Mystik Realm: Celestinia Academy

10 years ago Lynor looked out over her rose garden feeling slightly ill at ease, like someone or something was watching her. She started tapping her fingers on the balcony rail, a nervous habit she’d had for some years. She ran her fingers through her hair absentmindedly while watching the surroundings trying to see something, anything, but there seemed to be nothing there but the night creatures that are usually roaming around in the night. She bit her lip worriedly which resulted in a comforting pain, a flicker of darkness splashed across her features briefly, her mouth went dry. A crow landed on a tree branch nearby, it c****d it's head to the side and trained it's small, beady eyes on her, almost like it knew she didn’t belong here, or anywhere for that matter. She stepped back slowly into the house before shutting the balcony door quickly, not wanting to read more into the crows appearance than there actually was. There could be many numbers of reasons why a Mylin could be here of all places right? Not just because of her presence. Lynor headed further into the house, deciding some food and a hot drink would calm her nerves. She filled the jug and put it on to boil, and then took some cheese and crackers out and laid them on the table. Lyn leaned onto the kitchen counter her arms supporting her weight, chewing on her crackers as she thought about her life or what had become of it anyway; she could trust no one but herself and maybe her sister, if she had to, but only if she had too. She’d been running for the best part of five years, and she could see no light at the end of the tunnel. She chewed her lip considering how much longer it would take to be found, it was inevitable. Estimating the time though, could be crucial to Alya’s survival. The jug boiled and the timer went off. A loud beeping that surprised Lyn, but she smiled and began to move toward it. She moved maybe a metre before a loud scream echoed through the house and she jumped, startled. Her hair whipped her face as she turned around and sped down the stairs to her only daughter’s room, she almost tripped but steadied herself by gripping onto the railing before running down the stairs once more. Alya was drenched in a sheen of sweat as she thrashed violently under the covers of her bed, tears rolled out of her closed eyes and she cried out, with words this time. She begged for them to stop, to stop hurting her, an intense look of pain crossed her young features. A pain that did not appear to be physical and the way she moved looked like she was being restrained, her movement always stopping at a certain point. She was reaching out to somebody like they were being tortured in front of her eyes. The bed sheets tangled around her limbs while she cried out louder, her voice becoming more and more shrill. Lynor stepped forward, her foot squeaking against the polished wood floor of the room and tried to untangle Alya from the sheets, but the girl screamed in protest of being moved and lashed out at Lynor, just missing her. “It’s me, your mother,” coaxed Lynor trying to hug the poor girl and getting whacked in the head for her effort. Pain shot through her but the adrenaline pushed it aside, the fear. “Ally? Ally?! Come on, wake up!” After a few minutes of Lynor crying as she tried in vain to wake her unsuccessfully, a shudder went through her small frame and her body ceased its struggle. A sigh escaped Lynors parched lips and she put her arms around her body as another shudder racked her tiny body. Her blue-green eyes opened and the girl whimpered and made a movement to grab onto her mother.“It’s alright sweetheart they can’t get to you now,” her comforting words and her simple caress of the child's face rang false as it was followed by a loud bang from the front door. “No, no, no!” Panic filled her voice as she started to act fast, clenching and unclenching her fists in anger and frustration, her eyes scanned the room as she thought. She needed Alya to be safe, which meant she had to be away from her, she could never be safe with Lynor when she is being constantly hunted, tracked down... The solution to her predicament came from a framed picture on the wall of her sister Alamara, sitting on a swing, a lot younger, it was the first time she’d visited the human realm, she’d been so excited. Lynor made a decision and she nodded in approval of the idea, she would send Alya to Mara, but how? She pulled her stylist from her pocket with one hand while grabbing an ordinary pen off the bookshelf with the other. She stuck the pen in her mouth then immediately started to draw a few symbols on the wall to protect them and give them some extra time for them to escape. When she’d finished her protection spells she unlocked the small box in the room with her quick escape kit, a spare stylist and a few weapons that she was rather fond of using, especially to kill demons who wanted to find her, well, she only killed the ones who actually did find her, which was pretty hard to do considering her skills always meant that whoever could find her was good at what they did or had a gift in tracking, either way, she had fun killing them. She grabbed her tools as she heard another crash and turned swiftly, nearly dislodging the pen from her mouth, glancing back at the door she took Alya's hand and wrote a message on it in an untidy scrawl. Then she ripped a piece of paper from a book on the shelf and wrote down with her stylist where Alya would go and threw it into the fireplace that was conveniently in the room. “Come on Alya just step into the silver fire.” She stepped forward slowly, one step, before looking back at Lynor in confusion, her head tilting to one side and her tiny brows furrowed. “Aren’t you coming with me, Mamma?” her voice was high pitched but musical as it tinkled through the air, it made a glimmer of a smile appear on Lynor’s mouth, but it was gone in an instant as another loud bang was heard from outside the door. “Of course darling,” She lied glancing over her shoulder at the door and hearing a crack followed by another crash of breaking glass, there wasn’t much time. Somehow reassured by her mother’s actions Alya stepped into the flames and a slight feeling of warmth enveloped her she looked back one more time before she vanished. Lyn started to quickly scribble down a new destination on another torn book page, again throwing it into the burning flames, the fire turned gold almost immediately, She stepped through, and disappeared. Landing in a large green field she ran immediately for the dark wood to her left and swiftly summoned her silver wings and lifted off, flying over the forest. She aimed for the clouds that covered the sky, higher and higher she flew, getting closer to the dark storm clouds. Dark figures gathered below her, a sizzling bolt of lightning brushed her wings and the smell of burning feathers filled the crisp air around her. She started to cough and her wing began to burn, she could feel