14th - 21st - Challenge #2

[Mordelain]

8-14th - Dialogue-less Writing
A writing challenge designed to test your ability to communicate without vocal components; write an exchange between two or more people without words, song, or writing.


Good luck!

[Itera]

The black assassin, its edges rounded from long use, clicked quietly onto the square. Its goddess kept her fingers on it for a moment, her amber eyes darting all around the boards for some hidden treachery. She found none.

As Itera's fingers withdrew to her teacup, a single black feather wafted down on the center board. It came to rest against the remaining black fiddler, illuminating the piece's blissful face with the evil, red light from the unintelligible words sprawling down feather's spine. A passing puff of wind from a sleeve sent it away.

Izyairi reached over the center board towards the more vexing of her hat pawns. In the peaceful quiet of the room, filled mainly with the faint buzzing of bees just outside the open windows, there was a clink of porcelain. Her fingers stopped short.

Her opponent had set down her cup with such unusual force. Compared to the strict, companionable silence with which she had finished her last three cups of chamomile tea, this was the equivalent of facing to the sky and shouting "No!" from the top of the lungs until the bottom of the lungs and then passing out from a combination of not breathing and oscillating blood pressure.

Really? Had her opponent not realized the position of that hat pawn? How it was poised to knock aside the red base pawn on the skyboard and fork the boat and the fiddler?

Izayiri noted the stillness of Itera's hands, frozen to the teacup and the saucer. It was shock, probably. If she looked at Itera's face now, that mischevious smile she always wore would likely be frozen in place and slowly sagging and running like custard off of a spoon. It would be a memory to be treasured and savored while red took apart the sky. So, Izayiri looked.

That mischevious smile Itera always wore was invisible; it is very difficult to see through an opened folding fan. However, the essence of that smile radiated out of her eyes alongside confidence and the promise of merciless teasing. Their eyes met, locked, and got lost in each other. Two ancient spirits saw in each other the aeons: hope, joy, despair, misery, harmony, anger, and countless other experiences.

The room had no clocks; its owner would have no truck with a mechanical contrivance for a question easily answered by paying trivial attention to nature. Without outside cues, without social timing customs, the moment dragged on. Perhaps it would have gone on until the end of time, or at least until the tea demanded to be let back out.

There was a soft rustle. Izayiri blinked. Itera cocked an eyebrow.

When Izayiri looked back from the source of the noise, she found Itera staring pointedly at the board. More specifically, she stared at how the black player's hand was no longer suspended over the hat pawn but had drifted down in that long moment of distraction to touch the painted wood. She stared at it until it knocked aside the red base pawn on the skyboard and forked the boat and the fiddler.

Izayiri opened her mouth and closed it again. The move had opened the file and put the red monarch in capture from the black eastside assassin. It was traditional to announce coup when this happens. This game had other factors to consider.

In the sunflower-covered bed nearby, Isylle slept on. She dreamed warm, sunny dreams joyfully drenched with the blood of innocent animals. She dreamed dreams blissfully ignorant of the new modifications to her room: the bucket of water and tadpoles suspended over her bed and delicately linked to the covers by a string.

[Inwuhou]

There is a school of thought that held that the best philosophers did not live as recluses in inaccessible bits of geography for the simple reason that those who had to go foraging for palatable grasses, make do without toilet paper, and run away from upset fauna would not have nearly as much time to do serious thinking as someone more enveloped in civilization. Detractors point out that philosophers thoroughly enveloped in civilization tend to resemble a small range of hills and spent their time eating, sleeping, and digesting while thinking about the next meal. Therefore, the truth must necessarily lie somewhere in between, or not at all.

The evening cooking-smoke from Barton Monastery had been visible for the last eight miles, but the complex itself had only just come into view from behind a philosopher-shaped hill. The cluster of somber, gray-roofed buildings sprawled there with an indolent air. They were famous landmarks in the sense that Auntie Hurt's coddled eggs were famous dishes: all the locals were proud of them and all the foreigners, defined as anyone from more than twenty miles away, had never heard of them. Inwuhou shifted her traveling-sack to the other shoulder and started descending the hill. She had only heard of them in the last village, and of them she had heard only two things.

They were very mystical and knew the truth about the universe.

They did not allow women to break the silence in the sacred grounds.

