[JimmyDimples]

Shame.  Looked beautiful and engaging on the website.  And to think I was lamenting that my compy was too lo-fi to support it.  :-

Thanks for the warning, DCM.  And for saving my money, and making the 10th Commandment easier to obey.

[JimmyDimples]

Hope you have fun and stay safe!  🙂

[JimmyDimples]

(Oh… here's a link to the ad if you don't know what the heck we're talking about…)

[JimmyDimples]

I saw the commercial on flash earlier.  I just read the cartoon… and now I'm gonna scrap my entire library of writing, and start all over again writing fan-fics on this cartoon, 'cuz I! Feel! GREAT!!!!  ;D

[JimmyDimples]

Sorry I hadn't checked this out earlier… great stuff!  Can hardly wait to see what develops in the next part.

[JimmyDimples]

AG is back… on a national network to boot?  Sweet!  ;D

You know this is begging for fanfics out the wazoo… I wonder how stmercy's Sylph would fare on it?  Or Tetsuko? Or Lucky Lindy?

[JimmyDimples]

I said this before, but the colored ones are quite nice, Jed.  Particularly the invitation to read… but then, maybe I'm biased.  😉

[JimmyDimples]

***

Heavy thundering breath.  Sweat burning her eyes.  Arms and legs like lead.  A stitch in her side that wouldn't go away.  And she hadn't had any food or water since this morning.  And the white granite didn't look any nearer.  Alysia looked to the west… and saw the sun was orange, large, and dangerously low.

"No!" she gasped. "Too close to sunset!"

She feared that it may have happened already down in the lowlands, and she was too late.  All this racing for nothing.

No.  She ran this far.  If she had lost, then Jyreh himself would have to tell her.

Pumping her legs, her desperate determination pushed her on.  She willed herself not to look at first, but on one curve, she couldn't avoid looking at the lowering sun.  And she wasn't sure, but it looked like the horizon was getting lower for her, buying her extra time.  With that, she sped her pace, as if that'd help shove the land down even more.

Then from up high, she heard a low, menacing, almost manlike chuckle.  And it added a snarl to itself.

"Come here…" it growled with a wolflike grin.  "Come… here…"

It was Nissa, her competitor.

No.  Alysia narrowed her eyes.  Nissa wasn't a competitor.  She was an enemy.

And with an anger-fueled, spitefully determined, fear-stomping huff, Alysia shoved herself into a breakneck sprint.  Barely dodging most rocks, and banging her shins against the heavier ones, she shut out of mind how much time was left, or how much chance she had in the trial of strength, or how much hope of a reward.  She just wanted to be up there now.

And finally rounding the dome, she arrived.  A wide ledge of pure white granite, with enough space for a proper swordfight or boxing match.  She had to make herself stop so she didn't catapult herself off the cliff.  Grateful for that reason, she halted, hunched over and caught her breath, and looked one last time toward the west.  She had caught the orange sun, now dipping, perfectly half hidden by the land below.

Then she heard the slow, solitary, sarcastic clapping of two huge hands.  Right there, casually standing as if she'd spent the whole day resting at an inn and just had finished dinner, waited a huge, sneering, cocky Nissa.  She towered head and shoulders above the top of the tallest Amazon warrior either had ever seen.  The towering ogress folded her arms coolly  showing off block-like biceps and shoulders almost twice as wide as Alysia.

"You are a fool," her tormentor said. "All the way up the mountain just to lose." She drew closer within a foot of Alysia. "I got all three of those little gems, and ye gods, they felt great."  Clenching a fist, she flexed, and held a bicep the size of a pumpkin under Alysia's nose.  "Look at that.  Just look at that.  Even if you were to get a warrior's rations and the Granary's work every day for the rest of your life… you'll never be a woman like me."

Alysia stayed hunched over, panting.  "Thank the gods."

Nissa snorted.  "And you… how are you going to win the trial now?  Go back down ask those other nobodies for help?"

The sun finally set, with no more light than the red twilight west.  And another light came, with the crunch of sandaled feet on the stone.  The two women glanced that way.  And there coming, in his same robe and carrying a torch… was Jyreh.

"How'd you get up here so quick?!" Nissa marveled.

Alysia didn't ask.  Well, she wanted to know, but she remembered the wonders in the cave last night, and in the morning.

"You both made it," he said simply as he put the torch in a crack in the dome rock.  "After a long ordeal of a race, you're both here.  Impressive."

"Thanks," Alysia rasped.

Nissa nodded smugly and casually brushed a tree-trunk thigh.  "But of course. Now how about the trial?"

