NORRRRRRRRRR Enter Shadrack. 8D

After banging my head against a wall for hours trying to get through the next chronological part, I gave up and skipped ahead. OLD WIZARD IS DEAD, FOLKS.

Even less proofing than last time ahead. 8D

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It took three months for Lord Catherram to find a new wizard. Wizard Shadrack NAMEISH of NAMINGTON was young, but he had served three years as an assistant to the prestigious Wizard HURR and came with generous recommendations. Phrases like “an expert in the fineries of magic,” “competent, clever and highly skilled,” and “exceptional understanding of charms and counter-spells” litter the replies to Lord Catherram’s letters of inquiries. He was hired immediately.

Shadrack appeared on the palace doorstep one afternoon in early June. He was sweating under his emerald robes and the heavy bag on his back, but he still managed to smile at the homely maid that answered the door. She took one look at him, and ran screaming into the interior of the manor.

He had that effect on women, he supposed. A pretty young girl in town had done the same thing at the sight of him. Women of Norr must not be used to proper, handsome gentlemen.

Nonplussed, Shadrack stepped through the door the maid had left open. Like the rest of the town, the antechamber was barren and dull and full of grays. There was no carpet on the stone floor, and no decoration on the wall, save a crooked good luck charm carved into a piece of ash-colored wood that have been hung seemingly at random on the far wall. It was also silent. The cries of the maid had faded, and Shadrack could hear no signs of human life.

At least it was cool inside, he though as he closed the entrance door. With no other course of action available to him, Shadrack wondered deeper into the house.

The manor continued to be colorless and cold, but every once in a while he encountered a hint of its inhabitants. The smell of bread baking, and black leather-bound book someone left on one of the deep-set windowsills (the perfect spot to sit and read while enjoying the sun and not the heat, he noted). And finally, he heard a voice.

At least, he thought it was a voice. It sounded like screeching, dipping low and then struggling up high again, as if it was trying to sing. Shadrack frowned and adjusted one of his gold rings. The letters he’d received from the town lord had spoken excessively of demons, and so Shadrack quickened he step as he followed the racket.

Turning a corner, he found the source of the noise through an opened doorway. It was girl in a rather hideous hat, sitting primly on a chair with her face strained with concentration and her mouth gaping in… well, he supposed it was song. There was an dumpy older woman, maybe forty or so, sitting across from her with her back to him, conducting. There was a dusty piano pushed to the side of the room, hopelessly ignored.

As he stepped into the room, the girl with the hat abruptly stopped the her unholy noise-making and gaped at him in awe. Women of this town certainly were depraved, Shadrack thought, and he made a note to help them.

Then the older woman turned around.

“HOW DARE YOU,” she screamed, and managed to work her shoe off her foot to throw at him with considerable force. It hit him squarely in the stomach. Shadrack winced and unconsciously pressed his hand against the injured area.

“Ma’am–” He had never expected violence from his throng of admirers.

“Who do you think you are?” she shrieked and stood up, just as the girl with the voice of a banshee leaned forward and pleaded, “Mother!”

The woman rounded on him, glaring through a pair of steel glasses. “I supposed you think you’re clever, strutting around in your fancy green clothes, like you’re a bush or something; well I’ll have you know we do NOT tolerate this kind of behaviour here at the palace­–”

“Mother!”

“You’re endangering us all, young man. Just who do you think you are?” the woman repeated. Shadrack opened his mouth to reply, but the girl cut up off, a certain amount of worry in her eyes.

“Mother, I think he’s our new wizard.”

The woman’s face shifted form a look of fury to one of horror.

“But– his clothes­–green!” she stuttered.

Shadrack was decidedly confused.

 

NORRRRRRRRRR so far. :D

Yay ~1000 words of unproofed goodness.

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The town of Norr had long ago isolated itself with its towering, stone gray walls. Norr had been advised that demons were attracted to color, and soon after the walls were erected, the town’s Lord Sylvester Catherram had banished color to further protect Norr for the horrors of the outside world. Of course, Lord Catherram’s granddaughter went and had the gall to be born with a head of the most vibrant red hair.

            The girl’s name was Nur. Every week for the first few years of her life, Nur’s head was shaved for her own protection. Such hair would surely result in demon raids, and it was common practice for those with violently colored hair to rid themselves of it regularly. Eventually, however, Lord Catherram’s daughter-in-law, Nur’s mother Florence, intervened.

