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 Posted: Fri May 11, 2007 1:54 pm
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Title: Sierra
Summary: Sierra, a teenage Faery girl/trainee in the Faery Army, is foretold of her downfall at the age of thirteen. Years later, her ending may come on the battlefield...
Genre: Fantasy/War
Rating: PG (there may be some gory/suggestive scenes later, but I haven't written those yet. I'll try to keep it to a minimum.)
My dear friend gemela_dos LOVES this story, and she's nagging me at the worst possible moments of my day to "put Sierra's story on Gaia!!!" Since this is the friendliest guild I know, I don't think anyone's going to care if I post a huge novel on here. It's not done yet, so don't worry.
*EDIT*: If I use some phrases or names in here that you don't recognize, it's because this is the second book in a series I'm writing. But since the first book is really dumb right now, I'm considering chopping the first book out of the picture entirely and making this the first book in a quartet. |
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Posted: Fri May 11, 2007 1:57 pm
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Prologue
The first war between the Pixies and the Faeries was almost over. Airfighters that had lost their lives remained on the dry, acidic soil, and the stench of the torn flesh and mud cut through the air like a knife would cut through butter. Amidst the mass of dead soldiers lay one Faery who was still alive, but not for much longer. One of his wings had been bent past repair, and both of his legs had been broken from a great fall. This Faery was probably an airfighter who had been attacked by Pixie magic and had fallen out of the air. The warrior waited there, for the moment when either his strength would return or when he would be plunged into the cold finality of death.
From the shadows, a new figure emerged. He was tall and mysterious-looking, but not unfamiliar to the dying soldier. Despite this, though, the warrior still felt much fear at seeing this person.
The stranger knew that the man was about to die. He kneeled down beside him and whispered, “Your time is nearly up. There is nothing I can do to alleviate your suffering.”
The soldier gritted his teeth against both the pain and the fury of seeing who it was that had arrived and said, “Get away from me- Pixie!”
“I do not wish to disturb you in your final moments,” the Pixie responded. “I am going to give you information I gleaned from the future. About your firstborn daughter.”
Catching his breath, the soldier did not speak. Pixies could glimpse into the future and share their knowledge with the other races. When a Pixie told of what was to come, it was best to heed his words.
“Tell me,” said the Faery warrior to the Pixie, “what is to become of Sierra?”
The Pixie smirked and said, “Her fate… will be similar to yours.” As the soldier gasped softly from the pain now pulsing in his left wing, the mysterious Pixie shushed him and continued, “Similar, but not identical. She is going to grow up to be a warrior like you. She will face pain, hardship, and suffering like you. However, there is something she will overcome that you will never have the chance to face.”
“What? What will she face?” cried the Faery. With a stab of horror, the Pixie realized that he was growing stronger. That was not supposed to happen. He had to die. This Faery must not survive.
“Me.”
The Pixie unsheathed a silver sword- the Faery’s eyes grew wide and screamed wildly, “ALAIN! NO!” The Pixie seemed to react when his name was said, but by that time, it was too late to control the movement in his wrist. The stranger swung the sword wildly above his head, finally plunging it into the Faery’s stomach. Sheathing it again, the Pixie walked away, leaving the Faery to choke on his own blood.
But he looked back once.
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Posted: Fri May 11, 2007 1:58 pm
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1
The Sandstones
The sun was setting over the small Faery village of Blue River. The Sandstone family was eating dinner outside on a wooden table near their garden. A bright yellow finch swooped through the summer air, twitting as it went. It was, all in all, a peaceful afternoon to enjoy dinner outside. Everything seemed relaxed to Nevia Sandstone and her younger daughter, Lily- but not to Sierra.
The finch abandoned the feeble tree branch and went to sit on Nevia’s broad shoulder. Nevia gave a little cooing noise and, startled, her daughters looked up.
“I was wondering why you were tweeting,” laughed Lily. “You have such an affinity with birds, Mother.”
“It was something I discovered when I was younger,” said Nevia, giving the bird a kind smile. “Birds sometimes give me advice on how to grow a certain plant. In turn, I give them advice on where to best make their nests, so they can be safe from predators.”
Lily looked excited and asked, “What’s this bird saying now? Do you know?”
“He’s hinting to me that he would like to have one of my pine nuts from my salad.”
The finch looked delighted that Nevia understood Bird and helped itself to Sierra’s salad. Sierra scowled, trying to shoo the bird away.
Lily and Nevia both knew that something was troubling Sierra. Neither of them wanted to be the one to bring it up. While Sierra was usually a very pleasant girl to be around, she had a temper as fiery as her bright red hair. Some of the elders of Blue River often joked that Sierra’s moods could change as swiftly as the stream the town was named for, but Nevia assured them (time and time again) that this moodiness was a strong trait of Rynn’s, too. And if anything got Sierra mad, she was normally mad at her mother and sister.
“Would you like some strawberries?” offered Nevia to her oldest daughter.
Sierra perked her head up, coming out of some reverie to give her mother an unsteady smile. “No, thanks. I’m… not very hungry tonight.”
The three of them were all silent. Nevia and Lily stared at Sierra together like they were accusing her of hiding something. Sierra asked them, “What is it? Stop staring, please. You’re freaking me out.”
“What’s wrong, Sierra?” Lily murmured. “Ever since you returned from Alissa’s house, you’ve acted very… strange. It’s like you’ve been keeping a secret from us.”
