Daily Excerpt Post - November 1st

[alison-sky.livejournal.com]

This is where you can take a snippet from your writing from today that you want to share with the other members of the community. And feel free to comment on other people's snippets.

We're all about love and support here, and this is a great place to give it.


Comment limit is 4000 words. Please do not post multiple comments to show your entire NaNo.

Comments

[wfeather.livejournal.com]

Since I write almost exclusively erotica, I won't be posting much here in terms of excerpts, but I figured that this set-up to my first anthology tale was worth posting... and it's 100% clean ;-)

*****

I had heard rumors of its existence, but I had never expected to actually see it with my own eyes.

“It” was a necklace featuring a bejeweled white octopus. It was a large pendant, nearly as large as my hand, featuring two large blue diamonds for eyes and countless little cloudy-white diamonds to represent the many suction cups along its eight tentacles. The pendant hung from a golden chain, and would definitely make the wearer the center of attention in any situation.

“Hey hon,” I called out softly. “Come look at this.”

The old antique store was the last place I would have expected to find something like this. Not only did my fiancée look in my direction when I called her, but so did the store owner. The old balding man approached me somewhat quickly, and I was almost certain that there was a glimmer of recognition in his eyes once he realized that I was looking at the octopus pendant. The old man’s cane was loud with each impact on the aging wooden floor, which only made him seem like one of the antiques being offered for sale and made the necklace’s presence in such a place all the more unusual.

“There were supposedly only three of those ever made,” the old man croaked, his voice carrying a slight tone of amusement as he approached me.

“I’ve heard rumors of its existence,” I assured him.

“Oh?” The shop owner’s surprise was visible in his face, and suddenly he had a newfound respect for me despite my young age and my even younger fiancée.

“I’ve traveled a lot,” I said, purely to simplify the explanation. “I’ve seen a lot of things and heard a lot of stories and rumors. But this is one rumor which I had believed was simply just that: a rumor.”

“Ah! Smart young man...” Standing on the other side of the display case now, the old man fidgeted with a key ring attached to his belt, his hand slightly unsteady as he found the proper key and slid it home into the lock.

By this time, my fiancée had appeared at my side. “Oh my...” she whispered, and I knew that she instantly liked the necklace, especially the pendant.

“What do you think?” I asked her quietly.

“It’s... it’s weird,” she answered, her tone one of surprise, “but it’s strangely beautiful.”

“I think it’d be perfect for you,” I said, running a hand through her long amber mane.

Looking up at me, she pleaded with her eyes. Nothing more needed to be said. Although I had been considering buying it for her anyhow, the expression in her bright eyes was more than enough to convince me to spend some cash.

By this time, the old shop keeper had extracted the pendant and its necklace from the display case. He kept it on the display stand, presenting it to us for inspection. The octopus pendant had a noticeable scratch on it near the crown of the octopus, and noting that, I instantly began planning how to haggle for this item. “How much?” I asked.

The price, while hefty, was not nearly as high as I had expected, making haggling unnecessary. Either this truly was not what I thought it was and instead was just simply a replica of a rumor, or the antique man decided that I was the right person to buy it.

I also bought the small display stand, so that my fiancée would be able to display this whenever she was not wearing it.

I was about 50/50 with contractions

[trainwind.livejournal.com]

She had turned to head home when a movement in her peripheral vision stopped her in her tracks.

Next to the young man, dry under a large plaid umbrella, now stood a young woman with large green eyes and long light brown ringlets.

"I came as soon as I heard," she was saying to him as she tucked a mirror compact into the pocket of her tan trench coat. She paid no attention whatsoever to Ariane, who was standing no more than five feet from them. "What’s going on? Are you okay? I heard you freaking out..."

The young man cleared his throat and looked meaningfully toward Ariane.

The young woman’s eyes boggled in shock, and she nearly jumped. "You mean, she can see us?" Her voice came out like a squeak.

Ariane’s curiosity got the better of her, and she took a step closer. "Of course I can see you," she said. "Your friend and I smashed pretty spectacularly into each other about five minutes ago. I’m going to have an impressive bump on my head come tomorrow, and I’m not convinced that he’s not brain damaged."

"What?" sputtered the young woman, her gape exactly mirroring the one the young man had been wearing several minutes before. Now, the young man was near smiling, still quite obviously in shock, but also amused.

"He hasn’t said a word to me for the ten minutes we’ve been sitting here. Is he mute?"

A laugh escaped from the young man’s mouth. "Mute?" he repeated.

"Oh. I guess not. Sorry." Ariane shifted her weight uncomfortably, and looked at her feet. This was just too weird. Her evening had started out so normally: she had gone to the movies in town with a couple of kids from work, grabbed some coffee at Small World, and been totally set to get home at eleven thirty, give her dad a quick kiss on the cheek, and fall into bed. But first the train had been late, then it had started to pour, and now she was stuck sopping wet in the middle of the court with two strangers who seemed to have appeared out of thin air on her quiet street and who were treating her like she was some kind of space alien. Ariane was pretty much convinced that it was some evil conspiracy of dramatic irony, and she was fairly certain that she was the punch line of the joke. She was not amused.

Desolate Moon

[claudia6913.livejournal.com]

Prologue

Beats echoed through the night, banging out a cadence that was neither rhythmic, nor distinct, but I could hear it. I could feel it. The sound flows through my like life's blood, making the tips of my fingers tingle and the soles of my shoes tap attempting to find the beat. It is this, this ebb and flow of constant acoustics that I hear day in and day out, night after night. One would imagine it would drive me crazy, but it does not. I want it. I need it.

Life's blood.

It is mine to take when I want, mine to have when I need it, and it is yours to give.

Or not to give.

It all depends on you. How much you want death, how far you are willing to go to achieve that end. To see him knocking on your door, to realize death is not the being you thought him to be. It is not something you would imagine on your own, but something you unconsciously ask for.

