For some reason time his decided to flip me off... In other words, I am short on it but the five day take it up a notch session will continue! Day one was sucessfull, with everything being complete and I hope day two will go just as well. As I am writing this I am loading a game on Kongregate (it's going slow) so I can get the achievements. I have one for the day already and I am hoping to get two here and nearly be done with a third of the check list.
Friday I will be posting the new chapter of Retribution, as I have decided that will be the posting day for it permanetly. The five day up a notch should put me somewhere into half way done with next weeks chapter. I am going to have to work ahead on this thought as classes start on thursday and I may be limited on time, I don't see working ahead as a problem at all.
Lasty, I'd like to introduce Serendipity. It was my first real attempt to write anything that was in depth and profound. The story follows a young assassin who was forced to escort a child to his family in a different town, but he became attached, something no assassin should ever consider outside of his kingdom or realm. Though this our main character has to learn to struggle to change his ways, but how can you change what you were born to do?
Serendipity terms:
Predom - A priestess who has pure Aerothian blood and has unlimited magical abilities
Aeroth - A god who descended to earth and formed the country Aeroth, and let his children inhabit it with natural magical abilities, in the country all magic has been lost except those who contain golden eyes and the children of Predoms
Serendipity: Chapter One
It is un-motherly to abandon a child of such impressionable age, yet with any other option death would be the recoil. To fully understand would take a lifetime, or maybe just a novel. This is why I write. How can you expect an outsider to understand the equilibrium held at the Aeroth, the Aerothians barely can perceive the power held in their blood, their words, their mere existence.
I digress. You’ll have to pardon me, sometimes, my mind just wanders. Now the boy was five, young and full of the Aerothian blood, yet he could not speak but one word, a word to make someone’s heart melt and only theirs. He spoke, “Mother.”
As I watched his breaking heart he fell unto his bottom and used gangly arms to prop himself up. “Mother, Mother, Mother!” He was in so much pain, his desperation could be felt easily as I had also lost the tender affection of one known as Mother. ‘Of this child’ I contemplated, ‘do I see myself or one as myself?’ I was swift in a no, his mother did in fact rejoice at the words. I could see it in the tears streaming down each cheek, dropping unto the crevices of soft lips and father down her neck.
I wish the veil did not hide away her eyes, her perfect golden eyes. The boy wailed one last time. The mother obedient to her teachings raised a hand and spoke with such false ire I couldn’t believe she ever loved the child. “You know of Polaris, follow him unto the city, find the girl there with golden eyes, she will love you, call her mother.”
Her hand lowered, her head motioned swiftly to me, I know her golden eyes had found me. I attempted to speak but the ferocity at which came from her was unexpected for a Predom. “An assassin sitting in a tree can only guess at what I will do if my boy dies. Now, if said assassin were to help, maybe he wouldn’t be lunch for the Leviathan.”
It was then as an act of complete fear of this one small woman that I abandoned my duty to Carithga and became an enemy of my own people.
As you can imagine, this was a momentous event. I had changed the course of history because I was scare of a person, ironic? Sometimes I think so and burst out laughing. Why the other day in the market I happened upon her, she thanked me. A Predom thanked me, and not only that I was originally sent to kill her.
There’s my wondering mind again, I bet you’re wondering now whether I’m ever going to get to the actual story, I will, I promise.
Now that moment I also saw my first bit of magic. It wasn’t simple either, to this day, thirteen years later, I still have no clue what it is. She raised her veil, all I saw was those golden eyes and then the blinding light accompanied by hurricane like winds that flung me from my roost in the tree.
Upon the hard forest ground I fell rather ungracefully landing on my left shoulder. My head jerked and I thought I was going to suffer a serious injury, but my arm only was sprained. I used my only suitable arm to push myself onto my knees and looking over at the boy saw that he himself had been thrown. Unlike myself the little tyke was snoring. The blast had put him to sleep.
I smiled to myself and laughed through my nose. That’s when I hear hoof beats. Luckily assassins are pretty good at escaping quickly. Hasty to my feet I grabbed the child and found a hollow underneath a tree. The damp leaves and bugs angrily shared their space with us. I lay there, feet against the far edge, knees bent, child held tightly to my chest and waited. The hoof beats went and passed, I decided it best to wait until dark where in the boy may awake.
It was a damn good decision.
The call of a large black and brown creature was the timer. The nocturnal Great Horned Owl flew down to the hollow and made as much noise as it could to awaken me. I moved my head and opened my eyes to see her and she brushed me with her wing. “Hello,” I paused for a yawn the continued, “Fantasma. Observation.” She took off, powerful wings sending her into the sky. I don’t go out at night unless she’s with me. As you may have guessed, Fantasma is a trained owl. It’s taken two years with her but she’s better then any man at surveying the area. Three long screeches meant she had found no one in the area. The boy was twitching a little, he needed to wake so we can travel. Normally I would have just carried him, but with one arm incapable it was impossible.
