A little something I wrote for college - feedback requested

[Gee-chan]

Hey people!

Yeah, as the title says, this is something I wrote for my college work and decided to post here, both for the sake of it, and to get some feedback.

So, yeah, that's all I have to say. Enjoy...or not....either way, tell me.



The book was an old thing. Far older than anything else that has survived intact into the modern world. There have, for as long as it existed, been many rumours and legends to its origins. Some say it is a record of elder beings to walk the earth, others say it an arcane document of arts far darker than should be allowed to exist.
What its true origin is has long been forgotten, as have the extents of its power.
Well, that is not entirely true, or at least, it soon won’t be.

James was a fairly average kid, but on this occasion, he was in trouble. It was his own fault really. He had been climbing on the library roof as a dare and got caught, so his punishment was to spend his lunch sorting out books in the library, something which he had now been doing for a week and resented greatly.
This day however, was different, although at first it would not appear so. The library was closed that day, only a couple of staff members were there, all of them being in the administration office, leaving James to his own devices.
He was unloading one of the shelves at the back, an old rickety thing which was in dire need of replacing, filled with old books which had obviously not been checked out in years. Even as he took each one down there was a cloud of ancient dust released, probably filled with things James really did not want to think about. Most of the books there were pretty old and musty, many of them even seemed to be on the verge of falling apart. What was surprising was that some of them seemed to be legible and in good enough condition to be moved.
As he went through the tedious task of sorting the tomes, one of them caught his eye. It was odd that this particular book caught his attention so, because a was, for all appearances, a plain black, leather-bound volume with nothing more than a title scrawled into it in curious gold. The title itself was unreadable but it seemed to draw James in, the intricate curves and marvellous details of the unusual script almost hypnotic to the simple boy.
Drawn in by the mysterious tome, James opened the cover to find crisp pages, untouched by age, all covered by the same elegant script as the front. As he flicked through the pages, James could see masterfully crafted illustrations, almost human but each different in some way. Pausing at a few, James saw that they were, or at least greatly resembled, ancient creatures of folklore; naga, centaur, dryads, merfolk, driders, more beings than he could possibly recognise, yet still he could see what they all had in common; all of them possessed a human base. It was as though the book he held in his hands was a sort of mythos of all things demi-human in some manner, heck, he would not have been at all surprised if he had seen an illustration of a normal human being.
A noise from outside made James jump and drop the book. Looking out the door he could see that the librarian has stepped out for a while and had let the door slam on the way out. It was eerie how such a simple sound could be amplified by the silence of the room to become something startling, but such was the way of things.
Turning back into the storage room, he saw the book lying open on the floor. The pages were facing up and revealing itself to the world was one of the illustrations. It was of a humanoid girl, slight of frame and small of figure but mystifyingly appealing. Behind her main frame were four strange protrusions; wide things covered with unusual scales with complex vein structures running though them. James was sure he had seen such object before, yet could not place them, or at least, until he saw more. Beside the figure was what looked like a sort of measuring system, labelled in that same flowing text, however this time it seemed to use content James could understand; it was a scale, and it seemed to show the unusual girl be somewhere near 5 inches high. It was then that it struck him. They were wings. Dragonfly wings to be more specific. Sure, they were larger and seemed to be out of place on the girl, but they were fairly unmistakable. With that knowledge at hand, James knew what he was looking at; a faery. Not quite the Tinkerbelle of popular fiction, but a faery none the less.
The weirdness, however, had not yet happened. Leaning over to pick up the book, James felt the slightly rough texture of paper, the slick layer of ink, the warm blue glow that had begun to permeate from the tome…..wait, what? That wasn’t right!
James tried to withdraw his hand but the mysterious illumination seemed to follow, forming a strange strand of blue light reaching from him to the book. It did not stay like this for long however, as the glow began to consume his hand and made to spread up his arm. Trying to tear the blasted stuff off, James found to his chagrin that it simply increased the spread and gave it another foothold to work from. Within 30 seconds the glow had covered all but his head, which followed suit in another five.
All he could see was the strange azure radiance yet it was not that which worried him most, it was the feeling across his body. His skin seemed to ripple and a bizarre pressure seemed to build up, pressing in at his crotch, while something seemed to be attempting to drag his chest forwards. He seemed to feel a bizarre sense of vertigo, almost as if he were falling yet he somehow knew he was not moving. The light seemed to grow darker before vanishing entirely, leaving the boy swimming in a sea of black, until he finally lost consciousness.

