Hello! I can't really remember the last time I did a proper literary update, and I feel like doing one now, soo... yeah. I also can't remember where I left off last time, so I may or may not have backtracked a little ways. SO here it is. (yes, it IS Nikita).
Chapter 3
Two months? Sparraben had told me that that was my time frame for training. He had decided, however, that I was either terrible at doing combat or great at it, and had insisted that I extend the training period to seven months if I wanted his help on anything.
Although this gave me a lot more time to develop every skill I had to learn, it also freaked me out slightly. Two months after I’d left home would mean that there would be a chance that Sonru would only have a body and little more. Seven months, however, would probably guarantee him not only a body but a sizable killing force as well before the only person who knew he was on the rise – also known as me – would have a chance to alert anyone who appeared to care.
Although Sparraben had lectured me on the first day about not jumping into things too quickly, I hadn’t learned that lesson well enough when he said my training should probably be extended for another five months. Two months after Grampa’s death was when the trees just began to change color and the weather grew cool. Four months after his death was when you couldn’t go anywhere without freezing, but the boots and the Ranger cloak I had been given would reduce the cold enormously (although the only times I was ever truly warm was when I had to practice with a sword non-stop for two hours). Five months after was not only in the middle of the winter holiday (usually celebrated with gifts, but the only one I got that year was an order to do more target practice, which wasn’t really a gift at all), it was right in the middle of the worst part of the snowy season. It was also just my luck that that year was the worst winter that any part of Illindara had seen for more than a century. Snow didn’t fall once: it fell three times, each dumping out almost a foot of white powder.
Either way, before I knew it, the trees were budding again, which was sort of alarming. Although I was not more physically fit than I had ever been and I had acquired more skills in almost seven months than I had in thirteen years, I was scared that the trees would wake up from their hibernation and tell me that Sonru was on the brink of annihilating the Three Cities – the general center of Illindara in most senses of the term.
One morning, soon after the trees had began to bud again, Sparraben announced that soon I would be getting my horse, and then we would review all the things I had learned.
“After that,” he added, “You only have about a week of training left, and then you’re free to go save the world or whatever it is you wanted to do.”
“Aren’t you coming with me?” I asked.
“Nope,” he replied. “Faug sent you because you needed my skills, but you know enough now to fare well enough on your own.”
“But there’s so much I don’t know,” I protested.
“This is true,” Sparraben replied. “But I can’t teach you much more of the basics without making you an official apprentice, and I don’t think either of us has time for that.”
“As I recall, I had to agree to train with you in order for you to help me with Grampa’s mission,” I reminded him.
“But so much depends on you and what you’re doing,” he said, and for once, I thought I heard something that sounded like some degree of approval in his voice. “I’ve done enough here. I’m getting too old for adventures anyway.”
“I think you’ve just gotten too comfortable here,” I retorted.
“This may be,” he answered, “But at some point you’re going to have to stand on your own two feet. Do I think you’re ready? No, I don’t. But you’ve proven me wrong so often so far that I’m probably trying to protect you or something.” He said this almost sarcastically, but I wondered whether maybe he was trying to protect me or something… but I couldn’t think why he would have any reason to do that.
“But aside from my improvement, I’m still not as good as you,” I said, still trying to persuade him. I didn’t think I was ready to go alone, either, but I knew I wouldn’t if I didn’t get some help first. “You know more about everything than I do. You’re a better fighter than I am. What if there are three big tall guys who have cornered me and I can’t reach my bow and they have reinforcements coming?”
“Nikita, we’ve been over this.”
“But what if I don’t kick any of them hard enough? What if there are twenty by the time I get out? What if they have a mage, hmm? What do I do then?”
“You know what to do,” Sparraben sighed.
“Reveal that I’m an elemental and get myself killed?” I knew I could employ the power of the trees against an adversary, but I had only ever managed it once and it was by accident.
Sparraben was quiet for a while after I’d issued that statement. After a long, somber pause, he said quietly, “I never told you how your father and Grandmother died?”
I didn’t get why he’d changed the subject, but I didn’t mind. It hadn’t been bugging me, but I’d been thinking about it every so often. “No,” I answered. “How do you know how it happened?”
“I saw it,” he said quietly. “Both of them.”
“WHAT?”
Sparraben’s face was grave. “It happened on the same day, but about thirty years apart. It was two days before you showed up on my doorstep.”
I’d shown up on his doorstep two days after Grampa had died. There was no way it was a coincidence.
“Rhyda, your grandmother, needed to go outside the walls of Norasona to get some air and talk to the trees,” he continued. “I guess it’s an elemental thing, the need to be out in nature. Anyway, she went into the forest, to the stream not too far from here. She was talking to the water and making it do tricks – I don’t know why. I watched from a tree – I was practicing out-of-sight archery when she showed up. All of a sudden, an arrow flew out of nowhere and hit her in the chest, right in the heart, and went so deep the end nearly poked out her back. I always liked her. Not romantically, of course, but she was a lot like you’ll probably turn out – strong, spirited, and powerful. I’d given her a few months’ training when she was about your age, so I cared about her, and I was really, really mad when she was killed.”
“What happened after she was shot?”
“The one who did it came looking for his target, him and his buddy, talking about how good a shot the first guy was. They were big and stupid, so they were talking about their plans right in the open where anyone could have heard them, and I listened. They were apparently killing elementals for bounty from some warlord. The elementals had apparently stolen his glory, and now he wanted them all dead, even the single- and double-elementals like you and your father – a long-term grudge or something. Rhyda was probably one of the last full elementals left on this earth, and the warlord wanted his revenge on her kind.”
I was quiet for a moment, pulling it all in. “Did they get the arrow?” I asked.
“No, just the body,” he replied. “They left the arrow. I guess they thought if someone saw the arrow, they would assume it was one of mine. They must have known I lived nearby.”
“So do you have the arrow?”
“Yes, and the one that killed your father,” he said. “They’re the exact same kind, killed by the exact same people. I’m saving them for when I meet the ones who killed them. I cared about Rhyda, and I cared about her family.”
“How did you get my father’s arrow?”
“He died in almost the exact same way, just a lot closer to my cabin. He didn’t die quite as quickly as your grandmother – probably because the shot was just shy of any vital organs. The hunters came to look for him, but they saw he wasn’t dead and decided not to kill him there. I pulled the arrow once they left, and he had life left in him to walk most of the way back to your house, mumbling about his children. He was gone by the time he reached the edge of the forest.”
I nodded mutely. I knew where the story went from there; I could see it clearly in my head.
Dad had staggered all the way across Farmer Bag’s fields, which had greatly irritated Farmer Bag until he saw what condition the Destroyer of his Beans was in. Farmer Bag then half-carried Dad across the bean field and into our beet patch when Mum saw them from the cabin and raced out to help. Farmer Bag and Mum dragged Dad into the cabin, where we all saw – me and Jack included – how bad the wound really was when Mum pulled off his shirt to bind the wound. The most disturbing part was that Dad had been skinny enough that you could see his heart beating through the skin below his ribcage, and the blood came gushing out of the wound every time the skin above it fluttered with the beat of his heart.
Mum had wrapped all the spare cloth she could find around his middle, but the blood came out too fat.
I remember Dad’s last words to Mum, and I suddenly realized why Mum had been so cautious last summer when Grampa had told me to find Sparraben.
He had said, “Leanna… Sparraben… protect… Nikita… Jack… watch out… Rangers… heroes!”
Then, like Grampa, he’d expired.
Six years later, I’d taken the exact same course in the opposite direction, to seek out Sparraben in search of answers instead of departing his company with a mystery. It was almost poetic.
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I asked.
“You were too weak,” was the reply.
“Too weak to know how my father died when I saw him go with my own eyes when I was seven.”
“To weak, too tired to absorb the information,” he amended. “Now that you’re capable of handling a lot on your own, and you’re determined to go forth and conquer, you need to be warned: what happened to them could happen to you, too. You need to be on your guard.”
Be on your guard. That was the first rule of being a Ranger Trainee. Well, it was the second rule. The first rule was to Always Be Patient. The second rule was to Always Be on Your Guard. The third rule was to Never Disobey Rule Number One and Two. Seven months of hard training had pounded that into my head, but that still didn’t mean I was ready to go on a quest on my own.
That evening, I went out onto the slight porch of Sparraben’s cabin to talk to the trees. They had only started budding a few days before, which meant they would finally be awake enough to deliver some news. Winter for all trees except the evergreens is like an extended period of almost-hibernation – they were asleep, sure, but I was still able to hear them (sometimes I didn’t want to). As winter wore on, they got quieter, but I was still able to talk to Pine until the Big Snows came and I couldn’t get close enough to hear what he was saying.
