Reclaiming Magic: a story-dream

This story comes from a story-dream, or a dream so interesting I had to write it up and post it as a story (originally dreamed in 2011). I sometimes have vivid dreams with complete plot, setting, etc; while some parts are filled in post-waking (mostly for continuity), the majority originates from the actual dream.

------------------------

Reclaiming Magic

We stood in the hall, looking left and right and trying to figure out where we were. I think perhaps my brother and his girlfriend had an idea, because they didn’t look surprised to be in the endless marble halls. Tall ceilings were lined with decorative chandeliers, red and gold and currently unlit, thanks to the large windows that brightened this hall.

Then he showed up, the master of the mansion, sable-haired and tall and wearing a battered, floor-length, tan leather trench coat. His dark eyes were older than his face, with a sadness that dodged through the corners of his tired smile. I don’t know that he was handsome, but he was strong – the sort of strength that carries more power than a person should be able to hold, without giving in to the corruption that sort of power usually draws. “I was wondering when you’d get here.”

He clenched a hand, and something flew across the hall. The air between his hand and the flying book felt tight, condensed – different. “This is what you’re here for,” he said, holding up the book. It wasn’t the book we were here to learn.

My brother’s girlfriend stared at us in confusion and a little surprise. I knew immediately that most people couldn’t feel the difference.

He gave us the first lesson right then. “Focus. Concentrate. Close your fist to help you visualize it. Feel it? Now pull.”

I failed the first time, barely generating a spark. My brother did better. He had a lot more power than I did, and apparently a natural talent for using it. When he got it right, it was like an invisible firework went off in his hand, a twisting of light that nobody’s eyes could actually see. A line of power flew from his hand to the object he chose, and like a fishing line, he tried to reel it in.

The Master of the mansion took us to his manservant. The manservant was dashing, taller than his master. His high cheekbones were pale, his black suit with its red trim perfectly proper, but a smile came easily to his beautiful face.

We were to stay out of the way except during our lessons. The mansion should be safe, but sometimes they got through, the monsters. There were safe rooms for the normals and the new trainees to hide. We’d run there, should we be invaded.

The Master’s son was training, too. He was younger than us, twenty years old and light-hearted. Because power didn’t develop until the late teens at the earliest, he wasn’t that much beyond us. He looked much like his father, sans gloom and that powerful intensity. He was very friendly. We sometimes hung out with him, as classmates, as general friendly acquaintances.

It was odd to see the young man near his father. The powers kept away the ravages of age; his father didn’t look more than his mid-thirties. I knew we’d face that one day, too.

We were in the Master’s classes. There were a few graduate students, but only a few, because the school hadn’t been going for very long. The Master did our training himself. My brother impressed him with potential and quick learning. He wouldn’t graduate any time soon, but for a beginner, he was making very quick progress.

I was a slower case. I would never be very powerful, and the focus was difficult for me. I also felt that the Master had too much a burden on his shoulders. I wanted to make him smile, to take some of the sadness off his shoulders, so I goofed off (just a little) in my lessons, and did the silly things I like to do.

I made the Master laugh. He liked my randomness, my sense of humor that just fit with his. And we could talk so very easily. We didn’t like all the same things, but our eyes saw the world in a similar color. I don’t know that anyone had ever managed to find just his shade before. Sometimes I’d pop by his library after dinner, and we’d talk. He was usually busy, though.

Every now and then, I’d catch a flash of silver in his eyes when he was laughing, those rare moments when he managed to forget his sadness and responsibilities for a moment.

The mansion was staffed by normal people, and many of the trainees had brought loved ones. I made friends with one of the maids – Yugo – a pretty young woman with a big smile and a twinkle in her eyes. She did my laundry. She was never afraid of the Master, or any of the trainees, even though she witnessed their powers every day, and knew just how dangerous they could be if they chose to be. I don’t think she envied us, either. That just wasn’t her style.

The manservant was taking us to a lesson when we found out that they were invading. He sent us to join the others for hiding. We couldn’t get to the downstairs safe room; they were already coming through the doors. We ran upstairs instead, and joined a group that mostly made of normals, including Yugo. The room was less protected, but the glass was clouded. There would be no reason for them to assault that room, and the Master and his people would keep them off the stairs.

We were in the back of the group, my brother and his girlfriend and one more trainee. I looked over the rail to see them. They were tall, thin, gaunt. Too-long arms sported fingers two to three feet long, each finger tipped with knife-like, silvered nails. Dark fae? The name seemed to fit.

