Part 2

The next part of the short story...this is pretty much where I've gotten up to.

A million things happened before we knew for sure that Lydia was, indeed, dead. There was no rhyme or reason to it; it just happened. I pondered upon the fact that I should be sad about my stepmother’s death as the twins and I waited for someone to tell us what we had to do. The twins didn’t seem to care either. They seemed to be in the middle of a terrifically painful fight, as usual.

‘Raven Flist.’ I turned to see the doctor who had inspected Lydia.

‘That’s me,’ I said.

‘Can we talk?’

I nodded, and followed the man, a Doctor Howard, to a consulting room.

‘It seems,’ he began. ‘We have found something new. There was... a mark, behind your stepmother’s ear.’

‘What kind of mark?’ I asked, trying to remember if I had seen someone drawing on Lydia.

‘It was the mark of...’ Doctor Howard’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘You-know-who.’

I gasped. Fortunately, I knew which you-know-who the doctor was referring to. Everyone around our town knew of the evil wizard and his treacherous crime. We all knew the story of the sleeping prince, the sixteen year old son of Queen Edna and King Eyor, who had been kidnapped by you-know-who and put to an everlasting sleep in the tall tower. His name alone struck fear in the heart of every man, woman and child.

‘You know what you have to do now, don’t you?’ the doctor questioned.

I sighed. I had forgotten about that. D****t.

‘You better get going now. The dwarves close in a few hours.’

I nodded, heaved another long sigh, and left to visit the magic shop that the dwarves ran.

 

The door had a portrait of the Ahredor princess carved into it. Apparently she slept for a long time too, though it was an entirely different you-know-who that poisoned her.         

I knocked. The door was pulled open by a little dwarf. A pout was painted across his face.

‘Whad’ya want?’ he growled. ‘It better be good, we’re having a party in here.’

‘Help. With the quest,’ I told him.

He nodded, and invited me in. The six other dwarves were playing music, dancing and eating food. It looked like a pretty good party, to be honest.

The dwarf who had let me in marched up to the music player and pulled the power connector out. The dwarf who had been controlling the music got angry and started yelling at him. The other dwarves just stopped what they were doing and looked up at me.

‘Guys,’ the first dwarf said. ‘We’ve got another quest case.’

The music dwarf shut up.

The dwarf who had let me in introduced himself.

‘I’m Pouty,’ he told me. ‘And this is Bitey, Flirty, Dizzy, Speedy, Hungry,’ he told me, pointing at each of the dwarves. ‘And DJ,’ he said, referring to the dwarf who had previously been yelling at Pouty.

‘Hey guys,’ I said.

‘Hey,’ they answered.

I didn’t really know what to say at this point. So I decided to start with the basics.

‘Well, I’m Raven Flist, I’m fourteen years old, I grew up in Mereer and I…’

‘Who was it?’ Pouty asked, interrupting my extremely interesting, (if I do say so myself), life story.

‘Who was what?’ I questioned.

‘Who died, stupidhead?’

‘Lydia Creelyne,’ I told him, ignoring his use of the word stupidhead, which is, in my opinion, one of the worst insults I had ever heard.

‘Yeah. And who the f**k is that?’ Pouty asked, his tone alluding to the fact that he was annoyed.

‘My stepmother,’ I said. ‘Married my dad, dad died, she treated me like a slave, blahdablahdablah’

Pouty nodded.

‘Let’s get ready then.’