Monday, April 16, 2012

I started writing a story, is that amazing or what?

I have taken a break from the blog for a few weeks, my time has been pretty full of, well, other things. But, I have started writing a story, since the urge to write doesn't disappear simply because one is out of time for such things... so, sneaky as can be, I have managed to write 6 pages or so. It might need some editing, a little more detail, or a little less, here and there, but I think it is shaping up quite nicely, for someone who hadn't written anything more serious than some poetry and a million status updates since high school. If anyone has any comments, feel free to leave me some feedback. :) And no, the story is not done yet, I have no idea where it is going, no clue what the point is, except that I HAD to write something. So bear with me on that, would ya?



The girl looked lost and alone, wandering in the forest of trees so tall I almost couldn’t see the tops in the mist of early morning. The sun shone through the fog and made it near impossible to see anything clearly, but I could tell she had no idea where she was. She wore her hair in an unkempt knot. Her face was not clean, her clothes were smudged. The hem of her dress was shredded, as if she had been running and caught it on thorns more than once. I knew if I called out to her, she might run again. I could feel her fear and uncertainty in the air, almost like a smell that no one else could pick up.
I watched her wander, from my hiding place under an old fallen tree, wondering where she thought she was going. The forest here is old, old beyond knowing. The trees, both standing and fallen, have circumferences that 20 men couldn’t circle with linked hands. There is little undergrowth, since the trees block most of the light. What undergrowth there is consists mainly of huge ferns, and lots of moss. Even at brightest mid-day, the light is dim, and the forest feels slow and sleepy. Early morning, with the sunrise, and late evening, with the sunset, are the only times the sunlight even touches the inside of this forest.
I nudged my companion. He was still sleeping, since ones such as he is would sleep their whole lives away if they could. He was hesitant to wake, as always, rolling his head to the side and snoring, mumbling quietly. Early mornings were not things he liked to see. I pushed him harder, trying to make him drag himself to the admittedly dim light of early morning.
“What? What? Why are you waking me,” he asked, fortunately very quietly, since we both knew quiet might save our lives. We had both been on the run ourselves, longer almost than we could remember, and silence had become a way of life.
“There. Look,” I said back, just as quietly. I pointed from under the tree.
“What could she be doing here,” he breathed next to my ear, so close I could feel the heat of his breath.
“She looks like she was running scared,” I breathed back. “Should I try to get her attention, or let her go on her way?”
“She might be bait.”
“True. But if not, she’ll die alone. She has no supplies, in the middle of this vast trackless woods, she has no warm clothes, just look at her.”
The girl was climbing over one of the fallen trees, which lay in her chosen path. Though it was one of the smaller fallen trees, it was still large enough to pose some difficulty to a girl in a dress. She had hiked up her skirts, and held them in her clenched fist, which left her only one hand for holding on to the tree. She looked awkward, like she might just fall down at any moment. I could still feel her uncertainty, and I knew she was on the verge of giving up, at least temporarily. Tears could not be far off, as most anyone could understand.
“So what do we do,” I asked again.  “Do we help her, or let her go?”
“Help her, I guess, though it may be our doom.”
So I began to squeeze out from under the tree, silently as always. Even a broken twig, a scuff of the leaf litter, a hard breath can be your undoing when you’re on the run. A fall of leaves from the trees, a sneeze, or a cough… one learns quickly or dies quickly in those situations. As I stood up, I saw that she really was about to fall, so I let go of the silence and ran to catch her. The last thing I wanted was to have to heal her or kill her, for a broken limb could go either way out here.
As she fell, she let out a little cry of surprise and dismay. I caught her neatly, and she gave a little “Oomph,” then nearly screamed.
“It’s okay,” I said as I set her down on the leaf duff of the forest floor, “I’m not here to hurt you. Whoever was chasing you, it wasn’t me, I promise.”
“But… who… what are you,” she asked, her voice shaking. “Your ears…,” She trailed off, unable to complete the thought. She backed up and put the fallen tree as close to her as she could. Granted, my ears are a little pointy, not that I’m complaining, they’ve always worked just fine. Better than human, anyway. Up close I could see that she was a little older than I had thought, maybe twenty years old. On first sight, I had imagined her to be little more than a child, perhaps twelve, or thirteen. Maybe not so helpless, I thought to myself while keeping an amiable expression on my face.
She was pretty, in a waifish sort of way, fine boned, thin, with sculpted cheekbones and a willowy body in her torn and smudged dress. Her hair was dirty and brown, her eyes a blue that many people would say you could drown in, I’m sure. I wondered again what she was doing out here, all alone.
“Yes, my ears. Well, they do say that elves have pointy ears around here, don’t they. Well, I’m half elf and half human, though I can’t say I remember much about either of my parents. Who are you, and what are you doing out here in these sleepy woods?”
