#maydwc2025

[daily-writing-challenge]

DAILY WRITING CHALLENGE 2025 IS BACK!

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO USE THE ACTUAL WORD FOR THIS CHALLENGE, YOU MAY SIMPLY BASE YOUR STORY AROUND ONE OF THESE IDEAS!

Choose one or both words/ideas and write a story, drabble, poem, or anything else once a day, every day, for a week!

Tag @daily-writing-challenge so we can reblog your stories.

Write the number day/challenge somewhere on your story.

LIST CONTENT WARNINGS VISIBLY ABOVE STORY! (Use a ‘read more’ line if content gets too graphic.)

Tags that will be used: #maydwc2025,  #maydayX2025 (X=whatever number day you’re writing for), #yourtumblrurl

There will be no optional challenges for the weekly DWC’s, but please feel free to make up some of your own challenges!

The next writing challenge will be in AUGUST 2025 and last one week!

CLICK HERE FOR OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION!

Good luck and more importantly, HAVE FUN! Encourage your fellow writers and show them some love and support with likes/reblogs/comments!

We look forward to reading some amazing writing!

((Written word list below the cut))

Day 1 - May 25 Cruel, Beauty

Day 2 - May 26 Placate, Graceful Day 3 - May 27 Linger, Gaze

Day 4 - May 28 Dangerous, Tremendous Day 5 - May 29 Restless, Faith Day 6 - May 30 Negative, Relic Day 7 - May 31 Punish, Infinite

[safrona-shadowsun]

Daily Writing Challenge: May 2025

Day 1 (5/25): Cruel / Beauty

@daily-writing-challenge

It had been some time since the Harvester willed her Focus into being and given it proper attention. The summoning for the Scythe did not need words like many of her demons did. It only desired the quick offering of a soul fragment and the pulse of a thought for it, and now it hovered before her. 

Yet Safrona knew the summoning would be only half the battle. 

Unlike some animated artifacts or arsenals of dark esteem, the Scythe did not have voice, but it had personality. Some fragment of vanity contained by the soul that dared to bind and wield it before she had taken it as her own. Now it pulsed with a hot resentment at her lack of attention, braiding a spike of pain to her soul like a wicked thorn as she attempted to touch it. 

“Come now,” she chuckled tensely, wincing as she implored it. “I have been ungraciously distracted. I know. I’m terrible. I’ve let you go to waste. But my hands are yours now, yes?” She reached again at the midway apex of its grip at its hilt with no doubt, ready for another soul-spike of pain if the Scythe willed it, but the fuss had dampened with the coercion of her words and promise, allowing her touch finally without ‘retort’. It desired to be used and to be fed, in the end. 

Attending to the Scythe required not the heavy hand and spark of a blacksmith, but the gentler precision of a gemcrafter, and Safrona learned enough to make her hands useful in such things. Gently setting the Scythe in her altar’s housing that clamped the weapon in place, she properly cleaned the segmented blade that crowned it, a thick curve she then sharpened to its familiar wickedness with the delicacy of a gem grinder. 

The gems embedded to the blade’s framing were out of season, and she felt the Scythe’s rise of excitement as she unveiled the rare blasmephite to replace them. A small collection of rare gems for a rare Scythe that took its own preparation - a revelation that she planned the reworking and refitting, and only needed the time.

After some devoted work, she released the Scythe and left it to float, and felt its dark invigoration in approving pulses. A defined beauty could be given to the Scythe’s ethereal craftsmanship; she had been lucky to find such a ‘weapon’. But this was no simple tool, no sword to be swung, and no means to an end. The Scythe would protest at the ignorance to be used so and would never have given over its bonding, perhaps even choosing to remain lost to time. It was crueler, hungrier than any simple blade, and unmerciful by design as a Warlock’s arsenal tended to be.

And the sinfully vain performed so much better when they felt especially Pretty.

[lilyofporcelain]

DWC - 26 May - Day 2 - Placate / Graceful

She didn’t know how long they’d been standing out there in the early hours of the morning. The sun had not yet begun to rise, there was no paying witness to the spread of dawn as the world was splashed in light and colour. At least not yet. For as much as she had oft found herself in situations where she simply wanted time to stop, she wondered if this was one of them. A part of her did. If time stopped, they could simply stand there together in silence for… forever. She’d never have to say anything. She’d never have to start diving into the complicated mess that her heart and its contents truly was. But in the moment of their silence, however long that might have been, it was perfect.

…Wasn’t it?

Would have been if it weren’t for the knotting apprehension that was eating and chewing and consuming Laeynna’s insides. Was it noticeable? Probably not. She had, for years, become accustomed to simply holding everything inside of herself. That had, of course, done terrible things to her. Everyone else did too, though, didn’t they? Wasn’t that just a normal thing people did? Bottle everything up, never let it out, just slowly and slowly grow more resigned and angry and upset. She was almost positive that was virtuallythe definition of being one of their kind. She’d always had such a grim way of looking at it all, though.

Peridot gaze carefully flicked to her right just in time to watch fishing line and lure hit the surface of the water. The sound she heard first, breaking into her self-perceived silence, and she watched as ripples started small and grew larger and larger. People were like that a little, weren’t they? Like ripples. They all started as a singular, individual piece on the playboard in the cosmologically vast thing called ‘life’ and over time and circumstance, that piece became more than it was.

Today, you are more than you were yesterday, and thus for you, my love continues to grow. Tomorrow, you will be more than you are today and thus for you, my love shall continue to grow.

The words echoed between her ears and though she tried to ignore it, she felt the cold stab of her worry, wrapped into a single grand mass. Its clutches pressed along the small of her back, like sharp fingers that grappled along her. Pulling, pulling, pulling. Where was it going to take her? She didn’t want to see. The flutter of panic began to rise from her insides. The intensity of her breath, which had been nothing at all, suddenly shifted—quickening and just as sharp as the touch had been.

“I can’t imagine you invited me out here to just stand around in silence.” There was the telltale adjust of her posture and the soft leathers she was donning on the very dark morning. “On the other hand, it’s you we’re talking about, so that might be your intention after all.”

