Eyes: Brown (Part II)

Title: Eyes: Brown (Part II)
Author: SilverInk
Writing: Short Story Excerpt
Word Count: 2513
This is part two of "Eyes: Green". It begins exactly where part one leaves off. Narrator Violet Kyson has just opened the pedestal-and-orb statue in the middle of a pool in the hall they are in. 

For a moment all I could see was whirling water. I shielded my eyes with my arms and saw Utah shield Gillian and himself on the other side. Something shot out of the ring and flailed, but I couldn't see through the torrents of water flying around. When they settled, I turned around again and saw stretched out around the ring, a basilik.

Instantly  I ducked my eyes just in time to avoid meeting its eyes and saw it flick its tongue out at me; I couldn't tell if it was trying to speak to me or was pondering the best way to eat me. Still, he was not very large or long. I whirled my fans out, spinning them open loudly to catch him attention so that the other two might have a chance of getting to safer ground. 

"Don't look at its eyes, don't look at its eyes," Utah was muttering as he pushed Gillian back towards the lantern. The path was still not completely visible, but neither was it shielded anymore, so I could vaguely make out the ends of the platform. Seeing as I was scarily close to the ledge, I backed up. 

"Quick, anything immune to basilisk evil eye curse?" Utah said, working his way around, head down looking at the path and careful not to look even at the reflection of the deathly eyes. 

"Pixies!" Gillian said, half screeching with fear.

"Anything else?"

"PIxies! And um, some faeries, I think. Dragons! Some birds of prey and-and" she as stuttering helplessly, clutching the lantern cluelessly and staring back at the walls. She watched the basilisk's shadow lash out before we did and screamed in alert. 

As my brother leapt up to avoid the tail crashing down, I ducked and skid a few paces from the face that jutted past me. I closed my eyes to avoid seeing its eyes. "What else?" Utah yelled, stabbing blindly. I backed up again before whirling and launching my fans at the beast's tail, cutting and hacking, my mind focused on a single green scale to keep myself from freaking out. 

"Um-um! Pixies, faeries, dragons..."

She screamed as it lashed out towards us and a moment later I felt my feet leave the ground as basilisk launched me into the air with a swing of his tail. I heard Utah yell and Gillian screech again, her echos scaring me more than my own plight.

"Trampoline!" I called, pushing my hand out before where I determined I would land. Nothing seemed to happen, but instead of hitting the tile floor I bounced on a soft bouncy material that tossed me lightly into the air. 

"Trampoline?" Utah asked as I clambered off the invisible trampoline. "That's the best thing you could think of?" 

"Where's the trampoline?" Gillian asked, all over me the moment I was on solid ground again. I pointed and Gillian stretched her trembling fingers out and enveloped the invisible object in a field of dark energy. "I-I'll try--"

"He went underwater," my brother replied, walking over to us.

"Is he--"

"No."

I picked a fan up from where I had dropped it mid-flight and noticed the pink metal-cloth material was torn. Snapping it shut I replaced it to it's usual location and twirled my good weapon around in my right hand as I walked towards the pool. I peered into its depths, confused. "But he couldn't have...just left...." I muttered, kneeling and sheathing the other fan. From the depths I saw a stir of movement and instantly shut my eyes; eyes still closed I heard the roaring of water and loud, cold breathing. 

No one spoke. Not a sound was made. Finally, I peeked, saw yellow, and shut my eyes again. Then slowly, tentatively, I opened my eyes again. 

Before me lay the basilisk, it's yellow and red eyes open wide and peering at me. For a moment I thought it was dead, or I was dead, for I should not have been able to look into the great snake's eyes. When nothing happened though, and I determined I was very much alive, I stared into the giant yellow eye, trying to see through it and figure out, perversely enough, why I was not dead. Then I saw it. 

