My destiny was really looking up.Or rather down.In my belly.
My eyes were still somewhere at the back of my head when they rolled there in sheer unadulterated pleasure from the swipe of Freia chocolate I stole.I gaped at my surroundings as Ulrik spoke."Not so long ago, Gargol reigned supreme in Opa,"
Is that a bushel of...cinnamon rolls? And hot cross buns on-gasp-candy cane stems? Is that a whipped cream dandelion??
"He was cruel,selfish and crazed with his own power.The people of Opa were quite literally taxed for walking on the street,for using the restroom.They could barely afford the meager supply of food that trickled out from behind the walls of his castle." I stopped ogling a croissant tree for a split second,
"sounds like a right bastard," back to ogling while he continues,voice grim as we walk along the path."Indeed,that he was.Glob waited for ten bitter years,honing his skills, incessantly practicing his elementals untill he was strong enough to challenge Gargol.He almost lost his life but he won,and took with him a big chunk of Gargol's powers." Oh.My.Papaya.Is that a clump of candy corn flowers? "With the last vestiges if his strength,Gargol cast a spell over Nazir and retreated there in defeat.He cannot leave it's borders but neither can we enter it and defeat him."
A tootsie roll tree?
"There he remains,for the past few centuries nursing his wounds and building his army of Noir.He hopes to regain enough strength to once again rule over Opa."
Another swipe of Freia.Another slice of heaven on my tongue.I snapped off a piece of delicious looking croissant and bite in.I forgot how to walk.Which was perfectly fine as long as I remembered how to chew and swallow.Maybe I should just move here.Forget college,forget my tiny little apartment off campus and just eat my life away.Ah,what a beautiful little fantasy.Ulrik once again grabs my arm to pull me along and once again, pop goes my bubble.I pull my arm out of his grasp and I want to yell but my mouth is otherwise occupied so I settle for my trusty eye daggers.
Steady,aim,fire!
I might as well be batting my eye lashes,for all the good that it does me.I will not be deterred however and keep it up while he paces infront of me.Since his mouth is quite unoccupied he can yell at will."You imbecilic nincompoop!"
Aren't those like,the same thing?
"We must get to Aorta before the night falls! If you keep halting to stuff your mouth we will be wrinkled and grey before we arrive! I did not wish for this assignment, I've had enough of Glob and his fool's errands!" He made quite a big roar and if he wasn't looking at the ground during his little diatribe I might have been fazed.
Maybe.
At least he gave me time to finish off the croissant."Well excuse me for trying to cop some grub,since someone didn't give me a chance to get breakfast." I brush past him and keep walking."If you run on fairy dust and magic,I certainly don't.I need food and you DID say I can eat whatever I want so kill the bee that crawled up your ass.Have you ever heard of assault? In my world you'd be locked up for hauling me around like that."
I'm stomping my bare feet now and the fact that it hurt made me stomp harder.
"I can assure you that there most certainly is no insect in that or any of my other orifices."
The haughty,insulted tone made me turn and look at him.His face was a mask of displeasure and indignation,a look that is incongruous on his bear face,and I burst out laughing,the spate of temper all but dissipating.
"Is there anything to drink around here?" He looks at me for a second before he uses his stick-wait,where does it keep disappearing to and reappearing from?-to stroke his chest diagonally.An old looking,well worn leather strap appeared in the wake of his stick and attached to the ends was a gorgeous, intricately carved,round wooden flask."Is that stick like,a magic wand or something?" I ask as he hands it to me."It is merely the conduit to my energy." He stands and watches me in befuddlement as I drink like I'd been in the dessert for days.Is everything here orgasmic? This is the purest, crispiest,sweetest tasting water I've ever had.I can all but feel my organs singing in appreciation.Of course,my eyes are once more somewhere in the back of my head as I greedily gulp it down.If I had this kind of water back home I'd never touch coke again.I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and return it."Now that's some good water." He puts it back across his chest,swipe the stick along the strap and it fades away.I don't even blink,I'm getting pretty used to the supernatural I guess."Shall we continue?" He raises a bushy brow.
"By all means,let's go Tree Bear." He frowns but ignores my comment."Were you listening to my tale?"