It is, however, mine to give. That last breath, that final sigh, that last jerk of your heart as it begs to keep going, to keep beating. Life is mine to do with as I please.

I hear all this, your pleas, your heart beat, your deepest wishes. They are in my thoughts as surely as my own are.

The setting does not matter. Society does not matter. I can be anywhere in the world and hear that call, and it will draw me in like a lover, caress my innermost being - and I will flock to it like a moth to a flame.

My name is Tristan, and I am, for lack of a better descriptor, a vampire.

Getting to the Chapel Early - 30 Years Early

[anonymoose_au]

“Yeah, of course, but Doc,” Marty looked over at Jennifer. “We can’t come, at least not now, it’s my folks’ Wedding Anniversary Party tonight, we can’t miss it –“

“Marty, you’re not thinking fourth dimensionally!” Doc admonished him. “It’ll take us a few hours, but as far as 1988 is concerned we’ll be back just ten minutes after we leave.”

“Oh yeah,” Marty shook his head, even after everything, he had trouble with that.

But suddenly he thought of something…the photo frame.

He’d thought of it briefly back at the store, but he’d known Doc would never agree to it. The DeLorean and Time Train weren’t used too often and certainly not for trips only a few days into the future, Doc was adamant it was too dangerous and Marty had agreed…sort of.

But now that he was doing Doc a favour.

“Still…a couple of hours, that’ll throw our body clocks way off,” Marty began, a look of uncertainty on his face.

Doc gave him an incredulous look. “It won’t be that bad, Marty.”

“Still…I know my folks want everyone bright eyed…I don’t even have a present for ‘em.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Doc seemed rather distracted. “But I can’t really help-“ then it dawned on him. “Marty,” he began in his best ‘lecture’ tone. “You know the time machine isn’t a toy. Like I said, I’m sorry you don’t have a present for your parents –“

“But I do, the problem is Doc, it won’t be ready until Monday.”

“That’s not too long to wait.”

“Come on, Doc, Jen and I are doing you a favour, can’t you help us out? I don’t even have to be the one who gets it! I can give you the pick up slip and the cash and you can get it.”

Doc looked completely unconvinced.

“I know it doesn’t seem too much and maybe I’m being dumb, but I really want to be able to give my folks their present on the actual day. I’ve only really know my family for three years, but they’ve been a Hell of a lot better to me than my original one. I want ‘em to know I care.”

Doc sighed and ran a hand through his wild hair. “All right, all right, I’ll pick up the photo frame for you. But because you’re my friend, not because I feel guilt for throwing off your circadian rhythm.” He shook his head. “You honestly thought I’d fall for that?”

Marty shrugged and grinned. “Hey, it was worth a try…”

[lacrimaeveneris.livejournal.com]

From the middle of my novel, actually. During a quest, my MC (Xiu) stumbles across a lake, and decides to make a wish.

For a moment, she let the book rest gently in her lap, as she gazed around her. She felt the rough bark of the ancient oak against her bak through the rough muslin of her tunic. Strangely, the glade was silent, save for a slight breeze which made the leaves and grasses bow in feigned obesiance to the potential power of the winds.
The moss lay thick near the edge of the brook, enveloping the meandering water in a soft cloak of velvet. The water tripped merrily over rocks large and small, swirling in a fine waltz but ultimately spinning away, searching for its next dance partner. Sunlight caught the folds of the stream's flowing gown, and made her sparkle in time with her laughing dance.
The girl rose from her shady sanctuary, approaching the brook with trepidation tempered by anticipation. She looked up, pen in hand, as three oak leaves drifted down to rest at her feet at the edge of the brook. I wonder if that tree ever blooms for spring, she wondered, or if its autumn leaves fall eternally. She shook herself free of the thoughts, watching as the brook playfully tugged at the leaves. But like shy wallflowers they were loath to be pulled away from the safety of the bank. Gingerly, she lifted a leaf, which felt strangely heavy in her hand for such a tiny object. "Kazumi," she whispered to it, letting her breath play over it. As she finished, the leaf became like gold-leafed glass, and she put it down and lifted the next. "Companions," she said next, as the leaf became topaz. She picked up the last leaf, a raging scarlet in hue. "The future" she whispered, and the leaf became ruby in her hand. She kneeled by the edge of the brook, careful not to crush any of the wish-leaves. She placed the first, the gleaming gold-washed glass leaf, gently on the water, watching it be whisked away to parts unknown. When the first leaf was gone from view, she repeated the placement again with the remaining topaz and ruby leaves, placing them ever-so-gently on the water to be borne away to the land of love and dreams.
Sighing, she stood, feeling relief flood her body as if a thousand sorrows and worries had been lifted from her shoulders. Now shigh might continue on her journey less encumbered.

[alexcat.livejournal.com]

The very first bit:

June 1876
Little Big Horn River

The buzzards flew over ahead of General Terry and his troops. He expected to see dead Indians, many dead Indians, even after meeting up with several groups of Cheyenne and Sioux in Army Blue. No one could kill that little yellow haired bastard. He had come to believe this almost as much as Custer himself believed it. Everyone else had believe it too.

This time they were wrong. All of them.

Dead wrong.

Terry and his men had warning, but it did not prepare them for the scene. Scattered all the way down the hill toward the Little Big Horn River were the already rotting corpses of horses and the pale bodies of dead soldiers. Lots of bodies.

The scene was black with flies and the smell was overpowering as the morning began to turn into another blazing summer day.

[stringingwords.livejournal.com]

The Spar and Sails was a run-down tavern on the dock front. Built from old ships’ timbers, it leant heavily against the neighbouring building like one of its patriots against a friend upon leaving.

Inside, it was dingy. The few windows were hazed with pipe smoke, the floor was filthy, ale-soaked sawdust over rotting boards, and the whole scene was lit by thick candles that burned fitfully on each table.

