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 Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:38 pm
Okay, so I've basically just begun rewriting everything and using what was actually good. I edited the first three chapter posts, and changed like one little thing in the prologue. I'll post them as I refinish them.
I've been reading over and over and over the forty or so chapters I wrote for the story, and each time I wonder a little at how I could have been such a... Bad writer.
But I know everyone had to start somewhere, and considering its only been five years, I can say the improvement is tremendous.
For anybody who wishes to compare what I have now with what I originally wrote, I have the entire book saved on two different hard drives, and I can show you the difference from when I just started writing, and now.
In the mean time, please read the new chapters, and let me know what you think of my writing as it is now. I'll post the chapters basically as I finish rewriting them.
I'm also making revisions to the storyline, so its taking me a little while longer than I thought it would. Instead of just adding to what I already had, I'm making some bigger changes, and its well worth the wait, I assure you.
This is my magnum opus, so no time spent working on it is wasted time, and making sure I'm making the right choice with my storyline is well worth it to me.
Please comment.
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Posted: Sun Oct 21, 2007 10:39 pm
Prologue
Silanis quietly and thoughtfully traversed the streets of her hometown, Clover Hill. The young woman was coming from her friend Kaiana’s apartment in one of the ebendsahdc buildings - large, multi-level abodes, which housed many families. These were scattered through normal houses, with a few things like two schools, a market place, and city hall. Her house was in the Northeast end of town, and Kaiana’s building was just in the middle. She was in the market place, about ten minutes from her own house, which was right on the outskirts of the market place and had a storefront attached to it. The two girls had been working on a dress for Kaiana, a long gown for her to wear to her twentieth birthday dinner - an event to mark her full adulthood. She herself was only eighteen, still a few years off from such an event, though she longed for it. It was coming along nicely, but Silanis had to be home around sunset, and it was fast approaching.
Shifting her bag from one shoulder to the other, her long brown hair getting caught under it, Silanis looked behind herself. Fixing her hair, she felt as though she was being followed, but there was no one else around that she could see. Just the same, she started to walk a little faster. The townspeople she trusted, she had known them all her life, but if there was someone from out of town around, she didn’t want to take a chance in them being trustworthy. As she rounded a corner, the toe of her boot struck a small metal object. Blinking to clear her vision just a little, she knelt down to pick up the box-like object to study it, her silver eyes catching the green of her gloves as she did so.
It was small enough she could fit it in her pocket and covered in intricate engravings of vines and flowers, a seam running through the middle as though it could open. Her fingers became just a little sore as she tried, and eventually she gave up. There were three buttons on the bottom, and an inscription on the top, but she wasn’t about to try to figure out what for while she was still out on the street. Something fell behind her, and she turned to catch a glimpse of something lavender zooming out of sight. Rather than follow it, Silanis took this opportunity to run quickly in the direction of her own home, slipping the small, ornate box into her bag as she did so.
Even in her rush, she was able to note the beauty of the town at sunset; the purples, oranges, pinks, and blues all mingling and setting a mood of intense elegance upon the façade’s of each and every building. Especially among the quaint booths, tables, and small tents; this made up the market place, and marked her being very close to home.
Clover Hill itself was a fair-sized town, on the Gandaran continent. It was roughly one day on horseback from the ocean in the North, and just around eight weeks from the sea in the South. The sea in the West was about two weeks away, and the ocean in the East was roughly five. This meant that Silanis was at the top of the continent, and in the months of shorter days it never got quite cold enough to snow, though sometimes Silanis wished it would; she’d heard stories that it had done so in the past, and longed to see the snow, rather than just hear stories of it. Clover Hill, it seemed, had gotten quite warm; indeed there was a sort of tropics in the ocean to the West, smaller than that of the Southeast, and everything was generally very warm on Gandara. Of course, Silanis had heard tell that it snowed in the South, but she had also heard that on the opposite side of the world the snow was heavy in the North.
