Hey everyone! I wanted to offer my services--I'm an experienced writer of original content (I've written 6 novels). I would love to work with some people who have story ideas and need help fleshing them out--I work with other authors (including one bestselling author) in helping them develop their ideas and flesh out characters. I would also like to help people with writing out stories they already have.
NOTE: I am not looking for financial compensation. What I would like in return is the opportunity to ask questions about RPG Maker MV as I am developing my game. I have a basis of what I need to know, and a programmer husband who helps with most else...But having someone to help me in various areas would be amazing.
Things I can do:
Here are some examples of novel openings I have written:
Anyway, I'd love to help some people out :) I love working with people on their stories. I find it really exciting and fulfilling.
NOTE: I am not looking for financial compensation. What I would like in return is the opportunity to ask questions about RPG Maker MV as I am developing my game. I have a basis of what I need to know, and a programmer husband who helps with most else...But having someone to help me in various areas would be amazing.
Things I can do:
- Taking a 'kernel' of an idea and fleshing it out to be something that can stretch out over a whole game.
- Assist in creating worldbuilding that is consistent.
- Help game makers learn how to create strong motivations for characters that play off the others to create optimal conflict between heroes vs villains, and even among the party.
- Be a sounding board for various ideas.
- Take you through the more traditional methods of moving through a story (at least based on a 3-act structure, but not rigidly held).
Here are some examples of novel openings I have written:
It would be tonight they dragged me away. They’d sell me to my next master in a back-alley dealing. That, or I’d take the drink before an audience of lords and ladies who found watching a death worth their coin.
The other girls knew I was next. As we sashayed past each other while the pipers played there was something off about my movement. There we were, replicated individuals. And yet I was an oddity because I had fallen from my cot the night before. That was the curse of having the third up. Third ups were usually the ones to go, we were the eldest.
Lida was my perfect twin, but two years older, the eldest of us all. She moved slow and steady as though, with sheer concentration, she could harness magic and create a safety bubble around her person. It gave her the look of one who’s had sour crissasoon juice and we laughed at her.
I didn’t laugh at her now.
The bright lights of the stage filled my every pore. My lashes were leaden with black paint, pelting my cheeks as I blinked back the sting of tears. My ankle ached with a pain I’d only dreamed of, and yet I pounced upon it again and again to make the movements and to try and save my life. While this part of the night had always been my favorite, I was desperate for the cymbals to smash and direct all of us girls to the audience where we’d stroke the chests and egos of all the men who paid their price to see us in our corsets and stockings.
We made another turn round in the circle and then spread out in a line to kick, turn, kick, turn, flash our skirts and spin around. My bad ankle burned with agony as I flicked it upward with each kick. And then, rushing forward with our skirts, the cymbals finally clashed. I went to the right, as always, and toward the back. Hands groped for my legs and ass as I moved through the sea of tables and cedary smoke from cigars. The smell reminded me of violation. And that I had no freedom to stop it.
“Come here, girlie,” said one of the men. He took me by the elbow and tried to pull me to his lap. But I had my orders, I had a little further to go.
“Let me be your friend tonight,” said one of my sisters. This was her table to work. I pretended to look disappointed, but the man had moved on to her. She looked just like me, anyway. The man had no reason to want me instead. I was back to undulating my hips to make my way through the tables and seated men. And as I reached my section, I saw him.
He was a regular, but irregular in his schedule. Sometimes more than once a month, sometimes he didn’t come for three. But he always came.
And he always took one of us with him.
We had our theories about this man. Some were wild, like that he was a cannibal, or a vampire despite his lack of fangs. But those of us that were older had our own theory. He was a man of curious sexual appetite who bought one of us to wear out in his bed and then replaced us with an identical twin to continue his ravishment. It wasn’t a fate I desired at all. I’d rather stay with Lida and dance.
But death was coming for me. That, or forced prostitution with a cruel pimp before I was killed. Options were limited when you were a magic-born. To control the population you had to be killed a certain age. Dancing magic-born were killed by their eighteenth. We were cheap child labor. Cheap playthings, toys.
I climbed into the lap of the man that had bought my face time and time again. He had never sat in my section before, and I found myself searching his face for signs of supernatural to report back to my sisters. It wasn’t until my fingers gently raked his face that I realized something.
I might not make it back to my sisters.
“Have you come to take another?” I said, pressing my chest against his. My purple lips brushed his cheek methodically. I had been doing this since my fifteenth birthday. Next my hand would go to his hair, then the other hand to twirl his tie.
