28: life as we know it

koska olin eilen vähän jäljessä aikataulusta ja sain kirjoitettua tämän luvun vasta tänään (vapaapäivä:D) muuttelin tuota päivämäärää jotta se vastaisi paremmin luvun numeroa. (huijausta.) tänään (29.11) kuitenkin tuli se voitto 50107:llä sanalla. success!

urakka ei kuitenkaan ole tässä. lukuja on vielä kirjoittamatta se 1-2 kappaletta, saa nähdä miten sitä tekstiä näyttää tulevan. näillä näkymin olen suhteellisen tyytyväinen flawlessiin, vaikka se vaatiikin vielä korjailemista. nanowrimo on kuitenkin auttanut kovasti raakaversion lopullistamisessa ja mielikuvani kokonaisuudesta ovat selkeytyneet. saa vielä nähdä mitä loppu tuo tullessaan...

luvassa erittäin capslock-rikas luku.:--D

 

Chapter Twenty-eight

“Now, don't tell me my mamma is alive,” I remarked. “That she somehow wouldn't be dead but I could still find her from some other dimension.”

Fera had been reluctant to answer. "It could be possible," he said. "Only it is impossible for someone like you."
Even after he was gone I could hear him as if he had never left. I had stared at the haze half of the night unable to decide whether I wanted to see him ever again. Even when Severina arrived and carried my half-conscious self back to her palace, I kept on dreaming of our conversation. I dreamed of watching myself lay in a coma-like state on a hospital bed on earth, my name attached on an ankle tag as if I was already dead. I dreamed of tubes crossing my gray skin like poisonous veins filled with the water of the fountain of Truth. I dreamed of walking through Aurora’s forests, going back to the very first moments of my second life. This is all happening in my head, isn’t it? I even dreamed of the wind wisps morphing into recognizable figures – Severina emerging ghastly from the woods, repeating words I knew. There are worlds within worlds.

I dreamed of the same sunset sky like in my first vision - of the earth of Aurora’s woods falling from under my feet, hurling across the sky as a spinning orb, falling free through layers of clouds until I broached a barrier of water. The water around me fragmented, forming into limbs and joints: waves of energy pulsing them outward, constantly pushing them towards the surface, but never breaking it.

I dreamed of diving through the earth to lie together with Fera under the stars, only to find someone was watching us.

I threw myself down from the bed with half-sealed lids. I hate sleeping, was my first thought. Then my memories of the night before reoccurred, and I came to second thoughts. I hate dreaming, I rephrased.

I opened the door and my dream became reality. For the first seconds when Talia saw me she still looked like her old self, scanning at me with curious, childish eyes. “Hilary,” she whispered, throwing her arms around me.

A jolt of surprise went through me, and I answered the hug, but something was missing. Something-
“I’ve missed you so much,” the hug tightened. “Hilary…”
“Can’t – breathe-“

A cold whisper tickled my earlobes. “You better enjoy this.”

Something was pressed against my fingers. Talia drew back, leaving me staring bewilderedly at her gift. It was an earth cake.

My eyebrows furrowed. “Talia, what is this?”
“A surprise,” she grinned.

A wave of sickness passed over me as I studied the clump of green and gray. Talia smiled encouragingly, and the cake crumbled between my fingers. Soon all what was left were the empty wrappers, a pile of dirt and a sharp, glinting object like the head of an arrow.

“Talia,” I repeated, lifting the object on my eye level. Light shone through it like glass. “What is this?”

“Don’t you recognize it?” Talia asked. “Fera gave it to me in exchange of access to my mind. It’s light glass. ‘It is said to be a window to the soul.’ He lied to me. It’s worthless.”
A quiver in Talia’s voice told me she would break soon. “Talia, I-“
“You may wonder why I accepted such an offer,” Talia laughed. “There is nothing more than I want in this world than to have my memory back. I thought – silly me – I thought that perhaps it would show me myself how I really am. Was. Last night I did some research on it. Everything in the city of Light is made of it. Windows, cutlery, everything. But nothing can return memory.”

“Talia,” I pleaded. “Listen to me. What he did-“
I broke off. Talia had closed her eyes and raised her head upward like a proud lion, her black hair framing her face like a beautiful mane. When she opened her eyes, they were fully black, incredibly inhumane and full of power. It was one of the most terrifying and stunning sights I had ever seen.

“Hilary,” she began, and for a second I feared her voice wouldn’t be hers. “Do not ever, ever defend that creature for me. He doesn’t deserve it.” She paused, her lips trembling as she spoke. “And I hope that when you two will be condemned for treason in front of the council, you will hold that piece of glass between your fingers and remember me.”

My jaw fell open and I stared unbelievingly into her endless eyes, now drained off all the warmth I had once seen in them, like something had been gouged away, leaving her but an empty shell of what she truly was.

“You worked together,” she said with cold eyes. “I know you did. You may not have the scrolls yourself, but you helped him get them. This time, unlike you, I am not wrong.”
I shook the remnants of the earth cake off my fingers. “What are you going to do? Tell Severina?”
“You know I’m not stupid enough to do that.”
I sighed and leaned against a doorframe, almost hoping Severina could reason it all somehow. I am sure it would need only a little apology to get her back.

“The truth is…” I began, fiddling with the tiny piece of glass. It reminded me of all the glass vials Fera had pulled out of his pockets, and somehow I couldn’t help smiling with the thought. A hint of laugh crept into my tone. “I don’t want to fight with you. I don’t want to hate you. But it’s starting to become a hell of a job if neither of us listens to another. The bad things I’ve said to you – I’m sorry. There’s much bigger stuff to worry about currently than fighting with you. Tristen’s got the scrolls, remember?”
But Talia had already turned her head away, and I knew I was too late. “You’ve got a few kangaroos in the top paddock, haven’t you? As long as I remember what I’ve seen between you and Fera I can’t trust you, or be your friend, ever. Things like that… they don’t just end.”
My face twisted into a grimace. “You seriously think we’ve got a thing?”

Talia smiled gorgeously. “Don’t worry,” she cooed in a soothing voice. “You’re not my type, either.”

She opened a door behind her, disappearing into her old room. I stood there for a second, looking as if I had been shot. When I finally dared to knock and enter the room itself, it had been emptied of all of her possessions from clothes to bedsheets. All that was left was an empty bed skeleton, just like the ones I had seen at my abandoned childhood home.

“Talia left,” I uttered helplessly as I joined Severina in the breakfast table. She sat there with an absent gaze, but she wasn’t clearly dreaming – the gears of her mind were constantly turning. “For good. She’s not coming back.”

Severina’s response was so sudden it startled me out of place. “Do you know what this means?”

Eua appeared of the doorway with a large food tray as I replied. “You’ll need a new council member.”
Severina lowered her gaze. “That was not what I was talking about.”

There was a slip of paper between her hands – Liebe ist wie ein Vogel, and I understood what she was thinking. Her thoughts were on her father. Our father.

Eua had pulled up his tray up to the table. The delicious scent of food hovered into my nostrils, but every time I tried to think of kaiyan cuisine, I only could think of earth cakes. “Breakfast?” he asked, and Severina shook her head, her fingers on her temples. I lend Eua an empathetic look, grabbing something from the tray at random. “It is an apple tart,” Eua explained. “You are not allergic, are you?”
I shook my head. “Danke Gott, nein.” I sank my teeth to the delicious pastry, savoring the taste of kaiyan apples. It tasted heavenly until I remembered with whom I had eaten those the previous time.

