A small girl broke through the clearing. She looked to be about their age, with long tendrils of brown hair curling past her shoulders, and glasses askew on her slight nose. She smiled at them and waved as she broke into a run to greet them.
"Hi!" she said breathlessly, her eyes the color of ocean water. Her hand wrapped tightly around Rowan's and she leaned in to give him a quick peck on the cheek. Resting against her heart was a shimmering tear-drop shaped pendant. It twinkled in the sun's dying light, casting prisms across her cheeks. "I'm Kenzie. And you're Nia, right?"
"That would be me," Nia replied, feeling awkward as Kenzie released Rowan's hand and bent down by the pond's edge. She dipped her hands into the cool clean water, not yet frozen from the mild winter. A smile spread wide across her face and with a joyous thrust, Kenzie tossed the water high into the air. The tiny beads of water soared into the air and as they fell back to the earth, they began to crystallize and spin like little tops. Nia gasped, staring as Kenzie giggled in delight.
“Wow...” Nia murmured, catching a crystallized droplet in her hand. She stared at it in mild shock, watching as it slowly began to melt as though it were a chip of ice. It wasn't even cold.
“Ouch!” someone cried from the edge of the Meeting Grounds. Alert, Nia spun around on the spot and stared into the small section of trees where a tall ash haired boy had made his appearance, an emerald gem displayed proudly on his chest, glinting in the sunlight.
“Hey Quinn!” Kenzie shouted jubilantly, waving her arms frantically. The water crystals that were still floating froze in midair around her and slowly began swaying like dandelion seeds wafting in the breeze.
“Hey, hey! The gang’s half here!” the boy named Quinn hollered back. He flashed Nia a grin from ear to ear before bounding up the ravine, his ash blonde hair nearly white underneath the sunlight. With ease he bounded into the old tree house, its wooden beams creaking under his slight weight, and plopped down in the doorway like a mindful child.
It became very clear just who had yelled “Ouch” a few seconds later. Another boy stumbled into the clearing, holding a hand over his right eye. His right cheek had large streaks of red cutting across diagonally and the one eye that Nia could just make out was the strangest color of amber.
Hand over his eye, the boy glowered up at Quinn with all the frustration he could gather. But Quinn didn’t seem to notice the death stares he was receiving. Instead, singing something unintelligible, Quinn proceeded to pull an apple out of his pocket and take a huge bite.
“Hey!” the strange-eyed boy demanded sharply. Quinn shot him a lopsided smirk, bouncing his heel against the side of ladder. “You just hit me with that tree branch!” The boy then pointed to the offending tree limb.
“Huh.” Quinn shrugged his shoulders and nonchalantly threw the half eaten apple over his shoulder. “That’s odd. Next time you’ll have to watch where you’re walking, Thor.”
The boy named Thor rolled his eyes and carefully peeled his hand away from his injured eye. It wasn’t too bad—it looked as though Thor had managed to close his eyelid just before the tree branch swung backwards. It wasn’t even swollen—just patchy and red. “Next time, you shouldn’t storm through the woods like a crazed bull at a cattle recharge...” Thor grumbled irritably with a handsome southern twang, his injured eyelid fluttering lightly. Thor looked past Rowan to find Nia, watching him with curious eyes.
“How goes it?” he asked, thrusting out his right hand for Nia to take. His long, yellow locks fell into his face as he spoke. “Name’s Jackson—but you can call me Thor. Everyone does.”
“Thor?” Nia eyed his hand warily before simply nodding in salutation. She had a hunch that there was a slight possibility that she would get a wave of whatever pain or irritation Thor was feeling if she shook his outstretched hand. “Why do they call you Thor?”
Thor grinned, and his impish grin made his peculiar eyes light up; the strands of yellow and bronze swirled together like a cyclone. A distant roll of thunder cracked in the distance. The sun’s warmth vanished quickly and the winds picked up, whipping Nia’s long hair across her bewildered face. How weird! she thought, twisting her head back to look up into the disappearing crystal blue sky. Ominous black storm clouds had rumbled in and just as suddenly as the sun had disappeared, a bolt of lightning shot from the storm clouds, lighting up the tranquil area with a fierce blaze of white.
