<--- click flag For those of you who have not read Keeper... If you want to read these parallel to each other, I'm trying to write them like that so that it's easier to follow along. So! :D If you want to read KotLC spoilers-free, DO NOT CLICK THE FLAG!!! READ BOOK 1 FIRST!!! You have been warned. Chapter 2 A crackly noise escaped Cali's lips. She was an ELF? It made Cali think about the extremely questionable song from "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer," "We are Santa's Elves." Which was so catchy, it was impossible to not start singing. Unfortunately, Fitz looked like he was about to double over laughing. "That's what you think we do?" Cali blinked and stopped. "What? I don't think..." "Would you believe me if I showed you?" Fitz asked her. "Maybe," Cali admitted. She didn't know what to expect Fitz to do, honestly. But she definitely didn't plan on him pulling out something that looked like a magic wand with a quartz crystal attached to it, spin the crystal, and hold it up to the light, creating a beam of light that looked beautiful. And then he grabbed her hand. "Concentrate on holding my hand, Cali. Don't think about anything else, whatever you do." It was his seriousness that convinced Cali. And he guided her into the beam of light he'd created. Cali honestly didn't know whether to scream or to sigh in relief. Whatever the boy was doing felt like feathers brushing against her skin, begging her to come along on adventure with them. And it was so BRIGHT. And then the wind... The wind felt like it was a part of her. Or it felt like it was pushing her away from- It was gone. Cali stumbled a bit, dropping Fitz's hand immediately. "What was THAT?!" "That was a light leap," Fitz said. He definitely felt like that was explanation enough. Cali disagreed. Saying "that was a light leap" didn't tell her whatever the heck a light leap WAS. Fitz stared at Cali for a moment before explaining, "We caught a beam of light headed straight here." All things considered, where WAS here? They were in a thickly forested area. A hint of crisp air wafted from somewhere Cali assumed was north (it was where the moss on the trees gathered, so she felt safe to make that assumption). So they were probably near some mountains. But that didn't tell her much, other than they couldn't be in Oklahoma, which was where that had been about five minutes ago. "Where are-" Then came the rush of confusion. It was knotted up with excitement, which made Cali feel a little queasy. Fitz grabbed Cali's hand, nearly cutting off her circulation, and his entire face lit up. His shoulders seemed to relax. The confusion popped away. And excitement spiked so high, it felt like it was stabbing Cali's brain. "Woah," Fitz whispered. Tension that Cali hadn't noticed before faded away, and in its place was crystal-clear focus. Like Fitz had had brain fog before. Cali pulled away from his grip, and that focus slipped away into her fingertips. "What just happened?" they both asked. Cali mostly because A HOT BOY HAD JUST GRABBED HER HAND. And the awe radiating off Fitz told Cali that she had just done something. What exactly that something was, she had no idea. She stared at her hand for a long moment before shaking it hard. Genuinely, what just happened? "I...don't know," Fitz admitted, reaching for Cali's hand again. Cali pulled away again, worried that he was trying to get whatever just happened to happen again."I need to get you home, so I can tell my dad..." The rest of whatever he was saying lapse into mumbles as he stared at his wand-thingy (which had a blue tint to it now, apparently), grabbing Cali's hand. Then he created another beam of light and pulled Cali in. This time, the feathers weren't there. In their place were a whole bunch of raging storms, tearing at her grip and screaming at her to come destroy things with them. It was by a miracle that she managed to hold onto Fitz's hand the entire time. They reappeared about two blocks from Cali's house. How Fitz knew where she lived... Cali was pretty sure she didn't want to know. Or Fitz would tell her pretty soon. "Wait..." Cali said when Fitz held up his clear crystal wand. "You're just gonna..." she trailed off, not knowing how to finish the sentence. "I'll be back tomorrow," Fitz promised her. "I just need to talk to my dad about a few things. Finding you was pretty big," he added after a moment. "We've been searching for you for thirteen years." Then he glittered away. Cali stared at where Fitz had been for at least five minutes before she decided that it would be a good idea to get home. The intense panic from the kitchen she sensed from her neighbor's sidewalk confirmed that. "I'm home!" Cali announced, swinging open the front door and slipping off her shoes. She walked into the living room.
