Finding Yourself

The visual prompt:

Our main characters are:

A Lich ~ This necromancer stored her soul in her staff to stave off mortality.

AND

A Treant ~ This tree's bite is worse than it's bark!

The special object in this story is:

An Invisibility Ring ~ Nobody's ever seen this ring in action, but that probably means it's really effective.

Our story takes place in:

Lost Woods ~ The branching paths will leave you bushed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was a summer I'd never forget.

If it had been up to me, I would have spent the entire summer vacation up in my room playing video games, or reading comics, or going to my friend Liam's house to play Dungeons and Dragons in his basement with random buddies of his. But that year, apparently it wasn't up to me. It was up to my parents.

That's how I found myself at Lake Indago, the summer camp where, according to the pamphlets, you could "learn useful wilderness survival skills, get in touch with nature, and FIND yourself". 

Yeah. Right.

We were riding and bumping along, far, far away from any kind of proper civilization. It was just me and a dozen other kids riding in this rickety old bus along a woodsy road, thick with all kinds of trees on either side of us.

The camp bus was just a regular old school bus that been spray-painted purple, and it looked like it might fall apart at any time. I tried pointing this out to my dad, but he just said "Oh, I'm sure it's perfectly safe." I then tried to convince my mom that I couldn't go on the bus, "because there's already 12 people! I'll just make the group a baker's dozen, and you know how unlucky the number 13 is!" But she reminded me that I wasn't counting our 2 camp counselors, so really we had 15 on the bus. All my arguments were invalid.

Personally, I still wouldn't count the counselors. Trent Barkly, the fat, hairy guy driving the bus, barely said a word to anyone the entire way. He looked like someone you didn't want to mess with, but was, for the most part, harmless. He just grunted like an old caveman once in a while, munching noisily on an apple. He must have really liked eating apples, because he had a whole box of them right next to his chair. Once he'd eaten one apple down to its core, he'd start eating another one. He probably didn't do anything except drive this dumb bus and eat his dumb apples all day long. 

Our other counselor was Liz Nekromann. Liz just plain creeped me out, dude. She seemed really old, the kind of old where you shouldn't be working with kids anymore, because at your age you hate them anyway. She was really skinny, had this long, thin face that was as pale as a skeleton's (you'd think working at a summer camp out in the wild would give you more of a tan!) and she carried this old wooden walking stick everywhere. She claimed she only used it for hiking purposes, but who was she kidding? Obviously she used it to hide her stiff, zombie-like limp.

I leaned my forehead against the bus window, watching tree after tree after stinking tree flash across my vision, bored out of my mind. They didn't allow you to take along electronics of any kind for this camp, so there was no Pokemon or Angry Birds to distract me from my misery. No, I was forced to make a choice between suffering in silence, or at least attempting to socialize with my fellow campers.

Unfortunately, because there were only 2 people to a seat, and because I'd been the last one to get on the bus, I was the odd man out. Not that it made any difference to me. I was pretty used to being the lone wolf. It's not that I was a bad-looking guy, or particularly weird or anything. I was just a normal 15-year old. Maybe I was a little on the geeky, awkward side, and maybe I was slightly over-attached to technology, but hey, that's normal today, isn't it?

Apparently not. It looked like I was the only kid who didn't want to be here. Everyone else seemed really excited about camping out in a real forest, sleeping in real tents and having s'mores around a real campfire!

Yeah. Right.

"This is going to be so much fun!" said a girl sitting behind me to her "bus buddy", who was already her BFF.

"I know, right? I've alwayth wanted to go camping out in a real foretht!" said the other girl, lisping terribly through her braces.

"Yeah, me too!" Her blonde ponytail bounced as she nodded with excitement (or it could have been the rickety bus that was making it bounce like that. "I wonder when we're going to get to the lake. Why do you think they call it Lake Indago, anyway?"

"Oh, they probably meant to call it Indigo, but jutht mithpelled it. Why elthe would the buth and Liz and Trent'th shirth and everything be in purple?"

"Good theory, but you're actually wrong," I said in a bored voice. I turned around in my seat. "Indago isn't just Indigo misspelled. It's also a Latin verb that happens to mean 'to search', though it can also mean 'to track', 'to seek', or 'to explore'. Like the brochure says, obviously we're supposed to find ourselves. And besides, the color indigo is closer to being blue than being purple. It's certainly more blue than the purple our counselors are wearing."

The two of them exchanged a glance, and tried smiling politely, though I could tell inside they were thinking, "how rude!" "Is that so?" asked the first girl with the ponytail.

"Yeah. Unlike you, I did my research," I replied, and turned away from them, smirking.

"Okaaaay." Brace-face ignored me and looked back at Blondie. "I wonder when we're gonna get to the lake. It feelth like forever thinth we had that lunch thtop. How long have we been on this buth, do you think?"

"3 hours and 37 minutes," I announced. I turned around again, just to see the girls' reactions, and they both wore disgusted frowns that said "nobody asked you, nerd."

"You're not thuppothed to bring electronicth to camp," lisped the second girl. As if I needed reminding about that rule.

"I didn't." I lifted my arm and showed them my wristwatch. "See? It's analog. I've just been keeping track."

Girl number 1 rolled her eyes at me. "Whatever," she said. She waved her hand at me dismissively, like she'd made me invisible, and she and her friend went back to talking. Quieter this time, so I couldn't join in on their conversation again.

I sighed, and went back to leaning my head against the window and watching the trees pass us by. I didn't want to be friends with those girls anyway.

