7: prophetess

höh. tänään on vuorossa tosi epämielenkiintoinen postaus kolmesta suuresta syystä: 
1) minulla on infernaalinen päänsärky
2) kello on paljon (23:07, herään aamulla seitsemältä)
3) ei tässä oikein muuta sanottavaa olekaan.

sanoja on tullut tänään 1942 kappaletta eli ylitin 15000 sanan rajapyykin. huomenissa kirjoittelu jääkin vähemmälle, koska olen koulun vanhempainillassa kahvittamassa kahdeksaan asti. onneksi olen jo kirinyt tuota sanamäärää vähän edelle - luvassa on vaikeat ajat kun koeviikkokin lähestyy. lukiolaisen elämä on vaikeaa!!!!
(nanowrimon sivujen mukaan olen tätä vauhtia valmis 22 marraskuuta. olisinkin...)

duh. today i'll be posting something extremely boring for three big reasons:
1) i have an infernal headache
2) the clock is a lot (23:07, i'll be waking up at seven)
3) nothing special.


i've written 1942 words today which means i crossed 15000 words. tomorrow i won't be writing that much because i'll be at a school parents café up to eight. thank goodness i've done more words than i should - i'm gonna have a hard time when my test week comes. being in high school is hard!!!!
(according to the nanowrimo site i'll be ready on 22. november if i keep my pace. i wish.)

vielä kirjoittajan kommentteja ennen tätä lukua:

- toivoisin että saisin kommentteja tarinan kulusta ja esim. ymmärrettävyydestä tämän luvun jälkeen. tästä alkaen tarinassa tapahtuu tiettyjä muutoksia ja asioiden summaaminen tässä vaiheessa on ehkä hyvä ymmärrettävyyden kannalta. jotain pikkukommenttia ja parannusehdotusta jos saisi, tiedän että täällä käy joskus joku.. (tilastojen mukaan tänään 7kävijää, itse olen käynyt varmaan kuudesti??:::D hohhoh.)  

a/n:

- i hope for comments related to how the story develops and is understandable after this chapter. from this chapter on there will be changes and summing up what's been mentioned would be good for the understanding. little comments and/or suggestions could be fun, i know someone visits this place sometime... (according to the stats there's been 7 people here today, i've been here six times. hahah.)

 

Chapter Seven

The first time I saw them I thought I must be hallucinating.

I was already kind of used to the elemental stuff, but seeing ghosts sort of blew my mind.

I’m dead, I thought. I should have known it before. Ashley had killed me. I had bled to death. And Aurora was my guardian to the spiritual realm. It explained it all – the odd hunches I had time to time, the paranormal bullshit and the fact everyone seemed to know my name. Kaiya is a parallel dimension to Earth. It is the soul of your world, Aurora had told me. Of course I have always known you.

But being dead didn’t really feel that different.

Now knowing I wasn’t just dreaming I felt even relieved. If Kaiya was a place for the dead, I could find anyone there. I could find my mamma.

The ghosts whirled around me, twirling, like waiting for my command.

“You’re some sort of guides, aren’t you? Ghosts?”
Their laughter filled my mind. As they spoke I could tell only I could hear them – their voice echoed inside my head, like they all were speaking simultaneously.

“Wind spirits,” they whispered. It reminded me of something. If these were spirits of wind, they could take me to Aurora. To my guardian.

“Take me to my guardian,” I spoke. I wasn’t sure did I actually open my mouth, or did it all happen in my head. I just know the spirits around me lost their features as they twirled around me in a whirlwind. I was taken away, and collapsed in front of Aurora’s palace.

I was literally out of breath. I started coughing and gasping for breath, like I was hyperventilating. Aurora ran to me, lifting my face, her eyes widening.

“What?” I croaked. “Never seen a choking person before?”
I noticed I was on my knees, surprised by the amount of bruises I had gained once again. My stockings were broken. My scarf had suffered and started to unwind. Not to mention my hair, which must have looked like a great landing spot for the birds circling above us.

