Post by Dark Beauty on Aug 6, 2007 17:55:36 GMT -8
Chapter 4
Thistle Poisonberry was in a state of near hysterics. She had never really been out in the open before, but now she was on her way to the Land of the Plain Elves with her oldest friend. All other things were pushed out of her mind. She was with Dark Beauty, the most famous sorceress in the world, and she was going on another adventure.
The first time she had ever left her home in the Land of the Pixies was when Dark had first visited her. The elf had known Thistle’s mother very well (Dark had a special friendship with fairies), and she had come to see the half-pixie that had been thrown out of the fairy lands. Thistle had immediately become one of Dark’s favorite acquaintances because of her irresistible attitude. So, when the sorceress had to leave, Thistle was invited to come along, since she really had nothing to do in her land, and no one really liked her that much because of her mixed blood. Pixies become ecstatic over the word “adventure” and anything having to do with it. There was a slight state of stupidity and shock that the feypixie had to go through, but after a few minutes of recovering from her thoughts, she had squealed and agreed to go.
Thistle remembered her first encounter with a goblin. That was also the first time she saw Dark actually use her powers for something other than entertainment. Thistle had been in awe at the lightning-fast movements that the elven woman had made and the look of the fire that erupted from the beautiful slender fingers. The feypixie had not been able to speak for quite some time.
They had gone about the world, visiting different peoples and learning new things. Thistle had been unfortunate enough to become disliked by Silvaria after their second meeting. Thistle was very curious, as all fairies and pixies are. She did not mean to make the dragon’s scales fall off. Thistle was still hurt over the dragon’s unforgiving ways.
Thistle and Dark Beauty had been together for about two years, when finally, Dark decided to take the feypixie back to the Land of the Pixies. Thistle had protested for about a half hour before she realized that she actually did miss home. Dark had taken her back, and from then on, visited every so often. But, she had for some reason stopped visiting for a while… a long while.
And now, after almost two decades, Dark had returned, and agreed to take the little one on another adventure, even though she had caused a lot of trouble the last time. Thistle was happier than she had ever been before, except of course the time when she had discovered that her friend Butterball (also known as the prince of the pixies) was allergic her hair. All she had to do was put her head next to his face or swing her hair about, and he would start an enormous fit of sneezing. Thistle thought it was hilarious, and they were always teasing each other. He had gotten her back, though. He had come to her chambers in the Pixie Palace early in the morning when she was still asleep wearing a gigantic ogre mask. He had positioned himself right over her face, and then called her name. After a few mutters and grumbles, she had opened her eyes and nearly went insane with fright. Butterball ran out of the room before she could catch him, laughing hysterically.
Thistle grinned at the memory, then squeaked as Dark jumped suddenly, making the little one bounce violently. Thistle shook her head as if to banish the shock out. Then she looked at the side of her friend’s face, about to yell for an explanation. She stopped when she saw the elf’s face.
The piercing blue depths of the sorceress’s eyes were worried, Thistle had never seen Dark’s eyes like that before and it made her a bit uneasy. “What is it, Dark? What’s the matter?”
Dark still looked forward. They were in a forest and were following a path. Thistle looked at the place she thought her friend was gazing. There was nothing there. She glanced back up at her friend in a puzzled way.
After a few moments, Dark looked at her friend and put on a convincing smile of confidence. “Nothing, Thistle.”
Thistle was not impressed. “Do you mean to tell me that you jerked me out of my thoughts of past times for nothing?”
Dark shrugged, lifting the half-pixie up, too. “I suppose so. I am sorry.”
Thistle grumbled, then went back to her thoughts.
Only a few minutes later, Dark stopped suddenly again, looking forward intensely.
Thistle looked up in irritation. “I don’t suppose that you did that again just for the fun of making me annoyed, did you?”
Dark shook her head, her eyes unblinking. “No, I didn’t. I thought I heard something. Be quiet for a while, Thistle.”
Thistle pressed her lips together to not let a sound escape. There was only the sound of birds twittering on their way south. All of a sudden, there was a snapping sound from the forest. Dark’s face became taut.
Thistle began to feel a tingling in her leg. She looked down and noticed that her tiny bare foot was resting on the chain of Dark’s hidden medallion. The chain was glowing with a very dim red light.
Thistle, being the ignorant girl she was, did not take much notice of it as a warning. She simply smiled at the red medallion chain. “Hey Dark, does your medallion turn pretty colors often?”
The sorceress looked down. Thistle noticed that she had an odd look on her face, one that she had never seen on her before. Her black eyebrows were pressed together, yet at the same time, were raised. Thistle almost convinced herself that Dark was actually worried about something. But, the incredibility of that overruled the evidence in Thistle’s mind. She removed her foot from the chain, getting sick of the tingling sensation that it was creating.
