It's safe to assume that people who believe that Reality Bites live in
the world on their own creation. A world fashioned by their own
imagination...through art, through dreams, through anything one
perceives as her destiny. Where the impossible is possible, where
dreams are reality, where the end is endless....a mixture of paradoxes
all blended together in one fantastic realm.
Some call it a place for dreamers, those who defy Reality on their own
accord. Others call it hogwash, that such a world exists. And still,
others believe that this is a realm of beginnings, endings, and
eternity....where nothing is limited as long as the person has a
complete control of her visions.
Though the place remains nameless, I believe the third statement.
Where visionaries like us are given a perchance to dream, to explore the
possibilities of one's mind, one's imagination.
I called this place Ether.
A.C.E. NON-JQ PRODUCTIONS hesitantly presents........
E. T. H. E. R.
(Everything Through Heart, Everything Real)
I figured that Ether was a perfect name for the place. Webster defined
it as "An imaginary substance regarded by the ancients as filling all
the space beyond the sphere of the moon, and making up all the stars and
planets."
Ether is a substance that creates, yet it exists as something unproven,
something unreal. Something that makes things possible.
Something that works like a person's mind, one's imagination.
Something that captures the attention of everyone's soul.
In my case, however, it went through extremes. It captured my
attention alright.......
By pulling me in. PHYSICALLY.
And so my journey on Ether begins.
EPISODE FOUR: THE BARD OF DESTINY
A tall, dark shadow loomed over a basin of dark, smoking water which
poured from the mouth of a huge, grosteque gargoyle, its red, ruby eyes
glinting in the full moon.
The figure was kneeling in front of the basin, black fabric everywhere
as glowing blue eyes watched the events unfolding inside the ripples of
the dark water. The cowl was pulled low over the person's head, and a
slow smile spread across deathly pale skin as a soft, desperate cry
echoed in the figure's ear.
"Soon, Ashka-Lha.....you shall be under our control....."
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!"
The elf guard standing in front of the halfling's room jerked from his
sleep. He sprang up from his chair, his green eyes glowing as he sensed
danger in the air.
"Somone's in trouble!" he murmured to himself as he moved to do his
duty.
But before he could take another step forward, the heavy, oak door he
was guarding swung open, slamming in full force on the guard's face at
the sudden force behind it.
"Urrrrggghhh!"
Rogue rushed out, peering around him curiously, urgency set in his
face. "What the hell was THAT?!" he cried, more to himself than the
hapless guard. He spotted the elf guard sprawled on the floor, his nose
bleeding.
"You....you....." the elf growled, twitching all over.
The halfling rubbed the back of his neck and grinned sheepishly.
"Yeow....sorry man, I forgot you were standing out here...ah heh heh..."
"I'm gonna..." the elf threatened, glaring at the brown-haired boy as
he slowly stood up, twitching with rage.
"Yeah yeah, I know, everyone's out to kill me," Rogue replied, rolling
his eyes. "So what else is new? What can I say? I'm a wanted man! But
we'll get a raincheck on this, alright buddy? Gotta go, see ya!"
"Hey!" the elf guard cried as the brown-haired lad sprinted towards the
staircase at the end of the hall. "Come BACK here!
You...you....whatever you're supposed to be!"
The halfling ignored the guard as he rushed down the steps, colliding
with someone along the way. He stopped and spotted a pair of angry,
green eyes glaring at him.
"YOU!" he cried, recognizing the elf that shot him down earlier in the
forest.
"YOU!" Maliha yelled, glaring at the halfling.
"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP!!!!!"
"THEM!" they cried in unison, jerking around and headed to the
direction of the scream.
The two burst through the double doors of the red-and-gold chamber
Alexis and Ann were in.
Alexis and Ann stopped yelling as the door opened. They struggled
against their assailants. Rogue and Maliha gaped at the scene,
confused.
