Dominions

Chapter 20: Elle

A pin drop would have been a devastating amount of noise in the moments to follow. As Elle stared down the guardians, they calmly stared back at her. She felt more anger boiling inside of her from their calmness. How dare they not get upset or talk back to her! 

"I said-" she began to say.

"Silence!" they said in unison. 

They each stretched a handout, and Elle felt her will leave her body as it floated up in the air. It was as if strings were attached to her body, and she was a puppet for the guardians. Judah winced and grabbed his head as Elle flew through the air, and into the seat that she watched magically pull itself out. 

"You will be quiet and follow instructions. We have a story to tell," said the guardians together. "It's one you need to know, and one we wished we could have told you a lot sooner than now. To understand your pasts, you'll first need to understand your powers. So that is where this story begins. 

Elle gasped as her vision went blurry. She gripped at her eyes, but just as suddenly as her vision disappeared, it came back, but she was no longer seeing a cave. She saw a large field, with a young man tending a horse. He looked strong, and something about him seemed regal. 

"Glorianna was not always a prosperous region," said a male guardian.  "Evil monsters and invaders would come into our land and feast on everything in sight. People, crops, livestock. There was nothing safe when it came to these invaders. Our ancestors watched in horror with no way to stop them." 

Elle held back a scream as from behind a tree in the field she saw a red tiger covered in flames emerge. It stood up on its hind legs and shot fire in their direction. The boy dodged the initial fire and hopped on the back of his horse, but to Elle's horror, multiple fire creatures surrounded him and attacked him. 

"We needed a hero," said a female guardian. "A savior to come and help us from evil. so the village got together and elected a boy of pure heart and spirit to go on a journey. Legend had it that deep in the heart of Glorianna lived a power that no one had been able to find. The elected boy had one purpose: to find this power, and take it home with him to protect his people." 

A boy that couldn't have been much older than Elle appeared in front of her eyes. He was hugging his family and had a knapsack over his back. He had a loaded-up horse, and a sword on his hip, and a will to succeed. He had strong dark features and a chiseled jawline. He had a strong chin and crystal blue eyes.

Elle watched the boy travel through mountains, through forest, through desert terrain. Defending himself from whatever came his way, and growing stronger than he had previously been before. 

"Months into his journey, he caught the eye of a woman in a village outside of the desert. She was the most beautiful woman that he'd ever seen. The boy was smitten with her instantly, and part of him wanted to forget his journey, forget his people, and stay with her forever in that place."

Elle watched two people fall in love. From them walking around the village to sneaking secret kisses in the night. It felt like a personal invasion as she watched this unfold. Elle had never seen two people look at each other the way the man and the woman looked at each other in this story. 

"But the woman was no ordinary woman," said the last guardian. "She was a powerful witch. One so strong that she was the sole protector of their village. She could defend them from monsters and fight off invaders. She was so powerful that invaders knew not to come to her village. The boy had thought he'd found the power that he sought, but the witch had no way to give him power. Their love grew so intense that they married, and he promised to come back to her when he found the power for his village."