Words Take Flight Part 1.

As soon as Priya noticed the shadow cast over her page, she knew that she was busted. She didn’t dare look up at her father. There was no need to watch him losing patience with her, yet again.

Ari saw the paperback and snatched it out of her hands. He turned it over to read the blurb and made a face of disgust.

“A romance, Priya?” he snapped. Priya’s shoulder’s sagged as she sensed the lecture that was to follow.

“What is the point of me driving you half an hour across the city to study if you insist upon filling your head with this trash? It is your intention to apply to medical school at the end of the year, is it not? How do you expect to learn anything if you waste all of your time reading such meaningless fiction?”.

Reluctantly, Priya turned around to face the music.

“Take a breath, would you, daddy?”, she sighed, noticing that he was almost crimson with fury.

“What you need to understand is…”.

“Don’t you try and lecture me”, Ari snapped.

“This is what I think of your book and your excuses”.

With an angry flick of the wrist, Ari threw the book across the library. Priya watched on in horror as her lovely story slammed into a bookshelf and ricocheted diagonally downward. As it landed on top of the fireplace, ‘A Chivalrous Romance’ was swallowed up by the flames.

Priya gasped and then glared at her father.

“The librarians are not going to be happy with you”.

Ari, still in a state of shock did not reply. He would openly admit that he was a strict father, but Ari was only like that because he wanted the very best for Priya. Deep down he was a decent, law abiding man who wasn’t proud of what he had just done.

“I’ll compensate the library for their loss, of course”, he assured his daughter. Still not completely willing to swallow his pride Ari added, “though I have my doubts that the replacement will be expensive. Really, the library should be thanking me for ridding them of another frivolous love story”.

Priya shook her head, not caring in the least about compensation. As far as she was concerned, her father was responsible for the deaths of Sir Julian and Lady Josephine.

At first, there was a cloud of ash. Then, somehow the brave knight made his way out of the inferno. Still on top of his steed, Shadow, Sir Julian continued to gallop, unable to explain what had just happened or where he was going. Then, very unexpectedly, Shadow took flight. Julian fearfully grasped his reigns.

What on Earth was going on?

“What is happening, my love?”

Julian glanced over his shoulder. To his great surprise, Lady Josephine was sharing his saddle. Julian could not take his eyes off of her, and it wasn’t just because she was the love of his life. 

“Can I help you?”, Josephine asked, noticing that he was staring. 

“It’s your hair, Josie”, he explained finally. “I knew it was dark, of course, but today it looks less like ebony and more like a cloud of soot”. 

Lady Josephine held up one of her smoky tresses and smiled.

“So I have changed as well, then”.

Changed as well?

Julian looked back at Josephine blankly. What was that supposed to mean?

Josephine laughed. There was a good reason why she insisted upon going on quests with Julian. Her knight was chivalrous and could wield a sword like no other, but he also had a talent of missing what was right under his nose.

“Julian, in case you hadn’t noticed, Shadow is flying. We’re not in the Prismatic Kingdom anymore, and we are surrounded by these strangely coloured walls. Besides, my hair is perfectly ordinary compared to yours. You are glowing so brightly that you look like a flaming torch.

Julian looked upward and noticed the strange colouring at once. Unable to properly examine himself, he plucked a hair and then turned it over in his palm. Instead of a regular, ginger strand it was glowing like hot cinders and making a soft crackling sound that reminded the knight of a bonfire. Sir Julian closed his eyes and allowed himself exactly two seconds to panic. Then he pulled himself together and turned back to Josephine.

“No matter what happens, Josie, hold onto me and don’t let go. I’ll look after you, no matter what happens”.

Josephine could read the fear in his eyes. Even so, she smiled at him. 

“I know that you will”.

She didn’t mind that Julian was scared. The lady knew without a doubt if it was possible for the knight to do so, he would keep her safe. 

“Likewise”, she swore, wanting him to know that she also had his back, no matter what.

Julian smiled back.

“I know that you will”, he echoed. He couldn’t be in better hands than Josephine’s. Within her beat a heart worthy of any knight. With no way to stop Shadow spiralling upwards, the two of them held onto each other and hoped for the best.

“Daddy, what have you done?”

Ari stared at the billowing fireplace and paled. The room was quickly filling up with smoke, and yet it made no sense. Besides the ash covered ruin that had once been Priya’s book, nothing else was burning. 

“Who decides to build a fireplace in a library, anyway?” he snapped. Priya glared at Ari, still rugged up in his scarf and snow jacket and rolled her eyes.

Ding, ding, ding, ding.

Somebody had been sensible enough to set off the fire alarm. Priya heard the frantic footsteps around her but could not bring herself to move. Watching the smoke was fascinating; hypnotising. Ari rushed to his daughter’s side and noticed her wide, green eyes focused upwards.

