(Establishing Alliances.) Moonstruck had just crossed the river when she heard the growling in the bushes. She paused and sniffed the air. She detected two scents. From behind the trees, one wolf leaped forward. "Don't come an inch closer!" Moonstruck received the command through telepathy. The wolf who had sent the message snapped it's teeth. Moonstruck began a determined, deliberate trot. The wolf pulled it's paws back in the earth and claws digging up dirt, it sprang at her. Anticipating the attack, Moonstruck grabbed the wolf by the hind leg and bit as deeply as she could without severing the limb. They rolled around biting and howling as she fought viciously but mercifully. She fought, not to kill but to survive, because these were still her people. Finally defeated and bleeding the wolf laid on the ground in a spam of pain and blood, but still alive. Before Moonstruck could catch her breath, another wolf had come out of nowhere and dug claws into her tail.
(Blood Trails) A thousand words, many conversations had and yet none received. As a result, unable to breach both worlds, Hercules and Buttercup's thoughts returned to themselves. He missed her. He thought. As he looked at the plane ticket on the bed booked for England. That was after-all, where the blood trail led. Himself, Opal, Bruce and Doug were already adjusting their minds to this new turn of events. Hercules took out a cigarette and walked out the room into the living room, then through the front door. He lit it and dragged at the tip without getting that sensation a smoke gave him. His mind went back to Buttercup. He never thought that there was a woman on earth he couldn't live without and yet, here he was with her running through his veins in replacement of his blood. It was early in the morning. So early he could still see the moon in the sky, it was not yet time to give rise to the sun, that was about three hours away. Everything was black, the tree
(Ode To England.) It was a three hours flight and the plane finally landed at Heathrow Airport. Bruce's magic had disguised any weapon they had on them as legitimate items and so they breezed through customs. Big Ben could be seen from all direction, its hands of time controlling Londoners' movements throughout the day. They walked around abit, stopped at a Delhi where they had muffin and an afternoon tea. Refreshed they endured the crowd of London City. The English were a proud nation and there was much to be proud about. The red, white and blue flags hang from the buildings around every corner. Tourists were everywhere on Tower Bridge, taking pictures and running their hands along the blue straps and railings as they made their way to Trafalgar Square. A soft drizzle of rain began. Umbrellas came out of their backpacks as they pasted the bronze lions, resting on hinds leg, watching over the pride of a powerful monarchy. *************************************** There w
(The Right Of Passage.) Lucinda wasn't seeing Moonstruck as an emerging woman. She wasn't seeing that face narrowed into the shape of a heart tailored down to Moonstruck's cleft chin. She was instead catching sight of the round, chubby, dirt streaked cheek of a child. Behind her father's baggy t-shirt, Lucinda refuse to see Buttercup's peaks of small, rounded breast; instead, she saw a flat chest, that she had scrubbed clean in a bathtub. That long, shiny brown hair was not what she was seeing; rather, it was the uneven, unskilled cut of a young hand that had gripped a pair of scissors by mistake. She wanted only to see her baby. Her baby who had no independent thought nor ambition but to do as Mother says. Moonstruck crossed her legs and sat on the veranda in front of Lucinda. Lucinda took a hairbrush and worked through Moonstruck's tangles. "I am sorry for hurting you." Lucinda whispered into her daughter's ear. "Are you really Mother?" Moonstruck massaged t
(The Manor.) Jatray has had enough of modern medicine. She drove down a back road that didn't get the pampering maintenance that the highways received. She eased up on the gas carefully, slowly swerving around many potholes. She passed a few other drivers who, like herself, would rather resist giving in to the allure of the highway's fast, smoothly paved lanes. On this often overlooked, often rejected road, where gullies descended into precipices of woodland, one could see Mother Nature had battled two moods here at the same time. One temperment was the disorganized chaos of anger and the other was the clean cut, orderly natural beauty of serenity. Mother Nature had stormed through on one side of the road and left bamboo trees, fractured and weary from her rampage, resting broken limbs on each other's shoulders. A few had become uprooted. They shamelessly turned their shaggy roots, massive anthill-like pile of dirt bottoms, up to passing motorist. On the other side
(The Rescue.) The once refined and sophisticated living room was demolished. Curtains ripped, slashed by knives and splashed with blood. Chairs and sofas overrturned, the fighting went on for far too long. Doug grabbed the foot of the piano with one hand and slammed it into Nathan, who was coming at him swiftly with a knife. Broken glass pierced Nathan's skin as he was hurled through the window. Opal had somehow snatched the woman with the chicken by her bloody apron. She reeled her in like a YoYo, turned her around and sent her fangs deep into the neck. It felt so satisfying, the thrill of letting out all she had pent up inside. The rush of fury for all the disruption in her life. The tortures she had done nothing to deserve. She drank the fresh blood, straight from a beating pulse. The woman's heartbeat slow down and just like the chicken, she convulsed in Opal's hand. "It is not enough!" Opal screamed into the room. Her rage building. Her Father bei
