As they drew nearer, the figures slowly came down to land. The Octo-Frog cult waited for them to land on Hopper and Glaucous’s net trap, but the figure on the right whipped a tiny dagger at the vines, severing one of them and breaking the trap.
Hopper spluttered. “But - we spent time on that!” She said indignantly.
“No!” Shade yelled, and Aileen turned around to see Sparky hurl a fireball at the figures.
Quickly, Aileen doused the flames. If they attacked first, they would be the bad guys.
The figures dropped down softly onto the grass. They were all women of different ages: the one in the middle seemed the oldest, but she didn’t have any wrinkles. The one on the right looked maybe twenty-five years old, and the figure on the left looked about eighteen or nineteen.
It was clear that the woman in the middle was the leader. She had surprisingly yellow blonde hair with purple streaks, and
she wore a purple feathery dress under a shimmering golden chainmail vest. Wings with white, gold, blue, and purple feathers lay folded across her back, and on her head, there was a shiny winged helmet where we could still see her face. She wore a haughty expression, and her eyes were a deep green.
Shade gasped and bowed her head. “Sikoh. I did not expect to see you here.”
“Do you know this lady?” Sparky asked, looking back and forth between Shade and the woman - Sikoh.
“Sikoh is the first Elemental ever to walk upon Knoll,” Shade said. “She is even more ancient than me.”
“She makes a powerful ally - and an even more powerful enemy,” The teenager on the left said. Her voice was raspy, but it sounded quite a bit like Ivory’s. This must be Cerise, her sister.
Cerise had caramel hair which was dip-dyed in turquoise, but the turquoise looked natural. She had intense, practically glowing, green eyes, so they must have been colored contact lenses. Something else that looked weird on her face was purple blush, so it looked very unnatural. She wore a bright red sleeveless gown over a green short-sleeved shirt with a sunset orange belt and matching, but slightly more pink, knee-high boots. She had on silver mesh gloves and fishnet stockings. She seemed like she wanted to make a statement: yes, I’m funky but don’t mess with me.
No one seemed to recognize the young woman on the right, however, the one who had broken the trap. She had deep chocolate brown skin and black tightly coiled hair. Each coil had a blue ribbon swirled in it so that the blue shimmered when the light hit it, and she wore black leggings, black boots, and a black lacy shirt. Honestly, she looked too good to be heading into battle.
The girl in black sighed and threw a few more daggers, which all perfectly outlined my feet. She had impeccable aim.
“Don’t move,” she said, sounding bored. “Just come with us and don’t argue. I would hate to have to take off your head.” She smiled and pointed a dagger at my face.
“Don’t you dare threaten our Lord,” Shade snarled, taking a step towards the girl in black, but a gust of wind threw her backward and slammed her head into a rock.
“You heard Monica. Don’t argue,” Sikoh said.
“Monica?” I asked, raising my eyebrows when the girl in black flinched. “You didn’t want me to know that, did you?”
“It doesn’t matter,” Monica growled.
“No, it doesn’t,” Cerise agreed. “So come with us, Lord.” The way she said my title sounded mocking.
“Why should she?” Sparky yelled, throwing another fireball at the three women. Sikoh knocked it aside at the last second, so Glaucous and Hopper jumped in.
Glaucous shot a burst of ice at the feet of Cerise, Sikoh, and Monica, freezing them in place. Hopper slid on the ice, morphing into bunny form while she did. She dug her tiny rabbit teeth into Sikoh’s ankle.
“Hopper, be careful!” I shouted, but it was too late. A burst of wind snatched Bunny-Hopper up and slammed her into her own twig cage, locking the door. Hopper turned back to human and said, “Hey, I made this cage for you guys. That isn’t fair.”
“This isn’t a game, Hopper,” Ivory snapped. She took a slow step towards Cerise, saying, “Please, Cherry. Please come with us. We can be a family again.”
"Maybe we'd still be family if you three hadn't left me!" Cerise yelled, eyes welling up with tears "What was a 6-year-old girl supposed to do!?"
“You really think that we left you!?” Ivory let out a little laugh. “More like our stepdad didn't want you since you were so long. All three of us protested, and guess what? We got beat! For every minute we tried to convince him, we got one more permanent scar!”
Cerise laughed - only once, hardly a laugh at all. But it was there - and Ivory certainly didn’t miss it.
“I've been looking for you” Ivory said. “Me, Amelia, and Cathryn. The moment we were of legal age, we started looking for you!”
“Oh yeah?” Cerise challenged. “Last I checked, Amelia and Cathryn were torn apart and put in separate orphanages, and Mom was forced to become a waitress at a really low-paying bar. He might be doing even worse! Mom might even be dead!”
“What!?” Ivory screamed. I couldn’t see her face under the veil, but tears dripped off the tip of her chin "That never even happened. You're telling me you believe made-up rumors more than me?!"
“Whatever, okay?” Cerise snapped. “This isn’t about us. This is about her.” She jutted her chin towards me.
“Why?” I asked, taking a step back. “If you want to recruit me or something, I already have my group.” I turned to smile at Sparky. “And I’m not leaving ever again.”
“Are you sure?” Monica countered. “You might think differently, now that you know we have your mother.”
Comments (0)
See all