The Moon Goddess' Chosen

481 Keep Moving Forward

Crysta stood still for about three minutes sorting through the different scents that invaded her senses, ignoring those she didn’t need at all. Scents like the scent of soil and everything that lived inside it or rotting bark.

She focused on what mattered, the scent of fresh bark, which she only focused on when it got too strong to keep her from crashing head-first into the surrounding oaks.

The wind would tell her where the scents were coming from and allow her to adjust her course.

Soon enough, the delta was travelling blind, following her intuition and trusting her judgement of the scents she had to work with. She followed the faint trails of items’ scents.

Sorting through the different scents was nearly impossible but Crysta didn’t have a choice. She found that some of the times she picked up on a trail, it turned out to be feint… a wisp...

A remnant of the perfume that had been carried by the twister. Similar clouds of the perfume were scattered throughout the forest at this point and it took the delta a while to figure out how to differentiate between what was real and what wasn’t.

The fake clouds of perfume only had a particular direction when they first hit her nose, but a short step in their direction and it would be clear that it was just a plume of the scattered scent floating about aimlessly.

As such, she was able to find and follow the only scent that proved to be real. The delta struggled to make sense of everything invading her nostrils, tasking herself beyond what she was normally capable of.

She knew she couldn’t master the art of tracking in a matter of minutes and many times she lost the ‘real’ trails she was following but her determination didn’t waver. Not once did the delta feel like giving up. She wouldn’t allow despair to win.

.....

Bree might have performed spectacularly, but the delta’s friend hadn’t gone against a royal with the power to change the weather.

From this perspective, Crysta actually felt her trial was equally tasking as that of her friend.

..........

It took more time than she would have liked and the delta made so many mistakes that she lost count, but eventually, the grey wolf made it to the item she was looking for. The wolf placed her paw on the scented item, feeling for its structure.

Was it something she could easily hold in her mouth or was it something she would have to activate the metal clasps for?

The wolf sniffed the item and felt for its shape. It was slippery to her nose, a little rubbery and the perfume coming off it was so intense. Almost as if it was intended to change the very essence of the item that had been sprayed.

Crysta got frustrated when she could figure out what it was and bit down on the item.

‘QUACK!!!’ went the rubbery item.

‘A RUBBER DUCK!’ the grey wolf screamed in her head. If she was in her human form, she would have facepalmed.

‘In any case, it’s better than having to carry around a lance,’ she thought to herself, ‘Now I just have to make it back to the Waiting room.’

Turning around offered her a spell of dizziness all on its own.

The only thing that kept her from completely losing her cool… was a foreign mental map of senses that she’d gathered from Bree. The map seemed to spawn in her mind at the right time, showing her where everything was actually meant to be.

With the forest’s scents completely amok, it was hard to use this map. However, after so much time had passed, the scents seemed to get back in order.

Crysta’s blindness started to lessen and her mind was able to form an image in her mind once more… albeit shaky.

The map Bree had transferred into her mind through the mind link, however… was something short of perfection.

‘I know I can perceive my surroundings as well… but this is different,’ the girl mused. Bree’s map was nearly accurate… as though she’d seen everything in the forest with her own eyes dozens of times to create the perfect map.

...............

It was a while before Crysta managed to make it back to the Waiting Room. With the help of the mind link, she could tell where the Waiting Room was...

Even though using it impaired her concentration and slowed down her progress.

Nonetheless, she made her way through the forest and eventually made it to the Waiting Room where Lina had been waiting for her calmly.

Crysta collapsed on the floor in her wolf form, panting heavily from the exertion. The wolf dropped the rubber duck to the ground unceremoniously as Bree got to work on the contraption keeping her friend blind, “How are you doing, Crysta?” Lina asked the girl.

“Cole’s nasty trick made it a lot harder. Bree, I tried doing what you said but…”

“It’s okay… The commentator made it clear why you were having trouble. Cole, on the other hand, wasn’t having as much trouble as you were… even though his movements were confusing. I’m sorry I couldn’t help you more,” the girl apologized.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Crysta sighed.

The wolf tried to open its eyes but closed them immediately when the light that came in stung her eyes like needles, “Ouch… that’s going to take some getting used to.”

“Is it that much harder than normal tracking during hunts?” Lina suddenly asked.

“It was.”

“What do you mean?” Lina asked.

