All Hail the Shifter King
Title: Surprise, Part V (Or: The Unnecessary Entry)
Word Count: 1824
Note: I know I said there was one more section before the story was over, but in the process of trying to write the last one I ended up with this instead. I've been challenging myself lately to write scenes that are more "normal" (as normal as things can ever be in this verse) - scenes where not everything ends in a bitter argument, bloodshed, hurt feelings, or disaster. Being that I consider myself primarily a horror or hurt/comfort writer, this slice of life stuff is hard for me, though this verse makes it a little easier since I can still weave in the magical elements.
So while I joke that this section is "unnecessary", the truth is I quite like it. Katrina has been living with these people for about six months and no, not everything is disaster after disaster. Some days are entirely boring and normal, with just little hints of the surreal to remind her that her new life is so different from her old one. And I wanted to showcase a different aspect of the coin-magic - though it's capable of all kinds of fun tricks (like preventing vehicle rollovers), its powers are primarily more subtle. Anyway. Enough babbling from me.
The shack was empty when Katrina woke, the door slightly ajar and the morning sun falling in a sheet across the warped wooden floor. She lay still a moment, listening to the buzz of insects as they flirted with the edge of the talisman's reach, dipping into the protective magicks and tumbling away just as quickly, only to repeat the same maddening dance just seconds later. A thick-legged spider crawled across the floor toward her and then veered away before it could even reach the makeshift mattress, skittering to the wall where it began to climb that instead. Outside, the forest was in the throes of its morning symphony, the warbling of the birds oddly loud. Wincing as she pushed herself out of her sleeping bag - as excited as she'd been about the experience, her body certainly hadn't appreciated the lack of a proper mattress - she straightened her tank top over the shorts she'd slept in and padded outdoors in her bare feet.
Save the humidity, there was no way to tell a storm had rolled through the night before. The ground, bared to the cloudless sky and the already scorching sun, was bone dry. Stretching with a long sigh of contentment as the soothing heat played over her body, she tugged her unruly hair back into a ponytail and scanned her immediate area for any sign of Ryder. Finding nothing, she decided it better to do something about her growling stomach and returned to the shack to paw through the cooler, settling on some sliced honeydew and a bottle of water. After she'd eaten her fill and still hadn't heard him come back, she wandered off into the trees with the assumption that either she'd find him, or she'd get lost and he'd track her down himself.
After a few moments she spotted the sparkle of water through the thick branches, and followed a rough path until she found herself at the bank of a wide, barely-moving river, likely one of the many that were dammed for drinking water in the southern villages. A dozen feet away, Ryder sat at the water's edge with his back to her, legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees. He seemed oblivious to her presence, and with a grin Katrina stooped and scooped a handful of loose, damp earth, packing it into as tight a ball as she could manage. She was just mentally gauging the odds of pelting him in the back of the head when -
"There aren't even words," he said in a thoroughly unimpressed tone, "to describe what a bad idea that would be." Laughing, Katrina tossed the fistful of earth into the bushes and scrubbed her hands clean on her shorts.
"I would have missed you anyway," she said, picking her way over to where he sat and dropping onto a fallen log beside him. His bare torso was spotted with drops of water, his hair dripping wet, and she reached over to scruff her hand through his white locks. "Swimming?"
"Mmm." He had his eyes closed, his face turned toward the sun, and though there was a faint smile on his face he wrinkled his nose in annoyance when she let his bangs fall over his eyes. "Had to do something while I waited for you to get out of bed."
"Funny man." She stretched her legs and stuck her feet into the river, marveling at the warmth. "How long have you been up?" He cracked open one eye, checked the sun, and then closed it again.
"About four hours."
"Four hours?"
"Mmhm."
"Out of curiosity, have you ever slept a full night?"
"Not that I remember."
They sat in silence for several minutes, and she occupied herself with swirling her feet in the water, digging her toes into the mud. In the silence afforded by the local wildlife's avoidance of Ryder she could hear the distance roar of rushing water - a waterfall, she guessed - but the foliage along the river's edge was too thick for her to see more than fifty feet upstream.
"You should go get your things," he told her. "Put on your shoes. It's a bit of a hike."
"Where are we going?"
"I told you it was a surprise." He opened one eye again, this time as he smirked at her. "Are we going to do this again?" When she just stuck her tongue out in response, he swept his hair out of his face and settled himself again. "I'll wait here," he told her. "Make it quick."
