After all, we are nothing more or less than we choose to reveal.
-Sylvia Plath.
Princess Lethia's Cottage, The Floating Kingdom of Zephyr, Northern Ardeneon.
June 2
"It's like any regular clock" Delarune Starling explains "It's stuck right now, it stopped ticking, that means time in one of our worlds has stopped ticking"
"It can't be Ardeneon, the time is working fine here" Elijah points out looking at his ticking watch. "It's earth."
"Well then that doesn't mean the world is ending it just means time stopped" Dexter says.
Elijah locks eyes with Suzumi telling her the time is right, and she sighs.
She clears her throat adjusting her glasses "I had a vision" she goes on to tell them what it was about. "It sounds all great but right before my vision, Elijah had one and you know his visions are usually warnings" she adds and Elijah proceeds to tell them his own vision.
"Well double dog poop" Dexter groans and the doorbell goes.
"Who could that be?" River murmurs walking to the door.
"Dad?"
Skai rushes to the door at that.
"Dad!"
Skai and River had two very different reactions to their father's appearance.
"I'm here too" Princess Lethia pops in right beside Kaito Ladiston.
"Blessed evening princess Lethia" River welcomes her in more warmly than he did his father.
"I came as soon as I heard" Kaito Ladiston's voice boom through the house. If anyone thought River's voice was deep, it was obvious they hadn't heard Kaito, sometimes it was hard to understand what he'd say.
"Kaito" Mr. Starling stands up to greet his dear friend.
"Rune!" Kaito embraces him.
"So where were you?" Mr. Starling asks.
"Merlo reef" Kaito sighs "You?"
"Under Nieves"
.....
"That is a lot to take in" Kaito bites his lip in thought just as they had finished filling him in and Seraphinius runs into the living room going straight to princess Lethia.
"Hi Phinius" she laughs softly ruffling his hair.
"We all have to search the rink" Kaito suggests.
"I don't think that's a good idea" Delarune turns down Kaito's suggestion calmly.
"Why not?" Kaito asks.
"We're not taking a bunch of younglins into the time rink" Delarune says in finality.
"One of the younglins is our way in" Kaito shrugs "We can't search the rink alone, it's huge you know that"
Elijah couldn't help but feel like they were leaving out a piece of information.
"And that's the only reason he's going, I wouldn't put his life in danger like that" Delarune stands up his voice rising.
"My children are more than capable, I raised them for moments like this, I know they can do this" Kaito defends standing up.
"And you're saying I didn't raise Elijah?" Delarune asks.
'Well technically...' Elijah trails off in thought but chose not to say anything out loud.
"And the other younglins?" Delarune asks Kaito his voice going back to normal clearly not wanting to fight with his friend "If anything happens to them, we will be held responsible Kaito"
"No one dies in the rink Rune." Kaito responds dismissively
"No Kaito, but they do get lost in time, you know that more than anybody" hurt flashes in Kaito, Delarune and princess Lethia's eyes but Delarune continues "I'd rather die than put any of them in harm's way." Delarune goes eye to eye with Kaito "We've been over this. You can't put people in harm's way to accomplish your goals"
"Don't paint me out to be a villain" Kaito rolls his eyes "The chances of someone getting lost is 1 in a million"
"Yet those chances are entirely possible, you'd be surprised Kaito" Delarune steps back. "No need to rewrite history"
"There won't be history if the world disappears." Kaito responds frustratedly.
"That's okay!" Princess Lethia stands between the two of them holding on to Seraphinius. "You're setting bad examples for the little sprites" she looks at all of them "Everyone to your rooms." Princess Lethia orders softly.
They all slowly leave the living room, Emily taking Seraphinius from princess Lethia.
"Well, that went great, didn't it?" Elijah breathes out. They all settle in River's room.
"I wouldn't say so" Seraphinius responds "They were fighting"
They all laugh at his little input.
"Move" River tells Suzumi trying to sit next to her on the floor.
"No" She stares at the floor.
"You're too close" he groans.
