The people of this world suited the Iron-faced man. Their skin was scaled, their faces elongated into snouts, and their blood cold. They were slow to anger and left to him the colder parts of the world.
Amongst the snow he hibernated, in the rains he bathed, and in the sunlight he grew his odd plants that sated his hunger.
None who spoke believed what they had seen of him. Those who saw were not believed when they spoke of him. Those who believed revered him as one who should neither be seen nor heard.
Yet...
There came days of fire unto those who dwelt along the edge of his lands. The heat of a warming world had warmed the blood of its children to the point of boiling. They rose in anger against each other, tribe rising against tribe. They sought to own the warmth, relish in the strength it brought, and they wished to to spread it to all lands.
A believer cursed the burners. Blinded with rage for his fallen, and deaf to the roaring flames, he invoked the wrath of the Iron-faced man upon them. His words of a creature immune to the freezing spurred greater fire in the burners and the believer sealed his curse with blood.
The fire spread, far and wide it consumed, and it reached ever closer to the one who dwelt in chosen peace.
A child of the curser ran and ran and ran. Always a step ahead of the grasping flames. The child found the Iron-faced man with heat rising in the distance behind.
The child wept to the man, tears falling on worn boots. Sorrow flooded forth, seeking the means to quench the flame. The tears left to fall upon the earth as the man stepped away, leaving a chill in his wake.
As the flames surged toward the iron obelisk of the freezing lands a new rage entered the world. A quiet rage, a calm rage, a calculated rage, a passionless rage, the rage of a blizzard.
A sword unsheathed from a hoe.
The curse child watched as they witnessed a force they could neither describe nor comprehend. A blizzard rolled out to meet the blaze. The Iron-masked man would quench the untamed flame with blood.
Skilled swordsmanship sliced through scales like the north wind through tattered clothes. An ageless knowledge of the battlefield led the blind on their quest for vengence. The deaf paid no head to the shrieking flames as they buried them with steel tools.
Alas, as steel and snow smother flames they themselves warm. Quenching and tempering comes and makes those who pass through stronger. Harmony leaves the cold lazy to expunge the fire, as its warmth leaves them feeling safe by their hearths.
Soon the cold is no longer welcome, and the iron of swords is better used for farm tools.
In this day, the crusade abandoned and the blizzard hid from, the Iron-masked man left. The curse child, now grown and blessed, spoke not of the man's departure. Neither could the blessed elder believe what was seen on that day. As once hidden sword, cut the air as fabric and stepped to the world hidden beyond the sight of the seers. Leaving the world to its tepid harmony.
-----
Into the tavern wandered a weary traveler. He truged to the bar and sank onto a stool with a soul-shaking sigh. A rusted, boar-faced mask found a resting place on the counter-top, and a sheathed blade was leaned against a crossbar of the stool's legs.
"Its been a while, W," commented an odd cat, as he cleaned a glass with a rag and his twin-tails.
A grunt was the response, as the travelers head rested on the cool wood of the bar.
"The usual then?"
Black hair shifted over tanned olive skin as W nodded against the bar.
Naut set the glass down and called to his assistant.
Twin suns beat down on a worn wooden structure that stood on a glittering concrete grey beach.
A faded sign creeked as it swung in a gentle breeze.
Purple and gold lettering named the structure for any passerby; The Astral Cat Cabana. A black cat wearing a straw hat and holding a stone bowl with a metal straw and paper umbrella in it had been painted to be laying underneath the letters as if the sign was its hammock.
A kaleidoscope of colorful lights flashed from within the building. A variety of voices followed.
The door banged open as a woman with black hair threw it open and stepped into the sunslight. An exclamation of wonder was followed by the long whistle of a second woman leaving the building.
The two women chittered to each other as they rushed to the edge of the beach. Their steps making little noise as the grey land shifted beneath their feet like cotton candy.
Wonderous grins split their faces as they stared out over the gaseous blue expanse. Their sundresses, flowing layered whites and yellow with red and green embroidery, respectively, billowed in the breeze.
A tanned olive-skinned man stooped slightly to exit next, a flotation device seemingly made of cloud and held together by glowing red runes under one arm, and a folding chair under the other. The breeze caught his black and red robe as he stepped into the suns, revealing numerous pale battle scars that traced down his neck and chest.
He unfolded the chair, setting it down into the cotton-like sand beneath. He placed his robe on the chair and shoes underneath it, then wearing a swimsuit that matched his robes strode confidently past the women and into the argon sea.
When he was about waist deep he rested the enchanted ring of clouds atop the ebbing, etherial fluid, then sat in the ring. Drifting atop the swirling gaseous waves the man settled in and released a sigh of calm.
A white-haired man opened the tiki bar's shuttered window, and a purple twin-tailed cat lept onto the bar top. In the back of the building, an ebony skinned woman sorted through cupboards and coolers. Shadowy appendages flowed around her, putting things where she wanted.
