I often think that the nigh Is more alive and richly colored than the day. - Vincent Van Gogh
The Bolvera Home , The Koa Forest, Southern Ardeneon.
March 25
Elijah wakes up again from the same nightmare that has plagued his sleep for the past three nights, he had already been dealing with the stars obstructing his sight every now and then—which he couldn't and hadn't brought himself to tell anyone about, now nightmares have come to cause him pain too? He didn't know if he could take it any longer.
Little did he know; he had not been the only one dealing with nightmares the past couple of nights. He pushes all the uncertainties to the back of his mind not wanting to be a slave to confusion today. He makes his way down the stairs for breakfast after getting ready for the day.
It's the weekend so they have time to study and hit the market for the ingredients. They had already told Mrs. Bolvera the previous day and she was fine with it. He really hoped they would find solutions to this soon, it's dragging on too long.
He pauses in steps on his way down the stairs. 'This? Solutions? What's that about?' He asks himself but he quickly shakes his head repeating that he wouldn't be confused today in his head.
He knew everyone would still be sleeping when he arrived at the dining hall, he always got up pretty early, but he couldn't put his finger on why that was the case. What he didn't expect to see at the dining hall was a man seeming to be in his mid-twenties standing next to Mrs. Bolvera by a cupboard.
"Blessed morning." He greets Mrs. Bolvera and both her and the man turn around to face him.
Finally, Elijah could see where the children's looks came from, Mr. Bolvera had Hazel eyes like Amari and curly almost wavy hair like both children.
"You must be one of the kids Yesani told me about" With a smile the man motions for Elijah to walk over to him.
"Hello, and you must be Mr. Bolvera" Elijah smiles warmly.
"Yes, nice to meet you..." Mr. Bolvera trails off and Elijah takes that as his cue to introduce himself.
"Elijah"
"Yes Elijah" Mr. Bolvera smiles stretching his hand out for him to shake "You have intriguing eyes young man; unlike anything I've ever seen before."
"Thank you" Elijah shakes his hand noticing a glint in the man's eyes.
"Where are you from?" Mr. Bolvera lifts a brow at him, and he begins to sputter, not sure what to say.
Mrs. Bolvera saves him the struggle by responding for him. "Leave the boy alone" She uses a napkin to swat her husband, but he ignores her looking at Elijah intensely.
Elijah decides to break the silence "It's really nice of you guys to let my friends and I stay here till we have everything resolved"
"It's no problem, I can't imagine how hard it must be for you without parents" Mr. Bolvera shakes his head.
"We have parents" Elijah scratches his arm nervously although his memory was not doing his words any justice.
'Is my lack of sleep finally catching up to me?' He thinks.
"Who abandoned you? I mean who's to say they're even alive or in this world" The man shook his head again tutting. "I can't imagine throwing my kids into the other world" Pity. His eyes wash over Elijah with complete pity.
"Well, we don't know their reasons" Elijah shrugs trying his best to not let the older man's words affect him, but still he wanted to know what he meant by the other world, he was forgetting something...he just couldn't put his finger on it.
The man sighs taking the remaining utensils to store them away "Poor kids"
"You must be hungry Elijah" Mrs. Bolvera interrupts.
"Leave the boy alone Darr" Elijah hears her whisper to her husband.
And it happens again like it did when he saw the memory loss hint, everything faded from his sight then became clear again.
He was in a room with Mr. and Mrs. Bolvera, and they were arguing.
He couldn't really make much out of what they were saying, it was all kind of muffled but the only thing he could decipher from it was "They're smart kids Darr, .....leaving loopholes ..... fill"
And then just like that he was back to reality.
"Are you okay?" Mr. Bolvera asks him "You were a little out of it there"
"Yeah, I'm good" He smiles choosing not to tell them what he saw. "Just a little migraine" he shrugs convincingly, but they didn't seem to buy it.
Now he was convinced that something was definitely going on, and he was determined to find out what. "So, what's for breakfast" He ignores their concerned looks.
"Garden berryoats" Mrs. Bolvera smiles.
He had no idea what that was but everything they'd eaten so far has been nice so he was sure it would be too.
He sat on a random chair and ate, he was wrong about garden berryoats, they tasted like raw eggs mixed with dog food.
Don't ask him why he knows how that tastes. That question should be directed to Skai and Dexter.
Soon enough, everyone else started coming down for breakfast one by one, Skai was the last one down as expected. After breakfast Elijah leaves for the library. Emily and River followed shortly after.
"I'm pretty sure we can find a map somewhere in there" he tells them.
"I saw one yesterday, right by the G.O.L.O.L archives" River points out.
"My head hurts" Emily whines.
"Maybe you didn't sleep well" Elijah turns around to face his girlfriend holding her face in his hands searching for any sign that she might be sick.
