Lucid Waking

Archive for the ‘Fantasy’ Category

The Worst Job

        The clock on the wall said 1:37 when he walked in the door late, as I suspected he’d be. The room he entered was not an office, or a café, but a waiting room and a strange place to be accused of untimely-ness. He muttered an apology to the secretary before sitting down in a chair closest to the door.
        “Well it’s on your watch,” the secretary said, blandly. “You’re not wasting my time, just your own.”
            He didn’t look the part, but I could tell that he wanted a job in this office very badly. His knee bounced up and down at an uncontrolled pace while he stared intently at his hands. No matter how he sat, he was gawky and long, though he tried to make himself smaller as the secretary glared his way when his chair creaked as he moved or he reached for a glossy magazine on the table by his chair. I watched him over my newspaper, intrigued by this newcomer who thought he could handle the monsters at this place.
        “Miss Noire,” the secretary said, sweetly in my direction, “would you like to start the interview now?”
        I stood up and walked over to the man fidgeting in his chair. I extended my hand and introduced myself. He turned white, but shook my hand and stood up before following me to my green office that looked a little too doctor-y for my tastes at the moment.
        “What did you say your name was?” I asked, giving him a chance to introduce himself, though I already knew who he was.
        “Mark Atherton,” he said. “Or at least, that’s what I’ve been going as.”
        “Mr. Atherton, then. Do you know much about this job that you’re applying for?”
        “Yes,” he nodded enthusiastically to emphasize his single-word answer. “I’m aware of all of the benefits.”
        “Then let me familiarize you with the deficits.” I pulled out a yellow packet that I kept in my desk for these occasions. It was wrinkled and soft at the staple from years of flipping over the words. I smoothed out the packet gently and began my shtick. “This is a job that requires you to work every day and every hour—there is no break, there is no stopping. You’ll be traveling all over the world and you have to work on a clock; you will not be allowed to arrive late. Every second you might be across the world from your last location and you are not allowed to slow your speed or stay for prolonged periods of time. Slacking off on the job or not being diligent will cost this company, so it’s important to be on top of yourself and the job.
        “Now, we’d pay you,” I continued, fingering a page of the packet, “but you won’t have time to spend what you earn. Forget about wife and family, because you won’t have time to see them. It’s a grueling job, but rewarding in its own way. So, Mr. Atherton, are you still interested in this position?”
        He paused, staring at the yellow packet. “Yes,” he said after a long silence.
        “All right then,” I smiled. “So far you haven’t shown much promise, but we’ll set you up with a trial period with our current Grim Reaper and you can get a taste of the expectations. In the mean time, enjoy your day, you’ll start tomorrow bright and early—5:00 sharp. If you’re late, you lose this job; I hope I’m clear.”
        “Perfectly,” he extended his hand. “Thank you for this opportunity.”
        “It’s hard to get anyone interested in collecting souls,” I said, “it’s the least I can do for the favor you’re doing for me.”
        He raised one eyebrow very slightly, but I refused to elaborate. I showed him the door, shook his hand again and then turned to our secretary. He shook his head, but continued with his paperwork.
        “Well, I didn’t have much of a choice,” I said walking back to my office. “Frank is getting tired of doing the job and all the other applicants got cold feet once they realized what they were in for.”
        “I understand, Miss Noire,” was the only answer I got, but I could tell that whatever happened with our newest Reaper was going to be much better than the situation I had currently.

The House of Animalia (2)

(If you haven’t already read the first part, you should probably read that first. I don’t really know what’s going to happen, hence the slow going action and installments, but I thought you’d like more, so I’ve written some.)

