Loralle, Her Journey Chapter 3 part2

CHAPTER 3 (Part two)

For Loralle, that was the best piece of help, as she found that the earth around her was cooling her down. While she waited for her body temperature to drop, she tried to consider what would happen to her.

Letting out a chuckle, she shook her head. Wasn't it obvious? She wasn't that stupid!

The magma will burn me...But will it be worse...Considering that I will be asking for my third approval?

Loralle took some deep breaths in worry. She hadn't used other powers to help protect herself in the last two trials...If she was to use them...

Scratching her head, she was quite worried. The elements obviously seem to hate each other, so using them to help her survive this trail...Wouldn't it be worse?

Then what was she to do?

Binding earth around her arm, mixed with some water, she felt her arm get cooler then what the rest of her body was...

Loralle blinked, then put her other arm on fire. She tried to make the fire to the highest degree that she could employ and touched her earth-bound arm.

Really...This didn't answer any of my questions...

Sighing, to see no change to her earth-bound arm, she knew that the magma would be much hotter than this. What she had done just now...Was just waste her time...Not that she wasn't used to wasting time...She just wished she knew what she could do to make her feel better.

Nothing would have happened to her earth-bound arm, because her powers in earth and water were stronger than that of her fire power.

Getting her arms back to normal, she continued to sit there.

Deciding that it was a good chance to eat and sleep, she closed the cave only to have a small gap for the air to flow freely in, then covered herself with an earth and water blanket to keep her cool.

Yes, resting was a great idea! Thinking of trying to overcome something difficult, really did tire her and she fell asleep quite quickly.

***

Loralle woke up a few hours later and stretched. She was a little hotter now, as the water around her had evaporated.

Sighing, she could see an upcoming, tricky situation…Nonetheless, she opened the cave, to have a blast of hot air come at her.

Checking the earth, to see that nobody could see where she was, she left still sitting.

There was only one way to find out how to overcome the trail of the fire power...And that was to go to the top and check it out personally...Well, that was the decision she came too anyway.

As she raced there, heat became a problem extremely quickly and she covered her whole self with a wet, earth bound to cool herself down. With only a couple of holes, to see through and breath, Loralle let out a small quick chuckle to what she must look like right now...But her laughter held a hint of worry. It was a small attempt to cool her thoughts down, but it hadn't worked, she was starting to breath quicker, due to knowing what was up ahead.

She wasn't even there yet and she found herself scared.

It would be much easier to give up...Why am I doing this anyway?

But before doubts could make too much of a nest in her thoughts, she was already at the top of the volcano.

I'm not ready...

Seeing very little, because of the earth surrounding her, she admitted to her fear. Why hadn't I felt this much fear with the others? How had I overcome them?

Laughing uncomfortably, she felt that she was crazy. What in the world am I doing!? I...Must be crazy! Just like they had said at the defences!

It was, at this moment, that she tipped the earth...To drop herself into the magma.

That's right! Bring it on! She yelled in her head. Didn't I stop a war so that I could figure things out!?

As she fell, she concentrated on her earth bound that covered her body. As she focused on that, she tried to stay calm...But, who would be able to stay calm knowing you're just about to fall into a pit of magma? Yes, Loralle was freaking out!

Hitting the magma nearly evaporated half of the earth bound that was around her straight away and her clothes turned to ash, leaving her naked.

Slowly, she started to sink in the hot magma, feeling the most heated she had ever been in her whole life. Feeling the earth-bound fall completely apart when she had been half taken into the magma, she felt her skin start to fall apart.

Loralle could not help but let out a hopeless, agonizing scream.

Unmoving, so to look for acceptance of fire, Loralle did try to use earth and water to cover herself, but it came to no use.

Her head was sinking in now and she couldn't feel the rest of her body. With a last ditched effort to save her life, she tried to cover herself with fire instead. Although it hurt her tremendously, she could feel her body again. Her own fire was something that she was immune to, but it was losing fight rapidly. She, now totally sunken, could only put her own fire power to extend one millimetre out everywhere on her body to fight the vicious magma.

It was such a fight that she had forgotten why she had gone there in the first place!

