Dark Times.

9 years later...

In the middle of one morning, early summer, two girls sat on a big, puffy white cloud. One had red hair, as warm as the sun at sunset and big blue eyes, bluer than any sky that had ever been seen. The other girl was much much smaller and younger and instead of a head full of red hair, she had a big mop of yellow blond hair which crowned her head like a golden fleece and startling green eyes that glimmered with so much curiosity even as she skimmed the cloud's surface to better view the rolling landscape that was rolling beneath them.

"Moriella, why do you think she is taking so long?" the younger girl asked, pulling her small hands out of her green and golden cowl.

"I do not know Cjaira, but I guess it has something to do with her mentor, Elder Lionel." Moriella answered as she cleared away the rest of the cloud with just a flick of her hand.

Cjaira stared back at the girl in her red and golden garbs and Moriella laughed at her green expression. The younger girl shook her head in frustration and turned her eyes back to the ocean view below them.

"Why does the elder hate her so much?" she cried out suddenly and without warning and Moriella reached out to cap her mouth with both of her hands.

"Ssh...Quietly Cjaira!" the older girl scolded, looking around frantically with gingerly eyes for eyes that might have noticed them. Satisfied that no one was listening, she removed her hands from Cjaira's mouth and addressed her in a much softer tenor. "I don't think that he hates her Cjaira. Very few Great have a tolerance for Havillah's kind of questions and the good elder just happens to be one of them."

"What is wrong with asking questions? Is that not how we get to learn?" Cjaira countered in an equally soft tone having learnt her lesson from her previous encounter with Moriella's hands.

"When they are questions about humans, then it is wrong."

"Really, yet you sit here all day long, watching them as they go about their activities." A voice said from behind them and the two jumped up in surprise.

"Havillah!" Cjaira gasped, launching herself at the new girl that had just appeared.

"There are no rules against watching." Moriella scoffed, standing up to hug her dear friend, who wore the same red coloured robes that now represented their cohort. Her jet black hair was still long and it flowed down her back and came to an end a few inches below her hips which had also grown wider. Her brown eyes though remained as big as ever, but her caramel skin was now a few shades lighter, a consequence of all that time she had spent indoors.

"With your past experience, one would think you would have learnt by now." Moriella said as she took a step back to take in her friend's seemingly haggard appearance.

"Learnt what? All of the information that is contained within the ancient scrolls?" Havillah retorted and then laughed at the disgusted face Cjaira was making. "To tell you the truth, I do not mind the reading. It is the insults and the leers that I can't stand." She added, crossing her legs to prop at the very end of the cloud's edge. "It doesn't help that I am terrible with the first Virtue. That just gives him a reason to keep on going and going."

"Havillah..." Moriella placed a comforting hand on her friend's arm and Havillah leaned into her friend's touch, even as single tear escaped from her eyes trailing down her brown haggard cheeks.

"I am afraid that they will soon throw me out." Havillah whispered and her friend jerked her head back.

"No... They can't do that, can they?" Cjaira whispered as she took a seat on the vacant cloud beside them. "But you're great at Hope?"

"It doesn't matter Cjaira. If she loses the first Virtue, she's as good as gone."

Cjaira whimpered as she too wrapped her arms around her friend. Moriella's arms lifted so as to better accommodate her and silenced reigned between the three friends even as they each thought of the dark days that were looming ahead.

"What about the third Virtue?" Cjaira finally pulled away as she asked suddenly. The two older girls stared back blankly and shook their heads at her outrageous statements. "What?" she articulated angrily.

"Cjaira, even you know that that is virtually impossible. You've seen the scales. No one has been able to wield the third Virtue since the last ancient." Havillah replied and Moriella nodded in amity.

"But we can't just sit down and do nothing! They are going to kick you out Havillah. Where will you go? What will happen to you?"

"I do not know Cjaira. Though I guess, I will cross that bridge when I get there."

***

After her friends finally left and Havillah remained watching from the cloud. The view beneath her was still that of the ocean, but a rocky island was now jutted out from within its depths. The sun was no longer up, as it had already sunk beyond the horizon and a cold breeze had quickly picked up and was now blowing wildly across the barren landscape below her. Slowly, the clouds beneath her began changing form, growing darker and thicker with every passing minute. Lightening flashed and thunder roared. Waves formed and water clashed on the rocks beneath her. The first drops rained down and Havillah stood up and stretched her limbs ready to go back. As she turned to walk back into the ever bright light of Triberias, more lightening flashed just as a loud roar shook the skies.

Havillah swiveled around and turned back, staring into the dark with a shocked look marking her face. That was no thunder and she knew it. Every fibre in her body knew it and it screamed it even as she watched a ball of fire raze through skies and light them up with its strange orange glow. below and she took a few step back, surprised.

lightening was not orange, she stepped back surprised. No, It was a supposed to be a dazzling white or blue and it formed bolts, not balls of fire. As she thought on this, a dark shadow and then another passed beneath the cloud just as another roar rocked the skies shaking her even as she stood on that other side. All around her, more roars answered the first even as orange lights filled the sky.

Afraid, Havilalh turned back from the view point and rushed through the barriers of Triberias. As she went through, the warmth and light of the city embraced her, washing away her panic even as she squinted against its glowing brightness, glad to have made it home all in one piece.