Tempest's Journey -pt 2 Dusk was creeping across the vast lands of Olanthi, stealing the bright rays of light that were shining through the tall stained glass windows of the library and replacing them with the dark glow of night. Olanthi was a completely different world when darkness fell. All the creatures that slept through the day came alive as the sun fell behind the mountains. New lights sprang to #life. Plants bloomed and shone with an bioluminescence that you couldn’t imagine until you finally saw it. Not that I would ever get to see it so long as I was stuck in this god forsaken library. “Can we leave?” I slammed the overly large book that i’d been drooling over shut and shoved it away. “After going through every book, scroll, parchment, and ancient scribble in this place, I think we can agree that there is nothing here about the Angelwings.” On the other side of the room I saw just the top of Dominic’s head appear over a stack of books, and then disappear. His voice sounded disembodied. “I think we can agree that it’s impossible for there not to be something somewhere about them. They’re not the first and hopefully won’t be the last.” I sighed. Just one day i’d like to do something other than be cooped up inside or going through dusty old books. Or both. “I thought we were going to go see you’re new dwarf buddy. Wasn’t that the whole point of coming here today?” He came out from around a bookshelf, with his nose stuck to page of a scroll. “Well he doesn’t really get up until after nightfall does he. So it’s pointless to go during the day.” He didn’t even look up from his scroll. Between him and everyone else I was stuck somewhere never getting to go out and do anything. Galen, Rhys and Nymeria were all curled up on top of a abnormally tall stack of books asleep, but as soon as I stood up all three of them popped their heads up and then glided down to me without even being called. I think they were as bored as I was. “Well we are going with or without you. If I have to stay here any longer I will scream.” Nymeria glided in front of me as I left the room, weaving in, out and around...well everything. I pitied whoever had to put all of the books back. Oh wait, that was Dominic. Never mind, no pity. He could put all of his books away by himself and I hoped he didn’t have a blast doing. The hall stretched out before me, long and wide and very empty. Not even a breath of air was moving through the castle this evening. Galen chittered in my ear, rubbing his head against my cheek as my footsteps echoed off the walls. I’d spent my childhood in these halls, then we’d leapt forward in time nearly fifty years, and here we were again. A #lifetime gone just like that yet nothing had really changed. The only real way you could fathom it all was to step out of the box and try to visualize it all as an abstract concept. And after that you could classify it all as bullshit and just continue on a day to day basis. Like today. I was going up in those mountains and I was going to enjoy every second of not being cooped up somewhere. Alandra was a fighter. Everyone encouraged it, and she was good at it. Dominic was a scholar, and now he wanted to be a crafter as well. I knew he’d be good at it. He was good at anything he did, surfing excluded. Alex was a warrior, like Father, one day he would be a guardian like him. Abel was another one of those abstract concepts that twisted your mind in different ways. I’d decided that he was going to earn the title of ‘brother.’ But that being said he was a guardian too, and had been to other worlds in another universe even farther away and different than what we had here. Olanthi, Evanidus, Earth; we were living in one little niche of an entire galaxy. And then there was me. Little Tempest. The youngest of the Kane clan. Not allowed to fight. Don’t go near the action. Stay inside where it’s safe. I could step into flames and come away unscathed. I’d hatched the only three Angelwing dragons in existence but when anyone looked at me, that was all they saw. I needed to find a place in the world. I needed to and I would do it alone with my dragons. Rhys nipped my finger with his teeth, trying to get my attention. I looked up and realized that I’d just daydreamed myself all the way to the front doors of the castle. They were huge, looming up before me, stretching all the way up to the ceiling a hundred feet above my short stature. Nymeria quickly crawled up my leg and body and curled herself into the crook of my arm. Her body was warm against mine and she purred in contentment. They were my children, in every sense of the word. I didn’t have to pull the huge handles of the doors to get them to open, I