"I thought I told you guys, I'll have your stuff ready at the door to pick up in the morning! Stop your worrying already!"
Evangeline kept the cellphone pinned between her shoulder and diamond studded ear, hair bunched up in between, as she scrubbed Lydia's face clean with a dampened cloth. Her friend scoffed at the amount of black clots beading into the fabric, though she had to admit, feeling the products wiped clean off of her was incredibly refreshing. It was nice to be in her natural skin again.
The two of them were sitting cross-legged on the tile floor of Evangeline's bathroom. Their dresses had been discarded, and in their place were sets of pajamas. Evangeline wore a pale green gown, while Lydia was adorned in a black shirt and yellow sweatpants that were slightly too big for her. And by slightly too big, they could've easily passed as a blanket rather than an article of clothing. Of course, they were Evangeline's clothes, who's hips were broader and curvier than those of her best friend's. But she could expect no less from the passionate dancer.
"Yes, yes I know. I know that. I'll be sure to keep it safe, I assure you nothing will happen," the redhead sighed as Molly barked insistent demands on the other end of the call, instructing that her makeup kit be guarded and kept in mint condition until it was returned to her the following morning. She and Shannon were both still downtown in Bellbridge, having a minor breakdown since the leader of the pack had left them unattended and without any means of transportation, all to take care of the younger, inexperienced troublemaker that was Lydia.
Lydia could hear the static and music from within the club crackling through the phone's speaker. She cringed, remembering the incident that had brought the two of them home in the first place, before clasping her hands together and looking away shamefully.
After Evangeline cleared away the last of her makeup and snapped the phone shut, she popped her hand softly on Lydia's shoulder and smiled.
"Well, that settles that. You can go ahead and climb into bed if you want. If you need me, I'll be in the kitchen making cocoa."
She then stood and made her way to the door. Lydia's face fell and became obscured by her still stylized hair.
"...Evangeline. Wait."
Her friend turned on cue. "Hm? What's the matter?"
Lydia sighed, curving her torso around so she could look the girl in the face. Her dark eyes drooped, glistening with refracted despair.
"Why are you even my friend?"
All was quiet for a moment before Evangeline leaned her back against the door frame, long legs crossing over one another.
"Because I enjoy being around you. I figured that were obvious."
Lydia shook her head. "I don't see how you can enjoy anything about me, much less having me as your company," she said, her nails digging into the flesh of her palms, "All I've done for you is be this nuisance. I'm like a parasite. Just look at what happened tonight...I ruined everything for you guys. You've given me so much and I've done nothing but take. How could you possibly want anything to do with me?"
Evangeline rolled her eyes. "Lydia, if this is still about tonight, then I'll have you know you're being way too dramatic with your self pity. I dance every day. Dancing is what I live for. But it's always about the atmosphere I'm in that makes it enjoyable. Being spared the chance of having silly ol' boys swing me all around the dirty floor of some ridiculous club doesn't exactly give me much to be grouchy about, now does it? Besides, the music wasn't even that interesting when we were there. I could hardly get into it."
Lydia's brows drawled together. "Huh? So...you're saying you didn't even want to go to the club in the first place?"
Her friend snorted. "More like I'm just looking at the bright side. Listen, I'll answer all your questions when I come back. I need a chocolate fix in a way that should be criminal. Would you like a cup as well? You know, before you go to sleep? It might be soothing."
Lydia shook her head and waved her off before she disappeared from the room altogether. She was left alone to gather her thoughts.
Even though Evangeline was trying to be sincere and lessen her guilt, the humiliation had done little to disperse. No matter what she said, Lydia had still been embarrassed in front of everyone at that club, and nothing was going to change or reverse that. It'd been her first night out, her first attempt at having a proud social life, and it'd completely gone up in smoke. All because of Christy Chamberlin.
She grimaced. No, she couldn't place all the blame on Christy. It wasn't entirely her fault. It was also Josh's. After all, he was the one who kissed her without consent.
She coiled tighter. No, it was her fault for shoving him so harshly.
It always came back to her.
What made it worse was that she cared so much about what other people's opinions were of her. She didn't want to be that type of person. But even when she tried to convince herself that what they said didn't matter, that it was all sticks and stones, it still made her stomach curdle each time she thought about it, along with all the things everyone at school would be saying about her come Monday morning.
All she could do was try and not think about it at all. That was the best option she could come up with at this point in time.
She picked herself up and scurried along to the massive bed in Evangeline's room, not knowing her every move was being watched by a dangerously annoyed Nightmaren.
