As Avery stared down at the sparse items on the dresser top, she couldn’t help but think back to her dresser on Earth. It had been so covered with jewelry, and books, makeup, pictures, stationary, and a dozen other knick-knacks that she had never ever really been able to see the actual top of the dresser. If the top of her dresser on Earth had been bad, her actual drawers had been atrocious. This made Avery curious, so one by one she opened up the drawers of the silver dresser.
The first drawer she opened contained rolls of white bandages, a pair of scissors, different sizes of needles, thread, and a small sharp looking knife. Avery cringed and shut the drawer quickly. She didn’t even want to think about how many times she had to use the contents of that drawer. The next drawer clanked and tinged as she opened it. She looked inside and saw over a dozen glass vials filled with different colored liquids. Avery picked up a thin-necked glass vial with a round bottom and a pink liquid sloshing around inside. For a brief moment she thought it might have been perfume, but as she pulled the cork out of the top of it, a distinct medicinal scent hit her nose. The second vial she took out was squat and round with a lid that screwed on. Inside it was a green hued gel. Avery unscrewed the lid and again a medicinal menthol scent was released. Avery tried two more glass bottles, but both contained medicative liquids.
So far, Avery was not liking what she was seeing, bandages, healing tonics, needles, boring monochromatic clothes, and maps that read like a horror novel. Avery wondered what kind of person she had been to think these things normal.
Avery turned around in a circle, taking in her whole room. There was nothing personalized anywhere, no pictures, stuffed animals, books that didn’t have to do with killing monsters, no diary…nothing. It was as if she had had no personality at all, and that definitely wasn’t Avery. She decided to try one more drawer before she wrote herself off as having had been the most boring person in the world. The drawer was filled with undergarments, all neatly folded in rows and all white. That was it, she was thoroughly depressed by the person she use to be. Avery reached in and scooped up all the perfectly white undergarments into her arms. She disposed of them in a corner of her room. Avery unzipped one of her small carry bags that contained all of her undergarments from Earth. She dumped the contents of the bag into the drawer without bothering to fold anything. Avery smiled at the purple boy shorts covered in tiny pink skulls wishing her a happy Monday.
“That’s much more like it.” She told herself aloud, feeling a sense of relief in making the room slightly more to her taste.
Avery spent the rest of the evening unpacking her bags and attempting to turn her room into something she could be proud to call her own. She placed a few photos of her family and friends that she had brought with her on her nightstands and nailed a few to her wall. She had wanted to take down the maps, but decided against it, knowing they contained valuable information, horrific, but valuable. Avery made quick work of covering the dresser with items, jewelry, makeup, and books. She then made room in the wardrobe for all of her clothes and shoes.
If Avery had been exhausted before she started unpacking and redecorating, afterwards she was about ready to collapse. Before she let herself lay down on the inviting bed Avery walked over to the two glass doors that led out to the balcony. She opened the doors up and a cool breeze rushed into the room, blowing back Avery’s long hair form her face. Avery stepped out onto her small wooden balcony. The railing was covered in leafy vines with purple flowers that extended onto the floor of the balcony, up the tree, and surrounded the glass doorway. Avery let the cool air and the sweet scent of the flowers wash over her. She looked up at the sky and saw the moon. It looked almost exactly like Earth’s moon, except much closer, like a wolf’s moon. The moon was surrounded in a blanket of a thousand stars, and Avery felt comforted that at least the night sky remained the same to her eyes. Before she turned to go inside, Avery leaned over the balcony rail and gazed across at the rest of the village. There weren’t many villagers left in the center of town, only a few holding brief conversations in passing on their way home. It was strange for Avery to see the lights of the tree houses shining through the trees. It looked almost as if the inside of the trees were on fire. She could see images of people walking around inside the houses and could even make out a figure or two standing out on their balconies. Avery wondered if any of those people might have been Jade, or any of the other girls, for that matter.
