Chapter 2………. Gaudora
Shadow did nothing for a moment, but stood in the corner, playing with the nearly finished candle. "Is this true, Shadow?" Alistair asked softly.
Shadow paused a moment, then replied, "Yes."
When he didn't say anything more, Tiberius said, "Care to elaborate?"
Shadow sighed and finally gave them his attention. "I lived in a world very different from Ingeo, in the very beginning of time. It served as an experiment for life on earth, a sort of test run, before the world came into existence. Transport between worlds was not possible, so we didn't even know earth existed. We thought we were the real life, we thought that the life that had been given to us would belong to us." Shadow was strangely calm about it, even though it made the rest of them pity him. "I was what they called a Mountain Tamer, a sort of, how shall we say...prototype of the Dune Runners, but I lived in the alpines. Suddenly a picture flew into all their minds, of Shadow's world that was destroyed. Fish flew and swooped in mid-air, like birds, strange cats lapped at the water's edge, white with spots and purple eyes. A lengthy horse-like think ran through the forest, spikes rising out of its scalp and tail, with skin stretched in between them like fins. Sharp fangs made the being appear fierce, and split hooves allowed it to climb the nearly vertical mountains with ease. It was Shadow, Alister realized, this was Shadow before... "Something in our test version was very wrong, and the dirt below us began to consume itself." It rained ash in the picture, entire forests were burning, and the lakes were crowded with refuges. Soon the lakes were full, and the fires consumed the entire land, lapping at the water's edge. "God, or however had been in charge, realized what was going on, and quieted our world," Alister saw a blackness consume the land, scarily similar to what Tiberius had described to him. "And we became Shadows, until Everelle came along, and needed a world for Creatures only." Alister saw her, the first Djinn, looking like very much like the girl in the courtyard. She touched the earth, and grass grew at her touch, and the sun started to burn in the sky again. "We were adopted to her, and lived again. It was our world renewed, but we had to share it this time, and find that another planet had fostered life while ours had been destroyed." The pictures in their mind stopped.
"What was that?" snapped the Elf, "Can you infiltrate our minds?" He snarled at Shadow, who stood meekly in the corner.
"Quiet," Alister told him.
"No, he can't, but I can." The Witch chuckled to herself. "I wanted to show you what happened to the Shadows, to warn you about what would happen to us."
Alister rubbed his head, "You're saying our time has come?"
"No," the witch said, thoughtfully, "I'm saying Ingeo's time has come. It is time to join our charge on earth, King." Alister shook his head, hardly able to believe it. For a long time, no one made a sound. Shadow came to stand by Alister.
Finally, he spoke with conviction in his voice, "How do you propose we, warn, the Human race of our arrival?"
"You're not seriously entertaining this hag?" snorted the Elf.
"Yes, I am, because if you saw what I just saw, you would be packing as well." Alister snapped, "So clearly there is a mental block on your head."
"You could talk to their leader." Said the Witch.
"There are many leaders." Alistair rubbed his eyelids, thinking how badly this council turned out to be.
"Do they have an assembly they all attend?"
"Not, ALL of them."
"Well surely there's something!" exclaimed Tiberius, "We can't just wait until it's too late! Our lands are dwindling by the minute!"
"Maybe we can send them a letter." The witch smiled, nodding to those around her. Somehow, the Djinn King doubted a letter would be taken very seriously if it were sent from a magical world called Ingeo and signed by an elf, witch, vampire, shadow, Djinn, and other mythical beings. Another thought occurred to Alister, and it made their situation all the more precarious. "What if they view us as a threat, and do not let us in?" He said suddenly.
"I don't even see why we need to tell them, we can just hide in plain sight, all the creatures have been doing it for centuries." He said.
"Sure, hide Crawlers and Dragons right were they could see. How will they hide Elf!? Have you been to Earth?" Tiberius asked him. When the elf shook his head, Tiberius laughed, "These humans are dangerous, still are, they'll chop you up for science quicker than you can blaze, and quite frankly, I'm not going to let them use our creatures for medical experiments." Tiberius said. His bloody eyes flashed, and scanned the table. "I also don't want war with the humans’; they have weapons just as dangerous as ours."
"He's right," said Alister, "We need another plan." He thought a moment. "We could call them?" he asked, almost a question. Silence.
"What's 'call,' as you say?" asked the Kelpie.
"You call someone when you use a telephone," Shadow said.
"What's a Telephone?" The elf asked, equally confused. Alister put his head in his hands as Shadow explained the
device.
"That's be just as bad as sending a letter." Tiberius said, shaking his head.
"What if we call them, telling them to be ready for some creatures, and when they laugh at you, give them a date
and time. Then arrive on their doorstep at that date and time. They can't say we didn't give them a fair warning, and we won't send the entire world their way, but a few, ambassadors, to explain things to them." Shadow proposed, "Then we give them the rest of the world."
