Veton's POV
"I. . . have to go," Veton heard Umber whisper to Jett.
"Huh? Okay bye?" Jett responded, "Why-?" but then realized that Umber had already run off to who knows where.
The spirit was calmly watching them, just like the first time they had met, tossing their sword back and forth between their hands, before deciding to sheathe it at their hip.
"The creepy spirit-!" Elvira started.
"I have a name, you know." The spirit interrupted, their strange accent making their words sound almost melodic.
Elvira stepped backward, eyes widening, "You can talk?!"
"I can!" The spirit grinned, then paused for a while, looking up as if they were plucking the words they were saying out of the air in front of them, "Though I really should have spent more time learning your language,"
"You're not a Sky Child either?"
"What? No, I'm a Sky child!" They paused, yet again searching for the right word, "In a matter of speaking."
"I am so done with cryptic stuff," Veton muttered, shifting his weight from one foot to another.
The spirit looked at him, apparently having heard what he said, "Oh I'm sorry, I guess that did sound cryptic," They tucked a strand of their hair behind an ear, which Veton noticed was much pointier than his or Elvira's, "I'm a type of Sky child that lived a couple of hundred years ago."
"And...?" Elvira questioned.
"And?"
"Are you going to explain why you're here?"
"Oh!" They grinned again, "You're right! I'm an Elder too!"
"I'm having a really hard time believing anything you say right now," Elvira sighed, "especially that."
The spirit tilted their head, "How do I prove it to you?"
Elvira squinted at them, as if sizing them up, "Well which Elder are you?"
The spirit grinned again, "The same one as you, um. . ." They paused, "What's your name?"
"I'm Elvira,"
"Oh! Such a nice name, I'm Emmeline!"
"So you're telling me you're a Valley Elder, too?" Elvira asked her.
"Yes!"
Elvira tapped her foot, thinking, then whispered to Veton, "Maybe they're some sort of crazy fan or something?"
Veton laughed, then tried to hide it with a cough. He doubted that they were, practically no one knew what Elders were, at least he thought they didn't.
Emmeline looked at Veton curiously, then asked Elvira, "You asked how I would prove being an Elder to you?"
"I did," Elvira said, "but first I want to know why it looked like you were dying when we first met, and why you're even here in the first place, and it would be nice if you explained how you're an 'Elder' too, and whatever that weird book was that Veton found?"
"Ah, so many questions! Yet so few that I can answer. . ." Emmeline trailed off.
They waited in silence for a few minutes, a light wind blowing their hair around.
Veton could tell that Elvira was getting impatient, so he spoke up, "Maybe answer them now, if you can?"
Emmeline looked Veton and Elvira up and down, this time she was the one judging, "Alright then. I can't answer your first question." She paused, fingering the handle of her sword as she tried to think of her answers. "I'm here because you're an Elder too, and wouldn't it be nice to be taught - or no, guided is the right word, by someone who's had a couple centuries of experience?"
"I guess." Elvira shrugged, "But I still don't believe you."
"Let me try and convince you. I'm an Elder because I was chosen to be, just like you were. And I have no idea who Veton is, so I can't answer your last question either."
"I'm Veton," Veton said, giving Emmeline a small wave, "I'm Elvira's brother."
Emmeline gave a start, as if she had just realized he was there, but then waved back, "Are you an Elder too?"
"I'm a Valley Elder," Veton said. That was weird, if Emmeline had known that Elvira was an Elder, how had she not known he was?
"Oh, wonderful! So you're the one who found my friend's book!"
"You know the person who wrote it?" Veton asked her.
"I do, he's an Elder too, actually!"
Veton nodded, trying to appear as if he wasn't confused, but really he could barely keep everything straight in his head, "So you put the book in our library to get us to come out here?"
"My other friend did that, I believe she met your friend Roko?"
"Wait, what?" Sol spoke up, apparently surprised that Roko hadn't told him.
Emmeline looked at him, "Who are you?"
