He was so annoying, that insufferable know it all. Prancing around in that lame peacock form of his. I angrily ran up the rocky hill trying to get away from the peacock’s taunting voice. Telling me I was weak and no spirit would ever want me. I might’ve spewed comebacks at him, but inside I secretly agreed. I mean, at my age, everyone has already connected with their spirit animal, and those who haven’t yet are just being tested. I’m the only one who has no one. No spirit has ever taken a liking to me, not enough to give me their form that is. I remain spiritless. I wouldn’t mind so much if that idiot would shut up about it. It saves me from all those tedious lessons Laith and Nya have to endure. Hours and hours of painful training that could result in death if not done right or taken too far.

At this point, I was far enough up the hill near the cliff where I couldn’t hear anything but the tranquil sound of the ocean waves crashing onto the jagged stones down below. No more annoying chatter from one very annoying peacock. Close by was one of my favorite places, a little stone tower on a cliffside. It’s where I came to cool off and break things. I had to duck to get in, the rusting metal door was quite short and creaked as I entered. No one knew about it but my sister and brother, who went there to get away from the lessons or just to read and draw, and me. We had discovered it when we were little when we didn’t have to duck down to get inside. We were running through the woods and sand chasing a coyote spirit, which would then go on to choose my sister as it’s keeper. It had run inside the tower and looked back at us with a glint in it’s eyes as if tempting us to follow, my sister had been the first to rush in eager to catch the translucent spirited coyote. It had picked her then, as she ran to catch it ran right at her causing her to stop in fear. It didn’t hurt her, it embraced her as its keeper and in turn, she embraced it as her spirit. It was a beautiful sight for my brother and I, but for her, it was so much more. She tried explaining the feeling to my brother and me when we were younger, but it was impossible. No one could ever describe the feeling of connecting with a spirit -- at least not clearly. Some say it was an intense rush of euphoria, others said that it was as if a void they had never noticed had been filled, yet there are some who say the complete opposite. They say once they have connected to the spirit they feel empty and broken, they feel as if something is terribly wrong. Those are the ones that don’t last, the ones whose spirits chose incorrectly. My sister tells me that I’ll understand one day once I find my own spirit. I’m not so sure I will but I keep those thoughts to myself. Spirits are what drives every aspect of our world. Without one I’m nobody. That didn’t matter in our old stone tower.

I heard a strange noise coming from behind the tower closer to a small fishing dock, not a humans making but of a spirit. It was a distinct hollow sound, deep and menacing. It was a strange spirit too. It seemed to have the shape of a horse yet, as I looked closer, the skin of a snake. I had never seen such a spirit nor heard of such a beautiful creature. And it was beautiful, as it nuzzled the sand below it’s hooves and as the water spalshed onto it’s serpent like skin, the sunlight caught on its fiery red scales and it’s form graceful yet powerful. Well, it was beautiful right up until it looked up and saw me idling and decided to charge right at me, smoke rising from its body and fire trailing behind it. I turned and ran. As fast as I could. And kept running through the rocks, sand, and woods till I reached the manor.

I ran inside to my room out of breath. I knew I should tell my father of this dangerous spirit, it could hurt somebody, but I couldn’t risk the spirit getting spooked and Disappearing. There was something about it I couldn’t bear to see die. I had to tell Laith and Nya lest they venture out to the cliffside intending a quiet day of some light reading only to be confronted with such a beast. I left my room in search of them and found Laith reading some book on the history of the spirit animals in the library. He seemed immersed in his book, far too much to pay much attention to me. Still, I pulled out a chair next to him and did my best to disturb his reading by scratching the wooden table in the way I knew he hated. “What do you want, Arian?” he asked me still staring down at his book. His eyebrows lowered in irritation.

“I was almost killed by an insane spirit today.”

“That’s nice, now please leave.”

“It was really cool, it had these awesome red scales, and the body of a horse. Never seen one like that.” My brother looked up at me for the first time, concern and curiosity apparent on his face.

“Scales? Like a dragon or something?”

“Yeah I guess, anyway I wanted to warn you to stay away from the tower for a while, that’s where I found it. Don’t want you getting barbecued.” I stood up to leave but Laith took a hold of my arm and pulled me back into my seat.

He moved our chairs closer and in a hushed tone he said, “Please tell me this scale skinned horse thing doesn’t breath fire.”

“The ‘horse thing’ breaths a lot of fire, and it trails behind it as it runs, it is quite terrifying.”

“That’s impossible, there is no such creature mentioned anywhere in the spirit animal guide.”

“Maybe it’s just very well hidden.”

“Not likely, humans have scoured every inch of this world, they wouldn’t have missed such a creature. We need to tell someone, now,” he said with urgency in his voice.

“We can’t.” For some reason, I felt an urge to protect this terrifying creature despite the fear I felt towards it. Its eyes had held the same fear I had felt.

“What, why? It attacked you, it tried to kill you,” Laith looked as confused as I felt.

“We just can’t, okay? Please don’t, I don’t want it to Disappear. It looked scared, more than anything, I think I can calm it enough that it won’t be a threat, just let me try,” I pleaded with my brother as he stared on in shock. He nodded, quiet and grim. I got up then and left with no further dispute from him.

