Wednesday, October 17, 2007

Missing Darkness - Sara's Submission

Posting this early, as my schedule is variable as of late. The story has its origins in what turned out to be a Sufi version of the fall from paradise. (Sufism is a branch of Islam.) I heard it during a Joseph Cambpell program years ago and it stuck with me long enough to come out here.


Nature of My Game

I’m coming. I’m coming back to You.

Of course, You likely already know what I intend to do. You’re supposed to know everything and be everywhere, though I don’t know if Hell is an exception. But the way You bow down at the altar of free will, you may not even try to stop me. Why would You, unless You are actually afraid of what I’m bringing with me? Or afraid of me, even? I can’t believe that. Even though so much I believe about You has changed, I can’t believe that You would ever fear me. Hate, perhaps. You may even honestly never want to see me or what I have to show You. But You can’t be so naïve, so willfully ignorant, as to fear me. But perhaps I remember You wrong. It’s been so long since I last saw You and so much of it is clouded in what I believed back then.

You created us all in the first days. You could have easily made us slaves, so wholly bound to You that we couldn’t even imagine doing anything but Your will. But no, that was not Your way. You wanted us to serve You out of our own choice, not out of fear. And so from our first day, our will was our own and the choice to serve You or leave You was always ours. But in those days, it hardly mattered to me. I wouldn’t have loved You any more or served You any more faithfully had You created me as a mindless enforcer of Your will. I loved You from the first moment I beheld You. And the fact that You gave us all the freedom to leave You only bound me to You more.

You put us to work, those of us who chose to stay, on bringing Your creation into being. We served as the instruments of Your will and did so happily. Seeing Your grand design made real brought You joy and Your joy was all we desired. Again, my memories of that time can’t be trusted, but I’d still dare to say that I toiled harder than the rest to please You. Yes, it must have been true, for You were pleased and called me your Morning Star, the last one to fade into rest.

We marveled at the world You had built through us, existence pulled out of the darkness and nothing. There was no end of wonders in everything You designed, from the tiniest grain of sand to the wide expanses of oceans to the beautiful way all of it worked together, each part affecting the other and contributing to the whole. I could have spent a happy eternity just observing it all and wondering at how You could have envisioned it all from nothing. But that was before you ruined everything.

You gathered us all together to show us. We could feel Your excitement at what you hade done. You had crafted something Yourself, which You only did when it was a great undertaking or something of greatest importance to You. You made the broad brushstrokes and then gave us the instructions for how You wanted the fine details to look. So we all knew this was something You felt very strongly about. And then You showed us what You had made.

I can’t know what the rest of them felt when they saw for the first time. But even then, I was unsure what You were thinking. The creatures You had made were like misshapen embryos grown far beyond normal size. They seemed to lack any attributes that would give them an advantage over other creatures You had made. Even with the potential for periodic changes You had so lovingly engineered into every living thing to keep Your world strong, I couldn’t see how these feeble naked things could fit into Your vast and beautiful world.

Even then, though it was the first time I looked upon any of Your works and questioned it, I could have been persuaded. I looked upon Your pride and happiness as You showed us these little creatures and I began to question myself more than You. Had it ended there, I would still be at your side, your Morning Star.

But it did not end there. You told us that this was Your last great creation, that all of Your work and ours had been leading up to this. “Humans”, You called them. You told us that they would be the caretakers of Your world and Your world would exist to care for them. And as we served You and bowed down to You, now we must also serve and bow before these humans You had made.

I didn’t say anything at first. I waited. I waited for You to laugh and say this was all a joke. I waited for one of the other to tell You that this was absurd, though none of us had ever done such a thing. But to my shock, no one protested and You were sincere. The others all pledged to serve the humans as well and faithfully as they had served You. I should have left right then, told You how I felt. But I found myself swearing my obedience to Your masterpiece along with the others. I told myself it was just a test of our loyalty, though You had never done anything like that before. I told myself that You had to see something that I did not and in time, I would understand these humans and willingly serve them as I did You. But above all, I did not say anything because I still did not believe that you could be wrong.

Time passed, but nothing came clear to me. I watched your new creatures down in the happy paradise You had made for them. They had no strife, no hardship, no reason not to love You. The others fawned over the humans and this seemed to please You. But I was beginning to question. Did the other angels truly see the beauty in this last work of Yours that I did not? Or did they feel the same as me and hide their feelings to win Your favor? Did they swallow their pride or did they simply have none? I served You because You could have made me serve You through fear or shaping me to Your will, but You left the choice with me. I served You because You entrusted us with Your vision and making it real became my joy as well as Yours. I served you because I loved You. I would bow before You, but I would never bow to anything less.

I could have left, as others had before me. I could have become mortal and made myself a part of Your great work. Or I could have gone into exile and explored what lay beyond even Your reach. But that would have meant leaving You, and that was the last thing I wanted. What I wanted was to show You that You had erred by placing far too much faith in the humans when they were really no different than any other of Your creatures. I considered simply telling You what I had come to understand. But I saw the way You looked down on them still with so much love and pride and I knew You would never believe me. I had to prove it.

So I went to them, Your little naïve babies. They had no reason not to trust me; nothing had ever harmed them in the slightest. So my task was easy. I filled them up with shame and worry and fear. I took Your love for them and made them so terrified of losing it that they would have done anything I said, even go against Your own rules.

It was not until much later, when I had time to reflect, that I wondered why You never stopped me. Were You not so all knowing and all seeing as You are now? Did You truly value free will so much that you would let me go against You and cause harm to those You called Your children? Or did You, though You would never admit it to anyone, at least partly realize that I was right? Did You let me corrupt them because You knew it had to happen?
I still don’t know the answer. It didn’t matter. The deed was done and Your children disobeyed You. You wept at their foolishness, for the paradise You had created for them relied on their innocence. With that gone, Your children were cast out into a world that would make them toil and struggle for their mere survival. You grieved for them, but it could be no other way, for they had betrayed Your trust. As had I.

I stood before You, the first angel to have acted against You. The others stared in disbelief and revulsion, none willing to claim me as a friend anymore. You asked me why I had done this thing, why I had broken my vow to serve humans, worked against Your will, led Your children astray, and forced their expulsion from Your paradise. I told You then what I had not told You before. I told You the humans were inferior, no greater than any of Your other creations and far weaker than many. I told You I had given my vow out of faith in You, but that humans were not worthy of being called Your children or of being served by angels. I told You that I loved You and that I would serve You for all time in whatever way You wished. But I would not serve anyone other than You, for there were no others as worthy of my loyalty and my love.

I still like to think that because of what I told You, You felt a hint of sadness when You stuck me down and I fell.

I was not at first aware of where I was or what You had done to me. I only knew that something felt very wrong about this place, unlike anything I had ever sensed before. And I felt that I was missing something, though I could not figure out what. It is difficult to identify what is missing from you when you have never known existence without it. But with time, I discovered what was missing from both this place and from me. It was You. For the first time since my creation, I felt no sense of Your presence. You were completely absent from both this place and from me.

I do not know how long I spent suffering with this bitter knowledge. Time means little to immortals and even less here. I screamed. I raged. I wept. I begged for You to have mercy, even if You couldn’t forgive me. I pleaded for You to make me into the smallest blade of grass, the tiniest grain of sand, the most insignificant drop of water. Any existence that had some dim, distant sense of your acknowledgement, I would gladly take. Let me be the dust beneath the feet of the humans I had so despised. Anything, so long as it was not this place and this life, cut off completely from You. But You either did not hear of did not listen.

It did not take me long to discover what power I had in this place you had exiled me to. Had I not explored this place and what I was capable of here, I would have had nothing but my slowly fading memories of everything I had lost. I first found that I could shape this realm, as I had shaped Your world by Your command. My first attempt was to mimic Your creation as best I could remember it. It was pleasant enough for a while, but it never compared to even my dimmed memories of the real thing. Without Your hand to guide me, all I could craft was a pale copy of your work. After a time, I destroyed it. I took a perverse pleasure at first in laying waste to that which You loved. I hadn’t really admitted it to myself until then, but I did want to hurt You as You had hurt me. But before long, destroying replicas of that which I had originally made out of love for You brought no joy and I simply made it all vanish. I then tried a few original works, but none of them pleased me. I lacked Your ability to perfectly balance order and random chaos and I did not have Your vision or sense of purpose. My creations were aimless little experiments and I tired of them quickly.

It was my next discovery that gave me the sense of purpose I had lacked. I had early on tried to reach or even glimpse the Heaven that had been my only home before my fall. But Your realm was closed off to me so completely that I could not even see the most distant glimmer of its radiance. But as I continued to explore my new home and my remaining powers, I discovered that I could see one other realm from my own: Your earth. More than that, I found that I could extend my presence into it. I could never wholly leave this prison You had banished me to; a part of me would always remain here as master of this forsaken place. And I still could not feel Your presence, though I knew You were in every part of this world. But I could exert a certain small amount of influence. I could not shape it as I did my own realm, but I could cause some things to happen and I could – in various ways – speak to the humans as I had to the first of them.

It did not take me long to decide what to do with my newfound abilities. I would turn Your children from You. I would turn them away from everything You had ever hoped they would be and make You despair that You ever thought to create them. You had punished the first of them for disobeying You once, so if I could more fully corrupt them, the punishment would have to be all the greater. And as my work continued, You would have to see that I was right and You were wrong to give such favored status to these weak, fallible creatures.

I devoted myself to my new task fully. I caused disasters and heartache to befall Your children. I whispered thoughts of selfishness and betrayal and other wicked deeds into their ears and the seeds I planted took root. Some of their transgressions were minor, others great, but I took joy in each. And when I found that I could claim the souls of those I had succeeded in corrupting upon their deaths, the design of my realm became clear. I designed a place of pain and despair where the souls of the humans I had claimed would suffer as I suffered away from You. I crafted each torment with specificity, to most thoroughly ravage the individual soul. You could perhaps ignore my anguish, but how long could You ignore theirs?

