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Post by Belle on Nov 2, 2007 5:25:20 GMT -5
Still happy.  Only just started because I was out today (visited the cemetery because it's All Souls day) and I'm energized.  I'm hoping to get more in by tonight but here's the current chapter I'm working on:
Chapter 2: The Dark Lord
Seventeen years ago...
On the never-ending mounds of barren, black soil, there appeared the dark figure of a man crawling. His hair was long, black, and shiny, covering his face and most of his body. What skin was exposed was a beautiful dark brown, dirty and covered in sweat, gleaming in the sparse light from the new moon. He crawled, slowly, painfully, until suddenly he stopped.
He staggered onto his two feet and swept his long hair out of his face revealing gleaming charcoal black eyes and prominent cheekbones. He opened his mouth wide, baring white teeth, and howled at the moon. His wail was long, low, and full of anguish. He remained like that for a long time until the light of the moon slowly disappeared and the first rays of the morning sun took its place.
The heat of the sun made the man move a hand across his eyes and shield them. He bared his teeth angrily at the sun only to look surprised a moment or so afterwards.
'Yes, the sun is so arrogant isn't it, refusing to obey orders? It hurts your eyes, it burns your skin. It is a revolting thing, overflowing with light. I hate it, too.'
The man swiveled his head, looking for the source of the deep, booming voice that seemed to be whispering loudly directly into his ear.
'The world would be a much better place without it, don't you think? This putrid sun,' the voice continued in his head. Its tone was dark but at the same time, conversational. 'In fact, why not eliminate the world altogether? You can make a new world, you know, a better world. One that's filled with eternal darkness where there's no stupid light to get in the way. The light never did anyone any good.'
The man gave up trying to figure out where the voice was coming from. A look of intense concentration came to his face and he sat on the ground, cold and unmoving, waiting and listening.
'You know what I mean, don't you? Do you remember what they did to you and your ancestors five hundred years ago?'
The man clenched his fist.
'Do you know why you cry so pitifully at night, howling with such sadness and rage, that the lifeless black soil that surrounds you feels your pain and turns a deeper black?'
Hazy images filled the man's mind, images of a land with rich brown soil and tall green grass. There were stone dwellings filled with people, mothers and fathers, children running around and playing. He saw the unmistakable glint of the morning sun. He heard the sound of merry laughter.
'This was Keir five hundred years ago, a land so prosperous and happy that the other countries in Leif were filled with envy. They were so angry, so filled with hate, that a country was successful while theirs were not. They couldn't understand how Keir could be blessed with so much light. And so they asked the Goddess who made Leif why this was so, they complained that it wasn't fair for one land to be higher than the others. Whispering and arguing among themselves, they decided there was only one way to finish this all. They attacked Keir and annihilated it completely!"
The man saw the grass stamped by thousands of feet belonging to people clad in armor. He saw the stone dwellings rammed into pieces, their inhabitants fleeing everywhere, their faces pinched and scared. He heard the sound of crying and screams of pain. He felt his heart pounding madly; he tried to close his ears and shut his eyes. No more, he thought, no more! But no matter what he did, he could still see them, could still hear them calling out for help.
'The Keirans tried to fight. They had a stone, a powerful stone that could help them win the war. It was a beautiful black that shone with different colors in the presence of light. Their leader wielded the stone and its light blinded their enemies.'
The man felt his heartbeat slowly going back to normal.
'But when the light cleared, it was the enemies who hailed from the other lands that stood victorious over them. The light that had protected them for so long had betrayed them. In front of the leader, there stood the Goddess, called down from heaven by the Keeper, the enemy who had made them fall. In her hand was the stone and on her face a look of melancholy. The leader looked around him and saw that the entire land had turned into nothing but mounds of black soil. And as the world before him slowly crashed before his eyes, the last and only thing he could see was the Goddess' face peering down at him.'
The voice started getting louder, more frenzied, more spiteful. 'You remember now, don't you?'
Slowly, a tall dark man with bright black eyes wearing a hood materialized in front of him. The man stood up abruptly. Who are you? he seemed to ask.
The tall man smirked at him. 'You already know. It was I who wielded the stone five hundred years ago, the man who thought he could save his land with the aid of a stone of light." He spat out the last word. "I am the one written down in the tomes and in the prophecies...as the Dark Lord, the one who shall end the world.' The tall man fixed him with a piercing, black gaze and lowered his hood.
The other man stood agape as he found himself staring at what seemed to be...himself.
"Yes, Hadrian. You are me, I am you. Your powers are still weak as of now but I'll do my best to help you." The Dark Lord touched Hadrian's face. He felt himself growing slightly stronger as his copy slowly entered his consciousness and disappeared before him.
"Awaken the other Keiran descendants," the voice of the former Dark Lord whispered to him. "They're all out there, Hadrian, scattered among the ordinary inhabitants of Leif. They've been waiting for this day. Give them their freedom and in return they'll give you their loyalty."
The man looked towards the horizon calmly and watched the sun setting. He smirked. As he started to walk away, his long black hair slowly formed itself into a black cloak. Soon, his tall figure faded away into the darkness.
It's a bit more messed up than yesterday's but what the heck, I'm having fun. ^_^ |
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Post by Belle on Nov 2, 2007 9:35:38 GMT -5
Last update for the day. I thought I could write the third part tonight, as well, but my muse says she'd like to stop for a while now and keep the nice little pace we seem to be having.  I can see a lot of redundancy down there but no...must resist editing. XXDD I really like how this part turned out.
Chapter 2, Part 2: The First Witch
When Melantha woke up that morning, she knew she was a Witch. And not just any ordinary Witch; she was the Dark Lord's most powerful and most trusted companion. Melantha went to the lake, relishing the feel of the mild breeze against her skin, and as she washed her face in the lake's clear water, she knew what she had to do and how to do it.
She was not a native of Terran; she knew that ever since she had arrived here. The man who had adopted her said she was probably six years old when he found her crying in a small stone cave near the lake. He had been looking for loose stones, he said, wondering if he could possibly survive the day without finding any, when he heard her demanding voice. As if in a trance, he went into the cave and saw a small dark child with short dark hair swathed in black cloth, wearing a necklace with a queer black pendant hanging around her neck. As soon as she saw him, she stopped crying and the man got a glimpse of wide, dark, knowing eyes. She was afraid for her, he always told her, because that look in her eyes told of deep pain and wariness of the world.
As he led her back to his family's home, he asked her over and over what her name was, if she knew who left her there, if she hurt anywhere. But she never answered. She just continued to stay silent until they reached the man's house, a simple stone dwelling, where he, his wife and baby lived.
The man's wife reproached him for bringing home a stowaway. "We have enough mouths to feed, as it is," his wife reasoned, hugging their baby to her chest tenderly. She looked at the dark, mysterious child, a gentleness in her warm brown eyes. "Child, are you lost? Do you need me to help you find your mother?"
Melantha looked at her. "I don't know. I don't remember anything except my name."
Something in the look the child gave her made the wife shiver, as if she knew that the coming of this child was the first sign of trouble brewing. There was even a black stone around her neck, she thought. It was a stone she couldn't identify and the fact that she couldn't gave her a dreadful feeling. That girl is a bad-luck child, her mind shouted at her. But she blocked the thought from her mind and shook her head, telling herself she couldn't possibly say no to this poor little girl.
She handed the baby to her husband and looked straight into the girl's eyes. She took her hand in hers and said, "Never mind about the past. You're staying with us now."
It had been ten years since that day. Far from being a bad luck child, Melantha's coming had brought surprising fortune to the man's family. Not knowing what to do at home, Melantha started coming with the man on his daily search for loose stones out in the forest. On the first day she came with him, he stumbled upon a jadestone, its edge slightly protruding above the soil it was buried in. The man started digging frantically and after three shovelfuls of dirt, he uncovered fifty jadestones.
An excited look came upon his face and Melantha looked at him with interest, wondering what had made him change his usual neutral expression. "Melantha, did you know this is the first time I've found fifty loose stones all at once? I don't even get ten stones a day! The forest isn't really the place to look for stones, you know." His words stumbled over one another in his excitement. "Fifty jadestones! I could be searching in a mine and not a forest! Melantha, this must be our lucky day!" That night, their family ate a wonderful meal.
Each time Melantha accompanied the man to work, he uncovered a tidy amount of jadestones. At first, she came with him only twice a week then thrice until the man and his wife finally realized that he seemed to find more jadestones when Melantha was with him. From then on, Melantha went with him daily. After a month, Melantha noticed that the man's wife was smiling more and treating her with even more kindness than she did the day they took her in. They started buying better-tasting food. The man brought home a new gown for his wife. The next day, he brought silk cloth for the baby and a doll with amethyst eyes for Melantha.
They slowly and discreetly had their little stone house reconstructed until by the end of the year, it was considerably bigger and they had new furniture to match. The man was careful not to talk about how he got his jadestones with his friends or when a curious person would ask. When a particularly persistent man started badgering him with questions and he was having trouble figuring out what to say, Melantha appeared like a shadow beside him.
