Mirror, Mirror, On the Wall

Chapter Eleven- Jasiana, the knife-throwing circus master

I woke up slowly, with sunlight glinting in my eyes. I thought I'd fixed that problem by getting super dark curtains and hanging them up yesterday, right before I'd gone to the movies with Scot. Huh, that's wierd. I don't remember how the Hobbit ended-

With a gasp, I sat straight up, accidently hitting Maio who had been asleep next to me.

"Ow," he said. He opened one eye and looked at me. He noticed there was something wrong with me. "Rose?"

"It was real," I said, gazing around at the trees. This was the first time I had ever slept outside, at least without a tent. Camping didn't even compare with this.

I tried to stand up, to get my bearings, and I promptly stumbled. Maio steadied me. I hadn't even seen him get up, he moved so fast. He smelled like anyone would after sleeping in the woods and, strangly, oranges.

"You okay?" He asked, a half-smile on his face. I realized I was still clutching his arms.

Blushing, I stepped away from him. I laughed shakily before saying, "Yeah, I'm fine. Just peachy. I'm stranded on an alternate planet and your dad wants to kill me, I'm doing fantastic."

Maio leaned down to fold up the blankets, chuckling slightly. "He's not that bad. He's just doing what he thought was best."

"Well, obiviously," I said, moving to help him put the blankets back in their packs."So, you're dad's the King, huh?"

Maio tensed. "What makes you say that?"

"How many teenagers live in a Palace? Jasiana's got all those rooms, and those other elves that were inspecting the Trans mirror called him 'Your Highness'. Does that make you and Jasiana a prince and princess?" I stopped, worried I had done something wrong, when Maio loosened up. We finished packing the blankets into the packs and stood up before he spoke.

"You sure are observant." He sounded hollow, not at all like the joking elf one minute ago.

I didn't know what was wrong, but I didn't get the chance to ask. Jasiana dropped out of a tree from behind me, making me jump.

She looked at me, half raising an eyebrow, before tossing over a green apple. I snatched it out of the air, a startled reflex, and then I suddenly realized I was starving. I must have eaten half the apple before I paused for air. Maio and his sister chopped down on some more apples, and, in no time at all, they were gone.

As I swollowed the last bit of my apple, I noticed something. "Where are we? This doesn't look like the place we stopped at last night. The trees are different!"

Maio mumbled something incoherently. I caught the word 'observant'. Jasiana frowned at him, like she wasn't used to him not speaking clearly. When it was apparent that he wasn't going to answer, Jasiana sighed.

"Dad and the guards almost caught us last night. We only ran ten miles, after all," she said, tossing her apple core over her shoulder."Waking you up would have been more of a hassle than carrying you as we ran, so that's what we did. You wouldn't have been able to keep up with the pace we needed to run, anyway, and even if you could, you'd probably make more noise than a drunk werewolf."

I ignored the insult. I didn't understand what she said, so it didn't matter.

"Wait, you carried me? As in, you treated me like a, a bag that someone left at the bus stop?"

Jasiana cocked her head."What is a bus stop?"

"We had to get away, Rose," Maio said, stooping to retrieve Jasiana's apple core."I'm sorry of I upset you. I tried to be as gentle as possible." I blushed when I realized HE had been the one to carry me, and not Jasiana. FOCUS! My brain blurted.

"Whatareyoudoingwiththatapple?" I asked, as of speaking faster would stop me blushing. It didn't. Liking Maio was out of the question. He wasn't even the same SPECIE as me! STOP BLUSHING.

"This," he said, giving both his and Jasiana's apple cores to his sister."Really, Jasi, I thought you were the expert on wild skills and evasive manueverings."

Jasi looked blank for a second."Oh, right," she said hurriedly."Hey, give me yours,too, human." She snapped at me.

I might have thrown mine a little harder than necessary. Like, I-Am-A-Softball-Pitcher-Here's-My-Legendary-Fast-Ball harder than necessary, aimed at her face. Would it be to hard for her royal snootiness to call me Rose? It's a four letter word, for crying out loud! It's not that hard to say!

Jasiana just caight it in her left hand like it was no deal. Not only did she move super-fast (again), she must be super strong, too, or at least her hand was protected by strong muscles or SOMETHING. The last person who caught my fast-ball pitch bare-handed [Hi, Scot.] broke three fingers. 'Course, that was with a softball, and not an apple core, but that still would have hurt. Maybe I threw it wrong. Or maybe, thought my brain, it's because she. Is. A. FREAKING. ELF.

"Shut up, brain," I grumbled.

Jasiana cupped her hands together with all three apple cores in her make-shift bowl. She glared at them, holding them at shoulder level.

"Ignis!" she exclaimed.

Instantly, the apples caught fire. They were the only thing that burned, and they turned to ashes in only a few seconds. The fire went out with a WHOOF as the she-elf brushed at her hands to get what had once been apples off.

Two weeks ago, if you told me magic really existed and had proven it, I would have freaked out, half-excited and half-freaked. I mean, what kind of teenager who loves reading books about magic and heroes WOULDN'T want to try it out for themselves?!

But it wasn't two weeks ago. It wasn't even two days ago.

"Neat trick. So you can do magic, too? Just say a magic word and blam?" I asked nonchalantly, 95% normal, 4.99 % giddy at the prospect that MAGIC is real (I mean, no one ever gets out of the Harry Potter stage, or at least I hadn't.), and just .01% grudgily impressed. Jasiana wasn't even singed.

"Not just ANY magic words, human," said Jasiana haughtily. "The language of the Forgotten is all that is left of my ancestors, and only few of my people can hunt down and find the documents with the Forgotten words to teach the rest of my kind. Even then, only half of all the elves have the memory or desire to use such arts. Some don't have the power to manipulate the world, for what ever reason, and some elves prefer weapondry to magic.

"I have been gifted with both," she continued, raising a long dagger I hadn't even realized she'd drawn from her belt and throwing it into the bush behind us. A soft thud could be heard from where we were standing. "Look. I just killed us some breakfast."

She walked over, crouched, and turned back towards us, a medium sized rabbit in her hands. Despite the animal having Jasiana's knife sticking through its' chest and out its' back, there wasn't a lot of blood.

I couldn't think of anything to say. I was shocked, I suppose, that Jasiana not only killed the rabbit without looking at it, but also because I knew that we were goin to EAT that. And the first thing you had to do with an animal that you had killed in the wild was skin it. I'd seen enouogh T.V to know that, and it was always messy. Ew.

My tongue loosened up enough for me to say the first thing in my mind.

"I thought elves were vegetarians."

Jasiana laughed as she pulled her knife free. Blood squirted out and began to stain the rabbit's brown coat.

Well. Obviously not.

"What a foolish thing to say! Even the Druids, frilly-frocking animal lovers that they are, partake meat. Everyone eats meat, even the meat! Why should I and my people be any different?"

Still laughing, Jasiana cut the rabbit's head off.

I could feel my blood drain from my face. The apple in my stomache threatened to come back up.

"Now why don't you run along and get some fire wood?" Jasiana asked patronizingly as she started to skin our breakfast."Don't get living wood, that makes smoke, get the-"

"I know what kind of wood to get. I HAVE been camping before, Princess." My snark had returned. Great for me. Even while skinning a rabbit, Her Royal Highness was still a jerk. My stomache rumbled as I stomped off into the woods.