The school was closed for the next week due to that whole ordeal or just letting us spend time with our families before having to stay at the school.
Honestly, I’m glad for this break, between this and those two it’s been hell on earth.
Aura and Rose aren’t actually that bad, I’m just exaggerating.
I never got to explore Wintermere just because of school and everything else in between.
“Hey, mom,” I said, putting on my jacket.
“Yes, honey?” She said, looking away from the blanket she was knitting.
My mom’s loved knitting since she was little. She knits whenever she’s bored or stressed.
“Can I go out today?”
“Yeah, just make sure you call us every hour or so.”
“HEY, KIDDO, GRAB ME SOMETHING TO EAT!” Dad yelled from the garage.
“I’LL TRY TO REMEMBER!” I yelled back at him.
I grabbed my phone and wallet and walked out of the door. The snow capped mountains stood mighty in the distance as I grew closer to downtown Wintermere. Snow fell off of the roofs in bulk as the citizens talked about everything from the festival coming up to the recent attack on the school.
I walked around the corner and the stalls’ fragrant aroma intoxicated my nose. The vegetables were fresh as if they were just harvested from the fields while the meat was mouthwatering. I walked over and paid for a kabob. I bit into the meat. It was rich and savory, it was seasoned to perfection and it was the perfect texture. I savored it for as long as I could without eating the whole thing in one bite. I threw away the stick in a nearby trash can.
In the plaza, there was a pastor vehemently speaking about the way of his religion, a large crowd had gathered around him to indulge themselves in the pastor’s speech. I walked past them and headed for the new arcade that they had installed about 4 weeks ago. I had wanted to go when I got here but I was too busy for that. Now’s the perfect chance.
I was met by vibrant colors and loud kids. The purple and blue lights flashed as kids competed against one another on a dance mat (think DDR). I brought myself over to the first person shooting game with the guns mounted up on the machine.
“4 OMERAS TO PLAY!” The screen read.
“I’ll play with you, Dom,” a familiar female voice said.
“Oh, I’m alright, thank y- wait how do you know my name-“ I cut myself off as I was met face to face with Aura and Rose and their parents.
“Aura? Rose? What are you guys doing here?” I asked them.
“Same thing as you. To play some games. We kinda saw you enjoying that meat over there,” Rose expressed.
Aura started snickering behind her. I looked at her and started snickering too.
“Oh, grow up, you two,” Rose sighed.
Aura and Rose’s parents walked past them and held out their hands. I got up and shook them.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Dominick Blackburn, your daughters are lovely,” I said, attempting to make a good impression.
“You aren’t too bad yourself, Blackburn,” Aura’s dad responded. His voice was hoarse and deep.
“Aura’s told us all about you,” Aura’s mom walked closer to me, “Don’t break her heart!”
Oddly enough, Aura didn’t look like her parents at all.
“MOM!” Aura hit her mom on the arm.
“Oop, looks like I’ve said too much,” she said, covering her mouth.
Rose’s parents came up to me now.
“It was so lovely to meet you. Rose never stops talking about you,” her mom spoke. She bent over and got closer to my ear, “between us, she’s told me about how awesome you were the other day when those bad guys came,” she stood back up and walked over next to her husband.
“Mom, what’d you say to him?!” She said, grabbing her arm and shaking it.
“Well it’s been lovely meeting you guys but I have some errands to run,” I said, grabbing my jacket off of the machine. I began to walk out when someone grabbed my jacket.
“Hey, our parents said we can hang out with you today,” Rose muttered.
I looked over at them and they nodded.
I shrugged.
“I guess you guys are with me then,” I replied.
Their parents just wanted time to themselves so I understood.
“What are we doing?” Aura asked, walking next to Rose.
“I’m just exploring,” I answered.
“You said you had errands,” Rose interrupted.
“That was to get away from you two,” I smiled at them.
“Rude. Well, we aren’t that easy to get away from,” Rose responded, firmly.
“I see that,” I sighed and continued walking.
For about 2 hours, we walked to the local shops that were lined up along the block ranging from delis to antique stores to a fortune teller? The food in Wintermere is delicious and the community, as a whole, is very nice.
Rose and Aura would talk to some of the locals because everyone knows everyone here. It was nice seeing those two so carefree after what happened. We walked and talked for an hour after we explored. It turns out that my suspicions were right, Rose’s dad was the General for the Magic Defense Force.
Now, I get why she has all of that pressure on her.
Aura’s parents are business owners. They own a store here in Wintermere that sells and produces clothing, Aura also has that passion as she wears clothes that only she makes besides the school uniform. Listening to them talk about their hobbies and passions makes me feel like a boring person, all I do is stay home and sit around. I mean I do train but that’s it.