She whispered in the other man's ear, "My father's a miner but as you can see, he is a very humble man. He's embarrassed when people ask him about it." She looked up at him trustingly. The curious man nodded his head smugly and promised not to tell. So proud was he to know of such a secret.
The next day, the man heard himself being talked about while he was buying food from the meat store.
"See that man over there?" a woman whispered loudly. "He's a miner...but unlike those other folk of his kind, he's actually modest about it. He doesn't want anyone to know." The woman she was talking to seemed to say something back. "Yes, isn't it nice for a change? But don't tell anyone I told you, all right? The person who told me this said this was a secret..."
The man went home that day feeling proud but bewildered.
All this happened a long time ago. The man was older now and had stopped looking for jadestones with Melantha. He was now a well-established tradesman known throughout Terran and even in other countries as The Trader. He conducted business on the first floor of their newly rebuilt house and he had hired a few workers to help him since there were so many customers. But he always ended work for the day at the first hint of darkness. Even the customers begging him to open his store for the night didn't stop him from closing. He knew his wife and two children were waiting for him upstairs ready to eat their evening meal with him.
Melantha was sixteen now, still as thin and as dark-eyed as that day when she came to Terran. Her luxurious black hair now swept the ground and she had grown taller but other than that, she was the same.
But that was before she woke up this morning, before she remembered her past, before she recalled who she really was and her role in this world. Melantha no longer belonged here. She was one of the last Keirans. She was the Dark Lord's most trusted companion and He was calling her.
She looked at the early morning sky. The sun, thankfully, had not yet risen. She closed her eyes. Her long hair stuck to her body, forming a black cloak that covered her and most of her face. She stepped into the cold darkness of the cave beside the lake and never looked back.
When the Trader woke up an hour later, it was to find himself lying on cold brown soil, wearing a dirty tunic he vaguely remembered from ten years ago. He saw his wife standing beside him, her face turned towards their house...a small, humble stone dwelling.
His little son tugged at his tunic and said, "Father, where did our house go?"
Here's to a better turnout tomorrow! *cheers* |
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Post by Belle on Nov 3, 2007 9:23:10 GMT -5
Got home late today because I went out with the family. I have a headache so I only got 1000 words in today. Lovely, easy NaNo pace is slowing down. ^^; I can't really write anymore for the night so I'm ending early. The Blind Seer is currently unfinished. EDIT: Modifying with complete version of The Blind Seer.
Chapter 2, Part 3: The Blind Seer
The Dark Lord nodded his head as the last cloaked figure took its rightful place. "Melantha," he said, satisfaction evident in his voice. "You have finally arrived."
"Yes, Lord Hadrian," she said, raising her eyes to meet his.
"You should have been here first," he snapped, but he quickly curbed his anger. There was much that he had to do.
The woman lowered her head and opened her mouth to speak.
Hadrian waved her away with one hand, his impatience showing on his handsome face. "Let's talk about this some other time, shall we?" He looked around in the darkness and allowed himself a smile. Twenty-one cloaked figures -- more than enough to destroy the world. "The Dark Lord welcomes you, Witches...the last and the most powerful clan of Keirans."
The figures bowed in unison in acknowledgment.
Hadrian's voice turned low and mournful. "You know why I've called you here. Trapped into living with the very people who were responsible for the deaths of our brethren, those lowly creatures of light! What you've went through all these years while I was gone must have been painful and I'm sorry that you've had to experience them." He paused and smiled. "But now the time for waiting is over."
He lifted his hands to the skies and laughed. "Even the Goddess couldn't stop me from returning to the land where I was born. They defeated us then...but now it's our turn to make them suffer. We'll make them suffer long and hard before we finally destroy them!"
As if they had been given an unknown signal, the cloaked figures simultaneously dropped their hoods.
"Yes, my loyal friends, this time it will be different." His black eyes glinted in the moonlight. "I, your leader, am asking you for help not as the Dark Lord but as your fellow Keiran. I'm still weak and tired after being imprisoned for five hundred years. My powers have not yet returned to me completely. But you, my friends, are strong and alert. I'm asking you to start my mission for me. But, I urge you, do not attack the descendants of our enemies in the last war."
A low murmur of surprise and disgust spread among the Witches. Hadrian raised his hand, motioning for them to wait. "At least, not physically." He smirked. "These pitiful, lowly humans will struggle to fight back if you attack them directly. Of course, they'll quickly die in the end -- they're no match for your power and cunning -- but where's the fun in that, eh? If they die quickly, how will we make them feel how we felt five hundred years ago and return its impact a hundredfold?"
The murmurs died down and the Witches listened attentively to what the Dark Lord had to say. "Instead, you must attack them mentally and emotionally. Slowly, with subtlety, poison their minds with thoughts of anger, jealousy, hatred. Infiltrate their countries, pretend to be their friends but secretly pit them against one another. Sow seeds of suspicion and betrayal. Demoralize them; make them feel like you're the only people they can trust. Make them fearful, desperate, and alone. In the end, they themselves will begin to destroy one another, a fate that befits them more than a simple death in their enemies' hands. And when they think their situations couldn't get any worse, we shall finally make ourselves known and pass the final judgment!"
There was a long silence, one that signified satisfaction and approval from the Witches. As one, the cloaked figures put on their hoods.
The figure that was Melantha took a step forward. "We, the Witches of Keir, remain loyal to the Dark Lord for eternity. We will do as you have told us and return to tell you of our success."
The cloaked figures bowed. One by one, they started melting into the darkness until only Melantha was left, her dark eyes watching Hadrian intently.
The Dark Lord walked towards her in slow, methodical steps. When he finally reached her, he bent down and looked her in the eye. "You knew I had a special mission for you, didn't you, Melantha?"
He moved away. A frown slowly appeared on his face. "There is something that's troubling me. My victory is, of course, inevitable. But still, I'd like to make sure there is absolutely nothing that can keep me from achieving my goal." He gave Melantha a look of grim purpose. "Our own Keiran seer is no longer in this world to tell me the future. But there is one person I know who can read destinies as easily as we breathe. Melantha, I want you to find the Blind Seer and bring him to me."
***
There was a barely audible sigh. "I know you're there. If you have something to say, please do so. I have plenty of work to do."
Melantha stood motionless near the entrance of the cramped, stuffy temple. The air was heavy with smoke from several piles of incense sticks, burning from each corner of the room. The walls were dark green, full of stone shelves carrying an odd assortment of trinkets. One shelf was filled with bowls and bowls of many colored stones with different shapes and sizes. Another held a single cup with a broken handle. It was half-filled with some dark and murky liquid; something hot, because it was sending unusually shaped smoke swirls into the air.
In the middle of the temple sat an old man in a long brown robe with colorful bright green patterns that contrasted strongly with the dull brown. They would have been blinding to the ordinary, untrained eye. The man was short and stocky. His skin was brown, his face smooth. He had a serene air about him despite the numerous wrinkles on his forehead and the long thin scar on his right cheek that signified his life hadn't been easy. His eyes were white.
"You are the Blind Seer," Melantha told him.
The man focused his eyes on her and smiled. "In this part of Terran, they just call me Cato. Who might you be, young lady?"
"You're a seer. You should already know the answer." She let the words out with scorn.
Cato laughed easily. "I don't know everything." He continued to look at her. They stood in silence for a long while.
He seemed to be waiting patiently for her to speak again. Melantha shifted slightly. She hated the man already. If Hadrian hadn't told her to find him, she would have gladly stayed away. But just like in the past, the Dark Lord knew what she knew and knew what could do. And in this lifetime, Melantha knew Terran like the back of her hand. When she still lived with the Trader, he had mentioned the Blind Seer numerous times and had even went to his temple to inquire about his future once. He came back denouncing his abilities. Melantha had often wondered what the Blind Seer had told him.
But this was not the time to think about such things. Melantha blinked, the small action enough to shake her out of her previous line of thought. Cato was still looking at her. "Are you really blind or is that just your title?"
"As you can see, my dear, I am completely blind," Cato said, smiling directly at her.
Melantha stooped down and waved a hand a slight distance away from Cato's eyes. He blinked rapidly. "I'm not so sure about that," she murmured. She took a step back. In a louder voice she continued, "But you look at me as if you can see me clearly."
Cato sighed, wiped his hands on his robe, and started getting up. "When you're blind like me, young lady, you learn how to open your eyes and truly see. Now, I don't think we're getting anywhere. I'm waiting for someone, you see, and if you're not that person, we'll have to wrap this up quickly." He gave her an expectant look.
"Who are you waiting for?" Melantha asked levelly.
Cato looked as if her words had made him see something he hadn't seen before. "Ah," he said, smiling. "This person is most certainly not you."
Melantha felt herself starting to get irritated. She tried to clear her face of any emotion. She still didn't completely believe the man was blind. "How do you know it's not me?"
He approached one of the shelves and traced his fingers on the cold stone until he touched the cup with the broken handle. He lifted it carefully in both hands. "The person I am waiting for wouldn't have had to ask." He inhaled deeply and peered into the cup's murky contents. "You must be his messenger, then." He looked at her carefully.
