A Shattered Sky

The New One

Snapdragon stared into the open sky, manipulating her little charm which produced a faint blue glow on her face. A sleek black raven flew down next to her and his little bird mask fell off. As it hit the floor, he was standing next to her back as his normal self.

“Welcome back Williric. What did you find?” Snapdragon stared at her brother, eyes narrowing.

“Nothing worth our time. Maybe we should move to the kingdom’s territory? They’d have plenty of dark energy flowing in their ground.” He said with a hint of suggestion in his voice.

Snapdragon shook her head. “You know we can’t, we have to have at least enough to get to the purple stage. We still have to pass blue, green, and orange. The charm isn’t ready for that kind of power.”

“You’re right. It was worth a shot.” He put his bird mask back on and flew out of the cave.

Genesis sat on the edge of the wall, her puffy green hair standing out on the cleanly cut rocks. She could feel the wind whistling in her pointed elven ears. Aegnor was running late. The hothead always was late, even to an important meeting like the Council's monthly calling to the last of the mage elves. They had been called to the wall for some unspecified reason sent by the Council. Undómiel (Un-doe-meal) had sat beside her with Lux on her opposite side. He was twidling with his star charm, which seemed to always make a small yellow glow. Every now and then, it would shine bright and blind anyone staring.

“Guess who decided to finally show up,” said Zephyr, floating on his portable cloud dangerously close to the edge.

“Aegnor....!” the rest of them said in sync. Zephyr gave them a nod as Aegnor panted to the edge.

“Sorry, sorry! Did I miss anything? Did it end? Uh-uh... Did I-?” he said between breaths.

“Right. Now that you’re all here we can start.” Arie said from the corner. He was the head of mages in the kingdom of Bycrest. He also had the ability to turn into a lion. No one was quite sure how he did it, but all the kingdom knew was that he was one of the most favored people to live.

“Why were we called?” Zephyr said. “It’s not like we’re being invaded or something of the sorts.” He motioned towards the vast emptiness of calm forest over the edge of the wall.

“No no, much of the opposite. We’ve found another elven mage. As you all know, you are the main elements. Genesis as nature and life, Aegnor as fire and rage,” he scoffed at the idea. “Zephyr as wind and flight, Undómiel as darkness and fear, and Lux as light. If you think about it, you’re missing one master of elementium. Water and Fluidness.“ Arie stepped aside to reveal a figure, with short blue hair and a shadow of looked to be a staff or something that was moving.

“I’d like you to meet Leviathan. He is a master of the water and fluidness elementium.” Arie faced away and touched something on his face, shifting into his lion form and stalked away from the group.

“Morning. As he said, I’m Leviathan. Sure my name sounds threatening, but trust me, I’m not. At least, I think.” Leviathan sighed. “Should we get to know each other or...?”

Murmurs were passed between the group, and Undómiel stood up, long gray hair seemed to be hovering as she spoke, which surprised the others. “What can you do...?” Undómiel doesn’t talk much, so to get her to ask you a question is a big deal. “We all have some powerful magic or attack. What is yours?”

“Well, uh... do we have a lake anywhere? Or even an ocean? I’ll show you why they call me Leviathan.”

As Zephyr lead the group to a large pond by the exit of the walls, Genesis spoke to Leviathan about where he came from and how he mastered water elementium.

“Well, mastering an elementium isn’t easy, as you all know,” he said, trying to hook the others into the conversation. “But water elementium was always easiest for me to read. You all do realize that all the elementiums are in different languages, right?” They all nodded and Undómiel sighed. “Since I was little, I’ve lived by an ocean. The Hydra Sea to be exact for my childhood. Now I live by the Reef of the Crystal Eclipse. I think it was my passion for just water, in general, to let me master water’s elementium...”

“While you guys were blabbing on about oceans and reefs, we made it to the pond. Show us what you can do, big guy.“ Zephyr said.

Zephyr had always been top of the group, along with Undómiel by his side. The two had started to make new power combinations, but aside from a nod, they never spoke to each other.

Leviathan proceded to enter the water, which Aegnor flinched at. The pond was always cold, yet he didn’t seem bothered by it in the slightest. Suddenly, he dived down under, leaving only his scarf behind on the surface. Genesis ran in the water, but Aegnor pulled her out.

“If you go, he could drown. Who knows what he’s doing?” he said after she made a face.`

And as soon as Aegnor finished speaking, a large 8 headed hydra burst out of the water, only, it was water itself. No living organs nor a brain, but there was something in it.

“Leviathan.” Whispered Undómiel quietly.

“No way.” Said Zephyr.

The hydra proceeded to roar and with a small movement from the figure inside, the hydra collapsed back into the pond, leaving no trace of its presence aside from a few lost fish out of the pond.

“And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why they call me, Leviathan,” he said before fainting.

Elven Footsteps

Williric flew down to the castle walls. Even without the charm, he could feel the amount of power within Bycrest. It was so tempting to enter the domain and take it for himself. Though the gates were seldom open, Williric's raven form had always been small enough to fit within the holes in the bars. He peeked his head around the kingdom before flying back to the gates. He vividly remembered Snapdragon's words. They did indeed need to pass a few stages, but couldn't the charm suck a little power first?

