Quote of the Week: "Writing is easy. All you do is stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead." - Gene Fowler
School took more time than I gambled it would. To tell the truth, as soon as my class got done with one project, another was assigned; so, after finishing the first ten pages by last Thursday, I hit a tad of a roadblock. . ;;
She took one look at the flagstone walls, and tried to open her sleep-gummed eyes some more. She was sure she was on the floor; but, if the walls were stone, then the surface beneath her was way too lumpy and squishy to be so. Groggily, she pushed herself up onto her elbows, and looked around her room. She was on an old mattress of sorts (she suspected it was stuffed with hay) that had been tossed on the floor; the walls and floor were the same type of uneven flagstone, held together by chipped and old mortar. Although the room was circular, there was a door off to her right, made of thick wooden planks and furnished with large cast-iron hinges. The hinges were probably for decoration, but she highly doubted the ornamental value of the giant padlock and tiny eye-height window with rusty bars across it.
There was only one window in the entire room. It was long and narrow, set up much higher than she could reach, with antique-looking stained glass across the top half. Somewhere along the colored glass and lead picture of some sort of biblical scene (she had never really read the bible, but the figure in the window had a sort of glowing halo about their head, and angels frolicked in the clouds above their head), the lead had twisted and ripped, and glass had fallen out to, most likely, crash to the ground below.
Slowly, Holly stood up, and pulled pieces of straw from her red-brown ponytail. Her entire body felt sore; as she took a step forwards, her leg suddenly felt as if it was a foot shorter than the other, and her stomach gave a little flip at the wave of nausea that hit her. Pins and needles shot through her leg, and she once again plopped down onto the straw mattress, the offending leg straight out in front of her. The witch pulled together a little of her common sense and eyed her leg it wasn't broken, and the aching feeling was soon fading away.
It just fell asleep... She sighed and leaned back until her back met cold stone. The temperature of the wall sent small involuntary shivers up her spine.
So cold... it smelled like death... blood curdled about the open edges of the gashes along the spindly arms, and spider-like fingers held her tight. There was a panicked yelp from someone, and then she was up in the air, with no broom below her.
"So, it brought you back again."
Holly blinked greenish-hazel eyes and looked about the circular room. There were no corners, exactly, but the fading sunlight still left patches of complete darkness: shadows that she didn't have a light to use to break up. The stained glass half-window made strange patterns on the floor; a mix and mess of different colored blobs. The glob of color was broken by a foot - small and pale. Holly trailed her eyes up the foot, to the leg with a scabbed-over scratch on the knee, and then onwards to a scraggly, immature, young body with a plain cotton shift on it.
Although the stark white of the cotton dress glared out from the dark of the room, the blue eyes that peered out at her seemed brighter still. A pale hand brushed blonde-brown bangs out of the eyes, and the person stepped forwards.
"Y'know, LeeAnne, you shouldn' try t' escape so often. What if someone else found ya' instead of It?" A northern highlands accent, not unlike Jin's. But this speaker was a little girl, with a dirty face and messy hair, of only six or seven years old.
Holly blinked, the unfamiliar name settling upon deaf ears. Then, with a tone of unsettled nervousness, exclaimed, "Uh, excuse me?"
The little girl only giggled and smiled.
"Where the hell are we?"
The question seemed about right, for all it's wording. Lyra sweatdropped, and tried to see over the lupine. Not an easy task, seeing as she was only a few inches over five feet and the purple flowering plants could almost have challenged Kuwabara in height. Yusuke stood right beside her, viciously swatting plants out of his way, and sneering at the flowering heads that brushed against his face and hair.
"Yusuke, I really think we should find the others..." she trailed off as the spirit detective swung an arm out, batting and forcing a number of slender stalks to give way, and, in some cases, snap. Clustered purple flower heads fell, and the teen waded his way through the thick greenery. Lyra sighed, and followed the path of destruction, the earth spongy and damp beneath her feet.
The spongy mass that was the ground slowly firmed up and dried out, the squelchy noises that had accompanied their every step fading away until the two of them stood at the edge of the lupine bog, and stared out over a large, and very green, meadow. Only, unlike a wild meadow, which had a number of weeds and small shrubberies growing around the edges, this clearing much more resembled an immaculately cared-for lawn. And, over to their left, a forest grew.
