In the morning?
Silly Jukebox. XD
Anyways, I'll post chapter two, I guess. :> I haven't read it since I first typed it.
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Chapter II |:.
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Eori’s P.O.V. |:.
My Saturday morning routine was always consistent. I got up, checked on Breiti in her room, dodged the usual yelling from Lestil and Celan as they argued over cooking breakfast, and headed outside. My first destination of choice was the library, where I checked out numerous books. I could barrel through one or two thick novels a day if I worked at it. Today I checked out an interesting book that I saw on the shelf for someone who I was going to drop by to see later today as well as a couple for myself. It was still early in the day, and this was where my plan for today deviated from normal. I usually went back home to read all my books, but after saying my goodbyes to the librarian I ambled to Saelyr’s family estate instead. I probably hadn’t mentioned it before, but her uncle was the village’s mayor and gave their family quite the over the top amount of money. Saelyr got to live in one of the biggest houses in the city.
Saelyr didn’t want to be treated any different than anyone else, though, and insisted that I pay no attention to how large her house was compared to the rest. I had gotten used to that, and I totted my books I had checked out under my arm as I walked up to her front door and knocked on it a few times. There was no response for a while, and I realized that I hadn’t taken into consideration the fact that they were perhaps still asleep. I was about to turn around and come back later when the door opened, revealing a skinny man barely taller than me. Upon seeing my face, his expression darkened. “Oh. It’s you,” he stated indifferently.
“A jolly good hello to you, too, Eliel,” I replied, forcing a slightly happier tone into my voice than I would normally have – just to annoy him. “Is Saelyr home? I would like to speak with her. If you would please, inform me as to where she is?”
“She’s out back tending to her pegagus. Get out of my sight; I’m watching you…”
“You love to contradict yourself, don’t you?” I asked, not expecting an answer and not letting him if he was going to, as I turned around and walked off, starting around the house. Saelyr’s brother detested me for some reason that I never understood, and this was how I was usually greeted when he answered the door to find me.
The back of Saelyr’s yard was wide and open with grass stretching as far as the eye could see. I saw her green cape fluttering behind her as she stood in the pegusus stables – beyond the rolling pastures enclosed in wooden fences – and started towards her. For a moment I stood outside the stables, watching as she brushed the mane of a stark white pegasus, wondering if she would ever notice I was standing there.
“I got something at the library for you,” I loudly proclaimed, and Saelyr flinched at the sudden sound of my voice. She whirled her head with a glare which disappeared along with her tense posture when she noticed it was me –exactly the opposite from her brother. I held out the top book of my stack to her before she could say anything, and she stared at it. After slipping the loop of string tied around her brush around her wrist, she took the book from me and looked over the cover with a quick scan of her eyes.
“A Compendium of Tips of Caring for Pegusi,” she read and looked back up to me. “Thanks, Eori! This should be helpful. When do you need it back?”
“It is due in a month,” I replied bluntly. “I will be sure to remind you to give it back if you forget to return it.”
Saelyr gave me one of those ‘Eori-you’re-such-a-worrywart’ looks before setting the book beside other grooming tools that were on a shelf that jutted out from the wall. “So, I wasn’t expecting you today,” she began, and with a flick of her wrist, the brush leapt up into her hand. “Knowing you, I thought you’d be holed up in your room studying all day like the Eori you are. And anyways, I can’t talk today. Not that I wouldn’t like to, but I have a ton of work to do. Eliel taught me how to do a lot last night, and now he expects me to do it all by myself-”
“I suppose I’ll just have to assist you, then,” I cut in, walking next to her to set my books on the shelf under the one with her belongings.
She gave me a discerning look and frowned disapprovingly. “You want to help me? Eori, you never even exercise unless it’s a walk to the library, and you want to do this work? I can do it fine myself, and if I really need help I can just give in to Eliel and ask him-”
“I suppose I’ll just have to assist you, then,” I repeated with a firmer tone.
Sighing, Saelyr rolled her eyes before giving me a smile in defeat. She knew how I couldn’t be persuaded out of someone once I had my mind set on it. “Fine. We’ll see just how much you want to help. You can clean out the stall next to this one.”