Reflected in the eye was myself, only twisted. My violet hair was morphed red, wild, cut short and curly and my skin was pale as stone, with no color but trickles of blood on the edge of my lips. In my hand I held a dagger--my dagger--only the three small amethysts on the blade were tiny rubies and the blade itself was jagged and chipped, with bit-marks visible on the hilt. My clothing was scarce, scarlet-colored and with long laces that flowed back in a nonexistent wind. As I stared at myself, the reflection smiled; my mouth turned up, showing sharp teeth stained with crimson. This image lasted longest, and then others flickered before me: I saw myself in my phantom-form, chewing the organs out of victims and gorging on blood and flesh with carcasses strewn around me.  I eradicated entire worlds with invisible comets the inhabitants never saw coming. And there was no fire. Everything had been snuffed out by a universal iceland, so that I was all-mighty wherever I went. I saw the faces of people that had ridiculed me and called me crazy flash by, all slain, all dead. 

I radiated power. 

The basilisk blinked it's large eye, lazily or confusedly and I blinked as well. My vision was blurred by green ends, but I saw nothing different. The snake was still there, I was still there, and my evil reflection was still there. 

"Phantoms?" came a soft voice, laced with fear and fright, with a tinge of confused realization. "…What do you see?"

I blinked again and everything became monotone and washed away in a blur of shades of gray. To the outsider my irises had just turned brown, but to me the world had altered. Gone was the gigantic hall with the pool and gone was the great lizard. I saw a small, dusty room, with heavy curtains over the only window. There were overturned boxes and papers and tools everywhere layered with dust. The only furniture was a broken chain lying discarded on its back, and a small round table in the center, covered by a dark tablecloth. On this tablecloth I saw a small white piece, somewhat of half of a yin-yang shape, with red streaks running over it like blood vessels. Confused, I stared at the colored object in the monotone world. Finally, I blinked again, and as gray color again encompassed my iris, I saw back into the huge looming eye of the basilisk, and heard the dripping of water in the hall again. 

“Are you ok?”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t seem to be able to control my voice or my body, only stare into that horrid orb and watch the evil me laugh as it destroyed. 

Within me, some part felt like screaming, but another, cooler side, held it back, and I remained silent. Shaking, but in one piece.

Finally the basilisk must have tired of staring at me and it backed away, thick eyelids closing and opening loudly as it turned away from me and to the other two. Still I was unable to move. I could hear the pattering of feet behind me and screams before a battle of sword and fang ensued. Some part of me wondered what was going on—the part that had wanted to scream before—but the other half knew—just knew that there was a battle going on behind me. 

“Violet Kyson!” 

I whirled at the sound and suddenly my life snapped back into place. A dull headache pounded in the back of my head and my eyes hurt as if I had been staring at a digital screen for too long, but I felt my body melt back into my control and my limbs move again. The serpent was advancing on Utah now and he was fighting blindly, spinning on instinct and using sounds to tell where his adversary was. 

"Violet! Answer me!" Gillian was before me now, shaking me frantically. Her eyes, normally blue-gray, looked more panicked than mine, as if she and not me had seen the basilisk's eyes. "Violet, what's happening?"

"I-I-" I stuttered, unable to speak coherently. Thoughts reeled in my head, centrifuging and picking up feelings in a hurricane within my mind. It was not unusual, since this was what I felt in any icy environment in my phantom form: the rush of everyone's thoughts and memories and knowledge stirred up in a great flurry that I would have to sift through to find what I needed."It's.."

She seemed to not even be there: I seemed to see through her to the battle, and I --perhaps it was because I had just stared death in the eye and lived-- gaped at the creature of the pool's eyes, as if I were trying to find the pupil and shoot it out. Then suddenly I saw it: it's eyes were a strange trio of colors: bright red around the pupil, and deep blue around the rim, with a band of flaring yellow between them that varied in thickness. And staring into it, I recalled seeing it close up and now noticed tiny purple vessels marking light paths over the eyeball. And in the center, where a hole for the pupil should have been, was instead an impenetrable black sphere that glowed faintly whenever the serpent hissed. "I don't know," I whispered. And there it was: three tiny words etched in white on the orb in the center of each eye. 