The trees grew in straight, landscaped, rows and columns.
"Now that ain't normal," Yusuke muttered, crossing his arms and looking out over the meadow/lawn. Lyra slightly stepped back towards the lupine, eyes focused on the gray sky overhead. "I think we went the wrong way. We had better find where the others are." She toyed with the end of her braid, and the spirit detective followed her gaze, not at all thrilled about the prospect of oncoming rain.
"Yeah, I suppose so. I'm guessing this is land that belongs to that castle-y thing, right?"
"Castle Lain," was the immediate response. Lyra gave a small shudder, and grabbed onto Yusuke's arm, a bit too forcefully than was normal for the girl. But, at this point, she didn't care. Something unfriendly was roaming this area; she wasn't sensitive enough to determine what it was by the aura, but it reeked of aggressiveness and had a wild touch to it. Not a good combination, and she wasn't willing to risk more than she had to she had planned to find Holly and have everyone leave without fighting that... thing - whatever Jin had called it...
Yusuke's arm tensed under her grasp and the water manipulator released it. So, Yusuke could tell that there was something dangerous here... With a shared nod, both disappeared back into the lupine bushes, this time more cautious as to how they were moving. Rarely did a violet flower head move on the top of the wild mass of flora, and only ever so slightly.
"Lyra? Kurama? Yusuke? Jin? Victoria?" her cries got more desperate, and she started summoning a small sphere of water to soothe her scratchy throat. After a few sips, she called out again.
"Anyone! Hey! You guys out there?" No answer, and she sat herself down on a peculiar-shaped boulder that jutted out of the landscape. All around her was grass, a perfect green lawn. All flat and empty, devoid of people. She called up a bit of perfectly clean water in her hand, and drank from it, not caring as the water dripped down her chin.
Taking another sip of conjured water, Lark let her bag drop to the ground beside her rock perch and turned stormy eyes to the sky above her. Just a half hour into their wondrous "rescue mission" and everyone had gotten separated. The fog was starter to get thicker, now; where it had once been a thin silvery-gray mist, now it was as thick and pretty much the same color as iron.
Lark hopped down and searched through her bag for something to eat. There had been no time for breakfast earlier, and she happily chewed through a cranberry granola bar. Yep... no breakfast because Kyuro had been so damn persistent about leaving within the hour, and Rogerik had just shipped them off without a thought. Him and that stupid watch of his. If he wanted to, he could just trap them in this foggy new locale, and Lark wasn't quite ready to trust the blond at this point in time.
Slightly satisfied from the granola bar, she stood up and surveyed her surroundings. Grass, more grass, even more grass, and at the very edges of the meadow, where the fog seemed thickest and more solid than ever, was a stand of trees. Seeing as there wasn't anyone within sight on this painfully bare lawn, she gathered her bag and struck out towards the forest. By the time she was just a few hundred meters away, something struck her as odd, and the nagging suspicion that something unusual was going on was roaring in her head. The trees... they were perfectly aligned, like someone had planted them that way instead of letting them grow wild. All of the trees were exactly straight, with no lower branches marring the smooth, identically diametrical trunks. Mixed with the fog and failing sunlight, it made Lark shiver.
Everything was so uniform, so alike, that it made everything seem a bit more than just creepy. She could, with her active imagination (god forbid the young girl catch you calling her imagination overactive), picture the fog roll in and a hand grab her from out of nowhere, covering her mouth so she couldn't scream. She would fight and struggle, try to bite the hand that kept her from screaming bloody murder, but it would all be in vain... the culprit would drag her off into the woods, with who knew what sick ideas in mind, and she would be a helpless victim to their whims...
A hand clasped onto her shoulder, and Lark was snapped out of her daydream. With a shrill shriek, she leapt away, whacked her head on another tree in an attempt to get away from the first one (and her attacker), and managed to catch herself on yet another trunk instead of sprawling on the ground. Without even really telling herself to, she found herself summoning another sphere of water to toss.
"There's no reason for you to go screaming like that," the attacker drawled, and Lark blinked, letting the water dissipate. She had never really heard the short man before her say so much, but she supposed it made sense he would be here, in a forest.
