Through Silver Glass - A Novel

[Tiana, eh?]

Author’s note:

This is a parody. This is a parody of epic and grandiose proportions. It is also a novel. Written over the course of NaNoWriMo, it is thereby forgivable for a complete lack of sanity, incidences of randomly occuring chickens, and the ultimate forshadowing end of the universe. No animals were harmed in the writing of this fictional work (beyond maybe our pet birds who happen to live behind where I was writing and may have suffered slight jet lag by the lamp being left on for ridiculous lengths of time.)

If you are unaware as to what NaNoWriMo means, it means in the month of November, millions of genuis authors collect on the internet and write a 50,000 word novel in the course of a month. The amount of caffeine and chocolate consumed to pull off such a feat should thereby redeem the state of this novel, which is as of yet unedited and the first 53,000 words of which were written in a slightly brain dead trance during November.

I am not responsible for any damage you may do to yourself during the reading of this novel, this work of fiction, which utterly has no remote similarity to reality. Really. Beyond perhaps some incidences in which characters hit a small black flatish oval with slightly bent sticks around an icy arena. And pizza.

Critiques are welcomed, as long as the Reader remembers that this story is as of yet mostly unedited.

This is a novel.

Consider yourself warned.

Drinking coffee is not recommended while reading anything beyond the prologue of this story. Finish it up during the prologue. Then leave it. Or you may find that you have to test the waterproof durability of your monitor. We will not assume libility for any coffee or liquid that may penitrate your computer if you spit it out from shock while reading this story.

Signed: THE AUTHOR



Through Silver Glass - A Novel
By Tiana Calthye,
Written in the process of NaNoWriMo

Genre: Fantasy/parody/adventure
Rating: PG for mild violence, intentional mockery of various fantasy clichés (no offence meant) and tormenting one of the male characters by a brief torturing female fanclub following thereafter.

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PROLOGUE:

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Two people were alone in the shadows. One a woman, the other male—both seemingly human, and yet both in the same manner the complete embodiments of contrast. They paced with a light step about each other as a fight softened into a moment’s rest.

One was tall, the other notably short, but they both shared one thing in common, or perhaps a few more, depending on how you choose to look at things. They both had blood on their hands, torn clothing, the exhausted looks of battle touching their eyes, both well battered swords clutched in their sweaty hands. The shorter, the female, had the expression of one lost, of one who no longer had any remaining hope.

He might have looked royal once, but his garb, though rich, was stained with time and dirt, of blood and battle. Now he just looked as if attempting to change his expression from the hardened stare would shatter his face. Perhaps it would have; there was no way to be truly certain. But now he just looked as if death was the only goal therein. But then, on another note, the very air surrounding them seemed to be alive with the desire to taste death, as if it were more cruel than even the blades the two wielded.

She had switched her blade to her left hand in the lull of the battle, rubbing her right against her tunic in an attempt to wipe some of the sweat from her palms. But it was in her dark eyes; she knew she was losing. To be truthful, a woman is very frequently at the disadvantage in a battle. It’s not to say that the dark haired woman was utterly destined to lose, but it is to say that it’s unlikely any woman could hold up for long against a trained fighter.

“Couldn’t this have stayed with our childhood?” she whispered, voice nearly given out. “We didn’t need to carry this foolish battle out beyond stolen teddy bears. You of all people, surely, should understand purpose...”

The lull had finished. He swung his weapon hard into hers, smashing it against the nearest wall to lock the woman into position. “I seen no position in carrying it on, but you seemed to insist.” He watched as she strained against his lock, fought to keep a grip against one far stronger than she could ever be. Slight of build, her advantage had been in speed, in stealth rather than a direct battle. When it had come to this, she had realized she had been unprepared to truly fight her adversary. A dart had whipped through her dark hair, skimming her cheek, but leaving her face otherwise unblemished. She had frozen, turned around to face the taller man with his humorless expression.

She had sworn upon the realization that her decent into the shadows had been noticed.

