Drabbles and What's going on

I am actually so sorry, y'all to be so far behind. I am working on everything to get it posted and ready to go, but it's taking me a lot longer than I thought it would.

Part of it is that I've just been sick, plain and simple. I've been fortunate my entire life to be able-bodied and healthy and getting so sick has really shaken me. I'm much better now, but there were some days in there that I couldn't get out of bed at all, much less get myself to the computer.

My regular Friday posting schedule has been obviously affected. I still intend to fulfill my commitments that I talked about last week and I'll be rolling those pieces out as soon as I'm confident my fever-brain didn't add anything weird to them.

In the meantime, here's a collection of WIPs, drabbles and warm ups that I did this week. They'll be separated by a series of ***** asterisks. These are not complete works. Some of them are just the starts of stories while others are the climactic parts of longer works that I hope to complete and release.

This is like mesh of what happens when the writer falls ill and when the writer suffers from writer's block.

Again, I can't apologize enough. Thank you so much to everyone who's been so wonderful and kind about this. Hopefully this week sees us all back on track!

Thank you, as always, for reading.

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Idea: Evelyn is a witch trapped in a cult-like coven that exploits the members' magic. She risks it all to escape.

The grimoire isn’t locked away. Everyone in the coven knows that the pages are cursed for all but the High Priestess. It’s not worth it to steal the ancient thing from the center podium in the library even if it does contain the spell to unlock the front door. Your blood will boil before you can even utter the first word.

Evelyn is already dying.

The idea to take the grimoire grows slowly. She’s been raised within the confines of the compound since she was only a little girl. The High Priestess’ teachings feel like her own thoughts more often than not. Wake early to bake the day’s bread. Breakfast an hour after sunrise. Meditation. Gardening. Devotion. Dinner an hour before sunset. Bed. Nowhere in their daily teachings does steal the grimoire come up.

But Evelyn does. She’s dying after all. What does she have to lose?

A lot, the grimoire whispers when she tucks it into her backpack.

We’ll see about that, Evelyn thinks grimly. Her own voice in her head startles her. She’s not used to thinking so loudly. I think I have more to gain.

We’ll see, the grimoire says.

Evelyn slips out of the library and scurries back to her room. She’s not on patrol tonight. If she’s caught in the halls, it’ll all be over.

**************

A/N the idea for this one: time traveling knight saves her family and lord. TW suicide mention, violence

“I loved you,” she says. It feels like the words tear her throat open and she breathes shallowly, trying to avoid the taste of blood. It’s no use. The scent of it is in the air all around her, the battlefield drenched. The tip of her sword digs into the ground and she leans on it heavily. “I trusted you.”

Silvan is crying. His tears cut through the soot and blood on his cheeks to expose the glowing symbols of his magic shining through his flesh. He's the one that called their death to them. He’s the one controlling the beast in the clouds. “I—I know. Oh, darling, I know.”

He should be laughing. The eldritch creature shrieks from above, it’s long, dagger-like appendages jabbing through the dark clouds to the earth below. Her fellow knights scream mid-retreat, but they don’t stand a chance. Every time the thing attacks, she feels more and more of her comrades die. It’s laughably easy to take out the first prince’s squadron in the end.

All it takes is one man. One man who should be laughing.

“Laugh,” she says. Her voice is raw from screaming but there’s an edge of command in it. There are no more knights or soldiers to direct. There’s only him. “You’ve won. You tricked us all and now the second prince will take the throne, just as you intended. Stop crying and laugh.”

Silvan stares at her without bothering to wipe away his tears. He doesn’t hide from his grief, nor does he hide it from her. He’s always been like this; unflinching in the face of his softer emotions. Unashamed. She held him when his father, the Duke, died defending the King. He cried with her when her brother’s ship returned from last winter’s storm without him on it.

Her teeth grind. She drops her sword entirely and spreads her hands out so he can see the red staining her palms. “Well?! Do it! Finish it!”

