The Elemental Sisters: Spirit

When I opened the door, a pillow hit me in the face, "You were outside not even five minutes ago and, in that time, you found something to have a pillow fight over?" I asked, surprised. Sunama shrugged, "We got bored."

"You should be getting ready for practice." I scolded.

"Party pooper." Huricana giggled.

"Well, let's go down to the courtyard to practice, then." Ari announced as she got up, grabbing her weapons and walked to the door, head held high like she wasn't just in the middle of an epic pillow fight.

My sisters and I grabbed our stuff and followed, but in the few minutes we were gone the courtyard had filled with people.

"We can't practice here. It is too busy." I pointed out.

"Well, duh." Gia retorted smartly.

"Hmm." a voice said behind me, causing me to jump. I spun around to face him. A tall, muscular man with short brown hair and green eyes was standing with another man who looked like him, but his hair was longer and his green eyes a slightly lighter green.

"Who are you?" Sunama asked.

"I am Bram," the short-haired man introduced himself, "And he is Ward"

"Nice to meet you." Ward greeted in a deep voice.

"Nice to meet you too, I'm Akasha and these are my sisters Ari, Huricana, Gia and Sunama." I introduced us as they waved when their names were spoken.

"Prince Tyr sent us to guard you." Bram shared.

"We can protect ourselves." Ari snapped.

"Sorry orders are orders, ma'am." Bram replied.

"Ma'am." She laughed, "Do I look like a ma'am to you? My name is Ari," she scolded the man, who blushed.

"Are you looking for somewhere to practice?" Ward asked, looking around the courtyard with a frown.

"Yes, we are." I replied.

"We know of a great place, follow us."

They led us to the back of the castle where a large secret door was hidden in some greenery, and they opened it for us.

"Any of this scream stranger danger to you?" Gia asked Ari as she walked through the door. On the other side was a small bridge leading towards a forest path.

"We can take them, sis don't stress." Huricana joked when I hesitated.

"You can trust them; Tyr really sent them to guard you." Ela shared as I nearly jumped out of my skin.

"Ela, I hate it when you do that." I scolded her.

"Sorry." She grinned.

We followed as Bram and ward led us across a small bridge and through the trees into a meadow.

"Here we are. No one to get caught in the crossfire." Ward smiled, the joke falling short as my sisters and I looked at each other wearily.

"Are you planning to attack us?" Huricana asked, walking up and studying the men.

"Because it will end badly for you." Sunama warned as she pulled water from the ground and manipulated it in her hand.

"We are here under Tyr's order; I swear on our realm." Bram replied, looking unafraid.

"Okay then she replied as the water seemed to form into an arrow, she loosed it at a tree beside Bram, leaving a hole clean through it." As Bram and Ward stood surprised, Bram was a little paler than before.

"Hey what did the tree ever do to you?" Gia yelled as she ran to the tree and manipulated the bark, so the hole was repaired. "Nice tree. It's OK. I won't let evil Sunama hurt you again." She spoke to it as Ari laughed at her. "Come on, guys, we came here to practice, not flirt." I scolded Sunama as she giggled.

"That was flirting?" Ward asked, surprised, as Ari skipped up and replied, "She's a little odd.”

I looked around the clearing at the number of spirits that lingered here and shivered.

"What happened here?" I asked Bram.

"What do you mean?" He asked confused.

"She's talking about the sense of death that lingers here." Gia frowned, shivering herself, probably sensing the bodies buried beneath our feet.

"There are so many spirits, both her and in the castle."

"There have been many battles here, I can't name one specifically," Bram answered.

I looked at Ela who smiled, "The surrounding spirits are safe from what I can tell, a bunch left when we arrived."

I nodded at her, "Thank you."

"What are we training with today?" Huricana asked as she rummaged through her bag, pulling out a sword, daggers, two Sai (a three-point dagger), slingshot and archery quiver, bow and arrows. "Why the hell do you have a slingshot?" Ari accused her.

"So, I can do this." She picked it up and placed a rock in it and aimed at Ari.

"Don't you dare." Ari warned her.

It hit her in the forehead, leaving a little red spot as Huricana cackled in amusement.

I walked over and grabbed the slingshot from my sister.

"Hey no fair." Huricana pouted.

"You and your sixteen-year-old ass need to pay attention. I am serious about this." I scolded her.

"Technically, I'm 8000 years old in the human realm." She pointed out cheekily.

"Well, you are sixteen here, so listen." She loved to use the time difference between the two realms to her advantage.

"Yeah listen." Sunama chided in cheekily.

"I think we should focus on honing our skills with the elements." I shared, "Taoen can control all five elements."

