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In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
remember boy bugger continued
ship past kraken gone added soon
began earth luna tart shelly
bodies making head
books aqua knewIn reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
At approximately 11:11 Pearl heard a whoosh and a whoot, and then a loud thump. “Hop in, Pearl! toot! toot! Oh, and sorry about the porch swing, didn’t see it under all that snow” Bee was grinning from ear to ear. “First time I’ve used the snowmobile ski option, it’s a riot, haven’t quite got the hang of it yet though, but boy is it ever fun!”
Pearl laughed and hugged Bee. “It’s great to see you! I love your hat!” It was an elaborate blue turban, over the top with feathers and jewels. “Looks fabulous against all that snow, very delft. You know, you could have just used the portal to avoid all that snow! Janet!” Pearl spotted Janet in the back of the red car, who was picking herself up off the floor, and adjusting her pointy hat.
“But the journey was so much fun!” Janet said. “We bumped into Skolt, the travelling reindeer pee salesman, in Minnesota.”
“I hope you saved some for me!” replied Pearl. “I’ve got the moonshine, let’s party!”
In reply to: Random RewrEights – The Del’Eights thread
In reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves
Falling…
Falling…
Falling…
Like an overdue meteorite that suddenly usurps the earth’s unaware atmosphere, Jennifer and her greatly interested boyfriend suddenly found themselves on the filthy ground, after the tree in which they were concealing their frivolous touches of childish passion gave in to the ground on account of an astonishing hole manifested the earth.“Canaria,” Jennifer whispered as she dusted herself, resurrecting her fallen self from the earth. Jon had informed her that it was due to rise any moment after the great meeting of the Tw’Elves, but she wasn’t expecting it to occur so suddenly. Jon was the physical host of a channeled entity that synchronized itself with the initial dimension and the alterversity. She had first encountered this entity while wandering around in a dream, looking desperately for lucidity. It was like a vision: there was a blinding flash of purple light, and then when it fizzled, a gentle, yet booming voice manifested itself in the atmosphere and enlightened her of the shift in physical and metaphysical consciousness that was going to occur in the form of risen continents (five in total)- a shift in consciousness that would even out the blurring lines between illusion and reality.
The young, nameless one stood up, uttered an awkward cough and muttered: “What?” but Jennifer was already walking in the opposite direction, towards a large, circle rock she termed “Sepritrella”, meaning “place of silence” in the language of the Tw’Elves. “Jenni-” the young man called out hopelessly, thinking that somehow his voice would bring her back to him. Little did he know…“I must call an emergency OOB meeting at the library,” she whispered as she placed herself upon the rock of Sepritrella and begun her meditative state. She fell into a relaxed trance, and suddenly her token colour of blue beamed itself loudly, zooming towards the Vatican Library to meet the others.
In reply to: Snowflakes of Tens
The entrances to Faerie (and indeed to other alternate realities and dimensions) had been shrouded in disbelief for several centuries, but times were changing and the fog of scepticism was dissipating, evaporating like river mist on a hot summer morning. Looking for the entrances deliberately, Blithe found, wasn’t the most efficacious method. Sat Nav alone would be unlikely to reveal them, unless the locating device was used in conjunction with impulse and intuition. Any device and method could be used effectively when combined with random impulse, even Google Earth or Google Moon. Blithe’s friend and colleage Dealea Flare was making good use of this device on her travels, using it as a personal non physical airline and space shuttle service. Dealea could get from A to B and back again in no time at all, or even from A to well beyond Z and back again in no time at all using this device in conjunction with impulse and large dose of intention and focus. Blithe had the impulse down pat but still had difficulty with the focus, which was largely a case of having too many intentions at once, most of them somewhat vague.
The more random and impulsive Blithe was, the better her investigations went, often leading her into a new and exciting exploration which may or may not be linked to the current intention. Such was the case when she went on a mundane shopping trip to the Rock of Gibber. As she sat sipping coffee at the Counterpart Cabana sidewalk cafe listening to the locals conversing in Gibberish, she noticed the extraordinary tangle of pipework on the building opposite. It reminded her of the steampunk world she had been investigating in her spare time. The text book steampunk world was intriguing to say the least, but rather grim, and tediously full of victims and fear. The inhabitants always seemed to be running away from someone. The steampunk world she was beginning to sense in Gibber was quite different in that it was a sunny cheerful alternate reality held together with a vast labyrinthine network of water pipes, scaffold, and connecting cables.
