Stella climbed out of Vur’s snout and yawned. Her eyes were surrounded by dark circles, and her hair was frizzled. She blinked and squinted when the sun shone in her eyes. Her hands reached down and patted Vur’s scales. “Vur, hey, Vur. I finished interrogating that deer.”
Vur tilted his head. Luckily, Stella’s body was still stuck in his snout; otherwise, she would’ve fell off. “Does she know where Tafel is?”
Stella blinked. “Um? I didn’t ask about Tafel,” she said and shook her head. “Instead, I asked her about a lot of important, well, maybe important things. Like, I asked her about what she could do, and how she could survive despite being eaten by you.”
“Oh.” Vur crossed his eyes to stare at Stella. “And?”
“Right, so, these spirit animals, they’re creatures made by the people,” Stella said. “The people build totems and worship them, and if there’s enough worshipping going on, a spirit animal is born. It’s like a ritual, but there aren’t a lot of items needed since there’s so much mana in the air or something. Anyway, after an animal is born, it lives forever and ever unless it gets eaten by a rival animal. Then the rival animal gets stronger! It’s really interesting.”
Vur blinked and tilted his head even further. “Is this important?”
“Learning is always important,” Stella said and wrinkled her nose. “But if you mean important for finding Tafel, it’s probably not.” Stella patted Vur’s scales when she saw he was losing interest. “Hey! It might not help us find Tafel, but Tafel will be super excited to find out about it. These animals can improve people’s strengths. You know how she’s always going on and on about being weak and wanting to get stronger to beat you.”
“To beat me?”
“Err, not you, but that someone she’s always talking about, you know.” Stella nodded. “These animals can split off parts of themselves to imbue humans with special abilities. A deer spirit can make people run faster. An owl spirit can make people silent. A bear spirit can give people strength.”
Vur pointed at the spirit rabbit by the spirit bear. “What’s the rabbit spirit do?”
Stella blinked and turned around, her torso twisting at her waist. “Hey, rabbit! What do you gift your humans?”
“No one prays to me,” the rabbit said, its ears drooping. “That’s why I’m so tiny.”
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“But someone must’ve prayed to you for you to exist, right?” Stella asked, a wrinkle appearing on her forehead.
“Yes.” The rabbit sighed. “They prayed I’d make their enemies timid and weak.”
“Oh.” Stella’s expression relaxed. “That’s not a bad ability. Making your opponent weaker is the same as making yourself stronger.”
The rabbit rapidly shook its head. “I send parts of myself into their enemies. Then their enemies pray to a different animal spirit, and that animal spirit consumes the portion I sent inside.”
“Oh right,” Stella said, dragging out her words. She turned back to Vur. “See, the animals bless these people before a battle, and if the people they blessed win the battle, they get stronger while the other animal gets weaker.”
Vur yawned and lay on his stomach, resting his chin on his front paws.
“I can tell you’re very interested,” Stella said and frowned. “All right, I’ll skip to the end. All you have to do is capture every single spirit animal. That way, they’ll all work for you, and all the blessings will accumulate on you, making you super-extra strong.” She blinked. “Except for the rabbit. I guess we don’t really need to capture him.”
“That sounds like a lot of work,” Vur said and exhaled. His body relaxed, and his wings tucked against his sides. He had been flying for so long, looking for Tafel. It was a perfect time to take a break. He already left so many statues for her to follow anyway. By the time he woke up, she should’ve found him. Another yawn escaped from Vur’s lips, and he closed his eyes.
“Wait! Get up!” Stella said and patted Vur’s scales. “It’s almost Tafel’s birthday. Collecting all these spirit animals will make a great gift!”
One of Vur’s eyes cracked open.
“Think about it,” Stella said. “You can get Tafel a star, and what is she going to do with it, huh? She can’t do anything with a star! If you get Tafel a spirit animal that makes her as strong as a bear, won’t she be super happy?”
“I don’t know,” Vur said and closed his eye again. “Bears are pretty weak.”
The spirit bear trembled.
“No, no,” Stella said and rubbed her forehead with her hand. “That’s not what I meant. I meant, what if she gets an added strength of an additional bear? It’s much harder to get stronger if you’re already strong; any additional increase in strength would be appreciated. Tafel’s going to love it.”
Vur’s eyes cracked open by a tiny slit. “You care about Tafel that much?”
Stella bobbed her head up and down. “Of course, of course! And if she’s satisfied, I’ll keep the leftover animals and rear them in my backyard.” She nudged Vur’s scales. “C’mon, it’ll be fun. Maybe only the deer tasted bland. What if the other spirit animals are tasty?”
Vur snorted. He pointed his head at the spirit rabbit, opened his mouth, and inhaled. The poor rabbit was sucked inside, not given a chance to resist. It screamed as Vur swallowed, and it continued screaming inside of Vur’s stomach. Vur licked his lips. “It didn’t taste like anything.”
“That’s because you didn’t let it touch your tongue,” Stella said and rolled her eyes. “You swallowed it instantly. Hang on a second.” She dissolved into specks of purple light. “I have to bring it from your stomach to my dungeon.”
Vur exhaled through his nostrils and lowered his head back onto his paws. The spirit bear trembled by Vur’s head, not daring to utter a sound as it made itself as small as possible.