“Stand up, Hilary,” Aurora lulled. “You’re all right.”
“What?” I breathed. “Didn’t you just look at me like I’d be pale as hell?”
“No,” she smiled. “The opposite. You survived very well.”

She made it sound like I had just run through a battlefield without getting a scar. I, however, didn’t feel so well – mention the great difficulties with catching my breath.

“Take a deep breath. Calm down.”

I followed her instructions, surprised by how well I suddenly felt – like that single breath had given me my strength back. Physically reinforced as ever I sighed and met her eyes. I was still wondered by their blue of the sky.

“I think I’m dead.”
Aurora smiled sadly, almost like Severina. It gave me the chills, and my feeling of wellbeing might have as well washed down the drain. “I – I’m not dead?”
“Sad to say, no.”

I blinked once, twice. “I just saw ghosts.”
“My spirits,” Aurora supplemented. “Embodiments of wind.”

“Not dead?”
“Very much not.”

I sighed – maybe in relief, maybe in frustration. I had already thought of my mamma.

I hadn’t yet handled with my sorrow. It was somewhere there, deep inside me. I hadn’t yet processed the fact my mamma was gone and I just couldn’t get her back. I had been pretending it was easy for me. Once again, I pushed my sorrow aside, to the darkest corners of my mind. Not yet.

“Why did you leave me?”
Aurora took my hand and lifted me up.
“I never left you. There are some things that are meant to be.”

Jeez. These guardians just couldn’t give me a break.

“She told me I should come to you,” I remembered. “To change up.”

Aurora lifted her silvery brows. “Indeed.”

I had a bad feeling about this.

In a second we were inside her palace, in front of a mirror I hadn’t noticed there before. Aurora was holding a basket with a stern expression on her face. I thought of the councelor dresses I had seen on Rilla, Circus and Talia, trying to imagine myself dressed in one. I had always preferred dresses, but ones which didn’t uhm… reveal as much. In case I had to take my stockings off I’d feel very much naked. Which, I was afraid, had to happen.

“No councelor dresses that way,” Aurora commented, resting her eyes around the level of my eye. “First of all, you have to get rid of these."

There was a sting in my ear as Aurora pulled out my Moomin-earrings and threw them in the basket. "No, not Groke!"

"It all has to go," she went on, scanning me from head to toe. The next thing she spotted was my pair of broken, striped stockings and my scarf. She nodded, reaching out to me.

I stepped back, shaking my head wildly. "No, no, no. No way you’re taking away my scarf."

"I have to. Haven't you seen how the other council members are dressed? That's not appropriate, especially not for a darkness councelor!"

"Yes, mom," I sighed, letting her pull my scarf away with resistance. "But you aren’t throwing that away."

"Then it is yours to keep." She gave it back to me, and I squeezed it tightly to my chest. It was the last memory I had of mamma. She had given it to me when I was little, before she got depressed - before she killed herself.

Under Aurora's watching eye, I pulled off my stockings starting to throw my shoes away, when she suddenly shook her head. "No! They are good."

It almost amused me - everything else had to go except my most flashy accessories over all - my pink combats.

Finally she handed me a silky, almost transparent black dress, an exact copy of the dress Talia was wearing. It was styled similarly as Aurora's dress: a one-shoulder-strapped, Greek-styled toga thing, but it reached only up to my knees as the Guardian dresses reached up to the ankles. After dressing up I turned around to see my reflection from the mirror Aurora had placed in the corner of the room. I stood tall beside her; a somber, younger copy of her. I looked different. Mainly because I wasn't dressed as colorfully as I was used to, but there was also something different in my spirit. My pixie-like features combined to my Emma Watson-styled, short and shaggy hair made me look older. I explored the feeling - let it fill my insides limb by limb. Finally I realized it wasn't age what I was spotting in me - it was experience. Power. Yet I seemed to feel powerless alongside Aurora, who was wearing her wind pendant along with the several Guardian rings which symbolized the three basic essences of a guardian: benevolence, wisdom and power.

Aurora stroked her ashy hair, the ring of benevolence flashing on her thumb. The look of it pleased me. However, I was the most drawn into the simple, steely-looking ring she was wearing on her nameless. I had always been intrigued by the feeling. After all, knowledge was power. It was – how to word it – my weakness.

