Hello everyone! This is a redo of Map of the Worlds, because I hated Map of the Worlds, A Well Trodden Path, and Small Expectations. I'm rewriting all three of those books, ok? YAY! I'm so happy, I really, really hated writing Small Expectations. It was torture, trying to force the words through my fingers. I wanted to feel free and easy like I did writing Demon's Jealousy, Last One Over, and all the books before those. PLEASE REVIEW!
Chapter 1, The Shining Swords
He had lived there for as long as he could remember. He had made everything his home, and had familiarized himself with everything.
His name was Skye. He had been abandoned at birth, left to die in a little cave drilled into the side of a huge canyon wall. He dreaded even the summer, because even then it would be snowy, cold, and windy, like it always was. He had a coat like a snow leopards, thick and dark silver, with black rings on his back and tail.
Skye sat in front of his cave, staring down at the freezing stream that ran along the bottom of the canyon. That was where he got his water, though he dreaded touching the stream for its coldness.
He stood up and walked along the edge of the stream, searching out for the one place he valued the most. As he saw it ahead, he quickened his pace, and then stopped in front of it. He leaped onto the cool rock and stared down at the precious things.
Two swords. Both pointed north. One had red jewels, the other had blue. Skye sighed with happiness as he ran his paws over the silver blades. The red one was in terrible shape, chipped, burned. There was even dried blood on. Skye had always wondered whose blood that was. (AN: Demon lol!)
Skye rested beside the silver swords. He loved them so much. He felt like they were friends somehow, and that the swords knew him...or at least their owners did.
As Skye lay there, he looked up at the sky. It was darkening, not with night, but with clouds. He sighed. He would have to go back to his cave, and leave the swords there. He did not want to leave them. But he had to.
"Bye guys," He told them, blinking dark blue eyes. "Don't get to wet...really try to stay warm and dry." As he walked away, he kept looking back at them. He spent all his time with the thin, silver things. It tasted like bile to leave them.
Skye padded into his cave and curled up on the warm, sandy floor. He thought about the swords as he fell into sleep. He hoped they were alright. It was raining very hard now, and Skye worried for them.
Finally he closed his eyes, and dreamed about the two swords. He was sitting beside them, and they were with him. Then all of a sudden, they disappeared.
"NO!" He yelled out in his dream, but he must have yelled it in reality too, because it woke him up. Skye scrambled to his feet and raced from the cave, into the pouring rain. Everything was wet, and water ran off the rocks in small rivers.
Skye hurt his paws as he tore over the jagged stones and gnarled bushes. He could see the rock where the swords were ahead, and he quickened his pace.
There they were. They were still there, side by side.
Skye sighed with relief, but as he did, the thunder crackled and rain gushed down. Skye let out a yell as the water dislodged the blue sword. He screamed as it was pulled foreword, and hung half off the edge. There was a moment when it hung there, then it toppled off and slipped silently into the roaring river, where it disappeared.
Skye screamed and ran foreword. He threw himself down, groping into the stream with a paw. Though his eyes were wide with shock, he did not find the sword.
He turned and saw the red one. He gave a gasp. It was slipping foreword too. He lashed out a paw to catch it, but it too silently fell over the edge of the rock and slipped into the water.
"NO!!" He screamed. Skye thrashed his paws in the water, and he felt his leg hit the hilt of the red sword. Hope seared in his chest and he dashed into the stream after it, but as he did it was sucked down. He watched it, screaming and wailing as it grew smaller and smaller and was swallowed up be darkness.
Skye pulled himself back onto the slab of rock, turned over and started to bawl to the skies, wailing and sobbing and screaming with agony and grief. In this lonely, barren land, the swords were all Skye had had. And now they were gone.
"I'm so sorry..." He wailed to them, "I'm so, so sorry...Oh, I'm sorry..." He could not manage anything else. All he could to was lay there and cry, while the rain beat down on him in an unstopping rhythm.