“Sorry—” Laeynna’s response was almost immediate. It felt practically like a muscle memory, words sitting on the tip of her tongue. Yet, it was stupid to think that ‘sorry’ was going to fix anything. Especially when it came to her life’s reflection. All of the feelings that had begun to swell to something she wouldn’t be able to control were hastily wrapped up and shoved further deep into the darkest parts of her person. “Of course I did not invite you along to say… nothing. I just… I have not known what to say. I keep thinking about it. For days now before this one, I went through all of the words I could use and none of them feel right. I thought perhaps I could practise what I wanted to convey, but even that—”

“It’d be really impersonal if you did that,” her sister chimed in, a hint of amusement in her thin voice. “I get it. I do. But instead of trying to be perfect, why don’t you just… I don’t know. Be you. It doesn’t have to be an art piece. It doesn’t have to be grand. It doesn’t even have to make that perfect sense that you seem to be obsessed with. You’re not being evaluated, Laeynna. Not everyone is going to do that. Maybe relax a little.” Ankalei lifted a hand and she gestured out to the lake in front of them, crystal blue clear water that they could see right down to the bottom of, teeming with fish. “The fish are definitely relaxed. Do your best fish impression.”

The characteristic gentle furrow of her brow ensued and Laeynna looked between her twin and the water indicated. “...Glub… glub?” she asked somewhat dumbly as her lips scrunched up into what she imagined a fish mouth’s might have.

She was rewarded with a laugh and it echoed in the quiet otherwise around them. “That’s pretty good, actually. ‘Glub glub’ indeed.” Grinning, with the same hand, Ankalei motioned for her to continue. “Humour’s a pretty good start. Use that energy. It’ll help you get out everything that you feel like you need to get out. And—” As she looked over to Laeynna, her blue eyes found her counterpart’s with ease. “If it’s too hard, don’t rehash it.”

Laeynna simply stared at her for a moment or two, the similar dumbfounded expression drawn across her fae-like features. Then she moved her gaze back onto where her fishing line met the water, untouched by the lake’s plethora of denizens. An idle thought rolled around in the back of her mind about having brought the wrong bait, but it was merely a moment before it was replaced with the matter at hand. Drawing in a deep breath, her thoughts still spun, continuing to wonder where she should begin. Yet Ankalei’s reminder had been needed. 

She wasn’t being evaluated. Not everyone was going to do that. She didn’t always need to stand on ceremony or expect the worst of others. Like so many of her other habits, it was going to be another difficult one to overcome.

The same breath released and Laeynna struggled to find her voice, a gentle little waver in her tone, as if she hadn’t quite committed herself to the words just yet. “I took everything from you.”

“Laeynna—”

“Please,” the dark-haired elf began. “Let me say this in my way. It is the only way I know how to.” From the corner of her eye, she could see her sister wearing a somehow softer, gentler pull of her expression. If she was distracted from her thoughts too much, she wondered if she’d still have the courage to continue. “I… took everything from you. I wish… I wish I knew why I did it. I have spent years thinking and thinking and thinking about it. It is not something I can undo. I wish that I could, Ankalei. There are… so many things I would... if I could… go back and do differently. But there is nothing in my life I regret more than what I did to you. I wish that I could give you my life.”

She shook her head, shaken breath falling out of her, and she could just scarcely feel the gentle tremor in her arms, as if the weight of her fishing pole was daring to become too much for her to endure. It was not… grand or over the top. As her sister had said, maybe it didn’t need to be. Maybe all that was needed was for her to be straight forward and honest. Both of them could go over everything with a fine-tooth comb, but what good would that really do? That was then and this was now.

Her sister was quiet, undoubtedly thinking in her own way about how to approach the matter. Perhaps surprised, even, that Laeynna had been willing to take the sisterly advice she’d gotten. Still housing that gentle smile, however, there was sincerity, a warmth of older days, and a sadness all combined into one, showing that even a curve of the mouth was not always as simple as it appeared to be. Nothing in life seemed to be, really. Complexities abound.

“I know,” Ankalei finally began, her weight shifting from one foot to the other, causing the moist dirt beneath her boots to adjust as well. “I know that you regret it. I know… that things have changed a lot. For both of us. And I know that you worry. Not just about what happened that day or how I’m handling it, but about everything.” When she looked over to Laeynna, she shook her head, “You don’t need to worry so much. Unless you’ve got a miniature member of the Bronze that you’re carrying around in your stuff—highly unlikely—you don’t need to get caught up in trying to revisit the past.”

Her hand lifted, covered in ashen colour, damaged nails from normal wear and tear and her poor habits when she lived, and she gestured around them. The forest, in its perpetual autumn, was beautiful. Trees of plated gold and licking flames of orange and red, creating canopies that looked as royal as the growing reconstruction of their fair city.

“We all want to do things differently,” she continued, then. “All of us. We can’t and we begrudgingly accept that. Because we can’t, it’s important to do the best within our ability each day.” As she began to reel in her line, her chin dipped. “None of us can live in the past. We shouldn’t. The present and the future are in front of us. Maybe not the way we envisioned, but that doesn’t make it any less worthy a present and future to experience. You get what I’m saying, Laeynna?”

Laeynna watched her sister finish retrieving her line. As Ankalei set down her pole, nice and orderly, she gestured to her twin and it didn’t take long for her to pick up the hint. Following in suit, she accepted their loss of fish with what elegance she could, and in the minutes that came after, her pole sat with the other. She joined Ankalei in the grass not far from the lakeshore and as they sat, Ankalei offered her lap, guiding her sister’s head of sable hair to it.

As Ankalei began to carefully card her fingers through the ends of dark hair, Laeynna felt a soft little lump form in her throat, something she tried to swallow down, though it did nothing and she was unsurprised. “...I do,” she agreed. “I have been living in the past for a long time. For so long that sometimes… I forgot what it was like to live in the present.”

“I know,” Ankalei reassured her with the same gentle smile. “Sometimes I’m like that, too. For a long time I thought the only place for me in the world was the Order. Thought if I couldn’t make it there, there wasn’t a point to anything. But uh… that’s not really true. You know that guy, from the clinic. Shit—what’s his name. Veilos? I don’t even call him that.”

“Veilos Dai'goa.”

“That’s the one. Right.” Ankalei carefully shifted the way Laeynna’s hair framed her face in its overabundance of waves and… well. Length, in general. It practically drowned her lap as she was really looking at it. “I don’t remember the exact wording he used, but there was a night a bunch of us were sitting in one of the city’s taverns. All around a table. Well—most of us anyway. He brought up a good point. That in my case, I don’t have to be just a soldier. Wasn’t just him, either. Everyone there had good guidance.”

A pause ensued where ordinarily a breath might have been taken. Ankalei emulated the sensation, but even Laeynna knew that it was only an emulation. Something to make her seem like she was one of the living. Maybe habitual or a subconscious reaction made by the company she kept.