The Master fought them with steel and power, wielding both equally well. I saw him cut down one and toss another across the hall at the same time. Using power took concentration. And then he was running with some of the elder trainees, out of the room to fight off another knot, as the rest of the battle continued below.

The four of us had dawdled too long. The rest of the normals had already crammed themselves into the safe room and closed the inner door to the pool hall. We followed them, racing the rest of the way up the stairs and slipping as quietly as we could into the small room in which the cues and balls were kept, an outer compartment that barely qualified as room. The fourth locked the outer door behind us.

My brother was about to open the inner door, which was not lockable, so that we could join the others, but something made him hesitate. We heard the sound of glass shattering. Then Yugo began screaming.

The dark fae had chosen to attack the mansion from several points, and as bad luck would have it, they’d chose the pool room – the secondary safe room – as their rear entrance. It would be a slaughter. Trainees and normals had no defense.

It would be useless to go through and join our friends in dying. But we stared at the door for a moment more than we should have spared, wanting to help, knowing we couldn’t do a thing. My brother’s girlfriend broke the spell first, and silently unlocked the door. We ran out and back into the hall.

The stairs led into the main hall, where the invaders were. Behind led to more dark fae, where our friends no longer screamed. It never occurred to me to call for help to those fighting below, or to give them warning – but I think, had we yelled, those behind us would have beaten the help.

I looked over the railing, and found our escape. “The chandeliers,” I said. In the main hall, they ran the length and breadth of the room like banners, the lights encased in beautiful red and gold interlocked chains, curtains of decorative metal. I focused.

It was the heaviest thing I’d ever moved, and I’d barely managed to move anything before, but it was our only chance. And it worked. The chandelier swung close enough to jump onto, and I leapt onto it. Then gravity took hold and it swung back, momentum taking it close to the next. I jumped again, and again, hopping down the line.

The other followed one at a time, each of the lights too fragile to support all of us at once. The fae’s long hands would never allow them to climb the lights. So we moved beyond their reach and waited for the battle to finish.

Most of it passed in a blur, as we clung to the fixtures over the battle far below and tried not to move. We were all crying, and all too scared to scream. A good-sized battalion of dark fae ran down the stairs, not even noticing us. But the defenders were powerful and skilled. The graduates and the higher level trainees held their ground, and gradually began to outnumber the dark fae.

I couldn’t say how long it went on, but I was sore and exhausted from clinging by the time it was over. I saw the Master running up the stairs, following his manservant (who, despite being a normal, was an excellent swordsman and had helped defend the mansion.) The manservant’s face was a picture of tragedy, a deep sorrow that came from knowing what he was about to show his Master.

The Master – denial, fear, anger, horror, disbelief were all writ on his face. He had clearly been told what was in the room. He went in slowly, torn between the desire to pretend it hadn’t happened and the need to know for sure.

The scream that came out was pure rage and self-accusation. The Master came out as if it was his own personal failure that lay behind him, as if his heart was shattered. He leaned on his manservant, clutching his chest and on the verge of breaking. I tried to call out to him to look out over the rail, but I was tired, my throat so sore, that I couldn’t make myself heard. But one of the others clinging to the lights found their voice. The Master looked up.

He saw us there, shaken and scared and holding on for dear life. I saw his eyes dodge from my brother and his girlfriend to the other trainee, and then he found me. The change was immediate. Nothing could erase the grief, but it was like he’d been handed salvation, because the light came back into his eyes, glue sealing his broken edges back together. I was afraid I was too tired to get down without dropping, but under his gaze the fear fled – I knew he’d get me down safely, somehow.

At some point, without either of us actually realizing it, he’d fallen in love with me.

Then somehow I was over there, safely over the rail, and he clutched me to his chest with a “thank god,” before passing me to his manservant to retrieve the others.

It wasn’t okay; there was an aura of grief hanging over us all for the people who were lost, but we went on. We buried the dead and cleaned the mansion. And when the worst of it was fixed, people had to come to terms with the feelings they’d figured out during the attack.

One couple got married. They’d been separated. She was a trainee, and he was a normal, and she’d thought that he had been in the wrong safe room, and he’d been sure she’d died in the fight. He admitted that he’d been in love with her for a long time, and she decided that she was in love with him, too, so they dropped everything and married and went off on their honeymoon.

It was catching, a virus that spread through the halls of the mansion like a cold in kindergarten. I was walking up the stairs not long after when it hit me. The Master’s son was waiting at the top, and as soon as I was within reach, he was dragging me into a small and relatively private room. “I’m in love with you,” he said when we were alone. “Marry me.”

