Wednesday Briefs: Broken Path, Starless Tail Chapter Nine

 

Ire had left him after flitting down the path, or rather up it toward the house he was supposed to have. He still couldn’t see it, just a few big trees. It was probably some shack. Or, knowing his luck and that he’d led there by a tiny dragon, he’d find a pile of heated rocks or sand to sleep on with a few branches to block any unfortunate rain showers that might come his way.

Did dragons sleep on a bed of hot coals or sand? Meh, what did it matter? At least his clothes would get dry that way. Dragging on wet jeans had been a nightmare.

There weren’t any clouds in the sky anyway. No, the blazing ball that passed for a sun had sunk and left the world in a purple glow, and little sparkles flitted around the bushes and lower tree branches. Not willing to put on his wet, dirty socks, Beckett carried them loose from one hand and walked in the grass beside the path, trying to keep his feet clean.

As soon as he topped the tiny hill the pool had been hidden behind, he stopped dead. The largest tree, which he thought he’d been seeing the bottom of, actually was more of the middle of the trunk. The hill broke off abruptly to the left, and the tree rose to a towering height above him. A short bridge took him to a door, but he could see a whole valley spread out in front of the hill and another bridge leading up to the house from the front that they’d bypassed by leaving the trail.

Wow, what must it look like from the front? The back door was impressive enough. Maybe he’d go out and look in the morning. His feet were already starting to ache again, despite his dip in the pool, and he was ready to sleep.

Beckett walked over the silky smooth boards, glad there weren’t any splinters to catch on his bare soles, and stopped at the door. He hesitated, not sure who or what he was going to meet next, but then he took a deep breath. Clenching his jaw, Beckett knocked and waited.

Well… he’d done his best to be polite. “Tired of waiting,” he grumbled. He turned the knob, shaking his head when he realized even that was made of wood where it was attached to the door. Weird. “Hello?” he called. “Um, I’m Beckett. I’m coming in, but I’m not here to do anything.”

That sounded weird. He was there to sleep. His stomach roared a complaint to remind him he hadn’t eaten since lunch, and even that hadn’t been much. So maybe he wanted to try and find something to eat too. Sniffing, he scented was fresh wood, a sweet spice, and a trace of mint and citrus.

Guess he wasn’t going to find someone cooking dinner. He sighed, wishing he was home and having dinner with his mom and dad. Or just home where he could nuke a corn dog or something.

The house was quiet. He was in a round open room opposite a front door. Sort of made sense, since he was in a tree. Or part of a tree? Or a treehouse that someone made to look like a tree attached to a tree? He wasn’t sure. Obviously a house couldn’t be in a tree or the tree top would die. Right?

He was done trying to figure this place out. His brain was on the edge of shut down mode. At least with the open room he could see there was one bed, and miracles, it looked big enough to fit him.

Now to find some food. He lay his socks out flat by the door, then started by going to his right. He’d make a circle. There was a… something there. It was a box with a knob, but he didn’t want to just lift the lid and rummage around someone else’s stuff. Looking around, he shrugged, and decided he’d have to do it anyway. He didn’t see any food. He grabbed the wooden knob and pulled up.

Empty. “Jeez.” Heat washed through him. Still, that made him bolder and he moved to the row of cupboards he could see alongside one wall. “Jackpot!” He wasn’t sure what all the stuff was, but it had to be food. In weird colors, but it looked like orange bread, green and pink berries, and white strips that were firm but gave slightly under his fingers. There was even a jar of a bubbly purple fluid that looked like soda.

Beckett fell on the food like a ravening beast—otherwise known as a hungry teenager. It was Mrs. R’s favorite joke and nickname for him and Colby when they showed up for afternoon snacks and a study session. He didn’t even sit at the table by the big window over at the front door; there was a front door that he didn’t come in no thanks to that little shit, Ire. The light had faded completely by the time he finished eating anyway, but a round orb like a giant blueberry glowed white with a pale blue tinge in the center of the ceiling.

Good thing he could sleep no matter if it was light or dark. He probably would tonight no matter what anyway. Exhaustion dragged at him, and his eyelids felt like they weighed a thousand pounds. Stomach now full, Beckett stumbled over to the bed. He did strip off his wet clothes, no way was he sleeping in damp jeans, but then he collapsed on the bed.

Maybe he’d wake up in his own bed. One could only hope.

The room was warm, the bed soft, and he flipped one edge of the blanket over part of his body before pillowing his head on his arm and immediately dropping into oblivion.

