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In for a Feather, In for a Fin :: Part 1 – An Unlikely Encounter

I blogged about the birth of this tale, and thought I would share it as it grew.  Here is part one, along with the illustration that my muse felt needed to accompany it.  I drew this today on my iPad…I think it took me about half an hour.  The 2500 words that go with it took significantly longer.  

In for a Feather, In for a Fin

An Unlikely Encounter

Summer shimmered in the air. Humidity and heat lay heavy over the island, smearing the sky with haze. Trill, tiny and colorful in a way she shouldn’t be, sat on her favorite branch looking out over the bay. A steady wind ruffled the water and her feathers. She tightened her grip. Somewhere behind her calls rang through the trees, males and females singing for mates. Trill shifted her wings but didn’t look back. None of the sunny yellow artisans wanted her. Nor did she want them with their narrow ways and expectations of a girl demur and drab.

A level lower hung her home. The intricate weaving made her fluff with pride and she dropped down with a flutter of her wings to perch atop it. She wouldn’t share it. Not one of the potential males calling attention to their own carefully constructed nests would allow her to be the builder of their nest. Trill was fine with that.

Quicksilver forms darted through the water beneath her, casting their shadows below them. The tiny bird watched in fascination as they shifted and dove, a flock swimming instead of flying. When a shape much larger raced into their midst her heart pounded in her chest and she clutched at her branch, tail feathers twitching as the great dark mass erased a swath of the bright flock. A tall fin split the water and its tail sent eddies spinning off on either side. Red smoke stained the waves in its wake and Trill blinked as the prey headed for deeper water and out of sight. The river dumped into the bay not far off and the water, unlike the sweet pools inland, was far from clear. A flicker of motion drew her further out along her perch and the thin wood bowed under her.

The flicker turned into an eruption of fish, their bodies flapping above the surface, startling Trill into flight. The huge hunter exploding through them, spinning high into the air, shiny, dangerous and graceful. Trill ignored the fear she should have listened to and darted closer as the predator dropped, sending a splash of water out in an arc.

What was it, she wanted to know. Trill knew of the waterbirds that lived and flew beneath the waves, but what manner of creature could dive up so high? The small bird flew circles out over the bay, searching the murky water. At last she gave up as the wind rose and tore the peaks into whitecaps, tossing spray up at her. She would have to keep watch. Maybe it would come back when the tide came in.

 ~*~

Loud splashes woke Trill. She pulled her head from under her wing and shook her feathers out. The bay beyond the entrance to her nest glinted with moonlight, ripples breaking the surface into bright shards. Carefully she poked her head out and search for the noise that continued.

A quick dart away a shape thrashed in the shallows of lowtide. Trill chirruped in surprise and without a second of caution dropped down and flew to the neighboring tree. It was the hunter and it was trapped on the other side of a sandbar from deep water. With a flutter Trill dropped down, then again, until her feet gripped the still wet bark of the lowest branch. Back and forth it swam in the narrow channel made by the stream that fed into the bay. It tried repeatedly to rush up over the exposed sea bottom only to be grabbed by the sticky mud. It took desperate thrashing to get free and return to the channel.

Eyes glinted in the trees and on the shore. The predator’s struggles drew the forest’s attention. Trill glanced up into the tree and flexed her claws in fear as she spied a shadow with tiny moons for eyes creeping out along her branch.

“You should be asleep, little feather.” The branch swayed with the weight of Cyra, the fossa. The lean, dangerous hunter’s voice was almost a sing-song. “Did the sea-eagle’s splashing wake you?” Trill’s gaze darted left and right, up and down. High above the bright eyes of an owl watched and Trill trembled. Her only safety was to remain on the fragile branch tip.

“It is quite loud,” she managed to squeak out. Cyra let out a sound somewhere between a purr and a cough.

“Indeed,” Cyra murmured. The fossa stepped out further on the branch and it dipped down, the tip touching the water’s surface. Trill spread her wings and fought against the panic that parted her beak and flattened her feathers against her tiny body. “You are even less of a snack for that great thing than you are for me, little feather.” Cyra licked her lips.

