Chapter 4 - Thaniel
After a good rousing 30 minutes of being told I wasn't crazy, everyone left for what they called class.
"You'll be with Thaniel till we get out," beth said, climbing atop a fluffy white cloud. "He's already graduated."
I glanced at his bored exspression.
"Our school is different from yours. Ours is graded on how powerful we would be if we had powers. Thaniel graduated last year." She look frightfully at him, as though he would explode at her for releasing this bit of information.
Thaniel merely shrugged it off.
"Well, see you in a bit." And away they flew into the town.
I was left with the god of sexyness.
"Well, lets get out of here, then," he sighed, heading toward another little cloud. I tailed after him, slightly nercous about the aspect of floating on condensation.....that's what a cloud really was, right? What ever it was, it didn't look like it could hold me, let alone him.
But Thaniel climbed up on it and settled himself down. He cast a glance at me, quirking an eyebrow.
"You ever ride a cloud before?"
I shook my head.
He sighed. "Well, come on. It'll hold you, regardless of how it looks." He actually held a hand down to me.
I blushed horribly then let him help me up onto it. Once I was sitting in the thing, i wasn't so shakey. it was like sitting the backseat of a car that was made entirely out of fluffy wool. Thaniel sank his hands into the cloud and pulled out two handfuls that he used to steer. It went with amazing speed considering that it was running on nothing that I could see. I actually gripped my arms around thaniels waiste, fearful of falling of the great thing. I could have sworn I felt him give a slight chuckle.
Once in town, i saw that it wasn't uncommon to ride on a cloud. The streets (made out of what looked like cobblestones, so could it really be called a street?) were full of people going around on the coulds. They were all varying colors of grey and white, the darkest of those ridden mostly by those that were young or elderly. Very few of the whiteness of Thaniel's went by us. A few people glared as we went by, increasing my feeling of apprehension.
"Why are the clouds different colors?" I asked, trying to avoid the glares of the people around us.
"I'll explain when we're sitting down somewhere private," he said back to me. "We don't want everyone knowing that you're here yet."
I nodded against his back.
A few minutes later, we were situated at a small building that appeared to be an appartment building. Thaniel halted his cloud and hopped off. I started to get down myself, but the edging of the ride was quite slick. I ended up slipping down it with a yelp. Thaniel caught me before I hit the cobblestone road. I gazed up into his beautiful eyes, all the air in my body gone. They were so much prettier up close.
"Don't hurt yourself...." he whispered.
I nodded, still at a loss for words.
He seemed to come back to himself with a violence. I he stood me on my feet, then headed inside the building. I fallowed a few seconds behind him, my face burning. What could have possibly been something highly romantic or opportunistic was turned into another thing I probably couldn't remember without being highly embarassed.
God help me learn to cope with the hottie.
Thaniel strode down the hall with a purpose, walking past pale pink doorways embedded with numbers and with nameplates. I caught up at last, but nearly ran into him as he stopped and turned to open a door. He raised another eyebrow at me and I blushed even harder.
The pink door was void of any handle that could have possibly opened it. It was just a smooth stone with the number 16 on it in gold numbers. Underneith it read "Thaniel Morte." Thaniel raised his right hand and placed it firmly against the stone. It glowed a bright red for a second around the door frame and then melted away to reveal a very nice appartment.
"Where are your parents?" I asked, looking around the room. I'd walked into what appeared to be the living room. The carpet was a deep red color, the walls a pale beige. A huge bay window complete with window seat (the size of a 3/4 size bed) looked out onto a labrynthine garden. In the center stood a huge tree with pale purple-red flowers bloomed. The window was surrounded by gauzey deep red curtains.
"Dead," Thaniel said, sitting down on his cream-colored leather couch.
"I'm sorry," I said. I leaned against the window seat, arms over my chest.
He shrugged. "They weren't the greatest parents."
I nodded. "I know that feeling."
He glanced over at me.
I sighed. "My father was mentally abusive to me and oppresive. My mother thinks I'm a waste of space and an abomination of her skin. Then my boyfried.....well, ex-boyfriend, beat and raped me almost nightly." I hugged myself tighter. "I ran away and stumbled upon emyli's house." I gave a bitter laugh and looked at Thaniel. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to empty my life on you."
He shrugged. "Doesn't matter to me." He turned away and said "Come over her and sit down, you're making me nervous standing over there."
I jumped and walked over to sit by him. I sat as far opposite as I could, as my face was blushing at the close proximity.
"You wanted to know why the clouds are different colors?"
I nodded and glanced at him.
"The thing about the clouds is that you have to have a moderate amount of power to even controll one. The greyer it is, the less amount of power you have. That's why the younger people who have managed to grab ahold of one have such dingy looking ones. The whiter the cloud, the higher, and therein more dangerous, the power of that person."
I nodded again and thought back to the ride over here. "Your cloud was the whitest one I saw...."
"Mine is the whitest one in town." He shrugged. "It's not a big deal, really. I mean, it's just a cloud." He leaned more towards me and smiled. "If you were to have a cloud, it would probably rival the color of mine."
"Why is that?" against my will I leaned foreward as well.
"You have the power to activate and take away others powers. In that, you have to have power enough to send the other person's power into submission. That's why."
"Would I be able to make you go into submission?" My voice dropped to a whisper, as if we were talking about some deep secret.
He leaned a bit closer to me still. "My power, maybe......but never me......"
I blushed so hard my head spun and I sat up. Thaniel burst into fresh laughter and patted my arm.
"Watch what you say, hun."
I went to pop him in the cheek and he grabbed my wrist. I tried with the other and he got that as well, but in the process, something weird happend; it was like someone put a hand in the small of my back and pushed, causing me to lose my balance. Thaniel seemed to feel something similar as his eyes went wide.
Before we knew it, our lips met. We both blushed hard, and I pulled away. Thaniel kept ahold of my wrists.
"I'm sorry...i....."
He just looked at me with those big blue eyes. I felt myself being sucked into them.
"Maybe I.....should go.....elsewhere......air........or.....or.....something......" My protests were useless, because even as I spoke, I was suckered in closer to him.
"You've got the sexiest eyes i've ever seen," he whispered, releasing my wrists and placing his hand in my hair.
"Funny....i could say the same......"
Our lips met and i didn't fight it. I closed my eyes and snk into the feeling of his lips against mine, his hand deep in my hair. I put mine on his shoulders gently. My heart was leaping and skipping. Some sort of air current moved my hair around, danced against my skin. The kiss grew and so did the wind. My breath was stolen aaway.
When Thaniel pulled away from me finally, he whispered, "How can you do this to me?"
I shook my head. "I've got no idea."
Both of us breathless and unsure of what to do, we sat on opposite sides of the couch till he announced that he was going to go cook something. Leaving me on the couch, he swept into the next room. A few seconds later, I heard him messing around with pots and pans.
My breath came back slowly and my brain was whirring.
What the hell was that?
