MesonHill’s Anem

Chapter 11: Cooling off

Axel took Celeste to the bathroom so that she could wash her face to disguise her tears. She hoped that the cold water would help to bring down the red blotches that were dotted across her cheeks. Axel had fetched her a fresh towel, from his room, for her to dry her face on and after doing so, she looked up into the mirror to see that most of the redness has disappeared.

"Do you want to get changed or anything?" He asked, attempting to comfort her. Celeste looked at him and burst into a fit of laughter.

"You sound like my mum! Stop worrying! I don't need to get changed... but maybe you should." She pointed to his white shirt, which now had black smears across it, from where her mascara had smudged from her tears.

"Good point" he chuckled at the horrendous state his shirt was in "I'll go get changed, then."

He left the bathroom and went through the special door to his room. Celeste stayed in the bathroom for a little while longer to reapply the makeup she had lost. Once she had finished, she went to find Axel, who was taking a seemingly long time to get changed. She stopped before heading into his room, on realisation that he might not yet be dressed, so she waited on the sofa bed for him to return.

She wasn't aware how long she had been waiting, but Celeste was becoming more and more impatient waiting for Axel to finish, so she decided to enter anyway. She ventured through the door, past their bathroom, and into their bedroom, to find Axel topless and rooting through his wardrobe. Celeste blushed for a moment at her most inappropriate arrival until she noticed how flustered he looked.

"What's up?" She asked with a giggle. He looked at her and ran his fingers frustratedly through his hair.

"I can't find a good shirt to wear!" He stressed. At this, Celeste began to giggle even more.

"Honestly, this is what you're stressing about? Here, let me choose you one." She advanced to the wardrobe and began sifting through his shirts. She stopped when she got to a lemon-coloured polo shirt. She pulled it out of the wardrobe and held it up to Axel.

"This one is perfect!" She said with an enormous grin. He took the shirt from her, reluctantly, and pulled it over his head.

"It looks good!" Celeste exclaimed. He said nothing and walked over to the mirror. He stood for a moment, turning to look at himself from different angles.

"I suppose it's better than the rest of them." He sighed, walking back over to Celeste, looking slightly upset.

"What's wrong?" She asked, whilst moving her hand to his arm to hold.

"Nothing." He replied, but Celeste, unsurprisingly, wasn't fully convinced by his empty statement.

"Ax, I'm an A-star student. I'm not dumb. There's clearly something up. What's going on?" She asked, guiding him to sit on the bed, where she rested her hand sweetly on his knee.

"I feel bad. Like, I'm torn between. You're all my friends. Aria means a lot to me, but she just rubs me up the wrong way sometimes. I don't want her to think that I don't like her but I feel bad for you! You must think that we only care about you because you're this special Anem. I just, I don't know. I think I'm tired, and it's been a pretty stressful morning." He blabbered on. Celeste looked at him with great sympathy. She knew he must be feeling terrible because it wasn't like Axel to open up about his feelings.

"Ax, you don't need to worry about me. I know you guys like me for me. I've told you this already! And, Aria knows you don't dislike her. You'll be friends again in no time. We just need to let things cool over for a little while. Keep some distance for a bit, you know?" She replied with a soothing, calm tone. He looked at her and nodded, but it was clear that he was still a little upset about the situation, as he had a doubtful look in his eyes.

"Tell you what, I need to go to a local library to do some more research. If you want to come with me, to give Aria some time to cool down, you can. It'll give us some more time together, too! I feel like today's the first day I've spent time with you since we got here." Celeste suggested. Axel beamed at the thought of the two of them going somewhere together, without company. He agreed to the idea instantly and jumped to his feet.

The two of them managed to escape the hotel, without bumping into the rest of the group. The nearest library Celeste had read about was a two-minute walk from the hotel. They enjoyed their short walk down the narrow streets of Saint-Tropez, when, in no time, they had arrived at the library.

Celeste knew little French, and it appeared that Axel knew none, so they struggled with the minimal knowledge they had to get past the receptionist, and into the library.