“It was a noteworthy attempt,” he had said with an expression that had almost implied a smile for a moment.

“N-no, you don’t understand...” The woman had fought to explain before the battle had opened into a full out fury of an attack. “Tysort! I wasn’t following you!”

He had frowned. “Perhaps not intentionally, but we’re here, alone, and still hate each other, correct, Elnaj?”

She brushed her fingertips against the blood on her cheek, brought to her flesh by the needle-sharp point of the dart. Fortunately not poisoned, she had thought then. First blood, she thought in the now for a brief moment. “I suppose so,” the woman had acknowledged in a dry tone, drawing her finer sword and dropping into a defensive position. They had fought then, letting their blades intercross and parry each other’s thrusts. Step, pace, spin backwards to avoid a slash...

Slowly it had increased in pace. The blood dried on her cheek had dried into a brown gash, stinging in the deadly wind.

She knew she was about to lose. The woman released her hold on her blade a moment before he would’ve shoved it from her sweaty grip, stumbling away from him as her balance suddenly changed. It clattered far from either of their reaches into the canyon. She stumbled to keep herself from completely losing her balance.

But there wasn’t anything she could have done to prevent the face of death staring at her. He spun, blade underneath her chin as she backed away into the cliff face. They were in the bottom of the canyon, away from all other sentient contact. Dark walls rose up around them, the wind hissing nearly silently against all the trees that clutched to a bare life in the deserted location. Acid streaks toned the gray rock with deep gashes, teeth marks of a fatal element.

Death wouldn’t do anything but kill her; screaming would only make it worse. She fell silent, hands raised in an unconscious attempt to defend herself, to offer anything that could prevent him from striking her down where she stood. Within the Inner Realm, killing her would only send her back to where she had come from, leaving her death empty, and fated to be repeated again and again. It wouldn’t destroy her, only force her to remain. Nothing here was real. She refused to accept that fate.

Back, and then her hair brushing the cliff face… There was nowhere left to turn and flee her attacker. She raised her chin in slight defiance to stare the far taller being in the eyes. “So kill me.”

“After all you’ve done, I should merely kill you?” His face didn’t change upon saying this, a dull stoic expression remaining. It kept him from looking angered, cheered, pleased, or revealing any other emotion at the moment. Even gloating, she thought would’ve been easier to take than a lack of emotion. He had the feel of one who thought that showing any emotion would possibly sent him falling to his death from a cliff.

Her expression was frozen. The appearance of one who was going to fall into tears, to weep and plead for mercy, but couldn’t bring herself to lower her dignity that far. She had some level of forced beliefs in dignity, in honor, in facing consequences. He knew she had some honor. “You don’t strike me as the type to take advantage of a female prisoner.”

“You’re certainly correct there.” For a moment he did reveal something, contempt for those who lacked respect for other races, for other genders. Even though his garb was stained red with blood, her blood and his own, he still carried some honor. For that she was relieved. Death was far easier to tolerate at the hands of someone who still respected you for whom and what you were rather than merely seeing you as chance.

Still, even with the addition of some respect to her death, she didn’t want to die. In a sense, he seemed almost loath to kill her, even if his blade rested with an unspoken menace against her throat. “Please...” She hesitated. Pleading? It was so beneath her. “...For some respect for who I am, kill me quickly.” The words were forced from a throat nearly constricted in fear, and he had to salute her inwardly for not revealing it on her face— she was terrified.

The man narrowed his eyes nevertheless, expression flickering just slightly. His eyes seemed to smile without humor. “No.”

Then he hit her over the side of the head with the flat of his blade. For a mere second, her eyes widened, and then rolled back in her head. She slumped forward. Jerking his blade away so she wouldn’t end up accidentally impaling herself, she collapsed in an unconscious slumber. He cast her a slightly disdainful glance, cleaning the blood off his sword on the edge of his tunic. It was destroyed as it was from the battle, and it was far cheaper to buy a new tunic than a new sword once he allowed it to rust from inattention.

