Fantasy: Share your first few paragraphs!

He saw again the moonless night. The hills of snow were stained red and the bodies of his neighbors dotted them. Some had not the time to prepare for the onslaught; others did but fared little better. The light of the moon would not guide the dead to their resting ground; this was a night of blackness and frost. The dead would be damned to watch all they loved be murdered and they would not be allowed passage.

And there they were, both tall and built like the bears that stalked the woods. The man was clad in mail and he shouted at her. He told her that there would be nothing left if she did not leave. Babe at her breast and a youth at her side, she cursed his name in tears and fled over hill and glen. The young lad saw his father draw forth his axe and run a nervous hand through a coarse red beard. Before he lost sight of the man, he heard him speak.

“Come then,” that bear of a man bellowed, “come then and fight me! You’ll find I’m not a half-naked man roused from sleep, nor a child who’d yet to slay his first elk. I am no old crone who you will give mercy to with your blade. I am a Falderman, and you southern dogs know not what you’ve angered.”

Then all he could see was the flame which engulfed the village as he, his mother, and baby sister fled for their lives. All he could hear were the screams of agony, the horns of war, and the drumming of the enemy. All that was left was fire and death, and he would never return.

The memory was burned into his mind, the carnage he saw, the last words of his father, the last sights of his homeland. It slowly began to fade its way into the back of his mind, but it would never be so far back that it could be forgotten. And once again Dedric awoke from his sleep having the same dream that had haunted him ever since their flight from Falderland.

The paperwork in front of him was, for some reason, not moving itself into the IN or OUT boxes stacked on his writing table. He reclined back in his chair, legs crossed and feet up on the wood of the desk, arms behind his head and staring up at the ceiling of the Ninth Circle.

Hades was procrastinating.

It was rare that the God of the Dead procrastinated. Usually he was a hard worker, very dedicated to his job but for the life of him, he couldn’t find the motivation to get all this paperwork out of the way and done with. It had been a few millennia since he has been absolutely stumped like this.

Of course, it might have had to do with the fact that a friend was visiting today. Hades rarely had any visitors. Mostly by Persephone during the winter months, but even his brothers and sisters hadn’t been to visit for quite some time.

His foot tapped in the air to some imaginary tune, closing his eyes. If he listened carefully he could hear the screams of the tortured and unjust on the upper levels. Such a sound was somewhat soothing at times. Hades’ shoulders became relaxed, like an entire weight had been lifted off them. His eyes fluttered closed, chest heaving in soft breaths as he let the screams lure him into slumber…

The Seers looked her up and down, confusion evident in the way the circled her and eyes her like a hawk inspecting possible prey. Minna fidgeted uncomfortably, the snickers of the other children just audible to her ears. Nervously she fiddled with the fabric of her plain brown dress, her braided brown hair swishing from side to side as she shifted her weight from one sandaled foot to the other. The thirteen year old girl wished that she could leave the circle laid on the cobbled stone of the square, feeling embarrassed that she had spent the longest in the magic-testers gaze.

She watched as the female Seer turned to her partner to whisper something in his ear. They both wore the official white robes and golden over-robes that Minna remembered from when her brother was tested. He’d only been in the large circle drawn with white chalk for a few moments before being declared without magic. Minna had already been in here for five minutes and she was positive that she had no magic. It was hereditary, wasn’t it? If so, then she definitely didn’t have it, considering none of her relatives possessed any magic whatsoever. Besides, all the other children her age had already been tested, and the ones that had magic had been identified within minutes.

Minna glanced at the Seers. Once she’d confirmed that they were talking to each other still and giving the circle odd, calculating looks, she edged her way towards the white chalk. She heard one of her classmates, Krylla, she thought, giggle. Minna shot a glare at the untested girl which went completely unnoticed. “Seer Jeni, Minna’s tryin’ t’ leave the circle!” Krylla hollered.

Her glare turned into a narrowed gaze that focused on the white chalk line as one of the Seers took her arm firmly and pulled her back into the middle of the circle. “It’s not as if I have magic,” she muttered rebelliously.

Everyone has a beat, a song to call their own. It's that soft noise that calms you when all things hit the fan. The roaring scream you hear when you're on the edge and victorious. Everyone, has their song. Some songs are loud, full of passion and life. Others are quiet, beautiful for those who can listen and hear it. Some are fortunate enough to interwine with another's song, to be in tune with another being. Some songs are long, the songs that don't seem to end, no matter how much you wish them to, and some songs are short, only to be heard once, and vanished from existence, leaving only a longing memory in it's place. Everyone has their song. Each song is different. Unique, and what makes them.. them. And what's more? Some people can hear these songs
..
Some people.. like Fayt.

But of course.. Fayt did not care for the songs she heard as she ran down the alleyway with her partner at crime sprinting by her side. She only cared for she, herself, and her. And right now, she, herself, and her, needed to run for her freakin' life before that nice little merchant with his nice sharp pointy sword caught up with her and decided to cut her nice pretty little hand off.

"Fayyyytt!" her companion cried.

She turned her head for a brief moment, pushing back a black lock and gazing behind him at the merchant. "Come on! You can do it!" she encouraged, trying to maintain her own pace as well. She quickly turned a sharp corner, grabbing her accomplice and flinging him in front of her as she charged forward. After a few moments, the two started to maintain a pace together, hearing the furious shouts of the man behind him. "Get them!" amongst a series of cursewords which should not be said. "Fayt!" the boy huffed, trying to keep up with her beating feat as she padded against the concrete. "How.. are.. we gonna loose him?" he asked. Fayt shrugged. The default answer to everything. She really didn't know how she was going to lose him. She was just going to improvise.. like she usually did.

Finally, her chance came when she looked up at a cart riding by, and she grinned. "Follow my lead!" With that, she charged towards the cart, quickly jumping on it, and pulled down the boy as he landed on the cart as well.. the merchant not that far behind him. "Great. We've just trapped ourselves. What are we going to do now Fayt?!" he complained to the michievious damsel besides him. Fayt only flashed a childish, charming grin, the one that could secure even the most anxious of people. "We're gonna get away of course! Aiden, have you no faith in me?" she panted as she watched the man grow closer. "No. I don't! You nearly got me killed twice this week Fayt. Twice!" he said, flailing his arms, his blond hair scattering slightly. "And I saved yer ass twice didn't I?" she said, raising a finger. "Look, I needed a break. We aren't staying her obviously. Just trust me okay?"

It was a dark and stormy night. Well, that was at least how he envisioned it to be. In actuality, it was only dark. The night was calm, soothing almost, at least outside the small little house in the town where he sat, waiting, and plotting. Inside, however, he envisioned it to be raging outside, with lightning, thunder, and rain, heavy rain, rain soaking everything. He paced back and forth across the floor, thinking. The machine was almost complete, and, any time now, he should head to meet with his workforce, and give their final instructions before the day rolled around. He wanted dearly for everything to go according to the plan. And if it didn’t, he knew who to blame. And whomever was on the receiving end of that blame would probably not be able to see the next day. He opened the door into the cool night, and stood out in the road for a bit before walking down the road until he came to a small sign. This sign, pointing in the direction of Martenville, said that it was 36 miles until one might reach that place. He was somewhat of a sight, standing there on the side of the road, by the dark green of the road sign and against a barren backdrop of nothingness, until there was a small noise. He picked up on it and slowly waited. The noise grew louder, and more pronounced. It was almost a ringing sound, but sharper, and more biting. The air around him grew hot, as suddenly there was a bright flash, and a lone man popped out around three feet away and landed on the ground, shaken up. "A message for you, master." he said in a rather low voice, holding out a sealed envelope. The man slowly grabbed for it, pale hands glinting in the moonlight, and, slitting the seal, began to read. His expression turned from indifference to a wicked smile. Pulling out a pen, he wrote down a few notes and handed it back to the man, who tucked it away, and, in another bright flash of light, vanished. He stared off into the distance, and just watched. Watched as the sun began to peak over the top of the horizon, watching the Sun take flight for the last time over the free and liberated world. A world which would soon belong to his master.

