Eveline UPDATE 7/23/10

We followed the path’s twists and turns until I heard Mark muttering to himself under his breathe. He then looked me in the eyes as he said “This path will only lead us straight into a village, we’re going to need to abandon the path.”

“Well alright then that’s fine I guess.” Mark began to march off the path and onto the grassy flooring of the forest. Leaves crackled under our feet as we proceeded North at a steady pace. We passed bushes that looked to me as if little lights were inside them, flashing on and off. However when I tried pointing it out to Mark he simply laughed and said that it must be fire fairies.

His laughing made it seem to me as if I should’ve known that little fairies hid in bushes! Needless to say the more we walked the more he irritated me.

I found little details about him that I hadn’t bothered to notice before that I now found unbearably annoying. The way his arms swayed at his sides when he walked in synchronization with his feet irked me.

His shaggy black hair that fell into his dark blue eyes, also brought out a feeling inside of me that I hoped was annoyance. But at the same time I couldn’t be sure.

“Can you please stop inspecting me? It’s starting to make me uncomfortable.” I heard Mark say, causing me draw my eyes from his awkwardly. He continued to stare at me until I let loose all of my annoyance.

“You feel uncomfortable? Well how about all those years you made me feel terrible and worthless at school! Didn’t you ever stop and think that maybe just for a split second I felt uncomfortable? And now you want me to stop making you feel uncomfortable just because I happen to be looking at you! What you and your buddies did was a whole lot worse than just looking at me!” He looked at me with what I only could describe was shame, this also irked me.

Now you’re going to look at me with puppy dog eyes and expect your oh-so attractive eyes to woo me into forgetting how miserable you made me! Oh and you also claim that what happened to my mother that night was planned! PLANNED! What do you have to say for yourself?”

By now my hands were flaming and fire seemed to be pulsing up and down along with my heart. Mark’s eyes widened when he noticed the fire.

Suddenly I was afraid of the fire and that I might accidently burn down the forest, just like I had burnt down my small little helpless town.

I felt the fire go out as I fell to the ground in a heap and drew my legs close to my chest and began to sob.

I heard Mark slowly walk up and sit down next to me, “I’m an oracle.” I looked over at him to see him staring out into the empty space in front of him.

“I can see thing’s that will happen, some thing’s can be changed and some can’t. The first time I saw something happen was my dad being killed by a water soldier. I was only five at the time, my visions come to me at night in my dreams and I had hoped to God that it was only a nightmare. I thought it was only a nightmare for I didn’t understand what my visions were at the time.

Can you imagine how confused I was? How upsetting that can be for a five year old to have to see their own father getting killed in their sleep. Unfortunately this was a vision that I wasn’t able to prevent. I woke up the next morning asking my mother every hour where my dad was. She giggled and said that he was off at the market trading, trying to get me a new air sword to play with.

When they brought the news to my mother and I, I knew what was coming so I simply said to them “It was planned.” This put my mother into shock. Needless to say she found out hours later that I was the new oracle, destined for greatness and a secluded life.

Some oracles remain in attics their whole entire lives, merely telling people what would happen and how they should stop it or let it be. I was instated at a school far away from the rest of the world. There were a few girls there and one or two boys. The girls would throw themselves at me, apparently I was the only decent guy around.

I was lonely and my mother refused to see me claiming that I needed to get used to the isolation. When I was in fifth grade I began having visions about a girl who at first had brown hair but with the seasons her hair whitened and her eyes became golden, she was beautiful and I had no idea who she was. Except that she was the most popular girl around and loving her life.

She loved it so much that the day her mom began chanting funny words and her dad spoke to her of fairies and such things she denied it all. She rejected her responsibility to the realms and her own world. So the realms froze and collided with her world, killing everyone. Poisonous gases erupted from the air and people died of the cold and the gas until there was no one left.” He paused for a moment and I stiffened as he looked at me.

