"Apologize" is also by OneRepublic. By the way, you will never know anything unless Dawn knows it too, and Dawn isn't the brightest of people. I'm not good with author's notes, so I think I'll just skip them. Wait! I don't have a single disclaimer anywhere in here, do I? Crap! Well, here goes nothing.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize.
That oughtta do it.
Chapter VII: Apologize
"So, if there are only four elementals now, who has the other two? I mean, three," Dawn stumbled.
"Jezebel is Water and Darkness. Cailean is Antimatter, but after the volcano's gone, we can give the magick to someone else."
"The volcano is the source of their power?"
"For now, yes."
"Who do we give the magick to?"
"Who's the best swimmer?"
"Calix," Dawn said immediately. "There's no comparison."
"Exactly. Who has the darkest thoughts and feelings?"
"Sam." There was no question that Sam, Mara's brother, was the most depressing and evil person on the face of the earth who could actually befriend the ever-chipper Dawn. He was mostly a tool everyone else used to calm Dawn down after she had coffee, but he thought about things so much that everyone knew he was the person to go to for advice.
"And who's the most mysterious?"
"You!" Dawn said, simply because she didn't know this girl who had replaced Callie so quickly.
"Me? Okay," Callia didn't ask a single question about Dawn's judgment.
"Why do you all of a sudden trust me?" Dawn tipped her head to one side.
"What's your IQ?" Callia asked.
"That's better," Dawn relaxed. Her cynical, strong sister was back.
"You actually want to take an IQ test?" Varda asked with one eyebrow raised.
"Well, you're a psychiatrist. You know how to measure intelligence," Dawn said.
"I only know how to measure surface knowledge, not wisdom."
"Okay, then do surface knowledge."
About a week later, Dawn received her score in the mail. Her IQ, 149, was printed in big bold numbers, and beside and was a chart titled "See how you compare!"
0: You are an inanimate object
1-30: You are extremely retarded
31-60: You are moderately retarded
61-90: You are slightly retarded
91-120: You are average
121-149: You are gifted
150+: You are a genius
Dawn couldn't help it—she burst out laughing.
"It should be 70, but it's very high in comparison, isn't it? I'll be very surprised if your IQ isn't at least twice what it's supposed to be," Callia crossed her arms
"XXX Syndrome," it…well, dawned, on Dawn. "I always thought I was just gifted for XXX," she raised her head. "What makes m different?"
"The fact that you were raised Air, but born Light," Callia said.
"Callia, I can't find that rose," Pearlie ran downstairs, panicking. "I'm turning 4. I need it for the party!"
"Here's something better," Callie took out a pink nacre hear locket on a clear string with tiny, but perfectly round pearls on it. "Don't lose it." she accidentally nudged something off Pearlie's head, and it clattered to the ground. The white gold circlet had a filigree heart on the front and glittered even when stationary.
"Bill and Kitty won't even consider that you're too young to wear something this magickal," Callie grumbled.
Dawn gently, reverently took the circlet off her head and fingered it. "Wow," was all she could say. "I never even felt it. But it's called Light for a reason!"
"Yeah," Callia chuckled. She looked up and sighed sadly. "I should have told you before."
"Neither of us are too good with the total honesty policy," Dawn smiled and froze. "Of! That's the word no one has said! It would have been my word for my phrase, but I was never taken, so it was simply never there!"
"What are you doing?" Jezebel narrowed her eyes. "Doing what should've been done three months ago," Dawn said.
Jezebel snorted. "Good luck," she said sarcastically.
"No!" Cailean came out and roared. "The incantation is nearly complete! Get her out of here!"
Jezebel surrounded Dawn with a cocoon of water, but Dawn didn't have to breathe. She could have air go directly into her lungs. Still, she had to make Jezebel release her, if not so that Dawn won't starve to death, then for the sake of shutting down whatever this volcano was doing. How? What would make Jezebel respond to her most? What motivated Jezebel? Well, she had invested a large amount of magickal energy in to this volcano, so there must be something she wanted to destroy this island for?
Dawn had been very public about the movie being filmed in Rainbow Valley, hoping to give the dying little village some tourist traffic. It was very possible that Jezebel had come to attack her directly. It wouldn't be the first time somebody wanted to kill Dawn Reid. But why would Jezebel, who had never known Dawn and therefore would never have been hurt by her, wish Dawn dead? Well, Safara, Jezebel, and Cailean were masters of two elements each until the people they kidnapped to try to get to Dawn took some of the powers. But Dawn had always had the Wind and some Light. Okay, so Dawn had figured out that the Stantons wanted her power. But why? What did they want to be masters of the world for? This wasn't a 4th-grade fantasy novel. This was real life, where people don't want power unless it filled a psychological need. Everything was a piece to the grand puzzle that was life, said Kitty. And then it became so blindingly obvious that Dawn wanted to slap herself.