When the same words, but different voice came, it had startled her. "The element known as fire accepts you. From now on, you will not know the fire vengeance!"

Loralle was moved up by the magma and at the same time it cooled down, making it go hard and black around her.

Her limbs couldn't move, flesh had been seared off and she heard herself yelling coarsely and tears were streaming down her face.

Using up all her effort, Loralle moved herself away from the magma and back onto the earth. Barely staying awake, she tried to get away from the heat, as far as she could!

Breathing heavily and seeing her vision unable to focus, she only managed to get a few metres away.

Before passing out, all she could do, was cover herself with another earth and water bound before darkness swept through her.

If she hadn’t survived such harsh circumstances since young, she wouldn’t have made it thus far. Due to her extreme will to survive…Loralle had used up everything she had! Thinking about using the fire power...Had saved her life!

But…For a millennium…She has become the most powerful person on the continent of Mondal! People thought she was powerful before…To create a long bottomless pit between the Fire and Water Tribes…Now, she has the power to destroy this whole continent of Mondal!

***

In the weeks that followed, Loralle couldn't move from that place on top of the volcano. All she could do was rebuild her earth and water bound every time she was conscious.

Another few more weeks past and finally, Loralle could move further away. This time she travelled to half way down the mountain, making it to the cave, so that she could recuperate yet again.

All this time her flesh was covered by her earth and water bound. The pain had been so severe that she had passed out many, many times and it was still stinging continuously. There were many times that she thought that death would be a release from this kind of torturous, agonizing pain...

What she was unable to tell was, how much longer she will still have to keep using a earth and water bound over her, as most of her skin had been burnt off...Her body was just holding itself together.

Feeling sorry for herself, she fell asleep again, due to exhaustion.

It was lucky that she had the power of water, at least she didn't die of dehydration. Food was another problem...She had grown very weak, due to malnutrition, and only had enough strength to have eaten a few times in the last couple of weeks. Now that she was in the cave, she slowly could eat more, using the earth to get anything from close by. Even though she still was naked inside of her earth bound, she got clothes already to put on, in hope to use them again.

Actually, Loralle had a lot of hope. Not only to wear clothes again and be released by the earth bound, but also to leave the cave again!

Her hope went as far as obtaining the other two powers, without dying!

That people no longer acted through the elemental’s vengeance!

That she no longer beared the leader role and that the Water Tribe would continue without her.

She hoped, very sincerely, that she could work all this out, that the people will become free.

Through her tears of pain now, she never wanted to forget this moment. So, that she shouldn’t become greedy for power, nor let hate to control her.

Must never forget this moment…!

On one occasion, while she was still in the cave...The earth stole somebody's whole dinner from an inn, at the bottom of the volcano...It was the first laugh Loralle had since before being approved by the fire power.

Of course, by the time it got to her, the dinner was cold...So, she heated it up with her newly doubled fire powers.

A few more weeks passed by, without Loralle moving from her cave and in these days the protectors of the Water Tribal village had finally found her earth house in the middle of the vast desolate wasteland in between the Fire and Water Tribal villages.

They saw the strange earth mound of fresh, green grass close by, that now had grown to be as big as the menacing lake...But they didn't question it at all...

Their astonishment glances led them inside the house and they shook their heads in amazement. At one point, they shook their heads in embarrassment instead...They saw an earth 'person' looking like it was waving towards the exit of the earth house...

What had been strange to them, though, was that they no longer felt sick about her powers, as they once did.

When she had been accepted by the earth element, all who knew of her earth power no longer felt disgusted by her having had used it. They still did not want to learn more about it or try it, but they had accepted, and some even praised, that she had used it.

And now...That she had been accepted by the fire element, the protectors no longer felt any sickness towards their leader and her using the water, earth or fire powers! Which felt strange to them, because they still very much hated any other that used the fire power...

But...They were still furious that their great leader had disappeared!

Taking the great earth house for granted, as they had hardly rested and had come here at full speed, they decided to rest and eat.

The next day, they picked up the left behind tracks of their leader and they followed them...

***

Chapter end