Blended Beauty

Well, Round One of the most recent NYC Flash Fiction Challenge has found my piece with no points. First time for me, but Round Two begins this Friday, the 13th, at midnight, while I'm camping without wifi. Whoo! Ah, the challenges added to the challenge continue. Sci-Fi-fi, beauty pageant, and goggles were the requirements for the first 1,000 word max story. Can't wait to see what I'm told to write for the next round. Only the top 15/35 stories were given any points. Everyone still writes for Round 2, new groups, new genre, setting, and object. We shall see. No matter the outcome, I write in the NYC Challenges because it challenges me to write what I normally wouldn't otherwise. 

Let the game continue, but until then, here's what I wrote for the first round, way outta my C-zone!

Blended Beauty

Synopsis: Through years of evolution, human and animal have merged into one species as Earth     fought against extinction, creating a new and sometimes terrifying, blend of beauty.

            As humans had continued to ignore the warning signs, clinging to their greed and gluttony rather than listen to and care for the land and waters, Earth had taken its survival into its own hands. In order to protect all its creatures from extinction, it began to merge them. Slowly, yet deliberately, humans and animals had become one, created through thousands of years of evolution. Every twenty-five years, the best of each region was given the chance to prove they were truly the best. 

Twenty contestants stood stoically on display, awaiting the final stage of the New World Beauty Pageant. Five days of spectacular tests had led to this night. Each day had narrowed the field, eliminating beauties, pushing each to rise higher, to prove their worth to judging panel and onlookers. Rising up and away from the stage, further than their eyes could count, tiers of spectators watched as three finalists moved to take their places upon raised circles, center stage. By the end of the evening, one would be crowned, deemed Ultimate Beauty, earning all the privilege that came with the title.   

            As the moon rose to its fullest point, the murmuring crowd grew silent. It was time. From out of the silence, came the deep voice of the Head Judge. “Contestant #1, begin.” The first circular dais rose, setting her apart from the other finalists. The night sky darkened, then, a soft beam of moonlight illuminated the beauty. 

            Kelpi Equidae stood tall and proud. Her smoky blue-gray skin shone in the light of the moon, velvety and soft. The crowd gasped as Kelpi shook her head, and a mane of lustrous black hair rippled in the breeze. Raising her arms overhead, Contestant #1 demanded attention. Her naked skin shimmered, accentuating the strength in muscled hindquarters. Merged with the bloodlines of the horse, Kelpi stretched her neck to the night sky and called out, her resounding trumpet bringing to mind the majesty of wild stallions that once roamed the world freely before being rounded up for slaughter. From the darkness of the tiers, Kelpi’s people answered with their own whinnying calls. With a final shake of flowing locks, Kelpi nodded, her indigo eyes locked on a point beyond the darkened crowd. 

            Excited now, the murmuring grew louder, anxious for the next finalist. “Quiet,” came the voice, and immediately, silence. One did not cross the Head Judge. “Contestant #2.” Again, the sky darkened, but this time, no spotlight lit the stage. The darkness thrummed, heavy with anticipation. When it became almost too much to bear, colors glowed from the middle dais, where Lepidoptera was on display. Mesmerized, the crowd watched as from out of the darkness, sapphire wings appeared, their black edges blending into the night’s darkness, making her one with the sky. Arcing white bands, in vivid contrast, created the appearance of angelic wings inside the brilliance of Contestant #2’s butterfly beauty. Her body’s coloring added to the affect, blues and blacks swirling and merging. Her eyes, goggles of cerulean blue, searched past the spectators, able to see both future and past. Lepidoptera raised her arms, her wings spanning ten or more feet. Effortlessly, with one gentle movement, she rose off the platform to hover above the stage for a moment, before settling back down. The delicate wings folded behind her, and Lepidoptera nodded toward the panel. She was the reminder of the fragile balance, nearly lost forever, now immortalized in Lepidoptera’s people. The crowd burst into mad applause.

            Allowing time for the spectators to settle, the Head Judge announced, “Contestant…” It was as far as he got. There was nothing demure about the final contestant, and her roar broke over the words of the judge. Only then did the moonbeam light Panthera Tigris. Blended over time with the largest of felines, Contestant #3 stood strong and tall, arms pressed tightly along her sides, hands clasped on the top of each powerful thigh. Vibrant orange-red skin glimmered, black markings creating a pattern that drew the spectators’ eyes from belly to breast, from ankle upward to imagine where the lines disappeared as they formed new designs across her back and shoulders. Panthera continued roaring, her wild tight curls jerking with the movements, her black eyes blazing defiantly at crowd and judging panel. Her fierceness was intoxicating, dangerous; yet, every man and woman in the arena would have risked the chance, braved sharpened claws, to be held in her passionate embrace for a single night. She was a true creature of majesty, encompassing the pride that once walked the earth, ruled the jungles, and terrified man into its nearly ultimate destruction. 

            The beam of light went dark, but Panthera’s roars echoed to the limits of the pageant arena. When it was finally quiet, each of the three contestants were illuminated by a single beam of moonlight. “We will make our decision,” the Head Judge announced. Panthera’s chest heaved with her recent exertions. Her black eyes glared; her sneer exposing sharpened edges of pearly white teeth. Lepidoptera stood tall and slender, regal, hands clasped softly before her; and she spread her painted wings open, smiling as the crowd sighed its approval. Kelpi simply waited, mane covering her smoky shoulders, eyes sadly acknowledging that her fate lie in the decision of the judges. 

            “Lepidoptera, you are Ultimate Beauty.” The crowd exploded, a cacophony of cheers and hissing. Steel bands locked around her ankles as her stand rose high into the night. Out of the blackness, a sharpened needle appeared. Piercing Lepidoptera, it pinned her to the clouds, where she would remain, Ultimate Beauty, displayed as a reminder until the next pageant. 

Having known this was her fate, Lepidoptera sent her final thoughts outward, to many years past, where another young, cerulean goggled girl had been watching this beautiful night’s horror. “Now, you know,” she warned. “You can change Earth’s fate.” As Lepidoptera’s eyes closed, the girl sobbed, tearing the goggles from her eyes, determined that there was time to save the future.