Content, I strode out and to the next stall to the right when a horrible smell crashed into my nose. The stench was like nothing I had ever smelled before, and my hand shot up to shield my nostrils from any more of the odor that would waft up. It took one look into the stall before I turned away, cringing. “What in the world is this, everyone’s bathroom?”
A laugh parted Saelyr’s lips as she had once again begun to brush her pegasus. “It’s where they all take a dump,” she replied with a mischievous twinkle in her dark green eyes.
“This is the most utterly disgusting and repulsive thing I’ve ever smelled and seen in my life,” I pronounced, stepping away from the mounds of manure. “You expect me to clean this? Perhaps my boundless kindness would be put to better use elsewhere-”
“Nonsense,” she interjected with a devilish grin. “You’re the one who insisted on helping in the first place, aren’t you? Move it all to the compost pile a few stalls over where my mom can turn it into stuff for fertilizing her plants later.”
With a last groan of abhorance, I spend the course of the morning struggling at transporting piles of nauseating pegusi waste with a measly copper shovel. I wasn’t used to manual labor at all, and the repeated action of shoveling manure made me exhausted in not even an hour. However, I still persisted with endurance I didn’t know I possessed. After all, I was helping my best – and only, I supposed – friend. She continued to speak to me from the other stall, and I soon found myself too tired to answer her words. She must have been worried to find me sprawled out later on the ground outside on the soft grass with my shovel discarded to the side, the pegusi beginning to graze on the grass sprouting up from around me.
“I think Eliel would be better off for this job,” I wheezed up at her as she peered down at me with an expression that was almost a sneer of satisfaction.
“You’ve grown weak, Eori,” Saelyr retorted, offering a hand to help me up, which I gladly accepted. “When we were little, we would play tag in these pastures for hours and never stop, even when we were called inside for lunch or dinner.”
I had to prop up my hands on my knees in order to stay standing, and I couldn’t even gather the strength to raise my neck to look up at her. “Tag and manure are two entirely different things, Saelyr. The smell in there is potent enough to cause me to faint.”
Saelyr shook her head disapprovingly and pulled her long emerald green bangs behind her ears. “…Anyways, I’ve finished enough to call it a day. I’ve washed, fed, and groomed them all, and I can just make Eliel do all the rest later. He’s easily convinced when I threaten him.” That was something about this girl that scared Eori – the fact that she could scare boys older than her with a simple glare and crack of her knuckles. “Thanks for the help, Eori. No offense, but I actually didn’t think you’d be able to pull it off. Are you up for doing something? Are you hungry? Want to help me with some homework that I somehow got the first day of school?”
“I am rather tired, Saelyr,” I stated between each deep breath I took. “I will have to help you with your homework tomorrow. I think I will just head home and rest, most likely read some of these books that I just checked out.”
She looked disappointed. I hated it when she got sad, and I was seriously considering just staying here anyways when she spoke. “Oh. Okay. You go do that. I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”
“I will be sure to come,” I reassured her, and after regaining my composure I grabbed my books quickly and left again for my house.
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Flashback |:.
The screams in the other room were horrible. Celan had to hug me close and assure me everything would be fine, or I would have been terrified. Father was accompanying my mother in the other room. In the middle of the day, he had ushered mother into a side room and said that she was going to be giving birth today. I was going to have a younger sibling before the next morning arrived, but if these screams were what were going to happen before it was born, I wasn’t sure I even wanted one anymore.
“Everything will be okay, Eori,” Celan insisted, holding my head firmly against her shoulder as I hugged her tight. “Don’t worry. I’ve been through this twice before, and Mom’s been fine both times, when she had Lestil and when she had you.”
I didn’t say anything, and just kept completely silent and still while Celan held me, the screams echoing in the background of my mind. Lestil was sitting beside us on the floor in the corner of the dining room section of the kitchen, and she clutched Celan’s other hand while squeezing her eyes closed.
The town medic had come to assist in the birth, but that hadn’t changed what happened in the end. It was funny how even though Celan had repeated over and over that everything would be okay – they way she put it, it was like an absolute fact, set in stone – the unthinkable still managed to happen.
Out of everything that happened during my childhood, one of the most vivid things that are still embedded into my mind to this day is the expression that I saw on my father’s face when he exited the room once the screaming stopped. It had no emotion, whether it was happiness or the opposite, and the moment I saw that face I realized something had gone terribly wrong. It was Lestil that had asked the question we were all wondering: “How did it go?”
