"Is Einervaene alright?" Brewbrt asks, winds howling with stone-cutting pressure as his fingers curl. The whistles in my ear sharply rise with each lashing of his house. Each curl of the fingers brings his power closer.

He walks closer to aid his strength's approach. Stepping away in turn, it does little to stop my body from glowing because of his threatening aura. My eyes shift to my side, a knocked out companion on the ground. He ain't getting up to help me, not with a head gash like that.

I nod to answer Brewbrt's question as my legs wobble, "Just kill me and get this over with... We both know what I am..."

My lungs abruptly empty, forcing me to gulp in some of the barbed breeze. I can feel blood in my throat, I can feel it warming up most of my back. It's dripping away, staining more and more bandages, a sickly yellow that keeps getting darker. Life-sapping moisture revitalising the marks of prior injuries.

"And where is Einervaene?" Brewbrt asks, his expression mellowing with familiar warmth. Odd. The kind he greeted me initially with, back on my first day here. The kind he swung his arms open for Einervaene to cuddle. Shakily, my left arm rises, pointing at my initial way back.

"With Rose... Out of sight." I say, struggling to get the details out of my head. Another cut slices open the floor. The magic seeps in, eroding it away into a blade-filled trench. Balls of light explode, fireworking across my vision. None get too close.

"I don't know where your aelenvar friend is. Or is calling her a 'slave' more accurate?" he is right to point out, though, his speculation is uncalled for.

"Rose is not my slave...!" I growl, his hand flicking out with a disc of arcane power. It shatters on my shin, knocking me forward face first. The pressure in the air drops me harder than this height should. Putting my claws out wide, I try to push up. I can't.

"Is she okay?" he asks, that dangerous glint to his eyes returning. Some kind of weapon forms in his hands, between the fog of magic majesty.

"I don't know..." I try to answer at first, only for the magic's viciousness to grow, "-I was running away with Rose! She followed us with her magic and, for some reason, fell from the sky!"

His power's encroachment slows to a cautious slither, "You did -catch- her?"

I nod slowly, "I did... I did. I left her with Rose in a mountain cave. High above the valley, so nothing's likely to catch them unaware."

"I see." Brewbrt lets out, a dark form bursting out from elsewhere in his increasingly broken home. The swirling mass of magic breaks away into a mass of silver-tipped strings. Revealing... Rose's stuff. Our stuff, what I am here for. All packed and ready to go.

"What...?" is all I can really say as it settles down a safe distance from us both. Though still close to me. Brewbrt's hands light up and it becomes hard to breathe. Taking the hat and mask off, I reveal the already spilled secret. Only to find easy breathing greeting me. I meet Brewbrt's curious eyes, his magic backing away to a palm.

"Is this why you are actually going to Thrurstradtur?" he asks, his magic going out to form a three-dimensional figure. A bare osibindah, one howling skyward. It doesn't matter if it's me or some ravenous bug. The image is all the same to me. It's a monster.

"Not entirely... I'm trying to reach someone. But I was hoping the people at Thrurstradtur would be able to help me." I explain, a glare taking over my brow as his eyes soften with his expression. He smiles, his might dying down.

"Well, let us hope the God of Luck shines his light on you, then." he says, most of the danger gone. Just like that. All this intimidation and life-threatening and now he's... Letting me go?

"You are just going to let me go...?" I ask, getting my perplexing thoughts out into the world. He hears them well and true, making it clear I am not going crazy. However, there's still danger to his motions...

"No, not yet anyway. For now, I need to know something. Regarding the daughter of my friend. Einervaene." he asks, a trigger finger aiming its way up to my head. I flinch as it shines brilliantly with swirling emerald. There's too much of that damn colour. The colour of power.

"Well, ask, I have all the time in the world now." I shiver, my body turning cold as I otherwise realise my tone.

"You won't have any time if you fail," he reminds me, his finger firing off and blowing a grand hole to my right, "But, let me get started, can you protect her?"

