Chapter 3

Intertwined Fates

 

 

“Thy fate is the common fate of all; Into each life some rain must fall.”

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

 

 

Waking up to the commotion of people talking amongst themselves, Harriet could feel about seventeen eyes staring at her and a few broken pottery vases around her head. “Where the hell am I?” Harriet grumbled to herself, thinking that she was in some kind of crazy dream that she couldn’t wake up from. Her hair was tangled around her face, the cut on her head seeming to heal up slowly by the minute that passed on by her. She still had everything that she had brought along with her, the bag that she had brought along lying across her chest like a rag doll on the floor.

             Pushing herself upright, her left hand hit something rather smooth, yet rough at the same time. Harriet turned her head to see what she was touching, seeing that it was a leather book that looked exactly like The Silver Light Chronicles book did, which reminded her that she didn’t have it on her. The thought of losing it made her panic profusely. “Oh crud, where is it, where is it, where is it?!?!?” Her eyes widen as she stood up to search for the book, the small circle of people staring at her like she was some kind of new star that had suddenly fallen from the skies. The nerves in Harriet’s body seemed to be in a slight shock, her stomach forming into tiny knots. Besides the fact that she couldn’t find The Silver Light Chronicles, Harriet was also freaked out by the fact that she wasn’t in the forest. She thought that she might have been mysteriously kidnapped or still in a dream. Before doing anything else, Harriet closed her eyes and took in a couple of deep breaths. Everything will be ok…it’ll be fine Harriet…it’ll be fine… Harriet opened her eyes and recited the sentence in her mind, snatching the brown leather book that was on the ground while pushing her way through the small circle that had formed around her. She looked around her surroundings and marveled at the many buildings that seemed to be so close together. It reminded her of Italy’s buildings and how they were squished together, the brick walls reminding her somewhat of New York’s brick buildings. The vines that where in the alley way crawled on the side of the building, curling over the tall roof tops that pointed at the clouds. The buildings lined up lead to a town square, a water fountain right in the center of attention. A group of mostly red and brunette haired girls were giggling by the edge of the water fountain, seeming to be staring at a tall figure from afar.

            Harriet stopped by a straw basket and squinted to see if she could see what was so amusing. She could what the tall figure looked like, so Harriet kept on walking on by, a women with blond hair tied up in a bun and fair skin brushing past her without looking where she was going. “I’m sorry,” Harriet said automatically, hugging the leather book across her chest firmly with her bag secured by her side. The warm summer air brushed onto her skin as she got closer to the water fountain, noticing something rather unusual on the dip of her right hand. There was a faded scar there, looking like a crescent of a moon. “How’d I get that?” Harriet pondered, giving it a second’s observation before she ventured onward into a city that was unknown to her. It looked like any other city with people busy with their lives, some sitting down in some outdoor chairs chatting about how their day was going. Even the teenagers had ipods in their hands, listening to whatever song they were listening to. But the strange thing was that half the people had some kind of bracelet on their wrists, having some kind of marking and jewel to represent something of themselves. Harriet found it confusing, walking along the side of the cobbled road with a small wave of people that were going in the same direction. They were all hushed in a whisper, saying something about a ‘key’ and how it was in Avian. “What are they talking about?” Harriet thought to herself, the thin strap on her bag slipping off her slender shoulders. She hoisted it up onto her shoulder, shaking her head a bit as she continued towards wherever the single road was leading to. When Harriet got towards the end of the rocky curb, a huge maple tree sat about a few feet from where Harriet was standing. The bark seemed to be flaking off little by little, the color fading on it quickly. The vines on the bottom of it were looking ashy colored, a frog about as big as two fists together sitting at the base of it with its thin, lined tongue poking into the earthy grounds.

           

            Titling her head in curiosity, Harriet started to steadily speed walk over to where the frog was. When she had gotten closer to it, its back was covered in needle thin spikes, the skin of it the exact color of night. It was still sitting at the base of the maple tree, not hearing Harriet’s footsteps as she stood about six inches away from the creature that stood before her. Leaning over it to take another glance at it, some rather strong fingers were wrapped around her shoulder, pulling her back from the strange frog that had snapped its head over its leg to see who had came behind it. When she about a foot or so away, Harriet turned around to face whoever had pulled her back and was about to open her mouth before a boy with almost short, chocolate brown hair interrupted her. “What were you doing by that Fargora? It could have killed you!” The boy snapped rather soothingly, making Harriet blush a rosy pink with a bit of embarrassment. She said nothing as she craned her neck around to stare at the frog with her blue – violet eyes, pulling her head back to stare at the boy who was talking to her.

