"I am disgusted at both of you! Your majesty, whilst in my house you treat people with respect. Salem I expected better of you. Sire, I will summon you daughter but I fear that only force will take her from this House. I am against her leaving, and Salem is right in the matter of that. You on the other hand are right, she must be a Princess for there is nothing else she can be. Both of you go, Miri will make her choice without you there to help her," Neither King Kinik or Salem had interrupted at all through the whole tirade. Now it was over they left quietly and hurried downstairs. Salem had his own worries now.
What if the King was right? What if Miri didn't really love him? What if she was just using him as a kind of bodyguard? What if? There were so many questions and so many answers. Salem realised that unless he asked her he'd never know. And by then she would have already made her choice. What kind of world is it that lets you love someone who you can never have? Never, because they're out of your reach...?
"Salem, I think she called you? I apologise for my hasty words. You are a noble man, I can tell. Maybe we could come to an agreement?" Kinik said. Salem looked behind him, the King had an evil glint in his eyes.
"You let her come back to the castle and I'll let you come and see her," The King said. Salem thought about this. There were no gurantees or any way of making the king keep his word...
"No. I must know what Miri wants, not what you or I want her to have," Salem ran away, before the King offered him another deal, if he'd have stayed he might have been able to prevent the biggest tragedy in Dreamer's Academy history...
Jinxes walked towards the Water Gardens. Recently he'd not been praying to the Light Gods enough. He kneeled down on the hard stone floor, he felt the power of the gods and goddesses looking down on him.
Oh gods and goddessses of light, I pray to you for guidence in this time of peril. I must know what is to become of Dreamer's Academy, for I fear that we are involved in it's fate closely...
Jinxes opened his eyes. Standing infront of him was a woman, she wore a white robe and light seemed to radiate from her. Her eyes were blue, her hair blonde, her features all to perfect to be human. Jinxes had heard her described before, Shishalla Velumti, the Goddess of Light, who was married to the Cheif God, Helontopin.
"Jinxes, you are a brave person to ask us for the future. Yet what you ask is impossible to tell you, for we have never looked towards the future. As guardians of light we are entitled only to look towards light times and our sight bypasses all the times in the next two thousand years. Jinxes, Dreamer's Academy will survive, yet against the tides of time, everything dies. Even Deities. Jinxes, you will face hardships unlike many that any have faced, but you must be strong. The Gods of Light shine upon you, do not fail us," With that she melted away. Jinxes stood up.
"What must I do? Why do you favour me? What is going to happen? ANSWER ME!" He shouted but no reply came. Jinxes stood there shaking, wondering if he had seen a goddess or just an illusion to torment his shattered spirit?
Victory sat down on his bed. They were living here on borrowed time. Soon the House of Dreams would be a fairy story, he knew. Nothing was without it's price. Whatever happened Lady Kristel would survive, but with no House of Dreams there would be no point in living...
"Dammit! Why can't I help them? Why must I sat here like a dopey idiot?" He hit the wall, he heard a crack. He saw that a bit of plaster had broken loose from the ceiling. He stared at it on the floor. Shortly after another piece of plaster joined it.
"What the? Klujiki, father of shadow darkness! What the hell is happening?" Victory ran out of the dormitory to find Salem and Jinxes both coming up the stairs.
"What's happening? All hell is breaking lose!" Jinxes shouted. Victory grabbed them by the scruffs of their collars and pulled them outside.
"I'm not supposed to tell you this but I think you need to know-" Victory was interupted by hundreds of students rushing out of the Dreamer's Academy Dormitory Building. The House of Dreams itself was standing firm but the dorms were crumbling to the ground.
"Holy Goddess! What's happening?" Mraya shouted. She was on her own at the back of the crowd. Lots of girls screamed and Jinxes looked round.
"WHOA! SALEM! VICTORY! WE GOT COMPANY!" Crawling from the shadows were creatures so horrible that they looked like something out of a horror movie. They had squashed faces and had frothing mouths and red eyes. They walked on all fours like a lizard, with brown fur covering their body. They had long talons that were about as long as knives. Their tails were spiked. They were the perfect killing machines.
"WHAT ARE THEY? ARE THEY SHADOW MONSTERS OF SOME KIND?" Salem shouted.
