General Writing

[Maxine MagicFox]

The Weaver Reborn Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The blow connected with her jaw sending her spinning on her heels. She fell hard to the ground on her stomach, dazed. She slowly pushed herself up off the ground, rubbing at her lip, finding blood on her hand. Ok, now she was pissed.

She jumped to her feet and in the same movement she swung out hard with her fist. The blow connected with Tommy’s cheek. He stumbled back but managed to keep his feet, but his nose was now gushing blood profusely. He glared back at her with hate in his eyes. “Oh, you’re so dead, Maxine,” he shouted.

He rushed her, grabbing her around her stomach, trying to throw her to the ground. She braced herself, digging her shoes into the earth, somehow managing to keep her stance. Clutching both of her hands together, interlocking her fingers, she slammed them into the back of his head.

Tommy fell to the ground like a dead weight. She danced back away from him suddenly aware of the crowd of students around them, encircling them. Voices shouted into the air, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” Egging the two of them on.

“Go, Tommy,” someone shouted from the crowd. “Get her!”

“You’re going down now, Maxine,” someone else shouted.

Punks, she thought angrily, returning her attention back down to Tommy who was already getting back to his feet. She spread her feet apart again and put her fists up. “Come on, Tommy,” she spat at him. “Come at me, again. I dare you.”

“You’re nothing but a worthless orphan,” he said, rushing at her again, a fist swinging.

She ducked it, swinging low and upwards, burying a strong uppercut deep into his stomach. “At least I don’t pick fights that I know I can’t win,” she hissed in his ear.

Tommy doubled over, falling to his knees and puked. Maxine barely let him finished before she delivered a swift kick to his chin, sending him reeling backwards.

“That was my last wand,” she screamed at him, pointing at the broken halves of a wooden stick lying nearby on the ground.

Tommy pushed himself up to his knees, coughing and spitting up blood. “Like you need it where you’re going.” he said around the hand cupped against his mangled face, “You know you can’t use magic anyways, you worthless vacant.”

The word burned through her, igniting a fire in the back of her brain, burning through her blood. “I’m not a vacant!” she screamed. She rushed him, pulling her arm back, aiming another blow to his face.

He leaned forward and the blow sailed over him. Before she could recover he jumped to his feet, barely an inch between them. He arced a fist upwards, barely connecting with her stomach before she managed to stumble away, hugging her middle, and resisting the urge to vomit. She looked up just in time to see Tommy reaching into his back pocket, pulling out a long wooden wand and pointed it towards her menacingly.

The bastard would pull out magic in a fist fight, she thought angrily.

“Go on,” she hissed between clenched teeth. “Cast a spell. Use your magic. It’s the only way you can win a fight.” She dropped her arms to her sides and stood straight and tall, readying herself to meet whatever painful spell Tommy would unleash on her.

Tommy had barely raised his wand when the word “teachers!” suddenly leaped up into the air. Like a crack of lightning suddenly the crowd bolted. Students raced away in all directions. Tommy’s own eyes widened. He spun around towards the school already leaping into a run. Maxine sprung forward like a viper, grabbing him around his middle, and tackling him to the ground. She managed to twist him around, straddling his body, raining blow after blow defenseless his face with her fists. She got in at least five good hits before someone grabbed her under her arms and hauled her off of him.

“Maxine Alciard!” the teacher shouted her name. “Knock it off!”

She struggled against the arms holding her back, wanting just another few good licks on Tommy. She wanted to really mess up that smug rich-boy face. It wasn’t until the teacher wheeled her around tearing her eyes off of him that the fire inside of her began to cool. The teacher scowled at her. “Couldn’t resist one more fight?” the teacher growled. “Come on. Headmistress’s office with you, Alciard.”

He took her by the hand and yanked her towards the school, stopping only a moment to claim the halves of her wand. As she was pulled away she turned back only for a moment to see another teacher helping Tommy up, holding a handkerchief up to his nose, a look of deep concern on the teacher’s face.

She fought back the threat of tears that stung her eyes, turning away, allowing herself to be lead from the courtyard into the main wing of the school.

Barely an hour later and she found herself facing down Headmistress Ailya, the broken halves of her wand lying on the desk between them. Maxine resisted the urge to flip the woman off. Her beady grey eyes were more infuriating than normal as she glared across at her. The woman’s dark hair was done up in its usual style, the locks pinned up against the back of her head, the ends fanning out around the top of her head.

The moment Maxine had been brought to the school three years ago at the age of twelve, the two of them had butted heads. As part of the Orphan Outreach Program set up by the Arcadian Emperor Ghental, she had been dropped into the Middle East Arcadia Magic Academy along with at least thirty other orphans. All of them had been pulled from the overcrowded orphanages that plagued the southern deserts of Isana. All between the ages of eleven to fourteen. All of the other orphans had done well in the program, thrived even. All of them… except her.

