CHAPTER 3
The Fire Element
When she was finally well enough to travel, about two weeks after, Loralle made her way towards the Fire Tribe. Within this time, a few more things became known to her.
One was that she could now use both water and earth together as one, as now they combined smoothly but before they hadn"t. She had realized it a few days after the earth house had been created. The steps had the tiniest bit of water and the gra.s.s on her make shift bed had been a little damp when she had tried to sleep on it the first time.
Testing her powers, more so out of curiosity then to understand, it was obvious that without the approval of the element, she could not combine them. Until she was approved for the fire element, she could not combine it with either the earth or the water powers.
Loralle admitted to herself that she was, indeed, very intrigued on this matter!
What else could she make? What else could she do? Her enthusiasm nearly made her start jumping up and down!
Was water and fire something that could be combined in the first place? Thinking about this really did keep her occupied as she travelled towards the back end of the Fire Tribe, sitting, while the earth took her there. The travel time was reduced even more so, now that her power had doubled in the earth power.
But, as she travelled, she did also come across something else by accident.
She had just begun searching the earth to watch people, like she usually did...When she found that she could venture out further in the earth...She was able to see a lot more distance then before! Mondal got bigger!
Upon this realization, Loralle curiously continued into the unknown, unseen territory. With wide eyes and her heart beating rapidly, she found two new areas!
From where she had received the approval of the earth element, one place was far to the north and the other was far to the south. But, looking closer, these two new places were together, just like the Fire and Water Tribes.
Loralle had never thought that Mondal was...So big! Will it get any bigger? She wondered.
No one, she had heard of, had spoken of these two other places before. She could possibly understand why, because of the large land ma.s.s between them...But...They seemed somewhat...Familiar.
Closely looking, and seeing the picture of the lands in her head, Loralle saw that it was very similar indeed, to the Fire and Water Tribes!
Except...One had a severe, giant cyclone in the middle of their small tribe and the other had what looked to be a field full of big light flashes, reminding her of lightning from thunderstorms.
It was quite an impressive sight to behold as she saw some big, strange looking stones on the outside of the field, as though they were holding in all those flashing lights...
They were...Obviously...Two more elements! Loralle couldn"t wait to meet her two new friends!
Searching more thoroughly, Loralle found that their immediate areas seemed somewhat unstable. Sighing, she wondered if there was some way she would be able to go through the very strong windy area or the area that looked...Unexplainable...It was quite a lot of rock hills...
Loralle was shocked as she could see different coloured stones all giving off smaller light flashes everywhere! And there were so many of them! It was most likely their last line of defences. How on earth would I get through that!?
...It looked too quick to dodge...
What made Loralle question even more so, was that, why was their tribes so much smaller than that of the Water and Fire tribes?
As more time pa.s.sed by, Loralle got very close to the Fire Tribe and couldn’t think of any reason to the population of the new two tribes. Was it because of the rapid air and the vast rock hills that lacks everywhere else? But with our tribes, it"s the same...The water is only in the Water Tribe village, yet, they go out to fight just like the Fire Tribe...
Loralle shock her head, did they perhaps fight and lose many of their people in a big war?
Surely, even if they had lost so many, their numbers would have more then what they have now...
Loralle couldn"t work it out. But she made the complete decision that she must go their personally to investigate!
Smiling greedily, she was looking forward to understanding more about them! More power to behold, indeed!
It wasn"t long after Loralle decided this, that she found herself in seeing distance of the Fire Tribe. Sighing, Loralle stood up and started to walk instead.
Knowing that her powers were known now to both the Fire Tribe and Water Tribe, she wanted to try and stay away from people as much as possible...Which was something she was good at!
Even though her fire power wasn"t as strong as her water and earth, she had been born from two n.o.bles. Her fire power was still something that, by itself, might even cause attention...
It was at this time that Loralle started to wonder if her mother was from the Fire Tribe&h.e.l.lip;With the small amount of information she had on her mother, her coming from the Fire Tribe seemed to be something that would make a lot of sense. Considering if she had inherited her water powers from her father, how else could she inherit the fire powers?
But then, Loralle thought of the earth power&h.e.l.lip;
Like she always did when she was thinking too hard, she scratched her head.
