Happy Birthday Jackie!!!
And I know that for some this will be the accurate day (not over here in the US) but I wanted to be sure Jackie had this on her birthday and tomorrow morning just seemed too far away!!
So...as we all know - some time before now, yet on this very day, One Jackie - Scribe of the Creative Mind, was brought forth to the world. And as a result I riffled through all my goodies of the past several years and found this:
I thought it would be fun to share, first, as a reminder of something from our earlier days. The story behind this particular item of Photoshop is this: Four years ago this was Jackie's first birthday present from me as I organized a rather massive overhaul of the site at which we wrote. (These events got larger and more intense as the years went on until about two years ago it all ended - and birthday celebrations were recognized personally rather than publicly. That was, of course, until mine a few months ago when Jackie decided to post something here to share.) This particular event was huge, at the time, because about 70 profiles among a few writers at the site suddenly all had the same signature - that one - for a day. ^_^!
Now it's just Jackie and I who write together and we are rather xenophobic about with whom, in our normal industry, that we share that writing with - at least in the context with which we write. We are willing to share for others to read but are a bit afraid to allow others in our ideas. Regardless, that is a story for another day, today is a celebration!! (Not like that, don't be dirty Jackie! -_-) And in light of such an event I thought it might be fun, as I've already dove into the recesses of our past, to revisit that particular place. Where a convergence happened. Because, where Jackie found the time to pull forth some of the best nostalgic moments of our history, I thought it might be fun - with the experience we have now - to introduce you to our origins in many ways...the dawn of what birthed our friendship in the shadows of diplomacy among a sea of other authors.
For you my friend I write now...and this is what I have to give you and to share with our loyal friends and readers here at Livejournal. I daresay it will be more powerful for you but hopefully they will find some value in it. From all these phases and times - to the point that our stories, despite being in one world, cover vast amounts of time and a variety characters. From the 'Golden Era' to the 'New Golden Era' to the 'Asians' all the way to 'Chicago' and back really...we've found quite a place to pour our souls and it won't end any time soon. We've only gotten stronger and better as the years have gone on, to the point that our friendship surpasses letters and words, concepts and ideas, theories...we're there; in the real now.
So....
Here it is, my best revisit of our beginnings. Happy birthday my friend. I hope you enjoy as you've been craving this particular person.
__________________
Page Nine
A Jackie Birthday Gift
"Dad?"
Dexter Murphy had been staring at the table in front of him. It looked, to the typical passer-by, that he was merely lost in his own mind with no real reason for his gaze to be pointed at the spotless table top. However the girl, with bright red hair and a dangerous look in her eye that reflected the spirit within, brushed the a petal of the crystal daisy that was visible only to those who believed it to be there as she crawled onto her father's lap.
He smiled softly as he watched the whole nearly invisible plant dance from the little girl's touch. He merely hummed thoughtfully at her open ended query to his name, for her. He had so many autonym's that he got them confused sometimes and was much more content, particularly at this point, to simply be 'dad'. "Dad?" She tried again this time shifting on his lap as if she wasn't comfortable enough or to get his attention. "What is it dad?" She asked reaching over and poking the flower so it jiggled again. His smile brightened to a rather mischievous grin, one that was indicative of himself even this long into his life - by the time so many others in his position would have been jaded by bitter irritation with life itself. Most people, by now, just thought he was mad with insanity because of everything he'd seen or done, all the pressure or stress - or simply because of who he was inherently.
"What do you think it is Merry?" He asked the little girl and she sighed in annoyance but the man holding her didn't waver. Of all of them she was the most like her mother and, as a result, the least likely to be patient. "Well I suppose I could tell you a story." He buckled, only for her, with the intent to give her the answer without exactly giving it to her. A direct response from this particular man was not only unheard of - it was impossible. "Would you like that?" He asked as he leaned over to look at her little face and she turned it up to peer at him, brightly. Her rosy cheeks seemed to light up and her eyes danced, well aware that stories from her father, at least for her, were the best.
"It's about a girl..." he brushed his fingers against the base of the imaginary flower, that for him and the little girl was actually real. Their spirits and their minds were set in a position that realty blended with the imagination and therefore the things that existed to those who thought them to only be imaginary were reality.
