She was still a little uncomfortable with the way the tribes reacted when they first saw her. When she stepped out, at first, no one noticed her. There were too many people out there for the Theran to smell her. Volaris saw her first and started to walk towards her and Terros joined him.
“We both talked to our sons. I hope they didn’t confuse you,” Volaris said.
“Esylle explained to me why she thinks they were fighting. I still think most of it is because of who I am and not what I look like.”
“Child, you have the looks of a god reborn, as you should. You are of the marrying age and we are going to have a hard time picking a husband for you. None of the princes will be happy with our decision except the one chosen for you.”
“Why do you have to pick who I will marry? Why can’t I choose for myself like the stories I was told? I never thought I’d leave Idric, much less marry and now you’re talking about choosing a husband for me!” She was trying not to yell and she could feel the heat rising up in her body. She didn’t want to lose control again with this many people here.
“Calm yourself,” Volaris told her. “You said Belisarus told you that you would bring change. Maybe that is one of them. Though if you choose, I don’t think we can stop those three boys from fighting.”
“I don’t see why they can’t talk to me like a normal person. I’m still me no matter what I’m here to do,” she said, feeling the heat slip away.
Terros finally spoke and told her everyone had been waiting to meet her and she had wasted enough time. Terros always seemed to be mad at her like Leodos always was. She knew why Leodos was always angry with her. Terros seemed angry with her because of how she came to them. She couldn’t help that and hoped he would calm himself towards her.
They both led her out to the clearing and she was surrounded by so many tribe members. The humans they had traveled with stood a little further back. Esylle and Joron came and stood by her side. She could feel all eyes on her, sizing her up. Some looked at her in awe, some in confusion that she was this small girl.
When Volaris announced they would be going to Inanos, everyone erupted. She could pick out people saying they shouldn’t go there and people wondering if she could protect them. Volaris calmed them by saying it was she that suggested it and now that she was here, they should listen to her. She didn’t know what it was, much less that it would cause this much commotion when she mentioned that word. She only heard Belisarus weakly calling it out to her as she felt the fire growing too strong to hold onto anymore.
No one had approached her and tried to touch her now that everyone was here and she was a little relieved. It still made her uncomfortable. She could see Sono and Oris looking at her, but she couldn’t understand their looks. She couldn’t tell if they were staring at her because they liked how she looked like Esylle had said or they were just angry because they both wanted to marry her because of what she was. Neptis had also tried to talk to her before they started fighting, but they were all trying to talk to her at once and she couldn’t concentrate on what any of them were saying. At least Neptis didn’t try to fight with anyone.
She didn’t speak and she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to. Volaris was yelling over everyone and speaking for her. She wasn’t angry about it this time. He knew these people and she did not. She didn’t know what to say to calm them down and she knew she wasn’t here as she was expected to be. Terros was still angry at either Soryn or something else that she was just a young girl. She never knew how old she was before, but she learned on this journey she was nineteen. She still didn’t know her name day and tried to remember to ask Esylle now that she was getting more comfortable around her.
Volaris kept speaking that the Spirus thought they should go to Inanos and there may be answers for her there. She thought they would be safe there. Now that she was here, no matter how young she looked, they should listen to her. That finally calmed everyone down. Finally, someone else spoke.
“We haven’t been there for so long. Does anyone know how to get there?” one of the Tarks asked.
“We know it’s by the sea, but hidden, so we are close. We will travel by foot with some of my tribe flying over trying to find the exact location. You will not fly,” he said to Soryn when he saw her open her mouth.
“If it’s important to me, how do you know I’m not the only one who can find it if you say it is hidden?”
“You don’t know how to use your gifts yet. You will be taught while we travel. We can’t risk you in the air and you need to stay where you can be protected. I know you think you can protect yourself and I don’t want to argue with you. You’re staying with all of us until we get there! No more risking yourself. You’re too important.”
She didn’t argue. She really knew nothing about this place and if she really could be hurt there. She didn’t think Belisarus would have called it to her if she wasn’t supposed to find out something about herself there. Maybe the answers about how she was supposed to stop everything would be revealed there.
They started walking towards the coast and Esylle and Joron stayed near her. Oris and Sono kept their distance, but they kept shooting her looks like they would have rather been walking with her. The Tarks seemed to keep to themselves and Neptis was walking with his father, but he was sneaking looks at her too when he thought she wasn’t watching.
Fluvis
Fluvis walked with his tribe thinking he would rather be underwater. They were safe there. They were exposed here in the forest and he wasn’t sure if this girl was able to protect them yet. He could see his son shooting her looks and he was glad Neptis had not been involved in the fight that had broken out between Sono and Oris. He heard Volaris tell her that maybe one of the changes that she brought would be that tribe members would be able to choose their own mates. If this girl chose hers, the three princes would be fighting and he didn’t know what else they would do trying to win this girl. He knew what Neptis wanted from the looks he was giving her. If she did choose, Fluvis thought Neptis looked better than Sono and Oris at this point because he did not come to blows. He had taught Neptis well and hoped he wouldn’t do anything against what he had been taught to win this girl.
