Ariana spread the map out on her lap and lay the silver compass on the top of it. She reached inside her tired reserves and fished for a scrap of power to use for the exercise. She imagined pinching the scrap of power, pale blue in color, and drawing it towards the map and compass. Her eyes were open, but she was no longer seeing the forest outside her. Her eyes were focused inside.
Her translucent inner fingers grasped the pale thread and drew it out of her. She tied the strand of magic to the cold, dark, silver compass and useless, blank parchment. And she saw the moment the power and her need woke the instruments up, as though she was both inside and outside herself.
She had to close her eyes against the sudden flash of light illuminating the growing darkness of the forest. She opened them slowly and noticed that the blinding flash had turned to a dull, blue glow, emanating from the parchment on her lap. That wasn’t the only thing coming from the map. One after another, little images popped into clarity on the map. A rock drew itself into existence, a marker with her name drawn on it flicked into life next to the rock, a few trees grew up around her on the map, and, slowly, a trail leading from behind the rock to an undrawn, unknown location began to etch itself onto the surface of the parchment in dark brown ink.
Ariana shouldered her bags, careful not to disrupt the map or compass and stood, holding the map and compass in front of her. A small section of the path was completely etched into the map now. The more she walked the more the images on the map unfolded before her. She was soon halfway across the trail etched into the map’s surface, barely registering the darkness closing in around her, nor the scuffling sounds of nighttime predators waking. The map still glowed a vibrant gleam that helped her make her way through the growing gloom.
She placed her feet carefully over roots, fallen branches and various rodent holes, while still keeping her eyes on the shifting compass needle and the self-inking map. A mile into her trek, her feet were throbbing from smacking into rocks hidden in the pitch darkness of the forest, where the night came much sooner than it did outside the thick canopy. But her heart was light because the path on the self-inking map had finally ended. She smiled at the little oval of darkness that indicated a cave at the end of her trek.
She lifted her head and peered through the gloom, raising the map the better to light her way. She adjusted the straps of her basket and bag and picked up her step, shuffling her tired feet towards the tar black entrance of a cave, not much bigger than she was wide. She thrust her bags through the entrance to the cave first before squeezing into it after them.
Once inside, her map’s glow faded, having completed its job. She was unsure of what to do next. It was so dark inside the cave that her trek through the forest seemed like a midday hike in comparison. She stretched her back and rolled her shoulders, aching from lugging her heavy bags this far into the forest.
She held her hand up an inch in front of her face and couldn’t even make out the barest outlines in the darkness. Her stomach grumbled in hunger and fear prickled her skin. Not being able to see was very disorienting.
She forced herself to take a deep breath and let it out slowly, like Ruthie always instructed her to do when she felt spells coming on. Speaking of spells...She wondered about the quiet flame of magic still stirring in her core. It was very timid after the trek, and using it on the map. It was nothing like the waterfall of magic that cascaded through her over the last few weeks, when she’d go so long without using it that it would burst from her in strange ways. No, today she’d used her power on purpose, almost throughout the day and night. It was still inside her, but the potency had died down considerably since this morning.
Even so, it must be possible to use whatever little magic she had left inside her to get some light. She rubbed her arms over the brocade of her fancy dress. It was cold in the cave, too. Damp and cold. A slight but steady cold breeze wafted past her every few minutes. A fire, then. That’s what she needed, so that’s what she’d make. She tucked her food basket and bag to the right of her, turning away from them, so as to not accidentally catch her only possessions aflame.
She rubbed her icy hands together, warming them with her breath. It didn’t do much to warm her. She shivered. She wondered...
At dinner and with the map, she’d used her powers intentionally. True, she hadn’t known what would come of what she did, but still. She obviously had some control over the power. When she used it with the map, and when she used it against Count Repugnian yesterday, she only had to imagine something happening, and it did. She felt the glowing core of her magic, not so strong it made her nauseous, but flickering like a steady candle.