Reala was so completely lost...near drowning in his own confusion. He didn't understand the mechanics of the situation, even after he'd been left in stillness and silence to put the pieces together on his own. This particular puzzle was simply illogical.
He had been hovering outside the walls of the mansion, lingering nearby the windows where audio had been the most pristine. He would've been happy to just soar right in and make himself at home, until he realized that the two girls were swapping out their clothes.
If there was one weakness Reala had, it was feeling indecent. Not to mention there was something about female anatomy that made him immensely uncomfortable.
But now his eye had caught his target emerging from a small, bright space off to the side of a larger area. She made her way to a mattress placed in the center of the neighboring room and sat atop the white cloak sheathed around it.
Without any further dwelling, his body melted through the wall, and with careful precision, he found himself drawing closer to her.
She appeared different now than she had before. Her features were no longer lined and highlighted, and her exhaustion was even more present with the absence of a cosmetic mask. But it was undoubtedly the same female who's ribbon he had torn out. This was indeed the only person who's matter he could communicate with. He moved in front of her, flexing his yellow fingers in her direction. He teased himself with the opportunity of frightening her with a single jab.
Lydia exhaled heavily and toppled backwards, unknowingly collapsing away from the Nightmaren's reach. Her back plopped against the bed and she breathed deeply through her nose.
Reala's hand fell. He flew upwards and hovered in place above her, glaring down angrily but also with a strange sense of curiosity, one arm folded over the other. Lydia's dead eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, and once again, burned straight through him as if he were made of vapor. A part of the Nightmaren Leader wanted to rip the flesh off her pouty little face just to get her attention, while another part kept his temper at bay.
Why was this girl the only thing he could have direct influence with? He detected no sort of ideya from her, which wasn't too hard to believe given her somber expressions and personality. So what about her was magnetizing his power? And even if she had an ideya, it still wouldn't make any sense. All the other humans endowed with their own separate ideya still couldn't come into contact with him regardless. It was all so mind-boggling.
All he could do now was patiently await the human's slumber. Once she slept, he was going to try something he'd never tried before. Something he thought he would never, ever do, as it went against all his deepest morals.
He was planning to Dualize with this girl. He planned on prying her spirit into his body by the joining of their hands, and using that ability to somehow escape this human-ridden dimension. The only way this process could be made possible, was if she was dreaming. Therefore, she had to be asleep.
Just the thought of him committing something he once deemed so heinous made him reconsider the plan entirely. But he had nothing to lose. So if there was to be any harm in trying, the harm would only happen to her. That was good enough for him.
The Nightmaren straightened and retreated to the other side of the room.
After her thoughts collapsed and made room for lingering fatigue, Lydia readjusted her body and slipped underneath the silken sheets. Her turmoil suddenly seemed less important. Rest meant more to her than the approval of her peers. And here, a soft chariot of dreams was awaiting directly beneath her frail body.
Her heart slowed, and her eyes fastened shut.
Evangeline entered the room again just as her best friend was dosing away. She sipped liquid chocolate from a small porcelain mug, and upon noticing Lydia, an airy laugh escaped through her nose and sent wavelengths into the twirls of steam. The redhead placed the cup on the bed table and sat on the opposite side of the bed. Her arms draped across the ornate headboard as she watched her friend stir a little in order to get more comfortable.
And then she was asleep. Just like that. Her breathing evened out and became slightly heavier, her body rose and fell in steady beats.
Evangeline smirked at the speed of her slumber, slightly grateful that the younger female wasn't too troubled with her own guilt to rob herself of another night of rest. She shifted underneath the blankets herself and reached for a magazine to accompany her drink.
"I guess all those questions will have to wait until morning. Goodnight, Lydia."
Once the lights were dimmed, she took a single swig of cocoa. From beyond the edge of the rim, her silver eyes drifted out towards the window, deep into the starless sky where a dark, silent ambiance of indigo awaited. Her lips lifted in a soft smile.
"Pleasant dreams."
Those two words rang out like bells. That was his cue card. Reala heard the familiar bidding and knew that it meant his target had dropped her defenses. A.k.a., she was asleep; snug as a bug in a rug. He sauntered forth from his spot within the shadows, gaining on the unconscious Lydia.
Yes. Pleasant dreams indeed.
She was facing away from her friend and towards him. Her features were relaxed, hair spilled over one shoulder. Her hand was flopping off the side of the bed with the fingers flicked up...each one like an individual invitation. The temptation was accumulating even faster than before.
