Both teenagers had been officially informed of their exchange partners, and each as disgusted as the other. For Artemis the Second, a mere girl who spent her time in the same criminal activities as himself and didn't practice any feminine subject (you can tell that he was brought up in a sexist manner, can't you?) didn't deserve to be in the same room as him. Of course, there was no possibility that a girl of normal funding could be anywhere near as great as Artemis Fowl II!
And as far as Ivy was concerned, any boy who needed a bodyguard to stick up for him was a wimp. And she did not associate with wimps. She herself didn't really need Nubi… it was just another extra precaution from her father, not necessarily to protect her from trouble, but more like to keep her out of it.
At school, Ivy was barely sociable but she still had half the school chasing after her because of her looks. And apparently being cold and cruel was cool. Whenever this phrase came into the adolescent's mind, she rolled her eyes, wandering what 'uncool' would be. Immortal forces knew that the most popular girl in school was so bouncy that she could barely stop jumping.
Every Wednesday from four till six thirty, Ivy attended the local gymnastics club. It was a way to get out of the house, and she found every opportunity possible to do that.
The only problem was, as soon as word got round that 'Eagle Eyes' (you'd understand if you felt her glare) had joined gymnastics and was already advancing to Grade 5, half of the Third Year signed on, if only to impress.
However, the only person Kestrel welcomed was her real friend at school, and that was Janey. A tall, slim fourteen-year-old with grey eyes and a contrasting mop of red hair, she had been the only reason that Ivy had not yet left the club.
"I heard that the school had to pair you up with someone in the end." Teased Jane, flipping effortlessly and smoothly, earning sharp glances from the other end of the hall. "I've seen his exchange letter, and his mum or something made him send a photo. Hope that he doesn't kill you with his princely ice blue stare." At this, Janey mocked a fainting lady, an invisible fan in her hand.
"Honestly, Janey," Retorted Ivy, following suit and ending with half a twist, "You'd think that I were some helpless maiden in distress who falls for the first idiot that I set eyes on. And I'll have you know that the boy has the worst physical education history that I have ever seen."
"Yeah, but there's always the …erm… the butler. He's going to be there to break your neck if you do anything to the precious Master Fowl." She jumped onto the beams and started swinging.
Ivy bounced onto the beam, without drawing a breath. "Who, Domovoi Butler? I don't think that he'd hurt a poor, innocent and helpless little girl like me, would you?"
"Looks are deceiving, especially when it comes to you, Ivy. I remember the last guy that asked you out. Isn't he in that mental institute, now?"
"No, he came out last week, and the authorities are trying to keep him from coming to get me. Seriously, the house was crawling with policemen last week and my post had to be scanned and everything! Not that it's much different to what Nubi usually does. She scared them all away last time because she didn't think that they were scanning everything thoroughly enough." Ivy drawled, spinning on the beams.
"I'm surprised that none of the policemen tried to flirt with your bodyguard." Smirked Jane, coming up into a perfect handstand.
"Oh, don't get me wrong, she got several moves made on her. I think she concussed most of them, although there was one really cheeky guy that she sent to hospital."
"Your life is so far from normal. I'm surprised that you aren't going to therapy yet after what you've been through." Smirked Janey, coming down from her handstand. "Your turn." She made a theatrical bow, with several hand flourishes.
Ivy sighed, and went up into a handstand. But her body was on autopilot. In her mind, she was thinking over last night with her mother. A beautiful lady, and Ivy thought herself lucky that she had at least received most of her features from her. In fact, apart from the height difference (according to her mother, her father hadn't been as short as Ivy was… it was just that she grew too slowly) her mother and her couldn't be mistaken for anything but mother and daughter. Except for the eyes. She had obviously received her biological father's eyes.
That night, when Ivy went downstairs for dinner, knowing the usual question going to be asked, she resigned herself to a boring hour before she was allowed to excuse herself.
"Ivy, darling," her mother had started, "we need to talk about something."
"If you are talking about the boy that I must be partnered with, then forget about it. I feel a slight headache coming onto me." Threatened the youngest and feistiest Kestrel.
"No, no… and I thought I told Foaly that I wanted you two to stop communicating except on emergencies. You know I want you to lead a normal life, Sara."
This was bad. Her mother only called her by her baby name 'Sara' when she was being deadly serious. Ivy still remembered last time that her mother had called her that. It would be a while until Ivy could knock an annoying little boy's front teeth out again.
"That brings us onto the serious subject. I talked with your father over the phone about this…" Ivy's father was an MI5 agent, which was ironic seeing as Ivy spent most of her time on the shady side of the law, "And he agrees with me. No one should know about your… your abnormalities."
At this, Ivy's fists clenched. She hated it when her parents would refer to her Powers as 'abnormalities'. It was just different. Nothing weird about it!
"Mother, I do not think that you should carry on this conversation. I shall be upstairs if you need me."
"No, wait, Sara… I know that you hate me viewing your Powers as 'strange' but you have to admit… most teenagers your age don't shoot fireballs, cause earthquakes, cause flood or even hurricanes when they're angry, or throw pure lightning energy when they're really mad. You have to keep them secret. I want you to vow to me, Sara. Vow that you'll do all in your power to keep anyone outside this family and Nubi from discovering your secret."