        The largest oak in the forest was gnarled with weather and twisted from age. Its joints creaked in the increasing wind as it protested against the storm. Jonah ran up to the tree and stopped, one arm clutching his stomach, the other supporting his weight against the tree. His breath came heavy and labored, but he managed enough of one to whistle against the howl of the wind. At first, nothing answered his meek call, but soon enough he felt weight on his shoulder, feathers brush at his cheek, and sharp claws gripping his skin. He winced in pain and held out his arm for Falcon to get to a better perch. She clipped him with her wing as she glided down his arm to his wrist.
        “Well?” she said harshly. “It’s a storm, Jonah. Make it good.”
        “I’m looking for a place to hide from the soldiers after me.”
        Falcon looked at him out of one of her amber eyes. “Hide? Don’t you Animalia just—I don’t know—become something small?”
        “Argent sent me to you.”
        Falcon almost smiled—as much as a bird could smile with a beak. “Argent is more cryptic than hieroglyphics are to a snake. I can’t imagine why he sent you to me.”
        “Look, I’ve had a rough couple of weeks, do you mind telling me where to go out of the rain?”
        As Falcon was about to protest her lack of shelter for him in a tree, a shimmering hawk settled down on the ground beside Jonah and before he could turn to look at it, had turned into a goddess-like woman.
        “Hawk, have you been hearing this?” Falcon said, gentler.
        Hawk smiled and put a hand on Jonah’s shoulder. “You can stay with Fox, at least for the night,” she said, partly ignoring Falcon’s inquiries.
        “Why did Argent send me here, then?” Jonah said, more exasperated than bashful, though he did blush involuntarily.
        Hawk shook her head. “I cannot say.”
        Thunder shook the world around them, giving Falcon a reason, in her fright, to fly up to a higher branch. Jonah sighed and started towards Fox’s den, but Hawk grabbed his wrist and held her other hand up to her ear. A gunshot went off in the distance, but it was barely noticeable over the pounding rain.
        “They’re farther away,” she said, “you don’t have to fear anymore.”
        “I still have to fear,” Jonah said. “It’s just that they’re not coming closer.”
        The rain lightened up and the patter on the leaves became less pronounced. The sky lightened only slightly, but the sleepy sound of birds tentatively stabbed the cold air. Hawk shifted and flew up to a branch just above Jonah’s head.
        “I don’t know what Argent is planning,” she said. “But perhaps I should let you rest before telling you my predictions.”
        “If it has anything with a prophecy or saving the world from destruction, I don’t want to hear it.”
        “How very un-heroic of you.”
        “The man who gets involved in those messes always ends up with more than he asked for, and more often than not, he didn’t ask for anything in the first place.”
        “Fox is waiting for you,” she said coldly before flying above the branches to follow an agenda that only she knew about.
        Jonah sighed from the continual instructions to run, but he walked down to Fox’s den and tentatively called out to his host.
        “Jonah? Wonderful! Falcon mentioned something of you coming. But do slip out of those clothes, or you’ll be easier to spot than a poison tree frog.”
        Jonah smiled and shifted so that he was a fox leaving his muddy uniform outside the entrance.

The House of Animalia

        The forest was unusually dark for that time of day. The clouds prevented any light from shining through, so the shadows on the ground were thicker than they would be during any other mid-day. The air smelled fresh and a faint sound of thunder carried itself on cold wind. Even the main clearing—nicknamed “The Eye” for its location in the center of the forest—was a dark bluish-gray. A rabbit darted across the clearing, followed closely by a young man dressed in green and khaki camouflage. His boots made deep indentations in the ground as he ran after the bounding rabbit. As he reached the edge of the clearing, there was a gunshot and it echoed through the trees amidst the caw of birds. He let the rabbit bound away as he grabbed a low branch and swung upward into the curtain of foliage. He heard shouting nearby and then the thump of feet on the cold ground. The party stopped and examined the ground, following his footsteps until the edge of the forest where they stopped. He prayed they wouldn’t look up.
