Departure

"Wake up, Aleac," came the voice of Aleac's mother.

Opening his eyes slowly, Aleac rose from where he had been napping among the Twilic grove. As he padded past the spirit pond, he paused and cleaned his silvery fur with his front paws. As he woke himself up fully, his tails whipped behind him.

"Aleac," his mother said as her face appeared in the pond. "There are things that we need to discuss. Please come to the throne room."

"Sure mom, on my way," Aleac said jovially as he stood up and leapt into the pond.

As he entered the pond, space seemed to stretch and twist as he jumped out of the mirror pond and landed in front of his parents. The stunningly beautiful woman with a silver crown circling her brow was Aleac's mother, Queen Norna. From her lovely fox ears and nine-tails, to her comely humanoid figure, she radiated power and control. However, right now, the only thing that Aleac noticed were her love-filled eyes.

Beside her stood a powerfully built man with horns and scales covering some parts of his skin. There was a pressure that could reduce weaker men to their knees. However, Aleac was perfectly comfortable as he arrived.

"I'm here!" Aleac said as he landed. "Was there something that you wanted talk about?"

"Yes," the man said, with a slightly troubled expression.

"I already said that this is the only way, Croon," the woman said, noticing the man's expression.

"Yes, Norna, but that doesn't mean that I have to like it," Croon answered with a pout.

"Anyway, Aleac, my son," Norna said, turning back to her son. "We need to discuss the next step in your development."

At his mother's words, Aleac felt a sensation of excitement begin to swell within him. For all twenty years of his life, he had focused on understanding and developing his abilities, but lately he had noticed that his progress had slowed. Sitting down, he turned his full attention to his mother.

"As a member of the royal family, you are a bit different from other spirits, "Norna explained. "Whereas other spirits will grow from birth until they reach a certain age and then remain the same for the rest of their lives, the members of the royal family are required to go through a trial of sorts."

"Trial?" Aleac asked in confusion. He had never heard of anything like this before. He had understood that he was different from the various spirits that inhabit the spirit realm.

"This trial is to acquire your human form," his mother explained. "I'm sure that you have noted a while ago that both your father and I can shift between our humanoid form and the form that we were born with. I a nine-tailed fox and your father a dragon."

"However, to complete this trial, it will require you to cross over to the mortal realm," his father grumbled off to the side.

"What do I need to do for this trial?" Aleac questioned. His excitement remained, but it was tempered by a certain amount of nervousness. He had never been far from his parents.

"You need to make a blood-contract with a human," Norna explained. "This will serve as a catalyst for you to gain access to all of your abilities. Before I went through this trial, the only things that I could to was perform illusions and manipulate fire."

"But I can also here the voices of nature and use magic?" Aleac objected.

"That probably comes from my side," Croon admitted. "I was just a normal dragon before I married your mother. Dragons are powerful from birth and grow throughout their entire life."

"However," his mother interrupted. "You won't be able to access your full potential without doing this."

"Okay, what do I have to do?"

"Find a human that you can trust and form a pact with them until the end of their life," his mother told him.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

"Do you have everything that you need?" Croon asked worriedly.

"Yes, don't worry," Aleac answered reasuringly.

"Don't worry about the boy," Norna said in a slightly boisterous tone. "My mother threw me out without half the preparation that he has."

"Threw you out or did you jump out?" Croon responded with a sharp gaze.

"Just get going," Norna said, ignoring his statement. "And don't forget to hide your tail. Just masquerade as a flame fox."

"I'll be back soon," Aleac laughed as he stepped through the gate woven of branches and vines.

As he walked through, the world around him faded from view and he lost touch with the existence that had anchored him throughout his entire life, only to quickly be replaced by another, more stable existence. Looking around, he found that he had been transported to an ancient, shrine, half-hidden by brush and fallen stones.

"Well, I had best be off," Aleac said, casting a simple illusion to hide eight of his tails. "Doesn't look like I will be finding any humans around here."