The Fire and the Storm - Metric Pro Edition: Fiction, Dragons, Elves, Unicorns, Magic (25 page)

Reggie and Helemia had hugs to give with the prizes, and once all the winners had been congratulated and the losers consoled, they addressed the room one last time.

“We’d like to thank you all for coming today.” Reggie began.  “It’s been a lot of fun, and we hope to do it again next year!”

They paused for a short round of applause.

“We mainly decided to have this party because we know we’re strange, weird, and dangerous.” Helemia grinned, which brought a few chuckles in response.  “We’ve tried to act more normal lately, but we know it hasn’t helped that much.  And we’re probably gonna seem even more strange, weird, and dangerous after we start our combat training, and when we really get going on magic.

“But there’s lots of people that’re strange, weird, and dangerous that everyone else still likes because they’re nice, and they do a lot to help others.  I think our father is a good example.  And compared to any humanoid, every dragon and every unicorn is strange, weird, and dangerous, but lots of them are still well-liked and well-respected.”

“We hope that will include us.” Reggie said as he took over the narrative.  “We’re already qualified to help other people with their psionics, especially Shielding and Illusions, so if anyone wants some help with that, or with anything else we can do, just say so and we’ll be glad to help.  And we’ll come back here tomorrow to clean everything up.

“We’ve gotta go get ready for bed now.  Goodnight everyone!” he finished with a wave and a grin.

Helemia joined him in waving, grinning, and calling goodnight, then they floated down to Mark and Talia’s arms for hugs.

“The pub will be open in about ten minutes, in case anyone still wants to party!” Reen called to the room, and most of the young adults seemed to think that was a good idea.  The rest of the adults gathered their children to take them home.

As the twins and their family took their leave, the hall was already emptying quickly.

“I doubt there’ll be any work left to do in the hall by the morning.” Alilia chuckled as she walked along carrying Valentia.

“I know.” Helemia chuckled.  “Balen’s already organizing a bunch of Father’s sworn elves to do it before they go to the pub.  They still spend half their time trying to think of ways to serve him without being a bother about it.  But it’s nice of them to help with the hall; I’m glad we won’t have to do it.”  She tilted her head to the side a bit and considered her psionic awareness.  “Besides, they’re doing it with full-out magic, so it’ll only take them a couple of minutes anyway.”

“You don’t miss much, do you?” Talia chuckled, and gave the girl a kiss on her cheek as she walked.

“Nope.  We don’t!” Reggie giggled.

“And we are all immensely proud of both of you.” Mark smiled as he gave Reggie a cuddle.  “Your behavior today was very special.  Your maturity and abilities would still be incredible if you were sixteen years old.  To be as special as you are at your ages seems nothing less than a miracle.”

“Thanks Father.  We just seem normal to us though.”

“Yup.” Helemia giggled.  “And most of the time, everyone else seems slow.  And most of ‘em aren’t really trying as hard as they could be.  Considering what we’re all facing, they could all work on their training more than they do.  We did get lucky to have our abilities, but most of our fast improvement is ‘cause we work hard on it.”

“A lot seem to think that if they work really hard, that life won’t be any fun any more.” Reggie stated.  “And that’s just silly.  I mean first, it’s not true.  I love my life, and getting better at doing things all the time is one of the best parts of it.  But beyond that, so what if working hard is less fun?  If we can’t fight good enough to win when the demons get here, it’s not gonna matter much whether we had less fun now.  And even if the demons weren’t coming, everybody’s memory shows that there’s always gonna be big problems; storms and earthquakes and volcanoes and droughts and floods and wars and new diseases.  The longer it’s been since the problem happened last, the less ready for it everyone gets.  And when it does happen, the best survive, especially the best families; the ones that are smart and strong and work well together.  The isolated and the weak and the stupid and the really unlucky die, or lose everything.”

“That’s a fact, though I’m surprised you realize that already.”

“It’s probably because we know so many old people, and we get their thoughts a lot.” Helemia mused.  “Most of the elves and unicorns here are hundreds of years old, Yazadril and Alilia and Kragorram are thousands of years old, Povon is almost thirty thousand, and Quewanak is one hundred and twenty-eight million, which doesn’t even seem like it could be real.

“Anyway, old people see the same kind of things happen over and over again, so they notice it a lot more.”

