2015 September Vignette

Hello! Rather than simply asking you to react to a scenario, this month's prompt will challenge your skills as a creative writer and thinker.

Quote:

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Write a scene using no dialogue, or only dialogue. You must do one or the other for the entirety of the vignette (you may not switch throughout).

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A note regarding the first option: internal monologues/thoughts do fall in this category, and are not allowed. The challenge will be to really focus on your descriptive writing, and your character's actions and body language. Rather than having your character think or say "I am so angry," show your reader just how angry he/she is. Show, don't tell.

The placing of an outhouse is all strategy. Close enough so you can beat the runs, but far enough to outrange the consequent stench. This outhouse seemed to move, when nobody was looking of course. Even the hole in the ground moved with it. Averted eyes provided the opportunity for the shit shack to creep across the desolate sandscape. Bolstered by the hourglass, the bleaching sun splintered the constituent planks. Dry heat rendered cracks for bugs and grubs to find shelter from the spiteful burn. Here, everything struggled for life. Lizards with clattering claws poked their moist lickers into the gaps, but only during the magic hour's relief. In twilight, the sun mocked sympathy; it indulged itself as the prison guard turning a blind eye to forbidden joy. That sunset, still searing, seized a bobbing head by its whimsical ears and set along the sand the silhouette of this desperate desert fox. Foxes ate lizards.

Althanas looked a cerulean sensation from elsewhere, and its curves viewed from the moon positively denied its terrestrial flatness. K-Zu-Ziro was flying around and around the world, peering through its host's wondrous telescope. While existing without oxygen in the moon's floaty gravity, the creature and its companions survived only through the hospitality of fate's benevolent avatar. Conv Tantra was a time wizard convinced of his cosmic consequence as the embodiment of righteous destiny. Lord Tantra corralled his insectoid conscript in his hidden moon base, engulfing the creature with flashing video screens hardwired to the future's telescopes and operated with tomorrow's battalion of beeping buttons. With gentle coercion, the wizard guided his guest to a screen showing the desert's outhouse and its associated zone.

Belonging to the outhouse, the main house stood any number of feet close or far. It too grew from the bed of grains with weathered wood, blasted and baked with sand and sun. Metal tools overflowed their box and scattered disorder on the living room floor, definitely dusty but missing humidity's oxide. Kin in the metallic sense, a cast iron sink set steady with solid bolts protruded from the wall and was supported by a couple of narrow legs. The living room was also the kitchen. It was one room, the whole place was one room. One room save for the ring handle used to open a trapdoor leading down to the cellar. A little boy, body and face a match for his environment, closed his papery grip on the handle and pulled. Not enough, so he added his second hand and pulled with both arms. Struggling with the door he managed to reach a ninety degree angle and then he let it fall the rest of the way. Thudding, timber on timber with dust, it set a sun soaked haze into the room. The scruffy haired boy coughed into the cloud and descended with apprehension.

Meanwhile, the lofty spires of Tantra's towering time temple played host to an interaction defying the limitation's of any moment at any time. Lord Tantra stood behind K-Zu-Ziro and implored the gangly predator to adhere its black gaze to one flashing video screen in particular. One of reality's core elements, time, was being corrupted by Conv Tantra's opposite number: Tetra Sorrow. K-Zu-Ziro and its support crew were typically disinterested in selfless quests, but their host made a compelling case for defending Hostoland as it was ultimately part of everything. Digsy nodded while the screen showed their simple role in unravelling Sorrow's scenario.

Brushing off the webs, the son set his hands on the father's tome: the Books of War. Fluttering with excitement, he cracked open the cover and began to turn the pages in an oil lamp's light. Each page bore the grimy thumbprint of his dirt-caked mitts. Nobody told the child that the fascination of his youth was a leaking tank, destined to drip dry. Some things were a waste of fuel, but he would never feel that way about the day he learned about the merciless katana and the warriors wielding them. Night pulled the sun under, while in the cellar the oil's artificial light masked the passage of time. The outhouse crept up to the window, its unnatural motion witnessed only by the flush of desert stars.

K-Zu-Ziro was standing next to a swirling portal, it was a gateway to the boy's desert. While Digsy was fascinated with the magic warphole, Ziro was mostly concerned with their powerful captor. Conv Tantra stared down the villainous Ziro with hopeful regret. The time wizard's beady eyes were absolutely elephantine, buried deep in his grey flaps of skin, and under his nose he wore a walrus moustache of broom-worthy bristles, his form was bulky and his speed of motion comparable to the plodding pace of the world's slowest tortoises. K-Zu-Ziro leered at Tantra impatiently. Lord Tantra pulled at his elaborate robes, freeing up his feet so that he could step back from Ziro's approach.

