Electricity cracked and with a whoosh, a swirling portal of many hues and brightnesses of greens, pinks, and purples - like sizzling northern lights, opened in the living quarters of a seemingly uninhabited cabin in Alberta, Canada, The Elm Realm. The house shook slightly in a rhythmic pulse, shuddered by squeezing vibrations. The initial whoosh became louder and louder, closer and closer. The colourful hue of this swirling portal seemed to change from long down the shaft, turning redder as the sound grew louder. Louder and closer, until…BANG!
Sniff.
Groan.
Sniff. Fire?
"Uuuughhhh …son of a banshee."
As Mauja roused from sleep, emerging from a pile of sheets, balled up notes, and an empty snow cone wrapper stuck to her forehead. Her head hurt and this was not good. How long had she been knocked out?
She ran her hands over her sleek black plaits as she sat up, pushing the mess onto the floor of the cabin. She was downstairs on an old chesterfield. Her clothes from two evenings prior smelled like fresh snow. She sat up gingerly. Ow! Head pain! She attempted to move more quickly and skirted over the sofa and stood up and then fell back over. She stamped her feet decisively, the sound muffled by her Godzilla slippers. She stood determined to move her silent legs.
As she peered into the living room, she noticed a black stone, still smoldering with bright red
embers. Holding her head as she bent down, she analyzed the swordlock before her. The stone was a chest, of sorts, and the swordlock was only to be opened by a sword. The only one she had was in her bag upstairs - Excalibur - but it had a habit of getting itself stuck. Normal, magical homes were always equipped with a sword in case of swordlock mail. She was unfortunately at a human holiday home, and this stone had now burned a giant hole in the floor. And, she supposed grimly, her deposit on this dump.
She needed to think fast or the rock would continue to burn through the floor and possibly take the rest of the cabin with it. Her gaze fixed on a Swiffer leaning in a corner, a wet wipe on a stick. The lock will come open or else be very clean. That'll have to do. She wedged the Swiffer into the swordlock of the stone and twisted until she heard a click and a hiss as the Swiffer melted and the lock opened. Whoops! The obsidian stone turned to dust at her feet. Under the dust, inscribed in sulfur-black ink, was a single folder from the Determent of Lawlessness, addressed to her. This was very serious if the law was involved.
It was sealed with an official-looking red ribbon, and to top it all off, it was smoldering. The corners of this folder glowed with bright red cinders as it lay on the floor. She bent down and carefully picked up the folder with two fingers as to not burn herself. She shook it slightly and knocked some of the burning remnants off with her other hand, scattering flakes of ash. She hit it will a bit of ice magic to freeze it from burning itself further. It was adorned with a blackened iron seal, pressed with a Dethek rune Mauja was beginning to be all too familiar with; Ilo.
The rune meant ‘Fire' in Jotun, the language used by the giants. She knew all too well that this was sent to her by the fire giants. Oedipus! "Why do they have to bother me on the one summer holiday I've had from school?!"
There had been a string of fires cropping up throughout Alberta over the past months. Blame had been placed on random strikes of lightning, unattended campfires, cigarette butts, and more recently a gender reveals party gone awry. Humans were weird with their excuses and blame-placing finger-pointing instead of fixing issues. The magical community was not much better. In fact, the magical community was far worse. Warrants for the Ruby Mountain Fire Giants had been scrambled since the fires started. But they had not been a problem since 1898 here.
"Apparently, some magical folk do not believe humans are capable of creating such a destructive force." At this thought, Mauja openly guffaws.
Fire Giants were taken into custody and questioned. Some were released. Some were held due to their high magical potential. The Giants who did not comply were killed. Mauja knew that the folder she held in her hand was a plea. She knew that this was a job of utmost importance and unfortunately her trip to visit her only Elm mate would have to wait… again. She walked over to her kitchen counter and with a foot, maneuvered a stool under her and sat down. She peeled back the seal of the burnt folder. Inscribed in what looked like sulfur, an almost yellow-black ink, was a single letter addressed to her. It started to spark and the words formed in flames.
Mauja sighed and laid the letter on the table. The Fire Giants were a brutish people. They were fierce, and to some, almost a little cruel. To have them begging for aid from what they thought was a demigod, a half-human demigod at that was something else. She felt a single twinge of empathy for them before she slammed the folder shut over the letter, cracked her hands in front of her, stretched her arms over her head, and stood up. Then almost fell back over. "Ow!"
