RWBY: Forever Fall

Day One

I twirled my wand through the air above our heads and barked a word. The flames washed over the two of us and all we felt was a faint tickle of heat brushing our bare skin as my flame-freezing charm turned flames nearly as hot as a dragon’s breath into little more than a summer breeze and the blistering heat of the air faded away. .

Even before the flames had fully cleared, I was casting again. None of my lands had readied yet after I drew on them to create a copy of Zatanna, but I was confident I didn’t need the aid of mana to rely on here. This thing didn’t seem anywhere close to as dangerous as a nundu, so, I’d give two wizards good odds against a mere creature. And if things did start going poorly, I could apparate away at any moment.

Flames parted around my flipendo and the spell smashed into the creature’s masked face. It reeled back, more surprised than hurt, and unfurled its wings. They were huge and black as the night, each enormous, spikey feather as long as my arm and jagged like a bread knife. Despite the size of the cave, it could not fully spread its wings, and instead just used them to stabilize its fall as it moved fully into the room.

The creature was massive, but it looked more feline than reptilian like I had been expecting. It was no dragon, though it looked to be about the same size as the young Common Welsh Green that I’d seen pictures of in the Daily Prophet. Perhaps three yards tall at the shoulders, two wide, and five long without the tail I could see behind its black body. It was long, the same shade of white as the creature’s mask, and relatively slender with a snake head on the end. Perhaps it was some manner of chimera than?

Before its front paws could land on the ground, Zatanna extended a hand out towards it. “Dnib,” she called out, and ropes sprang into existence around the creature’s limbs. It lurched as one of its wings was pulled violently out of alignment and nearly fell on its side.

“Good idea!” I complimented, my wand movements changing mid spell. I’d been planning to blast it with a confringo, but having a fully intact specimen would be far more interesting than a headless one. “Incarcerous!”

Thick woven ropes sprang from the tip of my wand and began to loop around the creature’s body and wings. It struggled wildly, bucking and biting and even breathing fire in all directions, but a second flame-freezing spell onto our conjured ropes, followed by an Imperturbable charm to stop it from tearing them apart with its razor-sharp teeth and claws, rendered those efforts mostly futile.

Perhaps if it hadn’t reflexively spread its wings, it would have been fine. No amount of rope would have stopped it from simply pouncing towards us, but as soon as Zatanna had bound its wings and legs together and stopped it from refolding them, the fight was all but over. It then falling over onto one wing had just sealed the deal.

Even still, it continued to strain and struggle. I cast the Incarcerous spell two more times, cocooning the creature and binding its mouth shut, finally reducing its rope-straining thrashing to tiny twitches of movement.

I relaxed slightly once it was fully secured, though I didn’t fully drop my guard, nor lower my wand. Our fight, for as short and one-sided as it had been, had been rather loud and very bright, and if there was one creature like this down here, there could be more.

Zatanna took another step into the room and cast another light spell, creating a trio of glowing orbs that floated up around the roof, fully illuminating the cave. “I’ve never seen an animal like this one,” she told me, curiosity evident in her voice. “What is it?”

I shrugged. “Not a clue, but hopefully I’ll find out soon. First though…” I twirled my wand above my head in several wide, slow circles. With each revolution, the earth around the other entrances to the cave shifted and flowed as though it was made of water, stone doors rising smoothly from the ground.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

On the final revolution, I brought my wand down and drew the outline of a P in the air. “Colloportus,” I declared, focusing on the half-dozen oddly shaped doors I’d just transfigured. They each gleamed briefly as the locking spell took hold. “That’s better. They won’t stand up to a charge from something as big as this thing,” I gestured to the chimera-like monster, “but they’ll hold back anything smaller and will warn us if something’s coming.”

“Good thinking,” Zatanna praised, “Your magic is so convenient sometimes, I’m jealous.”

“And Logomancy isn’t?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

Zatanna laughed. “I never said that. But you can do both!”

“Not half as well as you can.”

She waved me off. “That’s just a matter of practice.”

Maybe. Zatanna’s grasp of Logomancy was rather impressive and she was more held back by a lack of practical experience and small natural reserves of magic. Both of those could and would be inevitably fixed with age and experience. Meanwhile, it would take me a lot of time and effort to get nearly as proficient with her family’s form of spellcasting as she was.

I changed the subject. “Well, let’s take a look at this beastie. Boy, it's a big one.”

I cast a shield charm around myself, then took several cautious steps towards the restrained creature. It tried to snap at me, but the angle was all wrong and its mouth was bound shut, so it mostly just looked like another small jolt.

Hmm. “Stupify,” I tried, pointing my wand at a bare patch of black feathers. Red light flew from my wand and splashed against it. The creature’s body stilled for a moment and I thought my spell had worked, but then it began to thrash around again with renewed vigor.

I recast the spell three more times, but it didn’t seem to have much of an effect on the creature. I didn’t want to get close to it if it could still move and potentially attack me, so eventually I instead added some more ropes, cocooning the creature until only a few tiny patches of black skin and feathers were visible.

Only once I was absolutely certain that it wasn’t going anywhere did I finally approach the creature, Zatanna trailing behind me. I stopped just within arms reach and extended my wand to poke it. When it didn’t respond, I cast a spell intended to check for topical poisons and dangerous potions which came up clean, so it was probably safe to touch.

I took another step forward and laid my hand on its side. The flesh beneath my fingers was smooth and oddly cool to the touch. It barely felt like a natural material, more armor than the fur or feathers I’d expect from an animal.

Was this some wizard’s pet, perhaps? Some form of guard animal or breeding experiment? It would explain the markings on the mask and the combination of different features. It was said that the first chimeras had been created by Greek wizards thousands of years ago and, though most such experiments were illegal today, it was not uncommon for some wizards to flaunt those particular laws.

If that was the case, I was glad we’d subdued it and not killed it. That could have been awkward if we eventually came across its master. When I was done, I’d leave the creature here––the ropes Zatanna and I had made would all vanish eventually once we were long gone.

First however, there was something I wanted to do. I was pretty sure this was going to work, but I hadn’t yet had a chance to test the theory I’d come up with some weeks ago. This seemed like the perfect occasion.

“Keep an eye on the doors,” I ordered, “and shake me if you notice something.”

I waited for Zatanna to nod, then turned back to the chimera. I pressed one hand against its side and dug my wand past two layers of rope to press into another patch of flesh, Closing my eyes, I breathed slowly and deeply, my consciousness sinking inward until I reached my Spark.

A thin trickle of magic flowed from my wand and into the creature, giving me a vague sense of its shape. Then I very carefully shifted the source of that trickle, moving down and in and…

My Spark flared momentarily and a new blueprint appeared within me. I opened my eyes and took a step backwards, blinking rapidly. “It's a Sphinx,” I told Zatanna, though it didn’t look like any sort of Sphinx I’d ever heard of. “A…Grimm Sphinx.”

“Neat. Though it seemed more interested in barbeque than riddles.”

“I don’t think it's that kind of sphinx.”

“Probably not. ‘Rawr, fireball!’ isn’t a very good riddle.”