Five Talents

Chapter 4

POV Marli

we step outside and the temperature drops like 25 degrees instantly, I take a deep breath and wipe the sweat from my forehead. I force myself to breathe like a normal person even though I would normally still be panting around now, but looking at the twins like they didn't just put on a huge show I don't want to seem weak. They are fine, and so am i. We walk along the alleyways and climb a fire escape to the roof, we jump from rooftop to rooftop and make our way home. We step inside and quickly dodge a hurdling knife, not like this really affects us anymore. We weave through the crowd of villains and mercenaries and people who will do absolutely anything for a paycheck and hurry to the looking glass chamber. We shut the door and lock it with the huge iron lock, the metal feels weird beneath my skin, I really enjoy the touch of it more than any normal person would. I don't know maybe I have some weird mental connection with it ever since I had like a million of them drilled into my skull and bones back at the orphanage. Iron studs that never rust, and seemingly grow with me, i've tried to pull one out before but it was too painful, the ones in my head must be long, I think they go into my brain even. Insane orphanage people drilling into kids heads, what is wrong with the world?

We call Zeref on the looking glass, he’s amused with our teams introduction. He does his usual spill of how we have to keep the majority of our magic a secret so that everyone under estimates us. We exchange a few pleasant words about how life is going and really just about as close to small talk as we can. We exit and move along to our living quarters, my gaze rests upon my studs and I zone out.

“Marlow?” I look up from my arm, how long have I been just staring at my studs?

“Yeah?” I sign.

“You ok? I know you don't have a lot of magic and you were doing a lot-”

“I'm fine!”  I sign frantically, cutting Dameon off. “I'm strong, my magic is strong. I'm not a child, and besides-”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” Al rolls her eyes and places a hand on her hip. “You're better than both of us at shooting and handling basically any firearms, we know.”

I sigh and drop my shoulders, that was close. We make our way to our room, down two flights of stairs inside the already super secret underground base. The rooms have magic that is specialized so that genetically only someone of our blood could get in, I mean hypothetically natsu Dragneel or zeref could get in two but really only sibling could get in, it's blood magic locked. We open the door and lead into the main room, couch, kitchen, off to the side are three doors, a bathroom and two bedrooms. Dameon stretches and head into the bathroom to shower, alicia moves into the bedroom to change, and I chug a tall glass of water. I flop down on the couch and shut my eyes, letting out a sigh of exhaustion. I find myself asleep in no time, my naps usually last anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour but this time it was over 90 minutes. I stretch and hop in the shower, the cold water waking me up and calming all my muscles. I change into some clean clothes and throw the sweaty ones in the laundry. I step out as I towel up my hair, I find a note taped to the fridge from alicia. “Out on a mission, be back by morning.” she signed it with a star, our secret code. When alicia says she's taking a solo mission and signs with a star it means she's doing her mission with this boy she keeps seeing, dameon doesn't know yet. She won't tell me his name so the closest thing I have is stars, and night. After about an hour of absolute boredom me and dameon head above ground, the entrance to our guild hall is hidden beneath a windmill, it's beside a river. We climb the ropes of the old structure until we hit the top, I grab a seat and look up at the stars. The only real solid platform is the roof, and that’s because our team has been up here so much we’ve put effort into a few repairs. My mind hazes over and I fiddle with the studs that line the half of my body opposite of my face.

“Stop playing with your studs, you might hurt yourself,” dameon says as he leans against one of the few support beams.

“I can look after myself,” I sign, he laughs and nods. I roll my eyes and reluctantly do as he says, he is kind of like my older brother in the family aspect of our team.

“Hey marli?” I look at him. “Any idea why Alicia is taking so many solo missions?” he asks, fiddling with his fire magic a little. I shrug my shoulders and shake my head no, knowing full well in my mind why. “Come on,” he spoke up after what felt like hours. “Let’s get to bed, you have the games in the morning,” I yawn and nod, looking up at all the constellations, the first trials of the games are weapons, and firearms are my specialty.