Rii’Athellan, the Morning Star, was a hunter; magic showed itself in many ways and the elven lordling was graced with a goodly portion. This day he had given his entourage the slip. The forest contained many dangers, even for one of his bloodline, but he preferred to hunt alone; the larger and fiercer the beast the more it pleased the elven prince. As silent as the grey fox and confident as an eagle, Rii’Athellan crept towards the clearing on the trail of a huge dire-boar. His father thought him reckless but the lordling craved danger, bored as he was from the politics of court and wishing he was allowed a little more excitement. He knew the Grove of the Maiden; oft before had he brought the girls whom he also liked to hunt and capture, although they were more willing prey and his favoured weapon was not a bow. If not in secret then with discretion these passions were conducted, for the lord of the elves had been promised long past to Almethea, the daughter of the house of Il’thricken, a house both powerful and magical. This bride he cared not for but duty-bound he would suffer the marriage. Such a one had little choice, alliances were all when the elves made war.
This particular beast was Indis the Fierce, large, ill-tempered and canny. Even the Great Cats walked in fear of Indis and the beast feared nothing, for he had never yet met his match. As tall as the elf at the shoulder, the hooked tusks of the boar were as long as his forearm. The elf murmured a prayer to his gods and nocked his bow as the boar snuffled among the trees, gobbling orange fungus and fallen apples. Occupied with filling his mighty jaws, the boar did not hear the elf nor perceive the threat.
Oeliana watched unseen among the low light of the trees, sunlight flickering on her ivy-coloured hair and skin like polished oak. A gown of bright leaves covered her slender frame, flowing around her as if caught in an autumn breeze. Indis did not hold any fear for her, an avatar of the forest as she was. The nymph had fed him apples and occasionally sweet-bread as he loomed, bristling and ferocious, taking the fruit gently from her. She had seen him born from the sow Elricana and survive his siblings to be Lord of the Forest. The young elf was either foolhardy or uncommonly brave but she did not rate his chances either way.
The squeal of anger and pain rent the forest as the elven arrow found its mark. Indis turned eyeing the trees for his tormentor and spying a shadow plunged into the forest. Seven hundred pounds of enraged pig-hood felt the pain of the arrow in its flank and was going to make someone suffer for the indignity. Shrubs and undergrowth were no match for Indis and, tearing them aside, his gaze locked on the elf.
Too late, Rii’Athellan saw the error he had made. He was a good bowman but even an elven lord may miscalculate; although wounded, the boar was still formidable. Swiftly the elf loaded his bow, stepped back and fired, before instinctively grabbing a second arrow from the quiver. The arrow skittered along hide tough as cured leather before burying into the flank, although not deep. He had hoped to fell the beast but had simply succeeded in driving the beast mad with rage. Rii’Athellan dived among the trees and ran; he was not a coward but even a brave man knows a foe he cannot beat. Hearing the boar gaining ground, the elf tried to quicken his pace. He ran faster than he had ever run, feeling the pain of tearing muscles, expecting to feel the tusks in his back or be trampled into fertiliser. He had not banked on such a large beast being so fleet footed. The light flickered beneath the canopy of the trees and, in his fear, he failed to see the root and rough, moss-covered ground. Tumbling down, pain ripping though him as his ankle snapped, he thought it likely to be his grave.
A wind rose and with it a song, soft like the lapping of the waters yet powerful as the ancient trees. Leaves swirled and danced, becoming faster and thicker until Rii’Athellan was blanketed; he lay mesmerised by the sound and the sight of the creature which stood between him and the boar. Ivy green hair swayed around her feet as she strode, unafraid, towards the boar which had slithered and slipped to an unsteady halt in mud, blood and undergrowth. A small soft hand, the colour of hazelnuts, caressed a bloody, saliva-flecked snout until the panting, snuffling breath eased. Oeliana gave the pile of leaves a long look and saw the elf. There was pain and fear in his eyes, yet they were eyes which followed her every movement. The arrows were gently teased from flesh and Rii’Athellan was amazed as the fierce beast simply stood and let the nymph tend him, unaware that her song would have calmed a dragon. Soft light, green as springtime, rippled across the wounded boar, flowed down to the ground and into the half-hidden elf; as the flesh and bone began to knit, saplings sprouted through leaves and coal black soil. The song rose to a crescendo, a primal sound filled with ancient magic. It poured through the elf, he had never felt such intensity, such desire and longing or such terrible sadness.
