Day: 30. April 2011

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The howling of a cierse filled the air. Soon it was joined by several more cries. The ears of the dragon pressed againt’s its skull.A wing drifted up to cover its head. Xyliz closed her eyes and winced at the pain brought by the steady drone. The cierse were only brought out when a dangerous outlaw had been seen. The howling got louder. Xyliz frowned in confusion. It sounded like the hounds of Tiamat were coming closer and closer with every second. Slowly the sound dimmed until it ceased to exist.

She felt her mount’s wing brush past her as it returned to its place by the dragon’s side. She sighed, shrugged and made to get onto it’s back when suddenly the dragon crouched down, it’s lip drew back in a snarl revealing sharp fangs on the ends of which venom was beginning to form. She looked around, alarmed, perhaps it was the outlaw….

A shadowy mass of long limbs and lashing tails drew out of the bush. As the sunlight washed over it she saw that it was a cierse – 13 tails  of the doglike beast lashed around its flank,cracking like whips and long, thin legs quivered with the anticipation for a kill. Its grey and red body looked like little more than a skeleton with skin stretched over it. When the skin came to the muzzle it faded away, revealing bone, yellow and partly molded from the damp. In its hollow sockets two black orbs glowed, with a white sphere in the middle which shifted around the orb, searching for its quarry. Out of its mouth teeth hung, covering the area were lips should have been like stitches.  The eight ball like spheres that were the eyes  turned to the rider and dragon. The  mouth opened, inside three writhing tongues vied to be the first to taste blood.

A long, high sound issued from the hound’s mouth and within seconds several pair of white eyes approached eagerly from the shadows. The dragon spun around, a mixture of venom and saliva showering the cierse. The unlucky victims cried out in pain and a faint scent of burning flesh filled the air. One of them feintedforward, snapping. The dragon swiped out a claw, catching the cierse in the head. The hound slid back into the shadows, whimpering. It wasn’t seconds before another feinted forward, and many more joined in the game.

“Amre!”  The hounds shrunk back and looked over their bony backs, happy barks issued from their mouths. Lolling tongues dripped inky black saliva  on the ground.

Xyliz smiled despite herself  “Adder!”-  Her tone quickly turned from relieved to accusing.-”Why exactly were your….things attacking me?”

Out of the mass of joyfully wriggling bodies stepped a boy, no older than 17. Adder. The princess best friend, from the age of 3 to the present day. Adder, of course, was not his real name. What exactly it was she had no idea, so she settled for the nickname. This was the first time she’d seen him in weeks. His duties as Security Minister left little time for anything except eating and sleeping, and it didn’t look like he did much of either.

Adder didn’t meet her eyes as he spoke “The empress wants to see you.”

Xyliz fiddled with her saddle impatiently “Yeah, but why the cierse?”. He didn’t seem to hear her. Instead he busied himself with  dislodging  a cierse that was chewing on  his black and green cloak.

“Why the cierse?” Xyliz asked again, taking a step forward. Instantly the air tensed as the cierse’s interest shifted from their master to the princess, who stood there, glaring defiantly. The dragon hissed.

A ghastly smile formed on  her friends lips “Precautions.” He said quietly, looking past her at something far away.

She sighed, getting fed up with all the drama “Fine, whatever. ” She made to get on her dragon, but was interrupted again by Adder “Leave the dragon, someone will come and take it back to the stables.”

“I don’t call your hounds ‘its’, don’t call my dragon an ‘it’.”

“Actually you did call them ‘its’.” He said ,a bit of his competitive spirit returning.

Silently Xyliz stepped away from her dragon, which gazed at the boy with baleful eyes. The cierse encircled the princess, panting hungrily. She couldn’t help but feel afraid. The cierse were the most vicious domesticated creature in the Palezarian empire, next to dragons that is. Adder fell back, strolling casualty as if he were enjoying an afternoon walk. Xyliz uneasily wondered how many times he had watched prisoners taken away by his horde of savages.

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There loomed the castle, blocking out the sun. The few rays that managed to surpass the dark  bulk shimmered around its outline. The black stone christened as skalarite* gleamed darkly in the fading light, drawing the heat from the air around it. The battlements surrounding the castle arched in, like the claws of some demonic being about to crush the structure. Out of the middle of the slender tower a tangle of  passages extended. These concealed stairways and corridors, which carried occupants to other levels of the empresses home and gave it the appearance of a spining top in motion.

The hounds of Tiamat pealed away from the boy and the girl, drifting of into the shadows. The princess walked past the leering guards with her head held high and her heart pounding. The boy walked alongside her, expressionless.  The great doors swung open, brushing the ground with a soft hiss. Crystal pipes veined  the walls. Within them magma glowed radiating heat and light into the room. Above them the ceiling came to a point, along which the trophies of victorious battles clustered – a repugnantdisplay of bodyparts and blood-encrusted weapons.

Neither the princess or minister payed any attention to their surroundings. They walked through the next room which was much like the last, but from where corridors branched out to the depths of the castle. At last they came to the door baring their way to the empress. The door was bare, no guards, no hexes, no visible defenses whatsoever. The pair strode up to it, stopping about a foot away. Suddenly the wood twisted, becoming an inhuman face with several gruesome features intended to instillfear in any who knew not of it’s existence. It sneered at them, broken and jagged teeth making scraping noises as they caught on each other.

“So, you’re back.”The guardian snarled, bloodshot eyes pivoting around in its head as if struggling to focus on the two figures in front of it.

Adder stepped forward ” The empress has requested us. I’m sure you have heard what happened to the last cheeky guardian. It would not be wise to delay us any longer.”

