Chapter 12: Chapter 12

Ugarit, 1185 BCE

The palisade stood out among the early morning sunlight. The air was cold and wet and made leather stick to skin, but the morning sun warmed away the chill of the night from the small platoon of soldiers. Everything still had that early morning still to it, the day being early enough even the birds hadn’t started their songs.

All the men along the wall tightened their grip on their bows, and the men on the field kept their arms on the hilts of their swords. The nobleman, Ammurapi, had gotten word that the invaders were coming by sea. The messenger had gotten back to them about those same invaders burning cities they shouldn’t have been able to take. No one knew how many cities still stood, how many of their neighbors had already fallen to the invaders, or even if they were the very last in all of Syria.

Ammurapi had cried the night they learned of the coming attack, as the captain tried to comfort him. They had taken to bed that night, the captain trying to calm his lover’s fits enough to allow him to rest. The captain knew that Ammurapi was busy firing the reply to his father as he stood in position, in the front of the ground forces. The captain remembered how the tears would flow as he carved the letter to his father into the clay, having to tell him that no help would come. They had stretched themselves too thin with the rest of the battalion off to their neighbors, as they had been the first to be invaded and whoever remained had yet to return.

The captain, and everyone around him, were hoping that they’d have enough time. Enough time to hold out until the Carchemish forces could get here to help.

The captain’s thoughts were broken from a cry from the wall. The young man who cried out was one of their rangers, having the best eyesight of any ranger anyone had ever known. They all looked to where he pointed, and the captain knew then why the other cities had fallen so quickly. Men. Thousands of men poured from the trees like water from a river. Everyone readied their swords, but they knew the battle was over before even a drop of blood hit the ground. The platoon that the captain was so proud of, his well-trained men and best of friends, numbered only in the couple of hundred. The enemy was in the thousands, and the trees showed no signs of slowing their expulsion of these invaders from the sea.

The invaders slowed a little when they met the palisades, but those were quickly trampled or broken. Their bows, while effective, couldn’t thin the enemy lines fast enough to matter. The enemies’ charge was too fast, too great in number. The captain spilled the blood of the man who came closest, and the only thing he could think was, “why?”. Why and how could these invaders come so quick, and in such a vast number.

In the end, the battle was over before the midday sun could arrive at its zenith.

The captain lay dying next to the body of his best friend.

He looked to the sky, and for a moment, he took in the now calm air of the early afternoon. The clouds were so beautiful today.

And a shadow came over him. He tilted his head back and coughed, red blood falling upwards his cheek as he stared into the crying eyes of the maiden witch who had helped them so much over the years.

“Oh, Ibrahim, I am so sorry I was not here.”

He smiled at her. He had one last question he had to ask before it was over. “Ammur—” he started, but the coughing interrupted him.

“Gone.” She replied. “I found him next to the kiln.” She took a moment as she steadied her breathing. “Ibrahim, I’m sorry.” She repeated. “Everything is gone. Burnt.”

“Please.” Ibrahim cried to the young witch. Hot, fresh tears streaked his face. “Please, Eris.” He begged. “Avenge Ammurapi, avenge us.”

◊◊◊

“So.” Kyle asked, interrupting the awkward silence at lunch. It wasn’t too obvious, but you could tell other tables were paying attention to theirs a lot more than they regularly would, which put Tyler on edge. Kyle was obviously as curious as the rest of the lunchroom because he followed up the awkward ‘so’ with, “What’s it like?”

“Dude!” Orlando interjected.

“What? I’m curious. Don’t tell me you aren’t.”

Tyler blushed and looked around the lunchroom and noticed a few people still staring at their small table. “It’s different. Good different.”

“How the heck were you able to hide the changes for so long? Surely hormones don’t work that quickly, right?” Kyle asked. Orlando gave her a long look and quirked an eyebrow, obviously curious as well.

Tyler looked to Eris for help, trying to plead with her eyes for some answer to the question that wouldn’t involve magic. “I don’t know what you’re looking at me for. You should know my stance on magical knowledge by now.” Came Eris’ very unhelpful reply.

“What?” Orlando and Kyle blurted out at the same time.

Tyler held her head in her hands. “Eris, as much as I love your enthusiasm to bring magic back, you can’t just go revealing it to people. Everyone here was taught the same things as me. Heck, I’ve lived with you for almost a week now, and I still have trouble believing it sometimes.”

“Yeah” Kyle nervously chuckled. “No way magic is real, right?”

Orlando nodded and said, “yeah”, though he didn’t seem so sure. He looked at Tyler again. “I guess” he continued.

“Orlando.” Tyler said, the hurt coming through her voice. She thought after their discussion on the bus that he would trust her a little more. Was he just humoring her? He said that he believed her, did he only mean that he believed she was Tyler?

Orlando sighed, picking up on Tyler’s tone. “However, it happened though, I’m glad you’re happy now. I’ve only seen you for a few hours, and I can plainly see how happy you are like this.”

Tyler tried to ignore the platitude, but still felt a little better at Orlando’s admission. She sighed and looked at Eris, “See what I mean? They probably think I’m just good at makeup.”

“Yeah” Kyle replied, “There are a bunch of mundane reasons as to how you managed this.”

Eris shrugged her shoulders, “Believe what you want, but magic is real. And I’m going to bring it back.”

“How are you going to do that?” Orlando asked skeptically.