"Hiei, you scared the crap out of me."
The three-eyed demon smirked, and leaned against one of the perfectly smooth, silvery-gray tree trunks, hands shoved in his pockets. The water manipulator just stared at him for a second, then realized what was wrong; the demon's cling-on was missing.
"Hey, where's-"
"Can't find her," Hiei muttered, red eyes darkening as he glanced to the treetops above them. "The little twit was missing even when I came to." He fell silent, leaving the younger Admarant sister to ponder over what had possibly happened to the dragonling.
It wasn't really something Lark wanted to think about. Especially when it concerned the innocent young Mara.
"So you're just sitting back, sulking? You jerk, she could be in danger!"
"She isn't," He interrupted. At her questioning glare, he sighed and took his hands out of his pockets. "I don't know where she is, but I do know that she's unharmed." As if to prove the statement, his jagan glowed faintly from underneath the white cloth that was tied around his forehead. The red-hued glare and glowing eye deterred any possible comeback that Lark might have had, and she meekly nodded.
"Hiei, could you find the others with that eyesore of yours?" The black-haired youkai glared, and Lark nervously chuckled. She hadn't meant to make a pun. "Sorry. But finding everyone else would be, you know, helpful."
Hiei said nothing, and for a moment Lark wondered if he had even bothered to listen to her, but the jagan glowed once more as he crossed his arms and closed his red eyes. A few moments of terse quiet, and then the demon suddenly came to and stared ahead, down the rows of trees. "A bit north by east." As Lark turned around, intending to follow her steps back to the clearing, Hiei placed a hand on her shoulder. She stared at him, a bit dumbfounded, considering he had made physical contact twice in the span of 24 hours.
"I would suggest not going back out there; North is the other way." He jerked his head back, towards the eerie finely tended-to garden, with the fog and mist curling up the trunks of trees and invisible end, and Lark sweatdropped.
"...You go first. I'll wait here for ya."
Normally, he considered himself fairly lucky. Once killed, yet able to, just in time, return to the living, to be born into a loving family. Shiori had always given her all for her "son", and he had returned her motherly love, although it had take a bit of time for it to sink in. Intelligent and able to survive in the world of mortals, and the dwelling place of demons as well. Top of his grades, in standing for an excellent college (or two... or three), and surrounded by friends.
A bit of bad karma, perhaps left over from his days as the merciless thieving fox Youko, had snuck up on him tonight. Right about now, he had no idea where he was, except that it was in front of a large castle (one he presumed was the castle Lain, judging by the aura emanating from it) and the guards wore skirts.
Okay, so they were kilts, but still...
"Geez, what kind of man wears a skirt?"
"Kilts, Kuwabara, kilts. It's a ethnical dress of Scotland, I believe; hence the Scottish name of the castle." Kurama rocked back on his heels, letting go of the branch of shrubbery and looking up towards the higher towers. It was a big castle, tall and imposing, but rundown-looking. It had to be nearly 400 years old, he guessed, and not exactly subject to a historical building protection program.
Next to the fox, Kuwabara stopped surveying the front gates of the castle and gave the redhead a lazy glare. "Say what you want, Kurama. Still a skirt to me." Kurama sighed in reply, and watched as Kuwabara moved away from the shrub, a bit less gracefully and much more noisily. The younger teen swore, but not loud enough for anyone that wasn't in the immediate vicinity to hear, and dug at the palm of his left hand, finally pulling out a rather nasty-looking thorn that he had pulled out.
"Jin better hurry up and finish with that aerial search he's doing. I mean, we're plenty helpful at a time like this, but Jin could prob'ly fly right up and in a window and save us a crapload of trouble."
"A good point, but it can't hurt to be a bit more patient." An unfaltering smile, and Kuwabara stared at the fox demon as if Kurama had suddenly sprouted a tail. "Riiight... Still wanna get this over with." The carrot-top shivered violently, flicking wide eyes back towards the castle. "The aura of this place is out of whack. Wish we could just go home."
"I highly doubt this little excursion will be so short." The fox grimaced at the memory of their trip to Cecilia's hotel, and Kuwabara grinned in sympathetic good humour. "Aw, c'mon, Kurama. This'll be over in no time!"
