The Fate of Xon

The city was alive with activity. Everyone was running to and fro, getting baggage off the train, pulling trunks out of wagons, horses being put in the stalls, and parents saying goodbye to their now adult kids. It was chaos and confusing, and wild. It was the fortnight before classes began and everyone was arriving, finding hotels and apartments to rent for the week before they got their room arrangements, and Flagcord was running out of rooms fast.



A mother and father stood in a huddle with their daughter at one end of the platform. They were as blond and tan as she was brunette and dark. Their eyes were as dark as blue as hers were a pale blue. It was a contrast that was noticeable even to those who wouldn\'t normally notice such a thing. One figure, standing in a dark alley, noticed more than the others. He watched from the darkness, pulling the cloak around him tighter so that the sunlight wouldn\'t hit him. He watched, and longed to be her father.



Aurora, Adric, and Trianna didn\'t notice, and they wouldn\'t, too worried about the lack of rooms around the town and the fact that Aurora was leaving them. She flicked her black hair over her shoulder and shook her head at her parents\' concerns. She shrugged them off for a moment before heading to the bulletin board announcing rooms still available. She took one down for a two bedroom apartment and walked over to her parents. "Come on, guys. I found one. I told you that I would."



They collected their luggage and went to the nearest carriage. Twenty minutes later, they were standing in front of a modest building on the poorer side of town. The room was just in their price range for the week so they moved their stuff in. Her parents didn\'t feel the eyes of the cloaked stranger on them, too busy moving in to think about anything else. But Aurora turned to look at the alley across the street. She caught a glimpse of a cloak going around the corner, thinking nothing of it. It would be the last time she would see the cloaked figure until she moved into the dorms, but she didn\'t know that yet and the paranoia of being in a new town amongst new people began to kick in.



Shaking it off, she turned to finish taking her meager things out. She couldn\'t unpack everything, but she unpacked enough that she could have the feelings of home until her move into the dorms. She walked into the main room where her parents seemed to be having a silent argument. They stopped in midsentence when she came into the room, but her natural curiosity got the best of her. "What\'s going on? What are you arguing about? And don\'t say that it\'s nothing, you stopped talking when I came into the room."



Adric looked at Trianna, getting her permission before turning to Aurora, sighing slightly. "Have a seat, Aurora. We have something to tell you." He sat down, making sure that Aurora was sitting across from him. He took her hand gently and held it there for a few minutes before he got up the nerve to speak. "We\'ve been thinking about telling you this for a few years now, but we think that it might be best if you know now that we won\'t be around."



"What is it, Da? What could be so bad that you and Mom are both acting weird?" Aurora was scared for her life now. She had never seen them act like this before.



Adric seemed to have frozen up so Trianna took over. "You see, Aurora, we\'ve been keeping a secret from you for the last sixteen years. We once told you that you couldn\'t remember the first five years of your life because of a head injury. That wasn\'t exactly what happened." She seemed to pause for a moment to collect herself before speaking again, in a hushed tone. "You\'re not really our daughter, Aurora. We really didn\'t want to tell you this, but your parents left you in our care when you were five. We heard a little later on that they were killed on the way home."



"What?! I\'m not ... I\'m not your daughter? Why did you lead me on all these years?" Aurora had pulled her hand away from Adric, putting it in her lap. She began to bit her lip in a nervous gesture before she began to tug on her hair. "How could you not have told me?"



"We were planning on telling you when you were ready, Aurora, but then you decided that you wanted to come here and, well, there\'s a chance that you\'ll run into your sister here." Adric looked at Trianna then back at Aurora before going on. "We don\'t know much about your parents or what your sister\'s name is or where she\'s from, but there\'s a chance that she\'s here."



"I, I ...." Aurora took a deep breath, trying to keep her voice calm. "I have a sister? Older?" They nodded in unison. "If you knew my parents, why don\'t you know where she\'s from?"



Trianna looked at Adric and sighed. "We knew Emery and Willow were important somewhere, but we never bothered to find out where. We were never going to leave Starlight City. This is the first time we\'ve ever been out of our city, and we did this for you. Your real parents considered us their own family. That is why you were left in our care. We\'re sorry that we never told you, but we were sworn to secrecy until such a time as was thought best to tell you so that you wouldn\'t be shocked if you were to come across your sister."



