Chapter Text
The Orc's suit of scrap metal, every piece gathered from the greatest warriors of the Shockspire Tower, creaked and clanked with his heavy footsteps. Even repeatedly reheated, beaten, and bent into place, the high-quality metal moved smoothly with his joints and made a fraction of the noise his warband's scrap armor did. The Warboss was followed by the blindly loyal yet mighty soldiers, each clad in the treasures of raids well-fought. Many didn't come back alive, many were weak, but not these ones. They'd followed him out of the Outlands and straight through the greatest bastion against the dark's terror.
Blades hammered not in the fires of a forge, but through countless hours of their own sweat and rawest muscle being put through their biggest hammers; loot of good enemies similarly refitted to be their unyielding suits; shields built from multiple of their deceased foes. Thus far, the only thing that had so much as slowed their advance through the lushest green and glimmering water of Skylands had been narrow bridges with low weight thresholds.
He lightly nudged aside a sheep. Just because he could turn it to mush beneath his foot in a second didn't mean a common prey animal was worth his time. Not a worthy opponent, put simply. His subordienates weren't so indifferent, many of the greenskins went out of their way to indulge their squadmates' nonsense. He even spied an officer competing with his unit to see who could kick the balls of wool the furthest through a rear-view mirror mounted to his armor's collar.
The gray steel suit was covered in scratches and scuffs and dents, all well-earned by every individual part's original owner. He claimed every portion through combat and tempered them in blood; every square-shaped sheet molded around his arms, every former shield beaten together until they were a blocky chestpiece, every oversized and heavily mechanized glove and boot he gutted and molded to his digits, the big shoulder pads embroidered with the mark of the Tech Element that barely fit over his joints, the static spear that was more of a battle mace to him than the proud weapon of mighty guards of the tower, all of them were earned.
His backpack, bearing the weighty electrical parts for the better guards' electrical shields, hummed with energy as he adjusted the mirrors on his collar. The Orc could allow his warriors a moment of peace, he supposed, they were finally upon their target.
Anyone casually walking through these woods probably would've missed it, the silent change in the scenery and feel of the brush and rocks. If it hadn't been marked and partially blocked off then nobody would know its significance. Some very infamous and dreaded warriors had wandered this deceptively innocent stretch of foresty, never to return, be they horrid Warbosses like him or forgotten Skylanders hoping to solve the mystery and make their names known. All that was known was that Master Eon himself had brought a small team to scout the area and almost instantly labelled it far too dangerous to be entered.
That coward didn't even enter, he heard, just put some generic wards and ordered the construction of warning signs before leaving it. But he, surely to be known as the greatest Warboss to devastate the Skylands, knew exactly what the ancient Portal Master had done however many decades ago. The old man was trying to avoid drawing attention to this spot, not dealing with it but refusing to allow anyone else to believe it was important, which meant it was valuable. Even a Portal Master turned the other way, but his warband wouldn't. 25 strong, his soldiers were armed to the teeth in quality armor bent to their whims, wielding high-voltage weapons crafted for the stalwart defenders against his Outlands, stood before a small clearing in the woods. The pathway was very small and poorly trodden but noticeable nonetheless.
"Awll ahead, Bosh!" One of his men, Buggug, shouted and banged on his shield with his Static Spear.
He did his best to be a patient leader, most Warbosses were challenged and defeated because they were so ruthless to their own underlings and he preferred not to have his mission ruined before it started, but that one had a tendency to get on his nerves. Test the Warboss's patience he might, but he had a lot of spirit and energy that just needed to be pointed in the right direction. He raised a hand, motioning the unit to stop, and turned to Kencid, one of six Drow who'd joined his ranks since breaking free of the Tower's watch. They knocked a bow and lightly tugged the string back in preparation, pupilless eyes leering into the shade and greenery. They turned to him after a moment and signed that they were clear, but to be careful.
"Ahrms reahdy, boiz." He shouted and raised his spear-turned-mace while adjusting the two Shock-It Shields melded with his left gauntlet.
