NaNoWriMo 2: Little Giant Girl

Nanowrimo Day Two

Well day two was equally successful to the first one.  I am still not sure if anything I am writing is pure shit or not, but I am making progress.  At the end of last night my official word count was 4986 with three chapters written.  Goal is to try and write another couple today to give myself a good boost into the work week.  As per yesterday I am posting the next chapter as my daily blog post here.

Little Giant Girl

Kale had never exactly had an easy lot in life, but as she sat shivering in the corner of this abandoned building she thought “Surely this has to be rock bottom… right?”  The last foster home seemed promising until that bastard tried to stick his hands down her pants.  That had happened one time too many and more than that it was the fact that she had instinctively bashed his skull in as a muscle reflex.  Something was changing in her and it was not the summers eve commercial bullshit… there was a deep hatred growing and it honestly scared her at times.  She had killed a guy with her bare fist without really thinking about it.

“No sense dwelling on it, I can’t undo it” she thought to herself as she gathered her things thinking that getting up and around would get her warm.  She was not really sure the last time she had eaten, but in order to do that she needed to find work.  She could not go back to the system, especially after what she had done, but every moment she was out on the streets was another moment for the snatchers to find her.  She had always been a bit different, I mean a 6’10” fourteen year old girl stands out in a crowd… but the fact that her skin had a slightly greyish tint made things even worse.

When Kale turned twelve she had two major shocks, the first of which was to be expected with “becoming a woman”, the second was that when she got angry she was powerful.  It was only a little while later that she first encountered the snatchers.  She was walking on her way home from school and this man jumped out of the shadows grabbed her and did something.  The world changed colors around her, a swirling vortex of purple, and then finally it was night time around her.  All the while she was struggling to break free of the mans hold.  He was significantly less capable of defending himself than she was… but wherever he had brought her he had friends.

They had decided to grab the wrong girl because what should have caused fear only invoked cold hatred in Kale.  She bucked out of his hold throwing him across the open ground, stretching her arms she appeared to almost gain mass as she flexed.  This was also the first time she noticed her skin darkening and becoming more greyish blue than anything resembling flesh.  She met the nearest snatcher with her fist collapsing his skull like it were a rotten pumpkin.  Apparently the sight of this caused the other two snatchers and the one she had sent flying across the opening to rethink their actions.

Within a few minutes she was standing alone in an open field with nothing remaining of the city around her.  What she had taken for night time while she was struggling with the snatchers, she realized was more of a early morning twilight.  She could see almost as well as if it were daytime, but there was no sign of anything she remembered.  Confused and frightened she sat down leaning up against a large oak tree.  She broke down and sobbed, it was the first time in years she had done so and it felt better than she could ever imagine.  Oddly enough though she was really not that scared, being here alone was preferable to being picked on and called names like “giant” and “freak”.

She had been there what felt like hours when off to her left she saw a green glimmer.  She turned to look and it was what seemed like a parade of fireflies.  As they drew closer she could see that they were not fireflies at all but instead little people with a green halo surrounding their backs, that upon closer inspection appeared to be immensely rapid beating wings.  As she sat there, they surrounding the tree upon which she was leaning, making a neat ring around her.  When they all got in place they drew spears from their backs and began pointing them at her.  She knew she should likely be frightened but the entire sight was so fantastical that she just could not react in any other way than amusement.

From within the ranks of the circle emerged a little man decked in what appeared to be bark armor.  “What is an Ort girl doing in Wilder lands?  Tell us now or we make dinner of you.”  said the little man with barken armor and tiny spear.  She could tell he was being serious, but she had no clue at all what he was talking about.  “What is an Ort?” bumbled Kale, not really knowing what else to say.  The small man paused confused for a moment before recovering “I know you are Trogkin, I can smell it.  Are you with an army?  How did you get here?”

Kale looked down at the ground and replied with utter honesty “I don’t know how I got her, a man grabbed hold of me… and then I was just here.”  The little man nodded and motioned to the circle and one by one they lowered their tiny pikes.  “You were snatched, but that means you are a halfkin.  Do you not know what this means?”  Kale found herself tearing up a bit and sniffled slightly as she said “No… I don’t know what any of this means.”  The tiny man glowered slightly and said “Silly Ort, you can go back at any time you want… you halfkin can move freely between the worlds.  Why did none of your own kin tell you this?  Is dangerous not to know.  Snatchers snatch the unknowing and sell them as slaves  Your kin should have trained you better.”  The little man nodded furiously upon that last statement.

Kale found herself getting angry again “I have no “kin” okay?  I am was abandoned as a baby, so I don’t HAVE anyone to teach me anything.”  She stared viciously at the little man for reminding her that she was always going to be alone no matter how bad she wanted someone else. The little man shook his head slightly “I am Dobin, and we are Wildfae.  We can’t shift like you can, but I’ve heard it explained by a wilderkin.  They picture a long tunnel in their mind, with a light at the end of it.  Then they picture themselves walking down it…  then the shift just happens.”  Dobin shrugged as he delivered the advice.  “You need to leave now, before more wilder arrive.  We have been kind, but others will not be.  Wildfae don’t like the Trogkin, and would have likely killed you on sight.”

Kale tried as hard as she could to imagine a long tunnel in her mind.  At first she found it hard to push out the other thoughts, like the kids who teased her and the string of foster families.  But with effort she built a long bricked tunnel in her mind, much like the walls of her school.  As she imagined herself walking down the tunnel she began to feel a fluttering feeling in her stomach, almost like butterflies.  As she got closer and closer to the end of the tunnel she began to feel it more.  There was a sudden wave of warmth over her body as she pictured herself entering the light.  She felt what she was certain was sunlight on her skin, and when she finally allowed herself to open her eyes she was sitting down in a alleyway a few blocks from her school.

That had been the first time Kale had shifted, and since then she had been forced to do it a few times.  She learned that she could sneak into places by shifting over into the other world briefly to bypass locked doors.  She did it last night to get inside this locked abandoned building.  She had done it also to get away from that foster home after killing that bastard.  Over the years she had developed a relationship with the Wildfae and as such Dobin had given her a silver coin, that she suddenly felt her pockets to make sure it was there.  The coin had a very delicate leaf pattern made by hands far smaller than her own.  Dobin had explained that this was the waypass of the “Wild Court”, and that it would grant her safe passage if she ever ran into a wilder warband again.

She had thought many times about just shifting over to the other world and living there.  Here there is sunlight, but over there is nothing but various kinds of night.  She also did not like the way she changed when she entered that realm.  She became colder, more brutal…  she became more like her Ort heritage as she had learned from the fae.  No she thought… “I like the sun, and no matter how bad it gets here… there will always be that.”  She mused as she stretched, picking up her backpack and preparing to do a short shift out into the alleyway that she could see from the window.  She had learned that she could do these short leaps without ever really transitioning into the other world.  As much as she detested stealing… she was afraid she might have to do some more of these leaps… at least until she could find some kind of work.

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