He doubted she would die from her wounds. He hadn’t hit her that badly, most of the blood being merely surface wounds carefully cutting her arms in an attempt to disable her. He knew he was mildly wounded likewise, light cuts that crossed his features where her blade had found slight holes in his defenses. No, unless something came across her unconscious body, she would live, if not a bit uncomfortably.

The man sighed innerly. All this over a childhood incident concerning a teddy bear. It was ridiculously foolish. For a long moment he was tempted to take his blade, and run her through, just to end any further clamor over this issue. But this was quickly pushed aside. If she died, it would be from the elements, and not his weapon. Enough blood had been shed over a childish vendetta.

Finishing his job on his sword, he sheathed it, and turned to leave the Lesser Cliffsettings. It wouldn’t take long to return to the Major Cliffsettings, a couple hours or less of climbing.



It was several hours before the woman at last stirred, fighting with her waning strength to force an opening back to the Middle Realm.. Back to Endyr. She would be safe there for the time.



But that’s how stories always work. One seemingly unessential event can change a lifetime. When he had stolen her teddy bear as a child, he had not thought ahead and thought that perhaps it would cause him a lifetime of agony. And it is strange, how little events can slowly tie together.

Which is why, in a completely different part of Endyr, a child had a birthday party. A few years later, he had another one, and another one. By the time he was twelve, all the local girls had decided that he was hot, plus a few others beside. As he was a halfling, complete with the adorable features of one, and conveniently a few too many inches tall, he was immediately dubbed unique, and an obvious target of all girls. Halflings do tend to be under at least four foot seven inches, just because they’re supposed to be near half sized.

This one was five foot two inches. In the West Farthings, this meant that all the halfling girls thought he was cute because he was so tall, and all the human girls liked him because he was short enough to look down on, but tall enough to comfortably kiss, being as they were about five foot seven.

He was completely unaware of any vendettas from years past that had been going on the year he had been born. To be truthful, he probably wouldn’t have cared either. Neither would the girls who continually followed him around cared, as they were too fascinated by his gorgeous blue eyes. Though admittedly, he might have at least pretended to care, had it gotten him out of the events preceding his seventeenth birthday.

It all started when his mother forced him to invite those nice girls that just happened to be his friends. Because for one of them, it wasn’t an ordinary event. This made it rather unordinary for him, and thus led forward in a chain of events that would gradually explain how and why teddy bear vendettas made sense.

But enough talk. Welcome to confusion, human...


***

Review me and I'll amend the cliffie. This is posted for Commander, who was interested in reading it.

[Tiana, eh?]

WARNING: This chapter makes fun of drivel. I hope it's not offensive, and I believe this and the next are the only ones like that. They were written in parody and to establish a couple character personalities in humorously exaggerated manners.

A brilliant cheer lit the gold and green pathways of the West Farthings. Sunlight danced in the flowers as birds made their ways between trees to trees, and filled the air with what could’ve been called music, of a sort. The gold bathed the deep green trees in light, leaving their leaves to drip a metallic gleam onto the ground, and the rusty ground to puddle up with light.

The air smelt of good fortune amidst the salty scent of ocean water and the distant calls of seagulls across the teal waters. It saturated the very air with well-being, and made one wonder why such a simple world merited such beauty at moments.

For it was beautiful in innocence. Though not untouched by darkness, as was clearly stated in the eyes of girls pushed down by the influential powers of their clique leaders, as was stated by the tear colored eyes of a child as he fell and scraped his knee against a sharp stone, it was still innocent. The ground seemed untouched by bloodshed; the air seemed to reek of flowers and trees rather than flames burning straw houses to the ground.

There was no frantic whinnying of horses pressing against the air as they fought to flee a war ground heavily pressed with smog and the smell of death. There was no high pitched screams of women as their husband was cut down beside them by a merciless bandit. There was no trace of footsteps tinged with blood covering the ground as a child fled a wolf intent on seeing its dinner.

