It was a struggle at first. Arras could barely put one paw after the other after all... but, after everything... put one paw after the other he did. He... refused to stay down. Refused to just wait and see.

His first and utmost priority was to secure a new shelter. Some place to rest that wasn't outside, bare to the world, free pickings to any would be predator. His parents had never gotten around to teaching him and the rest of his siblings the same age as him, but he'd had an intuitive understanding of it. A mix of instinct and scattered conversation picked up from the wayside.

First and foremost... he was looking for a tree.

...Obviously not just any tree, because then he wouldn't have had to gone far at all. No, over an hour into his search and still only a few possible prospects had been spotted. The tree needed to be large. Large enough that its roots would have spread everywhere, pervaded through at least three dozen meters around the tree itself, and... while he couldn't exactly determine that at a glance, Arras had a sneaking suspicion that trees that barely reached five meters tall wouldn't end up being what he was looking for.

It was difficult for larger trees to grow. The far older, ancient oaks that sprinkled The Grand Forest had stood for decades, centuries, growing freely and soaking in the sun far up above the canopy. Soaking in lots, and lots of it, depriving the others of the chance to grow freely. As one might imagine, that made it rather... difficult, to find one such tree. Especially when they were commonly occupied by a creature with the strength to lay claim to such a place.

But, Arras wasn't looking for something nearly so luxurious. All he needed was something to live off of... A simple abode, that was it.

Eventually, Arras began to pay less attention to the world around him as his aching body continued to batter at his senses, despite his better judgement, he began to focus inwards. On himself, or more accurately, the feeling that had blossomed in his existence. Not his body, his mind, or even his whole being. It was something different, yet intertwined with each of those things.

...For one, he felt quieter. He couldn't put a paw on it, but something irrevocably shattered in him. Something... fundamental. And shattered wasn't quite the right word either. In fact... he didn't have a word for it. But, all he knew, was that focusing on that feeling hurt less than it did to do otherwise. His screaming body quieted the further he looked into it. He felt... strange.

Part of his instincts screamed at him to stay alert, to do literally anything else with his presence of mind, but... an overwhelming majority of them told Arras that it was alright. That it was okay to do what he wanted at that moment. What he wanted...

Despite everything...

Arras closed his eyes for a moment, breathing in, then out. His magic ached, it hurt deep. Far more than his body. It had twisted, forcefully bolstered itself for a short moment, and... paid the price. Reaching into it was excruciating for a short moment, but...

He opened his eyes, willing a singular flame into existence. Every part of him hurt, his legs buckled under the pressure, and then... it stopped.

It was... quaint, meek, quiet... beautiful. It was beautiful.

Despite everything, Arras's mind was clear. Clearer than it had ever been. Every part of him screamed out, but... it made no headway into his heart.

Magic was his tool, his implement, his way of life, his survival... magic... was beautiful.

However, regardless of what Arras was feeling in that moment, his entire being stood in stark opposition to his mild usage of it, the flame fading out involuntarily as his body wrung itself of what little magic it contained after having already recovered for so long.

"..."

It hurt... it hurt a lot. Every step was miserable, and now he'd stoked the flames of his own headache! But... it was worth it. In that moment, Arras knew... more than anything, he needed an affirmation. And in that single moment, that one point of view, he'd found it. He... didn't know how he'd never seen it before.

And in the next moment, he once again saw something for the first time.

"...Ah."

...

It took him a long while, especially with every part of his body dipped into liquid agony, but Arras eventually got around to it. At the end of his high, fortunately enough, he'd stumbled right upon one such tree that he'd been looking for. Similar to the rest, but... ever so slightly larger. A flourish to its growth that set it apart from the rest upon closer inspection.

