Water and Wind

Chapter 26

Nimue

Lies. Lies. He's telling lies. Her parents loved her... didn't they?

She feels salty water on her tongue, and she tries in vain to hold back her tears. She can't cry, can't, just can't. Not now. Not when she has a mission to save the only people that have ever loved her. Her true family.

"Good..." He hisses like a deadly snake about to strike. "Glad we're on the same page." No. She's not. She'll never be "on the same page." She'll never be one of them. Even if her birth parents never loved her, she has people who do. She has people who do, people who lent their lives for her. And they are the ones she is going to give her life for.

She knows he's about to do something. He has that look in his eyes that signals a serpent's attack. Serpents are actually kindly creatures, she has found. Kind creatures in a bad name. Not much different from herself, she realizes.

"Guards!" He yells, and it all happens in slow motion.

She sees them running, sprinting towards Jinx and Sirena, still standing onstage. She sees the magma that shoots out of her hands, the water, the lightning, the wind, the earth, but feels nothing. It's as if she's a bystander. It's as if she isn't her.

It takes only a few seconds for the guards to fall. Or what she expected would be two seconds. But it never happens. What does happen is her elements. Colliding. There's a tremendous bang, and a flash of light. And by the time everyone can open their eyes, there's a shield around her family. No one is touching them. She they can harm. But not them.

Yet it's more than a shield, and everyone knows it, the children's eyes going wide with wonder as they take it in. She feels the slightest bit of elation overtake her, despite her current situation, and it spreads in a tingling way, until the last of her tears have dried.

She turns back to the judge, who is speechless and backing away nervously. Something dangerous flashes in her eyes, flickering her blue eyes black. "You're not touching them. You can take me, or take nothing." And this time, she holds the power as she steps forward.

Freya

Freya glances up at the glowing shield that Nimue has made from her own two hands. It's not the golden that Circe's was, but rather a sparkling crystal with hints of rainbow embedded in it. Freya wants to touch it, but her arms are bound in those stupid chains. She frowns, tongue between teeth as she tries to stretch her arms up. The chain pulls her arm down.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid thing. She tries to rip it off, but they are stronger this time. Instead, she sentences herself to gazing up at the bubble reverently, admiring it. But not touching it. Stupid chains!

She knows what it is. Everyone in their right minds knows what it is. But how Nimue created it is a mystery. Even the most powerful elders cannot. Yet her 17 year old sister has made it, not all flickery like Freya saw Delphine do once, but strong. Solid. Perfect.

It's an elemental bubble, the most powerful kind. "Ah, they are the strongest because they are together." Delphine had said wisely.

Freya had nodded. "It's pretty."

Delphine, with her long silvery hair and gray eyes had looked back down on her. "Of course it's pretty. It's nature."

She'd wandered off then, leaving the flickery bubble behind and Freya, twirling a strand of golden hair and teasing the bubble to see just how strong it was.

Nimue

She fights back a knot in her throat as she surveys the bubble with mixed feelings. It'll protect them. But she has to go. She feels a swell coming up in her as she desperately tries to trample it down. Allowing herself one last glance, she drinks in the last sight of her family she will ever have, and swallows it, savoring it the same way some do with brandy or wine.

And she lifts her fluttering hand, and blows them a kiss. Out of her hand rose petals emerge, and they are blown along with her breath. She only needs four words as her last ones, four words that account for everything. She takes a slow, steadying breath and swallows equally hard. "I love you all."