Flower Falls and Crystal Calls

Need to Move

Chapter 12

Praes had not been pleased to find out that their guest was growing even stronger. She was too much of an unknown as it was. He was not allowed to stop her. Yeul insisted that they find someone capable of teaching the woman. That was how she started spending more time in the complex.

Most of the female acolytes that worked with Yeul, recording her visions and taking care of other tasks, were nothing more than women who had volunteered to cloister themselves into the service of the Seeress. However, a couple of them had been branded and given the task to assist. The two were both older, and Elle did not care for either of them. The feeling was mutual as she was the antithesis to most of their views. Still, they learned to get along for the time being, at least. Yeul would not have tolerated anything else.

Elle was not happy with it, but she spent every morning working with the two women, learning how to feel her power so she could either draw it out on-demand or keep it back, even when her emotions were heightened. Despite her skill in combat, this was something she had a hard time picking up. It wasn't that she couldn't access her power consciously. No, that she picked up in a couple of days. Her problem was holding back when she got angry. Unfortunately, getting angry with her teachers was a common enough occurrence that the sessions became torture.

By the time Caius came to pick her up each day, she was usually ready to do bodily harm to anyone that looked at her funny. He seemed to be the only exception. Despite her sour moods, by the time they made it into the city, he was able to coax at least one laugh from her. Once that happened, her mood improved drastically. He had started trying to do it to keep the peace as they walked the city streets, or went back up to the training arena, but it was only a matter of days before he found it was something he enjoyed. He wasn't sure why, but he liked knowing he was the one capable of bringing that smile to her lips.

--------------------------------------

It had been nearly two months that Elle had been in Paddra, and still, things had not resolved into much more than a pattern. Whatever her goal was still eluded her. Not that she was clueless, but she currently had no idea how to change things in a future she had very little insight into. For all she knew, the events she was supposed to stop could still be years away.

She had asked several times if there was something she could help with to not feel so worthless, but Yeul had assured her that she was a guest, and as such, she had no need to do more than familiarize herself with the city. Even with her various training, she was beginning to go stir crazy. It didn't help that the extra time meant she found herself focusing on how her absence was affecting her brother. She knew that time travel was a possibility given who had pulled her, but there was no telling if she could even make it back. If she didn't, how would that affect him? It had been hard for both of them when their mother was killed, and their father drank himself to death within a couple of years. They still had their grandfather, but they didn't see him often. For the most part, it was just the two of them. She tried not to think about how devastated Kurt would be if she never made it back, but it was hard when she had too much time and not much to do.

It wasn't that there weren't new things to see, but she had not been allowed out of the city or to help, and it went against the grain. She was about ready to see if she could sneak out for a few hours. At least that was the case until something happened that had her jumping at the chance to help.

She had been walking through one of the squares and had stopped to let the mist fall on her. With it getting closer to the middle of summer, the weather was becoming almost unbearable. She was getting used to it, but that didn't mean she hesitated to take advantage of the cooling water.