{ELEMENTISTS OF WILLOW FOREST BOOK II} The Pain of Earth

Rural Graffiti

1: Rural Graffiti

Sasha Brunner awoke to the sound of eroding rock.

Certainly not a sound most twelve-year-olds are accustomed to hearing.

Then Sasha wasn't like most twelve-year-olds.  She wasn't normal.  She was an elementist. A witch. A magician. A sorceress. A whatever. It all meant the same thing.

She had the ability to control one of the seven mythical elements. In her case, Fire. Oh, and lucky her. She and her brother were the only known Fire Elementists in existence.

Only, was it a month ago? It felt like only yesterday. Only a month ago she had gone on a mission to steal an ancient piece of jewellery (long story), accidently become part of a pack of wolves along with a lion (longer story), and discovered that her long-lost brother was evil. (Please don't bother asking).

Sighing, she slipped on her sheep skin slippers with the thought 'Rock or Pebble?' and went outside.

The answer was Pebble.

The two Miner sisters were the joint Councillors of the House of Earth. They both had the ability to control stone. Pebble was busy doing what she and her older sister called 'doodling' on the side of the House of Fire. Basically, she was eroding lines on the stone wall, forming patterns and pictures, often cartoons.

To the normal, non-elementist, that meant graffiti.

"Pebs, could you possibly stop adding graffiti to the walls of my cabin?"

Pebble Miner jumped at the sound of her voice.

"Sasha, it's not graffiti, it's a display of Urban Art. I actually made this cabin..."

"Which you built..." Sasha interrupted.

"Twice as valuable."

"Is it still called Urban Art if we're in the middle of a forest?" Sasha questioned, smiling.

"No comment."

"Pebs, please can you remove your Rural Art from the House of Fire? I really don't care about how valuable it is. I have no intention of selling it. Actually it's not even mine to sell. Technically, it's Olivia's."

Olivia was the leader and founder of the A of E.

"No." Pebble replied stubbornly.

"Seriously, Pebs."

"Fine."

She started 'rubbing out' or the marks, or growing the rock back.

"You're perfectly welcome to doodle down at the quarry."

"Oh, but Rock always doodles there, and it's seriously annoying because she rubs all of my cartoons out so she can doodle there."

Sasha sighed. Siblings. Not that she was one to judge. She didn't really have a great relationship with her brother, Felix.

Suddenly, a message came through on the walkie-talkie inside. It was Ethan, the Councillor from the House of Technology.

"Come on folks, wake up, rise and shine. In five seconds, I'm going to give you a lovely little surprise, just for you!"

Pebble rolled her eyes. Sasha just laughed. Ethan's 'surprises' usually involved explosions, robots or a video of him doing gangam style being broadcasted onto every device with a screen in the forest.  Seriously.  They'd been there before.

"Oh fine," Ethan's voice continued. "Maybe I was bored last night so I whipped these little babies up!"

Okay. Definitely robots of some form.

"Three!

"Two!

"One!"

Fireworks. Fireworks of every shape and size blasted off from where Sasha knew the House of Tech was.  There were the gold ones that whizzed up, then exploded into tiny bits, and Catherine wheels, and some of the normal red, green, purple and blue ones that just explode, and...

When the display finished, Pebble said, "Well, that's certainly... original. For Ethan anyway."

They burst into giggles.

Just your average morning in Willow Forest.