An Elementals choice

Chapter 15 A New Day

I wake up in Jet’s bed with a blanket over me which is good as I seem to have lost my jeans some time during the night. Dam it I must have taken them off in my sleep due to the belt buckle poking into my stomach. I look over to Jet, he is curled up in a ball like a little kid and still asleep. So, I carefully get out of the bed finding my pants on the floor and quickly putting them back on. I catch myself in the mirrored cupboard. My hair is all frizzy and there is soot on my neck, my jeans have slight burn marks on them. I quickly lift Cody’s t-shirt and discover that my shirt that I was still wearing underneath is a little burnt around the edges. Oh no! I quickly pull down the oversized shirt and start to head out of the room when I notice sooty footprints on the carpet, I follow them out of the room and the little black prints can be seen everywhere that I walked last night after, after the storm. It really was all real. I take in a deep breath, and I feel like I could cry. How am I meant to cover this all up? “Good morning my lady, you look worried is there something wrong” a tiny little voice like a child could be heard in my head. “Ah yes, I don’t want anyone in this house to know about my powers except for my brother but when they wakeup and see my sooty footprints they are going to have questions that I don’t want to answer” I whimper in a half-panicked voice. “I can fix that for you my lady if you would like?” said the little voice. “That would be great” I no sooner said and a tiny little wind flow over the carpet erasing the soot from the carpet.

My new reality may be scary and take a bit to get used to, but I think this new life is cool. I wonder how may different types of creatures exist and what they truly look like. I rush to the shared bathroom to clean up and do my business letting my new friend clean off the mess. Luckily, I wake up really early every day. It was still raining outside so the sun could not yet be seen. I am not used to having nothing to do. Normally I get up do some schoolwork, workout in my room, go to work or school or clean the house. Most of my days were spent either studying or working. As such I don’t know what to do with myself. I walked back over to the couch and picked up the DS that Jet had lent me and started playing Pokémon while I sat half in, half out of the sleeping bag. After a while I could hear Cody moving around, I guess construction workers get up early too.

“Hay sis” I could hear a loud whisper from Cody as he moved to the kitchen and waved me over. “Did you sleep ok on the couch” Cody asked. I walked over and sat on one of the bar stools so that we could talk quietly and not wake up the rest of the house. “Ok, but I fell asleep on Jet’s bed” I said honestly. Cody stopped what he was doing and gave me a weird and confused look. I waved him off “We were talking and fell asleep. Jet was having a hard time. He misunderstood my reaction yesterday same as you. He thought I hated gays and so thought I would hate him too, you know cause …”. “Ah” Cody replied while starting up the coffee machine and lining up 3 travel mugs and 2 regular mugs in front. “Ok baby sis, so what are your plans for today? As I have to go to work soon and so will nearly everyone else except for you know who” Cody asked. “Well, I would like to go online and see if my exam results are in and check if I am graduating from anything. Then I guess I should start looking for a job” I let him know. “How are you going with all of that?” Cody inquired as he started preparing lunch boxes for 4 people. “Well I finished my Cert IV in First Aid, I have my Red Card as school made everyone do it for work experience ‘opportunities’, I won’t know my final grades for a month or so from school, and I am still waiting on starting my work placement for my Diploma in  Emergency Health Care, and my results for my online Diploma in Health Science should be released soon …” as I talk I can see Cody’s eyebrows raise “what?”. “You’ve been busy” Cody says in shock. “What can I say the lock downs during quarantine were boring, so I made use of my time and now I’m about 2 years ahead of schedule” I shrug.

Cody laughs “I didn’t know my baby sis was so … smart and driven”. “Cody, I was bored with nothing to do except hide in my room all day, all night” I sigh. “Well, I’m off to work. I will get you my laptop the password is ‘LiFeSucKs!’ you got that” I nod and grin at him “here’s $40 in case you need to go out and get something, I normally get home sometime between 4 till 6 pm, here’s me number and a key to the house” Cody says while he passes the items over to me then turns and puts the extra now packed lunch boxes back in the fridge pours himself a coffee and goes back in his room. When Cody came back out, he passed me his laptop bag grabbed his things put on his work boots and waved as he headed out the door.

I spent the rest of the morning on the computer checking things out, sending messages to my schools about my change of address, registering for unemployment and all the boring little life things that need to be done when you move without notice. Everyone got up at different times and either grabs their coffee and lunch box then heading straight out or having breakfast then doing the same. I found out my new housemates were not really morning people. When Astra came out for her breakfast, I just ignored her and once Cassy left, I went to work in Cody’s room. But before Cassy left, she did say that she would come back and get me for lunch so that we could get to know each other better and to make up for yesterdays mix up. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, so I had no option but to agree. Astra left me alone for which I was thankful.

Sometime during the morning Perun came to me. Hello Leizi, are you feeling any better today? I sigh “yes, I managed to sort things out with the boys and Cassy my brother’s girlfriend will come back and take me out for lunch later so that we can get to know each other better. So far, the one that upset me has left me alone. How is your day going?”. I’m glad. My day has been busy not that I can discuss it with you replied Perun sounding stressed and saddened. “Perun?” I say while stretching out my hand “can you take my hand and sit with me. It feels weird talking to the air. I need to feel your presence. It makes everything seem more real”. I could feel a movement in the air and then a pressure squeezes my hand before the bed dipped next to me. I lean into the pressure while taking a deep breath. “Oh, before I forget thanks for leaving the … I don’t know what it’s called, um, the little thing that helped me out this morning by cleaning up all the sooty footprints of mine” I say sincerely.  It’s called a wind sprite, and your welcome. Do you have time to talk with me? “I guess we have a lot to discuss don’t we” I sigh lending into the pressure. “I guess I’m all yours until Cassy gets here” I say placing the laptop aside.