...Famous last words.
He cried out involuntarily as his foot got tangled in a root or something of the like, and he hit the ground. He figured it would have been a more pleasant tumble, if a bramble bush hadn't decided to break his fall.
"Ah! Crap, that hurts..." Hanabi grabbed onto an overhanging tree branch, glad that the backpack he was wearing had protected at least some part of him from the scratching thorns. As he dusted himself off and started to pull bits of foliage out of his white hair, the teen started to wonder if this part of the forest was any better than the unusually clean one behind him. The other stand of trees, with its flora all in a row, tended to get on his nerves and make him jumpy.
Like you weren't, before.
"Shut it." Hanabi didn't even bother to keep the comment inside his head. But, he knew that the other voice was just as annoyed and shaken as he was. "Hey, you can control your aura-y powers... think you can get me out of here?"
His only reply was a mental snort of held-in laughter. Hanabi frowned; normally, only He was this annoying. The snorting laugh died down, and the voice seemed to become more serious.
Okay, okay... let me see what I can do. I'll need to borrow you for a minute, though.
Not really something he wanted to do, but what choice was there? Hanabi hadn't caught view of any of the others ever since that watch went haywire at Holly's dorm. So, he gradually let his subconscious slip away, reluctant to let himself leave the world of the living.
Nothing... that's all he saw. Trees, trees, and more trees... no, wait, there was a small lake, and an empty lawn, but other than that, guess what?
Trees.
Jin kicked back, not at all amused at the lay of the land below him. Kurama had asked if the windmaster could find a way in and/or locate Holly. No such luck, unless you counted the front door as a danger-free entrance. And everything inside the castle was blocked out by an aura of sorts and not a very nice aura at that.
The wind picked up a little, barely noticeable, and the demon pricked elven ears at the gloomy-looking expanse of trees a bit northwest of him. Something was going on there, and it could very well be one of the students he had come to this place with. He had already run into Kuwabara and Kurama, so who knew? With a jovial spurt of energy, he plunged down into the trees, hoping to meet a familiar face.
They were familiar, kinda, but none too happy.
"You idiot, watch where you're goin'!" The coarse language from the familiar voice made Jin blink in confusion. Floating cross-legged in midair, he cocked his head at the person in front of him. "Eh, Hanabi, you okay there?"
Hanabi gaped a little, then composed himself, peering through the thick forest undergrowth with golden-yellow eyes. "Of course I'm fine. You guys only just abandoned me." The last bit was an insult, Jin guessed, and he supposed that Hanabi had a right to be upset. Although he had only seen it from the air, the youkai wasn't all too fond of this place, already. "No need to be so touchy."
"I am not touchy. As a matter of fact, I-" The agitated look on Hanabi's face slowly faded away to a complete blank, and Jin wondered just how many voices could be inside the boy's head for him to shift gears like he had. So far there was only the demonic one, right..?
Lack of emotions turned into a quickly fumbled apology, as the white-haired teen managed to get himself back together. "Sorry 'bout that, really. Dunno what came over me..."
"...Uh-huh..."
With a slight twitch of his tail in agitation, Kyuro perched atop Victoria's head.
"This isn't good... all those fools are moving away from each other," the cat muttered. Victoria gently moved the black-furred tail out of his face and his forehead creased in thought. From what little experience he's had members of the group as a whole, he had expected them to locate each other by aura searching. "There might be something distracting them and us." The cross dresser waved a hand at the fog that enshrouded them. "That is, to say, you don't think we're lost as well."
The black cat haughtily sniffed, for a moment his old self. "No weak kekkai like this fog net could get me lost." He caught a look from Victoria, and meekly settled down again. "In any case, keep traveling North East; Yusuke and Lyra should be in the fields just out of these woods."
Victoria went to step forwards, then paused, a creeping grin on his face. "And which way is North East?" Kyuro glared down at the young man, and growled, "Forwards!"
"I thought it angled a bit to the right..."
"No, so shut your dressied-up yap and keep walking!"
"Do you have a compass to prove it?" He was teasing, but it was almost singsong; the cat hated to hear that tone from anyone.