At long last, just before sunset, our long bus journey came to a stop. Trent parked in a clearing and waved us all off the bus.

Ms. Nekromann hobbled out after us stiffly with her staff. "Come along, children, and follow me while Mr. Barker sets up camp for us," she said, her voice creaking like her old bones. So we left the grunting driver to do the grunt work of setting up our new digs. Food, sleeping bags, fire, that sort of thing.

We found a perfect semi-circle of logs, to which Nekromann wordlessly directed everyone to sit down on while she leaned against an old stump, catching her breath. For a while everybody chatted away to their neighbors in excited whispers, waiting for something to happen, until they all realized that probably nothing was going to happen until everyone stopped talking, and so everyone fell silent.

The sun sank slowly in the distance, and the sky began changing from orange to indigo. The grass waved in the summer breeze, the first crickets started to chirp, and the crickets became that awkward kind of background noise you hear in cartoons when the character tries to make a funny joke, but no one is laughing or saying anything.

Finally Ms. Nekromann spoke, breaking the silence and making me jump in surprise. "Welcome, dear boys and girls, to the Lost Woods." She spoke in a low, dramatic voice.

"Aw, I thought we were going to Lake Indigo," whined some kid.

"In-DAH-go, child, not indigo. We will not be able to make it to the lake today, since night is quickly approaching, and Mr. Barker will be unable to see where he is going on this unlit road, so we are camping here for tonight. We are not very far from the camp, only a few more miles down the road." She waved her staff in the general direction of Trent and the purple bus. "There is also a shortcut path that cuts through these woods," she added, pointing at the trees behind me, "which we shall all hike together in the morning."

I wondered how Ms. Nekromann was going to manage hiking with us, with her bad leg and all.

"Tonight, however, let us take the opportunity to get in touch with all the nature around us. Listen to it. Feel it surround us. Draw energy from it. The air, the plants, the animals, and especially the trees..."

The girl with the annoying lisp interrupted. "Animalth? There aren't any bearth around, are there, Liz?"

Nekromann turned to her slowly. "Don't fret, dear girl. There are no animals about who would harm us. We were perfectly safe in this forest, I assure you." Our counselor paused, trying to remember what she was saying before Brace Face had interrupted her. "As you can see, there are many, many trees in the Lost Woods. These woods are said to hold the largest variety of tree species found anywhere in the country."

All the kids oohed in amazement.

"There are stories that say that those who have been foolish enough to wander too far alone into the Lost Woods have never found their way back, perhaps becoming trees themselves. This is why it's important to always travel with a friend."

If that was so, then why the heck did we have an odd amount of people in our camp group? Everyone was already partnered up except for me. Who was going to be my friend? Trent the driver? Not very likely. Ms. Nekromann? I shuddered at the very thought.

"Now then. We shall have a nice dinner by the fire and, as soon as Mr. Barker has all your sleeping bags ready, we will be straight off to bed and enjoy sleeping under the stars.

Oh, great. We were going to be a fantastic feast for all the mosquitoes and other insects as we slept. I sure hoped Trent kept the bug spray handy.

To be continued...

Edit: November 6, 2013, Saturday
Here's part 2 of the story! Hope you FIND it enjoyable. ^,~

No reveal today

Hey readers.
Because I'm a little delayed in my newest story prompt, I'm not going to pick new cards tonight. I think making my 2-part Boldaphist story is what must have done it.
So tomorrow I will be back on schedule, writing a full short story and then choosing a new 4-card set for the next prompt.
Hope you all enjoy my latest story! ^_^
Bettina Levy

Wishing Star

The visual prompt:

Our main characters are:

A Fairy ~ This manic pixie dream girl will blow your mind with her tricky magic.

AND

An Elf ~ He once shot an apple off of his own head right into a bull's eye.

The special object in this story is:

A Wishing Star ~ Be careful what you wish for! Because it just might come true in the most ironic way possible.

Our story takes place in:

Capital City ~ A bustling metropolis plagued by corruption, violent crime, and actual plague.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Wanda was driving me crazy. Again.

"Hey, Elf! Let's play a game together! Come play with me!" Her perky voice floated to my ears from the other room like bubbles. It grated on my nerves, especially when I was in the middle of something important, like filling out my application to take the Capital City bar exam.

"For the 9th time, Wanda, it's Alf, not elf. And I can't play with you right now, I'm busy."

As I ran an annoyed hand through my frizzy hair (I should really get it cut soon), I heard the bare-footed thump thump thump of her running through the hall and right into my room. Strange, I distinctly remembered locking the door.

There she stood in the doorway, wearing her prim yellow nightdress, lined with fluffy pink feathers. "You're always busy," Wanda pouted at me. 

I sighed. "I'm not always busy."

In my peripheral vision, I saw her walking around the room, tracing the multitude of cracks in the walls with her little fingers. I should remember to fix those. She could cut herself on those sharp edges. "Yes you are, Elf."

That was the 10th time today. "Alf, Wanda. How many times do I have to keep telling you to stop doing that to my wall?" 

"How many times do I have to keep telling you? I'm Wanda Fairy, and you're Elf Arrow-Shooter," she said stubbornly. "We both have magical powers, and magic people play together!"

Her last name wasn't really Fairy, it was Farri. (Close enough though, I guess.) And no matter how much she insisted on it, my name was not Elf. It was Alf. Alfonzo Shooter. (Though she was pretty clever to give me a bad ass name like Arrow-Shooter. Not bad for an 8 year old.)