At one such table towards the back of the tavern, sat Aric Bastian. He hunched, elbows on the table, nursing a third tankard of ale and a grudge.

A pirate and a mercenary, Aric had hired the services of himself and his ship to a baron whose land was on the coast further north for the past month, protecting the baron, or more importantly the baron’s grape-growing fields, from raiders hired by one of the man’s rivals. Aric had not been overly concerned with the politics as long as he had gotten paid and the good wine grapes had remained unburnt.

It had all gone very well, until the baron had made a truce with his rival and no longer required Aric’s services. Not only had Aric not seen a coin of the promised reward, but also the baron had reported him and it was only the fact that the Kahoku Kai was the fastest ship on the seas that Aric was currently decorating a table in a tavern and not the end of a noose.

Some people, Aric reflected as he drained his tankard, had no morals whatsoever.


[It's official - I am in love with my MC *dorks*]

[captaintwitchy.livejournal.com]

Strung out on cheap cigarettes and no sleep, Juliet and Michael stepped out into the glorious morning air. Michael had suggested that they head into town for breakfast, as usual he had no practical food in the house, just a freezer full of cheap pork joints he’d picked up at the market a few weeks earlier. Of course, Michael had no idea what to do with a pork joint, other than put it in the oven and hope for the best, so these large lumps of meat were mostly pointless. Besides, he had argued as Juliet searched around the room for her knickers, pork was a terrible Sunday breakfast. It wasn’t that Juliet disagreed with this, quite the opposite. Her silence was simply the result of feeling horribly awkward, a feeling that haunted her continuously these days.

[thatssorad.livejournal.com]

She sighed.

It was another wonderful night in paradise, filled with drunkards, bright lights, loud music, and the inevitable one or two men who felt it perfectly alright – in fact it’s almost expected – to give their waitress a tiny tip but a large helping of unwanted physical affection. If she could sanitize herself in an acid bath after work, she probably would.

Tonight, the bar was packed tightly with all sorts of bodies, twisting and grinding on the medium sized wood dance floor to the sounds of an eighties cover band. It was hard to believe that forty-some years later, people were still grooving to eighties music. Do any of these people even remember the eighties? Were they even born yet? she wondered from beside the bar as she watched groups of young people, who couldn’t be much younger than herself, doing “The Swim” to an edgy, heavy guitar laden version of Rock Lobster. Like David Bowie, The Beatles and Led Zeppelin, it all survives the decades. But why did the eighties have to follow suit as well?

A couple of people caught her eye, swaying their hips and pressing their bodies together sensually at the far end of the floor. It was hardly the kind of music one would (or perhaps should) get that close to, but everyone else was so involved in their own partners and artificial nostalgia that no one but her cared. On a night like this, she shouldn’t have time to care, but so far the cozy neighborhood bar wasn’t turning much of a profit on drinks. So she stood there, arms crossed over her black uniform blouse, watching everyone else have fun.

“Hey, Chloe?” asked a familiar voice from behind her. She turned to find a very panicked co-worker, face slick with sweat, his usually neatly kept curly hair was unruly as though he’d been running his fingers through it.

“What’s the matter, Sam?”

“There’s a woman who locked herself in the bathroom. I can’t get her out. Jackson can’t get her out. We can’t find the friend she came in with. Anyone who goes in there, whether they're there to help her or not has been berated, not to mention she's puking something fierce. If we can’t get her out, there’s a possibility she’ll really hurt herself in there and continue to alienate the other customers.”

“Okay…and what do you think I can do about it?”

“Well, besides the fact that you’re a woman and it’s not odd at all for you to go in that particular bathroom, you have a way of making people see things your way.”

She scoffed. “Oh yeah, after they’ve already had a firm grip of my rear end.”

“Well, if you think it’ll help to offer her a little squeeze…” he said, his voice giving a hint of exasperation.

She laughed softly and set down her serving tray, untying her apron and pushing it out of the way. “You’re such a pig, Sam.”

“Yeah. Well. I’m not the one reaching for your rear end. You going to help me or what?”

She sighed and nodded, resigning herself to the fact that this night was going to end with vomit on her somewhere. “Yeah sure, show me where she is.”

[mteson.livejournal.com]

I was about to add the girl I lost my virginity to to my friends list on Facebook.
“Add Friend.” Still staring at me, daring me to go forward.
I clicked the button. “Molly will have to confirm that you are friends on Facebook,” the website blared back at me, and maybe I could send her a personal message to break the ice? Message? Huh. I hadn’t thought about it. Should I be sending a message? Would it be okay to not send a message? If it were any random college friend or high school acquaintance, or any of the thousands of people I had met through my lifetime, it would be a total no-brainer - I could just add them and wait for the confirmation and move on. But this was different. The circumstances were…weird? Not weird. It didn’t end badly or anything. But you know, they always tell you there’s something special about the girl you lose your virginity to. And there is, you can’t deny it. I just felt like the situation required a little more than just a blind add.
But the problem for me was that thinking about it made me feel like I was a really ridiculous person, because here I was at one in the morning internally debating one of the most asinine questions of “netiquette” I had ever heard. “Netiquette” - the word itself made me feel like a complete tool. That’s the kind of word they use in “The Internet For Dummies” to tell senior citizens not to type in ALLCAPS because people will erroneously believe you’re shouting at them. Still I didn’t ignore the reality of my situation. The truth was that the politics of all this social networking crap were straight out of a bad Seinfeld episode. I had to think about the clues like a detective and figure out the right play.
Really, it hadn’t ended badly. But it was certainly out of the ordinary. You always think that the girl you lose your virginity to is going to be your high school or college sweetheart, your first girlfriend, your prom date. Molly was none of those things. It wasn’t that she was a bad girl or anything, for all I know she was as sweet as apple pie. But this is the thing. Molly didn’t go to my school. She didn’t live in my town. She didn’t live in my state. And the first night I laid eyes on her was the night before everything went down. And the last time I saw her? The night everything went down.
Here’s the rub. Molly was a girl I met on the Internet.
I know, I know, gross.