Ivy was backing away from her mother rapidly now. Her mother may have referred to controlling the elements as strange… but what about her mother's own special power? After all, the elements couldn't be killed, or ever properly controlled, only asked nicely. People, however…
"Mother… you're doing it again…" Ivy was now backing into the walls, wishing that she had specially designed contact lenses right now. But, then again, even specially designed lenses can't deflect evolved hypnotism, which, fortunately was what her mother had.
"Vow it. Vow it in the name of lightning…" Ivy wasn't someone who could scare easily, but the look in her mother's dark brown eyes was enough to send shivers running down her back.
But it was pointless to resist the waves of control that were pushing her further into the abyss of losing control. She heard several windows breaking, and she knew immediately that it would start raining and that anything that could be safely inflamed would be set alight any minute now.
"It's useless resisting my calling… vow it…" Her mother frowned. Her daughter always put up a lot of resistance compared to everyone else she had controlled. It was one of the reasons why she only did so on emergencies.
Ivy knew that she was failing now. She had to somehow twist the vow so that it agreed to her terms. Her mother hadn't been specific. There was still hope. Expertly letting her guard drop down only a little, she intoned, her voice still a tad strained,
"I shall do what I can to stop Artemis Fowl discovering me. Or my origins. May Lightning consume me if I purposefully break this vow." She gulped the air thankfully as she was released from the spell. She hoped feverishly that her mother would not repeat the entire scenario with her because the flaw had been discovered.
Ivy surveyed the damage she had done to the entire place. She almost felt guilty. All the windows had smashed, and one piece seemed to have scratched her mother's cheek. This time, not only had she burnt all the candles up, but the table covers were ruined as well. And all the plants and even some that came from under the floor seemed to be awaiting her command to attack.
Ivy curled up her fists in frustration. She would have loved it if she could simply blast her mother away. But her mother was her only blood relative. She would never be able to meet her father because, according to her mother, Ivy's dad had been involved in an accident way before Ivy had been born.
But Ivy knew better. Much better. When she had hit ten, she hacked into Foaly's database without so much as a virus coming to destroy her laptop, and had discovered an accident about ten years previously. About two months before she herself had been born. Speculating, the youngster had guessed that the experiment had somehow ripped open some kind of space and time continuum, or perhaps even to a place of 'what-might-have-been' (A/N: read Louise Cooper's Running Free to fully understand it)
So, when Ivy had finally become sick of her mother's lies, she lost her temper and demanded the truth and only the truth. Her mother, flinching again, drew a deep breath. She was going to start on the subject, and swerve from it... Ivy knew the age old routine.
"You're… not a normal human. And I thought that I told you and Foaly not to communicate anymore." Scolded Melissa Kestrel.
"Mother, I think I deserve to know the truth about myself. Don't think that I am unobservant to the way you wince every time you see me poke a fire, or wash the dishes, or re-pot a plant or blow a candle out or something… it's like you're afraid I'll explode into smithereens!" Ivy had retorted, and the windows all blew open. But by the age of ten, she had grown used to strange things happening when she was emotional.
"Ivy, darling, I just don't want to hurt you. But if you feel so strongly about this…" Her mother took a breath. "Ten years ago, one of Foaly's…"
"I've already made progress. Foaly's experiment concerning anti-matter somehow combusted, causing a rift between one world and another possible world. What I need to know out of that equation is what our world is. Not my own biography, mother."
"You have done this properly, haven't you, Ivy? Very well. In our home world, fairies won the final territorial war with humans. But, being peaceable creatures, we let them remain on the surface, as long as they stayed out of our territories.
And then it started. A group of humans began to develop powers such as ours, being exposed to our magic for such a long time made it happen. But it was the combined magic of any fairy that approached them. Think of it as radiation, just less harmful. The humans had begun to build a resistance, and they had a much more concentrated power than any of the fairies."
Ivy looked thoughtful. She had deducted that her mother was one of those humans. But she kept quiet. From the look on her mother's face, she was reliving some memories, and psychologically speaking, it was better for Melissa to release all that pent up energy.
"By the time that the fairies had evolved, they still have wings there, they had grown taller, and they could even be mistaken for humans if you weren't careful. But they didn't have technology. No, they relied on magic alone. And that was the cause of their downfall."
Here, Ivy had to interrupt. "Mother, you have to understand that my patience, like everyone else's, is limited. Please get to the point where you tell me why I cause all the freakish accidents by just wanting it to happen."
"Alright, dear. So, when the second cross species war broke out, I was born in the midst of it. You do realise that the humans had the upper hand in all of this. That was because we had developed technology and we could now use it against them.
But that wasn't enough. We needed something that would stop the fighting forever. So we arranged for marriages. Our side, the human side, gave me, their newborn duchess."
Ivy did a double take. What did her mother mean, duchess? She was a noble?
"Yes, I see that you are mildly surprised, but did you really think that we would give up some civilian to the fairies? We wanted someone that they would treat with proper respect. So I was the obvious answer. Being just born and naïve enough to believe all the lies about humans and fairies being friends, and being important enough to be respected… I had my marriage arranged for me when I was about a year old.
My future husband-to-be was a fairy. We grew up knowing that, but we found out the truth about why we were being forced together, so we accepted it. Besides, we had been friends from birth, so we thought it couldn't have been much different."
Ivy recalled that evening in her mind. It was the first night that her mother may have ever told her the truth about the family. But sometimes, when she saw that glint in her mother's eyes, she got scared. And scared wasn't something that Ivy Saraswati Kestrel did often.
Sometimes, it was as if her mother would do anything to get back to her old life.