As soon as he realized that it was time for the plan to unfold, Reala felt sick to his imaginary stomach. It seemed like only a few moments ago he had been in the city and spotted this girl from far away, not paying her a moment's worth of attention as he thought she was nothing. Useless. And here she was now his only hope. He was really going through with this. This. Of all things. Dualization.
It only seemed to make sense though. Her dreams were the only thing he could cling to; they might be his last emergency exit.
He didn't pay any attention to Evangeline, who sat propped against a mountain of pillows with eyes averted downwards to a bunch of glossy pages. She couldn't see him, or hear how his breathing pattern was climbing, so he wasn't too fixated on the possibility of being caught. Besides, what could she do anyway? If she alerted the sleeping human that there was a monster about to nab her, he'd just knock her out cold before she could even open her eyes. Then she'd have to dream. Desperate times called for desperate measures.
He moved a hand forward, poking one of Lydia's curled up fingers with a single talon.
To his amazement, he felt it. The bone, the bounce of her skin, the scrawny little digit even moved as if it had been manipulated by some unseen force. His icy eyes opened wider.
This truly was the real deal.
With only a little hesitation, the Nightmaren greedily smashed his palm into hers, wincing once the contact had been made official.
And in an instant, the world around him began to darken and spiral.
"Ah."
The crimson shard planted at the center of NiGHTS' chest flickered with a quick nip of light, and sent a strong impulse rocking throughout his entire body. The Nightmaren clutched it with both of his bare hands. His face dropped quizzically and then hardened into a scowl. Owl had noticed the moment of alien brightness from afar and quickly flew over to inspect.
"What seems to be the problem? Has something happened to your crystal?"
NiGHTS' mind became distant for a moment. He cupped the jewel in his palms and watched the scarlet prisms of light mold into the lines of his skin. "I don't know. It hasn't done anything like that in quite some time."
Owl's head tipped ever so slightly in awe. "I see, so what is the usual reason it reacts in such a way?"
The jester tapped the shard twice with the tip of his finger, and each time a red glow flashed in response, like an eye blinking. He felt an overwhelming sensation flickering at the edge of his senses. It was distant, but still unnerving.
"It's supposed to be a sign, Owl. A sixth sense. It means that something is happening."
Owl furrowed his thick brow. "Something is happening, you say. Well that doesn't exactly narrow it down, now does it?"
NiGHTS' eyes moved like deep, dark sapphires, lolling over in the direction of Nightmare where he assumed whatever it was that was troubling his ideya crystal had occurred.
"No. Something's happening...something that shouldn't be."
Dualization. This is Dualization.
Reala wasn't entirely sure how Dualizing worked. He knew Master Wizeman had programmed the ability into his and NiGHTS' DNA, but the creator never really elaborated on the process or the purpose it served, as he never planned for them to use it. Crossing spirits with young Dreamers was an unneeded practice, and the ruler of Nightmare knew this all too well. That was why Reala never tried it himself, nor had he ever had a reason to.
Knowing that NiGHTS did it quite frequently to partake in his usual mischievous adventures didn't do much to help anything either. The very idea of having his soul meld with that of a human's made him nauseous.
But if there was anything he'd learned from watching NiGHTS do it time and time again, it was that First-Level Nightmaren tended to get a new enforcement of power when their soul was accompanied by that of a Visitor's.
His mind sharpened in frustration.
Though shouldn't an ideya be required for this to happen correctly?
All of his questions suddenly shattered like fine glass. He noticed that instead of the human's soul closing in on him like it was supposed to, it was he, his very entity, that was merging into hers.
Her sleeping form was stationary, while a strange force roped him in towards her until a light blinded him completely, and his limited senses were numbed.
Reala didn't struggle. He focused on a feeling pricking at his chest, and the sensation of warmth and light swallowed him whole.
And then, after he'd been totally enveloped, he disappeared.
The human's hand lay limply where it had been before.
Lydia was wandering aimlessly through her nightmare's playing field. There was nothing but endless black in front of and behind her, and she was anticipating the appearance of something wild and unsettling, something that would give her the scare of her life. She'd lost awareness of the fact that she was dreaming. All she knew was that she was afraid, and her hands were becoming wet with perspiration.
As a teenager, the Archibold girl had many extrusive fears, such as darkness, loud screaming and sudden, grotesque faces. Silence only fueled these terrors as well, and she was now blanketed by it. She knew why these nightmares occurred, just as they had many years ago when she was a child. They stemmed from deep within the dusted folds of her cerebrum. These visions reflected her emotions of anger, fear, and turmoil, and they morphed together to create horrifying imagery that turned what was once her sanctuary from reality into a graveyard where happiness and comfort went to die.
