#584 words

Months have passed, and the prisoner was still at large. Joe slammed his hand onto the wooden table, the sound reverberated across the hollow concrete office. The man sighed out of frustration as he ran a hand through his hair. Anger bubbled up in his chest as he scanned through the documents on the criminal yet again.

He had every detail about the low-life memorised. Name Taylor, twenty-one-years-old, brown hair, brown eyes—all fucking useless without his location.

Joe leaned back in his office chair, trying to sort his thoughts. This was too much stress for the small town commander. He reached for the carton of cigarettes on the far end of the desk. One couldn’t hurt, he thought as he lit the cigarette.

Smoke burned his lungs, he kept reviewing the documents that lay before him. He stood up, nerves burning up throughout his body. The commander exhaled. Thin white smoke escaped his lips and lifted into the air. The gas separated into tiny clouds before evaporating before him. A few more hits, still pacing back and forth.

His patience finally snapped. He ripped the door open and walked into the empty hall. None of his men would be up and if they were, they’d be on guard. If you want something done, you have to do it yourself.

It was a silent night; Few people were normally out and about at this hour. He retraced his guards’ steps into the thick forest.

Many hours passed before he ran into the same cliff face his men described. It was rather tall, made up of smooth grey stone all the way to the top. He squinted his eyes to spot any sign the perpetrator’s whereabouts.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a clue—a small indentation in the otherwise smooth wall. Glee overtook him as he climbed up the mountain front, thanking the sun for staying up a few minutes longer than usual. He flicked his still-lit cigarette into the forest.

Ducking his head, Joe enter the cave.

A small pile of hay and grass in one corner, leftover food in another—all signs that the fugitive he was looking for was, in fact, alive and well. He placed a hand on the pistol on his hip. He snuck around the larger cavern.

Several tense minutes passed before he finished his search of the cave. There was no one; Irritation returned. Out of instinct, his fist crashed against the rocky wall. A gasp sounded from the entrance.

He whipped around—Taylor stood; the sun setting behind him and the creature beside him. Its head came at the man’s waist, wings outstretched to his shoulder.

“You! It’s you! Don’t you dare fucking move, you-”

That was all he could scream before the whelp beside the traitor opened its deadly mouth. Everything happened in slow-motion. Joe could see a light come from the back of its throat and crawl forward to the front. The flame flew out towards the commander. Taylor shouted something, but the roar of the oncoming blast and fear of what would come next overtook his senses. A blood-curdling scream tore through the air as his body burned, skin blistering and sizzling away.

On his almost silent feet, my brother landed next to me, putting a fire lily in my hair: “Excuse my tardiness, I was merely looking for the right flower”

“… and you believe you found it, I assume,” I sounded as judgemental as I could with my own very silly brother.

kite is a gamer. swift, good hand-eye coordination, even if her physical strength is lacking. learns quickly, but gets bored quickly, too: rarely plays to completion unless enough new mechanics are thrown in to make gameplay perpetually different. plays instead to perfection. plot, characterization, art: all inferior to gameplay. multitasker. shapeshifter: natural form is a crow. enjoys solving puzzles, which makes her especially interested in crime--- both the solving and the creation of the Perfect Crime. will also show off: enjoys playing in tournaments, which are the ideal for encountering and mastering new strategies. masterminded the capture of jing, mostly out of interest in bypassing the Binan Suo stronghold.

martin, human, curious, charismatic, with maybe a confused morality. desires immortality as a means to continue his work, to continue to learn, to eventually conceivably know all things. to this end, manipulated by kite. jealous of vampires and their longevity. supremely suspicious of shapeshifters, and by extension, nearly all non-humans. by this fear, treats them as subhuman. jing is not an exception: she is treated like a specimen, as though her duty is to science, to her Father, martin. this, of course, plays off the naturally familial nature of the Fae.

jing, raised and effectively brainwashed by her kidnapper. suffers inferiority. she knows she is significant only as a rare research specimen: special, but less than human, less than a being deserving of respect. throw enough of a fit--- stop responding, stop eating--- and she gets whatever she wants. (Martin learns, early, to just give her whatever she wants to placate her. this increases his scorn for her and her submission to him.) she is not particularly attached to life: it’s dull, occasionally painful. still, the idea of killing herself has never crossed her mind. death is simply not an option. (jing has no concept of death, only of pain. on top of this, Fae have an unusual tenacity, evident even in the tale of the first faerie.) yu’s appearance in her life is different, is exciting: in her confinement she has developed an all-consuming taste for adventure coupled with an idea of self-worth which makes her brazen and challenging.

yu lost her family. she is vengeful, savage, fierce. trained, hard, to perfect the talent for stealth already natural to Fae. rediscovered Obscurity, an old practice lost to time that grants functional invisibility with intense awareness of an area and observers in it, though she never mastered it. mastered her aspect (land) with her instrument, a stone comb which could more easily reshape regions she was familiar with. (curious, really, that Fae have so many powers, all rooted in one particularly imaginative child with will enough to bend magic.) intensely family-oriented: will do all in her power to free her baby sister (jing). loses sight of those around her in favor of her goals. idealistic, perhaps; i didn’t do anything to deserve what happened to me; i could have saved someone. self-righteous, yet plagued by guilt. royalty, felt a measure of responsibility for Her People.