I turned around slowly, remembering something in one of my books saying to not move suddenly when a wild beast far bigger than you looked like it would attack. And I had half the mind to scream when I saw the monster's face.

Hideous, bulging eyes looked down at me from a warthog's head. It's pinkish-bluish tone of skin made it look as if it was suffocating. It's thick, ivory tusks jutted out of it's upper lip. But that wasn't the weirdest part. Oh, no. When you see a warthog's head, you think it's going to have a warthog's body, right? Wrong. This one had the body of a bear. 

"Oh my sparkles," Nolan's green eyes flashed nervously behind the hulking form of the bear-warthog.

"Okay. I won't comment on the sparkles thing if you tell me what the heck this thing is!" I yelled, dodging one of the bear claws as it attempted to strike me.

"I think it's a wartbear, but I can't tell from the back!" came Nolan's reply as he took a small, round object out of his pocket. There was a flash, and suddenly a sword materialized in his hand.

"How did you do that?" I screamed, dodging yet another strike and wincing at my throbbing elbow. The pain was building up inside of it because of all of the movement.

"Would you be able to handle a sword with only your left hand?"

"What other options do I have right now?"

"I could kill it!"

"Just tell me how to do that!" I demanded, looking at the ghost people. They seemed unaffected.

I jumped on the bed, careful to avoid the sleeping bodies, and jumped over to the other side. The extra space between me and the monster helped me catch my breath and pull my stick out of my pocket.

It glowed faintly where a crack had appeared from my fall, but nothing was too seriously broken. At least of what I could see.

"Say gladio to make it turn into a sword!" Nolan shouted, slashing and retreating from the monster. It's body was pulsing with golden light now, and I had to look away.

"Gladio," I whispered, the magic word rolling off my tongue. It felt nice to say magic words again with no backlash.

I walked around the bed slowly, trying to get a feel for my new sword. Light weight and studded with sapphires, the sword glinted in the barely visible moonlight. The steel shone dangerously, as if waiting to impale the wartbear.

After I strode over to the wartbear, instincts took over.

I was no longer Aria Everheart, daughter of the Justice Clerk and the housewife. I was Aria Everheart, warrior and witch. And that wartbear stood no chance.

I launched into the deadly dance of battle, the wartbear's claws scratching me more than once, but I didn't feel it. I spun and flipped, slashing and swiping to keep the bear away from Nolan as he regrouped. The wartbear's eyes widened in sudden understanding as I swung my sword in the lethal blow. The steel disappeared in the wartbear's furry flesh as I buried my sword up to it's hilt. 

The fight was over.

I pulled the sword out of the wartbear's body by the encrusted hilt, and walked to the bathroom to wipe the green blood off of the blade. 

The fluffy white towel absorbed all of the green juices and left my sword shining innocently as if nothing had happened and it hadn't just killed a living, breathing thing. My stomach cramped up with the shock of what I'd just done. It might have been easier to handle if I wasn't worried about the easy way I had gone about killing the poor wartbear. It probably just wanted some food from the kitchen and came up to the bedroom.

I looked in the mirror. Blood coated my arms where the wartbear had clawed me, and my splint was all out of whack. My hair was a mess and my legs were shaking. But my skin glowed with an unearthly light. 

Nolan knocked on the bathroom door, alerting me to his presence outside the door. "Are you okay? That was some serious fighting for someone with a broken elbow. I've had five years of training and I still can't handle a sword like that!"

"Thanks," I croaked, not wanting to let him know that, no I wasn't alright. I just killed something that had been breathing and full of life. Now it was lying on the rug in the bedroom, next to a family of people who were ghosts.

"If you're worried about the wartbear, I took care of it," Nolan informed me, still talking through the crack in the door.

"And the family? They're alright?"

"Yes, of course."

"Their spirits are still laughing?" I continued to question.

"What spirits?"

"What do you mean? The big glowing ones that look just like-" oh my gosh. Nolan couldn't see the family of ghosts?

"I just checked the bed. They're all sleeping. The dad's snoring, though. I don't understand why snoring isn't labeled a health condition. It seems like it should be the way some people snort."

While Nolan was rambling about the reasons snoring should be a health condition, I was internally panicking. Why couldn't he see the ghosts? They were literally everywhere in the room. The little girl was running around the entire time we were fighting and the father was chasing her. How did Nolan miss them?

Unless... a tiny voice in the back of my head whispered. You know you thought Fang's coat looked like a clear starry sky when you first met him.

Stupid subconscious voices just don't shut up when you want them to!

"Aria, are you still there?" Nolan's voice had taken on a new worried note, something I didn't think he was capable of.

"Yeah, I'll be out in a second. That wartbear can really scratch a girl," I let out a nervous laugh for Nolan's sake and turned on the sink.

It was time to put that wartbear behind me.

The cleaning process spanned about ten minutes and included painful scrubbing of both arms (yes, my elbow died, again), my legs (it was still dying, but like, even more), and then my face, which I could safely do with one hand.

I walked out of the bathroom smelling like the rosewater soap that had been sitting next to the seat. Nolan had made himself comfortable in an armchair waiting for me, and as soon as he saw me, he stood bolt upright.

"I can call a wind gust to take us back to the clearing. It has to be passed midnight now and the wind will prevent us from having to climb back up that hill."