“No.” Silvan’s voice is hoarse. He shakes his head slowly at first and then faster until his long, black hair flies around his head. “No. I won’t. Not you.”

He’s sick. What does he mean not her? The months of flirtation they shared, the gentle confessions and the way their hands felt intertwined, it was all for this, right? He infiltrated their ranks with a smile and now, at the pinnacle moment, he wavers? For her?

“You must,” she says. Her legs are weak from exhaustion and terror. Is she injured? She falls to her knees in the cold mud and tilts her head up so she can bare her neck. “You must.”

Silvan stumbles back a step. “No, Yrene, there’s—you’re an honorable knight. The King has already issued pardons to all who renounce the first prince—”

The King? For an awful moment, that doesn’t make sense. The King is dead. The second prince poisoned him at the banquet—and then it clicks. Silvan isn’t talking about her King. He’s talking about the second prince. King Phillip. The traitor.

“I won’t,” Yrene says through numb lips. Silvan isn’t laughing so she does it for him. She smiles and feels something crack so deeply inside of her it’s a wonder she doesn’t explode. “Renounce Prince Adam? Never.” Her hand fumbles for her pendant, a keepsake from her mother. She wants to hold it when it happens. “Kill me, Silvan.”

“No! Yrene, I love—”

She can’t hear him finish that sentence. Yrene jerks the knife from the top of her boot. Silvan doesn’t know her that well after all. When he sees the naked blade, he stutters and steps back, his hands going to his own blades. He thinks she’s going to attack him once last time.

“I hope,” Yrene says, “we never meet again.”

Silvan realizes too late what she intends to do. He goes from retreating to lunging. “Wait--!”

Yrene clutches her pendant and follows through on her last strike.

----.

One year, six months, seventeen days. Yrene stares at her calculations. Her family’s library is in disarray around her, ancient texts on magic left open haphazardly and sorcerer journals scattered across the table. A calendar sits next to her right hand.

Yrene dies in one year, six months, and seventeen days. She holds her hands open on the table and tilts her head back as if praying.

A burn scar in the shape of her pendant sits in the center of her left palm.

Time magic. Yrene isn’t from a family of sorcerers. They’ve been knights since the founding of the country over five hundred years ago. She hasn’t found any solid explanation for why her mother’s necklace, a seemingly innocuous pendant of gold, has sent her back one year, six months and seventeen days.

There’s a story in one of the journals that Yrene remembers hearing as a child. Once a long time ago, a member of her family didn’t serve the Royal Family. It was during a period of war that their house could not support in good conscience. The head of the family, to avoid the conflict, traveled the lands for a period of time as a trader. It was through him that they became such successful merchants.

According to the journal, it’s also because of him that their family was blessed by the fae.

“A hundred pages of debauchery and this the one event he doesn’t elaborate on,” Yrene mutters. She buries her head in her hands. “That’s so—so--!”

“So what?”

Yrene nearly falls out of her chair. Ildred, her brother, stares at her from the doorway, one arm full of scrolls. His copper hair, so like hers, is getting too long. He blows it out of his eyes.

“Did I scare you?” he asks. A hint of incredulity enters his voice. “Me? Scare you? The greatest sword’s master to grace our family in a century?”

She used to hate it when he called her that. She’d bragged about winning against one of their family’s soldiers, not realizing that he’d let ten-year-old her win. It’s an embarrassing reminder of a time where her ego took up more space than her skill.

Now? She finds herself tearing up at the mention. “Ildred. I…”

“Are you crying?” Ildred asks. He actually takes a step back. “Wait, I’m not ready for that, I was just coming to shelve these—oof!”

Yrene wraps her arms around her brother. He’s alive. He’s alive. He hasn’t yet set off on his ill-fated voyage. It’s spring and there’s still half a year until that storm. As of this moment, she still has one family member left.

