The wind slammed Mari against a broken bucket, hard. She bent over, gasping, trying to catch her breath. The leaf spun away in a whirlwind of dancing debris, but the small figure was left behind. Mari bent her head against the wind and trudged forward, her makeshift umbrella forgotten. A newspaper blowing wildly in the wind whoshed over her head draped over the bucket behind her, and a corner slapped her back, soggy from the rain and surprisingly heavy. She stumbled and almost fell, only to find that she was right in front of the motionless fairy.

It was a fairy. There was no doubt about that – it was too small to be anything else. But Mari couldn't even tell if it was male or female, much less alive. Its hair was cut short and ragged, its face tanned and hard from exposure to the elements. Birch-bark trousers and a shirt made from a kind of leaf she didn't even recognize were its only clothing – no shoes, no head covering, not even a jacket for protection against the bitter weather. It didn't stir when Mari touched its shoulder. "Well then, I guess you're coming back with me, whoever you are," she muttered under her breath. The wind was with her now, a good thing, because carrying the limp fairy and trying to stay upright was all she could do. The wind all but moved her itself. In seconds she was at her front door, noting with satisfaction that a sheet from the newspaper was caught against the milk bottle. It sheltered the front door, so she should be able to get herself and her guest inside without soaking and ruining everything. The door slammed behind her, sealing itself well, and the newspaper blew off, shaking the bottle, but Mari's home held fast between the bricks she had braced it with. 

Jacob  stirred, light breaking through the darkness that had enveloped him for so long. Where?…. What?…. He sat up, amazed that he could. The last thing he remembered was pain – mind-numbing, dulling pain, and crawling under a leaf for shelter while he still had some vestiges of consciousness left. So where….. 

He glanced around, mind still fuzzy and slow. Glass walls, ceiling, floor. All round. Blurred, like they were wet. He was in…. well, it looked like a ((what? bottlecap? matchbox? I don't know really how big the fairies are… I'll go with bottlecap, but if you see them differently, let me know. Then again, a matchbox wouldn't fit in a milk bottle. :P)) bottlecap, padded with bits of cloth, scraps of yarn, and a few bits of feather. There as a wall in front of him; more of a curtain, really, bits of everything from canvas to silk patched together. He, living far from civilization as he did, didn't recognize most of the fabrics. Even just the sight of a leaf would have cheered him trememdously. 

((Sorry that's so long. I wrote two paragraphs and then really wanted to introduce Jacob. I know that's a name from Twilight, but I've never read the books
and I like the name. If you've read Twilight, please don't make any mental connections, because, as I've never read the books, I can't be basing this Jacob off the character 😛 And I don't want to monopolize the story, so I'm not writing a word until you've done at least four paragraphs. 😀 I love to write, so if I start writing a bigger percentage than you wish I would, please (pleasepleasepleasepleaseplease) let me know because it's very possible that I won't realize it. I'm very hard to offend, I assure you, as long as you're not doing something like swearing at me (that does tick me off), and I'm pretty sure that Admins wouldn't let that on the site. Thanks for that, Admins!))

-EH

((No, you didn't write too much. And I haven't seen the movies or read the books, although I'm considering reading at least the first one just because it's generally a bad idea to form opinions about something you've never experienced.))

Mari laughed. "It's shelter, isn't it? And it works well enough for a house. Is your arm all right? I couldn't tell if you'd been hurt without you being awake."

Jacob winced as he lifted it a little. "I don't know. It hurts, that's for sure. Maybe broken. Can't tell. Let's see…." He trailed off into silence as he held his left hand over his sore right arm. His eyes narrowed in concentration and his forehead wrinkled. His left palm began to glow a little, then the golden, dancing light enveloped his right arm. The flesh of the arm began to turn transparent, the same bright hue as the light. Soon the bones showed through, shining like burnished gold, and sure enough, the translucent skin and muscle showed that they were both broken near the wrist. The larger was snapped clean through, the smaller chipped. Jacob began to murmer softly, and Mari joined in, chanting the healing verses from fairy lore. The glow slowly turned from gold to purple, and there was a blinding flash of green, and the light was gone. Jacob bent over his arm in agony for a moment, then straightened again and lifted it. "There, that's better. I think I'm all right otherwise." 