Markus hated the older cities – the ones that were a rat’s nest of streets, some of them dead ends, others winding back on themselves. You could stare at a map for however long you wanted and you would think you had it memorized – but when you actually were on the streets, it was almost impossible to figure out where exactly you were. He stopped at a street corner. In the cool spring air, his breath crystallized before his face as he took heavy breaths and looked around, up and down the streets, trying to see where the girl had gone.

It had been going so well. They had managed to find a pack of the monsters in the basement of a burned out building that was going to be demolished soon. All of the wolves in the building had been killed but three and now there was a chase.

Markus caught a glimpse of white blonde hair, and too pale skin and grinned. The girl had been hiding in the shadows, and without seeing him, she had stepped out again into the street. She started to run. He brought the gun up to his shoulder and sighted on her. It was a tricky shot, what with her bobbing around as she ran, and the silver bullets were never that predictable – better for use in close range, but for now it was his only choice.

He pulled the trigger. The gun jerked back in his hands and the bullet skimmed down the street towards the girl, and missed. Markus swore as the girl turned suddenly and stared back at him. Even though he couldn’t see her face he was sure she was glaring at him.

Before the thought of abandonment fully reached him, Rhicten mournfully covered his face with both hands, and like a ghost of his childhood, let a momentous sob escape his throat. The onslaught of salty tears soon accompanied his vocal cry, and in the next moment, he found himself collapsed on the cheery forest floor.

It wasn’t fair; she wouldn’t stand a chance now. The virus would overpower her, take her, leaving nothing in its wake but a pale and lifeless thing. Never again would she fix him meals after a long day of work, or patch his clothes after a particularly boisterous day with his companions. He would miss her soft touches, to his face and hair, and the loving words she whispered to him in the wee hours of the morning, when he felt himself the most vulnerable.

Imagining a life without her was a very painful thought, and Rhicten wasn’t sure if he would be able to go on. It would be an understatement to say that he loved his mother, for he adored her. He owed his life to her, along with all those life lessons. If it weren’t for her, where would he be today?

The thought of not having her cut him deeply than any blade ever could. All those nicks and scrapes he sustained over the years was nothing compared to the pain and grief he was feeling at the moment. He’d do anything to ensure her health, even offer his own. If he had to, he’d willingly give his life to save her. Anything. He’d do it.

For now, all he could offer were the feelings he was going through. The sorrow flowed through him at an alarming rate, and he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to clean his face and return home. Home was miles away; he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to make the journey in one piece. There was the possibility that he would do something foolish along the way, like wander off the path and into unfamiliar and possibly hostile territories. The steel blade at his side might surely call out to him, offering solace from ever losing his mother, and he could take his own life without a second thought. Even now, kneeling on this vibrant green floor, he felt an almost uncontrollable urge to unsheathe it and stick himself through. It’d be easy. Painful, but easy. He’d die here, in a place where it was rumored he could find help for his suffering mother. If there were things here that could’ve aided him, then maybe they’d find him, bury his body, and pray for his soul. They’d be sorry for ignoring him, that was all to it.

Quailing his sobs, Rhicten slowly lowered his hands and let them fall by his sides like a couple of lamed ragdolls. His breath, which mere moments before had been quick and unrelenting, began to gain control and return to normal. He took in deep intakes of cool air to calm his nerves before cracking open his sore and red eyes to take in his surroundings of beautiful green foliage, his final resting place. The tears he had let shamelessly fall halted as well, the only traces of their existence being the wet tracks cutting a path through the mud and grime that had accumulated on his face from his journey.

He stared lifelessly ahead, the thought of his mother escaping from his mind as he came to the solid conclusion of what he would do. He wouldn’t mourn her any longer, and she wouldn’t mourn his never coming back, because surely before she began to worry, she’d have passed. And then, they would meet again up above, and be together again, forever.

He finds her at the edge of the town, sitting in a shady establishment that he is sure had not existed a week prior to this meeting. Rolling his eyes, Nikkias sits down across from her, ordering a drink for himself and a hot meal that he is sure she needs. Though Kimber is immortal, that does not excuse her from not looking after her health. Neither does being the Suffering Maiden, where ill health is almost practically guaranteed. This is just one of the times when he feels like he deserves something more than the nothing that he gets when in these situations. The wooden chair is all sharp angles, uncomfortable, and painful.

“I had a son who died,” Kimber mumbles, head buried in her arms. She sounds awful, and Nikkias is glad that he can’t see her face. It would have been far too much for him, seeing her helpless like that. It may have tempted him to take her in his embrace and bring them to somewhere quiet, definitely not his or her place, there had been too much pain in their domains. Maybe in a secluded place behind the veil, far away from anyone that would stumble upon them accidentally. He will not go through that pain and embarrassment again. “He was a good boy.”

“They all are,” Nikkias says, more for his benefit than hers. The two have had this conversation many, many times before. “They’re all good boys, and they all die eventually.”

Midwinter in Jardern district brought snow so deep people dug tunnels between houses and second-floor windows turned into doors, and with it the kind of cold that got under your skin and into your bones and stayed there. Ebb's coat was no help against it, and there was no fire in the basement of the town hall that served as gaol and court and barracks alike. He leaned back against the wall and tried very hard not to think about the night before, and her reverence's arrival, and what was on the other side of the oak door next to him.

The room behind him was silent, for once.

It wasn't that he was afraid - this was his first real post, but he'd ridden with knight-captain Kronen for the past two years, and he'd seen, if not the worst or ugliest the empire had to offer, at least enough unpleasantness that he was no longer afraid he'd hesitate to do what was needed. But he hadn't expected the lady Iselle, here, and thinking about what must be happening, he wondered, not for the first time, what the hell he'd been thinking when he'd applied to the akademy.

No. Best not to think at all.

A thud, a metallic scrape, murmured words he couldn't quite make out.

Jardern district was quiet, unremarkable, the sort of place an untried justicer could expect to ride his circuit and never arbitrate worse than a fight between neighbors over a long disputed boundary stone, or at worst a drunken murder. He hadn't expected a full-fledged Unborn, or the badly armed militia rabble she'd had with her, or-- any of it. When he'd sent a dispatch to the capital explaining the situation, he'd expected another one or two of his order, with a company to reinforce his own guardsmen in rooting out the unpleasantness. Not one woman, alone, if you could even call her a woman.

In the other room, her reverence was still talking, not unkindly. She might have been remonstrating with an unruly child. Ebb supposed she was, in a way.

He'd handled it well, she'd assured him. Too many younger justicers felt the need to prove themselves and took the earliest opportunity to find an excuse for a battle without bothering to analyze the situation. Waiting was almost always wiser. She'd laid a hand on his shoulder then - and saints, but she was tall for a woman - and smiled, and he'd felt a rush of pride as though he was still in his first year at the akademy. If he'd tried to imagine a decade ago that the lady Iselle herself would be commending him for his good judgment-- well, he'd grown up a bit since then.

She had stopped talking in the other room, and there was a silence just long enough for Ebb to wonder if it was over already. Then a crash, words snarled in a language that was most assuredly not good Alani, and a scream that went on and on, until long after any human lungs should have been emptied of air. Ebb closed his eyes, just for a moment, until the scream ended and Iselle's voice began its unintelligible susurrus once again. The cold was making its way into his boots now, too.

Sometimes, especially at times like this, I hate my name.

It’s pretty common for royalty to have names from the Faunic languages, at least, that’s the way it’s always been for hundreds of years, and sure, it sounds nice, I mean it rolls off the tongue and is easy to say. So that’s not why I hate my name. And I’m sure anyone else would be fine with my name, but not me.