“Hello?” I asked the trees, unsure if they would be able to hear me. It was a weird doubt – I’d been keeping the ability going on purpose, in the irrational fear that the elemental part of me would somehow die if I didn’t have regular contact with nature.
However, all I heard now was silence.
I tried again. “Hello? Oak? Ash? Poplar? Are you there? What about you, Elm? Cedar? Willow? Pine? Hello?”
There was no answer from any of the trees. Pine usually was good about answering when I called, even if it was to tell me, in his polite way, to shut up. I found his lack of response disturbing. The trees had specifically told me that their hibernation would end soon after they began budding, and in the fading light, I could definitely tell that buds and leaves and whippy young branches were present on almost every tree in Sparraben’s grove, but not one of them had answered when I had called their name. I could still feel the slight rumble of energy coming from the forest, but now it seemed sort of distant, like the energy in Sparraben’s Grove was detached from the energy of the rest of the Silvercourt Forest.
Then words came jogging out from a distant memory: the Forgotten Glen. The trees there had gone so long without the presence of something else they’d been driven silent.
That day, I had also found out that groups of trees were going silent prematurely; groves of trees were suddenly cut off from the energy of the forest when other creatures passed through them regularly and chattered to the trees.
The energy here wasn’t stirring at all, even though before the snow I was talking easily to Pine, and before that, to the entire grove. I’d heard them talking in their sleep until the Big Snow.
Now the energy here seemed to be cut off.
Nothing was stirring. The buds didn’t giggle; the leaves didn’t rustle; no trees groaned in a waking-up sort of fashion.
I had waited too long.
Showing posts with label Nikita. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nikita. Show all posts
Friday, January 7, 2011
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Unexpected Literary Update!!!
Well, since I'm bored, I have nothing to post, and I don't really feel like not posting anyway (and, to be honest, I'm also doing this so I can maybe get some more hits), I'm going to be putting up the next 1200 words of the Nikita story. Why ONLY 1200 words, you may ask, since I wrote 2600 words last time? Why not all 2600? Well, I'll tell you: when the literary catastrophe that I'll be beginning next week (also known as "The Crazy Adventures of Nemesis" and/ or my NaNoWriMo novel attempt) is over, and since it's being written in a composition notebook and probably won't be typed up until winter break due to lack of finishing and ample amounts of procrastination, I'll have to get back to the real world of Passing Creative Writing, and I want to have time to recover from being braindead (as I'm sure I will be after writing 1700 words a DAY) and still be able to pass (as it's probably one of two courses I currently have a good grade in). Case in point, it's only 1200 words to give me a while in December to think of what's coming next.
So here it is. YAY!
“Well, part of it,” I admitted. “Part of it I just figured out on my own.”
“Which parts?”
“Well, the trees told me the part about Sonru and his army…”
“The trees told you about Sonru,” Sparraben repeated bemusedly.
“Yes, sir.” I decided that it would be best to at least address him politely now that he was the one asking questions.
“Trees told you that one of the darkest Dark Lords in the history of dark lords is forming an army,” he stated.
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you sure you weren’t sleeping?” Sparraben said doubtfully.
“Quite sure, sir. My legs were still hurting from walking.”
“Care to explain how the trees were able to communicate this information to you?” he asked.
“You see, my grandma was an Elemental, and…”
“What was her name?” Sparraben interrupted.
“Rhyda Shynade. She was one of the last full elementals left.”
Sparraben’s expression finally changed to something other than anger for longer than a few seconds. He now looked pensive. “Has anyone told you that you look just like her?”
“No,” I said quietly. “Mum never knew her, and Dad died before he could tell me a lot about her.”
“How did your father die, exactly?” he asked next.
“Blue Fever, according to Mum,” I answered.
“Do you remember whether anyone else in your family caught it that year?”
I paused, pushing my memory back. “No, I don’t think anyone did, no,” I said. “But I remember that he came in from the fields one day and his face was all red, and there was a bloody spot on his shirt near where his heart was. And I remember thinking that it was weird that he had died of the Blue Fever when you get boils and spots on your arms, not your chest. And his arms were clean.”
Sparraben’s face was unreadable, but I could tell he was still thinking. “His arms were clean,” he said slowly, “Because more likely than not, he was killed by something that wasn’t the Blue Fever. Did he have an Elemental trait?”
“Yes, Earth and Water,” I replied.
“Did you ever find out how your grandma died?”
“No,” I said quietly. Why did he suddenly want to know how my various deceased relatives met their ends? It wasn’t significant, was it?
“Hm…” he muttered, more to himself than to me. After a long pause, during which I waited very nervously for his verdict, he said, “All right, I’ll do it.”
I couldn’t help grinning a little bit, but the grin faded as he added, “But under the condition that you do a two-month crash course of Ranger Training.”
“Two months?” I repeated, aghast. “Isn’t that a bit LONG?”
“No; in fact, it’s rather short,” Sparraben replied. “Any shorter a time, and you would miss an important point.”
“But… But…” I stuttered. A million reasons WHY two months would be too long – the mysterious Sonru’s growing presence being a significant factor in most of them – raced through my mind, but Sparraben’s height and obvious strength stopped me from voicing my doubts.
“Well?” he asked.
“is there any way you could make it any shorter?” I squeaked nervously.
“no,” he replied shortly. “It’s this way or I’m out.”
A battle was going on in my head – figuring out where Sonru was, WHAT exactly he was, what he was doing, and how I could stop him, all on one hand, and getting Sparraben’s vast amounts of skill and knowledge to do so, which would probably prove to be the wiser course of action simply because of his experience.
“Um… Okay,” I said.
“You are impatient to defeat Sonru,” he observed bluntly. “I can see it in your face. But the first lesson you must learn is patience. Being too hasty can cost you a kill; cause you to overlook a chance. Moving too soon can cost you your life. Get it?”
“Yes, sir,” I said timidly. If he was trying to intimidate me, it was working.
“Good,” he said. “Your training begins now. Remember that this is a crash course – you won’t be able to do anything really well, but you’ll be able to do a lot of things well enough to survive. Understand, girl?”
“Yes, sir.”
And so the real adventure began – the first day of the rest of my life, you might say. The first thing I did as a trainee was to surrender my bag and to begin doing pushups.
Chapter 3
Two months? Sparraben had told me that that was my time frame for training. He had decided, however, that I was either terrible at doing combat or great at it, and had insisted that I extend the training period to seven months if I wanted his help on anything.
Although this gave me a lot more time to develop every skill I had to learn, it also freaked me out slightly. Two months after I’d left home would mean that there would be a chance that Sonru would only have a body and little more. Seven months, however, would probably guarantee him not only a body but a sizeable killing force as well before the only person who knew he was on the rise – also known as me – would have a chance to alert anyone who appeared to care.
Although Sparraben had lectured me on the first day about not jumping into things too quickly, I hadn’t learned that lesson well enough when he said my training should probably be extended for another five months. Two months after Grampa’s death was when the trees just began to change color and the weather grew cool. Four months after his death was when you couldn’t go anywhere without freezing, but the boots and the Ranger cloak I had been given would reduce the cold enormously (although the only times I was ever truly warm was when I had to practice with a sword non-stop for two hours). Five months after was not only in the middle of the winter holiday (usually celebrated with gifts, but the only one I got that year was an order to do more target practice, which wasn’t really a gift at all), it was right in the middle of the worst part of the snowy season. It was also just my luck that that year was the worst winter that any part of Illindara had seen for more than a century. Snow didn’t fall once: it fell three times, each dumping out almost a foot of white powder.
Either way, before I knew it, the trees were budding again, which was sort of alarming. Although I was not more physically fit than I had ever been and I had acquired more skills in almost seven months than I had in thirteen years, I was scared that the trees would wake up from their hibernation and tell me that Sonru was on the brink of annihilating the Three Cities – the general center of Illindara in most senses of the term.
One morning, soon after the trees had began to bud again, Sparraben announced that soon I would be getting my horse, and then we would review all the things I had learned.
“After that,” he added, “You only have about a week of training left, and then you’re free to go save the world or whatever it is you wanted to do.”
So here it is. YAY!
“Well, part of it,” I admitted. “Part of it I just figured out on my own.”
“Which parts?”
“Well, the trees told me the part about Sonru and his army…”
“The trees told you about Sonru,” Sparraben repeated bemusedly.
“Yes, sir.” I decided that it would be best to at least address him politely now that he was the one asking questions.
“Trees told you that one of the darkest Dark Lords in the history of dark lords is forming an army,” he stated.
“Yes, sir.”
“Are you sure you weren’t sleeping?” Sparraben said doubtfully.
