Post by Morgan Pendragon on Oct 16, 2007 1:10:29 GMT -5
"I wanted no more of magic. I had spent my whole life, as considerable as my life-span was, surrounded by the confounded stuff. I had witnessed more than my fair share of miracles and I was damn sick of them. Watching someone do the fantastic and impossible is only entertaining the first three hundred thousand times.
"I'm not exactly sure when this attitude first struck me, perhaps that one day when Cerridwen and myself were-, but that's another story. Anyway, I sat there, on my bed, in my chamber, on the underside of an enchanted hill, and I wished for something more magical than magic, strange as that might seem. I wondered how to go about it, or whether I should go about it at all. It's not as easy as you might think, starting a new life. It wasn't that there was someone I'd miss-there wasn't-It was more that I was unwilling to actually make a permanent change in my life. After five-hundred plus years, I'm something of a creature of habit.
"But you know that part, don't you? How I finally did decide, some three weeks later, to just pack up and leave. How I managed to get some poor, pathetic, drunken, dying pixie to cast a strong enough glamour on me for a little faery wine. How insufficiently I was equipped to live among them. The glamour broke after only a few weeks, and I realized that I'd have to do at least that much magic myself, not to mention the spell designed to erase any trace of magic around my person.
"My first encounter with one of them occurred only a day after I'd left home. I should have expected what had happened, after all, the glamour the pixie had cast only stopped my hair from being unnaturally silver to being a pale blond, rounded my ears a bit, and changed my eye color from violet to blue, and for some reason the stupid wench had made me appear to be a female. I still had the unnatural beauty of our kind about me, the look of youth in its loveliest stage, like a rose not quite yet fully in bloom. He was one of the bandits that roam the woods separating our kind from theirs. It was magic that saved me then, much to my disgust. I was trying to prove that I didn't need magic to survive, and the first time I have a chance to test that theory, I give in and do magic anyway.
"And don't give me that look either, It wasn't like I killed the fellow, though I certainly would have been justified, under the circumstances. I merely wiped his mind completely blank, like a child's mind. He followed me, quite docile, for some days. He sat when I sat, slept when I slept, and ate when I ate. Eventually, I came upon the edge of their lands, and found the hut of one of their so-called 'wizards'. You know the type, the ones that want to be what we are. He knew me for what I was at once, but was not unkind. He took charge of the fellow at that point, and after a day or two, I continued on my journey.
"I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for, something inside me just had to get away from the ridiculousness of it all. My life had all been so fake up to that point; meaningless, some might say. After that, however, I was alone for some time. I chose my exile, in part to come to terms with what I was doing, in part to get used to the glamour. It turned out to be a good thing, because, when the damned spell broke, there was no one around. The glamour I cast was much more complete, aging me and turning my hair and eyes dark, and turning my skin from a creamy paleness into an olive complexion. At that time I cut my hair as well, to roughly the length of the wizard's.
"So changed, I continued my sojourn. it was another week before I came to a village. I wondered whether anyone had noticed my absence, whether anyone cared. I knew Her Majesty would be missing one of her knights, and Cerridwen would likely be missing her favorite toy, but other than that, I doubted anyone would even note my being gone. I see now that I was wrong of course, not that that means anything at this point."
I stopped him. "Listen, Mordai, I know that part. You already told us that, or else we guessed it from what we were told from others." He gave me a Look when I said his name. It wasn't his True Name, in any case, just the one he provided for official things like this. However, as he did outrank me, I should have called him by his title.
"Then, what do you want?" His restored violet eyes pierced me, just as they always have.
"My apologies, Mael," I said, using his title, "I should have been more clear. We know approximately how you got to the human capital, what we want is what happened after that."
"Then you should have made yourself more clear. Shall I continue from there then?" He waited for my nod, then went on, "Well, I got to the human capital about a year after I left ours. By that time, I was working on a trading caravan. When we got to the capital, I mezmored my boss into giving me the job of being his permanent representative there. In short, I ran a combination general store and trading post."
"But, I thought the whole point was for you to survive without magic. Why did you use a mezmor?" I asked, once again forgetting my place, and earning me another disgusted look. Surprisingly, though, he seemed to change his mind mid-sneer, and his voice this time came out more genteel. I could almost imagine him as the noble he was supposed to be. Up to this point, he'd been behaving more like a spoiled child.
