The Tale of the Elf Prince and the Spark Girl
Part One
Darcy was almost overladen with shopping bags by the time she spotted the strange little curio shop. 'The Enchanted Candle' she read across the top of the storefront. It had a bright window display that glowed a merry golden-yellow from the various candles that flickered inside of it. It was definitely an inviting sight compared to where she stood from the outside on the cold and slick Manhattan sidewalk, with her nose going pink and numb and little white puffs of air billowing out in front of her every time she breathed. Being from the desert, she had always dreamed of a 'White Christmas' as the song goes, but as realities went, she definitely wasn't acclimated to the cold, snowy New York weather, and had learned that she very much appreciated snow better while looking at it from a window inside of a warm and cozy place. And this shop did indeed look warm and cozy from where she stood. There was, however, a deeper, less superficial voice inside her head that told her that there was something else about the shop that called to her too. An allurement. Maybe it had to do with the fact that cute little hand-made figurines and intricate hardbound books were on display. Darcy was a sucker for hand crafted stuff. Whatever it was, Darcy found herself wading through the masses with her shopping bags and making her way inside The Enchanted Candle.
A little tinkling bell signaled her entrance, and a waft of warm scented air rushed against her cold and clammy form. The earthen scents of sandalwood, frankincense and lavender hung heavy in the air, and low chanting music was playing from some hidden speakers from inside what she found to be a very snug little shop. There were crystals and Buddha statues, aromatherapy oils and little painted animal figurines, heavy age-yellowed books and banners with inspirational quotes on them, and tons of candles everywhere as the namesake of the shop foretold. Darcy was definitely getting the "hippie" vibe from this place. Especially when who she could only assume was the shop owner welcomed her into the shop.
"Greetings, starchild, to The Enchanted Candle," said a tall, slender middle-aged woman who stood next to a glass case with an ancient-looking cash register on it. The lady seriously said 'starchild' - Darcy wasn't even joking. She had a mass of flowing gray hair and a kind, dreamy look on her face, which was fair and free of make up. "Do you need help finding anything?" she asked in an equally dream-like voice.
"Uh, just browsing," Darcy said, amused, as she took in the long forest green tunic and matching billowy pants the woman was wearing. And were those sandals? In this weather? Darcy couldn't decide if this lady was awesome or certifiably insane. Probably a bit of both.
The woman smiled genially at her. "Just let me know if there is anything I can help you with. The oracle cards and books on the wonders of Tantric lovemaking are fifty percent off during this holiday season."
Darcy's eyes went wide. She choked out an "Thanks for the heads up," and shuffled past the woman, trying to hold in her laughter. She decided then and there that the woman was most definitely awesome.
With her back turned, however, she missed the way the woman's smile turned knowing as she gazed at her.
Because of the shopping bags Darcy was carrying with her, she found that she had to awkwardly step sideways as she went down the narrow, rickety aisles. Every shelf and glass case was bursting with strange little knick-knacks. It was in the first aisle that she found a little wooden elephant figurine. It was painted a midnight blue and had bright little shimmering gold stars painted on it. It so reminded her of Jane for some reason. Maybe because it looked spacey but wise at the same time - much like Jane Foster. The only thing was that Darcy was already making Jane a scarf, hat, and mittens gift set. Would including the elephant be too much? Jane had already warned her that she was horrible with holidays, and she didn't want her to get her anything extravagant because more than likely she'd just get Darcy a Starbucks gift card at the last minute. With a smile and a shrug, Darcy decided to get the elephant figurine anyway. 'Tis the season. She picked up the elephant figurine and shuffled on-wards.
In the next aisle she found a pretty neat aromatherapy candle set that wasn't too badly priced. She figured that it would be a great combined gift for both Dr Banner and Agent Hill since they were getting pretty serious in their relationship and had moved into an apartment together. She picked the set up, thinking it was actually a really good thing that she had been pulled into this shop because she was scoring some pretty cool things for her friends and coworkers at SHIELD. She shuffled things around in her grasp and moved on.
Intimate murmurs brought her attention to a couple further along down the aisle. They were checking out the aromatherapy oils. They both looked to be in their late twenties and were talking softly to each other in French. It was obvious that they were deeply in love and were on vacation. Darcy couldn't help but wonder what it would be like to have the roles reversed and be on vacation in Paris with a lover during Christmas time. She tried to envision herself in a quaint little Parisian cafe…but she couldn't see anyone there with her romantically. All she saw was Jane and Thor smiling and holding each other in front of the Eiffel Tower while she took their picture. Darcy frowned. She didn't even have the starring role in her own fantasy. The French couple moved on out of the aisle. Darcy tried to shrug off her sudden feelings of inadequacy and also moved on.
She went in the opposite direction of the couple, not wanting to have to keep looking at how adorable they looked together. Her attention was pulled toward the book section of the shop by a group of giggling older women. They were really getting a kick out of whatever book they were looking at. A grin lifted a corner of Darcy's lips when she recognized what they were reading as the Kama Sutra. She stood a ways from them and picked up her own copy of the same book, wondering about it herself since she'd heard of the infamous sex manual but had never read it.
She flipped open a page and immediately tilted her head to the side, her eyes going wide. "Is that even possible?" she whispered under her breath, emitting her own giggle. She leafed through several more pages, snorting at times, but biting her lip at others. For a moment there she even contemplated getting it for Steve Rogers as a gag gift, because he was infamously known around the Avenger's Tower as being a blushing schoolboy when it came to the birds and the bees… But she thought better of it. Seeing some of these illustrations would probably literally kill the poor guy from embarrassment. Darcy wasn't that mean, plus she wasn't that close to Captain America since he tended to avoid the science division like The Plague. He'd probably think that Jane's weird little assistant was coming on to him. Which was so not the impression she wanted to make on the old-fashioned superhero, especially since he was dating a waitress named Beth who seemed pretty nice and down to Earth.
