Lightscript Legends Episode 12
“Legends Unlocked”
A wooden chest, a mysterious lock, and a treasure with a name…
Andor faded away and Elina was back on her own page of Time, sitting on her bed beneath the tangles of shadow briers snaking across the ceiling and coiling around the windowsills.
Atop the wooden chest in front of her lay her own copy of The Firstborn Legend, shielded by the fiery feathers of Skyvior’s unseen wings. The golden letters of the title came alive with a flowing light and the shadows nearest to it receded into the walls like frightened serpents.
Yet, strangely, the silent voice of the Lightscript and the rasping whisper of the Shadowscript spoke the same command…
“Touch it. See the stories it has seen.”
Hesitantly, Elina placed a hand on the book’s deep green cover. The heat that rose out of it, flowing up into her fingers and through her veins, was almost burning. She wanted to close her eyes, but they only widened as shadows rose all around her, their haunting echoes rushing through the cabin like a biting winter wind.
This time, the silhouetted figures did not rise from pages walked by strangers and read from a safe outsider’s distance. These shadows were her own.
Every moment the book had been present for seeped from its cover to surround her. It had laid on her bed, sat on her nightstand, ridden in her backpack, collected dust on her shelf, caught her falling teardrops, been thrown against a wall with an angry scream and clutched against her broken heart while she cried herself to sleep.
In all of her darkest moments, that book was somewhere close by. And the shadow of every one of those moments was flecked with touches of a warm, familiar light she knew but could not name.
Dravial observed every echo of heartache and rage with poisonous pleasure, but the spark of recognition in Elina’s eyes unsettled him. Before he could be certain just what it was that she recognized, the golden glow within the chest’s keyless lock reignited…and she saw it.
Dravial rushed to snuff out the spark, then lurched backwards with a hiss when spiraling tendrils of light simultaneously erupted from the star insignias on the lock, the key, the chest, the book…and the blazing eyes of Skyvior.
Elina hardly heard the shifters fierce roaring as waves of their breath collided over her. Dravial disappeared. The shadows of her past dissolved. The entire Dreamscape seemed to melt away like snow. All she could see was the raised star on the lock turning and golden brilliance erupting from the chest.
Then, her eyelids fluttered open to the gentle glow of dawn touching the loft window. Fragments of shadow and light rained down on either side of the bed like shattered glass. Dravial clawed searing embers of starlight from his wings and Skyvior shook shadows from his mane. Yet all her bleary eyes saw was the sunrise.
Dravial angrily swatted at the last flickering sparks of green and gold floating about the loft.
Skyvior folded his wings and smoothed his blazing feathers down to soft wisps of light to calm himself, but he could not resist the urge to stomp on one fading shadow as it skittered past him.
Elina opened the window, welcoming the cheery sound of birdsong and the fresh scent of rain-dampened earth to clear her mind from the exhausting dreams that were already slipping from the reach of waking memory. After a few deep breaths of that crisp air, her attention returned to the star-arrayed chest where The Firstborn Legend lay alongside the old-fashioned key.
The Dreamscape image of the star on the lock turning flickered at the edge of her thoughts, giving her an idea.
Brushing tousled hair out of her face, she crawled from her crumpled covers and knelt in front of the chest. She shifted the golden lock toward the light from the window and an elfin grin lit up her face. There was a tiny hinge along a metal seam that separated the lock into halves!
She snatched the key from the chest’s lid and turned it over in the light. Thoughtfully biting her lip, she aligned the star-shaped recess in its handle with the raised metal star on the face of the lock, and they slipped together in a perfect fit.
Using the inverted key like a small wrench, she gave it a tentative turn, and the metal star shifted with a gentle click. The mysterious lock opened like a locket in her hand, revealing a keyhole hidden at its heart.
Eyes dancing with excitement, Elina slipped the other side of the key into the secret keyhole, releasing the locket lock’s clasp with oiled ease. Setting the book, lock and key aside, she slowly lifted the lid…releasing a wave of glittering golden mist that only the shifters could see.
At first glance, the chest appeared disappointingly empty. But a second downward look proved otherwise. All that the secretive chest contained was a set of books ~ one with a cover of pearly-white and one crafted from two varnished slices of blue-stained pine.
Skyvior watched with curious anticipation as Elina turned away from the chest to rummage through her partially packed belongings. She muttered something under her breath about uninvited inspiration haunting an ex-writer. And once she found a blank sheet of paper, she set to scribbling with her back against the wall and a clipboard propped on her knees.
Dravial hovered at her shoulder uneasily, ready to sink his teeth into any bright ideas her pen dared to capture. He relaxed though, lips curling into a wicked smile, once it became clear that her notes were describing him.
Peering over her other shoulder, Skyvior’s wings drooped. Every wisp of his fiery coat flickered like a dying candle’s flame as he looked away from that cruel page…away from that rapidly moving pen…away from the memory of every character who forgot him.
Then a faint shimmering caught his eye, and, with a curious tilt of his head, he dared one last glance at his human’s haphazard handwriting.
Dravial shrank back and growled while Skyvior leaned forward with widening eyes. The tip of Elina’s pen was aglow with golden glister, its ink ignited by embers of emerald, as she slowly spelled out a single name amidst the fractals of Dreamscape memories scattered across the page.
It was the name of her newest and oldest character idea. The name of a book she wasn’t sure she still wanted to write. The name of a starry little dragon not quite as imaginary as she thought. The name…Skyvior.
Elina slipped the messy sheet of paper inside the cover of her own copy of The Firstborn Legend, placed it inside the wooden chest alongside Talvi and Andor’s books, and reset the secret lock.
Dravial leaned in close to her ear and growled, “It is just a story!”
On her other shoulder, Skyvior nestled beneath her hair with a happy purr and smiled through tears of fluid fire.
“If it is just a story…why are you so afraid of it?”
🏔️💫Lightscript Legends💫🌲 is an ongoing series of bite-sized stories and sip-on-the-go serials. Click here for the full list of published episodes and subscribe to get new installments in your inbox!