Category: Summer 2023

The wall was waking up. Yellow light bounced around in the hexagon, ever so slightly moving faster in the span of a blink, until the middle opened like an eye, casting its piercing light over the entire planet. It was beautiful. Nobody else saw it, nobody else could separate the planet from its creation. Tears drew their first breaths in Azure’s eyes, falling into the void below before their first words were spoken. Azure stood alone at the edge of the world, watching the stars as their world sailed towards the annual death of its people. Pebbles flew into the abyss and twigs crunched as heavy boots approached them.

“Message from our scouts,” said a deep, raspy voice. “It’s for your eyes only, or some nonsense like that.”

Azure sighed and pulled the bundle of gold-plated leaves to their chest. In the light of the wall, it was like a small sun in their hands, each leaf reflecting the brilliant light. As the leaves were opened, the little plant gave its last dying breath, its carbon being put back into the imbalanced atmosphere. Once its shelter was gone, the electric message sparked to life. Aurorin’s face shimmered into existence on the plate of metal. Azure’s heart raced—Aurorin was alive! The sheet began to vibrate in Azure’s hands, the movements forming sounds, then words.

“Azure, this mission is failing. The hunters have been in pursuit for several days, and–”

On the metal sheet, Azure could see Aurorin fall forward, barely managing to send the message before she blacked out from what must have been a hunter’s plasma rifle. The recording suddenly snapped to black with the abruptness of a viper’s strike. This mission had been entirely snuffed out by the Locufortian hunters. Azure left the metal folio on the ground, staring at it for several minutes before their sword went directly through the center. The electronic chip whined as its circuits were maimed. Azure kicked it, sending the whole plate of metal off the edge of the world. Tears welled up in their eyes again, not out of reflex, but out of fear and anger. Azure snuffed out the tears with the back of their hand, marching back to the resistance’s camp. Tents and wooden shelters struggled to escape their terrestrial bindings, rising into the air and only being held down by stakes and vines. As Azure strode into the area, they activated their boots’ magnetic clamps, holding them down despite the erratic gravity. As they threw open the command tent’s flap, everybody stopped talking to look at them. 

“Aurorin, along with the rest of the scouts, is dead or captured. We’ve got little to no information about the Locufortian defenses.” The other commanding officers sat in crushing silence for a moment before Azure spoke again. “We need to go in and save them before the incursion starts! It-” They were interrupted by a younger, lower ranked officer.

“Why?” he asked. “Why do we need to devote our resources to saving the scouts that failed?” The other officers slowly nodded, each bob of a head, Azure’s anger intensified until it reached the breaking point. After years of being held back, it surged forward and grabbed their brain by the steering wheel. 

“You don’t understand! You…imbeciles! This is our best scouting group, and we only have a week to gather information! You all only care about yourselves…I’m going alone if nobody’s coming with me.” Before anybody could respond, Azure grabbed their weapon from where it was hanging on the wall, and stormed off. 

Hours later, with the sun down, the forest was still bright. The wall’s golden glow permeated through every corner of the trees, no matter how dense the thickets were. No chirps or rustles were audible, the snapping of branches under Azure’s feet was the only sound that carried through the seemingly infinite masses of trees. Azure pressed on through the woods, their eyes dancing over every surface, searching for any sign of life, movement, anything that would give away a friend, foe, or even a wild animal in the lush yet desolate forest. A hand grabbed their ankle. Something flew out of a tangle of vines, light flashing off a long silver object in their hand. Before they could even react, Azure was on the ground, somebody’s knees on their arms, a knife at their throat. As their eyes refocused, they saw long scarred fingers, and the necklace they gave away a year ago. They found it was Aurorin on top of them, slowly pulling the blade away from their neck. 

“Oh,” she said. “It’s just you…wait, why are you here?”

“I was trying to find you!” Azure exclaimed. “I thought you had died!”

“Me too.” Aurorin absently felt at the back of her neck, which, as Azure now realized, was burned and mangled. 

“Is that…where he hit you? It’s bad, but…it could have been a lot worse.”

“Yeah, I know. It really doesn’t hurt that much.” The two stood in silence for a moment, staring everywhere but at each other. Finally, Aurorin spoke up. “Everyone else was captured…do you want to see where they are?” 