"What separates reality from imaginary...?" Was one of Dex's favorite things to ask his friends and family or those whose minds he wanted to bend to a point that they actually had to think outside of the box. His favorite response was 'belief' because that pinned those non-believers to admitting they were banal and therefore opened the doors to consider what they wanted to be over what they let themselves become.
"Is it a happy ever after story?" The little girl, called Merry, asked. Her father chuckled as there were so many answers to that particular question. For something black-and-white, at least in theory, his response conjured all sorts of complications. Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty...Dex thought had a variety of answers as well, as the last sentence of the book didn't mean it was the last sentence of their lives. "I hope so Mer." he said thoughtfully. "Everyone has a happy ending and everyone has a not so happy ending; its what we do with the middle that defines that particular place. I think we all have room to make it happy but too many give up. How about this, the part of the story that I will tell you definitely ends with those particular words. However this is but a chapter of the story - the first chapter, in fact, depending on how you look at it."
She nodded, her fire colored hair shaking around her strikingly pale face. She had none of him, his skin alone was golden brown against her milky English heritage where his spawned from a more central American region. She was the carbon copy clone of her mother in almost all ways and for it Dex was weak to her every whim. "I'll pick a page of this mental novel I have and begin at the top. Page nine? Can we...agree on page nine?" Again a nod of affirmation and smile from the little girl. "Very well...then I suppose I'll start at the beginning and skip to where our story begins. Once upon a time there lived a brazen young man with far too much power for his youthful mind..."
__________________
"Your majesty." The courtier bowed, heartily. Dex sighed. It wasn't how it seemed nor as the courtier took his behavior as disappointment. In fact she was sure that she had said something wrong or sank at the wrong angle and in the process had offended the king. In truth Dex was disappointed but not for any of the reasons she assumed or anyone would had they been looking on as an observer. For all of the times he'd said it, for all the times he'd tried, everyone seemed to forget. "It's just Dex." The young king said pseudo moroseness.
He turned on his heel. He had not wanted to be king, he had enjoyed his free spirit and ability to flit about among the commoners without second glances his way. He had not wanted the power, nor the fame - which was exactly why he deserved it. He had taken the role with a heavy heart and simply because the former king, a dear friend, had asked him to do so upon his deathbed. Their world was one hidden inside of the mundane one, the common one - the one everyone saw. In fact those who would answer to Dex seemed stranger to the businessman or accountant who had long since given up their imaginations to some other mistress - usually money. The majority of Dex's people were the odd teenagers who were 'trying to find themselves'; that almost always excused the strange behavior of the changelings to non-changeling people. Usually those same businessmen or, God forbid, psychologist dream-crushers would say 'aren't you too old to pretend'.
The traditional answer, of those non-magic kind, was yes, even if they believed otherwise because society put them in a place where they felt obligated to answer yes. Many changelings outgrew their inherent magical nature by dislodging that suspension of disbelief when they crossed from childhood into adulthood; a variable number by all but the government who deemed it eighteen and not a day older. Those that held onto their changeling ways, ability to see the magical even in the mundane, were seen as weird or usually even institution-worthy. Which, coincidentally, was where many of Dex's older changeling people ended up - locked up where their changeling spirit would surely be run off by the number of sheer non-believers in the staff.
Institutions for the insane were a plethora of mixed emotions and certainly a culture all their own. Because of the high levels of glamour from all the 'crazy' patients it was sometimes difficult to tell where the magic ended and where the mundane began as the doctors and nurses certainly counteracted the imaginations of the patients.
Either way Dex was left in a unique situation, a convergence of the creative - a magical hub where all the magical races came - not just the Changelings. The changelings were unique in that they were a bridge between the magical and the non-magical. They were human while simultaneously being magic. Their very bodies were volatile with magic and therefore often considered unstable by other races, but it was no secret that the changelings were powerful with their inherent link to the raw magic that kept all the races in tune to their magical heritage. And Dex was left with the daunting task of leading that group of people, while trying to mend his own broken race. The warring amid the changelings themselves was trouble enough; adding in the mages - wielders of magic, visiugo - natural born werecreatures, and the vampires - the blood thirsty he had his hands full.