“Quite sure, sir. My legs were still hurting from walking.”
“Care to explain how the trees were able to communicate this information to you?” he asked.
“You see, my grandma was an Elemental, and…”
“What was her name?” Sparraben interrupted.
“Rhyda Shynade. She was one of the last full elementals left.”
Sparraben’s expression finally changed to something other than anger for longer than a few seconds. He now looked pensive. “Has anyone told you that you look just like her?”
“No,” I said quietly. “Mum never knew her, and Dad died before he could tell me a lot about her.”
“How did your father die, exactly?” he asked next.
“Blue Fever, according to Mum,” I answered.
“Do you remember whether anyone else in your family caught it that year?”
I paused, pushing my memory back. “No, I don’t think anyone did, no,” I said. “But I remember that he came in from the fields one day and his face was all red, and there was a bloody spot on his shirt near where his heart was. And I remember thinking that it was weird that he had died of the Blue Fever when you get boils and spots on your arms, not your chest. And his arms were clean.”
Sparraben’s face was unreadable, but I could tell he was still thinking. “His arms were clean,” he said slowly, “Because more likely than not, he was killed by something that wasn’t the Blue Fever. Did he have an Elemental trait?”
“Yes, Earth and Water,” I replied.
“Did you ever find out how your grandma died?”
“No,” I said quietly. Why did he suddenly want to know how my various deceased relatives met their ends? It wasn’t significant, was it?
“Hm…” he muttered, more to himself than to me. After a long pause, during which I waited very nervously for his verdict, he said, “All right, I’ll do it.”
I couldn’t help grinning a little bit, but the grin faded as he added, “But under the condition that you do a two-month crash course of Ranger Training.”
“Two months?” I repeated, aghast. “Isn’t that a bit LONG?”
“No; in fact, it’s rather short,” Sparraben replied. “Any shorter a time, and you would miss an important point.”
“But… But…” I stuttered. A million reasons WHY two months would be too long – the mysterious Sonru’s growing presence being a significant factor in most of them – raced through my mind, but Sparraben’s height and obvious strength stopped me from voicing my doubts.
“Well?” he asked.
“is there any way you could make it any shorter?” I squeaked nervously.
“no,” he replied shortly. “It’s this way or I’m out.”
A battle was going on in my head – figuring out where Sonru was, WHAT exactly he was, what he was doing, and how I could stop him, all on one hand, and getting Sparraben’s vast amounts of skill and knowledge to do so, which would probably prove to be the wiser course of action simply because of his experience.
“Um… Okay,” I said.
“You are impatient to defeat Sonru,” he observed bluntly. “I can see it in your face. But the first lesson you must learn is patience. Being too hasty can cost you a kill; cause you to overlook a chance. Moving too soon can cost you your life. Get it?”
“Yes, sir,” I said timidly. If he was trying to intimidate me, it was working.
“Good,” he said. “Your training begins now. Remember that this is a crash course – you won’t be able to do anything really well, but you’ll be able to do a lot of things well enough to survive. Understand, girl?”
“Yes, sir.”
And so the real adventure began – the first day of the rest of my life, you might say. The first thing I did as a trainee was to surrender my bag and to begin doing pushups.
Chapter 3
Two months? Sparraben had told me that that was my time frame for training. He had decided, however, that I was either terrible at doing combat or great at it, and had insisted that I extend the training period to seven months if I wanted his help on anything.
Although this gave me a lot more time to develop every skill I had to learn, it also freaked me out slightly. Two months after I’d left home would mean that there would be a chance that Sonru would only have a body and little more. Seven months, however, would probably guarantee him not only a body but a sizeable killing force as well before the only person who knew he was on the rise – also known as me – would have a chance to alert anyone who appeared to care.
Although Sparraben had lectured me on the first day about not jumping into things too quickly, I hadn’t learned that lesson well enough when he said my training should probably be extended for another five months. Two months after Grampa’s death was when the trees just began to change color and the weather grew cool. Four months after his death was when you couldn’t go anywhere without freezing, but the boots and the Ranger cloak I had been given would reduce the cold enormously (although the only times I was ever truly warm was when I had to practice with a sword non-stop for two hours). Five months after was not only in the middle of the winter holiday (usually celebrated with gifts, but the only one I got that year was an order to do more target practice, which wasn’t really a gift at all), it was right in the middle of the worst part of the snowy season. It was also just my luck that that year was the worst winter that any part of Illindara had seen for more than a century. Snow didn’t fall once: it fell three times, each dumping out almost a foot of white powder.
Either way, before I knew it, the trees were budding again, which was sort of alarming. Although I was not more physically fit than I had ever been and I had acquired more skills in almost seven months than I had in thirteen years, I was scared that the trees would wake up from their hibernation and tell me that Sonru was on the brink of annihilating the Three Cities – the general center of Illindara in most senses of the term.
One morning, soon after the trees had began to bud again, Sparraben announced that soon I would be getting my horse, and then we would review all the things I had learned.
“After that,” he added, “You only have about a week of training left, and then you’re free to go save the world or whatever it is you wanted to do.”
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Nikita part whatever this is...
The trees then did something that sounded like very leafy laughter.
“This is true,” the Oak said.
“Can you tell me where he lives?” I asked.
“It is a short walk straight ahead for you,” the Ash told me, “His cabin is in a clearing that is impossible to miss.”
“All right,” I said.
I started into the forest, although my legs were finally starting to feel tired and my feet were beginning to hurt. I had barely slept in a day and a half, I realized. My eyes itched with tiredness and from squinting in the noonday sun.
“One last thing,” the Poplar rumbled. “The trees are all connected. We will hear of what occurs with you, no matter who you speak to, be it a two-leg, a four-leg, or a tree. We will know of it. Should you need us, speak to the trees, and we will hear you.”
“May the breeze be always at your back,” the Ash added.
“And may the spirits stay with you, Nikita Hyatha,” the Oak finished. “Go in peace, Listener of the Forest.”
“Thank you for everything,” I said. The title of ‘Listener of the Forest’ sounded rather intimidating.
With that, I stepped across the border between the wheat fields and the deep power of the Silvercourt Forest. Instantly, my weariness vanished. The energy of the wood was staggering; it flowed through everything in almost visible waves. It was not exactly magic, but it was a powerful, living force. It was all at once the energy of a thousand living things and the energy of the air itself, of newborn beings and the oldest trees in the forest, all intertwined and bound together like some massive net that allowed enormous freedom. The energy itself was something beautiful almost, but something that was also very intimidating and would demand respect.
The forest itself, beyond the sturdy outer perimeter, was actually quite open-looking and young. Sunlight streamed through the gaps in the trees, and I finally felt that I was on an adventure.
My energy renewed, I continued on straight ahead, like the trees had suggested. There was a path of sorts that led in roughly a straight line in the direction I wanted to go, but the trail was somewhat overgrown and was covered in easily snapped twigs. I felt like it was unwise to be making such a ruckus in a new environment, but nothing stirred.
I reached Sparraben’s cabin about fifteen minutes after entering the wood. Although the energy of the forest still kept the trees looking sturdy but young, I couldn’t help noticing that they were growing closer together, limiting the amount of light that filtered through the canopy.
In Sparraben’s clearing, the occasional stream of light still shot through the top level of leaves, but for the most part, everything was somewhat dark and tinted green.
The cabin itself was nothing special. It was a simple structure made of wood with a few chairs in front and a chimney in the back. The door, as I approached it, looked sturdy and intimidating and very, very solid. The same panic that had visited me before entering the woods washed over me again. This time, however, I was surrounded by the energy I knew well, though I had never met it, and that was what pushed me forward, though I was still terrified.
Taking a few deep breaths, I knocked on the door, sure that the occupant would hear the pounding of my heart better than the knock of my fist on the wood. There was a few second’s pause, then a voice sounded from inside.
“WHAT?” It demanded in a gruff, angry tone. There was the sound of feet pounding against a dirt floor, then an angry-looking man about a head and a half taller than I was opened the door. “What do you want?” He spat, in a tone that implied that he wouldn’t comply with whatever I asked of him.
“I’m… I’m…” I stuttered, terrified by the anger in his eyes and in his tone. “I... uh… I’m looking for- for Sparraben of Li-Lianland in the name of Shyasha Rinkari, the scarred princess of the Three Cities of Illindara.”
“What about Sparraben?” the man demanded.
“I – my grandpa sent me,” I stammered. “He- he said Sparraben could help – help me with my – what I have to do.” The anger his glance showed that he was about to boil over. I wondered if I had interrupted something important that he’d been doing. Like sleeping. Or something. I was fairly certain that this was the same Sparraben that Grampa had talked about – he had the same scar under his right eye, which was brown, while the other one was cobalt blue.