Azure’s brain seemed to work again, like it hadn’t since Aurorin had jumped out of the shadows. 

“O-of course. That’s why I’m here, after all.” As they began to creep through the jungle, something came to Azure’s mind. “How did you escape capture?” Aurorin turned to face Azure, while still walking in a specific direction. 

“I’m not entirely sure,” she admitted. “When I regained consciousness, the shelter had been destroyed, and I was out in the open. A few minutes later, you walked by, and…” The pair kept walking in silence. Finally, a movement in the leaves uncovered a large facility, showcasing its fountains of oil. A Locufortian building, plated with expensive bright metals and shiny gemstones.  Azure took out their spyglass—they could see people in prisoner’s garb inside.

“This is the place,” Aurorin said. “Let’s head around to the back.” As the two strode around the prison, Azure noticed that there wasn’t a single guard on the premises. Aurorin jauntily walked around the building like she hadn’t noticed. 

“You go on,” Azure yelled, “I’ll keep up.” As Azure stood there, trying to look busy, they felt Aurorin’s gaze on them. She wasn’t moving, just…looking. That’s not Aurorin. She would never just stand around like that. “Hey Aurorin! Over here!” Not-Aurorin sauntered over, a slight smile on her face. Before they knew what they were doing, Azure slammed the flat of their sword into the fake Aurorin’s throat. As she gasped for air, Azure grabbed her neck and pinned her to the ground. “Who are you?” The imposter Aurorin smiled, her face splitting apart. Underneath the now-gone face, a hideous smile was exposed, full of too many teeth.

The deep and unnatural voice seemed to reverberate through the trees, “It really took you this long to realize this? You’re losing your edge.” Rage filled Azure once again, making them slam their hand onto the imposter’s neck. 

“Where’s the real Aurorin?” The shapeshifting…thing laughed even harder, shaking the trees. 

“Dead. You failed, Azure.” Azure’s grip loosened, a numbness spreading throughout their whole body. They were whispering under their breath, not moving.

“I…failed…?” With that, a spear rose from the fake Aurorin’s chest. It touched Azure’s skin, then broke it, sending trickles of blood raining down the point, then the shaft. Azure didn’t feel pain, the spear was simply not strong enough to outmatch the emptiness inside, the void that had been filled by hope, the void that was now empty. As the spear rose higher, in a second that stretched into a year, the welling blood filled their vision, their life. Azure closed their eyes. Some time later—Azure had no idea how long it had been—they struggled to open their eyes, finding themself surrounded by trees, carnivorous plants moving closer to their body. They tried to push themself up, but their hands slipped on the pooled blood, their blood. They released their grip on their sword, which was planted into the lifeless body of…Aurorin. No, not Aurorin, somebody else. Azure looked down and saw the pike driven through their own body, their blood dripping off of the tip. All this time…all this work…and this is what kills me…? Faint footsteps came into their earshot, with yells of…their name? Hands brushed against the underside of their chest, and as a face became visible, the world dissolved into bright golden light. And it was beautiful.

A gentle breeze swept over a small neighborhood in Brooklyn. The sun shined over the New York City skyline, like any other spring day. It started with my little brother toddling around our apartment. 

“Ish, Ish, Ish, Ish.” I don’t know why someone would name their child Ish, but my name was Burtch, and that wasn’t any better.

I rolled out of bed and put on my glasses, and I was off. The house was empty except for me and Ish, which gave me no choice but to take him with me. Home life was never easy. There was always a bill overdue and our electricity wasn’t very stable. There were cracks in the paint, and after my mom left, I hadn’t had a single friend over. You would think that we would be living with another relative, but the only one still alive was my mom’s mom. She lived in California and only visited once a year. She was now too old and frail to travel. Part of me was used to this, but I knew Ish deserved better. 

 I tiptoed out the door and held my hand over Ish’s big mouth. I never grew up like the other kids nearby. My mom had left a while ago, and left me with newborn Ish. She left in the night, didn’t tell us where she was going, and we never knew why. I thought that she would come home one night, but to this day she still hasn’t. Once you opened the front door to our house, your ears were clogged by police sirens and the sound of loud piercing screams from the family next door. When my mom was there, it was always a lot easier to manage.

