Crystallo (working title)

CHAPTER 1: CRYSTAL FLOWERS

Zinnia sweat profusely as she reached for another sturdy rock to pull herself farther up the side of the mountain. The view was spectacular, she was surrounded by massive green-gray mountains. Thin white puffs of clouds seemed to hover right over them and the sky was an endless blue.

Her breathing sturdy despite having climbed for so long, she braced her muscles, and heaved her legs up one after another hoping to reach the top soon.

"Keep going, you're almost there!" Caretaker Izel's voice echoed from thousands of feet below.

It was amazing that Zinnia could still hear Caretaker Izel this high up.

She gathered whatever strength she had still, and pressed upward.

While climbing, at a sloth's pace, she thought about giving up. What would happen if she just let go? She imagined herself falling and wondered if Caretaker Izel was prepared to catch her or would he watch, helpless, as her body made contact with the ground?

Zinnia shivered and concentrated very hard on reaching the top. Beads of sweat rolled down the sides of her face. As she lifted a hand involuntarily to wipe the sweat away, her arms and legs started shaking from exhaustion and she felt a sudden pang of fear in her gut.

Zinnia's whole body wouldn't stop trembling, her pulse quickened as her foot slipped on its small rock platform. She couldn't move, Zinnia was frozen with terror. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to calm down by slowing her breathing but her body would not respond.

She became hyper aware of the altitude of her location, and the force of the wind trying to expel her from the side of the mountain. Zinnia's breath caught, and her foot scrambled to find purchase. She had never felt so terrified clutching at the rocks, unable to do or think of anything else. Her grip was starting slip.

Then she fell.

The direction in which she fell was not what she expected. It was as if someone had reached from inside the mountain and pulled her in.

Zinnia landed on all fours and coughed as the dirt and rocks settled around her. She blinked the dust out of her eyes and felt her body slowly adjusting back to normal, now that she was on flat surface. Though her arms and legs still trembled slightly.

Zinnia's body ached from the effort of keeping steady on the side of the mountain, but she pushed herself to stand in this small cave of sorts. If she stood on her toes she could touch the top of the cave. It was really just a hollow in the mountain.

She walked up to the mouth of the hollow to look down, and saw a small figure of someone waving frantically at the bottom. It was probably Caretaker Izel, or the classified Silk Element that was with him. Zinnia waved back, even though she doubted they could see her.

She looked upward and saw the top of the mountain, just out of reach. Determined to finish her task and not go down empty handed, Zinnia heaved herself up again and amazingly found her climbing to be a lot easier than before.

It seemed like everywhere she stepped, there was a rock waiting to sustain her and every time she reached for another rock with her hand, the mountain obliged. In no time, Zinnia felt the flat of the top and hauled herself up.

Tall, lush green grass blanketed the mountaintop, greeting her by swaying peacefully in the wind looking like a river of grass. The view before her was astounding.

She closed her hand and held her fist over her heart as she did when she wanted to hold onto a memory, and took in the sight.

In the middle of the place, on a sort of island surrounded by crystal clear water, was a massive tree with a thick warm brown trunk as wide as a house and as tall as a three story building.

Its branches stretched out in all directions clustered with bright green leaves and dotted with little white flowers. Vines thick and thin hung lazily from its branches, twisted in each other in a beautifully braided form.

Surrounding the tree's island, near the water's edge, were four groups of rare crystal-bearing flowers in bloom, forming a kind of circle. One group in the back, two groups on each side, and one more in the front.

The flowers resembled the shapes of lilies, except in the center of each flower were three glittering crystals the same color as the flower's petals.

The group in front, that was closest to Zinnia, consisted of four colors: Garnet red, Mocca brown, Sapphire blue, and Silk white. These were the Element crystals.

The second group, to the left, held another four colors: Topaz amber, Peridot green, Light Azore blue, and Jet black. These were the Nature crystals.

The third group, to the right, consisted of four colors as well: Rose pink, Amethyst purple, Greige gray, and White Alabaster. These were the Manipulate crystals.

The last group, the farthest from Opal, only had two kinds of colored flowers: Carnelian orange, and Prism which glittered with a million rainbows.

Those were the Royal crystals.

She could not assign just one color to the Prism flower, it seemed to hold all the colors of the universe, it was dazzling.

She had read of these crystal-bearing flowers more times than she can count from her studies, but now that she had seen them face-to-face and not in paintings, it was as if this was only the first time she's learned of them.

The time had come for Zinnia to know her talent. It was her task to find the one crystal that was meant for her, one out of all 14 of them.