Dandelyon's Worlds

I still owe you folks a bunch of urban fantasy worldbuilding ficlets. So, with thanks to msstacy13 for the prompt, here we go:

G is for Glasses

Katie scowled and followed her mother into the store. It just wasn’t fair. She pulled and dragged and stomped her feet, which wasn’t nearly as satisfying as she imagined swishing her tailmight be. Not that she could do any such thing, of course. Her twin sister changed forms just fine, but the only sign that Katie was catkin were the slit pupils in her very nearsighted eyes. Pupils that would look even stranger seen through thick lenses.

Katie’s mother sighed. It was hard enough having a kit that was stuck in human form, but foot-stomping, as if her child were a mere human, and an ill-mannered one at that? But all she said was, “What can’t be cured must be endured.”

This was met with more foot stomping; words didn’t make things better, and those words in particular usually signaled a turn for the worse. But those words also meant that her mother wouldn’t change her mind, no matter what her children did or said, so Katie sighed and tried on a frame, and then another. She expected it would be quite the chore, trying on frame after frame, leaning back to see how the color and shape fit her face, and then leaning forward to peer at the details.

It wasn’t the experience she expected. There was something magical in the way a pair of glasses could make her look like someone else, someone quite different than her sister, Pearlie. Some of them were like costumes, making her look like her mother or a teacher, a doctor or a judge. Together, they posed a new question: who did she want to be? And then she found something even better. A few, a very few, gave her the sense, for the very first time, that she was looking at herself.

She leaned into the mirror, grinning, going back and forth between those frames to pick the best two, the ones that made the world look brighter when she had them on. Then she walked quickly, with light, sure steps to her mother. “Look at these! They’re so marvelously, splendiferously perfect!”

Her mother took the frames and read the prices on the tiny labels. “These are awfully expensive.”

“The sign says two for one, so I can have a pair and a spare!” Katie pointed to the sign. “Please?”

Her mother had her try on some other frames for her, but it was clear that she was eager to wear those two, and reluctant to wear any others. The change in her demeanor when she was wearing those frames was quite pronounced. It was as if she gained two years of poise and maturity in those frames. Finally, her mother agreed to pay more than twice what she’d told Katie was their limit, and the technician in the back room made the glasses while they waited.

The first glasses were purple metal, with tiny pale blue stars, and the second pair were also metal, but had purple, green, and blue strands twined in a pattern that reminded Katie of braided hair or Tiffany lamps. Katie danced around the room in the second pair, waiting impatiently for the first pair to be finished. She felt free and graceful in the glasses, a new feeling for her. When other customers came in, she didn’t stop dancing, but she also managed to never be in their way. Catlike, she never tripped or knocked anything over.

Then the saleswoman came out to fit the first pair of new glasses precisely to her head, while the second pair was sent back for its lenses. Katie cooperated with the fitting, her heart pounding and her eyes darting around the room whenever the lenses were perched on her nose. The world was so bright and clear! People and things had a bright inner glow. Dutifully, she read the words on the wall and the small print on the card the woman handed her. She patiently waited while the woman cleaned the glasses one last time, then returned to dancing.

The other girl, the one who had come in while Katie waited, looked unhappy. “They’re all ugly!” she cried. Katie couldn’t help but let her eyes fly to the scene as the girl’s parents offered a new set of glasses to try. The girl had a clear blue inner light; the glasses they parents offered matched their own orange and brown glows. Predictably, the girl hated all of those too. She ran to the far end of the store, where she stood facing a wall with her face red and eyes closed. The mother hung on to one of the frames, while the father put away the rejects.

Impulsively, Katie went to the cheapest wall, and grabbed frames whose inner glow matched or complemented the girl’s glow, and walked over to the girl. “Excuse me,” she said, “I—I didn’t want to come here for glasses either.”

“It’s not fair that I need glasses!”

“No, it’s not. But they will buy you a pair you hate if you don’t find some you like. And what good is that?”

“None.” The girl opened her eyes. “Hey, those glasses you’re wearing look good on you. Do they have more like them?”

They did, but the glow was the wrong color for this girl. “I don’t think so. But maybe you could try these?” Katie felt an odd confidence, but let her voice sound hesitant as she held out the glasses she’d picked out.

The girl tried on one of the frames, and then another. “These are all better than the ones my parents picked out.” She smiled. “I’m Alma.”

“I’m Katie.” Solemnly, the girls shook hands, and then Alma dragged Katie to meet her parents and help them look through frames.

By the time Katie’s second pair of glasses was ready, Alma and her parents had agreed on two frames and they were comparing addresses. They only lived three blocks apart, and were scheduled to go to the same middle school the next year.

As they left the store, Katie said, “These glasses are magic!”

Watching her daughter’s eyes dart excitedly back and forth, lingering where the world’s hidden auras were brightest, her mother had to agree.

You can go vote, if you've been reading. Or you can use the poll to hop from story to story, reading and then vote.

http://mad-docs-of-lit.livejournal.com/28205.html

There's just 13 stories, and the one that wins will make it into the Re-Vamp anthology, which will be published on  Halloween this year. 

The sun set and I opened my eyes. The coffin was closed above me, just as it should have been, but something felt wrong.  I lay still as the dead, listening. My human servant was humming softly, unconcerned. I opened the lid.

