May Vignette #1

[Jasmine]

We are starting a new way of doing Vignettes, instead of being monthly, they will be weekly. All the rules and rewards will remain the same, the time to post will just be shorter. After this first week, Vignettes will open at midnight Saturday night and close the following Saturday night.


Here is your first topic! You have until midnight Saturday night, so get to it!

A stretch of enchanted road, literally, hates your character.


Thanks to orphans for the suggestion! If anyone else has a suggestion, it can be posted here

[Lillith]

I’m more a part of this fey kingdom,
Than ever they’ll admit,
I’m more entitled to vocation,
Than this ignorance can permit.

I’m separated in a group I forged,
Isolated because I’m foreign,
I’m bandaged from the wounds they hurl,
In this ancient racist warren.

I wish I wish that they would forgive,
That which we’ve forgotten years ago,
I wish the seams that we’ve been stitching,
Would fuse together, and truly go.

For here in my home and my country,
I am a man of dual estate,
But I feel so dreary and isolated,
By this road that burns with hate.

Cydney Oliver

[Anke/Varg]

We are train wrecks, ruination aglow
Beneath the stars.
The flames illuminate our discrepancies,
Our mistakes are ablaze.

Corpses, mangled in the melee strike shapes in the dark,
Casualties of our toil.,
We have travelled on this same road like they,
Restless, fruitless, tireless.

Who should we pity more pray tell?
Those misfortunate victims of war, or us?
Us for travelling this road to nowhere.


Cydney Oliver

[Mordelain]

So here I am, in another world,
So far away from home,
Here I am wandering far,
Across the distant loam.

Here I find so many wonders,
Yet I’m only a world away,
I wonder if here in this final roost,
From my dreams and goals I’ll stray?

So here I am, in a new frontier,
Wondering if I'll survive,
Trying to make my fortune yes,
In this new rustic road and drive.

Cydney Oliver

[Narran]

Endstop.
No destiny.
No beginning.
No chance.

Wondering where I went wrong
Wandering far too long

Eternity.
For too long a road to dream.


Cydney Oliver

[Hallow]

I seek, therefore I am,
Lost amid the starlight slide,
I seek eternity in the night,
Where creatures foul reside.

I search the endless quagmire,
For a way to free the mind,
But even in such fantasy,
No daylight can I find.

Help me on this hated crossroad,
Between life and darkest death,
Help me pursue immortality friend,
To this last and finite breath.

Cydney Oliver

[Duffy]

Love, in all its varied splendour,
Truly numbs and truly renders.
A fascinating predilection of lust,
Our concubine, our matriarch, our Lord
It is our invigorating brother.

Of this stealer of lies and lover of languor
What else can be said?

Caressed by it, we are set free,
Set truly alive with a heated breath.
It is a wonderful, enveloping narcolepsy,
An incubus sent to acquiesce with hope,
A slovenly daemon kindled.

If not a life spent on this riveting journey,
What else is there, but death?

What else on this road that seems to hate me is there?

But a life unloved, and a wasted breath!


Cydney Oliver

[Ruby]

I’m dreaming of ties and liquid commotions,
But each step on this road presents hate.

Drawing out futures from impossible notions,
I find I’m arriving too late.

I’m obscure, I’m impressionable, I’m young, wise and free,
Yet the rocks rise from the ground to spite, hit, and speak.

I’ve such longing to find out who’s hiding in me.
Yet the curve in the journey is denying me truth.

Such duality here in this innocence lost,
Once drawn to the fire I’ll ignore the cost,
I’m learning to live with my heritage mind,
But I’ll delve a little deeper to see what I’ll find.

The journey, after all, is half the battle.


Cydney Oliver

[Captain on the Wind]

The long road stretched out to the horizon before the exhausted drifter. He tried to focus his vision but it just blurred. He wobbled with each step and his body swayed from side to side. The drifter's every step kicked up clouds of dust that were sent sailing by the low breeze that did not cool the tired man.

The sun burned high above the cloudless sky and the young drifter had been walking for what felt like days. The Jack-of-all-Trades had not felt the passing hours, instead every second felt like an eternity.

The wanderer walked as he began to mumble.

"Why did I listen to him?" he said in a grizzled, parched, voice.

