Alia grabs Rachelle’s hands and holds them in her own. Her grip isn’t very strong, it makes Rachelle feel safe than anything. She takes a deep breath in and holds it for a couple of seconds, slowly letting it out, this time feeling much calmer. She looks at Alia, who is waiting for her to explain. She isn’t saying or doing anything pushy, just... waiting. Ringo jumps on her lap and onto the table, even sitting next to Rachelle and one of her hands.
“I don’t know how to explain it, but I went on a small fishing and camping trip with three of my friends and a teacher from my school and throughout the entire trip I kept seeing this deer that none of them could see. Its next was longer than normal and its antlers were made and grew like a tree and its roots... It could also talk to me without opening its mouth and for the same strange reason it was blue.”
Alia thinks, well that’s only what Rachelle is thinking. That’s what she is doing. Being only eleven she sometimes struggles to read people’s faces when she is anxious. She just sits there patiently, hoping Alia knows what Rachelle is even talking about. Maybe she would know why she saw it and no one else could. After what feels like days but was really five minutes, Alia finally speaks up. Rachelle hopes, and even preys that it’s something good and not something bad like she will get killed by some witch and put turned into some potion for her witch potion selling business. Her body tenses up as she listens.
“It sounds like you came in contact with The Guardian of The Gate. Here its species is a Vexsnare, but I understand why you thought it was a deer, as it must have taken the form of one.”
Alia explains, pulling her hands away and standing up to look at her shelves full of books, she is searching and scanning the spines of the books for a long time, but soon she comes across one titled: ‘Aufusadýr, Friðnaðr, Nauðgandr, Ljósgandr’. Like the last book, the cover and the book itself is old and falling apart. It has a leather cover but this time black with gold and red on it, making it look vintage. She inspects; the title looks like it’s been drawn on with a gold pen.
She slowly opens it, as she doesn’t want to ruin any pages due to how old it looks. On the first page, it explains what Aufusadýr, Friðnaðr, Nauðgandr, and Ljósgandr ever are and how they benefit to this realm and the mortal realm. She flips to the first page, which is titled: Aufusadýr the Vexsnare.
Aufusadýr the vexsnare is a transforming blob that can change into anything ranging from planets to monsters. Its dominant form is a blue slime blob that slides around everywhere. In order to keep it self-safe and to blend in, it changes into a form that will either chase off the predator or blend in with the surrounding environment. In the mortal realm, it will change into animals there depending on the country it is assigned to, America; Eagle or Hawk, Australia; Deer, Kangaroo, or Emu, Canada; Moose, Beaver, or Goose, etc. There is seven Aufusadýr left as mortal hunters often shot them or monsters from Dragonia realm enter the mortal realm and they lose their life in a battle trying to defend the mortal realm. Aufusadýr was first found by Camelot’s king, King Arthur, in 986bce, when he was only fifteen years old and was a prince.
“King Arthur is real?”
I ask Alia, as she chuckles and smiles. Rachelle and her brothers were always told that king Arthur and Camelot was made up, just a children’s tale to put kids to sleep at night. Her brothers always dressed up as Merlin and Arthur for Halloween while she used to dress up as Salem, the black cat from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. They would often tell people it’s a cross over episode. Most of the time people laughed, the only time they didn’t want when the nerds told them it would never happen because of the time periods both shows are set in.
“Very much real, much like Avalon and Camelot, so is Atlantis, it might not be real in the mortal realm, but it is very much real here... Such a lively place, it’s where I went to school, Saxon Magical College, it was housed in a waterfall.”
She lets Alia talk about her teenage years and her life at this Saxon. Housing a school in a waterfall. Yeah, she believes that she has witnessed what she can only think enough magic to not even question how the students and teachers wouldn’t drown. She can only assume some type of magic has a major play in it. Right now, she can only assume that this world is a mix of fairy tale lands and lands made up by Merlin and Ambrose. Poiville is a city that she hasn’t heard of. She looks up from the book at Alia who is now talking about her how her husband first went to an ‘enemy’ school named Kazams University for the wicked, but later transferred to Saxon for his second year to finish the rest of his fourteen years of learning. She then explains how Kazams is housed in an inactive volcano and is still there to this day.
She looks down at the book to read what else is written, but she freezes in her spot and Alia goes quiet as there is someone knocking on the front door. Alia grabs her stick and strolls over to the door. Everyone, even Ringo doesn’t move or make a single sound. Another knock happens, this time louder, causing everyone to jump. Alia grabs hold of her wooden stick with both hands, almost like a baseball bat, ready to swing at whoever is on the other end of that door. She slowly places her hand on the door handle, the other hand on the stick.
“Mum, it’s just Amber and I.”