Alistair ran a hand through his fur, "It seems too simple, and they'll need something more than just a phone call."
"We can send them multiple phone calls, or a letter tied to a phoenix. A phoenix can escape their clutches if they try and capture it, and it'll scare them into raising precautions, maybe," Tiberius said thoughtfully. "Yes, that might work, and it would be beautifully dramatic. Fill the humans with awe."
"Or terror," snorted the elf.
Tiberius ignored him, "So what say you, your Majesty?" He curled the Majesty to make it sound like a funny word. He was confident about this plan then.
Alister was not, but it was far better than starting a panic attack, that would almost certainly go to war. He nodded, "Until we come up with a better plan, this will be it. Tiberius, I would like you to make the calls, one every day until the new moon, a week from now." He turned to his other advisors and secretaries. "In the mean time, you will also meet every day to try and come up with a new plan. The phoenix with the letter will be sent three days until the moon, and then we come. I will pick the Ambassadors by the time the moon has started to wane, and I apologize that this will come about on such short notice, but there is a dying world that will not wait for us. A mass evacuation will be prepared for, Witch, you will be in charge of that, and make sure that every Goblin, griffin, fish and ant knows about this. Try to keep the peace the best you can, and enlist other messengers to spread it faster. Our world is dying now, and we don't have much time left." Alistair looked around, meeting each one of their eyes. "Dismissed." He said, and everyone leapt to their feet, and ran out the door very much as if school had just emptied. He sighed heavily. Alistair was alone in the room, save Shadow, who sidled up to him.
"I'm sorry you have to make this decision so soon Alister." Alister didn't say anything. "I'm sorry for the role I played." Silence. "And I'm sorry about Rags." Alister suddenly stood up, his chair skittering across the room. Flames started to lick at the edge of his scalp as he glared at Shadow.
"Don't." Alister said, his voice dangerous. "Don't try to comfort me." And he whirled away to storm out the door.
"Please Alister, what happened? What’s going on?" Shadow dashed around to swirl in front of him.
"She has moved on, Shadow," He spat. "She’s gone."
Shadow stopped dancing, and swirled snakelike around Alistair's feet. "I'm so sorry Alister, I truly am."
"Not as sorry as me." Alister kicked the mist at his feet. "You should have seen the way she looked at me, as if I would rip her throat out." He shivered at the memory, socked in the gut all over again. "She’s terrified of me. But I'm happy for her, she and I had no future anyways." He felt Shadow laugh, rather than heard it.
"If you were happy for her, you wouldn't feel this way."
"Maybe I feel happy for her in spite of feeling this way." Alister whispered, feeling the abyss in his very being widening. And rage. He hated people telling him how to feel. Why couldn’t they just believe him, even if it was crazy? He walked out of the room, in heavy need of a drink. Shadow danced beside him, feeling sorry for the King who never saw his eighteenth birthday, and never would. Not truly, anyways. He may wisp his appearance to become old, but he would always be seventeen at heart. A blessing only to the vain.
Shadow twisted his way beside Alister as they walked, and tried to think of a positive thing to say.
The halls were now busy with activity, but the bad kind, the kind that read as chaos. A few stopped to greet the king, but mostly they busied themselves with whatever they were working on.
Alistair watched it all, thinking about how on earth he was to choose his ambassadors. Shadow, for sure, Tiberius was a shoo in also. But most the people on his council had never even seen the other world, and he needed someone with experience. Lisp. Lisp would like to go, as the first crawler to go to the outside world. And after all he had done for Alister; it would be a simple repayment. "I'm thinking of inviting Lisp to Earth, as a sort of repayment,” he said, working his way through the throngs of running creatures to the courtyard.
"Sounds like a splendid idea, Alistair," Shadow replied.
Shadow knew the Crawler would bring back memories of Rags, and it wasn't a splendid idea, but the king would know that soon enough, but not right away. This would push him, Shadow thought, to go and speak to Rags, despite what he thinks I will bet my soul that Rags still remembers him.
Alister walked into the courtyard, which was a mess of creatures, Bats taking off and coming in at the same time. Even Everelle herself looked flustered.
Alistair nodded to Shadow, who flew up Alister's nose as he inhaled. This was the standard travel mode for Shadow when going long distances. Alistair took a deep breath, and ran to the edge of the courtyard, where he leapt off and over the falls. The air pressed against his eyes, and the wind couldn't seem to part fast enough. This was the thrill, falling to the bottom of the Ingian falls. The Falls themselves drowned out all noise except for his pulse, which he could hear in his ears. He let the fire in his stomach consume him, a nice feeling, like jumping into a hot tub, and gathered the fire in and spread it out. He made the fire burn solid, and he was a swallow, one of his more favorite forms of flight.
Alistair fell a few more yards, and then pulled up.
