.Dragon's Legacy.

-13-

I sat in the elvish garden even as the sun had set many slices ago.

The sounds of nature calming, laying there eyes closed and listening to the toads croaking and birds sleepy chirps.

That was until something rustled the bushes surrounding the garden.

I sat up and looked around, seeing the leaves shift.

I stood and walked over, whatever was in the bushes launching out and in a blur ran into the maze surrounding the castle.

"Hey wait! stop!" if it was a spy I needed to stop them.

I ran through the maze but soon was distracted by the blue, yellow and many other colored orbs floating through the air.

But I heard the slither again and pushed passed the sight.

The deeper I went the more twisted the maze looked, the green leaves turning black and ripped, the healthy branches twisting and growing oddly.

I arrived into a small covered area, the leaves and branches having been grown to form a dome around a fountain spitting black liquid with disgusting looking lump in it.

I gagged and pulled my col up to cover my nose as all smelled of decay and rot.

I screamed when something thumped down behind me and whipped around, ice spikes already gathered in my hand before I lowered it.

"You again.... How are you here?" I asked the familiar serpentine spirit, now looking a third of the size it usually did. "Or did I somehow end up in your world?"

"The separation between the worlds is weakening." I full on screamed from the top of my lungs as a deep scrappy male voice boomed out of nowhere.

I looked at the spirit as it.... Or he? Was the only one here.

"Y-you speak!"

"Few do but I indeed can with the one I shepherd."

"What?"

"So to speak, humans believe they have a spirit animal to guide them."

"So you are mine?"

"In human terminology..... Yes."

"That's neat.... What did you mean about the separation weakening tho?"

"It is what I mean, the material and spirit worlds are drifting through time, linked but never interacting, every eons they drift so close to each other that humans can almost touch the spirit fields and spirits can almost feel the cold of the material winters but this time around they are the closest they've ever been." 

"So that's why I could so easily get here..... Wherever 'here' is."

"Partially true but young human, it comes with danger, all the realms are interacting."

"Don't tell me." I whispered, realizing. "The void is a realm to isn't it? Aurelius could come back." I took a step back with a hand on my face as if I had been punched. "Those cultist looking men are aware of this."

"They indeed are, spirits came to them too."

"But why?!"

"No spirit is good nor bad, they all work by their own morals young human, you should have been taught that."

"Right right so you brought me here, what can I do? It stinks."

"This was a spirit well, flowing with the essence that keeps the spirit plains turning, there is many of them but if one is out of sync the whole realm is jeopardized."

"Why am I here?"

"Only someone with a strong connection to the spirit world can hope to restore the balance."

"You picked the wrong person than, you should have found Mystery.... Or Arianwyn I guess, Seraphim's daughter and the one to have fought to send Aurelius to the void." I looked down at my feet, I was useless here.

"No." I looked up with a lifted brow to see he had leaned down and the head was now at the height of mine. "I did not mistake."

"But." I looked at the fountain. "How do I do anything about it?"

"You already know." I looked back at him but he was already gone like I noticed spirits tend to do.

"I already know?" I whispered, crouching down next to the ledge of the basin and stared into the liquid.

I tossed myself back on my ass as a tentacle-like tendril whipped out at me violently before retreating back into the liquid it came from.

"You are hurting." I talked to whatever I had in front of me, the fountain, the liquid or even the spirit world, I wouldn't know. "You know what eases the pain? The cold."

I lifted my hands as I stood, two vine-like tubes of ice rose from the ground, spiraling up opposite of each other around the fountain, a cold blueish fog falling off the ice as the two tubes met over the fountain, the blue fog washing over it as the ice helix solidified for good.

I looked around as I saw many small spirits emerging from the foliage, some which I could tell were, for example, a mix between a pigeon and a dog but others were creatures I've never seen, all looking at the fountain.

I guess my spirit thought good as the leaves and nature around seemed to jump back to life, green slowly seeping back into it.

"Cold always helps numb the pain." I smiled as the dark faded to grey and then to white before it took a golden hue, the infectious looking lumps dissolving away.

I finally dropped my hands as the ice remained, I think it wouldn't be a good idea to remove this double helix of ice as who knows if the fountain will remain like this.

"Hey, its all good." I kneeled down as a little monkey made entirely of plants inched closer before backing away terrified from the healed fountain. "It won't hurt you anymore."

I held my hand out to it and it sniffed it before grabbing it, I gently pulled it on the edge of the stone rim.

"See?" I dipped my hand in the liquid and brought it up before shaking it and it became golden dust that floated away.

I watched it do the same as me before excitedly making small noises and jumping around, seemingly making all the spirits relax as one the looked like a simple woodpecker with a golden hue landed on my shoulder.

"I did not mistake." I looked up at my spirit who was back. "You have a natural affinity to spirits even tho you aren't a spiritual person, a rare gift to have."

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And I blinked back to my body.

"Weird dream." I said with a yawn as I stood and went back into the castle. "Or was it?" I wondered, I'll need to test the theory out before I tell anyone about what happened.