Meadow of ash trees

new powers

Ash

  I woke up with a heavy bladder but when I went to get up I found I was pinned to someone, I opened my eyes rubbing the gunk that was keeping my left eye shut, and tried again to sit up. This time I remembered I fell asleep with Lilly, I gently lifted one of her glass-like wings off of me than her slender arm. I couldn't help but smile, I had never had someone to comfort me when I cried. The woman at the orphanage only cared for the younger children so when you got older like me they kind of forget you're there. It was nice to feel like someone cared for me. I stumbled over to the dresser to pick out a new outfit, I had fallen asleep in yesterday's training gear and it was stuck to my skin full of sweat and tears. I pulled out a dark green combat two-piece hoping it would be easier to put on than yesterday's one piece. Before I left the room I pulled the sheets and covers down on the bed and tucked Lilly under them. I stood in front of the mirror for a long time before I turned on the water deciding that I needed a hot bath to forget about yesterday.

  When I stepped out of the bathroom and back into the bedroom I saw Lilly sitting at the large wooden vanity that sat in the corner of the room. She smiled and waved me over, she sat me down on the chair she was previously occupying and pulled my hair from the purple towel it was wrapped in.

“ Are you feeling better?” Lilly questioned me with a worried look on her face. I smiled and responded, “ ya I think it was the shock of seeing something like that.” I frowned and continued “ but you said there is a war going on. I'm not sure what I was expecting.”  lily looked at me with curiosity on her face while she brushed my hair

“Are there no wars on earth? Is that why you do not know of death?” I was shocked by her question I wasn't really sure how to answer her so I sat quietly for a while

“I'm sorry for asking it was a dumb question you don't have to answer if you don't feel comfortable” Lilly quickly injected. I laugh and Lilly got this bewildered look on her face that just made me laugh harder.

“No no no,” I said in between laughs “I just wasn't sure how to explain it, Lilly you have nothing to apologize for,” I said calming down from my fit of laughter

“On earth, there are wars, rebellions, and revolution, but the average person like me was kept from the horror of such things, so the short answer is yes there are wars but I have never fought in one,” I told her and smiled as she continued braiding and twisting my hair.

“ All done!” Lilly exclaimed proudly stepping back from me so I could see my hair more clearly. She had made two braids one on either side of my face that pulled back into an elaborate bun on the top of my head. Elegant but practical. This hairstyle brought out my high cheekbones and large eyes, I looked like a different more attractive version of myself. I stood and walked to the door without even telling Lilly where I was headed. She somehow knew what I was going to say to her.

“ have fun at training I will see you here after,” Lilly said without turning around I shrugged off the weird feeling I was getting and left to train with ember. 

This time I was ready for whatever ember would throw at me. I walked in and Ember stood in the middle of the room with many swords ranging in sizes. 

“You're finally here,” she said while rolling her eyes “ today's training will be the same as weight lifting but we are going to do it with swords. The reason for this one is petty obvious, yesterday was to see what level to start you out on today. Sadly you are weaker than a baby pixie.” she snarled the last words before continuing “ we are going to start with the lightest sword here” she said while throwing a thin short blade at me I had to jump to the left to avoid being hit in the head. Ember showed me the same exercise as yesterday and told me to repeat it. Today it wasn't as hard to replicate her moves, I could at least do them very slowly. Throughout the training period, ember would randomly attack me, she would not stop till I could effectively stop him with the small thin sword I was using.

 It was noon when we stopped training because Ember said she could no longer watch me anymore and that she was starving.  I gladly took the break and followed Ember to the dining hall. The dining hall was a part of the labyrinth underground, it turned out to be a large room with wooden support beams that had glowing vines wrapped along with them, there was no other source of light other than the vines which gave the room a soft yellow glow. On earth, this would be the perfect lighting for a romantic dinner. While I was busy looking around ember saw the chance to ditch me. Wow isn't that great I said in my mind. I wandered over to where there was a line forming, I grabbed a plate and hoped they had food like on earth. I was shocked everything looked delicious. I didn't know what to grab. It looked like there were two options for the main course pork covered in some unknown sauce with rice and what looked like pink broccoli. Or fish with asparagus and what looked to be clam chowder. My stomach rumbled loudly and I remembered I never ate yesterday. I grabbed the fish dish and wandered over to one of the many wooden picnic tables and sat down. I just stared at the food wondering if it was going to be good or if it would taste like school food. I couldn't take it much longer. I cut into the fish and took a tiny bite. Oh my goodness. This had to be the best food I have ever had. The fish was light and delicious. The asparagus was sweet and bitter and what I thought was clam chowder was something thick and sweet it tasted like my favorite dessert back on earth chocolate covered strawberries.

