Tragedy said nothing for several minutes, she was trying to remember who Djana the dark was, she couldn't remember having ever heard of her, but she didn't like to ask because she thought Nohna had probably told her during lessons and would be disappointed that Tragedy didn't remember. Tragedy had a notoriously poor memory and it caused her a lot of embarrassment and she had developed ingenious ways of faking her way through situations like this, but finally she had to ask, "Okay Nohna. Who is Djana the Dark? I'm sure she must be someone very important and very evil and I suppose you are about to tell me that I have set in motion the end of the world or something. Hmmph!! And my parents always said I would never amount to anything."
"Huh? What?" Asked Nohna who had drifted off into her own reveries, "Oh no Tragedy, no, no. Nothing like that! Djana is a pain in the ass, that's for sure, but she isn't all that important."
"Says you!" snarled Joy from the corner.
"Oh shut up, Twit!" snapped Nohna.
Tragedy screwed up her face very unattractively and stared very rudely at Nohna. It was a facial expression equivalent of being flipped off. She was tired and getting grumpy and she just wanted to be told what was happening without having to drag it out of Nohna.
"Oh Tragedy! Out with it, what is it that you want to know?" Nohna was getting crabby too, she was overwhelmed by the thought of everything that she was going to have to do in order to get ready.
"Well, excuse me if I can't understand your vague mutterings. I could start reading your mind if you're too lazy to talk. Do you want me to start reading your mind? Because that's what I'll have to do if you aren't more clear. You'll leave me no other choice." Trinity had jumped up and was angrily glaring at Nohna. She knew very well that if she read Nohna's mind that it would give Nohna a splitting headache and that Nohna wouldn't want her to.
Joy started to giggle. "Oh, will you shut up!" screeched Tragedy and she flung a piece of bread at Joy which hit her in the forehead leaving a big glob of butter. Tragedy had gotten to a point where she no longer thought of this thing as her sister or she wouldn't have done that.
Nohna started to snicker and Tragedy paused stunned, then yelled in mock anger, "Shut up! Or I'll throw my stew on you!" Nohna friskily tossed an apple through the air and bounced it off of Joy's head. Nohna and Tragedy both began laughing hysterically and it might have turned into a food fight if Brian had not arrived home at just that moment, sending all of the straw in the roof fluttering. Gasping for breath, tears rolling down their faces, Tragedy and Nohna went staggering out to greet him leaving Joy to sulk.
"Okay, Tragedy. I'm all yours. Tell me what it is that you want to know." Nohna said after they had settled down. They had explained to Brian why they were laughing and he feigned to be too sophisticated to find such antics funny; but he looked through the window for them and told them that the butter was still stuck onto Joy's forehead, that she hadn't wiped it off yet . Not only that, but there was a piece of apple on top of her head and Joy looked really stupid trying to be fierce with an apple fragment on top of her head. This sent them into fresh hysterics at which Brian pretended to be displeased.
Eventually, Nohna was able to settle down and tell Tragedy who Djana was. Djana, it seemed, had been a well-loved wizard who had sent herself into oblivion doing unapproved spellwork and had never been able to find her way back. Tragedy had opened up the way for her to come back by performing her glamour-off. Djana had been the only wizard ever, until Tragedy to earn the fealty of all 4 kingdoms of elementals.
"Djana had been much loved for her kindness but her spell work was atrocious. She couldn't cast a spell to save her life! Everything that she did turned out wrong somehow. And she came from a long line of powerful magicians, that was what made it so hard to understand.. No-one knew quite what to make of it, she seemed to have no magical aptitude whatsoever. People actually ran when they thought she might begin to cast a spell. For her spells never turned out the way they were meant to, but for some reason could not be set right, that was the only thing that was strong about them is that they could not be fixed. You will see several magicians tomorrow who were victims of her ineptitude. Her spells were very silly...try not to laugh!"
"Eventually, they had no choice but to ban her from doing magic. So, when the elementals came forth to offer their allegiance everyone was shocked and didn't know what to make of it. There were many long discussions about this as this was an unheard of thing and needed to be made sense of."
"I'm afraid that some people were rather hard on poor Djana, jealous of course. For everyone was a better magician than her and yet she was the one who received this honor. Some cruel things were said. Some of these things got back to her. And Djana was very sensitive and she took these things hard and she was helped in this by someone who was not good for her."
"Djana had a cousin, Emele was her name and she was one of the best magicians of our time. And Emele was enchanted by Djana. Djana was everything that she wasn't. Djana was a beautiful girl, Emele was plain; well not simply plain...ugly would be it. But Emele was smart... she was so smart! She felt that this should make up for her plainness. But Djana always had all of the attention though because of her beauty and it really wasn't right. This made Emele become cynical and bitter."
"Because Emele had more talent than all of us. Only thing is, she was so mean. Oh was she mean, and she became even meaner! Everyone was afraid of her, except for Djana, she was always kind to Djana. But when Djana was honored by the elementals this finally caused Emele to come loose. She began to hate Djana as well as love her, maybe she had already hated her."
"Her love became strange, with hidden knives inside it. She began to toy with Djana, to become sadistic. She was the one who made sure that Djana knew what people were saying about her. She did her best to make Djana feel that everyone was laughing at her and that no-one respected her. Djana began to spend all of her time with Emele, to avoid other people who she only felt uncomfortable around."
