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Hello, and welcome to the second official vignette for Althanas Day 2015! Sorry it's late! These vignettes will earn you the same rewards as usual, plus an exclusive Althanas Day badge!
Quote:
We provide a song and/or image as inspiration. The vignette must express the song or image somehow.
Please use this image to inspire you. Your piece can also include a lyric (or more) from the song linked here (optional).
http://www.philzone.org/discus/messa...59/1019211.jpg
“Shh, no one is going to harm you.”
The thing before Hawl cocked its head, a smooth, sudden movement so one of its glassy eyes stared at the girl without blinking. She was certain that it was darkened glass, something from Fallien and probably brought to Scara Brae by her Uncle. She shook her head at the adult with the long metal skewer before her.
“This will be over soon, then the only thing we will need to hear is your infectious laughter,” the adult clicked. He cocked his head again, this time the other way, the sunlight reflecting off of the glass. Hawl was on a stool in the center of her Aunt’s store, the door closed to the public and this weird stranger invited in! Aunt Jess was somewhere upstairs, taking a nap or making lunch or something, Hawl wasn’t sure at all. Her eyes kept trailing from the man
“I don’t need whatever you’re going to do!” She sounded defiant, heroic even before this weird man invited into her home! The adult paused, recoiling, his entire head pulling back and looking down the long leather beak. Hawl couldn’t see any skin on the man, not even wrists or ankles! Or even his stomach! Everybody showed their stomach on such a hot summer day, he had to be boiling alive on such a hot summer day!
“You may reserve the right to be as trite as you like,” The adult slowly clicked out. His head smoothly came back to its nominal position, and he took several quick steps around Hawl. His exaggerated head movements were confused by Hawl’s sudden concern over how hot his suit was. Another thought occurred to her, watching this thin, black clad man. “You may not bite. Your teeth would not pierce my clothing.”
“I wasn’t gonna bite you!” Hawl huffed, scooting up in her seat. Her legs didn’t even reach the floor as the man circled above her. She wasn’t even entirely certain that he was a he. Hawl was confused all the time for a (weird) boy, it wouldn’t be out of question for this weird adult before her to maybe be a girl or something even weirder. Hawl’s eyes go wide as she considers the possibility. Maybe he was even a teenager…
The adult’s expression could not be read behind its mask, but it cocked its head as it watched Hawl’s face contort through thought and emotions. Its head slowly lowered, shoulders shrugging as it positioned the thin skewer. Perfectly still hands adjusted slightly, then pierced into the girl’s arm without resistance. A gloved thumb pushed down the plunger, pushing a strange and unearthly concoction into her arm! Hawl yelped, the skewer withdrawn from her arm in a smooth and careful motion. A small dab of white fabric pressed against it.
“There,” The adult sounded pleased with itself, clicking happily. “Your Flooh vaccination is complete. You can go to Salvar and Lornius without worry of catching disease.”
"Polio," the Alerian physician said matter-of-factly.
"What the hell is polio," Logan responded.
The doctor moved over to a large book, opened it and then blew away the dust. His fingers slid along the pages until he found the one he was looking for labeled 'polio'. The psion scooted closer and peered down at the text.
"A small portion of the population experience headaches, fevers, neck stiffness, vomiting, diarrhea, and pain in the arms and legs," Logan read aloud from the page.
"No known treatment," the doctor responded as he closed his book with a thud.
The psion took a deep breath, "How long does he have, doc?"
The lab coat wearing physician gave him a look of confusion.
"Oh, my dear sir, polio isn't fatal. It is just a nuisance."
Logan breathed a sigh of relief as he chuckled, "Thank goodness! If you heard his screams of agony the other day you'd swear he was going to die."
The doctor smiled and nodded, "Very common, indeed. It can make walking or moving rather troublesome, but so long as they take the prescription I've provided they will be good as new within the next couple of weeks."
At least Logan knew Vince would be okay now. Still, he had to make sure the Emperor of the Tarot Hierarchy took his medicine, otherwise another episode could easily spell his death.
Quote:
Ten years into the future
He donned the mask at dawn, and decided that there were comforts to be had in admitting one’s own monstrosity.
For once, he knew exactly what he was -- monstrous devil fool -- and exactly where he stood -- in the dark behind the mask unheard and unseen. No more shame. No more despair while faintly clawing to be better better better until he was good enough for his good mother’s table.
Beneath the hooked beak of the mask, the lopsided smile twisting across Firelis’s face was razor sharp. He licked his lips and tasted bitter pall. He wasn’t good enough. He never was. He wasn’t Fallien the way she was and he couldn’t come home with her. He wasn’t strong enough to prevent that despite her most fervent wishes, despite being born to do so, despite that being his only reason for his existence.
