War for the Skies (completed) (Book 1 of the Heroes of the Realms series)

Chapter 21

"So I used to live in camp Aeon," she explained.

"I could get that," I said. "You probably couldn't see all three of them in the street."

She rolled her eyes. "Anyway, I was like any other Hero, weapon training, power training, competitions, et cetera et cetera. I didn't have any sibling there though, however while everyone else did."

"I feel you," I said. "I have a sister who's back in... who knows where. I don't really know what happened."

"I always wanted a sibling, someone who could protect me, or someone I could protect. But that day never came. After me, my mother gave an oath to never have a child with a mortal again."

"Wow."

"So I got jealous at how they worked together, and how good they did so. One day, I found one of Skylar's brothers walking near the pond. I went to go say hi, but he just ran away. I was getting used to having no siblings, but no friends? I had had enough."

The air started to get colder, and I got goosebumps.

"As he ran, I shot a beam of ice, freezing him. Then, still in rage I was about to slice him in half, but then Skylar came and stopped me. We fought and then I was eventually outnumbered when the rest of camp found out..." she sighed. "I never wanted to hurt anybody. I was just getting tired of having no friends. What made me really depressed was that Theo didn't want to be my friend as well. I know fire and ice, not such a good combination, but the way he took every situation calmly and tried to solve it, the way he-"

"Almost killed your mother with fireballs?"

"Hey, I would've done the same if some ice Legend was trying to kill me."

"I'm not saying he's a bad person. He's a really good friend, too."

"I know..." she looked at the wall, but she looked as if she was staring into the whole universe: scared and shocked. "I don't know how to win his heart."

"Girl, you can't take relationship advice from me," I jumped off the table and sat on the edge of Skylar's bed. "If anyone's good with emotions and the human mind it's her," I nudged my head toward the murmuring Skylar.

"No way," Aurora looked like I had just frozen her mother, which I had about an hour ago.

"Can't you two make friends? It's been what? How many years? We're in this mission together, if you two act like two alley cats fighting over some fish from the trash, how are we supposed to get out of the Hall of Pandora... wait... you know our mission right?" I asked.

"I can tell from all that's going on," she got off the bed. "I'm going to the cafeteria, see you, and thanks for the chat."

"Anytime."

She walked out the door.

The instant the door shut, Skylar sat up, and looked around.

"You were listening weren't you?" I asked.

"Of course I was!" Skylar said it like it was so obvious a two year old could guess, which I bet he could.

"You suck at fake sleeping."

"You suck at not helping the enemy."

"She isn't an enemy."

"She is! She almost killed my brother!"

"Well, you don't know what it feels like to be alone so don't judge," I looked down. "I'm not defending her or anything, just stop fighting okay? It'll be bad for both of you. Also you're too busy with her to even realize me."

Two milliseconds after I said that, I wanted to use the same gust of wind I had used on Glacia to throw a car on my face.

"What?" Skylar asked.

"Nothing."

She looked focused, as if trying to read my mind, but then stopped and looked at me.

"Why can't I read your mind?" she asked.

"What?"

"I can't read your mind," she tried again, but I didn't feel like I had a bad brain-fi connection with only one bar. "Probably just tired."

She laid back down on the bed.

"Also, what were you saying?" she asked.

"Nothing, I told you, nothing," I immediately replied.

"Let's hope so," she sat back up and leaned on my shoulder. I didn't understand if it was from exhaustion or she did it in an effort to cuddle- I was expecting number 1- but she pulled away quickly.

"Thanks for trying to break the tension between us," she smiled. "But I don't think it's going to be that easy."

Even though she had just said "I might kill another member for out mission," I felt relieved. The old Skylar was back, and I was hoping Diva Skylar would stay in the archives of her brain forever.

Near 7 pm the rest of us walked toward the cafeteria, along with Theo.

"I can't feel my arm," he said as his arm swung around in random directions. "But I can feel my hand."

To prove the point, her wiggled his fingers.

"Well, what can we do?" I asked.

"I mean, it should go away after a while, and I can still move it slightly, but I guess since this area was where the huge energy of electricity was released, it made my arm numb," he explained.

We walked the rest of the way in silence, to see Aurora waving at us to sit next to her.

Even though I could see Skylar still wanted to punch her in the face, she smiled, and continued walking.

I guessed this would keep up, a little bit of positivity before a deadly mission.

 We all sat down in a big restaurant looking cafeteria with an "All-you-can-eat" buffet, as many cooks were bringing out a bunch of food for all of the hungry customers. I felt sorry for the guys.

I focused on my menu, and everybody else on the table did as well. Except for Skylar and Aurora of course who, still looked like they were going to kill each other.

Lukas, noticing this, said, "I will not be shy to shock both of you again. Let's eat and then sleep, we have to fly to Rome tomorrow. No more room for stupid arguments like this."

Both of the girls took their menus and looked at them intently.

Looked like everyone wasn't back to their normal selves just yet.