[Flashback] First Meeting (Telos)

[Quelen Dran'Sora]

Season of Summer, Day 46, 501 AV

Holding the small piece of coral between her hands Quelen concentrated on it like the teacher had instructed. Lips squeezed tight and eyes narrowed she tried to focus on the feeling of the coral, touching it with her mind and asking it to move like she had been told about for the last few days. Concentrating as hard as she could on the piece of red coral she asked it to move just a tiny bit.

Ever so slowly, slow enough Quelen thought it might be her eyes tricking her again, the coral bent and stretched, and after a few chimes the broken ring of coral had been reconnected. Eyes widening in delight she held up the piece of coral high above her head, "I did it!"

"Good job Quelen," the teacher replied with a smile, "But class ended five chimes ago."

"Oh," Quelen gave a little embarrassed giggle, and then kicked up into the water with a twirl, "See you tomorrow then!"

Waving goodbye to the teacher Quelen swam off away from school, clutching the ring of red coral tight in her left hand. She'd finally gotten it to move! She couldn't wait to get home and show her parents, and her siblings, and her friends!

[Telos]

Season of Summer, Day 46, 501 AV

Telos was usually bold. It wasn't like him to be shy. But this Charoda girl was a year older than him and for some reason he was having trouble working up the nerve to go talk to her. He hid behind a large rock on the ocean floor, watching as she passed him. He had watched as she struggled with the coral lesson. Telos was pretty good with coral. Maybe he could help her, he thought.

She was swimming away. He would be too late to catch her if he didn't come out now. So he kicked off of the rock and swam quickly after her with dolphin strokes.

"Hey," He tried to say, but all that came out was a croak and a few bubbles. Clearing his throat, he tried again. "Hey," He sang out in the musical Char language.

[Quelen Dran'Sora]

Hearing someone call out Quelen turned her head and glanced back at the light blue skinned boy. Instead of stopping and turning around she kept swimming at full speed, arching her body so she circled around and was swimming straight at the boy. When she got close to him she bent backwards and twirled with her arms held out to slow her momentum so she stopped in front of the boy, but facing the wrong direction.

Giggling she swirled her arms and legs to turn herself around so she was facing him properly, "Hi! I'm Quelen," she smiled brightly at the boy, her head tilted to the side slightly, "What's your name? You look familiar, you're going to school too, right?"

[Telos]

Taken aback but also reassured by the girl's friendliness, Telos responded, "Yes. I...I just saw you practicing with the coral with your teacher. Do you want any help? My mother's an artist and she loves making art sculptures out of coral. She teaches my brothers and sisters and me about coral all the time."

[Quelen Dran'Sora]

"That would be great!" Quelen gave a little giggle and a faintly teasing smile at the younger boy, "But I'd still like to know your name first."

Giving another little giggle Quelen held the little red of ring of coral out to the boy, "So you can change this easy? Could you show me something, like make it a square, or something?" she gave a sudden gasp as an idea came to her, "Oh! Could you make it smaller, so it could fit on my finger like a ring?"

[Telos]

"Oh! My Telos is name. I mean, I mean my name is Telos." He turned a slightly darker shade of blue. "Telos Ne'jed. That's my name." He would've cursed himself in his head if he had known any swear words.

He took the coral ring from Quelen and then took her hand in his own, putting the ring onto her finger. It fit much too loosely. He concentrated on the coral, closed his eyes, reached out to it with his mind. He squeezed it ever so slightly with his fingers, just to give it a little nudge. He envisioned it shrinking to fit Quelen's finger, the extra little coral bits flaking off and drifting away.

When he opened his eyes, this was exactly what had happened. He smiled excitedly, then became self-conscious and stopped smiling. He was just happy he was better at coral-manipulation than saying his own name.

"See? It's easy." He said, gaining confidence. "The trick is to be firm with the coral. Like...like a seahorse. Don't ask it to do what you want it to do, tell it." He gave a satisfied little smile.

[Quelen Dran'Sora]

Quelen giggled again at Telos' introduction, missing the darkening of his face, "You're funny Telos," she said with a smile, showing she meant it as a compliment.

Quelen watched quietly as Telos worked, not wanting to disrupt his concentration, and a bright smile lit up her face as she watched the coral ring shrink down around her finger and the excess drift off into the water. When Telos opened his eyes Quelen turned the smile to him as she spoke, "Wow, you're really good Telos!" she paused to listen to his explanation, "You need to be firm, like a seahorse? Do you ride seahorses too Telos? I've never ridden one myself, I think it's more fun to swim around. It's easier to find interesting things that way."

[Telos]

Telos' face lit up as he discovered another thing he could teach Quelen about. Maybe impressing this older girl wouldn't be so tough after all. "Oh, I just ride them sometimes," he said casually, "It's not that hard because if they throw you off you just float off a little ways and then try again! But I like scavenging, too! I'm working on a pearl necklace, but so far I've only got a few pearls. What sort of things do you find?"

[Quelen Dran'Sora]

Telos' explanation drew a giggle from Quelen, "What if the seahorse swam off though? It'd be hard to chase it down, wouldn't it?" the thought of chasing after a runaway seahorse made her giggle again.

"All kinds of things," Quelen responded brightly to Telos' question, "Anything interesting or really pretty I usually bring back with me. I found a really strange stone the other day."

Pulling her pack off of her back Quelen dug around in it for a moment before producing a black, strangely angular stone. Unknown to Quelen it was an obsidion arrowhead. With a eager smile she offered it to Telos to look at, "Be careful, it's sharp."

[Telos]

Telos couldn't help but grin. Quelen was so energetic and cheerful. He laughed musically along with her at the thought of a runaway seahorse. However, his smile quickly faded as the Charoda girl drew forth the arrowhead. She might not know what it was, but he recognized it. It was just like the kind attached to the Myrian spear his father owned.

"Quelen," he said seriously, "where did you find that?" He asked, a tone of urgency creeping into his voice.