The Outsiders Chapter 1

                                            The Outsiders
                                                  Ch. 1
    Heather was not ready. It was time for The Forming and all the new school members had to participate even if they didn’t want to. she wondered what group she would be in and who her partner was going to be. She was excited, but also very scared. Of all the things she was worried about, her biggest hope was that she would even get picked at all. People who weren’t  picked became The Outsiders.
    The school year will be great if she got picked for an archer or maybe a magician. Heather guessed that if she got picked for any weapon at all would be really awesome because they are all so neat. She learned that Liana will be joining her this year, and they were even picked to be together in the same train car. She was happy to have a friend there with her otherwise she would have been to scared to go at all.
    Today was the first of her seven days to say goodbye to her family and it was really hard, but she knew it would be harder as the days flew by. Her brother was unusually nice to her that day, and so were Heather’s parents. Her brother Dainal came home from his school just to see her off. He is a Magician in his third year in school and is really talented. His partners name is Stephie, and she gets along with him pretty well. They fight all the time, but he  really likes her. Dainal is a horrible liar, he told heather that he hated Stephie, but Heather could see right through him.
    Only four days now and Heather was beginning to freak out. Dainal said that It will be fine, but she was not really sure about that. After all he is a boy, and they get to pick their own partner and specialty. Heather was getting prepared to leave slowly but surely, and she had all of her things packed incase they come to collect her early, they did that with Dainal. He wasn’t prepared, so they made him bring whatever he had. It wasn’t enough but he managed with mom giving him a little extra stuff in the mail now and then.
    Now the days are just dragging on and on, and she couldn’t do anything but sit and wait for her destiny to hit her smack in the face. On one hand, she couldn’t wait to get out of there and enter her own world, but on the other she was not ready to give up her family and friends for another two years. No one can leave the school until they have at least two years of training. Heather was going to miss them.
Stephie and Heather went to talk about what would happen at The Forming, and how Heather could deal with the events so that everything worked out for the best. Apparently Heather need to look attractive so that a guy will pick her, but she also need to be ready for anything. Guys don’t pick you just for your looks, but also by what you can do. Stephie showed Heather lots of things to do to improve her chances. “Smiling is the key, there was so much that someone can say with a smile Heather.” Stephie said one day while they were talking. “It can show confidence, shyness, frailty, bravery, courage, intellect, and so on and so forth. The guys like the smile they see and they choose what they think will benefit them most as a team. Be ready for anything Heather.”
    The bus arrived early on Sunday and luckily it was the day she had planned to leave on. They grabbed Heather and Liana and they sat together in silence the whole way there. That was a tip from Stephie, don’t talk to anyone unless they talk to you first. The entire bus was silent, probably because they were all scared. They finally pulled into the school’s parking lot around three hours later. They told us to line up by alphabet, and the separated us into about 20 groups of 5 people each. Heather wasn’t with Liana. Liana’s last name was Morton, Heather’s was Dorthine. So they actually didn’t see each other for a long time. Heather was put in what kind of looked like a jail cell with the other 4 girls, and we talked for a little while. Their names were Lisa, Torri, her twin Tonya, and Josephina. They all looked really scared.
    About an hour or so later, a bunch of boys entered the room to pick their partners for training. They walked around for hours just talking to the girls. Some girls were picked right away, while others stayed behind. Liana was picked after only a few minutes. Heather waved goodbye to her as she left. Liana didn’t look very excited. Neither did her partner.
    Heather was talked to a lot, but never actually picked until about the last few minutes. One of the boys walking by picked Heather, she had no idea why, he didn’t even talk to her. He just said “She’s the one.” and that was it. He didn’t even talk to her when they were heading to his school. But when they got to the room, he told Heather to take off her makeup. She immediately did as he asked. She really wanted to ask why, so she did. When she asked him he smiled at her “No reason I just don’t like girls with makeup on it makes them look fake. Besides you look better without it.” After that they talked for a while, he was nicer than Heather would have thought.  “Maybe this wont be so bad after all.” She said to herself.