There was no smell of fearful adrenaline in the air as beings fled for their life. There was no pressing horror in the eyes of the women and children as they stumbled off to work under the whips of a slave master cruel and thoughtless. The men didn’t struggle under heavy loads as slavery set in.

And no one was out to kill each other just for the sake of two silver pennies.

It was innocent, even if touched by shadows.

And it was in this innocence that Essar Longbarrel was having his seventeenth birthday. At the urging of his mother, he had invited several of the girls from his classes at the local schoolhouse, albeit reluctantly. They all had crushes on him, he reluctantly noted. Every single one of them, a passion for his eyes, his hair... and some of them far worse, he thought with a shudder.

So I have nice eyes, the boy thought helplessly. What’s that to them? Why should they like my toenails?!

Obviously, a lot more to them than it was to himself, he noticed dryly as he got another couple of stares from a pair of halfling girls. They were quickly diverted by their boyfriends, however, to the beautiful sight of a tree.

He wondered about this, a lot.

But no, his mother insisted. Such lovely girls! You should be proud to call them your
friends, Essar!

Proud? he thought. That one tried to touch me... on... on... a place that should not be touched! I mean, honestly… my armpits? And all the squeeing. It’s enough to make a well-bred halfling flee for dear life. Flame it, I’ve tried. They just keep following me!

Why can’t they like... that guy!

His mind's eye wandered off towards a guy with a tall expression, dark blond hair, and muscles. Surely he was good looking. Why didn’t the girls tackle him, and try to kiss him for ridiculously long periods of time, and try to stick their tongues down his throat?

It wasn’t like Essar needed a tonsillectomy. He had gotten one a couple years ago from an elvin physician when they had gotten enflamed enough to need removal. So why did those girls keep on trying, and squealing like piglets when they tried?

He tried to tell them...

He had tried to tell his mother, who had said that’s nice, and went back to cooking supper. He had tried to tell his father, but unfortunately, as his father was nothing more than a tombstone making an attempt to push up daisies, he had gotten no reply. The girls had tried to exploit this too, catching him talking aloud to a grave with a pencil and paper in case he got any replies. They had said he was going mentally insane and needed tender loving care to recover.

Then tried to kiss him again.

Essar ran and locked himself in his room for seven days after that.

But no. He still had to invite them to his party because they were such looooooooovely people.

I want to marry a twig, he decided, and sat down beside a tree to try and talk to rocks. Perhaps if the girls decided that he was insane, and couldn’t be saved by being glomped to death, they would leave him alone to become a monk, or a priest, or a writer...

“Hi!”

Flame it, he thought. “Hullo, Amber,” he muttered reluctantly to the rock, refusing to look up at the girl’s face he knew would be there. He just knew it. He knew her voice, even from the shrieking hi she always gave...

She sat down beside him, and he allowed a worse mental curse.

“What’d’ya want?” he mumbled, still examining the rock. It was a pretty rock. It had sparkly spots in it, and he liked shiny objects, and it was a nice smooth black too. It might’ve made a decent skipping stone, he reasoned, but it wasn’t skinny enough to get anywhere. It would just sink in a couple of splats.

But it was pretty, with rainbow like colors deep inset into the shades of silver in the speckles of shimmery rock.

“I’m talking to ferns,” she said cheerfully, taking a fern out of her pocket. “This is my fern. Its name is Dragoon.”

Essar nodded. “Can’t you go talk to your fern somewhere else?”

“Why?”

“...Because I asked you to?”

“No, you just asked me whether I could go and talk to it somewhere else.”

“Well, can you?” Essar looked up from the shiny rock and gave the girl a pointed
look. She had auburn hair that was closer to red than auburn, and light brown eyes. For a human, she wasn’t that bad looking, just a bit big and overwhelming to talk to when he was standing, even if he was tall for a halfling. Staring remarkably up at someone to talk to them can be a pain, but having someone staring at the top of your head with a knowing expression is even more bothersome. It gives one the feeling of an impending haircut, as if they’re trying to look down into your brain...