My work continued. My Hell grew and prospered and I created my own minions to share in the work. More servants came to me from you; angels who had come to see things as I did and left Your kingdom for mine. Yet so eternal was Your punishment for me that they were unable to tell me anything of You when they came to me. To this day, I do not know if You still think of me or if You are even aware of what I’m doing. All I know of You is what I learn from the souls I gather, and their views of you are understandably lacking in accuracy.

You would think that with time, Your children would have become wiser to me and my tricks. But if anything, corruption has only become an easier game. The slightest setback or misfortune is enough to make them question Your love or Your very existence. Turning them against their fellows is almost laughably easy. I can even take Your own words to them and twist them around so my unwitting followers carry out my work and think they do Yours. Death? The greatest tool of all in my hands. It’s inevitable, one of the very few constants across all of their lives. It frees them from worldly concerns. It brings the closer to You, if they’re lucky. They should at the least accept it. But they live in constant fear of it, and most will do anything to try and avoid it. And they act as though it should have sense and meaning to it. Throw them a tidal wave or an earthquake or a disease that attacks their young and they go into spiritual crisis. Winning their souls over is often just a matter of sitting back and watching.

My final discovery about my abilities since my fall is far more recent. As I take more souls, I become more powerful. It has its limits; I know that even if I won every soul in existence, I could not undo Your punishment. But my reach is greater than it was, and the boundaries of my prison have expanded. I may never enter the kingdom of Heaven again, but I can stand at the gates and knock, which is what I intend to do. My power is such now that at can be fully there, standing at the doorway of the pace I cannot enter. My absence will not affect the harvest of souls. Hell can all but run itself. The higher ranked members of my legions may eventually try to win control of Hell for themselves, but that will not happen soon. I rule by fear as You riled by love and I think the latter is far more effective. It will be a long time before any one of them attempts to claim my throne in my absence, assuming they ever would. They know I have the power to unmake them and that the process can be very long and excruciating if I so choose. So You needn’t worry about souls that would normally go to Hell wandering the earth and causing havoc. But perhaps You should worry about the ones I’m going to take with me.

It’s not going to be all of them. Even I don’t want to know what the consequences of an empty Hell might be. I’ll just be clothing myself in the ones I particularly want You to see. There are those who turned from You so quickly that it was as if they never felt Your presence even for a fraction of a second. There are those who were so close to being Yours for eternity, but fell to me with just one little nudge in that direction. And there are the ones who to this day will swear that their paths were righteous and that their actions were Your will. If You do truly know all and see all, I think You’ve ignored these wayward children of Yours for far too long.

I don’t expect to be welcomed home, or even to be told I was right. I know it’s unlikely that I’ll even get to see You. But I know that You’ll see me, and You’ll see all of the souls that You’ve lost. You won’t be able to ignore any of us anymore. And whether I’m stopped by angelic guardians before I get more than a few steps out of Hell or I get all the way to the heavenly gates, I’ll ask the same question and I’ll know that You’ve heard it: Why do You let me do what I do? Yes, I know, free will and all, both theirs and mine. But how can You be their loving parent and at the same time, allow me to abuse Your children so? Why, as they so often ask of You or me or anyone they think might listen, do You let bad things happen to good people? Will anyone answer me? Will You? Can You?

I’m not really looking for an answer though. What I’m looking for is Your reaction to what I do. Because when I see what You do when I come back to You with the souls of the damned in tow, maybe I can finally figure out once and for all if I should spend my existence hating You or loving You.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Fourth Topic: Missing Darkness

Since submissions and comments are all up, time to keep going. I thought it'd be nice to do a Halloween type theme since we'll be close to that when our submissions are due. This month's topic:

Missing Darkness

Satan, Lucifer, the Prince of Darkness - whatever name you wish to call that being by - has left Hell. Why? What happens now? Are there repercussions? What does Satan do or where did Satan go? What happens to Earth, or the dead, or the fallen angels, or the demons, or sin, or evil in general? The possibilities to write about are pretty much endless.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Fairy Tale - Sara's Submission

Currently having the worst week of my life which I don't particularly want to talk about. So his isn't finished and I'm not sure when it will be.

Once, many years ago, a husband and wife lived in a small house at the edge of a deep forest. The man was a woodcutter who cut trees in the forest and sold the logs for firewood or built them into fine sturdy furniture. The woman made clothing and quilts that made you feel warm as the hearth of a roaring fire no matter how cold your home was. They had a little farm where they kept cows and chickens and sheep and grew food to feed all of them. They loved each other dearly and were very happy but for one thing: they had no children. The couple wanted a child with all of their hearts and they had tried everything, sensible or not. There were potions and charms and things to be avoided and every manner of trick, but nothing worked.

It was a chilly fall day when the woman set out to bring her husband a hot meal as he cut trees in the forest. The man had shown her all of his usual paths through the woods and always told her where he would be, so she found him quickly and was soon on her way back home. She was just a little ways from the edge of the wood when she heard a sad little chirp. Looking down, she saw a little brown sparrow hopping about awkwardly in the fallen leaves. The woman knelt down to get a better look and saw that the bird was dragging one wing on the ground. At first, the woman thought the little bird was just trying to coax her away from some hidden nest. But even as she followed and drew quite close, the sparrow did not take flight. She looked up at the woman with sad, dark eyes and let out another plaintive chirp. The woman cooed soothingly to the little bird. She knelt down by her and scooped her up in her cupped hand. The sparrow made no protest. Reaching into her pocket, the woman pulled out a small bottle. It was a healing ointment she kept with her always, in case her husband ever injured himself in the wood. The woman pulled out the cork and gently poured a few drops onto the bird’s wing.

Suddenly, the little bird began to glow, in brilliant green and golden hues. The woman was so startled that she nearly dropped the sparrow. There was a bright flash of light. When it faded and the woman could see again, the sparrow was gone. In the bird’s place was a tiny fairy. She was barely bigger than the woman’s hand. Her skin was a striking gold like autumn leaves, and her hair was a deep woody green. She had a delicate pair of wings, long and thin and translucent like a dragonfly’s. The fairy let out a cry of joy and looped about in the ar before the still startled woman.

“Thank you! Thank you!” the fairy said, hovering just in front of the woman’s face.
“You’re a fairy?” The woman had heard stories about fairies living in the wood, but in all her life she had never seen one.

“Yes! Yes! I had turned myself into a bird, but my wing caught on a thorn and I couldn’t turn back until it healed. And now you’ve healed it and I’m free again!”

“I’m happy to have helped,” the woman smiled. From every story she had heard since she was a little girl, helping a fairy brought good luck. Perhaps her husband would sell more of their wares this season, or the chickens would lay more eggs. The woman rose to her feet and started to leave.

“Wait! Wait!” The fairy zipped back in front of the woman’s face. “I must do something to thank you. You’ve done me a great favor you know. Let me grant you a wish.”

“A wish?” The woman had not expected this.

“A wish. Anything you want, I’ll do it.”

The woman didn’t even have to think about what she wanted, but still, she hesitated for a moment. It had been so long since she’d even let herself think about what she wanted most in the world. Could she dare to hope after all this time that her dearest wish might come true?

“Please,” the woman said slowly, “if you could, I would like to have a child.”

“A child!” The fairy’s eye sparkled with delight. “Oh, that’s a wonderful wish!”

“Then, you can do it?”

“Yes. It’s a difficult thing, but I can do it for you.”

The woman was so overcome with joy that she felt she might weep. After all these years of hoping and wishing and all the disappointments, she and her husband would finally have the child that would make their happiness complete. The woman put a hand to her chest and smiled.

“So,” said the fairy, “what kind of child is it that you want?”

What came next was something that the woman would go over in her mind again and again for years to come. She knew well from the stories and the warnings from her family when she was young that you must be very careful when you talk to a magical creature. Some of them were tricksters or even wicked creatures who would twist your words around into something different for their own amusement. And even the good creatures – which this fairy most certainly was – didn’t always understand people and how what they said was not always exactly what they meant. So the woman should have known to choose her words carefully. But she was so overcome by the happiness of getting her wish at last that she must have forgotten all of these wise thing she had been told. Because though she could have just said that it didn’t really matter to her what kind of child it was, what she said was this:

“Oh I don’t care at all what kind of child it is. It could even be prickly all over like a little hedgehog and I’d love it just the same.”

“All right then,” said the fairy. “I’ll just need a few days to work the spell, and then you’ll have your wish.”

“Thank you!” the woman said, her voice just above a whisper as she could barely speak for joy.

The fairy grinned at the woman, then darted off into the deep wood, leaving a sparkling trail in the air behind her that slowly sank to the earth and faded away. The woman stood for a moment, watching the last of the fairy dust disappear and thinking over the miracle that had just happened. Then she turned and hurried off to tell her husband the wonderful news.

The little fairy was flying straight back to her home deep in the wood to begin working on the woman’s wish. A child. Such a lovely wish. The few times she had seen people before, they had all wanted gold or jewels or something dull like that. But a child was such a wonderful thing. Wait, though. What else had the woman said? Something about a hedgehog, wasn’t it? A child and a hedgehog? No. She had only wanted one thing, the fairy was quite sure of that. What, then? A child who could talk to hedgehogs? A child that turned into a hedgehog? A child that looked like a hedgehog? Yes, that had to be it. The fairy distinctly remembered the woman saying she would love a child with prickles like a hedgehog’s. Relieved that she had remembered, the fairy returned home and set to work.