As far as she was aware, there was no Earth Tribe, if there had been, wouldn’t it have been back in the middle of the desolate earth place where she was accepted by the earth element?
Why was there no Earth Tribe? Do they perhaps...Live under the ground?
How&h.e.l.lip;Did she really inherit the earth powers?
With the earth powers having such a dead end, Loralle still couldn’t shake away the idea that her mother might be part of the Fire Tribe.
But, she decided, I’ll think more about that later, as she wanted to give scratching her head a break.
Coldly, Loralle looked ahead of her, at the incoming defences of the Fire Tribe. She saw that some small magma pools were already on the ground, and what she could see were people looking out from them.
But&h.e.l.lip;It was like that of the Water Tribe defences, so Loralle quickly overcame her curiosity.
The better sight was behind them! It was a wall of fire!
It seemed to go along the whole way as Loralle saw it go out of sight in two different directions.
Magma was on the bottom of the fire, but how was it up continuously like that!?
As pretty as it was, Loralle was sure that the Water Tribe could break through it. If they soaked themselves beforehand, they should be able to run through it.
Thinking further, Loralle remembered the Water Tribe had a different kind of wall. It was deep water that flashed up every now and again...Definitely not as pretty as the fire wall!
Her thoughts will have to disappear for now. It was time to go back to the her of her past, that had suffered all those years. It would be easier to stay unnoticed if she stays dirty, scampers around and stays out of people’s sight as often as possible.
So, what she was going to do...Was be her animalistic self, not something very hard for her to accomplish!
Squatting down to the ground, Loralle looked at the high volcano in the distance, almost making her neck sore. All she needed now, was her destination. She would let her old self take her there!
And that was how she pa.s.sed the fire defences and started to head towards the volcano.
Obviously, the fire wall had been no problem, because of her immunity to it.
Before anyone could have questioned her, she had disappeared. After her weird and strange escapade, the people let her go, thinking that she was one of the "crazy ones."
Indeed, her act was very easy...As she had done this for many years now...
Loralle scoffed, actually, it wasn"t all an act...It was really part of who she was...Her only friends were that of the powers that she had.
It would be embarra.s.sing to anyone else but...Loralle didn"t know what being embarra.s.sed was.
She had spent much time "playing" with fire, earth and water. What else had she to do? There was only so much time she could take of watching everyone else through the earth, eating and sleeping. Playing cat and mouse with her powers was to fill in time when she wasn"t thinking...Or thinking too much. Of course, things changed a little as she had decided to go and obtain each power’s approval.
But the impression she had left behind at the Fire Tribe"s defences, left quite a few people speechless.
She had jumped out, nearly catching a fire ball, only to have that fire ball fly off, and she had chased after it...That was what half of the close by people saw and the other half of the people didn"t understand the sudden silence, and a voice spouting something about someone being crazy!
***
What Loralle didn"t quite count on, was how much time it would take for her to climb this huge volcano.
Two days had gone by and she only found herself half way up...
It was astronomical on the distance it goes up and how hard it was to climb. She even wondered if she had been taken it too easy with being able to use earth to get everywhere, because now that she hadn"t used it, everything seemed to be so much harder! She had to stop several times in order to rest...Making her a little uneasy as she wondered if her body was unfit. It was just another thing to worry her, but she could only think of that later, as she took in a deep breath. The volcano’s surface was steep and had no signs of life living on it. She stumbled many times over lose rocks and had to detoured several times to be further away from the slow, flowing magma.
Loralle looked down at the Fire Tribe below her and decided that if she were to use her earth power, it shouldn"t be seen by anyone from this point onwards.
But...Another thing that was bothering her, was how hot it was already becoming. She was already wet with sweat, making her clothes very sticky. Perhaps, this was the only time that people would be able know what gender she really was! It wasn’t that much of an issue for Loralle, as it was often in her past that she would be wet...But, it was the first time that she thought that she should clean herself...
What was different was that she wasn’t used to the heat in the slightest. Neither was her slim body that showed that her age has matured into a young female because of her clothes sticking to her. If one could look past her dirty look and messy hair&h.e.l.lip;They would see that her body would be something that males would definitely want to stare at!
Sitting down on a piece of earth, that was quite a distance away from the flowing magma going down the volcano, Loralle knew, that if she doesn"t think of something, she might not make it to the top before she become ash!
