Lightscript Legends Episode 3
“Just Another Human”
Overprotective tendencies, disgruntled darkness, and a tiny new human…
The Lightscript sailed through the endless skies of the Real World like a golden comet, leaving a river of luminous fractals in its wake. Every star it passed stirred from within, pulsating with the thunderous heartbeat of a Lightshifter.
At last it slowed to circle the star it sought ~ a turbulent sphere of emerald radiance.
As the Lightscript spiraled around the green star, the fiery nest unfurled. Six conflagrant wings thrust open against the heavens like rapidly growing branches thick with flaming foliage. Glittering strands of stardust streamed from every plasmic feather. Eyes of burning emerald flecked with Lightscript embers opened to the Author’s message.
Written in the language of light, native tongue of the stars, the message was clear as always.
Shaking a cloud of burning mist from the mane of flaming feathers cresting his neck, Skyvior followed the Lightscript through the spirals of his home galaxy to the Quasar Gate at its center ~ a secret passage only the Author could open.
Skyvior plunged through the immense ring of swirling light, and the Real World blurred into a shimmer of translucent pages rapidly turning with the beating of his wings. Ghostly words and symbols flickered through his vision as he soared across the past, present, and future as if they were one and the same. Names both strange and familiar reflected in his eyes, some written in radiant Lightscript and others in snaking Shadowscript.
The sound of turning pages grew to a thunderous rushing wind as letters morphed into misty colors and wavering shapes that gradually solidified into a vivid landscape. As a new chapter of the Book of Time crystalized beneath him, he glimpsed the title of the setting…
Hinterland, Montana
A formidable wall of towering mountains crowned with snow encompassed the forested valley. Deep rivers cut through the woods in broad ribbons of icy mountain water that fed several deep, glistening lakes. A mismatched array of structures ranging from spacious houses with manicured lawns to dilapidated shacks in brushy thickets were scattered across the rugged landscape, separated from the nearest city by miles of wilderness and cold, clear waters.
A final flurry of embers trailed behind Skyvior as his feathers cooled to soften his brilliance for the descent. His sharp eyesight cut through the dim pre-dawn light, taking in the scenery with ease as he chased his golden guide across the sky.
The Lightscript sailed on ahead of him, weaving gracefully through the tangled branches of a sleeping forest, across a moonlit hayfield, and down a twisted gravel lane into the heart of a humble human neighborhood.
Shifting down to the size of an eagle, Skyvior followed it through the thin glass of one old house’s window, just as the first faint hints of dawn touched the jagged crest of the mountain range.
Inside, the Lightscript stopped to hover above a crude wooden cage. Skyvior had seen several such cages on his various missions into the Book of Time. Humans called them ‘cribs’ and kept their young in them at night. He could not see how such a flimsy structure was supposed to protect the miniature characters from even moderately formidable predators. Nor could he think of anything that would need protection from the hopelessly helpless little beings. But that was just one of many human habits that puzzled him.
The Lightscript circled the tiny character in a caress of warm light and her name flittered through Skyvior’s vision in shimmering, translucent letters ~ Elina Rune. Then it dissipated in a stardust flurry, leaving him to take his first look at his new assignment.
Skyvior drifted away from the window and perched on the top rail of Elina’s odd little cage. She was a small, fleshy, pinkish being bundled in second-hand blankets and crowned with a wispy crop of flyaway brown hair that stuck out in an amusing range of directions. She was utterly unremarkable but…cute. That is…in a homely, half-made human sort of way.
When Skyvior’s light blanketed her in a gentle glow that made her smile in her sleep, her cuteness increased…and his chest tightened. A deep sigh escaped him, along with a wisp of burning mist from his nostrils.
This was a different page of Time…a different character…a different setting…but would it be the same story?
Only a handful of heartbeats had passed in peace before the room became thick with an intensely undesirable presence.