The boy grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder out of the cellar and then opened his eyes while sitting bolt upright in his bed. For a moment it seemed like a nightmare, his forehead was soaked with worry. Conversely, the contents of the dream were anything but dreadful. After slipping from the bedclothes, he creaked his way across the room's starved floorboards to investigate the trapdoor. Proof positive, his finger marks were on the handle. Fresh. He returned to his bed, denying reality. His father was a herdsman, and not present. Mother was buried in the front yard. They had considered making the rear the family cemetery, but the errant outhouse dissuaded them. Though neither of them ever came out and said it. The boy and his lonesome fear were well acquainted. For the first time since he progressed into big boy pants, he struggled to go back to sleep after a nightmare. A broken mattress spring brought blood when he sat on the edge, he winced and watched the air slide from real to ethereal with curious eyes. It was like a dream, because it was a dream. Not a sleeping dream, but a dream of life. The boy was going to die in the coming moments. A reincarnation loop held him prisoner. Fate valued the child as a linchpin in its cosmic blueprint. K-Zu-Ziro was going to be a new ingredient in eternity's revised recipe. The sting of the spring distracted him from keeping his vigil over the outhouse's faint outline in the window; when he looked down it crept up to the house and tapped a ghostly beat on the mucky glass. His heart was peppered with the erratic rhythm of anxiety, this fear of the stalking outhouse felt as ancient as any other: wolves, drowning, height, fire, violence. The boy had died to this dread so many times it had become part of his nature. And each time the universe re-rolled the dice, his terror multiplied with the forgotten memory of a boy whose life was bent back on itself. He wanted nothing more than to look away from his killer, but he knew if he did it would come into the house.

Blended blinks spilled into a moment's dream. Immediately, the outhouse door unscrewed its own fixings and shed its hinges with a dusty clunk. It flew from the frame and into the shack's brittle window. The pane's shattering crescendo woke the boy, he was still sitting up in his bed with his blood-drained face to the window. Knowing his mistake, and for the first time capturing the toilet demon in his eyes, he screamed into the sandswept wastes. Over the sill and into the room, septic appendages poured across the room. The torn fabric of grandpa's old armchair was drenched with the dripping goop of a molesting tentacle. Everywhere, feelers stroked everything. The door handles and the kitchen sink, the writing desk and its pot of ink, the snaky blind arms of the shit-hole beast kissed everything with dripping suction cups. It was searching for the little boy. He was watching, shaking in his bed. As long as he kept his eyes on them, they would not be able to find him. Then his ankle felt warm and wet, there was a lump under the sheet. He leapt and was dragged back down to the bed by the biting grip of a muscle-bound tentacle. The boy's neck snapped into the thin mattress, more worn-out springs scratched out lines of weeping blood. His head banged again, he was pulled onto the floorboards. More tentacles bound his legs. Being dragged over the dry floorboards drove a score of splinters into his thin layer of flesh. Then he slammed into the wall beneath the window. Up and into the broken window was next, then pulled through. He bawled with agony as a jagged shard of glass tore his leg apart. The desert's sand plastered his wound once he met the ground outside. From the floor he could smell the growing stench of putrid shit coming from the living outhouse. It was already dark, then it went black. It was black with the same wet warmth that took him by the ankle; he was inside the thing's mouth.

While slipping down its throat he felt the raking tear of its serrated throat teeth. His fall lasted for minutes, the long journey into its deep belly left him eviscerated. A final landing in pitch darkness shattered femur and fibula alike. His hopelessness became whole. Achieving the apex of malevolent cruelty, the mutated time wizard illuminated his belly to show the child its contents before the relief of expiration could rescue him. His eyes squinted in the magical light. And then they adjusted. His father's battered body was there. Horrified, the boy scratched frantically, tearing the skin from his face. His mother's locket was hanging from some soggy bones. He wept with infinite sympathy for her. There was a third body in the digestion chamber, he noticed its suit of armour from the real dream. The book he dreamt his father had hidden in the basement, the Books of War, was about this soldier, his nation, his army and his weapon. The dead soldier was holding a katana. He reached to take the weapon, but his legs were broken and it was inches too far from him.