“You know me?” His voice was hushed. Unlike the other men, he didn’t raise his hands to brush against the taffeta and satin to find the bits men most loved to stroke. They stayed at his sides, as though he was displeased with me. I had wished for this reaction every single night I’d danced and dallied with the men who thought a rose could buy them my body pressed against a wall. But now, with my future with the dance hall in question, I needed him to touch me and prove to the bosses that I was still desirable and worthwhile despite the ankle.
“I know of you, good sir,” I said. I broke the pattern I’d developed, the one thing I’d felt was truly mine, and I reached for his hand. I pressed it against my hip, but even in making him touch me there I could feel his resistance. I kissed his earlobe, back to my method proven to make a man’s body react. Normally I’d hiss into his ear in reaction to some movement along my body but there was nothing from this man, not even a squeeze on my waist.
“I see.”
So little reaction. Too little reaction. I reached for the buttons on his shirt and started to undo them, deviating from my pattern once again but feeling desperate.
He swat my hand away.
“What do you want from me?” I asked, my panic turning into anger. “Didn’t you come here for this?”
His eyes focused on mine. Even in the dim imp’s light I could make out the fierce blue-gray of his eyes. The man’s mouth was set and he gave a slow nod.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
No one had ever asked my name before. I imagined most of them just assumed we didn’t have them, or that we all shared one. But since he had taken so many of the women to his bed he must have learned their, our, secrets.
“That’s not for you to know,” I said, and I proceeded to kiss down his neck, which rumbled with a deep and throaty laugh. I puzzled at this reaction but as soon as I paused I rushed back into action. One of the imps had seen me frozen. He walked behind the man, glaring at me. With two fingers twisted like he was making a promise he pointed at my injured ankle and it exploded in pain. I writhed against the man, who probably thought I was just doing my job.
They knew about my ankle. I really wasn’t going to last.
I re-adjusted myself on the lap of the man so I had better access to his ear once again. This time I didn’t bother with heavy breathing or kisses against the lobe.
“Tell me your name,” I said.
“Conall.”
My cheek brushed against his heavy beard. “Do you kill the girls you take, Conall?”
“No.”
“Lianne.”
“What?”
“My name is Lianne.” The cymbals crashed again. It was time to go. It was my time to be doomed. “Take me,” I said. “Please. I’ll do whatever it is you want.”
I didn’t dare linger on his lap or let myself show myself pathetic a second longer, so I moved away, forcing a smile as I walked on broken ankle to go backstage to the devilish imps that considered my life less than a snap of their fingers.
The other girls knew I was next. As we sashayed past each other while the pipers played there was something off about my movement. There we were, replicated individuals. And yet I was an oddity because I had fallen from my cot the night before. That was the curse of having the third up. Third ups were usually the ones to go, we were the eldest.
Lida was my perfect twin, but two years older, the eldest of us all. She moved slow and steady as though, with sheer concentration, she could harness magic and create a safety bubble around her person. It gave her the look of one who’s had sour crissasoon juice and we laughed at her.
I didn’t laugh at her now.
The bright lights of the stage filled my every pore. My lashes were leaden with black paint, pelting my cheeks as I blinked back the sting of tears. My ankle ached with a pain I’d only dreamed of, and yet I pounced upon it again and again to make the movements and to try and save my life. While this part of the night had always been my favorite, I was desperate for the cymbals to smash and direct all of us girls to the audience where we’d stroke the chests and egos of all the men who paid their price to see us in our corsets and stockings.
We made another turn round in the circle and then spread out in a line to kick, turn, kick, turn, flash our skirts and spin around. My bad ankle burned with agony as I flicked it upward with each kick. And then, rushing forward with our skirts, the cymbals finally clashed. I went to the right, as always, and toward the back. Hands groped for my legs and ass as I moved through the sea of tables and cedary smoke from cigars. The smell reminded me of violation. And that I had no freedom to stop it.
“Come here, girlie,” said one of the men. He took me by the elbow and tried to pull me to his lap. But I had my orders, I had a little further to go.
“Let me be your friend tonight,” said one of my sisters. This was her table to work. I pretended to look disappointed, but the man had moved on to her. She looked just like me, anyway. The man had no reason to want me instead. I was back to undulating my hips to make my way through the tables and seated men. And as I reached my section, I saw him.
He was a regular, but irregular in his schedule. Sometimes more than once a month, sometimes he didn’t come for three. But he always came.
And he always took one of us with him.
We had our theories about this man. Some were wild, like that he was a cannibal, or a vampire despite his lack of fangs. But those of us that were older had our own theory. He was a man of curious sexual appetite who bought one of us to wear out in his bed and then replaced us with an identical twin to continue his ravishment. It wasn’t a fate I desired at all. I’d rather stay with Lida and dance.
