Lightscript Legends Episode 4
“Legend, Locket & Key”
An ancient story, an empty locket, and new chapter of life…
The white paper curled in the fire’s heat, burn marks spreading outward from the center to the corners and devouring the castaway stories the way nightfall swallows a landscape. A breath of damp spring wind stirred the ashes of the discarded tales as Elina let the last page fall from her fingers into the hungry flames, their reflection dancing across the dark-rimmed glasses framing her forest-green eyes. With a slight shiver, she shoved both hands into her sweatshirt pocket and stared blankly into the swirling smoke.
Just out of human sight, ink-black plumes tinged with hints of poison-green seeped from the last fragments of burning paper. Curling and coiling through the cloud of gray smoke, they rose to feed the little dragon preening like a dark songbird on her shoulder.
“Ahhh…the fragrance of failure.” Dravial rolled over to float on his back, drew in a deep whiff of the snaking shadows, and sipped at the darkness as if it were fine wine. “What a delicacy defeat is.”
Skyvior shot him a searing glare from his perch on Elina’s other shoulder. “She is disheartened, not defeated.”
Dravial rolled his eyes. “She literally just burned her own life’s work, selecting a rusty fire pit for the grave of her dreams. This is nearly worthy of a midlife crisis, and she has not quite left her twenties. Regardless of what you prefer to call it, this is a deliciously depressing end of story.”
“End of chapter,” Skyvior corrected with a growl.
Dravial casually twirled a stray thread of shadow around one talon. “Oh yes, that’s right. Our pet human has come down with ‘new chapter fever’ and is running away into the wilderness to find herself. I do love a good road to nowhere. And the new setting is just the kind of place I should thoroughly enjoy haunting.” A sinister smile revealed the jagged tips of his fangs as he added, “I may even use it to inspire her to write once again.”
Skyvior grunted. “Inspire her to write what? Ghost stories based on yourself so you can become an infamous mortal myth?”
Dravial chuckled. “Oh, if only she had the potential for that.” He let out a dramatic sigh, along with an inky shadow stream that flowed through Elina’s mind in a silent, yet sharply clear, voice. “But we all know your work is best used as fuel for the fire.”
As Elina’s shoulders drooped slightly under the weight of the whispers she could only hear inside, Skyvior breathed out a branch of light that flashed against the cruel shadow like a whip. The dark ribbon snapped in two and slapped Dravial across the face, only to quickly recover its form and thicken around her thoughts once again.
“Stubborn Starblood,” Dravial muttered, working his stunned jaw back and forth. “You know you cannot break what she believes.”
Elina doused the fire with a garden hose and turned to face the old house across the weedy yard…where no one stood on the rickety porch or at the dirty windows to wave goodbye. She shrugged and strolled down the rutted driveway as if she didn’t care, but Skyvior caught her wistful second glance back.
“Not much to show for a life of blood, sweat and tears,” Dravial murmured to Elina’s mind as she approached the faded gray pickup at the end of the driveway. All of her possessions, spare tire included, were packed into the small truck, and still there was room for the marker-scrawled boxes to slide around the bed.
“All those years of working while watching others play are paying off at last.” Dravial’s feathers trembled with a deep chuckle. “Paying off in your very own home that no one else wanted or was foolish enough to buy.”
Skyvior released a soft breath of light that coiled around the keyring dangling from the ignition, drawing Elina’s attention to it when she opened the truck’s door. The key to her new home had come fastened to a wooden locket with a star engraved into the polished, swirling woodgrain. When touched by his breath and then by her fingers, it radiated a warm whisper of reassurance.
Elina straightened her shoulders and fired up the clunky engine, while Dravial gave the locket and key a loathing glare. “What could possibly be so special about an empty locket?” he muttered under his breath.
Skyvior smiled…and if there was one thing that stung Dravial more than any Lightshifter’s burning breath, it was Skyvior’s smile.
“It is not empty. It holds a story.”
At the word ‘story’, both shifters shifted their eyes toward the one box Elina had placed in the safety of the passenger seat. Laid atop the small collection of possessions she deemed too valuable to ride in the bed, was an old book. The deep green cover was worn and the binding was deeply creased, but the sun-gold letters of the title shimmered in the morning light pouring through the pitted windshield…
The Firstborn Legend
Dravial’s shadows shuddered at the sight of it. “She only keeps that thing because her mother gave it to her,” he spat, recoiling from the tale he didn’t dare touch.
Skyvior breathed out a wisp of delicate light that blossomed in Elina’s memory like a fiery flower. The memory, hazy like a faded photograph, of a mamma lovingly placing a new book with an unmarred cover and crisp pages into the eagerly outstretched hands of a little girl who believed in legends.
“Ludicrous legends,” Dravial’s voice cut into the memory like a blade. “Fairytales for weakling children who cannot handle real life.”
Skyvior looked at his agitated enemy with amusement. “That book is not exactly a darkness-denying bedtime story for the faint of heart.”
“But it does promise a bright Ever After.” Dravial leaned in close to Elina’s ear, his breath forming thorny shadow tendrils to weave throughout her thoughts. “And you, of all characters, should know there is no such thing in this world.”
“The promise is not for this world.” Skyvior’s whisper carried tendrils of light that tangled with Dravial’s shadows. “Ever After lies in the Real World.”
Dravial’s feathers bristled and smoked at the mention of the world his kind had betrayed. Glaring at the book with seething hatred, he flooded Elina’s mind with one continuous thought ~ “It is just a story…just a story…just a story…”
Skyvior locked his burning eyes with Dravial’s and dared another small but searing smile. “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!