"MAYBE," Victory replied. "THEY SEEM LIKE SUMMONED ELEMENTALS OF THE SHADOW!" Salem turned around and was greeted by hot breath on his face.
"Mere mortals, fear us now! The end is nigh! You shall be the first sacrifice! Prepare to die!" Salem, Jinxes, Mraya and Victory prepared to fight, all fighting for the same reason.
"Miri, you must decide now," Lady Kristel said. Miri sat for awhile. Her true love or her family and her livlihood. Love wouldn't pay her bills or rent, yet without love what was the point in life? She felt the House shake, as though by an earthquake.
"I shall return home to my parents, I wish to take with me a teacher, to carry on my education into the magical arts though, my lady?" Miri was sitting there sagging. She didn't want to leave but what choice did she have?
"Then so be it," Lady Kristel sighed. Only seconds after Salem had left Miri had arrived, mere seconds had passed, though it felt like eternity. Miri stood her hands resting on the desk.
"I shall pack my things and change into more appropriate clothes-" Miri was cut off by a bang. The door was blown of it's hinges and banged onto the floor. Sara was there, she looked different. Her eyes were dark but they weren't seeing things.
"My master awaits you Lady Kristel!" She rasped. "Hand over the chosen! Give them all to my master and he will train them. Hand them over or the House of Dreams will be destroyed!" On the last word a cackle rose from Sara's throat. It made the hair stand up on the back of Miri's neck.
"Sara, Guardian of Gaia! Be free of this curse! Be free of this curse! Be FREE!" Lady Kristel shrieked. Sara smiled, blinked and fell to the floor. Lady Kristel ran over to her.
"Lady Kristel... They are here. The Shadows are upon us. They destroyed Gaia! They killed the planet... Jinxes-S-Salem, Victory and Mraya-a, they f-fight the m-m-monsters," Sara began to cough. She put her hand to her mouth and blood stained her green robes.
"Lady Kristel, we can win this. They will save us. I name Sendura as the new Guardian of Gaia, she is strong and powerful, she will recover our planet. Goddess bless us all, especially you my lady, who has shown such kindness. Goddess bless you all..." Sara went limp in Lady Kristel's arms. Miri looked at the Guardian.
"No Guardian has ever been killed within the walls of my House..." Lady Kristel said. She stood, her eyes closed. As though she could see through her eyelids she walked forwards towards the door.
"Pack your clothes, Miri, and leave, as quickly as you can. May the Goddess look down upon you to help you through this," With those words Lady Kristel opened the door and left. Miri hurried away to pack her things. What she saw when she got there however, horrified her...
"WHY WON'T YOU DIE!" Jinxes shouted. The beast laughed, a cruel harsh laugh. Salem felt a shiver go down his spine. Yet it didn't seem like he was shivering because of the monster's laugh more like...Betrayal...
"I am Immortal! I cannot die! And all who face an Immortal die!" The ceature lashed out, catching Mraya across the middle, shredding her top.
"LEAVE HER ALONE!" cried a voice from behind the monster. The monster swung round. Behind him was Miri, her eyes were closed, as though she were about to do something she would regret.
Slowly Miri began to change. Her face turned horse-like. Her hair became longer and her body changed shape. She turned into a white horse, finally a pearl horn shot through her forehead. Miri had changed into a Unicorn, a keeper of light.
"Ah, so we have a new player? Ah, I sense that you have already stepped toward us! Your father shall be so please! So shall my master, so much easier you are to get once outside these walls!" The moster lashed out again. Miri dodged and rammed her horn into the monster's side. He disappeared in a cloud of smoke.Miri changed back.
"What did he mean Miri?" Salem asked. Miri turned away from them.
"I am leaving to return to the palace. It is where I belong, and it is my home. I would like it if you pretended you'd never met me. Please, you must let me be now, for I have made my choice," Miri ran away, so no one would see the tears in her eyes.
The rest of the day was spent destroying the Shadows, who seemed to have ever-lasting numbers. At about four in the afternoon, the last one was defeated and the students were sent to the House of Dreams.
Lady Kristel stood on the door step, ready to greet them.
"Today, we have suffered a tragic loss. Sara Guardian of Gaia, she is dead. Dreamer's Academy Dormitories have been destroyed and for the first time ever, we have lost a chosen one!" Rumors whispered through the crowd. Many were hysterical about the fact that the Shadows had returned.
