Stubborn Pride

“I wouldn’t--!” Angel began, but it was too late.

DJ heaved himself off the cot, bit back a curse when pain lanced through his shoulder. “You set it?”

“You dislocated it,” Angel said. “You also have three cracked ribs, a black eye, and a split lip, and possibly a concussion. Why the hell are you moving?”

DJ growled, scooted toward the edge of the cot so he could toe on his shoes. “I’m not staying here.” He had to wriggle and squirm several times, trying to bend at the waist so he could reach his shirt to pull it on.

“You’re not going home in the condition either,” Angel said. “If you have a concussion, someone has to watch over you--”

DJ glared with his one good eye. “I’m fine. I don’t need your help.”

“That’s what they all say,” someone else said, and DJ lifted his head.

Celia swept into the room. She had a tray of hot tea and a dish of something pungent-smelling. “Get back on that bed,” she said firmly.

DJ stared at her. “What are you doing here?”

“Did Angel not tell you?”

DJ slewed a glance at Angel, then turned back to her. “Tell me what?”

“We’re cousins,” Celia said easily. “Now get back on that bed and take your shirt off.”

“What for?” DJ made no move to obey.

“So I can rub some of this ointment on your shoulder - it’ll help with the pain.” Celia set down the tray and poured some tea in a mug. She handed one to Angel, then one to DJ. “It’s medicinal. It’ll help, too.”

It tasted foul.

Celia dipped two fingers into the dish of ointment and gestured. “Take off your shirt already.”

DJ tugged on the hem of his shirt in what he new was a maidenly gesture. “I don’t want you to touch me.”

Celia sighed. “Fine. Do it yourself.” She held out the dish.

“You’ll regret it,” Angel said.

DJ did, but he refused to admit it.

(335 words)

Glassy Eyes

Steve stumbled as he took the last turn in the obstacle course and fell to the ground in a heap. Seconds later he was on his feet again racing towards the finish; breathing labored and ragged.

"Time. Two minutes forty-three seconds," David's voice called out.

Steve bent over his knees, huffing and struggling not to throw up. David approached from where he had been observing the course.

"You feel alright Blackwood?" he asked a trifle gruffly; there were other teams around.

Steve looked up at his commander from glassy feverish eyes and forced himself to stand up straight; his vision blurring and threatening to go black.

"Fine sir."

David took a step closer so that none could overhear them. "How long have you been sick Steve?"

Steve glanced around quickly, "a few days sir. This is the worst that its been."

David brought his hand up with a towel in it. To anyone looking on it would look like he was wiping some sweat from his soldiers brow, but David ran his wrist over his friends forehead.

"You're burning up Steve," David said quietly, and with a little disapproval.

"It's not that bad Boss," Steve said.

David leveled a look at his subordinate officer.

"Steve, I want you to go back to base and wait for me to get there. I will write you a week pass so that you can get well," David said as he pushed Steve's shoulder, steering him back toward the bunker.

It was a testament to how poor he felt that Steve didn't even argue; just turned and walked wearily back to base.

What It Felt Like

“Quit moving,” Holly said.

Keith hissed, impatient, and resisted the urge to bat her hand aside when she mopped his brow with a cool, damp cloth. “I’m not a bloody child.”

Holly cast a pointed glance over his stuffed tiger hot water bottle, his nest of fuzzy blankets, and the mountain of pillows making him comfortable. He’d pleaded for them bit by bit over the past few hours, blue eyes big and guileless, voice small and suspiciously child-like. Now he was decked out like an Arabic Sheikh and had Holly waiting on him hand and foot.

Duffy, Shannon, and Ste were out at the newsagents securing an army’s worth of tinned chicken noodle soup.

“You could’ve fooled me,” Holly said.

Keith felt his nose begin to run. He sniffled. Holly cast him another pointed look. He sniffled again, mutinously, but when it did no good he used the back of his wrist. Holly sighed and handed him a box of kleenex.

“You really were raised in a barn, weren’t you?” she said.

Keith blew his nose, loudly, and glared at her. She ignored his glare and reached out, brushed his hair aside gently to feel his forehead, check his temperature.

“It’s gone down a bit,” she said. “You ought to kick this fever in the next four to six hours.”

“I want to be better.” Keith knew he sounded whiny, but he knew as soon as the others were done dropping off the soup they’d be out on the streets, planning the next big strike. He was supposed to be with them. He was a warrior for the Glorious Cause.

Who couldn’t fight off a common cold.

“I know you do.” Holly kissed him on the cheek. Then she pulled back, tilted her head to listen. “The others are back. I’ll fix up a bowl of soup.”

When she left, Keith sank back on his bed of pillows and sighed. He wondered if this was what it felt like, when a mother watched over her sick child. He was so used to his father just thrusting a box of tissues and a packet of lozenges at him and telling him to get over it.

The lads came in to tell jokes and clown about while Holly cooked. When she returned, they left, and it was just the two of them. Keith fell asleep to Holly reading him Yeats.

(399 words)

Beast

Joe curled tighter into a ball as the nausea reached its peak; groaned at the thought of anything making an appearance, but knowing at the same time that there was nothing in his stomach to come back up. A metal bowl rested on the floor next to his bed, just in case. He had sacrificed the convenience of the bathroom floor for the comfort of his own bed. And he hadn't been able to eat for three days.

Joe poked his head out of the covers when he heard the door to his room open and felt a fresh breath of clean air stir the close stuffy confines of the room and suddenly recoiled in agony as the light snapped on, illuminating it from shadowy to stark brightness. Joe hissed in displeasure and drew the covers over his head again.

"Joe?" Jen's voice drifted to him under the layers of covers where he lay shivering, "Joe. Come out."

"You can't make me," Joe called out in a muffled voice as he pulled the covers tighter around himself.

"You can either come out or I can come in after you," Jen threatened.

Joe cracked the covers just slightly, "what do you want?" he asked petulantly. He knew he was being childish, but he didn't care at the moment.

"To make you feel better," Jen said brightly. She waved a plastic sleeve full of saltine crackers in front of him. "I also have chicken noodle soup."

"I don't think I can eat anything," Joe muttered.

"Well, it's either that or I can give you a shot," Jen threatened again, this time brandishing a needle.

Joe hissed again in displeasure. "All right," he wheezed as he reached for the crackers, "but I don't think this is a good idea."

"Just do it," Jen said, "I'll go run you a warm bath while you work your way through those."

As Jen stood to leave the room Joe laid a hand on her wrist, "thank you Jen. I know I'm a beast when I'm sick."

Jen sat back down next to him and ran a hand through his hair. She cracked a smile, "I've dealt with worse," she said and winked at him, standing again to go start the water running.

Overview #58: Non-canon

Okay. Total fail this week. But I have been toxic, and my brain has not been functioning. I did enjoy tweaking Jen and Joe's relationship. Age wise at least.

Project #59: In Sickness and in Health

100-500 words. What are your characters like when they're sick? What do they do to stay healthy? What kinds of weird family or traditional remedies to they have lying around that they recommend to others? Explore your characters some more and see how they'd hold up to the old wedding vow.

Overview #58: Non-canon

I love James as a character a lot, and there are all sorts of things I want to do with him that really won't help the overall Dagaz arc, so this week, trying out some things between him and Asia was a lot of fun. I was sloppy and unrealistic, I realize, because a boy as good-looking as James is would definitely have had his first kiss by fifteen, and even if he hadn't, he'd remember the face of his first kiss forever, so when seventeen, nineteen, and twenty-three rolled around, he'd definitely recognize Asia's face. Still, I thought it might be fun to have Asia watch him growing up.

I think, making James another incarnation of Arcturus might be an injustice to him. Especially if Asia recognizes him. I liked watching the way her relationship played out with James, but the undercurrent of Arcturus angst got tiring pretty quickly, at least for me, and faces fade over time, so maybe it's plausible that Asia, though she remembers her once and future king, doesn't properly remember his face? It's something to think about.

I don't know. This was a good learning experience for the plot and characters, though.

Page Mallory (Reprise)

Two weeks before shooting was supposed to begin, James turned up at the studio for training. He paused outside the door and watched, awed, at two knights in full armor jousting in the distance. On closer examination, one knight was much smaller than the other, but both were riding full tilt.

A groan and a cheer rose up when the smaller knight’s lance knocked the other knight off his horse, and then a whole cadre of horse wranglers were in the middle of the jousting grounds, soothing the horses.

“Well?” one of the producers - Simon - asked.

The smaller knight hopped off the horse, tugged off the bucket-like helmet - and shook out long, dark, curly hair.

“It’s sturdy enough,” she said. “You’ve chosen a good smith. Now you just have to make it period, hm?”

James could only stare. The victorious knight was a girl? Sure, James had read his fair share of historical fiction novels with their anachronistic heroines, but that was fiction. To actually see a girl win a jousting bout was unreal. James narrowed his eyes, shaded his gaze to see better. Something about the girl was oddly familiar.

Simon spotted him. “James! There you are. Just in time - come meet our combat coordinator.”

James trotted over, curious. As he drew closer, his memory stirred, and he realized that he recognized the girl. “Asia Kash,” he said.

Simon raised his eyebrows. “You know each other?”

A smile blossomed on Asia’s face. “James Mallory! I’d heard a DC boy had been cast as a principal, but I never thought it’d be you.”

“I thought if I saw anyone from my DC days around here it’d be your brother, not you.” James grinned back at her, feeling something warm bloom in his chest.

“Tobias has a gig teaching drama to wayward youth,” Asia said. “The one who made it in the business is me.”

James clapped her on the shoulder. He said to Simon, “Her brother was my roommate at drama school. We know each other well.”

“Good,” Simon said. “She’s going to be teaching you how to wield a sword.”

Asia grinned up at him. “Prince you may play, but under my tutelage, you are Page Mallory until further notice.”

James cast her an appraising look. “That’s not the first time someone’s called me that,” he said.

(389 words)

One of Those Faces

“...Put the computer by the window?”

“No - the glare from the sunshine will be obnoxious,” Tobias said.

Asia paused by his door, puzzled at how the other voice in the room - presumably his roommate - could sound familiar. Then she hefted the box of books she was carrying and nudged the door open with her foot.