She closed her eyes to the darkness of the cave and pictured, in her mind, a flame that warmed but did not burn. She pictured the strands of her pale blue magic coming into her palms like thin tendrils of flame. She rubbed her palms together rolling the blue flame threads, encouraging them to gather into one another, like roving, becoming stronger.
She knew it worked before she even opened her lids. The light from the blue flame was visible through her clenched lids. She opened her eyes to find a steady, fuzzy blue flame wavering in her hand. She smiled in triumph, proud of the way she’d learned to mold her magic through these little trials, the magic that before felt so unpredictable and dangerous at home, where she’d not been allowed to use it.
She lifted her hand to scan her surroundings and found that the cave she was sitting in was much larger than the opening implied. In fact, the cave seemed to get both taller and wider the further back it went. Ruthie stuffed her compass and map into her bag, then gathered it and the basket over her unoccupied arm.
She may as well go into the cave a little further. Maybe the cold breeze wouldn’t be so bad farther into the cave. The walls of the cave sparkled back at her where her blue light touched them, as though there were tiny diamonds embedded throughout the cave. It truly was a magnificent cave. The more she saw of it, the more comfortable she felt there.
She walked several feet further into the cave when it suddenly opened into a medium-sized inner chamber, large enough for her to lay across either way. The ceiling of the chamber had long, stretching icicle-like arms extending from it. The floor of the chamber, however, was smooth, almost as smooth as marble, so smooth it seemed impossible that it could have been naturally occurring. She wondered what sort of beast or human had helped make this chamber more hospitable, but also hoped she would not find out tonight.
Placing the magical fire on the mirrored surface of the floor, she rummaged through her food basket and pulled out a crumbly biscuit, a chunk of yellow cheese and a small bag of raisins. She ate the entire biscuit but only a small amount of cheese and half a handful of raisins. She didn’t know how to cook or hunt, so she would be sparing with her food. She put the rest of the food away, feeling a little less hungry and a lot less worried now that she had a nice place to sleep.
Ariana rummaged through her large carpet bag next, pushing fancy dresses and sturdy wool socks to the side, until she found a small feather pillow and a medium thick wool blanket. She smiled sadly, thinking of the love and care Annabeth had put into packing her bag, and the concern Ruthie had shown in packing her food. Though she was alone, she felt a little less lonely covering herself with the blanket Ruthie and Annabeth used to wrap her in when a big spell was oncoming and nausea wracked her body.
It was a well-used blanket. It and the tiny blue fire settled upon the glassy surface of the cave, warmed and comforted her. Soon, she was overcome by yawns, closing her ice-blue eyes more and more to the glow of the fire. So many thoughts tried to fight through the exhausted fog that overcame her, but sleep won in the end and she gave into it.
A soft whine broke the stillness of the cave and startled Ariana awake. She could not be certain in the darkness what time it was, but the fire had winked out when she had and the air around her was damp and cold. Her wool blanket, wrapped entirely around her body, kept her fairly warm, but she still felt icy shudder
s up her spine as the pained whine sounded again. It was coming from deeper inside the cave.
She moved her head towards the sound, wondering what sort of animal it was. Ruthie had called her soft-hearted towards animals before, when Ariana had stumbled across a stray kitten. Her father had not wanted her to keep it, but Ariana did her best to nurse the abandoned runt. It’d died, but not due to inattention. Ariana stayed up late for three days attempting to help it live. She hadn’t known that she could use her powers on purpose then. She wondered if she had used them, if she could have saved that sweet, fluffy black kitten.
The whine sounded louder and more desperate, echoing against the chamber where she lay. She frowned and sat up, closing her eyes to picture the pale blue power inside her. She blew into her hands, calling forth her warming flames, which immediately lit the cave in an eerie glow.
She stood, letting her wool blanket fall to the floor of the cave. Slowly, she walked toward the weakening whines, deeper into the cave. The walls of the cave narrowed as she made her way out of her cozy antechamber and into a dripping passageway, where tall motes of minerals stuck out of the floor to meet the cones of minerals hanging from the ceilings. Stalactites and Stalagmites, she remembered from a tutoring session. She wove around the protruding columns, stepping over puddles and uneven patches of ground. She ducked her head to enter a short passageway, just short enough to be uncomfortable to walk in.