The water beneath the branch went smooth save for the tiny ripples from each kiss of the branch as it dipped. Trill wanted to look for the ‘sea-eagle’ but didn’t dare turn away from the fossa. Cyra was well known among the weavers of the island. She had knocked more than one nest loose when the chicks were close to their first flight. It was why most built their homes over water. That, at least, would keep the fossa from being able to retrieve it, though it didn’t always deter her.

“And you aren’t but a snack for me,” a strange, deep voice stopped the fossa and Trill let out a high, startled whistle. “So why don’t we agree that the effort isn’t worth the reward and let the little feather be.”

Cyra’s eyes had gone wide and her furry tail bristled as she clutched the narrow branch. High above the watching owl let out a chuckling hoot and Trill heard it fly off. Her heart continued to race in her chest and she couldn’t feel any sort of relief when whoever had spoken scared the fossa so.

“Yes, yes, of course, of course,” Trill had never heard of anything frightening a fossa. They were the ones to be feared. But there was definite fear in her voice. “’Twas just a bit of fun, something to pass the time.” Cyra made that purring cough again, this time a higher, tighter sound, and backed towards the tree trunk. “I do believe I’ll take myself off to find some dinner now.” When the branch widened enough the fossa twisted and in the same motion dove into the night.

Cyra’s leap bounced the branch and Trill lost her grip as it flung her upwards. She spun and twisted and tumbled, disoriented. When she at last got her wings out to slow her descent it was just two lengths of her tiny body above a sleek, shiny, dark surface. She landed awkwardly and held her wings out to balance.

“Are you well, little feather?” That voice again, rough, ragged and deep, waves grinding rocks on sand, rumbled up through her feet.

“My name is Trill.” She didn’t want this new creature calling her what Cyra called all the birds she hunted. “And yes, thank you,” she answered belatedly.

The body below her moved and she spread her tail and wing feathers. “Trill.” The end of her name rolled through her rescuer and up into her feet, leaving a tingle behind when the sound faded. “I am Hai-la. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Trill.”

The tiny bird’s heart pounded in her chest and she shifted forward carefully until she could peer down at one shiny, beetle-black eye. “And mine,” she answered. The trees above the shore whispered with the departure of the gathered audience. Soon only the lap of water and the humming cacaphony of insects filled the heavy night air.

“Seems I drew quite a bit of attention,” Hai-la rumbled. Trill let out a soft chirp and looked up and down the length of the predator.

“It’s not often we see new things,” she answered, “and certainly no one as large as you. Cyra is one of the largest of the hunters on the island.”

“Hmm. Yes. Well. Speaking of that furry thing, where is your home, little Trill?” The tiny bird cocked her head, looking up into the branches reaching over the water. She hadn’t realized how much Hai-la had been moving but they’d gone a fair distance down the shore. At least, a fair distance by her standards.

“It’s back there, the next tree down from where we. . .met.” Now that she was concentrating she could feel the sinuous undulations of Hai-la’s body. Water sluiced down her sides and lapped up over her tail just before the tall fill slipped through the ripples. The movement captivated Trill and she cocked her head in curiosity when it ceased.

“Would that be yours?” Hai-la rolled just slightly, pointing one of those beetle carapace eyes up into the branches. Trill fluttered her wings and twitched her tail.

“It would be, yes. I’m the only one who nests out over the open water like that.” She blinked, wondering why she felt she needed to explain that.

“Intrepid.” The observation carried what Trill thought might be admiration and she puffed up slightly. “Considering the danger I think you should return to your home, little Trill. The night is full of hunger.” Trill looked around and saw more than one pair of eyes disappear into the undergrowth. Reluctance weighed at her but she hopped down Hai-la’s back and up her tall fin.

“You are very considerate of my safety, Hai-la.” Trill hesitated just a moment at the top of the black-tipped fin and Hai-la slid through the water, carrying her close enough to the nest she needed only flap her wings a claw’s full of times to reach it. Trill grabbed hold of the outside of the entrance and dangled upside down, twisting her head this way and that looking for the sleek shadow of Hai-la.

The dark water showed only ripples. Trill scanned the surface and looked down the channel, disappointment rising. When Hai-la suddenly sliced through the water and swished back up under her nest she chirruped a greeting. “My apologies for disappearing, Trill. It’s uncomfortable for me to remain still for very long in this shallow water. It makes breathing difficult.”

