Loyalty [Dianite]

C H A P T E R • F O U R

A few weeks later, Riley discovered that she knew how to wield a sword. It came as an unexpected surprise, when, after helping the green eyed girl to make her own armour and tools, Jordan and Tom decided to teach her hand to hand combat. Armed with blunt wooden swords, she took Tom, and herself, by surprise at her understanding of how to move with the weapon. The feel of the handle on her palm seemed to awaken something in her, a knowledge that was so engrained it had become instinct. Not even a total loss of memory could take the instinctual responses from her muscles, and she managed to overpower Tom on the first try. Jordan was not so easy to deal with, and Riley would come to learn that he was likely the best fighter on the islands. This was perhaps because he took things a lot more seriously than Tom. Where Jordan would put hard thought into how he would go about one of their training battles, Tom constantly had the element of surprise on his side, as he never did anything the same way twice. Every so often, he would jump into Jordan's battles with her, sometimes helping one, sometimes the other. When Jordan complained, Tom simply told him that no fight was ever predictable.

"He's pure chaos, this one," sighed Jordan, jerking a thumb at Tom. His tone was affectionate, however, and Riley felt laughed at him.

"I think I like it," she smiled at them.

Tom beamed at her, whilst Jordan looked at her curiously, before a slight frown crossed his features.

"I think that's enough practice for today," he said, laying down his sword, and dusting his hands against his dark coloured trousers.

"Aw come on, we've barely been going an hour!" Riley protested, turning to look at him with wide eyes.

"Yeah, come on Cap," Tom complained.

Jordan crossed his arms stubbornly, and shook his head at the two of them.

"I've got stuff to do," he stated. "And stop giving me puppy eyes, for goodness sake."

Tom and Riley both giggled, and Jordan rolled his eyes in amusement.

"What are you so busy doing?" Riley asked him, laying down her own sword, and following him out of the training room that had been built into the side of a large volcano on Tom's island.

"I'm working on my temple," he responded.

"Ive never seen your temple to Ianite," said Riley. "Am I allowed to see it?"

"You're allowed to," said Jordan, glancing at her. He hesitated, before saying, "It's underwater."

"Oh," said Riley, a sight frown crossing her features. "It... why?"

Jordan laughed, shaking his head.

"That was Tom's reaction as well," he told her. "I spent many hours collecting materials for a conduit, which is situated right at the door of the temple. It allows you to enter the water without getting wet, to move around in the temple and breathe as though you were on land."

"Doesn't that defeat the purpose of it being underwater?"

"It still looks beautiful," Jordan retorted. "And Ianite likes it, anyway."

"Okay," she chuckled. "Whatever you say."

Deciding to leave Jordan to it, she wandered around to find Tom relaxing on the beach under an umbrella, his eyes closed. She chose another umbrella and laid down beside him, sighing peacefully. Tom blinked a little, and turned to smile at her, before closing his eyes once more, a contented smile crossing his features.

"I thought you were going with Jordan," he said.

"I was going to, but he's working on his temple and going in the ocean is still a big no no for me."

"Oh," said Tom, nodding. "Fair enough. Although I wish I could teach you to swim, and to use a trident. I'm sure you'd enjoy it."

"Believe me, if this wasn't such a mental block for me I'd be willing to try," she sighed. "But the ocean took everything from me, including my own identity. I can't shake the fear that it'd happen again."

"I wouldn't let it," said Tom, shaking his head. "I wouldn't let it happen to any of my friends, if I had the power to do so."

There was a peaceful silence for a while, as the two of them soaked up the rays of the sun. Riley could feel her skin beginning to burn, and knew she ought to move further into the shade sooner or later, but she was feeling too content to move.

"Tell me about your god," she said suddenly, turning to look at Tom again.

"Jordan's gonna be mad at me," said Tom, with a laugh.

"Does that really matter?" She raised an eyebrow at him. "I mean, he won't be genuinely mad. He never can be, with you. At least, it seems that way."

"You're not wrong," Tom smiled. "You want to know about Dianite, ay? The Lord of Chaos himself?"

"The one and only."

"In this realm, he'd be classed as the devil," said Tom. "If that makes any sense. But the devil is supposed to be evil, and Dianite is not the evil force here."

"Who is the evil force then?"

"The darkness is," Tom shrugged, a little cluelessly. "I can't explain it much better than that. We haven't really seen the darkness itself - not yet, anyway. But we've seen it's effects here and there, and we know it's coming. We don't know what it wants, but... there you go. Anyway, you asked me about Dia, not about the darkness."

"Where do the gods live when they're not here?" Riley asked. "Jordan said that you guys hardly ever see them."

"We don't really know," said Tom. "Sometimes I think that Dianite is here, and I just can't see him. I can sense his aura in the air around me. Has Jordan talked to you about the champions?"

"No," Riley shook her head.

"Each god has their own champion," said Tom. "Gods have the ability to form special bonds with mortals - it can be a romantic bond, or the bond of a parent, family bond, stuff like that. Those are the kind of bonds that are formed involuntarily, and they don't really get a conscious choice when it happens. But there's another bond which is the only one they get to choose for themselves, and it's the champion bond. I have that with Dianite."

Tom's voice was warm and proud as he spoke, and Riley felt a smile coming to her own face as she watched him speak about it.

"So Jordan and Ianite..."

"That's a champion bond," said Tom. "Is there something else there as well? I don't know. Never seen the two of them together yet. But going on the way he speaks about her..."

"Okay, I'm glad it's not just me who noticed that," Riley said, and Tom laughed.

"No, definitely not. Anyway, Karl is Mianite's champion. When Alice showed up on the islands, I think Mianite was more upset that she chose to follow his sister Ianite than Karl was. He pretty much took it for granted that she'd go wherever Karl went, but he didn't know Alice, and she can be fiercely independent when she wants."

"Alice seems really nice," said Riley, with a smile. "You two are quite similar, actually. I'm starting to know you both better, and I'm picking up on the similarities in your manner, and the inflections in your voice."

"We are similar," Tom agreed. "I half expected her to choose Dianite, but I wasn't surprised when she went with Ianite. The only annoying part of it was how smug Jordan was for weeks afterwards."

"Someone needs to dunk his smug ass in the ocean, I swear," Riley laughed. "Somewhere where there's no conduit. He's been like it all morning, just because I can't beat him in a fight without your help."

"Hey, I'm up for a prank if you are," Tom grinned. "We can go switch his conduit off, and wait for him to notice his clothes are wet."

"Brilliant," Riley grinned. "Lets do it. But I'm not getting in the water."

A/N: to the readers who have never watched Mianite: ask all the questions you want. I love you for reading just because I'm writing it, not because it's about footballers. <3

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