• Barton’s Mage
    Prologue


    It started as a normal day, like the long string of normal days before it. I woke up well after the sun, brushed my hair, and managed to get myself dressed without a mishap. I ate breakfast, went out and picked up trash and flowers… the usual morning routine. It seemed, however, that the day was just not destined to turn out as normally as it started. I had been sitting around with a new pair of shoes (the daily chance cart is sure convenient) and I was thinking about potions and all the times Gaian higher-ups mentioned mages in the release of monthly collectibles.

    You see, my mind works in a kind of round-about way that makes it hard to follow for other people, so the fact that I was wearing a monthly collectible – namely the Winter Rose – and that I was under the effect of the Halloween change to Dark Elf that later became a potion motivated my thoughts. I was wondering if there really were Gaian mages, I mean… it was a silly thought, but we already have aliens, vampires, zombies, elves, and some form of angels and demons… all we’re really missing are active magicians, ghosts, and werewolves.

    So, to make a long and rambling story short, I started messing around pretending I was a Mage. After a while, the empty shoebox really did fly over my head. That’s when I wondered… could I really be a Mage?

    ___-___

    Chapter 1
    Feelings and Practice


    Sunlight fell gracefully through the window, illuminating the swirling dust in the air and the frazzled hair of one Briana, the new Mage of Barton town. She stirred and gave a sleepy moan before coming to her senses and kicking and flopping herself out of bed. She landed with a thump on the hard floor and then shot up, leaving her blankets behind. “Ooh-hoohoo! The floor is COLD!” she yelped. She looked at the clock, six exactly. She was doing pretty well for the weekend wakeup.

    “Okay,” she mumbled to herself, “Today’s agenda is…” She picked up a small pad of paper with little blue roses running down the sides and a quote printed on the top. This particular pad declared, “What we do not understand we have no right to judge.” The phrase was a favorite of hers, said by Henri Frederic Amiel. On this pad of paper was inscribed all of the things she planned to do on a given day. Today would have been free, but instead written there in bold red marker was the notice: INVESTIGATE SHOEBOX INCEDENT.

    “What,” she muttered, puzzled, “but I thought… So I wasn’t dreaming?” She looked at the shoebox and flicked her hand with the same come-here motion she’d used yesterday. “Eeh!” she squeaked, ducking the flying box that had leapt towards her head. “Well that settles that… Now what?” She sat on her bed and looked around, and then at her self. “Well, I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to get dressed.”

    She threw on a favorite costume-like outfit, which consisted of a blue sleeveless corset over a white “bra” (which was more like a bikini top with plastic fin shoulders), and a red bow on her top. From the waist down she wore a golden knotted belt and a blue skirt with red trim, black stockings, and red shoes. To top it all off, she clipped a red bow into her now brushed hair.

    “Now the question is,” she muttered to herself, “how in the world did I do that?” She turned to the box and motioned it towards her again, preparing to duck. But this time, instead of coming flying at her at forty miles an hour, the box merely scooted itself across the floor and stopped at her feet. “Odd, it’s like it ran out of batteries…” She tried again, this time the empty box did nothing. “Huh,” she stared at the box. “I wonder, I thought I got a static shock from it but what if I actually shocked the box with magic?”

    Briana began to pick up the box, but changed her mind. “Now if I really can make a box fly towards me with a little shock of magic, what could I do with an item and a bit more magic?” she walked over to her closet, and pulled out the butterfly wings from the dreamer’s dust set and gently cradled them in her hands. “I hope this works.”

    It was like opening a floodgate, energy poured out of her and into the wings in raging currents, even though she had began trying to sever the link just after she started it. Slowly and agonizingly she managed to stop her magical power from draining from her. She was numb and couldn’t see for several seconds before the world faded surreally back into her senses.

    “Augh,” she moaned, picking herself up off of the floor. She looked at the wings, still, miraculously, cradled in her now trembling hands. They seemed brighter, as if they glowed now rather than just sparkling. Cautiously, she put them on. “Oh!” she yelped, as a tendril of magic connected her senses with the wings, opening up a new sensitive surface on which she could feel the currents of the air around her.

    Briana ran through her house, darting down hallways and skidding ungracefully to round corners until she finally found herself at the door. She took a deep breath in an attempt to calm down and opened the door. She took two quick steps and leapt into the air, pushing down with a graceful stroke of her sparkling wings. “Yes!” she cried when Gaia stayed down rather than rushing back to meet her, “I did it!”

    As she flew up over Barton town, she had an amazing feeling growing inside of her. She began to feel that she could do something great, she began to feel that she could be a hero.