Showing posts with label a to z challenge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label a to z challenge. Show all posts
“Oh dear, whatever shall I do?”
she asked. No one answered her question. Either way, she didn't dare
ask another fairy for help. She hated being mocked and ridiculed by
her peers.
Because they would laugh.
Imagine, a fairy unable to do the
spell required of her.
The premonition she saw showed
her a young forlorn woman. One who would someday need her help in
meeting her prince.
It would require a spell that
turned animals into people to escort her to a ball.
Animals into people.
“Hmph, that's unheard of,”
she muttered. Her wings fluttered a mere blur as she stepped out of
the forest and into a clearing.
There stood a cottage and within
a fenced yard three pigs lay on large pillows. Their meals were being
served to them on gleaming plates.
“Prize pigs.” The Fairy
Godmother smiled. “I'm sure they'll make perfect practice.”
It hurt. As if someone had cut
away pieces of her body. Without her gnomes, her caretakers, her
guardians, she withered.
Dead and bleeding, mere ground
and dust.
They were of her, made of the
soil and life of the land.
Her soul went into them.
But they had been stolen from
her. Ripped from her womb and lured to the surface.
Now they ran in packs like savage
beasts, doing the bidding of the one who had cursed them.
Hunting and searching for a
prince to devour.
They would not stop until she,
Mother Earth, was tainted with his blood.
A melodic hum echoed through the
dark tunnels of the mines. Little hands gripped large unyielding
pickaxes and the rhythm of metal on stone joined the song.
“Deep in the darkness, the
jewels shine, vines of gold, oh, hi ho.”
“Oh, hi O-”
“She's here!” called a voice
and at once pickaxes were tossed aside. Feet pounded the
mountain terrain as they navigated their way to the bright entrance.
A sign hung outside the
mines, 'Dwarves at work.'
The woman kneeling, handing
out food to the littlest of people, didn't see them as Dwarves,
she saw them for what they truly were.
Children. Misbegotten and
enslaved.
And one day she would free them.
No matter the cost.
His fingers wove through his
hair, clenching at the thick black strands. A lithesome sound danced
at the edge of his hearing.
“Go away.” The guttural noise
of his own voice, no more than an animals growl, twisted in his ears. He
sank to the floor, the corners of the wall hugging him close on each
side.
“Master?”
Adaris flinched away.
“Please, Master. You must eat,”
Quartz said.
A granite hand touched
Adaris's and he slammed against the wall, jerking
his head upwards as his eyes flashed deep crimson.
Quartz, a crumbling man made of stone, starred at him with frozen, emotionless eyes. “What...what
is happening to you?”
“I...I don't know,” Adarius
whispered through clenched teeth.
The voice that danced at the edge
of his hearing swelled, echoing throughout the castle.
“A beast within, now without,
suffer for what you've done to me you dastardly Prince...”
Dead silence followed the words.
He thought they had been finished with the foul thing.
But he'd never be done of it.
“The Rose...”
Zerzura
My eyes could be playing tricks on me. I didn't know. Lost for a week in the desert it seemed impossible that I was still alive. I tucked the shirt against my face, blocking out the sun as I squinted at the two black pillars that gleamed at the edge of the dune.God, another dune.
Climbing the bastard would be worth it if there was a city on the other side, or anything else for that matter. Anything but sand.
My hands dug deep into the hot white ground as I crawled inch by painful inch to the top.
The dry heat of the desert tried to chock me, and I gasped for breath before collapsing at the peak and stared at the dust covered stone.
Ancient and black, two statues stood tall and strong. Stern black faces stared straight into my soul. Beyond the stone guardians a city of opalescent white shone beneath the sun, beckoning me even as the guardians warned me; once I entered that city I would never leave.
Yggdrasil
It loomed over me, the largest specimen of its kind that I've seen. Among the other trees of the National Park it wasn't exactly out of place. All the Red Woods and Sequoias were massive. The largest trees in the world.But this was an Ashwood.