On the way to the infirmary, where I was sure Nya would be napping on one of the cots, I ran into one of fathers advisors, Mal Gladiolus, a mean-spirited old lady who despised me for the sole reason that I hadn’t connected with a spirit yet. Nya heard her say it meant I was weak and unfit to carry the blood of such a great man. I tried to avoid her but she insisted on standing in my way as I walked making it impossible to hide.

“Hello Arian, how are your studies going?”

“Fine.”

“Yes well, I’ve had a little chat with your father and we’ve agreed that this has gone on far too long, you mustn’t miss out on any more spirit training or it’ll be too late,” she replayed in a condescending tone.

“Well, how do you expect me to do that without a spirit?”

“Exactly,” narrowing her eyes at me one final time she walked off with her head held high and the obnoxious sound of her heels against the stone hard floor.

I ran off in the opposite direction with a familiar feeling of anger and frustration boiling in me. The mere idea that a human can live on without a spirit hasn’t occurred to them. It’s rare sure, but not unheard of. Some people just never find their spirit and their spirit never finds them. They live on happy and fulfilled. They just never share that life with a spirit, their equal and opposite, the soul of a passed on animal guarding theirs is nonexistent. Some people can’t live like this, this constant feeling of emptiness but I’ll survive. I don’t need a spirit.

Nya sat upright on the cot with her eyes concentrated on the cards held protectively before her. In front of her sat Dr. Alces with his cards held more slack than hers. I walked over to them and sat by Nya surveying her cards. Nya greeted me with a nudge and quiet greeting while Dr. Alces simply nodded to me. I waited for them to finish the game patiently, advising Nya every once in a while. Dr. Alces ended up winning and bid us goodbye as he had patients to attend to.

“So why are you here?” I asked my sister, as I went to sit on the chair Dr. Alces had vacated.

“Oh, I’m avoiding mother, she’s trying to get me to go to some ball,” she replied sharply with a scowl on her face.

“Of course she is, just came to warn you, there’s something of spirit monster near the tower by the boat docks. Stay away, okay?”

“Well I was going to anyway, it’s too hot out these days, but okay. I’ll avoid it. Is it one of those rogue tiger spirits people are talking about. I heard some humans captured them for a collection and they escaped hellbent on creating chaos.”

“No, it’s worse. A fire-breathing snake-skinned horse is residing in our tower, and it is angry.”

“That sounds awesome,” she said with a smirk plastered on her face. I rolled my eyes and laughed at her reaction to this monstrous creature. Behind me, I heard my mother's voice shouting at a guard demanding he finds her daughter. I noticed Nya hadn’t heard instead she was shuffling her deck of cards with a strange look on her face. I grabbed her attention silently and motioned to her to leave. Panic crossed her face and she quietly grabbed her things and leaped out the window in her fox form.

My mother entered the room a second later, raising her eyebrows curiously at me. “What are you doing here? Are you sick, hurt?” She questioned, worry apparent in her voice. I panicked not knowing what to say, not wanted to worry her. She already donned too many white hairs clashing against the dark brown almost black of her natural hair.

“It’s just a summer cold, I’ll be fine,” I said, reassuring her.

“Have you seen your sister? We’re supposed to head over to Tarsius for a ball in your father's honor, it would be shameful not to attend.”

“No, I haven’t seen her. I don’t mind going,” I said, knowing clearly it wouldn’t change anything. She would never let me go, she’d worry too much. Neither would my father due to my “ailment”, it would only bring shame to our family for his spiritless son to parade in front of the other nobles as if he were their equal. Laith was out of the picture too, he was far to blunt and rude for court company. Nya was quiet and polite despite being a bit of a troublemaker. She couldn’t stand the balls though, they were far too crowded and loud.

“That would be unwise,” my mother simply said, and with that, she turned and left the room. I sighed at her unwavering response.

I left shortly after her and headed in the direction of my rooms but a tall, lanky figure holding a heavy, old book blocked my path. My brother looked down at me and dropped the book into my arms. “It’s not in there,” he said with a bland tone and manner.

“What isn’t?” I checked the front of the book and found a strange depiction of a lynx (might change), our families symbol and namesake. The book seemed to be an entire collection of every spirit ever seen and heard.

“The creature you described. I didn’t remember reading about it anywhere so I checked again and made sure. It’s not there. According to the book a spirit with the body of a horse and the scales of a snake should not exist.”

“That makes no sense, even the rarest of creatures are in here.”

“Well not your horse, but I think I know where we’ll find it.”

My brother led me to my father’s study down in the basements through the shadows narrowly avoiding passerby's who would question us. Only my father was supposed to have keys to his study as he was the only permitted inside by law but my brother had his own. He had stolen my fathers keys one morning and returned them that night with a set of his own in his pocket. My father had never noticed or simply didn’t care. Either way, my brother now had full access to extremely dangerous documents that could destroy people's lives and he chose instead to read the ancient history books that sat high upon a shelf gathering dust. It used to seem trivial to me. Such useless knowledge that should stay on a shelf high up gathering dust. But for the first time it wasn’t so useless to me. I needed to know what I was facing in the clearing. What kind of creature I had encountered.