A Trip to Angmaan

In August, we announced a fan, Viki, won a contest on our Facebook page. We are SO excited to present the scene to you.

We made a character in her likeness (roughly, based on a few details and her quiz results) and added in her cat. She picked Talise and Eshne to go to Angmaan with her. Angmaan is across ocean from the Dells, akin to going from Spain (the Dells) to New York (Angmaan). Viki has water and wicca magics. She chose Talise as the POV.

We look forward to holding more contests in the near future. Winners can watch us work OR write with us.

Congratulations, Viki. We hope you enjoy your scene!

Sunny weather was life. Angmaan touted their tolerability, the way air fairies moved a breeze through the bazaar, the way water fairies kept the heat at bay and the humidity low, fire fairies warmed the night, earth did something.

Talise wasn’t entirely sure what earth did, but they were common in Angmaan.
Separated from the Dells by an ocean, Angmaan was the port of the realm. Esh had met a new girl, Viki, and the market was theirs. Not really, because Talise hated political stuff and actually doing negotiations and treaties. Talise loved negotiations in theory more.

The three of them, Talise’s fox familiar Julius, and Viki’s cat familiar Nickalys, made their way into the heart of the market. Vendors flanked their sides, booths full of silken scarves and sheep horns adorned wood tables and drapery pseudo-walls.

Talise tried not to think about what the proper name for the walls were, at risk of becoming like her dad. In the process of avoidance, she almost ran into someone.

“Pearls! Freshwater, saltwater, and even from the brine in between. Get your pearls!” She leaned closer to Talise, her yeasty breath encompassed Talise’s senses. “How about a fine strand of pearls for ya lovely neck.”

The woman’s fingers slipped from beneath an evergreen cloak and lifted toward Talise’s collar, almost tracing. Talise’s skin sparked and the woman’s fingers recoiled into the sleeve.

Esh gave the woman a look, which almost embarrassed Talise, except the woman deserved it. Viki had taken a step ahead of them, a smart move given the toxicity of the woman’s breath. Talise and Esh joined her, and they continued through the market.

“We should go get our own pearls and sell them cheaper,” Talise joked.

“No, we should sell them for more,” Esh insisted. “They’re ours, that makes them special.”

Talise rolled her eyes at Esh, who somehow had decided she was amazing, despite no unique treatment growing up. “The point is to annoy her.”

Esh stared at Talise, motionless in the middle of the dusty walkway.

“Look at these!” Viki said from a table.

Talise broke eye contact from Esh and looked over at the table.

Inside were enchanted jellyfish, magicked to stay alive inside a glass tomb, where they would glow for years. Talise picked up a purple one. “Wow.”

Esh eyed a few of them, then moved on toward an adjacent vendor that had piles of bracelets and rings, the sorts of things Esh pretended she liked and never wore.

Just as Talise turned back toward her own purple jellyfish, she saw Julius’s tale flick under the table. Talise set her hands on the cloth, the glass secured in one hand, to prevent Julius’s bushy orange and white tale from pulling the cloth with him.

Her skin prickled pink, but no one seemed to notice.

Except the vendor, whose eyes narrowed toward her.

“Nice,” Esh commented. She scooted back to their table, a pile of silver and gold bracelets along her arm. She looker down where Julius’s tale had vanished and the cloth from the table sagged lower.

Esh picked up a smaller orb, the size of a Deller. “You should get one of those on a collar, for Nickalys to wear. Then he can always be chasing fish.”

Talise and Viki laughed, and the queen of whatever Esh was seemed pleased. Esh set the orb down, instead of buying it. “He hates it, obviously. Everyone knows cats hate fish.”

“You break you buy,” the vendor exclaimed.

Talise tried not to move, even though she was startled. She looked up at the vendor. “I didn’t break it.”

The vendor had a mix of silver and white hair, pulled back from her face. Her skin was tanned from years of selling, and a small breeze flowed with her words: air magic.

“We didn’t break it,” Talise insisted.

The woman shook her head. “Is very fragile.”

“It’s fine,” Talise pressed. “See?” Talise lifted the piece toward the woman, who took it from her hands more forceful than anything Talise or Esh had done to it.

The three waited, mostly the two because Esh was busy with her nails, until the saleswoman looked down at them. “It’s chipped.”

“Dogs!” Esh exclaimed. “That’s what cats hate.” Esh handed the woman some money. “You suck. Nobody broke anything but your ego.”

The woman scowled as she counted the coins Esh had passed over.

Julius peeked from under the table and growled. They all turned to see a guy, scanning the jellyfish.

He looked at them and raised his eyebrows, then continued scanning the table like he was interested, without actually touching anything.

The vendor scowled at him too. “You have to buy or go.”

