Super Human

My dark hair streamed out behind me and my feet threaten to tangle together as I run and examine my luminous limbs at the same time,giggling and sputtering like someone high on marijuana.

"Ulrik I'm glowing! I feel like a night light or something!"

I finally catch up and fall into step beside him.That is,I try to,since one of his strides is about three of mine.I might as well still be running.

"You humans aren't very smart are you? I'm very aware of that fact,which is why I pointed it out to you," he remarked derisively and shakes his head slowly from side to side.

I lift my hands and examine them scant inches from my face.

They shimmer gold and I fight the urge to 'ooh and aah' like some brainless kid seeing his first magic trick.

"No need to be snarky."

"You make it terribly easy."

"I think you're just mean"

At this he snorts.

"And you are just such a delight yourself."

I shrug and look up at his profile as we walk through magically parting flowers.

"I give what I get."

He harrumphs at that and I latch my eyes onto my skin once more.

I glance at Ulrik to see if he's paying attention to me but he's gazing fixedly ahead.Alright,the coast is clear.

I just can't resist.

I peek at my chest under my nightgown and yup, everything is lit like a softly burning lamp.I smile like a loon.This is just way too cool.

"I'd kill for a mirror right now."

"What a moronic thing to kill for."

I roll my eyes.If I keep this up they might decide to permanently stare at my brain and not roll back around.

"Not literally Ulrik,I just want to see my eyes."

Another brief glance in my direction.

"The blue is fading,so is your aura."

Oh come on! I stop looking at myself for five seconds and something changes.He's right though,my skin is slowly returning to it's normal caramel toned hue.

"It's cuz I used my powers isn't it?"

"If you want me to believe you are at least a fairly intelligent life form you really must cease your constant stream of moronic questions."

"Yup, there's definitely no way you have a mother," I decided,nodding to myself.

He came to an abrupt stop.

"I beg your pardon?" His voice was lowered and vibrated with indignation.He obviously took serious offense.

I turned to face him,ready to fire off a scathing retort but his eyes....there was more than anger in them.There was pain.

I sighed,looked at my toes then back at him.Fiddled with my fingers.

"I'm sorry."

He blinked rapidly,caught off guard.He clearly didn't see that coming and visibly struggled to go from livid to gracious.

The apology shocked him back into walking and he cleared his throat awkwardly.

"My mother left my father and I when I was a wee cub.She did not particularly care for me."

I lifted my face to the now russet pink and burnt orange sky,felt a slight breeze stir my hair and gown.

"I'm sure she didn't leave because of you."

He twirled his staff absently in his left hand as we came closer to the little hill of boulders.

"She wrote a detailed letter expressing her disgust and loathing of motherhood."

What the lemon do I say to that?

"Oh." I avoid his face and stare at my feet.

"I don't blame her though,she was forced into this realm by my love struck father," he continues.

Now I do look at him.

"Your mother was from a different dimension?" A quick affirmative nod.

"Which one?"

"Yours."

Now it's my turn to come to a dead stop.

"You mean your mother was human?" I look up at him disbelievingly.

"Yes"

"Well that explains alot" I grumbled under my breath.I thought he just hated me but apparently he hates us all.

"What was that?"

"Nothing." I pick a daisy and bury my nose in it's center,look ahead once more.The boulder hill looks alot bigger than it did when I was above it.

"I do not consider myself as misanthropic"

Oh right,he can read my mind.

"What's the point in talking to you if you're just going to look inside my head?" I throw the daisy at him and he bats it away.

"You make your thoughts very easy to see.You have but to block me and I shall see them no more."

I raise my eyebrows and poke him in the side.

"You're kidding right? No way is it that easy."

He taunts me with a single raised brow.

"Try it," he challenged.

I narrow my eyes at him but stop for a moment to think of my brain enclosed within a high,brick and stone wall. He watches me silently with a straight face as I scream insults at him in my head.I call him a ugly wart hog frankenstein reject.Tell him his ass looks like a dried up prune and his nuts are probably shriveled raisins.I tell him his breath smells like a rat crawled in his mouth and died and that he was the most hideous caricature of 'Shrek' ever imaginable.

No reaction.

"Well, I'll be damned" I smiled at him and skipped a few steps.

"I take that to mean you are satisfied," he concluded behind me.

I turn to face him and skip backwards.

"Darn tootin'" I grin at him and resume my half-run walk by his side.

"Wait,if your mom was human then you're half human!"

"Correct." He said it stiffly and started to fiddle with his staff again.

"Ha,so haven't you been the proverbial pot calling the kettle black all day?"

"Why in Glob's green Opa are you talking about cooking utensils?" He asked in confusion.

"Nevermind.I mean you shouldn't be giving me so much crap when you're human too."

"I am not human!" He explodes.

"Chill,big guy,half human then"

"I have renounced my human half and acknowledge only my Finder half."

"So your dad is a Finder too?"

"Was.He is dead."

"Man life has just been kicking your ass hasn't it? Can't catch a break,huh?" I pat his arm sympathetically while he looks at me as if I've grown two heads.

He lifts my hand off him by the tip of my middle finger as if it's a Noir snake about to bite him.Apparently he doesn't do well with tactile displays of affection.

"Man,a shrink would have a field day with you."

"I do not wish to be shrunk nor spend time in a field"

Yup,you guessed it.

Facepalm.

"A psychiatrist! You're a walking wet dream of emotional issues."

"My emotions are well guarded and as such,I have no issues with them."

I shake my head,this is getting me nowhere.

I try a different approach.

"How did your dad die?"

"My mother killed him." It just gets better and better.

You mean she murdered him then abandoned you?"

"She killed him just as surely as if she stabbed him in the heart for he died of a broken one," he clarified.

I look at my feet again and my hair curtains my flaming face.I was never good at dealing with emotionally painful admissions.

"Oh," This is pretty heavy stuff.I can hear a well of suppressed hurt in his voice and my heart bled a little for baby Ulrik.

He opens his mouth to reply but a loud wooshing sound like a powerful wave battering a shore fills the air and a strong breeze knocks me to the ground.Ulrik braces his feet against the buffeting wind and looks behind us,where the sound came from.

He mutters a curse,reaches down to where I'm scrambling to my feet and slung me over his shoulder then breaks into a full on run.It was like being thrown unto a slab of ridged wood.

"Ow! That hurts! Ulrik put me down!"

I slammed my fists against his back,forgetting it would be like punching iron.

"Dammit you big jerk,put me-" I lifted my head from where it dangled and bounced at his back and the reason for his caveman throw became clear.The meadow was being.... absorbed into a monstrously gaping,swirling green hole.It was an incredible thing to behold.All those beautiful flowers,the lush grass,being swallowed up into a vast expanse of dark green nothingness.The hole looked like a tornado on it's side, rapidly eating up the earth,sucking up the plants,drawing everything into it's cavernous mouth.I could see the blooms spinning within the midst of the cyclone and I could feel the tremendous pull it emitted.I quit fighting and urged Ulrik to run.

"Faster Ulrik,run!"

He grunted in answer and dug deep for an extra gust of speed.We sped past my still smoking stone hill and my eyes remained glued to what must be this world's version of a black hole.Ulrik was fast but it was faster,coming inexorably towards us,the idyllic meadow disappearing before my eyes.I couldn't tear my gaze away.My heart hammered inside my chest and I could barely breathe,I was being suffocated by my fear.How many times in one day can a person almost die?