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meredith-and-lily · 5 years

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Chapter 1

This story starts with a floating girl, a book, and a memory. The girl and the book are in the memory, and though the battle starts much later, this is where the story starts.

Lily floated above her bed and furiously tore through the pages of her book, desperately wanting to reach the climax before dinner. As each word took hold, she was drawn further and further into the story and the world it created within her mind. She reached a particularly romantic scene and sighed as a random thought drifted across her mind. I could do that with Meredith.

This thought was startling enough to yank Lily out of her book and back into a reality where gravity decided to stop ignoring her. She crashed to the floor because she’d floated away from the bed during the last chapter. The first thing she was aware of was the book that she’d crushed under her in her flailing attempt to right herself midair. Then she became aware that her arm hurt - a lot.

Meredith dashed into the room. “I thought I heard a … are you ok?”

“Yep, totally fine,” Lily picked herself up off the floor. “I fell off the bed.”

“Fell off the bed or fell out of the air?”

Lily blushed. “The air. I was thinking something, but I can’t remember now.” She could remember perfectly well, but she did not feel inclined to share her thoughts with Meredith. “What were you doing?”

“Gardening,” Meredith was in charge of the Academy’s garden. She was the only one with a green thumb and she enjoyed being surrounded by quiet foliage.

“I shall, um, let you get back to that. Unless I can join you?”

“Sure,” Meredith did not mind the intrusion upon her space. In fact, she did not consider it intrusion at all. She and Lily complemented each other, though Lily was significantly more rambunctious, and they enjoyed gardening together. Lily couldn’t tell a carrot from cauliflower, but that didn’t matter.

The two passed an hour in near silence, broken only by the bad jokes they made up and told to each other. Lily had the relatively simple task of turning over the soil, so she didn’t need assistance. The silence between them wasn’t strained. They both felt comfortable enough that they didn’t need to fill perfectly good air with meaningless chatter.

At age 15, conversations are as varied as they are simultaneously serious and ridiculous. Opinions and values develop, dilemmas emerge, and abstract concepts must be grappled with. And imagination works at full steam, forgetting that childhood has gone, creating conversations with sentences that would confuse all but the one who spoke them.

This was true of Meredith and Lily, and sometimes the ridiculous and serious topics combined, and the girls would end up discussing the concept of ‘up’ and how the significance of ideas is determined by society as a whole while pretending to be upside down and hang from the bottom of the planet.

It is a rare thing to see a friendship that works so well as theirs did. They were complements but not synonyms, and their respective flaws were annoying, but not damaging. Lily once mentioned the concept of fate, because she thought that for them to be paired so perfectly couldn’t be chance, and Meredith agreed, but only silently.

The girls grew together and helped each other through their darkest times. There was a destructive period of two months where Meredith became obsessed with the meaningless of life and the actions we take. Lily held her when she cried, and helped her move on.

When they were both 17, Meredith asked Lily out. This was two years after Lily had had her startling thought about Meredith, but neither of them remembered that day. The memory is known only to the gods now, and us. Over the years, Meredith had taught Lily how to garden, and Lily had taught Meredith how to fly. One this particular day, the two were seated on the Academy roof, letting their conversation run its course. Meredith finished her statement and looked at Lily.

“Hey.”

“This may sound strange, but would you, possibly like to go out with me?” Lily opened her mouth, but couldn’t think of anything to say, so it hung there for a moment as Meredith continued. “I mean, I know there’s not many places we can go, because of the curfew and all, but it could still be a date, right?” Meredith started babbling, staring at the ground below her. Lily finally returned to her senses to realize that Meredith had been talking for at least two minutes, worried that Lily would reject her.

“You know what, just forget it. I’m sorry, I never meant to, but you’ve told me you’re gay, so I thought maybe. Just, I’m sorry.” Meredith stood to leave, hiding her face. Lily jumped to her feet, almost falling off the slanted tile.

“Wait!” A million thoughts ran through her head, about how Meredith shouldn’t fly down on her own, about how she’d been dreaming about this for years, about how Meredith should’ve asked sooner. All that came out of her mouth was a strangled “yes.” She swallowed. “Meredith, I’d really like to go out with you. I … I really like you,”

Meredith had been standing on the edge of the roof, ready to fly down and presumably never show her face again. “Are you sure?” Her tone betrayed her, giving voice to the doubt she felt.