His name was Tolomy, he was tall and he had a great smile. He seemed kind, and he always was willing to help anyone who asked. It was his eyes that caught Heathers attention when she met him. They were a piercing silvery blue. His messy dirty-blonde hair made his eyes stand out even more. He was quite handsome. Tolomy was always up for a laugh, and somehow found it amusing that Heather was easily scared, he was constantly jumping out at her to freak her out. One time she nearly fell off the balcony and he had to help her back up. She told him it wasn’t funny, but he laughed anyways. The thing that scared her the most was that they had we had to share a room. Heather didn’t even like Tolomy let alone want to sleep in the same room with him.
    Their first day of training was a tough one, he had warned her that it would take a long time for him to teach her what she needed to know. Tolomy told Heather that she needed to be more flexible and strong for the weapon he wanted her to use. He was a swords master and apparently Heather was to be the same. When he handed Heather his sword she thought she might fall over since it weighed so much. The sword started tipping towards the ground, and she was about to go with it. Tolomy laughed and put his arms around her and grabbed the sword to help her keep it up. He said that later on she would be able to not only lift the sword, but wield it and send magic along it, maybe even be able to lift it without using her hands. Tolomy showed her how some of the magic worked. It was really cool, it was like those magicians that use their minds to control objects or people. heather was getting pretty excited, she couldn’t even express how cool it would be to be able to use magic and show of to her friends and family.
    The next day was even harder than the first, Heather was so tired when she got done that she just collapsed into the bed when they got to their room. Heather laid there for a few minutes before Tolomy came into the room and jumped into the bed beside her and exclaimed that he had something for her. Heather was too tired to say anything, so she just mumbled something under her breath. He laughed at her and started poking her until she was annoyed and sat up. “Come on sleepy this is really cool I promise” he said. Heather woke up slowly and then she saw what he had in his hands. It was her very own sword! He laughed at the look on her face and unsheathed the sword to show her what it looked like. It was bright blue and reminded her a lot of Tolomy’s sword, his was red though. “I spent a lot of money on this you’d better be nice to me forever.” He said trying to fake being serious. Heather smiled at him and said “You bet! This is so cool how much was it? I’ll be sure to pay you back.” He looked at her like she was crazy “You aren’t paying me back I bought this so that you could train with me. I don’t expect anything in return except your hard work and dedication. Can you give me that?” Heather smiled and nodded. She felt horrible for accepting something that must have been so expensive so she vowed to herself that she would do everything she could to make Tolomy proud of her. Heather was not sure why she felt she needed to prove herself to Tolomy, but it just felt right to try her hardest because he was her teacher.
    The next day is what she was looking forward to the most, the day she got to try the sword out. Heather could barely sleep that night. When he dragged her out of bed and down to the training field, he handed her the sword and once again she nearly fell over from the weight of it. He laughed at her. “Come on didn’t I train you better than this? Its not that heavy, I made sure to get one of the lighter ones.” She struggled to lift it into the air, but she held it up. Heather sure wasn’t going to let him think she was going to give up. She was going to be the strongest swords master she could be, and she was going to make sure Tolomy knew she wasn’t going to give up without a fight. Tolomy stood behind her ready to help her if she needed it, but Heather wasn’t going to drop it yet. Tolomy told her that they were going to do a few things to help her get used to the swords weight and power. They started by simply lifting the sword up and down, left and right, diagonally, and in many combinations of those ways. It was hard at first but she soon got used to the weight of it and she even gained her first complement. “Now you’re getting it!” It wasn’t anything to be overly excited about, but Tolomy wasn’t one to give out complements often so Heather felt proud of herself.
    Besides his goofy behavior out of the field, he was totally focused and tough to deal with when they were practicing. Heather was fine with that. After a few hours Tolomy told her to go sit on a bench and rest, he walked away and Heather plopped down onto the bench setting the sword down beside her. Tolomy was turning out to be nicer than Heather had thought at first.