How had it gone unnoticed? The branches spread so wide and far that the tree tops of the surrounding red woods got lost in its foliage
I reached out and touched the ridged grey bark of the tree and smiled. It was warm beneath my fingers.
Craning my neck back, I stared up into the branches and shook my head in wonder, stepping back as a helicopter seed drifted downwards on the breeze. I held out my hand and the key floated into it. It was the size of my palm and the green pod pulsed with life.
Wind whipped through the clearing and I clenched the seed to my chest, moving closer to the tree for cover. With seed in hand, I braced myself as against the tree, and as we made contact the tree flared with light and I closed my eyes against it.
The wind died down and I peeked opened my eyes. A door of light glowed within the trunk of the tree and the key, the seed of the Ashwood, crumbled in my hand. I stared open-mouthed at the doorway, goosebumps moving up my arms.
A rainbow bridge spanned from the door, into the tree and a shadowy figure stepped forward.
"Yggdrasil has favoured you mortal and has granted you access to the corridor between worlds, do you wish to use the Bifrost?"
Xindhi
The shadow walked back and forth beneath Jak's door. The thing was going to try to eat him again. His parents wouldn't believe him that the creature visited his room at night. But tonight he would prove it..
With a creak, the door opened and Jak buried himself deeper into the pile of stuffed animals in the corner of the room. Most of them had been chewed up by his dog but that was okay, it would hid his smell.
His nightlight flickered and the door clicked shut. The creature looked like a shadow against the door but he couldn't forget that ugly mug after it and shoved its pointy teeth in his face and threatened to eat him.
"Bobby?" The creature said in a sniveling voice. "I've come for a snack Bobby, come on Bobby, be nice."
Jak gripped the baseball bat hard beneath the pile of stuffies. His name wasn't freaking Bobby.
"BOB-EEEEE. I'm hungry," the creature said, and pounced onto his bed. It found nothing but a pile of pillows and it screeched in anger and ripped and shredded them with its long claws.
Jak jumped from his hiding place and the creature swung towards him.
It was too late, the bat was already in motion. It struck the elf-creature with all the force an eight year old could muster and sent the creature flying across the bed, hitting his floor with a loud thump.
"Jak?" his mother called, and pushed open his door. "You're suppose to be sleeping."
"Mom! I caught it!" Jak cried as light flooded his room.
"Oh my god, what the hell is that?" His mother said, and called for his father. "Henry! Henry, come here, hurry!"
Jak let his bat drop to his side and he stared over at the black skinned, pointy eared creature.
"Gottcha."
Wild Hunt
It's happening again.I stood outside my house in the large field and the wind howled around me. Angry, sounding like the call of wild dogs.
This was the third time. I couldn't tell if it was a dream or if I was sleep walking.
Out in the field the sound came again. A howl or the call of a horn?
I turned and fled. Across the open grass towards the trees. Something was coming, I didn't know what, but I felt it coming for me. My whole being vibrated with the need to run and I listened to it, and my legs carried me fast across the field, my movements swift and graceful until they seemed no longer human at all.
The sound came again and I stopped at the edge of the forest, glancing over my shoulder. My body glowed with a silver light that flared as I saw it.
A large pack of wolf-like dogs surrounded a dozen riders on horse back, their weapons gleamed in the moonlight.
My body screamed at me to escape.
If could outrun them a third time, I would be free. My soul my own.
If I could not, I'd become one of them.
One of the Wild Hunt.
Vivian
She caressed the bark of the tree, and leaned forward, resting her forehead against its rough texture. The wind blew through the branches, wiping at the leaves so they fell in multicolored swirls around her.Vivian swallowed hard and bit back the tears that threatened to burn tracks down her cheeks.