Blithe paid for her coffee and strolled off, noticing more and more scaffolding and tangles of pipes as she climbed the warren of narrow winding streets. The air was different the higher she climbed up the winding uneven steps, the sunlight was sharper and the shadows denser, and there was a crackling kind of hush as if the air was shimmering. Cables festooned the crumbling shuttered buildings like cobwebs, and centuries of layers of crackled sun faded pastel paint coated the closed doors. Open doors revealed dark passageways and alleys with bright rectangles of light glowing in the distance, and golden dry weeds sprouted from vents and windowsills casting dancing shadows on the uneven walls.
The usual signs of life were strangely absent and present at the same time; an occasional voice was heard from inside one of the houses, and there were pots of flowers growing here and there, indicating that a human hand had watered them with water from the pipe network. There was no music to be heard though, or any indication that the cable network was in use, and there were virtually no people on the streets. A lady in a brilliant blue dress who was climbing the steps from Gibber Town below paused to chat, agreeing with Blithe who remarked on the peaceful beauty of the place. The lady in blue said “Si, it’s very nice, but there are many steps, so many steps. If you are coming from below there are SO many steps!”
There was a boy watching a white dog watching an empty space on the pavement, so Blithe stopped to watch the boy watching the dog watching nothing. Eventually Blithe inquired “What is he looking at?” and the boy shrugged and continued to watch the dog watching nothing. Blithe watched for a little while, and then wandered off. A small child was giggling from inside a doorway, and a mothers voice asked what he was laughing at. The child was looking out of the door at nothing as far as Blithe could see.
As the sun climbed higher, Blithe began to descend into Gibber town, winding and weaving through the alleys, wondering how she had failed to notice this place half way up the Rock until now. She came to a crumbling wall with a doorway in it that looked out over the bay beyond the town below. This must be one of the entrances, she deduced, to this alternate world in Gibber. “Entrance”! Blithe had a revelation. “I never noticed that the word ENtrance and enTRANCE are spelled the same.” Later, back at the office, Frolic Caper-Belle said she thought it was probably a very significant clue. “I’ll file that in the Clue Box, Blithe”, she said.
{link: entrance}
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Mandrake had been on Yikes’ trail for what seemed to be like ages, closely followed by Arona, the silly dragon and that demigod Arona seemed to have grown so fond of.
As they were walking, flying and hopping further North, they had passed the Forest of Endless Desolation, just through the Isthmus of Ghört’s Hammer where the whaling laments of the lamanatees were luring the careless travellers in pits of dark despair, only for them to sink in cores of boiling lava if they strayed too far away from the darken wizened old sticks that once had been luxuriant trees.
Mandrake would have made a meal of the dreaded lamanatees, but Arona had thought safer for them to plug their ears with candle wax and invoke their Mother guidance to help in their quest to find the lost boy. Little had she thought of the pain it would be to scrap it off his catly ears without turning wax into furballs, and his ears into a prickly mess.
These minor troubles apart, they had gone through Arona’s homeland, the pretty Golfindely, which was only a soft consolation before they got to the far ends of it, where land, water and ice meld and become one. It was the threshold, the passageway to the homeland of the dragons, where only Sorcerers and their likes were known to have been and returned.It was there that the sabulmantium had hinted Yikes would been found.
When Minky came finally back to the High Priestess of the Pendulous and Loose Otherworldly Threading —aka Messmeerah (Winky) Maymhe—, Messmeerah was taking a dip into the Rejuvenation Pool. Her last vials of bleufrüsh blood had been all drunk, and she was starting to get all sagging after mere hours out of the icy waters.
She welcomed with a large smile, the sack Minky was carrying as a treasure, where Yikes was calmly waiting.
“Thank you Miny” she said, throwing some ashes to the minion who, in a puff, instantaneously transformed into a large redhair rat, which disappeared behind Messmee’s luscious green hair.“There, there, there, look what we got…” she finally said ominously to the boy who was considering the naked green evil fairy in front of him with a rather interested and mildly amused glance. “Don’t you have anything to say?” she said, raising an eyebrow, maybe slightly disappointed at the lack of frightened reaction.
“Oh, looks like you’re a genuine green fairy, “ he said staring at her with a smile.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
With a temper he may have inherited from his mother (albeit adoptive), the shanghaied boy was proving to be quite a hassle to contend with. Minky was exhausted.