“When you’re doing being Martha Stewart, how about you help me move your junk?” She edged into the room and dumped the box onto his bed. Which she’d made earlier and now was already rumpled.

“Nice, Asia.” Tobias rolled his eyes. “This is my sister, Asia. Asia, this is my roommate, James.”

Asia’s head came up sharply. There, standing across the room, was none other than James Mallory, Arcturus Dux reborn. He flashed her a wide, easy grin, and that was when she noticed the faint line of a scar running down the left side of his face. Easy for a talented make-up artist to cover, then.

“Pleasure to meet you,” he said. Then his brow furrowed. “You don’t look like his sister.”

“The milkman liked our house a good deal,” Asia said easily, and Tobias let out an indignant yelp.

“Hey! Don’t listen to her. We’re not blood-related; we were all foster kids in the same house growing up, but I think of her as my sister is all,” he said.

James nodded. “I see. I was afraid I’d stumbled into the middle of an awkward family drama.”

“Well, you’re in drama school, so it should come second nature to you.” Asia grinned, then pinched Tobias on the arm. “Come help me move boxes already.”

“I thought Angel was helping you.”

“He’s charming the dorm matron,” Asia said.

“I’ll help,” James offered.

Together, the three of them headed for the stairs.

“So,” James said, “Asia. Have we met before?”

“We haven’t even been roommates for a day and you’re already making a move on my sister?”

James shook his head quickly. “No, no, I didn’t mean it like that.” Then he looked at Asia. “Not that, er, I wouldn’t ever mean it like that.” Then he looked at Tobias. “It’s just - you look familiar.”


Tobias shot her a look; would she be a liability while he was undercover?

She shook her head and shrugged. “I guess I just have one of those faces,” she said. They made it into the parking lot where Angel was, indeed, chatting up the dorm matron.

“That’s our foster father, Angel,” Tobias said.

“He doesn’t look old enough to be anyone’s father,” James said. He was refreshingly blunt.

“Don’t tell him that - his ego doesn’t need it,” Asia said lightly, and then called out, “old man, come help your spawn!”

Angel spun around, ready with a glare, and then he went still. Awe, confusion, then something akin to fear crossed his face.

So he saw the resemblance, too.

(481 words)

And Their Pride

Asia was used to the repeated betrayal of looking at a familiar face and finding instead of a long-lost friend an alien, distant stranger. She hadn’t thought it would hurt so much more to glimpse an unfamiliar face and see a long-lost love.

He was seventeen and now average height for his age. Asia knew there was no accounting for taste, but she would always think him the most beautiful man she had never known.

Only he wasn’t that man.

He was a boy surrounded by a pack of angry bullies.

One had a knife.

“Poofter!” he shouted, jabbed.

It was the way James stood firm, chin held high, that made Asia miss Arcturus.

“Go on, Kaz, cut the freak!” one boy yelled.

“He’s not one of us anymore,” another added. “He’s fair game!”

James spoke smoothly, elegantly. His was the voice that would lead a thousand men willingly into battle. “If you prick us do we not bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? If you poison us do we not die? And if you wrong us shall we not revenge?”

Asia blinked, surprised. Since when did he know Shakespeare? Kaz lunged. James brought his arms up, ready to defend himself, but Kaz was faster, stronger. James went down, and Asia smelled the sharp copper of blood in the air.

No. She was in the fray in seconds, dispatching the stupid teenagers with swift, accurate strikes. After the first four went down, the last of them went running.


“Stay the hell away!” Asia shouted after them, and then she was on her knees beside James.

He had pushed himself up onto his haunches and had one hand pressed to his face. Blood streamed from between his fingers.

“Are you all right?” Asia asked.

“’M fine,” he muttered. “They’re just - bitter I quit playing football to do drama. They’re ignorant. They’ll grow out of it eventually.”

Asia tugged on his wrist. “Let me see.”

“He didn’t get my eye. I don’t need the hospital or anything.”

Asia tugged harder, and he yielded to her. Blood dripped from a gash that ran from brow to jaw. Asia shrugged off her jacket and balled it up, handed it to him.

“No,” he said, “blood stains.”

“You’ll probably need stitches,” Asia said. “Put pressure on it.”

“It’s not that deep - I can feel it,” James said.

Asia fished her mobile out of her pocket. “I’m calling an ambulance.”

James sighed. “Please --”

“It’s going to scar,” Asia said. “He’s ruined your career.”

“Yes, well, I’d prefer it if people hired me because I’m a good actor instead of how pretty I am.” James tried to smile, winced. “They can’t call me pretty anymore.”

“Boys and their pride,” Asia muttered. She dialed, spoke to the operator.

Then James said, “Do I know you? You look familiar.”

“I just have one of those faces,” Asia said. “I’ll wait with you.”

James looked at her for a long moment. Then he said, “Thanks.”

(500 words - quote from Merchant of Venice)

Pay

He was fifteen and tall for his age, broad in the shoulders, and completely and utterly grass-stained. His mother might have despaired of the state of his football uniform, only it was a football uniform and that’s what it was for. Asia suspected, after the last time she’d seen him, any hope he would look different from Arcturus was futile. He even moved the same, which she found uncanny.

She wondered how she could still find things uncanny when she lived with a quislai, a genie, a fire elemental, and a dragon.

He was fast, skilled from practice, and she felt something tug in her chest when she saw the rest of his teammates stand in a circle around him for a pep talk. Arcturus had been fifteen when he’d pulled the sword from the stone, and he was king soon thereafter, leading his men into battle. She remembered how much Emrys had fretted that the only table he could find on such short notice was circular.

The players spread themselves across the field once more, and James began shouting orders. Asia watched the teenagers move with ragged synchronicity. Even in practice, James ran his team like they were in competition. Then one of the boys made wild, flying kick, and the ball came right at Asia’s head.


She reached up and plucked it out of the air.

“Sorry about that!” James trotted toward her, waved his arms. “Give us a throw-in, would you?”

Asia abandoned her books and hurried down the bleachers toward the sidelines. She hefted the ball a few times, then looked at him, considering.

“What will you give me if I give this back?”

The confusion on his face was priceless. Apparently he’d never been challenged like this before.

“We’re in the middle of practice.”

Asia spun the ball on her index finger and looked up at him, amused. “Indeed you are, but as soon as this left the pitch it was no longer in your possession, and now it is in mine. So...what are you willing to pay?”

“Pay?” James echoed. “That ball belongs to the school --”

Asia remembered, wildly, baiting Arcturus when he was king, just to see the way his cheeks flushed and his eyes burned bright.

“Pay,” she said. “What will you give me?”

James patted down his pockets reflexively. “I don’t have any money, but -- this is madness. Can we have the ball back, please?”

Asia saw his players were getting restless and raised her voice. “What say you, lads? How much for your football? Is it worth a kiss? Maybe two?”

The boys gaped at her. One of them laughed, another let out an indecorous whoop and holler. James turned bright red.

“Go on, James, kiss her!” one of them called out.

James prowled toward the sidelines, wary and still blushing. He was muttering under his breath, and any other mortal wouldn’t have heard it, but Asia could.

She was pleased with herself, for taking his first kiss.

(500 words)

The Prettiest Star

When she saw him next, he was twelve years old, huddled in precisely the spot she’d wanted to use as a surveillance point. He had a guitar across his knees and was strumming it with more enthusiasm than skill, though after a few bars she realized she recognized the riff. Oasis. Of course.

She wondered if his face had changed since childhood, sharpened toward the angles of manhood so that when he lifted his head to look at her she wouldn’t overlay the image with twelve-year-old Arcturus dressed in hunting leathers, Cully perched on one arm.

When he lifted his head to look at her, his face was pale and streaked with tears and his eyes were puffy, red. He scrubbed a hand over his face with an angry huff and resumed playing his guitar.

“Are you all right?” Asia asked.

“’M fine,” he muttered. “Wish people would stop asking.”

“Why would people keep asking?”

He peered at her through damp, spiky lashes. “Oh. You don’t know.”

Asia eased down onto the grass beside him. “What don’t I know?”

“Don’t want to talk about it.” He studied the frets intently.

Asia smiled easily and shrugged. “All right.”

He peered at her again, suspicious of her acquiescence, but she just hummed along to the song he was playing.

“You like Oasis?” he asked.

“On occasion,” she said. “How long have you been playing?”

“Couple of years,” he said. “Dad always says - he always said I need to practice more.” He swiped his hand over his face again.

Asia caught the verb tense, understood the tears. “Practice makes perfect,” she said. She held out one hand. “Would you like me to tune it for you?” She was nowhere near as good as DJ, Gabriel, or Christian, but she was competent.

“Do I know you?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“You look familiar is all.”

“People say that to me all the time. I have one of those faces,” Asia said.

He studied her for a long moment, then handed her his guitar. She tuned it with practiced hands, and he smiled at the clear notes she played.

“Can you play very well?” he asked.

“Not very well, but well enough,” Asia said. “What would you like to hear?”

“Can you play any David Bowie?”

Asia played The Prettiest Star, and he sang along.

Years later, when she found the song on a playlist someone else had put on her iPod, she couldn’t help but smile.

(418 words)

Ages

"How old are you Jen?" Joe asked absentmindedly as they walked along the beach.

Jen laughed, "don't you know it's not polite to ask a woman her age?"

"You can't be much older than me," Joe said as he pulled her to a stop at the edge of the water.

"Well, I did graduate early from high school, and I jumped right into the local nursing program. I always knew that that was what I wanted to do with my life. I always wanted to help people. And look what it brought me," Jen said as she held up their intertwined hands.

"You're evading the question," Joe accused as he began to walk again.

"No I'm not, I just haven't answered you yet."

"Are you going to answer me?"

"Would it make a difference how old I was?"

"Not really," Joe said, "I'm just curious."

Jen looked out at the setting sun and then back to the handsome young man by her side. "I'll be twenty one in six weeks."

"And I'll be eighteen in a month," Joe said.

Page Mallory

It was the flash of golden hair and the song of a wooden sword cutting through the air that caught Asia’s attention. She was wandering along the boardwalk, idly browsing the bright wares at the stalls and considering buying a stick of Brighton Rock for a pre-mission sugar rush when she saw him.

He was no more than eight, but then Arcturus had been the same age when he’d first met Emrys and his nameless, faceless Prentiss. He stood on the sand, swinging the sword with more enthusiasm and skill, and Asia recognized the determination in his expression.