But death was coming for me. That, or forced prostitution with a cruel pimp before I was killed. Options were limited when you were a magic-born. To control the population you had to be killed a certain age. Dancing magic-born were killed by their eighteenth. We were cheap child labor. Cheap playthings, toys.
I climbed into the lap of the man that had bought my face time and time again. He had never sat in my section before, and I found myself searching his face for signs of supernatural to report back to my sisters. It wasn’t until my fingers gently raked his face that I realized something.
I might not make it back to my sisters.
“Have you come to take another?” I said, pressing my chest against his. My purple lips brushed his cheek methodically. I had been doing this since my fifteenth birthday. Next my hand would go to his hair, then the other hand to twirl his tie.
“You know me?” His voice was hushed. Unlike the other men, he didn’t raise his hands to brush against the taffeta and satin to find the bits men most loved to stroke. They stayed at his sides, as though he was displeased with me. I had wished for this reaction every single night I’d danced and dallied with the men who thought a rose could buy them my body pressed against a wall. But now, with my future with the dance hall in question, I needed him to touch me and prove to the bosses that I was still desirable and worthwhile despite the ankle.
“I know of you, good sir,” I said. I broke the pattern I’d developed, the one thing I’d felt was truly mine, and I reached for his hand. I pressed it against my hip, but even in making him touch me there I could feel his resistance. I kissed his earlobe, back to my method proven to make a man’s body react. Normally I’d hiss into his ear in reaction to some movement along my body but there was nothing from this man, not even a squeeze on my waist.
“I see.”
So little reaction. Too little reaction. I reached for the buttons on his shirt and started to undo them, deviating from my pattern once again but feeling desperate.
He swat my hand away.
“What do you want from me?” I asked, my panic turning into anger. “Didn’t you come here for this?”
His eyes focused on mine. Even in the dim imp’s light I could make out the fierce blue-gray of his eyes. The man’s mouth was set and he gave a slow nod.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
No one had ever asked my name before. I imagined most of them just assumed we didn’t have them, or that we all shared one. But since he had taken so many of the women to his bed he must have learned their, our, secrets.
“That’s not for you to know,” I said, and I proceeded to kiss down his neck, which rumbled with a deep and throaty laugh. I puzzled at this reaction but as soon as I paused I rushed back into action. One of the imps had seen me frozen. He walked behind the man, glaring at me. With two fingers twisted like he was making a promise he pointed at my injured ankle and it exploded in pain. I writhed against the man, who probably thought I was just doing my job.
They knew about my ankle. I really wasn’t going to last.
I re-adjusted myself on the lap of the man so I had better access to his ear once again. This time I didn’t bother with heavy breathing or kisses against the lobe.
“Tell me your name,” I said.
“Conall.”
My cheek brushed against his heavy beard. “Do you kill the girls you take, Conall?”
“No.”
“Lianne.”
“What?”
“My name is Lianne.” The cymbals crashed again. It was time to go. It was my time to be doomed. “Take me,” I said. “Please. I’ll do whatever it is you want.”
I didn’t dare linger on his lap or let myself show myself pathetic a second longer, so I moved away, forcing a smile as I walked on broken ankle to go backstage to the devilish imps that considered my life less than a snap of their fingers.
Beetle backs are as slippy as dewy moss, but I wasn’t about to let go. Cattail shrieked so loud I was half certain she was going to fall from putting all her strength into those mighty hollers that bellowed across the swamp.
“I’m gonna win!” I said, swinging my legs at the beetle’s side, urging it forward. The boggy thing didn’t know where it was going but I sure wasn’t going to let it buzz anywhere except the dock. Cattail kept screaming and I just laughed as I guided the zipping beetle so that his legs skimmed the surface of the murky water. I pulled back on him and he started twisting and turning like he hadn’t done before. I gripped around his neck tighter as we zoomed toward the twiggy dock.
The beetle swerved just at the last moment. Bullfrogs! My side grazed one of the pointy bits and the two of us thudded against the bank. I was all mud and tree needles, thrashing to try and catch hold of the beetle to pull me on up. Isn’t much that can be done about wet wings. All the same, I wasn’t about to go snorting silt and say goodbye to the last of my days at the edge of the swamp, just a few flaps from Grinny’s door.
A hand gripped my wrist and started dragging me up from the water, pulling me against the sludge slow-like, feeling much like a snail was making its own time across my body.
“Pennywort,” grunted Auntie Tussock as she pulled me up. “Haven’t I told you not to go beetle racing?”