"It seems I don't even have to explain myself," Melantha said, not without a trace of bitterness. "My master sent me here to fetch you...Cato the Blind Seer." She drew the last words out in a mocking tone.
Cato was holding onto the cup with a firm grip. "Well, young messenger, I'm not taking one step out of this temple so you'll have to tell your master to come here."
She sneered. "I can easily take you to him, you know. You don't know what I'm capable of."
"Oh, I do," Cato said, "but I don't think I'll have to find out. The Goddess Herself told me of this day that time I first discovered I was a seer." He started drinking out of the cup. He smacked his lips and started running his hand along another shelf. "She told me of this day...the day a special visitor would come to me and ask me about the future." He smiled again as his fingers found the outline of a small stone. He dropped it into the cup where it quickly dissolved. The liquid hummed and fizzled. A large puff of blue smoke floated into the already hazy air.
Melantha coughed. "I don't need your permission to take you to him, old man." She opened her palm, revealing a black stone. It was her turn to smile. "Let me take you into the darkness."
"Sorry, my dear," Cato said, "but I'm not going anywhere."
The blue smoke had now spread throughout the small room, making Melantha cough again. Her eyes widened as the stone in her palm flashed red then turned pure white. She gave the man a cool, appraising stare.
He was sitting down on the cold stone floor, still holding onto the cup with both hands. "I suggest you sit down, young lady. Let's wait for your master together." He smiled at her.
Melantha looked at him suspiciously, still wondering if he was really blind like everyone was saying. She sat down.
***
The Dark Lord appeared inside the temple without so much as a trace. One moment, he wasn't there and then he was. "The Blind Seer," he greeted him with a sneer. "I wasn't expecting a doddering old man to make a fool out of whom I thought was my strongest follower." He gave Melantha a sharp, disapproving look. "I overestimated her, that's obvious. I should have known I would have to trudge on here myself and finish the job." He waved her away and she obediently melted into the darkness.
He swooped down on Cato and snarled at him. "I can easily kill you, old one, so if you know what's good for you, you'll tell me what I need to know."
Cato stayed in his position with a serene expression on his face. He was no longer smiling. "A seer is a seer. I have no right to refuse anyone who comes to me. Of course, you know that what I see is limited by what the stones tell me. I cannot tell you everything." He stood up. "Nevertheless, welcome to my humble home, Dark Lord. What do you want to know?"
"I won't even argue with you, old man," Hadrian replied dryly. "I came here only because you're the best of your kind." But first, let me test you, he thought. "Tell me, Blind Seer, how do I conquer Leif?"
"It is in your destiny to lose, Dark Lord."
Hadrian's hands immediately went to Cato's throat. "Wrong answer, old man. That's not what I asked of you."
Cato only gestured for the Dark Lord to loosen his grip. Hadrian removed his hands and stared at the seer, his dark eyes calculating.
Cato shook his head. "Listen," he said, his tone harsh, his voice deepening and taking on an other worldly quality. "You shall be defeated by the Goddess Herself who will descend to Leif once again through the Keeper's help."
Hadrian sneered again. "Really, old one, you're wearing my patience thin. That's your second wrong answer. The Keeper is dead. He died five hundred years ago." He laughed.
Cato raised his chin and pointed a finger at Hadrian. "Just like you have been reborn, Dark Lord, so the Keeper will also be reborn."
Enraged, Hadrian pulled the seer's right arm and prepared to twist it. The Keeper, alive! He would not hear of it. Driven into a frenzy, he said, "Tell me who he is! Tell me who he is or I'll kill you!"
Cato, still speaking in an unearthly voice, said, "You don't have to threaten me, Dark Lord, especially not with death. An old man like me...I am not afraid to die. But it does not matter." Calmly, easily, he removed Hadrian's hand on his arm with surprising strength. "The Goddess told me three moons ago that I should deliver this message. She wants me to tell you of the Keeper's identity."
Hadrian laughed hollowly. "That arrogant Goddess! She thinks I'm this weak? Ha!"
Cato continued, as if he hadn't heard Hadrian's words. "The Goddess told me this. The Keeper will be born a year from now in the kingdom of Sol. Her blood is the color of her eyes; her eyes are the color of the ocean. The Goddess has blessed her family and so you are cursed with the inability to touch her. Seventeen years from now, when your power is at its peak, the Keeper shall rise and save the world from destruction." After saying this, Cato sagged to the ground, as if suddenly losing his earlier strength. He still clutched at the cup firmly, the blue smoke now slowly fading into grey.
But Hadrian was no longer aware of any of of this. He was laughing. "You think you're so clever, don't you, Goddess? You think I am doomed to fail. Not this time, Goddess, not this time." A dangerous, crazy gleam came to his black eyes. "You will regret letting me have this information, Goddess. Protected by you? Bah! Don't make me laugh again!"
And as he faded away into the darkness, the temple shook with the sound of his crazy laughter.
Word Count, Day 3: 6503 words |
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Post by Belle on Nov 3, 2007 21:30:48 GMT -5
*sets goal for self* Today, I'm aiming to reach 10k. Let's see how it goes. |
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Post by Belle on Nov 4, 2007 9:56:33 GMT -5
All right! I reached my goal! Thank you, weekend. *feels exhilarated* The fact that I actually know a fellow Filipina who has oh, 22k words today, really fueled me. XD Maybe I should do a word war. I guess I'm pretty competitive, after all. And now I'm off to sleep because I have to wake up early and go to college for my registration form and grades. *shivers* My last thousand words feel so messed up. I hope my story's still making sense. Will post the latest chapters tomorrow. Here are the titles: Chapter 2, Part 3: The Seer (finished!) Chapter 3, Part 1: The Lost (finished!) Chapter 3, Part 2: The Assassin (unfinished!) Day 4 Word Count: 10316 words |
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Post by Belle on Nov 5, 2007 9:30:22 GMT -5
I went to school today, got home around 1pm and proceeded to procrastinate by reading 'Wicked'. ^^; I ended up writing at around 7pm. Here's The Lost which I finished yesterday:
Chapter 3, Part 1: The Lost
Perdita was a kind, gentle old woman with a ready smile and a cheerful disposition. She was short and pleasantly plump. Her eyes were jet black and they always shone as if they were constantly laughing. Her hair was slightly graying but still as curly as in her younger years, which matched her personality really well. She had been a lady at the Solian court for a long time and Thema was glad to have met her.
Thema appreciated Perdita's friendship very much. She was her confidante, the person she ran to when things weren't going well with her husband or with the various affairs of the country. Thema took comfort in Perdita's understanding smile and comforting words. They made her feel like things could always get better. Today's gripe was about life as a queen, in general. "Being a queen isn't what people imagine it to be, Perdita," she said, sighing, as Perdita brushed her long light brown hair. "In fact, it wasn't what I imagined it to be, at all. Not that I thought about all...this...when I fell in love with Elroy."
Perdita continued brushing her hair, careful to do it softly. "Well, your highness, that's what's life is all about...the unexpected. We weren't born into this world knowing how to live." She looked into Thema's blue eyes in the vanity mirror. "If I may say so, your highness, you're doing a very nice job of being a queen so far. And you're still so young. What I would give to feel sprightly again." She giggled like a young girl and Thema couldn't help smiling, imagining what Perdita must have been like when she was younger.
"Oh, Perdita, you must have been quite a girl!"
Perdita's eyes shone and Thema had a feeling she was now in a faraway place, reliving her past. "I was, your highness. I broke so many hearts."
Thema sat in silence for a while as Perdita continued brushing her hair absentmindedly. Perdita's line about hearts had gotten her thinking of Elroy. Just the thought of his warm brown eyes and impish grin made her hurt flutter and a tender smile appear onto her face. She should really stop daydreaming so much. After all, she was the queen of Sol now.
Although officially of marrying age, she was still very much a young girl of eighteen. She and Elroy were about to celebrate the end of their first year as Sol's king and queen. Eleven months ago, she had married Elroy, a handsome 'traveling man' she met while working at a tavern where she was employed. Imagine her surprise when he confessed that he was actually the crown prince after their marriage. She listened as he pleaded with her not to hate him, not to leave. He had been too afraid to tell her who he was at first because he thought it would make her stay away from him, he said. She was angry about his lies but in the end, she forgave him because she loved him too much. She loved him so much that she even allowed herself to be schooled in matters of the court and even court etiquette. Oh, the humiliation.
Elroy assumed the throne as king exactly a month after their marriage. Thema still didn't know what she was doing here right now, honestly, except for the fact that she had fallen in love. Hard. She had been an ordinary peasant girl then. But now she was the queen. Sometimes, she would still forget to answer when someone called her 'your highness' or 'Queen Thema'. It just didn't sound like her. But she was almost done getting used to it. At least, she thought so.
She laid a hand on her burgeoning belly and felt the baby inside it kick. She smiled lovingly. It was going to be soon. Elroy had been so excited when he found out she was pregnant and frankly, she was, too. She knew, she just knew, this baby would be a girl and she was more than ready to pass down her story and teach her what she knew, however little, about life.
