Updated: 4/19 2112 CDT.
The fairy realm had been plagued by the grue before. It was nothing new to have the disappearance of friends, unused and almost forgotten sections of their world. There had always been new elves, new trolls, new pixies to take the place of the Forgotten. There had always been new glades, and hills, and flowers, and castles, and the like, budding up from the shadowed placed that the Grue had claimed. But recently, the scale of the disappearances how been growing, and worse: the grue, which had always been a silent predator, now came with a sound.
Yzavel sat up from her bed of silken moonlight sheets, wild auburn curls clinging to the tips of her ears, seemingly as frightened as she. For a moment, all she heard was the pounding of her own heart, for it had leaped from her chest to her throat. The twinkling little dot of light that shone through her window winked out. Yzavel turned to look. Rising from her bed, she crept to her window, taking the bed sheet with her. What greeted her eyes pulled on her lower chin and forced her eyes wide open.
All around her, the rich pine forest had always been awash in soft white lights; the sparkling stars marking each home of her fairy kin. But tonight, the lights were winking out, two and three at a time, making a line of sudden blackness that was advancing forward at a steady, measurable, unrelenting pace. Yzavel watched with a growing sense of unease as the blackness inched its way toward her. It seemed that she had an eternity to stand there, watching the darkness make its way to her.
The next heartbeat, and there was a sound unlike anything she had heard. It was a rush of voices, a rumble like a mutlivoiced growl, punctuated by blasts and horns. She tried to scream, but the darkness that hovered an arm's length from her window seemed to siphon the sound before she could make it. She staggered by, clutching the sheet to her as... Read More she watched the shadow ooze past the window and grip the edges of the walls. A tiny glimmer of starlight hope twinkled at the top of her window, above the shadowy lurker.
The glimmer made the world suddenly make a lot more sense, and Yzavel straightened. She pulled the bed sheet about her and ran towards the window, the darkness, and that glimmer of hope. As she ran, her eyes flashed once and a set of white feathery wings unfolded behind her. She leaped. Her wings reached up then pulled down once, and she was air ... Read Moreborn, streaking out of her window and toward those dots of light.
The growl of shadow, now beneath her, grew more menacing. It boiled up and grabbed at an ankle. In an instant, Yzavel's heart skittered back up to her throat, and for a moment the steady beat of her wings faltered. She looked down onto the rolling, boiling surface of the non-existance that gripped her. Voices drifted up to her, all talking at once. Angry voices. Frightened voices. Sad voices. A heavy breath seemed to sigh in her voice as she peered down. It was hot and noxious; the fumes of a chemical bile used as fuel for a fire that gave no comfort to anyone.
The bubble just beneath her burst, splattering her with murky, foul smelling, liquid which had seemed like tiny, black, mother-of-pearls, until they landed on her and stained her silken wrap. The open wound revealed another world. One perfumed in choking fumes, with tall rigid buildings blocked the ground's view of stars and sun and moon. One that... Read More had long-ago lived in harmony with her own, embraced the fairy-folk, but now push them away and only see them as childhood fantasy. It was the world the few remaining elders spoke of: the world of men.
Below the hovering angel, Grant sat on the roof top of his apartment, midway between the noisy, car-filled streets and where the sky scrappers stabbed at the bottoms of the clouds high above. He sat in a chair, leaning on its back two legs, one foot propped up on the grimey, dirt and pigeon-crap streaked skylight that would have light his living ... Read Moreroom if it were cleaner. He nursed a beer as a late night party raged below him. His room mate was having his twenty-sixth birthday bash, which meant Grant was stuck with a choice: hang out on his rooftop with a 12-pack of Corona or deal with people doing too much pot to make sense of no matter how much alcohol he had had.
He paused in bringing the bottle of golden liquid to his lips, eyes squinting. Was he imagining it, or did he really see a silvery-white angel hanging above him, peering down at him? He stood, and even though there was no sunlight, he brought a hand up to his brow.
