Anita shot up to try and do some crowd control. "Haha! So who all wants another drink?" The rest of the bar went back to their previous activity, with a few taking her up on the offer. The males in question, well one I should say, were still staring at me. The pale blonde from earlier rolled his eyes obviously recognizing me.
Deciding it best to ignore him, I instead stayed zoned in on the wild haired guy he was with as I made my way over. "Hi." I said, trying not to seem weird.
'Mathias' smiled and let out the same chuckle I remember. "Hi." It was even the same smile. "You don't mind me asking how you know my name, do you?" He asked with a voice, which like the rest of him, had not changed.
"So it is you." I replied dumbly and out of breath. His robot buddy looked at me confused. "I don't expect you to remember me, but I was the little girl you sat in your lap when you went to read to a camp group years ago."
The smile faded from his face and his friend's eyes seem to widen. "How do you remember that?" Mathias asked shocked. I just shook my head in response. "Most people wouldn't." He voice began to grow stern. "What's your name?" His face started to take on the same blank expression as his companion.
I was fiddling with a strand of stray hair as my nerves started to get the best of me. "Sylvia." I answered quietly.
Turning back to the robot, Mathias said something in Norwegian. I'll admit I never had much interest in learning any of the other Scandinavian languages. The blonde from earlier turned to me and began saying stuff that I couldn't understand and the next thing I knew, everything went black.
"You kidnapped her?!" A panicked voice cut through the dark. "Do you have any idea how bad this could be? I mean, does she have family that will be looking for her? What about a job?" It took me a second to realize he was talking about me.
"Relax Tino." The same monotone voice from this afternoon said. "She was at her work when we got her and we told her co-worker that he fainted. Mathias also covered by saying he was a friend of hers and that's he'd make sure she was taken care of." I could hear the shuffling of nervous feet.
"But Lukas, what if the co-worker calls her family to check on her?"
A booming laugh erupted through the room. "No chance. She was way to focused on Lukas to really care about the story we were telling her." Mathias answered, sounding way too amused.
"Shut up Dane." Lukas coldly replied. "We have to figure out what we're going to do with her."
At this point I decided to take in upon myself to let my consciousness be known. "What do you mean 'do with her'?" I asked slowly sitting up. Man, did I have a killer headache. "Where am I and who are you people?" I threw out most of the questions floating around in my head.
"Oh! You're awake!" A short blonde with dark lavender eye bounced over to me. "You're actually in Kobenhavns Byret and I'm Tino." He stuck his hand out for me to shake. Still feeling groggy, I just looked at him like he was crazy. The smile never faded from his face. "Lukas cast a spell on you so you wouldn't cause a big scene and he and Mathias could bring you here." I looked over at Lukas to shoot him a glare, which he ignored.
"Why?" I asked so much more confused. Spell? Scene? Kobenhavns Byret!? "What the Hell is this all about?" The frustration was starting to get to me.
Mathias bit his lip and walked over to sit next to me. "Sylvia. You weren't supposed to remember me this clearly after you met me. Most people tend to get a blurred memory involving me or Lukas or even Tino." I furrowed my eyebrows and he continued. "We're not normal people and we were never supposed to meet again." My heart started to hurt at that.
I ended up covering the pain with a sarcastic remark. "So what? You guys are aliens or something? So you have like flying saucers and anal probes?" That last remark earned a laugh from Mathias and Tino. Lukas on the other hand just scoffed. It was this moment that I decided that we would never be friends. Kind of glad I was wrong….Kind of.
"No, but I might ask Alfred about the anal probe stuff." Mathias joked back.
"Stop beating round the bush Mathias." Lukas interrupted.
"Maybe we should wait for your brother and Sve to get here before me explain anything else to her." Tino suggested.
"I'm with Tino on this one. Ber might be able to think of a way to explain everything gently." Mathias backed up Tino's idea as I sat back, listening to them talk about me like I wasn't there.
Lukas let out a sigh and waved them off as he headed out of the room. "Can I ask who his brother, Ber, and Sve are?" I inserted, breaking the tension.
Tino and Mathias looked at me blankly for a second before they both burst out laughing. "I'm sorry, but Ber and Sve are the same person. We're just so use to using those names and everyone knowing what we mean. His full name is Berwald and…" Tino was cut off my Mathias.
"And Tino here is his wife." He snickered, as Tino's face grew red.
"How many times to I have to say it!" Tino's voice was a lot louder and scarier than I thought his small, well for a male, frame could produce. "I'm not a woman, so I can't be anyone's wife!"
Mathias just kept laughing at how flustered Tino was becoming. "Whatever man. As far as anyone in concerned, you're Ber's wife." I was confused about the whole thing, but I couldn't help but smile at their antics, especially when Tino tried to smother Mathias with a nearby pillow. I was so focused on the childish scene in front of me, I failed to notice Lukas and two other men join us.
"You were left alone for ten minutes and you already have Tino trying to kill you?" Lukas' voice caused me to jump, whipping my, still cloudy, head in their direction.
Tino also seemed surprised, since he got off Mathias, who was still laughing, and hurried over to the REALLY tall blonde with glasses and a stern glare. Man, I was beginning to think that it was 'everybody hate Sylvia day' at this point. That was till I looked to the teen that was on the other side of Lukas. His white hair didn't help his pale complexion, but it did show off the light freckles sprinkled across his cheeks. The teen looked at me with somewhat curiosity as a puffin perched itself on his head. Wait! Puffin!
