“Momma please….”
“Nope,” I firmly stated, causing my precious daughter to shake her head from side to side. “I don’t want to hear a word, not a peep from you, just know that the second we enter our hotel room, I’ve got something for you.” I may be only 17 years old and very much new to the idea of motherhood thanks to my animal spirit. However, like any good mother, I would not allow my child’s actions to go unpunished. When I was 13 and Victoria had recently turned three years old. I had taken a trip off of Tarun’s Island with my mother, a chance to see her work up close. However, what my cheeky spirit animal learned from this trip was that while most mainlanders could not see her or touch her. She could interact with objects in order to play some not so funny pranks on unsuspecting people. Now don’t get me wrong, I loved a good joke, hell my little brother was a master of different pranks and had more books on the subject so he never ran out of them. However, jokes were supposed to be fun for everyone.
However, making sure our first class attendant slipped and dropped a tray of drinks and ended up cutting herself very severely was not a joke. No one saw what I saw, but it was very clear who had done it. Now at the very least I knew that Victoria was not trying to hurt the woman. However, it was her actions that caused this, and no amount of begging for mercy would save her from me.
“I said sorry,” she whimpered sadly from inside of her gemstone where I had currently grounded her until we reached our hotel room. Where I would pull her aside in private to give her a bit of tough love, nothing she could not handle, but it would not be a pleasant time. “It was just a joke, I didn’t know that she was gonna get hurt.”
“What you did, even if she didn’t get hurt, would not have been a joke. Making sure she tripped and spilled all of those drinks was not a fun thing for her. It just caused more work for a very kind worker.” I explained, making sure to give her a very large tip for her efforts today. My people's currency was a bit old school, mostly being gold, silver and copper. While worth something on the mainland, we found it kinda useless, thanks to the amount of jepei that was in the ground both in and surrounding the island. We had plenty of precious gemstones because of it, and it was some of the purest in the world. It was why most places on earth that accepted our island nation, had small ATMs that we could place a coin in and get the currency of where we were going. So even one gold coin could get me about 5 thousand US dollars at the very least. One coin once got me over 10000 dollars from the machine.
We stepped out of the terminal to wait for our bags. My hands crossed over my broad chest. “Don’t,” I thought back to Victoria as she attempted to come up with another of her many excuses. She let out a very sad sounding whine, and for the first time since the incident I could feel true remorse starting to spread out of my gemstone and through my body. “Listen to me, Vicky.” I said using a small pet name that she knew meant I was not mad at her, or lord forbid didn’t love her anymore. “I told you to behave yourself on this flight, yes or no?”
“Yes,” she thought back sadly.
“And you did not behave yourself during this flight, yes or no?”
“No.”
“So your actions are what have earned you a punishment, yes or no?”
She hesitated for a moment but then finally admitted it. “Yes ma’am.”
I gripped my gemstone in my palms for a moment and focused most of my jepei into a feeling of love. It was hard to explain that feeling, but it was one of the strongest emotions that we could produce. “And no matter what, you know I love you very much, yes or no?”
I could just see the small grin that appeared on her face. “Yes, momma.”
“Atta girl,” I said, looking over at Daniel who for the first time, since we had gathered yesterday, let out a long yawn. As far as I knew the boy had been awake since we left Tarun’s and since we got on our flight from Dalla to Athens. “I will see you in a bit, Victoria.”
I walked over to the boy who was leaning against one of the many railings that was in this airport. It was odd going from being surrounded by jepei users back home to not even seeing one here. His nine tailed voice spirit wandered off a bit looking at all of this in curiosity. It was their first time being off the island so of course they would be curious. Even Daniel who looked exhausted was looking around with a curious glimmer in his tired eyes. “What do you want?” He asked, once I approached him.