While he was handsome, I certainly wasn’t at the point of returning his feelings. But I didn’t want to hurt the son’s feelings, because I thought of him as a friend. “We really haven’t known each other all that long,” I hedged. “Love isn’t something I’m just going to start feeling.”

He caged me in a corner and tried again. “I’ll make it worth it,” he argued. “I’ll make sure you enjoy every day; I’ll give you everything. You wouldn’t regret it.”

I shook my head. “I don’t work that way. It takes time for me. It’s not something that I can justdo.”

He moved back and changed, the youth sliding away until I could see that I hadn’t been talking to the son at all, but rather the Master. “I see,” he said, and sounded sad.

I was mad. Really mad. I made this known to him. It involved a bit of screaming and a bit of cursing and a bit of both.

“I thought you’d prefer someone closer to your age,” he defended himself.

Which meant I had to point out that his son was several years younger than me, and I didn’t like younger men. Also, there were the questions of how he expected to keep his identity hidden, and how he could think I was dumb enough not to notice, nor for anyone else in the mansion to notice, and why he just assumed that I wouldn’t feel anything back for him without even asking me.

He apologized, and left.

A couple of weeks later, we were in a rose garden he’d built to commemorate the lost. We’d moved to an awkward stage of forgiveness, where we avoided one another. But this was more important. I put a rose on the stone monument he’d built in remembrance, on the side that had Yugo’s name carved in amongst the others. And then we left.

We hadn’t said anything, but we both knew that we were going to give a relationship a try.

And that’s when I woke up.

The Lord of the Forest: a story-dream

This story comes from a story-dream, or a dream so interesting I can't help but write it up and share it. Some parts are filled in post-waking, mostly for continuity, but the majority comes from the dream itself, setup and scenery and plot. First dreamed in 2013.

----------------------------

The Lord of the Forest

The villagers warned me not to enter the forest. "The Lord of the Forest will kill you," they said.

"He only kills the people who break the law," I argued, and went into the forest. A dark, scary place, I entered it in the evening, right before sunset. Why not? Criminals all die, so it must be perfectly safe. The trail is well-marked, at least.

But the rustling branches heralded not wind but the arrival of a figure cloaked in black, a scythe upright in his hand. Straight-backed, riding a pure black stallion, I could see nothing of the man's face. His voice was low, so factual and emotionless as to be a perfect threat: "Halt. All smugglers will be prosecuted."

"But I'm not smuggling anything," I said, and opened my knapsack. "See? All legally-obtained goods, for honest sale. Here's my receipts." Spices lined the bag, sewn into small pockets, and my own possessions (a change of clothes, a wallet, a red leather-bound journal, ink and quill) sat at the bottom.

He stared into the sack for a few seconds, scythe low, and a scene flashed through my mind:

A man with a bag of goods slunk through the forest, well off the path. "Can't find me here," the man muttered, and grinned, pulling a handful of something illegal out of his belt.

The Lord of the Forest appeared on his black horse, raised his scythe, and pronounced the sentence: "All smugglers will be terminated." The scythe flashed, and the smuggler disappeared into a wisp of smoke, the echo of a scream hanging over the clearing.

"You are innocent of crime. You may continue." The scythe raised, and a breeze blew a branch between the Lord of the Forest and me. When the leaves stopped rattling and the thin branch fell back, he was gone.

There was another village on the other side of the forest to which I wanted to sell my spices. If I hurried, I could get there by morning. With a cheerful whistle, I stepped off at a merry pace.

*

The Lord of the Forest rode towards the edge of his demesne, where the trees fell off. The woman had come this way earlier, cheerful and confident, innocent.

Completely innocent of law-breaking. Taxes paid, laws obeyed, no major infractions in life. Not a thief, not a murderer, one who generally supported the law. He saw all crimes, and punished any criminal who entered his forest, but the innocent were to pass. The black beast between his knees snorted and bobbed its head, without pulling on the reins of its bitless bridle. Dismounting, he allowed the reins to fall where they would--the mount wouldn't get in trouble.

The road forked, and he felt a stirring in the opposite direction from the way the woman had gone--someone entering. A thought and a breeze took him to the spot. A goblin. Creature of chaos. Law-breaker. "Criminals will be punished," he judged, and with a whisk of his scythe it disintegrated into dust, ignoring the lingering shriek of fear. Continuing to the edge, he saw it: an army.

Armies would disturb the peace of his forest. They would break the laws of those on the other sides.

But the goblins in camp had not broken the law yet, and were not within his jurisdiction anyway. They recognized him, of course, and screamed and dodged out of his path as he descended into camp. Ignoring the creatures, he approached the leader. "You will not enter my forest."