“It’s a baby girl,” my father had replied, staving off the inevitable.
“Dad, how’s mom?” Celan questioned, her mouth close to my ear as I pressed my face hard against her shoulder. It was this moment that I closed my eyes and prepared myself for what I already knew was coming.
He didn’t reply, and that was when my sisters realized what had happened in the room. We were all silent when the medic slowly made her way out of the room, uttering a quick, “I’m sorry.” She passed through the kitchen, out of the house.
“We’ll have a funeral later in the week,” my father stated stoically. “We’ll invite everyone in the city. Everything will be okay.”
Funny, because that was what Celan had said before Mother died. Celan and Lestil were ones who cried, as I wormed out of Celan’s arms and into the room where I found my mother laying on the floor in a pool of blood. There was a cushion on the ground, and an object laying on it, wrapped tightly in a blanket, and I walked over to it. Peering inside, I saw a small baby with black curls on her head. Her eyes were so tightly closed and she was crying quietly, and I soon became familiar with that noise as it happened that I would be sharing a room with this baby.
“You killed my mother, didn’t you?” I stated, knowing it didn’t understand. “My mother would be alive now if she hadn’t give birth to you.”
I reached down to touch her with my finger, when she suddenly stretched out its tiny hand and grasped my outstretched finger. I was surprised when she let out a soft coo. Were babies supposed to act like this right after they were born? I stared down into her wrinkly face, and could have sworn that she gave me a small smile.
“I suppose I have to forgive you since you’re my sister,” I murmured, and she let go of my finger and gurgled, making the oddest noise I had ever heard in my life.
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End Flashback |:.
I had actually fallen asleep during the course of the next few hours in my room and not read a single page, which was quiet unexpected. Once I had awoken, I found that it was already late at night, and I had missed lunch. I decided to go down and join them for dinner and picked up my Advanced Necromancy book for later as I started out of my room. As usual, Celan and Lestil could be heard downstairs quarrelling over dinner, but after I made my way down the stairs I had found dinner prepared and that they were instead arguing while eating about something else. Breiti was eating contently at the table with them, and I went over to join them.
They argued through the whole meal, and I hadn’t said a word, instead prioritizing finishing my dinner quickly so I could complete my task I had set for tonight. Breiti had completed her duck earlier in the day and beamed her usual smile as she presented it to me. I gave her a small smile back, and patted her head comfortingly.
“I’m going outside now,” I stated simply, leaving no more room for questions and taking care to bring my book with me as I walked out the room and started through the house for the back door. I had something I needed to do, and I wanted to get it done tonight as fast as possible.
We had a shed near the side of the house where I had all my magic items stored. The wood it was made out of was old, but I had enchanted it with magic, and it would never degrade throughout time. I quickly moved through the short distance between where I stood and the shed, and hurried inside.
From the outside the shed looked small, cramped, and dirty, but in reality it was roomy and clean except for cobwebs in the corners that I hadn’t dusted out yet. I scuffled over to the far wall and the bookshelf residing on it to pull out a thick, dust encrusted book. Holding it up, I blew softly on the cover to drive the dust away, watching as it settled on the ground. The only light I had in here was from the small window above the bookshelf – blocked right now by planks nailed over it – and I reached around for a candle. I knelt after grasping it, set it sturdily on the ground, and closed my thumb and middle finger around the wick. I rubbed it back and forth before snapping my fingers on it, and it illuminated with fire. I set my book beside it, able to now read the words on the cover.
In retrospect, it was probably a dumb thing for me to do, but I was set on it. I opened the book to the page about summoning Selikeh – a page number I had memorized for the past years, and glanced over the instructions. There was a knife sitting on the ground behind me, and I reached back for it. It took only one swift motion for me to cut my finger, and the blood began to drip down, crimson red droplets, and splattered onto the ground. I hadn’t flinched when I cut myself, and I didn’t flinch now as I squeezed the tip of my cut finger to send more blood dripping out onto the ground.
Step 1. Gather some of your own fresh blood as an offering…After tearing off part of my sleeve, I tied the soft fabric around my bloody finger. Pressing my uncut index finger of my right hand to the ground, I began to scribble on the ground, swirling and curving around myself, the book, and the candle. It was the ancient language of the Necromancers, and I muttered the words to myself as I wrote.
