Pioden

I got so caught up in stuff I forgot to enter the story that was the purpose for setting this up (Thanks, BTW, Gerrit!)

Enjoy! – Sorry it’s late, technical difficulties while I get used to wordpress’ latency.

Bloody Hell!!! The thought rang through Jorialen’s head, but didn’t escape her lips.  Her training held, the shot of adrenaline and an increased pulse rate the only indicators of her new fully wakeful state.  Carefully lifted eyelids froze at half mast as her sight filled with black button eyes, and golden fur.  The thing was way too close for comfort, if you asked her.

The golden monster continued to stare at her, but otherwise didn’t move.  Keeping her body relaxed and ready for instant action if Goldilocks got frisky, she widened her focus to her surroundings, because she sure wasn’t where she’d gone to sleep last night.  No, the roughness and dirt underneath her was not remotely like her serviceable cot at the school, and the rough stone walls and stale air that normally greeted her were replaced by open air and a rising sun.

Her eyes relayed their message to her, and she queried again, unwilling to believe them.  And she’d thought she would be ready for anything the school Masters could throw at her for her graduation exercise.  She never, in a million eons would have thought they’d do something like this!  But, yes, what she saw was on a scale way beyond normal – she appeared to have shrunk during the night.

Most of her attention returned to the golden monster before her, looking with new eyes, and she realized it was a moth.  She slowly pushed herself into a sitting position, and saw wings flutter slightly as the thing backed away.  Thankfully this moth wasn’t aggressive; she wasn’t up on moth lore – they’d never even blipped on her radar – too small, not edible…

Another thought flashed through, quick hands felt her body, and a sigh of  relief  – completely dressed, and armed with knife, sword, bow, and kit, too.  No armor, but no complaints there – she’d heard of grads who hadn’t even had clothes.  She stood and stretched, moving slowly to not alarm the moth.  It was dawn, and she did remember the things were nocturnal, she didn’t want it to have to search for another spot to hide when she would soon be gone.

She grabbed the rope from her side, yes, a scaling hook graced the end, and looked around.  She needed to find out where she was.  The sun peeked over the horizon, and she marked Sunrise on her horizon; at least she could keep track of directions.  Also on her list of things to do, find someway to get back to normal size, that was undoubtedly part of her challenge.  Though the school did not teach magics, they did train their warriors to deal with the unexpected, and dealing with an unwanted spell fell under the category of what she should be able to take care of.

She backed away from the moth to the tree trunk, then climbed bark, the roughness ridiculously easy to navigate, to get to another branch.  Once there, Jorialen swung the rope, gathering speed, then let it fly upwards.