The Rebirth

Through the streets, across the sidewalks, winding around the blocks, the trail remained golden, bright, and persistent.
“How do you even know where you’re going?” Benji was shouting. Elena was kind of racing, waiting impatiently at every stoplight for Benji and Wyn to catch up.
In reply to that, she laughed and threw her hands up, doing a little twirl. “It’s in the air!”
And she continued to race. Benji and Wyn followed close behind.
Noticing that the trail went all the way around to London, Elena slowed, her chest heaving with exhales and inhales, her friends out of breath behind her. She scrunched her eyebrows together. “We should probably get bikes,” she mused, in between breaths. “It might be a far ways…”
Her voice trailed off. Benji was looking at her with the oddest look.
She wanted to ask him what he was doing, but she restrained, turning away, thinking heavily. As she looked around the area, and her eyes travelled farther down the street, she paused.
“Or maybe…”
And she started back up again. Behind her, Benji looked at Wyn with a pleading look, and Wyn grinned back, and they both took off after her.
***
Now this- this, right here…
This was home.
Elena let her eyes close, taking in the surroundings, taking in a breath of the smoggy air and taking in the sight of the polluted river.
Ah.
Lovely.
“Naida,” Elena called out. Benji flicked her a glance of alarm, but Wyn’s eyes were wide, her face was open, her smile curious.
She waited impatiently, cursing. “Naida,” she said again.
The river exploded, dramatically, a spurt of water shooting up and splashing some pedestrians. A little girl started crying, and people screamed, edging away from the side of River Thames.
“Aquarius,” Elena said, wringing out her shirt, both annoyed and thrilled. She resisted throwing her arms around the guy, with his ridiculously spiked sea-foam hair. Which was weird. She’d only been gone for three… almost four days now. And he kind of irritated the heck out of her. “Where’s Naida?”
“He insisted,” Naida shrugged, folding her arms on the side of Elena. “And I relented, because you haven’t come to visit in, what, three days, now? And you promised to come. Yesterday.”
Oh, god. Elena cursed. She forgot. But she let herself off the hook, for now, considering she kind of had other things on her mind the past three days.
“I am so sorry,” Elena cried. “Happy Assignment Anniversary!”
“Only the most important day of a nymph’s life. Getting assigned a life source. And, you know, it’s not like my river has saved you from about a hundred monsters, or anything. But, you know. No big.” Naida grumped, only half-kidding, rolling her eyes. They travelled to the partially drenched teenagers behind Elena. “Who are they?”
Elena’s own focus turned to the air above her, watching the golden trail slug down the stream. “Naida, I...”
Naida’s eyes pointed intensely, razor bright orbs of blue, at Elena’s face. “What’s going on? What’s happening?”
Elena smiled, sadly. “I’m so sorry to do this, but we really need help.”
Fifteen minutes later, a small bubble of air enveloped them, and they were zooming down the river, following the gleaming trail of magical gold that stretched next to them along the streets.
Wyn, like always, was clearly enjoying herself, waving at the nymphs who were pushing them. Aquarius waved back and winked, and Wyn beamed.
Elena couldn’t help but notice Benji watching all of this, his hands clenched, just barely.
“This is awesome,” Wyn announced, like she just decided it. “My gods, it’s just so… Snazzy!”
Elena shook her head away from Benji, beaming. She couldn’t help it. She was proud of her river friends. She was proud of the people she knew. “They’re the best. The absolute best. They’ve helped me out… more times than I can count…”
Naida glanced at her, mouthing, “I know.”
Elena gave her the thumbs up. The river spirit looked beautiful underwater, her hair flowing around her like cascading green steam, her eyes muted into a softer crystal color, her skin tinged just the prettiest glimmer of blue…
“We should probably prepare,” Benji announced, his face flickering with smiles and laughs like it normally does, leaning back in his little area of the bubble. “What we’re going to do once we get there.”
“Get where, exactly?” Wyn wanted to know. Earthy red hair, reflecting gray from the gray blue water around her, escaped her ponytail, probably from when Elena made them sprint three miles.
“Wherever Setti is,” Benji answered.
