Waverly kicked a pebble and watched it skitter across the blue lake. It dropped into the depths with a loud plop, and the sound brought a stupid yet satisfied grin to her face. She kicked another pebble, and another, watched as both skittered across the lake, and plopped in with the same jolly sound.

On the other side of the lake stood an interesting living structure, its reflection gleaming in the water like a large gingerbread house; the walls and roof were brown covered from end to end with dying leaves, the scratchy windows had been left open to allow the sunlight in. A long ragged rope mounted between two huge poles stood nearest the lower window, and from this rope several washed clothes and linen hung swinging in the afternoon breeze.

It was dry season in Bremeton, but that did not hinder numerous plant life from growing in wild forms and shapes around the house. A particular plant grew from the doorstep and weaved itself into a long walkway connecting to the trunk of the tree house beside it.

As Waverly skipped across the large colored stones lined over the surface of the lake, which was used as a bridge, the door to the house opened wide and a man's face peeked out. He snarled unhappily and stepped out. His lanky form was almost as long as the doorframe itself.

"Can ye cease making that foul noise, Waverly? Come here over into the house. Lessons be about to begin."

"Coming, Pa!" Waverly grumbled and jogged from stone to stone until she was on the ground again. She followed the man, who had already gone into the house all the way up the stairs, and into the special room she used for lessons.

"Ye pend all ye free time jumping down and around in wet earth, making a frizzle. Sit there over and get out ye books." The man complained.

Waverly reluctantly moved over to the untidy stack of books in an earthen shelf on the wall and plucked out a large green book, a small blue vial, and a single feathery quill. She walked over to the man's table and sat down in a sloppy manner spilling half the contents of the vial across the wooden desk.

"Oops!" She grinned with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

The man - who was, in actuality, an Elven Dwarf - was named HalfHyde. He was unusually taller than an average Dwarf, but also three heads shorter for an Elf. His face was stern and broad, and he always wore a peevish look about him. His eyes were obsidian, almost like real volcanic rocks, and although he was half Elf, his eyeballs lacked the typical delicate roundishness that distinguished Elves from every other species. He wore a brown tunic with a leather belt around his waist and brown scraggly sandals.

He frowned at Waverly, his bushy eyebrows knitting into a perfect V. "I do care not how much ink ye spills today, child. We go through with the lesson no matter what not."

Waverly blew a strand of hair out of her eyes in frustration. "I hate lessons."

"They help ye later on in these times out there. Ye must make certain attention is full that ye gives. I am clear, not I?"

"Yes, Pa!" Waverly whispered in a tone of yielding.

She placed her book on the desk staining the paper with more blue ink, but the hardened back cover of the book prevented the pages from getting soaked all through.

Waverly hated these lessons. They took up her play time and were incredibly boring. She silently prayed that something would distract HalfHyde from the day's lesson because if not, she would have to sit for three hours learning about faraway realms, and boy gods, and girl gods, and stupid ugly creatures that were either non-existent, or irrelevant, or both.

Waverly became so lost in her own frustration that she did not realize HalfHyde had questioned her.

"Waverly?" HalfHyde growled and dropped a larger book on the desk, rattling the table and spilling the remaining contents of the vial.

Like a few of his hybrid kind, he was quick to anger, but as harmless as a ball of cotton cloud.

"Did ye say something, Pa?" Waverly asked, turning her legs sideways so that she could prop them onto the desk, but HalfHyde quickly walked over and corrected her sitting position.

"Tis conduct ye shows unacceptable it is. Behave ye form, child. Sit ladylike and cease to annoy me." HalfHyde said, wagging a warning finger in Waverly's face but the latter did not seem fazed.

"But I want to play, Pa. I want no lessons to have today. Let us push lessons further til tomorrow." She whined. Her twelve year old brain had been left behind in the lake and wanted nothing to do with education.

"I cannot agree with ye what ye says, child. Ye has to learn to survive. Ye cannot tell when ye stumbles any day in front of a Qoi."

Waverly grimaced, "What is that? What is that ye has pronounced?"

HalfHyde threw his hands up in exasperation. "Tis my point is, child. Ye has no idea in the slightest what a Qoi is, and if ye was facing one tis time now, it must have devoured ye already because ye knows nothing about it the creature, and how to defeat it, or defend ye form."

"Just tell me, Pa, what a — what is it is?" Waverly asked again, but this time with a little bit of enthusiasm in her tone.

HalfHyde inhaled sharply and marched over to his earthen shelf. He pulled out a large red book and dropped it in front of Waverly, flipping vigorously through the pages. Despite his temper, and how tough he looked and was, Waverly liked how he smelled of damp earth, forest, and precious stones like the ones her best friend discovered underground whenever he dug up a new hole to plant seeds.