Laeynna nodded slowly as she looked up to her sister, “I… noticed that. I mean, that they are…” Awkwardly she paused and then she smiled somewhat sheepishly, light and subdued, as if she was afraid to let it become anything more. “They are good people. I like them a lot.”

“...Hm. Look at that,” her twin looked fond then. “You admitting that you like people.” In a way, her tone had betrayed just a tint of jest, but then, there was a subtle shift in her expression to something a touch more serious. Thoughtful. “I don’t think you realise it, but you’ve changed since you met them. The clinic. The bakery. I’ve been watching you for a long time. You aren’t the same person. You’re more than you were.”

Laeynna felt uncertain then. Conflicted. Not because of the notion that her sister had been looking after her, but because as ever when something like praise entered the situation, she didn’t know how to handle it. Instinct told her to refuse, to shove it elsewhere, and perhaps to pretend she’d never heard it to begin with. Compliments about her person were still difficult to hear and just as difficult to accept.

“...Mayhaps,” she finally agreed with a quiet little sigh. It wasn’t exactly acceptance, but it was something like it. Better than nothing considering she had often protested otherwise or used less than shining words to describe her person.

“Bet you’re wishing Andy was here, huh? He’d probably lighten everything up with some of that humour of his.”

Even as Ankalei’s face broke into a grin, Laeynna’s expression nearly darkened. She tried so hard to avoid him coming up into conversation. Just days before, Junarra had shown to the bakery dressed as him and Laeynna had felt so emotionally conflicted that in one moment, she wanted to laugh because the notion was so incredibly sweet and then in the same breath, she’d nearly burst into tears. For all she wanted to answer, she couldn’t bring herself to use words to do so. Instead, her gaze moved off of the twin who leaned over her and back onto the surface of the lake, thinking it was so much more still than her insides were.

“Yeah… That’s what I thought,” Ankalei observed with a slow nod. “When’s he coming back?”

Laeynna shook her head, “I hardly know. He—” For a moment, they stopped in her throat, trapped by that lump that had formed their previously. Was it her imagination or had it grown? “He has not written me since he left. I write to him and receive nothing. Does he even get my letters? Does he even want to?” He wouldn’t have abandoned Rags and that she knew. Did it mean, then, that something had happened? Maybe he’d realised in his absence away just how unworthy she was of him. Maybe he’d realised in their time apart that he hadn’t loved her. Or he’d simply fallen out of love with her. Out of sight, out of mind, no? Her hands lifted and as she felt her expression contort and twist, she covered her face to hide behind.

“Hey, hey—” Ankalei stopped fiddling with her hair and she reached down to touch her sister’s hands. “Hey, it’s okay. Come here. It’s okay.” Helping guide Laeynna up from where she withdrew into her proverbial shell, she pulled her twin into her arms and embraced her tightly.

I miss him so much. The entire world feels dark without him here.

Every time he got mentioned, she was afraid she’d start crying. She felt like she kept lying, though in reality, she didn’t have the answers. Didn’t know how long he was going to be gone for. Didn’t know how he was doing. Didn’t know if he’d gotten himself into danger. Didn’t know if he’d come back in one piece. And the more time she spent thinking about it, which she did plenty of in her solitude, the more she worried and the more she expected the worst.

“I’m sorry—” she murmured into her sister’s shoulder.

Ankalei shook her head, carefully, soothingly drawing a hand up and down Laeynna’s back. “No, no,” she began. “Don’t do that. It’s not a weakness to show feelings, Laeynna.” Resting her forehead to her twin’s temple, she dropped the volume of her voice. “He’s gonna come back. I don’t know the guy well, but if you’d seen the guy I saw when he found out you were missing, you’d get it. He’s not going to let anything stand between the two of you. He’d claw his way back to you if he had to.”

Whether she knew that or not, Laeynna had to wonder. Had Ankalei seen something in him that she hadn’t? Something that she, perhaps, had been blind to? Something she’d been unwilling to let herself see? She wanted to believe Ankalei was right. Her heart wanted to believe it with such a ferocity that she almost couldn’t contain herself. But… what if she was wrong? What if she suddenly developed hope and the worst came to pass?

…She didn’t want to think like that.

As Ankalei drew back, she studied her sister carefully, taking in every feature. Guiding some of that dark hair back behind long, graceful ears, her own resolve strengthened, perhaps. Maybe in recognition that Laeynna needed someone to be her supportive tower. The role of the older twin. Ankalei had been made for that.

“I think…” she began, words betraying a depth of thought that had likely lingered and welled for some time. “Do you remember when we were younger, there was something you wanted to do. Before you got caught up in Dad’s things. Do you remember, Laeynna?” Fingertips gently bunched up tresses of dark hair and the focus of her stare sought recognition. “Remember that. The person you wanted to be.”

Held so securely by her sister, Laeynna knew what Ankalei spoke of. She’d never really discussed it at length. In fact, she’d only made mention of it once or twice and such moments had been brief.

Laeynna began to shake her head, “I… I would not even know where to begin. I am much too old to begin—”

“No. I won’t accept that,” Ankalei broke in, not giving her twin a chance to protest. “You shouldn’t either. Find a tutor. Someone you can learn from. Start reading about it. Start practising. Start studying. It’ll give you something to do.”

Freeing a heavy sigh that did nothing to relieve the weight atop her chest and her shoulders, Laeynna shook her head. “No. I… That time has passed. That possibility ended years ago. I made that impossible.”

Ankalei’s hands carefully dropped from the round face of her counterpart’s and to her shoulders. The touch there gentle until it wasn’t. She gripped, perhaps tighter than she’d meant to. Just enough for Laeynna to feel the ache in how she was held. “I didn’t die to watch you wither away, Laeynna.” With just enough force as if she could jostle her sister’s poorer thoughts out of her, Ankalei carefully shook her. “Just because you don’t want to see it doesn’t mean others can’t. Or that they won’t. I…” 

For some moments, she quieted, as if considering her approach. Then she found herself shaking her head. “Zaihne didn’t give me the details about what happened down there. But he did tell me it was serious. Based on the stories given by the others the expedition recovered, I can take a guess and I’m probably not far off the mark.” Looking her sister over again with scrutinising eye, Ankalei rested a hand along the curve of her neck, thumb passing over the throat. “I want to tell you to get looked at. That you need help. That you can’t keep trying to do everything alone. And it’s fine if you don’t want me to be involved. But if you feel like you took everything from me, the closest thing I have to having anything is you. You’re what I have left. It’s your responsibility to make sure it stays that way.”