A voice shouts from outside. Alia instantly relaxes as she opens the door. Two females, one with white skin, light blue eyes, light blue hair, and dressed in dark blue pants with single black strip down each pant leg, white snowflakes and icicles patterns all of it, her t-shirt the same blue but with black circles with snowflakes inside of them, others having icicles. Her shoes kind of strange; elf like boots but dark blue, but the tringles at the rim black and to her surprise the balls are tiny white snowballs. She sees she is wearing no hat.
The second female has light brown skin, lighter than Rachelle’s, socks and shoes made from leaves and some vines wrapped around her legs going up to her knees, beautiful large wings following behind her, the closet she can think of is moth wings, brown shorts under a light brown dress that go to the thigh, green marks visible. Her hair, straight, green and going down past her back side.
Alia hugs them both as they walk inside. Amber shuts the door behind them. They both welcome Rachelle with warm smiles and a handshake. They give Ringo a carrot each, which he happily nibbles on them. Once the door is shut, they grab a seat around the table near the caldron and sit down; they pull out some papers and what Rachelle notices is a fine line Paint pen; she remembers her art teacher talking about them and brings some in for the class to use one day.
“Gavin, Amber, this is the mortal I found in the Swia Sha forest, near to Xagroyvania village.”
Alia says as she puts her stick leaning against the table and sits in the only seat left next to Rachelle. Gavin is sitting on the left side while Amber is placed right across from her. They both aren’t imitating or scary. They listen to Alia as explains what I told her. Amber writes some things down. She can’t see what is being written, but by her hand movements she can tell she is writing in English. Gavin is listening and tapping the table with her finger. She is glad to see people in this realm have their little stims, whether it’s tapping the table or chewing on a pen. She stays quiet and listen to Amber, Gavin and Alia speak and talk about ... something... she isn’t sure what about, but she hears Gavin ask, making her remember about the moonstone wrapped up in the leaves.
“Do you know if she has any gems on her? We may need to give her some gems weekly just to get by. What do you normally give your kid’s, Amber?”
“Right now, my oldest son is getting an Ivory each time he cleans up his room, but mainly he gets his gems from his work experience and that’s a coral per-hour and if I remember right, he works around the eight-to-six-hour mark for five days—My oldest daughter gets an Ivory for every job she finishes around the sanctum, right now she is saving up for M.A.A.S.—My youngest child gets paid An Ivory every job she finishes around the garden.”
Rachelle feels around in her pockets. She can’t find the moonstone. She quickly jumps up, leaving Gavin and Amber confused why and goes into the bedroom she slept in. She looks around, under the bed, in the wardrobe and cabinets, even in the table’s drawers; she doesn’t remember if she got the moonstone out of her pants pocket before taking off her cloths, surely Alia didn’t steal it, right? She wouldn’t steal something of her after helping her out, right? She then sees it on the small bed-side table, untouched. She goes over and grabs it; she feels bad thinking that Alia might have taken it. She carefully unwraps it not wanting to tear any of the leaves. She then places the moonstone on the table, visible for everyone in the house to see.
“Moonstone is worth ten thousand here in this realm. You can’t buy a place to live in, but you could start a business-like a pub, hotel, and you could even hire and pay up to a staff team of sixty-seven.”
Gavin explains, looking it over, possibly looking for any marks on it. Rachelle is surprised. In the mortal realm, a moonstone would normally go anywhere for two dollars to forty-five, seventy-five if it was a white moonstone. Amber must of have seen Rachelle’s surprised face as she pulls out a piece of paper with words and numbers on it. She does read about room rent and something about value bags. It now makes her wonder... does this world have taxes? Are the lower and working class not taxed, or is it taxed more than middle and higher? She stares amazed at the sheet, a world that makes the higher class pay more than the lower one, same with the middle class.
“I brought a copy. It’s from Magical Ability Assessment Society, M.A.A.S for short. It is given out to this year’s students trying out. I will explain about the classes and taxes later, but for now that is just some of the information you need to know.”
Amber explains as Gavin hands the moonstone back to Rachelle, placing it in front of her. She has already carefully placed it in the leaves. She made sure not to tear or damage any of it. She is thankful, other than Jenni, her family, and friends’ lot of other people destroy her stuff and stuff that is important to her. She smiles at Gavin and Amber, glad that they are helping her. Alia too, not once have they also kicked Ringo out or done anything to harm him.
Ringo jumps up into her lap as she places the paper down and puts the wrapped-up moonstone on top of it. She listens as Amber, Gavin, and Alia talk about ways to send Rachelle back and possibly even Ringo with no harm. They even talk about how she could even see the guardian of the gate; Aufusadýr the Vexsnare. Gavin believes that maybe one of her ancestors was from this realm. Amber says that could be a possible but unlikely as there is no one in this realm with any of her DNA or even blood line. Alia said that maybe her magical doppelgänger left this realm and moved to the mortal realm and at some point, crossed paths with Rachelle.