Ann and her assailant were entangled in a pile of red-and-gold silk
sheets. Alexis was off the floor, struggling against the tall,
black-clothed figure which lifted her by the shoulders, her nikes
kicking the air.
Alexis glared at the two exasperatedly. "Took you guys long enough,"
she said flatly while the creature holding her stopped snarling and
looked about in confusion.
Maliha blinked, then urgent action set in her face. "VAMPIRES!" she
cried, lifting her hand. Her silver-and-gold bow materialized in her
hand.
Rogue cracked his knuckles. "Well well well...no one told me it was
dinnertime," he said, smirking. He looked at the suspended teenager.
"Hang on Alexis, we'll get ya down shortly."
"That's the only thing I CAN do!" Alexis yelped. "Do something! I
mean....torch it or eat it or something!"
Rogue grimaced at the idea. "You've GOT to be kidding," he retorted.
"I prefer my food fresh, not centuries-old dead."
"Will you two stop yapping!" Maliha snapped. "We're kinda missing the
point here!"
Alexis took the opportunity to smash her foot on her assailant's
groin. The vampire howled in pain, dropping the girl on the floor.
"That's the SPIRIT!" the halfling cried encouragingly. The undead,
black-clothed figure glared at him. "Whoops, pardon the pun. Didn't
mean it.....NOT!"
Maliha rolled her eyes and aimed her arrow at the vampire struggling
with Ann. A spear of ice shot out from the bow, piercing the
assailant. Ann cried out as blood splattered all over her face.
Alexis rolled away from the vampire who attacked her. Rogue leapt in
the air, transforming into his Wyvern form, then swooped down, fangs
bared, at the remaining vampire.
His large, silvery claws grasped the black figure, and with a roar of
triumph, hurled the figure towards the big, glass windows of the room.
Alexis shielded her head as glass splintered everywhere, droplets of
blood getting lost on the red carpet. All heard an inhuman shriek as
the vampire fell through the air, landing in a sickening squish as it
landed chest first on a tall, pointed spire, the sharp, metal tip
jutting out from its back.
The three girls crowded at the window, looking down at the grisly
corpse. Xalcathon landed on the ground, wavery lines of energy
engulfing his form as his feet touched the ground, turning him human
once again.
"Yick," Ann grimaced.
Rogue dusted his hands on his trousers. He grinned at the three girls
and gave a sweeping bow. "All in a day's work, ladies," he said
loftily.
"Why aren't you in your chamber?" Maliha asked flatly.
Rogue sighed. "Jeez, I came to help and everything and you want me
stay in my room? Ingrate..." he muttered
Ann grinned at Maliha, who tossed her bow in the air, which dissolved
into mist. "Guess you've really been practicing, huh?" the young girl
asked.
"Thanks for helping out, you guys," Alexis spoke up, still troubled at
what the vampire said to her.
Rogue gave her a smirk. "Don't get used to it," he said loftily. "I
was only returning the favor. No need to get mushy."
Alexis bristled at that. "MUSHY?!!!!!" she growled. "NOW who's the
ingrate?!"
The halfling merely grinned at her innocently, then raised his eyebrows
as they heard the echo of footsteps charging at the hall.
"Here comes the cavalry..." Ann remarked, placing her hands behind her
head.
The elf guard with a bandage on his nose burst in the room along with
sveral other elves. He glared at Rogue. "YOU!" he cried, pointing a
finger at his general direction.
Rogue sighed. "Haven't we done this ENOUGH for the night?" he remarked
tiredly.
"What didja do this time?" Alexis asked him, giving him an exasperated
look. Rogue raised his eyebrows and held his hands up in mock defense.
The elf-guard sputtered angrily and Maliha gave a wave of her hand.
"Enough," she said quietly. "Lieutenant Siegfried, we'll discuss this
in the morning."
Siegfried sighed. "Very well, Lady Maliha," he muttered tiredly. He
turned to his troop. "Let's go, boys."
As the troop of elves left, Maliha turned to Alexis. "What exactly
happened here?" the elf girl asked.
