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inkribbonI gave myself an hour to write, so it stops where it stops. I also think I fail at present tense consistency.
Prompt from Lyric Prompts on tumblr.
"I’m going to die in a place that don’t know my name."
Lonely Soul - Unkle
The summons comes, as it always does, right at the cusp of moonrise. She should feel anger or annoyance at the sheer repetitiveness of it all, but as she passes under the crumbling arches of the mausoleum, she is simply greatful to feel the crush of grass beneath her feet and the pulse of life hiding in the cracks and crevasses of the graveyard around her. The sensation soon passes, but she's always appreciative for the taste of it.
The path through the cemetary is long been left to its' own devices; no blade has trimmed the hedges, no feet upon the stones that paved the way, to beat back an endless cycle of decay. A graveyard given back to the dead by the living, she thinks. How fitting.
Weeds, sparse but hardy, accent every chip and crack along her path as she turns to the main route in and out of the cemetary. Despite wearing no shoes, stones nor plantlife trip her or slow her in anyway: she has been summoned, she must go, and it's as if the land around her recognizes it.
Even if it weren't for the constant tug of magic in her chest, pulling her onward, it would have been easy to find her way. The cemetary is roughly circular, bisected into quarters by paved roadways. The intention had been too allow the plots to spiral outward as need dictated. She'd know, she's had plenty of time to explore, and the memorial plaque at the heart of the land had been very forth comming about "memorial plans" for the "grand glorious union of our two cities" and as a "way to reunite our people in the wake of the tragedy of the fin..l b..tle of th.. E..l..at.. Inc..r..s..on"
Too bad she had no idea what that means. But she doesn't worry about it much. There were other things, bigger things to worry about that were just as perplexing.
Like why she's still here. Or why it always takes about half the trip to the edge of the cemetary before the constant need of GO GO GO transforms from demanding pull to occasional poke in the back of the head. It was better to keep going, already half way there and all, to see what the necromancer wants. Constant pokes quickly got annoying. Besides it was probably best not let on that his attempts at spells did not compel her completely.
The light of a bonfire is visible in the distance now, and she continues towards it. Typical. The necromancer never deviates from his plans. Except this time, as she approaches his prepared ritual place, the poking in the back of her skull dwindles to nothing abruptly.
That... is not how this dance goes. Something has changed. Suspicious, and just a little bit curious, she picks up her pace.
She pauses at the cemetary gate. From here she can view the spellcaster's altar, and as her eyes adjust everything looks as it always does. The bonfire, magicked to provide clear and steady light. The altar, covered in rich velvet; goblets, fat wax candles, clear glowing crystals and other impliments arranged in some inexplicable pattern.
But no necromancer.
There is, however a young man. Boy, her mind supplies, because, wow, is he scrawny. His short hair is what would politely be called a birds' nest, his clothes, likewise disheveled. If it weren't for the satchel and lambently glowing beads in his outstretched hand, she'd think he was some punk out for trouble, too clever for his own good.
Also, there's the necromancer, bound and remanded in bands of glowing gold magic at his feet.
Well. That's different.
It's pretty obvious the boy- the interloper, doesn't see her. He continues to hold his beads aloft, muttering aloud while he traces signs in the air with his free hand. "Where is it... I know you were up to something..."
He dares. He dares to interrupt the one constant thing, the only thing close to a cycle, however annoying it maybe, that she has? She snorts, a muted sense of anger floating about her.
That gets his attention. He whirls, the sigils floating in the air behind him crackling loudly and solidifying. "Ha! aaaaah..." His exclaimation trails off. "You...? He called... you? That's not. Er." He frowns deeply, blinking as if the sight of her is a trick of some kind.
The interloper continues stares at her. "I. Uh. Um... you're barefoot!" He anounces. Awkwardly, he stuffs the beads back into the satchel. The feeling of complete unpreparedness for this turn of events is written clearly on his face. "Why, exactly, are you barefoot?" It seems as if the only fact he grasp at the moment is this one.
Her expression turns bland. "That's generally what one does when retires for the night."
"One... retires for the night."
"Yes, one usually does," she continues in the soft slow tones usually used to coax a frightened animal out from under a couch. Maybe he's not the one responsible for the unconscious and restrained necromancer. Maybe he's an apprentace, doing the clean up while the real spellworker... does whatever it is that a real certified and licensed spellworker does. "Perhaps you sleep in your clothes, but I have no desire to."