Lily didn’t think about what she did next. She just ran at Meredith and hugged her tightly, knocking her off the roof in the process. Meredith panicked for a moment, but Lily calmed the winds around them and slowed their descent.

“So um, should we kiss? That seems stereotypical though, um, unless you want to …”

Meredith blushed. “Let’s save that for when it means something.”

Lily gulped and gently lowered her and Meredith to the ground. “So … dinner?”

Meredith nodded. “Dinner,” She grabbed Lily’s hand, and they ran to the Cafe, giggling like kids.

---

Lily lied in the dark, her cheeks red from the events of the evening. By now, the sun had set and everyone was in bed, but Lily couldn’t. She could hear Meredith snuffling in the other bed, and smiled into the dark. She flipped over onto her stomach, grabbed the pillow and squealed into it. She fell asleep imagining her and Meredith together at last.

---

When Lily opened her eyes, Meredith was sitting cross-legged on the end of her bed. Her head was bent over the pages of a book, her long fiery hair hanging down.

“Morning,” she yawned. Meredith looked up and smiled.

“Morning. We’ve got an Aqua later.”

Lily nodded. An Aqua was one of the tests their teachers sprung on them randomly, to test the parts of magic related to water. The magic taught at the academy was arranged by classical magic elements; water, earth, air, fire, death, ice, nature, and destiny. Air was Lily’s strong point, which was why she could fly so well. Water was not. Lily didn’t bother to ask how Meredith knew this. She’d gotten no answer for the past few years, and had just about given up.

“Do you know anything else?”

Meredith shook her head. Meredith was a girl of few words. She wasn’t shy, she just had better things to do with her thoughts than to engage in meaningless chatter.

“Frick” Lily flopped back onto her pillows. “This’ll be great,” Lily was in fact, quite competent in aquatic magic. She was one of the strongest witches of the generation and compared to some of her peers at the Academy, was stellar at it. But her weak point was water and had been for two years.

“I have an idea,” Lily sat up again. “You’re good at Aerial magic. Why not find a way to turn the water into something closer to that?”

Lily caught her brainwave instantly. “Turn to water into vapor, and use that!” Meredith smiled in response. “When did you come up with that?” Lily’s tone was grateful and inquisitive at the same time.

“I was just thinking.”

“Well, you’re a genius. C’mon, let’s not be late.”

The girls dressed; Lily in jeans and a white blouse and Meredith in a light blue dress. Then they pounded down the hallway, racing each other to the Cafe. They burst from the doors into the overcast day, Meredith in the lead. Lily spotted a rock and used it as a springboard to leap into the air, above Meredith’s head.

“No fair!” Meredith cried. She grinned and shot into the air herself, though not as gracefully. They zipped through the air, darting around each other like dragonflies. As they approached the Cafe, Lily began her descent. Meredith continued, wind whistling around her. Suddenly, she dropped like a stone. She fell through the air, until stopping herself a few feet above the roof.

Lily looked up at her, annoyed. In her opinion, flight should be respected and used properly, not as a game.

“I hate it when you do that.”

Meredith just smiled. “You love me.”

The girls walked into the Cafe and sat down by one of the windows. The Cafe had been grown by one of the Nature witches and had light walls made of tree trunks wedged together. The windows were made in conjunction between the Terra and Pyro witches, and had bright colors dying some, making art out of others. The table Lily and Meredith sat at was a dark green plant with huge leaves for the top. Meredith twirled her fingers as they sat down, and the plant sprouted red and white spider lilies.

Riane, who’d already been in the Cafe for half an hour, was not-so-subtly waiting for them to enter so she could get all the latest news. She, Lily and Meredith were good friends, although their relationship wasn’t as close as Meredith and Lily. As soon as she saw Meredith bloom the flowers, she made a beeline to their table and sat down.

“Soooo … what’s new with you two?”

“Do you know there’s an Aqua later?” Lily diverted.

“Don’t change the subject. A little birdie told me that you finally asked Meredith out,”

“Has Carl been gossiping again? And what do you mean, finally?”