She stumbled as she tried to figure out how to address her liege so Dex closed the gap. "How can I help you?" He asked. "Oh..." she mumbled, trying to put the pieces together herself as she'd been distracted by his correction of what to call him. He stepped forward and took her hand. He carefully pressed it to his chest. "My dear, do not be frightened. On the contrary, be bold. I'm not to be considered intimidating. I'm a person, just like you. Now, what is it you've come to tell me?" He asked. Her round, unblinking eyes turned up to him and she gaped. He fought the urge to sigh.
"Your majesty." Dex did openly sighed when he heard it the second time. This one was as if on a breeze, like he had dreamed it himself. Though he felt a sudden chill, therefore he knew it wasn't his own overactive imagination making up the words deep within the canals of his ears leading to his brain. He turned a little and didn't let the hand of the messenger courtier fall. He saw a tall boy, who seemed to appear from nowhere because he was so very willowy. It was wonder he was standing with seemingly no muscle mass to hold his body up; nothing but a skeleton with skin stretched across it. His dark eyes were sunken in a pale face against black lips. He was, inherently, the stuff of nightmares.
"Sleeper." Dex greeted him. He could see how people would be frightened by such a person. Though it was also then that he realized the very presence of the frightening teenager meant something horrible had happened. The keeper of secrets, Sleeper, didn't arrive unannounced without good cause. He had just opened his mouth to speak when the door burst open and in marched a black clad man who strikingly resembled the king himself and a young girl with a raccoon tail and shadow of a black mask across her face. She was small, clearly a fresh and new changeling but with it more heavy because of the recent magic.
Dex sighed for the third time that day. "Oh kingy...we're here to barter. Don't think you've met my friend Joey yet - I'm here to teach her the ropes so she doesn't get screwed by you fucking nobles and your goddamn superiority complexes." Sleeper seemed to shrink into the shadows and gesture toward the black suited boy, with a top hat perched on his head. It was things like that, the top hat - that likely came from a thrift store in the mundane standard but to those in the room gave the mouthy boy some measure of import that they all recognized which separated the changeling spirit, twisted with the human one that made them different than the average person.
"Joey, my dear," Dex addressed the little girl first, dropping the hand of the courtier and taking a step forward. Because the magic was still new on her it was clear that she had no control over it and the raccoon parts of her being were expressive and defined. In time, Dex knew, she would learn to control it. "You mustn't take his word for it. I encourage you to learn all you can, but don't blindly follow him. Don't follow me either without knowing what you're doing. I'm saying it's in your best interest to come to that decision yourself. Both paths are dangerous but one doesn't fit you and you need to figure out which one that is-"
"STOP IT!!" The boy in the hat snapped. "Look at you all proud and arrogant. Don't listen to him Joey, he'll just make friends with you and then ditch you. Too good for the rest of us now Dex? Hmmm? Being a king and all." Once more, Dex sighed. He wasn't sure he'd sighed so much in his life. Like many teens, and even adults, they had many with familiar nicknames - this boy was no exception. The difference was that Dex knew his given name, which was something that few did. "Doppelganger," Dex shook his head lightly as he started to speak. "I'm not trying to lure your friend away, I'm trying to give her direction which you're not. Give her the opportunity to make up her own mind. Are you afraid of what she'll choose?"
There was a pause and Doppelganger seemed immediately annoyed with the seventeen year old king. "Whatever!" He snapped viciously and pointed a rhinestone encrusted cane at Dex, the same that matched the top hat. Of course the cane, like the hat, was visibly different to those in the room than it would be to the public beyond the room they were in. There were bits of the satin missing on the hat's brim where it was worn through and stones missing, most in fact, from the cane. But both shined brightly and new with the magic interwoven in them for those gathered to see. "That's not why I'm here. I'm here to negotiate...remember!?"
Dex straightened and arched an eyebrow. "No, I'd forgotten already - that that's why you came." He smiled in a toying manner but Doppelganger seemed to puff up angrily. He paced in front of Dex slowly, eyeing him suspiciously. Dex leaned back on one hip and hitched his thumbs in his pockets casually. "Then out with it - what are we negotiating for?"