Laeynna met her sister’s severe expression, somehow sharp and gentle at the same time, and she wallowed in muted thought. Perhaps she’d never considered it before, the idea that if Ankalei felt like she had so little, she still had her sister. She still had her life’s reflection. Regardless of how things had come to be as they were in the prominent present, they still had one another. Despite the way Laeynna had deliberately built a wall between them, no amount of running could save her from the truth. Ankalei was an animated representation of so many of her regrets, but in that same body, there was an undeniable validity to her sister’s claims. She hadn’t been the same since the City of Threads.

Dropping her glowing gaze onto her hands that somehow seemed more frail than she even knew herself to be, her insides swirled with uncertainty and a desire for the same strength and resolve that her twin wielded. She didn’t have to be Ankalei. She never had to be. She could get away with just being herself, as long as she allowed it. The only person who had stood in her way was herself.

…But how was she to begin? It all felt so daunting.

“It’s okay to be scared,” she heard her sister say. “And it’s okay not to know. But it’s not okay for you to lock yourself in this prison you’ve made.” When Ankalei took her hands, Laeynna lifted her gaze again, words on the very tip of her tongue, more protests, but she wasn’t given the opportunity to say them. Not when Ankalei continued in that authoritative voice. “You’re a botanist, Laeynna, but you’re not a flower. You’re not an experiment. You’re not a poison. Not to me. Not to Mom and Dad. Not to your friends. Not to Andy. You’re so much more than that. Than all of that.”

The sum of all of her parts, good and bad, and more.

“So you owe it to yourself more than anyone else,” Ankalei kept her trained focus with a short little nod.

“Open a book and start there. Everything else will fall into place.”

— @daily-writing-challenge

[kharrisdawndancer]

DWC May 2025 - Day 2 - Graceful/Placate - Khaeris

“You ever seen that woman so much as stumble?” The fruit merchant strolled up to the potter’s stall and made conversation, his eyes across the market alleyway and focused on the alchemical booth across from them. He groaned without notice as he leaned on the pole that held up the potter’s awning.

“Nah. Not once.” The potter leaned on her wooden counter, eyes caught on the laughing chemist.

“I saw her hop down from the top of her vardo once, like it was a damned ballet. Shoulda worn a tutu.” The apple in his hand was given a spin and a bounce for emphasis.

“I think she used to work in the ballet.”

“I watched her. She did.”

“You never went to the ballet!” The potter scoffed at her companion, giving him a disbelieving look.

“I did so.”

“All right, all right.” She soothed with a placating tone. “You went to the ballet.”

“It was swan lake. She wasn’t the principal dancer, though. Had a solo, though. And I saw her duet with the fella that’s the principal man, now.”

“I believe that. She’s too short for a principal dancer.” Her eyes narrowed, thinking about things.

“But she’s the most graceful dancer you ever saw. She’d make principal if she tried. You just can’t deny that sort of ability.”

“Since when do you know dancing?”

He puffed up again, indignant once more. “I was classically trained when I was young.”

“That was centuries ago now.”

“True.”

“Still. I guess you know more than I give you credit for, old man.” She laughed good naturedly, seeing him give her a grinning, slightly creaky, plié.

They chuckled and turned to gossip more directly with each other and both were startled when a moment later the alchemist had rushed up, breathless and beaming with her dimples charmingly deep in her cheeks. Her own customer was watching, mouth open and baffled about why he’d been so suddenly abandoned.

Befuddled, the whole gaggle of people in their section of the Bazaar morning markets, watched, as the alchemist swept into a perfectly elegant révérence bow toward the merchants. She laughed and invited him to dance with her a moment, teasing him and winking, "On Tuesdays, we wear tutus."

Khaeris and the fruit seller--and the apple--laughed and twirled together easily, and for a moment, he forgot he was old.

@daily-writing-challenge

[luminashdawnwing]

DWC May 2025 Day 1: Cruel / Beauty

"How can any of our people have given themselves over to such cruelty?" Aneyah asked. She spoke in hushed tones as she sifted through the recovered belongings of a Nightfall cultist. Theras shook his head, the rasp of whetstone on the edge of his glaive offered in reply before the younger man spoke, "Father would say they are fools who have looked too deeply into the Void. That they believe its lies, and have become something else."

The Arathi's lips turned down at their corners, fingers tracing the delicate ornamentation of the cultist's befouled tinderbox, "But he is not here, is he? Tell me what you think, Ther."

The whetstone stopped for a moment. In the weeks they had spent rooting out Order of Night activity among the Sureki remnants, the cleric had gained his trust. Only in recent days had she started calling him something so familiar, and it still caught him off guard.

"You know how a lynx gets when it gets backed into a corner? I think they're scared." The ranger added quietly, "I don't think they're doing what they're doing out of malice. I think they're just...so, so frightened."

The tinderbox flipped open, revealing a darkened shard of crystal embedded within. Aneyah shuddered, clapping it shut once more, "What fear could do this? Could..." She choked. Months had passed since Wenren's murder, but the wound was still fresh, the embers the cleric once held within her breast yet warm.

"People will do a lot to avoid facing the unknown alone. If Renilash really is approaching, like you think, Aneyah, they...probably don't have the heart to face it alone." He eyed the edge of his weapon with satisfaction and stood, placing it with great care of its rack.

"Ther? If something should happen? If I ever lack the heart to..." She rasped a sigh, her shoulders trembling with it, "Please do not let me face it alone?"

The young Dawnwing nodded solemnly, though he found himself, as often, at a loss for words.

@daily-writing-challenge

[zenithnightbane]

May DWC 2025 Day 1 - Beauty/Cruel

The greenhouse was wrapped in the gentle thrum of rain, the heavy scent of loam and oleander clinging to the warm air. Zenith stood motionless near the threshold, but he wasn’t really here, not entirely. He was lost in a memory. 

The light was softer then, warmer. The lanterns had a brighter glow, and so had his heart. Beside him moved Ladoran, sleeves rolled to the elbow, damp strands of dark blond hair falling into his eyes, a mischievous smirk always half-formed. He was holding a small pot of foxglove, examining the cluster of delicate purple bells. "Tell me something, At what point did you look at a row of deadly plants and think, ‘Yes, this will be my sanctuary’?"

Zenith didn’t look up from where he was pruning the crossing branches of some wolfsbane. His long hair was tied back, eyes focused, “They don’t pretend to be anything other than what they are. There’s honesty in that.”