“Sorry, Ma,” said Cattail.
I looked up at her through my matted hair. Her eyes were focused on Cattail so I started to slither across the grass. I didn’t much enjoy being slippery but if I could move like a water snake away from Auntie then I sure was going to do it. Auntie Tussock took a step toward Cattail but turned to look at me. “Cattail and Penny, you’ve got a list long as a lizard’s tail of things to do for the Lilypad Quag cousins coming over tonight.”
Cattail and I made faces at each other.
“No more beetles.” Auntie Tussock turned and headed off east, her wings flapping in the balmy breeze. I fell backward with my limbs spread out.
“I don’t want to do any of those things,” I said.
“Me neither,” said Cattail, thumping down next to me. She flopped backwards so that she was splayed out like I was. The cloudless sky showed a sun so bright that the sludge from the swamp was quickly drying on me.
“I don’t even want to be here,” I said, watching pollen floating above me.
“Maybe we can go with our cousins back to the Quag for a few days,” Cattail said. “That’d be fun.”
“Yeah,” I said hopefully. I’d been thinking of Cedera and faeries, but Cattail wouldn’t want to know that. In any case, I always felt like the cousins didn’t seem very interested in spending time with me. Even though Grinny and Granpappy Mossfly had raised me, I still didn’t quite fit in with the Mossfly clan. I was shorter and squatter, with bushy blonde hair that reached for the clouds. You just had to look at me to know that I wasn’t a Mossfly.
“Pennywort!” called Grinny from a hop, skip, and flap away from the water’s edge. I looked at Cattail and she gave me a sympathetic smile.
“I hope Ma hasn’t told Grinny about the beetles,” she said.
“I suppose she’d just need to take a good look at me,” I said.
Cattail looked at the mud that colored my skin. She nodded and shook her head. “I’ll see you tonight, Penny,” she said. Instead of getting up she stared out at the water. Auntie Tussock wouldn’t be so hard on her if she found her alone, I supposed. I knew Auntie Tussock didn’t think I was a good influence for her kids.
I ran through the grass instead of flying in the hopes that the scratchy stuff would chip away at the mud that still clung to me. I hoped Grinny was in a good mood. Sometimes she laughed, sometimes she lectured. You never knew with Grinny.
“Pennywort,” said Grinny. She stood at the edge of the garden. Her water strider, Boofly, let her stroke his antenna. He helped her when she needed to take longer journeys, because her wings were now thin as mosquito wings and not nearly as hardy. Grinny walked with a rocking sort of rhythm that made me want to fashion her canes. But she’d thrown away the first one I made and proceeded to dance jigs for the rest of the day. While I didn’t mind the jigs, I did worry about her falling mid-kick.
“Sorry, Grinny,” I said, pausing a few paces away from her. “I was horseflying around with Cattail.”
“And beetle-flying,” she said. She let go of Boofly and he skittered toward the swamp. “You’re covered in mud.”
“I’ll wash myself off before I go in,” I promised.
She nodded. “See that you do,” she said. One of her thin hands gripped the railing of the twiggy fence around the garden. “Who won?” she asked as I headed over to the buckets of water that Sedge, Cattail’s twin, was made to bring every morning. I dipped a birch leaf into the water and started scrubbing, smiling at Grinny’s question.
“Neither of us,” I said. “We ran into each other. But if we’d kept going it would have been me.”
“You do generally win,” said Grinny. I nodded without thinking, facing the bark cabin. But as soon as my head had stopped moving I turned to look at Grinny again.
“We don’t race that often,” I lied.
“You do too,” said Grinny. “Cattail’s been telling me all about it.”
No wonder Cattail had been so hesitant to race lately, I thought. I’d just assumed that it was because she was sore from losing so often.
“Sorry,” I said. “I won’t race as much anymore.”
“That’s not what has us worried,” said Grinny. I frowned as I scrubbed my arms. “We’re worried you’re going to get on a beetle one day and never look back.”
Oh.
I tried to act casual as I lifted a foot and washed between my toes. The quiet between us felt something like a competition more serious than a race. I knew what Grinny wanted me to say, and I knew she wanted me to say it first, but I’d already given her a lie in the past five minutes and this one would have been a real #whopper.
“Still thinking about Cedera?” Grinny asked. Her thin wings fluttered slowly even though she walked towards me instead of flew. They always batted together like that when she was upset. “You are. But you belong here, Penny. You’re a pixie, not a fairy.”
“You don’t know where I belong!” I said. I balled up the birch leaf in my hand so frustratedly that it tore in my hand.