She righted herself and brushed her loose black hair behind her right ear. In doing so, she brushed against what felt like paper stuck to her forehead. WTF? (What the Fairy?) A piece of a snow cone wrapper?
She was trying to remember where it may have come from. She had probably been unconscious for two days! She was heading for the badlands where there was an entire band of ancient Stoneborne that resided in the Hoodoos. One of these Stoneborne was the grandsire of her college roommate. She promised to visit and pass on love to the far-away relatives. She had to venture out during the day because, at night, anyone who ventured near would receive a pelting by rocks. She forgot how hot the Elm Realm was. Suddenly a snow cone stand appeared in the park. After living in Idavoll, she forgot that in the Elm Realm, it was not normal for a stand to just appear out of thin air. She gladly ate the snow cone purchased from the lovely Indian man, and that was the last thing she remembered.
"It must have been the Hindu Goddexx Shukra," Mauja muttered as she wiped the rest of the sticky residue off of her forehead. She twirled some between her fingers, catching glimpses of the forgetting snow only he would be powerful enough to create. She had to figure out what memory he took but more importantly, why?
"I have some missing memories and some very irate Fire Giants. So much for a vacation..."
Mauja, made herself her go-to drink, maple ice cream and coffee. She sat in a recliner in the reading nook. The window in the nook overlooked the Drumheller badlands she came all the way to the Elm Realm to see. She was never going to make it there now. Mauja feared that this window view was probably as close to it as she was going to get, judging by how her holiday was going thus far. Sigh. She set her ice cream coffee down on the small table beside her chair, time to remember what she had forgotten. Mauja shouted, "Gerda!"
There was a sharp clang from the other room, followed by the sounds of light quick footfalls, growing louder and louder. Emerging from Mauja's loft bed at the top of the stairs was a dark purple doctor's bag with gold tassels. It looked worn but cared for. In a rather dog-like, but clumsy manner, it attempted to saunter down the stairs, but lost its footing, if one can call it that, and toppled down the rest of the way. As it landed at the bottom, it jumped up, landed right-side up, and ran over to Mauja.
"Hi buddy," she said as she dusted off her companion and rubbed the bag's belly.
Mauja cooed, "Who's a good bag? Who's the best holder of everything? You are, you're my best bagbaby!" Gerda shook and playfully bit Mauja with her zipper teeth.
"Ow!" Mauja pulled her hand away, "Too hard, Gerdie!"
Gerda settled. The tassels beneath Gerda slid under the bag and the bag opened itself. Mauja reached in, and seemed to reach in deeper than seemed normal, or even possible. She pulled out a silver tiara. It looked like ice and was adorned with large mirror shards. It glowed a blue that matched Mauja's eyes. "Hello, old friend."
The crown had been in the snow queen's royal family for generations, passed down the maternal line. It was the tiara of memory, of soul. Water in this ice form had the ability to retain memory. The mirror shards are the catalyst. This tiara let everyone know the Snow Queen approved of her, and she could hardly believe she was allowed to keep it. After inspecting the heirloom, she placed it upon her head and leaned back against her poof. Concentrate now, Mauja. She could see flashes of a little girl, but they were not yet clear.
This could not be right; this was not her memory.
Be the memory, feeeel the memory. Focus!
Suddenly, her eyes shot open. The ice blue of her eyes shimmered and glowed. But while her eyes were open, her world went black, but only for a moment.
Tanwen moved slowly to open the classroom door. She had been in trouble again and when it came to school, she was always in trouble. She never meant to be in trouble, but it always found her like electric sparks - they could hit her at any moment and came as a shock from thin air. She and her mother had entered her school one Thursday afternoon, just shortly after lunch period had routinely commenced. Lagging behind them both on stub feet was Sriracha, her emotional support lizard, lead with a rainbow glitter lead. He was also wearing a bright orange vest that announced he was a support animal. The vest was difficult to see because it blended in with Sriracha's copper-red-colored scales; when he slept on her head, he was camouflaged to near-invisibility in her copper curls.
Tanwen felt a sharp bolt of electricity run through her as she passed through the door's threshold. Her green eyes glowed a bright, pale ice blue for just an instant before she blinked them back to normal.