Thor laughed then—and the storm clouds simply rolled away, turning back into the soft white wisps of cotton that gently lined themselves against the clear blue sky once more. The sun beamed down brilliantly, its rays caressing Nia’s face and shoulders. She cautiously peered into Thor’s eyes; the swirls of color were no longer visible. Only the color of honey-gold looked back.
"I didn't mean to frighten you," he said softly, giving her a meaningful look.
“I’m not scared,” she said, glancing at Rowan beside her. He held in his hands a single stemmed rose; he was absently twisting it between his fingers, just barely missing its thorns. Where did he find that?
A loon called in the distance, its croon haunting and strangely late in season. Nia looked back at Thor, her brow furrowed as she tried to fit the pieces of the growing puzzle together.
“You can control the weather?” she asked. Thor gave her the smallest of smiles instead of answering. "And you—" her head snapped towards Kenzie, who still had those frozen water droplets floating around her. The tiny crystals fell, liquefying as they made their descent to the ground, the magic gone.
“How?” Nia whispered, looking around at all of them—their faces all slightly abashed and grand at the same time. The only one who looked lost in thought was Rowan. His face was hidden from Nia’s view, staring down at the now crumbled rose at his feet. Nia could feel the waves of anxiousness rolling off of him like boulders rolling down a hillside. Squeezing her eyes shut, Nia pressed the heels of her hands into her temples and pushed with all of her might in an attempt to juice out all of the irrational thoughts that were quickly taking up too much space. “What are you? How are you all able to do such things?”
“You don't really know what you are, do you?”
This was a new voice. Thoughts and images hit Nia with such intensity, her knees began to buckle and shake. Nia’s eyes fluttered open and met the hard, discompassionate silvery ones of the Phoenix.
Fiona Sullivan had arrived.
Chapter 5: The Mystical Knights
She was beautiful—that, there was no doubt; her face was perfect—soft and feminine but poised with defining jaw and angular cheek bones. Fiona had a timeless, classic beauty—something one could never grow tired of, no matter how long one admired. Long, deep red curls pooled past her shoulders; it reminded Nia vaguely of blood as it lay on top of her white traveling cloak. The cloak swept the ground, emphasizing a beautiful silvery blue Renaissance dress, which smoothly hugged all the right places along her curvy waist, making Nia suddenly spark with uncharacteristic jealousy. Upon her feet were some badass looking black leather boots.
Fiona easily pulled off this unique look without the slightest of hesitation. Maybe it was because of her stern face—or maybe it was because she really didn’t seem to care what other people thought, Nia couldn’t quite be sure—it was likely the latter. Fiona’s ivory skin seemed to radiate a silvery glow as the sun caressed her face, cascading dark shadows across her straight nose. No freckles or blemishes were visible on her soft looking skin; the bleak winter sunlight didn’t seem to have that much of an effect on her pale complexion. Her bright eyes seemed ancient beyond their years, and a small scowl gently played on Fiona’s pink lips.
Brow narrowed dangerously, Fiona marched across the grassy knoll with edged determination. Nia felt her shoulders tense and she instinctively balled her hands into tight fists, curiously watching the flawless vixen. Fiona stopped, merely inches away from her and although Nia was a good head taller, Fiona made her feel as though she were about ten times smaller. Nia held her ground,
looking down at Fiona while Fiona looked back up with near distaste.
There was a moment—a second, even—of acute silence in which the girls stared at each other. Narrowing her piercing gaze and holding her ground defiantly, Nia tried to feel out Fiona’s aura—only to find she didn’t have one. Perplexed, Nia cocked her head to the side in confusion.
“Well?” Fiona asked sharply, her silver eyes glinting vivaciously in the sunlight. Fiona placed her hands on her hips and pursed her lips expectantly.
Nia blinked. Wait—what did she ask? She felt a surge of adrenaline rush through her blood stream as she tried to reel her brain back to the previous question. She folded her arms across her chest and rocked back on the heels of her Converse. “Well, what?”
Fiona’s cool eyes turned into slits and Nia immediately wished that she had kept her mouth shut. The fiery haired girl inched closer, until Nia could feel every breath Fiona breathed. “I said,” Fiona said with a voice like venomous honey, making sure to articulate every word as though Nia was just a small child learning to speak, “You...don't...really know...what you are, do you?”