My right hand met his left shoulder and I shook him until he, dreary eyed, looked up at me. There was no gold in sight. “Mother.”
“You’re mother’s gone, she had something important to do. I’m going to watch over you now.” He stare at me blankly then took off outside and screamed at the top of his lungs. Frightened, Fantasma swooped down and hooted at me. Crawling out I stuck out my left should which she joyously perched her heavy body on. “Boy, listen,” I placed my hand on him gently, “she will come back, but for now, we need to leave.”
“Mother?” He looked down at the groundand began sniffling.
I knelt down in front of him keeping my hand on him for stability. Just in case you’re wondering, I put Fantasma on a diet, she’s now ten pounds lighter. As I was saying, I knelt down and tried to reason with him. “My name is Gregory. Would you like to be my friend?”
The boy slowly nodded. He pointed a finger at himself and slowly began to try and stutter out a word. “S… s… souunnnn!” He squealed.
“That can’t be you’re name, Son? That is what a parent calls their child.” I erected myself and sent Fantasma off to feed herself. “Well, if it is your name, then I shall call you Son. You must call me Gregory, can you say that?”
“Gr… Gr.. Ea…Gr… E…” He smiled up at me. I held out my hand and he took it. Slowly following Polaris we walked. Ten to one Son was hungry, but he didn’t have any food and neither did I. I guess the only one eating tonight would be Fantasma.
After half a night of waning moonlight the forest ended into a small meadow where the light gave the look of fey unto the place, as if peace was here. Son released my hand to follow the childish pursuit of chasing the fireflies who were lazy. I walked behind him, the boy’s normally golden hair was white here, and he absolutely beamed. The specter like look took me aback for a second, then he fell over and began crying. I remembered how human he was.
I charged to his side to find him on the ground face to face with a small petrified rabbit. I nudged the rabbit away, instantly Son felt better. “Gre…grey!”
“It’s okay, that was a bunny. Haven’t you ever seen one before?” He shook his head. I sighed, I was in for a long road. “Bunnies can’t harm you, they’re friendly.” He nodded and got up and grabbed my left hand yanking a bit. It was painful but I ignored it and we moved through the field. Every couple of minutes Fantasma would dive down somewhere around us and we’d hear the dying scream of a mouse or rabbit as she ate it. He said my name wrongly again, I suppose to ask about what she was doing so I pretended I didn’t hear. Son was horribly innocent as far as I could tell, why let him know of death now?
With every step my attachment grew. I couldn’t help it, he was intoxicating. I wondered then if I might take him on as a little Brother, but we’ll get the results soon enough.
The rest of the trip was uneventful, I helped him identify some of the more interesting things he’s never seen before and some that he hadn’t want to know about. Breaking day was when we first saw smoke rise from over the crest of a small hill. Below we discovered his mother had been right, here lay the village.
I released his hand and he raced down and started pointing at things and a few people that were awake before dawn. Casually I followed and stopped at the first person I found.
Naturally the farmer I went up to was quite unresponsive to me. Very few people could ever afford such fine of cloth as I wear, not to mention the fine flat black hair that was horribly uncommon. “I’m looking for someone with golden eyes, do you know them?”
“Who might be inquiring?” He proceeded to swirl the saliva around in his mouth and spit onto the ground next to me.
“I’ve been sent by a Predom to find her. Do you know them or not?” He pointed to a hut with smoke coming out the top across the way. He snorted and I walked away. Peasants… how disgusting. I walked out into the road and looked both ways until I found Son staring at a cow. “Son!”
He turned abruptly and rushed me clutching my arm. I nearly had to drag him but eventually I made it to the door and knocked quietly.
“HELLO?” Rang a small voice.
“COME IN!” Said a much louder and deeper one.
“WAIT! I’M NOT DRESSED!” Said a third. Three people living in a hut, how disgusting. I guess when you don’t have that much money you can’t have anything bigger. Everything in Aeroth was so poor yet they had all the power. Pity really.
After a few seconds the door was opened by a woman much smaller then I with brazen gold hair. She looked up at me with simple blue eyes. “I’ve been sent by a Predom to find the woman with golden eyes. Is she here?”
The girl nodded then turned her head back into the hut came whistled, low and long. Stepping back an older woman can foreword, the golden eyes were piercing. She stared at me, I knew what she was doing, she was reading whether or not I came with good intention. After a moment she smiled, “So you’re not the boy’s father.”