"Hey!" Mathias boomed next. "Glad you two could finally make it. What took you so long?" He bounced up and wrapped his arms around the white haired boy. "It's been too long Emil!" The teen, Emil, looked incredibly uncomfortable with the contact and his face was bright red.
"Release." Lukas growled through gritted teeth as if he was scolding a puppy.
"Relax. It's not like I'm hurting him or anything, even if he does act like it." Mathias replied, patting Emil roughly on the back.
Lukas just rolled his eyes as he pulled his brother away from his friend(?). "Now that everyone is here, we can discuses what we're going to do about this situation." He motioned for everyone to find a seat. Mathias opted to take the spot next to me while Emil, Lukas, and Tino sat on the couch across from us, and Berwald sat in the armchair between them.
Tino opened the conversation. "I don't think it's such a big deal. It's only one person and it's not like she knows the whole truth." I couldn't help but feel insulted.
"Yes, but what if she starts asking questions? We can't have that to worry about." Lukas countered, looking to Berwald for back up.
"Hmmm." He leaned his big frame back. "Could cause trouble." His thick Swedish accent coming through.
Emil just clicked his tongue and looked off to the side. It was obvious he didn't really want to me here.
Mathias seemed to have more to say. "Come on guys. There has to be a reason she can remember me so clearly and personally I want to get to the bottom of it. Besides, she doesn't seem like she could cause too much trouble." He defended me and I couldn't help but feel excited about it, even though I was still mad about the whole ignoring me.
"Mathias, this is serious. We can't take any of it lightly." Lukas glared at him, as if giving him a silent warning.
"I'm right here!" I finally blurted out, not able to keep quiet anymore. "And I think I deserve some explanation as to why I was kidnapped." Everyone grew silent and focused their gaze on me.
To my surprise, Emil was the one who spoke up. "She's right. If you're going to do something about her anyways, you might as well let her know the whole truth." He shifted his face away from everyone to hide his embarrassment.
The rest of the group was mulling it over. Berwald, Tino, and Mathias agreed with Emil's idea, so now it was down to Lukas' decision. He and I just stared at each other in a challenging way. Lukas gave in with a sigh. "Fine, but I think this should fall on Mathias." With that said, he got up and headed out the door. I have some paperwork to take care of. See you four at Mathias' later." Were the last remarks from the Norwegian.
Mathias tapped me on the shoulder. "Come on. There are some things that we have to talk about." I nodded, getting up and followed the blonde towards the building exit. When we got on to the street, Mathias led me down a less crowded one. "How are you feeling?" He asked trying to start a less tense conversation.
"No offence, but I'd rather just get this over with so I can go back to my normal life." I snapped, keeping my eyes on the ground. I always hated the feeling of being weak and just being around those five brought it up. It made me feel like there was something important about them.
"Sorry." Mathias said sounding dejected. "Where do you want me to start?" He asked, letting me have some control over the situation.
"Why do you look the exact same?" I questioned, stopping my feet and looking him dead in his light blue eyes.
Running a hand through his already messy hair, he let out a soft sigh. "Alright. You have to hear me out, even if you don't believe me at first." I raised and eyebrow. "I'm the personification of the country of Denmark and the other four you met were of the other Nordic countries." Mathias finished, making sure that I saw that he was telling the truth.
All I could do was look at him in shock. Was he crazy? There is no way that this was possible, right? But then again, he hasn't aged since I last saw him and his friends did all have those accents. It could just be a coincidence. "What?" I breathed out. "How?" I think my brain shut down.
"It's a great secret that has to be kept. That's why Lukas was so hostel to you. We can't have outside people know about it, because we don't know how our people will take it. Usually when we meet normal citizens, their memory tends to blur and they only have a small sense of the past." Mathias stopped to let me get a hold of what he was saying. "But you. You were able to not only remember my face, but also my name. Lukas just wants to fix this and move on and I don't blame him." I was waiting for him to do one of those Men in Black things and erase my memory, but that never came. "I, on the other hand, want to find out why you're different." The look in his eyes made me believe it. "I'm going to take you home, but I'd like to be able to spend a day with you before I talk to them about what we're going to do. Would you be okay with that?"
I gave a slight nod. "Come on." I said grabbing his arm and taking him my usual way to my sister's place. The walk there seemed to take longer than usual, due to the forced silence and when we finally got there, Mathias gave me a quick hug. I couldn't help but lean in to the somewhat familiar warmth before he released me and walked off. Dragging myself to the front door, I was greeted by my sister's worried face and an iron embrace.
"Sylvia! Thank God you're back and safe! What happened last night? Where did you stay and with who? Who was that guy you were hugging?" The onslaught of questions, mixed with the new information I was given was just too much for me to handle.
"Can I tell you later? I'm still not feeling well." Nadine gave me a sympathetic nod and let me slink off to my room, where I spent the rest of the day reviewing everything.
A/N: Thought I'd make another chapter in my free time. :) Hope you all like it.
Don't Insult Oliver's Cupcakes: Thanks for the review! It made my day! :)