Silanis had heard fantastical stories of Queen Hegunini of the Royale Mega-City, near the ByTalna cliffs of Hundr Buma to the East, who ruled a kingdom of snow. It was said that only the very bottom of her continent, near the bridge that connected Hundr Buma to Nylia below, was desert. This was the Skydragora, and it connected to the Kadragora at the top of Nylia. There were two other deserts on Nylia, the Wadragora, and Fydragora. On her own continent, Gandara, there was the Mandragora, on the other side of Lake Xodaik, of which a small river arose from under the ground about two miles East of Clover Hill, near the edge of the Sephirôt forest. In that forest, the further East you got, the safer it became. It seemed there were creatures that stuck to the Western half of the forest, and even the hunters dared not go in except in great numbers with greater weaponry.
Finally Silanis came to her own house, making her way to the side door rather than going through the storefront that made up half their house. Letting her parents know she was home, Silanis entered her room and sank quietly into her bed, kicking off her boots so she could relax.
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Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 1:47 pm
First off, let me say that the premise is all there. We can tell that we're headed in the direction of a scifi story, about a girl who may or may not be something special. This is the most important point for a premise, so you've got it nailed down.
The second point, and the one where you'll need to give some attention, is organization. This chapter feels like it was written as it was made up--that is, you imagined the world by starting with this little box and the girl who picked it up. While this isn't a bad way to write necessarily, it feels like you are just "making things up" as you go along. Most scifi and fantasy worlds are strongly defined at the start of the story, or defined on a need-to-know basis to the reader. This prologue, however, tells us things which aren't directly related to the story at which don't build a clear picture of the world. Now that you have the whole book done, I imagine a clear picture of the world must exist in your mind. Try to make that picture just as clear for us as readers, before we start off onto the story.
I'll be back to read next week's chapter (or just to check up on your revisions).
Best of luck
~KK
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Posted: Mon Oct 22, 2007 3:02 pm
Actually, you're rather correct on the point of the world being far more real to me now than it was when I started writing. However, I created the maps, the word cipher, and all the characters before I started writing even this prologue. So I did have a fairly clear picture of the world, not the specific city, but the world as a whole, when I started to write.
The thing with this is that there isn't a whole lot of importance to the city itself, aside from her having been born there, and living there all her life. Thats really all the significance it holds.
But you're also rather correct on my needing to give a more clear and relative descriptions of the world, rather than to just muck about and mention things that don't seem to be of importance.
Though I do refuse to take out the part about how far from any sort of water body she is, because that does become relevant later in the story.
Anyways, I'll take your suggestions to heart and do some work on fixing this up. And in two weeks, I'll update that part of the story with what I've changed, and add up Chapter One.
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Posted: Tue Oct 23, 2007 12:55 pm
K, Tommy!
Leavy-Kun's Editor's Corner!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First, "the continent of Gandara" sounds way too wordy for a Sci-Fi story. Try "Gandaran continent". Doesn't it sound more Sci-Fi, anyway?
The same goes for "machine-like" and its replacement, should you choose to accept it, "mechanical".
On a similar note, I don't like the word "apparatus" used in this sense, but don't know why. Call it a preference, it you will. Try device there?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The only other thing I'm going to say is that I liked how the story began, although, to give the box itself emphasis, you might want to put it before the unnamed woman. I love how everything revolves centrally around this box, the world is unfurling around it. Very interesting set-up.
Love and Vale,
-LD
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Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2007 8:14 am
We~ell, technically this is supposed to be science fiction and fantasy. Heavy on the fantasy as it progresses.
