Arlakai cocked her head towards one of Lotsrianna’s moons. There were three, but Gaykon was the largest, and possessed the most beautiful moonset, casting blues, greens, and teals across the sky.

            There was a rustle in a bush again. Using keen hearing inborn for all Lakunei, she could tell that it was not a large creature, most likely a bush rat that lived in the arid land.

            However, large or not, it was still food, and she knew it would be more than welcome back in the village. It was the height of summer, and the rainforest, the tribe’s main food source, was not safe during that season. The desert animals fled to the jungle to escape the heat, and threatened all human life there.

            Arlakai suddenly made a throwing motion, and the bush rat fell out of the shrub, a knife embedded in it.

            She smiled, satisfied with her kill. It wasn’t much, but it was fatty and tender, a delicacy of the Lakunei. She, of course, got the larger cut, but after that it was distributed evenly to the other women in the tribe. Of course, the men got food, too, but only if there was no woman at the hearth. That was the way of life in her village. The women hunted and made decisions. The men cooked and crafted. It was the natural order of things in a world where the female species rules, with very few exceptions.

            Even the gods of Lotsrianna followed the same pattern. The ruling Goddess was known for her wrath against men who step out of place.

            Arlakai stuffed the bush rat into her pouch. If only her mother could see her. But that was a fact of life that would also never change.

            There was another rustle, and Arlakai quickly swung her staff toward the source of the sound: the jungle. There was more rustling. After what seemed a lifetime, a lion stepped out. No, a lioness, she realized as the creature inched closer. She must smell my bush rat!

            Her eyes widened in fear.

            And that means me.

Chapter I still...
Mood:  don't ask

A jet of water pushed forward in the heated lake as Istria Olcine swam for her life, long dark hair streaming behind her. Creatures that lived in the lake system of Itherran could grow to great size, since the lake system circled the entire planet, and since Istria’s grandmother had died, no one knew what lie no the other side, what monsters were bred there.

She gathered water behind her again, and used it to propel herself forward. Water magic was a particular great ability of hers, along with a dose of fire and air magic. With just a twist of her mind, she could communicate with water, and control it. By necessity, water and fire magic had grown into the tribes and villages of her people. Without it, they would never have been able to survive on a world their ancestors could only have feared in vain.

Itherran had once been a lush, green world covered mainly in ocean. Then, about forty thousand years ago, a comet had passed so close to Itherran that it had dragged the planet from its ideal orbit to a more frigid one. The planet had frozen and become cold, hard ice. The comet had another effect on the planet, though; the core was hyperactive, and the churning magma traversed in burning rivers in beds deep beneath the earth. Many of these rivers were close enough to the surface that hot spots formed where lakes and rivers had once been, reheating them so that they melted, and heating the water to comfortable, very warm temperatures. By the grace that the Gods had protected Itherran, its atmosphere also remained, making life possible again for the humans who had used stone magic and tunneled deep into the earth. It also made life possible for the newly formed world-wide lake system, creating huge creatures and many varieties of plant.

Istria’s ancestors had fled to the waters. This was why water magic was so important; without it, people would drown while traversing the space between surface villages, lakebed villages, and underground cave villages. Water magic kept the water out of artificial earth caves, protected the air bubble circling around water bed villages, and allowed water mages to gather food from the depths.

Creatures did live above the surface besides humans, except they were terrible, evil creatures born of the remnants of an ancient enemy that had nearly conquered the entire world before the comet had arrived. Istria and her people only knew of this because Granna had traveled there when she was Istria’s age, and seen them first hand.

Istria often retold her grandmother’s stories, adding stories of her own that the local children loved to listen to. Those original stories weren’t actually original, but if she told anyone that she knew these other places were real, she would be executed for blasphemy and insanity….

Through her water magic, she suddenly felt a great push from behind her, and looked around just in time to see a great hook rush to meet her, as she screamed.

Chapter I....AGAIN!
Mood:  on fire

Vossius Sslarren snapped his powerful jaws around the tronto, which sputtered, forked tongue lashing out, before falling limp.

He bared his teeth in pleasure. The tronto would make a fine meal for his sslorrens.

Even though the Sstass were naturally water-loving creatures, they still hadn’t lost a love for dry land, and so made entire villages in the giant trees that were found throughout the worldwide swamp.

Most of Ecloircdo was covered with swamps and marsh, with the exception of the equatorial band, which was blistering desert, and the poles, giant frozen masses. In fact, one large ocean ran through so many continental river beds that some said there was no land, and others argued that there was no ocean.

Vos, however, knew there was an ocean. He’d been there, and he’d seen what lie beneath its emerald surface. He had traveled there, a year ago, pretending to do research for a book he was ready to begin (in reality he’d finished it already through his trance-state). In actuality, he’d really just wanted to see the center of life magic that flowed throughout Ecloircdo. Wherever the water ran, life thrived, sucking energy and depositing ‘bad’ energy. In the end, though the water could not flow there, all negative energy ended up in the desert. There, monsters were born, and a legendary stronghold of evil existed. However, negative energy technically could deposit anywhere, and it often did, in very small doses. Occasionally, though, a rather large dose would be deposited and a monster created. Vos was just glad that the worlds he had visions of and wrote books about didn’t deal with that.