Leaves grazed his helmeted head and missed most of his soldiers' thick skulls. The six Drow moved fluidly through the trees as a skilled unit trained in their people's ways and honed with experience in his band. Two of them led the way, holding long spears with curved tips like daggers; the other four were the expert bowmen he'd sought their help for. His ranged capabilities weren't as numerous as he would've liked, but they more than made up for it in the skills to give Skylanders a run for their gold.
Crunching beneath the orcs' feet were bones of all kinds. Dirt made them blend in with the twigs but he could never miss the familiar give of a broken skull. Some of them were clad in rusted armor too weak to be worth adding to their suits, others hadn't thought they needed it or were wearing lighter equipment that had long rotted away. A few draconic skulls and massive canine teeth covered in very old blood clinked against their boots as they came across the object of his curiosity surprisingly quickly.
Another small clearing, one far less deep in the wood than he was expecting, held their prize. What was Eon looking to protect? What did he want to hide from the world? None other than a small egg. It was nestled in a ring of branches, itself sitting in a small crater. The egg was vibrant purple, lightly covered in orange and red leaves riddled with rotting brown holes, and resting just beneath a massive pear-shaped tree with a warped trunk shifting in many directions before they loosely recollected at the top in something vaguely resembling a healthy plant.
The Drow among them glanced to him, a muted warning that something wasn't right. He motioned for one of the smaller orcs to approach the egg alone, just in case. The weaker figure carefully approached the nest. Orcs weren't a particularly magically inclined species but even they could feel the power exuding from the grove. Bones crunched under his soldier's feet, from skulls to entire ribcages, but the forest otherwise stayed quiet, not even the chirping of birds followed them within the mass grave. So what was it that felled these warriors?
His grunt's offhand gauntlet screeched as he grabbed the egg and brought it up to his face. He sniffed it, he stared at it, he weighed it up and down, and looked to the boss for direction. The Drow and Warboss, though, knew swiftly what was casually held in the palm of his green hand; not just a dragon egg, but that of an Elemental Paragon. The Dark Elves looked between each other, victory beyond their wildest imaginations painted over their green faces, but he'd learned better than to celebrate so soon.
As a result, he was the only one prepared for something to happen. The huge, deformed tree behind the Orc burst open. Splinters flew through the woods and the nest of some squirrels was flung from the tree, likely killing anything inside. A large hand clad in completely black armor, every plate ending in a razor-sharp edge with but a sliver of a metallic glint. Five clawed fingers and a thumb clenched around the Orc's skull and crushed it quickly, wrapping it in a black fire that sucked the light out of its surroundings and pulled falling leaves and woodchips into its hungry embrace.
The soldier fell dead, 24 left, and the dragon egg slipped back into its nest. Each of the four Drow archers swiftly put four or five arrows into the tree within a second. Spikes lining the armored limb and piercing out of its elbow sawed through the back of the tree as it moved its arm back in the blink of an eye, just as fast as the two dozen projectiles' flight. The rear trunk scraped off, then the arm rushed in front of it.
Every arrow pinned to the bark was crushed by the forearm as the claws dug into the tree, peeling the wood off like it was little more than a banana peel. More and more of the tree creaked and cracked and splintered and tore apart. Out of the gap, up from a shin-deep hole in the ground with the tree's roots coiling around its feet, stepped a massive knight covered in dark armor, every inch filled with sharp edges and layers of jagged plates.
He was skinnier than the Warboss expected from the man who just ripped through a tree with his bare hands, but even taller than he was. Even Master Eon would be dwarfed by this warrior, two heads over the Portal Master and one over the Warboss who ordered a charge to avenge their fallen comrade and take their hard-earned loot. The Drow warriors held back, side-by-side with him as the Orcs moved. The bowmen shot over the first wave's heads, pinning many arrows into the knight's armor, all fell broken to the forest floor.
The Dark Knight, his helmet unnatural even for the widely absurd residents of Skylands he'd already crossed and crushed, didn't flinch at the island-shaking warcries of his greatest soldiers. The helm was round at the top, full of ridges, the centers had triangular points. Its sides had spirals cradled by shadows. But the front bore the ugliest mug he'd ever seen, and he'd fought countless other Orcs to be free of the Outlands. There were six abyssal eyeholes with no mirage of a face behind them, two facing the front like normal eyes, two to the sides like deer, and two above both completing the triangles. From under the panel slithered many armored tentacles tipped with knives; coated in shields like the backs of snake armor on one end and lined with clicking razors on the other.