[lfvoy.livejournal.com]

She pulled her knees back up to her chest. "Did Mom ever tell you how Aunt Patty died?"

Sean sighed and leaned his forehead against the top of the windowsill. "Yeah. Couple of years ago. After I heard about it at school."

"I've never heard about it."

"Mom probably wanted to make sure you had, before anyone at school said anything. She wants you to believe her version of the story."

"There's another version?"

"More than one." He picked his head up from the windowsill. "Clary, for goodness' sake, come on back inside. I'll tell you, but not while you're on that roof."

She crawled across the roof to his window, letting him help her across the sill into his bedroom. He closed the screen behind her, but left the window open. The breeze felt good in her hair. She settled onto the floor where she could still feel it.

"Did you know there are people who don't even believe the storm is coming?"

"What?" Clary was incredulous. "How can they not believe it? You can see it, right there in the numbers —"

"Numbers can be faked, and there's only the astrophysicists' word about what they mean in the first place." Sean sat down on his bed, facing her. "There are a lot of people who say that they have different numbers, or that the interpretation is wrong."

"Do you believe them?"

"No, I believe Mom and the observatory."

"Why would Mom worry that I wouldn't?"

"You don't believe what you can't see," he answered. It had become a family joke. "One of the biggest arguments against the storm is that nobody can see it."

"But that doesn't make sense! It's coming at the speed of light, so we won't see it until it's here."

"I know that," he replied. "Anyone who thinks it through realizes that. But there are a lot of people who just cannot wrap their heads around the idea that every time we look at the stars, we look into the past." He shrugged. "Some of the people who do understand still don't buy into the idea of astronomers as fortune-tellers."

She frowned. "It almost sounds like they don't want to understand."

"Do you believe we're going to die, Clary?"

"Yes," she answered.

"Why?"

"Because the storm is coming."

"That's what I mean! If you don't believe the storm is coming, then you don't have to believe we'll all die in nineteen years. Some people see no reason to live if they're just going to die."

She shook her head. "But we all would die anyway, sooner or later."

"Yeah, but some people don't like to think about it."

"What does this have to do with Aunt Patty's assassination? Are you telling me the people who killed her weren't just jealous because she figured it out first?"

"Oh, Clary." He closed his eyes. "They weren't jealous. They were angry."

She drew her knees up again, leaning against the outside wall. The breeze in her hair was making her shiver now.

Sean shook his head. "They were angry, and they were scared. Patty was saying things they didn't want to hear. They thought that if they'd kill the messenger, they'd kill the message."

"But they didn't succeed."

"No," he said. "They didn't. That's because, for once, Dad believed her. He wouldn't let the media bury the announcement. It killed him, too."

"He didn't die of a broken heart?" It had seemed so romantic, even if it was about his sister instead of his wife.

"He died from a heart attack, Clary." He shrugged. "I guess you could say his heart broke. But not like that."

[hireadd.livejournal.com]

My prologue... I need to write more. |D


One could call our world peaceful.

The world itself, and the state of the affairs occurring on its surface, if you will. We live in an age where all things, good and bad, come to pass with relative ease- good or bad, everything flows by. The government remains the same, impassive and unchanging, unweathered by time. Revolutions start and revolutions end; there is no war, nothing altered.

We write here of one revolution, presently in progress. We write here of an attempt at change.

* * *

It is the age of Hyder and Samon, and influence of the continent Nebula has spread from its great city Vipul to cover the entire world. At the head of the government that has ruled Nebula for as long as it matters stands the Divine Marduk, a spiritual guide for the nation and world. All has flourished under her great reign, owing greatly to her powerful influence over more or less everything of relevance, including the world's strongest corporation, TemuJin.

There are only two cities in the continent of Nebula, and beyond their borders almost nothing. The one most controlled is Vipul, residence of the Divine Marduk and CEO Adia Temujin; the one in which we begin is Udile, where many people of great importance live, and none so important as Astra.

* * *

Here is a boy with a simple, forgettable story: a father working to fuel the machines of TemuJin, a mother running a small bakery on her own on the streets of Udile. He is sixteen.

Here is a boy with a sadder, but just as common story: All of the above, but the father is dead now, and he's leaving his mother to take that father's place, to work under a man named Sitara Inai until he meets the same fate.

Here he is now, signing the papers that will give him his master's name.

Astra Inai is drafted and shipped out less than twenty four hours after the medics declared his father dead.

[ohendless-night.livejournal.com]

There were bugs.

It was impossible to be rid of them. They crept, they crawled. Their little legs, moving across her skin, itching where they’re small mouth filled with razor teeth bit. Leaving welts in their wake that she was powerless to avoid scratching. The itching was consuming, it was obnoxious. Trailing up and down her skin, ravaging her senses. Her nails, filthy, dirt-encrusted, she scratched. Helpless to stop, even though she knew she shouldn’t. it only made it worse. They were attracted to the scent of her blood. Red angry welts split open, from daily exercizes in scratching. The bite wounds split open, spilling blood that ran down her arms, her shoulders, her back, her legs. Small rivers of blood. It was an aphrodisiac for the bugs.

There was darkness.

The sunlight couldn’t penetrate. She dwelled in an abyss, a small stone room. A cell. One window, barred closed with thick vines. Veins of sinew, living of their own accord with no sunlight to feed them. They bloomed midnight flora, shades of grey. Charcoal, and blacks. Two moons lit the sky. One always in Harvest. One never full, never satisiated, always teasing with the hint of hope. A garden rolled away from the window, the cell, the tower she found her existence in. a midnight garden of hopelessness and loss. The baying of wolves lay beyond the horizon. She had never seen them, never laid eyes on the creatures, but her instinct remembered them. The bugs crawled, and she scratched.

