Dreaming

I dreamed of drowning again. Mother insists it is a sign of good luck, that water is a holy thing. I think I am overwhelmed.

Characters

My high school graphic design class was an experiment - it was the first time the course would be taught ever, and the teacher was trying to figure out still what she wanted to do. I was no artist and needed an art credit, as I was thrown out of eighth grade choir (a testament to my awful singing voice). My very first friend was in the class with me. She hated some of the projects and begged our teacher for an alternative, and as it was the first time the class was being taught, the teacher was open to ideas for new projects. My friend proposed a music album to describe the people of her graphic novel, which wasn't really graphic design-like, but everyone thought it was too good of an idea to let it go to waste. She spent weeks trying to find the perfect song for these people and was terrified she'd choose the wrong one. I admired her creativity and her dedication to these people swimming in her head.

I wanted to try the same thing here. I listed each character from my current projects and their song. I also am working on throwing in some images later because this blog is looking pretty bland compared to everyone else's. Also, this is a work in progress, and I'm not even halfway done with coming up with ideas.

Za's Storm

Arianna: Alex C. featuring Yasmin K: Angel of Darkness 

Diana: Florence + The Machine: Blinding

Matthew

Anna: Deftones: Diamond Eyes

Captain John Steel

Tyler

Anatha's Light

Anatha: Eluveitie: A Rose for Epona

Aeliot: Eluveitie: Anagantios

Lilith: Eluveitie: Quoth the Raven

Crimson Promises

Justin: Rammstein: Mein Herz Brennt

Mark: Nine Inch Nails: A Warm Place

Elisabeth: Nine Inch Nails: Reptile  A Perfect Circle: Magdelena

Dominick: Nightwish: 10th Man Down

Astarte: Nine Inch Nails: And All That Could Have Been

Rekindled Fire

Justin: Nine Inch Nails: Leaving Hope

Daina: Sarah Brightman: The War is Over

Fires and Spires

Tristan: TOOL: The Grudge

Marth: Rammstein: Sonne

Jack: Within Temptation: Forsaken

Isara: Tarja Turunen: Oasis

Aradon: Deftones: Hole in the Earth (Renholder remix)

Hurt

Hurting hearts

Make for angry words.

Forgive them.

Za's Storm - Chapter Two

            The King tilted his chair in the midst of his distracted thoughts. His study was silent outside of his head as the sun set farther and farther away. His wide mahogany bureau was empty except for a single leaflet from the highest court among the temples, but his eyes averted the fine ink in favor of the old portraits and landscapes on the paneled walls.

            His eyes slowed on the shelf of books at the other end of the room. The bookcase was only half-full of logs and journals as the librarian prepared another library across the hallway. He hummed and rubbed his eyes.

            The King had expected sleepless nights when Lady Safia insisted on keeping Diana in the same room. He remembered his whiny brothers and sisters long after they married and went their separate ways to distant kingdoms. Either Diana had not made a sound in the past three nights, or he had slept the dead man’s slumber. Safia roused early in the morning to coo to the feisty child and nurse her, and the babe was still quiet.

            His thoughts lingered on the logs and the child. She was slightly small for a six-month old, but she was also weak from starvation. The King righted his chair and sauntered to the logs, opening the pages of Shallowbrook’s births on the day of the prophecy. In a lieutenant’s plain script were the words No Recent Births. Safia had noted this as well as no one could nurse the orphaned girl. Glancing at his massive map of the land, he looked through reports from the neighboring inns, towns, and villages for a black-haired infant with a scar. Nothing. His search grew faster as he widened the radius more and more.

            “By Alesia’s holy name!” he cursed.

            The King turned to the first page and skimmed each entry. Perhaps he’d missed an inn or town. Once he reached the last page, he slammed the leather binding shut. How far had Diana’s mother traveled? Was there an emergency elsewhere that prompted her to travel so far from Shallowbrook when the child was born? He opened the second log to skim through the pages. It contained half the capital town’s record, encompassing nearly one hundred births on the night of the storm and thereabout, but with every fair-haired baby or rambunctious baby boy, the King was anxious to find Diana.

            “Again, my love?” Safia cheered from the doorway. He looked over his shoulder at her glowing smile and the black-haired infant in her arms. The tailor had sewn Diana an oversized hat, and the baby’s cheek-to-cheek smile suggested she liked the foolish thing.

            “I was looking for Diana in here,” he said, resisting the contagious smiles. “I thought she would stand out.”

            Safia pursed her lips. “Right as ever, my lord. Why not look near Shallowbrook?”

            “I did,” he said with arched brows. “She wasn’t born anywhere near Shallowbrook.”

            The Queen hummed with curiosity and smiled to Diana. “Well, then, where were you born?” she cooed. The babe opened her mouth with a silent laugh and grabbed for her toes. “Let me have a look.”

            “Nay, I must take care of the endowments to the temples. We will look for her some other time.”

            “No, I am curious now.” Safia lowered Diana into the oversized reading chair and scooted the foot stool to the edge, but Diana looked thrilled to watch the Queen flip through a third log. “Perhaps you should just sign off whatever Orik recommended and be done with the bill.”

            “That would be one way to keep him happy,” the King muttered, glancing at the bill on his desk and smirked. “But I don’t like making Orik happy.”

            “He is the High Priest of Alesia,” Safia argued.

            “One more reason not to let him decide Alesia’s share of the people’s taxes. If he was a more pleasant man, it’d make that bill easier to look at.” He sighed. “If I sign it, he will stop calling us to the temple meetings.”

            The shimmer in Safia’s eyes was all the assurance he needed. The King scribbled his approval, sealed the bill, and left it in the care of a page boy. Then, with the midnight-eyed babe’s adoring watch, they flipped through each page of soldiers’ reports. Safia was the faster reader and finished the third volume within the hour, frowning, and looked to the next three tomes. She lit several candles and pulled the tomes to the table. With the second tome finished, it was conclusive that Diana had not been born in the city or anywhere near Shallowbrook. They skimmed through entries from the Hawk’s Cliff, Cold Marsh, Summer Wood, and the eastern lakes, but there was no entry for a scarred babe with such deep, dark eyes or a dark scar on her right temple and eye. They skimmed the final volume, a thin record of births from the thinly-populated plains in the north, but could not find her. The King closed it and glanced at both his wife and the staring baby.

            They were quiet. The Queen didn’t miss a speck of dust and was a trained scholar. She would never miss a word. The King always found what he wanted. He would not have missed Diana if she was in the books. The soldiers had searched every inn, bath house, manor, hovel, alley, and ship within a month’s ride for every babe and recorded every detail, but Diana was not in any of the tomes. The King let out a slow breath, and Diana shaped her glowing face into a silent laugh, and the hat fell over her face.

            “What does it mean?” Safia asked quietly.

            “I don’t know,” he said simply, lifting the hat. “Are you a great hero, Diana?”

            She rocked in the chair in an attempt to grasp her toes while still smiling, and the King could not bear it a moment longer. He lifted her high up into the air and down, up and down, until her eyes twinkled with silent laughs. Safia grasped her bosom in a moment of fear, but the King stopped to coddle the girl.

            “I am starting to love her,” he whispered with a smile.

            Safia wrapped a tendril of soft hair around her finger. “I have loved her from the moment I saw her,” she added. The King kissed her cheek and then the baby’s forehead just as the sun finished setting over the far-off mountains.

            The High Temple’s central chamber, a private oval-shaped room guarded by corridors of locked doors and rows of guards, was lit by the noonday sunlight. The circular table, embroidered by fine carvings around the edge, was surrounded by the high priests, the King, and the Queen. The Queen bounced Diana in her lap as her eyes drooped; her midday nap was approaching quickly. Orik, Alesia’s holy representative, frowned at the sight under his red cap and flat nose. He was seated directly in front of the king in the highest religious position at the table. At his right sat the High Priest of Feya, Joy, a quiet and mildly agreeable elder woman, and to her right sat the High Priest of Lyro, Erica, a troublemaker of sorts that argued for fun. To Orik’s left sat Geoffrey, High Priest of Ramos, a mercurial man that often agreed with the King but would violently protest against violating certain traditions for strange reasons. Beside him sat the High Priest of Za, the youngest priest and an idealist at heart. He often argued with Orik and lost each time, but his spirited talks often won over Joy and Geoffrey.

            The final preparations for the celebration of Alesia’s Fire were finally complete after hours of deliberation. The holy fire would be replicated as was usual and spread across the city. A wooden dragon could be prepared by a new art guild as the usual makers had disbanded in the past year over an internal strife, and the dragon would attack the castle town as usual with the help of several dozen men carrying the piece. The King would lead the battle chant, and with song and dance, the town would defeat it. The Queen called the meeting to an end, and the King stood to dismiss them. Safia led the way into the antechamber where platters of breads, cheeses, and apples waited.

            Once the other priests had left, Orik approached the king with his usual heavy frown. “Your Majesty, if I may speak my mind,” he said.

            “You may,” the King invited.

            “The child,” he said. The King bit his tongue and refrained from rolling his eyes. “She is nearly two years old.”

