anke

On a walk along the edge of the woods, Manuel took a deep breath, and sighed. “You could almost imagine we were the only people in the world.”
Jessica politely refrained from saying that she could see airplane exhaust trails and hear cars – and that tarmac paths didn’t grow naturally. She found civilisation reassuring, nowadays.

Originally posted at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

Magic, in principle, was easy. He concentrated on what it should do, and made the signs that his intuition told him epitomised the idea. In time he learned that some designs belonged to grand concepts – a circle was “protection”, a rectangle “order”, but a square “containment”. That knowledge was useless when a concept central to a spell refused to connect to a shape he could draw or carve.
The scribbles for “to the other side” had been clear even in a panic, taking him far further than expected.
The problem now was that he did not know what “home” was.

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

Sometimes, survival was a struggle against nature. Finding shelter from the elements as well as food was essential.
Sometimes, the elements were all on your side, and food was there for the taking.
Nico wondered if it counted as person-against-nature or person-against self when she just could not stomach fruit that called out “Eat me! I’m ripe and juicy!” from its trees.
It was one reason why she disliked places that seemed taken right out of fairy tales.

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.