Conv Tantra pushed K-Zu-Ziro into a portal, sending the bug to the boy's house. Digsy, Ziro's rodentine companion, pointed to the trail of blood out of the window. Ziro's spindly gait allowed for striding steps over the gore-spattered scene and a deft hop through the window. The tentacles were gone, Tetra Sorrow was embroiled in the torture of his current victim. As instructed by Conv Tantra, Ziro entered the smelly shack and focused its protruding bug eyes on the hole in the ground. Without hesitation, Ziro jumped into the mouth of the creature. Its descent was better than the boy's, the teeth lining the monster's gullet failed to penetrate K-Zu-Ziro's tough exoskeleton. Furthermore, the ferocious bug slashed its snapping pincers at the fleshy lining surrounding it. Upon reaching the digestion chamber, Ziro quickly snatched the sword in its claws and shoved it into the boy's hands before the broken bones and blood loss took him. Digsy mouthed words of comfort to the boy as the life disappeared from his eyes. K-Zu-Ziro, unlike its mammalian comrade, had no empathy for the child anyway.

Belonging to the outhouse, the main house stood any number of feet close or far. It too grew from the bed of grains with weathered wood, blasted and baked with sand and sun. Metal tools overflowed their box and scattered disorder on the living room floor, definitely dusty but missing humidity's oxide. Kin in the metallic sense, a cast iron sink set steady with solid bolts protruded from the wall and was supported by a couple of narrow legs. The living room was also the kitchen. It was one room, the whole place was one room. One room save for the ring handle used to open a trapdoor leading down to the cellar. A little boy, body and face a match for his environment, closed his papery grip on the handle and pulled. Not enough, so he added his second hand and pulled with both arms. Struggling with the door he managed to reach a ninety degree angle and then he let it fall the rest of the way. Thudding, timber on timber with dust, it set a sun soaked haze into the room. The scruffy haired boy coughed into the cloud and descended with apprehension.

Brushing off the webs, the son set his hands on the father's weapon: a shimmering katana. Fluttering with excitement, he wrapped his bony fingers around the weapon's hilt in an oil lamp's light. The handle was marred by the grimy fingerprints of his dirt-caked mitts. Nobody told the child that the fascination of his youth was a leaking tank, destined to drip dry. Some things were a waste of fuel, but he would never feel that way about the day he first held divinity in his hands. Night pulled the sun under, while in the cellar the oil's artificial light masked the passage of time. The outhouse crept up to the window, its unnatural motion witnessed only by the flush of desert stars.

This time the boy did not wake up when he grabbed the bottom rung to exit the cellar. He took the katana with him. A blur of shadowed memories stalked his subconscious. Each death to Tetra Sorrow informed him, he carried his father's keepsake to protect himself. Tattered sheets made for cooling bedclothes; the boy smiled when his new bedfellow, the sword, sliced another hole in his already well ventilated covers. For the first time in all of Conv Tantra's do-overs, the boy fell asleep without fear.

Watching from the moon base, Digsy smiled. K-Zu-Ziro nodded with approval. Conv Tantra nodded as well, solemnly.

Immediately, the outhouse door unscrewed its own fixings and shed its hinges with a dusty clunk. It flew from the frame and into the shack's brittle window. The pane's shattering crescendo woke the boy, he calmly sat up in his bed and held his katana in the manner of the ancient masters. Over the sill and into the room, septic appendages poured across the room. The torn fabric of grandpa's old armchair was drenched with the dripping goop of a molesting tentacle. Everywhere, feelers stroked everything. The door handles and the kitchen sink, the writing desk and its pot of ink, the snaky blind arms of the shit-hole beast kissed everything with dripping suction cups. It was searching for the little boy. He was watching, scowling at the invasion from his bed. Then his ankle felt warm and wet, there was a lump under the sheet. He sliced at the lump, severing his first tentacle with a splattering mess of orange puss.

Tantra cheered at the monitor.

The lonesome child hopped from his bed and onto the rough floorboards, driving splinters into his feet. He span in a circle slicing the onslaught of flailing arms with absolute mastery. The same ten minutes lived over for years, reading and reading the Books of War, had turned the child into a peer of the ancient experts of katana-based swordplay. The dripping goop of marauding invaders was replaced with the dripping goop of defeated invaders. Every tentacle had been beaten back to the outhouse. In pursuit, the boy went out the front door of his house and approached the ramshackle crap hole with his weapon ready. Upon entering, he could hear the whimpering pain of Tetra Sorrow. The blade whispered to its wielder and the boy obliged, he held it before the gaping maw. A pulsing chronoblast erupted from the shining weapon and wiped Tetra Sorrow from every corner of time.

K-Zu-Ziro, time's tool, retook its place unaware. A mysterious volume appeared on the doorstep of Radasanth's library, detailing the villainy of Tetra Sorrow. Paramount in the wizard's plan was wiping clean every second of sentient life lived. His goal was to visit every moment in time and murder everybody. Doing it one murder at a time, of course, was a labour of love. Inside the pages of the book, the role of Conv Tantra was mentioned with the restrictions of vigorous modesty. Instead, the wizard heaped praise on the soldiers of time. Yet K-Zu-Ziro, in the opinion of non-Hostians, was a villain itself and as such was not named in the book.