“I love you,” Yrene says into Ildred’s hair. He’s taller than her, but he’s stooping so she feels as if she’s hugging him as a child. Her eyes sting. “I really do, Dred.”

Ildred pats her back tentatively. “Er, same? I to you as well, I guess.”

She laughs wetly. “Just say you love me too, idiot.”

“And ruin my stoic image?” Ildred pulls away, standing to his full height. His eyes search hers and he frowns at what he finds. “Are you alright?”

“No,” she says honestly. Her palm stings and she instinctively closes her fist over the burn mark. She hides her fist behind her back and smiles up at her brother. “But I will be. We both will be.”

She’ll make sure of it.

*************************************

Idea: Girl becomes ghost and isn't surprised. Her family can see ghosts and she wants to find them to pass on one final message.

Shelly died in the crash. She doesn’t remember it exactly--she carries in her soul the impressions of fear, oh my god, no, stop, metal shrieking, fire--and she thinks that it’s not important to remember.

What’s important is what she’s going to do from here on out.

She pushes her hair away from her face, fingers catching in three-day-old snarls and tangles. Her nail polish is chipping and a cold wind brushes against her stomach where she ripped her shirt just to see if she could. Time is passing, but she doesn’t feel hungry or tired. She feels maybe...bored? The panic had haunted her that first day, the anger and sorrow the second.

Shelly doesn’t know a lot about ghosts. Her sister’s always been the one to see them. Their mother can too, but neither Shelly or Karly have talked to her in a long time.

Shelly examines the hole in her shirt for the hundredth time. She can just about see her belly button through it and the waistline of her high-waisted jeans. She’d wanted to see if she could tear her own clothes, sure that ghosts wouldn’t be able to alter their form after death.

Well, even if normal ghost can, she can’t.

She doesn’t know why she didn’t pass on as Karly called it. Shelly’s not a kid--she’s nearly thirty--and while she’s not happy to be dead, she’s not unfulfilled. She lived fifteen years longer than she thought she’d ever see. Karly says that they saved themselves, but Shelly’s never felt saved. She’s always had a hunch that she only borrowed time, running away like they did.

Borrowed time always runs out.

The white fog around her starts to thin and her stomach drops. She’s found comfort and safety in this place between the real world and whatever she can’t manage to reach. Nobody cries or shouts her name here; nobody looms or glares. She’s alone with her thoughts and her tangled hair.

Her sister never told her that ghosts are loud.

The noise grows as the fog fades.

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Idea: Ophelia becomes the main character of Hamlet.

So your name is Ophelia and this is the story where you die.

You don't mean to (though some say you do). You are young and in love and you think that life has only just begun. The flowers you weave into your hair remind you of yourself--barely bloomed. So you are not worried when Hamlet speaks to you of things you do not understand. In time, you will, and it will be glorious to be on the same level as that glorious brain you love so dearly.

How were you to know that your were born cursed? Born too young, too timid, too obedient? Born a woman?

Hamlet's father dies. A tragedy! You weep beside him, over the noble man's grave. You are young and you do not understand loss, not like this, and never thought it would touch so close to home. Hamlet is a ghost beside you, a specter, and it is all you can do to keep holding onto the stiff and cold arm he offers you after the service. You will be here for him, no matter what, even if you feel as if you cling to a man as dead as the one you just laid to rest.

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Idea: The evil queen of the fairytale ends up being the kindest parent the protagonist has ever known.

It’s the worst way to start a story, with a dream. No stakes, no urgency, no lasting effect on the narrative. It could be argued it sets the tone, having a nightmare before the hero’s journey or a lovely dream before the fall. It is not a good argument.

Cecil dreams.

She wakes.

She dreams.

She wakes.

She dreams and--

The story does not start.

-----

The woman her father marries has all the right credentials. A princess forced to marry a widower King to save her country, dragged across the border by political chains no noble could escape. She’s scowling the day Cecil sees her for the first time, perfect, porcelain face twisted into something that could be mistaken for evil. Her dress is heavy, dark velvet, an obvious slap in the face to dress in mourning on the day of her wedding.

