Utopia

Alex stood watching, helpless, frozen into inaction, as the bolt zoomed right toward his new friend. He knew he should do something, anything, but he just couldn't seem to bring himself to move. The world seemed to be standing still, waiting for something to break the silence. And something did.

Trina's shrill scream split the air. Blood rushed to the surface of her delicate skin, before oozing out slowly into Stephen's arms. She looked at it blankly, a mask of pure shock adorning her features. Slowly, ever so slowly, that shock turned into outright anger.

"You dare to attack me, human?" Her voice rang with such power that Alex could not help but to shrink back from the sheer force of it. With all that raw power and energy radiating off of her, no one would have believed she had only joined the magical world mere days before.

Her fire, which had died swiftly in the instant of Willa's recognition, was back full force, engulfing her person in a beautifully dangerous array of sparks. It snaked out from her wrist, lightning fast, to grip the hunter in its fiery embrace.

"Listen well, hunter, you do not ever challenge a sorceress, for you will not win." Fire continued to engulf him, it was not quite burning him, yet, but it was certainly making him uncomfortable and unable to act against any of them.

"Trina, stop!" Willa screamed, trying to catch her friend's attention, and take it off of the suffering hunter. "You can't hurt him, Trina."

"And why not, Will? He shot me and he wants to kill you. Why should we not return the favor?"

"Because, whether he likes it or not, he is still my family." Tears were beginning to well in her eyes as she looked at Trina and Stephen.

"No, Willa, he's not." Alex said slowly, daring to speak for the first time in a while. "His brothers may have taken you in and treated you as family, but he obviously is not willing to do the same. I understand that you don't want to hurt him because you don't want to let his brothers down, or disappoint them in any way, but he is not like them. Because of him Trina could have died. She still might if we don't stop the bleeding." This last part was directed at Stephen who, although he had done nothing to help Trina, was watching his charge very closely, keeping an eye on h er to make sure she didn't falter. "She is wasting too much energy, energy she doesn't have, to keep him down. It's bad for her at any time to keep something up this long, but especially in her current state."

Stephen nodded and immediately went to trying to get Trina to stop.

"Trina, it's okay. He's not going to hurt you now, let him go. You need to rest now. Come on, stop it."

Slowly, grudgingly, Trina finally released the hunter from his prison. He lay huddled on the ground, in a pathetic ball, whimpering to himself.

"Now what?" Alex asked himself quietly as he walked up to the hunter. He cared very little about getting to close to the man, he knew he could do the hunter far more harm than the hunter could do him. "Stephen and Trina will be furious if we let him go, but Willa will never forgive me if I hurt him. What am I supposed to do?"

Acting purely out of instinct, as he had learned long ago to do, Alex forced the hunter to look at him, before muttering a simple incantation. The man instantly slumped over, unconscious where he would stay for a while.

"Perfect, now he is perfectly fine, but will stay out of our way until we take care of Trina, and figure out what to do with him."

Leaving the hunter there, Alex turned around and began walking back to his companions.

"Alex!" Willa's voice was shrill, panicked.

"Don't worry, Will, he's fine." Alex attempted to put a comforting arm around her shoulder, something he had never dared do to anyone before, but she just shrugged it off.

"No, not him. Trina. Alex, she passed out and we can't get her to wake back up. I think she's going to die." The tears she had so carefully suppressed earlier now fell freely down her cheeks.

They quickly ran over to where Stephen was kneeling over his unconscious charge. "This is all your fault." He whispered venomously without looking up. "You had to take her here. She was safe back at the Academy. And now look at her!" Anger made his voice tremble. Had he looked up, Alex was sure he would have seen tears.

"She's not dead yet. There is still a chance we can save her. Willa, do you know any healing spells?"

"not any that would help her. I just know some of the simplest ones." Willa murmured, trying to keep her tears at bay long enough for coherent speech.

Alex cursed. "All right, well I think I might have the right one. I might need your help, though. Can you lend me your strength? Are you willing to do that?" She nodded obediently and sat by his side, taking his hand in her own. "Stephen, I need you to gather some herbs. If we can find the right ones, we just might be able to stop her bleeding."

As Alex looked down at Trina's bleeding chest for the first time, he felt his hope falter. This was going to be nearly impossible.

But he still held on, firmly choosing to believe that nearly impossible was the same thing as slightly possible. And, as he had just told Stephen, she wasn't dead yet.