League of Shadows (edited)

Click here. I know where you live. (edited)

There were two little girls frolicking about on the deck of a ship. Long strands of wavy hair danced around their faces, and their twinkling laughter floated through the salty sea air. Crystal orbs (as a qualified wattpad author the word 'eyes' is now officially banned from my mental dictionary) sparkled merrily from beneath drawn brows, and silken dresses billowed around lithe bodies.

Lorena could see them clearly. Their outlines were blurry, and they themselves were colorless, but they danced on mist and flame, the air around them sparkling like a thousand diamonds. She couldn't tell others what the color of their hair was, or the color of their eyes and dresses, but she could see them. She had tried talking to them many times, but they just danced around her blissfully, their joyous laughter ringing in her ears like the sweetest music.

"What do they look like?" her mom had asked whenever she brought up the dancing girls.

"I don't know, I can't tell," was always her reply.

Her mom had rolled her eyes and told her to go play with the other children.

So Lorena tried to dance with the little girls, to make her hair and dresses follow the wind like there's did and laugh twinkling laughs. Her feet skipped over the deck and the salty air buffeted her hair and dress. She followed the wind, dancing with the sky and the clouds.

She felt alive.

Lorena danced till the sun set, the moon basking her with its orange glow. Orange glow, orange moon. Rising fast out of the water like the sun. Dance. Dance. Dance. Dance under the orange moon. As she danced and laughed and danced, the outlines of the girls became less blurry, and color started to creep up their skin. What used to be ghosts were now living, dancing girls. Color crept up their cheeks and into their eyes and hair.

Lorena watched in captivation as their cheeks became a rosy pink, and their eyes a deep blue like the sea, and their hair, oh, she watched as each individual strand glowed orange. Like the moon. Orange hair, orange moon; dance, dance, dance. She could hear voices now; tinkling, chiming voices.

"Cure of the orange moon. Curse of the orange moon."

The sky was a navy blue, and patterns of fireflies glowed against the dark.

Cure..curse...cure...curse.

A curse needs a cure, and a cure needs a curse. The orange moon still glowed, casting its silhouette over the water. Orange and blue, rippling together in the waves, blurring together like the narrow line that separated fantasy from reality, fiction from non-fiction.

Lorena felt like she was weaving and dancing through two thin, papery veils that separated real life from this world she was now seeing. Her body stayed firmly grounded in one world, but her brain and eyes were living in another.

It was both a blessing and a curse.

"Having another vision?"

The voice of Silvia's longtime companion, Thea, shook her out of her trance.

Silvia rubbed her temples, a glaring headache intruding into her brain.

"Yeah. It was the one about the orange moon again. I don't know why but it just keeps coming back. It haunts me both at night, and during the day..." she complained, leaning back against the cold, concrete walls of her prison cell.

The room she was lying in was small, with two bunk beds and a small table tucked away shyly in one corner. The walls were the exact color of oatmeal and appeared to be the same texture too. A constant smell of harsh chemicals and urine wafted through the air, accompanied by the scent of sour breath and pit sweat.

"Anyways, I heard we're getting a new cellmate. Who's excited?" Thea asked, twirling a strand of her chestnut locks round and round her finger absentmindedly.

"Why would I be excited that another poor soul has been doomed to fight for the King and his people's entertainment?" Lesya snapped, glaring down at Silvia from her perch at the top of one of the bunks.

"More friends?" Thea suggested meekly.

"Guys, just remember, the greater the storm the brighter the rainbow. You can't see stars without a dark sky. Keep your face towards the sunshine, and shadows will fall behind you," Silvia enunciated in a fake, inspirational voice that sounded like a yawn that had somehow learned to speak.

"Stop trying to be inspirational, be yourself. Nobody else wants to be you," Lesya chided jokingly.

The sound of hinges screeching and jagged metal scratching against concrete interrupted the girls' happy banter. 

"What's going on?" Thea asked, her eyes darkening.

The door to their cell slammed open, and a black-haired Cynesig was thrown roughly to the ground by a pair of guards. Her pale silver skin was covered in cuts and scratches, and one of her eyes was completely swollen shut.

"Uhh...you good?" Thea whispered under her breath, watching the young girl claw at the ground with bloodstained hands.

The Mukysho guards glared at the four prisoners apprehensively before storming out of the room, the door swinging shut behind them.

Silvia tiptoed towards the girl lying on the floor, pushing her onto her back. Her shirt was wet with warm blood, sticky to the touch and reeking of rusted metal. She closed her fingers gently around the girl's wrist, feeling the soft, steady rhythm of her heart. 

"She's alive!" Silvia announced, a smile lighting up her face.

"Yeah, I think we noticed that already, genius," Lesya chided, rolling her eyes and gazing up at the ceiling.

"Now, now, no need to be mean. It's perfectly normal for some people to be, say, slower than average. After all, there's nothing wrong with having the IQ of a goldfish," Thea joked. 

"You bully me," Silvia said with a frown. She waved her hand inconspicuously, a strand of silken flame oozing out of her fingertips and wrapping its arms around the air in a tender embrace. It curled around the girl on the floor, weaving between her limbs and around her torso. 

"I really don't want to be beheaded by my Queen, but since I'm in a Mukysho jail I guess I can say whatever I like," Thea sighed. "I really wish I was a Siphoy."

"Well, I don't. Siphoys might have magic, but they aren't good for shit otherwise," Lesya snapped.

A petty retort formed at the tip of Silvia's tongue, but just as she was about to spit it out a murky cloud enveloped her brain. 

Before she knew it, she was drowning in the floor, swimming among the concrete and clawing at empty air. 

She could hear voices, could see colors...but they were all so far away...

wtf I don't even remember how this connects to the rest of the story it's been soooo long since I read this. Just pretend like this chapter isn't even here tbh.