MEDIA:

A stone-faced ornament. It's, uh, well...It's Mak.

"Who?"

Read the chapter. That'll answer your question! :3

(I do not own this image).

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It was the massive explosion which announced the failure of yet another spell.

Erin Maelstras stood, watching as smoke billowed from the crystallised remnants of the coloured rock in front of her. The grey smog quickly spread, obstructing her view of the room ahead and clouding the very air around her within seconds.

'For crying out loud,' she muttered, coughing in an attempt to rid of the ash stuck in the back of her throat. 'That's my sixth attempt at perfecting the bloody conveyance spell! What the hell am I doing wrong?'

'Patience is key to perfecting one's talents,' a voice beyond the mist replied. 'You of all people should know that, Erin.'

'Oh, shut up, Mak! Like you know anything about patience.' Erin looked over to the other side of the room, 'Can we get someone in here to clean this up, please?'

A small collection of levitating brooms appeared on cue, as if summoned by her words. They moved in a precise formation, gliding effortlessly through the smoke and over to the girl who had beckoned them. She pointed towards the floor and hurried away as they set to work, sweeping away at the ash strewn across the wooden floorboards.

Erin marched over to her desk, which was situated in the far corner of the room, and sat down. 'Why do I even bother?' she asked, propping her feet on the table. 'I swear, it's like I'm destined to fail!'

The smoke soon began to diminish. Erin watched whilst the curtain of mist pushed back, withering to unveil what appeared to be a massive library. Towering shelves, filled to the brim with books, surrounded the young magus and a gentle orange glow cast by the line of wall lanterns filled the room, providing her with a sense of warmth and comfort. However, it failed to cast back the feelings of uselessness which accompanied her most recent failure.

'Cheer up, Erin,' came an enthusiastic reply. 'You cannot allow something as simple as this to get your spirits down. Come on, turn that frown upside down...'

She did no such thing. In fact, the unpleasant frown she wore only grew stronger as she looked back at the self-levitating brooms, which continued to work, oblivious to her words, and shook her head. 'Am I just an idiot?' she asked, seeking a response from the voice she knew all too well.

'I'm going to answer that, but I'll be honest.'

'Ah, forget it,' she muttered. 'And they say conveyance spells are meant to be simple. Turns out I can't even do that without blowing something up!'

'Well, think about it like this: at least nothing caught fire this time.'

'You're not really helping me, Mak.' Erin rubbing at the ash which clung to her face. Her dark hair sat in tatters above her head, the curls of which appeared to stick up on their own, resembling a badly constructed birds nest. She leaned forward, resting her elbows against the table. 'At this rate, I'm never going to become a proper magus.'

A stone ornament with a face which had been carved to resemble an elderly, bearded man sat on the desk next to her. It was the same face which responded, 'Well, maybe it's for the best.'

Erin snatched up the ornament in a fit of anger and pulled it towards her. 'How do you know what's best, Mak?' she asked, staring into Mak's cold, grey eyes. 'You're not even a proper person! You're just a stone who was given life by one of my ancestors!'

'Yes, and might I add that Mistress Helaine was a lot nicer than you.'

'I'm nice!' Setting Mak back down, Erin stood up and made her way back across to where the brooms were still sweeping. She examined the polished floorboards which ran beneath her feet and gave an approving nod when she saw that they almost done. 'Look, I'm sorry,' she said at last. 'I don't mean to be all stroppy, it's just...I feel like I'm never going to ascend to anything. Not like the rest of my family, whose names are all in the bloody history books!'

'Now, now.' Mak watched as Erin returned to the desk and sat back down. 'Don't think like that. What you're doing right now is important.'

Erin shot the ornament a look of contempt. 'How is being a librarian important?' she asked. 'Do you know that my great-grandfather wiped out an entire army of a thousand men with a simple flick of his wrist? And my great-great-grandmother...'

'Mistress Helaine,' Mak added, dreamily.

'...was one of the best healers ever to walk the lands of the Serandore Kingdom. Even my father made the history books because of the incredible things he did. But what about me? I'm stuck here, guarding books. Guarding them from what, exactly? An evil wizard who forgot his library card?'

Mak's solid eyebrows rose, reflecting appeared to be a look of concern. 'This job is tough,' he said. His beard twitched with every word he spoke. 'Besides, I don't mean to sound rude, but you are...how shall I say it? A klutz.'

'Yeah, what part of that wasn't rude?' Erin leaned back in the chair and stared up at the arched ceiling which loomed above her. 'No. I will amount to something before my time is up. Like hell I'm just going to sit back and do this for the rest of my life!' She reached out, as if to encompass the entire library and the collection of books within. 'I'm not going to get anywhere if I just sit around here, blowing stuff up. If I can do something amazing, like kill a dragon or destroy an asteroid, then I can get away from this place and join the rest of my family in the history books.'

'Kill a dragon?' Mak struggled to suppress his laughter. 'Do you recall the time that baby lizarnox got in the house and you ran in the cupboard screaming, "It's after me! It's after me!"?'

