So everyone is alive for now. Separated. But alive.
Cole was woken up by a serious need to drink some water. His mouth felt like glued together sandpaper. He looked up and the ceiling was distinctly different than that of the air temple. The beams were huge and old. Some of the parts were made of metal and of a stone he didn't recognize. He moved a little and was still in pain. But not as badly as before. He seemed to have bandages on now. So perhaps Bree had been able to call for help and get the rest of the ninja. Closing his eyes and blinking to clear his eyes he listened and thought that was definitely not the case. He could hear next to nothing. The air temple, or any other place all the ninja and elemental masters would have gone would be noisy. He heard a slight rustle by his side. With a jerk he pushed himself into a half seated position. Pushing the blanket? No sleeping bag off himself. It was just Bree with her arms around Alana. The baby was starting to squirm and move around. Cole went to reach over Bree to lay a hand on Alana to settle her. Bree's eyes opened with a snap. One hand flying up and catching Cole by the wrist. Her magic glowing brightly like a fiery purple ball. Coles lava arms glowing bright orange in response.
"Don't do that" Bree said in annoyance. Dropping Coles wrist and sitting up and pushing herself away from him.
"Do what?" Cole asked. Half sitting he was face level with her and could look directly in her eyes. They weren't their usual gray, or even that weird flat white they turned when she had visions. But a calm purple. Cole had a feeling this was their real color. Absentmindedly he reached out to touch her face, his arms lighting up orange at the contact. Bree held still for an instant before she scrambled back. Now the dull purple flaring up to a glowing bright purple.
"And don't do that either" Bree hissed at him.
"I was just looking at your eyes" Cole answered her in annoyance. Sinking back down into the sleeping bags.
"What?" Bree asked in confusion. Before self realization came over her. Using her free hand she passed it in front of her face. The very simple glamour now making her eyes a dull gray. She turned away and busied herself with the baby who was just waking up and rolling around. Alana used her mothers arms to pull herself to a standing position before toppling back on her diapered bottom.
"Why do that?" Cole asked again. Turning to half prop himself up again. Watching Bree get some more food and water out of the bag for Alana.
Bree didn't answer him. She threw a apple and a chunk of bread in his general direction.
Changing the subject Bree said "I need to go down and figure out if there is a way past that magic barrier. I"ll take Alana with me. But Id rather leave you here. You are too heavy for me to carry up and down like that".
"And Id rather you not go anywhere around here without me. We have no idea what we will run into, what if there's danger, what if you need to be protected?" Cole said to her.
"I saved your ass last night. I am more than capable of protecting myself and my daughter" Bree replied haughtily. She nearly laughed out loud at the thought of just exactly what she could do if she learned to do that shape shifting thing a little better.
"Listen here you spoiled princess" Cole said standing up with a whole lot more grace and agility than Bree would have thought he had healed up to as of yet. "You and the baby are going nowhere without me. You are both my family technically and I am not going to just let you walk around this strange place however you please.
"First off, talk to me like that again and Ill slap you into next week, and secondly. I had a baby ALONE in the hell of the frozen never realm. I took care of her, saved Rumi and have managed not to die yet. If I absolutely had to I could just realm jump away. Have you never realized that? I could have just left you on the ground last night." Bree said while packing and unpacking things from her bag.
"What you want an award for not leaving me to die? Really?" Cole snapped back at her.
"No you little shit. I want you to know I can take care of my self, Alana and you without needing to be saved. So me taking a walk back down the mountain to have a look around isn't going to be a problem." Bree said. She was redressing Alana with clothing out of her bag. She absentmindedly grabbed the two coats she had found last night on the bridge. Now that it wasn't an emergency she set the baby down on the sleeping bags and held them up to look at them closely. They seemed somehow familiar to her.
Cole rolled his eyes. Anyone calling him little was amusing. Bree calling him a little shit was both comical and insulting. She could be kind and nice. She could also be a raging witch. Cole grabbed the apple and bread Bree had thrown to him. Contemplating Bree as he hurriedly ripped chunks of food and ate.