"I have pajamas." He ceases fumbling with his satchel for a beat and looks up with something akin to embarassment on his face. "I have no idea why I just said that."
She lets the silence stretch for just a moment. "Well, they are good things to have."
"Yes!" He agrees, perhaps a bit too quickly. "Esspecially thick ones, now that it's turning cold."
Her head bobs in what is supposed to be a nod, and for a moment nothing seems odd about a dead girl having a conversation with a live, albeit very nervous boy. "I don't really feel the cold any more."
"...Oh." And with that, the moment is gone. "I suppose you can't even really sleep anymore." There is a flicker of determination across his face, and then he flings a vial of liquid at her. He moves with more grace and skill than she honestly though he was capable of. she hadn't even noticed when he slipped the vial from his bag.
The vial smashes square against her forehead, liquid dousing her completely. The glass distintegrates in a puff of magic as the liquid soakes into her clothes. She gives him a vauge look of disgust. The smell of rosemary is everywhere now, the pungent scent carrying a whiff of other herbs and the feeling of sunlight streaming into an otherwise dark room. The sensation flickers and is gone as quickly as it came. A heartbeat, she'd say, if hers still did.
They wait expectantly for one minute, then two.
Eventually, bordom wins out. "Was something supposed to happen?"
"Yes. ...something was." She manages a roll of her eyes at the parroting again and feels something close to sympathy. This poor fellow clearly doesn't deal well with the unexpected.
"So..." he fumbles, completely at a loss. "You sleep in a graveyard."
"Where else would I sleep?"
Prompt from Lyric Prompts on tumblr.
"I’m going to die in a place that don’t know my name."
Lonely Soul - Unkle
The summons comes, as it always does, right at the cusp of moonrise. She should feel anger or annoyance at the sheer repetitiveness of it all, but as she passes under the crumbling arches of the mausoleum, she is simply greatful to feel the crush of grass beneath her feet and the pulse of life hiding in the cracks and crevasses of the graveyard around her. The sensation soon passes, but she's always appreciative for the taste of it.
The path through the cemetary is long been left to its' own devices; no blade has trimmed the hedges, no feet upon the stones that paved the way, to beat back an endless cycle of decay. A graveyard given back to the dead by the living, she thinks. How fitting.
Weeds, sparse but hardy, accent every chip and crack along her path as she turns to the main route in and out of the cemetary. Despite wearing no shoes, stones nor plantlife trip her or slow her in anyway: she has been summoned, she must go, and it's as if the land around her recognizes it.
Even if it weren't for the constant tug of magic in her chest, pulling her onward, it would have been easy to find her way. The cemetary is roughly circular, bisected into quarters by paved roadways. The intention had been too allow the plots to spiral outward as need dictated. She'd know, she's had plenty of time to explore, and the memorial plaque at the heart of the land had been very forth comming about "memorial plans" for the "grand glorious union of our two cities" and as a "way to reunite our people in the wake of the tragedy of the fin..l b..tle of th.. E..l..at.. Inc..r..s..on"
Too bad she had no idea what that means. But she doesn't worry about it much. There were other things, bigger things to worry about that were just as perplexing.
Like why she's still here. Or why it always takes about half the trip to the edge of the cemetary before the constant need of GO GO GO transforms from demanding pull to occasional poke in the back of the head. It was better to keep going, already half way there and all, to see what the necromancer wants. Constant pokes quickly got annoying. Besides it was probably best not let on that his attempts at spells did not compel her completely.
The light of a bonfire is visible in the distance now, and she continues towards it. Typical. The necromancer never deviates from his plans. Except this time, as she approaches his prepared ritual place, the poking in the back of her skull dwindles to nothing abruptly.
That... is not how this dance goes. Something has changed. Suspicious, and just a little bit curious, she picks up her pace.
She pauses at the cemetary gate. From here she can view the spellcaster's altar, and as her eyes adjust everything looks as it always does. The bonfire, magicked to provide clear and steady light. The altar, covered in rich velvet; goblets, fat wax candles, clear glowing crystals and other impliments arranged in some inexplicable pattern.
But no necromancer.