"Caley Shea."
Doppelganger's two simple words, a name, hit Dex like a bucket of ice poured directly onto him from above. Caley, a student at the nearby magic school, was one of Dex's trusted advisors. She was one of a panel he'd put together of people he had ultimate faith in, from the various magical races, in the hopes of finding a way that they could all live together in harmony. In that moment the leering teen drew out a crystal daisy and right then Dex knew that Doppelganger was speaking truth. When the young English girl had relocated to America because of a war raging in her own nation Dex had befriended her. However, in the process he had to teach her about changelings and introduce the concept of their very existence to her. Most changelings had fled England when the government there exiled them and stripped them of their rights as sentient beings. Part of his lesson to her, in showing her raw magic, was a gift - the pure magical flower. He knew she kept it and did so with the utmost care.
The flower fell at his feet, where Doppelganger chucked it carelessly. Dex was faced with something new, an emotion he had not expected to manifest and particularly not in this situation - love. He had not noticed before that the friendship might be more than friendship, but when Caley's position was in jeopardy, her very life in danger it pushed the part of Dex's brain that recognized the worth of this particular person in his life. It was right then that Dex knew he couldn't let her stay in the clutches of Doppelganger's darker changelings and if that meant to reveal his affection for her or simply to keep her safe then he would ensure she was released from their hold.
"What must I do?" He asked.
__________________
"Dad...that's not a happy ending?" Merry peered up at her father and Dex smiled in the same strange mischievous way before petting her hair down and kissing the crown of her head.
"No?" He asked curiously. "I'm pretty sure it is. I think you might be looking at the story wrong. Without the love and the invention of it, the learning of it for me, you wouldn't be here." He told her in a coy taunt and the little girl pouted at him. He shrugged and then squeezed her around the shoulders in a tight hug. "That's the bottom of page nine my dear, and that was all I promised you - with a happily ever after. Love is happily ever after. That, little one, is the lesson. Perhaps tomorrow - tomorrow we'll talk about page ten."
--Happy Birthday Jackie--
So...as we all know - some time before now, yet on this very day, One Jackie - Scribe of the Creative Mind, was brought forth to the world. And as a result I riffled through all my goodies of the past several years and found this:
I thought it would be fun to share, first, as a reminder of something from our earlier days. The story behind this particular item of Photoshop is this: Four years ago this was Jackie's first birthday present from me as I organized a rather massive overhaul of the site at which we wrote. (These events got larger and more intense as the years went on until about two years ago it all ended - and birthday celebrations were recognized personally rather than publicly. That was, of course, until mine a few months ago when Jackie decided to post something here to share.) This particular event was huge, at the time, because about 70 profiles among a few writers at the site suddenly all had the same signature - that one - for a day. ^_^!
Now it's just Jackie and I who write together and we are rather xenophobic about with whom, in our normal industry, that we share that writing with - at least in the context with which we write. We are willing to share for others to read but are a bit afraid to allow others in our ideas. Regardless, that is a story for another day, today is a celebration!! (Not like that, don't be dirty Jackie! -_-) And in light of such an event I thought it might be fun, as I've already dove into the recesses of our past, to revisit that particular place. Where a convergence happened. Because, where Jackie found the time to pull forth some of the best nostalgic moments of our history, I thought it might be fun - with the experience we have now - to introduce you to our origins in many ways...the dawn of what birthed our friendship in the shadows of diplomacy among a sea of other authors.
For you my friend I write now...and this is what I have to give you and to share with our loyal friends and readers here at Livejournal. I daresay it will be more powerful for you but hopefully they will find some value in it. From all these phases and times - to the point that our stories, despite being in one world, cover vast amounts of time and a variety characters. From the 'Golden Era' to the 'New Golden Era' to the 'Asians' all the way to 'Chicago' and back really...we've found quite a place to pour our souls and it won't end any time soon. We've only gotten stronger and better as the years have gone on, to the point that our friendship surpasses letters and words, concepts and ideas, theories...we're there; in the real now.
