#i steal the premise of lightlark and add cosmic horror and blood sacrifice

[sagesilentfire]

Why not. Pick a WIP I've summarized badly.

[sagesilentfire]

just having fun on rebelle after some research on the clothing iako would wear

[sagesilentfire]

"This is the blood of everyone we've murdered. Now choke on it."

A sliver of a climactic scene in a story I want to write soon.

[sagesilentfire]

Princess Iako (as an adult/older teen)

[sagesilentfire]

First Chapter of Four Stories I'd Like to Tell

A/N: Writing for my college's literary journal! Just some stories I'd like to tell someday.

Author's Note: As a chronic overwriter, I am incapable of writing stories short enough to fit in a journal. So here's the beginnings of four stories I'd like to tell someday. Enjoy.

1.

It was morning. Very early morning. Too early morning. It was very early morning, and the sky was screaming.

Evelyn, as one would suppose, woke up because of the screaming. They groaned, trying to pull moss over their ears as heavenly shouts of "TETHALAOS! I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" rattled their house to its foundations. 

Nope, it was not going away. This seemed like a bad one, they might as well go downstairs to see what had happened while they had been asleep. 

They rubbed their nose spike. Ew, this moss made their nose itchy. They'd have to ask the almighty Sílthéy to create some new bedding that didn't make them want to die. They'd have to be careful, though, considering where she pulled all her other magic tricks from, bedding that literally made you want to die was entirely within the realm of possibility. 

They made their way downstairs and found their parent in the kitchen. "What happened this time?" they groaned. 

"Oh, Tethalaos drenched the entire west side of the city in slime that makes your thoughts rearrange themselves into fractals. Do not know how that works, but apparently it was painful."

"Good thing it's not us this time, right?" Evelyn said, rubbing the scales under their eye as they looked in the time-freeze box. They didn't have enough energy to lift their wings, so they just let them drag across the floor. Oh, one thing you should know: these guys are dragons. Just thought I should tell you that.

"After Lilithéy turned all our souls into time crystals, I think we deserve a break."

"No kidding."

"Though some of the northern side of the west city also were hit with that, and Sílthéy was still getting them sorted, so..."

"Jeez. Would not want to be them right now." Evelyn sighed. "Why don't we have juice?"

"Juice? Oh, the fruit trees formed a union and are striking for better pay. Sílthéy still hasn't agreed to turn them back to regular, non-sapient trees, says they're 'better to talk to this way'. She is trying to do something about the capitalism, though."

"Ugh, I am so mad at Délines for inventing that," Evelyn said, shaking her head. "Fruit trees should just have to worry about growing more fruit and existing, not paying the bills." She sighed. "But all of this happened while I was asleep?"

"Time vortex."

"Oh," Evelyn said. "Figures."

The city of Eden was not actually called Eden, and the dragons there did not operate three-dimensionally and did not have foods or bodies or names that you would be familiar with. This is an old story, even in my time, and much of the things you humans take for granted just hadn't shown up yet, like gravity, or less than five dimensions, or consistently linear time. There was time, and space, and the general sense of things moving down, but they had little to do with the laws and rules and theorems you are familiar with. It's hard to translate into a language you will understand, and it is a very old story.

But it is one I have to tell somehow. It's the beginning of everything that was like you.

2. 

If the magic was truly fading, Princess Iako was proof of it. Born with nine tails – a true sign of an impressive spellcaster-to-be – but no magic to show for them. Born to the greatest and most magical kitsune royal family in the isles (according to the greatest and most magical royal family in the isles), she should have had magic. Magic was hereditary, or at least transferable by blood sacrifice. But no matter how many innocent peasants bled their last on the castle steps, Iako remained stubbornly magic-less. Magic was taking more sacrifices to work as of late, and it was getting fainter and fainter each year, so Iako's nine tails should have meant deliverance.

But they did not.

Everyone wondered why. Maybe it was because she was born missing an eye, and that was stopping her magic somehow. Maybe it was because she was deathly afraid of the blood and death that came with a transfer of power, screaming at every little cut and injury she encountered. Maybe, whispered some when they thought Iako could not hear them, she was a deliverance from the curses that plagued all who could do magic, which could only be forestalled by yet more blood sacrifice. 

But Iako's family weren't about to let the fact that their daughter couldn't do magic stop them from proclaiming their nine-tailed princess to be the savior who was going to bring magic back. They paraded her out in front of the peasants they ruled and other kingdoms regularly, having one of her brothers hide in whatever carriage she was in and cast spells for her. The princess born with nine tails; the product of hundreds of years of power.

It was always a huge spectacle whenever Iako left the castle. But when those spectacles were over and Iako went back to the castle, things were different. She had two options: train to fight to 'overcome' her lack of magic, or sit alone in her room, scorned by her family for her uncontrollable failure. 

