Day Two: Chapter Seven

Jada found herself standing in a field in a body that wasn't hers, wasn't human. Her core burned hot, her three heads were spinning. Her thorns stood on end. The air was heavy with horror, carrying the horrible, gurgling cries that welled within her chest and exploded from her mouths in sorrow. She was in a clearing, in a deep, dark, painfully humid woods on a cloudy night. All around her was what, at first glance, looked like thousands of wilted flowers, but Jada sensed loss, and knew immediately that they were much more than that.

Sticky tears flowed down her many cheeks.

"Mother Asili, Queen of the Flora division," said a voice in a language Jada shouldn't have understood.

"Why does he greet I with such formality in a moment such as this?" Jada hissed in three, unfamiliar voices speaking that same language, but with a notably different, less rhythmic accent.

The clouds rolled by, freeing the moon just long enough for it to cast it's eerie light over each of the wilted creatures twisted, lifeless faces, before being engulfed once again in and leaving the woods in darkness.

" A warm breeze made their carcasses sway. Several of them even blew away, making one of her heads wale in grief, in a voice Jada didn't recognize

"Nysushid has advised us to leave tonight before there are anymore deaths."

"The daughters and sons of I are dead and dry and they lay around I. How can I leave?"

Jada filled with a sadness that made her body quake, her core swell, then poured out of all of her seven eyes once.

She had never felt a pain like this before. She had never known hatred.

"I understand," said the voice. Jada hears the creature walk away, then return, her eyes are fixated on the meadow of dead feris, never once glancing away. "Nysushid the wise advised me not to tell you this, but I have to- I know who did this."

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SHIT! Etta thought, running fast, and faster than she thought she could. Her dead heart pounded as she pushed herself beyond her limitations. She had underestimated Moniasili again. Etta hadn't expected her to still have enough energy left to perform such a sophisticated spell. It left her disorientated. The vampiress tried her hardest to chase down the essence of the guardian, but her head was spinning, her ears were ringing, and her vision was blurry as oil in the eye.

She grunted in pain as she smashed into the base of a streetlight that seemed to come out of nowhere, then rolled in a sweaty heap at the very bus stop she had met the girl.

Could she save her?

Not like this. She'd have to wait it out.

"SHIIIIT!" she spat. Everything she'd done for the last seven years was about to go to waste. And she couldn't do anything about it because, all because of a rookie mistake. Her driver shortly responded to her need for transportation, and they left in haste.

She was getting more and more jittery as she got closer to Moniasili's power. It was beginning to transform into something that was unrecognizable. Etta had never heard of such a thing happening and didn't know what it meant. And she hated not knowing things.

Once she made it to her destination, the vampiress slipped into Jada's bedroom window, and her contract began to emanate a crimson glow, absorbing the bounty of wasted xhole. She immediately began to understand the meaning of the strange feeling she'd been having since Moniasili cast her final spell: Jada had become the eye of a mighty tornado, held horizontaly above the ground by an unnatural wind that sliced the walls and furniture.

The great ferri's power had become warped to suit it's new host. A spell like this usually changed the vessel, not the power itself. But in this case -

Etta blocked with borrowed power, preventing a sharp gust of wind from slicing her in half.

She didn't know what the ferri had done to cause such a srange phenomenon, but she did know that if she didn't wake up Jada somehow, people would probably end up dead, including herself.

Her eyes fluttered as she levitated, still unconsous.

"JADA!" she yelled, uselessly, "JAAYYDAAAAAAA!"

No response. Unfortunatley, she was going to have to wake her physically.

"Phwehai," she muttered, giving birth to her own wind, which she used to create a barrier around her body as she dove into Jada's tornado, and grabbing her by her flailing pajamas. The weight was enough to bring Jada closer to the ground, but not enough to wake her.

Etta was running out of options. Wind was never her strong suit, but if she switched to her strength, she might singe the unconscious girl. She didn't have time to think of it.

"Phwexy!"

A burst of crimson flame engulfed Jada, causing her to wake immediatly and drop. Etta ended the spell immediately, sensing the absense of wind.

"Are you ok?" she said, lifting Jada's head before realizing what she was doing.

A gust of wind sliced Etta from her throat to her navel as Jada hastily rolled off the other side of the bed.

"Get away from me!" yelled Jada, her voice trembling.

A sharp pain struck Etta somewhere in her chest.

"Are you afraid of me?" she asked, slowly approaching Jada, who had backed herself into the sliding doors of her closet. Jada was only human after all. Humans, as a rule, were such cowardly creatures, shivering and lashing out whenever they were met with something they didn't understand. How had she expected this girl to be any different.

"Y-you just tried to set me on fire while I was sleeping! The heat woke me up!"

"No, that's not what happened, you-"

" I don't believe you! I saw what you did to the feris!" she asked before making a mad dash to the bedroom door. Etta stood in front of her, blocking her way, before either of them could blink. " Are you going to kill me so you could suck me dry too?"

Etta snarled, "Do you even know what a ferri is? It's just a plant that can do magic. That's all. What I did was no worse than what you do when you eat your veggies. And if I wanted to drain you, I would've done it last night."

"Then why are you here?"

"To stop you from dropping the roof on yourself! Look what you did to your room!"

After taking a look at her temporary bedroom, Jada said nothing for a few moments, only glared into the tall, lanky vampire's onyx eyes.

"I want you out. Don't come here again."

"Is that a wise decision, kicking me out? I could teach you how to control your magic. You'll need that if you want to survive the way you are now."

"I've been fine up till now-"

"You don't understand. You have the power of the legendary mother ferri in you now," explained Etta, though that was only half the truth. The surplus xhole that was leaking out of Jada like a foutain was like nothing she'd ever heard of, let alone seen. "All kinds of people, creatures, and things will be after you now. Your life will be different."

Etta should be one of those creatures. Without Momiasili's power she had no chance of binding her sires. Her only choices would be to run away from them for the rest of eternity, or rejoin them as their prodigal child. Or, she could suck the ferri's power right out of Jada's plump neck and move on to the next stage of her plan. But somehow she couldn't make herself seriously consider it.

"Just leave," said Jada, her tone surprisingly cold.

"Ok," Etta replied, "You've made up your mind."

"Yes."

Etta turned, dejected, and exited through the window she'd entered.