Bracelets 2

Bryn rushed up to Maeve, ready to shove her off her lover, when Doubar reached over, grabbed her , and said in a slight alarm, "Woah Bryn! It's okay! This is how Maeve and Sinbad flirt with one another!"

Maeve, who had let Sinbad stand up, looked at Doubar and said easily, "It's okay Doubar, she is reacting to memories that have been suppressed for over two years now."

She grinned and threw her arms up and around Rongar's shoulders and gave him a big hug. Rongar blinked but smiled and returned the hug eagerly. Then she turned to Firouz and hugged him tightly too.

She turned to Doubar, who still had Bryn within his grasp, raised an eyebrow and said, "Well tubby?"

Doubar snorted, let Bryn go, and pulled Maeve into a tight hug.

Sinbad watched the crew reunite with a smile on his face and warmth glowing within his heart. He had missed this; the feeling of warmth that never went away.

Before meeting Maeve, he had always felt a warmth within him when he was with friends and loved ones, but it was a warmth akin to sitting around a campfire on a cool spring night.

Satisfying yes, but not quite what he was truly looking for.

When he met Maeve, her fire warmed him up from the inside to such an extent that he could only compare her fire to that of a heated underground pool that one bathed in. It just surrounded you in a warmth that stayed with you. Keeping you warm and protected, and yet if you got too close to the vents underwater you could get burned easily.

Maeve's fire, when they hugged, caused the warmth to roll through him like waves upon the shore. Steam, not real steam but the sensation of steam, seemed to roll off him everytime he was near her.

When she vanished it was like he could never get warm again. Bryn's magic was like a warm bandage to an open wound. A familiar feeling of family and love was the sensations he got from her magic, and he wanted to be near it always in the absence of Maeve's warmth.

Pathetic in a sense, but he could not deny the familiarity of her magic and the sense of family he got from her; though he could never figure out how.

He figured it had something to do with the bracelets, but what he didn't know.

He was speechless as Bryn rushed up to them calling Maeve a hussy. He was about to call her out when her next words sent spasms of shock and adrenaline through his body.

Fiancée?! What!?

The crew looked at her and Maeve smirked and said as she raised her own wrist and showed off her own rainbow bracelet, "This is the Island of the Hidden Wicca. Those who have the bracelets are descended from those who live here and have somehow found their way home."

She turned to Bryn and said, "Brynna, your mother eagerly awaits you. She wants to speak with you post haste."

Bryn snorted and said, "She can wait."

Maeve raised her eyebrows and said with doubt in her voice, "She is there with Aileigha and her son, Setsuno."

Bryn blinked at that and gasped. She turned to the inner island and rushed off without speaking to her friends.

Maeve could explain.

She wanted to stay with her friends and explain everything.

She wanted to go to her mother.

She wanted nothing to do with her mother.

Her mother could have kept the defenses down when she crossed over.

But she didn't.

Her mother could have kept the defenses down when Tetsu and Sinbad crossed.

She didn't.

She could have kept the defenses up when Maeve crossed over and let the defenses fling her to some magical island where she could restart her life once more.

She didn't.

Her mother has screwed with her life for the last time!

But!

But her mother had warned her NOT to cross over. Her mother had told her that if they were meant to be together, fate would find a way to make it so. She didn't want to wait and disobeyed her mother and paid the price. She lost three and a half years of her life!

As she entered the Clan village, she felt a swelling of relief and happiness.

There, there in the middle of the market square; there she was.

Her mother.

Her mother with her waist length brown hair braided into a single rope down her back, wearing a cream colored dress with rainbow pleats down the front folds of her dress. Her bracelet was easy to see as the dress had no sleeves. Her gray eyes were warm and welcoming as she raised her arms to hug her and wished her welcome home.

Once she reached her mother, her mother held her right to her body and said, "Welcome home Brynna, you have been missed my sweet child."

"Mom…" she muttered and to her shock, though she missed and loved her mother dearly, she was also mad as hell at her too! Her mother could have saved her from those cannibals! Her mother could have made it so that any bracelet holder would sense the island's magic and have an inexplicable urge to come home.

Did she though?! No!

Her mother believed in fate. That those three women of myth would be able to weave together such a story that those who wandered away from the Isle, sooner or later would come home.

But that wasn't the case for Sinbad and she, was it?

No, they stumbled upon this place by accident. Without that storm, without that evil sorceress' spell, they would not have lost their designated water way, and would not have needed any help!

That dark sorceress was powerful. She gripped her mother's petite form tightly. Now that her memories had been returned, Bryn could see where she had gone wrong in her fight to quell the storm. She had focused on both the storm and the sorceress as two separate beings, and not the combined evil they truly were.

No wonder I couldn't win. She thought to herself with some worry.

She was not worried though.

With her memories returned. She would destroy the sorceress. She would then help Sinbad process his returned memories and then they could return to their lives here on the island in safety.

Because Sinbad will remember their time together as lovers. He will come back to her.

He will forget all about Maeve!

Sinbad felt his mouth drop open at Bryn's words.

Fiancée!?

His heartbeat exploded into double, triple time as he stared at the place Bryn had vanished into.

Maeve's warmth at his right side caused a familiar tingling thrill up his back as she turned to look at him and asked seriously as Doubar and the others came up to them with surprise written all over their faces, "Are you ready to remember Sinbad? Once you do there will be no turning back."

He looked at her and then at the emerald green plantlife that Bryn had vanished through. This place was SO familiar to him! It felt like a bludgeon to the chest. His neck tingled and the bracelet on his left wrist glittered the closer he got to Maeve.

She raised her left hand, her bracelet glittering a fiery amber blue, and said as she turned her body to fully face him and the others, "Once past this point, the magical defenses of this island will disappear and you will remember everything that you have forgotten about this place. From the people to the relationships developed. Do you wish to remember?"

Sinbad's heart thrummed even faster with her words. For the last two and a half years he had wanted to know this very thing! Now that he was here, he suddenly felt nervous about that very thing.

He consciously slowed down his breathing, to force his body to slow itself down, as Doubar exclaimed, "Of course he wants to remember lass! Why wouldn't he!?"

Maeve's friendly, lovely face melted into a semblance of pain and sympathy as she said, "Things between him and us all will change as the memories come forth once more. Emotions and bonds that were suppressed when he crossed the boundary line two years ago will come back as if they had never been denied."

Sinbad's mouth moved silently open and closed.

Firouz's eyes and face became flushed with understanding as he said, "Sinbad and Bryn knew each other from before! Those two years he had been missing Doubar! When we thought he had died at sea…he was here!"

Maeve nodded, staring unerringly at him. Waiting patiently for his answer.

He took a deep breath and said, "I am ready."

She nodded back and stepped to the side and said, "Welcome home Son of Mala, grandson of Malachi, to the Isle of the Hidden Wicca."

Sinbad stepped forward with confidence clearly written on his body, and yet Doubar knew he didn't truly feel. Doubar wondered how Maeve knew their mother's father's name.

Then he thought about Maeve's words…did this mean their grandfather, their mother was originally from here!? He never really put it together for some reason. He could only guess it was because his grandfather died when he was so young. Plus his mother didn't like speaking about her father to them.

Malachi had a bracket just like Sinbad did. Malachi had forgotten memories too. How did he forget this!?

His thought blanked as Sinbad crossed the imaginary boundary line and his body dropped like a marionette whose lines had been cut.

"Sinbad!" He and Firouz yelled as Rongar, who was closest to his brother, caught him and lowered him to the sand with alarm on his features.