“Oh!” Trill turned to fully look at the stranded hunter. “Are you in danger, Hai-la?” A clicking of teeth answered her and she waited in confusion.

“There is little in this bay that can endanger me. I can wait for the tide to rise to get back into the open water. I will just have to keep moving.” Hai-la swam away and back again and Trill dropped onto a lower branch, confident she was close enough to her nest to retreat from any swooping predators. Not that she thought any would risk approaching with Hai-la trapped in the channel.

“Hai-la? I do not wish to seem rude, but. . . might I ask, what are you? Cyra called you a sea-eagle, but I think that isn’t really what you are.” Hai-la made the clicking sound again and Trill thought that perhaps it was something done in amusement.

“No, I am not a sea-eagle, though I suppose for you it would be a fair way to describe me. I, little Trill, am a shark. . .”

 ~*~

Hai-la and Trill waited together for the water to return, telling each other about themselves and their worlds in between the shark’s laps down the channel and back. As the moon rose so did the water until Hai-la could make small circles under Trill’s nest instead of tracing the length of the outlet’s channel. When the shark, at last, could swim freely over the sandbar, their conversation slowed until a strange, laden silence took over.

“Will you come back?” Trill asked, finally, her feathers pressed tight against her body and feet clamped hard around her branch. She wanted to ask the shark to return, but didn’t feel someone as small as she could ask anything of the large creature.

“I would like to, Trill, if you would be willing to receive a visitor.” Hai-la’s voice reached out to Trill and she wished she could feel that sound through her body once more.

“I would be very willing,” she answered. The silence wrapped around them once more as Hai-la undulated in the water. “Hai-la?” The question rising inside her made Trill’s body feel even smaller and she shifted down the branch, risking the water that now was high enough to wet the tip.

“Yes, Trill?” A fine arc of ripples traveled away from the shark, reflecting the moonlight that shone from high overhead.

“Do you. . .” Trill poked at her own courage. “Do you have a mate?” The shark turned in a tight circle, bringing the eye the tiny bird had first met close to her once more.

“I do not,” Hai-la answered. “It’s unlikely I will. I am considered something of an oddity, among my kind. My mother had no mate, either.” Trill cocked her head, trying to wrap her thoughts around what Hai-la explained. “It happens, sometimes, when sharks are isolated for long stretches of time. My mother was swept into a gulf by a storm and trapped there. It’s where I was born. There were no other sharks.”

Trill’s tail twitched. “Do the. . . flocks?. . .I see farther out in the bay not wish you among them?” The tiny bird made an effort to keep her language proper, to converse with the shark in kind.

“Ah, the schools, yes, well, I don’t fit among them. The other females find me disconcerting and the males are threatened. The means of my birth are known in this ocean.” Hai-la turned again, swimming in a wide arc over the sandbar now.

“We have much in common then,” Trill answered, the revelations of the shark tumbling through her in a riotous waterfall. “But I shouldn’t keep you longer, you need to swim and breathe and feed.” Hai-la floated higher in the water.

“And you should rest, little Trill. You will need to fly and feed yourself come morning.” Hai-la curled around until she pointed out towards the bay. “I shall see you again soon, my new friend.”

Trill sang a farewell as Hai-la swam off, her fin dipping lower and lower until nothing remained but ripples. Trill watched and waiting, and as she began to give up hope the shark flew up into the night, spinning around tightly before falling back into the water. The tiny bird fluttered her wings happily and hopped her way up into her nest. She fell asleep thinking of great stretches of clear, clear water and no land and the grace of a long, silvery shape lined with white stripes. She had a friend. A large, dangerous, from-a-different-world friend, but a friend none the less.

~*~

 …to be continued…

The Ambassador’s (Last) Stop – a writing prompt piece

The following bit of whimsy was writing for a Six Minute Story prompt.  I ran out of seconds and didn’t get to finish the last sentence, so I’ve completed the piece here.  It’s a great way to shake up the muse, so stop by their site and see what comes to you!