Ann jumped up and eagerly told her side of the story.
"It was really strange!" the child piped up. "I was sleeping and
everything, right? I got so full with the food you fed me so I wanted to
sleep. The next thing I knew, I felt something looming over me and when
I looked, I saw this black shape thing, then I saw Alexis being lifted
by another one like the thing standing over me. That's when I
yelled...well...that's it."
Maliha and Rogue turned to Alexis to get her version of the story.
However, the girl had a question of her own.
"What's an Ashka-Lha?" the girl asked curiously, looking at Maliha,
then Rogue. "The vampire said something about it...but I don't know
what it is."
The halfling frowned. "The Ashka-Lha?" he repeated. He was about to
say something more when Maliha cut in.
"I think, foreigner," she replied. "That you better tell us your side
of the story. If my assumption is correct, the vampires came here after
you and nothing else."
Alexis sat on one of the red cushions near the low table. "It was
really strange...." she mused as the rest gathered around to hear her
story. "I was writing near the window," she began, pointing at the
shower of glass where the window used to stand. "When I felt hungry, so
I walked over to this table to get some fruit, then when I turned
around, there was the vampire."
She shuddered slightly at the memory of the deathly-pale face. "It
said, 'You shall come with us, Ashka-Lha', and that's when I started
screaming."
Maliha blinked. "Are you sure that's all you can tell us?" the
elf-girl asked.
Alexis picked up her fallen notebook and stared at it. "Well....there
was something else..." she murmured.
She turned to the halfling. "Remember when I stopped by your room
while the guard was sleeping?" she asked him. The brown-haired boy
nodded and Alexis flipped the pages in her notebook. "Well...I wrote
about it...about you....but..."
Alexis cringed a bit. "But...I wrote it BEFORE I talked to you," she
continued. "I know it sounds crazy, but the word 'Rogue' floated in my
mind and I wrote it down and it turned out to be your name! I thought it
was a coincedence or whatever, but then..."
The room was silent, save for the rustling sound of paper as the
sixteen year old flipped the pages. "But then.....I wrote this during
the sunset.....'cause I felt the urge to write a story..."
She placed the notebook on the table and slid it over Maliha's
direction. "And after I wrote it....it just...happened. I KNOW you
guys already THINK I'm mentally unstable, but it's the truth, I SWEAR!"
"Hey, calm down," Rogue spoke up. "Sure we think you're metally sick,
but I don't think you're a compulsive liar, too."
Alexis looked at him flatly. "Gee, thanks," she replied sarcastically.
Maliha skimmed over the passage Alexis wrote, then slid the
yellow-red-and-green notebook back to her.
As Alexis reached out to take her notebook, Maliha stood and looked at
them all in the eye. "Come," she told them. "There is something in
this palace you should see."
With that, she turned to walk towards the doors of the room.
Maliha summoned a ball of light in her hand and tossed it up in the
air. It suspended over their heads, giving light in the dark hall where
they stood.
Rogue surveyed his surroundings. His blue eyes took in the dark
hallway, lined by several elven paintings and potted plants. The ground
was solid stone, unlike the rest of the marble palace.
"Where are we going?" he asked as Maliha, Alexis, and Ann started
walking down the dark hall. He eyed Maliha warily, distrust in his blue
eyes.
"We're paying a visit to the temple of Maverick, the God of the Terran
Elves," Maliha replied. She eyed Alexis. "The legend of the Ashka-Lha
is told through here."
"Legend?" Alexis murmured, not believing what she was hearing at the
moment.
Rogue chuckled beside her. "Jeez....do you repeat everything we tell
you?" he joked.
Alexis' eyes narrowed, then swiftly brought her elbow sharply on his
side, smirking when she head a sharp yelp from the obnoxious halfling.
Maliha stopped in front of huge, brass double doors, elaborately
engraved. She raised both of her palms in front of the door and
whispered soft words in the air.
