Kierna

The thick shoots of bamboo grass were difficult to push through, whipping and stinging their flesh. Kierna had to bite back another curse as another thin red line of blood was drawn, dripping down her face. She pushed through, her senses straining for any hint of the aether beast they were supposed to be tracking down. The late afternoon sun had begun to fall, shadows stretching out in front of her and Dion as they hunted futilely.

“This is pointless. We won’t find it before nightfall,” Dion complained quietly. Both remembered the brutal cold of the mountain nights. Even with their sudden surge in strength and durability, staying exposed on the mountain was a death wish. Kierna just wished she knew what it was they were supposed to do. If they returned empty handed, she knew that Pavel would send them home. He was vindictive and cared only for the best. Failing this task would be a sign of their weakness, a weakness he wouldn’t tolerate.

“We hunt it!” Kierna snapped, the day's stress getting to her. She would never normally respond with such vehemence to her closest friend, but the frustration of the day and their task was too much.

“Fine,” Dion muttered under her breath. The two of them fell silent as they continued to move through the sharp stalks, blood marking their path. The last tendrils of the day's heat were fast dissipating, stars beginning to twinkle above their heads. Still, they pressed on, soon smeared in blood.

Stalks of bamboo rustled off to their right, both girls' heads whipped to stare at the movement. So far there had been no signs of life up here, just them. Now, something was moving not too far away. Both girls grabbed the hilt of their swords, spacing themselves out a few feet as they peered intently at the obscuring wall of vegetation.

The moments pressed down on them, each held their breath and strained their hearing for any indication. Kierna pulled more aether into herself, her still strained channels protesting as more aether was unnaturally forced through them. The sudden rush helped to sharpen the world around her. It gave her the split second of warning she needed to survive.

She fell to the ground, sword still sheathed as a black bolt of fur flashed where her throat had just been. Dion gasped in shock, the sound of metal on leather rasping in the air as Dion drew her blade. The animal was gone again, just the swaying stalks left behind. Kierna pushed herself to her feet, breathing sharply as she pushed her meager cultivation to its full limits.

Dion’s rasping breaths came in clear, the heavy bruising to the girl's ribs impacting her breathing. The faint breeze that stirred the stalks became a roar. Pungent eath filled her nose with each breath, the heady musk of an animal layering itself with the scent of the mountain. To her left, close to Dion, the sound of a claw scraping against bamboo.

“DOWN!” Kierna screamed, drawing her blade in a flash of steel as she cut to where Dion’s head was. Dion reacted just a hair behind Kierna, already dropping before Kierna could call out her warning. Kierna’s sword whistled through the air and met thick fur. The snarling beast screamed, a hight pitch whine that tore at her sensitive ears. The blade hardly drew blood, the thick coat of fur absorbing most of the blow. The weight of the strike was enough to throw it to the ground, where it bounded to its feet and disappeared.

Thick, syrupy, red blood dripped down the length of the curved blade in Kierna’s hand. The only evidence of violence that had happened only moments before. Dion was sitting on her haunches, blade angled across her torso as she looked around with wide eyes.

“It’s fast!” Dion exclaimed, adrenaline robbing her of discipline as death danced among the forest of greenery. Kierna just grunted in acknowledgment, her own being turned toward keeping them alive. Every ounce of concentration was used to keep them alive, if even for a few more seconds.

The stalks began to sway as the gentle breeze began to strengthen to a full blown wind. Kierna had to hold back cursing as the sounds of the whispering long grass completely overlapped the beast's footsteps. The sudden smell of animal musk filled her nose. Kierna reacted instantly, falling to a knee and swiping her blade to the side against the push of the wind.

Once again, her blade met fur. This time though, the downward strike forced the creature to hit the earth only a few feet away, dust puffing up as it bounced off the hard packed ground. Kierna got her first clear look of the aether beast and wasn’t impressed. Six legs, three on each side, all of them with long black talons. Its brown fur was so dark it bordered on black, aside from the splash of cream that covered its squat face. Two beady eyes squinted at her, while its wet nose quivered against the air currents.