            “She has no one to tell this council’s secrets to, Orik. Our talks are safe,” the King said as patiently as he could.

            “See, Your Majesty, that is the thing. She makes no noise. She has not spoken a word in her life, and that makes me uneasy.” The priest’s frown quivered. “She is strange.”

            “I love her all the more for her quietness,” the King laughed bitterly. “I’m sure when she has something meaningful to say, Orik, that she will speak her mind.”

            The high priest bowed gently and murmured a pleasantry before joining his brothers. The King let his tongue free and laughed to himself. If the man wasn’t worrying for the heathens and blasphemers, he was worried about those who hadn’t sinned yet. He stepped into the foyer and paused, for the glow of the sunlight on his queen had never looked more beautiful than it did at the moment when her gold hair sparkled and the light bended around her dancing arms. She ate an entire apple with grace only she could ever possess so bountifully, inhaling every bit without sparing a single drop of succulent juices. Diana waited patiently by the window, her hands crossed over her pudgy belly and her eyes taking in every face. The King smiled to her, scooped the girl up, and stole a kiss from his queen.

            “Shall I have the baker send more cakes to our bedchamber, wife?” the King whispered into her ear.

            She giggled and patted his hand away. “I am eating for two, my lord. I can have as many as I like.”

            “Yes, you may,” he coaxed and kissed her cheeks. “You are always welcome to eat all the cakes, my love, eating for one or for five.”

            She kissed his cheek and looked to Diana nearby. The orphaned girl had doubled her height and tripled her weight in the two winters since Safia saved her. She’d begun walking and running about the halls and played hide-and-seek with the servants, often terrifying the nurses when she found a particularly devious spot. Her yellow satin dress was dusty at the knees, and bits of sugar powdered her lips from one of the many treats in her reach.

            Orik paused at the child’s side and glared down at her. Just as Safia started for the girl’s side, Diana stared back up at the man and furrowed her brow. Her deep eyes were suddenly fierce and frozen, shocking even the Queen. Her hands balled into fists, and she pointed her chin at the man standing over her. Orik wrinkled his nose and continued on toward the Temple of Alesia, and the King’s muffled chuckles slowly calmed.

            The Queen tied the ribbon of her favorite robe over her ripe belly and admired herself in the mirror for a moment. She was still full from a week-long celebration filled with cakes and fresh fruit pies. She was four months pregnant, the longest of her attempts at producing an heir, and was able to finally breathe easily. Diana was still growing quickly, and the King was happy. The kingdom celebrated the Queen’s pregnancy by sending more delicious foods and gifts.

            Safia had begun reading her favorite novels to Diana before bed, hoping the toddling girl would begin to speak if she knew more words or was alone. She followed the text with her finger and read slowly, but the girl only followed with her eyes. The Queen began to worry, but the King knew in his bones that the girl was terribly smart.

            As the cusp of five months approached, the Queen grew merrier and more hopeful. She began reading to Diana her favorite romantic stories. Only when she lost herself again in the books did Diana follow with her little fingers, and the Queen knew that the girl understood the stories. Lost lovers, lost battles, lost heirlooms – the tragedies widened the child’s eyes and tightened her muscles against the Queen’s in anticipation. Several nights the two fell asleep together, and the King could not pull them apart for fear his heart would snap in two.

            On the first night of August, the Queen finished her very favorite book of siren that fell in love with a warrior prince. She gave him the ability to breathe the ocean water to be with her, but as the temptation of a coastal kingdom’s treasures lingered, he used the power to kill and not to love. In the end, the siren strangled him in her bed and was so heartbroken that her body turned into sea foam. Diana yawned and hugged her stuffed bear as sleep drew on. Safia tucked her long black hair over her ear, kissed her cheek, and found the narrow opening for the book on the book shelf.

            Then the pain came, suddenly and with the wrath of a kicking horse. Safia fell to her knees and let out a cry, but the pain came again, harder. It consumed every bit of her mind in its gnashing and clawing except for the familiarity. A guard stepped in, saw the Queen writhing in pain on the floor, and yelled for a cleric. Her eyes widened with agony as she rolled on the floor screaming.

            She felt another pair of hands on her stomach and lifted her head. Diana pressed on her belly, her face wrought with terror, and Safia clenched her teeth shut. She was scaring the girl, and if it killed her, she would not let Diana be scared. “Diana, sweetie, it’s going to be okay,” she sobbed.

            “Arianna,” Diana said, her voice a crystal of clarity and alto.

            Safia muffled her scream as best as she could and sobbed. Footsteps echoed down the distant staircase as help approached, but she knew no one could stop this. Diana closed her eyes and pressed into the Queen’s stomach.

            “Arianna,” she said again.

            The pain closed into the Queen’s outer core into a biting throb. She breathed, sucking air into her nose and mouth at once. It was gone. It was over. She lifted her head, but there was no bloody mess at her legs. Diana still pressed against her stomach, rubbing the rip lump with a furrowed brow. Her nails needed clipping, but the light scraping was comforting. Safia lay on the floor a moment longer.

            “Arianna?” the Queen said gently. Diana blinked and nodded deeply. “Is that her name?” Diana nodded again.

            The King and Queen had thought about such a name years ago – named after the Queen’s grandaunt and her mother’s dearest friend. They had not spoken of names since their first heartbreak. How had Diana known if no one else had heard such talk? How did she comfort the Queen on Death’s doorstep?

            The cleric and the King ran in, gasping. Safia reached a hand to him, and he collapsed at her side with the cleric nearby. “Gods, Safia! What is going on?”

            “I – I had such pain, but I am all right now,” she said. “I think I am all right now. I am sorry I caused such a commotion.”

            “My wife is not grounded by trifles!” The King lifted her shoulders and cradled her. “Is it he baby?”

            “Arianna,” Diana said again. The King blinked as his mind cleared slowly. “Arianna!”

            “I am all right,” Safia said. “Let us go to bed together, my lord. Diana has something she would like to tell us.”

            “Yes, let us get you to bed.”

He nodded to the cleric to follow, and the King helped his bride to her feet. She wove her fingers with Diana’s and followed her husband to their grand bedchamber and all of its satin luxuries. The King disappeared behind the painted screen to change into his nightgown, and the ladies crawled under layers of heavy, silky blankets into the sliver of moonlight from the window.

“My lady, some tea,” said the cleric’s apprentice.

“Thank-you,” she said with a quiet smile. The cleric presented the china cup, and she drank hesitantly. The drink was grainy, but it was better than many of the cleric’s usual potions. He nodded, took the platter, and was off.

Diana sat up in the bed and wrapped the blankets over her like a beggar. The Queen rolled onto her elbow and wrapped a hair over her ear. Before she could say a word, the King joined them in the wide bed and wiggled an arm around his queen. “What is it, Diana?” he asked.

“She spoke today,” the Queen began. “Tell him what you said, Diana.”

The girl looked to the queen’s belly and then to the King. “Arianna,” she said. Her crystal, alto voice came quietly.

“Princess Arianna?” the King repeated. “Perhaps. We haven’t met her yet, have we?”

Diana frowned for a moment but smiled again. She cupped her hands toward each other and closed her eyes until only a sliver of black remained. A spark of intense light appeared between her palms. The Queen gasped as her king held her with anticipation. The light grew larger and brighter, the size of a tea cup, and was bright enough to illuminate the room. Diana cringed.

“Oh Diana, what is that?” the Queen said.

            The girl lowered the light to the Queen’s stomach and pressed it inside. The Queen gasped. Soothing, numbing power flowed through her body for a moment as her womb lit like a dark study to a candlelight. Through her thin gown, her warm flesh and blood vessels, she saw a shadow against the light that basked in its brilliance and flexed tiny black fingers.

            “Arianna,” Diana whispered. “I gave her half my soul.”

            The Queen blinked. “Half of your soul?” the King repeated. Diana nodded. “Diana-!”

            “I have plenty,” Diana said and rubbed her eyes. She lowered herself against the headboard, oblivious to their stares. Her face was pale and her breaths long. The Queen kissed her cheek and lifted the blanket.

            “Thank-you, Diana,” Safia whispered. “Dream of good things.”

            “Goodnight,” Diana whispered.

            The King wrapped his other arm around Safia and patted the girl’s hand in his reach. Once Diana’s breaths were long with sleep, he whispered, “I knew she was a good girl.”

            “And for that, I worry,” Safia whispered. She pressed her stomach and felt the warmth from inside and spirited kicks from within. “A princess, then? How grand.”

            “If she looks anything like her mother, she will be wise and beautiful.” The King kissed behind her ear. “Sleep well, my love.”

            The King fell slowly into a deep slumber, and the Queen joined him much later in the night. She held Diana against the girl’s nocturnal wiggles and rolling for a while before the infant roused her from a comfortable spot. When she finally slept, she dreamed lucid images of places she had never seen, of waterfalls in monstrous mountains that reflected white skies and trees bigger than castles. Then, just as she felt the fingers of the waking world approach, she saw a bird of fire fly from a dark valley, screeching so loud that every mountain in her sight echoed its cry. The bird opened its golden and fire wings against the sun and let forth such beautiful light that it brought the Queen to her knees. With it, every seed blossomed in the field, and the earth let free the scent of life.