She didn't know why the nightmares had returned, as no terrible thing had happened like it had in the first instance, but she wished they would vanish as soon as possible.
Then, just as this wish processed in her mind, a jagged white line sliced through the space in front of her. Beams shot out at every angle and pierced the shadowy abyss she'd been pacing through like ghostly spears.
Lydia stopped dead in her tracks, her worries coming to a halt. She leaned forward, balancing on the front pads of her feet and examined the split with raised brows. She found herself rhythmically tapping the edge of her lip.
This crack...what was it exactly? Was it on a wall? Had something been broken and this was the visual it presented? Though, there didn't seem to be an object before her. It was as though it was frozen in mid air.
And now, whatever had caused the matter to break apart, was now bursting through the thin opening and blasting away chunks of leftover fabric.
Light drilled through the area where Lydia stood, and she held her arms up to shield its impact on her pupils. She instinctively slammed her eyelids shut.
Something touched her hand.
One eye peaked open.
She couldn't see it for herself, but she felt this something grab her hand rather roughly, and give a pull.
Lydia was perplexed. She didn't struggle, or voice any sort of protest. She allowed herself to be guided, willingly, because something about this light gave her more swelling comfort than the infinite darkness had.
Next thing the girl knew, she was being tugged into the bright opening. She couldn't see what was holding her, but it felt like another hand. Warm, slick, yet edged like tough plastic. It had fingers that blistered their strength down through the hollows of her limp knuckles. For a moment, she considered resisting its tug, but all it took was for this thought to drift and the force seemed to yank harder.
The opening gobbled her up before closing itself behind her.
And then she was falling. Weightless, endless, down a cascade of blue with sparks zipping about like drunken fireflies.
Lydia fought to catch her breath.
The force that had once had an iron grip on her had lifted away, allowing her arms to spread so that she fell like a wingless angel.
Despite the velocity at which she descended, there was no lurching feeling that troubled the pits of her stomach. The rush of air against her skin and hair was nothing short of inviting. It felt as though it was pulling her closer into its embrace.
Lydia would've been frightened if she weren't so intrigued. There was no guarantee that what was happening to her meant security, but it sure was nice to look at.
What is this place?...Was the only thought tipping along her imagination.
She got her answer all too soon, when her body moved so that it swayed upright, and her feet rooted onto a patch of shadowy grass. The bristles crunched underneath her weight and scraped the rims of her ankles. All the small lights lifted away and retreated back into the sky, where a map of constellations splayed out in colors not found on a human spectrum, each one bright and iridescent.
Lydia's eyes seemed to lose their haze and she suddenly realized the extent of what was happening. Her calm demeanor fell flat along with the new weight of gravity.
Her pajamas had been replaced by the outfit she'd worn the previous morning. Her hair was no sleek and shiny like a new penny, and had now returned to its usual messiness. She spun around in confusion, eyeing her surroundings and desperately trying to mumble a question to someone, anyone. She might have been successful had her mouth not been trembling so violently.
She was in the midst of a forest full of towering trees and infinite paths of shrubbery, standing near a stone path that led towards a gate embroidered by silver trinkets. This place looked completely foreign, and was in the middle of nowhere. She had no idea how she had happened upon a setting such as this one.
Her first instinct was to scream.
Her second was to run away.
And yet somehow, her body obeyed the third instinct, which was to move forward and see what was in store for her.
Reala grabbed his head and emitted a groan so loud that it reverberated from tree trunk to tree trunk. He took a few deep breaths, finding it in him to maintain a small inkling of serenity despite the teleportation having had such an unapologetic effect on his energy.
Something about jumping dimensions tired him and gave him stings of anxiety. But the intensity eventually ceased. His eyes screwed out in front of him and darted side to side. He noted his surroundings. The forest, the sky, the slightly distant Dream Gate, and almost exploded in triumphant laughter.
It worked...it actually worked! The Dualization was successful! It brought me home! I'm actually back!
The smarter part of him would've questioned how a thing like this was even possible. He'd touched hands with a sleeping human, one with no possession of ideya, and it had somehow brought him to his own dimension.
But that was just it. It had happened so simply, so quickly, so much more efficiently than his previous travel to the human world, that he didn't even bother pondering minute details.