He had a pretty good idea of where Lisp was at, but wanted to check on something first. He did a couple tricks and flew on to the Lake.
Rags treated herself to some Carmel Popcorn from the stand that Saturday, smiling at a joke Jake had just said. She doesn't feel as if she was cheating at all anymore, but it was replaced by an, abyss, of sadness. She hadn't felt this way since, ever. It weighed on her heart and made it hard to breathe, but she put on a brave face for Jake. "So how did you get the name Rags?"
She smiled, "Oh, you're the first one to ask me that." liar. Rags shook the thought from her head, she couldn't remember ever telling it to someone else, so why would that be a lie?
"Uh, there was this nasty girl in Private school, my sister's name is Mattie," They walked along the sidewalk with several booths lined up on it. "And, she would walk through the halls teasing us, because we were there on scholarships, so we became Matted and Rags. Mattie shed the name as quick as she could, but for me, the name stuck." Jake chuckled.
"So, how is your sister?" he asked, just trying to keep up conversation.
"Actually, they've been missing for three months. She and her daughter, Beth, and my Dad."
"Wow, harsh."
"Yeah." Rags shook her head, "It's just, weird, they've been missing for months, but I would have figured..." She didn't know how to explain the rest of the sentence.
They stopped at a stand that exhibited homemade t-shirts. He pointed to one in the corner, an orange one with black lettering, 'boo.' it read, with a bored type-face.
"I'll have that one, which one to you want?" He pulled out his wallet, grinning at her. She looked around at the shirts, none really catching her attention, until she saw one, almost covered by a 'princess' tee.
"That one," Rags pointed, and gave the shop keeper directions to it. "Up, left, left, that one."
He handed her a medium, and went to help another customer. It was a nice purple color, and had white lettering, "I believe in Magic," She read aloud. It usually wasn't her type of shirt, but she loved it all the same, and pulled it over her head.
"Odd pick," Jake laughed.
"I'm an odd pick," Rags laughed, it felt nice, but mocking. Like a silver lining, on a thunderhead cloud.
They were joined by her friends a few minutes later, and once it got dark headed over to the outdoor theater, were they popped out their lawn chairs to watch some cheesy college movies. Rags laughed hard at a Blair Witch Project spoof, and enjoyed the local theater's take on Phantom of the Opera. She couldn't help but cry a little though, as Christine dropped the Phantom's rose. Whether it was a nameless boy or Gerard Butler, it truly didn't matter. The love on their faces was the same. She recognized the look, but couldn't tell from where. It was like, like hearing a stranger use a phrase that your friend uses all the time. Something surreal about it. Rags soon forgot the look though, as a romantic comedy came on about a Tiger that fell in love with a fish. Jake managed to snag her hand as the movie ended, with the tiger swimming with the fish in a circle. It felt almost the same size as hers, colder, and soft. Everything about it was wrong. It felt nice, but, something was wrong about it. Rags had the faintest impression that the hand should be bigger than it was, but shook it off. She was starting to scare herself.
Alistair flew in through the trees, swooping and dashing as he pulled up to alight on a tall, warped spire. "Alister, grux, where 'ave you been? I haven't seen you in, well," the Crawler laughed, "I 'aven't eva seen you, but smelled you in months. Is that Shadow with you?" Alister flared up, no longer a small bird but a human with the hair of a snow leopard.
"Yes," and like blowing a smoke ring, Alister breathed into the sky, Shadow leaking out and dancing away.
"Grux, it’s good to smell you." Lisp swung his great bulk around, craning his head up to sniff Alister. Alister hopped to the ground to make it easier. Lisp was the size of a two story building, with warped spires and holes throughout his entire being. For instance, Alister could see the trees where his hindquarters would have been, a huge hole in their place. Twin incisors made the maw of a crawler look nasty; along with the claws as long as Alistair's fore arm, but they were actually gentle herbivores.
"I carry nasty news, I'm afraid old friend." Alister walked around to stand in front of the Crawler.
"Is it those nasty emptiness’s that seem to be at every border these days?"
Alister supposed that the emptiness’s were the Crawlers' word for the black clouds. Crawlers were blind, with only their keen sense of hearing and smell to aid them.
"I'm afraid so, they are here to destroy Ingeo, and nothing we can do can stop them."
An uncomfortable silence followed.
"Well, that's not necessarily good news, grux," Lisp shook his great head. His stretching tail bobbed as he sat down, sitting like a dog.
"We plan a mass evacuation to Earth, Lisp, but before we do that we need Ambassadors to organize plans by my side in the human world, we plan to come out of hiding," Alister explained, "And I would like you to join me."
Another silence.
"Breaver, I would be 'onered, ye majesty, aher, ho, Alister." He grinned a terrible smile down at Alistair apologetically.