K-Zu-Ziro's Butter of Hosto, the hibernation-inducing beverage, failed for the first time. The insectoid woke up in its sewer den hidden beneath Radasanth's busy streets. A dream woke the monstrous insect, it was the first time Ziro had ever dreamt.

The early morning sun was lazy as it slowly crept towards the above the horizon; its warm rays doing little more than chasing the fog of the early morning away. Dew still sparkled along the edges of the field in the center of Concordia forest, clinging to the grass and brambles tough enough to survive the cooler months. It was a bright, but peaceful day; the motions of the cat in the center of the field softly escaping into the breeze and the trees around him.

The cat boy stood in the middle of the clearing, the ground all around him flat and dead, covered in a soft, gray dust. Every step that morning as been recorded in prints, the whole of them an impenetrable, impossible to follow dance. Each morning, whether by the wind of the night or the hunter’s relaxed hands, the gray dust of the field would be reset and Leon would begin anew. A quiet time for his thoughts to focus and scatter, for every movement to bring his control of himself closer to absolute.

His muscles burned as they cut the air in a singular strike, stopping with a fine precision. It retracted slowly, wrist twisting as if cupping a bowl of water. His hands came together and his mind cleared, muscles loose and relaxed once more. Morrigan occasionally came with Leon to the field where he worked, simply watching with unblinking eyes as he prayed. Her own duties to the hunt would take her away from him and deep into the dark forest as the sun rose. There were often days where they wouldn’t see each other, and more where they wouldn’t speak.

Today, he had come alone.

His breath exhaled slowly, his foot sliding along the ground and twisting in the dust. Each day he came, there was a little more, and nothing seemed to have the strength to grow here again. It was an idle observation; a thought that slide across his mind, something he forgot about as his leg lifted and broke the air around him in a sweep. Leon’s breathed in, small beads of sweat forming in the cold air along his bare chest and arms. His leg settled again, and he stood, hands together in a moment of thought once again.

He slowly sat down, the motions as inevitable and careful as the rise of the sun above him. The sweat on his body tickled, slowly sliding down tired muscles and tight sinew. The hunter’s bare shoulders rolled, nearly metallic popping sounds as he worked the kinks out of his body. Slowly, not quite lazily, he brought in his legs, twisting them into a crossed position. After a moment, he leaned back, raising his body a hand’s breadth onto his tail. His body stilled after a moment, only the wind playing his growing mane of hair. Animals occasionally rested on him, though less now that the days grew colder and colder.

Each day, he would pray and strike the air around him. He had begun years ago, when he first met Morrigan, and it would take his body and mind from sunrise until well after the sun had set to finish. He would slowly make his way back to his home. Morrigan would sometimes be waiting, and sometimes not. Four years ago, he had finished before the sun had set. Today, as he closed his eyes, body as still as stone, he had finished as the sun rose.

It left him more time for prayer.

Stepping out of the foreboding shadow of the kings statue, the skeleton was as terrifying as imaginably possible. The dry rough bone held many groves, cuts and chippings from battles of old and new, like scars on the skin of a human it stood tall, damaged and marked for eternity, and yet not hindered or wounded in any way or form. The tapping of the it's large feet on the granite floor almost cracked the stone beneath as the heavy weight of the living skeletal structure wandered imperviously towards the old man.

He had retreated from the fray, escaped through his meticulously planned tunnels and passageways, of which would one day save his life. He had never been beaten, never caught out or outwitted by an opponent; until now. His very skin trembled, the hairs standing on end, and his feet rattled as he stepped backwards across the hallway of kings. His hand reached out as he pressed his withered fingers into the stone wall, the rough surface scratching against his finger nails as he carelessly backed off without as much as a glance behind him.

Elite Optic didn't change pace, the confident strides of a victor who had long since done his homework on this coward of a man. The large cleaver type weapon hung loosely in the skeleton's hand, the bony fingers wrapped around tightly to the hilt, while letting the tip of the blade drag along the granite floor. The screeching from the blade burying deep in the ear drums of the fraught man before him, blurring his mind, weakening the urge the run and driving the acceptance of death straight into his heart.

