July 15, 1990
Coralis and Nadilla were excited. They were about to go shopping for their school supplies. Their list wasn't long, but there were so many books on it, that they hoped that none of them were heavy: they had no one to help carry them to school or across the mall.
As promised, Vallia met with them a few times during the year. Coralis wasn't sure if it helped because she ignored the other kids to avoid getting into conflicts. The trial and the weeks before it were a little more challenging, but Roberto gave her something to suppress her emotions during that month: it wasn't healthy, but they couldn't risk any incident at the courthouse or with the authorities. He made sure that Vallia met with Coralis when the elixir wore off.
Ms. Wagner wasn't too keen about letting a 10-year-old girl go shopping alone with a 9-year-old, but Roberto had filed the correct paperwork to grant them permission to be out for the day and made sure that a driver would pick them up and drive them back. He also instructed the girls on what to do when they got there. Neither of them were humans, so they didn't need someone to accompany them there, even if they had been raised among humans.
None of them were talking while they waited for their driver. They both had a big smile plastered on their face, but they didn't want to risk anyone overhearing their conversation. Roberto said that their driver would be an elemental, so they figured it was best to wait until they were in the car.
A few minutes before 10:00, their ride arrived and they quickly rushed out of the building and into the car.
"FINALLY!" said Nadilla. "I'm so excited! For nearly the entire year, we kept hearing about this other world, now we will get to see it!"
"Yeah, it's about time. I wonder what it will be like. I'm still confused about all this."
"Me too, but we will learn. We will be fine," said Nadilla. "But first, remember what Roberto said: we need to see our banker to access our money and accounts."
"Yes, that's true," said Coralis, as she started thinking about something else. "He also said that my parents had storage units in London and Alexandria, but he wasn't the one who could tell me how to get the keys to access them."
"I'm also supposed to have one somewhere, in a town called Alma. I don't even know where that is. Hopefully, the banker can tell us more about it. I think it is strange that Roberto couldn't give us our storage keys if he is in charge of our parents' will," mused Nadilla.
"Everything is strange. All we know about our parents is that they worked for bad people, got killed because of it and left us everything they had. But remember Nad, I will be going to the same school they went to so I'll find out more. Maybe the banker knows about the storage units, but if not, someone at school probably will know something."
"Oh yeah, true! We didn't think about asking our elemental guardians when we met them last week, but I'm sure Roberto and Vallia know more than what they are telling us. They didn't tell us which school your dad went to, maybe he went to mine."
Coralis looked at her cousin, deep in thought. She didn't realize the car had stopped in the middle of an alley.
"There you are girls," said the driver. "You see that metal door there, without a handle? Knock on it 4 times, and it will open. My advice: do it together so that it registers both your essences, instead of just one. That way, next time you come here, neither of you will have to knock"
"Hmm thanks!" said Coralis. "How did you know this is our first time coming here?"
"Besides your excitement when climbing in the car, about seeing it for the first time? I know where I picked you up. Two young elemental children in an orphanage type of place, with a pick-up order coming from the CMMA? You might be full-blooded mages, but there is no way you came here before… unless you're seers and somehow saw that place in a dream."
Coralis and Nadilla looked at each other. Seer. They both wondered what else was real.
"I recognize that look on your face," continued the driver. "I will pick you up here in exactly 6 hours. I understand that our world might be overwhelming for you, as you were raised in a world where mages and elves aren't real. If you have questions, I will gladly answer them on the way back to where you reside."
"You're an elf?" said Coralis and Nadilla.
"Yes, I am, young ladies."
"Oh!" said Nadilla while glancing at Coralis. "Then sure, we probably will have questions. I thought you were also an elemental mage like us… but with a slightly blueish skin."
"Nope! I'm an elemental, yes, but an elemental elf. You can call me Petaan. I'm surprised you can see through my glamour; younglings your age shouldn't be able to see my true skin colour. That being said, I will not keep you here any longer. Go have fun, I will see you later!"
"See you later!" said Coralis.
The girls got out of the car and following their driver's instructions, they entered the elemental mall.
They looked around in awe. They realized they probably looked like zombies, looking up and everywhere without paying attention to where they were going. Everything was so colourful, with a lot of glitter floating in the seemingly never-ending ceiling. A few minutes later, Nadilla accidentally bumped into a shopper and released a small scream. Coralis abruptly stopped walking to see what happened, and felt her jaw-dropping when her eyes landed on a 4-meter-tall man with greyish skin.
"Sorry… sir…" said Nadilla. She didn't know if she should be afraid and wished she could be invisible. "First time here, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going."