(Stolen Treasure.)Jatray fed Izzy soup while she sat up in bed.She brushed the pink hair from her forehead and stared into those brown eyes reminiscing on nothing but pain.There was nolonger a fire there.The spunk of the woman extinguished to ashes.Some people skip past the years of childhood and pre-adolosence. Leaping over each hurdle and embracing life with a positive, joyful bliss.There are some, however, who have knocked so many hurdles over, stumbling through the stages of growth. Some will rise and pick themselves up, while others will let their mind sit in the heap of their fall.In Izzy's eyes, Jatray saw that she had lost the strength to fight and she was spreading her bed in that mind of hers, to lie permanently beneath the sheets of her suffering."Don't get comfortable there Izzy. It will make you forever distrustful and bitter."Jatray said to her. Izzy turned her head to the side and silent tears rolled down her dark cheeks.Jatray placed the bowl in the tray. L
(Declaration Of War.) Buttercup and Annex had put together a simple yet spendid gown. The shoulders of it was a thin string of white pearls that ran down into a square neckline of white lilly of the valley petals. Following that, white Cosmo flower petals extended from the waist. Cosmo petals also constructed a long trail sprinlkled with the yellow, seed belly of the plant. In Fairyland it was good luck and tradition to line the trail of a wedding dress with pollen. It represented conception within the family and marital prosperity. Wherever the bride went, a new generation of the flowers would spring and prosper in its species. Buttercup stood beside her Mother, who was wiping tears from her eyes and her Father had his chest puffed up because he had produced such a beautiful bride. ******************************* The venue was Sparkle Cave and on one side stood the young man's large family, on the other, stood Annex much smaller group of family members. Sparkle Cave was na
(A New Story.) The consequence of fiddling with time is that it alters the trajectory of events. If I had not caused an earthquake that loosened the temple walls, the stone tablets would never have slipped through the cracks and floated on the waters of an underground source that led them from Sicily to the sea. The Priest were all Immortal Spirits, that were rejected by heaven because they were not pure enough and rejected by hell because they were not evil enough. They lived in limbo, between the realms of the afterlife and guarded the treasure of the Immortals. Like a safety deposit box, Immortals took to them the things they could not keep and could not let go of. In order to preserve her records of a past she could not bear to part with, Jatray had brought her stone tablets to the Priest. Trusting that whatever it was the Priest would not be tempted to look inside and uncover what was there. Priest bowed to no-one but to the Creator and Medusa. She was their queen,
(A New Sunrise.) "It is outrageous that you aim those weapons at me!" Jatray was adamant. She had watched as the Goblin boy had taken the Hybrid into the safety of the house. All was lost now. She contemplated. Izzy, the hybrid, Simeon, all because of the damn pregnant Vampire. Her mind screamed. Doug's back was towards Jatray being held captive by her own soilders. The Council cared not about his group anymore. The real threat was Jatray. Her hatred was the ultimate sin against life, nearly wiping out an entire specie. Jatray knew she was going to be executed, she had decided that if she was to die, she was taking Opal's baby with her. The fetus was already weak inside the mother and would not survive if she struck it under a newmoon. ****************************** Doug had one hand over Opal's shoulders as they watched Hercules draw back his breath into his body. His body jerked as one who had been shocked and then shaking his head, he sat up. "Is it over?" He
(The Treasured Secrets Of A Hybrid.) Maverick looked around him. There was death everywhere, and it reminded him of the day of the Great War. He laid the hybrid gently on the ground. Then, with a great roar, he lifted himself and pointing to the moon, Maverick began to chant. With both his hands towards the sky, darkness started to spread in the globe of the newmoon. Opal had told him about the effect of a new moon on a hybrid, something he had not known during the Great War. Now that he knew, there was something he could do about it. "That is goblin magic." Jatray said surprised. She hurled a wolf's corpse that she had recently bled to death aside. She wiped her lips and spun around, trying to figure out the source of this powerful craft. "Maverick?" She stated shocked. She had long considered the Goblin King to be dead. Pulling her bow from behind her, Jatray launched an arrow across the battlefield. Maverick went down on one knee after the poisoned tip struck his c