So....
Here it is, my best revisit of our beginnings. Happy birthday my friend. I hope you enjoy as you've been craving this particular person.
__________________
Page Nine
A Jackie Birthday Gift
"Dad?"
Dexter Murphy had been staring at the table in front of him. It looked, to the typical passer-by, that he was merely lost in his own mind with no real reason for his gaze to be pointed at the spotless table top. However the girl, with bright red hair and a dangerous look in her eye that reflected the spirit within, brushed the a petal of the crystal daisy that was visible only to those who believed it to be there as she crawled onto her father's lap.
He smiled softly as he watched the whole nearly invisible plant dance from the little girl's touch. He merely hummed thoughtfully at her open ended query to his name, for her. He had so many autonym's that he got them confused sometimes and was much more content, particularly at this point, to simply be 'dad'. "Dad?" She tried again this time shifting on his lap as if she wasn't comfortable enough or to get his attention. "What is it dad?" She asked reaching over and poking the flower so it jiggled again. His smile brightened to a rather mischievous grin, one that was indicative of himself even this long into his life - by the time so many others in his position would have been jaded by bitter irritation with life itself. Most people, by now, just thought he was mad with insanity because of everything he'd seen or done, all the pressure or stress - or simply because of who he was inherently.
"What do you think it is Merry?" He asked the little girl and she sighed in annoyance but the man holding her didn't waver. Of all of them she was the most like her mother and, as a result, the least likely to be patient. "Well I suppose I could tell you a story." He buckled, only for her, with the intent to give her the answer without exactly giving it to her. A direct response from this particular man was not only unheard of - it was impossible. "Would you like that?" He asked as he leaned over to look at her little face and she turned it up to peer at him, brightly. Her rosy cheeks seemed to light up and her eyes danced, well aware that stories from her father, at least for her, were the best.
"It's about a girl..." he brushed his fingers against the base of the imaginary flower, that for him and the little girl was actually real. Their spirits and their minds were set in a position that realty blended with the imagination and therefore the things that existed to those who thought them to only be imaginary were reality.
"What separates reality from imaginary...?" Was one of Dex's favorite things to ask his friends and family or those whose minds he wanted to bend to a point that they actually had to think outside of the box. His favorite response was 'belief' because that pinned those non-believers to admitting they were banal and therefore opened the doors to consider what they wanted to be over what they let themselves become.
"Is it a happy ever after story?" The little girl, called Merry, asked. Her father chuckled as there were so many answers to that particular question. For something black-and-white, at least in theory, his response conjured all sorts of complications. Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty...Dex thought had a variety of answers as well, as the last sentence of the book didn't mean it was the last sentence of their lives. "I hope so Mer." he said thoughtfully. "Everyone has a happy ending and everyone has a not so happy ending; its what we do with the middle that defines that particular place. I think we all have room to make it happy but too many give up. How about this, the part of the story that I will tell you definitely ends with those particular words. However this is but a chapter of the story - the first chapter, in fact, depending on how you look at it."
She nodded, her fire colored hair shaking around her strikingly pale face. She had none of him, his skin alone was golden brown against her milky English heritage where his spawned from a more central American region. She was the carbon copy clone of her mother in almost all ways and for it Dex was weak to her every whim. "I'll pick a page of this mental novel I have and begin at the top. Page nine? Can we...agree on page nine?" Again a nod of affirmation and smile from the little girl. "Very well...then I suppose I'll start at the beginning and skip to where our story begins. Once upon a time there lived a brazen young man with far too much power for his youthful mind..."
__________________
"Your majesty." The courtier bowed, heartily. Dex sighed. It wasn't how it seemed nor as the courtier took his behavior as disappointment. In fact she was sure that she had said something wrong or sank at the wrong angle and in the process had offended the king. In truth Dex was disappointed but not for any of the reasons she assumed or anyone would had they been looking on as an observer. For all of the times he'd said it, for all the times he'd tried, everyone seemed to forget. "It's just Dex." The young king said pseudo moroseness.