“I know who I am." Nia gave Fiona a baffled expression. "I'm Nia."
Fiona rolled her eyes, looking terribly bored. “Among other things,” she drawled lazily.
Nia blinked, unsure of how Fiona knew. “Are you referring to my gift? Being psychic?"
"Sure," Fiona said, her silver eyes flashing. "Let's start somewhere simple. Do you know why you're gifted with a Third Eye?"
Nia frowned; asking why she was gifted with a Third Eye was like asking someone born with a heart defect why their heart beat differently.
"Obviously that wasn't simple enough," Fiona said, rolling her eyes. She sighed and crossed her arms over her chest. "Can you tell me how you can do whatever you can do?"
Nia could explain what it felt like while she was reading someone’s mind—or while she was seeing into the future or predicting things that she just couldn’t explain. It was a weightless, dizzy feeling; the feeling of being in two places at once...the constant headaches and migraines or the sudden mood swings from being empathic.... Nia frowned again. Now that she thought about it, the thing she loved most about herself sounded like a constant pain.
“You don’t know how you do it though, do you?” Fiona pressed on smugly, watching Nia with some strange delighted fascination.
“It's just something that I can do!” Nia paused, biting her lip. Her eyes found the lush grass without hesitation. “I...I just can’t put it into words..."
“Hmm.” Fiona pressed her index finger to her lips thoughtfully, her face concentrated and distant. Nia felt the familiar blush of embarrassment touch her cheeks.
Nia insecurely twisted the sleeves of her shirt with her fingers. The rest of the Knights stood silently, watching Fiona with bated breath.
“We are the Mystical Knights,” Fiona began softly. "In the beginning we took the shape of our guardians. They dwelled within the Seventh Realm of Shadows. The Seventh Realm of Shadows is not a physical place within this world, but a parallel plane above Earth. It is one of the many In-Between realms that a soul journeys through before finding the place that most refer to as Heaven. The souls will wait until they are either ready to begin again or go when they are called forth to their soul group.”
"I understand reincarnation." She'd always believed in that. Nia looked at Kenzie and the dew covered grass around her. She had her hands clasped in front of her, her glasses set on the bridge of her nose. "But what is this? Is it magic? Kenzie can manipulate water...and Thor—he can manipulate the weather." Thor gave Nia a grin that lit the light behind his eyes like lanterns. "Quinn..." Quinn had closed his eyes, his face as peaceful as if he were sleeping. A soft breeze brushed past Nia's face, taking her breath away. The emerald amulet on Quinn's chest appeared to moving, swirling together like a maelstrom. "You can control the wind!" Quinn grinned and reopened his eyes, the breeze slowly ceasing to nothing.
Rowan was still looking at the crumpled rose at his feet. As Nia watched him, she slowly began to understand. "You can make plants!"
Rowan gave her an amused grin. "Kind of..." He bent down, and plucked a few blades of grass. "Guardian and Defender of Earth." He straightened out his hand and carefully blew the grass pieces into the open. As they fluttered and floated to the ground, they slowly began to change; tiny and pearlescent white, the three flowers landed on the ground. "Yeah, I can make plants," Rowan murmured, scooping up the pretty little flowers and rising to his feet, "but I'm not limited." He tossed the flowers into the air, when he released them, they were no longer flowers, but tree swallows—beautiful with deep blue feathers and white underbellies. The three birds flew into the woods, their chirps echoing off the trees.
Rowan watched the birds soar into the growing darkness, his face impassive. "We all find out about our abilities as we grow up. They gain strength with time."
"Abilities...like mine?"
Rowan nodded. "In a sense, yes."
Breathless, Nia looked at Fiona. She stood, arms still crossed, looking uninterested and listless. "What can you do?" Nia asked.
Fiona's silver eyes sparked with sudden vivacity. “Does anyone have a lighter?”
A lighter? Nia frowned, puzzled by the random question and by the sudden surge of excitement Fiona was feeling at that very moment. How manic and unpredictable she was—her mood swings would be a definite cause for the impending headache Nia would have in a few hours.
Quinn had a lighter; he pulled a silver zippo out of his pocket, expertly twirling it through his fingers as he passed it to Fiona without the slightest of apprehension. It was quite apparent that the rest of the Knights had seen whatever Fiona was about to do; of course they must have seen this trick through their own little ‘initiations.’
