The bat that grabbed Terias, pulled him far from the battle. Terias tried to break free, but the bat’s feet were tightly locked around his wings. The bat flew for a few more minutes before picking a spot in the grassland and setting Terias down. The bat person landed a few meters away from Terias. They stood face to face.
Terias was livid as he said, “I don’t know who you are or why you keep butting into my fights, but if you brought me here for a one on one match, then get ready to die!”
His mysterious abductor stood there quietly. The only part of their face that he saw was a pair of blue eyes that were between a black mask and a hood. After a moment of silent staring, the bat’s wings reformed into regular human arms. They had shut off their manek power. Terias was annoyed and grunted at the sight of it.
“Don’t mock me!” he shouted as he ran to the person.
Before Terias could reach them, the bat person pulled their hood back, revealing long, blonde hair. Terias stopped. Even though her face was still covered, he could now tell that it was a woman. She took her hand and slid down the mask that covered her nose, mouth, and cheeks. Terias’s heart nearly stopped. He instantly switched his manek power off.
“No,” he whispered as he walked to the woman. “It can’t be . . . there’s no way . . .”
He stopped and stood right in front of her. The woman slowly brought her hands up and placed them on his cheeks. She pulled his head down to her’s so that their foreheads touched.
“Terias, you’ve grown so much. I’ve missed you, son.”
Terias trembled.
“Mom . . . How? Why? All this time I thought. . .”
She lifted his face and looked into his matching blue eyes. Tears were building up upon her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Terias hugged her, and she did the same to him. All they could do at that moment was hold on to each other. The overflowing emotions kept their lips locked shut. Terias was light-headed and his legs became weak. He was not prepared to see his mother again and hold her in his arms. To say that the situation was unexpected would have been an understatement. The clash of joy and sorrow was almost too much for him to bear. All he could do was cry, and shake, and breathe.
“Let’s walk,” his mother calmly said. “I need to tell you about everything that’s happened.”
Terias nodded. They released each other and started walking slowly. For about a minute, they listened to the sounds of the wind against the rustling grass.
“This is crazy!” Terias finally said while wiping tears from his eyes. “I can’t believe you’re alive!”
“I can only imagine how you must be feeling right now. Where do I even begin?”
“Where have you been for the past eight years?”
“A lot has happened in that time. I hope you don’t mind if it takes a while for me to explain.”
“I just got my mom back. Take as much time as you need. I’m not going anywhere.”
His mother took a deep breath.
“This will make more sense if I mention what happened before I left. It all starts with your father and me. We fell in love as soon as we met. We had three handsome sons together and we were a happy family. Everything was perfect except for one problem. Your father was next in line to become the feudal lord, while I was just a spora from Swan Village. The land wouldn’t have allowed a couple like us to be together.”
She brought her fingers to Terias’s neck and pulled out the crow talon necklace that was tucked underneath his vest.
“I had to disguise my bat manek and make it look like the manek of a crow. Just attach a few feathers, talons, a beak, and you’ve got a believable crow costume. For years, I was able to fool his parents and the entire land. It worked up until a time right after your tenth birthday.”
“That’s around the time when everyone said you had died. What happened?” Terias eagerly asked.
“One night, your grandfather, who was still the feudal lord at the time, was targeted by an assassin. I saw the guy getting ready to stab him, so I transformed without my disguise and pushed your grandfather out of the way. I saved his life and we managed to take down the assassin, but your grandfather was only focused on my bat manek. He summoned your father, and the two of us came clean about me being a spora. I was exiled from the land. Your grandfather covered the whole thing up by telling everyone that I died in a shipwreck on my way to the Land of Fish.”
“So dad knew that you were still alive?
“Yes, but please don’t be mad at him. Before I left, I made him promise not to tell you or your brothers.”
“But why?”
“I didn’t want to risk the chance that you would seek retaliation or come looking for me. I just wanted all of you to be safe and live normal lives.”
Terias looked off into the distance. He didn’t know how he should feel about what he had just heard.
“What happened after you were exiled?” Terias asked.
“I went to the Land of Mammals. I was hoping that I could recover from losing everything and create a watered-down fairy tale that I could call a new life. I became a server at a tavern and lived in a cabin with a woman that I worked with. I kept this steady lifestyle for two years. Then, one day I met an interesting couple who was sparring by a river. It was a young man with a wolf manek and a salamander girl. I was intrigued by the mammal being with an amphibian.”
She paused for a moment and smiled.
“They reminded me of your father and I. I went up and started talking to them. They were surprised that I didn’t mind that the girl was a spora. I told them I was one too. It even turned out that the wolf was born in the Land of Fish. I noticed that they needed some work on their fighting skills, so I kept coming back every day to teach them some things. It was like I had sorta became their mentor. We shared stories from our pasts, and they told me about their dreams. They wished that one day, the world could live happily without hatred or division. A world where no one was labeled as a spora. We could all be one, without the distinction of classes or phyla. Honestly, I thought the idea was crazy at first, but over time, their passion grew on me. I decided to leave the tavern and help them get started with their goal. We tracked down four other spora and convinced them to join us. Between the six of them, I split everyone up and sent each person to a different land to gather more spora. I brought the wolf and the salamander to the Land of Birds to start a spora base. After that, I left the wolf in charge, and here I am now.”
“You’re saying that you created the group of masked fighters who keep interfering in the war?”
“Cofounded.”
Terias stopped walking, placed his hands on his head, and closed his eyes.
“This day just keeps getting crazier.” He dropped his hands and looked at his mother. “I feel so lost right now.”
She grabbed Terias’s hands.
“Listen, sweety. All of this is coming at you fast. You’ve got a lot more on your plate than any eighteen-year-old should ever have. This is mostly my fault.”
“Where do we go from here? You can come home now, right?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”
“Why not? Dad’s in charge now. He can let you come back.”
“Me returning home is not what’s best for you or anyone else in the Land of Birds.”
“So are we on different sides then? Am I supposed to fight against you in this war?”
“I will always be on your side, Terias. My top priority is that you and your brothers are alive and well. That’s why I have to stay with the spora and see our vision through to the end. We’ll change this world for the better, and I want you to be leading the birds when we do it.”
“Mom, I don’t know if our goals will align with each other, but I promise you that when this is all over, I will bring you home.”
“Good. I’m a little homesick.” She hugged him one more time. “I wish I could stay with you longer, but I have to go. I love you, Terias.”
“I love you too, Mom. Please . . . stay alive. I can’t lose you again.”
“I feel the same way about you. Don’t you worry because there is nothing that’ll keep me away from coming back home.” His mother stepped back and switched into her bat form. “Don’t tell Cori or Loe that you saw me. I will come to them when the time is right.”
“I won’t say anything. They probably wouldn’t believe me anyway.”
His mother smiled at his reply. She changed into her bat-girl form and then lifted off into the sky. Terias stood and watched her as she flew away. It had been years since he last saw her fly.
Fantasy