“What do you think?”

“I feel…” Block in my mind. How did I feel?

I laughed, speechless. “I don’t know. I just experienced an “I’m dead!”-moment and got accepted into the council. This… this is so different to Earth. There I didn’t really belong. I… I’m not sure do I belong here, either. At least not yet. But I feel like I have a mission here, like I’m here for a reason.”

Aurora looked at me patiently. Rilla’s words rang through my head. You can always trust your guardian. If there’s anything on your heart, even something little and insignificant, your guardian can help you. Never forget it.

“There’s something I haven’t told you.”

There was an expectant silence. As I looked at the mirror it was like I was speaking to my reflection, to myself – another part of me – the part which wasn’t as confident, but was always there, understanding. Aurora stood behind me benevolently. There was nothing I couldn’t tell her.

“I’ve been here before,” I told. “Not physically… but inside my mind. That’s why the birds sickened me out at first. They reminded me of it.”
“So you had a vision.”
I huffed. “Yeah, vision, if that’s what you call it. It was more like a dream. I didn’t really get it, but it was about this place, Kaiya in general. I can’t explain it because I can’t understand it. But I have a feeling about it. It’s like something is wrong with this place. Isn’t it?”
Aurora pursed her lips together, silent as the grave.

“I knew there was something in you,” she mouthed. “Every element is connected in different abilities, strengths. I am sure you are already familiar with some. Throughout time wind children have noticed to represent three abilities better than others. In addition to wind connection, a connection with airbeings is also notable. One ability, which I have always lacked to represent, is prophesying.”

“Prediction,” I formatted. “Like my vision.”
“Yes. Foresight in dreams. These prophesies never lie. What did you exactly see in your dream?”
I thought of the familiar dream of flying, but nothing particular of it seemed to come in mind. Only the feeling. Like something was blocking my mind – some form of amnesia. They were the stupid wind spirits.

Or Severina.

“I can’t yet tell. I just feel something is twisted here in Kaiya. And it’s reflected on Earth. You haven’t been on Earth for a while, but I know things aren’t well there. It’s like a sick play of power. You either dominate or submit. You told me some things are meant to be. And I can certainly tell Kaiya wasn’t meant to be this way.”

If I could explain Aurora’s emotions with a color, they would be a mash-up of all play-dough colors: so messed up they reminded me of nothing but a muddy shade between gray and brown.

The sun was going down too fast, in unnatural speed. Come back to the council with me at noon. I had to go back to Severina.

In robot motion, like someone was controlling me with a remote, I let my instincts take over. And for once, I was led by my heart instead of logic.

This time I popped up on the council yard my exhaustion didn’t cause me to fall down. I had a little headache for sure, but I wasn’t on my knees, either. The yard was empty, and the sky had changed from silvery to a steely gray. Severina was waiting for me. I approached her cautiously. Her hands were resting gently on her hips and expression impressed. I still couldn’t see through her well.

“Your element serves you well,” she said. “Was that your second time? Or third?”
I couldn’t get the hang of her words instantly.  “Second, I guess,” I muttered. “The first time I didn’t feel so well.”
“Wind may be very sudden at times. Very abrupt.”
I felt as if Severina was speaking of me instead of the element wind. She was familiar to its ways. Were all guardians that thorough? How could Severina know the elements that well?

“You speak of wind as if you were familiar to it.”
She laughed dryly. “You will grow to understanding why. But before you can understand the world around you, you must understand yourself. Come with me.”
I followed with no hesitation. Once again, I felt like my logic had hurled itself into a dark pit. I didn’t think, I only felt. I followed Severina through the empty corridors of the hexagonal building, taken aback by the architecture. Six seemed to be a magical number there: six elements, six walls, six guardians. With the exception of the five chairs in the “lower” council chamber – and the five floors of the building. Why did it have only five floors?

My thoughts wiped away as soon as we arrived. The high council chamber was on the opposite side of the fifth floor. Severina opened the huge double doors and my ears started to ring. A shudder so strong took over me I felt like my guts had been put into a blender. I had to cover my mouth not to throw up.