Presently, Inwuhou carried three slips of paper in her sleeves, bearing six questions that she thought was most pertinent to her present search for enlightenment. One of these asked for lodgings in the name of the universal monastic tradition. The others were somewhat less worldly but more practical.

Now, she came to a bridge over a stream. All parts, especially the stream, were kept in exquisite condition and the scrubbed surfaces fairly gleamed in the golden dusk light. One part did not gleam, because it was plain robes. The robes were on a man, middle-aged with the first traces of grey appearing along his substantial beard. They would have started with his temples if he wasn't so bald that his head gleamed like the polished wood.

Inwuhou stopped. She glanced at the sign alongside the bridge, naming the boundary of the monastery grounds. She glanced at the slot-topped wooden box below the sign.

Clink, clink. Two copper coins clattered into the box. From the sounds of it, they were the only things in the box.

The man lifted his head and then lifted his fishing pole. At the end of the line was a simple plumb-bob and no hook. He turned to face Inwuhou, his eyes curious and sought hers. Of course, this failed, because Inwuhou's were shut. At least, the fleshy ones were.

She clasped her hands. He clasped his free hand against, apparently nothing. Inwuhou was enlightened.

She bowed. He tipped his fishing rod towards her. Inwuhou was enlightened.

The question-slips had no purpose here. This was wisdom beyond words. She carefully rolled back one wide sleeve and, with a little clay pinched from the ground, drew the outline of a fish on her forearm. This sent his eyebrows almost into his former hairline. Long minutes passed. The sun sank half of its disc behind the hills and bells began tolling from the monastery.

Finally, he lifted a finger and held it up. Inwuhou was enlightened.

With her thumb, she rubbed out the head of the clay fish. Quite immediately, he beckoned towards her and together, they began to make their way along the path, flanked by waving grasses and dark flowers, towards the buildings. Inwuhou continued to hold her sleeve up, despite the awkward way that her travel-sack hung from the elbow now.

As he approached the closed doors of the monastery, the man took a little tin cymbal from a pocket of his brown robes. He held up the tiny mallet tied to it. Inwuhou looked puzzled.

He yanked on the mallet and the string broke, then, with a flourish, started ringing the cymbal. Inwuhou continued looking puzzled.

The door creaked open and a young-looking face peered out, about to speak. A stern and happy look from the older man stilled the young monk. The cymbal and mallet continued to bang against each other. Minutes passed. Gradually, Inwuhou was enlightened.

That night, after dinner, the man walked up to Inwuhou, right in front of the gathered masses of men, and lifted her sleeve up. Then, he reached out with his hand and rubbed out the headless clay fish. Everyone clapped.

Inwuhou beamed. This trip had definitely been worthwhile.

[Flames of Hyperion]

Cursed eyes of pure electric blue focused involuntarily upon her prey, and almost immediately regretted the decision. She staggered backwards beneath the nigh-physical force of his sorrow, recoiling from the deeply engraved wounds in his psyche. Some had scabbed over so thickly that they formed irregular plates of armour upon his limbs and torso. Some trickled in tortured infection, streams of pus and blood both dried and drying leaving exotic tattoos upon his pale skin. Some bled more freely, obviously fresh, but even these flowed wearily as if they had not much left to give. Tattered flaps of skin, torn free from agonised flesh by whatever monstrosities had ravaged his body and his soul, fluttered forlornly in an immaterial wind.

Ever since her induction she had trained not to miss any detail, no matter how insignificant, in her surroundings. Now, however, she saw too much.

He slumped to the ground once more as she withdrew, muscles spasming in strengthless limbs. The weight of his burden bore down upon his shoulders, and yet they held together with tattered shreds of stubborn dignity and determination. Eyes squeezed shut against the swirling chill of the corporeal realm, she nonetheless knew that he could sense her every move… and wanted nothing more than for her to leave him be. Or else…

She touched upon something dark, something terrible, in the gnarled frozen fingers balled into trembling fists. Something that had gone toe-to-toe against lich and daemon alike and had somehow survived to tell the tale. Something that she suddenly knew she had no desire to awaken.

Retreating reluctantly one step further, she lowered her weapons. Crystalline silence shattered as belatedly she drew breath, a shuddering heave wracking her shadow-wrapped torso like an earthquake. Did she only imagine the sudden relaxation and relief in her target’s posture?