Ladoran raised a brow. “And people?”

Zenith glanced up then towards his husband, meeting his gaze with that quiet intensity only the dead and those who have walked beside them carry. “People lie,” he said simply. “Even to themselves.”

Ladoran laughed, a warm sound that cut through the heavy stillness. “You’re too dramatic to be so good with plants.”

Zenith’s lips twitched into a faint smile. “That’s because you haven’t seen what they do when they’re angry.”

Ladoran stepped closer, setting the foxglove down as he knelt beside the other man. He touched Zenith’s smooth cheek lightly, grounding the moment. "You know what I see when you talk like this?" he asked, voice lower as he pressed his forehead to Zenith’s temple. "There’s a darkness around you that would make others turn away, but I find it draws me closer, like a moth to a flame. You’re beautiful. In that tragic, gothic way.”

Zenith turned to face him fully, something tender and unguarded crossing his expression. “You’re the only one who’s ever said that like it was a good thing.”

Ladoran smiled. “It was never not a good thing.”

The greenhouse hummed around them with quiet life while rain continued to trace its paths down the glass above. Between the rows of poisonous bloom, a serenity settled, strange and private. Cruel perhaps, to any other eye, but to them, this was peace.

That was then.

Now, Zenith stood alone. The memory slipped back into the shadows as he ran a gloved hand gently along the matured foxglove, its color more vivid than ever. “Still thriving,” he murmured, the faintest smile at the scarred edges of his lips. “You’d like that.”

And though the plants did not answer, the air around him seemed to pulse softly with presence, alive and listening.

@daily-writing-challenge

[themidnightleo]

DWC - Day 1: Cruel/ Beauty

The Man in the Mirror

How long had it been now—months? Time no longer moved forward; it bled. The ache remained, crawling beneath his skin like rot, and with it came the slow erosion of care. He no longer bothered to maintain the elegance he once demanded of himself.

Leo sat in front of the mirror, in the room he shared with his best friend, GiGi. They had spent more time together lately, but even that comfort couldn’t reach the hollowed-out place inside him. He stared at the reflection in silence.

What looked back at him was not the man he once was.

Tired. Unkempt. Drained of all luster. The refined image he’d once guarded so fiercely had collapsed into something raw and unfamiliar. The past few weeks had been an endless theater of pretending—charming smiles, careful posture, polite conversation. But behind closed doors, this was who he had become.

He leaned closer to the glass, pulling at his skin, grimacing at the sight. “Pathetic. Hideous. Worthless.” The words rolled from his tongue like venom—an incantation of self-loathing. He’d begun to repeat them daily. They were a lullaby for the creature inside his chest, the one that twisted and stirred, hungry for ruin.

It wanted out.

It wanted to destroy.

And gods, how badly he wanted to let it.

He imagined it: giving in fully, tearing through everything that dared to exist near his pain. Letting the world burn just to match the wreckage within him. But something—some fragile tether—kept him from collapsing entirely. Not out of hope. Out of fear.

With a snarl, he balled his fist and drove it forward— The mirror exploded beneath the blow, shards flying like tiny daggers, scattering across the floor. His reflection lay in pieces at his feet, broken just as he felt inside.

With a ragged sigh, he pushed himself from the chair, stepping toward the ornate mirror across the room—an oval of gold, encrusted with glittering stones. GiGi’s mirror. It had become his salvation and his curse.

He stared into it, and slowly, the ruin faded. His features twisted and smoothed into the mask the world was allowed to see—flawless, composed, radiant. A lie, but a necessary one.

Only once the illusion was complete did he move, drifting from the room like a ghost wearing borrowed flesh.

It was morning. Time to play beautiful again.

@daily-writing-challenge

[veilosdaigoa]

May DWC 2025 Day 1 - Cruel

“I’m pregnant.”

“Shit.” Veilos couldn’t help the swear that spilled from his lips, immediately following it up with a, “Sorry.”

Kyrisa smirked as she touched his arm, “No, don’t. That was my reaction too. Shit. Indeed.”

They had only been married for about seven years now and planned on at least waiting a couple more decades before having kids of their own. But life does indeed find a way. Veilos smiled in a way that didn’t quite touch his eyes. This was something they wanted, but they had so many other plans that would now need to be set aside. 

He scrubbed his hands down over his face as the Panic began to set in. They only had nine months, no, less than that now, to prepare to bring a new life into this world. This often cruel world that made him question whether bringing in new life would ever be a wise decision. There was never a good time. He had seen some horrible things throughout his time spent in the military. Then there was the question of the military, he was going to retire after a couple decades, but what now? He couldn’t leave her alone if he had to be deployed, but he couldn’t afford to retire, not yet. Could they even afford a baby right now?

“Hey, come back to me.” She cupped his cheeks and set his focus on her. “Don’t go there.” She knew him well enough by this point to clock and know how to pull him out of his spiraling. “I know it’s sooner than we wanted, but we’re having a baby. A piece of you, a piece of me, wrapped into one perfect, tiny person. We will figure it out, we have time.”

Veilos closed his eyes and smiled as he allowed her words to sink in. “You’re right.”

“I’m always right.” She grinned a little wider. “I want to name her Zynia.”

“Her?” Veilos opened his eyes and leaned back with a raised brow.

“I’m not for certain, just a gut feeling. Do you think it’s a good idea? Or maybe it’s too soon? …Or maybe it’s too weird…”

Zynia had been his mother’s wife. The two met in the brothel in which they both worked, and she had always been something of a second mother to him. She helped raise him, protect him, and taught him much about the world. She loved him fiercely, as if he were her own. He had never seen his mother so happy as when they were together. She had, most unfortunately, passed suddenly about two weeks ago. Veilos couldn’t help but to blame himself for not being there when it happened. Maybe he could have brought her back, maybe he could have saved her. He could have done something, and she would still be here. Deep down he knew that were not the case, but he still felt it deeply. A bittersweet smile touched his lips, eyes misting as he tilted his gaze upwards, blinking a few times to stave off the welling emotions.

Kyrisa caught a stray tear with her thumb, directing his attention once more onto her. “It’s just an idea, we don’t have to.”

“No, I think it’s perfect. She’ll be perfect.”

@daily-writing-challenge

[tarttsweetshriek]

Daily Writing Challenge 5/25/25

(Warning: Mention of drugs, Mention of “Death Knight Things” 18+).

