Olansaf 3 - Draft 1

“"Don't be daft, how can black be bright? It's black for goddesses sake!" I cried for the third time.

We were sitting in the main open room at the top of the stairs in the library. Ben had gone into the kitchen to find some food, living on his motto of "If in doubt, eat!" and Jace and I were sitting on our bunks watching JayJay hop around on her newly fixed leg in disbelief.

"I don't know how to explain it, your whole body glowed, but your eyes, they were jet black. I only saw them briefly and every part of me wanted to look away. It was so strong, I nearly did. You're something new. I met another Olansaf once, but he didn't glow. He didn't have as much energy as you either, he got worn out quickly. You shouldn't have this much energy before initiation" replied Jace, bewildered.

"I just find bright black hard to believe," I replied, "It's like the phrase 'bitter-sweet' I never could understand that either."

"Hang on, I have an idea." said Jace, as he got up and dodged round an over joyed, unshackled JayJay. He walked into the bathroom and came out a few seconds later with a mirror, which he hung in place of a picture JayJay had accidentily smashed in her rage. He placed a pillow against it and smashed it, using the pillow to muffle the sound and protect his hand. Carefully, he removed the pillow and let the glass slivers drop to the floor.
"Come here and fix the mirror," he said "But do it in your head and look with your eyes." Realising this would let me see me while I fixed I walked over and stood in amongst the glass. Carefully I pictured the mirror pieces flying up and re-assembling seamlessly inside the frame, but looked with my eyes. what I saw in the swirling mirror was a interesting spectical. my body was glowing pure white, but if you could see through the glare you could see the pitch black armour I was still wearing, rippling and swirling as if it was alive. Looking past my reflection I could see how bright the room had become from the glow I radiated. But that was not what I was here to look at. I gazed straight ahead into the frame and watched the mirror until it had fixed over the part reflecting my eyes. Suddenly I could understand why Jace had used the words bright black. My eyes glowed like the rest of me, but they didn't glow white. They glowed black. Dark swirling tendrils disrupting the pure white, but they were brighter than the white. They were like twin suns on the glowing horizon of white.

Suddenly, the mirror was fixed and I was me again, my awkward eyes that could never decide if they were grey, green or brown in place of the black, and the swirling black armour in place of the white. The sudden colours assaulted my eyes so much I had to blink a couple of times before turning around.

"...Wow. You were telling the truth!" I gasped at Jace.

"Would I lie to the girl I trusted for no apparent reason?" He replied smugly. I nodded to concede his point and made a split decision. "BEN! Don't you dare eat all that pasta, I want some!" I hollered as I wandered towards the kitchen.

After battling Ben for some pasta, and gulping it down, I went to bed. There were 6 patrols the next day, and I offered to take the last two, spending eight hours from four pm until midnight scanning the town for trouble and checking the wall for other clans, groups like ours looking for a patch to claim, trouble to cause or just to pass through. Jace didn’t usually let one person take an eight hour patrol on their own, but he understood I was only doing it so I could sleep through the next day, so I didn’t get apprehensive about initiation. Jace had explained initiation to me, and it seemed simple enough.

Initiation was a simple. There was two stages to initiation, and a third for clan initiation.

The first stage was releasing the powers, to let the transformations be held for any period of time, and be controlled so they didn’t happen accidentally. To do this an amulet is placed onto the skin, and held there by the initiator while they changed forms. This effectively endowed the amulet with the power of the change and burnt it painlessly into the skin.

The second step is similar to step one, but with a blank amulet and this time by a different initiator. This would show the class of the person.

There were 8 classes, but there used to be many more. They were lost over a hundred years ago when a gathering of rare classes gathered on “The unsinkable ship” titanic, and died when it sunk. Many could not change and escape for fear of detection, the last one dying on a rescue boat.
The common classes were:
Sighter, Those who has the power of Future Glimpse,  the ability to foretell how something would unfold.
Writer, Those who holds the ability to change, read and edit memories, for tellings and written word without leaving a trace
Charmer, Those who captures the power of charms, amulets and symbols to enhance other given powers and abilitys.
Armer, Those who choose to train and mentor the new and old in the physical arts, teaching them how to control, transform and fight.
Wisdom, Those who collect and impart teachings of the mind, often knowing a wide berth of things on a given subject without study.
Venom, Those who protect the secrecy of the hayvanlar, by whatever means at their disposal. Often very stealthy.
Leader, Those who lead a clan. This only comes after a second initiation on the class amulet, and exploration of two classes
Elder, Those who have explored all the classes or have been in service as a leader for over 150 years.
The class could be changed by having someone transform while touching it, and it would change to what it should be.

The third step was another amulet, carved with the clan symbol, burnt into the skin by flame and pain, and if removed left a permanent mark of disloyalty, making it hard to join another clan. I was only having an initiation into powers, not into the clan, but I was still scared.

I was so caught up in my thoughts I didn’t notice Billy until he tapped me on the shoulder. He told me he was taking over and that I should go and rest. I flew back to the library and slid in the window that they had left open for me. I changed the black armour to soft pajamas, collapsed onto my bunk and slept.

It felt like I had just fell asleep when Jace shook me.

“Girl.... Girl... GIRL! It’s time.”