“I was gonna suggest once we get our bags and Xavier returns with the car I rented. How about you try and get some sleep?” Daniel only gave a brief nod of his head. “And also a small word of advice if I may, since it is your first time being off the island. Take a few deep breaths and get used to the air and the very faint jepei aura that runs through the cities. We need it to keep our abilities as strong as we can, it take a bit to get used to areas with so little jepei.”
“Thank you,” Daniel stepped past me and grabbed the handle of his only suitcase. Where me and Xavier brought three each, this boy only needed one and a backpack. “Have you ever been off the island?”
“A few times, with Lady Hearthstone.”
“Your mom right?” Daniel questioned, reaching out to snag two of Xavier’s bags as well. “What’s like living in the temple of five?”
“I can tell you that it is very overwhelming sometimes, the council has the five strongest jepei auras on the island right now. So it is easy to feel when one of them is upset and some of the fights I have seen and felt when they into it.” I let out a low whistle and shuddered a bit. “It’s enough to make you want to collapse.”
“What was the worst one?” He asked.
I placed a hand on my chin to think. “The worst one was an argument between Lady Hera and Lord Kanu.” I still remembered how the ground shook as those two auras clashed against each other. What had started as a peaceful meeting, turned very personal very quickly. However, they both made up and admitted they were wrong after a very long “sparring match” as my mother put it.
Daniel only nodded his head but I knew that he had another question on his mind. “D-Does it feel safer being surrounded by the strongest on the island.”
“It does but it also is frightening in a way. If anyone was to try and hurt the island, they would start at the council building.” I explained, sharing one of my own small worries I had after the war for the coast two years ago. “For a bit I was scared that maybe another attack would come and they would start at the temple of five.”
Daniel only nodded his head again as he grabbed Xavier's last bag. I held my hand out and summoned my netrix weapon. Hanging three of mine and three of his off the ends of my staff, with a small grunt I stood up carrying these bags on my shoulders, keeping an eye on Daniel as we went. “Watch that boy like a hawk.” That was the one order that my mother had given me.
I had no idea why, but quickly learned during this trip.
Do not let this boy have sharp objects by himself.
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After a very long drive to our hotel in Sparta Greece. I had taken Xavier with me to go and meet with a professor that I had looked into. Dr. Orion Drakos. (We had left Daniel at the hotel as the boy had fallen asleep and showed no signs of waking up anytime soon.) Our meeting had gone much better than even I could have predicted, Dr. Drakos was a very kind man a jepei users just like us and he had a lot of information on Adonis, the philosopher that I had found out about in our achieves. We learned that he was deemed a traitor to the state of Sparta during the famed war between Sparta and The Persians. While he was awaiting trailing he wrote down all that he knew and sent it off with daughter to escape. Yet she died while heading off on a boat to Africa. Turns out that they could really use Xavier’s expertise in the water to help they gather some information that might still be lost there, and he offered his office for us to use in our search for this tower of babel.
After our meeting was over, myself and Xaiver decided to grab some lunch as well as something to eat for Daniel. Now I had not seen the boy eat anything since we left the previous morning, however the smells that came from the restaurant me and Xaiver stopped at. That should be more than enough to get the boy to eat. I would be lying to myself if I didn’t find Xaiver very funny and kind. The dark skinned boy was pretty good looking too if I was being honest. I could understand why more than a few girls in our grade wanted to be much more than friends with him. Right now he was wearing a white shirt, white jeans and a pair of good looking sport shoes. All that made his dark skin a bit darker in comparison. His dreads spilled over his shoulders like long vines you would find in the jungle, that alongside his nearly perfect face made him look like the perfect casting for tarzan. Now that he was a bit more open and relaxed, he is a lot of fun too. Always finding ways to cheer me up and keep me laughing, though I will admit his constant puns were starting to get the better of me.
