Ella
The world was still spinning, and all I could hear were loud, gasping sobs. I think it was a mixture of Amy and Emma, but I couldn't be sure. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and tried to process what I'd just seen.
I think I had just watched my sister die before my eyes and if all this was true, if this world really did exist, then that meant I was in danger. I think I understood why I'd be starting training soon. But I didn't like it, it was all happening at the speed of light.
I glanced over at Amy, the sobs had stopped and she was carefully wiping tears from her face. On my other side Emma's head was buried in her hands, and I was pretty sure she wouldn't be coming outside any time soon. My eyes settled on Adrian, she sat there, with this blank expression on her face, and all I wanted to do was yell at her. Couldn't she at least have the decency to look upset?
"Phoebe… she was the glue," I whispered.
"Speak up," Adrian commanded, her voice was hoarse.
"I said, PHOEBE WAS THE GLUE!"
"I asked you to speak up, not shout my ear off," Adrian shot a dirty glare at me, and folded her arms.
"STOP IT!" Amy shrieked. "I showed you that because Ella's right."
"I am?" I coughed, trying to hide the shock in my voice. Then in a deeper, more confident voice I said, "I am."
I nodded my head awkwardly and squirmed.
"Yes, you are," Amy smiled warmly at me, "Phoebe acted as the glue back then. It was one of the things she was great at as Master… But I'm supposed to be the leader now, so I guess it's my job to keep us together and in check. Which means all this petty crap needs to resolve itself."
There was an awkward silence, and I could feel the tense energy in the room. I glanced up and Emma and Adrian were shooting daggers at each other.
"I'll start first," Amy said clearing her throat. "Adrian, I am really sorry for getting mad at you over leaving us. It happened a long time ago, you were trying to do something nice for me, and it's the past. We live in the now. And for now, I forgive you."
No one else volunteered.
"How about you, Emma," Amy pushed.
Emma rolled her eyes at Amy but nevertheless, did as she was told.
"I'm sorry, Adrian, for being mad at you for totally valid reasons." Amy raised an eyebrow at Emma. "Okay, okay, sorry. I'm leaving all that in the past, like Amy said this is now, blah blah, friends again."
Emma scowled, but I could see a hint of smile shine through. I think she was slightly relieved to have that grudge and tension out of her system. Normally Emma was the most cool and collected calm person I knew, I have to admit, seeing her angry with Adrian had been kind of unsettling.
"I'm sorry," Adrian started. "I'm sorry I left without a warning, I'm sorry we started out so badly today. But most of all, I'm sorry for being a bad sister, I promise I'll try harder. I hope we all will."
I wanted to gag, this was just about the sappiest thing I'd ever heard. But what could you expect when her mother was the Queen of Sap and icky Valentine's Day Cards. Instead I forced a smile, and pretended everything was okay.
"I'm sorry too, for being a pain," I said begrudgingly.
"Now let's hug it out," Adrian prompted, engulfing us in a group hug.
I wasn't one for hug moments, but looking over at Amy and Emma and I could see I was having a much easier time with all this. Emma's nose was wrinkled, and she was frowning at the arms around her. She wasn't very touchy feely. And Amy, man Amy looked more uncomfortable than Achilles when he'd been shot in his Achilles tendon. Amy didn't do hugs, or signs of affection. You knew she loved you when she patted you on the head, or shot you a smile. Getting a genuine hug out of her meant you were either her boyfriend, or that she was in a state of utter bliss.
Adrian finally released us, and then clapped her hands excitedly, "Let's go!"
How, I wouldn't be able to answer, but objects started flying around the house, and packed themselves in bags. I watched my favorite pair of jeans and t-shirt being folded neatly into a suitcase. When the suitcase was full, it danced over to the door, and waited patiently. If you looked close enough, you could see quick feathers flitting about, a hand here, a harpy there.
When the packing was done, Adrian flopped onto the couch, her choppy red hair flying in all directions, acting as if she herself, had even lifted a finger.
"Well wasn't that just tiresome," she giggled.
I rolled my eyes, "you did nothing."
"Yes but doesn't just watching the little harpies fly about take the breath out of you," she feigned a feinting motion, and then shot up giggling. I opened my mouth, a sharp, biting comment on the tip of my tongue.
"Close your mouth, Amy said no fighting, remember," her voice was sickly sweet, and my mouth snapped shut.
It was like my jaw was locked, any attempt I made to open or close it wouldn't work. And yes, I even tried prying my mouth open with my bare hands. No, it does not work.
"Release," she declared, her dazzling green eyes softened, and she smiled at me warmly.
"H-h-" I stammered.
