The Five Elementals

Chapter 6 - POV Kevin

A/N: Hello!! Thank you for reading this! I really appreciate your comments showing interest in this story. I'll try to figure out a more reliable update day for this, but for the meantime I'll try to update once or twice a week.

Just as a side note, I've decided to make Esther younger than Avi in this story.

Enjoy! :)

----------------------

I'm at a Terra club meeting most of the morning, laughing and talking with some other Terras in one of the spare lounges in the Castle.

Avi's sister, Esther, is there too. She only turned nineteen and discovered her element a few days ago. I was secretly thrilled when I found out she was a Terra, like me. I've been helping her get settled into things: showing her around the dorm and pointing out classrooms, introducing her to teachers and getting her involved in some of the Terra-exclusive clubs. She already fits in perfectly. She has one of those personalities that just draws people to her.

People like me.

The Terra club meeting is a bit more casual than usual; we just sit around on the lounge's worn but comfy sofas and armchairs, talking and catching up with one another. Since we're on a week-long break between last semester's finals and the start of the next semester, there isn't much we can do, work-wise. The typical meetings are more like study groups, with the more experienced students helping the newer Terras to memorize symbols or grow certain types of plants.

When people think of Terras, I guess they usually think of us as flower-growing tree-huggers, wandering campus and messing with the gardening. While that is true to an extent, there is so much more that we do. I took a class just last semester on medicinal plants. While it's easy to grow a simple plant, it requires a lot of power to be drawn from the elemental dimension to recreate the natural properties of the plant. After six months of the course, I can still hardly grow catnip that actually attracts cats. It's much easier to grow a shell of a plant, one that resembles the original but doesn't quite serve the same function.

It's a tricky subject, really, plants. I find it infinitely fascinating how exactly it's possible for someone like me to create life, just by holding out my hand and concentrating. I don't completely understand the elemental dimension that neighbors ours, just that when matter is created in ours, it displaces an equal amount back into the other, like an exchange. I'd love to study the topic more, but I have to wait until my final year at the Academy to take any detailed dimensional courses.

Anyway, the Terra club meeting breaks up a little after noon. We disperse in little groups, waving and saying goodbyes in a chorus. Eventually just Esther and I are left. I don't notice her at first; I'm busy growing a fern in an empty pot on the windowsill.

"Ooph!" I cry as I'm tackled in a hug from behind. I brace myself against the wall to keep from falling over and pivot to see Esther pulling away with a smile on her face. "What was that for?" I laugh.

She shakes her head, still grinning. "Thank you for helping me get settled with all the Terras. You've been so nice to me. My brother didn't bully you into showing me around, did he?"

I laugh loudly, tilting my head back. "No, Avi did not bully me. Although he is quite the bully," I joke. We start to move, exiting the room and heading down one of the Castle's stone corridors. "I just wanted to help," I say, as we come to a halt at the doors of the Castle, facing each other.

Esther smiles up at me. "Well, I really appreciate it." She gestures over her shoulder. "I - uh - have to go meet with a professor. Want to come with?"

I grin. "I'd love to, but I have to check up on the Trio. They got their elements today, and I've got some money riding on the whole thing."

Esther looks the tiniest bit disappointed, but she's still all smiles. "Oh, okay. When you find them, text me what their elements are?" she suggests, patting the pocket with her phone in it.

"Definitely," I say, patting my own pocket.

We stand there for a minute, before I clear my throat awkwardly, then suddenly we're both rushing out goodbyes and she's off down the hallway. Taking a deep breath, I exit the Castle through the large double doors at its front.

I start walking across campus, only to see a familiar blonde giraffe barreling in my direction.

"Kevin!" Scott skids to a stop in front of me and places his hands on my shoulders, a slightly manic expression on his face. "Thank God, I've been looking for someone to help me for ages - "

"Scott, slow down," I say, looking into his eyes. There's definitely an element of panic in his blue irises. I try to emanate calm. "Deep breaths, man. First of all, why are you panicking? Second of all, don't you have, like, millions of friends? How could you seriously not find anyone?"

It's true, Scott has too many friends to count. It's his good looks and natural charisma, the same things Mitch gives him all those admiring stares over. I notice those stares, I'm just not sure Scott does. And I'm pretty sure Mitch is clueless as to how Scott looks back at him: with the same loving expression. Those two really need to get their feelings straight.

Speaking of Mitch...why isn't that boy with Scott? Those two are usually attached at the hip.

"It's Mitch," Scott says, giving my shoulders a small shake. His eyes are seriously so wide, and he's breathing rapidly. "I can't find him anywhere. Kev, what if something's happened to him? Oh God, I just know something's wrong. I - "

I interrupt him there, removing his hands from my shoulders and giving him an appraising look. Scott's fidgeting nervously. "Let's walk," I suggest, starting down one of the paths cutting through the quad. I know that moving will calm him down, at least a little. "Okay, start from the beginning. Why do you think something's wrong with Mitch?"

Scott takes a deep breath. "I don't know...well, this morning, we were waiting to get our elements, right? When Mitch went into Discovery Hall, the professor didn't come back out again for two hours. Two!"

Scott holds up two fingers to emphasize his point. I frown, paying attention, and let him continue.

He reaches up to run a hand through his hair. "Okay, and that would have been fine. Maybe he just took a while to figure out his element, or something. But then after I  figured out my element, I went back to our dorm room to get my stuff. He wasn't there, of course, I had assumed he went to his new dorm, but that couldn't be it because his stuff was still in there - why would his stuff still be in there? He found his element out before  me, Kev!"

"What is your element, by the way?" I ask quickly, interested and trying to distract Scott from his panic.

"Air," he says offhandedly, before diving back into his rant.

I groan internally. Darn it Avi, you win that bet. At least it was only five bucks.

" - so I took my stuff out of our room and put in it the Aero dorm, but then I texted Mitch, asking him what his element was, and he didn't answer. He always answers! So I tried calling him, and that didn't work either. Then I tried getting back into the undecided dorm to see if he was in our old room, but my key card wouldn't work." Scott pulls his plastic key card out of his pocket. "I don't know how, but they've already changed it. It only unlocks the Aero dorm now."

I look over at Scott and pat his back comfortingly. "Hey, don't worry about it. I'm sure nothing's wrong, he's probably just getting a tour of his new dorm or something. He'll text back when he's not busy."

"You're sure?" Scott asks, with worried eyes. He stops walking and faces me, fiddling with his hands. "I just can't shake the feeling that something's wrong..."

"As long as we don't know there's something wrong, we shouldn't assume. Mitch is perfectly safe on this campus," I reassure.

Scott doesn't look convinced.

*