~~*~~
A male faun called Notes picked up a tiny silver object from the Forest
floor and felt the link to Faen, he felt the burden of her responsibility
through the talisman that had come from around her neck. The Heart of The
Forest. The prison of the female known as Blight, half sister to Faen and
daughter of Winter and the demon Vengence. As he walked away, the talisman
clutched in his hand, he had no idea what he had done. His very touch had
released her, defiling the purity of the Heart and breaking the link to
Faen. Unless the Heart was returned to Faen, Blight would wreak havoc
through The Forest and the land beyond.
Blight had once ruled on the Isle of Mysts like a vengeful Queen, taking it
by conquest and cold and keeping it until her imprisonment within the Heart.
She had centred her power there and spread the winter across the sea and
over the lands beyond.
Every moment the Heart was in Notes possession and away from Faen, Blight
grew stronger and her power returned tenfold. Even with the Heart it would
be difficult to contain her when her power was at its height.
~~~
She was free! She exulted in it, her laughter bursting forth in a flurry,
like the first snow of winter. She had been trapped in that tiny acorn for
too long, worn around the neck of that *human* who aspired to be a Goddess.
Her sibling. Yes, while Faen was ignorant to her own history, Blight knew
it all. She knew what had created Faen and that they were half sisters.
She hated Faen, the one who had survived inspite of Heaven and Hell.
Blight's very existance was merely a punishment because of Faen's creation.
Blight resented her and was full of vengence. An irony of sorts.
Blight rose up from the grass, from the place where the acorn had fallen and
had been picked up by the male faun. She arched her lithe body, stretching
out the cold limbs and standing to her full height of 5ft 7ins. Her eyes
surveyed the landscape around her.
"So, The Forest still stands," she murmered. "I would have thought someone
would have cut it down for tinder eons ago."
And she could feel the presence of Faen, it was everywhere within the Dark
Wood. She shuddered at the feeling of the place, at the unnatural way it
was part of Faen and she was part of the Wood. The Link and the Love. Love
was alien and unnatural to Blight. She was a base creature who felt no
positive emotion.
"She lives then?" mused Blight. "I had hoped my freedom meant she was
dead. Ah well, the pleasure of killing her is mine."
And at the thought of Faen's death, images of ripping her asunder with icy
daggers writhing in Blight's mind, she began to explore the world she had
been forbidden for so long.
Blight was strange to look upon but striking. She was shaped like a human
female of pleasing proportions. Her skin was smooth but differed from a
human by the silver sheen it had to it. Her hair was a shade of blue, so
dark it might be black. It bore a silver streak from the centre parting.
Her eyes were the same colour as her hair with tiny flecks of white in the
irises which gave the strange impression, if you looked closely, that it was
snowing in her eyes, snowing in the night sky. Her face was so well
proportioned it might have been carved from marble, her cheekbones high, her
nose neat and straight. Her lips were white, as if she wore frosted lip
colour, or perhaps it was real frost, icy cold. Those who knew Faen, might
see a vague resemblence in appearance, in the facial structure, the shape of
nose and mouth. But it was likely not evident unless you looked for it or
knew the kinship between them. Blight was not clothed but the white sheen
which clung to her form appeared like a skin tight coating of some strange
semi transparent cloth.
She exaulted in her new found freedom and started to wander through The
Forest. Frost formed where her feet trod and the grass beneath her step
withered and died as she passed. Her fingers wore icicles at the tips which
scraped and stabbed the bark of trees. At her touch they began to freeze
and wither, almost seeming to decay with a cold and frosty disease.
She had crossed paths with Faen before, when they were both adolescent
girls. Blight had brought a severe killing winter to the globe, helping her
indifferent mother to crush and destroy. They made Winter last for five
years and the beings of the globe had suffered terribly, the freeze had
culled so many of them but some endured. During that time Blight had almost
killed The Spirit of The Forest and Faen had sent First to bring the
greatest mage who ever walked the earth to aid her in defeating Blight. The
Gods had allowed this because they wanted the game to continue. In their
selfishness they enjoyed the suffering and weaknesses of mankind. And the
truth was, they could not touch Faen within her Wood, so they accepted and
allied with her sometimes. They had placed her birthright there, not able
nor daring to destroy it after already unmaking her mother, something
forbidden even to the Gods. In the Wood they could not harm her because
there she was equal to them, equal but different. If this had not been so
they would have long since killed her as a wolf might kill an albino pup
which survives being left in the wilderness.
The mage, an early Kurakolis, powerful but not yet tainted with the evil
that marked later generations, had performed the last ritual of imprisonment
and Blight had been trapped in the talisman, a small silver acorn which Faen
wore about her neck.
"I wonder," Blight whispered, her voice rasping and crisp, to the squirral
who scampered along the limb of a tree to look at her and was instantly
frozen to death by her breath. Amusement in her snowstorm eyes, she
caressed the small creature with long fingers and it exploded, the frozen
animal's body unable to bear her touch so cold. "I wonder if the humans
still sacrifice their young in appeasement to me when the winter comes
early?"
~~*~~
JaxyS :)
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Get more from the Web. FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
--
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] with "unsubscribe dragontales" in the body of the message.
