5:00 P.M.
2/1/20XX
The little girl ran down the stairs, her young legs burning with the effort. She tripped on her feet, rolling down the last few stairs and crashing into a wall. She got up, trembling from exhaustion and pain. She looked around. In the dark of the night, she could not make out clearly which was the right way, and her panic-stricken mind was not allowing her to think straight. The once beloved home of hers was now an ugly maze, its walls seemingly shifting and rearranging on its own accord. She closed her eyes to clear her head. You cannot panic now, she thought.
She could not afford it.
She calmed herself and thought. She needed to get out as quietly as possible.
She crept through the dark halls quietly, jumping at every sound she heard. She had originally planned to go through the passageways in the stone walls of her home, but in the dark, she could not make out where the openings were. Suddenly, the girl's ears picked up a sound. She froze.
It was footsteps.
Quickly, the little girl touched the stone wall at her right. The bricks of the walls folded away, making a little gap for her to squeeze in. As soon as she got in, the walls closed over, leaving a small space for her eyes to peep out.
Through the cracks of the wall, she could make out two men. One held a ball of Fyre, the light of which fell upon him to reveal a sallow and pitted face, his orange eyes illuminated in the light. The other man's face was cast into the shadow, but she could make out his huge frame in contrast to the other man's thin frame.
"Well, did you find her?" the bigger man asked the one carrying the Fyre.
"N-no sir, our men are still searching," he replied nervously, the light of his Fyre flickering, "But don't worry. We will find her. A little girl can't be that hard to find."
The other man took a step closer to the one holding the Fyre. The light cast from the Fyre fell upon the face of which the little girl was sure she wouldn't be able to forget. With slicked black hair, cold gray eyes, and a face that once held so much youth but was now marred by a thick scar running from the corner of his lip to his chin, his eyes flitted to the smaller man. "Make all the men continue the search," he said, his voice fading as he walked away. "She cannot leave this place alive."
***
Angeli walked around the second floor flicking her duster here and there. A cloth wiped down the many picture frames, a duster wiped the dust from the many ornaments lining the many shelves, and a broom swept the now spotless floor. Beads of sweat formed on her forehead as she strained to keep everything moving with her anima. She suddenly sneezed with the dust, and all the cleaning supplies fell to the ground. She looked up in annoyance, but wiped her nose and shrugged. The room was pretty clean anyways.
She dusted her hands and was about to head downstairs when she heard a soft meow through the open window. She turned, and smiled as she caught sight of a purple cat perched on the curved branch of a tree right by the window. "Why, hello there," she said, gently stroking the soft head of the cat. "It's been a few days since I've seen you. How are you?"
The cat gently meowed, as if to say, Eh, nothing new. The cat stared at her for a bit, as if assessing her, and then turned, heading down the tree.
"Wait, do you want some tuna before you go?" Angeli called out after the cat. The cat turned back, and after a moment of consideration, sat down. Angeli took that as a yes.
"Ok, stay there for a bit. I'll be right back," she said as she turned and rushed down the stairs. She waltzed into the kitchen, opened a cupboard, and grabbed a can of tuna.
"Tuna for breakfast?" Joshylyn queried, peering over a stack of books through her rimless glasses. Angeli's mentor sat at their dining table, surrounded by piles of spellbooks and equipment. Angeli wouldn't have even known she was there if Joshylyn hadn't spoken up.
"Not for me, for the cat," Angeli responded, opening the can. She paused for a second, and then grabbed a bowl. The cat hated it when she brought the tuna to him in just a can. He would stalk away at the sight of it, as if eating straight from a can were a task beneath him. He must be a pretty pampered pet, Angeli thought, dumping the tuna into the bowl. "After giving that to the cat, could you please go and help Aziel out with the library?" Joshylyn asked. "Knowing him, he's probably reading through all the books instead of sorting them out, and I'd really like it if we could finish all our cleaning today. Oh, and give the cat my regards."
