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chuchoose · 5 years ago

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I suddenly realized my survival depended on…

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/fantasy/i-suddenly-realized-my-survival-depended-on/

The realization is a sobering one. I feel my eyes stare off into a distance I cannot see. I feel my tongue become heavy in my mouth and I feel my stomach roil like I swallowed the whole Sea of Tithes and it wants to get out. I roll the handle of the dagger over in my hand. I gulp audibly. Loud. The world is all so loud, but I cannot hear it. It’s all a mess of sound. I think a bird is singing. I think I can hear sunshine beaming through this coloured glass. I think I can hear the wind whisper a storm cloud just a little closer. I can’t hear what any of them are saying. I can’t hear anything, but it’s all too loud. I cannot hear. It is so loud and it makes him want to hurl.

The little boy pulls on Eyen’s sleeve. The boy is so small, but the hurt is so big. Clinging to Eyen’s sleeve is all that is keeping him standing. “Dad…” the boy whimpers. “Dad… it… hurts.”

Eyen blinks. His face is fixed forward, but his gaze falls to his son with eyes wild and bloodshot. The boy has never seen his father this way and it is scaring him. He wraps both hands around his father’s, not knowing what else he could do. It all hurts so much. His father kneels down and scoops the boy up with one hand while never letting go of the dagger in the other. The boy’s eyes fix themselves to that dagger that seems to only grow bigger and closer as long as he stares at it. The dagger is simple. It doesn’t look like something special, but the boy can’t look away from it as if it were the most important thing in the world. The boy hates the dagger. He’s felt sick ever since his father found that dagger. Everything got worse when his father found that dagger.

---

The boy is poison the stones hiss. Unclean chime the pews. Save us the pulpit pleads. Save us the stained glass agrees. Save us. Save us. Save us the whole church sings.

Save the boy the altar says. Lay his cursed form upon me and let this trial be behind him.

Save him. Save him. Save him.

Save us. Save him. Save all.

Save. Save. Save. Save. Save. Save. Save. Sa-

---

“Dad…? Dad? what are you doing?” The altar is cold against his skin. Every movement of his tiny frame that scrapes against the stone feels too loud and too big in the too, too empty church.

---

Everything is too quiet. I feel the dagger in my hand like I am holding a throbbing heart. Each of its pulses matches the ones pounding against the insides of my chest. I hear my blood like the thunder of a hundred horses that can’t stop running. I feel too hot and too cold at the same time. I cannot take my eyes off my boy. I must not take my eyes off my beautiful boy. There is only one way to survive this. I cannot let the evil take him. I must bury this evil at its source. This corruption cannot have my son!

---

-ave. Save. Save. Save the church chants.

---

Eyen raises the dagger high.

Kill.

---

Eyen’s eyes go wide.

---

Kill!

---

The boy doesn’t see the shadow of death grinning in the reflection of his own teary and fear drenched eyes, but Eyen does.

---

Kill! Kill!

Kill!

---

Eyen hears it all like a song long forgotten. It was some kind of reverie or maybe a requiem, but it was memorable, he remembers. Time slows down and he remembers being a boy himself. He remembers meeting his wife. He remembers the day his son was born. It is the brightest day of his life. He remembers the exact way the birds beyond his wife’s window chirped. He remembers how warm the sun felt on his face. He remembers the nascent murmurs of his newborn son like a gentle chime laughing in the wind. He remembers everything between then and now and time feels as it should as he feels his hands grow wet and warm and crimson.

---

Len looks up in horror as his father’s bleeding form slumps to its knees, his own sickness forgotten or perhaps cured unknowingly. The dagger his father put in his own chests looks like it's alive as it pulses and throbs. The dagger looks to the boy as if it were drinking for the first time after knowing an eternity of thirst. With each moment, Len’s father looks smaller and smaller until he crumples onto his back.

Len rushes forward to catch his father from sliding all the way down the pulpit. His father is so much bigger than him, even now. He manages to keep him on the steps and lays his father’s head in his lap. His father stares up at him with a smile so small he could fit in his pocket.

“My boy…” Len’s father breathes. “My beautiful… boy…” Survived, he wants to add, but cannot marshal the breath. His son survived. The smile on his face grows ever so slightly for this tiny peace.

Len sobs and wails and moans. He doesn’t know what to do. His father tries to reach for Len’s tears, but he cannot muster the strength to do so, so Len cries on unabated. Len hugs as much of his father as he can with his tiny arms and cries and cries and cries.

And then Len’s eyes lock themselves upon the dagger that stands tall in his father’s chest like a tombstone or maybe a monument or something grander still. Len stops crying too suddenly. The church is so quiet besides the tired and dying wheezes of his father. With one arm still wrapped around him, Len reaches with the other to the dagger’s too, too inviting handle. His whole body tingles as his fingers get closer and closer.

Though he has not the energy to speak it, beneath the dying breath of Len’s father, the word “No” scratches desperately at the edge of his lips.

---

The world is quiet. The stone is quiet. The pews are quiet. The pulpit, the altar, the whole church is quiet except for the tiniest of whispers just waiting at the utmost edge of sound describable. It could be coming from anywhere, but it is coming from the handle of the dagger wrapped so tightly in the little boy’s hand. The whisper is inaudible, and most any discerning ear might believe it was not a whisper at all and just the wind, but it is, in fact, a word. A quiet word delivering the slightest of requests, or rather begging, aching, keening so hard that the word it whispers hurts.

Save.

#word count: 1100 #cw: death #it turns out isolation just makes it easier to be distracted

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chuchoose · 5 years ago

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ive started reading the online mtg stories can you guess my favourite character #02

It was a rough and tumble type of tavern. A warm fire crackled in the communal hearth, but none found its invitation compelling, for to do so would be to show your back to all the other patrons within. The bar remained similarly vacant save for the mustachioed, pot bellied man, bald in age and experience, who stood quietly polishing a stein with a remarkably white cloth.

To say the air was tense was an understatement. Tough customers of all kinds glared suspiciously from over the tops of drinks and from under the guise of hoods in seats that dotted the room’s edge. Many such looks, at one point or another before flicking to another potential backstabber or life taker, would rest upon the red cloaked mage wearing a smooth black mask of obsidian who sat alone at a table in the center of the room with her back to the tavern’s entrance. The mage’s mask was entirely featureless, like one solid plate of black stone, and, in its smoothness, the outlaws and criminals that surrounded the mage studied the total lack of countenance nervously for any indication of impending and fiery violence. Word had gotten around, see, about the black-masked fire mage burning her way through the wizard folk. Now, none of the bar-goers in the room tonight were such manipulators of magic, but the story went that, though the fire mage was particular with her quarries, yes, she was not so discerning with those who crossed her.

So they all drank. Nervously, and with no intention of intoxication, but they drank.

The barman sighed loudly at all of this. He flipped his immaculately white cloth over his shoulder, left the now-cleaned stein on the less clean bartop, and disappeared into the kitchen behind him. No sooner were the front doors to the establishment flung open, bathing the entrance in a wash of moonlight. All eyes turned to the new customer, save the fire mage who kept her attention on the untouched drink that sat in front of her.

The new arrival cut an imposing silhouette in the door frame despite her slightness. She pulled back a cowl to let down a great mane of blonde hair that cascaded over her shoulders with a lazy shake. Her eyes were cold and piercing in their milk white and exacting stare. All patrons who locked eyes with her averted their gaze quickly upon realization of who they had laid their eyes upon. Some more cautious folks even clutched their cloaks tightly to make their own forms seem small, while others more wide and weathered rooted around in their trappings for certain charms kept for luck and protection.

The newcomer was the mage hunter Erill (the Devil to her prey) and anyone who killed wizards with no magic of their own was no one worth messing with. Whispers would have you believe that her eyes saw the weaves of magic, which is why some wizard, in a desperate bid for survival, blinded her to no avail, while others rumbled that her eyes were as mundane as any others. Neither such gossipers could decide which was more intimidating.