“Come on! It’s been obvious since ever! Also, no, it was Tyler,” None of the birds on the property actually had names, but it had become a running joke a couple of months ago and hadn’t died since. “So? Yes or no? Is Merily a thing?”

“I’ve already told you, I prefer Lildith, and we’ll see,” Lily and Riane continued chatting for some time. Lily gradually became aware that Meredith hadn’t said anything. She turned her body to where Meredith was staring into space. “Hey, you ok?”

“I’m fine,” Meredith’s reply was directed at the wall. Lily bit her lip.

“You sure?”

“I said, so didn’t I?” Riane looked between the two of them, suddenly confused.

“I’m going to go get some food,” She stood up awkwardly and moved a couple of tables over. As she did she glanced at them a couple of times but soon lost herself in a different conversation.

“Seriously, what’s up?”

“Well, apparently, the entire Academy expects us to date, and it’s not like you bothered to correct Riane when she assumed that you asked me out!” Meredith’s outburst wasn’t loud but drew some curious glances from nearby tables. She glanced around and lowered her voice, “Isn’t this supposed to be an us thing? Why does everyone else have to be involved?”

Lily scowled. “I get that you’re a private person, ok? But what does it matter what they think? They can think what they like. They’re not involved unless you make a deal out of it.”

Meredith snorted. “Well, isn’t this a good omen,” she remarked dryly.

“You know what, fine. You’re right, they shouldn’t care. But they do. What do you expect me to do?”

Meredith softened her expression. “I wonder how Riane even knew,” she remarked. As she spoke, she twirled her fingers and the decidedly non-citrus plant that formed their table somehow produced a few oranges. She picked the miraculous plants and tossed one across the table.

Lily snatched it out of midair and smiled. “Guess we have some fans. I suppose me knocking you off a building is pretty obvious.”

“You’ve done that in the past. Doesn't mean anything,”

“Then we shall have to ask her later. For now, do you know what time the Aqua is?”

Meredith shook her head. The girls sat in silence, munching on their oranges. Once they finished, they walked outside again. Lily tried to grab a yogurt container behind Meredith’s back, using some of the Aerial magic. Meredith didn’t turn when the breeze rustled past her, but she did address Lily as she strode out of the Cafe.

“Grab me some toast,”

Lily did so, smiling sheepishly.

“You have to be less obvious.” Lily joined Meredith outside. “Also, eat less yogurt,”

“Hey, yogurt is good,” Lily protested.

“I thought you were vegan,” Meredith raised an eyebrow.

Lily scarfed down the rest of the container and vanished it in midair, transforming it into a strawberry-scented patch of air. “No proof now,”

Meredith giggled, and started walking toward one of the fields surrounding the Academy. Once they reached the field, Lily stuck out her hand and flicked her fingers. A small fountain of water sprouted from the stalks of grass. She grimaced and increased the stream to a faster pace. Once she had a large amount hovering in the air, she cut off the water and molded the water into a large bubble.

Meredith smiled, and lifted her hand toward the water, and slowly moved her arm to the left. The water followed and Lily frowned. She reached out her other hand and jerked the water away. It shot backward and came to a screeching halt. The quick stop caused some water to detach from the main bubble, and it promptly fell onto Lily’s head.

Lily shivered and lobbed the water at Meredith. Over 100 gallons of water fell through the air, and she panicked. A bolt of fire shot out of her hand, sizzling when it met the water and creating steam. The extremely hot steam rose toward the sky and Lily looked at Meredith.

“You can’t use Pyro in an Aqua,”

“I can use it to keep from getting drenched,”

“Not fair! I’m soaking,”

“I don’t need to practice raising and lowering the temperature of water,” Meredith smiled while Lily laughed for a moment.

“Fine, you win,” Lily laughed. She scrunched up her face and concentrated for a moment. Wisps of steam rose from her shirt. After a minute or two she opened her eyes and pinched her shirt. Still wet.

“Let me try,” Meredith fixed her gaze on Lily’s chocolate colored hair. The water heated into a mass of steam which lifted Lily’s hair into the air. Lily reached up and felt her — now frizzy — hair.

“Woah. You’re good at this,”

Meredith smiled modestly.

“How are you so good at this?”

Meredith’s smile became more mysterious. “Let’s just say I’ve practiced a lot.”

