For the briefest moments, the whole world seemed to be standing still as the Fairy and the werewolf stood facing off against each other. Both seemed to be daring the other one to move first. Wryn could hear her heart beating like it was trying to jump out of her chest. She was amazed that the two in the clearing couldn't hear it. Suddenly, the beast snarled in anger as its patients had run out, and it tried to charge the Fairy that was fluttering just a few feet off the ground. It was fast, too fast, unnaturally fast. The claws on its feet dug into the ground as it sprinted full force at the fairy, trying to jump at the last minute to get the height it needed to grab her out of the air, but the fairy was much too quick for the werewolf as she spun and dodged its clawing grasp. With one quick motion of her wrist, she just managed to slice the creature's arm. It howled in pain as its last movement sent it stumbling into the side of a tree. Though it quickly recovered on its feet and spun to face its foe once again, rage bubbling in its eyes.

  "Give up, Lunarite," The Fairy spoke with a voice like the crackling of a campfire or the whisper of a fall breeze. "Your trespass into the Mundane Lands ends here." As she spoke, she held out her hand as green energy left it. The magic struck the earth at the foot of the beast, and from the ground sprang massive vines that shot out and tried to wrap themselves around the legs of the creature.

  The beast growled as he ripped the roots out of the ground as if they were nothing. Then, to Wryn's utter shock, it spoke in a deep, animalistic voice, " I'm going to rip those pretty little wings off your back." He then again charged at the fairy, trying to grab her out of the sky. As Wryn was watching the brawl, a shadow in the roots of a nearby oak tree caught her eye. Wryn squinted, trying to focus on what it might be, only to then make out that it was the cat hiding among the roots. Wryn's eyes widened in shock as she made out the cowering shape of the small feline. She was in a very dangerous place, as one missed attack from either the beast or the fairy could harm the small creature. Fearing for its safety over hers, Wryn foolishly tried to creep over to the cat without being spotted by either of the two mystical creatures that were fighting mere feet from her and the cat.

  Determination burned in Wryn's eyes, a ghostly white flame fueled by the urge to protect the vulnerable. She hadn't come this far to abandon the small creature. Keeping to the shadows, Wryn crept over to the trembling she-cat hiding under the tree roots. When she was beside it, the cat did not flee, as though it sensed that fleeing would only make things worse. Still, it hissed when Wryn tried to scoop it into her jacket.

  Wryn smiled in victory as she managed to purrito the cat and hold her close to her chest to keep her safe. Though just as she was about to move away from the clearing where the two mythical creatures were fighting, she heard the voice of the werewolf beast directed at her."And what do we have here? A humie?" His voice was a low growl that sounded like a snarl with too many teeth. Wryn's head jerked up as she heard the beast speak. Her eyes went wide as he wasn't more than ten feet looking straight at her. Its yellow eyes looked human-like on the grey wolf's head. Though across the clearing, Wryn could see the many sharp teeth inside its muzzle, and the knife-like claws on its hands.

  Wryn was frozen in fear, and the beast could smell it on her. Though their direct eye contact was interrupted when the fairy landed in front of her. Wryn looked up to see her beautiful orange wings that looked like autumn leaves. The way they glittered in the sunlight was like seeing pure magic. Yet Wryn's awe was short lived at the fairy shouted at the wolf man, pointing her sword tip at him. "Your fight is with me, Lunarite, not the mortal." She spoke with a blazing authority that Wryn felt in her bones. For the briefest of seconds, the fairy glanced back at Wryn, the quiet command in her eyes telling her to start running.

  Wryn's heart was pounding in her throat, and her legs didn't move right away. Yet she willed them forward to get up and get out of there, but she wasn't fast enough. The moment the fairy took her eyes off the werewolf, he howled in rage and sprinted full speed towards them. This time, the fairy couldn't fly up to dodge him without letting Wryn be the one to get hit. So forced to stand her ground, the fairy raised her shield and readied her sword as Wryn barely managed to lunge out of the way. Both beast and fairy slammed into the tree she was just under. The ancient oak's trunk shattering like it was a twig.

  Wryn scrambled back, eyes wide as she tried to see what happened to the fairy. The dust felt like it took forever to settle. When her sight became clear, the Fairy was on her back in the crater of the tree, and the wolf man was stumbling back with her sword lodged in its shoulder. The Fairy didn't move, and the werewolf howled as he wrenched the blade out of himself, blackened blood spilled onto the earth below him, and it burned the living forest floor like acid. She prayed for the fairy to move, but she didn't. With horror, she saw the werewolf's sight trained on the fairy as she lay in the splinters of the tree. It took a step forward towards the fairy, and Wryn acted without thinking once again. Her hand found a stone, and she threw it at the beast and shouted, "Leave her alone!" Wryn had done a summer camp for softball, so her rock flew true and struck the wolf man right in the jaw with enough force that a small cracking sound could be heard as it broke off a tooth underneath his jowls.