No matter how hard she tried, how hard she struggled to focus, she had never managed to accomplish a single magic spell. From the first magic lesson she had floundered. Nothing seemed to ever come out of the wand quite like it did for the other students. The problems had escalated from there. The classrooms were stifling, fishing was more preferable to reading, and she couldn’t quite grasp the concept of deadlines. She also had a loose mouth and a quick temper. The rich snobs of the school got a rise out of pissing her off, which only further alienated her from the rest of the student body who preferred to not be around such behavior. And that isolation only made her feel worse. She had soon adopted a why should I care attitude that resulted in many office visitations to Headmistress Ailya, who had come to view her as the hideous roach staining her clean, prestigious school.

Headmistress Ailya had fought from the first year to get rid of Maxine, but the Emperor wouldn’t allow it. Maxine was an orphan and it was Ailya’s job to mentor her and give her all the same opportunities afforded most children her age. Personally Maxine wished like hell that the Emperor would have let her return back to the orphanages. It had never been a crime to get into a fight and she wasn’t forced to learn something she had no interest in. Somewhere along the second year Ailya had finally given up, even going so far as to tell the teachers to give up on trying to force Maxine into the skirt that was part of the girl’s uniform. It had been a joyous win the first day Maxine had received her first officially sanctioned boy’s uniform rather than having to resort to stealing boys’ pants from the laundry rooms.

Ailya tapped her fingers on her desk. “One last hoorah before you leave my school forever, Miss Alciard?” the woman said in her thick Arcadian accent. “One last brawl. And do I even need to ask if you had anything to do with the mess in the magic potions lab? Was it fun breaking into the room last night and mixing all of those various potions together?”

Maxine could barely resist a grin, settling back in her seat. “I was just conducting research, ma’am.” Actually it had been downright hilarious. She had always wanted to know what would happen if she mixed the potions together to see what strange things might happen. She hadn’t done it to be destructive. It was just something she had always daydreamed about while sitting in the class listening to a teacher rambling on. Since she was leaving soon, she thought it was a good chance to finally act on that urge. She had not been disappointed, especially when she had created some strange purple moss in a sink that had grown to epic proportions, spilling out onto the floor and crawling up the walls. Honestly, she had done everything she could to clean up the worst of the mess, but some of the spells, like the moss, had been beyond her skill.

Ailya leaned forward, her lips pursed and Maxine could see the hint of a lecture in her eyes. She resisted the urge to sigh and braced herself. One last lecture to leave on. But the door to the office opened interrupting them. Maxine turned around in her seat to see who had entered and immediately leapt out of her chair.

“Brother!” she screamed excitedly, rushing forward with her arms wide open.

Sorcerer-Minister Morkoth was a lean, seemingly-young man in his early thirties. He was dressed in his normal black and purple outfit with a green dragon emblazoned on the front of the uniform. A black cape with a purple inner lining billowed around him as he reached out and wrapped his arms around her. Where she was a dark-tanned skin color, like most Isanese, Morkoth was the paler skin color of most Arcadians. He had light round blue eyes that sparkled with the same mischief of her own dull green, almond-shaped eyes. His hair was a brown so dark it was almost black, unlike hers which was a light brunette color.

They were not related by blood, but instead by a bond of kinship that had grown overtime – and now by a piece of paper signed by the Emperor himself giving Sorcerer Morkoth full adoption rights.

Morkoth had been placed in charge of the Orphan Outreach Program, acting on behest of the Emperor. Where Ailya had given up on her and found her beyond help, Morkoth had never given up on her. After finding her crying in a girl’s bathroom during her first year, they had become fast friends. He had helped her try to settle in, helping her with her school work, spent hours in the afternoon swapping stories while they fished, and had patiently tried to bring out her magic. He always believed in her.

“Hey there, Little Sister,” he greeted with a laugh, hugging her tightly, petting her braid. He pulled her away and looked her over, his face splitting into an open grin as he took in her busted lip and cracked knuckles. “Another fight?” he asked lightly.

“Tommy,” she said simply.

“Who won?”

She gave him her widest grin. “Me, of course,” she said proudly.

“Well, then that’s all right, I suppose,” he said with a laugh, digging his knuckles into the top of her head.

“Sorcerer Morkoth!” Ailya practically shouted, jumping to her feet. “You should not praise the child for –“

Morkoth’s smile instantly vanished as he turned his eyes on the woman. “Do not tell me what I should or should not do,” he said. His voice was even, but full of warning. “I am removing Maxine from your care tomorrow. How I decide to raise my sister after that is no concern of yours – not that it ever was. She will soon become someone else’s problem as you have called her so disingenuously numerous times.”