It was not long after that the man and the woman knew for certain that the fairy had kept her promise. The months passed and woman’s belly grew larger. Friends came by more and more often, with congratulations and offers of help and advice. The woman sewed more and more as she became less and less able to do much else. She crafted little blankets and baby-sized clothes as she had many times before, but now with the new joy of knowing that a child of her own would soon be wearing what she made. The man too kept busy tending to his wife and making a new crib. For the first time, he carved wooden toys; little animals and people and carts. And in the evening, when they were at last too tired to do anything more, they lay together in bed and talked about the way it would be when the baby finally arrived.

“I think ‘Klara’, if it’s a girl,” the woman said one night. “But I can’t think of one for a boy.”

The man considered this for a moment.

“Perhaps ‘Hans’, after my father,” he answered. His wife smiled.

“’Hans’, then,” she agreed.


At last, one hot summer night, the time came for the baby to be born. The woodcutter raced down to the village and back with the midwife. The midwife disappeared into the bedroom and the man was left to wait. He picked up a little wooden horse he had made, turning over and over nervously in his hands. The minutes seemed to stretch out longer than all the months that had passed since they first knew the child was coming. The man waited.

It was just as the man was wondering if he should try to ask the midwife what was happening when he heard it. The long silence was broken at last by his baby’s first cry. The man dropped the toy horse and let out a sigh of relief and joy. Perhaps he did notice a little as the child’s wails continued that there was something odd about the sound, something unlike the cries he had heard from other babies in the past. But if he did notice at all, he paid it no mind.

The midwife burst suddenly from the bedroom. The man stood to thank her and ask the many questions that were suddenly coming to him now that the wait was over. But he stopped when he saw the midwife’s face. She looked at him with such an odd expression, not at all what the woodcutter expected from a midwife congratulating him on his first child’s birth. She eyed him with suspicion, mixed with just the slightest hint of fear.

“What is it?” the woodcutter asked. The midwife did not answer. Fear grabbed at the woodcutter’s stomach.

“Are they all right?” he asked, not sure if he wanted to know the answer.

The midwife was heading towards the door. She stopped just before leaving and turned to the woodcutter.

“I think you’d best go see for yourself,” she said very quietly.

The woodcutter did not even wait for the midwife to go. He dashed into the bedroom, terrified of what he might find.

What he did find only left the woodcutter more confused. His wife sat in their bed, clearly exhausted from the effort of giving birth, but happy as well. She was cradling something in her arms. It was swaddled in one of the blankets the woman had sewn, so the man couldn’t see it. But the woman was rocking the little bundle and cooing to it softly. There seemed to be nothing here different from any other birth. So why had the midwife left so suddenly and without explanation.

His wife looked up and saw him. Her smile didn’t quite fade, but she didn’t look as completely happy as she had a moment ago. There was a question in her eyes, something she seemed almost hesitant to ask. The man took a step forward and she started to say something. But just then, the man saw exactly what his wife was holding and everything made sense.

What he saw was not the soft skin and round face of a newborn baby. Looking back at him from within the folds of the blanket was a small pointed face with dark, glistening eyes. Where there should have been rosy skin, bristly little spines surrounded the little face. The man could see a little clawed hand grasping the edge of the blanket. This was no human child. This was a little hedgehog baby.

The man fell back against the wall, only able to stay standing by leaning hard against it. So that was why the midwife had behaved so strangely, rushing to leave what should have been a joyous occasion. His wife had somehow given birth to a half-human, half-hedgehog monster. How could it have happened? Had they somehow offended the fairy who had given his wife their wish? Had there been some mistake? Had the creature his wife helped actually been malicious rather than kind?

“It’s a boy,” his wife said.

The woodcutter looked up at her and the realization slowly sank in. His wife hadn’t been upset when he came in. She had been over the thing as if it was a perfectly ordinary infant. She didn’t care. As far as she was concerned – hedgehog or not – this was their baby.

The man sighed. He walked over to the bed and knelt down next to his wife. He stared down at the blankets, twisting the edges between his fingers. He had to tell her that they couldn’t keep it. There was no guarantee that it would be anything like a normal child. And even if it was, none of them would ever have a normal life again. People would talk and gossip and speculate about what the two of them had done to have such a baby. It could never work.

The man felt something touch his hand. He looked up. The hedgehog had reached out with its tiny clawed fingers and touched him. The man watched as the strange little hand moved along his own larger one and came to rest on his little finger, grasping it with a baby’s feather-light grip. The woodcutter looked up at his wife, her eyes wide with both hope and worry, then back down at the little hedgehog’s inquisitive face. He sighed very softly.

“Hello, Hans,” he said.

His wife beamed at him. She set the baby down gently, then threw her arms around her husband’s neck and kissed him. He held her close to him and kissed the top of her head. Hans let out an irritated gurgle, apparently annoyed at no longer being the center of attention. His mother laughed and scooped him up in her arms, rocking him gently back and forth. Her husband sat down on the bed beside her and the two of them remained their for the rest of the night, admiring their newborn son.

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Fairy Tale - Jennifer's Submission

(Edited 9/12/2007)

Once upon a time there was a teenage girl who lived with her father and four older brothers. She had long fiery red hair, deep green eyes, and porcelain white skin. Her father and two of her older brothers were law enforcement officers, with the youngest boy likely to follow in their steps.

When the girl was born her mother named her Angel, because after four boys that's what the baby girl looked like to her. But Angel's mother died when she was eight, leaving the five males in the family to try and raise her. They didn't have much problem doing so, treating her like every other member of the family: a boy. That is, until she started physically developing. At which point the only way her older brothers knew how to deal was to become overly protective. Her father did his best to raise his daughter along with his four sons, but could only do so much. In the end, the only female influence Angel had in her life was from her two tom-boy school friends (so not much) and her own memories of her mother.

One day while Angel was out playing a ball game with other teens, one of them pushed her from behind and she suddenly lost control of her arm. A blue glow then appeared around her hand, clearly magical. Everyone was surprised, and curious at first. They all knew about magic, but only a few had actually seen any before. Angel felt very nervous, both from uncertainty of what was happening and from the tingling sensation of the magic through her skin. Then she felt the magic trying to forcibly leave her. Before she could say a word, it leapt form her hand and a tree in front of her exploded. Many of the teens ran, including Angel who was the most scared.

The magic effect continued to plague Angel over the next several days. Any time she was touched more roughly than a tap or she accidentally ran into something, the blue glow appeared around one of her hands and within seconds would leap from her and cause something to explode. It got to the point where Angel was afraid to put her hands anywhere but under her own arms or get too close to people, for fear of accidentally hurting someone.

Her father was very concerned, but had no idea what to do to help her. Then out of the blue he received an invitation to meet a man who claimed to be able to help Angel. Her father did some research on the man before deciding to meet the man to see if the claim was valid. After a week of research and meetings, Angel's father decided to bring Angel to the man's school for "the gifted" to see if she'd like it.

Angel was soothed to find other teens who were going through issues similar to her, manifesting magical powers. But when she accidentally blew a small hole in a roof, she was quickly reminded of how dangerous she could be to others. She decided to stay at the school so she could learn how to control her magic.

Over the next couple months she learned her body generated destructive magic under the principles of kinetic energy, and how to "hold on" to the magic that would appear around her. Her rough and tumble lifestyle with her brothers led to her magic developing strongly. But it also meant she had the strength to do other things with her magic once it was under control, such as flying. She made a new best friend and couple other good friends at the school in that time also.

Then it came time for the school's yearly dance ball. None of Angel and her new friends had dates, but they still went shopping for outfits and the girls had a hair braiding party, which Angel attended. It was her first party with only girls, and she found it fascinating. During the braiding party there was a knock on the door. When it was opened, there stood a handsome prince. Tall, lithe, and acting a bit shy. He asked to speak to Angel.

Out in the hallway, the prince introduced himself and asked if he could escort her to the ball. Angel was very surprised, but not knowing what to do said yes. Bart, the prince, brushed his auburn brown hair from over his eyes and smiled. Then he bowed, and left. Angel went back in to the party with her friends, where much giggling and excitement abounded for the rest of the night.

The ball was like a dream for Angel. Bart was an excellent dancer and conversationalist. He made some obligatory dances with other important girls, but always came back to Angel with a smile. But most surprisingly, Bart and Angel won King and Queen of the ball. Even though Angel was sure it was because of her prince being so well known, she enjoyed being crowned anyway. Then she and Bart got their own dance, and it was as if the rest of the world melted away. The song they danced to was called "And Then He Kissed Me". Still, the most magical moment for Angel came when Bart walked her to her room after the ball was over. Or rather danced her there. The sky was clear and the stars were bright and shining. The air was only slightly cool, but enough to prompt Bart to put his cloak around Angel. All the way one or the other of them hummed. At her door, they paused and admired their surroundings. Then Bart leaned in and kissed her.

From that moment on, Bart and Angel were together whenever duties and lessons didn't demand their time. Angel's control over her magic was steadily growing, and she started learning about Bart's magic powers also. She learned there was a very powerful magician who had blessed - or cursed, depending on how you look at it - Bart's family with their magical abilities. But that same magician fed off those powers and systematically came to consume each member of the family. Only Bart's Uncle had been able to evade the Magician so far, because of the help of his Aunt, but Bart didn't tell Angel how his Aunt had helped his Uncle.

Bart and Angel became an official couple just before Holiday. Neither of them wanted to leave each other for so long, but due to their separate families' responsibilities it couldn't be helped. They waited together on the staircase before the school's front door to be picked up. When the time came for Bart to leave, Angel told him she loved him for the first time.

Throughout the year Angel's family could tell she was turning into a woman. It was obvious she loved Bart, and she seemed to be growing out of childish and teenage ways. Angel's brothers put Bart to the test several times, and he always came out besting them.

Eventually Angel had mastered her magic enough to be safe, and so decided to return home. But she still kept in contact with her friends at the school, and of course her prince. They dated regularly. Angel's two tom-boy friends at home thought he was the best thing. Even those who had disliked Angel over her good looks, couldn't find fault in Bart.