She paused, leaned on the railing, and watched him battle an invisible foe. Over the years she had seen many faces repeated, knew that it was the way of DNA and biology, but she’d never hoped to see his face again. Asia closed her eyes and remembered her king as she’d seen him last, face peaceful in magic-woven sleep.

“Take that!” the boy cried, lunging and jabbing with the sword.

Asia opened her eyes and saw him trip over his own shoelaces, land in the sand.

“Ow,” he muttered, and heaved himself up, dusted himself off.

“If you slide your back foot forward and push off with it a little bit before you lunge, you won’t over-extend yourself and lose your balance,” Asia said.

The boy tilted his head to look at her. “You know how to fight with a sword?”

She nodded. “I do.”

The boy clambered to his feet, picked up his sword. “Will you teach me?”

Asia glanced at her watch. She still had forty minutes until she had to meet her contact. “I don’t have much time, but why not?” She hopped over the railing and landed in the sand, neatly like a cat.

The boy’s eyes went wide. “Wow. Are you a ninja or something?”

“Or something,” Asia said. “What’s your name?”

“I’m not supposed to talk to strangers,” the boy began.

“Yes, well, considering what I can do with a sword, if I’d wanted to hurt you, you’d already be hurt,” Asia said. She winced when she realized just how aggressive that sounded.

“That’s not true,” the boy said. “You might have been paid to kidnap me and bring me undamaged.” He brandished his sword at her.

Asia knew enough about children that she didn’t laugh. She kept her expression solemn. “Yes, well, you have my word I’m not going to kidnap you.”

The boy gazed at her for a moment, and Asia reflected that children had an uncanny ability to sense deception that at times rivaled Gabriel’s gift. “My name is James,” he said finally. “James Mallory.”

“Well, Page Mallory, let’s see your sword,” Asia said.

He handed it to her.

“Why am I Page Mallory? Shouldn’t I be Sir Mallory?”

“Before a man becomes a knight, he must first serve as a page, then as a squire,” Asia said easily. “Now come on - this is how you hold a sword.”

(499 words)

Overview #57: Weather Poetry

So in my shame, weather poetry became more like seasonal poetry (Halloween and Summer, anyone at all?) and I think, surrounded by terrible cold and dirty snow made me want to write mostly about how horrible winter is, and that would have been boring. I think I went a long way in sticking to concrete imagery, but in doing so I lost out on emotion and themes. By the end of the week, all my poems were starting to sound the same to me. I'm not a poet, and I know it, but it was fun, ignoring things like definite and indefinite articles and not having to worry about plot or characters.

It was a growing exercise for me, but I'm not sure how much I genuinely improved at the art of poetry.

Still, another week is here, and I shall write on.

Project Assignment # 58 - Non-Canon

Okay. This is a week to switch it up. Write something that your characters would never do under normal circumstances, or just some good old things that have been kicking around in your brain, but would not work in the story.

Maybe a change to tweak something, to experiment with it before it becomes part of your story.

A chance to explore a relationship that could never happen, or what might have happened if things had turned out differently.

Have fun and happy writing.

500 words max.

Overview # 57

So I totally failed this week at posting. And when I did post, it was not so great. I don't know where my mind has been, but obviously not on writing. *Bows head in shame*

Nagi totally owned this week in writing. Her work was fantastic!

This next week will be better.

Summer Day

Golden sand burns soles and toes.
Waves lap at ankles and knees.
Open sky glows blue, dotted with birds
And clouds.

Sunlight glitters on
Clear blue waves;
The air filled with
Coconut-scented suntan lotion and
Melting ice-cream.

Voices weave a cheerful din -
Children chasing a frisbee,
College boys tossing a football -
And slowly the day wends on,
Suntans getting deeper,
Shadows getting longer.

(65 words)

Happy Halloween

Golden leaves, red, brown
That crunch underfoot
Mean harvest moons and
Pumpkins carved and grinning
On the doorstep.

Chimney-smoke
Like unfurling ferns on the horizon
Smells like family warmth
And apple cider.

Ghosts and goblins,
Fairies and princesses,
Knights and queens,
Laughter and costumes rustling.

Shoes patter down pavement 
In time to the swish, swish of
Leaves in a blue-cool breeze.

Dawn will bring
Candy-sickness and
Sore throats.

Happy Halloween.

(73 words)

Typhoon Season

It’s lightning and moonbeams,
The army-roll of thunder across the heavens
As rain sleets down
In ordered rows, columns, ranks
To pierce the sand,
Innumerable crystalline needles.

It’s white-capped waves
Whipped by the same invisible hands
That bend palm-trees toward breaking,
Fronds of green lashing against the horizon.

It’s thousands of homes laid waste
Like toys scattered by a careless titan;
It’s death and tears and shallow graves,
Oceanic byres,
And alphabetical names.

It’s typhoon season.

(79 words)

Fog Bound

Hazy mists obscuring
Sight; sound dimmed,
Life muffled.

Diffused light
Surrounding, enveloping.
Air sparkles
an opalescent sheen.

Enshrouded trees loom
Out of the mists
Sentinels of time

Raining Stars

Warm air -
The perfect temperature for
Short sleeves and bare feet -
Rustles tall green grass.

Clear skies glitter
With diamond-chip stars
Even as the sun
Dips its last
Down the horizon.

The last wafts of barbecue
And soda
Potato chips and
Homemade brownies
Fade in the breeze,
And as the moon creeps up

The summer perseids
Start to rain.

(60 words)

Tornado Season Again

Green skies signal
Sirens that
Break city din and
Bring on the wind.

Clouds form a wall
Black
From land to space
Triggering
Artificial night
And too-bright sunlight
Juxtaposed like
Opposing pieces
On a chessboard
Poised to kill.

The wind is
A thousand voices
Weeping and angry
And an army of fists
Battering windows
Breaking glass.

A second siren is
A false alarm
The eye in the sky.

It’s tornado season
Again.

(73 words)

Into the Night

Warm breathe of spring
Whispers silk soft
Against the skin.

Lily scent and Lilac grace
Ripening in the sun.
Color on the green.

Heavens dew distilling
Soft upon the grass
Fading into night.

Jungle

Heavy and cloying.
Tropical warmth sticks to skin.
Thick rain in the air.


(yay for Haikus)

Winter out the Window

Wind carries white
In an upward spiral,
Winter silk in an
Arctic breeze that
Turns my breath to crystal
And my words to
Weight.

Pristine powder on branches turns
Muddy in the streets
Under boots and tires and
Human industry.

Sirens and gales
Sing counter-harmony howls
Against the windows and
Around the gaps between
Doors and door frames.

The sun was
Golden
Yesterday.

(64 words)

Project #57: Weather Poetry

Up to 300 words! Tell us what the weather is like where you are or where you want to be, or anywhere in the world, and make it poetic. Does the snow glisten/like a thousand crystals/ dropped from a careless giant hand or is the sun / desert-hot and deceptively / golden / like molten metal / that burns to the touch? Let us know! Open-form or closed-form as is your pleasure. Work on concrete imagery.

Overview #56: Fluff

Okay. So I confess, I basically used this week's challenge as an excuse to get some Asia/James fluff out there in the open, because James is going to go through hell, and I needed a fluffy baseline to work from. I decided to completely give into the fluff and try out alternative forms of fluff, which ended up being some of the other boys of Sector Five just being decent human beings. I wanted to see what counted as nice and what didn't, how different people viewed compassion and what counted as compassion to them. I rather enjoyed the fact that DJ resorted to violence as an act of compassion.

Go DJ.

Still, it was more difficult than I thought it would be, trying to come up with non-cliché fluff, so in the end I resorted to cliché. For the last post.

Quarantine

“Where’s James?” Asia paused in the hallway outside Riley’s door.

“He’s caught a cold,” Riley said, darted a nervous glance down the hall toward James’s room.


Asia craned her neck and saw that someone had taped a biohazard sign to James’s door. “Oh dear. He doesn’t take illness well, does he?”

“He’s officially quarantined,” Serena added. “We’re shooting around him until he gets better.”

“Has a doctor been to see him?”


Serena shook her head. “No. No one’s to go near him. He’s contagious.”

Asia knew that contagion mattered little for her. “I’m going to take him some chicken soup.”

Riley winced. “You really shouldn’t. George has forbidden anyone from going in there.”

“I’ll be fine,” Asia said. “I’m tough.”

“He’s really, really ill!” Riley called after Asia, but she was already halfway down the stairs.

As she spoke fluent French, she managed to bully her way into the kitchen. Then she called Tobias and demanded his best chicken soup recipe. The cooks seemed amused at her cooking attempts, but in a couple of hours she had a bowl of soup and some bread rolls. One of the waitresses helped her load it onto a tray, and one of the maids slipped her a master key.

“’M miserable, George,” James said, muffled through the door. “Can’t I just see someone? I’ll take the nagging costume girls --”

Asia nudged the door open with her hip. “Chicken soup for the patient.” She smiled brightly.

James was disheveled and pale, though his cheeks were flushed with fever, and his hair stuck up every which way. He was huddled miserably on the bed, and it looked like he was in the middle of watching The Labyrinth. Again.

“Asia!” James’s face lit up, and then he dissolved into hacking coughs.

She set down on the tray and then sat down on bed next to him. She reached out and checked his forehead; he acquiesced to her touch easily enough; he was clearly hungry for human company.

“You’re quite ill,” she said.

James nodded. “I know. George said I’ve been quarantined. How’d you get permission to see me?”

“I didn’t,” Asia said, “but I’m tough. I won’t catch what you have.”

“How do you know?”

Asia just smiled and offered up the bowl of soup. “I know these things. Now come on - eat some soup and some bread rolls, and then I’ll pamper you for the next few hours, hm? Back rubs and foot rubs and anything else you’d like.”

James accepted the tray gratefully. “Thanks.”

Asia pressed a kiss to his cheek. “No problem.”

(429 words)

Sport of Their Own

“You all right?” DJ asked. He sank down on the edge of the basketball court beside Lee Hong.

Lee shrugged, carded a hand through his hair. “I’m not much one for American sports,” he said wryly. He had a black eye from catching an accidentally-on-purpose elbow to the face, and DJ had winced when he’d seen the hit.