"Earth spirits who guard the majesty that awaits, let your humble
servant through to pay homage to Maverick, Guardian of the Lands..."
(I figured to take Mav's GOD COMPLEX quite literally *grin* It's
PERFECT! Well, actually, I was torn from using his God Complex or Devil
Complex...but he uses the former more than the latter so I used the God
Complex)
Ann bowed her head reverently, accustomed to elven traditions. Alexis
blinked at the sight. Rogue sighed and placed his hands behind his
head, waiting for the elven noble to finish her ritual at the door.
A glow eminated from Maliha's long, pale fingers. Slowly, the big
brass doors opened, and firelight cast their shadows on the ground.
"Come," Maliha said quietly, striding inside the fire-lit room. Alexis
blinked, then followed Maliha and Ann inside. The temple was a large,
stone room. White, marble pillars stood to support the building itself,
with gold rings at their ends. What astonished the sixteen year old the
most was that the flames itself which blazed around the room were white
blue in color, as opposed to the red-orange she was accustomed to.
"The fire....it's...white," Alexis murmured, awed by the sight. It was
like stepping inside heaven. The marble pillars were lined with a
light, almost ethereal shade of blue. A white and gold altar stood in
the center of the room, surrounded by whitew-blue flames. Behind the
altar, was a large, golden-framed painting, elaborately carved on the
sides and four corners. The painting depicted an image of a tall, blond
haired, blue eyed man, about in his early twenties, dressed in blue and
white. A staff with a large, blue gem was positioned in his hand, his
other hand reigning in a proud, majestic unicorn. Several more
paintings lined the room.
"A unicorn?" Alexis inquired.
Maliha nodded. "Yes....Shale is plentiful of the wild beasts. It is
said in the legends..." Maliha paused to look at the painting again.
"That unicorns are wild, agressive.....something that can be killed, but
not tamed or captured alive. It is said that only Maverick can tame or
capture a living unicorn. It is an impossible feat."
She turned to Alexis. "The unicorn is a sacred animal to us......as
the Phoenix, Dragon, and Griffon are to other cultures outside Shale.
It is against our laws to slaughter one."
"So...." Rogue spoke up as Ann gazed wide eyed at the temple. "What's
this gotta do with the Ashka-Lha?"
"What IS it anyway?" Alexis asked, growing slightly impatient.
Maliha turned back to her group. "The Legend of the Ashka-Lha has been
passed down by word of mouth through generations and generations....so
many times has it been retold by different mouths that the legend itself
is very inaccurate. There are a lot of versions of the myth of the
Ashka-Lha.....if it ever was a myth....but one quality was always
consistent throughout these tales."
She pointed towards the walls where the other paintings stood. "We
keep these pictures of the Ashka-Lha legend in this temple because the
Ashka-Lha, whoever it was, was the only being blessed by the four
deities who rule the four continents over the Varr, with Shale, this
country, as the Western Continent."
Maliha gestured the paintings. "It was said, that when this world is
threatened by the unknown, something would call the Ashka-Lha over the
void of time and space to alter the course of destiny, so the impending
disaster would cease to exist. Such power is granted to no one but the
Ashka-Lha."
"No one knows who it is, foreigner.....even the gender of the Ashka-Lha
is unknown. But the only thing that was consistent throughout the
legends told about this being was one thing....."
Maliha eyed the notebook Alexis was holding. "They say that the
Ashka-Lha was the Bard of Destiny."
END EPISODE FOUR
--
---Alexis: Chaos Insanity Ensuer
FANTASY QUOTE OF THE WEEK:
"She will remember your heart when men are fairy tales in books written
by rabbits."
-- The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle
********************************************************************
* The Jonny Quest mailinglist jq@edc.ml.org *
********************************************************************
* To unsubscribe, send an e-mail to: majordomo@edc.ml.org *
* with the message: unsubscribe jq subject is ignored *
********************************************************************
(
geocities.com/televisioncity)