A knock on the door interrupted Thema's thoughts. Perdita seemed to regain herself, as well, because she returned the brush to the vanity table and said, "I'll get it, your highness."
When she opened the door, Thema found herself looking at a young girl, probably around fourteen, who looked so uncomfortable in her soft pink gown, obviously made of wool, with long flowing sleeves that Thema felt like she was getting itchy herself. She was Greta, a girl who was pretty new to the court, probably entering it a short time after Thema herself became queen. The girl was thin, tall, and too pale for her own good. Her eyes were small and dark. She struggled to hide her face behind her long black hair. All Thema could see besides her eyes and part of her mouth was her pointy chin.
"Yes?" Thema asked, trying her best to sound gentle. Greta looked like she could use a kind word or two.
"Your highness," the girl began softly, avoiding Thema's eyes. She curtsied. "King Elroy would like to see you now."
Thema stood up with a grace she knew she didn't have before she became Elroy's wife. "Tell him I'll be there..." A sudden spasm in her abdomen made her clutch at the edge of her chair. "...soon..." She felt her surroundings start to blur. The pain was getting stronger.
"Your highness!"
***
The baby wailed loudly, announcing its arrival into the world.
"It's a girl, your highness," Perdita said, the joy evident in her voice. She transferred the baby carefully into Thema's waiting hands.
Thema was exhausted. Her face was bright with the sheen of sweat but she smiled upon seeing her baby. She cradled its face against hers, reveling in the feel of her baby's skin. She looked at its beautiful blue eyes, the same shade as hers; at the little fingers, the little toes. A feeling of contentment washed over her. "My baby..."
"Where's the baby? Thema! Thema, are you all right?" a voice shouted.
Thema smiled at her husband, whose forehead was crinkled in worry. He was panting and she could see the perspiration on his brow. He was followed closely by a clumsy Greta, who looked embarrassed.
"Your majesty, please keep quiet. The queen and the baby are all right," Perdita scolded.
"I'm sorry. I tried to stop him but his majesty insisted," Greta said, looking at the carpet.
Elroy looked sheepish. "They wouldn't let me in. I had to force my way in here." He gave Thema an apologetic grin. "I'm glad you're fine," he said, much softer this time. He went to kneel by her side. Thema almost told him to stand up. His stockings were going to get dirty. The thought in itself made her smile. It did look like she was feeling fine, after all. She showed him their baby.
"She's beautiful," Elroy murmured touching the baby's delicate skin with a finger. The baby wrapped her little hand around Elroy's fingers. "Yes, you are, little one. You're beautiful." He looked at Thema, a look of delight on his face, then kissed his wife on the cheek.
Thema felt happy and proud but she was also very exhausted. She felt her eyes starting to droop. She gave Elroy their baby to hold and took one last look at its striking blue eyes. Elroy removed his necklace with the small ruby pendant and carefully slipped it around the baby's neck. She smiled, contented, and let her eyes begin to close.
***
Thema was suddenly wide awake and she didn't know why. There was a sick feeling at the pit of her stomach. She immediately looked to her bedside and found neither Elroy nor the baby there. She tried to sit up, found that she couldn't, and inclined her head instead to get a better view of the now dark room.
She could see the dim figure of someone up ahead. She squinted. Who was it? She opened her mouth to ask if the person knew where everyone else was. But before she could, she saw an unmistakable glint of red. "My baby!" she blurted out.
The figure approached her bed rapidly and as it got nearer, Thema's face sagged into an expression of relief. "It's only you. And you've got my baby. For a moment there, I was really scared. I thought someone was..." She stopped. She was getting woozy again. There were white dots dancing before her eyes. She blinked rapidly and registered a hand in front of her, a hand with a ring with a black stone on one finger. Was it her imagination or was it flashing different colors?
"I didn't think you'd wake up, your highness," the woman said, her black eyes glinting. "It would have been better for all of us if you hadn't."
Thema fought to keep herself awake. "What...what do you...what do you mean?" She made an attempt to rub her temples. "It's just...everything's getting..."
"Go to sleep, your highness," the woman said in a mock soothing tone.
Much to her chagrin, Thema found herself slowly being surrounded by darkness.
"Go to sleep, your highness. Do me a favor and never wake up."
Thema made a last attempt to open her eyes. She gave the woman a questioning, pleading look. The woman smirked at her and nuzzled the cheek of the currently sleeping baby. "You'll never see her again, your highness. The Dark Lord's going to kill her."
Thema gave a strangled whimper. My baby, she tried to scream, but no words came out of her throat.
"Thankfully for you, you won't remember one bit of this conversation when you wake up. Goodbye, your highness." The figure started walking away. "I'll see you in an hour or so...minus the baby." She laughed a scornful laugh.
Thema felt tears that wouldn't come out burning her eyes. With the last of her strength, she managed to say, "Why, Perdita...why?"
And now, I'm still working on The Assassin. ^_^
Chapter 3, Part 2: The Assassin
Perdita clutched the bundled-up baby in her arms and hastened to get out of the castle. "Leave it to the Dark Lord to give me the dirty work," she muttered under her breath, willing her old legs to move faster. She wasn't exactly a youngster now, wasn't she? But could she say no to the Dark Lord? Of course not.
And it was all so convenient, too. She recalled the malevolent smile on Lord Hadrian's face when he called her and asked her if she was still a lady of the court. Of course, she was. She knew that. He knew that. And yet the Dark Lord always seemed to need the confirmation of his subordinates, needed to hear from their own mouths that this and that were true. Friends and companions, her foot! Not that she'd ever tell him any of this personally because she still valued her life, thank you very much. Unlike the rest of the reawakened Witches, though, sometimes Perdita still found herself wishing she hadn't remembered any of her past. Her conscience, the last part of her that remained from her years as a person who completely knew nothing of her Keiran heritage, told her she had been happy as kind, old Perdita.
The Perdita that she was now even honestly enjoyed conversing with the queen. It was really too bad something in her brain was mocking her and bullying her with recollections of the past that she shared with the Keirans. These bad memories urged her to despise the humans she had lived with in harmony after all these years, people she had grown to love, even. At the notion of love, her Keiran blood boiled and recoiled. Her brain started hissing obscenities and she was forced to stop for a second, willing them to stop.
The baby started to cry. "Hush, you little brat." Perdita groaned. Just what she needed. "Kill the child now," her brain told her. "It's in your blood. Don't fight it."
"I can't," she said. "It's the Assassin's job, not mine." But she was lying. She was sick with an absurd fear. She tried to remove the thought of a crying, agonized Thema from her mind; Thema who would be daughterless soon, said her conscience. It battled with her bloodthirsty brain. "Thema's going to die if her baby dies," she whispered to herself, half-turning as if expecting the Dark Lord to suddenly appear and berate her.
For a moment, she felt the urge to turn back and forget about it all. She was old and tired. It was too late for her to get involved in this new war. She didn't want to know about her Keiran past. She didn't want to take revenge. What did she care about the past? It was called the past precisely because it was. Forgive and forget, the old Perdita would have said. This was the present and she still had some life left to live.
But the voice in her head stopped her. "You can't betray your own heritage, Perdita. You know you can't. Even if you pretend you're a measly human just like any other measly human, your blood won't let you stay that way for long."
And just like that, her body started moving on her own. Perdita continued to push forward, walking in a now rather mechanical gait, as if this walking really wasn't her idea. "Focus on delivering the child, Perdita," she told herself. "Just deliver the child and be done with it."
She reached a small dark clearing near the edge of the forest near the castle. There she saw the shadow of the Assassin, a tall figure clothed in all black. Perdita hurried to the figure and thrust the baby into his arms. "Here's the baby." She's your problem now, she thought with a weird feeling of relief and sadness. Without saying anything else, Perdita turned around and ran.
She had to go back to the castle before Thema woke up and discovered her baby was gone. She didn't know how strong her own powers were considering she didn't know she had them until not so long ago. She ran unbelievably fast, her old legs suddenly feeling lighter than they had ever been. She felt silent tears running down her face and she smiled bitterly, having completely lost faith in herself and the world. To hell with this life. Maybe she would wake up tomorrow to find out all this was a very realistic nightmare.
***
When the Assassin felt the now silent baby squirming in her arms, something happened within her. The baby was looking at her, a curious look in her sharp blue eyes. It waved its hands in the air, as if reaching out to touch her face. The Assassin, who had resigned herself to an eternity of serving the Dark Lord, looking death in the eye every single day, and haunted by it in her dreams at night, felt a small patch of warmth in her heart and she hoped, she hoped with all her might, that the tears falling from her eyes were real. Had she regained her capacity to feel? Was her brain once again hers and hers alone? She dared to hope.
The Assassin had not always been the Assassin, of course. Until a year ago, she had been a happy-go-lucky young woman who lived with her family in the outskirts of Sol. Her name was Elysia. She was a pretty blue-eyed girl; tall, slim, and blessed with gorgeous long black hair that was the envy of women all over Sol and had the men sighing, wishing they could touch it.