So far the only downside I had about the boy was his odd addiction to this Sarah Springchaser. From what he had told me the previous night, he and Sarah met in Nigeria when he was 10 and she was five, they had been separated for about three years and reunited on Tarun Island. However, he blamed himself for what happened to Sarah while they were gone, events that even he didn’t know. All he knew was that whatever happened to Sarah was the cause of her more childlike nature. I doubted he would ever let himself find happiness before Sarah did, he was punishing himself for something that was not his fault. It was no secret that he was worried about her more than he let on. I could only hope that that didn’t get in the way of what we were trying to do. I needed us to be the best we could possibly be. We needed to be more than a team, we needed to be friends.
And that might have started off on a rough start since when we came back to the hotel. Daniel was nowhere to be found and apparently had torn off two off Oscar's, Xavier animal spirit, tendrils in the process. So while Xaiver went to find the boy in question, I had finally caught Victoria, who had been keeping out of my range until now, and was able to have our little “Chat” about her misbehavior on the plane. Once that was finished I had her cradles against my chest, holding her much like my own parents would hold me after a “chat”. I honestly hated how much I sounded like my mother sometimes as I told the current princess of all the monkey spirits. “I only did it cause I love you,” I said, kissing her on the forehead. I heard her grumble something under her breath but I let that small comment slide. I looked over at the clock on the world growing a bit worried that I haven't heard back from Xaiver in about an hour or so.
Right as I reached for my phone to call him. The door opened up Xaiver and Daniel came walking back into the room. However, I noticed that something was odd, while the boys seemed much closer than before. There was something about Daniel’s wrist that I could not explain.
Mostly why he had a large scar running over it.
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After a much needed night of rest and relaxation. The following afternoon we all got dressed and piled into our car headed to the restaurant that we had agreed to meet Dr. Drakos at. A nice and cozy place known as Kexrimpari, and judging from the smell I was sure we were gonna have a wonderful time. The floor was a dark brown color with matching tables, each table had four to six white chairs around them. Directly to the left of us was a large clarkboard, that had a list of specials and other information written in Greek in white chalk, most of it surrounding a red image that had the name of the restaurant inside of it. It didn’t take long for us to find Dr. Drakox, he rose from a nearby table and waved us over. He was wearing more laid back clothes, just jeans, a dark green shirt and a light jacket that was resting on the back of his chair. Sitting opposite to him was a girl that looked around 15 or 16, she had long dark green hair that was tied up in a ponytail. She was wearing dark pants and a long sleeved brown shirt.
“It is wonderful to see you all once more,” Dr. Drakos greeted as he shook each of our hands. “And I am assuming that you are Daniel.” His dark eyes came to rest on the youngest of our group.
“Yes sir,” he said, shaking his wrist a bit, as I knew the man had a very tight handshake. “I look forward to working with you.”
“As am I,” he greeted before motioning for us to sit down. “And as promised this is my granddaughter Thalia Drakos.” The girl in question greeted us with a warm smile and a wave. I noticed that there already was a large bowl of salad in front of us. “Please dig in, our waitress will return shortly to take our orders, and please get what you want, this meal is on me.”
“Thank you, sir.” I said, as I took a seat. “Please behave yourself,” I thought towards Victoria who, alongside Flame, was gonna be doing a bit of exploring in the city. “I don’t want a repeat of yesterday.”
“I will be on my best behavior,” I was glad to see her roll her eyes a bit. At least she was back to normal, usually after a punishment all my little ape wanted to do was be carried and cradled like a baby. She waved at me from the back of Flame before they made their way back out of the restaurant. “And don’t eat olive’s I don’t like them.”
Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. While animal spirits could not eat, they very much could taste what their user had eaten, and unfortunately I was born with not only a naughty monkey spirit, but also a very picky eater. “I will make sure to not eat them,” I said before turning back to Dr. Drakos’s. “Sorry about that, I am just informing my spirit animal not to wander off to far.”
