I pulled out a dark purple colored lipstick from my purse that I kept with me at all times just in case I didn't have a femine accident while at school, or just as simple as a make up catastrophe and smeared my eyeliner and eyeshadow together making me look like something from a horror movie. I hated using the foggy mirror in the school bathroom girl's bathroom, so I always had a tiny one on hand, the outline of a skull on the pink and black lid that looked like something I stole from a early 2000's pop star's old make up bag. I liked the mirror simply because it was a sort of trick of the eye kind of tool, hiding the teenage acne marks I wished not to see. The mirror of lies.
Rubbing the chalkly lipstick on, my mind floated right back to Headmaster Adams who had unpacked enough information to terrify me, but it didn't. Only made me more curious about my mother and his mother who had both seemed to pull a disappearing trick from out of their back pockets when their families needed them the most. After lunch, I intentionally took the long way around the corridor, pass the cafeteria, to the main hallway with my head burred deep in a particularly grim Stephen King book, pretending that I was interested in the pages of Pet sematary I had read more than ten times, giving a peak into his office out the side of my eye. The room was deserted, his computer screen still open with his home screen still glowing in the darkness in green. His stuff still on the table, his man purse hanging limply of the arm rest of the chair with his dark blue rain jacket pushed between the straps of black cloth.
I wanted more than anything to pick his brain, sadly, I wasn't a truth seeker when it came to my deity given powers, instead, I was a illusionists as my strong suit, the common magic of my family. Most truth seekers ran mainly in the royal family, unlike me. It was better than nothing, humans wished to have powers but even without them, they seemed to live lives just like ours in many ways, living life like an episode of The bold and the beautiful. Dropping the lipstick and tiny mirror back into my purse, I pulled my legs up on the closed toilet seat, feeling a slight stirring in the pit of my stomach like burning.
It can't be. My illusion. It was stirring like a dominant royalleaf was lurking around the perimeter, attempting to send me a challenge. It couldn't be possible. Why would a royalleaf be here at this school. Ah, great, I am questioning my own existence at this point. This was territory owned primary by a select few of royaleaves, we haven't had any other recently move into town and I was the youngest and the only one who attended this high school at the moment. Once the clock hits three, this school will be completely free of supernaturals. Except for the algebra two teacher who tells my eleventh grade class he's sick and still shows up the next day regardless. It's like he's some kind of a vampire who deals with the flu like a twenty-four hour virus.
The feeling slowly fades away after a few seconds of complete silence coming from the hallway. Not even the sound of a passerby from upstairs English 2 advanced made their way to the bathroom. Maybe it wasn't a challenging royalleaf on the other side of that wall, my own anxiety enjoyed the delight of flaring up the golden aura coursing in my bloodstream like goldfish in a fish tank. It wasn't as powerful as Samtha's but still just enough to attract the silent crowd right to me. If they didn't pose so much of a danger, I would have used my powers much more than two or three times a year in the safety of the attic to free my building tension that came with growing up, practice fighting with Samatha until she got tired of playing petty games with her student who she claimed had the attention span of a rock. I wished so much for Samthata's features and stamina. She was slim and as nimble and quick as weasel from training for years and years in the attic. Not to mention chasing off any of the silent crowd who roamed to close to the estate with no help from her brother or older uncles who lived closer to the bridge that took you closer to Northampton county where most of the royalleaves from the Patterson and Minicka families had made a home far away from their over crowded estates as far as Ohio.
Footsteps. Creaking of the wood floor boards under slowly wearing away under the restroom floor made my head snapn up from here my face was buried in the palms of my hand. Nothing stirred inside of me anymore, must be just some kid coming in the restroom to hide away from class like me in one of the empty stalls which all had broken doors.
Grabbed the tooth from out of the pocket of my backpack cupholder, allowing the smooth metal of the chain melt in my hands, gleaming in the light of the dim bulbs hanging above my head. The pointy part of the tooth, pricked my finger gently as I forceful tested its strength, attempting to guess just what animal it had come from such a size. Not small but not large, it was like one of the back teeth of a carnivore. A satisfying vibration settled in my fingers, lingering just enough to bring the same odd satisfaction that most royalleaf magic brought upon touch. Closing my eyes, I allowed the gentle magic to flow from my open palm to my veins, sinking in like a pain medication.
