Nia: Beginnings

"You can come in it's just me." The voice sounds familiar, I can't decide on who it is.

I open the door expecting to see anything, what I do see has me backing away. There is a small man in the room, he's green. Not the green of flesh paint or dyes but actually green. He's shorter than I am by about a foot, does not look like Yoda he does have large ears. There is no hair on him besides bushy eyebrows, he is watching me bemused I think. He at least has what looks like a smile on his lips, there really aren't lips just a pressing together of skin where a mouth would be. I back into the wall and sit he takes two steps toward me.

I raise my rifle, then think of the second thing that had chased after the man and lower my rifle. He walks closer sniffing the air and looking at me. He stops by my knee and just looks at me. His arms are a little long legs short and stubby. A smell comes off him, like tepid water on a warm day.

"Who are you?" I didn't want to ask what like the second man on the sofa had, he smiles at me.

"I am the man your supposed to rescue Senator Greene." I look up at him eyes wide, the voice fits the rest are so far off the mark.

"I'm sorry I don't think so, Greene is six foot. Unless I got a lot taller when I opened the door your not him. He's also not green, your green." He laughs and sits on the floor across from me.

"I could show my public face but with you it would not work. The last three who tried to rescue me died to the vampires on the sofa." I hold up my hand and shake my head.

"The last two things with the talking man I don't know what those were, the rest was nothing more than two guards with no clue and a very crazy man. I guess they did something to you your making as much sense as those two women in the next room." He smiles and shakes his head.

"You killed two vampires, a werewolf, and a necromancer. He had with him a zombie and well best I don't mention what the other was. You are the person we need to show ourselves to the world. We are tired of playing make believe, we are tired of hiding tired of being afraid if someone knows we will be burned at the stake or something else. You didn't ask what I was it would have been a good question. I am a troll." I stare at him and shake my head.

"No way, trolls are like eight feet tall with claws and big nose. They tear people up for food and heal really fast nothing can kill a troll besides fire or magic." He laughs, a nice sound very human very Senator Greene he is known for having a great laugh.

"What you are reciting is a troll it is also a dead troll, those have not been around for a very long time. We killed them off ourselves, what you describe is a forest troll they liked forests and hilly areas where they can hide and hunt. I can assure you most of the really dangerous animals are long gone besides dragons we can't touch a dragon. They did agree to hide for us they don't like eating people you understand." I blink and my mouth hangs open.

"What do they like to eat?" Senator Greene smiles at me.

"They are not as large as the D&D books tell you. The largest dragon I know of is only ten feet long. They are intelligent and can use their front paws as hands, we are all lovers of D&D, the dragons are always dragons it's almost comical. We have to roll for them they have mastered turning a claw into a pencil though it's really great fun. Oh my apologies I forgot the question, dragons eat chickens and sheep. Sometimes they will go after a cow we let them wander and hunt as they wish some can fly the smaller ones the bigger it is the less flying it can do."

"Alright say I buy this, why are you talking to me and not just trying to convince people that not all fantasy creatures are evil?" I get a big smile for the question.

"You play D&D yourself you know the thinking on trolls and ogres. Some of us are naturally just scary and rather evil, Cockatrices for example. They have no brain as you would call it they only know fucking and eating. We let the dragons hunt them there isn't another way to kill them without perhaps turning into well cockatrice food. They don't turn you to stone, that was Gygax talking, he wanted to make money for us and well hard to sell a role-playing game where everything is just like you. The descriptions are spot on though, they are literally golden chickens, the females turn silvery when it's mating season."

Anything else I would say is dead in my throat when I hear police moving into the apartment. They sweep through at least four of them I toss my rifle to the side pull out both pistols and toss them as well. Senator Greene watches with a smile. The officers see us and point their pistols walking closer carefully. I slowly put both hands on my head and interlock my fingers Senator Greene does the same thing looking a little uncertain.

"Senator don't worry my vest here has cameras in it. They will see what happened hopefully I won't get to long of a sentence unless it has audio." He smiles at me then looks a little uncertain, he opens his mouth to ask when the officers reach us.

