Short Story Excerpt: Girl Plus WTF, 2

If you're following, I'm writing. Huge organization project so I need this light little break to free-write.

In the last chapter, Ryleigh wakes up in a strange world with extra appendages to boot. Her earthly humor falls flat on the ears of a young maid, Lyta, as she tries to come to grips with suddenly being a VIP in the middle of some pretty serious conflict.

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Ryleigh expelled a heartfelt sigh of relief, slumping her shoulders and dropping her head to her chest as the tension deflated.

And once more came eye-to-eye with god-awful dressing gown. The more she caught sight of it, the more she decided it was the equivalent of Level 1 armor you started a game with. Never mind that it was clearly expensive; why did so many expensive clothes look like camouflage you'd use to blend into your grandmother's couch?

Drawing more breath into her lungs, she tugged at the sleeves, letting it pool to the floor. It was only slightly problematic that she was naked as a jaybird with no alternatives in sight. It was only her and Lyta in the room after all.

Enter two head-to-toe armored soldiers, clanking around like a empty stack of tuna cans, moving mechanically into place flanking Lyta then coming to a halt with the stillness of display armor like she would see in museums.

Only in museums. No one wore metal deathtraps anymore, at least in the land where things made sense.

Yet another inelegant squawk emitted from her mouth and her hands slapped over her eyes. What am I, a toddler? I can't see them, so they can't see me? Shifting her hands over her intimate parts, she wished she had one of those ridiculous helmet visors to hide her embarrassment.

As if to further her stupidity, her wings snapped shut in front of her, a much better barrier than her hands. So much so that she was completely concealed behind a wall of feathers.

Ryleigh didn't quite trust her command of the wings to open just enough to see her unwanted audience, so she released her hands and pushed her wings apart with them, just enough to poke her head out between them.

She glared with reproach at the faceless men that towered over the perpetually bored petite maid between them.

"I... don't suppose you have any normal clothes. I'd rather go n--"

Nnnnnnnnope. She stopped that thought in its tracks. Was she really going to say 'I'd rather go naked than put that hideous nightgown on again'? Yup, and also big nope.

"The Council must be growing impatient. And I came to do just that, Ryleigh. Dress you, that is. A feat that should have been done five minutes ago had you not insisted you're not Queen Ryleigh, but some wingless girl with no sense of duty or urgency."

Lyta stepped forward and spun on the guards.

"Out with you! I can only assume the Council threatened to have your heads on the block if you didn't retrieve her with haste, but I'll not have you dragging our Queen naked before the jackals!"

Lyta swatted at them and the brutes stumbled out like Dorothy's beloved Tin Man as if she were some tyrannical Cyclops rather than a slip of a woman.

Even once, Lyta slammed the door behind them and slapped her hands together as if to brush away the filth. She shuffled over to an ornate wall and flicked her hand, a sparkle of light emitting from it, making swinging doors of the walls, revealing a whole host of ridiculously jeweled dresses.

Ryleigh couldn't help but gravitate towards them, still keeping her wings up in case of more surprise guests, but otherwise slack from awe.

"Oh, I've seen this movie before. If I don't find the plainest one, I'm going to burst into a cloud of dust..."

Lyta clicked her tongue at the latest absurdity.

"If you show up in anything less than one too heavy to fly in, you'll be the laughingstock of the kingdom. Not that anyone would laugh in the face of a Queen..."

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Let's leave the story at that for now. I have to say, I enjoy the hell out of injecting my nerd life into fantasy fiction. A nice break from the epic trials... I'll give the girl a break for now. She's got a lot more hurt coming to her, after all.

In case you stumbled in out of order:
Girl Plus WTF 1 

Next Up:
Girl Plus WTF 3

Short Story Excerpt: Girl Plus WTF

I figured I'd start the new year with my first blogged story excerpt. Probably not going to be a long one, but let's see where it goes...

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Struggling on the edges of sleep, she labored to open eyes sealed shut by the day old lash tint she forgot to remove.

'She' was a good start. Definitely a girl, but the rest of the details of her life eluded her. She had gone to sleep in her own bed, vaguely recalling that she'd caught a whiff of those sheets and added 'bed laundry' to her to-do list the next day.