My sisters stopped what they were doing and looked at me, dumbfounded.

"Say that again?" Gia asked as she walked up to me, hands on her hips, ready to argue.

"There is no need to repeat." I replied, "You heard me."

"He'd have to be a pixie or a dragon for that to be possible." Ari noted, annoyed.

"Apparently, he is only half elf and the other..." I paused, "Damn it, Tyr never said what the other half was."

"He's half pixie." Ward chimed in from his place leaning against a tree.

"Once a brother always a brother, forever he shall stay, secrets unlocked should be kept boxed spies hidden away." Huricana sang. Great, another warning, and now she will be speaking jumbled for the rest of the day. "What did that mean?" Gia asked, frowning.

"We will figure it out later. Right now, we need to practice." I informed as I took out my journal from my backpack and quickly wrote down her words to try to decipher later, Ari doing the same.

We kept records of the prophecies we saw or heard to reference later, sometimes we were unable to figure out their meaning and having it written helped us see what the clues and hints meant.

We moved further away from the trees, so we were in the middle of the meadow at first, we practiced controlling and manipulating our gifts on our own. My gift being spirit didn't really give me a lot to work with I focused on seeing the souls around me and the colours associated with them, I could tell by a persons aura what their intent was, but it was also easily tricked if they had ability to control an element for example the aura of their elemental gift could mask the individuals normal aura, and I could misinterpret their intent.

Aris aura was always warning others of a threat and it wasn't because she was a bad person but because her power could be so violent if not kept in check. She may seem wild and carefree, but it was a mask to hide the immense amount of energy it took for her not to hurt anyone by letting her element slip. She flirted, but couldn't go beyond that because her powers would slip with heightened emotions.

I looked at the two brothers, their auras were welcoming and warm. I looked at the spirits that remained in the field. Nothing really jumped out, some of their auras seemed dulled, which was typical with spirits. As my gaze wandered the field, a black aura seemed to emanate in the distance. Alarmed, I focused in on it as it moved closer to us and emerged from the treeline.

I froze as a tall stalky man emerged from the forest, his yellow hair on the shorter side and disheveled, his green tinged face in a smirk as his eyes narrowed at us, green cat eyes locked on his prey. The bold lines on his face were curved and seemed to move over his features.

"Colonel Delano, what do you want?" I hissed as my sisters moved to stand beside me.

The dream of him falling to pieces played in my head and I quickly pushed it away.

"I came to bring you back to the Goblin King, of course." He smiled at me.

"Too bad you're not strong enough." Ari pointed out with a smirk.

Ward and Bram moved to stand with us their weapons drawn.

"Oh, but I am. I have been watching you since you left the village on the night of the fire, tracking you from one location to the next until I finally found you stupid sisters. I am only here for your leader." His cat eyes zeroed in on me, "because without her you are useless."

"Ouch." Gia sneered.

My sisters were all in fighting stance about to attack, "So where is she?" he asked looking around, "She was just here."

That confused my sisters and me. "Where is who?" Ari asked.

"Akasha, you little idiots."

They looked behind them, confused.

I looked at my hands and couldn't see them, "I'm in my spirit form." I informed them, sending a message into their minds.

This could be handy, I smiled as I quietly walked over to Colonel Delano and kicked him in the head, knocking him unconscious. Gia quickly tied him to a tree.

"Now, what do we do with him?" Gia asked.

"We should kill him, or he may cause trouble later."

"We are not killers unless we have to be," I pointed out.

"I agree, you should kill him." Karm frowned.

"Oh, you're back." Ela smiled and wrapped her arms around him.

"How did you go invisible? Why are you not visible again?" Sunama fretted.

"It's my Spirit form and I haven't learned to control it yet; I am just as surprised as you are." I replied, as Bram and Ward looked around the clearing for me.

"If we don't get rid of him now, we might end up regretting it." Gia agreed with Ari.

"Again, we do not kill unless we have to." I stated more firmly.

"That would be a mistake." Ela told me, and I frowned at her.

"Let the king decide you can head back with Bram, and I will stay here and wait for guards to come with proper shackles; plus he's unconscious. He would be a little difficult to carry." Ward suggested.

"I think that is the best option, I won't have my sisters turning into murderers." I agreed with Ward as I narrowed my eyes at my sisters, not that they could see it.

"Lets' head back. More could be coming; the faster someone can help Ward bring him back, the better."

"We also need to figure out how to make you visible again. If you stay too long in that state, you won't come back at all." Sunama noted.

"I know we will figure it out at the castle, one thing at a time."

Sunama nodded as we collected our things to head back to the castle.