The Fight

This week Red Writing Hood calls for us to write a fight. I happen to have a fight written from a scene of a longer work that I've been fiddling with for quite some time now. 

Background:

All the world (aka the stage): 
What can I say? There's magic folks - I'm calling it erg for the sake of this post. If it's not your cup of tea, don't worry - it's the setting, not the point. The three characters are sitting around a campfire after a long day of travel.

Men and women (aka merely players): Three traveling companions
Alden - an older gentleman who looks to be about 60 and displays magical abilities
Niko - a seventeen year old boy who's just getting out into the world for the first time; has no magical abilities and is very scientifically minded
Taran - Niko's former teacher and also a magic user
Tully - another travel companion


The fight:

“The only way it really could have happened was for the powder to have been poisonous to that species…” Niko finished, impressed with his logical conclusion.

“And how do you explain Taran being able to draw with erg then?” Alden asked, getting to wits end. He had heard about every scientific explanation he cared to hear and then some.

“I’m still not sure that’s what it was exactly. See, Taran doesn’t seem to be entirely human and it could be that something secretes from her skin had a reaction with that kind of  mineral –“

“Are you serious?” Alden asked, standing in his anger. Taran, too, stood glaring at the boy and with a shake of her head, stalked off. Tully gave an assessing look to the old man and the boy before heading down the path Taran had taken.

“What?” Niko asked confusedly, “What did I say?”

Alden, whose face was cradled in his palms, looked up again with rage in his eyes. “You are a naïve child. Do you not understand why she might take offense? When you begin to doubt her humanity?”

“I didn’t mean -,” Niko started, but Alden broke in again.

“What? You didn’t mean to call her an animal?”

“I didn’t… I just… and don’t your people revere animals?” Niko defended, not wanting to let go of his idea.

“We revere and respect their place and our connection with them. But just as an insect should never be mistaken for a bird, a human being should never be mistaken for something he or she is not How dare you strip her of the last thing she feels in common with those around her. Just because you cannot explain it with your contraptions and theories, doesn’t make it not real. There are things beyond explanation.” He sat down again with a forceful exhalation.

Niko, who had started to cower under the weight of Alden’s words, snapped back to attention. “I don’t think that’s true. Everything has an explanation.”

Alden roared furiously into the night. “So what it it’s true? Does knowing the explanation change something for you? Does it make you its master?”

Niko couldn’t find anything to say.

“Just because you can’t explain it,” Alden said, “Doesn’t mean it’s not real or substantial. You can’t explain away how Taran saved your life today. That doesn’t make it unimportant that she did so.”

Niko shifted uncomfortably on his log, staring into the fire to avoid Alden’s eyes. The old man shook his head again and sighed as he went to his tent for the night.

Questions from the author: Does the dialogue seem realistic? Do you get the impression that Niko is a young man trying to prove himself? Do you feel the age difference and experience difference between the two (without any serious background info)? Do the characters reactions seem realistic?
**Please note that this is all first draft material**

Dear Life

This week's Red Writing Hood prompt (one of them) was to write a letter to your character's fear. I have a fictional character I've been writing for a while in a fantasy setting who is human but has an unnaturally and somewhat unusually long life.

Dear Life,

To most, you are just that – something held dearly. It seems strange, but the longer I go on, the more I get the feeling that you hold onto me. Too long have I walked this earth, the lives of three women, end on end, and too many generations to count or remember. Death is not your opposite, but humans cling to you to avoid it. It is not death I seek, but rather the resting end of you. It is not even that you have been bad to me and I am wishing the torture would end. No, it is the weariness of a traveler who has walked too far on a road that has no end in sight I seek to escape.

