Spritely Fellow Ch. 03

Hello all,

I have been going over my work and discovered major flaws in my writing. Namely my word choice and repetition and repetition. I will be going back over my work to proof read and rewrite for the next few weeks. I will still venture forward with the story, as proofreading is boring, so expect more chapters. I will post rewrites of the old chapters as I go.

I would like to wait until he has matured to at least 18 before anything sexual pops in. Remember that he is a kid right now and is oblivious to the fairer sex. Hopefully you all enjoy.

Chapter Three

"Aurora, for the last time I am not telling you alright? Seriously, it has been two years and thisone thingis all I have kept from you. Shut it." She looked like she was walking up to punch so I stood up and got ready for another fight. 200 times the charm? Right then the librarian poked her head around the bookcase with an annoyed look on her face.

"In case you two have forgotten, this is a library! If you two cannot keep it down for the 15th time you will be banned from coming back here." She spent a few extra minutes staring us down before going back to her desk on the other side of the room. I looked back at Aurora before sitting back down in front of my books. She looked over my shoulder.

"'Nymphs and Other Natural Spirits'...still reading up on supernatural stuff. You really like this sci-fi stuff don't you?" She was holding one of the books in the stack to my left. I had been researching al sorts of supernatural things to find out more about the supernatural world. So far I hadn't turned up anything concrete, but I had gotten quite the base of baseless information.

"Aurora I do want to go through some more of this before I head home and I'm not telling you anything, so can you stop trying to annoy me into giving you information." I then buried my nose into the book I was reading talking about werewolves. I had read it before, but she didn't know that and I had other reasons for being here.

"You are going to tell me someday, right? You did promise." YOU put me in a headlock until I promised! Oh don't give me that look like an injured puppy. Hanging my head I gave her a weak nod before she gave me a light punch on the shoulder. "I have to get home and clean up, but then we can hang." She started jogging out, which caused more yelling from the library. When I was sure she had left, and that everyone had gone back to their books, I got back to my real business. I turned back to the sprite sitting across the table.

'So Litria, did you find anything? I believe we were on necromancers, right?' Sitting in the chair across from me was the sprite for this old library. She looked like a woman in her mid forties, composed entirely out of the items in the library. I found out that was a common sprite thing. They are always composed of what they are born from. Litria's skin was made entirely out of white blank paper. She had standard librarian clothes composed out of dark brown hard covers with hair made of shredded black paper tied in a bun. Her nails, lips, glasses, and shoes were made out of red magazine covers and her eyes were small pieces of paper with a constantly shifting mass of text. How long had it been since we met?

I met her a year ago when I was trying to figure out what the words in a particularly dry book meant. The library was open to the public until about six at night and that deadline was fast approaching. I had been there for three hours on one word, a word that the dictionaries were surprisingly quiet on. So after that word finally gets solved I flip the page and find another fucking word with no goddamn dictionary definition. I mean I get that the supernatural isn't exactly oxford standard, but come the fuck on. So in the midst of my mental swearing and internal yelling, I accidentally flared out my soul like one does with their hands when they finally snap. Something started tugging on the energy after it floated up there for a few seconds and I lolled my head back in resignation.

After feeling it, I turned on my extrasight for the first time in months. It's like riding a bike. So I see this glowing light gathering energy above one of the bookcases, and I heard a voice coming from its core.

"I believe the word you are looking for is lycanthropic enhancement. It is an old term used to define the effects of lycanthropy upon one who has gained full mastery of it. It is used to mark the physical habits and changes that mark an alpha in a group. Standard catalogue of symptoms usually include remaining in dominant position of a moving group, need to be the most vocal, larger size and more brute strength then average, and wolf behavior in human form." She finished forming herself and sat on the bookcase looking down at me. "It has been quite some time since someone came here seekingthatsort of information. And for one so young to have such thirst for knowledge Is admirable, I suppose.' She drifted down to the floor and sat across from me as I checked the room to see if anyone was there. The librarian was asleep in her seat and all other people had left. I was too tired to be surprised or awestruck.

