I Am Lightning

The sound of voices drew closer, and I spotted two mages advancing down the corridor long before they saw me. I decided to move away from them, heading the other way down the corridor before turning right. I blinked a couple of times and cursed, realising that should have been my first move. As I rounded the corner I felt the presence of another group of mages at the same time they looked over at me. Drat.

They stared at me in confusion for a few seconds. I could have knocked them all down and run away, but I wanted to know how long I’d been out and get any other information I could, first. If I was lucky, and I had had the stones on me when I’d arrived here, they might know where I could find them, too.
“Um... who are you?” asked one of them, clearly confused.
“My name is Fulgora,” I replied. “Is this the Mage’s College?”
They all looked at me like there was something wrong with me.
“Of course it is,” said a girl with long blonde plaits, “how could you be here and not know that?”
“I just woke up in some strange dark room, opened the door, and found myself here. You know, the one around this corner,” I said, pointing back the way I’d come. The other two mages from behind me were drawing closer. Or at least, I assumed they were mages. The only people here who weren’t mages were the knights who guarded them, and they’d probably be stationed near the entrances to this place.

The group gave me suspicious glares, their magenta eyes narrowing.
“You can come and see for yourself if you’d like,” I said. “It’s the room that has the sign saying ‘beware!’”
A few of them looked a little worried now. They all must surely have walked past it at some point and wondered about it. Or heard something. I... I can’t have been in there for that long. I must say though, I enjoyed the affect that word had on them. I enjoyed the fact that I was labelled dangerous.

“What’s going on here?” I turned to see the other two had turned the corner and stumbled upon us. While the group behind me were a bunch of adolescents, these two were clearly Elder Mages. When they both laid eyes upon me, they gasped, seemingly horrified.
“Oh so you recognise me, do you?” I asked them.
“You’re... you’re alive!” gasped one, his long grey beard shaking from side to side with his head.
“How long have you considered me...dead?” I replied.
The other one spoke for him. “We thought you might still be alive, for we put wards around you to sustain you and protect you. It is just a surprise that you managed to break through the constraint wards we also placed.”
Constraint wards? Why keep me alive if they planned on trapping me there? I didn’t feel any wards, I don’t remember struggling against anything when I woke up.
“How long? How long was I in there, how long have I been in the college?” I needed answers.
The second mage glanced at the other mages behind me and cleared his throat rather loudly. They all jumped and spun around, walking away. I could feel them constantly turning to look back through the current in their bodies.
“Why don’t you come with us, Miss... Kari, is it?”
I stared at him. What did he just call me? How does he know... what does he know?
“It is a name you screamed out during one of your fits,” the man replied when he saw my expression.
Fits?
“Well my name,” I said, putting emphasis on the word name, “is Fulgora,” I replied, also adding emphasis on Fulgora.
At this, he gave the other mage a significant glance.
“Why don’t you follow us to a more private place, Miss Fulgora?” the first man asked. I nodded, and followed.

I found myself in a large study, a rather cosy affair with nice mahogany desks, a lovely big fireplace and comfy arm chairs. The walls were lined with bookshelves full of dusty tomes. I instantly look a liking to the place. But now, to business. Once the two had seated themselves next to the fire, I started the questions.
“How long have I been... asleep?”
“It is now approximately seventeen years,” replied the long-bearded one on the left. I winced, shocked. I didn’t think it could have been that long.
“How did I arrive here?”
The one on the right drew a breath before answering. “As I remember, you were brought here unconscious and suffering from grievous wounds. The knights would not tell us what had happened to you.” He scratched his whiskery chin.
“What did I have on my person?”
The man on the left took this one, as though they worked together as a tag team to lessen the blow. “You had a sword, a bow, and a belt, all confiscated by the guards.”
All confiscated. That meant the sword given to me by Nova was gone. No, I can’t think about that!
“Nothing else?”
“No,” replied the beardless man. “We do not hold any possessions belonging to you, Fulgora.”
Dammit. The stones must have been taken by the shadows. A weight seemed to drop into my stomach. Was my mission to bring back the Elements doomed, then?
“I see you look troubled, Fulgora,” said the first one on the left. He paused for a few minutes before saying, “We know who you are.”
“Know who I am? What do you mean?”
In their strange back and forwards fashion, the second man leant towards me and said, “Yes, while the brown-eyed fools out there may have forgotten, we mages have kept our scrolls sacred and have not. You are the Lightning Master.”

The two of them paused, staring at me, hoping for some dramatic response on my part. I just rolled my eyes.
“You know who I am, how exciting. Want a treat?”
They seemed shocked by this. “You are the Lightning Master!” the first man almost yelled at me.
“Yeah,” I said, “and I don’t get why you’re so wound up about it.”
“You have all the ancient knowledge of the Elements! You have the secrets to ultimate power! You are... you are lightning personified! The most powerful being in existence!”
I snorted. I didn’t care if I offended these two fools.
“Yeah, and so what? Those days are long gone. I’m the only one left, and one of these days I’m going to die and there will be no-one left. The days of the elements,” I said, swallowing before I finished my sentence, “are over.” Secretly I couldn’t help but think that no, I wasn’t the most powerful being in existence. Somehow, those shadow creatures of the darkness were.
“Then I am sure you will be interested to hear this, Fulgora,” said the first man. “You came from Alter City after your, uh... accident?”
I nodded.
“The Lord of Alter City, Lord Martin, had a son not long after you arrived here. Can you guess what colour his eyes are?”
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. Had it worked? The fact that I had given Lord Martin the Fire Stone?
“Red?”
“Yes, Fulgora. Red.”