To stay out of sight, she built a small cave, where she was, and contemplated on her next step.
For Loralle, that was the best piece of help, as she found that the earth around her was cooling her down. While she waited for her body temperature to drop, she tried to consider what would happen to her.
Letting out a chuckle, she shook her head. Wasn"t it obvious? She wasn"t that stupid!
The magma will burn me...But will it be worse...Considering that I will be asking for my third approval?
Loralle took some deep breaths in worry. She hadn"t used other powers to help protect herself in the last two trials...If she was to use them...
Scratching her head, she was quite worried. The elements obviously seem to hate each other, so using them to help her survive this trail...Wouldn"t it be worse?
Then what was she to do?
Binding earth around her arm, mixed with some water, she felt her arm get cooler then what the rest of her body was...
Loralle blinked, then put her other arm on fire. She tried to make the fire to the highest degree that she could employ and touched her earth-bound arm.
Really...This didn"t answer any of my questions...
Sighing, to see no change to her earth-bound arm, she knew that the magma would be much hotter than this. What she had done just now...Was just waste her time...Not that she wasn"t used to wasting time...She just wished she knew what she could do to make her feel better.
Nothing would have happened to her earth-bound arm, because her powers in earth and water were stronger than that of her fire power.
Getting her arms back to normal, she continued to sit there.
Deciding that it was a good chance to eat and sleep, she closed the cave only to have a small gap for the air to flow freely in, then covered herself with an earth and water blanket to keep her cool.
Yes, resting was a great idea! Thinking of trying to overcome something difficult, really did tire her and she fell asleep quite quickly.
***
Loralle woke up a few hours later and stretched. She was a little hotter now, as the water around her had evaporated.
Sighing, she could see an upcoming, tricky situation&h.e.l.lip;Nonetheless, she opened the cave, to have a blast of hot air come at her.
Checking the earth, to see that n.o.body could see where she was, she left still sitting.
There was only one way to find out how to overcome the trail of the fire power...And that was to go to the top and check it out personally...Well, that was the decision she came too anyway.
As she raced there, heat became a problem extremely quickly and she covered her whole self with a wet, earth bound to cool herself down. With only a couple of holes, to see through and breath, Loralle let out a small quick chuckle to what she must look like right now...But her laughter held a hint of worry. It was a small attempt to cool her thoughts down, but it hadn"t worked, she was starting to breath quicker, due to knowing what was up ahead.
She wasn"t even there yet and she found herself scared.
It would be much easier to give up...Why am I doing this anyway?
But before doubts could make too much of a nest in her thoughts, she was already at the top of the volcano.
I"m not ready...
Seeing very little, because of the earth surrounding her, she admitted to her fear. Why hadn"t I felt this much fear with the others? How had I overcome them?
Laughing uncomfortably, she felt that she was crazy. What in the world am I doing!? I...Must be crazy! Just like they had said at the defences!
It was, at this moment, that she tipped the earth...To drop herself into the magma.
That"s right! Bring it on! She yelled in her head. Didn"t I stop a war so that I could figure things out!?
As she fell, she concentrated on her earth bound that covered her body. As she focused on that, she tried to stay calm...But, who would be able to stay calm knowing you"re just about to fall into a pit of magma? Yes, Loralle was freaking out!
Hitting the magma nearly evaporated half of the earth bound that was around her straight away and her clothes turned to ash, leaving her naked.
Slowly, she started to sink in the hot magma, feeling the most heated she had ever been in her whole life. Feeling the earth-bound fall completely apart when she had been half taken into the magma, she felt her skin start to fall apart.
Loralle could not help but let out a hopeless, agonizing scream.
Unmoving, so to look for acceptance of fire, Loralle did try to use earth and water to cover herself, but it came to no use.
Her head was sinking in now and she couldn"t feel the rest of her body. With a last ditched effort to save her life, she tried to cover herself with fire instead. Although it hurt her tremendously, she could feel her body again. Her own fire was something that she was immune to, but it was losing fight rapidly. She, now totally sunken, could only put her own fire power to extend one millimetre out everywhere on her body to fight the vicious magma.
It was such a fight that she had forgotten why she had gone there in the first place!
