The Secret of Serenity Pond- Chapter Six

I paused, looking at this Glacier girl.

"Who... are you?" I asked, my voice failing me. Stupid voice.

"Did you not hear me? 'Hello, I'm Glacier!' Does that mean nothing to you?" She laughed. "But I guess that doesn't really matter right now. I bet you you're wondering how i defeated the Mirages, huh? Well it was just training. Maybe you can do it, too!" She giggled. Uh, okay? What did she mean by training?

"Well, what are you waiting for? You gonna introduce yourselves?" Glacier asked, scrunching up her nose and laughing again. She was so... bouncy.

"I'm Zee. That's Geode, and that's Bloom. Wha-" My voice faltered again.

"Oh hi! Zee Geode and Bloom, huh? Lemme guess- covernames?" We nodded. "No prob, those are awesome covernames. I like mine myself. I mean GLA-CIER. Isn't it a funny word? And talk about that spelling! G-L-A-C-I-E-R. That doesn't even sound like it'll be Glacier, huh?"

"Uh, yeah." I said, regaining my voice. (and my dignity). "So... what did you mean by training?"

"Oh yeah." She stopped smiling. "I'm apprenticed to the Spirit of Sorcery. He taught me, well, Sorcery. That's where I got the awesome uniform." She twirled so we could see a 360 of her sooo perfect costume. I was beginning to dislike her.

"How did you know to come here?" Bloom asked.

"The Spirit of Sorcery told me to." She replied. "And for good reason- there was over five Mirages! The most I've ever cast away is three, but I guess I could do it all along, huh? That's the funny thing about skill- you don't know your real limit until your push yourself."

"Uh yeah yeah, that's great and all, but cast away? You mean you didn't kill them?" I paused, looking around. They weren't coming back, were they?

"Well yeah, I cast them away to their base. They can't come out for a whole eternity now- isn't that great?!" Glacier giggle- again.

"A whole ETERNITY? How long is an eternity?" Geode asked, suddenly interested.

"Oh, a few Millenniums or so. Just long enough I'll never run into them again." Glacier nodded like she was agreeing with herself.

"Okay, amazing. Bravo. Where's Darkness?" Realization swept over me. They couldn't have taken Darkness, could they?!

"Right here." Said a voice behind us. Glacier, who was facing us and could obviously see him, gasped. All three of us whipped around.

Behind us stood a (really cute) dude our age with short black hair, a black shirt, and jeans.

"Hey guys- do you see what the potion did?! Did it work? Please tell me I'm in human form..."

"You're OUR AGE." Bloom said, obviously shocked. "I mean I could have calculated this if you just told me your original age, but of course I would need the average lifespan of so called 'Darkness' and of course if there weren't others-"

"Or I could've just told you." He blushed. "But I was kind of nervous to... I mean I'm just glad you guys are okay. I've been waiting this for, like, my whole entire life!! The spirit said she'd give it to me only under the most extreme circumstances." His face fell sorrow. "So I guess this is pretty serious, huh? I really shouldn't be happy about this... I can, however, help you with your mission. Since I'm no longer pure dark, I can easily go near light things with you guys!"

"That's great. Speaking of our mission, what is it exactly?" Geode asked. again. Wasn't it clear?

"Didn't we already explain this?" Bloom groaned.

"We need to get all the Flowers to make the Life Seed to power the Sacred Seeing Altar and whatnot." The Darkness said.

"So when are we going on this mission?" Glacier asked. Oh great. I had almost forgot about her.

"What do you mean? There's no way you're going!" I snapped, facing her.

"What?" her eyes grew wide. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, we're no longer in need of your services. Thank you. BYE." I motioned with my hands for her to go.

"No!" Bloom cried as Glacier took a step back. "I mean..." Bloom stuttered, "You can't go! What if we need your powers on our mission?"

"Yeah, and your rad fashion sense, too?" Geode asked. I glared at them.

"Can't we just take care of ourselves? We aren't hopeless, we're fine without her." I retorted. I didn't want her messing up our mission. I felt a loathing feeling against her. Who would need her powers anyway? Did my friends not trust me or something?

"Who made you in charge of making decisions?" Bloom bursted. "Maybe we're fine without you."

Ooooh, awkward silence. That just about broke my heart. Suddenly, I felt miserable. My hurt must've shown on the outside.

"I-I-I Zee I didn't mean it like- I mean I shouldn't have said- I mean, what got into me?" Bloom made a nervous attempt at laughter.

"No prob." I said without emotion. "Glacier, c'mon. We better see where the first flower is. But fir-" I realized how bossy I was getting. I turned to Geode. "You figure it out." I said simply, shoving the map into her hands. Maybe I was being a bit cold, but it still stung. My friends really liked Glacier better?

"Okay." Geode said, folding out the map. Then we realized- it wasn't a map. It was a blank piece of paper.

"Uh, is this some kind of joke?" I asked.

"No. It's supposed to be in riddles, remember? Didn't she tell you that? She told me about it." Darkness said, with a thoughtful expression on his face.

"Wait a sec- I thought you said you couldn't go anywhere near her." Bloom asked suspiciously.

"We can speak telepathically." He retorted. Right, like I was going to believe that.

"Hey- something's showing up on the paper!" Glacier cried.

"Oh my gosh- What does it say?" Geode asked.

"Can't you read?" I grumbled, soft enough that she didn't hear me. The paper read:

The first flower is not near

a Siren's voice, you will hear

across the sea your journey goes

and you will run, from what- who knows?

"Well that sound complicated." Glacier laughed.

With her? This was going to be a LONG journey.