It was slow going at first, digging a proper den in Arras's condition was miserable work. He'd made the mistake of attempting to call upon any amount of earth magic in the middle of pawing at the ground, and immediately paid the price in an ever declining headache. Despite his wishes, his magic was ostensibly depleted. Each drop of proverbial power that he could muster in recovery. Not gone, that key part of his being remained in place, but... it would take some time for a full recovery. He wouldn't complain, his overexertion had been life saving after all... but... it was difficult.

It took lots of effort and plenty of breaks, an amount of time that would have most certainly gotten him killed if literally anything had been in the vicinity, but nothing had. Not a single dangerous being to be heard of.

By the time hours had passed, Arras finally found himself able to work at least a meager amount of magic. And so, following the high that still occupied his mind... he went straight into attempting more earth magic. Realistically, he knew that was an awful idea. Learning magic was difficult, it was an activity that took days at a minimum. To do otherwise was reckless, especially in his condition. His family would chide him... his family... they... weren't here right now. They likely wouldn't be, ever... Regardless of the bond that he and his family shared, they could not endanger the whole on the slim chance that Arras had survived his accident.

If he wanted to live, he'd have to do it on his own. He had to take risks, or at least, he had to grow. He had to get stronger, and if the first steps on that path happened to be reckless casting... well, he'd already been suffering through the after effects of that for several hours.

And so... he took a crack at it. He recalled the feeling that had enveloped him in that moment, the passion of that singular instant, the fire in his being, shapes, color, all of it... and brought it to a single point.

With a thought, the ground beneath Arras's feet fractured. The magic in his body leaning precipitously to the side of utter breakdown... yet holding still. Both in his spell and in his reserves, he... was fine. And absolutely not heeding the miracle he'd been let off on, Arras did it again.

...And again...

He didn't stop.

...

The coming days were less of a blur. For the first time since falling, Arras finally had the capacity to keep track of time. His presence of mind returned to him, frazzled yet somehow different. His perspective scattered, it was difficult to focus on any one thing, but... the entire world felt alive to him. As if it breathed. He could see the lungs of it all contracting, It was... an interesting experience.

But, that didn't change that he himself still needed to keep breathing. And in order to do that, he needed a few different things. A source of food, and water mainly, but the meager work he'd gotten done on the day of his battle had been... not quite up to par. Arras certainly didn't intend to bury any remains he would have in the future out in the open as opposed to giving it to the tree he was building his den upon, so he needed a separate chamber for that purpose. And then he wouldn't feel safe sleeping within eyeshot of any would be predator, so he needed another chamber for bedding. And then it wasn't safe to only have one entrance, so he needed multiple smaller escape routes... on and on it went.

So, over the days of his involuntary escapade, Arras had scrounged up a schedule.

He woke up, went on the hunt for anything edible, but made sure not to stray too far from the vilo parasite infested part of the forest. It kept most creatures away barring a few simple minded ones like prong rabbits, then made his way to the nearby stream, drank his fill, and returned to his den. He'd work until he felt as if he'd drop, allow himself time to recover while mentally straining himself instead via spellwork... so on, so forth. Again, and again. For one, two, three, four, five moons... the monotony was almost killer. The only thing that held Arras together was his newfound intrigue in the art of magic.

His perspective on that particular faucet of life hadn't changed for a moment. Ever since his near death encounter, he literally saw the world in a new light. He wasn't sure how he'd never managed to see it before, he certainly wished he had... this whole situation might never have occurred if this enlightenment had hit him mere moons earlier. When the world breathed... every part of it did. Every living thing, he could feel it. All of it. Albeit, incredibly faintly, and everything tended to blend together... but every single thing held a signature. A pulse of magic that came from it at all times. He could barely tell a blade of grass apart from the two prong rabbits that he'd found, but still... it was a unique perspective. One that might have been helpful.

Well... for him, there was no use crying over muddied water now, he'd moved forward, managed to survive. He'd make his way back to his family no matter what. But, for the time being... he did need a way to entertain himself, at least, somewhat.

So on the same vein of magic... he decided to try something entirely new.