Aurora was thinking over all of what was being said. She had no parents, but she apparently had an older sister that could possibly be in town. Everything she had known in life was a lie. Her \'parents\' were just supposed to take care of her while her real parents were away either on business or pleasure of some kind. They had died, so her caretakers had lied to her and kept her as their own. No wonder she looked nothing like them. She had always wondered why they were golden blond gods with the dark blue eyes of the city and she was a brunette underling with the pale blue eyes of someone of a different area of Xon.



She shook her head and stood quickly, pacing in front of them. "Okay. I\'m going to try to get this one more time." She took a deep breath and turned to Adric and Trianna. "My parents were killed after leaving me with you when I was five. I have an older sister, though you don\'t where she\'s from, and you suspect that she might be in Flagcord." She paused and looked at them as they nodded. "Why are you still here with me then?"



"We love you, Aurora. You are, for all purposes, our daughter. We\'ve raised you, loved you, cared for you, as if you were our own. We couldn\'t bear to think about putting you in an orphanage like the Priestesses suggested, so you became ours. We wanted the transition from home to Flagcord to be as seamless as possible." Adric stood and wrapped his arms around Aurora, though she didn\'t move, standing stiff under his arms. "We love you, Aurora. We want you happy."



Aurora shook him off and stepped back from him. "I would have been happier if you had kept this secret a secret. I would have been happier with the illusion." She stormed into the bedroom that she was designated, slamming the door behind her.



She paced around her room for ten minutes before grabbing her favorite stuffed animal, one she had had since she was born, and curled onto the bed. She looked down at the stuffed bear with a different look on her face now. Someone had loved her enough to stitch the animal individually, and she now knew that it wasn\'t Trianna. She lay onto her back, squeezing the bear, and began to him a lullaby she had been sung when she was little. She lay there, humming, until she fell into a deep, troubled sleep.



* * *

Dahlia and Daniel had ran into the caravan that belonged to the Prince and Princess of the Court of the Tiger the day before they were all to reach Flagcord. They had begun to talk to the siblings and their DreamCatcher companion, something he hadn\'t told them but Dahlia had discovered. The five of them had stayed up most of the night getting to know each other.



Brendan and Sarah were in no way ashamed that they were shapeshifters and were pleasantly shocked when Daniel and Dahlia didn\'t care. Dahlia, as a Mystic, could tell that Gabriel was one as well, but it took her a few hours to figure out his specialty. When she had asked about it, he didn\'t deny it, but he didn\'t elaborate either. Instead, he began to guess at her specialty.



He at first thought that she was a healing Mystic, in which she said she had a great knowledge of the Healing arts and could adequately perform them, but that was not what the Goddess had had in mind for her. He then guessed that she was a Mystic of the White Arts. Again, she told him that she had the gift to do so, but it wasn\'t her field of interest. Finally, he gave up and looked at her with curious eyes. "Those are the most common specialties for Mystics. I can tell that you\'re gifted, but beyond that, I can\'t tell what you do. You can\'t be a priest because you\'re married to Prince Daniel, here. If you don\'t mind me asking, what is your specialty?"



Dahlia smiled over at Daniel, knowing that they had planned on keeping her life and job secret. He nodded, having decided that these were good people and had already begun to be their friends. He knew, deep down, that they could trust them, so why not tell them everything? If they kept Dahlia\'s secret, then Dahlia would keep anything they didn\'t want others to know about, like Gabriel being a DreamCatcher.



With this in mind, Dahlia took a deep breath, sat up to her full five foot seven, showing her noble stature. "I am Queen Dahlia of the Outskirts, queen of the Desertland, and High Seer to all of Xon."



Gabriel, Brendan, and Sarah all looked at her in shock before laughing almost hysterically. Brendan was the one to speak first. "You want us to believe that you\'re the High Seer? You\'re female and so young."



Dahlia felt that inner anger she kept so in check rise to the surface. Daniel took her hand, patting it gently, but it was too late. The Vision was already upon her. She hadn\'t meant for the anger to trigger a Vision, but sometimes the Goddess sent her one around non-believers to prove that she was who she said she was, but this was one vision she was wishing she hadn\'t had.