With Ish and my school bag in my arms I headed outside. Ish tried to run out of my grip, but I knew better than to let him go. I held him tight to my chest, my heart pounding and Ish kicking me with all his might. It had been the same way every morning since the day Ish was born. My pace quickened as I saw what was up ahead. The guys.

Ever since I was Ish’s age they would torment me. Then I had my mom to stand up for me, but now she wasn’t there to fend for us. I dodged the next corner and ran with Ish the rest of the way to school. It didn’t really feel like I could face them alone. I was small, skinny, and pale; they were huge and muscular, always on guard waiting to attack. I dropped Ish off at the preschool center. He gave me a kiss, and with a smile on his face, ran off. Now I had to face the walk to school.

The next few blocks were filled with broken glass, and the smell of smoke wafted through the air. It felt like my every move was being watched. With each step I could hear the faint sound of laughter getting louder and louder.

I walked into the hallway and kids pushed and shoved me as they walked by. I was the weird kid at my school. The one who was in the school band, answered every question right and I thought that was what everyone wanted. My mom always said, “Your education is the most important thing.” I tried to live up to that standard, but I never was good enough. Each time I got a perfect test score it didn’t feel perfect. I was confused, because I didn’t even know what I wanted. I was top of my class, but kids still passed me and looked at me like I was nothing. I was just that kid, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t escape from it.

I walked into classroom 5A with my shoulders hunched and head hanging low. I took my seat next to a small window while Ms. Crow went on about writers’ craft. Once we were dismissed, I went to the library.

 The library had been my second home since I entered middle school. There were shelves full of thousands of books, all categorized and placed in different sections. Scattered around the room there were little reading nooks, and all I wanted to do was stay in there for hours. I scanned each shelf and grabbed as many books as I could carry and went to check them out. There were very few kids who liked the library as much as I did. At the moment it was just me and the librarian, which in some ways made it nicer. It was quiet and there were no kids around to stare and judge me. I curled up on a small chair and picked a book out of my pile. The cover was blank, and I flipped through the pages– only to find a note written with the same neat, cursive handwriting as mine. The same handwriting that I had recognized through all of my childhood.

Run.

My mom left without leaving a note, but if she could bother to just write the word Run, it meant something. A wave of shock overcame me as I looked and realized that this was her handwriting. Just seeing it brought me back to when she would hold my hand and check on me every night to make sure I was okay. I could just feel her presence in the room. I couldn’t see her, but she was there watching me from wherever she was in the world now. My mind raced as I thought of Ish and how he never had a real mother. I was sure that this wasn’t a joke, but I was also sure that she would never leave me, but I was wrong. My breath started slipping, and suddenly someone’s hands were wrapped around my throat. Mr. March, the librarian, was behind the counter and couldn’t see what was going on. I looked up to see just another kid in my class. I wrestled my way out of the clutch on my throat, grabbed the small book and ran. This suddenly didn’t feel like teasing anymore, because it hurt all of me. My insides ached and my face was still purple from the impact of the hands that had just been around me.

I ran, tears dripping down my face, my legs aching and burning but I couldn’t stop running. I knew my mom too well. She didn’t want to leave us, but she felt like she had to. 

 My legs came to a halt and I bent down, panting, my eyes bloodshot red, and it felt like the whole world was spinning at full speed around me. My head felt this strange sensation, and my body was not in my control anymore. I was drifting and drifting away…

I woke up to find myself in a hospital bed. Where’s Ish? And then I saw him. His little smile was gone and he had gone quiet. Three people marched in the room and tried to grab Ish from his seat. 

“Where are you taking him?” I asked, but they ignored me and grabbed Ish tight around his little arms. 

Once he was out of the room he started to cry. Small tears dripped down his face, and now I was the one who had gone quiet.

The pain in my head was now sharper and stronger than before, I was helpless. I had let Ish go and didn’t even put up a fight. It felt like my fault, it was my fault.

Doctors came and went talking, whispering, sometimes even shouting but my ears still rang with the sound of Ish’s screams. I had no options layed out for me and my future. School had got me nowhere but stuck in my own head and I had to just wait. The digital clock in the room kept flashing bright lights and I just had to wait for child services to come and take me next just like Ish.

