"You vanished..." Thatcher said dumbly as he stared at Lorenna. Fletcher had been rendered completely silent by what stood before them. Lorenna had changed. She had been missing several days and now she looked almost entirely different. Her hair was longer and smoother, her coat had grown out and looked softer, her wings had changed and grown and on top of all that she seemed to be several inches shorter now.
"Lorenna...what...happened to you?" Fletcher asked finally. His eyes locked onto the mark on her hind leg. So she had been kidnapped after all, by something large with talons. A hippogryph perhaps? The had encountered vicious gryphs before but never something that was capable of doing anything like this. What soquili had the power to make a soquili smaller while still leaving them whole?
"I honestly do not remember, Fletcher." Lorenna said a bit tersely. She'd never forgotten something like this before. Vanished. They said she vanished but Lorenna didn't know why. "What are you two staring at?" She hadn't been gone for that long had she?
"You uh...look different..." Fletcher ventured trying to break the news gently.
"And shorter..." Thatcher added
For a moment Lorenna only stared at the boys. She looked different? Had her hair been cut? She looked shorter? She hadn't shrunk any so that wasn't possible. Lorenna turned slowly to check her hair, it wasn't shorter, it was longer. Lorenna's eyes widened. "It's not...it can't be..." Quickly Lorenna looked herself over. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible. She had known elders in her time but they were all leaders of herds like Hayagriva. They were larger and stronger and generally better at everything. They weren't anything like Lorenna. They were noble with strong feelings about not harming people while Lorenna thought more along the lines of 'kill them before they kill everyone else.'
There was no way the spirits would do this. She hadn't asked for it. Then she saw it. The mark on her leg stuck out like a bit of charcoal on a snow field. The mark of the spirits. The claw of a crow. Lorenna glared at it. "They made me an elder?!" She shouted at no one in particular. "Have they no one better suited?!"
Fletcher's eyes widened at the word. An elder. A chosen one like Hayagriva of the Padmapani. The spirits saw some sort of potential in Lorenna though it didn't seem like Lorenna much cared for it. "Lorenna...if the spirits blessed you they must have had some reason for it. There's no shortage of heroes out there. If they wanted you there's some purpose."
As much as Lorenna appreciated Fletcher's level-headedness it wasn't what she wanted to hear at the moment. She had never wanted to be an elder. If she had done anything all that noteworthy she imagined the spirits would just ignore her in favor of the fighters. What use could they possibly have for a flutter, now several inches shorter, that spied on people just to get information. As much as she loved her network Lorenna couldn't really see it as being worth attention from the spirits.
It wasn't like she had saved a village from a skinwalker attack. ...but she had rescued the Padmapani from another disaster. She had beaten back danger time and time again and helped steer people clear of dangerous areas. She had manage to trick a herd of kalona into a death trap that they had barely escaped from.
Lorenna grumbled slowly figuring out exactly why this had happened to her. Her little vengeance streak had actually created something good. "But why an elder?" She asked the sky.
"Beats me..." Thatcher said not entirely sure what was going on. He'd heard the word but couldn't remember what it meant beyond the most basic of meanings. "You aren't even old."