Mom believed that names were very important things. They were valuable. They held meanings. She told me that a gryphon named me; she didn’t even know when she was pregnant when a gryphon swooped down to her one night in the gardens. She was walking in the gardens at midnight, watching the moonlight dance in the fountains. She always loved moonlight. So she was walking in the gardens one night when a gryphon swooped down to her, whispered my name, and then swooped off. My older brothers and sisters, they were named by unicorns and dragons. I’m the only one in my family who was named by a gryphon. But that’s not why I hate my name.

I want to scream so bad right now.

Crying comes easily, silent baby tears that are rolling down my cheeks right now and smudging the ink; I’ll be surprised if I can read this next year, let alone anyone else, but I don’t let most people read my journal. It’s embarrassing, these tears, but what else can I do? Crying comes easily.

Screaming is impossible. The screams start out in my gut, wild and intense, like I’m sure screams start for everyone, but I wouldn’t know. Sometimes they start out so wild that I’m sure nothing can silence them. The travel up my throat and are choked out, empty silent air escaping my lips, nothing else.

It’s partly because of my name, at times like this, but mostly it’s because of what happened to my family, and that’s also why I’m crying.

Here are the names of my brothers and sisters. (Assuming they have the same names in Heaven. They stopped breathing three days ago…that’s three, the ink is smudging again. Well, besides Lani. She survived. As did I.)

Egelloran. One who makes art. It could have been my name, because I also make art. But all the paintings are burnt now. Mine and his.

The twins. Sutora, one who remembers, and Sudron, one who finds. They were both named by dragons. At first mom that it was only one child, so she was confused at first.

Lanira. One who makes music. I make music too, but only with my fingers. Lani has a wonderful singing voice.

My name is Naleran. One who speaks.

I can’t scream because I don’t have a voice.

There once lived a young goddess, the beloved daughter of the king and queen of all immortal beings. Despite being royalty, she was often bullied by the other god and goddesses for she was the youngest of them all and thus the only one who didn’t have a planet to rule over; hence there was no way her parents could intervene for she was inexperienced compared to the other immortal beings.

And this goddess’ name is Iserlia.

It’s not that this young goddess is spoiled beyond reason and doesn’t want to rule over a planet, she does… with all her heart! However, there were no available planets for her to rule over.

That all changed when Iserlia’s favourite star burned out and burst into a magnificent supernova. From there, a new planet was born. It was the biggest planet in the galaxy, bigger than her parents’. And since it was made from Iserlia’s favourite star, it was natural that she claimed it.

But because of her young age and inexperience, Iserlia didn’t manage to tame the planet at all, causing her great grieve and even gained sympathies from the other gods and goddesses that teased her before. They knew how hard it was to tame a planet; make civilization appear from out of nowhere. And they felt for the goddess who owned the biggest planet. Even they have problems keeping their little planets organized.

Unable to bear with their poor, grieving daughter, the King assigned four of his gods and goddesses to help her daughter with the new planet. They were Barra of the Flames, Tana of the Earth, Baiu of the Winds and Ayer of the Water. Their planet orbits around the new planet and becomes the moons as they helped Iserlia to tame the planet, bit by bit.

They were successful as civilization began to slowly yet steadily flourish in one quarter of the planet’s land as Iserlia’s powers partitioned this land from the rest. Iserlia as well as the four immortal beings that helped her were happy with their success but there was one great obstacle in their little mission. An obstacle that none of them expected.

This obstacle was Iserlia herself.

Every 5555 years, Iserlia would sleep and enters a dream phase. Her parents knew about this but the four gods and goddesses didn’t. So they were shocked when she first did it and in just a few years, the civilization that they were so proud of crumbled and almost disappeared.

Why she does this? They confronted her and she told them that she was displeased at seeing all the power struggles, the betrayals and the nonchalant attitude of the inhabitants towards them all and the nature that they struggled hard to create.

But she never wished to harm the inhabitants because they were as precious as the planet itself. And that’s when it dawned on the four immortal beings. When she is in her dreaming phase, Iserlia’s subconsciously does what she has always wanted to do.

Since then, they vowed to do their best to protect both their princess as well as the planet that they’ve all come to love and cherish.

5555 years have passed since the first time Iserlia slept. It was time for her second sleep.

The year was 11400 A.F. (After First, referring to the first time she slept.). It has been 235 years since the Elves and Dark Elves are at war with one another. And it has been 60 years since the humans allied themselves with the Elves.
And it has been 240 years since Iserlia was last awake. In other words, Iserlia is in her dreaming phase for the second time.

In the middle of this war was a human Colonel that goes by the name of…

It was always pitchforks and torches, Cain mused as he ran for his life. Was it too much to ask for a little creativity? Although there was something to be said for preserving tradition. Dodging a flying pitchfork, he glanced behind him to see his friend Geoffrey thundering up behind him.
“Nothing like a nice run to get the blood pumping, eh Cain?” he puffed.
Cain glared at his large friend.
“Oh sure. You know, we really have to do something about your people skills.”
Geoffrey ducked as a rock went whistling past his head.
“Can we discuss that later? I think the villagers are getting closer.”
Another rocked bounced off the back of Cain’s head.
“Their aim is getting better too,” he grumbled.
Putting on an extra burst of speed, they made a break for the forest along the road out of the village. Diving into the undergrowth, they crawled a short ways before stopping, holding their breath until the mob went past. Once it dispersed and returned to the village, Cain let out an explosive sigh and fell over with a thud. Geoffrey leaned against a nearby tree, closing his eyes as he caught his breath. Sitting up and running a hand through his dark blond hair, Cain looked over at the young half-beast man beside him.
“This whole, ‘kill the beast’, violent mob thing is really starting to get old,” he said.
Geoffrey answered without opening his eyes.
“Actually I’m pretty sure it was your fault this time,” he replied.
“My fault?” Cain sounded hurt.
“’Wouldn’t want to waste my money in a backwater little dung pile like this anyway’. I believe that was after you punched their elder.”
Cain shifted in his spot, suddenly looking like a petulant toddler.
“It’s not like it was a hard punch,” he muttered. “I didn’t even give the old fart a bloody nose.”
Geoffrey snorted and grinned.
“Not that you could with those spindly wizard arms of yours.”
A stick flew at him, and he batted it back to its sender. Cain ducked and then stood, cracking his back. Making his way back to the road, he looked around before waving a hand at his companion.
“Come on, it looks like the coast is clear. We should be able to reach Riverwalk before dark if we leave now.”
Geoffrey stood, shedding leaves and twigs from his backside.
“Just promise me you won’t incite any angry mobs this time?” he said as he joined Cain up by the road. “I’d like to actually sleep in a bed for once.”
Cain crossed his heart and grinned cheekily up the other young man.
“Cross my heart.”
Geoffrey just rolled his eyes and starting walking. Cain hurried to catch up, shaking leaves, twigs, and dead bugs out of his long coat.

The darkness was all around him, within him. It embraced him first; feeling somewhat familiar only to then begin to push and pull at him, closing in on him. Darkness had never been a stranger to him, not a friend either, but a constant in his life, but not here. Here his world was bright and vivid and full of light and clarity. It was different now though, the darkness seemed to take on a personality of its own, it was no longer merely a neutral, ever present observer. It had such a presence, such a force that he could feel it encroaching on his mind. In fact he could hardly detect any sense of himself anymore. The darkness seeped in and his thoughts began to bleed out and blend with it until they faded away and he was left with nothing. He was nothing anymore, just part of the darkness.