The guy replied, but they had already left the booth and Talise was fixated on a stringed instrument, something that sounded hollow but uplifting, all at the same time.

“Hello.”

Talise and Viki turned, while Esh tried to pull them along. The guy from the booth was standing there, grinning. “Any of you delicious ladies interest in some broiled scrog?” He waggled his eyebrows and kept the grin plastered on his summer bronzed skin.

Talise tried not to glower. “You know, you could be arrested for killing scrog.”

She sounded like a snooty teenager instead, awesome.

Talise lowered her voice and turned to Esh. “Where did he even get them?”

“They’re small,” Esh said, observing nothing. “Probably lobster claws.”

“I was addressing the girl in glasses,” the guy retorted.

“Not interested,” Talise responded for Viki.

Viki looked at the guy, in a blue tunic top and grey pants. His belt was intricate muted greys, blues, and greens. His hair was short, shaggy, brown. He was okay, but he was also offering scrog claws which meant he knew they were from the Dells, or was an idiot. If he was an idiot, he was also likely a spy or working with a spy.

Talise didn’t panic, but she did eye some light sweater tops from a nearby stand and sighed in resignation: today was not her day.

Nickalys sniffed the guy, his cat body rubbed along the guy’s legs.

Viki called Nickalys back and told the guy she wasn’t interested.

“Your loss,” he said as he turned to go.

“Hey! Loser!” Esh souted. “Where’d you get those?”

So Esh did care about the possible baby scrogs that were doomed to a soupy death.

The guy turned back toward them and studied them.

If Ach had come, the guy would have known they were from the Dells, because Ach was part albino. Talise had dark hair to conceal how albino her skin was, but she had the signature crystalline eyes, just like her dad and many of her siblings.

The guy noted the resemblance anyway. Talise saw it in his eyes before he shouted. “Dragons!”

He ran.

They didn’t.

Talise looked to the sky. “Oh. Good. He’s running. I thought we were just going to hang out. Way to go, Esh.”

Viki had attracted the guy, but really Esh had made a big deal about the scrogs.

Talise would have done the same.

“Just leave him,” Esh said with some worry in her tone, like it was the opposite of what she wanted. “Uncle Nell will sic Konrad on him.”

Esh turned toward the booth opposite the sweaters. “Look at these.” She picked up a small wooden square that held a garden enclosed in thin wire on it, with tiny birds the size of needle points fluttering around.

Talise looked where the guy had run off.

“I’m tracking him,” Viki assured her. “Nickalys put a tracking spell on him before he ran.”

Talise watched the guy disappear, then turned to the table and the birds. “Yeah. Those are cool.” She kneeled in front of the table. Julius used her knees to lift him so he could put his paws on the table. He sniffed the little bird cages while the vendor looked on, waiting for Julius to destroy the merchandise. Unlike the last vendor, this one didn’t yell at them for things they didn’t do.

“Way cooler than scrog entrails,” Esh insisted.

They watched the birds, Talise’s mind wandered to the guy, and Viki had to pull Nicklays away from the table because he was trying to eat the birds.

“Fine.” Esh rolled her eyes. Talise had turned her head just fast enough to catch the end of it. “You want to go find him now.”

Talise lifted Julius and set him on the ground, so she could stand. She tried not to smile. “Maybe.”

“Did you just come here planning to track random people?” Esh asked Viki.

Viki looked Esh in the eyes. “I came prepared.”

This is why they all came together: even if someone did try to mess with them, they had this. And Esh couldn’t push Viki around, like most people.

Talise paid for three of the bird houses, and was given a fourth for free. She turned to Esh. “Besides, no one wants to run. If she wasn’t prepared, we would have had to.”

Esh rolled her eyes again.

“Do you think Nell will like one of these?” Talise asked.

“We should go, really,” Viki pressed.

Talise exhaled. She was stalling too. “Okay. Fine.”

Esh nodded. “We can catch the scrog killer so Nell doesn’t lose any of his precious babies. Maybe he’ll make us an exploding cake or… nonlethal food.”

“Last time someone asked him for nonlethal food, he asked Ach to define lethal, considering his recoverability” Talise joked. They started to move through the market, the way they had come.

“Not lethal for Viki,” Esh specified.

So, real food.

“Let’s just hope he doesn’t marry Viki off just so he can justify poisoning us.”

Viki laughed. “Yeah, right.”

“He might,” Esh nudged.

Viki pulled out a spell and sprinkled it onto the ground. The green crumbles pooled into liquid and started to make a snake-like moving river down the path. They followed.

“You know, we’re missing out on cool stuff,” Esh argued.

“Go ahead, ignore duty,” Talise said.

A dragon started to screech from nearby, it’s cage rattling as it shook the bars.

“What’s that?” Viki asked.