“What is the decision of the high council?” Eua asked, his hands resting on Severina’s shoulders. There was something comforting in the gesture which made it pleasant to watch. “Will it be like six years ago?”
“Worse,” Severina answered, her nails digging into her forehead. I didn’t quite know what the six years ago break-in had caused, but it had to be something bad. “Further procedures will be chosen off tomorrow.”
As I munched my apple pastry with a lost sense of taste, I acknowledged it was already getting late. “It’s Sunday,” I noted. “Why aren’t we in council?”
“There will be no council today,” Severina’s reply was grave. “And if all turns out as father planned it, there will be no council tomorrow. Or the day after.”

Anger built up inside me, and suddenly I felt no longer like eating. “We can’t let things be like this. We could at least hint the council of Tristen. They could inspect his palace. If we go on like this-“
“We cannot,” Severina began, her eyes straight on mine. “We cannot tell. The council is very sensitive when it comes to such serious insults. I would break the most important of council rules.”

“In favor of balance, wouldn’t it do more good than cause harm?”

Severina pursed her lips together. “Even if the council would inspect father’s palace, they could not find the scrolls. They are of single use only. After they have been read they will cease to exist.”
I felt like I had swallowed too big of a bite out of my pastry. “That’s forsaken stupid,” I exclaimed. “How come has anyone then ever read the scrolls?”
Severina rubbed her forehead as if it could help her think. “That is the danger in them. No-one has ever read the scrolls before.”

There was a silent moment until Severina coughed as if she wanted to be excused, rose up and marched out of the room. I stared blankly at Eua, whose hands were frozen in midair as if he hadn’t noticed her mate leaving yet. “Aren’t you going after her?” I asked, but Eua only shook his head. It had to be a bad omen.

A sigh erupted from my throat and I stared at my own reflection from the tray. I looked like Severina, no matter what Tristen said. I looked like her when I was sad.

“Thanks for the pastry,” I said to Eua, until I turned my back on him and followed Severina upstairs.

I found her up on the roof, leaning on a dangerously low railing separating the tower edge from the gray abyss. Down below the waves crashed onto the shore, the waves of an ocean no-one swam in. Stunned by the fact there was no wind up high, I walked up to Severina and glanced over her shoulder.

“Keine Vogel ohne Flügel fliegt,” Severina recited, turning her eyes to me, “Wie Liebe ohne gleichgewicht. Mother wrote this. I have always tried to interpret it, but have never succeeded well.”
“Liebe ist wie ein Vogel,” I began. “Allzu leicht zu einsparren, allzu schwer zu loslassen.”

Severina’s eyes narrowed. “What is that?”
“It is the beginning of the poem,” I said. “It’s easier to understand as a whole. With hearing only the second part, I would think it would be… so much more hopeless. ‘No bird flies without wings, how to love without balance.’ It’s like a break-up-letter.”

Severina smirked. “The first part? How do you interpret it?”
“Love is a bird,” I translated, staring into the distance, as if trying to decipher flying figures amongst the haze – “It’s a metaphor. Already the following lines describe it. ‘To imprison, too easy, to release, too difficult.’ When I was little, I always thought it was that simple – because loving is hard. But now that I know where mamma’s poems came from… I think she spoke of herself and Tristen. It’s impossible for me to imagine them together, but…”

An idle smile played on Severina’s lips as her fingers stroke the tendril-like letters. “Sometimes I wonder how it all would be if they would meet again.”

My eyes glassed and for a moment I was once again underwater, unable to break the surface of dream.

“When I and Tristen met, he told me of mamma.”
Severina’s eyebrows arched of curiosity.
“That he had been aware that… that mamma is dead. That he felt when she died.”
Severina didn’t seem surprised. “Children of Light are prone to that. Father has always proved his abilities there.”

“But…” I stuttered, yet somewhat awestruck. I had to lean onto the railing not to fall on my knees. “I think he meant something with his words. That mamma’s death wasn’t that simple.”

Severina hummed in agreement, staring thoughtfully at the poem in silence. “As badly as I know her… I can only say this one thing. She did not kill herself.”

I blinked in awe. “The death investigator found traces of medicaments in her blood,” I assured. “I was told she drugged herself to death. What makes you think she didn’t?”
As Severina spoke, the flash of the vital woman spinning her in circles on my childhood yard colored the world. “More than anything else in the world she wanted to live.”

I was fully lost to my thoughts for a while, staring at the hazy abyss with glassed eyes without actually being aware of all the things going on through my mind, until I turned on my heels and almost poked Severina in the eye.

“Did you just call my name?”
Severina shook her head in puzzlement. Perhaps I was hallucinating: standing on the top of a tower in the middle of emptiness was really giving me a headache. “There it is again,” I said, listening to a tiny buzz in my head. “Someone’s definitely calling my name.”

Heat gathered between my ears as if someone had poured hot soup down my ears. I winced. “HILARY! Are you deaf? Get the fuck here or I’ll scorch you up. Now.”

I pressed my temples in perplexity, turning to Severina. “Rilla’s got a problem. I have to go.”
Severina said nothing, but she gave me a slightly apologetic look somehow familiar. It was the same way she had looked at me when she first saw me. As I warped myself to the fire city, I couldn’t help counting how many strange looks I had received since my first moment in Kaiya.

On my way to Nolan’s I ran into an unconscious Darren.

He lay limp under the window of the shocked senior couple, his hipster glasses broken and down his nose. He looked like one of the kids bullied by my high school football team. I almost felt like helping him, at least checking out whether he was fatally wounded, but the mere sight of him sent shivers through me. Seeing an unconscious hipster on your friend’s front yard was never a good omen.

There was a sound of shattering glass and something landed on my feet. A coconut.

“THAT IS ENOUGH!” Nolan screamed. “IN THE NAME OF THE ELEMENTALS, LEAVE MY APARTMENT!”

My eyes flew open, and I threw the door aside with two hands. If Nolan sounded like he was banishing ancient spirits, it had to be bad. But it was worse.

The door to his apartment gaped open, and on my way up the doorsteps I almost tripped over to a pool of something. Chaos unraveled inside. A familiar Asian figure whipped his shirt in the air like a lasso until he ran into a showcase cabinet and a Ming vase fell on his head. Alex had thrown Nolan’s tiger pelt over his back like a cape and he wielded a samurai knife with a wild glow in his eyes. The worst sight of all was to see Nolan – Nolan who never could be hurt by anyone – tied to a refrigerator with a familiar glowing string. For a mere second I only stared at the sight, my hands fallen to my sides and my mouth wide open. Then I screamed.

“Hilary,” Alex smiled as he turned around his eyes shining. “You’re just in time for the climax!”
“Alex,” I breathed unbelievingly. “What have you done?”
“We decided to throw a surprise party,” Alex said. “It’s Nolan’s birthday today!”
“A surprise party?” I exclaimed, suddenly aware that everyone was staring at me. “This isn’t a party. This is a siege! Party rule number one: DON’T KILL ANYBODY!”
“No-one’s dead,” Alex answered. “Kyle’s just passed out, that’s all.” He pointed his sword at Nolan. “Now, the climax!” He raised the blade. I threw my hands over my head, but Nolan only looked annoyed. “I announce you… KING!”

