Disclaimer - Characters apart from Ethan and Aelora belong to the wonderful Marianne Curley. Flora is, in fact, a real historical person:D
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Chapter Three
Ethan
I drop into the citadel and land squarely on my feet. A grin on my face I take in the room around me. It's a large, bright room with statue's of every size dotted about the place, the walls coloured in varying shades of pastel. The nearest statue, a bust of the goddess Athena, makes me stop and look. Why have I landed here? Jimmy's always saying that there's a reason for everything.
A sound behind me makes me turn. A little way back a figure begins to form beside the Greek god Poseidon, finally materialising in Aelora. She looks around for a second, clearly trying to figure out the allocation of the room, before spotting me. Her face breaks into a wide smile and she rushes forwards, pulling me into a tight hug.
'Ethan!' She pulls back and searches my face, probably to make sure that I wasn't suffering from neglect. 'Eloise said you were staying with Jimmy, how's it going?'
I open my mouth to answer but before I can get a word out a cough to our right announces the arrival of a third person. Beside me Aelora moves forward and embraces the newcomer.
'How are you Uncle Arkarian? I haven't seen you in a while.'
'I've been well, thank you Aelora.' Arkarian's purple eyes, so like my own, seek me out, softening at the sight of me. As I reach the pair he pulls me close into something resembling a bear hug. 'How are you son?'
Patting him on the back I smile. Because of my dad's heavy, not to mention important, workload there is often large absences between us seeing each other.
'Well. Jimmy's taking good care of me.'
Dad looks at me for a moment before letting me go and stepping back, apparently satisfied that I'm telling the truth. Sometimes its rather annoying your parents being so over protective, but then I guess they mean well.
'Well, it's not good to linger so I'll get straight to the point. You two are going back to 1872, to protect a young girl named Flora. We suspect that there may be an attempt on her life.'
Aelora nods and looks eager to begin. I try to place the girl's name in my memory of historical events and come up a blank. Surprising since History is, literally, my life.
'What's so special about this Flora?' I ask.
Dad hesitates before answering me and chooses his words carefully. 'Well not much notable happens in her own lifetime, but her son grows up to write some of the most well known books in the twentieth century, inspiring millions.'
Aelora and I nod and after a few more instructions (mainly guidelines as to what not to do) we leave my dad and headed up a short flight of stairs that disappear after us, straight away. We find ourselves in a long room, filled on either side with clothes of all varieties. Aelora begins her walk first and ends up dressed in a rich red Victorian dress with a matching outer coat. Her hair has changed, both in colour and length and she now finds her self with shoulder length blonde, curly hair. A few minutes later I find myself dressed in a posh, black suit, typically Victorian style. My hair now shorter and deepest black.
Aelora smiles. 'That look suits you Cousin.'
I just roll my eyes and lead the way to the adjoining room where we are sprinkled with dust. Shaking my head to get rid of the excess. I give Aelora a small bow.
'Mrs Anna Hurst.'
She returns the bow with a curtsey. 'Mr Edward Hurst.'
I find it quite amusing that we are to be playing a married couple, distantly related to the child Flora. Aeloa doesn't look that bad either, with her hair all done like that, she should have gone blonde sooner.
'Ew! Come on! We're cousins Ethan!' Aelora hits my shoulder, jolting me back to the present with the twinge of embarrassment. Obviously I had forgotten to screen that last thought from her. But she's smiling letting me know she forgives me.
'Come, lets go and get this over with!'
We move upwards several flights of stairs, through the still under-construction citadel. After the battle of the Guard against Lathenia's Order the citadel had been destroyed. It was only after Matt had become leader of the Tribunal that they had begun to rebuild the vast palace. It was now, I am told, better than it was before. Reaching a door way, we peer through, before taking a deep breath and leaping into nineteenth century Ireland.