His old man once said that he wasn’t sure if Avesta née Tvy’ern as running from her destiny, or running towards it.
Firelis knew now. She had always been living her destiny, and he was the most unfortunate part of it.
You are my instrument, she had said once, quietly, fingers so light upon his cheeks that he hardly felt her at all. She had pulled away immediately afterwards, as though she could barely bear to touch him. She was in front of her people. She could hardly be seen touching him. He had a head of goddamned red hair, and that marked him so clearly as a goddamned foreigner that it pained him to look in a mirror.
I am your instrument, he had echoed back, speaking to no one at all. And he had tried. Dear Jya he had tried.
Now, he was her executioner, her hand, her bloody blade in the dark.
Jya help me. Jya help this whole damned world.
“Have I ever told you about Kir Borim?”
The dwarf hunched over the makeshift workbench had not spoken in three hours, but her compatriot had long since grown accustomed to such eccentricities. Artificial light filtered through the smoggy skies into the small room they shared. The air hung heavy with the stench of industry and faecal waste. Lodged in the deepest and least desirable sinkhole that Ettermire could dredge up, they could only dream of sun and fresh air.
“Is this something to do about all those old birds you dumped out of the attic window yesterday?” Erlamira asked in a lazy drawl, not bothering to stir from where she lay draped across the ratty couch that doubled as the only bed. She had a long night ahead of her, working the streets in search of any who would pay. But the muggy heat stifled the air in her lungs and refused her the blessed sleep she sought. “Or the plague that’s catching hold in the Artisan’s Quarter?”
“I was born there,” Sigrun retorted, oblivious to the lack of decent illumination, the sweat funnelling down her furrowed brow, and the boredom in Erlamira’s voice. “A mine hold in the Lanz’abbac. Smelted the purest copper for a hundred leagues.”
She paused, then wrinkled her nose and snorted.
“Well, we used to, anyways.”
“Uh-huh,” Erlamira grunted, shifting her bosom in a doomed attempt to find a cooler spot to lie upon. Sigrun continued to speak, heedless of her struggles or, indeed, her acknowledgement.
“When the dush’khuthuz invaded and took over, it didn’t take them long to learn not to underestimate the pits. Takes a real dwarf to work a dwarf mine, so by and large they left us to our devices. Didn’t stop them from upping the quotas, or punishing us when we couldn’t meet them, or levelling our workshops and building their great noxious foundries in their place, or...”
“That’s good...” Erlamira agreed, wondering if she could somehow convince Obahyurur to stand in the light and fan her. The black iron golem stood silent sentinel by the back door, watching over the open sewer pipe that drained into the alleyway behind the room. The same pipe gave Sigrun and Obahyurur the run of the city without ever having to emerge into the open. For reasons that Erlamira had never bothered to question, that pleased her svelte roommate to no small degree.
“What happened was, the first dush’khuthuz who ventured into the depths of the mines laughed at the warning signs. They thought they knew everything about black tar disease and quicksilver poisoning and copper lung. Fools they. Only one came back, and he withered within the week. Little more than a leathery husk when he died, and I could have snapped his legs between my fingers.”
“Ugh.” Abandoning her attempts to attract Obahyurur’s attention, Erlamira gave up on further sleep and rose to her knees. Over an hour remained before sundown, but maybe if she got an early start she would find a better spot on the streets. Better spots meant better clientele, after all, and Sigrun hadn’t paid her share of the rent in weeks.
Then she saw what the younger dwarf held in tannin-stained fingers, and choked on a shriek of involuntary fear.
“The raven mask of a Kir Borim deep-miner,” Sigrun grinned, baring her canines in appreciation of work well done. “The beak’s a filter and respirator. Simple, but none of the dush’khuthuz who worked there could ever look upon it without fear. Not after seeing what happened to those who ventured the depths without wearing it.”
“And the rest of that?” Erlamira asked, pointing towards the thick sheet of waxed oilskin laid out on the workbench. A whiff of lavender spelled why she hadn’t seen her sachets of perfumed potpourri since yesterday.
Sigrun’s grin only grew wider. But something dark flashed behind her steel-grey eyes, fled before it arrived.
“The rest of the costume. Flameproof. Waterproof. Batterproof. Biteproof. Just what I need.”
“To do?” In all honesty, Erlamira hadn’t convinced herself that she wanted to hear the answer. But morbid curiosity forced her tongue, leaving breathless silence to await Sigrun’s reply.
The golem-mistress didn’t disappoint. Turning back to the workbench as she tired of the conversation, she replied with but a single phrase.
“What I have to.”
"Who are they?"