Time passed, he thought, not that he could really tell when he was unconscious, but there was the feeling that it had when he eventually came to. His eyes strained in the light as it streamed through the door from a window. The way the sun shone through the glass gave the impression that it was early afternoon, but that couldn't be right, could it? Had he really been out for that long. Sure enough, the clock above the bookshelves said half 2; he had been out 4 hours.

Struggling to his feet, he noticed something was very off; everything seemed larger, much larger, and his balance was off. It was as though his entire centre of gravity and shifted and there was something on his back, not heavy as such, but it was noticeably there. A chill wind blew over him, making him shiver, which was another thing that struck him as odd. Looking down he saw two major things wrong...well, three, depending on how you want to say it.
The first was he was nude. For some reason his clothing had vanished somewhere, leaving the boy stark naked. The other thing was that there was something in his line of sight that should not be there.....two things actually. Hanging off his chest were two pale domes of flesh. They stood there, slightly prominent in the chill and as he reached out to touch them, the heightened sensory response was surprising. James had seen enough pictures to realise what he was feeling, what he was touching and just how impossible it was. Despite the latter however they were indeed there, a pair of breasts, standing proud against logic.
Of course, with this new discovery noted, there was only one reasonable course of action to take; he shoved his hands between his legs, begging not to find what he expected....but in vain. In his desperate hands, he felt what he feared....or rather, didn't. It was gone, his manhood was missing in action and acting as its replacement was a flat mound of skin.
James was not dense, for the most part. Confused and scared he may have been, but not dense, and it did not take a genius to work out what had happened; he was a girl now. Yet that still did not explain some questions. What he (or she, as it should be now) needed was a mirror, and fast. Luckily for her, there was a one next to one of the old shelves. Why it was there was a mystery, probably it had just been put there out of the way and forgotten about but while covered in dust, it still reflected.
As she ran her mind refused to comprehend the sudden difference in scale; books once the size of her hand were now nearly up to her waist, the doorway which was until recently only slightly above head height now towered above her but when she reached the mirror though she was forced to take it in. It should only have reached up to her knee, but now was nearly as tall as her, yet it was not that which caught her immediate attention.
Looking back from the old glass was a young girl. To James' eyes she was beautiful, holding an innocence to turn the heart of any man to liquid. Her wonderful brown hair fell down to her shoulders with just a slight wave, her face was more adorable than anything that should be possible, set with deep grey eyes into which the light simply fell. Her limbs were long and slender with small, dainty hands and graceful little feet and her body curved as though each little part of her was a work of art in itself. Her breasts, which had been surveyed earlier were not actually that large, yet delicately complimented her figure masterfully.
James could not help but gaze at the close to perfect being before him, that wonderful creature, so alien yet at the same time, so familiar. Moving closer to the image, the new girl was entranced at her new appearance, staring in disbelief, when something else caught her eye. Something behind her, shown in the mirror, four somethings, each flickering in vivid blue and fluttering slightly, giving off an odd sense of idleness. James turned around in surprise, but saw nothing. Turning back he saw that they were gone....no, wait, they were coming back, almost unfolding from behind her. Slowly, carefully, she turned her head to look behind her. Sure enough, there they were, four strange azure plates, sticking out of her back. They glistened wonderfully in the light, revealing a complex structure of scales which covered them protectively. Beneath them, barely visible, was an intricate network of veins, supplying the whole structure in a wonderfully efficient way.
Experimentally, James tried to move the strange objects, and found herself able to do so with remarkable skill. It was as though they had always been a part of her, that she had been using them since birth.
They were wings, of course. She had worked that out a bit ago. They were the same wings he had seen in the book......The book! Of course!
She dashed over to where she had been, looking for the fallen volume but to her dismay, there was no sign of it. What she did find however was a pile of green cloth, which she realised must have been clothes; she had, after all just been running around naked. Collecting the fabric she found it consisted of a simple but pretty green dress with most of the back missing and a well hidden little seam which contained a line of buttons to open and close it and some rudimentary underwear. Putting on the garments with a degree of difficulty (her wings in particular seemed intent of getting in the way) she was rather dismayed to find that while she was decent, the hem of the dress only reached half way down her thighs, leaving most of her leg exposed and that there were no sleeves to speak of. There were also no shoes or anything and (to mixed feelings) no bra of any sort. One thing she did find though was a satchel, obviously intended for her (at this scale, who else would it belong to?). Inside were miniature versions of her belongings and a purse which contained her student ID card. Looking at the piece of plastic, James was confronted by a photograph of her new face and a new entry in the name section. Instead of reading the usual, I now read Jennifer Dawns, her new name. Oddly enough, there was something else new; a species entry, under which the title Fairy had been entered (apparently deciding to use the modern spelling rather than the original one).
Wait, did this mean that there were now other non-human people in the world? Surely there would not be a whole category just to cover one person, would there? And what about her family, friends, everyone she knew? Would they remember who she really was, or have always known her as this? On top of that, there was the main concern; how was she going to change back?