"I'm fine?" she looks at him tilting her head, something he knows she does when she is confused.
"Adorable." He breathes out making her blush.
He smiles as he lets go of her and they tail behind River into the library.
"You have the list of ingredients, right?" He asks River and River hums in response. They decided to create Revelaticus instead of Exposima because they discovered—after thorough research—that Revelaticus works better on invisible ink, Exposima is used more for objects, places and people.
River walks over to the archives, searching for a map. "Found it!" he jubilates. "Oh, there's another" he mutters.
"I found the map" River smiles sitting next to them. "But there's something else" he drops two rolled up sheets of paper on the table.
"What is it?" Emily asks, standing up to see as Elijah opens one.
A world map.
"It's a world map" Emily says.
"Well, we don't need it" Elijah looks over at the city map in River's hand.
"Actually" River pauses putting the city map down "We might" he shrugs. "We should keep it, just in case"
River and Emily continue examining the two maps and Elijah falls deep into thought. The vision he had had earlier in the morning couldn't seem to leave his mind, he knew it was time to tell them, but he wanted Skai and Dexter be there when he did.
"I saw something today" he tells them, and they seem intrigued.
"What did you see?"
"What?"
They both ask simultaneously, and he whispers to them suddenly cautious about his surroundings "I'll tell you guys when we're with Dexter and Skai"
Rubbing his hand he proceeds to pick at his fingernails "Something is terribly wrong, but I just can't put my finger on it"
"Are you sure about this D?" Skai asks Dexter as he pulls her outside after breakfast.
"uhhh" he hesitates "Not necessarily but I could've sworn it worked yesterday" he bites his lower lip nervously.
When it was just the two in the dining hall, Dexter had claimed that he could connect to nature, Skai found that very hard to believe. 'But that wouldn't be the craziest thing that's happened here.' She thinks
Her brows furrow suddenly why she had thought of Ardeneon as another location, was there somewhere else she should be thinking about? If there was she couldn't remember.
"Just watch, okay?" he instructs as he gets on his knees, breaking her out of her thoughts, he places his hands on the ground in front of him, doing some sort of meditation.
She waits patiently watching him and then she sees it, flowers start blooming around them, small little cute flowers.
"What the monkey pops!" her hands fly over her mouth in shock and Dexter stands up.
"Crazy, isn't it?" he beams "I've been spending a lot of time outside lately and yesterday after scire it just happened."
"That is so cool!" Skai shrieks jumping up and down clapping her hands.
"I'm pretty cool" he shrugs smugly then laughs, joining her in jumping and clapping.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night" she chuckles dropping to sit on the ground.
"It helps me sleep wonderfully well little Ladiston" he smirks playfully.
"I'm not little" she punches him lightly with a fake frown before quickly switching her demeanor to one of excitement "So does that mean you can grow a tree or move plants?" she asks him
"Nah, this is all I can really do, but I want to try doing more, I'm gonna see how much I can learn" he smiles, and she nods.
"That's so cool Dex, I wonder what I can do" she says secretly hoping skills of her own would show up soon.
"Being a sprite is so cool" Skai giggles "I can't imagine being any other creature."
"Like a chorling for example, their lifestyle feels so restrictive" Dexter shudders "They're weird, I wonder how they look in real life"
"I don't know, I think they're beautiful" Skai shrugs "Just misunderstood" she pauses turning to face him "Think about it, the sprites fought them because they were powerful..." she trails off sympathy tugging at her heartstrings "how is that their fault? I think the sprites were just jealous"
"Or scared" Dexter points out.
"But seriously, I vibe with them, they can literally connect with their younglins Dexter, they seem to be very caring and maternal creatures" She says, "Imagine meeting your mom, you don't know who she is, but you feel it" she pushes "it doesn't get cooler than that."
"I can't imagine..." he trails off "Okay okay, I guess they're sort of cool" he chuckles staring into her eyes and she beams, glad that she got him to see it from her point of view.
They sit outside, talking about everything and nothing, before they remember they have to find the ingredients. Mrs. Bolvera was kind enough to lend them her transaction card. Skai had a feeling that the woman was getting sick of their presence, they'd overstayed their welcome
"We should go back inside the others might be looking for us" Dexter tells her standing up.
She nods and reaches her hand out, he grabs it, pulling her up.
They go inside and decide to check the most obvious place for River, Emily and Elijah, the library.
Just as they thought, the three were sitting round a table all engrossed in different books.
"Hey guys!" Dexter chirps.
"Helloooo" Skai sings
"Where have you guys been?" Emily asks not looking up from the book she was reading.
"Practicing magic!" Dexter chirps.
"It's not magic, it's superpowers" I correct him.
"You're both wrong" Emily mumbles, shaking her head.
"It's skills" Elijah corrected "And what do you mean you were practicing it?" he lifts a brow up.
