send me a number and i’ll write a micro story using the word or phrase
In the near distance, a Titan lumbers on. Two soldiers ride hard for its position, rise in their saddles and grapple a solitary pine, soaring above the undulating meadowgrass. Their advance is a mirrored image. staggered by the man’s eagerness. He engages directly, blades flashing – she slips after, unbalances, undermines. He goes high for the kill, she goes low for an assist. They’ve done this a thousand times; the sight of his heels fast and familiar.
Petra doesn’t see the cut, or hear the Titan’s roar, or feel the heat of its blood spattering the grass behind her. There’s a crack, and that sound is all she knows. Shards of a broken blade glint in the daylight, and a spurt of red arcs toward the ground. Auruo, still poised from their kill, cloak billowing out behind him. The air stills, slows – she thinks he’ll shake it off and continue his onslaught, but he crumples in midair, tips downwards– and for a sickening moment she’s certain that he won’t catch himself in time, that he’ll shatter on the ground, and she’s too far away, too slow to catch him, too small to reach –
At the last second, there’s a haphazard blast of gas before he bounces, skids, sprawling in the grass with a clatter of gear and blades. She whistles for the horses, a shrill crescendo, and sprints to his crumpled form.
He’s already trying to get to his feet, but his features are contorted in pain – almost unrecognizable without his smirks and grins, the tender smile when he thinks she’s not looking. Wet gasps ooze between his clenched teeth.. “Just – ha, Just –” He waves a bloody hand at her and brings it back to his side; as she stares, crimson pools around his fingers, soaking through his shirt. “It’s a n-nick, tops –”
She pushes him down in the grass, suddenly furious. “It’s not a nick, you idiot.” Her hands shake.
It’s not safe, she thinks, and she knows he’s thinking it too – his eyes are pitted wide, darting from side to side even as he shudders under her hands, teeth chattering. “Get the f– get off, you dumb n-nag,”
She could scream in his stupid face for a thousand years. Bleeding, battered, a breath away from unconsciousness, and still he’d refuse her help. She’s trembling hard enough to rattle her teeth, blazing with fear and adrenaline, but she bunches his cloak hard against his side before darting to her saddlebag, fumbling for the kit and firing the signal.
“You – what happened?” She rips aside the tattered shirt, ignoring his gasp of outrage. The wound stretches from rib to hip, bleeding fast, but it is not deep. She can fix this.
“Will you just – go,” he shudders under her hands. “There’s m-more comin’.”
He’s so pale. How could he have lost so much already? Her knees are soaked red, and he’s pale as bone, pale and cold. But her hands are fast, even shaking, even afraid – she packs the wound and wraps it quickly, bracing for the telltale rumble of earth, another advance.
“You’re fine,” she tells him firmly. Stubborn. “Look, it’s already slowing.”
“Ha …” He shudders again.
“We’ll wait a little longer, then you’ll ride with me. And you won’t be an idiot and charge off again.”
“You’re the idiot,” he breathes. “I …”
Her eyes flash. “Auruo Bossard, don’t you even think about it.”
But he’s nothing if not bold. (Rash, reckless, such an idiot, it’s any wonder he was still alive). “What are you doing, getting all m-moony over me …”
He’s quiet for awhile. The earth is silent, and she thinks it’s a small mercy, one they deserve under such an open sky, red and sorry and shivering. He looks at her as if she’s said something both funny and tender, and she hates that most of all – that he understands sometimes, that he’s even capable of it now. “Yeah,” he says, and it’s both wrong and true.