When she woke, Safia could still smell the aroma in her nose. The King had left for his duties, and Diana was still asleep beside her. It was late in the morning, but her body was not quite awake enough to stand. She hugged one of the pillow and lingered a moment longer. Was the dream because of Diana’s gift? If it was, her gift was magnificent. Was Diana the infant they had been looking for? Perhaps, but Safia loved the girl just the same – if not more.

The girl followed the Queen closely after the night of the blessing. They sat together at the council meetings in the High Temple despite Orik’s wary looks. None of the high priests knew that the girl spoke, but the king was certain that the girl was trustworthy enough not to spill the highest secrets. Who did she have to tell anyway? Still Orik watched her with heavy, furry brows and a permanent wrinkle from his thin frowns. No one knew about Diana’s power, though the Queen was certain that even she didn’t know its full potential.

Once the moon lost its crimson glow and the people began preparing for the winter solstice, the queen’s water broke. She stood before the council with a glowing smile, anticipating the finest foods after a month of bland sugarless breads and the newest band of violinists that had come to visit the castle, when the water spilled across Alesia’s dais. The King quickly stood to call off the rest of the meeting, but the Queen dismissed his proposition, commanded him to finish the last details, and walked herself to her bedchamber with Diana in tow. The midwife hurried in with the cleric and handmaidens at every corner, trying to throw the girl out of the room, but the Queen silenced the older woman’s orders.

Diana took the Queen’s hand into her own and lowered her eyes, and a soft warmth enveloped all of the Queen’s body. “No, Diana,” she said gently, “it’s okay to hurt sometimes. We need to hurt sometimes.”

“It will hurt a lot,” Diana warned quietly.

Safia patted her hand and braced against the first of the contractions, and Diana stayed close to her side. A handmaiden warned the midwife of the King’s approach; men weren’t to be in the sacred room of childbirth. The King waited patiently and coaxed his bride from the door and braced himself against her first shrieks and yells. The day turned to night, and pages hurried to bring towels, hot water tubs, water and food to the chamber. As the moon’s zenith approached, the queen grew exhausted and finally opened her hand to Diana, and warm silence passed over her stressed muscles and bones.

“I see it,” the midwife cheered. “Coming right out, Your Highness. One good push ought to do it!”

Then, with a single crackled cry, the princess was born. She let out a slow cry before screaming with all of her newfound lungs. The midwife swaddled her quickly and tended to the approaching placenta as Safia took the babe into her arms. The King hurried in at his daughter’s cry and held her with the Queen, and Diana hovered at their side.

“A beautiful baby girl,” Safia whispered. She let out a groan as the afterbirth came and went, and the midwife carried out the rest of her duties. The night wound down, and news spread quickly across the kingdom that a princess had been born.

Once the umbilical cord was severed, the babe’s skin washed of blood and waste, and her gentle skin clothed in soft cloth, the King took his daughter into his arms and looked into her face. “She looks like her mother,” he cooed.

The Queen rested her tired head on her husband’s shoulder. “Arianna,” she gently called. The babe blinked her tiny eyes open. “You like that name?”

“Arianna,” Diana said again, and the babe blinked in her direction. “Princess Arianna, welcome.” The girl stepped to the floor and bowed, taking the Queen’s breath away for the moment.

“Diana, you needn’t bow to her,” the Queen rasped. “You shall love and protect her as you would your sister.”

            The girl hesitated. “Very well,” she said, and joined them again.

            In the distance, fireworks popped and splashed the sky with bright reds and oranges. The cheering of the people could be heard from within the castle walls. A princess was born, healthy and beautiful, and all was peaceful for a little longer.

Unkown

Leaving the mall

I hurried to the car

anxious to feel the warm engine heat

Hot, like only a Mustang can

and I marveled that my keys were in my purse

The power of our unconscious mind!

How I rely on that piece of me so!

Leaving the restaurant,

I started the car

like I've done a million times before

and threw it into neutral, not drive.

What in the world did I do that for?

I glance down and pull it into drive

And in that split second

A woman whizzed by

Cell phone in one hand

Glasses in the other

Flying through the lot

She could have hit me

She would have killed me

This is not the first time

Cornell's sociology department put up a poster

"ARE YOU PSYCHIC?" Meh.

"$5 WHEN YOU PARTICIPATE" Oh?

I sign up and investigate this kid's test.

Basic, you are rewarded or punished subconsciously

The punishment is gore, spiders, etc.

The reward is porn geared toward your sexuality.

He makes it sound simple enough.

Your ESP will reward you, if you have it.

He explains it well and shows me the money.

"I don't like porn," I mumble, ignored.

Fifteen minutes pass.

So many tests, so numbing.

The results come in

Zero punishments

Zero rewards

Everything was blank.

The system crashes, and the kid is upset.

"I guess we'll never know," he says.

I smile. I don't care.

He gives me $5, and I buy ice cream.

Worrying

I am a chronic worrier, neurotic even. I worry about everything. My therapist let it slip during one of our sessions that my mother is, too, that it confounds him that we can worry about such extraordinary things.

On my way from Ithaca to Aurora, New York, it occurred to me that I was only a foot away from the road. I drive a Ford Mustang, a very good car for a person like me what with five-star crashing ratings and a unique floorboard that will not bend up and take your legs off should you hit something in the front (unlike most cars). It handles extremely well; I love the steering and handling. I know I've noticed this closeness to the ground before, but fatigue makes my worrying much worse, and I couldn't help but imagine the unique floorboard buckling. Why, I'd hit the asphalt before I knew I was falling. What would hit me first, the gas storage or the rear axle? I hoped it would be the gas line because the rear axle wouldn't kill me, and I'd be marred and maimed on the road, still conscious. The gas would concuss me and leave me unable to hurt.

I worry about my friends a lot, too. I shouldn't have such clumsy friends. It makes me sick thinking of the trouble they can get in. Jackie is from Miami and is not used to ice. I see ice all over Ithaca and am constantly grabbing her arm to keep her from falling -- but if I hold her too tight, she won't be able to keep balance and will slip, and my holding her arm will dislocate the joint.

Oh, and I am a biologist, so I know all the different ways the body can hurt. I think of the torque on my boyfriend's shoulders when he carries his brother around or tries to prove his manliness. I think of all the ways a bone can break. I hate knowing.

I sometimes sit up in my dorm room and worry about all the things I could be doing. A spree of rapes hit Cornell at the beginning of the semester, and now there are kidnappings all around the region. I wonder if I could be saving someone if I went outside, why I'm just sitting in bed thinking if I can be outside and saving, if one of my friends is in one of those mysterious vans. I pick up the phone, highlight the first name - usually Jackie - and am almost about to press it. 'No, I'm being crazy again,' I think, see the green 3:04 digits on the clock, and put down the phone. It's difficult to sleep, but I do.

My little brother is a bit reckless like his father before him. He goes to school on the Cayuga Lake. Let me repeat: I am a neurotic worrier and my reckless baby brother living on the Cayuga Lake with stupid friends. They dive into icy water at night or party in Ithaca with the Cornellians. Cornellians don't "party" - they drink until they black out or die. He also lost his cell phone months ago. To say that I stalk his Facebook would be putting it lightly.

I worry about my love life, but not jealously. I worry about Alex. I worry that he is sad. I worry that he sees a friend on campus and the friend forgets or ignores him despite all the nice things Alex always does for these people and that it makes Alex sad. I worry because he drives half an hour each way to class and that he might run out of gas or have a blowout and crash into a semi truck. I worry that he's driving through the wrong side of town again and that he forgot to lock his door. I worry that he is getting picked on and I can't punch the lights out of whoever is upsetting him. I can't help it.

I worry about my mom because she's not happy and she always drives through the wrong side of town. I worry that she's going to give herself another heart attack.

I worry about the cat all the time. I check the washer and dryer at least five times before I turn it on, and even then, I'm known to rip the door open and spill soap suds across the floor because I can't find the cat and there was one cat my stepfather's friend's brother's friend had that loved sitting in the warm dryer and he killed the cat. I worry that someone dropped an earring or something in her food and she's going to choke on it or get lead poisoning and have a seizure. I worry that someone is going to mix up the FrontLine I paid for at the vet with the Sergeant's from Wallmart that gave Midnight a seizure (they need to make that poison illegal). I worry that I'm stepping on her tail and that I can't feel it, and when I move furniture, I check every point of contact with the floor at least a dozen times for animal limbs and claws and ears and the sort. I worry about the cat food - contaminants?

The cure is complex and simple at the same time. Mostly I listen to music. Sometimes I remember Alex's voice, and that's enough to coax me. Most of the time I just worry myself to weariness and sleep it off.