Alister laughed, though it felt empty in his stomach. The first time they had met, Lisp had practically groveled at the King's feet, and Alistair had threatened to burn Lisp to a crisp unless he control himself. Was it only three months ago?
"And I trust Rags will be there as well?" Lisp said, cheerfully.
Alister felt a pain sear through him.
"No." He said stiffly.
"Oh, tha's right, I'm sorry Alister it was terribly insensitive of me." Lisp wined, genuinely sorry. Shadow drifted closer to Alister.
"Don't apologies, she's happy, with another boy."
"Then I apologize again, Alister. I know it hurts."
Alistair felt the heat radiate off the back of his neck, wishing very badly to tell Lisp were to say sorry. He didn't know a thing about Alister, not a thing. Anger broiled in his stomach, ready to overflow. He turned away. "Just be at the falls before the new moon."
He inhaled Shadow, and burned away, taking to the sky as a swallow. The wind was taken as power beneath his tiny wings, like ladder steps as he darted through the air. Like fins on a fish, he pushed the air, flying up, up, up. Shadow tickled his lungs, not aware of what was going on. The pain in Alister stomach was far too great. He was going to be sick in the air, but he kept flying upward. Her face was burned into his mind, laughing with that boy. He flew higher.
He was soon buffeted by strong winds that his tiny wings couldn't handle, and Alistair knew he was high enough. He dove.
Down,
Down,
Down,
Down,
Rags, with the terror in her eyes,
Thinking that he would hurt her.
Knowing that he would hurt her,
Wanted to hurt her.
Down.
Then the ground flew up at them, and Alistair felt shock and surprise as his pitiful, frail mortal body shredded to pieces on the dirt, split into a thousand pieces, his grey matter flying off into space, wings and feathers still fluttering in the wind were he had left them. He felt Shadow cry out, and dance up, unharmed, into the sky. Alister didn't die though, flame exploded from the corpse of the bird, tumbling away into a raw open flame.
Alister gathered himself up, and roared into the evening. A flock of birds in the nearby forest took off, flying helter-skelter into the sky. He slumped to the earth a flame, defeated. His body shook with the silent sobs, but no tears came, the fire inside having dried them all up.
He hadn't really been trying to kill himself; if he wanted to die he would have plunged into a lake. But Alister didn't really even know what he had been trying to do. Maybe see how easy all the other creatures had it, see how it may feel if he did commit suicide.
Like all the Djinn before him.
It hit him like a wave, washing over him after the impact. Every Djinn, since the first Everelle, had either been assassinated or committed suicide. Really it was one or the other, since he was immortal, but none had really ever died peacefully. It was either take your own life, or have someone else do it for you, surrendering all the power in the universe to one being. That was the perk of killing a djinn, you became all powerful, second only to God himself.
"Alistair!" he heard Shadow shriek, "Alister, what were you thinking?" Alister glanced behind him, still flaming and spat.
Sparks flew from his mouth and landed glowing among the grass.
He heard Shadow groan. "She hasn't forgotten you, Alister, that would be impossible." Shadow drifted to his side, and nestled in the grass beside him.
"I took away her memory myself, so I'm a failure as a Djinn?" Alistair quipped.
"You're a failure to Rags," Shadow snapped, "for acting like this, when she was just trying to be happy. Do you know why
she was just trying to be happy?" He asked Alistair. Alister sent him a burning look, literally. "Because she was sad. She was lonely, Alistair, what does that tell you?" Again, Alister didn't answer. "It means, she remembers you, she missed, you." Alister ran his hands through the grass, his flame flickering across them, but never burning them. "And you are failing her, by forgetting her."
"How, by any means, have I forgotten her?" Alister snapped.
"By forgetting your devotion to her. If you remembered her at all, you would be protecting her right now, not wallowing in self-pity. You would be stalking this poor boy, making sure his is every bit as worthy for her as you were."
"I wasn't worthy of her." Alister said, feeling the life in the grass, he pressed his fiery hands to the earth, feeling the chemicals of life thrum beneath his fingers.
"You were made for her. We all loved Rags, and we could all see how she felt about you."
Her name sent a streak of pain through him, but he embraced it now.
The life beneath his fingers tapped against his fingers, as if only a thin layer of dirt separated their fingers from intertwining. Alistair glanced at Shadow, a calmer look in a more human, but still fiery, face.
"And you're not a bad Djinn either." Shadow said, drifting upward slightly, a notion to leave. After a moment, Alister nodded, and stood up.
Shadow didn't say anything, afraid to ruin the moment. Alistair burned up into a new bird, one so black it seemed to have been washed in oil, and a ragged form to its feathers that gave it the look of a man with a day's growth.
"A crow? How appropriate, Alister." Shadow danced along the grass to be inhaled by Alister. Alister cawed, and took off into the growing night.
Have fun ripping! at least, I hope you endured this story long enough to reach the bottom ;D any critism needs backup, but is welcomed.