The strings around Nolan’s limbs snapped, and fifty people out of nowhere ran to hug him. A choir of muddled congratulations filled the room, all the way from “Nolan, you’re the man!” to “Hey dude, I don’t really know your name, but… HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY!”

When the room cleared, I pointed out two figures from the very corner of the room. When Rilla met my eyes, she dashed to me with watered eyes, still wearing her nightgown. Shattered sentences scrambled from her mouth and I indentified only single words. Chyse stood still in the corner of the room with an alien glint in his eyes. “Let’s resolve this out. What happened?”
Rilla clutched her fists stubbornly. “Alex… I hate that guy! He… he and his group of friends just came in. Just like that. Then it all went out of control. They started throwing stuff and breaking places. And then Nolan was tied up and there was nothing we could do.”

“What about the guardians? Couldn’t you call Hestia to help? Or at least the police?”
Rilla looked mad as she spoke. “No. They’re too busy after the scrolls were taken. Somehow I feel like this isn’t the right time to celebrate Nolan’s birthday.”

“Or anything,” I added. “But it is his birthday, after all?”

“Yeah. Well, at least they still have their clothes on. This is nothing like the orgy in New York three years ago.”
I raised my hands up reflexively. Don’t tell, I signaled.
In the kitchen direction I notified Nolan had been freed from his pain. He leaned helplessly on the table, his head in his hands. Time by time some annoying kid came and gave him a thumbs-up, but most of them ignored him. All focus was on Alex, who looked like the statue of Medusa with his droopy dreadlocks and crazy eyes. I still remembered the faint image of the blonde mountain in the council and shivered. Was that what happened to all of the former councelors? They went mad?

“Alex,” I called across the room. He paid no attention. “Alex. Come here.” Yet no attention. “Alexander…” I turned to Rilla, poking her with my elbow. “What’s his last name?” Rilla answered me. “Férrier. ALEXANDER FÉRRIER!”

The boy whirled around as a blur of white gold, running to meet me halfway across the room. He was followed by his usual entourage of Yin, Becca and Christo. On his way he dropped his tiger cape and stuck the samurai sword through like he had been the one to slay the beast. “Yes?”
I sighed to the absurdness of the situation. Just like Fera who had also grown up with my father, he was a bad listener, but they had nothing else in common. While Fera was very remote and introvert, Alex was the opposite. Unlike Fera, he wanted to be noticed.

“Alex…” I began, staring nervously at his restless companions – they all looked like they were high on caffeine. “We really appreciate that you decided to throw Nolan a surprise party. But it’s just not the right time.”
Alex pursed his lips together like he was thinking, but it didn’t last for long. “We have to move on,” he said. “This is different. This is Nolan’s party.”
Becca, a short girl with a dark complexion blinked her charcoal eyes. “Alex is right. It’s not like we’re partying the fall of the council.”
I raised my brows at her words. “Who is your councelor, by the way?”

She raised a finger as if the thought had just occurred her. “Hestia. Like Nolan’s!”
The Asian guy, Yin, raised his hands to give her a double-high-five. Even Alex was starting to lose his attention. He was staring at his own reflection off a cabinet like it was the first time he ever saw himself. Getting some sense to them was as impossible as it had been trying to convince Tristen to give up his plans. Momentarily I got caught in a memory, not noticing Alex had turned his focus to me.

“You look sad,” he said. “Why don’t you party with us?”
I tried hopelessly to find some sense in his gray-green eyes. “Just like I said, this isn’t a party. As long as you keep throwing coconuts through windows and playing with weapons I’ll stand right here and watch. Do you even understand what parties are about? Maybe you’ve been in too many to forget their true meaning.”
Alex stared at the slaughtered tiger pelt almost empathetically, like he had been there to watch it die.

“They’re about fun,” I explained. “They’re about having a good time together, enjoying life as we are, not constantly under the influence or in some maniacal frenzy for blood. Do you understand me?”

A glint of understanding flashed in his eyes, but it was as soon replaced with drunken dizziness.

“Whatever,” he said, picking up a spear from the ground and pointing towards the doorway. “COMPANIONS!” He shouted, and half of the room turned their attention towards him. “WE ARE LEAVING!”

A choir of sighs filled the air, but amongst them I could also hear roars of mirth as the fifty-head group of partygoers exit the doors. Before the doors slammed shut behind them, someone whirled around like he had forgotten something. “Whose party is this again?”
“Whatever,” Alex said, raising his spear. From the windows I could see passed-out Darren being dragged with them like he was crowd-surfing in his sleep. “WHATEVER!” The crowd yelled in accord, leaving the apartment as ghastly as a city wiped down by a tornado.

Rilla leaned against a cabinet behind her. “If I could describe this with a song, it would be called ‘fuck my life.’ Here’s how it goes: ‘fuck you all!’”

My shoulders slumped with exhaustion at I stared at the silent chaos, listening to the hum in my ears. Exchanging a gaze with Nolan who had just raised his head off the table, I bended down to pick up the pieces of a broken Ming vase. “’When it’s all over we still have to clear up.’”

23: the elemental feast

hui kamala, mulla alkaa tulla kiire. tänään oon lueskellu bilsaa ja pitäis vielä alotella ranskaa kunhan oon syöny. huomennakaan ei välttämättä oo aikaa kirjottamiseen. oiskohan se sitten perjantaina? täytyy kyllä alottaa ruotsin:n lukeminen joskus mutta... no, toivotaan parasta. ei tässä nyt muuta voi kuin postata uuden luvun. tässä nyt eräs luvussa mainituista kappaleista snow patrolilta.:)

Chapter Twenty-three

The music was like listening to the sounds of the earth itself: plants rooting, trees growing, flowers opening their petals. Gravel crushing against gravel, the sound of dirt and grass. It was a symphony of survival, a symphony of life.

While Rilla sang about all those things, Nolan explained me the differences between Elemental bands. Earth bands were all known to use earthern instruments: drums, woodwind instruments and sounds of the human body, whileas wind bands sounded ethereal with their wind chimes and harps. Light bands were known to produce almost magnetic hums and ambient sounds. Nolan was just about to begin his explanation of fire bands, when the band quit playing and the guy in the emerald tuxedo threw his drumsticks in the air, yelling: “DRINK BREAK!” causing the crowd to go wild. A flutist popped open a champagne bottle, pouring foam over the front row watchers. They opened their mouths like a flock of hungry sharks.

“Is this always like this?”
Nolan pressed his lips together. “Yes, always.”

A blonde girl dressed in a waterline-length dress as shiny as a beetle’s shell offered us shots colored like poisonous acid. Nolan knocked back the glass, his face twisting into a grimace. “Green wine,” he frowned, apparently displeased by the taste. “I hate it.”
“Green wine?” I asked, staring bewildered at the drink in my hands. I could still remember the feeling the fountain water had brought me, though I couldn’t memorize the taste. I turned around, offering the drink ahead to the first random person at sight. The band members had started to harass Rilla with bottles of clear liquor, which she refused repeatedly. She pointed towards the fountain and jumped off the stage. I dragged Nolan along towards her direction.

“This party is out of control,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t want to imagine how the band sounds three hours later.”