His happiness was then thrown off course when he noticed the girl he'd Dualized with wandering alone through the entrance of the Dream Gate. Her clothes were different, her hair much more large and sloppy. She had a fixated look in her eyes and her hands were coiled tightly to her chest as if she were incredibly uncertain and maybe even a little scared.
The Nightmaren glared at her and smirked.
Though he almost went to confront her and bitterly thank her for her unintentional services, he found it much easier to watch from afar and wait for her to draw out NiGHTS. The stupid jester surely couldn't resist interaction with a curious Visitor, much less one that was older than the usual child and had not a single ideya. There was no way he could pass that up.
NiGHTS was his target from the very beginning. Now that he'd made it home, he was prepared to make this return of his one that none of them would soon forget.
Though that may have been slightly pointless. After all, NiGHTS couldn't have a memory if he was dead.
Lydia's heartbeat was fluctuating with every step she took. After she found herself moving through the archway and watching it from over her shoulder as she passed, she almost considered running back to the spot where she'd come from where she could collapse into a fetal position and coo like an abandoned newborn.
This place...it seems relatively harmless, and is actually very beautiful...but...but what the bloody hell is it?!
Something caused her heart to lurch. Her body turned and she began walking in reverse, irises shooting out across the pathway. Paranoia was steadily drumming its way into her head. There was a strange feeling bubbling in her chest. She felt like she was being...watched...but her eyes found nothing in her line of sight that suggested danger.
Her senses were still hanging on edge. She hadn't been paying attention, and as a result her hips softly collided with the stone architecture of the Night Dimension's decorative spring.
The girl yelped and spun around, grabbing onto her balance before she managed to trip and actually slip into the basin of pooling water. Instead she took several steps backward and her hands rang together nervously.
My...That was close...I almost fell in.
"My. That was close, you almost fell in!"
The beats of her pulse became heavier like mallets in her veins. She looked up quickly towards the sky, and was met by a pair of beady eyes, both of which sunk deeply into the face of a rather fat Owl.
Lydia's face froze dead on the spot; her eyes were wide as saucers. This was definitely new, and unusual. Let's not forget impossible. Not only was this bird wearing spectacles and a coat...but did he actually...just-
"Good heavens, are you alright? You look as though you've seen a ghost-"
"Aaahhhh!"
Both of them moved away from the other after having been startled; Lydia, by the fact that this peculiar Owl was now talking to her with an actual voice, and Owl, because this spastic Visitor had just screamed in his face.
Lydia began to hyperventilate, much to Owl's confused horror.
"Oh my, what are you doing? Take it easy, dear! And please do not scream!"
Lydia stepped away once more, her chest heaving. Her mouth fell agape as she pointed a quivering finger at the old bird in disbelief. She tried to form a sentence, but nothing came out. Instead, she felt as though her oxygen was draining. She was starting to feel faint.
"P-Please, Miss, do not panic. There's simply no need," the bird said slowly, extending a flapping wing toward her carefully. He had never dealt with someone so absolutely terrified of him. Not even small children gave him that kind of reaction. Did he really look that unsettling? He was just a big bird.
But Lydia couldn't process any of his reassurance. She kept stepping away, every opening in her face flared, with the bones in her arm rattling.
And then she felt a short poke poke on her left shoulder.
The girl was almost too scared to turn around. Too scared to find something just as jarring, if not more jarring than an animal that wore clothes and could speak. Clearly this place was full of oddities. She wasn't prepared for another, and so soon too.
But after gathering her courage, she found it in her to pan around and see what had touched her.
She found NiGHTS gawking back at her.
He was a floating jester, violet colored, unnaturally thin with large, sharpened ankles, had massive eyes with smeared pupils and a color that could sustain galaxies.
Another scream streaked through the night and littered the forest with its echoes.
NiGHTS eyes slipped to and fro all over the outer regions of this wildly frightened Visitor. She had unruly, caramel colored hair, brown eyes almost dark enough to be black, and a lithe, pale frame that was now shaking like it'd been electrified.
"Hey, take it easy there. I can see that you're scared, but we won't hurt you," he said, reaching out towards her. Fear wasn't exactly an uncommon thing for new Visitors. And he could tell she was definitely new here. He assumed she was only upset about being some place she didn't quite recognize.
"Everything will be okay. Tell me, what would your name b-..ouch!"
Lydia had swatted his long, golden fingers away.
"Get back, you monster!" she shouted, fury staining her voice. For a moment she looked around her for a large stick, or rock even, that she could use to defend herself. But the ground was bare. All that touched it were her two feet, as these mysterious creatures were airborne and hovered a few inches off the dirt. "I want to know where I am, and how I got here!"