When the same words, but different voice came, it had startled her. "The element known as fire accepts you. From now on, you will not know the fire vengeance!"
Loralle was moved up by the magma and at the same time it cooled down, making it go hard and black around her.
Her limbs couldn"t move, flesh had been seared off and she heard herself yelling coa.r.s.ely and tears were streaming down her face.
Using up all her effort, Loralle moved herself away from the magma and back onto the earth. Barely staying awake, she tried to get away from the heat, as far as she could!
Breathing heavily and seeing her vision unable to focus, she only managed to get a few metres away.
Before pa.s.sing out, all she could do, was cover herself with another earth and water bound before darkness swept through her.
If she hadn’t survived such harsh circ.u.mstances since young, she wouldn’t have made it thus far. Due to her extreme will to survive&h.e.l.lip;Loralle had used up everything she had! Thinking about using the fire power...Had saved her life!
But&h.e.l.lip;For a millennium&h.e.l.lip;She has become the most powerful person on the continent of Mondal! People thought she was powerful before&h.e.l.lip;To create a long bottomless pit between the Fire and Water Tribes&h.e.l.lip;Now, she has the power to destroy this whole continent of Mondal!
***
In the weeks that followed, Loralle couldn"t move from that place on top of the volcano. All she could do was rebuild her earth and water bound every time she was conscious.
Another few more weeks past and finally, Loralle could move further away. This time she travelled to half way down the mountain, making it to the cave, so that she could recuperate yet again.
All this time her flesh was covered by her earth and water bound. The pain had been so severe that she had pa.s.sed out many, many times and it was still stinging continuously. There were many times that she thought that death would be a release from this kind of torturous, agonizing pain...
What she was unable to tell was, how much longer she will still have to keep using a earth and water bound over her, as most of her skin had been burnt off...Her body was just holding itself together.
Feeling sorry for herself, she fell asleep again, due to exhaustion.
It was lucky that she had the power of water, at least she didn"t die of dehydration. Food was another problem...She had grown very weak, due to malnutrition, and only had enough strength to have eaten a few times in the last couple of weeks. Now that she was in the cave, she slowly could eat more, using the earth to get anything from close by. Even though she still was naked inside of her earth bound, she got clothes already to put on, in hope to use them again.
Actually, Loralle had a lot of hope. Not only to wear clothes again and be released by the earth bound, but also to leave the cave again!
Her hope went as far as obtaining the other two powers, without dying!
That people no longer acted through the elemental’s vengeance!
That she no longer beared the leader role and that the Water Tribe would continue without her.
She hoped, very sincerely, that she could work all this out, that the people will become free.
Through her tears of pain now, she never wanted to forget this moment. So, that she shouldn’t become greedy for power, nor let hate to control her.
Must never forget this moment&h.e.l.lip;!
On one occasion, while she was still in the cave...The earth stole somebody"s whole dinner from an inn, at the bottom of the volcano...It was the first laugh Loralle had since before being approved by the fire power.
Of course, by the time it got to her, the dinner was cold...So, she heated it up with her newly doubled fire powers.
A few more weeks pa.s.sed by, without Loralle moving from her cave and in these days the protectors of the Water Tribal village had finally found her earth house in the middle of the vast desolate wasteland in between the Fire and Water Tribal villages.
They saw the strange earth mound of fresh, green gra.s.s close by, that now had grown to be as big as the menacing lake...But they didn"t question it at all...
Their astonishment glances led them inside the house and they shook their heads in amazement. At one point, they shook their heads in embarra.s.sment instead...They saw an earth "person" looking like it was waving towards the exit of the earth house...
What had been strange to them, though, was that they no longer felt sick about her powers, as they once did.
When she had been accepted by the earth element, all who knew of her earth power no longer felt disgusted by her having had used it. They still did not want to learn more about it or try it, but they had accepted, and some even praised, that she had used it.
And now...That she had been accepted by the fire element, the protectors no longer felt any sickness towards their leader and her using the water, earth or fire powers! Which felt strange to them, because they still very much hated any other that used the fire power...
But...They were still furious that their great leader had disappeared!
Taking the great earth house for granted, as they had hardly rested and had come here at full speed, they decided to rest and eat.
The next day, they picked up the left behind tracks of their leader and they followed them...
***