"Lord of the Forest. You are only one." The hobgoblin waved a hand. "We will conquer. Stay out of way, and I'll leave your forest be."

"No criminals may enter my forest," the Lord of the Forest warned.

The hobgoblin shrugged, unconcerned.

It was right, after all. He was only one; even he could not stop an entire army. And his forest would be trampled if they passed through.

He'd need help.

*

The villagers were delighted to receive my spices, and I'd done a merry business with them--being certain not to cheat anyone, of course. I was sleeping off the long night of travel when a commotion woke me.

"What's up?" I asked someone in the common room.

"The Lord of the Forest says an army is coming. He's commanded us to help stop them, us and the villagers on the other side." The man chewed his finger--no nail left to chew--and paced. "We'll all die."

"Don't be silly. Aren't you guys trappers? Make traps."

"But the Lord of the Forest--"

"Did he not just invite you?" Hands on my hips, I shook my head and walked out the inn's common room. The Lord of the Forest stood at the edge. No one else approached, not even the cowering mayor. "Are you going to kill anyone who isn't perfect if they're coming to help stop the army?"

"An army is a greater crime. The criminals must be punished."

A look at the white-faced mayor told me that wasn't enough. "Let's make that a little more clear. Do you promise not to kill any villagers from either village, as long as they set up traps to stop the army, fight the army, and don't try to murder each other? At least until the army has been turned back and all the villagers have left the forest again?"

"Pardons will be temporarily granted."

*

Goblins fell into pit holes, were ambushed by villagers with pitchforks, smashed by logs, and crushed by rockfalls. Soldiers, those who had arrived from the capital in time, danced war with the invaders that managed to get past the traps and reach the edge of the forest (but soldiers were too destructive to be allowed deep, unlike villagers who knew how to walk without terribly disturbing the woods. Fortunately, the Lord of the Forest knew his land well, and had directed the villagers into all the best and most efficient trap-making places, and instructed them on what he wanted).

Then the battle was over, and the army turned back, to seek an easier way in, a way not guarded by the Lord of the Forest. The villagers began to return home, knowing they would now be safe with their backs to the woods, and the soldiers declared they'd track the decimated army along the borders, chasing it off.

I was walking back, alone, having fallen behind and gotten lost before finding the path again. A green hand shot out from under a bush, grabbing my ankle, yanking, and I fell with a cry. Another jumped out, and another, and they were all yowling to rip apart the human. One of them, a large one, raised both hands and brought them down, hard, and I screamed, knowing my leg was broken.

The smaller goblins cheered, and claws raised.

Metal flashed in moonlight, and I collapsed, surrounded by whirls of dust.

He sat on his black horse, scythe gleaming in the moonlight. I could feel him watching me, but there tears in my eyes and I knew my leg must be hurting terribly. He dismounted and pushed back his hood.

The Lord of the Forest, in case you were wondering, was gorgeous. Rich brown hair, tall and broad-shouldered, high cheekbones, roman nose and a regal bearing. And black eyes.

Not black irises. Black eyes. Solid black, with no whites at all.

He touched my leg, and pronounced, "Broken." And I knew it didn't hurt anymore, although it was still broken. A breeze picked up some dust and I blinked.

When I opened my eyes, we were in a cave, a very homey cave with a large bed and a stove and rich tapestries on the wall, with rugs on the floor and a thick door. I was sitting on the bed, padded by moss and blanketed with furs and quilts alike. A fire burned to ward off the natural chill.

The Lord of the Forest began to splint my leg, and as he worked, his eyes became more human, until they were a clear brown. When he was finished, he said, "You will stay until the forest is safe, and you are healed." And for once his voice sounded human, and normal--not announcing or proclaiming or judging, just human, just conversational.

And then I woke up.

All curses have a cause: a story-dream

Today's post comes from a story-dream, or a dream I had that tells a story so compelling I must write it up and share. To be sure, some details are filled in post-waking, but much of the imagery and plot was from the dream itself (have I ever mentioned I have vivid dreams?)

---------------------------

Immortality wasn't what I expected. It involves a lot more dying, for one thing.

I didn't ask to be made a vampire. Didn't want it, and waking up in a private military clinic with five other victims--all attacked the same night by the same rogue--to be told I could never be free to wander was, in a way, the first time I died.

