Inktober 2018

[Ranger of the North]

Prompt: knitting-needles & grandparentsxxxxxxxxxxxTheme: angst & softxxxxxxxxxxxDay: 09xxxxxxxxxxxWords: 432

xxxxxShe crept up the stairs with feather-light feet and her heart in her throat. Every step flooded her with memories; most rosy and bright-gold, but a few with the hollow gloom of heartache. Her fingers brushed the wall, and she remembered a time when there was no wall; only straw cobbing, built up by the loving work of many years. She remembered, as she climbed, a time when there were no stairs; when the house was an expectant skeleton, just waiting to be filled with laughter.
xxxxxThe walls had caught and held the echoes of all her joyful yells and the laughter of her playmates; the very stairs rang with the remembrance of bouncing feet. This house held so much love.
xxxxxSo it was weird to be feeling so sick.
xxxxxAt last she reached the landing, and turned left. There was the curtain, slung haphazardly in the doorway; it used to be the only door. There was the coffee-table, the ragged old couches, the sun-stained plywood floor and photo-splattered walls, bright with smiling faces. All from years ago.
xxxxxHer steps were like lead, she felt sick to the pit of her stomach. But this was something she had to do.
xxxxxNot daring to hesitate, she fled through the stifling room and into the next. She doesn’t remember, now, whether she eased the door open slowly — slowly — as if wary of some horrible beast, or whether she ripped it open and forced herself inside before her courage deserted her.
xxxxxShe remembers sun beating down relentlessly against the roof, flies humming against the window. She remembers light cutting across the bed in vast swathes; the bed that didn’t look like it had been slept in since that horrible nightmare so long ago. She remembers half-expecting to see a body on the floor.
xxxxxTearing her gaze from that area, she was met with all the belongings of the dearly departed. She remembers wanting to remember it, but being so, so afraid; she remembers wanting to leave, but wanting to take in everything. She saw the drawers, the clothes, the necklaces, the watch that was so familiar it ached, the knitting-needles that had begun so many projects but finished so little, still with half-wound yarn attached, and her eyes stung.
xxxxxShe remembers not wanting to be found but wanting to leave, hovering in the doorway with her heart on her sleeve and her pain in her eyes.
xxxxxWhat happened next is foggy in her mind, but she knows she leaves the room. And she knows no one caught her. But then the memory ends.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

So many mixed emotions. Unexpected was sweet, but it was sad that she felt so out of place. I can't breathe was just plain sad and kitting needles gave me a sort of vaguely Tolkien feels, y'know, something beautiful but something's lost at the same time and it's not coming back.

[Ranger of the North]

Thank you; I really appreciate your thoughts on these 😊

[Ranger of the North]

Prompt: crowxxxxxxxxxxxTheme: birdsxxxxxxxxxxxDay: 10xxxxxxxxxxxWords: 107

xxxxxLogue threw back his head to watch the sky, and the last dying rays of sunlight fell on his face. Wind crooned a soft song to the grass around him, and high above, a crow called harshly as it headed Northeast. Winter was coming.
xxxxxMovements smooth as the wind in the trees, he drew back his bow and sighted down the shaft. Crows were a promise of darkness. He should kill it.
xxxxxBut he couldn’t. The bird flew onward, little knowing how close death had come.
xxxxxHe could only wonder, as he made his own way Northeast, how many times it had come so close to him.

[Ranger of the North]

Prompt: flower birdsxxxxxxxxxxxTheme: literalxxxxxxxxxxxDay: 11xxxxxxxxxxxWords: 398

xxxxxMurph stood alone beneath a tree, cloak draped over one arm like the kings of old. He was thinking. The rebels were badly in need of water: the springs were drying at an alarming rate everywhere but in Arthur’s favoured cities, and so far there had been no conceivable way to reach T’n’og (or, the River of Many Names). His own people had more than a few methods to deal with drought, but the soldiers he associated with now were unsuited to the job, mighty though they were.
xxxxxMurph’s brow furrowed as he thought, striding on through the trees with hands clasped behind his back.
xxxxxTrees had once only been a wistful dream, yet here he was; it was a miracle, and water would become one too if he could only think.
xxxxxHe walked for hours through the wood, following deer-trails and the greenest paths, turning one idea after another over in his mind before invariably discarding it.
xxxxxAs day trickled into early evening, Murph realised he had no recollection of his surroundings. He had forged deep — maybe too deep — into the heart of the South’rd Forest.
xxxxxHe swallowed down a pang of fear.
xxxxxBirds fluttered in the trees like overgrown butterflies, and as he spun on his heel to turn back, he recognised the flowering vines looping gracefully from branch to branch: honeysuckle. His tongue was dry as sand in his mouth. Would it cost him to have just one sip?
xxxxxEven as he watched, the nearest flower shook free of its motherbranch and looped into the air, releasing a delicate rain of water droplets as feathery flower-petal wings unfurled and carried it away. Murph’s jaw all but hit the ground.
xxxxxWith hasty steps that burned with excitement, he neared the next quivering flower-bird and put out a finger to catch a stray droplet as it flew. Water!
xxxxxIt was unlikely anyone would believe him about the fairy-like creatures — and he wasn’t entirely sure he’d want them to — but if he could find his way back with vases and urns...
xxxxxHe surveyed the flower-heavy creeper leaping from one tree to another, wrapping foliage and even itself in miles upon miles of smothery green hug, and felt sure there would be enough to water the entire camp.
xxxxxSteps light with relief and exultation, he began the trek back to his comrades — rebels all.