“Yes, well, I’m not sure they’re much for your sports either,” DJ said.

Lee cast him a sidelong glance. “You’re the first person who hasn’t insisted that basketball should be my sport.”

DJ gave Lee a once-over and could see why the other boys at the high school might make that insistence. Lee was a good six-foot-three and built along the lean lines of a runner - or a martial artist. He had curly dark hair and Persian-dark eyes and mediterranean-olive skin, but he spoke fluent Chinese and took his notes vertically, right to left when he was in class. None of the students understood how Lee, who looked faintly like a Greek korous statue, was Chinese. Because he’d been raised by Chinese monks in the mountains of norther China and, until some foreigner had spotted him and offered him a mirror, hadn’t realized he wasn’t like his brothers in the faith.

“I can play it, and I like it, but it’s not my sport either,” DJ said.

“You can play it very well,” Lee agreed. “What is your sport?”

DJ eyed Lee up and down. Then he lunged, swinging one fist out in a snake-strike. Lee reacted automatically, blocking crane, striking tiger, and then they were nose-to-nose, Lee’s eyes wide in surprise, DJ grinning.

“You know wushu.” Lee blinked.

DJ’s grin widened. “Southern Shao Lin. What’s yours?”

“Northern,” Lee said.

DJ rocked back, kipped up onto his feet. He settled into an easy mantis stance. “How about we show those boys what your sport is?”

Lee followed suit, and then he crouched low, phoenix stance.

What came next was the best sparring match DJ could remember having in a long time. While he and Lee were weaving across the gym floor looking for openings in the other’s defense, the basketball game they’d been ejected from screeched to a halt, and the other boys could only stare.

DJ let Lee win, just barely, and when he was down on the ground he could see some of the other boys shuffling nervously.

As Lee pulled DJ to his feet, DJ asked, loud enough for the others to hear,

“Why did you take that elbow to the eye?”

He knew the answer, but hearing Lee say it was what made it worth it. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone.”

DJ clapped Lee on the shoulder, and together they headed for the locker rooms. The coach forgot to blow his whistle, for he was still staring.

“How about you come to my house for dinner tonight? My brother makes killer spring rolls...”

(496)

Fake Assignment

“I don’t think she likes me very much, Mr. Andrews,” Zach said.


Tobias sat down next to him and followed his gaze to where Marisa Halloway was standing and talking with her friends. Best as Tobias could tell, Marisa was stylish and fashionable by modern standards, but Tobias would always have eyes for a golden-eyed girl with black curls.

“Have you told her you like her?” he asked. He figured, of all the boys on the team, he best understood how to be a compassionate high school teacher.

“I tried.” Zach shrugged helplessly. “But I don’t think she even knows I’m alive.”

“Well...” Tobias studied Marisa. “Do you have any special talents?”

“I’m an orchestra geek, Mr. Andrews.” Zach rolled his eyes.

Tobias nodded patiently. “What instrument do you play?”

“The violin,” Zach said.

“I play the violin.” Tobias gave him a friendly nudge. “It’s a noble instrument. No need to be ashamed.”

“It’s classical and boring,” Zach pointed out. “All the cool guys play the guitar.”

“That’s not true,” Tobias said. “How about this - you play her a song?”

“Modern girls don’t like it when a guy serenades them out their window,” Zach said.

Tobias nodded. “I know. But...how about you make her a CD? Find out her favorite pretty ballads and record them.”

“An entire CD of violin solos? That’s kinda boring.”

“I know some musicians,” Tobias said. He smiled encouragingly. “You’d have back-up.”

“Really? And how would we record it?”

“Don’t worry - I’ve got that covered. You just need to find out what her favorite songs are.”

Zach gazed at Marisa for a long moment. Then he hauled himself to his feet. “All right.”


***

It took a fake assignment on Tobias’s part to find out Marisa’s favorite songs, some wheedling of DJ, Gabriel, and Keith, and a month in Tobias’s basement studio before the project was done. On the big day, Tobias lingered in the hallway and watched as Zach taped the CD to Marisa’s locker (DJ had made cover art specially for the project). Then Tobias and Zach watched together as Marisa approached her locker, slowed, inspected the gift.

She opened her locker and popped the CD into her discman right then and there. A smile spread across her features as she heard the first song, and Tobias saw Zach’s face light up. Tobias patted him on the shoulder and walked away, just in time for Marisa to look up and notice Zach.

Mission accomplished, Tobias thought, and headed for the teacher’s lounge.

(420 words)

Buried

David awoke slowly from his nap. The sun was still high and warm on his face and he felt like he was surrounded in warmth. He could remember lying down on the warm sands of the beach, Ariana beside him.

David turned his head and saw that Ariana was still sleeping. He smiled to himself and went to sit up, and found that he couldn't. Puzzled, David looked down at his chest and saw that he was buried up to his shoulders in a thick layer of warm sand.

After a few moments of fruitless struggle David sat still. He turned his head to look at Ariana and saw that she was shaking with silent laughter, tears rolling from her eyes.

"Ari, what on earth..."

Ariana burst out laughing and rolled onto her stomach as she scooted closer to her trapped boyfriend. She bit her lip, trying to hold back the laughter.

"Okay Ari, will you let me go now?" David laughed, trying again to free himself.

Ariana cocked her head to one side, "no. I don't think I will. At least not yet."

"Why not?" David asked with one eyebrow raised.

"Because now I can do this," Ariana said, as she bent over him. Ariana captured his lips in a long passionate kiss.

Ghostly

"You know, it really sucks that I can't touch you all the time," David said as he reclined in a chair, half in shade and half in the sun. Ariana hovered as if she were sitting on his lap.

"But you can see me almost all the time," Ariana said with laughter in her voice. "If you could touch me all the time, or rather, I could touch you, then I would be alive and I couldn't do my work."

"What exactly is your work?" David asked. He had gotten used to talking to her out loud, but only when he was sure there was no one around.

"Mostly to keep you safe," she said, "that's why I had to die. God knew that you would need me to help keep you safe. But thankfully, He didn't want to separate us."

"You said mostly," David said after a few moments, "what else do you do?"

"Well, you are by far the person that takes up most of my time. The other two don't need me so much. I also keep a general eye on your team, though each of them have their own guardian," she said.

"So when can you touch me?" David asked with a wink.

"When it won't endanger you, when it will keep you from harm, and when I think it is for your good," Ariana ticked them off on her fingers, her voice singsong as if reciting a list of rules.

"For my good," David laughed, the lost twinkle in his eye sparking to life, "wouldn't that be all the time."

"No," Ariana smiled, "I have to judge when it is for your good."

"Like when?" David asked.

"Like now," Ariana whispered and leaned in for a ghostly kiss.

Made On National Radio

“You get so antsy before publicity,” Devon remarked. Once in a blue moon the fans liked to see the producers and the writers, but Devon was content to stand in the wings and watch the principal actors do their thing.

Asia shrugged and watched with narrow eyes as the make-up girl spent longer than necessary combing James’s hair. “Yes, well, this one is going to be special, isn’t it? Usually the fans don’t see me live. I have to go out there and get my spar on.”

“I saw you and James rehearsing the routine,” Devon said. “It looked fine to me.”

“James is fine with a sword,” Asia said, distracted. She knew she was being irrational - James was attractive, and half the reason the fangirls tuned in each week was to see him with his top off (which distressed him more than he’d admit, but that was an argument for a later time), so it was expected that girls would throw themselves at him.

Finally James batted the make-up girl’s hands aside and scrambled up on the sofa to sit beside Riley for the radio interview before the live interview.

The DJ was a charming fellow, easy with the friendly banter and the jokes, loosening the boys up - since Riley was still awkward when it came to publicity and often let James answer for them both - and Asia was glad. Sometimes DJs liked to pick on James for being a pretty boy.

“What about the ladies?” the DJ asked. “James, you’re strapping and golden blond and fine with a sword - does it help? With the pulling?”

“I’m not much one for anonymous pulls, actually,” James said. “People recognize Riley more than me anyway. Unless I go out on the street wearing armor, no one looks at me twice.”

“That’s not true,” Riley said. “I mean, sure, all the girls think I look like a pixie, but you’re all strong and handsome --”

James blushed. “Yes, well, all right, being on the show has garnered me more attention on the streets, but - I’m seeing someone actually, so there you go.”

“Oh - so being on the show has helped you get a girlfriend?”

Asia didn’t hear the rest. She had told James it would be all right if he didn’t tell people about them, because he had a career to think about, and she really wouldn’t have minded, but - that he cared enough to say anything made her feel strangely warm inside. While the DJ quizzed Riley about his love life, James cast a glance toward the sidelines, and when he saw Asia, he smiled.

“I think,” Devon said, “you’ve just been made on national radio.”

“I think you’re right,” Asia agreed.

James grinned and made a motion liked swinging a sword, and Asia felt strangely warm, calm.

(468 words)

Concept of a Surprise

Joe slipped the blindfold over Jen's eyes and gently but firmly tied it, blocking her view of the world.

"Joe. What are you doing?" Jen asked with laughter in her voice.

"You'll see," he said as he helped her into the car.

"So where are we going?" Jen asked as they accelerated into the flow of traffic.

"You don't get the concept of a surprise do you?" Joe teased.

"Can I ask questions?"

"I won't guarantee that I will answer them," Joe said with a grin.

"That's not fair," Jen pouted.

"Have I ever told you how adorable you are when you pout?" Joe asked as he leaned over and pressed a kiss to the corner of her mouth.

They kept up the easy banter as they drove along. After what seemed like a short time, Joe was pulling the car off the road and onto a bumpy path. Joe knelt next to the car of Jen's side and slipped off her shoes.

"Hey," Jen protested, but Joe silenced her wit ha finger on her lips. He helped Jen out the car and she felt a fresh breeze blowing across her face and the moisture of a nearby body of water. She felt soft cool grass and earth beneath her feet. Joe took both her hands and lead her forward; she could sense the warmth of the sun on her face.

"Sit here," Joe said as she stepped from cool grass to soft fabric.

Jen settled herself down on the blanket and reached for the blindfold only to have Joe's strong hands arrest her own.

"Not yet," he whispered.

