Chapter Two

Mommy Dearest

Air pressed against my face and I grinned maddeningly. The dizzying rush of pressure and playing wind was intoxicating, but I was growing closer and closer to the end of my fall.

My favorite part.

As I approached the earth- approached being a laid back term for the speed I was accumulating- I spread my arms out and leaned forward. Now I was falling spread-eagled towards the earth at full speed. My winds knew what I was doing and they laughed with me as I plummeted ever downwards. They spun me round and round through their fingers until I was mere feet from the ground. Suddenly they stopped. They held me five feet above dewy grass encompassing me in a swirling embrace.

I laughed at them again. "Put me down! I have to go talk to Seraphina!" They flipped once again then plopped me unceremoniously onto the grass. I landed face down in the dirt. Rolling over I spat a mouthful of plant matter out. I flopped back and just sat there sighing. Thinking about what I just said.

Should I tell Seraphina about Frost? My life- or the small existence I had with Seraphina- was as close to comfortable as someone like me could have. Why did Jack Frost and the other Guardians want to disrupt that? Was this meeting with Frost a chance, or planned? What are the chances that I meet one of two other spirits that the Wind likes? There were so many questions and few answers to match them to. I was beginning to grow frustrated with myself and even more so at Frost and the Guardians.

I huffed in annoyance and stood up. My mind whipped back to the real question that I had to deal with before continuing farther into the grotto.

Should I tell Seraphina about Frost?

Somehow I didn't think she would be as ready to just let the winter spirit go away as easily as I did. She would probably bury him alive just to make sure he didn't tell anyone he saw me. It was a dangerous thing, because I was weak and there were many spirits capable of tricking me into using the humans for something terrible. It was, like most things, for my own protection. So my mother said.

I wouldn't tell Seraphina about Frost. He wouldn't say anything about some spirit he happened to meet on his way home. Why on earth would anyone care enough to ask about that?

While I reassured myself that I had nothing to worry about, I picked myself up off the dirt. Looking down I sighed in defeat; my white dress was covered in grass and dirt stains. Seraphina would not be happy. I scrubbed my hands over the cotton to get off what I could. When I was free of the bigger clumps I started toward the grotto's entrance.

The clearing I had landed in wasn't all that noticeable except for the massive sycamore tree in the northern most point. Its trunk was covered in white and green lichen making mesmerizing patterns on the bark. It was twisted in such a fashion that it made an arch in the darker corner of the clearing. Light filtered through the branches above leaving the softer grass beneath the arch crisscrossed with shadows. A person could see the magic around the tree in the glittering grass under the twisted sycamore. When I stepped through the archway the rest of the forest behind the tree shimmered and the forest and clearing were replaced by a darker forest lit by some unknown blue light. Again I swept my hands over my dress in an attempt to look presentable. I made my way to the next arch, this one made by a hollowed yew, stepping over the contorted roots and stones underfoot.

Seraphina's presence in her grotto had twisted the native nature out of shape because of her emotions. Here she could let go and not concentrate on keeping nature on its own path rather than shifting and weaving in reaction to her thoughts. But in her grotto all of her recent feelings were present in the contortions of the foliage and the happenings of the animals. Judging by the absence of said animals, the groaning trees and thunderous skies she wasn't in a good mood. And I was only seeing the tunnel.

This added even more finality to my decision not to tell her about Jack Frost.

I was coming up to Seraphina's "room"- for lack of a better word. I didn't know what she was so angry about but I should probably just report in and then leave for my own room.

When I passed through the gap at the end of the yew tree tunnel I stepped into a kind of throne room. Seraphina's throne room.

The throne was a simple wooden chair adorned with leaves and flowers like in a fairy tale. The "room" itself was huge clearing surrounded by a thick wall of trees. The usual flow of a wide variety of animals was missing. At the moment the view of the sky was rumbling and threatened a drenching. The floor was simply grass speckled with flowering weeds in some places. One particularly thick patch surrounded Seraphina in her chair. Ivy climbed the back and as she spoke to one of my sisters.

