“Promise me you’ll come back,” he whispered, looking up at his lover with big, pitiful eyes. His lover smiled and raised his hand.
“I pinky promise.”
Despite the childishness of it, he couldn’t help but wrap his pinky around his lover’s. Anything that would allow them to meet again.
She smiled at how easy it was with him.
How easy it always was.
A small, lost part of her recognized where the emotion should be. Where the guilt, the grief, the cost, of what she was about to do should register. Should stop her. But that person had died when he hadn’t said no.
When he has set the ocean on fire.
She tugged slightly on the finger wrapped around her own as she placed her left hand on his chest. She stroked the medallion there. Once.
“May I wear this?” Her voice was breathless, filled with a play-acted love she didn’t feel. “So I always have you close to my heart.”
“Anything,” he replied. He let go of her pinky to remove the pendant.
As he slid the weight of the stone around her neck she allowed herself a silent sigh of relief. She followed it with a quick, grateful prayer to her ancestors that he had never bothered to read the ancient texts.
If he had any true inkling of what she was taking from him, he would have kill her.
Oh, this is super interesting!!! I want to know more about the characters here. I love it!
Awww, thanks!! I decided to continue - using another one of your stellar prompts! Love your feed!!!
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With a nod, with one final look at her, he turned away. He crossed her room and left through the open door.
He didn’t look back.
She waited. She counted twenty, thirty, beats of her heart as the sound of his footsteps faded to nothing.
And then she was alone.
The weight of the world hanging from her neck.
The fulfillment of the prophecy and the satisfaction of a broken curse, was realized with this pendant. The truth of it, the affirmation of everything the sacrifice had cost, echoed only in her ears as she sat in the silence.
Another pause. She had to be sure she was absolutely alone.
Then she stood. There was no more time to waste.
The war could be won in this moment.
She turned to where the mirror had been. The thick, metal vines still twisted together around the now empty frame. It was cold to the touch. Much colder than this room could make it and her fingers shivered in anticipation at the thought of going home.
The mage had been wrong to shatter it. More wrong still to believe he destroyed its power with only a physical act. Magic mirrors still remained one of the most powerful forces in existence.
She looked into the broken mirror, running her fingers over the jagged cracks. The cold metal slowly began to warm to her touch. The greeting of an old friend.
The reflection she saw was not herself.
This is great!!! I love the mixing of the prompts to create one fluid story. It really works well, and I loved the read!
I used another of your prompts... I can’t seem to let this one go! ;)
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Annoying pop music played throughout the bar, the bass of each song sending shocks up and down his body.
Despite this, he sighed and continued to block it out. If he didn’t have to be here, he wouldn’t be.
Night after night he came. He sat at the same corner table. Although a passerby would assume he chose it for the easy access to both the bar and the dance floor, his purpose was entirely divergent.
This was the only location where he could easily monitor the mirror.
The inertia of this place threatened to drive him mad. The people, the place, the tempo; this world, like so many others, was completely oblivious to a galaxy at war. It made his skin crawl but there was something more here that he needed. All he needed to do was wait.
He wondered if bothered him more now because he would prefer to be at home. Not in his palace, not with his advisors as they plotted their next steps, but with her. It had only been a few months and everything was different.
She saw him, in a way few did.
He liked logic, preferred order. He hated lying to her, even more than he hated lying to his brother. But what would he say?
I’m sorry the person you love doesn’t exist?
I’m sorry I only pretend to want to rule this land you love?
That each and every night I leave you, it’s in hope of shattering this world you live in?
I’m waiting for the spy that can bring my country to its knees?
I just want to tell you. Part of me believes you would understand.
No. He wouldn’t let himself confide in her. She wouldn’t want this. He didn’t want this but something, someone, has to stop the burning. It terrified him the resistance had been reduced to waiting for spies in his own court. To be forced to place its trust in magic mirrors and riddles whispered by ancient mages when the moon was full.
Yet, despite his misgivings, it might be the only chance they had to win the war that threatened to tear the very fabric of the universe apart.
The message had said that this was the only portal left for the spy to use. When the spy would arrive was unclear. Exactly what the spy was smuggling out was unclear as well. Specific details, it seemed, were outside the reach of wizards.
A tremor shook the building.
He looked up at the mirror to see its surface rippling, as if a peddle has been thrown in the center of a reflective pond. A quick glance around him proved that none of the humans felt anything, even as another tremor pulled at the building’s foundation.
Plaster fell from the ceiling. He crossed the distance to the mirror quickly, reaching it as a hand shot out. Before anyone could see, he threw up a shield around them. He grabbed the slender wrist and pulled.
Retrieve the spy, they had said.
It was all they had said.
There was no warning.
He hadn’t known it would be her. Not her. Not after what they had shared.
How could it be her? How could she be the spy now? Not after all this time. Delivering to them what mattered most to him.
Disheveled from the journey across space and time, he expected. Haggard and tired, he expected. But not the flawless pink ball gown she was wearing when he left. The light, gauzy material did not match the burning fire in her eyes.
He had never seen her look at him this way.
He had never seen her look quite so beautiful.
He was tempted to pinch himself, a quick verification he was awake.
But her voice did that for him on its own.
“It can’t be you.”
