Sunday, October 23, 2005

   Chapter 14: Girls (part 2)
Since the boat was so light, it took only the combined strength of Lucifer and Ed to carry it up to the river. Yatii and Pen took the paddles and followed them. They were one of the first groups to cast off from the shore; they had been closest to the river.
Pen noticed that the girls pushed off into the river only a minute after they did. For a minute, he and Yatii stopped paddling, allowing the two boats to drift side-by side.
“Hi Pen!” Tory called cheerfully.
Lucifer looked mildly surprised. “You know each other?” he asked, holding on tightly to Sasheeta to keep her from flying on his head again.
“I’m Tory,” she said. “I also grew up in the Archives.”
“So did I!” added her lavender-haired elf-friend. “My name is Lynley.”
“I’m Tari,” said the skinny angel with pale gray-blue-tipped wings. “Well, actually Tarinsa, but you can call me Tari.” She had always seemed to have a smile in her dark brown eyes, even if she wasn’t. But when she did smile, as she was at that moment, everything about her seemed light and cheerful and glittering with youthful happiness.
The one with the pink wings was also smiling. “I’m Aurora,” she told them, gently dipping the paddle into the river to make their boat turn more sideways so that they could see the boys better.
“I’m Pen,” the black-eyed boy said carelessly, refusing to meet their friendly gazes by averting his eyes to the paddle in his hands.
“Lucifer,” Lucifer said to introduce himself. He, even more than the other three boys, seemed to enjoy the girls’ company and did not seem reluctant at all to be friends with them.
“I’m Yatii.”
“Edward, or just Ed.”
“Raine,” said the half-dragon, brushing a silver bang back from his face.
“Do you want to travel together?” Lucifer asked them without hesitation. “I’d certainly like some conversation along the trip.”
“Sure!” Tari exclaimed.
“Yeah,” agreed Tory. She was dismayed by the way Pen had broken out of the conversation already, but she decided that it was best not to force him, so she said nothing about it.
“Once you’re in the water,” Panda yelled, interrupting and flying low overhead on Keion, “get moving right away! You don’t want the current to pull you further downstream!”
At his words, Pen, Yatii, Aurora, and Tory immediately turned their boats back around and started paddling across the wide stretch of the Acheron. They found that they had to steer to the left constantly to keep the current from making them miss the entrance of the Lethe.
The inlet to the smaller river came closer, the last slivers of fog disappearing before them. As the mountains reared up on both sides, Pen felt almost like he going into a hall of rock. Ahead of them, the edges of the mountains were cleanly cut away by many thousands of years of flowing water. The cliffs became taller the further in to the river they traveled, and the stone was smooth as glass.
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