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Maiden of the Moonlight
A lonesome, weathered old barn sheltered the equally lonely, yet young Shielsia. Staring to the night sky with her violet eyes, Shielsia would wish to the stars, for friends, a real family. It was like this every night for as long as she could remember. No mother, no father, an orphan, she had little companionship in the tiny town.
She had collected Duel Monster’s cards. This game among many others fascinated her. She looked to her deck of cards and spoke to them. “I really, really wish we could be out there, playing with others…” Being the only one her age in the tiny town made her quite lonely, this loneliness forced her to spend time playing solitary games, she even had a version of Duel Monster’s solitaire and would create role playing games by herself with the cards, making stories for each card.
Often she would play these games to pass the time. Sometimes she’d play with the old people too, but often by herself. She was scrutinized a bit for having her head into games so often; she would even create her own games to play by herself. At the star filled sky she would be wishing, dreaming of moving into the city. Why the city? Well, the whole 12 years of her life she had been living in Chektan, a tiny oasis in the midst of a dessert.
Everyday she’d visit the merchant, who was tan like her with an empty expression upon his face, (He semi-employed her) who would give her a riddle. “Your life depends on the solution at sundown.” He would joke with her. While she attempted to solve his riddles she would deliver food to those who could not leave their abodes. She listened to what they said about the cities of the world, the real cities…
They would speak of motor vehicles that everyone would drive, department stores, food courts as far as the eye could see, no as far as the nose could smell… Oh if she could only taste such deliciously prepared goods from hot dog venders or a legendary Burger World. There she heard that everybody drove a car, and even many people played her favorite game Duel Monsters with machines that could make the cards come to life. She was so tired of being trapped in this boring town. There was nobody to play with. Her only enjoyment was when the next shipment of games would come to the merchant.
The moonlight shined in the hay filled loft, which she reside. The sand-blonde hair which framed her face lit with the moon’s gaze. “Okay, this time I’m going to get it.” She shuffled a deck of cards and drew. She believed if she ever succeeded in drawing the entire set of Exodia cards her wish would come true. Whoever could draw all five cards of Exodia would win. It was Exodia solitaire.
She drew by the moon’s light, eyes adjusted to the damp dark. She would play spell cards to draw out her deck. Soon a small pile of green cards grew above her deck in the grave. She had four pieces of the Exodia combination in her hand.
“Upstart goblin to draw one more… This is it.” She prayed as she drew the deck was so thin, so the odds of drawing the last piece had to be a 33 percent chance, but still that was better than nothing. She thought in her head which cards could remain, she closed her eyes visualization. She saw Pot of Greed, which would allow her to win by drawing the remaining cards, Exodia the Forbidden one and Royal Magical Library, which at this point would be useless. From 33 to 66 percent, the odds were looking better.
Bringing the card to her face, the expression of hope changed to disappointment. Royal-Magical-Library… So close, she was so close this time. She placed the deck down and fell back into the hay sighing, however disappointment had her flustered with distraction and instead fell right out of the loft. Squealing as she crashed into the ground.
Black crimson spurted. She had landed on her palms and knees, but her hand had hit something very sharp buried within the sand. She held her hand, wrapping it in a nearby rag, the bleeding was profuse. Staggering to the weathered wall of the barn she sat on the ground leaning back against it.
No matter how tight she held the wound it was no good, blood covered her whole body, seeping through the cloth. Wincing in pain she squeezed tighter, though it was no good she moved her hand away to see how deep the cut was. The gouge was wide, no bone protrusion, so that was good. Though it was deep, it didn’t seem fatal and the blood only made it seem worse. Her panicking was quelled with this thought. Now her mind was wondering what could have cut her.
A shard of moonlight fell upon the imprints she had left in the sand. Sticking out of the sand and glimmering was the sharp object. She followed this beam of light with her eyes. Gold! It could even be enough to buy her way out of this tiny town.
Forgetting about her or the impact the fall had on her at all she scurried over to it. This could be her great opportunity, perhaps the gods were smiling upon her after all. She gently placed her bleeding hand over it, but stopped herself and used her less dominant hand, mustn’t dirty it. Carefully she pulled on it, but it fell apart. It had broken from her falling on it.
Many pieces, she dug them out. They weren’t broken though. It looked to her as if they were meant to come apart. She stared at it, and with moon light’s glow she attempted to reassemble it. It was no good though…
She gazed at it and it gazed back? One of the pieces had an eye on it. This eye’s gaze saw deeply into her soul. She was determined to solve it and for four years of her life she would spend nights toying away at it, though by morning each and every piece would still be separated.
Now the sixteen year old Shielsia had become quite the entertainer, her golden hair flowed down to her shoulders and moved about as she performed all kinds of carnival tricks at her own stand beside the merchant. Her body had grown womanly curves, though they were never pronounced due to the attire she had to wear. She could juggle anything, swallow swords, blow fire, and make anything disappear then reappear, and tell fortunes.
Since she provided amusement instead of anything necessary the town shunned her as a gypsy or a swindler. Her only friend had become the merchant, or any tourist who wasn’t in the loop of old ******** who couldn’t get over themselves and enjoy something fun. Her only friend seemed to be the merchant, and he never really spoke to her only asked her riddles and shown her games. He was a bit cold.
This day however was different, after she performed a ring dance with plastic swords for a small group of people the merchant spoke without riddle.
“The time has come.” His empty eyes stared to her.
Immediately thinking it was a riddle the gears in her brain began to work. “The sun!” She announced excitedly, because it would move the shadow of a sundial. Making time come. “Or is it the shadow?” She’s had a similar riddle to this, but this was no riddle.