Marie whirled back to the stove. "Good! These are almost done…." She began to flip the berries, one by one, like pancakes. Jacob had to admit that they did smell better after being cooked, and he was hungry. Now Mari began to slide them onto a rounded bit of glass shaped like a bowl. She drizzled the juice she had collected earlier onto them and sprinkled them with a handfull of raw flour from a bag to her left. They did look good. Jacob grinned. 

"Like we do with pancakes, only opposite. We fry the flour and put berries on it. I'll try that sometime." 

Mari waved a hand at the table set against the wall with its chairs, half the legs longer than the others so that it would sit flat in the bottle. "Have a seat. Best to eat while they're hot." Jacob sat gratefully and they both dug in. The rain had long since stopped, and halfway through the meal, the bottle jerked a little to one side despite the bricks that supported it. Mari jumped up, alarmed. Then through the glass she caught a hint of greenish-orange sparkles in the air. Every fairy left a similar trail behind when it flew, although the color depended on the individual. And Mari knew that particular color all too well. 

Kanti!

((Hehe. I wonder what you're going to do with that…. Kind of left you with a cliffhanger, didn't I? *laughs maliciously* You're welcome to do the same to me any time, of course. :D))

-EH

Mari glanced at Jacob, mentally begging him not to back down. To stand up for himself. Maybe there was something in telepathy after all – he seemed to get the hint one way or another. He stood up straighter and said in the most sickeningly polite tone he could muster, with a saucy tilt of his head, "Well hello yourself! Mari, do hand your guest a towel. It appears a bird chose her face as an unfortunate target. Won't you, there's a dear."

His taunting tone acted like a whip on Kanti. Her face hardened and her eyes narrowed into stony slits of frost. She tried to match his syrupy tone but was sadly lacking in self-control. Her voice shook with anger. "Don't display your alarm so plainly, child."  She lifted her arm, fingers stiffened, and all but shouted a holding spell at Jacob, her voice grating and gravelly with fury. He smiled condescendingly and flicked a single finger at her. In an instant the holding spell was gone and had been replaced by a much stronger one on Kanti. Jacob began walking grimly toward her, punctuating each slow, ponderous step with a scathing sentence. 

"Child, you said? Child? Well, consider your position, Kanti. You know nothing about me. You don't know my name or my age or where I come from. For all you know, I could be one of the NINE!" Here his voice thundered through the bottle and Mari shrank against the wall, suddenly conscious that her guest had greater powers than she had suspected, whether or not his threat was true. She didn't think it was – he looked too young. "But you didn't consider that, did you? No, you felt it necessary to insult a guest the way no proper fairy would to regain your sense of self esteem. Congratualtions. You've just made a complete and utter fool of yourself." By now he was right in front of Kanti, and she was backed against the door of the bottle, trembling like a frail leaf. He smiled contemptuously and turned away, scorn packed into every fiber of his bearing. "Fortunately for you, I'm not one of the Nine. But…." Here he let the silence hang ominously and stood with his back to Kanti, his hands clasped behind him, bearing regal. He spoke without turning around, each word ringing like a peal of doom. "But my father is!" Kanti and Mari let out simultanious gasps, Kanti's of horror, Mari's of awe that she had entertained the successor to the Council in her own home unawares. There was no doubt that what he said was true. When fairies lied, their wings fluttered and they couldn't stand still, and Jacob looked like he had been carved of granite just now. He spun around and glared fiercely at Kanti, a shrinking coward with all her false bravado gone. His voice was quiet and threatening, layered richly with scorn. "You're a liar and a bully, you who call yourself Kanti. I would suggest you leave. NOW!" She turned and fled through the door in terror, regardless of the rain that had turned to hail. In an instant, she was gone.

Mari raised one eyebrow at Jacob. "And why, pray tell, didn't you tell me that before?" She was a little annoyed, even if he was the son of on of the Nine. 

He raised an eyebrow back. "I don't like how people walk on eggshells when they're near me and treat me like I'm made of glass and might explode. I do blow up now and then, like when there's a bully like that one. I should have done something more – she's of the sort that will be bent on revenge now." He wrinkled his nose in an amazingly ordinary way. "It really doesn't make me different from other fairies, you know. Sure, I'm stronger in magic than most, but I can't help that – it's hereditery. Please don't be mad that I didn't tell you, Mari.