"How did I do that?" Adrian asked, filling in my sentence. "Oh, that's easy. It's called charmspeak. It's one of my gifts. I can make anyone or anything do what I want if I tell them to."
"Wow," I said, awestruck. For once, she seemed cool. I'll admit, that power would definitely come in handy. "How does it work in a fight?"
Adrian rolled her eyes, and muttered something in Ancient Greek. "It hardly ever does, you have to have someone's attention and lots of focus to successfully charmspeak, and when you're in a fight with a monster ten times bigger than you, and twenty times faster, it's hard to stop them from killing you, and instead get them to talk to you." She glowered.
"What else you got?" I asked.
"I can manipulate light. I can make it brighter, completely dark. Sometimes, I can literally travel by light. But it really only comes in handy when the light generates enough heat to turn into fire. Imagine going into battle engulfed in flames, and not even feeling a thing!" her green eyes sparkled and danced, specks of gold glinting like the sun.
I frowned, "shouldn't I be able to control light? Your mom is the Goddess of Love and Beauty, so along with charmspeak, logically you should also be able to shape shift. But that's not true, I can shape shift, and you can control light…"
Adrian shrugged, "magic works in weird ways, Ella. I wouldn't take it too seriously, though. No one really knows how we get our powers. We're like test runs, we're the first generation of defenders."
And for once I didn't hate Adrian, she was actually pretty okay when she wasn't acting all fake and giggly.
"I am so in the mood for chocolate!" she squealed, and the bubbliness was back.
"Alright, let's get going! We've got a long flight ahead of us," Amy declared, appearing from nowhere.
"We're flying?" Emma gulped, her face turning a sickly green shade, almost matching her eyes. "Can't we just take a boat or something?"
I could feel my stomach rumbling, and Amy and Adrian were looking a little green as well.
"Apollo kids don't do well in water," Amy said holding back a gag.
"Yeah, well Poseidon kids don't do well in the air!" Emma protested.
"Three against one," Adrian shrugged, daintily picking up a single pink suitcase.
"This is not fair," Emma grumbled, slinging a carry-on bag onto her shoulder, and grabbing two blue suitcases.
"Life isn't fair," Amy retorted, slinging a grey duffel bag onto her shoulder, and grabbing a silver suitcase in her free hand. "Take one last look at home, Emma, we won't be back here ever again," Amy sighed sadly.
I glanced around the apartment. The first thing I noticed was the red stain on the white walls from when Amy and I had had a fight last year and I'd thrown my plate of spaghetti across the room. My eyes fell next on the faint scratch marks on the coat closet door. If you squinted closely, you could see the words 'Ella's height gain' scratched into the wood. For the span of the two years we'd been here, they'd recorded a numerous amount of heights. Though I had to admit, I'd had massive growth spurts. In the past two years, I'd grown six and a half inches. I was five three now. Finally my eyes settled on the couch. The blanket's I'd used last night were casually strewn, and I could see bits and pieces of couch falling apart. But I could also see three girls laughing on the couch. Amy and Emma on either side of me as we watched reruns of Gilmore Girls, and laughed as Rachel and Ross fought over whether or not they had actually been on a break.
"I'll miss this place," Emma said longingly, "but I'm glad to be going back home. It'll be nice to live closer to Jason."
Amy blushed, and nodded her head.
"Yeah, it will," she whispered.
Adrian flung open the door, and taking long strides, clicked her heals down the hall. Emma left next, slumping her shoulders slightly, and bobbing her head like a dork to nonexistent music.
"You'll like it at the Temple," Amy assured me. "They've remodeled it in the past nine years we've left, it looks amazing. And I promise we'll each get a fair chance at the rooms we want."
She was so calm and level-headed, like she was sure of everything in her life. I wish I could be that sure of something.
"Are you sure?" I asked, biting my lip.
She nodded, leaving the room. Tossing a small gold key behind her.
"Lock up, will you?"
I stepped out of the threshold, into this new world I'd be entering, leaving behind all that was comfortable. I glanced one last time around the room, the spaghetti stain, the couch, and the marks of height. I took a deep breath and let everything go that I held dear. Closing the door carefully behind me, I listened to the lock click, and slipped the key under the door mat for the next family.
The flight hadn't been too bad. Of course, we'd gotten to the airport about two hours early because Amy had been panicked that if we hadn't gotten there early, the flight would have left without us. The only problem had been Emma, she'd gotten up to use the bathroom every ten minutes. I knew she was air sick, but this seemed a bit extreme.
When we'd gotten off the flight, I'd never seen a more wobbly Emma. Amy quickly steered us to the baggage claim, and as if by magic, our bags were the first one's out of the little flap. She steered us towards a little door.