    He returned with two glasses of lemonade and he sat down beside her. “Nice work so far, honestly when I met you I wasn’t completely sure you could handle it. You sure proved me wrong I think you could pull this off.” The way he said that really threw her for a loop. Not only was he giving her the best complement she had ever received, she was being told that she could really do what she had always dreamed of doing. Heather was now sure she could handle the training, she could become a swords master and she wasn’t about to give this chance up for anything. Heather would prove to him that she would never give up. For once she had found something to spend her life working at. she had not only found my purpose, she had found her dream.
    Liana however was not so fortunate. she found this out after begging Tolomy to find out where Liana was sent. He did some digging around and learned that she wasn’t even in the same country. Liana was somewhere where she wouldnt even know the language. Heather asked Tolomy if she could write Liana a letter just to see if she was alright. He asked around and after a few months Heather was able to write to her.

Dear Liana,
  How are you? I’ve missed you a lot and I hope you are doing ok. I’m actually doing fine and I have a great future as a swords master. Tolomy, my partner, is pretty nice and we get along ok. What about you and your partner? Is he nice? Is it hard to learn the language of the country you are in? Tolomy told me that you live in a place near the ocean. Have you been able to hang out there? I train a lot, but me and tolomy have some fun now and then too. We have gone to a neat mountain to practice breathing, and into a lake for swim classes…when I told him I couldn’t swim he kinda freaked out. It turned out ok though I learned pretty fast. I hope to see you someday soon. Please write me back.                                                                      Love,                                                                        Heather.

    She wanted to hear from Liana, they had been friends since we were born. Heather missed her more than anything, even her family. Even though she missed her family, but she would get to see them at home in two years. She might never be able to see liana again depending on how far they wanted to go with their schooling. Heather wanted to become a swords master. It was her dream now and she wasn’t about to give it up.
    She wrote to her parents a few times, her brother too. He was doing alright and my family was just the same. No new information, just them missing her and such. she even wrote to Stephie once, she told her that Dainal had asked her out and they were now dating. It was a huge change for her brother. He went from hating Stephie to falling for her. she was happy for him, Stephie was a great person.
    As she trained and got better, Tolomy started smiling more and talking to her with interest. It seemed that they were getting along better and better as she improved her skills. One day it was time for me to learn magic. I was very excited. Tolomy jumped onto my bed one morning and sat on my stomach. She opened her eyes and looked over at the clock. It was one in the morning, she looked up at him with a confused look on her face “What do you want? Its one in the morning!” He smiled with excitement and said “I know.” She blinked a few times and continued to look at him with not even the slightest bit of amusement. “And?” He looked at her with a funny look on his face. “What do you mean ‘and’?” she wasn’t happy about being woken up so early so she wasn’t even trying to be understanding with him. “And why are you waking me up at this time of night?” he  looked at her like she had just asked a really dumb question. “Oh…you didn’t know? Today is the day I'm teaching you magic I wrote it on your calendar didn’t you look at it when you went to bed?” She looked over at her calendar and sure enough there was a note attached to it.

Hey guess what? I think you’re ready to learn magic so ill wake you up early. Be ready!  ~Tolomy~

    She looked back to him. “Why would I read my calendar before I go to bed? I read it when I wake up.” He laughed “No wonder you weren’t up and running, usually when I even mention magic you jump up and start getting excited. I'll make sure to get you a bulletin board soon. Keep your eye out for messages to meet me places at certain times, there will be a lot more of that now.” She smiled and nodded “ok only one condition.” He looked at her confused “ok shoot.” She smiled teasingly “You have to stop jumping on me in the middle of the night.” Tolomy pretended to look disappointed but he teased her right back “Fine, fine deal. But you have to stop looking so cute when you sleep alright?” He got off the bed and ran for the door, knowing a pillow was launched after him. Tolomy poked his head back in after a few seconds to say “Meet me in the lobby and ill take you out for breakfast to make up for waking you, ok?” she answered by throwing another pillow at his face and yelling “You’d better!” Heather could hear him laughing as he walked down the  hall and down the stairs. She changed quickly and ran down the stairs to meet him.