The further they walked, the more Fluvis wished they were underwater. It was faster to travel that way and it did not make your feet hurt like walking. When tribe’s members began disappearing so long ago, they did not get many of the Tarks because they retreated underwater. The few that were caught did so because they ventured back on land.
When they stopped to eat, he watched as the girl and the strange man she traveling with disappeared to find food. Sono and Oris both made a move to go with her, but Volaris stopped both of them. He told Oris she didn’t eat like him and it was pointless to go with her. He should go find his own food. Sono argued he had helped her before and he should help her again. Fluvis watched them argue and Volaris finally relented when Sono told him they both knew of edible food she didn’t know about. He watched Sono disappear to find her.
The Tarks only knew a little about finding food on land. It was much easier in the water. Volaris knew this and told him to wait and they would bring back food. His tribe all sat while the Theran and the Farkhi disappeared. His tribe hadn’t said much this entire time, but they had questions now that everyone was gone.
“Should we really trust him when he said we should go to Inanos? That place is cursed,” Salis said.
“We aren’t trusting him. We are trusting her. She is the one who said we should go there.”
“How could she know we should go there if she doesn’t remember who she is?” Rivule asked.
He sighed and tried to calm his tribe. He explained how she heard that word and thought her answers lie there. There were more questions and he tried to answer them. He finally noticed Neptis staring off into the woods.
“What is troubling you, my son?”
“Why does he get to be the one who helps her search for food?”
“Because he kn
ows what he’s doing. I’m sure you’ll have your chance to get to know her. Just don’t push her away like the other two are doing.”
Tribe members were slowly starting to spill back into the clearing. He saw the girl build a fire with her traveling companion. He overheard Sono offer to cook again and she allowed him. He noticed Esylle and Joron join them along with the tall man. The humans they brought sat further away with their own fire. When Volaris and Terros set up wood close by them, he went and joined them.
“Light this wood,” Volaris told the girl. When she looked at him quizzically, he looked at her impatiently. “I told you we would be teaching you to use your gifts. You will be learning every time we stop. I will find ways to teach you while we walk.”
“I’ve been able to start a fire since as long as I can remember,” she said, staring at the wood. Fluvis noticed a small flame dancing in her violet eyes, then there was a fire going under Volaris’ stew pot. “I thought you were going to teach me things I don’t know.”
“We will. While the food is cooking, I want you to change this,” he said, pulling a mouse he had caught out of his pouch. “We need to increase our numbers and you can do that.”
“I still don’t know how I changed Frog and it took years to teach him to speak and act normally around other people. He still doesn’t understand some things and he’s been with me since I was at least nine or ten. I don’t know how I changed Tollam and I know he doesn’t view it as a gift like you keep saying.”
“What were you feeling when you did it the first time? When you created Frog? I was there when you changed Tollam. Your emotions were heightened because you were going through your first Senso and he tried to attack you.”
“I was angry at Belisarus when I created Frog. We had fought and I went outside to play my flute. I was frustrated and angry. I was confused and feeling things I had never felt before when I changed Tollam. When he came at me, I could have burned him alive or changed into something and killed him, but I felt something inside that I didn’t have to kill him. I didn’t know what would happen when I touched him.”
“We need to develop your ability to change creatures and people without you either being in danger or angry. It should be second nature to you. You did it before you came back and you need to do it again.”
“You told me I created toys before! If I change this mouse, it will take years to teach him so that he is like Frog. I can’t create the army you want.”
“You have Essos with you. You need to find that gift inside of you of giving thought. You can create the army we need; you just need to concentrate.”
“Why did he watch me struggle to try to teach Frog when I was so young instead of telling me I could just touch him and do it? Why did he tell me not to do it again when I changed him if this is what I’m supposed to do? I don’t know how to do what you expect me to do!”
Fluvis was only watching and not commenting. He watched the girl get angry and frustrated. She had the mouse in her cupped hands and he thought only he noticed that the air around her hands started to vibrate. She was doing it! Before Volaris could speak again, there was a naked man sprawled across the girl’s lap. He wasn’t as strangely formed as her traveling companion and he was shivering and shaking in fear.
He didn’t know what the girl was going to do because he thought she didn’t know, but he watched as a breeze surrounded only her and blew her hair back. A small flame flickered in her eyes and at first, he was worried she would burn him. He watched as she gently pulled the naked man into a sitting position and took his face into her hands. She moved her face so that their faces were almost inches apart and they stayed that way for several minutes.
When she finally released her hands from his face, she moved them to his shoulders and he watched the air stir around the naked man. To his surprise, purple robes like the Theran wore appeared on his body when the air settled.