Yzavel gasped as she spotted the young man. A human! She's heard stories of them, riding into battle against dragons and demons, falling in love with water-nymphs, and taking on quests to destroy each other, their own world, and her own kind.
A tiny thrill of fear sprinted up her spine as she met his gaze, that rush of the forbidden unknown. The darkness seemed to ooze back down into the crater formed by the bubble's pop, hiding the view into that other world. Yzavel's wings pulled her higher, above the undulating shadow, and into the clear night sky above. She watched as the wooded ... Read Morevalley she called home turned into a black formless abyss below her. Occassionally, she would spot a bubble, watch it burst, and catch a glimpse into the world of men beyond.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grant brought a hand up to the back of his neck as the vision faded from sight, right as the door to the stairwell opened.
"There you are, stud," Joanne called to him. The smell of Marlboro and pot clung to her in a lover's embrace.
... Read More
"Hey," was Grant's distracted reply. His eyes had started to flick down to look at her, only to remain on the sky, as if by sheer will power, he could make the heavenly creature reappear.
"Whacha lookin' at," Joanne cooed as she meandered over to Grant and pressed herself against his chest.
"Nothing," he grumbled, finally pulling his gaze from the sky. He frowned lightly, the expression barely hinting at forming on his features. "You're wasted."
"Yeah," she slurred in reply. "But drunk chicks can't say no."
Grant forced a chuckle, hands grabbing at her wrists that were worming their way toward uncomfortable locales. "Hmm.. I think I should get you home."
"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........ sounds yummmnmmm hungry," was the most incoherent reply. Grant just nodded, taking her arm and leading her down, through his apartment, down the three flights of narrow stairs, and to the parking garage where his bike sat, waiting for him.
The drive to her apartment was just long enough to make Grant want to kick himself more than once before he pulled up to the front gate. She was little better than a rag doll by then, and he scooped her up, found her keys in her purse, and let himself in. He set her gently on her bed and pulled off her shoes before heading out, and locking up behind him.
He took the cement steps down to the street slowly, each one spent wondering about what he had seen. Once again he glances skyward, eyes narrowing.... Read More
"Ah! Get over yourself," he said after a long minute. "Angels aren't real."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I'm not making it up," Yzavel repeated for what seemed like the upteenth time. She fought the childish pout as she gazed about the circle of 'elders' she'd flown to. They had stood, watching her with disbelieving eyes as she described the darkness, the sounds, the smells, the Man she had seen not a few minutes before. She stammered when she ... Read Morepulled up the bed sheet wrap she'd fashioned to cover herself to show the oily stained only to find her covers immaculate and clean as the day she had gotten them.
"Come darling," said one matronly fairy, with delicate veined butterfly wings, a tiny nose, and two slender antennae sprouting from her hair. She wrapped a firm but portly arm about Yzavel's shoulders, wings unfolding and fluttering behind her in a gentle dusting of golden sparkles, and led the younger angeline away from the others with a glance back, brows lifted high on her forehead in concern.
"You've got to believe me," Yzavel was heard to say by the others as the closest ranks with each other, many shaking their heads.
"Do you really think she's telling the truth," one asked, a lean masculine figure, with chiseled cheeks, a strong chin, and luminous eyes.
"She can't be," retorted a smaller, impossibly twiglike figure, eyes nearly black as coal. "She's young, and spooks easily."... Read More
"She's an angeline. They aren't capable of lies," commented a female so pale, her hair seemed translucent.
"She must be," came the feeling of a warm summer breeze across their minds. Large, warm, dove grey eyes studied them all, then gazed in the direction of the young angel. "The grue is upon us."
The gathered shuttered collectively, some in fear, some in disgust, all in recognition and unease at the mention of the name: grue.
"The gr.... that... thing.. isn't real, King. Is it," asked the first one that spoke, the fear turning the melody of his speech into a minor key.