"Here. Tis a Qoi." HalfHyde stated, tapping on the image in the book.

Waverly peered at it.

The creature was perfectly detailed and looked as though it would leap out of the pages at any second. It was not anything interesting to gaze upon. The Qoi looked like a large elephant with the features of a fish and powerful fists. It had blue and gold skin, and terrifying tusks instead of gills. It only seemed humanoid because of its large human legs, which made the image even more unnerving.

"Ergh. It does not look like something I would see here much around tis our place." Waverly noted. The Qoi was much too big to be able to fit into a human house.

"Yes. Tis because the Qoi dwell in Hammiton." HalfHyde said in a more gentler tone. His temper had cooled almost as quickly as it had come.

"Hammiton! The land where creatures live all without humans." Waverly stated.

"Yes. That Hammiton." HalfHyde said proudly. At least, the child had remembered something. "Now, we must further go to things of better importance."

HalfHyde strode over to his makeshift board where he wrote out or drew things with a white chalk for Waverly to see. She was more likely to remember an image than words. He scribbled down a few sentences, and began to draw another large animal with two trunks instead of one.

Waverly grumbled quietly, thinking about why most of the animals looked like elephants but were not. She watched HalfHyde intently, and when he seemed to be too engrossed in his drawings, she slipped away and tiptoed over to a long stool next to the window.

A dozen potted plants lined the windowsill, and a couple of freely growing ones sprouted from the top of the frame, forming a sort of miniature curtain. Waverly scowled at it. It could make a noise when she slipped past and alert HalfHyde.

She slowly crept up to the ledge and held on to the top of the window. Using all her strength, she slipped in a clean vertical form through the tiny space in between the growing plants above and the potted ones below. As soon as sge let go of the window, she realized almost immediately, and with regret, that the window was at least thirty five walking steps above the ground. Her lesson room was at the topmost part of the house. She fell silently nonetheless, waiting with grudging earnestness to connect with the piled stones below.

But as she drew closer to the ground, she bumped into something wet and smooth, and slid down it. Waverly realized it was the large leaf of a plant, and it guided her until she was standing with both feet safely on the ground again.

Waverly grinned at the boy that now stood in front of her. He managed a friendly smile. His teeth looked almost the same shade of white as his face.

"Many thanks, Jud." She breathed in relief. The boy had had impeccable timing.

"But how did you know I was going to crawl out from the window?" She asked, still smiling.

The boy, Judson, led her to his own house. He lived in the treehouse next to Waverly.

He nodded gently towards the window she had fallen out of then pointed to his backyard.

"You saw me all the way from there, did you not? Were you planting seeds again? Is that why you grew this one?" Waverly turned to look at the large wet leaf. It was shaped like an outstretched hand, and its mother plant was a long tree growing close to Judson's own house. Waverly did not know which tree it was in particular, but guessed palm.

Judson nodded affirmatively. He refrained from speaking almost as much as he refrained from being seen, but Waverly could understand him perfectly. The boy was not mute. He just hated talking all the time unless it were utterly necessary. He beckoned on her to follow him to the back of his home.

Just like her, Judson was an orphan. He did not know his parents, and he lived all alone. He was a Shade. A creature that looked almost like a fairy, if that fairy were ghostlike. He had large wings three times his size sticking out from behind him. One was black and the other was white. The black wing was always neatly folded against his back because he never used it. He did not actually fly, but whenever he tried something of a soar or a small leap, he only made use of his white wing, which was quite a ridiculous sight to behold. He was a year older than her but was so thin and tall that he seemed like an overgrown child.

Waverly trudged behind him, fighting the urge to touch the feathers of his white wing. They were as fluffy as pillows, white as flashing thunderbolts, and stronger than metal. Judson could break things with his wings and never get hurt, but then again, he often recoiled at physical contact, and so Waverly had to keep a reasonable distance as she walked by his side.

He brought her to a part of his treehouse where the ground had been dug in several places. He squatted in front of a hole and dipped his hand all the way down into it. After a few seconds, he fished out his hand and opened his palm, revealing three tiny sparkling red stones.

"Rubies?" Waverly gasped and rushed to kneel in front of him, "I have never seen such bright red stones before."

Judson nodded and demonstrated using peculiar hand gestures that he had found them by digging deeper into the ground. Waverly greatly loved these precious stones, and whenever Judson found one or more, he would fashion it into a bracelet for her. She tapped her wrist, where about fifteen bracelets hung with thousands of tiny gems and precious stones that dazzled brightly under the sunlight tethered to them.

Judson was the only person Waverly knew that could find priceless stones underground. She had tried digging once herself, but ended up making several dirt holes around the house. HalfHyde had given her a very good scolding for that.