It was black, and I could have sworn it hadn't been there a second ago. It had a faint glowing D on it. Amy pressed her hand to the D, and the door swung open, revealing a luscious green field, and at the top of the hill a beautiful courtyard with a massive Mansion like structure.
I stepped through the threshold, and the door swung shut, vanishing into thin air. Where the door had been, massive green fields now replaced it.
"Wow," was all I could manage to get out.
"Wow is right," Emma nodded her head, the sickly green shade finally leaving her face.
"Is it possible that it's gotten three times bigger?" Adrian giggled.
"The things you can do with a little bit of magic, and a lot of architectural redesign," Amy marveled, starting off to the top of the hill.
We followed suit, trudging up the massive hill, with each step it seemed to be further away.
At a certain point there seemed to be a speck of glowing orangey yellow flame, flickering at the top of the hill. Amy lit up.
"Dad!" she screamed, dropping her stuff, and dashing up the hill.
"Dad?" I frowned, walking a little bit faster. So, this would be the moment I met my father, who after all these years wasn't dead.
"Dad," Adrian grumbled, and if possible she seemed to be even slower, falling back behind Emma.
"Apollo," Emma grinned, walking faster.
At the top of the hill, I now could really see my father. He had a slight orangey glow surrounding him, a godly glow, if you will. He looked like he was in his early twenties, or mid-thirties, like a really handsome beachy college boy. He was really muscular and tan, I know understood where I got my tan from. And my hair, it was the same color as his. Sandy blonde, with lighter streaks of blonde running through, as if kissed by the sun. He grinned, and I thought my eyes would pop out of my sockets. That was about the brightest smile I'd ever seen.
He broke away from Amy, who'd been giving him a long hug.
"Ella," he whispered, his eyes flickered a softer blue color.
"Dad?" he opened his arms, and cautiously I stepped into them.
At first the hug was stiff, as if neither of us knew what we were doing. How could we? We hadn't seen each other since I'd been a baby. Something I'd be picking a fight with him about, after I got to know him better. Gradually, his hug got warmer, and more comfortable. I buried myself in his warm arms, and he smelled like the beach. Not in the way that Emma did, like the sea and the waves. But the fun of the beach. The ice cream, and the sun tan lotion, and something else I couldn't describe.
"You've grown up," he grinned, flashing me that blinding smile again.
"Yeah, you seem to have stayed the same…"
"Guilty! We gods don't change much. I've looked the same for the last two millenniums," he laughed.
He was kind of corny, but in a friendly way. Much more like a friend than a father. I stared at him, then at Amy. You'd never be able to tell they were family, except for the eyes. Not just the color, but the way expression flowed from them. The way that when they smiled, their eyes crinkled in the corners at the same places. I glanced behind me at Adrian. Her arms were crossed, and she had a scowl on her face.
Somehow, I could not imagine her being Apollo's daughter. Maybe it was the choppy, dyed red hair, or the fact that her face seemed to change slightly every time I looked at her, as if slowly, her beauty changed with your perception. But it was probably the fact that I refused to see her as my father's girl. It just didn't seem right.
"Hi, Dad," Adrian smiled, only the corners of her mouth slightly turning.
Apollo smiled, but it was a tight smile. And his teeth didn't flash. They'd dimmed.
"Adrian." He wouldn't say more than that.
"How have you been, girls?" his glance seemed to bounce between mine, Amy's, and even Emma's, but he wouldn't even look at his mistake.
"Good, good…" Emma said, glancing down at her shoes.
"Well," Apollo said, clearly reading the tension in the room, "I'm here to tell you that the location of the Temple has changed. You're not on Olympus anymore, you're on an island. You're way up in the Hills, the guys aren't too far away," he winked, sending Emma and Amy blushing furiously. "And lastly, the villagers are down by the beaches."
Amy smiled tightly, I could see the gears working in her brain.
"If you need transportation, the doors will appear like the one from the airport. But try not to use them too much, especially not to Olympus. Things are changing around here…"
Apollo's light flickered.
"Look away!" Amy hollered.
I turned my back on my father, and shut my eyes tight. There was an odd yellow light, shining, and then it was gone. He was gone.
"What was that about?" Emma asked, we all turned towards Amy.
"They still don't trust us. Phoebe… We're off Olympus, and this is our punishment."
"It can't be too bad," I offered.
"This is the worst disgrace of all," Amy replied, the bags she'd dropped to see our father, now shimmering in front of us. "I can hear them laughing."
Thunder rumbled above, and a single strike of lightning flashed down, zapping the Temple.