Its tentacled face didn't wince or twitch as it dragged a greatsword out of the darkness of the hollowed-out tree. The blade was curvy like a squiggly line at the top half, smooth on the front edge, serrated on the back, and had a pair of long spikes coming out of the guard. The guard was slightly V-shaped with curved-upward daggers on either end. Its handle was full of small bumps and etchings that made his head ache and vision blur when he tried to look at them, a spiked ring in the middle with a longer point for a pommel. The blade's flat ends and the plates of his armor were covered in similar sickening markings that made his archers dizzy until they couldn't risk shooting through the Orcs.
With one swipe, his gigantic sword in one hand and moving with a blur, the Dark Knight bisected five of his favored Orcs. 19 left. The next wave paused for but a second, save for one of the bigger gitz who had too much momentum and tried to bash through the knight's horrible helmet with an axe of bone. He wasn't even given the dignity of being cut down, the armored man punched him in the gut with his free hand while the one holding the Greatsword slowly wound up for another attack. A trail of blood followed the Orc as he flew into the bushes and dripped from the man's fist until it ignited in a black fire. 18.
Three of the front Orcs tried to attack at the same time. The knight blocked all three and tossed a black fireball over their heads, the blast tore through two of his archers and Orcs, leaving many others scarred and on fire, including one of the Drow warriors. 14. Then he pressed his hand into the tip of his greatsword and lifted, pushing away the three brave frontrunners before he decapitated all three with one more swing. 11. The knight stepped closer, covering an incredible amount of ground quickly with his spindly legs and lifting his sword to the islands above like it was weightless.
Cold and darkness grew over the rapidly dwindling warband like all life and light were being drained from their lives with his twisted presence, the suffering only ended for one of them when he brought the sword down on his head. 10. For just one, crucial second, his blade got stuck in the Orc's salvaged helmet and one of his buddies tried to stab the knight in the hip. The buzzing tip of the three-pronged spear sparked and bent as the stranger's fist collided with it. He lifted his sword again and buried it in the offending Orc's heart. 9. The pommel pierced another Orc's skull as he pulled away and turned to the last few Orcs. 8.
The last two archers did their best to halt the knight's advance to no avail, the Drow warriors that ran ahead found no more success. Two of his final three Orcs had their last attacks blocked and countered with lethal efficiency. 6 None other than Buggug waited for the Drow to join the fight before he lunged. Both Drow's weapons shattered as he pressed his greatsword into their tips, a testament to their strength and resolve in any other circumstance, and sliced their heads off. 4. Buggug, under the cover of spurting blood and shattered bone, stabbed into the knight's throat. He caught the electrified speartip and crushed the sharpened copper prongs before shoving Buggug to the ground like he weighed nothing, opening the last two archers for one swift attack. 2.
"Kraugug!" Buggug screamed before a boot with three clawed toes crushed his skull.
He knew my name?
The lone knight stood silently before Warboss Kraugug, hefting his greatsword to point at the Orc. No, not his greatsword, its. The creature didn't breathe, it didn't blink behind those six voids, its tendrils didn't idly flick and curl, its arm showed no sign of wear while holding the full weight of a greatsword on its own, it hunched over on legs like a dog's, and its other hand tensed like it was baring its talons.
1
-<🌀>-
Eon stroked his beard as he wandered the forest for the first time in too long. He knew he should've checked in more frequently, but running the academy and keeping the Core of Light under wraps was no easy feat. There just wasn't time in his day! That was it! But for now, the end of his staff tapped on rocks and flattened grass as he used it as a hiking stick. His snow-white hair stiffened at the sound of harsh, violent clashes. Weapons were slamming against each other with the force of Giants and moved at the speed of Superchargers.
His worst fears had come true. Not only had a rouge Warboss broken through the measly barriers the Mabu had constructed around the forbidden area, and he'd found something of great importance. He tried to convince himself that not all was lost as he sprinted through the trees, what few reports made it to his desk in the short time it took for Kraugug to get to the forest said he was running a very small team, even if they were skilled. Portal Master or not, going after them alone wasn't his brightest moment (but not his dimmest, either), but they'd progressed faster than he anticipated.