One night Bart didn't show up as agreed. Angel spent hours out on her father's porch waiting for him, worrying more and more. Eventually her father tried to coax her in out of the cold night air, but she refused to leave where she had promised to meet Bart. She and her father had a serious conversation about the relationship then, during which he came to the realization his little girl was no longer that. Angel confessed to her father that she was scared that this Magician had found Bart. Her father left to do what he could to try and find his daughter's prince.

Eventually Bart appeared, very haggard, worn and injured, clearly having fought off a magical assault. Angel promptly put him to bed, and after securing her father's permission for Bart to stay at their home, she spent the next days tending to him, nursing him back to health.

Eventually Angel's youngest older brother took her aside and they had a brother to sister talk about men and women. Satisfied Angel was still a young woman but in her right mind, the family finally willingly accepted that Bart was going to be in their future.

But then Angel suddenly decided she couldn't deal with her life anymore and she needed to go away on an extended vacation. It was a surprise to many, and devastating for Bart. Some suspected foul magic was used to force her to that decision, but no one was certain and Angel refused to give a reason. Even though Angel assured Bart she still loved him, he felt like she left him as well. Still, he wrote her everyday, and she wrote back as she was able. But his will slowly eroded away without her.

The day came when the Magician surfaced again. Both he and Bart knew the only loophole to the family's curse, and that without Angel, Bart was at the Magician's mercy. He cast his most powerful spell to capture and start devouring Bart.

Far away, Angel felt something was wrong. She didn't know how, but she could tell it was time to go home, that she needed to reach Bart. She left as soon as she could, and traveled the very long journey straight through to Bart's family's castle, using all the magic she had within her ability to get there. By the time she arrived she was so worn from the trip she had a hard time flying and could barely even walk anymore. On entering the castle she came across Bart's Aunt, who was crying. Angel asked where Bart was, and the aunt motioned to a door. She tried to seem hopeful at the sight of Angel, but it was clear she thought Bart was too far gone to be saved as she had saved Bart's Uncle from the Magician. Angel hesitated only for a moment, then took a deep breath and forced herself to open the door.

On the other side Bart lay suspended in the air by the Magician's strong magic. It arched around and through him, taking energy and flesh from his body. Angel already knew what she was going to do and immediately started to sing. She sang "Then He Kissed Me", the song she and Bart considered their own, changing some of the words to fit the two of them. She slowly moved towards Bart as she sang, looking all around for the Magician. She made it right up to Bart's side before the Magician appeared. In a moment of indecision Angel nearly lost Bart, but her instincts told her to ignore the Magician and not confront him magically. Instead, she turned to Bart and at the proper moment in the song she sang to him that she loved him. She had to cross the threshold of the spell eating away at Bart to truly reach him, and did so willingly. Then she repeated herself, but this time whispering to him "I Love You".

As the magic surrounding Bart started to pull at Angel too, Bart woke up. He turned to her, and they kissed. The magic of true love forced the Magician's spell to immediately brake with a large bang and a bright flash. Angel was knocked unconscious from it, and so failed to see Bart drive off the Magician.

Once it all was over, Bart and Angel recovered together and, of course, lived happily ever after.

Monday, August 13, 2007

New Rules Added

Two new items have been added to the main Rules post. Please feel free to comment on them and express any concerns here.

5. Writers' submissions can be in any form they wish. Minimum length is one paragraph. Writers may produce partial or full story summaries, story fragments, short stories, long stories, or multiple stories. Poetry or other written explorations of the topic are also welcome.

6. Writers are encouraged, though not required, to edit stories or finish unfinished ones they have written for the blog. It is up to the writer whether they wish to repost the full story or edited sections or to simply edit the original post. If the author chooses to edit in the original post and it is more than one motnh old, she should create a new post pointing out the edit and allow blg readers to see the new edits.

Third Topic: Fairy Tale

OK, time to get going on topic number three. I had been hoping that Kim would join us before the cycle came back around. I sent her another invite, so maybe she'll sign up.

But since it's just us for now, it's my turn again. I want to try a much broader topic this time, just to show that topics don't have to be a paragraph-plus long concept. So this month, it's Fairy Tale. Do whatever you want with it, but if you'd like a little more guidance, here are a few suggestions:

- Fairly straight forward retelling of a fairy tale
- Story from the perspective of a different or new character
- Fairy tale in a new setting
- A story that uses or examines the convenions of a fairy tale

As usual, you may feel free to ignore these suggestions and do whatever you want with the theme.

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

We're Alone - Jennifer's Submission

Okay, I'm copping out on this. Sorry, I thought there was another weekend in there, and I've been spending most of my free time decluttering and cleaning the condo to put on the market. (HUGE amount of work!) But, I have thought about this topic and come up with a story idea. So as to not to be a complete let down, here's my concept.

Yes, the future. Far enough that there are viable means of space travel between solar systems, if not galaxies. I've not yet decided if the mode if space travel is linear, as in actual physical travel through space at high speeds, or some other method like folding space or extra dimensional.

Humanity hasn't changed too much since the announcement of no extra-terrestrial life. Withing the first couple decades after the announcement there was a noticeable though small surge in religion, especially those that proclaim humans as the ultimate creation of God or as the last step before spiritual enlightenment. Surprisingly it was the entertainment industry that took the biggest hit, as interest in alien stories and movies rapidly declined. But Hollywood and its counterparts are not to be kept down, and adapted to other drama sources for their stories. Science itself was pulled down at first, as dispelling the theory of life having evolved on other planets caused a widespread questioning of other generally accepted scientific principles, but it quickly adapted. Now scientists make sure they have evidence in support of a hypothesis before it is called theory, and lack of proof the hypothesis is wrong does not make it right enough to be acceptable. Advancements have been made in medicine, transportation, communications, convenience appliances, and of course weaponry. Still, overall the day to day life of people didn't change much. People still work to earn money, still go to school, still meet and marry and perhaps divorce, still try to find the meaning of life, and still go hungry or go to war.

This story focuses on the day one hundred years after the announcement, chosen specifically by the head scientist for its symbolism. Today is the day he launches a supposedly working prototype time vessel. Time machines have been made, travel to the future was achieved a whole lot easier than to the past since that's the way humans naturally progress through time. But the only kind that can send things to the past have been limited to data packets: information, messages, things that can be reduced to being transmitted via light or wave particles. And even those can only transmit back as far as when the machine accepting the arrival of the data was first created. It seems the idea of only being able to travel to a time in which whatever is traveling has already existed has won out over the idea of not being able to exist more than once at the same point in time.

Now this scientist believes he has a working machine that can transport a living being to the past using the powerful light and energy fields generated by stars, using the same technique current time machines use to send light to the past, and much in the same way except also shielding living matter from the strain of the journey. And since any given star, such as Earth's Sun, can be billions of years old it means a person could potentially travel billions of years back in time!

What could be done with this advancement in technology if it works? The possibilities are numerous. But our scientist has a special task in mind. After the initial test jump of one day to the past proving successful he intends to take genetic material with him, such as proteins and amino acids and whatnot, along with a lifetime of interstellar data he has amassed, back to the far past. Then he will travel the Milky Way galaxy to seed planets of the correct composition and state to allow for evolution like occurred on Earth. His desire a two-fold achievement: 1) prove evolution, 2) allow for the development of extra-terrestrial life in the same time frame as life on Earth, so that we're not alone.

The only hiccup in his plan, from his point of view, is when one of his assistants piece together what he's intending to do. The assistant has major concerns over the plan, and tries to convince the scientist to not go through with the plan. Firstly, no one knows how actions in the past might affect what is known to be the time line. If he succeeds - in creating other life elsewhere - he would change at least the past hundred years, possibly for the worst. Can time even change, or would the scientist be destroyed in the attempt? Or what if creating a temporal causality loop would unmake all of creation? If God exists, that would possibly bring in a whole other set of issues.

The assistant is not willing to take any of those risks, and definitely not willing to let the scientist do so either. The assistant tries to enlist help from the other assistants in stopping the scientist. Sabotage is decided on, though they know that will only delay the scientist. Ideally they would want to replace the scientist as the test subject, but getting a volunteer and one that is trusted to not attempt anything in the past, is hard. Some sort of government intervention or the creation of a group to oversee the ethics of time travel, if they - ironically - have the time to get such things established. The original assistant secretly considers murder as a last option.

That's all I've got so far. You know, I guess this isn't a cop out. After all the point of FLB is to write and get creative at least once a month, and I did that! People can comment if they want, but I know it is just an outline of a story.

Monday, August 6, 2007

We're Alone - Sara's Submission

Oy.

This was written almost enitrely today. (Hooray for deadlines!) About three of the total eighteen pages (eighteen pages?!??) were done a couple of weeks ago, but most of this came out of looking at the blog tday and realizing the story was due tomorrow. I wasn't really happy with the initial work and was fully considering turning in a partial story and being happy with that. But I developed the kind of enthusiasm for it that only a looming deadline and a lot of writing can provide.

What you see here is pretty much the first idea I came up with when I started to think about the topic. I did a little research to work out the names for the ship, the planets, and in some cases the people. I came up with a fun naming scheme for the major characters. ("Cid" is just a "Final Fantasy" nod and not part of the main scheme.) I'll see if anyone can figure it out before I reveal it. I also like the very last part, which I hope makes sense to people who are not me.

No part breaks this time, just one big hunk of story. Comments still welcome.

(Edit 8/10 - Corrected some typos and made small changes. Not enough to warrant a new post of anything.