“I will give you everything I am,” the King says at the altar. His grey hair is striking next to the youthful, dark shine of his new bride’s. His eyes are just as cold as hers. “All of this kingdom. Our kingdom.”

The new Queen doesn’t answer. Her sharp chin is held high, dark brown eyes as warm as stone. She accepts his offer like it’s her due, like she needs not give any oath herself, like it is already decided what should be hers and hers alone.

Cecil, hiding behind the somber crowd of nobles, presses a small hand to her trembling lips. Her eyes shine.

This is where her story starts.

-------.

Only it’s a very slow story. The Queen does not call for Cecil. She steers clear of the small corridor that the little princess’ room is in and doesn’t meet her eyes when they cross paths in the castle. She does not forbid Cecil from dining at the formal table or from wandering the gardens that cross just below the royal balcony.

The Queen, this distant Queen, does not do very much at all.

“Like ice,” the servants whisper to each other, eyes fixed to the heavy drag of the Queen’s black velvet train. “Even when the King visits her, she does not smile. Nothing is good enough for her. She sends back the silks, the ribbons, the jewels. She is looking down on our King’s generosity.”

Cecil bites into her apple too hard and the servants look at her with wide eyes, afraid of having been caught. But, upon seeing the young princess, their fear melts like snow in spring.

“Don’t frighten us like that,” they scold. “Don’t you have lessons? Where’s your tutor?”

“Late,” she says. He is always late. He is always late because he doesn’t exist and people who don’t exist can’t ever be on time, can they? “I was hungry.”

“Go wait for him in the library. You’re getting under foot.”

Cecil goes, crunching her apple as loudly as possible. She turns just before she follows the corridor out of sight to see if she’s annoyed them at all. Sometimes, she only feels seen when she’s annoying them. But, as usual, they’re all already back to their tasks.

However, the Queen is looking at Cecil, jewel-like eyes glittering from the other end of the hall. Her red lips are pressed into a thin line and her gaze drifts from Cecil, to the servants, and back again.

Cecil hurries to the library.

Here it comes. Get ready.

The story is starting.

------.

Only it is a very strange start to the story.

The Queen is suddenly everywhere. She does not look at Cecil again, not directly, but Cecil’s had to learn when others’ attention falls on her. She knows it is not a coincidence when the Queen comes to breakfast just as Cecil does, when she meets the Queen on one of her long walks, when she sees the Queen’s shadow in the library.

Cecil does her best to look like the perfect child. She eats as prettily as she can with the six months of etiquette lessons she received before her mother died. She laughs and holds out her hands to the butterflies that flit over the roses. She re-reads fairytales and draws happy little things in the margins of her academic books.

Hate me, she begs. Punish me. Make my life miserable. And, when I’m at my lowest, get rid of me.

Please, please, see hate me

But the Queen doesn’t.

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Idea: You come from a family of witches but you aren't a witch. Set in a world where witches fight over ley lines, your lover - a witch - leaves you like your family did. You swear off witches for good...but can you stick to that when your ex-lover is in danger and you hold the key to save her?

Your heart breaks.

That’s the start of the story. You’re left standing on a balcony in the middle of the night, the fading sound of her footsteps ringing in your ears. Tomorrow her words will come back to you, painful and biting, but tonight all you can hear is the crunch of gravel growing fainter and fainter until it disappears entirely.

You don’t want to be alone. The loneliness she leaves behind is enough to drive you mad. Your fingers curl around the railing so tightly that your knuckles crack. You can’t go after her.

She’s made sure of that.

The sun spears its rays over the horizon and straight into your eyes. Hissing, you finally turn on your heel, legs nearly numb from cold, and slink back into your bedroom. The bed is unmade, scattered clothing littering the ground around it so the entire room looks filled with crumpled, careless fabric. It’s like you’re seeing everything for the first time. Your room is a nest of comfort items. A robe draped over your antique armchair, empty wine glasses filling the flat surfaces, a crumpled package of chips partly under a pillow.