A massive Orc, a full head taller than him, almost flattened the old man out of nowhere, followed by a black blur that chilled the air and sucked up the light. A shadow of a knight clashed with a greatsword in just one hand against the shielded arm of the Warboss. Bolts of electricity flew and roars of battle quaked the very island they stood on. The pair of Shockspire Tower Guard shields bashed into the Orc's arm shook, dented, and cracked under the force of the knight's blade until they fell sadly off the green forearm.
In an instant, the knight cut through the Warboss's arm. Eon quietly stepped back, focused on the unfamiliar figure with his staff swirling cyan magic. The Orc bellowed in pain, reaching for one last, desperate hit with his spear like it was a mace, only for the knight to parry it with one hand on his greatsword and the other rearing back to grab his arm and peel off the beaten steel plates, then cut off the other arm in the same motion. It started twirling the greatsword behind it and back to its side as the Warboss's knees buckled, out of breath with sweat pouring down his muscular green skin.
"Huff A... huff... proper enemy..." He wheezed before the shadow-cloaked knight buried its blade deep in his chest.
The knight slowly turned to face Eon, motions too fluid for a living being and unbearably steady. Yet it didn't attack. Eon held his fire, the knight stood silent. Was it waiting for him to make the first move? If it was, it was going to be sorely disappointed. His eyes flashed and staff hummed as he felt around the forest for his target. It was challenging when he'd never been to the next but its immense magic presence and the cold, twisted bubble of time encasing it guided him well enough to open a temporary portal under the nest. Whatever ward or curse was keeping the scaly egg in place shattered as it fell right into his hand.
The tendrils of the knight's face flicked, slithering aside like they were legs and its head a body, then it wrapped itself in a veil of pure darkness littered with orbs of condensed shadows and vanished.
Eon released a breath he didn't know he was holding after waving his staff around, filling the area with Divination Magic until he was sure the warrior was gone and looking at the egg in his grasp. Suddenly, it started to shake. He set it on the ground out of fear of dropping it, only taking the time to make sure the soil was soft before stepping back. The hatchling was a feisty one, sending pieces of his egg across the forest floor with small kicks and punches. All that remained was a part sitting on his little purple head.
A pair of bright orange eyes stared up at Eon as he quickly but gently removed the last shard of his egg, the vibrant purple scales clashing with his shiny orange horns, tail, and ridges along his spine. His small claws swiped at the Portal Master's fingers and tiny mouth snapped the air. The dragon let out a cross between a smoky cough and giggle, no bigger than the length of Eon's arm but strong and full of personality.
"Hello, little one. I mean you no harm." Eon whispered and crouched down to the dragon's level.
The hatchling eyed him suspiciously. "You must be hungry." Eon thought aloud and created another small portal, dropping a chicken wing into his hand. He probably should've checked if the box was still there, first. "Cold chicken?" He offered.
It hobbled over to Eon, still figuring out how to walk and flapping his small wings without the power to use them yet, then snatched the chicken right out of his hand and gobbled it all in one bite. The Portal Master blinked, stunned, then shook it off and allowed the dragon to crawl up his arm.
"You are special, little one." Eon cradled the dragon and waved his staff in a swirl of magic. The hatchling growled playfully and swiped at his beard, his big orange eyes wide with wonder and curiosity. "Very special indeed." The old guardian chuckled and stepped through.
-<🌀>-
Wake up, make sure Maria's dressed, grab lunch, play with her until the bus arrives, go to school, check on her during lunch, go home, play with her, read a story, and tuck her in.
It was a repetitive life, sure, but one George was happy with. His little sister was an angel, Mom and Dad were proud of him, his teachers loved him, and the crap the other kids gave him wouldn't change any of that. They'd gone to the same school their whole lives, he made long-lasting friends way before Maria was born and the common rabble of bullies and wannabe bigshots might've been loud and good at crocodile tears, but he wrestled with his Dad all the time.
