Beast Tamer

XX

Fauna sat on the sand, the water lapping gently at her feet as Orion tackled Sage in the water, and Nico sitting next to her.

She rested her head on his shoulder. "So..."

"So what?"

She pursed her lips "What happens now?"

Nico turned to her and tilted his head. "Just because this woman is your mother and linked to this disaster you were investigating does not strictly mean she is a bad person.

"Not everyone has the capacity to be a parent let alone a good parent, although, if we do ever see her then, I will kick her teeth in."

She laughed, smiling and closed her eyes, for a moment everything was normal. She was just a girl sitting on the beach on a warm and sunny and a boy next to her with steel blue eyes and black hair that was actually just really dark brown.

But some problems just wouldn't go away.

Disaster. The word appeared so many times but I'd never written what the disaster was. 'One way - the magic was only supposed to be one way. They come in and out when there's a tug but no-one leaves here.' that's what I'd written. 'Is there a loophole or is there something I don't know? Is there something I'm missing?'

Then something shifted. Fauna perked up as the hair on the back of her neck stood on end and her hand darted to her necklace while Nico, too, noticed.

"Something's here," he murmured, he whistled quietly.

Sage and Orion came running.

Fauna pulled her necklace off and the pendant shifted into her sword. She nodded at him - ready. He pulled his own sword from it's sheath.

A roar shook the very foundation of the earth - then... then everything stilled.

Silence.

The earth trembled.

A trail of fire swept across the sky.

Then smoke covered every inch of space, smothering everything in darkness.

Fauna began to run as a roar shook the sand she was running on. "Nico!" She screamed as her eyes began to water from the smoke.

She carried on moving.

She grabbed her shirt and masked her face. "Nico!"

"Fauna!"

"Nico!"

Fauna coughed. The smoke seemed to be getting thicker. She stumbled slightly as she tried to find her best friend.

"Fauna, where are you?"

"How the hell am I supposed to know!" Her voice was hoarse as her chest began to burn.

She tried to focus on breathing but she could only draw in the shortest of raspy breaths. She coughed again and could see a red splatter on her hand but everything was blurry.

"Marco!"

Despite everything she laughed, well, tried to at least.

"Polo!"

The floor shook again causing her to stumble forward and land on the floor.

An arm wrapped around her waist and hauled her away but she couldn't see, she could barely even breath.

She felt something like silk brush against her skin and she hung onto Orion's fur as he dashed off.

The smoke seemed to get thinner but the earth continued to tremble and shake, almost like something was following them.