"Shouldn't you know, If you've been stalking us for who knows how long?" Sol answered, narrowing his eyes, "I don't trust you."
Emmeline's grin vanished, "Well now I see why your friend didn't tell you anything, you have a dreadful personality."
Sol frowned at her, but didn't say anything more.
Emmeline looked back to Veton and Elvira, "I think I've told you the answers to your questions, do you believe me now?
"Actually, I do." Elvira said, but then continued, "But, I still want to see you do something cool."
Emmeline grinned, "Am I allowed to ask the same of you?"
"Of course," Elvira grinned back at her. In just a few minutes, she had gone from distrusting Emmeline with her entire being to acting as if they were best friends.
Emmeline took her sword out of its sheath, shaking her arm a few times to loosen it up, and Veton could have sworn he saw a flicker of lighting running down the blade.
Sol made a slight noise of displeasure from behind Veton at the sight of Emmeline's sword, but he didn't make a move to have her put it away.
Emmeline ran her hand down the sword, lightning trailing from her hand down the entire length and wrapping around it like vines. Then, she did the same motion again, but this time from the bottom to the top. This time, when her hand touched it, the lightning dissolved into small spheres of light that floated around her like stars.
Veton reached up to touch one, but then found his hand went right through it as if it was a spirit too.
When the last of the lightning had faded, Emmeline put her sword back in her sheath and faced Elvira, "Cool enough for you?"
"Oh my stars - yes," Elvira answered, and Veton could tell that she now regarded Emmeline with higher standards.
"Your turn!" Emmeline gestured to the open space between them.
"I can't do anything half as cool as what you did,"
"I bet you can!" Emmeline said, though it was hard to figure out if she was being genuine or not.
"No I can literally just do this," Elvira held out her arm, causing a thick trail of lightning to wind around it, just as it had done on Emmeline's sword.
"Impressive," Emmeline commented, "but, what would happen if you tried using your rod?"
"I've tried that," Elvira said, but grabbed her rod anyways, watching as the lightning looped its way around it as well.
"Other hand, too?"
Elvira looked at Emmeline strangely, but still grabbed the rod with her other hand. As soon as it made contact, the lightning seemed to disappear, but the rod glowed bright blue, as if the lightning had sunk through it into its core.
"What is this?" Elvira asked, letting go of the rod with one hand and slashing it through the air a couple of times.
"No idea, I just wanted to see what happened," Emmeline told her, "But I'm afraid I have to leave now." She was flickering again, just like when they had first seen her.
Elvira slid the rod onto her back, first making sure the blue had faded, "When will we see you again?"
"Whenever I'm allowed to!" Emmeline said, then added "Soon!" and disappeared.
After another long, confused silence, Sol declared that they had to start walking back, and then they were trudging through the Forgotten Ark once again.
Veton was still processing what Emmeline had told them. To him, it seemed too good to be true. Another set of Elders? There had to be a catch. Then he remembered what he had been eavesdropping on. He slowed his pace so he could walk beside Jett, who seemed to be looking for something in the expanse of sand in front of them.
"Looking for your friend?" Veton said, startling Jett and causing him to trip a bit.
"Who?"
"Umber, who else?"
Jett looked confused for a second, but then a look of realization dawned on his face, "You eavesdropped on what we were saying."
"Yeah, I did. I'm not completely stupid, like everyone seems to think."
"Oh come on, nobody thinks that," Jett said with an exasperated sigh.
Veton just shrugged, "So why do you know Umber?"
"I don't have to tell you, why does everyone here think that I'm going to spill all my secrets to them?"
They quieted as they reached the boat that took them back to shore, where Sol and Elvira were waiting. To Veton, it seemed like he and Jett were done talking, he doubted he could get anything more out of Jett. But he knew that this would come back later, and then he wouldn't know what kind of repercussions it would have.