A loud, harsh pitch wrenched him from one dark world into another, where he lay, writhing in his bed, drenched with sweat with his mouth open and his vocal chords straining to produce a sound he did not know he was capable of. The scream came from deep within his body, filled with a fear so insurmountable and overwhelming that he did not know what to make of it. Once the sound left his lips, he was able to come back to himself, but in the waking world the dream made no more sense to him than when he had been within it moments before. His dreams were usually so clear, but lately they had been more like fragments, scenes that did not fit together and adding this one to the puzzle did not make it anymore coherent. He had never experienced anything quite like this one. Whether his dreams were about him or not, he was always present at least in mind if not in body, but this one was so strange, so ominous. It twisted his insides into a nervous knot that he could not undo.

There was barely time to process what had happened before his mother came bursting into the room, voice pitched high with worry. He had heard her frantic steps, shuffling from the kitchen as soon as the scream had exited his throat, dreading the moment they would arrive in his doorway. The door flew open with such force that it hit the wall with a loud crack and the sound of splintering wood, sending a hot breath of air in his direction. It bathed his already soaked body in another wave of perspiration.

“Hannovan!” his mother screeched, in what almost seemed like agony. “Honey, are you all right?” She rushed to his side, her plump body making a deep impression in the straw mattress beside him, the itchy texture of her rough spun apron rubbing up against his torso. “Hann! Talk to me!” she demanded of him when he met her first question of well being with flustered silence.

Hannovan yanked his hand out from between his and his mother’s bodies and rubbed at the bandages wrapped tightly around his head that covered the part of his face where eyes should have been. The smooth skin underneath was irritated by the dampness of the fabric. He tried to push the bandages up over the top of his head, but his mother grabbed at his hand and pulled it away.

“Hannovan,” she said again, the shrieking quality in her voice falling away. Despite all of the love and affection she showered him with and her protective nature, his physical deformities still frightened her, he knew, though she tried her best to hide it.

“I am fine, Mother,” he reassured her and himself. He had not faded into nothingness, but what did it mean. It had to have meant something; his dreams were not idle things.

“I am glad,” she said quietly. He could hear a slight quiver in her voice and wondered if there were tears in her eyes to match. “What did you dream of?” she asked with hesitation as if she was not sure she wanted the answer.

“I dreamt of nothing,” he lied only a little.

“Nothing!” the shrieking quality crept back into her tone, “you scared me half to death!”

Death? He pondered the thought for a moment, mulling it over in his mind trying to form it into something comprehensible.

----------

Friday nights were cemetery nights. The clubs, bars, and backstreet alley-ways filled with a stench of piss, filth, and despair rolled together in bitter scent-biography of the homeless were the sole jurisdictions of my human peers. They avoided the hallowed ground of the dead after the sun settled because they were superstitious; still believing that the bogey-man would rise up from behind a tombstone to suck away one's life. Or perhaps they were the smart ones who drew the locations that would allow them to clock in at the end of shift tired, but in one piece and without nightmares to trouble them while they slept.

I figured it was the latter; I had never once followed the safe guidelines. My therapist cringed in fear every time I walked into her office, dreading the newest horror my mind dredged up from the gutters of my memories. It was evolving into a morbid fascination as to how much I could make her wince and shudder during an hour-long session; in return, she tried to make me squirm by charging extra for ‘job-related hazards’. It was a love-hate partnership that suited me just fine.

15th Avenue was deserted as I loped up the cemetery's only road into the winding paths inside. There was no need to hop the fence, or to sneak through the southern wall by Volunteer Park; most of the delinquents I caught were garden-variety: teenage witches who wanted a sample of graveyard dust collected at the midnight hour to curse their boyfriends with impotency, freshly-bitten werewolves that had followed the smell of the dead in a vain attempt to scavenge before a Tracker caught their scent and sent them packing towards one of the local packs, and the vampire or two unearthing their most recent childer. Occasionally, a walk-by drug up something of a higher caliber: an empath abusing the local emotional auras of the earth-locked ghosts, or a zombie-master digging up a grave to stock his supply cabinet; or the vampire throwing said childer back into the grave to suffer the quiet loneliness of the truly dead. Those cases usually ended up with my mouth reeking with the taste of unwashed, rotted flesh, my clothes torn and battered from the Change, and wasting three hours to find space in the small jail we kept for the Otherlanders who decided to break the law.

Kaarl leaned over the parapet watching the four blue clad adepts circle the translucent globe banded in metal. He closed his eyes and listened to the spell song. He extended his essence senses. Essence flowed into the globe that towered over the mages. The globe was barely half filled.
Kaarl opened his eyes and watched the adepts walking a precise pattern around the globe measuring at least 7 mets in diameter, more than three times as tall as the tallest mage. The double stripes on their sleeves marked them as second term students. Kaarl looked down at the single stripe on his sleeves and sighed. He could be down there with them. He had filled more than one orb in his father's essence shop. This one was bigger, but the spellsong was the same. It just needed four voices to control the containment.
The dark burns on the sides of the walls of "The Well" spoke of times containment failed. The elders left the scorched gouges in the walls as a lesson about the consequences of even a small lapse in concentration.
The tune changed slightly. Past half full, the flow must be slowed to prevent bursting the container. Replacing a container that size takes an essence glazer a season or more to make and costs more than his father earns in a year.
The human cost is equally high. The mages would simply disappear. That rare talent to sing the songs that turned the raw power of Essence into what outsiders called "magic" would be lost as well.
Kaarl let his essence senses rest on the orb once again. He traced the lines of containment. Something wasn't right. He sensed a weakness in the orb. Behind closed eyes he saw a flaw in the glass of the orb. How did the essence glazers miss that? The flaw lengthened and cracked open slightly.
"Hey, the orb is cracking" He yelled. "Stop singing. Increase the containment!!" He knew his yelling was useless. Between the sound of the voices reverberating against the pink granite walls of The Keep and the concentration of the mages on their task. They could not hear him. I've got to do something. But what?

"Ma'am, the representative of Tinpia is arriving."
The queen looked up from her notes, "you know what to do, Tayan."
"I do. I am still not sure if we should play this game with him, though." Tayan protested very politely, as one would expect a low ranking servant to speak to the queen, even though they would usually not protest at all.
"We've talked about it. Just do your job, now."
Tayan nodded.

As the servants showed the arriving guests to their chambers, Tayan made sure he was the one to show the wizard that was among them to his room. It was the one next to that of the representative - for it is usually a task of a wizard to protect the one he is traveling with. "Wizard Zonnziat, how has your trip been?"
"Oh c'mon, Nan, just call me by my first name, will you, we know each other..." the wizard smiled.
Tayan did not smile back. People who really knew him called him by his first name and those that did not called him by his last name, but nobody except Verdus Zonnziat shortened his last name to Nan. "Alright, Verdus it is. Don't start calling me a friend, though, you know that I don't like wizards that take more power than they should."

Ashe closed her fingers and the rose lost its head.

She caught the flower in her palm and ignored the prickling of the thorns as they trailed over her thumb. It still looked alive even after being decapitated, full and fresh and red. Of course Ashe knew that would change in an hour or so.

Now she looked around – although wasn’t it a bit late for that? If someone was going to yell at her for picking flowers in one of the castle's gardens, the time to do that was already past. Ashe looked down at her hand and wondered if she’d be able to drop the rose fast enough if someone came out. Somehow she didn’t think so, and not because she was lacking reflexes.

It almost glowed in her palm. Its brothers were the same vibrant crimson where they sat still on the bush, but that one rose surrounded by her fingers looked brighter than all the others. It wasn’t, Ashe knew that, but instead of looking like raspberry bundles she could pretend she was holding a handful of blood running down her wrist.

Well isn’t that a morbid thought. Ashe grinned and shook her head at herself. She tilted her hand one way and then the other, and watched the rose slide with her. She was still surprised she’d actually cut it – what was she going to do with a rose anyway? It’d die at home, it’d die anyway once its grace hour was up. Whatever logic had inspired her to snap its spine with her fingernails was long gone – hopefully not just in time for a gardener to catch her.

