CHAPTER TEN
Sae avoided Queen Luna for as long as she could, but she still found herself standing in the middle of Dowling's office, a fake smile plastered on Luna's face as she stood opposite her. "It's very hard to find you in this school. If I didn't knwon better I'd think you were ignoring me." Sae mustered her best fake, sweet smile she could. "Well, then you'd been thinking wrong. I came as soon as Terra saw me and told me you were looking for me.", she half lied. But it was better than a complete lie.
She purposfully bumped into Terra on her way back from the East wing and she immideately told her to go see Queen Luna. "Right.", Stella's mother muttured, leaning back on her chair.
"Why I asked for you, was to tell you everything before the assembly, so you woudn't be shocked. But seeing you weren't even there...", she pursed her lips, clasping her hands together and resting them in her lap. "We located a burned one at Solaria. And there was another attack at Andros.", Sae's eyes snapped foward to her, searching her face for any indication it could be a lie.
"Your ather is fine, but he asked me to tell you about it.", as she finished her sentence she swallowed and Sae knew she lied. Sighing she closed her eyes. "Show it to me. Like he wants to." Then she opened her eyes and the everything around her changed as Queen Luna manipulated the light around her.
She stood on one of the walking paths at her home, Andros, the waves hitting the rocks filled her ears, even though she wasn't there. A small smile creeped up on her face, but it fell instantly as she saw the burned one in the distance and a couple dozen soldiers fighting it. It happened so quick, they were killed of one by one. And all she could do is just stand there and watch.
They were all dead, laying on the ground covered in eachothers blood. She tried to scream as th eburned one turned it's head towards her and just like that day in the woods with Bloom it bolted right towards her. Her heart clenched in fear and her chest started hurting as she tried to control her breathing. But it was as if she was suffocating.
"Stop it, right now.", Dowling's voice brought her back, everythign around her instantly changed, Andros was gone and she was back at Dowling's office. Dowling was kneeling beside her, hands around her shoulders. Sae didn't even notice she was kneeling on the ground, clutching her shirt and the tears that were falling down her face.
"I think that is enough.", Dowling said, slowly bringing Sae back up. "Are you okay?", she asked her and Sae only nodded numbly. "Remember, that's why you're here. To train. So you can defend your realm. He doesn't have very long.", Queen Luna talked and Sae wanted to puke the more she did. She knew all of that but hearing someone say it makes her want to rip her eyes out.
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She was there, back at Andros. Confusion written all over her figure, she turned around, walking in circles trying to find how in the hell did she get there. But a familiar figure caught her attention and she reluctantly walked towards her. The woman was an uncany image of her mother and Sae could feel tears threatening to spill.
She remembers opening her mouth to call out for her, but no sound ever came out. Her mother turned to face her, but a look of horror and dread was all she could see. Her face pale, before loud screeches were heard all around them. Burned ones ran through Andros, slicing and killing anyone in their way.
Sae knew she had to do something, but sh ecouldn't, she was standing there just looking at the terror unfolding. A burned one ran up to her mother and it stood behind her, she didn't notice it yet. Sae tried to scream to atleast warn her of the danger behind her. But to no prevail, it was like she didn't have a voice. The burned one just stood there, it's piercing, dark eyes, looking straight at Sae's scared ones, before it brought it's 'hand' read to kill her mother.
A loud gasp filled the silent and dark room, Sae tried to blink away the tears and sweat off her eyes as she struggled to breathe.
"It's okay!", a familiar voice echoed through her mind, or was it really someone there with her. She couldn't tell as she scrambled off the bed, she tried to run away, outside - she just needed fresh air. But she tripped over something, falling to her knees. She quickly turned around and scrambled over the floor to the window that was beside her bed. She pushed her back against the cold wall and tightly closed her eyes.
"Sae!" A warm hand was placed on her shoulder, her name echoing in her head. And suddenly everything calmed, her breathing slowed. She slowly opened her eyes and looked up at whoever was there with her. Her green ones found Musa's purple ones, slowly fading as her magic stopped.
"Are you okay?", someone else asked, and she took a look behind Musa. Terra was there, along with Aisha, both visibly tired and a bit frightened. "Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Just a bad dream.", Sae smiled shakily at the girls. They reluctnatly nodded their heads. Aisha turning and leaving the half empty room.
"I- I'm sorry I used my magic on you. But I didn't know how else to stop-", Musa strated to ramble, trying to justify herself, but Sae stopped her by placing her own hand on top of Musa's. "It's okay. Thank you." Musa nodded, with one last look at her she got up from the floor.
