Chisandra shivered as she exited the school building. She winced as if someone had hit her hip hard and she trained her eyes to the ground. Her eyes- fake eyes- disguised eyes- creepy, unnatural eyes. She had been feeling a very... painful feeling the past three days. It was like someone stabbed you with something while you were blindfolded and you'd cry out in pain- surely you were dead!- but then you take off your blindfold and realized you just bumped into a table or someone just poked you with a butterknife. Then a sense of relief would come washing over you.

It wasn't the most pleasent feeling in the world.

She crossed the street and walked along the sidewalk, letting her warm fingers trail along the brick of the houses. She stopped at a bleach-white house; Savannah and Maximus Whitelock's house. She smiled to herself- the Whitelock siblings' house was warm- she could taste it in the air surrounding the house. She peered through the window, her eyes zooming straight towards the fireplace where charred but unlit firewood sat.

Chisandra pursed her lips. Firewood should not be left unlit. She raised her hand, tapping the glass window. It melted into glop. She pointed her finger at the fireplace and concentrated. Pretty soon, flickering flames licked the charred wood hungrily. Chisandra smiled and put her finger down. She tapped the big glop of melted glass and turned away.

When she left, the glass was perfectly up right, with no sign that someone had just melted it and set the firewood on fire.

Tandy combed her fake-black hair. It was dyed, so when she combed it, flakes of black fluttered down. "I need to dye it again, soon," she muttered. "Dark brown, maybe?" Tandy looked at herself in the mirror. She hated looking so... fake. She wanted her real hair. She wanted her real eyes. She wanted her real self back, the one who loved to play and ride on the winds. Not this self. This Sarah May self.

Why did she have to be a fake? Why should she asume a different identity? Why did she have to be a rotten theif? 

She didn't know why,  but she hoped all this was for a good reason. Tandy ran her hand through her once-silky hair and winced as the black dye came off. On normal hair it wouldn't come off.  But on hair that was wind solidified, that was another story. 

She curled up in a corner, replaying her past. Like when she was twelve, she met other people. People like her. They were forced to seperate after an attack, so Tandy had run to the nearest town. "I wonder where they are..." she said wistfully. She had forgotten their nicknames. She only remembered how they looked like. One girl and one boy. The girl had long, wavy blue-black hair and ice-blue eyes that were so pale they looked white. She had porcelain skin and she was cheerful and kind. She was very thin and had nine thin, white-blue curved lines that stretched from one temple to the other. In the dark, they glowed faintly. Besides those lines were faint, whiter lines that did not stand out as much as the other nine.

The boy, however did not have much a resemblance to his sister. He had messy hair and a I-just-got-out-from-bed-and-I-still-look-cool look. His hair was a pale but sandy yellow with streaks of greyish-orange. His eyes were sparkling celestite and his skin was olive with a hint of yellow. He was well-muscled but still very skinny with three very faint, curving white lines stretching from temple to temple, just like his sister's lines.

They were not the only ones in their family. They had two more siblings plus another four half-siblings. Tandy had never met them, but she had seen pictures of the two other siblings. The boy and the girl had both carried a picture of their family, sans the mother and father.

The sister of the two siblings was of an average height and had a very serious look on her face. She had short,  neck-length black hair and pale skin with the barest suggestion that she might have been olive-skinned once.  Her eyes were liquid gold- amber, actually.  The girl Tandy had meet had said that she had a quiet, lilting voice.

Tandy put her head in her hands. Her dyed-black hair brushed her shoulders and Tandy shivered. Her hair was the wind. Literally. More black dye flaked off her hair and she knew,  at any moment,  her true self would be revealed.  Not Sarah May,  the identity Tandy had stolen,  but Tandoori, the mistress of the air,  daughter of Nature and the Mother of winds.

Tandy wanted to be free. To be herself, fighting off problems with intense courage and pushing her immortality to the limit.

Yes, that was what she wanted to do, so dearly. She wanted to do what she did best- release her spirit and soul.

But for now, she would have to wait. She'd have to release Sarah, she had no right to hold the poor girl captive. Maybe another time, she thought with a hevy sigh. Not today.

Caryen's eyes widened as he caught sight of the girl-Sarah May-looking at the mirror, black flakes swirling around her. He was certain that the blake flakes came from her hair- some of the black strands were white-gold now! As the girl turned away from the mirror and towards him, he ducked under the window frame.

Was she... was she like him? His sister? An Elementalist?

That would explain the whitish hair. Only one element had a symbol of white- air. His element's opposite. He was the soil, dirt, ground. Air was the clouds and sky. Not exactly different, though, since they both supported.

"Yeah, that's the only reason why I'm here," he spoke bitterly to himself, curling up into a vulnerable ball. "For support. Gee, I feel so special."

Caryen didn't even know how to work his power.

The door creaked open and the girl, Sarah, stepped out. Caryen was so startled that he forgot to hide. Sarah's eyes widened about half a millimeter and she skipped back a step, bumping into the door handle. "Ow!" she gasped. Then she seemed to right herself. "At least the theif got what she deserved," Caryen heard her mutter.

"Did you... did you see?" she asked hesitantly, as if she'd ben trained to tread carefully on topics like these. Maybe she had.

"See what?" Caryen asked, lying.

"Oh, okay. Nevermind. Er-bye!" Sarah said akwardly, obviously very relieved. She took a few steps backwards, then started jogging in the opposite direction of where the boy sat. Weird, Caryen thought. Now I'm almost positive that she's an Elementalist. I wonder if there are others in the school?

Caryen put his head in his hands. This is giving me a headache. Stupid headache, I wish I could just boycott you until you go away.