The Lucky Fox

A little black beetle crawled laboriously across the gnome’s open palm, moonlight glinting off its smooth carapace. It was an ugly-looking thing to be sure, and for the life of her she couldn’t puzzle out what the point of such a creature might be, but it seemed to know its place in any case. The beetle crawled doggedly on, not growing, or shrinking, or changing colour, dancing a jig, turning into a pomegranate, or otherwise doing anything else one wouldn’t ordinarily expect a beetle to do.

This annoyed Ruby immensely. She had been trying unsuccessfully to effect some sort of change in the uncooperative little bastard for going on ten minutes now. Gathering herself, she reached out with her mind one more time to try to locate the beetle’s timeline, but found only confusion and emptiness.

“Grrra!” She growled vexatiously at the insect, stamping her foot. With a sound like shattering glass, the beetle exploded into a thousand pieces. Ruby blinked. It wasn’t quite the change she’d had in mind, but it was a start.

Since literally ripping the heart out of a man two days ago, Ruby had found herself completely unable to perform even the most basic magic. Fortunately the winter frost had passed, so she hadn’t frozen, and some thoughtful soul had scattered apples all over the Cathedral Square the previous day, so she hadn’t starved. But still it was an unwelcome and unsettling turn of events.

She considered it again now, staring at the place where the unfortunate beetle had been a moment ago. Emotion must be the key, she thought. Back in Mr. Fizzlecog’s classroom she had always felt proud and special, and... other emotions, and she remembered feeling like they had lent her strength and purpose. But they were gone now. When she thought of those times all she felt was numb and weak and helpless. Then when she had become angry at the teacher and the other girl she had made them disappear. And she had been livid with the guard Loran when she killed him.

Whether the emotion must be linked to the act in question she didn’t know, and suspected not, but at the least her ability to manipulate magical forces must somehow come from the same place as her feelings. How to tap that source at will, that was the puzzle.

Something caught her eye, a movement. It was a rat, creeping and sniffing around some empty sacks in a nearby alley. Ruby edged towards it, but the animal was too preoccupied by its search for food to have noticed her anyway. It squeaked loudly as she snatched it up by the tail and struggled while she tried to wrap her hands around it, but soon enough it gave up and stopped fighting, apparently resigned to whatever end.

Ruby held up the rat and stared hard at it. She was trying to find things to dislike about it. Searching for a reason to hate it so that she could do more magic. Rats were disgusting, she told herself. They lived in the dirt, and spread horrible diseases, and they’d bite you if you weren’t careful.

She tried to imagine that the rat had bitten her. But of course it hadn’t, and didn’t seem likely to anytime soon. It was just still now, looking back at her with its little black eyes. A moment ago she might have described them as beady, but now that she looked at them more closely they seemed sad. Sad, and afraid, and alone. Ruby realised with a pang of pity that the rat was just like her. She put it down gently and watched it bolt off down the alley, its little pink tail whipping from side to side behind it. Ruby wished that she had a tail. The notion almost made her giggle.

Then the rat stopped. It was at the other end of the alleyway with just its nose peeking around the corner, sniffing. Ruby tip-toed towards it to try to see what had caught the rat’s attention. It shuffled forward a little, just enough to get a peek at whatever it had smelled. Its fleshy tail had stopped swishing, but the tip twitched with excitement. It crept forward a little more, then a little more, then waited... then dashed out across the moonlit cobbles. Ruby heard a loud squeak, and she ran the rest of the short distance to the end of the alley. What she saw when she got there made her stomach turn over.

The rat was clamped in the jaws of a ravenous red fox. Dead. The fox bit down on it a few more times just to be sure, dark red blood soaking its muzzle, then dropped its kill onto the ground with a soft splat and began to eat.

Ruby felt like she was going to throw up, but she didn’t. She stayed perfectly still, unable to tear her eyes away from the scene, feeling the sickness radiate slowly out from her stomach. As it passed her heart it became anger, and by the time it reached the tips of her fingers she knew what she was going to do. She was going to twist the matter around the fox into great invisible teeth and chew it up. She was going to make it feel like her poor rat had felt, and what’s more she was going to make it nice and slow, so the animal would know what it was to be afraid, and alone, and sad, before it died.

Thump.

The next thing Ruby knew, she was hurtling towards the ground with something on her back, and what felt like a pair of arms around her middle. The impact almost knocked her out cold, but her instincts made her struggle and kick out for all she was worth.

“Calm down!” said a desperate little voice. “Stop it!”

“Let me go!” Ruby snarled back.

“I’ll let you go if you promise to calm down, okay?”

Ruby didn’t answer, but struggled some more.

“Okay??” repeated the voice.

Again Ruby didn’t answer. But she stopped struggling, and evidently her attacker took this as a yes. The arms eased their grip on her, and when she rolled over onto her back she found herself looking up into the face of another gnome. Astonishment caused Ruby’s anger to drain clean away.

“Are you hurt?” asked the other gnome, sitting back on her heels and shaking bright pink hair out of her eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know how else to... I had to stop you, you see... stop you doing what you were about to do.”

Ruby blinked at her, mouthing soundlessly, unable to decide which question to ask first. The other gnome chose for her.

“I’m Charlotte,” she said. “But you can...” She struggled with herself for a moment. “You can call me Dream, if you like.”

Charlotte sighed.

“Everybody else does.”

I loved all four of your stories, especially how (well I think) they're currently going on, but not only that they involve your characters with each other and continue one story from the next.

Your writing style is amazing and I believe that you are a fantastic writer! Keep up the good work and continue entertaining me with your crazy little (I'm getting the vibe their children) gnomes!

Thank you, and thanks for reading ^_^

Oh god... these stories are great!
More... please?