Excerpt: Autumn Skies/Silky 4/Wildlands

From Autumn Skies:

Something appeared at my feet and I started to jump back in shock, and then realized it was a pixie. The little creature was soon joined by a second and then a third. They did not like the snow. I could tell by the way they leapt through it and made little sounds that were plainly annoyed. One finally stopped and looked up at me, his teeth chattering, and his eyes narrowed in anger.

"This isn't my idea, you know!" I said looking down at him. "Take your magic weather and go back where you came from!"

He snarled. I wasn't sure if he understood what I said, but he turned and fled off with the others. They would be going after Arinith, I thought. Wasn't that what Tessa had said? That the pixies would be with him?

I followed the paw prints, which were heading in the same direction. I tried not to curse any more. I was, really, trying very hard to listen for other sounds. There were some, but they seemed badly distorted by the storm. And maybe by the magic as well. I stopped, but I dared not stand still for long. I wanted to rest already, and I knew that would mean death.

Followed the sound, the tracks -- they were getting harder to see in the fall of snow. I could see the little green pixies moving on ahead of me, though, so I decided just to follow them. They semeed to be heading the way I wanted to go.

My head pounded. I began to fear that I wasn't going to survive this after all. I didn't want to die out here in the snow. And right now, I was getting damned angry at Tessa for leaving me in this situation. I had expected better of him.

The sounds were odd again. Then I realized why. The ground sloped down a little. I hadn't realized it until the Pixies suddenly just disappeared, and then I took a step forward and found nothing there --

I landed on my ass and slid down. It was not pleasant, but maybe better than trying to walk it. I wasn't sure.

I was cursing again by the time I stopped at the bottom of the embankment. I couldn't breathe for a moment . I couldn't move. i laid there with the snow falling on my face and knew that if I didn't get up that I would die there.

I wanted it to matter more to me. The apathy came from the accident and the cold. The little logical part of my brain knew it and tried to convince the rest of me to listen. Unfortunately, the rest of me had been hanging too long with fae and working for woo woo news. We were kind of strangers, logic and me.

What did finally startle me back to reality -- well, my currently warped version of it -- was when another half dozen pixies came tumbling over the embankment and down into the snow about a foot to my right. They all squeaked and growled, flailed around a bit, and then gathered themselves up and kept going. I watched them disappear into the white wasteland and it annoyed me. I was not about to let those little green fae creatures out do me!

Oh yeah. Logic retreated back into a dark little corner of my mind and whimpered for awhile.