“Who’s your grandpa, then?” Sparraben demanded.
“His name was Faug Hyatha,” I told him anxiously, “and he lived in Anana before he went on the Crystal Quest.” Something in Sparraben’s gaze flickered for a moment, but his stance was still aggressive and the flicker of emotion was gone in an instant.
“Look, I came out here to get away from all that, not to have MORE adventures,” he grunted, “so clear off.” He turned around and began to shut the door.
Although I knew it was terribly rude, I stuck my foot into the gap between the frame and the door before it shut. The reaction caused an immense, painful reaction in all of the toes on my left foot.
“Please, I need your help,” I begged, clutching my foot. “Please. I wouldn’t have come if it weren’t absolutely necessary. Would you please listen?”
Sparraben turned around and regarded me for a moment, and I saw again the flicker of emotion in his eyes. I now was able to recognize it as something that resembled either pity or hope. Although he seemed to be a shrewd man, the look in Sparraben’s glanced made it seem that he believed the tears welling up in my eyes were due to desperation rather than an instinctive reaction to the growing pain in my foot.
“All right then, girl,” Sparraben finally conceded. “What do you have to say?”
“Well… first, I wanted to say that Grampa told me stories about you and Shyasha Rinkari, and I think you’re amazing,” I started. I’d learned from attempts to force Jack to do stuff that starting out with flattery always worked best.
“Girl, I’m not going to waste time listening to you rant about how much you love me,” Sparraben snapped. “It only works to make weaklings listen.”
I guess that option didn’t work. I silently cursed Jack for being one of three people I actually talked to. “All right,” I said slowly, “I know you’re the best. Grampa always said it. He also said on his deathbed that I had to find you and get you to help me bring Shyasha Rinkari back from the dead and to convince King Telsiel that a war is about to happen because the Dark Lord, Sonru, is bringing down the forest to raise up an army, and you’re the only one who can help because you’re the best Ranger out there.”
“He told you all of this on his deathbed?”
“This is true,” the Oak said.
“Can you tell me where he lives?” I asked.
“It is a short walk straight ahead for you,” the Ash told me, “His cabin is in a clearing that is impossible to miss.”
“All right,” I said.
I started into the forest, although my legs were finally starting to feel tired and my feet were beginning to hurt. I had barely slept in a day and a half, I realized. My eyes itched with tiredness and from squinting in the noonday sun.
“One last thing,” the Poplar rumbled. “The trees are all connected. We will hear of what occurs with you, no matter who you speak to, be it a two-leg, a four-leg, or a tree. We will know of it. Should you need us, speak to the trees, and we will hear you.”
“May the breeze be always at your back,” the Ash added.
“And may the spirits stay with you, Nikita Hyatha,” the Oak finished. “Go in peace, Listener of the Forest.”
“Thank you for everything,” I said. The title of ‘Listener of the Forest’ sounded rather intimidating.
With that, I stepped across the border between the wheat fields and the deep power of the Silvercourt Forest. Instantly, my weariness vanished. The energy of the wood was staggering; it flowed through everything in almost visible waves. It was not exactly magic, but it was a powerful, living force. It was all at once the energy of a thousand living things and the energy of the air itself, of newborn beings and the oldest trees in the forest, all intertwined and bound together like some massive net that allowed enormous freedom. The energy itself was something beautiful almost, but something that was also very intimidating and would demand respect.
The forest itself, beyond the sturdy outer perimeter, was actually quite open-looking and young. Sunlight streamed through the gaps in the trees, and I finally felt that I was on an adventure.
My energy renewed, I continued on straight ahead, like the trees had suggested. There was a path of sorts that led in roughly a straight line in the direction I wanted to go, but the trail was somewhat overgrown and was covered in easily snapped twigs. I felt like it was unwise to be making such a ruckus in a new environment, but nothing stirred.
I reached Sparraben’s cabin about fifteen minutes after entering the wood. Although the energy of the forest still kept the trees looking sturdy but young, I couldn’t help noticing that they were growing closer together, limiting the amount of light that filtered through the canopy.
In Sparraben’s clearing, the occasional stream of light still shot through the top level of leaves, but for the most part, everything was somewhat dark and tinted green.
The cabin itself was nothing special. It was a simple structure made of wood with a few chairs in front and a chimney in the back. The door, as I approached it, looked sturdy and intimidating and very, very solid. The same panic that had visited me before entering the woods washed over me again. This time, however, I was surrounded by the energy I knew well, though I had never met it, and that was what pushed me forward, though I was still terrified.
Taking a few deep breaths, I knocked on the door, sure that the occupant would hear the pounding of my heart better than the knock of my fist on the wood. There was a few second’s pause, then a voice sounded from inside.
“WHAT?” It demanded in a gruff, angry tone. There was the sound of feet pounding against a dirt floor, then an angry-looking man about a head and a half taller than I was opened the door. “What do you want?” He spat, in a tone that implied that he wouldn’t comply with whatever I asked of him.
“I’m… I’m…” I stuttered, terrified by the anger in his eyes and in his tone. “I... uh… I’m looking for- for Sparraben of Li-Lianland in the name of Shyasha Rinkari, the scarred princess of the Three Cities of Illindara.”
“What about Sparraben?” the man demanded.
“I – my grandpa sent me,” I stammered. “He- he said Sparraben could help – help me with my – what I have to do.” The anger his glance showed that he was about to boil over. I wondered if I had interrupted something important that he’d been doing. Like sleeping. Or something. I was fairly certain that this was the same Sparraben that Grampa had talked about – he had the same scar under his right eye, which was brown, while the other one was cobalt blue.
“Who’s your grandpa, then?” Sparraben demanded.
“His name was Faug Hyatha,” I told him anxiously, “and he lived in Anana before he went on the Crystal Quest.” Something in Sparraben’s gaze flickered for a moment, but his stance was still aggressive and the flicker of emotion was gone in an instant.
“Look, I came out here to get away from all that, not to have MORE adventures,” he grunted, “so clear off.” He turned around and began to shut the door.
Although I knew it was terribly rude, I stuck my foot into the gap between the frame and the door before it shut. The reaction caused an immense, painful reaction in all of the toes on my left foot.
“Please, I need your help,” I begged, clutching my foot. “Please. I wouldn’t have come if it weren’t absolutely necessary. Would you please listen?”
Sparraben turned around and regarded me for a moment, and I saw again the flicker of emotion in his eyes. I now was able to recognize it as something that resembled either pity or hope. Although he seemed to be a shrewd man, the look in Sparraben’s glanced made it seem that he believed the tears welling up in my eyes were due to desperation rather than an instinctive reaction to the growing pain in my foot.
“All right then, girl,” Sparraben finally conceded. “What do you have to say?”
“Well… first, I wanted to say that Grampa told me stories about you and Shyasha Rinkari, and I think you’re amazing,” I started. I’d learned from attempts to force Jack to do stuff that starting out with flattery always worked best.
“Girl, I’m not going to waste time listening to you rant about how much you love me,” Sparraben snapped. “It only works to make weaklings listen.”
I guess that option didn’t work. I silently cursed Jack for being one of three people I actually talked to. “All right,” I said slowly, “I know you’re the best. Grampa always said it. He also said on his deathbed that I had to find you and get you to help me bring Shyasha Rinkari back from the dead and to convince King Telsiel that a war is about to happen because the Dark Lord, Sonru, is bringing down the forest to raise up an army, and you’re the only one who can help because you’re the best Ranger out there.”
“He told you all of this on his deathbed?”
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Nikita Part Three: I CAN TALK TO TREES?
Chapter 2
I felt stupid that I hadn’t anticipated the potential dangers of the Silvercourt Forest. Something in my head – the part that had grown up knowing the way of life on a farm where the only danger was the heat and the birds – had not made the connection that a forest of trees was far different from a forest of wheat, barley, corn, and beans, and that a forest of trees would actually be capable of growing tall enough and spaced out enough to hide things aside from me. The coward bit of my head wanted to turn back NOW, go home NOW, and make some lame excuse to Mum about having gone into town with a few coins to try and get some new seeds or something. I had actually turned around and had begun working on the seed story some more, and had exited the shade of the trees, when I heard a whisper.
It wasn’t a very loud whisper by any means; in fact, I wouldn’t have noticed it if a small shiver of energy hadn’t sped through the ground beneath my feet. It wasn’t as if the earth were about to split in two beneath my feet; in fact, it felt like the same sort of shiver of energy I felt when new seeds germinated – a tense, expectant sort of “HI! HERE I AM!” type of energy.