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose, counting to ten so I wouldn't lose my temper. "Alright Wanda. You win. You're a fairy, and I'm an elf."

She started to clap very fast, giddy with triumph. "Yay!" she crowed, and she clambered on to my neatly made bed to jump on it, flapping her arms through the air as if she really did have pixie wings.

"Aw, come on! I told you to quit doing that." Why did she have to jump on my bed, while I was working? I gave her her own bed, didn't I?

"Listen, I'd love to play with you Wanda, I really would," I lied, "but right now I've gotta work my magic on this paper over here, okay?"

Her little butt thumped on my bed, making her bounce off to stick the landing gracefully on the hardwood floor.  She folded her arms at me, giving me the stink eye. God, if looks could kill. "You're no fun!"

I shrugged, already ignoring her, having turned right back to my application paper.

"Guess what? You're not Elf Arrow-Shooter anymore. You're Elf Party-Pooper." Having said that, she stomped out of my room, slamming the door behind her hard enough to make me wince.

I put my pen down and covered my face with my hands, making a loud, muffled noise in exasperation. "Ugh!"

Sometimes I wondered why I'd ever let this little girl into my life in the first place. I never had time for Wanda anyway, and she always drove me nuts! I ought to just dump her in the Capital City orphanage and wash my hands of her entirely!

But I knew I couldn't possibly do that. Conditions at the orphanage were terrible and the people running it were nasty and crooked. I remembered meeting with the old headmistress. I was sure she'd have even less patience for Wanda Farri's antics than I did (if that were possible), so she was way better off staying with me.

Well, ideally she'd be better off with her parents, but it seemed like she had none. Anytime I tried asking her what had happened to them, she always changed the story. She was a chronic liar. Sometimes she said she'd run away from home, because her father was a corrupt politician and she'd discovered his secret. Sometimes she'd say her mother had died giving birth to her, and her father had been a vigilante hero before the police caught him and threw him in jail. Sometimes she said both her parents had succumbed to Capital Cancer, a sadly common sickness only found in this very city for which there is no known cure. Whatever her real story was, she couldn't go back to her real family, so she was on her own.

I started hearing the shrieks of different sirens whirring outside. Distracted once again, I looked out my bedroom window, staring out at the streets that were bathed in a toxic green neon glow.

3 stories below me, an ambulance barreled through traffic, probably with someone sick or in critical condition inside. WHAAAA-EEEE-OOOOH!

A cop car chased close behind the ambulance, apparently under the impression that speed laws applied the same to emergency vehicles. WHEE-WHOO WHEE-WHOO!

A guy stealing hubcaps caused some car's alarm system to set off, and the thief ran away with them. If the police had only been doing their jobs properly, they would have caught the guy and the crime would have been prevented. BEEP BEEP BEEP, WOW WOW WOW!

Capital City was a mess. Everyone knew it, and hardly anyone tried to change it. I used to think I could change it. About 2 years ago I'd moved here, all the way from Veritas Valley (one of those small towns where everyone knows your name, but that you've probably never heard of), so I could go to Capital College and become a doctor, or a lawyer, or a politician, and clean up this town. They said if you could make it here, you could make it anywhere.

My dad always told me to dream big. He used to tell me, "Alfonzo my boy, you're a Shooter, and do you know what Shooters do? They aim for the stars!"

Well, no one could see any stars in this city, not with all the smoggy air pollution caused by all the smog-spewing factories, not to mention all the light pollution caused by those green lights. I wasn't sure why the streetlights were green and not something easier to see by, like yellow or white. I think someone once told me it was to imitate the great Emerald City of Oz, but the lights only made the city look ill. (Anyway, the Emerald City was never actually green, was it? Everyone just wore green-tinted glasses. At least they did in the book.)

I realized I was doing nothing but dumbly staring into space. I shook my head, trying to get my concentration back. What was I doing again?

Oh, that's right! I was filling out my application to take the bar exam. I picked up my pen again and found the question I'd been trying to write the answer to before Wanda had rudely interrupted me.

Wanda. If it hadn't been for her, I probably still would have been undecided in my college major.

It couldn't have been more than a few months ago. I'd been doing some back-to-school shopping at the Capital City Mega-Mall, looking for bargain text-books, new shoes, that kind of stuff. A window display for this hobby-store had caught my attention, and I'd been checking out this mannequin dressed as Robin Hood with a hoodie or something, holding a bow and arrow. When I was a kid at summer camp at Lake Veritas, I'd been the arching champion. (How funny now that Wanda had called me Arrow Shooter. It was an apt name, even though I barely practiced anymore.)

Just then, I'd turned and noticed this girl dodging through the mall crowd, trying to avoid the mall security guards who were chasing her. We locked eyes with each other, and I guess she must have thought I had a kind face or something, because she decided to run straight in my direction and wrap me in a tight, desperate hug.

"Unh!" I grunted. (She was strong for a little girl!)

"Oh, big brother! I found you, I found you!" She buried her face in my winter coat and started to cry, apparently frightened by the big scary guards.

"Huh...? What are you...?" I was so confused.

She looked up at me, not showing any tears. She wasn't really crying; she was faking it! "My name's Wanda," she whispered quickly. "Help me!"

"Excuse me, son, do you know this girl?" asked one of the security guards.

I looked down at Wanda, and she'd gazed up at me with the innocent eyes only a girl her age could pull off. "Uh, yeah. I'm her... big brother. Did Wendy..."

"Wanda!" she hissed at me so only I could hear her.