The doors slammed shut behind Erill’s purposeful strides towards the fire mage’s table and every other bargoer let out a collective sigh of relief to have escaped the mage hunter’s attention. The mage hunter flipped open her cloak to take a seat across from the fire mage, revealing a pair of slender, silver-laid short swords on her belt to which anyone who caught sight of flinched (except for the unflappable fire mage, of course). A crooked grin flashed across Erill’s face at the mage’s composure, and she unfastened her twin swords to place them neatly on the table between them. In turn, the fire mage pushed the untouched drink forward and offered it with an outstretched palm. Erill’s grin became a full smile and she scooped up the drink with little hesitation, drank long and deep, then returned the emptied stein to the table and her scowl to her face. Onlookers who forgot their self-preservation gawked in jaw-dropped shock at her constitution, while others busied themselves with the bottoms of their own liquor.

Erill swirled what little swill had remained in her mouth and spat it out onto the bar floor besides with a satisfying splat. She kicked her boots up onto the bar table and leaned back far into her chair. “What do you want?” the mage hunter growled.

“What we both want,” the fire mage said.

Erill snorted. “I’ve heard the stories. We might be killing the same people, but we definitely don’t want the same thing. Tell me what you want. Now.”

The fire mage sat quietly for a long moment. Erill grumbled in discontent. As Erill swung her heavy boots back onto the ground and made to leave, the fire mage spoke up.

“He saw my face.”

Erill’s face screwed up in annoyed confusion. “So? You killed him-” she caught herself as the realization dawned on her. Her confusion turned into a wolfish and toothy grin. “That’s why you don’t keep secrets, mage,” the mage hunter drolled. “You should know better than anyone you can’t stop a dead mage from telling tales. Especially if you’re hunting all of them at once.”

“I made a mistake.”

“Yeah?” the mage hunter mocked. “And now your whole ridiculous crusade might go up in flames over it.” Erill laughed at how funny she thought she was being. “Your fault for insisting on that antique in the first place. This is your problem.”

“How do I fix this?”

“You can’t!” Erill snapped. “If one of them has your face, then it’s only a matter of time before a necrospeaker finds the ghost and makes him talk. Once he talks, it’s over. You don’t keep secrets against mages. You might as well have put the noose in their hands.”

“It was important they didn’t know my name.”

“Unfortunate. Now they do. Or will. In time. It's over.”

From behind her mask and gritted teeth, the fire mage persisted. “Help me.”

“You have a lot of nerve making demands at me, witch. Watch your tone or watch your back.”

“Do not call me that,” the fire mage warned.

“What did I just say?”

In a flurry of motion, Erill snapped up one of her swords from the table and had it unsheathed and at the fire mage’s throat. The fire mage was as quick, if not quicker, however, and in that time, the mage conjured a dart of flame dripping from her fingertip, pointed at Erill’s eye with one hand while she had another hand and flame cupped around the silver sword at her own neck. The flame danced around the edge of the blade, neither flesh nor fire able to breach the perimeter the silver of the sword made in the weave around it without great effort. The whole bar became deathly still.

After the longest heartbeat ever, both women released their breaths held in tension, and the whole bar relaxed along with them. Erill returned her sword to the table, still unsheathed, and the fire mage shook the spells from her hands.

“You’re fast,” Erill admitted. “I can see how you’ve been so successful. Shame we’re about to lose you.”

“Unless you help me,” the fire mage offered again, insistently.

Erill rolled her eyes and snapped her fingers at the grizzled, brigandined man nursing the same drink he had been holding onto for dear life since Erill walked in. She pointed at his drink, and the giant of a man nodded and jumped from his seat all at once to bring his drink over to her. She took it from his hands without so much as a look and he returned to his seat while only tripping over himself once as she shooed him away. She swirled the murky amber booze around in the cup lazily as she spoke. “I understand the words you are saying, but I don’t think either of us understand what you’re asking of me.”

“Give me your silver and I can keep on doing this.”

Erill stopped moving entirely. The less experienced customers thought perhaps the mage hunter had been cursed, but those more familiar knew it was far worse.

Erill gave the drink an appraising look, downed what was left of it in a single gulp, inspected the bottom of the cup solemnly, and then left the emptied drink next to the first. She did this all in the most quiet of manners, contrary to her conduct up until this point to every onlooker’s horrified observation while the fire mage stared forward at Erill unflinching and unperturbed.

Erill licked her lips, trying to taste the words she would speak next. She found them bitterly. Ultimately and slowly, she decided on: “You’re going to have to repeat that one for me. Not sure I heard right.”

Without hesitation. “I won’t, and you did.” A bargoer whispered “yikes” louder than he meant to.

Erill nodded, as if in understanding and consideration. She regarded the fire mage with a discerning look, smacked her lips in disbelief, and seethed a frustrated sigh from between her teeth before scooping up both her swords and flipping the table in the mage’s face with a kick. As Erill had anticipated, the fire mage released a pair of propelling gouts of flames from both her palms and launched herself backwards, flipping out of the tumbling chair that splintered beneath her. The fire mage skidded to a stop before the door behind her, just where Erill expected. She didn’t need to see the fire mage to know what she was going to do next. The mage pulled her still smoking palms into fists and swung a pair of fireballs into the upturned table in a makeshift bastion that burst apart with concussive force. The table shattered into a spray of shrapnel. Patrons in every direction clutched at their fresh wounds, and fresher blood spilled itself in a web of splatters from the explosion’s origins. Through the cloud of dust and debris, Erill pushed through in long strides, swords held up in a cross in-front of her. Another pair of fireballs flew from the fire mage, but as they came to Erill’s swords, they seemed to slide right over them and passed the mage hunter. The fireballs careened into a bystander brigand behind her. He released a short yelp before slumping to the ground dead while clutching the hole in his chest where his heart should’ve been.

Erill’s face twisted itself into a hungry grin, knowing this is how it always went. Wizards knew little else than what they always did. For all their crooning about ancient knowledge and forgotten secrets, research this, quick wits that, when blades came to blood, they always went back to what they knew, even if they knew full well what silver did. With one sword still held high for whatever the fire mage would try to throw at her next, Erill pulled her other sword back in expectant lunge.

The problem was that the fire mage expected this. In the moments where Erill’s steps quickened to make pace for the final leap into her well-practiced execution, the fire mage marshalled a jet of flame into her back foot and flipped into the air with a series of twists. Erill’s first sword connected with nothing, but Erill did not get the name of Devil by dying. The other sword she had held in defense flipped around in her hands effortlessly with an instinctual flick and now set itself tall like a shark’s fin in the path of the fire mage’s evasion.

The problem was that the fire mage expected this, as well. See, the fire mage had never seen true silver before, much like most of the world’s unwashed masses. Most of the luck and protection charms formed of it bore little more than a sliver (if that) for the sake of superstition and any quantity of actual use was hoarded in the mageocracy’s vaults, but once the fire mage saw its effect on magic and mage flesh, she had itched at the opportunity to do what she was about to do next.

If the trick of silver was that, like a wedge, it pushed the weave away, what happened if you pushed yourself at it?

The fire mage sheathed her body in fire, fully anchoring the enchantment to her flesh, where Erill’s outstretched blade would find her, twisted her movement just right, and it was all as she had hoped. She felt the silver propel her away in her velocity and for a moment the thought flashed across her mind how it would have felt to have been wrong. That grim consideration parsed for only a moment as the exhilaration of her flipping and twisting gripped her and she wrapped her arms in kind around Erill’s waist as she went. Erill was formidable, yes, and strong and fast, too, but she was still smaller. The fire mage didn’t need to be that much stronger when she had speed and gravity to aid her here, so she held on tight and, with the last of her forward momentum, rolled forward and took the shorter mage hunter in a suplex that landed with an ugly sounding crack. The air escaped Erill’s lungs all at once. The fire mage summoned low flames into her arms still wrapped around Erill’s waist, ready to bisect the Devil with an incinerating embrace if it came to it, but she prayed she would not need to.

Erill slumped weakly onto the disgusting tavern floor. Her grip on her swords remained tight. They were quiet for a moment, and the fire mage would have worried for Erill were it not for the rise and fall of breath she felt against her so tightly wrapped arms.

Between shallow breaths, Erill managed to say, “You know... I can’t... give you my silver.”

“I know,” the fire mage replied between the tired breathing of her own.