Step 2. Prepare the grounds for the arrival of the goddess Selikeh…I touched the figures around me I had drawn with my hands. Standing up, I dusted myself off calmly as thunder continued to roar outside. “…My name is Eori Ilitia,” I began quietly, making sure I was in the center of the circle as I spoke. “I am a Necromancer. It is through me that I channel the flow of power, into the realms of the dead. I summon forth the renowned goddess of death, the art of Necromancy, the spirits, Selikeh.”
Step 3. Summon forth the goddess Selikeh…There was a final ominous flash of lightning before a white ring of energy surged out from the middle of the scribbled runes underneath his feet, crashing against all four walls of the room at once. Books toppled from the shelf from the force of the blow, and my cloak flared up from the gust of wind it caused, the candle I had lit also being put out. The runes on the ground rose off the ground, almost mechanically, and began to glow faint silver. I was caught off guard as they lifted from under my feet starting to go through my legs as they rose, and I fell backwards, startled, off my balance onto the hard ground behind.
“…It’s working,” I muttered breathlessly to myself as I watched the rune split into two – the bottom staying stationary as the top continued to climb higher. The brightness grew, lighting up the entire room with light making the small candle’s previous light seem like nothing. “I cannot believe it is actually working on the first try… This is amazing – ten years of study paying off.”
Between the two suspended runes, a dark blast of black radiance erupted while the runes began to fade away, line by line, as if un-tracing themselves. The darkness disappeared with the runes, and behind them a figure began to take shape. The planks that had been previously blocking the single window were knocked off by the force of energy, and there was only darkness in the room as the only source of light left, the ruins, were gone. I could see a faint figure standing where the ruins once had been, however, and a flicker of light shone as I heard a cracking snap of fingers.
“I never did notice before how hard it is to travel to this world while it’s raining,” a voice mused, and I looked up to see someone who looked no older than my age of seventeen standing before me. It was a girl with the slender body of a teenager and long flowing bright pink hair that trailed down her shoulders and cascaded down her back. Her eyes were a strikingly bright yellow with slits like a cat. She had on a black dress and held a scythe in her gloved hand as she stared back down at me with an inquiring expression. A small ball of fire was hovering in her other hand, illuminating the room, and she set it onto the ground. I was amazed when it hovered barely, not scorching the floor at all. “Hello, human boy. You look quite young.”
“I am no human; I am a half-elf,” I stated, irritated. I didn’t want to have anything to do with those discriminating humans. “You think that I look young? You look quite young yourself, goddess Selikeh, for a being that is supposed to be as ancient as the art of Necromancy-”
“Oh my,” Selikeh cut in with a short laugh, starting to walk down towards me, and I noticed for the first time the velvety black wings that shot out from her back. “Flattery will get you nowhere, child. I don’t age, so of course I look young even though I’m over ten thousand years old. Now quickly, why have you summoned me here?”
Though I had been waiting for this moment for a great deal of my lifetime, I found myself frozen in thought, wondering what to say, how to phrase it. She really was an odd one – I couldn’t tell her personality from her face, movements, or anything, and she left me thoroughly confused at the tone I should speak to her with. “…My little sister. She has a disease; no one knows what it is. She is supposed to die soon. Could you be so kind as to please tell me her death date?”
Selikeh regarded me with raised eyebrows, and I couldn’t tell if she thought I was crazy to be asking this of her or considering my words. “Oh? You think I should do that for you? What makes you so special that you believe that I should tell you that information, half-elf?”
“I’ve dedicated my past years to diligently studying your craft. I’m at the top of my already talented class. I’m deftly skilled in your complicated art. Do I not get the small reward of being able to ask this small favor of you, goddess?” I questioned, and she seemed from her eyes to be taking me seriously and amused at my straightforward words.
“You’re quite the confident and outspoken young half-elf,” she mused, raising a finger to her long hair to twirl a pink lock around it. I watched without moving once as she stepped even closer to me, kneeling down onto the floor before me and setting her scythe down beside her. She cocked her head to the side with a sly, almost twisted, smile. “I like you. You entertain me. Very well, what is the name of this sister of yours?”
I was entirely surprised that she was acknowledging my outlandish request, but pleased by her reply. “Breiti Ilitia.”