There was loneliness.

No one but her. No inkling of how long she had been here, alone with the bugs that slowly devoured her. She caught them, squished them between her fingers. Felt their backs POP, felt the miniature explosions of their innerds between her digits. Felt the oozing of her own blood spill from their corpses. Each one a small victory. Each one, one less that fed on her. But their numbers never diminished. No, they seemed to grow fatter in number. How long had she been here? The ground was covered in calcified bug remains, some dead from her doing, some having died from another source, their little bug legs pointed skyward. Dead on their backs. How long until she would be the same? No one came for her. And yet, she was never hungry, the sensation, the urge long forgotten. She couldn’t remember food, the delicacy of food, the comfort it brought. Nor did she know the pain of hunger, the crippling pang of her stomach turning on itself. She knew none of this. Loneliness was her companion.

Loneliness, and bugs. The vineyard, and the moons.

Her voice had died in her throat long ago. No one to talk to. Except the bugs. And the moon. And the garden outside her reach.

Only the wolves spoke to her now. And she was too afraid to call back to them.

[amarra-jade.livejournal.com]

Kenza was sitting on a log in the middle of the forest, contemplating what her parents could possibly have meant when they told her she was banished “until she was ready to return,” when a lanky youth with red hair and freckles came riding up on a pig.

“A pig?” interrupted said lanky, red-haired, freckled youth. “Why a pig?”

Because you can’t afford a horse.

“Oh,” the youth replied, slightly disappointed. He dismounted from his trusty steed and approached Kenza. “Why, hello, fair maiden!” he greeted her. “I am Tarnell the Terrifying. How may I be of service to you?”

“Terrifying?” Kenza repeated. “What’s so terrifying about a dork riding a pig?”

“For your information, I happen to be a great and powerful warrior! I strike terror in the hearts of all who oppose me!” Tarnell unsheathed the sword at his hip and waved it around for dramatic effect, but only succeeded in dropping it on his foot. “Ow!”

“More like Tarnell the Terrible,” Kenza remarked.

“Why, thank you, milady!” replied Tarnell as he hopped around on his uninjured foot.

“That wasn’t a compliment,” said Kenza. “Anyway, unless you can somehow get me back my powers, which I seriously doubt, I’m going to have to very politely tell you to buzz off.”

“Such fire and spunk! I love that in a woman.” Tarnell grinned stupidly, causing Kenza to roll her eyes. “What are these powers you speak of, milady?”

“Okay, first of all, stop calling me ‘milady’. Secondly, I’m a goddess-- or at least I was, until about an hour ago.”

“Ooh!” Tarnell exclaimed. “I know who you are! Long have I admired your beauty, Kenza, Goddess of…um, what exactly are you goddess of?”

“Chocolate,” Kenza replied automatically.

“Chocolate?” Tarnell repeated. “Indeed? That’s a fine thing to be goddess of, if I do say so myself! I’m quite fond of chocolate!”

“Yeah? Well, I’m not very fond of idiots, so kindly do as I asked and buzz off.”

“Perhaps you could accompany me on my quest until you recover your powers!” Tarnell suggested eagerly, as if he hadn’t heard a word Kenza had said.

“Quest? What quest?”

“My quest to save the world from evil, of course! Fighting the wicked, protecting the innocent and all that jazz.”

“Um, no thanks. I don’t help mortals. I torment them for the sheer fun of it.”

“Oh, come now! Everyone loves a good adventure! Besides, how are you going to manage to torment anyone without your powers?”

Dammit, Kenza thought. He’s got a point. Maybe he’s not as dumb as he looks.

“All right,” she sighed. “Let’s go save the world.”

“Huzzah!” cried Tarnell. “Climb aboard my noble steed, mil-- Kenza, and away we shall go!”

Kenza eyed the pig for a moment and replied, “Uh, thanks, but I think I’d better walk.”

“Very well. Away, Ferdinand!”

“Ferdinand?” repeated the pig. “You named me Ferdinand?”

Yes, I did. And animals don’t talk in my story, so if you talk again, I’ll change your name to Bacon.

Ferdinand grunted in protest, but obediently began plodding off toward whatever adventure awaited him, Tarnell and Kenza. It would take them quite a while to reach it, seeing as how pigs weren’t the fastest of animals.

~*~

I'm in love with Tarnell. And Ferdinand. :D

[veedub.livejournal.com]

from chapter 1, Resident Aliens:

In any case, I have only one memory of the three of us being together, and this was when I was about eight years old and they had already decided to call it quits. I was in boarding school in Buckinghamshire, and the two of them visited me and took me on a picnic in the woods near the school. This was a wonderful forest straight out of fairy-tales, at least in my memory. Huge ancient trees with the sunlight slanting through in the afternoon, stretches of lawn dotted with "fairy rings" of darker grass (actually due to the decaying of mushrooms growing in a circle, but to my delighted eye proof that the fairies were real and danced in the moonlight only a few hundred yards away from my school). So my father's presence was connected somehow with the appearance of magickal beings. He was a magickal being to me, which was hardly fair to my mother, who had the burden of raising me, but distance really does lend enchantment. I could mythologize him to my heart's content and dismiss my mother's very broad hints on the subject as the insidious wiles of an evil sorceress. This theme was developed in great detail later on when I became a teenager. Doesn't every girl who wants to be a Real Princess see her mother as the Evil Queen and her father as the Prince who will rescue her and carry her off to a new magickal life? And I had the qualifications to be a Real Princess: blue eyes, naturally curly hair, and prettiness. Not to mention the Evil Queen.

But things never work out the way you expect.

