Amehana pressed for the minds of her companions when the Headman and his people began to turn their attention.
“They're finishing. Seems they've felt something. If we're getting the boy out of here, we've got to get moving.”
“I canst starteth waking him now.”
Diamondixie stepped back from the little boy dreaming inside Justin's heart. “Justin, we need you to wake.”
With the end of the dream, came a surge of power, a tingle, and Diamondixie gathered as much as she could. This she used to fuel her spell, further fraying the grip of what the Seidhrmenn had woven. With this, Justin woke, even more aware of the parts of his soul that had been lost or taken.
Justin sat up, looking around lost, seeing the small white creature from his dream beside him, and another feathery white and blue creature by the door. Quietly he rose and gathered his things.
“He wakes,” Diamondixi sent to Ame.
The phoenix raised the doorflap carefully, while Diamondixie sent everyone else that she could further into sleep. Carefully, the trio picked their way out.
Ame looked over at them, waving them on, then paused outside of the holding cave the boy had been in to create the illusion the lad still slept within. She followed swiftly, though hanging behind as rearguard in the case that anyone chose that moment to come out.
It was a choice that turned out for the best, as indeed, the Seidhrmenn did emerge at just that moment. Before they had a chance to raise a cry, Ame hurled bolts toward them and used her large wings to stir the waters and fling them back right into the cave they had emerged from.
Diamondixi grabbed Justin and tried to get him moving faster, but her small size did little, and pulled backwards some by the current the larger dragon had made. Ame moved faster, long used to arrowing through waters with strong current, and by instinct Justin grabbed her horns as she offered them. Diamondixi and her phoenix did likewise while the dragon accelerated and angled toward the surface.
The Seidhrmenn were not thrown off as long as Ame had hoped though. One raised an alarm, though the settlement did not rise in answer... all held fast by Diamondixi's spell. Two others strengthened the barrier. The final two swam after them as swiftly as they could, summoning the power of the waters to slow them.
Ame fought her pride and continued going, though her eyes began to slip from teal to red at the insult of something trying to use the waters against her, due to storms being born from the seas. The phoenix hurled a cry ahead of them, the force hitting the barrier and weakening it.
A spear winged past them, hurled by one of the Seidhrmenn behind them. Their eyes caught on the glowing runes carved along the shaft, and the wicked stone point that sliced though the barrier. A muryky red-black tinge spread there, and Ame turned, seeking another route through.
“Why are you turning?” Screamed Justing. “I thought you were going to get me away.”
“That will be poison for me. They may be insulting, but they seem to know a storm dragon and what makes us weak.” Ame replied through the red haze in her eyes, desperately trying to keep hold of her senses.
“There.” Diamondixi pointed. “It still be weak there, and the murk hast not yet spread fully to it.”
Ame dipped for that spot, sliding through the membrane. A tendril of the red substance brushed against her as it inexorably spread, but she was through before the main of it was able to contact her. She continued on, diverting some of her energy in an attempt to purify herself of the taint, and the area too if possible.
Within moments, she and the others were above the water, and in the skies on their way back to the storm shrine. When the phoenix and Diamondixi were dry, they flew on their own, to give less weight, as Ame had begun to lose her luster, though her eyes were at least clearing.
The flight was a quiet one.
When they arrived, the sun had begun to rise. Hana, in miko's robes of red and white, her white fur and nine tails resplendent in the pale rose light swept the walks of the shrine compound, looking up at them when she felt the group pass through the barrier. The boy, for his part, stared at the strange fox woman.
“I'm not fully convinced that I am actually awake...” Justin mumbled, still staring at the foxwoman going about her duties and waiting for them to land.
“You lived with a bunch of scaly stinky filthy rude fish people. And even dried out, you've still got a bit of fur that doesn't look like any human hair I've ever seen. Maybe this is my dream. People aren't hairy like that.” Ame landed in the snow, purposefully spraying as much of it in the air as she could in testament to her opinion of the Finmen.
The fact that some of that snow landed in the walkway that Hana has only just recently finished sweeping had said kitsune shaking her broom at Ame.
“Honestly! Just because our mate isn't home yet, and you have to leave the warmth of the fire, you undo all my work?!”
Ame stuck her considerably long forked tongue out at Hana. “Oh hush. I'll help you after we've got this boy sorted.”
Justin looked quizzically at Diamondixi and the phoenix, hoping for some sort of explanation. They just shrugged, having no idea themselves.
“Fine then. You get to bake Obs' pie when he gets up here too then. I had a messenger shortly before you arrived that he'd be up today.”
Ame rolled her eyes and let Justin off her back, slipping back into her half dragon form, taking off her outermost kimono and putting it over his meager coverings, then heading for the Honden without further comment. The boy still looked confused when she slid the doors open and waved him in.
“My sister-self. Don't mind us, we always snap and poke at each other. Keeps us sharp.”
Justin's eyes could not go any farther up his head, but he followed where he was led. The hall was large enough for a dragon of Ame's size to fit comfortably inside, but seemed to have been arranged mostly with human sized occupants in mind. At the back, a silver-grey length of silk draped over a large frame. He stood where indicated, Diamondixi and her phoenix nearby, then Ame slowly pulled the cloth away...
The log popped and crackled in the kotatsu, carrying through the room. Amehana jumped, looking around in confusion. The room smelled heavily of the rich incense that her father had brought from his last visit, where it had been mixed by her brothers in the Mountain Kingdom of the shared mythic space of several neighboring Asian countries' spirit realms. Spring flowers were mingled with autumn fruits, the summer's heated rain, and the crisp winter snow... with a hint of her father's ozone.
Outside, snow fell softly, the clouds having rolled in and obscured the moon's trek across the skies.
“A dream?” She asked herself, unfolding herself from where she kneeled on the zabuton in front of her teak desk. Tea had long since gone cold, and the ink she had ground had gone dry.
No answer came, and with a sigh, she picked up the brush, examining it to make sure she had at least rinsed it before falling asleep. Satisfied that she had, she got fully up and went to prepare fresh tea.
At the window, a diminutive white dragoness smiled, equally satisfied. As the snow fell softly, she and her companion continued onward, mission, for now, complete.
About the Author
Teresa Garcia is a 30-something mother of two children with special needs (one is autistic, the other has chronic depression and anxiety issues at far too young an age along with needing a special diet), raising them "alone" in the small mountain town of McCloud, CA. Just because she is on her own though, does not mean that she is "alone." Many thanks are due to the McCloud Community Resource Center, to her brother and his family, and her mother, for all their help.
When not drowning in university coursework for her International Relations degree, and chained to the computer, she loves to text role play with her long distance mate Vadise, write stories, hike, paint, meditate, and play games or read with her kids. She also writes quests for, and helps to maintain, the online browser-based RPG Dragon Hearts.
She was raised in a
nother mountain community, which she visits as often as she can spare time and gas, though not nearly often enough for her wishes. Her parents always encouraged her writing and artistic talents. In 2005, she decided to pick up the dream of writing and publishing a novel once more, having shelved that (and the "Shadow Chronicles" manuscript) in her early college years due to the time constraints of motherhood at the time. In 2006 she released to the public her first novel in the "Dragon Shaman" series, "Taming the Blowing Wind," and has since published a second book in the series and a poetry book.
Currently Teresa has several manuscripts to work on, such as her "Dragon Shaman" series of novels and her current favorite serialized story, "Selkies' Skins."
She also can be found on twitter at https://twitter.com/#!/AmehanaArashi,
or on the THG StarDragon Publishing Facebook page.
Her personal blog is located at https://rainstardragon.livejournal.com
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