“No need to apologize, Olive.” I smiled a bit as he called me by that simple nickname. “Now I did a bit of research on Adonis and he did write some information about this tower you are looking for. Or rather, what he believes to be the wreckage of that tower.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out a document that was similar to the one I had found in the archives at home. However, his had a lot more information written, words that mine didn’t have he seemed to have figured out. “See Adonis was no fool, once he realized that he was to be killed and his works were to be burned. He made copies and hid them before his arrest, this one was found buried nearly 15 feet in the ground, at a site I am calling A-5.”
“Smart man,” I said, taking a look over this scroll, I was glad that I had taken up lessons in ancient greek. I scanned over this page for a few moments.
“My discovery is one that I never thought possible, one that I assumed was gone forever. There was a tale of a tower built thousands of years ago. Built by the first people that once lived on this earth, the best name to give them would be the first walkers. I found this map while traveling in the heart of a land once flowing with milk and honey. It led me deep into Africa. It could only be described as the ruins of an attempt to reach the heavens. A tower or a bridge, one to bring glory to what the Hebrews call The Rock of Ancients, their undefeated God who shattered the pride of the once glorious gods and goddess of Egypt. It has sunken now, deep into the waters, so deep that it was only by pure desperation that I found it.” That was all I could make out so far, as half of this scroll had been either destroyed or purposely cut off.
Once I finished reading it outloud. Daniel chimed in. “A land of milk and honey?”
“The promised land,” my eyes turned onto Dr. Drakos’s granddaughter. “In the bible God promised the Hebrews to bring them to a land flowing with milk and honey. Or rather what is modern day Israel.”
“So he found a map leading from the promised land, into the heart of Africa.” I said to myself, making a small mental note about it. “And this is all you have on that subject?”
Dr. Drakos’s nodded his head. “My granddaughter found this in the wreckage I was telling you about. She actually attempted a dive down to the depths to go and gather the rest of the wreckage.” He turned towards her and motioned for her to keep going.
“The problem was that during my dive, something weird happened. Something starting interfering with my equipment, there is a very strong jepei aura down there. A very powerful one that is keeping people from going any closer. I only got one pot up after taking my gear off and swimming deeper into the water. I can’t swim underwater and that aura is so strong that it took what air I had left out of me.” I noticed that she looked a bit scared, her small hand coming to rest over her lungs as if the air was being taken out of them.
“Well you are lucky, as we already told your grandfather, my friend Xavier here can breathe underwater so we can get to this wreckage and get what is down there.” I said with a small smile. “So he can get down there and find what is causing this sharp spike in jepei aura as well as help collect those relics. Cause we need the rest of Adonis' work to hopefully put us back on the right trail to find that tower.”
“Like I said before,” Dr. Drakos folded his hands together. “You will have all of my research and equipment to make this dive. My granddaughter is also taking a small team to the sight of A-5 in a few days if you would like to see that. That should give me enough time to get the necessary paperwork in so we can get this dive approved.”
“We need to have this approved?” Daniel asked.
“Yes we do,” Dr. Drakos confirmed. “It is not a hard process my boy, it is more like a deal between myself and the commentities here in Greece. Any information that is important for our people, I keep, and anything that is important for this county I donate to the museum. I will also personally fund our expedition so they don’t need to worry about that.”
I looked over at Xavier who gave me a soft nod back. “I believe we can make that work, we look forward to seeing this A-5 site you have found. Is that where you found that piece of work?” I motioned towards the half piece of scroll.
“That and a few more relics that we believe are very important to both our kind and Greece.” He said with a bit of excitement. “Having animal spirits that excel in digging holes and tunnels comes in handy.”
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Once our meeting with Dr. Drakos and his granddaughter was done, we had a great lunch with the duo. We returned back to our hotel room to get a bit more rest to completely get rid of the jet lag. I had fallen asleep for a few hours and awoke as someone was attempting to creep out of the door. I slowly sat up rubbing the sleep from my eyes, finding that the sun had long since set, and I could see the dark red jepei spilling off Daniel's shoulder. “N-Not so fast,” I said in a tired voice. I stretched my arms up over my head listening to the sound of the joints and muscles cracking and popping to live. “Where are you going?”