Me neither. I raised my gaze, finding it had started to become darker. Despite all the alcohol being poured around us the air smelled clean. Perhaps it was how the earth palace was: somehow always clear despite what happened around it.

We reached the fountain soon. At the water Rilla pulled out an empty bottle off the ground and filled it up. “The band members just don’t get it. Not everyone in this world is a drunken jackass who wants to ride their champagne bottle naked into the moon.”
“Perhaps they only wait for solidarity,” I shrugged. “You could drink something to please them.”
Rilla’s denial was sharp. “I don’t drink anymore. After what… you know.”

She capped her bottle, strolling back towards the stage. I sat idly next to the fountain, my eyes monitoring at the teenagers around me. Kaiyans and earthlings weren’t really that different when it came to drinking. In their very essence every teenager had the same kinds of problems. And in their very essence so many teens mistook alcohol being a resolution to them all.

“There she is!”

“Mein Gott,” I voiced, hiding behind Nolan as I saw them approaching. Alex, carrying several liquor bottles to each hand accompanied by a group of teens around his age had suddenly appeared out of nowhere. “It’s time to introduce you to the kaiyan ways…”
“OF PAR-TEEH!” Howled a really drunk Asian guy wearing a green shirt with the text ‘KISS ME, I’M AN EARTH-CHILD!’ on it. “What’s her name again?” he slurred in a heavy accent.

“Hilary,” an afro-haired guy in hipster glasses recited with satisfaction. “I love you, Hilary!”
“Alex, what is this?” I said, staring bewilderedly at all the random people around me. “Have you introduced me to half of Kaiya?”
“Only my best friends,” he began with a smile, flailing at the people around him. “Christo, Yin, Becca… and Kyle!”
“It’s Darren,” the hipster guy said. “I love you, Hilary!” he repeated.

“Whatever, Kyle,” Alex said, approaching me so fast I had no time to react. The next thing I knew was I had been lifted in the air by four people I had never seen before, ready to throw me into-

“Alex,” my voice trembled, and I exchanged a helpless look with Nolan, who apparently didn’t know what to do. “You’re drunk, don’t do-“

And then my head was underwater, my limbs all around me, trying to grab hold of the edges, pull me up. The water broke around me and my head emerged to the surface. It dripped cold and wet around me, gluing my hair into my forehead. My mouth tasted like dirt.

“Forsaken shithead,” I cussed, sprouting water like a miniature fountain. “Somehow I can understand he’s grown up with my-“
“Hilary, calm down,” Nolan said, holding a hand out. “He’s drunk.”
“Why do the guardians allow stuff like this? Where’s Aes? What the hell is going on?”

Nolan lifted me out of the water with a nervous look. Somehow my clothes were very much dry where he had touched me. “It’s a question of free will,” he said. “They test their suitability this way. The more competent an earthling is, the less the earthling drinks.”
“What a shitty way to test anything,” I said, shaking the droplets off my hair like a wet dog. The band had started to play again, and instead of running around wildly, the teens had gathered to dance in one spot. Here and there I could spot lonely youngsters just chilling around while some sat together with their friends away from the public. The doors to the earth palace were guarded by Aurelia and Argenta, who apparently were in the middle of checking out a group of shirtless guys near them. Aes was nowhere to be seen. I stared at the twin sisters with curiosity, the same way I looked at Severina these days – trying to spot identical features to mine. One of them apparently felt my gaze, because a second later was I was exchanging a look with them. “I’ll go talk to them,” I muttered before one of Nolan’s male acquaintances could reach us. The twin sisters giggled as they saw my wet hair but I ignored it. It wasn’t my fault anyway.

“You got soaked,” one of them, the low-voiced spoke. “Wild guess: Alex?”
“Correct guess,” I sighed. “He’s an idiot.”
“We know,” the twins spoke in monotone. “Argenta dated him once.”
The low-voiced sibling, Argenta, rolled her eyeballs. They were a very deep earthly brown. “He has got no brains under those pretty dreadlocks of his.”
“Quite a few of the boys in the feasts have brains,” Aurelia acknowledged. I was starting to pick up slight differences in the two: the tone of their voice, the twitches of their lips and eyebrows. Faraway they would have looked like clones, they both having their hands on their hips, but close-up they had differences. “But I can’t deny they are candy to the eye.”
I sighed. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-five,” the siblings repeated.

My eyes widened. “Oh,” I exclaimed, trying to picture Aes inside my head – he had always looked older to me. “That’s what I thought.”
Yet they all acted like teenagers, I thought. Nothing like Severina.

The two stared simultaneously in the distance. Nolan was no longer at the fountain. Alex had jumped on the stage and danced wildly with Darren-the-hipster. Rilla had immersed herself into her song: it was a tune which had something familiar in it, as if it had parts of something I had heard on Earth. Her eyes were closed and there was sweat on her temples as she gave all of her to the melody. Not very far from us, one of the shirtless guys had chosen to urine in a flower bed. “Father won’t like that,” Aurelia acknowledged, her eyes flashing. “He knows.”
“Father knows everything,” Argenta added. “It’s like he’s rooted to the earth and the earth speaks through him.”
“It’s terrifying how much Aes reminds me of him,” said Aurelia. “He’ll become just like him.”
I turned to her with curiosity. “How is he different?”
“He’s the councelor in training,” Aurelia continued in a vague tone. “There are things he learns we don’t. He learns to channel the earth in new ways. He’ll become the human vessel through the Elemental speaks.”
The human vessel, I repeated inside my mind, cold currents running through me. Terrible, inhumane images ran over my eyes. “Where is he now?”
“Aes?” Argenta repeated. “Probably with father. Learning to become a guardian. That kind of stuff.”
I nodded, staring into emptiness. Something scratched my senses, moved in my eyes, hummed between my ears. But I heard nothing until someone slapped my cheek. It was Nolan – he had appeared next to me, replacing Argenta and Aurelia, who were now gone.

“Hilary!” he hissed, shaking my shoulders. He was incredibly strong – I could imagine him easily being able to throw me through the house if he wanted to. “Rilla’s calling us. On stage.”
“What?” I repeated, but had no time to think. We hurried through the crowd and up the stairs, now wet of champagne. Rilla smiled enthrallingly, her hair glowing wild red against the lanterns like I always imagined it. “I own the next song to my friends,” she said, a brave light in her eyes. From the way she looked at us I could tell she wasn’t high – yet she acted in a way I never would have dared in front of a hundred people. “Hilary and Nolan, do you have any proposals? Anything.”
“Nothing, unless you want to sing Like A Virgin,” Nolan shrugged. His eyes turned to me.

“Anything?” I asked slowly, trying to keep my eyes alone on Rilla to miss the fact we were standing on a stage under countless eyes. “I don’t know do you know it… but it’s my favorite song. Do you know Chasing Cars?”
“By Snow Patrol?” Rilla asked. “Of course I know it. I know every single song there is. I’m a musician, don’t forget it.”
And then she turned towards the audience, singing the first words of my favorite song. To my surprise, the band could play with after a short while, only with a few flaws. Their red cheeks and foreheads showed they were clearly high, their bloodshot eyes that they had cried. I knew how the night would end – they would lean to each other bawling when making their ending bow and join into a hug like it were the last time they would ever see each other again.