"They do not know who they are, or what they must do. But now I believe that they must be told, to save us all from destruction. Princess Miri, is one, she departs from our company tonight, to live with her father in the Southern Palace. Prince Salem of the Northern Heights, is another, he stays among us wearing a disguise. Jinxes Getratone, who will be the healer of the five. Mraya of Challenger House, who makes up the air and earth side of the group. Finally Victory, Knight of the House of Dreams, who's thunder and lightening attacks are powerful enough to sustain the power source in the House of Dreams. Those of you who know them, support them, those of you who don't, do not hinder them. Dismissed."
Salem, who had been listening from near the back swore. Prince? Him? Why had nobody told him? Hadn't Kinik told him that he was "King of the Southern Lands and Prince of the Northern Heights." Did that mean that Salem had a father? Or that Miri was his neice? Salem was used to questions without answers but now he knew that his questions could be answered.
"SALEM!" He heard Jinxes shout. "WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL US?!" Jinxes was next to him now. Mraya was with him. "Or should I be more respectful to someone who's gonna rule the land I grew up in?" Jinxes shook his head.
"I-I didn't know. Do you think I wouldn't had told Miri? Or Victory? Wait, Victory knew..." Salem thought about his first meeting with Victory, about how Victory seemed to warm to him. How everything seemed to revolve around Victory, himself, Miri, Mraya and Jinxes.
"So, he's Lady Kristel's Protector?" Mraya said. She seemed distant, almost sad. Jinxes however waved his hand.
"Yeah, but he's not immortal like her. He's a Chosen one, just like us, he's no different from a normal student. He's just got a fancy title," Jinxes said. Salem doubted this.
"Just a fancy title? Jinxes, please. You know that it means that he's more than that. He's the most powerful person in the Chosen! He has been chosen to protect our home, while we defeat these Shadows!" Salem realised he was getting annoyed over stupid things. I miss her already, he thought.
"You're right..." Jinxes replied. "Though I wish you weren't..." He added. Salem sighed and sank to his knees.
"Hey! C'mon! We're all still alive, right? And Miri's gonna be okay, she's with her family now. Everyone's gonna be fine and we're all gonna live happily to the end of our days!" Mraya smiled. Salem frowned, false hope wasn't going to help anyone.
"Don't fool yourselves," said Victory. He seemed to have appeared out of no where. He offered a hand to Salem to help him up, Salem took it, noticing how strong Victory was.
"This isn't the end of our fight. It is barely the beginning. Sara was killed, Lady Kristel will avenge her death, but she cannot do it alone. Have you heard about the last time the evil swept over the Earth?" Victory asked. All shook their heads. They had never really thought about how Lady Kristel knew about the evil.
"Lady Kristel nearly died, but when Lady Kristel was on the verge of death, her Guardians lent her their strength. She lived, but it was a close thing. Sara trapped the evil inside the planet's core, inside the planet's Gaia, and it was thought we were free of it."
"But once again it walks abroad, and this time the Gods and Goddesses have given us another way. As we speak a Guardian is trapped behind the Gates of Time, it is Cingo, Guardian of Five. We can't just pretend we're like the other students any more..." Victory stopped, breathing heavily. Salem felt something weigh down inside him. Five, yet only four remained...
"We have to get Miri! She can't just leave!" Mraya exclaimed. "We're the Earth's only hope right? That means that she's gotta stay here! Hasn't she?" Mraya added. Salem frowned, he would have given anything for Miri to come back, but to force her with this. No it was Miri's decision, no one elses.
"Lady Kristel had to give her a choice. Don't tell her about this, if she comes back then it must be her choice. That's what Lady Kristel wants..." Salem muttered. He looked up, it was sunset and a lonely star shone in the sky.
"Kris wants what's best for everyone, that's all," Victory said quietly. Jinxes looked at him. Oh please Jinxes, Salem thought, don't mention anything stupid.
"You know Lady K on first name, abbreviated, terms then?" Jinxes asked. Victory chose not to answer as there was a long pause, in which Mraya shuffled about a lot.
"We all need our sleep, we've been house with the Guardians in the Dreams Temple. C'mon, we all need some time with our thoughts..." Mraya walked away. Victory and Jinxes followed, Salem however did not.
The star twinkled, it shone with all it's might, then it blurred, and it cried...