Eight- Briar-Rose

She's been in almost every chapter, and here she is, finally!

Chapter 8

Briar-Rose

The desert grew flowers

And water continued to fall from the sky

And the flowers

Never die

Excerpt from “Flowers that Never Die” by Sophie Lynch

My heart's beating really fast and I don't know why. Maybe it's just the heat, yeah, that's it...

Jasper took the news pretty well. There was no freak out, no shock. Or no, there was definitely shock, but no denial, no screaming. That's always a plus. Training is tomorrow and now I have SIX people to train tomorrow. I have to figure out the extent of their powers and the side effects they may have, such as exhaustion, and what they have to do to use them, such as concentrate, picture what they want, or actually do something physical.

We leave Jasper to experiment further with his new found powers.

“So, that leaves, what powers?” Ray asks as we walk down Jasper's driveway.

“Water and something else, I don't know what. There was always the four elements, water, earth, air, and fire. But there were four that weren't common, like you how you have light. I would never have thought of that. By the way, did you try dissipation yet?” I reply.

“No... I'm kinda... scared.” She laughs nervously.

“That's okay, we'll work on it tomorrow.” We go our separate ways at the end of the long driveway and I text Airborne to ask her to come over. She says yes and when I get to my house she's already there.

“Hey!” She waves. I bound up the porch and we walk through the sliding screen door into the living room. My parents are both at work.

“So, do you think we could experiment with the new powers today?” Air “casually” mentions. I laugh, “Sure.” and grab the bag of Cheetos from our snack drawer and run upstairs with Air at my heels. My room is organized and very light and pretty, not very teenager-y, more grown up. The door and windows are white and the floor is a light wood. I have a green, cream, and lavender patterned circular carpet and a lavender bed spread on a dark wood bed. The rest of my furniture is light and happy and I have plants, fake and real all around my room. My windows are constantly open in the spring and summer and I have potted plants outside them. I jump onto my bed and Airborne follows suit. Opening the bag of Cheetos, the fake cheesy smell hits me and makes my stomach grumble. I shove my hand in the bag and Airborne fights for hers too, they emerge clutching the crumbly, orange curly-ques. I laugh as Airborne drops crumbs down her white tank top and she tries to fish them out.

After we've had our fill, or at least, have slowed down enough to talk, I tell Airborne about the other three, because she knows about Ash.

“So, the first one I discovered was Nox, or rather, he discovered me. He came to my house and showed me what he could do, it's pretty impressive, he can turn into darkness.”

“That's cool, is there light?”

“Yeah, you know Ray? She was Missy's friend?” Oops. Shouldn't have mentioned Missy.

“Uh, yeah...” Airborne answers looking down, ashamed.

“You know it wasn't your fault you didn't have control of your powers! You were angry!”

“Yeah, yeah, just continue.” She says. I huff in exasperation and go on, “Well, she has light. I'm a little worried about Nox and Ray meeting, it could be bad, or it could be the same as you and Jasper meeting, when you do, not significant. But something tells me otherwise.”

“She is a very light person, bubbly, you know?”

“Yeah, she's a little scared to experiment, so I'm gonna help her tomorrow during training, you coming?”

“Definitely, I wanna meet these people, this could be really fun.”

“And then there's Jasper...”

“What's with the sigh? And is he the one from school? Missy's old boyfriend? Jeez, is he gonna be pissed at me!” She exclaims.

“What sigh?” I say defensively, ignoring the rest of the sentence.

“Hey, I've been your best friend since kindergarten, I know when you like a boy before YOU do.”

“But I don't!”

“Okay, so I'm gonna say words really fast and you have to reply without thinking, okay?”

“Well, this is random, but okay.”

“Tree.”

“Leaves.”

“Leaves.”

“Tree.” I reply.

“No! Lol, you're supposed to come up with a new word, fine I won't repeat yours. Bark”.

“Wood.”

“Roots.”

“Ground.”

“Rocks.”

“Jewels.”

“Gems.”

“Jasper. Oh! No! That's just the first gem that popped into my mind! I swear!” I blurt.

“Mhm.” She replies smiling her signature I-was-right-and-you're-wrong-and-you-always-are-HA face.

“But! No- ugh! I've seen him everyday since kindergarten, and I have NEVER liked him and I NEVER will! I swear!”

“Mhm.” She repeats.

“Ugh!” I groan, exasperated. “Can we just practice with the powers already?”

“Yeah!”

I get up and get one of the flowers from my windowsill and bring it to the bed.

“Hold on, just let me get you some air.” I giggle, pretending to be holding a ball of air in my hands. I hand it to her and she laughs and lets it go.

“Okay, so, what do want to do?” I ask.

“Show me what you can do!” She exclaims. I nod and look at the plant, willing it to grow and for the leaves to split into five and extend, creating arms with hands. They reach out to Airborne with the strength of a human. It grasps her hand and shakes it in greeting. She looks up at me in wonder and delight. I make the leafy hand let go and it shrinks back into a leaf, inanimate once more.

“Whoa, that's so cool!” Air breathes.

“Thanks, so as you know, you can make tornadoes, why don't you try a gentle breeze, okay?” I suggest. She looks worried but closes her eyes. In a few seconds a gale force wind whips across the trees outside, I hear a crack and one of the saplings I planted last month (and progressed it's growth) falls to the ground. I hear it's screams of pain, and then an eerie silence follows. Tears well in my eyes and I turn to Airborne.

She gapes, “I am so sorry! I didn't mean to! Can't you fix it? I-I'm sorry!”

“It's okay, just hold on.”

I look at the trees surrounding it and they reach down and bring it into the forest, it disappears entirely. As I stare at it, the stump decomposes and melts into the ground. A seed falls from a tree nearby and it rolls to the exact spot the old tree once was, it connects to the ground and soon a small twig of a tree stands with one leaf.

“Okay, so, we need to work on this.” I laugh, covering up my disturbance at the tree's screams.

“Yeah, maybe I should wait for training...”

“If you want.” I shrug. She nods. “Do you want to sleep over for tomorrow?” I ask.

“Sure!”

Author's Note

reviews please! even if it's just two words, still makes me happy!

Reviews

[dontwakeme]

You might want to double check your fonts. The random switch is making it harder to read. Also, you have a lot of talking, not a lot of action. Maybe add in a few paragraphs here and there to help better explain the story. That being said, I really,really love, "The stump decomposes and melts into the ground. A seed falls from a tree nearby and..." I love that scene and the creativity of it.

[jennifer little]

good job

[Sylvana]

I agree with dontwakeme in the part about a lot of talking. Adding more detail and action would be splendid, but either way it was a pretty well written chapter, even as a first draft. laa~ well then. I'll be waiting for chapter 9.