First Yikes (that was the given name of the boy) had cried, pouted, and when gagged enough so that he wouldn’t be heard, he had then refused to walk, and even threatened to hold his breath till he would die. Good luck with this one, had laughed Minky (who had tried it before, but it never worked, and bossy old Messmeerah had promptly kicked him back to work). Actually, he was more annoyed with the refusing to walk kind of tantrum, because that meant he had to trudge with the boy on his back or on a luge, all the way to the evil lair —which wasn’t that evil, by the way, if you managed to focus away from the bloody stained altar…
But there was something more serious he was quite anxious about —besides his bossy and irritable, though everlastingly beauteous, boss. He feared a certain purple dragon was on their trail…
If I were you, came the ruffled sound from the makeshift luge that wouldn’t be the dragon I’d be worried about… Yikes was inwardly beautifully laughing (a trait he may have inherited by osmosis from Arona) thinking of how terrible Mandrake could be if asked to fetch something —a task he was too proud to refuse, and yet that he loathed to accomplish, as it was more fit to a canine than to his subtle feline standard.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
And good luck with making any sense off THAT! the evil Messmeerah hissed in a fitful and raucous laugh which made her blink and wink like mad.
Turning to her shrine, she started to prepare the right tools for the job… a fine bloody ritual.
Boy, did she loved carpaccio.In reply to: Strings of Nines
That’s the moment Minky was waiting for to come out of the shadows and shanghai the boy away.
“Yikes!”
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“You will always be my endearingly ugly baby, Yikesy,” said Arona sternly, “however old you are. Why it was not even a year ago that you were eleven, according to that weirdo dragon anyway. And now here you are all grown up telling me you are eighteen. It doesn’t matter to me one way or another, my precious boy.”
Arona sniffled emotionally.
“Now keep hold of my hand while we go and see if we can find Vincentius. I hope he has that grumpy old cat with him.”
In reply to: Strings of Nines
Messmeerah (Winky) Maymhe, High Priestess of the Pendulous and Loose Otherworldly Threading, was going for a bath into the Pool of Rejuvenation. Her ineffable beauty had started to show the early signs of time tampering —signs she’d learnt to notice as soon as they’d appear. Luckily, the moons were in perfect alignment for the rituals of Spring Beautusk*.
News were good, very good indeed —which would certainly help in maintaining her perfect brow and forehead in pristine smoothness.
News were so good that she’d sent her minion Minky fetch the boy just right after her white crow Saggin had came back with news of finding him… after all those years (not that years did matter to her anyway, she prided herself on that).It’d been close to an eternity, and she weighted her words… (in actuality it was a few teens and futile years at most) that she’d been trying to recover the boy, but the dwarfs had played her, and had managed to hide him from her sight.
She had not thought he could be concealed by anyone powerful enough, and it was surely not by the magic of that headless Malvina and her pesky dragons. In fact, the boy had been concealed even after Malvina and her menagerie had left the boy and his caretaker. She was thinking the caretaker in question had a concealment charm far more powerful she thought could exist.But Minky would surely take care of that.
—
- It should be said that one of the effects of the rituals of Spring Beautusk were a slight stiffness of the overall face (and other dipped body parts), which earnt Messmeerah the cute and albeit ironic sobriquet of Winky, as she hardly managed to blink and was often victim of bouts of winking when she tried too hard.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“SOON IT WILL BE REVEALED!” thundered Pickel.
The others, after recovering from their shock, looked at Pickel in surprise.
“What are you on about boy?” asked Pee.
Pickel was as confused as the others. “I don’t know,” he stammered. “It just came from .. no where…”
“Well keep it down will you, you will scare the bird we are taking to the Keeper of the Portal, whose name eludes me but he has a long beard and is old and arthritic, in order to get the bird to sing 4 notes, no more and no less, in order to open the portal and get to ED and save New Peasland from the plague of the Blubbits.”
Pee was feeling a need to clarify. Not for the first time he was wondering if volunteering for this dangerous mission had been wise. He fortified himself with the thought of Mungibbs.
“What are Mungibbs, Daddy?” asked Silly.
Pickel was quiet. He could feel the silver object burning a hole in his pocket.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
“Now, steady on, folks! There’s no need to be rushing headlong into this, I think a little tete a tete is in order here before we all lose our heads completely.” Aunt Dolores de la Cabeza had arrived unexpectedly, and not a moment too soon. “Possibly a tad too late” she muttered, glancing around at the headless New Peaslanders and Saucerers. “This is a fine pickle, I must say.”