Earth magic was also technically new, but... it felt easy. Abnormally so, he enjoyed working with it still, but there was no real challenge in it unless he really pushed his body. Even now he was still reeling from the after effects of his over-expenditure days ago, so doing so gave him a terrible headache... No, he needed something else.

So, he thought about it for a time. A short time, lying in his makeshift bed in the corner of his den after having finished the room.

And then he tried his paw at it.

And... failed, miserably.

Wincing in pain, Arras steadied his magic and waited for the change made to his own body to settle. It was a minute edit, so it would revert with little to no difficulty after a minute or two... but, oh dear, he'd... underestimated transformation magic.

He figured it would be easy...! Just like earth magic had come to him naturally a few days ago, but...

"Gh...!"

His bones tensed uncomfortably, rubbing against each other with yet another shoddy attempt at the magic.

This was... different. Arras had picked up on a little bit of talk about transformation magic, the feeling that his siblings described it as... most of them hadn't been proficient, having no real reason to pick it up besides rising to the challenge... and Arras was now attempting to go off of it with even less instruction.

He'd have a good time, probably.

...

On his sixth day... Arras had started to get somewhat complacent. After all, there'd been nothing beside the Farrahm which had almost killed him and a few prong rabbits so far, right? So, when he caught a whiff of something else, he nearly jumped out of his fur. And with that, the almost whimsical sense of discovery that had taken him over for the past few days faded in an instant.

Not just something else either, two something elses. One scent that he recognized, and another that he didn't.

A Felqia, which was... not something great to be around. If it was on the hunt for something, dealing with it now while it was tunnel visioned might be the best course of action. If Arras caught its notice after the fact it could end up being... quite dangerous. Whatever the other creature was, Arras also smelled blood. So... it probably wouldn't be a problem.

Arras carried on with renewed caution. It was about mid-day and he'd just left his den to go get food. Everything had been going smoothly for almost a quarter cycle, but... Arras figured he should've expected something like this sooner or later. Even if the place was covered in vilo parasites, some sort of interference once every few moons was to be expected.

Gradually Arras carried on, carefully sniffing around the trees for any signs of the odd pair he'd smelled earlier. As he grew closer, his footsteps conversely grew lighter. Extra caution being taken in the presence of a fearsome hunter.

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

Eventually, he got close enough to hear... something. It was an odd sound, one that he believed he'd heard before... but it also wasn't quite that familiar? It sounded like... Panicked squawks-

Squawks?

were crying out from behind a nearby bush. And, shimmying around his better judgment, Arras peeked past the bush.

It... wasn't a pretty sight. Blood was everywhere, the wings of a red and white creature mangled horrifically. Its body was left mostly untouched, likely by design as opposed to an inability to do so. Felqias were exceedingly cruel, or so Arras had been told.

Given its focus was still zeroed in on the bird, Arras figured that it hadn't noticed him. So... he just watched for a moment. Observing quietly as its claws finally marked the avian's mid-section. Drawing droplets of blood with a light graze. Once again they cried out, but the feline only took a step closer as they scrambled back, bloodied wings dragging across the underbrush.

Shortly after... they collapsed. Even from here, Arras could see their wide eyes. Staring up at the malicious actor standing tall above its collapsed form.

...He couldn't put a feeling or a word to it, but... he didn't like this. Not out of any desire for the birds well-being, he cared not if it lived or died, but... This was just...

Distasteful. It was pointless violence.

The Felqia raised its claws high, well into the air, still completely focused on its quarry. So much so, that it didn't notice Arras gracefully slinking right up behind it, something that its prey, frantic as it was, seemed to notice itself. Its eyes shooting towards Arras as his muzzle twisted.

Shink

A small spike formed from the earth. It was quick, clean, and killed it instantly. The beast was so focused on it's squirming prey that it paid zero attention to everything around it. Not even the formation of magic that had felt so clear to Arras.