Tanwen's teacher met them at the door and turned Tanwen and Sriracha away by asking them to play outside while she spoke to her mother privately. Uh-oh. Tanwen sighed. "Privately" usually meant she was to be banned from her treehouse and forced to stay indoors with no entertainment but the Space channel. Educational programming, the worst! Those shows never taught her anything she didn't already know anyway. What she would not give for just one hour with Bluey. She tried the Muppets one time and when her mother saw Oscar the Grouch, she decided that an unshowered, hairy derelict living in a rubbish bin was an unsuitable role model for a future astronaut. She snapped back at her mother that both astronauts and Grouches live in metal bins so what is the difference? This did not go over well.
Tanwen and Sriracha padded it outside but double-backed round so they could hear what the two women were discussing. Her mum had told her to go outside, but never gave her any specifics as to where outside. She never said anything about not quietly climbing the stoop stairs in order to hide underneath the open window she noticed on the way in. This was definitely outside. Tanwen sat making sure not to be seen below the window and then started petting Sriracha, who was nestled on her lap. He rolled over so she could scratch his belly.
Inside, the teacher who liked to be known as Isobel asked Tanwen's mother to have a seat. The only seats available were desks suitable for primary school-aged children. Tanwen's mother asked the teacher to call her Nicola, while she attempted to force her plump backside into a smaller child's desk chair, circumventing the desk attachment. She tried to stand up again but was hopelessly trapped, so she turned sideways with her legs sticking out into the row and twisted to face Isobel. Isobel tried not to laugh at the stuck mother, and gamely attempted her serious discussion. "My recommendation is to skip your daughter two grades, so she would start next term attending the magnet science school."
Tanwen froze.
"Two grades! Isn't that a bit drastic? She's only ten!" Nicola said, with a struggled tone, flapping about uncomfortably in a child's desk seat. She tried to rest her hand somewhere but couldn't find a perch, hands continued flapping.
"Are you sure she is only ten? She has the intelligence of a tiny forty-year-old." Isobel questioned teasingly as she rolled her chair over to her and laughed. "You may take my seat and I will stand."
She attempted to help Nicola out of the desk, but she was stuck. Right then, as Isobel tugged hard, she ended up falling on Nicola. Both Isobel and Nicola began to laugh. "I am so sorry! I try to be more professional…usually."
Isobel held the desk down and Nicola attempted to wiggle herself free. She popped out of her seat clumsily and was instantly tangled in Isobel's scarf, falling back, her backside bouncing off the desk, nearly knocking Isobel over whilst holding on to Isobel for balance. Isobel grabbed her in a bearhug, and they hopped together into the rolling chair. Isobel attempted to lower Nicola into the chair, but as Murphy's Law would have it, it rolled backward, and Isobel, while attempting to grab it by the top, planted a firm squeeze to Nicola's boob instead. "Oof."
Tanwen heard the commotion from the room and sat up, peering carefully into it as to not be seen. Her eyes widened and she shifted Sriracha from her lap to her arms, holding him tight. She was horrified at the sight and was sure she was going to die of second-hand embarrassment. She was so focused on watching the women that she had begun to pet Sriracha mindlessly in a spot he liked, and his leg had started to thrum rapidly as she had hit the good spot.
"Oh my God! I am so sorry!" Isobel placated as she tried to extricate herself from Nicola. She attempted to move her arm off her breast, which caused her scarf to get even more caught. Isobel unraveled the scarf from her neck at once, saw it stuck on the chair, and then swiftly placed it over Nicola's shoulder, and with a coy grin said, "no, you keep it."
Nicola laughed. "OK, well now that we have gotten to know one another," she coughed fakely trying to hide the forming blush, "what were you saying about Tanwen being a secret 40-year-old?"
Isobel pulled herself together, ironing her pantsuit with her hands, "I am just saying I think she is too advanced for this class."
"Well don't hold back, I like to be kept abreast of the situation," Nicola chuckled.
"Did you just…?" Isobel smirked and then paused, regaining her initial thoughts, "she insists on calling me 'professor'. I have told her repeatedly to call me ‘Isobel'. Do you know what she said? She said, ‘I cannot call you, Isobel, Professor Hernandez. Informalities plant the seeds of anarchy. This is why the entire Canadian educational system is doomed to failure.'"
"Obviously," Nicola sighs, "I am sorry, in her formative years I was finishing my Ph.D. at Oxford, and the Physics department is a bit old school. I may have left her in the library with only the old Dons for company too many times. They complained constantly that back in their time, women were not allowed in the library at all, much less children," Nicola unraveled the scarf and then gingerly tied it around her neck, "but Tanni has a way of growing on people, like a moss, a bossy moss."
