Chapter 20: The White Tiger-Pheonix Beast 2

He quickly reached for the arrow and it moved to his will, he directed the arrow at the beast distracting it from Astrid.

"What's he doing stupid?" As the arrow danced in front of the beast, it mistakenly hit it and angered it more, and it charged at Jareth.

"Really stupid".

She quickly ran fast and raised a earth wall to block the path of the angry beast. It slowed down the used its tail to hit the earth wall, she tried holding onto her magic but the beast still kept on hitting the earth wall.

"Oh no, it's going to break any moment from now".

"Come on Astrid, quickly release me".

"Okay try and focus girl" she said to herself. As she reached for the earth underneath him, the earth wall broke and the beast used it tail to hit her, pushing her far away.

Seeing that it had removed the blockage, it charged once more to Jareth. Astrid on seeing this, quickly controlled the wind and used to it to push the beast far back, away from Jareth and it fell on its back.

The animal wailed and it caught Astrid's attention as she was about moving closer to the beast to really confirm, she heard Jareth's voice.

"Don't go near that beast Astrid. Release me while it's still down".

Snapping out of her thought, she rushed to him and reached out for the earth to soften underneath him and gently raised him out.

"Finally, free at last" he turns to look at Astrid and sees she is moving towards the beast on the floor.

"Get away from it Astrid" he yelled at her.

But she didn't stop, she just proceeded further.

"What is wrong with this girl? It's going to kill her if she gets closer" he thought to himself. "Astrid, stop" he yelled again but she didn't bulge. He saw her bend down and held her head like she was in pain.

"What is this beast doing to her? Astrid, snap out if it".

She kept on holding her head in pain, "this is bad, perhaps if I kill the beast now, she would be safe".

He quickly picked his bow and arrow and aimed for the beast's head. The beast saw this from the corner of it's eyes and wailed in pain again as a tear slid down it's face. Astrid suddenly looked at the beast when it wailed out loud and saw the tear on it's face. She looked at its eyes and saw the arrow being pointed at it. As she turns to stop Jareth, he let go and shot at the beast.

"Nooooooooooo... " she quickly let out a wave of magic and everything seemed to stop at that moment, she quickly turned and saw that the arrow was just inches away a from the beast's head but stopped in mid air.

She saw Jareth's shocked expression as he too stopped moving. She scanned her surrounding and noticed the little beast hiding at a corner and a bit shaking as it saw its mother's near death experience, but one couldn't tell much. It too also froze in time.

"What... What did I do? Calm down Astrid, you can unfreeze time. You did this, you can undo it. But how? Reach deep inside you, take a deep breathe you can do this" she encouraged herself. She closed her eyes trying to concentrate then suddenly opened them.

"Oh no, if I unfreeze time, the arrow would kill the beast" she quickly rushed and removed the arrow, then concentrated again and wished them free in her mind and soon everything became normal.

Jareth was shocked as he didn't see the arrow hit it's target or any target at all.

"What happened? I was sure I shot at the beast, okay would just shoot another one" in a blink of an eye, he took another arrow and prepared to shoot again.

"Jareth stop" her voice rang out and he dropped his hand as he looked in her direction.

"Don't hurt it. It is already hurt, badly injured".

"That makes it easier to kill then".

"No, there would be no killing of anything".

"It attacked us and wanted to kill us, me".

"That's because it was trying to protect its child".

"What?".

"You may not believe me but I understand animals".

"It hypnotized you Astrid".

"No, I reached out to it as I could feel it was in pain and I went into its memory and saw what happened".

"How did you do that? What did you see?" He asked her with unbelieving eyes.

"Come" she said as she led him to the other side of the beast and he was shocked beyond words.

On the ground near the White Tiger-Pheonix beast, was blood and it stained it's fur near where its back touched the ground.

"What happened to it? They usually live on the mountain or high forest peak" Jareth asked her.

"I saw it searching for it's baby, who unfortunately followed a bird or chased a bird and that was how it ended up down here. The mother left in search of it and was attacked in the forest. But escaped, it was shot an arrow at it's rear side. The arrow broke while it ran, so we didn't see it, but when it charged at you and I flung it, it fell on the arrow and it pierced it deep. That was why it wailed and it attacked because... "

"Because it thought we were its earlier attackers and that we had caught its baby" Jareth said cutting her short.

And she smiled, "Now you understand... ".