“Why would you bother?” Lily asked, slowing each word as she tried to comprehend Meredith's reasoning.

“I’m focusing on changing things from solids to liquids and back,”

“Like water to ice. Combining Aqua and Cryo magic?”

“Think bigger,”

“Um, glaciers?”

“You could transform anything into air, water, and earth. Anything,” Meredith stared pointedly at Lily.

“Would that include people?”

“Would I tell you?”

At that moment, Lily’s mouth dropped open. “No!”

“Yes,”

“That’s how you get around so fast and know so much about what’s happening. You turn yourself into, I dunno, a pile of dirt or some air, and then you can just listen to people! Genius,”

“I prefer the aesthetic of mist, but you know…” Meredith stopped talking when Lily punched her in the arm.

“Oh, my gods. That’s amazing,”

“Which ones?” Meredith replied. Lily stared at her.

“Which ones what?”

“Which gods,”

“Alaz’s eyes. All of them. This is monumental! Does anyone else know you can do this?” Lily asked, an intense expression transforming her features.

“Not as of yet, unless you keep yelling,”

“Fine, fine,” Lily relented. “I’m calm. I’m cool. All’s good, but still. Wow,”

Meredith smiled goofily. “Thanks. Now, your turn,” Meredith and Lily spent the morning practicing, until Lily was proficient. By then, the sun was high in the sky and it was time for the Aqua. They and other girls at the Academy congregated at the Arena, located in a field across the Academy grounds.

The Arena was separated into different sections for each of the magic types, with a general purpose area connecting the different areas. This Aqua was only for the most advanced witches, both for students at the Academy and other members of the Authorian who were seeking to raise their status/skill level.

The Authorian kept their base in the middle of the woods. It contained the Academy for new witches to train and places for the graduated members of the Authorian to live. The Academy itself contained barracks for the girls to live, the Cafe to eat, the Arena to train, and a set of classrooms to learn about Ermia, the world they lived in.

The schedule of the Academy was separated by weeks and repeated monthly. The first week was used for training and classes for the different types of magic. Then the second week was focused on fitness and combat. The girls learned self-defense and how to use a number of weapons, training them to be fit enough to fight or run if necessary. The third week centered around book studies, in subjects such as magical lore, history, and studying the different species that lived on Ermia. The remaining days of the month were used for testing the girls on what they’d learned and assessing their current skill levels. The girls were also expected to practice during the off weeks in each subject to keep their skills.

Out of the three subjects, Riane was the athletic one, Meredith the bookish one, and Lily was undoubtedly the best at Magic. Riane normally wouldn’t be at this Aqua because she wasn’t at the level of skill as Meredith and Lily. However, she’d recently shot ahead in her Aqua magic and was able to join them.

There were about ten people waiting to be tested in total. Four were part of the Academy and three older witches. All seven were wearing blue robes, indicating they’d focused their power on perfecting their Aqua magic. Riane, Lily, and Meredith were wearing the Magenta robes showing that they hadn’t chosen a focus yet.

That interesting fact was what made the three so powerful. They had about equal aptitude in each type of Magic, while all the other witches at their skill level were equals in that area but much lower in others.

In an Aqua, the participants would enter the water area of the area to test, with their peers waiting outside. While waiting, the witches were not allowed to practice so as to not interrupt the test. Lily couldn’t prepare, so she used this opportunity to ask Riane some questions. She grabbed Riane’s attention and they started chatting.

“Hey! Congrats on making it to the final Aqua,” This level of Aqua was the last one, and upon completion resulted in an Aqua Gold qualification. All the witches trying for Aqua Gold today already had earned Aqua Silver, an admirable rating itself. It usually took a while to pass each test, and make it to the next test. Meredith had been trying for Aqua Gold for a few months, and Lily for almost a year.

“Thanks,” Riane replied. “Who knows, maybe I’ll become an Aqua witch,”

“I think that’d suit you. But, more seriously, how’d you know Meredith asked me out?”

Riane pointedly started at a tree to Lily’s left and went mute. Her expression was unreadable, much to Lily’s chagrin.

“Seriously. How’d you know?”

Meredith was staring at the ground now. Lily didn’t notice.