Not that anyone had ever said the garden was off-limits. There were no signs, and no one had chased Ashe off when she came in, but that didn’t mean anything. It was a perfectly kept rose garden next to the castle, somebody had to have a vested interest in it, or else it’d look like all the rest of the gardens in Serissa. Consistent of an herb or two and a withered thing that used to be a flower. And it wouldn’t matter if there was or wasn’t a sign if one of the nobility came out cross.

Ashe turned her hand too fast and winced – now there really was blood on her hand. Carefully, she pulled the rose and offending thorn away and scowled at the stem. Usually she was more aware of the thorns; that’s what she got for drifting into philosophy in a flower garden.

Just in case Ashe sucked on the wound, though she winced at the taste of blood. She didn’t think roses were poisonous, or rather their thorns were, but it’d be something awful to wake up the next day with a swollen thumb.

She’d just given a last lick to clear the blood off when a male voice came from over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

Ashe spun, completely forgetting to look innocent, and stared at the man who’d come up behind her. He didn’t look like a gardener, but that wasn’t reassuring at all considering the shirt he had on had to cost at least twice Ashe’s most expensive dancing outfit. And no merchant house would ever birth a face like that, all angles and planes and delicate bones. Ashe stared and realized she was probably being rude, but he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

So she said the first thing that came to mind. “Licking the blood off.”

“Do you usually come to the royal gardens to do that?”

Cheers, whistles, and firecrackers from a passing Release Day parade echoed from back in the avenue, but the university's Natural History courtyard was empty, as it should be today. Nothing stirred in the greenhouse as he passed it, or in the neatly rectangular beds of the botanical gardens. Even the murals on the anthropology wing, which always unnerved Raimund a bit with their blood-sacrifice motifs, looked placid and flat in the afternoon sun. Someone had added a depiction of the Burns Island zombis to the wall; a gray-skinned figure rising waist-deep from greenish sand, surrounded by brown figures with a lot of jewelry and feathers. Raimund imagined a student muttering about knuckling under to pop culture while he painted the drooling mouth and staring eyes on the zombi.

He was quite sure that he was not the only person here today. It was just that the kind of people who were working on Release Day were not the kind of people who would be milling around the courtyard, soaking up the sun and looking at a painting that could have come straight out of Corrin's The Dead Arise. If they came out here, it would be to take samples from the botanical gardens.

As he'd expected, the side door to the Natural History wing was ajar. The hallway inside was cool and dim. His boots echoed on the clay-tiled floor of the corridor, then echoed differently up the stairwell. Three flights up, he turned into a new corridor, lined with illustrations of living plants and animals, and display cases of bones, shells, feathers, and skins of dead ones, their shadows eerie on the walls. It was darker up here; the light came from windows at the ends of the hall, but the doors to the side rooms were closed. He followed the row of closed doors until he found one with light glimmering from under it. He opened it, cautiously, expecting a creak, but it swung inward silently, and he could smell the oil recently used on the hinges.

The person he'd come to find was perched on a stool, hunched over a standing magnifier, in the midst of piles of books and stacked herbariums and jarred and dried and pinned dead things. Everywhere, it seemed, were labels printed in tiny, meticulous [not-Latin]. Those labels always surprised him. He'd seen her handwriting when she wasn't labeling things; in her notebooks and on the little slips of paper she always kept in her pockets, it was barely legible.

It was a cold, dark night. Not a whisper could be heard, not even the swish of the wind made a sound, as if they knew the importance of tonight and kept silent in a mark of respect. The silence lasted hours, until the shadowy figure of a man seem to materialize from the night’s own shadows itself.

The man walked purposely and straightforward as if he had a mission and nothing, nothing, could stop him completing it. As the shadowy man neared an old dome that loomed over everything else in the city, he paused for a brief moment like a priest blessing himself before entering a holy building. Then, like the way he appeared in the first place, he sunk into the shadows again.

The door behind him closed with a soft creak. And the man quickly swept his eyes around the ancient building – he was always a suspicious person and that certainly wouldn’t stop now. Being inside the dome was no different to being outside the dome, as it was still just as cold and quiet. The only difference was that the moon was shining directly into the ancient dome through the upper window, causing a line of silvery light fall from the top of the dome to the marble floor. When the man walked past the line of silver light, it was then that his sharp features could be seen. [quote/]

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'09 - New Myth - Fantasy - 0/50,000

It was perfect. Absolutely perfect.

This was the conclusion the Gods came to, looking down on the new world they had just created. There had been thousands before it, and would be thousands after it, but this one was perfect. The mountains and the valleys, the rivers and plains… All of it was pristine for the moment, untouched. Soon, it would bee teeming with life, and souls would open their eyes for the first time, unknowing how they came to be, but stepping onto a path that would go on for eternity. Kerisha paused, her dark hair flowing in a non-existent wind, hands folded to her chest as she gazed at the beauty before her. They’d done it! A beautiful world, which would be perfect, there was no way she could ever be detached from those there, she wanted to walk those valleys too, feel the grass and stones beneath her bare feet, wanted to laugh with the people, and she would. All that was left to finish off their perfect world was to give it life.

Breathlessly, the Goddess turned her pale gaze on the God beside her, excitement dancing across her features in the way only a whimsical immortal could have.
“Dragons, we have to give them dragons and unicorns, and phoenixes and magic! The world has to have that sparkle that magic brings!” Perhaps this would be where everything fell apart, but Kerisha couldn’t let that happen. Of course they needed magic, so many races died without the aid that magic could bring, they needed it. Dark eyes turned to find hers, flashing with annoyance as Resark shook his head, hard.
“No magic. These people are going to be sensible, hard working. We’ll give them cows and other food first.” A dark, rumbling tone of voice, Resark had made many back down simply by speaking in a reasonable tone, but not the childish Kerisha, her lips formed into a pout, annoyance already beginning to show on her beautiful features.

“They can be hard working, and still have magic.” She stated boldly, annoyed at his immediate denial of her thoughts, she’d seen so many worlds without magic and they’d all bored her to tears. Worlds with magic got into so much trouble and she always found them fascinating, they way they managed to get themselves out of it, she could watch and enjoy the years passing with laughter, instead of having to throw a tornado at them every so often to see them scream and scurry.
“Worlds with magic, always end up destroying themselves. Reasien is perfect.” Once again, Resark’s voice broke through her thoughts, and Kerisha shot him a dark look, before forcing herself to shrug one smooth shoulder,
“Worlds without magic always manage to destroy themselves. Okay, just elementalists then? Oh ple-ase Resark! Pretty please?” Pouncing forward, the goddess clung to his arm, looking at him with pleading eyes. Kerisha could sway armies with that look, and she fully expected Resark to give in with the soft smile she liked to see from him, and then she would have a world that she wanted.

Instead, he shook her off, shaking his head again. He didn’t want magic in the world, why couldn’t Kerisha accept that. He adored her, he did, but she was beginning to get on his nerves with this magic obsession. He’d seen worlds collapse because of magic and this was a perfect world, he wasn’t going to have magic ruining it. He wanted them to have hard times and easy times, wanted them to struggle but fight their way back to the top, without twiddling their fingers and restoring everything to rights. Maybe that wasn’t what Kerisha had in mind, but Resark was fairly sure that would be what happened. Humans were the same in every world, if the gods gave them too much power to play with, they would be sure to destroy everything.
“No, Kerisha. No magic.” Finally, her temper snapped, he saw it coming as she whirled away from him, eyes flashing with anger now,
“It’s not just your world, Resark! It’s mine too! You can’t make all the decisions!” She hissed, eyes flickering towards their creation with obvious possessiveness. She wasn’t going to let this go, she could never let this go.
“It’s not just yours either, Kerisha! If you don’t stop this useless mumbling about magic, I’ll-“
“You’ll what, you can’t hurt me Resark.” Her pretty features distorted with the sneering smile, and Resark scowled, glancing at the world he’d helped created. He hated that she had brought everything to this, to destroying it so she could have her way and he could have his.

