Grief

 I don't know how you feel.

I have no words that will fix everything

but I can tell you how I feel.

Grief is a hole ripped out of your heart

and if you place your eye to the hole

you see yourself

staked to the center of an empty universe.

When life becomes normal it is still a minefield

of innocent words,

innocent moments

that trigger an ambush from your emotions.

They pull off scabs and leave wounds

raw, open, bleeding like brand new.

Which emotions? Good or bad?

I can't tell. I'm too busy

trying to wipe my nose unnoticed.

I used to think of Hope as a bright flame

that warms your soul and drives away the shadows.

Sometimes that is true,

but even when not, hope is a bulldog's teeth

that cling to Truth and do not let go.

In each ambush I feel storms rage

and I know I could be crushed,

torn apart by their fury,

but my teeth are still set

and I cannot be blown away.

The Legend of Aiyana

Posted by Christie V Powell on July 13, 2016 at 10:25 PM

This is a legend told in Spritelands to warn young Sprites of the dangers of humans. It is referenced in The Spectra United (Keita's Wings book 2).

Once upon a time, a young Sprite girl called Aiyana lived with her family on the coast of what is now Lectranis. She was a natural healer, and her parents did everything to get her the very best trainers. However, her training was halted when her parents died in a winter storm. A neighboring Lectran family took her in, and though they were not cruel they did not love her. Though Sprites do not usually eat, she was required to find food for her new family.

 

One day Aiyana spied a dark shape out at sea. She had not heard of the humans, who had arrived on a similar vessel years earlier and built a small settlement further north. This ship had blown off course and landed far from the others. Aiyana watched the strange, Spectra-like creatures land, but because her village insisted that the humans be left alone, she did not approach. Still, she often stopped on her daily forages by the sea to look at them.

 

Aiyana soon discovered that the humans were doing poorly. Ill equipped for surviving alone, many caught diseases and perished. When winter approached, Aiyana knew they would not survive. She abandoned the laws of her village and offered her assistance to the humans. The humans were amazed as she healed them, one by one. She taught them to feed themselves by gathering food from the sea, as she had done for her Lectran family. The human colony survived, and in gratitude gave their settlement their version of her name, Hanan. Eventually Aiyana moved in with them, using a small abandoned cabin as her own.

 

The news of Hanan's magical healer spread. Many sick people visited, and she healed them all. Even today, the poor and ill are treated well in Hanan, now a bustling human city. But one group of men saw opportunity while others saw healing. They laid in wait, deciding to catch the young Sprite and take her overseas, perhaps collecting money for her healing in the land over the water. They tangled her in immense nets and threw her into a cage with mesh bars so tiny that she could not escape. She called for help, but her human friends, those neighbors she trusted and healed, served and protected, would not hear. Her captors took her aboard a ship and she was never seen again.

 

After her abduction, and many other attacks, the Sprites abandoned humans completely, disappearing into their forests with strict rules to avoid all human contact. The other clans followed, until today when few humans know that Spectra exist. But take caution, for their cages and their ships are still ready.