Shinelle first draft: Chapter One

Sliding down the banister had gotten more fun the more families Shinelle’s mother found on her trips. They each got their own floor, you see, so the banister got exactly eight feet longer with each move in.

Another family was on it’s way. A note had put on the message board from Shinelle’s mother just that morning, and her aunt had added the floor accordingly. It was stretching her magic pretty far, but she hadn’t reached her limit yet as powerful as she was.

Shinelle decided she was going to slide down the whole thing, just once, before she’d go and change the forest around the hideout that day. Before her mother returned and she wasn’t allowed to.

As she ran up the stairs she passed dozens of the pixie families they’d rescued from the brownies trying to eradicate them. Approaching a hundred now.

As she slid down she saw nothing but a colorful blur. Wind blew her hair around her face and threw her laughter in circles as she wound faster and faster down the spiral steps. The dizziness set in and brought her to a euphoria that she didn’t often taste since the war started.

The bottom was fast approaching and she prepared to jump. Even though her aunt couldn’t magically cushion her fall anymore, Shinelle wasn’t a child anymore. She could soften her own blow so long as her magic didn’t actually touch the tower.

Just before she was going to fly off the banister into the floor she pushed herself into the air and turned her dress into a parachute that was much more effective than the ones made by the brownies or demons.

“Shinelle! You are too old to be playing fairy games!” Shit. She’d been caught. “I can’t stop you, but you wait until your mother is back!”

With a laugh and a wave as she ran out the door. She couldn’t ignore aunt Glimmis forever, but she put it off until after she played through her job.

Every day someone had to go out and rearrange the trees so the locals would keep thinking it was haunted, and people couldn’t find their way to the tower.

Shinelle thought it was unnecessary, from the outside the tower was just an abandoned shack they’d found when she was a kid. She didn’t think much of it, really, but pixie magic was really something.

Running through the trees to where she’d left off the day before, Shinelle didn’t realize she’d attracted the attention of someone she’d successfully gotten lost.

She simply leaped over branches and sang the song her mother once hummed on happy days, slowing with twirls as she neared her goal.

Not stopping to check for the eyes on her, she started taking down her illusioned trees, it was the easiest part so she liked to finish it first, and left only the real. The ones that she guided her own way with.

The person who’d first followed with interest in the girl dancing and singing through the haunted forest, now found themselves in awe of how quickly she leapt around and made the trees vanish. She practically eradicated an entire section in as much time as it took her to spin through it.

Shinelle’s next job was to build new trees. To make them look, feel, and smell like they were real she had to start with the seed. She wasn’t worried about it being perfect, if she didn’t get more than one of them wrong she could fix it later.

Behind her she was being watched. He watched her stop, bend down, and cup her hands in the newly cleared dirt. Then he realized what she was doing. When her hands parted over baby trees.

Baby trees that grew ridiculously fast. When it grew big enough she grabbed a branch and let it lift her in the air.

Shinelle let it pull her skyward. This was why it was called fairy play, the things she did, because it made you feel like you were flying. Like the fairies of old, with their wings and sparkle dust.

Her eyes closed and she waited for the tree to stop moving. When it did she let go.

Below the stranger watched her fall. The sight of her long black hair billowing up, her yellow skirt lifting and revealing tan leather pants with matching boots, and her arms lifting were like nothing he’d ever seen. Her laughter was better.

It stopped when he reached out his own arms and caught her. He hadn’t been planning on doing it, and she surely wasn’t planning on him doing it either.

They looked at each other, both just as wide eyed as the other. Hers a rich brown that gave him yet more wonder. His pure black.

“You’re a demon,” Shinelle whispered. She’d heard stories, but never seen one in person before.

He was thinking something similar about her, pixies were almost died out in the Brownie’s war. “What gave it away? The eyes, or the skin?” His voice was low, smooth, and soft.

A small smile ventured on her face. She saw no danger in the demon’s face, intricate stripes of black and…”Is that pink? May I?” No answer was waited for, not that he would have denied it, before she touched one of the lines, a faint blush color so similar to many pixies, and followed it.

Her finger traced around his cheek, and over the bridge of his nose, and when it went behind his ear she pulled herself closer to bend it back and check if it continued.

The entire while he was wondering about her own skin. Deciding if the glow was from her exertions or from within her, and when she pulled herself closer to him he found himself wondering how she could possibly smell so much like orange blossoms. He couldn’t help but breath it deeply. It was his favorite smell.

As suddenly as she’d done anything the entire day, Shinelle leaned back into the demon’s arms. She’d almost forgotten he was still holding her. “I’m sorry,” She said, “I wasn’t sure if they were real or tattoos.”

“You thought the pink was tattooed? I thought tattoos could only be black.” For a moment Shinelle looked in his eyes unsure what she hoped she’d see. “Are you finding what you’re looking for?”

“I’m looking for the ground,” She laughed.

“Oh,” Said the demon. “I’m sorry.” He carefully set her down.

Finally she was able to get as good a look at him as he’d gotten of her. He was tall, as most demons were, and everywhere his skin peeked from his cloth vest and pants had the same intricate lines as his face. She noticed he wasn’t wearing shoes and attributed it to the claws that served as his toes.

“Well, I’m sorry to dash, but I’ve been told all my life that demons are the enemy.” She said. She broke out in a dead run. She’d seen enough to know that if she stayed longer she’d admire his broad shoulders and muscled arms. His entire musculature so nicely accentuated by his well fitting clothes,that she wanted to touch. She wanted to know if the skin on his hands was as soft as the skin on his face.

All in all she had taken too much liberty with him and he’d let her. That was scarier than the fact that the demons and brownies were thought to be working together.

He had no thoughts of her just leaving. He wasn’t sure why but he needed to know how to see her again. He knew it from the tingles left by her touch and the way it almost made him gasp that she could see him as an enemy. Of course she did. He was.

Turning to see where she was he stepped through his own magic and was instantly right in front of her. So immediately in front of her that she slammed into him and he caught her again.

“What the actual fu-” She stopped herself when she saw it was him. She stayed silent as she realized she rather didn’t mind being pressed against the same body she was terrified to admire. Her face turned downward so he wouldn’t see her blush.

“Demons have magic too,” He said. “Mine is travel, if I can visualize where I want to be.”

Shinelle remained silent. Nothing she wanted to say would do anything but reveal that she wanted to know more. More about travel magic, about demons, about the world outside the forest, about him.

“My name is Jazaar.”

Her fingers curled into his vest, digging ever so slightly into his abdomen and encouraging him to think that she might not actually be afraid of him.

It encouraged him to ask a question he so much wanted to know the answer to. “What can I call you?” She pushed away from him, and while he didn’t particularly want to his arms fell to his own sides.

Dipping into as good of a curtsy as she could, she straightened her dress. If he was going to insist, she was going to do it as proper as she could. “Nice to meet you Jazaar, I’m Shinelle.”

“Shinelle,” He repeated. It was almost said with reverence. As though he still weren’t sure she were real. “Can I see you again, Shinelle?”

“If you leave right now so I can do my job, I’ll think about it.” Her eyes twinkled with the promise of satisfaction.

He decided to believe the promise. “Then I hope to be lost in the next area you work in.”

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Hey there readers. While this is the first draft, the final ebook is COMING SOON! How soon? Black Friday 2025. Preorders available now