Then a shudder touches you, and you wonder if they really aren’t a zombie. You know they see you as a child just because of the height difference, and then you start to wonder. You wonder if they’re going to get into your mind and stay there, haunting your every dream. You wonder if you’ll never be able to close your eyes again, because someone will be there, their smile a vision inside the dark orange of closed eyelids against the sun.

You wonder if they’ll never leave your thoughts again.

He didn’t like girls that could look down on him.

For that matter, he reasoned, he didn’t like girls at all. They were just too shrieky about bugs and spiders and lizards. And spiders were cute, he thought in that shrieky tone that the girls always took on when they seen his eyes. They were so cute!! And he just knew they were adding two exclamation points and breaking all logical grammatical rules to shriek at him. Not that Essar had any great desire to appreciate grammar. But it was something they were taught in school, and as the West Farthings had no variation of Instant Messengers they had no logical reason to use multiple punctuation marks unless they were an over excited salesperson.

“Yes, I can.”

Essar waited about five seconds before looking back up at her again from his rock with annoyed eyes.

“Well...?”

“You just asked me whether I could. I’m quite able to.”

“Well, can you, then?”

“I told you I could.”

“...” Essar exhaled in frustration, an ellipses hanging in his voice as he stared at the girl. Of course, the beautiful blue eyes he wore didn’t look too menacing, merely proving to make him look totally adorably hot, at least, according to Amber. “I invited you to my birthday party. Isn’t that enough?”

She frowned. “Of course that’s great.”

“Then why won’t you go away?”

“Oh!” A light suddenly lit up behind her eyes, and he wondered why she wasn’t
blond. It would’ve made her look that much more bleached in her personality, that much more shallow. “Why didn’t you say so?”

“I did!”

“No-o-o-o...”

“I did too.” He folded his arms, dropping the shiny rock in the process. As gravity took effect, it smashed into his toe, and he stifled an outcry as it crushed his toenail and a great deal of unfortunate atoms. She did not appear to notice the expression that suddenly appeared on his carefully tanned face (though he hadn’t tried to get it this shade and try as he might, he would not burn). For about five seconds he looked as if he were constipated.

He wondered if she thought this was cute too, if she even noticed outside of his beautiful blue eyes.

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did too.”

“No, you didn’t. You asked me whether I could go away.”

“And you didn’t,” he stated with gritted teeth.

Amber tilted her head, and gave him a confused look. “You didn’t say you wanted
me to, you just asked me if I could. Of course I can. But you didn’t ask if I would.”

Essar blinked. He went through this a few times in his mind, and couldn’t get it. Didn’t couldn't and wouldn’t mean the same thing? What about could and would. Of course they were the same. If she could go away, she would go away. Right?

“Could means I can. Can means I am able to,” Amber patiently explained, as if talking to a two year old. “Will means that I will. Would you go away is different than could you go away, because would is indicating that you want me to rather than asking if I am able to go away.”

He blinked again for good measure. It made absolutely no sense. But he did catch something. She was being patronizing. He didn’t like being patronized for no great reason, and being short wasn’t a very good reason. Why did she have to make so little sense?

It never got to making sense either as the girl suddenly shrieked, and started batting wildly at her hair. “A bug! There’s a bug in my hair! Get it out! Get it out!! GET IT OUUUUUUUUUUUT!!” She leapt to her feet, her fern falling to the ground, now forgotten in light of the rather large looking beetle that had taken refuge in her red hair.

He raised his eyebrows, and flicked the beetle out of her hair, feeling very sorry for the poor bug that it would have to suffer her dreadfully high pitched wailing of distress. It didn’t seem right for nature to have to suffer the arts of a terrified girl, even though she had no real reason to fear the harmless bug.