Za's Storm - Chapter One

Za’s Storm

Chapter One

            A roar of thunder shook the earth’s foundations in its tumultuous roar. Hail tested ancient stained glass windows as stones slipped through old mortar. The black clouds sucked in a sharp gale and roared into the slick earth again, louder, waking the King from his dreamy sleep. Its rumbling and cracking continued until he stood, rubbed his eyes, and donned his robe.

            He looked past the velvet curtains and gasped at the sight beyond the slick balcony. “By the gods!” he cried.

            The queen woke from her deep slumber and groaned. “Husband, what are you doing?”

            “Look, Safia,” he yelled.

            The Queen wrapped her silk robe over her nightgown and joined her husband at the window. Beyond the chimneys and stone wall around the castle town, black and purple clouds hovered in a circle, casting thin fingers of lightning into the ground. The clouds were low and lacey against the lightless sky.

            “The gods are speaking,” the King whispered. He knelt on his thin, knobby knees. “This storm, it is Lord Za, and the rain the words of Lady Feya!”

            The Queen shook her head. “It is a mess is what it is,” she said. “You should sleep. Tomorrow will be a long day with this storm.”

            “No, Safia!” The King grasped her narrow arm and pulled her to his side. He was young yet, a king of only thirty years with a few salty grey hairs in his dusty brown braid. “I can feel an old and powerful soul coming. It is close!”

            The Queen shielded her silver eyes against the brilliance of the lightning. Its flash illuminated her snow-blonde hair, and in that moment, she looked like an old woman – not a girl of only twenty. The storm twirled like ice skaters on the frozen swamp, and the lightning crossed like knitting needles against the darkness. She joined her husband on the stone floor.

            “The great souls are only born to the Catsnians, my lord,” she whispered.

            “You see it to, though,” he said softly. He wrapped his arm around her waist. “There is no mistake. A hero is coming! We will find him and welcome him to our kingdom – no, to our world!”

            “Yes, my lord.”

            She kissed his stubbly cheek and returned to the bed, but the King could not remove himself from the window. He stared into the storm until, in a flash of sunlight, it disappeared. The pink horizon pushed away the darkness in a procession of gold, amber, orange, and then azure.

            The king sent his men on snow white horses in all the directions of the land. Some were sent to check the older bridges or assess the flooding of the riverside villages and inns. Many searched for the infant that had been born with an ancient and powerful soul. They scavenged the inns, hospitals, homes, orphanages, temples, and work houses. Word spread quickly among the towns and villages that the king had seen the gods pass the infant through the storm and that the soldiers were looking for the baby. The world was loud with chatter, hope, and praise to the gods. A great soul had been born to Lohren.

            The high priest of Alesia spoke against the cheer, though. The great souls had limited themselves to Catsnia since the beginning of time, and talk of their exodus would be blasphemy against the divines. Only a great evil would move the spirits as far as Lohren. The people quieted, and days passed without news of the great hero.

            The King awaited news with great anticipation. He took petitioners from early morning until the sky was alight with stars. His men had bags of leather-bound logs detailed every birth occurring on the night of the storm or thereabouts. The infants in the logs had seemed normal to the soldiers, though some had still been orange or red from their journeys into the world. Nearly every mother was certain that her newborn was a child of legend, though, and nearly half of the births had been accompanied by one miracle or another – the curing of a disease, a star falling out of the sky when her water broke, a strange tingling feeling. The King listened to every report, but the babies had not been exceptional. The prophecy became a whisper, and new gossip flowed into the palace walls.

            Rumors turned to a different child as the queen attended fewer social events and guild meetings. The Duke of Dalmatia sent a parade of gifts to the castle in his absence, and the judges of the town commissioned a world renowned artist to paint the glowing queen. The people delighted. For four months since the storm touched the earth, the people had a promise of joy and certainty. The temples left gifts to the divines for their blessing.

            Then the loud praises became quiet sorrow. The gifts of joy and thanks became gifts of pity to the queen. No one spoke of the promise from the gods anymore. The king didn’t take any petitioners before noon, and his foul mood was unbearable after dusk. The queen was a somber presence in the guild meetings and courts. Spring was returning to the land, and with it, the tears from the dreary sky.

            On the eve of the vernal equinox, the castle town lit up with floating lanterns and fire breathing men. Dancers circled concerts of loud performers as food and drink passed across every hand in the street. The castle doors were open even as the moon reached its zenith. Children ran about the marble pillars and rolled in the rushes against the begging of their parents and grandparents. A dog chased a cat into the castle kitchens. The world was suddenly merry and bright.

            A boy in muddy boots pressed through a crowd of velvet-suited bodies and dresses until he was at the King’s side. “Your Majesty!” he cried.

            The King raised his heavy brow and opened his hand. The boy set the scroll in his palm and bowed low into the beer-laden floor. Then the King stood and yelled for the captain, and the captain gathered his men in one deafening order.

            “When did this happen?” he demanded.

            “Yesterday, Your Majesty,” the boy gasped. “I rode as fast as I could.”

            “Go to Mistress Hilda and get yourself waited on, boy.” The King chattered his teeth and froze as his wife came to his side. “My love, you should not be awake so late.”

            “What is it?” she asked. Her silver eyes were grey and red. “Tell me.”

            He sighed. “Bandits attacked Shallowbrook.”

            Her eyebrows twitched. “When can you ride there?”

            “I cannot,” he murmured. “You know this.”

            She lowered her gaze for a moment and lifted it back to his sad eyes. “I will ride at first light with Captain Steel.”

            “You cannot. It has only been a week,” he said softly, drawing her to the privacy of a balcony over a courtyard of red roses. “I have sent my men. They will make this right.”

            “Our people need us,” she snapped. “I am not a porcelain doll, my lord.” With a quivering chin and narrowed eyes, she muttered, “I have known this pain twice before. I will survive this ache as well.”

            He drew her into his arms and kissed her temples until his lips were numb. Then, with a quiet nod, he retreated to the gossiping crowd to complete the evening rituals. At the first sign of dawn, the queen was dressed in her plain riding gown. She and her procession of twenty men rode into the sunrise for Shallowbrook.

            Ash choked the air for miles. The Queen knew she was close without ever looking at the map or signs. The brook was pregnant with charred wood, crates, barrels, and the occasional bit of clothing. The destroyed city came into view just beyond a dip in the woods, and she held her breath. An old woman wept before a mass of black wood and rising grey wisps. Men carried wreckage to the heaps of refuse lining the streets while others hammered away at new wood frames. The King’s men were about recording notes in their logs and carrying refuse to the brook. The people paused and knelt for their queen, but she waved them off and bowed to them.

            “People of Shallowbrook,” she said grandly, “I have come to offer you my deepest sympathy.” Queen Safia dismounted her white gelding with her captain’s help. “I could not know your pain this day. I know few who have suffered as you have. I will make this right in any way I can. Please, ask these men for their aid. Others will come with more supplies. You have the support of the king.”

            The people cheered weakly with blackened hands and smudged faces. She bowed to them again, and the captain dismissed them quickly. The mayor appeared from the crowd, a thin grey man, and explained to the queen the details of the attack. Men with red masks had appeared from every shadow and began burning every building in sight. They murdered anyone that escaped by funneling them in the main thoroughfares and gates. The town guard eventually chased the bandits away, but the damage had been done.

            “Your Highness, the bandits could return,” Captain Steel whispered into her ear. “Perhaps we should get you to safety.”

            She clenched her jaw. “Give me an hour to see my people, and then we will hole up somewhere safe, Captain.”

            He frowned for a moment but bowed. Her lips twitched with a faint smile. Captain Steel was much like her husband in appearance but the exact opposite in his ways. His hair was dark blond and brown, but his bear grew in like a thorn bush. His frown had become permanent in the wrinkles of his otherwise young face, and his hands were rough along the sides from his constant worrying. He was her oldest friend from Deeagor and the only soldier to accompany her to Lohren when she married the prince – now the king. The captain cringed with fright and untold waking nightmares as the queen hugged crying bodies and thanked the hard-working men and women for their help. The pink sky turned indigo and blue with the coming night, and the Queen kept her promise.

            “The inn is gone,” Steel declared. “The only free bed in town is a tavern by the brook. I reserved a room and dinner for you, Your Highness.”

            “Diligent as ever,” she said softly.

            They passed through the crowded refuse-laden streets to the market side of town. The merchant stalls were mostly empty though one tailor was determined to make some coin in spite of the sorrow. The Queen passed him without a remark and stepped into the tavern. Bodies hunched over every table as bar maidens tried to feed the crowd of quiet bodies. The smell of bad soup dominated the entire room, and some folks murmured about missing friends and family. Their heads perked up at the mention of the Queen.

            Steel grabbed one of his men. “Get me the key,” he said, and the guardsman disappeared into the crowd.

            The Queen was fatigued beyond words. She bowed weakly and started toward the staircase at the other end of the room with her captain in tow. The sober bodies parted for their Queen and continued sucking down their soup and drinks.

            A baby’s piercing wail stopped her for a moment. She turned to an old man bouncing a tiny infant on his knee, coaxing the tiny swaddled body in vain. The captain looked over the crowd of bodies for a would-be assassin, but the queen ignored his anxious shaking and muttering. The old man lifted his whiskery chin and fixed his milky eyes on his queen.