The troll looked down at her, visibly annoyed, but said nothing. He just went around her and walked away.
"Oof, I wonder what that was. We need to remember what he looked like so we can ask Petaan about it," said Coralis. "Anyway, let's find the banker first, then we can figure out where to go next. Plus, I am hungry, so I also want to get something to eat. We have 6 hours, let's make the best of it!"
It didn't take long for them to find where their parents' bank was located. The employee, a short fay, told them that they needed an appointment to see a banker. The girls told him they had been specifically instructed to come here first, so they assumed it meant they already had an appointment. The employee rechecked his records.
"Oh! Yes, I see your names now. My apologies, I usually don't see clients that young and it is, clearly, your first time here," said the employee. "Hmm, both of you are here for an official transfer of assets to heirs, but I see you have different last names… were you supposed to be seen together or separately?"
"I don't know, but we're cousins. It's fine either way," said Coralis.
Like the employee, the banker was also a short fay. It was fairly common for fay families to run financial establishments.
The banker explained the extent of their respective family assets. Coralis' mother and Nadilla's father were brother and sister but they had four other siblings. Roberto had already told them that there was no family estate listed in their wills, but he didn't know about the specifics of their assets. All he knew, was that it was of a substantial value. He wasn't lying when he claimed the girls wouldn't have to worry about anything financially. Between investments and savings, each had at their disposal over $2M.
They took nearly an hour to discuss how they wanted to use the funds. The girls didn't know a thing about the economy or how expensive things were in their new world. They agreed to keep $200,000 each as pocket money and reinvest the rest in short and long-term investments. The banker told Coralis that her family also had a safe in one of their London branches, so she would have to travel there to retrieve its contents. He couldn't tell her what was in it. As for Nadilla, she would need to go to their Alma's branch for her parents' safe.
Neither of them had any idea of what their family could have in a safe located in a bank, but they hoped that their storage keys were there. They knew their family was involved with the wrong type of people and that's what got them killed. They were wondering if they would also find cursed objects there or gold bars.
They went from shop to shop and tried to taste all the food they saw. They didn't want to keep track of the time, but they knew they had to. They were glad the trial was over, but they lost their case, so the last thing they wanted was to raise any type of attention to their home administrators. They just wanted to blend in so well in their current home, that nobody knew they were there. Ten minutes before they had to be picked up, they stood outside, waiting for their ride.
"That was fun," started Nadilla. "We'll have to do this again. I don't know how, because we will not go to the same school… but we will have to find a way."
"Yeah, for sure! Next summer?"
As they were chatting, a bright yellow car pulled over close to where they stood. The driver rolled down the passenger side window.
"Are you coming in?"
The girls looked at each other. It was Petaan, but in a different car, so they climbed in.
"Hello again, sir," said Coralis. "Hmm, where do we put all the stuff we bought?"
"Please, call me Petaan. I believe I will also be picking you up to drive you to the airport," he said, getting out of the car. He went to the trunk, opened it, and started to place their purchases in there. "Did you manage to find everything?"
"Yes, I think we did", said Coralis. "We got what was on the list, both the mandatory and the optional stuff, but we don't know if there are other stuff that elementals our age usually bring to school."
On the drive back, the girls remembered to ask about the tall grey-skinned creature they ran into when they arrived and were amazed to hear it was a troll. They were about to start questioning about elves when Petaan pulled by their home.
"Well, that was a pleasure to meet you both," said Petaan, looking at them. "I'll see you both in a month to drive you to the airport. I was told that I will pick up Nadilla on August 21st, and Coralis on August 26th."
He then climbed out of the car and went to empty the trunk. The girls didn't know how they would carry all of it to their room. They used floating carts when they were at the mall. Petaan noticed their thinking expressions as he was about to pick up the first bag. The girls had bought a few suitcases, but they didn't put anything in them.
"Oh! Yeah, I guess it will be tricky for you to bring all this stuff inside without raising any attention." He looked around to make sure no one was watching from any direction, closed the trunk, waited a minute with his eyes shut, and opened the trunk back. He pulled out of it two medium-sized brown bags. "There you go little ladies, everything you bought is within these two bags."
The girls were amazed. They had no idea how Petaan did that, but they hoped they would learn how to at school. They thanked him, then turned around and went inside their home.
The following week, they met again with their respective elemental guardian. Ludovic Bramman, a retired janitor, was going to watch over Nadilla. In the elemental world, a janitor does more than just clean up places: they are the first ones on the field to detect suspicious activities. Ms. Martha was going to look for Coralis. She was a potion teacher at the school she was going to attend, in Scotland.