[Fantasy] Build A Story.

Adam-X said:

The blistering sun rose over the western sky. Ferrus sneered as it felt the warm coming over him for the second day in a row. Bound to the post, punished for a crime he did not commit, he stared with seething hatred as day came again. Another day without food. Another day unable to sit. Another day, he had survived the night. The gods were either punishing him, or waiting for him to be saved...

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mrsmig said:

"Pssst," hissed a tiny voice, somewhere in the vicinity of his left shoulder...

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"What did they say you did?"

It was hard to tell much more than the gender of the voice, as far away as she must have been. "Who are you," he asked quietly. "Are you being held too?"

"I am," she replied, "but not for long" ...

"Besides," she continued, "they are not my friends, and they are not coming to rescue me--if you can even call it rescuing--out of love for me. They have other reasons for what they do."

Ferrus gave up trying to turn his head. "You may as well tell me more. It's not like we have anything else to do."

"Well, all right, but it's not exactly pleasant, so don't say I didn't warn you." She sighed and began.

'If you looked at me now you would not see it, but once I was beautiful, with the longest, most luxurious hair in the kingdom. My cruel step-mother was jealous of my locks and locked me away in the top of the tallest tower. Every day and every night I dreamed of escape. Until one morning I couldn't take it any more and I jumped. My hair caught on the windowsill and instead of falling to my death, it yanked right out of my scalp and dropped me lightly on the floor. I lay bleeding and crying - for my hair, for my lost beauty, for my bleeding scalp, until an old woman found me. She had a wise face and handed me an apple, claiming it would restore my hair to its former glory. I bit into the juicy flesh and instantly felt my hair grow. Although it did not stop at my head. Oh no. It covered my whole body, growing from places a young woman such as myself should never have hair. I ran into the forest, crying, trailing hair. A group of seven men found me in the hollow of an old oak tree and took me in. They shaved my body and used my hair to stuff their mattresses. They made quite a profitable mattress business from me, making me stuff rival mattress seller's products with peas int he dead of night to sabotage them. Until I ran away. That's why they're looking for me. For my ever-growing hair.'

Ferrus was silent for a moment, then he said, 'How long have you been tied to this post?'

He considered this was the beginning of his own insanity. She paused and Ferrus imagined it was to catch her breath for the next round of crazy tales. He leaned his head back against the post and wondered if he was capable of bashing himself unconscious. The fourth moon of Theabold caught his eye and it gave him hope—and fear. It was full and nearing its jade-green phase. The Jadelings would soon emerge to feed for a single hour. Blind, they found their prey by voice.

At most, he had a few seconds to speak before sealing his lips shut from uttering another sound while the hungry Jadelings fed.

“So tell me more about this amazing hair of yours,” Ferrus said.

"It's long, blond and brunette. At least it was." She sighed. "Now it's curly - nappy, almost - and missing large patches. But it used to be the envy of everyone around, especially ... I better not say."

She let out an almost-inaudible whimper.

Ferrus prayed to all the gods that he hadn't just heard what he thought he'd heard. A word hidden in that whimper.

He should ask her. He really should. But what if he didn't? What if he pretended he hadn't heard her, and let fate take care of this crazy girl? He could keep her talking, let the Jadelings take her. He could barely look after himself, let alone a-

'What did you just say?' he asked, before he'd realised he was asking.

The girl let out a small sob. 'Deliava.' she whispered, and Ferris thought again about bashing his head against the post.

'It's nothing,' the girl continued, 'Just a prayer my father used to say before he died. It means nothing.'

But it meant something to Ferris. It meant he couldn't leave this girl to die. He had to get them both out of here - he glanced up at the jading moon- and quickly.

The air turned thin and frosted, gentle aria came from the forest. Ferris' body lurched. The Jadelings were coming. He didn't want to use this. He was supposed to find a mundane way but he didn't want to be eaten. Stabbed, drowned, anything but eaten. Doing this would use up every drop of his enhancement. The Jadelings trotting came closer, nearly out of the brush by now. Ferris' let his hands raise higher and higher in temperature until he burned through the rope. Frantically he put out the fire that caught on his sleeves. He unbound his legs, and turned to face the girl.

With each step the girl took to him, plants grew on the ground, and Ferris' eyes took delight in the sight of the colorful garden.

"Hey, neat! One of us will be the hero." A spindly humanoid whose eyes were obscured by jutting crystal, crawled on all six limbs. Ferris covered his ears as the Jadeling barked; several more Jadeling were scampering toward the forest's edge.

And then a thick fog descended from the sky, providing cover from the evil Jadelings.

The two quietly crept toward a nearby stand of trees, careful not to make much more noise. Not too far, there was a road somewhere to the north.

'Did you make that fog?' Ferris asked once they were in the cover of the trees and heading North.
'No,' said the girl.
'Are you sure? It was pretty convenient, and you seem to have some weird-ass thing going on with nature.'
'What are you talking about?'
Ferris gestured to the abundance of flowers, grasses and little saplings growing where she stepped.
The girl lifted her foot and a daisy sprung up to greet her. 'I...I don't know why that's happening.'
'Well you better find a way to make it un-happen. We're not going to be hard to find if we leave a trail of garden behind us.'
The girl ground the daisy into the mud. 'You don't have to worry, I'm going my own way.'
'You can't!'
Ferris took a calming breath; it wouldn't do to scare her. 'Listen, I'm only going to tell you this once. The reason I freed you from that pole was...

"That prayer," he said. "Your father's prayer. Deliava was the goddess of Crystal Myth, and when that unstable planet finally blew, there was only one survivor--and I am that person's son."

"What are you saying?" The girl tugged at her her hair, hair, hair. "That my father is also--?"

"My mother. Which also explains...

'...why it only rains on Tuesdays.'

Ferris could tell from the way she tugged her hair, hair, hair, that she knew exactly what he was talking about. But was she going to come willingly?