Tag: hearthorne

The Curious Leaf: Voyage to the Sea 005

TCL#2 Cover“Where I come from, people help each other because it is the right thing to do, not because there is payment involved.”

“How little you know of the mortals you lived among,” Hearthorne said.

Kya shook her head. “I saw for myself, the many times my keeper helped those who came knocking and had nothing to pay her with.”

“You’re thinking too small,” Hearthorne said. “Even the mortals are wise enough to do what they can to keep the balance of their Realm from tipping too far one way or the other. There are plenty of despots and kings, plenty who harm without thinking or those who find joy in it. The mortals like your keeper are simply evening out the balance. Just because she took no reward doesn’t mean there was no debt left to be paid.”

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The Curious Leaf: Voyage to the Sea 004

TCL#2 CoverThe sight made Kya want to run and scream, cry and rage, hide and forget. Instead, she took a tentative step forward.

Then another.

And another.

“May I?” she asked, holding out her hand. Though she had been a flower of repute so small that she’d only mattered to her keeper, the greenlife and knowing was stored deep within her roots—for all that she’d left them behind for a pair of wings and a beautiful ship.

The sea gave Kya a wary look, a wounded creature that would bite the hand trying to mend and heal, like as not. But she couldn’t think of teeth right now—no matter how fierce or sharp. All she could focus on was the pain of the sea’s wound.

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The Curious Leaf: Voyage to the Sea 002

TCL#2 CoverKya watched with horror. Her wings were soaked, and even if she could fly, they would become little more than tatters of color streaming out from her back in a storm such as this.

She reached out as a streak of silver went tumbling past her, and managed to catch hold of it before Hearthorne fell away. She cradled the bowl to her chest and looked desperately for a place to wait out the storm. Now that she wasn’t holding on to anything, she fell and tumbled with the motions of the ship and the storm until Kya wasn’t sure which way was up or down.

Eventually, she made it to the small hatch on the deck. The door had come open, and was straining at its hinges as it flapped in the wind. Clutching Hearthorne, Kya half fell, half climbed her way down the ladder.

Water boiled up to her calves when she splashed to the bottom, and she wrinkled her nose against the stench of the saltwater.

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The Curious Leaf: Voyage to the Sea 001

TCL#2 CoverKya stood at the helm of The Curious Leaf, her face drawn and pensive as she stared out into a sea of charcoal clouds.

“You’re afraid,” Hearthorne said from her silver pot.

“I don’t like the look of these clouds,” Kya said. As if to underscore her words, a strand of lightning flashed in the distance. The clouds grumbled peevishly among themselves, ready and mutinous.

“Have a little faith. It would take more than a mere storm to sink a faerie vessel.” Hearthorne gazed out at the sky with open appreciation. She had always loved the moments leading up to a good storm—when the air fizzed with the magic of the sylphs and storm sprites. “But I wasn’t talking about the storm.”

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