THE ELEMENTS OF LIFE ~applyfic~

XII

"Don't clip my wings,
I was born to fly high
Don't chain my feet
Let me discover the limitless sky."

-Adwityaa

~

VALERIE

"What took you so long?" Oh I heard the words and I knew we have met our impending doom already.

But when I turned towards the source of the voice, all I saw was a large man, with a... ahem... large torso, wearing some heavily sequined Aurae robes, with a ton of silver makeup covering his face with his moustaches and eyebrows painted silver as well, grinning widely at us.

Okay my life has been a joke, if this is the face of our impending doom.

"I'm Aurellius!" he says, excitedly clapping his hands

The king regent?

Others must have come to a similar conclusion like me, because he scoffed and rolled his eyes, "Yes I have the same name as that blasted husband of your Queen, but I'm more renowned in the realms than that creature will ever be."

Coral tries to stifle a laugh beside me and I fight the urge to smile.

The Aura's face contorts, "I mean have you seen his hair? Looks like he drags his head up and down the bed all day."

Oh wow, real burn.

Aurellius then looks over at Rey and grins widely, "Girl! The wings! Love them!"

Rey gives him a confused smile, "Um, thanks?"

"I'm seeing some real colour after so long! Stupid Zeus or Jupiter or whatever you call him put me up here. These people are so plain! This whole place is so plain! I mean where's the red? The purple? The yellow? The green?"

Okay then.

"Sir," Rachelle begins, "We came looking for..."

The...God I guess, waves her off, "Yeah yeah the key. You want that key don't you? My buddy Foreseer told me about the situation with Chaos."

He looks friendly, maybe getting the first key won't be so hard after all.

"I could hand it to you directly, but you...I've got a flair for show business."

I jinxed it didn't I?

The god then perks up, "How about I make you a trade?"

Trade? What could we possibly have for him?

"Gimme the girls wings, and I'll hand you the key right now and off you go, wherever you have to go next."

Every one of the Air Users gasped at this.

"No," Rey said, backing away from the man.

"Is there maybe a...second option?" Rachelle spoke up again.

Aurellius the Aura just closes his eyes, hopefully thinking about a counter offer. I've seen how attached Air Users are to their wings. But if these wings got us out of here without much damage, isn't it worth it in the end?

"Take mine instead," Mikaello says, all of a sudden.

I turn to Rey who's watching him with wide eyes.

Aurelius raises his white eyebrows, "Nah I don't like orange. Too bright."

"Mika...why?" I hear Rey whisper to him in front of me.

It is only then that I notice that our invisibility shield is down and we have thousands of pairs of blue Aurae eyes staring down at us.

Rey lost focus and dropped our shields. Wonderful. Wait....how was Aurelius seeing us before this?