“What is it?”
Severina was pale – maybe paler than usual, I couldn’t tell. But she wasn’t like that for no reason. If she really didn’t care she would have said nothing. I was really starting to feel I had evaluated her wrong. What if she really wasn’t that bad?

But darkness…

“It’s really nothing,” I lied. “It’s just… it’s an impressive sight.”
Silence spoke louder than words. She could sense I didn’t want to mention it. For a second she let me explore the sight in peace. The room was shaped a semicircle, and the gray sun shone through a skylight. Somehow the room seemed to be illuminated from within. Especially one spot stuck out above the rest.

The marble dais was exactly as in my dream. Only one thing lacked – the two figures beside it. As Severina continued, I pushed the memory aside from my mind. But the feeling never left me.

“I have a question to ask you,” she quizzed. “Above all: do you know why you are here?”
I froze. She had struck home. All this time I had tried to understand what was happening around me, and it had been too much: all the guardian bullshit, wind spirits, puny riddles. I had overestimated my strength. I had been thinking I could understand it all, manage in a new world. But how could I know the world if I didn’t even know myself?
I shook my head helplessly.

Severina left my side, centering the empty throne room I had seen in my vision. "Balance is universal. Balance is eternal, balance is everywhere. Currently the worlds are in balance," she pointed at the scales standing in the middle of the dais, "but as you can see, it is trembling."

I couldn’t only see it - also hear. The golden plates shook and rang quietly. Simply looking at the instrument made my breath shallow. It was an instrument of great power: tremendous, uncontrollable power.

"A tip in balance caused the veil between these two realms to ripple. It was you to cause it."

I remembered Ashley’s slap – her hot palm on my cheek, like it was still there. "But I didn't tip balance! It was Ashley!"

"Whatever Ashley did was because of you. It wasn't meant to happen."

I huffed in sudden frustration. "Like it wasn't meant for Ashley eventually kick my ass and slap me down so I hit the toilet hard enough to wake up in a different world? Jeez."

"Did she do something different before you woke up?"

Fucking lesbian bitch! Go to hell!

"What do you mean? Like something unusual? I don't know. She just continued her bitching. She apologized and tried to call me back-"

My speech was cut abruptly as I realized what had actually happened. Severina smiled at my enlightenment. I finally knew it.

"She apologized and tried to call me back! She's never done that before. Maybe we were meant to be enemies. If we'd suddenly become friends... it would've tipped balance majorly.”

"Yes. To ensure balance wasn't completely lost, you had to leave."

The thought shook me and chilled my bones. I had to die to ensure all would stay the same. No-one would care. Or if not die, at least leave. Ashley wouldn't care a shit. She'd maybe just stuff my corpse to the toilet and flush the evidence down. It's like nothing would've ever happened. She'd be rid of me for good. Somehow I was beginning to understand. Someone had to do something major to ensure things would never be the same. Something wrong. I had done it by merely being there. It sounded silly I was the one to blame. But it was me who had hit her head in the forsaken toilet.

Well that sucks.

I was secure as I mouthed my next words, knowing it might have been a sensitive subject.

“So… something like that happened to you, too?”
Severina’s expression went blank. “I cannot remember.”
“Why?”
“It’s been too long.”

Just like with Aurora’s. Severina looked young, younger than Aurora – maybe around at the mid of her twenties.  Yet she seemed to have forgotten.

I understood them. I remembered what Rilla had told me. One does not become a guardian just like that. It takes time. Even so much time one starts to forget.

“When did you become a guardian?”
Severina looked at the six thrones on the opposite side of the room with yearning, like she was taking slow steps back to happier times, when all was well.

“I was very young. Younger than you.”
I shook my head in surprise. “What happened?”
Severina looked at me as if I should have known. “My guardian died. I was never taken very seriously in the eyes of anyone. I was too young, too inexperienced. I knew none of my strengths.”

Memories of Rilla and Aurora flashed through me. Nolan had unusual strength. I had a gift of vision, or that’s what Aurora called it. She had never been able to predict. But she could sense my draw.