"We don't say bossy anymore we say, ‘leadership skills,'" Isobel said lightly.
"A moss with leadership skills," Nicola insisted. "Oh my God, what am I going to do?" Nicola bangs her head on the desk.
"It will be OK. It is not the worst problem to have a genius child. I mean, all the CSA children are a little different. They either run around like wild animals because they receive no parental attention, or they adjust my wi-fi so their drones run more efficiently. It saves money on having to hire IT," Isobel moves closer to her.
"Do you have a spouse or family member that can help you with this transition? Does Tanwen have another mother?"
"If only;" Nicola replies more sombrely, "She passed away, my wife I mean. We are all alone here, she is so… Welsh in so many ways. She really resents me moving her here."
Isobel sympathetically rubs Nicola's shoulder, whilst Nicola tried not to cry under her hair.
Tanwen, with her hands pressed on the window sill, lost her footing and fell off the stoop. Ow! Tanwen stopped moving and willed herself to be silent. She looks up at Sriracha and Sriracha moves his feet to the end of the step and leans down to look at her. He silently asks her What are you doing down there? Tanwen pulls herself up the stoop, crouching just under the window. Nose to nose with Sriracha they looked at the women in the classroom. To Tanwen's relief, they had not noticed the fall and continued talking.
"Yes, she told me that the Canadian dialect is horrid and should not be considered English. Maple people make up words. We should call it the Canadian language and be done with it."
"I am sorry, on behalf of my daughter and all of Wales, I apologize." Nicola lifted her head up and smiled at Isobel. Suddenly, a cacophony could be heard coming from across the courtyard. Tanwen shifted her position, ducking her head, so that she did not look so suspicious and sat with her back against the wall just under the window. She held Sriracha tight to her, the lizard stirred with agitation and began to hiss.
A few boys rounded the corner carrying drones. They stopped when they saw her sitting there and gave her a mischievous smirk.
"In trouble again, are you?" taunted a brown-haired boy, Paul, the shortest of the three. Tanwen shook her head, remaining silent, but with a look of disdain. The boys had been making comments about her two mothers, claiming they should never have been allowed to marry. Tanwen stood up and tried to block the window, attempting to obscure the view of her mother inside with the teacher. Tanwen stared at the drones the two shorter boys were carrying. One was painted with a confederate flag and the other was coated in politically conservative stickers. The boy had been told not to fly the confederate flag drone, if he did it would be confiscated. She pondered tattling on him to Professor Hernandez, but she knew it would just make more problems for her in the long run. She barely had time to notice the drone the taller boy was carrying before he rudely lunged at her like he was going to hit Sriracha, causing the lizard to hiss in warning. The boy hissed back mockingly at Sriracha and kept walking through to the AstroTurf grass courtyard. Paul turned to her and said, "Why don't you act like a real girl and stop playing with reptiles, you bull dyke!" His friends followed him, laughing as they went.
Sriracha wiggled and started to fuss. He kept trying to jump out of her grasp in jerking, angry motions toward the boys. Tanwen, trying to placate him, looked quickly towards the two women through the window to see if they had noticed any of the commotions. To calm him down, she started stroking his back calmingly. "Shhh, it's okay." Sriracha shifted. Her mother told her that boys like that would never work for the CSA (Canadian Space Agency) because they would get arrested after making a convoy and protesting science. She wished he would hurry up and get arrested already so she could have just one day of peace.
"Maybe he is suited to be an astronaut, Sriracha. He deserves to be in a can, just like Oscar the Grouch. What a trash bag."
She pet Sriracha and cooed at him. Tanwen firmed her grasp on Sriracha in a tight comforting hug, but while doing so felt a knobby bump on his back. Concern spread across her face. She had never felt anything like this on Sriracha before and was worried that he had developed something serious. She gently rubbed the bump on his back with the pad of her thumb, looking for a reaction from him. Instead of pain, he closed his eyes as if he thoroughly enjoyed the feeling. Interesting.
She continued to gently rub the knobby bump on his back until it seemed as if the copper scales she was rubbing were starting to move. A tiny wing unfolded from his back at the pressure, causing his orange vest to tear. She jumped back slightly. "Oh!" Sriracha stretched the new wing out. It was short, about half the size of his body. He looked at her questioning. Tanwen, understanding what was being asked of her, carefully rubbed the other shoulder and another wing unfolded.