"I don't know," I said again, more forcefully. Gillian backed away from me in shock as I unsheathed my fans from their fastenings on my forearms. They had mended themselves since and were glittering subtly with newness when I snapped them open with a deafening crack and closing them quietly. The moment the creature looked in my direction I shot them at his eyes, aiming for the small black spheres. As they bolted through the air in slow-motion, I felt a burning desire to holler some final word or phrase at it, but couldn't think of anything and watched in cold silence as the pink projectiles shattered their targets. 

The strange basilisk screeched, less in pain, and surprisingly more in elation. 

Freedom! I heard, as if spelled out in the air before his jaw. It turned towards my brother with a menacing hiss, but the swordsman had ducked underneath its scaly body and slashed upwards, channeling light-energy down the blade. The snake was smacked sideways before its opponent stabbed it between the scales. There was a hiss of air and the basilisk fizzed into the air, vanishing in a trail of smoke that slunk towards the pool of water, made a ring around the floating orb on top before diving into the depths of the water, back into the ring it had come out of. 

We took a few tentative steps towards the glowing ring but suddenly the stone orb fell from where it had been suspended the whole time, sealing off the underwater pipe and cracking on the top. Everyone was silent. Utah caught his breath as he paced next to Gillian, who dropped the lantern in shock and relief. I walked forward and stepped next to the cracked stone globe and simply stared at it, careful not to touch.

"Well," Utah finally said, coming up behind me. I heard him sheath his sword and wring the water from his drenched shirt. "That was pointless. We didn't even find Sapphire."

I touched the edge of the fracture and the stone opening widened into a small arch. The inside seemed empty, but for some reason I blinked and altered my eye color so they were in their light-brown form. 

I saw in monotone, but it was sufficient: there was no furniture in the round room except for a chair and a table, though there were boxes all around the room, with papers lying in neat stacks over them. As in the vision I saw from the snake, there was a small curved chip on the table, like half of a yin-yang sign and with red streaks running over it. The chair was no longer broken, sitting upright behind the table. And sitting on the chair was the person Gillian, Utah, and I had gone searching for: Her hair reached a ways down her back, and was untied and slightly curled at the ends. She wore a plain, white, polo shirt with a folded white skirt and stockings. Around her waist was a thin red belt--this red I saw as light gray--with matching shoes. 

She stood, and dropped the tablecloth she had wrapped around her like a blanket. Beside me, GIllian and Utah gasped in surprise; I blinked and my vision returned to normal as I stepped forward. "Scarlet Lyne," I greeted with a small grin, feeling entirely more devious than I had ever before. Next to me, Utah was quick to frown. 

"Aren't you Sapphire? Sapphire Lilliane?"

"An alias," I smirked and Scarlet nodded embarrasedly. 

"Why-why are you here?"

"We came looking for you!" Gillian shrieked, collapsing on the bridge. "You're...ok."

"Yes." She made to step out but I stopped her with an upheld hand. 

"Take it," I said, pointing to the piece on the table. She glanced back at it before turning to me, shocked. "Take it," I repeated. "You can't escape from it," I said quietly, putting a hand on her shoulder in comfort. I didn’t know half of what I was saying, but I knew that she couldn’t leave it here. If my ghost-vision had told me anything, it was that the

“It’s going to embed itself into me again,” Scarlet said fearfully.

I thought for a moment and twirled my finger around, creating a strand of invisible twine. “Just pick it up,”I said and she capitulated, taking it carefully but hatefully in two fingers. I lowered the twine to the piece, scrutinizing it for a small hole to string the twine through, and to our surprise the tip of the piece moved, curling upwards to form a loop. It was cooperating. Quickly, I made the magical piece that had been for the last few years been buried within Scarlet’s body into a necklace and hung it on her neck. It wavered lightly, contently, and Scarlet looked up at me, a real smile on her face for one.

Utah and Gillian led the way back outside, and I followed behind with Scarlet. “So you,” my brother called when we had crawled through the tunnel and was back at the dead-end area. “Running away from paradise to isolate yourself with a death-snake. Original,” he commented with a grin. “So. What’s next?”

Artist's Note: Another rough draft thus far, concluding the little short story of "Eyes." Comments and criticism still appreciated though; help me improve it! Mostly...is everything clear?