Desperate to find some answers or some clues, the new girl turned to face her fate. Sure, she could stay here, hiding from what had happened, but that would be the same as giving up; she would never find a way to change back like that.
An alien instinct encroached on her mind, causing unfamiliar muscles to twitch into action. Her back seemed to ripple as her wings began motion, ever growing quicker and stronger. A light wind began to whirl around her as her balance seemed to falter and the feeling of her feet upon the ground vanished. Before she knew it, she was airborne, hovering unsteadily just a few centimetres above the ground. It was nerve-racking, to say the least, yet there was a strange sense of joy in it, a feeling of utter freedom the likes of which she had never felt before. Slowly but surely, she gained altitude, the rhythmic beating of her wings becoming more natural, more fluent, more confident. Then she was moving. The delighted girl darted back and forth, up and down, left and right, all the while giggling in childish glee. It was like she had discovered a drug, it was addictive, intoxicating her mind and yet there was nothing wrong with it. To her, in her delighted innocence it seemed like the most natural thing in the world. She didn't even mind as she crashed headlong into a bookshelf, simply getting back up and launching herself back into the air, laughing even harder.
Eventually she regained control of herself. 'This is no time for games' she told herself sternly, cursing herself for losing control like that. Fear scratched in the back of her mind; she was beginning to like this far too much, starting to lose herself. Using this as fuel to rekindle her resolve she began a thorough search of the entire library; searching every shelf, every pile, every tiny hiding place, all the while mystified by the suddenly alien landscape the familiar building had become. Time passed, and still she searched and still she found nothing. Alas, after all her efforts, it seemed the book was gone; departed on its own whim, or perhaps flickered out of existence.
No! she couldn't think like that. I had to be somewhere, if not here, then somewhere. Things don't just blink out of existence.

'Yeah,' nagged a voice in the back of her head, 'but guys don't randomly turn into mythical creatures either, do they?'

The voice had a point, but that path led to defeat so it was stubbornly ignored; she was not going to back down on this. Her declaration was suddenly broken short by the creak of the front door opening.

'Crap!' she thought, what was she going to do now? She honestly hadn't considered how she was going deal with other people like this but now she found herself like a deer in the headlights. Unable to force herself to move in order to flee or hide, she simply hovered there as a gargantuan being entered the library. It was a boy who entered; a slightly bulky teenager about her age with short sandy hair, dark green eyes and natural mischief to his gaze which darted around the room with almost bizarre efficiency, taking in everything it possibly could.

Jenny recognised the boy instantly; who wouldn't recognise their best friend. To someone who had known him for a long time, he was unmistakable, despite suddenly seeming to be a gargantuan entity, thundering in with the force of a landslide and just as much elegance, rather then just someone walking in.

“Hey!” he called, “You done yet?”

It was the usual thing. He had come to pick her up from the library around this time every day, after which they would hang around for a bit and generally refrain from getting on top of roofs….or at least, getting caught on top of them. Today, however, with all that had happened, Jenny did not know how to react. Should she hide and pretend to have already left? Should she act normal? What should she do?