"Protect her...? Why would I..." I ask, blinking erratically as I take the moment to mask up again. I hate knowing my face is out there for the world to see. It must stay hidden.

"Because I am willing to let her go with you," he says, his hand reloading. He brings it back up, the angle of his aim closer to me.

"W-Why!?"

"She has taken a liking to you and your aelenvar friend. Enough that she was willing to hurt herself to try to rescue her. The one who calls you her precious love," he explains, making fairly good sense of why Einervaene did what she did. No doubt about it, she saw my form and how it made others feel. She saw me grab Rose and make a break for it.

"Letting her go with me is a bad idea..." I say to him, as it's clearly not obvious enough to him. He shakes his head, smirking a bit.

"No, actually. What you are puts you in a hard situation. You've had two choices so far. Either fall into spite's grasp. Or cling to what humanity remains. Fundamentally, you have currently or will develop the traits of a protector," he tells me, his centuries of lived experience not filtering very well into my head. Let alone my panic-shocked one.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"..." I gulp a rock of saliva down.

"Now, it would be a bad idea... If. You fail to prove yourself to me. I am not in a position to travel with her. Not now. It's an even worse idea to send her out of town alone. She needs companions. Friends. Gods above, she's spent years alone, I cannot stomach the idea of even one more day of it." he says, his duty to Einervaene's mother as bright as anything he's tried to wound me with.

"What do I need to prove...?" I ask, minding the pain already wrecking my body.

"You need to prove if you can protect her!" he goes, his magic returning and lancing to me. I leap away with speed I did not know I have. Falling onto my rear, I wonder if I've tricked the God of Thunder into thinking I am a lightning bolt!?

"I CAN'T PROVE ANYTHING IF I AM DEAD!" I shout with all I have at the enigmatic old man as more magic forms in his hands. The rims of which crackle and detonate in their razor vortexes.

"THEN! LIVE!" he calls out, his mouth not moving like a shout. But the world shakes with the force of his words.

More magic comes from me and I scramble up. Each blast I barely avoid sends my body into more of an overdrive than it already is. Missed blow and missed blow fill my body with dread. The reaffirmation that I know being hit will see me dead. A corpse!

To make it all so much worse... In the flash of a moment I have to catch my footing, I see whirling pits of death. Each missed shot is changing into a blender of the arcane. I'm barely avoiding the blasts and now I am getting fresh cuts!

Finding myself trapped by all the magic, my body starts to go limp, "As I said... I guess it was true... Undwote... I am coming back to see you."

My mutters must be louder than they seem. Brewbrt shakes his head, disappointment so clearly spread over his face. Somehow, it does something to my heart and mind... It's... It's making me angry.

I am more than just angry; I am pissed with all sense of inhibition gone. So very morally lacking. This man is trying to kill me... Kill me! And he is shaking his head at me!?

The blasts seem to have stopped. Getting myself properly upright, my shoulders rise as my claws arc. I smash my chest. Drumming it again and again with a spread of my arms.

"WELL!? GO ON, THEN! KILL ME! Kill me...!" I demand, claws flexing as I try to think of something. Anything.

He clearly believes that I can live through this... Somehow, so impossibly somehow. That I have a chance. But what am I going to do!?

Looking around at what remains of the estate, I spot a pillar still largely intact. I figure out my idea. I need to try and do what Rose taught me back at the start of our journey. I need to give my body greater size, an extension to focus myself through. Something big, something like that pillar.

It has to work, it must!

I need to live and get back to Rose-sweerui. I need to make sure she is safe. I will see her again, and Vapooliar, and Vadei and anyone else who will be gladdened by my name! Live.

"Ready?" Brewbrt questions, a lone spear taking the light to an extremity not seen so far. I flinch at its flaring power and punch down my quivering gut. Shifting my legs, I mind the shaking and trembling of perhaps the whole town. The ground is warping to the tyranny of the wind. With specks of it becoming little more than sand by the time they whirl a mere once.

Each rotation, every spin. It booms, the edges eat away at the ground and explode. I can't hear my thoughts anymore. It's all simply the power of Brewbrt's wind.