Plasmic flames bristled down Skyvior’s back, and Elina shifted restlessly below him. His crystalline claws tightened around the rail as the darkness he expected snaked through the wall, flowing upward to gather into a roiling black mass in one corner of the ceiling.
“Cold greetings, my new nemesis.” Six black and gray wings unfurled like spreading smoke as the Shadowshifter’s foreboding form materialized. “My name is Dravial, and I do not care what your name is.”
Dravial crossed the ceiling in one smooth, slithering motion and glowered down at the crib with soulless, swamp-green eyes. His black lips curled away from his serrated fangs in disgust. “So this is the minuscule creature we will be fighting over? I am already disappointed. But perhaps once it outgrows its innocently ugly squirming bundle of flesh phase, it will turn out to be a deliciously unpleasant surprise.”
Dravial lifted his murky eyes to meet Skyvior’s stare. “Assuming you are aware that darkness dominates this world, why do you bothersome beacons of light keep coming back to it? Is it simply for sport?”
Skyvior arched his neck and bared his teeth. Every feather of his fiery coat bristled, flames rising from the crest of his neck to the end of his tail. “Stars were born to ignite the night,” he growled. “My work is no game.”
Dravial sank from the ceiling and hooked his talons, tinged green with the venomous vapor pulsating through his entire being, over the rail opposite of Skyvior. “Splendid,” he said with a wicked smile. “The more seriously you take your job, the more fun mine will be.” His tail twitched like a cat about to pounce on its prey. “Let the mind games begin…”
Dravial opened his jaws, but only one rivulet of shadow slipped through his fangs before Skyvior retaliated. Their breath collided directly above the crib, erupting into fractals that rained down over little Elina in mingled droplets of shadow and light.
“Oooh,” Dravial chuckled, “So you are up for a little sport.” He spread his wings over the crib like six twisted branches cloaked with smoldering leaves. “Then I better make her first nightmare a good one.”
Before another black breath could escape him, a gushing current of light struck the haughty Shadowshifter like the fierce flow of a wild green river. He was washed off his perch and straight back through the bedroom wall, leaving a trail of ashen feathers behind.
Snorting with satisfaction, Skyvior looked back into the crib to find Elina’s eyes opening to the Dreamscape for the first time. She gazed up at him with a look of stunned wonder as his form gradually crystalized in her vision.
Her starry-eyed stare dissolved into an expression of terror when a disgruntled and disheveled Shadowshifter came slinking back through the wall.
With a growl that could be mistaken for the rumble of a rising storm, Skyvior’s form grew from the size of an eagle to the size of a dragon. Muscles rippling like molten gemstone, he spread four wings from wall-to-wall and shielded the crib with the other two. All down his neck and back, plasmic feathers rose like burning blades sparking with Lightscript embers.
Dravial shook flecks of unwanted light from his own feathered mane and snorted out two rings of green-tinged smoke. “Well, that was a bit of an overreaction.” He smoothed down his wayward feathers and glared at Skyvior. “Clearly someone has overprotective tendencies.”
Elina had been whimpering as if about to cry. However, once Skyvior spread his wings over her crib, she started to giggle with delight. She eagerly reached for his fiery feathers, squirming and flailing on the floor of her wooden cage as if trying to sprout wings herself.
Growls softening to a rumbling purr, Skyvior lowered his head into the crib to nudge his little charge gently out of the Dreamscape. The instant his muzzle was within reach, Elina stretched both chubby hands up to it with a mousy squeal. He instinctively braced for the icy sensation of a human hand passing through him, but instead felt the warm softness of ten tiny fingers grasping at his face with sheer glee.
The little hands fell away and the bright eyes closed as Elina slipped out of the Dreamscape with a smile. Skyvior lingered a moment with his head hanging in her humble wooden cage. A heavy sigh escaped him as a harsh whisper from another page of Time echoed through his mind, its frigid sting clashing against the wave of warmth that washed over him at Elina’s touch…
“It is just another human. They all turn out the same.”
🏔️💫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!