Spirit: The Familiar

"Do not think on it one bit further for now," the Grand Elder had said, before Carina had left that day. "The time will come soon enough. You will know all you need to know when it comes."

Carina thought about it anyway, on her way back to her dorm with Gabriel in tow. It felt weird to have a male following her back. She would have wondered what to tell Adam, but Gabriel was her familiar. That was the simple explanation. She looked back over her shoulder at Gabriel. He raised an eyebrow at her.

"What?" she said.

"You're the one looking at me," Gabriel said. Carina turned back away from him and continued walking. "I should be asking you that. Still reeling over the fact that I'm not a girl?"

"Things would be a lot simpler if you were a girl," Carina muttered. Gabriel chuckled at that.

"There's no denying that," he said. "But what if you had been a boy? That would make things simpler for me. After all, Peter is male." He was silent for a moment after that. Carina considered looking over at him again to see what expression was on his face, but thought better of it.

"Now that I consider it," Gabriel said thoughtfully. "None of the Protectors have ever been female before. You truly are a remarkable inconsistency."

Carina's eye twitched at that. There was something aggravating about being called an 'inconsistency', after having all this other talk of her destiny dumped on her. She could have turned around and snapped some nasty insult back at him, but he hadn't yet earned that kind of treatment, even if he had been a royal pain in the ass since day one. So Carina kept her mouth shut and her head held high.

"None of them? Not even one?" Carina opted for instead. Gabriel was silent again for a while, and Carina took that to mean that he was most likely thinking.

Surprisingly the streets were empty, but Carina figured that must have meant classes were still in session. She was thankful for the lack of people to gawk at the dark-haired man with the pink collar around his throat, trailing behind her. An unfamiliar energy raked across her body then and she froze.

"No, not even a one," Gabriel said finally. He stumbled into her, having not noticed that she was no longer walking. "Hey, what are you-" Even he froze. He stepped back and away from her, but only by a couple of feet.

"Something's not right," Carina whispered. She turned to look at Gabriel, whose eyes were wide and the brows framing them knitted together, harsh lines formed over his forehead. Carina drew in a breath and released it shakily.

"No, something is definitely not right," Gabriel confirmed.

The energy raked across her body again, the hairs along her skin standing up on end at the feel of it. It sent a shiver of the same uneasy feeling she'd been experiencing up and down her spine. Whatever big thing had been brewing, whatever madness was on its way, was rapidly reaching its climax.

Gabriel grabbed hold of Carina's shoulders, drawing her close. He stared down at her with that same intense look still on his face.

"We've not had any time to work together and perfect our magics together, but you're going to have to bare with me," he said. "My magic is far more advanced than yours, and will probably leave you feeling very drained very quickly. You're going to have to put a lot of trust in me. Do you understand?"

Carina simply nodded.

"Right, let's go," he said. "I'm sure you can feel the negative energy that's on its way." With that he turned her around and pushed at her shoulders, guiding her along the streets.