Broken Stars (ON HOLD)

Stars Are Great Weapons

When we reached the top Mother nature was waiting on the overhang balcony. She was sitting on a stack of green pillows, a stack of purple pillows next to her, which I assume were for me to sit in.

"Thank you girls, now go train them good," she said smiling, they both nodded their heads and continued to leave downstairs. 

"Come sit," she told me motioning to the sick of pillows next to her. I sat down and she brought out the book from behind her. 

"I caught up some reading on the little information it has about training young Casters. But it did say that the first thing to do was to summon your first star," she explained. 

"How do I do that?" I asked, I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. 

"Well, from what the book says, it tells you to put your hand out, close your eyes and imagine plucking a star from the sky. To visualize it in your palm," she told me. I followed her instructions and placed my palm out in front of me. I thought of the nights sky, filled with dozens of stars, I visualized the brightest one in the sky and imagined it disappearing from the sky, and reappearing in my palm.

I could tell that the room brightens even though my eyes were closed. I opened my eyes and had to squint against the light in my palm. 

"You did it Carter! Wonderful!" 

"I did it? " I asked questionably, but the star in my hand proved that I had done it. 

"Next it says to try and move the star, so without moving your hand, try moving the star to the left." I visualized my palm staying still, my brow furrowed in concentration and moved the star to the left. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. 

"Good, now try and throw it at the door, like your throwing a knife or a ball." I thought of the star following my hand back as I prepared to throw it. Then I imagined letting it fly and hit the door, surprisingly it did. But stars are a lot stronger then I thought and left a hole in the door. 

"Well, they definitely did not say that would happen in the book," Mother Nature giggled,"are you tired at all? That was quite a bit of energy." I shook my head no, and tried to create another star in my palm, a dimmer, smaller star appeared. 

"Ok, if your sure your not tired then we can continue. Since this star is smaller, do you think you could try to hold multiple stars in your hand? Well see how many you can hold." I nodded and closed my eyes, I thought of the star already in my hand, then it moving over to make way for another star. I continued this till I got to seven stars total. 

"Seven stars in one hand is quite the accomplishment for your first time. Do you feel any strain?" 

"I don't feel strained, but I don't think that I can fit anymore on my hand."

"Well you did have a lot of magic stored up, so maybe you are using more of it then you normally would be able to," she told me.

"Does the magic run out?" I asked.

"I couldn't imagine, think of it as a glass, yours have been filling up since you've been born, but you've never took a drink of the water till now so it was overfilling. Now that you are drinking that water, your body will replenish it as you drink it. You just won't have it overfilling anymore. 

"Ok," I answered, thinking it over. 

"Why don't we try to combine your powers with combat? Nothing drastic, but we can try a simple spell that I found called Star Archer."

"What does that do?" 

"Well, if it works, it says you can create a bow out of constellations and fire stars at targets," she read from a book marked page in the book. She got up out of the pillows and walked towards the door and descended down the stairs, I trailed behind her. 

When we reached the bottom the girl were training different groups, each working on something different.  Cora and Rai were teaching hand to hand combat, Clem was showing a group of people how to do long distance attacks using their powers, Jen was working on endurance and Talena was aiming with arrows, standing next to Chase. 

I followed Mother Nature over to Talena and said that I would be helping practicing shooting arrows. 

"Oh hey Carter, what do you need?" Talena asked me.

"Im going to try and work on my archery," I explained to her. I looked towards Mother Nature, waiting for her to say something. When she didn't say anything I realized that I still didn't know how to conjure the bow, or the arrows.

"Um, how do I make the bow?" I asked her, by now half of Talena's unit were staring at me, confused to why I asked how to make a bow, when their were obviously on the rack next to them. I felt my checks get slightly pink.

"The book says that you need to imagine the stars forming together to create a bow looking constellation, then imagine the bow materializing in your hands, same thing with the arrows." She read out loud from the book.

"Ok, Ill try it." I closed my eyes in concentration, blocking out the weird stares from the other people in the arena. I imagined the stars combining into a bow, then the bow solidifying into my hands. I felt a light weight object in my hands and opened my eyes.

The bow was a milky white, with small stars imprinted in it and a smooth but sparkly texture to it. It was really beautiful. I imagined the same with the arrows, and they appeared in a quiver on my back. They were the same as the bow, milky white and sparkled. But they were sharp to the touch.

I noticed the target on the wall of the arena, and pulled on arrow out of the quiver, I aligned the arrow with the center of the target and pulled the string back to my check. Even though I had never used a bow before, I felt like the bow was whispering to me telling me how to use it.

I let the arrow fly, and it hit the center of the target, the perfect bullseye. I smiled and turned proudly towards Talena and the rest of her unit.

"Did you see that?!" I exclaimed excitedly, Talena looked at me with a large smile on her face, the rest of the unit gave me looks of shock and surprise. Cora, Jen, Rai, and Clem all stopped what they were doing to come and congratulate me. Rai came over and game me high-five.

"You were on fire girl!" She told me, just then the arrow behind me burst into white flames and burned the whole target.

"Well, those are some really powerful arrows," Cora said, Clem stifled a laugh.

"Once you get enough training, I would hate to go against you and those arrows in battle," she giggled.