simply had to wait until the doors themselves felt my presence. It felt the like room was taking a breath, and letting it out. You could feel yourself being watched but where the eyes were you’d never know. It was like the very castle itself had a mind of it’s own. One by one the great metal locks slid out of place and the great doors swung outwards with a groan to rival a giant’s snore. Cool night air blasted over us, whipping my hair around my head, brushing across my skin like a soft caress. It brought with it scents and sounds. The running water of the river. The blooming petals of the nightshade flowers and moon-jasmine. I stepped outside and took as much air into my lungs as I could. The doors closed behind me with a resonating thundering sound. As soon as those doors shut the sounds of the night came alive. Out in the fields I knew that the Brownie's were hard at work harvesting fruits and vegetables. The centaur's were deep in the forest, bedding down for the night. All of the little fey creatures were coming awake in the forest, illuminating it with their magic. Little lightning bugs were beginning to flicker in the air like stars. And the dragons. I could feel them all the time. I could feel them now, soaring through the air, diving at the bottom of the lake, curling around a nest of eggs. I felt them like another presence in my head, although it wasn't so much a sense as just a pure 'knowing.' Sometimes i wondered if it was really me feeling them, or if I was feeling them through the Angelwing dragons. The mere fact that there was so much more going on in the forest before me that I couldn't sense made it that much more fascinating and wondrous. A butterfly with wings the color of Gardenias fluttered in front of my. I held my hand up and it landed on my finger, flapping it's wings gently in the moonlight. Galen looked at it like it was dinner, but I knew it was more than just a butterfly. I could feel it's faint aura of power against my fingers as well as I felt it's little legs. It flapped it's wings and flew up high into the trees, and as it did i swore i heard a tiny giggle. I walked through the forest, and with each step the path ahead of me illuminated itself. Galen Rhys and Nymeria all leapt from my body and landed on the trunk of a tree, hanging on with their claws before jumping off and gliding to the next one. They made a game of it. Jumping from one to the other, chirping, purring and growling as they did. "The little dragons are having fun there eh?" I spun around but then the raspy boy's voice came from behind me again. "Careful that they don't get lost." I turned in a circle, slowly scanning the woods around me. "The little hatchlings like it here eh'. In the woods. In the night. In the magic. As is right." Nymeria came to my shoulder while Galen and Rhys flew to a branch above my head, peering down this way and that, looking for the disembodied voice as I was. It laughed. "What's the matter. Can't find me? Can't see me? Look harder little fledglings." The little voice seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. "Tut tut tut. The fledglings can't find me? How so very sad." Nymeria let out a small growl by my ear. "Do you enjoy playing games?" I asked. "Come out and face us. Stop hiding in the shadows like a coward." "COWARD!!!" A boy-creature who looked no older than ten or so fell from nowhere and landed before us. "COWARD YOU SAY!! Who are you to call me a coward!?" His face, usually pale and perfect was scarlet as he crouched before us, his nose screwed up in anger. Pointed ears poked out of a mop of dark brown hair that looked to have never seen a comb. He wore nothing loin cloth fashioned from leaves, twigs and leathers around his middle. The toes of his leather hand-stitched shoes curved to points and had little blue-bells hanging from them. A quiver of arrows was strapped against his back, and he held a bow of magnificent fashioning in his hand. "I have protected these woods since long before you were even a thought. Through war's and peace, through summer and winter. I know these lands better than you know your own hands. I could pierce your heart with an arrow before you even you'd been killed. I. Am. No. Coward" I laughed. I couldn't help it. His face was so red, and his face so scrunched that his ears were quivering. "No." I agreed, "You're not a coward. But you're the most gullible creature in this forest right now. Falling for a trick like that. You're losing your touch Gylfie." His face switched from scrunched up anger to an ear to ear grin in the blink of an eye, and his bubbling laughter was like the tinkling of bells, or the trickle of water in the stream. "It's been to