The whisper, I knew intuitively, had come from the trees. It had said, softly but firmly, “Stop.”
I halted. Nothing like this had every happened before, especially not with any wheat, barley, corn, or bean plants.
“What?” I murmured, surprised at what had just happened.
“Stay,” the trees rustled. I think, to anyone else, it would have appeared that the trees were being affected by a wind that the fields did not experience. “We’ve never met anyone like you in a long time.”
“You can… talk?” I asked, turning around.
“We have always been able to speak,” an oak said. She sounded about my age. I don’t know how I knew she was an oak; I wasn’t even sure I was looking at the right tree, but I was pretty sure she was the one with the knot on her left side, my right, that kind of looked like a face. “But it has been a long time since we have met someone with the power to Listen.”
“How long has it been, exactly?” I wondered.
“We cannot say,” a nearby, deep-voiced poplar replied. “Time does not pass for us the same way that it does for you.”
“We can guarantee that it has been a very long time indeed since we have been able to converse with a two-leg,” the oak said.
“We had nearly given up hope,” an ash said in a fast, frontal accent. Now, I realized, the three trees with which I was communicating stood in a rough semi-circle in front of me. It was rather bizarre to thing that I had never actually seen a real tree and now I was talking to three of them.
“We have nearly met the fate of the Forgotten Glen,” the Oak murmured sadly.
“What happened at the Forgotten Glen?” I wondered.
“Nothing,” The poplar rumbled. “That is the sad thing.”
“None of the two-legs who could Listen went there for centuries,” the Oak murmured. “That’s why we began calling it the Forgotten Glen, you see, because eventually, no two-leg went there. It is in one of the oldest parts of the forest where the roots run deep, and where, as the rumors have it, the darkest creatures creep. But now the trees there are quiet, and they cannot speak to anyone, not even to murmur amongst themselves. They have gone into a sleep that it is close to impossible to wake up from. You cannot speak. You cannot move. You cannot grow. You just sit there, like some basic garden plant.”
“It is happening slowly, all over the forest,” the Ash admitted wearily. “Lately, however, patches of the forest have fallen silent even though a group of two-legs went by recently. The forest is not dying, just falling silent. That is the sadder thing to watch.”
“Who is doing this?” I wondered. It felt like my motives for finding Sparraben – I didn’t know why I felt so strongly about it, I was just sure that I had to act. “And why?”
“It is a dark wizard,” rumbled the Poplar, “Sonru.”
The name hit a bell in my head. “Sonru?” I repeated. “Wasn’t he killed at the end of the Crystal Wars?”
“The Crystal Wars are far from over,” murmured the Ash. “They’ve only just begun. That was the first battle. The next, I fear, may be coming soon.”
“Sonru was not killed at the end of the first encounter,” the Poplar explained, “just dissipated. He is gaining strength, bit by bit. He has already found a new body, and he is now drawing energy from the wood to fuel his new army. He must be stopped. The fate of the wood depends on it.”
This news was slightly shocking. I didn’t even know that trees could talk, and now they were telling me that something had to be done about some crazy wizard guy that I’d thought had died. Surely Grampa hadn’t expected this.
Or maybe he had!
“Grampa knew,” I said aloud, the little pieces finally coming together in my head. “He knew which is why he told me I had to go to meet – and then bring her – and that’s why I had to know! Because he knew I could talk to you! And… and…” Excitement was rushing through my body, suddenly invigorating me and restoring the energy I hadn’t known I’d lost.
“Do you think this child has lost it?” the Ash wondered to the other two. “She looks a bit young to be losing it, for a two-leg. But you never know.”
“No, I haven’t lost it,” I assured him giddily. “I’ve only just realized what’s been going on! What can you tell me about Sparraben of Lianland?”
“Sparraben of Lianland?” the Oak scoffed. “He resides near here. Although he cannot Listen as you can, he can understand what many humans cannot. But he’s long gone.”
“What do you mean, he’s long gone?” I demanded. “He hasn’t left?”
“No, he’s still here,” the Oak said. “But he’s not right in the head.”
“In fact, he hasn’t gone anywhere in about ten of your years,” The Poplar offered. “Only leaves his hut to go find food. Then sits inside yet again and broods. Hasn’t spoken to anybody in years, I believe. He was a rather nice chap a few years back, right until the end of the First Crystal War. Always went around with a respect for the forest. He used our shadows and whispered thanks whenever he killed something, things like that. Now he just sits in his cabin and shoots a bit of game, picks a few berries. Never bothers to go out and smell the sap, these days. Sad, really.”
“Well, where does he live? Maybe I can talk to him,” I suggested.
“I doubt it,” the Oak replied. “He won’t talk to anyone. We’ve tried.”
“Do you think that might have anything to do with the fact that he probably can’t understand what you’re saying?”
I felt stupid that I hadn’t anticipated the potential dangers of the Silvercourt Forest. Something in my head – the part that had grown up knowing the way of life on a farm where the only danger was the heat and the birds – had not made the connection that a forest of trees was far different from a forest of wheat, barley, corn, and beans, and that a forest of trees would actually be capable of growing tall enough and spaced out enough to hide things aside from me. The coward bit of my head wanted to turn back NOW, go home NOW, and make some lame excuse to Mum about having gone into town with a few coins to try and get some new seeds or something. I had actually turned around and had begun working on the seed story some more, and had exited the shade of the trees, when I heard a whisper.
It wasn’t a very loud whisper by any means; in fact, I wouldn’t have noticed it if a small shiver of energy hadn’t sped through the ground beneath my feet. It wasn’t as if the earth were about to split in two beneath my feet; in fact, it felt like the same sort of shiver of energy I felt when new seeds germinated – a tense, expectant sort of “HI! HERE I AM!” type of energy.
The whisper, I knew intuitively, had come from the trees. It had said, softly but firmly, “Stop.”
I halted. Nothing like this had every happened before, especially not with any wheat, barley, corn, or bean plants.
“What?” I murmured, surprised at what had just happened.
“Stay,” the trees rustled. I think, to anyone else, it would have appeared that the trees were being affected by a wind that the fields did not experience. “We’ve never met anyone like you in a long time.”
“You can… talk?” I asked, turning around.
“We have always been able to speak,” an oak said. She sounded about my age. I don’t know how I knew she was an oak; I wasn’t even sure I was looking at the right tree, but I was pretty sure she was the one with the knot on her left side, my right, that kind of looked like a face. “But it has been a long time since we have met someone with the power to Listen.”
“How long has it been, exactly?” I wondered.
“We cannot say,” a nearby, deep-voiced poplar replied. “Time does not pass for us the same way that it does for you.”
“We can guarantee that it has been a very long time indeed since we have been able to converse with a two-leg,” the oak said.
“We had nearly given up hope,” an ash said in a fast, frontal accent. Now, I realized, the three trees with which I was communicating stood in a rough semi-circle in front of me. It was rather bizarre to thing that I had never actually seen a real tree and now I was talking to three of them.
“We have nearly met the fate of the Forgotten Glen,” the Oak murmured sadly.
“What happened at the Forgotten Glen?” I wondered.
“Nothing,” The poplar rumbled. “That is the sad thing.”
“None of the two-legs who could Listen went there for centuries,” the Oak murmured. “That’s why we began calling it the Forgotten Glen, you see, because eventually, no two-leg went there. It is in one of the oldest parts of the forest where the roots run deep, and where, as the rumors have it, the darkest creatures creep. But now the trees there are quiet, and they cannot speak to anyone, not even to murmur amongst themselves. They have gone into a sleep that it is close to impossible to wake up from. You cannot speak. You cannot move. You cannot grow. You just sit there, like some basic garden plant.”
“It is happening slowly, all over the forest,” the Ash admitted wearily. “Lately, however, patches of the forest have fallen silent even though a group of two-legs went by recently. The forest is not dying, just falling silent. That is the sadder thing to watch.”
“Who is doing this?” I wondered. It felt like my motives for finding Sparraben – I didn’t know why I felt so strongly about it, I was just sure that I had to act. “And why?”
“It is a dark wizard,” rumbled the Poplar, “Sonru.”
The name hit a bell in my head. “Sonru?” I repeated. “Wasn’t he killed at the end of the Crystal Wars?”
“The Crystal Wars are far from over,” murmured the Ash. “They’ve only just begun. That was the first battle. The next, I fear, may be coming soon.”
“Sonru was not killed at the end of the first encounter,” the Poplar explained, “just dissipated. He is gaining strength, bit by bit. He has already found a new body, and he is now drawing energy from the wood to fuel his new army. He must be stopped. The fate of the wood depends on it.”
