“Winged Lions and Stonefish”
Fantasy Romance by L.J. Longo
Read time: 23 minutes
“Sir, there is a winged lion in the trash pit.”
Part of the reason Eliran had hired Livi as his assistant wizard-in-training (or rather allowed her to remain in the lighthouse he tended) was because of her reserved dignity and succinct manner. She was quiet as a sea breeze and just as calming.
Which is why he stood in front of his workstation and simply blinked at her. “Um … sorry. Can you … say again?”
“Winged lion. Trash pit.” She folded her hands in front of her primly. “May I have a potion to … do something about it.”
“You don’t mean a griffin?” He pulled up his goggles and lowered the fire in the burner. “Like a regular one.”
He demonstrated the size he meant by holding his hands in front of him as if to pick up one of the house-cat-sized creatures that screeched day and night when a beached whale or a dead mermaid washed up on shore.
“I do not.” She spread her arms as wide as she could, indicating a very large animal. Her composure began to break, and her hands were trembling.
“Ah … not a griffin. Even a large one?” That would be problematic enough on its own. Large griffin. But not as bad as—
A thundering roar rocked the tower and Livi squeaked with fear.
“Right,” Eliran said. “Um … bring a transformation potion.”
The winged lion continued to roar as it clawed at the stone walls of the enclosed pit. It beat blue and green wings but was unable to fully spread them in the little space at the center of the tower where it found itself trapped.
“There’s a winged lion in the trash pit.” Eliran was amazed, repeating Livi’s words.
“How do you suppose it got in?” Livi asked.
“It … it’s in the trash pit, Livi.” He said again, then calmed a bit.
She was recovering from her shock. “I suppose it must have flown in from the roof, probably glided down like the griffins and seagulls, and got caught.”
“But what is it doing here?” Eliran protested. “Lions are not native to this coast.”
“Especially not ones with wings,” Livi agreed. “I suppose the sailors—”
The beast roared again and ran and flapped at the wall, making it about ten feet up the tower before gravity pulled it down.
“What are we going to do?” Eliran asked.
Livi turned to him. “Are you asking me, sir?”
“You’re right.” He was the wizard. “Um … right. The obvious solution is …”
How did unwanted things in the trash area usually get taken away? Well, they would cast the ritual to turn the rubbish heap into the Charybdis sea monster who eats it all. “Let’s cast the Charybdis ritual.”
“Tried that,” Livi said.
“Oh … you did?” Eliran was disappointed. He’d thought it was a very good idea. When he looked out the window again, past the pacing lion ruffling its feathers, he saw only barren stone. “Right. It flew out of the mouth.”
“It did indeed.” Livi pointed to another potion. “Should we try that one?”
“Yes. Let’s.” In the kitchen, Eliran saw the chicken he’d slaughtered yesterday morning, since it had been his night to cook. “We’ll put the potion in that meat and drop it down to the beast.”
“Yes!” Livi exclaimed. “The warriors in the stories always use leather bags for it, so the beast doesn’t know.”
“Brilliant.” Eliran was actually sort of excited about this. He was doing the things adventurers did. He had the flittering notion that Livi might be impressed by him and then immediately put such silliness from his mind.
There was a lion in the trash pit, after all. Very pressing concern.
As they executed their plan, Eliran’s high spirits returned. “You know, the lion will turn into a mackerel and die, but if we don’t Charybdis the body, it ought to return to its natural state.”
“The fellows in town will never believe the two of us could kill a lion, ‘ she answered and handed him the broom.
“With wings. Well, it’s not exactly honorable means.” He tied the rope to the brush end and the basket with the potion-filled chicken on the other end.
She dropped the basket out the window. They both stood back while Eliran handled the broom.
Livi giggled suddenly. It was a strange girlish sound he’d never heard from the woman before. “You look like you’re fishing.”
He smiled, amused himself, delighted by her laughter, and suddenly desperate to hear the sound again. “Maybe we should go fishing for dragons next, Livi.”
“Too small. Let’s try a sea monster to really test our mettle,” she teased back.
It was at that moment the winged lion pounced. They both screamed with fear as the broom was yanked out of the wizard’s hands. Together they clambered away from the window and each grabbed for the other and held tight. Below the window the winged lion tore the chicken to shreds.
Livi hummed and moved away first. “Strange instinct.”
“Oh yes!” Eliran released Livi’s arms and moved away, brushing his tunic as if touching her had inflected it. “I guess … grasping at … straws.”
There was a particularly juicy sound and then a flash of light.