Their hike took them up the river, along the muddy bank marked with the footprints of small animals and the long scuffs from the bellies of the crocodiles. Occasionally a large, colorful bird would swoop over their heads, heading into the deeper shadows of the trees, and Katrina took to keeping her camera in her hands to try and catch photos of the graceful creatures for her collection. Ryder remained quiet, patiently waiting for her to take photos and scribble notes every time she spotted a flower, fern, or other plant that hadn't yet made it into her private database.
After half an hour they reached the waterfall she'd heard, a fifteen foot sheet of water tumbling over the lip of a sharp ledge. The river was more animated when they reached the top, swirling and twisting around boulders and felled trees, and the bank they'd been following all but vanished into the encroaching forest. The trek became more difficult as a result, their progress frequently slowed by having to duck under low branches or through curtains of twisted vines. After she successfully snagged her backpack for the third time Ryder simply took it from her, leaving her with just her camera to manage, but even still the going was far from ideal.
Two hours later they reached the base of an even larger waterfall, this one at least sixty feet tall and so loud that she could barely hear herself think. This was not one of the picturesque waterfalls that St. Emelline used on all of their tourism brochures - massive and intimidating, it roared about them and filled the air with a heavy mist that instantly made her clothing cling to her skin. Ryder allowed her a few moments to take photos before he took the camera from her and stashed it in the backpack, then grasped her by the shoulders and silently pointed her toward the cliff face a few dozen paces from falls. There, hidden by the long vines, was a series of strange, chiseled indentations that rose in regularly spaced intervals in a near-perfect vertical line up the cliff as far as she could see. The width of her palm and surprisingly deep, they reminded her of the shoe cubbies when from she was in elementary school, or...
Her heart seized.
Or, a ladder.
Twisting to face Ryder - and hoping that she would see some sort of indication that he was just joking around - she shook her head adamantly, a thick panic bubbling in her chest. Even with the slight slope of the cliff to prevent the climb from being completely vertical, there was no way she was capable of making that climb without equipment or even a proper handhold. Ryder, however, rolled his eyes and took her by the shoulders again, twisting her around to face the makeshift ladder set into the dark, sparkling stone. Moments later, something heavy and warm fell against her chest - Ryder's coin, she realized, which immediately flared a reddish-yellow light and shimmered in the coating of water from the mist in the air - and she felt him reach around her to grasp her wrists and raise her hands to the first handhold at eye level.
"You can do this," he said, having to raise his voice even as his lips brushed her ear. "I'll be right behind you."
Whatever small burst of confidence she received, either from his words or the comforting pulse of the coin's magic through her chest - and, she supposed, the comfort of knowing that he would be right there with her, though she wasn't about to admit that aloud - evaporated as soon as she managed to get about fifteen feet off the ground. The thunder of the water, the strain of her muscles, and the tremor of fear and adrenaline made vertigo spiral through her - she was suddenly a child on a carnival ride, dazed and unable to orient herself. Biting her lip, she squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her body to the cold stone, her nostrils filled with the hearty scent of the mineral-rich water and the pungent earthen aroma of the vines that snaked down beside her. She couldn't fathom how far she still had to go, couldn't comprehend anything more than how trapped she was, too scared to open her eyes and so afraid that one wrong move would send her plummeting -
A sudden, jarring electric tingle seared through her body, followed by a calming numbness, a startling absence of fear. She opened her eyes and found herself staring at her hands, her fingers streaked with dirt. There was an odd clarity about it, the way she could pick out the individual sparkling flecks mixed in with the soil, how she could discern every crack and crevice in the ancient stone, how she could suddenly see the reflections in the drops of water accumulating on her arms. She lifted her head and looked up, stared up the long climb to the top, and her vision pitched and narrowed until it seemed only feet away, close enough to reach out and haul herself up. As she lifted her foot and jammed it into the next step, the sound around her dampened until she could hear the familiar and comforting sound of her breathing over the waterfall, until she could pick out the birds again, the tiny squeaking mammals. And against her sternum, almost uncomfortably hot through her tank top, the coin thrummed steadily in time with her heartbeat.
She pulled herself up, and continued to climb.
It felt like only seconds later that she braced her arms on the edge of the cliff and hoisted herself up, crawling on her belly a foot or so until she could safely gather her legs beneath her and get to her feet. By the time she brushed the moss off herself Ryder had joined her, and with a curious smile she took his necklace off and handed it back to him.
"You knew that was going to happen, didn't you?" she asked. Without the coin's effects to dull the noise around her she found the volume of the waterfall suddenly uncomfortable, and raised her voice far too loud to compensate. Ryder didn't respond, just smiled as he casually tucked the coin back beneath his shirt and gestured ahead of them, motioning for her to head into the forest.