It was back and moving toward the bush before Kierna could react. The six legs allowed it to propel itself with unnatural speed. It was fleeing back to the thick bush, its instincts warning it away from them. Dion flashed by her, her passage stirring the air as her own curved blade flashed at the long tubular animal.

A huge descending blow meant to bisect it in half. It was overly ambitious and the aether animal twisted on itself as if it didn’t have bones. Dion’s blade sliced through its tail, cleaving the tip off. It screamed again in rage and disappeared, blood staining the dirt and the bamboo.

“Will it run?” Dion asked as she watched where it had run off to with weary eyes. Kierna could swear she felt its rage boiling out of the bush around them. The white hot rage that promised bloodshed. They had injured it twice and it was not going to let them leave unscathed.

“No, can’t you feel it? It’s rage and bloodthirst?” Kierna whispered as she stood up, her own blade held firmly in one hand.

“Yes, just hoping I was hallucinating it,” Dion said, chuckling softly as the two teenagers pressed their backs to each other. Kierna was taller than Dion, to the point that Dion’s head pressed firmly against Kierna’s shoulder blades.

“Same. It’s an ambush predator though. It won’t stand and fight. It’ll keep lashing out from the bush,” Kierna supplied, sure of her own amateurish analysis. Her strained aether channels were near the point of bursting as she continued to draw in aether to reinforce herself. She was near the point of aether collapse, where her shallow foundations were irreparably damaged from abuse.

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“I’m hurting, Kierna. My channels are ready to collapse.”

“Same. We will have to finish this quickly.”

“Should we retreat? Head back toward the temple, try to lure it away from the deep brush?”

“That’s a good idea. Slowly though, and don’t split up,” Kierna agreed. Together, still back to back, they began to head back toward where they thought the temple was. The falling sun was throwing off their navigation, but both were certain they were going the correct way. Every step was laden with danger, every second they had the entirety of their concentration pushed out as far as they could.

Kierna could feel the beast out there, the marked aura of bloodlust following them. As the minutes dragged out Kierna began to realize she could truly feel the creatures rage. More importantly, she could feel how it moved. Sometimes paralleling them, sometimes racing ahead, most of the time drifting behind them. She could feel her aether channels on the verge of collapse and had to reduce the amount of aether she was drawing in. The relief helped, though it didn’t solve the problem.

“We need to draw it out to attack it,” Kierna said to Dion. She was tired of being hunted. She was tired of running. She wanted to watch the small beast too hurry up and just strike. The day was dying and the temperature continued to plummet. Now as twilight pressed on them and their breath created shrouds of mist, she realized they needed to finish this and fast. When dark came, they would die to the beast.

“Agreed. Good luck,” Dion said, before bursting away from her and shooting toward where the beast's blood lust was emanating from. Kierna stood frozen for a moment at her friend's audacity at throwing herself at the creature with little more than a nudge. The creature’s aura shifted and with a little shock, Kierna realized she could feel Dion’s presence too.

Where the beast was a swirling cloud of hot rage and blood, Dion was quiet. It was a nebulous ball of swirling disquiet centered on a core of determination. Dion was fast, nearly keeping up with the little monster. She must be pushing her aether channels beyond their limits to reach those speeds. The crash of bamboo splitting reached her as the chase came back to her. Dion was pursuing, but the beast was stretching out its lead. They were coming right toward Kierna though.

She settled herself, breathing deeply and smoothly as she shifted her feet to get ready. Her opening came almost instantly as the creature bounded from thick stalk to thick stalk. It was a ball of hate, launching itself from stalk to stalk, picking up speed until it was just a barely decipherable blur. Kierna struck as it flew past, her blade finally digging deep, slicing through fur and into hide. The monster screamed again, warbling in pain as it sprawled to the ground.