He turned on his heel. He had not wanted to be king, he had enjoyed his free spirit and ability to flit about among the commoners without second glances his way. He had not wanted the power, nor the fame - which was exactly why he deserved it. He had taken the role with a heavy heart and simply because the former king, a dear friend, had asked him to do so upon his deathbed. Their world was one hidden inside of the mundane one, the common one - the one everyone saw. In fact those who would answer to Dex seemed stranger to the businessman or accountant who had long since given up their imaginations to some other mistress - usually money. The majority of Dex's people were the odd teenagers who were 'trying to find themselves'; that almost always excused the strange behavior of the changelings to non-changeling people. Usually those same businessmen or, God forbid, psychologist dream-crushers would say 'aren't you too old to pretend'.
The traditional answer, of those non-magic kind, was yes, even if they believed otherwise because society put them in a place where they felt obligated to answer yes. Many changelings outgrew their inherent magical nature by dislodging that suspension of disbelief when they crossed from childhood into adulthood; a variable number by all but the government who deemed it eighteen and not a day older. Those that held onto their changeling ways, ability to see the magical even in the mundane, were seen as weird or usually even institution-worthy. Which, coincidentally, was where many of Dex's older changeling people ended up - locked up where their changeling spirit would surely be run off by the number of sheer non-believers in the staff.
Institutions for the insane were a plethora of mixed emotions and certainly a culture all their own. Because of the high levels of glamour from all the 'crazy' patients it was sometimes difficult to tell where the magic ended and where the mundane began as the doctors and nurses certainly counteracted the imaginations of the patients.
Either way Dex was left in a unique situation, a convergence of the creative - a magical hub where all the magical races came - not just the Changelings. The changelings were unique in that they were a bridge between the magical and the non-magical. They were human while simultaneously being magic. Their very bodies were volatile with magic and therefore often considered unstable by other races, but it was no secret that the changelings were powerful with their inherent link to the raw magic that kept all the races in tune to their magical heritage. And Dex was left with the daunting task of leading that group of people, while trying to mend his own broken race. The warring amid the changelings themselves was trouble enough; adding in the mages - wielders of magic, visiugo - natural born werecreatures, and the vampires - the blood thirsty he had his hands full.
She stumbled as she tried to figure out how to address her liege so Dex closed the gap. "How can I help you?" He asked. "Oh..." she mumbled, trying to put the pieces together herself as she'd been distracted by his correction of what to call him. He stepped forward and took her hand. He carefully pressed it to his chest. "My dear, do not be frightened. On the contrary, be bold. I'm not to be considered intimidating. I'm a person, just like you. Now, what is it you've come to tell me?" He asked. Her round, unblinking eyes turned up to him and she gaped. He fought the urge to sigh.
"Your majesty." Dex did openly sighed when he heard it the second time. This one was as if on a breeze, like he had dreamed it himself. Though he felt a sudden chill, therefore he knew it wasn't his own overactive imagination making up the words deep within the canals of his ears leading to his brain. He turned a little and didn't let the hand of the messenger courtier fall. He saw a tall boy, who seemed to appear from nowhere because he was so very willowy. It was wonder he was standing with seemingly no muscle mass to hold his body up; nothing but a skeleton with skin stretched across it. His dark eyes were sunken in a pale face against black lips. He was, inherently, the stuff of nightmares.
"Sleeper." Dex greeted him. He could see how people would be frightened by such a person. Though it was also then that he realized the very presence of the frightening teenager meant something horrible had happened. The keeper of secrets, Sleeper, didn't arrive unannounced without good cause. He had just opened his mouth to speak when the door burst open and in marched a black clad man who strikingly resembled the king himself and a young girl with a raccoon tail and shadow of a black mask across her face. She was small, clearly a fresh and new changeling but with it more heavy because of the recent magic.
Dex sighed for the third time that day. "Oh kingy...we're here to barter. Don't think you've met my friend Joey yet - I'm here to teach her the ropes so she doesn't get screwed by you fucking nobles and your goddamn superiority complexes." Sleeper seemed to shrink into the shadows and gesture toward the black suited boy, with a top hat perched on his head. It was things like that, the top hat - that likely came from a thrift store in the mundane standard but to those in the room gave the mouthy boy some measure of import that they all recognized which separated the changeling spirit, twisted with the human one that made them different than the average person.
