Chapter 17

**Merianna**

"Which one?" I asked nervously. Hell, I sure hoped it wasn't the apocalypse one he talked about. Just about any of those elements could be used to end the world, if not a combination of all the bad ones which is what my head told me the apocalypse element was made up of.

Lightning could kill scores of people, Ice could suffocate civilizations, and Darkness? I couldn't even imagine what that would be capable of, let alone imagining what all of them could do together.

"Your alignment is Lightning." He said with a smile. "Pure, undiluted lightning. You displayed it during the battle while you were fighting. I saw your energy sparking with those in the air, and that last blast of thunder that came flashing down as Ara's bomb went off was so bright that I wondered if I had gone blind for a few seconds. 
Even though I didn't see you calling down the lightning I knew it was you, because I could feel your energy within the storm clouds that had gathered there. Lightning is basically a combination of water, fire and air, all rolled up in one where you can control and manipulate storms or gather energy from them."

I blinked up at him. His explanation was long winded but I followed it none the less. Technically, I wasn't going to be the cause of the end of the realm. I didn't know why I was so worried about that, but I was none the less.

I sighed as I relaxed against the back rest of the soft couch and downed the last sip of the wine in my glass.

"What about Nelia? You said that you had a hunch?" I asked Noch while my body shuddered with pleasure.

Noch nodded at us. "Since you have an alignment with Lightning, which is laughably rare in this cycle, and have affinities with your three main new era elements. My thoughts are leaning towards Nelia having an alignment with the Nature element. It would certainly explain why she is so good with tending the greenhouse and talented in healing."

Nelia blinked at us and then practically beamed as it sank in.

"It's just a hunch!" Noch reminded her before she could go overboard. "You girls having affinities with all the new era elements is rare enough as it is, and your three main elements are also reasons for why you are so good at what you do."

Noch didn't stop there though. "The other elements though, worked strangely. Light was popular for celebrations and hiding in plain sight. Most used it to bend the light around themselves to make it look like they weren't there in the first place. Many cities that liked to stay hidden made use of these people to keep themselves hidden from any travelers. Light wielders were also popular for forming bonds with our light dwelling creatures like Hippogriffs and Gryphons.

Darkness was obviously mostly used for stealth and terror attacks. Assassins were highly skilled with this talent. Most literally became one with the shadows. They didn't just move within the cloak of the shadows but flowed with it and stretched it to encompass massive pockets of space at a time. Those that had the inkling for it were also more likely to form bonds with creatures of Tartarus, or those that dwelled more in dark environments.

Ice mostly speaks for itself. Those that had an alignment with it could manipulate the moisture in the air. They mostly had the knack for dipping temperatures to below freezing. People with a very strong alignment were sometimes also able to rise the temperatures instead of plummeting them. This alignment also gave them control over wind as well. If they were particularly bad or vengeful, they could easily create a blizzard of tiny crystallized blades of ice.

Creation and Armageddon though were strange and frighting elements to be aligned with. They both could take on one or more of the other elements and meld them into one powerful bomb of power. These were so rare that they were mostly only in legends and stories back then, until an individual was actually born with the capacity to have either alignment. It was a truly frightful thing to be aligned to either. Both could make you a target, and the individual's character was mainly the deciding factor on whether their alignment could bring about prosperity, or total doom."

I frowned at Noch and stared at him like I hoped I could find all the answers I was looking for on his face, if I just stared long and hard enough.

"What?" Noch asked when he caught my frown.

"If all the documents and teachings of the old cycle are gone, destroyed and forgotten as you say... then how is it that you know so much about it?" I asked him with a raised brow.

For a second I could see his face going through a whole complicated range of expressions. "Well..." He hedged.

"We won't tell anyone." Nelia promised with an earnest and hopeful expression that no one could deny, and no one had been able to deny it so far. Not even Nana.

Noch rapidly looked between me and Nelia and sighed in defeat. "Fine." He caved, Nelia and I grinned.

"Well, I know all of this because I was there when it happened, and that is all that I'm sharing on the subject." He finished as he crossed his arms over his chest and looked away.

Nelia and I both sat on the couch gaping at him.

"No wonder you always look like a cranky old man." I muttered under my breath as I looked away to the side.

His head snapped back to me. "I'm not a cranky old man! I'm still in my youth! You just always rub me up the wrong way." He punctuated by pointing a finger at me.