Even if I expire along that road traveled so long, I fear that the priests, shamans and mages might be right. If you do not simply end at death, if you are eternal in some other form after all of this time I have spent here, then there is no rest to come. Everlasting life sounds so good to them. It comforts them as the go to sleep at night, that there is no reason to fear death for it all goes on afterward. How can they not be weary? How can they not want that same sleep that they go into after such a long day of mundane tasks? I watch others go about their daily lives. They work to gain something for themselves in their short time on this earth and age faster than they wish, all the while shunning the wisdom they have gained and ignoring the exhaustion that comes upon them until the surrounding vigorous youth forces them to see – you force them to see. And then the strangest thing of all – they cling to that your youth as though their decrepit bodies could ever again achieve such activity in you again. They fall apart trying to live beyond their means, but all in the comfort that they will see youth in everlasting life.  Is that all a human can crave? To never end the busyness, the going and the doing?

Am I even still human? After going on like this for so long, I do not think I know anymore. I do not want as these humans that surround me want. I hunger for food and drink, but I hunger more for rest to come, for some sight of the end of the road, even if it lay at a cliff on the ocean. If that be the case, I shall make my bed in the sea as did the eternal being, with the rocks as my pillows and the seaweed as my cover. If I must see you again at the end of that road, then you shall only see me in despair.

            My one hope is that you and I will truly expire together at the end of all this.

Your grudgingly obedient,

Tanith

This pov is fairly early on in the development of this character. Ever the romantic, I revive her human connections and she realizes she can still empathize - that she still is human.

Comments welcome.

From a Jester to his Queen

Today I am posting a poem that I started working on yesterday. I am not usually one to write a whole bunch of drafts with my poetry (unless prompted  to do so), but this poem started in the completely wrong way (wrong tone, wrong perspective, going in the wrong direction). So I took a few hints from the P&W prompts I have completed in the past and changed it up. I took the original writing, reversed the order of the lines, picked out the phrases that I liked the best and redrafted twice.


I didn't originally intend for this to be a RemembeRED post, but it was inspired by a memory, and I can't think of jesters without imagining red, so this will also serve as my Red Dress Club post for the week.


This is what I came up with:

From a Jester to his Queen

Here my resignation lies, my queen, at your feet. I must away -

but do not sorrow, for another fool will take my place.

Perhaps he will mock you appropriately, where I have faltered.

I must go my separate way, but worry not! For your court

is greatly populated with those ready to serve your will;

your childhood bed filled with stuffed animals to bow to your whim.

I, too, once populated your little kingdom, running amok at your will.

You would run and I would give chase, bound to my duties.

We two were fools together: myself licensed, you a natural

taking up the parts of the players: you the hero, myself

the distressed damsel, though my beard often gave me away.

The animals would whisper behind their paws, but you affected

not to notice. It was all a part of your elaborate façade,

but your excitements quickly became thin, your meanings

were not meaningful and the animals smiled vapidly for you.

You sat upon your throne and doled out judgments, all around –

no one could be missed. Your fluffy subjects trembled and quaked.

With a vengeful eye, you were willing to cry until ill to get your way.

You confided in me your worry that the leopard would not

give up his spots to you, nor the elephant share his wrinkles.

You gathered your many whims into you and snuggled them close,

your stuffed subjects laying asunder and neglected.

But it is not my place to say, though I am the kind who says

when it is not my place. I must only say that playing the fool

for a fool is no fun and is not something I will to do any longer.

Again I say this: do not despair, my queen, for someone else will come

who will be confided in and called upon, with motley hat and gloves.

I am no loss, for I did not amuse you enough to hold your attention

and you did not amuse me enough to continue. 

Comments welcome, as always.

For fun information on jesters, check out this link. This image was pulled from Wikipedia Commons, here.

The Arrowhead

Here's another Red Writing Hood prompt up for the week. They called for fiction (no problem here), so while this may be inspired by reality (the friend) it will be a gross exaggeration of everything else (the object) and completely fictional in the happenings. Here's the prompt:


"In the middle of the night, you get an urgent call from a friend you haven’t talked to in years. Something terrible has happened. What is it and why is he/she calling you?"


It's a tad longer than 700 words, but not by too much.

The Arrowhead

I jolted awake at the ringing of the telephone. Still drowsy, I assured my husband's inquiring grunt that I would get it. I knocked a book off my bedside table as I felt for the phone, which rang again. 

