Chapter 7. 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7!!
Ben, the two of us may look no more……….
Awww, Connie Talbot is sooo cute! Sorry, watching Britain's Got Talent. Go YouTube!
Anyway, thank you to XxTunstallChickxX, who is my best reviewer so far. My heart goes out to you, girl!
The rest of you still need to REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW!!
Please?
Well, I can barely contain my own excitement to see where this fanfic is going! So, let's not stop any time soon.
Chapter 7, here you go!
Buildings with a hundred floors,
Swinging around revolving doors,
Maybe I don't know where they'll take me, but
Gotta keep moving on, moving on
Fly away, and break away…
Numair's POV
'Just a little more time, let this settle, and then I can add a hint of griffin feather and see where that goes…' I was rudely interrupted by Alanna walking in, towing a girl so enveloped in her won magic that it seemed to swallow her.
"Numair, I need you to test Cecil for the Gift. I would, but I have been running about for the past week and am so tired…" The Lioness' shoulders sagged as she realized I was working on something very important. I don't like to be interrupted.
"I don't see why she needs to be tested. She is basically glowing." I mumbled, turning back to my work.
"Glowing?" Alanna looked at Cecile again, then back at me. "I don't see it." I was impatient now, and a little angry, to say the least.
"You can't see Wild Magic, either. Now leave me be."
"Numair, what are you talking about? She has Wild Magic?" Alanna looked bewildered.
"I don't, ma'am, I can't talk to animals. Maybe we should leave…" The girl Cecile, the air from her voice even glowed from her magic use.
"Maybe you should show us a demonstration. You have learned to control your power or it will burst of you in five seconds, the least damage would be killing us all." I said and Alanna held her breath for a count of ten before persisting on.
"So you knew? You know? You know you have magic? No the Gift? Then what?" She turned to Cecile, who was standing in the universal signal for "please get me out of here." I gave her a 'sorry' stare and then said
"So if this is settled, please leave. I am in the middle of some very dangerous spells here." They both turned and fled from my rooms, leaving me pondering the strange girl. I made a mental note to find her later. For now, these Costume-Make-Spells were not working quite right. Maybe a little more of Spidren web…
Cecile's POV
After visiting Numair, who I have known since infancy, the castle blurred by. We passed thousand of hundreds of thousands of rooms, millions of people, and at least twelve floors before coming to a stop before two large, wooden doors. Alanna took a moment to collect herself, and that was when I realized how tense she looked. And how tired. And…sad?
She pushed on one of the doors, opening it just enough to allow herself and me into the room beyond. It was a large meeting room, not unlike the smaller one they have at Pirate's Swoop for when the nobility come for a Royal Visit. Two thrones sat on a raised dais on the far side of the room, surrounded by open space and accompanied by two tall, marble pillars. Upon the throne sat the two most beautiful people to grace this Earth, and yet both were recognizable. As someone who had supposedly never been here before, none of this was new to me.
"John, Thayet." Alanna said, bowing quickly to them. I bowed low and slow to each of them. They nodded in turn.
"Alanna, who is this?" John asked, eyeing me.
"Why, aren't you the village worker who helped me pick out my dress just today?" Asked Thayet. "Sadie, right?"
Alanna looked at me, astonishment on her face and fury whitening her face. "NO! No, no, no!" I mumbled. "I am Cecile. Cecile of…I guess Pirate's Swoop." I ran away…I wanted to add, but I couldn't my throat had taken on a feeling of dry wool, and a lump was building in it.
"Impossible, you look nothing like her. She had browner eyes, blonder hair, bigger nose…" Alanna went on, listing everything I had changed.
"Yes, yes, my form had all of that." I conceded once she had stopped.
"You're…form?" Alanna asked.
"Yeah. I can…you know, change forms. It's not hard." I mumbled, looking at the floor. How awkward can you get? This awkward.
"Honey, what do you mean 'this form'?" Thayet asked kindly.
"I mean, I can change my form. Within limits. The way I look." I tried to talk better, make longer sentences so they could understand, but everything was moving so fast. A man walked in with long, dark brown hair and who was at least 5'7'', along with a girl with sandy brown hair, blue eyes, and who was at least 5'11'', maybe 6'0''. They were in their early twenties, at least!