Isis of Changing Skies.

I made a face at the grand title. The oldest of my sisters was not fond of me to say the least. I looked to my feet to wait for Seraphina to acknowledge me still standing in the doorway. They spoke for a few moments more and then Isis turned toward the exit, toward me. I looked up to meet her disdainful gaze.

"Oh look Adaliah's back. How wonderful." Isis jeered, sarcasm dripping from her voice. "How was your day condemning your family? Make any progress with your precious humans today?" Her voice grew a bit trying to intimidate me.

My older sister could be very intimidating. Her looks weren't the cause of that. She was plain except for the exotic tilt of her eyes. Her face was a little too wide, her nose was a little too hooked and narrow, her mouth a little too small and her chin was a little too pointy. However Isis had an appealing Egyptian cast to her skin tone and she was as bossy and bitchy as the day is long. Bitchy worked quite well for her. She was also arrogant and snotty, putting those talents into her wardrobe of Slutty Sky Queen chic.

My sister did not like me one bit. It hurt in the beginning but now it was a minor itch. It might be because I was the youngest and it was just sibling rivalry but I was betting it was because my changes were causing hers to get out of hand.

I had lied to Jack Frost when I told him I changed everything. I don't. I change the worst possible thing. The human race.

Isis here changes the sky or more specifically the weather. This would be the reason she hated me. Global Warming could be a bitch and I have to admit I had been playing it up the tiniest bit just to spite the almighty queen of the skies.

"Go back to hell before I let them destroy the atmosphere completely. How many storms have there been this year? 23 so far right?" My lips covered in a menacing smile as I threatened her.

Isis's lips disappeared as she whitened with anger. She sneered making her look like the witch she was. "Fuck-"

Seraphina interrupted her with a loud clearing of her throat, "It's not really polite to speak like that in front of your mother is it?"

Seraphina was one of the few pretty human-looking spirits.

Like Jack Frost.

I pushed that last thought out of my mind. I could not compare Mother Nature to Jack Frost, a Guardian. Seraphina had long thick black hair that moved around her head and torso as though it were under water. Even now as Seraphina looked at us sternly her hair glided along her arms and brushed down the back of her chair. Her skin was as pale as stark terror, which of course is where she got it from. Her father; Pitch Black. Her eyes were a literally glowing gold. Also from her father. What's not from her father was the trail of gold mist trailing from them, hanging in the air whenever she moved. She wore her usual simply cut black dress.

Seraphina glanced between her daughters and finally spoke to Isis, "Thank you for telling me about what you saw Isis." Isis nodded at the clear dismissal and shot a contemptuous leer my way which worried me. What had Isis seen?

A sinking feeling began in my gut.

"Of course Mother! I never would've kept it from you." Suck up. My sister pranced from the room making me want to throw something at her. My sinking feeling grew.

"Adaliah how was your day?" Seraphina called to me from her chair. She held out her hand and planted a small smile on her face as if expecting me to come farther into the room. I knew better. She did not want me to come into her room any more than the door. She had made that very clear the first time I had reported in. I flinched at the memory of pain and fury. Seraphina was a terrifying force to be reckoned with when angered.

It was for my own safety.

"Okay." I went into full report mode and continued on, "I went to Mexico to handle the drug Cartel wars. It went smoothly and the conflict should be over in a year or so. I stopped by the Mediterranean to check on the conflicts there. I began the conclusion of the problems in Kenya, Chad, and Nigeria. The rest were mostly just babysitting jobs. But I did find the next president of the United States and I will keep track of her." I smiled politely waiting for Seraphina to wave her hand imperiously and send me on my way. She didn't usually listen to my check-ins, just enough to assure herself… of what? That I was being good? Doing my job like a good little spirit? Probably.

I was the only one Seraphina kept track of. Out of six daughters. She said it was because the human race was such a prominent part of the world at the moment that everything they did was integral to the rest of the family.

