movements, Taiyra folded the note and stepped inside. For the second time she felt the loss of her teacher, but this time there was to be no reprieve. This time, he truly was gone.
'Come now, druid.' He had said to her before the flight, his voice now echoing in her memory, but she was not yet to be considered a druid. Unless...
She hurried to the large bundle and carried it outside, carefully removing the heavy blanket covering. As she saw the revealed items she gasped in surprise. An ornately carved staff was the first thing she noticed, the smooth wood stained a deep red and covered with delicate swirls and topped with the upper half of a leaping kerstaug. She recognized it immediately.
Although the elder's prime had passed long before she was born, Elder Swiftclaw had once been known as the antlered druid. The stories she had heard told mentioned four diagonal slashes across his chest from the swift claws of an ailing leopard that had been rescued from the humans, thus earning him his second name, but it was the form of a mighty kerstaug that he was most remembered for. And now he was giving her his prized staff from those days of ancient glory.
Taiyra picked up the staff and cradled it gently to her chest, only then noticing the rest of his gifts. A clay pot of white paint and a kordox-hair brush lay beside a medalion bearing the hoof within a paw within a wing symbol of the druid. She had earned her passage and become an official druid and could finally continue her training to become a healer.
She would be expected to paint her face white and eventually apply her chosen symbols. Smiling to herself, Taiyra gathered together her new possessions and carried them back inside the elder's tent. When next she emerged to face her tribe, she would be wearing her hard-earned medallion and her face would be the empty white of a druid in their final stages of training.
Author's Note: This short story is connected with the Wolfcaller Chronices, depicting a time in the life of a young tarin doe named Taiyra Sunmourn, on her journey to become a druid. I hope you enjoyed this short story as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you would like to explore more of this universe, check out the rest of the rest of the Wolfcaller Promotional short stories, and even the series itself. Book one is out now and is called Uprising. Be sure to check it out and leave a review so others can find these works as well.
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