I would also like to take this moment to say that Lewis and I have created a FictionPress account for DiW, accessible from the "links" bar. Once we get to posting, we will only be posting completed stories, though--and not all of them at that--, so commenting here is still appreciated. (Brownies for everyone that has already!) And anyways, I'll tell you if we're posting something up there, edited or unedited. Meanwhile; any suggestions for posts?

Thanks for reading! Please comment! :3

~SilverInk

Eyes: Green (Part I)

Title: Eyes: Green (Part I)
Author: SilverInk
Writing: Short Story Excerpt
Word Count: 2396

I have gray eyes. Green eyes. Brown eyes. Gray sees the surface world, green sees the secrets underneath this world. And brown? Brown sees past this world, into another reality.

Brushing a dust-web aside, I peered down the next tunnel. Again all I saw was darkness. "This looks like the only way forward," I said, turning around in the small dead-end hallway. "Gillian?"

My brother's girlfriend appeared next to me quietly and lifted her hands before her. She pulled the darkness from the tunnel, and a very dim, sourceless light emitted throughout. It was long, dry, and lined with stone and brick, but I could hear water tricking faintly in the distance. My brother still stared at the dead end,  raising the lantern to search for inscriptions on the wall. Finding none, he turned to the right wall, and finally to us, standing against the left wall. "Nothing," he replied and peered down the tunnel I'd found. "Guess we're going this way then. I'll go first again. Gillian, you next."

We nodded and I looked at the walls in the dead end again. I was certain there was something here, even with the tunnel. "Violet?" Gillian asked, already crawling through the path. "Are you coming?"

"One moment. Go on. I'll be right there," I replied, stepping in front of the other two walls. I closed my eyes and concentrated for a moment before opening them again. To the onlooker, it would seem I had just changed my eye color from it's usual dark gray to   green. But that was not all I had changed.  The dead-end hall was still a dead-end chamber, but it was a faint monotone. And the mark-less brick walls were glowing with inscriptions on them. "Utah? There's some writing here you might want to see."

There was a grumble and a plentiful amount of grumbling from him before Gillian came out again, stepping to the ground. She handed me a pad of paper and a pen and I copied the glyphs on the wall down, making sure to get every mark right before handing it to him. I blinked again, feeling my eyes strain, and instantly they returned to gray and my headache eased. 

Utah handed Gillian the lamp and she held it over the pad while he thought, moving his finger around as if he was drawing the glyphs. "To the adventurer awaits a challenge. To the pathfinder awaits a road." he said, translating the first two lines of text. "Through the pipe to victory ahead.  Find the victim that was stowed."" he finished, lowering the pad. He took the lantern back and gave Gillian back the pad. "What's that supposed to mean?"

I thought about the message for a while and finally said, "Well, Gillian's a pathfinder." She shrugged; she did enjoy exploring, but did not see herself exactly as one of the skilled pathfinders. "I suppose you're the adventurer then," I continued to my brother. "You're the one that wanted to come down here anyways." He gave me a shrug as well. 

"Well that was pointless," he finally said, looking at the walls. 

"We did get a caveat though," Gillian said softly, preparing to crawl back through the tunnel again. "And warnings are always helpful. "

"It doesn't exactly tell us anything new," he muttered, following her. I looked around again and crawled after him. 

It wasn't hard crawling though the "pipe"; I didn't know what Utah was grumbling about. It got a little uncomfortable when we neared the end, for there were puddles of water every few paces, but that was at most an annoyance. 

We reached the end and found ourselves in a wide open room with a large circular pool in the center. A massive orb-statue on a pedestal in the center of the pool, and water poured out of of small holes in the pedestal's base, supplying the green pool. From two more little holes water seeped into the pedestal. Each hole was secured so that no one could use the hole as a way to crack the statue. I stepped forward towards it, following Gillian and Utah. They stopped where the sea-green water lapped on the black tile floor and stared around them. 

"Violet, what do you see?" Gillian asked quietly. 