I turned off my extrasight and looked her in her eyes. 'Why can I hear you in my head if you aren'tINmy head?' I mentally told her, figuring it worked both ways. She looked at me with the same look bookworms get when they know more than someone. She adjusted her glasses with a smile before finally responding.

'The thoughts are sent from a soul to another soul. As I have some of your energy currently flowing into me, we share a connection. You would need to reestablish this connection to talk again.' She said in the snobbiest voice she could. My courtesy smile twitched a bit and I persisted with kindness like my Dad taught me. Chivalry may be dead, but its child lives on as courtesy to the ladies.

'My name is Mykris. What is yours if I might ask?' , I responded in a mechanical fashion. She seemed to look me up and down before responding.

'I am...Litria, the sprite of this library. This library has stood for many decades and all in this town have come to learn here. From their energy I was formed, and through yours I became sentient. I see the confused look on your face and I assume you are ignorant to the nature of sprites.' I can feel Cassandra focusing on this part and I speak to her quickly.

'Do you know what she is talking about?'

She spoke in a needlessly hushed whisper. 'I am a sprite of the woods, so I know of the plants and the trees. She is one of knowledge and wisdom, so she knows of everything a book could know.' Well, that answered that.

'A sprite does not learn like a mortal does. We do not need experiences for knowledge. It is a part of us, like an instinct that connects us to a greater consciousness. We can tap into it and gain more knowledge in our area. As books were written and put in a library of some use, all sprites of libraries, books, and study could access it if we tap into ourselves. It is something you mortals have done on occasion by sheer accident.' She rose to her feet and started to gesture like she was announcing to a crowd. Moving her arms in synchronization with her speech, she continued out loud, "While some monks or inventors may have tapped into this greater bank of knowledge, we sprites hold instinctive dominion over our small realms. We can tap into this knowledge to better ourselves at will! What are you to question us? Can you tell me with your limited knowledge?"

Tired and frustrated, my courtesy was running thin so I decided to take her down a peg or two. "So you can tap into any knowledge whatsoever if it's in a library? What about the Vatican libraries? Or the scrolls in Pompey? Can you tell me about some stuff on the internet? How about my Dad's diary at home? Can you tell me that?" I had at some point in that gotten up and started yelling. I was way too tired to put up with someone giving me a condescending monologue. After I yelled she looked like she was about to blow up in my face. She leaned in and started breathing heavy and took a deep breath and then-

"I HAVE TOLD YOU BEFORE MR.HALE TO BE QUIET! NOW SIT DOWN AND PACK YOUR THINGS!" The librarian screamed from across the room. She looked disheveled after her nap and took a second to get straightened out. "The library closes in 5 minutes." She calmly collected herself and went to the bathroom.

I had sat down immediately and when I looked at Litria she was doing the same. We both sat there after getting yelled at before we just started laughing at our situation. When we finally stopped and wiped the tears from our eyes, we both got over the apologies and began to small talk until the librarian came back.

'Will you come back?', She said as I was leaving. She had switched to her ethereal form that required extrasight to see, but I could still hear her in my mind.

"Yeah I think I will. See you later." As I walked out, I could have sworn I heard Cassandra giggle as I smiled at the empty air.

I packed up my things for the day and got up from my usual table at the library. Litria and I had gotten to swapping information whenever we could meet. I always felt like she didn't get to talk much since all the information I gave was just stupid stuff like some stories I had or something I'd been thinking about. In return she gave me an enhanced vocabulary and a plethora of information on the supernatural. We did it faster than usual since we could think to speak, leading to insanely fast conversation and better absorption of material. After these sessions we would just sit and chat until the library closed. As I left this time she did the usual thing of waving until I left and then giving up the form she held to merge with the essence of the library.

Crap, Aurora is waiting for me today! I started to turn my walk into a run to get home. The road home from the library headed straight to a corner of the woods, before turning right into the residential area. The trip takes about twenty minutes if you walk and ten minutes running. Already late, I started running home in an attempt to get to her in time.

'You could beat her in a fight if you tried. You shouldn't hold back so much, Mykris.' Now alone, Cassandra decided to chime in with her two cents.