Cruel Beauty

The Woven Rose- not only is it a group of friends that I have gotten to know for a few months, but there is a club of the same name. There are scents when I walk by that I pick up on every time. The smoke from the haze, the smell of glitter and fel. Cherries and arcane dust. If pleasure had a scent, it would be of lavender.

There is one dancer that catches my eye every time. He always puts a smile on my face the more I watch him grace the stage with his presence. A void elf warlock that is the very definition of a sinful good time. His dance moves are something to behold, and yet when he gets up on the table, I can’t help but look. There is something about darkness that makes it so inviting that I get lost in it.

If only I were to dance for him. The only thing I can do is dress up in something cute, whip out some magical chains, and hope for the best. And yet, there is always that draw, that pull. I’d join him on stage if I could. There is a saying that I always say in whispers:

“There is beauty in undeath”

It might not be the most glamorous of things, but it is a dark beauty. Something that void fire cannot engulf.

Let me show you.

@daily-writing-challenge

[eluviannaa]

May Writing Challenge, Day 2

Placate/Graceful

Magistrix Andaura set her teacup into its saucer with a soft click. The tea here was always a bit cold. The porcelain, always so gauche.

Across the drawing room sat her daughter, Lady Tavora—and beside her, a young Eluvianna, quiet and watchful.

Tavora was lovely in her own way. Always elegant, even if taste struggled with itself. Marriageable enough, when the time had come. Except, of course, she had no magic. A regrettable anomaly, really. Though it had been managed.

Tavora straightened under her mother’s gaze. A baroque little mirror, postured and poised. The pendant sat at her collar among an absurd amount of glitter, but still held its beauty. Not that she appreciated its meaning. Or had truly earned it.

“Tavora,” Andaura began, placing her tea on a small, gilded table, “darling.”

“I believe it’s time.” Her eyes narrowed, gently chiding. “Enough vanity.”

Tavora’s poise faltered, skin flushing.

Andaura smiled politely enough. “She’s quite talented already. And I think we are all curious how she will impress us.”

She winked at the young Sin’dorei beside Tavora, who offered a cautious smile—caution more for her mother than the occasion.

“She is but twelve!” Tavora sputtered. Her voice dipped, scandalized, “And Shadow…of all things.”

Andaura nearly laughed.

“Oh, Tavora. It is far more appropriate that it be carried by an heir with…ability. This not only reflects upon House Everheart. Or have you forgotten that I still serve Quel’Danas?”

Tavora lifted her chin, a moment of both defiance and pride slipping from her grasp. Then, without ceremony, she slowly unclasped the pendant to fold it into her daughter’s hands. Her eyes already turned away.

No longer able to endure, she rose, abandoning the tea—and the implications she could not escape. Not even in her own home.

Dismissing the display, Andaura nodded toward Eluvianna. Toward the pendant.

Her eyes returned to the cup in idle consideration. Suddenly recalling her distaste for the blend Tavora was so fond of serving.

“We all have our burdens, my dearest,” she said lightly. “Let us not fret over how others manage their potential.”

The tea remained untouched.

“Or lack of it, rather.”

@daily-writing-challenge

[siennablaze219]

Daily-Writing-Challenge Day 1 - Beauty

(Art commissioned off Artists and Clients long ago, can’t find the artist name)

(A song performed at the Hearts of Tenacity Festival to this music We Don’t Talk About Bruno)

Ilerodora walks out, guiding a harp on a rolling base with a stool tucked under one arm. She sets the stool in place, arranges the harp carefully, and kicks the wheel brake with a practiced motion. The Ren’dorei sits gracefully, fanning the bright red skirt of her dress around her legs like a blooming flower. Placing her hands gently on the strings, she looks up and smiles. "Hello, everyone. I’m Ilerodora, and I hope you enjoy my music selection for the evening."

She gathers the sensation of magic around her, letting it hum beneath her skin. As her fingers glide over the strings, the music begins, gentle, almost tentative. Then, with growing intensity, she exaggerates the movements of her hands, each motion more deliberate than the last. Before her, on the stage, a figure takes shape, a luminous woman in a gown of layered ruffles, each one shifting through the colors of a sunset. As the melody swells, the apparition begins to dance. Her feet strike the floor with graceful precision, as if she’s drawing the music up through her steps, not following it, but conjuring it.

The harpist smiles, her fingers striking the strings with light, sharp slaps that create a staccato rhythm. The music picks up, shifting seamlessly into a slightly altered version of the original melody. Each percussive note matches the footsteps of the vision she’s summoned, who begins to turn and sway, her layered skirts swirling in a playful, graceful rhythm. The gown shimmers and twinkles in the night, like the image has sequins sewn into the hemlines.

Ilerodora leans in, eyes gleaming as her tempo surges. The strings sing beneath her hands, sharp and urgent. The illusion responds, the gauzy figure lifts her skirts with a flirtatious flourish, revealing long, sculpted legs. With each deliberate roll of the musician’s fingers, the dancer glides across the stage, left foot crossing before the right. Her hips shift with a hypnotic rhythm, a slow, serpentine undulation that defies the quicksilver pace of her steps. The contradiction is spellbinding, grace and power moving in perfect, impossible opposition.

The Ren’dorei rolls her shoulders back, her posture shifting, fingers move with a new intent, sliding into a smoother, more fluid rhythm. The staccato sharpness melts away, giving way to a softer melody that begins to swell toward the chorus. Center stage, the dancer turns, casting a sultry glance over her shoulder, a gaze that invites eyes to follow her. One strap of her gown slips down her arm, curving to rest just above her elbow, the gesture casual yet charged with allure, then pirouettes, once, twice, three times, her skirt flaring wide with each turn, a bloom of color and motion against the deepening light

Agile hands glide upward to the shorter strings, the pitch rising like a breath held in anticipation. Her smile widens, radiant and knowing, and she tosses her long hair over one shoulder. A single curl escapes, trailing across her neck like a lover’s touch. The dancer comes to a sudden halt, facing the crowd with theatrical precision. Between her teeth, she now holds a brilliant red rose, its petals bold against the shimmer of her skin. Her eyes sparkle with mischief, a wicked twinkle that promises something deliciously unspoken.

The red dress stretches across her body as she leans forward, her foot tapping out a steady beat, and with each pulse, light bursts outward in rippling waves, spilling across the stage like liquid gold. The dancer lifts her skirts and steps into the shimmering pool, moving with sensual precision, the translucent fabric catching and refracting the light, her form both revealed and hidden in the glow. Then, with a sharp twist of her hips, she sends a sweeping splash toward the audience, but the liquid light vanishes a breath before it touches them, dissolving into air like a dream slipping away.

