36. The Elemental Birds

The fifth of the five creatures created for Siaral was the elemental birds. After creating the phoenixes, and hoping they were phoenixes rather than just birds that looked like phoenixes, they wanted to work on something they believed in. They didn’t take the elemental birds from any old mythologies, instead creating what they believed to be an entirely new creature, and experimented just as much with these as they had with the dragons, unicorns and pegasi.

As with all the creatures, except the phoenixes, they began with miniature birds, around the size of finches, that could easily be kept in cages. The largest birds they created were around the size of eagles. Each bird was given the power of one element and not just the basic elements. Once there were earth, air, fire, and water birds, the Yellow family experimented with other elements. Ice birds, shadow birds, and many other were created, each with their own abilities.

The Breeders didn’t really see much of a use for the elemental birds, in the same way that the dragons, unicorns, and pegasi could be used, but they were beautiful. As with all the creatures they worked with the merchants to work out if there was any way of selling the elemental birds, and again a couple of merchants took eggs with them to see if they could be sold. As with the phoenixes they did sell, more because of their stunning looks than because of the magic they had, but it didn’t take long for people to realise that the birds were useful as well as beautiful. Water birds could be used during droughts, light birds could be used in dark places, and they became as important to the web as the other creatures.

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

The World Walkers Collection Listing

Newly listed at Muse’s Success.

I’ve also submitted this collection to the Web Fiction Guide, but it will take some time for them to make a decision.

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

Plans

Even with all the work I’ve done this month on the World Walkers collection there are more posts to write, more races to create, and I haven’t finished any character profiles yet, so my plan is to continue with World Walkers world building during the next couple of months. I’m still going to focus on the Donor House collection next month, which is going to be more stories and character profiles than world building posts, while working on the World Walkers world building posts.

This month’s prompt session had less prompters than any of the others, which has disappointed me slightly, but I’m still going to keep going with them, because I love prompts. I might have a random number session next month as well as the prompts session.

In December, while posting the advent story, I think I’m also going to have a story month. I’ll attempt to post on story of at least 500 words every day, in all of the collections I’m currently working on, and then I’m going to spend 2013 posting much more than I have in 2012.

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

The World Walkers: Aerith: Vanessa: Travelling Back in Time?

“Come with me,” Paul said, smiling. “You’ve told me before how much you’d love to explore time and now is the time to do it.”

Vanessa looked at Paul. Their eyes met and she bit her lip. Time travelling wasn’t something anyone did without careful planning or the agreement of at least one of the officials in charge of controlling who went where. He was holding one of the stones in his hand, that she knew couldn’t be bought, so he must have gone through the official channels, but she was still unsure.

“I don’t know,” she replied, glancing at the stone and then back at Paul’s face.

“We’ll be there for two weeks and then we’ll come home. I know you’re on holiday, so it’s not as though it’s going to be a problem getting time off, and I really want to show you my favourite time period.” Paul reached out and touched her hand. “Please, Nessa.”

Paul was saying the right words, but Vanessa had a feeling there was something he wasn’t telling her. They’d known each other since childhood, even though they hadn’t always been friends, and there were times she knew him better than she knew herself. She was certain this was one of those times. In his eyes, behind the convincing smile, was another emotion.

“Why now?” she asked.

“It feels like the right time.”

“Is there something that you’re not telling me?”

When Paul shook his head Vanessa knew he was lying to her, but there was no evidence. It was just her intuition telling her that she shouldn’t go with him, not right then, because he had another reason for travelling back in time. At the same time she couldn’t help thinking that she should go with him. He wouldn’t have asked her if he didn’t want her with him.

“I know it’s short notice and I probably should have at least mentioned the idea of us going time travelling together, but I wanted it to be a surprise. This is something you’ve always wanted to do.”

Nodding, Vanessa glanced at the stone again. “How did you manage to convince someone to let me go with you?”

“I’m not going back in time to do anything in particular, just to check a couple of things are going the way they’re meant to be, and when someone outside of one of the organisations goes time travelling they have to have a chaperon, so I thought I’d combine the two.”

Vanessa realised she was still chewing on her lip and told herself to stop, as she attempted to think things through. Paul had been with one of the secretive time travelling organisations for five years, since they had left school, and she couldn’t imagine him turning his back on them, but she knew he wasn’t always comfortable with what he was asked to do. They’d never been able to talk about exactly what he did, because everything was confidential, and she couldn’t help feeling relieved. It was too easy to imagine what he may have been asked to do.

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

The World Walkers: Siaral: Jason: Wish Magic

Jason walked alone along the street, not paying attention to anything other than the voices he could hear. Some of the wishes were ones he would never even contemplate fulfilling, because they were selfish or they’d affect someone else adversely, but then there were others, more heartfelt, that tugged at his empathy. Not all wishes could be granted, so he spent much of his time learning about each person he wanted to help. That was what everyone with wish magic did. Every day they heard the voices of the many races of the web and made their choices about which wishes they could grant.

When Jason was a younger he had granted wishes that he probably shouldn’t have done, the way almost everyone with the ability had, because it was harder then to look at every wish dispassionately. All granted wishes were recorded, as were the effects, so he knew that none of the wishes had done any real damage to a person or timeline, as he could hear wishes from people who had lived hundreds of years before him. There were those who could also hear wishes from people in the future. That was why some said that they knew more about the web than the walkers did, but he wasn’t sure that was necessarily true. He would admit that they probably knew more about the people of the web than the walkers did.

Each wish that was granted had an effect on the web and sometimes it wasn’t possible to know what sort of an effect it would be until it happened. Jason had seen some innocuous wishes that seemed as though they couldn’t have any major effect turning one of the worlds upside down, while there were those that could have changed the worlds and didn’t do anything much at all. No matter how much research they did there was no way to be totally sure what would happen, so all they could do was guess and hope for the best.

There were rules about the wishes they could grant, but not everyone followed them, and there was no way to keep track of everyone with wish magic. Jason had first realised he had the ability when he was thirteen, which was the normal age for the races of Siaral to gain their power. He’d thought it was likely because his mother had wish magic and it had missed his older sister. It was something she was glad of, as she’d always wanted to be a unicorn breeder. If he’d wanted to keep his ability to himself it would have been easy enough to lie, because his power didn’t show outwardly, and he didn’t have to do anything to grant wishes.

Sighing, Jason told himself to stop thinking about the things he couldn’t change. When there were rules there were always going to be people who wanted to break them and people who were doing their best to stop those rules from being broken. He had always followed the rules they were given, knowing it was for the good of the web, even though there were times he could have broken them to help people who needed it.

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.

37. Linda

Created by MJ Ashford/DW user forgottenspirits

Linda is the home of the Linduns, four races with a connection to the elements: the Embers; the Clouds; the Waves; and the Rocks. The Embers are red and orange coloured lizard people who have pyrokinesis as their elemental power. They are permanently at war with the Waves and the Rocks. The Waves ae deep blue/sky green scaled people with both lungs and gills so they can live comfortable in and out of water. Their elemental ability is divination and they are also able to time travel. The Rocks are metallic coloured golems that have super strength. The Clouds, because they keep out of the war, are shunned by the other three races. They are blue, white and grey feathered people who can fly, are telepathic and have kinesis.

In the centre of the world, connecting the lands of the four other races, live the eight deities of this world on their own island. They are believed to be the favoured race, created by the fae to watch over the others, and this means they have a lot of control, but they don’t always use this in a way the walkers would be happy with.

Mirrored from K. A. Jones Writing.