Three women, three men; we lived in a secluded old ranch-turned-holding-facility out in the middle of nowhere, Alaska, with a few scores of military, scientist, and caretaker staff. We weren't even the main event, more of a sideshow to the paranormal investigation and study unit. Although they offered us blood at regular intervals, to a one we refused. It was a doldrums life, a two-year of idleness broken by moments of bonding with the others and the occasional poke of a labwork needle. We wanted to be cured; we had hopes. The staff weren't unkind, either; we might have been metaphorically leashed, but we were still people and we were lonely enough to find friends where we could. And besides, I suspect they thought even then the government had more in mind for us if we couldn't be cured.

To be sure, we were a little faster and stronger, and those of us who'd been bound by glasses now enjoyed good vision. The sun didn't bother us, and we neither wanted nor needed blood; food we still enjoyed, but sleep became more a recreation than a necessity. So the staff were more amiable coworkers than friends; the only people who really got it were the other five. Even though we argued and on occasion hated each other, we became a family to replace the ones we'd all lost, over countless games of Parcheesi, MarioKart, Monopoly, and marathon Chess.

Then came the war. Contrary to what you'd think, we weren't made into soldiers. Nobody knew how we'd react to battle, not even us; and of the six only three really had a military mindset. Me? I was peaceful; I still sometimes rescued drowning worms from the patio after rainstorms. Our vastly outnumbered staff surrendered when the soldiers knocked, and the most senior were carted off to become bargaining chips for the incoming soldiers. In their place came the enemy, who were content to leave us as resources for investigation. We weren't soldiers; and Mike and me and Kinsey were so soft I think the other three were afraid we'd break if anyone made trouble.

Even in the beginning it was all about protecting the gentle ones.

But the enemy were human; they were people and people just want to be people, at the end of the day. The angry watchdog occupation force learned to work with the remaining staff, and the remaining staff learned that if they were captive, they could still perform experiments and collect data and try to concoct new cures; and if the data went to someone else at least it was still available to the world, and they even got paid for it, albeit in a different kind of currency. So even our new bosses became bearable.

The seven months of occupation, though, led to a deficit of supply. When winter set back in during the second month, it became evident there wouldn't be enough food to go around for everyone. At first we were afraid to cut back on food, but we found starvation didn't affect us. We got hungry, yes, but after the first week it stopped hurting, even when food did finally come. They still fed us once a week, a single hearty meal each, but otherwise we stopped eating to make more for the others and were none the worse for wear for it.

After a while even that became a struggle to provide. The six of us volunteered to hibernate, because we'd discovered we could, and by then we were tired. I think all of us hoped we'd just not wake up. So we lay down on slabs of marble, in a place like mausoleum but inside the house proper. And we slept without intending to wake up.

Except we did. They woke us six months later. The occupation was gone and it was mostly our original staff again; but this was terrible, not wonderful, because the invasion was coming, the enemy were coming back and they were bringing the invaders. While we'd slept we'd been transferred to a brick building in the closest town, where our staff could help defend the town, and the town help defend them. Because the invaders were death.

The machines came the third day. Spheres with a single round eye, walking by three tentacle-like metal arms, they continually scanned for human life, and when they found it, they destroyed it with a laser. But these wouldn't fire until life was confirmed, because the shots drained batteries, and so even swarms with plans to eradicate populations didn't waste shots.

Which is why they woke us, the undead. Those of us for whom heartbeats and breathing were optional.

I encountered them first--you might say I was the only one to even see them, this time around, but I'm not sure how it works, really. What I know is that I was alone in the building, sitting on a slab of marble and watching, when the machine crawled up the building on its three prehensile arms. At first the eye staring at me glowed red, the color of a negative life scan, but then I moved and it turned green--and relaxed and it became red again. That was how I discovered that every time we moved our hearts beat just a little.

When it stayed red for full ten seconds, it turned away, and I moved closer. When it turned back my way I let myself fall to the floor, feigning death, and it stayed red. We played cat-and-mouse until I worked up the courage to hit it from behind, chopping it bare-handed and discovering, to my surprise, I'd grown stronger in my sleep, because my hand when right through the metal shell and into the circuitry. Luckily I'd avoided the power source, the gyroscope, and the most charged parts, and landed in the controlling wires; holding on by the hole I made I dug through the wires as it spun and spun, trying to focus to fire on the thing on its head. Tearing out first one wire, I discovered the green one took out the lasers, and the blue one stopped it moving, and yellow powered it off. I'm not sure what the black or the white or the red did, but one must have communicated something to the troops.

