Destiny

Chapter 7: Nothing says welcome like scary old people.

All seven of the figures sitting on the elevated podium looked ancient. I swear at least a couple of them were past a hundred. They all wore the same robe, but each was a different color of the rainbow. There were four men and three women. The rainbow cloaks made them not quite as scary and I thought they might even by nice until one of them stood up and spoke. "Your late," his deep voice boomed. He was wearing a dark green cloak, and seemed to be the leader of the board. He had mostly grey hair with a few black ones scattered throughout. He was wearing a a crown of sorts that matched his robe. They all were. He had a long beard, and between that and the robe it made him kind of look like Gandalf, but nobody can beat Gandalf's style. Plus, he would need like three more feet of hair.

Kort stepped towards the board. He tapped his temples twice with his middle and pointer finger, then tapped his chest, then banged his fists together twice with his knuckles touching when they hit. "We apologize for our tardiness," he said.

Jaquellen leaned close to me. "That is a symbol of respect here. You need to do it every time you meet with the board. Before you speak to them, do it," she whispered into my ear just loud enough to hear. She stepped next to Kort. She repeated the tapping motions. " We are very sorry. We ran into a few...complications," she said quietly.

"Yes, we are aware of that. Kortian alerted us. He also told us you would hurry." The man glared at Kort as he said the last word.

I felt a rush of heat in my stomach again. I remembered what had happened the last time I had felt that feeling. I tried to calm it down, and I kind of succeeded, but not really."It wasn't his fault," I said angrily. "He was trying to explain what would happen to me. He was being nice. Maybe you've heard of something called compassion?" Jaquellen and Kort both shook their heads violently, terrified looks on their faces. "Oh, right," I said. I attempted to do the weird tapping thingy but I failed. The old man stared down at me, ignoring my comments and my attempt at the sign of "respect".

"So this is what all of the trouble is about. A little girl," he said he said with a sneer.

"I'm not little, I'm thirteen!" I argued. I may seem short, but I'm a lot older than I seem. My maturity level is higher than most boys in high school. Then again, really any girl can have a maturity level higher than a boy in high school. Never mind. Forget I said anything. Sorry if you're a high school boy.

"Is that so? Never mind that, we have much more important matters to discuss, like why you were where you were when you should've been here. Why were you there?" he asked

"Huh?" I said. "You lost me." Jaquellen shot me a look as if to tell me to stop. I shrugged. I don't know why I was speaking out of turn so much. I am usually quite intimidated by adults who I don't know, but I suddenly felt like standing up for myself and my friends.

"I would recommend to stop trying to be brave and answer our questions," he said, his voice rising. And... so much for my moment of glory. I shrunk back a little bit at his words. I'm kind of a shy person, but when I get going on something I'm passionate about, I don't know when to stop.

"Sorry," I mumbled, stepping back towards Kort and Jaquellen. Another board member, the one in the red cloak, stood up. She looked friendly, but I wasn't sure if she was. She had caramel colored hair that was up in a bun with a few curls framing her face. She had pale skin with rosy cheeks. She looked like she was one of the younger members of the board. Her sapphire blue eyes twinkled as she smiled, showing perfectly white and straight teeth.

"It's alright dear," she said with a slight accent that I couldn't quite put my finger on. Irish? English? A combination maybe? I don't know. "It has probably been a crazy day, huh?"

"Yeah, it has," I said quietly. She smiled again.

"We know you must have a lot of questions, and we promise we will answer as many as we can," she said. "But first, we just need to know why you haven't been here. If what Kortian said is true, then you definitely belong with us."