"That's what it was at first, learning to survive without my magic, but then, it was more about finding a purpose for magic. My first encounter had taught me that magic was essential for my survival. I used the mezmor because I wanted that position, and the man was going to give it away to his stupid, lazy son."
"Right," broke in Lyllywen, whom I had dragged into this. Lylli was a beauty, even where our kind is concerned. Her hair is a lustrous color, somewhere between the realms of white and yellow, and it seems to give off light of its own accord. I once asked her how she managed to make it do that, and she only laughed at me. Her eyes are quite large, but not grotesque, and are a bright and vivid green, and her skin is perfect; spotless and unblemished, and the perfect tone. Not so pale as most of us, but not quite as dark as Mordai had been when we found him. It seemed his glamours stood up better than those of the 'pixie' in his story. Speaking of which, Lylli was still talking.
"We are expected to believe that one day, you just woke up, dissatisfied with you life, then three weeks later you come up with a plan and act on it. No one moves that fast, unless they're one of Them," she said, pronouncing the capital letter. Lylli likes them less that most, but I've never asked her why. "And you just happen to find a pixie, one you describe as 'pathetic, drunken, and dying', and yet you accept help, even pay for it. Excuse me, but there's something about that, that's just a little off. And another thing-"
"Lylli, that part was me.," I said heading her off. "I mezmored our dear Mael here into asking the pixie for help instead of using the significant resources someone in his position has."
"What!? Why?" Mordai snarled. The real reason was because I wanted his quest to fail, I wanted him to come back to us, to me. I have been in love with him for over two hundred years. Yes he's a pampered, vain, spoiled brat of a prince, but there are times when he's so charming and genteel that you forget his temper tantrums and the fact that he only talks to you when you are wearing a large, polished, metal pendant around your neck.
I hoped that his failure would humble him, that he'd swallow his pride (hopefully, without choking on it), and come back a little less obnoxious. Then I could help him regain his place among our people, and in a few hundred years, this would all be water under the bridge, and I'd have the honor of being the consort of a Mael. It was also me who planted the boredom with our lifestyle in his mind in the first place, but telling him that would not be good for my health, I guessed, judging from the tight grip he had on the hilt of his broadsword.
"For Her Eminence's sake. You're a Royal Knight, and a Mael besides. I hoped your quest would fail when her spell broke, and that you'd return to us, ready to accept your place," I managed to stammer. Lylli carefully didn't give me a look that said, 'Oh, really?', and I carefully didn't give her a guilty one back. What I was saying was technically true, because however our kind bend the truth, or speak in riddles, we can never tell an outright lie. However, Lylli knew of my love for Mordai, we were sisters after all, and best friends to boot.
I tucked a strand of my red hair, unusual for our kind, behind a gracefully pointed ear. I was of the Gentry, same as Mordai, but where he was a Mael, one of the Seven, I was only a lady-in-waiting for Her Excellency, who was so great we daren't speak her true title, let alone her name. However, it was clear that Mordai was not humbled one bit by his experiences, in fact his ego seemed to have actually grown since I'd last seen him, as was illustrated by his next words.
"But you have so readily forgotten your own place, wench. I propose you join myself in my new plan, one I've been thinking about for years, just waiting for another of our kind to find me, and join me. What need have I to be a lowly Mael, wasting away in some palace of our kind, when I could be supreme over both realms? Even Her Majesty would be subject to me. What do you say, Lleucu?"
I knew now that I no longer loved him. He had known all along of my feelings for him, but had still discounted me as a person, preferring the company of that trollop, Cerridwen. The slut who used him, and disrespected him, and whom he didn't love either. I doubt if he even cared for Her Majesty, his mother, who cried with much grief when she found her favorite son missing. How he'd inspired such love, I could no longer recall. I only knew what I had to do, for Her Majesty, and for our kind. He couldn't be allowed to roam this realm freely.
I looked at him. "Thank you, Mordai, but I'm going to have to decline." I said. And this time, when he looked at me like so much rotting flesh for using his name, I stabbed him in his beautiful, violet eye. It was like he said at the beginning. No one would notice his absence.
"Shame about him already being dead when we found him, but we knew there was a chance of that," Lylli commented, setting up the spells to make sure his body would be found looking like one of them, and the one to take us home. I only nodded, not trusting myself to speak, tears running down my unchangeable, porcelain face.
