another mind, another soul, another body to grow old. it's not complicated.
Everything happened so quickly that to Otem's racing mind the roar of the specotes occurred in tandem with the branch falling onto her wing. At first the girl was too disoriented to do much of anything - the sounds were deafening around her, and as the herd moved steadily forward the ground seemed to pulse to the same rhythm as their furious bellows. It was Castiella's call to her that finally snapped Otem out of her reverie and back into the fray of the charging herd, and as comprehension slowly dawned on Otem, so too did the pain that fluttered maliciously up the left side of her wing and into her shoulder joint.
Flying out of this wooded area with a wounded wing was now going to be quite the challenge.
Look what you did. You killed it....
Otem scurried around the fallen branch to spy her accomplice in this mess with the dead body of a specotes' calf on her back. You did not even know it was there.....
"Oh you idiot!" Otem groaned under her breath, despite the fact that the sparking-filly wouldn't be able to hear her words. "They're going to think you killed it."
Surprisingly, this sudden turn of events had a rather odd effect on Otem. She was scared of course; the autumn-marked child had no desire to die in some stupid Lion-King-esque stampede, but one thing Otem was learning about herself was that not only did she hate to be wrong, she hated to be misunderstood. That this herd of creatures might now form the opinion of her that she was a predator and a threat all thanks to Castiella's stupid antics made Otem want to throttle the girl.
Otem's mind recoiled into itself, trying to figure out something that would both placate the herd and ensure her safety. She very much doubted she could get the specotes to drink one of her potions, and without the ability to easily fly over them, she couldn't even douse them with it. Creating plants had proved ineffective, so there was only one thing left to do...
Were these creatures in anyway superstitious? She was about to find out. As she conjured her magic, the name Uwaritace filtered unbidden into her thoughts. The word seemed to try to pull her attention towards the massive tree, but the girl's focus was too sharp to be swayed quite that easily. Two earth sprites appeared before the girl. Although Otem had no idea what this magic could do here in the Rift, she could instantly feel the limitations this place had put on her. She was somehow certain that if she tried to send the sprites too far ahead that her magic would lose its control of them. That meant Otem would need to keep pace with where she wanted them to go.
Taking a breath, Otem barged out from behind the massive tree with her two ethereal sprites in tow. The creatures wavered about 1m ahead of her, their silent faces calling to the herd with mute words.
"Put that baby down!" Otem hissed as she tried to make her way towards Castiella.
Uwaritace
