Take My Breath Away (Mileven AU) [On Hold]

Chapter 5

A/N: Hey guys! Sorry this is a little late! Hope you like it!

El stared wide eyed at the things in the Wheeler's basement. She'd never been inside a house in the mortal realm. It was so much different from all the buildings back in her world. There were lights everywhere! Lights that didn't emit from candles or the fireplace, and weren't even floating close to the ceilings like the ones she had seen the house pixies dangle in her room. These lights were firmly attached to the walls. Mike had called them "electric lamps", whatever that meant.

But the lights that fascinated her most were the tiny colourful ones that were hanging from Mike's blanket "fort". It didn't look like a fort from any angle. El had seen many forts in her life. The castle her clan lived in had many outer forts for protection from the enemy. She didn't tell any of this to Mike though, she liked the way his face lit up when he told her he had made this fort all by himself when he was 13. He also told her that the twinkling lights were called "fairy lights"! She found it a little strange at first that something that was supposedly called fairy lights didn't exist in her realm but then she realised that when they started twinkling and changing colour, they did look like tiny pixies flying around.

Mike had given her fresh clothes, those which belonged to his sister, he had said. And he had told her that she would be safe down here. No one except him and his friends ever came down here anyway. But if she heard his mother come downstairs, she was to stay hidden in the fort and quiet.

That night as she lay in the basement, El decided that maybe humans weren't so bad. Not from what she had seen so far, at least. She knew she ought to convince Mike to go back with her. She knew the longer she stayed here she was wasting time. But she also knew that she was in no condition to open a portal to the other realm. She was too tired and drained of magic. She needed rest and food to gain her powers back and staying out in the woods, injured and cold, the previous night had definitely not helped.

Thinking about home made her want to cry. Eight would probably have been captured by now. If she didn't hurry, they would kill her. It wasn't Eight's fault. It was her fault. It was her that the destroyers wanted. They thought she was the only one who could bring out the Ancient one. If that monster was unleashed, their entire kingdom would fall apart, all their magic would be gone, all the tribes killed off.

She shouldn't have told the elders about her vision. They thought it was her fault. They thought killing her was the remedy to the problem, if she was killed, no one could summon the monster. At least, until the next fae as powerful as Eleven was born.

She knew if her mother had been alive, she would have reminded them of the ancient prophecy, the one that spoke of the four warriors from the mortal realm who could be the only ones to save them from the fate of destruction. But her mother was long gone. And her father didn't believe in the prophecy, he was of the idea that humans were useless.

But El had to try. She was so sure that the prophecy was true, it had to be. One of the warriors in the prophecy, the paladin, was named Michael.......just like Mike. There had to be a reason he had seen her even before she had been able to hold her form in the mortal world. That wasn't a common occurrence. And Eight agreed to this theory of hers.

Now that they had said they had a friend called Will, she was even more sure of the prophecy. Will, the cleric......Will, the Wise was another one of the mortal heroes. And Mike's friends had said that Will was missing. Could it be someone had taken him back to her realm?

It was with these thoughts that El fell into a fitful slumber in the soft glow of the twinkling fairy lights in the strange blanket fort.

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Mike woke up the next morning feeling a little lightheaded.

The person who had plagued his dreams since he was five, since before he was sure she was a "person", was asleep in his basement, If his parents found out, he'd be dead. But in his heart Mike knew there was no way he could have left her out in the woods, not after he had waited for so many years for her to come back.

He quickly finished his morning routine, got dressed and went down to the dining room, utterly surprising his mother by being up so early during his holidays.

Not wanting to waste too much time talking to her, he grabbed a couple of eggo waffles from the table top, made some excuse about how he had to write a new campaign for D & D and rushed downstairs to the basement.

When he lifted the cover of his blanket fort, he found El sitting and intently thinking about something. She somehow managed to look angelic even in the old sweatshirt and pajama pants he'd given her. Her head looked empty without the crown of flowers. And her glow had entirely faded through the night.

"Hey El, I got you breakfast." He smiled at her extending his hand holding the Eggo.

She looked at it a little suspiciously, but eventually took at from him and took a bite. Mike figured she must have liked it because the next moment a small smile came upon her face.

When they both finished their respective eggos, Mike finally asked El, "You said something about Will last night. Do you know where he is?"

El shook her head. "Then why did you-?" Mike began with his brows furrowed.

"There's a prophecy", El blurted out before he could finish.

"Prophecy? What prophecy?"

"I know this will all sound like a story to you, but I promise you, I'm telling you the truth. Will you listen to all I have to say?"

Mike nodded, still a little confused as to what this had to do with Will.

And so El told him about the monster, about the destroyers and about the prophecy of mortal heroes, about Michael the paladin.

All the while, Mike's eyes grew wide with wonder, until "Wait! Michael, the paladin? You think that's me?"

El nodded sincerely. "There must have been a reason I've been drawn to you from the beginning of my life. It has to be an indication. And you know Will, the wise."

At the words "drawn to you" Mike blushed and looked down bashfully.

"So we go to your realm? And then what?" he said after a while.

"You say Will is missing. I'm not the only one who knows of this prophecy. Maybe they kidnapped him- the bad people. If we can find the trail that leads to him, we find Will and the destroyers."

"But you say you're not powerful enough to open the portal yet." He told her.

"We have to wait till I gain my strength. I need your help Mike. Maybe we can convince your other friends to accompany us" El said.

Mike looked like he was trying to process a lot of information at once. "Dustin and Lucas will be meeting us this afternoon" he told her solemnly.

"Dustin and Lucas!" she exclaimed wide-eyed.

"Yes, those are their names. Why-?"

"The bard and the ranger! It has to be you"

"Wait how do you know our D & D charac- its in your prophecy?"

El nodded enthusiastically.

Mike couldn't believe what he was hearing. He and his friends weren't heroes, they were nerds. They always had been. But here was this fae, sitting in his basement, telling him he was part of a prophecy. The same fae who had given him sleepless nights for years. The entire situation was extremely surreal.

For some reason, he didn't know what, he trusted her. He knew Lucas would be hard to convince and Dustin would be entirely too enthusiastic. But he believed her.

"I'll try to explain it to them. If they agree to go, that's good. If not, then I'll go with you. If Will is in your realm I have to find him. I will help, I promise."