She stretched out a hand whilst Judson plucked out a single leaf from a plant behind him and began to weave with professional speed until he had a thick sort of short rope. He wove them carefully and securely around the stones until they were dangling off the side of the rope, then he wrapped the new bracelet around Waverly's wrist. She jingled them in delight.

"This is even better than the last ones." She commented. With Judson, her English lost its Elvish touch because, like Humans, Judson spoke and understood clear English. Elven English was a lot more complicated and twisted, and Waverly only used it with HalfHyde or any other Elf who spoke it.

"Did you find any more?" She asked with wide eyes as Judson walked over to the next hole. He shook his head and reached into one of his shirt pockets. She had always wondered why he had so many of them.

Today, his shirt was faded blue with long strips of brown material across his chest down to his waist. He used these strips as pockets. His shorts on the other hand, had only two pockets, like normal shorts.

He pulled out a couple of seeds and dumped them into the gaping hole, then stood up and began putting seeds into each hole. Judson was a devoted farmer and he took care of his plants with such care and enthusiasm. Waverly wished she would one day find something to be enthusiastic about, and she also wished Judson would tell her how he grew plants so fast.

It was the only secret he constantly refused to share. One time, he had planted pumpkin seeds. She had gone into his treehouse only for a few minutes to grab a washcloth he could wipe his hands with. By the time she came back out, the pumpkins were all grown and fresh. She feared Judson worked some evil magic on his plants, and that was the reason why they grew fast, but Judson was anything less than evil. He could not hurt an ant even if that ant tried to kill him.

He covered each hole and patted it into a smooth surface then sprayed water on them from his watercan.

"Can I stay today and watch them all grow, Jud?" Waverly asked even though she knew he would not let her. As she expected, he shook his head in disapproval. She was about to object when HalfHyde yelled out her name.

"Waverly! Where ye has gone tis time?" He called.

His voice boomed across the yard, and Waverly felt tiny bits of grapes clatter on her head from the tree above her. Judson's house was one large tree covered in various lush fruits and green vegetables, and she feared it would tip with the weight of the Elf's voice.

"Quick, Jud! You must hide! HalfHyde comes!" She whispered, and tried to run around the house, but HalfHyde walked in great strides. He appeared right in front of her before she could move three steps.

"Unethical, child! I forbid ye many times from associating ye form with tis outsider viable." HalfHyde roared.

"Pa! Do not call my friend tis word ye used because we know it not what it is." Waverly complained whilst standing between HalfHyde and Judson. The Elf had a tendency to swat the latter aside, and end up hurting the poor boy.

"I warned ye to stay away from ye tis male. He is not same the way ye are. He stinks like of outsiders."

"Pa! Ye an outsider well as Jud!" She muttered, but HalfHyde heard her anyway. He had the keen ears of an Elf.

"Ye insult me, child!" He roared and grabbed Waverly by her hand. He lugged her with him as he headed back home and did not let go of her arm despite her kicking and screaming.

Judson took a step forward but could not proceed any further. HalfHyde had instructed him to lay off his property, and Waverly as well. They had been friends since the first day he had come to Bremeton. A funny accident in the middle of the night had caused the two to meet. Despite his reluctance, Waverly had convinced him to live next to them.

He was powerless against HalfHyde, but Waverly would always intervene whenever the Elf tried to chase him away. He had nowhere else to go and live except Bremeton.

Judson listened in silence to the objects that flew around and shattered in the house as Waverly and HalfHyde argued. The former often threw very severe tantrums, and would break or throw things whenever she became angry. He had lost quite a number of his own clay pots as proof.

Meanwhile, Waverly stomped her foot on the floor in disagreement with what HalfHyde had told her.

"He is my best friend, Pa. No one else anywhere would play here with me except Jud. Ye can not order me to place myself away as far from him as you like."

"I tell ye whatever I please, ye are my child." HalfHyde growled.

"I am not!" Waverly screamed.

Those words stung at HalfHyde because he suddenly became quiet. For a time, the two glared at each other waiting for one to retreat. HalfHyde finally sighed and turned around. He spoke with his back to Waverly.

"If child, ye wish to flatter ye self with fantasies that the male ye plays with your best friend he is, then ye are truly not my child."

With that, he walked upstairs and into his room.

Waverly exhaled sharply. She had not meant what she said, but she knew it was the truth. HalfHyde never told her she was not his offspring, but she could see it quite clearly. She was no Elf, and no Dwarf.

She was a Human, but still, she was entirely different from other Humans. She marched over to the other window that looked out into the lake and climbed out of it then strolled to the rocks and knelt ontop of one.

Her reflection rippled in the water as the strong summer breeze wafted over it. In a few weeks, the weather would change and the land would be thrust into spring.

