[original fiction] untitled series;
Excerpt.
Original, Fantasy.
Notes: Character Study - Valerian, Lynne and Xenok.
One-shot: Brushfire
There is smoke in the distance and already she knows that the villages in the lowlands burn. The pyreanflies have been set loose and unless the rain comes harsh and strong, then this patch of land will be naught but fire and ash long before sundown. They can only pray now, pray that the creatures who dwell in the forests sense the danger before it descends. For if even one of the godforsaken devils feeds upon living flesh, then a swarm will rise like a thousand, giant fireflies sent from the deepest of nightmares.
“Is there nothing that we can do?” She turns to her brother who watches the horizon willing the sun to rise. A bandage covers his left eye, marring his once perfect sight. “Is there nothing at all, Valerian?” She asks as she pulls her wings about her like a cloak, watching his face; waiting for something to give her hope.
“We move at dawn.” He says simply, turning away to go where the giant man-wolf stands. Xenok is at his full height, seven feet tall with that monstrous crossbow perched on his shoulder, eyes unblinking as he stares on ahead -- to where they know the streets are empty and the beds in the houses are bare.
-----
The tales of the pyreanflies are older than my great-father's great-father, and hail from the time when the twin moons and the twin suns took the form of land-walkers to see what was good and what was not upon Khaenna.
They are terrible creatures, the epitome of hunger and greed. Some say they are the evil that lurks and springs to life just as good things are born from the fires of creation. My great-father told me that once the pyreanfly was just one, a lonely thing that ghosted through the trees, spreading brushfire faster than any hunter's flame. No one knows when watching turned to hunger and hunger to need and need to the desire to consume more than it deserved. But stories say that it is the flesh of the living, the pulse and beat of blood and heart that gives it the power to split from itself to create not just one other, but two or more.
It was the suns who struck them down. After their sisters, those two moons, called to the tides and brought thirty-seven nights of non-stop rain. At least that is what I have been told. It was the brothers -- Khaenna's sons -- those two bright, demanding orbs in the sky who took the pyreanflies into their light, thus making them no more.
Original, Fantasy.
Notes: Character Study - Valerian, Lynne and Xenok.
One-shot: Brushfire
There is smoke in the distance and already she knows that the villages in the lowlands burn. The pyreanflies have been set loose and unless the rain comes harsh and strong, then this patch of land will be naught but fire and ash long before sundown. They can only pray now, pray that the creatures who dwell in the forests sense the danger before it descends. For if even one of the godforsaken devils feeds upon living flesh, then a swarm will rise like a thousand, giant fireflies sent from the deepest of nightmares.
“Is there nothing that we can do?” She turns to her brother who watches the horizon willing the sun to rise. A bandage covers his left eye, marring his once perfect sight. “Is there nothing at all, Valerian?” She asks as she pulls her wings about her like a cloak, watching his face; waiting for something to give her hope.
“We move at dawn.” He says simply, turning away to go where the giant man-wolf stands. Xenok is at his full height, seven feet tall with that monstrous crossbow perched on his shoulder, eyes unblinking as he stares on ahead -- to where they know the streets are empty and the beds in the houses are bare.
-----
The tales of the pyreanflies are older than my great-father's great-father, and hail from the time when the twin moons and the twin suns took the form of land-walkers to see what was good and what was not upon Khaenna.
They are terrible creatures, the epitome of hunger and greed. Some say they are the evil that lurks and springs to life just as good things are born from the fires of creation. My great-father told me that once the pyreanfly was just one, a lonely thing that ghosted through the trees, spreading brushfire faster than any hunter's flame. No one knows when watching turned to hunger and hunger to need and need to the desire to consume more than it deserved. But stories say that it is the flesh of the living, the pulse and beat of blood and heart that gives it the power to split from itself to create not just one other, but two or more.
It was the suns who struck them down. After their sisters, those two moons, called to the tides and brought thirty-seven nights of non-stop rain. At least that is what I have been told. It was the brothers -- Khaenna's sons -- those two bright, demanding orbs in the sky who took the pyreanflies into their light, thus making them no more.