This news was slightly shocking. I didn’t even know that trees could talk, and now they were telling me that something had to be done about some crazy wizard guy that I’d thought had died. Surely Grampa hadn’t expected this.
Or maybe he had!
“Grampa knew,” I said aloud, the little pieces finally coming together in my head. “He knew which is why he told me I had to go to meet – and then bring her – and that’s why I had to know! Because he knew I could talk to you! And… and…” Excitement was rushing through my body, suddenly invigorating me and restoring the energy I hadn’t known I’d lost.
“Do you think this child has lost it?” the Ash wondered to the other two. “She looks a bit young to be losing it, for a two-leg. But you never know.”
“No, I haven’t lost it,” I assured him giddily. “I’ve only just realized what’s been going on! What can you tell me about Sparraben of Lianland?”
“Sparraben of Lianland?” the Oak scoffed. “He resides near here. Although he cannot Listen as you can, he can understand what many humans cannot. But he’s long gone.”
“What do you mean, he’s long gone?” I demanded. “He hasn’t left?”
“No, he’s still here,” the Oak said. “But he’s not right in the head.”
“In fact, he hasn’t gone anywhere in about ten of your years,” The Poplar offered. “Only leaves his hut to go find food. Then sits inside yet again and broods. Hasn’t spoken to anybody in years, I believe. He was a rather nice chap a few years back, right until the end of the First Crystal War. Always went around with a respect for the forest. He used our shadows and whispered thanks whenever he killed something, things like that. Now he just sits in his cabin and shoots a bit of game, picks a few berries. Never bothers to go out and smell the sap, these days. Sad, really.”
“Well, where does he live? Maybe I can talk to him,” I suggested.
“I doubt it,” the Oak replied. “He won’t talk to anyone. We’ve tried.”
“Do you think that might have anything to do with the fact that he probably can’t understand what you’re saying?”
Monday, September 20, 2010
Nikita, Episode Two
Since I actually have deadlines I need to make for Creative Writing, this has been Super Epically Helpful in forcing me to go forward with the story I am currently working on. As I have to turn in 1200 words a week, it is IMMENSELY helpful in forcing me to write something for every story. (It also helps that last weekend I wrote 2100 words. I am currently at 2800 words. Now is the time when I actually have to start doing a lot more. Not that I mind. But still.) Anyhoo, here is the next set of (about) 1200 words. I DO have more stockpiled, but it's only about half a page, so don't get your hopes up until next week.
So here it is. Read it, comment on it, print it out and write all over it, whatever.
After my grandfather’s death, I knew that it was finally my time to have the adventure I’d always dreamed of. The only problem was getting Mum to understand that Grampa had asked me to, even after relaying every detail of our conversation to her.
“Nikita, you know better than to believe his stories,” Mum told me for what felt like the millionth time. I had tried and failed to get my mother to let me go on the mission while we chopped vegetables for dinner. “He was raving more and more as he got older and older.”
“You just don’t want to believe that I’m growing up, is that it?” I demanded.
“No, it’s because your grandfather had a very big imagination when he was younger, and as he got older, he began to confuse it with reality,” Mum shot back.
“But everyone knows that Shyasha Rinkari existed,” I insisted. “If she existed, why should Sparraben be a fragment of his imagination?”
“Because…” Mum’s voice faltered; the steady beat of her knife on the cutting board ceased abruptly. I looked up from my pile of parsnips. “I’ve heard stories of Sparraben,” Mum said quietly. “Beyond the ones your grandfather told, I mean. The man doesn’t sound like the most trustworthy of companions.”
“Everyone says that about Rangers,” I answered at once. Had I been around anyone else but my mother, I wouldn’t have the confidence to argue my point. Whenever I went into town, I would always accept insults and jokes without comment, and whenever I talked to anyone, be it the town crier or one of the farm hands, I would never state my own view and always agree with theirs, even if it differed radically from my own.
“Well, maybe it’s true,” Mum replied, returning to the carrots she was cutting. Mum’s opinion of Rangers was not uncommon – the rumors said they had dark magic and were really double agents against the rulers in Norasona, though Grampa said that was nonsense, and the Rangers just got a bad rap because they were a group who rarely took apprentices, lurked in dark shadows unseen, and had a greater knowledge of weaponry than most of the Royal Army combined.
“I still think it’s because you’re over protective,” I told her persistently. “I’m not a kid anymore, Mother. Grampa had been on loads of adventures by the time he was thirteen-”
“Grampa had nobody but your great-Uncle Valin to look after him from the time he was about five, so that’s irrelevant,” Mum interrupted.
“It would also be an insult to his memory to not try to heed his wishes, even if they turn out to be complete rubbish,” I added.
“I still don’t like the idea of you wandering around alone in the middle of Silvercourt Forest,” Mum said, taking a different tack. “There are dark creatures lurking in there.”
“Dark creatures lurk everywhere, Mum,” I sighed. “The trick is to find out which are the bad ones before they eat you.”
“You’re not going,” Mum snapped with a horribly irritating finality.
“Why?” I demanded; setting down my knife with more force than I thought was in my arms.
“I’ve just told you why,” Mum growled. When she’s mad, she doesn’t yell, she just gets kind of dark and vicious.
“Because you’re scared I’m going to die because my supposedly lunatic grandfather gave me the name of an allegedly untrustworthy Ranger who lives in a location with dark creatures and told me that I might be able to save the world?”
“Because it’s a dangerous enterprise no matter which way you slice it, and that would be far too unsafe an endeavor for any thirteen-year-old to undertake.”
“Mum, there’s going to be danger anywhere I go,” I told her.
She was quiet after that, and I decided I shouldn’t argue my point further.
I didn’t know why I had such a strong urge to seek out Sparraben, but I knew that, whatever my mother said, I would be packing a bag right after dinner and be leaving before dawn, regardless of whether anyone tried to stop me. And that’s what happened.
When I returned to my room that evening, I immediately began putting items into my small satchel for the next morning. I didn’t pack much, but I knew it would save a lot of time later on. I put in my flint, a knife for defense, a few spare changes of clothing, what little money I had, and my boots for when the weather got cold – since it was the middle of the summer, I normally walked around barefoot. My plan was to steal some food from the pantry when I left, to avoid the risk of Mum or Jack waking up for a midnight snack and finding the food gone before I had left the house.
I didn’t sleep at all that night. I knew that I would need rest for my journey, but I spent the night in terror that someone would find out my plan and foil it. In truth, I could only sometimes stand up to my mother like I had before dinner. On the rare occasion that I did find my guts and use them to my advantage, my nerves spent the next few hours wondering if, when, and how badly she would retaliate.
When the horizon finally started to go pink, I rose from my cot and walked quietly over to the pantry, where I retrieved some fruits, vegetables, and a few muffins from the bakery – enough to last me through at least two days. Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I crept out the door, walking through the grass of the yard so as to not leave footprints, and continued west, away from the sun. I don’t know why I was so sure that the Silvercourt Forest lay to the west; I was, however, completely certain of the fact that I was going to be walking for a long time, and that I did not want to have a headache from staring into the sun too long right after I’d succeeded in leaving home.
After walking away from the sun long enough to have the heat start moving from my back to the top of my head, I finally reached the outer edges of the Silvercourt Forest.
At home, my usual view of the world involved horizon and wheat to the north, south, and west, and wheat, the village, and our house to the east. During my long walk that morning, my view changed gradually – the house and eventually the walls of the village and, after a long while, our farm, vanished from view as I went farther and farther, occasionally snacking on bits of muffin. Over the last hour and a half, the Silvercourt Forest began looming over the horizon, growing steadily nearer and progressively darker and more intimidating.
Now that I’d reached the edge of the forest, I could see that the trees grew so close together that the roots were intertwined. The tangled roots gave the forest a look of old strength and deep, powerful magic. I could barely see past the first few trees, and a sudden thought struck me – anything could be lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike. Anything and everything in that dark mass of trees had the power to inflict pain if it wanted to, even the vegetation. That, more than anything, made me realize that there was more to this whole questing thing that a few stolen blueberry muffins and that I really should have packed a bigger knife.
So here it is. Read it, comment on it, print it out and write all over it, whatever.
After my grandfather’s death, I knew that it was finally my time to have the adventure I’d always dreamed of. The only problem was getting Mum to understand that Grampa had asked me to, even after relaying every detail of our conversation to her.
“Nikita, you know better than to believe his stories,” Mum told me for what felt like the millionth time. I had tried and failed to get my mother to let me go on the mission while we chopped vegetables for dinner. “He was raving more and more as he got older and older.”
“You just don’t want to believe that I’m growing up, is that it?” I demanded.
