The Rising Sunset

I walked through the doors of the clearly expensive mansion. I shuffled cautiously and quickly down the hall to the main dining room where she would be waiting for me.

I strolled into the room that had a huge and long table in it, piled with food. Ignoring everything for a moment, I grabbed the few feathers I'd gotten from the owl and set them on her plate that was covered with grapes and strawberries.

"Ah, Lu. Once again you never fail me. That didn't take long at all, now did it? I'm quite impressed this time," she said.

I laughed once with no humor but didn't say anything. I sat down in the chair a couple seats down from her. I swiped a peach from the center of the table and tossed it around in my hands.

I was about to speak but another voice interrupted me. "Aradia," he said, entering the room and getting closer. I grimaced but did not look up.

I allowed myself to glance at Aradia whom was smiling ever so widely. It was no secret to anyone that the man who just walked into the room bothered me so thoroughly. His name? Ayrick. I wanted to gag just thinking the name.

"Hello, Lu," he said to me smoothly, completely at ease.

"Ayrick," I muttered and nodded. I glared at the decorations in the center of the table.

"Oh, you two," Aradia said, shaking her head and smiling. But then she looked up and her face became serious. "Now, it's very important what I have to say to you next. You're going on another task. Dare I say it's much more serious and dangerous than the others?" She raised her eyebrows, as if testing me. Usually by this point I'd be insisting that I could do anything she threw at me and be already half way out the door. But not now. Now I didn't have anything to say.

I felt Ayrick's eyes on my also. I swear I would break one bone of his for every glance he so much as stole from me. I was keeping track. I narrowed my eyes.

I was getting impatient (even though in human moments it was only about three seconds). "Well, what's this 'impossible' task?"

Aradia grinned, a fire glowed deep in her eyes. "I want you to disguise yourselves as normal teenagers--"

I cut her off with a brisk hysteric laugh that bubbled from my throat. "Normal?" I scoffed. Teenager? Ha!" I was the farthest thing from normal. And I certainly wasn't a teenager anymore. Sure, I looked like one. But I was really--what was it now?--about two hundred years old.

"So quick to complain, aren't you, Lullaby?" Ayrick taunted me, trying to get on my nerves.

And he succeeded. I shot out of my seat and threw daggers at him with my glare. My fists were clenched so tight I felt like they were going to bleed. Though of course I was stronger than that. I didn't bleed.

"I told you to never call me that, Ayrichalyc." I hated the name those wretched people who called themselves my parents gave me. Besides, Lullaby was my past. The weak girl who liked picking flowers and helping her brother on the farm. So defenseless and venerable. Lullaby has been long gone. I go by Lu now.

And in return Ayrick's anger flared from hearing his birth name. He could huff and puff all he wanted; he wasn't blowing me down.

The stare down ended when Aradia said, "Hey!" We both looked at her. "Maybe you two are too immature to handle yourselves. Shall I find someone else to complete the mission?"

That startled me. "Wait...you said you two. You don't mean...?"

Her face was a stone carving. "I mean you, Lu, and you, Ayrick, are going to have to pull yourself together and work as a team. I can't just pick one of you."

"Why not?" Ayrick and I said in unison. We turned and glared at each other again.

"Because I need both of you to do this. That's why. Now aren't you going to ask me why I want you going and disguising yourselves as teens?"

We were silent.

She continued. "You're actually going to be enrolling into high school. You'll both be seniors. Now, I need to you look for something. Well, when I say something, I mean someone. There is a student there that's not who they seem to be. I believe they're the creation of Naypol. Find them and bring them back here. I just have some questions for them..." Her eyes became unfocused and then focused again. "Got it?"

"Yes," Ayrick and I said together.

"Good. You'll be leaving tomorrow morning."