Sunday, October 2, 2005

   Chapter 10: The Angel Caravan (part 2)
The boats were right where the group had left them. Feeling regenerated as the rising suns burned away any remaining fog to reviel a clear sky, the kids and soldiers pushed their boats into the water and took their places at the paddles. It took a little while to break back into the pattern, but, before long, the University Caravan was on the move again.
Not even stopping for lunch—sandwiches were tossed to the kids by the soldiers—they had covered a great deal of distance by the afternoon. Sitting on Pen’s head, Sasheeta was the first to break the lulling silence that hung over the group.
“Hey look!” she exclaimed, pointing ahead. “It’s the Cocytus River!”
Heads turned as everyone noticed the stretch of blue that flowed into the Acheron River from the northern heart of Perol.
“Hello Panda!!” a voice yelled from overhead. A beautiful creature flew overhead: a winged horse, her body shimmering the color of steel, accented by silver wings and feathers. As she wheeled around, they could see the shine of her electric blue eyes.
Keion screeched a greeting, getting a respectful snort as a response as they circled each other. Her rider was another Havoc graduate; to Pen’s surprise, the wizard was an elf-woman. She had light, turquoise-colored hair and bright pink eyes that showed her age. Pen guessed that she was around 40 years old.
“Are we late?” Panda asked her, his voice carrying down to the kids by the wind.
“No, you’re right on time!”
“Nano!” interrupted Contra. “We’re landing on this side of the Acheron!”
“Aren’t we staying in Benttown?” she yelled back, flying lower so that they could talk more easily.
“No, it’s too much trouble this year,” was the answer. “Have your rafts land on the far shore and we can meet in the middle.”
“Okay,” Nano answered. Her pegasus turned away from them again to return to their own fleet of Caravan to pass on the instructions.
As Contra had said, they pulled their boats out of the water on the sandy shore, right at the edge where the two rivers met. Since there were few trees, they could watch as the angel kids pushed their rafts on the beach with paddle-sticks. The Cocytus River was generally wide and shallow; so shallow, in fact, that the favorite form of transportation along it were rafts pushed and steered via long sticks against the river bottom. They were easier control in the gentle stretch of blue. However, the rafts were poor for use on the Acheron’s powerful current.
The angel caravan was slightly bigger than the elven caravan; more angels had survived the Continental War, mostly thanks to the fact that the Okora Mountains were a formitable barrier that had kept the demons from invading the center of Perol.
It wasn’t until Panda and Nano returned, both bearing large bags of food, that the two groups finally mingled. The soldiers built a large fire, on which they roasted two large wild boars. The kids gathered around as the cool night came upon them, their stomachs growling as they watched the roasts slowly start to cook.
Pen and Lucifer sat together in silence, entranced in the beautiful flickering of the fire. It hissed as grease dripped onto it, sending a whaft of delicious scent over to them. Sasheeta was dozing off between them, stretched out luxuriously on her stomach against the warm ground.
When the boars were finally done—with plenty for everyone—a cheerful atmosphere set in. Lucifer and Sasheeta had claimed an entire shoulder for themselves, which they devoured ravenously. Pen watched them with some amusement as they both ate from the same huge piece.
“Mhim iz really amazing,” Lucifer told him when he noticed that he was watching. “You m… ought to try sommme.”
“No thanks,” he responded, a smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. Sasheeta tore a piece off and offered it to him. “It’s alright. I’m not hungry.”
“Can I eat it?” pipped another voice. A brownish pseudodragon, another female who was a handsbreath larger than Sasheeta hopped over to them and took the meat from Sasheeta.
“My name is Sasheeta,” the younger one said, moving over so that she could help herself, too.
“I’m Koshgankae. You can just call me Koshga,” she answered, pulling off another strip and swallowing it down with one bite.
Lucifer, who had already eaten half of the shoulder, declared that he was quite done and set the remaining bone and flesh on the grass for the dragons. He and Pen got to their feet and returned to their boat to sleep. After Lucifer washed his hands in the river, they made comfortable dents in the sand beside it and settled down to rest. Even the fading, far-away murmur of sounds coming from the remaining feast was not enough to keep them from drifting off.
Comments (1) | Permalink

Saturday, October 1, 2005

   A Picture Says a Thousand Words
No story today... sorry! I have to write some more before I can add my next post (hopefully tomorrow).
So, to make up for it, I've submitted a picure of Gerrit! Please check it out and let me know what you think!!

