In Our Element

Prolouge: Seven years earlier

"Say you're not gonna leave me."

"Even if the ocean dried up." She told me. "This place is right where I need to be. It's been just the two of us and it will always be."

She helped me lie down on my blanket, in our child sized tent, before she laid down right beside me. Our feet were just barely in, and we were almost too close for comfort, but this is how it's always been. The only solid thing I had in my life was her, we moved around way too much for that.

"Dylan, do you think the bad typics are going to find us soon?" I asked quietly.

""I don't know, Rilynn, all we can hope for is not for a few years. We're only eight." She answered.

"I'm still six, 'Lan." I corrected her.

"My point made, too young to be captured by the typics. Now, get some sleep we have to get up really early." She said.

I cuddled as close as I could get, to try and steal her body heat. It got really cold at night and some nights, I basically felt like I turned to ice but Dylan was always warm. That's one of her perks for having fire as her element. She was rarely cold. We said nothing to each other, just listened to the fire crackling outside our tent, and the crickets being as productive as ever. Amidst all of this, I felt at ease, I was in my comfort zone or rather by it. For I had Dylan right beside me, and she could conquer any danger. Knowing this, I somehow forced myself to go to sleep. Dylan wouldn't let anything harm me. I am the center of her world now.

"Rilynn, get up! They're coming, we're late!" Dylan shouted.

The minute she yelled my name, my head was off the makeshift pillow and I was jumping from where I laid. Once she saw me standing on my feet, she shoved a bowl of oatmeal with a spoon nearly falling over the edge in my hands, and ushered me out of the tent.

"Eat quickly, and get ready to go." She ordered me.

I sat where the fire was still going strong and shoveled the oatmeal as fast as I could into my awaiting mouth. Barely giving myself enough time to chew as I watched Dylan force out the tent and blankets into her duffle bag. Along with anything else she could get her hands on that we absolutely needed to take with us. The second I reached the end of my breakfast, I dropped the bowl down and rushed to my backpack. It wasn't nearly as big as Dylan's but it held all my stuff and that's all that mattered.

I pulled my nightgown over my head and out on a pair of jeans, a random shirt, a light sweater and my pair of sneakers. I stuck a piece of gum in my mouth as I rushed to get my hair into a messy bun. Before frustration hit me full force, Dylan was behind me tugging my hair into a quick bun for me and quickly walked me in the direction of our wagon that was connected to the bicycle we had. We dumped everything in it and ten climbed into our designated seats. I strapped myself into the only open seat the wagon had while Dylan got herself seated on the bicycle, we were ready to leave just as the sound of sirens could be heard.

"Put out the fire, quickly!" Dylan told me, already pedaling away from our current campsite.

I summoned as much water as I could at this age, which is not a lot as I've barely learned anything, and used my hand to direct it to the raging fire. It extinguished in seconds but by that time, Dylan had us more than a few feet away, pedaling as hard as she could.. This is the first time in months that the bad typics had been anywhere near our trail but today we just had to sleep in a little more than usual. And it's costing us more than a few problems.

The bad typics managed to catch up, after a few minutes. Looking on the brightside, there wasn't that many, only four but that was still more than enough. I was practically useless, having summoned less than a pint of water to put out a small fire. Dylan was a little better, but she was still learning how to control her fire. It was going to take a miracle to get out of this one. The typics were on motorized bicycles and were speeding up to us by the second. We were almost out of time and space to do something. They were a lot faster than we were considering, Dylan could only go so fast she was using leg power.