She looked at me over her shoulder.

"Say, were you angry? You know, when you appeared in the dark." she said.

I shook my head. "No, I can't say I've felt much of anything. I just know."

She nodded and continued to scrawl, before halting. She now turned her body half way and looked at me again. "Know?" she said confused.

I shrugged. "I know I should be insulted by the things you've written down. Or that I would have been insulted if I heard the jibes the two of us had thrown at each other. And I can't say that our ego is that big that we'd praise ourselves for being smart. You know our grades, don't you?"

She clacked her tongue and again a grin formed. That was another thing. I didn't grin that much. I definitely didn't grin that much. She waved my last words away with her left hand while her right hand continued to scrawl words on the cloud.

"You can't possibly tell me that school in any way is interesting? We are smart and I am certain we could be doing great things if you or one of the others wouldn't mellow us out. did you know that I haven't seen you smile even once since you got here and you have been trying to curb my enthusiasm every time my thoughts wandered off?"

She underlined something on the cloud and turned to me, prodding me forcefully in my chest. "I even think that you, my dear lightning core, are the one that control us. To avoid me from going off topic too often - though I must say you don't have as much power over me as you hope you do - and probably also keep our potentials under control. Then again, I think you have more trouble controlling me because I am also a core and that means we probably have the same amount of power. I wonder how we could test it, because you are incredibly unreliable in the normal world. I mean, how often do you think we'd explode it we tried to use lightning magic. I've been thinking about it and I think-"

Once again I held my hands up, frowning at the air core. Too much information about the wrong subject. She might be right that I am the one policing the rest. It explained why I hadn't simply bitten the principal and jumped at Shirley. Or why Judith hadn't been hit in the face over the past years. It also explained that focussing was a possibility for me, but it was rare and tiring for me to do so. So, she was probably making a good point. However I wasn't in the mood to find out which one of us was more powerful. I doubted it would be necessary for the real us anyway. It wasn't like the lightning core would be used once we left. That thought gave me an odd empty feeling. It made me wonder why I even bothered to continue.

"Okay, okay. Sorry. I got carried away. But as I was saying, seeing how you and I are here, there is a chance that earth and fire are here as well. Maybe in smaller pockets than mine, or wandering through the darkness like you. I wonder why you were even wandering through the darkness anyway. I mean, as a core you should have had some place where you wanted to be, wouldn't you?"

I looked at her. I hadn't been really busying myself with wanting to stay here. All I wanted was to return. To leave this place. I balled my hands. Even if I wasn't going to use the lightning core when I returned home, I still would be with the people I cared for. It didn't matter if I wouldn't be used. I could still - if the air core was correct - keep the rest in check. Keep us going forward. I took a deep breathe.

"I just want to go back," I said.

For the first time the permanent grin wavered. Her eyes widened and her lips dropped. She looked at me, holding her head askew in a different manner than before.

"Why?" she said. "We're safe here. Everything is fine. I can do so many things and I'm not being stopped."

I looked at her. My eyes wandered to the large cloud behind her. Aside from the scrawlings she recently made, there were two other things that were written in a bigger font. Familiar and explore. Both had arrows pointing to the word darkness, which was crossed out.

"Our family is back there," I started, but saw that that didn't have an impact on her. "We'll meet our familiar there. And I think that the only way to do so, is to explore these caves."

She looked at me, silent and still for the first time I've met her. She frowned and looked at the cloud, staring at the same words I'd found not too long ago. She muttered again before looking at me.

"It's dark out there," she said. "We'll be restricted if we go out. They don't understand us. We don't even understand us. And you. You won't be used if you return."

I rubbed my arm. She was right. Lightning was our weakness, as it has been in our entire family. Still it had never mattered. Our father still valiantly used it when he needed it to do his job. We've had stories of ancestors calling upon it and saving them. Maximillian had been the last most successful lightning user and dad would always recite those stories. We loved those stories. I simply had to trust that we'd be able to learn the secret. To do so, I had to return.

I nodded. "Maybe. But we won't learn anything here. You will only have me and yourself to figure out if we stayed. That won't help you figure us out. And you said so yourself. You didn't like being locked here."

She bit her lip. She looked from me to the large cloud and back. She fidgeted with her hands, rocking again on her feet. By simply looking in her eyes, I could see she was being torn. And knowing myself, it was probably by her curiosity versus her fear.

"You wouldn't be going alone. I'd be there with you, you know? Together, we can take on the dark," I said, trying to convince her.

Her eyes found mine. Now it did feel like looking into a mirror. A conclusion slowly dawned on her face. She let out a deep sigh and hang her head in defeat. She ran her hand through her hair, making it messier than it was before. A new smile formed, though this time the joy that had been behind the others was considerably less.

"Sometimes, I don't like being right," she said, huffing again. "Promise you'll be with me?"

I nodded. She turned around and with a swift wave of her hand, the cloud behind her disappeared. Behind it, the same darkness as before loomed. All the clouds stopped there and even the soothing blue light didn't get any further than a few metres. The same familiar tug I'd felt from before now beckoned me to it. I watched how the air core looked hesitantly at it. She gulped before looking back at me. There was clear doubt. She puffed out her chest and tried a brave smile this time.

"Ready?" I said, extending my hand to her.

"No," she replied airily. Still she reached for my hand.