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Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 3:24 pm
Chapter One
After eating dinner with her parents Silanis returned to her room, her ferret kicking up a little bit of a racket. Taking her food bowl and filling it, Silanis cooed to her ferret, Libra, and scratched under her chin just a little. Libra licked at her fingers, and then ravenously dug into her food. Silanis giggled softly before going into her bag to grab the small box she had found on her way home. Upon further inspection it looked mechanical, like some of the safes and jewelry boxes she had seen when she had visited the market at Lakshûr to the South when she was younger. This meant that the three buttons on the top were probably some sort of code, which meant there were only so many combinations to try before she got the sequence correct. Turning it over, she took another peek at the inscription. It seemed inconsequential, trifling. One son comes around; millions cannot stand to his power. Maybe it meant something, and maybe it didn’t. She thought on it quietly, trying to decide its usefulness in opening the box, but it made no sense.
Turning the box over and over to study it, she considered what her options were. Then, while she was about to give up, she noted the buttons were colored and something in her mind clicked. One son… Son… Sun! Of course! Her mind raced as she made the connection, and she scarce knew what she was doing before she pressed the yellow button. Hoping she was right, she held her breath and watched. Nothing happened, and her heart sank as she had felt for sure that she had figured it out.
When she turned the box back over to look at the inscription again and ponder it, however, her eyes widened and her breath hitched in her throat. With a choked yelp she dropped it. The words had changed somehow, and as far as she knew, there was no technology for something like that. Libra looked up from her food lazily, sniffed the air, and went back to her bowl with what seemed like a shrug.
Tentatively, Silanis picked the box back up and looked at the inscription to be sure her eyes hadn’t been playing tricks on her. There it was, defiantly staring back at her as if it had every right to say something different, and she couldn’t explain the feelings that evoked in her. There was no way, no conceivable way, that those words could have possibly changed when she pressed the button; she had never heard of anything like that.
But it was another useless sentence that seemed of little consequence, and Silanis was almost certain now that this was some sort of game of riddles, despite none of them being actual questions. Considering this new sentence carefully she remembered back to her childhood, visiting the fair in Grenview to the West. To the riddling competition that took place. They took the game very seriously, it was one of the most ancient, and she remembered hearing somewhere that riddles had been used for everything from a test of wits to making a wager to save your life. What could this one mean, then, by stating quite uselessly “see shells on the beach, and gulls in the sky?” The sheer irrelevance of it was nigh infuriating, and she was, in spite of the shock of it, rather displeased with how this box seemed to be working. Reason dictated that she shouldn’t hit a random button, for fear of what might happen were she to get the answer wrong, but yet she could not guess on her own just yet as to the correct answer. It only made sense that you would see shells on a beach and gulls in the sky, and yet the incontrovertible sentence seemed to manage a manner of ambiguity to it, which even still eluded her.
Silanis moved to take a break, shuffling through an old book of riddles to see if there were any of these sorts. As she flipped through the pages, lounging back on her bed with the box next to her, she didn’t seem to find anything of importance. This line still befuddled her, and she was growing impatient with it fast. What did it mean? She was tempted to throw the box at her large pile of stuffed dolls in the corner, but held back, fearing her aim not so good. In a huff she opened a dresser drawer and aimlessly started to ruffle through her clothing. She came upon a bathing suit at the bottom, and remembered the times her mom had taken her to the port at the tip of the peninsula, Port Canchâs, and she had gone swimming at the beach. Then it clicked in, and it took her a moment to realize she now had the answer. It was water that was what had been eluding her. She pushed the blue button and quickly turned it over to see what new riddle had taken its place in the inscription.
The words that awaited her confused her even more than the previous. It said, “The blade is not sharp, but can be very long.” This infuriated Silanis, because she knew nothing of weaponry, and there was no way she could ever figure out the answer to this question. Regardless, she began to list off all the weapons she could remember in reference to the word blade. Her list was terribly short, and not long after she realized none of what she had come up with corresponded with a color anyway. In a huff she sat upon her bed with her arms around her knees.
