*Elentari*
I got to class just before the professor closed the door and locked it. He was strict about being on time. I missed a test that way. If I had missed this one I would have failed. That would have been awful. Serenity came forward as soon as the test was in hand. I watched through my eyes as my body did things without prompting. She understood things so much more than I did. It was almost as if she had years and years of math behind her. Sometimes I still feel awkward about it though.
The test was done and turned in and I made my way to my English class. I needed to go turn in my paper and I’d be free of that class too. On my way there, one of the hellspawn came into view. I disliked my step-siblings almost as much as they disliked me. I didn’t bother using their names to address them the majority of the time, normally just calling them hellspawn or the terror twins. I paid him no mind, but one of the shadows took over and nimbly moved me around him. He had tried to “accidentally” bump into me. It didn’t work and he fell over from the lack of resistance. I laughed a bit. The shadow's voice growled, “Serves him right.” And disappears to the back of my mind. I keep going like nothing happened.
I drop my paper in the drop box on the professor's desk, initialing next to my name on the paper on the wall. Turning back to the hallway, I took a deep breath. Lunch, then culinary final. I blinked and rubbed my eyes. I saw little blue lines coming from people. Not everyone, just some. A few of them were connected to the person next to them. The ones that didn’t have one seemed to be all older people at the college.
“Is this real? Am I hallucinating?” I asked myself in a half whisper and jumped when Serenity answered. I still get startled by her from time to time. She made herself known when I started high school. “Yes, we’re seeing it. It’s real. It will be explained tomorrow, on our birthday.”
“I mean, I get you are all part of me, but you say ‘our’ birthday as if you’ve been here since my conception.” I wasn’t sure why that’s what I thought of the beginning of the “being there” but it was. I felt her smile.
“We have been.” At least 3 voices said at once. I jumped, completely taken aback.
“Well, don’t all speak at once…” I mumbled, slightly annoyed. This was it, the last day. Last lunch period. Then, the last final. Of course, I have lunch before I have to go cook. I ate a normal-sized lunch today because I knew this meal would take longer to make and I would be hungry again.
“Yo! Silk!” A girl about my height calls out and waves at me. “Got a spot for you over here, girl.” She’s the pep to my goth. Bouncy blonde with a stripe of teal in her hair. Her eyes were bright green, like gemstones. She had a slim build but was muscular like a gymnast. She’s a terror when she’s mad though; her mood swings are like the color contrast in our wardrobes.
“Hey, Audra!” I said as I sat down. She never gave me a choice if I wanted to be her friend or not, she simply came in like a hurricane and demanded attention, almost like an overgrown puppy. It was hard not to like her. “You look like you’ve got enough food for the whole football team…” I looked at her lunch, eyes wide. I don’t know how she does it.
“Oh, this is an appetizer, I’m coming to your culinary final and gonna sample the world cuisine there. Gotta keep my energy up.” She laughs.
“You’d have to ask Chef about that.” I reminded her. He doesn’t always appreciate her barging in. She fake pouted at me with a pathetic statement of how it was the last day and he wouldn’t be so cruel.
I swear she sniffs the air and growls. I looked around. When I see her do those things someone we don’t like is usually about, but I didn’t see anyone. “Did you just growl?” I asked her.
“No, but my stomach did,” she started to play it off like always. “I am looking forward to the homemade cuisine!” She gets up and starts to clean up the table.
“Even my headmates said you growled,” I said as we started to leave the cafeteria.
“You’re still calling them headmates?” She asked me with a quizzical glance.
“Well, yea. Don’t know what else I would call them. I have DID, it’s a bit more acceptable to say headmates than the aliens living in my mind…” I sigh, “People already think I’m strange enough as is. I don’t need to give them more reasons. Saying I’m the overload of a collective might get me that 5150 status, the step-witch keeps threatening me with.”
“How many do you got up there anyway?” She asks. If it was someone else I might punch them out for asking, but it’s Audra. She’s my bestie.
“Aren’t you curious today? Well, it started out as one full being. I’m at one full being, three shadows I can’t distinguish, and more mists than I can count.”