"Will you be okay?", Terra asks, holding out a hand for her to grab. She got up eith their help and once again gave another dfake smile. "Yeah, I'll go take a shower and then straight back to bed." The girls nodded theor heads and went back to their own rooms.
Sae's eyes glided over the half empty room, her brows furrowed. Stella could've at least said goodbye, but it would be hypocritical of her to be mad at her for that. She did a smiliar thing at the end of the last year.
She clenched her jaw as she felt the tears brimming up, she doesn't want to cry - not again. So she wipes her already damp cheeks and goes to take fresh clothes and heads to the shower.
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Her whole day went over in a blur. It was two days after Stella left without a word and the nightmare she had. She didn't sleep much after that night. The two days were a jumbled mess and her thoughts completely irrelevant to amything important. She tried to focus on learning - she was failing a few classes, but she wasn't good at them last year either.
When that didn't work, she forced herself on thinking of everything that went bad in the last couple of weeks, she tried to cry about it, fear about it; just feel anything. But she couldn't; all she could feel was numbness and tiredness.
So her days usually consisted of her bluring her words together, calling people wrong names and falling asleep at every single of her classes. But it never lasted too long, someone would always wake her up in a few minutes.
Professor Harvey let her go at the beggining of his class, so she could go and catch some sleep, but she detoured from her suite knowing Aisha has a free period now and is probably there. She didn't feel like socializing today. So she went outside and laid on the bench, soaking in the sun that peaked though the clouds.
"Who do we have here?", she opened her left eye, peaking at Riven that stood over her, blocking the sun. "You're blocking the only source of heat, please move.", she mumbled, yawning right afterwards. She closed her eyes again, but she knew he rolled his eyes at her.
"Come on, get up.", he took her cold hands in his and pulled her up from the bench with ease. Sae groaned but didn't protest. She folloed him though the woods, only a step behind.
"Why are we going behind the barriers? Are you trying to get us killed?", she wondered out loud, but still walked behind him, until he got to a little clearing and he sat down, leaning on a tree, instantly taking out a joint from his jacket pocket. Sae smiled at him and sat down next to him. Their shoulders brushing over.
He lit the joint, it was quiet for a moment and Sae's mind was swarming with thoughts again. She fiddled with her hands that were resting on her lap, they were now, finally, completely healed.
Riven noticed she wasn't really there with him, he could see she was deeply in thought. So he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.
"Can you tell me about your powers?", he mumbled, handing her the joint once she looked up at him. He actually was interested in her powers, he heard others talking about it. How good she was, some saying they want to be like her - others saying she's a try hard and was training only to suck up to the teachers. He tried to ignore the others but he accidentaly bumped into the girls and made them spill their drinks.
"You want me to talk about my powers?", Sae asked scepitcal. "Yeah", Riven shrugged, as if it's the most normal thing in the world.
"Well," she starta, not really sure how to explain it to him. She never really had to explain her powers to anyone. "I manipulate water -", he snorts and snickers as she glares at him. "I know that much." She playful hits his chest, as he inhales the joint she handed back to him. "If you're gonna be a dick about it, I won't tell you anything.", he rolls his eyes, knowing it's not true. She'd tell him about it eventually, she always does.
"It's like. I don't know. I can't make water out of thin air - I mean, I can. But I can't do it like, Bloom does with fair, you know. I can only manipulate water, but water is everywhere around us. So that never really bothers me. And it doesn't have to be water water, it just needs to be... water based?" She furrwos her brows, more asking than saying. She wasn't really sure how it works. She just knows she feels it.
Riven humms, handing her the joint. "Does that mean, you can even manipulate piss?", he looks to his right, as she puffs out the smoke and laughs, the sound alone, making Rivens smirk turn into a genuine smile as he lets out a chuckle too. "Watch out next time you're pissing, I just might make you piss on yourself."
Her smirk falters when she notices his eyes. "Mmm, kinky." She rolls her eyes at him, but can't help not to smile. "Oh for fuck's sake. That's just disgusting." - "But you never tried it, how could you know?" She scrunched her nose and brows, her lips turning downwards in disgust and Riven let's out a laugh.
They fall in comfortable silence and Sae can't help but let out a yawn as she rubs her eyes, blinking away the sleepiness. Riven notices it, so he puts out the joint, putting his right hand around her shoulder as she shiver slightly. "I beat Sky today, I don't really know if he was going easy....", he trails of talking about his day as Sae's eyes close slowly. She tried not to fall asleep and tries to respond to him, but her respones become only humms and grunts, until she finally dozes off.
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