Nia watched as Fiona lithely held the lighter in her fist. With an impish smirk, she snapped her fingers along the thumbwheel and as the tiny flint sparked, a flame imploded brilliantly; using her other hand, Fiona carefully rounded her fingers, curling them just inches away from the flame, and somehow defining the laws of nature, she was able to scoop the flame away from the zippo. Holding the flame in the palm of her hand, Fiona dropped the zippo to the ground and began to pass the flame back and forth between her long fingers. With each gentle stroke, Fiona was able to grow the flame until it was about the size of a large grapefruit. Nia stared in disbelief, watching with wide eyes as Fiona began to push the large fireball through the air, twirling it with the point of her index finger expertly. It made a strange swooshing sound—sort of like a Jedi light saber—as it glided through the air, its flames licking the space between itself and Fiona’s hands.
With a final push of her hand, Fiona threw the fireball up and away from her; it spiraled through the air as it soared up past them like a shooting star. For a split second Nia panicked, wondering about the trees that it was catapulting over—but a clean stream of water poured from the ground, drowning out the fireball and all of its glory. Nia’s amazed eyes flickered over to where Kenzie stood, pointing her finger at where the said fireball had been floating and this time Nia wasn’t surprised in the least to see a stream of water rushing from her fingertip.
“I almost don’t need the lighter.” Fiona bent over and retrieved the lighter, handing it back to Quinn as she spoke. And she snapped her fingers to seemingly prove her point; a bright spark cracked as her skin rubbed together, popping loudly through the surrounding area. Nia’s jaw dropped; Fiona grinned all over her face. “Yeah...it’s just something I do.”
“That—that must have been a scary realization!” Nia cried, staring at Fiona in astonishment. “What—did you just snap your fingers one day as a kid and almost set your hair on fire?”
"None of us had powers like this when we were children," Fiona said, gesturing to herself and the others. "We might have been drawn to certain elements...I mean, sure—I loved fire. I was constantly trying to get my father to let me light the wood stove
during the summer, but I didn't discover any of this until I was twelve." Fiona snapped her fingers again and this time the spark imploded, becoming a tiny flame. “Ah ha! I got it...”
Transfixed, Nia watched again as Fiona casually manipulated the fire between her fingertips as though she were kneading dough. Nia had always known her gift; it had always been there in the back of her mind, sending her dreams and visions in her most peaceful slumber. As a child, she had had some of the most vivid and colorful dreams; they became violent and nightmarish when she was nearly ten. At school, when Nia would try and make new friends, she would find that she was able to pick up on the most random things about her classmates. Things that would terrify her peers, their parents and the teachers so much, that Nia and her mother would have to come in for a conference and talk.
She was so grateful to have her mother through all of that.
Memories flooded Nia’s mind as she breathed a sigh and lightly closed her eyes. Colors danced radiantly against the black while her mind raced, soaking up all of this information like a sponge. Nia flicked her eyes back open and stared at Fiona, violet against silver. "Is there any reason...why we can do all of these things? They must be connected somehow..." Nia raised an eyebrow at Fiona as a quirky grin twisted her lips upwards. "What?"
"We are all very different than the others that inhabit this place." Fiona lifted her gaze and stared into the heavens. Her eyes became distant, as though she were somewhere else. "We come from an alien world—a different dimensional world that exists galaxies away—Neterus."
"Um. I was born in Boston—definitely not an alien."
The look that Fiona gave her should have burned her to the ground. "Would you let me finish?" Fiona said, her voice cool and coated with fractured kindness. "It is imperative you take this information seriously. Your life depends upon it." She blinked, her face impassive as she looked past Nia, watching the darkening forest. "The Neteru found Earth during a time called Tep Zepi...also known as 'The beginning of time.' The humans," Fiona grinned, her eyes glinting smugly, "thought our kind were sky gods descending from the stars. As we helped the humans create a new kingdom, some of the Neteru began to romance our new found followers. Even our wise father, Zindel'Tyr, King of Neterus, found himself straying from his convictions when he met a beautiful Earth-dweller."
The Mystical Knights: The Sword of Dreams Page 4