  The beast's head snaps in her direction, eyes wide with fury and hate. It growled as it turned to attack her instead of the injured fairy. Yet Wryn stood her ground; maybe she could give the other girl time to recover. It snarled as it leaped towards her, and Wryn turned—not to run, but to protect the cat in her arms. In her heart, she wished to shield those who couldn't protect themselves, to be a guardian of life.

  Time... froze

  Wryn breathed, and her breath smoked in the freezing air. She couldn't move as the physical world was paused, but Wryn was aware that her mind existed outside of time. Before she could think, she heard a voice, one she did not recognize yet somehow felt familiar. "Daughter of man, child of the Winter and Moonlight, blood of the frozen death, I have heard plea..." From the sky, a glowing blue light floated down from nothing and halted in front of her face. It looked like a dinner plate size snow flake. "Here is the power to become a Guardian of Magic, a Fae Knight, Protector of the Mystical Worlds, " the voice rang in Wryn's ears. It sounded like it was coming from every direction and yet from none of them. "Should you choose to accept you're birth right, know you will become my vessel, my arrow, my will."

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  Wryn closed her eyes, nothing made any since but what she did know was that if she didn't make the right chose she was going to die, and so was the fairy who had risked everything to save her. She wasn't going to let that happen. With a battle cry of her own, she moved her arm, breaking the spell that had stopped time itself to take hold of the crystal snowflake. It shattered in her hand, the shards swirling around her clenched fist, though it quickly spread down her arm till it surrounded Wryn.

  It felt like ice was injected into her veins as she felt herself shifting, changing. Her clothes faded as a short dress of blue crystal lace formed around her. Her dark brown hair turned snow white, and sandals of ice formed around her feet. From her back emerged iridescent wings that looked like delicate snowflakes. The transformation was but a moment, though, to Wryn; it felt like a lifetime.

  The werewolf only saw a bright, blinding light as he tried to reach what he thought was a mundane human. Once the transformation started It had to cover its eyes to shield them from the sudden luminescence that cascaded off of Wryn. By the time the light faded, and it recovered from the onslaught, Wyrn was standing tall in her full Fairy Form. Snow lay at her feet, and a winter wind chilled the air around her. The beast man growled, "By the Blood Moon were do you pests keep coming from?" He started his approach towards her once more, undaunted by her change into a fairy.

  "Don't come any closer!" Wryn shouted as he held up her hand defensively. She didn't know how, ow but from her palm,s magic flowed out from her. Her commandmanifestsg as a magical spell. Ice shards formed from the ground, launching themselves at the Werewolf and entrapping his arms and legs in their frozen embrace.

  For a moment, the beast man was trapped, though with a snarl and a sudden jerk of his massive arms, the ice shackles shattered. "Pathetic. Looks like I will have to add a set of wings to my trophies." He kicked his legs to free them from the ice as well, and there was bloodlust in his eyes as they were locked onto Wryn. Though as he took one more step in her direction from the broken tree, the shield of the other fairy came flying, and its edge struck the head of the wolf man like a gong with enough force to take him down to his knees.

  The leaf fairy had managed to get herself up and back into the fight, though he was badly bruised and clutching her side. She had just enough strength to cast one more spell in this fight. Raising her hand above her head, a light like the sun glowed in her palm, her sword manifesting back into her grasp. Her power coalesced in her blade as she spoke,

  "Gold of sun and embered leaf,

  Turn the cursed and grant relief.

  Child of moon, no longer roam—

  Fade to dusk and flee to gloam.

  By root and bloom, by seed and star,

  To the night! be gone afar!"

  As the last words left her lip, around the werewolf vines shot up from the earth under him, and a bright red magic circle burned itself into the ground. Though the wolf man tried to struggle, it was too late; the spell had already been cast. He growled and howled as he tried to tear at the vines, but the magic circle glowed brighter, and in a flash, he was gone, banished from the mundane plane. Only smoke and the smell of burning leaves remained where he once was. Once the monster was gone, the leaf fairy fell to her knees, the tip of her foot digging into the ground as she used it to brace herself and keep from falling face-first into the dirt. Wryn, who was still holding the cat, rushed over to her. Though she wasn't sure what she could do. The Fairy was panting heavily, "Well, that was one heck of a fight." She smiled up at Wryn. "Wasn't expecting to find a full-blooded Lunarite here, of all places." She stood on shaky legs, and Wryn tried to help her stand. When she was back on her two feet, she looked Wryn up and down. "Also, didn't expect to find a fledgling out here in the wild either." The way she spoke the fledgling part was about her.