"In any case, I'm just glad you guys managed to run into us; it'd be a huge problem if everyone just scattered out every where." A kind smile, soft blue eyes, and Victoria hugged her with little (if any) abandon. "Yes, what a tragedy! But, business first, so the others might have to wait until the castle."
"If I know Kurama, he's prob'ly waiting for us outside the front gates," Yusuke muttered, uninterested as always. Well, perhaps not completely, but the spirit detective supposed it was better to be left a bit out of the conversation rather than receive one of Victoria's bone-crushing hugs. Kyuro, sensing a pun, sneered with his muzzle of sharp little teeth. "He probably has the tea boiling and everything; and has looted the entire place." Both erupted into constrained snickers, and Lyra tried to shoot them as best a condescending glare as she could muster.
"Alright, you two, stop it. We have to find everyone else, even if it slows us down."
Kyruo's mouth snapped shut, and the cat suddenly seemed to sober up.Yusuke, however, turned brown eyes to the sky. "Too bad no one's around to get us an aerial view..."
A rogue gust of wind swept across the ground, tearing sharper than any blade, and all three young adults squinted against the sudden outburst of wind. From around the loud noise, Lyra could just make out, "Well, are you happy, now?" Before a dull thud announced the crash-impact landing of something heavy. The wind died down, and Lyra lowered her arms, expecting to see a Jin-sized crater in the ground. The person who finally moved, looking around with golden-yellow eyes the size of saucers, was unexpected, though.
"What happened..?" Hanabi muttered, then noticed the fairly limp body next to him and blinked in surprise it already seemed his eyes couldn't get any bigger. "Jin, man, are you okay?"
A slight groan from the windmaster, but that at least meant that he was alive. Yusuke was soon by their side, helping the redheaded youkai to his feet and pulling him out of the churned-up ground. "You know what happened?"
Hanabi pointed to himself for a moment, as if to rectify that he was the target of Yusuke's question, then shook his head. "I don't really know. We were flying along no problem, when the wind he was controlling seemed to just kinda... die."
"...Flew too high..."
"Eh?" Yusuke peered down at the battered demon, but Jin said no more. With a look of disdain, the spirit detective dumped his load onto Victoria. "Have fun." Victoria sweatdropped, but turned green eyes to the sky, frowning slightly as he shifted Jin's weight draped over his shoulders. There was no way that Jin could have gone too high, not when he had a passenger as fragile and unused to the wind as Hanabi. The aura enshrouding the forest might also act as a kekkai, and if it did it could cause problems during their return.
"Do you really think moving on is the best idea?" Lyra's voice was pleading, and Victoria forced himself to pay attention to his reunited companions. Yusuke shoved his hands in his pockets, not looking too happy about the decision, himself. "We have nothing to gain by standing around here, and Jin'll recover fine, trust me." The windmaster groaned and went to touch the bloodied bruise on his forehead, below his horn, but winced and lurched forwards, teeth gritted. Bringing a grim smirk to his face, Yusuke turned away from the windmaster.
"We don't much of a choice, and this entire place is giving me a chill. All we need now is to find your sister, Kurama, and co. and we're all set to storm the castle or whatever we need to do."
"Sounds like a tall order," Hanabi muttered, gold eyes darkening. From ground, Kyuro arched his back and hissed, fur sticking out like quills.
Red eyes closed, and the purple glow of the jagan lit the forest canopy once more. From below, he heard the soft rustling of leaves stop and the wind and fog weaved through the rows of trees. For a moment, the entire world was silent, and then, almost so quiet it couldn't be heard, was a whispered "crap."
His eyes snapped open, concentration forgotten, and he could hear the slight inclination of heartbeats that meant Lark had realized the youkai had heard her. He glared straight ahead, aware that the girl below him couldn't see it; still, she wasn't so stupid to understand that he wasn't too happy about the interruption. Words weren't exactly needed, but he was just annoyed enough with this place that he figured a few insults wouldn't be out of place. "Do you mind, fool girl?"
She didn't reply, and he shifted his red-eyed stare downwards. No remark, no brash confidence - she was ready to jump out at anything that moved. For once, Lark was really, truly scared. "You should have stayed behind."