His jaw dropped as his body quivered with his arms shaking he stumbled over the hanging picture of his forefathers. The swinging portrait nearly falling as it tilted out of sync and rattled against the wall from his disturbance. His unsteady legs collapsed him to his back with a painful thud, yet he still remained unable to remove his eyes from the stale burning face that was Elite Optic. The inner rim of the skull glowed and flickered from inside like a burning lantern, and yet it began to burn ever more fierce as he got closer and closer to his victim.

The emotionless abyss that was Elite's face would never show any empathy or anger towards the man before him. Yet his burning eyes of flame raged on as they somehow appeared to stare down at him. They featured no iris or pupil, and yet the white centered flame within the red fire seemed to peer down at the man and watch his every shaky movement.

Finally as he stood over the man, his clothes undamaged but askew, his crown unmarked and aloft his head but his fragile frame unable to stand before his murderer to be. Words could not escape his bearded lips, screams could not echo from his chest, but the begging of weak man escaped his very eyes as he reached up with his ring littered hand for mercy.

Elite raised his sword swiftly, the low hanging blade still pointing it's armour piercing tip towards the chest of the wound be king. No guards could protect him now, no armour could deflect this blade and no legs could outrun him from his fate. Leaning inwards, Elite pushed the blade down into the chest of the scum at his feet. His trembling jaw flapping open as his lungs folded; pierced and broken unable to even gasp for air.

The blade was sharp enough and Elite was strong enough to drive the blade right through such a man; but it did not. It paused instinctively, twisting and stabbing in a slow and perverse manner; to delay such a kill was left for only the most deserving of humanity. His eyes would strain, his throat would gargle on the drawn blood and his ears would listen to his own desperate attempts to cling onto life.

Then, as long as it felt in those very seconds, it was over. The body fell limp, the blood drained onto the once cleansed floor and the aroma of blood shrouded the hallway in the smell of death.

Stamping besides the blade, Elite squished the very body beneath his feet as he withdrew the blade to his side. The red ooze pouring down the blade until it overflowed and dripped off the very tip of the murderous sword. The body crunched ever more under his foot, broken bones or ruptured organs now lay beneath him, and yet he did not stare or admire his work. It was time to leave.

“You know, John, You’re not that-”

“Not a WORD, Logan.”

“Something amiss, ma'am?”

“She’s fine, she has a cold, trouble with the throat, you know how it is.”

“...Very well, carry on”

“I’m going to kill you after this, Logan”

“No you’re not, and is that any way for a lady to speak?”

“I have razor burn in places unknown to me, Logan. I am wearing an itchy wig and strange shoes. I will speak how I wish. These gloves are ridiculous too.”

“Well we can’t exactly have you in armor AND a dress, it would just look silly.”

“Yes, THAT would be the point at which it becomes silly.”

“Absolutely, John”

“Logan, I am a six hundred pound-”

“Hey! beauty at every size, John, and I don’t want you talking down about yourself”

“I swear on my Thayne, Logan, if anyone ever knows of this, they will never find your body.”

“Oh they won’t. What good is the blackmail then? I'll leave you to think about that while I get our rooms ready for the night.”

"Logan, I'm going to-"

“So...How much would I have to give you before you made me confess my sins to you, madam?”

“Listen here, fuckboy, if you say that again, I’m going to punch your teeth so far down your throat you’ll have to sit on a loaf of bread to eat it, got me?”

“Oh, wonderful! I simply must have you this evening! Come with me, and we'll....Oh madam, your hands are so...strong and healthy, tell me is there giant blood in your family?”

"Leave. Me. Alone. Before I use these hands to choke you."

"Oh my! You do know just what I like now don't y-ACK!"

"I told you to leave."

"Oh-hn-y

“You know, John, You’re not that-”

“Not a WORD, Logan.”

“Something amiss, ma'am?”

“She’s fine, she has a cold, trouble with the throat, you know how it is.”

“...Very well, carry on”

“I’m going to kill you after this, Logan”

“No you’re not, and is that any way for a lady to speak?”

“I have razor burn in places unknown to me, Logan. I am wearing an itchy wig and strange shoes. I will speak how I wish. These gloves are ridiculous too.”

“Well we can’t exactly have you in armor AND a dress, it would just look silly.”

“Yes, THAT would be the point at which it becomes silly.”

“Absolutely, John”

“Logan, I am a six hundred pound-”

“Hey! beauty at every size, John, and I don’t want you talking down about yourself”

“I swear on my Thayne, Logan, if anyone ever knows of this, they will never find your body.”

“Oh they won’t. What good is the blackmail then? I'll leave you to think about that while I get our rooms ready for the night.”

"Logan, I'm going to-"

“So...How much would I have to give you before you made me confess my sins to you, madam?”

