In the North sleeps an evil. In the sea rests a power. When this power washes up on shore one stormy night and is awakened by a young girl named Emma, it sends out waves of power, alerting every magical being, great or small...including this evil,the North the council of the styads, stone dryads, Emma must journey North with Brindo,a mysterious powerful wizard,and three others of the fairy race, Turulia and her twin brother, Cobble, as well as the mysterious Zerif, one rumored to carry the North Storm's very sword. This journey will take her far from her quiet, seaside home and throw her into adventures beyond her (or yours, for that matter) wildest dreams. And all the while, the North Storm, a once-great wizard, is gathering strength and power, beginning to build an army of evil. What's the one problem? Well, to get to these wise styads, they basically have to go right into enemy territory...

Aha! I hath vanquished the evil writer's block! And so now, I continue with my EXTREMELY MUCH revised story. And boy, is it ever revised...

Emma stood at her window, gazing out at the roiling black piles of clouds that had been gathering on the horizon since midday. The storm, she knew, would break on the small town of Ashmoor by-the-sea in a amtter of minutes, despite its faraway appearance. Mentally, she quickly reviewed her list of tasks she'd been assigned to complete before the storm arrived. She'd shut the goats and swine in their indoor pens, so that was done, she'd tethered the more skittish and rowdier horses in their stalls, all barn windows, doors, etc had been shut and boarded, the barn cats were in for the night, and the cattle had been taken care of.

And now she waited.

Unlike most of the other residents of Ashmoor by-the-sea, Emma, loved storms. She loved the booming thunder and the way it shook the whole cottage and her with it, she liked the rain drumming on the roof, it thrilled her to see lightning forking down from the blackened heavens, and she loved the silence. The stillness before the storm was breath-taking, full of suspence and anticipation. Emme far preferred cloudyh and stormy days to clear and sunny ones. They were just so much more interesting and exciting, while a bright and clear day was, in her opinion, over-used and certainly overrated.

Of course, it wasn't just the storm Emma was looking forward to. She was also looking forward to the following morning, when she and the other kids would all race off in the early morning to go beach-combing, searching the wave-ravaged shores for treasures stirred and washed up from their underwater beds.

On the top of her dresser at the foot of her bed were, arranged in rows according to date, one or two dozen of Emma's most precious treasures form the sea. Among the most valued of these were three or four particularly unique shells, two full sets of horseshoe crab shells, one big and one small enough to weigh lighter than a feather, two or three pieces of seaglass, a rather large stone that threw out rainbows when the sun hit it just so, a piece of driftwood with letters painted on it that were of course faded beyond all legibility, and a small amulet with an empty setting just large enough to, with some difficulty, squeeze a pearl into. Emma had never found a pearl; to be sure, such things were not merely "found", at least not by some insignificant girl such as herself. However, she didn't let the absence of say, a precious gem, put a damper on the small glow of pride she felt every time she looked at the empty amulet.

Behind her, Emma's sharp ears picked up soft pawsteps padding across the old wooden floorboards. A moment later, a small calico cat hopped up on the windowsill beside her, settling into a sitting position with a few quick licks over his shoulder, his orange-and-black splotched white tail draping over Emma's hand.

Emma smiled, lifting her hand and resting it gently on the feline's small head.

"Come to watch the storm with me, have you, Morgan?" she asked, rubbing under the strip of leather around the cat's neck.

"Mmm, of course. I wouldn't miss it," he replied, passing a pink tongue over his furry white lips. This action was followed by a luxurious yawn, revealing an even pinker mouth accented with long, sharp white teether.

As they watched the storm clouds grow rapidly larger and steadily nearer, Emma voiced to her trusted (only) friend an uncomfortable question that had been bothering her since midday.

"Morgan?"

"Mm?"

"Do you think I'm too old to go beachcombing?"

The cat sneezed delicately, a feline version of a snort.

"Of course not. You're never too old to beachcomb."

"But...I'm sixteen now, and most everyone else my age has stopped. They keep giving me funny looks whenever I mention it."

Morgan raised an eyebrow, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

"Well, ignore them. You must go beachcombing tomorrow. It's an important day."

Emma's eyes narrowed.

"What's so special about tomorrow?" she asked suspiciously.

"If you go beachcombing, you'll find out," was the cat's only answer.

It was obvious he wasn't going to say more, so Emma gave up, turning back to the horizon. Morgan sometimes (often, more like) acted as if he knew more than he was telling, and when he got like that, there was no getting anything out of him until he decided he wanted to tell you. It could really get most infuriating if you tried to press the matter, and so Emma had learned to let it alone until he told her.

Together, two pairs of eyes, one storm-grey and the other yellow-gold, gazed off across the sea that was growing restless with its anticipation, awaiting the storm.

And, in their hearts, they together felt that same, restless anticipation. If you've felt it before, then you know what it means. It's the feeling you get when something's about to happen, something important. It's the feeling that whispers of the winds of change, the seeds of destiny.

For that night, or rather, the following morning, Emma's destiny was about to change.

She was more than ready.

It was near dawn that the storm at last calmed and waters began to still. And, as the skies lightened, a shadow beneath the water slipped up from beneath and onto the shore, its scaly hide gleaming dark and wet. It shook itself off, and then pulled itself higher up on the shore with a slight scraping sound, its narrowed, intelligent orange eyes probing the sand for just the right spot to deposit its precious cargo.

Aha! There, a corner of seaglass, poking up out of the sand like the call of destiny itself. Exactly what the creature wanted. Its long neck stretching forward, it gently nosed a small furrow in the sand beside the seaglass, and then the powerful, scaly jaws parted, allowing an object which, in comparison to the creature was tiny, to roll out and land with a small plop! into the furrow.

After taking a moment to nose some sand around it, the creature at last gave a short, satisfied nod, and with a decisive whuff! of air through its nostrils, it pulled backwards into the sea. Within moments, the orange eyes disappeared beneath the water, and with the tide's waves gently pushing and pulling and smoothing out the creature's tracks in the sand, it was soon like it had never been.

Only the object, beginning to glow a soft golden pink as the sun's first rays spilled over the horizon, served as any sort of testament to the creature's visit.

That, and the small gem it held inside it, a gem that would soon be discovered as a little under a mile away, a raven-haired girl with sun-goldened skin and a silent, wary air about her softly tiptoed out of her family's seaside cottage, an empty feedsack slung over her shoulder and a small calico cat at her heels.

Comment, please, pretty pretty please with a cherry on top and Reese's sprinkles?
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