The whole bar was stock-still silent besides the few patrons who were moaning from their fresh, shrapnel induced wounds. The barkeep returned behind the bar counter and shook his head disapprovingly. He pulled the abnormally white cloth from his shoulder and began scrubbing the blood and splatter from his countertop. The blood seemed to disappear entirely, but the cloth remained as undirtied as if it had never known filth.

“What if I helped you get some?” the mage hunter asked. “Silver, that is.”

The fire mage extinguished the magic in her arms and rolled onto her back. Erill’s legs flopped down onto her in kind. “That would be acceptable,” the fire mage breathed.

They lay in weary, huffing silence for a few minutes before Erill spoke up, having caught her breath.

“I’ve never known a witch-” She caught herself. “A mage to throw themselves at my silver before.”

“I wasn’t sure that’s how it would work,” the fire mage admitted.

Erill let out a short snort. “Good guess.” She pondered on her next words and decided on the simplest solution. “You got a name?”

The fire mage was slow to reply. It was her turn to choose her words wisely. Eventually, she replied, “Not one that I can say.”

#word count: 2500 #i started at the beginning of the compiled stories on the website #just got to kaladesh and boy howdy does this plane rule

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chuchoose · 5 years ago

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#FlavourAdded2

Do not disdain death. How can you not pity an animal that is always hungry?

#FlavourAdded #welp #i tried to put together a wix site for an elaborate shit post this week #ran into issues and didnt get it figured out in a timely enough manner to finish an edit or a full write of anything #thats a yehaw from me i guess

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chuchoose · 5 years ago

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A reality show featuring celebrity giants.

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/fantasy/a-reality-show-featuring-celebrity-giants/

Karissa snaps her hulking fingers and the fire spells light themselves in unison within each of the pointed lantern housings. A series of well-practiced gestures, and her crew all points their spotlights to the ampitheatre below. Shimmering threads of blue mana weave themselves into runes of old speak at the edge of the light that read “APPLAUSE” in Common and the audience of goblins, humans, giants, and wild folk of all kinds oblige like a sea of little (and some giant) thunderclaps.

The stage shimmers with a dome of abjurative wards rippling across it as scrying censors in the vague shapes of eyes pop into existence around the two giants sharply dressed in their best beast skins. Behind the wards, the din of the audience was muted, muffled. Gork turns to the dashing host slicking back his well coiffed pompadour who returns his uneasy look with a thumbs up and a silent “you got this.”

Off stage, Karissa adjusts her manager’s diadem, sparkling bright with communication magic, and a wave of crew chatter cascades into her ears. She takes only a moment to appraise her crew and her work before she turns to the two giants on stage and counts them in with a three, two…

“Welcome!” Yct’han booms, “to another great day in the valley!” The wards around the stage shimmer thin and the audience’s cheering burst through. Yct’han pretend-preens at his pompadour and the wards redouble themselves as the audience in kind quiets down to settle into the show proper. “I’m your host, Yct’han of the Far Fran, and wow what a show we’ve got for you today. Just absolutely exceptional.”

Gork shifts uneasily in the stone loveseat he’s been assigned to. He remembers the stage manager’s direction and tilts his body outwards (she called it cheating?) towards the censor glowing green, but just as he did so, it blinks red. He shifts again uncomfortably trying to find the new green-glowing arcane eye as inconspicuously as possible, but inconspicuous is no small thing for a giant (though most things are). Yct’han catches this out of the corner of his eye and nods reassuringly, making it seem a seamless addition to his usual intro. I guess such things are a little easier for some, Gork thinks.

“Got a lot of great guests - so many great guests - today, and here’s our first. Show of hands, how many of you in the audience are fans of the Wildfire series of graphic-scrolls?” The wards shimmer to allow audience reactions to seep through and the wards almost shatter under the audience’s response. Yct’han can’t help but notice Gork’s back straighten as a goblin in the audience hoots “WOO WILDFIRE.”

“A lot of fans in the audience! Then I bet you’re all very excited for the new scrying pool adaptation? Coming this fall?” The response is even louder than it was before and, indeed, the sound ward shatters.

“Hey-o!” Ych’han howls. “How about that. What a reception. Lot of fans in the audience today.” Yct’han takes a seat behind his stone-hewn desk and adjusts a series of cards and prompts and notes laid on it by stage hands prior. In the wings, Karissa snaps her fingers and points out other stage mages to help her reassemble the sound wards. Slowly, the runes float into place from each of them and the dome begins to reform itself.

“While our stage manager - actually, give it up for Kary, everybody!” The crowd applauds and Karissa is unperturbed, too busy concentrating on her spells to notice the praise. “What a gem. Always focused. Right, yes, while our stage manager gets that sound charm back in place, let me introduce to you all properly, then, the author of that fine fiction: we got Gork of Lork with us today!” The audience cheers.

Yct’han straightens out a few of his cards and turns to his guest while waiting for the exact moment where the cheering subsides enough for him to jump into his first question. “So! Gork! Wildfire’s really been making a splash these days! Graphic scrolls have been coming back into popular fashion, and I imagine you didn’t think you’d be doing interviews like this when you first got into the game. In fact, I don’t think I’ve had an artist of your medium on my stage ever before, so why doesn’t everyone give it up for that?” The audience obliges, again, enthusiastically, but the wards have been reformed, so the sound is muted enough for Yct’han to continue. “But before we talk about what’s coming, how about we talk about what’s been? Tell me about you, Gork. I know you’re not the most public person, but how did we get here?”

Gork leans forward, then notices he’s been looking at the wrong scrying censor and then leans over the seat’s arm to find it, perhaps behind the chair. Surprisingly, he doesn’t. He gulps loud and audibly. He turns to Yct’han and Yct’han’s smile is warm. Gork is gripping the stone arms of the loveseat so tight he feels them crumbling to dust between his fingers, but at this, slowly, Gork nods. “Well, y’know,” Gork begins. “I grew up at the edge of orc-lands - go Wolves -” a contingent of orcs in the audience howl like wolves at this and Gork smiles. “And, y’know, the age of giants… it’s long gone. By that time, when I’m born, it’s long gone and that’s time we’re never getting back. It was scary, when I was a fledgling. You think to yourself, ‘but why can’t we? why can’t we get that time back?’ when you’re a kid, because you hear all these stories and you don’t understand why we can’t just go back to the good times, and they’re not even times you were there for, and then you get older and you begin to understand the problem with that.

“While you’re understanding that, you’re just beginning to understand that you don’t fit in. Literally.” The giants in the crowd chortle at this. “So there I am: some kid too big to even get through the day school doors, having to listen to Miss Stonebreaker through the window, you can only imagine how much daydreaming I did.

“That’s when I got thinking about my grandfather on my mom’s side, y’know. He was a storyteller. He was old-school, real old-school, y’know, when it came to the traditions, so he was really big on oral history. And there you are: not listening to good ol Miss Stonebreaker who was giving her all for a kid not even in the room, and you start thinking about the stories your grandad used to tell you about heroes who look like you and you do this until you’re older and realize a lot of your doodles and whatever aren’t so bad and you like doing them and sharing them and one thing leads to another…”

“Wow,” Yct’han adds. “A real origin story, you got there. You said your grandad was a storyteller?”

“Yeah, classically trained and everything. If you go by Main and Liger, you can see him in some of the posters they got in the lobby of the Dragon’s Ruby. He was a real pro.”

“Well, it looks like the apple didn’t fall far from the ol’ tree there, eh?” Gork laughs. He can feel his grip on the loveseat’s arms loosening. His shoulders feel less tense. “I guess so. I loved his stories, and I was thinking to myself that just writing them wouldn’t work. If I wanted to do right by him, it has to capture the notion of sound that comes with speaking it, and the visual of you seeing him do it, and from there, well you realize art’s got the visual down, and then art also helps you impart sound, too. And then you start messing around with words and you begin to realize that just because words are quiet don’t mean they don’t make sounds, and well, yeah. That’s where Wildfire came from. Maybe it wasn’t my first work to eventually make it out there, but I knew, in time, with the right team, I’d be able to bring my grandad’s stories to life in a way that let everyone know them without him having to be there anymore, Sol home his soul.”

“You think he’d be proud of what you’ve done with his work?”