The Forest King turned his snowy maned head toward the elf, the single spiral horn pointing toward the heavens. "The adage 'To name a thing is to grant it power' does not apply to this coming oblivion," ... Read Morereplied the unicorn to their minds. "I will speak to the angeline."
As he made his way from them, the twig of a bramble thorn sneered, crossing her arms over her sharply undefined breasts. "Hmph! That made no sense," she complained, black eyes narrowing unpleasantly.
The elf frowned ever so slightly, voice growing dissonant with displeasure. "The King makes what sense he wishes, Twig. You, of all of us, should know that by now. If He says the g..."
Twig sneered a smile up at the handsome elf, arms unfolding to plant hands to slender hips. "The what, Corey," she prompted, tone dripping with false adoration. ... Read MoreShe laughed when he couldn't stammer further. "You can't even say it, can you? This whole thing is senseless. We're better off here, without the humans. The very idea that being apart from them is somehow destroying our world is moronic."
"How many patches have you lost, Cousin," asked the winter pale one in an icy tone. "Since our worlds were divided, segregated? How many since they stopped offering fresh berries and shiny trinkets to keep you and yours from overgrowing their crop fields?"
Away from the growing disagreement, Yzavel sat at the edge of a clear stream, flowing over smooth blue-gray rocks. Tiny minnows darted from rock to rock.
"Thank you for watching over her," sent the Forest King in a whisper to the matron pixie. Her wings fluttered lightly as she whispered aloud her reply.
"She's really quite upset, King. She's clearly been through something I can't understand."... Read More
"I will speak with her, Mother," the unicorn replied, dipping his head to rest his horn on the pixie's plump shoulder. "Go see to your seedlings."
As the pixie nodded and flitted away, Yzavel turned to look at the unicorn over a shoulder. She didn't fight the frown as she gazed at the regal creature as he silently made his way to her side.
"Do you think I'm sick," she asked in a tired, confused voice.
"No, angeline," he replied to her mind while folding his legs under him to rest upon the soft grass. "I believe that you saw into the world of men and into the plight of all the fae."
Yzavel frowned lightly, a hand coming up to push a long lock of curls over her shoulder and to her back. A scent like that of fresh spring flowers drifted by her mind, begging for a sweet smile to form, all from the Forest King's mind as he himself smiled lightly at her.
"Once, long ago, the world of fae and the world of man were one, twined together like the ivy. We worked together to tend the earth, each to our own tasks. But, as man grew in age so to did he grow in distance. Man sought to control his surroundings, using science and religion as his weapons against all that he could not understand or seize readily. As time wore on, our worlds began to drift apart from one another, until only a few tenuous strands link them. Today, man has so pushed us from his thoughts, that we are facing the darkness of Oblivion, the final ending of being forgotten."
Yzavel's eyes widened. They were the bedtime stories she'd been told as a child, fanciful tales of the worlds drifting away from each other. But this telling, so clear and concise, coming from the mind of the King, nearly took her breath. "What.. what can we do," she asked finally, hands ringing in her lap.
"There is nothing more we can do, that we aren't doing already. Man must believe in us, must need us more than simply children's stories."
"But, even if we're just children's tales, why are we still being forgotten? Why is that darkness destroying us," she asked, leaning forward.
"Because, my child, our worlds can not survive without each other, and ours is far more a delicate crystal than the physical realm they seek to control. The grue is the final state of forgotten for us, and all that will be left of us in time."
"No," Yzavel exclaimed, fist clentch tightly at her sides as she shifted up to her knees. "No! That sounds like you're sitting back and waiting to be forgotten! You're just... waiting to ....to die!" She eyed the unicorn, sitting so peacefully, unphased by her outburst. A heat bubbled within her as she stared at the equine face which had seemed so warm and gentle before but now looked cold and expressionless; a dumb beast of burden. "I won't stand for it! I can't stand for it. I'm not going to sit back and wait for the ...the... for the Grue to gobble up everything I've ever known just because some silly men can't get it together!" She leapt to her feet, wings once more unfurling, seeming to appear from no where. "I'm going to the world of men. I'll make them believe in us. I'll push the grue back into nothing."
