Chapter Twenty-One

A Chapter by firabelle

Trust me, it's good stuff.

I shifted nervously as the same lady whom had announced everyone in the coliseum addressed the rules of this trial.

“Welcome to the Maeve Trials.”

I looked around, sizing up my considerable competition. The oldest among us was a middle-aged woman with brown hair and rather unremarkable features. It looked as if I was the youngest amongst us, which worried me immensely. Why?

Well, the thing is, if I was the youngest one here, then there had to be a reason, right? I had to be special in some way, shape, or form.

If I could pick up on this, then I’m sure everyone else would.

Guess what this meant?

I was a moving, living, breathing, target.

“The rules here are quite simple as far as the challenges go; you do not weed each other out; we weed you out. This will happen in the trials. There can be no physical fighting outside of the challenges, and no physical undermining of another trialee, but psychological warfare is and always will be allowed. In fact, it’s encouraged. One of you will be the next leader of Eire, and you need to have a thick skin of the highest caliber to survive the political nightmare-jungle that happens to be the Legends. There will be ten challenges, in which all of you compete. The top five trialees will be determined by how you perform in these trials.

“The top five will then enter the last, and most difficult by far, phase of the trials. I cannot give you any of the details, but it will be the hardest thing you have ever done, if you happen to be one of the five that reach that point in the trials.

“You will all have your own room, identical to the others. You may change it if you so wish by adding to the decor, but you cannot change the shape of the room, nor the general integrity of the room.

“You will have the next week to train, considering some of you,” her gaze landed on me for a miniscule moment, “are not acquainted with the magic of Fableland. You will need to be competent in the musical and living natural magics. If you are not already acquainted with them, the field has already been leveled out by the fact that you have extensive knowledge on music and the living natural world.

“Social interaction is allowed at anytime, so long as it is not a physical distraction. This applies to training and challenges. There will be challenges every three days, and training will happen in between.

“Questions?”

I tried to absorb everything that she had said. So far as I could tell, I had no questions, and neither did anyone else.

“Good. Rooms are located in the hallway to the left of me.” She indicated the hallway next to her.

I assumed we were being dismissed, but I stayed put and waited to see what everyone else did. After all, one of the (many) secrets to success went something like this- watch, and observe the mistakes of those around you. Learn them, and know them like the back of your hand. Then, do not repeat them.

As everyone filed in, I tried to look for Felicity. I definitely wanted to know whether or not I had to deal with whatever she would throw my way. Or, rather, what she could throw my way. My reasoning went a bit like this; if she has somehow managed to get into the Maeve Trials, then I’d be able to counter them directly, but she could also screw directly with my performance in the trials. If she wasn’t here, she would most likely try to influence the nature of the trials. While they be specifically designed to take me down, they would also give everyone else a hard time.

I waited by the doorway, pretending to fiddle with my boot laces while I looked for her. Everyone filed past, trying to steer clear of the other competitors. So that was how the trials were going to be, huh? Every trialee for themselves.

After the throng had passed through the doorway, I was forced to admit that Felicity wasn’t here. Tam had been right- she couldn’t get in. I smirked at the thought of the entitled snot’s reaction. “But Daddy, I need to show this obnoxious b***h who’s who!” I snickered at the thought, realizing how accurate it probably was.

The humor stayed with me as I sought after an unoccupied room. All of them were taken, as I knocked on each door politely, and asked, “Is this room taken?”

All I’d get was a surly look from the occupant, and a nasty remark. I apologized, and moved on. Repeating this got very old, very, very, quickly. After twenty-four tries at being nice, I got to the last door.

About damn time.

I cleared my throat and knocked. “Is this room talen?” I asked, the same way I had done for the past half hour.

Silence.

I shrugged, then pushed open the door. Inside the room was nondescript. The walls were white, the bedding was white, the dresser and bed frame a light wood. The white was blinding, like doctor’s-office-bright-clean-unnaturally-white kind of white. I reached out to touch the wall, which felt like the back of an uncracked iphone 4- cold, smooth, and holding a certain kind of potential that tends to come from hidden circuits inside an unopened box. It gave me the willies, so, naturally, I began tapping on the walls. For what, exactly?

Spaces between the rooms, naturally. Why? Beats me. Curiosity, I suppose. However, after half an hour with no results, I stopped out of frustration. Instead, I chose to lounge on my bed and evaluate everything that had happened thus far, without the extensive emotional break-down.

When I took a major step back, the Legends didn’t seem all that different than the Tales. They never had, really. They were just two forces, not good or bad, but forces nonetheless. Really, all it shook down to was their point of view. Unless someone had committed some atrocity or another that I didn’t know about yet, I couldn’t know which side to pick. If, on the slight chance that I won the Maeve Trials, I would be forced to pick a side, permanently. Damn it, the only thing I wanted to do was go home!

I sniffled, trying not to cry. The gravity of the situation weighed on me heavily; I could become the equivalent President of Ireland, or an even larger country.

An idea, the beginnings of a brilliant plan, sprung to my mind. I grinned, my earlier terror forgotten. No, that wasn’t as much of a problem anymore...

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