A taping on the door tore me from the necklace's royalleaf abilities that I don't understand what the big deal was of living it with me was when almost anything that belonged to another royalleaf could send off vibrations as such, the power that came from off their skin slowly vibrating in a concection to mine. Not waiting another second to keep such a object without concealment, I shoved it into the deep pockets of my jeans, jolting back when point pricked my skin. Half annoyed, but more curious, my eyes wondered to the black soled creepers with a dingy white shoelaces partially hanging freely from the loose tie. Two more shadows made their presents known on the other each side of the one in closest to my bathroom door.
"Uhm, can I help you in any possible way? Lost? Skipping class? Waiting for me to get out so you can have a smoke break? Don't worry, I won't tell and neither will the smoke detectors because they're all broken.", A weak faux and nervous chuckle escaped my lips as I edged ever so slightly to the scribble filled door attempting to pick up any voices beyond my stall, snatching up the leather tote from its place on top of my backpack, then reaching for the backpack. They would have been resting on a more cleaner stall hanger if it wasn't for some happy go lucky ungrateful moran snatching it off because they thought it would look better in the toilet and god help me, I was not going to be the one to pull it out.
A low whispering was my own response, low with words that I couldn't make out. It was like a chorus of tiny hisses and their own made of type of sounds. With a bit more straining the the human part of my ears, without Obsidian's influence was only allow me to catch hold of very few glimpses of their face paced words, but to no avail when I attempted to place them together. My arms didn't gather goosebumps like they did when I was around a challenging royalleaf and still I didn't get the feeling that I felt all those years ago at the cottage in New Mexico on my first encounter. It may have been over nine years ago, but a feeling like that one was far to push to the back of your mind into a eternal void of empty memories. That memory was just one that would take me at least a thousand years to shake.
Still, I felt in my rights to feel unsettled by the near female voices. Maybe its a bunch of idiots playing a trick on me, about to burst into laughter.
But let's face it, pranks don't last nearly this long, even if I wanted to think that.
"Come out now, we have only a few questions to ask if and I don't think that is took much to ask from you, figuring the time we took to find you, Ms. Greenwood.", The voice was like nails on a chalk board, high pitched and tainted with a New York accent, a satisfying properness that strayed much from the native southern accent, more hostile and deadly. Like if a tiger shark could talk.
Right off the bat, I knew that it wasn't belonging to a student or any teacher I could possibly name, matter of fact, from the deep carried awareness and authority it reminded me much of the police officers and FBI on Law and Order. It was a slim chance that any of the authorities knew much about my background beyond the things in my folder that I handed in to Headmaster Adamas only a hour ago unless it was one of those searches the police officers pulled at random dates. But they rarely burst into bathrooms after a person with no evidence. They normally wait.
"Ms. Greenwood, I would kindly appreciate if you would end the silly possum games and give us at least a bit of cooperation to work with so we can swiftly end this and both be on our way.", That time, another voice with a bit more respect answered, older, like the same voice in a older stuck in a way more humble minded person that wasn't in a mindset of being assertive.
"May I ask your names and occupation first for my own safety-"
Assertive wannabe was the next, her place in the front of the group gave me the impression that she was the leader of the two too small posse and her voice screaming out that she just wanted to be feared and was trying a bit too hard at making the cut. "You rugrat, get out of that stall now before we drag you out of that craphole of a stall and shove your head into the toilet bowl until you submit!"
Leaning closer to the smooth cool surface of the door, completely covered in the typical high school insults, hoping to feel a strike in the bond between me and Obsidian, a aura search. Hard as is was when my skills were below rusty at it when I hardly never had to use it. Where could possibly be when I needed her most? My forehead grazed the steady chipping plywood, my fingers crossed the red painted surface, my eyes closed tight with nothing but the blackness behind my eyelids greeting me. Not my minds eye, like it was being shut off. Even in a failing attempt, I could gain tiny glimpses of the atmosphere surrounding Obsidian.
Nothing. Just pitch black darkness and grey looming shadows.
A tiny pinch of a sound touched my eardrums. A distraction device. A dog training silent whistle of some kind throws off my mind from Obsidian's, breaking the ranging bond before if even begun with nothing but a sound. Loud and painful, attacking me with a sudden wave of electricity in the back of skull that forced me to push away from the door and break the chain, tearing my eyelids open in an attempt to end it.
They know who I am.