Grinny touched my still muddy shoulder. “You were just a little mite of a thing,” she said. “Granpappy was out on the water’s edge, gathering elderberries when he saw you.”
“Floating on a pennywort leaf,” I said quietly.
Grinny nodded. “Just about a year old, small as a baby toad. Hopped just like one, too, when you woke up. Those little wings of yours flapped and you hollered loud enough to wake up Cattail and Sedge down the lane. And you’ve been ours ever since.”
I squeezed the torn rag. A Mossfly, but only sort of. Once upon a time I’d belonged to other people. People outside of the swamp who had lives that I could only dream of.
“I wonder what my parents were like,” I said.
“We traveled as far as we could to try and find them,” said Grinny. “But we couldn’t. Could be that they were attacked and you were just barely saved. Maybe one day you can go upriver and try to find your kin. But you’re too young now. Maybe in a few years.”
“I’ll be a godmother by then,” I said.
Grinny’s hand slipped from my shoulder. “No, Penny,” she said. “You won’t be. Godmothers are fairies, and pixies aren’t fairies.”
“Just let me go to Cedera,” I said, reaching for her hand. “I want to try. Granpappy said that there’s an academy in Cedera and—“
“Granpappy said a lot of things,” said Grinny. He’d taken the long trip to the sun two years ago, but I still remembered just about everything he ever said. They might have just been stories to Grinny, but I Granpappy had taught me that the world was a colorful, magical place. And not all magic had to do with making lilypads to run on when the dirt was hopping hot, conjuring moss to patch up a roof or the simple act of making light appear in hand. I’d figured out how to make berries come to me from their stems and the rest of the Mossflies had copied me. It made me wonder what else I could do. They didn’t really care much about magic, they were happy where they were in the safety of the swamp.
Fairy Godmothers did things like give gifts of song, make simple things beautiful, and save kingdoms. That was a far cry from easy berry-picking and I wanted to know how to do more.
Grinny took the washcloth from me and wiped my cheek. “I think you’re clean enough now,” she said. “Let’s go on in.”
I dusted my feet off on the mat Grinny had woven. It had the pretty, although faded, coloring of a purple iris. Granpappy had picked that one for her, and I knew that was why she was so resistant to change what was beyond usefulness. Granpappy had sort of united all of us. It felt like after he died, Sedge had split off from me and Cattail and now only liked to spend time with his twin when I wasn’t around. Auntie Tussock had grown more sour. Grinny was unpredictable and I felt like Cattail grew weary of me sometimes.
Once, a few months back, Grinny had said that if Granpappy hadn’t died that I wouldn’t be as set on going to Cedera. I’d told her that wasn’t true, but the more I rolled that thought around like a fish egg, the more I found the truth in it. Granpappy had made me feel magic enough.
Grinny headed back towards the room she’d shared with Granpappy. I went to the cabin’s little kitchen and took a wild plum and started cutting it into bits. When Cattail spoke of the cousins coming she meant a host of seven people. Her aunt and uncle and their five young ones ranging from four to sixteen. They were always very hungry. Lilypad Quag didn’t have much in the way of food. The talk at dinner would always roll around to them possibly moving into Frippy Glades but they always protested. I never could decide if I wanted them to come to the Glades or not. On one hand, I wouldn’t be the smallest. But on the other hand Cattail’s oldest cousin, Fern, always tried to fight me for her attention.
“Penny,” called Grinny.
“Coming,” I said, wiping the juice off my hands. I headed back through the cabin, which wasn’t very large, and leaned against the doorframe of Grinny’s room.
“I want to show you something,” she said. “Come in.”
I knelt beside her. She had a chest wide as the bed open. Her hand was flat and a bit of light shone there. I saw something flash spectacularly bright when the light danced over it. Grinny covered it with some woven grass. Even with that covered, there was plenty to look at. Granpappy had always had a thing about flowers and I could see a stack of flower pressings, one flower after another pressed against a frame woven from reeds. A knife, with a blade as long as my fingers to elbow. There was a lump of some sort of cloth.
“Granpappy went to Cedera,” she said. My head snapped up to look at Grinny. “A very long time ago, before Auntie Tussock was born.”
“Why did he go?” I asked.
Grinny hesitated. “To petition the fairy king,” she said.
My mouth dropped open. I left it hanging there for a second before I could recover. “Why would he want to do that?”
“Penny, we don’t own the swamplands,” said Grinny. “He tried to get the land for us, but it lies in the hands of fairies. The fairies of Cedera.”
“What happened?”
“He was told no. Fairies don’t care about pixies.”
