A warning. The author has no clue what's going on. I'm done now.
Seven of Swords
Chapter 2
Rhyann stared at the phone receiver in confusion before slowly placing it back in the cradle. There was something definitely wrong with her grandmother. Viviene had been nervous.
Viviene's personality had never really allowed for the waste of energy caused by stress. She had pointed out many times to Rhyann that there really was no point in worrying over something, when in all likelihood, it was going happen or it wasn't.
Fatalism had always been a very relaxing policy for her grandmother.
Her aura today, however, belied this. The normally pure, calm blue was tinged at the edges with yellow, which was a sure sign of stress within the spirit. In Viviene Dupont, it signified the stress caused by trying to change what was apparently destined.
Rhyann closed her eyes against the flashing images and sounds appearing uninvited in her head. Her grandmother's horrified blue eyes and scream of warning, and the sickening thud as Gerard Dupont was shot twice in the chest.
Death was so pointless.
Rhyann took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself. She had been there that day too, following her grandmother as Viviene dashed headlong out of the house towards the nearby town. She'd learned something that day that her grandmother hadn't intended to teach her.
Sometimes, even when you know what will happen, you have to try and stop it anyway. Even if you think you will fail.
Viviene was trying that now. Of course Rhyann had absolutely no clue what exactly what predestined event her grandmother was trying to halt. She hadn't been exactly coherent.
Only one sentence had made any sense at all, and Rhyann didn't know how it fit into everything else Viviene had been saying. It was just an old lesson, one of her first, in fact.
And it was what her grandmother had said to her, right before hanging up the telephone.
"Rhyann," she had said, returning for a moment to her usual calm self. "Everything began with the elements. And everything will end with them."
Unfortunately, Rhyann didn't know exactly what she meant. Or how it related to what was wrong now.
***
Kuuki, the Air, was normally rational to the extreme, and depended upon her intelligence for the answers. It was a strategy that worked quite well, until her emotions got involved, as they were in this situation.
Now, she thought, as she surveyed the world below, everything was a bloody mess.
Even the humans and the animals could sense something was wrong; everything around them crackled with tension. They could not, however, identify the cause.
Kuuki could pinpoint it quite simply. The blame could be placed mainly, if not solely on her volatile brothers, Kaji, the Fire, and Mizu, the Water.
There was a reason that Fire was traditionally associated by the humans with destruction. Kaji was destructive in almost all ways, including self-destructive. It was his part of the world that was ambitious; unfortunately, this ambition would often lead to battles, and wars, and, ultimately, deaths. He was impetuous as well, as was evident from his recent, suicidal actions.
Water, however, was not often thought of in the same way. The humans always viewed it as calm and clear, and associated it with love, instead of war. They conveniently forgot that the strongest storms came from the sea, and the dangerous things lurked beneath its surface. Mizu was like that. Deceptive, and devoted to his cause, against all reason.
Kuuki gave up on rational thought, and lapsed into the time-honored method of stress relief; she faced the nearest hard surface, and began banging her head against it.
Tsuchi, the Earth, lifted dark brown eyebrows over golden-brown eyes as she confronted the image of her usually reasonable sister slamming her head against the wall. She knew what had brought this on, of course.
"There would have been no way to stop them, you know. They are both stubborn."
Kuuki paused in her head-slamming, and met her sister's brown eyes. "I know. I just wish there was something I could do now."
Tsuchi smiled wryly. "There are many things that we /could/ do, but none that we should." She frowned down and the land that had been created from herself. "But we need to do as they have, now."
Kuuki's green eyes narrowed in a scowl. "Why should we do that, may I ask? Won't giving the humans more power simply widen the chasm that Kaji created?"
"There's no way we can narrow it now. And if we don't, then the world will implode upon itself. It cannot take the stress of increased power from two opposing elements, without being balanced by the others." Tsuchi was the Earth. While her brothers were known for their opposing types of passion, and her sister for her reason and intelligence, she simply exuded old-fashioned common sense, and the ability to see things for what they were.
At the moment, she saw her world, seething with violence, wracked by elemental explosions and storms. She knew what the stress would eventually cause, and she knew that the balance had to be restored in some way.
And there really was only one way.
***
Alex bounced on his chair as he celebrated one of the primary joys of higher education.
Unlimited Internet. A computer of his own, untainted by the machinations of the appropriately named Damon.
The Demon.
Alex shuddered as he brushed back his nearly-black hair from his eyes and pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up on his nose. Thank God he didn't have to live at home anymore. Dealing with his half-brother was almost more than he could handle; hell was really quite a good way describing it.
But, he thought with a sigh of relief as he shut his browser window and turned from his computer, at least he'd gotten fairly lucky in the roommate sweepstakes. Gavin Elliott was quiet and studious, but he at least was not overly shocked by Alex's antics. Which was very much a good thing.
"I'm back," murmured Gavin as he tossed his keys on his desk and bounced his backpack onto his bed. His dark auburn hair fell into his face, and his gray eyes were shadowed with sleepiness. He settled himself on the floor, grabbing one of his myriad textbooks. Then he looked up at his smaller roommate.