I think it was because she didn't trust me to keep control of them.

Seraphina didn't wave me away. She raised a brow, "And your journey home?"

My gut sank even lower. I wouldn't be surprised if it was in the center of the earth right about now. "My journey home?" I asked feigning innocent surprise and hoping to high heaven that Seraphina didn't know.

Because she couldn't. I met Jack Frost not even 15 minutes ago! There's no way anyone could have…

Isis.

Damn that nosy, selfish, bitchy, bratty-

"Adaliah." Seraphina's tone had gone cold, warning.

I looked back down to the ground gritting my teeth in a mix of terror and fury. Seraphina sighed.

"Isis told me what has happened Adaliah. Did you really think you could keep it from her? From me?" I looked up once again to see her disappointed eyes trailing gold as she turned away from me and got up. "I am very sad that you think you would have to keep this from me. We are family." Her back was to me as she paced around her room.

"I'm not really family. You didn't make me." I whispered, anguish painting my tone. I wasn't trying to argue with her or be insolent but this fact was rammed down my throat everyday by my sisters. It sort of just came out. It was so incredibly stupid of me.

Suddenly she was right there in front of me her anger apparent in the wild torrent of her hair and in the lightning that cracked overhead. Trees all around us groaned as one and the earth beneath me shook violently. I set my stance wide so as to keep my balance. Seraphina's face was mere inches from my own stunned and terrified expression. Gold eyes bore into my own blue ones.

But as suddenly as her anger had sprouted it diminished. Within seconds most of Nature quieted and Mother Nature had a serene expression plastered over her anger. Only the sky continued to rumble and threaten me. Seraphina had never hurt me. Not without me deserving it. Even then she never hurt me herself.

She put me in time out instead.

At first it was just a night trip to Grandfather's. But now that Pitch was sulking after his defeat by the Guardians the punishment was a night in the hole. I wasn't the only daughter to have been put in "time out" but I had the most stays because I was the most trouble. I was the only one of six to have been in the hole but my sisters had been to Pitch's cavern. All except Isis.

"Of course you are family Adaliah." Seraphina breathed. I jolted back to the present and out of terrifying memories of black horses and sharp teeth. She held her hand so close to my face that I could feel her power sizzling through the millimeters of air. But she didn't' touch me. Never has, never will. "You are very precious to me." I was starting to relax. Hoping against hope that Seraphina had forgotten Iris and her tattletale in the light of my idiotic statement. Seraphina adopted a worried look. "This is why I can't understand why you didn't tell me about what happened on your way home." My gut sank even lower at her words. My fears were confirmed. I knew why the forest had been so twisted when I'd arrived. Isis was in the midst of telling Seraphina about my encounter with Jack Frost.

"Seraphina." I sighed in defeat. "Whatever Isis told you I'm sure-"

She interrupted me with a snap in front of my face. I gritted my teeth to keep from trembling. All while she had paced and turned Nature upside down I was still in a formal stance near the exit; too terrified to move should I be struck by lightning or swallowed by the earth.

"Why didn't you tell me you had a meeting with Jack Frost?" She asked dangerously.

"Because it wasn't any kind of meeting," I defended myself quickly and calmly, because I knew what she was implying. "We had never spoken nor seen each other before that point." I realized I was still staring into her eyes and immediately looked down again. "I made sure he didn't know where I was going or who I was staying with."

Seraphina waved off my reassuring. "Does he know who you are?" She asked with an unfamiliar tone in her voice. I glanced up before I could control myself driven by a curiosity to know what emotion plagued my adoptive mother.

She was desperate.

Should I lie or no? Obviously Isis had not heard our confrontation only seen it. I decided to reassure Seraphina instead of instigating what could turn out to be another time out.

"No."

I could have sworn I heard Seraphina sigh in relief. Another emotion never before witnessed in Mother Nature. Now the smile was back, but I had learned centuries ago not to trust Seraphina's smile as a symptom of her emotions.