Gork stops. He can feel the censors flashing around him, trying to get the right angle on him. He likes to think so, he tells himself. He’d like to think that his grandad would be happy to see other people learn their history and love it as much as he did - as they both did - but Gork knows that he can’t ever really know. Gork knows how his grandfather’s stories used to tell before Gork wrote them the way he has for the world as it is now. He gulps. Loud and audibly. Gork wanted to be the last person to ever put words in his grandfather’s mouth. Gork knows that the way these stories went isn’t how the world works anymore. His vision finally returns to focus. He can see Yct’han, relaxed, smiling, waiting on his answer. At the edge of the stage, he can see Karissa, signalling him to go on, and he looks out at the crowd and sees giants there, too, but also so many more who aren’t and the room seems bigger for it. His smile falters, only slightly.

Gork sighs. “I bet he’d say I still had a lot of work to do.” Gork laughs, but quieter than before. Yct’han laughs. The audience laughs.

“No pleasing everyone, is there?” Yct’han adds. “But no good story can, can it?”

Gork smiles, but smaller than before. “No, I don’t think one can.”

#word count:1600 #whoops im gettng bad at getting these up on friday but this was pretty close right

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chuchoose · 5 years ago

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ive started reading the online mtg stories can you guess my favourite character #01

“You? hunt me? a Vine Walker of the Henge?”

Hunt was a strong word. The red cloaked traveler bit her tongue. She didn’t even know this one’s name, let alone that he had been tailing her, but it seemed her reputation (and her mission) proceeded her. It was bad enough she had been taken unawares, and worse that the dolt had announced himself, thereby demonstrating how ridiculous his feat of stealth truly was for him, but that he had caught her here, of all places, was the worst of all.

They stood a small clearing apart, circled by overhanging vegetation and thick trees. Before the fire mage stood the vine walker (of the Henge, apparently). A vine walker was a mage who manipulated the earth and foliage in their spells. Manipulated, she reminded herself. The fire mage twisted her face in disgust for the word. Manipulated.

“Then know death!” he howled. The vine walker must have taken her grimace as a challenge. True enough, the pyromancer thought, as the elementalist's face contorted itself into outrage and his eyes pulsed with the green glow of mana being channeled to and from the nature around him.

“Come to me, Lady of the Land, and lend me your strength. By your might, we shall rebuff this intruder with impunity.” In answer, the land quaked beneath the feet of both mages. The pyromancer, in one smooth motion, flashed one hand over her face, materializing her smooth, obsidian black battle mask in a puff of brimstone and a flash of fire, while using her other to blast a plume of flame at her own feet, flinging herself to relative safety, as the ground she had moments before stood on cracked and balled itself into a fist emerging from below, as big as an old oak was wide, before it splayed out and slammed itself into the ground from where it had emerged as if to lift its lithe and lean body of roots and dirt from the edges of an otherwise serene pool.

The pyromancer stabilized herself in the air with a cacophony of minor explosions and a magically enhanced updraft as the writhing and vaguely humanoid shape of the elemental rose, towering before her as a gargantuan and uneven woman, its fists the size of boulders and its face, a featureless tangle of nature, but radiating enough wild and ill-sculpted mana that the pyromancer could make no mistake in its summoned intention.

“Wild Mother!” the vine walker howled. “In the name of root and stone! By the strength of the Father!” The greenery that surrounded the clearing bloomed into bulbous pink blossoms that unfolded themselves into falling petals. With wide flourish, the vine walker swung his arm around in clumsy and angry arcs as the petals and leaves and grass and weeds that circled the clearing whirled within a twist of wind and mana into the shape of a long spear that formed in the elemental’s raised fist. The vine walker roared and the elemental lumbered forward with weapon poised to strike. “Destroy the heretic! Break this raze mage with all our rage!”

The pyromancer snarled. This is what she got for being ambushed in an enemy’s arena of choice, she thought. Watching the elementalist spin his arms in such a wild and ridiculous fashion for his spells only cemented her feelings for the mage further. The pyromancer hated these warlocks and deal makers and so-called wizards. They are all mere borrowers to her; only children trying to grasp at something greater that they can only hope to hold. She watched intently as the spear of solid mana hurtled ever closer in the Wild Mother’s thrust. The world to her was silent, drowned out by her focus and the perpetual chorus of explosions she had summoned to keep herself aloft, not that she cared for anything the vine walker would have to say if she could hear him. True magic belongs to those who live it, she knew. The ocean is not yours because you can cup a part of it in your hands. You are not the ocean because you drink of it. And you are especially not the ocean because you can scream and you claim it answers.

If there were any onlookers, they would have sworn that the fire mage had met her end right then and there. As the tip of the spear looked to make its impact, the mage erupted in a bloom of flame. The spear of mana caught against the impact, and the elementalist let out a victorious whoop, thinking the strike had found true, before the jerk and stagger of the impeded spear’s thrust registered for him. In panic, he redoubled his investment of mana in the construct, as the fire mage knew his short-sighted panic would impel him, but the spear’s destruction had not been her goal. Know this: mana and magic cannot be broken so easily, but that is to say nothing by the mediums with which it is conducted. The wilderness and green within the sheath of mana went up in unnatural and voluminous smoke.

The fire mage knew she would have only moments to act. This was not a concern for her so much as it was her reminding herself how much time she had to do what she wanted to next. The smokescreen would not hinder the elemental, for it did not see, but moved with the ripples within the lines of ley and its weaves. No, the smoke was so the vine walker knew not what spell he would need to beg to his Wild Mother for next. Rather than allow him his insipid cries to the thing he bound and claims himself in service to, rather than have to navigate what insulting contrivance of magic he’d subject her to next, the fire mage knew that before the smoke cleared, she would only have to worry about the elemental’s devastating swings, and once that strength was answered, the vine walker would have little recourse left to him.

All of those thoughts raced through the fire mage’s mind in that moment, that singular moment, when the constant booms of fire and force that kept the fire mage airborne were superseded by the pyromancer’s own primal rebel scream, even from behind her mask, as her body coursed with the mana that poured out from the very center of her being. Then, in a roar of explosions in overlapping clamour, the pyromancer shot out like a lightning bolt shrouded in cinder and smoke. The Wild Mother’s other arm swung wide in recovery and recompense of its first repelled blow and missed while the pyromancer raced and twisted around the elemental’s arm and spear in jagged and short lines of violent flight, then down its torso and up and around what should have been its neck. The vine walker looked on in horror as the fire mage emerged from the smoke screen and scorched a path into the sky above where the smoke trailed after her until it thinned into the barest of a thread-like wisp and she took it within her grasp and pulled with all the force her flight magic could afford. The elemental’s encircled arm jerked towards the sky, screeching in indecipherable rumblings of stone and protest as parts of its earthen form fell away from beneath the smoky binds cutting into its earthy flesh. The fire mage fumed, flared in a pulse of fire and mana, and then redoubled her efforts, but instead of flying further up, tugged down, as if using a pulley. In turn, the line of smoke zagged down with her and the elemental’s arm was drawn up as it struggled and thrashed and screamed in the unknowable language magic. The elemental’s great strength, a consequence of its mass more than the mana that moved it, unsurprising of something so large and strong created in the ways a mage-in-name-only would, had been frozen in a raised arm like it meant to surrender.

The pyromancer looked down at the elementalist below whose mouth hung agape. His precious Wild Mother squirmed and clawed at its arm sluggishly as if underwater, the elementalist having marshalled mana to make it move, but now it fought against the gravity of its own unwieldy size. With a triumphant smirk unseen from behind her mask, the fire mage lit a little flame at the end of a smug thumbs-up on her free hand. The elementalist shook his head pleadingly. The pyromancer made no show of noticing, so inordinately pleased with herself as she was, before holding the flame to the thread of smoke in the other. It burned down like a slow fuse. The Wild Mother could feel the vibrations of mana from the spark ripple through the air as the fuse inched closer and closer and the Wild Mother redoubled its struggles to free itself in vain while the elementalist only looked on dumbstruck.