"I bet that whole thing about the rum oasis was a lie... You sleep with a warlock's sister and your whole world falls apart... I don't see what the big deal was... Not like I slept with his wife t-" The drifter stopped mumbling and looked up from the ground.

"Never mind... I deserve this..." he said continuing his slow march.

Gale stopped lifting his feet from the ground, instead letting them drag as he walked. His head hung low, his eyes closed, hoping for his torment to end. But before he realized what happened, the drifter fell fast and hit his head on the hard ground.

A twig jutted out beneath his foot and the drifter used the little energy he had left to be angry.

Fucking twig... Why is there a twig on this shitty road... he thought to himself.

"Why is there a road this shitty and this pointless?" Gale asked the sky, rolling over to his back, "I hate this damn road!"

Before the drifter finished yelling the words, the twig that peeked from the ground rushed out into the sky, revealing the powerful, thick roots it connected to. The root hung over the wide-eyed drifter for a moment, before soaring at him with alarming speed.

The drifter barely managed to dodge the root as it crashed into the ground, leaving a small crater where the wanderer had been. Gale scrambled to his feet, trying to locate the source of the magic, but could not.

"What!?" He yelled, as the root rose once more, looming ominously above the drifter's head, "What does this retarded, stupid, mother-fucking, shitty road have against me!? Did I sleep with your wife and sister too?!" he yelled, as three more twigs burst from the ground, sending rocks and dirt flying in all directions.

"I hate this road..." the drifter said with a blank expression.

As the Jack-of-all-Trades muttered another insult, the roots all retreated underground. The drifter stood in place, too scared to move and unsure what to expect.

Gale took one step back and a roar resonated from below his feet. The road beneath him moved and writhed in anger. The ground around him seemed to try to enclose the wanderer as he struggled desperately to escape it.

The earth shook and a final, gargantuan root emerged from the ground.

I. HATE. YOU. a sinister voice echoed.

Gale's jaw dropped and the shadow of the giant root fell above him. He scrambled out of its path of destruction just in time, rolling to the side and jumping to his feet.

The drifter was used to combat in the sand, though never against such a foe...

"Can a shitty piece of plant be a foe?" Gale mumbled to himself as he scratched his head looking at the root.

When the root began to rise, another bone shacking roar echoed from below and the root grew two times the size. The massive plant charged towards the wanderer as he ran hopelessly away from it. The root carved a path of destruction as it chased after the drifter, digging into the ground with ear-splitting noise as it went.

Gale changed his path drastically, thinking the tremendous plant could not follow him easily. As the thought crossed the drifter's mind, he looked back to see how much distance he had gained only to realize the root was not only closer but gaining in speed.

The drifter yelped and began to scream as he ran. He knew he could not run for much longer so decided to make a final stand. Gale drew his hidden dagger and looked back at the enormous root. He screamed again, dropping his blade as he ran.

"Please! Stop! I'll give you three gold!" He begged the root, "I'll paint your house! I'll find a good man for your troubled elder daughter! I'll feed your dog! Anything!! I'll love you forever!!"

The drifter continued to run, but the thunderous sound of the root chasing him subsided. The drifter turned to look at the root which hovered in place, as though confused by the drifter's words.

"I'll..." Gale spoke, unsure that something so simple could be the answer, "I love you." he said definitively.

The monstrous root shrunk, as its tip turned red.

Blushing? he thought, Ehh, whatever, stranger things have happened...

The root bent low and Gale pet its tip which turned a brighter shade of red. The root retreated back into the ground as the earth shook once more. Gale looked around and felt a sudden surge of relief. He began to walk away when another quake came from below.

The root burst out of another hole behind the Jack-of-all-Trades, who shut his eyes tight, thinking he was about to die. When he realized he was still breathing, Gale turned to see the root facing him once more, only this time it had a flask around the tip.

Gale took the flask and smelled the contents. His face immediately lit up in jubilation and the thirsty drifter drank in long gulps with his head tilted back and the flask at his lips. The drifter finishes drinking with a long sigh.

"I LOVE you," he laughed, patting the root, "you great rum loving thing you!"

The root danced happily in place and bid Gale to get on top. The Jack-of-all-Trades jumped onto the root as he would a horse and the plant made its way to the edge of the magical area, where the enchantment lost its effect.

On a cliff overlooking the enchanted field, a befuddled warlock stood scratching the bald spot on his head.