            The infant had hair as black as a crow against milk white skin. It was weak, barely moving its lips or hands. “He’s weak,” the queen said.

            “I am afraid her pain won’t last much longer, Your Highness,” the man said with a ragged voice. “Her mother held on as long as she could – fought for her baby girl, she said. Now with no one to suckle the child, she’s soon to join her mother.”

            The Queen’s chin quivered violently. She clenched her teeth together and pushed her nails into her palms. “Let me see her,” she said.

            The man handed the tiny infant to her. The weight surprised her, barely that of a book. She lowered the swaddle and looked into the babe’s face. A blue web of strange scars marred her right temple, but it was beautiful. She readjusted the child’s weight and felt the perfect unison between them – woman and child.

            “Your Highness,” Captain Steel whispered.

            “Where is her family?” the Queen said, biting any emotion that might show in a tavern full of commoners.

            “Gone, Your Highness. Her mother was her only family.”

            The Queen tightened the swaddle and lowered her eyes to the man. “I will take her. Enjoy your food, sir.”

            The old man swallowed and turned to his plate. The tavern was quiet for a moment longer as the queen continued up the stairs, but in her wake, whispers followed. The captain looked over the people with stone eyes before following her to the corner chamber. A guardsman and bar maiden stood at the opened door with a tray of food and hot water for washing.

            Queen Safia stepped into the modest room, looked over the clean bed and chest beside it, and nodded to the two at the door. They set the food on the table by the window and water on a night stand, bowed, and left, leaving the captain and queen alone with the infant.

            “Your Highness,” he said softly.

            She sat on the bed and stared into the unmoving face of the life in her hands. Such a sweet face! Her mother must have been beautiful! The Queen set the infant on the bed like a china teacup brimming with hot tea and began unfastening the top of her gown.

            “Your Highness,” Steel said again, averting his eyes to the carafe of water.

            “Yes, Captain?”

            “Will you be taking this infant to the castle?”

            “Are you questioning my judgment, Captain?” She finished unfastening the gown and slipped it off, leaving her girdle and chemise. Her breasts were heavy and painful, and her stomach was swollen with death’s ache.

            “I fear the king’s wrath, my Queen. I wish only to protect you.”

            She smiled. “Do not fear the King, Captain. Now go take care of your hands. You are driving me mad with your ceaseless twitching!” The captain quickly bowed and left, closing the door with his usual double-checking, locking, unlocking, and locking again.

The Queen sighed and returned to the infant’s side on the bed and lowered her top. She’d never nursed a child, and her own mother had left her nursing to a young woman whose only job had been caring for the baby while the Duchess attended important affairs. She pressed the babe’s lips to her aching nipple and rubbed her hair, and the babe quickly sucked. The Queen held her breath for a moment, anticipating, and nearly cried. Nothing. She could produce nothing at first – and then she was nursing the weak girl.

Tiny hands escaped the swaddle and flailed about. The Queen released a weak sob and took the girl’s hand into her own little fingers. Her body was as heavy as lead and rippled with sobs. Hours passed. The tavern darkened as the town lulled to sleep, but the Queen could not separate herself from the infant in her arms.

“What shall I call you?” she whispered. Then, with a weak smile, she added, “Perhaps I should keep you nameless until my husband has a say in the matter.”

The babe was quiet though her lips and slow fidgeting suggested she was dreaming sweet dreams. The Queen lowered her to the bed again and called for clean rags to swaddle her in. She washed the little girl and then herself. The bar maid brought in a crate lined with clean blankets for a crib for the baby, insisting that babies had a habit of falling off everything. The Queen thanked her, set the crate against the wall, and used the last of her willpower to separate herself from the little girl.

Hours later, the royal procession was en route to the castle again. The Queen held the black-haired babe to her heart as she rode, and the baby was content to let the Queen love her.

The Queen returned early in the morning after a sleepless night riding. The castle town released its usual cheer for the crowd, though the line of guardsmen on each side masked Safia. She dismounted at the mouth of the castle between two heavily-armed knights, careful not to disturb the baby’s pleasant sleep.

The King was in his study, hunched over a list of tasks set before him by quarreling lords and religious traditions. Captain Steel followed on the Queen’s heels to the King’s desk. She wore a tired but genuine smile, the sight of which shook the King out of his sleepiness and to his own smiling self. He walked quickly to greet her and paused.

“My love,” he said, looked at the babe in her arms, and wrapped her waist. “Who is this?”

“We have to think of a name for her,” she chirped.

The King’s brow lowered. “We cannot, Safia. We are forbidden from adopting an heir. You know this.”

“Then she will not be an heir,” Safia stated simply.

He let out a quick breath and lowered the swaddle. With a hum, he poked the baby’s little nose. Her eyes opened instantly, revealing dark, dark blue eyes that were too deep to become such an otherwise silly face. “Will she make you happy?” he asked softly.

“She will,” Safia replied.

“I want you to be happy, my dearest love.” He wove his fingers into her hair and stole a kiss from her lips. “What name do you have in mind, my clever wife?”

Safia smiled into the kiss. The tilt of her feminine neck shone the sun into her silver eyes in a way that made her nigh impossible to resist for her husband. “Diana,” she breathed.

“A lovely name,” he said. The King looked into the sleepy face of the baby girl and cooed. “Hello, Diana. Welcome to my castle. Make yourself at home.”

The Mage

I've had a very sad song stuck in my head for the past week. I've tried replacing it, ignoring it, listening to it, everything to get it out. The only way to tend to such matters is to write an appropriate story, though, so I thought of a sad story and created a skeleton plot for it. I started writing yesterday at the Writing Circle.

* * *

The Mage

          Few knew what triggered the demon mage’s great slaughter – why he burned all of the once-great city in one fire tornado that still smells of molten mortar and burned meat, why ash still chokes the earth of the once-great forest, why the once-great river still does not flow after six years of high-strung silence. Why, oh why, did this man whose face living person can remember, kill so many people?

          It was a flyer on the northside tavern, if you must know. Posted haphazardly with a good spit and goat dung, the flyer hardly distracted the regulars. No one could possibly remember its exact words, by the sleepy copse of flowers and river that decorated it belied the words. “Followers of Great Stella, the goddess has granted mercy!” it read. In a blot of dribble and lies, the flyer called upon the suicide, the final rest, of its audience, by the high priest of the goddess Stella. A suicide promotion. On a tavern window. Funny how the high priest condemned suicide except by the devil worshippers, the Drok Grogah, who really should join their god and do greater works by immortal hands.

          On top of the usual abuse among citizens, they were now trying to murder each other by autonomous hands. All in addition to the corpses lining the alleyways, blood flooding the storm drains, farmers tilling rocks and dead stalks, and the great river that was foul with floating bodies (though no one seems to remember this.) Then from the shadows of a tiny guild below a blacksmith’s forge, a man in a red velvet cloak appeared. He’d been quiet, they say, and sometimes strange, pausing in the street as half a dozen people trampled him. The man stopped to have a drink, paused at the flyer in the window, and was shoved aside by anxious work hands. The man left, and not one person in that tavern, or anywhere in the city, woke the next day.

          The demon mage, as they called him, disappeared after the first city fell for three months, exhausted by his wrath. Some hoped that he’d died of his guilt, but the citizens of Zur were not so lucky. The mountains around the cloud-caressing city opened their jowls and swallowed the city in one bite, leaving only the fastest and luckiest merchants and farmers to tell the tale. Another six months passed, and everyone was afraid.

          Then the demon mage appeared in Talitha. He watched a drunk beat a bar maid senselessly in the street and nearly flooded the city in his wrath. Instead, he struck the drunk blind and cursed the apathetic audience with the pox. From that day forward, he became the tyrant.

          Whispers in the streets spoke of his new atrocities, and when he didn’t slaughter all he saw, he forced his new laws and curfews upon the people cowering at his feet for their lives. There were no enforcers of his new laws, for the demon mage was powerful enough to transcend space. No sooner could a spirited boy whack his buddy too hard before he was without hands or had aged thirty years. The demon mage did all of these things swiftly and without mercy. His velvet cloak and rune-scarred hands made the very foundations of the earth falter, and whispers of his crimes silenced even mad men’s screams. He was feared, but more so, without expression, he was hated. Though, the suicide flyers were gone, and the murders in the streets were a shameful memory.

          Then came the day of promise. Behind a grinding mill of Moonfield town, a leper ate a rotten apple. He could no longer hold himself upright in the progression of his disease but instead leaned against the iron gate to a private garden. The mage appeared in a bolt of lightning before the diseased man. The man shook at the sight of his tyrant, but he was starved beyond care.

          “You stole that,” said the mage. His young, tenor voice shocked the leper, as did the tyrant’s short stature, but the shadows of the red cloak still spoke of his evil.

          “Yes, I did,” the weak man said quietly. “I have no food and no means to acquire any, my lord.”

          The mage lifted his hand to reveal the orange embers popping from his palm. “Then I will end your misery, leper.”