Iako trained, at first. But her training ended up looking more like abuse after a few sessions, so she sat alone. Which became boring fast, so she snuck to the old, disused library at the edge of the castle and, conveniently, near her room. Not that anyone would look for her if it was on the other side of the castle; no one who knew the truth liked the magicless princess. Which was why, at the ripe old age of eight, Iako found a secret treasury. 

She was in the dustiest corner, hoping that the thick film of disuse would keep everyone else away. The castle hadn't even hired a new librarian since the old one died long before Iako was born, and all the really interesting books were locked in her parents' private study. So it was reasonable to assume she was alone. A reasonable assumption that was correct. But the assumption that all the interesting books were locked away was a faulty one. Or, I tell a lie. The interesting book in the library is locked away, but with a far easier lock to break, that didn't involve potentially incurring her parent's wrath. One that could be broken with an eye for detail and arcane knowledge... or an eight year old's blind luck.

Iako had been reading a random volume – Theories on the Origin of Magic by some stuffy, hundred-year-old academic – when a glitter in her periphery immediately caused her to jump back, trying to hide. But it wasn't... it wasn't someone else. It wasn't the shining armor of knights coming to drag her back to training, or, even worse, the glimmer of the thin circlets her parents wore around the castle. It was the glitter of a small metal key, illuminated by the small, weak light filtering through a dirty window.

Well, she wasn't about to leave this key lying here, was she? Someone (her) could surely look at it, and perhaps someone (her) would want to find out what it unlocked! And it wasn't like anyone was looking for it; no one had been in this dusty old library for a long time. She walked over, picking it up, and looked at it. 

It was not, as quickly seen, a normal key. Instead of a simple circle, the bow contained a compass. Looking further, the compass did not have normal directions. Iako was very well-read for an eight-year-old; she hung out in a library all the time, after all. While she’d never actually used the knowledge of the cardinal directions before, she was pretty sure S, D, L, and T were not what was typically carved on a compass. And, as she looked at it, it got stranger. The points on the compass rose rotated constantly and independently of each other, but they... they were still at right angles to each other at all times. That was weird.

But, as eight-year-olds are wont to do, Iako put it out of her mind, and started looking for something the key would open. She did her best, as she always did, to make it seem like she'd never been in the library, but in her search she was disturbing a lot of dust. She sneezed, and was about to give up, when she noticed one of the needles on the compass was moving as she walked in a straight line. She walked around it, and saw that it pointed to a section of the wall, no matter where she was. She grinned and jumped up and down as soundlessly as possible, then she rubbed dust off the wall. A tiny, imperceptible crack, just big enough for a key. She stuck it in the lock, and turned.

The wall opened. Inside was a tiny room with three items. A staff with pretty crystals on it, a weird glittery orb, and a dusty old book with a leather cover and gold detail. "Wow!" she gasped. She quickly grabbed every item, stopping only to make sure she also grabbed the key from the door, and ran for her room. 

A loud shout, from one of the knights in the courtyard. He was pointing at her. She ran faster. 

She reached her room, and stuffed her loot under the fancy four-poster bed. As she kicked the book out of sight, the door slammed open.

"Iako!" her mother shouted. "What are you doing out?"

"...bathroom?" Iako said. There was the tip of a crystal staff poking out from under her bed. "I – uh, I was using the toilet."

Her mother, a stately red fox with a slender snout, just sighed. "Iako you have a toilet here. And, my dearest, you know you cannot go out unless you're training. We cannot let anyone catch you vulnerable. If word got out that our nine-tailed daughter is in fact powerless, we would be ruined, and you would be seen as an abomination. I wouldn't be able to protect you, and unless you train hard, you would never stand a chance against anyone who would seek to hurt you."

"I know, Mom," Iako said. "I get it." She used a few of her nine tails to nudge the staff farther under her bed.

But her mother, ever watchful, frowned. "What are you doing with your tails? It's unladylike to fidget the way you do. Hasn't your etiquette teacher taught you anything?"

"Nothing! I'm not doing anything!"

Her mother looked under the bed, growling something about how unladylike it was for Iako to make her do something like this.

Iako sighed, and resigned herself to her new treasures being taken away. Maybe her older brother Mawo would get them. He was nice to her, maybe he'd let her look at them. 

But her mother just stood up, and sighed, and looked at Iako with that disappointed look. "Stop fidgeting, and no more running around doing nothing. Come to training a little more often, yes?"

Iako nodded. As soon as her mother closed the door, and she heard the click of her fancy shoes fade, she bolted down under the bed. Her treasures were still there. Her mother had somehow not seen them. They were hers, and hers alone.

