Valient

Chapter 1

Come in.

Come in to a land of monsters and magic, fairies and phantoms, ghouls and ghosts. Step through the magic mirror and enter a world of mystery and enchantment. We've fallen off the map. Here be monsters and here be treachery. This is a land where carpets fly and flowers talk, where lightning strikes and sunflowers grow where the lightning scorched the earth.

So many never leave from where you are right now. So many never take that first step, that leap of faith, to plunge into the darkness of the unknown. For they know that if they cross the threshold, they may never come back.

She was afraid too. I know she was. I tried so hard to help her reach out to the stars, to leap from cliffs of doubt into the exhilaration and freedom of self-knowledge. Of knowing this place deeply and intimately.

Just look around you. Gemstones growing on trees, unicorns prancing by, their silvery manes flashing in the sunlight, and fairies as tiny as butterflies flitting across fields of lavender. The air is thick with the sweet scent of rosemary and clover, nightingales sing for joy, and mourning doves cry in anguish over their enchanted loved ones.

Frogs can be princes here. Little brothers turn to swans. Foxes are clever and men none the wiser.

There is danger here. Of course there is. You cannot separate the magic of the earth from danger. When you break the laws that govern the movement of stars and earth, well, things tend to slip out of the cracks in the ether. Terrible things. Nightmarish things.

Old hags bent with hundreds of years of age, trolls too big and stupid to do much more than wield a club, greedy dragons hibernating over their hoards, and shadow creatures too frightening to name: they all live here too. They share this land, the good and the evil alike.

There must be balance.

That was something she has to learn. She has not mastered it yet.

The question is, will you?

*

Once upon a time...

That's how they all start, isn't it?

Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom...a kingdom so beautiful that the gods were jealous of it. This kingdom exists; they'll try to tell you it doesn't, but it does. There: just on the edge of your mind, nestled in between your cares and your worries. The place you go just before you sleep, where all the colors dance and shift about.

This kingdom is so lovely that the birds sing all day long and swoop through the air, each and every one a color of the rainbow, as bright as jewels. It has everything: graceful mountains pierce the sky, arching waterfalls shoot cold spray into the air, and rivers glide and sparkle by. Luscious fruits hang from trees laden so heavily that their branches bow toward the earth. The sea hangs to the north, an endless expanse of mystery and beckoning. Great, towering forests thousands of years old stand as sentinels to the goings-on of mortals.

Watch your step here; creatures and tricksters lurk. Talking animals, magic plants, giants, dragons, sprites, and unicorns. It is a kingdom of enchantment, although not all is enchanted.

Long ago, a shadow fell upon this land. What once was beautiful turned dark and ugly.

Once upon a time...