When I watched at the band play together in (almost) perfect harmony, the audience sway to the music, couples lean into each other their eyes closed not caring which element they represented, I realized what the Elemental feast was all about: unity. In that moment all was only green and brown, only earthly figures dancing together to the music like leaves to wind. In that moment there was only pure energy.

That was also the moment when I saw him.

He stood in between two trees in the darkness, close to the gates. Unless the light of the lanterns would have reflected off his eyes I could have never seen him. They shone in the night like two silver coins.

I found my words forming his name soundlessly. The gazes of the audience burned hot on my cheeks, but I couldn’t get my eyes off him. Rilla was in the third chorus, her eyes closed as she sang.
And then I ran, pushing myself through the crowd, the swaying bodies of the drunken teenagers. The lights flared in my eyes as blinding flashes, swirling fireflies through the air. The music made the air vibrate, resonate together with the earth’s rhythm. My heartbeat was everywhere, and when I reached him I could only hear the blood pounding in my ears.

“She is a good singer,” were his first words. He leaned slackly against a tree trunk, looking refreshed.

“It’s not why you are here,” I said, staring at the way he was dressed. I could notice he had changed his clothes to a green tee and pants the same color. This time they were his size. “Where did you get those from?”
“I heard there was a party tonight,” he answered. “These were the best clothes I could come up with.”
“You didn’t steal them?”
Fera’s eyebrows furrowed. “Steal? Why? I am not a thief.”
“Yeah,” I breathed with exhaustion. “If you still sleep in a ditch, how come can you look so… fresh?”
Fera smiled idly, picking his fingernails. Normally it could have been an arrogant gesture, but his eyes didn’t leave mine. “I am very sure it is not why you decided to come to me. Have you thought of my offer?”
“An offer?” I repeated incredulously. “Is that what you call it?”
“Well?”
A sigh erupted deep from my throat as I took a leaning position. “I still haven’t decided what I think of you.”
“But could it work?”
“Could what work?” I raised my tone. “We… nothing can become of me and you, of us, if that’s what you think. Don’t you listen to the lyrics? ‘I don’t know where, confused about how as well, just know that these things will never change for us at all.’ It’s how I think of you.”
Fera tilted his shoulders nonchalantly. “Oh yes, I listened to the lyrics. I listened to them well. They also say ‘All that I am, all that I ever was, is here in your perfect eyes, they’re all I can see.’”

I could feel my cheeks flushing. “Are you hitting on me?”
Fera’s laugh was indefinable. “It is how I think of you. When I look into your eyes I see myself. I see a part of me which I have lost.”
A huff of exasperation escaped between my lips. The band began to play ‘I Could Stay Away Forever’, and I sighed mentally of relief. At least it didn’t have any ambiguous lyrics. “You make me mad! It’s like… like trying to make a contract with someone who speaks a different language. They’ll start offering you coconuts and bananas in exchange of golden coins and- why are you laughing?”
“What are you talking about? You should hear yourself!”

I buried my head in my hands with an exclamation. “Shut up! Don’t make fun of my way of speech!”
Fera passed a hand over his face like he was wiping off the tears of joy. “Let’s make this easier,” he began, pointing at a spot little further away in the woods, a spot between two stones which looked like a great hideout. “Let’s go over there.”
“No way,” my eyes widened as I thought of the broken branches Nolan had been talking about. “I’m not going out there.”
“Are you afraid of the dark?”
“No,” I exclaimed. “I just don’t want to get eaten.”
“By who? Me?” Fera asked amusedly. “We have already gone through this. I am human, human just like you. I promise not to scratch your wrists open or suck your neck-“
“Human boys do that too,” I raised my brows. “Are you quite sure of this?”
There was begging in Fera’s eyes. “Did you follow me off the stage only to turn down every offer I make? You could need regular company. I can see your friends out there are not in their most presentable state.”
I glanced over my shoulder and saw Alex in the distance, now shirtless, running around the yard after a horde of giggling girls who apparently had also been soaked. Some guy looking disturbingly like Nolan watched a group of older guys pour foam into the fountain. The band members were struggling to hit their notes right, and I still couldn’t see Aes.

“Won’t they see us from there?”
“They won’t,” Fera assured, his eyes on my still wet hair. Alex and the girls were disturbingly close to us, and I rather would have not run into him again that night. Or ever.

And compared to a shithead like him, wasn’t Fera quite… nice?
“Very well,” I agreed, following him deeper to the woods. The haze hung in the distance, making the deepest of the woods only green and black, but right above us there was a starry spot, and beneath the roof the foliage gave the forest stars shone unbelievably bright and white.

When we got to the stones, Fera sat in between them, his head resting on moist lichen like a pillow. As he gestured me to sit next to him, the lyrics of Chasing Cars rang in my head. ‘If I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?’

There was distance between us and the air was cold, but I didn’t feel it. I only looked at the stars, the sounds of the party ringing somewhere in the background, like I was floating millions of miles away.

“Now, talk,” Fera said.
”What?”
“Anything,” his voice reduced to a whisper. Somehow in that second I was very sure no-one was aware of us being there, like we were little children hiding in their fortress built of blankets. “Just like you spoke to me when we first met. Just… talk.”
In the distance a star blinked right before clouds passed over it. “Sometimes when I was little I and mamma went outside in the night to watch the stars,” I began, pausing. “There’s something in their light which was comforting. We would just lay there for hours, hand in hand, watching clouds drift over us. My mamma would talk to me about the earth and how she loved the feel of the grass under her skin: that if she could, she would be a part of it. And I never understood her because I could only see the stars and close my eyes, still seeing them. And I would breathe the night-air and lay on my place until I lost touch off the tips of my toes and felt immaterial, like light – like wind. In some other way, everywhere.”
There was a silence and I turned my head into Fera’s direction. I noticed he had been looking at me all the time I had spoken.

“Why do you do this?” I asked, my voice but a breath of cool air. “How-“
Fera silenced me by raising a finger. “Shh,” he cooed, his eyes on me. For some reason there was nothing awkward in the moment, as idiotic as it sounded – hiding between two stones inside the woods when there was a party around us. “The air,” Fera spoke, his words departing as a puff of vapor. “Doesn’t it feel cold?”
“No,” I said almost soundlessly. “It feels… good. To be blunt,” I laughed sharply, closing my eyes, “I feel better than I’ve felt for days. All this stressing out… it’s been killing me. Everything’s changed so fast. Suddenly I have to be something I’ve never been before… someone’s friend, someone’s sister, someone’s daughter. And in the same time I’m expected to decide whether my friends are really good for me, whether my sister acts like a sister enough to call her one, whether my father really is who he is claimed to be. I know you can’t understand a thing, but you don’t care, I guess. All this picking on you… it’s not how I wanted it to be. I don’t want things to be this way.”
“They don’t have to be that way,” said Fera. Things don’t have to be anything. I don’t want you to become anything you aren’t for me or for anyone else. Just-“
But now it was my time to silence him. I rolled over, sealing his lips with a finger. His eyes widened, but he said nothing, and I rose up gently, sitting next to him.

“I accept your offer,” I said. “We may see each other again. But there is one condition.”
Fera got up, leaning onto his knees. “And what is that?”