"Undwote seems pretty close..." I whimper, lapsing in my determination to live. Shooting to the pillar, I break over his lingering power and cut my feet along it. With a wet skid, I hoist up the masonry and focus. My magic comes out as I want it to. My power is ready to serve!

With all the strength I can, I focus my arcane fury to meet his. Brewbrt relaxes, a clear smile and huff moving his lips. He flicks his wrist with nary a care and death approaches. Like all sane people, I panic. Panic threatens to explode my brain into mush.

Every curse I can think of leaves me. Every noise imaginable, every jitter. The spear breaks apart the pillar, sending me reeling. In a last moment of desperation, I clap my claws together and-

Catch it!? Eh!? How am I- Pain!

So much damn pain!

Roaring it out, I feel the caught vortex drill through my grip. My palms shave away and my arms break at the whipping circumference. Cracking and chipping. The tip pokes into my gut. I'm maintaining my grip!

How am I maintaining-!?

Feeling for certain that I am going to die, I roar one last time as I feel it come in. Yet, I throw the spear aside instead. The spear eats into the earth, tunnelling out of sight with only its blinding glow staying in view. The sound of the exploding magic reaches us first.

The shockwave throws me to the ground and I slide down into the falling ground. Brewbrt grabs me and pulls me out of the swallowing earth. My bloodied back slides along the ruined floor. Slicking it with blood. My blood, not one drop of his. Not even punched out spit.

"That is your current best?" Brewbrt asks, somehow already looming over me again. Struggling to find a way to grip the ground with such bleeding claws, I slump. My blurry eyes can barely make him out, even this close. He's close.

I try to grab him and plunge my thumb-claws into his eyes... I stop. Staring with abrupt clarity, I do nothing but look at my ruined claws. They're not even hand-like anymore. It's all just a pair of paintbrushes. Soaked in bloody paint.

Brewbrt glows, and it passes into me. I breathe his magic in. The pain starts to go away and I watch my body repair itself back to a functional state. Stumbling back to my feet, he turns away with a nod. He healed me. Like he did for Rose and Einervaene back during the stampede...!

"I hope Undwote forgets about you when you die..." I literally spit at him as he walks away. Though I am healed, there's still blood sticking to my tongue. I spit again to get some of it off.

"And I hope you find the help you want. On top of that, I want to see a meaningful bond created with Einervaene. The daughter of my good friend," he tells me, his smile wide and only slightly less confusing when compared to his wave. It's too friendly for what has just happened.

"Bleh..." is all I have for him and I turn to get my help off the ground. Seeing how the bag is packed much neater than how I did it, I exploit the new room. Stuffing the human into the top of the bag. Which, somehow, is also packed with plenty of new and additional supplies... Stuff I know I didn't pack.

Everything we would need for our journey. Everything I worried about before and during Rose's and my journey here. What a weird old man Brewbrt is... What a weird old coot.

"I mean it, Young Man. Really, I do. Good luck. You've got an interesting life ahead of you. Just... Make sure to heed my next words carefully. Please, do not kill off any bonds of friendship that you have. It's a lonely enough world as is," he tells me, the bag settling onto my back without much trouble. Thank the gods he healed me and sorted out my back.

Both barely old wounds and newer.

"Oh, also... You might want to hurry," he tells me, and he winks. Another smirk appears on his face. I blink in confusion and flinch as his magic returns. It explodes in his face and he flies back into some debris.

It exploded in his face!?

My head empties and my legs run with all they have as the barriers all drop. Leaping out into the town, I barrel my way through the safest path. Harmless bullets shoot after me like the good old days. I leap the town wall and it stops.

"Undwote, leave me alone! Undwote, leave me alone!" I can't help but cry out as all kinds of noises chase after me. Barely making it in time, another bullet zips into the dirt on my left as I stumble heavily. I'm finally home free!

High on all kinds of exciting feelings and chemicals. I can barely pay attention to the world around me. Jumping and running is all I can really focus on right now. Jump far. Jump fast.

Jump!