...Though he supposed he couldn't particularly blame it. He wouldn't have noticed the same thing a quarter cycle ago.

The dead body of the feline slumped to the ground, bleeding profusely. The creature he'd saved stared at him almost reverently, wide eyes narrowing in surprise as he took another step forward.

...He... wasn't sure why, it was next. It wasn't like he'd seen anything like it before, but he held no curiosity in his heart for an active threat. His tail thrashed with murderous intent, and a fireball manifested above shortly afterwards.

Without further delay, Arras launched his attack as the bird's eyes quickly widened once more. Somehow, it actually managed to scramble out of the way of his attack with its egregious wounds... that... was his fault. He hadn't put his all into that spell, assuming the best. He wouldn't miss aga-

"Wait, wait-PLEASE wait!"

What the hell was that? His eyes panned across hie environment, all the while readying another spell to chuck at his assumed perpetrator

"The one you're aiming that spell at! Please don't kill me! You're a spirit fox, right? We can talk about this!"

"...You can speak? What spell are you casting?" Arras asked with ample hostility, any magic that he didn't recognize could be used against his life, he was more than ready to attack regardless.

"I can't understand you like that! This is a mind link, not harmful at all-please stop do not cast that!"

Even though the voice was entirely mental, it still managed to convey an accurate amount of distress. Arras debated with himself for a moment. He didn't quite realize that his impromptu acquaintance could still hear his inner debate. But eventually he came to a conclusion that they didn't feel the need to alter.

"So you can understand my thoughts then?" Arras stared at the bird intently, not letting the spell he'd manifested lose even an ounce of power.

"Ah, yes! Yes I can. Can I take this as your being willing to talk?..." The now slightly less afraid voice asked with a tinge of hope.

"That depends. What are you? Why should I let you live? What are you doing?

The bird's eyes nervously flicked between Arras's eyes and the fireball. Slowly they straightened up, wings dragging against the ground.

"Uhm... an ashwing, I haven't done anything to hurt you, and this is a mind magic spell...?"

"...And what do you want me to talk about?"

"...Hopefully not killing me, please?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

Arras took a step back, limping slightly. The further he could be, the better it would be for him if any... aggression happened to occur.

"Uhm-are you injured? I could help heal that okay?Reallyi'mserious please don't kill me please-" Arras blinked as a jumble of words feeling and thought slapped into his own mind. The spell that was being upheld seemed to be moreso a direct link between minds as opposed to controlled speech. That, or this bird was a very good actor... Wait, what was it that they'd mentioned?

"Heal-" Arras took a closer look at the bird, observing their torn up wings and flesh.

"Heal me? When your wings are torn up like that? How can I trust that you're not just trying to get out of here alive?"

"Uhm-I, ahm... I... kind of can't heal myself...

"..."

"I'm serious! Really! I can't lift my wings right now! I can only heal what they touch!"

As if to prove a point they seemingly struggled to lift a wing. They got it about an inch off the ground then immediately grimaced and fell back down, carefully, so as not to land on it.

"And how can I believe you?"

"Well I mean, you're hearing my thoughts right now...?"

Arras tilted his head and let out a small huff. That did seem to be true. He didn't lower his tail or get any closer, but he did at least decide to give them a chance.

"Fine. What can you eat?"

"Oh, well uhm... any-anything will do."

"Good. Then pick that up." Arras lifted a paw and gestured in the direction of the deceased Felqia.

"With... my wings?"

Arras glared at them yet again.

"No, of course not... sorry."

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Bestiary

Felqia

A relatively rare feline that has been on the decline. Either through death or evolution it's species is currently dwindling. It's partially sapient, but is an extremely violent predator. They are quite gifted with speed and strength enhancements but have horrible affinities with literally everything else magically related.

It's no wonder that this species is dying out, given it’s fragile enough to be instantly killed in one hit from a multitude of creatures due to its lack of defense when it comes to physical strengthening.