The earth trembled and shook, and yet, when those termors subsided, nothing appeared unchanged, though Kerisha delivered a resounding slap to his shoulder.
“What did you do?!” Shouting seemed to be the easiest thing as her eyes frantically searched the world, seeing if things had changed, but Resark only turned cold eyes on her,
“There are two worlds now. Identical to the other, one’s underneath. That can be yours, do with it what you will.” He growled, then turned his back to her. He no longer cared what she did with the world, no longer cared, he didn’t want to talk to her, or see her. Their perfect world was no longer perfect. Slowly turning to see if she had gone, Resark sighed softly, large shoulders almost drooping unhappily. Why did she have to be so stubborn? Why couldn’t she just give in? He would have enjoyed standing by her side to watch their world grow, but now, he couldn’t. With a small shake of his head again, the God turned to begin creating his world.

Animals first, he’d give them all the normal things, cows, horses, rabbits, foxes. Everything had it’s place in the world, and nothing out of place was a good thing, it meant the world would continue without strife for much longer than it would have should Kerisha been allowed magic. A part of him worried at the fact her world rested underneath his, and he just hoped she wouldn’t blow a massive hole in his world, she was whimsical like that, and seriously vindictive when she was angry. Turning his attention back to the perfect world, Resark smiled as the animals woke, and moved, they would be fine, all the time. The animals would adapt and change as they needed to as the years went on, and he would help them. There were certainly some creatures that he was sure would not end up surviving, that would become extinct one day, but he would make that decision, and it would only happen if the time came when they could not look after themselves in the wild, when the predator became match for the prey… Now, humans. Resark had always put so much work into his humans, they were his children and he adored them all. He’d give them tanned skin for working in the sun, so they wouldn’t be burnt, the myriad of hair colours was there too, but he’d give them the dark hair as more likely, fair hair meant pale skin and that would be a problem if they were going to be hard working in the sun. He’d make them tall, he’d make them strong, versatile, adaptable. They would be all the things humans should be and he’d hope that no power would ruin his perfect world. Some would be born leaders, others would be workers, just like in a bee-hive… Yes, they’d be fine, but every now and then, he’d have to step in, just to check it was all going smoothly, though he was sure he could sleep a million years away and find them still thriving without his help.

Damn him! Damn him to the abyss! Kerisha scowled at her world, though some small part of her rejoiced that this was all hers, and Resark couldn’t tell her what not to do. She disliked the idea of being underneath his world, but looking up at the miles and miles of pure rock, Kerisha knew that there was no way their two races would ever meet. Hers would be magical, and his would loathe magic, knowing his decision. They could never guess what might happen in the millions of years that passed in mere moments, but it was always exciting to imagine what could happen. That he was angry with her would hurt later, that she had lost him would ache later, for now, she had her people to create, a world to fill with magic. How could she even bear to wait another moment? Under caverns or not, her world had rivers and lakes and valleys and mountains, just like his, so she would just make hers prettier with the sparkle of magic, and in a thousand years, they’d see who was the better God.

She’d give them dragons, powerful, frightening creatures some would be good, others would be chaotic, they would be separated only by shape not colour. She grew tired of seeing black dragons as evil, so she would give the chaotic dragons large spines and spikes, she would give them larger teeth and a gleam in their dark eyes that warned of danger. She would give them spike ended tails for piercing things as they flew by. The good would be given smooth scales that glistened with light, they would have gentle eyes and small ridges rather than spines, she would give them scoop ended tails, she would make them kind and lovely. These opposing forces would be brilliant in her world, for these powerful creatures would clash as much as any other good and chaotic group… Then what? Unicorns, yes, she’d give them normal horses and animals, yes, but pure and good unicorns with golden horns and hooves and silvery bodies. There, they would run where they willed and make water pure, trees grow, they would protect the smaller creatures that needed them, they would be the embodiment of good in the world… Which meant there had to be an opposing force, to make things balance… Phoenixes, yes, she’d make them chaotic. Birds of fire and prey, they would be the polar opposites, yes, that would do well. Humans… Hm, she’d give them elemental powers, a bonding to an element, and rarely more than one. Glancing up at the caverns, Kerisha scowled again, the sun here was weak, and it’s light was nothing compared to that of the sun in Resark’s world. Damn him. So she’d give them pale skins, she’d make them small, and dainty, she’d give them all sorts of hair colours, perhaps even green for those bonded to the earth! She’d make them adaptable, clever and resourceful, they would be everything humans should be.. Yes, they would, some would lead, some would follow, some would work, yes, it would be exactly like a clock’s inner workings. They wouldn’t even need her guidance, but Kerisha knew better than to think for even a moment that she could leave them alone. No, she’d want to be with them every step of the way, laughing at their follies, and helping them when their sorrows came.

Green Faeries will take you through Heaven and Hell, dumping you on the other side with an unceremonious thud that will leave you reeling for a few hours; then you go back for more.
Or this is how it happens for some people. It’s different for everybody, and it was peculiarly different for Theros. Instead of dragging him backwards through Hell, the beautiful liquid would sing through his veins with every note known to the realm of Methia.
The gentleman in question, one Theros, had seen plenty of people; different Races of every creed and colour, ritual and belief, but he had never found the one he sought. She had disappeared, but it did not mean she was gone.

To describe Theros as Human was wrong. He was not Human, his ancestors had not been Human. He numbered among the many who were at the other end from that mortal Race. Instead, he seemed to be a mix of a number of Races, but that would be impossible as Hybrids were a rare breed onto themselves in Methia. Blood rarely mixed between Races, and the death of the child – if it managed to be born alive – would be painful and prolonged. With elongated arms, pointed face that was part rat and part bat, and long, bony fingers, Theros could have been a mix between Ghoul, werebeast and Banshee.

The house was burning.

Fire was creeping along the walls and the floors, and smoke was rising in lazy circles until it covered the little house in a haze. The blaze grew, and strengthened, blocking off hallways and windows, preventing any escape. It crackled and it sang, and for a while everyone was too asleep to notice. But only for a little while.

Max woke to the sound of his mother screaming. Dazed and disorientated, he rolled over and started to fall back to sleep, dreaming four year old dreams and pulling the covers tighter over his face, to block out that horrible smoky scent in the air. It was making it hard to breath.

He woke again at the second scream. It made him jump and inhale sharply, and he choked on the mouthful of smoke he'd breathed in. He sat up and opened his eyes, coughing, and saw a dim orange glow coming from the crack under his door. His room was so foggy he could barely make anything out, but the sound of fire is easy to recognise, and he stumbled out of bed clumsily, wide awake and panicked.

Fire.

His parents were calling his name. Max ran for the door, but the handle was so hot it burnt his hand. He leapt back, and looked around wildly. He was in the highest room in the house, he would fall if he went out the window. He was almost too small to open it. Trembling, he went to the corner nearest the window, and curled up in a ball, coughing violently, trying to cover his face and keep breathing. He could still hear his mother and father, calling for him, screaming. He tried to call back, but the words wouldn't get past his throat. The smoke and the heat had driven them back down. Max looked around wildly for escape, and started to cry.

The screaming and wailing continued, and then stopped. There were no more screams after that.
Max heard sirens, getting louder and closer. He felt foggy and confused, and looked at the window again. If there were sirens, someone could catch him, if he fell. All he had to do was climb, carefully, out of the window. The crackling sound intensified, and Max turned to look at the door. Heat was coming off of it in waves, and the floor around it was starting to crack. Fire was licking at the wooden frame. He couldn't stay there much longer.

Max looked back at the window. All he had to do was open it and get out. Shaking violently, he wiped at the tear streaks on his face, leaving dirty marks across the freckled skin. Slowly, he started to stand. His legs wobbled. More tears appeared.