((Just something I had to write. It was the weirdest thing, the words just poured out of me like I was reading them instead of writing them. As always, criticism is encouraged. I also figured I put all future short stories in this thread. Oh, and this doesn't have a title yet, so if you think of one, let me know.))
"I'm not exactly sure when this attitude first struck me, perhaps that one day when Cerridwen and myself were-, but that's another story. Anyway, I sat there, on my bed, in my chamber, on the underside of an enchanted hill, and I wished for something more magical than magic, strange as that might seem. I wondered how to go about it, or whether I should go about it at all. It's not as easy as you might think, starting a new life. It wasn't that there was someone I'd miss-there wasn't-It was more that I was unwilling to actually make a permanent change in my life. After five-hundred plus years, I'm something of a creature of habit.
"But you know that part, don't you? How I finally did decide, some three weeks later, to just pack up and leave. How I managed to get some poor, pathetic, drunken, dying pixie to cast a strong enough glamour on me for a little faery wine. How insufficiently I was equipped to live among them. The glamour broke after only a few weeks, and I realized that I'd have to do at least that much magic myself, not to mention the spell designed to erase any trace of magic around my person.
"My first encounter with one of them occurred only a day after I'd left home. I should have expected what had happened, after all, the glamour the pixie had cast only stopped my hair from being unnaturally silver to being a pale blond, rounded my ears a bit, and changed my eye color from violet to blue, and for some reason the stupid wench had made me appear to be a female. I still had the unnatural beauty of our kind about me, the look of youth in its loveliest stage, like a rose not quite yet fully in bloom. He was one of the bandits that roam the woods separating our kind from theirs. It was magic that saved me then, much to my disgust. I was trying to prove that I didn't need magic to survive, and the first time I have a chance to test that theory, I give in and do magic anyway.
"And don't give me that look either, It wasn't like I killed the fellow, though I certainly would have been justified, under the circumstances. I merely wiped his mind completely blank, like a child's mind. He followed me, quite docile, for some days. He sat when I sat, slept when I slept, and ate when I ate. Eventually, I came upon the edge of their lands, and found the hut of one of their so-called 'wizards'. You know the type, the ones that want to be what we are. He knew me for what I was at once, but was not unkind. He took charge of the fellow at that point, and after a day or two, I continued on my journey.
"I wasn't quite sure what I was looking for, something inside me just had to get away from the ridiculousness of it all. My life had all been so fake up to that point; meaningless, some might say. After that, however, I was alone for some time. I chose my exile, in part to come to terms with what I was doing, in part to get used to the glamour. It turned out to be a good thing, because, when the damned spell broke, there was no one around. The glamour I cast was much more complete, aging me and turning my hair and eyes dark, and turning my skin from a creamy paleness into an olive complexion. At that time I cut my hair as well, to roughly the length of the wizard's.
"So changed, I continued my sojourn. it was another week before I came to a village. I wondered whether anyone had noticed my absence, whether anyone cared. I knew Her Majesty would be missing one of her knights, and Cerridwen would likely be missing her favorite toy, but other than that, I doubted anyone would even note my being gone. I see now that I was wrong of course, not that that means anything at this point."
I stopped him. "Listen, Mordai, I know that part. You already told us that, or else we guessed it from what we were told from others." He gave me a Look when I said his name. It wasn't his True Name, in any case, just the one he provided for official things like this. However, as he did outrank me, I should have called him by his title.
"Then, what do you want?" His restored violet eyes pierced me, just as they always have.
"My apologies, Mael," I said, using his title, "I should have been more clear. We know approximately how you got to the human capital, what we want is what happened after that."
"Then you should have made yourself more clear. Shall I continue from there then?" He waited for my nod, then went on, "Well, I got to the human capital about a year after I left ours. By that time, I was working on a trading caravan. When we got to the capital, I mezmored my boss into giving me the job of being his permanent representative there. In short, I ran a combination general store and trading post."
"But, I thought the whole point was for you to survive without magic. Why did you use a mezmor?" I asked, once again forgetting my place, and earning me another disgusted look. Surprisingly, though, he seemed to change his mind mid-sneer, and his voice this time came out more genteel. I could almost imagine him as the noble he was supposed to be. Up to this point, he'd been behaving more like a spoiled child.
"That's what it was at first, learning to survive without my magic, but then, it was more about finding a purpose for magic. My first encounter had taught me that magic was essential for my survival. I used the mezmor because I wanted that position, and the man was going to give it away to his stupid, lazy son."