"Do you have any more water in that bag?" Cole asked her. Bree nodded and tilted her head in the direction of the bag. Indicating for Cole to get it himself. He shrugged and reached in the bag in the pocket he had seen Bree go into. His arm sank in up to his shoulder. "What the hell Bree?" Cole asked.
"Reach left and its on the table" Bree answered him. Well she answered where in the bag. Not how the bag was bigger on the inside than it appeared.
Cole shrugged, Bree could be as weird and mysterious as she wanted to be. He reached in to grab a bottle of water and then took a couple steps until he was behind Bree. She was still examining two tiny sweatshirts. No coats or little jackets. Two tiny coats. One pink and purple for a little girl. And one that was a dark blue with a some sort of truck printed on it. Cole remembered that coat... his mother had gotten it for him because he loved trucks and other toys that he played with in the dirt outside their home when he was little.
"How in the hell did you get that?!" Cole sputtered. Reaching forward and snagging the blue coat from her. He held in in his hands like it was some sort of treasure.
"Are all masters of earth this rude or is it just all you?" Bree asked him in annoyance. She still held the pink and purple coat in her hand. Both of which were placed on her hips in annoyance.
"Answer me" Cole growled. Stepping forward again. His arms glowing orange and his face and eyes dark with anger.
Cole stood more than a foot taller than Bree. She never said so but it intimidated her. That and Cole's voice was enough for Bree to use her magic and pop out and back in several feet away from him. Alana in her arms and now squealing in displeasure at being picked up when she had been playing nicely.
"I found it on the railing of that little bridge we crossed. I used it to help get you up here. Is it super necessary for you to act like an ass?" Bree snapped at him. Feeling bolder with more space between them.
"Its mine, I mean it was mine. I lost it when I was very young. My mom... had taken me for a walk with... I don't remember. And left it got left behind when..." Cole didn't finish. His face looked less angry and more confused.
"When you threw a giant rock in the water, it splashed and soaked us both. Our moms changed our coats out and they got left behind" Bree finished for him. Switching Alana to her hip to carry her. "I will be back. You can stay here and be miserable and cool off for a bit" Bree said. She was still not pleased with him at all.
"Really and how are you gonna" Cole didn't get to ask her because Bree popped out of the room with a puff. From the sound she popped back in on the other side of the door. Cole was to the door way in an instant and gave it a shove. It glowed a bright purple but didn't move or budge an inch. Hell the door didn't even creak or grown. Oh no she didn't.
"Bree let me out right now!" Cole Roared at her from inside the room.
"Really dude. You wanna be a grouchy jerk and you can stay in there for a bit" Bree said. Her voice fading out as she apparently walked away.
"And if you are so worried what if something gets me while you've got me trapped in here" Cole yelled in exasperation.
There was a long quiet pause. Then the glow around the door abruptly stopped and the door swung open with a groan.
"You can be super scary and creepy you know that." Cole said to Bree as he walked into the hallway with her.
"I can guarantee I am the scariest thing in this castle" Bree said. Laughing out loud at her own joke. Little Alana laughing with her before squirming that she wanted down. Bree slid the baby into a makeshift sling as they walked.
"Can she walk yet?" Cole asked curiously as they headed down the hallway. Stopping to look into rooms on both sides. Most looked like simple bedchambers and storage rooms. Either with little bits of furniture, clothing, random things and mostly lots of dust. Some of the rooms were in better shape than the others. A few needed the roof repaired, or windows. Most were totally empty.
"She is starting to stand up and trying and pull herself along. I worry she should be walking better by now. I carry her or Harumi did every time we would leave home. She does crawl well. Enough that I have to worry about her getting into things" Bree answered.
They kept searching all the upper rooms. It seemed to be set up as hallways and bedchambers mostly. They headed down the steps. The main stair case. This floor had chambers, a main hall and what looked like training rooms.
"These sort of look like the training rooms at the air temple. And at the old monastery" Cole mused.