As her wings pulled her from the warm grass at his side, the Forest King could do little but sigh softly. Their elders had all but vanished, succumbing to the lack of human belief or to the darkness of the grue. Their young fly off to find the few remaining links to Man's World, hoping to hide from or fight off the grue. He stood, tail hanging limp and hooves scraping the blades of grass as he turned and walked away sadly. One more needless loss... He paused, lifting his head to peer up at the angeline flying away. His head tilted to one side, tail lifting again, as hope fluttered by on feathered wings.
---------------------------------------------------------
The beat of the bass drum throbbed into Grant's core, shaky his ribs slightly, as he pulled at the strings of his electric bass. He stood, slightly hunched over his instrument, a few steps from his stand mic, knees making his body bob in time to the drummer's tempo. His roommate had center stage, clinging to his own mic stand like a drunk lover, belting out the sweet nothings that were the lyrics to the crowd's current favorite; a little throw away, non-rhyme he'd scribbled on a napkin from Denny's one night several years ago. The lights in his eyes always blinded him slightly, but it helped keep his mind off the nearly three hundred people that packed the over crowded pool hall just to drool over the lead singer and the guitarist. Granted, he knew some of them were probably there to drool over him, but the thought annoyed him, and made him aloof. Unfortunately for him, the aloof bad-boy image just made things worse in that department.
"Thanks, everyone! We're going to take a break now, so give it up for the canned house-music. Don't forget to tip your waitstaff and bartenders," Grant heard the singer announce past the black ear-plugs he wore. He finished the chord, glancing at the singer who conducted them with an exuberant bounce of his head, before walking toward the large floor amps. As the in house music kicked in, sounding weak and frail over the well-past-their-prime PA Speakers, Grant pulled the bass from his shoulder and set it in the holder behind the behemoth of an amp.
The fairy realm had been plagued by the grue before. It was nothing new to have the disappearance of friends, unused and almost forgotten sections of their world. There had always been new elves, new trolls, new pixies to take the place of the Forgotten. There had always been new glades, and hills, and flowers, and castles, and the like, budding up from the shadowed placed that the Grue had claimed. But recently, the scale of the disappearances how been growing, and worse: the grue, which had always been a silent predator, now came with a sound.
Yzavel sat up from her bed of silken moonlight sheets, wild auburn curls clinging to the tips of her ears, seemingly as frightened as she. For a moment, all she heard was the pounding of her own heart, for it had leaped from her chest to her throat. The twinkling little dot of light that shone through her window winked out. Yzavel turned to look. Rising from her bed, she crept to her window, taking the bed sheet with her. What greeted her eyes pulled on her lower chin and forced her eyes wide open.
All around her, the rich pine forest had always been awash in soft white lights; the sparkling stars marking each home of her fairy kin. But tonight, the lights were winking out, two and three at a time, making a line of sudden blackness that was advancing forward at a steady, measurable, unrelenting pace. Yzavel watched with a growing sense of unease as the blackness inched its way toward her. It seemed that she had an eternity to stand there, watching the darkness make its way to her.
The next heartbeat, and there was a sound unlike anything she had heard. It was a rush of voices, a rumble like a mutlivoiced growl, punctuated by blasts and horns. She tried to scream, but the darkness that hovered an arm's length from her window seemed to siphon the sound before she could make it. She staggered by, clutching the sheet to her as... Read More she watched the shadow ooze past the window and grip the edges of the walls. A tiny glimmer of starlight hope twinkled at the top of her window, above the shadowy lurker.
The glimmer made the world suddenly make a lot more sense, and Yzavel straightened. She pulled the bed sheet about her and ran towards the window, the darkness, and that glimmer of hope. As she ran, her eyes flashed once and a set of white feathery wings unfolded behind her. She leaped. Her wings reached up then pulled down once, and she was air ... Read Moreborn, streaking out of her window and toward those dots of light.