She tilts her head as if she was debating Einstein's theory of relativity. “That’s odd…” she says to herself, shrugging a bit. “Okay, well we can keep discussing how odd you are later. Right now it’s time for your last final and for me to get a free meal after you sweet talk Chef!” She exclaimed excitedly, taking my arm as we walked into the building.
Fragrant smells fill the air, I breathe them in. I swear I see Audra sniffing like a dog again. “Or a wolf..” one of the shadows pops into my head indignantly, as if I had insulted it. I placed my school bag at my station and walked up to Chef. I was one of his favorites, that’s why Audra wanted me to ask him about her being there. “Hey, Chef. The food thief wants permission to be here today. She wanted a free meal… or four.” I knew how much she ate.
“Yea, that’s fine…” he said as his voice trailed off. He seemed a bit absent-minded today. I looked at him, studying him. The door to the classroom opened and I turned to look, realizing my eyes were following a blue line; it seemed thicker than most of them that I'd seen today. The one from Chef went to the lady standing at the door. She called for one of the boys in my class and said they needed to go home because of an emergency. Her eyes landed on Chef and she looked scared. He looked terrified. She dragged her son out quickly and Chef’s whole mood changed. He seemed crestfallen. I feel like I’m watching a sad rom-com and returning to my seat. Audra looks at Chef and seems to know more than me. She walks up and says something, watching quietly at him. After that, he calls the office and asks for a sub to proctor the cooking portion of the final and once the sub gets there he takes off as if he had to go put out a fire.
*Elentari* “What was that about?” I asked her. She shook her head and mumbled something about it not being her place to talk about it. I nodded, confused, but set to planning our menu for the final. We were in groups of 10 and made a full three-course meal. We chose a traditional Italian menu. The only thing I did that wasn’t purely Italian was a spinach salad with walnuts and poppy seed dressing. I can’t eat Italian dressing. I’ve never understood why. Minestrone Soup or salad for the first course, stuffed shells with sweet Italian sausage for the main course, and tiramisu for the dessert accompanied by a cup of espresso. This used to be one of our favorite meals to make as a family before we gave up hope on mom coming back, or if she was even alive. I was 8 years old the last time I made it with dad. The step-witch didn’t let us make it. Our team took three hours to make the meal. We plate our presentation pieces and felt good about it. “Good job team!” I praise them. We could put
*Elentari POV* This was so much for me to take in. “Who is Elentari?” I asked them. Their looks were almost as if I had asked the most ridiculous question ever. “What??” I had no idea why they were being so weird. A sing-song voice came from my mirror image, “You’ve operated as me for so long you don’t even know your own name anymore.” She scuffed her foot against the ground. “We got some work to do, girls. She needs a crash course as shit is gonna get real, real soon. Step-witch will know she’s awakened. The stupid man bringing her into the house.” I’m in a daze listening to all this. I couldn’t believe it. “What about Audra and Manic?” I blurted out. My fuzzed brain was trying to slowly click things into place, and they had given me the note. “Manic is a vamp like me.” Silk says excitedly. I swallowed hard, backing away from her a bit. “Oh, good grief you’ve read too many fantasy novels if you’re scared of your own sprite.” “Audra is a wolf like me.” Stated Lucinda, almost a
*Audra POV* Tomorrow was going to be interesting. I left the college and started driving towards my pack house with Manic by my side. My nerves were getting the better of me. “I think we need to report to the King and Queen tonight. That way tomorrow can go a bit more flawlessly. Though I don’t know if anything about this can be considered flawless.” I ran my fingers through my hair nervously. “She’s not going to hate us once she finds out, is she?” “I know when we accepted this assignment we didn’t ever think we would befriend her. I mean she’s a good hundred years younger than us. But we both decided we liked her personality and wanted to be friends. Our friendship has always been genuine and a choice. As long as she can understand that we didn’t have to befriend her to finish out our mission, it’ll be okay. I don’t think she’s so unreasonable that she would not listen.” It didn’t take much to reassure me. I sighed softly, kissing the back of his hand. “This is why you’re the calm