          The tyrant demon closed his fist to throw his fury, but a shriek ended his strike. Emerald eyes struck back, and a svelte body shielded the man. “You’ll not kill him, demon!” said the girl.

          “Demon?” the mage laughed. “I am no demon. Move, girl. You stand in the way of justice.”

          She stood straight with her nimble arms outstretched, quaking and firm at once. The mage turned the embers green and blue, stretching the flames until beads of sweat dropped across her feminine shoulders. “I will not move,” she said. “You will have to kill me, too.”

          The mage ground his teeth. “The man is a thief. He is not fit to live. Move now, girl. It is not any of your business!”

          “Then kill me for defying you. It will be my honor!”

          “Defying me?” the mage repeated. He stepped back. ‘There are no laws against defying me,’ he nearly whispered. ‘No one has ever defied me.’

          “Kill us both or go away!”

          He froze and noted the stiffness in his knees as though his earth spells had suddenly swallowed his legs. The girl still stood between him in the leper, terrified and angry and hating him with every inch of her body. Such green eyes! The mage closed his hand, scaring her stiff for a second, but he lowered his fist and turned on the heels of his boots to the main street. He couldn’t hear the terrified audience or the running as he approached, but instead tried to summon thoughts in his empty head.

          She still quaked in front of the leper in anticipation of the mage’s return. Who was she? Why did she help the man? Did she owe him money? Did she owe his family a favor? The mage zapped himself to the top of the mill and watched her in solitude.

          “Are you all right?” she finally asked the leper.

          “I am, thanks to you,” he said. “You are very brave – or very stupid, or both. I do not know how to repay you. What is your name, child?”

          “Evynne,” she replied.

          “Well, Evynne, get home quickly before the mage returns.”

          “What of you, sir?”

          “I will get by, dear. Now, go!”

          Evynne dashed into the main street with a glance over her shoulder and a wave. The crowd swallowed her like a river to a rain drop and carried her through the veins of the market, through the business district, the apartments the gardens, and the livestock. The mage followed numbly in the shadows of the rooftops until she found her place in the rural stands. A man with the same hazel-colored hair laid his lips on the girl’s cheek upon her return. Was that a kiss? The mage gritted his teeth. What a rare thing those were.

          He cast a new invisibility spell as he sat on a rustic two-story inn roof and watched the girl. She and the older man – her father? – sold the bundles of green and yellow, stalk and smooth plants to anyone with the gold. A half-blind nag stood behind them nipping at some of the plants in a wooden cart, and the man sometimes paused to cajole the indifferent creature. The sun fell slowly over sky like a tottering toy, falling faster as it neared the horizon in a pink blast, but the mage could not remove himself from his seat on the inn.

          When the cold of blackened night nipped at the edges of the city, the farmers began packing their carts and journeying to their fields. Evynne and the man had sold all of their herbs save the few the nag had eaten, but instead of retreating to the safety of the run-down inn, they led the nag to the road and toward the field with the others. Were the farmers so forgetful to neglect the murderous highway men that lined the roads? Did they care so little for their lives that they’d ride sleepily to the fields, so sure they would arrive without trouble?

          The mage looked over his shoulder at the bickering women in the street, exchanging harsh names and something about a sticky-fingered boy. He breathed a hot breath, stood, and followed Evynne’s cart in the darkness of the cliffs and woods.

          The warm presence of bold bodies and hungry wolves filled the darkness of the wood passages. The mage followed the warmth to a circle of bandits waiting for the entourage of farmers. They laughed and sang and danced by the fire, waiting for their prey to funnel through. The mage leaned against one of the broken wagons of past prey and counted the men, twelve in all, and decided on a proper punishment.

          “Gods!” a bandit screamed.

          The ragged band drew swords, knives, and bows, but the mage felled them with a stone spell, petrifying them forever as ugly statues in the woods. Their dinners still cooked over the fire for the wolves as the mage turned again toward the green-eyed girl and her father.

          The pair and their nag arrive at a quiet meadow late in the night. Evynne let out a musical laugh at the sight that struck the mage so profoundly that his spell broke, but the darkness was too complete for his cloaked figure to be seen. The girl ran to the cottage at the center of the field and threw open the door, releasing six more brown-haired creatures from the home. The man released the nag by the lake and took all of the children into his strong arms, a glowing smile on his stubbly cheeks.

          The mage slid down the trunk of his tree and gripped his knee with a tight fist. He could not think straight for the moment, and the frustrated quiet in his head was uncomfortably unfamiliar to him. He cast a spell and retreated to the slums of the city where he still knew the nature of man, but even as whoremongers and cut-throat merchants sucked the life out of their fellow humans, the mage could not think. He smashed an apothecary’s poisoned vials in a windstorm and silenced a barking dog with a sleep spell. The city was quiet then, too tired and afraid to hurt, leaving the mage with only his maelstrom of thoughts.

          He returned to the meadow home the next morning. The girl was already awake and had begun a trek through the woods past the rippling brook and a moldy boulder. She passed an arch of willows and a cherry tree, a fox’s den and a hawk nest. At the bottom of a cool, earth-scented hill, she paused to look over her shoulder. The mage held his breath in the shadow of a chestnut tree, and she continued down a tangle of half-buried roots to a circle of evergreens.

          A tall statue stood in the circle, her bird wings circling wooden foxes, deer, rabbits, an owl, snake, squirrels, and a bear cub. Her long hands were splayed open, her arms open, and her eyes expressionless stone. Evynne slipped a handful of nuts from her pocket, set them at the statue’s feet, and knelt peacefully at its feet.

          The mage stood with weak knees at the sight. Which of the blood-thirsty deities was this woodland spirit? Was this the mark of sin that he’d waited nearly a day to see on this girl? He closed his hand in a fist.

A brush of softness against his hand struck his arm with shock, and he stumbled into the tree. A juvenile deer had brushed past the mage in its journey to the altar. Evynne turned with a gasp toward the mage, giving the deer pause, but it stood at her side and ate oats. Evynne, though, stared at the stalking mage.

He looked at his hands, but they were visible. His rune scars were dark and quiet as well, empty river beds where bright magic had coursed. She could see him, he realized.

“Changed your mind, then, demon?” she spat.

After hearing such a melodic laugh from those same pink lips, her angry tone scathed like a fire bolt. The mage breathed a hot breath, frustrated for his lack of words, and lowered the velvet cloak for a cooler breath. “I am not a demon,” he said, “and I do not change my mind. Ever.”

Her emerald eyes widened at the sight of his human face: black curls, not horns; brown irises, not red; a round jaw without fangs or tentacles. She stood and crossed her arms to examine him with her furrowed brow and frown. “You seem human enough in this sacred circle.”

“Because I am a human,” he said again, crossing his arms to match hers. “A human with a name. Seth.”

Her brow quivered at his remark. They watched each other for a moment longer. “Very well, Lord Seth-”

“Seth,” he snapped. “Not Lord Seth or Master Seth. Seth.”

“Very well, Seth,” she said with a faux bow, “have you come to kill me?”

“I told you. I do not change my mind.”

“Then why are you here?”

The deer dropped a bit of oats onto the wooden rabbit statue and nipped at the seeds. Deciding the statue was also delicious, it nipped at the creature’s ear for a moment. The mage watched it for a moment and looked back into the puzzled emeralds of the girl. He didn’t have an answer and was not fond of games.

She grew tired of standing like her altar statue and lowered an arm. With a lazy shrug, she returned to the statue’s feet and prayed. A finch joined the girl and the deer to have bite of seed from the goddess’s hair, and squirrel scared it away to take some nuts. The mage still held his arms crossed and watched.

Evynne finished her prayer after a moment longer and caressed the deer’s neck in parting. She looked about for the mage with her lowered brow. Satisfied that he was gone, she lifted her dress skirt and jogged across the road to her home.

For the rest of the day, she collected hen eggs, fed the nag, cleaned her hooves, brushed her coat, cleaned the troughs, milked the cow, chased her naughty brother, checked the fishing line in the brook, chased off a chicken hawk, swept the porch, and fed the animals. The dance of busy bodies was dazzling and coordinated, but its finality at the dinner table with laughter and chatter was its most beauteous moment. The mage watched from the window, invisible still.

He pulled himself away as she stripped to a chemise for bed. Watching her, he’d forgotten about the evils just a day’s ride away in the slums and streets of the city. The smell of blood was a memory of a memory, and the cries of human pain were blurred in the mage’s mind. What spell was this that had left him so weary and ignorant?

The mage looked through the bedroom window at the family bed. Toddler brothers and sisters hugged the legs of adolescent siblings and their parents. An elderly grandmother had fallen asleep in her rocking chair, a knitted blanket tucked over her shoulders and around her arms. Smiling, drooling, and thumb-sucking mouths let out easy snores filled with the breath of life. It took the mage’s breath away.

He stomped off to the clearing in the woods and cast his cloak aside. It smelled of blood, ash, and rotted corpses. The stench made him sick now. He removed his bracers, a gift from the blacksmith that had hidden his coven of wizards, and cast them to the darkness of the bushes. His robe was wet with the sweat of twenty-two-hundred nightmares, so he cast the tunic to the shadows and into the brook. Then he stood naked before the nameless goddess and crossed his arms.

