Rain (The Quest Trilogy-Book Two) (38 page)

She turned around and ran.

*****

Rain and Earth reached the campsite laughing and out of breath. Rainbow came running up to them.

“You won’t believe what happened!” she squealed excitedly.

“What?” asked Earth. “Tell me, quick.”

“Heart and Destiny went for a walk, right? And there … they discovered the hidden meaning behind each other’s core names!”

“Did they now?” said Rain, walking over to a beaming Heart and sitting down beside him. “Well, spill!”

“What would you like to know, brother Rain?”

Rain rolled his eyes. “For starters, what is the hidden meaning behind your core name?”

“See, it’s like this. There can be no heart without a soul. I was on a soulless journey, until I found Destiny.
She
is the heart of my journey. The life in my love.”

“Oh, Heart! You word things so eloquently…” sighed Earth.

Rain frowned and threw her a sidewise glance, but didn’t say anything.

“What about you, Destiny? What is the hidden meaning behind your core name?”  continued Earth.

“The point of our lives is to embrace what is in our destiny. To accept it wholly. And that is what Heart is to me – he is my destiny.”

“So, you guys are soulmates.” said Earth, clasping her hands and looking at them dreamily.

“How did it happen?” asked Rain. “I mean, is there a special trigger or something?”

“I cannot really tell, brother Rain. I was just telling Destiny to keep an eye on where we were going because I can no longer see anything clearly. Every time I open or close my eyes, I only see her face. And then it happened.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes. Just like that.” said Heart, snapping his fingers to illustrate the suddenness of it. Earth looked at Heart with a wistful expression on her face.

“Doesn’t he say simply the most romantic things?” she asked Rain.

“You think what he says is romantic?” asked Rain, in a carefully toneless voice.

“Very much.”

“In that case, why don’t you go for a walk with him? Maybe you’ll discover the hidden meaning behind your core name, too.”

“Whatever do you mean by that?” asked Earth, turning to Rain in surprised.

Rain stared at her in silence for a while, and then got up and walked out of the clearing.

“Ouch!” said Rainbow, watching his receding back.

“What’s biting into him?” said Earth.

She rose to her feet. All eyes were on her and it was making her extremely uncomfortable.

“If you will excuse me, everybody, I need to take care of something.”

Earth jogged out of the clearing in a bid to get out of there as quickly as possible and headed in the opposite direction from the path Rain had taken. She half-ran, half-walked to the stream.

There was a dull throb above her right knee where she suspected she had received a cut while running in the forest with Rain today.

Earth found a nice flat rock to sit on and washed her hands and feet first. She looked left and right to make sure no one was around and then carefully lifted the hem of her dress above her knee to expose her left thigh. She was right.

There was a large gash there, but it wasn’t too deep. There was a sudden clap of thunder overhead and it started to rain.

Earth sighed, lowered the hem of her dress, and folded her arms across her chest.

“What are you doing here, Rain?” she said in a bored voice. The rain petered down to a drizzle and then stopped entirely. A moment later, Rain shuffled up to her with his head lowered and hands stuffed into his pockets.

“Did you want something?” asked Earth, glancing briefly at him and then looking away.

Rain didn’t reply. He just kicked a rock out of the way. Earth waited patiently.  He would talk when he was ready. Rain shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other and then crouched down next to her.

“You were hurt today?” he said finally.

Earth knew this was not what he had come to say.

“Yes.” she replied. “More than once.”

A look of guilt flashed across his features. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t realize it then.”

“Can I tend to the wound? I have the necessary items to disinfect it here, in my belt.”

“You won’t be able to handle it.”

“I will.” insisted Rain. “Just let me try once.”

Earth looked at him skeptically. She didn’t doubt his intentions, only his ability to control his emotions – and the rain. She lifted the hem of her dress gingerly to expose her wound.

The clouds above rumbled a little, but nothing happened this time and Earth relaxed somewhat.

“May I?” said Rain.

Earth nodded.

“We’ll wash the wound first.” said Rain, dampening a wad of cotton in the stream and then walking back to her.

