Short Story - Fantasy - The Emerald of Secrets, Pt. 5

We've finally made it to the short story I actually turned in.

Like I said in the last post, I had to revamp my entire short story in two days to make a compelling story in the limited word count I was allowed. When I thought to myself that Christy and Trish weren't developed enough in the short amount of time and that they did nothing in the climax, I realized all of the focus was on Nyana, and that she was a significantly more interesting character in this.

And that's what my epiphany was: cut Christy and Trish, and focus on Nyana.

The short story now took place in the fairy realm. Nyana was getting ready for a ceremony with the gems while her sister Almehda begged for her to hurry up. Nyana was a new guardian of the gems. Each of the gems, such as before, guarded some concept--Nyana's still being the protection gem. But just as Nyana's about to go through the ritual of placing her stone on a scepter to guarantee the security of the fairy realm, Dethrad and his army of darklings show up into the great hall. Almehda gets injured in the attack, but asks Nyana to fight off Dethrad, which she does, but Dethrad ends up taking her scepter.

King Otaehryn orders the troops to go to the dark realm to get back the stone, but Almehda orders Nyana to stay behind. However, after the troops leave, Otaehryn approaches Nyana and guides her to figuring out that her job as protector of the fairy realm was not to protect the stone, rather the fairies themselves. After this realization, Nyana flies off to the dark realm as fast as she can.

In the dark realm, Nyana finds a battle that the fairies are easily losing, but Nyana comes in, using her own magic and skill to fight Dethrad off. Protecting her fellow fairies and specifically Almehda, Nyana grows even more powerful and ends up defeating Dethrad, and he and the stone end up disappearing. Nyana realizes that she doesn't need the stone because essentially, she is the stone. She has the magic inside her to do the protection.

While it has a cliche ending and message, I honestly really like this version. Whenever I do get around to adapting The Emerald of Secrets, I will probably take elements from all versions of it and combine them into one. I still like the concepts of Christy and Trish, but they just simply didn't work in this version without the development they needed. Nyana, however, obviously will get more of a focus, and I think that focusing on the fairy realm scenes before Christy and Trish meet Nyana.

I'll see how the story will develop when I get more into that planning, which I probably won't do until The Secret Portal is over, as I think focusing on two series is my maximum right now. The Emerald of Secrets is a project I really want to get back to, and I will eventually, as I think I have a solid foundation for a great fantasy world.

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