Statera *Chosen At Birth*

Chapter Five

Daniel was woken up by a small ray of sunlight that managed to sneak into the longhouse. He slowly lifted himself up and sat there. His entire back was stiff and in pain from sleeping on the ground. With a groan, he stood up and lazily stretched finding it difficult to bend over. He blinked sleepily and sucked in a lungful of the stuffy air and then yawned dramatically. The vast scents of the forest wafted in through the cracks of the house and with it a light breeze. He sat back down against the door and lightly tapped his head the wooden material.

Hundreds of questions swarmed his mind, but the most important ones were the most annoying. He knew that he and Alek would have to decide whether to stay put or not. More than likely it would be put to a group vote. He stood up with another groan and sighed in frustration. He had no idea why he decided to sit back down. Whatever the case, his back was paying the price for it. Daniel opened the door to see that no one was awake yet. With the forest to himself for the time being, he walked down to the river so that he could wash up to the best of his ability.

He gladly walked into the cold river water. It was refreshing until he gasped when the water touched his torso and a light breeze rushed over him. It felt like there were tiny needles poking at his legs lightly as they adjusted to the cold water. He backed up closer to the riverbank so that the water was only halfway up his thigh.

He leaned over with his hands cupped and was taken aback when the water moved away from them. He frowned and watched the water as the water went back to the normal flow when he moved his hands away. Again he tried, but the same thing happened again. Once more he frowned disapprovingly. All he needed was to wash his face and the water was playing games with him. Maybe this was another, more cruel dream. When he sighed and tried again, clear water leaped up from the river and spiraled into an orb that floated an inch over his cupped hands.

He blinked absentmindedly as the clear orb rotated in his hands. He remembered that Caligo mentioned something about water magic but he thought he'd misheard. Was this part of his powers? A tiny orb that probably couldn't do more than kill a few bugs? The orb in his hand looked like liquid glass as he moved it closer to his face. When it touched his cheek, the ball spun quickly and then covered his face like a mask before falling away back into the river.

Every pore in his face felt clean and it felt like a huge weight was lifted up from it. When he touched his face it felt a smooth as stone. He couldn't believe what he was feeling. He thought about another idea and before he could lift a finger something started crawling up his legs. When he looked down in panic, he realized that it was a thin layer of water that slowly covered every inch of his body like a clear coat. When it was finished it melted away back into the river carrying with it the sweat and dirt from the past few days.

He laughed in amazement at the clarity of his skin. It felt like he grew a new skin similar to a snake shedding. There were so many things he wanted to know, but he was too excited and just wanted to experiment. He leaned down towards the water again with his hands together. Another orb spiraled above his hands. He was able to split it into two just by moving his hands away.

"What are you doing?" A voice startled him from behind. He spun on his heels in the mud and pushed the two orbs out towards the voice. Fiona frowned as the two orbs flew at her. Her hand went up with her palm facing him and the two orbs froze into glasslike ice and dropped into the river.

"Oh sorry... You startled me." Daniel admitted going down deeper into the water until it was up to his waist. She rolled her eyes.

"Apparently. Turns out I had a voice in my head after all." Her face was serious, but Daniel wasn't sure whether the normal way she said it should have been a concern or not.

"Who was it?" Daniel asked curiously setting his personal issues aside.

"Jack Frost... Somewhat. What about you?" She asked him.

"Aphrodite... In a way. That was just her nickname." Daniel mentioned and Fiona nodded, "What did he tell you?" He hoped that Jack Frost was able to tell her more than just a you will know when the time comes sort of deal.

"He told me that I should try to get to his home country, Metringa, or something like that. He told me that slowly his ice magic abilities would come to me, but the more I practiced on my own then the easier it would be and the faster everything would come to me." She waved her hand and a sharp crystalline sound brushed around her fingers as small snowflakes twinkled between her fingers, "Why that face?" She asked when she noticed him staring at her.

"That's all I got too. Nothing useful to rely on for answers." Fiona sat down at the edge of the river and gave him an odd look he wasn't used to.

"Daniel, they were ghosts after all. At least they were able to hold on long enough to try and tell us who we are now and where to go to look for answers." She stated watching him wade in the waist deep water.

"What are you two up to?" Alek asked with his short blonde hair a complete mess. He kneeled over the edge of the water and washed his face.

"Just talking about our visitors." Fiona said playfully. He looked at the water with a blank stare, "Did you have any?" She asked pretending to be spooky. Why was she the playful one all of a sudden?

"Yeah, her name was Sekhmet and she told me to go to Pyrocan." Alek answered with a nervous laugh. Finally someone else that had a hard time adjusting to the hopefully not new reality.

"So you have fire magic?" Fiona asked looking at him with a nervous gaze.

"According to her yes. So, there must be other worlds besides Earth?" Fiona and Daniel shrugged. Daniel wasn't ready to accept this as reality... He hoped that it was the part of an elaborate nightmare and that he would wake up in his bed in his hometown.

"I'm assuming that it's possible. Many scientist and conspiracy theorists back home thought of the possibility. We're either in a different dimension altogether or just a different solar system." Her eyes lit up and she gasped, "Or, we're in the same orbit as earth but we're on the other side of the sun so that people on Earth can't see this planet." She began amusing herself with other possibilities that began to annoy Daniel. However, one in particular bothered him. She hypothesized that they died and got transported when they were floating in the ocean.

"Are you going to stay in there all day?" Bestienna scolded as she walked over to the river.

"Maybe..." Daniel responded, she quickly rolled her eyes.

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