Classy, Controlled Chaos - The STEAM Team Adventures

⭐️ The Past [1/5] ⭐️

Addison's POV:

It has been five years since the Great War began.

All twelve regions of Lunarift's realm have been against each other, fighting mercilessly to claim lands and territories that were never even theirs to begin with.

Endless battles between regions have resulted in bloodshed that shouldn't have happened.

Apparently, genocide is the new norm.

I closed my eyes, remembering the caveat of a mantra I told myself.

Stay hidden, stay distant, stay safe.

I know I was practically confining myself to such strict guidelines, but it was for my own good.

It was dangerous out in the world.

Anyone could come up to me and take me out in the blink of an eye, and I don't mean romantically.

Adjusting my dark, violet cloak, I pulled the hood over my head and looked up at the stars above me.

Here, hidden on my tiny, floating island, I would be safe.

I was several thousand feet in the sky, no winged creature or ghoul could dare soar up to these heights.

Standing on solid ground, I remembered exactly how this place had come to be.

As the young sorceress I was, I had traveled to this grand library almost every day to learn how to cast certain spells.

The building itself was the remains of a cathedral, which had gone under fire from an attacking region.

All of Lunarift deemed it as abandoned, so it would no longer be a suitable place for a battleground.

I took this to my advantage and cast my strongest spell on it, creating a powerful force field around the library to defend and protect it against anyone who tried to enter.

This resulted in the ground beneath it getting ripped from the earth, lifting the structure into the sky and turning it into a floating island.

Along with the library, a couple of other interesting pieces of it were pulled up with it.

A small creek that flowed along the base of the building poured off the edge of the island, creating an endless waterfall with an unknown source.

This towering willow tree was also tugged into the sky, sitting beside the creek with its roots firmly wrapped around the underside of the island- Almost as if it were holding it together.

Obviously, the cathedral itself was up here, too.

However, large fragments of it were also pulled up into the atmosphere along with it, floating around the building like ancient, levitating obelisks.

It was all well hidden beyond the clouds, and only I knew where it was.

Well, me and four other friends.

Only the five of us know about this secret hideout, and probably the only people that ever will.

We swore the location of this island to secrecy so no one other than our little group would find out about this place.

Sometimes I question how in the world my friends get up here, considering the fact that the library is miles above Lunarift's sea level.

Well, we have our ways.

I personally like to cast a temporary spell on myself that allows me to levitate for a brief amount of time, just enough for me to reach the entrance of the library.

Marshall, the library blacksmith and my best friend, is half phoenix. He prefers to fly, spreading out his fiery wings to break through the clouds. Luckily, he's never set anything on fire before.

Sophii doesn't leave the library. She just lives there like the black cat-panther-tiger-lion-lynx thing she is. I never know what form she'll take because from what I've seen, shapeshifters are unpredictable.

Edward, formerly Prince Edward, simply has his own talisman that casts a spell similar to mine, except that he can practically teleport instead of levitate. Yes, I had to enchant his talisman for him. No, I will not waste my magic on someone as pathetic as him again.

Tia, my closest friend, has an unusually large griffin. Must I elaborate further?

I pushed myself off the willow tree's thick trunk, landing neatly on my jet-black leather boots.

After a brief stretch, I made my way over to the creek, staring down at my reflection in the water.

My dark, curly hair was pulled back into a frizzy ponytail, with some loose strands falling over my shadowed face.

I pulled back my hood and rolled up my cloak's sleeves, dipping my hands into the cold, refreshing water.

Lavender pupils stared back at me as the ripples distorted my face on the surface, reminding me that I was no longer the innocent, little girl I once was.

Before the Great War, I used to be a librarian in training.

I remembered myself very vividly: Tall, sleek stature, curly, shadowy-dark hair, sepia-brown skin, and this perpetual smile on my face.

Well, that was really how Tia said she remembered me.

We used to meet up at the cathedral almost every day, digging through the library to search for adventure novels and stories about forbidden romance.

This was when the building was still on the ground, and not completely abandoned.

My mentor, whom I forgot her name, trained me to run the library so when she was gone, I would have something to do in her place.

One day, she said she needed to go get her daughter from her home region, and simply left.

She never came back.

From then on, I was deemed the unofficial leader of the Horizon Library.

Tia, who was training to become a sailor at the time, joked that I could take in an apprentice for myself.

I was only twelve at the time, she was eleven.

Now I'm a sorceress at seventeen, and she's a ship captain at sixteen.

It has been a month since I last saw her in person, before she left for her first voyage as the leader of her ship.

Now I'm here, alone on my floating island, silently watching the moon continue to rise.

Hopefully it won't be long before someone comes along.