Seven Stories

Chapter 1: Stormy Weather - Waterfall

The little Queen of the Shadow Territory was in her training room. Around her hands she was moving in circles, deep, thick lines of red were slowly swirling through the thin air. She was so focused one could easily see the frown in the face she had been taught to keep unreadable, and her lips were reduced to a red-wine line.

Her right hand moved swiftly, and the web of fluid with it, shooting past her arm, and there was a deflagration on the other side of the room as it hit the wall. The tall blonde guard winced at the violent light and the loud bang. Her ears rang a little more, otherwise she might have caught the swear word that escaped the little Queen before she went back to her concentration.

"Again" said her trainer.

Karen Nudaungwel nodded, pursed her lips back together. Red lines. Moving like snakes around her face, then steadily down her small silhouette, and even the guard could tell something different was going on this time. Karen's eyes were closed but she was frowning. She tried again, and this time her movements were measured as she sent her hands towards the wall.

Her frown deepened. She seemed to realize the floating snakes had not followed her this time. She opened her eyes, looked around her, and finally she looked down. And she screamed. The red ribbons had wrapped the lower part of her body in disembodied smoke that was turning darker and darker, to a shade of red that looked like blood. The Queen panicked, flinging her hands frantically at the smoke and dispersing it around her. Finally the clouds disappeared, as if blown away somehow.

Karen's hair was a mess, now, her hand shaking as she raked it through the snow white waves falling on her back. She looked at her trainer with a pleading look in her jet-black eyes, begging the woman let her off the hook.

Fjiona Nudaungwel sighed.

"You need to go again, Karen. You need to learn to control your power."

"Please, mother..."

The former queen shook her head no, and Karen looked at the guard in hopes she might take her side. Lii met her eyes, and she knew she had to say something. She would always say something for Karen, no matter how intricate her situation already was in the kingdom of Shadows. She licked her lips before speaking up.

"Your Highness" she addressed Fjiona. "If I may... The Queen has been pushing her limits for the whole afternoon. Don't you think maybe she ought to rest ?"

The tall, cold woman looked at her with nothing but contempt in her eyes. Lii's eyes dropped from the brown stare to the beautiful satin robes Fjiona was wearing, and finally to her own brown boots.

Behind her, the Queen's other guard tensed up. He was new and not used to Lii's outbursts of insolence. The first few times, she too had thought she would be severely punished. However the little Queen had stood up for her, and had been ever since.

The Queen just looked away, ignoring Lii altogether, and gesturing for her daughter to give the exercice another try.

Karen took a very deep breath, stretched her arms and cracked her fingers. She pulled her white hair back into a ponytail. Annoyed by a long strand of hair falling to the side of her face, making her face look asymmetrical and mostly tickling her neck, she tucked it behind her ear.

"Okay" she muttered.

This time she really wanted to succeed. To succeed and get the hell out of that room.

Focus, Karen, she told herself. You want a cascade. A water cascade.

Not like two hours before, when she had instead invoked earth and soaked the long sleeves of her purple shirt in mud.

She shook the thought away. No thinking about fire. She had to be all about the water.

Lii watched in anxiety, her fingers gripping her wood staff so firmly her knuckles had turned white. The little Queen was exhausted, it was obvious, and she was already regretting antagonizing her mother. Now she would make Karen try, and try again until she succeeded and no one could think Her Highness the Queen Mother of the Shadow Territory had given in to the request of an exile from Light. A mere soldier at that.

Magic flew from Karen's hands again, swirling in circles again. This time they seemed to be dancing around each other, in a more harmonious way, that did not seem to be forced. The red ribbons were free, and swimming through the air.

Karen, eyes closed again, put her arms in front of her, elbows slightly bent, and made a slight move with her fingers.

The snakes of magic swirled through the air at high speed and hit the wall. There was a firework of red sparkles, and then the deep grumbling of water, as streams of it began to fall down from the roof. Said roof was a hundred of meters high, and the fall looked incredibly slow at first, gaining speed as the water neared the ground and more and more of it fell, like a true and immense waterfall.

What did not look real was how calmly it hit the ground, only creating a vast, expanding pond. When Lii finally managed to take her eyes off Karen's beautiful demonstration of magic, she saw the young girl was still deeply concentrated, moving her hand like a puppeteer the strings of her doll. She was mastering the magic.

A wave arose from the waterfall, swirling away from the main body of it, and the water shaped letters and words in the air.

Lii smiled discretely as she read "Can I please go now ?".