“Were you spying on us? I’m not kidding, how’d you find out?” Her tone was aggravated, but Riane wasn’t budging. The air was tense for several seconds until Meredith broke it.

“I asked her for advice on how I should do it,” Lily looked at Meredith, and deflated.

“Oh, okay. I’m sorry, Riane,”

“It’s fine.” Riane smiled. “I just didn’t want to rat out Meredith. You’re good,”

Lily stood there awkwardly. Then the girls all flinched when a voice called out.

“Riane Yaney?” The administrator, an Aqua Gold named Zara directed her to the test.

Lily and Meredith were left standing there.

“I hope she does okay,”

“She will,” Meredith agreed. “She’s done Gold tests before. She’s a Pyro Silver, remember?”

“Yeah. So, you ready?”

“As I’ll ever be. You?”

“Gods, I hope so,” Lily took a deep breath. “I’m so done with this test. It’s been forever,”

“You were so fast moving through all the other tests. And you have a Gold in like everything else.”

“Except Eco. You wouldn’t happen to know when the next Eco is?”

“Sometime this week, but aside from that, I’ve got no idea. So you’ve got like 4 days to prepare,” Weeks were 5 days long on Ermia, and months were anywhere from 18 to 26 days long. This resulted in irregular schedules, but the number of days in each month corresponded to the god that that month was for, so it couldn’t be changed.

“I’ll do well there. I’m so close! And you are too!”

“I need Aqua, Cryo, and Destiny. Then I’ll be Gold all round,”

“You have those in the bag. Oh, gods. I’m nervous.” Lily opened her mouth to say something else, but Zara called out again.

“Meredith Wurtin?”

“Good luck!” Lily shot a thumbs up at Meredith as she walked away. They wouldn’t see each other until after Lily tested, so they’d all learn their results at the same time. She took a few deep breaths and waited as the area gradually emptied. She was the last one left, and she could feel her heart rate increasing as Zara called.

“Lily Pangin?”

Lily walked toward her, trying to contain her nerves.

“Maybe this’ll be it, huh?”

“Hopefully,” Lily replied. She entered the water area and took stock. It was a patch of dirt and nothing else. In the lower levels, they’d have ponds to work with, but here there was nothing. In the Gold Aqua, each of the witches had to extract as much water as possible from the ground, and control it as well as possible, performing tasks as directed by the administrator. In this case, Zara.

This time, Lily didn’t wait for Zara’s instructions and simply raised her hands to the sky. All the water contained within the dirt flew up into the air in tiny streams creating what could only be described as an inverse bubble the size of a house. This was normal for Lily, but this time, she cooled the air around the bubble, adding to its size. It grew so that it was larger than a barn.

Lily shifted her hands so the water formed a flat disc, then a thin cylinder sticking into the sky, and finally a perfect square.

Zara raised her eyebrow. “Can you hollow it?” Lily gradually shifted the water from the center to the outside of the bubble, forming another sphere. “Rain?”

Lily let drops of water fall, bit by bit. This was her hardest trick. Usually, she’d drop too much water, get flustered, and drop it all. She focused all her energy on keeping the swirling mass in the air. She didn’t notice when Zara told her to stop until Zara tapped her on the shoulder.

“Good. Can you make it a wave and lift yourself up?”

Lily moved the water over her head, creating an impressive waterfall that scooped her up and shot her into the air. For a brief moment, she lost control. She gritted her teeth and regained power over the water. She balanced on a column of water that sloshed around Zara’s feet and looked down.

“Shoot the targets!” Zara yelled up, and pointed at some trees that’d been painted yellow. The paint was special in that the more waterlogged it got, the darker the color. This exercise would’ve been easy for Lily, but she was unused to the volume of water she was dealing with. Her first shot splashed the tree she was aiming for but also the two next to it, and she dropped two feet as her support disappeared.

Her next blast was more controlled, but she was still unprepared for the drop, this time closer to 5 feet as the tree turned jet black immediately.

“Keep going!” Zara encouraged.

Lily yelled and shot each of the remaining trees perfectly until the final tree was dark as night. She tried to lower herself down to ground level, but in one terrifying, heart-stopping moment the water finally rebelled against her and she fell the remaining distance to the ground. She hit the water and the world went black.

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