Vibrant colors flowed freely around her hand as the portal slowly stabilized in the distance. She would have her pet.

  She regretted the first attempt. A norn frog came through—her tiny body shivered remembering the giant thing forcing itself through the portal and seeing her as an easy snack.

  What made it worse was those stupid things knew some magic and ate it as a snack, so when the tongue lashed out at her, her mana shield was less effective against the attack….

  Lucky for her it was not very bright and relied on swallowing prey and praying it ended at that. It gave her time, after screaming in its stomach for a bit, to calm enough to blast her way out.

  Messy and gross, but she was at least free from that…. No, now she would get a much weaker pet.

  One with NO magic…

  True, it would be more annoying to raise, but that was fine. She could slowly feed it mana over time and help it grow. Depending on the type, it could even fight for her!

  She paused, her thoughts stilling. She was at an impasse.

  Anything smart enough as a pet for her to want would already know magic, and anything weaker would probably be too stupid or broken….

  She needed to feed the portal more power. She regretted how much of her reserve power she was using—that was supposed to be for other things….

  But her dad would get over it. This was more important…

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  She drew deeper and focused the spell within the flow, far beyond her world, in hopes of finding a weak pet. One with no mana, but also smart enough to listen and not eat her…

  It searched the worlds, seeking her will, and somewhere far distant she felt the fragments of a song. She tried willing the portal there, hoping to draw whatever it was through.

  She felt something enter. But whatever creature did was wrong…. The spell could not draw it to her. The sight was off, as if blinded….

  So it failed….

  Well, that was a big waste of mana, and now she was bored with no pet. Great….

  She debated how to tell her dad later that she wasted so much mana and had nothing to show for it, but she was mostly upset she did not even get a pet for her effort.

  Maybe something cute and small, or big and fluffy that could hold her, would have been nice….

  Her mind wandered as she tended the lake she watched over, passing the time and trying to recover some mana reserves so it wasn’t so painfully empty, when she noticed a small girl walking in the distance.

  A metal rod gently tapped the ground as she made a beeline through the wards and toward her home.

  A threat—a deadly one, it seemed….

  Breathing in slowly, the fairy focused. That train of thought was too much like her father.

  She would handle this her own way, even as she struggled to understand it. How had the foolish human gotten past the illusion magic so easily? That must have been a powerful mana tool.

  Yet the girl was a fool if she thought the fairy home would be an easy prize to find. She knew what humans did to her kind….

  As she was about to fly high and cast a spell to scare the human—maybe force her to lose her way, even with that rod guiding her—she would do what she must to buy time while she made stronger wards.

  Yet as the fairy powered her spells, watching the hunter come closer, the fairy’s body froze mid-action—spells fizzling in the air. Stunned, watching as the girl walked off the edge and fell below to the shallow edge of the lake….

  She was not sure if it was a trap, but if it was, it was not a very good one….

  Yet curiosity was too much. Who was this hunter? No. This odd mana-weak human that found their newly forming lake before she even got a chance to finish it….

  And just randomly fell in.