A tinge of regret twisted in the pyromancer’s chest as the elemental’s keening found a crack in her resolve. This is why you don’t dabble in life magic, she thought. Magic is already alive and these monsters twisted it into a form that could feel pain. For what? She cursed them all. She knew no answer of theirs could suffice.

Where the spark met the mana that made the elemental whole, the elemental’s limbs hissed and popped and fizzed before giving way to a cascade of explosions in the spark’s wake. The blasts chewed away chunks of earth and stone and wood, leaving the mana beneath bare and leaking free like a thick and oozing blood of luminous green. With each blast, the elementalist shrieked in pain as his control of the mana that made the elemental shattered and rippled through him as if each were a gut emptying punch. In moments, the whole elemental fell apart in a rain of dirt and charred vegetation. The vine walker lay motionless save the slight rise and fall of his chest with haggard breath.

The pyromancer released a satisfied sigh and descended in free fall, cushioning her landing with an updraft of hot air that rustled her cloak like a banner whipping in the wind. The elementalist looked up from the dirt, his face drenched in the cold sweat that followed the exhaustion of mana drain. The pyromancer leveled an outstretched palm at him like a cannon and conjured a roiling ball of flame in its center.

“Do you see now, pretender?” the pyromancer spat.

The elementalist shook his head weakly no, but the pyromancer cared not. She leaned in and held the fireball only inches away from his chest. The flame of her magic danced eerily across the perfect smoothness of her mask while the heat of it began to chew and smoke through the hemp and vine that made the elementalist’s garb.

“Whatever devils you made your pacts with -- whatever deals you struck so you could move the earth in our mothers’ forms -- I will burn it. From whatever spires or swamps your kin since claimed sanctum? I will cast you all out before I burn them down and you shortly after. Never again will you invoke a woman’s form for your weapons. Never again will you take our weapons and call them yours. Tell your mentors and your masters and what snivelling cowards you call your minions this when you see them next.” She pressed her hand into the vine walker’s chest and he screamed himself white before going quickly quiet. “This magic does not belong to you.”

#word count: 1900 #its chandra #no prompt

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chuchoose · 5 years ago

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this one also was not based on a prompt #02

The condensation dripped from ceiling to stone floor as if it were the dungeon’s heartbeat.

Dri-drip. Dr-drip. Dr-drip.

Bokan the goblin trap breaker scratched his head, puzzled hesitant by the mechanics of the ornate brass door standing tall and unmoving before him. The door’s design wove itself between beautiful carvings of dramatic flourish and pistons and bars that all seemed to lock and slide into each other and all came together at one great handle in the center. To Bokan’s expertise, the locking mechanisms for this door looked like complete nonsense, which he could only understand as meaning that this door was more than he could pick apart with his current knowledge. Were this some examination back at the academy, perhaps after some study and reference, he might be able to crack it, but in the field? He was alone.

“What if we just smashed it?”

Bokan sighed. Almost alone. Bokan turned to his compatriot, rippling in muscle and hides beneath her Wolf Lodge helmet. Emera the Hammer picked her teeth of what remained of their most recent meal and towered over the goblin with a carefree grin.

“Look, I get that you’re clever, but not all problems have clever solutions,” she offered. “So what if,” she said as she flicked her toothpick away and hefted her great maul from off her back, “we just smashed it.” And then pantomimed the obvious consequent.

Bokan screwed up his face into a frown. She meant well, by the cunning of Yob, she meant well. Tall folk always meant well. He shook his head and returned his attention to the door.

“How many parties do you think this door’s killed?” he asked.

Emera shrugged loudly and leaned on the haft of her hammer. It was Lilian that piped up. The green-robed elf stood tall, though she was markedly shorter than Emera, even when Emera was not standing at her full height. Lillian shifted uneasily as she fiddled with the clasp on her bag filled to the brim with both loose spell book pages and scroll cases amongst other magical knick-knacks.

“There’s no way to know,” the lore keeper said.

“Exactly,” Bokan replied. “There’s no way. All we have is this.” He pointed to the door. “This.” He pointed to the stone floor. “And this.” He pointed to the drip.

Dri-drip. Dr-drip. Dr-drip.

A long moment washed over all of them. Emera was the first to break the silence.

“You also have me!” Emera declared.

“We have you,” Bokan agreed, “but a hammer isn’t always the answer and not every nail is a question.”

“Emmy-- I mean! Emera is often an entirely serviceable answer,” Lillian said as she adjusted her spectacles, failing to hide the redness rising in her cheeks. Emera flexed proudly at the praise.

“It’s true,” Bokan agreed again, not hearing the change of pitch in Lillian’s squeaking reply, “but I don’t want to bet our lives on that more often than I have to.”

Lilian nodded, but Emera’s expression now matched Bokan’s, though for different reasons, he was sure. “But I would,” Emera said.

“And that’s what makes you good at what you do, but do remember what makes me good at what I do.”

Emera chortled, always enjoying this response. “You are very small and very clever. You are good at understanding things that are like you.”

Bokan sighed, as he always did at this, because she wasn’t wrong. He fidgeted with his jerkin in impatience. “And what else?”

“Because you can point to a door, the floor, and some dripping water.”

Bokan rolled his eyes, as was custom in this exchange. “Close enough.” Bokan paced around the landing before the door while talking. “So look, let’s start with what we have and then we can move on to what we don’t. The door’s made of brass, right?”

“Ferrous, of iron,” Lillian chimed.

“Means it holds heat and lightning. But look at the door: no wear or deformation, so nothing’s running through it. Look at the floor: no scorch; no sizzle. Maybe the trap’s magical, but mechanical? No sign of alchemy for lightning or flame. Then the drip.”

“Depth, maybe from condensation? So from cold to hot? Or maybe it’s just wet here? The temperature doesn’t feel different here than the rest of the dungeon; neither more nor less humid.”

“Right, so is there a difference in temperature on the other side? If so, why? We don’t know. And then back to the door. Lillian: confirming the door didn’t ping for you, right?”

“Exactly right. No spells detected.” Bokan loved when Lillian and he got to talking shop. Emera groaned, as she always did when the two dungeoneering scholars got to talking this way, and took a few practice swings with her namesake hammer in the door’s direction.

“So lack of magic confirms it’s mechanical, especially given the door’s appearance, but look: the floor has no scrapes or scratches, nor any of the other stones around us. There’s no slideaways, trapdoors, or kill holes and if the door has no magical properties to hide those things, thank you, again, Lillian, what does the door even kill you with? Can a trap be neither magical or mechanical? And that’s not even getting back on the topic of the dripping!”

“I’m sorry?” Lillian asked.

“It’s driving me up the wall.”

Dri-drip. Dr-drip. Dr-drip.

Emera snorted. Lillian sighed.

“So what does it all mean?”

Bokan turned back to the party and they all exchanged pensive looks. Bokan, exacting in self-serious intensity; Emera, the gears in her head visibly turning on her face as she mouthed her logic to herself quietly; Lillian, her eyes shut tight as she quietly recalled all of the information piece by piece in silence while plumbing the depths of her studies for some morsel of applicable knowledge that could divine just what in the Wild this door could be protected by.

Emera snapped her fingers in revelation. “That means the door’s safe! It’s just a fancy door!”

Lillian groaned, but Bokan returned his attention to the door again. “Unless that’s another part of the trap.”

They all hmmed in unison.

“I suppose there’s no way for us to know for certain,” Lillian said.

“There never really is,” Bokan admitted. “The Trap Breaker’s Credence: we can only assume.”

“What if the door’s a mimic?” Emera wondered.

Bokan shook his head.

“If you think like that, then you’ll start thinking everything’s a shapeshifter,” Lillian said. “What if the floor is a mimic? The walls? What if our clothes are mimics? It would never end.” The thought sent a shiver up Lillian’s spine. She reached out for Emera’s hand and Emera took it with a reassuring squeeze. Lillian wrapped herself around Emera’s trunk-like arm in kind.

“Okay, fair,” Emera began, stroking Lillian’s long hair smooth as it bunched against her arm, “but I only think things are mimics when it doesn’t make sense for things to be where they are and you’re all making it sound like this makes no sense. More than usual, I mean, given the way you two are.”

Bokan laughed. Lillian laughed. Emera laughed. The dripping stone and the door laughed, too.