    They  walked into town and stopped by a diner to eat. She  was surprised it was open. All during their meal he explained to her the rules and how-to’s of magic. “When applying such magic to your sword, everything becomes a little harder to control. The sword can become heavier of lighter depending on the spell, and the magic can be very hard or easy to control. Ice magic is heavier on your sword, but its really easy to control how It works with your surroundings. Fire and lightning at both hard to control and can throw your sword swings out of whack, but they are the most powerful of the spells. Wind of course is hard to control, but your sword is feather weight. Of course you don’t always have to apply spells to swords, some spells cant be applied at all. Spells like strength, earth, and cure cant be used with your sword, they are only available to official wizards and sorcerers. A license for sword masters to use such spells is hard to get, and pretty expensive. I've been saving up for earth, and strength, but I’ve had cure down for quite a while now. So are you ready to go try some simple spells out?” She smiled and nodded ready for anything. “Alright then lets go.” He paid the bill and they walked to their next destination. The forest.
    “Hurry up Heather!” he said walking down and eerie looking path into the dense forest. “You aren’t scared are you?” he asked teasingly. Heather walked right past him taking the lead. “Don’t be silly” she told him as she walked. He laughed and followed behind her. they walked in silence for a while, but it got boring fast. It seemed like Tolomy was thinking about something. Whatever it was it was troubling him. she decided to bring it up. “Anything the matter?” Heather asked cautiously. He shook his head like he had been asleep and looked at her. “Huh? Oh…nothing really. I um…got a letter from your friend liana. I read it…I hope that’s ok.” She looked at him curiously. “Oh. Are you afraid ill be mad or something?” He looked down. “You might be after you read what it says.” He reached into his pocket and held out the envelope. She took it eagerly and began to read. She didn’t like what it said.

Dear Heather,
  You are my dearest friend and I’m sorry to say that I will be cutting all my ties with you. It pains me to do this but I don’t really have a choice. I am no longer aloud to talk to anyone anymore. I have to admit I'm scared now heather. The person who chose me wasn’t a student at all, in fact he was a recruiter for The Outsiders. I am now a part of this organization of outcast whether I want to be or not. I’m so sorry that I let you and my family down. I will never see you or them ever again. This is the only letter that will ever be sent from me. I really wish I could see you again but I don’t think that is a possibility. I hope you have a great life and meet lots of new friends and become a swords master. Live your life and accomplish your dream heather. Don’t give up and don’t worry about me. I’m strong and I will be alright. Believe it or not I'm learning things here and its really not all that bad. I admit that I wanted to be an archer more than anything, but its not going to happen now. Once again you are my best friend and I will never forget you. I love you Heather. More than my life and my dreams. Goodbye.
                             With love, hope, and deepest apologies,                                                                                                    Liana.
    Heather was crying when she finished the letter. Even the thought of never seeing her friend again was a nightmare. The Outsiders? What had liana done to deserve such a horrid life? Everyone knew the stories of The Outsiders. They were evil, they killed many people in the name of revenge against the chosen ones. Liana wasn’t like them, she couldn’t be, could she? It was a horrid thing to think that they were now enemies. All heather could do was fall to her knees and cry. She had been trying so hard to stay strong for her family…for liana. It was heartbreaking to hear news about liana like this. This was her last connection to her friend, and it was a goodbye letter. It wasn’t fair to heather or liana. But then again is life ever fair? As heather cried on the ground, tolomy put a hand on her shoulder. He didn’t know what she was going through, he had never lost a friend. He wasn’t dragged away from his family and put into a place where people chose his life and had no choice but to except it. He just stared at the ground, not sure of what to do. Losing her friend was one of the hardest things in Heathers life. Liana becoming an Outsider was the last thing she wanted as well.