NiGHTS glanced over at Owl, who just shrugged.
The jester was more than happy to answer, as it meant less of her obnoxious outbursts. "Why, you've stepped into the World of Dreams. This is the Night Dimension. It's sort of a crosshatching path that leads to a bigger arena where your personal Nightopia awaits."
"Personal...N-Nightopia?" the human stammered hopelessly. NiGHTS only sighed.
"Yes. Nightopia. I'm sure you're not familiar with that either but it's very much a real thing. Every human has access to Nightopia at some point in their lives, though some of them lose their way. So we're here to make your experience grand!"
A long silence dragged before the human exploded yet a second time.
"Oh come now, you expect me to believe that kind of malarkey?!" she cried out, spinning in circles, anxiously eyeing the area around her. "I don't know any of this! It doesn't make sense! I must have lost my mind!"
"Or your consciousness..." Owl pressed, landing near the fountain. A gentle mist settled into the feathers on his back.
"You're dreaming, love. That's why all of this seems illogical from a human's point of view. It may seem unreal, and unorthodox, but it exists! It correlates with your world just the same. One cannot exist without the other. You've only never heard of it because people who visit typically forget the experience after they awaken. And, most of them are young children who dismiss the memories as a product of their imagination once they're older. Though, you look well above the age that we're used to. So...who knows what will happen after you've left."
Lydia faced him once again, carefully absorbing everything he'd said. She didn't like that he referred to her as a human, as if she were the only human there. Clearly, an Owl and a flying purple clown with impossibly thin arms and legs couldn't have had much relation to her race, and she was obviously the only human present. But such a statement made her feel even more alone.
Also...she was asleep, apparently. That somehow calmed her nerves. She didn't dwell on the fact that this all felt way more lucid and real compared to her regular dreams, including the nightmares. Dawdling would just make her scared again.
NiGHTS noticed her lengthening vulnerability. He made sure not to near her, and instead crossed his arms and tilted his head. A childish glint played in his deep blue eyes.
"I hope you'll come to accept us as your friends. We don't wish to frighten you or make you uncomfortable. And by the way, my name is NiGHTS. This is my home. I live here with the elder over there," he said, jutting a finger towards Owl. "He just goes by Owl. Pretty self-explanatory."
Lydia did feel more safe now that they'd explained the situation and introduced themselves, but she still wasn't entirely convinced that none of this was dangerous. She also couldn't shake the feeling that something was analyzing her every move. She wrapped her arms around herself, peering up towards the strange, ruby-like crystal embedded in NiGHTS torso.
"Lydia..." she whispered half-heartedly, almost hating the sound of her own name. "I'm Lydia."
"Huh..." NiGHTS said, rubbing his chin. "I see. Well...it's nice to meet you, Lydia! I mean, er, sort of, if you don't count all the hysterics and what have you. Now, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you? Or better yet, how come your hands don't have any sort of glow?"
Lydia's eyes narrowed. "Er...P-Pardon?"
"Yeah. I figured that wouldn't make sense. What I mean is," the jester began, flicking his hand towards her before she flinched away nervously. "Your palms should be glowing either red, yellow, green, blue, or white. That's the general requirement for reaching this Dimension; to carry one if not multiple variants of those energies. It's not abnormal. Not here, at least."
This was becoming more absurd by the second. Lydia blinked several times before holding her hands up and turning them over.
"I assure you I have no idea what you mean," she said quietly. "Also...I'm f-fifteen."
She heard an audible gasp escape the Owl from behind.
NiGHTS glanced at her, suddenly intrigued. "Fifteen? That's very strange. Not only does it seem as though you have no ideya, but...you're not even a child! You're a teenager!"
Lydia's brow lifted. "What are you getting at?"
"To come here without ideya is unheard of. To come here without ideya and be past the age of twelve is just impossi-"
But he didn't get a chance to finish, because a vengeful Reala pelted him from the side.
(A/N): Pant. pant. pant. pant. short. skirt. mini. skirt. buttoned. up. T-shirt. I've been neglecting writing for so long and now I'm unbelievably rusty. I'd explain what's been going on but I don't have the energy to make excuses. It's 5 AM and I have class in a few hours. The one story I have that gets a lot of love is the one I'm struggling to write, as it would be the final chapter, (been at it for like two years, good gosh) and I'm taking my frustrations out on all the lesser-loved fanfictions of mine. Review if you like! Or don't, I'll just stab myself in the head with a fork or something.
Thanks for reading!