A Tale of Three

Chapter 9: Anger

Cyrene awoke with a screech. Her pelt was drowned in sweat, rising and falling with jagged breaths. She laid down her head on the damp bed, trying to clear the feeling out of her mind. The test was foggy, like a vague shadow of what actually happened. The last vision was still fresh though, the paw, the blood, and the fear the filled every limb of her body when the roars sounded. She tried to clear her mind, taking deep breaths, but they kept getting cut off by a pant from the heat or a shudder of fear. As the panic became numbed, she looked down at her paws.

On her front two paws were white tattoos of fire and air, swirling and reaching up her legs. She bent her head back to look at her back legs. Loose pebbles were shaken on one of them. As her gaze landed on the other leg she felt her breath catch. The leg remained as white as it had before the test.

"I've heard stories of those who fail to bind with one element. Usually it's because they lack a strong trait the element has. I thought you would pass though, with all the time you took. You were out for two days." Cyrene started to tear up as she looked to Omnes. The old tigress stood in front of her holding two rabbits.

"Can I still shape-shift? I can't have messed up that much! I only did what I thought was right; why was I failed for doing what I thought as right?" she half cried at Omnes. Her magister shook her head in wonder.

"Breathe. You're not going to die. All you've knocked out is the ability to shape-shift into water creatures." Omnes motioned to the fish tattoo leaping across her back. "Water doesn't know what they lost."

"Oh. Thank you." Cyrene paused and thought back to the vision at the end of the test. "What vision did you see?"

"What?"

"The vision, at the end of your test, what was it?" she rephrased.

"I saw a swarm of locusts going across a field of poisonous plants. The plants would slowly kill a mammal like me, but were harmless to locusts. When I looked down to my paws I saw a purple stone. I threw it into the field, and all the locusts left. The poisonous plant was left to survive," Omnes told her thoughtfully.

"That's horrible."

"Not really. It was foreshadowing the task I had of making herbal remedies for Jinx. It only takes so long to get used to it." Omnes paused. "What did you see?"

"There was a small pebble sitting on the top of this tree. A giant black paw came out of the sky." The vision probably sounded like a mad tale. "It smashed the pebble like glass, and the pebble somehow bled on the branch. The paw went back into the sky, and the vision was filled with roars."

Omnes nodded. Her nose furrowed as she thought.

"Pebble... a pebble is a small rock," Omnes suddenly jolted up as if she were struck by lightning. "Cyrene, a pebble is a small rock, right?"

It was more of a statement than a question.

"What is another word for small?" Omnes asked, who looked as if she were about to burst.

"Tiny."

"Yes, and no. Tiny is a word, a simple one though. Pygmy, another word for small is pygmy! So, a pebble is a pygmy rock!" Omnes said, pacing back and forth quickly. "The pebble was crushed."

"Omnes, you're not making sense."

The smile disappeared from Omnes's face. "Cyrene, you saw the pebble getting crushed. You saw the death of Pygmy Rock."

"Who's Pygmy Rock?" Cyrene asked, getting impatient.

"He's the leader of Anglo. He just goes by Boulder instead." Omnes started to shuffle through the vials and herbs strewn across her room.