The growl of shadow, now beneath her, grew more menacing. It boiled up and grabbed at an ankle. In an instant, Yzavel's heart skittered back up to her throat, and for a moment the steady beat of her wings faltered. She looked down onto the rolling, boiling surface of the non-existance that gripped her. Voices drifted up to her, all talking at once. Angry voices. Frightened voices. Sad voices. A heavy breath seemed to sigh in her voice as she peered down. It was hot and noxious; the fumes of a chemical bile used as fuel for a fire that gave no comfort to anyone.
The bubble just beneath her burst, splattering her with murky, foul smelling, liquid which had seemed like tiny, black, mother-of-pearls, until they landed on her and stained her silken wrap. The open wound revealed another world. One perfumed in choking fumes, with tall rigid buildings blocked the ground's view of stars and sun and moon. One that... Read More had long-ago lived in harmony with her own, embraced the fairy-folk, but now push them away and only see them as childhood fantasy. It was the world the few remaining elders spoke of: the world of men.
Below the hovering angel, Grant sat on the roof top of his apartment, midway between the noisy, car-filled streets and where the sky scrappers stabbed at the bottoms of the clouds high above. He sat in a chair, leaning on its back two legs, one foot propped up on the grimey, dirt and pigeon-crap streaked skylight that would have light his living ... Read Moreroom if it were cleaner. He nursed a beer as a late night party raged below him. His room mate was having his twenty-sixth birthday bash, which meant Grant was stuck with a choice: hang out on his rooftop with a 12-pack of Corona or deal with people doing too much pot to make sense of no matter how much alcohol he had had.
He paused in bringing the bottle of golden liquid to his lips, eyes squinting. Was he imagining it, or did he really see a silvery-white angel hanging above him, peering down at him? He stood, and even though there was no sunlight, he brought a hand up to his brow.
Yzavel gasped as she spotted the young man. A human! She's heard stories of them, riding into battle against dragons and demons, falling in love with water-nymphs, and taking on quests to destroy each other, their own world, and her own kind.
A tiny thrill of fear sprinted up her spine as she met his gaze, that rush of the forbidden unknown. The darkness seemed to ooze back down into the crater formed by the bubble's pop, hiding the view into that other world. Yzavel's wings pulled her higher, above the undulating shadow, and into the clear night sky above. She watched as the wooded ... Read Morevalley she called home turned into a black formless abyss below her. Occassionally, she would spot a bubble, watch it burst, and catch a glimpse into the world of men beyond.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Grant brought a hand up to the back of his neck as the vision faded from sight, right as the door to the stairwell opened.
"There you are, stud," Joanne called to him. The smell of Marlboro and pot clung to her in a lover's embrace.
... Read More
"Hey," was Grant's distracted reply. His eyes had started to flick down to look at her, only to remain on the sky, as if by sheer will power, he could make the heavenly creature reappear.
"Whacha lookin' at," Joanne cooed as she meandered over to Grant and pressed herself against his chest.
"Nothing," he grumbled, finally pulling his gaze from the sky. He frowned lightly, the expression barely hinting at forming on his features. "You're wasted."
"Yeah," she slurred in reply. "But drunk chicks can't say no."
Grant forced a chuckle, hands grabbing at her wrists that were worming their way toward uncomfortable locales. "Hmm.. I think I should get you home."
"Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........ sounds yummmnmmm hungry," was the most incoherent reply. Grant just nodded, taking her arm and leading her down, through his apartment, down the three flights of narrow stairs, and to the parking garage where his bike sat, waiting for him.
The drive to her apartment was just long enough to make Grant want to kick himself more than once before he pulled up to the front gate. She was little better than a rag doll by then, and he scooped her up, found her keys in her purse, and let himself in. He set her gently on her bed and pulled off her shoes before heading out, and locking up behind him.