Her heart soared at the words. Not for the first time tears rose to her eyes that she did not feel the need to suppress. As both a member of the elite Brotherhood of Sorcerery and the Minister of Magic, Morkoth’s was a powerful entity. Known world-wide. A man of legend. And he had decided to adopt her. She had called him Brother for as long as she could remember – a joke that he had started when he had once said that maybe one day she would Awaken as a Sorceress and join the Brotherhood herself. “My Little Sister Maxine,” he had called her. But now it was official. Adopted. Adopted and soon to be rescued from the terror of MEA Academy. Tomorrow felt like it would never come.

“I don’t think that I taught you how to pick locks so you could break into school rooms and waste gallons of magic potions,” Morkoth chided her later that day as they walked out of the school’s west wing and followed the bridge that lead to the school’s outer courtyard.

Maxine made a straight beeline for her favorite tree and started climbing up into one of the lower branches. “Then why did you teach me?” she asked, positioning herself so that her legs dangled by Morkoth’s head. “Not many honorable things can come out of picking locks, Brother.”

Morkoth stared up at her with a large smile. “No, I suppose not, considering I used to break into people’s houses to steal.”

“Or a witch’s tower,” she said proudly. At roughly her age, Morkoth had broken into a tower to steal from a witch, but what he had found instead were the witch’s prisoners. Forgoing the hope of treasure, the then-thief had rescued those people, risking his own life, and getting cornered by the witch. As if by divine intervention Morkoth had Awoken to his Sorcerous powers and saved himself and his childhood friend, the now Sorcerer-Emperor Ghental who had Awoken himself just a few years later as if some twist of fate had bound the two of them together.

Morkoth chuckled and held out his hand. “Enough about my vagrant youth. Let’s have your wand, Little Sister.”

She reached into her back pocket and pulled out the severed halves. “Tommy snapped it when I was trying to practice,” she said angrily.

Morkoth took them from her, reaching into his pocket for a small gem. She gasped at the sight of it. “Brother,” she shouted down at him, “don’t waste your precious magic on that silly thing.”

“Relax, Little Sister,” he said gently holding it out in his hand. “The amount of magic needed to repair this is just a small margin of what I can collect being here. I’ll walk through the school and do a little gathering from the students casting spells and that will give me more than enough.”

Morkoth was the Sorcerer of Magical Transference. The average human was not born with the ability for magic, instead relying on objects like channelers, spells, or potions. But very rarely a human would Awaken later in life to an innate magical ability. Rare beings, they were also the most powerful magical creatures. But their powers were limited. Every Sorcerer had a Focus and a Restriction. Their Focus represented what they could do with their magic, while their Restriction represented some sort of cap on their powers – some more severe than others.

Morkoth’s Focus was the ability to cast any spell. He was untapped potential. A rarity within a rarity. His Restriction, though, was what defined him. He was limited in his magic ability by the need to gather the magic he needed from another spell. He could cast any spell he desired as long as someone cast a spell of equal or greater power. His innate ability allowed him to gather magic and store it around himself, but the moment he went to sleep he would lose it, so he tempered his Restriction by storing that magic in objects, such as gems. As a result he had become very adept at stealing magic from those around him. She had watched him many times just walking down a hallway, the lamps flickering and going out as he took magic from them.

He held both the gem and the wand up and began to cast. She felt a goose bump sensation across her skin at the feel of magic in the air, and a small tug in the back of her mind that she ignored. As she watched, tiny sparks of white light began to dance around the broken edges of the wand. Within seconds the wand reformed itself and mended, the fissure between them closing not leaving even a trace of a broken line. Smiling proudly, Morkoth replaced the gem in his pocket and reached the wand up to her.

She reached down and took it reverently, but before she had a chance to thank him a voice called out to him. She looked out and immediately scowled at the sight of the boy running up to meet them. Daniel. A boy two years older than her with the same dark skin and almond shaped eyes.

Daniel was her opposite in every way. Part of the same Orphan program, Daniel was the star success story. He had risen quickly within the Academy, no longer restricted to casting spells with a wand alone, even. Not that she cared… except that when Morkoth’s attention wasn’t focused on her it seemed to be focused on Daniel. And tomorrow he would still be usurping her time with Brother. Like herself, he was also being adopted. At least he was being adopted by the kingdom, she thought disdainfully.

Not that Daniel really seemed all that happy about it, though, she reflected. Her and Daniel had come from the same orphanage. She knew him really well, knew how desperately he had dreamed of the day he would be adopted. Except that somehow he seemed sad about his adoption. She tried to chalk it up to the idea that maybe it was because he wasn’t being adopted by actual parents. But he was going to be taught in the most prestigious Magician’s school – possibly to be invited into the Ministry upon graduation. What was there to be sad about?

“Sorcerer Morkoth,” Daniel panted, reaching them. He stopped and doubled over, placing his hands on his knees gasping for breath. “I need to speak with you, sir,” he said.