“You saved my life!” she shrieked, throwing her arms around the halfling, and kissing him on the cheek. He shoved her away, though not hard enough to send her sprawling to the ground as he would’ve liked.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” he muttered, and sat back down to stare at his rock. “Now go away and grammarize some other guy. Like perhaps Jaythan Lars?”

She wrinkled her nose. “But you’re cute.”

“Whatever.” He stared ruefully at a blade of grass, and wished it could make him not cute.

“You’re hot,” she decided cheerfully, and patted him on the top of the head. He wanted to bite her, but felt that it might not be particularly civilized to attempt to take a bite out of one of his fellow teenagers, even if it seemed a particularly satisfying idea. Though he had tried biting someone else before, and they hadn’t tasted very good. A bit fleshy with a rather strong taste of dirt and grease, he had found a moment before his eardrums had been shattered and he had found himself sat upon.

Maybe some salt...

The idea seemed almost reasonable. They were out to bite out his tongue, he might as well bite their fingers off... it couldn’t be that bad of a trade.

Then he decided that their parents wouldn’t be that happy, and might try to marry him off to one of them, and that idea wasn’t particularly pleasant feeling at all. But by this point, Amber had vanished into the small crowd, leaving him alone to contemplate blades of grass and various twigs.

He examined the various twigs, and found a cute looking one within the very unmagical grass.

Why couldn’t I just be able to marry a twig?

[Tiana, eh?]

Chapter two comes complete with a pretty, shiny cliffie! (cackles) This chapter was also written with the intent of making fun of drivel in modern fantasy. It starts getting more adventureous in a few chapters.




“Blast you, Essar!”

“It’s not my fault!” The halfling threw his hands up helplessly, though it didn't do much more than make him look more helpless than he already did. Considering that his hair was soaked to the side of his head, and his clothing was very damp, he looked very helpless. And cute, but that was no longer Amber’s purpose at the moment.

“Why didn’t you tell me that stupid fountain was enchanted?” Amber demanded, sticking her finger underneath his nose, and looking very intimidating. A couple of hours ago Uisayr Groundsnubb had decided it would be amusing to get a group of guys together and throw smaller kids in fountains. Amber hadn’t appreciated this much, being small enough to manhandle into a fountain. Attempting to fight back, they had ended up near the docks and near a small fountain.

She had attempted to push the older child into the fountain. She had ended up falling into it herself. Nothing strange had happened beyond a rather large splash, but the human girl had come out wailing that her face was melting. It hadn’t been, but there had still been a few strange adverse effects to her dunking.

A traitor piece of Essar’s mind whispered that she was a lot cuter when she was mad, and a lot more tolerable, because she wasn’t shrieking at high E levels about bugs, boys, and how he was so hot. The fact that she was steaming from anger made her a lot more acceptable for a companion.

He wasn’t certain, though, just how long he was going to be able to tolerate her company.

“It wasn’t my fault!” he repeated in a higher and more frantic voice. “I didn’t know it was enchanted! And I’m sure we can undo it before my birthday party...”

“I’m sure,” she muttered. “You think you’re so hot, don’t you?”

“Hot? I thought you thought I was hot...” Essar was rewarded by a slap across the face, and a stinging sensation on his nose. He wondered exactly what he had said wrong to deserve that, considering the girl seemed to spend all her spare time calling him hot. What was wrong with agreeing with it? He had thought that had been what she wanted, heavens sake.

“Idiot,” she muttered, pacing back in the dark room to stare out the window at what merited a nicer day. There were a few clouds speckling the blue sky, a tree casting a deep shadow into the room. The room was plain—there were a couple of chairs in it, a rug on the floor, and a spare bed mostly covered in boxes with fabric within their cardboard or wooden walls. She assumed that his mother knitted, or sewed, or something. Because Amber doubted that he would sew for any purpose. He just talked to rocks and trees. What reason would he have to sew or try darning?

No, of course Essar wouldn’t. He was just a talking-to-rocks teenager with no real goals in life beyond to look like a fool when everything was really flowing all around his island.