“That things will never change between us,” I continued. “I know it is impossible. After we take you to the council on Sunday, Hestia will probably somehow be able to awaken your memories or at least make you remember your element. You will move together with your guardian. Perhaps even become a councelor. Perhaps find your old self and find out you have never seen me before, that I only look like someone you have known. Perhaps you will forget me. But my only wish right now is that things would be like this always, that we could meet at nighttime and watch the stars and for a swift second forget there is a world around us. And until things change my wish lives.”
Fera’s expression was indefinable as he looked at me through a fountain of dark hair. The sounds around us were starting to recover, his voice become distant. “I accept your condition,” he replied after a pause, pulling his hair beneath his ears. “But before I leave, there is one thing you should know. I know you. It’s not just an illusion, just a trick of mind. It’s the very first thing I knew when I saw you. And you know me too.”
“Yes,” I answered quickly as I rose up on my feet. “I know you. You remind me of mamma.”
There was a long silence when we only stared at each other bewilderedly, like the world around us was beginning to fall and it were the last thing we could do. When I finally blinked my eyes noticing they had started to water, he had already turned around and walked into the haze.

The first thing I realized when returning back to the party was the time had passed.

Instead of the familiar band members on the stage, some amateur musicians had grabbed huge bass drums and played with them like joyous children. Despite all the drinks spilled the ground was empty of all litter and looked as perfect as it had when we had arrived. The fountain had turned into a huge bubble bath, and naked teenagers – both boys and girls, swam in it like it was a gigantic hot tub. Some youngsters were passed out on the yard in the most bizarre places, but none of them were familiar. The first two people I ran into were Aurelia and Argenta, who both had wetlooks like Alex had stuffed their heads into the fountain too.

“You’re still here,” Aurelia said amusedly as she saw me stroll out of the woods. “I thought you left together with your friends.”
“Nolan and Rilla left already?” I asked. “When?”
“Around half an hour ago,” Argenta estimated. “Rilla looked okay – she shone, but she wasn’t really pleased with Nolan’s condition. Apparently he had too much green wine to drink.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t of his free will,” I said, thinking of how official Nolan had seemed in the beginning of the evening. “How about the others? Have you seen Chyse? Or Talia?”
The siblings shook their heads simultaneously. “We were going to ask you a same type of question. Have you seen Aes?”
My eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “You said he went training with your father,” I began. “Wasn’t he there?”
“Well,” Aurelia sighed, “Our father wasn’t actually in the mood to talk – he just feels ashamed right now, but we trust him as he said he hadn’t seen Aes the whole evening. When was the last time you saw him?”

“Hours ago,” I answered, remembering the nervous girl in her red, bouncy curls. “Just before a guest threw up into the fountain. Just before he followed you he told me we’d meet again tonight, that he had more riddles to tell.”
The twin’s expression was all confusion. Something in that look didn’t feel right – it made me feel rigid inside, just like Rilla must have felt when he thought Chyse had gone missing.

“He never followed us to the fountain,” they spoke in monotone.

“That’s… awkward,” I croaked, my mouth dry. “Everyone’s suddenly gone. First Talia, then Circus, Chyse – and now Aes. It’s hard to believe they’d be holding a party of their own somewhere.”
“A strange coincidence,” either of the siblings spoke. I didn’t pay attention to whom – my gaze was fixed into emptiness, where the fountain figures frolicked like ignorant children. The night air hadn’t felt cold before, but a breeze was beginning to freeze me from within. Shivers ran down my spine.

“It’s starting to get cold,” Aurelia said, noticing my goosebumps. “Unless you are willing to join the pool party-“
“It’s smarter to go home,” I finished the sentence. “I think I’m too sober to do anything else. But it was a nice party. Perhaps someday teens will learn to enjoy life without alcohol. But I think I got the point. It’s unity.”
The siblings smiled. “You’re smart. That’s what a councelor needs.”
“Yeah,” I gave a laugh, thinking of Alex in his angelic dreadlocks. “Unlike that shithead Alex. I guess we’ll be seeing each other on Sunday in the council summoning.”
The twins nodded, giving me a final glance. But before I could turn towards the gates which awaited me like a gaping mouth, Argenta spoke. “One last advice,” she said, pointing at a couple of teens who were apparently heading the same way as I. “Don’t go alone.”

22: absolute

olen tänään erittäin kiireinen ja koneeni on laginen, joten saatte tyytyä (jälleen kerran) pelkkään lukuun. luvassa on kuitenkin tulossa mitä viihdyttävin luku pitkiin aikoihin:) koska piirroksia en ehdi skannata (lukemaan!) laitan teille vähän lukuun liittyvää kuvastoa googlesta. (voi ei, nyt näen koko ajan chysen ja nolanin tuossa kuvassa:::D)

Chapter Twenty-two

I had always preferred bright colors over murkier ones. That was the reason I hated Rilla’s chosen dress at first sight.

“It’s… gray,” I stammered, as Rilla held an over-knee-length two-shoulder strapped Roman style dress in front of her. Her face was all a smile. “It’s olive green, not gray,” she said, but it was all the same for me. It was the type of dress which would only highlight my non-existent curves. I could have as well been wearing suspended pants. I knew I should have lied only not to hurt Rilla, but I wasn’t like that. “It’s nice,” I found myself saying, “But isn’t it more of your style?”
Rilla tilted her head like she couldn’t understand my comment. ”You should at least try it on. I could backcomb your hair.”
Thanks, but no thanks! “Uhm… yeah. Maybe we should get dressed.”
Rilla smiled approvingly, handing me the dress and pushing me inside a changing room. After fitting the dress on I studied myself from the floor-length mirror. The dress was perhaps meant to be ankle-length, but to a person of my height it only reached my knees. It was the style of dress I could have imagined Rilla wearing during her concerts. One thing in it was positive: it drained the gold of my eyes and made them look browner. Just like Severina’s.

When I pushed the curtains aside Rilla had changed from her black tee and jeans into a gorgeous cocktail dress with lacy petal patterns – something I even could have imagined myself wearing. Nolan leaned on the doorway impatiently wearing a brown shirt under a tux. He had one hand over his stomach and looked like a hungry lion. “Food,” he said, and a sigh erupted from my throat. “We just ate two hours ago,” I reminded him, but he only shrugged his shoulders. “You’re like a teenage boy,” I muttered, pulling on my brown patterned jacket to prevent me from catching a cold. The weather had started to get chilly, and the sky was completely clear and blue like Aurora’s eyes.

My first impression of The Cities had been very confusing: all had been so much the same, yet so different. Now, that I was used to it, I noticed they weren’t so similar after all. Nolan’s home wasn’t very far from the dress store. It had taken us only ten minutes to notice how the old-fashioned ocher houses had changed into familiar buildings of The Cities. While Rilla and I called a cab, Nolan visited a Chinese restaurant called THE DRAGON. When the silver cab finally pulled up it took us nearly five minutes to stuff in all the rice and pork Nolan had bought for himself. The driver coughed displeasingly for several times, but his expression changed as I presented him a handful of elemental tokens. The next minute we were already on the road: Nolan munching his pork with a satisfied expression while Rilla played idly with her chopsticks without touching her sushi. “I have no appetite,” she said, staring vaguely at her black stiletto shoes. “You can have them.”
“Thank you!” Nolan mumbled, devouring the plate in a time which was possible only for a very hungry man. I glared at him with confusion, and his free hand (which wasn’t focused on eating) pulled out a cup of chicken noodles. “Eat this and stop glaring.”
I shrugged amusedly, eating while the scenery of The Cities passed by my eyes. The earth city was almost on the other side of Kaiya, and it took us nearly an hour to get there. The change could clearly be seen in the buildings: instead of concrete and stone they were soon only wood, and the further we went the more ascetic they became: dirt and clay, some even not resembling houses at all.