"...Uh, did Wanda do anything wrong, officers?" I asked, quickly correcting myself.

"We caught her trying to steal a toy from the toy store. That kid sister of yours is a little thief!"

I grabbed Wanda's arms and forced her to let go of my waist, looking at her sternly. "Is this true, Wanda?"

She rolled her eyes and sighed heavily, pulling out the little box she was hiding inside her coat. Apparently the thing she had shop-lifted was called the Wishing Star. Able to grant real wishes! the box proclaimed. She pulled a shiny, plastic orange orb out of the cardboard, gave it a vigorous shake, and it lit up in flashing rainbow colors with cheap LED lights.

"It was just so pretty, and I didn't have anymore money, and I really, really wanted it!"

I shook my head, trying not to laugh. She was quite the little actress. "Well, silly, all you had to do was ask me for more money. I'd have gladly paid for it. It's very wrong to steal, Wanda."

Her eyes lit up like it was Christmas. (I forget whether this had all happened before or after Christmas. I think it was after.) "Really? You mean it? Can I really have my own Wishing Star?"

"Only if you say the magic words."

"If you don't do it, I'll wish you into a toad!" She shook the flashing ball in my face threateningly. I couldn't help but laugh at her.

In the end, I agreed to buy Wanda her toy ball (which cost over $10, with taxes, mind you!), following behind the grumpy mall cops and holding her tiny hand all the way back to the toy store. 

After we walked out of the mall, I tried saying goodbye to her and walking back to my apartment, which was only a few blocks away. But she just kept following me, trailing behind like a lost puppy.

"Can't I stay with you at your place? Just for tonight? I don't have anywhere else to go."

She looked so sad and helpless. Maybe she was only putting on another act, I don't know, but it worked. My heart went out to her, and I agreed to take her in.

My whole life, being an only child back in Veritas Valley, I had always wished for siblings to play with. And now, just like that, I found myself with a little sister.

Guess I should have been a little more careful what I wished for. I scratched my head with the back of the pen and sighed.

Wanda wasn't all that bad, really. Sure, she bugged me most of the time, but what could she do? She was just a little kid. I was probably her only friend in the world.

I looked down at my application paper for a few seconds. Suddenly I noticed, at the top of the application, in the space meant for filling in my name, I'd accidentally written "Elf Arrow Shooter".

Since I wrote it in pen, I couldn't very well erase it, and I was all out of white-out.

With one quick motion, I grabbed the paper and crumpled it up into a little ball using one hand. With a practiced basketball throw, I then tossed it right into the wastebasket. Yes! Nothing but net!

Capital City had a long way to go before it could be a good, healthy city again, but law school could wait. At least for tonight. (I could always get a new, clean application tomorrow.)

"Hey Wanda, let's play a game together."

Story War Card Reveal #3

So I took it pretty easy today, taking a well-deserved break after writing my "Boldaphist the Brave" story. ^,^ I did write a tiny bit in my Fairy/Elf story tonight, though, about 500 words. I'm not showing it now, since it still needs work, but I have a feeling it's going to be much shorter than my first story, and won't require 2 parts.

Having said that, I'm going to pick my new cards. It may be a little ambitious, but I think I can write 2 short short stories in a day...

Oh yeah. These plot elements all go together SO well. ^_^ This will be a snap!

My two characters:

The object they'll be using:

And the story takes place in:

Boldaphist the Brave, part 2

So I didn't have time to work on my second short story with the fairy, elf, and wishing star in Capitol City, but I was able to give "Boldaphist the Brave" a pretty great ending, in my opinion. ^_^ I'm so proud of myself for finishing this, since I don't have many stories that I can say I've finished, and I only wrote this in 2 days! Plus I put another great dent in my word count, adding 2,300+ words! Whoo-hoo! So yeah, hope you enjoy the rest of the story! ^,~

“That is all that I remember,” said Yashir as he finished telling his sad tale.

Everyone was silent around the table for a while, heads bowed somberly and respectfully.

Boldaphist stroked his thick beard in thought, shaking his head slowly. “Yashir, laddie, I’m mighty sorry ya had to go through all that.” He turned to one of Yashir’s uncles, a man named Ari. “What happened after the boy went off to get help?”

“Well, of course we immediately sent a few men to investigate what had happened to his parents and sister. Unfortunately, we lost a couple of men at that time, for they turned into stone, just like his family did. But the men who did come back said that they saw stone hens and animals everywhere, and believed they had seen a misshapen white rooster wandering about.”

Boldaphist's bushy eyebrows rose suddenly at this, and he leaned forward with great interest. “A rooster, you say? Is that so?”

“Yes, we believe it is this creature that is causing all the mayhem. Those who looked directly into the animal’s eyes became frozen, so no one could get a very good look at it without being turned themselves, but they described it to have spines and a bright red tail like a lizard’s, but besides that, it seemed to be just a chicken.”

To everyone’s surprise, Boldaphist started to laugh. A rumbling laugh like a boulder rolling down a mountain. Yashir, Ari and the others all stared at the dwarf. “Hahaha!... Oh, I’m sorry. I really don’t mean to be laughin' at you all, but… Hahahaha!... You folks have nothin' to worry about! No one has been lost at all!”

Yashir’s eyes blinked with hope. “They… they haven’t?”

“That’s right, laddie. In fact, I happen to know exactly the kind of animal yer dealin' with!”

“You do?”

“Yessir, Yashir m’boy. You poor folks sound like ya have a cockatrice on yer hands.”

The men in the room looked at each other in confusion.