Why did the riddle have to be about weapons, she wondered, when that was one of the things she knew nothing of? She wanted desperately to see what would be on the inside at the end of it all, but of this she had no clue. What kind blade made sense with a color, and was not sharp? It couldn’t be blue again, but there was no silver or gray to push, and none of the colors would mix to make it. She closed here eyes, feeling very silly, and tried to clear her mind. Who did she know that she could ask about such things? Unfortunately there was no one whom she was able to think of off the top of her head.
But of course there had to be some simple answer to this, and she was just thinking much too hard on it. This couldn’t really be so impossible as it was making itself out to be, and she would surely be able to think of an answer on her own in time. She heaved a sigh, getting up to change into her pajama’s, and going through her own nightly ritual of bidding goodnight to the moon and stars. Perhaps she would be able to think more clearly in the morning, after breakfast and a quick run to wake herself up.
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Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 4:13 pm
Violet, right?
How old is Silanis anyway?
-LD
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Posted: Fri Nov 02, 2007 4:36 pm
Her age is revealed a little later in the story, a few chapters from now. If I remember right, she's about 18 or 19. But I don't quite remember, because it changes a few times in the story as it progresses. There is a point where the story jumps a few years.
As for the answer, I'm not telling. wink
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 12:10 am
Chapter Two
As Silanis slept, the box lying off to the side of her as though it were forgotten, what seemed like a small, lilac-haired child with large purple wings made her way into the room through the window. Looking about the room, she wondered where she could hide for the morning, where Silanis would not see her. Wings aflutter in the darkness, and her eyes fell on first the ferret in its cage, followed by the large accumulation of stuffed toys given to Silanis over the years.
The faerie sighed, seeing no place else but beneath the bed, and slid underneath it. This girl would see through any of my spells, I think, thought the faerie, because my magic is not much stronger than that of the inscription. It was only a hope she had, that she would not betray her own location in her excitement come morning.
-----
When the young woman awoke in the morning, she blearily made her way to her closet, choosing from the pile of messily folded clothing what was, for her, a normal outfit. It consisted of a knee-length white cotton skirt, a pair of blue-and-white striped stockings, and a dark green blouse with a light blue bodice over it, and a dark green jacket to top it all off. Stretching, she tried to better rouse herself, so that she could tackle the riddle that had defeated her once before.
From the darkness under the bed, the faerie lay asleep, having been unable to wait until morning to see Silanis awaken. The ferret scratched about in her cage, waiting impatiently for her breakfast, and Silanis looked over with a smile.
“Come now, little Libra.” Silanis said. “Give it a moment, and I’ll go get your food, aye?”
Libra kicked up a bit of a fuss when she left the room, making no small amount of noise in the process. The faerie awoke while Silanis was getting food for the ferret, and looked about from her shelter, forgetting for a moment where she was, and why. When she saw Silanis reenter the room, she remembered. This girl had found the little box, and she was here to see if it would be opened or not.
Silanis walked back over to the bed, after giving Libra more food, and picked the little metal contraption up off the bed, careful not to hit any buttons. Smiling to herself, she reread the riddle inscribed upon the bottom.
“For a moment there I thought I had been dreaming.” The brunette mused aloud, thinking over the sentence that presented so much trouble. “The blade is not sharp, but can grow very long… Meh… Weapons.”
The child-like creature under the bed left out a soft sigh, knowing that Silanis was thinking entirely the wrong thing for the answer; at this rate she would never get it right. Another lost cause, it seemed, who would never open the box, and eventually lose it. The little faerie-girl felt a little sad, she had thought this time someone would open the box for sure.
Silanis stood there with one hand on her hip, looking at the small box in her hand. What could the inscription be talking about this time? There were no blades that corresponded with the colors of the buttons, or any color those colors would make. Red and yellow made orange, blue and yellow made green, and red and blue made purple. As far as she knew, there were no orange or purple blades, and the only ‘blades’ that were green were…
”Of course!” Silanis exclaimed, all but kicking herself and laughing. “Grass blades get long, but they won’t cut you.”
Why she had not thought of that before was a mystery, but she had the answer now. All she could do was hope that pushing two buttons at once would not reset the box.
