First Draft of the Second Chapter

Prologue - Part Second

Deep in the forest of Magic, simply a few hundred kilometres from City of Tilla, was a little house with a thatched roof that overflowed the small hut, giving space for shade whenever Palestorm wanted to go outside and sit on his little chair, enjoying the elms and the hemlocks and the firs, often smelling with dew, often sighing and moaning when wind whipped against them ruthlessly.
But just now, as the balsam of the trees flowed gently into the room (for the window was wide open), an old man with a long, smoky beard was been looking up at the sky, using his telescope made of the finest rhodium.

"Those damned planets have minds of their own!" grumbled the thaumaturgist as he absent-mindedly traced the redwood pommel of one of his ancient swords. He didn't hear it fall to the floor, blade pointing to an odd angle, for many wizards - notorious or not - are often like that; they think with their "open" mind, and while thoughts the sizes of ice cubes are able to pass through the "closed" part of their mind, or their "second" mind, they cannot quite operate with the two at the same time.
Palestorm squinted against the darkness, groaned, and looked through the telescope, up at the space itself.

Of, if it wasn't so beautiful he could only resist the temptation... but he wanted to touch those asteroid... feel the dust on Turner... walk on the gases of Sulfia... jump over Barathrum and go far beyond the asteroid belt... being an octogenarian did not suit him, even after meeting a wyvern and escaping death, saving people and stealing gold and being almost lulled to death when he had travelled to the "Singing Waters" by the deathly pale, scaly, bony sirens with voices the -

Palestorm startled; a comet was now shooting down, down, the colour of blood.The powerful telescope could make the wizard see every particle of it - the sharp angles, the rocky surface... however, what startled him was the way it so slowly plummeted down. Be it not for the telescope, he wouldn't be able to see such a thing, travelling five light years away... but he did. And it scared him.

Without looking away, he grappled to find his redwood sword, and he once even stepped on the blade, which neatly cut a gash in his foot. He stifled a scream, soon finding the pommel; he then grasped it, and thrust it beside him, as though the comet would any moment crash onto his hut and as though he, an octogenarian, could slice it into half with his sword. Sure, redwood was nearly perfect in the whole of The King - why, it was the most reliable wood, so sturdy and strong and smart. However, Palestorm never really knew how or why it smart. It just... gave itself this sort of air.

Meanwhile, he had to tear his eyes away to light a candle and search for his moleskin notebook, where he wrote in a shaking hand - Comet flying sru spaic. Werry fasst. Werry sharrp.
Then, a little more tranquil, he hid away the moleskin in the pocket of his robes and hurried to the telescope which glittered at him against the darkness. He sighed, talking for the second time in twenty minutes.

"I've a good mind to inform of my seeings to the King and Queen - but dear Riley can keep no secrets, and I understand her - so, I shall simply wait and see what happens. Of course, there is a chance of the comet crashing any moment, but I hope that that shan't be the case - I still want to live and see what happens. Turning a hundred and still being sane is a goal of mine, however it is much smaller than the one to touch velvety Space."

Now, however, he blew out the candle, not noticing that the table was stained with wax, and climbed into the hard straw bed. Being rich - well, wealthy, to express it nicely - meant not that he got a feather bed, however, and even though one may dare use the word "straw", it is actually more rock-solid than it sounds.
So, Palestorm fell away to dream of monsters and him chasing a star.

***

The next morning, the news spread that Palestorm had died. Rather, he had turned from a healthy man to a pile of dust lying on the "straw" bed, for it is how magicians pass away in the lands of The King. Many said he had perished of fright - but what? Why? How? He had been through so much in his life, from messing with a snake to attacking a selkie. He was, so to say, "a perfectly imperfect hero" - and he would have been quite honoured, and think his life worth not spending in his hut if at least once he bore the thought of people thinking him crazy away.

Only his loved ones cried and moaned that he never got to go to space and walk on the thumb of darkness as he had wished to. But the greatest of wizards fade away to become a faraway star, shining down upon the world. Only he didn't become an Upper-er, which was quite fascinating, for almost everybody were convinced that he would take the place of one of Them. Though nobody really knew his fate.

But his daughter, when searching his hut, had found the moleskin, and read every single page, only to discover what it was that her father had been fearing. That same night, she stayed in the forest of Magic to see the through the telescope, and gasped and moaned when she saw the Comet.

But there was not much that she could do other than go tell the King and Queen. And that caused much dilemma.

Of course nobody had believed her at first, but the girl was very determined to prove herself - and prove she did.
But how?" that is the question - that is the question that's best to be unanswered for a while.