“Excuse me, a coke-a-trees?” asked a man wearing a turban. He sat at the corner of the table, another one of Yashir’s uncles.

“A cock-a-triss, laddie, a cock-a-triss,” repeated Boldaphist. “Deadly creatures. Will stop yer heart and turn ya to stone just as soon as look at ya. I’m guessin' this one musta come about cuz of that black bit of chicken feed Yashir found that day. You were quite right to be suspicious of it from the start, laddie. That there was a Bramble Seed. Anyone who plants it, or has any animal that eats it has incredibly evil luck comin' their way. Not sure how it coulda come to be in yer possession, though. Anyhow, the chicken that ate the Bramble Seed musta laid an egg that held the cockatrice in it.”

Yashir’s head sunk. “I see. So that is what happened to them.”

“Yes, but the good news is, none of those stony people are dead! They’re just trapped in there, encased in the rock.”

When the dwarf said that, the young boy looked up. “What?” His lips began to curl into a smile for the first time since they’d met. “Do you mean to say that Vivi, and my parents... they are actually alive?”

Boldaphist nodded. “Yes I do, laddie. All ya gotta do is chisel yer folks and everyone else out of the stone… very lightly, mind you!... and you’ll find them perfectly right as rubies. Probably they’ll still be stiff like statues for a day or 2, but they’ll be quite fine.”

“But how are we to get to the people with this cockatrice running about?” asked Ari. “We don’t exactly want to risk anyone else getting turned.”

Boldaphist grunted. “Hmph, that is true.” The dwarf then banged his fists on the table, accidentally rattling a few cups and dishes, and stood up from his seat. It didn’t really give him much of a height difference, but it was still a dramatic gesture. “Well kind folks, I’ll be more’n happy to take care of yer pesky cockatrice problem. ‘Tis the least I can do to thank all of ya fer savin' me from dyin' of thirst out there, and kindly takin' me in like this.”

Yashir’s expression became frightened. “No, Boldaphist, sir! Won’t the cockatrice just freeze you as well?”

“Ah, but you forget, laddie. I’m a dwarf, not a man,” Boldaphist explained, winking at the boy. He pointed at his beady, granite grey eyes. “Me eyes are already made of stone, so that critter won’t have any effect on me at all.”

The uncles all started murmuring to each other, grinning at this incredible news. Ari stood up. “Very well, dwarf. We would be very grateful to you and be forever in your debt if you would rid our village of this cursed cockatrice.”

Boldaphist nodded proudly. “They don’t call me Boldaphist the Brave fer nothin'!”

The next day, the sky was once again a pale, deathly blue, with not a cloud in the sky as the sun climbed towards its apex. The dwarf approached the farmhouse of Yashir’s family, which no one had been to since that tragic day the cockatrice had attacked them. In his fists, he carried a huge, red double-edged axe, the blade part of it practically as big as himself!

“How… how are you able to hold that?” Yashir had asked him. He'd been quite shocked when Boldaphist had taken what seemed like a short stick out of one of his tool-belt pockets, only to see it extend suddenly and transform into an impressive weapon with a flick of the dwarf’s wrist.

“Ah, don’t ya worry about me, Yashir. I may not look it, but I’m about as strong as an ant. This here is nothing but a toy fer me,” he’d explained, and pumped the axe easily above his head like he was weight-lifting, purely for dramatic effect. Yashir’s eyes had widened in amazement.

Now, Boldaphist was all alone with his axe, hunting for the cockatrice. For some reason, it didn’t seem to be around, though its victims were all still standing around. The statues of all the poor men and chickens must have been baking for ages and ages under this desert heat. Boldaphist rubbed his sweaty forehead and thanked his lucky stars he’d never have to be in their shoes, being totally immune to the cockatrice’s stony curse.

He looked inside the hen house, and saw the forms of Yashir’s family, just as the boy had described them. Little Vivi, with her hands clutched to her face, her mouth formed in a perpetual scream of terror. The father, with his arms reaching out to her, trying to protect her, while the mother hugged him desperately, also with a terrified face.

Boldaphist sadly patted the stone woman’s back. He wasn’t tall enough to reach her shoulder. “Don’t worry ma’am. I’m gonna get all of ya out of here, just as soon as I deal with the monster that did this to ya. For yer boy, Yashir.”

Just then he heard a noise, coming from inside the house. A kind of gurgly, raspy kind of cluck that could have been a growl. Boldaphist's head turned and he gripped the handle of his axe tighter, wielding it above his head, ready if the creature decided to strike him.

Out walked the strangest little chicken you'd ever seen. Its body was a small, round mass of white feathery fluff, and where a chicken would have had its wings, the cockatrice had its legs, poking out from the sides and scaly black like an evil dragon's legs. It had bony spines sticking out of its back, and a red spiked tail waving back and forth as it waddled forward, head bobbing comically.

"Aw, hey there, little fella!" Boldaphist lowered his axe and crouched down, waving at the creature. He'd forgotten that the thing was only a couple of months old and, because it wasn't very dangerous to him personally, in its own creepy way he found it a little cute. The creature barely came up to his kneecaps.

The cockatrice saw him and tried to give the dwarf the stony stare. When it saw that it wasn't working, it gave a puzzled "bu-krawr?"

Boldaphist chuckled. "Hehe, yer tricks won't work on me, laddie." He stood up again and held up his axe. "Now it's time fer you to go."

He took a step forward, and suddenly the cockatrice hissed at him and shot at him faster than the dwarf thought was possible with its little monster legs. It was nothing but a blur.