Her blue light bounced off the sides of the wet cave, as it helped her make her way through the darkness. Thankfully, the cave soon leveled out again and the ceiling sprang back up. Unfortunately, the taller cavern she crawled into was alive with bats, who immediately protested the brightness of her light. She did like animals, even bats, but she was not a huge fan of the droplets of white poo that fell on her brocaded sleeves and skirts from the screeching animals. She was also a little frightened of a sickness Ruthie called rabies, which her cook swore bats carried. Ariana was not sure what it was, but Ruth had made her fearful of it, whatever it was.
However, the bats were not particularly keen on getting too near her bright light, and the whimpering of the animal she was looking for sounded just ahead and to the left, so Ariana continued on, despite her misgivings and the faint plops from bats expending their tiny bowels on one of her most expensive dresses.
Sorry, Annabeth, she thought, as the white bat droppings ruined the beautiful gold brocade. She tip-toed under the shuffling bats, holding her light above her head to dissuade them from flying too near her. She followed the pitiable moans of the animal until she came to a tiny alcove to her right. Her heart raced as she knelt down and peeked into the alcove, shining her light into it.
Her breath caught in her throat as she stared down at what had to be the cutest, most confusing animal she’d ever seen. It had a fuzzy body, like a wolf pup, but with leathery flaps for ears. More peculiarly, its fur was red, streaked with orange, a very unwolf-like color. The color was not the only thing unwolf-like about the creature. For starters, the tiny wailing creature had purple eyes with dramatically slit pupils, like a lizard or cat. It also had the tiniest, silliest looking wings flopped lazily over its shoulder blades. It had sharp, copper-colored claws and a belly covered in similarly colored scales. It lay on its side, wailing miserably, blinking blindly against the light Ariana held out to view it by.
Ariana’s breath caught in her chest. A little “click” snapped into place in the center of her being. She couldn’t say how she knew, but that “click” was significant and it was tied to this somewhat strange, adorable creature. She held the light away from its squinting face, the face that made her feel a little more like herself, for a reason she could not vocalize.
“Oh, I’m sorry, little one. It is probably too bright after being in the cave for so long. I wonder how long you’ve been here by yourself. Where’s your momma?” The question alarmed her as she asked it. Where was the little thing’s mother? Was she putting herself in danger by coming so near it?
She pictured a larger, more ferocious version of the sweet mewling creature she looked at and shivered. But then she saw the outlines of the poor baby’s ribs and knew that wherever the mother was, it had not been here in some time. The baby was starving, which was probably the reason for all the fuss. Like her, this baby had been abandoned by its momma.
The little creature mewled piteously, blinking up at Ariana with the most striking purple eyes. Ariana’s heart melted. It was a strange little being, like nothing she’d ever seen before, but, then, wasn’t she also a strange being? This little wolf-bat or fuzzy dragon, or whatever it was, was not so different from her. It had clearly been unwanted, possibly because it was so different. At least, that's what Ariana thought must have happened. Ariana stretched out a tentative finger to touch the creature, but drew back when the frightened beast nipped at her.
"None of that, silly, thing! I want to help you."
The creature, which Ariana decided to refer to as a Wot, stared at her as if in dim comprehension and closed its mouth. "Now, I am going to reach out to pick you up and bring you with me to get you some food. Please don’t scratch or bite me. I don't know how to care for wounds and all that, and I'd hate to get some sort of rabies or some other animal sickness."
Ariana spoke quietly, in soft, reassuring tones so as not to frighten the tiny beast. The soft words seemed to calm it. It closed its little mouth, hiding its copper fangs. Ariana tore at the hem of her dress and pulled off a hunk of the linen, which she wrapped around her right hand. She then slowly pushed her linen-covered hand under the belly of the tiny Wot, lifting it very gently. It clung to the linen covering her hand with its sharp, copper claws. She felt the pinch of the claws cutting through the fabric and was happy she decided to cover her skin from the worst of the injuries.