'Yeah and put my friend in a coma. It's not like she was going to hurt me or anything, so I'm fine letting this slide. Besides, it wouldn't be a fair fight.'

'Well then, learn the arts of combat. There is still that old boxing club on the other side of town, isn't there?'

'YOU can enter a ring and get beaten up for a few hours. I heard those guys don't mess around. They are supposed to be champs or something. I don't suppose that you know anything about fights, do you?'

I could feel the equivalent of her crossing her arms as she spoke. 'I carry the domain of the forest, as you do. Unlike a certain someone, I actuallyusemy awesome supernatural abilities.' Her invisible small form came into view in front of me with a smug look on her face.

'We made a deal to follow the promise I made Dad. I'm not going to use it unless I have to and you know that Cassandra. I can still use some of them, but not the visible stuff.'

After about three minutes running, I opened up into a sprint and was still breathing steady. The plant cells in my body take in most of the cells waste, feeding off the carbon dioxide to stretch my energy about three times farther. A combination of this and my workout time had given me an inhuman endurance with a single breath lasting me a minute on average. It took awhile to wind up, but I liked using this one exception to Dad's rule of hiding.

'Booooo, this is child's play compared to what we could be doing.' She stuck out her leafy tongue and gave me a thumbs down.

'Child's play?' she put her head in her hands as she floated. I started laughing at the puns as she slowly began to giggle. She sat down on my shoulder and leaned on my necks she lost herself to her laugh. I had to stop running because I was using up all my air with laughter. She collected herself first as she got up and hit me in the side of the head with a nearby bush.

'I was serious Mykris, you've got to learn to use this stuff. If Litria is right, and she usually is, then it's likely that you will run into something dangerous.' A touch of concern entered her eyes as she looked me over.

'I can handle myself fine thank you very much. Aren't you supposed to be 'just watching' anyway?' At that she sat down on my shoulder with a resigned look on her face.

'I'm worried you won't last long enough to be as interesting as you could be.'

'Your confidence in me is overwhelming, but I appreciate your concern Cassandra.' I touched her shoulder and nudged her.

'Anytime, MICRO' She started laughing as she faded from view to retreat to the soultree.

"Don't call me MICRO!", I yelled out loud as I got to my feet. It echoed through the street as I heard whispers behind me. I spun around and saw some of the girls from my school mumbling to each other while glancing at me. I felt blood rush to my cheeks as I spun on my heel and took off down the road. I heard Cassandra laughing the whole way.

Just as I turned the corner to go to the residential area, something caught my eye in the woods. A normal person would have just kept on running. Go home and play with your best friend until it's time for dinner. I had a gut feeling that there was something more in that darkness. Something was in the woods moving really fast. Something supernatural was there. I could feel that the woods energy was disturbed like someone walking through a trail of smoke. Normal humans didn't do that. Normal being the key word. I jogged deep enough into the woods that no one could see me from the road, and then I cut loose.

I had to bottle up a lot of energy inside of me. Ever since my powers awoke, my energy generation was far more productive. It never passed the limit of my soul, but it felt like a buzzing of my soul. My soul didn't become larger, just brighter and more active. Also it made me antsy as hell. So I would look for opportunities to let some steam off, and Cassandra's woods were the perfect spot. Our coalescence lent a sense of being at home in the midst of a forest. So when I released inside of those woods after two years of no activity, it feltreally, reallygood.

My extrasight came up first. The glow in my eyes kicked in almost immediately and the woods lit up. My soulreach stretched out after its time constrained, brimming with energy. A strong breeze came flowing from my back as a lively green soul entered the mix.

'While we should meet with Aurora, this just feels so satisfying.' I could see her stretching as she lounged against her soultree. She wasn't cooped up in there, but a change of scenery is always nice. 'oh, it's been so long since we have done this. I think I'll go out for a bit to enjoy my woods, you know?' I saw her ethereal four inch tall form sit on my shoulder as she lounged against my neck. I only vaguely noticed this as I was too busy feeling good.