        “Damn it,” a soldier swore quietly. He turned back towards the clearing where a few more men were standing around looking into the darkness. “The tracks just disappear.”
        “He’s got to be in the tree,” another said.
        “Or he was just careful about his tracks going in.”
        The branch just above the last large branch the escaping soldier was standing on was entangled with another branch from a neighboring tree. If the higher branch could support his weight, he could easily swing to a second tree without touching the ground and get farther away from the search party. He closed his eyes and focused on the second tree. Reaching up, he quickly swung from one branch to the other without a crack of protest from either tree.
        “He’s not up here,” the first soldier to speak said. Voices of disbelief followed and he saw the men look up into the branches of the previous tree. Thunder grumbled and the sky got darker.
        “We’ll just say he turned into a bird or a mouse and we lost him,” the leader said. “I don’t want to continue the chase in the rain and if we don’t get back soon we’ll get caught in it.”
        There were a few grumbles of agreement and the search party went back the way they came through the forest. When the soldier in the tree couldn’t hear them any longer, he got down from the second tree and breathed a sigh of relief.
        “That was quite smart of you,” said a singing voice from above him. He looked up to see a swallow glide down from the top branches to the ground.
        “Thanks,” he said.
        “Why were you running?”
        “They were afraid I was the cause of bad luck.”
        “Don’t they know any member of the house of Animalia is lucky to have around?”
        “Well, when you’re in a war and your luck starts getting worse once your new recruit Jonah starts, you’d get a little suspicious. Not to mention he can talk to animals and change his shape.”
        The swallow snorted as much as it could and hopped onto his shoulder. “I never understood humans.”
        Jonah laughed. “Neither do I.”
        When he finished his sentence, the rain came down in bucketfuls upon the leaves of the trees. The swallow flew off of Jonah’s shoulder to rest inside a trunk of a tree and avoid getting wet. He started to continue away from the clearing but then turned towards the center of it listening carefully for noise other than the rain. There was a soft patter among wet leaves coming from the northern side of it, but the noise was getting softer, not louder. Finally, with a flash of lightening, a silver wolf stepped into the clearing and sat on its haunches.
        Jonah knew the wolf was blind, yet he still hoped the larger-than-life animal would turn and look at him with its milky blue eyes. He stepped towards it, waiting for the echoing voice to go through his head, but Jonah had almost put a hand on a shimmering flank before it spoke.
        “Hello, little one.”
        Jonah smiled. “Hello, Argent.”
        “I thought you wanted to fight for your kind.”
        Jonah sighed. “They don’t understand.”
        “Hmph. I thought not.”
        “I need help hiding—”
        “You do not, little one. You can hide better than I on your own. You feel betrayed and disappointed and you want protection. It is not my place, Jonah, to help you regain your trust.”
Jonah paused and tentatively put a hand in the silver fur. “Where do I go?”
        “You speak to Hawk and Falcon. As for where you go, it matters not. You will always find a way.”
Thunder rumbled overhead drowned out by a succession of gunshots not far off. Jonah jumped backwards and almost fell, but the great silver beast merely turned its head calmly towards the noise. Jonah was on his feet in an instant, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn and run, although he knew he should. His hands shook as he held them out in a fighting stance. The silver wolf stood where he was for an instant before bounding out of the clearing the direction opposite that it came. Shouts echoed from the path ahead and it took no time for Jonah to spin on his heel and sprint towards the direction of the oak tree where Hawk and Falcon lived.

