• “What’s happening again—what about the war two years ago? Daishaw—what are you talking about?” I sounded lazy and impatient.
    The elders went uneasy with my disrespectfulness towards one of their own. Lenschi was even surprised with my behavior but he didn’t say anything, just stared. I sighed, no one still wouldn’t tell me what was going on.
    “Please,” I begged, “just tell me what’s happening here. Where am I? What are shohns and weirers? How come the sky is split in two—what happened two hundred years ago? What are those marks, the one on Lenschi’s forehead?” everyone gave me a silent look so I said, “please? Just to clear things up. Don’t I deserve at least that much?”
    Lenschi snorted but stopped abruptly. He realized that I purposely use my misfortune to get what I wanted. With his head raised high, he said, “I agree”
    There was a murmur as the elders exchanged thoughts. Daishaw wasn’t apart of it though. He slammed the desk with his hands to get up, face troubled.
    “D—Daishaw—!” the lady begins but Daishaw interrupts.
    “I’m leaving” he says to no one in particular.
    “This is a meeting and—” she was interrupted yet again.
    “I’m not feeling so well” without waiting for a reply, he vanishes.
    “Man he does that a lot…” I whisper so that the elders don’t hear me.
    “Well, he is a teleporter” Lenschi whispers back.
    The elders sighed all at once. Which was really weird. Curly beard was going to get up but brown beard told him to remain sitting. Short beard was tapping his finger tips angrily on the desk. The lady was mumbling to herself.
    Ugh, no more! I yell in my mind. I don’t even know their names—I bet they don’t even have names, just like brown beard—oh gosh. This has got to stop. I can’t handle them having no names. I’ll just give them my own names. I looked at the lady, she’ll be called…Madame. Next is curly beard, he’s Cere, short for sincere. Short beard can be called Mr. Smug. Last is Brown beard, and his name shall be Claus, because he has a laugh that reminds me of Santa.
    I chuckled to myself because of the names I made for the elders. Lenschi looked at me like I was crazy. “It’s nothing” I said to him with a smile.
    The lady—Madame, smacked the desk so hard that a crack formed. It made everyone flinch. For an old person, she’s really strong. Remind me to never mess with her.
    “Now that I’ve got everyone’s attention…” Madame slowly eyes every single person in the room. “It’s time to get to business” she settles her gaze on me. “Child, you want to know everything about this world?”
    “Yes” I say without hesitation.
    “Then listen because this is going to be long”
    This time I hesitated before saying, “Yes”
    “Weirers and shohns are partners. It can never be weirer and another weirer or a shohn and another shohn. Weirers are more…superior, as you can say. They have the physical powers while shohns have a more magical, supporting power”
    “So you’re a weirer?” I asked because she’s strong.
    “Yes. All of the powers we get are different and unique; some even have the same powers or magic. I have keen strength. Lenschi is a twain”
    “A what?!”
    Mr. Smug gives me a tired look and says coldly, “Quiet and listen or leave the room” I was going to protest but my mouth wouldn’t open. It was like an unknown force made my mouth immobilized. I even tried to yank them open with my hands but they wouldn’t budge. “Don’t resist, child” Mr. Smug tells me. “It’ll only hurt you more. I’m a shohn; I can understand living creatures and bend them to my will. So don’t cross me”
    I would curse at him if my lips weren’t glued tight. Lenschi would’ve laughed at me but since we were in front of the elders, he was on his best behavior.
    “A twain,” Claus starts where me and Madame left off, “means that you have two powers, not one. It’s a rare thing, really”
    Wow, I nudge Lenschi with my elbow. You’re rare. I was teasing him, but he couldn’t hear me which was stupid. Curse that Mr. Smug!
    “I have beast transformation and elements—fire” Lenschi says proudly.
    I tried to say something but it came out as a strange muffle.
    Cere snapped his finger once and my mouth swung open. “Is that better, child?” he asks. Mr. Smug seemed irritated that his ‘spell’ on me was gone.
