CH.1- SNOW AND SIBLINGS

Chapter 1
     Aaron sighed heavily. Did she HAVE to go to school? School was a desolate playground for bullies, jocks and preps. All of them being more knowledge deprived than the first. All of them waiting around the corner, waiting for her to come...
    Arron snapped awake from her thoughts as a chilly wind blew through the bus stop. The cold wind blew her blackish hair from her brown eyes, as she stared intently down the road. She shuddered. If there was one thing she could possibly hate more than bullies, it was the cold. The chilly mid-December air gnawed it's way through her jacket, raising goosebumps on her skin. She wrapped her arms around herself, watching her breath leave puffs of mist in the air. As she stood there in the early morning darkness, she began to notice small flecks of white, slowly making their way to the ground. Their gentle motion, mixed with the darkness and cold air made Aaron's eyelids heavy, and sag half closed. The gentle puffs were snow. That she was sure of. They had been falling since she left to the stop....
Their slow fall became steadily faster. Bits of it came to pile atop the pine branches that towered above her, slowly creating a shelter. No doubt she would have plenty of cover, she did live far out into the woods, after all. Groggy with sleep, Arron was sure she could see an incoming figure. She assured herself since it was coming from the wrong road, it was one of the few people who lived there heading to town for work, not the bus. She opened her eyes long enough to realize, it was no longer snowing, rather, than the fact it was sleeting.  The approaching vehicle, as it turned out, belonged to her older brother,Derick. A single hand-polished window rolled down, revealing his sandy blonde locks and friendly smile.
     "Hey, Mrs.Snowman! Want a ride?"
      he teased. Arron grinned, and cupped her mitted hands around her mouth for a louder reply,
     "You actually wanna drive me to school? That's a good joke, but it's not that amusing after several tries!"she called back. In his sleek, new, heated silver car he shrugged.
     "I'm not offerin' you a ride to school, I'm offerin' you a ride home."
     Arron frowned.
     "what about school? It's Thursday!"  she shouted. She looked over the horizon- she could see a larger patch of clouds where light was illuminating the sky. It was sunrise! she got her at 5- how long had she been standing there?!
     " Schools been snowed out."  he shouted from the road.
"Home or icicle, what'll it be?"
     Arron grinned happily, and trudged through the snow to his car. She plopped into the passenger side seat up front, throwing him a goofy grin. He stared with a devastated expression at his floorboard, where the snow had left Arron's boots wet and muddy. Streaks ran along the bottom of the door, making him that much more upset.
     "aww... I just had that washed.." he moped. Arron shrugged,"then you can have them washed again. It was your idea to pick me up. Now, home!! It's a snow day, I'm not gonna waste it here!"

But lightyears from even that galaxy, beyond the limits that one could have thought the bounds of space reached, the mood was otherwise. Takaro, the current heir to the Drakia throne, knelt at a crystal altar, paying tribute to her sister. Inside the most prominent structure, a crystal case, was her sisters body. Her eyes stared open, expressionless, their mahogany brown irises piercing through the space before her. A slow, somber breath slowly drew in and out, but she did not move. Her dark hair was matted to her face, her freckled cheeks dotted with bits of sweat, where there weren't any hardening bits of skin where her ancestors would have had scales. Takaro stood, giving her twin a level look, as if expecting her to spring forth from the encasement, and to bid her hello.
But she did not move. Takaro took a deep breath, drawing in the heavy underground air. Ever since the Hai had taken seizure of their land, they had begun a vast tunnel system, and now that was all they had. They developed large underground cities, boring into whole canyons of dark bustling survivors. The blackness was illuminated by bioluminescent crystals, and fire walkers; Drakia hired to walk the streets with blue fire in their hands, a skillful form of magic. Fire was their pride, like any dragon before them.
     She rose to exit the cavern where her sisters entombment chamber was. Her black robes brushed along the cold, wet stone. As much as they all hated it, there had to always be water or the heat would become unbearable. The cold always made them tired, but underground everything was far warmer. As she neared the mouth of the cave, she turned back, and focused her gaze near the entrance. In a speed that would have made any human jump, blue bioluminescent crystals jutted out from the surface, concealing the chamber. Passing through a small labyrinth of halls and passages, she stood overlooking the blackness of the largest refugee city in the side of the canyon, Deptani, taking in it's beauty underneath the starlit sky.
     Back on earth, Arron was curled up in her living room on the couch, watching movies, drinking hot cocoa, and eating popcorn whilst buried under a mound of blankets. With school snowed out, all she had to do was sit back and relax. If she was lucky, school could be snowed out tomorrow as well! Even if she did hate the cold, she had to admit it had it's good moments.