"Will do," Angeli responded as she headed back up the stairs, bowl in hand. She leapt up the stairs, strode over to the window, and pulled herself onto the thick, curvy branch of the tree. The bark of the tree chafed against her palms as she sat herself down on the tree, her feet dangling off the side. She placed the bowl in front of the cat, noticing that the cat now had a silk pouch by his feet. The cat pushed the pouch towards her, and proceeded to dig in. His lavender fur glistened with the evening sun, and his sharp yet well-maintained claws shone.
He's a pet alright, Angeli thought. Angeli still didn't even know the cat's name, with no collar around his neck. She had given up trying to give him a name a while ago. She'd suggest various names to the cat, but everytime she did, she could feel the cat give her the dirtiest glare she ever felt. She guessed 'Fluffykins' was not something he wanted to be called.
She had first seen the cat back when she had first moved in with Joshylyn. She was eight at the time. Angeli had been wandering around in Joshylyn's backyard, picking at the little bugs and kicking pebbles, when she felt herself being watched. She looked around, and noticed a pair of silver eyes peeping at her from under the porch. As soon as the cat realized that it had been spotted, it darted out from under the porch and leapt over the fence. A week later, Angeli noticed that the cat had returned again, this time perched precariously on a tree branch. Angeli had tried to approach it quietly, but she stepped on a leaf. Upon hearing the crunch, the cat startled, and fell out of the tree. Once it righted itself, it skittered off.
"Joshylyn, have you ever had a cat before?" Angeli had asked one day, perched on the arm of the armchair Joshylyn sat in. "No, I never had a pet before," Joshylyn responded, frowning at the large hole in Angeli's sweater she was mending. "How did you even do this-"
"There's this cat that keeps showing up here, but it keeps running away whenever I show up." Angeli pouted. Joshylyn had glanced over at her. "What color is the cat?" She had asked. "Purple," Angeli said, making shadow puppets in the light of the fireplace in front of them. Joshylyn paused for a bit, the crackle of the fireplace filling the silence. "Next time you see the cat Angeli, you should give him some tuna. I heard cats love tuna."
"Ok," Angeli said distractedly, focused on the butterfly that was now dancing in the shadows.
With a lot of coaxing and bribing with tuna, the cat eventually warmed up to Angeli. She didn't see the cat as often as when she was younger, but the cat still stopped by every once in a while.
Angeli picked up the pouch, and held it in her hand. It was heavier than she expected. She pulled the string loose and stuck her hand in, and pulled out a glass sphere. It looked like a compass on the inside, except it gave the longitude and latitude instead of showing the cardinal directions. Angeli looked back at the cat, puzzled.
"What is this?" she asked. She turned it over in her hand. It was cool to the touch, and she could faintly feel anima pulse from within the orb. The cat nudged the pouch, and when Angeli looked inside, she found a note she hadn't noticed before.
This is a Xenoglass, the note read. It's a stone useful for Ayres. I would like you to have it.
She turned over the short note, but there was no signature or anything, no indication of who this gift was from.
Now, it wasn't unlike the cat to bring Angeli gifts. Ever since she was younger, the cat would bring her sweets, toys, sometimes books. But this was the first time he had brought something that looked so important. She could tell just from holding it that there was significantly old magic woven into the small orb.
"But I'm a Fyre, I wouldn't be able to use this-" Angeli said, looking up at the cat, but found nothing there except the neatly-cleaned bowl. She sighed, putting the orb back into the pouch. She had long since stopped questioning where the items the cat brought came from, but now she really needed to know. She nimbly climbed back through the window. She smoothed out her skirt of her dress, and skittered down the stairs, pouch and bowl in hand.
"Look at what the cat gave me," she said to her Joshylyn, thrusting the pouch towards her as she placed the bowl in the sink. Joshylyn paused from work to pull out the orb from the pouch. "A Xenoglass!" She exclaimed, her silver eyes lighting up. "It's been so long since I've seen one of these."
"What does it do?" Angeli asked, leaning against the edge of the table, careful not to knock over any of the precariously stacked books.
"Well, it's a great help to Ayres, because it helps warn them of how high they are going when flying, the oxygen levels, the wind gusts, the altitude limit of the body, etc. There are only about 30 of these in existence right now."