It's either fight or flight at the point. I swallow hard, allowing the worst to resurface back to the wide open. They have to be either fireleaves or humans working for the more deeper connections of the silent crowd's society. I would have better chance at beating them if they turned up to be humans working for the silent crowd who rarely show themselves out in the public without counseling every little thing about themselves from the color of their eyes to any skin that wasn't their hands and neck.
Maybe they aren't humans.
Fight or flight. If its human, give them chance to flee, if its the fireleaves, you flee. They'll just set this stall on fire from the inside by tampering with the electrical wires by only using their brains and the strange abilities they used from years and years of modern technology while royalleaves depended more on traditional knowledge making us seem stupid and yes, even thought my kind didn't want to admit, they were way more stronger and had every reason to want us smited off the face of each when they were once, apart of us. Hunted down and trialed a scourge to the subhuman race and instead of fighting the insults they were given, they embraced them, no longer beng prey on the food chain.
Even the fireleaves who turned their back from the decades and decades of bloody wars is only a daily basics being slayed like a vampire from Buffy the vampire slayer with no mercy in the matter. A dog eat dog world where neither side of the fight had a real excuse to hate each other besides the different views and ideas they had about modernization and the truth about the past that was already too far faded into the fog of dead people's memories to be awoken.
Innocent die everyday on both sides, you can't blame one action on a party without blaming the other.
Panic at the sound of my own pretentious heartbeat, still pondering if I was brave enough to prace out with the type of reputation my people carried deep in their books of history and triumphs at the expense of their family, friends and even fellow comrades. A rabbit would have a better chance in a den of hungry wolves.
"Come. Out. Now." , The voice, this time sounded like a weird mix of both of them, the other person to the right seemly completely silent at all cost shifted from demanding to low and menacing. I couldn't stay locked up in this tiny enclosure forever. They were threatening me, trying to force my weak aura up just so they could what they wanted. I was outnumbered, three to one and hiding wasn't going to make this a pretty fight scene when they were already dreaming of shoving me into a firepit.
Sighing, making myself seem more pathic than ready to fight, I unlocked the weak latch, which was another sign that these three weren't looking for a fight if possible when they could have simply took one hard push and broke the wobbly latch. Slowly pushing the door open before a particularly small hand with long green acylics snached it free from my grip, banging across the other rattling the dull yellow lights overhead.
Three towering woman faced me with expressions like I was in the court of law for murder, all perculiarly resembling each other in their faces and long, straight stringy sandy colored hair touching their small neat shoulders while their eyes were hidden behind grey framed tinted sunglasses and white hoodies with diffrent designs on each, "Journey" boldy written on the leader's 80's rock band merch on the chest of the hoodie of the first one above the rock band winged beetle.
The girl to the right, the more silent one was the medium height one, her face pointed downward as if searching for cracks or the better assumption was that she was just as nervous as I was. At the far left, was seemily the oldest, from her voice and taller height, it was a sheer understanding in her facial expression, showing more mercy that the tiny one, only about a inch taller than me with a more gothic look, black lipstick staining her lips and dripping eyeshadow seeping down her plump cheeks from under the dark shades. A small dagger that was closer in size to a pocket knife rested at her hip, while the other stood armed with nothing that could be seen.
"Speak immediately, Leafchild!", The leader barked, pulling back her lips much like the way a cornered dog would, showing a toothy snarl whiter than new fallen snow with her canines unnaturally sharpened like needles.
Her breath was like a burning furnace, the heavy unpleasant scent of an acid reek. A very noticeable smell of tar from camel cigarettes like the ones my old friend's use to smoke during break at my old high school. It made me feel sick then and undoubtedly this time my stomach turned flips, piling up onto anxiety I was already attempting to battle.
"You ask me to speak, but I'm not sure what to say when both of us are standing on totally different grounds." I wasn't much for speaking with someone who looked like they would burst at the heat of the moment.
Dumbfounded, she cocked her head slightly, "You think you are some kind of genius or something? Your people have already paved the way for a battleground and now the silent crowd is near a checkmate, you are afraid to bend to our will!"
My hands felt numb, she was right even though she hadn't really comprehended the more poetic nature of my earlier statement. From the furrowed lines in her forehead and the redness in her cheeks, she wasn't completely angry at me but doing something she was unsure of. It was something in me wavering for independence, not the burning fire of my own aura, but what made me feel every bit royalleaf. Connection. A remorseful nature that took more than a thousand years of bloodshed to come to this point.
