Beings of Aqina

Chapter 6: The five lands of the realm

It was the twelfth month of the year, and the piled-up snow thickened the great roofs of the Rosalis' settlement. Tanja's beautiful dreams came to a stop when Dante's weight on her caused her breath to stall. He was getting heavier. "Get off..." She muttered in her semi-awaken version of herself. Dante vanished and left a huge pile of sand as it scattered around her middle-aged pajamas.

"Hey!" Tanja yelled. She shot out from her bed. The crystals from the wolf's elements were like dirt, itchy, and unbearable. She tried to chase him down around the room, hands flailing like a human catching a chicken. Though none of her efforts seems to work – the wolf transforms and slid himself into the cracks of the room.

"Tanja, why are you still in bed?" Esme stormed into the room. She wore a sleek white cloak and dressed her hair in a ponytail hair work. "Come on, Tanja. It's the third day of the guild exams. All the students are here," she continued.

"I'm coming. I just...overslept," she said. Esme's eyes rolled back as she watched Tanja crawl back up to her bed.

"The foreigners are coming. Be quick; I want to see them," she said eagerly. The girls at the dormitories were dressing hastily. Some decorated their facial display of feminine beauty. New casters from other guilds would arrive from distant lands as they prepared for the annual guild examination – this year, it was held in the lands of Aqina at the healer's guild house.

"Tanja! Have you passed the second exam? My results just went through," breathed Kye, creeping up on her window and pushing the side panes out, getting his furry body inside those tiny windows. "Kye, how did you – what the – ?" Tanja spoke. Her groggy state faded off as the mutt approached her high window.

Kye's mouth slid a grin from side to side. He was looking inside a girl's room for the first time. His legs were leaning out of the cracked brick stones that housed the girl's side of the dorm. "What's up, everybody?" He spoke. Looking at Esme first and then at Tanja, who was just about to leave her bed.

"Why are you here!" She exclaimed. The thought of shaking off these rascals was not plausible. "Brim Scot," she chanted swiftly. The jets of watered missiles hit the Lycan's head, and down goes his body, slamming into the shrubs down below. Esme laughed at his silly circus drop, almost like a dramatic theatrical act.

Tanja tied her hair into a ponytail, the same way Esme did hers. She placed a vortex of water in front of her and went in. Her pajamas went off as she took her bath in a makeshift shower room. "Could you pass me my clothes, please," she said. Esme then gathered up a collection of neatly readied clothing of hers from a hardwood chair beside her bed.

"Took you long enough," Esme said.

Tanja took Esme by the hand, and out they went strolling towards the winding stairs arranged on the other side of the upper halls.

"Would you like to spy on them Wild Plain people first? They look really tough." Esme claimed. Her interest in the new faces got her to record every detail in her diary. One, in particular, was the followers of Arteva. Since birth, their body was engraved with mythical markings, which paved the way for elemental energies to pass through their bodies while being in control of their powers much more easily. However, even that was assumed by many scholars.

"Well, I'm only interested in defeating them during the finals. I'm not interested in mingling around and becoming infatuated with some weird magical boy or beast out there," Tanja said. Her tone was neutral, and her body language slumped to an unattractive pose. She was bored. Her two months of intense training with grandmaster Morbus had made Tanja a great caster. Now, her powers are at par with several other masters, causing some of them to fear her, especially when it's practice day which happens every week.