“A Fargora?” Harriet asked, thinking about The Silver Light Chronicles for some reason.

The boy stared at her confusingly. “You’re not around from here, are you?”

Harriet shook her head shyly. “No, I’m not.”

The boy took a glance at frog before saying anything else. “I see….Uh, I’m Soren.”

Soren raised his hand to shake hers, Harriet grasping his hand firmly with a twinge of electricity going through her hand. “I’m Harriet .”

Soren let go of his hand from hers, rubbing his golden eyes softly. “Have you been here before? To Avian?” Harriet raised an eyebrow at Soren.

“Avian’s a real town?”

Soren chuckled, making Harriet blush even more. “Uh…yeah. You’re in it.”

Harriet stared down at her feet. “Oh.”

Soren grinned, his white teeth shining down at her. “Do you need a place to stay?”

Harriet shot her head up from the ground. “What?”

“Do you need a place to stay for the night?”

Harriet shook her head. “Yeah, I suppose so…but I don’t have any money on me..”

“Do you think I would sound too fast if I asked you if you wanted to come to my place?”

Harriet hugged the brown leather book to her chest, pursing her lips in a thought. “No, it actually sounds like you want to help me out..”

Soren chuckled again. “Because I do want to help you out…is that weird to you?”

Harriet stared at Soren, wondering why he wanted to help her out. “A little. Usually, people don’t really ask if they want you to stay at their place for a night….that’s all. But it would be nice to not sleep on the ground…” Harriet giggled a bit, tucking her hair behind her ear as a small smile was painted up her rosy lips. Soren grinned back, a bag of herbs in his hands. He started to walk away from her, Harriet following him like an obedient dog would while following its master. She stared at the bag for about two blocks down the pathway and around the left corner until she couldn’t hold the question in her mind anymore.

 

“What’s that bag for?”

Soren lifted up the bag for a brief moment before letting it drop to his side again.

“They’re herbs to finish a certain kind of medicine…my mother’s sick.”

“Oh, I’m sorry..”

Soren turned his head to look at Harriet for a brief moment and then started walking upon the forest green grass that carpeted a hill going over to a group of larges mansions. They were either an ivory or earthy brown color, only a few of them being a completely odd colored house in the whole bunch. Harriet just stood there for just a moment, slowly digesting everything that had just happened to her. When Soren noticed that Harriet wasn’t by his side, he stopped in his tracks to give her an unreadable look. “Are you coming or what?” Soren asked, snapping Harriet out of her thoughts with a pink glow on her cheeks. She didn’t say anything to Soren’s question, feeling rather dazed and mesmerized by Soren’s eyes. While Harriet was rushing up to where Soren was standing, she tried to shake the tiny butterflies off of her skin, concentrating on getting her head to stay clear. She was trying to think about the things that made her at ease, the smell of roses coming to her senses. Her muscles has started to suddenly relax, the floral scent coming soothingly to Harriet as she and Soren started to scoot down the hill without falling down.

            As the two of them were quickly going down the hill, Soren could smell a strong scent of roses floating around his head. He had smelt the scent at first, yet it was a faded smell and it was around Harriet. Usually, nobody had a scent on their skin unless they had a perfume or cologne on, which bugged Soren since he was sensitive to strong scented smells. Glancing at Harriet, Soren grinned with a hint of glee. ‘I knew it….’ Soren thought, almost tripping on his own two feet. He was confused on how he could smell such a calming, floral scent on a girl like her, having such an aura of positivity and happiness. He could sense that her muscles where tensed up before, yet where starting to calm down. “She must have been in shock, somehow.” Soren muttered below a whisper, hoping that Harriet wouldn’t be able to hear his own talk. Approaching the end of the hill, Soren waited until Harriet was down with him, not wanting to be a jerk towards her. When Harriet moved to the end, Soren asked, “Did you get down alright, Harriet?”  

Harriet nodded, putting the leather book into the sky blue bag that she had. “Yeah, did you?”

Soren shook his head. “Yes, I did.”

