high tides ☆ TOH au

Chapter 5

How Luz drew perfect circles when preparing glyphs, I will never know. We were sitting in the living room of Camila's place, attempting to draw glyphs. Hunter was the only one who remembered what any of the patterns are, since he had learned a bit about them from Luz after the palisman thing at Latissa. He had only seen the fire and ice glyphs, and I knew the light and plant glyphs, from what Luz had shown me.

Our plan so far was simple enough; search near the ocean for Titan's blood. Luz's glyphs only worked near Titan's blood, or in the Boiling Isles, because that's where her magic comes from. If the glyphs start working at some point, we'll know if we're closer. Hunter had suggested this when we arrived at the house earlier, and explained the idea. It made sense, and it should work.

Of course, going in through a pool of Titan's blood that's naturally occuring will always be more dangerous than going through the portal door. We don't know where we'll be in the Demon Realm. We might not even come through to the Demon Realm on the Boiling Isles, but some other Titan.

Willow giggles as I try to draw a circle again, this time flicking my wrist. It doesn't work too well, and the circle is still wonky. "Why don't you just use a cup or something to trace?" Willow asks, looking at my large amount of crumpled-up papers. That, too, is a good idea, but I'm not giving up until I get this right.

"Nope, I've got this," I respond proudly, as I shut my eyes and draw a very bad circle. I grab the paper and crumple it up, too, throwing it out of my way. It rolls into the cardboard box of printer paper Camila had gotten. "Maybe. It's fine."

"Sure," Willow says, and chuckles at my failure once again. Hunter cutting all the glyphs on one paper into separate squares right now, and Gus was drawing fire and light glyphs, while Willow did plants, and I did ice. There isn't much of a reason to have so many different types of glyphs, but it does mean we can see how they work in case we ever need them, no matter how unlikely that situation is.

I take another paper from the box, and rip it into four separate squares. I start in the first square again, trying to replicate a perfect circle. I, again, fail, and start over. It's pretty boring, and eventually I just groan, stand up, and grab a circular cup like Willow had suggested.

She giggles again, and I roll my eyes. It's much easier to draw now. For the outer circle, I use the top of the glass, and for the inner circle, I use the bottom. It isn't perfect, but it should work. The rest of the design is fairly easy, just being a kite with a line going from top to bottom, and a small triangle under it. A line is separating the triangle and the diamond. There's another line that curves upward in the middle.

I pump my fist in the air in victory and start on the second glyph. It's peaceful here, like this. The last few days have been uneventful, just us making glyphs and finding places to check for Titan's blood. The most we've seen that looks hopeful is a cave near the beach. We were hoping to explore it once we're all prepared.

I finish the last glyph of the four, and stretch my arms and wrists. "Are we done yet?" I ask, as Hunter cuts out another pair of light glyphs. Gus has given up on drawing the glyphs, and was just messing around with a sheet of paper, folding it in strange ways.

Willow sighs. "Yeah, I think so ." She says, putting down the pencil in her hands and standing up. "I was hoping to ask Camila for a ride to the cave." We couldn't walk that far, even if we had good disguises. Too big of a risk, to be out in public for so long. It's only ten miles away, which isn't long, but even on palismen, it would take about two hours.

"Yeah, okay," I say, standing up, too. "I'll go ask her about it." I leave the living room, and start looking through the other rooms. She isn't in the kitchen, dining room, or bathroom. The next room I can think of is either her room, or Luz's room.