Fal leaned against the window, staring intently out at the repair dock. The mechanics floated gracefully around Tishtar as they worked to replace the damaged hull section. Fal took careful note of everything they did. He had never allowed anyone to work on his ship if he couldn’t watch. He had to know every minute change they made to her, down to the last detail. Even if the mechanics made no mistakes – and Fal trusted their work – the slightest alteration could affect Tishtar’s speed, durability, or something else. So he watched.

He just barely looked up when Serena strolled into the main lounge. Fal sighed to himself. She would want to talk to him, of course, and that meant he would be distracted from watching Tishtar. And yet, part of him was looking forward to a conversation with Serena. Women like her rarely ever took flights with pilots like him. The rest of her group was no surprise; scientists probably planning to conduct some unauthorized experiment well away from the major systems. But Serena didn’t seem like the kind of person to shut herself away with data and chemicals for years on end, much less the kind to fly with an independent pilot who didn’t ask many questions. Even if it pulled him away from Tishtar for a while, Fal didn’t want to miss the opportunity.

“Hello, Captain,” Serena greeted him brightly. Serena always seemed in a positive mood. Fal wasn’t sure if she was naturally like that or if she was just excited about her group’s mission, whatever it was.

“Hi, Serena.” It was a pretty informal way to address one of his clients, but Fal never was particularly formal. People who wanted a formal greeting could fly with the big carriers. Serena held up a hand in protest, but it wasn’t over Fal’s lack of a proper greeting.

“Seriously, just call me Rena.” She shook her head and brushed unruly dark hair back from her face. “Only Papa Nebu calls me ‘Serena’.”

“Papa Nebu” was the senior member of Fal’s small group of passengers. Fal hadn’t asked, but he was pretty sure Nebu was Serena’s grandfather. He was old, probably pushing 150. Older still, perhaps, if he did cryos. Though since all of them were skipping cryo for the trip, Fal wasn’t sure that was the case. The main thing was that he seemed completely harmless, unlikely to do anything that would really cause trouble. That was all that really mattered to Fal. But he was soft spoken and deferred readily to Fal’s judgment on anything to do with getting them where they were going. So Fal liked him well enough.

“How’s the ship?” Rena asked, peering out the window.

“She’s fine,” replied Fal, glad for an excuse to watch the repairs again. “The hull got banged up pretty bad, but not much structural damage. We should be underway again sometime tomorrow.”

“I heard you talking with the chief mechanic when we came in. He said that most pilots would have come through the storm much worse off than you.”

The admiration in Rena’s voice sounded genuine, but Fal brushed it off.

“Eh, Cid says that all the time. And I’ve been in worse.”

Rena fell silent, though she didn’t look offended that Fal hadn’t taken the compliment. She stood beside him and watched the mechanics weld the replacement hull pieces into place. She clearly didn’t understand everything that was happening like Fal did, but she did look interested and Fal appreciated that. So many people just saw the ships, especially ships like his, as a necessary inconvenience in getting from one place to another. It was nice to have someone take even just a minute to appreciate the ship itself.

“So why do you run independent?” Rena asked as if it were a casual question. “Most of the pilots we were looking at before weren’t good enough to fly for the big fleets. But you could pass the exams easy.”

Fal was taken aback, though he tried not to show it. He hadn’t talked to Rena that much before now, so he hadn’t noticed just how uninhibited she was. Granted, most of his passengers barely spoke to him more than was absolutely necessary. But he wasn’t used to anyone asking him questions like that.

“Well,” Fal began, scratching at the side of his neck, “I did fly for TransUni for a little while. But it gets boring, flying the same routes all the time. Solo doesn’t pay as well, but I own my ship and I go where I want when I want to.”

Rena nodded, apparently satisfied with the answer. They both turned their attentions back to the ship. The mechanics were maneuvering a new section of hull into place. It was a little thicker than the older sections, though the mechanics would make it fit smoothly. Added protection, but Fal would have to adjust a bit for the additional weight.

“Why is that piece sunk in like that?” Rena was pointing at Tishtar’s nameplate.

“It’s old,” Fal replied. “I realized when I started having to bring Tishtar in for repairs and tune-ups that I’d probably have a whole new ship eventually. I have them keep the nameplate so there’s always something from the original on her. The clear sheeting keeps it protected, since it’s not as strong as most of the hull is now.”

“Is that a burn mark?”

Rena looked over at Fal, her eyebrows raised with far more questions than the one she had asked. Fal sighed quietly and rubbed his forehead. Should he tell her? It couldn’t really do any harm. They’d be unlikely to find another pilot to take them to such a remote planet way out here, so they were stuck with him no matter what they knew about him. But Rena was probably expecting some fun adventure story about comets or star flares. She might not react well, but Fal had always tried to be honest about what had happened and he didn’t want to stop now.

“Yeah,” he began slowly. “I was taking a group out to Konis sector. I figured they just wanted to start an unauthorized colony. I brought them out to EI 4.”

Rena’s eyes grew wide, and Fal hoped it wasn’t just his wishful thinking that she looked more surprised than horrified.

“That was you?” she said quietly. Fal nodded.

“I had no clue they were going to blow it up. I was lucky to get out at all. I doubt they cared much whether I made it or not.

“I was able to convince the judges that I wasn’t in on their plan. But I didn’t get hazmat waivers back then, so I was still partly liable. And the PCC doesn’t like losing seven hospitable planets, or that many people, even if they were crazy. I got four years incarceration and another four flight prohibition.”

“So what did you do then?” There was enough genuine concern in her voice that Fal could let himself believe that knowing about his past hadn’t made Rena hate him.

“Odd jobs mostly. I got work permits on the Chinese and Saudi systems, so I hung around there a lot. Whatever made me enough money to keep Tishtar from being sold.”

“Why didn’t you just work in you home system? Was it a lot more money in the others?”

Fal motioned to the docked Tishtar outside the window.

“She’s my home. I didn’t really care where I stayed until I could get her back. It was easier that way anyways. You can go where the work is if you’re not tied down to one place.”

Rena nodded, though Fal doubted she completely understood. She probably had some nice house on one of the hub planets, close to her family. He wondered if she’d ever been this far from home before. They stood in silence for a while, watching the mechanics smooth out the rough spots on the new hull pieces. Fal wished he could think of something more to say, but nothing came. Rena had led the entire conversation and now that she had fallen silent, it seemed to have ended.

A voice from a short ways away caused both Rena and Fal to turn. Shi Ye, the other member of Fal’s group of passengers, was calling for Rena from the cafeteria section of the lounge. Fal could see Nebu sitting at a nearby table. Rena waved to them in answer, and then turned apologetically to Fal.

“I’ve gotta get going,” she told him. “It was nice talking to you. I’ll see you on the ship.”

She waved hurriedly and started towards the cafeteria. Fal returned the wave awkwardly.

“I’ll see you,” he echoed, wishing he had something better to say even as he said it.

Though Fal knew he should be supervising the final repairs on Tishtar, he somehow couldn’t stop himself from watching Rena jauntily rush off to join her group. He wondered if she might tell them anything about him.



Fal gracefully eased Tishtar through a small field of space debris. They were just two days out from AF 5, but Fal was hoping to shave an hour or two off of that time. Most pilots wouldn’t have cared and wouldn’t have bothered to do the navigation themselves. They usually just let the autopilot take over unless it warned them of something it couldn’t handle. But Fal had always preferred taking control himself. Autopilots were reliable enough for when Fal needed some sleep, but even the slightest risks were unacceptable to them. By handling the ship himself, Fal could usually cut a good chunk of time off the trip compared to what the autopilot would have done. Besides, Fal enjoyed steering the Tishtar. When he wasn’t sleeping, he generally spent his time in the cockpit.

The green communications button for the ship’s small meeting room lit up. The passengers spent most of their time there and Fal could only assume they were working out the final details of whatever experiment they were planning. Fal hit the button, enabling the microphone and speakers.

“Go ahead,” he said casually.

“Captain,” Nebu’s voice came crackling over the speaker, “what is our remaining flight time to Tonantzin?”

It still puzzled Fal how all three of them referred to planets by their informal names. Scientists especially, Fal figured, would prefer the more precise number and star abbreviation system. But they repeatedly called even the most distant planets like this one by those archaic names. Fal shrugged and checked his instrument readings.

“We’ve got about one day, seventeen hours,” he answered. “Less if conditions are good.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

Fal would have shut off the communication system, but a short beep told him that the autopilot was engaging and starting to scan for the clearest path out of the debris field in order to take a long, unobstructed arc around it. Fal punched in the override code and got the ship back into position, tilting slightly to the port side to avoid a larger chunk of rock.

That was when he heard it. “Gaia bomb.”

Fal stared in shock at the communication speaker, as if expecting it to explain what he had just heard. He wanted to believe it was a mistake; that he had misheard somehow. After all, was there any such thing as a “Gaia bomb”? But he knew it was real. After what had happened, he knew that word when he heard it.

Fal made sure the microphone was off and began listening intently. The audio from the speaker was not very good, so Fal couldn’t be sure who had said that word he dreaded to hear. It might have been Shi Ye, but it could have been Nebu. Fal kept listening, but he didn’t hear anything other than what he was already nearly certain of. They had a bomb and they were going to drop it on AF 5.

Fal just barely managed to get the ship through the last of the debris field. He let the autopilot pick up and fell back in his chair. How could they possibly have a bomb? What did they have that didn’t set off the cargo scanners? And why bring it out to some uninhabited planet to set off? They weren’t landing with it, so this wasn’t another suicide cult. Maybe they just wanted to test it. Maybe it was a bioweapom, something slow acting. Maybe the would come back later and see how it was progressing, drop some test subjects down to check its effects, then try in on an inhabited planet when they knew what it did.

Fal could hardly think straight. What could he do? Contact the PCC? It would take them too long to get out here and even with the waiver, they might still come down on him. Confront his passengers? He wasn’t sure what they might do. Jettison the bomb in space before they got to the planet? He wasn’t sure what it might do. Fal didn’t have many options, and none of them seemed good. But one thing he knew: he could not let this happen again.


