#or maybe the “Seth's largely inoffensive crimes except for that one time” edition

[bluberimufim]

Find the Word 2 - return of the word

I had 2 of these. It felt weird to merge them into one single post. So. Yeah.

I got tagged by @mister-writes (admire her word-finding here) and my words were lock, lose, long, and late. These snippets are from my current WIP, "Devourer of Souls".

I'm gonna get the tagging out of the way now for greater ease. @cheeto-flavoured-pasta, @sm-writes-chaos, and @stesierra, your words are ring, guide, suffer, and tender (random word generator is on some vibes today ok).

Let's go!

Lock

Asha nodded. Then, with a slight push, she helped Seth open the main door. A hospital's doors were never locked. One never knew when war could make more wounded, even in the middle of the night. With hesitant steps, grasping the cane so fiercely that her fingers turned white, Seth descended the few steps that separated the door from the ground. She cast one last look back, to Asha. The girl seemed to want to say something, but she kept quiet. She stood beneath the door, the tip of her cloak touching the point where the atrium's tile became the stone steps. It was as if there was an invisible barrier between her and the rest of the world, as if she was forbidden from crossing the doorway.

(omg guys this is from the prologue! This is a 13yo Seth in the wild!)

(also, I say "door" a lot here but I promise there's not that much repetition in the original language, I just suck at this)

Lose

"Excuse me," she said, trying to imitate the local accent. Theo had lost her accent over the years, but her voice still carried some hints of foreign intonation. And Seth remembered every facet of Theo's voice perfectly. "I'm looking for General Fallin's residency." The officer observed her from head to toe, as if studying her. "What's your business with him?" "I've come from the interior. I travelled for a very long time," she explained. She hoped the lie sounded believable. The clothes she was wearing very clearly denoted her as someone who lived in the country, without the fashions of the city. "I bring urgent news for the General."

(I love this snippet. Seth pretending to be some kind of secret officer so she can go pester Theo's brother and demand to speak to God)

Long

General Fallin burst into his office, opening the door with excessive force. He stood behind his desk, with his eyes fixed on Seth. She knew he wasn't old, but she couldn't help but be surprised at just how young he was. His uniform, which was a longer version of the ones she'd seen on the officers outside, made his smooth face look more immature than it should, for his age. She'd never had connected that face to the person Theo had described. Supposedly, his name was Edward. Edward Fallin. "My servant says you have urgent news from my family," he said, sounding almost furious. "Speak."

Late

It was already late and Seth didn't know where to stay, so she'd settled into one of the benches at the train station. If she found the information she was after, she could possibly return home tomorrow. The newspaper she'd stolen from the library had clearly been handled by many people before arriving at her hands. There were dogeared pages and smudged bits of ink, that hadn't exclusively been caused by her lack of care when she shoved it into her bag. She swept her eyes over the pages, curious to know what the papers in the capital talked about. Most of it seemed to be related to the war, and all the other articles had names she didn't recognize. She didn't know what she'd been expecting.