Wednesday Briefs: Broken Path, Starless Tail Chapter Eight

 

“Hey! Where are we going?” They’d left the other creatures behind quickly, but that didn’t mean the world had gone quiet around us. The spring temperatures rapidly moved toward an early summer feel and the heady mix of treen leaves and flowers filled the air along with the buzz of insects and calls of other… things. Beckett wasn’t sure what they were after what he’d seen so far, and that made him nervous.

“Your new home.” The tiny dragon’s wings flapped fast, not hummingbird speed or anything, but enough that Beckett was able to walk at a comfortable speed behind him along the trail. They headed down toward the valley he’d seen and into the thick jungle tree cover. “It’s all ready for you.”

None of this made any sense. “A home? I have a home.”

“A human home. Where exactly did you plan to stay while you are here?” He darted ahead, getting lost in the thick leaves of the low hanging branches.

“Wait! Dragon, come back or wait for me!”

Faster than he expected, the little red dragon that was no bigger than his head came darting right for his face then came to an abrupt halt to hover in front of him. Beckett slammed on the brakes, digging his heels in and waving his arms to avoid falling. “Whoa!”

“You do not wish to be called human, but you call me dragon and order me around like I’m your servant?” His little voice was a roar of tiny but epic proportions as the red dragon got right in his face to tell him off.

Beckett was smart enough to hide his amusement. “I introduced myself and asked to be called Beckett. You just told me to follow you without telling me your name or bothering to tell me where we were going before you took off. What kind of an idiot would I be if I just let you fly off without saying anything at all? I don’t even know where I am!” He’d given up trying to decide if the whole daydream were real or not. He’d go with it for now. After all… dragons.

Though this little red one was a bit sassier and a little less dragony? He wasn’t sure what he expected, but it wasn’t the claw poking the end of his nose and heated breath blasting his cheeks before he fired back.

“My name is Firscoire.”

Could he be any more imperious? Maybe it was to do with his color. Or his tiny size. “Can I call you Ire?”

“No. My name is Firscoire. Now come on. We’re running late.”

Yeah, no. Beckett was so calling him Ire in his head. Anyone as cranky as him needed that nickname. “Late for what?” Now he had to trot to keep up.

 

A long, sticky walk later, all Beckett wanted to do was sit down and have a drink. He wished he had a bottle of water. “Can we stop for a minute?” he gasped.

“You can stop for as many minutes as you want once we get to your house.” Ire was flying ahead again, and his voice was faint.

“You know, where I come from, guides usually take care of the people they are leading.” Beckett paused for a minute and rested his hands on his knees. So far the path hadn’t branched off and they hadn’t left it either. How lost could he get? Taking a deep breath in through his nose, he stood and grimaced, pulling his T-shirt away from his chest.

“...not your guide!”

He’d lost the first part of that, but not the end as Ire zipped back toward him. “What?”

“I’m not your guide. I’m just taking you to your house. The guide ceremony is tomorrow morning. Tonight you need to cleanse in the pools, and then tomorrow you will be given a guide. Poor beast,” he muttered.

“Hey! I’m starting to think you have something against humans.”

Ire’s color deepened. “How could I have something against humans? You’re the first one I’ve met.”

“Then maybe you’re just rude.”

“Uh-huh. So rude I brought you to your new home and I’ll tell you the pools for cleansing are through the bushes behind it.”

Beckett wanted to cross his arms over his chest, but he didn’t want to hurt himself so he settled for an angry frown. “Are all dragons like you?”

“Dragons are unique beings.”

So arrogant. Then again, whatever. Beckett was just ready to stop. “So we’re there? Here?” He didn’t see a house. “Where?”

“Just over the hill.”

He groaned. “Of course there’s a hill.”

“We have to leave the path just ahead.”

So now Ire kept him from getting lost too. “Lead on then.” He braced himself for one last push, so ready to collapse into whatever this pool was. He hoped it was cool as he wearily wiped the stinging sweat dripping into his eyes off his forehead.

 

The pool was blissfully cool, lined with rounded rocks and smooth sand, and Beckett wasn’t sure why it was cleansing other than it smelled like mint and something citrusy.

Certainly better than teenage body odor. He’d waded in, clothes and all, then stripped down and plopped his clothes on some of the rocks sitting on the edge of the pool. Then he floated. Just not having to move was bliss, the cool water was golden on top of that.

Other than not having something to fill the growling pit in his stomach that was making itself known, Beckett was happy. 

Wednesday Briefs: Broken Path, Starless Tail Chapter Seven

 

Surreal. This dream was positively surreal. He’d gone from freezing, feet trampling on twigs and smooth pebbles covered in bits of snow that drifted over the dirt path to a spring path. The dirt was warm through his socks.

“Hey, hold on.” Beckett wasn’t sure why he said it, but he couldn’t resist the urge to take off his socks and wiggle his feet into the dirt. The fox stopped, hopping up onto a rock dripping with lime green moss. The dirt on the path was soft, burying my toes to the knuckle, all but hiding each toenail under the loamy soil.