"Bonjour, - erm- here for - recherche," Celeste said. She had no idea if that would allow them to pass, but it seemed to prove effective, as the woman replied "Oui, entrer."

Even Axel understood that those words meant that they could enter. Consequently, they walked up the grand staircase, and into the library.

There were shelves that reached the ceiling, and each was fully compact with books. They were, like any library, organised in alphabetical order. Celeste was looking for information on Zirkyan magic, so the two of them would need to search at the very back shelf.

"We need to be over there," Celeste said, pointing to the bookcase at the very far end of the library. They moved over to the shelf, and, running their fingers across each book, they began to search.

Minutes had passed until Axel finally gave out a, louder than expected, cheer. He had managed to find one of the books that they were looking for so Celeste came bounding over. A woman nearby gave the two of them the most scolding look and they looked away slightly embarrassed. Axel took the book from the shelf and handed it to Celeste.

The book was huge. It was unrealistically heavy and was around three inches deep in pages. Celeste hauled it over to the nearest table and placed it down. She took a seat, followed by Axel, who sat closely next to her.

"The Untold History of Zirkyan Magic." Celeste read aloud the title of the book. "This looks promising. And, it's in English. That's rather odd for a French library, but I suppose it did originate in England, so technically it's not that odd."

She turned over the dusty front cover of the book to reveal the contents page.

"Page 326, the dangers of the Zirkyan stone." Axel pointed to one of the chapters in the book. His voice carried a hint of fear, as he read aloud. Celeste looked at Axel for a moment as she too was a little worried, but she quickly turned her attention back to the book, turning straight to page 326. They sat in silence for a moment, as they both began to read the first few paragraphs of the chapter intently until Celeste found a most intriguing point.

"People started to use the magic for evil." Celeste began to read a paragraph from the book aloud, whilst following along the lines with her finger. "There became a split in the Zirkyan world, between good and evil. Those which we call 'Anems', today, are known to be the direct descendants of the good. This means that somewhere, in their blood heritage, there was a person who fought for the good."

"This also means that there are people out there, who are descendants of those who fought for evil, too. However, their families kept their identities hidden due to the heavy embarrassment they carried amongst their names for causing the Zirkyan stone to be locked up, and consequently, the loss of Zirkyan magic, too. This was the result of the improper use of the stone. Or, to be more specific, the result of having a taste of power, and exploiting the stone's power for more of that."

Celeste finished the paragraph and collected her thoughts for a moment. People using Zirkyan magic for evil wasn't something Celeste had ever thought about. What kind of evil could that possibly have been? It may have just been small acts of violence, or crimes against the laws of the magic.

"They might not mean evil in the way that we're thinking." Celeste started when she saw the worried look on Axel's face. "It was probably just too many people breaking the laws of the magic, so they took away the privilege as punishment."

Celeste tried to sugarcoat the information that she had just read. She had been invested in the stone for too long, and couldn't let something that she had read in a book stop all of her hard work.

"Wait here's another interesting bit." Said Axel, pointing to another paragraph, on the next page. "When they locked up the stone in the museum, the Zirkyan authorities broke off a small piece of it to put a curse on the display cabinet that it was held in. This curse made it so that anyone who attempted to free the stone, would have to encounter a punishment. This punishment was a battle against a beast, which in the Zirkyan time, they called the 'Western Tigron'. The rumours state that it carries the head of a tiger, as well as its fur, but the body and breath of a dragon." Axel's paragraph came to an end, and he looked at Celeste with great fear in his eyes.

"Wait! Don't wimp out on me just yet! Look, there's a bit, here, that tells you how the curse can be broken." She started to relay the details of the next paragraph, as she was determined that there would be something good to come out of reading that book.

"The curse can be broken, if someone pure of heart and grace battles the beast, alongside someone deemed to not have a pure heart. In simpler terms, this means that the curse can be broken when good and evil unite to battle." Celeste stopped reading, after that sentence. She looked up at Axel, and she could tell that they were thinking exactly the same thing.

Good and evil in unison. The only thing that could defeat the Western Tigron. It just so happened, that there was a rivalry between good and evil, within their own group.