Word Count: 1824
Note: I know I said there was one more section before the story was over, but in the process of trying to write the last one I ended up with this instead. I've been challenging myself lately to write scenes that are more "normal" (as normal as things can ever be in this verse) - scenes where not everything ends in a bitter argument, bloodshed, hurt feelings, or disaster. Being that I consider myself primarily a horror or hurt/comfort writer, this slice of life stuff is hard for me, though this verse makes it a little easier since I can still weave in the magical elements.
So while I joke that this section is "unnecessary", the truth is I quite like it. Katrina has been living with these people for about six months and no, not everything is disaster after disaster. Some days are entirely boring and normal, with just little hints of the surreal to remind her that her new life is so different from her old one. And I wanted to showcase a different aspect of the coin-magic - though it's capable of all kinds of fun tricks (like preventing vehicle rollovers), its powers are primarily more subtle. Anyway. Enough babbling from me.
The shack was empty when Katrina woke, the door slightly ajar and the morning sun falling in a sheet across the warped wooden floor. She lay still a moment, listening to the buzz of insects as they flirted with the edge of the talisman's reach, dipping into the protective magicks and tumbling away just as quickly, only to repeat the same maddening dance just seconds later. A thick-legged spider crawled across the floor toward her and then veered away before it could even reach the makeshift mattress, skittering to the wall where it began to climb that instead. Outside, the forest was in the throes of its morning symphony, the warbling of the birds oddly loud. Wincing as she pushed herself out of her sleeping bag - as excited as she'd been about the experience, her body certainly hadn't appreciated the lack of a proper mattress - she straightened her tank top over the shorts she'd slept in and padded outdoors in her bare feet.
Save the humidity, there was no way to tell a storm had rolled through the night before. The ground, bared to the cloudless sky and the already scorching sun, was bone dry. Stretching with a long sigh of contentment as the soothing heat played over her body, she tugged her unruly hair back into a ponytail and scanned her immediate area for any sign of Ryder. Finding nothing, she decided it better to do something about her growling stomach and returned to the shack to paw through the cooler, settling on some sliced honeydew and a bottle of water. After she'd eaten her fill and still hadn't heard him come back, she wandered off into the trees with the assumption that either she'd find him, or she'd get lost and he'd track her down himself.
After a few moments she spotted the sparkle of water through the thick branches, and followed a rough path until she found herself at the bank of a wide, barely-moving river, likely one of the many that were dammed for drinking water in the southern villages. A dozen feet away, Ryder sat at the water's edge with his back to her, legs crossed and his hands resting on his knees. He seemed oblivious to her presence, and with a grin Katrina stooped and scooped a handful of loose, damp earth, packing it into as tight a ball as she could manage. She was just mentally gauging the odds of pelting him in the back of the head when -
"There aren't even words," he said in a thoroughly unimpressed tone, "to describe what a bad idea that would be." Laughing, Katrina tossed the fistful of earth into the bushes and scrubbed her hands clean on her shorts.
"I would have missed you anyway," she said, picking her way over to where he sat and dropping onto a fallen log beside him. His bare torso was spotted with drops of water, his hair dripping wet, and she reached over to scruff her hand through his white locks. "Swimming?"
"Mmm." He had his eyes closed, his face turned toward the sun, and though there was a faint smile on his face he wrinkled his nose in annoyance when she let his bangs fall over his eyes. "Had to do something while I waited for you to get out of bed."
"Funny man." She stretched her legs and stuck her feet into the river, marveling at the warmth. "How long have you been up?" He cracked open one eye, checked the sun, and then closed it again.
"About four hours."
"Four hours?"
"Mmhm."
"Out of curiosity, have you ever slept a full night?"
"Not that I remember."
They sat in silence for several minutes, and she occupied herself with swirling her feet in the water, digging her toes into the mud. In the silence afforded by the local wildlife's avoidance of Ryder she could hear the distance roar of rushing water - a waterfall, she guessed - but the foliage along the river's edge was too thick for her to see more than fifty feet upstream.
"You should go get your things," he told her. "Put on your shoes. It's a bit of a hike."
"Where are we going?"
"I told you it was a surprise." He opened one eye again, this time as he smirked at her. "Are we going to do this again?" When she just stuck her tongue out in response, he swept his hair out of his face and settled himself again. "I'll wait here," he told her. "Make it quick."