Harriet pulled down the red t-shirt that she had on to the waist line of jeans, putting the thin strap of the bag over her shoulder again. When she lifted her head up, Harriet swore her jaw had just dropped to the ground. “These houses are beautiful…you live in one of these houses?”
Soren laughed kindly at her amazement. “I live in the one straight ahead; the ivory one.” Soren said, pointing right at the back of a house that stood right by a brick wall with vines crawling all over it. It was at the corner of a side walk, seeing the fountain that she was at before. Harriet became somewhat confused, looking around the area that she was. “Did we just go in a big loop?” Harriet asked directly, her eyebrows going close together as she looked over her should to see Soren. He just shrugged at her. “ I like to make things difficult for myself.” Soren joked, leading Harriet through a sliding glass door that lead into the kitchen. It had an old fashioned theme to it, having brick walls and vines going from one corner to another. It reminded Harriet of a pizza place, making it a nice place to be in because of its atmosphere and what it looked like. Staring a few paintings, a red headed Daylight maid fluttered into the kitchen to check if anything needed cleaning of any sort. “This place is spotless, Amelia. I don’t think it needs anymore cleaning here..” Soren said, the maid bowing her head down half way. “Okay, sir.” Amelia said softy, a bright smile on her face as she flew away.

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            Harriet turned to who Soren was talking to, her eyes growing slightly wide at what was on Amelia’s back.  ‘Now I know I’m definitely dreaming….’ Harriet thought, biting her bottom lip a tiny bit. She didn’t want Soren to think she was weird, releasing her bottom lip from further biting it. So instead, she asked,” Uh, do you know a ---“

“Bathroom is?” Soren finished, his medium – short dark brown hair going over his pure golden eyes.

Harriet just nodded with wonder. “Yeah…”

“Go down this hall out of the kitchen, go to the left and then take a left again. After that, there’ll be a door that has a crystal knob. You’ll find it there.”

“Thanks…”

“Anytime…”

Harriet stood with a pink blush, wishing that she didn’t blush so easily by the smallest things as she walked out of the kitchen. She turned a left by the corner, glancing at the many windows that where close together. The house was huge, the hallway being about the size of the hallways at her school. The paintings were mostly nature pictures on the other side of the wall, only a few pictures of a man or a woman standing in the middle of the nature pictures. Harriet was distracted by the pictures when she ran into a cracked open door, tumbled backwards about two steps. “Ouch!” Harriet groaned, hearing sudden movement inside the darkened room. She slowly poked her head inside, swearing she was turning tomato red. A blond haired boy with ivory skin was playfully kissing a red haired girl, which seemed to look like Amelia. Harriet moved her head out quickly, letting out a grateful sigh as she walked down the hall even further. “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I walked into that…” Harriet said when she got to the crystal knob door, feeling her blush slowly fading down.

            She opened the door and slid inside, wondering if her cell phone would work by any chance. Searching deep inside her bag, Harriet took out a violet purple t-mobile phone and saw that it didn’t work at all. “Oh great! …Mom’s going to be so worried about me….” Harriet said as she put her cell phone away, taking a seat upon the top of the toilet cover. She thought as long as she was in a dream, that her cell phone would at least work. But with her luck, that wasn’t going to happen. Running her hand through her long black hair, Harriet stood up and opened the door to get through. When she opened it, she practically ran into Amelia. “Oh hello, miss.” Amelia said with sweetness dripping from every word. Harriet was breathless at first, wanting to ask her if that was her that was in the closet just minutes before. But regaining her words, Harriet just smiled weakly.

“Hello…I’m Harriet.” Amelia bowed down her head in thin air and then retreated back up.  

“Amelia VanClove, miss.”

“You can just call me, Harriet.”

Amelia looked over her shoulder and just smiled warmly. “Ok…..Harriet.” 

The Daylight maid seemed hesitant to say Harriet’s name at first, which made Harriet just give her a comforting smile as she scooted right past her, feeling silly for walking past her like that. So before she turned around the corner, Harriet looked back with her violet-blue eyes. “I hope you have a good day…” Harriet said softly, Amelia just nodding as she flew towards the end of the hallway. Harriet pulled her hair towards the side of her face, the sunlight hitting her almost ivory skin as she saw a blond haired person standing by a marble statue of a woman with wavy hair. ‘Is that the guy Amelia was kissing?’ Harriet thought, squinting her eyes a bit before she approached by the blond head. She immediately turned bright pink as she noticed that it was a girl instead of Amelia’s mystery man. “ Oh.my.god.” Harriet mouthed; making sure the girl wasn’t staring at her in any way as she covered her mouth slightly.