“Well look who’s acting all high and mighty.” It spat, gnashing its teeth together in what might have been anything. “And look at you,  a mere kid. You have no business dappling in this grisly game.”It spat on the ground in front of Adder’s feet ”Ugh, politics! Only on step above murderers. Anyway shouldn’t you be studying like a good little boy?” The guardian jeered, its eyes finally settling on the boy.

“Enough of this.” Adder  said, stepping forward and in the same fluid motion pulling out of his cloak a smooth stone. He lay it on the surface of the wood and almost immediately the face faded back into the dark wood, becoming just a series of knots. But not before attempting one last snide comment – “You don’t eve-”

Adder turned to Xyliz “Come.”

The doors swung inward and they stepped through. Xyliz frowned in confusion. Beside the empress stood Arequi, her head advisor. An advisor never stood by the rulers side unless there were no heirs to the throne, which in this case was not so. Along the sides hovered the other advisers, some looking at her with pity, others with malice. She walked froward, remotely noticing that Adder had stepped away from her and strayed into a corner, where he leaned against a wall, staring out of a window. Pale orange light spilled out upon the room in small pools, becoming distorted by the stained glass of the windows.

“Empress Cornelia.” Xyliz said, bowing “You wanted to see me?”

The empress nodded “Yes. I am sure that you already know this, but today my food was poisoned.” She watched her daughter with cold, calculating eyes.    She shook her head “No milady, I had no idea. If you don’t mind me asking what does this have to do with me?”

“Don’t lie you treacherous anoi*! I saw the astonishment on your face when you saw the empress alive and well!” Arequi cried, taking a step forward.

“Retain your civility Arequi.” Cornelia said quietly, but the menace was very clear.

The advisor nodded, not taking his eyes of Xyliz.

“Now,” She turned back to her daughter “what do you have to do with it? I, we, have discussed this long and hard, and also I loath to admit it, we have agreed you are a threat to the empire.”

“What?!” The princess shrieked in dismay. Despite her wishes her voice treacherously rose to a squeak, giving away her fear. “But mother-”

“I am your empress not your mother!” The empress rose with such speed and fury many of the people in the room cringed back. But her daughter stood her ground, glowering defiantly.” I will give you a day to decide what to do with yourself. You have two choices: become one of my soldiers or leave Palezar forever.” Cornelia declared, her voice like ice, cold and sharp.The words carried a great finality which  suppressed Xyliz’s desperate reply.

The room was silent, no one spoke. The tension left no space for sound. “So your leaving the throne to Asterix?” Xyliz asked quietly.

Her mother shook her head “I am not a fool. She should be on her way out right now as well.”

Well, the empress not exactly correct , for at that moment the doors burst open and Asterix stormed in, followed by the shrill insults of the guardian. She marched up to stand right in front of Cornelia, shouldering her way past her older sister. The guards made as to stop her but the empress held up a hand.

“WHY IS EVERYONE TELLING ME TO LEAVE?!” Asterix roared, her voice reverberating around the room. She stood there, hands on hips, glaring daggers, just challenging someone to prove her point.

“Because that is what you should be doing.” her mother growled, annoyance creeping into her features.

For a moment Asterix stood there for a second, first ,frozen in a stance of anger and boldness, then she crumbled to the ground, falling at her mother’s feet like a little kid begging for forgiveness “Why mom, why?!” She wailed, looking up through a veil of dark hair with large, tearful eyes.

The empress sighed impatiently “Because, you are of no use or importance to me and will be a bad political influence.” She said, taking a step back and sinking down unto her throne.

Asterix crouched there, defeated, then like a spring that’s been wound to tight sprang jerkily up. ‘You know what? YOU KNOW WHAT? Fine then! I will leave! But this isn’t the last you will see of me! No, beware, I will be back!” She howled, sweeping around, hoping for her cloak to swirl around her and add to the dramatic effect but instead it dragged limply after her.

Xyliz nodded coldly to the empress in the manner of a stranger to a stranger, rather then a daughter to her mother and followed her sister out of the hall, ignoring the guardian’s insolent jeering.

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Terms of Vieste

*Skalarite~ A smooth blackstone. It literally absorbed heat from the surrounding air. It forms deep within the earth and is very difficult to extract, thus only the rich can afford it.

*Anoi~ A small reptile-like animal with two eyes on each side of it’s head, two legs and a thick, barbed tail. Their skin is often brown or grey. These creatures are a common pest that poisons livestock and can spoil crops with the toxins it emits from it’s skin. It is a much hated creature, the equivalent to a fly or mosquito in our world, only much more dangerous.

Her dark clothes blended with the midnight sky, on the road with no street lights. The car never saw her coming.
-three, two, one, its done-
The teenage girl was a stranger in the world she lost herself in, the world that she created herself. She was a child, alone in her little wonderland. Her parents didn’t listen to her claims of the bugs, the bugs attacking her skin. So she buried herself in her own world to escape the dreaded creatures. They didn’t bother her there, but nothing else got through to her when she was in this state. She began failing school, and was eventually pulled out to be homeschooled. Her parents refused to let her leave without them after that. So she snuck out every night at 10:42. In her world, this was the time when the sky was brightened with fire works.
-never saw it coming-
She walked into the middle of the street-then a driver without headlights ran into her. Her body was left motionless as the driver just kept driving. In the cruel, real world, people didn’t want to be involved with others. The young girl was now a victim, never to be identified. She didn’t remember who she was, and she just screamed in her world. If a girl collapses in the street and no one is around to hear her screams, she doesn’t make a sound.
From that point on, she called herself Jane Doe; the named of the lost girls who never had a chance.
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A/U: Yeah…this was real short, but I have serious writers block right now, and I haven’t posted in a while. So it’s better than nothing. Sorry if there are any typos, I was typing this on my phone and couldn’t find the spellcheck button anywhere.