Avery slammed down on her bed without even bothering to undress. She turned over on her side and groaned as she stared out her balcony doors. She had turned the lights off, but hadn’t bothered to close the curtains, and now she imagined how the soothing moon shine flooding into her room would eventually turn into harsh sun rays. Avery contemplated getting up and pulling the thick purple velvet curtains closed, but when she couldn’t will her body to move, decided it really didn’t matter that much. The last thing Avery remembered seeing before drifting off to sleep was a small firefly buzzing around busily on her balcony.
Chapter 7
“Avery! Avery, it’s time to get up!” Avery’s father’s voice drifted into her subconscious. It sounded like a hundred drums being pounded on inside her head.
“Avery!” The voice called again, “You’re supposed to meet Gumptin and the others in five minutes, get up!”
Avery grunted and turned over in her bed to look out the balcony doors. She pulled the covers down over her head and saw that it was still dark outside.
“Guess I really didn’t have to worry about those curtains after all.” Avery spoke into her pillow and snuggled back under the cover.
“Avery!” The voice shouted.
“I know!” Avery shouted back, “I’m up!” Avery groaned grumpily as she realized she was going to have to actually get up.
She slowly sat up in bed and glanced around the room with puffy eyes. She thought, disgustedly, how unnatural it was to get up before the sun had even begun to rise. Avery’s movements were slow and laborious as she got out of bed and changed her clothes. She decided to go with a pair of jeans and long sleeve thermal shirt she brought from Earth.
Avery was still groggy as she descended the stairs, and she found herself exceedingly grateful for the handrail, as she almost tripped a few times.
When she did finally manage to make it down the stairs without tripping and breaking her neck, she saw her father sitting on the living room couch reading a long piece of parchment. As Avery approached closer she was able to see the words ‘Havyn Ledger’ scrolled across the top of it in bold letters, with the headline, ‘Protectors Return’ written just below it. Avery wasn’t sure how she felt about being part of a headline.
After grabbing an apple from a bowl on the kitchen table, Avery proceeded to the front door.
“Bye, honey.” Her dad called to her from his seat on the couch.
Avery waved her apple filled fist goodbye to him and walked out the door. The sun was just beginning to peak over the horizon, lighting up the tall mountain tops to the west. Even though it still seemed ridiculously early to Avery, a good portion of the villagers were already up and outside working on their gardens and crops, or opening up their shops and beginning their tasks.
As Avery approached the spot where they were all told to meet she saw Bunny sitting on the side of the well and talking to Skylar who was balletically dancing around in front of her. From the looks of it, both of them seemed to have enough energy to spare, which was a good thing since Avery was having trouble even mustering enough energy to walk over to meet them.
She spotted Jade walking towards the well from the other side of the village. Jade was wearing all black, as usual, with her hair pulled back and her signature stony expression planted on her face. She had just finished munching on an apple and threw the core over her back shoulder. When she spotted Avery making her way over she let a smile escape and picked up her pace to meet her.
“Good night's sleep?” Jade asked Avery when they reached the well and Skylar and
Bunny.
Avery shook her head, releasing a giant yawn, “Good, but not nearly long enough.”
“I hear that.” Jade agreed with her, “Gumptin’s out of his tiny mind if he thinks we’re going to keep meeting him at freaking dawn.”
Bunny turned her head and looked over at Jade from her perch on the well, “It’s really not that bad.” She told Jade, “If you think about it, we’re supposed to be soldiers, and soldiers are supposed to get up and train early every day. Maybe you should thank Gumptin for wanting to give us the proper training time to keep us alive, instead of complaining about him.”
Avery couldn’t stop herself from letting a guffaw escape her mouth. She didn’t know if it was seeing Jade first thing in the morning or just being on another planet, but it was one of the first times she had ever seen Bunny chastise Jade, and she couldn’t help but love it.
“Listen, band geek,” Jade told Bunny, getting almost directly in her face, “we’re not all used to getting up at the ass crack of dawn. So don’t give me any of your five cent comments, alright?”