"Hello?" I asked raspily, still half asleep.

"Katie?" The voice sounded familiar.

That name woke me up a bit. I hadn't been called anything but Kate or Kathryn by anyone since I was fourteen. 

"Who -? Danny?" I asked.

"Katie, I need to talk."

"Okay. Hold on."

I set the phone down and sat up, planting my feet on the floor to steady me. Images of the tire swing by the channel and our secret fort in the marshes flashed before my eyes. I hadn't heard from Danny since...

"Babe?" a sleepy voice asked from the other side of the bed, bringing me back to the darkness of the room.

"It's alright. Just a phone call I need to take. I'll be back to bed soon."

Not knowing why I was doing it, I grabbed the phone. I crept down the hallway past the rooms of my sleeping children and down the stairs to the kitchen. Gathering my night gown under me so that the chair wouldn't be so cold on my thighs, I sat down and lifted the phone to my ear again.

"Danny?"

"It's just Dan now, but yes, it's me. It's... been a long time." I could hear the smile in his voice.

With good reason, I thought before saying, "Is there something wrong?"

"Yes. My grandfather has just passed away." The smile had vanished, grief replacing it. He had always been close to his grandfather, the Colonel.

"Oh. I'm sorry. You needed to talk?"

There was silence for a moment. “I was just at the reading of his will.”

Now that would be an interesting read, I thought. His grandfather was a particular and frugal old man. Money aside, he had one of the largest privately owned collections of Civil War artifacts on the East Coast. He must have just died tonight for the reading to be this late.

“He left me everything.”

“Wow,” I said lamely, thinking of the emotional mess that would probably cause Danny, keeping the grief close at hand. Danny had always been emotional. One of the rough-it-tough-it boys, it was personal when it came to his family and you didn’t get in the middle of that.

At least not without a mess, she thought bitterly.

“Katie, I need to ask… do you remember that arrowhead I gave you when we were kids?”

Again, my mind was filled with images of my childhood: the secret fort, my initiation into our secret club The Guided Stones – after the Georgia Guidestones. His grandfather had told him about The Order, a society he was a part of that centered on that “American Stonehenge”.

“Katie?”

“Yes, the arrowhead that you gave me at the marsh fort. Part of that… what was it?”

“The Stones.” I could hear the capitalization and the hurt in his voice that I didn’t remember.

“Right. What about it?”

“Do you still have it?” He sounded desperate.

“I don’t think so. It would have been in a box with my toys from when I was a kid, but Mom sold or donated all that stuff years ago when she moved out of the house.”

“You’re sure you didn’t put it anywhere else? Maybe in a box you kept?” he asked, even more urgent.

I thought for a moment, but replied again, “I’m sorry, Danny. I really don’t think so. I’ll keep an eye out, but when I left Bennettsville, I left everything behind. I’m in Washington now. I’m sure you understand…” my voice drifted off.

“It’s okay, Katie. I understand. I know why you left. I just thought you might have kept it, that’s all.”

“Why do you need it?”

“Well, it wasn’t an arrowhead. It was an awl that my grandfather got out of a dig in Oklahoma. It was…” his voice lost its vigor and died.

“What, Danny?” I said his childhood moniker again, hoping to take him back in time as I had been – to let him trust me.

“It was the oldest bone awl ever found in the US. It was worth about three million dollars and the Order says it’s important.” The Order.

“I’m so sorry, Danny. I didn’t know.”

A few more condolences given, he hung up the phone with even more grief in his voice.

-

Three days later in the Jerusalem Church of Rincon, Georgia,  I nodded to a Salzburger member as I entered the third small meditation room on the right side. I closed the small door and listened to the quiet before pulling out a brick just above the floor-level. Out of the hole came a piece of fabric. Unwrapping the awl, I smiled.

“I knew it was the one.”




Comments welcome.

Filling Water Balloons

So this weekend's RemembeRED prompt is up:


This week, we're giving you a photo to take you back in time.
In 700 or fewer words, show us where your memory takes you. 