Jen placed her hands in her lap, waiting for him to say it was time. She could hear him rustling around next to her and wondered what he was doing. After a few more moments, Jen felt his strong fingers slide through her hair and release the blindfold. It fell to reveal a dazzlingly beautiful sunset over a lake; surrounding the blanket was a half dozed oil lamps, and a picnic dinner.

"Oh," Jen breathed.

"Do you like it?" Joe asked, his voice holding just the barest hint of uncertainty.

Jen leaned towards him and pressed a passionate kiss to his lips. After a moment she pulled back, "I love it," she said and kissed him again before curling into his chest to watch the sun set.

What Matters

“I don’t trust your intentions toward my brother.” Natasha crossed her arms over her chest and did her best to stare Asia down.

Asia briefly considered refusing to look up, continuing chopping carrots, but then she sighed and set her knife down. “I can understand your skepticism, seeing how we only started dating after the show drew its first six million, but what I feel for James has nothing to do with how famous he is.”

Natasha arched an eyebrow. “I’ve seen girls talking to him at pubs, smiling at him -- all his life. I’ve heard how they talk about him, how fit he is, the things they’d like to do to him --” She closed her eyes and shuddered.

“Natasha, I’d be an idiot not to realize your brother’s a very handsome man, but that’s not why I’m interested in him,” Asia said.

Natasha opened her eyes and continued to pin Asia with an expression both dubious and disdainful.

Asia had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. “I’ve known James since he was in drama school. I’ve seen him first thing in the morning when he has bed-head and has been drooling all over his pillow. No matter what the fangirls think, that sort of thing is never attractive. And I love him anyway.”

Natasha’s closed-off posture made it clear that she didn’t believe it.

“Look, I’ve seen James at his worst - his sulkiest, his drunkest, his most foul-tempered when he’s ill - and I love him.”

“I’ve seen loads of girls who put up with his moods because he’s James Mallory.”

The frustration welling in Asia’s chest was enough to make her want to punch something. Again, she resisted the urge. Natasha was staring at her, waiting for some other verbal riposte. Asia reached into her pocket and drew out her wallet, rifled through it. Then she tugged out a picture and thrust it at Natasha.

Natasha’s expression went from mulish to awed in three seconds flat. “That - that’s DJ Callahan. The supermodel. And - you’re standing with him. How do you know him?”

“He’s one of my foster brothers,” Asia said.

Natasha blinked. “Wha?”

“That’s right. One of my brothers. I do his dirty laundry and feed him chicken soup when he’s sick and laugh at him when he spends his money on stupid things.” Asia smiled hopefully. “Don’t you see? Pretty faces and money don’t matter. What matters is love. And I love your brother.”

Natasha didn’t seem to be listening anymore, but Asia felt that it ought to be said anyway.

“I love James,” Asia said, “enough that I’d die for him. Or kill for him.”

“Right,” Natasha said faintly. It would be another ten minutes before she’d give the photo back.

Asia sighed and went back to chopping carrots.

She didn’t notice James lingering in the kitchen doorway, watching her and smiling.

(480 words)

I Put Something On Your iPod

Asia awoke abruptly when she sensed someone ducking out of her hotel room.

The only people who could get into her room totally unnoticed were on her team. Anyone else who might sneak into her room in the wee hours of the morning without disturbing her had to be someone familiar, someone she instinctually knew was safe.

The only people she could think of were the principal actors, and if they were sneaking into rooms, pranks were bound to ensue. Asia crept around her room, checking nooks and crannies, her luggage and furniture and even the door for any prank rigging, but there was nothing. She scoured the bathroom before she dared shower, but as it turned out, nothing was amiss. She scooped up her iPod and went to pocket it, and that was when she noticed the sticky note on the screen.

I put something on your iPod, it read. She’d know that handwriting anywhere. Asia immediately turned on her iPod and thumbed through the “recently added” list, but she saw nothing. Then she thumbed through her videos, but again, nothing was out of the ordinary. And then she spotted it, a brand new playlist labeled Jamie. At first she was tempted to scroll through it and see what songs James had deemed worthy of representing him on her iPod forever, but then Asia decided she wanted to be surprised.

She put in the earbuds, grabbed her training bag, and decided to walk to the castle. No one had to know that she didn’t take a car. As she walked, she listened to the songs he had cobbled together: Rest in Peace by James Marsters, because James liked Buffy; Sweet Child of Mine by Guns’n’Roses; The Prettiest Star by David Bowie, and --

Asia went still, closed her eyes, and drank in the sound of James’s voice.

As soon as she heard the words The Wart she knew what book he was reading from even if she’d read the book a thousand times over the years. Asia stood in the middle of a wooded glade, head tipped back, lost in the cadence and rhythms of the voice that led her from her nightmares.

When the words ended, another song kicked on - Baby Can I Hold You, the Boyzone version - and Asia resumed walking.




For the next week, anyone who spotted her listening to her iPod would occasionally notice that, randomly, she would stop whatever she was doing and close her eyes, go completely still, and lose herself in whatever she was listening to, and then when it ended she would go on as if nothing strange had happened.

As Asia listened to James’s voice, she determined to find some way to hint to him that next time, he should read her a sonnet.

(463 words)

Project Assignment # 56 - Fluff

Yup. You heard it right folks. This week is all about the fluff.

500 words max.

Get out all your warm fuzzies and get to writing fluff.

Overview #55: Urban Fantasy

I confess I was, in part, inspired to create this project after reading Holly Black's Tithe, which I enjoyed but I didn't find nearly as accessible as The Demon's Lexicon or The Mortal Instruments Trilogy, both of which are pretty awesome urban fantasy. I think I have a pretty good start on characters and a universe sketched out, but I don't know that anything I produced this week would actually be a good start for a novel itself. I sort of lost some of the urban after the first piece, because the mark of Urban fantasy is that it's set in a city, so readers can experience the bizarre juxtaposition of fast-paced modern life thrown in with the usually medieval conceptions of traditional high fantasy. Of course, the urban setting often lends a certain urgency and energy to the fantastical elements that develop. I have no idea what central conflict I could derive from the characters and setting I've created, but I think I did a decent job of weaving the mundane and supernatural.

Why does it always come back to Angels for me? Even the Wordsmith-verse had angelic elements in it.

Go figure.

The Fallen

“You’ll never guess who I caught singing in the streets the other day,” Kyle said, and for a moment Cody had no clue what he was talking about, but then Elise asked,

“Who?”

“Abbadon.”

Cody sucked in a breath sharply. “What? But I thought The Fallen didn’t have Voices.”

“Not natural ones,” Kyle said. “But the government hates it when ordinary people have an edge over them. So they tried to find voices of their own.”

“Who else has a choirboy, that you know of?” Marsh tossed a pair of dice up in the air, caught them with practiced ease.

“Olivier, or so the rumor goes.”

Cody could only stare as Kyle hoisted himself up onto the railing and perched for a moment, looking so much like one of those morons who tried to suicide off the footbridge between Nebraska and Iowa. Then Kyle stepped off the railing - and into the air. Marsh swore under his breath, and Cody saw Elise’s grip on her guitar go white-knuckled, but Kyle hovered for a moment, then began to descend slowly, gently, as if on an invisible elevator. In a movie he’d have been accompanied by a pillar of light filled with swirling dust motes.

“Malpas and Samael, too. Maybe even Zagan,” Kyle said. He paused, beckoned, and Cody’s entire world was filled with the beating of mighty wings.

Then Gabriel appeared on the ground beside Kyle. Amidst the shadows and the rubble, Gabriel looked too bright, too vivid to be real.

“Can the listeners catch on to them, too?” Elise asked.

Kyle nodded. “I suspect Olivier let himself be caught. Imagine what the government will do, once it has what it thinks is an actual Angel in its grasp?”

“We already fought this war,” Cody said. “The Fallen have their answer - and one third of us. What’s going on?”

“Don’t you get it?” Marsh asked, his voice tight. He was staring at his dice where they lay on his open palm. Snake eyes. “This is a whole new war.”

(338 words)

Freak Out

"Now that I have accepted the reality of your existence, will you show yourself?" David asked. It had been nearly three months since his 'visitor' had taken to keeping him company.

"I still don't think you are ready," she laughed.

"What if I promise not to freak out or anything, not that I think that anything could freak me out now."

"If you behave yourself, then maybe."

David was still not one hundred percent certain that he wasn't crazy, but he was fairly sure."

She sighed, "remember how I told you that I had been wanting to touch you for a long time?"

David remembered back to that day when she had touched him, how it had brought back so many memories, and feelings. "Yes," he said hesitantly.

"Well that was not strictly true."

David waited for her to continue.

"It was true that I had wanted to touch you for a long time, but I didn't tell you how much I had missed touching you."

"Missed touching..." David began with a puzzled expression.

"David," the voice said hesitantly, as if afraid.

David suddenly recognized the intonation of his name, and everything clicked into place. The teasing, the smack to the back of the head, the way that he felt when she ran her fingers through his hair.

"Ari?" He asked, half in shock, half in hope.

The voice didn't say anything.

"Please Ari, if that's you, please, please, show yourself to me," David said frantically as he looked around for the source of her voice, now certain that it was her.

David sat stunned as his love appeared before his eyes; there but not really there. She was biting her lip in the way he knew all to well, "Hey Dave," she whispered.

David jumped up and ran towards her with his arms outstretched, "Ari!"

Ariana shook her head, "I can only touch you at certain times," she said as he passed through her.

David turned to look at her, his heart in his eyes, "why? Why did you have to leave me?" he asked brokenly, longing to touch the woman he loved, his had outstretched to caress her face.

"I never left you. Never," she said, "but you needed protection. You have a great work to do in life. You still need to do that, and I will be here with you to the end."

"Will we be together when it's all over?" David asked.

"I promise."

Not Forbidden

"You know, you are starting to creep me out," David said. He knew no one was there, but he knew that she could hear him; that she was there. He had finally decided that the spirit, or whatever it was, was a woman.

"Why is that?" the voice asked after a moment of silence.

"You know me too well, as if you have always been watching me."

"Maybe I have."

"No. I remember. You said that you had been watching me for years, not from the beginning."

David caught a sigh coming from the spirit. "Can you show yourself?" David asked.

"I can. But I won't," the spirit said.

"Why not?"