“Hey! Jenny!” he yelled again, “Come on, I need that fiver you owe me!”

Honestly, the guy was like a fog-horn he was so loud. He was loud most of the time but today seemed to be even more so. Perhaps it was due to the new difference in scale, or perhaps he was just being particularly noisy today….whatever it was, it was annoying her.

“Kyle! Shut up!” she yelled before for realised what she was doing, “This is supposed to be a library, you idiot!”

Well, there was not turning back now, even if she wanted to. In very probably one of the least smart decisions in her life, she had just severely limited the number of options available to her. No changing that now though, she would have to deal with what was given, and very soon, seeing as Kyle had just spotted her and was heading over.

“I know that” he said, still rather loud to Jenny’s ears, “but its Sunday, no-ones here so no-one cares.”

“I'm here and I care!” yelled Jenny, “and I would much prefer to keep my eardrums intact.”

The pair glared at each other until Kyle burst into laughter...and was still being really loud.

“Come on then” he said, “you owe me a fiver and I'm going to spend it on a new game.”

The main thought going through Jenny's head at this moment was 'go with it'. Not much seemed to have changed as far as their friendship went which was a bit of a relief, however it was still too early to be sure about anything else.

The pair left deliberately quietly, mainly because of a glare from pretty much the only staff member who was there as she stuck her head out of the office door primarily to give them evils.
Once outside, Kyle gave off possibly the loudest sigh of relief ever heard, by anyone, ever.

“Urg! I can't stand that place!” he stated for the world to hear, most of which probably did. “It's too stuffy and dull.”

“No, you just can't stand anywhere there are rules on noise.” countered Jenny, “Heck, even at a loud concert you would be thrown out for being too loud.”

“That would never happen.” retorted Kyle

“Yeah,” said Jenny, “Because you would never be bothered to go to a concert.”

And so they went on like that for a good 10 minutes until they ran out of steam, after which they simply wandered down to the nearby rental store. It was odd, really odd. Even as the diminutive girl fluttered along, hovering at shoulder height, there were no strange looks, no surprised passers-by, nothing. Everyone they saw simply looked at her as though a faery going down the street was the most normal thing in the world. Heck, for all she knew, it was. Perhaps she would now see an archangel descend upon the school only to start teaching French on a day to day basis. Or perhaps the world had always been like this, but she had been too wrapped up in herself to notice.
No, that wasn't right. Keep some common sense going. Obviously all this was the book's doing, and perhaps it wouldn't stop there.

That was a new thought. Perhaps it wouldn't stop there....just what was it trying to do? She realised she knew near nothing about it. Sure she knew is had changed her, but beyond that, nothing. What was it for? Where had it come from? Where was it now? How was it possible? All these were questions with no answers, but first she needed to know one thing; just how much in her life had changed?

“Umm...Kyle?” she asked, slightly hesitantly

“Oh, no. You're going to ask me something complicated aren't you?” said Kyle, “I know that tone of voice.”

“Well...I have something to tell you, but I don't know how to say it...”

“What, you going to confess your love to me or something” It was obviously said as a joke, but it pulled on a raw nerve.

“No, you moron!” yelled Jenny, thumping him with her tiny fist (jeez, she just realised how small she was again...) only for Kyle to grin back at her.

“Heh, it's so fun to wind you up.” he said, still grinning like an idiot. “Let me guess, your wings are going to be shedding again soon so you need me for a head-ride for the week, right?”

Jenny was dumbstruck. Something like that could actually happen? He really had no problem with the idea of her sitting on his head most of a week? Wait, why was she thinking about that of all things? Damn, she had got off topic...

“Right, I'm just going to tell you, ok?” said Jenny, just trying to get it over with, “Up until just a few minutes ago, or perhaps a few hours ago, I blacked out for a while, I wasn't a faery, and I was a boy. I was clearing out one of the old bookshelves in the back of the library when I found this odd book which started glowing at me, then I passed out. When I woke up something like four hours later, I was this. Oddly enough there was a new outfit next to me and a bag with my stuff in, but scaled down. So now I'm keeping myself together with the idea of finding the book again and expecting to break down as soon as the shock wears off.”

