Cinder

Cinder and Bayou know how to save the world twice in a row.

Chapter One-A Hurried Interruption

I furrow my brow as I slap the pencil on my table. I was on the second question of my test; I look at the clock and realize I’ve taken thirty seconds so far. The first section of the Individual State Test of Voliaville (ISTV), of which decides which academy a student would go to next, was algebra. My dream was to go to the top-notch Mountainbark Charter, where those few students who score 85-100% on this very test dwell; they would learn not just science, world history, language, and maths, but extracurriculars and magic subjects. I knew one of the subjects I would choose would be Creative Writing; where lots of students learn to be successful authors. I begin to get frustrated, and put my head down, imagining my peaceful place–a rolling meadow in a starry autumn night. I was in solitude, and all I could hear in the area was the chirp of a twilight owl. The grass was dotted with morning dew; the forest I was viewing was beautifully illuminated by the setting sun and rising moon. There was a mix of the crisp aroma of autumn and the sweet scent of flowers that I thoroughly enjoyed. Such a peaceful place of solitude reminded me of having dinner in a location very similar with my parents; my baby brother was under the care of a babysitter, of which to me at the time was paradise. Not to hear that obnoxious screaming every three minutes! I smiled, only to have my intuition interrupted by the principal calling me over the intercom–

“Cinder Crater is exempted for today. She’s going home.”

I rose, and hurried out of the bland testing room, my scarlet backpack bouncing. I almost left my green pencil in the havoc. I could not see the tan walls in the speed of my rushing, let alone the occasional teacher who would dodge me in a blur and demand me to watch where I’m going. In the back of my mind I longed to return to the world of solitude I was just in. Near the end of my hurry, I could hear the boisterous yelling of students, teachers, and parents–one of whom I could identify as my mother in an instant. I turn the corner into a lime-green office with darkened oak desks and chairs. My parents ran to me and hugged me as my brother Bayou crossed his arms behind them.

“What happened?” I ask.

“Something is happening with our uncle and we need to help him quick. Apparently him and Dad saw lava in his backyard!” replied Bayou.

His blue eyes flashed with dire horror when he told me the news. My father almost shoved us to our GMC Acadia; I pulled off my backpack in such a hurry my lavender uniform collar was ripped on the right side. Bayou tumbled into the left seat as I was in the right. My parents even shoved themselves in the front seats, hardly speaking and giving dire looks to each other. We only had three seconds to buckle up before we took off, my mother driving at ten times the speed limit. My long, wavy, dark brown hair was tangled in the ride, as with my brother’s short spiky hair of the same color. Neither of us could see where we were going, and unlike usual my father did not protest to the speeding. He turned on the radio and specifically soft music began playing; within seconds I had drifted off to sleep, my intolerance of the music in play. I felt nothing, heard nothing, saw nothing, smelt nothing, of the real world. Bayou watched as my limp body slumped against my seat. My mother looked at my father: “Don’t turn on that music, silly. Ergh. Too late, Edward, you enchanted her.” My brother scoffed. “You’re not five, I am! You’re eleven. Cinder, wake up.”

Instead of reality I was floating in a darkened night sky; it was just about dusk. I heard a faint echo of the music, and it was just so enchanting.. the erhu my father had turned on was beautiful. I felt a soothing energy run through my limbs. My eyelids were, even while dreaming, heavy. I was ascent so far I could not see the ground; although in my fatigue and carelessness I didn’t necessarily care. I felt at ease, hearing the heavenly music. It was horridly enchanting………….. I could not let go of the sense, and due to that I would be trapped until my father changed the channel.

Of which he did.