Which to Rachelle’s surprise, all three agree, Gavin and Amber flip through the files they have, looking for some name. Rachelle sits there quietly, petting Ringo and re-reading the piece of paper she was given. She can’t seem to wrap her head around it still. Some gems are valued more than the ones in the mortal realm, and others are valued more. After some while, Gavin pulls out some scrolls labelled ‘E-B-S’. She opens it and the drawn picture in the scroll is one of Rachelle, or someone that looks almost exactly, if not identical like Rachelle. She looks at it, shocked, even a little happy. She has never thought she would have a doppelgänger, let alone one from some magical realm. She looks at the name in the scroll; Esmee BattleSword.
Esmee, she finally has a name of her magical doppelgänger and it’s Esmee BattleSword. She takes another look, reading how Esmee was born in Camelot, Avalon district on 6th May 1007, or 2007 too Rachelle. She does the math. Esmee would be around the age of six, turning seven. It says she was born to a witch who is her mother; Regina CaveBane, while her father used to work in merlin magical fighting team, she reads his name is; Aedan BattleSword. It says her youngest brothers, both aged five and three are; Enzo BattleSword and Ezra BattleSword, both looking A LOT like her younger brothers Ryder and Rafael. Even Aedan and Regina look like her parents... She can’t help but wonder if she just found the scrolls of her magical doppelgänger family. She watches as Gavin pulls out another scroll, empty this time. She also pulls out a list of names and hands it to Rachelle.
“If we go to anyone in higher power, you could be marked as a criminal and your name would be smeared all over any newspapers, codex’s, and even caldrons... So please pick three or two and even one name from this list until we can get you back to your realm. You will be in our protection under a new name and background.”
Gavin explains as Rachelle takes all this in. How long could she be here for? Will she get to see her family and friends again? What if they can’t send her back? She looks down at the sheet. She can’t believe she has to pick three names, two or even one. She reads over the names and a couple stick out to her; Rachel, Aylssa, Brianna, and Dahlia. The middle names that stick out to her are; Daisy, Dune, Ethereal, Hex, and Griffen and the only one last name sticks out to her, which is Blossom. She doesn’t see herself having any other last name, not even with her last name being Bloom. She takes her time, thinking and deciding. She even grabs a spare piece of paper and a quill, writing how the name could even go. After some while, she writes Rachel Blossom. She hands it back to Gavin, and she smiles.
“Beautiful name for a beautiful girl”
Amber tells her. She does not smile at that comment. She is mainly told that by Jenni, her parents say it a lot and so does Naomi and her parents, but hearing it from someone new, makes her feel refreshed. She listens as they explain to her about Rachel Blossom’s back story. She was born in the streets of Poiville city which explains why a birth certificate can be found and the only thing that proves your identity is the foster form Alia Gold filled out today after she found Rachel on the street yesterday with her parents believed to be dead. She reads that she is one of the few, if not the only survivor of the Blossom clan, as everyone else is dead or left this realm for the mortal realm.
Their reason for Rachel’s lack of magic is because she only recently learned magic and strengthen her skills after Alia brought her in. The three of them explain to Rachelle that they are putting down that reason because of something Merlin and Ambrose put their magic into the ground for the public and everyone to use, even animals. Rachelle then understands how Ringo could form that small bridge made of roots and how the gate appeared at the Murray River. They explain that if she lives here for a while the land should be kind enough to give her some magic; they explained that even by sometime next month she could show signs of magic entering her body. She doesn’t know how to feel about this. A month, a whole four weeks, a full month of being here, possibly even longer... She wants to go home; she wants to see her family; she wants to go to school, do her homework—Which she didn’t think she would miss—She wants to see her friends and her teachers.
“You’ll be fine. We understand you could be missing your loved ones, but we promise to keep you safe and back to your realm in no time.”
Amber tries her best to reassure her. She knows that, and she isn’t mad. She knows she means it. Most of her life she has met people who don’t even try to reassure someone and those who do don’t mean it or don’t want to do it. There is only a small few who are actually care enough to reassure them, to give them some type of hope and calmness. She looks at them, knowing that they are trying to help, they are trying their hardest, as people we can only move and do so much in one day. Some more stuff is talked about before all four of them deciding that it would be best for Rachelle, or now Rachel to live with Amber as Alia is getting a bit too old to look after a kid again. However, Rachel is grateful for Alia helping her; she considers her as her grandmother.
