Ember woke up to her father pounding on her door. “Ember Orina you better be getting ready in there,” he exclaimed with force. Ember quickly through on a dress and ran down to her kitchen. Her mother was waiting patiently at the table. “Good morning sweetie, your father has been waiting for you. The mayor cannot do a speech without his daughter by his side.” She said softly. Ember got a piece of toast and made her way out of the door. Ember’s father, Mike, was the mayor of Orina village. In their village every Sunday Mike gave a speech to keep the village under control and happy. Ember raced past the cottages on the soft dirt sidewalk. It had rained the night before so droplets of water were slipping off of the trees and grazing Ember’s body. As she arrived into the center of the village, Ember crept onto the stage her father was preparing on. The townspeople gathered around and Mike began to speak.
“Hello people of Orina, today I will be speaking on the topic of Elantris.” Mike boldly presented. Ember began to zone out on the fact that she was not interested at all in this so called “Washed City.” As her father began to finish up on the speech and people began to leave, Ember spotted one of her friends in the crowd. “Raz!” Ember yelled as she ran to her. As Ember and Raz talked they began walking back to Ember’s cottage. On the walk there they spotted a group of people talking near the Woods of Brawl, which was where others went to use their magic in fights. Ember and Raz both had elemental magic so they began to approach the group of people in hope of a fight. “Are any of you looking to join us in the woods?” Raz asked the group. Two of the people standing shook their heads and began their way into the woods with Ember and Raz. Ember and Raz pulled out their wands as the two others started mixing potions. The fight began, Ember shook her wand at the trees and leaves began to swarm their opponents. The fight began to get more intense. Ember suggested that they end it there so no one gets hurt, but Raz and the other two kept going.
As the fight continued to worsen, Ember’s wand flew from her hands. One of the men took her wand and began to run. Raz screamed, “Stop, Ember get him!” Ember began to run through the woods following the man closely. He sprinted out of the woods and began to make his way through the village. Though Ember was close she couldn’t seem to catch up to him. The man made his way out of the village and began approaching a distant carriage. Ember, out of breath and sweaty, got out a faint yell, “Stop, please!” The man ignored her and made his way past the people. He squeezed through the last person and hopped onto the cart. Ember, in the last seconds before the horses began to trot, made it on. She looked around but the man was nowhere to be found. She began to make her way to the back of the cart, giving confused looks to all of its passengers. A man came on and announced, “And we’re off folks! Next stop, Elantris.”
[03] New Places
Ember took the book from Henrey’s sweaty palms. As they parted ways Ember began to ponder about her future here at Elantris. She reached into her pockets and grabbed a sharp stone she had brought from home. She held the cold stone in her hand as she admired how the sun glistened off it. She grasped the stone tightly and gave a quick stroke to her hair. For her future she needed change, and the quickest change she could make in the moment was her hair. After a couple strokes her once long blue hair was raggedly cut a little shorter than her shoulders.
With thoughts racing through her mind about what she had just done she decided to go to the only one she could ever count on, Raz. She made her way to the closest shop possible in hope to get supplies she needed to write. Ember picked up an envelope, a quill and ink, and a paper. Her small feet drug across the dirt floor of the shop as she walked slowly to the owner. “I would like to purchase these,” she said as she searched her pockets for change. “One second,” the owner answered. Ember began to look up and the owner started to turn around. Both of their eyes locked together. “Ember?” The girl behind the desk said questioningly.
“Raz! I can’t believe it’s you.” Ember threw her body over the counter into the arms of her friend. “You look so different, when I first saw you, I thought you had some type of twin. I’m so glad I found you, I thought I would never see you again.” Raz said with tears filling her bottom eyelids. “Me too, I missed you so much. Why are you here?” Asked Ember. “I felt I needed a change. Without you I didn’t know where to go. Everyone is so worried about you. You should really write to them.” Raz explained. Ember and Raz made plans to meet back up together later that day when Raz got done working.
Ember finished purchasing her materials and headed to a close bench under a shaggy weeping willow tree. Its long limbs created somewhat of a halo around the bench. They hung low to the ground and the buds of the previous flowers filled the ground. A perfect glimpse of sunshine shone through the tree to the bench. She sat down and began to write to her family, explaining where she had been and what she planned for her future. Ember had decided she wanted to better herself and her new home. With a new purpose for her life and a drive for adventure she decided to join a combat group that protected Elantris and served Nira. As she finished up the letter, she thought to herself how she could become the best in her goals for combat. For her to achieve this new goal Ember needed to practice her magic and fighting skills. She decided that the only way she could practice her skills was falling back to what she had done before, continuous brawls, real or just play.
Ember licked the course envelope to seal it, so she could send it to her family. She began to make her way back into the center of the city, looking for the city messenger. As she walked, she observed all the people of Elantris. No matter how each person looked they all seemed to have something special about them. Ember wondered what her special thing was that differentiated her from all the others. She spotted the messenger and her thoughts faded. She gave him the envelope and started to make her way back to the outsides of the city, in need for a break from all the people and time to think.
When she approached the cities edges, she realized it should be time she started to search for an opponent to practice fighting on. But before she could hop into fighting Ember needed to read into the truth behind her type of magic. Elemental water magic was a special form that needed close attending to keep a high ability. She slipped her clammy hand into her soft pocket where she had stored the book Henrey had given her earlier. As Ember flipped through the thin book the pages left a slight dust film on her fingertips. With a strong smell of must coming off the book and the light layer of dust, Ember could tell that this book had not been touched anytime recently. Her thoughts led her to another world of where this book had been before her. Her thoughts were abruptly interrupted by a rustling that could be heard from the top of the tree she had been sitting under. Thinking it had just been some sort of animal she ignored it. After a couple more, occurrences of the rustling Ember decided to investigate what had been happening in the tree above.
Ember jumped up to a low hanging limb and hurled herself into the tree. She crawled around the tree for a little while before spotting a flash of color to her right. She reached for the color and got hold of a leg. The body that belonged to the leg soon let out a shriek and fell out of the high tree, hitting the hard ground with a sound of air releasing from the body. Ember slyly snuck out of the tree, coming inches apart from whom she had just discovered. Ember stood over the body, which was a girl with chestnut skin and a large puff of hair that sat voluminously on top of her head. She took the girls arm, lifted it and gave it a slight shake, attempting to wake up the what seemed to be unconscious body. Suddenly the girl grabbed Ember by the neck and flipped Ember to her back. Ember, filled with rage, abruptly stuck her hand into her pocket, grasped the stone and struck at the girls shoulder, not wanting to harm her tremendously. The girl fell back, swaddling her now bleeding shoulder. Ember went again for the girl, attempting to keep her on the ground unable to hurt Ember. The girl reacted with a blow to Ember. She flew back hitting the tree directly behind her. Ember, grasping for air, grabbed a fallen branch and flung it at the girl's face. The girl quickly reacted and caught the branch. While she was catching the branch, Ember had managed to escape. She ran through the woods frantically not knowing where to go. When she finally emerged from the brush, she noticed a little village that sat right outside Elantris. A sign sat at the beginning of the village that read “ Nira’s Followers”. She slowly entered the village, Ember knew this is where her next journey would begin.