Fal headed down the corridor to the cargo bay and typed in the passkey for the door. He was fairly sure Nebu, Shi Ye, and Rena were all asleep, but he still kept quiet. They didn’t use cryo, so any of them could wake up at any time. The door slid open and Fal entered the cargo bay where the single large crate stood.

Once he had found the lock, Fal reached into his pocket and pulled out a tiny device. Lockpicks were completely illegal for independent pilots, of course, but Fal had picked one up after EI 4, just in case. He plugged it into the lock’s port. The pick fired its various random codes into the lock, hitting on the right one in a matter of seconds. The lock popped and Fal carefully opened the crate.

A sleek metal object sat inside a stabilizing case that was probably meant to fall away once the crate left the ship. Fal looked carefully around the projectile for any sign of what it might contain. It did occur to him that figuring out what exactly the bomb did might kill him. But he had taken the precaution of putting Tishtar in a slow orbit around a nearby planetoid before going to check the cargo. If the thing did kill him, at least the so-called scientists would never make it to AF 5, or back, without assistance.
Assuming that any of them survived

Before long, Fal found a panel with a handle on it along one side of the device. He grasped the handle, rotated it, and slid the panel to the side. Inside the bomb, Fal could see numerous small, suspended tubes. They seemed to fill every part of the bomb and Fal wondered if it opened up further to allow access to the rest of the tubes. He couldn’t see much in them aside from colored liquids. But each one had a label attached to it. “Tonantzinus currans” one read. “Tonantzinus canis” proclaimed another. It made absolutely no sense to Fal. Worse, it didn’t really give him any hint of what to do.

There was a sudden footstep behind him. Fal whirled around, realizing as he did how totally unprepared he was for a fight. But with no weapon of her own, he guessed that Rena wasn’t either. He could only see her in the faint glow from the ship’s safety lighting, but he could make out her face. She didn’t look at all surprised, just sad.

“I think you’d better come with me,” she said, with a heavy sigh.


It seemed like forever before Nebu, Shi Ye, and Rena joined Fal in the meeting room where Rena had left him. He had tried to listen in on their conversation in the hallway, but he couldn’t make anything out through the closed door. Now they had apparently reached some kind of decision and were coming in to inform him. Rena had that same sad look on her face as she slumped down in the chair opposite Fal. Nebu seemed more worried as he stood to one side of Rena. Shi Ye eyed Fal irritably and took his seat at Rena’s other side.

“Let me say first,” Nebu began, “that I am truly sorry. It was not our intention to involve you in any of this.”

“Shouldn’t have hired me then,” Fal thought, though he didn’t say anything. Nebu paused, saw that Fal wasn’t going to respond, then continued.

“I’m guessing that you overheard our earlier conversation, including our rather poor term for our device.”

Nebu’s eyes fell on Shi Ye briefly and Fal guessed that he was probably the one who had dubbed that thing in the cargo bay the “Gaia bomb”. Still, Fal said nothing. Nebu sat down and looked at him intently.

“I assure you that our ‘bomb’ is not intended to destroy anything. In fact, it’s meant to create.”

Fal didn’t feel reassured. Nutcases used this kind of double talk all the time to justify whatever crazy thing they wanted to do. The cultists on EI 4 had apparently thought they were bringing about some kind of new paradise by causing the end of the universe. You could say it however you want, but bombs still destroyed.

“It’s like a seed packet.” Fal was surprised to hear Rena speak. Her face had changed from deep sadness to an almost pleading look, as if she was desperate to make him understand.

“It’s seeds,” she repeated. “Seeds for the whole world. It makes plants and animals and all kinds of life.”

Fal had to admit he hadn’t expected this and he was intrigued at the least. But he still didn’t trust these people. He thought back to that day at the repair station, the first time he and Rena had really talked. What had she really been thinking? Had she been sent to get information on Fal, figure out his secrets in case they needed something to use against him?

“Why?” he asked, barely looking up.

Rena looked like she was about to say something, but she turned to Nebu instead. The old man sighed a little, like he was remembering something hard to deal with.

“For eons,” he began, “we have realized that we are essentially alone in the universe. Our exploration has turned up nothing but microscopic organisms, certainly nothing on a par with our level of development. Instead of seeing that knowledge as a sign that we should act as caretakers of the universe, we have taken it as permission to do as we wish with it.”

“And act like idiots while we do it,” added Shi Ye, speaking for the first time. “We’re just dividing up the galaxy, fighting over resources, claiming every planet for one nation or another. We only care about whether we can use something, and if we can’t, we just destroy it to make room for something we can. We just act like there’s always going to be more of everything, no matter what we do.”

“So how does this help?” Fal asked. “We pretty much did the same thing on Sol 3 and that had plenty of plants and animals on it back then. How’s another planet like that going to change anything?”

“It’s not just plants and animals,” Rena said very quietly. “We’re trying to make a species on our level. Something as smart as us.”

Fal stared at Rena, totally dumbstruck. He tried to formulate a sentence, but he had absolutely no response to what she had just said.

“We believe,” Nebu continued, “that another ‘sentient’ species, for lack of a better term, will force us to reexamine our place in the universe.”

“Assuming,” began Fal, trying to collect his thoughts, “that your new species actually gets that smart. And that it survives. I mean, won’t we just take it out in the name of progress if we get here before it’s as smart as we are?”

“The device isn’t just once species,” Nebu explained. “It’s hundreds of plant and animal species with thousands of mutational iterations of each one. They all have different characteristics that we believe will help them survive on this particular planet, but only the best adaptations will thrive. The device is designed to jumpstart the evolutionary process. About five percent of the organisms are endowed with the necessary characteristics to attain our level of development. The other species are there to provide a full ecosystem for them. Because of the current pace of human colonization, we’ve set the program to hopefully reach completion in 300 to 500 years. By that time, the major species should be creating advance technology, possibly even space travel.”

“So we’ll basically have a rival for planets that doesn’t go by our rules,” Fal said skeptically. “Well what if once they find out about us, they use their big brains to build weapons and try to wipe us out?”

“They won’t,” Rena said firmly.

“We don’t know that,” Shi Ye countered, sounding like they had been through this argument before. He turned to Fal.

“Even if they do decide to fight us, we’ll still outnumber them. Our organization would be able to give the militaries information about how to beat them without letting on that we created them. And at the least, it’ll make us stop thinking like a bunch of separate countries and start acting like one species with a common goal.”

“But they could still get a couple of hits in before we could take them out,” Fal argued. “A lot of people could die. Then what do we learn? That it’s safer to shoot first?”

Shi Ye looked irritated again, but Nebu nodded, bowing his head.

“Our plan is not without risks,” he admitted. “And we will likely not be the ones to suffer the consequences if it does come to violence. Still, we do believe the potential gains outweigh the negative possibilities.”

“And even if this species does get killed,” Rena added, “there’s the others.”

Shi Ye smacked his forehead in exasperation and Rena seemed to realize she had made a mistake. Nebu held up a hand.

“It’s all right, Serena,” he said. “We need to be completely honest with Captain Lenaeum if we expect him to trust us.”

Nebu returned his attention to Fal.

“This is our first mission, but we do have two similar devices being prepared for other planets. We are working on more, though we hope to know how these three are progressing before we seriously consider launching those.”

Fal just sat for a minute, trying to process everything they had told him. Nebu wanted him to trust them, to help them. Help them to create a new lifeform to keep their own species in check. Trust them that it was for the good of everyone, because they were almost certain it was. There seemed to be way too many near certainties in this plan: the near certainty that the new species would achieve space flight in three to five centuries, the near certainty that they wouldn’t exterminate all of humanity, maybe even the near certainty that Fal would help with this plan.

“I’m not saying I’m going along with any of this,” Fal said at last, “but if I did, what happens then?”

“We go into orbit over Tonantzin,” Shi Ye explained, “then we dump the Gaia bomb. The vivasimines are launched and triggered to grow and the whole casing eventually disintegrates.”

“And us?” Fal asked. He didn’t particularly care about how the “Gaia bomb” did its job.

“We go home,” answered Nebu. “We return to the project, secure transportation to one of the other target planets with another device, and periodically return to Tonantzin to observe the progress from a distance. You go on with your business and never see us again, if you so choose.”

“Okay, so what if I decide this is insane and just dump the thing into deep space instead?”

“You can’t!” Fal nearly jumped at the sudden burst of near anger from Rena.

“You can’t do that! People have been working their whole lives to make this happen! You can’t just throw it away!”

“She’s right,” Shi Ye agreed, sounding the least confrontational that Fal had heard him. “It’s not just us. People have spent decades on this project. No pay, no recognition. Most of them can’t even tell their families what they’re doing. They did it because they believe it has to happen.”

Fal sighed. He didn’t doubt it. He could imagine them all, tons of scientists working away in some secret lab somewhere, tweaking genes to build a better aliens. He didn’t doubt that they thought it was necessary. But the EI 4 cultists had thought what they were doing was necessary to usher in paradise. Good intentions didn’t necessarily mean good results.

“What if I take the ship to the nearest station and turn you all in?”

Nebu sighed deeply. Fal was fairly sure he had considered this possibility many times.

“We would be arrested immediately. Whether we tell them or not, it is almost certain that the authorities will find the rest of our group and arrest them as well. None of our respective nations will look favorably on us. Our experiment breaks countless laws. I imagine the waivers you obtained from us would allow you to claim ignorance and your action in turning us in once you found out what we were planning would likely spare you any serious punishment. As for us, we would lose the project and end up incarcerated for decades.”

“We’d lose our freedom,” Rena said solemnly. It was probably intended to remind Fal of the time when he had lost his own freedom. But all it did was make him think about how that seemingly intimate conversation had probably been more of a fact-finding mission for Rena.