Remember that this image is merely inspiration. Your piece needn't have a hose in your piece, but we need to easily see how you were inspired by it.

 I don't so much have a hose story as a brief memory about water balloons. The hose makes little appearance.

Filling Water Balloons

The water was cold on my toes as I tried to fit an empty water balloon over the end of the leaky hose nozzle. It was my birthday and we were a good half an hour into a water fight.

“We always take my car ‘cause it’s never been beat,                                                                                                  and we never miss IT with the girls we meet.”

It was Dan singing. I was only 8 and had yet to discover the meaning behind the lines, but there was something about the way he sang it that made it stick in my mind. He was a few years older and had a much more worldly view of that song that I. He helped me fill up my balloons – it was so much easier with four hands – and we jumped back into the crowd of kids running around the front yard.

Carefully avoiding the red ant piles, I ducked around the Dogwood branches and nailed James right in the chest with a wobbly balloon.

“Arhh! I’m gonna get you for that!” he yelled. The fresh balloons were cold.

Comments welcome.

Heaven Bent

P&W prompt number 8 for me (as usual thanks to Angelspeak):


Choose a cliched phrase (“fit as a fiddle,” “think out of the box,” “running on empty,” etc.) and turn it around. Use the new meaning created by this reversal to fuel a poetic meditation.


I decided to use the phrase "Hell-bent for leather" which is sometimes shortened to "Hell-bent", meaning to be going very fast. I changed the phrase to "Heaven-bent" and slowed it down a bit.

Heaven Bent

He walked the trail upward ahead of me

taking the landscape one pace at a time, 

slowing his stride imperceptibly to give me

the chance to catch up as I panted behind

"Why do you always pick the highest

climb you can find on the trail?" I asked,

wondering if I would get any reply this time

 mentally counting the hundreds before

Patiently he climbed, taking time to breathe,

time to live and experience each moment 

of the unhurried ascent, early afternoon sun 

shining around his blonde locks like a halo 

Puffing to catch up where I'd fallen back

I scrambled up a yet steeper, shorter path

only to stumble and scrape both knees 

with a tight wince, but not a sound escaping

A solid hand reached out to help - I took it

gratefully after my rash moment, pain subsiding

the steady calm of him capturing me completely 

"From up there we can touch the heavens."

Comments welcome.

Orphic Mission

Today's post is another from the P&W prompt series (again, thanks to Angelspeak):


Flip through the dictionary and randomly choose 10 words. Write a poem with each word in every other line.


Here are the words I collected (with definitions from Merriam-Webster):


perigee - the point on the moon's elliptical path closest to Earth (making it look large)
apogee - the point on the moon's elliptical path farthest from Earth (making it look small)
quintessence - the most typical example of a thing; the essence of a thing in its most pure/concentrated form;the fifth and highest element in ancient and medieval philosophy that permeates all nature and is the substance composing the celestial bodies
divest - to undress or strip
orphic - having to do with Orpheus (the poet/musician who almost rescues his wife Eurydice from Hades by charming Pluto and Persephone with his lyre)
lignin (or lignify) - the substance that makes wood cells hard ( to convert into wood/woody tissue)
tissular - relating to organismic tissue
embrew (another spelling of imbrue) - to stain (something)
wame - (chiefly Scottish) the belly; in a woman, the womb
forbear - to hold back or abstain, particularly with effort


I got some from links on the front page of the site and rest from browsing the dictionary by letter. It wasn't until I looked up quintessence a second time that I got the celestial/alchemical definition, but by that time I already had 8 words and a theme was starting to arise. Words like changeling started coming to mind, so I came up with a draft: (the link is really worth reading if you don't know too much about about changeling/fairy lore - some of the references will make more sense)

With sweat streaming, a woman on an orphic mission

made her way up ol’ fairye hill, her fair complexion ruddy

with the strain of climbing. So close was the perigee moon

and with it the hope of recovering her baby for this changeling,

the hope that the quintessential vulnerability of her child, her real child

kept it safe from the little people’s wicked ways.

