As the enormous flash of light engulfed the area around both Tara and the Antlion, Lucy had been pushed back by some unknown force, landing on the porch of her house with a thud.  As she landed, she could feel a slight amount of pain running through her back and legs from the fall.  “O-Ouch…” she said, as she lied there, looking up towards the sky.  She wanted to get up and see what was going on, but she was also frightened and hurt.  She decided to lay there for awhile.

Tara had immediately felt something strange as her spell had initialized itself from her incantation.  She wasn’t sure what it was, but something about this spell had sent a wave of energy rushing into her body, causing all of her nerves to excite and sting at once.  She closed her eyes, grabbing at her arms from the feeling she’d experienced.  As she held onto herself, she could hear the screeching noise of the Antlion nearby and hoped that it wasn’t anywhere close to being able to hurt her or the girl she was trying to help.

As the sensation heightened, she felt a strange ‘downward’ feeling.  Although she knew her body was absolutely still and planted on the ground, she felt a rush in her legs, gut, and arms, as if she were falling through the air.  Shivers traveled throughout her entire body as she felt this odd sensation.  Never in her life had casting a spell had such a strong impact on her.  Could this be her test?  Could this adverse reaction be a clue that she wasn’t ready for all of these advanced spells?

The answers eluded Tara as she felt herself ‘falling’ more and more as several minutes passed by.  After the first couple minutes, the screeching of the Antlion ceased.  Tara had assumed that the spell attempt had done something to it.  Even if it didn’t work entirely, maybe it was causing as bad of a reaction in the Antlion as it was in Tara.  She could think of a dozen possible explanations, but she only hoped that the true explanation didn’t have anything to do with the spell possibly failing and the Antlion moving towards the young woman.

After a few more moments, the tingling and shivering finally ceased.  As all of these feelings rushed out of her body, Tara felt a little faint.  Before she could open her eyes, her legs gave out, sending her falling to the ground.  Her face and arms landed as she’d nearly lost complete control of her body, fatigue having caught up with her.  She was still conscious and breathing, but felt completely drained; not even having enough energy in her system to open her eyes and see what was going on.

Several minutes had passed by and Lucy had started to feel the pain leaving her body.  Almost feeling like she’d woken up after staring at the sky and the sun for so long, she pushed herself up and let out a nice, long yawn.  She blinked and shook her head, the previous events replaying in her head.  As she looked around, she realized that she was alone, somehow.  Both the woman and the monstrous creature that had attacked her mother were nowhere to be found.

Taking a moment to think, she’d thought about the strange woman who seemed to have come to her rescue.  Although Lucy had been terribly frightened at the time, she couldn’t help but notice something about this woman.  She’d been able to throw giant black balls of energy at the Antlion and even was able to hover into the air.  She’d never seen anything like it, but she had heard her mother speaking of it before.  She’d call them “Sorcerers” and the power they were able to command was known as “The Arte”, even though most people outside of studying this power just called it ‘magic’.

She kept her sitting position for quite awhile, both thinking about what had happened with the monster and the sorceress, but also what had happened to her mother.  She couldn’t believe what it had come to.  The two of them had just moved in, and they weren’t even done unpacking.  All they did was hear a noise.  They were curious, and that’s all there was to it.  Now, her mother was the ultimate example of that old cliché ‘How curiosity killed the cat’.
 
The girl wrapped her arms around her bent legs and rocked herself back and forth as she saw her mother’s body off in the distance.  She simply didn’t have it in her at this point to go to it and hold it again.  After the shock of what had happened with the sorceress’s appearance, she was frightened of even getting up to move.  She rocked herself as she nearly dug her entire face into her knee, only her eyes above it, staring off at the ground in front of her.

As she sat there, she eventually noticed something on the ground in front of her.  In fact, she’d noticed two things on the ground, both seemingly motionless.  She’s barely been able to catch them out of the corner of her eye, but she raised her head a little as she stared into the street, focusing her vision so she could try to see what the two objects were.

She leaned her head forward as her teared-up eyes were beginning to focus.  There were definitely two objects, but they were hard to make out.  From this distance, they each looked fairly small, maybe 6 or 12 inches a piece.  One also looked much larger than the other.  She blinked several times before she finally saw the smaller of the two, which was a little closer to her than the big one, although still a good 15 feet away.

“W-what is….Oh my Gosh!”

Lucy’s eyes grew incredibly wide as the form of the smaller object came into her line of vision.  She couldn’t believe at what she saw.  It also showed her that it was not a mere object, but a living creature.  Leaning in further, her eyes wide open, Lucy could see the bipedal form now.  It looked like a small doll at first, but it was slightly moving, as if breathing.  It looked like a woman, and the woman it was soon came to Lucy as she saw the red robe wrapped around her. 

She’d gasped when she saw the tiny doll-like person lying on the ground.  She didn’t know how, nor did she really want to, but the tiny person in front of her looked exactly like the sorceress who’d just been protecting her from the monster.  Their face was pointed towards her and, even though it was motionless from them likely being unconscious, there was no mistaking it.  On the street, no more than 6 inches tall, was the sorceress.