Usually they have tanned cloaks and are small creatures. Though there are certain albinos, which are incredibly rare on top of the species itself already being rare. It's likely you could count the amount of albino felqias in existence on your hands.

Felqias are poor in drawn out combat, often lacking the magical capacity to go the distance in a straight up fight. But when given the chance to truly get at something, they can take it down in mere moments, regardless of a difference in size. Their claws are razor sharp, shearing through most anything regardless of durability. This is, however, if they are desperate. Felqias have a particularly nasty trait of playing with the lives of those they believe they have cornered.

They are very anti-social, but when they do finally mate it's usually for life. This does not however, hold true for their children. Usually felqias will raise their children through about two weeks of their life before leaving them to fend for themselves. This also doesn't help their species, given it takes about two months to reach maturity.

Colonial life has also attempted to domesticate this species in the past. Key word, attempted. The race was simply far too violent to reliably raise. Though off-shoot relatives of the Felqia have been domesticated in the past.

As a Felqia becomes stronger its teeth become sharper and its tanned coat gradually becomes darker. At a certain point a Felqias tooth could pierce even the toughest of materials. Diamond breaking like wet paper in its jaws.

Felqias do have innately long lifespans, and gain a lot of extra time from becoming stronger. But regardless of this, they often die early.

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Ashwing

A magically powerful species of avian, often contracted as a mage’s familiar. They are intelligent creatures, often associating themselves with colonial life. Their personalities can range from the happiest bundle of joy on Araia, to the grumpiest sack of potatoes known to all life. They vary quite wildly, much like humans do.

Ashwing coloration can vary from bird to bird, but the general combination natural to the wider majority is red and gray. With gray making up the majority of their feathers, whereas red lines the edges. Rare variations that circumvent this coloration exist, but as stated prior, they are quite rare, and there is always one predominant and one lesser color present among an ashwings feathers.

Ashwings are rather aptly named, having high affinity with fire magic and everything related to it. Across the board they are better than average at most all magics, and they can even utilize physical strengthening magic where other races may falter. Yet, their critical flaw lies in their complete inability to, ironically, use wind magic.

Contrary to most winged creatures, ashwings are seemingly cursed with a complete denial of any wind based magic. Unable to push to the speeds that other creatures of flight can. They are often bound to lower mobility compared to most other creatures. Unable to boost their speed in the air, and not mobile on the ground. Thus they must be supported in most combat scenarios. Ultimately, being the reason they willingly enter contracts with other species to accommodate for their weaknesses, sustaining multiple familiar contracts.

Let this not be a statement of an ashwings weakness however. Even on their own, given the opportunity to display their power, the level of magic one such member of this species can produce is dreadfully terrifying. Generally, they seek contractors to cover for their minutia weaknesses. But they can be a flexible bunch as well, working with others for other reasons. Especially when it comes to ashwings in a noble environment.

Ashwings mate for life, and raise their children with due diligence. Practically a necessity for their low birthrate. Nigh every ashwing makes it to maturity as a result of the species exemplary parenting. They often build strong bonds with their family, lasting till death rends it apart itself. The rare mismatch does occur given the wildly varying personalities of this species, but it as, as previously mentioned, quite rare.

As an ashwing grows stronger the red feathers on the edges of their body grow further inward. Slowly the gray loses out against the more vibrant red. The eldest of ashwings even being mistaken for the Phoenix itself. The oldest ashwings invert the prior rule, with red being the norm, having gray line their feathers. These ashwings are immensely powerful, and often do not even need to compromise with familiar contracts to cover for their weaknesses. Instead working on more standard contracts.

Ashwings live for a long, long time. Natural death is almost unheard of for the species, their longevity second only to un-aging races. The only recorded deaths of ashwings by aging is that of truly ancient creatures. Thousands of years old, wellsprings of power and knowledge. Their loss being a tremendous blow to the parts of the world they lived in.