I'm still eager to get feedback on what you guys like and don't like, and I still don't have many title ideas (yeah, I finally noticed that typo from the earlier post title), so anything is helpful!
Victoria and Richard walk, arm in arm, down
a tidy garden path. They laugh in the bright morning sunlight. Tenderly, he
leans over and kisses her before lowering himself down to one knee before her.
Mortal love.
Gone.
3.
Revealing
Truths and Lies
Will
was walking behind Medusa-Cornelia, and his eyes were fixed on her dread-locks.
It must have been his imagination, but he could have sworn they were moving.
Not just swinging as she walked, but actually moving. By themselves. He was
probably just tired.
“Will,
could you stop staring at me like that? It’s getting really annoying.” Cornelia
was still excited about her… discovery, and she was all but skipping down the
uneven stone tunnels. Will quickly averted his gaze, then looked up again at
Cornelia. He quickened his pace to match hers and spoke quietly.
“Hey,
how’d you know I was staring?” he asked, studying her scaly bare shoulder with
intense fascination.
“Will,
I could see you.” She smiled brilliantly at him and he noted that her teeth and
tongue weren’t shiny or scaly.
“But
how? You were facing forward. You couldn’t have seen me.” He frowned as her
smile grew wider.
“Don’t
you know anything about Medusa, William? Look closely.” She pointed at her
hair. Will did, but saw only the scaly shining dread locks, waving gently back
and forth, occasionally rising and falling.
“I
studied vampires, Cornelia, not mythology. Not that my studies are worth
anything, though. Anyway, what about it? You have… eyes on your neck?” he
dismissed the idea as soon as it left his mouth. Cornelia laughed, like bells
tinkling, and stopped walking. Daniel and Mercy caught up and stopped as well,
shooting inquiring looks at Will. He shrugged. Then Cornelia’s hair started
floating up, each dread lock hanging in the air sort of like… a snake. That was
when Will saw that each one had eyes and a mouth. They weren’t dreadlocks at
all, they were actual snakes.
“And
she keeps pulling tricks from her bottomless bag.” Daniel said quietly. “Nelly,
I think we’re going to get along just fine.” He said with a smile. Cornelia
smiled back, let her hair, or snakes, rather, fall back into place and
continued walking. Will was careful not to stare too directly at the snakes
after that, and instead studied Cornelia’s scales. They still clinked and
chimed when they touched one another, and it sounded sort of like bells or even
rain on glass. He walked in a trance of sorts, mesmerized by the golden scales
and the sound they made.
The
group continued a short while, and the tunnel grew gradually wider and more comfortable,
and Will noticed the walls were speckled with tiny glowing stones. As they
progressed, the stoned got bigger and bigger, until their path was illuminated
by the strange rocks. Cornelia shifted back to her most frequent shape, and
they continued on quietly until the group met a fork in the tunnel, and stopped
to consider the options. Daniel spoke first.
“Willy,
Nelly, you take the right, and us vamps will take the left. Follow your tunnels
until they branch again. If you think you find something that indicates that-“
“Ooh,
‘indicates’. Big word.” That was Cindy.
“If
you find something that you think indicates we’re on the right trail, head back
here and wait. If neither group finds anything, we meet back here in six hours
and pick a path at random. We’ll just do it this time, as we don’t have time
enough to explore every branch. Everyone good?” He stopped, waited a moment,
then started down the left corridor. No one had any better plans, apparently,
so the two groups split up.
Cornelia’s
silence during their journey was broken by the absence of the vampires, and as
soon as she and Will were alone, she prattled on and on for near two hours
about ‘shape prices’ and how it felt to ‘shift’ and what her thoughts were on
the overpopulation of creatures on this planet.
“I
mean, with so many immortals, it’s no wonder vampires are dying out. Not enough
human cities to feed them all. And we have to keep you humans alive, because,
well, without you, we wouldn’t stay in hiding, and then war would break out across
the globe, dragons killing shape shifters, shape shifters killing shape
changers, a gross species they are, really, the shape changers and vampires
killing off the mystics and fairies, and the Monarchs powerless to protect us
from ourselves.” She took a breath here and there, though Will could scarcely
keep up, let alone understand what she was talking about.
“The shape shifters would obviously be the
lone survivors, besides the Monarchs, of course, I mean. It’s only common
sense. We can deceive the most trained spell crafters, the most fierce
warriors, make them believe we’re one of their own, then stab them in the back.
Of course we’d have to get their shape first, and not everyone is open to that
kind of thing, if you know what I mean.”
“I
don’t, actually. I have no idea what you’re talking about, Cornelia. I don’t
know how any of this stuff works. What is a monarch, what is a mystic, how do
you get someone’s shape and what is the- whoa.” They’d entered a huge, spacious
cavern, lighted by three huge blue stones on the ceiling. There were two
doorways beside the one they’d entered, and centered between them was a large,
door-shaped carving. They started towards it, and Cornelia yelped.
“It’s
written in the language of the Monarch! I’ll go get the others, you stay here
and, um, guard it or something.”
“Wait!
Cornelia! You cant just…” but she was already gone. He’d briefly seen a
hummingbird before she was gone completely, and sat resignedly on the smooth
stone floor, studying the strange carvings. They were beautiful, swirling,
sharp designs, with no obvious pattern or repetition. Some vaguely resembled
creatures or elements, such as fire, men, birds, water, but most were
indecipherable lines or figures. Will wasn’t a linguist, but he guessed it was
something like Egyptian, with a different symbol for each word or sound.
They filled almost the entirety of the door
shape, but one circle was left untouched in the center of it all. He stared at
the blank spot curiously. This part of the carving seemed most important, as
though the writers had designed the whole piece to revolve around the single
spot.
Will
held his hand up to the circle, and found it was the perfect size for his hand.
He pressed his palm against the cool stone, and it seemed to sink in, though he
saw the wall was solid. He felt his hand sinking deeper and deeper into the
wall, and finally, when his arm was in up to his elbow, he felt something. It
was a knob of sorts, rough and round by the feel of it. He blinked a few times
in confusion. His eyes still saw a solid wall with his hand pressed against it,
though his nerves felt something much different.
Will
grasped the knob and turned it clockwise, and heard three clicks as he
completed the motion. At the third click, fire and light filled his senses, and
he lost consciousness immediately.
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