Lenori could do to help the mysterious girl.
With the usual deafening wind pushing against her, the girl pulled herself up.
The girl looked around with a suddenly playful and overjoyed expression, her grief faded away from her eyes and her expression.
With a blurr of beige and silver fur had jumped on the girl. The girl squealed, laughed, and gave playful screams.
The girl's spirit animal was a huge female snow leopard with beige and silver fur spotted with brown spots and stripes, along with a streamlined and strong body structure, and bright amber eyes.
It's her. The Great Snow Leopard known as Kianira. Or the Secretkeeper, Mysteriousseer, Stealthfinder. thought Lenori startled.
They played together like sisters, not minding the rushing winds and snow. They both shared a love for adventures, and the girl has the similar personality as a snow leopard.
The girl hugged the snow leopard around her neck, the snow leopard layed down on top of the girl, gently and gave the girl a snow leopard hug.
The two of them stopped playing almost immediately when they saw Lenori. The girl and the snow leopard both got off each other, but the girl kept a hand on the snow leopard's shoulder.
It was a akward silence for all them.
The wind and snow slowed down as if the snow leopard and the girl's excitement had sped up the wind and snow. But when their excitement stopped the weather calmed down. Behind the girl and the snow leopard was something that Lenori wasn't expecting to happen in the Amayan Mountains.
The colorful Northern Lights danced beautifully around the mountains, in the colors of green, yellow, and blue, almost in the shapes of animals, birds, and spirits, alighting the Bonded girl and snow leopard's faces and the lights reflected in their eyes. The girl looked older and wiser beyond her years. The girl's beige-blonde hair and her green cloak blew in the wind like an image of a beautiful and strong Greencloak warrior, the snow leopard's fur blew backwards from the wind making the wildcat look bigger and beautifuler.
"Who are you?" asked the girl, her voice was soft and mysterious with a Arctican accent mixed in.
"I am Lenori." said Lenori.
"And I'm Sierra, with me is my spirit animal." said the girl, she nodded to Kianira. "You probably know her."
"You have summoned Kianira the Snow Leopard." said Lenori. "That means you two are companions of the Keeper."
"What? Is this a joke?" said Sierra.
Lenori shook her head, so did Kianira.
Sierra sighed softly with defeat. The fierce pride in the young mountaineer had disappeared and replaced with sadness and aching grief. Lenori looked through Sierra's past.
Lenori saw a eight year old girl who used to live in the Ardu settlement. Sierra played with her Arctican mother and her snow fox spirit animal, on the snowy hills that overlooked a huge lake, just outside of the settlement. Even as a little girl, she has a snow leopard's spirit but more outgoing. Then her Arctican father, (to Lenori's surprise) a Greencloak with a white tiger spirit animal, joined in and started playing with Sierra in the snow. But then they saw the Conquerors approaching, Sierra's father gathered their most valuable and important items. The three of them aboard a ship and sailed to Amaya. They lived in Boulder City for a least one or months, and the city got overrun by Conquerors. Sierra and her parents got captured, and sailed to Nilo. But Sierra's parents forced her to escape while she still can. Sierra did what her parents told her, and she stole one of the horses that wasn't affected by the Bile. Her father let her have his green cloak that he had when he was around her age. She started galloping away from the Conquerors, who were a few inches behind her. Sierra accidentally strayed into Cabaro's oasis. Somehow, the fearsome Lion felt sympathetic to the lost girl. Cabaro let Sierra ride on his back till they get to the mountains of Amaya. Cabaro had many Niloan animals attack the Conquerers, alongside the Niloan warriors and Greencloaks as they escaped the battle. After they reached the mountains, Arax also felt sympathetic to Sierra and helped the eight year old girl survive in the mountains. Even though she enjoyed her new home, she misses her parents and wish that they could join her in her new freedom. On her ninth birthday, Ninani the Swan gave Sierra a beige tralisman with a carving of a snow leopard and its rope is threaded in gold. Arax gave Sierra a amber and silver talisman with a carving of a wildcat and the thin iron rope is ice-blue. The talismans are no doubt very beautiful. The talismans seemed to glow with their own inner lights.
Lenori snapped herself out from Sierra's memories and Sierra gave Lenori a knowing and sorrowful look. A look of heart-broken sadness and silent mourning. She knew that Lenori was looking through her painful memories that she tried and tried to forget. But, no luck. Her memories keeps on returning in her dreams, but Sierra's nightmares stopped when Kianira had became Sierra's spirit animal.  
Sierra seemed so confident and determined, but underneath her layers of her hidden and adventurous spirit was a silent mourning and shattered love. A spirit that's unsure if she could forgive herself or not. Kianira started comforting Sierra and Sierra started crying in Kianira's shoulder. The Great Snow Leopard started nuzzling and made purring sounds to Sierra, like a mother cat who started comforting her youngest kitten. 
"Dear Sierra," said Lenori as Sierra and Kianira both looked up at Lenori. "You aren't the only child who had lost her parents."
"I'm not?" said Sierra surprised.
"Indeed, do you know someone named Rollan?" said Lenori.
Sierra blinked repeatedly and a slow recognization sparked in her blue eyes.
"Yes, I do." said Sierra as she stepped closer to Lenori. "We both told our stories of how we lost our parents and helped younger orphans in need."
"Before you disappeared to the mountains." finished Lenori for Sierra.
Sierra nodded and looked at Lenori with a single question in her blue eyes eyes.
"How is Rollan?" asked Sierra.
"He's doing well, he is a new ally of the Greencloaks." said Lenori. "But he doesn't want to be a Greencloak."
"A Greencloak?" said Sierra with a surprised expression. "What do you mean? What type of spirit animal did Rollan summoned that wants to help the Greencloaks but not be one?"
"He summoned Essix the Great Falcon." said Lenori.
Sierra's eyes widened with shock and stepped back a bit. But  Sierra barked a laugh and Kianira yowled and scratched the snowy ground it. It seems as if the snow leopard was laughing too, which startled Lenori. Sierra's sadness disappeared as if nothing unusual had happened.
"Why doesn't that surprise me?" said Sierra, laughably. "I had seen Rollan had always wished to be free as falcon. He was focusable and adventurous. He has amazing speed, agility, gracefulness, vitality, and enthusiasm."
But then Sierra and Kianira both fell silent and they looked somewhere in the east. Their eyes were narrowed, their ears were perked up, their streamlined bodies went still, and the two of them sniffed the rushing winds.
Lenori couldn't hear or see what the Bonded pair were sensing, which was unusual and unnatural for her. When she dream-visits, she can senses everything in someone's mind but Sierra and Kianira both have silent, still, and mysterious minds. They both looked at Lenori with sympathetic expressions.
"I'm sorry, but it's time for me and Kianira to wake up, and when we do we will join the Keepers of Erdas." said Sierra with soft eyes and a hidden expression, much like Kianira. "Me and Kianira have our mission to accomplish."
"You would wish that the warrior-girl was kinder to the others." added Sierra, her voice soft as the breeze.
Lenori woke up and remembered where she was. She was in a cabin heading towards Oceanus.
"Lenori?" said a voice.
It was Tarik. He was a Niloan Greencloak and guardian of the Four children who had summoned the Four Fallen. He was with Conor, Abeke, Rollan, and Meilin.
Lenori explained everything to them, they learned that Sierra is the Keeper from Arctica.