Elysia had been a rather charming girl, if she did say so herself, and she was pretty sociable, too. Her friendliness and good looks helped draw customers to her parents' small teashop. They weren't exactly swimming in jadestones but they had a pretty steady income.
Elysia would do anything for her family. Feeling like her beauty was her only strong point, she decided, heck, she would use it well. She would smile coquettishly, smile at a man as if he were the only one in the room. She would tease, she would linger at tables, let her hair softly glide on the tabletop. She made each one of them feel special. This way, she managed to keep the customers coming back for more and more tea. And when she felt she had exhausted a man's wealth, she slowly and carefully showed she wasn't interested until the man would give up and go away for good.
For years, the system worked well. Elysia's parents were happy and this, she thought, was enough to make her happy, too. It was around the time she fell in love that her life shattered into pieces.
He was a young miner who came alone to the shop one day in his fine clothes and carrying a pouch of topaz dust. But it was not the glint of topaz in his pouch that attracted Elysia to him but the grim expression on his handsome face that declared he was not to be disturbed. And his eyes...his wide, dark eyes. They haunted her. He felt his gaze following her the entire time he was there. But whenever Elysia looked up or cast a furtive glance at his table, she was puzzled to see he was calmly drinking his tea and reading from a sheaf of papers. Even when she served him his fourth cup of tea, tipping the teapot just so to let her hair fall down on her face, well aware that the sunlight would make it shine, he did not look up from his papers. He did not say a single word to her except to motion for another helping of tea.
Elysia was affronted by his ignoring her. When he returned the next day and repeated his routine, this time carrying more piles of paper, she asked her mother to serve him, instead. She pretended to laugh at another customer's corny jokes. She flipped her hair over her shoulder more than ten times that day. But even though she had the other men practically drooling, he went on reading as if she wasn't there. Elysia would have declared that she failed for the first time in her life right then and there except for one thing: she still felt his eyes following her as she served tea to other customers. She couldn't be wrong. Could she?
This went on for the rest of the week. On the seventh day, Elysia was already so tired of pretending. She had been crying pitifully at night and she was starting to disgust herself. But now she knew for sure. She was in love with a man whose name she didn't even know. And, apparently, he didn't even know she was there, or at least, he was doing a great job of pretending himself.
When the teashop was about to close and everyone else had left, Elysia went to his table with a grim purpose. She took a seat and said, "Excuse me, sir, but the shop's closing. I'll have to ask you to leave." In fact, the young man had always been the last customer the entire week, leaving carefully after Elysia's parents had turned in for the day and Elysia was about to turn off the lights. Elysia was too afraid and irritated at him to initiate a conversation but now she had recklessly changed that. Her mind started laughing at her.
The man, who had never looked at her directly, tidied up his papers then gazed at her. Elysia took a sharp intake of breath, in spite of herself. His eyes were really beautiful; his gaze was smoldering. He looked at her lips. "Of course, you could just stay right here," she blurted out.
The man smiled and he slowly leaned towards her face. It was only when his soft lips were meshing with hers that Elysia remembered to breathe.
When Elysia woke up the next morning and found the man still lying beside her, his eyes closed and his lips forming a peaceful smile, she felt her world crashing. She got up, careful not to wake him up, and dressed up. Then she slipped out of the room silently and ran. She stopped only when she was deep inside the forest, far from the rest of the world, far from him. She sat on the ground and cried.
She was supposed to be happy right now. Her love wasn't unrequited, after all. And last night had been wonderful. But now, she realized it was all hopeless. She didn't have a chance from the very beginning.
When Elysia had woken up that morning, she suddenly knew that she was a Witch. As if it had come from nowhere, she now knew of her Keiran heritage, her power to destroy, and how the blood that ran through her veins would slowly eat away this person who was Elysia until nothing was left but the Witch thirsting for revenge. She blanched.
Right now, she still remembered her present life but who knew if she still would tomorrow? Already, she felt a corner of her heart turning into stone. Her mind was starting to drift to thoughts of revenge and hatred. She no longer belonged in this place. She had to leave her parents behind. No, they weren't her real parents. Now she knew that. They didn't even tell her they had only found her on their doorstep one night. It figured her life was actually built on lies.
She couldn't go back to the man she loved. She shouldn't...because if she did, the Witch within her might decide to make him her first victim. And Elysia, what was left of her, wouldn't be able to take that. She cried for hours and hours, until she felt the pain easing a little bit, until she knew it was imperative that she left. The Dark Lord was calling the Witches.
And so she stood up, dusted off her dress, and looked at the sky. She saw the moon shining down on her. Her long black hair, her only pride, molded itself around her, forming a shining black cloak. She melted into the darkness. From that night on, Elysia disappeared and the Assassin took her place.
The Assassin was stoic, silent, and unmoving. She was perfect for doing the dirty jobs. The Dark Lord put her under the charge of Melantha the Dark, his most trusted companion. Unlike the rest of the Witches, Melantha wasn't instructed to blend into society and sow seeds of hatred. Instead, she traveled from country to country, going back and forth, and watched the action from above. Her job was to survey the land for potential setbacks to the Dark Lord's plan, people who resisted the subtle work of the Witches, people who shined with so much hope they were affecting the people around them and making them resist, too. Melantha would figure out who the dissenters were. She pointed them out to the Assassin. And, quickly or slowly, depending on how Melantha specified how she would the job, the Assassin would do what she did best. It was often over before the victims could react.
The Assassin would stand aside, silent, after a killing while Melantha crowed by the sidelines. The Assassin was a creature devoid of emotion. She had to be unfeeling to do her job well. Yet after each deed, regardless of how it went, the Assassin would find water pouring out of her eyes, snaking their way down her cheeks and chin. She didn't even know what they were. Melantha just laughed and told her they were there to purify her of her sins. But the Assassin didn't understand what she meant, at all.
Still pretty happy with the way things are going for me. Day 5 Word Count: 12048 words |
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Post by Belle on Nov 6, 2007 22:57:19 GMT -5
Self-goal for the day: Reach 16k.
Must not procrastinate...must not procrastinate...
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Post by Belle on Nov 7, 2007 9:34:44 GMT -5
All right! Achieved my goal for the day. Tomorrow's my birthday so maybe I won't be able to write again but let's see. ^_^ Only a few thousand more until 20k. I'm looking forward to it.
Chapter 3, Part 2: The Assassin
Perdita clutched the bundled-up baby in her arms and hastened to get out of the castle. "Leave it to the Dark Lord to give me the dirty work," she muttered under her breath, willing her old legs to move faster. She wasn't exactly a youngster now, wasn't she? But could she say no to the Dark Lord? Of course not.
And it was all so convenient, too. She recalled the malevolent smile on Lord Hadrian's face when he called her and asked her if she was still a lady of the court. Of course, she was. She knew that. He knew that. And yet the Dark Lord always seemed to need the confirmation of his subordinates, needed to hear from their own mouths that this and that were true. Friends and companions, her foot! Not that she'd ever tell him any of this personally because she still valued her life, thank you very much. Unlike the rest of the reawakened Witches, though, sometimes Perdita still found herself wishing she hadn't remembered any of her past. Her conscience, the last part of her that remained from her years as a person who completely knew nothing of her Keiran heritage, told her she had been happy as kind, old Perdita.
The Perdita that she was now even honestly enjoyed conversing with the queen. It was really too bad something in her brain was mocking her and bullying her with recollections of the past that she shared with the Keirans. These bad memories urged her to despise the humans she had lived with in harmony after all these years, people she had grown to love, even. At the notion of love, her Keiran blood boiled and recoiled. Her brain started hissing obscenities and she was forced to stop for a second, willing them to stop.
The baby started to cry. "Hush, you little brat." Perdita groaned. Just what she needed. "Kill the child now," her brain told her. "It's in your blood. Don't fight it."
"I can't," she said. "It's the Assassin's job, not mine." But she was lying. She was sick with an absurd fear. She tried to remove the thought of a crying, agonized Thema from her mind; Thema who would be daughterless soon, said her conscience. It battled with her bloodthirsty brain. "Thema's going to die if her baby dies," she whispered to herself, half-turning as if expecting the Dark Lord to suddenly appear and berate her.
For a moment, she felt the urge to turn back and forget about it all. She was old and tired. It was too late for her to get involved in this new war. She didn't want to know about her Keiran past. She didn't want to take revenge. What did she care about the past? It was called the past precisely because it was. Forgive and forget, the old Perdita would have said. This was the present and she still had some life left to live.
But the voice in her head stopped her. "You can't betray your own heritage, Perdita. You know you can't. Even if you pretend you're a measly human just like any other measly human, your blood won't let you stay that way for long."
And just like that, her body started moving on her own. Perdita continued to push forward, walking in a now rather mechanical gait, as if this walking really wasn't her idea. "Focus on delivering the child, Perdita," she told herself. "Just deliver the child and be done with it."
She reached a small dark clearing near the edge of the forest near the castle. There she saw the shadow of the Assassin, a tall figure clothed in all black. Perdita hurried to the figure and thrust the baby into his arms. "Here's the baby." She's your problem now, she thought with a weird feeling of relief and sadness. Without saying anything else, Perdita turned around and ran.
