ShadowSong [Book 1 & 2: Complete] [NaNoWriMo16/17]

Chapter 4 - Mission Accepted

Cryo was about to tap his tattoo for what might have been the eighth or ninth time when he heard the doors to the Starlight Hall swing open.

He turned to see Banshee stalking towards him, with one, straight finger pointed directly at him.

"I swear to the stars themselves that if you touch that tattoo again I am going to floor you!"

Cryo suppressed his amusement at her murderous expression. "Greetings, Banshee. I see that you finally decided to--"

"Oh shut it, featherbrain." Banshee's shadow reappeared beside her as she jabbed him in the shoulder, purposefully missing the tattoo. "You knew I was transformed and you still kept damn well tapping it! What is your problem?"

Cryo's smirk escaped his control, spreading across his mouth. "Well, after you tapped it sixteen times in rapid succession, I had to pay you back, didn't I?"

Her crimson eyes flashed under her visor. "Oh, I'd kick your ass right here and now if we didn't--"

"What's this I'm hearing about tapping tattoos?" said DragonFae from where she stood the base of the Starlight Hall's spiral stairwell with Golem.

Banshee narrowed her eyes at Cryo, sending him a silent message before she walked past him and walked towards the stairwell. Cryo managed to wipe the smirk off his face as he followed her, but it was a challenge.

"Fae," said Golem. "You have two statements, one involving ass kicking, and that isn't the one that you pick?"

"We do know the result of the ass kicking though," said DragonFae. The violet light from her orbs glimmered off the walls, bouncing it around in curious directions. "I'm curious about this tattoo tapping too."

Banshee folded her arms. "Cryo came up with the idea of a system to communicate when we're transforming, or need the other one to transform," she muttered. "One tap means no. Two taps means yes. Three taps means we're recharging. He's been double tapping his starlight dimmed tattoo for the last ten minutes."

"How long did it take you to work that out?" asked Golem, sounding genuinely curious.

Cryo met the expectant gazes of his elders. "I believe it was after the third time we cleansed a Manifested. The bells rang five times before I felt Banshee transform. If I'd have known that she wished to do so, I could have been there significantly earlier than I was. I thought it necessary to have a way for us to communicate."

"First the alteration to your wings, now a code," said DragonFae. "I'm impressed, Cryo."

He inclined his head. "I can't take all the credit. My original code was far more complicated. Banshee was the one to simplify it down and add a few other useful directives to it during a fight, such as looking a certain direction."

DragonFae's gaze slid to Banshee with a smile. "I'm impressed with you both." Her gaze slid to Golem's, about as smug as Cryo ever saw her. "And you said it was a bad idea to let them find their own way."

Golem shrugged. "Took us a lot longer to figure something like that out. Can you blame me for wanting to protect the kids?"

"Let us find our own way?" asked Banshee.

"It is customary to leave a new Luminary pair more or less to their own devices for their first year," said DragonFae. "Your Ascended give you the basics of it, but aside from that, we let you figure it out. It gives you a chance to add your own flair to it. To evolve and adapt, like you did with the code."

"Makes sure things don't get stiff," said Golem. The layer of hardened mud that'd formed on his cheeks cracked as he grinned at Banshee, jerking his head towards Cryo. "Can you imagine if we'd been telling him how to do it from day one? There's no way he would have ever tried altering his transformation. There's a reason Lumi's aren't immortal, and it's because every so often, you need fresh blood in the mix. Can't move the mountain, but you can break off a piece and make a new one, even if it's not as impressive."