Match the blurb with the alt.
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My mother told me I was conceived at Woodstock, which is how I got my name. My parents came from California and followed the “hippie trail” into Tennessee, helping to establish “The Farm.”
I grew up there, living on the land, using the land. My parents knew I was good with water. Some of us kids had abilities, and we were all very blessed by the yogis that had come with us. We were avatars.
At least until the 1980’s, when we all had to split up because we had unreported taxes. For ten years we sold extra vegetables on the side of the road, and we never charged more than it would have cost anywhere else, we never charged taxes, but the tax man came. The owners of the land had died, so we were squatters, which made matters worse.
We were chased off the land and into the city, where my father died. My mother lived on until just a short time ago. Now I’m in Millennium City, where I heard that “heroes” work together. Just don’t ask me to work with the police.
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My wife and I are from Leeds. She was Guinevere. I know how to control the four elements. My brother, he learned to control only one element.
I worked for the Queen in Ireland. I realized that I was not made out for war. Instead, I requested that we work in England to go after real criminals. Guinevere was killed in the line of duty in 1992.
I devoted myself to magic. My knowledge is limited. However, my brother has gone to California. I’ve heard he’s in the process of blackmailing the governor of California.
If he does not get a billion dollars by the end of next year, he will send California into the sea.
He can do this. He is the villain Geomorph.
I am in the City on my way to California. I’m unsure how long I will remain there.
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“I will try not the breathe/I will hold my head still with my hands on my knees. These are the eyes of the old…” – Try Not To Breathe, R.E.M.
He died.
I knew that he died because he gave me his breath. No one else was in the room. Nobody had come to visit him for months since he came into hospice. He had nothing of value that the helpers could steal. But they said he could breathe ice. That’s why I worked here today, and I would quit tomorrow.
I had the breaths of all that were ill and dying, all that had powers and strength and could breathe horrible stuff. I had their voices. I am not a mimic, but I have their voice. Sometimes it takes me a while to find my voice – there are so many breaths I have taken.
No more deaths, no more claiming of voices.
I go to do real work now.
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One more time, I said to myself, and tossed the stone on the floor. It rolled once, and then…nothing.
I was never going to get this right. I should have stuck to my day job, selling electronics at the Verizon center. But no, I listened to this white-haired guy who came in saying that magic was more lucrative than technology. He had long white hair, a white beard, and drove a Jaguar.
I believed him.
So he showed me something called “runes”, and he said all I had to do was put the rune on an object, think of what I wanted the rune to do, and toss the object. The couple of times he did it, it was awesome – like there was this huge lightning storm that came from a tiny bit of quartz he tossed in the air.
I tried. Believe me, I tried. I was doing something wrong, I knew it. But no, he said I was doing fine. In exchange for him teaching me I had to do some light housekeeping. All fine, nothing major because he had a maid come in and do the major stuff. We worked outside, in the warm desert weather of Arizona.
So for about six months, I did this, and then I realized I was being taken advantage of. I went to his house one last time, with the express purpose of telling him he was using me and I was going to quit.
The door was open when I got there. I mean wide open. He never did that, so something told me that there was something wrong.
I squeezed between the door and doorway, and walked through his front hall, to the end of the hall. And there, while the TV was on full blast, he was laid out on the couch.
With his throat cut so deeply his head was almost off.
I screamed, yeah, I’ll admit it. I ran to the phone and called 911. After the police took my statement, and after I went to the funeral (only some other old people showed up), I thought that was the end of The Old Man and me.
A few months later, I was still looking for a job when someone came to my door. He was another old man, white-haired but with no beard this time. He handed me a wooden chest. He looked angry. “Here,” he said. “Use it wisely.”
I took it – it was pretty heavy – and he turned and got into his Beemer and drove off. I didn’t know what it was, so I brought it to my room (I lived with my parents, don’t judge). I set it on the bed and opened it.
It was the ugliest belt I had ever seen. There was a note in the scrawling hand of The Old Man on top of it. “To give to Dustin after year and a day apprenticeship, June 2015.”
Gee, I thought, what a nice thing. I took it out. It was light, not very heavy at all, though it looked made out of wood. It had an old fashioned hook-and-eye fastener in the front, which I connected it.
So now what, I wondered.
Now fly.
I turned around, looking for the voice. Fly?
Fly.
I looked down at the belt. And then I looked at my feet.
I was a couple of inches off the ground.
“Fly?” and I went up a little higher. Fly! I thought, and hit the ceiling, then came crashing down.
“Dustin?”
“I’m okay mom!”
I had me a flying belt.
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Alts names are:
Breathe
Aquarius
Runelord
Elemental Mage