The Curse of the Forgotten Queen

4- First Trip Through Time

4 Days Later (Monday, September 7th):

Flying Archery Practice - Marlene P.O.V.

There's nothing like practice to take the tension off a day. I have Amelia and Meghan under bracket maneuvers, per my instruction, forcing the midfielders to try and get the defenders off them. Secretly, I'm mixing in combat skills with today's practice to test my midfielders to see how they react. "Remember Amelia and Meghan," I remind them through a megaphone I carry with me during practice, "don't act like you normally would in this situation. Let the midfielders take care of the blockers around you."

I look up at Dylan flying in knocking aside a defender allowing Meghan to escape. "There you go, Meghan," he waves her off before turning to his right. I turn in his direction seeing Richard taking an awfully bad attack angle. "Whoa, Richie," Dylan yells to him, "you're going to miss!"

"I know what I'm doing," Richard yells back as his poor angle completely misses a defender and almost catches Amelia with the tip of his bow.

Amelia flies over to him with this scowl of discontent on her face. "What the hell, man?" she snaps at him loud enough for all of us to hear. "You almost took my head off!"

Richard puts his hands up in defense of himself. "Sorry, I thought I could make that move."

"I'm trying not to lose my head up here. It's one thing of an opponent checks me into the ground but if my own teammate takes me down, we're going to have problems."

I see Elisha Jamison ease Amelia away from Richard before she snaps. "Calm down, girl," she eases her back as I come in the conversation, "he didn't mean it. You know he can't aim worth a damn."

"Fine. That wasn't cool, man."

I fly in between Amelia and Richard before she gets any hotter. "Amelia's right, Richard," I interject easing the two apart. "No sniper wants to be taken down by a teammate. Richard, you need to work on your attack angles. If that happened during a match, you would've been disqualified." I turn to the rest of the team gathered around us. "I want to thank you all for your aggressiveness today. We're going to need it to keep this early run of success going. Take it easy for a few days before our next practice before we head to Izula. I want you all as fresh as possible before our first road test." I watch them all head to the stables with me right behind them.

20 Minutes Later:

Hydra Dorm (Elisha's Room) - Elisha P.O.V.

I finally convinced Amelia to come to my dorm so we can talk about things. My dorm, the Hydra Dorm, sits between the Nature Conservatives' Dorm and the Dragon Dorm, houses both tacticians and most of our school's choir members. Inside, images of a hydra line the walls that stretch four stories for the ninety students who inhabit this building. Amelia looks around my common room at the variance in colors - that is if you like black and white. "It looks better than my dorm looks right now."

I wave her inside toward the stairs leading to my room. "Welcome to the Hydra Dorm," I welcome my teammate to the common room with several students lounging about. "This is our common room where we hang out when we're not in class or busy with our various activities."

"Hey Elisha," this annoying voice gets my attention. Turning around, this black guy and three of his friends walk up to us. "I see you're back from practice so what do you want to do?"

"Not today Marlon, I'm not in the mood," I blow off Marlon Jenkins, the most annoying person on the planet who's always trying to hit on me. I put my arm around Amelia. "I have company today and I'm showing her around before we go to my room."