And a dark figure stepped out of the shadows.

Jumping back, Max yelled in fright and tripped, hitting the wall behind him and sliding down it back onto the floor. He heard a crash, from somewhere below him, as parts of the house began to lose their battle with the flames. The figure moved forward, his face falling under the glow of from the door, and Max cried out again.

The man was huge, and seemed as a big as a house from Max's frightened eyes. Hair and eyes darker than the shadows in the room, he looked down at Max with an almost passive disinterest. The smoke, which seemed to like him, was curling in pleasant tendrils around his body. And on the right side of his face, a giant black marking stood out starkly against pale skin. A club or clover, three circles and a stem. It covered his entrie cheek, from the bottom of his eye to the edge of his jaw.
Max pushed himself as far into the wall as possible, hoping to disappear through it. If he imagined the man wasn't real he would go away. Closing his eyes didn't help though. When he opened them, everything was still the same. His parent's silent bodies were being consumed by the fire, the sirens were still coming, and the shadow man was still standing there, watching him.

He stepped forward, and the club on his cheek shimmered in the light of the fire, which by now had entirely engulfed the door. Max wasn't sure what he was more afraid of.

"Do not be frightened," said the shadow man, looking down at Max, huddled on the floor with tear-stained cheeks and smudged skin. He tried to back away further, and failed to go through the wall like he'd hoped. Wishing just wasn't enough.
"There is no way out," the man said, stepping closer again. Looking up at him from the floor, Max believed he'd be tall enough to block out the sun. He turned his head slightly to look at the window. It had been his only hope. He was almost sure that he could have done it.

The shadow man saw the direction of his gaze, and he stared at Max impassively. "You will not get out that way."
Max rubbed his hands over the knees of his pajamas, trying to think. He started coughing again. It was getting so much harder to make sense of things. All he knew was that things were hurting, and he was trapped, and there was a stranger hovering over him.

"Who are you?" he managed to croak, before coughing again, sounding as painfully young as he looked in that moment, a four year old boy, trapped in a burning house with no way out.

The shadow man knelt down. Even on his knees, he was bigger than Max. "I am Mister Three," he said, holding out a hand for Max to take. "And I am here to save you."

The deck lurched wildly from under his feet. Corky grasped for support on the [[engine thingamagiggy]], but his paw missed and he fell with a “thunk” to the floor.

The claxons were ringing now. “It’s a little bit late,” thought Corky, as he sat up rubbing the fur between his two long ears. He turned and saw the sparks cascading in a shimmer of yellows and blues and whites. “Yipes,” he said to nobunny in particular and scrambled to his feet.

Becky glanced over her shoulder, a futile gesture in this smog as if her stalker wasn't on her heels she wouldn't see him anyway.
Three days now the creep had been watching her at work, too smartly dressed to be a tramp, and no-one else took all day to read the library newspapers.
The peasouper was making her nervous though as people loomed out of its darkness and passed her she jumped, convinced each one was the danger foretold by the cards. She swung her book-laden shoulder bag in her hand, if needed it made a very effective weapon, probably not what 'mightier than the sword' meant but being smashed in the face by a bagful of books should make anyone think twice.
Becky paused breathing shallowly and listening, trying to make out sounds in the fog, beyond the noise of traffic, beyond the people calling for their friends, and then she heard it the news seller barking his wares, his pitch was on the corner of this road and Bayswater Road, head towards him and she'd be nearly there.
The hairs on the back of her head pricked up, someone was behind her and following her, she was sure, and they meant her harm of that she was equally convinced. Don't panic, deep breathes, stay calm, you can handle this. Her heels click clacking as she walked she sped up aiming for the barkers voice. Suddenly knowing it was a race, she had to reach him and relative safety before her pursuers caught her.

Muttering a spell of protection under her breath she walked as fast as London decorum and safety in the fog allowed.
More focused on what was behind her she failed to see the two men blocking her path loom out of the fog and walked smack bang into the smaller of the two.
"Oh I'm so sorry, the fog, you know, dreadful weather."
The man grabbed her by the elbow she thought to prevent her tripping, but he hung on too long and tightened his grip.
"Miss Morris, Rebecca Morris?" His companion asked "We need you to come with us, there's no point struggling you can't hurt four of us" he glanced back into the fog looking for the tail.
Why are they wearing rose tinted glasses Becky found herself wondering, fixating on such an incongruity helped her push down the panic, the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach and a sudden weak feeling in her limbs.
"Why who are you? I demand to see some identification" Something about their demeanour, and their near uniform choice of deep blue overcoats, suits, and matching ties had Becky convinced they were official thugs rather than random spivs. Amazingly he complied, flashing something at her.
Using her most powerful librarian's 'voice' effective when dealing with unruly borrowers she insisted he hold it steady enough for her to see properly. A sylised Oak tree with a crown nestling in it's branches.
The butterflies in her stomach turned into stampeding elephants and it was only the hand on her elbow that stopped her dropping to the ground as her knees seemingly forgot how to hold her upright.
"Manningtree Bluecoats! But you have no power the Act is repealed"
"Not yet it isn't witch, not yet"

In the beginning, there was Chaos. A mass of swirling emotion, Chaos was unable to exist. Refusing to just vanish, Chaos split into two beings. Life and Death, as they would be called, came into being. They were better able to control and withstand the emotions they were born with. The two beings lived together in relative harmony for years until a new creation was born into the world.

Man was plenty, and unable to handle the vast emotions that Man was able to feel, Life and Death gave birth to new Gods, new emotions that would help them govern over Man. But, Life and Death were too different and gave birth to emotions that were just as different. The Virtues and the Sins were unable to get along, and because of their bitter rivalries, Man was unable to live in peace.

As Man killed each other, Life and Death pondered. How would they get Man to live again in harmony? How could they get their children to make peace and live together as one unit? They wracked their brains, but were unable to come up with an answer. They watched mournfully as their children fought and they were unable to stop it. But, one day, from the darkness, came two more beings, one Virtue and one Sin.

Mercy, the Ultimate Good of the Virtues, quelled the fighting among man and the Gods alike. They lived in harmony with each other, all under Mercy’s kind and loving rule. Anarchy, the Ultimate Evil of the Sins, was unhappy with the peace that settled upon the world. She stirred revolts and fostered anger and hate among the siblings once more. Once again, they went to war.

Just as the fighting seemed as thought it would never end, Mercy and Anarchy both vanished into the darkness from which they were born. The fighting stopped, but only temporarily, as the Virtues and Sins banded together to find their lost sisters. But, the alliance between them didn’t last for long, and soon they were fighting once more.

Only two of the siblings, the youngest of them all, stood side by side and continued their search. So alike were they that they were able to get along, and not only that, create a friendship and brotherly bond that the others could not. But, so it seem, their friendship is just as fragile as glass. After all, Justice can be Vengeance, but Vengeance can never be Justice….

It was obvious why Madden had picked me: in the small New Angelos high school we both attended, I was not only the most gifted but the most focused. I spent a lot of time away from home, trying to find inspiration for my art, so I wouldn’t be missed for several hours, especially if I left a note saying I was staying at a friend’s house. I wouldn’t squeal, because I never had and didn’t plan to start now.

Not that I had any friends to stay over with. When I explained to Madden he gave me a look, like he was trying to enforce the idea that there was something wrong with me. I scowled at him, and he scowled back and we just stood there, surrounded by vendors and performers and people enjoying themselves in that oblivious, selfish way that I sort of envied.

“Let go of me, Madden,” my voice is cold, and the itching sort of tickle in the back of my throat tells me I’m letting my magic control myself again, and I took several discreet breaths, hoping he didn’t notice that I was losing my temper. He hadn’t flinched when I spoke, and continued staring at me with his eerie eyes.