I heard the boots coming and decided to play dead again, because why not. My luck wasn't so bad that any of them recognized me, and my unblinking eyes and lack of pulse convinced them I was a full casualty. Ten, twenty, forty of them crowded in to the building, up to the room, to talk strategy and regroup in a discreet, reinforced location with a good view of the town.

When one stepped over me, grenades hanging heavy from his belt, it occurred to me that strategy-talkers were probably leaders, and an army without leaders could be repelled.

They were surprised when the dead woman sat up and grabbed a grenade. But they weren't surprised for long.

I, on the other hand, welcomed death. Because surely even I wouldn't survive this. And I didn't.

But I did.

To find myself crossing the courtyard in a warless Alaska, newly turned, escorted by old friends who'd long since passed. To find myself sitting for my very first breakfast with five other newly turned vampires, who'd never seen me before, and who had no memory of the life that was to come.

What was I to do? They were so innocent. And none of them would believe me--I didn't believe it happened, not fully. A trick of my psyche, perhaps. But three years, the arguments, the sensations, the faces and the tragedies and the guilt of watching people starve--my mind quailed to think such vivid experiences were unreal, not with the detail I'd lived them in. So I lived and waited and watched the news, and stockpiled perishables when I could convince the staff to take me to town or buy me some.

The others watched me, and came to know me differently; as the so-sad woman who might have been driven just a bit mad by it all, harmless but always stockpiling food she didn't particularly need to eat. This time I showed them immediately that food was mostly optional, and worked on learning my limitations, my capabilities. I bounced off trees and punched dummies; I broke brick walls until I broke my hand and roped the scientists into helping me measure things, in the name of science.

And when the war hit, and people began to starve, I showed them the supplies. But only half remained, because we had a thief. He was caught; he had been smuggling my supplies away, and now they were half-gone.

It was still more than our friends had had last time. And from the beginning we didn't eat. That was when Mike asked how I'd known, and I told him: I told him we'd lived it all before. We decided to tell the others I'd had a vision after being turned, because he didn't really believe me, I could tell.

But my information on the eyes was correct, and it made a difference when the war became the invasion. It helped the troops confirm what had been suspected the first time, that the machines weren't human technology, although heaven knows why the enemy thought their new allies wouldn't turn on them one day, after the continent had been cleared of us to make room for others.

I died earlier this time around, out on the front lines, tracking down an eyeball, when another caught me from behind. Turns out holes in the chest didn't kill us, although those took a week or two to heal; but beheadings did.

I swore, just before I died, that if I woke up again, I'd start sooner and find a way to stop the enemy.

This time when I sat down to my first breakfast with the others in Alaska, Mike said he believed me. That he'd lived a whole life, and that I had told them the very first night I'd had visions of the future. None of them had believed me at first. I had watched the news and listened to politics, and tried to keep up with what was going on. And that eventually, when the war started, they listened to me. I'd tried to fight but it was Mike, this time, who'd gotten caught out in front. Who had died.

I remembered none of this.

We told the scientists we'd had visions, that we had a purpose for existence. That we'd seen a glimpse of the future and we intended to stop it, if only they'd help us. But Mike and I agreed--we should keep the others safe. Give them their innocence and their happiness, as much as possible. So we taught them to avoid eating, and told them our limits, and shared the vulnerabilities of the machines, and made them stockpile.

And then Mike and I went to Washington and tried to stop things from happening, listened in on politics and offered advice. There was one senator who pushed for war, and the others became fevered, and fell into his sway.

I died being caught spying in his office.

As soon as I sat down, Mike told me he believed me. For him, it was the first time he'd told me so.

We didn't know how many lives we had. We didn't know how many chances we got. Perhaps we all six had to die at once to stay dead? Maybe we were alive for the purpose of saving the world. Maybe we all had to die at least once, or we had a number of lives shared between us. We didn't know. Mike died twice more, and me three times, neither remembering the lives of the other, and never managing to save the world. But it always started the same, and the others always reacted the same unless we did something different.

Then one time I died, and it was Sarah the next morning at the table who beat Mike to the punch. Three times she beat Mike, actually, because I died first that life, too, and then it was Mike who died. With three people it was easier, and we reported, each first morning after dying, what had happened in the previous life, with three clueless friends who didn't know us sitting at our table and watching us with frightened, wide eyes.

Once we made it six years. Jack, when he joined us, said we made it eight under one of his lives. Every time we woke up, the one who had died was a little stronger than before.

Kinsey was the last. We did everything we could to spare her. The theory that we had to each die once to all be dead was still on the table, and we were approaching a total death count of twenty-five, which seemed an ominous number. Mike said we'd all agreed to share our death count to figure out whose death had come most recently; that person would recount the latest strategy and lead in revising it, having had the most recent experience.

