Destiny (1)

I stirred, and lay still for a second. Squeezing my eyes shut, I pushed myself up, only to bang my head on a tree trunk.

“Ow!” My eyes snapped open, and I assessed the environment around. Urgh. I had hoped that it had all been a dream.

Around me, trees were strewn across the landscape, the aftermath of yesterday’s storm. An eery silence had settled over the woods, now that the wildlife had lost its home.

And two familiar figures were lying in the middle of it all.

I scrambled up (being careful not to hit the tree trunk this time), and made my way over to them. First I bent over Thalia, and shook her shoulders.

“Tal, wake up,” I whispered.

Her eyes flicked open immediately, making my jump back. She sat up, looked around and began to cry.

“It… it took me away… and… I got lost… and he… he held me captive… and… and…” she stopped blubbering, and just cried silently.

I couldn’t bear it. I hugged her, and tried to get her to stop.

Eventually she gazed at me with wide, glossy brown eyes, and asked sincerely,

“What happened to Ash?”

I glanced over to him, and tiptoed carefully through the wreckage towards him. I tapped his shoulder. Nothing happened.

“Wake up!”

Nothing happened. So I slapped him across the face.

“Ow!” He yelped, and sat up with a snap like he’d been shot. “What was that for?”

“To get you to wake up,” I smiled, walking away from him to Thalia.

“Bambi, that really hurt.”

I stopped and scowled at him.

“Bambi?”

“The bamboo kind of gave me the idea,”

I almost slapped him again, but I restrained myself.

“Shut it, Woody,”

His face turned purple.

“Woody!?”

“You know, woodland animals… and the fact that you would make a great Toy Story character.”

Ash stared at me, speechlessly irritated, and Thalia tugged at my sleeve.

“Um, what happened while I was out?” She said. She seemed to say “out” like she had just gone to the shops for a few minutes, not like, she’d been knocked out.

I glanced at Ash, and seemed to convey a message. Let’s flip a coin.

I pulled out my wallet from my pocket (which, surprisingly, had survived, along with all the money in it), and placed it on my thumb.

“Heads or tails?”

“Tails.”

I flipped it, and caught it in my hand.

“It’s heads. You explain.”

Ash sighed forlornly, and explained everything to the quizzical Thalia. He finished, and Thalia turned to me, confused.

“You made ice?”

Of course. Of all of the weird and unbelievable, awful things that had gone down last night, Thalia would be the one to worry about that.

Ash frowned. “Yeah, I’d been meaning to ask you about that. How did you do that?”

I paused, carefully constructing my answer.

“Well, you said the powers were spread evenly throughout the Guard, right? Or at least your book did. So I should be guardian of multiple elements, if I’m part of only two people left. I just… tried.”

He stared at me.

“I know, but… it’s almost impossible that you managed to do that on first try. Unless you’ve been living near some divine power source your whole life, the exertion would probably drain anyone else of their life, let alone their energy,”

I nodded.

“I did feel pretty knackered after,”

“Still…” Ash sat silently, and absent look on his face. He seemed to be thinking about it deeply, and Thalia piped up.

“Who was the boy in the ice?”

“The bad guy who kidnapped our friends,”

“No, the other one. The boy who he captured, who Nessa doesn’t know.”

Ash frowned. Then he blanched.

“Who is it, Ash?” I said forcefully, when he didn’t reply.

“That was Dean.”

“Who’s Dean?”

“A boy from my last foster home,”

I didn’t push further, but I got the feeling that Ash really cared about Dean.

“So, where are we going next?” I changed the subject quickly.

Thalia stared blankly at me and Ash, waiting for an answer. Eventually, Ash opened his mouth to reply.

“The Victores’ meeting place was in the Scilly Isles. I’ll bet you anything that’s where he is.”

“He was on a hill at a coast,” I recalled.

“Yes. So that’s probably where he is.”

“Was that where the battle between the Guard and the Victores was?”

“Yeah.”

“I was told my parents died on a ship to the Scilly Isles,” I noted.

“That could be why.”

Ash didn’t seem to want to talk, the way he was so bluntly speaking, so I suggested we leave. We hiked to the train station.

“Do you have sixty quid?” I asked Ash hopefully.

“Only sixty?” He peered over my shoulder at the ticket machine.

“Give me a sec.”

After about three minutes, (and a lot of angry people behind us telling us to hurry up) he returned.

“Here you go,”

I gratefully took the money and inserted it into the machine.

“You didn’t rob a bank, did you?” I hissed suspiciously.

“No! I went to a cash point.”

“Hm.”

“Wait, you have a bank account?” Thalia piped up. “Cool,”

“Uh huh,” I said unconvincingly. “Anyway, let’s go.”

I tugged the tickets from the machine. With Ash dragging a slowly wandering Thalia, we hurried through the security, and stumbled onto the platform.