I felt a touch on my shoulder.
“You okay, Dominick?” Rose asked. Her ocean blue eyes stared into mine.
I stared for a second too long.
“Yeah, I’m fine. I just spaced out,” I responded, looking away from her.
“Well, there is a place me and Aura know of,” she looked at Aura.
“But that’s OUR place…” Aura replied.
“But he’s our friend,” Rose argued with her.
Aura sighed.
“Fine.”
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Aura didn’t seem pleased.
It took us another hour to get to where they wanted to take me. We arrived at an opening in front of the woods that engulfed the area.
It was eerie.
“This is creepy,” I said, turning around.
“It does look creepy but I promise you it’ll be worth it,” Rose pushed me forward into the opening.
We walked down the dirt path that lay beneath us that stretched out for what seemed like miles.
It did in fact stretch for miles.
Rose and Aura talked to each other the whole time. I was too busy to engage in conversation. I was keeping an eye out at our surroundings. I guess all the fighting has been putting me on edge recently. I just wanted to relax today and now I have to walk for another hour down this path. I’m not even sure why these two were so hell-bent on showing me this place.
“WE’RE HERE!” Rose shouted, snapping me out of the trance I was in.
“Where exactly is here?” I asked.
She pointed. I looked in the direction she pointed.
It was a cave opening.
“Nope, no caves.” I put my arms up in an x. I twirled on my heels and started walking away.
She grabbed me and looked me in the eyes. I felt like I was staring at the two beautiful sapphires.
“It’s not dangerous, I promise,” She told me.
All my worries and paranoia disappeared with those words.
I followed them into the cave. The stalactites hung from the ceiling as the water dripping off of them made splashing noises. The stalagmites glistened as they reflected the sun’s light off of them. We walked far enough after that for them to stop emanating a light as the sun wasn’t visible to us anymore.
“Me and Aura drew those as kids,” she walked up next to me, pointing over to the wall.
“Yeah? Which one was yours?” I asked.
She pointed to the more detailed art of what looked an older woman. She was facing forward with an unscrubitable expression; by that I mean a line for a mouth.
I looked over to the art next to it. It was stick figures. A LOT of stick figures.
“Was that you, Aura?” I giggled.
“Was that a giggle?” Aura said, echoing throughout the cave.
“No, I don’t,” I cleared my throat, “giggle,” I answered.
We walked for 5 more minutes until we reached the waterfall. The walls of the cave were reflecting the water’s bright blue iridescence off of them. The water was almost translucent, the water was so pure it seemed like it was made from liquid diamonds. Water droplets that fell from the cleft above created a beautiful rhythm as they made contact with the shallow pool that lay below. This beauty was a hidden gem that they only knew about.
I stood there, letting it all soak in.
“Alright, Dominick, enough of that,” Rose grabbed me by the hand and dragged me right next to the waterfall.
“Look,” Aura said, appearing behind us.
A crevice was exposed behind the pouring water.
Rose entered with Aura following behind her.
I stood in place. I’m not scared of much but I don’t trust small spaces.
Aura came back around and stared at me,
“Stop being a baby,” she grabbed my hand and pulled me into the opening. She let go when she realized what she was doing. Aura is mean almost all the time but when she cares, she really cares. Rose always raves about how good of a person she is and I didn’t believe her but I guess you just have to give her some time.
The opening in the back was a small pond that emitted a small glow. The water hummed a melodic rhythm as it dropped from the ceiling into the pond. There was some sort of unique feel to it.
I couldn’t tell you if it was mana or not.
“Dom, check this out,” Aura walked over to the crystal and put her hand on it.
She imbued it with mana. The crystal began to exude a rainbow pattern, causing it to mirror off of the wall. I was like a toddler at a candy shop today.
Aura looked at me and smiled so fast I almost didn’t see it.
“DOMINICK, LOOOOK!” Rose screams echoed as she jumped into the pond.
“ROSE, YOUR CLOTHES!” Aura yelled at her.
“IT’S FINE, I BROUGHT SOME IN MY BAG!” Rose answered, shouting up towards us.
“DID YOU KNOW WE’D COME HERE?!” Aura asked, yelling.
“I THOUGHT IT WOULD JUST BE ME AND DOM BUT YEAH!” Rose commented, throwing me a wink.
Aura pretended to gag and we all laughed. I looked towards Rose and then back to Aura.
“I’m gonna jump in too,” I told Aura.
“What about your clothes?” Aura asked me.
“Can you use a wind spirit to dry me off?” I asked her.
“That’s such a waste of mana but yeah,” She sighed but in the end she eventually relented.