At the same time he was thinking nearly the same thing about her, seeing her as a shallow-minded, undecided, and not-with-it girl with no goals but to shriek about every cute boy she ever seen in her entire lifetime.

“It’s not my fault,” he muttered, staring blankly at the wall with a glum expression. “Anyway, it’s just a simple spell. We should have it broken by the time my birthday party occurs, Amber...”

“Don’t call me that,” she snapped. “You can call me...”

“Yes?"

“Oh, blast you. Just don’t call me anything.”

“Okay, Amber.”

“I told you not to call me anything!”

Essar folded his arms. “Well, I didn't call you ‘anything’, did I?"

She gritted her teeth. “Shut up.”

Moody, he thought, rolling his eyes at the roof, and scowling at nothing in particular. Of course he had to go with her on the stupid quest to undo the stupid spell that that stupid pool of silver water had cast on her. Stupid, stupid, stupid! he thought ruefully, and wished that killing her would’ve been an easier way out. But no, of course not. They had to travel to the reverse pool and dunk her in it.

Actually was a pretty easy solution, he thought. Go to the reverse, and then it was undone. No weird spells to be recited, no magic words, no ‘one true love’, no ‘at moonlight take the magic stones of Sellcath and grind them into a powder which must be sprinkled over the girl’s left pinkie finger and then turned inside out...’ It was just a quick journey down to the Halls, and his parents had friends there who could get her to the reverse pool.

It didn’t seem right, though. Nothing came with no strings attached. There couldn’t possible be this easy of a solution.

Being a natural cynic didn’t help Essar at all in this case at all, however. He was expecting a bunch of doom, death, and destruction to appear the moment they stepped into the East Farthings, which were really as innocent as the West Farthings, but for an abundance of magical pools. But then, the West Farthings had a weird ocean and an abundance of magical twigs, he had noticed.

At least, he thought they were magical. It couldn’t be that often that one ran into twigs with a goldish glimmer inside of their stalks. It couldn’t be! He thought this to be perfectly reasonable too, and wondered why no one else believed his theory that twigs were actually reincarnations of purple space cows from the planet of Zambonie.

In fact, they had laughed in his face, he thought reluctantly, as Amber stalked in little tiny circles.

“I’m not going to carry on like this,” she muttered. “I’m not.”

“Uh... Amber...”

“Don’t call me that!”

“Amber...”

She scowled.

“What did the pool do to you anyway?” he asked hastily.

“It was a mirror pool,” she said flatly. “You touch the water, you get everything in mirror vision.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.”

He considered this with an amused expression, sitting down thoughtfully on a nearby crate labeled purple fabric. “Does that mean that I look like a girl?”

She scowled at him again.

“Just asking.”

Amber folded her arms, and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Think your mother will have our provisions ready soon?” He could hear an immediate change of topic in her voice, a strain to keep from thinking about what was really going on.

Essar shrugged. “Probably.”

She nodded, and leaned back against a box to count the tiles on the roof. Unfortunately, she realized about two seconds after doing this that Essar’s family had a straw roof. She took it upon herself to count the slats holding the straw up on the roof instead, as there were too many strands of flaxen colored grain to count comfortably.

A bit of time passed, and suddenly the box behind her collapsed in an outward puff of dust, sending blue-dyed threads flying into the air along with a dust-colored cloud. Amber coughed, and then hit the back of the bed behind her. Fortunately, her head missed the wall, and her hair remained unscathed, much to Essar’s great distress. He had wondered what would’ve happened had a bed in his house misplaced her hair.

Then she shrieked anyway.

“Wha...” Essar started, and then realized the issue as she pointed frantically at a web hanging above her head with a rather large black spider hanging from it. It was conveniently moving its way down towards her nose too, leaving about a three inch radius to go either up or down. The spider had taken preference to the idea of gravity, slowly edging its way down to her nose, a slightly rounded flesh colored pyramid to its perspective.