[Ranger of the North]

Prompt: kingfisherxxxxxxxxxxxTheme: birdsxxxxxxxxxxxDay: 12xxxxxxxxxxxWords: 51

xxxxxKing of the world, he perches above on a powerline. None dare encroach upon his territory for fear of his mighty beak. With shimmering, blue-green wings and a creamy yellow underbelly, he is beautiful and lordly and he knows it.
xxxxxHe is kingfisher, commander of the waves and respected by all.

[Ranger of the North]

Prompt: hallucinationsxxxxxxxxxxxTheme: creep and horrorxxxxxxxxxxxDay: 13xxxxxxxxxxxWords: 111

xxxxxKay sat listlessly in the entrance of her tent, lost in the dancing flames of the campfire; her pencil lay forgotten on the ground.
xxxxxThere were faces in the fire, forms only she could see — some long gone ahead, some left behind, and some killed by her own hand. They caught her and held fast, trapping her mind and piercing her heart with shards of silver. She was lost in their depths.
xxxxxA hand gripped her shoulder suddenly, yanking her back; dragging her once again into the land of the living, the solid and real. Teeth gleamed cheerily down at her, and her oldest friend took his seat.
xxxxx“Whatcha writing?”

[Ranger of the North]

Prompt: first sunsetxxxxxxxxxxxTheme: softxxxxxxxxxxxDay: 14xxxxxxxxxxxWords: 229

xxxxxThe sun set in a breathtaking blaze of pure colour; crimson awash in an ocean of gold, tongues of fire burning through lavender clouds — but he had eyes only for the bundle in his arms. Crickets in the hills struck up a chorus with the swaying grass, a song for the courts of a king, and he thought it only fitting. He held the world in his hands. His firstborn daughter.
xxxxxWhen tiny fingers curled around his own he hardly dared breathe, and when he held her close for the first time, skin on skin, he knew he could die for her. Her feet were smaller than he ever could have imagined, ears and fingers and nose and every piece of her so delicate and breakable it was as though she had been crafted from fairy-dust. He took a breath, relishing the heady musk of new life, and emotion stung his eyes; his heart felt full to bursting with gratitude and sheer, awestruck wonder.
xxxxxHe heard a step on the porch behind, and there was his wife — weary, but with pure joy setting her eyes alight with rose-coloured flame. He hugged her as he’d never hugged anyone before.
xxxxxThen they sat, alone together, soaking in the dying sun; souls singing with the wordless voice of the life around them.
xxxxxTheir first born’s first stars sprinkled the sky.

[Ranger of the North]

Prompt: a strange animal in your backyardxxxxxxxxxxxTheme: unexpectedxxxxxxxxxxxDay: 15xxxxxxxxxxxWords: 145

(Any guesses as to what the animal is? X)

xxxxxMillie was just rinsing off the last of her dishes when she heard an unfamiliar bird outside. As she considered herself something of an expert on bird-calls, she was justifiably curious.
xxxxxHurrying to the door, she poked her head out and there — oh, there was a glossy, soot-black bird with a gracefully curving beak and a wattle burning orange at its throat. Millie could only stare, amazed, as it hopped across her lawn to the felled kauri that had been downed in a storm last spring; she had been intending to ask her grandson, Jake, if he could chop it up for firewood. But now she knew for a fact that she never would.
xxxxxThe bird hopped up onto the log, where her shorter-beaked mate greeted her with a courteous bow, and Millie retreated smilingly to dry her dishes. This would be her secret.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

(kookaburra sitting on an 'lectric wire, tears in his eyes and his pants on fire)
I loved flower birds and first sunset! So soft and I can just see them so clearly in my head