Shooting Holmes excerpt

[elfinessy.livejournal.com]

The car they sent for him had blacked out windows. He couldn't remember travelling in a car with blacked out window before. As he watched the familiar buildings pass by, the streets painted with a collage of people, he wondered why anyone would need blacked out windows in a Mercedes. A Limo he could understand - it was possible to get up to a lot of nonsense in the back of a Limo, he knew that from experience, and it was mostly nonsense you wouldn't want the rest of London looking in on. But what the hell kind of trouble was it possible to get into in a Mercedes?

[sitdownshutup.livejournal.com]

Chloe opened up her journalism notebook and stared at the blank page. Her feature story on the musical was due tomorrow, and so far, she had nada. She carefully drew eighteen balloons across the top of the page and lettered each one.

“Happy birthday to you.”

So far, being sixteen was not all it was cracked up to be. Chloe certainly didn’t expect the glamour of the sweet sixteen parties that the preppy MTV set got. No fluffy pink dress; no mile-high cake; no car waiting outside for her, wrapped in a huge bow.

But, so far, the day hadn’t been like the movie Sixteen Candles, either. Although the hue of Chloe’s red hair was Molly Ringwald-esque, her family had not all forgotten about her birthday. Only her mom. Well, her mom didn’t really forget; she had just left for work before Chloe’s alarm went off. Chloe’s father made a mountain of chocolate chip pancakes and cut them into little hearts, just how Chloe loved them – when she was nine. Evidently Chloe’s father hadn’t believed it when she announced she was off sugar until she lost the five pounds she’d gained over Christmas break.

Chloe wasn’t sure what she expected to happen on this birthday, but it seemed like a milestone bigger than being legally able to drive her parents’ scratched up minivan to the mall. She hoped she’d feel more… mature. Stronger. More confident. But when Chloe woke up on the Monday morning of her sixteenth birthday, she felt just the same. Skinny and awkward. And dreading going to school.

The best present Chloe had received so far was an e-mail from her brother, Donnie, in Iraq.

“Just remember,” he’d written, “these are the worst years of your life.” She could envision her brother’s easy grin along with these words. “Just think… in just a few short years you will be free of that hellhole.”

Donnie was referring to, of course, Holy Cross High, or Holy Crossed Legs, as the obnoxious public school boys called it (and the girls who went there). The irony was, of course, that there were few girls who passed up dates with boys from the local public school. Boys from Jefferson High School had more access to the liquor and drugs that certain Holy Cross girls craved – girls like Shawna Strong. And those girls were rumored to be very, ahem, grateful for the favors boys showered on them.

Nearing the end of Chapter One:

[bubblewrap-xo.livejournal.com]

He pictured himself back at the crime scene; the smell of god-only-knows-what decomposing in the dumpsters which lined the alley; the rustling noise made by the rats as they scampered up and down in search of food; the body lying on the cold ground, surrounded by the pool of scarlet blood which spread from the single bullet hole in the centre of the victim's chest. A wallet was found in a jacket pocket, along with what looked like a brand new cell phone and set of car keys; this clearly wasn't just another robbery gone bad, and whoever had pulled the trigger was obviously not desperate to make it look like one. They had, however, taken care not to leave anything behind, making the job one hell of a lot more complicated for whatever lucky individual was assigned to investigate it.

Dale pulled the cord to turn the light off and rolled onto his side, telling himself that things would look better in the morning, before drifting off to sleep.

i already made a chemistry pun!

[hemoglobin-baby.livejournal.com]

"Ma'am?" Vivi heard the flight attendant's voice above her shoulder. "Can I offer you a drink?" She forced her eyes back open and carefully avoided looking out of any windows, concentrating on the attendant's pretty, meticulously made-up face. It would take me an hour to get my make-up that perfect, she thought.
"Ginger ale, please?" Vivi replied, and the flight attendant set about pouring it from a can into a small plastic cup. Vivi watched the bubbles and thought about carbonation. Maybe the drink would help calm her nerves a bit. On the rare occasions she couldn't get by without flying it hadn't really helped, but at least it was a small routine thing she could do to reassure herself, not to mention keep herself busy for the next few minutes to keep her mind off the altitude and the inescapable physics. That was the danger of having a science degree, she supposed. She possessed just enough accurate information to realize the inherent dangers of a wide variety of everyday phenomena. Most of the time, she let her higher intellect rule her brain and day-to-day life wasn't scary, but flying was different. Her common sense stayed firmly on the ground and in the tiny, mercifully pressurized and oxygenated cabin she was anxious and quietly irrational.
Jolting herself back into activity, Vivi lowered the tray from the seat in front of her, and the attendant handed Vivi her ginger ale.
"Thank you," Vivi said softly, and the flight attendant consulted the passenger across the aisle. Vivi focused on her cup, wondering briefly if the atmospheric pressure in the cabin was different enough from the pressure on the ground to effect the rate at which the carbon dioxide bubbles left the fructose liquid mixture. That was at least chemistry more than physics, in her mind, anyway. Oh, she could recite the periodic table; that would keep her busy for a couple of minutes. Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium--
"Nervous flyer?" It took her a couple of seconds to come to the conclusion that the man across the aisle was asking her and not someone who could actually look him in the eye. Looking directly at him meant a straight line of sight out of a window, and that was not going to happen. Okay, I'll try to be friendly, but if he needs my eye contact, I am going right back to being boron-- um, boring, she thought firmly.

[aurumsisters.livejournal.com]

This is not the beginning of the novel, just an excerpt. My story's about a wizard in a made-up world.


Seventeen years behind city walls
Not yet skilled but time has come
For a young wizard to meet his destiny.
A horned friend shall guide you well
To an enchanted beginning.

I woke to find my father's riddle staring at me from it's place beside my pillow. I had left it there the night before in hopes that a miracle would happen - that I would wake in the morning to find that I suddenly understood all that was my father - or at least his riddle. This did not turn out to be the case.