Organs slid out of it, but it still pushed itself to its feet. It gnashed its jagged teeth at Kierna as it tried to limp away. It’s middle leg was limp and it’s back leg wasn’t working properly on its right side. The blazing speed was gone and now was the dangerous part. It was hurt and cornered and the intent of its aura was only of a desire to hurt.

Dion appeared, red faced and slick with sweat, gasping loudly. Her sword was out and she looked ready though. The two of them spread out, letting the little monster decide which to focus on as they began to rain down attacks on it. They didn’t speak, just falling into a natural pattern. One would attack and when it turned to face them, the other would strike. Again and again, none of their blows struck as deep as Kierna’s had. Yet, soon its silky coat was coated in blood and it was wobbling as it tried to keep them back.

Kierna feinted, dancing back as it lethargically turned to strike at her. Dion leapt forward, her blade descending like a guillotine. The beast's head rolled free of its body and the fight was over. Both girls collapsed to their knees,exhausted from the massive amounts of aether they had to draw out. The creature’s blood had soaked into the ground and its body seemed small laying out like that under the shoots of the thick bamboo.

Kierna released her cultivation, allowing her flow of aether to reduce to a trickle. It still felt like too much, but she couldn’t stop drawing in more aether. Not unless she wanted to forcefully collapse her cultivation forever. The two of them leaned against each other, shoulder to shoulder as they stared down at the dead body.

“You want to get the aether core?” Dion asked, a hopeful note in her voice. Kierna did not want to cut up the beast and search around in its still warm corpse. Dion had chased the creature, racing through the prickly vegetation to chase it toward her. Kierna couldn’t begin to imagine how terrifying that must have been.

“I’ll get it.” Kierna began to cut. In death its body yielded to steel easier. She took a few minutes to find it, quickly growing coated in gore. Finally, her fingertips pushed against a little node of power. The brief touch was like a bolt of power, her hair rising on her head as she gasped. More power than she had ever felt before. She grasped her hand around it and dug it free. As the core left the beast, the body began to decompose. Flesh liquefied and melted into the ground, teeth rattled out of its gums, and fur dissolved into a smelly gunk.

Gagging, Kierna retreated to Dion and the two of them stared at the marble sized aether core. Still coated in red, they wiped it clean on their battered tunics to look at an aether core for the first time.

It swirled and danced, dark shadows whipping about like a storm inside of it. Both peered at it with an intensity that robbed them of their ability to sense Ryen’s approach. The healer had followed at a discreet distance, watched as they fought and retreated and finally killed the little creature. Pavel had been right, it barely qualified as an aether beast with such a diminutive core. She smiled as she watched the two girls stare at it in wonder though.

A shadow aspected aether core from an aether beast. She looked at the two of them for a moment before deciding it would be better for Dion. Later, when they began to build their own cores and started to understand aspecting to a better degree. The little one was brave, but the shadows suited her better.

She had dove into the bush without hesitation and raced after the beast with all of the intent of a hunter. Kierna had stood her ground. Immovable, armed with only a sword and a fading power that she had just started to learn. They would make a good pair if they survived Pavel. The thought of the sadistic instructor made her mouth turn down and she sent tendrils of healing energy into both girls. She kept her touch lighter than normal, barely a whisper as their wounds began to heal.

Little Dion didn’t have an inch of flesh that wasn’t bruised or cut. How she was moving was a mystery to Ryen. An impressive showing of willpower. Kierna was in much better condition, her many victories in the dueling ring had kept her fresh. Ryen couldn’t heal them all the way, like she wanted to. Pavel was busy right now and couldn’t tell she was breaking the contract. Well, skirting its edges. She wasn’t healing them so much as encouraging their own healing to speed up.

“Come girls, I’m going to escort you back to the temple.” Ryen enjoyed watching the two of them jump into the air. Their gaze had been focused for so long on the small core it had been too easy to sneak up on them. With a thin tendril of power, she snagged the core out of Kierna’s hand and pocketed it.

“I’ll keep it safe for later. Let’s get you home and get a belly full of food.”