"Okay," I whispered, afraid of what my voice might sound like if I talked at a normal level. "But I still want you to show me the garden of time."

"Will do, captain. Let's get going before we freeze."

I hadn't noticed the time passing, but Nolan was right. The slowly fading sunlight had extinguished completely and the crescent moon had taken over the sky with it's silver light.

Nolan twirled his fingers and blew on them, and the gust of wind that followed his movements ruffled my hair and put a smile on my face. We were going back to safety, where there wouldn't be any wartbears or spooky spirit people. It was my new kind of normal with witches who rode dragons and had sticks that turned into swords.

The most fantastic kind of normal there was.

~o0o~

Riding on a gust of wind was, quite literally, a whirlwind. The air around Nolan and I was gentle, soothing even. But I could tell it was a tornado on the outside.

It was incredible, what Nolan could do. Just like that, with a small gesture, he created a wind cyclone that kept us in the center and moved him and I towards Flora and the others. How could he not be happy with that?

"I know I should love this gift that was given to me," Nolan sighed, gesturing around them at the rotating wind, "but I dunno, I thought I could be more. Do more."

"That's understandable," I reasoned, trying to think of things from his perspective. From what he had told me earlier, Slepa had raised his expectations; made Nolan dream of more when there was no chance of more happening. 

"Maybe," Nolan shrugged, "but I can't help it that I was really jealous when you started doing that crazy fight thing. It was like time stopped around you. The wartbear was moving in slow motion after you started dancing."

Blood rushed to my cheeks and my skin heated up. "What dance?" I managed to squeak out.

"The crazy I'm-a-witch-and-now-you're-going-to-die dance. You didn't know you were dancing? That's really weird."

By now, I had picked up that Nolan's defense mechanism was talking until he was okay again, so I decided to use it to my advantage. I had only met the guy yesterday. Or two days ago, depending on the time.

"Where were you before you went to live with the fairies?" I asked, thinking about his easy grin when I started blabbing about how I had never broken into a house before; how easy it was for him to simply force the door open.

"I wasn't with a family, if that's what you mean," Nolan started, his long bangs covering up his face. "I'd been on the streets for two years- part of one of those groups that sticks together. But then, when the food ran out, I was the youngest so I had to go. I didn't see them after that. But the way the older men taught me to get food? It was breaking into people's houses who were too rich to see that anything was missing before we were long gone. Kind of reminds you about the tale of Robin Hood, huh?"

"That sounds terrible," I blurted, his fairytale reference lost on me.

"It was while it was happening. But looking back on it, my time on the streets helped me become who I am. Who knows, I could have been some posh upperclassman who never had a hint of imagination. But here I am, commanding the air."

As if happy that it was acknowledged, the cyclone sent a gust of wind to ruffle Nolan's hair- a sign of endearment.

Too soon, the vortex dropped us gently on the ground in the previously lit up clearing. After making sure we were on the ground, Nolan wiggled his fingers again, an unheard word on his lips as the vortex dispersed.

"Oh my heavens, you're all right!" I heard Fang's voice behind me and I turned to see a smirk playing on his scaly lips. Well, as much of a smirk that a dragon can have.

"So are you," I replied, "and I was gone for a couple hours!"

"I don't know how I ever lived without your humor," Fang said dryly before launching himself back into the tree he came down from.

"Nolan? Aria? Is that you?" came a sleepy voice from the other side of the lake.

"Ahh ah ah, dear sister, you can wait your turn," suddenly, a mist rose from the pond, revealing a breathtaking woman.

Her robes looked as if they were made out of happy dreams, her hair was beaded with stars. Her hair was black as night, and her skin was decorated with moons and stars.

"I am Slepa. You killed my wartbear," the woman said smoothly.

Nolan's eyes glazed over, and I looked away. I hated it when people looked at me when I was crying; I didn't want that for him.

"It was my favorite," Slepa mourned, "my prized mutation."

"Why did you send it there in the first place?" I asked, finding my voice. Nolan had said that Slepa was his old teacher, he called her his aunt.

"Because you're disappointing. You're all disappointing! I would have thought you'd see the truth by now, the way the constellations favor you. So I will put you to sleep. You won't need to worry about all the power stored up in that little body of yours for a long time then."

"Slepa, leave them alone," Flora gritted, coming into sight. But she seemed... pained.

"I was simply delivering my message," Slepa grinned, exposing perfectly straight white teeth. Her auburn eyes glinted. 

And then she was gone.

"Come along now," Flora said with more assurance in her voice, "we have a tent set up over here."

Flora placed a warm hand on Nolan and I's backs and lead us towards the small tent in the corner of the clearing.

She assured us that everything was fine before insisting that we go and tuck ourselves into bed.

But I didn't miss the anxious glance she shared with Heartea as my heavy eyelids dropped closed.

~o0o~

Word Count: 2101

So, like, was I decent at writing the fight scene? And then Nolan's perception of it? AND THE TRUE MEANING OF THE STICK WAS REVEALED! See! I told yooouuuu. Anywho, thank you for taking your valuable time and donating it to my terrible writing. It's super generous and awesome and amazing and kind and YOU'RE A KING/QUEEN!

LOVE FOREVER
C