(I’m lost on what to post sooo…)
[b]Midnight Pub and Café, 4:15 PM[/b]
"Oh, you can't be serious, Aura!" Two young girls stood on the sidewalk outside of a small, quaint-looking cafe. "I am NOT going in there, not when there are so many people around!" The smaller of the two said, lightly shoving her older sister.
"Of course I'm serious, Aria. It's just a cafe. And I heard a rumor that someone "strange" works here, someone who has a similar problem to us." The older one giggled lightly, hooking her elbow through her sister's arm and pulling her into the cafe.
Their arrival was heralded by a tinkling bell. Squinting around the interior of the cafe, for it was cozily lit, unlike the bright sunlight outside, the girls found an empty table by the windows and sat down.
Poor Aria. The girl was obviously nervous, clutching at the plain glass vial that hung on a silver chain around her neck. She was trembling, her mouth set in a tight line.
"Aria, calm down. There's nothing wrong with you as far as the world can see. You're just a really small girl out for lunch with her only-slightly-bigger older sister." Aura said softly, keeping her voice down.
Aria met her sister's blue-green eyes, her pale blue ones really wide and panicked. "But everything here is wooden and if I lose control..."
Aura sighed heavily. "The more you panic the more likely you are to set things on fire. Just calm down and everything will be fine."
Aria grumbled. “Easy for you to say. You levitated the clothes right off of--” Aura clapped her hand over her sister’s mouth.
“I’ll go to jail if someone hears about that!” she whispered fiercely. Aria rolled her eyes and licked Aura’s hand. With a yelp she let go.
“And I won’t go to jail for burning those three girls?” Aria asked. Her eyes glittered with tears over her worst mistake
Again Aura sighed. Her sister kept harping on that. “It was one mistake. It was an accident. Mine was not an accident. I did it deliberately to keep them from hurting me again.” She looked over Aria’s shoulder, seeing several of the other customers staring at them. “Okay, change subjects. Music class.”
“Music class. Right” Aria’s eyes flashed with fear and pride in equal measure. “Well, I got the Wind solo.”
Aura’s eyes filled with happiness. Aria had been practicing for months to get a solo, the Wind Princess in their high school’s original play, “The Four Elements.” Kind of ironic, actually, but… [i]No, don’t think about it, Aura, or you’ll trigger something[/i].
Aura forced nonchalance. “Well, you’re the only girl in the class who can hit the high C more than a quarter of the time. And you’re definitely the only one who can hit the E at all.” She remembered when the two of them had tried out for choir, the teacher had assessed their ranges. He’d stopped at high C and Aria had just kept going and going, up almost a full octave above that. “And you are the lightest element, after all. Stands to reason you’d be able to sing up in the rafters like the solo requires.”
Aria blushed. “What about you? I was rather shocked that you’d gotten Fire queen, and not me. I’d have thought you’d have been air and I’d have been fire, all things considered.” The bitterness was back.
[i]Oh, Aria. You’re too guilty over something you have no control over.[/i] “Right, but you can’t sing anywhere below the staff. And I have better control when I’m jumping from one register to the other.”
“I suppose that’s true.” Idly Aria twirled her clear vial necklace, the one filled with pure hydrogen. As a memento more than anything, and certainly not useful in anything. She exhaled more than enough hydrogen to suit her purposes and light everything on fire if she needed to—[i]Nope. Not thinking about it, Aria. Not thinking about it or you’ll explode.[/i]
She turned to Aura again. “I wonder where the waiter or waitress is? We’ve been here about ten minutes by now.”
Aura shrugged, then ruffled her hair in an annoying way. “And you haven’t even smoldered yet. You’re doing awesomely.”
Aria hissed at her sister, but good-naturedly. Then she turned to look out the window and see the world going by.