She's human. Just like Amy was.
"How about you tell me why you are here, after you calm down and know that I don't want a fight anymore than you do."
Her gaze bore into me from behind the shades, it didn't take more than an instant for her to snap back and do the thing that her kind was known best for, a taught trick from years among the fireleaves. Her scared palm, the inside scorched by what I guessed was nothing more dramatic than a grease fire banged against my throat faster than I had time to register just what was happening.
"Don't kill her.", The demand from the older girl is quick and harsh as she reached to grab onto the short girl's shoulders.
The clutch was weak enough for me to grab her wrist with my hands, slipping my head free as quick as possible, feeling the feline from Obsidian's bond kick in, leaping from her outstretched hand and landing near the far stall.
Grey sparks blazed from her aura, wavering from off her scared balled up fist as the quiet girl lifted her head for the first time in response to the use of her comrade's powers in such a terrible place. Opening her mouth, the grey fog bolted free like an arrow knocked from a groaning bow.
Her aura clasped me right like a straight jacket, locking my muscles every time I attempted to move freely, the restrictions causing my legs to buckle under me with. Shocked and appalled, she edged closer to me closing in the distance between the her, me and the ceramic bathroom sink. My skin was a fire, itching with nervousness and helplessness. I still can't fight her and now I really can't fight her with these fireleaf tricks on me. They must have taught her this, because I smell human all over her, not the heavy scent of smoke and alleycats.
"We should get more acquainted to each other, don't you think?, She inclined her head, her sand colored hair was gold in the light, "My fire name in Poison ivy and these are my sisters Foxglove and Belladonna from the westren fireleaf society, the appointed rightful deputies of Chief Clawdandus."
Toxic. Deadly. Fear. I couldn't say any other codename would have suited better. Belladonna, the sensible one, Foxglove the shy one and Poison Ivy who I would have personally named Gatekeeper or Wannabe if I was this Chief. I don't have a clue about the way that these fireleaf societies work beyond they settle anywhere, keeping their locations secret from everyone who wasn't on their side. Underground, in abandoned old mansions and camps set up with more technology than any royalleaf had seen in their whole life.
Things that could help more people, regardless of their kind. Only if it hadn't been a simple disagreement that tore our two sides apart.
"I am Lace Greenwood of the Greenwood estate-"
"My sisters and I know very well who you are, we just want to know where the moonstone is kept in the mountains of Blackdown and have those Blackdown dogs got their hands on it.", Belladonna's voice was soft and demanding all the same, making me wish to search her eyes and reason with her. She spoke to me with a deep respect like the way my older cousins, the children of Samatha and my mother's older brothers did. There mother was a messager from the Kingdom of Duskfall, the american kingdom tucked away in the tired Ohio forest bordering the Cuyahoga Valley.
Foxglove seemed to breakaway from her silent nature, baring her unnatural fangs, the sound of her heels clanking against the tile floor wasn't intimidating, her resting jaw was twisted awkwardly and thick eyebrows pointed inward on her perfect and close to artificial face, "Brave little leaf aren't you? I'd start talking if I liked my life enough to do whatever I could to spare it."
"Moonstone?", I echoed, picking my hand up insetitivly untill I felt a sudden cramp settle deep in my shoulder blade causing me to allow it to crash right back down to it's resting place on the old tile right on a piece of dried up chewed gum. What are the odds? Snatching my hand back, another wave of pain settled in my wrist.
"Keep still idiot, we don't want to cause you any harm needlessly. I personally thought we'd have more trouble from you than echoing our words."
"No, no, It's just that the moonstone is just a kids tale as far as I know. Blackdown had their secrets just as your society does. If they or anyone else has found the stone, they've either kept it a secret or it was folklore like I always believed.", It was honesty in every word that I said, but clearly not the answer they were look for out of me.
I knew only part of the story, still quite my favorite tale told from the elders during the holidays when the humans celebrated christmas at the end of the year and we celebrated a holiday called "Newfars" meaning "Another year without war" in the original royalleaf langage before it was lost and replaced with the native human tongue. The moonstone was a stone that came from a part of a whole, which as the legend goes, was actually hidden in Sundown caverns when he raided the african lands, losing but taking a powerful that could grant powers such as shapeshifting and placing people under sleep cast. The stone is stolen during the great battle and the elders always ended the story after that.