“.......Listen here, fuckboy, if you say that again, I’m going to punch your teeth so far down your throat you’ll have to sit on a loaf of bread to eat it, got me?”

“Oh, wonderful! I simply must have you this evening! Come with me, and we'll....Oh madam, your hands are so...strong and healthy, tell me is there giant blood in your family?”

"Leave. Me. Alone. Before I use these hands to choke you."

"Oh my! You do know just what I like now don't y-ACK!"

"I told you to leave."

"Oh-hn-y

“You know, John, You’re not that-”

“Not a WORD, Logan.”

“Something amiss, ma'am?”

“She’s fine, she has a cold, trouble with the throat, you know how it is.”

“...Very well, carry on”

“I’m going to kill you after this, Logan”

“No you’re not, and is that any way for a lady to speak?”

“I have razor burn in places unknown to me, Logan. I am wearing an itchy wig and strange shoes. I will speak how I wish. These gloves are ridiculous too.”

“Well we can’t exactly have you in armor AND a dress, it would just look silly.”

“Yes, THAT would be the point at which it becomes silly.”

“Absolutely, John”

“Logan, I am a six hundred pound-”

“Hey! beauty at every size, John, and I don’t want you talking down about yourself”

“I swear on my Thayne, Logan, if anyone ever knows of this, they will never find your body.”

“Oh they won’t. What good is the blackmail then? I'll leave you to think about that while I get our rooms ready for the night.”

"Logan, I'm going to-"

“So...How much would I have to give you before you made me confess my sins to you, madam?”

“.......Listen here, fuckboy, if you say that again, I’m going to punch your teeth so far down your throat you’ll have to sit on a loaf of bread to eat it, got me?”

“Oh, wonderful! I simply must have you this evening! Come with me, and we'll....Oh madam, your hands are so...strong and healthy, tell me is there giant blood in your family?”

"Leave. Me. Alone. Before I use these hands to choke you."

"Oh my! You do know just what I like now don't y-ACK!"

"I told you to leave."

“Oh, hn, harder, OOF! Hey, don’t hit me. Oof! I said Stop!”

“No.”

“Please!”

“You like it.”

“Dammit, woman-OOF, get off me!"

"..."

"Well! Madam, your ill intent shall have none of my coin tonight, good bye!"

Quote:

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Inspired by Mary Zimmerman's play, Metamorphoses in which two characters, Q (Question) and A (Answer) tell the love story between Eros and Psyche.

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"Who is he?"

"He is a prince, a bold prince from the far west."

"And who is she?"

"She is a poor abused girl, abandoned and lost."

"What is he called?"

"He is called Erastus, beloved, fairest of them all."

"And what is her name?"

"Her name is Philomel, princess of the future."

"What is he saying, as he bends down from his horse?"

"He is speaking soft words into her ear."

"And what words are they, so soft as clouds?"

"They are words of compassion and hope."

"What type of hope?"

"The hope of love."

"But why would he love her so very much?"

"Because she is beautiful beyond comparison."

"But right now? Right at this time, so very sudden? How is that love?"

"How is lust not a form of love, how is it so different?"

"..."

"Yes?"

"I have not an answer for that."

Fall.

Wind against his fingers and wind at his neck, roaring and howling like wild beasts in the wake of a hunt. Its raging fury thrummed like drums inside his ears, and raindrops whipped against the skin on his back.

The world was stretching apart at its seams, and there was no glue at the center. His eyes felt sharp and wet, and his teeth bared as wind forced their way through his lips. Each breath weighed a thousand tons. He could not remember breathing.

But his heart. His heart was beating as though it had never been more aware. His heart was pounding and beating and blood rushed into his head where the loudness in his mind warred against the fury of the wind. It was beating and beating and the inside of his cheeks tasted like the coppery tang of blood.

And his heart.

He could hear it, and it was pounding and adrenaline was speeding down his veins and boiling in his blood. He could hear it, could feel it, could taste it, could just almost reach in and touch it, and it felt like reality.

There was no room for fear and no room for thoughts, and all was forgotten and all he could do was feel. So he felt. He felt the endless gray of the cliffs speeding beside him. He felt the streak of green and brown of an occasional tree flitting past him. He felt the blue recesses beckoning below like a mother’s arms. He felt gravity cradled him, craving blood and flesh and a million simple pieces of vivid red splatters. And then —

Then his world exploded in silence and the landing sent all air out of his lungs. Water caved up in an arched wave, droplets sparkling in the sun. He sunk, swallowed by the abscesses of the aquamarine blue. His limbs were not his own. His eyes were not his own. His mind was not his own.