            Pretending to wipe her something off her lips, Harriet could feel a pair of eyes bore into her skin, the vibration of the eyes making Harriet uncomfortable. “Who are you?” The voice asked, Harriet turning to her left at first since the voice echoed around the room. The voice came back alive again.“Who are you?” Harriet jumped an inch, the voice sounding icy to her. “Uh…I’m Harriet.” She didn’t dare look into the eyes of the voice who was talking to her, making sure her eyes were glued to something interesting.

“I see. I’m Abigail. What are you here for?”

Harriet snapped her head around to see who was talking to her, the words sounding as if the girl instantly hated her for some odd reason. “Well…” She didn’t know how to put it, not wanting to sound like a total moron as she was speaking Abigail, who looked like a model that was cut out from a magazine. “I…was offered a place to stay for the night since I have no money or a place to stay. I thought I had some money, but I apparently don’t have my wallet on me.” The words came spilling out of her mouth, Harriet wondering if she sounded stupid or not. Almost finishing her sentence, the words kept on going. “The guy that brought me here said that I could stay…for the night.” Abigail nodded, her sapphire, white speckled eyes still drilling into Harriet’s skin as she leaned against the wall as if she owned the mansion herself.

“His name’s Soren.”
“What?”

Abigail rolled her eyes annoyingly. “His name is Soren.” Abigail repeated, slowing down her words as she turned her attentions somewhere else.

“Oh…I forgot.” Harriet could feel her angry slowly boiling up, trying to calm herself down with positive thoughts.  Abigail grinned foolishly, the heat of Harriet’s emotions coming off of her quite knowingly. Harriet moved away a few inches, wondering what was inside the room that had the shelf full of books neatly in order. “That must be the study here…” Harriet muttered, taking in a deep breath to wash away all the anger that was bubbling inside her body.

 

Leaning against the Victorian walls herself, a heavenly smell almost made Harriet weak to her knees as she turned around to see who it was. “Oh, hi.” Harriet said, darting her eyes at Abigail and then at Soren.

“I see you’ve met her.” Soren whispered to Harriet, his golden eyes glancing at Abigail before keeping his attention on Harriet. He didn’t even want to make an introduction, being fairly sick at the faint smell of Abigail’s perfume. But the smell of roses kept him sane, almost forgetting about what he really needed to talk to Harriet for.

“Oh Harriet, my father would like to talk to you in the master study…the study right here is just a library…” Soren pointed towards the room, his long fingers pointing briefly towards the room full of books and antique cloth shades. Harriet stood on her tip toes to stare into the room, landing flat on her feet as she was being steered by Soren down the hall.

             Watching the two of them leaving, Abigail steered sharply away, her angel – like hair spinning around as if it were in slow motion. She crossed her arms across her chest, acting as though she was freezing to death, which was impossible since she couldn’t die anyways. She went straight down the hall way and turned the corner to the right. It took a while, but when she approached a certain brick with a craved in rose, Abigail looked cautiously both ways and made sure nobody was looking. “Good…” Abigail grinned, her ultra white teeth glinting as she pressed her bony hands on the faded craved rose, speaking in a tongue that hadn’t been spoken in four centuries. The brick wall suddenly moved around to reveal an opening that had a line of candles on each side, a ring of thicker candles surrounding a long metal thing on the middle of a round marble stone. Abigail vanished inside, the fire on the wicks dancing violently as she floated over towards what was on the marble table. When she got to it, Abigail smiled with glee, not hiding it as she stared at the Lutador.

            She knew that Soren wasn’t allowed to talk about it, wishing that he would. Yet she wasn’t from an Albany bloodline, so she wasn’t allowed to touch it at all, the family thinking that it would a shame if anybody not from the family put a finger print on the blade. Bending down her head to let her hair cover her face up, Abigail waved her hand over the Lutador, spinning around as soon as Abigail got to the handle of the blade. She walked silently towards the opening, sticking half of her slender body out of the door to make sure nobody was in view. She then twirled out of the Lutador’s room, clutching her hand tightly so the brick door would close and lock itself into place. Patting the craved rose with pride, Abigail began to go over towards her bed room, muttering, “I will be a part of this household soon…” as she avoided a potted flower vase that was in the way of her pixie like feet.