"Well find somewhere else then" she eyes him.
"You find somewhere else, it's my room" River responds.
"Kick me out then" Suzumi shrugs and River flicks her head.
"Ow, what the hell" she flicks him back.
"Guys" Elijah intervenes in disappointment. "Not the time"
River and Suzumi both look in opposite directions.
"How long are you guys going to act this way?" Dexter asks but no response.
"And it's always the dumbest things they fight over too" Elijah sighs shaking his head.
"It's hard not to fight when you genuinely can't stand a person" River responds.
"I can't stand you either, but you don't see me complaining do you" Suzumi scoffs.
"That's because your brain cells can't formulate a simple statement how much more a complaint" River laughs condescendingly.
"This brain cell talk again, some would say you just learnt a new word at this rate" Suzumi takes her glasses off "I don't even want to see you ugh"
The others all look at each other tiredly even Seraphinius is tired of them.
"Can you two just try to pretend as if you like each other?" Skai asks.
"Skai, trust me I tried" River tells her seriously "It's next to impossible"
"As if you're likeable yourself" Suzumi shakes her head.
"Guys" Dexter speaks up "We need to convince them to let us go"
"Uh why would we do that?" Suzumi asks confused.
"I'm with Suzumi on this one" Emily adds. "Mr. Starling thinks he can do it himself, let him"
"Sunshine, this is my dad we're talking about" Elijah tells her.
"Your dad is a grown man, Ellie. He can handle himself" Emily shrugs uninterested.
"Dexter is right" Skai speaks up ignoring Emily as Elijah as they continue to discuss among themselves. "We have to convince them"
"I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Dexter" River looks over at Emily. "The more people search the rink the faster, we don't have a given time window. I'm not ready for the world to end"
"Why can't we just get the great council in on this?" Emily groans
"They hate our guts, they'd never listen to us." Elijah tells her staring at the book behind her. "Can you pass that book?" He asks her, noticing it looked a lot like his journal.
She turns around to look at the book and it suddenly starts floating.
"Who did that?" Elijah asks looking around and the book begins to move with his line of vision. Well at least he could see that the book wasn't his journal.
"I think that's you" Skai looks over unsure.
"I thought a sprite could only have maximum 2 skills?" Elijah asks anyone with an answer.
"A sprite born within their own people? yes. But if a sprite has parents from two different places then they are likely to have more, that's why it doesn't happen a lot. It's an unspoken rule" Suzumi answers.
"Both my parents are Hesperians" he tells her, still trying to put the book down.
"Weren't you born on the night of that weird moon?" River asks.
"What weird moon?" Suzumi asks him.
"The forbidden one" River shrugs and Elijah rolls his eyes causing the book to fall on the floor.
"The laberlif moon and I wasn't born on the night, I was conceived. A twisted project" Elijah picks at his fingers with subtle disgust.
"Oh" Suzumi's eyes widen "If that's the case then this might not be the last of your skills, my brother had an obsession with the moon and told me a whole lot about it one summer. The laberlif moon is crazy powerful, being conceived on that night would cause the moon to give you a portion of its power, there's only one other person that was conceived on that night that lived to see her powers grow" she tells them.
"Can you speak without making it seem spooky?" River grunts.
"Maybe you're just spooked" she shrugs.
"Who was the other person?" Elijah asks.
"Some girl from Lorath" Suzumi answers "She was executed because she went crazy and killed a couple hundred sprites."
That sent shivers down Elijah's spine.
"Interesting" He nods looking out the window in thought, hoping he wouldn't turn out like her.
"What about you, Suzumi?" Emily asks.
"What about me?" Suzumi returns the question.
"You have more than two skills if I'm correct" she states, "What's the story?"
Suzumi stares at the floor a little shaken "My mother is from Nefeli, she was mixed too, her father was from Nefeli, her mother from Nieves" she explains.
"Your family sure likes outsiders" Emily points out heartily.
"I guess that's something almost everyone here has in common" she shrugs not looking up placing her hands firmly on the floor closigng her eyes.
