Dracotamer46 Winning Entry

A Quari sat alone, his tail curled up around an empty page, and a quill resting in his fin. With eyes sad and lost, he tapped the long feather against his jaw and sighed for what must have been the hundredth time that day alone.

“What is wrong?” Came a voice from beside him, and he looked to see the goddess Pandoria, smiling with concern and clearly worried for him. “That was an awful lot of happiness that just escaped.”

He turned his sad eyes to her, attempting to force a smile but little could move his lips upwards, or make his eyes shine. “I have so much to say, so much I want to tell others, but the words just won’t come.” With the quill, he indicated the blank page, and a multitude of crumpled up paper balls sat in the corner, and littering his room. Some with no words, otherwise with words that formed no sentence. No rhyme, and no reason.

Scattered about like forgotten things.

His eyes dimmed again, and he could not keep his face raised to her any longer. “I want to give parts of my world to others. Joy, and laughter. Hope. It feels like I cannot find it, it’s out of reach.”

Pandoria’s heart felt like it was breaking at his words, and at the drooping fins, that almost dropped his quill. She stretched out her hand, and considered his wish, considered the papers around her and the quill in his hand.

In her hand, came an orb, words spinning in its surface, and a story to tell. Resting in parchment. She gave the grace to the Quari, resting it in his fins and spoke softly, “I give you the words, and the means to show them. I give you the freedom to give others what you seek. Let yourself tell stories and find the joy in people’s hearts.”

The change of the Quari was different. Very strange. His body felt far lighter, and his fins were thin and delicate, yet on them spun words. He looked down to see a body of paper, and shock was not a strong enough word for the feeling in his chest.

He saw words, thoughts, feelings, spinning on his surface. Words becoming sentences. Sentences turned to poetry.

The silence in his mind and his heart was replaced with clamour and music. A noise of fantasy, or love, of horror and history. So many things to tell the world, and the words he needed to do it.

“That’s it!” He exclaimed, joy breaking over his face, eyes lit up with promise and excitement. Replacing the sorrow like the sun rising in the morn. “Thank you, so very much.” He extended his fins, shaking her hand with a great deal of energy for a paper figure. Taking care not to give her a papercut, and took the quill in his fin yet again, this time he wrote and the words flew to the page.

He finally found the words for his story.