"Ah, yes, that," Jyreh said.  And he walked up to them, turned to Alysia, reached forward and clasped her shoulders.

"Alysia, dear heart," he smiled, "congratulations.  You've won."

Alysia stared at him befuddledly.  "What?"

"WHAT?!" screeched Nissa.

He turned to her.  "I said, she has won."

Confusion and anger stitched across the waterbearer's face.  "Won what?!  We haven't done anything!  We did the race, and the gems!  What about the trial of strength?!"

Jyreh's eyebrows arched up a hair, and he sighed with pity.  "Nissa, is your body so strong now, and yet your understanding so weak?"

He pulled the robe up over his head, veiling his own face.  Then the robed figure started to shrink.  It slowly seeped down, like a lit candle melting with the fabric flowing to the ground like wax, until he had shrunk down to between Alysia's knee and hip.  And then the hood fell back to show the face.

It was the girl trapped under the fallen tree.

"The trial," the child said simply, "you've both already had it."

Then she shrank away more, and the robe finally melted into a flat puddle of cloth.  It oozed across the stone to another spot a bit closer to Nissa, then began to raise again like water in a fountain up to just below her chest.  Another face emerged from the robe's hood:  the lad at the bridge.

"Nissa," he said with quiet authority, "you had gotten all three gems, and even the one you were given freely."  He shook his head sadly.  "And yet… you didn't use one pebble of its power in any of the three tests."  He reached into his currently loose, baggy robe, and pulled out the blue amulet from before and held it up.  "Very sadly… you failed the trial miserably."

Furious, Nissa swung her huge arms forward, ready to grab Jyreh by the neck and choke him.  But her hands only got halfway there.  In a flash, the pendant gleamed brighter than the torch, and magic energy crackled all around Nissa's huge body.  But then, one, two, three, four glowing gems rose out of her chest like turtles coming to the pond's surface.  And as the magic stones returned to orbit around the pendant, Nissa's body got smaller, and shorter, and thinner, and lesser as each muscle deflated like a wine skin at a soldier's night in town.  When the light and shine faded from Nissa, she saw to her horror that she was no larger or stronger than when she had woke up that morning.

Jyreh then turned to face Alysia, and the two women saw his face was now that of the farmer.  "Alysia," he said.  "You had no more than the power and might you were granted at the race's start.  And yet… despite the threat of losing the race… despite giving up a greater power you could have used… despite the trouble you got and the thanks you didn't get… you used what you had… and used it very rightly."

Alysia then felt a glow, and a tingle over her own heart.  She saw her own glowing gem rise partway to the surface of her skin like a sunrise.  Then the other four gems whipped away from Jyreh's pendant and smacked into Alysia's own, which absorbed each of them and grew bigger like a lump of clay.  Then just as that bigger lone gem sank back into her chest, she felt the warmth, which then flowed to her stomach, then her shoulders, through her arms, down to her fingertips, up to her head, and down her legs to her toes.  She closed her eyes…

"Alysia," Jyreh said in his own voice, "very, very well done."

Then she arched back with a sharp grunt.  Her inner being, her soul, pumped like a heartbeat.  And she felt a mild ache in her bones like they were being stretched, and like every bit of her body was overstuffed like her stomach after a grand feast.  She tightened her hands into fists… and they felt larger.

Then she heard a creak, stretches, and felt her ragged clothing shift.  And she stood straighter.  Taller. And taller.  Her arms bulkened, and her legs did too.  Heavier, but not burdensome.  And she finally felt how cold the mountain air was.  Of course, her clothes felt like they'd shrunk… no!  They weren't smaller!  She was bigger!

She stretched and shrugged her shoulders… and realized her bust had expanded a bit.  She raised her eyebrows on that.  She now had a bust?

Finally Alysia opened her eyes.  The top of Jyreh's head barely made it to her chin.  And off in a corner, Nissa, in a badly stretched, loose-hanging tunic, didn't even come up to her own broad shoulders now.  The defeated, dark-haired girl looked as if she was going to cry.  And Alysia, ignoring the boulders thrown at her before, actually felt a bit sorry for her.

"And now, Alysia," Jyreh said, now back to his true form and face, "welcome to my joy… and my haven."

The whole granite ledge then shone brightly.  Light without heat glared everywhere.  And just when everything around was just solid white… it faded.

And Nissa was all alone.

"Alysia?" she called out.  "Jyreh?"  She turned around.  "Alysia!  Jyreh!"  Nothing but the crackle of the torch in the mountainside.  Nissa grew desperate.  "ALYSIA! JYREH!"  Nothing.