Cursed eyes flexed again beyond her control. She found herself drawn back in despite her attempts to pull away. Once again she beheld his spiritual form, bloody and bruised and horribly violated. The trauma he had suffered might have destroyed a lesser man thrice over. Except this time, she saw something else in his tortured posture.

A tattered memory – a shade of nostalgia, even – that he clung to like a child’s blanket. It too was battered and worn, but by the treasured passage of time rather than any outside abuse. Ethereal strands wrapped around his shoulders in a protective embrace. Long flowing hair, buried in the crook of his neck, stroked sweet salt into his wounds, bleeding them afresh at the same time as galvanising him to keep moving on.

It turned towards her, and she recognised its face with heart-stopping suddenness. She froze, seized hostage by memories of her own.

Kayu.

Long moments passed as her eyes locked with its, thoughts unspoken bridging the silence.

Only when her partner made himself known did she snap back to the present reality. Her head jerked achingly as boots grated loud and coarse upon gravel, the slightest of steps from the shadows opposite. Kai’s hair flowed elegantly from his topknot ponytail, molten platinum catching the moonlight. The deliberate metallic clink of his armour snapped her gaze to his. In languidly unspoken question he arched a pencil-thin brow.

Silky-fine strands danced about her own slender neck as she shook her head in response, trying to clear the cobwebs from her mind. Somewhat absently she nibbled on the inside of her lips, pupils returning to their usual liquid amber as ki flowed harmlessly from her concentration. Some of her consternation must have shown, for her elegant companion reached for his own sword.

Cutting him off with a chop of her own hand, she shook her head once more when his finely-honed features glanced at her in confusion. They had travelled a long way west to mete out the appropriate sentence upon the grimy half-blood. Kai doubtless wanted to know why she hesitated so uncharacteristically.

She shook her head a third time, this time indicating the fallen target with a jut of her delicate jaw. Galvanised by the firmness of her action, Kai’s glare narrowed as it refocused on the broken shell of a man.

And then he too saw what she had understood.

That their target had already suffered enough for his troubles.

That nothing they could do could further the agony engraved in his soul.

That death, even one as lingering and as painful as they could provide, would be eminently preferable to the hell he lived through.

Without the need for a single word, they spun on their heels and left him there, still struggling to stand.

[Mordelain]

Thank you both for contributing, stick with it!

I extended the opening for this by a few days to account for the delay, so now, onto the third!

[Mordelain]

Thread Title: February Vignette Challenge #2
Judgement Type: Vignette
Participants: Itera, Inwuhou, Flames of Hyperion

Scores are Itera, Inwuhou, and Flames of Hyperion

Plot

Story ~ 6/5/7
Setting ~ 5/6/8
Pacing ~ 5/5/5

Character

Communication ~ 4/6/7
Action ~ 5/5/6
Persona ~ 6/6/5

Prose

Mechanics ~ 4/4/7
Clarity ~ 5/5/5.5
Technique ~ 5/7/7

Brief: 5.5/6/7

Brief: Given the unconventional nature of this challenge, you each managed to convey conversation, casual or otherwise, with much more intuition and understanding than you might have managed with words alone. Using chamomile tea, notions of ki, and rhetoric, I actually had to double take to check if there were dialogues! Flames, your use of expression to express physical discomfort won you the edge here, in terms of technique and communication. Itera/Inwuhou, I err you to be more careful with erratic sentence structure and overuse of – and; to narrate. Mechanically, although Flames uses a more whimsical writing style, he has the concrete understanding of when and when is not appropriate to break convention. It caused issues with pacing, though you shone in terms of quirky, interesting persona, and a much more curious story.

Itera: 16/15/14/5.5 = Total = 49.5
Inwuhou: 16/17/16/6 = Total = 55
Flames of Hyperion: 20/18/20/7 = Total = 63.5

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I would be happy to develop on the points above, or provide more in depth examples based on those notes if requested. cydneyoliver@gmail.com, or my Mordelain inbox are both appropriate avenues to do.

If you have any concerns, doubts, and worries, and do not wish to speak to me directly for whatever reason, then I am sure another member of staff will resolve the matter on your behalf. I am perfectly amenable and open to feedback, as the judge has to develop, as much as the writer put under the scrutiny of the rubric!


Experience, gold, and other rewards will be calculated and added together once all judgements are completed.