"My sister... My wife... My enchanted road..." Cydney Oliver sighed to himself, "I guess sometimes man's voice is a weapon, a shield, a lover and a source of wonder... Everything ends up falling for this guy... It must be the voice and the hair..." he lamented as his hand squeaked on his shinning head.

[absentwizard]

In the great garden of the magistrate, a supplicant walked down the green-shale path. This man had snuck in during the cloudy night; he sought an audience to air grievances. This vast garden was built with secret ways, some are for viewing and some are for traps. That is why the magistrate's home had no guards; any burglar would sooner reach heaven.

The peasant came to a beautiful pond. The hazy moon shone on the flat waters. On the shores beneath the weeping willows, water-lillies hung their buds bashfully. The many gold-fishes sleep unaware, hiding their heads under the lilly-pads. The man's eyes skimmed over the scene unseeing; his upright thoughts are bent upon justice.

Across the wooden bridge over the pond, two red paper lanterns burned on pillars. Around them midges danced in the still air, their wings glimmering in the crimson light. The peasant stopped to look at the candles. He marvelled at how they did not burn down. "Such wonders the magistrate has," he thought, "a great and merciful man he must be."

In the bamboo grove, lantern light doesn't reach. The ground was covered in murky shadows. Countless leaves above speckled the moon-light; the light-rays shift slowly in a light wind. As the peasant walked down the green-shale path, he tripped over a hidden shoot and fell. "The gardener is lazy and blind," he thought, "It is dangerous to leave bamboo there."

When he stood, a raindrop fell on his nose; water music now played on bamboo leaves. Soon, he was soaked through like a drowned chicken; his wet tunic chilled bone-deep in the wind. The path in the grove wound turn after turn. In every direction were endless green stalks. Rain-water pooled upon the green-shale path; the man's cloth shoes became damp and cold.

Shivering, the man walked on for an hour. His fire of hope and purpose guttered. "Is there no end to this wretched green grove? I could have circled the city by now." The sound of his cursing had just faded when a bamboo shoot got under his foot. The peasant lifted his head from thin mud. He saw the shoot growing up in the rain.

Stones were turned aside as myriad shoots grew; the green-shale path now filled with young bamboo. The peasant fled stumbling back up the path. He slowly found his way blocked by new stalks. When he tried to squeeze between in the gaps, he got nine steps before he became stuck. The heavy rain pounded down on his head, inside of which now lacked thoughts of justice.

"Oh merciful gods, what is happening? What green-shale path disappears in one rain?"
"Oh merciful gods, I beg of you now! Rescue me from this frightful, deathly place!"
"Oh merciful gods, if you smile at me, I promise to offer incense daily!"
"Oh merciful gods, I don't want to die! I don't want to die! I don't want to die!"

The supplicant's spirit rose from his corpse; he had suffered in the grove for four days. The black rain-clouds vanished immediately. The green-shale path was again unbroken, meandering between the sunlit stalks. The new spirit drifted along this path; in thirty paces he had left the grove. He looked up and saw a richly-clothed girl, who said "I am Iila, this grove's reaper."

"You have trespassed in the magistrate's home. For that crime, you deserve a burglar's fate. You spoke ill and called me lazy and blind. For that, you deserve a blasphemer's fate. You were caught with the Circled Path Method. You were held with the Wood-Nourishing Rain. I gave you four days to apologize. In the end you were stupid and stubborn."

The man protested that this was unjust, that he was given no indication. "Unjust?" the small girl asked, looking wretched. She raised her hands and the chains that bound them. "Was it just when I was bound by the grove, to serve as its mastiff, its reaper-girl? Is it just that I am starved at all times, forced unwillingly to slay people for my life?"

"Your corpse feeds the grove that is my prison. So long as it lives, I shall stand guard here. I must remember that I was once human. I must not slay people without just cause. Contrived crimes are all that I have left these days. Please, don't take this last sanity away. You are now dead and hell soon comes for you, let your spirit's last act be good and kind."

A hell's envoy came and chained the spirit. They passed the red lanterns that burned always. They skirted the pond where the lillies bloomed. They passed the gate where the man's wife sat crying. Later, the lecherous landlord claimed her. The man arrived in the Blasphemer's Hell. He spends odd days in the Hell of Burglars. This story of justice is now ended.

The lesson today: Always be polite.