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A Fragile World

I. A Community

It was a strange township, where bleak clouds ruled the blue skies more often than not, and towering, ancient willows were uncaringly being brought down by passing strangers. Travelers would usually scowl at its utter lack of grandeur and the knavish bandits of Lady Keli who plagued the northern crossroad. Oh, and also that foreboding edifice farther to the north that was rumored to be resided by a vehement creature. Countless adventurers, who were courageous—or stupid—enough, attempted to slay the demon, only to find themselves tangled in an implacable mass of thorny vines capable of stripping flesh from bone.

“It must be a gloomy place,” children living in other towns commented with sympathy, “to live in a place constantly haunted by the Mean Reaper.”

***

II. The Green Hero and the Slayer

That was when Maestro Fickleberry came to the dismantling town. He said he was a simple farmer, just a farmer, looking for a land to plant his seeds. “But, but, the soil here is unsuitable even to grass,” the people dissuaded him as best as they could, hoping to save the man from starvation. “And the sun hardly shines in our area.”

“Ah,” the farmer lifted a finger, “but it is possible to nourish the soil.”

Maestro Fickleberry, with his easy smile and unfailing habit to clasp his hands, did save the populace. His rough hands gave life to the withering floras of the community, and many a crop was produced, much to the inhabitants’ relief. Before long, old people from all over Misthalin journeyed and settled down at the thriving town. Often, one would hear the lilting laugh of childless wives as they washed together their clothes, or the seemingly derisive grunts of Maestro Fickleberry’s pigs. Though the monster still lurked during nightfall, the world was still a breathtaking wonder to witness for another day.

And that was when Elisha came. The statuesque, blond-haired woman that had bewitched the males of the town marched towards the

13-Aug-2011 14:18:43 - Last edited on 13-Aug-2011 14:39:47 by [#3WR3NGEL8]

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mansion, bringing with her nothing more than a longbow, a quiver of arrows, daggers, and a wooden stake. She slew the being—a deathly pale man with such twisted glint in his dead eyes—and burned its head on the bonfire of the celebration.

“It must be an astonishing place,” children living in other towns remarked with wide eyes, “to live in that modest town.”

***

III. Usual Unusual Oddities

In the later years, when the community grew ever-developing, eccentricities spread like flames reducing a papyrus into nothing but ashes. Forever changed. There was this toy trader, who, of course, sold toys. How peculiar to choose to establish such a business, especially when you dwelt in a place without youngsters. And there was that stern sailor whose tuppence no longer depended on voyages, but on how fine the ropes he made. He always complained of the color and pigment-obsessed woman who cared only for her dyes. Oh, and also the chicken that was often seen crowing near the manor, stomping instead of scratching the ground, as if maddened by whatever state it was in.

Sometimes, a man from the Tower would come to the marketplace, buying the best quality of wines from a red-coated merchant. The citizens would openly laugh whenever he muttered under his breath thamijimwok, or was it thingymabob? Oh, yes—it was thingummywut.

And the last was the strange, old man living next to the bank. His robes were too humble, if not drab, but the way he stood with that regal bearing of his, and took in his surroundings, told everyone that he was far more. The town gossip said he was the infamous robber that had wrecked their bank and stole the valuable trinket of an adventurer after annihilating her completely. Some claimed they saw Elisha the Great visiting him, but most sensible people would scoff and say that Elisha would not stoop so low to talk to an insignificant hermit.

So they thought, the Wise Old Man grinned, as he watched Draynor bustle with life.

13-Aug-2011 14:18:44 - Last edited on 13-Aug-2011 14:41:12 by [#3WR3NGEL8]

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Victims

“I’m afraid I can't do it for anyone, much less you.”

“I don’t think you understand. Lord Baron is seeking to destroy the descendants of the original rulers of the kingdom. They killed my mother a week ago, and that makes me the last one. I only wish to live my own life. I must have your help, your spell, to hide my identity—like you did when I was born, when my mother and I were living in the Crown City.”

“Like I told you, Cecaniah, I can’t do it. I don’t have the power.”

“But you do. You did it, once.” Still, the sorceress would not look her in the eyes. A lifetime of terror, loss and frustration surfaced, bringing with it bitter tears. “I did not travel all the way into the center of your monster-infested swamp, suffer all the hardship, and see my mother die in the hands of murdering cutthroats sent by that monster, to have you say no! Please, I’m begging for my life.”

“I can’t cast such a spell.”

“How can you be so selfish, Margred? How can you sit on that fancy chair of yours, while people like me are suffering?”

Cecaniah took an aggressive step forward, but Sebastian, the woman’s husband, seized her shoulder from behind. “You won’t talk like that to Margred. She is far from selfish; you don’t know of the sacrifi—“

“Sebastian,” Margred said softly, “would you please make us some tea?”

“Margred, there is no reason for you to tell anyone about it—least of all her.”

She gave him a smile that didn't quite reach her remarkably blue eyes. “It’s all right.”

Sebastian sighed tolerantly, before he nodded in acquiescence.