Her face fell, and again I sensed that tears were a definite possibility. Whatever had happened to her was obviously not fun, and perhaps not something she wanted to discuss yet, for all I knew. Or maybe she just didn’t know how to respond to my half-elven state, who knows?
“My name is Alex,” she said. “I was out for a picnic on the edge of the forest, and I went for a little walk, by myself. Stupid, I know. My friends had said something hurtful, something unspeakably rude to me, and I needed to be alone for a little while. So I was walking, thinking, trying to figure out if they were really my friends at all, and before I knew it I was so far into the woods I had no idea which way to go to get back out. Then I thought I saw something, something following me, and I ran. I ran for most of the night, tripping and falling, never knowing where I was, trying to keep ahead of the eyes I saw…,” here she trailed off again, apparently not knowing how to go on. I could see the after-effects of a night of terror all over her face, she looked completely exhausted.
“Well then, lucky for you I felt you coming and woke up this morning, eh? I am Markus. These woods are my home, or as close as I have to a home. Would you like something to eat? You look famished, and very tired.” At this, her eyes lit up slightly, as if there was some brightness to her that I couldn’t see before, and I knew she was going to go with us for a while, wherever we may go. “Come, on the other side of this fallen log, my friend ought to be getting some food together,” I said, leading her around the tree I had so recently crawled from under.
“Quietly now, though, we value quiet around here. Keeps us safe. Plus, the trees seem to tolerate us much better, the quieter we are.”
“Oh!” She had seen Othello, my companion, he of the remarkable sleeping ability, and of course he had gone back to sleep. But then, he IS a giant cat, mostly, and cats do sleep. A lot. I nudged him with my foot, and again he snored at me.
“Wake up, you oaf!” I pushed him again, and at this he crawled out from under the log, sat up and stretched. Stretched as only a cat can, all long body, lean muscles, and kitty whiskers. His black fur rippled, and he yawned hugely, showing off his teeth. Then he stood up, and stretched again, and finally the spell was broken for Alex. “What is he, exactly,” she asked.
“Well, mostly leopard. Part human, maybe. Definitely not entirely cat, see, he does have hands instead of paws. Otherwise it would be a bit hard for him to help out around here, since all he does most of the time is sleep! Besides, he can talk, though he frequently chooses not to. We do value the quiet around here, as I said. His name is Othello.”
While I talked, I was rummaging in my pack, seeking out some jerky to chew on. I handed her a piece, which she took willingly enough and started gnawing on it. I kept digging in my sack, trying to see with my hands what else might be lurking in there that was edible. Not much, but I did find some dried mushrooms and a little dried fruit, apples and apricots even. These I shared, as well. I wished I hadn’t finished the raisins off, but that is the way of things, nothing lasts forever. Except maybe the forest, it has its own defenses and not much happens here that it is unaware of, or unwilling to tolerate.
“So Alex, what brought you and your friends to the forest’s edge for a picnic, anyway? Are there not a million safer places for a picnic? Were you trying to tempt fate or what?”
Alex shook her head, and some of her hair fell out of the knot. As she finished chewing the fruit, and made some attempt to fix her straggling locks, I could hear her thinking what the right answer would be. Sometimes I can do that, I’m not sure if it’s really that I read minds, or faces. Some of both, perhaps, along with some nuances of the senses that humans just don’t have. I know humans don’t really read minds, the best most can do is simply read faces and body language extremely well. But even the best of the best of those are no match for me on a good day.
“I’m not entirely sure,” she said. “My friends Tobin, Sara, and Luke all wanted to escape their lives for a day, you know… well, maybe you don’t. I didn’t really want to come, but I figured what harm could there be? It was just near the forest, and there is a beautiful lake there, we could swim even. What harm, indeed.” She sounded irritated now, but sad and still tired. “And then, there we were, having a wonderful time in the afternoon when they all started saying…”
“What? Why would they be rude? That’s what you said before, right? Unspeakably rude, you said, in fact.”
“I’m not sure I want to tell you,” she said quietly. “I appreciate the food, you’ve been very generous, but how do I know anything about you? You’ve not told me much yourself. Besides, this might be something best kept to myself, at least until I figure it out. I don’t understand why the people I thought were my best friends would want so badly to hurt me. So, Markus Half-elven, how came you to be here? Living in the sleepy forest? What story do you tell?”
“My story may be longer than this day, perhaps longer than you would want to know, Alex. How do I look to you?”
“You look grubby, and not very old… perhaps twenty-three, or twenty-four years? Your ears are pointy, we covered that, your hair is dark brown, possibly black. It’s hard to tell in this light, and your particular state of, well, dirtiness. Your eyes are green, your fingers are long and skinny, you look healthy and hale. You said you remember little of your parents, but I see both human and elf in you.”