“That was when I knew I needed to take action, I knew that whoever this girl was, she couldn’t ever be popular or accepted by other people. If she enjoyed her middle school and part of her high school life she wouldn’t accept her place in the realms.

I told Annaleasse of my vision and my plan that I would go to her school and make sure she didn’t have an enjoyable time. At first I figured it would be easy for I had been living a rough life so making another person feel like crap shouldn’t have been too much of a problem.

At first it wasn’t for I was emotionally unstable but as I got used to the school I began to see how beautiful the girl was. It was nothing like any of the girls I had ever seen before, which was very few. So my job at tormenting her got harder and harder. Especially since she weekly got more and more beautiful.”

He stopped talking and for a moment we just sat in the silence soaking in Mark’s story. Then I stood up angrily and Mark looked at me surprised.

“How do you know that I would have rejected the responsibility! Your visions aren’t the sure future!” I scowled at him and kicked dirt in his direction.

“Yeah, I get it Mark you’ve had a rough past, but how could you have known for sure!” The palms of my hands were once again raging with a burning fire that was growing tremendously.

Mark looked at me with pure sadness and I simply felt even more enraged.

The longer I looked into his eyes the taller the fire I was holding grew. Suddenly I flashed back to all the upset faces in my small town.

The dread of that night and the people I had hurt and the buildings I had destroyed rushed back at me. The fire slowly shrunk back down until it was merely a small speck that I could blow out.

Mark glanced at me and began to speak, “Save it.” I muttered and crossed my arms.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered, those two words seemed as if they blew around on the wind before they reached my ears. I ignored them and Mark didn’t say anything else, he only began walking through the bushes and the grass flooring of the forest.

Mark and I walked in silence, each of us consumed by our own thoughts. So when we stopped abruptly at the entrance to a cave I tripped and fell landing on top of Mark. I clumsily untangled my arms from his and stood up without saying a word.

Marks’s face flushed as he regained his posture and pointed out that we should begin gathering leaves to soften our sleeping arrangements.

“I knew we should’ve brought sleeping bags…” I murmured to myself as I set out in search of soft green leaves. Mark was using wind to shake the trees so that an abundance of leaves would fall to his feet.

I stood there gawking at all the leaves he’s gathered before I even bothered to pick up a few. He noticed me watching and smiled cockily at me.

“What, afraid that my bed will be softer than yours? Don’t worry I’ll share my leaves with you!” Then he grinned and shook the next available tree.

I muttered something indecent and began scoping the ground for lush, green leaves. For about a good forty five minutes Mark and I collected the ground and its trees of leaves. When we were basking in the pride of our leave finding expedition Orland and Mark’s lizard emerged from the bush behind me.

I jumped startled as Mark walked over to put his lizard back into his coat pocket. We passed Celia on our way here, she should be her momentarily.

Sure enough true to Orland’s word Celia walked out of the same bush my instinct had just moments before. She was carrying two pails of water and a brown sack that held our water jugs. Celia later explained to me that our water jugs were able to refill themselves seven times before we needed to purchase new ones.

“Good you found a cave,” Celia paused examining our piles of leaves. Mark’s towered over my small pathetic heap of leaves. “and some leaves.”

She handed the water supplies off to Mark whom then took it on into the cave. Celia’s instinct cawed from above as it made it’s landing on her shoulder. She began to stroke the underneath of its chin as it cocked its head to one side.

I glanced at Orland wondering if I should reach out and pet him, or congratulate him on his hunting. It’s alright if you wish to stroke me. I laughed at myself, I had forgotten Orland’s ability of telepathy.

I softly stroked the top of Orland’s head, feeling his smooth ears and his soft fur. He looked me in the eyes and it felt as if he could sense all my feelings, all my desires and yearnings.

Yes I do know what it is that you need Eveline. I stopped stroking him and looked at him sternly before I walked over to the entrance of the cave. Celia followed me and while putting her hands on her hips announced,

“It’s time to begin training.”