He took the cement steps down to the street slowly, each one spent wondering about what he had seen. Once again he glances skyward, eyes narrowing.... Read More
"Ah! Get over yourself," he said after a long minute. "Angels aren't real."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I'm not making it up," Yzavel repeated for what seemed like the upteenth time. She fought the childish pout as she gazed about the circle of 'elders' she'd flown to. They had stood, watching her with disbelieving eyes as she described the darkness, the sounds, the smells, the Man she had seen not a few minutes before. She stammered when she ... Read Morepulled up the bed sheet wrap she'd fashioned to cover herself to show the oily stained only to find her covers immaculate and clean as the day she had gotten them.
"Come darling," said one matronly fairy, with delicate veined butterfly wings, a tiny nose, and two slender antennae sprouting from her hair. She wrapped a firm but portly arm about Yzavel's shoulders, wings unfolding and fluttering behind her in a gentle dusting of golden sparkles, and led the younger angeline away from the others with a glance back, brows lifted high on her forehead in concern.
"You've got to believe me," Yzavel was heard to say by the others as the closest ranks with each other, many shaking their heads.
"Do you really think she's telling the truth," one asked, a lean masculine figure, with chiseled cheeks, a strong chin, and luminous eyes.
"She can't be," retorted a smaller, impossibly twiglike figure, eyes nearly black as coal. "She's young, and spooks easily."... Read More
"She's an angeline. They aren't capable of lies," commented a female so pale, her hair seemed translucent.
"She must be," came the feeling of a warm summer breeze across their minds. Large, warm, dove grey eyes studied them all, then gazed in the direction of the young angel. "The grue is upon us."
The gathered shuttered collectively, some in fear, some in disgust, all in recognition and unease at the mention of the name: grue.
"The gr.... that... thing.. isn't real, King. Is it," asked the first one that spoke, the fear turning the melody of his speech into a minor key.
The Forest King turned his snowy maned head toward the elf, the single spiral horn pointing toward the heavens. "The adage 'To name a thing is to grant it power' does not apply to this coming oblivion," ... Read Morereplied the unicorn to their minds. "I will speak to the angeline."
As he made his way from them, the twig of a bramble thorn sneered, crossing her arms over her sharply undefined breasts. "Hmph! That made no sense," she complained, black eyes narrowing unpleasantly.
The elf frowned ever so slightly, voice growing dissonant with displeasure. "The King makes what sense he wishes, Twig. You, of all of us, should know that by now. If He says the g..."
Twig sneered a smile up at the handsome elf, arms unfolding to plant hands to slender hips. "The what, Corey," she prompted, tone dripping with false adoration. ... Read MoreShe laughed when he couldn't stammer further. "You can't even say it, can you? This whole thing is senseless. We're better off here, without the humans. The very idea that being apart from them is somehow destroying our world is moronic."
"How many patches have you lost, Cousin," asked the winter pale one in an icy tone. "Since our worlds were divided, segregated? How many since they stopped offering fresh berries and shiny trinkets to keep you and yours from overgrowing their crop fields?"
Away from the growing disagreement, Yzavel sat at the edge of a clear stream, flowing over smooth blue-gray rocks. Tiny minnows darted from rock to rock.
"Thank you for watching over her," sent the Forest King in a whisper to the matron pixie. Her wings fluttered lightly as she whispered aloud her reply.
"She's really quite upset, King. She's clearly been through something I can't understand."... Read More
"I will speak with her, Mother," the unicorn replied, dipping his head to rest his horn on the pixie's plump shoulder. "Go see to your seedlings."
As the pixie nodded and flitted away, Yzavel turned to look at the unicorn over a shoulder. She didn't fight the frown as she gazed at the regal creature as he silently made his way to her side.
"Do you think I'm sick," she asked in a tired, confused voice.
"No, angeline," he replied to her mind while folding his legs under him to rest upon the soft grass. "I believe that you saw into the world of men and into the plight of all the fae."
