Fire Summoner

Chapter Ten: Backgrounds

Emily began the conversation by turning to Alice's parents and asked them to leave the room.

"It's for your protection." she had told them. Alice, of course, began to defend the right for her parents to stay in the room.

"They raised me. They have every right to stay and learn about who I am and why I'm being attacked."

"Knowing all of this will only put them in more danger." Emily argued back. She had a look in her eyes. One that screamed 'I'm not budging on this, they need to leave'.

'Danger.' Alice thought. The last thing she wanted to do was place her loved ones in more danger.

She turned to her parents, her expression was apologetic. "I'm sorry, Emily is right. Maybe it's better for you guys to wait upstairs."

There was slight arguing, her father wanted to stay and find out why his kid was being attacked. But her mother reminded him that Alice was an adult now, and they had to respect her decisions when it came to Alice's life.

They left the kitchen and Emily turned to Alice, her face morphing from the slight glimmer of easy-goingness that lived in her expression to one of strictly business.

"What's your first question?"

'Oh wow, we're jumping right into it.' Alice thought. She suddenly felt nervous. There was a part of her that couldn't help but feel like getting answers was a bad thing. Like... the more she knew about her past, the more danger she would be in.

She pushed this part down. Alice needed answers, she couldn't continue to live like this, feeling lost in between two worlds; the one she was raised in but felt detached from and the one that she could have been a part of but was ripped from at a young age.

"What am I?" Alice asked bluntly. "I'm not human, I know that for sure."

"You're right, kinda. You're a Summoner, just like Emily and I." Connor corrected. "Well, actually, I'm a Mover.

"Ok, cool. Second question, what are Summoners and Movers?" there was a tinge of annoyance in Alice's voice again. It seemed like her friends kept forgetting that Alice knew nothing about this new world that she was being thrust into.

"I was getting to that, sheesh!" Connor huffed, and leaned back in his chair. A beam of sunlight broke through the window and landed across his face. Alice realized with a shock that there was a slight outline of a scar that ran diagonally across his lips, staring underneath his right nostril and ending just underneath the lower edge of his lips.

How could she have not noticed that before? The scar wasn't very pronounced, but Alice had known Connor for a couple of years now so she felt like she would have noticed this scar before now.

Connor noticed her staring at his scar. He waved his hand at his lips, "I'll explain this next. A Summoner is someone who can pull their magic from within themselves. A Mover is someone who can manipulate the magic around themselves. Like I said, you and Emily are Summoners, I'm a Mover." he explained.

"So, are Summoners more powerful than Movers?" Alice tore her eyes away from the thin white line that danced when Connor's lips moved.

The scar twisted up as Connor considered her question. "Not exactly. Summoners don't have to wait for the opportunity to come across a source of magic naturally, since they produce their own. But it takes a lot out of you to continually use your abilities, especially if you are drawing from within yourself, so Summoners find themselves having to rely on their weapons if they have been fighting for a long period of time."

"Fighting? Is that the primary use of our powers?"

Emily winced. Alice guessed that this was a touchy subject. She was prepared to let it go when Emily spoke up.