Fantasy shimmer

[Purplefairygirl22]

Their coach rattle and rocked as they continued down the dirt path towards the city. Lini frowned slightly as she listened to Leander rattle off the facts about the Moon family and sighed softly. All of the information that he was giving her could be found out by any person that could read. It still didn't settle the feeling in her stomach. There was something off about their meeting on the way to the city.

"You needn't worry."

Lini rolled her eyes as she regarded her companion. She wasn't worried about them attacking her, that was something that was easily solved. Lini was focused on the bigger picture: what the Moons were doing in Straone, and why it needed to be kept so secret that an extremely wealthy family was traveling in a caravan of commoners to accomplish their tasks. She feared she may have stumbled onto more than she had bargained for by choosing him for her goal.

She watched as Leander grabbed his notebook and began to write, "What else do you want to know?" he asked absentmindedly. He meant to keep her talking. Lini shrugged, "They're going to Straone for a reason..." she paused, lost in her thoughts before turning to the window.

The sun by now had completely set and the pin pricks of stars had begun to appear across the night sky. She knew that they were still a ways away from the city and wouldn't arrive until daybreak. Her fingers picked at the worn cloth of the seat beneath her and she suddenly felt more awake than she had all day. Leaning her head against the cool wooden frame of the window she watched Leander scribbling across from her. Her eyes flashed and a soft blue light began to emanate from him. It swirled, pulsing with the steady rhythm of his breathing. Lini said nothing, but leaned slightly closer, staring at him.

 

[SalemKitty]

Chapter End

Chapter Two. Straone​

Lini Orenda and Leander Tempest have successfully made their way into Straone. In order to get home the two must make their way through the Anti-ATTU country, a country that hates magic and those who use it. All seems well save the mysterious Moon siblings, known Technicians who are traveling through the dangerous country for their own purpose. Leander and Lini know that their journey through Straone will not be as they hope. With danger at every turn, they move deeper into the hold of those who want them dead.

Awel, a mysterious woman, has made her way back into Straone, intending to get to the ATTU council for her own reasons. Hyacinth, working undercover in Straone has been given a mission that only he and the leader of Flyte & Thorne United know. The paths of these two strange individuals are soon to cross. Little do they know, they have more in common than they expect.

Chapter Start

 

[SalemKitty]

Awel dragged her feet through the city, trying to figure out how to blend in once more. The last time she had been in this forsaken country, she had been aiming to leave as quickly as she could. She had not cared about learning anything about them. It was different now. Now she could feel the disturbance in the country, something deep and broken that she couldn't quite place. She could feel the problem in the trees and the sickening in her blood. A Blight, some sort of diseases was to come to this land. It was already mixing in the air and beginning to spin, rising and falling with every breath of the people.

"What is it that we are looking for?" She asked the bird upon her should that she had named Nemesis. Nemesis was a small bird, beautiful and colored like aa fire, blue in the center turning to the most golden orange upon the tips of her wings. "We can't stay here for long." Awel could not let them get trapped in a mainland disease. The Elders had warned her that her body would not handle their sickness well, and a blight meant death for her.

Nemesis chirped pulling her deeper. Towards the center of the country. Awel was far, along the border, a place she could escape as it was, and she could taste the way the air came from deeper in the country. Stale, Sick, grey, flat. The sickness was beginning there, in the populated area. Blights often were so grey to her, not black or white, grey, as if the color was being slipped out of them, where they could die at any moment. Grey like the life slipping out of them, like the magic slipping from them. Grey and dying. Grey and leaning towards colorless.

Colorless, the idea gave her chills. All things had colors, portrayed the color of life and of all things, even the sick and grey. But to be colorless? That would be to have no magic, and as a Sight-Blessed, she feared nothing more than to see someone without color. It was something of her deepest nightmares, and what the Elders predicted was coming to pass.

Not a blight, she understood. Or rather, it was not just any blight that was wrapping its way thorough the air of the country. It was the blight. The one that would destroy them all if her Elders were correct. The balance of the world was hanging on its hinges, and she had to learn more. She had to learn how to stop it, and to get everyone to listen to her.

They had to go deeper in. Nemesis was right.

To do so would require money. Eyes darting around Awel found a tavern filled with soldiers, and those who were never to be trusted. However their pockets were lined with gold, and she needed that money to get around. Eyes steady, smile up, Awel sauntered over towards the tavern entering inside to the rambunctious cacophony of music, chatter, and eating.

"Who were those two Macabre?" She heard as she walked by a table filled with soldiers, dressed crisply and the least inebriated in the room. She'd have to be careful of them. "The girl. She was -- if you know what I mean. You and that scrawny kid, right knocked him out you did with one punch. What he do, steal your girl?" There was laughter.

"Then you took them home so you can't hate him too much? Family?"

"Why was he outside Straone looking like an Alexio heathen?"

"Disguise, Anthion. You know what those mages can do. Witches all of them."

Technicians, Awel corrected in her mind. Technicians were not heathens or blasphemous beings. They were scientists using the magic that they were skilled in to create a vast array of creations. And while some Technicians were darker than others, such as body smiths, they were not inherently evil. These magicless infidels wanted to annihilate magic and the arcane. Moment by moment Awel was remembering why she hated Straone so much.

Awel found her target, a lute carrying musician. Weaving through the crowd of soldiers she approached the woman who starred up at her.

"Can I borrow that?" Awel asked her, knowing her elven charm would ease its way through her voice. As long as she kept her glamor up, she'd be okay.

"For?"

"Three songs." She answered. And if she couldn't get it done in three, she probably wasn't suited for this mission.

"It's still our time."

"Three while you rest."

The woman handed her the lute, "If you break it you must compensate me."

Awel would do no such thing. However words were of little importance between strangers. Walking to the stage and sitting high up she heard the chortling of those who saw her and the calls they shouted as she began. Focus on the song. Focus on the colors.

Awel was not a particularly fantastic singer. However that was not why she was accepted to be able to leave home on her own. It was not the singing voice that moved a person. It was the way the colors moved about them, and in and out of them. It was magic that made people feel things, and Awel was the closest to her people to becoming a color master.