Inktober 2018

[Ranger of the North]

Hello there! So I believe ordinary Inktober is for artists, but a friend organised an Inktober Discord server for artists and writers both... Which is good, because I can’t draw to save my life XD Although let’s be real here, if my life depended on it I’d be shading like Leonarda da Vinci. Basically how it works, is there’s a list of themes (each with 31 different prompts, one for each day) and you have to use a prompt from any of the themes to write a piece for each day on that day. For example, on day one you look for all the ‘day one’ prompts. I didn’t write ahead, but I did go back and write for days I missed. And I managed to get a piece written for each day!

The quality of these ranges from absolute ugh to ‘hey, I did something good here!’ depending on what time I wrote them. So uh. Be warned? Also sometimes I ignored/conveniently forgot/actually forgot the themes and just used the prompts, whoops 😋

Some are short-stories, some are one-shots, and I even have one or two poems and sentence-length stories. So feel free to post, and I really hope you enjoy! <3

[Ranger of the North]

Reserved

[Ranger of the North]

Prompt: fire magicxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxTheme: unexpectedxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxDay: 01xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWords: 420

xxxxxIt was cold, colder then she ever could have dreamed, colder than she ever would have prepared for had she had time to prepare. She sat alone in the dark, alone in an abandoned warehouse in nothing but jeans and something between a hoodie and a jacket in the middle of Antarctica and shivered. Violently.
xxxxxHer teeth hummed like a jackhammer in her mouth, infusing her tongue with its own blood as her body shook. She had been cold many, many times before in her life, but not like this. This scared her, rocking her knees like jelly and clutching at her heart with fingers more chilling than her own. This shivering struck hard and fast, clenching every muscle in her body all at once in intermittent, seizure-like bursts.
xxxxxShe wondered if she was going to die. Her nose felt gone. Her feet were mere blocks of ice. Her hands, meant to stay warm and sheltered in her armpits, insisted on falling free, and her stomach had moved on from gnawing her spine to digesting the nearest vital organ. What little she could see was blurring.
xxxxxA fleck of sleet landed on her hand, and she raised it listlessly to her stare at her fingers — although the first few times she tried, her arm jerked past her face and out of eyesight completely. Her fingers were blue. Immovable. And she laughed.
xxxxxWith reckless abandon, she raised the other hand and clattered her fingers together, hoping for a pretty sound — like ice crystals tinkling against each other — or maybe a finger to fall off. She couldn’t feel a thing, and she was going to die anyway. So why not one piece at a time? It would be hilarious.
xxxxxThe girl’s dying attention was snapped up like a five year old’s by the fact that she couldn’t feel her own body. Eyes dimming, snow coating her lashes like the film of death, she knocked her fingers together one last time — and warmth flickered between them like electricity, racing up her arm. It tugged her back from the brink, back from the darkness that threatened to envelop her in neverending folds of death.
xxxxxShe wanted to frown, but couldn’t summon the energy.
xxxxxInstead, she cautiously rubbed her senseless fingers together again; slower this time, putting more thought into the action; watching as the grooves in her frozen skin caught and held and tugged.
xxxxxAnd flame danced between her fingers.
xxxxxIt was just another thing she didn’t know about herself.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

WOAHZ
That was seriously intense mi amiga

[Ranger of the North]

Aaah yay I'm glad! Thank you, wasn't sure if I'd managed it

[Ranger of the North]

Prompt: cleaning injuries alonexxxxxxxxxxxxxxxTheme: angstxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxDay: 02xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWords: 589

(All names changed)

xxxxxTears blurred the world in hot streams of grief and agony from both his soul and body. He was gone. George was gone. Life had always been hard and life would always be hard, but this week had turned into the depths of Hell. And it was funny how the little things affected you.
xxxxxThe weight of leaving Jen and Posy — Martin’s best friend and love of his life, and his child — they had all three borne bravely; Posy with the incomprehension of the babe she was, and he and Jen with eyes that grieved but did not weep. They held onto the hope, the belief, the truth that they would meet again. Because he had to come back. It was all they had. And he hadn’t let himself grieve the separation.
xxxxxAll the long, hard, wearying way to the Mountains of Glass, he had held onto the hope that somehow, someway, the sacrifices of his family and fellow soldiers would one day mean something. Even when all seemed dark and hopeless and he was so, so afraid, he held onto his hope and believed — because that was how George saw the world, and if even one person is brave enough to stare down the dark you stand with them.
xxxxxWhen George died, the days blurred together like sand in an hourglass. And Martin grieved. The pain in his soul was like nothing he’d ever experienced, nothing he could put into words. It ached and burned until he wept himself blind and screamed himself voiceless, and still it was there; unaffected by the salt knives flashing down his cheeks. He’d known by the hollow shells of the others’ eyes that they felt it, too — and had felt it before — and the raw ache of it never got easier.
xxxxxBut he hadn’t cried since. Hadn’t laughed, either, none of them had. He’d taken the searing, fiery pain that would have ripped his soul from his body if it could, and he’d buried it deep and ignored it, shovelling scar-tissue that would never quite heal over top of it like dirt on a coffin. When his friends and companions at arms, his squad-mates, had abandoned him one by one, he accepted it with a numbness that felt like it should have scared him. And he hadn’t shed a tear.
xxxxxBut now today, after hunt after hunt had failed, he’d lost his pack and all he owned — lost every reminder of home — a stray twig had slapped him across the face, and — the straw the broke the camel’s back — he’d slipped on a mossy log and skinned his knee... It was all too much. Martin sobbed alone in the rain, overcome with grief and exhaustion, and inspecting his own injury with trembling, mud-stained fingers.
xxxxxTears blurred his vision once again, and he dashed them away furiously. If the others could see him now!
xxxxxIf they were here, he realised, Jane and Rob would have the day’s kill roasting on an open fire, and Mina would take one look at his knee and know what he needed. But they were gone. The thought swelled in a great, bruising lump in his throat and his body shook beyond all control. He could do nothing but draw his knees up to his chest and crumple his fists in his eyes like a lost child, fighting desperately to control the sobs.
xxxxxIt was a long, long time before he finally fell to a numbing wave of unconsciousness.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