As the nymph poured her magic into the boar it snuffled her hair but once, then turning an eye and fixing it on the half-hidden elf it moved off. Magic demanded a price even for those of magic; Oeliana fell to her knees exhausted. Struggling to his feet, ankle still painful although the magic pouring into the land had healed it well enough for him to walk, Rii’Athellan limped to the fallen figure. He had visited this glade before but paid little heed to the cottage, for the superstitions of peasants were not for princes. It was simply a good place to court and hunt, he had been unaware such a wild and wonderful creature inhabited it. Blue eyes meeting hers of leaf green, he held the gaze and saw a depth and curiosity he had never before encountered. It was like looking into a deep pool to find what was within and seeing the pool look back, asking the same question.
The full moon rose, white-blue light spilled over the glade and no clouds marred its beauty. Together stood an elven lordling and a wild forest nymph; one stained with mud and clothing torn, the other clothed in leaves and the moonlight shining from her eyes. Oeliana had thought to chastise the man who hunted so foolishly in her gardens, who had brought unthinking lovers to her glade uninvited, yet now she found the words would not come. The song she had sung echoed on a soft and gentle breeze, weaving around them and, despite the darkness, they were not cold.
****
Ozena, of course, had not known any more than the myth told around a hearth, lore passed from generation to generation and embellished in the telling. Years later she had learned the details, promised on dark and fearful night to recount the truth for her people, for truth above all else must triumph in a world of lies. Oeliana had been a myth, a creature of half-truth and a desperate idea when all else had been exhausted. The journey in which they had found her seemed a life-time past and in many ways it was a remnant of a lost glory, a forgotten history, and yet at the same time it had been a new beginning. So much had changed, so much lost and so much found. Reading to the end of the text already written in a careful hand, her finger stroked gently over the beautiful illuminated script and, wondering if she was up to the task of finishing the tale, Ozena continued. Perhaps this would ease the pain, the loss.
****
The magic of love is a powerful spell indeed and so they spent the days among the trees tending the forest as the sun kissed the land, and their nights making love in the moonlight. Time meant little to the nymph, for the seasons come and go without intervention from mortals, and continue to do so when they are nought but a memory. Rii’Athellan was entranced by the nymph and to her his company was a gift from the gods. A full cycle of the moon passed before they were disturbed, perhaps that too was a gift.
Duties were neglected and thus those sent to seek word of the prince found the cottage; the spell of their happiness wavered. Much expense and inconvenience had been spent in seeking Rii’Athellan, men and coin which could have been better spent elsewhere in times of war and hardship. Arguments rent the air and words were raised in anger where there had been song and words of love. Duty eventually prevailed. With a promise he would return when he could, the prince slipped from his finger a ring of pearl. Deepest iridescent green, a Stone of Power, it held magic born of the early waters as Oeliana herself had been.
Thirty sunsets passed before the prince returned.
Each felt like an age to the lovers and, as a large blue moon rose, they kissed at the edge of the silver pool. Yet the prince was not alone; the Lady Almethea, his intended bride, had seen the far-away look. Jealous in nature she could not abide his roving eyes but a tumble with a wench was not the same as loving a wild and mysterious creature such as Oeliana, a creature of magic. Almethea had magic of her own, for the families of noble blood had ensured it flowed well among them, and she had crept through the forest. Distracted as the prince was thinking of his reunion, he saw nothing save the soft body in his embrace and heard nothing but the nymph’s song on the wind.