"Gargol evil,Glob good,kicks evil's ass and now evil is cowering in his dark scary castle plotting revenge while Glob is living it up at Heart Mansion" We're once again walking on Oreos and I've started to notice regular trees filtering through the landscape.This bit of normalcy lightens the tension I didn't realise had gripped my shoulders and I quicken my pace."Crudely put but yes,that is the gist of it.Though Glob isn't exactly-" he air quotes here, "living it up.He has spent the last five decades orchestrating and planning an invasion of Nazir.His every waking moment is centered around the protection of Opa and it's people." Which reminded me of a question I still hadn't gotten an answer to."I still don't get what I have to do with all this." I reach down and grab a stalk of licorice, chew lazily.Ulrik glances at me as he speaks."You are one of the four who possess the gifts of Glob." I scoff and shake my head,twirl the piece of licorice."I don't know Glob from Adam and I'm pretty sure he didn't give me a present." He looks at me in exasperation."The levitation Judah.The telekinesis."
Hold up,what? I stop and face him,put my palm out like I'm trying to stop traffic.He walks into it and I snatch my hand away instinctively.My fingers still throb from before.Not making that mistake again."You mean your Glob is the reason I went all Jean Grey? He's the reason my room is trying to kill me?"
"If by that you mean is he the one who favored you with your abilities then yes he is."
Hello temper,old buddy old pal."My room is trashed! I could have died floating around in my room! My clothes almost strangled me!" Enter Mr.Righteous indignation."How dramatic.You would have hardly died.Your ignorance is no fault of Glob's,nor is your inability to control what you were given."
"I didn't ask for any of this! Who's fault is it then?" I throw up my hands,look at him in expectation.
"Your parents."
And on that note my feet leave the ground and I go up,up and away.
Crap.
Here we go again.
My eyes widened, almost taking over my entire face as I paddled and kicked the air.My hand brushed against a Freia and my vocal cords sprang into action."Aaaaaaaahhhhh!" I turned and flailed.Screamed and clawed at nothingness.Im not sure why I bothered since my body refused to obey me and kept right on rising."ULRIK!!" At this point I'm pinwheeling,still screaming,and getting more frantic by the second.I do a breast stroke in the air.A butterfly.Jumping jacks. Uncoordinated flapping around(thank God I'd put some tights on the night before).Nothing worked. "Judah,get down this istant." I barely heard him over my wildly beating heart and my rapid,short burst screaming."Don't you think I'm trying?!" I started to swim through the air,looked down and realised that my momentum was taking me off the path and steering me towards some-thankfully-normal looking pine trees.I also noticed a certain Tree Bear looking extremely annoyed and very inconvenienced walking beneath me."You need to quiet
Thwack,woosh,swat.That was the rhythm we walked to.Ukrik's big rod (really need to start phrasing this better so I don't sound like a perv) slapped a low hanging branch out of the way,-thwack-swept lower to part the long grass,-woosh-and I was constantly swatting at some very blood thirsty insects that kept nipping at my exposed skin.I'm beginning to regret ever wishing for the normal and familiar.Give me Godis any day.Throughout my scratching and grumbled curses,Ulrik told his tale."Glob knew that his victory would never be permanent unless he put other measures in place.To maintain dominion,he had to venture out of this realm and into yours.""I don't get it,why couldn't he just work his voodoo magic on his own people?"He grunted with his next thwack,forcing me to hop over the branch that fell.Which caused me to bump into his granite back and pretty much break my face."Holy pineapple on a stic
I hate snakes.In my brain they represent the epitome of evil.Satan himself was once a snake.They creep me all the way out,so it's safe to say I did a full on Usain Bolt transformation.At least in my head I did.In reality I'm not exactly athletic since my favorite past time is sitting in bed eating nutella and binge watching netflix.Constantly glancing back at them slithering relentlessly towards me didn't help either but I felt like little mouse prey and these things were enormous, looking like they vacationed in Hell.Ulrik, meanwhile has his staff in the air,swirling it around as if he's mixing lemonade and doing a weird jig."Is this really the time to cut loose?!" I asked incredulously.What on earth is he doing? These things can probably swallow me whole and consider me an appetizer.Ulrik might break a few teeth though so I can picture that before I'm completely digested.Wait,do snakes even have teeth?Ulrik ignores me and conti