Pickel beamed at his aunt. “Oh, I don’t mean you, you silly boy!” Dolores chucked him under the chin affectionately, except that he had no chin. “You’re a chinless wonder, m’lad”
“I’m a girl, not a boy, Aunt Dolores” piped up Sis Lilly.
“is that a fact, young lady? And since when do girls have blubbits in their knickers, hmmm?” replied Dolores tartly.
Lilly started to cry. Well, Dolores assumed she was crying, although she wasn’t quite sure how she knew that. “A fine pickle indeed” she repeated, frowning.
Pickel flushed with pride.
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Peanelope wiped a tear from her eye as she looked at her mantelpiece. She had removed the blubbit chasing trophies, Pee’s pride and joy, and replaced them with the four heads of her dear family.
“Come home safe, my pretty ones’” she whispered.
A moment later, spying something on Pickle’s chin, she leaned forward for closer inspection.
“Marmite dribble! Good Lord boy, you aren’t going through the portal with marmite dribble on your chin. They will say I am an unfit mother!”
With a hanky she wiped the offending spot away, relishing the fact that, for once, Pickle could not answer her back. Unfortunately Pickle, although endowed with her own fine looks, had inherited his father’s raucous voice.
“That’s much better,” she said proudly, “What a fine looking family you all are. Even you, Gnarfle,” she added after reflection. “Sometimes I forget you are a dog, you certainly feel like one of the family.”
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Indeed, Frantic was more than delighted to help out any of her students. It was her desire, her passion even, that they should succeed in her classes. She chastened herself mentally for making the assumption that all her students would be able to find some reference point in their past to assist them with her assignment. However, as she explained to Pedro, it was not essential for a writer to experience everything they wrote about. What was necessary was a willingness to research. Knowing the boy liked to read, she offered him an extensive reading list of appropriate material, plus a few Mills and Boons she just happened to have in her handbag, and sent him on his way.
She was more surprised than anyone when the janitor came to her the next morning and confessed what had happened in the service room. Apparently he had … well lets not go there, she thought, what is done is done and no harm will come of it if they both keep quiet. The little bouquet of flowers he gave her as an apology gift (GIFT – SEE THE GIFT TP) did much to allay her concern. And at least the boy will have something to write about now.
As she put the flowers in water she pondered her next assignment. She could see she would have to give this much careful thought in order to avoid future embarrassing service room encounters.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“It’s the 57th Creative Challenge theme, so I have to do it,” Ann remarked to her editor. “Obviously”, she added.
“What do you mean, obviously?” asked her editor (Ann had forgotten his new name in the second book, and toyed breifly with the idea of making up a new one ~ perhaps Rumbold the Pale?)
“Well, I would have thought that was obvious, Godfrey!” Ann replied tartly, secretly delighted that she’d remembered the old boy’s name. Notwithstanding, Ann continued to make little ‘cuh’ and ‘tut’ noises, and rolled her eyes a bit, until Godfrey eventually replied.
“Spiggot on the spike freak, Lingenburg Dash”.
“I beg your pardon?” Ann looked at Godfrey in astonishment. “Holy Moly, I said that earlier myself, whatever does it mean?”
“I haven’t got a clue, dear,” he replied. “Just popped into my head, you know, how it does…” His voice trailed off as he stared into space.
“I’ll google it.” As Ann started the search, she realized she’d completely forgotten that she was doing the 57th Creative Challenge entry. “Blimey O Riley, what am I LIKE” she said to herself, with a wry grin ~ she wasn’t altogether sure what wry meant, but somehow she felt it was wry ~ “Now what was the theme again?”
“Misery Loves Company” Godfrey piped up. “And dare I say, it’s rather obvious what has occurred here.”
“What do you mean, obvious?” retorted Ann, somewhat snarkily, although nowhere near as snarkily as Lavender might have said it.
Godfrey resisted the urge to respoond with a few little ‘cuh’s’ and ‘tut’s’, and chose to simply smile enigmatically.
Ann scowled at her old freind and said “If you don’t spell it out, you maddening old coot, I’ll write you out of this story. I’ll delete you.”
“You can write me out of YOUR story if you wish, but I may continue to write YOU into MY story.”
“Oh Gawd, WHAT?” Ann said to herself. “Where did that come from?”
“Ann, let me explain.”
“You sound just like Elias, Godfrey!”
“Ha! Ha! Ha!”
“Ahahahahahahah”
“Now shut up and pay attention”
“Elias would never say that”
“That’s YOU saying that, Ann, to yourself,” said Godfrey.