“No, I barely know him. His name is Son, he’s been sent to live with you by a Predom with your golden eyes.” I nudged Son foreword and he looked up at her and smiled. “Mother!”
He grasped the woman tightly. She looked down at him, a slight bit of confusion. I guess it is strange when a man and a boy show up at your door and the boy is now your child. The woman reached down with slender tan hand and picked up the child to hold him. “I cannot take full responsibility of the child, I have a daughter about to be wed and a seven year old girl as well.”
When hearing about this child that I had bonded with, the words escaped me and she smiled at me, those perfect golden eyes in adoration. It is then I realized I had nothing to go with, but if they managed, so would I. “Then I’ll be the boy’s father.”
I had no home here, no food, and absolutely no way to provide for a child. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t going to live up to my words. I have no parenting experience, having been abandoned by my mother unto a master assassin, but this is something I wanted badly. I don’t care if I’m only seventeen, this perfect creature, so pure, was now mine. She had her eyes focused on me, the golden eyes let her know. They let her breech my sanity and read my emotions and the truth of the matter, and that I would be happier then anyone, if I could just have him as mine.
To all you, your probably going, ‘isn’t that rushing it a bit?’ Right now, I digress unto four moths ago back in the south marshes of Carithga, the warm sun blazing in the late autumn. It was there I was burying Leila and her just born child. She was only fifteen, she was strong, healthy, yet the labor was too much. She died right after she thanked me for giving her such a beautiful baby girl. Yes, I was a father, for about five minutes. Upon the quietness of the child so laid upon the quietness of Leila and a period of grieving which lead to my worst action yet.
I accepted the mission to kill the Predom and her son. And this is how I ended up here. I don’t know if her eyes can see all of that, but I doubt they did. But she did get all my other emotions, the needs for him. “My elder daughter Alexandria, her fiancée is a pottery maker. I’m sure he’d love to be shown how to make bricks for a house, seeing as we don’t have anyone who knows how to get them uniformly. If you ask him to help build you a house made with the bricks I’m sure he would not object. I will care for the boy until you have a house.” She turned her lond red hair following, “Allie, come here and take the gentleman to see Roger, would you.” She took the boy inside and set him down at a small table. “Would you like some oatmeal?”
His small head turned towards me, he couldn’t answer yes or no he just said “Gre… grey?”
“He can’t speak, but he hasn’t eaten since yesterday so I would shove it down his throat if I were you.” I said in a response and she smiled. The blond known as Alexandria or Allie came out and threw a ratty brown cloth over her hair and tied it back. She walked out in front of me and closed the door. “Congratulatio
“Thank you, I’ve very happy about it. My name’s Alexandria, you may call me Allie, it’s less time to say. And who might you be that a Predom would trust her child to you?”
I was about to say a huge lie, you know who I am and what I am. No need to say anymore. “I’m a guardsman, my name’s Gregory Fletch.” No, Fletch isn’t my last name, but I am an assassin. My last name is actually Periculum. Gregory Periculum, the Princess’ Assassin. Of an opposing kingdom no less.
“Where you from?”
“No where special.”
“Darmuth?”
“Yes.” Right now, you’re probably going what the hell is Darmuth. Darmuth is a small providence in the south of Camille. Darmuth is full of Carithgain refugees. No one wants to be from there. It’s an insult to say ‘you’re from Darmuth.’ It explains the way I look though. The rest of the walk was absorbed in the small matter of the weather. It was a warm sunny day seeing as Aeroth is pretty close to becoming a desert, but the isthmus where people live has so much water around it, they’ve remain untouched by the scorching rays. We arrived at a large hut where a very dirty man was moving clay from an oven with a large paddle.
“Roger, are you busy?” Allie say quietly. She suddenly seemed to become sweeter. Or maybe it was how burly Roger was. I maybe trained to fight but he looked as though he could snap me in half if his demeanor ever allowed it.
“I’m never busy, always working though.” He tried to jest, it wasn’t that funny though. “Oy, who's this?”
I stuck out my hand, “Gregory Fletch, I have a proposition for you.”
He accepted whole heartily. Three boys of sturdy nature even came to help. I lay five planks of identical wood onto the flat clay area outside his shop. “The trick to making bricks is to make them uniformly. Now hand me that long piece of wood and the hammer and nails.” I took the piece from two of the boys, a hammer from another and Roger handed me a few iron nails that I held in my mouth. Working carefully the wood was set as the base. “Roger, hand me three of those smaller pieces of wood.” I set them in the three space, trimming them when needed. The bricks were going to be large and thin. About a foot by a foot but only five inches thick.
“You can pour these even with clay, I’ll place the other blocks.” There before me was the first three blocks of my new life.
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