Then my hubby-dear and I found out that I'm pregnant! Yaaay! Everyone's excited - it's a first for us (as well as my parents! I can tell, Peanut's going to get super spoiled!)
Anyway, I've had most of this written out since July-August-ish... and put the finishing touches on it today (aka the last 4 pieces... since I can't call all of them paragraphs.)
Without further ado, enjoy the scene at the Thorngage Manor!
------------------
“I want to live…”
Those fateful words were all it took to
restore her. When she had awoken, Zaida saw the mess at the Shadow
Enclave, now Thorngage Manor and restored the charred and torn tapestries,
shattered statues, and broken furniture with a ball of energy that erupted from
her fingertips… an ability she hadn’t had access to before… and she liked
it. But that was months ago…
Today finds Zaida in the gardens at
Thorngage Manor, attempting to gain control over her recently-discovered new
abilities. Her first experience with the new powers wasn’t exactly a
pleasant one… She had drawn a bath to relax after a particularly rigorous day
of training. The water was piping hot
when she submerged herself – the heat coaxed the lesser deva into sleep. When
she awoke, the water was like ice. She screamed, “HOLY SH---JEEZ, IT’S
COLD!!” She braced one hand on the bottom of the tub and reached
for the hot water tap, thinking one word, [Heat.] The water around
her began to warm and continued to get hotter before she could turn the tap.
She glanced at her hands as they emitted an eerie pink glow. Momentarily
dazzled by the sight, she forgot about the water’s rapidly rising temperature…
soon, she was boiling in her own bath water.
Zaida let a roar of pain erupt from her
throat. She couldn’t shift this quickly into her deva form and fly, but she
knew she had to get away from the burning sensation, and her body simply took
over. Zaida had pushed off from the tub to stand, bringing the water up
with her as she stood. Her hands pushed out away from her and sent the
water flying. With a splash, boiling water covered the hardwood floor of
her bathroom. Zaida stood still, trembling, for a few moments – still
trying to register the events that just occurred. Finally, she tentatively
reached for her towel to wrap herself, but her skin was too tender to touch –
it had blistered while in the water… she would have to shift, there was no
other way around it.
Cream colored skin darkened to blue,
her hair blanched from brown to white. White feather wings erupted from
her back, their usually comforting brush against her skin a new source of pain
for her damaged skin. [Maybe that energy trick will work again…] She put
her hands together, and concentrated on creating a ball of energy… which worked,
sorta. Instead of emitting a soft healing glow, this ball looked like
swirling mists, clouds flickering with lightning, and hurricane winds contained
within – the ball grew too big, too fast for Zaida to safely disperse. A
loud BOOMING eruption of sound sent Zaida flying backwards into the wall before
crumpling into a heap on the soaked floor. [Today… is not… my day…],
Zaida whimpered to herself, taking comfort in one tiny little detail, [At least
the water’s cooled off…] She laid there for a moment to simply get her
bearings, her skin still screaming in its singed state. Rather than show
off like she had before, her hands began to emit a soft golden glow and healed
her body of the burns – a small pull on her energy like this wouldn't take away
from her newly extended lifespan, but even right now, it just might be worth
it…
But that was then… today, however, she
was determined to get a handle on her newly acquired gifts. The gardens
at Thorngage Manor seemed to be a nice open area away from any precious artwork
that she wanted to keep safe… It was here that we find her now:
--------
Zaida flicks her wrists, shaking them
in anticipation. “Okay, first – water, I think…,” she announced to her
empty garden. Her mind thought the word in the form of a command,
[Water.] Nothing came. She tried again – saying it aloud this time,
“WATER!” Again, nothing. She tried a third time, pouring herself
into the command, “WATER!!!” Clean, clear water flowed from her
fingertips and into a basin she had set out to catch the water, but she soon
realized she had begun to feel dizzy. She stopped the flow of the water
and collapsed to her knees, suddenly feeling parched she began to drink the
clear water she had created – instantly starting to feel better… “It appears,”
she announced to no one in particular, “that to create water, I have to pull it
from my own body… A trick I probably won’t be pulling out at parties anytime
soon…” She hadn't felt completely better after consuming all of the water
in the basin, but she at least felt well enough to continue…
Zaida spotted the fountain in the
center of the garden and wondered, [Maybe I can move water, like
earlier?] She extended her hands out in front of her again, and
commanded, “Move.” She moved her hands up
and the water listened. Her hands began to make random movements, the
water contracting and expanding as her gestures indicated. “That, I will
say, is a nifty trick!” She set her hands down, and the water settled
back in the fountain.
Content with her discovery, she continued,
“Fire, next.” She studied her hand, and instinctively – the words came to
her, “Heat.” Her hands regained the pink glow to them, and immediately, she
could feel the heat rolling off of her hand… while it was in this form, she
decided to kick it up a notch, “Flame.” Her hands shifted from pink to
orange as a ball of flame began to grow in her hand. She chuckled
slightly at the discovery and safely dispersed it by closing her hand. [I
wonder,] she thought to herself, [Can I use this as a ranged attack?] She
pointed at a small patch of grass and spoke, “Flame!” Fire erupted from
her finger tips, but over shot their target… and hit the gazebo a few feet from
the spot she had intended. Quickly, she dispersed the flames and extended
a hand back toward the garden fountain, “MOVE!” The water lifted at her
command and she flung her hand toward the flaming gazebo, quickly extinguishing
the fire as quickly as she started it.
The outside of the gazebo had charred
and the paint had begun to bubble… “Great,” she grumbled, “more repairs I’ve
got to do around here…”
“Well, there’s only one
last thing left to try…,” she announced to her empty garden, before wondering
aloud, “…but what do I call it? Sonic? Sound? Wind?” After a moment of internal debate, and
deciding on referring to the ability as Sonic, she rubbed her hands together
and focused. A ball of swirling
mist formed between her palms – steadily
growing under her watchful eye. A
baseball-sized ball was dispersed, and a nice cooling breeze blew through the
garden. “Alright, that worked out pretty
well,” Zaida remarked, “Let’s see how we do with a bigger one.” She created another ball of swirling winds,
this time – the size of a soccer ball.
When it was released, staggering winds ripped the leaves off of her
trees – leaving them looking like they’d already felt the chill of winter’s
touch, even though it was only summer’s end.
“Wow…” she remarked, wide-eyed, “That’s impressive…”
Not willing to leave
well enough alone, Zaida decided to try one more time… She had aimed for a beach ball-sized ball of sonic energy, but like before, it had
gotten too big for her to contain. “Oh,
f---ahhh!” She’d begun to curse, but the sheer amount of power had begun to
hurt her hands. The forced premature
release of the energy created a tornado that ripped through her backyard, shattering
the windows of the Manor and colliding with part of the stone wall that acted
as her fence around Thorngage Manor. Zaida
facepalmed, “SERIOUSLY?!”
She groaned, dragging
her palm down her face – and put her hands together. “Please, let this work!” Focusing once more, she was able to produce a
golden light that surrounded her hands.
She let this gentle light draw on her lifeforce within to grow large
enough to heal all of the damage to her estate – soon it looked as fantastic as
before.
Satisfied, Zaida gazed
at her handiwork, “Yep, I think I’m going to like these new abilities just fine…
especially once I learn how to control them…”
[end.]