Oak Tree

        I didn’t know what happened to her until very recently. I had heard songs about people going up in a blaze of glory or walking away, leaving. In fact, she was just missing one day. One gentleman had seen her to bed and then no one saw her the next morning. Or the morning after that. They found her almost a year later walking near the edge of the frozen sea in January, but that was it. Police gave up the case and now she’s a ghost story. I’m the only one that saw her after that day and even I don’t know where she is.
        I was one of her many gentleman callers, and she’d always been non-decisive about anything I threw her way. She never said yes to a second date, flowers, candy, or marriage. She never really said yes to anything. She was enchanting, bewitching, but she never said anything of real merit. The more you shared about yourself, the more she’d agree, but the less you knew about her. I was naive and connected with her the longest—seven months. It was only after spotting her with someone else at the movies that I finally gave up. It was a week after that when she disappeared.
        I remember one night when we went walking through the forest. She was more of a mist gliding through than actually walking at my side. I remember thinking she seemed possessed by the full moon. She never connected with me and wandered listlessly through the trees. She was wearing a white sweater, so she was easy to spot when she wandered into the darkness but at certain points her legs and head would disappear and she became a floating torso with porcelain hands. She usually had her hair licorice hair in a bun. Her green eyes were lifeless, but she was alert. I asked her if she wanted to go back, but she declined.
        “I’m all right,” she said, but she didn’t smile. “But can’t you hear the screams?”
        The forest was silent, so I said I couldn’t.
        “Oh,” she said quietly. “Am I crazy? I keep hearing cries of help.”
        “No,” I said. Shivers went up and down my spine. I reached for her hand, but she moved away to the side of the path before I could reach it.
        “It gets louder when I go this way.”
        “Then why are you going that way?” I said, irritated. I was scared, but I didn’t want to admit it. Part of my irrational thinking was that I, the male, should not be scared while she, the female, was obviously not frightened about the voices in her head. I heard her foot snap a twig and then a groan of creaking wood. I called out her name, but she didn’t answer. Her sweater was a gray shadow in the darkness. I told her we should leave, but there was silence. I couldn’t see her. I called her name again, but I was greeted with the same silence. Then an owl hooted, a wolf howled, and the strange creaking sounded again. A twig snapped near me. I called her name cautiously into the dark, but nothing answered me. Not even the wind. Then I turned around and ran. I ended up in the police station, panting, and tried to tell my story in a sane manner. They said they would check for her in the morning, but they ended up finding her in her house fast asleep. She never brought up why I left her or what happened, and everything seemed to go back to normal.
        Then she disappeared. I read about it in the paper. The man who had last seen her was suspect for her kidnap, but I knew him and he wouldn’t have even considered it. He had no motive and no ideas on how to go about such a thing. Then I heard about her on the beach spotted by two lovers who were out that night. It happened to have been a full moon.
        The next month I went back into the forest. It was during the day when I estimated where I had stopped and ran back. With the sun streaming down, it was nothing special. I knew if I could conquer my fears during the daylight, when I saw her ghost at night, I we be calmer.
        A little ways off from the path was an old oak tree with scarlet leaves. As brown is usually the color of oak leaves, I stepped forward and touched the bark. It didn’t feel different. Acorns were still surrounding the roots of the tree and a squirrel looked down at me when I looked up into the foliage. I considered that it was the tree asking for her help that night, but it didn’t speak to me. It didn’t even say anything to me that night when I approached it again with a flashlight. The acorns, however, did glow with their own inner light looking much like a Christmas tree.
        “Oh, hello Robert,” the familiar voice said from behind me. She came up and leaned her head on my shoulder. “Isn’t it pretty?”
        “Yes,” I said. Then after a polite amount of time had past I asked, “Where have you been?”
        “Nowhere,” she said, surprised.
        “Is this the tree that was in pain?” I asked.
        She smiled. “You still remember that after all these years?”
        She moved forward and reached for my cheek.
        “It’s good to see you,” she said.
        I didn’t know what to say. “Why don’t we go back?”
        She shook her head. “You haven’t changed a bit.”
        She stepped forward towards the tree and started to sing. The wood creaked and a crack in the bottom of the tree that I hadn’t noticed before spread and widened so that it was a doorway. She stepped inside of it and then turned around, sadness obvious in her eyes.
        “I always loved you most,” she said. “I’m sorry to see you go.”
        “What do you mean?” I asked stepping forward to grab her arm one more time as if touching her would fix all of our problems. Even if she didn’t think I changed, she certainly had and I longed to start over. But I didn’t reach her before the tree shut and cut off the space between us. I stood there reaching for the tree for a few seconds, my spirits dropping and my ears soaking in the silence. The acorns still glowed blue even at my feet. I tried to sing what she had sung, but the tree wouldn’t open for me. So I left. A few sequential months after that I went back and tried to see her again, but that was it. I hadn’t said the right things, amended things, changed. I wasn’t who…or what…I was supposed to be.
        It’s not really my fault. I’m still not sure what it all means. But I’m still trying to figure it all out.

