Category: OOC Paragraph

“M-my name is F-Finzen”, stammered the Halfling. “W-what’s yours?” He blinked hard, forcing the sleepy haze from his eyes, one pale blue, one brown.

In his right hand, he clenched a falchion that looked far too heavy for his stature. A leather strap protruding from the pommel, was wrapped tightly around his wrist. Finzen stood almost naked save for a magically patterened breastplate and a loosely wrapped sheet of cloth.

From the shadows behind the Halfling, emerged a medium sized dog. It padded forward slowly, sat down to his left. A reflection of the campfire flickered in the dog’s eyes, one brown, the other pale blue. It stared intently at the newcomer and growled softly.

Finzen raised his spare hand to head height and scruffed the back of the dog’s neck. “Th-this is B-Brutalus. He’s my m-most t-trustworthy f-friend.” Finzen smiled broadly. Brute, were it possible, would have smiled just the same.

The demon snarled and spat at the comparatively diminutive pair.

“W-well, if it’s g-going to be l-like that…” Finzen trailed off. With a warbling wail and no further delay, the tiny warrior dashed towards the intruder. Brutalus, suddenly frothing at the mouth, snarled menacingly and charged after his master.

Stretching out as he yawned, Brett rolled over as he always did, onto his right hand side. His arm landed heavily across the form of the other human lying in his bed. They didn’t stir.

For a brief moment, he was startled. Methodically, he pieced together the events of the prior evening and couldn’t help but grin as he recalled how it had all come to a close.

He was beautiful.

Brett leaned in to nuzzle, resting his nose against the other man’s cheek.

Before long, he feel asleep again, to the sound of his companion’s breathing and the steady pulsing motion of his rising and falling chest.

*ptink*

*ptink*

The rhythmic sound of water droplets glancing off a hollow metal railing.

Before you descends a mossy concrete stairway. It recedes, like a monstrous tongue, into the wide open maw of the Deep Dark.

 

As the already lukewarm water cascaded down her body, she lost herself in a scenario.

“Hey, I really have to talk to you. Can you spare a minute?

I, uhhm… Your laugh makes me happy… and I like you a lot.”

She bit her lip as she ran the sponge over her skin absentmindedly and further opened the hot water tap. She looked away shyly as if he were standing before her. He looked handsome, drenched in the summer rain.

“You have this confidence about you; an aura. That and let’s not kid ourselves, you’re really hot.”

The man’s cheeks flushed. She laughed nervously.

“Can we, uhhm… Can we get a coffee? Sometime. Anytime, really.

Great!

Now? Oh sure, this afternoon would be… great.”

The hot water tap hit its bump stop and the water temperature began to plummet.

He pointed at the door.

“Get out.”

She shrugged in indifference, no longer concerned about his approval or his opinion.

“Fine.”

When I first put on glasses that were made specifically for me, I immediately looked up. Right in the centre of my view was the moon. I was about 22 years old.

I was moved to my very core and I couldn’t stop staring.

For the first time in my life, the outline was crystal clear. I could make out the greys and the whites of Oceanus and Mare Tranquillitatis. I would swear even now that I could make out even the finer details of Copernicus, Kepler and Archimedes.

It was so beautiful that I cried quietly, standing on my driveway.

I clenched my fists and determined at that moment, that I was going to be somebody. Somebody worthy of his one shot on the planet. Somebody free of anxiety, doubt and fear.

I’m still working on it, but every time I remember to look up and I see that moon, I am reminded of that night and I feel energised.

I am grateful to be alive. I am thankful for the challenges I’ve faced. I will continue to learn, evolve and grow and I will attack every new challenge with determination, surety and fervour.

Your bed.

A familiar ceiling.

The sounds of a neighbour proceeding with a renovation, pushing their luck with the morning noise restriction.

This is home. A place of love and laughter and comfort, far from the realities of your recent experiences.

How can you be here after all this time? Wasn’t your home lost along with the rest of the city when the war began? You watched it burn. You were held by your older sibling as fear seared like acid inside your stomach and anguish, like you’ve never felt before, overwhelmed you.

“Too much! More precision. Start again.” A gruff voice. Authoritative. Confident.

The kitchen.

Tiger, your mother’s cat, nudges your leg and circles eagerly as you open a can of pet food. She stops to sniff at the inside of your ankle. You smile and squirm as her whiskers tickle your bare leg.

Your father, as usual, sits in his study, poring tirelessly over maps and scribbled notes on a theory he calls ‘The Puzzle’. 

“Get us in there”. A gruff voice. Authoritative. Confident.

A faint flicker of a memory. A man not unknown to you…

Your father calls to you. You look over and he gestures for you to approach, his familiar fingers moving in an unfamiliar fashion.

Something’s not right.

You try to stop walking, but your body disobeys. Like a marionette on strings, you jolt towards the study, muscles straining in protest.

“No, no, stop. It cannot be forced.” A gruff voice. Authoritative. Frustrated.

“Start again.”

 

You awaken from your reverie and find yourself standing in a field.

Knee high grass rustles gently as a cooling breeze caresses your cheek. You turn your head towards the tantalising smells of roasting food.

To the west, the clouds present as a camaïeu in orange. On the horizon, silhouetted by the arc of the setting sun, you make out what appears to be a small cottage. Smoke rises from its chimney.

From above you in the east, the palette of deep purples is giving way to a slate grey evening sky, followed by a starless, matte onyx.

I am unseen. My footsteps are as silk on snow.

I weave, unnoticed, through the throng of swaying patrons. Their already inferior senses are dulled more so by the cheap mead that flows as freshet come Spring.

I am unseen.

Tarted maidens smile and twirl, dodging jutting elbows and wildly swinging extremeties to deliver draught after draught.

Decades have passed, but I remain as sharp as ever.

I perch at the end of the bar and nudge a full tankard off the side. It crashes to the floor, spilling its contents. Its former owner drunkenly apologises profusely to nobody in particular.

I am unseen. I am Kelothur. I am Spymaster to the King of Thornjord, rival to the King of Arven.

Ava stops before me and puts her hand on my neck. Her fingers move quickly behind my ear and my back arches involuntarily. ‘You’re a good kitty’ she whispers and kisses my head. I like Ava.

I lick my paw as I watch her work. They reach for her and she flits away. Pigs all and amidst them, Ava. Dear Ava. She will be the last to die when I escape this infuriating malediction and begin to systematically dismantle Arven from the inside, out…

She essentially had one job. Two, to be picky about it.

One:  Shelve the books.
Two:  Ignore the ‘customers’.

That’s as complex as it should ever have been.

That’s as complex as it had been for nearly twelve years.

Yet for the first time ever in those nearly twelve years, she faltered on the second task. She glanced, when she should have focused more intently on sliding THO in beside THU. She closed her eyes and cursed inwardly at herself.

Of all the days.

Now she stands in the burnt ruins of a once beautiful library.

Smouldering curtains cling pointlessly to their twisted railings. Embers dance and glow on padauk tabletops and mahogany shelves. Shreds of parchment lie scattered and tiny specks of once valuable pages begin to settle like snowflakes around her.