Carefully, she pushed the blue and yellow buttons at the same time, holding her breath while she waited to see what would happen. There was a moment of disappointment, when nothing did happen, but she also felt a little grateful; for fear, she may have had a heart attack if something had.
-----
Turning the box back over, she once more read the inscription, and it went on like this for some time before she finally came to a little bit of a stumper. Vampire, Bat, Rat, Vermin. It wasn’t even in the form of a question, or an actual sentence; just four words that seemed to have nothing to do with each other besides a little bit of a rhyme-like quality. What on Erve could it be? In a huff, she slumped down to the floor, staring at her feet in disdain. It was then that she heard the hushed breathing of an excited child, and tensed.
“Who is there?” A stupid question, but all she could think of. “Who’s in my room?” Her head whipped in the direction of the bed and window, but she looked past the two indigo eyes beneath the low bed. So the faeries magic hid her well enough, it seemed.
“I don’t think you could comprehend my existence,” said the faerie, plainly, “for you could barely comprehend the magic of the box.” This only upset Silanis.
“What the hell are you talking about?” was the first thing to leave her lips, and it made the faerie want to laugh. “Who are you, what the hell are you doing in my room?” Then, as an afterthought, “where in the hell are you?”
“A faerie.” Said the small creature, not dancing around the answers. “Called Wolfe, by those who know me.”
“Wolfe?” Silanis asked. “Faerie?” What was going on? What was she plunged into with little warning, to be left dazed and confused by a small box and a voice that claimed to be a faerie? This insanity could not be real, there had to be some kind of joke to it all. It was here the faerie took an opportunity of Silanis’ eyes being closed to crawl from beneath the bed, her wings once more aflutter, so that she hovered above the ground seemingly effortlessly.
When the young brunette opened her eyes to dispute the existence of faeries, they were met with the most amazing sight she had ever imagined. There, in her room, not more than an arms-length away, was a real faerie, wings, and all. Everything that Silanis had known to be true as a child came back to her in a rush that nearly knocked her over, and she became momentarily dizzy as it all sorted itself out.
“Are you alright?” Wolfe asked, dropping to the floor and allowing her wings to fold; all ten small, lilac appendages folding neatly behind her. Resting a hand on her shoulder, there was a genuine look of concern on her face.
”I… You’re real?” Not even a word on her own state, just the question could be articulated. “You’re real. That can’t be.” Silanis was in a state of shock beyond anything she’d been through before, and it was hard for her to take this lightly. “I was told it was all silly stories. Was I lied to?”
“Yes, but not deliberately.” A smile graced the faeries lips as she replied. “We’re in hiding, no one is supposed to know we exist.”
”But then…” Her mind cleared a bit with each passing moment. “Elves, half-breeds, sylphs, Gods… They’re real, too?” It was stunning to think all those wonderful things from the stories of her childhood actually existed.
”Yes. Everything you heard tell of, within a certain amount of reason, is real.” There was a pause as Wolfe thought of the best way to explain this simply. “Basically, everything good you heard of is real, but so is everything bad. This is because its all a matter of opinion on what good and bad really are in the world of the preternatural, the supernatural, and the inhuman.”
“If no one is supposed to know you’re real, why are there stories?” It was more than a valid question, she felt. “And why are you here?”
The faerie must have felt it was a valid question as well, for she paused at great length to think it over. For a moment, Silanis didn’t think she would get an answer. Then; “Because you have found something of great importance to me.” Wolfe leaned over to pick the box out of her hand, and looked at it curiously. “It’s been many years since I have seen this.”
”I’m sorry.” Silanis said, not really understanding what Wolfe was getting at. “You can have it back, if it’s yours…” She felt a little bit bad, now, for taking something that hadn’t been hers to take. “Oh, but!”
Wolfe looked at her, puzzled, and shrugged her shoulders in question. “I don’t want the box, no. Its yours to keep, if you can open it.”