A figure came into the room. Her face was scared and frigid all at once. She was very thin and her hair was the color of straw, just like my own. Her shoes were torn, and her pants were covered with patches of dirt and grime. Her ears were too big for her head and her mouth was shaped with an almost perfect curve on the upper lip. 

“Run,” she said, and then without another word, she gave me the slightest kiss on the cheek and left.

I discreetly slipped out of bed and felt all the blood rush down from my head. The air was still and I was able to take off the IV that had been placed in my arm. In my hospital gown, I tiptoed out of the small room and worked my way through each bustling hospital corridor. Once I had made my way down to the exit, I had to get past a bunch of security. I made my way around a metal detector and went into the large swirling doors. Once I was outside I realized exactly where Ish had gone.

I took off sprinting, jumping past cars going through streets, and then I saw him. Waiting at the bus stop for me. I didn’t care how he had escaped those other people, but he was alone. There was a large cut on his forehead, and when he saw me he came running. I embraced him in my arms, and decided that it was time to tell him the truth. “Ish, I’m sorry, but we can’t stay here much longer.”

“I know Burth Burth, we are not safe here anymore,” Ish replied. 

Ish climbed up onto my back and I ran. I ran past mountains and fields and skyscrapers. We were never going to stop because no one could stop us.

Night creeped up on us and my stomach grumbled. I laid Ish down on a patch of grass and he instantly fell asleep. At the break of dawn I woke Ish up, and we were off again. In the distance I could see a small village, and with Ish now running and the sun shining; my aching hunger was pushed aside by a sense of joy– because Ish was here with me, away from child services, the dangers of Brooklyn, and he was safe.

After another night on the run, the village up ahead was closer than ever. My bare feet followed the path of a wet cobblestone road, and I decided that this was where we would call home for the coming years. Education was important, but not as important as Ish. He was my everything from the day he was born to the day that I die. It would always be Ish and I forever.

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Will Ravenswood woke up from a sleep devoid of any dreams with a smile on his face. Not because of anything that was happening that day or because he had a good sleep, but because he smelled something: the sweet scent of frying bacon. He jumped out of bed, dressed himself quickly, jammed on his boots, and ran downstairs so hard he practically flew. He lived in a small house, in a room only a couple feet wide with three beds in it. One was for his grandma, Em. He also had a small drawer, half of which was his, the other half occupied by his adopted sister. Downstairs was slightly bigger, with a couple of small lamps lighting up a kitchen and a table, as well as a door at the end. His grandma, who was standing over their small stove with a frying pan in hand, gave him an eye.

“Don’t stomp around like that!” she said with a scowl on her face. “You’re going to break your neck, or worse, the stairs!”

“Sorry Grandma,” said Will, walking as fast as he could down the rickety old steps. Will was a bright young boy of fifteen, with curly black hair and brown eyes. He was a perfectly average height for his age, but he was abnormally strong, due to his years and years of training to be a soldier in the army. Grandma Em was shorter than Will but she made up for it by being twice as strong as him. She wore a white dress and blue apron at all times and possessed hand wraps that she used to fight things.

“Why do we have bacon? We’ve never had bacon without something special happening,” asked Will. She threw her hands up in the air in anger, somehow not flinging fried pork through the air in the process.

“Do you need me to memorize your schedule for you? It’s your graduation day.” Will’s heart skipped a beat. He had completely forgotten in the night. He went to the Lightbringer School for Pawns, where he was training to be either a Knight, Pawn, or a ROOK (Royal Officer Of the King). The final exam was to decide whether or not he got promoted or stayed a pawn. He was one of the best in his class, but because he moved up two grades, he was worried that he was too young to beat everyone else in the final exam (a giant free-for-all battle between all of the students). His grandma must have seen his worried expression because she took the pan off of the stove and hugged him.

“Oh, don’t worry. There’s a reason you moved up two grades, right? You’ll be fine!” She smiled deviously. “Then, you’ll get a good job and give me a share of the earnings, like your sister did.” Will groaned. His older sister Mira was probably one of the most innovative Bishops (or witches) to ever exist, revolutionizing magic and getting a lot of money from making weird, magic, robot things. She figured out how to make fireballs and plants by combining machines and magic, so he could never hear the end of it from Em. 