“But Granpappy said that we could all get along, he said that we’re not that different from each other—“
“Granpappy was full of grand ideas,” Grinny said. “I loved your granpappy more than you’ll ever know, but I wish that he had just let things be. Pixies are pixies and fairies are fairies, and wanting to be something you’re not will only make you unhappy. The Fairy King said that we had to leave our swamplands. I’ve always worried that the fairies would come and send us away from the only home we’ve known for generations.” She looked away from me and brushed a hand over the cloth that hid the shining orb. I could see the hesitation in Grinny’s movements before she uncovered the shining thing. It was bigger than my hand, blue, and cut into a hexagon.
“He brought this back too,” said Grinny. “He said it was a gift and worth a lot to the fairies. I’ve saved it in case the Fairy King comes. Maybe I can use it to buy the swamp from him.”
It was so beautiful, glistening in the Grinny’s hand-light. I thought she must be right. I nodded, leaning in to get a better look.
“What about that,” I said, pointing to the knife.
“That’s a sword,” said Grinny, trying the word out on her tongue like she had only said it once before. “Fairies use them in battle when they’ve worked their magic on them.” She picked it up and handed it to me. It was lighter than it looked and I bounced it in my hands. Grinny watched me with a little smile. I stood and stretched, holding the sword out.
“One day that’ll be yours,” said Grinny. “I thought I’d give it to Sedge, but he wouldn’t care that it was fairy-made for a moment.” I slowed my movements and went back to kneel next to Grinny.
“You mean it?” I said.
She nodded and took the sword back. “Another day, Penny. For now I want you to forget about the fairies. You’re a pixie. You’re a Mossfly. This is where you belong. Granpappy might have been full of fairy stories, but he knew the truth: returning to Cedera would have only brought heartache to all of us.”
“I’m gonna win!” I said, swinging my legs at the beetle’s side, urging it forward. The boggy thing didn’t know where it was going but I sure wasn’t going to let it buzz anywhere except the dock. Cattail kept screaming and I just laughed as I guided the zipping beetle so that his legs skimmed the surface of the murky water. I pulled back on him and he started twisting and turning like he hadn’t done before. I gripped around his neck tighter as we zoomed toward the twiggy dock.
The beetle swerved just at the last moment. Bullfrogs! My side grazed one of the pointy bits and the two of us thudded against the bank. I was all mud and tree needles, thrashing to try and catch hold of the beetle to pull me on up. Isn’t much that can be done about wet wings. All the same, I wasn’t about to go snorting silt and say goodbye to the last of my days at the edge of the swamp, just a few flaps from Grinny’s door.
A hand gripped my wrist and started dragging me up from the water, pulling me against the sludge slow-like, feeling much like a snail was making its own time across my body.
“Pennywort,” grunted Auntie Tussock as she pulled me up. “Haven’t I told you not to go beetle racing?”
“Sorry, Ma,” said Cattail.
I looked up at her through my matted hair. Her eyes were focused on Cattail so I started to slither across the grass. I didn’t much enjoy being slippery but if I could move like a water snake away from Auntie then I sure was going to do it. Auntie Tussock took a step toward Cattail but turned to look at me. “Cattail and Penny, you’ve got a list long as a lizard’s tail of things to do for the Lilypad Quag cousins coming over tonight.”
Cattail and I made faces at each other.
“No more beetles.” Auntie Tussock turned and headed off east, her wings flapping in the balmy breeze. I fell backward with my limbs spread out.
“I don’t want to do any of those things,” I said.
“Me neither,” said Cattail, thumping down next to me. She flopped backwards so that she was splayed out like I was. The cloudless sky showed a sun so bright that the sludge from the swamp was quickly drying on me.
“I don’t even want to be here,” I said, watching pollen floating above me.
“Maybe we can go with our cousins back to the Quag for a few days,” Cattail said. “That’d be fun.”
“Yeah,” I said hopefully. I’d been thinking of Cedera and faeries, but Cattail wouldn’t want to know that. In any case, I always felt like the cousins didn’t seem very interested in spending time with me. Even though Grinny and Granpappy Mossfly had raised me, I still didn’t quite fit in with the Mossfly clan. I was shorter and squatter, with bushy blonde hair that reached for the clouds. You just had to look at me to know that I wasn’t a Mossfly.
“Pennywort!” called Grinny from a hop, skip, and flap away from the water’s edge. I looked at Cattail and she gave me a sympathetic smile.
“I hope Ma hasn’t told Grinny about the beetles,” she said.
“I suppose she’d just need to take a good look at me,” I said.