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Me and Aelora, or Anna as I have to call her for the time being, have been in this country for more than a week. Thanks to our alibi we have been accepted by Flora's family and are actually staying with them as guest. Flora is a brilliant child. For her age she's really witty and knows more than she's letting on. She's especially taken a liking to Aelora, which is good.
Our first night here was kind of embarrassing, although being around Aelora (who delights in embrassing me) I should have guessed. As we're under the pretence of man and wife we've been given one room, with one bed. Luckily its not an issue. But after 6 nights of sleeping on a couch, I'm beginning to wish that the order would make their move already.
As we walk down a crowded street, Flora holding Aelora's hand and chatting happily, I can't help but think that its all a bit strange somehow. The order haven't given the guard, much trouble since the death of Lathenia, but someone is opening the portals to the past, and from what Eloise tells me, that requires nothing less than immortal like powers.
We reach a tall, rather grand building and I can't help but let a grin cross my face. We're about to see a genuine theatre play, right out of the Victorian times. There's an underlying concern however, both me and Aelora think that this is going to be when the Order makes its move.
We get through the first and second act ok, but its during the interval that things start to go wrong. Flora starts fidgeting and her mother, Louise, asks if we'd be good enough to take out her out to the foyer to stretch her legs a bit. Of course we agree. I follow Aelora and Flora through the crowds until we come to, what is still a relatively crowded foyer. A street performer has come inside and is performing all sorts of tricks and Flora pulls out of Aelora's hand to go and watch, her face captivated by the act being performed. Aelora and I stand a few feet away, keeping a close eye on our charge.
Suddenly one of the doors to the second theatre opens and the crowd spills out. Our view of Flora is blocked for a few seconds. As the crowd thins we search the small group of children for Flora, but she isn't there.
We share panicked looks for a second and I hear Aelora's thoughts. In her horror of losing Flora she forgets to block them.
Quickly I spin around and scour the dissipating crowd for any sign of the young girl. Suddenly Aelora takes off beside me.
'Anna! Wait!'
But she doesn't wait, just continues to run off, diving through a door on the far side of the foyer. Cursing quietly I take off after her. Pulling open the door that Aelora had ran through, the scene behind throws me for a second.
Aelora is fighting with a sandy hair guy and whilst he's very good, Aelora is holding her own. Meanwhile another man, this time black haired like me, is pulling Flora away. Quickly regaining my sensing I run after the man with Flora, flinging out my hand as I go. A wall of ice appears behind the pair and the black hand man, who is too busy with Flora to notice, crashing into it, falling to the ground, his grip on Flora weakening. Quickly she struggles free and comes running towards me. The black haired man stands up and lets out a strangled yell. He comes racing towards me but I'm ready for him. Ducking I dodge his fist to my head and drive my elbow into his stomach. He double's over, winded and I bring my right fist up to connect with his fist. With a groan he falls to the floor and I jump back, taking hold of Flora.
Behind me, Aelora finishes off with the sandy haired man, who gives the pair of us a look of disgust. Spitting on the ground he grabs the other man roughly by the arm and calls out a name, 'Sorcha!', and vanishes.
Aelora and I share a look before sobbing grabs my attention.
'Hey there, don't worry, the bad men have gone now.' Aelora says softly to Flora, putting her arms around the sobbing girl. 'Your safe now.' Carefully she picks up the girl. 'We should get her back to her parents.'
I nod my agreement and we make our way back to the theatre. After delivering Flora back to her parents, we make our excuses and find an empty room. For a moment we don't say anything, then together, call out my fathers name.
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A/N - Third chapter of my story. Ethan's point of view again. This was the first scene in which conflict with the order happens, not sure if I did it good, but oh well. Flora (incase you were curious) is the mother of C.S. Lewis (author of the Chronicles of Narnia) and the date is when she would have been 10. Hope this chapter explained somethings, like Ethan's parentage!
Thanks to those that review my previous chapters, I've read every one and I really appriciate it. If you read this chapter, please review so I know what you think and whether I should continue. Thanks.