Even as the river swallowed him, the water buoyed him up. Soon, he was lying on his back, half surfaced, and he could breath in the aftermath of an exhilaration induced daze. There were no broken bones and no missing limbs, no gaping wounds in the center of his chest, and each breath sent goosebumps up his arms and down his legs, sent shivering hysteria through his veins and into his heart.

Then he laughed. For a moment the world was funny, strangely hysterical, completely nonsensical, and the laughter bubbled out of him in a harrowing flood, and he shook and he trembled in the humourless laughter, until his lungs were empty and then the laughter died.

Thoughts came back softly, slowly on tipped toes, light as thieves in the middle of the night.

They were everywhere.

In the room, in the halls, the closet... Under the bed. She could not escape. She ran. She ran as fast as she could. They were chasing her. Her mouth opened, attempting to scream for help. Not a sound came out of her mouth. Was she mute? She was unable to run as fast as normal, like there were weights tied to her feet - or the air was water. Her eyes, glazed with that ice crisp color she had no idea about, begged for mercy.

She felt arms grasp her tiny stomach. There would be no mercy.

~~~

A blood curdling scream echoed throughout the small cabbin.

A young toddler, dressed in a blue nightgown, was grasping a teddy bear. She was pale. Sweat beads coated her skin like a pattern of dots. She barely breathed in this state of paranoia. That night terror was, well, terrifying.

Luckily, her own father had entered the room. The young man, with curled black hair and blue eyes, entered the room. He asked if his little girl was okay, but there was no responce. He walked up to her bed, lightly tapping the wood of the sleeping structure.

The child turned to her papa, his eyes so full of compassion and care. She threw what was left of the rustled sheets off of her and wrapped her arms around his neck. She wept her little heart out, her cries echoeing across the log cabin. Her father soothed her with gentle words, rubbing her back. She did not stop bawling for a while after, but her father was okay with that. He just cuddled with his little girl, cherishing the two-year-old as long as he could.


This was one of the few memories Ashla had of her own father. In the nights where she felt alone, it came back to her. She cried these nights, even a nineteen year old young lady... Maybe papa would come through the door again...

Sickly clouds of industry hung over sharp steel tumors belching fumes from tall towers, while mere mortals mixing magic and technology floated in the heavens strapped to the under-bellies of giant balloons. This world was very different from the plains to the far west, and among the grimy sea of dark-skinned workers and weathered travelers walked a wary warrior, his sapphire eyes scanning sullen faces in the crowd. Dreams of solving mysteries and catching criminals were paltry reasons next to barren fields and wailing babies, but despite the acrid air and defiled dirt, the black-haired man wore the navy leather of the city watch proudly, head filled with the smiles of his family as he returned with money and food. The azure-eyed guardsman grimaced at the cloud of piss and oil that wafted out of an alley as he passed, but paused with interest as he spotted a tall man in a tan vest who grabbed the shoulder of one of the stained workmen, and turned the dark-skinned man around to face him; the taller man's lips moved, but his words hid behind the bustle of the crowd.

The sturdy brow of the black-haired warrior drew down as he observed their exchange, memories of being shunned by his commander, and nearly every other dark elf in the city, fresh in his mind; yet here spoke the white-haired factory-hand with his fair-skinned counterpart amiably, or so it looked through the crowd. The guardsman locked eyes with the taller man who was pocketing a folder, and concealing the azure teardrop that hung from his neck with a steel-plated glove; then the workman collapsed, and the vested assailant fled into the flowing river of people. Some may have feared that justice would go unanswered that day, but one of the city's finest was already on the case. With gusto he barreled past the victim bleeding onto the stone street and clutching his back, and dove into the crowd following the large sword hilt above the tattered black cloak of the retreating robber. Through shit-stained alleyways and over plague-ridden bums the chase continued, until finally the would-be detective puttered to a stop with sweat pouring down his grimacing face; he gagged and turned from the questionable puddles, ambling back out to the street with the blue gem clear in his mind. Clues were always important.

The ebbing currents of people revealed no great insight, loudly flowing through steel canyons with glass windows to the heart of the city, but the black-haired warrior stared anyway. One of the pair of well-dressed dark elves who exited an alley across the street forded the stream of people to approach the shorter fair-skinned man in blue; ebony lips moved in silence under the roar of the crowd, and the azure-eyed warrior shook his head in dismay. Soon the guardsman's face brightened, though, and he was escorted across the street to meet the dark elf's companion. The two men brimmed with conviction, which had the shorter nodding in determination; a flicker of confusion did pass across his face, but it was smoothed by silver tongues. The trio headed against the current, to the outskirts of the city, and though the would-be detective's eyes gleamed with a thirst for justice at first, over the course of several hours of scouring every greasy nook and gritty cranny they began to dull. It was only when the heavens grew dark and stars rose on the horizon that hope was yet again kindled.