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Shutting the doors behind them, Harriet felt her jaw drop at the room that she was in. She tried not to seem too shocked, trotting in slowly to view everything that was in the room. Everything was new; the leather seats and the wooden desk, even the cloth blinds were new. There was a bronze box with a rose in the middle of the face, having stories told from years ago. Wanting to just observe everything, Harriet repressed her temptation as Derrick, as Soren had told her about before they had entered into the room, motioned her to take a seat. She could hear Soren taking the chair right next to her, seeing how much they resembled each other in a father – son way. Both Soren and Derrick were good looking men, being very tall with midnight colored hair. They had palish ivory skin as well, which was most of the whole town had, so it didn’t make Harriet feel as awkward as she should have been. But the significant difference between Soren and Derrick were that their eyes were different colors; Derrick having an almost apple green color and Soren having an Aztec gold color to his eyes.

            Harriet tried not to ogle their beauty, even though she thought Soren was much better looking than Derrick, who was about two decades older than her.

“Do you know why you’re here?” Derrick asked.
Harriet shook her head. “Uh…no…I don’t even know how I got here.”

Derrick raised his eyebrow at her, leaned against his desk to peer at Harriet with curious eyes. “I see.”

He took a drink of a dark maroon wine that in a glass goblet, the scent being too strong for Soren’s senses. Harriet pursed her lips as she could see that Soren was disgusted with something, yet she didn’t know what. After Derrick was done with his drink, he wiped his lips with his forearm before speaking again.

“Do you remember the last thing you did?”

Harriet sat right up in the chair, trying to remember single thing she had done before she winded up in Avian. “…I remember running through the forest nearby my house….and then I got knocked out by a tree branch…’ The bump on her head started to hurt, the cut closing up rather quickly than before. “Then I winded up here. In Avian.” Derrick seemly nodded, taking another sip of his wine. Soren just stared at him, fiddling with his fingers a bit while Harriet and Derrick were talking to each other.

“Oh. Well, Harriet….Do you know about something called ‘The Key’?” Derrick asked, feeling the stirring in his heart.

Harriet titled her head in confusion. “No…why?”

Derrick smirked. “The Key is a very powerful being; a savor to Avian. This being, which is a woman most of the time, is always a reincarnation of the Key before. It only happens when there is a terrible danger in our city, a baby being born on the day the Key was born.’ Derrick’s leg started to hurt, having to go to his velvet chair with his walking stick. ‘They baby is born on the full moon of March 24^th every couple of centuries. Usually, a full moon would not rise up then. So that’s why if the baby is born on a full moon, we certainly know it’s The Key of Avian.”
“But what if somebody is mistaken for being The Key?” Harriet blushed a tad, not usually asking questions unless she really wanted to.

“There’s a crescent of a moon on their right hand that shows up in Avian.” Derrick pointed out, making Harriet looking at her hand. She was gap mouthed, closing her mouth quickly when she noticed Soren and Derrick giving her weird looks.

“Oh.”

“Do you know anything about it?”
Harriet turned her head to Soren, her hair concealing her face half way. “No, I don’t.”

Turning back to where Derrick was, she could suddenly feel a cool, yet a touch of warmth on her hand. Derrick inspected her hand and held her hand up to her face for a few seconds before letting it drop, spinning around so he could go back to his velvet chair. “You’re birthday’s March 21th…right?”

“Yeah…”

“Aah, I see….Even if you don’t want to accept this right now, you are The Key of Avian…’

Soren stared at Harriet with his golden eyes, making Harriet dart her eyes around the room

“But there is a catch to this, Harriet.”  

Harriet raised an eyebrow at Soren’s father a bit. “How do you know my name?”

Derrick ignored her and went over her question. “You must complete three tasks in order to prove that you’re the real key and not the fake one.”
“A fake one?” Harriet asked.

“Yes, a fake one. I cannot mention their name, but they created a ‘clone’ of the real key and plan to wipe out all of humanity itself so that they can breed themselves since they don’t like the aurora of souls since they don’t seem to have one themselves. There are some who work with them to help, knowing that they would be spared from death if the fake gets into The Key’s place in Javilior, where supposedly the heart of our world is. There is a ‘secret weapon’ that lies within Javilior’s grounds. If the real Key gets to it in time, then the world that Avian lives in will be safe and all of them will be wiped out from humanity. If not, then everybody would be dead; even the immortals..”