Dark pulled the chain upward. The ornate medallion was a dim red, as its chain was. Dark enclosed the medallion in her soft hands and lifted it closer to her face. She seemed to be examining something.
There was another snapping sound from the right side. Thistle jumped up in excitement and flew off of her friend’s shoulder. The feypixie fluttered over to the bushes, a wild grin on her face. “Dark, did you hear that? Maybe it was an animal… perhaps it was a killer cute lizard! Or maybe… maybe it was a turkin!” Thistle began to part the leaves of the bushes with her tiny hands.
Dark shook her head and let the medallion hang again. “Thistle, what on earth are you talking about? What is a ‘turkin?’ ”
Thistle continued her search, flying bush to bush. “I don’t know! I just made it up! I think it is a cross between a chicken and a turkey! Oh! I really want to see one! It sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?” The half-pixie had managed to work herself into a frenzy. “It probably makes a sound like, ‘gobcluck,’ or something like that!”
There was a clank from the trees, closer to them than any of the other sounds had been. Thistle’s eyes widened. “Dark! The turkin has metal feet!”
The tiny being was not able to express her feelings anymore, for Dark suddenly grabbed her out of the air and pulled her back.
Just as Thistle opened her mouth to protest, a hideous, armored drakea jumped out of the trees. Its jaws snapped around the air where the feypixie had just been. His raptor-like form was terrifying to the little one. She screamed in horror at the creature, which looked very much like a crocodile that walked on two legs.
Dark put Thistle as gently as she could into one of her pouches for safety. The tiny girl was very thankful for that privilege.
The reptilian figure looked up at the sorceress with a look of loathing. It was armored lightly. It carried a drakea-style sword (which looked like a huge scythe), and it wore a breastplate and leg armor. Its flat head was scaled roughly, with spines next to its evil, yellow, catlike eyes.
The drakea tightened its grip on the nasty sword in its clawed hand. The beast bore its teeth in a fearsome growl.
“You, woman, have just spoiled my dinner!” The drakea’s forked, black tongue slid through its fangs in a hiss. Its voice was raspy and very unpleasant.
Thistle made a disgusted squeak and looked up at her friend’s face. To the half-pixie’s surprise, Dark looked extremely calm and impassive.
“Is there nothing else in this forest that you can disembowel for your meal?” Dark’s face was absolutely devoid of any emotion.
The drakea hissed like a poisonous serpent. “You mock me, mage?”
Dark did not move her body at all. “I did not mean to, but I suppose I might have. It all depends on how you look at it.”
The lizard-like creature scowled. “You are playing mind games with me now? What type of woman do you think you are?”
Dark put her hands on her hips. “A powerful one, and much stronger than you, I am certain.”
The drakea roared in anger. “You go too far, human!”
Dark’s eyes glinted with a power beyond Thistle’s comprehension. “I’ll have you know that I am not a human, but an elf.” She tossed her sleek black hair so that the waves separated, showing her slightly pointed ears. “It is something that I thought a drakea might notice right away. My eyes should have been hint enough for you.” Dark scoffed. “And I thought you were dangerous.”
The beast roared again in rage. “You! How dare you?! You think that you can defeat me? I’ll slit your throat before you can get your powders out and chant anything, you filthy wretch of a mage!” With that, he lifted his sword and leaped at Dark.
Thistle screamed. She had never been so scared in all of her life.
Dark raised her hand swiftly, her first real movement throughout the whole confrontation. “Immobilize!” The elf yelled loud enough to frighten the birds nearby out of their branches.
As soon as she commanded that to happen, the drakea froze in mid-jump, his limbs taut and inflexible. Only his head moved. He looked shocked, and his eyes were wide with horror. “What have you done? Where was your powder? What was your spell, mage?”
Dark kept her hand outstretched, her fingers flexed. It seemed like she was holding something, but there was nothing within her hand. “I am a sorceress. Don’t judge people by what they look like. I may wear a mage’s belt, but that is only because I am powerful enough to have mastered both sorcery and spells. And you forget that these robes are of the magic of sorcery.”
Thistle let out a breath that she was not aware of holding. She looked up at her friend’s face and nearly shouted out in surprise. She would not have guessed that this was the Dark Beauty that she knew before. The elf’s face was terrible and almighty. She looked as if she could contain all the power of the universe and more. Dark made the appalling beast in front of them look like a weak insect.
The sorceress walked closer to the drakea. All of a sudden, Dark’s blue eyes glinted with a strange light. Her flexed fingers curled a little more. The drakea cried out in pain. Dark’s lip twitched in what looked like something that might have been a smile. She turned her forefinger a bit to the right. The drakea cried out again and closed his eyes tightly. The medallion on the elf’s neck surged with a bright red light. It looked like it might have been helping Dark.
Thistle did not know what was going on, but she knew that Dark was doing something to the horrified creature by twisting her fingers.