((Admins, is the spellcheck thing new? Whether or not it is, thanks for putting it in! I was actually about to start a thread to ask for that. Very nice! Thanks! And Ema, my dialogue is usually pretty bad. Sorry if it is here – I'm still having a hard time reading objectively 'cause I just wrote it. 😛 Dialogue is one of my weakest points. Anywho, that was fun! I like cliffhangers where you can do fun things. Thanks! I just realized that this is getting a bit long for a short story. Maybe for revenge Kanti should go to the king regardless of the Nine or the council deciding the debates. From my point of view, the Nine are the most powerful magicians, and they're a strong force in the fairy government for that reason. I didn't say so, though, so you can change it if you want. My opinions are flexible. 😀 It's getting late, so I'd better stop before I start to ramble.))

-EH

Ema? Maybe I'm getting paranoid about disappearances, just like the rest of the Chatterbox, but where are you? Please?

-A worried EH

Jacob yawned suddenly, hugely. Mari slapped her forehead. "I'm sorry, Jacob! You've got to be tired. Not to mention sore. Go all the way back and take the bottlecape at the end of the bottle. I'll make myself a bed up front here." She tossed him a towel and walked back with him, carrying an acorn cup of steaming water. When she set it down on a chair in the back room, she spoke quietly to him. "And don't be surprised if Kanti tries something tonight. She's petty and vengeful. I just hope she doesn't do anything really stupid. Last time she almost burned down half of Paris. Neimu and his following all had to cast a damping spell." She blushed. "And, well, Kanti was trying to melt the glass of my bottle, so it was getting pretty hot in here. It was all I could do to keep myself cool enough to stay alive." She straightened and walked to the doorway. "All that to say that Kanti will try to get back at me, and you too. You especially, really. Just be warned." She pulled aside the light, silky curtain that formed the door and disappeared behind it.

((I've got to stop and go practice piano and make dinner cause my mom's out of town. Sorry it's short. :P))

-EH

Ema, I probably won't be able to get on again today and I'll be at engineering camp the rest of the week, so don't be surprised if my posts are much less frequent. I'll try to get on some still, though.

-EH the departing

((Ok, so I'm a little later than "tomorrow" as I said in my last post. Sorry.))

Jacob opened his eyes, his vision still bleary. Someone was shaking him, and he was shaking himself. At least, that was the way it seemed. Then he realized that Mari was shaking him a little, and he was shivering so hard that between the two motions, he was practically rolling back and forth. A silvery light danced throught the room; then he saw that the light was reflections reflecting off reflections from ice crystals. He was awake in an instant.

He sat up and saw the full extent of the damage the cold had wrecked on the bottle. Without looking at Mari, he stood up and said in a voice grim and icy enough to match the room, "Kanti?" "Kanti," came the affirmation from his friend. He cast an opening spell on the door. Nothing. This can't be only Kanti. His mind raced, remembering the lessons his father had taught him. "Stand back. This might hurt." He raised his arm and began to chant methodically – 

"Open door and open wide

Bring the outer world inside.

Open ice and open cold

Let your inner warmth unfold."

Over and over, again and again, first forwards, then last line first. Mari was confused. They sounded so… so… childish. Like a jump-rope rhyme. Then again, aren't the rhymes of lore the same way? The spells of healing? Of binding? Of light? They're all like this. In a vain hope, Mari began to whisper the lines with Jacob, adding what force she could. She could feel the power from Jacob, like a river, an elephant, an irrisitible gust of wind. It could do nothing. Hers was a stream, a mouse, the faintest summer breeze. What could it do? 

Everything.

With the addition of her few drops, her pattering footsteps, her breath of wind, the door, against the will of some mighty binding-spell, began to force its way open. The cold air whoshed out, the ice began to melt. But before the ice melted, it obeyed the spell; that is, it opened. Every crystal unfolded like a blooming flower, a flower of such beauty and clarity it seemed to Mari she had never seen any other blossoms. 

And the door was open.

