#and would've probably given a skewed perspective of the style of the story

[westywrites]

Find the Word tag

I'm finally getting a chance to go through posts I've been tagged in from the past who-knows-how-long (far too long)...

The last ones that are in recent enough memory for my activity feed to actually show me are a couple of Find the Word tags from @imbrisvastatio - thank you so much! This is my favourite tag game by far!

from one post, I need to find the words: pressing, bruise, midnight, and sunlight

from the other post, I need to find: flame, pressure, reflection, and familiar

I tried some of my other wips and wasn't having much luck, but I knew Essence of Stars (book one of The Corvine) would definitely have all these words. I'm not at all surprised to find 34 instances of "flame(s)" in draft 3 as it is now, but I was very surprised to find "midnight" only appears once and "sunlight" only twice!

Given the length of this post, I'm going to stick the excerpts with all the found words under a read-more

PRESSING

“Lennox.” It was [Avenir]. She was alright.  He stumbled forward, reaching out to her.  “Don’t touch me,” she begged, pressing further into the corner. “You shouldn’t be here.”

BRUISE (I've definitely shared this excerpt from the prologue before, but I love it, so here it is again)

In the dim light of the nearing dawn, blue-tinged shadows cast solemn hope between the graves. A raven settles on the thatched roof of the preacher’s house. Behind it, the sky is the colour of a bruise that might never heal. Silence lies heavy. The church bell is still hours from ringing its joyous call to wake the village. A town dying along with its rotten crops.

MIDNIGHT

The kid jumped, so focused on him they hadn’t noticed the others coming from the other room. They stepped back, shocked. “Mother knows you?” “Mother?” The kid didn’t seem to be using it as an affectionate term like Lennox might call her moeder. But they were far too light-skinned to be biologically related to Mevrou Geheim. They weren’t white but definitely didn’t have her midnight skin. Besides, she had never mentioned any children.

SUNLIGHT

The sharp sting of feathers across her cheek sent her tumbling backwards. A raven’s call pierced the quiet darkness. At the edge of the tear, a fox swished its tail. The raven soared after it. Cambridge opened her eyes in a shadowed alley. The golden evening sunlight was blocked by the crooked walls of the shops on either side. A round, red lantern hung above the entrance to the narrow dirt road of the market.

FLAME

Lennox hailed her as their hero. [Avenir] had never felt more like a monster.  Her own essence had turned into the very flames that haunted her. The heat in her veins was a nightmare on a leash, crying for the chance to be set free. A wildfire eating her from the inside out.

PRESSURE

“What are you doing?” [Avenir] asked, rage burning inside her. The pressure in her head and chest turned into heat. She was trapped. Her nightmares writhed in her mind. All she wanted was to leave, but she couldn’t go. “What is this?”

REFLECTION

Before her, a puddle shined bright, reflecting the stars and doubling their brilliance. [Cambridge] knelt beside it. In it, her face stared back at her. Visible. Her smile screamed joy, and she felt alive. She felt good. Happy for the first time in far too long. Her reflection smiled at her. Her cheeks were rosy from running, her lips pink against her pale white skin. She ran a hand through her long, silken hair. It shimmered in the starlight, so blonde it appeared white. The girl in the reflection looked like the princess of a fairy tale. Cambridge could imagine how Lennox might describe her.

FAMILIAR

On the other side, a shadow fell. A woman appeared, a beautiful woman with pale skin and dark hair. She was familiar somehow. Cambridge remembered sadness distilled into starlight. But when the woman smiled, her teeth were sharp.

These excerpts ended up very centred around the girls, and you know what? I'm happy with that. Avenir and Cambridge deserve the attention. And they definitely deserve more love than the plot allows me to give them.

I will tag you back @imbrisvastatio and I'll also tag @impaledlotus @lux-scriptum @ratracechronicler @muddshadow and @kaiusvnoir

No pressure at all, but if you're interested, I would love to see excerpts from your writing with the following words: brave, fear, steady, shake/shiver, and strange