Dri-drip. Dr-drip. Dr-drip.

Bokan blinked. Lillian’s jaw dropped. Emera unfurled Lillian from her arm and hauled up her huge hammer in preparation for a swing. “I love being right,” Emera sing-songed as the star-metal head of her maul crashed into the center of the door. The door mimic crumpled into a pile of squirming pseudopods and faux-metal beneath the hammer’s weight. The salivating ceiling mimic immediately sprouted scrabbling claws and began to scurry away from the party the opposite way. Bokan brandished a throwing knife as Lillian produced a wand from her pack and it sparked arcane before wrapping the mage’s arm in a sheath of magical, arcing electricity that she tamed with her arm’s gentle gyration. Bokan and Lillian glared at each other for a moment before their gaze was broken by Emera rushing between and past them. Emera yanked a smaller throwing hammer from her belt, let it fly, missed, and cursed, seemingly all at once, with her great maul cradled over shoulder as she made chase. The goblin and elf growled at each other and ran off after the warrior, flinging knives and spells at the fleeing shapeshifter as they went.

#word count: 1390

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chuchoose · 5 years ago

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I didn’t use a prompt for this one and now I don’t know what to call it #01

The wizard sank to his knees, his legs having finally given way. He will die here, he thought. Rather, he would die here, were it not for this infernal curse. He swayed with the sirocco winds that buffeted him seemingly from all angles. His hands twitched in old practice, trying to summon old arcane threads that had long since gone barren. The hum of the world rang in his ears but he could no longer find an answer to it in himself. All he could find was that his heart felt weak, like it had barely a beat at all. All he could find was that his breathing was shallow, like his lungs had withered. Then he could find nothing, as his vision darkened and the wizard collapsed face first into the sand while dreaming he would not wake up this time.

When the wizard’s eyes fluttered awake, he was greeted not by the desert sun pounding into them, but the cool shade of tarp and tent. His whole body ached and burned and seethed. The wizard tried to crane his neck forward to see what had become of his form, but the stabbing pain in his neck convinced him otherwise. He groaned and let his head fall back into the thin pillow beneath it. It was more comfort than he deserved, he thought.

The tent’s flap cracked open. Whoever had peered in was too short for the wizard to see from where he lay. As the tent’s flap fell closed, the wizard was able to pick out the sound of tiny footfalls on sand and a young voice calling out, “Dad! He’s awake!”

It was only a few moments later when a hulking man came into the tent. He was wrapped entirely in loose white fabrics faded by the sun and sand and he towered over the wizard flat on his back. Dusting off his hands with two loud claps, the wide-shouldered and well-muscled man began to unravel his travelling clothes. He removed his head cover to reveal a handsomely chiseled jaw, and his robes held tight around his shoulders to frame his rippling, sun-kissed chest. His face seemed perpetually in beaming and warm smile with the smile lines to prove it.

He gave a loud huff as fathers do when getting up from a comfy seat or falling into one, folding his legs into a crouch on the cool sand next to the wizard. The man leaned over to pick up a nearby mortar and pestle that looked small in his great hands, and began crushing something.

“Good morning, traveller.”

The wizard thought the man had meant to whisper, but it seemed a man of such stature was not well versed in something so diminutive.

“Happy to see you wake, though, I must say, you chose an interesting place to rest. I was surprised to find you still breathing when Lu brought me to you.”

The wizard made to reply, but he forgot himself. Only a dry rasp escaped his withered lips.

The man clapped a palm against his forehead. “Right! Of course!” He pulled a waterskin from the folds of his robe. He popped the cap and held it gently to the wizard’s lips. The water felt coarse, as did everything in this desert, but he was refreshed all the same. When the waterskin was pulled back, the wizard smacked his lips. His saviour looked on expectantly.

“Thank you,” the wizard said.

Relief washed over the man’s face as he replaced the waterskin into his robes. He picked the mortar up and returned to crushing whatever was within. The fragrances that blossomed from the mixture smelled much too sweet for this desolate place.

“Think nothing of it!” the man boomed. “In the Burning Seas, good people have to look out for each other! The desert surely won’t!”

The wizard’s face dropped at this. Lower than it normally was, somehow. He focused on a single phrase. Good people, he thought. Good people have to look out for each other. The wizard turned to the giant of a man. “... Your name?” the wizard asked.

Again, he clapped a hand to his forehead. “My manners! Apologies! I am Bo’lu, a merchant. In name, at least.” The edges of Bo’lu’s smile dropped slightly at this, before he managed to find his smile again. “But my friends call me Bo.”

“I am…” The wizard’s voice caught and Bo reached into his robe to produce his waterskin again. The wizard shook his head, slight though it was, and Bo returned to crushing. “I am Andar.”

“Andar!” Bo laughed without looking up. “You have a wizard’s name!”

They both went still.

“You’re a wizard!”

Andar couldn’t help the smirk that escaped at the edge of his lips for Bo’s surprise. Andar nodded, again, slightly. Bo stopped crushing. He stared in awe for a long moment, mouth agape. He laughed. “By the Sun and Sand, I never thought I’d meet a wizard. What’s such a learned fellow like you doing out so far and so weathered?”

The question was innocent, without the venom Andar normally heard in them, but he winced all the same. Recognition flashed across Bo’s face.

“I’ve misspoken! Please put the question from your mind.” Bo finally set the pestle aside and dipped a pair of fingers into the freshly crushed salve. It shimmered green on his fingertips and smelled of honeys and fruit. Andar should have recognized the scents immediately. Goes to show how long and far he has wandered from his studies. Andar knew of this healing balm and knew it was a potent mixture. But... daggerfruit doesn’t grow anywhere near the Burning Sea and finding an ember hive in the dunes was nearly impossible, even for the most skilled wayfinders.

“Where… did you procure the ingredients for this…?”

“Do not worry. I found them so they would be used.”

Andar bit his lip at this. Bo’s kindness would cost him and Andar could not stand for it (figuratively, but also, he supposed, literally). Heat in Andar’s body swelled, and his voice along with it. “I cannot let you use such fine things on a soul so wretched as me.”

“Nonsense,” Bo chided as he leaned in to rub the balm onto Andar’s chest. “Wretched,” he chuckled. “You are no more wretched than -” Andar mustered all the strength he could and grabbed Bo’s wrist to stop him. Andar’s whole arm flared with pain to do so, but he did it. It was foolish, though, he realized. Even if the Burning Sea had not almost destroyed him, made his whole body scream to do what little in this moment, Bo was a hardier and stronger man than Andar had ever been. Andar couldn’t have stopped Bo on his best day without his magic and how far away were his good days now?

Regardless, Bo relented. He fell back onto his folded legs. His eyes dropped and his smile fell. “I am sorry. I did not mean to touch you without your permission.”

Andar felt his cheeks flush and his guts turn. That wasn’t it, the wizard thought. Far from it, but that wasn’t something he could so easily say. Instead, Andar released Bo’s wrist.

“Y-your kindness flatters me,” Andar mumbled

“No.” Bo shook his head. “I was too forward and presumed too much. Please, let me use this balm on you. Your burns are severe and the sand has ravaged you. It will help you feel better. If not, I can leave it at your side so you may apply it yourself when you are feeling more capable.”

Andar gulped. “I-it’s alright,” the wizard stammered. “I know this admixture. It is most potent when fresh. Please help me apply it.”

Bo nodded. Solemnly, quietly, he dipped his fingers into the green paste and pressed the balm into Andar’s chest. The salve was cool to the touch and he couldn’t help but shiver. That was the daggerfruit’s numbing effects, Andar convinced himself. As Bo spread the salve around, he lifted the folds of Andar’s robes, too, so that even the areas at the edge of the fabric’s protection were soothed. Bo then rubbed the balm into his own palms and wrapped them around Andar’s arms and legs, being sure to neglect not an inch of Andar’s flesh that had been exposed to the elements. Andar couldn’t stop thinking about how big Bo’s hands were and how small he felt in them as they wrapped around his body one limb at a time.