There were some small fights, more like him moving them around, but they died down quickly. The principal tried to pull some 'zero tolerance' nonsense on him but he vividly remembered Dad asking him and Mom to leave, the office door didn't muffle the screaming and he was half-sure they'd walk back in on the principal with a black eye. Combined with the teachers who regularly saw the incidents not being the silent type and a whole bunch of different office and parent politics put the whole thing to rest before it went anywhere. As far as he could tell, nobody was going to be much of a problem anymore.
Also, his Dad was at least twice everyone else's parents' size and 1,000,000% muscle with a giant gun basement and military background, so they'd be dead meat anyway.
Maria was wandering off for now, though. Mom needed to take her to the dentist because of all the extra Halloween candy she'd gotten into so she stalled with messes of toys and dragging him into a teaparty. Of course, that just meant she had a lot to clean up when they got home, but it was worth the effort. Dad was busy doing some volunteer work, too, so there was no excuse to somehow shove the living room cleanup onto him because he wasn't going to be shouting at his team watching football. She tried, though!
As for George, he and a couple of friends were walking around the outskirts of their neighborhood. There was this incredibly old and rotting house just outside the HOA's jurisdiction, the local Karen hated it. The crumbling thing was so obviously a crack house that there were whispers the police didn't even get a warrant to raid it. Now everything had been cleared out, though, that day delayed their bus pretty badly so he helped Maria get through her homework so she could play quicker.
One of the four wasn't so certain about checking it out, and George understood. This place was creepy even if it didn't have a half-destroyed roof. Vines were strangling it on the outside and rusty nails and decaying wood were barely holding it together on the inside. But it was chill by now; the thugs got arrested and they had shoes on. They drew straws and George was the poor sap dared to go in first, so he did. Just like he told them, nothing was amiss and the worst-off parts of the house were super obvious. One by one they wandered and picked through what was left behind. Nothing too interesting but there was some tarnished jewelry buried in piles of wood, knocked loose in the cops' raid. Mostly some necklaces and earrings that were easily knocked off.
As first inside, George got first rights to them. He grabbed a necklace and they continued down the streets. They passed some friends and pet some stray dogs while walking around. He got a text from Mom that the appointment was taking longer than they thought, a bad storm rolled in and knocked out a lot of the power, including the X-rays. As a result, George wound up staying out longer than his buddies and got caught in a torrential downpour.
It was fun at first, walking through puddles and chatting with one of the girls from school who made herself some coco and sat on her porch, but he was getting far from home and his clothes were totally soaked through. He started running when the lightning began. Thunder shook him to his core and bright flashes of energy were all that lit his way after the street lights got knocked out, which was a lot for a storm that wasn't even in the forecast. Where did this even come from?
He could already see his Mom with her hands on her hips and an exasperated smirk standing in the doorway. George only stopped to take shelter in the rotten house. The whole thing vibrated when lightning struck, but it held and he wasn't being pelted for a little while. He figured he might as well take another look around the building while he waited for the rain to relent. Carefully, he dug through bits of wood again. Not in a way where he might cut his hand on something rusty or get a splinter, he wasn't stupid, but it didn't matter. Neither the upper or ground levels had anything interesting or valuable.
Downstairs he went, getting ready to brave the storm again and finally get home to a warm shower and change of clothes when he heard a draft. Not feel it, hear. The sound of something humming caught his attention. He could hear the wind flowing but not the cold of rushing air brushing against his wet shirt. Maria's going to have a heyday in this when she gets home. All the time she'd want to send outside could be put back for a little while, he couldn't tell where the draft was coming from and now he was curious. There were loads of holes in the house with rain drooling out of them like spittle, but none of them strong enough to make that noise, meaning there was a part of the house they missed!
The search took a short minute but he found a trap door buried under a shallow pile of rock. It blended into the rest of the floorboards so they overlooked it the first time, but anything that was buried down there was his! Not that he expected much, he would've shared if he thought anything was waiting for him down there. If there was rubble on top of it before he got there then the guys who dealed here probably didn't know about or use it. Even the police must've overlooked it, which might've been cause for concern but he was just some kid from down the street; someone else would worry about it.
Down the basement stairs where the constant humming came from was... not what he expected...