She had to go back to the castle before Thema woke up and discovered her baby was gone. She didn't know how strong her own powers were considering she didn't know she had them until not so long ago. She ran unbelievably fast, her old legs suddenly feeling lighter than they had ever been. She felt silent tears running down her face and she smiled bitterly, having completely lost faith in herself and the world. To hell with this life. Maybe she would wake up tomorrow to find out all this was a very realistic nightmare.
***
When the Assassin felt the now silent baby squirming in her arms, something happened within her. The baby was looking at her, a curious look in her sharp blue eyes. It waved its hands in the air, as if reaching out to touch her face. The Assassin, who had resigned herself to an eternity of serving the Dark Lord, looking death in the eye every single day, and haunted by it in her dreams at night, felt a small patch of warmth in her heart. Water was pouring out of her eyes, just like always. Tears, her mind told her, tears. What were these tears? And who was it that was speaking to her? Her head started to hurt. She traced a finger on her own cheek, wiped a tear, and licked it. It was salty. In her mind's eye, there was a small, dim light. She unconsciously reached out with a hand to touch it...
The Assassin had not always been the Assassin, of course. Until a year ago, she had been a happy-go-lucky young woman who lived with her family in the outskirts of Sol. Her name was Elysia. She was a pretty blue-eyed girl; tall, slim, and blessed with gorgeous long black hair that was the envy of women all over Sol and had the men sighing, wishing they could touch it.
Elysia had been a rather charming girl, if she did say so herself, and she was pretty sociable, too. Her friendliness and good looks helped draw customers to her parents' small teashop. They weren't exactly swimming in jadestones but they had a pretty steady income.
Elysia would do anything for her family. Feeling like her beauty was her only strong point, she decided, heck, she would use it well. She would smile coquettishly, smile at a man as if he were the only one in the room. She would tease, she would linger at tables, let her hair softly glide on the tabletop. She made each one of them feel special. This way, she managed to keep the customers coming back for more and more tea. And when she felt she had exhausted a man's wealth, she slowly and carefully showed she wasn't interested until the man would give up and go away for good.
For years, the system worked well. Elysia's parents were happy and this, she thought, was enough to make her happy, too. It was around the time she fell in love that her life shattered into pieces.
He was a young miner who came alone to the shop one day in his fine clothes and carrying a pouch of topaz dust. But it was not the glint of topaz in his pouch that attracted Elysia to him but the grim expression on his handsome face that declared he was not to be disturbed. And his eyes...his wide, dark eyes. They haunted her. He felt his gaze following her the entire time he was there. But whenever Elysia looked up or cast a furtive glance at his table, she was puzzled to see he was calmly drinking his tea and reading from a sheaf of papers. Even when she served him his fourth cup of tea, tipping the teapot just so to let her hair fall down on her face, well aware that the sunlight would make it shine, he did not look up from his papers. He did not say a single word to her except to motion for another helping of tea.
Elysia was affronted by his ignoring her. When he returned the next day and repeated his routine, this time carrying more piles of paper, she asked her mother to serve him, instead. She pretended to laugh at another customer's corny jokes. She flipped her hair over her shoulder more than ten times that day. But even though she had the other men practically drooling, he went on reading as if she wasn't there. Elysia would have declared that she failed for the first time in her life right then and there except for one thing: she still felt his eyes following her as she served tea to other customers. She couldn't be wrong. Could she?
This went on for the rest of the week. On the seventh day, Elysia was already so tired of pretending. She had been crying pitifully at night and she was starting to disgust herself. But now she knew for sure. She was in love with a man whose name she didn't even know. And, apparently, he didn't even know she was there, or at least, he was doing a great job of pretending he didn't.
When the teashop was about to close and everyone else had left, Elysia went to his table with a grim purpose. She took a seat and said, "Excuse me, sir, but the shop's closing. I'll have to ask you to leave." In fact, the young man had always been the last customer the entire week, leaving carefully after Elysia's parents had turned in for the day and Elysia was about to turn off the lights. Elysia was too afraid and irritated at him to initiate a conversation but now she had recklessly changed that. Her mind started laughing at her.
The man, who had never looked at her directly, tidied up his papers then gazed at her. Elysia took a sharp intake of breath, in spite of herself. His eyes were really beautiful; his gaze was smoldering. He looked at her lips. "Of course, you could just stay right here," she blurted out.
The man smiled and he slowly leaned towards her face. It was only when his soft lips were meshing with hers that Elysia remembered to breathe.
When Elysia woke up the next morning and found the man still lying beside her, his eyes closed and his lips forming a peaceful smile, she felt her world crashing. She got up, careful not to wake him up, and dressed up. Then she slipped out of the room silently and ran. She stopped only when she was deep inside the forest, far from the rest of the world, far from him. She sat on the ground and cried.
She was supposed to be happy right now. Her love wasn't unrequited, after all. And last night had been wonderful. But now, she realized it was all hopeless. She didn't have a chance from the very beginning.
When Elysia had woken up that morning, she suddenly knew that she was a Witch. As if it had come from nowhere, she now knew of her Keiran heritage, her power to destroy, and how the blood that ran through her veins would slowly eat away this person who was Elysia until nothing was left but the Witch thirsting for revenge. She blanched.
Right now, she still remembered her present life but who knew if she still would tomorrow? Already, she felt a corner of her heart turning into stone. Her mind was starting to drift to thoughts of revenge and hatred. She no longer belonged in this place. She had to leave her parents behind. No, they weren't her real parents. Now she knew that. They didn't even tell her they had only found her on their doorstep one night. It figured her life was actually built on lies.
She couldn't go back to the man she loved. She shouldn't...because if she did, the Witch within her might decide to make him her first victim. And Elysia, what was left of her, wouldn't be able to take that. She cried for hours and hours, until she felt the pain easing a little bit, until she knew it was imperative that she left. The Dark Lord was calling the Witches.
And so she stood up, dusted off her dress, and looked at the sky. She saw the moon shining down on her. Her long black hair, her only pride, molded itself around her, forming a shining black cloak. She melted into the darkness. From that night on, Elysia disappeared and the Assassin took her place.
The Assassin was stoic, silent, and unmoving. She was perfect for doing the dirty jobs. The Dark Lord put her under the charge of Melantha the Dark, his most trusted companion. Unlike the rest of the Witches, Melantha wasn't instructed to blend into society and sow seeds of hatred. Instead, she traveled from country to country, going back and forth, and watched the action from above. Her job was to survey the land for potential setbacks to the Dark Lord's plan, people who resisted the subtle work of the Witches, people who shined with so much hope they were affecting the people around them and making them resist, too. Melantha would figure out who the dissenters were. She pointed them out to the Assassin. And, quickly or slowly, depending on how Melantha specified how she would do the job, the Assassin would do what she did best. It was often over before the victims could react.
The Assassin would stand aside, silent, after a killing while Melantha crowed by the sidelines. The Assassin was a creature devoid of emotion. She had to be unfeeling to do her job well. Yet after each deed, regardless of how it went, the Assassin would find drops of water pouring out of her eyes, snaking their way down her cheeks and chin. She didn't even know what they were. Melantha just laughed and told her they were there to purify her of her sins. But the Assassin didn't understand what she meant, at all.
Tonight was just another job for the Assassin. Melantha had told her to dispose of the victim's body completely and only bring the ruby necklace around its neck as proof of its death. As the Assassin stood in the clearing, tears in her eyes, the heart she thought was now made of stone thawed and was engulfed in warmth. Elysia was fighting the Assassin.
Elysia was here now, looking down at the blue-eyed baby, questioning her own motive to kill. She was not a killer; no, not Elysia. Thoughts of obeying the Dark Lord and murdering people in cold blood started drifting off from her mind to be replaced with a gentleness, a sort of tranquil calm in herself that she never knew even existed. Her black cloak crumpled and straightened, and turned back into long, flowing black hair. Her emotionless eyes, that spewed tears without the feelings that accompanied them, blinked and brightened. She felt alive again. The baby stirred in her arms and she gazed at it lovingly, like a mother looking down at her newborn child.
And so, she knew that whatever happened, she would protect this baby at all costs. The baby was so innocent, so untouched, that perhaps this was why the Dark Lord was afraid of it. She couldn't see why the Dark Lord had ordered her to kill it. All she knew was that the baby had a large role to play in this war. Even an ordinary pawn like her could feel it. Perhaps it was the baby's inert power to heal and make people feel that pushed the Dark Lord into thinking it was dangerous.
It had saved her, and now it was her turn. It was not a sense of obligation that fueled Elysia as she removed the ruby necklace around the baby's neck with gentle hands. It wasn't fear of the Dark Lord that made her fumble as she removed the small ornate black stone that adorned the simple bracelet round her wrist. It was love. It was the look in the baby's trusting eyes that pushed Elysia into using the last of her power as a Witch to turn the ruby's rich red color into milky white. Just as the ruby slowly turned pale, so did Elysia's black stone. In the end, Elysia was left with a white ruby and her own stone bleached. She kissed them both and snapped them onto her bracelet.