The chamber was huge, black and green, and smelled strange. It was damp, and empty but for the statue. Light was emitted from a ring on the top of the pedestal, which threw long shadows on our figures. The walls were smooth stone, and even when I switched to my green-eyed vision I could see nothing on them. The corners of my vision glowed with green light, but that was usual and I ignored it, scanning the room. I looked at everything, searching for a discrepancy between visions. Aside from vertical black stripes down the orb- part of the statue and amorphous red streaks in the water, I discovered nothing. I shook my head, reverting my vision to usual.

Gillian was looking at the pad again and muttered the poem quietly: "To the adventurer awaits a challenge." 

My brother set the lantern down and unsheathed his sword, stepping gingerly into the water and walking towards the statue.

"To the pathfinder awaits a road." Gillian began walking around the pool, scrutinizing the smooth surface of the statue, undecorated but for a few rings. She looked down every so often, reading the the lines of the poem. Her voice echoed in the room a little, creating an unsettling effect.

"Through the pipe to victory ahead."

I peered back the way we had come and saw nothing changed. Turning back to the chamber we were in I switched my vision again to green and peered closely at the pedestal. I peered closer at the water and saw the brick road that Utah had been walking on; the path stretched from where I was to the pedestal and formed a small ring around the base. Off the road I could see glimmers of brick every so often and gaps in other, though I couldn't tell if that was a defect of my vision or an honest gap of path there.

"Find the victim that was stowed." 

Utah had reached the pedestal now and was walking around it, sticking close to the base and glaring at it. The water reached his ankles, but he was wearing tall boots and didn't notice it at all. I took a few steps on the path and once I was sure where it was, returned my vision to normal to avoid draining too much energy.

"Nothing," he finally said, returning to the main path. 

It was a wide road but he still stepped aside. "Completely smooth." 

"Be careful," I warned. "I think there may be a gap of path just beyond the pedestal base."

He nodded, sloshing water as he made his way back to the lantern. He suddenly slipped and flailed for balance, using his legs to keep him afloat. Gillian's shriek echoed loudly around the room and it looked like she was about to chase after him until I caught his hand. With his free hand he tossed his sword onto the path, where it lay, barely visible under the water. "Don't run through the water, he warned Gillian when she stepped into it. "Go around. Go to where I started." She did as he said and reached me quickly. Together we hefted him out of the water.

Dripping wet, he picked up his sword and tried to dry it by wiping his clothes only to see that his clothes were more drenched. "There're holes in the pool," he confirmed and I nodded, understanding the gaps now. He looked at me expectantly and I clarified: 

"It seemed there is a wide path here, leading from"--I pointed to where the lantern still sat--"there to here. There's a small gap of path beyond the path, and then the path resumes for another strip. Beyond that I am not sure where there is path. And then there is the tile floor.”

GIllian nodded, holding on to Utah worriedly. I walked closer to the pedestal and touched it smooth surface, walking around as my brother had. I ran my fingers lightly across it and switched my vision again “What are you?” I murmured quietly. Up close I saw small, a few light rings that passed around the pedestal; each of them glowed faintly, so faintly I would have missed it if I were not so close. “Why are you here?” 

I returned to the front of the pedestal and pressed my hand against it, staring at it as if it would suddenly say something. “Where is Saria Lithe?” I muttered quietly. Then suddenly, next to my hand a single word gleamed into existence. Each letter was perfectly made mark of calligraphy and the word emitted a faint glow in my vision. 

Dead.

I lifted my hand from the statue in shock and the word vanished immediately, fading into the rock. Hurriedly, I reverted my vision and pressed my hand against the rock again. “Where is Saria Lithe?” I repeated, clearly.

Dead. 

The word reappeared, etched in the stone, and faded slowly away until I took my hand from it. 

“Who’s Saria Lithe?”

“Sapphire’s mother,” I replied quickly. “Sapphire said that she was looking into her. Come over here.” 

“How is it her mother’s surname is Lithe, her father’s is Lyne and her’s is Lilliane?” Utah wondered aloud, crossing over to me. I ignored the comment and pressed my palm against the stone again. “Where is Saria Lithe?”