Quickly Boldaphist dodged out of the way, and the thing barreled past him, missing. He swung around, and saw the cockatrice scratching at the dirt with its claws, not unlike a bull pawing its hooves to the ground at a bullfight.

Great granite, thought Boldaphist. Even for a young 'un, you've got quite a terrible speed on ya. Probably the Bramble Seed its mother had eaten before giving birth to it had been particularly nasty. 

The cockatrice ran at him again, streaking like a bullet. Boldaphist tried to swing his axe at the reptilian bird, but he missed, and instead the creature got him, biting him in the leg.

"Yowch!" Boldaphist began hopping on one foot, temporarily dropping his weapon.

The cockatrice faced him again, rasping an evil hiss.

It hadn't done too much damage, really it was only a scratch, but it made Boldaphist fall over in his pain. He shook his fist angrily at the cockatrice. "Why, you little...!"

Ignoring him, the little monster bolted forward, intending to go in for the kill. It jumped up into the air, clawed feet extended in front of it, itching to dig into the dwarf's flesh.

Before that could happen, Boldaphist picked up his axe again, holding it in front of him like a shield and wincing his eyes closed.

He heard a heavy THUNK right next to him. Surprised to be unharmed, Boldaphist opened his eyes, looked beside him, and found a grey cockatrice statue lying on its side.

Grinning at how fortunate he was, the dwarf winked at himself in the shiny metal of his axe, which he had only polished earlier that morning. The poor creature hadn't had anyone to teach it that looking at its own reflection in a mirror was a fatal mistake.

"Hehe, not so tough now, are ya, ya little devil, you?" said Boldaphist, kicking at the stone cockatrice by his feet.

The statue wasn't quite frozen, though, and suddenly started to rattle on the ground, shaking with rage. "Uh-oh," said the dwarf, and he quickly swung his axe at the creature's neck, beheading it. The cockatrice stopped moving.

"That's more like it," Boldaphist said.

Yashir approached the statue of his mother slowly. He looked back at his short, brave dwarf friend, looking almost afraid. "Are you sure I can do this?"

"Of course you can, Yashir m'boy. You see everyone else workin' to free the stone people, and they're all fine, see?"

Indeed, Yashir's uncles were all working hard around them, with pick axes, hammers and chiseling nails, hacking away at the' tough, rocky prisons they'd been trapped in for nearly 2 months. Slowly but surely, hands and legs and faces were being freed, and the statues fell away to the living people still underneath.

The boy still hesitated. "I don't want to hurt her. Show me the way how, first."

"Alright, laddie, alright. Gimme yer chisel." When Yashir had handed him his tool, Boldaphist went to work, tapping lightly at the mother's leg. "I tell ya, there's nothin' to it. Ya just have to make some cracks in the stone and peel away the pieces."

After removing some stone bits, the boy started to see the dark, olive skin of his mother being revealed. He accepted the chisel that the dwarf handed back to him, and started carefully poking and scratching at her stone surface.

"You can do it a little harder than that, boy."

"Sorry." Yashir stood on his tiptoes and made the stone on his mothers face split into little pieces. Carefully he moved the pieces away, and he heard a shuddering gasp, then the sound of heavy breathing, like the person hadn't tasted fresh air in a long, long time.

"Mother!" Yashir worked quickly around her, though still being careful, freeing the rest of her face, her arms, her hair. Boldaphist just watched him, smiling a proud, bushy bearded smile.

"Y-Yashir?" Her voice was so weak, and though she was no longer encased in stone, she could barely move.

"Yes mother, it is me!" Yashir put down his tool for a moment so he could wrap his arms around her, hugging her tightly.

Slowly, stiffly, his mother's arms surrounded him as she returned the hug. "Oh, my Yashir. Your voice is music to my ears." Weakly, she pushed him back so she could get a good look at him. "I thought I would never see you again."

"I didn't either, until I met Boldaphist the Brave," said Yashir with a child's joyful smile. He turned around to point out the dwarf, but he was no longer standing where he had been.

Yashir frowned, glanced around for his friend, and he saw the dwarf already quite in the distance. He could see him riding a fat little donkey, pulling a cartload's worth of supplies, and holding a pea-green sun-faded parasol over his head. One of his uncles must have lent it to Boldaphist, to show the village's thanks.

The boy was disappointed to see his friend leave without properly saying goodbye. He let go of his mother and cupped his hands around his mouth. "I'll never forget you!"

He wasn't sure, but Yashir thought he could see the dwarf waving at him. He must have had a huge smile under that fantastic beard of his.

A couple of seconds later, right before Yashir turned around, so fast that he might have missed it had he blinked, he saw dwarf, donkey, and cart vanish into thin desert air.

Story War Card Reveal #2

Apologies for the late posting! My first story, Boldaphist the Brave, took a while for me to get ready. It's still not finished yet, but I left it in a pretty good place. I promise to finish the ending soon, but for now, it's time to see what my next story is going to be about!

My two characters:

The object they'll be using:

And the story takes place in:

Boldaphist the Brave

The visual prompt:

Our main characters are:

A Cockatrice ~ This weirdo’s paralyzing stare means it has never lost a game of chicken.

AND

A Dwarf ~ He might look small, but he’s as strong as an ant!

The special object in this story is:

A Bramble Seed ~ This bad seed contains the root of all evil.