long," I said. It really had. Gylfie was one of my closest friends. He was odd, granted, very odd with a quick temper and an even quicker mind. I'd only seen him a handful of times, or rather, he'd allowed me to see him. He was the only wood nymph I'd ever met, but it made me wonder if all wood nymphs were like him. "Aye, it's been a long time! Long time since the Lady Dragonwaker has walked the woods at the hour of awakening. Long time since the fledglings have felt the magic of the forest. Long time since Gylfie has had someone interesting to talk to." Galen leapt from his branch above us and coasted down to Gylfie outstretched arm. "Aye look at you. No bigger than the last i saw you eh? Maybe fatter." I laughed again, and Rhys came to me while Nymeria leapt into the air again darting after a dragonfly that dared to pas over her head. "He is not fat! He's just...big boned." Gylfie just looked at me before answering in his raspy voice. "Big boned? Big boned? You blind yourself to the fact that your dragon is fat. Did you hear that Galen? The Lady Dragonwaker is blind blind blind as a bat." He crouched and through Galen into the air where the dragon extended his wings and soared over our heads, circling with Nymeria. "It's a good thing you've come! I have something to show you. Something no one from your world has ever seen. Have not seen and cannot understand. But first...a game of riddles." "Riddles?" I stepped up close to him and crouched down, sitting on the ground so I was eye level with him. "Why do you always want to play riddles with me? You always lose." "LOSE! The Gylfie never loses! But I will let you think you won if it means we play again." He grinned, such a boyish grin, but behind it was nothing but cunning. Before he could begin a tiny light appeared by his ear, bouncing around so fast I could barely keep up with it. It bumbled in his ear, and I could hear faint squealing. Whatever the little fairy was saying I couldn't hear or understand, but Gylfie could. He looked thoughtful before shooing the little light away. "Away with you now Annika. Go dance with the others. Tonight there is business." He turned to me but little Annika didn't leave, instead she tucked herself into his hair. I pulled at the grass in front of me, watching the little fairy in his hair. I could feel other's in the forest. Fairies, pixies, nymphs, sylphs, animals, dryads, brownies, all manner of fey and #life. They all had a purpose. Their families understood them, they all had a job that they were good at. "You are sad Lady Dragonwaker. Tell me why." I looked at him, letting my face go blank. "What? I'm not sad." He scoffed and I sighed. "Hod did you know?" "How does a migrating swallow know the way south in winter? Or a falling salmon find the very source of his birth from the cold black depths of the mysterious sea? I know everything, Tempest." "And how can you know everything. Nobody can know everything." He reached up and touched the tip of my nose, then touched his own. "I do" he whispered. "Now! Answer me this, and I will take you to see something that will lift your spirits higher than birds of the sky!" I sat back, getting comfortable as Rhys curled himself on my lap, and Galen and Nymeria each took a spot on one of my shoulders. "Ok," I said. "We're ready." He leapt up, and little Annika bounced along with him as a tiny fluttering light. He spun in a circle, and everywhere he turned lights exploded in the forest, flowers bloomed, insects took flight and little animals made themselves known. It was like he was calling an audience while making the forest around us come to #life. "What is a bell that does not ring, yet its knell makes the angels sing?" What is a bell that does not ring, yet its knell makes the angels sing. I turned the words over and over in my head, trying to puzzle it out. A bell? This was a game to lose. I almost preferred trying to race Gylfie through the forest. Keyword being "trying" in that particular sentence. Galen and Rhys both looked up at me, and I could see their puzzlement as well as feel it in my mind alongside my own. Gylfie just looked at me, expectant. It was like he was looking right through me, into the deepest part of my soul that even I couldn't fathom. When I looked at him you saw a boy, but when I looked into those eyes, I saw age, I saw something so old I couldn't' even begin to fathom what those eyes had seen, what lands those feet had run upon, how many arrows those hands had loosed from his bow. Sometimes I thought he was older than my father, but it was very unlikely. Nymeria brushed her head against my cheek, and an image suddenly flashed across my eyes. "Bluebells?" Gylfie smiled.