“It’s not how you picture it,” Severina smiled sadly. “It’s nothing unnatural. It’s only who you are.”

Severina paused, and took it somewhere back. Somewhere in the depths in my mind I saw it, a younger version of her, with the same, ebony eyes. But not as sad.

“My mother once told me I was born at midnight,” she began. “I had the most beautiful dark eyes. But as a child I was always hard to nurture. I was very solemn. I enjoyed my own company.”
Somehow she reminded me of mamma. My mamma hadn’t always been sad– she had smiled, laughed. Been joyful. But the darkness was a part of her. It was always there and never left.

“I preferred the nighttime over day. I grew used to it, the silence and unnatural beauty. I had no problems in finding my way in the dark. It’s a common ability of the children of darkness.”

“No-one taught it to you?”
“I realized it myself, through experience. But I never would have combined it with my element unless my guardian would have taught me to. I never would have survived.”
She went silent, and the spell broke. I was concrete again, as if I had drifted away: slowly disintegrating from my body to the flow of memories.

Severina stared at me; measuring, calculating. “Show me you are a wind-child.”

It happened instinctively. I closed my eyes and raised my arms, up high. I imagined myself pushing the air away from me, like it was liquid – almost solid. My hands curved in arches, painting patterns all around me. I saw them beneath my eyelids. The air bended under my will, but as I opened my eyes, nothing happened.

“Why-“

“That is because it doesn’t work like that”, Severina interrupted. “See this.”

It reminded me of my second test before the council representatives: how Circus had slowly dropped the room temperature and it had started to snow. Everyone had spoken of it as if I had caused the snowfall instead of her. But I hadn’t really done anything – I hadn’t felt anything. Just like I didn’t this time.

Severina didn’t close her eyes like I did. It was what had happened with Circus – her eyes darkened – they turned from a dark brown shade of ebony to pitch-black. Even the whites of her eyes changes. Veins popped, and it looked like she had cried.

Suddenly the room turned very cold.

It was even colder than what had been with Circus. The coldness seemed to reach deep inside my soul, a dreadful emptiness which made me feel like I was never happy again.

I shuddered, as if it had been the cold, but it was caused by a thought. That was how mamma must have felt. Like her soul had fled and there was nothing worth living for. Terrified by the feeling I took a very deep breath, like I could catch my inner essence back. A shiver ran through me and I staggered uncontrollably backwards, taking support of the closed doors behind me.

“What just happened?”
“What just happened was windbending. It’s taking control over your element and using it as a tool. But it is not how it is meant to be. It’s meant to be a mean of protection, only defensive. That is why it works instinctively. It’s pouring your inner essence and defying the forces outside who are trying to take over. No element deep down is evil.”
“Not even darkness?” I asked, still catching my breath, scaring the dread away.
“No. That is why there is no such thing as darkness-bending. It’s called nightbending, for it tells more accurately what darkness is in its most bare form.”

I tried to describe the feeling which had taken over me, but I found no words. I answered only with a helpless yelp. “Frightening?”
“No. It’s very subtle, very silent. Even sad – but also full of life, hopeful. Only the darker side of day.”

As if Severina was talking of herself instead of her element. That moment I truly understood the inner essence of darkness. It was hard to understand – I had always chosen day over night – not impossible. Severina’s description reminded me of various people, not only her. Including my mamma.

“Elemental bending is an ability which everyone can. The strength of it only depends on how it is used. If it lacks practice, it will lose its strength. However, it may never be used to offend. If used wrong, it causes horrible disaster. There are some situations where it is essential. But it is very hard to control consciously.”

There was a pause and Severina’s words united into whole inside my mind. The elements must not be used as tools. It would be like using one’s very soul to destroy another. Manifesting them wasn’t a form of attack – it was a form of practice. And this was how my benevolence would be tested.

Now I knew that from this moment, every time I would feel something truly, deeply, I had to restrain myself. Love, anger, hatred, fear. They would all result to one – chaos.

Inside my mind I could still see the two silhouettes, shifted balance. The clouds drifted under me, as I flew over the empty Earth.

The world was changing.