“What does he mean? What will you tell me?”

Instead of answering, Margred gestured for Cecaniah to sit on the pillow before her. As Sebastian ambled to a cupboard and retrieved three cups and a kettle, setting them on the table before he went out to collect water, Margred combed with her fingers her mane of lustrous blond hair and then rested her wrists on the arm of her gilt-framed chair,

13-Aug-2011 14:20:49 - Last edited on 13-Aug-2011 14:47:20 by [#3WR3NGEL8]

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appearing contented—as if she expected nothing, but sincerely grateful with what she had.

Cecaniah made herself comfortable on the beautifully embroidered cushion on the floor in front of the woman.

“Years ago, long before you were born,” Margred began, folding her hands in her lap and gazing into the distance. “I traveled to a land unmapped to common people, a realm far to the west. It’s a place where only the most talented and strongest among the magically gifted could enter. It is called Thalis.”

“Why would you go there?” Cecaniah asked, deciding that, for the time being, it was best to go along with the sorceress. Perhaps she would be able to convince Margred to help her if she entertained the woman with her questions.

“I was ambitious and full of life, you see, when I was young. I wanted to learn more about my power, on how I could use it to help others. The sorceresses and wizards living there are renowned for their knowledge and experience. They have centuries to gather much information about magic.”

“Centuries!” Cecaniah blinked up at her in open astonishment, hardly believing her ears.

“Of course,” Margred smiled at her enthusiasm. “Their home, a palace of rare beauty and splendor, is surrounded by a spell that connects it to other worlds for the purpose of slowing the process of aging. No one at the palace appeared to have aged at all in so trifling a span of time as three and a half decades.”

“H-How old are you?”

“More than three hundred years old.”

Cecaniah stared at her face. Margred looked old, like she was in her early sixties, still retaining a fraction of her comeliness, but not that old.

“It was in part how I came to devise the spell I placed on you when you were born." Margred beamed to herself, as if it was an accomplishment no one could achieve. “The conjuring enabled you to hide in the Crown City, under his nose for such a long time, because it changed the perception of those who were searching for you.”

13-Aug-2011 14:20:50 - Last edited on 19-Aug-2011 13:01:37 by [#3WR3NGEL8]

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“In what way? Cecaniah felt her curiosity sparking to life. This was the spell that had protected her for what seemed forever, until the day those brutal assassins descended upon their forest sanctuary. She remembered her mother’s beautiful face, the seemingly visage of a good spirit, twisted perpetually in pain—the final snapshot of the horrors brought not only by a blade, but a lifetime of suffering. For her. Cecaniah forced back those thoughts and listened once more to the words of Margred.

“I believe you deserve to live, Cecaniah. It is not, and never will be, right for Lord Baron to kill such an innocent babe, now a beautiful young woman, just because of her birth. It is not your fault that you are born of royalty, nor does his faults should be laid around your shoulders.” Margred explained first. The wisdom in those sky-blue eyes, she knew, transcended her understanding of the world. “As you know, during that time, you had many relatives who were also blue of blood, and they were slowly being eliminated in the society. The men of your family, being used to luxury, impregnated many a women and so news of a royal newborn was common. The spell I meticulously wove around you made”—Margred flashed a cunning smile—“them think you were just born.”

“When?”

“Why, all the time. Whenever they found some bit of information about you, a possible heir to the throne, they perceived you as a newborn. When you were three months, two years old, six years, eight years old, they were all still searching for a baby, in spite they had been searching for years, in spite they had known you for so long. They were all looking for a newborn, rather than a pretty girl with hair as red as flames and eyes like the ocean.”

“Due to this, until you were eight, I was able to hide you in front of their noses. It threw off everyone’s calculation by eight years; anyone suspecting you as twelve years old or fourteen would not know thatin reality, you are in your twenties."

13-Aug-2011 14:20:51 - Last edited on 13-Aug-2011 14:52:30 by [#3WR3NGEL8]

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"I couldn't hold the spell for any longer, because, once ignited, it shielded itself from any interruption whatsoever and continued its course until the magic I invested in it faded.”

Cecaniah walked towards the woman using her knees, clutching the hem of her skirt as she gazed up pleadingly. “You could do that spell for me again, please. All I have to do is hide again, and no one will bother me.”

She tilted her head when she heard footsteps behind her; Sebastian, grimfaced, had returned, holding two steaming cups of tea. It came to her that this was a trap Margred had laid for her, and she just talked her way to it. Cecaniah returned her gaze to the countenance of Margred. Her face was as expressive as stone, but her striking eyes glinted with a pain beyond human comprehension.

“I was one of the greatest sorceresses ever to live. Few could equal my accomplishments. I had passed through impenetrable shields, destroyed evil creatures of terrifying magic, saved hundreds of lives, met important people and even earn the title as the Witch of Valor.” Margred’s gaze stared into the distance, her mind recollecting the grandiosity of her youth. “I was over three hundred years old, yet still youthful and stunningly attractive. I was clever, oh so stupidly clever, with my magic. I had a young husband who would dive into the deepest depths of the ocean for a pearl if the fancy struck me. I was surrounded by friends who nearly worshiped me.”

