Week Twenty- Six(April 20 - April 26)- Topic:Flying
Winner: Pixie aka Sunny
Wings of Scar
By Sunny
I moved through the air with a smooth never-ceasing purpose. Some people would call what I was doing ‘flying’ but that word is generally associated with hope and happiness. I have neither; my death had sucked most of my emotions out leaving only rage, a thirst for revenge, hate and a sense of justice. I had been murdered and had come back to sate my thirst for revenge.
So far I had been unsuccessful, not exactly surprising, my memories of life were scarce and memories of my murder even less so. All I had to go on was the deep, wing shaped scars that my murders had had carved into my arms.
There was one wing per arm, each twisting from my wrists to my shoulders, but what alarmed my more was that the still ached and burned—even in my spirit state. I rubbed the wing on my left arm, trying to alleviate the pain.
Dropping in altitude slightly so I could see London’s polluted streets better, I decided to search the large open-air market today.
The market had taken over an entire courtyard; colorfully painted wagons lined the walls and small tents and tables cluttered up the center of the courtyard. This market sold everything from fresh vegetables and baked goods to woven rugs and pottery. More importantly, gossip flowed between the vendors and costumers like water in a river.
I floated through the narrow spaces between stalls on small puffs of air and listened. No word of wings or killers. No word of my murder, that was old news I had been killed over a week ago.
At the heart of the market I saw a small tent with a teenager, a determinedly bored look on her face, selling crystals and amulets. She would never have caught my attention if she hadn’t raised a hand to brush a strand of auburn hair from her face.
I stopped so suddenly that several people walked through me; tattooed on the girls’ lower forearm arm was a small pair of twisted wings, miniatures of my own scars.
Stopping in front of the stall, my feet still five or six inches from the ground I surveyed the goods for sale. They were surprisingly good, real silver and fine craftsmanship, I wondered if the girl made them. She was very short and skinny for her age with long spindly fingers and never seemed to stop moving.
Suddenly the girls’ eyes locked on me. But that was impossible! No one could see me in this form unless I revealed myself to them.
Her eyes narrowed and her fingers flew to the small pouch around her neck, before I knew it she had thrown a pinch of the small grainy stuff at me. I passed through me of course, but it left a wake of pain behind it. She had thrown salt at me, what an evil little teenager! How had she seen me, and how did she know about salt?
“Get out of here! I don’t need some spirit hanging around, you’ll ruin business!” the girl hissed, looking over her shoulder to make sure that no one was watching her as it would appear that she was talking to herself.
I was about to tell her to do something that was both very rude and physically impossible when I reminded myself that she was my first prospect of information that I had had since my death. “I won’t leave unless to tell about the wings,” I said.
“Wings? What wings?” she asked.
I twisted my arms so the scars came into view. “And you have the same tattoo,” I added.
Her eyebrows pulled together in confusion and then relaxed into a look of outrage. “Oh, I see! You’re one of those annoying, self-absorbed spirits that hasn’t Past On because the want revenge or whatever” she said in disgust.
I was outraged, “I was murdered!”
“Big deal,” she said. “And do you know what makes you even more annoying? The fact that you seem determined to be all morbid and depressed!”
I attempted to argue my case but the girl continued to make incredulous noises and refused to make eye contact. “I have to find my killers!” I finally shouted.
“Well I hate to break it to you but you’re so out of luck,” she said
“Why?”
“Because every single one of the fair folk has a tattoo of the wings. It’s our race’s symbol.”
“If it’s a symbol of the fairies them why was it carved into my arms?” I asked. “I don’t have a drop of magical blood in my veins.”
“Because, quite understandably, the fairies don’t feel very charitable towards the humans. They kill many humans and they mark all of them with the wings; they don’t want to avoid the attention, they want the credit.”
A sense of hopelessness overwhelmed me. I knew that there were thousands of fairies in London alone; it was very unlikely that I would ever find my murderers.
Should I just Pass On? No, not yet, I didn’t want to leave yet and I wasn’t even sure that you could still fly once you where in The Peaceful Realms. Also I had just given up my original quest; I really shouldn’t just float around doing nothing.
“Hey,” I said to the fairy girl. “You want me to scare all the costumers away from the other amulet vendors or something?”
Her eyebrow went up. “I thought you wanted to find your killers,” she said.
“That’s overrated!” I said, grinning. “But flying, on the other hand, ROCKS!”
“Very true,” she said, flicking out a set of her own glistening, silvery wings. “You aren’t as stupid as most spirits, At least you have a sense of propriety.”
More by Sunny:
http://www.goodreads.com/story/list/1814...
More from this contest: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1335...