”Then, that means… It was you I saw darting out of sight last night, then. Wasn’t it?”
Wolfe looked at Silanis for a moment, and then shook her head. “I didn’t think you would be able to see me.” With a shrug she took a seat on the bed, and blinked. “Your own magic is stronger than I’d anticipated. You should try to train it, it may be useful.”
“I don’t have magic.” The brunette said, hastily. “I’m only human, I have no magic.”
“Silanis, Silanis.” Wolfe said, looking around the room. “Listen, everyone has magic. It’s a matter of figuring out how to use it. In the old days, all humans knew magic, and everything was good, and happy, and we could roam freely…” The faerie trailed off.
“What happened, then? What changed?”
Her tone changed then, low and dark. “Zaçic.”
The name Silanis knew and had been taught to love. Zaçic was the man everyone believed lived as the Son of the One True God, who spread love and peace through the lands over three hundred yeas before she was born. What the hell was going on?
“Surely you can’t mean the Zaçic?”
“Ah, but I do.” Motioning for Silanis to sit next to her, Wolfe got ready for an explanation. The girl deserved the truth. “He showed up, and suddenly associating with fae-folk and Elves was against their Religion, and you would end up in Hell for using magic.
“The old Gods were shunned, pushed aside, and called demons. Maenads were arrested and labeled witches and burned, Dryads were cut down for fear they were forrest witches…Elves were shot on sight, simply because their ears were marked a sign of witches mating with the Devil.
“Halflings were about the only ones not completely destroyed, because they were basically smaller humans, and simply labeled vertically challenged. And only because some human women had given birth to human children who’s bodies never really grew up. Dwarves had it easy too, only forced to work in the mines they loved anyways, because they were too rowdy for the surface.
"Zaçic is a powerful wizard.” Wolfe paused and rested her head on her left hand for a moment, remembering the things that man had done over the years. “He’s been in control of politics for centuries, behind the scenes, in the shadows, just out of arms reach.
"He holds a powerful spell over the world, even to this day, weaving webs of deceit and power through the decades, sometimes more involved, other times hiding and working his glamour. He doesn’t die, but he can be killed. I’m not even sure he’s human, to be honest. I think he’s the demon.”
Silanis gaped at the faerie, everything she’d been taught from childhood smashed to pieces, and wasn’t sure if she believed it or not. In the end, she knew in her heart to be true that everything she had believed in, in her childhood, was the truth; not what her parents had told her about such things, about Zaçic.
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 1:24 pm
Okay...um...is it just me, or did that scene just...kind of come out of nowhere?
-LD
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 2:36 pm
Yeah, it does kind of come out of left field like whoa. ^^;; You gotta remember, when I actually wrote that, I was fifteen years old. I hadn't been writing more than maybe three months. XD
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 2:57 pm
Yeah, I remember. But...uhm.... I miss Maroque!
-LD
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Posted: Wed Nov 14, 2007 8:39 pm
Ooh, I know. I've been having writers block on that one. I think I'll go back to working on it tomorrow after work, and after I work on the website for my friend and I's clothing line. >.> I'm a busy little Tommy, I am.
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Posted: Tue Jan 08, 2008 11:39 pm
Chapter Three
Staring at Wolfe, Silanis could not but blink, and she felt her body begin to shake. Was she angry? A tear slid out of her eye, and she shook her head. She choked on words, trying to think of exactly the right thing to say, but she couldn’t. Suddenly her vision was washed out, and she saw a dream she hadn’t seen since she was a very little girl.
A group of Maenads dancing, a fire between them, and a feast laid out under starlight in a large and lustrous emerald green clearing. Tree’s lined the perimeter, going nearly out of sight, and a group of people sat laughing on the grass, plates of food around them. One looked up, a beautiful man in sandals and pair of pants with embroidered grapevines all up the left leg. He smiled, and waved for her to come join them.