Your fingers curl into your palms. She’d eaten here with you last night, curled together under your covers while the radio droned on and on about witches and weather. She’d drunk your wine and ran her fingers through your long brown hair knowing that she’d be leaving before the moon even reached its peak.

“I’ve been called back home to my coven.”

“Does this have anything to do with the news?”

A pause. “In a way. It’s witch business.”

You are not a witch. “Oh. For how long? If it’s only a month, I think I can get the time off--”

“ I don’t want you to come with me.”

“...what?”

There was yelling after that. Some tears. You’re pretty sure you’re responsible for the shattered glass in the hall and the torn sheets half-kicked under the bed. Through it all, she’d sat there with a mean little twist to her mouth, hands folded neatly in her lap and lapis blue eyes glued to your face.

Would things have been different if you handled it more gracefully? You feel the sick twist of guilt in your stomach as you crouch over the glass in the hall. It’s from the picture that used to hang on the wall, knocked down in your tantrum. You pull the photo from under the shards and stare at her smiling face. She’s wrapped around you with her chin on your shoulder, short black hair framing her heart-shaped face and grin stretching from ear to ear. Your smile is smaller, but you can see the joy in it. You stare at her, looking for that same joy. You remember feeling it against your skin, the sheer happiness exuding from her aura, but maybe you were mistaken. If she was truly as happy as you were, she wouldn’t have left.

You drop the photo, unable to look at it anymore. You need to--you need to clean. Then shower. Maybe catch a few hours of sleep before you’re needed at the bar.

You go to get the broom.

------.

You don’t feel any better by the time you make it in to work. Your eyes feel hot and puffy under the makeup you caked on to hide evidence of your tears. You’d meant to do laundry today and hadn’t. The black tank top you pulled out of the back of your closet is splattered with bleach stains and your jeans are one snapped stitch away from falling apart completely. Tonight’s going to be either a very good night for tips, or a very bad one.

Judging by the effort it takes to return the bouncer’s greeting, it’s going to be very, very bad indeed.

There’s no way to stop thinking about her. Now that you’ve got a few hours of sleep under your belt, the numb shock has worn away.  Your heart feels like lead in your chest, molten and ice-cold by turn. Did she ever love you? Would you be able to survive her loss? Was it the way you never remembered to do laundry or was it just as she said?

Witch business.

You’re familiar with that excuse. Witch business is why you don’t have a mother or a sister anymore. It’s why you’ve lived alone in a city without ley lines since you were 16 while they ride the waves of magic across the country over and over again.

“I would take you with us, but you wouldn’t survive, my darling daughter.”

“Then don’t leave. Stay here. Maybe the ley line will come back or--”

“I’m sorry. That’s not how it works.”

“How does it work then? How am I supposed to just accept--”

“It’s witch’s business. Not my secret to tell.”

Witches always have secrets. It’s why so many people like you don’t trust them. They have secrets that hurt, that bite, that scream. It’s a poor person who trusts a witch.

Like an idiot, you trusted her with your heart.

It’s a slow night. The first couple of people through the door are regulars. You pour them drinks without complaint and even muster up a small grin when one of them compliments your “scavenger chic” look. It’s only when you’re closing out Crazy Bob’s tab that you realize you might not have been pretending all that well.

“Take care,” he says, shuffling his feet. His eyes flit around the bar, never once landing on you, and his mustache twitches. “Er, take care of yourself. See you next time.” He ducks his head and shoots out the door before you can find your tongue.

It makes you feel like shit. Crazy Bob’s worried about you? He shouldn’t be worried about you. He’s in and out of the police station every week trying to convince the officers that the birds are spying on him. Crazy Bob doesn’t get to worry about you.