"I can't help it if you were never nice to me be to begin with. You reap what you sow!" I yelled back at him. If I were a cat, I would be hissing at him right now with my fur standing on end.

"By the gods can't a feline get any sleep around here?" I heard a deep lazy voice say from above us.

I looked up and saw a black Maine Coon's head poking out from the top of one of the laughably high book shelves on the opposite side of the office.

"No one asked for your opinion Strider." Noch said frowning up at his familiar.

Strider's eyes narrowed with amusement, I could see his whiskers twitch and caught a glimpse of a grey tipped tail swishing. "I was here first Noch, minding my own business and catching up on some sleep after being out the whole night." He purred as he stretched out his back. Then he jumped off the bookshelf and landed onto the other couch. 

"And then you three come waltzing in and start talking, which was fine. As soon as you two started bickering though, I had no hope of finding sleep again." He strode off the couch and hopped onto the big desk next to us.

I smiled helplessly at Strider and shrugged. "Can't help the ever flowing endearments Strider."

Noch gave me a withering look, but before he could say anything Strider beat him to it. "A Lightning alignment right? Now that is something very unusual." He squinted his green jewelled eyes at me as if he were trying to see something that no one else could.

"This explains a lot actually." He flicked his incredibly fluffy tail in interest.

"I could always just barely pick up images and senses from your previous lives when we met Noch, but to think that you were hiding something like this?" He slanted his eyes over to Noch who decided that he didn't need to look Strider in the eye.

"I don't like talking or thinking about the time back then." Noch said while keeping his eyes glued to one of the potted plants on a small table.

"Hmmmmmm." Strider hummed thoughtfully as his tail twitched from side to side on the polished dark sylvan wood.

Giving a sigh Noch stood up from his chair and walked behind his desk to the window. He stood there, staring out to the center lawn in the middle of the castle grounds where the newly chipped stature stood. Members were moving around helping the survivors of the coven that was attacked.

Strider snorted. "Fine then Noch, I won't meddle, but you do know what them being aligned with the old elements means, right?" he added gleefully.

Noch gave a weary sigh and turned back to us. Leaning over the back of his throne-like chair he smirked at me in particular.

"You're going to be my personal apprentice." He said sweetly.

I gaped at him. So did Nelia.

He pointed a finger at Nelia. "You are fine where you are with the Ga's unless you want to sharpen up on your combat skills." He said and she snapped her mouth shut.

"But you don't even like me!" I exploded. It was bad enough with him giving me sparring lessons every once in a while. Having him be my mentor really did not sit well in my gut. I actually had a sense of dread at the prospect.

He cocked his head at me as if he was confused. "What makes you think that?"

"You barely ever speak to me and seem like you only spar with me because you have nothing better to do. Not to mention your fluent proverbial knack of insulting me every chance you get!" I explained while pointing accusingly at him.

He just stood there and blinked at me. Then he burst into laughter and shook his head. "You thought all this time that I did those things to show I didn't like you? Granted you are very hard to get to like, but over the years, you have grown on me and the order a bit. Like a fungus. You look squishy and cute but you are nasty to the core." He barked out a laugh again when he saw my perplexed expression.

"I am not a fungus." I said wrinkling my nose. I didn't even have a decent come back to that insult.

Both Noch and Strider snickered at that. "Child that is just the way that Noch is. He insults people that he holds dear. He just seems to constantly want to be in trouble." Strider said giving Noch a side long grin.

"Not constantly." Noch said back with a grin of his own.

It felt to me like all my thoughts have started floating up over my head in a big jumble of nonsense and confusing facts.

"I think I need to go sleep for the rest of the day. Maybe when I wake up again the world would have righted itself." I said as I felt my head just about swelling with everything that had happened throughout the morning.

"That is probably a good idea. It's a little past noon now and that wine will surely still be working its magic for another few hours. While it's in action it works best when you are resting." Noch informed me as he straightened from his perch.

Nelia and I sighed heavily as we got up from the couch. I quickly grabbed hold of Nelia's arm as the room began swimming around me.

"Meri?" Nelia asked uncertainly.

"I think I might actually be drunk." I said as my body slightly swayed with the tilting in my vision.

Noch chuckled. "Drunk on energy that is, and you only had half a glass after all."

"Holy Hecate. Nelia, please take me to bed?" I pleaded to my sister as I saw her smiling at me in amusement.

She patted the top of my head with her free hand. "Come on Meri. Let's try and get you into a bath first."

Oh, that's right. I'm still covered in blood.