Almethea watched, her anger building, as her betrothed and his mistress made love at the edge of the pool; she listened to their sighs of pleasure and, when Oeliana cried his name, Almethea snapped. Pulling a dagger from her belt she thought to stab him, yet as she stepped forward a small green brown toad called its song from the rocks. The spurned woman grinned, drawing the knife along her arm and, as the blood dripped down, she cried, “Husband I curse thee! A toad you are, so a toad shall you be. You, nymph, I curse thee to love only he, a toad for thy husband, alone shall you be.”
A powerful sorceress was she and the curse began its work as the words left her lips and her blood dripped upon the leaves and into the pool. Rii’Athellan screamed in pain, his skin bubbling and boiling, and the scream became a croak. Eyes bulged, yellow and bulbous from a face contorted, muscles twisting, bones cracking. The forest fell silent but for the terrible sounds, the tortured flesh transformed and transfigured as it rippled, tore and bled.
Terrified, Oeliana tried to call her own magic, the wild magic of the forest; rolling from beneath her writhing lover she murmured the words, trying to heal, trying to mend. Yet the curse had been sealed with blood, powerful and binding. This was no arrow wound and hers was a forest magic, not one of battle. Her tears fell but she faced her rival and the roots of the trees weaved about the elven lady. Tighter and tighter, higher and higher. Transfixed, Almethea tried to fight it, to call her magic to burn the wood and leaves. A wind swept up, fuelled by the sad song of the nymph. Swirling faster it wrenched branches which whipped at the captured elf, distracting her, enclosing her. As Rii’Athellan became a toad, his betrothed screeched and wailed. Bark slowly covering skin, ivy growing faster and faster, tighter and tighter; squeezing until she was encased from neck to feet in wood and in ivy which even tugged at her tongue, filling her mouth with its poison.
Oeliana walked close, stained as she was with her lover’s blood and, in a voice like the cracking of stone or the creak of an ancient tree, she whispered.
“That which I love you take from me, so that which I hate shall remain a tree.”
The tears of the nymph fell on the water, bathing the giant toad which was once her lover, and in her grief she tore the ring from her finger. The tears of a nymph have a power of their own and were heard by the Lady Luna, Goddess of the Moon and daughter of Ethnii’a, Goddess of the Sky. Luna's gentle light bathed the glade until the water gleamed with an ethereal light. With a croak the huge toad fixed the nymph with a large golden eye and a tongue long and sticky licked the trembling hand which held the ring. With a song on the edge of sound, Luna bade her toss in the green pearl, the Heart of the Maiden, wrapped in a long, ivy green hair. As it sank, she felt the waters ripple, comforting, embracing. This was a place they had shared and would share again. The curse was not broken but perhaps it could be survived.
****
Ozena stopped, the tears flowed freely. Such memories and such tales told by an old woman in a cottage; so alone, and yet resigned in that loneliness. Centuries passed and such sacrifices had been made for the elves had fallen so very far, cursed by their own greed, their own anger and their own folly. The magic had diminished and her glade had weakened; even Oeliana felt the magic failing as the sickness and the darkness of war and hatred covered the land. So many lives which had come and gone and so much magic and lore lost to the world had left a shadow with very long fingers.
She looked down at the page and, with her own less certain hand, she placed the Heart of the Maiden on the paper.
“I must finish, it is my duty. This must be kept.”
****
Into the darkness which covered the land came a light, a light which had not flowed for many a year, and with it a Skychild, the last of his kind and blessed by the Goddess herself. They came in fear but also in hope and so it was the magic returned to the Glade of the Maiden. The Skychild was a creature of magic and the Lady of Light, uncertain but brave. They held the Stones of Power, the Heart of the Mountain and the Heart of the Forest. The last of the Primal Stones of Power was found in a silver pool by an elf, one worthy of the forest, a child of the trees and a child of the old ways. The magic returned and with it the war, yet the light shone ever brighter and the Skychild walked with it; he held a primal power of his own, for he was the Oncoming Storm.
