The Little Lightning Girl

36- Worlds and Eras of My Life Collide

Watching my two sets of friends meet at the airport felt strange. I'd strictly separated the two worlds in my mind, one was filled with monsters and steel the other with magic and... other monsters. They were very different areas of my life. Because of this, watching Adrian and Maya approach Rose and Kaley felt... like I said, strange. But my friends did not stumble. There was half of a moment when they first set eyes on each other that I was concerned, but before I could even tell them who the others were, they started chatting as if they'd known each other forever.

Right in the middle of the airport, they greeted each other with a mixture of hugs and thumps on the back. Thankfully, airports were a hub of greetings and goodbyes, so no one looked at us with any confusion. Except me, I was looking at my friends with very much confusion.

After a hug, Rose took one look at my face and rolled her eyes, "Did you seriously think any of us would let you have friends without knowing them? Kaley and I met these guys ages ago. Goodness, Alana."

I shook my head in disbelief, "You never told me."

"We figured you'd already assume we met each other," Kaley said with a shrug, "Now that we've got that out of the way, would you lot care to check in?"

I snorted at her but turned and began walking towards the ticket area. Getting tickets for each of us took a bit, but after we'd done that and gotten through security, we were walking towards our gate. Maya and Rose were already lagging behind talking about books and recommending each other their favorites. Kaley walked on my left and Adrian on my right when Adrian said, "I can't believe you seriously thought I'd let you have two best friends at school that I knew nothing about."

I frowned at him, "I don't know why you wouldn't. I mean, you were bound to meet eventually, I just assumed you hadn't yet."

"Alana, you're like a sister to me, and I'm very protective of my siblings," Kaley declared, "Thankfully, Noah has brought Adrian over many times, so I knew he wasn't some psycho."

Adrian laughed, "Thanks, little Finch, what a compliment."

The trip to Hawaii was actually quite uneventful, despite the presence of Poseidon's grandchildren. Probably because I was on the plane, Zeus didn't try to strike us out of the sky, but there was quite a bit of petty turbulence. I could almost feel the irritation in the air every time the plane dropped in a sudden air pocket. I wanted to roll my eyes at the old man upstairs, but figured that wouldn't be helpful while we were traveling through his domain. Thankfully, unlike my last plane ride, I was not sandwiched between two older overweight men. I sat at the window next to Kaley, Maya on her other side, Rose and Adrian striking up an unlikely friendship behind us.

I would not have expected my fiery tempered friend to become close with Adrian, who'd always seemed cool and composed to me. But there they were, Rose explaining the game of Quidditch to Adrian, and he was actually listening with interest. I was grateful that the woman next to them had fallen asleep in the first ten minutes of the flight and didn't hear their conversation. Rose, with her love of the sport, couldn't contain her excitement, and her voice grew louder as the time went on, despite my consistent shushing.

We had a connecting flight in Denver, Colorado, as no sane pilot on earth would want to make the trip from New York to Hawaii, or at least not without charging a fortune. Rose had a hell of a time picking out snacks at one of the airport stores.

"You're saying that none of these snacks move or anything? Mum's told me about it but... that's crazy!"

"Not as crazy as you sound to the muggles talking about exploding jelly beans," I stated, amused at her amazement.

"And they have jelly beans, but they don't do anything! They taste normal!"

I just laughed, "I know, Rose. Now hurry and pick something out before the people in this shop really start to believe we're insane."