She took a deep breath to calm herself after getting a bit flustered by the end and looked up to see Kyle's reaction. She had been expecting to see him look at her as though she was mad, which may or not have been accurate. What she had not been expecting was him to look at her completely seriously, as though picking over every word she had said, evaluating it and looking for any gaps. Eventually he spoke up.

“You're serious about this, aren't you?” he asked plainly, no sarcasm to his voice at all.

Finding herself unable to find the words to answer with, Jenny just nodded.

Kyle seemed to think this over, his hand over him mouth in a particularly cliché manner until he looked at her again.

“I'll believe you.” he said. “I know when you're pulling my leg and when your being serious, and right now you are more serious than ever.”

“So you believe my story?” asked Jenny, her voice a croak. She did not know why, but her chest felt heavy and there were tears forcing their way to the surface.

“Well, I will admit that I am a bit cynical about it actually happening” he said, “but I believe that you think it happened, and as far as I'm concerned, that's all that matters. I mean, it is you that it happened to and all.”

And so the dam burst. A tide of tears spilled forward as Jenny's relief overwhelmed her. Crying her eyes out, she threw herself onto her friend's shoulder in pure instinct and wept with all she had while Kyle simply put his hand lightly on her head. Through her sob she unloaded all her uncertainties, her fears, her insecurities, everything, with Kyle just patiently listening to the barely comprehensible stream of malformed words. He did not need to understand what she was saying, all he needed to do was listen until she was finished.

Eventually she was empty, the tears had run dry and she unburied her face from her friend's shoulder, his hand still resting on her head. She looked up, her face still flustered, half dried tears smeared across her cheeks and her shoulders trembling. Kyle just looked at her, a warm smile on his face, observing the adorable sight presented to him.

“Feel better now?” he asked, to which Jenny just nodded.

“Come on, lets get you home.” he said, and picked her up with one hand.

“H-Hey!” cried Jenny in surprise, “W-What are you doing?”

“Up you go.” replied Kyle, placing the tiny girl on top of his head, where she sat dumbstruck and quickly grabbed hold of his hair as he stood up from the bench he had placed himself on sometime while Jenny was incapacitated.

“I thought you said you were a guy.” said Kyle, “I mean, you sure cry like a girl.”

“Shut up.” sniffed Jenny, unable to muster up anything else.


It was about 20 minutes later when they got back to Jenny's house, which was still full sized. Apparently the rest of her family had remained unchanged, that or they had developed some method of functioning in a house scaled for equivalent giants. She didn't have much time to think it over, though as Kyle simply walked up and opened the door.

“That you, Jenny?” came her mum's voice from inside, “I thought you were going to be out with Kyle again today.”

“She is” replied Kyle, “I'm here too.”

“Oh, hello there, Kyle.” she said as she stepped out of the kitchen, just as Jenny remembered her. “Where's Jenny?”

“On top” said Kyle, “She got a bit upset over something so I brought her straight over.”

“Oh?” said Jenny's mum, coming over and looking up on top of the boy, who was taller then her. “What's wrong?”

Jenny peered over Kyle's head down into her mum's concerned face but could not think of anything to say.

“She's still a bit upset” said Kyle, thinking quickly, “But I'll take care of her.”

“Can't you tell me what the problem is?” Jenny's mum asked, directing the question at either of the.

“She asked me to keep it secret for now.” said Kyle, while Jenny just weakly nodded in confirmation. Her mum seemed to take it at that so the pair quickly made their exit upstairs to Jenny's room.

Entering the room, Jenny found that it was mostly unchanged, sort of. The computer and it's desk were now a lot smaller; with the keyboard and mouse being at a suitable size but the screen seeming huge, as though it were a pretty expensive one. Instead of the normal chest of draws, there was now a table with a tiny wardrobe, a little table with some basic make-up stuff on it and a full length mirror (that being said, it was actually only about an inch taller than her, but that did not matter). The bed was actually the same size as ever, making it seem excessively big, but then again, it was the place where anyone who came in would probably sit down so it was probably left to compensate for that. Everything else about the room; the size, organisation, any other objects, were still the same as before, even down to the leather bound book at the end of the bed......WHAT!?