Our story takes place in:

A Desert Oasis ~ A tiny tropical haven from the burning desert sun. Or is it?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The sun blazed fierce in the deathly blue sky. The air was dry and hot, unforgiving. On an unbearable day such as this, you would think not a creature could be found stirring in this vast, deadly desert for miles and miles.
But you'd be wrong. Alone in the desert, one brave soul dragged his feet upon the hot sand, gasping from exhaustion and thirst. His sweat boiled on his very skin, and he started cursing himself for having such a thick, shaggy brown beard that kept all the hot moisture trapped on his face. He wiped his forehead with a rough palm, continuing to put one foot tiredly in front of the other.
This poor fellow was quite short and stocky, built like a barrel with limbs. He was strangely dressed for walking in the desert, in a yellow shirt and overalls, with thick shoes and a tool belt around his waist. He carried neither water, nor provisions, and seemed to possess neither map, nor compass. How had this happened? What could he possibly be doing, traveling in a place like this? Where was he going? And who on earth was this strange, little man?
The answers to those questions aren't very important to this story, except for the last one. This wasn't just any little man. As a matter of fact, he wasn't even human.

He was actually a dwarf, and his name was Boldaphist. Boldaphist the Brave. This name gave Boldaphist a lot of pride, because not many dwarves were described as brave. In all of Dwarven history, he was the only one of his kind who had longed to explore the outside world, to leave the diamond mines in the mountains and go on adventures. When he went to the Dwarf Elders asking to leave, he claimed it was so he could hunt for (and return with) even more exotic and exciting treasures than simple gems and minerals. So the dwarves called him brave.
Well, right now Boldaphist wasn't feeling very brave so much as very stupid. What a fantastic idea to start traveling smack in the middle of the day, when the sun was right at it's peak. He'd been traveling in the desert for only a few hours, and as much as he tried to block the heat out of his mind and think of the cool, treacherous jungles and rainforests he'd hacked his way through, or the snowy blizzard winds he'd battled in the white, frozen tundras, the sun simply refused to be ignored.
The dwarf wiped off the sweat from his face again, and actually tried licking the salty moisture from his fingers, but that did barely anything to help ease his parched throat.

He started to collapse to the sandy ground, but when he felt the burning hot sand on the bare skin of his hands, he leapt right back into action again. He seemed to find new energy, and started running as fast as his thick, short legs would carry him. But his pain-induced sprint only lasted about 30 seconds before he became exhausted and sluggish again.
He couldn't keep this up, not for much longer. Boldaphist was a pretty tough dwarf, but if he didn't find a little water, or a little shade in which to rest his weary body, he would soon fall down and be unable to get up again.
Suddenly, he thought he saw something moving in the distant dunes. Little dots hovering over the sand, rippling in the humid air, growing bigger, approaching the dwarf. Boldaphist fell to his overalled knees, which thankfully bore the heat well enough not to burn his legs, and waved his arms over his head. "Over 'ere!" he rumbled in a low, rasping voice. "Over 'ere! Please!"
The hazy figures came much faster than he could have hoped to expect, and he soon realized this was because they were riding horses. Beautiful gray and white desert horses, galloping as swift as the desert wind as the men riding them came to the rescue of this strange, stocky little stranger. Boldaphist felt faint as one of the men jumped off his horse and offered him sweet, cool water from a sandy camel-hide pouch. He accepted, and greedily drank from the water pouch, pouring some liquid into his hands, spraying his face with the stuff, showering in the coolness, swimming in it. His vision began swimming as he felt 2 other men lifting him up onto a cart, their knees buckling under his weight (he may have been short, but he was unexpectedly very heavy, even for 2 men to carry him), and everything went black.

When Boldaphist finally woke up, he still felt the unbearably heat, but now he could hear bubbling, splashing water. Pure music to a desert-wanderer's ears.

He opened his eyes wide and saw that he was lying near a gray stone fountain, in the square of a small, dusty village built out of desert rocks, palm leaves and cloth tents. All different races of people milled about the sandy roads on well-worn sandals or on horseback or donkey-driven carts. No one paid much attention to the burly, thick-bearded little man lying under the shade of a palm tree, waking up in their miraculous oasis in the middle of an unforgiving climate.
No one, that is, except for a young dark-haired boy that sat by the fountain and stared at the dwarf with curious eyes. Boldaphist noticed the boy's gaze, and gave an amused, beardy grin. He got to his feet with a groan and approached the fountain briskly. The child didn't move as he watched the dwarf splash water onto his face and rub away the sand, sweat and dirt from his very hairy arms.
"Ahh, sweet relief," sighed Boldaphist.
He began to wipe his wet hands on his overalls, but at that moment the boy held up a thick, slightly scratchy towel.