The sorceress gently pulled Cecaniah’s hands away and, ever so slowly, lifted her skirt with her long, graceful fingers.

She realized, then, why Margred had not stood up before. Cecaniah stumbled back, startled by the horrifying sight. Her legs were deformed, shriveled, long-dead bones covered by only a dry veneer of pallid skin. Cecaniah looked up at Margred, her eyes brimming with tears, as the dimensions of the truth began to unravel in her mind.

13-Aug-2011 14:20:53 - Last edited on 13-Aug-2011 14:51:32 by [#3WR3NGEL8]

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“You were eight, then,” Margred spoke in a terribly calm voice, “when Lord Baron, a wizard as you already know, realized of my trickery. He was very ingenious, much shrewder, as it turned out, than a sorceress more than three centuries older than he. It was then I realized why he never entered the Thalis—he was more powerful than anyone born. I only had time to warn your mother, before he caught me.”

She remembered it all too well. Someone—an eccentric man—had come to their doorstep. Her mother had talked to him, their whispers inaudible even as she attempted to listen through the door. Then they had suddenly fled the Crown City. It was the turning point of her marvelous life

“B-but he spared you…did*’t he?” Cecaniah couldn’t stop sobbing. She realized that her forehead was pressed against the wooden floor, her warm tears comforting her suddenly cold face. They did*’t comfort her ripping soul.

The sorceress laughed without humor. Cecaniah heard the slightest crack in her chuckle. “Lord Baron believed death was a release, not punishment. He used pain and torture as examples to his subjects. You do not know, Cecaniah, how unending the moment of insufferable agony was. You do not know how it broke me to find myself, a hardly defenseless sorceress of reputable power, in the mercy of a man who had none. You do not know, my precious Cecaniah, what a horror it was to stare at his cruelly perfect face, his golden eyes. You cannot even begin to imagine the excruciating pain to know that, in a single terrible instant, everything I was, everything I lived for, and everything I hoped for in life, were forever changed.”

"I'm so sorry...so sorry..." she gasped out the words, futilely trying to get herself up. Her arms were so weak. Like her.

“Worse, Lord Baron stripped me of everything I cherished, save my husband. He ruined—oh so ruined—my connection to my magic, a feat impossible even to those living in the Thalis. That vile creature banished me into

13-Aug-2011 14:21:17 - Last edited on 13-Aug-2011 14:53:26 by [#3WR3NGEL8]

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this swamp of foul springs and sickening vapors. He imprisoned me with creatures made of my very own gift, monsters who would not hesitate to rip me apart, limb by limb, should I ever take a foot outside my home—or prison.”

“I cannot tell you, my dear Cecaniah, what a pain it is to sense your power deep within you, a power that continuously pours forth magic to keep those monsters out there living, but otherwise unable to control it,” Margred’s voice was deadly quiet. Cecaniah could not imagine where the sorceress acquired the strength not to shriek out in anguish. “Lord Baron left a path, in the front, so as to provide me provisions and supplies, so that I may live a long life. He annually visits me here, in my prison, to amuse himself. This is the life he wished of me—a long life of suffering for displeasing him.”

“So you see, Cecaniah, I cannot help you, not because I’m selfish, as you put it, but because I no longer have the ability. I would willingly give you a spell, even if it costs me losing hands, because I believe you are a remarkable woman. You must find within yourself the hope of escaping him.”

Cecaniah lay sprawled on the floor, unable to bring forth words through her racking sobs. Her existence had caused pain and misery to others. Her mother. Margred. Cecaniah had always forced back those thoughts. But now, there was no escape from reality. She had always resented that she couldn’t have the normal things and life; she had been so ignorant. Her mother had given up all those same things, and possibly even more. For her. Margred had lost everything she had for just one spell. For her. The knowledge of it hurt. It hurt. It was like the day of her mother’s murder—the agony, the bitter tears, and the hopelessness of it all—but this time for Margred’ tortured life.

“I’m so sorry, Margred,” Cecaniah clutched the woman’s skirt, “so sorry that you had to bear all of this. I wish you never helped me, wished that I never was born.”

13-Aug-2011 14:23:40 - Last edited on 13-Aug-2011 14:54:49 by [#3WR3NGEL8]

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Margred took her hand and gently tried to lift her. Sebastian dropped the cups to the ground before kneeling behind her. Cecaniah felt strong arms enwrapping her waist as Sebastian pulled her up face-to-face to the sorceress.

“I am not blaming you, Cecaniah, because it is not your fault of what has happen to me,” Margred spoke softly, her palm caressing her cheek. “Don’t ever wear a cloak of guilt because others are evil. You are, like me, a victim, but don’t you ever feel shame for being so.”

End of Victims

***

Extra Notes: None at the moment.

13-Aug-2011 14:23:42 - Last edited on 13-Aug-2011 14:55:29 by [#3WR3NGEL8]

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