She whirled around, searching the trees with narrowed gray-blue eyes. "Bull! You're probably not even trying to find the others, either." The last part was said with a snort, as if she didn't' believe herself, and Hiei sighed in exasperation. Better be honest, at least.
"No, I'm not trying to find Lyra, Kurama, or the others."
"So you're looking for Mara... But you told me you couldn't-"
"Not at that particular point in time. Now shut up so you don't scare her away."
And, before she could answer, he had moved on. Lark hefted her bag higher on her shoulders, and tried to sense Hiei's aura as best as her meager abilities let her. He wasn't too far ahead, and still moving slowly, as if he was staying back for her to catch up.
She had never quite understood the relationship between the gruff demon and heart-melting dragonling, and suspected she never really would. Her memories with her mother were few and faded by time beyond restoration, and her father hadn't been around for a couple years now; a letter could never make up for never really being there in the flesh. Sure, she could dream about responsible parents (and often she did), but had never had such role models in her life. No time to dwell on it now, however; if Hiei was really that close to the white dragon, he would find her with or without Lark trailing behind.
For her own well-being, Lark hoped that the dragonling hadn't gotten herself into trouble again. Hiei would be pissed as hell.
"Oh, aren't you a new face, little one?" He looked up, brushing the twiggy branches away with a pale, pale hand, and gazed up at the shivering creature holed up in the tree. Snow-white skin, not quite covered in scales in the traditional sense of fish, but more like the smooth surface of snakeskin. Silvery-white hair grew down it's neck and along its back in one long tuft; almost all neck and tail, tiny claws clung to the branch as the long tail wrapped around it. And, most unusual of all, large leathery wings.
The creature's head poked out from the leaves, blue eyes wide and drawing air into the delicate nostrils at an insane speed, and he left his hand out. It slowly stretched its neck forwards, took a quick sniff, then cocked its head, confused.
"C'mon, don't mind that. I won't hurt you," he crooned, and the tail slowly loosened its grip. His arm felt heavier as the weight of the animal shifted onto it, and he brought his arm close to his chest, holding the animal close and supporting it. His eyebrows arched, he whistled in a low tone. "I'll be: you're one of those dragons, I bet."
"Yes she is. Now return her before I have to break those fingers of yours." Whoever had spoken came from behind him, and he forced himself not to tense up; there was no real need to worry, in all truth. Not like he could be killed...
Again.
The "dragon" in his arms chirped and rustled its wings, squirming out of his arms and over his chest, stretching those same wings free when it climbed onto his shoulder. Despite all it's gentleness it still hurt when the claws dug in and released as the white dragon kicked off and flapped its oversized wings. Considering it would be better if he came off as unarmed and harmless (because whoever the dragon belonged to was very protective of his pet), he put both hands in the air and slowly turned around.
Standing right in back of him was a young girl, with black hair and wide gray-blue eyes. No sign of the dragon there. He looked up, and noticed the shiny white that gave the young creature away; it was perched quite comfortably upon the head of a small cloaked man, its tail wrapped gently around his neck. Almost as comfortably as his hand was on the handle of his far-eastern style sword. Ah, drat... he never could remember the particular name for it. Not that now is the best of times...
The girl broke the silence. "So, uh, nice to know you can't hurt us and all, but you should probably run. Hiei is a bit of an overprotective mother hen when it comes to Mara, and-"
"Silence." One word, no need to even raise his voice, and this "Hiei" had complete control of the situation. The sword's tip never moved, but he was sure that it was aimed at his vitals if he had any, that was. "Now, tell me what you did to her. Now."
"Nothing, I-I swear!"
"Don't make me use this weapon; I spent a good hour treating the metal this morning."
He pointed at the sword tip, hands still in the air and ignoring the wide-eyed look the girl gave him. "Now, now. No need to use violence in front of young ones or this lady- erk."
He blinked brown eyes, and stared at the blade that pierced his chest, driven up to the hilt. The man, Hiei, must have thrown it at him. A good show of skill, too; the short dangerous man had moved so fast he had never even noticed his movements.
The faint smirk on Hiei's lips slowly faded when he realized the young man in front of him didn't collapse to the ground, blood gurgling in his throat. He didn't even dramatically keel over, awestruck. No. Instead, he poked at the hilt and rubbed his chin thoughtfully with his other hand.