She goes into the room she slept in, remake the bed, clean it up, and even try to change out of the dress, but Alia stops her, telling her she looks like herself when she was her age, even saying; “You can keep the dress”—That comment made her smile—She thanks Alia, packs up her stuff and follows Amber and Gavin out of the house with Ringo, she thinks if she should have left Ringo with Alia... She knows if she tried, she might have cried and Ringo might not stay. She is quiet as they walk away from the house and out of the city. The forest is still quiet, with a few animals and bugs being seen and heard.
“Do you want us to call you Rachelle when no one is around?”
Gavin asks her. She thinks for a moment. She needs to get used to being called Rachel, but she fears she will forget her real name and besides, Rachel is just Rachelle minus the second L and E. She nods.
“Yes, please... I know I should get used to being called Rachelle, but I don’t want to forget my real name.”
She is honest about her worries. To her surprise, the pair of them doesn’t tell her ‘That won’t happen’ ‘you are overreacting’ or anything along those lines. They tell her it’s a valid thing to be worried about. They walk through the forest for a while, every once in a while Rachelle getting to witness their magic in action against robbers, criminals and even some beasts that needed to be taught a lesson about thinking people are food. Amber’s magic is light blue, almost white, while Gavin’s is a dark brown, to her survival almost black with what she thinks is a little of red in it. She thought Gavin’s magic would have been a mix of brown as green with a tint of blue and yellow. As they walk the darker the sky gets, the darker the sky get the calmer the surrounding land becomes, things and creatures fall asleep, the starts come out one by one and the glow bugs fly around, the end of their tales slowly lightning up, giving them light.
Rachelle looks up at the house in front of her, the roof looks like it’s made from some smooth wood that was crafted in a wave effect; the roof is of course green, and above it is something that looks like it used to hold a bell... It reminds her of an elf house in one of Ryder’s video games. She can’t tell if the giant gaps in the walls are windows or doors... However, she still feels nervous and unsure about all this. In the past soon-to-be two days alone she has now lived in two different houses and a forest, something which she never thought would even happen.
She follows the pair through the door, walking into a small open area; it has some racks with both shoes and slippers placed on them. Rachelle watches as Amber and Gavin take off their shoes, put them on the rack and put on a pair of slippers. She does the same. She doesn’t want to disrespect them; she takes off the first set of slippers and put on smaller ones as the first pair is too big and to her, felt like clown shoes. She hears Amber say ‘I’m sorry, I forgot to say- Oh you done it already’. She just says it’s okay and follows them through another set of doors, she didn’t notice it before but the doors are made of roots that open inwards, go back to their normal line and then wrap around each other once they walk into a much larger room.
The floor is covered with a blue carpet, to the left side of the room are some crafting tables of some kind, the one closet to the door is a dark wooden table with two layers to it, and on the top one is a bunch of potions, each bottle a different shape, size, and holding something different in them, most of them is sealed with a wax seal on top of the cork, only two of them aren’t wax sealed. On the layer below it is a small caldron filled with god knows what. All she can tell it’s grey, thick, and bubbling. Around it are about seven open potion bottles, half empty and the other half almost empty. She can see from where she is that one of them has a label on it, and she reads; ‘Wolf Bane’. She remembers wolf’s bane is often used in books and movies to make some type of potion, and that wolf’s bane is a flower and not wolf’s blood or fur.
On the table next to it is a bunch of wood, all different colours, shapes and sizes. She notices a want half built already, and it has a black wooden base with some light blue owl feathers. It’s clearly unfinished which, to Rachelle or Rachel means the same person who made the potion mess is probably the one making what can only assume, a wand. She looks around. She feels like she has become some prison in those sci-fi stuff being escorted through the prison to be put into a cell... But minus everything and add freedom, kindness and shelter. She stops in her tracks as she is meet face to face with some strange creature standing in the middle of the circle with blue symbols down on it; the creature is just bones, has six legs and six horns on its head. The drawing on the floor is a circle drawn on a black square, a two white stars and circles on the points of one star, each symbol looking very different to the others.
The symbol in the circle in the middle looks like a stick figure person holding its hands up in the air. She takes some steps backwards, not really wanting to get too close to the creature, as she doesn’t know if it could kill her or not. She follows Amber and Gavin down a hall way and towards a door, Gavin opens it and we all walk inside—It’s a bedroom—single bed with sheets, pillow case and blanket already on it, the wardrobe is made of a much darker wood; she opens it to see some tree roots acting as the pole that you put the cloth hangers on, but inside there are roots that look like hands hanging down from it, holding dresses and pants. She sees above the dresses is a hat, each one coloured the same as the dress.
“This is your room. If you need anything, my oldest daughter is on the room just right. My youngest is the second door to your right. Do you want to relax first, then look around or look around now and then relax?”