There is, however a young man. Boy, her mind supplies, because, wow, is he scrawny. His short hair is what would politely be called a birds' nest, his clothes, likewise disheveled. If it weren't for the satchel and lambently glowing beads in his outstretched hand, she'd think he was some punk out for trouble, too clever for his own good.
Also, there's the necromancer, bound and remanded in bands of glowing gold magic at his feet.
Well. That's different.
It's pretty obvious the boy- the interloper, doesn't see her. He continues to hold his beads aloft, muttering aloud while he traces signs in the air with his free hand. "Where is it... I know you were up to something..."
He dares. He dares to interrupt the one constant thing, the only thing close to a cycle, however annoying it maybe, that she has? She snorts, a muted sense of anger floating about her.
That gets his attention. He whirls, the sigils floating in the air behind him crackling loudly and solidifying. "Ha! aaaaah..." His exclaimation trails off. "You...? He called... you? That's not. Er." He frowns deeply, blinking as if the sight of her is a trick of some kind.
The interloper continues stares at her. "I. Uh. Um... you're barefoot!" He anounces. Awkwardly, he stuffs the beads back into the satchel. The feeling of complete unpreparedness for this turn of events is written clearly on his face. "Why, exactly, are you barefoot?" It seems as if the only fact he grasp at the moment is this one.
Her expression turns bland. "That's generally what one does when retires for the night."
"One... retires for the night."
"Yes, one usually does," she continues in the soft slow tones usually used to coax a frightened animal out from under a couch. Maybe he's not the one responsible for the unconscious and restrained necromancer. Maybe he's an apprentace, doing the clean up while the real spellworker... does whatever it is that a real certified and licensed spellworker does. "Perhaps you sleep in your clothes, but I have no desire to."
"I have pajamas." He ceases fumbling with his satchel for a beat and looks up with something akin to embarassment on his face. "I have no idea why I just said that."
She lets the silence stretch for just a moment. "Well, they are good things to have."
"Yes!" He agrees, perhaps a bit too quickly. "Esspecially thick ones, now that it's turning cold."
Her head bobs in what is supposed to be a nod, and for a moment nothing seems odd about a dead girl having a conversation with a live, albeit very nervous boy. "I don't really feel the cold any more."
"...Oh." And with that, the moment is gone. "I suppose you can't even really sleep anymore." There is a flicker of determination across his face, and then he flings a vial of liquid at her. He moves with more grace and skill than she honestly though he was capable of. she hadn't even noticed when he slipped the vial from his bag.
The vial smashes square against her forehead, liquid dousing her completely. The glass distintegrates in a puff of magic as the liquid soakes into her clothes. She gives him a vauge look of disgust. The smell of rosemary is everywhere now, the pungent scent carrying a whiff of other herbs and the feeling of sunlight streaming into an otherwise dark room. The sensation flickers and is gone as quickly as it came. A heartbeat, she'd say, if hers still did.
They wait expectantly for one minute, then two.
Eventually, bordom wins out. "Was something supposed to happen?"
"Yes. ...something was." She manages a roll of her eyes at the parroting again and feels something close to sympathy. This poor fellow clearly doesn't deal well with the unexpected.
"So..." he fumbles, completely at a loss. "You sleep in a graveyard."
"Where else would I sleep?"
no subject
on 2012-02-29 04:19 am (UTC)I spotted a few grammatical slips and spelling errors here and there, but nothing so huge that it threw me out of the story.
I am already kind of enamored with the dynamic between the boy and the girl, and would totally love to see more with them. There might be more, yes? /hopeful
no subject
on 2012-03-02 06:09 am (UTC)There might be more! The girl (still nameless, that's kind of her thing with the memory loss and all) is an OC that's been kicking around in various informal RPs. Originally, she'd met the boy's supervisor, but I think her interacting with the boy is a better vector for explaining things. As he's a real nitpicker and rules lawyer (magic as I envision it in this world, has a very strict set of rules. Anything that falls into loop holes in the rules, or god forbid, out right breaks them, cannot be contained or controlled for long and gets messy fast) and she doesn't remember much, I'll have to be careful to keep it from being too pedantic or info-dumpy.
Besides, she throws him for a loop! It's good for him. Banter is another thing I feel I need improvement in. This is a good situation to work on it.