Had it rained recently? The earth had that fresh scent, like warm leaves and disintegration, but underlying it was a tang he didn’t know. Beckett sniffed, trying to decide what the air smelled like, but he couldn’t figure it out.

“Are you ready to go yet, human?” Paerus flicked his tail, his ears on the swivel constantly.

“My name isn’t human. It’s Beckett. You don’t hear me calling you fox.”

“I hope I don’t hear you calling me anything. We shouldn’t be talking here at all. We’re still too close to the blue clan. We don’t have time for you to be wiggling your human toe beans in the dirt.”

Toe. Beans. Okay, that was freaking cute. But Paerus was still rude. Then again, he seemed pretty nervous, or maybe that was just typical dream fox behavior. Who knew? Beckett sighed. He shook out his socks before he folded and tucked them into his back pocket. “Let’s go.”

“Thank you.” Paerus trotted ahead of him, tail high and ears still quivering like crazy like he was trying to hear everything or anything. Beckett couldn’t hear anything but their steps, well his really.

Smooth dirt or not, Beckett was getting tired by the time they reached a part of the path that tilted downward and lead into a valley. The sun was rising high overhead, and they left the cover of the trees. He was instantly warmed by the sun, but it didn’t beat down on him or make his eyes or head hurt. The light was almost watery, in a way that the normal sun wasn’t.

Beckett was so busy looking around he almost stepped on Paerus, who yipped, “Hey, look where you’re going!”

“Whoops, sorry.”

“Better yet, stop. We’re here.”

“Here, where?” The trees were tall in the distance, a mix of tropical and leafy types he didn’t know existed in the real word or not. He was pretty sure that color of moss on the rocks wasn’t real—lime green was a dead giveaway for fake plants—and the flowers reminded him of something he’d seen in an Alice in Wonderland morph painting one time. They were all close to what he knew but completely wrong at the same time. Either the wrong color or shape or size from what Beckett expected, making the landscape seem both inviting and wholly unfamiliar.

“Wow, humans have really gone downhill in intelligence since the last one portaled in, haven’t they?” a voice said.

“Who said that, who’s there?” Beckett turned, but he didn’t see anyone else besides him and Paerus.

“I did.” A small snail, or rather a large snail compared to the ones on Earth since this snail had a shell the size of his fist, clung to the rocky outcropping next to him. It extended one attennae and then the other toward him slowly. “You didn’t even notice any of us.”

“Us?”

“I say, how rude.” Another voice, this one whispery at first followed by the sound of clacking, came from higher up. He glanced into the tree above the rocks and spied an owl, half-covered in moss, and blinked. How was he supposed to see that. It blended right it! And it was snapping its beak at him!

“Not on purpose. There’s just so much to see here, and it’s all new to me.”

“Of course it is. And you are all being rude yourselves. You know how our camouflage works until someone has been made aware of our presence.”

And that… that was a tiny dragon. The snail had looked sort of like another rock. The owl had looked like a mossy bump on the tree. The tiny red dragon was in the midst of a small field of flowers, also red, and Beckett hadn’t even seen it, even though it was a dragon!

Beckett couldn’t stop staring at its small wings and claws and those wide eyes. “Would you like to take a picture?”

“Um.” He patted his pockets. “No phone, sorry.”

There were titters and snorts and clacks all around him. “Phones. Silly human.”

The owl thing hooted. “Are we sure Parallax sent the right one?”

The tiny red dragon sent out a wave of hot air. “Yes, we’re sure. Now stop being mean.”

“And my name isn’t human, it’s Beckett.” He was really tired of being called human in that tone. Beckett looked at Paerus. “I thought I was going to see my guide and pick a dragon.” He looked at the tiny red one in the flowers. “Not that I wouldn’t like you,” he said. “You’re very cute. Just a little… small.”

The other animals were all larger than he expected or had some sort of strange mutation that blended their bodies with the forest around them, both plant and animal. The red dragon was a tiny version of a perfect dragon, but too small to be safe to lead him anywhere on any sort of quest. He’d get hurt or eaten or something probably on the first day!

Which made Beckett sweat to think about.

“I am perfectly adequate sized, thank you,” the dragon said in a huff. “But let’s go.”

Once again he was led off by a creature who gave him little to no information but who expected him to follow like a good little human. Beckett sighed but did exactly that.

Want more flash?

Julie Lynn Hayes 

Wednesday Briefs: Broken Path, Starless Tail Chapter Six

 

“That’s it?” Beckett said when Parallax didn’t say anything else. “I’m just going to find it. Where? How? Who took it? Why? What do they want with it? What does it look like?”