"Oh, then why did the cat give it to me?" Angeli asked. "I think the cat meant it for you, considering you're an Ayre."
To Angeli's surprise, Joshylyn shook her head. "The cat meant it for you," she said simply, placing the orb back into the pouch and handing it to Angeli. "Keep it."
Before Angeli could question it again, Joshylyn shooed her out of the room and told her to go help Aziel out in the library. Angeli grumbled as she left the orb in her room. Joshylyn always made a point to avoid any of her questions, but at this point, Angeli was used to it. It still annoyed her though.
She climbed up to the second landing and climbed up the ladder to the library. As soon as she came into the library, she coughed as she inhaled a lungful of dust. "Geez, why don't you open up some windows in here?" She spluttered as she unfastened all the windows.
Aziel jumped from his perch on the couch, His glasses flying from their position on his nose. "Ugh, I dropped my glasses," he said, his near-blind blue eyes looking around.
"Here," she said, picking up the square-rimmed from the floor and blowing the dust off from them. She perched it back onto his face.
"Thanks," he said straightening up.
Aziel Xu was Joshylyn's other trainee. They have lived with Joshylyn together since they were nine. He was her best (and only) friend. He pushed his black hair that tumbled down to his shoulders from his face. He wore a simple white collared tunic with a low v-neck and sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His pants were slightly short for him, having recently hit a large growth spurt.
"There are so many interesting books in here," he said, with a face a child would have at a candy store.
"Dude, if you start reading everything, you're going to be here for years," Angeli said, looking at all the books crammed into the bookshelves. "You're supposed to be sorting through them, not reading them."
"I know, I know, but I can't help it," he said, looking gleefully around the circular room.
Angeli sighed and went over to a shelf to start with the books. It took a few more hours, many groans of complaint, and many stubbed toes from dropping heavy books on them, but they were almost done with the books. Most of them were neatly stacked up on the shelves, while the books that were worn beyond recognition or rotting with weird substances were thrown into a pile to the side.
Finally, there were only a few books left.
Angeli wearily grabbed at a book to put it in its location, but the book's cover grabbed her attention. It had no title, but it had jeweled pictures of the four Elements on the cover. She flipped through the pages, the musty smell of old parchment hitting her face. She wasn't too good with Malverian, but with the many diagrams and English annotations someone had scribbled in there, she got the gist of what it was talking about: it was talking about a person having several Elements at once.
Where had she heard that before? She thought. A large throbbing headache started to form, making her head spin. Angeli stumbled, almost falling out one of the windows she had left open. She blinked, trying to get her vision back to normal.
At the noise, Aziel looked up from the book he was looking through.
"What's wrong?" he asked, seeing her on the floor with the blood drained from her face.
She shook her head. "It's nothing," she said.
Aziel walked over and picked up the book. She saw a flash of shock run through his eyes as he saw the book, but it was gone as soon as it came. He looked up at her.
"You seem tired," he said, his eyes filled with concern. "You should go down and get some rest. After all, it's almost 9."
She looked at him in a sort of daze. "Yea, okay," she said, walking to the stairs to head down. She looked back to see Aziel staring at the book, the alarm she thought she had imagined before now clearly etched on his face.
*****
After dinner, her head cleared up, so she was able to think straight again. Why did that book have any significance to her anyways? It was impossible for a person to have more than one element.
She bid everyone goodnight and went up to her room. There was no way a person could have more than one element. She got into her nightclothes and sat in front of her mirror to comb her hair.
Right?
She stared at her face. Her orange eyes glowed under the tresses of black hair. Yea, it would be impossible. She combed her hair into a braid. She stared at herself in the mirror, the small ruby necklace she wore giving her face a red glow.
I must've been tired, she thought, getting into bed. She stared up at the moon through her skylight. Why did it feel like she knew about it before? Someone having multiple abilities? She racked her brain, but she couldn't remember anything. She sighed.
It's nothing, she thought. Just go to sleep.
As she was about to drift off to sleep, a thought came to her. If it really was nothing, then why would Aziel be so frightened seeing that book?