Shards (one shot)

[Zodiac]

October 29th, 2014.
12:04 AM.

There was a vibe echoing through the normally tranquil garden. A faint, almost imperceptible pulse of something beyond the norm. Similar to the feeling one would get when they stood near a high voltage electric tower. A sense of power buzzing away just thankfully out of reach, but it was there regardless.

The source seemed to radiate from the pentacle that sat in the center of the private chamber as the mystic sat in a lotus pose hovering in the air as her hands slowly passed over the objects that sat before her. To the casual observer, they would be nothing more than slivers or fragments of a glass like material as if some window or bottle had been broken, but to those whose kinship was bound to the night, they would know they were far more that broken glass.

Shards. Faeshards to be precise. Ever since they had first been discovered, the gypsy's curiosity of them knew no bounds. Only until recently had she been denied any time with them. Normally they were a prize claimed by the more physical of her kind and only then by a few with the persistence to continue to hack and slash away till finally their prey let one fall into their blood soaked hands.

Some of the ones she was working with was the property of others who had loaned them with great reluctance (and threats of death and damnation eternal if they were not returned as they was when handed over) only one was her own and that had been given to her by another.

The term itself spoke volumes to her. A shard was a piece of something far larger and (perhaps) more complex. Fae simply suggested they were of Fae origin, but the only fact that confirmed that was the fact that each 'type' of shard corresponded to the fae words one could find on any altar stone a ritualist would use. Were they remains of some source of fae power? Something holy to them? If so, how had it been shattered into these bits people were finding only now. Questions of that nature was what was having the girl call upon older teachings she had been taught when alive to try and gain an insight into this mystery. Scrying, like the rest of the arts she had been taught, was not an exact 'science' but it could give clues if done properly. Where had these come from and in whose hands had they been.

Did they have any value still to their makers? In some ways she doubted it, at least not for the original reasons. What few bits she had discovered about them told her what her kind was dealing with now were somehow 'lesser' than they had been before. Almost like a cave man studying a modern day tool. They might half understand it, but the details would be lost with time. It was her best guess on the matter. Whatever the fae were they might be in a process of going backwards instead of forward, so even if they could be reasoned with, they might be as clueless on the subject to any useful degree.

Or, was this one of the reasons the fae kept attacking them? Maybe they did remember and were furious parts of their culture was slowly falling into vampire hands but could not stop it from happening. It was a delicious puzzle the girl could not resist.

But so far, her efforts at scrying were not yielding much results. To her own hand from the hand of the one who now owned it from the hand of the individual (or thing) it had been taken from its corpse, to another hand who had it before them. The trail seemed to keep going on and each 'hand' left a fainter and fainter impression for her senses to pick up on till finally the tiny hints she managed to perceive were nothing solid to even guess at.

But she was encouraged. Such a trail suggested age and time was involved. Whatever these shards had been a part of had not been shattered in recent times but in the past somewhere. Such a conclusion left even more questions to be answered, but she was gaining some clues.

She took her focus off the odd ones and now centered on the pair she had (one her own and one from another) that had (supposedly) come from the same point of origin. Both were named for the same fae word, so what was the connection?

'What were you? Show me.' her thoughts and will reached out to the two shards as she weaved a spell to enhance her scrying even more. As she continued, the feeling of energy began to increase around her. She noticed it, but only dimly. Her focus more on the items before her rather than the effects around her now.

She was not sure what she had expected to happen, but when the two shards suddenly jumped up from the rug she had them displayed on and hung in the air before her eyes was not one of her potential expectations.

'Hello' her thoughts sighed as she studied the new arrangement. The two shards hung in two points in space well apart from each other and did nothing. Slowly she waved her hand and the two bits moved in synch with each other. Never expanding or contracting their distance and place from each other. The shards were trying to do as she had asked and 'show' her. Again, she guessed. Having no point of reference to work from, but as best as she saw it, the shards were holding themselves where they originally were when part of a larger whole. Instantly she wondered what could happen if she gathered more of the same type of shard in one place and tried this. Two were hardly enough to give her any clue as to what all the parts assembled into, let alone its true shape and size.

Or purpose.

Her curiosity grew as her fingertip reached out to them. Nothing happened until her finger passed between the two fragments that were humming softly. Suddenly she was flying backwards as if kicked by the granddaddy of all mules. Her body slammed against the wall with force and she dropped down into the small koi pond she kept, much to the dismay of her beloved fish within. Her head broke the surface of the water in time to see the two fragments drop back safely onto the carpet and remain still. She sat up slowly and took stock of herself. If she had hit the wall any harder she would swear bones might have broke in the process. Her hair felt frizzed as if she had been electrocuted by one major jolt of power. She finally climbed out of the pool and stood there gasping on wobbly legs. 'What the hell was that?' she wondered. Nothing in her grandmother's tomes had mentioned such a thing of the fae, let alone a result like this.

After checking on her koi fish and turning on the small waterfall to refill the pool, she dried her hands as best she could and began to write in her own book of discovery. The pen flying across the pages as she recounted the details of her experience. Behind her on the rug, the shards simply laid their like the bits of broken crystal they resembled and nothing more.