Debts must be paid and allegiances honoured; so it was when the land ran again with blood that they returned, when the moon was full and the water shone silver. For over three hundred years the nymph and her toad had this one night a month as man and woman, the blessing of the Goddess upon them through her daughter, the moon. Once more the blood which ran with magic spilled into the pool and the power of the storm and the magic of the light banished that little bit of darkness. The nymph and her elven lord walked again with the sun on their face and the curse had been lifted. Ancient powers united and once more the magic was wild and free. So the debt was paid and love, which had endured, filled a glade with flowers and light. After so long a tree, all twisted and withered, fell, bleeding and crumbling to ash, although no fire seemed to touch it. The love between the light and the storm fought alongside an older and wiser prince from a long-dead line and the wild creature he loved. Did they triumph? Was the darkness banished?
****
Ozena stared at the page before her, tears dripped from her eyes. She simply wrote a few more words before plucking petals of red and gold from the roses in the jar on the sill, she let them fall.
****
That is a story as yet unfinished.
A. L. Butcher ©2014
Two Flavors
When I’m not talking to you, I’m thinking of you.
When you’re away, I’m hurting inside for you.
Heart sinking,
Belly aching,
Mind numbing,
and I hurt for you.
I miss you.
When I’m talking to you, I’m thinking of us.
When you’re with me, I come alive.
Heart beating,
Belly flying,
Mind racing,
Alive for you.
I love you.
Madhu Kalyan Mattaparthi ©2014
The Prince
By Gunjan Vyas
A princess has to kiss many frogs before she finds her prince in shining armour, ready to sweep her off her feet.
I’ve had my share of frogs too, I’ve waited these twenty-four years for at least one of them to transform into my prince but only disappointment had greeted me so far. I didn’t understand why love is so hard to find in this world where finding sex is so easy! If people could spread love as easily as their legs, this world would have been a better place.
I had given up all hopes of finding true love when this guy, Arvind, who I loved with all my heart (or thought I did) decided to get married to the girl his parents had selected for him. Just because I was from a different caste didn’t mean my love for him was an alien and incomplete thing. I understood that his family wouldn’t understand but he chose to surrender to their wishes instead of standing by me. I would have given up the world for him and he couldn’t even raise his voice against his family’s irrational decision.
However, this morning an incident reignited my hopes with such intensity that I can still feel goose bumps on my skin when I think about it.
It was my interview at a
newly opened company for the position of software developer. I had prepared well, practised the answers to all the frequently asked questions and rehearsed my walking and speaking style many times. I was damn sure that today I was going to get selected.
The reason that I desperately wanted to change my job was that after Arvind’s marriage, I wouldn’t be able to face him and my life would become a mess.
On my way to the venue for interview, I had to take a bus. As a habit, I was before time; after all the early bird gets the worm. The bus came and I took my seat as soon as I stepped in. You have to be fast in claiming a seat in a bus as your own before someone else does. I didn’t notice the man sitting next to me as I was occupied with my thoughts but after a few minutes or so, when my eyes started to observe the surroundings, my eyes fell on his hands and slowly they rose to his face and then back to his hands. He was holding a gun!
To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I was scared to death. I tried to act like everything was all right and decided that the best course of action would be to de-board on the next stop and warn the driver before leaving. In accordance to my plan, I got up but before I could walk away, I felt his gun pointed towards my back.
“I know that you saw. Sit down.”
I gulped nervously and obeyed. After sitting down, I tried to voice my words in what I thought was a convincing tone.
“You can take everything I am having in my purse but please don’t kill me.”
The man chuckled.
“Do you think I am doing it for money?”
I looked at him with wide eyes.
“Then why?”
“Well, let’s just say…I like to kill people.”
Sweat broke at my brow and I shuddered. Was taking someone’s life fun to him?
“But what would you get from killing me?” I asked him nervously.
“I told you…I like it.”
“You’ll get caught. The gun will make a noise and they’ll have you arrested.”