Both of them rushed to the window and leaned out to watch the lion transform. Its jaws were wet with the pink potion, and the glowing was definitely magic. And the magic was definitely working.
But the lion was not transforming.
“Eliran,” Livi said.
“Yes. I noticed.” He blinked.
The potion was spattered across the courtyard and all over the winged lion’s paws. It even started licking the potion but no transformation.
“It’s … protected somehow?” Eliran cocked his head.
“Maybe it was a bad batch?”
“No, it’s definitely working. It’s mackerel-izing the stones,” he said casually. “Maybe the winged lion has some manner of protection.”
“A naturally occurring charm.” Livi noticed bits of stone wiggling and flopping as the potion sprayed on them. “Perhaps—wait. Did you say—”
“Mackerel-izing the stones!” They both realized the danger just as the tower rumbled and the kitchen wall beneath their arms cracked.
The winged lion was horrified and flapped around the tiny courtyard, whimpering and wailing. The stony fish emerging from the wall were bigger than it was and gasping for air and smashing stone with their tails as they sought water.
Livi pulled Eliran in the direction of the door that led toward town. “We have to get out.”
“To the tower,” Eliran grasped her hand, heading up the stairs toward the workshop.
They both stopped in the middle of the hallway, holding each other’s hand.
He pointed up. “We can’t let the eternal light falter. Someone might be navigating even now.”
“But the tower isn’t stable,” she argued. “If it collapses, the eternal light will go out, and we’ll be trapped or crushed.”
“Yes, but …” Maybe it wasn’t crumbling. Maybe he had a potion to fix it. Maybe there was a spell in one of the tomes. If he stayed cool and collected, she would know he was a true wizard, and she would be more impressed by him and not leave once she had mastered all his spells.
There was a great cracking sound from below.
“No, you’re right, Livi. Let’s go.” And they fled together toward the town door.
They had not gotten far—just to the base of the stairs when Livi stopped running and simply stared. “How did …”
Eliran couldn’t understand it either. He was staring at his first floor. Just outside the door, through the big welcoming windows, he saw the cart he could enchant to carry them to safety. But between them and the cart, across the parlor that was designed to serve customers and stranded sailors and had a little curtained-off part where Livi had been sleeping for a year, there was …
“How did the ocean get in the front parlor?” Livi said
The water bubbled from the trash pit, flooding through the demolished wall. The stonefish swam happily over the shop counter. One of them nibbled at Livi’s boots which floated in the roiling water.
The winged lion—hampered by its wings—paddled for its life toward them and the dry land of the stairs.
Livi remarked, “It’s not going farther than the parlor. How is that door holding in the water.”
“Some … manner of magic.” Eliran tugged Livi away from the sight. “Someone must have cursed me.”
His heart hammered in his chest. He hadn’t known he’d had such enemies. He hadn’t realized he was important enough. He would have liked to know, mostly so he could boast about it. He certainly didn’t know any protection charms stronger than the ones he’d already cast.
“Eliran …” Livi tugged his arm.
The real tragedy is that she was trapped here too. Livi—who was too quiet and lovely to have any enemies. She would drown or be crushed or—
“The lion is coming this way.”
Or eaten.
“To the workshop.”
The winged lion did not have a better time escaping the inside of the tower. The windows were not designed to allow a beast of that size to sneak through. It was annoyed further by being wet and cold.
Or at least that’s what Livi and Eliran decided from the comfort of the workshop. The door was barricaded against the winged lion. The window to the trash heap was opened so they could take measurements of the water, which was rising. They hadn’t determined a pattern yet.
“Only a half inch this time,” Livi remarked.
“Slowing down, good.” Eliran thumbed through the table of contents of the big spellbook. He suggested: “Flying carpet?”
“Absolutely not,” she protested.
“Why not?” He had rather liked the idea of a flying carpet. She would sit in the front, and he would put his arms around her to grip the front tassels and steer. It would be romantic.
“We only have the one carpet.” She pointed at the threadbare thing in front of the hearth fire. “And it would certainly hate both of us.”
He nodded. “Good point. Besides, magic seems to have gone wonky in the whole tower.”
The eternal flame was the only thing not yet affected, but all the orbs lighting the hallways danced with strange colors making the world hazy and dreamy. The potions on his shelves rattled, in particular the ones for detecting powerful spells. The frogs had leaped en masse from the tower windows and sprouted batwings until they hit the ground outside of the tower walls. Most of them splattered dead anyway, not quite smart enough to glide even when given the wings.