"Kiuxa! Don't forget your clouds!" The white haired man called out to the black haired woman, holding up a pair of smaller enchanted cloud rings.
Kiuxa turned and ran back to the tiki bar to grab the flotation rings through the window.
"Thanks Adelon,"
She put the rings on her biceps which had been getting more defined recently. Now much healthier and happier then she had been when Adelon had found her in the forest, her broader form had begun to fill out her dress better and pearlescent blue streaks were starting to appear in her hair.
Her flotation devices secure she began to remove her sundress. Her sleeves caught against the rings as in her haste she hadn't realized she would need to strip to her bathing suit before attaching the rings.
Having now understood this she quickly corrected things.
Rings off, dress off, shoes off, rings back on.
She dashed to the edge of the sea in her blue and white-polka-dotted bikini, the runed clouds billowing around her arms. She stuck her feet in and watched with amazement as the glowing, partially transparent, semi-fluid flowed around her ankles. She reached down and splashed some of the fluid into the air, where it instantly became glittering vapor and drifted a distance before returning to the sea.
The other woman kicked the argonic liquid, splashing it towards Kiuxa, and covering her in the luminescent spray.
"Aluzia!" Kiuxa shrieked, then laughed and began reaching down to heave waves at her attacker.
Aluzia cackled and kicked back as she tried to shield her face from the showering mist. Her red and yellow striped two-piece was quickly covered in glowing blue droplets, and the burnt blonde tips of her hair were beginning to soak up the color of the argonic fluid.
The cat chuckled, bemused by the joy of his compatriots. He stretched, and yawned and settled into a loaf on the counter top. The sounds of cracking stone and a drink shaker came from within the bar, and he watched Adelon carry the rest of the folding chairs out onto the beach front, along with a bag full of beach supplies.
Lucy Belle placed a drink next to Naut, another was held in her hand, and another was carried by her swirling shadows.
The drink was a mixture of clearer alcohols and citrus fruits that had been poured into one of the local geodes. Hollow stones that could be filled with crystals that were a wide assortment of colors and sugary flavors.
Blues, greens, and yellows glowed through the alcohol in Naut's geode, releasing both colorant and sugar as the alcohol slowly melted the crystals within. Lucy Belle had garnished the drink with a little umbrella and had provided a straw for the cat.
Naut's tails moved the drink closer and held the straw in place while he took a long sip. He purred.
Adelon approached the bar,
"Is one of those for me?"
The drink held by shadows was floated out to his outreached hand.
"Many thanks."
Lucy Belle swirled her drink and breathed in the fumes that rose from it, having no need to drink herself. With the other hand she swung herself through the window and called to those playing in the sea. As the sun hit her black dress it lit up, glowing as if she had wrapped the milky way around her body into a one shoulder gown.
"I know y'all didn't jump right in without puttin' some sunscreen on!"
Her shadows pulled a bottle of 125 SPF sunscreen from the beach bag.
Kiuxa stopped splashing and hurried over, looking like a scolded puppy, to receive the lotion.
Aluzia sauntered over and pulled a different bottle from the bag. This one, in a flexible clear bottle, had a homemade label with the word 'Sunkiss' scrawled onto it.
Lucy Belle shook her head, "if you're gon'a use one of yer potions, put it on over there," she pointed away from the building.
The latina tsked, "This one is perfectly stable, it won't explode."
She popped the lid open while staring pointedly at Lucy Belle. After nothing happened she raised her eyebrows as if to say 'see?' Aluzia poured the honey-like oil into her hand and tried to hide her relief as it remained unexploded, even after being exposed to the alien atmosphere.
Adelon approached as the two women applied their respective lotions to their skin, and received his own dose from Lucy Belle.
"W! You need some too!"
The floating man held a hand up to show he had heard, then slowly began his return to shore.
"I'll just leave it on the chair, and im leaving you a drink too!"
A nod and call of appreciation answered. A fourth drink emerged from her shadows and rested next to the sunscreen bottle on W's beach chair.
Lucy Belle returned to the bar with Adelon. The cat raised its drink to the two.
"To a well earned vacation."
The two lifted their geodes to touch them to the cat's, "To a well earned vacation."
Kiuxa cannonballed into the waves.
W, now sunscreened, relaxed in his larger ring. Drifting with his drink in hand.
Aluzia settled into a beach chair, now equipped with sunglasses and a large yellow sunhat.
The sign creaked as it shifted in the breeze, and the argon waves lapped against the concrete-cotton shore.
A pair of large six-flippered skywhales breached from below the glowing waves, their bodies silouetthing against the horizon. They sprayed a red mist before disappearing back in the ethereal depths.
The twin suns gazed warmly down upon the happy troupe that had emerged from the tired building, bringing it to life once more.
I don't know how to draw so I'm going to "ink" some short stories for y'all using the prompts! I'm a day late so I will be posting the yesterday's soon and I'll try to get today's prompt done too