Sriracha looked at her and then looked at his new wings, the ripped fabric from his vest on the concrete below. He flapped them, was amazed by this, and then flapped them some more. Tanwen tried to cover them from sight and looked to see if the two women noticed. These new wings would be an issue. They were small now and it would be difficult to keep them hidden once this now little lizard grew larger.
Tanwen gazed at her shoes and wondered if she could go without her Velcro for a time. She also wondered if, with her Velcro straps, she could make him a makeshift harness until she could get a proper one for his rainbow lead and new orange vest. She began to rip at her shoes in an attempt to science the situation.
Isobel moved to the edge of the desk she was perched upon, moving closer to Nicola. "You know, the other day she told me I was being pejorative. Pejorative, I had to Google it."
Nicola sighed then chuckled. "She told me this was all my fault because children get their homologous pairs for intelligence from their mummy."
"Yeah, well, you know, sex cells!" They both laughed.
Sriracha was hopping around now. He hopped, and then flew, trying out his wings for the first time, all while Tanwen removed the Velcro straps from her shoes. He was getting the hang of it quickly until he scampered off, having found something mesmerizing and interesting in the grass.
Tanwen's attention flitted back to the women's conversation when she heard, "OH yes Sriracha, the emotional support lizard."
At the mention of Sriracha, Tanwen cranked her neck to hear better, looking worried. Sriracha bounced over and started to go after her broach necklace. Tanwen was given her mother's favourite broach when she died. Her surviving mother did not want her to wear it because she was afraid she would lose it, and with it the memory of her mother. They compromised, Mummy Nikki attached it to a necklace so Tanwen would not lose it. This was Sriracha's favourite thing to try to steal. She carefully pulled the broach off the necklace, looked at it and threw it in the soft grass. Sriracha ran to pick it up in his mouth. He brought it back to Tanwen and she absent-mindedly threw it in the grass again and sat up to listen harder. Sriracha chased it with a mixture of hopping and flying to bring it back to her for more playing fetch.
Nicola continued. "We think he may be a large crocodile skink, but we don't know for sure…but is there a problem with the emotional support reptile?" Nicola questioned.
"No, no support... er…um… reptiles are fine," Isobel replied, giving her a sideways grin.
"Just Fine? They are hypoallergenic and gluten-free, I mean you may be being a bit pejorative."
"I don't think you are using that word correctly; you should Google it." Isobel chuckled.
Tanwen stood attempting to hear better. She tried to move closer to the window but Sriracha kept making attempts to fly next to her to listen as well, even with the makeshift Velcro harness – which was obviously failing. Tanwen was annoyed at the struggled flying by her face as it made it difficult to eavesdrop as he was making too much noise. Tanwen grabbed him by the waist and held him. This made him falter as he was not a very practiced flyer and the fact that he was semi-restrained. She pulled the brooch from his mouth and shoved it in her pocket.
"Shhhh, we are going to get busted!" Sriracha tugged toward the sky, out of the confines of his Velcro, and flew out of Tanwen's grasp.
As the conversation went on inside, her teacher noticed a copper streak zooming left to right and saw Tanwen chasing after it. She approached the window and shouted, "Tanwen! Tanwen!"
Looking alarmed, Nicola glanced over to where Isobel was shouting.
"Yes, Professor?" Tanwen asked innocently, popping her head above the windowsill to look in the room.
"How many times have I told you that if you have a drone you have to play with it in the courtyard, so you don't hit any of the other children?"
Tanwen was silent staring at Isobel in disbelief then, having quickly assessed the situation innocently replied, "OK Professor!" and bounced away from the window, following the ‘drone'.
Tanwen skipped to catch up with Sriracha who was flying higher now, and whisper shouted, "Sriracha! Make the drone noise."
He looked at her with a questioning face.
"Brrrrrrrrrrrrr," Tanwen demonstrated the sound loudly while lifting her arms in a plane formation.
She pretended to be flying while continuously making the noise, "brrrrrrrrrrr!"
Sriracha flew next to her and noised a timid, "brrrrrrr?" then looked to Tanwen for approval.
"Louder and more metallic sounding!" She shouted as she pretended to fly a circle around Sriracha.
"BRRRRRRRR" Sriracha hummed loudly and metallically, as he flew by Tanwen again. It almost sounded machine-like.
"Excellent! You make a great drone, buddy!" Tanwen laughed with relief.
• • •