“I am sorry, my love,” she whispered to th
e tree. “But it is for your own good. The things to come now.” She held her breath for a moment before letting it free. “You do not have to watch Arthur fall, to witness the world you tried so hard to built crumbled at your feet."
Vivian touched the tree, her voice soft and full of sorrow. “Be safe here Merlin and know that I shall bare this for you, I shall watch over him when he has lost.”
Turning from the tree, she walked a few steps before looking back at the large willow, its long tendrils of leaves drifted on the breeze.
“And when the time comes for this world to accept all that you have to offer, you shall be there. So will I, and on that day, I hope you can forgive me.”
Unicorn Horn
Unicorns are despicable, selfish, loathsome creatures.Of all the beasts, people and places in the world they are the only ones that have magic, and they will not share. Masters of manipulation all of them,
a Mage must never fall for the deceitful disguise of a unicorn.
We call ourselves Mages, because we know the spells and the rituals that would bring us magic, if we had a wand or staff to call it to us.
Imagine how horrible it is to attend a school and wave around a wooden stick, pretending.
My days of pretending are over.
The graduation rite for the class isn't simple, few who spend half their life studying magic ever actually get to wield it.
Tonight we'll go into the Magic Lands, many will never turn and of those that do return, only a few will get the means to wield their craft.
Those that find the unicorn and rob it of its horn and perhaps its life, will be able to use the horn as their source of power.
That is the only way a Mage will ever wield magic.
By obtaining a unicorns horn.
And tonight, I shall get mine.
Teles
"The others have already left," a voice said.
I rolled onto my stomach and my wings stretched large and bright, a mixture of midnight blue and purple.
Struggling to my feet, my talons dug into the earth as I looked over at my sister.
"You didn't wake me?"
She wrapped herself in her wing. "I tried, you sleep like a stone in Tartarus."
I beat my wings and stretched, pushing myself off the ground, blasting the air towards my sister who grumbled loudly.
It didn't take long to reach the edge of the island. Several of my other sisters sat, staring off into the distance.
"Anything?"
"Not yet," one said, and sighed over the rumble of her own stomach.
"When was the last time we ate?" Another asked.
"Too long," I said, perching on a rock.
The day wore on until waiting became like watching sand drip through an hour glass, grain by grain.
A blot appeared on the horizon and my wings perked up.
"There," I said, my breath catching.
The others came to life instantly as the blot came closer, revealing large sails.
Joy swelled within me and it came of as a song, the soft alluring haunting melody of my people.
Tonight we feast.
Scholomance
It's been exactly a year since I came too Scholomance.I shifted the dark blue robe around my feet and bounced on my heels. The older men glared at me.
I was the youngest person admitted to the school, and out of the ten of us, over half of them hadn't spoken to me for the entire year.
Not only was I the youngest, I was a girl. Don't get me wrong, Scholomance has admitted girls before. Old and grey like most of these bastards.
People trained and schooled themselves for decades to get admitted here.
To be taught by the Devil himself, in the kind of magic that
stole your life, and ate away at your soul.
These guys? They had a few good spells in them; good being a relative term. They would sell them to the highest bidder, spend the last years of their life in luxury.
A wasted existence for an old man.
But me? I was only eighteen. They envied the hell out of me.
The large black obsidian doors creaked open and we turned to watch the dark form enter the room.
Shadows shrouded him but they fell away as he walked, as if he were dropping a cloak.
The devil himself was rather unimpressive.
Nondescript even. It was hard say.
He moved down the row, hands tucked deep into his pockets, no words were necessary as he passed us. Today nine of us would go home and one of us would stay as payment to the Devil for his teaching, and as he stopped before me, I felt the old men smirk.
Damn the Devil.
Rama Empire
The dark grey flakes caught in my hair and I brushed them away. I wiped the tears from my face, smearing the dirt as I watched the city burn. The large beam slowly razed the city, glowing like heaven fire in the night and the fire raged onward.I stood on the hill overlooking the chaos, my heart in my throat.