She looked at me with a delighted smile. “You look good tonight,” she said, as she always does, but there was an extra twinkle in her eyes.

I lifted my hand toward her cheek and stopped, looking down at myself. I was covered, head to toe, in glitter paint.

She laughed gaily as I sparkled in the candlelight.

--Deirdre M. Murphy
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The form for today's bit of flash fiction is called a drabble--a bit of fiction exactly 100 words long. I had fun writing it.

I really enjoy your comments, so I hope you'll take a moment to let me know you were here.

I'm so excited!  meeks  is doing an illustration for this story-arc, which includes more than one story. 

Since LJ is experiencing problems, instead of just linking to the first story, I'm going to post it here.




“What do you think it would it be like?” Grace kicked her feet, her toes barely skimming the cool water of the lake, but her eyes were on the sky. She spread her arms as if she could feel the wind under them.

“What?” Stella didn’t glance up from the copy of Feather-Blessed she was reading.
( Read more... )
“Look at this!” Grace turned to Stella, but Stella’s nose was firmly buried in her book. Grace’s book, actually. And it was a good book, that’s why she’d loaned it to Stella. Noticing that Stella was almost at the end, Grace took pity on her friend, and fell silent. It was that book that first triggered her longing to fly.

Grace turned her back to her friend, and her attention to the feather. It was fluffy, and curled—a breast feather, like from over the heart of a bird. It was a delicate pink, but in the sunset, it glowed with gold and orange and the purest, brightest white. And it was huge, longer than her hand. Just like in the book.

It pulsed, sending off tiny showers of gold light.

After a while, Stella looked up. “Wow! What a book.”

Grace stuffed the magic feather into her pocket, protectively, then turned. “It is, isn’t it?”

“Do you think something like that could really happen? A feather that—changes you?

“Nah.” Grace could feel the feather pulsing in her pocket. “It’s just fiction.”

Stella’s shoulders slumped, and she looked down. “I guess you’re right.”

“Hey, you were the one being cynical a minute ago.”

“Habit. But this book—“

“Yeah.”

“It makes you believe in magic. No wonder you’ve been staring at the sky for days.”

“I have?”

“Oh, stop playing dumb!” Stella moved to the edge of the pier, and trailed her pale toes through the water. “If one of those feathers came to you, which would you pick? Dragon, gryphon, or fairy?”

Grace considered. Hand, forearm, or shoulder? “I wonder what would happen if I pierced my foot?”

“You’d probably just waste the magic, doing that!”

“Ok, dragon, then.

“Not a fairy? Fairies can hide their wings, and stay here. Go to school, even.”

“If you were going to just stay here, why do it at all?”

Stella stared at her, her eyes bright and intense. “So, you’d really use the magic, change yourself, and fly away?”

Grace squirmed. “It’s fiction, remember?” Her pocket throbbed.

“But if!”

“If.” Grace looked up, imagining what it would be like to soar high above everything she knew. “Well, ever since reading that book, I have yearned for the sky.”

“Me too.”

“You just finished it!” Grace picked the book up from the pier and turned her attention to the cover, where bright-winged fairies danced with colorful gryphons and dragons.

“What, you had to sleep on it to feel it?”

“Well, no.”

Stella kicked at the water. “If—if you did, would you just fly away from—“ She paused, not meeting Grace’s eyes. She twisted her pinkies together and Grace realized what she was asking. “—here?”

Grace grabbed Stella’s hand and linked their pinkies, swinging their hands together in their own private ritual, the book resting where it fell in her lap. “I promised I’d always be your best friend. I can’t just—wouldn’t just—fly away from here, leaving you behind.” But if the book was right, she’d have to do just that, enter a new world, all alone, and leave her friend behind. Even the fairies left, eventually.

She hugged Stella, ignoring the throbbing magic in her pocket. “If I found a feather, I’d—I’d throw it away.”

“Really?”

Grace nodded firmly. “Really.” She stood up, and jammed the book in her pocket on top of the feather, hoping to squash it into stillness. “Come on, I have enough money to buy us each an ice cream cone.”


Grace ignored the feather and the book for the rest of the day, until she was undressing for bed. Then she pulled them out of her pocket. The feather was still perfect, still glowing and throwing off shiny sparkles.

Thinking of Stella, she didn’t drive the beautiful quill into her own skin, not the shoulder for fairy wings, not the forearm for gryphon wings, and not the hand for dragon wings. Not even a foot, for some kind of mystery adventure.

But she also didn’t throw it away. She stood over the wastebasket with it in her hand until her mother tapped on the door, reminding her bedtime was past. Unable to drop the feather into the trash, she shoved it into the book. “Ok. Mom.”

She pushed the book into the back of her closet, under her winter boots and ice-skates, and firmly closed the door.

All night, she dreamed of flying.

Copyright © 2010 Deirdre M. Murphy

There's a sequel here.
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Please, leave me a comment below to let me know what you think.

in the runoff poll for the Rose and Bay fiction award, you need to do it right away--the poll closes sometime today! Probably well before Midnight CST, since the original poll closed earlier than I expected; I'm not sure what time zone esseme  is in!

The final poll for the 2011 Rose and Bay Fiction Award is here!

I'm very proud that both Fireborn and the Feather-Blessed Dragons made it into the final poll! 

Thank you to everyone who voted!