The Chronicles of Earth and Time

Chapter 21

The first thing that happened was the glow coming from the thrones completely ceased and a collective gasp sounded from the crowd of elves. Aevum looked over at Terra who did not seem fazed at all. Instead, she kept her determination and waited. Just as Aevum was about to get off the throne and give up, the thrones began to glow again. However, the light from the throne began glowing brighter and brighter until there was a burst of light that exploded around him and Terra. Aevum shielded his eyes from the intense light for a moment until he noticed swirls of light traveling around his body. He quickly looked over at Terra and the same thing was happening to her. When the swirls of light made it up to his head, he felt something left upon the top of his head. Once the light reached the very top of each of their heads, the light shot into the sky and burst into thousands of little orbs of light that began to rain down around them. The elves cheered in celebration as the Earth accepted Terra and Aevum as the official Mother Nature and Father Time. Aevum laughed in relief as he looked over at Terra and noticed what the Earth had given her. She now had vines with blooming flowers of different kinds framing her face along with a crown of white roses that sat on top of her head with vines of white roses traveling from the crown down each side of her head and down the small of her back. Terra glanced over at Aevum and grinned when she saw that the Earth had rewarded him with the ancient Crown of Time. The crown was a mixture of gold and silver intertwining metal with a gold plate that faced the front. The front of the crown had a silver engraving of the top of the staff that Aevum held in his hand. Along the silver rim that wrapped around Aevum's head that held the crown together, golden images of time sand that appeared to be flowing in the breeze were inscribed all around it. Cheers of congrats rang throughout the crowd as the celebration continued till the full moon stood full and proud in the starry night sky.

Once the moon reached its peak, Terra decided to retreat inside and let the elves continue enjoying themselves. Aevum had left earlier to try to fix up his tower. He had decided to just get rid of the debris that surrounded the tower and just fix up the tower instead of a castle. As Terra walked through the hall of her palace, she thought back to what Gaia had told her. If Aevum was right and there was a hidden room somewhere in the palace then she really needed to find it. Terra approached her room and started to removal her floral crown and ball gown. As she changed, she noticed that the elves had decorated her room almost exactly like her old one. The difference was that this room was huge and it had way more amenities like a big walk in closet. The floor was also very different for is it was not littered in soft pink flower petals. Instead, the floor was a dark hardwood with a green carpet that was located around the canopy style bed. As Terra slipped on her plain white night dress with long bell styled sleeves, she approached a nearby water pitcher and poured the water into a bowl. As she soaked a small cloth in the water, she inspected her new facial markings that the Earth bestowed to her. As she cleaned her face, she noticed that these markings were going to always be with her. Suddenly, Terra heard a small knock on her bedroom door. Terra quickly put the cleaning supplies away and went to open the double doors to find a small red headed elf standing there.

"Kaylin," Terra question surprised to find her there of all people, "what are you doing here? Is something wrong?" Terra asked as she stepped into the hallway not caring that she was in her night dress.

"I'm sorry to disturb you, Mother Terra, but I was tiding up the library and I wanted to know if you wanted me to put the books you left on the table away?" Kaylin apologized as Terra wondered why she was not out enjoying the celebration with everyone else.

"Don't worry about tiding up anything, Kaylin." Terra assured with a smile. "I will take care of that tomorrow. You are dismissed from your duties tonight." Kaylin nodded and made her way back downstairs probably toward the elves sleeping quarters to retire for the night.

As Terra watched Kaylin walk away, she noticed something that she had never really noticed before. Kaylin had walked passed a large bookcase that had two armchairs on both sides and a small table by each chair. Terra walked toward the bookcase that was located at the end of the hallway in front of the grand staircase that led downstairs. She wondered why there would be a bookcase here when there was an entire library downstairs with hundreds of books and plenty of room for more. As Terra inspected the books on the shelf, she found that all the books had a thin layer of dust except one book. However, this book had no title. All the book had was a royal purple color with a small gold inscription of the Tree of Life at the top of the spine of the book.

"Huh, this is odd." Terra spoke out loud to herself as she pulled the book halfway off the shelf. Suddenly, the book stopped seemingly stuck. Then the entire bookshelf began to move. Terra jumped back in shock as the case opened to reveal a dark room on the other side. Terra quickly grabbed a candle that was sitting on one of the nearby tables and shined it inside the dark room slowly making her way inside. "I found it!" Terra explained as she set the candle on the table in the center of the room. "I found Gaia's hidden room!" Suddenly, the bookcase swung closed, but Terra did not care about that at the moment. She quickly examined the books on the shelves and grabbed four different books. She set them on the table and looked at each of the title for a moment. Terra smiled as she looked around the room once more with a look of courage and determination written on her face. "And I know what I need to do." She finished with a smirk as she slammed the book closed.