Jenny took off like a rocket, dive bombing the book like an eagle grabs a rabbit. This was unreal, it was the same book, no mistaking it; the same clean black cover, the golden title, the elegant script, even the slight smell, a description of which she could not put her finger on. Hurriedly, she tried to open the huge cover, struggling with all her might until the pages were laid bare.

“Hey, what's wrong?” asked Kyle in understandable confusion

“This is it!” cried Jenny, “This the book I found!”

“So...umm....what are you going to do with it?” asked Kyle

“I'm going to make it change me back!” said Jenny

“But how?”

“I'm going to keep trying stuff until it works.”

“And what if it does something else?” asked Kyle, “What if you turn into something else, or vanish from the face of the earth? Have you even considered that?”

“Well, no but-”

“Precisely! You hadn't thought about it! You never do! Just for once step back and think things through!”

“And do what? Just sit around and worry about if something might happen while I'm still stuck like this?” yelled Jenny, “You can say that because you've not been harmed by it but I have and I'm going to take every chance I have to fix this!”

“No! You won't and if I have to make sure of it then so be it.”

“Just try it”

In open defiance Jenny propped the book up and turned page after page, making sure Kyle could tell she was doing it. Then a shadow descended upon her as his arm reached over her, confiscating the book.

“Give it back!” demanded Jenny

“Not until you calm down.” said Kyle coldly, “Until then, you will go nowhere near this thing.”

Jenny stared daggers at the human until her eyes widened at a sapphire glow emanating from his hand, or rather the book it held.

“No...” she gasped, charging to knock the tome away but before she could reach him the light exploded, flooding the room. As it cleared, and her eyes recovered, Jenny saw the the book floating about a meter above the unconscious form of Kyle.

“We apologise”

It was Kyle's voice, but it did not come from his mouth.

“Who are you!?” Jenny demanded, “What have you done to him!?”

“He shall come to no harm” replied Kyle's voice, “We needed to borrow his words so we could speak to you.”

“Who are you?”

“We are the Fabli.” said the book. “We are the entities bound within this tome. We are the ones who changed you to ensure our own survival.”

“What do you mean?”

“We were bound into this book many centuries ago by those of the church. They deemed us heretical, an affront to their beliefs and so removed us from their sight.” explained the book, “At the time of us being sealed, there was a failsafe placed upon us. We were to move periodically, for the longer we stayed in one place, the more power we gathered. The spell was to move us randomly when we reached a certain amount of power, thus breaking our efforts, however as time went past, and the people of this world lost belief in our existence, the seal weakened, which is what allowed us to change you.”

“But why?” asked Jenny, “Why me?”

“It did not matter who it was” admitted the book, “All we needed was an anchor, an entity of our kin which we could use to aid us in our release, no matter how they may have originated. We believe the term your kind would use for it is 'wrong time, wrong place' as far as you are concerned.”

“Then change me back!” yelled Jenny, “Find someone else to be your 'anchor' or whatever! Just leave me alone.”

“We cannot” said the book, “In the days of our prime, changing a person, rewriting their history, or even erasing it was an easy feat, but now, it took all the power we had gathered, and even then our efforts were not complete. We tried to change you when it was easiest; before birth, but the temporal distortion did not reach your memories as the timelines shifted, which was accidentally due to us, our interference.”

“Then, I'm stuck like this?”

“It would take us nearly 150 of your years to gather the power to reverse our actions, and while you would still be alive and young, your world would have left you behind and you would die of age upon reverting.”

“No! I refuse to accept that! There must be a way!” yelled Jenny, tears starting to fall from her eyes, “There just has to be...”

“Only if you could find and tap into a fount of our power.” said the book, “but they have all long faded, remaining as mere shadows of their former glory, nothing but tricks of the light.”

“Then I'll find one!” said Jenny, “Then I'll make you use it to change me back.”

“We refuse.” said the book flatly, “Were we to do that then out efforts would be for naught. We will not allow you to jeopardise our release.”

“Then when I find it you will use to to set yourself free” she said through clenched teeth, “then you will change me back.”

The book was silent, considering the proposal.

“Acceptable” it finally said, “It will cost us much of our power, but a compromise is better than nothing.”

“So where should I look?” asked Jenny

“We do not know.”

“you don't know?” growled Jenny, “Their your damn sites, how can you not know where they are?!”