Questions of the day:
Should I write a summary for the story (a "recap episode," so to speak)?
Who is your favorite character so far?
Comments (5) | Permalink

Friday, September 30, 2005

   Chapter 10: The Angel Caravan (part 1)
It stopped raining halfway through the night, starting up again in the morning when they filed down into the kitched for breakfast. Sasheeta, as was expected, ate all the food on Pen’s plate.
“What?!” Nomei’s surprised voice rang through the whole room. “He left already?”
“He said he had urgent business to attend to,” they heard Panda say. “He left this morning, before the rain started again.”
Nomei could be heard for several minutes, complaining about Gerrit’s sudden escape, but their conversation was largely covered up by the talking children.
“Do you think he left because of last night?” Lucifer wondered.
“Could be,” Pen responded. “But I’m pretty sure we’ll see him again.”
“You’re a freak!” Sasheeta put in, pointing at Pen while trying to swallow an exceptionally large piece of egg. “You and that sword!!”
“Thank you for that,” he said sarcastically. “I really needed it.”
“You’re a mean little beastie,” Lucifer growled playfully. As soon as the egg had gone down her throat, he snatched her off the table and cuddled her tightly to his chest. She squalked in surprise and delight, snapping jokingly at his nose.
“You’re squishing me!!” she squeaked, attracting the attention of many nearby tables. Lucifer laughed and sat her back down on the table, where she shook herself like a wet dog.
“You deserved that,” Lucifer told her, taping her nose with a finger. “And don’t you forget it. Pen can’t do anything about the way he is.”
The little dragon bit his finger, returning promptly back to her breakfast. Lucifer shook his head. “She’ll never learn,” he sighed, chuckling.

It took two days for the clouds to pass. For those days, they entertained themselves in many ways. The two boys combined their strength and found a way that they could lift up the beds and lean them up against the wall so that they had room to train. Using broken broomsticks that they had found hidden in the closet of an unoccupied room, they practiced sparring.
Lucifer was a good fighter. He was fast and sure in his movements, but he was always on the defensive. He even seemed reluctant to strike out sometimes, weakening some of his attacks. But when he wasn’t thinking, he could keep up even to Pen. It was hard to believe that he didn’t already own a sword of his own.
When they were tired, they would rest a while. Since neither of them seemed to have very much to say, they spent most of the time in silence, listening as the other kids played games in the hall.
The last day that they were relaxing in the afternoon, they heard yells outside their room. They were louder than the usual games of the children, so Lucifer and Pen exchanged a questioning glance, knowing that they both heard the commotion.
“Give it back, idiot!” a boy’s voice was yelling.
“I didn’t take it,” a girl whimpered. She sounded like she was right outside their door.
“Shut up! I know you have it! You were the last one out of the room!”
“I said—“ her voice was cut off by a grunt of pain as the boy shoved her against the door. Lucifer was up immediately—Pen had never seen him move so fast—and he had flung the door open before anyone knew what had happened.
With one hand, he pulled the girl inside, simulatiously using a foot to kick the boy just to the side of his stomach, so that his breath was knocked out of him. Gasping, the gray-haired elf-boy stumbled back against the opposite wall.
“Are you okay?” Lucifer asked the girl, releasing her. She was a green-haired, blue-eyed elf they had collected on the walk to Goswen Port.
Pen had also gotten to his feet, and he now went out the door and faced the winded boy. “What’s all this about?”
“She took the pocket watch my mom gave me!” he exclaimed, pointing at the girl.
“I didn’t do it! It must have gone beneath the bed or something! I swear!”
“Where’s your room?” Pen demanded. The boy showed him to the room at the end of the hallway, by the stairs.
“I left it right on my pillow,” he said.
“That’s pretty foolish of you,” Pen responded. He got to his knees and checked beneath the bed. “Someone would be tempted to take something that’s just laying around. That, and there’s a good chance it fell off.” He pushed himself underneath the mattress. A moment later, he came out again.
“I hope Lucifer taught you a lesson,” he said. He dropped the watch carelessy on the bed. “Don’t make me hurt you the next time.” Without another word, Pen left the room, leaving behind a stunned and speechless elf.
Comments (3) | Permalink

