1 Wishin' and Hopin'

Up, down, up, down. My eyes followed the colorful little stress ball that I threw in the air from the comfort of my bed. The summer has only just begun and I already found myself bored out of my mind. Although, I was counting down the minutes until what could possibly be the most important day of my life.

In just three days would be the annual Choosing Ceremony. Any kid to turn 16 that year, living on our island of Visayas, was to test their abilities. For centuries there has been an ancient rock wall, just at the edge of the village, that holds seven gems embedded in the stone. Each color gem represents a different gift.

Red represents the elemental power of fire, blue represents water, green is earth/nature, and purple is air, which is the most common for kids to possess. Then there are the less common ones including, the black stone which represents the ability to manipulate the mind, the white that renders the power to shape-shift, and finally the rarest of gems, the gold, bestowing one with the ability to connect and communicate with dragons. There are endless possibilities when it comes to the gems, when placing your hand against the wall during the ceremony, any stone could light up depicting your ability, some even have two that glow. Although, most are unlucky and get none at all.

To most, dragons are our natural-born enemies, as there is little we can do to defend ourselves against their power. The dragon riders though are a special kind, they were born to tame a dragon and protect us from the rest. Those who do receive a gift on the day of the ceremony are then taken to the Calayan Academy where they learn over time about their powers and how to control them, and it is not until they get there that they truly learn how to ignite and develop them.

So here I am, lying in my bed, wasting away the days until Friday. I threw the ball up once again before the sound of a bird darting through my open window scared me, resulting in dropping the ball on my face. Rubbing my nose I got off my bed and retrieved the small beige scrap of paper from the bird's claw and read a scribble from one of my close friends, Emerson.

"We're all meeting at the cove in an hour, bring Thea as well." he requested.

Still sitting in my pajamas and only having an hour to get ready I quickly ran to tell my sister, Thea, and then rushed to the shower. After only about ten minutes I stepped out of the steaming hot shower and dried myself off. Feeling like I was dry enough I wrapped the worn-down towel around my body and walked to my room, closing the wooden door behind me.

My room wasn't much, I had a small twin sized bed that sat in the very middle of it, a wooden trunk that held my few clothes, and a wooden desk that had a decent-sized oval mirror leaned on the top of it against the wall. Ruffling around in the trunk I settled on some ripped shorts, and one of my baggy tees. Moving quickly, I sat in front of the dirty mirror to braid my hair. It was a mess, the long blonde, nearly white strands were wet and tangled, but I managed to get it done with a lot of brushing. My eyes looked tired today, the usually bright shade of green seemed dull and I blame that on my lack of sleep due to excitement for Friday. After finally brushing my teeth, I grabbed the pocket knife that I usually carried on me and walked over to Thea's room.

"Hey, you ready?" I asked as I took a seat on her bed. Her room wasn't much different than mine, other than just being a tad bigger.

"Yeah, just let me finish brushing my hair," she replied from the seat she was stationed in front of her mirror.

Thea had wavy brown hair and warm brown eyes. She is a petite girl, looking younger than me even though we are the same age, me only being older by a couple of months. We aren't biological sisters, her parents had adopted me at the age of two. When I was only a baby both my parents had unfortunately passed in a house fire caused by the dragons and with her parents being such close friends to mine, they thought it was only right to take me in and raise me as their own, which I am grateful for.

Once Thea had finished her hair we both made our way to the kitchen. "We're heading out to the cove. We'll be back in a couple of hours," I said to our parents as I grabbed myself a glass of water.

"Alright, and I have a meeting up at the hall so I'll be back in an hour," our father chimed in.

Our dad was what you could call the chief of the island, the position has been passed down in their family for generations, as they had a long line of powerful individuals. Her grandfather is one of the greatest manipulators of the mind to date and also the head of the Calayan Academy, and our father possesses all four of the elemental powers. This also made this Choosing Ceremony particularly important. The island's future leader would be finding out what possible abilities she could possess, which means that everyone is wanting to be there to witness it. If you ask me, it's a lot of pressure for a person.

"Well, we will see you later," Thea smiled and we made our way.

After only a short walk through our forest trail, Thea and I snuck through the little space behind a boulder to enter the cove. The two of us and four of our other friends were the only ones who know about this place. Or at least we think we are. A couple of summers back we had been playing a game of manhunt in the woods when I decided to hide behind this boulder and came across what we call the cove. Now it's one of our favorite places to go. We made our way through the short path until we reached the opening to see Emerson, Booker, Keegan, and Rowen already sitting on a couple of rocks down below.

"About time you two got here!" Keegan yelled to us as we approached.

"We were just talking about the Choosing Ceremony," Emerson added in as we took a seat.

"Are you guys excited?" I asked, ignoring Keegan's previous comment. They all nodded.

"I'm kind of nervous at the same time," Thea confessed.

"Why?" Rowen questioned, not taking his eyes off of the book he was currently enthralled with.

"What do you mean why?" I questioned back. "I'm nervous too, there's a possibility that we won't get an ability at all, and then we will just be stuck here forever," I stated.

"Would that be so bad?" Booker asked.

"I don't know about you, but I'm not really excited about sticking around to just raise a bunch of kids and be a housewife," I said. I think part of my insecurities came from the unknowing. I don't think anyone really expected anything of me with this Choosing Ceremony because I came from a family that didn't have any spectacular powers, nor did I really even know my biological family to expect what could possibly come of myself. Although I think more than anything, I wanted to get out of Visayas so bad because deep down I knew that I wasn't going anywhere.

"What power do you think you'd be most likely to get?" Keegan asked the group as a whole, noticing the tension and trying to revert the subject to something more positive. With that said everyone began to think, but in all honestly, we've been daydreaming about it for years.

"I think I'll get the elemental power of water," Emerson stated, "I honestly should have been born a fish. I love it so much."

"Didn't you almost drown when you were like six?" Booker raised an eyebrow, questioning him.

"Yes, but that's beside the point," Emerson shook his head. That caused a chain reaction of laughter.

"I'm feeling a real connection to the manipulation of the mind," Keegan then spoke up.

"Alright what am I thinking?" Emerson asked.

"Um… hmm… give me a second," she stared at him intently and I had to keep myself from laughing.

"You're thinking that… you're a dipshit," she concluded and once again there was an uproar of laughter.

After a while of just goofing around and some swimming in the small pond that sat in the middle of the cove, we decided to head back to the village.

"Okay I'll see you guys on Friday," Rowen yelled and we all said our goodbyes to each other before splitting up and heading off into our houses.

We all lived fairly close together and living on an island with a small number of people, to begin with, brought the six of us pretty close together. Ever since we were kids we have been friends and nearly everyone in the town knew of our group. Even though I am practically sisters with Thea, I would consider myself closest with Keegan and Rowen.

Our group was an odd mix of personalities, but they just seem to work. Keegan and Emerson have the slightly more annoying personalities, they are always the loudest in the room and need to be the center of attention with their jokes, but you can't help but love them. Thea is quite the 'girly girl' that tends to use us as her sense of adventure, but I think her maturity stems from her obligation to follow in her family's footsteps. Rowen has more of a mature personality as well, more so in a way where he is very book smart, but he could be very funny at times, he is good with one-liners. Then there is Booker who is your typical jock looking type and he falls under his stereotype, but he can also be a real sweetheart as well. I guess for myself, I could be classified as more of a tomboy who is probably the most adventurous of the bunch, but then again a person can't really describe themselves properly to others.

So that's our group, the most diverse personalities that just seem to work, making a great friendship. It's gonna be a shame that in two days there is a possibility we could all be split up.