Light shone through the cracks of wood and the droning turned to higher whistling the closer he got. Bright white light blinded him at the bottom. Did someone leave a really bright flashlight in the wall or something? He wasn't an electrician but TV and movie made electrical sounds deeper than this. The light got brighter, turning deep orange. Bits of wood and pebbles started to shake and levitate, then hovered in the light's direction.
George's heart pounded as he started to feel the draft. It wasn't cold like air, more like his body was being magnetized. He tried to run up the stairs but one of his legs got flung right out from under him. His whole upper body started pulling toward the orange light, slamming him into the rails while his other shoulder bashed into the stairs. Fingers digging into the wet wood, he clawed his way up the next few steps and used the support poles of the rails like a ladder until a crack made his heart freeze.
Creaks and snaps shook the stairs as George desperately climbed up. The light pulled him down on the steps, they dug into his ribs and gut until the last few intact fibers of wood gave way and the soggy, pulpy remains easily fell out of place. Parts of the rails followed him to the floor, but the harsh impact on his back never came. A frantic yell tore from his throat as if anyone could hear or reach him before the light pulled him directly in without ever touching the floor.
-<🌀>-
Never in her life did she think she'd miss high school.
Eugenie idly tapped the side of her lunch bag. The brown paper rustled. Her turkey sandwich was wrapped in plastic wrap, there was a Snickers from one of the vending machines and a bottle of water stuffed inside, too, but none of them called to her. She tried to choose one of the many seats around the entire campus and eat but no matter what students had passed her by, no matter how quiet it was supposed to be at that period, she couldn't find her appetite.
The worst part was that she normally loved school. Seeing her friends, talking to her teachers, book clubs, a break from her parents. What wasn't there to love? Sure, she wasn't popular, but she was far from low enough to be pushed around. Her whole friend group in all of her classes was small and full of well-read people who managed to avoid most of the teenage drama everyone else seemed to get wrapped up in on the regular. And between periods she got to meet up with her real pals, not just the one neighbor whose note she helped write. She was at the height of it! No football team members hitting on her every other day, nobody trying to shove her in lockers, she had the looks, she had the brains, she aced every quiz and lesson in a heartbeat!
And then she got asked to take that damn test.
And then she got the results back.
And then she aced a mid-college-level test without any of the material being covered in the base curriculum she'd been required to know to graduate. The stuff she didn't need to know but loved to research for nothing but the sake of her own passion.
And then she got fast-tracked through the system.
The last few days in her normal school suffocated her even more than the soulless walls closing in around her and old posters passing her by. Almost everyone around her was either jealous or congratulatory, one was draining and the other shallow. Her friends did their best to put her up. Even the most miserable of them was all smiles and applause. They flew in one ear and out the other. By the end of that week, when every drop of energy she had felt like it'd been ripped clear out of her body, her parents had everything ready for the two-hour drive into the city. During the day, school sucked her dry, and when she got home it was time to pack her things.
Clothes, toiletries, keepsakes, whatever. Eugenie didn't really know what she packed; most of it was blindly tossed in the big blue suitcase until she could flop into bed. That drive was even more tiring. This big, prestigious private university was 'the path to her future!' everyone said, 'her way into the adult world!' as if the world she had now being flipped on its head was something to be happy about. Which was another thing the kids at her real school threw back at her, 'someone's entering the adult world' like it was a great thing with poorly veiled spite. It was no accomplishment. It wasn't shooting her ahead.
It wasn't something to be proud of.
This place was all money and no substance. She had no friends and even fewer hopes of making any. It wasn't even because she wasn't 'the smart kid' anymore, she could feel the whispers behind her back and the plastic smiles made her sick. Every single one of them looked down on 'the young kid' since the start. She was at their learning level but half their age, and nobody hated it more than she did. The professors were just as fake, all but rolling their eyes that someone small and meaningless as her rushed her way to the top of the school system like their talents were so above her paygrade or that she was struggling with the topics she taught herself before having to bother with them.
Which did nothing to help. Her protests were brushed off since her parents were informed of her incredible score. Not knowing anyone, being so far from home, being so alone in a school that taught her no faster than herself with a fraction of the effort, it didn't matter to them. What mattered was telling the whole town how smart their daughter was and how far ahead she was compared to everyone else. And if she didn't go to uni, how would they tell everyone how great their kid was? All the glory and none of the responsibility.