I picked up the tattered parchment and fingered it for a moment. I read it five times more and could not decipher a sliver of its meaning. It was clear that my father meant for me to understand it quickly. I suppose he forgot when writing it that I struggled through my lessons on riddles. I tucked the riddle into my belt and headed downstairs.

It should have been breakfast time. I expected to find all of my sibilings perched on their chairs waiting for my mother to serve them food. Instead, I found a completely empty table with a letter sitting on it. It was from my mother. I recognized her penmanship the moment I picked it up.

Dearest Wendel,
This is a hard time for you and we understand that. However, we cannot be there for you in the matters that matter most. The riddle and it's greater meaning are for you to discover. Not one of your brothers or sisters can help you in this task. That is why I have taken the family on a small journey away from home. We will not be the cause of your distractions. It is up to you - and only you - to discover the destiny that awaits you as the youngest member of this household. We wish you the best of luck and will return when the time is right and not a moment sooner. Do not worry about us though - we are safe and content to stay where we are until you decipher your father's riddle.
With loving care,
Your mother

It looked like I was going to have no help in riddle solving. Which was only going to make things harder.



To read more, search site & user wendelofaurum.

[tauriosiris.livejournal.com]

Only seventeen hours had passed since Martha got the phone call. Seventeen hours, twelve minutes and eight seconds.... nine... ten... nine... ten. Martha tapped her watch impatiently, the second hand twitching back and forth as the battery wound down. She'd have to get it replaced again, cheap piece of crap her sister bought her for Christmas last year. Was always breaking. She'd have thrown it away weeks ago only Laura was insistant that she keep it. Apparently it reminded her of a watch their grandmother once owned. Both girls had adored their grandmother, but each adored the watch more.

When Ida Connoly died at the age of 65 both girls were devastated. Laura locked herself in her room for three days, while Martha remained calm and stoic to the outside world, but inside she was in turmoil. She was only 16 years old when Ida succumbed to a long battle with liver cancer, a battle which had raged inside her once beautiful but now frail body for all of Martha's teenage years, and a good few before them. Martha's only way of coping was to project the image of being strong. While all her around her broke down, Martha felt useless. There was nothing she could do to help those she loved, so the only thing she could be was the strong one. So she learned to push her feelings away and down into the bottom of her heart. This was something she could do for her Nana, she could be strong for her family, she felt she owed her that.

Their grandmother had worn that watch every day of their lives, its silver and pearl face smiling like the pale moon at the dead of night. Ida Connoly was buried wearing it, as was requested in her will, and Martha and Laura mourned the loss of something so beautiful and precious. That watch held their every memory of their grandmother in its turning hands, every event wrapped up in the cogs of time. They had hoped to be able to keep it, perhaps share it between them, and it would remain as an endless reminder of their grandmother as they grew older. But it was lost to the sands of time, just as the days they spent together under the summer sun, on holidays to the beach or walks and picnics by the local canals and ponds. Sometimes Martha pictured her Nana wearing the watch, and was glad that she got to wear it everyday, just as she always had, ticking away like a barely audible heartbeat on her wrist. Some things just shouldn't be changed, Martha thought.

[hecate-12.livejournal.com]

The attic was a lot more dusty and dark than Kathryn remembered it to be. She hadn’t been up here in about five years and truth be told, she’d be more than happy to leave it another five years before going anywhere near it again. She stepped off of the ladder and pulled herself up to a standing position, reaching over to the light switch near the open hatch so that she could see a bit better. Great, she thought. So now not only is it still dark and dusty, but now I can properly see all the crap that’s in here. The attic was full of boxes and objects collected over the years; stored away in the room because “Well, you never know, you might need it again someday” or “Hey, you know me, I simply can’t bring myself to throw that away!” Well now there was an entire room full of old knick knacks, books, photographs no-one had looked at for years, and various other bits of junk that had been accumulated together over the thirty years that they had lived in the house. But Kathryn supposed that was just what happened in these circumstances. Something totally beyond anyone’s control happens and those behind are left to pick up the pieces.

Kestrel Harper excerpt

[agdhani.livejournal.com]

(a short excerpt from what I've gotten done today...been writing nearly nonstop since 7 this morning...and its nearly 5...still a few more hours to go :D)