She thinks for a moment before picking to relax first. Amber and Gavin leave the room so she can do so. She doesn’t remove the gem from her pocket, but she watches Ringo jump onto the bed. She looks out the middle at the night sky. She knows they had been walking all day and possibly even half of the night. She isn’t too sure, but she knows she is tired and wanting sleep. She watches as Ringo jumps up on the end of the bed, gets himself comfy and goes to sleep. Rachelle pulls the gem out of her pocket and places it on the bed-side table. She feels the bed is soft, and that she is tired. The walk to this place was long, and she didn’t realise how tired she was until now.
To her surprise, she wakes up; she doesn’t remember falling asleep but her guess is that she must have been that tired to not be able to remember falling asleep but her guess is that she must have been that tired to not be able to remember falling asleep but her guess is that she must have been that tired to not be able to remember falling asleep. She notices the blankets are over her and the slippers are on the floor next to the bed. She can only assume Amber and Gavin had walked in to see if she was awake or asleep. She hangs her feet over her feed and puts the slippers on; she sees Ringo still at the end of the bed and her gem on the bedside table. Everything besides the slippers seems to be in the place she left it. She stands up and makes the bed, trying her best to not disturb Ringo. She looks around the room again, this time seeing the bed frame is made from stone, and roots are wrapped around some stones, keeping them in one place. The wardrobe is wonky and wavy, making it look like the doors won’t open and close, but it surprisingly works. She sees it is made of blood wood.
The frame of the window is made from roots but shaped in odd positions, making the circle more wonky and imperfect. She likes it. Another window on the other side of the bed is the same wonky and imperfect shape, she looks at the walls that are made of wood but more on the lighter side of brown, not white, more zebra, the roof in this room is more of a white cherry colour, the beams on the roof are a walnut brown colour. She looks around for anything resembling a calendar; she thinks today is the third but unsure. Walking at night time really messed up her sense of dates and times–As she fears she felt for a whole day and thinks today is really the fourth—She stops as she finds some paper held to the door via a nail that looks as it it was hit my a hammer on many stops other than the centre, she watches as the words pull it self off the page and spin around each other before going back on it, with today’s correct date.
No matter how long she has been here for, she will be amazed every time, wondering how it’s done, she didn’t really have time to listen to what was being said yesterday because of the stress of leaving Alia by her self—She doesn’t want to admit it but she had grown attached to her and didn’t want to leave her, but really as Alia told her that day, she doesn’t have the energy to raise another child again and a rabbit again after so many years—The floating letters brought her out of her mind, this time she takes a lot at the date and remembers it.
Three days after being forced here and away from home, she wonders... if anyone misses her. Is any one out looking for her? She really hopes Mr Smith hasn’t lost his job or being blamed... Deep down she knows she shouldn’t have left the tent; she should have stayed with everyone and should have woken someone up. She looks out the window, over at the forest and green land surrounding this house she is in. Everything is quiet. She hears the birds chirping or maybe even singing; she isn’t sure; all she knows is that they sound beautiful. She looks in the wardrobe for what dress she could wear today as the one she is currently in looks dirty.
She ends up picking out a dress that is purple with yellow lightning bolts on my sleeves, the bottom part of the dress as some yellow zigzags all over it. The chest part is white like the last one but with a lightning bolt in the middle. The shoes (which she hasn’t put on yet) are normally purple with a yellow stripe down the side; she looks around for a hat but soon discovers there is a hood connected to the back of the dress, its purple with a single yellow stripe. She oddly likes it as she throws the hood on top of her head. It doesn’t pull on the dress or the hood and her hair; if I rain’s today, she could just throw it on to protect her hair from the rain. She removes the hood and quietly leaves the room, yesterday’s dress in her hands, leaving Ringo to sleep some more.
She stands at the front of the bedroom door as she is greeted with a hallway of doors and yesterday’s open area—Lack of a skeleton thing in that circle—She turns to her right and knocks on the door next to her room, it’s quiet for a few moments before she hears someone get out of bed and open the door, to her surprise it’s a female with skin as white as snow white, hair that is dark blue at the top and light blue at the bottom, her eyes which remind her almost like vampire red eyes which be making her uncomfortable, she can’t help but wonder if she is related to a super villain of some type. She is wearing a black t-shirt with a blue trim that she knows from her time in art class is azure blue, her pants are long, base being black and the trip being azure blue. She reminds her of Jenni
“Good morning, my name is Bailey OwlThief; I am Amber’s oldest daughter but the middle child. You must be the new girl that will be living with us for a while?”
Rachelle is stunned. She even sounds like Jenni. Her short height, healthy weight, and calmness, all something Jenni has. She wonder’s if Bailey has the same personality as Jenni or the same interests. It takes a while for Rachelle to snap out of her shock, but Bailey is happy enough to be patient and wait. But when she does, she nods and clears her throat. She doesn’t know how much she was told, so she says her ‘magical’ name.