Belched forth from the greasy embrace of a shady tavern the vested villain walked, and from a nearby alley emerged the trio to follow their prey at a safe distance. It wasn't long before the cloaked criminal slipped into the enveloping shadows of another alleyway, and his pursuers were swallowed by the same darkness moments later; the guardsman's pace slowed for the first few seconds as he blinked his eyes. He caught up with his dark-skinned companions a moment later, weaving around the many grimy crates littering their path, just as the malicious mugger rounded another corner. The three men picked up their pace, but came skidding to a stop when they found their prey calmly awaiting them, and just as the shorter warrior opened his mouth his companions cut him off. The guardsman's face wrinkled in confusion as the dark elves grew louder, so he stepped back and reached for the city-issued short sword at his waist as he eyed his companions; the feeling of cold steel sliding in-between his ribs was surprising, he didn't know anyone could be that fast.

The other white-haired warrior rushed the man in the vest, and his companion tried to join him, but turned back surprised when his sword wouldn't slide free. The black-haired man's hands were wrapped around the blade, and the dark elf backed away from the roiling flames in those sharp blue eyes. The signs were obvious now, and the would-be detective pulled the sword from his chest; he cried out, and his vision blurred as blood pooled at his feet. His sharp sapphire eyes locked with those of his dark-skinned betrayer just before the man's head flew free, and as he toppled over he managed a smile. The smell of the alley was overwhelming this close, but luckily the man in the tan vest flipped him onto his back, and he gazed up into the black void above him. He'd always found it odd that no stars could penetrate the cloud of filth hanging over this city, like the people here had built a barrier between themselves and the heavens. His mind turned to his family, and the alley walls faded to black as he paid the price of his ignorance.

Closed for judging.

Posted on behalf of Bard, who judged this vignette.

Quote:

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I am honored that I was given the opportunity to judge this, as I found each work enjoyable in their own right. It was not an easy judgement, for the most part, so if it seems I’m being a bit nit-picky, it’s because I am.

Ashla, your story was entertaining, and very bittersweet in its domesticness. I did notice a few grammatical errors however, Cabbin, instead of cabin for example. Moreover, you had the father speak to little Ashla, which represents the initiation of daologue which she responds to by crying, and reacting, which means that dialogue took place.

Artifex, I liked how you give vivid, step-by-step moments of your character’s movements. It helped really give me not only a sense of his actions, but how those actions flowed through time. The element involving Morrigan did feel like internal dialogue to me though, like thoughts Leon is having while he practices, and so that was an element against you.

Vendredi your imagery was very vivid, I could feel the fall with your character, but there were some minor gramatical errors, humourless, instead of humorless, for example.

K-Zu-Ziro, your tendency towards provocative and somewhat experimental writing, as the genre is often called, is well represented here, but at times you use words whose meanings either contradict each other, such as “wizard's beady eyes were absolutely elephantine,” one’s eyes can’t be both at the same time, since the two contradict each other. It would have been better if you said something about the deep set character of his hosts eyes made an otherwise elephantine eyes seem smaller, or something of the like.

Ebi, you paint a vid picture with words here, your opening paragraph actually works for a fine summery of Alerar, the only issue I had with this was clarity. The dark elf’s attack on the protagonist came totally out of the blue for me, and after listening to the post mmultiple times, I’m not entirely sure why it happened.




Elite Optic, you really do make this character terrifying, and while the grammatical errors were few, Kings, instead of King’s statue, the only one that really stood out was “The tapping of the it's large feet on the granite floor.”

Philomel, while this work did not have any grammatical errors in it, and even though it did meet all the aspects of the writing prompt, the fact that it was more or less a paraphrasing of a pre-existing work, was a mark against you.

Redford, your conversation between redford, logan, and two strangers was easy to follow; the interplay between Logan and Redford really set the stage for what was to follow, with the second stranger; with redford’s ill humor being both fully expected and in-line with his personality as found in previous works.


Redford first place, Philomel second place.

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Congratulations!

K-Zu-Ziro receives 150 EXP.
Artifex Felicis receives 400 EXP.
Elite Optic receives 250 EXP.
redford receives 700 EXP and 200 GP.
Philomel receives 720 EXP and 150 GP.
Vendredi receives 250 EXP.
Ashla receives 400 EXP.
Ebivoulya receives 250 EXP.

All participants also receive 1 AP. Redford wins an additional 1 AP for winning.

All EXP, GP and AP have been added!