Of course, the more I poke at this one, the more realize that a couple of other O!fic ideas I've been working on also could be blended into this universe.
no subject
on 2012-03-02 04:38 pm (UTC)I do the same thing! I'm an incredibly slow writer but it's not because I can't churn out material quickly but because I get lost in the detail work. :/
Yay! I'm rather excited. :D I've always been fond of magic with incredibly strict rules. I hate letting it turn into an easy Deus Ex Machina, you know? But your world sounds really cool, and I really like the dynamic you're already setting up for this.
no subject
on 2012-03-03 04:13 am (UTC)Details are delicious seasoning in writing. Like the fic I was working on for the girlsavesboy ficathon, oh my god, all the details for working in quarantined areas. The more I learned, the more I realized I needed to know more to make it feel real.
Oh man, me too. I can even deal with magic as a Deus Ex, provided it's consistent with how it's been portrayed in the past, or if there's a pretty good reason why things have changed from the way it was depicted. (I am reading Inheritance, the final Eragon book, because I vaguely remember liking the first one, and oh man. OH MAN. The prose is awful and there is no consistency in anything, especially the magic system. The contradictions are painful. I don't think I can finish. There's really no excuse for that sort of thing. Hell, be lazy, raid the fandom wiki. Fans are willing to write these details down for you.)
no subject
on 2012-03-03 04:38 pm (UTC)That was a Billy/Rebecca fic, wasn't it? I was dying to see you finish it. There's so little good fic for them out there (though really I think that about all the shipping fic, and it pains me to touch the fandom sometimes. It's like no one wants to ship these characters in character, despite all the intense drama and awesomeness that would come with it gah)
...I've been on an intense RE kick the past few weeks (gdi revelations I CAN'T EVEN PLAY YOU RIGHT NOW QUIT MOCKING ME) and it's starting to make me feel like I'm going mad. I have about a million fics rattling around in my skull and I've picked up a WIP I haven't touched in two years.
You...have my sympathy. I got halfway through the first one and wanted to hurl the book over the fence. Then someone pointed out that it was basically a poorly executed mash-up of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, with terrible pacing, tenuous language use (yes, technically sinews are in muscles, but I wouldn't exactly use the two terms interchangeably), and then the writer came off as a total jerk with a massive ego on top of all that. I can't even imagine what the final books is like, though I hope he's improved some since the first. :/
I wish I had a wiki for some of my own projects. MY LIFE WOULD BE SO MUCH EASIER.
no subject
on 2012-03-04 04:48 am (UTC)Yeah, it was a R/B fic. I mean, I love the pairing, romantic or not, but I really don't think the two of them would just fall in together and have everything be perfect. I like fluff! But I just can't get behind that, there's too many things handwaved by such a scenario. (Billy's legally dead, still a convicted felon, probably has trust and betrayal issues up the wazoo, Rebecca broke orders and the law to set him free just to name a few) I think half the reason I love them together is because they didn't hit it off right away, they snarked and sniped at each other. And it was due to the mutual saving of each others' asses that I see them having a stable basis for a relationship. Respect! Not just omg teh hawtness.
Revelations has spurred me to be inspired again. XD The game play really put me back into what I loved about the series. I don't know what it is about this series that pings my buttons so hard. I'm tempted to make a list of all the plot bunnies I have for RE. They are breeding, constantly.
The first on had potential! Yeah, it was basically a bunch of other successful novels with the serial numbers filed off and thrown into a blender, but there was enough stuff to stick in my mind. Sadly, it seems to have all gone out the window. There are chapters upon chapters that do absolutely nothing to advance the plot or enhance the characters.
And if anything, his prose is even worse. (no lie, there is a monstrous sentence of 300 words. Oh, the semi-colon abuse!) He is oddly specific at times, and it just weighs down the flow and destroys the mood. And yet he still managed to get on the cover of Rolling Stone. :|
On the other hand, I feel much better about my own work.
OF ALL THE THINGS I MISS MOST ABOUT HAVING MY OWN WEBSPACE: THE ABILITY TO HAVE MY OWN WIKI. Would probably be more organized than notecards.
Oh, hey, other random thought: are you familiar with the Little Details comm on lj? (http://little-details.livejournal.com/) Oh man, it is so helpful for nitpicky stuff when google fails.
no subject
on 2012-03-04 06:17 am (UTC)I don't either! And so far I've refused to write them as such. :D I'm almost at a point with that fandom where I want to just say "Screw it, idgaf how I feel about some of these pairings I am writing them my way anyway, just for something different". Which is hugely egotistical, but I CANNOT HANDLE THIS FANDOM SOMETIMES.