He bent down and started to wipe the area around the wound. The instant he touched her, there was a flash of lightning and it began to rain again.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” said Rain, quickly trying to bring the heavens under control.

Earth rolled her hem back down.

“Why don’t I just do this myself?” said Earth, holding out a palm for the damp cotton swab.

Rain looked forlornly at her open palm. “You can stay here and tell me what to do.”  said Earth, unable to bear the sad look on his face. “Or better yet, say what you came here to say …” she trailed off, not meeting his gaze.

Rain took a deep breath. “I already said the words I came here to say…”

“Those words being?”

“I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“For being such a jerk back there.” He looked up at her with a guilt stricken face. “Forgive me?”

“Rain, I was never really upset with you, so the question of forgiving doesn’t arise. However, I would like to know one thing … If it’s not too intrusive a question…”

Earth paused, but Rain didn’t say anything, so she continued.

“Did I say or do something to upset you back there? If I did, would you please tell me what it is so I won’t repeat it again? I don’t like seeing you upset.”

Rain closed his eyes and groaned. “I’m the one who acts like a jerk, and you’re the one trying to make amends.”

“Please don’t say that. Talking things out is the best way to resolve any dispute.”

Rain shook his head and laughed dryly. “I feel like such a worm … but if you must know, you didn’t do or say anything wrong. It was me who was being stupid. I was … I felt jealous when you praised Heart. That’s all.”

Earth looked into Rain’s eyes briefly, and then dropped her gaze.

“What? Say something!” begged Rain.

“Nincompoop!” muttered Earth, and Rain laughed.

“You should never become a judge, you know that.” he said.

“Why is that?”

“You’d let the guilty off too easily.”

“Only if they looked as good as you.”

‘You think I look good?”

“No.”

“Excuse me! What was that you said earlier, then?”

“Ask a stupid question …” trailed off Earth.

“Miss smarty pants!”

“You think I’m smart?”

“I know you are.”

“And do you think I look pretty, too?” she asked mischievously.

“I guess …” said Rain with a shrug.

“You guess! What kind of an answer is that?”

“A stupid one. You know … ask a stupid question …?” Rain trailed off.

Earth kicked him lightly on the shins. “Who’s being Mr. Smarty Pants now?”

“Ow!” laughed Rain, rubbing his leg. “No physical fighting, okay? Or you’ll have to put up with untimely showers!”

“Truce, then?”

“Truce!”

A period of amicable silence followed, during which Earth tended to her wound under Rain’s watchful gaze.

“There, were done.” said Earth with a flourish.

“What next?” asked Rain.

“You tell me.”

“No. You tell me. About yourself. I know nothing about you. Where you grew up. What your parents are like. Or your sisters …If you ever had any pets. What your hobbies are…”

“Okay, okay! I get it. You want to know more about me. Let’s take it one question at a time, shall we?”

“Fine. But don’t leave anything out.”

Earth rolled her eyes. “Rain, I if do that, we’ll be here forever. Already, it’s getting dark.”

“I don’t think I’ll mind that very much…”

“You’ll miss you meals …”

“Hmm … on second thought …”

He received another kick on his shin.

“You may begin.” said Earth, with a toss of her hair.

“When’s your birthday?”

“On the twenty-seventh of January.”

“Seriously?! I was born on the twenty-seventh of January, too!”

“I’m not surprised. Common birthdays seem the norm in Quniverse. Heart and Destiny were both born on the twenty-first of April. Rainbow and Angel share the birth date of twenty-fourth September.”

“Odd … but neat! Where were you born?”

“In London, England. I grew up there with my two sisters. I never had a pet. We are all allergic to animal dander. The three of us are real close. We loved to play pranks on people. The best prank we had, was of course, ourselves. We did everything the same. It used to drive our friends and neighbors nuts. Among the three of us, Snow is the eldest, followed by me, and then Fire. Snow is a real stresser. She stresses over every little thing, while Fire has a real temper. Her anger resides at the tip of her nose. She cools down real quick, though, and never holds grudges. She’s sweet. They both are.”

“What about you? Do you stress over little things?”

“Not really. I’m able to let go of things that are a waste of time and energy…”

“And your parents? What are they like?”

