Morning’s Ritual

“Good morning, lord and lady of the night, and thank you for my dreams.  Let all the wisdom and insight break forth from concealed seams as I awaken today.”  Ariana whispered to the air in her sunlit bedroom.  She could tell it was going to be a good day.  She slowly sat up, her head still caught in the night’s stories, and stretched out.

What had she been dreaming about?  She thought back and could almost taste the food she had been eating in her dream.  Gourmet steak…or was it prime rib?  Maybe it had been both.  She was obviously hungry.

She slid off of her bed and put her feet on the cool wooden floor below her.  This house was much better than the apartment in the city that they had lived in all her life.  She was going to miss the few friends she had, but that was what email was for, right? They were only an hour away from the city, and she absolutely loved it out here.  Ariana crossed the room to the bay window and glanced outside.  Summer was finally here – the sun had just risen, the birds were chirping like mad and there was barely a cloud in the sky.  Originally, she had thought that she would hate the fact that the back of her house – and her large bay window – faced the east, but now she loved it.  She was always up early and seeing the sun stream in through the white curtains just made her day – each and every day.

“Mom, you up?” Ariana yelled through the open door.

“Writing, darling.  I think there’s some fruit downstairs if you want to eat.”  Ariana heard her mom’s muffled voice through the walls.  The house was old, but it was very solid.  Ariana was almost glad her great aunt Sarah had died and left the house to her mother, completely paid for, with enough funds to provide for the taxes for several years.

“Are you serious?” Ari yelled back, walking out of her room and standing outside of the writing room door.  “You want me to eat fruit for breakfast? What’s wrong with you?”

“There’s pancake mix, too.  What do you want from me?”  Her mom yelled through the door, laughing.  “Now be quiet.  I’ve got to work.”

“Sure.  You going to tell me about it tonight?”

“Don’t I always?”  Ari heard her mother call as Ari made her way downstairs.  The stairs, like most of the house, were made out of real wood, and smooth with age.  The house must have been at least two hundred years old.  She couldn’t even begin to imagine the amount of people who had lived in the house – the wide, wide range of emotions and events that could have happened in those two hundred years.

Her mother could, though.  That’s the story that she was working on right now.  “The Life Of A House”, a child’s fictional novel dedicated to the events happening right in this house.  Well, sort of.  Her story included a time-warp mirror that the children in the story had to look into to see the different events and piece them together.  Her mother was a writing machine lately.  She had already finished and submitted one manuscript to the publisher she had a contract with, and was halfway through her second novel.  In three weeks.

Grabbing a small breakfast bar from the pantry, Ari donned her sandals and made her way to the back yard.  She decided that she needed a short walk through their property to make up her mind about what she actually wanted for breakfast.  Until then. The oatmeal based energy bar would do fine.  Their property seemed endless.  They had been there about a month and she still hadn’t explored all of it. She was very glad, though, that her great aunt’s children had made trails through the woods.  Although overgrown somewhat from years of next to no use, they made beautiful paths to walk along.  And even when the human made trails stopped, there were always the deer trails to follow.

Barely a breeze on the trees, Arkonel followed and watched his new charge as she took a morning stroll through the woods.  The eighteen year old was tanned, with dark black hair and soft, striking blue eyes.  Ariana would be an easy “A” for him, assuming he kept out of trouble.  And then he would have his father’s trust back, and maybe he would finally be granted a section of the world to rule.  A big dream, but certainly accomplishable.

Arkonel decided that today, this first day of observation, would be the one that he would introduce himself to her on.  He could probably keep his name.  He had already chosen his human form from a catalogue of form ideas his father kept.   In human form, he was tall, with wavy black hair and dark brown eyes.  Muscular, with glasses to achieve the “adorable” look that he knew Ariana would trust, Arkonel felt he had chosen wisely.  But now it was up to him to execute his plan.

He used his breeze to run through Ariana’s hair, trying to decide how to meet her.  What was his story going to be?  He could say that he was backpacking and hiking for the summer through his grandmother’s property, which lay behind Ariana’s land.  He still couldn’t quite grasp what foolish human had made the assumption that they could “own” the land that they lived on.  But, in order to get her to trust him, he would have to submit to those human rules and boundaries.

Should he meet her in a tree? Or on the ground?  He thought it would be fun to leap from a tree to scare her, but remembered what his father had said.  That was it for him on mortal grounds if he fucked up and had her pray her displeasure to the gods.  In this case, human thoughts were deadly to Arkonel.

Ariana looked up and smiled at the empty air as the it brushed through her hair yet again.  She could almost imagine it was her father’s fingers, brushing through her hair like he had done when she was little, before the car accident.  She could barely remember her father, who died when she was 5, but there were only good memories.  Thirteen years was a long time for her mother and her to be alone, but they didn’t mind.

“Hello, wind.”  She said softly out loud as she made her way down the trail.  She still hadn’t decided what she wanted to eat, and she was about ready to turn back.  As shady as it may be in the woods, she was starting to break out in a sweat.

“Hello, human…” A surprisingly deep male voice echoed from above her.  Startled, her head jerked up to see a college-aged boy sitting in the tree above her.

“Very funny.”  She stepped back to get a better look at him.  He grinned and waved at her.  “So, who are you, and what are you doing on my property?”  She asked him.  She watched with amusement as he tried to climb down.  It looked like he had never climbed a tree in his life.