I could only make out his dark red jepei and dark eyes in our nearly pitch black room. I glanced at my phone for a moment, finding that it was nearing 12 in the morning. “I was gonna go take a walk, I can’t sleep and I can’t find the charger for my switch.”
I slowly pulled myself out of bed and switched on a nearby light illuminating our room in a soft white light. Xavier was spilling off the side of his bed. I could see Victoria curled up beside Flame, both spirit animals seemingly asleep. According to my precious ape, they had a very fun time exploring the city and it seemed Flame was a good influence on her as no trouble came from her today. “Do you mind if I come with you?” I asked feeling around to stuff my half empty flask in my pajama pants pocket.
“Do you have to?” He asked, stuffing his hands into his short pockets. He was wearing dark shorts and a simple tank top, his jacket resting over his shoulders but his arms weren’t in the sleeves. Rather crossed in front of him with an annoyed look on his face. “I am just gonna go down the block and back, I will be just fine.”
I crossed the distance between us in a few steps. I was much taller than the boy and I placed a hand on his shoulder. I couldn’t help but see that his dark red eyes were much darker than I remembered them being. “Well I would rather you have a partner out there, we are in a different county, and the last thing I want is for you to be attacked and get trafficked off somewhere.”
“Do you really think anyone could take me away?” He asked with a skeptical look. “We know to fight and if I ever need to I could just slip away.”
“It’s hard to fight if you get hit from behind and knocked out.” I sat throwing my own jacket on, I was wearing a pair of snug pajama pants and a long t-shirt.
Daniel seemed to think about it for a moment as he sighed. “Fine, you probably weren’t asking me for permission to come with me anyway.”
“I really wasn’t.”
That got the edges of his lips to lift up slightly but they settled back into his usual frown. A few minutes later we found ourselves walking down the dimly lit streets of Sparta. Gosh I could only imagine what this city might have looked like hundreds of years ago. Women clad in long gowns and robes, the spartan men probably walking around in golden armor and helmets. Wielding the massive shields that protected them from harm of any kind. The once stone pathways that lead people to and from older stone buildings and houses packed together. Now those streets were replaced with modern stores and roads. As time went on the past was buried under new streets, with only the nearby fields and forests holding what remains of this history. We walked a bit until we found ourselves just north of the city, at the last remaining ruins of the once great city of Sparta. What was once a large temple or building was now just a few rocks that lay in the dirt. We took a seat on the edge on cliff that stood about 15 feet above these ruins.
“Do you wanna tell me what happened today with you and Xavier?” I asked taking a sip from my flask before tucking it back into my jacket. It was a chilly night here today, much different from our tropical home.
“There is nothing to say,” Daniel said looking up at the moon. It was just a few days since the full moon but it still provided us with a large dose of white light. “I went for a walk, he found me, we talked for a while.” He shrugged his shoulders. “That's all there is too it.”
“How do you feel about this team?”
Once again the boy just shrugged his small shoulders. Now that I was so much closer to him it was not hard to notice that he was horrible skinny, his eyes were tired and sunken in. He looked broken in more ways than one. “I mean I guess it’s okay, I miss Unique but I am okay.”
“Are you really-”
He interrupted me. “Don’t,” he said in a warning tone. I could see his hands starting to ball up into fists. “I’m sorry for sounding rude, but I know what you are gonna say. Are you really okay, and the answer is simple. I am okay, yes I eat enough, I sleep enough more than people think I do. Yes I have accepted that my-” He stopped himself and hung his head for a bit. “I am tired of people asking me if I am okay. I am doing my best, that should be more than enough.”
I looked over the boy for a moment, noticing how much he was shaking now. Now from the cold hair that blew over us, but from silent fury. Something else was on his mind and I knew a way to help him open up a bit. “Alright then, if you are doing okay, than do you mind doing me a favor?”