“Priya. Priya, honey we have to get out of here”.

When his daughter did not respond, Ari shook her shoulders.

“Come on, Priya. We have to go now”. 

Priya remained unresponsive. Then, her jaw dropped.

“Do you see that?”, she exclaimed.

“See what?”, Ari asked. Then there was a scream. The poor head librarian who had come to fetch the pair took one glance at the scene and started running in the opposite direction.

“It’s not possible. I must be imagining things. I did not just read that”.

Ari turned to the fleeing librarian. Unable to understand what the fuss was about, he finally looked up and read the opening line in the sky. Once upon a time.

Priya did not know whether to be frightened or awestruck. Smoke hung so thick in the library’s rafters that she could read words in it. They were scrolling like the subtitles on a television screen, disappearing almost as soon as they appeared. While they were too quick for Priya to follow, she knew the story well enough to tell that Sir Julian was about to go questing to defeat the notorious Ridgeback Terror. When Priya read the words, dragon cave, her jaw dropped. Above her and to the right, she could actually see the cavern. Hiding within, she could just make out the flash of bright and terrified, amber eyes.

Lady Josephine gasped.

“Do you see that, Julian”.

Julian nodded. The cavern was impossible to miss. He was surprised that Josephine had not mentioned the strangest part; the fact that the knight riding towards it was himself.

“It must be a memory”, he remarked, unable to come up with another explanation.

“A memory?”.

Josephine then thumped him.

“Why would you remember that moment? I thought that I had set you straight about why you shouldn’t have hunted that dragon. Just because the Ridgeback frightened the townsfolk, didn’t make it right for them to chase him into that cave. His only crime was being himself. Were you even listening to me?”

Julian nodded. His lady had gotten her point across just fine.

“You chased me out of the cave, remember? You persuaded me enough to convince the King to make dragon hunting illegal throughout the kingdom. Yes, I was listening. Besides, the memory isn’t mine. I don’t think that it is, anyway”.

Fascinated, the two of them looked down and relived their spirited argument as they watched their shadow selves act out the scene. Time must have sped up for suddenly the scene had changed. Sir Julian was suddenly on his knees, offering the Lady Josephine a bouquet of wildflowers and begging her forgiveness.

“Sickening”, Ari remarked. Except for reading the classics, he considered escapism to be a waste of time. It was much better to read educational books with lessons that could be carried with you everywhere. With his daughter standing firm, Ari’s only options were to drag Priya to the exit or watch this sickening scene play out. If Priya had been seven instead of seventeen, he would have chosen the first option without hesitation.

Ari continued to watch the endless stream of words, and the flashes of chivalric nonsense acted out in front of him. As he endured quest after meaningless quest, followed by the knight proposing to his lady in a room filled with candles, his mind started to wander. Then, Ari noticed something strange. Was that the lady dressing up in her knight’s armour?

“No. NO!”.

Poor Priya, who hadn’t gotten up to that part of the book started to shriek. 

“Don’t do it, Josephine. Don’t go and meet Sir Robert. He is going to kill you, I am certain of it”.

Ari turned to his daughter for an explanation.

“I don’t get it. Who is this Robert character and why is she dressing up to meet him?”

Priya struggled to answer for she had started to cry.

“Robert and Julian used to be friends. They used to hunt for dragons together before it became illegal. Robert lived far beyond his means, so he had racked up quite a debt that he had to pay. No longer able to pay using the dragon bounties, Sir Robert lost everything, even though he is trying to hide it from everybody. The last that I read, Robert invited Julian for a visit in their home town, but it is a trap. Nobody knows it yet, but Robert is after his revenge. He wants to kill Sir Julian”.

“That poor woman”, Ari remarked before scolding himself. He hadn’t just cared about what was happening to a fictional character, had he?

“I was so scared when I woke up, and you were nowhere to be found”, remarked Julian. “What were you thinking? To go after Robert on your own was completely insane”.

“Maybe”, Josephine sighed. “At the time I thought that I was being rational”. While the lady hadn’t gathered enough evidence to know for sure, she had learned enough about Robert to be suspicious of him and his new associates. The leader of the Shadow League had put out a bounty on her husband’s head, and she had little doubt that Robert intended to claim the prize. With Sir Julian was more skilled with a sword, the poor knight had hurt his shoulder on his last quest. Perhaps Josephine should have told Julian everything, but at the time she had thought it wiser to keep the former friends away from each other for as long as possible. The best plan that Josephine had come up with was to reason with the corrupt knight and enlist his help to withdraw the bounty and stop the evil that they had once all sworn to oppose. As much as it hurt her to keep her husband in the dark, Josephine could not risk him entering into a duel that he could not win.

Terrified, Josephine rode up to Robert’s cottage, prepared to give up her own freedom and perhaps her life in exchange for keeping Julian safe.

End of part one.