Thursday, September 29, 2005

   Gerrit DOES rock!!! HA!
I'm happy cause I got a metric ton of new music and I bought the S-CRY-ED dvd. Yayness. Now I just have to finish that dumb homework!!

Love and Peace!
Comments (1) | Permalink

   Chapter 9: Gerrit (part 3)
The two boys had just kicked off their muddy shoes and changed into clean, dry clothes when there was a knock at the door. Lucifer, with Sasheeta on his shoulder, opened it.
Neither of them was surprised when Panda and Gerrit entered the room. “Is this a good time?” Panda asked lightly, meeting eyes with Pen, who was sitting on his bed.
“Sure,” he answered.
“Would you like to sit down?” Lucifer offered, gesturing to his own bed while sitting down beside Pen. Sasheeta automatically clambered down his arm and took a seat on his lap.
“Thanks,” the Havoc graduate said, sitting down, also. Gerrit remained standing, leaning on his huge battle-axe. “You two probably know why we’re here, right?” he started, taking on a more serious tone.
“Yes,” Pen answered, focusing his eyes on the floor. It was because of him, of course. Lucifer shot him a sideways glance.
“You’re searching for wild magic,” the black-winged angel said, his voice having only a touch of force behind it. His dark brown eyes, unlike Pen’s black ones, fearlessly met the gaze of the adults.
“Yes,” Gerrit said. “I’ve been looking for the source of wild magic for as long as I can remember.”
“The source?” Pen asked, feeling less self-conscious.
“We believe that there is only one mind behind wild magic,” he explained. “Elf-wizards do not just go wild by their own free will. They are more intelligent than to do that. There must be something—or someone—who is forcing them.”
“But what does this have to do with us?” questioned Lucifer. “We don’t have wild magic.”
“This mastermind,” Panda continued, “seems to be looking for something. Powerful magic-users, angel, elf, or dragon alike, have come up missing. Some of them never return; others become wild, spreading their contaminated magic into artifacts and even people.
“Over the years we have been hunting wild magic, we’ve become familiar with the energy-shaping ways of the wildness. The magic works with the binding and the breaking apart of life-energy.”
“It is the only magic that could have made you the way you are, Pen,” Gerrit said, repeating what he had mentioned before. “We thought that we had finally discovered the mystery of the boy with the shadow eyes! We all believed that!”
“You were disappointed,” Lucifer filled in.
“Yes,” Gerrit said, shaking his head in disbelief. “I don’t understand it, but I would know if Pen had wild magic. I don’t even sense a spark of any kind of magic in him.”
“I know,” Pen said. He had heard it often. “I have no magic.”
“No, you do not. Your sword, however, is a different matter.”
Almost automatically, Pen drew Lucaya and looked over her blade. There were no symbols depicting angelic magic, and none of the energy that elvish magic gave off. She was unmarked in any way—only her makeup made her a vessel for magic—except for the two words that were her name.
Gerrit took a step back, his eyes starting to sparkle with an odd green light. “That sword holds a strange magic,” he said.
“May I see her?” Panda questioned. The boy reluctantly handed his beloved sword over, knowing that he had little choice but to obey. He was also curious; was her strange name connected to the magic that Gerrit was picking up?
“It’s wild magic, but it’s not like what we’re familiar with,” Gerrit continued. “It feels uncompleted, like an unfinished thought. And it traces back into angelic magic, as if it was only an experimental addition to the code, like an enforcer. I don’t think that this wild magic was made by the wizard we are hunting.”
“An enforcer?” Pen asked, surprised by this news. “Of what?”
Gerrit closed his eyes for a minute, and they waited in silence until he opened them again. “The code is incomplete, as of yet, but the sword will let you know when it finds the symbols that rouse its power. When it is complete, the sword will give up itself…” his gaze met Pen’s and did not look away. “… And there will awaken something of far greater creation.”
His words echoed inside the minds of the listeners. Panda examined the sword again, this time in awe, before he handed it back to Pen. “Here,” he said. “She is your sword. I don’t doubt that she was given to you for a purpose.” He got to his feet, adding: “Take good care of her, Penumbra.”
As they left the room, Pen pulled himself out of his thought-filled daze. “Wait!” he yelled, jumping after them. They stopped in the hall, looking back to see him. “You don’t know what the symbols are, do you?” he asked hopefully, wondering how deep Gerrit’s senses went.
“No,” said the man. “This sword is very old, older even than any wild magic I have ever felt, and yet it is more familiar. I cannot tell you the few words I know of the sword. I can’t speak them; I don’t dare speak them.”
“Why not?” Pen blurted out, which was very unlike him, but his drive to discover the hidden power of Lucaya was greater than any restraint he possessed.
Gerrit examined the boy from head to toe with his eyes, before he spoke again. “I am like you in many ways.” He turned his back to him, starting to leave after Panda, who had already disappeared down the stairs. “And yet, I am very unlike you. My body is made of stone, a puppet that I sculpted and control with the power of the magic that my spirit still possesses. I am not alive, in the conventional sense.” He turned to look over his shoulder at the boy one more time. “My soul and life-energy were torn from my body and harbored inside a stone. It was wild magic did this to me. That is why I must hunt it until I find the wild wizard. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
Gerrit sighed heavily and made his way to the stairs. “We will meet again,” he said as he walked. “Penumbra of the shadow eyes.”
Comments (1) | Permalink