“I am Seth of Alvetia, exiled son and bringer of justice to this realm,” he muttered. “Who are you, pagan spirit of the woods? Why are you worthy of the girl’s worship?”

The altar said nothing. The wooden rabbit with nibbled ears still looked adoringly at the fox that played with a chubby bear cub. The mage waited a moment longer.

“Are you a powerless being, spirit? Is this magic circle a relic of a more powerful god, or an anomaly of the woods?” he demanded. Still more silence.

The mage grinned and opened his palm. With a spark, the runes coursed through his flesh again. What a weak spell circle! He closed his eyes to fight the barrier, and with a toothy smile, he shook the very earth beneath the circle. The rabbit toppled over, and the trees dropped their half-ripe nuts to the earth. A moment passed, and then a riot of sleepy animals became the loud excitement of a dinner party.

“What a worthless decoration you are, spirit,” he mocked.

He half-stomped to the altar and its hollow creatures and raised his fist to break it. So useless and ugly this statue seemed! Just as he was close enough to punch it into pebbles, he froze. The mage could almost feel the girl’s spirit standing with her arms out, her neck vein throbbing with terror, her emerald eyes cutting his body apart. He tried to step forward and could not.

“Worthless!” he cried to the altar. “You are powerless! A worthless spirit like every other god and devil!”

The mage closed his hand and disappeared into one of the tributary river beds. He spun himself a robe of pine-scented moss, cherry blossoms, orchids and the darkest grasses with a spell and hugged it to his skin. Everything smelled of gore, so he bathed in the river and scratched at his flesh until it was raw. The smell was gone, but the memory was not. Was he a demon? Were demons born from humans? He dressed himself in the dark green robe and slept beside a fallen oak tree.

For three more days he watched Evynne tend to her daily chores alongside her brothers and sisters. She pulled weeds from the garden until her hands and knees bled. The chickens pecked her sore hands when she tripped on their water dish. The nag stepped on her toes when she cleaned her hooves. Still she smiled at the dinner table with her family and slept like a queen of old without trial or trouble. Still the mage watched her.

On the fourth day she returned to the statue in the woods and prayed. The animals were quiet and bloated with nuts and seeds already, so when the mage leaned against the tree, Evynne could hear him. She stood slowly this time and watched him with a wary gaze.

“You’re following me,” she accused.

He stepped from the weeds and crossed his arms. What could he say? He crossed his arms and stepped closer to her, one long-legged step at a time, until she stepped back toward the statue. If he reached his arm, he could almost feel her breath.

“Why are you following me?” she asked more directly.

“What is this spirit’s name?” he asked instead.

The line across her lips quivered with frustration, but she turned to the statue for a moment in introduction. “Isara,” she said.

“You pray to Isara?”

“I do,” Evynne said more defensively.

“What do you pray?”

Her green eyes squinted with pointed malice. “You are the demon. What do you hear in my prayers?”

“I am not a demon,” he said.

She bared her teeth and stepped toward the embrace of her useless forest spirit. “Why are you following me, Seth? Don’t you have a city to destroy? Some epidemics to spread?”

“That statue will not protect you,” he warned. “It is as powerless as the dirt between your toes.”

At his mockery, the girl raised her hand and swung for his face. The mage grasped her wrist, surprised by the cool touch of human flesh. She gasped at the sight, sobered by his touch, and tugged at her limb. The mage held it a moment longer, reveling in the feeling. It made him weak and his thoughts warm.

“You are different,” he whispered.

Her eyes widened at his words, and she dug her nails into his offending grasp. The mage released her indifferently and gazed into her confused and scared face. She stumbled into the altar and protected her heart with her arms. “Go! Go away now! You are not welcome in this holy place any longer!” she cried.

“I will not hurt you,” he said softly. “I give you my word.”

“Your words are venom to me, demon!”

He gritted his teeth and clenched his hand. “Insufferable, vexing woman!” he hissed. Then, as though she were the omnipotent mage and he the fool, the mage left the circle at her command. He cast himself to the ocean shore, days away from the forest or the city, and threw himself into the crashing waves. The power of the ocean, millions of times greater than the earth or the sky, calmed his raging body and the angry words that filled his head. He dove into the powerful current until darkness surrounded his vision. Foolish woman. Naïve girl. Beautiful creature.

The mage slept in a small cave along the ocean side. He’d slaughtered the pirates that had once taken over the ocean shores long ago, but the white sand was still a blossoming virgin, untouched by sweating bodies or honeymooners since the first buccaneer spill blood across the pink seashells. Only the hungriest fishermen came anymore, but there were no fishermen tonight. The mage cast a weak sleep spell on his self and threw his mind into the abyss of dreamless slumber.

          Evynne had returned to her daily chores, and the mage returned to his regular watch from the shadows. She wore a frown in her duties and was quiet at the dinner table. The nag noticed her foul mood and the lack of oats, and the brothers and sisters stomped their feet as they lost a player in their daily games. She had nightmares, too.

          The mage noticed the shriveled crops of the garden only when the father cried over them one night. He cast his tears to the roots of a tomato plant and lamented that they too were too salty to give life to the plants. Evynne and her brothers had to bring water from the brook in holey buckets to keep the plants from wilting, but the brook was dried up too, and soon the animals would not have any water, either.

          One night, after her family was asleep, Evynne left the tangle of limbs and feet, slid into a dress, and ran into the woods. The mage almost hadn’t noticed except for his nocturnal meditation had been interrupted by the presence of her warm body in the cool air. He followed her to the forest shrine and was silent.

          “Please, Isara,” she prayed aloud with a whimper. “Please give us rain. The rivers are all dried up and the farmers say that the earth is dying. Please, Isara, save us.” She sniffed and hugged herself. “I’m scared.”

          The mage closed his eyes. Should he show her how powerless the forest spirit was? He could snap off its head with a crack of lightning or, if he wanted to exasperate every inch of his power for the next year, summon a beast to destroy the statue for him, right before her eyes. His heart was soft, though, and sleepy. The mage looked over his shoulder at the groveling woman, folded over on her cramped belly, and silenced a sigh.

          Timing the noise with her sob, he snapped his fingers. The sound thudded against the hard woods and rocks and echoed over and over, until a thousand snaps and cracks echoed across the entire forest. The earth released an air of perfume, and the pouring rain carried away the last of the tree nuts to the brook’s belly.

          Evynne looked into the sky beyond the altar’s head and pushed aside a wet strand of hair. She smiled for a moment before staring deeper into the cloudless sky and into the pinholes of stars in the black quilt over her. She hugged her belly again and fell to her side.

          The mage watched her a moment longer. Her dress was soaked through with warm drops of spell-laden water, but she didn’t move to protect herself. He summoned a tendril of wind to tug at her hair, but she was out cold. He stepped from the darkness surrounding the spell circle and knelt beside her, readying a teleportation spell, and stopped. His chest was heavy. The mage lifted her knees and then her back, staring into her wet face and closed eyes, and feeling the heartbeat pulsing in the cold flesh against his skin. He turned and carried her up the tangle of roots.

          “Da?” she whispered. The mage was quiet as he climbed the last of the hill and ducked under the branches of the first willows. “Da, it’s raining. It’s a miracle. Can you believe it?”

          Evynne sighed into the mage’s chest, freezing the hairs on his neck straight, and became a dead weight in his arms. He bolted to her home and into the bedroom where her family slept and tapped his toes. No spell he knew could weave her into the tangle of loved ones, especially if she was wet and feverish. He turned to the grandmother’s cot, long abandoned for the tired rocker, and laid the girl on the bed ropes and chicken feathers. She shivered a moment.

          “You need to be sick,” he whispered, “and learn not to work yourself so hard.”

          Evynne shivered until her sun-kissed cheeks turned as white as the moon. The mage clenched his fist, raised his hand, and summoned a down blanket of spoiled hen feathers and cotton tufts. The magic wove the soft fabrics into intricate patterns he would never conjure for himself – too luxurious, too much focus – but seemed natural over her wild hair. He glanced over his shoulder at the sleeping family, then at the girl, and tucked the blanket over her shoulders. Then he stepped away and vanished. Moments of such tenderness were not like him, and neither was the worry that gripped his heart.

          The miracle of rain, as the hazel-haired family called it, distracted everyone from their chores. Fat droplets still fell off the rafters and into pregnant puddles. The mother spent twice as long milking the happy cow, and the chickens proudly displayed their healthy bounty of eggs. It was an easy day on the farm for the first time in weeks. Evynne, though, slept under the heavy blanket at her grandmother’s delicate care. The mage watched as the old woman fed fried eggs to the girl and warmed milk for her, and the girl slowly came to. She tried to help her family work, but her grandmother pressed her into the cot and told her to sleep. No one questioned the origin of her blanket, and Evynne hadn’t given it a second glance in her feverish sweats.