Hospitality

        “What are you smiling about?” Libby asked. She stared at the strange woman more harshly than she meant and longer than was polite, but there was something about her guest that rubbed her the wrong way. She couldn’t figure it out—in fact refused herself to think about it for very long. Her body would ache and her hands would tremble if she let herself contemplate too long about this woman who just showed up at her house one day.
        She didn’t speak; Libby didn’t know her name. She had never seen her before. The girl was beautiful, but her clothes were close to rags. She wore everything gracefully and her days were spent perched on the couch as a statue of temptation. Libby wanted to take a hammer and knock of the girl’s head. Her sons would often watch TV with her when they should have been doing their chores. But no one thought this strange girl was a big deal. The police didn’t see anything wrong with it and no one was reported missing. So the girl stayed. She didn’t eat or take up space. The only hassle she presented was the space she took up on the couch. Libby’s friends had since given up with asking about the girl, though they often didn’t stay as long as they used to at her house for various reasons.
        The girl had always had a straight-faced stare. Libby used to think the girl was watching her about the house, but after weeks of waking up to see the girl still staring at the sleeping television, she since gave up that thought. But no matter how much she tried, she couldn’t get the girl to move beyond the first steps she took into the house and onto the couch. She had toyed with the idea that the girl was a robot, but refused to have anyone search her for a switch. "It’s a cruel trick,” she had said to her husband. “And I just hope she leaves soon.”
        But the girl didn’t leave. She sat collecting dust. Libby turned of the television that had somehow been turned on and as she moved to the dining room past the girl, she noticed something different.
        “What are you smiling about?” Libby snapped. The girl didn’t move. Libby walked over to the dining room and glanced behind her shoulder instinctively. The girl was staring at the blank TV.
        “I really don’t see anything funny,” Libby said turning back to the dusty table she had come to clean. She felt a hand at her shoulder. Her heart leapt and she spun around. The girl smiled and slapped Libby across the face. Then she went to the kitchen and turned on the burners of the stove as high as they could go. She opened the oven door and turned it on. She threw something into the microwave and turned it on. The kitchen sizzled as things heated up.
        “What are you doing?!”
        The girl turned to Libby and laughed. It was the first sound she had made since her arrival. She dove into the refrigerator and started to eat. Libby could hear the girl’s jaws smacking against each other. Libby flipped the door of the oven closed and shut it off. The girl reached for a knife in the knife rack, but a little too slow. Libby had reached her hand in two strides and pushed the smiling girl against the table.
        “Next time, ask.” Libby took the rag in her hand and tied up the girl’s hands. She struggled with her to the door and then pushed her out with the rag, leaning all her weight on the door and shutting it with a slam.
        The house was silent except for the whisper of gas from the stove. The smoke detector went off and Libby ran to the kitchen to shut off the stove while whatever was in her microwave spit out black smoke. She glanced towards the kitchen window then decided against it and went up to the second floor and opened the windows there. She wet a rag with water and turned on all the fans in the house. Then she opened the microwave door.
        She couldn’t see right away if there was fire as the black smoke billowed out. Libby shot to the floor and breathed through the rag as all of the air was circulated and dispersed through the window up the stairs. Then she checked to see if there was a fire in the microwave and perhaps recognize what it was the girl had thrown in there. The only thing left was a small copper frame from a cheaply framed picture that had said: home sweet home. It was located in the entryway and had been there most of the day. Libby didn’t know how it got in the kitchen, but she tried not to think about it long. She ran up the stairs to the upstairs window hoping to close it and stop up any vulnerability that her house had to the strange visitor. But as soon as she had bounded up the stairs and into the room, there was the girl. She was sitting on the bed, but she wasn’t smiling. She didn’t move when Libby came in.
        “What do you want?” Libby asked, close to tears.
        The girl turned to her; the first sign of recognition of a voice since she had arrived. She pointed to pillow on the bed and lie down.
        “Go ahead and sleep, then,” Libby said. “I’ll wake you in a couple hours.”
        The girl stared at Libby until she left. What a strange girl, Libby said taking a shaking breath and continuing down to the kitchen to clean up the mess. But as she reached the microwave to grab the burned picture frame, she noticed it was clean. The picture frame wasn’t there, either. She glanced around the kitchen and noticed that the haphazard mess that had been there before the girl’s arrival was cleaned up. Libby went to the dining room and noticed her rag sitting on the table next to the can of dusting solution. Not know what else to do, Libby continued dusting.
        Hours went by and there was no movement from the bedroom. Libby cautiously climbed the stairs, broom in hand, pretending to have taken a break from sweeping. But Libby was more afraid of what the girl might do to her than any interest in house cleaning. As soon as the door was open, the girl woke up and sat on the bed with a refreshed smile.
        “What now?” Libby asked. The girl pointed at Libby and when Libby didn’t move, got up and pushed past Libby to the bathroom across the hall without a word.
        “Well come on down when you’re finished,” Libby said, shakily. She went back to the kitchen to replace the broom and then started gathering things for dinner. The girl was on the couch in no time and Libby could hear the television going in the other room. She kept her eyes on the knife in her hand as she chopped vegetables. Her hands were shaking, but when she glanced up, the girl hadn’t moved. Finally the television shut off and Libby looked up just in time to see the girl standing in the kitchen doorway.
        “Hungry? Dinner is at six thirty,” Libby said smiling, then remembering the fiasco added, “but if you’re hungry I can pull up a small snack. What would you like?”
        The girl pointed to the pantry.
        “Do you want to get it yourself?”
        The girl shrugged and got a box of cereal. Libby got a bowl down from the shelf and handed it to her with the milk and a spoon. The girl smiled and poured herself a bowl of cereal. Libby listened to the clink of stainless steel and china as the girl ate, keeping a close eye on the knives. Finally, the bowl clinked down into the sink. Libby turned to the girl once more, but she had gone.
        Libby put the vegetables she was chopping in the frying pan and tried to search the house with one eye on the vegetables. But the girl wasn’t anywhere to be found. Shrugging, Libby went back to cooking dinner just as the door opened and shut and her husband called out to her.
        “Hello,” he said, kissing her on her head. “How was your day?”
        “Strange,” she said.
        “I see our visitor is gone,” he noted as he walked past the couch with dishes to set the table.
        “I don’t know about that,” she said. “One moment she was a holy terror and the next she’s gone.”
        “Well, good riddance,” he said. “I can finally watch my television in peace.”
        “I suppose,” she said, thoughtfully. Then struck with an idea, added, “Why don’t we invite Ellen over for dinner? I can add more ingredients so we’ll have enough.”
        “Why?”
        “I don’t know,” she said smiling, “I just feels good to be hospitable.”