"What are your skills anyway?" Skai asks "Now that I think about it, we don't know much about you"
"Chrono vision, Perspective shifting, Empathy, Freeze touch/Ice manipulation." She lists them out.
"That's so cool!" Skai chirps "So you can feel what I'm feeling? Tell me! Tell me!"
"You're" she pauses "Excited but scared, you don't even realize it"
"Okay that's creepy" Skai laughs it off, but they all look at her concerned.
"Okay we're going off topic, if we follow them into the rink of time, what about Phinius?" Skai asks and they all look over to Seraphinius who is staring out the window, counting birds.
"I wanna go!" Seraphinius turns around jumping running over to Elijah.
"No, you can't fireball" Elijah ruffles his hair.
"Yes I can" the little boy frowns whining.
"Phinie" Elijah sighs "You're too young"
"I wasn't too young when Skai fell" Seraphinius grunts. "Darn him and his sharp mouth." River chuckles amused.
"Phinie we don't talk about that" Emily warns and her brother mumbles looking down.
"We'll figure it out" River sighs glancing over at Suzumi. Both of them began sharing whispers.
"Stop it" Suzumi whispers at River.
"I would if I could" he whispers back.
"I preferred it when you were yelling at me" She keeps tapping the floor.
"I don't like doing what you prefer, princess" he places his hand over hers forcing her to stop and she yanks it away.
"There you go with that name again" Suzumi frowns.
"You should wear your glasses" River tells her "It's easy to read you without them" he knew she didn't like people seeing through her, he didn't want her to feel uncomfortable around the others.
"Wouldn't that be an advantage to you?" she asks, "Seeing how much you don't like me, wouldn't you rather use that to your advantage?"
"I don't hate you" he pauses "Not anymore, wait no...I still don't like you though, but not enough to hate you." he tells her truthfully.
"Because of what happened in the closet?" she asks "Unbelievable."
"I called for a truce, princess" he says.
"Because you saw my weak point, because you saw me vulnerable, because you pity me" her voice shakes a little.
"No because I thought you were cool" River confesses "You didn't beat yourself up for falling apart" he continues "I thought that was pretty cool because I do that a lot"
"Liar" she kisses her teeth storming out of the room.
"What did you do to her again?" Emily asks and River groans.
"Nothing, she's unusual" he sighs in response.
"I'll go talk to her" Dexter stands up, but River quickly stops him.
"No, I upset her, I'll go" he leaves his room and heads to Suzumi's room. He walks in without knocking which was starting to become a bad habit.
"Go away River" she says from under her blankets.
"I just want to make things right" he says.
"I don't want you to" She sits up, turning to face him with puffy eyes. "I like yelling at you, leave."
"I don't want to leave, I want to bother you" He shrugs sitting next to her on her bed.
"I didn't say you could sit" She frowns.
"I don't remember asking" He shrugs.
"River" She whines.
"Princess" He imitates her.
"Stop that" her eyebrows furrow and he looks her dead in the eyes.
"Can you see me?" He asks her and she shakes her head.
"No, why?"
"I wish I could change that" He sighs.
"Pfft why?" She rolls her eyes.
"Because I'm hot, it's sad to think you can't see how good I look right now" River shrugs arrogantly.
"Douche bag" she flicks his shoulder. "For the record, I don't think I've ever really seen how you look" She confesses.
"Really?" he asks. He knew she couldn't see but he didn't know she was blind.
"Mhmm" she hums. He found her kind of cute in that moment.
"Have you seen yourself?" He asks and she nods "Through my brother's eyes"
They sit there in silence, and he stares into her eyes knowing fully well she couldn't tell he was doing so. Something inside him started to grow warm.
"Can I say something crazy?" He asks her and she lifts a brow.
"No"
"I want you to try to hate me less, princess" He walks out of her room.
"River?" She calls his name and he walks back in.
"yes?" he asks
"You need to stop" she sighs going back under her covers.
"Stop what?" he asks.
"Just stop" she says through her covers.