Genus Terras

Water Kingdom

***SKYLER POV***

As soon as we pass through the air bubble, Josh presses a button and wheels drop from the bottom of the...thing. I don't know what to call it. We drop a few feet and I'm thrown from my place at the window...right onto Josh. I land on top of him and look into his sea-blue eyes, He's laughing uncontrollably. I blush a deep scarlet but eventually join him. 

"Sorry, I should have told you about the drop," he says, still laughing.

"Yeah, that would have been nice," I say, smiling down at him.He grins up at me and I realize that I'm still on top of him. I get up and brush myself off to see Lily looking at me and smirking like a freak. I narrow my eyes and glare at her, but she bursts into laughter. Leo is already outside the vehicle, talking to what appear to be two of his friends. Josh jumps down and offers me a hand. I blush and turn to Lily and mouth, "not one word"and she puts her hands up as if surrendering. I take Josh's hand and jump into the sand. I hear a thump behind me and turn to see Lily. We walk over to where Leo is talking with his friends. Josh runs over and does that weird bro-hug thing with both of them, Lily and I take our time walking over and let them catch up with their friends. We turn to look at the castle. It's not made out of sand, but of smooth stone, like you would  find on the beach. I turn to the group of boys. They all have their heads down, deep in conversation. Josh looks up and points at me and I quickly turn away.

"Lil, I think they're talking about us over there. Should we crash it?" I ask,

"Um, duh. I hate when people talk about me. Especially boys. We'll get it out of them later, but for now, let's scare the crap out of them!" I smile. I love my sister, blood or no blood. We sneak around to the back of the castle. We go around it and we see the boys again, except this time Josh and Leo have their backs to us. I take off my shoes and leave them by the door. Lily loks at me knowingly. She knows I hate wearing shoes on the beach, We sneak over to them and hide behind a large boulder about 5 feet from them. They're so deep in conversation that they haven't even noticed we're gone., Their two friends look up and see us peeking out. I put my finger to my lips and point to Josh. They smirk and keep talking. Josh and Leo say something to them. They shake their heads. Josh and Leo turn and Lily pulls me behind the boulder.I whisper to her what the plan is and she stifles a laugh. I peak out and they're all talking again. I pull Lily out and we creep over. I mouth one, two, three, and we break into a sprint, screaming. Before they turn around, I jump onto Josh's back and Lily jumps onto Leo's. We fall in the sand and I scream,

"Second time today. Just saying," He says, laughing.

"Yeah, well at least this time, I had a small bit of grace. Last time the lovely force of gravity played a cruel trick on me," I say, smirking. His eyes sparkle with mischief, and suddenly he starts tickling me. I fall in the sand and scream for him to stop. I throw sand at him but he keeps going. I manage to turn my head and look at Lily and Leo. Leo is also tickling Lily. I'm laughing so hard I can't breathe. 

"SURRENDER!" Josh yells in a cheesy battle voice. 

"NEVER!" I scream. He laughs and stops. I catch my breath as he laughs at me. 

"That...wasn't...funny..." I say in between breaths.

"You were laughing pretty hard," he says, grinning. I shove him and get up. 

"Well, I guess we're even," I say, getting up. He gets up to, and leads me over to his two friends. Leo does the same. 

"Skyler, Lily, this is Jake and Owen. They are guardians for the queen and king. They're 3 years older than us. Owen is a River Water Terras, and Jake is a Summer Forest Terras," I look at them. Jake has hair the color of tree bark and eyes that are an emerald green. Owen has very light blond hair and eyes the same color as mine.In fact, he also has a splash of freckles acoss his nose and his eyes are the same shape as mine.