“Would it surprise you then if I were to tell you I am not twenty-three, or even twenty-five or thirty, but fifty-eight years old? And I might have inherited the long life of the elves, as I must have if to you I still appear to be so young. I have survived this long by my wits and reflexes, along with a few good teachers along the way. Dirty I may be for now, but alive I will be for much longer, if the gods will it. Or the forest does, indeed. My friend now, Othello here,” I poked the cat-shape, who was again curled up sleeping next to me. “He is older, and probably wiser, than I. He has been my companion for many years and we have seen many wondrous sights together. Though I think he prefers the sleeping part, to be honest. But maybe he’s just trying to store up the sleep for the times we are running one day ahead of our doom, and there is not time for sleep.”
Alex looked surprised at the revelation of my true age, almost disbelieving. She smiled a little at the sleeping Othello, and I could see that while she might not have been prepared to meet some strange cat-human hybrid, she was a lover of animals, at least. I made a mental note to remind her at some later time not to treat him like just an animal, since he is so much more than just a cat. Odd, yes, but still he is my friend.
“What then is your doom? Why are you running, and what from,” she asked, with good reason. “Should I be afraid, right this minute, or are we safe here?”
“Oh, we’re safe enough for the moment. The forest will tell me if our pursuers are getting close, and it may slow them down itself, for its own reasons. This forest is more than just a sleepy place, you know.
“As for what we are running from, that is fairly complicated… suffice it to say that I have made some people phenomenally unhappy with me in the past. More than a few, even. Perhaps not just people, as well. Creatures, forces, even some places are not too thrilled with my continued existence, to be perfectly honest.” I hung my head in mock-shame, trying not to smile. I know it’s far from normal to be chased all over the true world by more things than one even knows, but still, a lot of the situations had been pretty funny.
“You don’t look too worried,” she said.
“Always have saved my own skin so far, plus a fair number of others in my time, so no, I’m not too terribly concerned,” was my reply. “Quiet is still a good thing, it makes it easier to hear the forest, and it is a good habit to have. Silence may have saved my life a time or two, but we are not in grave danger here. This wood is my friend, as much as this sleeping guy here is.”
“Where exactly are we,” Alex asked. “I’ve no idea how far I must have run during the night, I just know that something was definitely following me. All I know is I caught occasional flashes of light off of its eyes, and it was terrifying to be out here all alone in the dark. So I just kept going and going, hoping to get away.”
“Well, we are in almost the very middle of the Dim Forest, surrounded on all sides by miles and miles of trees and ferns. Hmm. You truly have no idea what could have been following you? I wonder if whatever it was might have been… not following, but guiding you? Here, to us. Herding, perhaps?”
Her eyes widened at this thought, and I could feel her thoughts again as she considered the possibility. I had an idea of what might have guided her, but I was still unsure. For all I knew, it might have been one of the supposedly extinct forest wolves without a pack, or a fox, or even a succession of animals and she had just been so spooked that she didn’t know. If every time you turned around in the forest you caught a glimpse of some animal’s eyes, and felt like you were being followed, perhaps you would have run as far and as fast as she did, I thought to myself. But that thought was a bit silly, considering how much time I’ve spent in the woods. I am unique though, not everyone has been where I have been and seen what I have seen.
“Guided me, you think? How incredibly strange. You think I’m supposed to be here, in the middle of the woods with a half-elf and a… cat? What should I call him, then?”
At this, Othello finally spoke, though I had thought he was sound asleep. “You could try my name, it might help. I heard Markus tell you, I can tell you’re not quite as silly as you sound, so give it a shot.” Alex’s hands flew up and covered her mouth, as if she was not sure how to react to this little speech. She was almost afraid again, but her curiosity was getting the better of her. And I could see she didn’t like being called silly, no matter how kindly it was said, or how nicely meant.
“All right, Othello then. It’s nice to meet you. Will you speak more, or was that the entirety of your contribution to our conversation? Markus did say you generally don’t talk. I remember that just fine.”
Othello made the strange chuckling sound that passed for laughter in his world. “I’m not sure, I guess it depends on whether or not you two need any information from me or if you’re just going to keep blathering on,” he said.
“Blathering?” Alex and I said it in unison, and we all had to laugh.
“Okay, you win, old friend. What are your thoughts here? Do you think she was brought to us for some purpose, or is it simply a case of a lost girl in the woods? Should we try to get her home, or does she need to travel with us a while and see some more of this wonderful world? Let us not forget I am wanted in approximately sixty percent of the cities in this world.” A few regions and a few kingdoms as well, and so are you, I thought to myself.
“Wait, travel with you? I’m not sure that’s part of my plans,” she said. “What if I really do just want to go home?”
Othello cleared his throat and sat up, yawning again. I swear he does that sometimes just to show off those teeth. He scooted back, and leaned on the log. “I think you may have been brought to us for a reason, but I’ve no idea what that reason is yet. Many times, the future is hard to see, for there are so many variables, and so many things can go wrong, but yes. I do feel that you should be staying with us a while yet, Alex.”

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