:'( this is way too saaad Ranger

[Ranger of the North]

😭

[Ranger of the North]

Prompt: groundedxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxTheme: birdsxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxDay: 03xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxWords: 849

(Unedited.)

xxxxxRegus stared unflinchingly up at the sun, watching the wheeling figures only he could see. It struck his feathers with an almost physical force and he shifted restlessly, wishing he could join the hawks above. They would lead a fine chase.
xxxxxRegus’s keeper cast an uneasy glance in the great bird’s direction as his talons shifted, gleaming dangerously in the afternoon sunlight. The eagle arched his neck, eyes gleaming proudly, for though he was the captive it was humans who feared.
xxxxxSuns and stars he wished he were free. He had been living for most of his life, but since having his wing shot through he’d only been surviving; forcing himself through one day of gawking and feather-curling inactivity after another. Several months ago, a bounty hunter had caught sight of him in the Kaimanawa Mountains and promptly shot him. In truth, he was expecting death, but the pain was almost too crippling to fight through. Instead the hunter had left him in torment for hours, and when the pain at last grew hot enough to blind the eagle, he struck. With several of his cronies, he had ensnared the beast and drugged him senseless. Then, from what little Regus had picked up from the other beasts, he had been sold (a strange concept, one he couldn’t wrap his claws around) to something called a circus. The long and the short of it was, he had decided, that he had been enslaved and was still imprisoned. And he cursed his fate daily in the tongue of eagles.
xxxxx“Ladies and gentlemen!” The voice that rang through the tents was one he’d grown to hate, bitterly. “I introduce to you the great and mighty slayer of men, devourer of children, and bane of dragons past — Regus!”
xxxxxRegus screeched as someone jabbed him from within the shadows of the tent. Desperate to escape his tormentor, he beat his wings and launched from his perch; but the chain encircling his leg snapped taut and drove him groundward in an instant. Ordinarily he could check himself — practice makes perfect — but it seemed to have been shortened. He crashed to the ground in a crush of wings and feathers, crying out in pain as old injuries protested their rough handling.
xxxxxThe ringmaster laughed, setting a firm boot on the eagle’s breastbone, and he couldn’t hold back a quick gasp of pain; he could barely breathe, the man’s weight was crushing his keel.
xxxxx“Didja see that, little lad?” the man grinned dangerously. “Tried to kill ya, and would’ve too.” Regus couldn’t restrain a cry of pain and indignance, and the man’s heel dug dangerously against his bones.
xxxxxThe rest of the day was misery. The proud eagle hardly dared move; he was bruised and thirsty and in pain, but received neither veterinary attention nor water. He was forced to sit and bear the jabs, both verbal and physical, and realise anew that he was naught but a toy in the humans’ hands. Never again allowed to stretch his wings, however much he ached for the sky.
xxxxxAs dusk fell and crickets emerged from their sleeping quarters, spectators were driven away and the circus-workers began to bustle about their various tasks. One, as was required, tossed Regus a side of stale meat; the eagle hid beneath his wing. He didn’t want food. He wanted home.
xxxxxThe corner of the nearest tent twitched suddenly, and Regus raised his head, instantly on the alert as his hunting-instincts took over. He watched keenly as a small creature revealed itself. A human girl. Regus vaguely remembered seeing her in the crowd that day.
xxxxx“Hi,” she whispered loudly. “I’m here to get you out.”
xxxxxRegus froze on his perch. He didn’t understand all her words, but with her tone and body-language he thought he could guess what she was driving at. Could it be true?
xxxxxHe watched her silently, ignoring every instinct that said to attack, as she cautiously drew nearer, one agonisingly slow step at a time.
xxxxxThen at last she had reached his perch. Small hands wrangled the cold iron shackle around his legs, and he shuddered beneath the discomforting touch. Then with a gentle clatter, the chain fell limp in her arms.
xxxxxRegus looked at his free leg and it didn’t look right. It had been so, so long. He wanted to thank her, but as the chain fell away, every nerve in his body kindled with a fever that would not be restrained; an anxiety that needed open air, needed to be away from humans and their filthy, stinking tents and their sharp devices and their disgusting, smelly habits.
xxxxxHe spread his wings and leapt into the air without a backward glance, the wind from his passage buffeting the girl back against the side of the tent. Startled shrieks rang out from below, and Regus screamed his triumph to the sky. He was FREE! He spun almost on his tail, wheeling back toward the sinking sun and slicing through the air faster than the wind. They would never catch him again. He was going home.

[TheSongOfTheStars]

Okay. That one was good. Sad at first but you made it good.