            “It just isn’t seemly for a lord to have a bald girl for an heir,” she said to him one evening over dinner. Lord Catherram paused in cutting his white pork (pink pork, of course, was banned). He peered over at his granddaughter to observe her cheerfully rubbing mashed potatoes into her blotchy bald head.

            “I see,” he said blandly and decided to invest in a wig for his little Nur.

            As it turned out, wigs at the time were inordinately expensive, and Norr, subsisting on the sale of what few colorless crops they could grow (leaves were carefully coated with enough dust to block out the green, but not enough to block out the sun) and their not-so-popular hand woven baskets, was relatively poor. Instead, Lord Catherram bought his granddaughter a hat.

            Of course, Nur still shaved her scalp once a week. However, the hat covered her unsightly bald head, which, her nanny had noted, was also quite lumpy. This was further case to shield it from others’ eyes.

By age seven, Nur could shave her own head. By age ten, she was left to do it unsupervised. This was a relief to Nur, as she was fantastically jealous of her friend Josephine’s long plait of silky black hair. Stealing pins and combs from her mother’s bureau, Nur began growing out her hair and meticulously pinning it flat against her scalp. Luckily, her hair was easy to tame, and within her collection of hats she owned several that could completely obliterate her red locks.

Then came her eighteenth birthday.

“Isn’t it lovely?” crooned Lady Catherram.

“Yes, Grandmother. Gorgeous,” Nur murmured and she gave her grandmother a brief hug. This wasn’t a complete lie, she rationalized. This box, with its soft gray wrapping and fancy white bows, was quite pretty. The hat that had emerged from the box, however. Well. Nur would rather curl up in oven for a nap than wear it. It was the most hideous, garish thing she had ever seen: ridiculous wide gray brim, a zebra striped ribbon tied it six bulbous and terrifyingly frilly bows, and an assortment of drab feathers stuck out seemingly at random. Inspecting it further, Nur realized that a miniscule floral pattern had been stitched into the entirety of the hat with delicate white thread.

“It cost a pretty penny,” Lord Catherram chuckled. “I expect to see you wearing it quite often.” He beamed at her expectantly.

Nur smiled weakly at him. “Of course, Grandfather.”

Every March second, Nur’s birthday, all her friends and family would gather at the palace (Her grandfather called it a palace, but it was just a standard manor house.) Melvin the cook would serve dinner, which was always a surprise, although the rest of the evening was quite. A white cake with white icing and black licorice decorations would be served. The table would be cleared, and one by one the guests would present Nur, who would be seated at the head of the table, with gifts: friends first, then family. Nur’s parents, Florence and Edgar, always gave something practical, like new walking shoes or a book for writing practice, and her grandparents always gave something more indulgent: an expensive new dress or a box of sweets. Nur had always looked forward to her grandparents’ gift.

Disappointment, she decided, was bound to happen eventually.

“I’ll… go try it on,” Nur said calmly, and stood to excuse herself. She always made a show of being embarrassed about her baldness, lest someone discover her now shoulder-blade length hair. One her why to the door, she nodded at Josephine, who was gaping at her in dismay.

In the bathroom, Nur double-checked the door was locked and shed her chic black hat. In the mirror above the sink, she blinked at her reflection. Pink cheeks, round nose, brown eyes, and gauze wrapped tightly around her scalp. Once her hair had gotten to somewhere around her chin, it had decided it was going to be rather puffy and, while a wet comb did wonders, Nur feared it would free itself from its stolen pins. Thus she had began to wrap her hair. Josephine had caught a glimpse of the gauze once, but Nur shrugged it off, saying it made the hat more comfortable.

Once she was assured no sneaky tendrils of red head were escaping, Nur turned her attention to her new hat.

Hers. The possessive pronoun irked her.

“Alright, Nur,” she whispered. “It’s just a hat. You just have to wear it a couple times to make the grands happy.” She lifted it above her head. “It can be done!” she announced loudly to herself, and wedged the hat onto her head.

It fit surprisingly well, even over the lumpy mass of gauze and hair. At least she had that, Nur thought, and headed back to the dining room in better spirits.

Her high spirits were promptly crushed by screaming coming from within the room. 

NORRRRRRRRRR

NORR. YES.

NUR. WARREN. SHADRACK. SILKY. HALFASS. LAWL.