As night approached the group had already settled near where the Storm Spirit was supposedly located.
The mood was much more serious and less joyful, since Sera and Kastral left. They only spoke to talk about the plan of attack.
Vicky just stared into the burning campfire and in her mind she prayed for her mother to be okay.
In the past week or so she noticed small changes in her personality. At first she became much more emotional, which as Bea said was because of the hormonal cycle of being and evolved human.
But after a while she seemed to change in the opposite direction, not quite cold but as if she wasn't really the same person anymore. It was weird, and whenever Vicky brought it up to the others, they just told her that Sera is under a lot of stress... But they didn't know her as much as Vicky...
She spent a long time with her in that tiny room, but it was as if her mother was slowly forgetting the things they went through together.
This fact was really scary to think about, she was even afraid to bring it up with her other mother.
'Bea wouldn't listen to me anyway... She never does, not like Sera... I miss my mommy...'
While sitting a silent tear ran down on Vicky's cheek. Nobody in the group noticed her inner conflict and sadness, they were preoccupied with something more important... Figuring out where the Storm Spirit was.
Whatever they said to each other Vicky wasn't paying attention to it. Slowly she stood up and walked towards the makeshift hippogryph nest. Little Memento was happily jumping around, wanting to play with anyone.
She was too young to understand why the adults looked a bit crestfallen. Watching the tiny hippogryph hopping from one place to the other brought a small smile to Vicky's gloomy face, and brightened her mood a little.
As Memento noticed her approach she quickly jumped and headbutted her stomach. Luckily she wasn't strong enough to knock Vicky down, but Bea told her that hippogryphs matured fast.
In maybe a year or two she will be as big as the rest, well not as gigantic as Kastral. When she remembered the King of Hippogryphs and his rider, her pervious smile turned upside down.
Absentmindedly she stroked Memento's small bird head, which strangely enough calmed both of them down.
They sat on the cold ground and watched the stars together. It made her think of something that her mother once told her.
"If you ever get lost don't be sad. Just look at the stars and be assured that I'm watching the same sky as you... No matter how far you are or how bad the situation is, just know that I will always find you. That is something I know for certain!"
As Vicky looked at the starry sky tears fell from her eyes. In her mind she repeated the same sentence over and over until it lost its meaning.
Feeling her fragile emotional state Memento came closer and buried her head into Vicky's chest. This caused a small sad smile to appear on her face, and she began scratching her chin's feathers.
They sat there staring at the night sky for an hour or so, but suddenly her attention went elsewhere. Farther away about three kilometers to the west some living thing was approaching them, fast!
Quickly Vicky jumped to her feet and was about to warn the others, but they also felt it. The creature whatever it was, didn't try to hide its presence. Bea was looking everywhere seemingly very anxious, but when her eyes fell on Vicky she breathed a sigh of relief.
She floated around a bit more, than with a chuckle looked at Bea.
"You have a bit of pure nature in you, how delightful! Back then they associated me with spring you know, but then all the gods went to sleep for a long time... I got off track again! My suggestion is to hunt down a corrupted named Notus. He was once my brother of sorts, but Madness took his mind."
Her erratic movement suddenly stopped and she stared at them a bit confused.
"I don't even understand why you wanted to hunt me... My power isn't related to storms at all!"
This time the eight of them were the confused ones.
"What do you mean? Aren't you a Storm Spirit?" Asked Sarah with disbelief, she thought Zephyr was lying to them. The spirit didn't take offense and instead flew closer to the group which put them a bit on edge.
"Of course not silly! Maybe you should check the batteries in those watches, they seem to get an awful lot of information wrong... *Chuckle* I'm just kidding, it's not the watch's fault, but mine... You see these instruments work with cosmic materials, which gets more inaccurate as the creature's power grows!"
The fickle spirit flew away and danced in the tender wind. While spinning and doing cartwheels in the air, her voice appeared again.
"At the transcended level it becomes a bit lackluster. Those scouts years ago thought I didn't see them... What dummies... *Giggle* They even thought me a mere corrupted, a bit insulting if I do say so myself!... Anyway do we have a deal, or you still want to fight?"
The group looked at one another, then just shrugged. Bea took a step forward and said, "Okay, but only if you can point out Notus's exact location on our map!"
*Giggle* "Sure thing!... There he is, just a bit north from here!... Now that we are done with that I'm leaving! Bye, it was nice to meet all of you!" As she left her voice echoed for a few more seconds in the wind, then it too gradually went away.
With nothing else to do and very weirded out by the encounter the group went to sleep. Tomorrow they would continue their journey. Vicky stared at the sky a while longer, then gently her eyes closed.
When she had fallen asleep, she dreamt of her mother. Sera was walking in a dark corridor, it was infinitely long and both sides were covered in doors. On each there was a label, but Vicky couldn't read them.
She seemed to be in a lot of panic, she was running around trying to open every door, but they were all locked. Eventually she stopped and just sat down with one of the doors to her back.
"I'm sorry... I just can't... I can't..." While crying she whispered the same sentence over and over again. Vicky also felt her emotions, her mother was terrified, lost and extremely sad.
Then suddenly out of nowhere she shouted, "BEHIND YOU!"
As Vicky turned around a man in a lab coat slowly walked towards Sera. The old man brought a great amount of fear and pain to Vicky's soul, but she didn't understand why.
It felt like she seen this man before, but couldn't recall her memory about it. His hand slowly reached out and touched Sera's head, which caused an even bigger concern and horror to appear in Vicky's heart.
As the old man smiled, he turned towards Vicky and said, "You are next!"
The nightmare broke apart and Vicky woke up screaming from terror...