We stopped the war on life twenty-four, when Mike to me had gone from nine to twelve and Jack from four to six. That time, invasion came from the sky; and while we were prepared for the machines, the aliens were better armed than the enemy ever had been. I died under a type of gun I'd never seen before. It hurt as much as all the others, though.

We passed twenty-five without problem, and Kinsey was still safe. But then we started focusing on preparing for the aliens, and the war happened again, and this time we were careless and they discovered us and our plots, thanks to my food thief whom I'd decided to outwit instead of reveal, and took her. We tried to save her but it was a trap. We died, all six of us, at once. The last thing I heard was Sara saying, "How about the courtyard this time, guys?"

I stood awkwardly in the courtyard until Mike showed up, looking embarrassed until he saw me. "I guess I'm not the only one who heard her?" he asked. Apparently, all of us had.

The thought that we might all need to die exactly five times meant we kept sending Kinsey to safety, until I died and found she'd gone from two to seven without anyone else gaining. "Turns out Brazil isn't safe," was all she said. Since Sara's grudge against Jack for his refusal to talk about death number seven, and her ensuing suspicion that wracked up our total death count by five before I got him to admit the end of that life (a undercover investigation that had gone wrong, and was in fact quite embarrassing, not some secret betrayal as Sara expected), we'd all agreed that confidentiality was okay.

Still the question of "Why" and "when" plagued us, and we all spend a lifetime in research, investigating our turner and letting the war and invasion happen, a one-life sacrifice in a search for answers so at least one of us would know. He'd been a war hero, living peacefully outside town, enjoying life. Seventy-eight years later, he'd gone crazy and bitten the six of us all in a single night, gorging on blood. They'd beheaded him and collected us.

We passed fifty, and a hundred. Jack tried for a while to make us all celebrate one Christmas every time together, so we'd have some kind of shared memory. Apparently we'd had one Christmas in his life that had been happy, pure joy. No one else remembered it. Sara never remembered the time I gave her a rescued puppy, and it grew strong and healthy, always made her smile, and saved her life from the fire that killed me. I understood.

That ended after Tom said he didn't want to see us fight again, after our plans took us far and wide. I got it going again, though, "when it'll not interfere too much, or make us fight." So occasionally, instead of every life, we would get together and have one good Christmas, and one good shared memory.

On death count total one-hundred-and-twenty-seven, with all six of us running around 24-7 on an intricate schedule, with Kinsey running away to the other capital and befriending their VP, and Jack and me in Washington assassinating the warmonger, and Sara getting us out and pinning the blame on the food-thief, and Tom and Mike feeding info on the alien technology to the war department, we stopped the invasion and prevented the war.

And all lived.

What do you do, when your purpose is over? We'd lived and died so many times, and watched our friends die over and over, only to have to befriend them again. So many heartbreaks. So many years in battles.

They asked us what we wanted in reward.

I asked to die. We'd all lived and we could do it again, I figured; we had enough practice by now to stop things again. But maybe, maybe this time it would be over.

Sara dittoed me. So did Tom, and Jack, and Mike. Because we all wanted the same thing: for it to all be over.

Kinsey wasn't sure. She wasn't eager to live, but she wasn't ready to die; she'd only wracked up a death count of twenty-two, which was the least of all of us.

Why had we all been turned? What was the purpose of vampires? Kinsey, even knowing how our maker had died, volunteered to live. As she said, "you never know when we'll need more."

They asked us if we were sure, over and over and over. Then they asked us how. Kinsey will get a medal of honor tomorrow, straight from the hands of the president. This time they've made our hibernation slabs in a circle, so we can lay on our stomachs and see each other, close enough to hold hands as the morphine kicks in, with the guillotines rigged to all go off as the same time.

And if the world ever needs more vampires, if someone has to go mad and make a bunch of new ones, they'll have the information we left to guide them. Kinsey will write it up.

Until that day, if you read this, you'll find a mausoleum room in a ranch in the middle of nowhere in Alaska, with six slabs and five bodies, or maybe six if Kinsey has come home to us, if the world needs vampires again. They'll seal it up when she's gone, they promised us that.

It's a bit selfish of the five of us to ask this. But if there's one thing we all agree on, it's that we never want to die alone again.

The Crystal Farmyard

The soldier stopped on the ridge, frigid wind pelting the hollow of his cheek with sleet and turning the last inch of his shoulder-length hair to ice. There, in a valley half-hidden by the barn, were the pigs his sergeant has sent him to bring back to camp:

“Frozen bacon is fine and all, but I’d rather have my pork roasted. Find them and bring them all in before it’s pig-cicles!”