I finished my food in minutes and didn't know what to do. The room was filling up fast with people and almost every table was full except mine. I watched people avoid sitting with me, had I done something wrong? I awkwardly stood and put my dishes with a pile I saw across the room before I walked out as fast as my legs could carry me. It took me a while to find my way back to the training room. I hoped ember didn't make it back before me. I wanted to try a few practice rounds without her judgmental eye. But when I walked into the room I stopped.

“I have been waiting for you.” Willow I mean Will was leaning on one of the armor stands with his curly dark hair pulled back in a hair tie. God, he was so hot. My thoughts and heart stopped dead in their tracks when he sent a mean scowl my way.

“I have been given the task of teaching you how to use your magic. We will start with some basic training techniques to pull your power to the surface so you can learn to better control it,” he instructed.

He moved to the center of the room and gestured to me to follow. He sat me down across from him and told me to close my eyes and just breathe slowly. I did as he said, not sure how meditating is supposed to draw out my power. I started to feel weird like something was trying to force its way into my body.

“Um, wil….” 

“Shhhhh” will interrupt me and hit my knee with something hard causing me to wince a little. Whatever was trying to enter my body finally did but it didn't hurt it was more uncomfortable like when you can feel someone staring at you. Whatever it was slowly filled and searched my body till it found what it was looking for as if pressing a button the weird presence inside me disappeared and was replaced with my powers.

“ Ok, now open your eyes” will be instructed. I opened my eyes and saw his piercings green eyes I couldn't look away. The longer I looked the more details I noticed about his eyes. They weren't just green they had small rings of blue that turned into the darkness of his pupils. Breathtaking looking in his eyes was like staring at the northern lights. I was looking for too long oh no this is embarrassing. I felt my cheeks warming up which meant I was probably blushing. I looked away hopefully before he noticed anything.

“ ok, so what now,” I asked, glancing back at him briefly. 

“ Nothing now we see how long your power stays active before drains from your body,” he said cooly leaning back on his hand. We sat there for almost an hour before Will stood with an odd look on his face and telling me to stand.

“ Ok, you should be out of power by now but seeing as you're not we Will continue with the next step. I have set up a couple of magic prof targets around the room. I want you to try and focus your power on a blast. This is called a raw magic blast. It is powerful but mastering this is key to control.” Will showed an example of him doing it and his power is the same green color of his eyes it shot out of I'm in the form of an arrow before striking the center of one of the targets before disappearing. I turned and tried to do what he did but I couldn't even get my power to flow the way I wanted it to. After an hour of trying all I could do was form a small ball of golden light to form in the palm of my hand. Will yawned and crossed the room to the door.

"That's enough for today we can continue tomorrow," he said before vanishing into the dark hall. I stood there not sure how to turn my power off. I  turned to one of the mirrors in the room and saw my auburn hair was floating on its own and my eyes burning a bright gold color the same color as the small ball of light I made earlier. I looked powerful. I shifted one way then the other watching how the light shifted when I moved my body. It wasn't the way Willows was, Willows power seemed to only form around his arms and legs. How did he do that? I held my arms out and closed my eyes. I thought about how it looked when he used his powers. I opened one eye to see if it worked and to my surprise it did. This whole time I thought it was a fiscal thing I kept trying to move it by shaking or moving my body, but it's all in my head. Gosh, I sound crazy. I giggled to myself and turned so I faced one of the targets against the wall. I imagined myself shooting a ball of light out of my hand. It took a second before the ball formed in my hand the same size as a baseball, but instead of shooting out of my hand like I imagined the ball blew up sending light in all directions. 

I had to let my eyes adjust to the light in the room but otherwise, nothing seemed to be damaged. If I had to guess it was more than just the targets that were magic prof. Ok, let's try that again, this time I imagined it step by step slowly in as much detail as possible. The ball started to form and I instinctively flinched but this time the ball shot forward with enough force to push me back a little. the ball hit a little bit to the left of the target. Hell, I was proud of myself for even getting this far. I imagined my powers going back to me and staying there. Then I went to my room and found Lilly waiting for me with some peanut butter jelly sandwiches and chips. after eating Lilly left for her own room which I found she moved to right across the hall from me. I was actually kind of happy. Maybe being here wasn't too bad. I fell asleep that night with a smile on my face.