Sierra chose her words carefully. “Nothing’s wrong. Besides, what’s wrong with having a secret?”
“It’s not like you to keep secrets.” stated Nevia. (This was quite untrue. Nevia had never found out what had happened to the rabbits the previous month.) “Did something happen at Alissa’s house?”
“It’s something that’s been going on for a fortnight. Don’t worry, Mother. Nothing happened at Alissa’s house.”
Neither Lily nor Nevia were truly convinced. Lily asked, “Are you sure?”
Giving up, Sierra raised her arms in resignation and said, “Fine. Am I to have no peace in this family? I’ll tell you later, Mother, when we’re washing the dishes. Is that oka-”
“I WANT TO KNOW, TOO!” whined Lily. “Why can’t I know, too?”
“Because it’s not your business.”
“Yes, it is!”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is!”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it is!”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes, it-”
“GIRLS! PLEASE! CALM DOWN!” Nevia screamed, trying very hard to break up the fight. “I swear, I have to be the only person in the whole town to be the mother of two teenagers.”
Sierra’s scowl appeared on her face once again. “I guess I have to tell her sometime. Anyway… I’ve decided- on my own- to join the Faery army.”
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Posted: Wed May 16, 2007 3:50 pm
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Posted: Fri May 18, 2007 2:36 pm
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Nevia’s mouth dropped open. She blinked once, twice, three times. Then, she regained control of her voice long enough to murmur, “No. Absolutely not.”
“WHY NOT?!” Sierra yelled in response. “Just because of Dad?”
“ ‘Just because’? You make it sound like your father’s was merely a small thing that happened to this family twelve years ago. Well, I don’t think I could bear it if another one of my loved ones died.”
Lily’s face was paralyzed with shock. She whole-heartedly agreed with Nevia’s decision to not let Sierra go off to war. Being eleven years old, she only barely knew about the true brutality of war, but from what she had heard, it was not such a good thing.
“I had a dream the other night,” mused Sierra to nobody really in particular. “Dad- well, Dad’s… spirit, really- was telling me I belonged on the battlefield. It said something about a Pixie. It might have been a premonition, but-”
Whoops. Sierra had not meant to say that at all. Now Nevia was going to go on one of her rambling, rampaging fits again. Lily felt it coming, too. The two of them zoned out and avoided meeting one another’s gaze.
“Faeries don’t get premonitions. We leave fortune-telling to Pixies.”
“But what I meant was,” interrupted Sierra hastily, with big, wide, blue eyes, “that I think Dad was trying to… tell me something important.”
“You,” spat Nevia with as much venom as a snake, “think that you were being contacted from beyond the Border?”
Sierra nodded, suddenly feeling like a little girl, rather than a thirteen-year-old. There were several stories in the Northwestern region of Étoile about the Border, but what the stories all winded down to was that the Border was the vague line that separated life from death. They were all superstitions, really, and Sierra didn’t believe in half of the tales told by Blue River’s elders.
“I don’t know,” said Sierra helplessly, “but in the dream, Father said that I belonged on the battlefield, and that there was something I could do to avenge his death. He made it sound like he was murdered… outside of the battlefield, or something.”
Somehow, Sierra had said just the right thing to make Nevia’s nerves die down a little. “You’re right.” she said. “You’re too much like your father. I can’t keep you at home forever. To do so would be torture for you. You need to grow up somewhere else. See the world. Fight your own battles- literally and metaphorically. If I keep you at home, you’d be miserable. I tried to keep Rynn at home, too, and that didn’t work either. Ah, well. It might be that your father’s spirit is at unrest. Of course, I don’t believe in such things, but all I’m saying is that it might be possible.”
The yellow finch had by now taken three pine nuts, a blueberry, and a shred of lettuce from Sierra’s salad.
Lily was looking morosely away from the conversation. She didn’t want her big sister- whom she loved and idolized so much- to go away and possibly never come back. It was too nerve-wracking for her to even mention. Scary, almost. She had lost her father to the first Pixie War. Now that the second one had started up just a month ago, Lily knew that there would be only more killing.
“Hey, Lily,” said Sierra very loudly. “Are you still with us? Talk to us, please.”
“No.”
“Lily, I’m sorry.”
“Why are YOU sorry?”
“Don’t use that tone with me. Mom, tell her not to use that tone with me.”
“Lily, don’t use that tone with your sister.”
Lily’s face grew into a big pout. “Just leave me alone, Sierra.”
“Look, I’m sorry, okay? It’s just that this is something I really want to do. For Dad, you know?”
She could not respond. Her lip trembled and tears began to pour out of her eyes. “I- I… don’t- want…” she sobbed. “I DON’T WANT YOU TO LEAVE!” Just watching her made Sierra’s eyes fill up as well, even if Lily was being a wet blanket. Unbeknownst to their mother, both of the sisters wiped their faces to rid their eyes of tears.
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Posted: Fri May 25, 2007 1:49 pm
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Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 3:52 pm
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 1:24 pm
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Posted: Fri Jul 06, 2007 9:56 pm
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Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 6:17 am
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Posted: Thu Aug 09, 2007 10:40 pm
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Posted: Fri Aug 10, 2007 9:31 am
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Posted: Sun Aug 19, 2007 2:38 pm
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