“Silanis, my dear! Come, sit! Grab some food!” He said, his lovely face lit up in the firelight.
Silanis saw herself move towards the group, and call the name Dionysus as she did. She looked as though she were her current age, not as she had once remembered the dream. Watching herself grab some of the amazing food laid out for them, Silanis heard the conversations of the people about her. She heard the names; Hera, Ares, Aphrodite, Amphitrite, Diana, Apollo, Zeus, Eros. Each one of them a God in the fairytales she heard as a little girl. Dionysus took her hand and kissed it, his own violet eyes glinting in the gaze of her gray ones.
“So, tell me, Sila darling.” He said to her, his voice raised only slightly. “What do you desire more than anything?”
She did not answer, only looking back into the eyes of the God before her, and smiling. Then, finally; “To bring peace and order to a world gone bad.”
There were murmurs of approval among the other Gods, and Dionysus nodded his own approval. Zeus was tall, muscle-bound and very white in both the color of his hair and his attire. His hair was cropped short, and a long jagged scar ran across his right shoulder, visible because he wore no shirt.
“You are worthy, then.” He said, and handed her a plate with something jiggly on it. Then, the vision swam away, and her room came back into focus. For a split second everything was clear, and then she whispered Wolfe’s name and fell off the bed.
-----
Wolfe jumped when Silanis hit the floor. She got down on her knees and pushed Silanis onto her back. When her eyes had gone blank and she had fallen to the ground, Wolfe had felt the presence of a God or Demon, and she stood protectively over Silanis, alert to any and all sounds. After a while, nothing happened, and the feeling had dissipated, Wolfe bent over Silanis on the ground. She shook her shoulder, looking at her face.
“So what, you died of information overload?” She asked, trying to hide tears with laughter. “Wake up already, it wasn’t that shocking… We finally find someone who could possibly be the one, and you faint? No, I don’t think so. Wake back up, Silanis.”
She groaned, and her eyes fluttered open. The gray orbs searched around the room frantically, and then closed again. Taking three deliberate, slow breaths Silanis sat up and brushed herself off. She stood up as if nothing had happened.
“Are you okay, Silanis?” Wolfe asked, fluttering up into view, looking like a child with wings. “Did you hurt your head when you fell on the floor?”
Shaking her head, Silanis climbed back onto her bed, sitting back against the wall on the other side. “I’m fine.” The words came out naturally, and she shook her head again. “It was just a little bit much, and then that vision happened, and I just went into shock or something.”
“Wait, wait.” The faerie landed on the bed and looked at her. “What vision?”
Silanis explained what she had seen, the Gods and how they’d welcomed her, and how abruptly it ended. It was Wolfe’s turn to stare at Silanis, unsure of what to say.
“I used to have that dream when I was a kid, but never like that.” She said. “He was never…” The word choked her, and she hesitated a moment before trying to say it again. “I-In love with me.” She looked embarrassed.
Wolfe’s wings fluttered a little, absent from her control. She then took off from the bed and began to trace a fluttering pace around the room. Silanis had no idea what she was thinking about, but waited patiently for her to say something. For a moment her gray eyes followed the very purple girl in the air, and then she remembered the box, and picked it up from her nightstand.
Vampire, Bat, Rat, Vermin, the riddle still taunted her. She turned the box around absently, contemplating the inscription on the back. What did those things have in common that related to a color? Bats and rats were technically vermin, and Vampires were said to be able to turn to bats… Vampires were generally drawn in dark places, and that was where vermin like bats and rats could also be found, a good part of the time. Darkness was also known as blackness, but could she chance being wrong? Her mind was telling her no, but then a part of her that never spoke up told her to try it anyways. She was tired of second guessing herself all the time, never being sure.