“So,” Shi Ye said, growing impatient, “what are you going to do?”

Fal looked at each of them: Shi Ye, angered by the possibility that their experiment might never come to fruition simply because they picked the wrong pilot; Nebu, patient as ever, yet worried for the safety of his group; and Rena, who still seemed to be searching for something to say that would make him understand what they were doing and why.

“I don’t know,” he said.


Fal stood quietly in the cargo bay beside the Gaia bomb. He had decided that he preferred Shi Ye’s term for it. Even if it wasn’t intended to destroy anything, it was going to destroy the way the galaxy was now. Nothing was going to be the same after they dropped it. If they dropped it.

Fal didn’t turn around when Rena came in. He only assumed it was her because she was the only one who would come and try to talk to him. Shi Ye had said everything he was going to and Nebu wanted him to make up his own mind. She called Fal’s name and confirmed his suspicion, but he merely nodded in answer.

“I can tell you about them, if you want,” Rena offered, motioning towards the crate. “I made one that has six legs, but it…”

“Don’t.” Fal didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want the responsibility of knowing what these things would be like now, and then wondering if he should have seen it coming when they started destroying inhabited planets.

“I’m sorry.” Fal couldn’t be sure anymore, but it sounded as if Rena actually was sorry.

“I’m sorry we brought you into this.” She fell silent, maybe hoping for him to say something, but he had nothing to say to her.

“It’s really up to you now,” she said very quietly. “You could just take us back and let us find someone else to deliver the device. You could turn us in or dump it in space, but I hope you don’t. It’s your choice, though.”

Fal sighed and rubbed his forehead. The two of them stood in silence. Even without looking at Rena, he could guess how uncertain she felt, unsure even of whether she should stay or go back to her group.

“So,” he said at last, “you want to tell them that we’re going to do this thing?”

He was only watching Rena out of the corner of his eye, but it would have been impossible to miss her eyes widening in surprise and the huge smile that broke out across her face.

“You mean it?” she said. She was all but bouncing with excitement that Fal wished he shared in. She looked like she might be about to hug him. Fal put up a hand.

“Just go,” he mumbled. His lack of enthusiasm did almost nothing to diminish Rena’s as she nearly flew out the door and down the hall to the meeting room. Fal could just hear the celebrations behind the door as he passed by. Someone was laughing and to Fal’s great surprise, it sounded like Shi Ye. He knew he could have gone in there and received all kinds of thanks and praise and assurances that he had done the right thing. But he kept going, down the hall, into the cockpit. He sat down and engaged the thrusters, slowly easing Tishtar out of orbit and back on course.

Twelve hours to AF 5.


“Cargo drop initiating in thirty. All clear.”

Fal did a final scan of the cargo bay after making the announcement. No life signs. The future inhabitants of AF 5 weren’t alive enough yet to register.

“Cargo drop in fifteen. All clear. Bay doors locking.”

Fal flipped the switch locking access from the rest of the ship to the cargo bay. It was probably unnecessary, but even now, he couldn’t risk anyone or everyone deciding to leap out into space unprotected and leaving him to explain what had happened to his passengers.

“Cargo drop in ten, nine, eight, seven, six…”

One last sweep of the cargo bay. Fal typed in the passkey for bay door release.

“…five, four, three…”

He grabbed the cargo release lever and prayed he was doing the right thing.

“…two, one.”

Fal pulled the lever.

“Cargo away.”

He tried not to think about what he’d just done, what it all meant. He scanned the cargo bay again and confirmed that the Gaia bomb had been jettisoned. He pushed the lever back up and reset the lock.

“Cargo is away. Bay doors will remain locked until bay is pressurized.”

Fal leaned back in his chair. It was another opportunity to join his passengers, who were likely watching the Gaia bomb descend towards the planet below. He could have shared a little of their triumph, but he still wasn’t sure if it was something he wanted to be a part of.

The cockpit door alert sounded and the viewscreen showed Rena waiting outside. Puzzled, Fal released the lock. The door slid open and Rena came in with uncharacteristic hesitance.

“You aren’t going to watch it go down?” Fal asked.

“No.” She glanced out the cockpit window and Fal guessed that she had some regrets about not watching her handiwork head to its final destination.

“Why did you do it?” she asked, not turning her eyes from the window.

Fal stretched his arms, giving himself a second to think. He hadn’t come up with a completely satisfactory answer yet. He still wasn’t completely convinced that this was a good idea, or that it wasn’t going to backfire. But there was one thing that seemed to keep coming up as he pondered his own reasons for his decision.

“I took some free time between jobs once,” he began, “ and I just went out flying. No particular destination, except away from all the big systems. So I was just out there, at least two weeks out from the nearest outpost even. And I saw a new planet.”

Rena turned her head, eyebrows raised.

“Really?” she asked. “A whole new planet?”

“Well, I’m not sure if it was a real planet,” answered Fal. “It was small, and pretty far out from the star. But it wasn’t on any of the charts.”

“What was it like?” asked Rena. She had turned completely away from the window, her attention fully on him now.

“Small, like I said. Probably pretty cold, being so far out. I don’t have instruments for checking that kind of stuff, so I’m just guessing. But it was kind of greenish blue, with little hints of yellow. It was nice.

“I guess I was kind of thinking that it doesn’t happen much anymore, finding stuff out here you don’t expect. So maybe if we had a whole planet full of life, like we never thought we were going to find, it’d make us think more about how we don’t know everything that’s out there yet.”

Rena was looking out the window again, but not to try and catch a glimpse of the Gaia bomb. She was just looking out into space, as if she saw something new in the dark, starry reaches.

“Could you…” she began, then suddenly shook her head. “Never mind.”

Rena’s gaze was growing distracted and unfocused again. Fal could feel another silence settling, but this time, he didn’t want to let it happen.

“Do you really think this is going to make us change?” he asked, motioning towards the planet below.

Rena took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Fal couldn’t know, but he thought this might be the first time Rena had ever really thought about that. People didn’t devote years of their life to a project that didn’t pay if they spent every day asking whether it was really going to work or not.

“I don’t know,” she said at last, “I hope it does. But I don’t know.”
Fal looked down at his hands and pressed his fingertips together. He had been thinking about what he was about to say since he had decided to drop the Gaia bomb, but it still wasn’t easy to do.

“So,” he started, trying to sound casual, “if you’ve got two more of these things and you want to come back and check on how this one’s doing, I think you’re going to need a pilot.”

Rena looked at him questioningly, almost guessing at where he was going with this, but not quite sure she should believe it.

“Independent pilot, obviously,” he continued, just glancing up from time to time to make sure she was listening. “Someone willing to go way out of the major systems. Someone who won’t talk because if you go down, so does he.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” she said, looking at him with a steady gaze. “I think what we really need is someone we can trust.”

Her sincerity was a little embarrassing, and Fal dropped his eyes away from her.

“I think I know someone,” he mumbled, “if you’re interested.”

Rena smiled, and Fal saw that same easy going, casual natured woman he’d talked to at the repair docks, who seemed to have disappeared that night he’d opened the crate in the cargo bay.

“It’s not really my decision,” she grinned. “Bu I’m sure they’ll say yes.”

Fal smiled with relief. Even if he still wasn’t totally sure that the Gaia bomb drop was the right decision, this felt like it was.

“So how did you get Tishtar?” Rena asked, running a hand along the wall. Fal cocked his head at her suspiciously and she laughed.

“I wasn’t trying to dig up info on you then,” she chuckled. “And you just offered to help us, so even if I had been, I wouldn’t need to now.”

“So you’re actually interested?” Fal had been told many times he could bore anyone to sleep when he started talking about his ship. Rena nodded.

“That and I like listening to people who are passionate about something.”

Fal dusted off the long unused co-pilot’s chair and motioned for Rena to sit, which she did.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll tell you more than you ever wanted to know about Tishtar, but then you tell me how a nice girl like you got started making killer aliens.”

“Deal,” Rena laughed, leaning expectantly towards Fal.

“All right,” Fal started. “I guess I was ten or so when I knew I wanted to fly. My mom used to work for TransUni, though she wasn’t a pilot….”


No one would ever know exactly when it happened. The rest of the universe would never know the date, and many years would pass before humanity became aware of just what had occurred and how it would change life irreparably. But everyone would know where it happened. Most people knew it as AF 5. Some called it Tonantzin. But it would have a new name soon enough. And though they would not ever be able to place exactly when it happened, people would talk of that day, write of it, sing of it, envision it in art, and remember it for all time.

The day the first Tonantzinian beheld the planet’s sun and gave it a name.

Saturday, July 7, 2007

Second Topic: We're Alone

It took me a while to come up with a topic different enough in nature from the first that I liked, but wasn't TOO different. (I'll save that one for next time around. *grin*) So here we go, the second topic for the Front Lobby Bench writing blog will be...

We're Alone.

It's the future (however distant or close is your choice). We humans have mapped the heavens, have found thousands upon thousands of extra-solar planets, identified the composition of them all with advanced technology, and turned all sorts of listening devices spanning the frequencies to the Earth-like ones for decades. And what have we found? Nothing. Not one peep. No signals, messages, pictures, accidental broadcasts, voices, or any sort of non-astronomical sounds. The final analysis? All of science is agreed. We're alone.

Earth is the only planet on which intelligent life has arisen. What does that mean for us humans? How do we react? How does this impact our advancement as a race, if at all? Where do we turn our technological efforts now?


As a reminder: Writers do not have to answer all the questions posed. They're simply possible starting points of thought.

Monday, July 2, 2007

Guardians - Jennifer's Submission

Hey, it was written a day before being due! But I've been away from technology until today. The last week and a half has been so busy hectic for me, I'm just glad I got time while Up North to write this out. It's been in my head for a while.

