Hey you guys! So terribly sorry I haven't been active. School, basketball, etc. are keeping me well occupied. Hopefully I will update The Mistress of Time soon, but I've reached a bit of a writer's block on it :/
This new story I'm bringing to you guys was inspired by a short story my mother wrote (yes, she's a writer too. She got me to love writing!) about a man who made wax dolls of the people in the village he lived in. Each person got one wish, but at a terrible price. That's all she would tell me. So I modified it drastically to create The Figurines. The basis is still off of what she would tell me of her short story.
There will be some OCs, but I promise well-known characters will be there too.
I hope you guys enjoy: I had fun writing the prologue for this one.
Just visible in the eerie light of the deep Ghost Zone was the castle, which, bathed ghostly green, radiated danger. The decorative gates were drowned in cobwebs, as if they hadn't been used in centuries. The place seemed virtually inhabitable. Or, at least, that was the rumor.
The mansion was home to a vast library, filled to the brim with dusty books of all ages. The open floor space had been diminished by several large stone statues, a workspace adorned with pottery tools and flakes of clay, and, of course, the impossible to miss replica of a city in the center of the room, complete with figurines of unrecognizable people.
A man entered the library. He wore a battered pitch-black cloak and ragged clothes, complete with a clay-baked apron. His face was undistinguishable under the hood of the robes.
He strode confidently to the little city and promptly picked up a boy with hair dark as the night sky with toughly callused hands. Carrying the delicate sculpture to the workspace, he painted a single snow-white stripe among the black. Seemingly satisfied, the man returned the teen to the city representation.
The knock broke the silence, banging loudly throughout the tower. The man, however, wasn't fazed, and called in a rough, yet knowing voice, "Enter."
The doors opened a crack, and there in the shadows stood a girl. She looked to be around fourteen. Silky chocolate-brown hair tumbled down her back, finally curling up at her hips. Striking sea-blue eyes surveyed the study carefully. She was dressed in faded jeans, a beat-up white t-shirt that might have had words on it once, and a cloak similar to the man's was wrapped tightly around her shoulders. Despite this, she gave off an aura of a beautiful girl underneath the filth on her face.
"I bring news, Father," she answered his unspoken question. Her voice was spectacular: soft and gentle, not a trace of bittersweet.
"Yes?" the man grunted.
"The boy," the girl began. "The Time Master says he will find us."
"Does he?" the man mused. "Clockwork says a lot of things, dear. Are you sure?"
"That was what he informed me of, Father," the girl persisted. "'The thing you fear… it will happen on the Twelfth of December, in the cold of nightfall.'"
Though it was not visible, the man frowned. "We must be prepared," he said at last. "We are never caught by surprise, thanks to Clockwork. We must use that." He paced over to one of the thousands of shelves, removing a single book as if it was easily identified among the others. It appeared to only have a year or two's worth of grime layering the front. The man brushed it off to reveal a title in barely readable gold lettering: The Art of Ceramics – Make your creations come to life!
The girl paled when she spotted the blood-red leather cover. "Father, is that really necessary?"
"It must be done," the man replied calmly. "The boy cannot be petrified like the others. We have no choice." He skimmed the Table of Contents before riffling through the old yellow pages, finally landing on page one hundred and five. The heading bore the words Argilla di Vita.
"You're heart is too soft, child. That will be your downfall one day."
The girl's face hardened. "Father, I-"
"Go," the man interrupted. "Inform Clockwork of my decision. And if you try to get him to change anything, Prilla," he growled. "I will not hesitate to…ever so slightly…crack your statuette."
Whatever color that was left in her face drained immediately. "Yes, Father." The shadows seemed to swallow her whole, and the doors closed with a quiet click.
The man sighed. "It must be done," he repeated to himself. His eyes fell again on the figure of the clay boy, his hair now adorned with a streak of the opposite color. "When he comes, we'll be ready to play."
So there's the prologue, my friends! Did you like it? There's tons of mystery wrapped around this man and his daughter, I know, but that's kind of the point. No one is supposed to know about them. The rest you'll have to guess...some of it I don't even know myself yet.
I think this story will go farther than my other ones. I just have a feeling in my gut.
Anyway, this week I have Spring Break, so I'll try to update all my stories. This story is helping me get rid of my writer's block, hopefully. Agh, how I hate writer's block :/ Ah, well.
Please review; I'd really like your thoughts on this one.
~Cherry
