
For Stream of Consciousness Saturday
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “shade.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!

Shades of Magic
The graveyard was old and dark. No bright monuments or flowers festooned a new graves, dark and dreary as the night. Star followed Meldimeriel, the tiny fairy bobbing a bit ahead casting the only light in the gloom. In a unkempt section of the cemetery, they came to their destination. A simple soldier’s grave, centuries old untended, the meager headstone crumbled and decayed beyond recognition. Naught left for a marker but an ancient sword thrust into the ground, topped by an old helmet.
Meldimeriel bobbed up and down in excitement. They had found the grave they sought. Star gently laid her bow, quiver, and staff aside, pulling smaller items from the pockets of her cloak, herbs, salt, a small silver pentacle. With a sprinkling of herbs and salt, Star cast her circle, closing it with a whisper of magic. Raising her pentacle overhead, she whispered her chant.
From the grave a sullen grey mist slowly rose, hesitantly coalescing into a vaguely human form. The shade glared balefully at Star with a booming mutter “Release me.”
“I have questions,” Star replied, respectfully nodding to the ancient shade.
“ASK!” boomed the disembodied voice.
Star scuffed the circle with her boot disbursing the protective magic. She would meet the shade on his own ground. Gathering her courage, she stepped out of the circle.
word count 220
Til next time ~Peace ~JPP