"You're not ready for that."

"But you can smack me around?"

"Of course I can. Physical contact is not forbidden."

David nearly jumped out of his skin when he felt ghostly fingers being run through his hair, felt them on his neck at the collar of his shirt. He felt one finger tracing a line across his cheekbone, and another cupping his face. David felt his breath hitch in his throat and tears start in his eyes, the touch bringing back sensations and long suppressed memories.

David quickly stepped away for the contact, not sure if that would help. "Please," he whispered, "don't do that."

"But I have wanted to for a long time," the spirit whispered

"Who are you?" David asked.

"Now that is forbidden," the spirit said wistfully, "you'll have to discover that one on your own."

"How am I to do that?"

"Look to the stars...."


(not sure if these are really convoluted or if you are following where I am leading. ;))

The Choir

Cody wasn’t sure what to think of Kyle, who had somehow become the voice of Gabriel. Gabriel meant warrior of God and was, according to Bible tradition, the general of the heavenly host that had driven Lucifer and the fallen out of Heaven. When Cody first heard that Gabriel had a singer, he’d imagined that the legendary Kyle was some tall, blond, all-American handsome boy next door who played football but likely looked ridiculously good in medieval armor.

Kyle was none of those things. He was tall and child-slender with narrow shoulders and sharp cheekbones. In fact, he looked like a male version of Snow White, all pale skin and dark hair and what Elise called (either admiringly or derisively, Cody could never tell) a “pretty red mouth.”

Most of the Seraph-voiced (‘singers’ according to the Angels, ‘companions’ according to the clergy, ‘choirboys’ on the street) managed to stay hidden in the general population, passing off their skills as quirks, mental illness, or dramatic pretension. Even though Kyle didn’t looked much like a warrior, he wielded Gabriel like a warhammer, and wherever Kyle deigned to stay, vigilantism followed. Cody honestly couldn’t figure out how the police hadn’t cottoned on to the crime rate patterns that hailed Gabriel and Kyle’s arrival, but then the police had gotten lazy once the government stumbled across the Listeners.

Elise drove into the heart of the city, navigating the maze of one-way streets like a pro. Cody’s mother, who worked at a law firm downtown, still cursed and got confused by the one-way streets. Elise parked her car outside a nondescript little Lutheran church and then got out, beckoned for the boys to follow her. She didn’t bother to put any coins in the meter. Marsh followed her up the stairs to the church. Cody sighed and put some quarters into the meter, then brought up the rear.

Elise eased open the door and slipped inside, and the boys followed her example.

Marsh paused, stuck out one foot, and Cody almost tripped over it. He caught himself on the back of a pew and straightened up, scowled.

And then he stared. What had looked like a little Lutheran church on the outside was actually an abandoned gothic cathedral on the inside. Pigeons fluttered between the buttresses and beams, and rats scurried through the debris scattered across the floor. After a moment, Cody could sense the buzzing of power, see the Hebrew letters sketched into the walls and floors.

So this was why Gabriel answered to Kyle. Kyle had mastered the Alphabet.

“I found them,” Elise called toward the rafters. “None too soon - the Feds had a Listener posted at the school.”

“Listeners are the least of our problems,” someone said, and Cody saw Kyle shimmer into being on one of the upper balconies.

Gabriel stood behind him, radiant in silver armor.

“Welcome to the Choir,” Kyle said.

(487 words)

The Listeners

No one liked to acknowledged the fact that Angels existed. When the first stirrings had crept across the Internet, on underground radio stations, the atheists and agnostics had rallied, insisting that it was some sort of Fundamentalist Christian propaganda, backlash as a result of the big Supreme Court decision construing the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment once and for all.

The first generation of Seraph-voiced hadn’t been able to handle their gifts, and the world discovered that, no matter what religions held sway, Angels were real, and their power was formidable. When the government had to intervene, round up the mad men and women whose power had broken their sanity, society was forced to admit, through gritted teeth, that Angels existed, and there were some mere mortals who could talk to them - and use them. Control them, no. Use them, yes.

While the government scrambled quietly to find a way to deal with the Angel issue, society did what it did best - turned its nose up and pretended not to notice that anything was different.

And then they appeared - the Listeners. Ones who could hear angels but not see them, not talk to them or use them. They lingered in the corners of offices and police stations, in court rooms and restaurants, keeping an ear out to help maintain law and order. It was a little harder to walk in oblivion when the Listeners were there, a constant buzz in the background, seeking out Seraph-voiced and their angelic companions.

When a Listener stepped into Cody and Marsh’s ninth grade English classroom, the cheerful, pre-bell din died. Everyone stared as the Listener - a small, nondescript woman with mousy brown hair - perched on a stool in the corner and smiled benignly. Mrs. Larson cleared her throat and did her best to keep the students’ attention on her, but they kept looking at the Listener, wondering who among them was Seraph-voiced.

Cody and Marsh kept their heads down and their Angels silent while they pondered the overrated tragedy that was Romeo & Juliet.

They supposed they shouldn’t have been surprised when Elise was waiting for them after school, sitting on the hood of her car, guitar across her knee.

“What’s going on?” Cody asked.

“Get in the car,” Elise said. “Kyle’s waiting for us.”

Marsh’s heart leapt into his throat. Kyle was Gabriel’s companion.

(395 words)

What Do You Want?

"Alright!" David said in exasperation, "what is it you want and why do you keep kitting me in the back of the head?" David backed up against a wall, "I mean thanks for saving my life and all, but really, you need to just tell me what you want. Why won't you leave me alone?"

"Because you're not listening!" an exasperated voice whispered in his ear.

"What am I not listening to?" David asked, not sure if he should be talking to himself.

"You're not listening to me. I've been trying to get your attention for years. I've been protecting you for years. You just never knew it."

"Well I'm certainly listening now. What is it you want?"

"I want you to be safe and happy."

David sighed, "neither is possible for me. My work precludes the first, and events in the past eliminate the second."

David felt another tap to the back of his head.

"Will you knock it off!"

"No," the voice said as it faded into the night.

Going Crazy

"Steve, I'm worried I'm going crazy," David said as he stopped in his friends room.

Steve looked up from the report he was typing; green eyes staring thoughtfully at his commander through a pair of silver frames glasses, his slightly shaggy blond hair falling across his brow.

Steve slowly closed his laptop and turned his full attention to his friend. "What makes you say that?" he asked as he gestured at the bed, inviting David to sit down.

"I don't know. I suppose a lot of little things that have been happening lately. Like during the last skirmish, I felt hands on my head pull me out of the way of a bullet, but no one was around. I felt a hand on my arm, making me pause just as a car came careening around the corner. And just now, I was thinking on the past, and I felt someone smack me on the back of the head," David said.

Steve slowly removed his glasses and examined them. David recognized this gesture. Steve was deep in thought.

Steve eventually replaced his glasses on his nose and looked at David, "perhaps someone is trying to get your attention."

"Oh Steve, not you too. Don't tell me you believe in all that spirit stuff," David said as he rolled his eyes.

Steve shrugged, "it's just a suggestion."

David sighed in exasperation, but jerked forward when he felt a solid whack to his head. David reached up and massaged the spot and looked around.

"Steve, do you see anyone in here besides the two of us?"

"No sir."

"But..."

"Maybe you just need to be open to the idea of something you can't explain, and then an answer will find you sir."

"Open to the idea. I guess I could give it a try if it will restore my sanity."

Marsh and Tabris

Marsh tipped his fedora back and winked at the pretty blonde girl leaning on the railing of the front steps.

“Hey pretty lady, wanna take a chance, make a few bucks?” He reached into his jacket pocket and drew out a deck of cards, a pair of dice. “We could do three card monty, five card draw, or maybe a little --” he rattled the dice -- “Vegas?”

She laughed, the sound musical and delicate. “What, you peddle gambling? In the middle of the school yard?”

Marsh slid closer, eased an arm around her shoulders. “If you’re looking for something a little more long-term, I can peddle you some medieval fantasy, or, if you’re into the Twilight thing, vampires.” He opened one hand with a flourish and offered up a sparkly ten-sided die.

“You’re a funny kid, Marshall Harris,” she said. “If you weren’t such a freak, I might even ask you out sometime. But you know what everyone says about you, don’t you?”

Marsh knew exactly what they said, but he smiled at her innocently, widened his eyes. “No, I don’t. What do they say?”

“They say you talk to yourself, that you’re crazy, and also, that you’re a cheat at those games.” The girl pulled away.

Marsh threw his head back and laughed. “I don’t cheat, but I don’t really have to.” He tossed the dice up, caught them midair.

“But you win obscene amounts of money from the older boys.” The girl arched an eyebrow. “No one’s that lucky.”

Marsh tipped his fedora back down and winked again. “Maybe I’m just touched by an angel.”

The girl huffed, disbelieving. “A devil, more like it.”

Marsh licked his fingertips, traced the back of one of his trick cards. The girl turned away and headed up the stairs toward the other cheerleaders, and she didn’t see a pair of wings unfurl from behind Marsh, didn’t see the slender redhead who leaned his chin on Marsh’s shoulder and sighed.

“One day you’re going to have to do something useful with your talent,” Tabris said.

“Has that day come yet?”

“Would I tell you if it had?”

“The odds are pretty good, I think.” Marsh cut the deck with one hand, fanned them neatly. “Hey Tabris, pick a card, any card.” He ignored the students who streamed past him and stared, aghast, at the boy who looked like he was talking to himself.

(402 words)

Elise and Israfel

“So you got it.” Elise nodded at the receipt crumpled in Cody’s fist. It bore the date, time stamp, and address of a convenience store on 24th and Lake. If the news was anything to go by, someone got shot outside of that store at least once a week.

Cody pushed his glasses up his nose and nodded, jammed the receipt into his pocket. “Yeah. They’ll leave me alone now.”

“You probably should’ve made a better attempt at going incognito, you know,” Elise said. She lit a cigarette, took a deep drag.

Cody pawed at his bruised cheekbone, abashed. He’d made it almost all the way back to Dodge without incident before he’d hit an unexpected patch of light and Asrael’s protection had vanished. A couple of boys from Central High had rolled him for some of his lunch money. Too bad Cody spent more on lunch in one day than those boys spent in a week.