Wyn shrugged. “What’s there to prepare? Bree’s orders were to sneak in, find out what he’s up to, get out.”
“Well, what if he finds us?”
“Then we fight him. Magician style.”
“Exactly. How? What spells should we use? Simple runes work best, right? So should we kill him, or just- how should we prepare?”
“Humph,” Wyn’s tone drooped a little bit. “How much energy do you have? Which magical artifacts did you bring? How much would we be able to channel together?”
They started pooling their items from their bags out carefully in their hands. Elena watched this all from the side, quietly observing, pushing her insecurity to the side.
“I really fancy my knife,” she said to herself, meaning for it to be only for her ears. But it was a relatively small bubble. Benji glanced up from the heated discussion, recognition lighting on his face. His hair bounced around on his head as he whipped around back into his bag.
“Gods. Sorry,” he grinned sheepishly. He handed her the thing carefully, silver, engraved handle first. “Kind of had that.”
In her hands, she felt so much better than she had a couple of seconds ago. She held it to her chest. “Yes,” she breathed. Kind of a terrifying sight, to a regular passerby. A girl swooning over a large, pointy, murderous weapon. She let out a clear, happy laugh.
Benji grinned. “Feel better now?”
“You have no idea.”
“Didn’t feel safe enough with us and your fifteen mermaid friends around?”
The bubble jerked. Elena sighed and looked at him pointedly. “River nymphs. Naiads. Definitely not… mermaids. And, no, I feel safe enough. It’s whether or not I can actually do something.”
There it was again. Something Elena wouldn’t have said if Benji wasn’t pulling the words out from under her. He gave her a kind of smile of complete disbelief. “Are you kidding me right now?”
Elena raised her eyebrows, just a tiny bit. “No?”
Wyn was looking at her with a large, gaping, open mouth. “Whether you can do something? Who else could’ve gotten us this amazing ride with these snazzy river nymphs?”
She turned around to watch them again. Aquarius puffed out his chest and pushed on the bubble harder.
“That’s not me. That’s my friends. They’re the snazzy ones.”
Benji was still giving Elena the same look of disbelief. “Do you realize that Wyn and I would be- god knows where- somewhere around the world, searching for SET, one of the vilest gods ever, before trading away, like, half a limb to find out that Setti was residing HERE, AND THEN we’d have to ask around and probably roam around the streets of London for at least two days before maybe stumbling to his location? And you’re leading us to him now, and it’s only been, what, three- four hours?”
Elena smiled tiredly. He didn’t quite understand. Not all that well. Elena's face- normally a lovely bronze- reflected the sickly gray of the water.
He waited, and sighed, frustratedly, his lips turning up into a defeated smile. “What? What are you thinking?”
“This Sight is a blessing, or a gift, or a curse. It was something I was born with, and had to deal with. It’s not like I could’ve done anything about it. It’s not like I can do-“
“I swear to the gods, if you say magic, I might have to kill you.”
Elena went silent. Benji threw his hands up. “Are we still on this again? That you’re mortal? That you can’t do anything? Because that’s complete-“ colorful words spilled out of his mouth. “Do you realize that we were born with magic? We didn’t choose this. We didn’t want this world. We were just born into it, and not even from our own parents- from these ancestors we’ve had years and years and years and years ago. Because they believed in the gods. I didn’t choose this. And nobody else did either. What you said? That your Sight is either a blessing or a curse? Same with magic.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Wyn said, worriedly. “I thought I told you: that it’s even more amazing that you can’t do magic and do the things you do? That’s special. That’s real special.”
“You did,” Elena said, remembering, something warm happening on her face and heart. “And thank you- I appreciated that so much. But…”
“But… what?”
But Elena didn’t have support. She didn’t have the family that they had. She had a city to protect, and she prided herself in that, but some days she felt like it wasn’t enough. She wasn’t supposed to be born with this. She was mortal, but she didn’t feel like it. She felt like she was living another life. She had nobody else like her…
While Elena didn’t answer, her brain turning a thousand gears per second, Wyn spoke up.
“Um, Elena?” she asked, timidly. “Did Bree ever talk to you?”