Serge nudged his office door shut and sighed. Another lecture done, one more to go on the tour. “What I wouldn’t give for something fresh and green,” he grumbled.
The tall, leggy blond tossed his hair from his eyes, grunting as he hit the hanging lampshade once again. “I will not do this again,” he continued, complaining to the small, empty space. He missed the wild spaces, the trees, the meadows, his favorite pool with the tiny waterfall tumbling in.
“Gillenham can be the bloody ambassador to the Outside himself and finish this tour. I’m done.” His bags were packed, the floor swept, window open to let the not so fresh air of the campus in. He ducked his head through the wide strap and shivered it across his shoulders.
The door opened with a shove and he left. He wouldn’t answer another stupid question or pose for a picture. His hooves rang on the cobblestones as he left.
If the world wanted to see a unicorn they could come see him.

Trinkets :: #WeekendWriter Week 14

The following story is written off the prompting of the collection of images below.  To see the original challenge post and the other stories submitted, please go to the original post here: Weekend Writer Week 14

~*~

Trinkets

 

Dust fluttered in the slants of sun painting the attic through the vent, huge clumps of it floating, airborne scum.  Beatrice ducked under a beam, catching herself against it when the board under her foot cracked.

“Are you sure we should be up here?”  Joey’s whine, repeated for the seventh time, set her teeth.

“Where else would Nana have left it, idiot.”  It wasn’t her way to insult her brother, but his insistence that they should be looking in the basement revealed his lack of thought.  Their grandmother lived in a flood zone.  Why would she leave something important in the basement?  She heard the shift of his feet behind her.  ”Just. . .just get up here and help me.”

At seventeen Beatrice knew everything.  Well, everything she needed to know.  Except why it was so important for Nana to have this box.  But her grandmother had asked her to fetch it and she wouldn’t deny the frail woman who’d been her world since their parents’ death ten years ago.

Joey stuck his head up through the attic floor.  The teenager bit back a laugh.  His curly hair, sorely in need of a trim, haloed around him in the sun, a corona, an afro, of fiery red.  Normally perky beyond belief her brother’s eyes were smudged with dark circles, much the same as her own.  In better light they’d be red-rimmed as well.

He sneezed.  Beatrice rolled her eyes and stepped across to the next rafter, avoiding the bellied boards laid across them.  ”Just stay there,” she murmured.  It’d be easier, she thought, without him.  In the uneven light the shapes around her looked like nothing she’d expected.  A robot, decades old, blocky and coated in a layer of dust, stared at her from a cubeyhole in the wall.  Joey’s last costume, the one their mother had made him, made her start.  The blasted Chewbacca face looked like a werewolf in drag, draped over a dressmaker’s form and swathed around with dresses.  One of her grandmother’s feathered and ribboned hats sat at a jaunty angle across that furry head, looking altogether ridiculous once she got over the first glimpse of those empty eyesockets staring at her.

“It’s got to be here,” she grumbled, picking her way through the random and eclectic, all that remained of a woman who’d survived wars and famine and the rise and fall of technology.

“Maybe she’s mistaken,” Joey said.  He dragged his arm over his nose.  Beatrice counted to four before he started sneezing, this time a streak of seven explosions.

“Nana’s sharp as a tack, Joe, and she knows where she puts things.”  He didn’t answer that.  He knew she was right.  She kept creeping, looking for a trunk that matched the description.

Behind the wookie Beatrice let out a soft whoop.  There, under a precarious stack of shoe boxes and behind a tangle of skis and poles was her quarry.  Even after all these years the metal still gleamed.  She wondered what it held, what hid behind its locks and sturdy protection.

“I found it, Joey!  Come help me!”  Beatrice hissed at him, hoping their absence from the gathering three floors down hadn’t been noted.

She heard him scramble up the ladder.  Her heart lurched in her chest when a snap echoed through the attic.  ”Joey!” she cried, “step on the raft-”

Her brother’s yell twisted into the crash of wood, the impact shaking the rafters beneath Beatrice’s feet.  Voices lifted in alarm.  In the ominous quiet after her brother’s voice, weak and thin, reached her.  ”I’m ok.  I won’t tell you’re here, Bee.  Hide.  Get the box to Nana.”

Swallowing a wave of nauseating fear she climbed behind the trunk, ducking down, tucking her face in her shirt to block out the dust.

~finis~

Breadcrumbs

The following is my offering for this week’s #weekendwriter. Please don’t forget to check out the other offerings!