"Don't move, don't talk we will sort all of this out at the precinct." I'm handcuffed, Senator Greene is handcuffed.

I do manage to get the officer pushing me along to pick up the receiver. Hoping it has a recoding device and not simply a boosting device I get on the elevator. The two women thank me profusely for saving them from the vampires half of the way down the elevator the other half is spent being told to shut up. When we get to the police cars there is a problem, there are only two cars and three women.

"I could walk to the precinct." I say getting the women and Senator Greene to laugh, two of the cops smile. "Well it was worth a try, I'll sit next to Yoda. I don't mind so long as he doesn't start talking backwards." The cops laugh that time then two go off to the side and talk.

"Hold on, are these four from the top floor?" A scruffy man asks flashing his badge to the cops.

"Yeah, there must have been something in the air until the window was shot out. There were three dead men, those two women talking about vampires Yoda there and her. She had me pick this thing up said it's a recording device to cameras in her vest." The man looks at me and smiles.

"Well if that is true then perhaps we can figure out why a man that's been dead at least a month is lying on the concrete. We won't talk about the other thing I don't even know what it is." I look at Senator Greene he nods and whispers to tell the truth.

"I was contracted to save Yoda here, the thing and the dead man came for me I guess controlled by a man with really bad fashion sense. I shot him because he would not shut up in some language I don't know and the thing followed after him out the window." The man moves closer.

"So your saying you went up there to save him and were attacked?" I nod hoping the vest recorded everything.

"I jumped the gun a little on shooting but yes. I'm hoping the recorder is in that thing, because if it is a signal boost I suppose I have a problem." He laughs and opens the thing to show a really small VCR blinking that it is recording.

"Make a recording of that before you show it to her. She is unaffected by magic and it may alter the video." Senator Greene says getting the man to look at him odd.

We are ushered into the cop cars, except me I get to sit in the detective's car, very small car with barely a back seat. It is an uncomfortable ride, I have to stretch out sideways he's a large man and needed to lean back. I get to bounce around a little on some potholes. When he's pulling me out of the car I finally just have to say it.

"You would think they would fix the potholes in the city, Phoenix doesn't have them that big." I almost get dropped he laughs so hard.

"I think they are loved by the citizens." I giggle. "I don't believe that either I don't know I suppose the crews are to busy fixing the mayor's road or something."

After I am fingerprinted and pictured I am ushered into an interrogation room. They call it something else now but they were called interrogation rooms when I ended up in the police station when I was younger, I always think of them that way. A very young patrol officer comes in she asks if I want anything, I ask for a coke and get it shortly after. I've almost finished with the coke when the detective comes in pulling a TV and VCR on a trolley with him.

"If your showing me that I hope you made a copy first." He looks over at me and laughs.

"I had to we are underfunded for updated electronics the little tape you provided wouldn't work. Now I'm going to pause and ask questions so don't get to into the video." I nod and he turns the TV on.

It comes in when I take the trenchcoat off in the elevator, when I hear the ding I groan, he smiles. I hear myself saying I'm perfection and shoot the first man then shoot the second. I sit up in shock when it comes to the crazy man he's not exactly a man in the video. The twitching I saw him doing is not showing on the video, he's literally falling apart and turning into a wolf.

"I get the feeling that is not what you saw." I look at the detective and shake my head.

"I just saw a guy growling badly and twitching. He came for me on hands and feet and did a really horrible howl then jumped." I'm thankful he hasn't asked about the perfection part.

The video resumes showing him finish turning into a wolf and stalking toward me. This time the howl is very good and a bit on the scary side. I sigh when I see him get hit and roll around then come back toward me. The detective pauses it with the wolf head exploding and looks at me.

"I gotta ask on this one, you had no problem shooting a man, but a wolf coming for you, you tear up about killing?" I sigh and nod.