          Days passed. The mage wove a nest for his self from branches and earth magic and spied from his peak. Goshawks investigated his small dwelling, but the mage had no energy to the red-eyed creature away. He meditated in the day and surveyed the cities, the towns, the villages and coasts for blood and war, but the world was quiet again. He watched Evynne recover quickly from her fever and work her way to cooking, then sweeping, then to gathering the eggs and milk.

          Just as she was strong enough to stand, someone had a birthday. The mage had nearly forgotten about such celebrations and was pleased to remember the occasion. If he could remember correctly, his birthday was sometime near the winter solstice, and his young mother had baked blueberry cake for him in celebration. Evynne’s toddler brother wanted no such thing. He wanted chocolate cake like the boys in the city had. He fussed until his mother cried and dropped his sugar cake into the dirt. Evynne baked a second cake from over-ripe strawberries, burned the sugar until the cake was brown, and told her brother it was chocolate. The family ate in celebration, tired and finally happy.

          Once she was able to walk, Evynne asked her older brother to walk her to the shrine. He nodded and led the way to the altar’s feet, where Evynne prayed until she nearly fell asleep for exhaustion. Her brother shook her, whispered a question, and then they returned home.

          The next time she came to the altar, Evynne was alone and finally healthy. She left bits of bread and carrots at the statue’s feet. Then she removed a cloth and started to clean the spirit’s wings and head. The mage watched sleepily, decided it was boring, and closed his eyes. He had not slept since he carried the girl from the altar – didn’t sleep much in general after the officiating ceremony of his magician status – and was exhausted.

          The quiet woke him from his short nap. He blinked open his eyes and saw the ragged hem of a skirt before him. At the top, pursed lips and studious eyes glowed in the afternoon sun. Evynne tapped her foot beside his booted ankle, distracting him for a moment, before he turned to her eyes again.

          They said nothing for a moment. Her eyes studied him closer, and he was still half-asleep against a cozy lichen-laden rock. Her lips relaxed to a complacent line, and she stopped tapping her feet. “You still following me?” she asked. The mage rubbed his eyes with indifference to the question. “Were you here the night it rained?”

          The mage didn’t speak. His voice had atrophied from its lack of use. He had not visited the cities or towns in so long, and his tongue didn’t know how to wag any longer. He lowered his eyes again to the runes on his hands as they regained their former glow.

          “Well, Lord Seth?”

          “Seth,” he said. His mouth was dry, but it moved.

          She bit her cheek. “You make that robe, Seth?”

          He looked over the boring weaving of his green robe. It still smelled of the forest and suited his needs for clothing his body. The mage glanced back to Evynne. “I did,” he said.

          “You make that blanket, too?” she asked. “After you did whatever spell to me?”

          “I did not make you sick,” he snapped. The hot tightness in his chest gave him the strength to stand. His brow was heavy with frustration again.

          “Nay, but I don’t see a mage carrying a girl an hour’s walk through the swamped woods,” she said.

          The tug at her lips suggested a smile. Was she teasing him? The mage frowned. “I carried you,” he bit out, but before she could stir any other strangeness inside his head, he willed an invisibility spell to protect him. Evynne gasped and reached for him, touching the sleeve of his robe and grasping it.

          “Seth!” she yelled. He tugged his sleeve from her grasp and willed the wind to carry him up and away from her searching fingers. Her mouth hung open as she looked over the woods for him. “I just wanted . . .” She turned again. “Wanted to say . . .” Then she started on her journey home, slow and sighing.

          The family packed the old cart full of the season’s nuts, roots, and herbs for the coming market day. A new excitement laced the air like pollen in the first spring breeze. With the cart packed and the first rays of morning shining, Evynne started the journey alone. Her family waved from afar with kerchiefs and winks, laughing and teasing.

          The mage watched carefully from the shadows. Why was the girl traveling alone? He’d slain every bandit in the realm, but she couldn’t possibly know that. There were still wolves and bears preparing for the long winter who would eat her alive. Evynne rode along, bouncing gently over rocks and ruts, with a blush over her cheeks.

          At the land bridge, she paused and looked about. Someone yelled her name, and she rode quickly to the name. Another farm boy with golden hair and a lanky frame greeted her, and they rode together down the road to the city. The image of the boy brought a blush to Evynne’s neck that all of the breathing and evading eyes she could muster would not quell the coloring. The boy smiled at the sight and showed a toothy grin. They talked awkwardly at first about the market, the river and their families. As they spoke, their words flowed more easily between each other.

          Evynne stopped the nag suddenly. “I think something is off with this wheel,” she said.

          “Let me fix it,” the boy offered.

          “I am a smart girl. I can fix any broke thing.” She grinned and leapt from her seat on the cart. As she landed, she grasped the wooden side, glanced over the wheel, knocked on it, and stood. “No, it’s all well.”

          “Good to hear.” The boy leaned over to watch her over the wagon, but Evynne still leaned against the wheel. She bit her lip and reached for her ankle. “Are you all right, Ev?”

          The mage bolted before her without a thought and knelt beside the offending limb. The boy yelped and fell into his wagon, and the mage froze him instantly with a spell. Evynne gasped, but the mage would not be distracted by two-legged wolves and their plights. Instead, he held his hand over her flesh and whispered an incantation.

          “You came,” she whispered.

          “I need silence,” he grunted. “Healing is difficult for me.”

          The mage clenched his eyes closed and felt for the blood, the tissue, and the bones and begged them to be wholesome and healthy. Words from his youth long gone evaded his grasp as he tried to remember the incantation. He had not used such mottled sentences since his first exam in the guild, and the language was long worn among the fortified fire and lightning spells.

          “All better,” she said softly.

          The mage opened his eyes and saw the soft-skinned ankle before him, unmarred by pain or swelling. Evynne retracted it and offered a half-smile. The mage gritted his teeth.

          “You faked it,” he murmured.

          “I wanted to see if you would come, and you did,” she said.

          He grunted. “Get on with your courtship ritual, girl.”

          “Come with me, tyrant mage.” She still mocked him with a steadier smile and cocked brow.

          The mage glanced at the petrified farmer boy. The spell had been weak and would fade in hours. His horse pattered impatiently at the dusty path, but she seemed calm enough. “Very well,” he muttered.

          “Sit beside me like a normal human.” Evynne patted the wooden seat beside her. “You make me nervous when you stalk around in the shadows like that.”

          The mage eyed the seat carefully before sitting beside her. He tucked the excess of his robe between his knees and leaned against the splintered edge of the back. Evynne glanced back, clucked her tongue, and started both wagons again. The bounce of the wood over the rocks nearly jutted the mage from the seat, and the girl laughed. He groaned.

          “You cannot be the powerful mage everyone fears,” she said softly. “You are a silly boy.”

          The mage leered at her. “I do not know what to say to that. You are a rude girl.”

          The mage threw a water spell over the road and sealed the path with fire, paving the even road with shining clay. The wagons became silent except for the bumping of gourds. Evynne glanced into the mage’s eyes, looked back at the road, and back to him.

          “Can you do anything with your spells?” she asked.

          “A lot of things. Not anything.”

          She reached into the cart for a gourd and handed it to the mage. “What can you do with this?”

          He lowered his eyes in an attempt to scare the girl. Her games were becoming annoying. The mage held the gourd with both hands and muttered a forbidden and powerful spell, transmuting the gourd into gold through and through. The very water inside its skin oozed shining yellow metal. Evynne gasped.

          “You can do this?” she whispered.

          “I can,” he snorted. The mage rested his chin on his fist. The spell had taken more out of him than he could ever admit. His every breath felt wasted and weak, and his legs were numb.

          “You can’t be the demon,” she whispered. The mage glanced and saw that she’d hunched over and shook. “If you can do such wonderful things, why would you kill all of those people?”

          “Because those people hurt each other,” he bit. “They murdered each other in cold blood and left their friends and family in the alleyways! They burned down stores that undersold them and poisoned the wells over stupid rumors!” Evynne’s chin shook, and the mage immediately regretted yelling. “How old are you?”

          “Sixteen,” she replied in a hoarse voice.

          “You could never remember how horrible the cities were if you were so young.”

          “But you didn’t have to kill all those people.” Evynne sucked a breath. “You can do good things. You could heal the sick people and give them water so they wouldn’t be so hungry.”

          The mage leaned into his arm and watched the road beneath half-closed eyelids. What a child. He tried to think of words and could not. Instead, he grasped the nag’s tail and released the storm of confused thoughts on the beast. The horse whinnied at his touch.

          “Don’t hurt her!” she cried.

          “I would not.”

          “Please, she’s a good horse!”

          The mage seized for a moment as the power surged through his body. Then, with a loud cry, the horse bucked her head and sped forward. Evynne pulled the horse back and stopped the procession, leaping to the nag’s side.

          “Your eye!” she cheered. Evynne hugged the nag’s neck and rubbed her nose. “You did this?”

          The mage was too exhausted to reply. He slumped in the cart on his fist and ignored the girl’s cheering. If he’d had the strength, he’d return to the comfort of his shadows or a roost on the cliff side.