“Speaking of which…” Mark chuckled as he opened their front door and ducked through it.

“Surprise!” A roomful of people called, just as the room brightened with light and Talia was fully through the door with Helemia.

All of their close family and friends were there, including Equemev, Silaran, and the four dragons, all of whom were using ‘cute and fuzzy’ simulacrums.  “Happy Birthday!” They all called as the twins broke out in surprised laughter.

“You fooled us!” Helemia laughed.  “I can still feel the fake psionic versions of you that you left at your houses!”

“Just a little something Povon and I came up with.” Yazadril chuckled as Mark, Talia, and Alilia were seated with their children on the sofas in the places that had been reserved for them.

“It was wise of you to ask not to receive presents at your own party earlier,” Yazadril teased, “But those of us who love you certainly aren’t going to refrain from giving you birthday presents on your very first birthday!  And since it’s very seldom that the two of you are surprised by anything, we thought a surprise party was the perfect occasion to do so!”

“For sure!” Reggie laughed.  “You couldn’t have found a better way for our birthday party to be a surprise than by having it right after our birthday party!  I’m sure no one expects that!”

“That’s what we thought!” Bezedil chuckled.  “Though this second one won’t really be long enough to be a party by itself.  It’s more of a continuation of the first one.”

“We know you’ll be ready for bed soon, so we’ll present your gifts now.” Nemia said as she cleared the low table.  “Your gifts are each of a set, and we all contributed equally to making them.  Each of us spent six hours working on them, each to our own skills, whether that was crafting, spell casting, or polishing.

“Go ahead Dear.”

Yazadril cast a Summoning that brought the gifts from the home of Sana and Markhan the senior, where the last of the work had been done.

Two baby-sized armor stands appeared with full suits of gleaming steel plate-over-chain-mail armor, each complete from boots to helmet, and each equipped with a sword and scabbard, a round shield, a light lance, a bow and a quiver of arrows, and a pouch of the heavy little darts that were designed to be propelled by Movement.  Each item had a few small but tasteful gold accents.

“Oh wow!” Helemia squealed and clapped her hands, just as Reggie said; “Oh excellent, thank you!”

“The swords are a compromise design, since we don’t know yet what style you’ll eventually prefer.” Markhan the senior explained.  “They’re light enough to be used with one hand, but have enough handle for two.  Same with the shields, they don’t have the coverage of a full line-infantry shield, but they’ll cover well and they’re still handy enough to use for striking.

“They’re beautiful, all of it!” Helemia marveled as she and Reggie bounced from their parent’s laps and drew their tiny swords.

“And as you might expect, they’re all rather heavily spelled.” Yazadril added with a grin.  “Perhaps most importantly, they’ll grow with your size and strength.  The armor will always fit you, the weapons will grow to match your body and hand size, and the bows will increase in pull to match your growing strength.”

“Of course the armor has added magical protection, and the weapons have added offensive capabilities, but it’ll take you a few days to become familiar with all the spells involved.” Alilia smiled.  “There’s rather a lot of them.  When my turn came, they already had so many enhancements that I couldn’t think of many to add, so I spent most of the time adding charge and power to the spells.”

“You’ve been hinting for a while that you’ll want to start combat training soon,” Mark added, “So we were pretty sure you’d like these.”

“Do we
ever!
” Reggie marveled as he tried the pull of his bow.

“Thank you all
so much!”
Helemia added as she tried the weight of her lance in her hand.

“Okay, hugs for
everybody,
then I’m gonna put on the whole thing!” Reggie declared as he replaced the bow in it’s carry-case.

The twins each gave everyone a hug and their thanks, then Mark and Alilia helped them into their armor.

As they posed in front of a full-length mirror, Talia had to laugh.  “It’s amazing that you look so very dangerous and so adorably cute at the same time!”

“Well as you showed in The Turning of Zarkog’s Commanders,” Helemia giggled, “Being very cute can be an effective offensive quality!”

“It sure can!” Povon laughed, remembering.  “I wish I’d thought of
this
get-up then, it would have been even easier!”

“You sure do look cute like that, all fuzzy and everything.” Mark chuckled.

“Especially Equemev, you look absolutely adorable like that!” Helemia grinned as she took off her helmet.

“Thank you Helemia, but I think Silaran looks cutest of all!”
Equemev teased as she nuzzled Silaran’s pink mane.

