Collective

Penelope

Penelope steeled herself, trying not to show her intimidation as she held her hands out to the boy. She steadied her hands as he placed his within hers. Again, she could immediately feel his Power, burning much more brightly than the red headed girl's. It was such a strong part of him...or maybe it was just strong in general. 

She began to feel her way toward the brightness, beckoning it toward her. To her surprise, it didn't flow slowly into her but instead crashed toward her like a wall of bricks, and instead of being trapped inside her, it reverberated back out.

She didn't know if it went back out into the boy or into the general atmosphere but all of a sudden she was aware of flickering lights all around her and intense heat. She could feel terror shaking her body. People were screaming as smoke enveloped the room. 

Still gazing into the boy's eyes, he didn't look even a little bit scared. Now it was he who eyed her calmly, with almost bemused interest. Penelope could hear people running and screaming around her but it felt like it was all happening on a different plane than she was on. 

She saw her mother being whisked away as if in the distance. She saw Arabella, her mother's cousin, running towards Penelope and the boy, rather than away. She seemed to be moving in slow motion, and Penelope knew the boy didn't see her coming. Arabella grabbed the boy's arm and immediately all the heat melted away and the room was left encased in smoke, no longer blindingly bright.

Looking back at the boy, Penelope saw his sense of calm seemed to have escaped him as there were now tears streaming down his face. She realized then that the bemusement she had seen on his face hadn't been bemusement at all. It had been spite. Spite that she had not taken his Power from him. But regardless, it would be gone now, taken quickly by Arabella the moment Penelope lost control, and now he was mourning what he had lost. 

With the realization of the boy's hatred for her, Penelope felt herself crash back into awareness of the room around her. Everything was burning. Guards were pulling her toward the doors as other guards and servants tossed big buckets of water on the flames.

Penelope took a moment in the chaos to consider the ridiculousness of the entire scene. The Queen possessed the Power of Water. She could put out this entire fire in seconds. But of course, she wouldn't even try. 'Too dangerous,' she would say if Penelope asked her, "A Queen must never be in danger, if something happened to her, who would lead the country?"

It was a philosophy Penelope had never understood, considering the entire point of the Queen possessing Powers was for her to use them to protect the citizens. If her mother couldn't even risk the two minutes it would have taken her to put out this fire, then what was the point. 

As Penelope surveyed the room, she noticed one of the children trapped behind a fallen beam, her dress tangled in a toppled chair. The flames were inching towards her. 

"That girl!" Penelope shouted, "Help her!"

No one paid Penelope any attention, the guards were still tugging her toward the door insistently. 

Penelope wracked her brain. What could she do? Shaking her arms free of the guards, Penelope ran back into the room towards the girl. 

Not having anywhere near the range of Powers as the Queen did, Penelope wasn't in as optimal a position to help the girl but there had to be something she could do. Feeling helpless Penelope looked around, hoping for inspiration. The girl was frantically pulling at her dress, yelping in fear as the flames crept closer and closer to her. 

Penelope looked at the stone barrier between the floor and the audience, just a few feet in front of the girl. If only she could move those stones between the girl and the flames, they'd give her enough time to free herself. Penelope had the gift of telekinesis, but she had never tried to use it, or any of her Powers before. She wasn't sure if she could. But she had to try.

Using all her concentration, Penelope took a deep breath and focused on the stone wall, picturing it breaking free of the floor beneath it and rising above and around the girl. Penelope felt the Power fighting for control over her, and she closed her eyes in an attempt to focus it into doing only what she envisioned. 

She heard murmurs from the guards but tried her hardest to drown them out. She hoped the cracking sounds she was hearing were indicative of the wall moving off the girl and not the walls falling down around them both but was too afraid of opening her eyes to check. She focused on moving the wall as hard as she could, and a few seconds later she heard a loud crash and heard a corresponding gasp from the guards at her sides.

Terrified that she had somehow made the rocks drop on top of the girl instead of next to her, or something else equally horrible had happened, as always seemed to when Penelope was involved, she opened her eyes. 

In surprise, Penelope saw that the wall of rocks was exactly where she had pictured it, between the girl and the flames. As she watched, the girl managed to free her dress and run forward, through the hole in the wall that Penelope had created when she'd moved the stones, and off to safety. 

Sighing with relief, Penelope allowed the guards to usher her out of the room to the safety of the hall, happy that for the first time ever she had been able to find a positive use for one of the Powers she'd been given. 

As they walked, Penelope felt the excitement she'd felt from saving the girl drain out of her as she realized the magnitude of what had just happened. It was just like the first time she had absorbed all over again. 

That time, she had been 12 years old. Her mother called her to the Throne room and presented her with a Nurturer, one with the Power to make plants grow as quickly as she pleased. It was a simple, love based Power that should have been easy for Penelope to acquire. But as soon as the Power transferred from the girl's hands to Penelope's, all of the plants had immediately started wildly growing. All the flowers in the room bloomed and died within minutes. And the baby oak tree which had been a gift from a visiting King had burst out of its pot and through the roof of the receiving room toward the sun, until it too shriveled up and became a dead wooden post, its roots tangled all over the floor and around some of the citizens watching the Offering.

It had taken over a year to repair all the damage and during that time Penelope was not asked to Absorb again. But inevitably, her Mother had requested her presence in the newly renovated receiving room and Penelope had complied, opening her hands to a Shielder. The effects of that Power were similarly dramatic on Penelope, she hadn't spoken for a month, her face completely expressionless, going through the motions of life as if in a trance. Finally, she had fought her way through the Power's hold and taken control of her body back.

Slowly she had learned how to exert control over the new power's she acquired, and they began to impact her less and less. That is, until the day Liam had come into the throne room. That was the day everything changed. The day everyone began to question whether she had what it took to become the Queen. The day she started having to prove herself every minute of every following day. The day she would never forget, and would always atone for in her mind.