“Mum is very calm and composed. If she wasn’t like that, Dad would have driven her crazy, because he is quite the prankster. We inherited that trait from him. Mum’s core name is China, while Dad’s is Mercury. Mum could turn people into statues, while dad …” Earth shook her head at the memory, “he could just break up into a million little balls and then join right back up again. When they fell in love, he used to drive mum insane telling her, ‘China, you make me fall to pieces,’ and then breaking up. Mum would scream with fear initially, but then she started to keep Dad frozen for hours. That cured him!” laughed Earth.

Her laughter was infectious, and Rain found himself laughing too.

“What about your parents? Tell me something about them, too.” said Earth.

“Well, dad’s core name is Stallion, and he’s a strong guy. Can run real fast, never tires, he’s staunchly loyal. As for my mother, she died shortly after giving birth to my brother and me, so I don’t know much about her except that her core name was Ray, and she was a really nice person.” Rain grinned.

“I’m sorry about your mother.” said Earth. “I’m sure she must have been a wonderful woman to have given birth to such a wonderful son.”

“Well, can’t deny that.” said Rain and Earth whapped him softly on the arm.

“You said your mother died shortly after giving birth to you and your brother. Does that mean you have a twin?”

“Yes. Diego, now Star, is elder than me by a few minutes and he loses no opportunity to use that bit of knowledge to gain an edge over me.”

Earth gave him a lopsided grin. “So the two of you are close, huh?”

“Yeah. Very.” said Rain, taking her hands in his. “What can Snow and Fire do?”

“Snow has powers similar to yours. She can make it snow. Fire has the ability to supply others with constant energy. You’ll never feel tired around her.”

“What were your names before you got your core names?”

“Snow was Anna, I was Diana, and Fire was …”

“Let me guess … Trianna?”

“Yes! Dad’s sense of humor at play again! But we didn’t mind the names. They were nice. Besides, we were going to lose them at Mt. Chimpu, anyway.”

“You trained at Mt. Chimpu?!”

“Yes. Didn’t you know? I thought you had figured it out that day when Angel mentioned he was from Mt.Chimpu, too, during our game of truth or dare. Remember? I figured out then you were also from there, because you talked about Mt. Chimpu as if you were quite familiar with it.”

“No! I had no idea we had that much in common. You must have been in the batch that came after us … am I right?”

“You are.”

“Did you like the Naming Ceremony?”

“I thought it was totally whacked-out fun! When we received our core names, the strangest thing happened… the color of our eyes changed!”

“They did? … well, that’s new.”

“I know! All of us had grey eyes. But after the naming ceremony, Snow’s eyes turned blue, Fire’s turned green, and mine turned dark brown. They got the better colors I think. I’ve just got ordinary brown eyes. I love your eyes, though. I’ve never seen anything like them.” said Earth, admiring the flecks of green between the bands of gold in Rain’s eyes.

“My eyes are kind of an amalgamation between mom and dad’s. Mom apparently had green eyes and dad has brown. And your eyes aren’t ordinary. They’re such a unique, dark brown … like the color of the earth, after fresh rain.”

Silence followed his words.

“Very eloquently put …” murmured Earth, getting lost in the magic of his eyes once more.

“I needed to hear that …” whispered Rain. He touched a finger to her lips.

She bit it.

“Ouch! Very intelligently thwarted!”

“I needed to hear that!” teased Earth with a wink.

Rain shook his head and then continued. “Will you tell me what your Quest is?”

“If you tell me what’s yours.”

“I have to collect eleven wisdoms.”

“Eleven? How many have you collected so far?”

“Eight of them. I have three more left to collect. And then the master Quest.”

“My Quest is to collect seven element stones. I don’t know what they are. I just receive them as I finish a task successfully. I wasn’t so successful in my last one, as you must know. I saw my sisters trapped by the witches, tried to free them, but ended up getting caught instead.”

“How many element stones have you collected so far?”

“Three.”

“That’s quite a good haul. What are the stones you’ve collected so far?”

Earth clapped her hands twice and three stones appeared in her hands. “I keep them with my Geeya. She keeps them safe.” explained Earth.