Editing Eldramin (section)

== Chapter 15 ==
''Fannara''

The remaining hours of Training were excruciatingly awkward. My thoughts were relentlessly churning over the bizarre conversation from the roof. What in the world was happening? 

I didn't know what to think. Part of me was inclined to brush off Moren's comment as an overreaction, but another part of me was growing suspicious. I knew there was something no one would tell me, but I hadn't assumed it'd be something of this magnitude. But then again, it wouldn't make sense for an entire world to go to war because of something a 20-year-old boy did. I had no clue. 

Mel seemed to sense something was wrong, but she didn't say anything after her concerned look was returned with a small shake of the head. I had a feeling Mara would know something was wrong the second we got back to our dorm, but that didn't come very soon. 

The hours of Training felt like months of rigorous conditioning. Part of me wondered if I should just drop out and focus on learning as much as I could before I had to leave, but I was determined to stick with this now. My own stubbornness wouldn’t ever let me live it down if I stopped now. 

Once we were finally finished with Training, I hoped I could talk to Ari about the conversation and see if she would explain anything to me, but Moren actually managed to talk to her right as I was about to talk to her. I didn’t want to have to deal with whatever awkwardness would ensure if I listened in, so I turned around and started walking to the exit. To my surprise, Verelia ran over to me. 

“You look like you need someone to walk you to the dorms, are you okay?” I stared at her, stunned by this sudden show of concern from the normal detached Illitani girl. 

I have her as good a smile as I could. “Thanks, I’ll be fine, nothing’s wrong.” Apparently, that wasn’t convincing. 

“Yeah, sure.” She looped her arm through mine and escorted me out of the room. “I won’t pry, but I’m also not blind, Fannara, something’s up.” 

I frowned and looked at my feet as they took long strides across the carpeted floor. Was I really that bad at hiding it? I kept my silence and Verelia kept her word, she didn’t pry. She also didn’t fill the awkward silence. 

I turned and squinted suspiciously at her as we waited for the elevator. 

She met my scrutiny with a look of thinly veiled smugness. “Do you have something to say?”

“If you think I’ll try to fill the silence you’re wrong.” She gave a single laugh and turned back to face the elevator. A ''ding'' announced the arrival of our method of transportation and three upperclassmen stepped out. They looked unimpressed with our combined stench. Verelia looked like she couldn’t care less what they thought and stepped past them into the metal box, pulling me with her. 

The door slid shut and more silence ensued. Verelia kept looking forward and didn’t move a muscle. I grew increasingly uncomfortable. 

“You are very passive-aggressive, you know that, right?” She smiled and her eyebrows raised in amusement.

“You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to.” 

I let out an exasperated breath. “I’m just really…confused right now and I think Ari can probably clear things up but she’s a little…preoccupied.” 

“Ah, that makes sense. Arienna is an interesting one, huh?”

“What do you mean?”

Verelia unlinked her arm from mine and turned to face me, crossing her arms and leaning against one of the walls. “She’s not very forgiving.”

“I guess…” I frowned and started twisting the end of my braid around my finger. “I don’t know, Ari’s gone through a lot and-”

“You don’t have to defend her to me, I was just commenting.” Verelia put her hands in the air, feigning surrender, and pushed off the wall right as the door opened onto ground level. “Forget I said anything.” She gave me a smile and lead me back to my dorm. 

Ari didn’t come back until I had showered and was working on some assignment. It was weird that they still gave us work during wartime, you’d think they’d use their resources better. 

She bee-lined for the bathroom before I could say anything. It was fine, I could wait until she was clean to ask her about what Moren had said. I couldn’t bring myself to focus on my work, though. Too many thoughts were swirling around my mind to be able to focus on the history of Eldran magic during that half-hour. 

Nervous energy and boredom sent me flipping through the glossary of my book. ''Eldra (page 17, 18, 20, 47, 93, 126), Eldramin (page 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 204, 306, 307)'' I already knew these ones, well, not as in-depth as the pages offered, but it didn’t pique my interest. I kept flipping through the glossary until something caught my eye, ''Prophecies (pages 73-90)'' Now that looked interesting. 

I turned to page 73 and started skimming through prophecies. It was ''fascinating''. The first one recorded wasn't even complete, from the era of the First Queen on Geterria, before the “unfolding of the world”. Something along the lines of the void consuming all life until they stand united. Apparently, the prophecy was fulfilled when the Element Stone was created using pieces of each Tribal Stone, the source of Geterran magic. 

The next few pages were of dull prophecies from before the colonization of Lathra II, III, and IV. I skimmed more pages until arriving on the most interesting part yet; Shifter prophecies. 

I had just finished reading about how the Centaurs acquire prophecies when Ari finally emerged from the bathroom, hair still wet. I immediately turned around in my chair to face her, startling her. 

“I need to talk to you.” She gave me a weird look and sat down on her bed. 

She reached for a hairbrush and started detangling the soggy locks. “Okay then…shoot I guess.” 

