Reflections; a KOTLC fanficion

Chapter 9

The bus ride today was even longer. But, on a positive note, it wasn't as crowded, and they had entertainment. Amelia brought games and snacks for them to indulge themselves on.

"Go fish," Christian said for the millionth time.

Amelia sighed. "Are you sure that you know how to play this game?"

"Of course, are you insulting my superior intelligence?" Christian told her.

Amelia laughed and rolled her eyes.

The game went on for more than an hour which even Caroline thought was long, and she had never even played the game. Finally, Amelia managed to win, purely by picking up cards, they both put down their cards face up. Amelia's showed black and white cards with symbols on them, while Christian's were multi-colored.

"You were playing with uno cards?!" Amelia exclaimed. "No wonder you never put down. How did that happen? I dealt them out myself."

Thor held out his hand, which showed several of the black and white cards. His smirk was identical to his great grandfather's.

"Hey, you lost me ten bucks!" Christian told Thor. He gave Amelia ten dollars, fulfilling the bet, and sat down.

"What else do we want to play? We could learn how to play my favorite game—spades," Amelia said excitedly.

"I'll just take a nap," Caroline said.

"But we had an amazing night of sleep yesterday, how can you be tired?" Amelia asked.

Caroline had forgotten about the events of the night before, and scrambled to come up with a good excuse. "Ah, I didn't get good sleep. The food didn't settle well."

Thor narrowed his eyes at her. "This doesn't have to do with last night, does it?"

"No!" Eve, Kyreen, Christian, and Caroline all said at once. They looked at each other with killing glares.

"Okay, I'll find out soon enough," Thor said, causing the four culprits to sigh with relief.

They continued with their friendly banter until the bus stopped in a more populated city. There were even some tall office buildings stretching to the dusty evening clouds.

"Well, that was more enjoyable," Kyreen said as they exited into the warmer air. Amelia led them to another of her relative's house, but it seemed to be deserted. A hanging red, white, and blue sign swung on the front lawn.

"Ugh! I remember them talking about moving, but I thought they would tell me before actually doing it." Amelia growled.

"Now what do we do?" Caroline asked. Amelia held up a bundle of strange devices and started fiddling with the doorknob until it gave a small click, and they walked in.

"Cool!" Christian said as they made their way through the eerie empty house. "Now we can add breaking and entering to our list of felonies."

Amelia ran up the stairs and came back down a few seconds later. "Good news is no one is here; the bad news is neither is anything else."

She sat down on the hard floor and started unloading the backpack. Kyreen did the same with the suitcase, and minutes later they had finished setting up camp. Blankets had been set on the floor and Amelia set out a small lamplight for while they ate.

"Now as long as no one comes looking at this house until tomorrow, we'll be fine."

Caroline looked out the window at some of the other houses. Lights, reindeer, and fat men patrolled the lawns.

"What are those decorations for?" Caroline asked. She had never seen anything like it before coming to the Forbidden Cities.

"Oh, those?" Amelia asked pointing to the glowing lights on people's roofs. "Those are Christmas decorations."

"Another holiday?" Christian said.

"One of the best," Amelia confirmed. "It's all about family and history. My family made a big deal about it every year. We would buy a great big Frasier Fir and decorate it with multicolored lights and then hang our stockings and read stories by the fire while eating cookies and drinking Wassel. And then the next day, Christmas, we would open the presents under the tree." She paused. "But we haven't had a good one since Dad died."

"When is it?" Caroline asked.

"Christmas Eve is on the twenty-fourth and Christmas is the twenty-fifth."

"We still might be in San Francisco for it," Kyreen told her. Caroline didn't want to stay that long but she went along with Kyreen to cheer Amelia up.

"Really?" Amelia exclaimed. "You would do that for me? We could finally have a family Christmas!"

Caroline felt a genuine love bubble up in her for the girl. And she was pretty sure everyone else felt the same way. This small human girl could hold them together like glue, and was not even trying.

Thor laughed and pulled Amelia's sword out of its sheath much to her dislike. He laid it flat on her shoulders like a knight and said, "By the power invested in me as the head of the Foster house, I hereby dub ye as an honorary member of the Foster Family, and thus so inducting you into Elvin society."

Thor acted like it was a joke, but Caroline had known him for long enough to realize he meant every word.

Amelia did a mock curtsy. "Why thank you, good knight." They both bent down laughing. After their exchange was over, all of them laid down on their blankets and looked up at the musty ceiling.

"What are the lost cities like?" Amelia asked.

Caroline was a bit taken back. She had never had to explain their world to anyone. She didn't know how to answer. Thankfully, she didn't have to. Eve beat her to it. "Well, it's very sparkly. All our cities are made from crystal, so it gotten very shiny over time."

"Wow, that must be expensive, "Amelia said.

Caroline thought of all the help they had in creating their civilizations. "Well, the dwarves mine it all from close to the core, so it's not as rare, and the gnomes build it. So, it doesn't take as long."

"You have dwarves and gnomes? What else do you have?" Amelia exclaimed happily.

Caroline and Eve launched into a complex explanation of all the intelligent races. Amelia demanded to know all the other mythological things they had. She seemed the most excited about the alicorns.

"Can I ride one when I get there?"

Caroline laughed. "Though not near extinction, we still don't have that many. It would be pretty hard to find one."

"I will," Amelia insisted.

She asked about the council, and when Caroline explained their system of government, it sounded weird.

"Our world really is messed up," she admitted. It was no better when Sophie came, and she was meant to change things.

"You think this might be because they ignore humans?" Amelia offered.

Caroline contemplated Amelia's question. They spent so much of their resources avoiding humans, what if they could just accept their sister race and possibly create a sound utopia. She doubted that humans still had the animalistic urge for the power they had in the Greek era. Wasn't this what Sophie was striving for all along? A peaceful world with both humans and elves. Maybe this was the solution for the humans Ash had been searching for all along. If only he were here and not in Eternalia.

Caroline shook her head. She was thinking of him again. This should not happen. He should be gone from her head, not taking up unneeded space. Caroline forced herself to sleep even with Amelia still talking.

She woke up to a gray world. Everything seemed to be gray, the walls, windows, and bars. Other chaotic voices seemed to draw her farther out of sleep.

"You're awake, great," Eve told her. "Now you can help with this." She pointed to a barred window Caroline didn't remember seeing when she fell asleep the night before.

"I don't remember seeing that window," Caroline said groggily.

"That's because it's a jail," Thor said blatantly.