The girl looked down at him expectantly. Had she figured out what she was supposed to do? They all leaned forward and watched the strange man with gray hair. The man fell forward with his face in her lap, weeping. They could hear him trying to talk. He looked back at the girl and for a moment, even though her face was very young, the benevolent look she was giving this man in her lap, he could see her as the Spirus.
She gently lifted him out of her lap. “Do you know where you are?”
“There were big animals in the woods. I was trying to hide. Then I saw darkness. When I saw light again, I couldn’t move. I could feel myself changing, growing larger, and I didn’t know what happened. Then you looked in my eyes and I knew. These hands look like yours. Do I look like you now? Can I ever go back?”
“I’ve only done this once before and it was different. He has never been able to go back.”
“I can go back,” Frog finally said. “I choose not to and I never want to be that way again. I prefer the form you gifted me with.”
“Frog, maybe I can do to you what I did to him and you will learn things I never taught you.”
“I’m fine the way I am,” the strange man snapped, stalking off.
The girl watched him go sadly and got up to follow, but Volaris stopped her. “He doesn’t want your help. Just let him go.”
“He’s upset! He was there for me every time I got upset or angry after I made him. I should go after him. Send someone with me if you don’t think I should go alone!”
“Sono will go after him. He’s been out with you several times to gather food and your friend should be comfortable around him now. You need to stay here and talk about what you just did. How did you know what to do to give him thought?”
Despite seeing the Spirus in her earlier, she was back to looking like this young, rash girl as she sat on the ground with her arms crossed, pouting. Fluvis felt compassion for her. She was so young and grew up knowing nothing about herself other than she needed to hide. Now she was here being told who she was and maybe Volaris was pushing her too hard and too fast. Fluvis knew she needed to learn because he had no idea when they would find Inanos, nor when the humans would find the tribes, but maybe Volaris should give her time to process what she had just done.
Soryn
Soryn sat fuming, feeling the heat rising in her body and trying to push it down. She did what they wanted her to. She didn’t see why she had to sit there and explain how she did it while Frog was upset. She needed to go after him and she knew Sono couldn’t make it better for him. She didn’t know if Frog was upset because this man she just created was less strange looking than he was and she was able to gift him thought and speech just by looking into his eyes rather than spend hours in the yard trying to teach him like she had with Frog. She only suggested trying what she had on the man she created today on Frog because she thought there were things he still didn’t understand.
She knew there was no way she could get away from the fire without either drawing attention to them or one of them catching her. If she tried to fly away, Volaris would bring her down as Sono had done. If she ran, she knew Terros would chase her and that might make Frog run further into the woods. She thought Esylle knew to give her space now.
She did the only thing she could think of. She stood up, avoiding the hands reaching for her. She could feel Volaris at her back. She let the heat she was pushing down rise up and reeled around to face him. She controlled the heat as it surrounded her and ignored Volaris and Terros as they swore and drew back, screaming at her to calm herself. She heard one of them tell Esylle to go after her since she was the only one who could get close to her like this, but she didn’t stay to hear what else was said.
As soon as she cleared the brush, she turned into a fly just in case Esylle followed and concentrated on finding Frog. He always smelled of a moss that grew on Idric and she hadn’t smelled it since she came to the mainland except when she was near Frog. She didn’t know if she would find Sono with him or how she would get him to leave if he was with Frog. It needed to be the two of them now, like it was back h
ome.
She could smell Frog, but she couldn’t see him. She almost flew over him. He was sitting on a fallen tree looking down at his hands, but was almost nearly hidden by branches. She didn’t think Sono would be able to find them and flew down to him. When he saw her, he sat on the ground and she rested her head on his lap like they used to do back home. She tried to explain to him she wasn’t trying to upset him, she just didn’t know what she was doing when she made him and maybe if she did to him what she had done to the other man, he might learn things she hadn’t thought to teach him. She asked him why he never told her he could change back when he wanted when she was confiding in him she thought there might be something wrong with her.
He looked down at her sadly, but what he said surprised her. He told her that she already thought there was something wrong with her for creating him in the first place, he thought it would make it worse if he told her he could change back. He told her he never wanted to change back and he preferred the form she had gifted him because he learned things he didn’t know before in that form and he could be around her like she was. He told her he didn’t think there was anything he could learn that she hadn’t already taught him.
“What if there is, Frog? What if they expect you to fight? You can’t do it like this. What if I touch you again and you look more like the man that was a mouse? Maybe they would stare at you less.”
“If I have to fight to protect you, I will.”
She looked up at Frog’s green eyes. She told him he would get hurt if he tried to fight. She also told him she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to survive this once everything was over. She told him she worried that she was only sent here for one thing and maybe she was supposed to leave and go back to wherever it was she came from once this was over. They were talking like they were back at home and she could tell Frog anything.
“I don’t want to die, Frog, and I don’t want to just disappear somewhere I have no memories of. They all just expect me to do this and they pushed me to change that man. How do I know he even wanted to be changed? Maybe he would be happier as a mouse rather than being expected to fight for them.”
The Spirus Page 16