Tempest was in the study looking at one of the magic books instead of practicing the spell her teacher, Sean, gave her. In fact, not only is Sean Appleton her magic teacher, he was also her adoptive father. Sean adopted Tempest when she was five years old. She'd been in and out of homes because she didn't get along with the parents but mainly because of her magic.
Once they found out, they would bring her back with an excuse to why they couldn't keep her. Which is why they always told Mrs. Thorn, the caretaker, that they couldn't handle her. Mrs. Thorn grew concerned about Tempest, until Sean came to the Athens Orphanage one day.
They sat down in her office to talk. "I've heard that you have a little girl in need of a home." "Ah yes, she does, Mr..." "Appleton. Sean Appleton. We'd talked over the phone." "Yes, of course." She handed him Tempest's file. "As you can see, Mr. Appleton, Tempest had been in and out homes since the age of four. Now she has turned five which was a few weeks ago."
"Let me guess. You were hoping to give her a birthday slash sending off party." "Right. The Collins were there to take her home with them. They did but within a week or two, they brought her back, stating that adopting her was a mistake." He could tell that she was furious.
He leaned in, touched her hand gently and said, "Well, you don't have to worry. I'll take her in." While he was holding her hand, a surge of warmth and good feeling went into her heart; he was influencing her in some strange way. She agreed right away and Tempest was adopted that day. That's where she stayed for ten years.
Just when she was about to perform the spell that she was looking at, Tempest heard someone cleared their throat. She turned to see Sean standing behind her with his arms crossed in front of his chest. He looked young but if she had to guess, Tempest figured that he had to be in his late twenties to early thirties but she could be wrong. Sean had short brown hair and eyes to match.
"What are you doing?" "Practicing." She knew that she was trouble by the look on his face. He came over to the desk to look at the page she was on; she was looking at the Imperia Elemental Tempest spell, which allows the castor to gather the four elements into a concentrated energy blast.
"Tempest, we'd talked about this. You're not ready for level 2 or 3 spells." "You said that last year. I'm ready, besides, I've been doing level 1 spells for ten years now. Don't you think that I, at least, try one?" She saw his insightfulness yet detect the indecision in his eyes.
'He's not going let me do it, is he?' she thought. He sighed and gave her a chance. She hugged him. "Thank you, thank you, thank you!" "Okay, okay." He gently pull her away from him. "If you can handle this one, then, but only then, I'll teach you the level 2 spells." "Thanks Sean." " You're welcome. Now, let's go to the arena."
"Why not here?" "Not unless you want to blast half the roof off." The mansion that they live in was a century old Victorian. Sean added an extra detail under the house, an arena for more of the complex spells. "Oh right." Tempest said sheepishly. Sean went to one of the bookcases and pulled on a big blue book. A secret door opened to a passage way to the arena.
The arena was huge with weapons, a track and targets. It had almost a medieval feel to it yet everything was up to date. He led her to the targets and ask her to proceed.
She took a deep breath and cleared her mind; she needed to prove to Sean that she could do it. She raised her hands to the target and pronounced the spell. "Imperia Elemental Tempest!" A glowing white light orb appeared in front of her while four different colored ones appeared around it and spun, creating a multicolored beam. The beam fired and missed it a little bit.
The rush of releasing that much power sent her to her knees and the adrenaline of it sent her heart beating like crazy as well. "Easy now, Tempest, easy." He helped her up and brought her to a bench on the opposite side of the room. She slowly sat down and caught her breath. When she finally relaxed, she said, "Guess I'm not ready for the next level after all."
Sean waved his right hand above his left one in an upward motion and a glass of water appeared. He gave it to her and she drank it. "Actually, you did better than I would expect it." He'd sat down next to her. She lowered her glass and said, "Come again? Have not noticed the target is still standing and it's singe on its right side."
"Oh, I've noticed and as I said, you did better than I expected." He went on to explain that he had a student before her. "Rick, as you know, was trained earlier than you before his dad took over and exceeded the level 1 spells, so naturally I thought that he was ready for level 2 but he wasn't."
"What happened?"
"He failed the first attempt."
"Like me."
"Partly like you. Rick missed the target completely. After I let him rest, he tried again and again. Finally on the fourth try, he got it."
"Well, good for him," she said sarcastically.
"Tempest."
"Sorry, didn't mean it like that."
"I know."
He leaned in and kissed her on the forehead. "I know that you didn't mean it." She looked at him, pondering why she was here; she's been thinking that since she got here. She blurted out the question, "Why'd you adopt me?" He was taken aback by her question. "What?" " You heard me, Sean. Why'd you do it?"
He took a deep breath and said, "To give you a place to call home and to learn about your powers." "That all?" "Yes, that and to give you a family. Now, you got me curious of why you asked?"
"I guess I asked because you're the only one who explained to me about what I am and my powers. My parents never had a chance to tell me themselves."
Tempest tried to hide the hurt and sadness but couldn't, the tears sprung forth. "Hey, come here." Sean pulled her into a hug. Tempest's parents died mysteriously in a house fire. Someone slipped a sleeping draught, a powerful one, into their drinks. Somehow they missed her and set the house on fire.
Tempest unconsciously saved herself by putting up barrier. Firefighters found her unharmed in her room. They brought her out and took her to the emergency room. Once the emergency doctor gave her a clean bill of health, an agent from DCFS and placed her in Mr. and Mrs. Thorn's orphanage.
The agent also checked on her from time to time until she gets adopted. She'd even checked in on her after Sean adopted her. "Why, Sean? Why them?" He knew that she was asking about her parents. "I don't know, sweetie. I'd just don't know. Trying to figure it out myself." It's true. Sean was trying to find out what happened that night. Pieces of information were coming in, especially from the agent who turns out to be a private investigator hired by the Queen of magic herself, Queen Eleanor but it was just rumors and dead ends.
After calming down, Tempest asked Sean if there was a time traveling spell that she could use to save or talk to her parents. "There is but tampering with the timeline is dangerous and it's a level 3 spell, so you're not ready for it." "I was afraid that you were going to say that." They went back upstairs to fix dinner.