"Oh, is that fer me?"
The boy said nothing, just held up the towel.
"Hmm. Thanks," Boldaphist mumbled, taking the towel and drying his damp hands and face.
After a few moments, the boy finally spoke to him. "What are you?"
The dwarf paused in drying himself and looked at the scrawny boy with amused granite gray eyes, the same color as the fountain. "Tha's the first question on yer mind, eh? What kinda creature I am, as 'posed to what me name is?"
The boy looked scared and bowed his head respectfully. "I'm very sorry sir! I did not mean to be rude to you, I swear it!"
Boldaphist's laugh rumbled with exuberant good nature, and he waved away the boy's words. "Hehehe, don't bother, laddie, don't bother. I s'pose it ain't every day ya come face to face with an ol' mountain dwarf like me. The name's Boldafist. Me ol' Ma called me that, cuz me tiny fists were clenched like mighty boulders from the moment I was born. Hehehe. What do they call you, young 'un?"
The boy looked down somewhat shyly, playing with a black cord around his neck decorated by pieces of wood, or maybe coconut. "I am Yashir. My mother named me so, because my first sounds were like music to her ears. 'Shir' means 'song' in my parents' language, you see."
"Well, it's good to meet ya, Yash-ear," the dwarf said, slapping the boy on the back heartily. "Always nice to have a friend in a strange land. Say, would ya mind tellin' me how I got 'ere? Me memory is a wee bit fuzzy."
"Yah-sheer," said Yashir. "My uncles brought you here after finding you in the open desert around midday. They had intended to bring you to their tent on the other side of our village, but this was as far as the horses would take you."
Boldaphist patted his belly self-consciously. "Hmph. S'pose I prob'ly shouldn't have eaten such a big breakfast before openin' that portal."
"Portal?" asked Yashir.
"Oh, er, you never mind that, boy, never mind... So uh, what are you doing out here then, Yashir?"
"My uncles told me to watch over you until you awoke, while they took care of the horses and went to the market."
"Hehe, well I'm wide awake now, and feelin' tons better, thank ya very much. I'm gonna tell yer uncles how grateful I am fer them savin' me when they come back 'round 'ere. So why doncha run on home to that Ma of yers, eh?"
Yashir's eyes fell sadly and he looked away, playing with the misshapen brown pieces of his necklace. "I can't."
Boldaphist raised his bushy eyebrows curiously. "What under earth... I mean, what ON earth are ya talkin' about, ya can't?"
The young messy-haired boy looked back at him. He couldn't have been more than 10 or 11, but there was already much suffering in his eyes. "I can't go back to my mother, Boldaphist sir. I have no more family."

Boldaphist got the entire story from Yashir during dinner with his uncles. They weren't actually his uncles, but friends of the family. Since becoming an orphan around 2 months ago, most of the people in the small village had been helping to raise and take care of him. As was the village's custom for parentless children, he had referred to the men as his uncles.
Yashir used to have a mother, of course. And a father, and a sister. They all loved him and he loved all of them. They lived on a chicken farm, and while it didn't make them quite rich, he and his family had gone through life quite happily together for many years.
One day, Yashir remembered his father bringing a great bag of chicken feed back from the market. Yashir recalled him bragging to his mother about "what a steal" the feed had been. Later the next day, when Yashir had scattered the bits of corn on the ground for the hens to eat, he'd noticed a dark, hard seed in the middle of the feed.
Yashir had thought about picking up the strange black seed, but before he could examine it any closer, one of their brown hens had started pecking at it. Once, twice, and then she'd swallowed it in one gulp. Buck-buck-buck, bu-GULP! She paused, cocked her head at Yashir with her blank, yellow fowl eyes, and then had gone right back to pecking at the ground with her sister hens, just is if nothing had happened.
And at the time, Yashir suppose nothing had happened. The hen seemed fine after eating the seed. So he'd forgotten about it and went about his day.

A few days later, however, something did happen. Something awful.
Yashir's little sister, Vivi, had gone to collect the chicken eggs, just like she did every other morning. Yashir and his father were still eating their breakfast in the house, his mother still cleaning up.
Just then, they all heard the heart-rending shriek from the hen house. Yashir had looked at his parents, and his parents had looked at each other. Their faces all had bore expressions of concern, confusion, and worst of all, fear.
Yashir's father said he would see if Vivi was alright, and quickly got up from the table and was out the door. The scared boy and his mother rushed to the window, watching him approach the henhouse with great caution, calling out "Vivi? Are you alright, honey?" When there was no reply, the father had opened the door to the coop and gone inside.
At this point, Yashir's mother couldn't take the suspense any longer, and she rushed out the door after her husband.
"Mother, wait!" Yashir had protested, quickly getting up to follow her.
"Vivi? Yakov?" He remembered her yelling in motherly hysterics.
Yashir had quickly caught up with her and tugged at her dress just before they reached the hen house. "Don't, Mother! Don't go!" The boy had felt the worst sense of foreboding, and was terrified that something awful was going to happen to his mother if she took another step.
She had looked back at him, her only son, and touched his cheek gently. "We must go and see," she said, clutching the boy closer to her side. Together they had opened the door, and they saw.
Yashir's father and sister were both standing inside the coop, but frozen in place. Their skin, their clothes, and even their hair seemed to have transformed into a monotone and lifeless gray, and when the light coming through the hen house roof hit his father just right, it looked as if some master sculptor had captured his entire form in stone, his every feature and muscle carved to scary perfection.
Yashir's mother's face had fallen in horror, and she rushed to her husband's side. "Yakov! Yakov!" she'd cried, pleading him to respond and come back to life, but he didn't.
She had turned to her son then, tears streaming down her face. "Run, Yashir. Run to the others and get help."
"No, but Mother..."
"Please, sweet song of mine, do as I say. Now run! Go!" Yashir's mother turned back to his father, and she seemed to have spotted something over his shoulder. Her mouth began to form into a scream, or perhaps a horrified gasp. Whatever it was, no sound came out, because right in front of his eyes, Yashir's mother had turned into stone, petrified into place.
Yashir remembered backing away in fear, whispering "Mother, no..." before running away from the chicken coop. Away from his home. Away from the family he loved more than anything in the world. He ran to find someone to help, someone to tell him what had just happened to his mother.

He'd almost tripped many times, nearly blinded by all his tears.

To be continued...

Edit: November 2, 2013, Saturday
Here's part 2 of the story! Enjoy. ^,~