The merchant stared at her. He knew what was to come. Shielsia was to shed blood this day. It was a day for which he lived for. A wicked man would attempt to steal his gold, Shielsia would intervene, but in doing so she would feel the sting of a fatal blade.
Figuring that she hadn’t solved the riddle Shielsia gave a soft sigh. “You know I will have the answer by the end of the day.”
“You will…” He looked down as the end of an assailant’s knife appeared from his front, slicked with his blood.
“Sha-“She cried out, seeing the murderer rip a golden trinket from his neck.
The sword was now pointed at her. The man had black beads for eyes, almost like holes in the white, cracked lips and long meshed hair. The merchant fell to the ground as the murderer’s beady eyes glued to Shielsia.
Murder in the bright of day attracted attention from all gazing eyes. They would’ve engaged the unscrupulous person, if not for his proximity to Shielsia.
“Get out of there girl, we’ll handle this!” One man shouted.
“I-I cannot…” She gazed at the dead merchant, her only daily acquaintance, the closest thing she had to a living family/friend. She kicked up one of her plastic swords to her hand and threatened the man, but he didn’t seem cautioned.
Drooling he walked wiped under his chin. “This has more power than you know…” He meant the necklace he had swiped from the merchant, but Shielsia thought he was referring to the sword.
“Power?” She gulped and began to recite her carnival act. “This is also no ordinary sword, for you see it is enchanted with powers of the c-cosmos.” Her voice cracked as she backed away and threw three hoops in the air, the sword would catch each hoop and twirl them about.
She also had twisted her body, because the action of throwing the hoops into the air gave the fiend an opening to stab. The sword was caught in her baggy tunic, but she could feel the blood soaked blade against the skin of her side. The merchant’s blood was cold with the sword. This was her opportunity with one arm she caught the sword in a blanketed whip of her outfit.
Catching the hoops on her sword, her voice would lose its stutter as she had gained confidence in her performance as it was becoming more like a game for her. “These rings represent space, time the universe, all moving around in circles without end.”
With her twirling armed hand she slapped him three times with the spinning hoops. With a lunge of the plastic sword upwards spinning the hoops above both their heads, now it was just a victory at ring toss.
Each hoop fell around the villains wide shoulders, catching his arms between them. When this ‘game’ was over Shielsia looked down to see the dead merchant, but his body was gone. She was distracted by her ring toss. Not just distracted, she enjoyed it, that she didn’t notice him rise and stagger away. “He’s alive…” She couldn’t find a trail of blood or anything and the townsfolk gathered around to apprehend the criminal.
“You alright Shielsia? That was quite a performance… To think I thought your games were useless.” He laughed patting her on the shoulder.
“Where is he, did you see where he went?” She asked around, but not only did nobody seem to know what she was talking about, they all acted as if the merchant never existed. “The thief he stole a-“She looked to the thief who was holding a stalk of celery, there was no golden necklace. Everybody else just thought he was attacking her, they were not even aware he was a murderer.
That night, the day replayed in Shielsia’s head over and over again. The excitement of the murder, the disappearance of the merchant, these thoughts circled around in her head as her hands tinkered away with the pieces of her golden puzzle.
Seething into the later hours of the night her eyes watered with frustration. Her head burrowing into her arms as she lay in the hay. She had spent many nights shedding tears over her lonesome life, her hopeless situation, this would be usual, but the day’s events made her feel even less hopeless. The person who brought all these games she loved, the riddles, the meaning of her meager existence was dead or vanished, having never even existed.
“Am I that alone…?” Maybe he was a figment of her imagination, created by her desperate loneliness.
Materializing in the darkness, a body began to take shape; the merchant’s torso hovered from a misty void. His own thoughts winded as he held the future seeing necklace. This girl she was meant to be killed by the thief and be buried in time, yet she has altered destiny. “Destiny must be maintained…” His body hovered behind her as he pulled a golden dagger with a ruby eyed hilt from his outfit.
Sighing Shielsia sat up, moving to the puzzle once more. She set the pieces in a blanket in her lap and separated them. Before she could start forming, but noticed rain drops fall upon them. A pain, a deadening pain fell through her body. Her hand gentle felt her right breast, feeling drenched and a small hole at the top of her chest by her collar. Blood had dripped down her bosom, not rain. Feeling cold she fell forward a bit, an arm catching her. It was the merchant.
“Sh-Shadi…” Her eyes held half opened, seeing the bloody dagger in his hand.
“Time has come.” Not to her, but to the puzzle his eyes gazed.
In her last breathes of life Shielsia felt to solve the puzzle, her hands elegantly moving, connecting each piece perfectly. The merchant Shadi stood back, as Shielsia placed the last piece. The eye glowing. The wound on her chest disappeared. She felt life grip back into her. Eyes blasted open. The puzzle’s energy surged through her, but it would not last.
“I solved it!” She cheered, but as she held the pyramid shaped puzzle, her hands dropped it. She went to pick it up, but looked closely at her hand, raising it to the moonlight. The hand, the same one with the scar from the puzzle those four years ago was falling apart. “What… What…” She gasped for air, as her hand fell into grains of sand, soon her other hand followed.
In the reflection of Shadi’s eyes the girl’s whole entire body slowly fell to sand, each grain flowing into the eye of the puzzle. Her cries silenced as she vanished into darkness. Shadi picked up the puzzle, as a wind blew through the loft, scattering her cards and games about into a giant mess. “Time has gone, but shall come again…” He tossed the puzzle into the sand; it sank to disappear, until it would be found again.
 Shielsia · Mon Jul 23, 2012 @ 07:24am · 0 Comments |
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