I walk to the other side of the pathway and sprinted to the ledge.
“ROSE, WATCH OUT!” I yelled at her.
She was in the landing zone so I probably would’ve squashed her if she didn’t move.
She looked up with wide eyes as my ass was right above her.
She swam away at lightspeed.
I landed in the pond, causing a giant splash. I looked at Rose. Her hair was soaked from the splash. She looked at me with her beautiful azure blue eyes and her hair that shone in the cave. She looked so beautiful right now but of course, I can’t tell her that. She stared at me for a while and I stared right back at her. I don’t know what’s going on in her mind or in her heart but my heart began beating at what felt like 120 miles per hour.
I splashed her with the water. She scoffed at me and started splashing me. It turned into a full-fledged splash war.
“WATCH OUT, LOVE BIRDS!” She cannonballed right where we were splashing each other. She splashed us with her jump, same as I did.
Rose swam over to her and started splashing her. Aura didn’t take that kindly. Aura swam over to her and started splashing her and splashing her and splashing her. Aura didn’t break stride even once. She continued splashing her for about 5 minutes until she stopped because her arms got tired. They called a truce. We swam around talking about school life, home life, crushes, people we hate, our favorite teachers, all of that kind of stuff. It felt like I was finally living the life I wanted to live when I came here to Wintermere.
“You guys, thanks for bringing me here,” I said to Aura and Rose.
“Well, we did need to relax a little too but yeah, you’re welcome,” Aura retorted.
“And now, you can come here whenever you need to relax,” Rose commented.
“I think I won’t be back here for a while. That walk is too long for me to actually want to come here,” I responded.
“Understandable,” they said, in unison.
“Hey, it’s almost dark out, we should probably get going,” Rose said.
“Yeah, probably,” I agreed.
We grabbed our bags and the things we brought with us. Aura used her wind spirit magic on me and Rose, leaving Rose’s extra clothes useless. We walked to the crevice and left the cave.
I walked them to their houses. We dropped off Rose first because her house was on the way to the store. I still had to get Dad something to eat. Aura decided to come with me.
“My dad loves burgers,” Aura shared.
“My dad does too, the ones from Deli Burger especially,” I responded.
“Yeah, mine too, so why don’t you get your dad a burger from there?”
“That’s on the other side of town, I don’t have time for that.”
“Fair point,” She put her hands in pockets and walked in stride.
We walked around in silence for 3 minutes, heading to the store that was conveniently nearby.
I began to think about Rose.
Today, I realized that I may have a small crush on her.
“Hey, Aura, do you guys go to that waterfall a lot?” I asked her.
“No. At least, I don’t, it’s too long of a walk and we’re too busy to go together,” She responded, grabbing a chocolate bar for herself.
I walked to the frozen food aisle and grabbed a frozen pizza for my Dad and a pint of ice cream for Mom.
“Your mom likes mint chocolate chip?” Aura asked me.
“My whole family loves it. Mom’ll get mad if I don’t grab her anything. She doesn’t ask but I’m pretty sure she knows that I’m gonna get her something,” I replied.
Aura became silent for a moment before asking me a question.
“You like Rose, don’t you?”
My eyes grew wide for a moment before regaining my composure.
“Huh? Where’d you get that idea from?” I asked.
“From the way you stared at her today. Everything about you two makes it seem like you guys are totally in love. People have actually come up to me and asked me if you two are dating,” she stopped for a moment, debating if she wanted to say what she was going to next, “don’t break her heart. I know you’re a cool guy and all and I hope that you continue to treat her the way you do right now. That, right there, is my best friend, if you ever break her heart… I’ll kill you myself, got it?”
“Got it but I don’t think she likes me back,” I handed my stuff to the cashier.
“12 omeras,” The cashier groaned.
I handed him the omeras and waited for Aura to purchase her chocolate bar. A minute later, we walked out of the store and began talking on the way to her house.
“I think she does. You gotta remember-” she took a bite out of her chocolate, “I’ve known her for years, she’s never talked to anyone the way she talks to you. She’s never given anyone the looks she gives you,” she looked down, “I get why,” she murmured.
“What was that?” I asked her. She murmured it so I couldn’t hear it.
“Oh, nothing.. My house is right up here on the right.”
The sky was ash-black as the sidewalk was illuminated by the street lamps that hang from the poles on both sides of the roads. We walked up about 40 feet then arrived at her house. She walked up to the door. I remained on the sidewalk tile in front of the stairs on her porch.
“This is me. Thanks for today,” She held the door handle a bit long.
She bit her lip and walked in. Her parents were standing there smiling and waving. I waved back to them and walked home.