Jett's POV
Jett looked through the forest in front of him, which would have usually appeared very pretty, with the sun slanting through the leaves just right to cast dappled shadows onto the ground, if only he was alone. Jett pushed his hair out of his eyes, looking ahead to where Veton and Elvira were walking in front of him. "Why do I have to do this, again?"
Elvira turned around to face him, twirling her metal rod around in a way that was sure to knock someone's teeth out the second they got close to her, "Well unless you wanna die the second you have to fight, you might consider learning how to use one of these." She took something out of the folds of her cape with her other hand and held it up. The light reflected sharply off a polished throwing star in her fingers.
"Who are we assuming we'll have to fight?"
Elvira paused, thinking, then said; "Well, people don't always see eye to eye." and left it at that.
"Those things don't look like something you'd give to a beginner." Jett pointed towards what Elvira was holding, deciding to change the topic.
Elvira laughed, putting the shuriken back in her pocket, "Of course they aren't! Why would we make this easy for you?"
"I don't know, maybe because it's nice?"
"I don't like being nice," Elvira said with a shrug.
They stopped in a clearing in the trees. Veton set down a bag that he was carrying, opening it to reveal a large pile of more throwing stars and handing a few to Jett, "Try not to cut yourself too bad."
"I can and will throw this at you,"
Veton looked at him, dubious, "I don't think you could hit me."
Jett glared at him, "Maybe I'm a natural." He still hadn't forgiven Veton from what happened in the Forgotten Ark yet, and it seemed Veton hadn't either.
Veton stood up, gathering a couple of stars in one hand, and aimed one at a large tree trunk a couple feet away, sinking three of them into the trunk in quick succession. "Maybe I'm a natural,"
"Don't believe him, it took him a week to learn how to do that," Elvira said from behind them, "and a lot of injured fingers."
Veton rolled his eyes, "Did you really have to say that right now?"
"We're supposed to be teaching Jett, aren't we?" Elvira said, shrugging again and picking up a few of the throwing stars from the bag, "Anyways, look, it's all in the wrist. You can either throw it horizontally," she made a side-to-side motion with her hand, "or vertically like a hammer." She lined up her shuriken and threw it into the tree, right above Veton's.
"Do you guys know how to use every kind of weapon?" Jett asked.
"Not even close. I just learned this because I thought it looked cool." Elvira responded, walking over to pull her shuriken out of the tree's thick bark.
"That's a weird reason to learn how to do something."
"Well now we get to teach you, so I guess it paid off,"
Jett was about to try throwing his, when someone else spoke from behind him, leaning into his side vision, "Morning!"
Jett gave a shout of surprise, letting go of the throwing star before he could aim it. It whistled past the person before they could dodge, and landed with a thunk in a tree behind them, leaving behind wispy tendrils of shadow that quickly disappeared.
Sol reached up to touch the gash that it had made, which was already slowly dripping blood down his neck, "You really do like throwing sharp objects at people, don't you?"
"What?" Jett hadn't remembered throwing anything at anyone else besides Roko, though he supposed the friendly Prairie Elder could have told Sol. . . or anybody.
Sol wiped his neck off with the back of his sleeve, "I mean I'm assuming you're the one that cut Roko in the face?"
Jett was too busy panicking to know what to respond, but luckily Sol noticed, "Jett, I'm not mad at you!" He laughed, then leaned closer - smile slipping off his face - and lowered his voice, "Yet."
Jett took a step back, looking over Sol's shoulder at Veton and Elvira. Veton was looking at them suspiciously, and Elvira was boredly spinning a throwing star between her fingers, trying not to slice them. "I. . . Uh, are we going to continue?"
"Actually, I wanted to talk to you," Sol was smiling again, though it didn't reach his eyes.
"Why?" Jett felt his heart skip a beat "I mean like right now or-"
"We can go somewhere more private if you prefer,"
Jett definitely did not want to be anywhere alone with Sol. Especially somewhere where he could easily be murdered and tossed into a river. But of course, he didn't say that. "Okay."
Sol started walking away, beckoning Jett to follow him, which he did.
