"The Girl with Wings" -from the Pangination

**EDIT: I recently entered this story into a writing competition; I just picked it last minute cos I had to enter something, but I'M IN THE RUNNING!! As in, not only do they want to publish the work in their collection of entries (kinda crude, but moving on...), but they also mentioned that they loved it so much that I'm being kept in the next round of judging! Fingers crossed loves! xx

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I wrote this a little while back for a contest on Polyvore (a group one, hosted by the lovely @gothicity). It's very short, but I hope you like it anyway!

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It was just as she was leaving school with her friends that Ebony saw the red eyes of the Raven Bird. Not normal and black like all the other crows that beat their wings and ran from people.

No, this bird was the one from her dreams, the same dreams that had haunted her since she could remember. The dreams that told her she was in fact a bird with the body of a human, and that upon seeing the eyes of the Raven, she would have to decide to believe or leave.

And she had made that choice.

She was going to believe.

Upon arriving at the place she had called home since her adoption at age 1, Ebony went to pour a glass of milk, before taking one of Aunt Alison’s cupcakes and sitting on the back porch that faced the sea to eat.

She knew she was different and she now knew she wasn’t truly human. What she didn’t know was what that Raven planned to do for her. According to her dreams, the Raven was a god with the body of that bird, and was after the young of her people. Why that was, Ebony didn’t know either, but once the exams were over, the summer had come and the freedom of adulthood had been unlocked, she was going to chase the dreams she had been seeing and become who she really was.

Another thing though, how was she to assume the form of a bird? That was something her dreams had never been able to explain no matter how hard she tried to read them, and she was very good at that.

Suddenly a blinding pain ripped across her right wrist. With a scream, she looked, and noticed a tiny tattoo of a sparrow there. Slowly, not sure of what she was doing, she pressed it with her finger, and felt such a feeling she had never felt before.

It was strange. She could feel the wind like an ocean, and her body a soaring boat, and beside her the beating of air that came from a hundred thousand wings! And her body; no longer did she have the long spindly limbs of a human. Instead she had small dainty claws, and a pair of wings that spread out from her sides…

It stopped as soon as she lifted her finger from her arm. Breathing heavily, Ebony knew who she was, and she knew what she would do. She would go home. She would find her true family.

But in the distance, she caught sight of two red eyes. The same two red eyes.

The Raven Bird was watching.

URBAN ENGLISH IRRITATES ME!!!! (and a bit of Facebook hate too... DON'T JUDGE ME!)

Greetings children, first blog post for February 2013 (?!?!?!?!)!

And as you can guess, this is about urban English.

Which irritates me.

A lot.

BASICALLY.

School's starting again pretty soon, which will be great because the holidays are BORING the heck out of me, HOWEVER, everyone will be fresh from looking up the latest urban phrases which I have no idea about, usually relating to a so-called 'dirty mind'.

Let me give you a pointer.

In Grade 6 (I was 12), we were in PE and the teacher was sharing out soccer balls. Upon doing so, the teacher cried out 'make sure that you've got at least five everyone!' and so in our groups, I simply said this.

"How many balls do we have?"

...

I have never forgotten that day. The day when this one girl in my group just stared at me with an open mouth as if I had just said something incredibly abnormal for my personality.

She then replied with, "Oh my god! What did you say?! That was so wrong!" And I remember being confused for the rest of the year.

Ever since, I have been 'socially suicidal' by saying things like "Oh please, just shut the... the... doodles up will you?!" when I couldn't think of a good enough clean word to express how annoyed I was at these boys interrupting study time.

Frankly, I can't see how words like 'balls' and 'doodles' became so 'wrong' to say. And how 'dirty minds' came about. If you ask me, some stupid person probably began putting the two terms together and sharing it on that ruddy... horrible... thing called FACEBOOK. Oh... I hate Facebook so much... anyway...