She transferred Wot to the crook of her arm, like an infant. She winced slightly, but did her best not to jump when the sweet fuzzy little thing adjusted itself into a ball. Her brocade and under tunic protected her arm from the worst scratches as Wot tucked its paws under itself. Ariana couldn’t help but smile at the cute creature as it stuffed its wolfish muzzle under the crook of her arm, burrowing.
She smiled at Wot’s intrinsic trust in her, how much her warmth seemed to offer it comfort. It might have been one of the first times any being ever needed her to keep them safe. She supposed, until this point, she always felt she was the person whom others were trying to keep themselves safe from. It was nice to be the one providing safety, to not feel like a firecracker about to burst.
She felt tears gather in her throat, but they were not of the helpless, angry sort. They were tears of happiness. The silly Wot made her feel necessary and safe, and that gave her more joy than she’d become accustomed to. She made little calming noises in the back of her throat as she carefully navigated back through the short, narrow tunnel back to the open expanse of the cavern where her bags and blanket greeted her. She noticed, with a start, that the cold of the cave had stopped affecting her ever since she’d picked Wot up.
The spot on her arm where Wot snuggled was actually quite warm, bordering on hot. Ariana also noticed that though she held the light away from Wot her path was fairly easy to see and travel. It was not until she looked down at Wot, to transition it from the crook of her arm to floor of the cave that she noticed Wot was glowing like the embers of a well-tended fire.
“What’s this, little one?” Ariana whispered. “You didn’t glow before I picked you up…”
The moment Ariana put Wot on the floor of the cave, the little creature started wailing again. The bright ember glow coming from its underside faded, as did the radiating warmth Ariana felt when she cradled it. Wot scrambled around in panic, backing into Ariana’s basket of food, which startled it. Wot squealed in surprise and hiccupped a small ball of fire, which immediately caught Ariana’s comfortable wool blanket aflame. Without thinking, Ariana shouted, “No!” and reached out a hand to the flames. From her hand sprang a great spout of water which
quenched the flames and drenched poor Wot.
The little creature immediately started wailing, but with much more force this time. Its squeals echoed off the walls of the cave and set bats flapping in panic out of the far chamber, over Ariana’s head and out the cave entrance. Ariana flattened herself on the floor of the cave near Wot, who walked over to her, dripping, and nudged under her hair.
Ariana giggled as the wet creature snuggled up under her hair, shivering and whimpering. She gathered it up in her still-wrapped hand, sat up and settled the creature in her lap. She layered the shivering creature in her petticoats, where it settled a little.
“I’m sorry about the water. I don’t always know what will happen when I panic. My magic’s a bit unpredictable. It seems to get me into more trouble than out of it.” The miserable Wot stared at her with knowing, baleful eyes.
“I bet you understand that, what with the fire thing. Whatever that is. We’ll both just have to be as careful as possible and help each other out, okay? Speaking of which…”
She reached for the basket of food Ruthie packed her and drew out some cheese, offering it to Wot, who sniffed it experimentally before flicking a tongue out to taste it. Wot’s black forked tongue touched the cheese experimentally several times before he snatched it greedily from her fingers, almost biting one with coppery teeth.
“There now, little guy, if you are a guy...I don’t really know how to tell with your sort, so I’ll just guess. You have to be more careful! You almost took my fingertip with the cheese!”
It was not possible to tell whether the silly thing understood her or not, but it was more interested in her food than her words, in any case. It untangled itself from her petticoats and headed for the basket.
Ariana lifted it out of the greedy creature’s way. It sat where the basket lay, a grumpy look on its furry face. It tucked its black bat wings against its sides and hunched in on itself. “Look, we have to conserve. I’ll get you more food because it’s clear you haven’t eaten in a while, but then we have to save the rest, okay?”
Magic Underground: The Complete Collection (Magic Underground Anthologies Book 4) Page 86