Bunny shrugged her shoulders dismissively and turned her head away from Jade. Jade walked over and stood next to Avery, letting her body language tell Avery exactly what she thought about having to spend multiple hours every day training around Bunny.
Sasha sauntered over to them a few moments later. She wasn’t exactly on time, and as Avery looked over her perfectly done hair, lightly painted face, and matching sneakers and work out outfit, Avery knew why. Perfection took time, and Sasha looked nothing less than perfect even when she was about to get all sweaty. Avery wondered how many days of training sessions it would take for Sasha to stop caring about how good she looked. She assumed the lack of male admirers would drastically cut the time in half.
Thinking about Sasha’s tardiness made Avery question aloud, “Where the hell is Gumptin?”
All the girls began to look around, and then, as if on cue, Gumptin appeared from behind a large shrub at the edge of the forest, “I am right here.” He shouted loudly, startling Skylar enough that she jumped back and almost knocked Bunny down the well she was sitting on.
“Don’t ever do that again!” Avery yelled at Gumptin, grabbing her heart from the fright of having him pop out of nowhere.
Jade, who would never admit she had been startled, but who was, none the less, grabbing tightly a hold of Avery’s arm, snapped at him, “Stupid elf…where have you been?! If we can be here on time, you damn well better be!”
Gumptin walked up to them, dragging behind him a brown leather sack about twice the size of him, “First of all, and for the very last time,” he addressed Jade, “I am a gnome, not an elf! Second, only two of you lay-a-bout’s were here on time, Bunny and Skylar. You and Avery were approximately five minutes past due, and Sasha was a weighty ten minutes late.”
“Whatever,” Jade replied, too tired to argue, “can we just get on with it?”
Gumptin motioned for them to follow him, but before they left he pointed to the brown sack he had been dragging, “You carry that.” He told Jade.
“What?!” Jade asked, taken aback, “Why me?!”
“Consider it as part of your training, which officially starts now.” Gumptin turned around and started to walk towards the forest, intent on ignoring any retort Jade was going to give, “You are a Protector; you have the strength of ten men Jade. It is hardly a major inconvenience. Just pick it up and follow me.”
Jade looked towards Avery, and Avery nodded her head to tell Jade to just do as she was told. Jade picked up the sack and slung it over her shoulder with hardly any effort. Of course, that didn’t stop her from grumbling heatedly to herself as she followed Gumptin and the others towards the forest’s border.
Gumptin led them down a small nameless dirt path deep into the woods. For a little nothing path it seemed fairly used. There was no undergrowth or overhanging tree limbs and bushes. They walked for a quarter of a mile until they reached the end of the path. It had led them to a large clearing the size of a baseball field. Short yellow-green grass covered the clearing and towering thick trunked trees surrounded it. To Avery, the trees seemed to form a barrier between the clearing and the rest of the outside world. The ground was soft beneath Avery’s feet. The loose dark soil was soft and pillowy, not anything like the hard compact dirt road that had led them there. The air inside the clearing seemed somehow crisper than the air outside of it. It felt as if the whole place crackled with electricity.
In the dead center of the clearing was a black stone altar. It was about waist high with a thick width. The stones looked old and worn, and there was a delicate green moss crawling around it. On the top of the altar, attached to it, was a large rusted metal bowl.
“This place is called Elysianth.” Gumptin told them, “It was created thousands of years ago by the Ancients. Back before there was such a thing as good and evil. Before the Ancients split into different factions, this was one of the places they would meet to perform powerful magic. This place is alive with magic; you can feel it.”
Gumptin looked around the clearing with reverence as he spoke. It was obvious to the girls that this place held a special meaning in Gumptin’s soul and most likely a lot of other magic folk’s souls as well.