Thanks to Urban Dictionary, I've been able to sort a few things out, like the quote 'that's what she said' and 'I see how it is'. I'm also educated enough to understand what people say when they talk about 'feels', although I was weary to find out. But nothing, I tell you nothing, can explain how this all came about, and I think that's what irritates me the most. Not how complicated it is, not how hard it is to keep up, but how it started, because it's not positive, or educational, or useful at all. It's just a tool to embarass and bully people who aren't up to date. And not just me, but a LOT of people suffer from this I think, and at my school alone. And it's supposed to be a good school too... Urban English is just so... unecessary, that I wish we could just abolish the whole this altogether.

...

Well except for the phrase 'Seems Legit' :D

Always be legitimate everyone...

Have a lovely day!
Angie xox

"And so she would tell me..." -from the Pangination

And so she would tell me
My grandmother's word
That at 5 years
So young was she
To paint a great sycamore tree

And so she would tell me
My grandmother's word
That at 10 years
A rich young girl
Aristocratic family world

And so she would tell me
My grandmother's word
Fifteen she was
Painting to dusk
With perfume of Vanilla Musk

And so she would tell me
My grandmother's word
Twenty she be
Admirers, lots
Lux and lovers tight in knots

And so we would come
Grandmother would tell
Age twenty-three
Superior be?
Was that truly her life to lead?

Every day quite past noon
Outside was she found
With white blonde hair
Fair skin had she
Outside again, paints with her be

Long walks through summer's days
Cat held through winter
Punished by him
Father would not
Allow her to live alone and to rot

Penelope Woodville
Yet still would not nod
Too young, clever,
Stubborn, heartstrong
Would work for her own name long

If art was to own her
My grandmother knew
Own life be it
Luxury too
Together, make her strong and true

And so she would tell me
My grandmother's word
At age thirty
Business queen
Posh gallery did she begin

And come, her admirers
Her work may they see
And lower class
Their souls may last!
Would pay or otherwise would pass

And Father, was he joyed
At daughter's good work?
Indeed, he was
Her art was named
The best in all of London's framed

So come now quite further
To age thirty-two
Lover at last
Married was she
Son did she give birth to thee

Daddy then walks inside
Back from his hard work
Spots me gazing
His mother's face
A portrait, her, with dress of lace

-A poem for a Polyvore group, Stardust Sanctuary

"Taken" -from the Pangination

He dipped his quill into the ink pot and quickly began scratching away at the parchment; his swift hand movements, although know to be so quick throughout the land, could still not keep up with the invigorating image burning in his mind. A girl, walking through the forest - always the same forest - wearing a long white gown and with skin so pale it would challenge that of the moon.

Frantically, he spilt a few drops of black ink on the desk, but it did not matter, for he knew that soon the image would leave him, and he must not hesitate to write such visions, for one with his wisdom and knowledge would understand how vital it was that these pictures should be written down and recorded. The girl was terrified as she walked down the path; the forest was awake that night, and alive no doubt, wild and angered and ghastly. The branches moved down and whipped her, and so she fell; a dark swamp caught her and began to suck her under with a floor of quicksand. Mud flowed into her dear white face; screaming she desperately crawled out, and while pushing herself away from that place, a black wind blew and beat her backwards.

The writer was hyperventilating. His heart was beating fast, but not as fast as the blurring image in his mind of the girl. Standing up, dirty and scared, she ran, knowing the monster was only a second behind. There was no more path to follow now, for the forest had grown so much in her way. To her left, a murder of crows flew upon her and attacked with their vicious claws and beaks. Dizzy, she swiped with her arms as they soon fell away, before she tripped and slid further into the hungry trees with rocks sharp and hot, fresh from the fire.

The feather of the quill was moving faster than ever before in its life for the writer could barely keep up, as the girl was pushed along. Massive boulders from the nearby mountains fell and attempted to crush her in their wake. The leaves of the forest floor were now, she realised, dead bodies of birds, with fallen sticks becoming snakes that spat at her. Ghosts flew down from above, pain slashed at her from every angle, the trees moved forward and took her limbs, she was held down by them, on top of all the bodies, wind beat upon her, there was no escape, she could hear the monster coming and saw threw the sparkles in her eyes the ever growing blake smoke, she would die, she would die, her blood spilt out as she saw the most hideous face of the beast, she drew all the breath she could...

