My first thought: seriously? A dwarf?

And then Deynan burst into hysterics. "Oh my gosh," he gasped, "you look like an idiot!"

"Well you're going to have to be this too, you know," I said gruffly. My voice was deeper.

Why was it deeper? I was smaller! What the heck, magic?

"You look like a chibi," Sophie giggled.

My brow furrowed. A what?

"It would look ok," Sierra said, holding back laughter, "if you had a beard."

I felt my face. It felt like my face every day, just...smaller. I sighed. I probably just looked like a midget.

I turned to Deynan. "You next."

He scrambled away, but Isaac pushed him back down on to the deck. Sierra laughed.

"Alright, alright," he protested, "you fiends." He repositioned himself and stood up. Then he closed his eyes. He looked a lot less mean with his eyes closed and his face relaxed.

A few moments later, light began to swirl around him from top to bottom. It spun faster and faster until it had engulfed him completely. Then it began to shrink, faster and faster until all of it was sucked into his tiny chest.

He stepped forward a bit and bowed. "Deynan the dwarf, at your service."

We turned to Isaac. His eyes widened.

We tackled him. Dwarfs are pretty strong for their size, it turns out.

Isaac honestly looked the most ridiculous as a dwarf, probably because he was smiling. "Look how small I am!" he said happily.

"Your voice sounds weird low," Deynan commented.

He stuck out a tongue.

"You guys are so cute!" Sophie squealed. Sierra and Audrey were dying with laughter. "I could punt-kick you to Mars!" Audrey exclaimed, still gasping and clutching her stomach.

"Hey, I got a knuckle sandwich with your name on it if you ever want to try," Deynan threatened.

"Awww," Audrey said in a baby voice, laughing, "the itty-bitty dwarf is threatening me!" She snickered.

Deynan walked up and hit her squarely in the leg.

"Ow!" she yelped. "Hey! Do you not know the rule?"

"The no-hitting-girls rule?" Deynan asked incredulously. "You don't strike me as the type who would care about that."

"No, IDIOT," she said, rolling her eyes, "the no-hitting-Myths rule. And probably Legends too."

"Give me one good reason," he demanded , though he didn't look particularly threatening at that height I'm sure.

"Myths and probably Legends have a highly active nerve system," Sierra explained. "It's so we can transform. But everything hurts to us way more than it does to everyone else."

There was silence for a moment as that sunk in. "Well that boosted my self confidence a ton," Isaac remarked.

"You guys should release your forms," Sophie said quietly. "Holding a form requires magic energy which in turn sucks energy from you."

I nodded. That made sense. But Sierra and Audrey turned to Sophie in surprise. "How did you know that?" Audrey asked in surprise.

She shrugged delicately. "I read about it. I look stuff up on the magic world a lot. It's fascinating, really."

"Well, Genevieve certainly knew what she was doing when she gave you that book," Audrey muttered.

"Genevieve?" Isaac asked, confused. But Sierra waved him off, like she'd explain in the morning.

"How do we release our forms?" I asked, trying to be practical.

"Pretend there's a cold wind blowing over you, blowing it away," Sierra suggested. "Take a deep breath and do it on the exhale."

I tried it, and shivered as my body rippled back to its original size. "Whoa," I said, stumbling from vertigo.

"Head rush," Deynan muttered.

Sierra clapped her hands together. "Awesome, you guys! I call this a productive day!"

"You say that like it's over," Deynan half-said-half-asked.

"Well the sun is down," Audrey pointed out.

I looked up. The sky was dark. I hadn't even noticed. "I didn't notice that." I turned to look at Isaac. "How did I not notice that? Did you notice that?"

He shrugged. "Well, we were in the mist a lot."

"Regardless, I'm tired, so I say we sleep," Sierra declared, making a space for herself on the bench.

"Sounds awesome," Deynan said, and practically fell on the deck. Isaac had to jump out of the way.

"I could probably use some sleep," Isaac admitted, as began to make a space of his own.

"Night peeps," Audrey said, as she and Sophie also lay down.

I looked around. The only room was on the bench behind me.

I laid down and hoped I didn't fall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The mirror showed a room. A really long room, dimly lit. The dark gray stones reminded me of thick clouds, ready to burst open with a raging torrent of lightning, water, and wind.

A small man with an intensely manicured mustache walked in, his face smooth as glass, his movements fluid.

"The island is held captive, Sire, but the woman remains harder and harder to control. We think she is fighting back."

His voice held the lilt of an accent, but I couldn't quite put my finger on which one it was.

"Impossible!" said a rough, low voice from outside the frame. "She cannot be fighting back. When was the last time you sent her a vision?"

"Last night, Sire," he responded coolly.

"Send another one," the gruff voice barked. "Make it particularly brutal."

"Yes, Sire," the mustache man said.

"Is everyone still on the island?"