"It's the Kapilla's Glance, the Atlantian weapon. Again," a tall boy said, stepping next to me.
"Why are they doing this?"
"The Empire has gotten too strong, too powerful."
Even as he spoke, a blue blast erupted from the city of Lothal; the psychics defense, and slowly enveloped the Kapilla's Glance beam, breaking it apart and dissolving it into tiny particles until it shattered and small flecks of light floated heavenward.
How could destruction be so beautiful?
The boy reached out and pinched a grey flake from my hair, rubbing it beneath his fingers. "There will be no need to bury the dead."
I held out my hands and stared wide-eyed as the ash of my people covered them. Tears flowed down my cheeks and I gasped for air, cradling my hands to my chest.
The Rama Empire would fall and the Atlantian's would be the cause.
Qutrub
He touched the stones as he wandered through the graveyard. Tapping this one, caressing the next.Inhaling deeply, he held the musty scent of earth and decay deep in his lungs before letting it out.
Delicious.
Had his brothers started without him?
Hunger rumbled deep inside him and he weaved through the headstones, mist swirling around his feet.
The moon hung high in the sky, playing peek-a-boo behind dark clouds, lighting their edges. There was a time when it had been difficult to find food; to eat without drawing attention to oneself.
But now? The world overflowed with people, with the dead. If his kind didn't eat them eventually the humans would run out of places to put the bodies.
Far back against the fence and the tree line, a small lantern glowed in the night.
"The graveyard keeper has already been taken care of," a voice said from the darkness.
"By taken care of, you mean...?"
"Sleeping, of course," the voice said.
"Of course," he said.
The voice guided him to a grave, not new but not insipidly old. Two of his brothers poked their head up from the hole and grinned, tossing dirt aside.
The third sibling, the voice, materialized out of the darkness, his grin stretched his face. "Brother, you're just in time for dinner."
Prima Materia
The mixture blackened.I let the contents boil before adding a few ingredients for the whitening, and when the process was complete I settled the mortar on a bed of ice.
Once cooled, I added the seven ingredients for the yellowing, and the solution sparked to life, bursting into a yellow flame.
The last phase was the reddening. At least that's what everyone was told. It had never been seen.
I dropped in the white sand, the fire flared so hot I turned away. When I looked again the mortar contained a misshapen glass-like rock. I held the last item over the flame; an ancient piece of volcanic rock and it twisted in my hand.
The rock pierced my flesh; cursing, I dropped it to the floor and it shattered. I scrambled to pick up the pieces but even as I did I heard the flame sizzle and die.
Again.
Failed again.
Kneeling on the floor, I clenched the rocks tight and the pain brought me back to reality.
I climbed to my feet, preparing myself for the black coal-like substance that always resulted in a failed Philosophers stone.
In a failed attempt at discovering the Prima Materia.
The stone sparkled. All angles and crusted around the edges.
But it sparkled, glowed with inner light.
Like blood.
Oak King
The staff twisted in my chest and I cried out, clenching the blackened wood."Wha...what are you doing?"
Impossible. Every year was the same, it had been the same since the dawn of the seasons when he and I came into being.
How can he stand over me now old, hunched and withered, but strong as winter ice? It was his time to wane; my time to wax.
The power that built in me during the winter reached its pinnacle at the spring equinox; today, and I was powerful as ever. I just wasn't powerful enough.
He reached his hand out and pain splintered through me as he grabbed a horn. It froze over and turned brittle in his hand until it crumbled to dust.
The pain racked my body robbing me of breath. Even at the end of summer when he came to claim my place it had never been so intense. I went willingly to my grave then, to rest and grow strong.
Why would he not return to the ground?
“Why, Holly King,” I gasped, the words like butterflies on my lips. My body arched beneath his staff which seemed more metal than wood.
“Because I am strong,” the King whispered, his face twisting with mad power and loathing. “And you are not.”
