Chapter 4 - Interruptions

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Shana sat at the kitchen table, head resting in one hand as she dangled her pendant from the chain in her other hand. As it spun slowly on the chain, the light glinted off the dragon engraving, almost seeming to wink at her. Alida and her daughter had gone home, with a promise to call in the morning, and Shana and Jacen were left to their own devices. She slumped down a bit further in her seat, settling the pendant in the palm of her hand. "So, now what?" she pondered out loud, wondering if maybe this wasn't some odd dream she would wake out of soon. "They're expecting me to be some hero-person, and I don't think I can do that. I certainly don't feel like a hero!" The feeling of oddness insisted that Alida was wrong, and she'd wake up the next morning with nothing more than a headache from an incredibly vivid dream. Yet, something inside her seemed to say differently. The pendant was comfortably warm in her hand, and that did feel right; it felt like an old friend, one she hadn't seen in a while, and seemed to echo that voice inside that believed. She wished she knew which inner voice to listen to.

Jacen stood by the window, cup in hand, staring out at the stars. He turned at the sound of Shana's voice and grinned. He was used to her thinking out loud around him, despite the fact that they could just as easily spoken mind-to-mind. It gave him more opportunities to tease her, as he felt was every older brother's job. "Maybe you should get a cape?" he said, the mischievous glint in his eyes not daunted by the glare she turned and gave him.

"It's not funny, Jace," she replied, sitting up straight in her chair. "That guy almost killed you, and would have killed me if Alida and J'lein hadn't shown up."

He sobered a bit at the thought. "I know, keisha. That does worry me."

"It worries me too. But I'm not a hero; I don't like fighting and I don't see how this 'magic' is supposed to work."

"And you're the one that still reads fairy tales," he teased gently, trying to keep her from getting too worked up.

"Yes, but I know the difference between fantasy and reality. Granted, some of what she termed magic could be related to different abilities, like elementism or telepathy, but I don't see how it all fits together."

"We'll figure it out. We've handled everything else that life has thrown at us. We'll figure this out too."

"I wish I knew how," she sighed, slumping down in her chair. "What if they're wrong, and I can't be this Guardian? That guy would kill us, and maybe those around us, and for what? Some ancient vendetta?"

"I don't think they're wrong, Shana, I really don't." Jacen leaned back against the counter, his expression turning thoughtful. "I can't explain it, really. I mean, yeah, it's weird and it scares me to think you'll end up in a fight and get hurt, maybe killed; I know you're not a good fighter, it's just not what you've been interested in. But I believe them. It feels right, somehow."

Shana looked back over at him as he gazed at the floor, feeling a bit comforted by his thoughts. He wasn't a full telepath; neither of them were and the only people they could speak to mind-to-mind to were each other. But he was a border-empath, able to pick up surface emotions around him as well as generally 'read' people, and his feelings always turned out to be right. She sighed, clenching her fist around the pendant. "I just don't know how I'm going to do this. I'm not a fighter, and I don't know what I'm going to do."

"Well, look at it this way: you've been given the ability to help protect this world. Maybe this guy will come back. Maybe he won't." Jacen shrugged and set his cup down on the counter. "But if he does come back, you can protect us. Isn't that what you've always tried to do anyways?" He grinned at her again; her tendency to try and take care of him occasionally made him feel like the younger sib, but she couldn't seem to help it. Not that he minded all that much. After their parents had died, it just felt right. But she was so serious about it that she tended to lose her humor in serious situations.

Shana stuck her tongue out at him, but before she could formulate a reply, a loud cracking sound interrupted them. Jacen spun around to look out the window; Shana jumped from her seat to join him. 'See anything?' she asked mentally, tense with apprehension.

'No...well, almost no. I keep thinking there's someone out there, someone that feels bad, but I can't find them.'

Shana tensed up at his thoughts. 'Is it that Restuz guy again?' she asked, her heart in her throat at the thought of him coming back.

'No. I remember him. This is someone else.' Suddenly, he grabbed her and pushed her down, narrowly escaping a blast of some kind of fire being thrown through the window. Shana cried out in surprise, and her head exploded with shared pain as Jacen hit his head on the counter going down.

He needs to learn to watch out for that more, she thought absently, as she tried to wake him up. He was simply knocked unconscious, but she wasn't sure she could drag him out of the way. The back door crashing open startled her into raising her head, and she caught a glimpse of a lightly-armored young man, standing framed in the doorway.

"Well, it appears my Master was wrong about you," he said, smiling cruelly. Fire wreathed his hand as he raised it and pointed a finger at them. "Ah, well, there are others around for sport."

Shana tightened her hand on Jacen's arm, her mind racing. 'Ok, power, whatever you do or wherever you are, now would be a good time to show up!'