I woke to a suspenseful horn; my vision was inevitably unfocused, as with my hearing. I twitched a bit as I attempted to recollect myself and analyze the surroundings. I did not yawn, drool, or snore; exactly why my mother called it “enchantment”. Bayou recoiled–“Turn that gruesome noise that you call music off!”. I felt like my mind, soul and heart were scattered about, and it took a while for the blurs I saw to be recognized as my family. I heard the commotion of the scene fade in–my brother’s complaints about the trumpet, my mother driving and scolding my father, of whom was watching me, concerned, while pointing out the directions. “Cinder’s awake, Kenna, discontinue your reactions please.” My mother is Kenna and my father, Edward. “Well, Eddie, we’re there.” My mother pointed to a quaint little village and we halted, to the point both of us siblings looked like we were about to puke. We really were there.

Chapter Two-Pythoness Ida’s Prophecy

Our family dashed into the village, dislodging the pebbles on the pathway in our hurry. The villagers around us were panicked of the smoky smell and confused of our sudden arrival; we ignored them asking questions. We were witnessing the townsfolk chatter and run about, concerned and alarmed. “Look!” cried Bayou, pointing to smoke that seemed to be coming out of the community garden. I was only more alarmed by the sight, for what was behind the garden was none other than our uncle’s house. We continued to hurry to the scene, only to be pulled aside by a woman wearing a hood and dress darker than the feared Void itself, of which if it is touched by a soul they are forever lost, and if it is seen by a soul that soul is traumatized. I looked at her mysterious dragon claw pendant and knew immediately we have bumped into the respected local soothsayer.

“Hello, I am Ida.”

My parents turned and immediately shrunk back at the presence of this strange woman.

“Pythoness Ida.”

A pythoness!, thought both Bayou and I at the same time, the leader of the soothsayers!. We looked at this Pythoness Ida like little children that I bet she knew we were not, and my mother stammered. “W-w-what are y-y-your w-w-w-whereabouts with u-u-u-us?”

“Come into my tent and I will tell you.”

I cannot tell you what my parents were saying inside of their mind because they were cursing, but both Bayou and I were finding this moment creepy. It was almost like we had telepathy–we were thinking the exact same thoughts. Why are we being invited into a pythoness’ tent? Is she mad at us? Is she about to kill us? Did we do something wrong? What did I do in my life that led up to this moment? The pythoness led us across the street to an eerie black tent, almost the color of her dress. I shushed my brother at least ten times on the way there. Inside the tent, there were luminous green candles. Vials dotted the shelves. In the center, to our shock, was the legendary crystal ball of lore. It is said that with this sphere a Pythoness can speed up the future, rewind the past, or show either. Bayou and I were seated in two aligned seats right before this desk carrying the object we have been told to fear millions of times before, and behind us in diagonal chairs facing inward were my mother, behind me, and my father, behind Bayou. Pythoness Ida sat before us in her throne, and pulled out a live, purple python. The python was a sassy one; it looked and acted lethal, and likely was venomous. She removed her hood, revealing black hair in long wavy locks, and eyes as pale as the moon. She looked at us with an unfocused gaze. I fidgeted at the sound of an explosion; the pythoness in reaction threw her hands out and froze time.

“We have a prophecy to discuss,” said Pythoness Ida, meaningfully staring at us.

She waved her right hand–of which was meant to be the one that invokes the past–over her crystal orb. A split image emerged, of us siblings as babies. I almost gasped. On the left side, parallel to me, was my little baby self, except a few distinctions I found shocking; for starters, my eyes were, instead of a calm orange, a blazing red. Second, I was wielding large blasts of fire. On the right side, my brother’s normally sky blue eyes were the color of the ocean, and it was tidal waves and streams he was holding in his grasp. I gazed over at my mother, of whom explained it all in a single stare. We had magic. We were extraordinary.

And this was the day we were to unleash it.

“This is a supervolcano you are to face,” began Pythoness Ida. “It has the power to destroy the entire world if you are not careful. There is also a shadow governing it… so defeating it has a consequence.”

Us siblings, being naive, were willing to give anything to save the world, unknowing of this consequence and also despite it. My father was first to speak. “I’m sorry we brought this upon you, kids. And I’m sorry we brought this upon you, Pythoness.” Pythoness Ida was quick to react. “It is not your fault, the prophecies around this planet are inescapable.”