“I hope you know you’re a walking cliché,” he said. He eyed Elise up and down where she was perched on a tombstone, smoking a cigarette, a guitar dangling from her other hand.

“What kind of cliché?”

“The Courtney Love kind.”

Elise snorted indelicately and tossed her head. “Oh please. Are you even old enough to really know who she is?”

“I keep company with the Angel of Death,” Cody said flatly. “Wanna know what Kurt Cobain sounded like after he died?”

“You’re just bitter you didn’t get the fun angel.” Elise stubbed out her cigarette and spit on her fingertips, traced a few idle Hebrew letters on the granite of her tombstone perch, and then angel on the tombstone behind her stirred, came to life.

It unfurled its wings and stretched, tossed its head, and when it lifted its head, parted the curtain of platinum blond hair, Cody saw that it was male. Most likely. Angels were distressingly androgynous.

“Hey, Israfel,” he said.

Israfel lifted one languid hand and pushed his hair out of his face. “Hello, Nicodemus.” He stepped off the grave and crossed the grass, his feet not quite touching the ground. He stood behind Elise. “What did you need?”

“How about a little heavenly harmony?” Elise asked.

Israfel sighed and lifted his hands, and a guitar materialized from the twilight shadows. “Someday you’ll have to find a non-frivolous use for your gift.”

“One day I’m sure you’ll tell me about one,” Elise said, and drop-tuned her guitar.

Cody huffed and cast Israfel a sympathetic look. “I’m sure if you read your Bible, you’d remember how the walls of Jericho came down.”

(434 words)

Over Tired

David felt his head being jerked back, as if two hands had grasped the sides of his head and pulled, bare seconds before a bullet passed through the same space his head had been occupying. A slight shift brought his gun to bear on the figure to his right and he pulled the trigger with precision accuracy, felling the last enemy soldier.

In the silence that followed the brief but intense battle, David checked in on his men. All reported clear of danger and all enemies eliminated.

David looked around but didn't see any friendlies in his area, only the corpses of the enemy and a few fallen comrades.

Confused at the sensation he had felt, David rubbed his eyes in exhaustion.

"I must be over tired," he thought to himself as he went to find his men in the labyrinth of rooms and corridors.

Cody and Asrael

Cody had heard things about the North side of Omaha, but a dare was a dare, and he could make it from Dodge to Lake without getting hurt. He was sure of it. He wouldn’t tell the others how he was sure, but he was, and when he showed up at school the next day with proof of his victory, they would have to stop harassing him in the locker room and giving him swirlies.

He pushed his glasses higher on his nose, tucked his hands into his jacket pockets, and started walking.

He was just passing Burt Street when he sensed it, two people on his tail. He did just like in the movies and paused to check his reflection in a shop window, and he saw them, two teenagers dressed in heavy parkas, beanies pulled low over their brows. In retrospect, Cody probably shouldn’t have been wearing his school uniform, because he looked decidedly out of place and an obvious target to boot, but he wasn’t afraid. Not yet, anyway.

He could still see shadows crawling along the edges of the pavement, places where people had died. A little girl in the crossfire of a gang shoot. An old man mowed down by a drunk driver. A middle-aged woman who had a heart attack for no reason. These streets were riddled with death, no better or worse than the streets where Cody lived out west, but there was more energy here.

Just when Cody sensed the two boys getting too close, he knelt and made like he was tying his shoelaces. He sketched a few letters in Hebrew in the snow, spat on his fingertips for life-ink. Any moment now, the boys would be upon them.

Just in time to see a shadow clad in red unfurl its wings and wield its flaming sword.

“Don’t you think this is a bit overdone, Nicodemus?” Asrael asked.

“You don’t have to take their souls,” Cody said. “Just keep them off my back until I get what I need.”

“You know, Seraph-voiced are rare and precious souls. Most don’t use their gift for such petty pursuits.” Asrael swung the sword a few times anyway, and the two thugs scattered.

No one else on the street saw what they saw.

“Yes, well, you refuse to stop the bullies at school, so I’m taking matters into my own hands,” Cody said matter-of-factly. He pushed his glasses up his nose and watched his would-be attackers beat a hasty retreat.

“They’ll be back, possibly with more friends,” Asrael said.

Cody nodded. “I know. Until then, I’ll just keep walking.”

Asrael sighed and melted into the shadows, but not without a faint, “I’ll be here if you need me.”

(459 words)

Stopped Believing

"So what you're telling me is that everyone has a guardian spirit? A magic being that looks out for you? Protects you?" David asked with sarcasm.

John didn't bat an eyelash at the younger mans scorn, "yes. That's what I'm saying."

David snorted in derision as he continued to clean his M16, "so why is it that nobody seems to know of these spirits? Whey is there no evidence that they exist."

"Believe what you want," John said, "but it's true."

"Then where was her spirit?" David spat out in anger, "where was this great being when she was being killed? HUH?" David's voice was rising, "Where was this all powerful spirit and why didn't it save her?"

John looked at David calmly, "those that have eyes to see," he said quietly. "You can't see God, but people still believe he is there.

David looked away, almost in shame, "I stopped believing in him a long time ago too. Just like your fairies and spirits, unicorns and pots of gold at the rainbows end."

"Those days are long dead," David said as he turned to go.


(okay, so this week will be non cannon and it will probably encompass David's realization that there is in fact magic in the world.)

Project #55: Urban Fantasy

I like genre challenges and I think there should be more of them. If you could sketch an urban fantasy world in six days, what would it be like? Would there be fairies who run the computers? Or shadow knights who stalk the sewers? Who would be normal and mundane, and what would set the fantastical people apart? What city would have unspoken secrets that open with a smear of blood or the whisper of a rune? Give it a shot. 100-500 words. Good luck in the new semester!

Overview #54: Dancing

So I totally slacked off on all kinds of writing over the holidays. Nevertheless, it was fun to write about dancing, especially so I could get back into touch with who danced and what kind of dancing they did. Also, I just love dancing, so it was fun to picture happy scenes with people dancing. It was interesting to learn that, even though all of the boys in Sector Five are capable of dancing, not all of them even like to dance. I don't know that what I wrote was always substantive toward plot or character, but I enjoy finding new ways to explore characters. Here's to more steady writing in the coming semester!

Clockwork and Poetry

“Who’s that?” one of the supermodels asked.

“Who do you mean?” DJ glanced up from where he was wiping down the bar with broad, easy strokes.

The redhead pointed to a figure standing in the shadows. He wore a white suit and had a white fedora tipped at a jaunty angle.

“He looks like an old-fashioned mobster, like Al Capone or something.” The brunette giggled.

“I have it on good authority that Al Capone wasn’t actually good-looking,” DJ said mildly. “If you like him, ask him to dance.”

The blonde tossed her head. “No. We don’t ask boys to dance. They ask us to dance.”

As if on cue, Asia materialized from the crowd, and she offered her hand to the boy. In one pass of the strobe lights, DJ saw his face. Tobias. Of course. Gabriel must have had a hand in it, then, that the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies came over the speakers. A crowd cleared, and then Tobias stepped into the spotlight. He guided Asia with sure hands and steady feet. Usually, he was one of the more graceless ones on the team, but something magical happened on the dancefloor, and then he moved like old-fashioned clockwork and speakeasy poetry.

The three supermodels gaped as Tobias spun Asia across the floor.

“Can any of you dance like that?” DJ asked.

They shook their heads.

“Shame,” DJ said. “I’m sure he’d have taught you how.”

(239 words)

Strike Back

When DJ moved, it was like a dance. Celia couldn’t deny that she loved to watch him work his way through his forms. Her motivation was partially shallow, as he was shirtless for the entire exercise. But the way he transitioned from motion to motion, smooth like water - she was quite sure that if she set it to music, it would look like a veritable dance.

The smooth slide of muscle beneath skin as he shifted from block to strike, the poise and balance and grace; it was hard to believe that when he picked up the pace and was against an opponent what resulted was harsh and destructive, like a dissonant tone in a chord gone wrong.

Sometimes Celia wondered if he would ever dance with her.

And then, two nights later, Dragon and Seal squared off in an empty lot. Dragon’s blue eyes gleamed, and when Seal leapt at him, he slid to the side, smooth, graceful. Seal turned and bowed to him, the gesture mocking.

“May I have this dance?” she asked.

Her friends hooted.

Dragon answered with a flurry of lightning-fast punches.

So this was the best dance she would get. She would take it. She struck back.

(203 words)

Break Out

“You don’t look very impressed,” Amy said. She and Gabriel were in the library, peering out the window down to the street corner where some boys had laid out a linoleum and were showing off acrobatic tricks, spinning on their heads and flipping, tumbling, popping and locking.

“I used to dance like that,” Gabriel said. “Before they put me in here.”

“Do you still do it?” Amy peered at him, curious.

Gabriel wasn’t sure why he was even talking to her. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m in here. They don’t let us have real lives in here. Why else?” he snapped.

Amy shrugged, her shoulders hunched, a little defensive, and Gabriel felt a brief pang of guilt for being so rude.

“It’s just - some people lose things. In the experiments.” She turned her face up to his once more, and Gabriel was startled at how bright her eyes were. Golden. Could people really have eyes that color?

“What do you mean?”

“Like - Jenny used to be able to play piano. And sometimes - sometimes, after a long session in the iso tank I can’t tell time. I didn’t know if you’d lost something, going in there too. It’s just the two of us who go in there, see,” Amy said.

Gabriel watched the group of boys move in synch with each other and decided that he might break out, just for the day, so he could dance again.

(237 words)

There but not There

"Just go through the forms and you will be fine," Alec said as he patted Joe in the shoulder.

Joe straitened his ghee nervously, "what if I forget something?"

"How long have you been practicing this?"

"A long time."

"You know what to do. Now do it."

Joe took a deep breath and stepped out onto the mats to begin his trials.

"It was perfect," Alec said as Joe stepped off the mat, "It looked like a dance."

"Thanks Alec," Joe whispered and turned to look his brother that was no longer there. Only the memory and the feeling were there.

"Thanks Alec," Joe said again softly.

Can You Count to Three?

“I refuse,” Keith said. He crossed his arms over his chest and dared one of the other lads to oppose him.

“Look, old lady McConnell’s just going to make you. Might as well get it over with,” Ste said. He shot Duffy and Shannon pleading looks.