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

   Gerrit the Earthbound
Congratulations and many many thanks to kirbydouble, the creator of Gerrit!! Please click here to visit his site and give him credit for his incredibly awesome character.
Gerrit rocks. Literally. ^_^
Comments (2) | Permalink

   Chapter 9: Gerrit (part 2)
“Oh dear,” Panda said, eyeing the dragon. “That’s where she went!”
“Didn’t she tell you where she was?” Pen asked him.
“Nope. But it’s okay. She’s still young and she needs to have attention.”
“What will happen to her when we get to University?” Lucifer asked curiously.
“She’ll stay there, for the time being,” Panda answered. “She has to get used to being around our people more before she can be sent out as a real king’s dragon.”
“Can she be with us, for now?”
“Of course. She’s a sweet little creature.”
Keion snorted suddenly and jerked his head around. Akana was coming from the direction of the port-town, followed by a man bearing a huge battle-ax in his hands that was as tall as he. As he drew closer to them, Pen noticed that he wore only a plain t-shirt and pants; his feet were bare.
“Well, if it isn’t Gerrit the Earthbound!” Panda exclaimed, walking forward to meet him. Up close, Pen saw that he had brown hair that stuck up straight, as well as hazel eyes and strange skin. It looked rough and tan, like carved stone.
“Hello, Panda. Is this the University Caravan?” he asked, shaking hands with him while looking around at the boat-tents waking up.
“Yes. We’ll be staying in town for a few days. Do you want to stick around for a little while?”
“That’s what I had been thinking, actually,” Gerrit responded. “I’m not a huge fan of walking through rain.”
Pen had caught his eyes, but Gerrit’s attempt to meet him was utterly interrupted.
“Gerrit!!” yelled the voice that Pen least wanted to hear at that point in time. Nomei came sliding up the slope, her shoes skidding against the wet grass. “I knew you would come!! What’re you doing here? Were you just passing through? Will you stay with us while we’re here?”
Poor Gerrit could not help but endure her pounding of questions.
“Nomei!” Panda barked finally, breaking into her incessant string of talk. “You need to go gather up the kids.” When she gave him a sad look, he added, “Now!”
As she slinked away, Gerrit only shook his head at her, before turning his attention back to Pen. “You must be Pen,” he said. He didn’t offer his hand. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” A frown crossed his dark-skinned face.
“Is something the matter?” Lucifer asked carefully.
“It’s so odd,” Gerrit told them, speaking deliberately. “There is no angel or elvish magic that can achieve such evil to a soul, and yet I can’t sense even a drop of wildness in you, Penumbra. But there is something…”
A drop of rain fell, almost experimentally, on Keion’s beak. The griffon growled at it.
“Uh oh,” Panda started. “We’d better get moving before the clouds open up again.”
The soldiers were hurrying the kids out of the boats and gathering them at the path to the town. As soon as they were all together—most of them still looking asleep—they herded them into the port, where two inns happily accepted them.