I took a deep breath, trying to figure out how I was going to ask this. There had been a plan, but, of course, now that it needed to be executed I forgot it. 

Deciding to just get to the point, I started with, “So I think we can both agree Moren was being weird today.” Ari stiffened immediately. “And uhm, one-on-one training got a little weird…” 

“Oh no, he likes you, doesn’t he?” I froze and stared at her. The second it fully registered in my brain what she assumed had happened, I started screaming at her. 

“OH ''HECK NO''. EW, ARI WHAT IN THE EVEN. NO.” She breathed a sigh of relief. 

“Well, then what made it weird?”

I groaned and leaned back in my chair, placing both of my hands on my chin. “He thinks he started the war.” Ari looked very confused, so I corrected myself. “I mean, he doesn’t think he ''started'' started it, but he thinks it’s his fault or something.” 

“Ohh.” The clarification seemed to make sense to Ari. She put down the hairbrush and gave me a fairly serious look. “He’s not entirely wrong, but he’s also slightly delusional.”

I frowned. “In what way?” 

She smiled wryly. “Like today, he wanted to talk to me because he thinks the date of the attack has to do with the stage the moon was in thirteen years ago when Izzy…oh I guess I haven’t told you…” She stopped and seemed to be contemplating something. “You aren’t technically supposed to know this but if you’re stuck with Moren you kind of have to know, probably should have told you before.” 

“Uh, what?” I was really confused. Leaning forward in the chair again, I waited for her explanation.

“Okay, so you remember how I told you at the beginning of the school year how Moren and I had that mutual friend at one point?” I nodded. “Well, basically, she was the daughter of the last leaders, like the highest up people. Her name was Isabell Harpson, but we all call her, or called, rather, Izzy. 

“She and Moren were super close, and at one point, when they were super little, they were out in the Quinta Preserve, the one I’m patrolling, and somehow, the two of them got separated. He was supposed to keep her with him ‘cause she was a bit of a wild child, but, yeah, she wandered away and the next thing people knew, Jana had her for ransom.”

Ari bit the inside of her cheek and stopped for a moment, maybe recalling memories, maybe trying not to. “Jana had her for two weeks, she demanded the Harpsons leave Lathra IV if they wanted their daughter back. They agreed and were prepared to leave but before they could, Chairman Keleth, Moren’s dad, went against Kayden Harpsons orders and sent a rescue team to get Izzy back. All the men were killed and so was Izzy. 

“The Harpsons took their two remaining kids, left, and never returned. The general public doesn’t know where they are but there are rumors they left for a system that hasn’t been linked to the rest of us to avoid ever encountering people from Lathra IV again.

“After they left, the Keleths ascended to the highest rank and my father was killed.” It sounded like she was going to continue, but she stopped and didn’t say anything. 

I sat there and tried to soak it all in. This was a huge event that had happened and I was only finding out about it now.

“Why did the Deraal want the Harpsons to leave?” 

Ari scoffed. “It wasn’t that she wanted the Harpsons to leave, she wanted Izzy gone, she was ‘getting in the way’ of Jana’s superstitious plan for conquering the world and saving her people.” She crossed her arms and propped one foot on her knee. “Moren, being as conspiratorial as he is, thinks that Izzy is somehow still alive, living among the Centaurs. There’s no proof of this, obviously, her death was caught on camera, but he seems to think that’s why Jana finally declared war.” 

Things were starting to click but there was one thing I was still confused about. “How old was Izzy?”

“Eh, give or take six to eight years old.” Ari shrugged.

I frowned. “What difference would a little kid make to Jana?”

“People thought she was the Eldramin.” I started.

“She was ''what?''” 

Ari laughed. “I said people ''thought'' she was the Eldramin, her magic was super strong at a young age, like some amplified gold healing I think, but she could never pass all the tests. The biggest one was the Burning Waters. Tradition has made the people believe the Eldramin can touch the Waters without being hurt but there’s no proof of that.” 

Something that had happened at the beginning of the school year suddenly clicked. “Ari, people didn’t get suspicious of my last name, did they?”

She laughed again. “Oh, they very much did, a Harpson who also happens to be a healer? Unheard of, it’s not like there’s a whole clan of them living on Lathra III either.” 

I groaned. “They stopped, right? I mean, Harpson is a ''super'' common last name on Alithos, like super duper common.” 

“Hey, you don’t have to tell me.” Ari put her hands in the air. “I know Izzy died, and so does everyone else.”

“Aside from Moren.”

“Yeah, he’s…''special.''” I chuckled a little at her tone. 

“Well, that was a bit more dramatic than I expected but better than thinking my Training partner started a world war.” 

Ari grabbed her hairbrush again. “By far.” 

I turned back to my desk, ready to get work done. I glanced at my still open textbook. Something about it felt almost ominous, knowing that it was the source of widespread panic in this country. I grabbed it and closed it; enough history for one night.
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