“So you think Equemev is cuter than me?” Karzog teased as he landed beside Helemia and gave her a playful shoulder-bump, almost knocking her off balance.

“Girls are cuter than boys, and unicorns are cuter than dragons!” Helemia declared as she tackled him to the floor, surprising him, and held him pinned for a moment as she smiled down at him.  “But you’re always cute, Karzog, even when you’re killing something.”

“Well that’s sweet!” Karzog responded as he flipped her over, and they rolled across the floor wrestling, accompanied by the soft clacks of her armor against the hardwood and the sounds of his claws sliding as he scrambled for purchase.

“But I’ll have you know I am
not
cute when I am not wearing this silly form, I am a mighty and conquering hunter!  There!” he declared as he tied her up with all of his limbs; legs, arms, wings, neck and tail.  “Got you!”

“You think?” Helemia responded as she started tickling him on his ribcage.

“Ah!  Ahhh hahahaha!  No fair, tickling is no fair!” Zarkog declared as he escaped her grasp and took to the air.

“I didn’t hear you listing any rules before you almost knocked me over, you beast!” she yelled as she took off in pursuit.

“That’s enough of that!” Mark laughed as he dexterously reached out a long arm and plucked her out of the air on her way by.  “No chasing each other around the house, you know that!”

“He started it!” Helemia accused.

“That’s irrelevant and you know it!” Talia chuckled.

“I know, but he did!”

“It’ll be fun playing tomorrow.” Karzog declared with anticipation as he landed on Mark’s lap beside Helemia and gave her a hug.  “I’ll be able to play with you with my real body, and with your armor on, I won’t have to worry about squashing you accidentally!”

“No, I’ll just have to be careful not to squash
you
accidentally!” Helemia returned with a grin.  “There really are a lot of nice spells in this stuff!  I could take on a full squad of Sylvan by myself with this on, I’m sure of it!”

“Some of the spells are safeties.” Alilia pointed out.  “Until your combat training is at least up to a professional level, they should prevent you from doing any accidental damage.  Not to say that’s it’s impossible for you to get in trouble with it, but you’d really have to try something quite foolish to do so.”

“We’ll go through everything tomorrow when you start your training.” Mark said as he set her on the floor.  “For now, take off your armor and put it back on the stands.  Then there’s something I want to ask you about before bedtime.”

“Yes Father.” Reggie said as he took his helmet off.

When all of the pieces were back on the stand in their proper places, the twins sat on the edge of the low table facing their parents.

“First, let me say again how immensely proud of you two we all are.” Mark began.  “Your displays of skill today were wondrous, but your display of character was even better.  Your showing of Somonik’s fight makes me wish I had the time to watch the whole thing in real time, and maybe after the nexus I will.

“But what I want to ask about is the prophecy.  That was a very important prophecy, if it turns out to be true.”

“Yup.  It means we’re gonna win.” Reggie agreed.  “The demons are gonna fear us, and we’re gonna kill lots of them, and we’re gonna find their homeworld and destroy it!”

“Let’s hope so.” Mark nodded.  “Now, you obviously chose some very momentous-sounding wording for your delivery, and it was very entertaining and dramatic.  But what was the exact wording of the prophecy?”

“Um, I don’t really get them in a sequence of words, really.” Reggie explained.  “I just suddenly know certain things, and it feels way different from when you just think of something normally, or when you get something from someone else with psionics.

“With that one, I knew the demons would call Helemia The Fire, and they’d call me The Storm, and we’ll kill a lot of ‘em, and we’ll destroy their homeworld.  That’s it, really.  I don’t even know if they’ll call us that because we’re gonna kill a lot of ‘em, which seems the obvious reason, or for some other reason.  I don’t know if they’ll call us that and we’ll kill a lot of ‘em here on Kellaran, or in the void near here, or not until we’re fighting on their homeworld.  And I don’t know when any of it’s gonna happen.”

“Ah.” Mark nodded.  “Well the word I wanted to ask about most is ‘vengeance’.  You said; ‘I shall destroy their hordes with the hurricane of my vengeance.’  That implies that you’ll be killing them not as a defensive effort, but in revenge for something they did to us.  I’m still hoping we can all come through this unscathed; all of us on Kellaran and The Triax as well.  So can you clarify that?  Was the word or concept of revenge or vengeance part of the prophecy?”