Inescapable.

“Unless there is a move you immediately regret taking place, they are absolutely inevitable.”

Wow, thought Bayou.

“I do understand,” replied my mother, “and I hope the best for our children. The Craters will always be a team.” Her eyes were welling up with tears, as with my father’s. I stood, and told my brother to follow suit. I was alarmed; I hoped the young Crater kids weren’t doomed to die at eleven and five. “It is a somewhat fortunate outcome you will be encountering.” Bayou held his breath.

“Now hurry along and save your world.”

Chapter Three-Incinerated

Pythoness Ida unfroze time and we dashed out as a large flaming rock rammed straight for us. I screamed and my brother impulsively made an X with his arms, forming a small water shield of which it bounced off of and made a dent in the pathway. Courage was seeping into my blood as I noticed the scene. Bayou looked at his hand–cliche–and then slid as another volcano meteor headed for him. “They need to evacuate!” he screamed, and rushed about the village. I nodded, hurrying as fast as fire to the property to the left of the community garden that I knew was my uncle’s house, even in the flames about it. The rest of my actions were faster than anyone could process; I leapt over the fence and bolted as I witnessed my uncle, standing paralyzed in the middle of his field, almost get hit in the head with a volcanic bomb. I shoved him aside and from my elbow erupted a piece of flaming rock the size of the one three milliseconds away from hitting me, and it threw both across the field. From my back a shield of fire covered us and only let my attacks escape. My uncle looked at me in awe.

“Girl, you’ve grown! Did you get diagnosed with that pyromancy?”

I turn. “No, it was some sort of prophecy.”

What I did not notice was my eyes were the blazing red that they were in the image Pythoness Ida had shown me and my brother, directly before this volcano. Before me, the volcano rose into its full, glorious splendor; a large gray mountain, of which the top was covered in shadows and flames. Occasionally, a lightning bolt emerged from the top. I was terrified, but that would last no longer. My uncle Jeffrey did not see what I saw next–a large, shadowy apparition that seemed to be the ghost of some wicked man. “You’ll regret this.”

I never did, up until this day.

By then, Bayou had finished evacuating the citizens and warning them about the coming apocalypse this volcano might bring. He ran over to me. “I’ll shield Uncle Jeffrey! Just find a way to end the volcano and that weird ghost thingy!” He saw it too, I thought. “Ghost thingy? You’ve ought to be seeing things,” guffawed Uncle Jeffrey as Bayou leapt before him and used his water shield once more. I knew I had to do something, but what? I searched through my impulses, fear running through my veins as the apparition charged up a nice little fatal present for us. My pupils disappeared as I blasted a large flurry of fire; embers blazed from my body. My uncle leapt backwards upon seeing my burst of power. I stared right where we saw the shadowy apparition and grimaced, my true destiny as a pyromancer flowing throughout my mind, soul, and essence themselves.

“No, you’ll regret this.”

With the embers I formed a shield that captivated the entire volcano and the shadowy apparition from the world. The apparition looked horrified upon seeing it, and it as a reaction flashed its hands in what seemed to be a triangle.

It was the last thing I saw before I drifted off to sleep as if the soft music was on; what I did not know was every pyromancer in the world had done the same. Bayou stood in wonder at the fact I had saved the world from the supervolcano, then noticed me, asleep, on the ground like someone had dropped clothes on the floor.