"I know it does not make sense but a wolf or cat or well really any animal does not understand guns unless they are domesticated or been shot before. People are easier they know they are screwed when they see the gun, if they still take action they decided today is a good day to die. Animals don't get that luxury, and yes I know that isn't really a wolf. I don't know why the video is showing something I didn't see." He nods and fast forwards past the wolf and getting my stuff into the apartment.

He cringes when the walking corpse appears, we watch it come for me and get shot over to the window then falling out it. He pauses it here and looks at me again.

"Our tech crew is shitting bricks the size of Rhode Island to come in here and ask how you did that effect. There isn't a technology we know of even in development to do it that well. They spent five minutes going over it frame by frame at the window not seeing a single error or blue flash." I shrug and spread my hands.

"At this point I was shitting bricks if you must know. I've never seen anything take one or two shotgun blasts and keep going I put like eight into the thing before it fell." He nods and keeps going.

The fashion unconscious man appears I sit forward seeing things I had not seen when there. There are swirls of darkness around him, some shooting past me one right at my shotgun. It shows a something trying to pull shells out of my shotgun. It poofs away when I pull the trigger and get a click, while I am being flung through the air he pauses it again.

"We checked the model of shotgun you had would have run out of shells at the same time you did. Whatever that thing was trying to do was already done. Senator Greene watched this with me, he explained some of it." I sit up and look at him.

"So he is Senator Greene? I wasn't entirely sure though he was the last man in the apartment and none of the others looked like him." The detective smiles and nods at me.

"Yeah he stopped being Yoda for us going to do a big announcement in the morning took a copy of this. This is where you might go unhappy, your going to get to go, but you can't leave New York right now. Your friend brought a lawyer and we had to explain to them, this is seriously freaky shit. Here look at this." He rewinds the tape to where I am leaning over the man behind the sofa.

I watch his eyes glow and turn colors shivering in surprise. When he opens his mouth I see fangs, not like Ben but actual fangs. He turns the TV off and turns back to me.

"I hope you see the problem that was a fucking vampire, not quite how it's described but there's so many descriptions anyway. The zombies the whatever the guy with the bad fashion sense was the werewolf. This is all shit not supposed to be real. I'm going to forget about the perfection quip, chances are you are her but we can't actually pin a thing to her. All we have is conjecture and supposition on what was actually done by her. We will hang on to your guns for now, in a day or two we will see what is said about everything. Under the laws as they stand now you actually did nothing illegal except for having a full auto firearm. Senator Greene has a plan for you he didn't say what I think he's going to wake up congress for something big." I nod and yawn.

He pulls me up and takes me out of the interrogation room. I find Sam and a weasely little man waiting for me. Sam pulls me to her for a hug I hug her back and yawn again. I am ushered out to the limo where I am left alone with Sam. Sam tries to talk I just curl up with my head on her lap. I think I napped all I know for sure is I close my eyes at the police station and open them to the door opening at her house. I am half carried up the stairs by Sam and the driver, I must of said something about bathroom because suddenly I'm sitting on a toilet.

"Are you OK Nia?" Sam asks looking at me while I use the toilet.

"I'm tired lord Sam if you saw what I did tonight I'm not sure you would ever get out of bed." Sam looks a little worried.

I get help standing up and pulling my panties back in place. I'm thankful the walk to her bed is short, I was using her bathroom. Sam helps me get undressed, I try and help her but can't seem to do it right. With both of us naked I grab her and pull her to me, my tongue snaking over her nipple. I pull it into my mouth and suck while I nibble, Sam moans and moves against me. I look up when she pulls me off her nipple she looks down at me worry traveling across her face.

"You don't look all there, I'm happy you want me but I think this early morning we are going to sleep, when you wake up we can do breakfast and then sex." I nod and yawn.

Sam pulls me up on the bed then lies down pulling me over into her. I cuddle up to her with a sigh and rest my head on her breast. I run my hand over it wishing my own were this big. A strange thought crosses my mind, what if Ben likes her better. I chase that thought away in the faith of his love for me and close my eyes.

