Author's Notes: None of these characters belong to me, and are used here without permission. No profit is being made on this story.
Actually, I tell a lie. One character does belong to me: the current protagonist, whom you are going to meet right after you finish reading this. Enjoy!
It was close to midnight on the high seas, perhaps twenty miles distant from the small, strange island known as Neverland, and a storm was raging as though Thor himself was having a temper tantrum. The skies were lit periodically with blazing light, and in those moments, had anyone been watching, a strange figure would have been spotted sweeping actross the sky, slicing through the black clouds like a hot knife through butter. The storm winds were strong; the metal adornments braided into the strange being's midnight-dark hair jangled wildly as they buffeted her about, but she didn't care.
Rain slashed into slitted eyes the deep, hard violet of polished amethyst, and clear membranes slid down to protect them. The utter joy exploding within her was impossible to contain, and came ripping out of her throat as a grating, deafening yell of purest triumph. Her wings –gigantic, black- feathered appendages that resembled those of a condor- swept up and back, trimmed close in to her sides to increase the velocity of her flight. Higher and higher she soared, legs held straight out behind as a kind of rudder as her wings slid effortlessly from one updraft to the next. She used the momentum of a sudden spiraling dive to carry her up again, and soon she was grazing the black underbelly of the storm.
Then she was inside it, the raging sea lost from view in the driving rain and mist. The clouds boiled about her; keening winds veered and tore in a killing chaos, but her wings harnessed and played like some wonderful, deadly instrument. Then, as the strange winged woman swung deliriously from one wild convection cell to the next, something began to happen.
A prickling sensation began atop her skull, quickly spreading down the back of her neck. I glanced back to see the inky strands of her hair lifting, beginning to stand on end like a porcupine's quills, the metal ornaments starting to shimmer with the blue-black glow of Saint Elmo's Fire. Alarmed, she swung her head up to see the clouds just above her limned with that same deadly light.
OH HELL-
Before she could so much as flinch, a ravening shaft of solid blue-white power slammed into her. Her entire body shuddered with the impact, and although the energy itself did no visible damage, the sheer impact SLAMMED her down and out of the storm clouds. Her wings windmilled wildly as she tried to regain her balance, but by that time she was spiraling out of control, the winds snapping her back and forth until she could no longer tell which way was up. That problem, however, was soon solved as she hit the sea with sledgehammer force. For a moment, everything went white, then black, as she was jarred into unconsciousness.
She didn't feel the hands that gripped her about the waist, nor the whispered alien voices that floated through the sea like whalesong.
Author's End Notes: I love prologues.
Actually, I tell a lie. One character does belong to me: the current protagonist, whom you are going to meet right after you finish reading this. Enjoy!
It was close to midnight on the high seas, perhaps twenty miles distant from the small, strange island known as Neverland, and a storm was raging as though Thor himself was having a temper tantrum. The skies were lit periodically with blazing light, and in those moments, had anyone been watching, a strange figure would have been spotted sweeping actross the sky, slicing through the black clouds like a hot knife through butter. The storm winds were strong; the metal adornments braided into the strange being's midnight-dark hair jangled wildly as they buffeted her about, but she didn't care.
Rain slashed into slitted eyes the deep, hard violet of polished amethyst, and clear membranes slid down to protect them. The utter joy exploding within her was impossible to contain, and came ripping out of her throat as a grating, deafening yell of purest triumph. Her wings –gigantic, black- feathered appendages that resembled those of a condor- swept up and back, trimmed close in to her sides to increase the velocity of her flight. Higher and higher she soared, legs held straight out behind as a kind of rudder as her wings slid effortlessly from one updraft to the next. She used the momentum of a sudden spiraling dive to carry her up again, and soon she was grazing the black underbelly of the storm.
Then she was inside it, the raging sea lost from view in the driving rain and mist. The clouds boiled about her; keening winds veered and tore in a killing chaos, but her wings harnessed and played like some wonderful, deadly instrument. Then, as the strange winged woman swung deliriously from one wild convection cell to the next, something began to happen.
A prickling sensation began atop her skull, quickly spreading down the back of her neck. I glanced back to see the inky strands of her hair lifting, beginning to stand on end like a porcupine's quills, the metal ornaments starting to shimmer with the blue-black glow of Saint Elmo's Fire. Alarmed, she swung her head up to see the clouds just above her limned with that same deadly light.
OH HELL-
Before she could so much as flinch, a ravening shaft of solid blue-white power slammed into her. Her entire body shuddered with the impact, and although the energy itself did no visible damage, the sheer impact SLAMMED her down and out of the storm clouds. Her wings windmilled wildly as she tried to regain her balance, but by that time she was spiraling out of control, the winds snapping her back and forth until she could no longer tell which way was up. That problem, however, was soon solved as she hit the sea with sledgehammer force. For a moment, everything went white, then black, as she was jarred into unconsciousness.
She didn't feel the hands that gripped her about the waist, nor the whispered alien voices that floated through the sea like whalesong.
Author's End Notes: I love prologues.