"You're crazy!" Quin exclaimed. "Gartas prioritize a solitary life over anything, they would kill any nearby gartas just to make sure of this!"
Hope shrugged,appearing unfazed. "Mine will be different, I'll make it friendly and tamed."
Seeing Hopes stubborn attitude, Quin gave up trying to convince her through words alone. "We'll see if it even likes you first. If you can make it listen enough to follow us without attacking I'll let it come along."
Soon the wind that bound the garta released its hold, and allowed it to land on all fours. Not even a split second after its paws touched the fine grass it leaped towards Hope, aiming to swiftly end her life. The garta in question was not actually abandoned at birth as Quin would have assumed. Rather than that, she was tossed to her much older siblings, deemed worthless. What its parents had not expected however, was that its ether nature had awaken precisely because of the rage from this betrayal, which led to her slaughtering the whole pack. The type of ether she could wield was cold, precise, and brutal, perfectly suited for a killer. Currently, that ether was flowing through every fiber on her hind legs, allowing it to achieve greater strength, then swiftly flowed to her front paws which were ready to dismember its current prey. Suddenly, a light amount of dust stirred into the air and her food had vanished. Landing shortly after, she quickly spun around, instinctively guarding the most likely area of attack. As soon as her body stilled, focusing its vision to track its missing target, she felt it. A ruthless wave of bloodlust washed over from behind her body, and froze It in place. At that moment she felt unfamiliar hands touch her mane and gently run its hand along its body.
"Relax." The mysterious creature spoke, as it started to scratch her itchy back. As soon as the words left its mouth, it sent the garta into a kneeling pose, effectively pacifying it.
For once Hope looked surprised, she had not expected her words to carry as much weight to them as it had. The snarling garta she once saw was now allowing her to pet its belly, completely letting its guard down. "Hmm, you're gonna need a name." After a while of brainstorming, attempting to procure a truly unique name, she finally finished her search. "Anesta."
Hope smiled, proud of herself for once. At that moment Quin decided to speak. "No way… How did you calm a beast know for its ruthless and wild nature..?!" After a short while of debating about taking along Anesta, she finally gave up on going against Hope's wishes and spoke again. "Your killing intent was terrifying, it felt like I was staring into the eyes of a demon. Not that I've actually seen one, but the strength of that bloodlust powering your words made the garta give up all hope of resisting. Are you able to command it though?"
Channeling her focus and enforcing her will through her voice had been something Hope never realized she was capable of. Recalling the feeling of it she focused on the specific command she wanted to give Anesta. "Can you help us hunt?"
Anesta slowly regained its composure and trodded over to the bushes. It turned around and nodded its head towards the shrubbery, gesturing for them to follow. Before long, their brief journey came to a pause just before an opening in the forest. The light of the sun was all but nonexistent, only peeking through the trees every now and then. Anesta crouched, putting herself even lower to the ground, and took a few cautious steps. Noticing this action, Quin remained silent, while Hope quietly followed. 'Maybe I can learn to hunt from Anesta too.'
Soon enough, Anesta paused, and remained in place perfectly still. Seeing this, Hope decided to put her full focus on sensing energy in attempts to see what Anesta had found. Lying on the grass a few meters away from the two, was a deer. Instead of the normal shade of brown, however, its hide was colored a light shade of purple and its fur was several times bushier than a normal deer. The deer tilted its head, appearing uneasy, then abruptly it began to faintly glow then scanned it's surroundings. Noticing this, Hope panicked, 'Is it looking for us?! I can sense the energy gathering in its eyes.' Turning to Anesta, she noticed that her presence had dissolved, fading into thin air. 'What?! It wasn't this clear when she was hunting us.'
Having no better idea, Hope decided to imitate Anesta's cloaking ability, hoping to accomplish similar results. Guiding her senses through her body, she willed the ether to slow itself down almost to a freeze. She realized that completely stopping it would suffocate her, which Anesta had done to fully mask herself, but when she had to move, her body required some ether to function. 'No wonder it took me a while to sense her.' Erasing the flow of ether effectively erased her existence to beings that relied on energy as their way of sight. As its turning head faced the area where the two were hiding, it abruptly paused. 'Did I mess up?! Or does it have another way to sense us?'
Soon it's body tensed up, and slowly rose on its feet and turned to the side, ready to flee. Before it could balance on its legs however, Hope had achieved another breakthrough in ether control through all her practices and tried something she had never attempted. Willing her mind to take reign of her ether, she commanded it to flow only onto her legs. 'I push off my right so I'll channel most it there.' Before the deer could begin to take a step, Hope was already upon it, brandishing her blade with a cold, merciless stare. Her food for the night had been secured. A minute before, Quin had been analyzing the ether currents of her companion, when it suddenly disappeared. Staggering back in surprise, she accidentally let out a small yelp, informing the deer of their location. 'Damn it damn it! The deer!'
At that moment the ether she had just seen dissolve, sparked back to life with a violent intensity and swirled down to Hope's legs. Before she could react, the hunt had finished. 'I better not tell Hope it was my fault. She's too scary…' Flying over to the carcass, Quin spoke. "Don't worry about mistakes Hope! Remember, most people would still be grasping the basics of ether after a year of training!" Noticing her friends attempt to alleviate the mood Hope spoke. "Yeah… I could have done better though."
Hope ripped off a deer leg with the help of ether and threw it to Anesta who was laying nearby. "Eh, should be enough for her."
She turned to Quin. "We need a place nearby to camp and cook this, any ideas?"
Quin pondered for a moment as her friend was collecting vines to carry along the carcass. After Hope was satisfied with the knots, Quin spoke, "I think there's an abandoned temple for the guardian of nature near here, I'll be able to find it if I go way up, give me a few minutes. And can you carry all that?! That's a whole deer on your back!" Hope shrugged, "We can't have you waste mana hauling stuff around."
Deciding her reason was valid, Quin decided to drop it and soared into the sky. Left alone, Hope had a few things she wanted to test. Mainly being any skills that she could copy from Anesta. She turned to Anesta and tilted her head, "Any other cool tricks you wanna share?" Staring back at Hope for a few moments, Anesta yawned and paused eating. Suddenly, she raised her paw and unsheathed her claws, revealing rows of obsidian-like blades. 'Is that actual obsidian?!'
Just as she finished that thought, Anesta pawed at the ground, giving it a light scratch. A moment after, her killing intent burst out, making Hope flinch. The ground where Anesta had dug into suddenly cracked open. Upon closer inspection, Hope realized that it had only affected the areas where Anesta had clawed. Promptly after, Anesta walked back to her meal and continued its devouring yet again. Before Hope could analyze what had just happened, the ground suddenly regenerated, filling the missing space with dirt and leaving no blemishes. 'Huh, that's a unnaturall… No way the forest is just one giant living being that heals itself right?'
Soon enough the fairy had returned with news and quickly shared, "Yeah, the temple is a small hike over to the right, but I sensed the energy of corruption around there as well. Do you want to risk it, or should we take the time to head back to the cave? "Hope pointed at the canopy of the forest,"The sunshine is dimming, we should try our luck with the temple."
After half an hour of waiting for Anesta to finish up her meal, the group finally headed in the direction of the guardians shrine, not expecting what was up ahead.