“What is it?”
“I want to spar with you.” The boy held his head up, and I only nodded. “I want to see what you can do, I read a few files on you and you are apparently a really good fighter. So how about you show me what you can do, it is also a good way to let out some frustrations.”
“I am not frustrated about anything.”
“I know, I never said you were.” I stood up and offered him a hand. “How about it, Daniel.”
He looked at my hand for a moment before signing and taking it, allowing me to pull him up to his feet. “Fine but don’t get mad if I hit you too hard.”
“That’s the spirit,” I said, leading him about 40 feet from the ruins. I would rather not accidently damage something and get arrested. I doubt our unlimited funds for this mission including paying bail. “How about we have a bit of a bet?” I ask throwing my jacket to the ground and settling into a boxing stance. I was skilled in both kung fu and boxing.
Daniel took a deep breath before slowly setting into a classic karate stance. One leg bent at an angle, the other one stretched far out. His hands held up with his knuckles curved in. The dark red jepei aura around him began to expand in the form of amplification. “What are we betting?”
“If I win, then you answer one question truthfully.”
“And if I win, you let me have my first drink.” He said with a small smirk starting to grow on his face.
“Maybe we will attempt that, just don’t tell your mother.”
“Deal.”
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I adjusted the boy slightly on my back as I carried him back towards town. We had gone at it for a good 15 or so minutes, and he was a lot more skilled than I originally thought. He was skinny and lean, but that made him much quicker than I originally expected. He was really good at using amplification to break through pieces of my protection aura. A few times I lost him in the shadows, a few times I thought that he actually became them. He won’t tell me what tricks he has gained from his nine tailed fox spirit. However, I can say that he could hold his own in a fight.
Which is why I felt so bad when I caught him across the face with a solid right hook and nearly knocked him out. “Sorry, about that again.”
“I earned that one,” he said with a small groan escaping his lips. “I am sorry that I might have gotten carried away. I was having fun.”
I smiled a bit as he admitted that he had fun. “Tell you what,” I said looking back at him. “We will compromise, I will let you have a single beer tonight, and you answer one of my questions. You are a very talented young man, a fighter that your parents are proud of.” I noticed his cheeks flushed for a moment as he looked away from me but a smile crossed his lips.
“Ask away.”
“What got you so into history?”
A few moments passed of silence, only my own steps filling the area and the occasional sound of chirps and the rustling of grass. As I was about to ask if he was still awake, he answered. “History was the only thing I was really interested in, I liked learning about the way the world used to be. I loved studying warfare and different fighting styles of old. Learning about the past helped me get better in the future.” His silence returned as he then added in a soft voice. “Looking at the past helped me forget about things that happened in the present. So I am glad to be on this team, cause I was starting to run out of things to distract me.”
“Distracting yourself from pain isn’t the best way to make it go away. It is still there and when you get bored that is the first thing that comes back to mind.” Suddenly a certain object in my pocket felt much heavier than it should. “Trust me, it’s not safe to do that stuff, or you end up building up an addiction that could ruin you one day. You're a bright young man, so don’t do anything that could put that fire out.”
“I know, I’ve heard it all before, but don’t worry that won’t come. I still have one thing to keep liv-” He stopped himself short. “To keep fighting for, and as long as her light doesn’t go out then I am gonna be fine.”
The boy went silent once more and a moment later I could hear very light snoring coming out of him. I couldn’t help but smile to myself as I held him a bit firmly and began to carry him back home. We had a lot of work to do in a few days, so I was gonna use that time to get him to warm up a bit more. Help him get enough food in him to feed that brain, help him get enough sleep at night.
Most importantly give him a reason to live.
Cause the last thing I wanted was him to end up like me. I can’t remember the last time I was sober for an entire day. I had been like this since I was 13, it started with wine, and when that wasn’t strong I turned to liquor.
My name is Olivia Hearthstone and I am an alcoholic.
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