Lucifer and Pen shared a room again, this time in the accompaniment of Sasheeta, which closely resembled the other chamber they had stayed in. This one, however, had stone walls (angels preferred stone to wood) and the window, overlooking the town, was larger. At the moment, rain was obscuring the view, leaving only the shadows of the rooftops of the port houses.
Comments (2) | Permalink

Monday, September 26, 2005

   Chapter 9: Gerrit
It wasn’t possible! How could someone not be alive, and yet still have the functions of a living person? How could someone be dead but still alive?
These questions plagued the boys as they pulled their boat ashore at a riverbank on the Perol side, near a little port-town. Since the sky had clouded over towards the afternoon and looked like rain, they dragged their boats up to where the grass started. Panda and Contra showed them how they could use their boats as tents by turning them upside-down and propping them up on one end by using the paddles. There were even slits carved into the top edges of the boats, where the top of the oars fit right in.
Just as the soldiers were passing out food—the water of the river was purified by magic and was good for drinking—the rains started. They watched for a while as the showers got stronger, Lucifer and Sasheeta munching on sandwiches, before they decided that it was safest to de-prop the boat to keep water from coming in. Lucifer and the dragon made themselves comfortable while Pen pulled the paddles out of the ground and the boat. Once both of the props had been removed, the boat lay flat nearly against the ground, submerging them in darkness broken only by the edges, where a sliver of light still peeked through. But, as night fell, that, too, disappeared.
Pen lay awake in the deep shadow of the boat, feeling as the air inside grew warmer from the heat of Lucifer and Sasheeta’s bodies. The black-eyed boy was unfamiliar with such heat; he did not mind it, but he was a stranger to it. He inched his head closer to Lucifer’s midsection.
There it was! The steady beating of a drum that kept his friend alive. Why did he not have that music inside him? Why was he cold like the earth?
Why was he dead, but still alive?

Pen was the first to notice that the rain had stopped. There was also a sliver of pale light that was starting to sneak its way into the boat-tent. He crept to the front of the boat and lifted it up slightly, so that he could slide out.
It was morning, but the sky was still a sodden, gray color. He looked around absentmindedly, noticing that Panda was standing beside Keion at the far side of the camp. The griffon had noticed Pen and was gazing at him with his great orange eyes.
“Hey, good morning, Pen,” said Panda. “It looks like we’ll be stuck here for a while.”
“Bad weather?”
“Yeah, we’ve gotta wait a couple of days for these clouds to pass before we can go any further by boat. Once everyone wakes up, we’ll be checking in at the biggest inn over in the town. It’s too wet out here. Keion wants you to scratch his head.”
It took Pen a second to catch the abrupt change of subject. He strode over to the griffon and ruffled up his head feathers, causing the large creature to purr and close his eyes with contentment. Pen didn’t know why, but petting Keion made him feel somewhat better inside.
After half an hour, soldiers began to knock on the tent-boats to wake everyone up. Lucifer came out of the boat immediately, coming over to Panda and Pen with a sleeping Sasheeta cradled in his arms.
Comments (1) | Permalink