This child, stock or fetch, lignifying in her arm, failed to thrive.

Its tissular structures became rigid as she neared the stones-

her last chance at saving her little girl. The tugging of fear at her wame

collapsed any confidence she had left, embrewing her thoughts

 divesting her of her power to have an effect. Passing the lump in her arms

through the Crick stones thrice, she waited her child with hope.

The moon forbore its ancient potent, as though the apogee had come

too soon.


Because that was just terrible and the interesting words I had picked were often too obscure to really convey well the meaning, I drafted again, dropping the words where necessary, but trying to retain their meaning as much as possible.  

Orphic Mission

Sweat streaming into her eyes, a young woman panted

up ol' fairye hill, her fair complexion ruddy with strain.

The full moon bloomed large over the crest of the hill

a terra cotta medallion, her only remaining hope.

Pulling at the swaddling blankets in her arms, she glanced

at the false infant, a stock or fetch, lignifying before her eyes

a failure to thrive that was apparent from the moment she saw

the out-turned coat on the floor, fallen from the cradle.

The struggle to breathe, a hint of blue at the tips of the fingers

Gasping and grasping, a suddenly fussy changeling lay

where once was nestled a tranquil child, touched by the heavens

The deceitful being she held became more and more rigid

as she neared the stones - her last chance at saving her little girl

A fear tugged in her belly, collapsing any confidence she held,

imbruing her thoughts and divesting her of maternal power

Passing the body in her arms through the crick stone thrice

She awaited the arrival of her child, hope waning

The moon withheld its ancient potency, as though the perigee

had come too late




Comments welcome.

Stolen

Someone has stolen something from you (or your character). Something of tremendous value. What will you do to get it back? Or will you give up?

Write a post - fiction or non - and tell us about it. Word limit is 600.

Today's prompt comes from Red Writing Hood. I had a pretty hard time coming up with an idea for this one, which I found strange. Shouldn’t this be one of the easiest things to come up with? Maybe…

Stolen

I sat up in the night, not from a dream or a nightmare, but from the sound of the door of the apartment opening. I listened for a moment, breath held tight. The door shut and someone giggled, another voice shushing the first.  Another late night out for the flat mates then…

I lay back down, closing my eyes but not to sleep. What was it that was happening before I woke? It felt like there should have been something going on. I was asleep and… I reached out in my mind, willing myself to find anything there, but no. Just darkness. Emptiness.

It had been this way for months. I didn’t remember when it had started, but no those are the wrong words too. I didn’t remember when they had stopped – my dreams. From an age before I was cognizant of such things, I had dreamed – vivid dreams, subtle dreams.

“Why don’t you write them down and make them a novel?” he once asked, “You have more ridiculous junk happen in your dreams than these silly vampire novelists have all put together.”

Ridiculous junk. He had always thought so. Other people called them “strange” or even, in my mother’s words, “nightmarish”, but not to me. To me they were just something that another part of my being was trying to tell me.

I sometimes used to wake up with a sense of urgency – the need to remember, to know what had happened in the dream, because it was real and meaningful. Other times I would awake confused – how did that end up in my head, where did it come from? Only once or twice did I wake up in fear. Dreams that frightened others at the thought were no source of terror to me. On the few occasions I did have a nightmare, they were memorable, but thankfully not re-livable.

But this seemed all in the past to me. What had once remained in my waking life had now invaded my dreamscape – a pressure, a dampening. As my daily self lost its vigor, its intention, its vitality, so did my dreams. I could manage the day to day, but the loss of my nightly reflections was unbearable. I mourned.

The doctors called it depression. My friends called it “a damn shame that someone like that could hurt someone like you.” I didn’t really call it anything – not until it was much too late.

The life that I had been living and pursuing had become a confused muddle of daily routine and wandering. I had dealt with this before – losing my way, but then I had my dreams to ground me, to help me reflect, to turn to for understanding. Now they were gone too. Stolen.