“No, it’s because your grandfather had a very big imagination when he was younger, and as he got older, he began to confuse it with reality,” Mum shot back.
“But everyone knows that Shyasha Rinkari existed,” I insisted. “If she existed, why should Sparraben be a fragment of his imagination?”
“Because…” Mum’s voice faltered; the steady beat of her knife on the cutting board ceased abruptly. I looked up from my pile of parsnips. “I’ve heard stories of Sparraben,” Mum said quietly. “Beyond the ones your grandfather told, I mean. The man doesn’t sound like the most trustworthy of companions.”
“Everyone says that about Rangers,” I answered at once. Had I been around anyone else but my mother, I wouldn’t have the confidence to argue my point. Whenever I went into town, I would always accept insults and jokes without comment, and whenever I talked to anyone, be it the town crier or one of the farm hands, I would never state my own view and always agree with theirs, even if it differed radically from my own.
“Well, maybe it’s true,” Mum replied, returning to the carrots she was cutting. Mum’s opinion of Rangers was not uncommon – the rumors said they had dark magic and were really double agents against the rulers in Norasona, though Grampa said that was nonsense, and the Rangers just got a bad rap because they were a group who rarely took apprentices, lurked in dark shadows unseen, and had a greater knowledge of weaponry than most of the Royal Army combined.
“I still think it’s because you’re over protective,” I told her persistently. “I’m not a kid anymore, Mother. Grampa had been on loads of adventures by the time he was thirteen-”
“Grampa had nobody but your great-Uncle Valin to look after him from the time he was about five, so that’s irrelevant,” Mum interrupted.
“It would also be an insult to his memory to not try to heed his wishes, even if they turn out to be complete rubbish,” I added.
“I still don’t like the idea of you wandering around alone in the middle of Silvercourt Forest,” Mum said, taking a different tack. “There are dark creatures lurking in there.”
“Dark creatures lurk everywhere, Mum,” I sighed. “The trick is to find out which are the bad ones before they eat you.”
“You’re not going,” Mum snapped with a horribly irritating finality.
“Why?” I demanded; setting down my knife with more force than I thought was in my arms.
“I’ve just told you why,” Mum growled. When she’s mad, she doesn’t yell, she just gets kind of dark and vicious.
“Because you’re scared I’m going to die because my supposedly lunatic grandfather gave me the name of an allegedly untrustworthy Ranger who lives in a location with dark creatures and told me that I might be able to save the world?”
“Because it’s a dangerous enterprise no matter which way you slice it, and that would be far too unsafe an endeavor for any thirteen-year-old to undertake.”
“Mum, there’s going to be danger anywhere I go,” I told her.
She was quiet after that, and I decided I shouldn’t argue my point further.
I didn’t know why I had such a strong urge to seek out Sparraben, but I knew that, whatever my mother said, I would be packing a bag right after dinner and be leaving before dawn, regardless of whether anyone tried to stop me. And that’s what happened.
When I returned to my room that evening, I immediately began putting items into my small satchel for the next morning. I didn’t pack much, but I knew it would save a lot of time later on. I put in my flint, a knife for defense, a few spare changes of clothing, what little money I had, and my boots for when the weather got cold – since it was the middle of the summer, I normally walked around barefoot. My plan was to steal some food from the pantry when I left, to avoid the risk of Mum or Jack waking up for a midnight snack and finding the food gone before I had left the house.
I didn’t sleep at all that night. I knew that I would need rest for my journey, but I spent the night in terror that someone would find out my plan and foil it. In truth, I could only sometimes stand up to my mother like I had before dinner. On the rare occasion that I did find my guts and use them to my advantage, my nerves spent the next few hours wondering if, when, and how badly she would retaliate.
When the horizon finally started to go pink, I rose from my cot and walked quietly over to the pantry, where I retrieved some fruits, vegetables, and a few muffins from the bakery – enough to last me through at least two days. Slinging my bag over my shoulder, I crept out the door, walking through the grass of the yard so as to not leave footprints, and continued west, away from the sun. I don’t know why I was so sure that the Silvercourt Forest lay to the west; I was, however, completely certain of the fact that I was going to be walking for a long time, and that I did not want to have a headache from staring into the sun too long right after I’d succeeded in leaving home.
After walking away from the sun long enough to have the heat start moving from my back to the top of my head, I finally reached the outer edges of the Silvercourt Forest.
At home, my usual view of the world involved horizon and wheat to the north, south, and west, and wheat, the village, and our house to the east. During my long walk that morning, my view changed gradually – the house and eventually the walls of the village and, after a long while, our farm, vanished from view as I went farther and farther, occasionally snacking on bits of muffin. Over the last hour and a half, the Silvercourt Forest began looming over the horizon, growing steadily nearer and progressively darker and more intimidating.
Now that I’d reached the edge of the forest, I could see that the trees grew so close together that the roots were intertwined. The tangled roots gave the forest a look of old strength and deep, powerful magic. I could barely see past the first few trees, and a sudden thought struck me – anything could be lurking in the shadows, waiting to strike. Anything and everything in that dark mass of trees had the power to inflict pain if it wanted to, even the vegetation. That, more than anything, made me realize that there was more to this whole questing thing that a few stolen blueberry muffins and that I really should have packed a bigger knife.
Monday, September 13, 2010
part of the story!!
Okay, as I'm very bored and I have nothing better to do, here's the first bit of the creative writing story. I'm going to post as often as I turn it in (aka once a week), and as I'll probably be turning it in tomorrow or Wednesday, it makes sense.
I do have more, I'm just not posting it. Yet.
It will come, though.
Prologue
All my life, I’ve heard stories of Shyasha Rinkari. She was a legend in her day; she’s still spoken of in plenty of places. The Lazy Dog, the pub in town, boasts that it was the location of the Crystal Quests’ beginning, where Shyasha Rinkari first met up with Faug and Valin Hyatha of Anana, and thus commenced the journey that would change our world.
Of course, it’s been a few generations since then. Although the land has not fallen into complete disarray, it’s not as good as it once was, according to Grampa. He says that Telsiel, the King, is starting to lose it. It would be rather hard for Grampa to judge whether King Telsiel was losing it or not, because we live on a farm in possibly the most boring part of Illindara in existence. Mum says that it’s Grampa who’s losing it, not Telsiel, but I like hearing his opinions, and I love it when he tells the stories of the Crystal Quest. Mum says most of them are made up, but I choose not to believe that. Why would he tell them if they weren’t true?
Grampa says Shyasha Rinkari has died; that she was killed when he was about twelve and he saw it happen. He also says, however, that she could come back to stay, just once, when the world had desperate need of her. Mum says that that’s the biggest pile of Goblin droppings that she’s heard yet, but I secretly wondered if the legendary Ranger could be brought back, and what kind of person it would take to do it. I often hoped that I could be the one who brought around her return, but I knew that was impossible. Mum would never let me go.
You see, my grandmother was an Elemental – a being that channels the rhythms of the earth, water, wind, fire, and ice, and can use those rhythms to their disposal. She was one of the last ones left, and she knew that it was going be a big risk in choosing mortality and marrying Grampa. But as she was an elemental, she could pass down her powers to her children – her oldest son was my father, who had an affinity for earth and water. He passed those traits to me and my younger brother, Jack.
Dad died when I was little, a short while after Jack was born. I’ve had to do practically all of the labor on the farm ever since. I love working with the land (I got the Earth affinity), but I hate the fact that I’m stuck here, barely literate and wholly uneducated, and this is where I’m supposed to stay, because Mum and Jack need me to help work the land and make the crops grow better.
Although I love the crops, I want to see the rest of the world, to actually learn something and have an adventure. By the time Grampa was my age he had escaped a dragon, fought off orcs, and met my grandmother. Although Mum insists that all of it is tosh, when she gets to be his age, she won’t have any stories for her daughter-in-law to call ‘tosh.’ I don’t want that to happen to me, and yet it was supposed to be my fate.
I think Fate has a way of fooling you, though, so it threw me a surprise on a sad day and changed everything.
Chapter 1
Usually it was either Jack or Mum who looked after Grampa while I worked in the fields, getting browned and freckled by the sun. Every few months, I could be aided by a young man who needed a job, even though we could barely afford to pay him anything.
On my thirteenth birthday, which is in the middle of summer, I was out working in the fields with Mum when Jack came running out from our small hut, looking absolutely terrified.
“What is it, Jack?” Mum asked at once.
“It’s… Grampa…” he panted, clutching the stitch in his side from running all the way across the field to reach us.
“What about him?” Mum demanded, looking nervous. I was listening intently as well – Grampa had had a cough for quite some time, and he was getting to the age where a simple head cold could easily turn into the Blue Fever, and every day I worried that it would be his last.
