Fantasy: Caylin's Power

The girl’s power was incredible; Jealy didn’t know how she had survived doing everyday normal chores. Clearly these humans had a determination she had never thought about. But there was a reason for investigating this child of the earth, this Caylin.

Jealy’s homeland was dying. Her own home had always been in the field out the back of the inn, sleeping with the cattle and sharing what little warmth she could take and give with the sheep’s wool, and so she knew the land like it was her mother. But it was rumbling now, making the innkeepers’ wives tremble with fear as she shared the meal and gossip in the kitchen.

All this had led to being found in the kitchen one day by the baron of that area, and taken to the front of the inn to converse, over a cup of tea in her case (two sugars, milk), and a tankard of ale in the Baron’s son’s (the usual, thanks). He talked to her of the earth prophecy; of a heroine who would come at the time of trouble. He talked to her of how he knew she knew the earth well enough to pass as the Earth Mother. Jealy had known what he was hinting at, and had shaken her head. He’d stopped.

She’d told him what she knew of the prophecy; how the heroine would come from Dernley, a village nearby. Jealy had been born in another world, so it could not be her. She refrained from telling Aaron this. Humans didn’t like Otherworlders, that much she knew from past experiences. It messed their whole system up.

Aaron understood this, and asked her to find the heroine in her travels, to train her and to train her in the ways of the earth. Jealy had been travelling to Dernley next anyway, and agreed. She wished she could have gone back to Ohnea to tell them her tale, but she was forbidden from the other world.

But brooding on the past wasn’t good for her task, so Jealy glanced out the window the girl’s confused family had given her. The stone had spoken to her, and it was a fairly cheerful family she had come to. They worked the earth with steadfastness and a need to survive, but were kind, and did not overwork the land or the creatures. Caylin was not beautiful, but had a kind of air about her that made her pretty. And she smiled a lot.

As far as Jealy had discerned, a lad from the village was courting her. A nice lad, but an orphan. The Journeyer reckoned he was an Otherworlder, like her, but kept quite about this. The magic he could possess might be dangerous… or helpful.

Caylin was most definitely the figure in the prophecy. Her hands were capable of more than she used them for, but she was content farming the land.

Science Fiction: Eliza and Jilk

My mother needed a sci-fi story in 150 words or more, so I wrote an example for her students. SHe never used it though, but she said it was good. :D

The catlike alien watched the human girl sing to herself. He watched Eliza look at him without fully taking him in. He watched the tears. Stepping out to sit on her left, Jilk threw out a hello to the despondent kid.

She smiled slightly, and ignored the sound of a ship starjumping in, as she was used to it as part of her daily life on her native planet, Earth. She pulled out a fruit bar and broke it in half, offering one piece to her new friend. The Naian sniffed his, then commented that one never got good, real-tasting food those days.

She smiled again, and agreed wordlessly. Jilk nodded, and bit his silently. After a time, filled with awkward silence, Eliza blurted out her name. Jilk replied with his own, thus enlarging this into a conversation that went on for several hours before the mosquitoes descended.

Their lives together would become known across the galaxy, and, eventually, further.