Chapter 5: Council Meeting
Summary: Dakota meets the Council face to face.
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Dakota shoved his hands into his pockets as he walked into the large Medieval looking room.
Long tapestries flowed across the stonewalls and from the ceiling hung a chandelier. Candles burning brightly. In the four corners of the room four very splendid chairs sat. All were made of pure wood that weaved in and out of each other in some way. Above each chair were small wrinkled scrolls with words he could not read from his position in the center of the room. In front of him the Counsel sat at a long stone table. The floor where the table had been placed was raised above the rest of the room as if to make anyone facing them feel quite small and inferior, as Dakota felt now.
But he then looked over to the right of the table and saw a man leaning against the wall.
The room did not have much light, but the little it did have, flickered in his black eyes and off his baldhead. Had he not had an amenable smile about his lips Dakota would have trembled at the very sight of him. But in fact, the smile put him at ease.
"So Mr. Stevens, you have become one of us."
Just a statement.
It lead to nothing, no answer Dakota could think of. The man who addressed him truly made him shutter. No one thing about his appearance or voice could explain it, but he almost sounded like a voice from the grave.
Dakota grinned at his own childishness.
Why should he fear these people?
They were just like him.
At one time or another they had gone through the same thing. They had experienced the fear, the awe, and the surprise.
They understood. He opened his mouth to speak but another counsel member stood.
"Okay before we go any further we have to get on with the rules," the
young man said.
Dakota liked him immediately. His eyes held the young look of a teenager, though he figured if he was on the counsel he had to be pretty old. "So rule number one basically says the same thing as the U.S. government says; you know don't kill anyone or steal anything and you'll be okay. They second rule says that you can't use your powers for world domination or anything. The third rule, says that for safety reasons you can't tell a normal human about us, our society and stuff, and the fourth rule, which I think is an utterly ridiculous-"
"Kristopher!" The man yelled.
"Well anyway, it says, that you can't fall in love with a normal
human. There are lots of other rules, but they don't apply unless you
wanna be apart of the counsel," he finished. "Candice."
A small redhead stood and smiled warmly at Dakota. "You have a few
options here, you can stay and learn to develop your powers more and leave
whenever you feel, or, we can assign to you one of our people who lives near by
to help train you and you can continue to live at you home. You may tell
you parents of your powers but no one else," she said.
Dakota swallowed. Information overload for the second time that
week. He also had Julia lurking in the back of his mind.
She had been there when the power came out.
No!
She had brought the power out.
What could he possibly do? But he had to make another decision at the moment. "Uh, I'd kind of like to live at home, if that's okay…" he said, fearing he sounded presumptuous.
The girl smiled. "Then let me introduce you to your home tutor,
David Austin." She motioned to the bald man in the corner.
He stepped into the light and held out a large hand to Dakota. "He lives relatively close to you so it won't be a problem, for you two to meet."
Dakota suddenly felt extraordinarily relieved as his hand disappeared into
David's. Somehow he made everything all right.