Artemis walked along the marketplace of Knife's Edge, listening in on the commotion that was stirring. A cult seemed to have shown up overnight and the rumors of The Crows filtered from door to door. Nobody knew what to make of them. Nobody knew what they wanted, or who they were, or if they were dangerous. But it seemed with every passing hour, they were becoming a larger proportion of the population.
'This can't be good,' Artemis found himself thinking. His vision moved across the various spectrums he had at his disposal and still there was nothing to see that could tell him anything out of the ordinary. They looked like people. But people were the most dangerous thing they could be really; people were unpredictable.
'Judicis, I need your magic for this.' Artemis directed his thoughts toward his sentient bow, currently in the form of a bracer upon his wrist. Not that he needed to; Judicis was woven right into the very fabric of Artemis' consciousness and knew all he thought and felt at all times.
'I sense your plan, Artemis. And it can work. You know what to do. Find one who looks important, or alone.'
And so Artemis began his hunt. Wandering the city, he found isolated Crows and used the bow's magical projectiles to incapacitate his targets. He would remove a glove and expose some skin, press his sentient artifact against their skin, and collect their consciousness and memories into Judicis' metaphorical catalog. They would never know, but a snapshot of their entire lives was being quickly gathered and stored. Dozens of times, one by one, Artemis hunted his pray and left non the wiser. He moved like a ghost.
After enough information, he was able to find a more prominent figure within the ranks. Though this time, he wouldn't find the individual alone. And so he went to where he knew this prominent Crow to be and rushed through the crowd as though in a hurry. His steps made no sound as their magic ensured, and he moved quickly and gracefully. At just the right moment, he opportunely bumped his sentient bracer against the skin of this figure and kept moving along.
'Well who are they?' Artemis mumbled under his breath. He had hoped Judicis would enlighten him and yet the entire time he hadn't said much other than where to find the targets. 'Come on then, Judicis. This is getting tiresome. I have better things to do.'
Strangely Artemis began to feel what could only be interpreted as laughter or amusement. As Judicis had no physical body, this was the closest he could do. 'Artemis, I'm not sure how to tell you this . . . but . . . it's a sex cult. These are men who are rebelling against the notion of performing cunnilingus on their female counterparts; or in some cases, fellatio males to other male counterparts. Their beak is symbolic of maintaining distance and sanctuary from the grotesqueness that they perceive genitalia to be.'
"Judicis," Artemis said aloud.
'Yes?' the bow answered, still emitting amusement to Artemis' consciousness.
"Remind me next time there's gossip in town that it's not worth my time until actual lives have been endangered. I'm going back to the forge. And then after that, I'm going to cunnilingus the hell out of Jay."
'I'm sure she'll be pleased. I'll try to remind you for next time.'
Closed for judging.
Thank you all for your patience in this process. Here are the judgements.
Vendredi - First Place
This was a fantastic vignette. I really appreciated the way that you put your character inside of the mask, rather than having him react to someone in it. It was a nice twist on the assignment. You story was short, but it was pumped full of feeling and rich description; I could really sense the conflicting emotions that Firelis experienced. Very nicely done.
300 EXP
200 GP
Pinions of Daedalion - Second Place
Also an excellent submission. Once again, I really enjoyed the way that you used the mask in your vignette. Rather than simply being a mask worn to disguise oneself, or cause fear, you concocted a more practical use for the item. In terms of the piece itself, you demonstrated a clear handle of the English language, and incorporated a very nice mixture of descriptive language and actions to bring your characters to life.
160 EXP
150 GP
Hawl - Close Contender
I really enjoyed this piece! It was well-written, and I enjoyed the building suspense. I thought the man was about ready to kill her, and the shot came as a total surprise. While this vignette had the makings of a first or second placing, it was littered with simple mistakes - tense changes, missing words, incorrect punctuation, etc. That is to be expected when you're rushing (considering it was Althanas Day), but it does bring down your overall score. In the future, be sure to proof-read!
100 EXP
Logan
It is interesting that you chose to focus on Polio, as that is always my first thought upon seeing this mask too! Your piece was well-written - I have no gripes there. I would have liked to have seen a bit more substance though. The piece felt a bit lacking, as if there was some sort of action or dialogue that just never took place. When I finished it, I still found myself asking so what? I felt like there should be more.
350 EXP
SirArtemis
I enjoyed your cult-like take on the mask. It definitely lends itself to a more macabre, spooky tone! What you wrote was very well-done - it is apparent that you know how to write, and how to write well. My biggest piece of advice is actually the opposite of what I said to Logan. Your piece, rather than being lacking, was a bit overwhelming. It felt as if your character was trying to tackle too much for one, short vignette. Because of it, your actions grew a bit list-like, and some of your descriptive text was lost as a result of that.
400 EXP
Thank you all so much for participating!
All EXP and GP have been added!