Sunday, September 25, 2005

   Chapter 8: Down the Acheron River (part 4)
“I don’t know any stories.”
“Fine. Then tell me something about yourself. We’ve known each other for a while, but I still don’t know anything about you.”
Pen could tell that Lucifer, too, was all ears. The angel was also stowing away his paddle. He sighed, deciding that there was no escape this time, and started to talk. “I’m an orphan who grew up in the Archives. I have no memory of my parents. I don’t even know if they’re alive or not. I’ve been under the care of the wisepeople my whole life.”
Lucifer was staring off into space. “What was it like living in the Archives?” he asked, almost carefully, as if he didn’t want to scare Pen away from the topic.
“I dunno,” Pen shrugged. “I’ve never had another life, so I wouldn’t know what it’s like.”
“Did you have friends?” Sasheeta squeaked, intrigued.
“No. I was always alone, training on the grounds or reading in the library. Once—“ Pen cut himself off, remembering.
“Yes?” Lucifer asked. Sasheeta wiggled encouragingly.
“Well, Tory used to be around sometimes,” he filled in. “But she, too, left me alone.”
“Why was that?”
“She got scared of me,” he said. “I killed someone, and after that, she didn’t talk to me again for a really long time. I don’t have any kind of connection to her anymore.”
“You’ve been alone that long…” Lucifer appeared lost in thought.
“Being alone hasn’t ever bothered me,” Pen added quickly.
“Who did you kill?” Sasheeta squeaked, her voice split between excitement and dread.
Pen shrugged. “It was just a stupid village kid who picked a fight with me.”
“A…” Lucifer studdered, nearly disbelievingly. “A-a kid? You… you just killed a kid?”
“Well… yeah. What’s wrong with that?”
The black-winged angel wasn’t sure what to say. He hesitated several times before he spoke again. “You’re not kidding?” he almost whispered. “You don’t know what’s wrong with that?”
Sasheeta looked disgusted. She sprang out of Pen’s lap, climbed up Lucifer’s cloak, and disappeared in his hood without another word.
“No,” Pen said honestly. “Why?”
Lucifer seemed pained. He scratched his head, trying to make sense of the strange new friend he had made. Something was matching up about Pen, but Lucifer did not want to make himself believe that it was the truth. “Pen, do you not know what life is?” he asked, already knowing and dreading the answer.
“No. I hear a lot about it, but nobody ever told me what it was.”
“Life is everything that lives and grows around us,” Lucifer explained. “The trees, the bugs, and angels and elves are all alive! It’s everything that has a soul, that can feel things around it, everything that has some kind of heart beating inside it and some kind of blood flowing in its veins.”
“Heart?”
“A heart is what keeps us alive. You see, life has an end. Everything dies at some point in time, whether you like it or not. And yet, most things try to survive for as long as they can.”
“When you kill something, you take its life away?”
“That’s right. You ended that boy’s life.”
Pen thought for a long time in silence. It had never occurred to him before that he had ended something when he killed things. It was just second nature to him. But if they had souls just like he did… then was it right to take that away?
“Lucifer?” he started quietly, feeling something heavy inside himself that he had never felt before.
“Yes?”
“What is a heart?”
“It’s that drum inside you. It beats to keep you alive.”
Pen looked out over the river, his whole being burning with a horrible, incredible knowledge; one that he did not want to face. And, yet, he said the words, knowing finally what he was.
“Lucifer, I don’t have a heart.”
Comments (2) | Permalink

Saturday, September 24, 2005

   The art is all here!!
It's all accepted. Go check out Lucifer! ^_^
Comments (0) | Permalink