Talise called Julius to snatch up the snake. He ran and pounced over Nickalys, who darted forward just in time for the two to collide. They rolled through the dust until Julius caught the snake. He brought it back to Viki, who held open her pouch.

“It’s a dragon,” Talise replied, way too late for it to be of any value. They turned toward the dragon vendor. “It’s choosing you, probably.”

The vendor scowled at them, his prize dragon, based on display location, lurching toward Viki.

“It’s not mythical,” Esh stated.

The dragon had deep blue scales that darkened to charcoal at the edge of each scale. When it moved, it looked like water rippling at night.

Nickalys creeped over toward the cage, stalking it. He rose to sniff the dragon. It stopped it’s terror and sniffed Nickalys.

“It’s ten thousand Angmaars.” The vendor crossed his arms.

“That’s insane.” Talise studied the other dragons, the prices on boards ranging from a few hundred to a five thousand. She also knew the dragon would be worthless to them, if she had chosen Viki as her owner.

It was why the owner had scowled.

“We’ll pay three,” Talise countered. It was more than generous for something that had lost all of it’s value, to anyone else, in a moment.

“Seven,” the vendor said through a scowl.

From beside them, tending cages with land lizards and a flying tortoise, another vendor piped in: “We have a BOGO deal today.”

“Three,” Talise restated. You can’t even sell this to anyone now, can you?”

The first vendor scowled again.

To make a point, Viki started to look at other dragons. Hers began to claw at the cage and almost rattled it off its perch.

Viki moved back to her dragon, and kneeled beside the cage. Nickalys started to do circles near the cage, rubbing his flanks on either side of it.

Viki let the dragon out. It flew into the sky then dove toward her. It’s scales shimmered as it flew around her, then landed on her shoulder.

“This is cool,” VIki said. “Is it really mine?”

The vendor shook his head. “Three. Your family is ruining my business.”

Talise made a mental note to bring the vendor a present, someday. They still had to deal with the guy with the scrog claw soup.

“For three!” The other vendor chimed in. “You can have for free if we get one girl.”

Talise and Viki’s jaw dropped, while Esh eyed the guy. “Ew. No.” Esh turned away.

“We’re not selling people!” Talise pulled the coins out, three thousand Angmaars.

“The cat?” The vendor asked.

“No!” Viki rubbed Nickalys, then looked at the first vendor. “I get a free one, right?”

The second vendor scowled this time. “Everything has a price.”

Esh glanced at Talise, and they both glanced at Viki.

Viki didn’t seem to care. “You said buy-one-get-one.”

“Only if you pay full price,” the first vendor stated.

“You said free,” Viki countered.

“You did,” Talise reminded them.

The other vendor started to move from his area toward them, and Talise remembered they still had the first guy to chase.

Julius seemed on edge too; he had moved near her, in a defensive position.

Talise nudged Viki. “Maybe we should go. We still have to find that guy.”

Julius growled at the other vendor.

As he growled, the other vendor took another step toward them. The first vendor watched and backed into his own booth, not wanting to be part of whatever happened.

Esh’s hand fell to her waist, where she kept a small knife in case of emergency (or spontaneous desire to cut fruit).

The other vendor shook, with laughter, as a glamor gave way to wavy blonde hair and the classic surfer-look that belonged to none other than Bentley Akhan, her brother-in-law.

Talise groaned. “Bentley.”

Bentley had luck magic, which meant that they were right to be suspicious of the scrog guy.

Bentley had helped stall them, which meant they were losing time. Not that he cared.

“I couldn’t resist,” Bentley laughed.

Viki looked between them, her body still tense.

“Bentley is family,” Talise told Viki.

Esh flipped a knife in her hand, and tossed it to Bentley. “Come on, someone is eating scrogs.”

“He has luck magic,” Talise told Viki. “And is a jerk, in summary.”

Viki laughed and exchanged a we-should-shake-hands look with Bentley. Neither did.

Viki released the snake-spell instead, and it began trailing off into the market, toward the sea. The guy wanted to be found, it looked like, or he was moving out to sea.

“I really couldn’t help it,” Bentley insisted. “I’m not even sorry.”

Esh rolled her eyes, Talise rolled her eyes, Viki even rolled her eyes, because no one in the universe believed him when he said sorry to begin with, not with the way he was laughing.

“You need to find someone eating… scrogs?” Bentley asked. “Shouldn’t we eat all of them?”

Yeah, except the monsters that Nell had deemed scrogs were precious to him. Deadly, but precious. They were made of crab like claw legs and a big frog mouth full of lots of tongues and a scorpion tail that ended in a toothy grin of death. They were the prized animal in his collection, outside of his alligator and his kangaroo. The last two were gifts, and so they mattered differently.

Scrogs…

“Fine,” Esh replied. “You can deal with Uncle Nell.”