Gumptin continued, “Over the centuries, many battles have been fought for this little piece of land. Eventually, it fell into the possession of the Elementals. This is the place, over there at that altar, where they created your powers. In a way, this is where you were created. That is why they gave this place to you. It is yours to protect and to train in, a place where you can truly learn to eventually control your powers.”
“So, to be clear,” Jade spoke up once Gumptin had finished speaking, tossing the sack he had given her to carry on the ground, “The Elementals created us so we’d have to fight the most horrible evil scum you could imagine, which would most likely, as past events have proven, lead to our premature deaths, and all we got out of the deal is a patch of land.”
At first, Avery had thought the idea of claiming ownership to a patch of magical land kind of cool, but Jade always had a way of forcing Avery to see things from a different perspective. She wasn’t sold on it being cool anymore.
Although Avery thought Jade had a good point, Gumptin certainly didn’t, “It is a great honor to be given Elysianth, young lady. You and this land are a part of each other.” He flared his tiny nostrils, “You have fought to defend this land against countless enemies who wished to use it for their own purposes.”
This time it was Avery who spoke, “Wait a second, you mean we’ve had to fight things over this land? We could have been killed defending a piece of land that no innocent people actually live on?” Avery could understand risking her life fighting to protect people’s lives, but the idea of doing it for a patch of grass was a little more than she bargained for.
Gumptin looked back and forth between Avery and Jade, a look of displeasure on his face, “You two do understand that you do not need to make everything an argument, right?”
“Yes.” Avery said hesitantly, nodding her head.
“No.” Jade said without hesitation, shaking her head.
Gumptin frowned at them, and then asked Bunny, Sasha, and Skylar, “Do you three have anything to say on the matter?”
Each one of them shook their heads, no.
“Fine,” Gumptin said, “let’s begin training before any of you have a chance to open your mouths anymore.”
Gumptin led them through what he considered basic training routines, but what the girls considered torture. After they finished stretching, they started off with push-ups. Gumptin made sure they each did three hundred before moving on.
“Come on, keep the pace up!” Gumptin shouted at them as they pushed their bodies up and down off of the ground, “Keep going! Your abilities have been dormant for over sixteen years, all your strength, speed, reflexes, senses, powers; your bodies have to remember them all over again.”
It was
only the very beginning of what Gumptin was going to have them do, and already Avery knew she was going to be in trouble. Her arms felt like they were on fire. When she looked over at the other girls, Avery could see they shared her pain, especially Bunny who lay face first on the ground, not moving.
Once push-ups were finished, it was time for sit-ups.
Sasha was on sit-up two hundred and sixty five when she collapsed on the ground, “I think I’m dying.” She moaned, her pretty face in the dirt.
“You are not dead yet, Sasha,” Gumptin told her, pacing back and forth in front of the girls, “and until you are, keep going!”
Sasha reluctantly picked herself up and kept going.
After sit-ups it was pull-ups on some low-lying tree limbs, two hundred of them, and then knee lifts, two hundred of them as well. They were followed by squats and jumping jacks that seemed, to the girls, like they were never going to end.
“Alright, enough.” Gumptin told them.
The girls fell to the ground. Avery lay on her back, breathing heavily, looking up at the baby blue sky dappled with big white fluffy clouds.
Gumptin looked down at the girls trying to catch their breath, “That was quite pathetic.” He said.
“Are you nuts?!” Avery retorted, lifting her head up to look at Gumptin, “I’ve never worked so hard in my life!”
Gumptin snorted, “Maybe not in this life, but in your pre-Earth life, that was about half of what you usually do.”
There was a collective groan from the girls at the thought of doing any more.
Gumptin ignored their displeasure, “Alright, time to run, get up.”
The girls didn’t move, except for Jade, who lifted her arm up and flipped Gumptin off.
“Get up!” Gumptin continued, “Get off of the ground! Move it, move it!” He kicked at each one of the girls until they were all on their feet and jogging in laps around the perimeter of the clearing.
The Protectors: Book 1 in the Protectors Saga Page 13