Nissa curled her fist.  And she shook it in the air.  "YOU CHEAT!" she screamed.  "YOU DECEIVER!  YOU WARLOCK!  I SWEAR, I'LL PAY YOU BACK FOR THIS IF IT'S THE LAST THING I EVER DO!  I DON'T CARE IF IT TAKES ME A DAY OR A THOUSAND YEARS!  I SWEAR I'LL HAVE THAT COW SLAVE GIRL'S LIMBS HACKED OFF SO I CAN FORCE THEM DOWN YOUR GULLET AND RIP THEM OUT THE OTHER SIDE!  YOU TWO HEAR ME?!"

She heard no answer, not even the wind.  And trembling with an undying rage, she wrenched the torch out of the crack, and began her walk down.

***

Alysia couldn't see anything clearly.  Her world was a wash of cascading light and warm water, like she'd appeared in the bottom of a heated waterfall.  It coursed all over her bigger body, and she felt the old, torn, haggard clothes strip away and disappear in the torrent.  Then when that had stopped, she felt an equally warm, pleasant wind, drying her skin and her hair, which flapped in the air like a pennant.  Just as the last drop of water dried away, she felt a thick, silk-soft, yet strong garment drape around her body and pelvis.  And then her hair tightened and twisted into two thick ropes, which draped over her shoulders, and rested so the ends met her breasts.  She looked down.  Her new tunic was a rich green, somewhere between sea green and forest green.  And a clean white border around her neck.

"Alysia," called Jyreh's voice.

She looked around and saw she was in a stone chamber with a pool of clean water in the floor, and a spout on the wall over her head.  And a stout wood door in front of her.

Opening it and passing through, she saw she was in a round hall with shelves of books and parchments, and brass instruments she didn't recognize.  And a big table with plates of food on it.  And Jyreh in his purple robe.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"This is near the top of my tower," he said, "invisible to the eyes that aren't meant to see it.  My refuge from the Empire."  He pointed to a window.  Alysia looked out, and she saw it was perched on top of the dome rock of the mountain.  She saw the lesser mountains, hills, forests, woods, and the lay of the Empire.  And way, way down, she saw a tiny torchlight slowly moving.

"Is that Nissa?" she asked.

"Yes.  Don't feel sorry for her," he said.  "She has chosen her path.  Let us hope it will not bring her more sorrow, and that she finds her way away from it."  He beckoned to her.  "But for you…"

She approached.  And he had some golden articles in his hands.  And the blue pendant he carried.  "For passing the trial.  And for using that strength for the lesser.  Always."  He stood on tiptoe, draped the cord over her neck, and threaded her pigtails out from under it.

Then he showed four gold ringlets, each with two broken chain links embossed on them.  "For the bondages that were broken, and for those you have freed." And he tenderly threaded two on each of her braids.

He then held up a golden girdle, embossed with a chain of five large unbroken links.  "For those that are still under the Empire's yoke of slavery, that we do not forget to help and serve them.  May this chain be broken soon."  And he reached around her relatively narrow waist, slipped the girdle around, and clasped it to her solid flat stomach.

And he spread a hand over to the table.  With some roast mutton.  Potatoes.  Freshly baked bread with honey and butter.  Some cheese, grapes, and big cups of fresh water and wine.  "And," he said with a grand, mirthful smile.  "for a whole day of nothing to eat but an apple and water since morning."

Alysia stared at the spread on the table.  Then she stared at Jyreh.  "One more thing."

"What's that?"

Her eyes brimmed with tears.  "This."  And she reached forward with her new mighty arms, wrapped them around his back and waist, hefted him up, and squeezed him to her chest with a tight yet tender hug.  "For everything," she squeaked.

Reaching up, Jyreh brushed away a tear from her soft, round cheek before it trickled down to her smile.  "Again, dear heart," he said warmly, "very well done."

The Beginning

[JimmyDimples]

From what I see, you're getting better in meatspace media.  Nice work! 🙂

[JimmyDimples]

This (among others) is one reason why I don't buy Marvel or DC anymore – I am so heartily sick of this whole "US military=evil" sh*t.

One of these days I'm going to do a comic wherein the military are the good guys, for once.

I know!  How about we do a comic about a highly trained special mission force, fighting for freedom, wherever there's trouble?  They'll be there!

And as their enemy?  A blue-uniformed ruthless Amazon terrorist organization determined to rule the world!  We'll have them carry ordinary military hardware that actually fires lasers! 

I'll call it… G.I. Jaye!  YAY JAYE!

Am I genius or whut?  ;D

[Author]

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