*Elentari POV* Everything was so much to take in. I felt like my world was caving in second by second. I slipped from the zone out of shock and started to move to my bed. All I wanted was to go to sleep and for all of this to be a bad dream. Arashi’s voice echoed in my head as I attempted to lay down telling me I had to pack before resting. I was suddenly really happy I spent the money I got from the life insurance policy on an SUV instead of the cute Prius I had been looking at. Yes, it was blue. I also paid three years of car insurance on it. The rest of my money was split into my stock portfolio that my mom set up for me and my savings account. Dividends were transferred into savings automatically and $300 was transferred to my checking each month so I could pay my phone bill and put gas in the car. It made me laugh that I was seen as the bad kid when I was the one being responsible. The spawns got money and it was gone instantly with video games and trivial crap. I started to pac
*Elentari POV* “This tastes more refreshing than normal.” He comments and looks in the water bottle. “You remembered lemon and mint!” He kissed the top of my head. “You realize it's your birthday, Starlight. I should be spoiling you, not the other way around.” This simple exchange made me happier than anyone could imagine. He hadn’t remembered my birthday in years, no one did, I handed him a plate of food and he sat down to dig in. “Good morning family!” Lyssandra says in her fake sing-song voice, “Smells like someone beat me to making the birthday breakfast.” She looked around at everyone else sitting down, and seemed like she was pouting, “I had wanted to make you breakfast as a treat.” “Thank you for the thought.” I told her. My wheels turned wondering what she had up her sleeve. “I wanted to make dad’s and my favorite breakfast. It’s been so long since we’ve had it, and it’s been years since anyone has celebrated my birthday so I figured if I wanted to celebrate, I had to do
*Elentari POV* “Lunar Guardian? Me? I’m just a normal teenager with nothing special about me. I didn't even know this existed until today. I don’t understand, Selene is real?” As I spoke the twins looked at each other, as if having a mental conversation. Little to my knowledge they were doing just that. They spoke at the same time. “We want to go with you.” Turning towards my parents. My sister pushed the book towards my mother. “If we are magical, we need training. Even though that book is my birthright, I don't want to learn from it. I’d rather it was destroyed.” At this point, I saw my sister in a new light. Almost a light of admiration. “It is not yours yet!” Lyssandra screeched. “I am still alive. As long as I live it is mine!” She reached for the Grimoire as if her life depended on getting the old book back in her hands. Before she could get to it, despite the pain it caused him, my brother grabbed it and kept it from her reach. “The book is evidence. It cannot be destroye
*Alaric POV* Seeing my baby for the first time since she was born overwhelmed me. At that time the plan had already progressed to my wife and Scott’s pretend relationship ending. We only needed it long enough to conceal her birth and for no one to think I was the father. My wife came up with the plan and she was so convincing that I almost severed our fated bond over it. She didn’t warn me first to get the most genuine reaction she could get out of me. It took me a month after they “broke up” to hear her out. I almost missed my chance to hold my child, just once. Home is a magical place. It has a literal living, breathing magic essence that brings the rivers, trees, and all of nature to life. There were very few Fae, or magical beings, that didn’t prefer to live here. Humans tended to believe Fae meant fairy, or that what they deemed to be mythical beasts, weren’t magical. But Fae is all those that belong to the world of Selene and magic. Our architecture, for those that prefer build
*Alaric POV* “Scottie and Stacie, you will need a full blood test done for us to find out your genetic composition. That way you can be prepared. Scott, I’d like for you to get one done as well. That way we can find out your full connection to the Fae world. We couldn’t do it sooner for Elentari’s safety, but I feel like there is more here than meets the eye. You weren’t chosen by random.” The gears in my head are turning and cranking quickly. We lead them up the cobblestone drive to the front of the buildings. The guards standing at attention open the gates for us. Their eyes were the only part of them that could be seen, but they were wide with surprise. The Kingdom knew my wife disappeared at some point and we almost lost our bond. The rumor of pregnancy went around but we refuted it using the living registry as proof. There was no child on record, so the rumor was put down. The castle knew, though. A room had appeared that none could enter. Her name was written in a beautiful, flo