"That's a huge relief Adaliah." Seraphina crossed back to her throne and sat down, closing her eyes. "I'm not sure what would happen if the Guardians ever found us. They would no doubt go tell the Man in the Moon and then there would be hell."

My pulse quickened at the mention of the Man in the Moon.

"You may leave Adaliah. But don't ever keep something like this from me again. Do you understand?" Seraphina's voice was deadly.

"Yes mother." I bowed my head once and then left through the arch way still behind me.

"Oh and Adaliah?" Seraphina called to me one last time. I looked back at her and she smiled indulgently. "Get your garments and face cleaned off. You have dirt everywhere."

As I stumbled my way toward my own room I ran over my argument with Seraphina. Why would Man in the Moon finding out be such a horrible thing? She was Mother Nature for goodness sake! Surely if the Man in the Moon found out who I was then the worst thing that could happen is he'd talk to me. Of course that in itself was a very bad thing. Seraphina had told me about the Man in the Moon and how he gave children visions of things they could never enjoy, hopes they could never achieve and wonder they could never touch. He did this through the Guardians. Seraphina had said the Guardians were in on the scheme. The scheme being to delude children until they were old enough to get on with their lives. It really was an awful thing to do. Give them a glimpse of something amazing and then rip it away. Though that was only in my eyes, my family hated them for another reason. A much better reason I'm told constantly. They encouraged the children to grow up and destroy nature. Actually I think my sisters and my mother blamed me for that mostly, but it didn't help that the Guardians protected the children. It meant more humans. Spawning.

But I knew that Seraphina would win if it came down to her and the Man in the Moon. I also knew the problem probably wasn't him it was the Guardians. Should the Man in the Moon call on them they could easily defeat my sisters and I, my mother; maybe. But that wouldn't explain the panic I had seen on Seraphina's face. Maybe I had imagined it. Maybe it was just because she had told me not to trust them, she was angry that I had disobeyed yet again. Mother Nature had many different faces for anger. I was sure I'd simply seen another one.

The entrance to my room was much less grand than my sisters' and Seraphina's. One oak tree with a hole at the roots large enough for me to fit through. I crawled in and came out to my nighttime wonderland. Isis called it laughable. Seraphina called it primitive. And amongst my other sisters the kindest word I got was "dead depressing."

My clearing was not fancy like Isis's or calming like Seraphina's neither was it scarily cheery like Medeina's (my fourth oldest sister). It had nothing to do with the changes I controlled. It was just mine. It was a cavern under the grotto where tree roots dripped from above and sank into the floor like the trees they fed. My room was in no way dark. There were iridescent rocks packed into the soil of the surrounding walls of my place and into the green mossy floor. It was well enough lit that the floor and walls gave off a comforting green glow. I went straight to my moss bed in the corner the farthest from the entrance shedding my clothes as I went.

This day would need a good night's rest before I could think and/or decide anything.

I had to think about the dangers Jack Frost posed against my life here however lousy it could be at times. There was a good chance Frost was a danger because he was a Guardian. And because I'd spoken to him. Because I told him my name. Seraphina warned me away from Guardians. They were vicious, unkind, and prejudice against change because they were charged with keeping children safe and happy. A task that left them to care little about nature and everyone else. And if Frost proved to be a threat like the other Guardians then I would protect my family.

I needed to decide whether or not to kill Jack Frost.

Afterword: Bum Bum Buuuummm! (A four pager btw) And so we see the unfortunate home situation of Adaliah and her wicked step-sisters. :P I was thinking next I should go into Jack's POV. Any feedback on that would be a tremendous help. But I should warn you if I don't get any feedback I'll do it anyway. Please don't hesitate to review! It's my first publishing so I'd really like it if you guys did. And I see I have 2 followers. And so at the end of this lovely chapter I give a shout out to YumeNina and animevriskaserket (I like Teen Titans too but I prefer the Raven/Beast Boy combo :D) Sorry about my creeping…

Au revoir!