Nickalys started to swat at the snake thing, as it slowed down. They were getting close.

“He’s not my uncle,” Bentley joked.

“No, he’s your STEPDAD. Have fun with that.”

“He’s your boss, too,” Talise reminded him. He worked in the barn when he was visiting the Dells. “And you swore and oath to protect monsters.”

Bentley looked at her, too confident in his luck to watch where he was going. “I what?”

“The barnkeepers oath,” Talise reminded him, in a lie sort of way. “You may not have worked there long, but he stole your blood and bound it to something. You probably should talk to him about that.”

“Does he do that to everyone?” Viki asked.

“Only people he’s suspicious of,” Talise joked.

“Crap. Has he done it with me?”

Talise laughed.

“Woe is me,” Bentley replied, with a wink toward Talise. “I’ll have to be extra careful.”

They stopped walking.

Esh narrowed her eyes, toward Talise. “So this guy we’re supposedly chasing…”

“I found him.” Viki pointed toward rocks along the coast. On one, the man sat.

75%

Bentley sighed, a big fake sigh of attention-wanting. “What would you do without me?”

“Probably succeed faster since you slowed us down,” Talise teased.

Without missing a beat, Viki had pulled spells out of her pockets. “I bought some defense spells. They aren’t great for bringing him down, but if we can trap him somewhere…”

“He’s on a rock,” Esh reminded them. “Sticking into the ocean. I think he’s trapped himself.”

Bentley took some of the defense spells, and Talise took a handful too.

“Unless he has water magic,” Viki pointed out.

“Touche.” Esh reached for her own spell packs. “I would be trapped.”

Bentley laughed. “You wouldn’t go near the water.” He handed knives out, that he had been carrying. Talise felt like the second least prepared person there, next to Esh.

“They’re great for throwing,” Bentley suggested.

If he knew they needed knives, he had some understanding of the enemy. Maybe he was a sea thing and they’d need to slow him with knife-fire.

“So?” Talise asked Bentley.

“So? What? You were hoping I have good luck throwing?”

Viki hid a laugh, and ran her hand across Nickalys. The guy on the rocks saw them now, so even Esh tried to look normal.

It was their biggest failure: Esh trying to look normal was worse than if they’d brought a screaming baby, for drawing attention.

“I was hoping you could use your luck to tell us if he has water magic,” Talise replied to Bentley.

“Nope. He’s human,” Bentley sorted, or had already sorted based on response time.

“More proof those aren’t scrogs,” Esh pointed out.

“Or that he’s still messing with us. Maybe this isn’t the real Bentley,” Viki said.

Esh rolled her eyes, while Bentley glamoured as Shea – his wife and Talise and Esh’s sister.

“Does anyone take this seriously?” Talise asked.

“I mean they are scrogs,” Viki pointed out.

Scrogs – gross, dangerous, probably better off as food…

But Nell’s. And if he had scrogs, he could be a spy. It wasn’t about the scrogs it was about the spy issue.

“He could be a spy,” Talise said aloud. “He could be dangerous.”

“I doubt they are scrogs,” Bentley stated.

He doubted? he had luck magic and all he could do was doubt?

“You can be the one Uncle Nell feeds to the venomous spiders then,” Esh suggested.

With all of their arguing, the guy had walked up to them.

Talise tried not to be too annoyed.

He smiled, a big I-win grin. “Here for your broiled scrogs?”

“Oh yea,” Esh sarcasmed at him. “We came to the market just for those.”

The guy opened his basket, as they all watched, and revealed it was empty. “I just wanted to talk to you all,” he said. His eyes slowing as he looked at Viki.

“Why?” Esh asked, hands on her hips. “Nobody wants to talk to me.”

Probably because she was abrasive, on a good day.

The guy shrugged. “Three beautiful girls in the market?”

Bentley checked out his body.

Apparently his luck didn’t help him count either.

“He wants your cat,” Bentley stated. “Because it’s immortal.”

The guy tensed.

“A normal person would have asked,” Esh informed him, oblivious to the fact that he knew Nickalys was immortal. Newly immortal.

“You would have said no,” the guy lied.

Talise edged around him, just enough so she could catch him if he ran.

“We’re still saying no,” Viki insisted.

Talise took a step toward him. “Would you like to go on a date with me?”

“No.” He looked at Viki again, and Nickalys. In that moment Julius slipped behind him and Bentley took a step around him.

Viki watched them.

The guy turned to look, but Viki stepped toward him and caught his attention. “Sure. Let’s go.”

She offered her hand to him.

“Really?” He asked.

Bentley laughed, and Esh took a step back.

“Have fun, loser,” Esh said.

Everything in Talise was tense, waiting.

The guy took Viki’s hand. She nodded to Talise, and they were gone.