Taralee

        Taralee was sitting in her moss garden outside on her roof, her feet dangling to the water below. Her pet carp, Syl, was resting by the rocks, swaying with the current of the river. She sighed and looked up at the perfect blue sky. The air was full of water and she could feel the imminent rain.
        “Good morrow, Taralee,” a voice behind her said cheerfully. She closed her eyes and tried to see who was behind her. She saw him before he sat down next to her. It had been a while since she was able to speak to him calmly and without a fight.
        “Hello, Damascus.”
        “Sorry to interrupt,” he said. She waited for his next words, but they never came. She found herself smiling; it was something that he did often. But? she prompted him. She opened her eyes and glanced at the newcomer. He was perched on the rock next to her looking over the river to the other bank. He was patient, and watching something that she knew if she glanced that way, she wouldn’t see. He wasn’t in armor, like she was used to seeing him, but he still had an air of business and superiority. She knew that wasn’t his fault; he always stepped up to what was expected of him and a lot was expected of him. But his unconscious attitude and polite manner bothered her sometimes.
        “What brings you here?” she asked after moments of silence. They sky was getting grayer as they waited and she didn’t want to be stuck in the rain. Which is strange for you, she thought, you’re a water fairy.
        “You’ve heard about the Fairy Guardian, haven’t you?”
        “Only that she’s gone.”
        “Well, I need your help.”
        “Don’t tell me the oracle thinks you’re the one to save her. If you say yes, I will forfeit my faith that she really does love you.”
        He sighed, but he didn’t laugh with her. “No, I need a good mage just in case anything happens. She predicted a young boy to be the savior. A flower fairy.”
        “That’s how it always goes, doesn’t it? Well, then…tell me, why didn’t you pick a fire fairy?”
        “Maybe because I think we’ll be traveling through forest most of the time.” She could feel the hint of irritation and hostility in his voice. She had never heard that from him, even on the battlefield. It scared her a bit, but she kept her cool and said:
        “All right, I might as well go.”
        “Then prepare yourself and we’ll meet you here in two days.”
        “That seems a bit slow.”
        “I want the boy to get used to traveling.”
        “All right,” she said. She stood up and got ready for a dive. “You’d better hurry back. It’s going to rain.”

The Fairy Guardian

        It had been eons, but in the life of a fairy, it was only a couple years to make the bulk of the population nervous. The Fairy Guardian had been missing for some time: off on holiday, the note on her desk had said. But it wasn’t written in her usual neat scrawl, but a hurried scribble with blotches of ink blurring the letters. Her office was a state of pandemonium, when before it had been as neat as well-kept flower garden. The fairies were always ones to have faith in their ambassador, whether the situation of her disappearance was odd or not, but the fairy king was getting tired and scared of relations falling through between his people and the large folk. So he, sent word to their oracle to ask what had befallen the beloved Fairy Guardian and who should save the fairy world. Word came back of a flower fairy known as Panachon. He was a small sprite, and of course an unlikely candidate to save the Fairy Guardian. But, the king had faith and sent his best knight, Damascus, to meet Panachon where he lived among the field fairies. Meanwhile, he would press the oracle for news of the Fairy Guardian and where she was held.

        “But I suppose you knew all of that,” Damascus said politely as he took another sip of tea that Panachon had poured for him.
        “I had heard rumors, but I didn’t know they were true.”
        “Absolutely.”
        “So I’m supposed to go with you to find her?”
        Damascus smiled. “The king wouldn’t let you go alone. There’s also someone else I’d like to bring along, if it’s not too much trouble. She’s really much better at magic than I am.”
        Ever polite, Panachon said, “Not at all.” But he had a sinking feeling that there was something he would need that the famous knight would not be able to provide. The knight smiled and excused himself from Panachon’s cottage.
        “I’ll see you in three days, then,” Damascus said mounting his small Pegasus. “Prepare yourself for a long journey.”