“Yes, I am Rachel Blossom; it’s nice to meet you. ”
She holds out her hand for a hand shake, which Bailey was happy to grab. Cheerful attitude is the same as Jenni and her smile can light up a room. They both let go of each other’s hands. She won’t compare Bailey to Jenni, and all she may know is that Bailey is completely different to Jenni. She smiles back to Bailey.
“So, how can I help you?”
Bailey asks Rachelle as she holds the dirty dress in her hands, she just looks at the dress and back up at Bailey, flustered a little, Rachelle knows it’s the red eyes throwing her off, she feels almost like they are staring right into her soul and sucking it up but she thinks they are beautiful and ... different. Bailey understands what Rachelle is trying to get at and leads to where all the dirty cloths are put, a small room, the last door to the right side of the house, in there is a basket of dirty cloths, a tub of water and a wash bored that move the cloths by them self at a real slow speed. The room itself has stone walls, roof and floor, so it is quite cold to the touch if you walk in their barefoot. She sees on the far end wall a little comic like page explaining how to do it manually. She places her dress in a basket full of grey and white clothing; she sees there is almost nothing else in the grey and white clothing basket.
The whole time Bailey is talking, trying to start up a conversation, but Rachelle is just listening. Back in her realm no one ever listened to Jenni. Some days Rachelle wouldn’t do if she listened to Bailey and maybe got to know her until she could get to to know Jenni once she is back to her realm. She does now know how Jenni could be feeling, not having any friends to talk to at school, on the weekends and on school holidays. Even though it’s only been three days, since she misses talking to Naomi, Caleb, and Lachlan, she misses having fun with them; she misses all the jokes they used to say. Most of the times the jokes made her laugh until she had stomach pains and was in tears. All the pranks Caleb and Lachlan pull on her and Naomi is something that she keeps thinking back to.
“Are you okay, Rachel?”
Bailey asks her, clearly worried. Rachelle just nods, hoping to reassure Bailey that everything is fine. She says some lie along the lines; ‘Yeah, just thinking about how big this place really is’. She doesn’t want Bailey to feel like she is at fault... But the lie failed. Bailey is still worried and even asks if she misses her friends and family, which Rachelle does nod to. Bailey does smile and says ‘Let’s find your friends; I’m sure they could be going to one of the four schools this year’.
“No, please, keep showing me around first”
Rachelle tells Bailey. She wants to get to know her, and she only hopes it’s not too late. She watches as Bailey brings her to another room, this one full of shelves fill with scrolls, books and with quills, fine line paint pen, and ink of black, grey, and white. The large window on the far wall and part of the roof, the outside visible from many angles with a couch laid out at the bottom of the window stretched from one end to the other end. Some plants are placed in pots and growing, one or two a ghost plant. She steps in side and looks around; the first thing she looks at is the one of the two ghost plants. One is short with a thick stem, the end of it is a rock with some pebbles sticking out of it. She looks at the pot to see the words; ‘Balkeed Boulder Flower’.
She then moves over to the shelves full of scrolls and books, each one labelled something else. She finds a scroll title ‘Balkeed Boulder Flower up Keep’. She doesn’t touch it, but she assumes that most of the stuff here is about gardening and how to look after plants. The walls are painted a black, the same black is on the window frames and hanging from the ceiling is lanterns connected to some chains on the roof. The couch is a mix of orange and dark brown for the frame. The more she looks around the more hypnotised she becomes. The more she wonders about this place, the more she slowly understands. The whole time Bailey is standing at all door, not saying a word but just watching, she doesn’t want to disturb Rachel and her thoughts and just wants to let her look around on her own time at her own speed, but most importantly she doesn’t want to overwhelm her. After a while Rachel is done and says a simple ‘Wow’. Bailey doesn’t mind that she doesn’t have much to say, and she doesn’t want to push for more.
Rachelle follows Bailey to the next room, this one being cozy like the last one, but this time is it full of magical items, the shelves are lines with many items from feathers to toes, leaves, and even shells of some kind, a caldron is placed in the middle of the room, there are no windows and the walls are just covers with shelves onto shelves of items and knickknacks. It reminds her of Alia’s place, but much bigger and with more stuff. The third room is the kitchen, very similar to the second room, but with floating cooking items like a stone harped to look like a knife, fork and spoon. A caldron bubbling, this time windows, four of them on the wall, the lay out just either wood or stone, the oven and stove is just a fire place with a stone plate over a fire and the body of water in a smaller but taller caldron for the sink.