"Thayet, John. Alanna, I heard the ruckus and came to see what was up. Who's that?" The man asked. The woman stayed silent, staring straight at me. Keladry of Mindelan, and Nealan of Queenscove, two nights, Keladry, the second Lady Knight of the realm, formally from the Yamani Isles, had visited Pirate's Swoop many times.
"This is Cecile of Pirate's Swoop, who can change…the way she looks." Alanna said with a bite in her words. 'Today has gone by way to fast.'
"Really?" Neal looked at me. He had the air of an experienced healer, for all his age. "Would you care to demonstrate?" I looked pleadingly at the King, but he, too, seemed interested.
"I…uhm…I guess." I said. I wasn't happy about it, though. Sitting precariously on a chair that was brought in one by a servant, I closed my eyes. I felt the black leeching from my hair, and transferred it to my eyes. Taking the gold from my eyes, I mixed it into my hair, and took the red out of cheeks, forming strawberry-blonde. My nose I made smaller, my eyebrows thinner, my complexion tanner. My lips unfilled, my chin sharpened. Every little detail I had worked into this form I took out, leaving me in the form I had stayed in for most of my servant years.
"Whoa." I heard Thayet whisper quietly, and Alanna took a step back. King Jonathon cleared his throat. I could feel their awkwardness, the fright. I have known them my whole life. They said they loved me. And they were scared of me. Today had been too much. This whole week had been too much. Freedom? There was no such thing. I felt a silent tear drop down from my eye and fall into my limp hand. A second fell from my eye before Alanna swept me up in a hug.
"Shhhh." She said. I just shook my head and cried silently into her shoulder.
I finally got the courage to look at everyone, and looked first at the King. He was taken back, to say the least, but he also looked sad and I could tell he wanted to help me. But with what, I still didn't know.
"Well, it seems we have a bit of a problem here." He commented. That did it. This thing was one big mess. I started cracking up, and soon everyone was laughing.
"You can say that." Kel said. "But now that I see…you, I recognize you. You were a maid at Pirate's Swoop, weren't you? The one that went missing?" Yeah…that is me.
"Yeah." I hiccupped.
"Well, Cecile, if it isn't too much to ask, can we see the form you were born in?" Thayet asked. I looked at her with confusion. "I understand you have been through a lot today, but your looks may help us find where you came from."
"Can't you just ask George? My parents left me with him when I was a new born." I asked.
"It is not that simple. You weren't handed to George, you were left. On the entrance way. With a note." Alanna said each painful sentence slowly, and with deliberate meaning. "We don't know anymore about your past than what was left in the note." She had pain in her eyes, but I barely heard her words.
"So where is the note?" I asked, my voice trembling. This is what I had dreamed about for so long! A door, a secret something that leads me to my parents.
"Uhm, actually Ceci, we can't give it to you." Alanna said. My eyes narrowed. What was that supposed to mean? "See, I would…if I had it. But upon opening it we had about an hour before it decomposed. It is an easy spell, because naturally everything decomposes, but we could not get it back."
"So what did it-" I was cut off by a page in what I supposed to be around his second year ran in.
"Message, from Fort Mastiff." He said, looking worried. Mastiff…Mastiff…wasn't that fort somewhere near Scanra? That's right! Alanna and George were talking about how Scanra has been awful quite not even a month ago!
"What?" Queen Thayet asked gently.
"I don't know a messenger came running in here but five minutes ago, asking to speak to you. He's right outside…" The boy ran out the door but was back within ten seconds of his departure, towing a man in his early twenties. The man had scars that were still bleeding sluggishly and what seemed to be a broken wrist.
"I…I…" The messenger panted, sweating and shaky, before taking a shuddering breath and murmuring "They attacked out of no where. From the woods and the hills, everywhere. And no where. They just … came." He shuddered and collapsed.
John stood and, still looking slightly shaken, said in a steady voice as any good king would do, "Round any of the knights still here. Send them to Mastiff."
Ohhhh. Cliffy. Again. :-P. No, she isn't like Scanra's Queen or anything. But there was thing I came up with in math a few weeks ago, and they need a lot of enemies attacking. I mean, what could be more stressful than all of your enemies forming together and attacking?
Nothing. Haha. Just wait.