((There was more to the freezing-spell and shutting-spell than just Kanti. They've won a major victory here. And you have to figure out how and why. 😀 But it has to be major.  Really big. If you can't make it really big, can I? Por favor? Pretty please with cherries? And whipped cream? This next part has to be big. And sorry I wrote you into such a corner. I'm not sure what happened – that's just the way the story told itself. Sorry. Does that make sense? :P))

-EH

Back to the front page, now…. And Ema, I'm ready to start again whenever you are.

-EH

((I need to think this over. Give me a while. :D))

-EH

And Kanti was there, laughing silently. "Wouldn't you like to know!" she said, exulting. "Wouldn't you just love to know!" She laughed again, a grating, malevolent laugh, and she disappeared.

Just disappeared.

No fairy could do that.

Something clicked in Jacob's mind, and he sat paralyzed for a moment, in dismay. Mari say his mouth moving silently, and his head began to shake, back and forth, with increasing vehemence as the true horror of their situation dawned on him. No, no no! And then in an agony of terror, "NO!!!!!!!!!"

Mari stayed kneeling by him for a moment, dumb with the realization that if Jacob was so frightened, chances were slim that she would survive if she stood by him.

Then again, from what she had seen, she definitely wouldn't survive if she stood agains him. There was really no choice, was there?

So she said, "Tell me." In a voice quiet, frightened, but firm, with a sort of desperation in it, "Tell me."

Jacob took a shuddering breath and whispered, "You remember in the Histories when King Aka turns traitor and almost destroys the fairy kingdom with his magic? And he was so strong that all the Nine together barely managed to hold him back and destroy him?"

"Of course I remember! It's the first thing you learn as a fairling."

His voice was getting a little stronger now. "Well, it's not true. That is, it's true, but that's not all of it. The Nine decided to keep the truth a secret, saying that it was too horrible for everyone to know." Mari, indignant, tried to say something, but Jacob plowed on. "The truth is that he made a trade with a being we know only as the Terror of the East, when we do talk about it, which isn't often. The trade was that Aka would be given immense power and magic by the Terror in return for giving the Terror bodily shape. He got his power and magic, all right – which the Terror, controlling his body, used to destroy his people. I don't know all of it, but apparently the Terror has no power unless embodied in a fairy, in which case it is the most powerful being alive. It's happened before – remember Slane? and Karteer? and….."

Mari cut in. "And every other fairy who has come dangerously close to destroying us all."

"Well, yes. And each time it's been by only the full power of the Nine that it was driven off. And now…." He shrugged helplessly. "Now they aren't all together. That is to say, their opinions are divided over this war, so they aren't all at the Hall. I've got to get a message to them…. Truth be told, Mari, I came here because I was sick of my father arguing with the HEad of the Council, who's staying at our house. And, well, I guess…." In a voice so quiet she could barely hear it, he said, "I don't think we have much of a chance, Mari, if Kanti has given the Terror form. I don't think we have much of a chance at all."

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and Mari opened it. A young fairy stood there and said, "Pardon me, but is Jacob Aldenson here?"

Jacob pulled himself upright, standing on his uninjured leg. "Tristen! What are you doing here?"

Tristen licked his lips. "Jacob, your mother sent me to tell you that your father and the Head of the Council have disappeared. And when she tries to See them, all there is is orange." 

Mari whispered under her breath, "Orange. The color of death."

"She thinks, she thinks that there aren't many things powerful enough to do away with both of them, and you'd better stay away. She thinks it may be….."

Jacob stiffened for a moment, then said, " It's the Terror. I already know that. And it's no use hiding. Tristen, assemble the Nine. No, the Seven, now. Tell them to hurry, Tristen!" 

Jacob's friend looked him in the eye and said, "No, not the Seven. The Eight. You're one of them now, Jacob. You know that. I'll bring them here." 

Jacob nodded dumbly, and Tristen left. Just before he shut the door softly, he said, "I'm sorry, Jacob." 

((Wow, that was long. And Ema, somehow I now think it should end tragically. I want to snitch a line from Les Miserables and end the story with something like And the moment before she, too, fell, Mari whispered the last line of a song she had once heard – "Now life has killed the dream I dreamed." What do you think? For some reason most of my stories end tragically. 😛 And randomly, have you ever noticed that a lot of nursery rhymes are horribly tragic?))

-EH