The Beast Within

CHAPTER ONE

"Gather round children, it's time for storytelling." The elderly lady with a smile wrinkled face and milky blue eyes called to the playing children who flocked around her in record time.

Easily dropping to the grassy ground, dusty robes and tunics adorning bright faced and excited children, underneath the huge fig tree.

They were all ranged from twelve years of age to four, the older girls carrying some of the smaller children on their legs.

It was late in the afternoon and the sun was swiftly losing its intensity, the red orb glowing in the distance, the smell of wet earth, salt and fish in the air.

"Nana Hana." A particularly energetic child piped up, shaggy dirty-blond hair in his twinkling green eyes and ruddy face. "Tell us about the Shadow Prince..."

Cumulative groans get uttered from the seated children.

"Aye, shut yer mouth Thierry, you always ask for that story every time." A lanky boy that was seated at the edge cut him short, dark brown hair cut short.

The one referred to as Thierry turned around, livid, his face a bright red. "That's because it is the best story ever, Alan."

"Best story about royalty that abandoned us?" A girl spoke up, she was one of the bigger children, a chubby toddler seating on her lap.

Thierry shot to his feet at this like he had been waiting for that very statement. "They did not I tell you!" He slurred in his excitement. "The Gillotin chose to bid their time for the safety of the Mages."

"Bid their time till they were burnt alive in the mansion they were reduced to living in and your ever so precious Shadow Prince was buried alive? I clearly see that biding their time worked out so bloody well for their bloody sel…"

"Sela?!" Nana Hana scolded, cutting off the young girl's self absorbed rant. "Whatever have I told you about swearing, child?"

Sela swallowed back her words, looking disgruntled, her dark brown hair braided up with delicate, little pieces of sea glass and shells. "That it should not be done in front of the children." She finally responded, eyes cast away in defiance, full lips plump.

"Sela!" Nana Hana found herself calling again, the girl was still quite young but she was already a handful. "Settle down, Braun." She added to the child who had started off Sela's little tirade, the one the others had referred to as Thierry.

Most of the time, it was better to let Sela be, because scolding her only seemed to fan the fire in her heart, it was rare for a child of her vivacity to be born into a family of Water magic users.

"Well then, how about I tell the story of the Snow Queen who caused a powerful blizzard to go on for many days to protect a Mage village from non-Mage raiders during the Dark Ages?" She suggested in her trilling voice, a sign to show that she has had much practice at it.

"Or the Red Duke, who burnt down non-Mage Towns, they say his flames were so powerful, they turned the sky red." Another child spoke up, he looked quite young but smart for his age, wise brown eyes staring out of an innocent face.

Nana Hana just smiled patiently, she was used to these endless arguments between the children, it happened when they had heard her stories told so many times that they could recite them from memories but they still like the way she painted the scenes so there was the grapple of which one would be told.

"I still say Nana Hana should tell the story of the Shadow Prince!" Braun piped up again with more vigour, refusing to be silenced or ignored.

"By the Pillars, Thierry, do you ever shut up?" The lanky boy is quick to say again, while two boys with quite forgettable features snickered beside him.

"Don't pick on him now, Alana." Nana Hana cut in before the matter would escalate. "We still have quite some time now before the sun will set, if I put my heart to it, I daresay I could tell all three stories before the sun went down." She reassured them, beaming at their enthusiastic responses, her happy smile missing a couple teeth.

"So, why don't we begin with Braun's story, seeing as he asked first…"

Most of the older children looked unimpressed by this but were willing to put aside their disapproval for Nana Hana's sake.

"It all happened on a cold winter afternoon, some say the day refused to brighten as if in horror of what was to come…" Nana Hana began in a low voice, weaving out colors from the tips of her fingers.

Nana Hana had Spirit Magic which made her storytelling more enchanting than anyone else's, it didn't matter that they were outside and not in a dim hut but her tendrils of pulsing color was still bright enough to awe the seated children.

"The Royal family who had bravely received shame from the evil non-Mages to keep safe their people were peacefully eating in the little house they had been forced to live in, their lofty castles taken over by the wicked powerless race."

She paused at this point for dramatics, Spirit Magic weaving even faster from her hands now, the hues deepening…

Emerald greens and deep sea blues, blood reds and sunshine yellows, floating in between the children who tried to grab the whimsical apparitions with their chubby fists.

"Then it happened, some people say that they refused to fight and let themselves be taken away to keep the Mages safe while some others say that the non-Mages had used evil magic to make them powerless…

A loud uproar from the distance broke apart the cocoon that Nana Hana was wrapping so skillfully around the children, the tendrils of her Spirit Magic dissipating.

"Whatever could be the matter?" Sela was the first to speak up as the hubbub only got louder, distinct words starting to take shape.

*"Siren! It's a Siren!!!"*