Eris shrugged again, “I did it once before. It shouldn’t be too hard to do it again. Though I might need to make a few trips to find the ley lines again.”

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“Ley lines?” Tyler asked, “I don’t think I’ve heard that before.”

“Sources of magic that run underneath key points in the Earth.” Orlando replied, “Honestly, Tyler, I thought you’d know something like that. You’re constantly coming up with magical stories.”

“Hey! The stories I make are all original, thank you very much. Though now that I know they’re a thing, I might add them to the next story.”

Orlando laughed, “I hope you’re writing those down somewhere. I’d love to read some of them someday.”

Tyler blushed, “Y-yeah. I keep them in a journal.”

“Tyler, is that really you?” Tyler jumped a little, not expecting a small voice to call her name from behind her. She turned around to see Brandyn, one of the students who cornered her in the hallway earlier today.

Tyler nodded, “Yup, it’s me.” Brandyn leaned in close, her nose almost touching hers. Tyler wasn’t used to someone coming this close. “Umm. Is something on my face?”

“Your eyes are different from his.” She said, seeming to come to some conclusion. She stood up straight, finally easing the pressure from Tyler’s personal space.

“Uhm. My eyes are different?” She asked, tilting her head.

“Yeah, other Tyler’s eyes were brown, yours are green. And you’re not wearing contacts. Who are you, and why are you pretending to be Tyler? Where is he anyway?”

Tyler flinched; she wasn’t expecting that. Normally, Brandyn was quiet and non-confrontational. She always seemed nervous when she talked to Tyler before. “It’s me, honest. I helped you out last year with your book report. You chose Where the Red Fern Grows.”

Brandyn’s eyes widened as she leaned in a bit again, but thankfully not as close this time, and a flash of recognition went through her eyes and she blushed. “T-Tyler?” she asked.

Tyler smiled, “Nn, it’s me.”

“Uhm. Excuse me.” She said, twirling around and quickly walking back to her seat at the lunch table. She leaned in close to her group of friends and started talking in hushed whispers. Tyler didn’t know what they were saying, but she could guess. Especially when all four of the girls at the table looked up and directly at her.

Tyler glanced around the table, “What was that about?”

◊◊◊

History class with Abigail Knightly came right after lunch, and Eris seemed a little excited. Which made sense to Tyler. Ancient history to her was just last week for Eris. She wondered again how the small goddess can even stand here and not freak out about how different everything must be. The classroom they entered was currently empty, Tyler and Eris having left the lunchroom a little early, so they took a couple of seats near the teacher’s desk to wait for her to introduce Eris.

“Hey Eris. Are you okay?”

“Of course, why?”

“It’s just, you know, you haven’t been awake for so long. I worry you’re having trouble adjusting to what life is like right now.”

Eris smiled at Tyler. “I appreciate the concern, but I am an agent of change. If anything, being thrown into the far future is my element.”

Tyler hadn’t heard that before, “Agent of change?” she asked.

Eris laughed, recalling some memory. “Well, that’s what they used to call me. ‘Eris, the maiden witch of chaos’.” She said in a haughty voice, mimicking whoever had introduced her last. “Honestly, it’s a little surprising I couldn’t find any information about myself or my kin online. I hope this history class will be a little more enlightening. Though, I can’t say that’s a bad thing. Obscurity has its own benefits for my work.”

Just then, the door to the classroom opened and in walked Abigail Knightly, the world history teacher. She wore a dark cardigan over a light blue blouse and had her hair in a ponytail today. Tyler motioned for Eris to come with, and they walked over to her. “Ms. Knightly. This is Eris. She got permission to shadow me to my classes for a while, the transfer papers are still going through.” Eris rolled her eyes but decided not to object this time and Tyler gave her a smirk.

Tyler looked back at Ms. Knightly just in time to see a look flash across her face but couldn’t make out what it meant. “Hello Eris. It’s a pleasure to meet you. And you are?”

Tyler blushed, forgetting once again she needed to introduce herself as well. “I’m Tyler ma’am.” She paused waiting for a response but continued when she became uncomfortable with the silence. “Uhm. I hope that’s okay?” she said much more meekly.

That seemed to knock Ms. Knightly out of whatever shock she had been in, and she put on a smile. “Of course it’s okay, Tyler. Would you also prefer feminine pronouns?”

Tyler gave a sigh of relief and smiled a relieved smile. She had worried a lot about how all the teachers would respond to her changes, her anxieties coming up with all kinds of horrible but impossible scenarios for how today could have gone. Ms. Knightly was one of the teachers she really hoped would be okay, considering how nice she had been to her on the first day. “Yes please, ma’am. Thank you.”

“Hmm.” Ms. Knightly hummed and nodded. “I must say, though, you look wonderful. If you don’t mind me asking, have you been on hormones long?”

Tyler blushed, “Actually ma’am, I’m not. I uh. I sort of woke up like this.” She wasn’t sure why she was being so honest at this moment. Had some of Eris’ brashness for telling the truth rubbed off on her? Eris looked equally surprised to hear her confession and while she didn’t expect Ms. Knightly to believe her, she still wore a shocked expression. “Ms. Knightly. Is everything okay?”

Ms. Knightly seemed to pull herself out of her train of thought as she replied. “Yes. I’m okay. Why don't you take your seat, class will begin soon.” Her voice was a little strained, and Tyler wondered if the history teacher had gotten enough sleep the night before. She did look tired.

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