Nanny Button-Cap
I reached out and ran my fingers through the soft brown hair of the small boy sleeping in the bed.Beautiful, angelic.
This is what I lived for. Lolling these kids to sleep, making sure they were safe and had beautiful dreams.
I rose from the end of the bed and moved to the window, with a final look back at the child, my physical form turned to light and I drifted as a long glittering streak on the wind. Swirling through the air my being swelled with happiness, bright and light.
The moon shone high in the sky as night closed it and the world became still and quite only to be broken by the dreadful cry of a child and I froze.
No.
She would not have another. I would not allow it.
I rushed through the night sky towards the screaming and arrived just in time to witness Black Annis pulling the small child out the window. The parents watched in horror as the crones blue face twisted with hatred and hunger. Her claws dug into the kids arm and blood dropped from it onto the window sill.
A roar ripped free of my throat as my form solidified and I summoned my cane; large and ancient.
She would not take another.
Moo
The dagger sunk deep into my brothers chest and I hissed in pleasure as his blood bubbled up and poured over my hands. His chest heaved and his eyes widened, staring at me. Asking me why as he slipped into death.This Kingdom and everything that it was, would be mine; the crown; our sister.
All mine.
Laughter tumbled from my lips like water from a fountain and I pulled the blade free. Blood splattered across the floor and with each droplet the ground shook.
"What have you done?"
My sisters voice was music to my ears and I climbed to my feet, turning to face her.
"Now we'll have it all," I said. The mosaic tiles beneath my feet shifted, broke apart.
She shook her head, thick dark waves of hair cascaded around her shoulders. "What you have done is bring the wrath of the Gods upon us."
"You and I will be together always. We will rule over this kingdom."
Her gaze strayed to my dead brother and tears weld up in her eyes and escaped down her cheeks.
"No," she said, her gaze steely. "The Gods will take you and all that you love for this. Goodbye, my brother."
Outside the volcano roared to life and my sister, my beautiful Moo, turned and fled.
Lotus Tree
Our boat crashed on an island. In its center stood a large tree with a crooked trunk; its branches were covered in white flowers; Red juicy fruit hung from each flower.“Wow, I've never see anything like it,” Rim said.
“Is it edible?”
He plucked a piece and pulled it apart. The inside was the color of a graph fruit and it looked like a cross between a pomegranate and an orange.
The smell wrapped around me and I took it from Rim. "If I die, don't eat it," I said, and took a bite. The juice washed over my tongue, both sweet and tart. "Amazing."
There was enough to get us...to get us where?
I took another bite and smiled as the day turned to night and I gazed up at the sky. I had never seen those constellations before.
Strange.
“Wait,” I said, and stumbled to my feet. “Are we...do we need to be somewhere?”
“Um, no?” Rim laughed. “Why would we need to be anywhere but here?”
“I don't know,” I said. I took another bite of the fruit. “I just thought...” I thought perhaps we were lost and people were waiting for us. We needed to go, didn't we?
“I like it here,” Rim said, smiling.
I agreed. I liked it here too.
Kaf Mountain
She needed to see it.
“Must you?” A man said, appearing from beyond the peak.
Her people couldn't be right.
“Oh, they aren't,” he said with a harsh laugh. “Not about everything. You've traveled my path up the mountain, so you are mine to deal with.” The djinn held out his hands. “Choose. Look pass the mountain and become my servant, or travel back to your people and the death that awaits.”
“Look," Artakama said, her voice shallow.
The djinn dragged her forward until she stood at the peak, overseeing everything. The mist slowly parted and Artakama breath caught in her throat.
A vast ocean stretched, so green it tinted the sky. But at the edge of the ocean, more mountains.
More.
The djinn weaved his hand in front of her face and Artakama watched her last breath crystallized into a beautiful purple gem. She breathed again, this time easier.
“This is your last breath,” the djinn said. “It belongs to me now, and so do you,”