She opened the book. Maybe it would explain to her what the staff and orb were. Unfortunately, it was in a strange alphabet she couldn't read. But then – there was a bookmark that fell out of the book, attached by thread. Written on it was a small note: 

"Hello, you who would seek to end the curse. Here is your first clue: the star staff here is magic, blessed with the ability to move its wielder anywhere they point to with it. Now, keep your key and keep your other treasures. They will never be taken from you by anyone you can trust, and may you use them well.

Iako looked at her new star staff. She grabbed a sheet off her bed, placed the book and the orb inside, and tied it up. She grabbed another sheet and wrapped it around her waist, hoping to hide her tails. Then she hefted up the staff. It was much too big for her, but that didn't matter. She would grow up big and strong enough to use it, far, far away from here.

And then she aimed it out the window, and she was gone.

3. 

It was the twenty-first century, and magic was here.

Well, it was twenty-one years after the beginning of the twenty-first century. And the veil between the worlds of the magic and the not-magic had disappeared nine years ago, so not at the beginning of the twenty-first century either. Magic hadn't been here for even the majority of the twenty-first century. But it was here now, and had been for nine years, and now the world was slowly beginning to adjust. It would be a long, painful process, one that I'm sure most people would focus on.

But I am not most people, because the story I want to tell is not about that. It’s about a mundane love story, a small coffee shop, and the kindness of strangers. I want to tell you a story about me, and a wonderful, endlessly fascinating woman who appeared in my life.

It starts with a foggy afternoon in my preferred coffee shop, and I was doing quite well for myself. I lived with a family of werewolves, who, despite me not being a werewolf, accepted me as one of their own. Werewolves will do that. Wolves are very much wild creatures, but there's a reason that if you mix wolves and humans together long enough you get dogs. Perhaps that could be my major, studying parapsychology; my awesome thesis would be on shapeshifters and how their common forms shape their personality. Speaking of which, I was attending a local college, and I needed to decide on my major. My... unique condition allowed me to do as much work as I could convince my counselors to give me, so I could do anything I really wanted to. I could multi-major in all the subjects that caught my interest if I so chose. But I wanted to find out what to do after college, and I felt that seeming all over the place like that would put potential careers out of reach. Or maybe they'd like it more; it was impossible to predict the strange whims of the job market, even for me. 

I sighed, staring at the list of options and justifications I had written on my computer. It was several miles long, if printed on standard office paper. Of course, that might be because of the long thoughts, reasoning, and weight I'd given to each possibility, but a lot of it was also because in the wake of everything changing, a lot of new fields in science and technology had opened wide and began collecting students. With entire schools of thought that few knew about and fewer knew how to study, I had many different possibilities. And it was nice to go to a school where they acknowledged those possibilities, not just lumping them all together under "Magic Studies" and calling it a day. And these new fields would help disguise the fact that I knew it all already. I could just say it was just a hypothesis to be tested, and everyone would assume I had absorbed some knowledge somewhere that indicated the hypothesis was true. So what would I do?

Sigils. I've always liked to draw things, but I'd have to draw very specific things with no room for error or something would blow up in my face. Demonology. It would be objectively hilarious, but coasting by on a joke would be dumb. Creative Writing. Definitely minoring in that, but I wanted to experience the world with my degree, and I couldn't imagine Creative Writing taking me very far, physically. Better to be stuck in this world than stuck in my head, dreaming of other worlds. Alchemy. I'd probably thoughtlessly ingest something that should've killed me, and I'd have a host of questions to answer. Blowing stuff up with magic ingredients would be fun, though, and I'd always loved chemistry. Magidynamics. As fun as exploring magical energy would be, I would need to be very careful to squash myself small enough to avoid their doubtlessly very sensitive detectors. Astronomy? No, everything interesting was right here on this planet and other planets I already knew about. Why look to the sky when you can look at all the weird and wonderful beings right here on Earth?

Really, there were two categories. Either I dismissed them for personal reasons, or I dismissed them because there was too large a chance that I'd mess up and accidentally expose my more... cosmic side. Either way, they all seemed at least somewhat interesting, and they all seemed at least somewhat dangerous. 

I sighed, and stopped trying. It had been a while since I'd bought something from the coffee shop, and perhaps they'd want to kick me out if I didn't buy anything. So I left my computer at its seat, and walked over to the counter. 

The barista, a tall (but not taller than me!) man with a pained expression on, sighed. "Hello, Stella. How can I take your order?"

"Oh, you remembered my name!" I gasped. "Okay. I'd like a vanilla latte with three extra shots of coffee, five ice cubes, a pump of marshmallow, pomegranate, and butterscotch, and lemon juice. Then stir it in your fancy stirring machine, please. Also those little hard scones in the bakery display look delicious, please put them in the drink too. ...I'll pay whatever it costs."

"I swear you come up with a different uniquely horrible combination every time you're here," the barista, whose name was Kennedy, said. 

"I just like new things," I said, shrugging. 

"That's one way to put it," Kennedy said, thinking about how at least I wasn't rude, even if he did have to smell whatever he made for me.