“Eliran,” Livi cleared her throat and sat down across from him and the spellbook. “Suppose it wasn’t an enemy who cursed the tower.”
“Has to be,” he said. “Though I can’t for the life of me think who. I never suspected I was so vile.”
“You’re not,” Livi said. “Everyone adores you.”
“Oh, so it’s jealousy, you think?” Eliran smirked at the idea. Probably one of the cantankerous old ones had misunderstood him having a female apprentice and thought he’d stumbled somehow into a lover.
“I wonder if the thing holding the water in might not be your own protection charms.”
“Well, even if that’s the case,” the water had been enchanted; they’d run the tests, “how did it get here?”
“How did the winged lion?” Livi asked.
“It flew down,” Eliran replied, then cocked his head. “I don’t follow. What are you getting at?”
“Suppose the transformation potion didn’t work because it was a beast already under a transformation spell?”
“Okay,” Eliran shrugged. “That would explain why our potion didn’t work and how it got in the pit in the first place.”
“But what would cause that transformation that also would create so much water?” Livi screwed up her face and thought hard.
So did he. “Something to transform and to create water.”
“Invite water? Conjure water.” She brainstormed.
“Bigger,” he insisted. “Something that saturated the trash pit with chaotic magic—”
She sat up straight suddenly and looked like she’d swallowed her lips. “Do you suppose seagulls have dreams?”
“What?” Eliran gawked at her. “What a silly question at a time like—oh.”
“A wish potion would have that localized effect.”
“On the trash pit.” Eliran nodded, then shook his head. “I didn’t make any wish potion. Those are illegal.”
“Right, and such a thing wouldn’t affect seagulls and stones. They don’t have dreams.”
“It would have to be an incredibly powerful potion,” Eliran said. “And once again, very illegal to make.”
Because people used them to wish for things they ought not to. Or the death of all enemies or eternal life. Or the love of a quiet and dignified woman who lived in the parlor of a certain lighthouse/wizard tower. It made unnatural things happen when a spell like that was used.
Like winged lions and stonefish.
“I wouldn’t have made such a thing,” he protested. “Not to use on you. I mean it. I wouldn’t ever—”
“I wasn’t accusing you.” Livi curled in on herself, rubbing her arms. “I mean, I … I saw the spell out on your desk one night.”
“Right. Well, I was referencing it. A very old one that probably wouldn’t even work, but also … I wasn’t going to use it. I didn’t—”
And Eliran realized … if he didn’t, who did?
Livi smiled sheepishly.
“You … you made it?”
“I did.” She put her head into her hands and curled her knees into her forehead as if she wanted to become a clam. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for—”
“What did you wish for?” He desperately wanted to know. Probably power. Or his early and accidental death so she could inherit the tower. Or irresistible beauty.
“I didn’t,” she protested. “I was going to … but it’s—I mean, it’s the same as a love potion, but this one would last, and that’s … well, it wasn’t right, you know?”
A love potion? Oh, for one of the sailors or a boy in town, surely. She probably didn’t need it. She was just shy. If she smiled at the boy in the right way, he’d probably melt and ask her to live with him forever.
“So I threw it on the trash heap and didn’t think it would do any damage.”
Eliran scoffed. “What is the first thing I taught you about potions? You have to make sure it’s defunct before you discard it.”
Livi nodded, her mouth twisting with shame and her eyes filling with tears. “I know, but … I made it in the kitchen, and I didn’t have the lemon-weed and dill to disenchant it, and it was late at night, and I didn’t want to wake you because you’d fallen asleep over your books again, and I was worried if I saw you like that I wouldn’t have the courage or the strength to actually destroy the damned thing. And it was much stronger than it had any right to be, and I thought since nothing sentient went in the trash pit—how was I to know that seagulls and stones had aspirations!”
“Well, I’m very disappointed.” Eliran rubbed his chin. He wished he was able to grow a long thick beard like a proper wizard. That would have given her the confidence in him to have asked for his advice and wisdom, and then even though it would have broken his heart, he would have told her how to win the heart of her sailor or her shopboy. As it was, he had to think of something to say to both reassure her and make sure she didn’t try such a stupid thing again.
His silence infuriated her. “I didn’t mean to tear your damn tower apart; I just wanted you to notice me!”
Eliran sat straighter and looked at her. “Me? It was … the wish was …” His mouth opened and closed as he stared at her, looking a bit like the stone fish. “You wished for me?”
Livi squirmed. “Well, in the end, no. It didn’t seem right or fair, so ...” She made a gesture like chucking an invisible potion out the window.