I was stretching both my boy and soul. Not in that metaphorical yoga and mountains way, but in the way that scratched a very real itch. My soul energy unfurled into my soulreach tendrils, giving the area around me a liquid fire glow. I grabbed the energy Cassandra was trying to let out and added it into the mix, putting little strands of green all around. A breeze generated by this started blowing all around me as her energy was strengthened by mine. All the trees began to bend around me in time with my breaths. I looked around and took in the scene as I slowly began to laugh. Even my hair was glowing with the sheer amount of energy I was letting out. With the wind whipping it around, it really looked like fire. In the midst of this display of considerable power, a twelve year old boy with flame hair started a childish, innocent laugh.

I wiped the tears from my eyes at laughing so hard. To this day, I don't know why I laughed. Was it the release? The raw power? The colors? I don't know, but I do know that that moment in the woods felt so satisfying on a primal level, that I wouldn't be able to go too long without it. I didn't want to hide anymore. After finally calming down, the search began. I pushed my senses into the trees and rapidly pulsed my tree eyes outwards to scan the area. It seemed like nothing was wrong until I came to a large tree in a clearing with large amounts of bark missing and several large claw marks scarring its surface. I pulled my senses back and ran over to that tree. I had begun to glow from the energy pouring out, giving me a slight luminescence in the dark forest. My limbs had taken a wooden composition up to my forearms like I was wearing long gloves. I checked out the claw marks while Cassandra checked the area.

My Dad's tracking lessons came into play here. The scratches were about three feet long and 4 inches deep. There were four cuts spaces over an inch apart. There were two things fighting here, given the state of the crumpled grass and cuts on he ground. Both were similarly sized, and one got pressed up against the tree. The placement of the sctratches indicate that the attacker pushed the other animal belly first onto the tree, and the victim tried to get purchase using it's claws. There was a large amount on animal blood on the base of the tree, but very little in the surrounding area. The attacker was practically hugging the victim against the tree. The only animal that does that is...

"CASSANDRA! GET BACK IN THE SOULTREE NOW!" Only one animal does that. Only one supernatural being mimics that animal. And a feral one just tried to kill a former member of its pack. The tracks, tree, and the fact there were only two clicked for me. A werewolf just went feral on a friend, who then barely escaped. Problem with this scenario: the feral one is still here.

As if on cue a massive fucking wolf came lunging out of the dark. How slow did it move for me to not notice it? All I saw was a hulking mass of black fur coming out of nowhere and slam into my side. It was trying to daze me for an easy kill, but you might find it is hard to daze a tree. Instinctively, I literally planted my feet and solidified my body so that he effectively tried tackling an oak. I poured a little excess in for padding so that my short 4' 9" frame was as large as a normal tree. After the lycan slammed into the base of the tree, I separated from the trunk and backed up. It hurried to its feet and cautiously began to circle me.

Lycans look mostly like wolves except for a few things. It had five claws on each paw, its main body was a tad bit wider than your average wolf, and it was fucking massive. Standing, the thing would have been over eight feet tall. On all fours, it was still at my eye level. Its claws were turning pitch black from the inside to the tip and the eyes on this thing were starting to turn from yellow to blue, but in a way that looked like the blue was an invasive thing. Its fur was missing patches from both wounds and some sort of sickness. Its breathing was ragged, as its ribs were likely broken.

Some of you might be thinking rabies, but Lycans don't get rabies. They do however have a tendency to go feral, which is worse in a whole lot of ways. Feral means that the human part is falling back, but the subconscious is still swinging. This makes the lycan very agitated and causes its brain to overload. Side effects include: Attacking friends, losing hair, non human parts dying, and the generally unpleasant habit of killing everything on sight. Cassandra had successfully retreated, but was doing nothing to help me.

Sensing this thought process, she quickly stated, 'I am merely observing, I won't help you unless it was me who got you here. I don't mean to be cold, but it is your life I am interested in- I will not taint its events.' Before I could make the remark about me not having the ability to grow fucking TREES prior to meeting her, I was interrupted by the attention stealing aspect of a wall of fur and claws charging me.