Guitar Concerto in D Major, mvmt. 1 by Antonio Vivaldi

        Everything was beautiful in Eversummer. The leaves were so rich a green they looked like velvet, the snow sparkled silver, and the magnolia trees bloomed early and their blossoms stayed late. Every tree had a story of the town’s highly attractive residents and were more than happy to give the ripest fruit in the largest quantities. People came and some went, but most stayed where they were finding true love and prosperity in their childhood town. It was young and vibrant: everyone was kind to one another and the animals that coexisted with them. Never was a hearth empty and never a heart too full. The fish in the town practically jumped upon the river bank and no fisher ever took more than his fill. There was never a drought or a flood; the rain came and went when it pleased, but it always came back for the same kindness the people gave it. There was no intolerance, violence, or bigotry. Eversummer had whispers about its name as heaven on earth.
        “And why is it so perfect?” Retha asked, opening her steno notebook quickly and placing her pencil on the page.
        The man laughed. “Why it was blessed by the fae, marm. Everything about it was just the way people wished to live.”
        “But every blessing comes with a curse.”
        “No, they were open-minded about things. For every small misfortune, there followed larger fortune and people here are born with enough sense to count their blessings well. Besides, the man who founded the town was extremely intelligent; he knew how to ask things of the fae.”
        The door opened and the young woman who had agreed to board Retha came in with tea. She smiled and apologized for interrupting. Retha told her it wasn’t a problem and the old man thanked her for the refreshments.
        “If you don’t mind me asking,” the old man said once Retha’s landlady had left, “why exactly do you want to know about this place?”
        “I’m afraid I’m a bit curious about things,” she said. “When people eat more, they get larger. So anyone would expect that with the other towns getting smaller, Eversummer would get larger. But this isn’t the case and I want to know why.”
        “Part of what makes Eversummer perfect is that it isn’t too large or crowded.”
        “I understand the theory. And believe me, this is a beautiful town. But neither of those things explains where all the people have gone. Do you know, Mr. Apricot?”
The man looked abashed. “No one has gone missing. The whole town would know who did!”
        “I’m not accusing anyone of anything,” Retha said taking a sip of her tea. “I’m just a curious person. You have to be to be a journalist.”
        Retha stood up and thanked Mr. Apricot for his time. He told her it was his pleasure, though she knew her answers to his questions were not pleasurable in the least. She went up to her room and opened her log book, making more notes on his answers and stance. Then she recorded hers. Perhaps, she thought, they might be useful if I could see what I said at the beginning of this mess. Well, she added to herself, I hope it won’t be a mess at all.

(Listen to it)

Riveria

        The Sanguine River was more beautiful than it’s name implied. It ran well over half the country and even traveled between the Angora Mountain Range in the north. The river was a fortress wall for many civilizations and extra protections to most. It ran through several farm fields and guided many others to where they needed to go. The river and its tributaries were the best modes of transportation second only to the main highways on land.
        North of the Angoras and a little south of where the river ended was a well-known bridge spanning a rather seldom traveled part of the river. It was known as Riveria as it was itself a town for the little folk. In order to appease the river fae, the King of the North built the bridge as a town where they could stay. It grew to be a much larger town than anyone had supposed and still allowed boats to travel by—as long as they paid a toll—unscathed. The river ended in a waterfall at the Fae Grove and the fairies of Riveria were close enough to that main spot to live industriously and happily.
        Cassy was knew all the traditions of Riveria, as she was the main traveler between the fae and the humans for as long as she could remember. When she was too young, her brother and her parents went. Finally, she had inherited the title. Her cargo was small this time around and her pay not quite enough to pay the toll. Luckily, she wasn’t planning on passing through. She stopped her boat against the shore before the bridge and walked right on top of it. The bridge was strategically large enough for a small cart and she pulled a pinecone out of her pocket and let it drop down below. She waited a few seconds before she noticed the upper ledge of the bridge slip away and climb higher and higher into the sky. Suddenly she noticed a small door in one of the supporting poles open up quickly and a fae dressed in dark blue come out frowning.
        “Are you trying to mock us?” he said sternly. Then he recognized her and his expressions became puzzled. “Oh, hello, Cassy.”
        “Hi,” she said. “I have a delivery for you. I need to talk to someone in charge if possible.”
        The guard smiled. “Glad it’s you, the town is a bit in a party mood, I’m afraid. We just don’t want to deal with a cheeky human. Well, follow me.”

This won’t be finished, but I’d love to see what sort of ending you come up with. If not, just imagine something.