Dark’s face turned almost ugly. Lines appeared as she nearly grinned. She twisted another flexed finger. The drakea’s cries turned into screams. His eyes were shut tightly, and he could do nothing, as he was still frozen in the air. Dark did not look like she had any mercy.
Thistle was in shock. Her friend, whom she had always thought of as a person who would never hurt anyone, was torturing something else. True, it was a creature that tried to kill them, but Thistle could not understand what was happening. Dark looked like she was almost enjoying herself; her lips were curled into an evil half-smile as her fingers continued to flex and twist more. The drakea cried out in agony at every movement of Dark’s hand.
Thistle could not stand it any more. She flew out of the pouch and cried out. “Stop it! Dark, let him go!”
The elf’s face suddenly lost its evil look and she immediately let her hand fall. The drakea fell to the ground, whimpering and writhing in fear and the aftereffects of the paralyzing pain that he had just experienced. The medallion stopped glowing and became its normal color.
Thistle breathed in heavily and realized that she was surprised at what she had stopped and what she had just witnessed. She turned to look at her friend.
Dark’s face was horrified. She looked like she was unbelieving of what she had just done. Her chest heaved up and down as she breathed extremely heavily. She was staring down at the drakea, her eyes wide and frightened.
Thistle flew over to her friend and gently touched the elf’s cheek.
Dark jumped slightly and looked at Thistle. Then, without saying anything, she looked back down at the creature. She slowly went over to it, and touched its scaled head. She whispered the word “sleep,” and the drakea’s labored breaths immediately turned measured and calm and his eyelids relaxed.
Dark turned around, the look of unbelief still on her face. Her eyes were haunted. She hardly looked like she had any strength. Then she motioned for the feypixie to come back and sit in her pouch. The little one did so uneasily, and Dark walked down the path silently.
Thistle was extremely concerned. She did not know what to think. She did know that she was extremely glad that Dark was on her side, and a new appreciation for that fact flooded her mind.
The Wood Elf had just shown a side of her that the half-pixie had never before seen. What Thistle really did not understand was why Dark had tortured the drakea instead of just killing him.
That reminded Thistle of something. Had Dark really killed it? What had she done to the creature?
Thistle looked up at her friend’s solemn face. Dark Beauty was looking forward with a haunted look of some disturbing memory. Thistle hesitated before opening her mouth for fear of upsetting her. In the end, she decided that she would die of curiosity if she did not ask.
Thistle cleared her throat and then called up to her friend. “Ahem… Dark?”
The elf’s eyes lost their strange look. Their dazzling depths turned to look down at the tiny feypixie. Dark smiled sadly for only a brief moment. “Yes, Thistle? What is it?”
Thistle was a bit comforted when Dark had become somewhat herself. She bit her lip. She did not want to offend Dark by implying that she thought that she might be a killer. However, she gathered up her courage and took a deep breath.
“Uh, that creature back there… is he… I mean, did you…” Thistle did not finish her sentence, afraid of the answer.
Dark’s smile returned, but the smile did not reflect in her eyes. Those sapphire eyes became mirrors to a whole different world. Thistle gasped softly as she looked into them. They were impossible to penetrate. They were pools swimming with emotions that circled about the iris. Wisdom of many years, unbelievable sadness, care for everything, solemnity and a strong goodness were only some of the feelings that Thistle was able to perceive by looking into them. She was aware of other emotions within those deep pools of intense blue, but they were beyond her comprehension. The one feeling being emitted from those beautiful eyes that the feypixie felt as almost tangible was sadness that only an immortal could understand.
Dark sadly shook her head. “No, Thistle. He’s not dead… I did not kill him. I placed him under a spell of sleep. He’ll wake up about twenty minutes from now.” The elf’s black hair fell about her angelic face in a depressing way. She gazed down at Thistle in a very sincere manner. “The thing that scares me is the fact that if you did not call me back into reality, I probably would have tortured that drakea to death. Thank you.”
Thistle did not really know how to respond to that. Instead of saying something in response to the thanks that she had just received, she became a bit bolder and asked another question. “Dark, why didn’t you just kill him? It is not like he deserved to live. I mean, we had every right to kill him because he was attacking us. Why did you torture him?”
The elf looked down at the ground that she was walking on and then up into the horizon. Her eyes were shimmering with what seemed to be reluctant tears. Thistle was shocked, for she had never seen Dark like that before.
Dark gave a deep sigh to let out some of the emotion. She did not look back down at the tiny figure that was looking up at her from the pouch on her waist. Instead, she concentrated on the dirt path. “I am hesitant to tell you, Thistle.”
The feypixie felt extremely hurt. “I would not say anything about it to anyone, Dark.”
The elf shook her head. “I’m sorry Thistle. It is not that I don’t trust you; it is just that I do not think I could survive reliving my reasons.” Dark sighed deeply. “I should have never done that, and I don’t know how I lost control of my feelings. It has never happened before, and hopefully never will again. Perhaps you shall know later.”