    “Y—yea” I smoothed my finger against my lip. “A—anyway, Lenschi, what do you mean by beast transformation and the fire element? Are you saying that you can turn into a flaming dinosaur or something?”
    “What? No!” Lenschi laughs. “Beast transformation—some people who have that can turn into anything they want while others are limited. I’m the limited kind. I can only turn into one beast and that’s a wolvern. It’s a big creature with hard fur and claws, big fangs. And by fire, I mean that I can use magic—fire magic” he said the fire part slowly as if I couldn’t understand the meaning of the word.
    “I thought weirers can only have physical powers while shohns have like, magic and stuff” I asked.
    Madame answers. “Weirers have physical power, yes, but by that I mean they have powers that cause physical damage. Shohns don’t have powers that cause physical damage. Is that clear, child?”
    “…yea” the elders always call me ‘child’. “Ok, ok, I think I’ve got that whole thing figured out. I want to know about the symbol on Lenschi’s forehead. Does everyone have that?”
    “Yes—well, not necessarily” she lets out a stressful breath. “People who are born without the mark are powerless. They live regular lives all over Beghn—that’s the name of our planet. The marks are symbols of sheir. All shohns and weirers have them in different parts of their body. It’s not carved in, if that’s what your wondering” she smiles knowingly.
    Oh—okay, so she knows exactly what I’m thinking. I clear my throat to ask another question. “What’s a sheir? I heard that in Daishaw’s speech. He was talking about some man in a war…said he was a formal sheir”
    Madame lets out another stressful breath. “Sheir is the name of a group, a society a—nation. You can even call it a clan if you want. That’s us, we’re all sheir”
    I smiled big. “The sheir clan!” I said excitedly. Lenschi choked on a laugh and I glared at him.
    “Yes, child” Madame laughed.
    “Is everyone on uh…Beghn a shier?”
    She stopped laughing. In fact, the four elders were quiet now, not like they weren’t before. Their facial expression was easily readable—troubled. It was the same look Daishaw had before he teleported somewhere. Madame looked at Claus for support, then to Cere. But Mr. Smug didn’t want to wait.
    “You’ve seen the sky split in half, didn’t you?” Mr. Smug asked.
    “Well, yea, one side was blue while the other was a dark purple. We were on the blue side”
    “Is it the same as your home planet—what did you call it, Earth?”
    “Ummm, yea, kind of, I guess. One half would be night while the other half would be sun. Then, as time goes by, it would switch. So the side that was just night time would be sunny and the one that was sunny would be night”
    His eyes bulged a bit. “Strange world” he mumbled to himself then coughed and returned back to the conversation. “Here, it’s different. When it’s night, all of Beghn is in slumber. That’s the only time when the sky forms into one. It’s dark and full of stars. The sun is gone but the two moons are still there. When it’s sunny, all of Beghn is awake and the sky goes back to its original—split in two, blue and purple. We sheirs only stay under the blue sky and we never enter the other side” his voice suddenly got quiet, like how you’re telling someone a scary story. “It’s not a good place there, not good at all”
    My head started to feel light, like my brains had wings. It was flapping in circles, making me all dizzy. Its white wing was blurring my vision.
    Mr. Smug went on. “The people there are cruel and unwelcoming. They aren’t even civilized. They live off whatever they can get. There are a lot of thieves there. We sheirs aren’t like them…aren’t like the…”
    My eyes fluttered like a butterfly’s beating wing. I could feel my eyes roll back, darkening everything I see. I felt a thumping in my head that reminded me of pumping heart. Suddenly it was cold. My body shivered in the frosty air that pinched my skin. It wasn’t until everyone shouted that I fell and hit the floor with a bang.
    My mind went empty, drifting off into nothingness. The last thing that came to me before I fainted was a word that finished Mr. Smug’s sentence.
    “Lurids”
    part 10