"They are training rooms. Look at the walls and at the beams. Most of them have the wood covered and reinforced with metal. There is all kinds of scorch marks here too. Magic, Fire, Lightening marks. And look at the floors" Bree said gesturing. " These are drains intricately carved into the stones of the floor. This was not just any kind of training rooms. These were for elemental masters. People like us".
"I wonder why its so abandoned and run down now, it looks like entire family's could live here. Its huge" Cole mused.
They headed down one more level. This one had some storage rooms all empty save dust and cobwebs. And then two massive doors at each end of the hallway. One with a simpler door. More like others in the castle. Cole gave that door a shove and poked his head in.
"Just a kitchen" Cole called. Turning and moving to stand beside Bree.
She stood before the larger more ornate door. Bree gave it a shove with one hand but it didn't move. Cole went to give it a push and it didn't budge.
"Look, its got carvings like the chamber door upstairs" Bree pointed out. Running her hand over the carvings.
"I didn't get a close look at the door. How did you manage to drag me all the way up there anyways? He asked.
Bree shrugged. She didn't exactly want to tell him about the shape shifting. "But look here, I think... does it say cumhacht a usaid agus dul isteach chun eolas a fhail?" Bree asked confused.
"No idea, it all looks like greek to me" Cole answered her. He also reached out to touch the old worn and carved wood.
"Not greek. A very terrible interpretation on my part of Galic. I think it says use power and enter for knowledge. So we... use power to enter? What does that even mean?" Bree asked.
"I think..." Cole didn't finish his sentence. But drew up his elemental power and laid his hand flat on the door. Bree did the same. Hers glowing purple instead of orange. And the door opened with a grown. The air rushing into the room with a hiss that set dust swirling.
"That'll do" she said. "But what's in here?".
Cole pushed the door open and stepped in. More dust swirled out. Causing both the young adults to sneeze.
"Its a Library?" Cole asked in confusion.
With a equally confused look Bree followed Cole in. He was mostly correct. Shelves and shelves of books set into the walls. Huge old tables. They looked like oak. But so aged, dark and covered in dust it was hard to tell. This room had a fireplace like many of the bed chambers did. But larger. With sconces set on the stone of the walls for light. And a huge chandelier. Utilitarian to be sure but still solidly hanging overhead. On the far wall was a massive amount of pictures and inscriptions.
"What the heck is this?" Cole said gesturing to the pictures. "It looks like old drawings of family trees".
"It is. Look here, here's your friends, the water and fire masters. But wait... How in frigging Caladonia is it there?" Bree asked aghast.
"My family's on here too. My grandparents, my mom, my uncle, my cousin. Even Alana is on here, but her symbol is different." Cole stated questioningly. Then tracing his hand over to Bree's. Alana's matched her mothers symbol instead of her fathers.
"Your family tree is over a hundred long, mine is what eleven counting Alana. And yet here you and I are matched up evenly spaced" Bree said gesturing to her and Coles carvings side by side. "And apparently according to this Wu was not lying about being my biological parent either" Bree said grimacing.
"Look Lloyds right over here too" Cole said. "Its putting all of the current generations out evenly. But what are the symbols, and why do some of them have lines under the writings?" he asked.
"My mom and Slate have the lines and they are both dead. Maybe its charting deceased verses alive. But that doesn't make sense. There are several who should be listed as dead then and clearly are not marked like that" Bree said gesturing to a few of the ninjas parents. Cole's mother included.
Cole traced the carving of his mom and sighed. "I don't understand why its here at all or why its updated like it is. No ones been in here in years, even if one of our moms came here when we were tiny then why would Alana be on here. Both our mothers would have died before she was born right?" Cole asked Bree questioningly.
"Yes as far as I know. But I think it might be some really old elemental magic. It might just be updating itself. And well its not exactly well maintained and maybe its not really working right. I mean look, Zane is on here, with a human line of parents and its got one of these matching lines to Pixal..." Bree didn't finish what she was saying.
