1 The Wisp Queen

Her tight black curls bounced against her back as she ran. She panted as she heard the sound of men chasing her.

"She went this way!"

"Don't let her get away!"

Iris ran harder wincing as the twigs and rocks bit her feet from among the sucking mud of the swamp.

"There's a trail of blood headed this way!" One of the men called to the others. Iris' heart lept into her throat as she continued to run. She felt her shoulder rip out of its socket as one of the men grabbed her arm.

"I've got her!" he called out to the others.

"Perfect!" said the shortest man in the group. He strolled up slowly like a hunter whose hound had caught the bird for him. He walked with the strut of a man used to getting his way. The men around him moving like dogs awaiting their master's next command.

'Throw her in the bog." he said turning away from them to leave the swamp, "I told you girl: No one refuses me."

Iris felt her body lift into the air as she was tossed into a nearby bog. She thrashed and struggled, trying to keep her head above the surface futilely as the bog slowly gobbled her up whole. The men stood around her jeering as she sank below the surface.

As they walked away, their show now over Iris clawed at her throat beneath the surface. She wished for wings like the fairies or a tail like the merfolk, why did she have to be born to one of the still human tribes. She received neither as she continued to sink. No one would come to save her, and she had no way to save herself. Her lungs hurt from the lack of oxygen, they screamed with the desire to take in air when all around her was muddy water. It felt like her chest would burst and then suddenly without warning, it did. Pain flashed through her as she sat up. Iris opened her eyes, confusion flowing through her veins as she looked at the swamp around her.

The men were gone, the sounds of their voices growing fainter in the distance. Iris wondered how she could be here, the waters of the bog had just moments before covered her body. But now it was like she was just sitting in a shallow puddle. On top of that, her once familiar surroundings were now both familiar and eerily unfamiliar at the same time. She saw the same trees that had been in this area before she'd been thrown into the bog but now, they seemed to glow and hum with a strange energy that surrounded everything.

"How," she began uncertainly, "How did I get back up here?"

Iris looks down as she raised her hands from the boggy waters. Something wasn't right. Her chocolate-colored skin had changed. It was now like tanned leather. As she looked at her arms, she noticed that through her skin she could see the growing crimson rivers of her arteries. She thought about the pain she had felt in her chest earlier and looked down. At first, she didn't notice a difference. But when she raised her hand to her side below her left breast right over her heart, she found a crater. Her side had been blown out and her heart glowed like garnets.

She heard the sound of a crackling fire behind her. Quickly, expecting the men had returned to finish the job they had obviously failed at, she leaped to her feet turning around. As she did, she heard the sound of a torch being waved around her head. She glanced around for a moment confused as an idea struck her. But it was impossible, still, she could feel a strange warmth enveloping her scalp. Like a hot towel, one wraps around their head when getting a massage.

She grabbed a lock of her long black hair and looked at it closely. Little flames licked at her hair, weaving, and dancing, in and out of the tight coils of her hair, but never consuming the readily available fuel.

The ground shook as a voice spoke to her:

Iris, daughter of man, welcome to the fold.

Iris spun around looking for the source of the voice, "Who's there? What's the fold?" she asked.

The fold is the magical energy of this planet. It sensed your desire to live. Felt it burn within your heart. And now, you are part of the fold. NO longer a daughter of man. You are the first of your kind. A daughter of Earth and Fire. Welcome to our world; Iris, Queen of the Wisps.