She pushed all three buttons on the box, and placed it on the bed next to her, watching. Wolfe saw what was going on and gasped, hovering in place while the box let out a small mist, and the lid popped open. No one had seen the box open even once since it was sealed over five hundred years ago. They cast no-sees on it, and kept it hidden from Zaçic from the moment they knew he sought it. If a wizard like him ever got hold of it, who knew what could happen?
Silanis picked the box back up, and gently opened the lid. What stared back at her, Wolfe would later explain, sharp and shinning, was a diamond-like jewel set in a rounded, woven-gold circle that had a spike of dwarf-woven gold going up to a point in the center, perfectly placed, to hold it in. It was the simplest, and yet most beautiful piece of jewelry she had ever had the luck to gaze upon. All the questions, all the colors, to protect this one single sparkling, gorgeous piece of work made into a tangible ring.
“Its beautiful, Wolfe…” Silanis whispered, staring down at it.
“Its yours,” Wolfe replied, “put it on.”
“What, me wear that?” She asked, looking at the faerie sidelong. “First of all, my mum would be all over me as to where it came from, “Oh, Sil, are you getting married? Who is he?” Every time I get a piece of jewelry, she asks the same questions…” She stopped mid-sentence when Wolfe took the ring from the box and placed it on her right index finger. “What..?”
“Not since the box was sealed has it been found and opened.” The faerie said, somberly. “By rights, the ring is yours, Silanis. Its your fate.”
“You can’t be serious…” Silanis looked close to laughing. “My fate? I’m a merchant’s daughter; I don’t have a fancy fate. I’m far too young, and far too plain to have a fate! And I don’t wear jewelry like this, either.” She held up her finger and pointed to the finely wrought gold. “My father buys and sells stuff like this when the lordlings are in debt and need to pawn off trinkets. You’ve got the wrong person, Wolfe. I’m sorry.”
“You’re wrong, Silanis. Your dreams? Those weren’t just dreams. And that box? How is it that you’re the only person who noticed it all day?” Wolfe got up close and grabbed her shirt. “Why is it that no one before you has been able to open it? Those questions weren’t impossible. They required a little thinking, yeah, but they weren’t unsolvable. It gave different people different inscriptions; it had the ability to choose who would solve it. And the magic in the box chose you. So before you decide its all a mistake, think about that, and think about what you could do with the ring, because its something special.”
Silanis looked from Wolfe to the ring and back, her expression that of someone who’s just been told to choose between a puppy and a kitty, and the one they don’t choose would die. Wolfe had just sprung this on her from left field, and to be fair, Silanis was taking it all quite well.
“At any rate, the longer you take, the less time we have to prepare for the journey.” Wolfe said, breaking the silence.
“Journey?” She asked. “What journey?”
”I’ve got to take you to the elders, of course.” Wolfe said. “They sealed the ring, they hold the real answers to this fate of yours.”
“Oh, but I can’t leave. What will I tell my parents?” Silanis had always thought her parents would be sad if she left; she did not want to make anyone sad to go off on a journey that made no sense. “This is insane!”
“Silanis, do you want to know your fate?” Wolfe asked. “Sometimes, when you realize there’s something bigger planned for you, you have to go for it. The people who love you will understand, and eventually forgive you for leaving them. Sometimes you have to hurt the people you love to save them in the end.”
“Who am I saving?” This was huge, how could she be expected to just go and not spend any time considering the consequences of the action? Her, save the world? What would her parents think about that? “Wolfe, you have to give me a couple days to consider this… I don’t know if I can leave my home! Let me think about it – don’t force me to make a decision I may end up regretting, just let me decide for myself.”
“Alright, then. You’ll let me know your decision once you’ve made it?”
“Yes.” Silanis promised. “As soon as I come to it.”
“Good.” She rubbed the left side of her face, and let herself relax on the end of the bed. “I’m staying in here, then. And when you reach your decision, if its no, I will leave. And if its yes, then, I will help you get ready and stay safe along the way.”
Silanis nodded, and went to make herself some breakfast. This was a strange, strange morning… What on earth was she going to do?
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