BEFORE YOU READ ON: Hey! It's Rissi! This year, I'm taking a Creative Writing Class which allows me to write and publish a novel... this is one of my first short story for the CW class. :) It hasn't been graded yet, but I've had some friends Beta test it/ look at it and attempt to correct it... whether or not I chose to listen to their advice is of my own business, but here is the completed work! Please enjoy!
The world was dying. Creatures of darkness, the Ilo, malicious and malignant beings with anatomy not unlike that of emaciated wolves with their spinal cord jutting from the thin skin on their foul corpses, were wreaking havoc and chaos upon what used to be gentle homesteads and thriving land. A hundred strong, they were believed to be the manifestation of past Pilo who bore revenge in their hearts at the time of their death. Pilo were caring creatures, wolves whose fur changed to match the color of their forest home when the seasons moved from summer to spring and back again. At that point in time… hardly any forests or greenery remained. The sun no longer showed her warm face from behind dark clouds, the water ran black and skeletons of the unlucky dotted the region covered in glaciers and cloaked with ice and snow. The only safe haven left was Firu, a small piece of land where the seasons lasted forever and the trees still grew with their trunks far too wide for any mere mortal of any age to wrap their arms around. It was a land untouched by the claws of the demonic Ilo. The guardians of the last refuge for those too frightened to rise up against the Ilo were two unlikely companions. A small, barely clothed, curly blonde headed child resembling a six-year-old human with large green eyes, who went by the name of Aeolia and his magnificent steed, Calimus the Grand, a massive turquoise stag carrying a crimson head of two twelve-point antlers. Both were quiet souls, happy to reside in only each other's company. Often, they were seen by the inhabitants of Firu and described as a hunter who carries with him a bow made from one of Calimus's shed antlers and an ivory quiver with five silver-tipped arrows- and a protector whose thundering hooves are the harbinger of death for his enemies.
In any case… the time for redemption had come. No soul alive or dead had bore the tenacity to stand up to the unjust behavior of the Ilo and those who did had not succeeded. Not even the guardians of the other forests could protect their homelands against the ever-present lust for blood that the Ilo still carry with them. The world's last hope was the pair who had been watching over the livelihood of Firu for the past few centuries. Both Calimus and Aeolia knew this. Now that the other protectors had been murdered and their lands destroyed, the stag and the child could not fail… or it would be the ruin of the world as they knew it.
Calimus lowered his mass to the forest floor, his withers now at a height where Aeolia, only four feet tall, could easily climb upon his back. Rising back up to his height of twelve feet, Calimus pranced impatiently as his rider attempted to gather his bearings and seat himself comfortably. Then, with a sharp kick of the child's tiny heel, the beast took off, flying through the trees and passing new refugees, not even glancing as he altered his path so as to not cause them to move. The wind followed their path, seeming to push on from behind them as they went, as if offering support for the battle they were to run into.
Reaching back as the duo broke into the dark land outside the untouched barrier of the Firu, the boy grabbed two arrows, putting one in between his incisors, and the other beside his bow. Raising his weapon to the level of his head, Aeolia clung to Calimus's turquoise flanks with pale legs, his bare feet pointing downwards to the terra under the stag's famous thundering hooves. Two fingers caressed the end of the silver-tipped arrow as the child's elbow drew back, the tension in the drawstring tightening with power and finally, with both his sage eyes open, he let the first of his five arrows loose. It soared through the darkness and then landed subtly in a path of earth more than a hundred yards ahead of the mass of invading Ilo. The glowing crimson stargazers of the creatures twinkled with devious intention and while the blonde-headed guardian reached back for yet another arrow, and it would seem that the sound coming from the demons was more like that of an amused hyena. They pressed onwards, their growls becoming louder… one could now see the saliva flying from the sides of their black mouths. A rabid look… unable to be matched by any living creature. Aeolia narrowed his optics and readied another arrow. This one danced in the sky for minutes on end, and during that time, the little protector sent another two arrows out. The latter landed on either side of the army, while the higher one encased the hundred souls in a diamond. Calimus's strong hinds pressed faster and he was given his head, Taking his fifth and final arrow from his mouth where he had placed it at the beginning, the boy counted the seconds… one, two, three! Suddenly, Calimus raised his beautiful palette to the atmosphere and bellowed out a beautiful sound that resembles the mellifluous harmony of two different kinds of flutes, one wooden and one metal. The Ilo froze in their tracks, eyes no longer twinkling and laughter no longer bubbling from their dangerous maws. In that moment, there was no sound. No bloody beckoning call for death... just the stunning white noise from the lungs of the turquoise stag. Aeolia set loose the final arrow into the sky and Calimus' cry fell to nothingness.
The sun broke through the clouds covering every piece of land from the Northern Hemisphere to the barren arctic. Aeolia and Calimus had succeeded. Beams of light rained down upon the earth beneath them, gracing them with the biggest star in the galaxy. The ice melted quickly, and the seasons were permitted to return once again. Spring came quickly, followed by summer- and two new seasons were introduced to the world. Fall, when the Pilo began to lose the light in their eyes and finally, winter- the month when the two guardians of Firu take it upon themselves to cleanse their world of the manic Ilo. Since then, the seven havens have been given new guardians and many millennia have passed. Mortals now walk upon the surface of this world and they have become so full of pride that they no longer allow themselves to see the protects of the seven havens.
Now when mortals are shivering against the cold winter months… they feel comfortable being with a group of others… they are content to huddle up to keep warm. Of course, they unconsciously stay away from the stray Ilo that still bear grudges from when they were alive… but mere mortals do not believe in what they refer to as magic. Therefore, they cannot see the creatures from the seven havens. Young children, on the other hand, are able to see the guardians and the creatures of the dark. They have not been blocked off from the "other world." Yet even they know that one should bear no fear towards the winter. Instead, they revel in its glory. To explain the strange behaviors of children in the frigid months, elders created fairytales and stories of a man in a sleigh drawn by reindeer. This provided the children a name to put to the seven havens, their guardians and the two protectors of Firu- even though all of them know that there is only seven stags, one of them being Calimus, and the bearded man their relatives speak of is actually a child just like them. In any case, children do not worry in the winter months. For they know that sooner or later, Calimus and Aeolia will break from their eternal garden and open the sky again, allowing the troubled creatures to find peace within themselves… one only has to wait.