I wake in stages I roll over my eyes open then close. There was something standing at the foot of the bed. I sit up a little and open my eyes then shut them from the light and lie back. It takes a few seconds for what I saw to register and filter through my mind. My eyes open again then look carefully at the foot of the bed, it's still there not wavering or fading away... it's... still... there. My eyes get wide then I'm flitting across the large bedroom to a far corner, I bump into Sam her eyes as large as mine.

We stare at the thing arms interlocked together trembling. It's not so much that it is grossly alien in appearance, really quite the opposite. It's about six foot, perhaps taller but not terribly much. It has horns, not pointy ram you to death horns but the curved horns like you see on goats, or was it rams it's hard to remember the difference when your huddled in a corner staring at it. The eyes are blue, not sky blue or deep blue or anything else you want to call blue, they are just blue, they are human eyes. There is not much in the way of a nose under the eyes. There are goat ears twitching in the curved horns.

It turns to face us I notice it is rather covered in fur besides on the upper part of the chest and shoulder partway down the arms. There is a beard on the chin, the mouth half hidden in the beard. The arms are muscular, not in the body builder sense but just large and thick the legs are the same way with hooves instead of feet.

"Nia, Sam, may I approach? I know this is a sight I've not told my wife yet and I know you two have questions." I look at Sam she looks at me her eyes still wide.

"Yes not to close please this is not a good way to wake up." The thing laughs, throaty and sounding more like echoes of mountain goats coming together to attract a mate or protect their area.

It comes closer picking up a chair then sitting on it perhaps ten feet away. I notice then it has a cock sheath like most any four legged animal would have.

"Ed?" Sam asks next to me.

"Yes Sam I'm Ed, I am a mountain ogre. We make very good bodyguards though we die just as easily as any person. We just have the right mindset to put someone else ahead of us." Feeling silly for doing it I put my hand up, Ed chuckles and nods his head at me.

"I have two questions the first is really the big doozy. How do you all do whatever you do to look like a regular person?" Ed chuckles and leans closer.

"That actually isn't the big doozy question, to answer witches are not exactly just a fairy tale either they do have powers. Witches, warlocks and mages are all real, along with necromancers, you met one last night. I won't go over the differences it's mostly how they do their magic than what they can do." I nod then look at Sam she looks back not having a thing to say.

"Maybe this is the doozy question then, can you mate with people and what is the result?" Ed smiles and nods at me.

"That is the doozy question and one I have to answer later today to my wife. Yes and human is the short answer. Longer, we are able to mate with humans or each other. If we mate with each other we have what we are, if we mate with humans, we have human even if she is the ogre or troll or what have you. I'm not going in depth on what there is still out there of us fantasy creatures. I am going to warn you, watch out for the forest and swamp ogres, they are not nice." I sigh and look at Sam then a thought occurs to me.

"The two women I rescued last night I'm pretty sure were raped, do vampires mate with humans?" Ed shakes his head.

"No, vampires are the exception they are actually what is said about them in the myths. They are the dead come back to life, they can't go out during the day, they can go into churches, touch holy water and all that other stuff. They can mesmerize a person, doesn't really do anything but get them to stare at the pretty eyes. It has its uses, can get a person to stop struggling or even run away from the police. It's a hypnotic look really, rather like there are bright flashing lights in the eyes. For most people they are left dazed and not quite there, feeding would break them out of it though it's not fatal to feed so long as it's not the same person often. I'm not sure you could be turned into a vampire Nia your immune to our spells, the look human spells worked because until last night would you have believed there was such a thing as trolls, ogres or vampires?" I giggle and shake my head Sam is looking at me confused.

"Why does your magic not work on Nia?" Ed sighs and shrugs.

"We don't know, as far as we know Nia is a dead zone for magic. The magic users are all very happy at this turn of events. They are all human you understand, well not all the fairies are real and have their courts just like the stories. They are really very good at fireworks, you didn't think all of the firework shows were actually fireworks did you?" I shrug then shake my head with a smile.

"I remember my first Fourth of July in New York the fireworks were especially good that year. The news claimed it was a new company and wanted to impress to do it again. I remember the show, it wasn't quite right for fireworks, to big to impressive." Ed chuckles.