The next room being the main area she walked through yesterday. The same benches are there with the same items. The circle on the floor is still there, but no creature made of bones can be seen, smelt, or heard of. She follows Bailey over to the first bench which has the wand on there half built.
“This is my wand. I am still in the middle of making it, but once it’s finished, I should be able to cast spells from it. I know a lot of young people get their parents to build them a wand but I like to build mine I believe it will have a stronger connection with me and me with it... After all back in the day the kids used to build their own wands.”
Bailey explains as she picks up the half built wand and carefully places it in Rachelle’s hands. Rachelle tries to be as careful as she can with it as she feels some parts lose—Mainly the feathers—She holds the feather end of it, holding it how a wand should be held, her grip isn’t too tight as she will break it but she feels the feathers bend and push into each other making the soft to hold. She hands it back to Bailey, making sure no bites and pieces come off before she follows her to the clothing bench, she listens to Bailey explain that yes there are cloths shops nearby but some days she has to make her own because of those shops not having cloths that fit anyone below a certain height. Rachelle doesn’t help but think: “Like my realm”
The last bench has items on it and potion bottles. The wolf’s bane stuff is still there. She looks at Bailey, wondering what she was trying to make. Bailey gets all shy and opens the book up to a page labelled: “Potion of Feather Weight”
“I was trying to make a potion that could make someone light as a feather but as you can see I made ... this”
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She tries to pull the spoon out of the pot only for the goop to hold on tight and stretch, not letting go of it. Rachelle grab it and on the count of three they pull. After some while, the spoon is free but they are not sitting on the floor. it stone spoon half covered in rock hard but stretchy slime. Bailey takes the spoon and places it in a bucket of ... Something wet. Rachelle isn’t sure what it is, and she really doesn’t want to know, so she just assumes it’s some magical water. Soon the circle that bone thing was standing in yesterday. The bone thing isn’t there, and she really doesn’t want it back, but she listens to Bailey explaining it.
“So this is a summoning circle, I was trying to summon Ra, a giant bird that is the god of the Cetril District, mainly the Mossley City but I summoned some bone demon from the Shiyoe District, I think he said he was from Cheyque Village, south from Aria City.”
Rachelle bends down and helps Bailey wipe away the calk marks, once they are done she is taken to a very large study, Book shelves full of scrolls and books covering all three walls, she can’t help but think that the room is as big as a lounge room to fit four people in a three-bedroom house. In the middle of the room are a table and some chairs made from roots and stone and on those chairs are Amber and Gavin, quietly talking and flipping through some books. Bailey tells them good morning and they look up from what they are reading. They sit down.
“Rachel, you may not know, but we mentioned it at my mother’s yesterday. ”
Gavin says as she slips over a book to me, open to a page explaining about Merlin and Ambrose and they put their magic in the land of this world for everyone and everything to share. It also says that at any point Merlin and Ambrose can take magic away from someone if they are told they are using it improper. She reads that one way to re-charge your magic or gain some is by touching a crystal in a mana crystal pod. It even says that some days magic is limited to everyone because of the strain it puts on Merlin and Ambrose.
“Is there a set day on when magic will be limited?”
Rachelle asks, she doesn’t want to go touch one of the crystal pods if today is a limited magic day, just her luck she will touch it, gain some magic and get in trouble by magical police and arrested for taking magic when she wasn’t meant to and... she doesn’t want to even think what would happen after that, she is even too scared to ask.
“Saturday, Sunday, public holidays, during special events such as Pliant Festival and during school holidays.”
Rachelle nods, knowing today is Thursday, she has today and tomorrow to find a crystal pod if she wants magic to look like she remotely blends in here. She takes another look at the page, looking are drawn photos of what these pods look like. She reads that each pod comes in different shapes, sizes and colour, sometimes people have even been lucky enough to find a shard. However, those shards only hold a small amount of magic which can barely lift a feather. Most people who find them often use them for money and place them in their gem bag to gain more value. It says that some of the crystal pods can be found near caves in the Aotearoa district with seventeen, Poiville City with twenty-nine, Llyen Village with fifteen, Camelot City with fifty-five and one placed in the centre of Cragglen Village, plus another sixteen different areas.
“So which one are we closet too? Should we travel to Camelot?”
She asks, Cragglen may be too hard to find, Llyen, she has never heard of that place, Aotearoa if she remembers right should be in the direction new Zealand is at and Poiville City, if she goes back there she may go back to Alia’s house and never leave again. But to her surprise Amber shakes her head.
“We are already in Torrine, Torrine Village is a rural village, our city or cities are Peterborough and Netaborough City, both fairly big, both just been a three-hour walk away from each other, Cragglen village is only a ten-minute walk away.”
“Shall we get walking, then?”