Chapter Four-Dreamland

I was, once more, floating above ground in a mysterious sky, except for a few distinctions. There was a solar eclipse above me, and every once in a while there was a flash of embers like I was in an orb. Other than that, the surrounding area was pitch black. The same hypnotic music played faintly about. I could not move from my spot, yet in my stage of hypnosis I did not want to. I found it extremely difficult to lift my eyelids in the hypnosis I was in, even in my dream. I felt no pain, and the music… it was so enchanting… and the only way time would actually pass is if I drifted off to sleep in the dream. Of which, due to hypnosis fatigue, I did, and hours probably passed in my slumber. I felt no resistance to the enchanting music. The erhu was all I could hear, in the faintest echo. My face felt like it was sagging; my fingers definitely were. My head drooped to allow my hair over my face–something I would in consciousness not allow. I saw nothing except for when my dream periodically allowed me to view outside my body. Like all fire elementals in the world, I was trapped in a hypnotic trance placed by the shadow apparition. The eclipse rose and set about ten times, but never gave way to a parted sun and moon. When hypnotized, I was unaware of the resistance I would have in real life and also what dangers reality was being put in.

Chapter Five-A Tidal Fury

Meanwhile my brother had gotten the attention of the pythoness and my parents. “What happened?” My mother asked, eyes darting from me, still limp on the floor but at least not in a heap, my brother, scared for the outcome of the world, and the pythoness, of whom seemed calm. “I’m afraid all fire wizards and wizardesses were unfortunately put in the same trance,” Pythoness Ida replied, “and they will stay until the shadowy apparition’s cultists are defeated.” Bayou’s fear turned into rage. “If there is a spell to bring them all to one spot, I will gladly defeat them. Protect Cinder and warn everyone who knows a fire wizard about what happened, please.” My brother seemed overly mature in this moment, from what I know by my parents’ constant storytelling of this entire day. He turned to Pythoness Ida and looked her in the eye.

“If you wish and you will not regret it, I will tell you the shadow union spell.”

Bayou didn’t even cry upon thinking Will I regret it?. “Tell me. Please.”

I was breathing in my trance, but on my side of it I could not tell. My parents were relieved when they noticed I was breathing normally. Pythoness Ida looked my brother in the eye with an unfocused, moon-pale gaze. She summoned a piece of paper and wrote it down to give it to him. “I cannot utter it aloud. Walk about fifty meters away from every fire wizard you know, and remember that the world depends on you defeating those shadow minions.” The world depends on it, thought Bayou, the shadow cultists will destroy the world if I don’t do this. 

“Apparitionali Summona Shadow.”

Seventeen shadow cultists appeared from thin air, sixty meters from where my family was shielding me. They cornered Bayou in an instant, and he fought them off with tidal waves about the size of the world trade center. One disappeared into thin air at the beginning of the fight; fading was the style of fate they have chosen. He let himself get scratched and burned by the cultists, and gave clear examples that even gentle water can cut skin, or drown, someone. His eyes were the color of the sea, like in the image on Pythoness Ida’s orb. He battled fiercely as he got overwhelmed by what was now ten cultists; a five-year-old was easily underestimated. However, he formed a seventy-feet-wide battlefield of which he flooded in a snap of his finger every five seconds. My mother stepped before me as my father observed me curiously. “Is this Bill Cipher I keep seeing whenever I poke my own daughter? This isn’t the style of villainy he chose,” he mumbled(1). My brother kept all of the ocean, it seemed, inside his orb of death.

“You will die in our battle,” uttered one of the remaining seven cultists.

“It’s worth it!” replied Bayou, using a tidal wave to knock him down to the point he faded. He then took out three in the same shot. He prepared to take out three of the remaining four when Pythoness Ida rushed up to the orb; she could not enter its boundaries, for her safety.

“Behind you!”

From Bayou’s entire radius erupted a large water tornado that knocked out all of the four. The world was saved.

Chapter Six-Awakening

I woke from my trance in an instant, murmuring what I had seen under my breath. My vision focused in and out, getting me slightly nauseated. Moving was easy, but getting up found itself immensely difficult. Bayou turned around and cheered; my parents smiled at seeing me stir, as well as seeing the world saved. “You both have done it,” Pythoness Ida muttered, “you saved the world from shadow cultists and a controlled supervolcano.”

References

1: Gravity Falls by Alex Hirsch [Disney+]