And, yes, they looked cute together. Just like Jane and Thor looked cute together, and Pepper and Tony looked cute together, and Agent Hill and Dr Banner looked cute together, and even freakin' deadly assassins Agent Romanoff and Agent Barton looked cute together. Oh, and let's not forget the beautiful French couple only a few rows away from her in this very shop!
'Ugh, couples,' Darcy thought. They seemed to be popping up all over the place. Kissing and cuddling and keeping each other warm during this chilly winter season (ok, except for the assassins. They weren't into PDA but she knew they were definitely doing it behind closed doors because she'd heard them breathing heavily and moaning in a closed off training area the other day while she was passing through the hall. And the moans weren't in pain, if you caught her meaning).
The only things that were keeping Darcy warm this winter season were her fugly hand-knit holiday sweaters and her overheated laptop.
It wasn't like Darcy was a total dog in the looks department either - she had the whole 'hot studious chick' thing like Velma from Scooby Doo going on for her - so she couldn't blame her datelessness on that. It was more of a personality thing. She tended to be the type of person that just let whatever came to mind fly out of her mouth. It…annoyed people. And that hurt more than anything else - the fact that people groaned and quickly left rooms so that they didn't have to put up with her.
Darcy was really good at keeping up her blase attitude about it, but, secretly, she was always second-guessing herself and agonizing over what people thought of her because of the things she said.
Darcy suddenly set the Kama Sutra down with a frown. She had no use for it.
Feeling a sudden sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach, Darcy shuffled further down the book aisle where there were less people and turned a corner, finding herself in a dead-end by herself. It was like a massive barricade of old, dusty books that literally went up to the ceiling. She stood there, looking but not seeing; just feeling her face flush from the warmth of the shop and the feelings of inadequacy and rising humiliation that were suddenly overtaking her. Her head was swimming from the headiness of the incense burning. She stumbled forward, pressing into the old books as her vision blurred and her breathing picked up in gasps, like she was unable to get in enough air. A hot tear spilled down her cheek.
It was a moment of weakness that she couldn't hold back, and she hated herself for it. She had thought that once New Mexico had been behind her that these feelings of being utterly alone and lost would go away, but she was finding that life in New York made her feel that same sprawling emptiness inside, only on a much larger scale because there were now literally millions of people around her that didn't give a fuck. Darcy breathed deeply, trying to calm herself. "Get a grip, Darce," she said lowly, hugging her items to her chest and staring at the books ahead of her. She sniffed and quickly dashed the tears from her eyes, pushing the black ball of emptiness deep inside of her down and away for now. She forced a smile on her face and started browsing the titles of the old books in front of her. None of them really interested her though. They were all old strange books on enlightenment and philosophy that had obviously never made any bestseller lists. She was about ready to give up browsing when one book spine caught her eye. It wasn't as old and yellowed as the others…and at certain angels it even looked like it gleamed.
Darcy stood on her tiptoes and slowly pulled the silvery-white volume down. It was thick and even heavier than it looked. The drawing on the front was of a dark green forest. There were tall mountains covered with hazy clouds in the background and a river in front of the forest, with tiny people rowing in canoes. The drawing was so good that Darcy could almost see the wind ripple in the trees and the muscles working in the people's arms as they rowed. On closer examination she even noticed that the drawing was detailed enough to show that the little figures had pointed ears. 'Aaaaaaw, little elves,' she thought, trying to ease herself back into the Christmas spirit. She wondered if this was some sort of book of holiday fables. She noticed that there was no author or title on the front.
She balanced the book in her hands as she cradled her other items in her arms. The thick volume cracked open to pristine white pages that had elegant handwritten script on them. Darcy's eyes traced over the characters, feeling a strange wave pass through her. This wasn't English or Chinese or any other language she had ever come across. She flipped through more pages, finding them all written in the strange flowing script. She finally settled on a page that had another drawing on it. It showed what looked like a city among trees. There were illuminated houses connected by stairs and bridges that lead from one tree to another; and among this tree city were people with lithe forms, long hair, and pointed ears.
Darcy felt her heartbeat accelerate and a tingle go down her spine as she took in the extreme detail of the beautiful drawing. If she had seen this book in New Mexico, back before a really buff Norse god dude had fallen out of the sky and had totally warped her sense of reality, she might have just thought that this book was written by someone with an extremely vivid imagination and too much time on their hands…but now… Now things were different. She'd heard Thor relaying tales to Jane about the different realms he had been to, and the different species he'd come across.
Her senses were screaming at her that this book was not human made.
She flipped through more pages, feeling shocked and freaked out that something like this existed in a little shop in Manhattan. It was as she was flipping through the pages that the strange script started to shimmer and change. Right before her eyes characters that had been unreadable to her only moments ago flowed into elegant cursive English. Darcy blinked several times, doubting her own vision, before she read the first thing that popped out to her. It was darker than the other text, and seemed to be written in a different hand than the rest of the book…
"Those whose hearts are pure and believe shall play among our gardens."
As soon as Darcy finished reading the last word, a blinding white light burst out from the book and enveloped the little dark corner that she was in. She tried to scream but no sound came out. She couldn't let go of the book! The light swallowed her whole. In a flash, Darcy and the book vanished, leaving no evidence that the little dusty corner had ever been disturbed, save for the slim space in the shelf where the book had been.
To Be Continued