Part of her whispered that they wanted to get rid of her, the other part slowly started believing it.
There was only one thing that distracted her from the constant, crushing loneliness: the library. The librarian didn't even pretend to care who came and went, they were here for the payment and knowing every book on these shelves, not to be welcoming. As if she needed anything else dragging down her mood. There was a silent reading area beneath the library, sort of a basement. It had a few tables strewn around and basic brick walls painted waxy white. She had all the fantasy, dark fantasy, sci-fi, and historical fiction novels she could ever want buried in her bag; Eugenie barely brought her textbooks with her anymore, few of the teachers noticed when she wasn't there (and some even missed when she was).
Never before did she worry about making a habit of cutting class, either, yet here she was with slipping grades she suddenly had a hard time caring about. Any earlier and she'd be freaking out over a simple sick day but no matter how much coffee she downed, she couldn't find the energy to care. But now it was happening to her books. For an hour straight, she pinned herself to the pages. The plot almost registered but the individual words, the smell of the pages, started to meld together and fade. More than a few times she turned back entire chapters for details she missed that were directly in front of her, then did so again and again. She might as well have started over.
She just wanted it to be over, to leave everything behind.
Then again, what was the point when she didn't have anyone to share it with? What was the point when she was too swamped in work to even text the few friends she couldn't see, even if she had an opening in her new schedule? Why should she keep going with this? It wasn't like she signed up for this, she never asked to be here, quite the opposite! And today, several students (adults twice her age!) didn't even pretend to look her way before muttering about her.
She just wanted it to be over, to leave everything behind.
Eugenie shut the book. The librarian had just recently peeked down the stairs to see if she was still there ten minutes after the period change. Her lunch bag was still abandoned by her feet, including the wasted two-dollar candy bar and smushed sandwich. Her backpack weighed a ton by itself but felt even heavier than when she came down here. She barely even bothered to put the books she pulled out of the sack back inside. For a few seconds, she tried to lean over each of them and get back into the story, but couldn't get past the first few words her bookmarks hovered over. The only reason she had to keep dragging them along was all the allowance and Birthdays she'd spent on them. At this rate, she might have to make two trips to her dorm and risk them being stolen.
She just wanted it to be over, to leave everything behind.
Nobody around her cared, anyway. Those who did were either so far out of reach they'd never be a factor or felt like they'd left her behind. Eugenie was the only one on her side.
A chill ran through the air while the books she shoveled into her bag tripled in weight. The AC couldn't have kicked on, she could see the vent, something was behind her. Eugenie whirled around, terrified someone was behind her, but the room was completely empty. Not a soul had been watching her, nobody was in sight, but there was a bright light coming from around one of the many small bookshelves shoved into the tight space. The white glare whistled a song like singing birds and rushing winds.
She told herself she was just seeing things, that her blurry and irritated eyes were playing tricks on her, but then she looked around. In between two shelves was a glowing ball of light. Nothing was holding it up, there wasn't a string dangling from the ceiling. It just floated there. Maybe it was a magnet trick? It was way too bright to be one of the school lights, yet so gentle. It started to swirl and thrum mightier as she approached. What at first had to be a prank threw logic out the window when the ball swirled with light blue streaks like the stars in Starry Night. The ribbons wriggled around her arms and blew her shirt around.
It got stronger and stronger, but for how long would it stay that way? Was this thing just going to disappear? What were the odds this would ever happen again? Could she bear to let it go so easily? The weight of her bag pulled her down but a childlike wonder she hadn't felt in a long time saw her through. It grew and grew, beckoning her inside. The songs of birds and bleats of sheep echoed through the reading area, the winds blew the smell of fresh grass in her face and flicked some cool water droplets over her blonde hair. Something was on the other side, it was waiting for her, calling for her to step through the rift.
Somewhere she could leave everything behind.
The next time the librarian would delve back into the room would be only a few minutes later when she smelled the same grass and seawater Eugenie did, followed by a shrug and the assumption she silently walked out while she was setting up the printer for other students.