It was two PM when we exited the cab and found ourselves on a square which resembled some sort of pagan altar. “Why did we come here first place?” I found myself asking. Nolan’s answer was quite simple. “The party doesn’t begin until three. I thought we could kill time. This is the Earth square. This is where I promised to meet Circus.”
“And if she doesn’t show up in an hour-“
“Then she is not coming,” Nolan answered. “It’s as simple as that.”

With a sigh I sat down on the stone wall, waving my feet over the ground. Even for a party I couldn’t have given up my combat boots. “You told you two were old friends,” I began curiously, thankful of the fact Nolan (most probably) didn’t have any weapons with him. “How old? Are you sure there really-“
“No,” Nolan’s denial was blunt. “There is nothing between us.” Then he sat down, his broad shoulders tense. “We met when we were only children. We grew up together. They were the times when Ariel and Hestia were just building their relationship. It was common for the fire children to visit the Water palace and other way around.”
“The Water palace…” I began, remembering the white castle in the lake. “It’s built in water, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Nolan answered. “There is always water in the throne room. Thank the Elementals the residential wing is a floor upward.”
“I kind of understand why Hestia is always wearing those thigh-length boots,” Rilla commented. “And Ariel often has no shoes at all. I often wonder if she really is a mermaid.”
“Except that mermaids don’t exist,” said Nolan. “Circus and I are around the same age. She was my first friend. We learned this world together. We shared all our secrets. She also taught me. Her whole family is originally from Kaiya. She has never seen Earth. This is her world.”
“Wow,” I raised my brows. “Doesn’t that make her like… super professional?”
”I could say so,” Nolan nodded. “She, after all, is a councelor in training. Most of guardians are born kaiyans.” With the exception of my family, I thought. “It’s because of her I have never questioned the differences of this world and Earth.”
Rilla had laid her gaze down and a fountain of auburn hair fell on her face as she spoke.  “Sometimes I envy Nolan,” she said. “My first thoughts of Kaiya were positive – it’s because of the veil, I’ve been told, that the transition happens so unnoticed and because the basic essence of these worlds is the same – and because they also mirror each other: it’s very easy to find things here which resemble something on Earth, find reasons to unanswerable questions. But then… when I heard about the Elementals, that I could summon one if I could… well, I just thought I was in the middle of a bad joke, that fate was probably having a good time laughing at my epic misfortune. I’ve been asking those questions of myself. What would the people on Earth think if they knew of this world? They would do anything to get here.”

“’Just another world for them to destroy’”, Nolan quoted. “Cheres.”
“He’s like the Aristotle of this world. He was a famous Earth philosopher,” I added.

“He’s someone I’ve never understood,” Rilla continued. “He’s so… distant. Godlike. It’s how the council still is to me. Hestia’s always been like a mother, but when it comes to council business, she lapses into this superhuman-mode and it’s like she’s suddenly speaking another language. Sometimes I’ve asked her why the high council exists, what the council really does. They say it’s existed as long as anyone can remember, and it exists to preserve balance. But I think its bull-“
“Enough,” Nolan exclaimed, his hands behind his neck. “Enough.”
“That’s just what I’m talking about,” Rilla huffed. “Every time the discussion comes to this-“That’s enough,” I said with a look of exasperation. “Leave him alone.”
Rilla’s expression was bewildered, her voice but a whimper. “Why are you standing up to him? I thought you thought the same.”
I thought about it. Maybe it was because in some sense I understood Nolan. Rilla was correct: I was similar to her, angry when I was ignorant. But Nolan wasn’t keeping everything for us for no reason. The truth he knew was the only truth. If someone would deny it, the world view he had been building since a child would have toppled down. Even when I would have known the answer, I never got a chance to say it.

“Nolan!”
We all raised our gazes at once, and my very first impression was I was staring at a ghost:

The sun flared off his long blonde hair as a blinding aura, and he was dressed in a long almost translucent robe. As he took a step closer my eyes grew used to the light and I recognized him. He was the low-voiced mountain I had met when I first stood before the council. This time he wasn’t dressed as a light councelor, but I still remembered him as one. My senses instinctively sharpened.

“Alexander,” Nolan greeted, standing up and shaking hands with him in a kaiyan way. “Going to the Feast?”
Alexander nodded. “I remember you,” he said, turning into my direction. “You are the new darkness councelor.”
“Hilary,” I reminded him while I stood up. Alexander offered me a hand, smiling beneath his long dreadlocks. “Call me Alex. Nice dress.”
There was a loud cough from Rilla’s direction, and I struggled not to laugh.

“You used to be a light councelor,” I took his hand. “What happened?”
Alex’s smile didn’t fade. “There was someone better. I got replaced.”
“Didn’t that feel terrible?”
“No,” Alex shrugged. “Actually I still feel quite as I did as councelor. It’s like a part of me which can never really be taken away. And I can still visit my guardian if I want. I just can’t go to the council meetings.”
“How was he, then?”
“Tristen?” Alex questioned. “He is a good guardian. Sometimes I think I’m like the son he never had.”
Suddenly my head felt very heavy like I had spent too much time with my algebra book. There was a hum between my ears. “That’s… great,” I said blankly. There was a pause which felt awkward to me, but Alex didn’t seem to notice. He turned into Nolan’s direction without further thinking, his eyes shining in the bright light. They were green with a hint of gray. “Where is Circus? Aren’t you taking her this time?”
“She’s not coming,” Nolan answered, plucking the hairs off his tux as if he had worn it on a filled tiger. “I am taking Rilla.”
“My avec isn’t coming either,” Alex shrugged. “Apparently she had something better to do.”

“You could take Hilary,” Rilla suggested. I raised a finger warningly, but she took no notice. “She’s going alone too.”
“It’s all solved then,” Alex said with a smile. If his voice weren’t so low he would have reminded me of a cute hippie playing his guitar. “Let’s get going.”
He pulled on a large mossy green hood and disappeared in a bright flash.

“I still can’t deny that looks creepy,” Rilla said, spreading her hands. The air smelled like electricity. “Take hold.”
When I took hold of Rilla’s hand it felt warm: the touch sent tingling stitches through me like I was poked with tiny needles. For a second I was worried she would burst into flames. There was a moment of painful warmth which died almost instantly. I opened my eyes instinctively and knew we were already there. And I had felt no trace of wind.

The very first thing I was aware was the air.

There were different smells to places. Homes smelled of laundry and food and people, schools like lead and paper and the sweat of the football team. There were different smells to cities. The city air was a concoction of it all, accompanied with smoke, alcohol, poison. The contrast between the city air and the forest air was remarkable. It was completely pure of everything artificial. The very first breath of it refreshed my senses as if I had dived into cold water. It made the place sacred, ancient. It was how Earth had smelled before humans.