“Woah, getting a little defensive there, aren’t ya…” Arkonel muttered as he tried to step on a branch.

“Well, like I said, you’re on my property.  Do you need help or something?  Haven’t you ever gotten down from a tree before?  How’d you get up there, even?”

“Magic.  Hey, you want to see something cool?”

“Well, I’d really like to know your name.”  She said.  She frowned at him, wondering why she had gone out into the woods without telling her mother, without a cell phone, and without any sort of knife.

“Arkonel.”

“Right.  Where did you say you’re from?”

“I didn’t.  I was born in Greece.”  Arkonel realized how stupid it had been to appear in a tree.  He didn’t know how to get down.  In fact, the only way to get down was to jump.  And it wasn’t like it was a jump that a human could achieve.

“How did you get up there, anyway?”  Ariana asked him.  Arkonel could tell her mistrust of him was slowly dissipating as she realized he was stuck.

“I climbed.  I think.”

“You don’t remember if you climbed it or not?  Are you high?”

“Very.  I’d say about thirty feet.”  Arkonel grinned down at her.  “Okay, you ready for this?  Stand back.”

“What?”  She asked him, and he repeated exactly what he said:

“Very.  I’d say about thirty feet.  Okay, you ready for this?  Stand back.”

“O-kay…”  Ariana trailed off and stood back a few feet.

Arkonel slid forward a few feet on the branch he was crouched on and took a deep breath.  It wasn’t going to actually hurt his body – he was invincible in this form, after all.  He jumped.

“Jesus Christ!”  Ariana shouted and rushed over to Arkonel, who had landed in the exact same position he had leaped from.  He stood up smoothly and looked at her.

“I’m fine.”  Arkonel laughed at her.  “Though I’m happy to know you care, even though I was trespassing and what not.”

“Well, yeah, but that’s no excuse for you to try and kill yourself.  Are you fucking crazy?”  She asked, realizing he was alright.

“Perhaps, a little bit.  But I get along just fine.” Arkonel grinned at her again.  Maybe this shitty assignment would be some fun, after all.  Especially if Ariana was that easy to scare.

She glared at him and finally punched his shoulder.  His smile never wavered, and she stepped back from him, remembering that she had no clue as to who he was.

“Why are you on my property?”   She asked him.  He shrugged, finally answering her.

“My grandmother owns the property behind yours.  I’m spending my summer helping her out on her farm and camping in her forest.  I didn’t realize I had stepped onto your property.  Are you sure its not hers?”

“Pretty sure.  We own two miles back, and I’ve maybe walked a half mile.”  She said, crossing her arms over her chest doubtfully.

“I’ve been out here for a week.”  Arkonel defended himself.  It would be hard to continually add onto his complete and total lie.  He knew already that Ariana was the kind of person to check the facts.  He knew her mother was a writer, and research was what they did best.

“Really?  Where’s your stuff?”  She asked him.  “Because I see no signs of life around here – anywhere.  Human life, that is.”

“Its about a ten minute walk that way.”  Arkonel pointed in the direction she had been heading.  “So, what’s your name?  And how do I know you’re not lying to me?”  Arkonel asked her.  He pushed his shaggy hair out of his face.  Arkonel made a mental note to ‘cut’ his hair in the night and adjust the human form, if only for neatness sake.  He couldn’t very well continually brush his hair out of the way if he was expected to keep an eye on Ariana.

“I’m…Lily.”  Ariana said, still not moving from the tree she had put right behind her back.

“You’re lying to me.”  Arkonel said, grinning.  “I can always tell.”

“No I’m not.”  Ariana protested.  “My name is Lily.”

“Your middle name, or your last name, perhaps, but not your first name.  You look like…an Adrian or Amber to me.  Am I close?”  Arkonel said.  He pushed his glasses up his face to watch her expression.  Well, more for the effect – the glasses served no purpose at all except as a decoration.  He would have to lose those tomorrow, too.

“Ariana.”  Ariana sighed in defeat.  “My friends called me Ari, most of the time.  Hey, if you were born in Greece, how come you don’t have the accent?”

“I do.  I’m just hiding it.  I can speak Greek, but I’ve lived in the USA since I was young.”  He said.  He tried to keep it all vague. The less he had to remember about himself, the better.

“Show me?”

“Fine.” Arkonel said in his native Greek tongue.  “If you really want me to speak in terms you don’t understand, that’s fine with me.”

“Um.  Okay.  I’ll take your word for it.”  She said.  “So I’ll be seeing you around?”

“Leaving, so soon?”  Arkonel asked.

“I need breakfast.”

“Ah.  Well, okay.  I can’t guarantee you’ll see me again.”  Arkonel said.  Here was the pivot moment – the moment that Ari either decided to trust him or to never see him again.  It determined the next 100 human years of his life.

There was a moment of awkward silence as Ari decided.  “If you want…you can come with me.  I don’t have anything to do today, and I’ve been really um, lonely.”

“What about all those friends you just mentioned?”  Arkonel grinned, waiting for her to lead.

“Well, I’m still friends with them.  Its just that we moved here about a month ago and I haven’t met anyone yet.  Besides the store clerks and such.”

“Oh.  So I’m your first friend?”

“You’re a friend now?”  She asked him, eyebrows raised.  She started to walk back towards her house.

“Am I?”  He asked, following her.

“We’ll see.”
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