/sobbing for me it's not even the game rn, it's the potential of the game. I'm using it as a carrot on a stick to help me finish off a fic. D: BUT THE PLOT BUNNIES, they're multiplying faster than I know what to do with them. At this point I'm with you, I need to just make a list of all of them somewhere.
...and then sit back and laugh/cry over it. Or something.
Oh, really? Ugh. I've been reduced to reading sporkings of the last few books just to keep up with the events, and it just sounds like a trip I never want to make. The worst part is that the guy really did have some potential there. I don't remember too much of his work being incredibly streamlined when I read the first book, myself, and to think it's only gotten worse...
I must admit I keep a copy of the first book on hand, still, in case I ever feel down on myself and need a bit of a reminder that at least I will never have something like that on the record as my first "published" work. I still hope he finds his way out of that rut and improves.
I've taken to carrying around a little notecard organizer and/or obsessively using my phone.
I have heard of it! I should probably get off my butt and formally join, because perhaps it might help me start breaking my odd habit of getting obsessively detailed in one facet of my research but not a whole slew of others.
no subject
on 2012-03-05 06:22 am (UTC)I GET THAT URGE TOO. FLIP ALL THE TABLES. (I must admit, I have a pet fic that I have been working on forever, and I'm not quite sure why I'm still working on it, because I'm pretty sure I'd get flamed to hell and back for posting it anywhere, because it's a genderflip. I've always seen fic as the perfect form to explore what ifs. Maybe I'm just desensitized, coming here after Stargate fandom. After all, Aliens Made Them Do It, Body Swaps, and other stock Sci-Fi tropes happened in cannon. At least there's cannon genderswap in RE in Dead Aim.) One on hand, I don't think it's too egotistical, after all, the common fandom defense is "if you can't find that kind of a story, why don't you write it yourself?" and hey, we are. Also: ARE YOU ME? Because after that last flame war on tumblr over RE pairings, I made a list of unpopular pairings and tried to write them. JUST BECAUSE I COULD.
I just... there have to be more sane RE fans somewhere. I've looked on lj, on forums, and on tumblr. I think it's a bit hard now, with everything being friendslocked, and the turn of the series towards more actiony. I know a lot of the people I used to talk with about it haven't really been interested in the fandom since RE4. I think it was more trading plagas for zombies, but who knows.
I think I'm going to post a rec list of fics, at some point. Just because there needs to be more fun times and less wank.
Revelations is a good carrot on a stick, for certain. I hope things go well, because I would love to squee with you over it.
I've downloaded evernote on to my phone, in the hopes I'd do something similar for organization, but my phone seems to hate it. I could try Google docs, but I'm a bit leery of stuff with Google's policy change. I'm trying to ween myself off their services, but gmail is just so much nicer than everything else out there.
Little details is a great community. I'm not a member myself, but I have it and several of it's tags bookmarked. I ment to mention it when we were discussing details in fics, but I forgot.
no subject
on 2012-03-05 07:14 pm (UTC)I really think I should have just given up on the fandom itself about when I realized half the mods of half the comms on LJ were egotistical jerkasses about everything, and then doubly so when it came to shipping. I wish I could remember exactly who/which comm it was, but I remember this massive blowout happening in one them (I think it was the Leon/Claire comm, which I joined before I realized LOLNOPE LEON YOUR ISSUES ARE TOO MANY FOR ME TO SHIP YOU WITH ANYONE) where the mod got into it with half the members over shipping, and then (IIRC) banned a few people who'd out and out admitted they didn't wildly ship it, or who also shipped Leon/Ada.
The comm died not long after that. I WONDER WHY.
PET FIC? I am curious to know more about this! Also: yes, we are clearly the same person! Perhaps we are the only two sane people in this fandom. Judging by the people on tumblr/LJ, I think this theory is about as close to fact as you can get.
I have told myself I can play as soon as I get one more chapter of the Billy/Rebecca fic done. (I also keep telling myself it'll get easier to write the further in I get, and that hasn't happened yet. Bah.)
Yeah, same. I was just starting to warm up to the idea of GoogleDocs when they changed their privacy policy, so now I don't really want it. I keep things on a flash drive still, which works well enough for how I work on things.