“There is only one thing I hate about this place,” Rilla commented. “It’s because it’s so pure. After a while in here everything in The Cities smells like crap.”
“And this isn’t even the most sacred part of the land,” Nolan said. “It’s a drastic difference.”
I took a quick look around. We stood on a completely natural forest road. The trees were very tall and thin, like earthly needles piercing the sky. Lanterns floated in the hazy air like fireflies. It was as if they formed… a pattern.

“Let me guess,” I began, bewildered by the silence. “Follow the lanterns?”
“Correct,” Alex grinned, strolling forward. His long robe got stuck in twigs and he almost fell over a branch, but his smile didn’t falter. I couldn’t help smiling while I promenaded through the woods without problems. There were no better shoes than combat boots.

“It’s going to be a long walk,” Rilla said gleefully while he watched Alex drag a hummock of moss with him. “Warping never takes close enough.”
“I’m starting to get worried,” I acknowledged. “A rave in the woods? All the drunken teens will be devoured by bears.”
“Or impaled by broken branches if they’re not careful,” Nolan added. “But usually they stay close to the palace area. Unless they want to make out in the dark,” he raised his eyebrows in Rilla’s direction.

“Fuck you,” Rilla smiled, striding ahead us both so he reached Alex. The two exchanged glances and I couldn’t help wondering whether his look of amusement was something he had learned of my father.

When we at last reached the gates Alex looked like he had wrestled a troll with his shaggy hair and rippled robe. It, however, didn’t seem to reduce his charm – three girls ran up to him the second he entered the gates. “See you later!” he called, disappearing behind a large stone fountain.

“That was fast,” Nolan stated while scanning the environment. The Earth palace, or ‘she’ like guardians said, was nothing like I had imagined it. I had thought of some sort of bungalow built inside a tree, but there was a certain humaneness in the palace. It was a large stone building with several floors and wings. Vines climbed the walls like veins in marble, and a large oak reached low over the building, looking almost as if it grew a part of it.

Even though it wasn’t yet noon the yard was beginning to fill up with teenagers in camouflage dresses, chattering in a casual manner just like teens did on Earth. There were no visible gates to the yard, but the trees circled it as if they knew the invisible boundaries. Behind the palace the forest looked awfully dark and dense. The type of forest which would consume you and never spit you out.

Nolan led us on a tour through the yard. Large lanterns circled the fountain as a bright circle of light. In between the palace and an enormous maple stood a stage and a large, empty grass area where the teens gathered to dance. Next to the fountain was a buffet table bulging with food. Here and there were drink stands where a mossy-robed bartender stood looking high. There were stools nowhere to be seen – instead the partiers preferred stones, branches and hummocks of clean grass.

“There’s Alex,” Rilla pointed. The blonde mountain was apparently in the middle of a conflict with a familiar-looking, older brunette boy and two girls who looked so much like him they could have been triplets. As we approached, a round guy behind them dressed in an emerald tuxedo pointed at us with two drumsticks. “There’s Rilla!” he cried, accompanied by a yell of approval. All of a sudden we were surrounded by ten people – some of them carrying flutes, tumblers and even saws. “Thank the Elementals,” the drummer said, his breath heavy. “You’re here.”
“Of course I’m here,” Rilla gave a laugh. “What’s all this fuss about?”
“I told you before my avec wasn’t coming,” Alex told. “She just happens to be the singer of the performing band.”
Rilla’s hands had fallen to her sides, her expression awestruck. “If- if you need a singer, I… for the sake of the elements, of course I’ll do it!”
The drummer bellowed with mirth, his fists upraised. “Hooray! I’ll lift you up the stage!”
Instruments dropped to the ground and Rilla screamed as she was lifted in the air. The band moved off, leaving me and Nolan standing awkwardly with Alex and the triplets.

The brunette raised his eyebrows amusedly. “That’s solved, then,” he said to Alex, turning into our direction. “If there’s a festival in Kaiya, where do you come?”
I furrowed my eyebrows with confusion. “What?”
“Seriously?” The brunette laughed wide-armed. “Why did the earthling cross the veil?”
“To get to Kaiya?”
“Correct! It was a riddle, you dope. You really don’t remember me?”
I could imagine the gears turning inside my head. They definitely needed some oiling. “You…” I began with difficulty, as if I tried to fit a puzzle piece in its place in my mind. “You’re the riddle guy from the council,” I stated. “You’re an earth councelor.”
“I also have a name,” he said. “Aes.”
“Aes? What does that mean?”
“Copper,” Aes answered, walking to the two girls next to him. “Aurelia and Argenta are my sisters. Their names mean ‘gold’ and ‘silver.’”

“You’re triplets,” I remarked joyously. “Just like I guessed. Don’t you have nicknames?”
“Not really,” one of the girls spoke. “Though some people call us with the strangest of nicknames. My favorites are ‘Aurie’ and ‘Genie’.”

“And ‘ass’,” The other girl added. Her voice was slightly lower than her sisters. “I don’t get why father chose us such stupid names.”
“Where is he, by the way?” Nolan asked.

“Not present, as usual,” Aes shrugged. “He trusts us enough to let us organize the feast nowadays. He knows what happens on his grounds. And he is aware that we acknowledge it too.”
There was an approving silence, but before we could continue a short girl with flaming red curls ran to us. “My friend just threw up in the fountain,” she confessed nervously, pointing wildly over her shoulder.

“Again,” the girls rolled their eyeballs, following the redhead towards the fountain. Before Aes accompanied them he exchanged a glance with me. “We will meet again, darkness councelor,” he said in a mysterious tone. “I have plenty of new riddles to tell.”
I blinked, and the next thing I knew Nolan had burst into laughter next to me. I snickered. “Why do I feel like every single guy I meet is trying to hit on me?”
“Being a part of the council is like living in a very little town,” Alex said. Somehow I hadn’t acknowledged him being still there. “Nothing ever happens, and when it does, it’s something you can’t miss.”
With his words he strolled off, leaving Nolan and me staring at each other in bewilderment.

“Shit! I didn’t realize he was still there!”
“Well,” Nolan began, “If it comforts you at all: at least you don’t have a problem in getting yourself an avec.”

I faced his coffee brown eyes with a smile. They were friendly eyes, the type of eyes which were pleasant to look at. When he laughed, wrinkles appeared around them. On Earth I had always mistaken guys like him being shitheads – that no pretty boy could simply be nice. And definitely not someone pretty and rich.

But he was nothing like them.

“I’m sorry,” I said, thinking about Nolan’s broken tone the night before. “About what I said. It’s just… I’m a person like that. I go blurting out things I shouldn’t. I can’t help it.”
“We all have flaws,” Nolan said understandingly. “It’s part of being human. Maybe it’s my biggest flaw, thinking otherwise. That flaws would be something to be afraid of. Maybe it’s why I prefer the council over normal people. Because they’ve built an utopia and believe in it; in a flawless world where everything is controlled as long as it is in balance. But perhaps some things just aren’t meant to be that way.”

I was silent. When the band began to play, the first notes sounded distant; wavering, like through water.
“That’s Rilla up on the stage,” Nolan stated. “I would neglect my avec duties to miss it. Let’s go.”

Nolan pulled me through the increasing crowd and the moist fields of grass, but to me it felt like sailing through a sky of diamonds as a spinning meteor, an object orbiting its mothering planet.