Seeing that Harriet looked a bit dazed about what he was talking about, Derrick rephrased himself.

“Vampires.”

“They exist? Vampires? I thought they were just…fantasy.” Harriet said, feeling her face burning a light red from asking a stupid question.

Soren coughed and moved a bit of his medium length hair out of his eyes. “No, that’s just what we want humans from another world to think. If they knew that we existed, then they would be scared.”

“But I’m not scared. At least, I don’t think I should be.”

“But you should be.” Derrick said, clutching his cane as he sat in his chair.

“Don’t you think that we’ll suck your blood out of your neck?” Soren asked curiously.

Harriet crossed her arms across her chest and thought about it. For some reason, she should have been afraid.  But she didn’t feel afraid at all; instead Harriet felt safe being by Soren. She thought it was the fact that he was kind to her after he had taken her away from the Fargora, sounding caring when he asked her if she needed a place to stay. Harriet could have said no, but she didn’t want to. She felt as if she had to know more about Soren and his past, or what he liked to do.

 

            Dazing off once again, Harriet got back into what was reality to her at the moment.

“No, I don’t think that…and I’m being honest; I’m not scared. I don’t know why, but I’m not.” Harriet reassured the two men who were in the room, pulling away her hair away from her violet-blue eyes.

Derrick chuckled a little bit. “Ok, fine. But I have to mention something about the tasks. The first one is getting hard sap from a Zinjai Tree. It’s impossible since there are many Fargora frogs that surround the tree’s bark, draining the life of the older trees slowly; and the vines that surround the base of the tree. They stretch out to about two miles away from it, even more. The vines don’t respect anything or anybody that live in Avian or from another place from afar. If you can pass the vines, then it means something. If you get past there, then you must grab the leaves of the vine. The Fargoras hate the color, so they stay in the heart of the forest.’

            ‘After you get the sap, you must bring it to a place called Ikerlivingston. They will tell you about what you need to do with the Second Task. I only know a few things about the Second Task, so listen carefully. The people in the town have heard about a box with keys in the holes of eight boxes in a row. They don’t know its purpose, yet they say it contains a beating ghost heart, which is a heart that a ghost has sacrificed to help out a dying person in need to stay alive. But they don’t know since nobody has no idea how to get it out of the boxes.’

            ‘I have no idea what the Third Task is, so you would have to ask after you figure out about the boxes…Now did you get all of that, Harriet?”

Harriet slowly nodded her head, taking a small glance at Soren before she had to look at Derrick. “I think so…but I don’t know where any of these places are.”

“Then you must bring your beskytter with you.” Derrick said, pointing at Soren as if he was pointing to a small prize.
Harriet took a quick shot at Soren before she spoke. “A what?”

“A---“

“Beskytter; A protector.” Soren interrupted, a tiny smile forming at the corner of his lips.

Harriet swore that she had turned crimson when she had seen Soren smile the way he did, trying not to be dazzled with every small thing he did. Derrick shook his head as he pushed himself off with his cane, grabbing a key that was on the table. “You also need something else when you go.”

“Like what?”

“The  Lutador sword.” Soren got of the chair as he spoke, walking towards the door as fast he could.

“Why?” Harriet asked plainly.
“Just in case.” Soren smirked, opening the door with his long, ivory fingers.

Harriet didn’t know what else to say, practically falling out of her chair while she scrambled out towards the door where Soren was. When he had held out the door for Harriet, she had entered into the marble floor hallway, following Derrick with Soren at her left side with a suddenly relaxed look on his face.

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            After exiting out of the room with the rose brick on it, Harriet had the Lutador in its sheath on the left side of her hip, not having the slightest clue how she was going to learn how to use a sword. She didn’t at first pay attention to what Soren was talking about at first, having too much on her mind to listen to what anybody was saying. With all the worries on her mind, Harriet was checking out the Lutador’s forest green handle when she had felt a cool tap on her shoulder.

“I could teach you how to handle a sword, you know…” Soren said, having to bend his head down to talk to Harriet. She stared up into his eyes, her hand still caressing the tip of the handle gently.

“You know how to use a sword?”

“I’ve been practicing with one since I was about six….so yeah, I know how.”