Dead! 

It looked like the pedestal was annoyed by my asking the same question over and over and I retracted my hand once I was sure Gillian and Utah had seen the carving. 

“Looks like we’re finally getting somewhere,” my brother said. He stepped forward and pushed his hand against the cold stone. “Where is Sapphire Lilliane?”

For a moment there was no response and finally the carving said:

Nonexistent.

“Nonexistent?” Gillian asked, turning to me suspiciously. Utah was about to drop his hand when the word faded and another line of text came up. 

Alias.

This too faded and Utah removed his hand and turned towards us. “Violet,” he said firmly. “What else did she tell you?”

“Why are you running?”

She hung her head. She had started growing her hair out and hadn’t cut it for almost a year; it pooled by her shoulders, but more importantly covered her face. Especially the eyes.

Kyson manor was on the outskirts of Aldenzeve, Gillian’s, Utah’s and my hometown. My brother and I were just within the range of the shield that separated us from the humans, but far enough to avoid the hub-bub of the city, as Gillian had to deal with on a daily basis because he uncle owned an inn. Sapphire Lilliane had come to Aldenzeve praying shelter, and when the city itself was hesitant, my parents opened up Kyson manor for her. And over a few months, she had become my friend, of sorts. 

Then came that group, led by the boy, Syne Darrett. There had been a great clash and destruction when they had come, although it was well known that they were not the cause. And then Sapphire had vanished. 

“I can trust you right?”

“Of course.” I tensed, expecting a revelation of great importance.

She was quiet for a moment before pulling her hair back and saying, “I’m running from a boy. I love him—at least, I think I used to love him—but I can’t be near him.”

“Why? Does he…cause you pain?”

“Not me. But the rest of the world. I’ve separated myself so I can pursue Red Shadow on my own. No one here knows the Nekaitian dictator as well as I did, and I’m sure I can bring him down.”

“What do you mean the rest of the world?”

“It’s very complicated, Violet. But I realized that the world was bigger than the two of us—that our little curse was bigger than just the two of us.”

“I’m lost.”

“Not yet,” she murmured quietly before saying more clearly, “Violet, all I know is ever since I met that boy, something has been growing. By distancing us I hope I have stopped that creature’s growth, but I need to destroy that thing before it destroys us.”

“How?”

She shook her head and her hair fell over her eyes again. “I don’t know.”

“I don’t know,” I replied. “She—she said she was running. From Syne, I suppose, but I don’t know why.”

“Could she be the victim that was stowed?” Gillian asked, staring at the pad of paper.

“She could, couldn’t she?” Utah asked, glancing at it. “What’s our mission? Our mission was to find her. Sapphire Lilliane. ‘Through the pipe to victory ahead.’ So we’re going to succeed, the message is telling us. But…how?”

I shut my eyes and leaned against the pedestal, my head swimming from memories and words and the riddle on the wall. I pressed the back of my hand to my forehead and my other hand against the stone for support. “I don’t know,” I repeated.

Suddenly the path underneath me moved and the narrow path joined the outer ring. The main path retreated, shaking the ground until the lantern lost balance and fell over; it would have fallen into the water if it weren’t for the rectangular frame around the light. Gillian leapt away from the path and Utah caught her as they balanced on the narrow strip of path. Once it merged with the outer ring they stepped onto it quickly, concerned about any other attacks. The pedestal of the statue lowered but the orb remained where it was, floating in the air. It made no motion, even as the pedestal sank into the pool, leaving nothing but the glowing ring above the surface. All was silent.

“Violet…what did you do!” my brother exclaimed, half-angry, half exhilarated, and half just confused. He brandished his sword around him, holding on to Gillian with one arm. I reached into my sleeves and touched the twin pink fans I had secured there, glancing around me worriedly.

From the ring came a splash as something sprung from its depths.

Artist's Note: HI PEople! Super late update, but at least there is one, yeah? 

This is party one of a short story that I'm writing based on the first prompt in Writing Magic by Gail Carson Levine. 

Please show this site some love and comment! :D All opinions appreciated! Thank you!

~SilverInk