“Now, eat your bacon,” she said, pouring a third of the pan’s contents onto Will’s plate. Will picked at his mere thirty-three percent of the pan, and as the stairs creaked, he was severely reminded as to why he could only have that portion. Rogue, his other sister, creaked her way down the stairs and, before sitting down in her chair, grabbed three pieces of bacon and tossed them into her mouth. 

“Good morning, dear,” said Grandma Em, her rough demeanor deteriorating at Rogue’s sudden entrance. 

“Morning, Grandma Em. Morning, Will,” she said, swinging her feet onto the table. Will twisted to do the same, but Grandma Em raised her eyebrow at him, and he sadly twisted back to his normal seat. Not too long ago, at the beginning of the year, when the last blizzard of the spring was raging, Will found the shivering Rogue on a street corner, only about as old as Will and only remembering her name. Will was wary of her suit of stealth pawn armor that she possessed, and her unnaturally purple eyes, but he still brought her home, and his Grandma Em said she could stay for a couple days to recuperate and perhaps remember something. Days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and months turned to years, until it seemed like she was a real part of the family. Grandma Em still treated her as a guest, however, so Rogue could get away with anything she wanted. She had incredibly pale skin, like she spent all of her time underground, and raven-black hair, which fell down to a little bit below her neck.

“How’d my little brother sleep?” she asked, licking the bacon grease off of her fingers.

“Fine,” Will replied. “How’d my short sister sleep?” he replied, cutting up and finishing a strip of his bacon. Rogue’s face turned slightly red at the nickname. Rogue’s biggest ammunition against Will was the fact that when they used experimental age testing technology to help find out who she was, it said she was forty-two. While this was obviously not true, she still addressed Will as her little brother. Will’s only retort was that she was about a foot underneath the average height of a Pithosian girl, which she was quite embarrassed by. Grandma Em sat down next to Will, and chomped down her bacon with almost as much gusto as Rogue. Suddenly, a miniature owl dove in through the chimney and spread its wings, slowing down to a halt in front of Grandma Em and lying face up on the table, spread eagled, with legs curving outward to form a face-shaped arc. 

“Ah, it’s Mira’s messenger,” she said, putting it up to her ear and plugging her other. Will’s eyes widened.

“Mira’s coming? Today?” Will went back to being terrified for his final exam. Rogue, in contrast, seemed to be very excited for this. 

“Wait, Mira’s coming today? Finally, I get to see her again! We can discuss all the best ways to torment Will!” Grandma Em seemed to not hear that. Three days after Rogue came, Mira graduated and left for Atsbury, the capital. Rogue, however, only needed three days to start treating Mira like family. Rogue looked over at Will’s face and furrowed her brow.

“What’s wrong? I thought you might be sort of happy to see your sister again after…” she counted on her fingers, “What is it, three whole years? Is there something happening today?” Will rung his hands.

“Yeah. Final exams for Lightbringer’s.” He shook his hands. For the first time since he had known her, Rogue almost looked surprised, but she quickly switched back to her aloof personality. 

“Yeesh, sucks for you. Anyway, I’m gonna go stay in my room and have no worries about anything,” she said, but as she headed to the stairs, Grandma Em grabbed the cuff of her shirt. 

“Now, young lady,” said Grandma Em, ignoring the fact that she was supposedly forty-two. “I don’t make you do much in this house, because you’re a guest, but since you’re becoming a part of the family, you have to do some things.” Rogue looked horrified at the suggestion of having to do something against her own will. Will pumped his arm under the table.

“L-like what?” she asked, voice trembling. 

“You’re coming with me…” Grandma Em said. Rogue closed her eyes and gulped.

“To Will’s final exam.” Rogue sighed and looked relieved.

“For an hour.” Rogue shrieked and ran up the stairs, quick as a fox. Grandma Em laughed, pinching her nose. 

“What are we going to do with that girl, Will?” Suddenly, a large boom sounded across the town. 

“Oh no,” Grandma Em rolled up her sleeves. “That sounds like trouble. Come on, Will. Help your grandma kill a monster, won’t you?”

