Things Lost and Found (a Waglington and Mianite fanfiction)

Chapter 63

The song for this chapter is "Fallen Kingdon" by CaptainSparklez! :D There's a place in the chapter to start reading it. I'm not gonna lie. I was thinking about that episode of The Last AIrbender, "The Avatar and the Fire Lord" when I wrote this (the episode about Roku and Sozin). XD

*Waglington's POV*

True to my prediction, Jordan and Martha had been elated to see the young prince when we showed up at Martha's house in the late afternoon. Jordan had practically adopted the young man as his little brother after finding out about his family troubles months ago, and seconds after we greeted them he trapped "Andor the Mandor" in a bear hug. Andor surprised him by returning the hug with equal or greater force, lifting him off the ground slightly. Tom and Sonja had been at Martha's house too and laughed hysterically at the show. Jordan looked flustered for a moment before laughing as well, though it quickly turned into coughing. On second glance he didn't look like he was feeling well.

I put my communicator back on and called up Tucker to join us. Once everyone was present Andor launched into a tale of how he'd sensed Helgrind when passing one of those Nether portals that sometimes sprouted out in the wilderness. I'd already picked up most of the story on our way here and didn't pay full attention to it now. I was absently petting Memento where he slept on my lap. He wouldn't tell me why, but he'd barely slept at all last night. He'd been a bit clingy this morning too, not straying from sight to hunt on the way here.

I was considering trying to read his mind when a rumble shook the house, knocking a few picture frames and books off their shelves. We all bolted to our feet and stumbled for the front door as the tremor continued. Memento dug his claws into my arm at being so rudely awoken and asked groggily, What's happening? The quake stopped as suddenly as it started, and a deathly silence replaced it as we stopped on the front porch. We hadn't had an earthquake in a few weeks, but we all understood the concept of foreshocks. The question was if this was a foreshock or the main shock. Martha closed her eyes and started concentrating, trying to use her powers to find out.

It turned out she didn't have to. Her communicator beeped loudly, signaling an incoming call. She picked up and listened briefly, humming once or twice. Her eyebrows scrunched together in concern before she said, "Alright. Thanks. Take care of yourselves over there; we'll handle things here."

She hung up then turned to the interested faces watching her. "That was Donella. One of the wizards had a premonition that the volcano by Dagrun is going to blow. The wizards have problems of their own to deal with, or they would come help."

"How in blazes are we supposed to stop a volcano erupting?!" Tom shouted. The others seemed panicky at the news too, especially Jordan.

"We could evacuate the citizens, try to minimize damage," Tucker suggested, the only one not losing his head. There was something unusually tactical about the idea, especially coming from Tucker, but I could find no fault with it.

"Surely there's some magic you and Wag could use to stop it?" Sonja pleaded.

"Sonja, this is a volcano we're talking about. Even if there was magic strong enough to stop it erupting now, it would erupt much worse later," I reasoned. I only had a handful of memories from former athar wielders regarding volcanoes and none from personal experience. The most prominent memory was of an athar wizard attempting to do what Sonja had just asked. That wizard had been mortally wounded when the spell backfired, and many towns had been buried in ash and lava in the aftermath. I shuddered at the vivid memory. "Tucker's right, we need to get the villagers to safety and fast."

The athar wizard following that one had thankfully come up with a way to predict when eruptions would occur, even if there was no way to stop them. I muttered a long spell under my breath while the others started discussing where they could safely relocate the villagers to. When I finished, I interrupted them, "Um, we might want to hurry this up. We only have 30 minutes until she blows."