It was the wind that did it.  
One moment Sierra floated on the ethereal drifts of her imagination’s weavings.  The next she knelt, trembling, in the middle of her bed.
The gale whistled through the eaves again, part sigh, part cry of some far off being.  Trapped between slumber and full-consciousness the young woman found herself wondering if the ancients had it aright.
Perhaps some damned god did push and pull the winds.
She sank back into bed, adrenaline burning through her, a wildfire, her heart climbing into her throat.  
“I’ll never get back to sleep now,” she cursed, her low growl lifting the head of the great shaggy mutt beside her bed.  ”Go back to sleep, Beetle,” she soothed, reaching down to pat his head.  He grumbled and dropped his muzzle to the floor with a soft thud.  
The soft glow of the desk light in her study welcomed her.  Every flat surface played support for her most recent task and challenge.  Her last one.  The one that would see her finally ascend to the pinnacle, claim her dream.
Still-lifes, pencil sketches, pen and ink works, paintings, sculptures, even a mobile waited there for deciphering.  All the works of one woman.
One singular, stunning, woman.  An artist who’d retreated into a solitary life some ten years ago.  An individual Sierra felt driven to find.
Somewhere in the collection of works lay the key.  She knew it.  Felt it in the marrow of her bones.  
On her drafting table a map of the world held court.  Tiny replicas of the pieces pinned in place to represent where they surfaced.  The exquisite painting of a Navaho warrior in full regalia holding a fist of arrows, one, just one, pointing opposite the others with gold eagle fletching.  In the bottom corner of the painting, below the signature Sierra knew as well as her own, a nearly invisible N.
Northeast from San Jose, where the painting had appeared at auction.  
The strange still-life her best friend sent her from Franklin, North Dakota with its vase of calla lilies, sat atop a book titled South by Southwest and the cane with the perfectly executed head of a bulldog.  
South to Georgia, Sierra thought. 
The sculpted pyramid, multimedia.  Sierra had found it herself at a backwoods street sale.  She’d stared at the signature inscribed in the bottom until the man behind the table spit and asked if she was going to buy anything.  It set her back a hold five bucks.  And of all the pieces confused her the most.  
She knew it was meant to be her X, her star, her end of her journey.  Her eyes burned and the map before her swam, snapped back into focus.
There.
There.
There.
She could see it finally.  
The bold lines, sweeping curves.
Therese Balwell had been using her as her last brush.
Sierra knew it.
Remembered the harsh, hot whisper in her ear that last day of the painters’ retreat.  ’When you can follow my path, you will find the answer to that question.’
Sierra’s question.  ’Will I ever see you again.’
With near frantic movements the woman stretched a transparency over the map and grabbed her grease pencils.  One by one she tracked the journey, tracing lines from breadcrumb to breadcrumb until all were connected.
All the lines intersected in the tiny town where she’d discovered the the pyramid.  
A little place not an hour from her.
With a sob Sierra sank her head into her hands.
Finally.
It was done.
In the morning her beat up truck bounced its was down her pitted driveway, Beetle hanging his tongue out to taste the wind of change.

The Keen Edge of Secrets :: The Weekend Writer

The following is my take on the #weekendwriter challenge.  Do stop by the main post and check out the other stories…they’re all fantastic!

~~*~~

There are no secrets in a small town, except the ones the whole town keeps from the outside world.  Grayston nestled in the foothills, serving as gatekeeper to some of the finest local skiing around.  Careful attention to the town’s reputation showed in the well-tended main street.  It looked like  a postcard.

The gift shop had the postcards.

Snow fell, giant fluffy bits of clouds drifting to the ground.  Flakes melted on the hot licks of flames jumping skyward, an elemental child tasting the first storm of the year.  By morning the slopes would be covered, the base building.  Soon the skiers would arrive.

Four years, one month, three days.  My eyes tracked to my hands, both hands bare of rings.  A curling bit of photograph floated upwards above my bonfire.  Few would recognize the corner as the remnant of my wedding day.  Every one in town would still know.

How many watched me burning him from my memory from the safe, warm embrace of their houses?  Likely more than I cared to count.  By sunrise the whole town would know that he’d walked out on me.  By the time the great brass bell called everyone to service they would all know and would be doing what this town does best.

Revisionist history.

Could I do that?  Reinvent my life, erase my marriage, my miscarriage, the abuse, his affair.