"How long have you been on that computer today?" he asked severely. "And how many classes did you skip to do so?"
Alex Maguire widened his eyes innocently. It was an expression he'd used to his advantage almost all his life. He had dark blue eyes that tended to edge towards violet, and pale skin that contrasted with his dark hair. Overall, the effect was one that made people melt, or at least pause.
Unfortunately, Gavin had become somewhat immune to it. He simply snorted, and shook his head.
"So, how many classes did you skip today in order to further explore the virtual world?"
Alex grinned from behind his glasses. "Just one. Econ's as boring as shit anyway, and I can learn twice as much from the book as from Henderson." He hated Economics, and preferred to spend his time buried in the polar opposites of old books and computers. However, his parents' had been quite insistent that he take some "useful" courses. Thus, he was enrolled in Beginning Macroeconomics.
"Gavin raised his eyebrows at Alex's "boring" comment. "Is that so? You should try a geology lecture sometime. Guaranteed to make 75% of the class fall asleep."
The other boy gave Gavin a rather incredulous look. "Geology is your major."
"That doesn't make a GEO 101 lecture anymore interesting. I've heard you say the same thing many times about American History." Gavin's voice was muffled as he rustled around under his bed. "Have you seen my Brit Lit notes? I have a paper due tomorrow."
"They're on the top shelf of your closet," said Alex automatically. He'd always had an uncanny ability to just know where things were; it was something he didn't know how to explain, and didn't even attempt it. The few times he had…well, the circumstances had hardly been good.
Gavin gave his roommate a strange look, but decided not to pursue anything from the looks of the closed expression on Alex's face. He got up and got them from where Alex had stated they were. It wasn't the first time the other boy had "known" where something was, and Gavin had to admit he was more than curious about it.
Clearly, Alex didn't want to share, and it wasn't as if Gavin didn't have strange secrets of his own, he thought as he looked at his left arm, which had been torn up from gravel and asphalt earlier this afternoon.
It was as clear and unblemished as it had been the day he was born.
***
Across campus from the two freshman boys, Arisa Ravenspirit was dreaming of Fire. She often dreamed of fire, but this was different from all of her other experiences.
Usually, a dream of fire meant a dream of prophecy. All of the most major events of her life, her parents' divorce, her grandmother's death, had first appeared to her within a fire-dream. All reflected within the red-gold curls of flame.
This time was different from all of those others, however. Her dream was not of fire, but of Fire. He was a great soaring bird of burning feathers and golden claws, but as he drew closer to her dream-self, he became something else. Something more than human.
Arisa's mind insistently called him Kaji, a name foreign and strange to her.
Everything about Kaji exuded god. He stood over seven feet tall, and his eyes burned gold, staring straight into the depths of her soul. His hair was the same black as the moonless night. He was clearly a figure meant to be both revered and feared.
Arisa's only thought was that she had no intention of doing either of those things.
Kaji, as if he could hear her, smirked sardonically, and lifted a single golden hand. For a moment a sphere of flame hovered above it, and then it burned away to reveal something different.
Not an event, as was usual for her prophetic dreams. Instead, there were strands of energy, clearly different, but meant to balance each other.
They certainly weren't doing that. Instead two of them twisted as if in war with one another, while the other two twisted as if to prevent it.
Arisa let her dream-gaze move away from the mesmerizing elemental energy towards the figure that had created the vision for her. Kaji's cat-like gaze was fixed upon what he had created. He was viewing it with an infuriating sort of pride.
The pride, she thought, of one who was determined to win no matter the cost. It was exactly the sort of pride that had always frightened her more than anything else. She had seen it destroy entire peoples.
She had a feeling this would destroy something far more vast and universal.
***
Arisa blinked her dark eyes up at the ceiling, glowing pale in the filtered moonlight that came through her window. That had been, without any doubt, the strangest dream she had ever experienced.
It had been a prophecy, she knew that. But before this, her prophetic dreams of fire had been so clear to her. A seemingly endless burning of flames that would suddenly end in an explosion of smoke, followed by a clear future burned into her consciousness with the power of fire.
This had been more like one of her "normal" dreams, if they really could be termed as such. Strange metaphors, people she couldn't recognize, landscapes she'd never before seen. They were all integral parts of the her night world, and they had terrified her as a child. Now, they were simply something she had learned to live with, just like her prophecies.
Tonight marked the first time the two aspects of her dreams had melded as one. She couldn't believe that it was a good thing. It confused her terribly, and she couldn't simply dismiss it as she had always done before. It was too important.
She just didn't know why, or how.
Sinking back onto her pillows with a heavy sigh, Arisa let her eyes drift closed. Whatever it was, and whatever it meant, there was little she could do about it now. And she hardly had the time to worry about the more supernatural aspects of her personality. Midterms were riding on her tail.
When she at last fell back into Sleep, she didn't dream of burning flames. Instead, her dreams were filled with thundering waves thundering waves encroaching upon scorched, smoking earth.
There was symbolism in there somewhere, but Arisa simply had no way of fathoming it.