“He’s… he’s…” Jack stuttered. “He’s going…” was all my brother could manage. My gut translated that into only one thing: death was coming for Grampa at last. My heart pounding, I started sprinting at once towards the cabin, outrunning my mother and brother easily due to the long stride I’d inherited from my father; my bare feet kicked up dark soil as I dashed across the field.
When I arrived in the hut, I had to pause for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. Grampa was slouched over in his usual chair near the fire pit, but he looked worse than normal.
“Grampa?” I said hesitantly. He looked up at the sound of my voice.
“Nikita,” he grumbled in his deep voice, “come here.”
I obeyed at once. “What is it, Grampa?” I asked.
“All the stories I have told you are true,” he said, as if every word was costing him a lot. “It is your turn now.”
“My turn for what?” I breathed.
“Your turn for an adventure,” he told me, coughing several times. “Shyasha Rinkari will need to be woken again. I have a feeling…” his voice trailed off.
“Grampa?” my voice caught in my throat. He couldn’t be dead… not yet…
“Nikita, seek out Sparraben of Lianland,” Grampa said with a few more coughs that sounded like he was going to put out his stomach soon.
“Sparraben of Lianland,” I repeated. The name sounded familiar. “You mean… the one who trained Shyasha Rinkari?”
“He lives in the eastern end of the Silvercourt Forest. Tell him Faug sent you in the name of the Scarred Princess.”
“You knew Shyasha Rinkari?”
“Yes, girl, how did you think I learned about Sparraben?” Grampa snapped with a bite in his voice. “Shyasha Rinkari held him in the highest regard. He even gave Rhyda a bit of Ranger training…” Rhyda was the grandmother that had been an Elemental, and had been married to Grampa.
“Seek out Sparraben,” I prompted, nervous that I would miss something important, though I didn’t know what that might be. “And then what?”
“Tell him you need his help bringing Shyasha Rinkari back. He will help you from there. It is of the upmost importance that you do this. I fear the world will have need of a hero soon.”
“Faug, you can’t be telling Nikita things like this with your last breaths,” Mum snapped. I was so focused on remembering Grampa’s instructions that I hadn’t heard her and Jack enter the room.
“She needs to know, Leanna,” Grampa said. “Nikita, find Sparraben.”
“I will, Grampa,” I promised.
“Leanna, don’t stifle her so much,” Grampa told her, coughing again hard enough to actually pull out his stomach or some other vital organ. “Nor Jack. Jack, work hard, all right, my boy?”
“All right, Grampa,” Jack said.
Soon after Jack had made his promise, Grampa had a very hard coughing fit, and when it was over...
Grampa had expired.
I bowed my head so Jack and Mum wouldn’t see my tears.
I do have more, I'm just not posting it. Yet.
It will come, though.
Prologue
All my life, I’ve heard stories of Shyasha Rinkari. She was a legend in her day; she’s still spoken of in plenty of places. The Lazy Dog, the pub in town, boasts that it was the location of the Crystal Quests’ beginning, where Shyasha Rinkari first met up with Faug and Valin Hyatha of Anana, and thus commenced the journey that would change our world.
Of course, it’s been a few generations since then. Although the land has not fallen into complete disarray, it’s not as good as it once was, according to Grampa. He says that Telsiel, the King, is starting to lose it. It would be rather hard for Grampa to judge whether King Telsiel was losing it or not, because we live on a farm in possibly the most boring part of Illindara in existence. Mum says that it’s Grampa who’s losing it, not Telsiel, but I like hearing his opinions, and I love it when he tells the stories of the Crystal Quest. Mum says most of them are made up, but I choose not to believe that. Why would he tell them if they weren’t true?
Grampa says Shyasha Rinkari has died; that she was killed when he was about twelve and he saw it happen. He also says, however, that she could come back to stay, just once, when the world had desperate need of her. Mum says that that’s the biggest pile of Goblin droppings that she’s heard yet, but I secretly wondered if the legendary Ranger could be brought back, and what kind of person it would take to do it. I often hoped that I could be the one who brought around her return, but I knew that was impossible. Mum would never let me go.
You see, my grandmother was an Elemental – a being that channels the rhythms of the earth, water, wind, fire, and ice, and can use those rhythms to their disposal. She was one of the last ones left, and she knew that it was going be a big risk in choosing mortality and marrying Grampa. But as she was an elemental, she could pass down her powers to her children – her oldest son was my father, who had an affinity for earth and water. He passed those traits to me and my younger brother, Jack.
Dad died when I was little, a short while after Jack was born. I’ve had to do practically all of the labor on the farm ever since. I love working with the land (I got the Earth affinity), but I hate the fact that I’m stuck here, barely literate and wholly uneducated, and this is where I’m supposed to stay, because Mum and Jack need me to help work the land and make the crops grow better.
Although I love the crops, I want to see the rest of the world, to actually learn something and have an adventure. By the time Grampa was my age he had escaped a dragon, fought off orcs, and met my grandmother. Although Mum insists that all of it is tosh, when she gets to be his age, she won’t have any stories for her daughter-in-law to call ‘tosh.’ I don’t want that to happen to me, and yet it was supposed to be my fate.
I think Fate has a way of fooling you, though, so it threw me a surprise on a sad day and changed everything.
Chapter 1
Usually it was either Jack or Mum who looked after Grampa while I worked in the fields, getting browned and freckled by the sun. Every few months, I could be aided by a young man who needed a job, even though we could barely afford to pay him anything.
On my thirteenth birthday, which is in the middle of summer, I was out working in the fields with Mum when Jack came running out from our small hut, looking absolutely terrified.
“What is it, Jack?” Mum asked at once.
“It’s… Grampa…” he panted, clutching the stitch in his side from running all the way across the field to reach us.
“What about him?” Mum demanded, looking nervous. I was listening intently as well – Grampa had had a cough for quite some time, and he was getting to the age where a simple head cold could easily turn into the Blue Fever, and every day I worried that it would be his last.
“He’s… he’s…” Jack stuttered. “He’s going…” was all my brother could manage. My gut translated that into only one thing: death was coming for Grampa at last. My heart pounding, I started sprinting at once towards the cabin, outrunning my mother and brother easily due to the long stride I’d inherited from my father; my bare feet kicked up dark soil as I dashed across the field.
When I arrived in the hut, I had to pause for a moment to let my eyes adjust to the darkness. Grampa was slouched over in his usual chair near the fire pit, but he looked worse than normal.
“Grampa?” I said hesitantly. He looked up at the sound of my voice.
“Nikita,” he grumbled in his deep voice, “come here.”
I obeyed at once. “What is it, Grampa?” I asked.
“All the stories I have told you are true,” he said, as if every word was costing him a lot. “It is your turn now.”
“My turn for what?” I breathed.
“Your turn for an adventure,” he told me, coughing several times. “Shyasha Rinkari will need to be woken again. I have a feeling…” his voice trailed off.
“Grampa?” my voice caught in my throat. He couldn’t be dead… not yet…
“Nikita, seek out Sparraben of Lianland,” Grampa said with a few more coughs that sounded like he was going to put out his stomach soon.
“Sparraben of Lianland,” I repeated. The name sounded familiar. “You mean… the one who trained Shyasha Rinkari?”
“He lives in the eastern end of the Silvercourt Forest. Tell him Faug sent you in the name of the Scarred Princess.”
“You knew Shyasha Rinkari?”
“Yes, girl, how did you think I learned about Sparraben?” Grampa snapped with a bite in his voice. “Shyasha Rinkari held him in the highest regard. He even gave Rhyda a bit of Ranger training…” Rhyda was the grandmother that had been an Elemental, and had been married to Grampa.
“Seek out Sparraben,” I prompted, nervous that I would miss something important, though I didn’t know what that might be. “And then what?”
“Tell him you need his help bringing Shyasha Rinkari back. He will help you from there. It is of the upmost importance that you do this. I fear the world will have need of a hero soon.”
“Faug, you can’t be telling Nikita things like this with your last breaths,” Mum snapped. I was so focused on remembering Grampa’s instructions that I hadn’t heard her and Jack enter the room.
“She needs to know, Leanna,” Grampa said. “Nikita, find Sparraben.”
“I will, Grampa,” I promised.
“Leanna, don’t stifle her so much,” Grampa told her, coughing again hard enough to actually pull out his stomach or some other vital organ. “Nor Jack. Jack, work hard, all right, my boy?”
“All right, Grampa,” Jack said.
Soon after Jack had made his promise, Grampa had a very hard coughing fit, and when it was over...
Grampa had expired.
I bowed my head so Jack and Mum wouldn’t see my tears.
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