“The world has changed much both on its own and by the intervention of your kind. The placed we would once seek are long gone.”

“Then what can you do?” asked Jenny

“We can give you a direction.” said the book, “but that is all. Our innate link with the sites barely function now, so distance and location are hidden from us. Many of us were based upon this land though, the closest site is on this island somewhere.

“Then give me the direction.” said Jenny

“Look to the north-east” said the book. “Whether the site be on the coast or before, we do not know.”

“Thank you, for that at least.” said Jenny, “but I will make sure you keep your promise.”

“We must leave.” said the book, “We are tired and can only borrow this voice uninvited for so long.”

“You had better not have hurt Kyle.” said Jenny

“We assume you mean this human, the one who warms for you.” said the book, “We may have need of his voice again, so we must keep him available. Tell him that, so we may borrow him when the need arises.”

“Warms for me?” asked Jenny, flustered, “What do you mean? Are you saying he....?”

But there was no reply. The glow from the book had faded, and the pages fell limp to the ground. As soon as the book landed, Kyle bolted upright.

“What the hell was that?!” he gasped

“The book spoke to me,” said Jenny, “Using you.”

“And?”

“There should be a way for me to change back, but first I need to do what the book wants.”

“What does it want you to do?”

“It wants me to set it free. Apparently there is a race locked in that thing and it wanted to use me to help them get out.” said Jenny, “I'm going to need to find some place they can draw power from so they can escape, then they will turn me back.”

“And where would that be?” asked Kyle

“I don't know.” said Jenny, “All it could tell me that there was one to the north-east and that it was in the UK, although not in those words.”

“Well, at least its a start..” said Kyle

“The book also told me something else” said Jenny, a sly grin creeping onto her face, “It said that you 'warm to me', which may mean that you like me.”

Kyle's face turned bright red. “No, I don't! I mean I do, but as a friend! Yeah, just as a friend.”

“Oh?” said Jenny, “then why are you blushing?”

Kyle huffed. “Please.” he retorted, “You're not even my type. I like girls with breasts, not little lumps like yours.”

“Pervert” Jenny mocked

“Am not!”

Jenny just giggled in return, an unfamiliar, but pleasant feeling rising in her heart.
She knew it was going to be tough, that it may be some time until she could resume her life, but perhaps, just perhaps, it would be nice like this, just for a while.



Well, what do you think? Sure it's not perfect and I don't do the emotional thing that well, but I'm pleased with this. Feel free to point out some areas for improvement, or just bash my work, whatever you feel is approriate.

[Haylie]

I rather enjoyed it, particularly the dialog between Jenny and Kyle. I am amused.

[Gee-chan]

Yay, thanks! I will admit, dialogue is not my strongest point so I am glad to hear that you enjoyed it.

[Haylie]

My only real problem is I spotted a few minor typos in there in a few spots, and I'm sort of a stickler for that kind of thing. Other than that, it's not bad.

Story-wise, I wouldn't mind knowing a little more about James/Jenny's past. More family? Girlfriend, perhaps? Just some small suggestions, if you were planning on continuing.

[Gee-chan]

Ah, typos. Yep, I'm not surprised there are some in there.

As for more character backstory, well, I deliberatly left it open for continuation should I decide to, but when I wrote it time was ticking with deadlines drawing near.
Another problem is how would you interact with such characters? Family I can do but I have like no experience with relationships so really have no idea as to what it entails (never really been something I have understood the point of to be honest).

[Funny Hat + Funny Accent]

It's interesting...I like the feel of a good mystery setting too.

[dervivaire]

It's good I agree on the need for some more back-story though
Also, if you need any romance in there, then you have to understand the level of love between the characters, if it's the whole 'true love' thing with both sides utterly devoted to each other then the dialogue between them would be much different than a casual relationship. (NOTE: if you want to learn more about the whole 'devoted relationship' type, i suggest you read a manga called 'Sensual Phrase').
I hope you write more of this though

(Not sure if that was what Ellerington was after for the story part though I'm afraid, but hopefully he'll like it enough so it counts although he'd probably go on about how it has to be more game orientated than novel-like)

[Stone]

I really liked that story. I sure hope that you write more.