  "What, ah, fledgling?" Wryn stammered out, overwhelmed by confusing questions, willing her mind.

  The stranger chuckled, "Yeah, fledgling. This is your first transformation, isn't it?" She tilted her head, watching Wryn with a knowing expression.

  Wryn paused for a moment and took a second to look at herself at the clothes she now wore and the strange sensation of something being on her back. It was only out of the corner of her eyethat she could see the edge of her wings as they fluttered nervously. She tried to turn to see them better,r but they were attached to her bbackk so she started to go in a circle like a dog chasing its tail. "Ah What's on my back?" She asked,d alarmed.

  The stranger laughed and stopped her after her second rotation by putting her hand on Wryn's shoulders. "You're a Fairy, those are your wings, silly."

  Fairy? Is she a fairy? "No," Wryn said in disbelief. Her mind was too stubborn to admit to what she was seeing right in front of her. How could this be real? Nothing made any sense. "Fairies aren't..." She looked at the person standing in front of her with their own leafy orange wings, and Wryn's mind instantly thought of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell.

  The stranger just smiled, "Sure, we are. Names Mina, Mina Autumns. And you are?" Her voice was light and bubbly despite having just been thrown through a tree a minute ago.

  Wyrn couldn't help the dumb founded look that was on her face. At this rate, it might be permanently stuck like that forever now. But she managed to tell her name, "Wryn Waters... and Wryn it Wryn with a 'Y', not a 'E'..." She didn't know why she added that last part. That was silly of her. Why did she say that?

  Mina's eyes lit up as if she had said something that made a lot more sense, "That's Frost Blood spelling." She looked Wryn up and down again, taking in the elemental clues to what type of fairy Wryn was. "You certainly look the part of a winter fairy." She let Wryn go and took a step back. "I am an Autumn Sun Fairy myself, but our clans are not too different." Wryns' look was blank as nothing she said made any sense to her, but that didn't stop Mina from continuing. "We should probably change back. The barrier I put up will be fading, and there are Humies in the area."

  As Mina spoke this Wryn suddenly remembered her friends and how they probably followed her out into the woods after she chased after the cat. If she listened really closely, she could hear them calling out her name. "How do I change back?" Wryn asked, still stunned by this whole ordeal. For a moment, Mina looked complexed by the question, but then a sudden realization hit her, "When I was little and learning, I used to say a spell to make me transform back. Eventually, I learned to do it without saying anything, but I think it went like this:

  "Amber sun and harvest bright,

  Fold my wings from mortal sight.

  Leaf and flame, now drift away,

  Let human heart and form now stay."

  Mina's fairy form faded away. Her auburn hair turned blond, and her wings retreated into her body as he clothes shifted to ones more suited for an avid camper and wilderness explorer. She was still pretty but plain like any human girl. Once she had turned human, she motioned for Wryn to give it a try with an encouraging look on her face.

  Wryn shifted nervously, but she closed her eyes, thinking scrapping the corners of her mind for anything close to what Mina said that might work. Thewords from the depths of her heart appeared on her tongue, and she spoke them,

  "Moon on frost, my true name call,

  Fold my wings and still them all.

  By blood of clan, my mortal boon,

  Make me human 'neath this moon."

  When Wryn opened her eyes, she was her normal self once more, and Mina's eyes lit up with glee. "Ah, the first spell is always the most special," She squeaked excitedly. Wryn just stared at Mina; she had so many questions to ask, but just as Wryn was about to ask some of them, the calls of Wryn's friends were drawing closer. And Mina looked on edge, "You should get back to your friends, Wryn." She spoke with a more serious tone now. "I'll come find you soon, and we can talk more, okay?" Mina just waited for Wryn's nod of acknowledgment before she ran off deeper into the woods, leaving Wryn to watch as she disappeared into the trees.

  Wryn needed a moment to collect herself before she turned and went to meet up with her friends, still holding the car close to her chest, though now that the beast man was gone, it was starting to squirm in her arms. Gigi was not too pleased with Wryn having run off, and she made sure Wryn got an earful of her opinions as the group walked back to the fairgrounds. And while Wryn did her best to apologize to her friend and the boys, she could stop thinking about Mina the Fairy, the Warewolf, and how she, too, was apparently a fairy...