Their hike took them up the river, along the muddy bank marked with the footprints of small animals and the long scuffs from the bellies of the crocodiles. Occasionally a large, colorful bird would swoop over their heads, heading into the deeper shadows of the trees, and Katrina took to keeping her camera in her hands to try and catch photos of the graceful creatures for her collection. Ryder remained quiet, patiently waiting for her to take photos and scribble notes every time she spotted a flower, fern, or other plant that hadn't yet made it into her private database.
After half an hour they reached the waterfall she'd heard, a fifteen foot sheet of water tumbling over the lip of a sharp ledge. The river was more animated when they reached the top, swirling and twisting around boulders and felled trees, and the bank they'd been following all but vanished into the encroaching forest. The trek became more difficult as a result, their progress frequently slowed by having to duck under low branches or through curtains of twisted vines. After she successfully snagged her backpack for the third time Ryder simply took it from her, leaving her with just her camera to manage, but even still the going was far from ideal.
Two hours later they reached the base of an even larger waterfall, this one at least sixty feet tall and so loud that she could barely hear herself think. This was not one of the picturesque waterfalls that St. Emelline used on all of their tourism brochures - massive and intimidating, it roared about them and filled the air with a heavy mist that instantly made her clothing cling to her skin. Ryder allowed her a few moments to take photos before he took the camera from her and stashed it in the backpack, then grasped her by the shoulders and silently pointed her toward the cliff face a few dozen paces from falls. There, hidden by the long vines, was a series of strange, chiseled indentations that rose in regularly spaced intervals in a near-perfect vertical line up the cliff as far as she could see. The width of her palm and surprisingly deep, they reminded her of the shoe cubbies when from she was in elementary school, or...
Her heart seized.
Or, a ladder.
Twisting to face Ryder - and hoping that she would see some sort of indication that he was just joking around - she shook her head adamantly, a thick panic bubbling in her chest. Even with the slight slope of the cliff to prevent the climb from being completely vertical, there was no way she was capable of making that climb without equipment or even a proper handhold. Ryder, however, rolled his eyes and took her by the shoulders again, twisting her around to face the makeshift ladder set into the dark, sparkling stone. Moments later, something heavy and warm fell against her chest - Ryder's coin, she realized, which immediately flared a reddish-yellow light and shimmered in the coating of water from the mist in the air - and she felt him reach around her to grasp her wrists and raise her hands to the first handhold at eye level.
"You can do this," he said, having to raise his voice even as his lips brushed her ear. "I'll be right behind you."
Whatever small burst of confidence she received, either from his words or the comforting pulse of the coin's magic through her chest - and, she supposed, the comfort of knowing that he would be right there with her, though she wasn't about to admit that aloud - evaporated as soon as she managed to get about fifteen feet off the ground. The thunder of the water, the strain of her muscles, and the tremor of fear and adrenaline made vertigo spiral through her - she was suddenly a child on a carnival ride, dazed and unable to orient herself. Biting her lip, she squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her body to the cold stone, her nostrils filled with the hearty scent of the mineral-rich water and the pungent earthen aroma of the vines that snaked down beside her. She couldn't fathom how far she still had to go, couldn't comprehend anything more than how trapped she was, too scared to open her eyes and so afraid that one wrong move would send her plummeting -
A sudden, jarring electric tingle seared through her body, followed by a calming numbness, a startling absence of fear. She opened her eyes and found herself staring at her hands, her fingers streaked with dirt. There was an odd clarity about it, the way she could pick out the individual sparkling flecks mixed in with the soil, how she could discern every crack and crevice in the ancient stone, how she could suddenly see the reflections in the drops of water accumulating on her arms. She lifted her head and looked up, stared up the long climb to the top, and her vision pitched and narrowed until it seemed only feet away, close enough to reach out and haul herself up. As she lifted her foot and jammed it into the next step, the sound around her dampened until she could hear the familiar and comforting sound of her breathing over the waterfall, until she could pick out the birds again, the tiny squeaking mammals. And against her sternum, almost uncomfortably hot through her tank top, the coin thrummed steadily in time with her heartbeat.
She pulled herself up, and continued to climb.
It felt like only seconds later that she braced her arms on the edge of the cliff and hoisted herself up, crawling on her belly a foot or so until she could safely gather her legs beneath her and get to her feet. By the time she brushed the moss off herself Ryder had joined her, and with a curious smile she took his necklace off and handed it back to him.
"You knew that was going to happen, didn't you?" she asked. Without the coin's effects to dull the noise around her she found the volume of the waterfall suddenly uncomfortable, and raised her voice far too loud to compensate. Ryder didn't respond, just smiled as he casually tucked the coin back beneath his shirt and gestured ahead of them, motioning for her to head into the forest.