Shannon sighed impatiently. “Look, get out there and do it, and then one of us will follow.”

“How do I know that you won’t hang me out to dry? I won’t be the only one out there making a fool of myself,” Keith said. “If you’re so eager to dance, you pick partners.”

The other three exchanged helpless glances.

Keith started when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around and saw the new girl - Hannah or Holly or something - standing behind him. She studied him with solemn golden eyes. Then she broke into a wide grin.

“Heya, fancy a waltz?”

Keith said, “No.”

She tugged on his wrist. “That’s too bad. I’m not botching P.E. because you’re not man enough to step up and make the grade. Now waltz with me.”

“I don’t know how,” Keith protested.

“Can you count to three?”

“Yes.”

“Then you can waltz. On one...”

(198 words)

All A Man Can Ask For

“Do you tango?” Angel asked.

Dani started and almost spilled her drink down the front of her dress. “Pardon?” She blinked at him over the top of a volume of Millay.

Angel smiled and offered a hand. “Tango. Will you?”

“With you?”

“I’d prefer if it were with me, but I’m sure if I were to step away, another man would ask in my place,” Angel said.

Dani looked flustered. Angel knew he was taking a risk, dancing with the Padrino’s daughter, but something about her sweet, bookwormish charm had caught his eye while he was in the Padrino’s house, and it had been a while since Angel had had decent conversation with a girl.

Girls in this era were finally starting to become educated and speak their minds again, and Angel had missed it something fierce. Of course, Dakshana had taken off right when Angel might have valued her company, but then they both had jobs to do, and Angel was here, doing his.

Right now, his job was to dance.

Dani accepted his hand. “I can try,” she said.

Angel pulled her into his arms. “That’s all a man can ask for.”

(194 words)

Sturdier Shoes

“I cannot believe you talked me into this,” Christian grumbled.

“I didn’t talk you into it. You let yourself be convinced.” Anna straightened his tabard with deft hands. “Now get out there and be charming and win some more land for your father.”

“You’re distressingly amused by the thought of me marrying Lady Vivian.” Christian brushed a piece of imaginary lint from his shoulder.

“Yes, well, she’s a lady, you’re a lord, she has lots of land, what more can your father ask for?”

“Me to be happy.”

“Your brother Ranolfe was happy, and look where it got him? Dead.” Anna stood back and gave him one last once-over. “Time to go dance.”

“But I’m terrible at dancing,” Christian protested.

“Nonsense. You’re a swordsman and full of smooth, dancing grace. Don’t forget that the left turn is on the offbeat.” Anna smiled and pushed him out from behind the tapestries that hid the servants from view.

Halfway through the first song, Lady Vivian learned, up close and personally what on the offbeat meant. To Christian, it meant nothing to do with anything his tutors - or Anna - had taught him. From the sidelines, Anna mused that proper ladies should have learned to wear much sturdier shoes by now.

(208 words)

Abuse of Modly Powers

Here it is, another abuse of the modpost. Apparently the holidays derailed all of us, so we will continue this challenge through to the next week. Until then, keep on writing, and keep your characters on dancing!

The Club Twitch

“I cannot believe you talked me into this,” Riley said.

James grinned and clapped him on the shoulder. “It’ll be all right. Just - knock back a few shots of tequila and get out there. Shake your skinny arse to the beat.”

Riley pressed his lips into a thin line. “You really know how to build a man’s self-esteem.”

“The ladies love you and you know it,” James said. “C’mon - admit it. You’ve heard them coo all over you during episode screenings. And during interviews. You’re Riley Finn - they think you’re the cutest thing since puppies and bunnies.”

“Adorable does not equal sexy or - or a good dancer,” Riley said.

James shoved him toward the dance floor. “Go, go!”

Riley ducked his head and sighed, loped into the crowd of writhing bodies. As soon as he was out of James’s sight, he ducked off the dance floor and toward where Serena and Fiona were waiting.

“He’s here, then?” Fiona asked.

Riley nodded. “Yeah. I played nervous a bit, let him give me a good talking to, and so now he’ll be keeping an eye on the dancefloor to watch me make a fool of myself.”

“Good.” Serena nodded decisively. “Any moment now, Asia will be here. She promised us a demonstration of her dancing skills if we could find sufficient music. According to one of the make-up girls, Shakira is a perfectly acceptable substitute for traditional tribal music.”

As if on cue, Asia materialized from the crowd. “We have an agreement, yes? If I get out there and do one solo number, you have to join me on the next one.” She swiveled her hips and cast Serena and Fiona meaningful looks.

“An agreement?” Riley asked. “I know of no agreement.”

Asia smiled at him. “I didn’t realize you’d be here tonight. Didn’t Fiona and Serena tell you? They want to learn how to belly dance. I told them I’d teach them, but they said they refused to subscribe until I demonstrated my skills.”

“I didn’t realize you could do anything but the usual club twitch like the rest of us,” Riley said. “Isn’t bellydancing a bit...feminine for a girl who swings swords for a living?”

“Don’t make me punch you,” Asia said dryly. “Are you game, ladies?”

“We’re game,” Fiona said. “In fact, here comes your music right now.”

And Shakira poured from the speakers. Asia rolled her eyes. “In a place like this, I reckon this is the best you could get. Out to the dancefloor I go.”

“No one’s going to see you in that crowd - you’re too short,” Fiona said. She craned her neck.

Asia grinned. “I’ll clear a space. Just wait and see.” She started into the crowd.

Riley grinned. “I’m going to go stand by James. If I can get a shot on my camera, I will - the look on his face will be classic.”

It was.

(485 words)

Night Out

Bryan's feet were twitching as soon as he got out of the car. He couldn't hear the music yet, but he could feel the vibrations in the cement beneath his feet, could feel it echoing in his body, thumping in time to his heartbeat.

The doormen smiled and waved him through as he approached the door, bypassing all the people still waiting in line. Bryan stepped from the dark night into a twilight; strobe lights only partly illuminated the large room that was filled to almost overflowing with people. A heavy beat was rocking through the room, he could feel it in the core of his bones. Bryan let his eyes slide closed as he nodded his head to the beat; felt his body begin to move, rocking in time to the music.

Bryan's eyes snapped open and he flowed onto the dance floor, moving with perfect precision between all the other dancers, his body moving sinuously. He paused now and then to dance with a not so pretty girl, spinning her around the floor before returning her to where they started. He smiled slyly and kissed their hands before slipping away into the crowds.

Bryan found himself near one of the platforms that people used to display their dancing skills. He grinned as he jumped up on the small stage and whipped off his shirt. He was dimly aware of the cheers that met this action as he showed off his tightly muscled core and sharply defined arms, but most of his mind was lost in the music. Bryan let his eyes close again and let his body move to the beat, not paying attention to how he looked or what he did.

After he was finished dancing Bryan jumped down from the stage only to find his shirt gone. He looked briefly around, then shrugged and walked towards the door.

"Hey Bryan, loose your shirt again?" John as he waved a couple more people through the doors.

Bryan shrugged again, "Guess I did," he said and grinned before dancing out into the night.

Project Assignment # 54 - Dancing

Take your characters dancing. Do they dance alone or do they club? Do they never dance or are they always dancing?

Max 500

Overview #53: Resolutions

At first I thought this would be easy, but then I realized it might border on painfully repetitive. After all, New Year's resolutions are made at new year, which meant all my stories would be set at the same time, and that seemed kinda lame. I tried switching up universes to give things a little variety, and I think combining Riley's birthday wish with Asia's new year's resolution was a nice touch. Possibly the best thing that came out of this week is that I finally came up with a decent end to the Carolyn-verse. That made me very, very happy. The juxtaposition of Bob's new year's resolutions when he's fresh off the end of his relationship with Carolyn to Carolyn's resolutions after she's married Bob were pretty powerful (or so I like to think), and even though this is a fractured universe, it's one that, in its fractured state, is done. I suspect that sometime down the road I'll come through and finish it off properly, like the fractured universe I started in high school. Maybe that's what I'm doomed to do - write fractured universes left and right and let them simmer before I come back to them years later.

This is precisely the sort of writing revelation that M&M is meant to inspire.

A few finishing notes on the Carolyn-verse: in my head, the story ends like this - Bob and Carolyn get married. Carolyn continues working as a lawyer, but she retires from heavy business litigation and becomes an estate planner. Bob goes back to school and gets his teaching degree and ends up teaching English at some nice school in the south, probably Tennessee because that's where Clay is working and recording still (after an unsuccessful gander at Hollywood). Dan and Joey stay up in Calgary and Dan eventually works his way up to detective. Scott gets engaged to a girl but then breaks it off when she cheats on him, and he still works as an EMT, though he continues to write music with his brothers and on his own. Thanksgiving is always at Shelley and Dinah's, and Kevin is usually invited. The boys spend Christmases with their own families, but once in a blue moon John crashes Carolyn and Bob's Christmas. Scott ends up marrying Carolyn's law school friend Melanie.

I guess, for once, this one ends happily ever after.

Sometimes John still has to shoot people to keep Bob alive.

Big Plans

Carolyn sat on the roof and waited for fireworks to light up the sky. Ten minutes before the show was set to start, Bob scrambled up the ladder and skimmed across the tiles to sit beside her. He was armed with a thermos and two mugs.

“Hot cocoa?” He smiled at her.

“Please.”

Once the hot cocoa was poured, Bob and Carolyn leaned into each other and clutched their mugs to absorb some of the warmth.

“Aren’t the others coming?” Carolyn asked.

“Joey hates the cold, so Dan’s trying to work his silver-tongued magic,” Bob said. “Scott and Clay will be here before too long. They’re probably trying to give us privacy or something.”

Carolyn pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth and laughed. “Even after all these years, they’re still bashful about catching us kissing. They never actually caught us in flagrante delicto, you know. I don’t know what they’re so worried about.”

“I’m sure they’re just being polite,” Bob said. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “So, what are your big plans for the new year?”

To not think about the past, Carolyn thought. To be able to close my eyes and dream of something other than felled bodies and blood on my hands. To wake without a lie on my lips. She said, “To remember to answer to Mrs. Summers.”

Just as Clay and Scott made it up the ladder, Bob leaned in and kissed her.

(243 words)