“Say you’ll help me,” he said again, then, “No, say you’ll accompany, aid, and protect me while I find Morgan.”

“What if I say I’ll scream? Let go of me, Madden. Let go or I’ll scream.”

He drops my arm quickly, but doesn’t move away, staring at me intently, the lack of irises or whites in his eyes making him seem all the more focused. I stare back at him, coolly, like his eyes and teeth and pointed face don’t make my stomach squirm.

“Say you’ll help me,” he says again, “And I’ll leave you alone.”

“No!” I’m scowling again, and his hand closes around my upper arm again as I turn to leave, yanking me back towards him. I raise my hand, intending to slap him, then change my mind, letting it fall back to my side.

That would be undignified. And I’m not about to let Sir-I’m-special-because-I’m-a-changeling make me look bad, even if there’s no one around who would actually notice.

“Get lost, Madden,” I say, then, making sure I don’t loose eye contact, “Go to sleep.”

For a moment, our minds lock together, chains wrapping around sharp, serrated knives. I try not to smirk as the knives clatter to what accounts for a mental floor, and watch him crumble to the ground. I don’t bother with moving him somewhere more comfortable, just turned and walked off. It’s not like anyone would be worried about him- everyone else was about as sick of his bad attitude as I was.

The boy trudged down the hall, his head pounding from a lack of sleep and coffee. What had possessed him to agree to post these notes on doors anyway? The reason why they didn't already have somebody doing it was because it required the poor sucker to wake up ridiculously early. Even if it did look good on his application for scholarships, nothing was worth this.

He looked down at the last note in his hands. It was addressed to room 215, the same door that he had been forced to go to for the last week every day without fail. He actually remembered who it was, too. Sylvia Ketron. She was new this year, not even having started school yet. For some reason she just didn't have the decency to go down to the office and get whatever the problem was fixed.

His fingers traced the piece of tape holding the paper folded closed. It was a rather curious thing that one person could receive so many notes in one week, but the idea of getting a cup of coffee in a matter of minutes was more than enough to keep his curiosity at bay.

He reached room 215 and pinned the note to the door, then turned to head over to the coffee shop to get as much caffeine in his system as possible as quickly as possible.

***

“Stupid guy,” Sylvia hissed, getting up from her bed and yanking the door open as soon as he was gone.

She tore it open and read the familiar words with disgust. Due to some scheduling difficulties, your Testing has been postponed to...

Sylvia ripped the note apart and stepped into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind her so as not to wake her roommate. How many times could there possibly be an error on the computers that specifically postponed her Testing? Anger simmered inside Sylvia as she stomped down the hallway to the office. The secretary was there bright and early, giving a friendly smile to Sylvia that wasn't returned.

“Ah, Miss Ketron,” the woman said, cheerfully tapping up Sylvia's profile. A flicker of confusion flashed across the woman's face when she saw that Sylvia still had not been Tested, though it was once again quickly replaced by another smile.

“Are you here to reschedule?” she asked, readily pulling up tomorrow's Testing schedule.

“Not exactly,” Sylvia said weakly, breaking from the woman's gaze and shifting slightly on her feet.

What am I doing? There's no way I'll be able to do this! Sylvia thought, her stomach clenching with rage as she though of the possibility of waiting yet another day, and possibly longer. Or worse. School starts in a few days. I-I can't be a Winger... I can't have waited to just find that out. I have to do this.

Sylvia straightened up and met the woman's eyes intently, giving her a smooth smile as she attempted to look convincing.

“There was actually a cancellation last night,” Sylvia said confidently, the words seeming to flow out of her mouth out of their own accord. “They asked someone to take the Test them and I accepted. I'm a Lava Faerie.”

The woman stared blankly at Sylvia for a moment, her eyes slightly glassy. She almost seemed to believe what Sylvia said until her eyes snapped back into focus and she typed furiously on her keyboard.

“Did they put the information in the database?” she asked, her voice taking on a sharp edge.

“No. They told me to ask you to do it,” Sylvia said, unfazed as she attempted to once again establish eye contact with the woman.

“They must have given you papers then,” she said, looking up and meeting Sylvia's gaze expectantly.

“They already gave you the papers. You must have just misplaced them,” Sylvia said slowly.

The woman's expression began to melt.

“I-I'm afraid that you'll just have to...”

“I'm a Lava Faerie,” Sylvia said quietly as she gripped the edge of the desk tightly and focused her will. “I took the Test. Will you please enter it into the computer?”

Don't ask to see my Power Mark, Sylvia thought. You already saw it and it checks out without question. You don't need papers to tell you that. Put it in the database.

Sylvia's concentration centered on these thoughts, focusing them into her gaze. The glassy look reappeared in the woman's eyes and her fingers began to hesitantly move across the keyboard. Sylvia's profile was pulled up and, slowly, the one thing Sylvia had wanted to see for so long was now beside her name. Lava Faerie. The secretary hit enter.

“Thank you so much,” Sylvia said brightly, the woman's eyes returning to their original warmth, if not slightly confused.

Sylvia turned and glided out of the room. Nausea struck Sylvia harshly as soon as the door closed behind her and she stumbled, bracing herself against the wall. Her stomach churned as she frantically made her way to the bathroom. She leaned over the sink and screwed her eyes shut, gulping in air as she fought to keep her breakfast, or lack thereof, in her stomach. Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the nausea drained from her body. Sylvia lowered herself to the floor and placed her head against the cool wall. She looked down at her shaking hands.

What did I just do? Sylvia clenched her fists and placed them on her lap. Fear and confusion raced through her mind, trying to make sense at all of what had just happened. First of all, she was now officially a Lava Faerie, whether or not she really had a Power Mark. Secondly, she didn't know what to do to make it look like she had a Power Mark. Thirdly, she had no idea how she had just done that.

Sylvia pulled her knees to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. She once again focused on her emotions and tried to calm them, surprised when she discovered something completely different... Satisfaction?

And it wasn't her own.

Sylvia's eyes snapped open and she scanned the bathroom, finding that she was alone. She pushed herself up and zeroed in on the emotion, struggling to find the source. It slowly began to fade away and, before Sylvia could even try to find out who it was, disappeared altogether. Her heart hammered in her chest as she once again scanned the room. She turned on the sink and splashed her face with the coldest water possible. Her face was white and she looked ill, rather similar to how she actually felt. Sylvia quickly dried her face and left the bathroom, heading back to her dorm room. She silently slipped through the door and climbed into her bed, sleep meeting her almost immediately despite the questions that still raced furiously through her mind.

They trudged through a muddy countryside, wet with rain and dotted with vibrant spring green: dewdrops on flower buds, raindrops sliding down newborn grass. Maxwell carried his cane and silk top hat in one hand, a cracked leather pack of his favorite tools in the other. White gloves only kept their color about his wrists, while hard use had stained the palms and fingertips charcoal gray. Uriel followed, carrying the heavy machinery. The instruments were so large that they surpassed impressive and trespassed into comical, surely too much for even the big man to manage. Yet Uriel strode on with no complaint, and kept his attention focused on his footing. He did not have much to his name, and the thought of miring his only trousers with mud did not appeal to him.

Maxwell stabbed holes in the ground as they walked with the end of his thick, heavy stick. "How much farther?"

Uriel's pace did not falter. "Approximately four kilometers, six hundred thirty-two meters."

Maxwell scowled, shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other, tested the balance. He stopped completely to cram his top hat on unruly black hair and traded hands. "Worse yet," he muttered. "My arms feel leaden, Uriel. Take the pack." He proffered the leather to Uriel. "Mind yourself, now. Some of my delicate instruments are in there."

Uriel took the second bag with great care and draped it over his right arm.

Maxwell pointed forward with his cane, returned now to his right hand. "Onward," he said.

Uriel followed.

"How much farther now?"