Air: An Elemental Story

1

The wind was howling through the trees, the turmoil had been exploding around him for years. He hated when it got like this, always mirroring his mood. He dreamed of one calm day, just one. He would close his eyes and remember the softness of her skin and the warmth that emanated from her eyes whenever she would smile. That one thought would placate the storm raging in and around him, but just for a moment. For when he opened his eyes again, the fury of the winds would swallow him back up. He should have listened to The Old Witch. If he had, he wouldn't feel as though his heart was withered in his chest. If he would have finished his vows and kissed her in order to make her like him. He would have spent all this time with her, maybe even had a family. But now, the thing he wanted most, aside from his beloved, would forever elude him. Until he could find one poor soul to replace him, he could not die.

. . .

"Jeez, the wind is blowing so hard!" Jackson said "I wonder if it will ever stop." Her friend stood by the window, the curtain pulled back in his hand.

Astrid rolled her eyes and looked up from her notebook. Her best friend Jackson was slightly plump, and average height with short brown hair. He always wore a hoodie and jeans, today's hoodie happened to be red. They had grown up together like siblings after her father had died and her stepmother tried to... She shuttered, she hated thinking about that. "It has been like this since the guy with no face moved in above us." She replied. They had never seen his face and he never made a sound. Not since he moved in, not even when he was moving his furniture.

"I didn't even think about that!" Jackson shouted, and popped himself on the forehead. "OH MY GOD!! He controls the weather!" For the past several months, they had been theorizing what he did for a living and why he only went out every other Wednesday. So far they had come up with him being an undercover secret agent, an alien, a drug dealer running from the law, and a real superhero.

"But then why is it just wind? Not rain and lightening?" Astrid asked, raising her brow.

"I have no clue."

"Maybe he is a god of wind." She staited as she frowned at her sketch, It wasn't turning out the way she had seen it in her mind. She just couldn't get his eyes right.

"No, that's too lame," he smirked.

They went back into their comfortable silence, Jackson reading, and Astrid sketching and then angrily erasing.

She gave up and tossed her sketchbook to the side with a sigh. Looking over at Jackson sitting at the opposite end of the couch she smiled, he always had the most intense look on his face when he was reading. She loved him so much. He was the one who had told his mother what happened to her after her father died. At the time she hated him for telling her secret to a grownup, but he had saved her life. She could never repay him for that. He was there whenever she needed him to be.

He would always hold on to her when she had a nightmare. He would tell her that her stepmother wasn't there anymore and that he would always protect her from anything bad. From the age of six to now, both of them being 23, he had kept his promise to keep her safe.

She probably would have married him if they hadn't grown up together. She smiled to herself, they use to play wedding all the time growing up. He always wanted a big beautiful one, and she a small intimate one. They played it so much that she could plan his wedding, and he hers.

"Hey! I have an idea." Jackson said startling Astrid out of her thoughts.

"What is your idea now?" She asked, knowing he would make her roll her eyes again. He always had the strangest ideas pop in his head.