“YOU said that Godfrey, it’s right here in black and white!” retorted Ann.
“It’s never black and white, Ann, and it’s only here in black and white as ME saying it because YOU wrote it.”
“Well there’s no answer to that” replied Ann. She went to put the kettle on.
Ann returned to her computer with a steaming mug of tea.
“Now, shall we get back to the point, Ann?” inquired Godfrey, with a wry grin.
“I must look up that word later”, Ann mused. “I seem to be inordinately fond of the word wry tonight, I wonder why. I Wonder Wry…”
“ANN!” Godfrey shouted. “Back to the point!”
Ann looked pained. “What point?”
“The point of this story, and the obvious occurence therein.”
“Welp, you’ve lost me there, Gordon, there was a point?”
“Oh My God, this could go on all night” Gordon was wringing his hands.
“Good God Gordon, didn’t see you come in!” exclaimed Godfrey.
Ann was giggling helplessly. She was rather pleased with the way she covered her faux pas over the editors name.
“‘Ann was giggling helplessly’; you see Ann, there is your clue!” Godfrey said excitedly, as he read aloud what Ann had just written.
“OH! NOW I get it! D’oh! Nonsense loves company! Giggling loves company! No wonder I couldn’t stay focused on misery!”
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“And leave the boys to Gustav! You’re brilliant Shar!”
“WHAT bloody boys, Gloria?” Sharon replied, scratching her head.
“Well you introduced them” Interrupted Godfrey.
To which Ann replied:
“I can’t believe” laughed Sharon “That I forgot all about me ‘usband!”
“I take that back Godfrey” Ann was always willing to admit when she was wrong. “I did introduce them, and I’d forgotten all about them.”
Godfrey sneezed, and disappeared from view.
“So rude the way he just blinks off like that” Ann muttered.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“Glor…”
“What dear?”
“Glor, ain’t you bored silly in that cottage?”
“Well Sha, now that our Joe and ‘arry are gone fishin’ all day… and thinking of our glorious days on that island…”
“Tell no more! I was thinking of that too… Would be good to have another beauty treatment for sure…”
“Any idea where that doctor might be now Shar?”
“As a matter of fact, I do…”
“You’re kidding me Shar!”
“I’ve got a cousin in Spain, ya know…”
“Who? Barb?”
“Yeah, Barbie. I’ve got news from her from time to time, when she’s squatting in those tourists houses in Spain while they’re empty in the low season.”
“And what? Tell me all, I’m dying Shar!”
“I’ll tell you if you bloddy stop interrupting! Now, last week, she mentioned she heard from a woman in Spain that they saw a doctor during a silly nut-age conference, he was talking of rejuvenating cures, and she even got a sample.”
“A sample?”
“Yeah, a bloody sample. She told me those silly twats gave them to their dogs! Can you believe it Glor’?”
“The silly buggers! Throwing away precious reejoo-whatever samples!”
“Anyway, the doctor was speaking with whales too. Every year he told them (Barbie told me) going upside down in the sea to upgrade his whale speech.”
“Whale speech you say Shar…”
“Kind of rings a bell init?”
“Hell yeah! I remember Vessie told us about those funny swimming suits for the Doctor. Could be him!”
“You know what?”
“What Shar?”
“I’m having a funny brainwave now… I’m thinking we need some vacation in Spain…”
“And leave Gustav to cook the bloody fish for the boys ! You’re brilliant Shar!”In reply to: Strings of Nines
These past few months away from home had been the occasion for a great deal of introspection.
For one, indulging fully into that somewhat frowned upon habit of his, regarding peanuts, had allowed him to gain a great deal of understanding and acceptance as well. Now his daily ration had dramatically decreased and he didn’t fancy as much as he used to the little round things.Another thing that Godfrey had noticed was the reorganisation that had taken place in all aspects of his life, and to be perfectly honest, his life was still a bit messy in places, but he was slowly getting there. How could a publisher publish anything of common interest without a bit of presentation, henceforth order?
Ann wasn’t too keen on the “O” word —especially when doubled— and surprisingly it always managed to give good results so far. So perhaps now he was settling down, and she was getting her own flamboyant creative juices all ablaze, they would manage to get somewhere. Or anywhere, for that matter.