The balm’s effects were taking full effect. His whole body seemed to loosen and feelings besides burning returned all over. Now he only ached. He clenched and unclenched his fingers and curled and uncurled his toes. He tried to push himself to sit up, but his arm gave way underneath him and he toppled backwards only slightly before Bo caught him in his python-like arms. The rest of Bo’s robe fell away in the sudden motion, exposing his rippling chest in its entirety. By reflex, Bo had pulled Andar close to help keep him righted, and now Andar could feel his own breath warm against Bo’s chest. Gently, Bo released Andar from his embrace and left his hand with fingers splayed wide on Andar’s back to help the wizard stay upright. Again, Andar’s face flushed bright red.

“Are you alright?” Bo asked, worried. He held his other hand to Andar’s forehead. “You look red, but your temperature seems normal.” Andar began to feel dizzy and he pitched over only to be caught by Bo again. Gently, still, Bo replaced Andar onto his back, making sure his head landed softly on the thin pillow. “Maybe it is best you lie down. Build your strength.”

Andar nodded. Perhaps that would be best. “Thank you,” Andar rasped.

Bo blinked in surprise. He pulled his robes back up and produced his waterskin to offer Andar. Andar nodded and Bo held the waterskin to his lips again. “You need not thank me. I did only what anyone else would.” Bo capped the water and put it away. “Rest. Be well. We can figure out how to help you get where you need to go once you are better.” Bo rewrapped his fabrics and left.

Not long after, the tent flap opened again. This time, however, Andar managed to crane forward enough to see the little visitor. The little boy stared at Andar with wide eyes from between the folds of his child-sized travelling robes. Andar fell back onto the pillow and he could hear the flap close and tiny footfalls on sand approach him. He turned his head sideways and stared up at the boy, not as great in stature as Bo, but everyone towered over Andar in this state. The little boy pulled his head wrapping down to reveal a little nose and full cheeks. Though Bo had said he was a merchant in name only, his party seemed well-fed. What little business they did must pay well enough.

The little boy probably had no such considerations, however. The only thing on the little boy’s mind was easy to identify by the starry eyed stare now fixed on Andar. “... Are you a wizard?” the boy asked.

Slowly, Andar nodded. The awe that had stricken Bo’s face recreated itself in miniature on the boy’s. “My name’s Lu. My dad’s the one who carried you here.”

Andar imagined his body limp in Bo’s arms and he felt his whole body tingle. The balm’s effects must still be going strong, he lied. “Your father is Bo’lu?”

Lu nodded. “He says everyone just calls him Bo, though.”

Andar nodded. “That’s what he told me, as well.”

“That makes sense.”

They were quiet. Lu just kept staring at Andar like a beast in the Secret Keep’s menagerie, but it was a look he had long grown accustomed to while travelling.

Lu shakes his head. “Sorry, my dad says it’s rude to stare.”

“It’s alright.”

“I’ve never seen a wizard before.”

“Not many have.”

“Can you do magic?”

Andar makes a fist, trying to feel the tension of the arcane threads at his fingertips, but they stayed slack. He listened for the hum of the world and it was a tune he knew, but not one he could answer. “Sometimes,” Andar eventually answered.

“How come?”

“Lu!” It was Bo’s voice. Andar was quietly grateful to have lost the child’s attention.

“Dad?” Lu called back.

Bo poked back in through the tent’s flap. Beneath his fabrics, Andar could sense Bo’s frown. “Leave the nice man to his rest, son. When he’s feeling better, maybe you can talk with him then.”

Lu nodded and turned back to Andar. “Sorry to bother you,” Lu replied sullenly.

“It was no bother at all. Thank you for the company.”

“Any time!” Lu’s face picked itself up back into a smile and the boy ran over to his father and slipped around him with ease. Bo pulled down his face cover enough so that Andar could see he was mouthing the words ‘thank you’ before replacing it and chasing after his son.

Andar sighed and stared up at the tent’s ceiling. Truly, this was much nicer than he deserved.

---

Andar had been left alone for the rest of the day. When nightfall came, Andar had strength enough to bring himself back up to his feet. He tested his weight on each leg. The balm really was very strong. He felt now as if he hadn’t spent a single day in the Burning Sea. He felt as good as new. Andar clenched his fist and felt nothing he was looking for. Almost as good as new, he corrected.

Slowly, he tipped open the tent’s flap. The camp was quiet. He looked out a circle of tents all facing inwards to a long since extinguished fire pit. Some tents had the glow of lanterns and candles peeking out from within, but there were no people to see. Few could handle the freezing nighttime temperatures of the Sea.

This was convenient for Andar, of course, and by design. He had waited until he heard what sounded like the last of the camp retire to the safety and warmth of their tents before he had made his move. He heard the occasional shifting of sand, but whether that was the wind on the dunes or the restlessness of sleepers was all the same to him, because neither would stop him.

Andar wrapped his tattered robes tight around his chest and stole away into the night. He was used to this, he thought. He knew how little protection his robes provided. He had lost count of how many days and nights he had wandered through these sands to know that this night would be no easier than any other. The desert does not care that it almost killed you. It does not care that you survived. The desert only is, and the desert is without malice as much as it is without compassion.

He had travelled too far and long, however, when he finally heard the tiny footfalls in the sand behind him over the cold desert winds and he felt his stomach drop. Andar froze. He turned. There was little Lu plodding after him. Then Lu tripped into the sand face first. Andar raced back to help Lu up, but he had already righted himself before he got there. “Little one,” Andar began. “You should not be here.”

“N-neither should you,” Lu chattered back from behind chittering teeth. The boy was shaking like his whole body was a guitar string plucked. The boy’s robes may be well suited for the heat, but the cold desert nights were a different song entirely.

Andar scooped up the boy in his arms and held him tight to his chest. He wrapped as much of his robe around the boy as he was able. “You’re right,” Andar breathed, the cold cutting through him even worse now that he had opened his robe to let the boy in. “Let’s get us back to your father.” And so they made their way back, but each step took everything Andar had. Tonight somehow seemed colder than every night before it. He could feel his heart beating fast, but the rest of him felt too slow. He didn’t know how much farther they had to get back to the camp. Then his step faltered. He fell forward and took a knee, struggling to stay righted. The horror of the thought dawned on him: he was going to die here. Or he would, were it not for the curse, except this time he wasn’t alone, and this time, if he died here now, it wouldn’t be only him who would pay the price.

But what else could a dying man do? His chest felt tight. His breathing was sharp. His vision was as dark as the night sky around him. He keeled over to protect the boy from as much of the elements as he could. As his consciousness faded, he could only just barely hear the sound of heavy footfalls in the sand and Lu’s cries to his father.

---

When Andar awoke, he stared up not at the desert night sky, but the cool shade of tarp and tent. He had been wrapped tightly in furs and fabrics and was now sweating profusely under the ambient heat of the desert around him, despite how cool the tent kept him. His whole body felt stiff, but warm, and, if he were being honest, safe, until a snore like a thunderstorm had gotten stuck in a scroll case shook him from the reverie. Andar turned to see Bo slouched against one of the tent’s support poles, his son wrapped in his arms on his lap. As Andar shifted under the weight of the furs, Bo stirred awake. He wiped the sleep from his eyes and released a great yawn.

“G’morning, traveller,” Bo said mid-yawn. Bo gave him a weary and tired smile. “Happy to see you wake, though, I must say, you chose an interesting place to rest.”

Andar sat upright and shrugged a few of the heavier furs off his shoulders.

“Bo, I apologize; I didn’t know Lu was following me-” Andar began, but Bo cut him off.

“Lu already told me what happened. It’s not your fault that Lu leaps before he looks, but I want to know what would possess someone in your condition to try and wander the Burning Sea at night. To do so is a death sentence by most caravans and you walked it of your own choosing.”

Andar went quiet. Meekly, he mumbled, “It is because of my condition.”

“I’m sorry?” Bo’s voice rose, the confusion at its edges tetting with frustration. He didn’t get it. How could he?

“What do you know of the wizard Andar? What do you know of wizards?”

Bo was silent. Bo’s first reaction to Andar’s identity said that they both knew he didn’t know much.

Andar continued. “Wizard names are an inheritance, as you may know, passed down from mentors to students who carry on the study of the generation before.” Bo nodded. This he knew. “Do you know the study of the Andars?” Bo shook his head. “We are cursed with eternity, good merchant. We cannot die. We study the line between life and death.”