Cattail looked at the mud that colored my skin. She nodded and shook her head. “I’ll see you tonight, Penny,” she said. Instead of getting up she stared out at the water. Auntie Tussock wouldn’t be so hard on her if she found her alone, I supposed. I knew Auntie Tussock didn’t think I was a good influence for her kids.
I ran through the grass instead of flying in the hopes that the scratchy stuff would chip away at the mud that still clung to me. I hoped Grinny was in a good mood. Sometimes she laughed, sometimes she lectured. You never knew with Grinny.
“Pennywort,” said Grinny. She stood at the edge of the garden. Her water strider, Boofly, let her stroke his antenna. He helped her when she needed to take longer journeys, because her wings were now thin as mosquito wings and not nearly as hardy. Grinny walked with a rocking sort of rhythm that made me want to fashion her canes. But she’d thrown away the first one I made and proceeded to dance jigs for the rest of the day. While I didn’t mind the jigs, I did worry about her falling mid-kick.
“Sorry, Grinny,” I said, pausing a few paces away from her. “I was horseflying around with Cattail.”
“And beetle-flying,” she said. She let go of Boofly and he skittered toward the swamp. “You’re covered in mud.”
“I’ll wash myself off before I go in,” I promised.
She nodded. “See that you do,” she said. One of her thin hands gripped the railing of the twiggy fence around the garden. “Who won?” she asked as I headed over to the buckets of water that Sedge, Cattail’s twin, was made to bring every morning. I dipped a birch leaf into the water and started scrubbing, smiling at Grinny’s question.
“Neither of us,” I said. “We ran into each other. But if we’d kept going it would have been me.”
“You do generally win,” said Grinny. I nodded without thinking, facing the bark cabin. But as soon as my head had stopped moving I turned to look at Grinny again.
“We don’t race that often,” I lied.
“You do too,” said Grinny. “Cattail’s been telling me all about it.”
No wonder Cattail had been so hesitant to race lately, I thought. I’d just assumed that it was because she was sore from losing so often.
“Sorry,” I said. “I won’t race as much anymore.”
“That’s not what has us worried,” said Grinny. I frowned as I scrubbed my arms. “We’re worried you’re going to get on a beetle one day and never look back.”
Oh.
I tried to act casual as I lifted a foot and washed between my toes. The quiet between us felt something like a competition more serious than a race. I knew what Grinny wanted me to say, and I knew she wanted me to say it first, but I’d already given her a lie in the past five minutes and this one would have been a real #whopper.
“Still thinking about Cedera?” Grinny asked. Her thin wings fluttered slowly even though she walked towards me instead of flew. They always batted together like that when she was upset. “You are. But you belong here, Penny. You’re a pixie, not a fairy.”
“You don’t know where I belong!” I said. I balled up the birch leaf in my hand so frustratedly that it tore in my hand.
Grinny touched my still muddy shoulder. “You were just a little mite of a thing,” she said. “Granpappy was out on the water’s edge, gathering elderberries when he saw you.”
“Floating on a pennywort leaf,” I said quietly.
Grinny nodded. “Just about a year old, small as a baby toad. Hopped just like one, too, when you woke up. Those little wings of yours flapped and you hollered loud enough to wake up Cattail and Sedge down the lane. And you’ve been ours ever since.”
I squeezed the torn rag. A Mossfly, but only sort of. Once upon a time I’d belonged to other people. People outside of the swamp who had lives that I could only dream of.
“I wonder what my parents were like,” I said.
“We traveled as far as we could to try and find them,” said Grinny. “But we couldn’t. Could be that they were attacked and you were just barely saved. Maybe one day you can go upriver and try to find your kin. But you’re too young now. Maybe in a few years.”
“I’ll be a godmother by then,” I said.
Grinny’s hand slipped from my shoulder. “No, Penny,” she said. “You won’t be. Godmothers are fairies, and pixies aren’t fairies.”
“Just let me go to Cedera,” I said, reaching for her hand. “I want to try. Granpappy said that there’s an academy in Cedera and—“
“Granpappy said a lot of things,” said Grinny. He’d taken the long trip to the sun two years ago, but I still remembered just about everything he ever said. They might have just been stories to Grinny, but I Granpappy had taught me that the world was a colorful, magical place. And not all magic had to do with making lilypads to run on when the dirt was hopping hot, conjuring moss to patch up a roof or the simple act of making light appear in hand. I’d figured out how to make berries come to me from their stems and the rest of the Mossflies had copied me. It made me wonder what else I could do. They didn’t really care much about magic, they were happy where they were in the safety of the swamp.
Fairy Godmothers did things like give gifts of song, make simple things beautiful, and save kingdoms. That was a far cry from easy berry-picking and I wanted to know how to do more.