"Ah, no, Sire. It appears a small boat left port during the first attack, and we have reason to believe there are six people on the boats. One is a Legend, maybe more. She saw a Legend while she was there, but none were counted after the attack."

"WHAT?!" the man roared. The image in the mirror shook.

A moment passed. I could hear the man's heavy breathing as if he was standing behind me.

"Find them," he said in a low, dangerous voice. "Find them, and destroy them."

"With pleasure, Sire."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I woke up abruptly. A cold sweat had broken out across my forehead. I took a shaky breath.

"Bad dream?" a quiet voice asked.

I jumped and spun around. Then I breathed. "Oh, Sophie. I didn't know you were up."

She gave a small smile. "I get up early. It drives Sierra nuts."

I nodded. An awkward silence stretched between us. I wracked my brain for something, anything, to say.

"So...what were you doing?" I asked. Wow Ravi, real great question.

But she seemed okay. "Meditating," she said, looking up at the blue sky.

"Oh," I said, not sure how else to respond.

She laughed a little. "Meditation is a good form of mind discipline. Audrey kind of dropped it all together except for in classes, and Sierra only uses it to heal herself nowadays, but I find it relaxing and invigorating. It also helps me remember my dreams."

"Oh. Why? Are they important?"

She nodded. "Ms. Iseri said if you ever have a dream with a mirror in it, you're looking at your soul mirror. I don't know what that is, but apparently it can tell the future, or something going on in some part of the world that will affect your fate."

I rubbed my forehead. "Well then that's not good."

Her brow creased. "Why? Did you dream something bad?"

"Yeah," I admitted. "It was some dude who knew about the island. He was talking about a woman who was getting harder to control. He wanted to send her a vision. And then the suave dude with the mustache told him that we had gotten away, and he was pretty mad. And then..." --I hesitated--"...he said something about destroying us."

She stared at me for a second. Then she stared out at sea. For a moment, I could hear nothing but the waves and the wind. Then Sophie's small voice whispered. "Well, crackers."

I let out a small laugh. "Yup."

A soft groan from below me made me jump. I leaned out from my perch on the bench. Deynan was stirring. He rolled over onto his side and moaned, "Fooooooood."

I shared a glance with Sophie.

And then we burst into laughter.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I recounted my dream to the others during breakfast.

"Well crap," Audrey muttered.

"He said he was controlling a woman?" Sierra asked worriedly. "And he was sending her visions?"

"Yup," I said. "He told the mustache guy to make this one 'particularly brutal', I believe was the term."

She looked down, her eyebrows knit. "I wonder..." she muttered.

"Do you think he's talking about Giselle?" Isaac asked. "She definitely looked and sounded possessed."

Sierra nodded. "I'm sure of it. I'm worried about what you said about visions. What if..." she started to say. Then she bit her lip.

"What? What is it?" Audrey demanded.

"What if he's been doing this for longer than we thought?" she whispered. "What if he's the one that told her Juan--I mean, Mr. Marquez--was dead?"

There was silence. We are the rest of the meal in reflection.

"So," Sierra said after breakfast, "I suggest we move along with our let's-discover-what-legends-can-be quest."

"It's a quest now?" Deynan muttered.

"Unless you want to call it a college course," Audrey shot back.

"Well I think that sounds like an awesome idea," Isaac said amiably.

"I call NOT going first," I said.

"I vote Isaac," Deynan said with a bright smile.

"Nope, it's Opposite Day," Isaac said, thinking him on the back. "You're up, champ."

Deynan stood up, grumbling. "I can seriously play the Opposite Day game so hard...but whatever." He sighed. "What virtue am I doing?"

"Well the first vision was dwarf and the second was warrior, so the third I guess," I said, shrugging.

He squinted, as if trying to remember something. "You mean the one about standing up strong?"

"Yeah, and purpose and stuff," Isaac said, nodding.

"Should I ask the scroll what virtue that goes with?" I asked. Deynan made a go-ahead gesture. "By all means."

I took out the scroll. "So, I want to transform in the third vision, the one about standing up straight and having a purpose."

It barely took a minute for it to respond. "Yes, yes, I suppose they didn't tell you anything this time either, just TRYING to make my day harder. Well this one is a tad easier to understand, I'd say. Diligence and determination."

"Thanks," I wrote back.

"Yeah, I know. You'd be lost without me."

I sighed. Snarky little thing. "Well, Deynan, it's your turn."

He saluted, then bent his head. He looked completely serious all of a sudden. It was a drastic change from his usual demeanor, and that was a bit scary to be perfectly honest. We were silent. He took a deep breath.

Stillness.

Then, light began to swirl around him, engulfing him, stretching. I scrambled away from the growing light cloud.

Then suddenly, he ran to the prow if the boat and jumped off.

But he didn't fall, he rose. For when the light faded, making loops around the boat in the air was a majestic, screeching, griffin.