“You do not love me.” He was certain of that. Long ago he had concluded that no woman could ever love him, and what he sensed from the princess did not feel like love. He found a short tunic and awkwardly attempted to don it while trying to maintain the covering around his hips. “You do not yet know love, Diona. To love is not to force, not to act thus. You desire me in a physical capacity of which I…”
“Of which you are not capable? Is that it, Lord Cliáth?” She drew near again backing him against the bed post, attempting the only other tactic she could think of to convince him to have her. Her hands found the bare skin of his belly. He shook violently, not only from the intimacy of her touch but from the emotions he felt from her, there was anger behind her play for passion, and not just anger at him for not being what she wanted him to be. Yet how could he be anything other than what he was? He felt nothing for her then except a growing fear of her ever increasing wrath but he could not even respond to that.
When he did not kiss her back, would not touch her, she withdrew abruptly and struck him across his face. “You are a pathetic waste of a man,” she spat.
Her expression hardened, a darkness descending over her face that Kavan had never seen on any other woman. “Any other man would be begging for what I have to offer, but you…you do not even know how to…I do not think you could please a woman if you tried.”
He shrank back from the force of her words, their barbs striking deep in his soul. “My lady,” he started, but she was beyond listening to him now.
“I have often wondered why you…such a handsome face…you do not know desire; you are as cold as the Kármár. You sing of passion, your music is filled with it, but you know nothing of it. You have all of the physical attributes of a man…” she ripped the sheet from his hands, living him uncovered before her cold gaze, “but that is all. The outward appearance…and more of a child in appearance at that. You do not even look like a man now Even your voice betrays you. You are a fraud, not a man at all. Coward! I will make certain that every woman in the Five Sovereignties knows that you are nothing. A stature, heart of marble, beautiful to behold but dead in every other way. No other woman will ever seek your bed, my lord. You drive me from it, now no one else will ever have you. I will see to it. It is not that I am who I am…it is that you are completely incapable of ever giving a woman the one thing she wants.”
Her words stung him in a way he had not thought possible to feel. Was it true? Was he incapable of knowing that bond? No, he had felt it once, with Gabrielle. But he had fled anything more intimate than a single kiss and had not felt those soul consuming stirrings since. And he knew that feeling the passion was not the same as completing the union. Perhaps he had known he would fail and that was why he had fled Gabrielle. White. Marble. Beautiful. Thoughts swam in his mind; he could not sort them out, could not think straight. There was only a great ripping pain in his chest, in his soul. Not a man. He heard those words over and over. It was the one thing he had never wanted to hear, the one thing he had always feared, the affirmation of his complete separation from all that he truly longed to be. Not a man. But if not a man, what? Fake. An imitation. Cold. Unfeeling. Dispassionate. Dead.
Not a man.
Mind and heart screaming, he pulled the tunic over his head and fled to the oratory, away from Diona’s knife-like words, past Captain Delamo without seeing him. Not a man. Dead. Coward. Into the k’dhín bhólibh, the Chamber of Purification, which housed the Gate, where he pulled upon all of the energy he could command and reached for the first point of contact he recognized.

[ice-elf.livejournal.com]

This is the opening to my novel, probably my favourite section so far.

The moon hung full in the sky, dyed red by a strange alignment of the stars. It was a yearly occurrence that the priests called the Blood Moon, decreeing it as an omen of deaths to come if the Gods were not appeased. It was tradition in Sathani City to hold a festival: a three-day carnival of feasting, drinking and dancing that culminated in a ritual sacrifice. This festival was no different.

People spilled from the inns into the streets, wandering up to the main square where merchants from every corner of Caiman hawked their wares and men parted with their money to play games they would never win. A great fire flickered in the middle of the square, sending a plume of smoke towards the moon, and around it danced young couples to the music played by a small troupe of musicians.

It was a merry night, one of celebration and of liberty. For many of the revellers the reasons for the celebration were unimportant, it was an excuse to drink and dance, unrestrained from the trappings of everyday life. For one night, social boundaries were ignored, noblewomen in brightly coloured dresses danced alongside the lower classes in their plain shifts and noblemen chatted to merchants behind their stalls. In the haze of colour and music no one noticed the solitary figure lingering in the shadows between buildings.

Aeron watched the festivity with distaste, remembering another Blood Moon, thirteen years past, when laughter and music faded into screams and the bright colours were stained with blood. He had been a thirteen year old boy then, searching for firewood with his sister, when a cacophony of screams and hoof beats had drawn him back to his village to find it aflame, family and friends slaughtered by a band of soldiers led by a man in a black robe.

A man whose identity he had yet to learn.

[ravissant-rouge.livejournal.com]

Madeline threw a hand up to shield her eyes from the sun as her brother unloaded the last of her luggage from the car.

“Mom and dad are gonna be pissed” he said definitely, sighing as she rolled her eyes and shrugged.

“No shit,” she retorted after a moment, looking almost bored before surveying the building before her with something resembling uncertainty.

“What’s wrong, sis?” he taunted lightly. “Not having-‘second thoughts’, are we?”

“No,” she retorted shortly even as she bit her lip, pulling her hair back nervously into a ponytail. “A little,” she amended abruptly, shrugging. “I’ve never lived with anyone before.”

“Bullshit,” he replied, elbowing her. “What was Susan, a robot?”

She took a step away from him, crossing her arms in front of her before surveying the apartment building again. “I’ve never lived with a boyfriend before” she corrected before snapping angrily, “You knew what I meant.”

Tim smirked at her unrest, elbowing her again. “Surely you don’t doubt the strength of your bond with young Jeffrey,” he taunted lightly before shaking his head. “Really Maddie, this is a stupid idea. You should just let me take you home-“

“I’m twenty five years old,” she snapped, fumbling through her purse for a pack of cigarettes and pulling one out with dexterity before lighting it. “Home is not with my parents.”

“Ok, so you’re a little bit old,” Tim jibed before looking at her seriously. “Maddie, you don’t have to do this.”

“I want to do this,” she snapped, but her voice lacked conviction as she took a drag of the cigarette, leaning against the car.

“Mad, you just graduated from law school. You haven’t seen Jeff for more than 3 days in a row in over a year. It’s ridiculous to go into that building acting like nothing is going to have changed between the two of you.”

“Nothing HAS changed between the two of us,” she fired back, but again her voice lacked conviction.

“I see,” Tim retorted sharply before shaking his head. “Just come home. You’ll find your own apartment within a month, and it’ll be better than this dump. You forget, you’re a lawyer now, not a student.”

“Yeah, an unemployed lawyer,” she snapped, surprised when he regarded her with real affection before answering,

“Ok, an unemployed lawyer. And how long do you think that will last? A week? Two tops?”

“Tim, in case you haven’t noticed the job marked sucks ass-“

“In case YOU haven’t noticed, you graduated in the top 10 percent of your class at HARVARD. You’d have a job already if you hadn’t just HAD to go to South America after you graduated to build homes for the impoverished children or whatever the fuck-“

“Oh fuck off,” Madeline snapped, but there was no bite to her voice as she turned to him. “I’m scared, Tim”

“I know you are. But you don’t have to be. Just come home, and-“

“No,” she said softly, and though her voice was weaker than it had been the whole time they’d been talking, it was the first time it had any real conviction. “I’m going to stay here.”