The words hung in the air like daggers trained on both of them. Andar could tell Bo was piecing it all together in his head, understanding better now how Andar had acted when he had first come to. He closed his eyes tightly as the realization of what his kindness cost him.

“I’m sorry,” Andar whispered. “Truly. I did not mean to accost you, inconvenience your business, or put your son in harm’s way. You must understand-”

Bo raised an arresting finger and Andar’s words sputtered quiet. He stroked his chin in contemplation, and Andar saw his hug around his son with his remaining arm tighten. Bo took two long, deep breaths. Finally, he asked, “If Andars can’t die, how did you receive the name?”

Andar screwed his face into a tight lipped grimace. “He asked me to take it,” he began as tears welled in his eyes, “He asked me and - and I wanted to help. I am - was - a doctor; I wanted to make the pain go away. There was nothing else I could do for his aging; no magic that could undo time, and… he asked me to…” His voice caught in quiet sobs. “I’m sorry. I let you… I should have stopped you. I should have been more careful when I left. All of this is my fault. I’m sorry. I’m - ”

Bo hushed him quiet. Bo got up from his slouch and came over to Andar, rocking Lu as he did to be sure not to wake him. He sat next Andar and put his remaining great arm around Andar’s shoulder. Bo pulled him tight while careful not to jostle Lu too much. At his touch, Andar’s tears flowed freely, and he could muster nothing but sobs and sorries and Bo just let the wizard, so small beneath his arm, cry his heart out. Bo knew apologies were more for the person making them than the people they were given to. He just kept Andar tight beneath the crook of him until his sobbing had settled into sniffles.

“... I’m sorry,” Andar repeated. “I’m really sorry.”

Bo sighed. “It’s nothing to apologize for.” Andar made to protest, but Bo just gave him a squeeze and Andar let himself be pacified by the warmth of it. “It doesn’t matter that you can’t die. You see someone in pain, you help them. You understand that better than anyone.” And Andar started crying all over again. Bo waited this out, too. It seemed Andar had spent a long time apologizing just like this, he thought. And it seemed to him that Andar had done much of his apologizing alone.

Eventually, Andar calmed down again. Now he rested his head against Bo’s chest. Slowly, Bo stroked the sandy mess that was Andar’s hair and Bo could feel a shiver make its way through the whole of Andar’s body. “Those components,” Andar murmured. “I can replace them. I can find a way to pay you back.”

Again, Bo sighs. “Kindness need not be repaid. I gave them to you willingly. You do not owe me.”

“And I return the favour willingly,” Andar pouted. “Kindness need not be repaid, but it can be repaid in kind.” Certainty returned to Andar’s voice in more strength than he had ever heard it in spite of the way it warbled post-cry.

Bo chuckled softly. The laughter made his chest bounce against Andar’s head and Andar could feel the heat in his face rise. “Well, I suppose you got me there.” Then Bo thought. “Say, how long have you been wandering the Sea? And what were you doing here? And…” Then Bo stopped, considering if there was a better way to put it. “How does magic work?”

Andar flexed his fingers that splayed across Bo’s chest, feeling for the arcane threads that tied him to the magic of the world. They felt slack until he managed a fist and the strings went taught. He relaxed his hand again. He listened, and the hum of the world seemed to soak through his chest and he almost opened his mouth to reply, but stopped himself. He smiled and felt himself sink into Bo’s embrace. He could feel the desert sun just on the other side of this tent and how it wanted to bleach his bones dead. But he also felt his heart slow, like a lullaby. He felt his breath hot, like something alive and so so far from death. His vision fluttered dark and he dreamed of waking up.

#word count: 3900 #yehaw i edited it and its still pretty whack #no prompt

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chuchoose · 5 years ago

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#FlavourAdded 01

Nothing more divine than a brilliant mind.

#FlavourAdded #i always love when orcish librarian does these #uh this week i followed my fancy a little too far in a few too many directions #so yeah you get this sort of appropriate card not in name but in colour identity #because though i am loathe to admit it i am the equivalent of an izzet goblin in terms of outputs and inputs #and perhaps i aspire to the keranosic ideal of blue red as much as i languish in niv mizzets disinterest #but also i am a goblin

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chuchoose · 5 years ago

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Bedtime

“Tell me about mom again, dad!”

“Come on, kiddo, you gotta be getting yourself to bed. Big day tomorrow.”

“Then a story about mom would help!”

Vincent, despite himself, can’t help but smile. With an “easy does it!” Vincent plops his little giggling Avaya onto the bed flailing and thrashing at the indignity of it all. She is quick to pull the covers all the way up over her head before just popping her head over them enough to shoot her father the biggest puppy doggiest eyes she can. She knows her father’s weakness.

With a quiet chuckle, Vincent tucks Avaya tightly into bed and then sets himself down on the edge of her mattress. “Well, where, oh, where to begin?”

“The one with the goats! The one with the goats!”

“How about the one with the goats?” Avaya squeals. The one with the goats it is.

And so Vincent tells Avaya how it had been just a bit over two years since they first met. Avaya adds that they first met in the forest and it was the most romantic thing ever, and Vincent laughs. It’s not how he remembers it. There was a lot more screaming and way more swords than he would have liked, but he remembers the way Dani’s sword - your mother’s sword - bloomed with radiant light when it clashed against his. Sun god this, the Light of Luna that. Your mother was an oathkeeper, Vincent reminds Avaya and Avaya immediately replies “That means she was chosen by the gods!”

Vincent looks to the moon, full on this cloudless night, through Avaya’s window and then tousles her hair. Yeah, kiddo. That means the gods loved her. Avaya annoyedly tries to flatten out her hair, protests “daaaaaaad” and all, but no sooner stares right back up at her father, awaiting the next part of the story.

Where was he? Right: a bit over two years. The goats. The goats had been disappearing. Eaten, Avaya corrects, and Vincent adds: yes, eaten. The locals were having a hard time with their livestock feeding bellies besides their own, and well, your parents, Avaya, had just been passing through. What else would an oathkeeper and her companion to do?

“So you saved the goats, right, dad? You and mom?”

Vincent lets out a soft chuckle. She knows they didn’t. It took the locals every goat they had for the pair of them to eventually track down the beast, but they eventually did. It was a total debacle. Avaya laughs at the word debacle. But yes, they tracked it all the way back to its cave, its so called lair, bursting with the bone and detritus of the locals’ livelihood. The beast, when they arrived, had been munching and chomping on all the little goat bones and all the big goat horns and Vincent turns to Avaya and remarks she looks like the kind of kid the monster might’ve gobbled up!

“Daaaaaad, I’m a kid! Not a goat!” “Well a baby goat is called a kid, kiddo.”

Avaya groans. Vincent laughs. Avaya demands her father tell the story right and Vincent concedes to such a reasonable request. So he does. Avaya hid underneath the cover at all the scary parts, like when the monster turned and roared at them and snarled and drooled. Bravely inched out from beneath them for her favourite parts, like the moment her mother’s sword, shining like the light of day on that cloudless night when the moon was bright, plunged the sword straight into the monster’s chest, turned to Vincent almost in the same breath and said so simply, as she was wont to do, “Marry me.”

And Avaya knows how the story goes after that. He leaves out that it was actually he who slew the monster because he told Avaya he would tell it right. That’s how he remembers it, at least. That’s how it looked to him.

But then a rogue yawn escapes from beneath Avaya’s covers. She pokes her head out from beneath them sheepishly.

“Sounds like someone’s about ready to be going to sleep, eh, kiddo?” Avaya just stares up at her father with those big blue eyes of hers while Vincent retucks her back into bed.

“Dad?”

“Yes, o daughter mine?”

“When’s mom coming back?”

Vincent looks to the window again. The moon just seemed so far away that night. So distant. It seemed unfair the moon be so far from the sun; that the morning must always chase the night. Vincent sighs.

“When the moon is right, kiddo. Now, come on, get some rest. Tomorrow we’re going to visit your mother’s mentor. I bet she’ll have a hundred more stories about your mom to tell.”

#word count: 785 #i wrote this while writing a character for seans strahd campaign because i was really into the character #no prompt

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