            As those thoughts shot through his keen mind, his connection to the water shifted as something shot through the marsh at lightning speed, wrapping around his legs as he cried out in shock and alarm, before he was pulled down under the surface by a mass of swirling tentacles.

Yup, it's still Chapter I
Mood:  flirty

Freyvel huffed as she pounded after the rabbit. She could have caught it fairly easily, but just now she wasn’t too hungry. Mainly, because of the news she’d just heard.

Khaien was a peaceful forest world, on the whole. But every few decades, the Twisted One would come back, slaughtering Vixrene cities.

He had reappeared.

Freyvel had learned of it only that day, in the city of Hafren. This time, though, the leading council had decided to take action instead of ignoring the slaughter as long as it escaped them. This was where Freyvel came in. Despite being only seventeen, not quite adult by Vixrene standards, she had been called into service.

“I’m not a warrior,” she told herself. ‘I’m a falice, a storyteller. A chronologist.”

Early on, Freyvel had shown an interest in storytelling. She had begun to create her own, eventually, and they gained in popularity. Bards had even come to her, asking for stories they could sing.

Freyvel had a secret, though, and it was only due to a natural magic gift in weather that she had escaped suspicion.

But despite those, there was nothing out of the ordinary about Freyvel. Like most Vixrene, she was tall and slender, her back a good three feet off the ground. Her fur was a ruddy red color, her were pointed, here eyes were green, and she had two black-tipped bushy tails.

There was a rustle in a nearby bush, and her eyes widened. She jumped in the air and flipped onto a nearby rock as the creature in the bush barked and snarled.

“Oh no,” she muttered. “No…”

It was a wolf-demon. Once close relatives to the Vixrene, the entire race had turned. Only the Vixrene, with feline blood flowing through their veins, had escaped the pull of the Twisted One’s call. All the fully canine went willingly.

The wolf smiled evilly, and advanced until Freyvel was trapped in a natural rock corner.

            Oh no…

Chapter I
Mood:  hungry

Allarra Flamewing sighed and flicked the flame in the candle back and forth. The fire didn't burn her; she was part phoenix after all, which although rare wasn't unheard of in the world of Escelon. Magical creatures would occasional bond, or pliet, with a human and through a magical bond produce 'offspring', called plietti. Phoenix's were particularly choosy about those they bonded with, since the firebirds were naturally quite vain, and justly so. This made Allarra's past all the more fascinating, seeing as she didn't know any of it.
            She had been abandoned on the footsteps of an orphanage as a newborn infant. After inherent fire abilities had been revealed, as well as other Gifts, the small orphanage had mustered its resources to send her to the Academy, where she lived and trained all year round. It wasn't just being a rare plietti that was her claim to fame there, though, it was her music.
            Phoenixes are creatures of song, not just fire. Their call can instill courage in the hearts of even the meekest, and light the night sky afire. No phoenix voice has ever been heard that was an ugly one, and Allarra was no different. Her song also had unusual qualities. At about the age of eight, she had begun making up songs about different worlds, and over time she had begun to realize she wasn't making them up. She simply knew them to be, applied melody, and somehow people would flock to listen. The tales told of intrigue, war, affairs, discovery, and family. She had started off with the history of these worlds, but over time she realized that her songs were becoming more and more recent along the time line, and all tied in somehow, closer together, the ones from the same world. But most often she had 'dreams' of a sort about a barren volcanic and yet icy world, two mediums existing impossibly in the same space.
            On a happier note, though, most of her other stories were much happier, despite tragic events throughout. The people in the story always seemed to come out on top of whatever evil was happening. However, what was curious was that in every world, including her own beloved Escelon, evil always sprang up again. Always. It constantly drove Allarra crazy, but she knew that she was stuck here in her own universe, and even though she knew secrets about the enemy she would never have the chance to tell the members of the worlds she had come to know so well. The worlds she had come to realize were named Chemina, Ecloircdo, Tarcenu, Itherran, Khaien, and Lotsrianna.
            She jumped as the door to her room opened, and a small boy from the younger classes timidly poked a head full of mousy, unkempt brown hair in.
            "Pliettria?" the boy asked, his voice quavering. "I've been told to tell you it's time for the nightly observing."
            Allarra sighed inwardly, knowing why he was so scared of her. Not many people feel very comfortable around a girl with hair that shifted from bright orange to bright red in different light embedded with small downy feathers, amber eyes that could also shift to orange, and the fact that her skin was very pale in contrast. That she knew she had gotten from her mother at least, as well as a lean figure, and small height.
            "Thank you," she told the boy kindly, and he seemed to calm down a bit. "Will you tell them that I will be there as soon as I can finish this chapter? I've only got a little left to do."
            The boy nodded and ran, seemingly for his life.

Allarra sighed and twiddled with a feather in her hair. She often had that effect on people, despite a kind disposition, although she may come off as harsh to her friends. She looked down at her work.  She sang her favorite stories, but she had many, many more that she had never shown anyone. They were for her enjoyment alone. She shoved the parchment into a drawer in her desk and walked out of her room, shutting the door as she went.

There were creatures from his army loose in Utiel, the capital city of Namien, the country in which she lived. Terrible creatures, and despite the nightly ritual of Observation of the stars to scry and meditate, going was dangerous. The boy surely had numerous magical protections on him, or they would have sent a full warrior.

As she began to climb the first staircase, she heard a snarl behind her, and her world began to fade away as she fell against the smooth limestone