'It was after me! I'd been out in the woods gathering tamperbiweeds, their favourite food!' Erin puffed out her cheeks in annoyance. 'And besides, it wasn't my fault the door got left open.' 

'Oh yes. It's amazing how often the door magically opens all by itself.'

Even Erin couldn't resist a devilish smirk. 'Well, I am a magus,' she replied. 'A mage capable of controlling the basis of magical spirituas.'

Their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a vicious rumble, which struck without warning, causing the entire room to tremble and the flames sitting within the wall lanterns to flicker. Concern clouded Erin's face as she stood up and walked over to the nearest window. She peered out in time to see a flash of white shoot across the night sky, followed by another ear-piercing rumble, which caused her to flinch this time.

'The storm seems to be getting worse,' she remarked. Rain knocked against the windows, as if demanding to be let in, and the high pitched whistling of the wind was growing louder by the minute, indicating the rising wrath of the tempest outside.

'Indeed it is,' Mak said, though his lack of arms and legs meant he was unable to swivel himself round to look at the storm, to witness its brute force in action. 'Do you think Bayloch will suffer any potential damage?'

Erin shrugged. 'I don't know. It depends on how severe this thing becomes. If it gets any worse then I reckon something'll definitely get struck down.' She stepped away from the window and returned to the desk. 'Don't worry, though. I'll make sure to help out the townsfolk if there is any considerable damage.'

'Lovely. It appears as though you do possess a heart somewhere in that little adolescent body of yours.'

Ignoring Mak's sarcastic tone, Erin sat back in the chair and closed her eyes. The trouble with being a librarian was the lack of visitors, and aside from the exceptional lizarnox, nobody ever came to the Library of Great Magicians – otherwise known as her home – meaning she had to think of different ways to fend off the feelings of boredom which arose far too often for her liking.

In her case, that either meant sleeping, trying with best efforts to perfect her spells, seeing how high she could throw Mak (despite the objections regarding his so-called fear of heights) and skimming through the same books over and over again. And in addition to wandering around the nearby town of Bayloch, there wasn't else much Erin could do.

Her life as a librarian was, to be quite honest, boring as heck.

Just as Erin looked set to fall into a peaceful slumber, dreaming of what reality would be like if she were to become a hero like her ancestors, someone knocked against the door. She opened her eyes and sat up with a reluctant groan.

'There's someone at the door,' Mak said.

'Oh, is that what that was?' She couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice as she stood up and shuffled across the room, towards the door. 'Thanks a bloody lot, Mak,' she muttered. 'I'd be lost without you.'

Erin briefly contemplated on leaving whoever it was on the other side and letting them think she wasn't in. However, she couldn't dismiss the idea of someone from Bayloch calling in search of aide? What if they were injured and in need of some help? What if they had children? No. If it was someone like that, then she would have to help. It was her duty as a magus, and as a member of the famous Maelstras family.

But when she reached the door and yanked it open, she was met with a very odd sight.

A strange man was kneeling before her, one hand across his chest, his head bowed. The rain was like a watery sheet as it gushed down, obstructing the view of whatever lay ahead and drenching the stranger, who seemed to ignore the chaos of the nearing storm.

An odd sight, indeed.

'Um...' Erin didn't quite know what to say. She froze when she looked down and saw him on her doorstep. 'C-can I...help you?'

The only response she gained was another deafening clap of thunder. Erin's eyes flickered up in time to see a gathering of white forks shoot across the sky, filling it with a blinding glow which vanished a mere second later.

Then the stranger spoke.

'Greetings, Mortal,' he said. 'I come from the highest regions in search of a goal, a goal which will allow me to return to my home world.'

Erin blinked, unable to make sense of anything he had just said. 'Huh?'

'Mortal...' The stranger raised his head and Erin caught a glimpse of his face. Dark, inquisitive eyes stared up at her from behind a curtain of soaking wet bangs which fell forward, framing a round, curious face.

But that wasn't the thing that shocked her the most.

More lightning, accompanied by yet another boisterous clap of thunder, shot across, filling the night sky with temporary colour which illuminated the land below and allowed Erin to catch a glimpse of two things protruding from the stranger's back.

Things that shouldn't have even been there.

Things that weren't meant to be there.

Was it an illusion? Was this stranger attempting to fool her with such cunning trickery? The things twitched and Erin failed to suppress a light gasp. Her eyes widened when she realised they were real, that they weren't just a simple illusion, and she opened her mouth to speak, though the words struggled to emerge.

'Y-you're...'

The stranger's dark eyes questioned her shock.

'...you're a...'

But still, he never spoke.

'...a...'

He simply stared.

Erin closed her eyes and took a deep breath, summoning the strength needed to complete her sentence.

'You're an angel?'

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So there we have it, folks. We've got a mage who's apparently a complete klutz, a stone ornament who can talk (I wouldn't mind one of those) and a mysterious stranger who, according to said mage, is an angel. Who comes up with these ridiculous ideas? 

Oh, right. Well, you got me there.

Anywho, what are your thoughts on our new protagonist, Erin? Do we cheer or jeer at the mention of her name?

If you enjoyed this chapter, don't forget to vote! :D