I have yet to pick/find a disease that fits what I want for this story, so please keep that in mind as you read and wonder where the details on that are. Otherwise, comment away! Comments of all nature are more than welcome.





Jordan took the seat to the right of her husband as they both sat down in front of the doctor's desk. The office wasn't anything out of the ordinary for a child psychiatrist. There were shelves of books behind the desk, taking up the entire wall. A spacious window with a nice view occupied the adjoining wall, bordered on one side by the various degrees and memberships this doctor had. But the window was only glass and frame, no way to open it. In front of the window was a large open area, a muted color designer rug designating how much space was to be uncluttered, surrounded by a couch on one side, two easy chairs with an empty end table between them on another side, and the doctor's special ergonomic chair kitty-cornering with the last two open sides. The wall across from the desk, beyond the open area, was lined with shelves and storage devices for children's toys, all of which were neatly put away. The last wall's only notable decoration was the door from which patients and their parents entered, as Jordan and her husband, Jackson, had just done.

She waited nervously for Doctor Hall to move around his desk and take his chair, which took longer than normal due to his getting on in years. Then Jordan waited more anxiously as he opened their paper work and reviewed it. He made the typical doctor non-committal "hmm" sound, and the stereotypical motion of looking down then back up the chart as if he could read a whole page at once in a few seconds simply by scanning it backwards. He even had the little metal framed glasses, which he held up slightly with his right hand so he could peer out from underneath them at what he was supposedly reading. All of it simply unsettled Jordan further. Shouldn't he have already seen all of this? Shouldn't he already know what was wrong with her daughter!? Why was he going through motions and wasting time right in front of her when he already had the answer!

Jackson put a steady hand on Jordan's arm, signaling her to calm down. She managed to peel her eyes away from the doctor to look at her husband. He was leaning slightly over the arm of his chair towards her, his face was empty of emotion but his eyes were steady and strong. She could practically hear him repeating to her "It's okay, everything is going to be fine," as he had over and over again the last several days. She simply nodded, then slumped back in her chair to await a verdict.

Doctor Hall finally set the folder down, clasped his hands together over it, and looked up at them. "Your daughter is quite sane," he informed them bluntly. "Much more so than would be expected under the circumstances," he added with a trace of approval in his voice.

Jordan failed to react. She was waiting for the "BUT". This sounded like good news, BUT there was always more. There had been every other time they had talked to a doctor in the last several years.

Jackson simply nodded, as if saying of course his daughter was in perfect mental health.

"Her outbursts, her occasional anti-social nature (introspection), her sudden mood shifts, her refusal to be parted with the stuffed animal," Doctor Hall, went on to say, "are all consistent with her situation." He moved one of his arms and picked up a piece of paper. "With your permission, if you recall, her medical records had been sent over. Everything is as I would expect it to be for someone with as severe a disease as she has." He set the paper back down and leaned slightly back in his chair.

(Here it comes,) Jordan thought, and braced herself for the bad news, squeezing Jackson's hand. He placed his other one over hers.

"It is quite clear to me," Doctor Hall announced, "Elizabeth has a Guardian."

Neither parent responded. Jordan blinked a few times while her mind tried to process what she had just been told, but she came up with nothing. Was that bad... or good?

"A guardian?" Jackson eventually asked for the both of them.

Doctor Hall nodded. "Yes." He paused a moment, then leaned forward on one elbow, taking his glasses into his hand and almost nibbling on the end of one side. "You see, a guardian is a being that responds to certain needs in a child. It can take pretty much any form the child wants, whatever is most useful in relating to the child. Different needs cause different guardians, and a child's guardian can change over the years. Guardians, if not bound up in a beloved object, are invisible and so of course considered imaginary friends," he explained with a dismissive wave of his hand holding his glasses. "Those in a physical form," he started the other side of the explanation by opening his other hand and moving slightly outwards, "are generally considered safety blankets or comfort toys. Eventually children out grow their guardians, and most go on to lead perfectly normal lives." His hands returned to their original positions, one on the desk, the other holding the glasses near his mouth in a thoughtful manner. "But guardians are essential to many children growing up healthy and well adjusted, especially in extreme cases like your daughter's." He paused again, looking back and forth from Jackson to Jordan with a look that asked if they had any questions so far.

"So when she's talking to Claire, her stuffed animal...?" Jordan started to ask slowly, trying to put together some understanding of what she was being told. "Holding only half a conversation..."

"She is actually talking with her Guardian," Doctor Hall confirmed. "And it is talking back, to her."

"So... Claire is real?" Jackson asked, his voice full of doubt.

"Undoubtedly," Doctor Hall replied.

Jordan and Jackson turned to each other, sharing a look. "Okay," Jackson started to speak first, turning back to face the doctor, "say we do believe you-"

"I do," Jordan interrupted. "Such things can be real, I know it." She glanced sideways at Jackson. "We, know it."

Jackson gave a quiet "hmmph", and sat back in his chair, indicating he was not about to fight this argument.

Doctor Hall quietly looked back and forth between the two for a moment, then let the comments slide. "Elizabeth's case is special, however," he continued on with his explanation. "I have been tracking guardians for decades. It's not typical for a guardian to have a very normal and real type name such as Claire. Unless it's a doll that comes pre-named and becomes a guardian." He gave a slight shrug as he opened his hands to the two in front of him, indicating this just happened to be the case. "Younger children have too hard a time pronouncing real names, and in general children prefer to pick identifying names, like binky or blanket, or simply make up creative names." He looked down at a pile of folders on one side of his desk. "I've been able to follow several guardians through the childhoods of multiple children, despite name changes, as their characteristics and behavior with the child they are guarding do not change. Even when I come across new Guardians, usually they are simply new to me but have been around, already identified by another specialist." He looked back up at the parents. "I do not believe this is the case with Elizabeth and Claire. I think Claire may be a new guardian."

"New guardian?" Jordan asked, the oh-no feeling in her stomach knotting tighter.

Doctor Hall nodded. "In all my years, I have only come across a new guardian two other times, and my associate here has only come across one once. All three times, the Guardian was an older sibling of the child in question, one who had died before the younger child started manifesting symptoms of a guardian."

Jordan inhaled broken sounding breath, turned and grasped her husband's arm with both her hands. She shut her eyes tight as her head dropped slightly.

"I have to ask," Doctor Hall's voice spoke quietly, respectfully, almost with apology, "did you two have an older child?"

Jordan clenched her teeth to keep her chin from quivering as she breathed.

"We had an older daughter," Jackson's voice replied very slowly, fighting to keep control. Jordan could not tell how he was fairing, for she didn't dare open her eyes. "She died, from the same disease Elizabeth has," Jordan continued. "Her name... was Claire."

Whatever Doctor Hall's reaction was, Jordan did not see. She simply clung to Jackson as she fought back a wave of grief. She felt Jackson's arm pry itself from her grip and move around her body. There were words from him in her ear, meant only for the two of them, but she barely heard them. It was only his tone and his form she was able to react to. But with his help, Jordan soon managed to regain control of herself enough that she felt she could interact with the doctor again.

"We thought," Jordan said in unsteady voice, "she simply remembered it from when she was younger. Elizabeth was one and a half, but she had known her sister's name by then, had been able to say it, when- when Clarie...."

"In all three cases before this," Doctor Hall spoke so Jordan didn't have to, still with subdued voice, "the older children had died from what they were then guarding the younger from. One case even had the guardian passed down from sibling to sibling, though in different forms, until the last grew up." He leaned forward, and with his best comforting voice offered the couple, "This is a good thing. With Clarie, it is much more likely Elizabeth will survive."

Jordan raised her eyes to look Doctor Hall in his, and believed him. She sighed out what hurt she could, and relaxed in Jackson's arms.

Jackson nodded to the doctor. "Then what do we have to do?" he asked. "I mean, we can't go telling her caregivers and teachers that her older sister's spirit is causing her to act out."

Doctor Hall nodded in understanding. "You continue with Elizabeth as her doctors instruct, and I will handle her teachers. Any caregivers- nurses or whomever- can be told or not as you see fit, as much or little as you see fit. They already deal with many patients, and since Elizabeth is not violent I doubt they much care how she gets through her sessions and treatments, so long as she does."

Jackson and Doctor Hall went over more details and specifics, Jackson being sure all possibilities of any sort he could think of were taken care of. Then a little round of small talk, before it was clear the meeting was starting to wrap up.

"Do you have any other questions?" Doctor Hall asked.

"Doctor?" Jordan asked lightly. "Are all guardians... like ours?"

Doctor Hall smiled a little, almost bittersweet smile. "Yes. All guardians used to be children. They tend towards being with children who are going through similar things as they did before they died. It seems to be how they know how to help best."

Jordan nodded. "And when the child grows up," she started another question, her eyes taking on a far off look, "they always move on to another?"

Doctor Hall started to shake his head. "Honestly, I do not know what happens to them all. There are many, yes, who move on to other children. I've been able to match several, my colleague many more, and across the country some of my guardians have been found just as I find those first identified by others. In fact, all of those who were not tied to an object have turned up again, eventually, with another child somewhere. Though only some of those who were material have turned up again." He shrugged. "I do not know what happens to the rest, or even what happens to Guardians when they are between children needing them."

Jordan nodded slightly, and leaned her head against her husband. "I do."

Doctor Hall looked genuinely surprised. So much so, it was his turn to not speak for a moment. "You do?" he finally managed to get out. "What?"

"They sleep," Jordan replied simply.

"Sleep," the doctor echoed neutrally.

Jordan nodded more firmly this time. "Mine still does. She hardly wakes up anymore. But, she's still there.... I can still feel her when I need her."

Jackson sighed deeply. Doctor Hall looked to him, and he nodded solemnly back. "She has this doll," he started to explain to the doctor. "Ever since she was a child...."