Word of the Week: Ethereal

The word of the week is:

Share a snippet of your work that uses this word or evokes the nature of the word!

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Extract from To Fall for an Angel (lots of context included)

Ashley paused as she sensed someone watching her and she gazed over her right shoulder, brushing aside her fine white hair. Three seats away a young man was hunched over the bar with his thick arms folded across his chest and the collar of his green jacket pulled up under his chin. A wide glass of dark spirits rested on a coaster by his elbow and a large canvas pack lay beside his hiking boots. Ashley looked up at the young man’s olive features and found his brown eyes fixed on her. A sharp gasp caught in Ashley’s throat as the man smiled and she turned away, huddling around her coffee mug.

Ashley took a gulp from her coffee and set the mug down with a sigh. Her left hand drew back to her hooded fleece jumper, slipped inside a waist pocket, and retrieved a wrinkled photo. Ashley held the photo in her cupped hands and smiled as she raised the photo up to her nystagmic blue eyes.

In the photo a boy and a girl stood next to a Torah scroll displayed in a polished teak case set in front of a thick red curtain lining the back wall of a small synagogue. The boy was tall and thin with fair skin, short black hair and a prominent nose. His black clothes and white prayer shawl, embroidered with blue patterns and silver Hebrew script, had been pelted with boiled candy. The girl was shorter, more robust and wore a buttoned white shirt with a blue dress. The girl’s porcelain skin and long mane of white hair disguised her age, and the ambient light gave her opaque-blue eyes a crimson hue. A short message had been quilled in Hebraic script over a curtain beside the girl, dedicating the photo to Dove.

Ashley snapped upright as a soft familiar sound drifted through the air. She returned the photo to her jumper’s pocket, glanced around the tavern and her attention returned to the young man. He appeared to be studying a few photos of his own while he whispered into a mobile phone. Ashley leant closer to him, then her ears pricked as his voice rose from a whisper and she gasped, ‘Hebrew!’

The young man ended his call, turned towards Ashley, and looked passed her. Ashley followed his gaze passed some girls seated along the bar. Her shivering eyes settled on the figures of two men preoccupied with their arguments, and oblivious to the other tavern patrons. Ashley closed her wandering eyes and leant towards the debating men.

‘The other girls are okay for price, but not the ghost,’ one of the men said. ‘For her, you ask too much.’

‘What’s wrong with her, Rau?’ the other man asked. ‘Consider her the apartheid pin-up girl; all white.’

‘Listen, Richmond,’ Rau growled, ‘who in Europe will pay for that little ghost? She will not cover her costs.’

Richmond scoffed. ‘So, this is why you left the African Commandos. You abandoned your national ideals for loose change and young girls.’

Ashley flinched as she heard Rau’s glass crack in his grip.

‘And you speak of costs,’ Richmond continued. ‘Do you know how much it cost me to get these girls this far into Romania, your so-called neutral territory? Her price stays.’

‘Getting them here was your problem,’ Rau snapped. ‘I’ll buy her for two grand, last offer.’

‘It is too dangerous to stay another night,’ Richmond said. ‘I will accept three thousand.’

‘Done,’ Rau said.

‘No!’ Ashley breathed as her eyes flickered open.

‘Arrogant fools,’ a voice close to Ashley whispered. ‘Last night was too dangerous. Now, it is too late.’

Ashley turned back to the young man to see him lift the canvas pack onto his shoulder with one hand, while he finished his drink with the other. His form seemed to unfold and expand as he stood up and stretched. A faint gasped seeped from Ashley’s throat and her body stiffened as the man’s broad shadow spread over the seats between them. ‘Oh-God. A giant.’

The young man paused and gazed down at the stunned girl.

‘Uh, shalom,’ Ashley whispered.

The young man tilted his head and raised an eyebrow. Ashley turned away, huddling over her coffee mug, and she froze as a large hand caressed her shoulder.

‘Shalom, little angel.’

Extract from Goddess v2.0

Dov’s attention returned to the sleeping clone. ‘Does she have a name?’

‘You choose one,’ Lander replied.

Dov frowned. ‘What colour are her eyes?’

‘Emerald with electric-green streaks,’ Lander said. ‘The whites of her eyes are quite luminous.’

‘Very descriptive,’ Krista said. ‘How often do you gaze longingly into her eyes?’

‘A difficult task as my patient has yet to wake,’ Lander replied. ‘She was semi-conscious twice before, for her mind and body to become familiar with each other. Otherwise we kept her in a coma to protect against the trauma of rapid growth.’

Dov rubbed his brow. ‘Mythical eyes…Freyja might suit her.’

‘Pretty name,’ Krista said. ‘European or Russian?’

‘Freyja is from the Viking legends,’ Dov replied. ‘Friday is named after Freyja and since–’

‘Oh, very clever,’ Polanski interrupted him. ‘Shabbat begins every Friday evening. This Shabbat you and Freyja first meet. In Israel, no less.’

Krista cooed. ‘Such a romantic.’

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Honestly, I’m surprised I didn’t use this word more often. :confounded:

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Everything came crashing down around me. I was still imprisoned in this hellhole that used to be home, but now I saw it for what it was. No more earthquakes rocked the building. No more ethereal blue light danced and weaved across every surface. No more glass glittered on the floor. No more illusions. It was just my apartment, grown more desolate in my absence, and that made it all the more torturing.

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I really tend to be more concrete. This is as close as I get:

Saved under Theumbelina: Demon's Seed

Haures wiped her blood off his face and on the back of his hand, then licked it clean before pulling the now lonely blade from the tree.

There are never happy endings. Especially fate bound in the hands of demons.

But the world is never without hope, no matter how small. A single drop of blood remained, the first in three tries to change this monster to savior. It dripped off his chin.

Potent is human blood that travels across a demon’s skin.
Alone, the drop flitted on the air like a seed, traveling for miles until it landed in the Queen’s garden. A flower sprang forth in the lonely hours of the night, and on it’s bed lay a young child: almost a swaddling newborn, save for being so tiny.
Like many stories, the Queen was without child, and the King beginning to look for her replacement, and she begged the stars as piteously as did the servant on the very same night.

The next morning the embittered woman spat out her window, cursing fate, having woken to a letter from her Lord. A trial would begin, one that could very well have her beheaded for consorting with the devil and left barren, anything but admit that she had been faithful and still had not bore him a son. Even a daughter would do, just not preferred.

But she disturbed the small child into a cry, fat tears running down a tiny face, on a sunflower that leaned against her windowsill. The queen gave a shout of triumph as she plucked the babe from the petals, quickly checking into the swaddling to see that it was a girl.

It would be enough to save the Queen’s life.

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Surprisingly only one instance in OSWaJS:

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