A Tramway to Elsewhere was Ann’s debut novel, and had made her known to Godfrey. It was a brilliant short story about three tourists lost in a huge hotel in Europe, and trying to get an easy escape to Anywhere. And by some uncanny and hilarious succession of events, they were led nowhere but to Elsewhere.Now, something else was giving him a strange feeling. He didn’t know if that was because of the lack of peanut oil in his bloodstream (or the accompanying whiskeys for what was worth), but he was starting to get slightly paranoid.
He didn’t know where he’d got the idea, but he started to suspect the cleaning lady to not just be a cleaning lady. She was doing her best to keep a low profile, but somehow she wasn’t that good an actress. A thing that started his suspicion was that name… Franlise, eerily reminiscent of the obnoxious yet efficient Finnley in Noo York. Elizabeth had told him they’d suspected her for a long time to have inserted some paragraphs in Elizabeth’s novels, especially the most torrid parts that would have made a pimp blush like a nun. What had saved the cleaning lady was that in addition to being rather forgiving, Elizabeth suffered from frequent strokes of forgetfulness and bipolarity which made the investigation difficult if not moot altogether.But there, Godfrey was rather surprised at Ann’s sudden interest in continuity. He’d known of a covert organization known in the milieu as the Fellowship of Unification and Continuity in Knowledge.
Over the years, the hearsay had amounted to just a few deranged people, but recently there had been an increase in mentions of such nature in reports of the Guild of Authors. Strangely, there was less and less books that were published which had not an impeccable sense of continuity.
In a way, it had been perceived at first in literary circles as a blessing for the authors who had not to contend with fans and geeks of all kind who were hunting down each and every detail to prove or disprove unsaid theories. But Godfrey was starting to see some not so perfect points in that. It would be like wanting to string together all the eyelets of your shoes even if they do not belong to the same shoe (or the same pair of shoes). Soon, you’d be embarrassed to find a way to walk without looking like a penguin.Anyway, though all allegations made as to the existence of such secret organization had been mostly derailed as utter nonsense, he couldn’t help but find some inexplicable appeal to them as sound explanations for all the glitches he kept noticing.
He would carefooly spy on Franlise.In reply to: Circle of Eights, Stories
“Can we go home now?” Arona asked the dragon … “I don’t know what we came here to do, but I miss Buckberry and Yikesy (and his nanny), even old grumpy Mandrake. And it feels like we’ve been gone for months!”
“You’re not interested by knowing more about this place , are you?” asked Leörmn
She didn’t answer lest she might hurt the dragon’s feelings —if he had any, that is.
“Well, I don’t want to get home so soon!” said Irtak who was usually keeping quiet, but obviously was taking it all in here, being on this place like a grake on a lake.
Leörmn took a deep breathe, pondering the situation and the many other probable realities verging on this one, and told Arona:
“I believe there is a cave, at a day of walk from the shore, inside this land. This cave was used by the Guardians, long before you were born, and is known to dragons and nirguals from this time. From this cave, you shall be able to travel where you want. You may even meet the zynder to guide you.”
Arona was thinking that the dragon was surely becoming senile talking all that nonsense she could barely figure out, but she was too considerate to mention it.
“Do you remember your glubolin?” the dragon continued abruptly, but her mind was sharp, and she answered with certainty
“I sure do. Why?”
“Please take a moment to feel the remembrance of it”
Well, sure, if that can please you she had learnt not to contradict old dotty dragons, so she tried her best to remember herself and Mandrake playing with the glowing ball filled with coloured sands ; that would surely not bring her back home, but at least the dragon couldn’t accuse her of not complying.
“Continue…”
As she remembered it, she felt how delicious and strange that object was, and how she’d loved it, and suddenly, it was here. In her hands!
“The old dotty dragon still has a few tricks up its scales, young lady” Leörmn said with a slight smug on his snout (or whatever it is called).
“Oh, that’s all very nice, but what’s the point of dragging this along?”
“It’ll show you where to go” Leörmn answered, “use it as a compass; I’ve imprinted it with the location of the cave, so that you won’t be lost, and can find your way to the cave, or wherever you want to go. We are continuing here with the boys. Have a safe trip. We will meet again.”
Arona blew a kiss in the direction of Irtak and the dragons, and without hesitation went in the direction of the dense tropical forest.
“Well, that dragon is an odd ball, but at least, I don’t have to wait for them to finish whatever they’re doing on that weird place.” Arona was glad to be finally alone for the next days.
“Will she be safe here?” asked Irtak
“I believe she will, she has got resources. Besides, the Murtuane is a place filled with a certain peace and blessed with a slow unraveling of time; it helps take the measure of the events, and find one’s own truths.”