“Daniel,” she suddenly heard Morkoth hiss so low she barely caught it. “Pendant.”

Her eyes traveled to the object that was dangling from around Daniel’s neck, swinging in the air. She caught only the smallest flicker of green, and something that looked like it was the size of a hand, before Daniel shot up straight, grabbing it and shoving it inside his shirt. His face looked pale and his eyes flickered towards her for a moment.

There was a moment of awkward silence between the three of them that she wasn’t sure she quite understood. What had that been about? She gave Morkoth a quick confused look but his eyes were sharp and something in them bit off the question on the edge of her tongue.

Finally Morkoth broke the silence. “I’m sorry, Little Sister,” he apologized. “This is where I will have to leave you for now. Let me go speak with Daniel in private and I have a few other business ends to attend to.”

She shook her head and waved him off. “No, it’s alright. I’m fine. Go do what you need to do. Duty calls and all that,” she said, forcing her widest smile.

He returned it with one of his warmest, melting her heart. “Don’t forget to finish packing. We’re leaving early tomorrow. It’s a long enough trip before we even reach Ailis City on our way to the capital.”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll be ready,” she promised. It wasn’t Ailis City, or even the capital that felt so far away at the moment, she thought. It was tomorrow.

[Trifkin]

I'm genuinely excited to read more of this.

[Maxine MagicFox]

Thanks. I am hoping to get some beta readers. I'll post the second. which is normally as far as I go but I think I'm going to do 3 and 4 as well. I'll do ch2 tonight later. But this is it. This is what I'm going to be sending to agents and to try to get published. (Del-Rey... *sigh*)

[Trifkin]

I'll volunteer as beta reader if you need one! I would looove to.

[Archaic Sage]

Max, have you thought about getting some social media accounts for your book series and trying to get a small following and then Kickstarter it and self publish? A lot of books these days self publish and then get picked up by the big publishers afterwards... just a thought.

[Maxine MagicFox]

No. I'm not interested in self publishing. At all. It's always felt like a cop out and it's not part of my dream. It's like going up to a football player and telling them, "Well, I'm sorry you didn't make the pros, but why don't you go home and make a team yourself and play in your hometown? You'll be a star there!"

The social media aspect to kick up some attention has been something I do want to try a bit. I've already opened a wordpress blog but I'm still busy working on the story to focus on any of that.

[Reynard-Miri]

I would liken it more to starting an indy game company.

[Maxine MagicFox]

^ better

[Trifkin]

Just look at Hugh Howey. He self pubbed, and it was so good and got SO huge that a big name publisher swooped in and grabbed him right up. Now there are even graphic novels.

But I do see how traditional publishing is way more appealing. It's less unnecessary work than self publishing though it's just as much writing work. Doing it yourself you have to be super damn social media savvy and stay on top of it 24/7, which can take away from the actual content creation. Traditional publishing is so nice, because you can simply focus on making the best book you are capable of while letting others do their jobs to help promote it.

[Maxine MagicFox]

If it looks like I'm not getting any sort of appeal towards the big name publisher that I want or am having difficulty then I might think about choosing that route, but seriously, for me, self publishing is off the table. And not saying because it doesn't work (cuz I've got two fave authors that it worked for), but because it doesn't work for me. I'm a writer. Not a business woman.

Chapter 2:


and Chapter 3:

[noodles]

Leopard
Within the herd upon the yellow veldt
I strain my eyes against the waving plants
I fear the leopard, loathe her spotted pelt
Affording lesser troubles not a glance

Your shining teeth enshrine a waiting hell
Your reddened claws with savage death commence
And haunt my every dream. For what gazelle
Dares not commit his every sharpened sense?

Yet neither do I take a true delight
At your absence, which doubtless won’t surprise
For what do I seek in the frightful murk of night
But to meet the gold-rimmed glamour of your eyes?

With tearing of my throat, at last I see
Only as your meal am I set free

[noodles]

Beetle
It is whispered, "In the house of the dead,
The crowns of kings are cast into an ashen pile
And forgotten."
I stare now skyward, to my sun-haloed usurper.
I see not his face

I arch my back to right myself
and behold an inverse world of dust
broken by leg, horn, and husk
where others had died.
The bones of my challengers

How many had I hurled from the log?
Expecting the swift honor of warriors
At the end of battle, only to slowly die
With legs meekly grasping at the blazing sky.
It is the world, not I, that is upside-down

Had I but looked, and beheld the Palace of Dust
Would I have instead invited him to sup
And speak of glories?

[Maxine MagicFox]

I don't know anything about poetry, noodles, but I love your poems.

Thank you so much for sharing.

[Trifkin]

I love a noodle writing. Honestly, I don't know how you do it noodles, but I love it.

[noodles]

Thank you @_@