"Right," broke in Lyllywen, whom I had dragged into this. Lylli was a beauty, even where our kind is concerned. Her hair is a lustrous color, somewhere between the realms of white and yellow, and it seems to give off light of its own accord. I once asked her how she managed to make it do that, and she only laughed at me. Her eyes are quite large, but not grotesque, and are a bright and vivid green, and her skin is perfect; spotless and unblemished, and the perfect tone. Not so pale as most of us, but not quite as dark as Mordai had been when we found him. It seemed his glamours stood up better than those of the 'pixie' in his story. Speaking of which, Lylli was still talking.
"We are expected to believe that one day, you just woke up, dissatisfied with you life, then three weeks later you come up with a plan and act on it. No one moves that fast, unless they're one of Them," she said, pronouncing the capital letter. Lylli likes them less that most, but I've never asked her why. "And you just happen to find a pixie, one you describe as 'pathetic, drunken, and dying', and yet you accept help, even pay for it. Excuse me, but there's something about that, that's just a little off. And another thing-"
"Lylli, that part was me.," I said heading her off. "I mezmored our dear Mael here into asking the pixie for help instead of using the significant resources someone in his position has."
"What!? Why?" Mordai snarled. The real reason was because I wanted his quest to fail, I wanted him to come back to us, to me. I have been in love with him for over two hundred years. Yes he's a pampered, vain, spoiled brat of a prince, but there are times when he's so charming and genteel that you forget his temper tantrums and the fact that he only talks to you when you are wearing a large, polished, metal pendant around your neck.
I hoped that his failure would humble him, that he'd swallow his pride (hopefully, without choking on it), and come back a little less obnoxious. Then I could help him regain his place among our people, and in a few hundred years, this would all be water under the bridge, and I'd have the honor of being the consort of a Mael. It was also me who planted the boredom with our lifestyle in his mind in the first place, but telling him that would not be good for my health, I guessed, judging from the tight grip he had on the hilt of his broadsword.
"For Her Eminence's sake. You're a Royal Knight, and a Mael besides. I hoped your quest would fail when her spell broke, and that you'd return to us, ready to accept your place," I managed to stammer. Lylli carefully didn't give me a look that said, 'Oh, really?', and I carefully didn't give her a guilty one back. What I was saying was technically true, because however our kind bend the truth, or speak in riddles, we can never tell an outright lie. However, Lylli knew of my love for Mordai, we were sisters after all, and best friends to boot.
I tucked a strand of my red hair, unusual for our kind, behind a gracefully pointed ear. I was of the Gentry, same as Mordai, but where he was a Mael, one of the Seven, I was only a lady-in-waiting for Her Excellency, who was so great we daren't speak her true title, let alone her name. However, it was clear that Mordai was not humbled one bit by his experiences, in fact his ego seemed to have actually grown since I'd last seen him, as was illustrated by his next words.
"But you have so readily forgotten your own place, wench. I propose you join myself in my new plan, one I've been thinking about for years, just waiting for another of our kind to find me, and join me. What need have I to be a lowly Mael, wasting away in some palace of our kind, when I could be supreme over both realms? Even Her Majesty would be subject to me. What do you say, Lleucu?"
I knew now that I no longer loved him. He had known all along of my feelings for him, but had still discounted me as a person, preferring the company of that trollop, Cerridwen. The slut who used him, and disrespected him, and whom he didn't love either. I doubt if he even cared for Her Majesty, his mother, who cried with much grief when she found her favorite son missing. How he'd inspired such love, I could no longer recall. I only knew what I had to do, for Her Majesty, and for our kind. He couldn't be allowed to roam this realm freely.
I looked at him. "Thank you, Mordai, but I'm going to have to decline." I said. And this time, when he looked at me like so much rotting flesh for using his name, I stabbed him in his beautiful, violet eye. It was like he said at the beginning. No one would notice his absence.
"Shame about him already being dead when we found him, but we knew there was a chance of that," Lylli commented, setting up the spells to make sure his body would be found looking like one of them, and the one to take us home. I only nodded, not trusting myself to speak, tears running down my unchangeable, porcelain face.
((Just something I had to write. It was the weirdest thing, the words just poured out of me like I was reading them instead of writing them. As always, criticism is encouraged. I also figured I put all future short stories in this thread. Oh, and this doesn't have a title yet, so if you think of one, let me know.))