Several Literary Related Events went down today. First off, we finally got to see the new Harry Potter movie ("finally"? It's only been out three days... sheesh...), and I'll have you know I went in prepared with a hankie. Which I used. And of course I have my nerd-core complaints about it (which I shall not get into here lest Spoilers Occur) but all in all I just really enjoyed the hell out of that movie. The dragon alone sent me in to rapturous wriggles of beautifully-rendered-anatomy artist-glee.
From there we walked up a block to the brand new library, which was having its Grand Opening today, so I could pick up my five books on hold (mmm, graphic novel glut). It's a gorgeous library- so modern and lovely and just... wonderful. (And my pocket-book breathes a sigh of relief that the temptation-to-impulse-buy-books has been once again reduced to manageable levels.)
So both of those things put me in a brilliant mood, as did the subsequent reading of Daytripper (beautiful on so many levels- exquisite linework, exquisite sentiment: I highly highly highly recommend it to anyone, but especially anyone who ponders death, life, and the intersections thereof) and the cherry on all of that delicious cake was getting a text from one of my beta readers this morning saying that she now finds my protagonist "curious and spirited" which is a vast improvement over "I want to slap the hell out of her" (said beta's reaction to draft one). Needless to say, all of this fictional goodness but me in excellent spirits to sit down and work on "the new one", so that is what I did. And then I realized that I haven't thrown any fiction up here for a good long while, so I thought I'd share a bit...
***
Whenever Urgrosma had spoken of the wall that surrounded the castle of the Sleeping Rose she had said it had grown out of a plant called verbrenindorn, a word which translated, more or less, to “burning thorn”. I’d always thought she had meant nettles- those stinging plants that itched like fire if bare skin accidently brushed against them. But what I stood before now was nothing that had grown naturally in our world.
I stared at the thorns, trying to discern why exactly they made the hair on the back of my neck rise up in alarm. The casual observer might have chalked it up to the ghostly blue fire that danced along the spines- and although it’s true such obvious proof of its magical nature was a bit… unsettling, I did not think it was that alone which gave me the sense of danger. The flame did not give off any heat, and did not burn the grass around it- nor did it melt the tip of my spear when I poked it experimentally. But something- something about this had led to the scattered skeletons I saw- some laying right at my feet, others visible deeper within the thorns: all charred. Could it be that the barrier was slowing growing outward? Was that why there were bones at different depths? Or was there something hiding amidst the thorns, sometimes emerging to kill, other times dragging its prey in? The dragon, perhaps?
As I was pondering this, my horse let out an irritated squeal and danced sidewise, knocking into me in such a way that I slammed my face into the pommel of my sword. Pain spiked through my skull in that way that only hitting your nose can cause, followed by the unpleasant sensation of blood pouring from my nostrils.
“Skyfather’s tits!” I swore, wiping the blood away with a swipe of my hand that ended in flinging the red fluid onto the thorns. Anything other blasphemies I might have been tempted to utter were immediately silenced by what I noticed then.
The blood was burning.
Not the blood on my hand, or smeared across my face- but every droplet that had struck the eerie blue light of the thorns had burst into white-hot flame. I stared at it in disbelief for a moment, then gathered more from my upper lip and held it above the plant. I flicked my fingers and again, wherever the blood touched the blue fire it sizzled and burned.
A magic that turned blood flammable, attached to thorns that looked sharp as any blade.
I took a step backwards, suddenly realizing why the skeletons were at different depths in the wall: those further in had hacked their way through the barrier for a while- until a single thorn had pierced their skin.
I had a brief moment of illness as I imagined what it might feel like to burn to death from the inside out- then felt overwhelming gratitude for whatever insect had stung my heretofore gentle mare.
“Good girl,” I said, grabbing her reins and leading her away from the verbrenindorn. “Very, very good girl.”
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