her flesh cooking, smouldering through her beautiful feathers, her wings began to fail and lost altitude. A whoosh of air alerted her to the oncoming net but her injuries prevented her from doing anything to stop it. The net collided with her mid-air and wrapped around her, she fell, plummeting to the ground, screaming as she tried in vain to stop her decent, but her wings were caught in the netting and she couldn’t slow her fall. She tried to get her stylist but the ropes around her were too tight and restrained her expertly, like it was designed specifically for her, they probably were. She hit the ground, hard, there was a sickening crunch as her bones broke but she was still alive- in screaming agony, she moaned and again tried to move, this time into the fetal position but she couldn’t, even if the ropes weren’t restraining her, the broken bones were serious, if she was a normal human being she would be dead, but for better or worse she wasn’t. Men or demons, hard to tell with all the blood in her eyes, started to crowd around her body and one blocked out a shaft of bright sunlight that had seeped through the endless mass of dark clouds in the approaching storm. Drops of rain started to fall, splattering across the scene, A hand touched her cheek then a low, gravelly voice spoke, “I told you we would find you Ilyana Enmoira," and what limited vision she’d retained ended entirely, her eyes stared unseeingly ahead before slowly closing. Present day Ilyana, or Lynor as she calls herself, sat on the cold floor of her cell her back leaning against a solid wall, the rough ground digging uncomfortably into her skin but she tolerates it and sits still, breathing in the sickening stench in the air of wet soil and urine. Her confinement consists of only a small, dirty, straw-strewn floor, a brick wall with a bed pressed up against it, and three walls of thick metal bars. She’d been stuck in there for ten years, only moving to get her daily meals, her wrists were stained a dirty mahogany colour from the dried blood, the cuffs were preventing her from casting any spells and had not been taken off since the day of her arrival, they were specially designed so she didn’t need to be released from them to eat her food. She pushes her matted hair from her face, she is not well cared for and her whole body is covered in dirt and grime. She coughs, moving sluggishly to cover her mouth with her elbow and coughing into it again. There’s something special about today, an instinct told her that something important was happening today. It must be something to do with Alya, then it hit her, Ally was turning sixteen today, she could almost feel the clock ticking. When she’d sent the note to her sister, Mara, she had specifically asked her to raise her daughter as human as possible, it was safer than living in the Mystik Realm as she would be too easy to find While she ponders, faint footsteps begin, getting closer to her but she only notices them when they get louder, her previously honed to perfection senses dulled since her capture and since she had no access to her abilities her hearing couldn’t be enhanced by her affinity with air. She raises her head and shakes the hair from her eyes and saw who was here… Axel, the one who had betrayed her, the one she had loved, Alya’s father. He hadn’t visited her since the day she’d arrived, and even then he’d only said a few words to her in a low harsh voice, she had been unable to hear what he’d said. She had seen him from a distance but he’d never come any closer until now. “Let me out, I need to see her,” she starts to say pleadingly and reaches forward with her chained hands in a beseeching gesture. “You know I can’t do that Lyn,” he says smiling wickedly while shaking his head disapprovingly at the suggestion. “What did they offer you to make you betray me?” she asks in a defeated tone, letting her arms fall back to her sides and looking away from Axel to hide a brief flash of weakness at the memories of the time she had to begin her escape from the demons. “Nothing, they offered nothing,” he answers. “Why then?” she asks as silent tears fall, and leave wet trails down her dirt covered face. “Why should you care? You were one of the ones who let them take it,” he says angrily and turns to go, taking a few steps away from her cell. “Take what?” she asks, more curious than concerned, already knowing that he would stay to answer her. He turns back to Lynor but stays poised, ready to leave, “They took my soul, I can’t feel emotion other than rage and hostility without it,” suddenly everything made sense to Lynor, the reasons why he’d betrayed her, without any other emotions, why wouldn’t he work to destroy her? “But, you know if you ever do get your soul back it would kill you… the things you’ve done without it will drive you insane…” Lynor says quickly as she can feel a cough building up in her throat, an unpleasant sensation that she has grown used to, she coughs up blood in her palm and wipes her mouth on her shoulder and her hand on her clothes. “Yeah, I know, that’s why I haven’t tried, even if I did I would need to find a pure soul and swap mine for it,” he says, a pure soul, like Alya? Undiluted and new? As well as angelic… “Oh. Wait,” she says as he again, turns to go, she’d started to go over the conversation and she’d gotten stuck on one point that he hadn’t explained, “you said before that I let them take your soul, Right? How do you figure that?” “You were there, or at least someone who looked like you was…” he says slightly unsure by her question, he leans against the back wall, thinking things over in his head. “I'm pretty sure that was not me you saw, it was either an illusion to comfort or make you feel broken, or it was someone disguised as me to make you feel betrayed.” she contemplates while trying to scratch an itch on her leg with her sharp nails. “Maybe,” “Can I send her this?” Lynor asks as she begins to struggle to pull off a charm bracelet she’d gotten from her mother when she was a child, sweat beads on her forehead and she uses her shirt sleeve to wipe it away, with a bit of soil and other grime. “To Alya?” he queries. “Yeah,” Lyn says through a coughing fit, and this time not bothering to cough into her elbow instead just turning to the side and tucking her chin in her shoulder. “Ok, it can’t hurt,” he unties the bracelet from her wrist and pulls it through the bars before handing her something to write on and a pen. “You can write a short note,” “Thank you,” she said as she wrote in a messy scrawl a short message to her daughter. They knew where Alya was but the wards and protective barriers were strong enough to delay them from taking her, however, a present with no harm meant can easily be sent through such barriers. The man watches, concealed in the shadows of the corridor as the scene progresses, everything is going well, he would have the girl soon. His war would start, and he’d be in possession of the best weapon that would ensure his victory.