"Dexter can grow flowers" Skai giggles and they all gave Dexter a 'seriously?' look.
"Sorry to break it to you bud-" Skai cuts River off realizing he got the wrong idea before he could finish his sentence.
"No like with his hands, he connects with nature" Skai tells him.
"Wait really?" River asks wide eyed
"How is that even possible?" Emily asks.
Dexter shrugs and gives them a smug grin.
"I'm convinced I can do more, I just need to learn about this stuff" he says excitedly.
"You and me both" Elijah frowns and they all look at him confused.
"What do you mean?" Emily asks.
"I'll explain later" he assures them, and they all look away from him skeptically. "Let's go to the market first"
"So, Starling...What's up?" Dexter asks Elijah as he got out of the halo—he was the last to get off.
They arrived just a little away from the dense forest.
"Elijah saw something" River answers.
"He hasn't told us yet though" Emily shrugged.
"Ahhh, what did you see?" Skai asks
"We-"
"Is it about our parents?" Dexter cuts Elijah off
"n-"
"I don't think it could be, he said something is wrong" River answers Dexter cutting Elijah off.
"Then what is it about?" Skai asks
"I think something bad is going to happen" Emily responds to her.
"Well, if you all could just let me speak, maybe you would know what exactly I saw" Elijah lets out a heavy sigh and they all keep shut muttering 'sorry' and 'my bad'.
"Thank you" he takes a deep breath first explaining how he can see things and the whole memory loss air fiasco, after his friends had processed that he proceeds to tell them what happened earlier in the day "Okay so, I was in a room with Mr. and Mrs. Bolvera and they were talking, About us I assume, Mrs. Bolvera was yelling at Mr. Bolvera but I'm not sure what about, I did hear something along the lines of 'they are smart kids, loopholes, fill...' stuff like that, I think we should be careful, like really careful. We might be walking into a trap" he explains, and they all silently ponder.
"So, you're saying that they might not be trustworthy?" Emily was the one to break the silence.
Elijah shrugs "I don't know, I mean we should definitely remain appreciative to them for giving us a place to stay... but we also should only trust ourselves right now."
They all agree before Emily speaks up again "Does that mean we all have skills?" she asks no one in particular.
"I'm assuming that is the case, it seems like everyone's skill blooms with time, there is clearly no particular time for the skill to show up" Elijah nods his head in agreement at his own input.
The town market is bustling with people when they arrive, it almost feels and looks like the crowd is choking them, River takes out the list from his pocket and begins to read from it "The first item on the list is ancient erva dragon scale-" Dexter cuts him off.
"Or we could just get the potion from the serumist shop over there" he points at the store opposing them with a huge signboard that said 'serumist'
"Oh" River pauses "yeah..." he trails off.
"But it's a serumist not a potionist" Skai points out thinking about how they lacked serious attentiveness.
"It's the same thing Skai" Emily whispers in her ear and Skai's mouth instantly forms an 'O' shape
After paying for their potion, they get back on their way, all of them beginning to grow a little impatient, desperate to know what is on the paper.
"We should check the paper out now" Skai whispers in Emily's ear and Emily shakes her head. "In front of the forest?" she lifts a brow up at her black-haired friend. "I don't know Skai...I want to know what's on it too but here is a little odd."
"Think about it" Skai sighs "We can't trust the Bolveras, so shouldn't we keep something like this away from their house?"
The curiosity figuratively killing her.
"Wait!" Emily exclaims loudly stopping in her steps "You're right"
"What's that?" River asks turning to face them and Emily nudges Skai to speak up as both Dexter and Elijah stop in their steps as well.
"I think we should check the paper out now, since we are having doubts about the Bolveras" Skai plays with her curls nervously.
"That's true" Dexter mumbles and she lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding in.
They all came to an agreement—they are going to spray the potion on the paper.
Elijah pours little of it in his hand "Revalaticus" he sprays it on the paper.
Nothing.
Elijah let out a sigh and began to close the paper, when words begin appearing on it.
"Wait!" Skai stops him and he opens it completely with words now on the page
Where esse is saved yet people misbehave
'Tis perceived that life begins and death doeth cease.
the answers, it seems within a few feet
They all exchange looks of confusion after reading it "What does that even mean?" River asks.
"Do you guys think this might be like those movies or books where we follow the clues to leave the foreign place?" Skai laughs softly and they all look at her like she was crazy.
"Our life isn't a movie" Elijah shakes his head reading the paper over and over again.
"It would make a cool movie" Dexter nudges Elijah "Or even a book" he falls into thought.
"I don't know how I'd feel about being in a book" Skai shakes her head dismissively.
"That's not the point right now guys" River rolls his eyes taking out a map from his backpack. "There's nowhere called 'esse' on the map" he frowns looking at it.
"What if" Skai pauses, collecting her thoughts "What if it's not on the map?"