"Joey, my dear," Dex addressed the little girl first, dropping the hand of the courtier and taking a step forward. Because the magic was still new on her it was clear that she had no control over it and the raccoon parts of her being were expressive and defined. In time, Dex knew, she would learn to control it. "You mustn't take his word for it. I encourage you to learn all you can, but don't blindly follow him. Don't follow me either without knowing what you're doing. I'm saying it's in your best interest to come to that decision yourself. Both paths are dangerous but one doesn't fit you and you need to figure out which one that is-"
"STOP IT!!" The boy in the hat snapped. "Look at you all proud and arrogant. Don't listen to him Joey, he'll just make friends with you and then ditch you. Too good for the rest of us now Dex? Hmmm? Being a king and all." Once more, Dex sighed. He wasn't sure he'd sighed so much in his life. Like many teens, and even adults, they had many with familiar nicknames - this boy was no exception. The difference was that Dex knew his given name, which was something that few did. "Doppelganger," Dex shook his head lightly as he started to speak. "I'm not trying to lure your friend away, I'm trying to give her direction which you're not. Give her the opportunity to make up her own mind. Are you afraid of what she'll choose?"
There was a pause and Doppelganger seemed immediately annoyed with the seventeen year old king. "Whatever!" He snapped viciously and pointed a rhinestone encrusted cane at Dex, the same that matched the top hat. Of course the cane, like the hat, was visibly different to those in the room than it would be to the public beyond the room they were in. There were bits of the satin missing on the hat's brim where it was worn through and stones missing, most in fact, from the cane. But both shined brightly and new with the magic interwoven in them for those gathered to see. "That's not why I'm here. I'm here to negotiate...remember!?"
Dex straightened and arched an eyebrow. "No, I'd forgotten already - that that's why you came." He smiled in a toying manner but Doppelganger seemed to puff up angrily. He paced in front of Dex slowly, eyeing him suspiciously. Dex leaned back on one hip and hitched his thumbs in his pockets casually. "Then out with it - what are we negotiating for?"
"Caley Shea."
Doppelganger's two simple words, a name, hit Dex like a bucket of ice poured directly onto him from above. Caley, a student at the nearby magic school, was one of Dex's trusted advisors. She was one of a panel he'd put together of people he had ultimate faith in, from the various magical races, in the hopes of finding a way that they could all live together in harmony. In that moment the leering teen drew out a crystal daisy and right then Dex knew that Doppelganger was speaking truth. When the young English girl had relocated to America because of a war raging in her own nation Dex had befriended her. However, in the process he had to teach her about changelings and introduce the concept of their very existence to her. Most changelings had fled England when the government there exiled them and stripped them of their rights as sentient beings. Part of his lesson to her, in showing her raw magic, was a gift - the pure magical flower. He knew she kept it and did so with the utmost care.
The flower fell at his feet, where Doppelganger chucked it carelessly. Dex was faced with something new, an emotion he had not expected to manifest and particularly not in this situation - love. He had not noticed before that the friendship might be more than friendship, but when Caley's position was in jeopardy, her very life in danger it pushed the part of Dex's brain that recognized the worth of this particular person in his life. It was right then that Dex knew he couldn't let her stay in the clutches of Doppelganger's darker changelings and if that meant to reveal his affection for her or simply to keep her safe then he would ensure she was released from their hold.
"What must I do?" He asked.
__________________
"Dad...that's not a happy ending?" Merry peered up at her father and Dex smiled in the same strange mischievous way before petting her hair down and kissing the crown of her head.
"No?" He asked curiously. "I'm pretty sure it is. I think you might be looking at the story wrong. Without the love and the invention of it, the learning of it for me, you wouldn't be here." He told her in a coy taunt and the little girl pouted at him. He shrugged and then squeezed her around the shoulders in a tight hug. "That's the bottom of page nine my dear, and that was all I promised you - with a happily ever after. Love is happily ever after. That, little one, is the lesson. Perhaps tomorrow - tomorrow we'll talk about page ten."
--Happy Birthday Jackie--