Deep breath Judah.You've kicked Keanu's ass a bunch of times.Of course,to be fair,those were mainly pillow fights and paint ball battles but still.I do a mental shrug.Roll my shoulders.I try to crack the bones in my neck too but I think they're too lubricated from the grease of all the fried crap I eat so that's a fail.Back to my internal pep talk.You can do this.You've got this Judah.I've got about ten minutes to repent of my sins is what I've got.My heart accelerates,it's frantic beat echoing in my head and my breathing gets heavy.Ah man,I don't want to die.I can feel myself start to sweat.Wait,nope,aiming for a badass transformation here.If I can become Usain Bolt then Jean Grey shouldn't be too much of a stretch right? I close my eyes and focus on my breathing.I can feel the warmth of the sun on my face,the gentle sway of the flowers brushing against my nightgown.Beneath me the ground trembles and in the distance my ears pick
My dark hair streamed out behind me and my feet threaten to tangle together as I run and examine my luminous limbs at the same time,giggling and sputtering like someone high on marijuana."Ulrik I'm glowing! I feel like a night light or something!"I finally catch up and fall into step beside him.That is,I try to,since one of his strides is about three of mine.I might as well still be running."You humans aren't very smart are you? I'm very aware of that fact,which is why I pointed it out to you," he remarked derisively and shakes his head slowly from side to side.I lift my hands and examine them scant inches from my face.They shimmer gold and I fight the urge to 'ooh and aah' like some brainless kid seeing his first magic trick."No need to be snarky.""You make it terribly easy.""I think you're just mean"At this he snorts.
Ulrik's arm was a band of iron keeping me anchored to his shoulder.I felt like a corpse- hollow and lifeless.I watched the fathomless dark cyclone inhale what was once a picturesque meadow and I felt empty inside.Till all that emptiness was crammed with unadulterated terror when I remembered it was about to inhale me too.Ulrik ignored my tiny,fretful whimpers and ran like his life depended on it.Which it did.He powered on as if the hounds from hell were snapping at his heels.Looked more like the toothless green mouth of hell,but close enough.His feet ate up the distance and I'm sure even Bolt would have a hard time keeping up with him.One second I was imagining being torn limb from limb inside the mouth of death coming for us and the next I was thrown into a steel wall.The back of my head bounced painfully off of it and my back felt like someone had hit me with a baseball bat."What the vagina U
After a minute,my hilarity subsided into chuckles and the occasional snort.I brushed my hands off ,rose and dusted my very bruised rump,then turned and took stock of the new terrain.We seemed to be on a slightly weed choked gravel pathway at the foot of a small hill.A small burgundy hill with green foliage.To my credit I snapped my mouth shut before I started to attract flies.A soft breeze brought with it the smell of the sea and I surmised that the ocean was on the other side.I lifted my face to the sky and was almost disappointed to see mundane blue and white with the blinding golden circle that was the sun. Ulrik was a couple steps ahead of me and I ran my hands over the plants and bushes that were all in various shades of green as I caught up.I couldn't wrap my mind around magenta looking dirt and green flowers."This is so freaky."Ulrik followed the meandering path and ignored me."Where are
"So this is the human who wishes to kick me," Ulrik declared contemptuously beside me.Keanu pulled back,held me by the shoulders and looked into my eyes briefly before turning and meeting Ulrik's challenging appraisal."Who are you?" Keanu demanded,squaring his shoulders and planting his feet.I rolled my eyes.Men.Well males since Ulrik is,well....Ulrik.He puffed up his chest a little,tilted his head arrogantly and flicked his hand downward, summoning his staff that somehow looked decidedly more threatening than it did before."I am Ulrik the Finder,and I will have you know that no one, barring Glob,ruler of Opa has bested me in a fight.You shan't be kicking me,but I will give you a fair chance" he answered.I swear his voice went a couple octaves deeper.Must be all the testosterone he's trying not to choke on.I saw Keanu's hackles raise and I k