"Good show there, with this... uh... ah, damn it all, I never can seem to recall what these swords are called."
"LeeAnne, tell me a story." The little girl, in her dirty cotton dress, snuggled closer, drawing skinny legs with scabbed-over knees to her chest as she lay her head on Holly's lap. The witch grimaced at the name, but rubbed the younger girl's head. "For the last time, my name is Holly. Not LeeAnne."
The little girl giggled, and stopped fighting to keep her eyes open. "At least you're not trying to be Queen Mary, anymore. Mama used to have a fit whenever you tried to skip your chores and pretended you were the queen."
Hazel-green eyes widened, and Holly stared down at the little girl incredulously. "Queen... Mary?" She asked, lip twitching. Dirty blonde bangs were brushed out of the large eyes, and the youngster smiled. "Yes! You aren't playing, then? Can I hear the one about Setanta?"
"Er..."
"Oh, come one! Setanta! The Hound?" The girl struggled to sit up, and Holly put a hand on her skinny shoulder. "Haven't you heard that one before, though? Wouldn't you rather hear another story?" The witch had never heard of this "Setanta", and doubted whoever it was would bear a resemblance to the Santa she knew of. The young girl lay her head back down on Holly's lap, staring at the black pit above them; the ceiling was high, so high that even the last rays of sunlight didn't reveal exactly where it met the walls.
"What about Oberon?" She asked, voice rising to a pitiful whine. Holly searched in her head for a story to go with the name, and Shakespeare stuck out in her head. Oberon was a fairy king, in one of Shakespeare's works. Or maybe Shakespeare had just used him as a literary reference? There was also the chance that Holly had once put the name on a test she had in her English class (one she'd most likely have failed) and didn't know anything besides he was a fairy maybe not even that was true.
"Uh, well, I heard about this new story... while I was out there," she lied, and the little girl's eyes brightened, then her eyebrows furrowed. "Where did you hear it from?"
"A traveler; he was a, um, traveling storyteller!" Great, now she just had to make up a story. Victoria and Lark, both of them, had been great at this sort of thing - not her.
"That traveler won't last too long, then." The girl mumbled, shifting around so she faced away from Holly and towards the broken stained glass window. Holly felt her lie slipping, and hotly asked, "And why not? He looked perfectly capable of handling himself."
"Not against the pooka, he won't. Even It doesn't like to handle the pooka..."
Pooka... where had she heard about it, before? Again, it was matter studied in a different class; Kurama or Lyra would be able to name off whatever it was no problem, as long as it was some sort of animal. With a sigh, she wracked her brain for a story to lighten the mood, and the story Travels to the West came to mind. "In any case, ever hear of Priest Sanzo and Goku the monkey king and their pilgrimage to India?"
The young girl shifted again and looked Holly straight in the eyes. "No... what happened?"
And thus, the witch began the tale of the holy priest and his demon companions, scraping together nearly forgotten chapters as best she could. But her mind strayed to the possibility of something that could scare away the monster that had brought her here - if such a thing existed.
And cookies to those of you who attempted to answer. Sleipnir was a good guess (I didn't notice how similar the pooka and Sleipnir were by my descriptions. ;;), but our favorite 8-legged horse is Norse mythology, not Scottish. I think I should put a web address to a reliable mythological animal compendium up on one of my chapters or something; it'd make life easier for all of us. O o;;
Anywho, ph34r my ghetto mythological dictionary!
Setanta: A brave young boy in celtic mythology, he defeated a ferocious guard dog, earning himself the nickname "The Hound".
Oberon: The king of fairies, he starred in Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (and, in my sister and I's not so humble opinion, was the completely whipped husband of Titania).
Pooka: Descriptions differ, but it is always a black horse. In Irish mythology, it can breathe fire and can clear mountains in a single stride, and can follow ships out to sea. Whoever tries to ride it is carried so fast that it is impossible to jump off for fear of death, and it has a chain wrapped about it's neck that forever binds you to it. and then the pooka chucks you off so you break you neck and die. Other times, it was said to drag it's riders down into the sea with it. Taming it was possible, but as soon as it saw a river or lake, it would forget all domestication and escape into the water. In some stories, the pooka actually ate it's victims.