She glanced up. “Pardon?”
“Did Bree ever pull you aside and mention something about you coming to Twenty-First Nome?”
“She pulled me- what?!”
“I didn’t think so. She was telling James about it the day we left, and I think she said something about not going through with it.”
“What are you saying?” Elena asked, calmly, trying to ignore the nervousness and hope and this extreme intensity building up at the back of her brain, rising and rising and rising-
“I’m saying that if you survive, you could… You know. Stay with us. Bree was saying something about you really kicking butt in battle. And that- who cares if you were mortal? You could see. You could fight. You could train. What else did you need to have?”
Elena’s mind slowed, and exploded all at once.
The idea was too good to be true. It was absolutely, insanely too good to be true. It was what Elena’s been waiting for somebody to say ever since she realized- ever since she fought her first monster, with Benji. Every single time she walked passed her old friends and realized what she’d given up. Almost every night, when she dreamed of dancing with ghosts and girls in silvery uniform carrying bows. Every single time she stood on the sidelines and watched another hero battle their monster in battle- but unlike Elena, they had a team of friends watching their backs.
“How do you know that I kick butt in battle?” was all she could say.
Wyn looked surprised for a second, her big eyes getting even bigger than they already were. “Oh. You really don’t know. We’ve been keeping an eye out on London. And, so, kind of going along with that, we've been keeping an eye out on you. We did notice all the Egyptian monster attacks there, but it never seemed to be a problem, because you took care of them so beautifully.”
Elena wasn’t sure to be touched by the immensely immensely immensely lovely compliment or absolutely peeved that they had known she was fighting these monsters and hadn’t sent in help.
“Oh, we didn’t leave you alone!” Wyn raised her hands, her face open and plain and wide and convincing. “We always had a portal ready to open, just in case you needed us. You never had. Until the Baby Sphinx. So? What’s your answer? Are you going to train with us, or not?”
“I can’t,” Elena found herself automatically saying, her mouth feeling full of dry sand. “This is all so-“
“It’s been, like, two days. We know. It’s ‘all so fast’. But… when you killed those Egyptian monster? I don’t know if you remember… About three months ago? That’s how we first found out about you. There was this kid who called in for backup, but when Bree and I and Michael got there, you’d already jumped in and finished it- the griffins, remember? We know that you’re good. Good enough. And Bree was just saying… She just was saying that it’s a shame that someone like you has to be a part of both worlds and not really a full part of either one. And we just kind of want to… offer you a full part in ours. Because you really do deserve it.”
Elena wanted to cry. She honestly did. “Greywyn…”
“Ooh, that’s weird. I haven’t heard you say my first name ever. Are you crying?”
“I just can’t believe…” Elena pushed her cryingness to the side, forcing the lump down. Two exhales and the feeling was in the back of her mind, itching to come out, but restrained. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry! Just come, if you want to. Study with us. Train with us. Cry if you want to.”
“My family…”
“Well, of course. If you don’t want to, you don’t have to. But… you could visit us, I think. Maybe… summers?”
“Can I…” Elena’s mind was racing. Flat-out racing. The possibilities were endless to her. She reached out, plucked something that felt right to her, and held it close to her heart. She could taste the life she was having, this opportunity she now had in her hands. “How about, summers off? Boarding school sound like a good cover up?”
Wyn squealed, throwing her hands up. Elena could see the naiads flinch from the bubble out of the corner of her eyes, and she brought her hands to her face, curling up, laughing and crying at the same time. This was too good to be true.
This was too good to be true.
And maybe… She peeked out from her hands, seeing Wyn and Benji give each other knowing grins as they watched her. Elena laughed again, burying her face in her hands one more time. Maybe she wasn’t a part of their family yet. Maybe she’d never be best friends like they were.
Maybe… Maybe, you know, that Benji-Elena thing she’d thought about since she was twelve years old? Maybe it’d never happen.
But this was the beginning of something. There are so many paths ahead of her now.
And there were just as many good maybes as there were bad ones.
Maybe she wasn’t a part of their family yet.
But she will be soon.

Notes

ooooOOOOoooooh I love Naida