"Please, Jezebel! I know you want a mother. I want a mother too! But forcing someone to love you just isn't right!" Dawn yelled. It occurred to her that Samantha and Michael's attempts to manipulate her into loving them were wrong as well.
Jezebel hesitated before she made the cocoon so thick, it was soundproof. But she hadn't reckoned with the power of the incantation.
"Fair ruler of magick, fly!"
A brown dragon rose from the lava and the entire volcano began to make the sound of a dying cow. It was materializing and dematerializing like that blue telephone box from that show Callia loved.
"I'm about to kill this present for my present," Cailean said gleefully.
Dawn felt crushed until she suddenly realized her clothes were dry again. She turned to Jezebel, which was now a large pile of rock with things sticking out of it. Maybe people expanded when they died, because there were enough rocks to cover Dawn up. Well, Dawn was only 4'4" and 74 pounds, so she could have fit just about anywhere she wanted to. Unfortunately, there was no place near to fit into by the time Dawn realized that Cailean was alive.
"No!" Cailean let out a long, anguished holler and slammed something on the ground. His eyes shone with tears. "My Jessie!"
Dawn swallowed. It was unreal, seeing a rapist as human. She didn't have to think about Cailean's humanity for long, however, as he waved a small club-like stick or a staff. "Any last words?" he snarled.
Dawn swallowed. It occurred to her that she may actually die. Anything she would ever feel, experience, love (or hate), would already have been. Her life flashed before her eyes, just like all the books said, concluding with the sight of Cailean's eyes smoldering with hate. "Can I just leave, please?" she asked meekly, trying to dredge up whatever human connection she had with Cailean.
Cailean opened his mouth and something funny happened. Time slowed so that every second could be felt, propelling her forward. She felt like she was standing directly in front of Cailean, yet behind herself, watching herself watch Cailean. She couldn't feel a thing except time. And then Dawn had two simultaneous epiphanies. One was her life sucked and it wasn't the one she wanted, the other was that she was glad for the idea that just came to her.
Last words ring in the ears of the beholder forever.
"Evil tyrant of corruption, vanish!"
And he did.
Dawn could hardly breathe at first. Then it occurred to her that a puff of warm air was being blown on her arm. She should have wondered where the dragon had gone, a thought that only came to her as she calmly turned and met a pair of shining chestnut eyes.
"Varda?" she whispered.
The brown dragon, scales shining like liquid gold in the sun, turned into the shape of the girl Dawn missed so much.
"Let's go," Varda said.
'Let's," Dawn managed before she fell forward, crushed by stress.
"Did you take any of the objects?" Callia asked.
"No. I didn't know what they did," Dawn said shyly. "Besides, it was all of five seconds before Varda. So what?"
Callia looked at Dawn almost pityingly. "Even elementals can't fully perform magick just by will alone. They need instruments. Tokens, if you will."
"No, I won't," Dawn said cheekily.
Callia actually laughed. "That last phrase was something that will keep Cailean out of your line of vision forever. He cannot do anything that you will see."
"So I could walk right up to where he is now and he would be gone?" dawn was surprised. "Where is he?"
"Somewhere in Bangladesh without his powers. And now the element distribution process begins," Callia laughed. She looked, for the first time in her life, like she had nothing to worry about.
"So now we get to be world renowned? Or at least community renowned?" Dawn bubbled, excited and happy. All of a sudden, she stopped and looked thoughtful. "How does one get renowned anyway? Do they have to be nowned first?" she questioned the English language.
"Yes, first there is the torturously painful nowning process," Mara said with a comically straight face.
At "painful," everyone thought of Ken again.
"I'm gonna visit him," Dawn said, sort of sliding off the seat like a limp dishrag falling off a table, forgotten.
Callia's voice couldn't have frozen hell over. "First, I am getting you out of Samantha and Michael's custody."
Oddly enough, Dawn was not terrified anymore. She felt empowered, like she could move mountains, like she could take on the world, like she was worth something. None of those feelings had anything to do with the fact that she knew her sister had slept with the judge, of course. *Wink.*
"Callia, Brenda and I will win this," Dawn pledged.
"Let's hope you're right," Callia said. "Let's hope you're right." She dialed Brenda, the most competent lawyer she knew.
Five seconds later, Callia was told that her appeal had been denied.
"The house is a mess," Samantha's voice was cold.
Dawn trembled. "I…locked up the cats. When I let them out-"
"Stop your BS, you little freak. There was a party here, wasn't there?" Samantha's shrill voice shattered any semblance of well-being Dawn had.
"Well, yes," Dawn said. Almost before she finished, she felt the world spin and a vibration her cheek, like pins and needles, when Samantha slapped her. Dawn fell on the carpet, felling her knees beginning to swell almost imperceptibly.
"Maybe that was what was off," Callia mused.
"What?" Dawn stared blankly, trying to come back from her daydreams.