The Key

        It was a plain wooden box with sturdy iron side straps. There was no handle, but there was an ornately decorated lock with a rather large keyhole in the middle of the seam. Or he assumed there was a seam. It was practically invisible if it was there at all. He had also assumed that the box would open with a simple persuasion but his broken thieves picks were evidence that wasn’t true. Some of them had just disappeared if they didn’t break first and that’s when he knew he had to ask the Wizards for help.
        It wasn’t that he stole the box; it was rightfully his. His grandmother had died of natural causes and gave him her hut in the woods along with everything in the attic. Unfortunately for his brother, most of her magical belongings were in the attic and he was just about done sifting through them when he came upon the box. Not being able to open it and ignoring his internal warnings that Pandora’s box shouldn’t be tampered with, he had sent a note to a local guild specializing in magical boxes in order to get someone to open it.
        So he wasn’t surprised when someone knocked on the door saying that she received his note and was willing to open up his box if he was willing to lend it to her for a little experimentation. What he wasn’t prepared for was her answer when he asked her for guild identification.
        “I don’t work with a guild,” she said. “But here’s my card. I’m certified with the government.”
        He checked it over and it looked authentic.
        “I’m Carolyn Gray (which you can see by my card) and I work with solving keeper boxes.”
        “How did you get my name?”
        “I volunteer to take some of the new referrals from a friend of mine. It’s difficult working on the referral receiving line as well. Mind if I come in?”
        “Not at all. I’m Luke Hunt, by the way.”
        “Nice to meet you.”
        The hut’s one room was sort of crowded, but Luke easily cleared off a chair for his guest and sat down in one adjacent to her.
        “So, what is the principle behind the locks?” he asked.
        “Every keeper box has a spell attached to it that has to do with the nature of the secret inside. The key is animated and created with the correct spell to open the lock. If the incorrect key is used it will dissolve and may damage the box, until the lock is so deformed no key will open it. Therefore, if you have something important to keep, a keeper box will maintain that not just anyone can get inside and if you find one or steal it, it’s to your best advantage to keep it locked until you find a key or your chances of getting inside are gone.”
        “What makes you think that you can do this for less than a standardized guild?”
        “I don’t work for anyone. Besides, what you’re paying for in the guild is a flat fee. You pay for about one hundred keys to dissolve and all the worst repairs to be fixed. You also provide food, shelter, firewood and any other supplies the business needs. Your box may not use one hundred keys and if your box is never broken, why should you pay for repairs of the worst kind? You pay for the worst-case scenario, even if that never happens to your box. Time is also an issue; I can also guarantee that this will be done in the least amount of time. Professional guilds have hundreds of people with boxes to be solved and if you go to one of them, they’ll just take your money and stick you to the back of the line. It can take a week to figure out a box, and that’s only the simplest ones with one spell. Imagine hundreds of people, each who’s box takes a month to figure out. You don’t have that time. I could start on it today.”
        “How much do you charge?”
        “Fifty gold per key. We’ve got to use star metal and it’s not cheap. We’re running out of metal before we run out of keys.”
        “Actually, that’s quite cheap.”
        “I’m the best in the business, too. I ran away from the guild because of the politics involved, not because they forced me out.”
        “How would you go about doing this?”
        “The first step is meditation. I’ve got to focus on the box and search it to find it’s fundamental theme. On a simple box, this could take two hours, complex, five days. Then, more meditation to figure out a gist of spells. Finally, key experimentation. Like an artist glances at their subject before painting and goes back and forth to see that they’re getting it right, I do that with the box as it whispers hints. Once the key is weaved, we test it out and if it doesn’t work, it dissolves and I try again. If it fails, I check the box to make sure it isn’t injured and go back to my tools to make another key. If we find the right key, both the key and the box are yours, as well as anything inside it. Most guilds don’t guarantee that everything inside box is returned to you. That’s another thing I didn’t like: thievery.”
        She raised her eyebrow at the broken thieves picks. He blushed.
        “Hey, I don’t ask questions,” she said after noting his expression.
        “I didn’t steal this box, if that’s what you’re implying.”
        “I’m not implying anything. You get income your way, I get it my way.”
        “Does this arrangement include food and board?”
        “No, I’ll camp outside. Or deduct that from what you’re paying me if you want.”
        “If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather you sleep outside.”
        She smiled. “Fair enough.”
        “Well, are you sure you want to start today?”
        “Sure, I’ll start now.”
        “That seems pretty soon.”
        “I told you I work fast. I’ve got nothing else to do but to go back and find another commission. It’s your choice, though.”
        He handed her a bag of money. “Fifty gold, then, and you can start right away.”