As if she had the name and death date of every individual on the planet memorized, she tilted her head back slightly and stared up at the ceiling blankly in thought. I waited, watching as she continued twisting her hair around her finger absentmindedly. After a few seconds that felt like hours, she glanced back down at me. “It’s interesting that you take the time to call me here at this time. Your sister is scheduled to have a horrible event befall her in about a week. Her death date will be in approximately a month. Now if you’ll excuse me, half-elf, I have business to attend to-”
“Wait,” I interjected, with a loud voice that even startled me. “A-a month? That short of a time is all she has left? She’s only eight years old; she’s barely experienced life yet.”
“That’s a pity, then,” Selikeh stated with a matter-of-fact tone. “People die; that’s a fact of life, pardon the oxymoron. Everyone does, eventually. Your sister’s time is just coming quicker than normal for you half-elves. Oh well. You’ll live.”
“But she can’t die in just a month,” I continued frantically, acting like I hadn’t heard her words. “She has so much more left to accomplish. She can’t die.”
Selikeh seemed annoyed by my senseless bumbling, and sighed. “You’re the one who wanted to know this information. It’s your own problem now, knowing this. I’ll never understand you silly living people. You want to know things like this, then don’t believe the horrible truths of life, and feel regret that you ever asked in the first place.”
Then was the moment that I stopped thinking rationally and said something I truly did regret after reflecting back on it. It was, however, the next step of my plan. “I have read so many books on Necromancy. I know things. You cannot hide things from me. I know that there’s a way to extend her lifetime, to allow her to grow older and experience life. Someone can give part of their own lifetime to another. Tell me my own death date, the death date of Eori Ilitia.”
Of course she knew what I was planning, and she seemed very interested in it. “Well this was unexpected. I underestimated your knowledge of Necromancy, I’m afraid. Ha! Okay. We’ll see.”
It took another spurt of time that still seemed like forever before she thought out my death date. “It seems you are scheduled for death at the ripe age of thirty. Wow – quite young for an accomplished half-elf like you.”
This was an unexpected piece of information. I was to die myself in only thirteen more years. I had lived past the halfway point of my own life when I was fifteen. Half-elves usually live so long, into their hundreds, and the fact that I was supposed to die so young caught me off guard. The harsh reality of it all was lost, though, as I was blinded by my love for my sister this night. “Oh… Well. Thirteen more years of life is still more than a month, I suppose.” Then came the regrettable moment. “Give my little sister my upcoming thirteen years.”
After those brash words, it all happened so fast. A wickedly twisted smile stretched across her lips as she reached out her hand for my chest faster than my eyes could comprehend, and the moment her fingers plunged into my chest, I lost all ability to breath and froze, unable to move. I wheezed – it was all I could manage – and watched as she drew a thin blue thread out from my body. It glows and sparkled in the dim light, and she tugged on it once, firmly, and it pulled tight on my chest. Selikeh lifted a finger from her other hand and ran it quickly across the string, strumming it, and I felt it vibrate painfully in my chest.
“This knot,” she began quietly, pointing with her sharp nailed finger at a tight lump of the string that was barely past the middle of the thread,” represents how far you presently are in your lifespan, symbolized by the entire thread. As you can obviously see, and probably already know you smart aleck, I can simply cut it wherever I want and give the extra length to someone else and therefore extend their life.”
Without giving me another chance to tell her I maybe wanted to change my mind – not that I could seeing as I couldn’t talk with this choking feeling – she picked her scythe off the ground and sliced cleanly through the blue thread near the knot, and the string retracted back into my chest with a quick slither. I felt like I had been punched when the last of it went back in, and flinched backwards slightly from the force. Just like that, my life had been reduced, and I began to realize exactly what it was I had just done. “I’m off to give this special little gift to your sister now,” Selikeh quipped, spinning the fragile thread around in the air like a lasso as she spoke. “I do believe I’ll see you later, half-elf.”
She didn’t even let me get a word in as she slid out of the room wordlessly, making her way straight through the wall. As she passed through it, her body’s outline grew faint like an apparition and she merged to the other side – without even another syllable to me. I knew I wasn’t supposed to just let her go like that and was supposed to return her to the realm of Necromancy, but I was too stunned to move. I sat there for a while, not sure at how to react or how much longer I even had left to live.
Silly Jukebox. XD
Chapter II |:.