He considered the situation, measured the idea of getting deafened or hit against the idea of leaving the spider to attack her nose. It only took a moment before he decided to leave it there with a smug look.

She cut off mid shriek, batted the spider away with a piece of cloth, and then smacked him over the head once she had pulled herself upright again. He yelped in not so much surprise or pain as just reacting. “Jerk.”

“But I’m a hot jerk, at least,” he said helplessly.

She hit him again.

Girls, he thought dully. His hands automatically rose to shield his nose from further vicious blows from the human girl’s hands. As delicate as she appeared, with small white hands with a thin bone structure, she still managed to pack a pretty painful punch. He didn’t appreciate it one bit, as it felt as if she might’ve chipped his nose.

He gave a rueful glance at the spider, crushed against the wall, and pitied it. Amber was vicious, uncaring, and cruel. Not to mention shallow, he added. Very shallow. She has no purpose to doing anything that she ever does.

He wondered why he was bothering to think about her, and decided to think about fried chicken and cakes. Cakes were good. They had frosting and sugar and chocolate and little frosting chickens on the side when his mother grew bored and had a baggie around...

Unfortunately for Essar, his reverie about cakes was interrupted by his rather short mother barging into the room, tossing the two of them very suggestive looks, which he interpreted to mean that she thought they had been kissing, and Amber seemed to think likewise. However, the spell seemed to have made her oblivious to his eyes, he noted, and she was now acting as if he were the very spawn of evil.

And it wasn’t even his fault, his mind whined, accepting the pack of food, clothes, and various other necessities his mother had somehow come up with almost immediately. Mothers seemed to be geniuses at pulling off things like that, and he wasn't certain he wanted to know how she managed it, whether a magical closet or just knowing what they needed.

This would probably make a very good time to tell you what our dear friends look like. Garbed in basic brown robes, Essar could’ve appeared a monk had one not taken a close look at him, and then one would’ve assumed he was a librarian. He had that naturally geek-like look to him, even if he was tanned perfectly, and his eyes were a beautiful shade of blue, according to most girls. There was just this glimmer in his eyes that read geek. Though most definitely not a grammar-loving geek; his only thoughts on the language’s rules were when people overused punctuation.

This didn’t deter the girls dead set on kissing him, however. Perhaps the fact that his clothing was mostly simple brown, belted carelessly, and his hair unkempt merely served to make them like him more. The rugged look seemed to be a favorite among most girls in those parts, but then, no matter what he had tried, they had loved it.

Amber was a total opposite. She was a girl that could’ve been dubbed a knockout. Perhaps quite literally, he noticed now, having faced the perils of her fist on three occasions now. Her hair was almost red; her eyes almost hazel, and the only thing tossing off her appearance was a rather heavy smattering of acne across her nose and forehead. She tended to wear loose clothing in the ranges of black, crimson, and green. Though she wore a skirt, he noticed that she wore leggings underneath them.

That nearly merited another slap, as she misinterpreted his glance towards her legs and chest as being rather rude, even though not a day ago she had been the one hitting on him.

Girls really were the most confusing creatures in the universe, he reasoned. He hadn’t been the one to push her into the magical fountain. She had pushed him into the lake, and then someone had decided to push her into the fountain... and she had come out dry, even if she had made quite an incredible splash. That had been one of the stranger effects of the fall into the water, he decided.

He hadn't appreciated that one too much. After all, he had been soaking wet, and they had both fallen into fountains or various other receptacles of water.

However, he wasn’t left with too great of a length of time to consider this, as his mother soon decided they didn’t need to hang around in a dark sewing room when she had gone to all that work cooking them enough provisions for the two day walk to the Halls. Essar soon found himself shoved off to get some decent boots on and a cloak... he assumed that Amber suffered the same treatment... and then they were off!

A glorious quest to undo the spell on the beautiful girl? He didn’t think so.

No, it was far from glorious, Essar reasoned with a painful expression. It was horrible. Dreadful. And worst of all...