She screamed.

Louder than ever.

The beast came upon her...

The writer gasped as he was thrown backwards onto his seat. Breathing heavily, he knew he had just witnessed another fall to the hands of that forest. The beast had taken another soul and was temporarily satisfied, it would hide for a short while now, but the writer knew he would wake again, and again, be more hungry than the last time, just like every time.

He looked towards the drops of ink on the table. They weren't black anymore. Instead, they were three drops of bright crimson.

Far away, in the midst of an average green forest, a while off the path, lay a girl wearing a long white gown and with skin so pale it would challenge that of the moon. She might have been asleep, if it wasn't for the countless scars that bit into her flesh.

And by the side of a neck was a slash greater than any other on her body, yet from there no blood came. It had all been taken. And if one was to find such a pure body lost, they would have read the complete and absolute fear in her eyes if they ever dared to open them.

"Wind Rider" -from the Pangination

Barefoot, she stepped lightly across the roof, minding the sharp tiles and keeping to the shadows cast by the night's ghost moon.

The apartment building - twenty stories high - stood on the edge of a cliff; the edge of the city and indeed the whole country of her origin. It felt wondrous to stand so high at the end of a nation so great.

Walking, filled with passion, she gripped the pearl necklace that never left her throat. It was the only reason she could do what she could. Passed down by her grandmother, the elderly woman who lived with her inside room number 200. One floor below, that woman lit the oil lamp in her bedroom and opened the curtain slightly, awaiting the fligh of her granddaughter.

The girl walked carefully, until she stood at the end of the long building facing the sea, and felt the roar of the tide against the rocks so many feet below her. She felt the glory of the night, and happiness filled her heart, with only one small thing that saddened her. If only I knew another who could fly along with me, she though, I wouldn't be so lonely amidst the sky. Behind her, her white chiffon dress flapped in the cold night wind.

Then slowly, raising her arms until they were tall above her head, her face was hit by a beam of moonlight, and she dived.

Down, falling she went, her hair as straigh as a sword behind her, she fell towards the rocks below, before pulling up at the last second, smiling as the wind picked her up. She screamed with delight as she rode the wind. "Be careful Alexa," the grandmother warned, before she shut the curtain and went to bed.

Carefree was the only feeling Alexa had inside her as she leapt amongst the breaths of the Earth, laughing as she soared out towards the ocean; twirling, diving, dancing. A hundred miles went past in the flurry of her freedom, away from her homeland and the terrors of normal life where every snatching hand could take away that necklace. There was nothing to stop her at night, alone in the ocean. No criminal to take her, no bully to whip her, no rules to prevent her from flying away from all her troubles.

Yet the wanderlust that took hold of her distracted her from the danger ahead. A typhoon, twisting and heartless, was roaring towards the city, wanting to punish it for taking over the body of his Brother Earth. Slapping the sides of Brother Water, on he went. Brother Water was useless; he simply tapped the shoulder of Brother Earth and sent empty threats to the people.

Alexa only saw the typhoon when it was too late. Her recent cries of joy became cries of fear, as she tried to stop herself from getting caught in the typhoon's fist. "Sister, save me!" she exclaimed, praying that the goddess would take her from this place, back home. She had gone too far, there would be no one to save her.

Then suddenly she choked, for the wind had taken hold of the necklace and was using it to strangle her. She would die if she didn't take it off, but she mustn't lose it, never! Desperately, she tried to take it off and succeded. Holding onto it tightly, she tried to ride the wind away, but the typhoon was too strong. She felt herself losing consciousness, she would lose both the pearl and her life at that place...

The necklace then left her hand as she became too weak to hold it. High up in the sky and no longer without that pearl, Alexa plunged into the cold hard ocean, shattering herself as the force knocked the air from her lungs. Slowly, she drifted further underwater, the world disappearing from her mind...

When what looked to be a ghost came towards her, and she realised it was a boy about her age, and as he reached out, he gripped her arm tightly. Confused, she tried to read his face, but then it all defeated her, as she passed out.