It was at that moment, when I was decoding Kennedy's thoughts, that the door opened and the grumpiest woman I have encountered in quite a while shoved past me. "Barista! Black coffee with a shot of espresso, now!"

Kennedy sighed as he pumped marshmallow syrup into my coffee. "I'm dealing with another customer's order now, I'll see you in a minute! Thank you for coming!"

"Well you'd better hurry up on that customer's long-ass order, or I'll –"

I snorted. "That's rude."

I took a glance at her. Tall, but again not taller than me. Asian, in sports gear, likely Chinese but she didn't even know that, adopted. Her name was Phoenix Clarke, she was a football player at my college, she was another undecided major. Parents were wealthy, vampires, and expecting her to become one too, and soon.

Well, another undecided major. She wouldn't help me in my quest; how was she supposed to help me find my major if she couldn't find her own? Also, she was being rude to poor Kennedy, who was doing his best to finish my order before hers, like a polite barista. I had a dilemma: would I speak up, and risk having to speak to her, or would I let her keep pushing poor Kennedy around? Kennedy was contractually obligated to say nice things to customers no matter their rudeness, but I was a customer, so I could be as rude as I wanted.

"You'd better hurry your ass up, I need this caffeine right fucking now and –"

"Hey," I said, deciding to intervene. "You're being rude. I ordered something long and complex, and Kennedy is making sure it is perfect. You should be quiet and wait your turn."

Phoenix turned to look at me, and oh no. I was the prettiest person she had met. Tall – taller than her, how rare was that? – the darkest skin she'd ever seen, darker hair that swirled in a halo around my head like a cloud at night. Wearing a vivid indigo sundress with a sparkly rhinestone cat on it. Phoenix loved cats. Even though she couldn't see my eyes – I was wearing a blindfold – she could see the curves of my face and my high cheekbones. And I was looking at her with an increasingly disgruntled face that was really hot. Boy, if she could meet people this pretty every bad day, that would make life way more bearable –

Okay, I'm done. I shoved my sibling's influence away. No more reading people's thoughts for me today. At least I knew she liked me, even if her fluffy thoughts had been annoying. She would listen better if she thought I was pretty. Humans were stupid like that. "On second thought, don't be quiet. Go apologize to Kennedy."

"Uh – I – I... I'm sorry... I – I don't know what came over me, I'm not normally this rude, I swear, I'm just running really late on no sleep and –"

"Then sleep," I said, shrugging. I didn't see what the problem was.

"I can't, I'm running late I –"

"Uh, Stella, your... your order is ready. I, uh, I hope it's to your liking."

I nodded and grabbed it. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion at Phoenix and took a sip. The wonderfully clashing flavors overwhelmed my human body's senses, and I smiled. "Oh, that's terrible! I love it, it makes so much more sense than it should." I tossed Kennedy a twenty dollar bill. As I understand it, that's a good way to make humans know you appreciate them, give them money. 

"Glad you like it," Kennedy said, and went to make Phoenix's order.

Phoenix looked at my drink. "...what is in that? It smells... interesting."

"Oh, coffee and some other stuff," I said. "Uh... marshmallow, butterscotch, and pomegranate. And lemon juice. And a scone. And other stuff."

Phoenix frowned. "...okay. Uh, what..."

I raised my eyebrows, expectantly. Phoenix's face went alarmingly red. "Nothing. I, uh, I'd better get my drink."

Phoenix got her drink and left. I went back to the table. And that was the end of it, or so I thought at the time. 

I'd see her again, though.

4.

When Jengu's family would try to broach the subject of leaving to her, she always refused. Sure, the Merfalania were important and special and all that, and it was customary for the oldest and strongest Merkit in any family group to leave and join them in the deep, open sea, but she couldn't just leave them in the reef alone. They were important and special too.

"Really, Jengu, you should go to the cities. We'll be fine," her siblings would say. "We're old enough to fend for ourselves, and we live in a nice place in this reef. We're Merkit, not helpless."

"We both know that's not why I want to stay," Jengu would always say, no matter who she was talking to. "I don't want to leave you behind. I would miss you little goobers!" And then, usually, she would grab the sibling by their dorsal fin and bap them right on their melon. "I don't care how cool the Merfalania cities are," Jengu would finish. "I want to stay right here with you."

It was a routine they carried out, Jengu and her six siblings. Well, eight, but two had died before they could grow up. Every time they got home after foraging, Altie would ask, "When are you leaving?" and the routine would happen again. 

"When are you leaving?" Lusca would ask while they broke down the food they'd hunted or gathered. 

"When are you leaving?" Marag would ask when they settled down to sleep.

"Never. I'm never leaving. I'm best here with you."

Well. That would last for a while. But soon they learned that if Jengu wouldn't come to the Merfalania, the Merfalania would come to her.