“But … a step back.” That thing she’d said about seeing him asleep. “You … were going to wish for me?”
Livi smiled slightly. “When I was a shopgirl in town, you were always very nice to me and so charming. The other girls laughed at me because who wants a wizard who can’t even grow a beard? But I did. I do. So, I … I came out here to try to impress you.”
The timer sparked, and Livi went to the window to take another measurement of the water depth. She pulled up the dial. “Ah, a whole twelve inches that time. Twenty meters up from the trash pit, and it will come through this window. The next time it rises, most likely. Another ten and it will flood the eternal flame.”
Livi snorted and looked out the window at the mess she’d made. “Not very impressing at all.
“It truly is. Very impressive, I mean,” he said. “That spell was far outside my ken. I couldn’t figure out more than half of the substitutions. That’s why I didn’t use it on you.”
Livi looked up. “You mean it?”
He shrugged, “I’ve never been very good at substitutions.”
“Not that part, Eliran.”
“What? Oh, yes!” He stood and walked nearer to her, still a little afraid to admit it. “I mean, it was more of an intellectual exercise. I wouldn’t want to … force anyone to like me. But I thought about carefully wording the wish.”
“What were you going to say?” She wandered nearer to him.
Eliran still remembered clearly and confessed shyly: “If there’s any love in Livi’s heart for me, let her tell it to me and let it grow threefold when I tell her about the true love in mine.”
“Oh, very clever,” she admired that. “Ensures it goes both ways.”
“What were you going to say?” They were near enough to touch.
“Part of the reason I threw it on the trash heap is I didn’t think that far ahead and panicked at the last minute.” She held her hands in front of her, wringing her fingers together.
“Do you suppose we could …” He leaned a little nearer, trying to indicate that he wanted to kiss her, but in the end, he rocked back, uncertain of how to proceed.
“I mean, I’d like to …” She agreed but stayed where she was, hands folded in front of her, smiling at the floor.
The winged lion—which was actually just a seagull—roared in the hallway outside. They both startled and looked at the door.
Eliran said, “You know, let’s figure out kissing later.”
“Oh, is kissing what you meant? I thought—”
“What did you think?”
“A good deal more than—you know, there’s no time for that now. Lemon-weed and dill. If we chuck all we have into the courtyard, can we use the water down there for the base of the cleansing potion?”
“Yes. Brilliant.”
Even after they’d nullified the wishing spell, it took them most of the day to clear out the courtyard. They used mermaid song to grow coral in the gaps in the tower, since the stone fish could not be coaxed back into place. Neither of them had the heart to feed such big, unusual fish to a Charybdis, so they used badger fur and dragon claw to dig a little moat around the tower and released the protection charms to flush the water out into the moat with the stone fish. The winged lion rushed out the door as well and flapped into the sky, roaring with delight.
As they watched the former seagull fly south, Eliran very nearly put his hand around her waist, then reached instead into his coat pocket. “I saved a bit of that wishing water from the … from the trash pit.”
She reached into her apron pocket. “Me, too.”
“I purified and distilled mine with a salt stone after we trapped the lion downstairs. What did you use?”
“I boiled it in the kitchen while you were singing at the stones,” she shrugged.
“Very practical.” He tipped his little potion bottle against her flask. “Shall we wish?”
“You wish for exactly what you planned.” She smiled, blushing as she raised the flask to her lips, but waited for him.
He did not wait but announced confidently. “I wish if there is true love in Livi’s heart for me, let her tell it to me and let it grow threefold when I tell her about the true love in mine.”
She smiled and did not speak her wish out loud, but sipped her flask as he did, then smacked her lips and said, “I love you. That was surprisingly refreshing.”
Livi seemed shocked at the words that had passed her lips, then grinned widely.
“Mine was a bit salty.” He tsked his lips together to chase away the taste and made her wait. “Oh, and I love you, too. I knew it from the time I saw you in the shops. I used to daydream about asking you to come to dinner with me.”
Livi leaned forward to put her arms around his neck.
He looked at her hands and her face coming nearer. “But I never had the courage to …”
“Kiss me?” Livi asked.
Even with her arms around his neck, he wasn’t sure he would do it right. Not exactly the kind of thing you can learn by practicing on yourself or in books. But she loved him, and he loved her, and it was a truish sort so …
They pressed their lips together. A chaste little childish kiss. Her lips were soft and wet and the most delicious thing he’d ever put against his mouth. He wasn’t surprised that the rest of her mouth tasted just as good when she parted her lips.