Thistle nodded in understanding, then sunk into the pouch in a gloomy way.
Dark chuckled. “It is not anything to be upset over, Thistle.”
Thistle did not cheer up. Instead, she looked up at her friend unhappily.
Dark almost gave a laugh. “Thistle Poisonberry, you are a handful, aren’t you? Look, when I was much, much younger, something happened to me and someone I cared for very deeply that made me hate the drakean race. Do you understand why I cannot tell you?”
Thistle’s heart felt like it would burst with sympathy for her friend. “No, not really, but I’ll stop asking about it, because I can see how much it hurts you to talk about it. Forget that I said anything, okay?”
Dark smiled thankfully down at the little woman, then continued to walk in silence.
Thistle sighed and pulled her legs closely up to her body. She hugged her knees, which was her position when in deep thought. She had wanted to ask Dark what her medallion had been glowing for and what it was doing, but she figured that it was of no real importance.
She tried to figure out what might have been awful enough to make Dark actually hate a whole race, but nothing came to mind. There was a possibility that something might have happened to Dark when she was still in the elven village, but Thistle banished that thought. There was no way that the elves would allow the drakeas into their land. Or was there?
After nearly a half hour, Thistle began to nod off to sleep; the pouch’s continual swinging rocking her gently. Soon, her red-haired head was on her knees, and her eyes shut as she was taken to the land of her dreams.
Thistle awoke to a sound that she had never heard before. She rubbed her eyes and sat up to look around.
It was night time and the stars were gleaming brightly. She was sitting on something soft, and she was no longer in a forest, but in a very large field. She felt the thing that she was sitting on and realized that it was the pouch that she had been in before and had fallen asleep in.
Why wasn’t she in it anymore? Where was Dark?
Usually, this would make her extremely anxious, but the sound that she heard was so incredibly mesmerizing that she did not really care for anything but finding out what it was.
She got up and pushed off of the soft pouch. She looked down at where she had just been. By the light of the moon, she saw the shape of Dark’s belt. It was lying in a patch of grass that was situated by a lone tree.
Thistle looked about for a minute, and then hovered in the air, listening to the strange sound.
It was sad. It actually sounded like singing, but Thistle was convinced that there was nothing in the world that could make such a gorgeous sound with its voice alone. The musical sound carried through the air like it was part of the wind; part of nature. It sounded like a lament. It was in a language that sounded like it could have been the most beautiful way of speaking in the entire world. It was a language that Thistle thought sounded familiar, but she could not place it.
The sound reverberated through the field in a haunting, yet beautiful manner. Thistle followed the sound, becoming more enthralled with the magic weaving of the song by every second. Her pointed wings beat rapidly as she flew toward a part of the field that looked like a huge flower bed. There was something in the moonlight that was moving. It was hard to make out, for it was a fair distance away.
Thistle quietly fluttered nearer to the figure. The closer she got, the more entrancing the music sounded. She was able to make out a profile now. It was a beautiful woman. Her nose was a perfect curve, her lips were full, her long eyelashes could be seen perfectly, and her long hair floated behind her.
“Wow, a goddess!” Thistle was barely able to speak; the heartbreaking music was so gorgeous.
She stopped at a reasonable distance so that she was able to see the woman clearly, but far enough away that she would not be noticed. She did not want the music or the lady to disappear.
Thistle landed gently on a huge flower and sat down, listening intently to the lament. The angelic, lingering notes flowed together in perfect harmony as the woman walked slowly, almost like a death march, across the field of flowers.
It was not until the woman turned her face that Thistle finally noticed the rest of the lady’s features. By the moonlight, it was easy to see the shining eyes that belonged to the stunning woman. They were sparkling more than eyes normally do, and Thistle knew that they were full of tears. They were piercing blue.
Thistle felt her heart skip a beat. She looked at the woman’s head. Her black, shoulder blade- length hair shone in the silver illumination of the night. Long, light-colored robes were visible. Thistle knew then that this goddess-like woman, this angelic singer, was Dark Beauty.
Her robes were much looser than Thistle had ever seen because her belt was not around her waist. They flowed in the breeze behind her. Thistle might have thought that she was in a dream; Dark had never looked so mysterious and beautiful. This was also the first time she had ever seen Dark cry, or heard her sing. It was heartbreaking to witness both at the same time.
Thistle listened and watched until her eyes drooped shut again, the sound of her friend’s angelic, mournful song lulling her to sleep.
Dark continued her song long into the night. The air was filled with the resonance of elfish song. She let her tears fall freely. Her voice did not waver even as she cried. Her tone was the very essence of self-hatred, sadness, and guilt. Her eyes were lost in the world of memory, as was her mind. Even as she sang, her mind wandered back in time, long ago…