"There you are! She just got home, thank you...I'll make sure I have a very long talk with her," Cali's mother said, exchanging a very deadly glance with Cali. She set her phone down. "That was the guide calling because he couldn't find you. What were you thinking, running off like that?" Cali bit her lip, which was her nervous habit. After barely a moment's hesitation, she said, "There was this guy who stopped me and freaked me out after asking me a whole bunch of questions about the article... I just ran." She wasn't willing to lie right then, so she told most of the truth. Cali's mom crossed her arms. "Next time, get an adult. You had me worried half to death!" "Mm-hm," Cali said, staring at the floor. The front door slammed. "I'm back! What's cooking?" Cali's dad called. "Nothing yet!" Cali's mom yelled back. She gave Cali a look that said, "we'll continue this later." And, by the genuine annoyance radiating off of her in waves, Cali didn't doubt that a bit. The second Cali's mom left the room, her younger sister, Amy, walked in with a cheesy smirk plastered on her cheesy face radiating all things smug. She plopped down in one of the armchairs and asked, "So, Soybean, how'd the field trip go?" Cali wanted to snap back at her, but she had a sudden revelation, and she didn't want to spurt it out in front of Amy, so she rushed out of the living room and up the steps to her room. She nearly slammed the door, she was so upset. If she was an elf, and her family were humans, how could her parents be HER PARENTS? By the time Cali's mom called for supper, Cali had filled out half a Composition notebook with all the different possibilities of who her real parents could be and how her parents could have ended up with her. And the most recent epiphany was way too disturbing for her to handle... at the moment. She skipped steps down to the kitchen, painting a fake smile on at the last step. Her family didn't need to worry about her being an elf... yet. Not until she was ready to tell them. But first she needed to work on not showing them that anything was wrong. Even though Cali's life had entirely imploded on her. That night, Cali fell asleep sometime near 10:30 and woke up shivering at 1 a.m. to a virtual tornado inside her room. Her blankets were in her closet somewhere---which was open, by the way. Halfway. The accordion doors had worked themselves unlatched and one of the doors was latched into place. All her books were in a pile by her bed, pressed against the wall. Her guitar case (which was super fun and doubled as a backpack) had tipped over sometime and was now by her door. And her dresser's two tiny drawers were flipped over on the floor and were sliding (very noisily) over to her desk. Then... There was the wind. It wasn't making much actual noise, but it sounded like it was calling to her, begging for her attention, begging for her to play with it, begging begging begging her to let it turn into the next huge hurricane with a name. Or at LEAST an F5 tornado. Cali didn't want to do any of that. She wanted her life to return to normal and for the wind to disappear out the window so she could go back to sleep. "Go 'way," she muttered, turning over. She didn't know how, but apparently voicing her desire made it go away. She sat up, fully awake and realizing what just happened. She'd CONTROLLED THE WIND. Sleep was overrated, anyways. By 3 a.m, Cali had straightened her entire room and written at least 3 songs' worth of annoyed lyrics. Her bed was straightened and made. Her grasp on reality was fading very quickly. So she grabbed a copy of Wings of Fire: The Dragonet Prophecy and sat down to read. That plan flunked, though, and after three to five minutes of wandering in and out of the story, she ended up pacing for two hours straight. Which wasn't the best solution, but it was better than rereading the same three paragraphs every thirty seconds. (the rest is in a note inside the project because i couldn't fit it in the desc) First chapter: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1335601993/ Previous chapter: that ^ Next chapter: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1365343548/ In transition to ~ Keeper Chapters ~, this covers about the next four. Scratch yeeted the quality of the TN ToT I may or may not be writing my version of Keeper of the Lost Cities... where my OC (who is based extremely heavily off of me) is the Moonlark instead if Sophie. So. Everything is by me and me alone. Except, of course, literally almost the entire cast and the universe. But other than that, everything is by me. Universe & 99% of the cast: Shannon Messenger Literally 1 character: me Whatever It Takes: Imagine Dragons "It's a date, Foster! Looking forwards to it." ~Keefe Sencen, Book 2, Exile (page 380)
