I sat there in the bed in a daze staring at Jed and trying to remember my mother's face, my dad's smile, a part of my childhood, anything so that I could confirm what was being said to me. MY dad was the leader of the countries most powerful clan? And again I hear I'm supposed to rule or lead people. Why me? As I sat there contemplating everything that Jed had told me he then said "I know that this is a lot to take in right now. I doubt that you even remember your childhood due to how traumatic the experience was, but just know I am here to answer your questions and to help you take your time." I continued to sit there on the bed for awhile fighting back tears because I can't remember my family or my life before my cage. I became enraged at the Ul for taking everything away from me. For taking my dad away. For murdering my mom. As I felt these emotions the room began to shake and I began to emit a black aura from my body. Jed in panic said "Calm down I know it must be hard to hear bu…" "HARD! HARD?! WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT HARD!? I'VE SPENT MY ENTIRE LIFE IN A CAGE WITH NO LIGHT, NOT KNOWING THAT I HAD FAMILY, NOT EVEN KNOWING ABOUT THE OUTSIDE WORLD FOR YEARS AND YOU SAY IT'S JUST HARD!? HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT'S HARD!?" With a fearful look on Jed's face he replied, " Your right I don't know what that's like, but I'm here so that you can tell me so I can help you work through it so please calm down." I tried to calm myself down with deep breaths and eventually my anger subsided. I looked Jed confused and asked " What was that? I've gotten angry before and that has never happened." He said, " That is the power of the Shango family. In the dungeons they used special stones and crystals to hinder your powers so that you couldn't escape, they were afraid of you and what you could do." "How do I control it?" "That my friend is what we will be working on while we are here." Said Jed. "Anymore questions?" I sat and thought about it for a minute and said "I have two questions. One, when can I see Nala and David and two when can I eat?" Jed smiled again and said "We are finishing up lunch right now and I think Nala and David are in the kitchen already. Just follow me." When I got up to walk I felt the world spin and almost fell down. Jed caught me and said "This is a side effect from your powers. You just need to train some so that you can use them easier." "If they make me feel like this I don't think I want to use them." Jed chuckled "Don't worry, everybody has to start from somewhere." And he guided me out into the hallway and down the stairs.
When we reached the bottom of the stairs, we walked into a room where a table had been set with wooden plates. Sitting at two of them were David and Nala. David was sitting with his head down in his hands looking in deep contemplation, while Nala sat on the other side of him with her back turned to me. When I fully entered the room with Jed, David jumped up from his seat and ran over to me to give me a pat down and a hug. "What happened to you? As soon as we were about to leave you passed out and was asleep for 3 days!" Nala then got up from her seat and looked me up and down to make sure I was okay and then she slapped me. "I can't believe you! You made us worry all this time and you just come down here smiling?" She shook her head in disgust as she sat back down. "I'm sorry," I said as I rubbed my face from the impact that she made. "I was worried about you guys too. So what happened after I passed out?" Jed said "When you passed out we were in a hurry so I threw you over my shoulder and had the twins use their powers to get us out of the dungeons." David then chimed in, "Yea it was so weird, it was like they were moving the ground to make a tunnel for us. We went really deep into the ground and then came up in an open field." Jed finished up the story by saying, "We had horses waiting for us in that field and we rode into the city and ended up here." Shocked I said "And I slept through all of that?" Jed chuckled and said "Like a baby."
"Ok that's enough of an explanation of how we got out of there," said Nala. "But how did Tre and Tae manage to move the dirt around like that? You said you would tell us once Zahir woke up." Jed looked around the room and realized that we were all waiting for an answer. He took a deep breath and started to speak but then the door at the back of the room opened and the dark skinned woman and the thick short man walked into the room and started to place food on the table. The dark skinned woman looked up at me and said "Hey Zahir, I never got to really introduce myself, my name is Lia." She reached her hand out and shook my hand. "I assume today is going to be spent on asking a bunch of questions about what's going on right?" Jed responded saying "We were just going to start explaining about that." The short and thick man then came over to me and gave me a look that seemed like a glare and then sat down. Jed shook his head and said "That's Luki, he's a bit ...shy but he starts to warm up to you after a while." Unbothered by the look I sat next to Nala and proceeded to grab food from the table. It looked like some of the food that I had seen in my meeting with Zo. Jed told me the names of the different types of food on the table. There was rice and peas, carrots, mashed potatoes, and chicken. The chicken must have been the best thing on the table. It had this shine on it that made it taste incredible. As we sat there and ate, me David and Nala forgot all about our questions. We had never eaten anything this delicious before so we couldn't help ourselves. Once we ate our fill I turned to Jed and asked, "So what are these "powers" that we've been hearing about?" Jed looked at me and said, "Honestly, it's still a little too early for you all to be learning about how to use them so I'll be giving you a brief introduction to what they are. These powers are called Tribal Graces and they come in many different shapes and forms. However they can be separated into fire, water, earth, wind, light, and darkness. Tribal Graces are not available to everyone and everyone that has access to them has different amounts of it within them. For example, a powerful wind user may be able to use their Grace to cut a stone but a weak one may only be able to use the wind to run a little bit faster or to push things in a certain direction. There are subsections of these categories and no one element is stronger than the other. It all depends on creativity, strength, and control." After finishing his explanation, David said skeptically, "So your telling me I can fly?" Lia responded, " Maybe, depending on the nature of your Grace it could be possible." Nala then said "So that's why you saved us. So that we could use these powers to help you do something?" "To save our country!" Luki spat out. "You should be grateful that we risked our lives for you little shits!" "Luki!" Jed yelled. Luki responded "I'm just telling them the truth. People were hurt for them and we don't even know if it was worth it. They have no idea about what they are or who they are. How are THEY supposed to help us? This wasn't in the plan. I didn't think we were going to have to babysit them, I thought we were looking for a leader. Instead we get this group of shit that don't even know how to take care of themselves!" I wanted to be angry but everything that he said was true, I am useless. The room became deathly silent for a while and then Nala said "We can learn. We may not be much help now but we can learn." "I don't have time to teach you." Luki said and got up and left. I looked to Jed and said "We can learn, just teach us what we need to know." Jed said "That was the plan from the beginning. We knew it was a long shot that you would know anything but Luki places a lot of faith in the idea that you represented. He'll come around eventually."