Grandma Em was Greenset’s resident monster hunter, a role given to her due to her successes in some war, but recently, Will had become old enough to start fighting monsters with her. This was especially useful because the monster attacks were getting much worse, and thus more dangerous for an old woman like Em to do on her own. Will grabbed his glaive, magic pendant, and armor (haphazardly strapped on in his haste), and then ran outside. The town square of Greenset was usually a very beautiful place, especially in the fall, with a massive statue of a goddess smiling serenely in the center. Many shops lined the square, including Grandma Em’s Vegetable Shop and Uncle Ben’s Butcher, the former’s bitter rival. There were also many gardens and trees lining the square’s edge in the small spaces between the narrowly stuffed shops. 

However, today was a little different. The gardens and trees (not to mention a few stores) were blazing with fire, and the usually quiet and nice goddess statue had the apparent culprit curled around it: a giant, horned snake. Will had seen many snakes in his life. Some green, some blue, and a rare few, red. But he had never seen a snake this color before. He wasn’t sure he had ever seen anything this color before. It was almost like it was the color of pure shadows, a completely, purely, opaque, black-ish purple he had never seen before. It didn’t burn his eyes and it didn’t hurt, but Will still felt like it was something that he was not supposed to look at, something that forced his eyes to avert themselves. It was like staring into an endless, horrifyingly empty void. However, it was still destroying the town, so Will cracked his neck and started to run over to his grandmother. She had seemed to have wrapped her fists with some padded cloth, but otherwise, she was still wearing the same blue dress and white apron that she had on at breakfast. Suddenly, she jumped up into the air, almost eight feet up, and delivered a massive punch to the snake’s head. Will could hear an audible crack as one of the horns of the reptile crashed to the ground. Grandma Em landed, but the serpent had recovered faster than anticipated and it shot out its cranium at the old woman, fangs bared. Will, realizing his grandma would never make it out in time, gripped his magic pendant tightly and ripped it off the chain, smashing it into pieces on the cobblestone streets of Greenset. However, instead of laying there, broken and useless, the shards produced a flash of light, and a horse suddenly appeared underneath Will. He started to flawlessly gallop towards the snake, and just before it injected its deadly venom into the aged body of Grandma Em, Will scooped her up and whisked her to safety. 

“Oh boy, this one’s a bit harder to kill than some others,” said Grandma Em. “It took a direct punch to the head and survived, not to mention almost breaking my fist.” Will shivered at the thought of something that could hurt the great Grandma Em. Suddenly, a shout sounded across the square as Rogue jumped out of her window and sank her rapier into the snake’s neck. However, instead of red blood pouring out, liquid darkness seemed to gush from the wound. It leaked over to a couple of flowers, and its touch seemed to suck the life out of the poor plants. Rogue rode on her blade down the coil of the serpent’s long, thin body and touched down to the ground, unscathed. Will rode his horse up to Rogue, who hopped on behind Grandma Em. 

“Thanks, sweetie,” said Em. “That was pretty good.” Rogue flashed a grin.

“Hey, incredibly fun violence is incredibly fun violence. Now that I’ve come, I think we’ve almost got this thing!” After Rogue said that, the snake shook itself and strained. The shadows around it started to creep towards the serpent, climbing up its tubular torso and filling in the cracks and cuts left by their collective efforts. It ended with a new horn poking out and completely growing back.

“That’s really bad,” said Will, his spirits sinking. But then, a streak of black flew through the air, a staff underneath it. A Bishop, wearing a mask that was said to magnify their power tenfold, looked around in their belt and then held a miniscule, glass bottle into the air. Suddenly, the snake started. It looked distressed. Then, with a great vacuum sound, the entire monster was pulled back, squashed and stretched into a tiny form until it flew into the bottle. The mage quickly corked the container, screwed it tight, and then maneuvered their flying staff through the air down to the ground. They jumped off of the branch and summoned it into their hand with a burst of magic. The cloaked figure threw off their hood and took off their mask, revealing the puffy ponytail, huge, hazel eyes, dragon-head tipped staff, and big, oxidized-copper goggles that Will had known since he was only a little baby. 

“Hey, little bro,” she said. Mira Ravenswood had returned.