Something fired through him stronger and certainly more magical than he’d expected. He recognized the spell at work at once, burning away hesitation and shyness and replacing it with … something that was very much its opposite.
“What did you wish for?” Eliran asked, tightening his hand around her waist and drawing her in for another kiss, not certain he could stop there if he wanted.
“A good deal more than kisses.” Livi raised her brows, encouraging him not to stop.
~ LJ
Want more?
I know the answer at once and like a good student, I answer boredly. "Psychological risk. It is not harmonious with the consumer's perception of self. My spiritual capital is at stake."
Excerpt from LJ’s romantic story, “Cat Calls” featured in the 2022 Leo issue of Dharma Direction.
L.J. Longo is an award-winning Romance author, a queer geek, and feminist writing a medley of dark romance (which can be found through Evernight Publishing), magical realism, weird sci-fi/fantasy, and very implausible creative non-fiction. She recently received Third Place recognition for her submission to the Writer’s Digest Annual Short Story Fiction Contest with her entry titled, "To Harvest Lavender." Coming Soon: LJs queer fiction, “The Stranded Sky Castle” will be featured in the Alpha Male anthologies from Evernight Publishing.
Connect to L.J. on Facebook, L.J.'s Twitter page, or L.J. on Instagram.
Scenes for the Senses… audio/visual art
Illuminating Leo
Each month, Read Gallo treats us to a mesmerizing few minutes in the dreamy world of a free-flowing watercolor brush. Relax and let your mind wander as our artist-in-residence captures a moment from “Winged Lion and Stonefish,” this edition’s Fantasy Romance by LJ Longo.
Poet-Tree …
Well, what do you know? I am a poet.
One of my favorite places I’ve ever visited is Sol Duc Falls. However, none of the pictures I took (while communing with the incredible flora of the Hoh Rainforest) do the kind of justice for it that this Poet-Tree photo does. Mother Nature at her finest. The scenery above—from the golden sunlight to the rush of the water—exudes the same sense of energy I felt walking among those very falls.
This month’s Poet-Tree poesy comes with a Special Announcement:
I was finally brave enough (thanks in part to
, our Substack neighbor and contributing poet) to enter one of my poems into a contest several months ago: The Writer’s Digest Annual Writing Competition 2023.Imagine my surprise when I received an email that said: Congratulations! You’re a winner. I about fell out of my chair … and I cried tears of joy. Maybe it was beginner’s luck. Or maybe … I am a poet after all.
My win was for Honorable Mention which might sound gratuitous, but I assure you it is not. Any recognition in this industry is worth shouting from the rooftops. I’ll have my name and the poem’s title listed in the Nov/Dec issue of Writer’s Digest. Since it won’t be printed in the issue, I thought I’d share the poem with you all here.
In our upcoming Bonus Issue, I’ll be sharing the inspiration behind this poem.
~ Debbie Abbott
“Crumbs”
Bring the songs for crumbs
down the troubled trails …
hell or high water
paths must be trodden.
Unexplained whispers
bring the songs for crumbs …
exhaling the blame
inside drops of rain.
Rising with the flow,
beats of angel wings
bring the songs for crumbs
down the road undone.
Combustible sparks
melt your mind and snow …
while the tips of tongues
bring the songs for crumbs.
~ original poem by Debbie Abbott, December 2022
Next up: Bonus Issue #1
With an extra week this month between our zodiac editions of Leo and Virgo, the time is perfect for our first ever BONUS ISSUE: a preview of the ‘paid subscription’ content we’ll start publishing regularly in January 2024. Some of the things these special editions will include are …
Video interviews with our contributors:
is our first guest, and we get some great backstory about several of her poems featured here in Dharma Direction including how hamburgers and a song by Weezer inspired her poem “Wrestle With Jimmy” (from our 2023 Fantasy Romance Cancer edition).Audio recordings of Dharma Direction essays and stories: Honoring the lionhearted loved ones in their lives, Colleen Markley will be reading her 2022 Humor essay “Leo - The Plot Hole Explored” and Debbie Abbott will read “Noble Intentions,” both from the 2022 Leo edition.
Show & Tell: you never know what you’re gonna get.
Inspiration Impetus: a short reveal of what inspired a piece of content. In our first Bonus Issue, Debbie Abbott tells us what the inspiration was for her award-winning poem, “Crumbs.”
Thanks for reading/subscribing; we appreciate your support. Watch for our contributors’ posts on their social media platforms throughout Leo season as they share their stories and visions of the Dharma motto:
#GowiththeFlow
~ Debbie Abbott, publisher/editor