With the baby still in her arms, she ran deeper and deeper into the forest until she felt sure she was as far as she could get from the castle. She tightened the soft cloth wrapped around the baby and carefully placed it among the thickest of the foliage. One of the hunters or miners would surely find it in a few hours, hopefully someone from the other side of the forest.
The baby just looked at her silently, a curious look in its eyes, as she whispered in a hurried voice, "Thank you." It didn't cry as she turned around, running back the way she came from, the white ruby now clutched in her hands.
As she reached the clearing, she felt her energy draining and she smiled. Although she was Elysia, she was still a Witch, after all. And now that her stone was white, her life was wasting away with it. But before she died, she had to give the ruby to Melantha or else they would have no proof the baby's death. She just had to sit and wait. Melantha was probably on her way. Elysia's eyelids drooped but she fought to keep them open. She didn't know how long she had stood there, clenching the ruby so hard her knuckles were turning white, before she couldn't fight it any more. Her eyes closed of their own accord. Her body fell to the ground lifeless. But the white ruby remained in her closed palm.
***
Melantha poked the Assassin's corpse with a foot and sneered. The body was stiff.
"I do believe she's dead," a high-pitched, cultured voice said. It belonged to Melantha's companion, a 10-year old child, with short bright red hair. The girl kneeled beside the body, her long black cloak splaying on the ground, and touched a pale cheek.
Melantha rolled her eyes. "Yes, Jinx, I can see that." She had been insulted when the Dark Lord sent the little girl along with her to retrieve the Assassin. As far as she could see, she was strong enough to deal with things on her own. Jinx would just get in the way. But, apparently, the Dark Lord didn't think so. She could see how he still took the fluke with the Blind Seer a year ago to heart. She had felt her worth go down in his eyes. Even after all the work she'd done the past months, he hadn't forgotten. Who was she kidding? The Dark Lord never forgot. She could see it in his eyes.
"I think the baby killed her." Jinx touched the Assassin's long black hair.
Melantha quickly negated Jinx's statement. "The baby couldn't have killed her. The Assassin's powerful...and the baby's just a baby." Even as she said the words, she wondered. The baby was supposed to be the Keeper, after all. What if it had indeed killed the Assassin? But she wasn't about to agree with Jinx.
Melantha got down on her knees and examined the body. With the Assassin's death came the disappearance of her cloak, obviously because of a loss of power. "There's no sign of struggle on her face," she said with a frown. She checked the wrist for her black stone. "Her stone isn't here."
"I found it!"
Jinx was crouched on a spot near the body. She was waving a white stone in her hand. "It's her stone. It's white and it looks worn out." Jinx rushed to her side and showed her. "She probably used up all her power fighting the baby."
Melantha's eyes widened. She snatched the stone from Jinx. "This is her stone, all right." She looked at the Assassin's face, which oddly enough, looked peaceful. "What could have happened here?"
"I have no idea, but first things first. We have to find out if the baby's still alive." Jinx was examining the body again. Melantha could only see her back.
Melantha was annoyed at how Jinx had taken charge. She stood up abruptly. "I'm going to look around the forest. Perhaps the baby's crawling around here somewhere."
"Not so fast." Jinx didn't even look at her but there was a commanding note in her voice. Melantha wanted to punch her. "You said so yourself. It's just a baby. It probably can't even crawl yet. Let's finish looking at the body first."
Melantha was exasperated. "But if it can kill the Assassin, what's crawling, right? Or perhaps, someone came along and picked it up."
Jinx didn't answer. She was busy with the body, checking the Assassin's clothes. She examined the Assassin's right hand. There was a happy cry of "Aha!" Melantha was afraid to look.
"Look, Melantha! It's the baby's ruby." There was a triumphant look on Jinx' face. She stood up and ran up to Melantha on her still short legs. The ruby was whole but it was pure white, which could only mean one thing.
Melantha was still annoyed but she couldn't help smiling. The Assassin had died but she had completed her mission, after all. "The Keeper is dead." There was no way the baby could be alive when her ruby was now white.
Jinx smiled and started dancing around the clearing. "The Keeper's dead! The Keeper's dead!"
Melantha wanted to close her eyes. Sometimes, she just wasn't sure if Jinx was mature or immature for a girl her age.
Jinx jumped up and down in front of Melantha. "Do you think Lord Hadrian would mind if we just left the Assassin's body behind? I'm not really up to carrying a dead body along with us."
My thoughts exactly, Melantha thought. Aloud she said, "I think it would be all right...as long as we dispose of the body." She smiled cruelly. The black stone around her neck flashed red and blue. "That should do it."
The trees around them had caught fire. "Come on, Jinx, before the whole forest turns to ash."
Jinx giggled and waved the white ruby for the last time. They raised their hoods simultaneously and melted into the darkness.
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Post by Belle on Nov 7, 2007 9:35:07 GMT -5
Chapter 4, Part 1: The Kind
Holden coughed and doused the last of the fire with a bucket of water. He stamped the ground with gusto to make sure he had eliminated all the embers. Thankfully, the fire was still small when he had arrived. It looked like not too many trees had been damaged.
It was the middle of the night. Except for himself, there should be no other people wandering around in the forest. Who had started the fire? Or was he wrong in assuming that someone did? He looked suspiciously at the remains of the fire near his feet. The fire didn't seem to be manmade. But there had never been instances of forest fires in Sol before.
The sound of someone else coughing startled him. He whirled around and saw no one there. It was possible that he was getting just a little bit paranoid. But in his line of work, he often felt the need to be suspicious. It was normal. Holden was a black market trader, after all, and a very young one at that. If he didn't have his wits about him, he was dead. Literally.
He stood still and listened closely. There was that coughing again. It was coming from somewhere among the trees, somewhat near the fire he had just put out. He approached with stealthy footsteps and hidden behind the trunk of a tree, he peered around. Oh, Goddess! There was a body there! A pale, limp body. He couldn't see too much from his vantage point. Was the coughing coming from the body? He couldn't be sure but if whoever it was dead, he would hightail out of here. No sense in being seen with a dead body.
He took a cautious step forward. And stared. It was a woman in a white gown in the traditional Solian style: long flowing sleeves, embroidered hem and bodice, the works. She was as pale as a ghost. The gown was torn in some places and very dirty. Her hair was black, long, and spread around her face and body like some sort of blanket. Was it his imagination or was her hair shining...in a highly alluring manner? He almost wanted to touch it. He shook his head. It was probably a trick of the moonlight.
He edged just a tiny bit closer. She didn't look like she was breathing. She didn't look like she was going to cough any time soon, either.
Holden thought about what to do. He had just put out a fire. And, as luck would have it, a few feet away from the fire, there was a dead body. Now Holden wasn't the smartest trader in Sol but he wasn't dumb. A fire and a body in close proximity? It certainly seemed like someone was trying to get rid of a body by burning it entirely. The only problem with this theory was that the woman's body didn't look burnt, at all. Dead, yes. Signs of having been burnt anywhere, no. At least, it looked that way from where he was standing. But darned if he was going to try and figure everything out himself! He was starting to feel like a pawn in someone's game. He shook his head and approached the body gingerly.
If there was one thing Holden didn't like, it was touching dead people. Not that he didn't see dead bodies often considering his work but touching them? He already felt faint at the thought of just looking, much less touching a body. Right now, his stomach was feeling queasy. He crouched down beside the woman, careful to stay a distance away. He gulped. He wasn't too keen on touching her wrist to see if there was a small chance she was alive. What if she was cold and stiff? Well, she didn't look that stiff, actually, but she was certainly paler than a normal, breathing human being.
He exhaled and leaned closer, near her face. He gingerly placed a hand in front of it to see if he could feel any breath. There was none. All right, she was dead.
He heard the cough before he felt it. He felt the heat of her breath on his palm and he pulled away at once. She was coughing again, louder this time. Her forehead was wrinkling. He could see some color returning to her face. She opened her eyes and blinked them rapidly. She didn't look like she could see properly. "The baby," he heard her say.
Holden didn't know what to do. So the woman was alive. But she looked weak. Should he try and carry her? What was this about a baby? He reached tentatively for her hand. "Er..."
Suddenly, she sat up and he found himself face to face with her. Her blue eyes were glinting dangerously. Goddess, she was probably delirious because of her condition. She gripped his hand tightly. Holden started having second thoughts. She certainly didn't seem weak now. But he heard crazy people had a lot of strength.
"Where's the baby?" she shouted. Or at least, it sounded like she was trying to shout. Her voice came out like a raspy whisper but he could see her effort.
He removed her hand from his. He placed both hands on her shoulders and held them firmly. He looked her in the eye. "Sorry, lady, but I don't know about any baby. I just found you here, lying on the ground. There was a fire near here and I just put it out. I heard you coughing and went here." He hoped he had said everything steadily.