(The Battle.) Opal had again fed and bathed the hybrid. It was a sort of routine now. As Opal went about the house, it was difficult to see only memories of Moonstruck. Her bagpack, her belongings here and there. Bruce went for an early morning jog because he could not bear to touch Moonstruck's blood, while Hercules and Doug did the cleaning up of it. She went back to the hybrid's room and was surprised to see her sitting up in bed, her back supported by the pillows. "Hi." Said Opal, she was taken aback when a response arrived because she had not anticipated one. "Hi." A small voice repeated like an echo. Opal went around the room drawing aside the drapes, opening the windows and letting in fresh air. A few windows had escaped the wolves entrance and the hybrid's room was one of them. The early morning sun was gentle to a vampire, like rubbing essential oils into the skin. It was when the sun had matured in the sky that it felt like their skin was cooking. "If you
(A Day Of Farewells.) Moonstruck's body had been carried home by the wolves. All around them, lightning flashed, thunder roared and Mala wept for the daughter of the soil. Softening the earth with her tears so that the grave would be easy to dig. Lucinda had sent back word with a small wolf, around ten years old, who came through the cornfield in jeans cut off at the knees, a fade brown t'shirt and kinky black hair. The boy's chocolate toned body stood at the door that was left open all night. The sun was coming up on their sorrow, fighting it's way through the drizzling rain. The boy, drenched from head to toe, stared around at the blood in the living room. He saw the occupants of the room with watery eyes of disbelief, turned towards his presence. The group had sat in chairs and had not moved since Moonstruck's body had left the Bloomfield's house. Nothing had been touched, nothing cleaned up and the boy, though young, also felt the blow of this heavy grief. He cle
(Who killed Simeon?) You can tell much about a man by the way he drives a vehicle. Opal thought as Hercules sat behind the steering wheel and turned into the Bloomfield's mansion. He avoided every obstacle along the dirt path, then slowed to wait for a herd of goats to pass. He was a patient man, who took time to navigate his way into and around, your body and your heart. He slowed down when he sensed Opal needed to adjust herself in her seat and she did. He was an observant lover, who will take the time to give you what you needed. Opal could decipher that he was the type of man, who took pleasure in your pleasure. "Buttercup didn't stand a chance." Opal chuckled and addressed him. "What?" He spoke as he passed through the plantation's open gate. The hybrid was between Doug and Opal, the poor thing slept with her head resting on Opal's lap the entire way from the airport. Doug was dozing off on the other side of the back seat. Bruce was asleep in the front sea
(Declaration Of War.) Buttercup and Annex had put together a simple yet spendid gown. The shoulders of it was a thin string of white pearls that ran down into a square neckline of white lilly of the valley petals. Following that, white Cosmo flower petals extended from the waist. Cosmo petals also constructed a long trail sprinlkled with the yellow, seed belly of the plant. In Fairyland it was good luck and tradition to line the trail of a wedding dress with pollen. It represented conception within the family and marital prosperity. Wherever the bride went, a new generation of the flowers would spring and prosper in its species. Buttercup stood beside her Mother, who was wiping tears from her eyes and her Father had his chest puffed up because he had produced such a beautiful bride. ******************************* The venue was Sparkle Cave and on one side stood the young man's large family, on the other, stood Annex much smaller group of family members. Sparkle Cave was na
(Stolen Treasure.)Jatray fed Izzy soup while she sat up in bed.She brushed the pink hair from her forehead and stared into those brown eyes reminiscing on nothing but pain.There was nolonger a fire there.The spunk of the woman extinguished to ashes.Some people skip past the years of childhood and pre-adolosence. Leaping over each hurdle and embracing life with a positive, joyful bliss.There are some, however, who have knocked so many hurdles over, stumbling through the stages of growth. Some will rise and pick themselves up, while others will let their mind sit in the heap of their fall.In Izzy's eyes, Jatray saw that she had lost the strength to fight and she was spreading her bed in that mind of hers, to lie permanently beneath the sheets of her suffering."Don't get comfortable there Izzy. It will make you forever distrustful and bitter."Jatray said to her. Izzy turned her head to the side and silent tears rolled down her dark cheeks.Jatray placed the bowl in the tray. L
(The Rescue.) The once refined and sophisticated living room was demolished. Curtains ripped, slashed by knives and splashed with blood. Chairs and sofas overrturned, the fighting went on for far too long. Doug grabbed the foot of the piano with one hand and slammed it into Nathan, who was coming at him swiftly with a knife. Broken glass pierced Nathan's skin as he was hurled through the window. Opal had somehow snatched the woman with the chicken by her bloody apron. She reeled her in like a YoYo, turned her around and sent her fangs deep into the neck. It felt so satisfying, the thrill of letting out all she had pent up inside. The rush of fury for all the disruption in her life. The tortures she had done nothing to deserve. She drank the fresh blood, straight from a beating pulse. The woman's heartbeat slow down and just like the chicken, she convulsed in Opal's hand. "It is not enough!" Opal screamed into the room. Her rage building. Her Father bei