Gabriel, Brendan, Sarah, Daniel, Dahlia, and the dark haired girl from previous visions were surrounded by Dead Things. They had a sword in each of their hands, facing the horrible creatures, but they were outnumbered. A quick spell from both Dahlia and Gabriel helped even the odds, but there were still too many of them. A scream came from above them, but they turned too late to see the red hair of the Soul Seeker before she pulled Sarah into the air. Blood splattered the faces of the five friends below as Sarah\'s throat was ripped out. A roar of horror escaped from Brendan as her body was dropped. He caught her, laying her on the ground, slowly going Tiger.



Dahlia ran to her friend, pulling her into her arms. She ran through every spell in her repertoire, trying to think of any spell that could cure her as well as save her. She found one, but Sarah\'s heart was already beginning to slow. Dahlia began to whisper the spell under her breath, putting everything she had into it as she prayed to the Goddess for help.



The Vision was cut off before she knew if she saved Sarah or not. She was gasping, trying to get her breathing under control. Daniel was leaning over her and she realized that she must have passed out. He had a cold rag on her head and he was calling orders to Brendan and Sarah, telling them to get the Priests. Before they could move, she held her hand up. "I\'m okay. No one get the Priests, please." She sat up, with Daniel\'s help, and looked around at the people that she knew she would grow infinitely close to. "I just a really bad vision. The Goddess was making a point."



She allowed Daniel to wrap his cloak around her, realizing that she was shivering, and turned to the group around her. "Do you believe me now, or is She going to get even more pissed and give me a vision of my own death?"



Brendan, Sarah, and Gabriel all nodded, though again it was Brendan who spoke. "Please, no more. We definitely believe you, though now I believe that we should be bowing to you or something. It\'s a great honor to meet the High Seer."



"Please, no special treatment. No one at Flagcord is to know about me being the High Seer. Everyone it just to believe that I\'m the Queen of the Outskirts and the Desertland. I won\'t tell anyone anything you don\'t want me to tell them about you if you all swear to keep this from everyone."



Soon they were all in agreement that they would keep it a secret. Within the hour they were all asleep, ready to finish the ride to Flagcord in the morning. They would continue to travel with each other tomorrow and would even promise to be friends throughout school. A promise that they would all be able to keep for the rest of their lives.



* * *

Aurora woke some time later and the room was dark. There was no sounds coming from the front rooms, though there was plenty of noise outside as someone huge arrived in town. She went to the window and watched as several large caravans came down the street, heading toward the richer area of the city. She saw several Priestesses following the first caravan, singing praises to the Goddess for the gift that she had sent their town.



Curious, as always, Aurora threw on her cloak and snuck through the house, exiting the front door with a barely audible click. She ran down the stairs quickly, running out the front door and into the crowd. She ran to the front of the line nearest the beginning of the caravan and caught a brief glimpse of the beautiful pale strawberry blond woman in the front seat of the caravan. Her escort seemed to be a handsome man a few years older than herself with dark hair and extremely tan skin. Both seemed like royalty, and that was a little intimidating to Aurora.



Moving through the crowd again, she made it to the next caravan. Three people stood out to her almost instantly. There was a large guy with short blond hair, tan skin, and slightly tattered clothing. Beside him sat a beautiful girl with white blond hair and a simple, but elegant, green silk dress. Behind them, there was another guy with long brown hair and the robe of a monk. All three of them seemed more in Aurora\'s league than the first group and she vowed that she would make friends with them as soon as possible. Not to mention that she found out from a group of people that the two sitting together on the second caravan were shapeshifters and it would piss Adric and Trianna off to know that she had made friends with them, since their families had lost many lives in the Land of the Mammals, though they didn\'t know if it was Mammals themselves or Dead Things.



She made her way back to her apartment, still seeing no sign of Adric and Trianna. She changed into her night clothing and climbed under the simple cotton sheets of her bed. She knew that she had been shocked over the fact that she had a sister, but now she was thinking about all the possibilities. She looked at the part of the city she could see out her window and prayed to the Goddess that if her sister was in town, that she would find her and they could be a family.