"Sounds accrete. When we were working for Duskfall a few years back as a young servent, they always sent out request for modernization trades, newer weapons and more technology like security cameras that aren't from the early nineties and spears like cavemen, they didn't reply. Those creatures of habit are like trying to put a chimp at a computer and expecting him to decode it."
Humans working for royalleaves. Thornleaves. Turning their back on the people who took them in. I can't judge them because I don't know the reason.
"May I know why you left Duskfall for, you know, your new kin."
Poison Ivy grabbed the sunglasses, tearing them off her face, letting them clatter to the floor with a sharp rattle, the inside made of pure metal, shinning the light. The glass was the only part not covered in the silver, just a tinted glass.
I couldn't look away from her eyes, one perfectly normal with a dark brown color iris and black pupil. It was other one. The left one, a full blood moon surrounded by the white. Never had I seen something so unique in the face of a enemy.
"I have the fire in my blood, the heritage of my great grand father running deep in my veins. When I turned fourteen, I freed my aura out of anger and you wanted to know what your kind did to me, the youngest child of one of their most loyal servents? They exiled us and my parents for not sharing the heritage with them. Information that they knew we were going to be shunned for.", She bangged her hand agianst the sink, the grey aura around the tips of her fingers and the rings of the thick cloud like smoke fading away.
At her weakest point, the sisters weren't murderous humanoid animals working for the enemies.
"I'm sorry about the mishaps of my kin."
Poison Ivy's fingers trembled slightly, "You should be. It's no mishap when you let hate drive you to a point by putting a family outside in the dead of winter, with nothing but the clothes on their backs and and a fair well as a thank you for years and years of loyalty. They couldn't even leave us be. They tracked my family down until they were far across the border and-."
Her voice shrunk to nothing but a shriek of a sound. Eyes closed and the sound of a trashcan rolling by seemed to tear them both from the moment of grief they shared, dipping their sandy colored heads in a almost prayer like stance. Unfamiliar. They aren't use to the normalities of a normal high school or the sound of a rolling trashcan at two o clock.
"Don't worry, it's just the trashcan, it won't hurt you.", A slight feeling of affection smothered me for these girls, like a older sister for a terrified sibling. This type of thinking would end me up with a smack on the back of the head from Samatha and paw swipe from Obsidian even though she'd be way more understanding than Samatha ever would about leaving a situation with a fireleaf envolved without attempting to kill them or at least landing a sucker punch on someone's jaw.
I prefer a more reasonable approach, calmer with less fighting and ending up being the loser. You'd never know she was the one who raised me.
All the stomach lurching terror faded, releasing me from the grip. Maybe her makeup was smudged from crying and not attempt at a bad fashion trend. The sound of the rolling wheels stopped, echoing only slightly through the hallway.
The ground underfoot heaved, throwing me forward, giving the impression that the sisters had tackled me by their own strange abilities until I looked up and see them glancing at each other, stunned. It was uncommon for earthquakes to strike on this side of the country but now I'm learning that anything is possible. They don't advance at me or anything, just frozen and stuck in their own fearsome shock.
Expecting an announcement to break the silence, finding myself exchanging glances with the girls.
Anger flared up in my chest, "What's going on, why aren't the school staff announcing some safety precautions or something, why aren't the students screaming bloody murder because the ground shook." I know better than to let me guard down and trust them. They are working for the enemy. Yes, we established that, but they aren't even giving me a second thought of their time.
They don't answer. Just keep standing in one place like blocks of cement. I don't want to take the wrong step and end up with a fatal injury.
But I also don't want the ground to swallow me whole.
Footsteps clang above my head against the upstairs floor. They have finally taken action, but this makes no sense. I'm not sure if going to lower grounds is any safer than staying on higher ground. It sounds slow moving with the shouts of the substitute that was holding my class while our teach was sick, a bit a authority casting over her own terror.
It isn't long till an announcement followed, the voice of Ms. Shammoran, the school guidance counselor who, as usual, sounded calm in the face of problems but this problem wasn't an issue that could be solved with chit chat and kind words. This has something to do with the silent crowd and I can feel it. Something worst than the unknowing humans in this building could guess or comprehend
"Attention students of Saint Louistown high. Please stay calm with this inconvenience. We are going through a minor earthquake at the moment. We will attempt to keep all students and staff from the west building where there have been signs of a cave in. In the meantime, stay with your class and follow your sent escort to the soccer field."
West building.
This is the west building. And it's caving in.