This definitely wasn't her own bed. For one, the sheets smelled like honeysuckle and she didn't own any such dressing gown as the one encasing her outstretched arm. Or any such dress-like fashion at all for that matter.

Ryleigh (her name, doing good so far) pushed her arms forward, freezing in place as she felt some foreign appendages behind her stretching in the opposite direction.

She shouldn't have any such muscle memory for how to move whatever was back there at all, yet it folded like an arm at her willing it do so and she smacked herself in the cheek with a bevy of silky white feathers.

A very inhuman squawk escaped her lips. In a sudden frenzy of flapping wings, she simultaneously dislodged herself from the bed and managed to tangle herself in the previously unseen canopy above her. Ryleigh tumbled to the floor, screaming bloody murder from the colorful swirl of limb-trapping fabrics.

The sound of a door and the scuffling of feet cut through her humiliation, the gentle peals of laughter at her expense only adding to the assault on her pride.

"My lady, still yourself. You're only making it worse" came the patronizing voice of the intruding female.

Ryleigh complied but rebellion still exploded from her being and on a stream of colorful vocabulary.

Number one, let's do away with this 'my lady' nonsense.

"Vile woman, what have you done to me?" Ryleigh sputtered, disentangling herself from the offending pile of sinfully soft silks.

Vile woman? Really? Now she was doing it too.

"Not a thing, my lady. I just came to wake you but it seems you're an early bird."

Oh, ha ha. Early bird, get it? Yuk yuk and har de har. At least the woman wasn't self-satisfied with that little pun. It was probably more infuriating that the uniformed woman's face was so serene and serious instead. And oh yeah, the 'my lady' thing.

"Ryleigh. Not 'my lady'."

"Fair enough, and I'm Lyta, not 'vile woman.'"

Ryleigh didn't want to like this woman but couldn't help a smile at the quick wit.

"What kind of horror show are you running here, Lyta?" Ryleigh emphasized the name with a venomous punch. "You get your jollies sewing wings onto people's backs?"

Ryleigh might have suspected the stoic woman was simply a victim of too much Botox if not for the sudden lift of eyebrows at the accusation.

"I'm not sure how hard you hit your head on that tumble but those are the same ones you fell asleep with. Indeed, the same ones you were born with. I assure you there's no trick involved."

"Silly rabbit, Trix are for kids."

Humor was her best defense but she might have spoken another language for all of the recognition this Lyta gave for the comeback.

Ryleigh's eyes swept around the room again. No televisions or computers or any of the commonplace things she might find in her home. Still not uncommon in a prison though. In its place were many not-so-commonplace things that told her this was probably a place without cereal featuring cartoon rabbits.

Her eyes found Lyta once more, noting that despite Lyta's assurance that her wings were commonplace, Lyta had no wings of her own. She did, however, sport a wicked set of pointy ears. Ryleigh's hand drifted to her own ears, relieved to feel their familiar roundness was still intact.

Ryleigh narrowed her eyes as the woman's words rekindled in instant replay.

"And when exactly was I born?"

Lyta's expression became bored and a frustrated sigh escaped her lips.

"Apparently yesterday," Lyta mumbled before her eyes softened with sympathy. "I realize you've suffered quite the ordeal. Your parents died just days ago and you've barely moved since. You not only take the title of Lady of Aldivan but you've been summoned to the King's Council on the eve of war."

Ryleigh blinked incredulously. She was pretty sure last night she had talked to her parents on the phone, although she had been somewhat incapacitated, bloated from polishing off a bag of Cheetos. She had a Level 60 battlemage on Skyrim. Unless Cincinnati was about to start a war with Canada, she was also pretty sure that nothing Lyta was saying made one bit of sense.

Ryleigh got to her feet, not without taking out what could have been a lamp on the table behind her with one unaccounted-for wing. She cringed as the shattering sound of glass punctuated her nonexistent grace.

"Whatever drugs you're on, I need some."

Lyta's rueful smile told her that this incomprehensible babble was no joke.

"My name's still Ryleigh, right?"

Lyta nodded and Ryleigh expelled a pent-up breath.

It was a start.

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