Hi hello hi. I am trying to do a few quick writes each week for October, going off this list from @horrificmemes. I hope you like them! I’ll try to tag all of them with #october quick writes and we’ll see how I do! This is 520 words.
It’s beautiful, isn’t it?
In all the art and stories and television shows, the princess of old coming out of the simple and young girl, and the flames dance around her, and the sea rises next to her, and the force of it creates a delicate spiderweb on the screen, and the music is so very compelling and thrilling, encouraging her on as she turns into the powerful creature she was always meant to be.
The liberties creatives take with such concepts is to be expected and forgiven, I suppose.
I could not describe to you the beauty or elegance of the action, any more than I possess the gift to turn war into a ballet, as some writers do. No, blood spatter has never made a delicate lace on mine or anyone else’s skin, and the pounding throb of my heart was never a drum urging me onward, or anything but a reminder that I was frightened, and that there was so much yet that I wished for in life.
But it seems a constant obsession, this transformation, how a girl is made into a warrior, nattily attired, her hair elegantly coiffed, power at the edges of her fingertips and at the ready.
And so, I will tell you. I will tell you how it is, when first you take the transformation rod and feel the heat of it against you palm, how it burns a mark there, for you are property now, and it is a brand.
It vibrates against you, and then through you, with power, and you think to yourself how silly it is that it glitters in the light as if it were a children’s toy. As if it were harmless. It is the act of pouring bleach into a juicebox, this creation.
When you call the words that bring her forth, you feel a rage awaken inside you. It is nothing that comes from you, and yet it has never been apart from you, for she has been sleeping, she has been waiting, and she is hungry.
The flames lick at your flesh, and they expose her, waiting beneath. She drowns you, and you feel the saltwater in your lungs, the way it bubbles and fights and destroys, bursting them and every word you have ever had to give on the subject. The force ricochets through your body, and she finally tears her way through the top of you, ripping you apart and splaying your body as if it were a banana peel, and just as worthy of concern.
She laughs as you cry out against it. The only words she will permit you say, in that moment, in the brief grey darkness where the vessel you both inhabit is more she than you, are the words she has whispered to herself from the beginning. Those words that call upon her planet. The words she whispered to you as a baby, both curse and lullaby.
You stand, looking through the eyes of a creature that both is and is not yourself, and never more clearly have you understood what it is to be possessed.
Tag: *kisses fingers*
Little fillet to the tune of “What if Haruka was afraid of storms?” ~575 words
A shock-white flash and a roar of thunder yanked Haruka out of sleep. Her heart raced ahead of her groggy brain and banged against the walls of her chest to get her moving. Quiet, quiet, up! Up! Who’s home? Who will hear you cry? Closet! Muffle! Go!
Haruka had her hand on the doorknob before she woke up enough to remember. She was safe. She was older now, out of that house, and too old to be afraid of storms.
Another sharp crack of thunder made her jump. Maybe that last bit wasn’t quite true.
She turned back to the empty bed. Where was Michiru?
Her stomach churned as she crept out to the living room. Would she be mad, if she knew? Would she think Haruka too childish? Maybe she just wouldn’t tell her. She’d just… claim hunger? Grab a snack and a kiss and hope it calmed the panic bubbling inside her? Maybe she should just go back to bed.
Thunder shook the house. Haruka yelped. Damn it.
“Haruka? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” Haruka stuck her head around the corner. Michiru sat by the rain-splashed window, a cup of steaming tea on the table at her side. She rose, brow knotted.
“Are you hurt?”
“No, I just… I… I just wanted to see you.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry to have left you alone. I like to watch the storms.” She glanced back to her vacated perch. “Would you like to join me?”
“Um…” Haruka jumped at another rumble.
“Haruka, are you—“
“I just got a chill, I’m fine. It’s fine.” She fought to stay still as a flash lit the room with a boom.
“Oh, love.” Michiru reached up to stroke her cheek. “It’s okay to be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid!”
She let out a small chuckled. “Haruka, dearest, you have far more transparency than you’d like to believe. There is little you could ever hide from me.”
“Well…” Her body betrayed her again with a wobbling lip. “It’s just very loud. And storms always meant everyone stayed inside.”
“Come here.”
Michiru led her gently to the couch and pulled her head into her lap. “I’m going to keep you safe, Haruka.” Her hand stroked back and forth through Haruka’s hair. “I love you, and I’m here when things get scary.”
“But you shouldn’t have to not watch the storm if you want to because I’m being a baby.”
“You’re not being a baby.” Michiru kneaded Haruka’s scalp with her fingertips. “We’re all afraid of things.”
“Not you.”
“Mmm.” Michiru looked out into the storm. “I have many fears, perhaps the biggest of which is letting you see I am afraid.” She bent over kiss Haruka’s forehead. “”You are the bravest person I know, Haruka.”
“Yeah sure,” Haruka scoffed. “So brave that I’m laid low by a little rain.”
“You were afraid and still came to me. I want to be that brave someday.”
The thunder crashed again. Haruka pressed herself deeper into the comfort of Michiru’s lap. “You’re really not mad I’m like this?”
“Not at all, love.” She rubbed her hand slowly along Haruka’s back. “I’d like you to stay here until the storm passes. I want to protect you.”
“I want you to protect me,” Haruka whispered. Michiru did not pull away. Her hands and body were warm and calming against Haruka’s skin. She drifted back to sleep slowly, the storm fading away under the strength of Michiru’s quiet.
Jareth and Sarah’s Masquerade Ball Outfits on Display at the Jim Henson Exhibit in Los Angeles (Skirball Center)
Rhio's Tunglr Stuff 