But it doesn’t stop there. Customers avoid looking at your puffy eyes and, when they close out, they all offer the same sentiment. Ponytail Barbara draws hearts around her twenty percent tip. Lucy and Lou, an elderly couple who only drink whiskey, reach over the bar and pat your hand. A small bachelorette party tries to buy you a shot and settles for draping beaded necklaces over your head when you refuse.

“You’ll find the right one,” the bride slurs. Her carefully organized bun is slumping to one side of her head. She nods so hard that it flops like a donkey’s tail. “Like me. We all find the right one.”

“Congratulations,” you say through gritted teeth and hurry to tend to the tired businessman who’s just slumped at the other end of the bar.

It’s a good night for tips but a slow night overall which means you walk out with enough to buy yourself breakfast in a couple hours and pay your phone bill. You shove the bills into your back pocket as you shuffle out the door. Your body aches and all you feel is tired now.

She won’t be there to greet you when you come back.

“Witch business,” you say out loud. You don’t mean to. It’s just that those words have been beating around your head all night. The sidewalk is slippery with ice under your feet. “Fuck that.”

“Tell me about it.”

Your feet go out from under you the instant you startle. The ice claws at your bare shoulder though you don’t notice it at first since the fall steals the air from your lungs. You flip onto your back, frantically scanning the dark alley you were just passing for the source of that voice, body screaming from the lack of oxygen already.

A sorcerer stares down at you from a scant few feet away. The streetlights barely catch on the series of silver necklaces laying against his chest, but it’s enough to see the mark that labels this man not only a sorcerer, but a damn good one. He grins and his teeth glint in the low light. “Steady, now. Didn’t mean to give you a fright.”

You don’t have a huge number of options here. Sorcerers come prepared. Unlike witches, they can’t pull magic from the ley lines or chant spells out of thin air. Their power is in potions, charms, and traps. If this sorcerer’s comfortable enough scaring people from alleys at night, he’ll be ready for you to hit him at the very least.

You launch yourself off the ground, arms and thighs screaming at you. There’s still not enough air in your lungs and your shoulder is throbbing from the fall, but you don’t have a thought to spare for either discomfort. He might be ready for you to hit him but with any luck he won’t be ready for you to flee.

Sure enough, there’s a shocked inhale from the man before booted feet pound down the sidewalk behind you. He swears as his feet slide. “Wait! Stop!”

The bus stop is two blocks away. It’s the closest place you can think of that has cameras. If you go down to whatever this sorcerer has planned, you want it to be witnessed at the very least. Maybe, if you’re really lucky, the bus will be there and you won’t have to think about what he wants from you. 

You can just see the dim glow of the streetlight hovering over the bus bench when the sorcerer curses one more time and throws something. It looks like a grenade as it sails past your head, cylindrical with a grid of lines laid over it. The thing hits the ground a dozen feet ahead of you and sticks as if caught by a magnet. It doesn’t occur to you to stop so, like an idiot, you try and jump over it.

The air lights with an eerie, sickly green. The next second, you’re on the ground.

You roll onto your side, wheezing, and try to make sense of what happened. Your head is ringing but you can’t tell whether it’s from hitting the sorcerer’s ward or the ground. Your shoulder’s definitely dislocated. Without thinking, you roll onto it and shove it back into place. Immediately the torrents of pain ripping through you ease.

“Gross,” the sorcerer pants. He’s come to a stop a few years from you and is bent over with his hands on his knees. “Does your shoulder always sound so...meaty?”

“What do you want?” You ask when you can breathe again. The magic behind you is still going strong, casting the entire area in a green hue. The sorcerer looks sickly because of it, dark bags under his eyes even more pronounced and long, dark hair darker than it should be.

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And that's everything I started and left alone this week! It's definitely frustrating to get stuck in this sort of endless warm-up, start, lose the trail cycle. It's definitely a relief to be feeling better and alert enough to work on my current projects!