The woman seemed to realize something. Her eyes darted around the area like she was looking for something. Holden was very confused. He found himself looking around, too. He saw a glint of red near the hem of her gown and picked it up. It was a small ruby. It could get him a nice amount of jadestones at the market if he brought it in today. Oh, what was he thinking? And in front of the owner, too. He showed it to the woman. "Uh...here. This must be yours?"
The woman snatched it from his hand, her eyes wide. She seemed surprised.
"Thank you, kind sir, who possibly saved me from certain death," Holden said to himself in a quiet tone.
She wasn't listening. She was muttering something under her breath. In spite of himself, he leaned closer to hear. "...red again without me doing any..." Her voice faded and he had to prick his ears some more "...was dead. How did this happen?" There was a long pause and he waited for her to continue. She cleared her throat.
Holden looked at her and saw her giving him a weird look. Him, weird! When she was the one who looked like the walking dead. He immediately wished he could unthink that thought. It brought strange pictures to his mind. He laughed nervously. "What was that about a baby?"
She looked stricken. Her eyes widened again and she stood up. "The baby!" She started to run deeper into the forest.
Goddess! He wasn't in the mood for running around today. He had had a tiring day (and night) at the mines. He hadn't been able to get a lot of rare stones from the stupid miners. He was dirt poor. He was hungry. He could go on and on. Oh, what the heck!
He thought of how chaotic his life had been lately as he chased after her. For a woman who seemed dead a few minutes ago, she was certainly fast on her feet. Where did she intend to go? His mind chirped, Why are you following her?
He was panting heavily when she finally stopped. They were almost to the other side of the forest. He did a double take. She was now squeezing herself through some particularly thick foliage. "Well, I'm not going in there," he muttered to himself. She disappeared for a while. He worked on getting his breath back and stood with his back to a tree.
After some time, she returned with a wide smile on her face. In her arms, she was carrying a tiny baby with startling blue eyes. She started cooing to it.
Yes, it figured there was going to be a baby, too. He frowned then sighed. Goddess, what was he going to do now? The woman seemed to look all right, except for the tears in her gown. Perhaps he could just leave discreetly while he still had the chance. He turned around as slowly as he could.
"Wait!"
He couldn't escape. Her voice sounded normal now, and not like she was going to choke any minute. He turned and gave her a crooked smile.
She was looking at him expectantly. The baby seemed to be waving its fists at him.
"Uh..." All right, he was the one who had just done the saving here. Why was she looking at him as if she expected him to talk? "Right, you look like you're doing fine now..." He trailed off and cleared his throat. "I'm Holden. What's your name?" There was an awkward silence. She was just staring at him. He ran a hand on his light brown hair. "That's a pretty baby girl you got there." He hoped it actually was a girl.
The woman seemed to have found her voice again. "Ely-" she began then shut her mouth. "Alina." Pause. "The baby's name, I mean. I'm..." She looked around, her eyes again darting around like she did a while ago. Her eyes lit up. "I'm Vevina. Thank you for...you know." She looked at the ground.
Holden looked around suspiciously. What had she been looking at? Never mind. This was by far the most awkward conversation he had ever had with anyone. Perhaps it was because of the odd circumstances surrounding their meeting. In fact, he didn't even know why he followed her here. Holden tried again. "No problem. Vevina, isn't it?" She nodded at him.
"Look, Vevina, I don't know what happened back there and frankly, I don't think I want to know. I was just passing by on my way home and well, I couldn't just ignore the fire." He smiled, a more genuine smile this time. "You don't have to feel like you owe me anything. I just found you but you were probably going to wake up on your own, anyway. So, uh, I'll get going now. I was going to offer to lead you out of the forest, but you seem to know your way around already..."
It was going to be morning soon. There was a slight breeze in the air. Vevina's long hair started swaying in the direction of the breeze. Holden found his gaze straying towards her hair. He immediately shifted his eyes to her earnest face.
The baby had fallen asleep in her arms. She was looking at him, embarrassed. "I'm glad. I'm really not up to talking about it, either." She bit her lip. "Actually, though, I have no idea where we are." There was a pause. She seemed to be thinking about something. She opened her mouth to say something then closed it. And opened it again. "Where do you live?"
Holden blinked. They were virtually strangers and she was asking him this. He was thoroughly confused. And tired, still tired. All the same, he found himself answering. "Near the edge of the forest. We're pretty near it, in fact."
She was looking at the ground again. Suddenly, he had a glimmer of understanding. Vevina had nowhere to go. Oh, Goddess, what had he gotten himself into? But, somehow, he couldn't refuse her. "Would you and Alina...like to stay for a while?" He was going to kill himself later.
Vevina smiled at him, her blue eyes smiling along with her mouth. Well, at least someone was happy. He gave her a lopsided grin and motioned for her to follow. "Come on. I'll take you there."
Chapter 4, Part 2: The Ruby
Vevina, she told herself. She had to remember she was Vevina now. She felt awful, abusing the man's kindness like this, but she had no choice. She and the baby, whom she had inadvertently named Alina, had no place to go. And she wasn't sure if the Dark Lord was convinced the baby, the Keeper, was dead.
Holden's house was more of a small cave than anything. It was located on the other side of the forest, in a town far from the royal castle of Sol at the forest entrance. It was alternately cool and warm inside the cave. The sunlight shone directly on her and she enjoyed the sensation. How long had it been since she had last seen the sun? The Witches were weak in the sunlight. The light pricked their eyes and burned their skin. The night was their ally. It was cooler at night. If it was hot, as it would often be in Sol, the moonlight provided them with a satisfying cool shade.
But she wasn't a Witch now, not anymore. She still couldn't believe it even as she thought of it.
She gave Alina more milk from the bottle Holden had bought for her that morning. He really was a good man with a boyish face and a happy grin that couldn't betray his youth. They were probably around the same age and here he was living alone. Perhaps he had ended up growing up too fast for his own good, just like she had the past year. If that were so, then they had a lot more in common than she had originally thought. They hadn't talked much. Somehow, the honest, earnest look in his brown eyes made her uncomfortable. There was a hint of suspicion in them, as if he expected to be betrayed at any moment. She just felt like he could see through her lies and she didn't want to face that.
He was sleeping now on the hard floor. His back was to her. He had insisted on giving his thick wool blanket for her and the baby to lie on. She looked at his shabby brown tunic. It was clean but it looked old. She was suddenly seized by the urge to find a job. She and Alina couldn't stay in Holden's home for too long. He obviously needed every little bit that he had. The fact that he bought Alina a whole gallon of milk and a feeding bottle and bread for Vevina while he ate nothing for breakfast (he insisted he wasn't hungry) made her feel like a low person.
And she had been a Witch. Even though she wasn't anymore, she still remembered what she did. She wasn't supposed to be thinking about it. Alina nudged her bottle. It was empty. Vevina started refilling it, trying to lead her thoughts elsewhere.
As she did so, she recalled the night before and marveled again at how things turned out. She had cast an enchantment that disguised the two stones, her stone and Alina's ruby, reshaping them as the other and sealed the spell with a kiss. The white ruby she had been holding on tight to the entire night was her own powerless stone. And the white stone that was on her bracelet was the disguised ruby. She didn't know what she had been thinking at the time.
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Post by Belle on Nov 10, 2007 6:42:45 GMT -5
After being ridiculously slow these past two days, I finally reached 20k today. *rejoices* I still have a few hours left. I'm going to try to reach 21-22k.
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Post by Belle on Nov 10, 2007 20:48:03 GMT -5
Ended last night with 21825 words! Hurray. My slump is slowly disappearing. Okay, I'm aiming for 25k today (yeah, aim high XD). I'm holding off on posting new chapters for now.
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Post by Belle on Nov 10, 2007 21:12:00 GMT -5
Oh my. I just took this test: Who would compose the music for your anime? I took it with my NaNo novel in mind and I'm tickled with the result.  A suggested composer for your anime is Yuki Kajiura! Her music can be described as otherworldly and mystical, especially her battle music that often employs haunting vocal chants interwoven into the striking mixture of violins and electric guitars.Other animes she has composed for so far:- .hack//sign- .hack//liminality- .hack//Legend of the Twilight- Aquarian Age- Eat-Man- Elemental Gelade- Madlax- My-HiME- My-Otome- Noir- Petite Cossette- Tsubasa ChroniclesAnd others! Take this quiz! Quizilla | Join | Make a Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code |
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Post by Belle on Nov 12, 2007 9:19:03 GMT -5
So, a day later than I've planned, I get to 25k at last. *facepalm*
Aiming for 1k more.
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Post by Belle on Nov 13, 2007 9:52:26 GMT -5
All right! Broke 27k tonight! I'm up to posting another decent chapter or two again. Tomorrow. |
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Post by Belle on Nov 16, 2007 8:51:48 GMT -5
Well, school got in the way so my word count's been pretty low these past few days. But, hurray, I hit 30k today! I can still do this! |
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Only just started because I was out today (visited the cemetery because it's All Souls day) and I'm energized. 
I'm hoping to get more in by tonight but here's the current chapter I'm working on:
I can see a lot of redundancy down there but no...must resist editing. XXDD I really like how this part turned out.