“It’s a star. Look, do you see my tail?” Parallax stood.

“Um, no?” Where he usually had a long, fluffy tail with a bright white tip was nothing but a tiny wisp of darkness.

“Exactly. So find my star.” The light around him began to brighten, and he hissed. “No more time. This is our only chance. You have to go into the portal and follow the path. I’ve asked for someone to help you, but beware of betrayers.”

“Someone? Who? Colby? This is soooo not helpful,” Beckett whined. But hadn’t he already said he wanted out of the cold? And that he wasn’t going to fight the dream? Maybe he had a fever. That could be why he felt cold and why this all felt so real. He just had to get through it.

It being a shining blue, purple, red and pink swirl of light with white sparks that lit up the dark opening in the tunnel of trees that Parallax crouched on top of. “Just go!” he yowled. “I can’t hold it.”

He was going to die. Couldn’t a person die if they died in their dreams? “I better not die.”

“You must have confidence as my chosen champion. I would not have picked you if you were not the right human for the job.” Parallax’s entire body shuddered. “Now go!”

“The right human. Riiiight.” Beckett took a deep breath and plunged into the lights, his eyes closed tight. The dirt and rocks under his sock-covered feet changed to thick, ropy limbs. He slipped and slid, barking his toes and wincing. “Ow!”

He opened his eyes. He expected to be in a psychedelic tunnel of nausea-inducing shifting colors but it was all white, and he was already near the end of the tunnel after a few steps. There was snow under his feet, but it was much lighter than the forest outside of the tunnel.

A light shone near the ground through the trees, golden like the sunrise, and Beckett could see small green buds on the branches nearest the metal ring on the tunnel edge.

A metal ring? He paused. “Fuck!” It was freezing cold, the metal tinged green around the edges of the black but still colder than anything he could ever remember feeling. He blew on the fingers of his hand, huffing until the sting faded.

He carefully stepped through the ring and onto the dirt path. Where was he? He looked around, but it didn’t look like anywhere he’d ever been before on a hike. The trail was unfamiliar, and he didn’t recognize the trees either.

Not that it was easy to recognize tree leaves when they were furled in buds and barely opening.

At least the light made it easier to see than before, and maybe Beckett was just imagining it, but was he walked down the path it seemed to get warmer. The path smoothed out, which was much easier on his feet which were already aching.

A break in the trees allowed Beckett to see the sun, and it was fully rising above a valley. The valley stretched as far as his eye could see up toward a green mountain that had a white-tipped peak. Trees of all different sizes and types swayed in the distance, and bushes, shrubs, plus a glittery waterway completed the picturesque view.

He’d never seen anything like it outside of a painting or photograph. Tropical but not, he wasn’t sure what to call any of it. “We’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

“Who’s Toto?”

“Ahh!” Beckett screamed, then jumped back. A fox sat on the path in front of him, his tail curled around his feet, watching Beckett scream like a little child. And he was amused.

Or he was planning to take a bite out of Beckett, because there was no other reason for him to be sitting with his mouth open and all his teeth showing with the light gleamed in his eyes for all the world like he was laughing silently.

“Are you Toto?”

It wasn’t in his head. The fox actually talked, his mouth moving and everything. Just like Parallax. This was one loopy fever dream. Or coma.

“No.”

“What’s Kansas?”

“Not here.” Beckett cleared his throat. “I’m, uh, Beckett. Who are you?”

“Paerus. You’re the human Parallax asked me to watch out for!” Paerus stood and swished his tail. “You took forever to get here. Are all humans so slow?”

“Um, no. But I didn’t know I was supposed to come. Uh, I’m here now. Why are you watching out for me?” Parallax did say he was going to have a guide but to watch out for betrayers.”

“I’m to take you to your guide.”

“Wait, you’re not my guide?”

“Of course not. I’m a fox.” Like that meant he should know exactly what that mean, or why a fox couldn’t be his guide. “Now come on. It’s not that far, but we can’t stay here any longer without attracting their attention. That’s what I’m supposed to prevent.”

The fox took off down the trail. Beckett followed him, trotting to keep up. “Whose attention?”

“Shh, keep your voice down. The blue clan. And they don’t like people using the portal without permission.”

“I needed permission?” Who controls a magical portal? “Is it like a toll gate? I thought Parallax opened the portal.”

“Well, he did. But he also opened it up on their land, using their ring. He had his reasons. Plus I’m here to take you to your guide.” That tail flicked again. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you there, and you can pick your dragon.”

Beckett reared back. “A dragon?” he squeaked.

“Who else could be a guide?” 

Want more flash?

J Ray Lamb

Julie Lynn Hayes