Then a group of elves caught his eye. It was hard to move them off. They were staring at a body of water, looking similar to a pond. One of them was on the ground. Williric couldn't make sense of the scene, but he dared to continue watching.

"Leviathan! LEVIATHAN!” shouted Zephyr. “I swear to the Northern Winds, WAKE UP!”

“Zephyr, shut up. That won’t do anything! Here, Undomiel, fetch me some seeds, preferably flowering kinds.” said Genesis.

As soon as Undomiel started to walk away, Leviathan stood up and stared at the wall’s entrance.

“It’s here...” he whispered. Leviathan pointed towards the open gate.

There was a slim, black raven peeking its head into the walls. It had pure black feathers with a streak of silver showing itself over its left eye. The sun lay just in front of it as if the raven refused to enter the light or even the castle walls.

“Let’s go... It’s not safe here.” whispered a voice behind the group that made them all jump. It was Wren.

Wren was like Arie; he was one of the few who could morph into creatures. Their names weren’t those of an animal when they were born, but when they revealed to the king that they could change, he hired them to serve him and changed their names to either mean the animal or the animal.

“What do you mean? It’s just a raven, right?” asked Zephyr. He was already antsy to go, picking up Undomiel against her will. She spat at him to put her down, but he wasn't letting go. "It's not like it's going to kill us or somethin'..."

"In fact, it will. Let's leave now before each of you gets transferred into magical energy." He made Genesis restrain her powers as Leviathan sighed. Zephyr had already flown ahead to the castle and was waiting, holding Undomiel by her waist tightly.

"What do you mean, "transferred into magical energy?" How can a living, breathing, person be turned into Elementium?" Aegnor questioned.

"Aegnor, Elementium isn't the only kind of magical energy. It's just the one you're most familiar with. There's something called Pure Essence. It's the power of light put into a condensed, less-powerful form. The more you have, the more powerful spells you can use. There's also Dark Energy, the energy of the most corrupted magic also condensed into a smaller form. There is one form of condensed energy for each element in the world." Wren tried to explain.

"I didn't understand a word of that, but I'll act as if I did!" Aegnor nodded.

Zephyr blew a gust of wind down to them, ruffling Leviathan's scarf and Genesis' cut shirt. She ended up having to hold it down. "Come on then! If Wren says we need to go, then why don't we go?" 

The group understood that if Wren had come personally to them, it had to be urgent. "Alright, fine." Genesis finally spoke.

They quickly followed Wren as he morphed back into the bird and headed back to the castle gates. The atmosphere around them was tense. No one knew why the raven was causing a problem. Wren handed them off the Arie, where he led them to a hidden wall. The mages were shocked. This corridor was never to be used unless a dire situation was happening.

"It's time for you to know why you have your powers," Arie said with a deep tone. It differed from his formal and persuasive voice. 


Williric watched the group leave. He knew the walls would send an alert to the guards if he entered, so he left the premises to report back to Snapdragon. Something was going on, and he wanted to know what it was.

"Wait, hold on a second," Aegnor spoke. "What do you mean why? We all were born with them, right...?" 

"Wrong... It's a little bit of a long story, but I'll tell you once we're inside a safer place." He guided the group down the corridor until they reached a painting of the king. Arie used his right hand to move the painting out of the way, revealing an odd pattern in the bricks. 

"Why haven't you told us about this?!" Undomeil said with pounds of anger in her tone, which startled Lux. "We should have known! What's wrong with you?" It was obvious she was restraining herself. Genesis had to grab her arms to help her cool down. 

Zephyr looked at her. "Is something wrong? It's just a hidden door. Didn't Wren, Arie, and Aquila show you? Even if they didn't, you can't say you didn't think we had one."

Undomeil shook her head and started bickering with him, as usual. Zephyr took it pretty well; however, he was still sort of hurt about it.

Arie put his other hand on the patterned bricks and it began glowing. The runes on it glowed purple, green, red, blue, white, and gold. The only color missing was black. Lux looked at it, realizing something. "Are those stones representing us?"

His inquiry made Undomeil and Zephyr stop fighting. Even Aegnor looked over to the wall to see. 

"That's correct. You are the main 7 elements of the world. As Lux pointed out, there are different colors on here," Arie spoke as the door retracted into the wall and revealed an opening. It was a room with little light. "Each color is your element. Aegnor as Red Fire, Genesis as Green Growth, Undomeil as Purple Shadow, Lux as Golden Light, Leviathan as Blue Depth, Zephyr as White Wind, and you might notice that there's one color missing: black."

He waited. They could tell he wasn't looking at them and was rather looking behind them. Something flashed in his eyes, but they couldn't tell what it was. "We don't know what element is missing yet. We know it's something similar to Undomeil."

They all together walked into the room. There were banners of the symbols on the door, all not lit up. The room contained all sorts of badges, containers, ailments, plants, skulls, anything even remotely related to the elements. Arie shut the door somehow behind them.