“On my way here, I noticed something. The effects of Cole’s trick were starting to wear off. The scents were back in order and I could move much easier without my eyes. You won’t have the same trouble I had out there. We are just lucky he didn’t decide to make it rain,” Crysta sighed, finally managing to open her eyes.

Everything was blurry at first before she could make out the images coming into her eyes. “What are you still doing…” the girl stopped her speech short when she noticed the princess had her blindfold on. The blue cloth wrapped neatly over her eyes, obscuring her vision and yet she faced the wolf.

Lina showed no signs of being blinded. Not like Crysta had been, “I needed to make sure you were okay first. Rest, Crysta. You did well.”

The delta watched the princess jog outside and vanish behind the trees of the man-made forest. The sun was shining brightly again and the clouds from the king’s disruption were gone.

The wolf walked to a door at the left side of the Waiting Room. This was the changing room that had been attached for privacy… just in case the cameras within the Waiting room were active.

A minute or so later, the delta walked out of the room pulling her dark hair back in a ponytail. “Are you feeling better now?”

“Yeah. How is Lina doing?” Crysta asked.

“She’s doing well, I guess. But it doesn’t look like she’s into it,” Bree sighed, leaning lazily against the triangular table while she watched the recordings on the screen.

“Why wouldn’t she…” the delta stopped mid-sentence, “Oh… I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. Cole just… played dirty. I didn’t know he had it in him though.”

“Hmm, I don’t know. I would say you scared him. If we’d kept the momentum you set, they would have been in serious trouble,” Crysta chuckled.

Bree didn’t return the laughter. Instead, she clenched her fists in frustration, “Then let’s make them regret it in the next stage.”

“What did you do the Bree that I know…” the delta paused. Something about her friend was different. It wasn’t a bad thing, though, “We’ll give them hell in the next one then.”

As it so happened, the Sirius team was down 6 to 12 as the screen showed. Crysta had spent nearly a whole hour out in the forest and only ten minutes were left on the counter. Even if they found an item now, it wouldn’t really matter. The other team already had an overwhelming lead and from the looks of it. They were planning to make the gap just a little bit wider.

Cole’s turn had come around again and he was walking back to their Waiting Room with an item in hand. This time, the item didn’t bear the green stripes of the Lycaon team. Instead, the stripes were blue.

Crysta growled at the sight of the colours on the item he had in hand.

The screen showing Lina’s form showed the princess jogging in another part of the forest and the frame that showed the item she was most likely to find was already displaying a blue-striped hammer placed at the top of a large boulder.

“Is she as good at reading her surroundings as you are?” Crysta asked.

“She’s a royal. She should…”

“No, Bree. That’s not what you showed us out there. Even royals struggle with that level of precision and mastery over their senses. Don’t sell yourself short. If it hadn’t been for the knowledge you shared with me…” the delta bit her lip as a pang of guilt tore at her.

Their defeat was already in sight… Lina’s pace showed it.

Bree pulled the delta into a warm hug, “It wasn’t your fault, Crysta. Cole just pulled a mean trick. That’s all there is to it.”

Bree didn’t forget what her friend was just about to say but chose to ignore it.

The delta’s resolve was shattering right in front of her and she needed a friend.

“It looks like the Sirius team can tell who has this game. It should be evident to all of us now. And with the Lycaon team switching to the dark side of the rules like that, they will even have more trouble closing the gap. It’s hopeless. Only ten minutes remain. That first performance really had the Lycaon team shaking.

No one could have thought the wind would choose that moment to pick up when it did,” the commentator said over the speakers.

During Crysta’s turn, the Lycaon team had retrieved three of their items while Crysta had only retrieved their second. “I’ve only made trouble for…”

“No, don’t think like that. You know how highly Lina thinks of you. She could have yelled at you when you returned but she asked you to rest. Don’t take those words for granted,” Bree argued.

“It still doesn’t change the fact that…”

“That you went up against the King of Lycaon, a chosen of the moon goddess and can still stand to face him again. We watched everything, Crysta. Cole is not an opponent any of us was ready to face. Especially me…

If I had been in your place, I wouldn’t have been able to track down that rubber duck. I know it doesn’t look like much... but you never gave up. Not even once. You don’t find that kind of determination lying around, Crysta,” Bree allowed as much sincerity as she could muster to filter into her voice.

Crysta stared at the screen teary-eyed and watched Lina leap through the air athletically and grab the hammer before starting her journey back to their room. Once again, the princess made it look too easy…

Just like she had in the Trials.

..................….

They lost… 8-13