Full hips shift on the stool, the motion in perfect harmony with the change in the music. Her fingers glide across the strings, pulling the melody into something deeper, more hypnotic. The dancer spins, her skirts flaring out in a brilliant whirl, the light rises from her legs, each layer of her gown catching the glow until the fabric itself becomes luminous. With a fluid motion, she steps forward, gathering her skirts and shaking them out. The light dances from her, droplets of magic cascading like raindrops, each one a spark of ethereal brilliance splashing onto the stage before fading into the air.

As the opaque dancer spins, the fabric of her gown lifts and falls in a rhythm, one side raised, then the other, picking up speed with each turn. Stopping suddenly, she winks to the audience, a silent connection passing between them. The brilliance of the dancer fades, her silhouette hangs suspended, each curve and angle of her frame outlined in the cool blue glow. She remains still, like a star locked in the heavens, until the final notes of the song fade, clearing the air around them. The last echoes linger in the silence, the magic of the performance lingering like a breath held between them all.

@daily-writing-challenge

[daily-writing-challenge]

COMING SOON

For more information, please see our FAQ page —> HERE!

It’s our second challenge of the year! We’re looking forward to writing with you all again, learning more about your OCs and reading your stories!

See you with a word list soon!

[nahisummerhold]

(Art by me :) )

Daily Writing Challenge May 2025

Day 1 - Beauty

There were cracks in the plaster still, and missing pieces of the facade, but never in her life had a space felt more her. 

Nahi’s little house had changed little outwardly since she bought it. Some shutters were fixed and freshly painted, the door painted and some stained glass decorations hanging in windows. 

Inside? Inside had been transformed from the home the old man had sold her, with its drab colors and worn interior. Now it was bright and welcoming with little touches of her everywhere. 

The back patio held the bright mosaic center she had created, the sun, in all its glory was a spot of pride for her. Not only was it beautiful and added color to a place she spent her evenings enjoying, but she was proud of the fact that she had created it herself. It had been very difficult for her, many mistakes were made. She could see them, even if no one else did, but to her, they were lessons, not flaws, so she didn’t fuss over them like she did other imperfections in her life, she let them live as reminders. 

Throughout the rooms of the home had things that made her happy, the brass cricket from Tinn was on a shelf near her stove, as close to a hearth she had. The painting Laeynna gifted her for her housewarming hung prominently in the great room, ironically named, since nothing in her house could be called great in size only in heart. Flowers of all types, glass, metal, paper, ceramic, they were not overwhelming, or overly feminine, the different media and her careful placement made them small art installations. 

The music room and spare bedroom were still not what she wanted them to be, but knew that they would have more life in time, and for now they were perfect because they weren’t finished, they were promises for the future.

Contractors were only used for the bathroom, all the rest of the work that was done so far was by her hand. She would need to hire someone for a couple projects, or find someone that could do the work who would not mind her questions about how the repairs were done. Her possessiveness of her home proved that she wanted to know how things were done, even if she couldn’t do it on her own.  She didn’t have people over often, but that was part of what made it even more hers. Nahi didn’t share pieces of herself well and keeping her house private fit who she was, it was her companion now, with its bright little touches and imperfections. It was just like her, and to her at least, it was beautiful.

(Bonus story! @daily-writing-challenge ) (Mentions to @kharrisdawndancer and @lilyofporcelain)

[lilyofporcelain]

10 - DWC - 27 May - Day 3 - Linger / Gaze

It was a quiet afternoon. So quiet that the weight of her thoughts felt as if it had the power to deafen out everything else. As if it could send the entire world spinning and she hardly would have taken notice. Laeynna paused by the desk she’d commandeered for her various studies, though most of them had once been of the botanist and alchemist variety. It had been some months since she had done such a thing, however. Half a year, in fact, as she stared down to its surface. Instead, the table had become a glorified storage for her books, her diagrams, the record of prior experiments that had landed her into exile to begin with, her journal, and most recently—notes pertaining to a particular music piece she had begun composing nearly a year before.

As she pulled out the relatively simple chair she’d assigned to it, she cast a look over to the harp that Junarra had delivered around the later part of the prior year at her humble request. She had worked on it a little here and there, but with the time available to her, and recent conversations fresh in mind, it seemed like a good way to spend some of her free time. She seated herself and as she carefully manoeuvred the small and modest pile of parchment beneath her hands, she looked first at the careful scribbling of notes on staff and the plethora of incomplete measures. Beside that page, a sheet of notes. Rather, a directive of what her piece had been meant to convey.

She’d said that she’d composed it for him. That it was to express all of the complexity that had come from a struggle of understanding her own feelings and how they had evolved from a great deal of wariness into an unspoken love they had exchanged in Wintergrasp. With a tip of her head, Laeynna’s gaze pulled over schooled script, elegant and refined, just one more thing that reminded her that no matter how she could have been pulled out of Quel’thalas, it never could have been pulled out of her blood.