My phone hummed in my pocket.  I drew a breath and tossed my hand towards the fire.  My wedding bouquet traveled in a graceful arch, the dried flowers igniting before they landed, sending a bloom of sparks up into the night sky.

The heat beat against my back as I turned away, aiming for the slender beacon of light leading me to my escape.  Behind Angela her truck rumbled, the few bits of my life I’d chosen to keep stowed under a tarp in the back.  She held the flashlight steady, illuminating my path to freedom.

“Ready?”  The calm confidence in her voice soothed me as much as the warm fingers that accepted my reaching hand.  I nodded and she smiled.  I looked back over my shoulder.  It’s amazing how little time it takes to reduce  years to ashes.

“Yes.”  I climbed into the passenger seat, sparing one last thought to the silhouettes watching us.  I wondered what story they would craft for this year’s visitors that would explain the absence of the town’s baker, butcher, and candler.  And how long it would take for them to replace us, returning the little community to its picturesque way.

I didn’t care.  The secrets has borne their fine, keen edges long enough that I bore scars, proof of what had happened, and reason enough to leave.

Fiction ~ Seashells

I’ve been taking part in Leah Petersen‘s #5MinuteFiction challenge for almost two months now, I think.  Twice I’ve made it to the final five, and this past week I’m honored to say that I tied for first place with the following piece!  There’s always a word prompt, and this week was the word ‘sixty’.  I started out in one direction, that likely would have ended up on my erotica blog, then backed up and felt this piece presented to me of a whole, in part inspired by a picture of a friend and her daughter, in part by a box of seashells on my shelf at home, and in part by the realization that as children we never quite realize how treasured we are until we treasure someone else, be it daughter, son, niece, nephew, etc.


She doesn’t know I still have them, that I’ve kept them tucked away in a small satin lined box. But I have. Conchs and augers, scallops and clams, mussels, helmets, oysters, olives, turbans; every seashell unique and beautiful.

Serena left them behind on purpose, of that I know, thinking them a silly reminder of times passed. I, however, keep them, treasured for what they are; little keys to snapshots in time. Memories.

I count them out every year on her birthday, let them play through my fingers, remembering each beach; sandy, rocky; that we scoured for them. Some years she answers when I call, others not. She has her own life now.

This year, though, it’s time to return them to her. They are hers as well as mine, now. Because next year I won’t be around to count. My handwriting is careful, the wording specific. I fold the letter, tuck it inside, tape a nametag to the box. ‘Serena’.

Hopefully those sixty shells will help her remember me when I’m gone. Remember when her hand, tiny, fit into mine, and we created memories, mother and daughter.

~finis~

dedicated to the wee imp whose smile makes my day every time I see it

and to my mom, who never lets me forget my inner child.

Precipitation

sometimes the best and only gift there is can be the simplicity and complexity of a tear.


I started with a scythe.

That long, curved blade seemed the best to start clearing the clutter.

I’d cast seeds here and there, carelessly letting my own vitality feed them, nuture them.  And they grew, sprouted into an endless variety.  Soon the landscape of my soul lay concealed and unseen beneath a carpet of flowers, ivy, weeds.  For I’d unknowingly seeded those too.  The invasive species began to crowd out the residents that gave me back beauty, fragrance, peace and serenity.  Year by year those weeds took over until my soils supported naught but burrdock and goldenrod, poison ivy and dandelion.  Gone were my roses, my ivies, my clematis, my bleeding heart, my wild strawberries and lilies of the valley.

And it was time to start anew.

With whetstone I honed my blade.  I ignored my gloves when I gripped the handles; I deserved every blister the clearing caused.  The first pass of the scythe proved the hardest.  Breaking into the tangled mess of my garden jolted me to the bedrock of my being.  Twist, swing, slice.  Twist swing, slice.  Soon I lost myself in the rhythm of the chore, taking the tall plants down, laying them behind me in a tall pile.

The naked soil was parched and depleted; a practical desert.  My neglect had let the interlopers strip all the vitality from it.  And I sat and cried.

My tears fed the soil; salty precipitation cleansing and preparing.  Soon those first plants will arrive; beach rose and winterberry, ice plant and dunegrass.  And my landscape will be reclaimed and replanted again, reborn, revitalized and alive once more.