Bree handed Alana to Cole for the first time and knelt down to bush cobwebs off the carvings. Cole stopped watching what Bree was doing momentarily. Half shocked that she let him touch her daughter, let alone hold her.
"Well hell" Bree said in shock.
"What?" Cole asked her again.
"Zane and Pixal must adopt a child at some point. Because this shows a little boy named Cyrus Julian as their child... With the symbol for ice next to his name".
Bree held still for a second while she knelt down looking at the ancient and dusty carvings. Her eyes flashed to a dull white and back again.
"I think we need to go outside and take a look around" Bree said to Cole.
Cole was learning to take Bree at face value. If her visions came true like Zanes always did they might want to follow their lead. They headed up the stairs to the main level again. And then outside. The outer buildings were in far worse shape then the massive keep. Heading up some more stone steps they reached the upper most battlements.
"Wow" was all Cole could get out.
The battlement showed the whole layout of the fortress. The other battlements, the roof in need of repair. The courtyards. What must have been stables and enormous storage buildings. Further on the exterior walls moving on down to the cliffs that supported everything. A single staircase down. How Bree got him up here unconscious he was going to have to ask. There was a second cliff face with a road, but the drawbridge that connected this part of the fortress to the road had long crumbled to nothing and fell down. The fortress was sitting atop a massively high rock mountain. Down below Cole could see the beautiful forest. And even a meadow and then a pond or maybe a lake. A waterfall came out the cliff side somewhere below it looked like the kitchen should be. That must be what feed the stream they crossed yesterday and what fills the lake.
Bree was beside Cole and looking around, more in shock and less in awestruck wonder. She promptly sat down and put her head between her knees. Cole was still holding Alana and knelled next to her.
"Whats wrong" he asked with a hint of worry and fear to his voice.
"Look at the birds" Bree answered shakily.
"Huh?" was his reply.
Bree stood. And gestured to a flock of geese that had turned direction. Cole apparently didn't get her point and shrugged. Bree huffed. And then with both free hands she drew up a massive ball of magical energy. Cole noticed she did the hand movements in a similar way to Lloyd. He'd have to ask her about that sometime. Once Bree drew up enough power she let it off in the general direction of the flock of geese.
"Wait! your gonna kill a bunch of birds for no reason?!" Cole said surprised.
The ball of elemental magic however never reached the birds. It hit a near invisible force-field. A gigantic shield, like a bubble enclosing the fortress and some of the woods and meadow below. It glowed white for a second and then died back down. Like nothing happened.
"If we can't find a way out of this place we're going to die" Bree said her voice no longer flat but pitching higher at the end.
"We aren't going to die, what are you talking about?" Cole asked her rolling his eyes.
"We can't get out, It looks like nothing else can get in. Good or bad. This is a fortress for protection right? Well the kappa must have triggered some safeguard and locked them out and us in here". Bree told him. Speaking more evenly now.
Cole sat down beside Bree. Alana stretching her arms out and wanting to go back to her mother.
"This fortress is huge, but still its only a few scant square miles of woods, a hay meadow and a tiny lake. And that's it. Its nearly winter. This small amount of land hasn't been farmed in what looks like hundreds of years. We have no supplies, well no supplies past a few weeks of food. We can't eat soap or spare clothing" Bree told Cole. Looking at him to see if he was grasping what she was saying.
"What are you talking about eating soap women" Cole asked her.
"I carry literal years worth of non perishable supplies in that magic bag of mine. But I can't carry years and years worth of perishable food. And if we can't find our way out of here. Or if your ninja family and Harumi can't find us and get us out of here we could easily starve." Bree told him dejectedly.
Cole didn't answer her right away. "They are going to find us. Ninja don't quit" Cole told her.
"I hope so, because unless that forest is magically full of food we are so screwed" Bree said. Burying her face in Alana's fuzzy baby hair. Bree looked like she was barely holding back crying or screaming.
Cole said nothing. Instead he reached over and pulled Bree and Alana into his arms. This time unlike earlier today Bree didn't scowl at him or slap him away but sat quietly. She just bounced the baby in her lap saying nothing.