After they had been walking for a few minutes, Sol turned towards Jett, slowing his pace, "I need to know what that was."
"What?"
Sol met Jett's eyes, "You know what,"
Jett averted his gaze, looking out into the forest, "I don't have to tell you," He winced inwardly. That was probably not something you wanted to say to someone who might be planning to murder you, even if it was true.
Sol sighed, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment and then opening them again. Jett could tell that he was getting on Sol's nerves. "I'm trying to figure out if you're here to kill anyone, Jett. I've already died once, I don't want to again."
"I'm not here to k- wait what?"
Sol gave a wry laugh, tipping back on his heels, "Oh I thought you knew I was half spirit, everyone else does."
Jett paused, taking that bit of information in, taking care not to let his emotions write themselves all over his face, "I feel like that's more suspicious than what I did."
"Why's that?"
Jett put his hand in the pocket of his cloak, pleasantly surprised to find a throwing star in it. He curled his fingers around it, carefully avoiding the spikes, "Aren't spirits supposed to have magical powers or something?"
"They do. I don't. Honestly, it's more downsides than anything else."
"Yeah, right." Jett didn't even try to hide the doubt in his voice.
Sol looked like he was about to throw something at Jett. He took a deep breath, then gave Jett an overly-sweet smile, "Do you need proof?"
"Why not?" Jett hoped this would prolong having to tell Sol something - anything.
Sol took a step towards him, which made Jett involuntarily slip the shuriken out of his cape. Unfortunately, Sol noticed and stopped walking. "Drop it."
Jett cursed in his head, putting the weapon back in his cloak.
"No, I said drop it," Sol said, narrowing his eyes.
Maybe there was something about the way he said it, or the way Sol was acting. But Jett suddenly felt like he was the smaller, weaker person, and that Sol was the stronger one. The lion ready to pounce at any moment. Jett was reminded of when he and Blaze lived in Frostwallow, how the more talented Sky Children always were given more - noticed more - while the inept were forced to look up to them and live in their shadows. It was almost like someone was hitting them over the head with a club, not one made of wood, but one made of order and rules.
Even now, Jett was being hit over the head with an invisible club of expectation. He was expected to treat Sol like his leader, and he in turn was supposed to act agreeable. Respectful. But he didn't want to. Why should he even be trusting Sol? He didn't even know what kind of power he could be withholding. Was he really trustworthy? At this moment, all Jett wanted to do was take that club and smash it into a million pieces, and he only knew one person who could help him do that, or one person that seemed like they could help him, only they weren't exactly trustworthy either.
"And I said no," Jett said, taking the shuriken out of his cloak and waving it in Sol's face. Jett could tell that this infuriated him even more. Sol seemed like the kind of person who always liked to be in charge, to be in control of the situation. Everyone else gave him that without question, even Blaze, but Jett just found it fun to take that away from him.
Sol's arm shot out, trying to grab the shuriken from Jett's hand, but Sol's fingers passed right through it, and Jett could almost feel the panic set in as Sol took another swipe at it, only this time his fingers got stuck inside it. Jett assumed this was one of the downsides that Sol had been talking about. Sol took another deep breath, "I swear if you kill me while I have my hand stuck in this thing I'll haunt you for the rest of your life as a spirit."
"I thought I told you I'm not here to kill anybody," Jett paused, watching as Sol tried to yank his fingers out of the throwing star, "especially someone as power-hungry as you."
"Excuse me?" Sol finally yanked his hand out, and he quickly stepped back from him.
"Oops, I guess I was thinking aloud." Jett shrugged, dropping his arm to his side.
"I'm not power-hungry, I'm trying to make sure you don't murder anyone," Sol argued, frowning at him.
As if triggered by what Sol said, Jett suddenly felt an already excruciating headache behind his temples. He winced, putting a hand to his head, and as the pain slowly grew, he felt his lips moving of their own accord.
"Well then you better try harder, darling."
A/N HEHE I FINALLY REACHED 3,000 WORDS