In Bremeton, the weather was unpredictable. Waverly recalled one time when they had experienced spring for half of an entire year. HalfHyde told her it was because Juniper was in a good mood, although she was not sure how he could possibly know that to be true.

Juniper was the goddess of Nature and tree spirits. She was Mother Nature herself; the bringer of Summer and Spring, Queen of the plentiful harvest, Mother of Fairies, and Matron goddess of Crysoton.

Juniper was a very beautiful goddess, and Waverly had seen explicit drawings of her in HalfHyde's numerous study books. Although she was not convinced the goddess was real because she thought beauty like that did not exist. No woman in Bremeton came close to the goddess in terms of physical beauty.

Waverly glared distastefully at her own reflection in the water. She had always despised her looks. Her eyes came in two different colors; the right was emerald green and the left was a dull red. Although people tried to hide it, she noticed how they looked away quickly whenever she would gaze at them for long. Even Judson found her stare uncomfortable, and even though he never confessed it, she knew. Only HalfHyde could stare at her directly in the eyes forever without so much as a blink, or a flinch. Looking into her own eyes, she almost believed she had a hidden plot to kill. Her stare was menacing and deathly.

Her lips were stained red as though they were bloodied, her black hair short and slightly wavy. She wondered if that was the reason behind her name. She moved the hair out of her face and stared at the scar on her left cheekbone. It was small yet very noticeable, and it outlined her pale face in a way that made her look tough. The scar had come as a result of Judson's first day in Bremeton.

Waverly touched the scar and smiled as the memory of their first meeting came to her. Just then, Judson's reflection appeared in the lake.

She yelped and flinched, "By the Elf's belt, Jud. Do not frighten me in that manner. I almost lost a heart beat right now."

Judson gently touched her arm in a placating manner.

He tilted his head toward the house and opened his palm - an inquiry of what happened between her and her father.

Waverly sighed, "He has only warned me to stay away from you. . .  again."

Judson raised an eyebrow as though asking - would you?

He always asked the same whenever HalfHyde warned her to cut ties with him.

Waverly scoffed, "I will not do it! You are my only friend and even if I had many other friends, I still would not do it."

Judson smiled warmly and she smiled back. She thought his face was incredibly pretty - prettier than hers a number of times over, which was why she sometimes found herself staring at him until he went crimson. He had an angular chin and a very defining look. His skin could change colors under natural light - from pink to peach, cherry red, crimson, violet, or even sky blue. Waverly thought it made him even more adorable. His thin lips were dry and cracked. He had small eyelids, and pale grey eyes underneath furry yet lax, dark eyebrows. His hair was slack, and brown, and incredibly curly like the coiled springs underneath HalfHyde's favorite chair. In spite of how tall he was, he looked much younger - like a seven year old.

"It will be spring soon!" Waverly commented.

She knew how much Judson loved that particular weather. It was the time when he was free to grow as many plants as he would like to. Judson sighed as if he hungered for spring to come immediately.

"Are you going to tell me how you make all your plants grow so quickly?" She whispered calmly.

The grass at Judson's feet seemed to suddenly be a bother to him. He plucked at them uneasily.

"You do not trust me?" She asked, a bit hurt. "I promise I will not tell."

Judson tried to keep from Waverly's gaze but she stared at him, waiting for an answer.

He looked up at her and his skin turned a bright shade of blue. "I do not know!"

Waverly was not entirely surprised that he had spoken. He sometimes did, but whenever he spoke, she felt as if she was only hearing his voice for the first time. Thankfully, he sounded his age - like a thirteen year old.

"You do not know how you make the plants grow so fast?" She asked, looking perplexed.

Judson nodded and dipped his head whilst still picking at the grass. His blue skin faded back to normal.

"Th-They just. . . grow fast by themselves?"

Waverly did not quite understand how that was possible because every other person's plants had to wait a couple of weeks before they even sprouted.

Judson nodded shyly. His white wing twitched behind him, and Waverly translated that to mean he was either uncomfortable, or he wanted to run.

Judson was a kind person, and slow to anger. He was considerate and generous, but what he was not is brave. He was a very sensitive boy, and words could easily cut him deep, and that was why Waverly made sure to keep him away from her father. HalfHyde sometimes spat words that could etch into a person's soul forever.

"Waverly!" HalfHyde called indifferently from inside the house.

"Tis time it is for sparring! Bring ye weapon here now!"

Waverly sighed, though joyous in her heart. She enjoyed learning to fight than actual learning. It was the one thing that did not put her to sleep, or make her uneasy.

"Coming, Pa!"

Judson stood up and escorted her halfway to her front door.

"I promise to come by nightfall so we can watch the moon together, alright?" She whispered.

He nodded and headed back to his own home. Waverly picked up her short sword and rounded the corner, kicking pebbles as she walked.

The Moon Spawn|
Book 01