Pulling Our Weight and Flashing the People

This blog is looking a little dusty and I am pretty sure I just walked through a Skulltula web getting over here to say hello. Lake Writers started as a NaNoWriMo regional group in 2009, but evolved into much more than a group that gets together during the month of November for mutual insanity. Oh yes, we long ago decided to extend the party by meeting twice a month on the second and fourth Wednesdays in the Eustis Denny's at 6:30. Our fearless leader Elise has been taking care of this blog along with our other social media and event organizing stuffs alone for so long, but it is time we come in and help out. The plan is to rotate posting here around the group so we can all share our expertise and practice on you. *Insert evil laughter here* I am not sure exactly what each member has planned for you, but I'm going to flash you.

I'm sure this is the pink fairy girl I'm looking for because of the double sets of butterfly wings, one blue and one green. Even when they have four wings it's unusual for the sets to be different colors. They told me it would be a telltale sign I was tracking the right fairy. Always on the move from festival to festival she gave me the slip more often than any quarry has in longer than memory serves, but I still hadn't seen her pet.

It wasn't my idea to destroy it, but it was my job to get it done. A pack of food on her back and her bright blue eyes wide with ecstasy, I'm quite sure she's heading to find her beast. The caravan stayed in the bigger cities longer than a village giving me a better chance of shadowing her during her evening disappearance act. She has been moving swiftly for an hour or so into the heart of the Tangle Oak Forest. She must be getting close because her wings began to flap in agitation causing sparkle dust to shed. She stopped flying to her beloved beast a while back when a few close calls made her realize I had ways of tracking a flying fairy.

She practically ran the last few feet into a clearing. She wasn't being remotely cautious now as she flung her burden to the ground and spun on the spot searching the tree line. I readied a cold iron-tipped arrow. It shouldn't be necessary to slay the beast, but would offer me an insurance against her rage. Though she is little and fair, she has proven mighty. My instructions were to spare her if possible, but I can't collect a bounty if I don't make my way back to Fendale.

It's entrance was so silent I would have missed it if an invisible force hadn't drawn all my awareness to the beast. A huge grey wolf stood to the left side of the circle. I heard the pink fairy girl make a sharp inhale as she bounded into my field of view. I didn't look at her, I couldn't look at her, my gaze and mind were lost in the wolf's eyes. There was so much depth, like centuries of anguish stuffed into this poor creature. It was beautiful, terrible and wild.

The fairy girl slammed into the wolf and embraced it fiercely. Her expression was of someone who had just been dying of thirst taking the first drink from a secret oasis. She was quenched, she was home while holding this creature. I felt a fire or a dry ache build in me. Something asleep and long thought dead stirred painfully.

She pulled back with a smile and expectation etched on her face. No, don't do that! How could you let go? It needs touch, I have to hold it. I took a step forward, but froze as the wolf jumped up. It's not attacking, the eyes looked weary and sad not angry. The wolf's body shifted, changed and contorted. Where the wolf had been reared on its hind legs a moment ago a man with long dark hair and tribal markings now towered. He was appealing in a primal way, something about the wolf remained in his stance.

He moved to his fairy girl and enveloped her again, as his face split into a contented smile something ripped inside me. My fingers remembered my bow was knocked, but now I trained it on the fairy girl and prepared to eliminate her. He bent down and kissed her with such primal passion anyone watching would have recognized they were a voyeuristic intruder, but like bystanders during a disaster I couldn't force myself to look away. I lowered my bow sticking my arrow back in it's quiver, this was not a bounty I could collect and my reputation would suffer for it.

A sigh of longing escaped me as I turned to leave and that was quite enough. Before I could draw my next breath the feral man had released his beloved and prowled full tilt to face me. I was prey and should have been terrified, but was drawn to him. He turned his fierce eyes upon me and the painful thing stirring in me began clawing at my chest to escape. He leaned in studying me with an intensity that should have burned through flesh, I had his full attention. Suddenly, I felt that the center of this man's attention was a bad place to be.

Photos from Pixabay.