“Oh…I didn’t know.” Harriet said, looking away to concentrate on not tripping over her own two feet again.

“It’s ok; I didn’t expect you to know.” Soren said soothingly, his shoes talking to the floor as the two of them approached the door. Harriet felt around herself to see if anything was missing while she was walking, her long black hair getting silently wrapped around her neck. She got instantly annoyed, taking out her hair binder to put her hair up into a quick, loose pony tail. Soren gave her a funny look, sensing the annoyance from her hair before she even knew the hair was going to wrap around her hair. He had wanted to point out that her hair was going to wrap around her neck, but he didn’t want to sound bizarre since he thought that Harriet had gone through enough already.

 

            Approaching the two wooden double doors, Nicholas immediately grabbed for the curved, bronze handle with his small, white gloved hand.

“Thank you.” Harriet said, smiling at Nicholas with comfort and a payment or gratitude. Instead of saying ‘you’re welcome, Miss.’, Nicholas just stood there with the corner of his mouth forming into a smile, the words saying it all on his face. Soren just nodded in thanks, having to sprint in order to keep out with Harriet’s walking pace, which seems to be more of a runner’s walk than anything else.

“So where is the Zinjai tree?” Harriet asked, tucking her hands into her Levi jean pockets.

“Where I first found you, of course...but just about two steps farther.” Soren laughed, running his hand through his now light brown hair. Harriet didn’t notice at first until she took a glance at his hand, noticing that his skin was also a more of a fairer color; a normal tone that most people would have.

“Oh….” Harriet said quietly, following Soren as they went onto sidewalk towards Avian.

            A few people had given her strange looks, Harriet feeling out of place whenever somebody had give her just a stare. But she felt comforted when Soren asked her a question about herself, which were mostly about where she lived. Harriet only gave out that she lived in the middle of the forest and that she loved whenever the stars came out, noticing that they shined brighter when she wasn’t in the cities. Soren just chuckled and agreed with her most of the time, Harriet feeling like a child one percent of the time she had mentioned another thing about her life and how she didn’t mind it that much.

            Finally getting towards the mouth of the forest, the bark of the trees made Harriet stop for some reason.

“Ready, Harriet?”

Harriet jumped, having to zone out when she had stopped to stare vaguely at the tree bark.

“Sorry about that; I didn’t mean to scare you.”  

“No worries…I zone a lot, so it’s ok.”

“I can tell.” Soren said, a musical tone dripping from every word that he spoke.

Harriet shook her head, re-tucking her hands into her pocket as she stepped over a root to one of the younger trees. When she took a look up at the destination ahead of her, vines with magenta colored leaves stretched out about seven feet away from Harriet and Soren, twisting and turning around every tree that it could reach without getting in the way of the roots. The length of the vines amazed Harriet, her eyes growing wide with every step she took. She could see Soren surprised himself, Harriet instantly giggle at his expression. She then turned away to stifle her stampede of giggles.

‘With much luck, I can get through this…hopefully….’

 

Author's Note

I forgot to mention that the Lutador is a sword in the last chapter.....Uh....I feel that I should do something with how I ended this Chapter....but I didn't know how I should of ended this. O.o"
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Note:Think of Bill Nighy's voice and place it with Derrick's voice.

And Chapter 4 will come soon...hopefully soon. :]

Reviews

[Ice Queen of the Vampir..]

Wow, another great chapter. This is coming along nicely and I can't wait to see if she can complete the tasks. Nice job!!!

Heather

[Damon Ross Cottrell]

Your descriptions still impress me. Your characters are developing nicely, but Harriet seems to be taking the news she is the key rather calmly. Personally, I'd be wondering about all of this. At least she doesn't have an antagonistic attitude (I don't want to do this! Why do I have to do this?) from the start.

I liked the dialogue you used this time. You are good at it, and you should us more of it. Less telling and more showing, please.

Well you ended it with them arriving at the edge of the forest where the vines were. That's a good stopping point.

I think if you took more time re-reading your work you would catch more of the typos. Reading and rereading is the key to good writing.

Notes:
What kind of wings do the fairies have? Butterfly or avian?

People have heard about a box with keys in the holes of eight boxes in a row.--- huh? I don't get it.

[Captain Blackheart (The..]

WOW....what can I say? Another great chapter, and best of all thoses frogs are back.lol A great piece with good descriptions, 3 tasks to complete....lets hope she completes them.