Gavin asks standing up from her seat with Bailey and Amber standing up, Rachelle following. By this point Ringo is awake and already eaten a carrot. He is now hopping beside Rachelle as all five of them walk ten minutes into the town centre. The walk there was calm. Most of the trip was just a bunch of farm land which was growing. Who knows? What an animal land, some being sheep, others being magical creatures. She tries not to judge them, but some of them look cute while one or two of them look ugly and scary. The complete walk Bailey is just talking and being excited while Gavin, Amber, and Rachelle just listen. Rachelle can’t help but wonder if Jenni is like this. She always ignored her like many people do. No one ever really listens. Normally they just nod and say ‘Yeah’ ‘Yep’ ‘Mhmm’ ‘Okay’ and much more just to get her to stop.
Rachelle is however glad that Bailey was talking. It made the ten-minute walk turn into a five-minute walk. She said jokes that caused everyone to laugh and even speak of some pranks she wish she could do some day with any friends she makes. She felt a little sad hearing the word; ‘any friends she makes’, maybe Rachelle should be Bailey’s first friend. Once they walk into the village centre there is a lot more stalls and homes with about maybe fifteen people around and more inside the homes. She does not stop in her tracks as she looks to a message board. Pinned to the centre of the board is the biggest of posters on there explaining about some of the magic schools.
Bailey says standing next to her; she knows she said she misses school but the thought of returning already tires her out and going to a magical one... She fears how different it will be. She does however see one school that Alia went to, SAXON MAGICAL COLLEGE; if she remembers right, she said she loved it there, but she wonders that with the school being in a waterfall does that mean she has to swim in water to get to the front door? She honestly wouldn’t be able to hold her breath for that long.
She looks at RUNITE ACADEMY; magic school in the clouds that floats around the land. She sees it’s gaining more and more students by the day and living and studying in the clouds is every persons dream in life, right? The only issue would be the weather. What would happen if a powerful gust of wind were to come by? Would the school blow away? What about when it rains? She hopes the school toilet system doesn’t control the rain.
She reads the volcano one, KAZAMS UNIVERSTY FOR THE WICKED. Do you have to be wicked to join? The school sounds interesting, and the poster is standing out to her. Heck, who wouldn’t want to be housed in an active volcano? Who wouldn’t want to be taught there? After all, it claims there is over three million two hundred and sixty-nine thousand... She wonders how it is safe. Is there some type of magic protecting everyone and the surrounding areas?
She reads that the last school is ALLURE FOR EVERYONE GIFTED, housed in some old tree and some mountains that used to be NALOSE OF SORCOCERY. She reads that both are placed on the same location but very hard to find. Her only concerns are if it snows does the school flood? What about when fire season–If this realm has bush fire season—comes, will the school burn down?
“Rachel! Bailey! Hurry!”
Amber calls out from what Rachelle thinks is the centre of Cragglen. They both polity push their way through the crowd of people and are soon greeted with a giant crystal sticking out of the ground, its clear some thick vines wrapped around it. Rachelle is in an owe, despite being here she would have never had thought that she would see one THIS big, even in her realm. She would be even lucky to find some gold down at Bendigo. She watches as some little kid walks up to the crystal with her father. He softly tells her to place her hand on the crystal and it should ‘recharge your mana’. The kid touches it and the crystal turns a brown colour, some magical wave type things go up her arm and up her legs, before vanishing once they go near her abdomen, Rachelle notices that the little girl’s eyes are light brown with dark green hair now.
“Geronin user!”
Someone from the crowd cheers, everyone around, even Rachelle clap, they see the same pyramided same shape on the Nalose symbol appear above the crystal. She assumes, she wonders if that very crystal has the power to pick what type of elemental magic they can cast. She wonders if people in this realm can cast more than one element. She watches as a couple more people do it, some young, some old, some even adults and teenagers, all different skin colours and races. After a while, it is her turn. She is rightfully nervous, as almost everyone in the town is watching her. She walks up to it and nervously places her hand on it and waits. The crystal takes a few moments before changing a couple of colours, almost like it’s thinking. But soon it stops on the colour Yellow with a lightning bolt appearing above it.
“Zilin user!”
The cheering this time is louder and there is more of it. She doesn’t understand why and won’t ask why out of fear she will get in trouble to question why she doesn’t know. But she listens to see if anyone says why—However no one does—She stands back with Bailey, Amber, and Gavin, watching the rest of the village refill their mana or gain their magical element, it wasn’t until everyone had cleared is when Bailey pointed Rachelle’s hair is now purple and her eyes are yellow. She looks for the well and looks into the clean water to find out Bailey is right. Her skin is the same brown but her hair on her head and eyebrows are now purple and her eyes changed from brown to yellow.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