He began to turn his horse, a placid plow horse repurposed for war, when a break in the clouds lit the porcine mass below with moonlight, transforming the pink and brown of flesh and muck to gleaming pink and silver. Beautiful.

A quick sketch wouldn't take but a moment, in this break of weather. Just enough to get the memory down, so he could expand on it later. There was coal in his shirt pocket, and a child’s drawing pad he’d picked up for doodles. Stripping off his gloves, he jotted the image down, his horse shifting uneasily beneath him. Inside, master, the beast seemed to say, you and I belong in a warm stall tonight.

The cold numbed his bony hands, his usually elegant lines shaky. Not yet. Almost, but not yet.

Wind whipped across his cheek again to ruffle the fur of his hat, and on to creak the rope swing dangling from a tree by the farmhouse. His fingers rushed to add the crystal painted ball, the shimmering laundry lines.

Ice cracked hard against his boot. Finished or not, he was done.

 ---

The sergeant stopped outside the shelter, a hank of ham in his hand, to stare at the shoes drying by the door. “Pacchu?”

No answer.

Opening the door, he saw a lone man seated in an empty pigpen, charcoal pencil sketching at a piece of paper. “Pacchu, come inside, get warm. Come eat.”

The soldier tilted his head back, circles dark under his sunken eyes, skin pale and sallow. “Not hungry, sir. Cold killed my appetite.”

Knobby wrists, too much belt hanging off his uniform’s trousers. War didn't make men fat. The sergeant offered his soldier a hand. “Not how it works, son.”

The boy was easy to haul to his feet. Shuffling, staring at his socks, the soldier shrugged. “Not hungry.”

The drawing lay on the floor: crystal pigs glimmering on a hillside by a farmhouse lit by moonlight. Couldn't tell from the image that the walls were all that was left of the structure, the other half naught but ash now. Couldn't see the rebel-informant farmer or his family as skeletons in their beds, the dog roasting over a fire beside the pigs and the clothes trampled into the mud by hundreds of boots.

A beautiful fantasy.

“Come in, son,” the sergeant murmured again. “Rozca shot a rabbit. You can have that.”

The boy hesitated, and let the sergeant pull him to the door.

Celebrating New Years, 2020

Nandy looks up and meets my gaze, the reflections of the lights strung from the ball in the center of the room to the edges glittering in her eyes. “Remember Facebook? I’m gonna update my status, as soon as we go live.”

I laugh, because Nandy—the Master of Ceremonies for local New Earth celebrations—has been a social butterfly as long as I've known her. Ever since the Shattering, when reality divided in 2017 and 5% of the population ended up on a parallel, uninhabited Earth, things have been tough. Sure, 5% of the world’s architecture came with us, but Washington only got the Internet restored last week. It’s set to go live to the public at midnight.

We discover new and fantastic things every day. Like telekinesis, and the low-grade empathy some of us seem to be developing. Maybe by the time it’s 2050, we’ll have telepathy. You never know.

“What are you going to say?” I put down my wine and lean over her shoulder, looking at the laptop screen. The old vineyards are carefully tended. This year’s vintage tastes fine to me, but I’ve never been a connoisseur.

“Um. Three years strong. You think the others have come as far as we have?”

I shrug. “Dunno. You think the professors are right? That there are twenty new Earths, and each got an equal proportion of established resources? Because if so, they’ll probably be right on par.” Friends gather around us, curious to see the main event. Someone begins the countdown.

“I hope so.” She slides the mouse over the Chrome icon and her finger taps against her lips.

“5… 4… 3… 2… 1… HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

 The clacking of the keyboard fills in the status line:

“Welcome, 2020. Miss you, Mom.”

The thumb clicks to +1.

Miss you too, sweetheart. 

Treasure Seeker

Not just a plot point!

I looked from the gun-sword to the corner of the cave. Maybe if I grabbed it quickly enough, I could-

"Don't." Her hiss echoed off the walls. That was the problem with female dragons; they were just too perceptive.

Well. She was protecting her eggs, after all. The globes were now much larger than her hand-sized body, glowing and throbbing with magic. Boy dragons, all three, by the size.

"I'll just be on my way out, then," I said. Step. Step. Thump.

Very sorry about the accidental gender change, EiC.

Hissssssssss. I forced my gaze up, up, and further up, knowing what I would see before the foot-long fangs filled my sight, hovering over my head. Drat. Daddy had come home.