—-—-—

I could not say what drew me to you the first time. Suspicion. Curiosity. Intrigue. The cut of the shirt you wore that night, perhaps. I had tried to be polite and spent the entire night hiding behind my cup of tea, whilst Master Larethmyr hovered ever nearer me. And in the way I eyed you, you eyed me in return. I never liked it much when people looked at me. I thought my appearance strange for years and not in the pleasant way. When I had your attention, I felt remarkably aware of myself. As if I was being assessed. Afraid of trying to understand what you wanted of me, why you looked so intently, I tried my best to hide. Master Larethmyr saw something I did not. We spoke of it once. That he berated the entire evening back to his estate, displeased that you kept looking at me, though we had scarcely exchanged more than polite greetings. Or perhaps he believed you were too observant, seeing things that others did not. How could they know, after all, what was happening? Why would they have? It was never truly their business to begin with, and I had remembered my youngest years, in which gossip was unladylike. Me, being a mere woman with no power to my name, placed in opposition against a member of the Blood Knights. I think you did not know the details then, but I think you knew something was not right. After that… I had thought that would be it. A first meeting. A first curiosity. But every time our paths crossed, every time we were in the same space, still you eyed me. Like you did not care to look anywhere else. As if I was the only thing you really wanted to see. I felt it, like hands atop my shoulders. What did you want of me then, I had wondered. I thought you intimidating. I feared you. You left me apprehensive and wound tight with concern. Perhaps you were inclined to put a knife into my back. Perhaps you knew of me from a different time with a different name. When I finally asked, it was merely that you found me intriguing. That you wished to know more about me. We danced and danced and danced. Always back and forth, spring and autumn eyes and fel ones. Written letters and gifts, like an old, traditional courtship. No one had ever done that with me before. Some had tried, perhaps, but my ambitions so lofty that everything else had fallen beneath what I could perceive. What I had want to perceive.  What made you different? Can the seeds of affection be so simply defined? I should think not, for the moment that such a success made, all of the enigma, the magic, the intricacies of the heart would eliminate what made it so wondrous to begin with. I simply knew then, as I do now, that you were different. ‘You are so dear to me.’ You began to say that and I could not have known then what it meant. Your healing heart unable to make declarations of your love in simplified words, so instead, you used every other way in the world to say it. And for a time, I remained blind and deaf to it, convinced that of all things, I needed to keep you at a distance. Monsters like myself, I thought, were so unworthy of those affections. And to you, I had thought myself no more than a passing fancy and trivial pastime. Yet in the cold, beneath those stars, with flakes of snow in wet hair, I saw how you looked at me, a look I had seen before but had not truly acknowledged. And I felt fear again, afraid you would wrap your hands about my heart and crush it, for if it had been your intention, you had me precisely in the perfect place to do so. That night, my heart pounded with an intensity unrivalled. I had thought to myself that facing my exile again, my proposed execution, would have been easier than braving what your eyes had spoken. What a coward I have been. What a coward I was. Sometimes what a coward I still am.

—-—-—

Coming to the bottom of the page, Laeynna’s lips rose into a subdued, soft, and sombre smile. Just reading the words, she could relive every one of those moments. From late nights where he escorted her home, to baths where he teased her about her inability to swim, to the repeated attempts of his bourbon that she simply could not withstand. Every single moment, every single point had a place in history. She felt them each all over again and though she had most recently been caught up in her worry and concern, she still felt an undeniable fondness.

They still looked at one another the same way. That same intensity, as if they were nearly blind to everything outside of them. But the flutters that once had been fear metamorphosed into butterflies.

Loosing a very soft breath and affectionately splaying slender fingertips atop the page, she found her gaze moving back over to the sheet of music in progress. She was getting closer to its completion, she thought. If Ankalei had been right about his return, perhaps she could finish it in time to give it to him.

With a tilt of her head, sweeping some of her dark hair behind her ear, eventually her eyes found the newest book to have a place on her desk. Its contents, she thought, only one piece to the larger puzzle at hand, a very rudimentary introduction to the concept of harnessing the Light. If she could succeed, perhaps she could buy herself more time. More days. More weeks. More years.

As many as she could to continue looking at him in the very same way, wishing to make him the very centre of her world.

— @daily-writing-challenge

[kharrisdawndancer]

DWC May 2025 - Day 4 - Dangerous/Tremendous - Jaskian

Jaskian felt the loss like a weight inside her heart. Dalaran had been gone for many months now, but even still, that was her first instinct when she drew up her hands to conjure a portal. When she thought of shopping. When she wanted a library. When she wanted to surround herself with magic and learning. She had lived and studied there for her formative years. The Kirin Tor more than the Magistry had shaped her. She had done her thesis based out of Dalaran when it had been over Northrend, and she had taken to visiting often when it was elsewhere.

She knew the alleys and the arenas. She had been one of many students who had frequented the Legerdemain Lounge for coffee and late night cram sessions. She and Luminash had walked its streets together hundreds of times, enjoying the parks and theater. It still felt like a little piece of her lived there. Had crashed with it. Shattered into fragments scattered over a beach far from familiar shores.

Hunks of marble that used to be plazas and towers dotted the land like the tears of a Titan. The loss of this beloved city and so many of her people still took her breath away, and Jaskian felt her hand rise to her chest. The loss was tremendous and no one who had loved her was unaffected by Dalaran’s loss.

She had always been the more nostalgic of the two. Luminash was working in the future, ever forward, and Jaskian was still spending her days helping the Kirin Tor remnants rebuild their society, if not their city. She reached out to her soulbound husband and let the dangerous melancholy she’d built up fade in the face of his current excitement. He was good for getting her mind off the things she let trouble her. @daily-writing-challenge

mentions: @luminashdawnwing (( I don't know @guardevoir but the art is so well done, I love it! Go give them a follow! They have a really lovely, painterly style!))

[cavelloshatterstar]

DWC Day 6: Negative & Relic

When an artist creates it is a labor, By no means does it compare to the act of giving birth, But it is an effort that gives life and can be painful. Labor itself implies the struggle, the effort, and the ordeal. Creation begs the question always if those labors are worth the cost. In a vacuum with no one to experience that art? Is expression in medium worth the process? Is the conversation begged by the work even a conversation without another? To answer… I would argue that what a blank canvas is to me; Is the first step of a dance. In the Negative space, I see the worlds beyond a captured image, For years and years pages filled with unfinished, unrealized labors of my creation gathered, Unshared, irrelevant, and forgotten, All relics of a time before I had anything to say. All a sketched and discarded history of what I fought with and abandoned. And yet for all my toil and disappointment in those cast off images, They tell a story. Not a narrative anyone can truly follow, There are too many winding studies and chaotic explorations, Experiments dropped in half formed figures or abstract interpretations, Lost shapes and ideas that even I cannot recall the point of… But a story emerges none the less. From coffee stained parchment, Ink and charcoal stained thoughts aborted in their infancy, The unpolished armatures and skeletons of what could have been; but never was, We are all a work in progress, Rough hairy lines and pages rubbed raw from attempts to correct, One perfect gesture but without the catharsis of completion. It is easy to accept all this as failure, That the efforts the labor, the conversation, is in vain, When they never see the journey that came before in those hidden sketchbooks, When you discount the value of that untold story, Life is a messy imperfect experience, We are brought into it screaming and wailing and often in chaos, And far too many are left behind like those artifacts of struggling creation. Left without the means to express the self. Too many of us abandon the journey before it even begins. Too many accept the surrender of ourselves before we even try. Don't allow the labors of creation to destroy the drive to attempt them, Fail a thousand times over to produce the first word, step, stroke, or note… Because even if you can't make yourself known, You left a mark. You took the step. You left something there. Even if no one else sees it, even if no one else understands what you meant, You created something real, because it came from you. The only way one can truly fail to be an artist, is to never try in the first place. Go make something. I promise it is worth the effort.

@daily-writing-challenge