Story Prt. 41

The mist began to clear around the engaged participants of battle. There was one spot of mist left and it was where Katarin had been left laying on the ground. The mist coallesced around her now erect form. It draped itself over her frame like fine silk. Jintaro had never seen a more beautiful sight in his life. Quintaro was awed but he would not be swayed from the meal he had in front of him. He leaned down to have a bite. Jintaro didn't even react, he couldn't stop staring at Katarin in her current state. Her eyes were blazing with energy and force. Her emblazened eyes gave the quilt of mist she wore an eery green glow.1

"Quintaro! Why do you persist when you now know you have lost?" Katarin inquired of the beast.2

"What Do Youuu Knoww?"3

"I know you have lost father, now please stop this madness," she almost shed tears now. "Just stop it now. I know you now, and now that you know, you can not hurt me or Jintaro either. He is a child of nature, father. Nay, an orphan of nature. He is your son. And my brother."4

"GRRRR...Why do you say that? Why think you these lies be true?" Quintaro asked as fur reccessed into his skin.5

"I have seen it. Much like my dreams of this wood and the pond that I know is not even 10 yards away from us now. Mother always said as long as I had love I would be okay. I never knew what she meant until now. I needed the love of my brother to open my eyes to the truth that was before me." Quintaro was now standing on two feet with hardly any fur left on his body. "You are my father and you are these woods. The nymph in your pond is my mother. That is why I couldn't scry her. She was no more. She heeds the voice of only one master, and you put her down. She raised me for 14 years, and you just let her cease."6

"Yes this is true child," Quintaro now looked like the man from Katarin's dreams. "But it was for a purpose that I did it. I saw that if you had stayed at the school with your mother then my nemesis, Azuroth the Wolf, would have found you both and slain you and much of the school. He didn't know about you, but he did know about your mother. He was very close to finding the source of the scrying being done to your mother. That backlash that you felt was me exerting my will on his arts. That is what happens when nature opposes chaos child. Heed that lesson well."7

"What about mother?"8

"I am here child," said a new voice distinctly female.9

"Oh my god mother is that you?" Katarin asked with tears in her eyes. "Why did you leave me?"10

"It was time that I left, dear girl"11

"Because HE said so?"12

"No dear, because he Knew so"13

"But why did you have to go," at this she looked at Quintaro. "YOU, why did she have to leave me?"14

"It was no longer safe for her there, I have already told you this child. Azuroth was getting very close to her. She needed to return to me to be safe. Since the day she left the school Azuroth had not tried personally to scry her. He knew I would be able to find him. He thought if he tapped into someone else scrying her that he would be able to find her. He just didn't know that I would be watching over you who was scrying for her."15

"So my mother is safe, the father I have never had is one of the two most powerful wizards in this world-"16

"Three wizards now child," Quintaro said.17

"Two wizards, and now I have a brother who is half Rannek?"18

"He is wholely Rannek," at this Quintaro shifted to a new form which was Rannek and very closely resembled Jintaro.19

"I need- This is just- I- I need to sleep now, this is far too much," and so Katarin went to go lay by the pond knowing that it was absolutely safe.20

"Jintaro, I Quintaro am your father as she has just said. You Jintaro are to be my succesor."21

"Succesor to what father? This is so much for me," Jintaro was actually trembling with fear and newly aquired knowledge.22

"Jintaro have you ever had dreams...Dreams that you were more than you are. More than the runt those around you perceived you to be?" He raised his hands to his chest, clenched in fists. Trembling with white knuckles. Fear that his only son would reject him and his gifts.23

"Who doesn't have these dreams? These fond night time wishes?" Jintaro quizzed.24

"And if I told you that yours were real? That these were not dreams. They were reflections of your inner ability? What would you say to that?"25

"I would say you were a mad, shapeshifting, hermit in a glade," Jintaro was starting to reject this man as his father.26

"Jintaro just wait. Why do you think you are so small?" At thisKatarin's mother flowed into the words in the same direction Katarin went.27

"I have always been small, if you knew me then you would know that," Jintaro retorted.28

"You have always been small because that is how you see yourself, you saw what others told you they saw. So for you that became the truth of the matter. You have always been whatever you wanted to be. You alone were holding THE Quintaro at bay. Do you think a runt of a Rannek could do that? No. But you could. Your instinctual love of Katarin made you believe that you would do whatever it takes to save her. And you did."29

"I- Just- Uh-"30

"Listen boy. Try it yourself. Think of yourself with fur all over your body," he waited with arms folded across his barrel Rannek chest.31

Slowly fur started to sprout from his visible arms and his shirt was puffing out on his chest and back.32

"Thats it now change your full shape to the beast you have just seen," and quintaro stood waiting still. With more a look of admiration, for his son, in his eyes.33

Jintaro leaned forward to a position on all fours. His head widened and lengthened. His hands became paws with half foot claws. His already large, by human standards, chest doubled in girth. His hind legs became massive blocks of tensed muscle.34

"With practice you will be able to just make the whole change at once, or change to something else if you desire. Peoples accounts of the Quintaro are very mixed cuz there is only ever one that gets away and he never gets a good look at me. I use magic to ensure that. You however are rather nonmagical. So you will have to use your Rannek skills instead of my magic gifts. Once you have full mastery of your powers I see great things for you."35

"But why...why do I need to keep being you?"36

"Son, if the Rannek had nothing to fear how long do you think humankind would last? I am more human than Rannek. You are not. But I do sense a gentility in your soul. If you so choose you can cease the act of Quintaro. You can lead your people to be whatever you want them to be. But they have to accept you first. Therein lies the challenge before you."37

"I- I need to lay down now too," Jintaro said tiredly.38

"Goodnight son I hope you sleep well."39