Grinny took the washcloth from me and wiped my cheek. “I think you’re clean enough now,” she said. “Let’s go on in.”
I dusted my feet off on the mat Grinny had woven. It had the pretty, although faded, coloring of a purple iris. Granpappy had picked that one for her, and I knew that was why she was so resistant to change what was beyond usefulness. Granpappy had sort of united all of us. It felt like after he died, Sedge had split off from me and Cattail and now only liked to spend time with his twin when I wasn’t around. Auntie Tussock had grown more sour. Grinny was unpredictable and I felt like Cattail grew weary of me sometimes.
Once, a few months back, Grinny had said that if Granpappy hadn’t died that I wouldn’t be as set on going to Cedera. I’d told her that wasn’t true, but the more I rolled that thought around like a fish egg, the more I found the truth in it. Granpappy had made me feel magic enough.
Grinny headed back towards the room she’d shared with Granpappy. I went to the cabin’s little kitchen and took a wild plum and started cutting it into bits. When Cattail spoke of the cousins coming she meant a host of seven people. Her aunt and uncle and their five young ones ranging from four to sixteen. They were always very hungry. Lilypad Quag didn’t have much in the way of food. The talk at dinner would always roll around to them possibly moving into Frippy Glades but they always protested. I never could decide if I wanted them to come to the Glades or not. On one hand, I wouldn’t be the smallest. But on the other hand Cattail’s oldest cousin, Fern, always tried to fight me for her attention.
“Penny,” called Grinny.
“Coming,” I said, wiping the juice off my hands. I headed back through the cabin, which wasn’t very large, and leaned against the doorframe of Grinny’s room.
“I want to show you something,” she said. “Come in.”
I knelt beside her. She had a chest wide as the bed open. Her hand was flat and a bit of light shone there. I saw something flash spectacularly bright when the light danced over it. Grinny covered it with some woven grass. Even with that covered, there was plenty to look at. Granpappy had always had a thing about flowers and I could see a stack of flower pressings, one flower after another pressed against a frame woven from reeds. A knife, with a blade as long as my fingers to elbow. There was a lump of some sort of cloth.
“Granpappy went to Cedera,” she said. My head snapped up to look at Grinny. “A very long time ago, before Auntie Tussock was born.”
“Why did he go?” I asked.
Grinny hesitated. “To petition the fairy king,” she said.
My mouth dropped open. I left it hanging there for a second before I could recover. “Why would he want to do that?”
“Penny, we don’t own the swamplands,” said Grinny. “He tried to get the land for us, but it lies in the hands of fairies. The fairies of Cedera.”
“What happened?”
“He was told no. Fairies don’t care about pixies.”
“But Granpappy said that we could all get along, he said that we’re not that different from each other—“
“Granpappy was full of grand ideas,” Grinny said. “I loved your granpappy more than you’ll ever know, but I wish that he had just let things be. Pixies are pixies and fairies are fairies, and wanting to be something you’re not will only make you unhappy. The Fairy King said that we had to leave our swamplands. I’ve always worried that the fairies would come and send us away from the only home we’ve known for generations.” She looked away from me and brushed a hand over the cloth that hid the shining orb. I could see the hesitation in Grinny’s movements before she uncovered the shining thing. It was bigger than my hand, blue, and cut into a hexagon.
“He brought this back too,” said Grinny. “He said it was a gift and worth a lot to the fairies. I’ve saved it in case the Fairy King comes. Maybe I can use it to buy the swamp from him.”
It was so beautiful, glistening in the Grinny’s hand-light. I thought she must be right. I nodded, leaning in to get a better look.
“What about that,” I said, pointing to the knife.
“That’s a sword,” said Grinny, trying the word out on her tongue like she had only said it once before. “Fairies use them in battle when they’ve worked their magic on them.” She picked it up and handed it to me. It was lighter than it looked and I bounced it in my hands. Grinny watched me with a little smile. I stood and stretched, holding the sword out.
“One day that’ll be yours,” said Grinny. “I thought I’d give it to Sedge, but he wouldn’t care that it was fairy-made for a moment.” I slowed my movements and went back to kneel next to Grinny.
“You mean it?” I said.
She nodded and took the sword back. “Another day, Penny. For now I want you to forget about the fairies. You’re a pixie. You’re a Mossfly. This is where you belong. Granpappy might have been full of fairy stories, but he knew the truth: returning to Cedera would have only brought heartache to all of us.”
Anyway, I'd love to help some people out :) I love working with people on their stories. I find it really exciting and fulfilling.
