The Power of Four

Chapter 9 - Raine

"Is it going to be much further?" I complained after a while.

"Don't ask me," Ash shrugged, seemingly still annoyed about our uncomfortableness about Elm.

"Can we at least talk about something then?" I begged, bored out of my mind, "What about the fact that your ears are pointy, Ash?"

She seemed to be slightly embarrassed, but she answered anyway, "Um, I'm an elf. Though I don't know where I came from or if I'm a forest, river, or mountain elf".

"You look like a forest elf," I offered.

Aspen raised her eyebrow and stifled a laugh.

"I'm not sure how to take that," Ash said, looking clearly ruffled.

"You just don't seem like such a forest elf, that's all." Aspen responded, trying and failing desperately to hide her giggles.

"What? Why is that funny?" Ash asked, genuinely confused.

I let out a small giggle and she informed her, "I guess it's just that I can't imagine you living with the elves."

"Well that's true. I never did." Ash responded.

"May I ask why not?" I asked inquisitively.

Ash blushed, her face going pink, and said, "My mother took me away from elven civilization when I was a toddler. My only memory of it was a flash of light, and then the biggest and most beautiful tree I had ever seen. That could have been anywhere though, forest, river, mountains," She shrugged, "But since then, my mother and I have lived alone in our forest."

I nodded understandingly. Wow, I thought. Why was she telling us this? Was this really the same girl who yelled at me just a day ago?

"But that's none of your business, you don't need to know the details," Ash said quickly, turning away and busying herself by plucking the string of her bow. Aspen rolled her eyes and gave me a significant look.

There's the Ash that I know. I sighed. Oh well, at least we made a little progress!

"Remind me how far we have until we reach Mt. Magma?" I asked.

"Raine, stop complaining. We got most of the walking done." Aspen said with a laugh.

"Look there's a stream!" I squealed, "Can we please please stop and go swimming??" I gave Aspen and Ash my best puppy eyes.

Ash raised an eyebrow, "I have no problems with that as long as you stop doing that,"

I stuck out my bottom lip at her just for good measure, then I turned to Aspen.

"Sorry, Ash. I can't say no to those eyes." Aspen said, giving in.

I gave a louder squeal and jumped in, still fully clothed. When I emerged from the surface of the water, I saw Aspen and Ash gaping at me.

"Wait, what's wrong?" I asked them, getting worried.

"Uh, you just grew a tail," Ash said worriedly.

I looked down at the place my feet were supposed to be. Instead, I saw a tail that reflected a million different colors in the sun. I opened my mouth and just stared. Just as I thought that was done, Aspen pointed at my hair. I grasped a lock of it and almost fell backwards underwater when I realized instead of my usual blonde hair, I had aqua colored hair. So, I did the one thing that came naturally to me. I screamed. "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I shrieked at the top of my lungs.

"Uh, don't panic?" Ash tried, grimacing at me in concern.

"How do I not panic!? I just grew a TAIL!" I shrieked.

"You know what?" Aspen said, "Why don't you look at the positive side. You probably swim really fast now...? Oy..."

I shot her a look and dove underwater. It was cooler under the stream, and I didn't mind now that I could breathe underwater. I could see the sunlight coming in from above the stream's surface. Flicking my tail, I shot forward like a rocket. I had no clue how long I was swimming for.

When I was about to resurface, I heard Ash say, "Should we be worried? Is this normal? Staying underwater for an hour?"

I spluttered, resurfacing. "WHAT? It's been an hour already??? What have you guys been doing with your time?"

"Making new arrows and stopping her from destroying something," Ash shrugged.

"Trying to use vines appropriately without destroying something," Aspen said, shooting Ash a annoyed look.

I turned my attention to the pile of vines sitting a few feet away from Aspen. I tilted my head and looked at her quizzically. I was about to ask ..., but Ash intervened first.

"I think your 'short swim' has gone long enough, water girl. We should get going again," She said, standing up and brushing herself off.

I sighed, hauling myself out of the water. We all marveled at how fast my scales disappeared and I was turned back to normal. "That was really weird," I remarked.

"So this isn't normal?" Ash asked as we continued our walk through the forest.

"No," I said, "I didn't even know I could get scales by being in water. I guess they developed later than my powers? Nothing really surprises me anymore." I said.

"You did seem pretty surprised," Ash rolled her eyes mockingly, but in a friendly teasing way.

I huffed, "I've screamed louder." I said with a grin.

Aspen gave me a look and raised her eyebrows, "Thank goodness I wasn't around for that."

We walked for a while, not saying much.

After a while, Ash asked, "Wait! Is that it?" She was pointing to a tall mountain in the distance. We rushed forward until we reached the edge of the forest.

"Yes, we're here," Aspen said as we stopped, "This is Mt. Magma."