"Then she offered to help Djana, to teach her to do magic properly. She was able to invoke an amulet to protect her from the ill-effects of Djana's spells so that she wouldn't end up with an arm growing out of her forehead or something ridiculous like that, though that would certainly have been an improvement on her looks. No-one knows what her intentions were, whether she intended to help Djana or if she was operating out of revenge. She knew that Djana was forbidden to use magic. Though Emele would have been chastised for her part in it, Djana was the one who would recieve the punishment."
"As Emele was so talented, she actually began to help Djana. Djana actually became able to do some rudimentary spells without mishap. Then came the spell that wax the end of them both. At least the end of them as they had been known."
"Which spell was that?" Tragedy wanted to know.
"A Glamour-off," replied Nohna.
"Just kidding!" Nohna chuckled in response to Tragedy's horrified gasp. "I'll get to that in a minute dear!"
"None of Djana's mishaps had ever really hurt anyone, they were actually quite funny as long as you weren't the recipient. Perhaps this lulled them into a false sense of security. For a beckoning is a spell that is normally easy to perform, only due to Djana's 'problem' the potential for mishap was there. As you know, one needs to use precautions in dealing with the dead."
A beckoning as Tragedy knew, was a spell in which the spirit of one who was dead could be beckoned and then made to answer questions. The power of the spirit beckoned was dependent upon the stregnth of the magician casting the spell. A beckoning is quite fun, for the living as well as the dead. "
On the night of a full moon, Djana, Emele and Persepha went deep into the woods to perform the beckoning."
"Who is Persepha anyway?" asked Tragedy.
"Persepha is Djana's lover," replied Nohna.
"Djana had a female lover?" asked Tragedy, intrigued.
"Okay, actually her name was Persepho until Djana accidentally changed him into a woman when one of her spells went awry. They began calling him Persepha in order to avoid awkward questions."
"Oh, I see," replied Trinity bemused.
"Of course, this would explain why she is so bitter and slightly insane, plus....I think she has a crush on you!" chuckled Nohna wryly.
5 comments:
I love fantasy. You have the language down pat. Now is this part of a greater story? I thought you said so before.
I hope that Djana comes back to haunt her tormentors. She sounds like an interesting character, kind of like a phoenix who can at any momment rise from ashes.
You are doing fine, and by the way, sometime I'll tell you about the JW's. Maybe later tonight. There is so much to talk about, since it was my upbringing.
No, I am deffinitely not one anymore, even though I believe in God. My faith is something that can give me stregth or cause me to doubt. But it is important to have, especially when things get out of control.
(1) Joy's buttered forehead has provided the biggest laugh of this story. I'm wondering though, if truncating the comedy might might focus the story back to freeing Djana more clearly.
(3) Just to recap, Joy's in a magical bind to keep her from swatting the elementals, or doing any more harm. She has taken on Persepha's spirit, which is bent on freeing Djana.
I have some guesses as to where you're heading with this, but I'm going to keep them to myself. After all, this is your story.
Eric-The enire story is on this blog, starting in March. I used to have another blog and innocently thought that no-one could read it at work. It was called Diana's mixed episodes. When I found out that people could read it, I shut it down and transferred all of the Tragedy stories to this one and started over. That's why skinny little blonde can't get into my blog anymore. Take your time about JW. I've known different people whose family were involved in that and it's alwys been interesting to me. Many of them feel that they were in an abusive situation but there is a woman in the town I'm from and her family is. They are such nice people that it's made me more open-minded. I mean, I'll never believe that, but each to his own. These people do not try to convince anyone, they don't judge anyone. They are very down-to-earth and easy to talk to. They are very nice. they are also very good about thier daughters having a normal life. The girls are very popular, which is unusual in that town. I mean for someone different to be popular. they are both good athletes and my sister says they play soccer in long culottes.
X-(1)I printed out my story and read it as a whole and one of the things that I need to change when I rewrite it is that the humorous tone is not consistent throughout. I switch back and forth to being really serious and then being silly. I will somehow need to put the two together more seamlessly.
But it was put into this segment to emphasize the surprise. When I left off it was really serious and seemed that it was going to go the way of your average scifi with the characters all battling evil and I didn't want this. That's why I stopped writing it for such a long time, because I didn't want that same old theme and I had written myself into a corner by leaving my last chapter with Nohna saying that Tragedy had unleashed Djana the dark. So, I finally found a way around it. It's like a surprise that hopefully takes you into the opposite direction of where you thought it was going. Brought the humor back. It seems that will be my challenge in this story, to find a way to balance the humor. I think that the humor is one of the best parts of the story but you can't maintain that tone through an entire story, it's too much. So, when I drift into the more serious parts I need to keep it a little lighter somehow so it doesn't seem so jerky.
(2)Yes, Joy is in a bind to keep her from harming anyone.
(3)I don't even know where I am going with this. I have several stories planned out in their entirety in my head, but this one, I never know what is going to happen until I start writing.
this is fun stuff. it makes me want to read more fantasy - go Tragedy!
Benji-thanks. I will definitaely make it possible for you to read more.
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