For the reviewers of Fate’s Winds…

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The late spring sunshine poured in through the open window of the second story room, falling onto the bed that was next to the window and trickling onto the deep blue carpet that floored the room. A silver windchime hung in the window to catch any trace of a breeze that might chance to happen by on this lazy Saturday, although it had been still for much of the afternoon.

In the westmost room lay a blond teen, her icy hair falling into her face, veiling her blue-gray eyes. The thick notebook she was reading and – on occasion – writing in with a blue pen was resting on the neat white comforter. As she read, lips occasionally moving to form the words of some interesting tidbit, she stroked the three scars that decorated her left wrist, all of them fairly new; aquired within the past four years. The oldest was slightly darker than the rest, but not noticable so.

The eighteen-year-old woman was not as unconcious to the world around her, though, as one would have guessed from her relaxed posture. She looked up often, making it apparent that she was waiting for something.

She suddenly sat up, hair flying back as a gust of wind came in through the open window, causing the windchime to jangle brightly and her curtains to fly back. Blue eyes wide, she stood up and spread her arms with a spin, welcoming it. The wind flowed around her, through her as it imparted it’s news to the Guardian.

{You feel it?} it asked, concerned. She concentrated on the windowledge, looking to see the sylph she knew must be there. The slightly feminine figure reflected the attitude of the mental voice it touched her with; full of tension and worry.

{Yes,} Aria responded slowly in the mental form of speech that she used when addressing the Elemental creatures. If she didn’t, her mother would have been certain that she was completely insane, which she wasn’t. She just saw a few things that the average human didn’t. {It is time for the call to go out, for the Five to join. Soon?}

{No.} An impression of a few months passing. {This year, though.}

{So the five of us will meet. I just hope that there will be more peace between them then there was between Shadow and I.} The sylph merely gave the sensation of a chuckle as the wind blew through the leaves of the tall oak next to her window.

{It won’t work out,} it said blandly. She jolted, surprised. {There’s five of you, that leaves someone out,} the sylph shot at her as it left, leaving her ears and cheeks burning. Impish Elemental!

Well, then. So the call shall go out, and we shall finally meet, all five of us. Or perhaps we shall find the fourth and fifth of members of our iawyth on our journeys. But where should the three of us meet, at least initially?

Aria Davidson was a powerful figure, definitely not one to be trifled with. By the virtue of her magic, the birthright that Air had bestowed upon her when she was still in the womb, she was the Air’s’guardian, one of the five most potent forces in existence. She could wield the powers of Air, the raging storms, the tiny breeze, the essense of life. If she chose to do so, and had the time, will and personal power to do, she could quite possibly suck that force from an area, thereby killing the residents. But she was also a sage of sorts, and would have qualms about doing something like that.

And thanks to that endowment she was, by tradition, the highest-ranking Queen of the Gossip Chain, the international force that had no boundaries and answered to few. And by both of those gifts, she had permitted into the Homes of the secretive trayve’lair caids, the mythically allied humans who the gossips answered to. One of them – Shadow’s younger sister – had even gone to the extent of adopting her as vas’tray, one of the allies of both the Aelfen and trayve’lair caids.

That last thought gave her an idea. What better place to have the five Elemental Guardians meet than in the Home where she had discovered her own powers?

Locking her bedroom door so that her mother didn’t unwittingly enter to see her daughter preforming some estoric right, she donned the white cloak of the Air’s’guardian and fastened the silver clasp. Then she stood facing the western window, the direction of Air, and sent out her message.

The call, such as it was, was not phrased in words, or thoughts. It was a gut sensation, a feeling of importance, and a trigger for the Element that resided within the being, a trigger that would start the Element’s ability to slightly alter their wielder’s path. To alter the path to bring them to Cal’asan Home.

The other Guardians were suddenly jolted from whatever they had been doing at the time, all looking towards that one point where Aria rested, one city in the Western Cordillera of British Columbia. She directed their attention to the Home, where the point was fixed in their minds. Somehow, though it seemed unlikely, all five Guardians would meet, though they had most likely already forgotten. That was good, they were not meant to know their power before it evidenced itself.

Two of the other Guardians smiled, knowing the call for what it was. They had already come into their powers; they knew why they were being called. For one it would be a long journey, though the dragonchild would not miss the opportunity for all the gold in all the Worlds. She had long waited to meet another Guardian. The other smiled to himself, amused at Aria’s choice. There was no journey required of him; it was his home.

And four months later, they would finally come face-to-face.

But for now, Aria was going to go back to reading her Recorder Kali’s records on the principal’s school-day escapades. After the first few pages, she had reached the conclusion that if it ever came down to that, she could always bail one of her Chain out of trouble by quoting a phrase or two of this.

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So, I’m back with the second part of Fate’s Chosen. Hopefully I’ll get around to posting the first chapter before too long… but you can always speed up the process by reviewing. *coughcough*REVIEW!*coughcough*