Yzavel frowned lightly, a hand coming up to push a long lock of curls over her shoulder and to her back. A scent like that of fresh spring flowers drifted by her mind, begging for a sweet smile to form, all from the Forest King's mind as he himself smiled lightly at her.
"Once, long ago, the world of fae and the world of man were one, twined together like the ivy. We worked together to tend the earth, each to our own tasks. But, as man grew in age so to did he grow in distance. Man sought to control his surroundings, using science and religion as his weapons against all that he could not understand or seize readily. As time wore on, our worlds began to drift apart from one another, until only a few tenuous strands link them. Today, man has so pushed us from his thoughts, that we are facing the darkness of Oblivion, the final ending of being forgotten."
Yzavel's eyes widened. They were the bedtime stories she'd been told as a child, fanciful tales of the worlds drifting away from each other. But this telling, so clear and concise, coming from the mind of the King, nearly took her breath. "What.. what can we do," she asked finally, hands ringing in her lap.
"There is nothing more we can do, that we aren't doing already. Man must believe in us, must need us more than simply children's stories."
"But, even if we're just children's tales, why are we still being forgotten? Why is that darkness destroying us," she asked, leaning forward.
"Because, my child, our worlds can not survive without each other, and ours is far more a delicate crystal than the physical realm they seek to control. The grue is the final state of forgotten for us, and all that will be left of us in time."
"No," Yzavel exclaimed, fist clentch tightly at her sides as she shifted up to her knees. "No! That sounds like you're sitting back and waiting to be forgotten! You're just... waiting to ....to die!" She eyed the unicorn, sitting so peacefully, unphased by her outburst. A heat bubbled within her as she stared at the equine face which had seemed so warm and gentle before but now looked cold and expressionless; a dumb beast of burden. "I won't stand for it! I can't stand for it. I'm not going to sit back and wait for the ...the... for the Grue to gobble up everything I've ever known just because some silly men can't get it together!" She leapt to her feet, wings once more unfurling, seeming to appear from no where. "I'm going to the world of men. I'll make them believe in us. I'll push the grue back into nothing."
As her wings pulled her from the warm grass at his side, the Forest King could do little but sigh softly. Their elders had all but vanished, succumbing to the lack of human belief or to the darkness of the grue. Their young fly off to find the few remaining links to Man's World, hoping to hide from or fight off the grue. He stood, tail hanging limp and hooves scraping the blades of grass as he turned and walked away sadly. One more needless loss... He paused, lifting his head to peer up at the angeline flying away. His head tilted to one side, tail lifting again, as hope fluttered by on feathered wings.
---------------------------------------------------------
The beat of the bass drum throbbed into Grant's core, shaky his ribs slightly, as he pulled at the strings of his electric bass. He stood, slightly hunched over his instrument, a few steps from his stand mic, knees making his body bob in time to the drummer's tempo. His roommate had center stage, clinging to his own mic stand like a drunk lover, belting out the sweet nothings that were the lyrics to the crowd's current favorite; a little throw away, non-rhyme he'd scribbled on a napkin from Denny's one night several years ago. The lights in his eyes always blinded him slightly, but it helped keep his mind off the nearly three hundred people that packed the over crowded pool hall just to drool over the lead singer and the guitarist. Granted, he knew some of them were probably there to drool over him, but the thought annoyed him, and made him aloof. Unfortunately for him, the aloof bad-boy image just made things worse in that department.
"Thanks, everyone! We're going to take a break now, so give it up for the canned house-music. Don't forget to tip your waitstaff and bartenders," Grant heard the singer announce past the black ear-plugs he wore. He finished the chord, glancing at the singer who conducted them with an exuberant bounce of his head, before walking toward the large floor amps. As the in house music kicked in, sounding weak and frail over the well-past-their-prime PA Speakers, Grant pulled the bass from his shoulder and set it in the holder behind the behemoth of an amp.
