thestoryofus

[ramblingwritingtime]

Writing Prompt

What do your characters notice first? Why? Two sentences.

He carried three weapons. She would never mistake the number again.

Her neighbor had a bright smile today. She buried her nightmares in his weekend adventure.

She twitches his hands as if for a gun when she tucks the pen back into his jean pocket. The last person to make that motion left a bloodstain on her carpet.

One of her co-workers hides shaking hands behind mugs of coffee and sweet pastries the way he hides files behind his briefcase. She is too good at drawing her mask to not compare the uncommon against the ordinary. 

There is a second door to the right of the room which she sits beside. The hole in her shoulder came from being to slow to exit.

[ramblingwritingtime]

Writing Prompt

Describe your character’s best friend/person they see most often in a way unique to your character.

He carried a slender silver dagger carefully sheathed and attached to his wrist, an improperly sheathed sword with bloodstains in the crevices of the handle around his waist, and the tang of glass and the undertone of cork and the dark, deathly, tantalizing hint of magic drifted from the worn, painstakingly tended bag in his right hand. His clothes were clean yet unkempt, loose brown trousers and dark shirt half-hidden by the swirl of robed trimmed with pale pink. His boots were the brown of Nemean fur and even the soft signs of age could not wear on them. His eyes were amber and he had not bothered to force a smile even in front of his employer, he glanced over the table with cold eyes, settling on her, and said with an amused tone lacing his voice and a half-glance to where Brandon the Elder of Highfort stood.

“They caught you too, witch?”

~Wanda and Charles

[ramblingwritingtime]

Magic

Violet Black Red Blue Cyan Green Yellow Orange Brown Pink White

Mages     Black     Red       Blue

Sorcerers     Cyan     Green     Yellow

Wizards      Brown      Orange      Pink

Gifted      White

[ramblingwritingtime]

Wanda, fair wanderer, mage Lorna, laurel, scientist Helen, bright one, genius Anastazia, reborn, dragon Cleo, glory of the father, mercenary Sansa, defender, whisperer

[ramblingwritingtime]

At dawn the sun rose on the beginnings of grass and a strong river, which they had not seen in many months. This did not solve all of their problems. There were still hyena on the edges of the Pridelands, their numbers reduced by the dead which lay at the base of Pride Rock, but the remnants of the Clan remained. The herds had not returned and the only remaining prey was too large for the weak lionesses to take down.

The return of the water heralded the return of the herds, and so, while Simba and Chumvi became reacquainted and began to patrol the edges of their new territory, Sarabi took her lionesses to the renewed watering hole near the western border, where gazelle and giraffe alike watched warily as the lions settled under the shade of an Acadia tree to await the cool of night. 

With the addition of Zira and the cubs she nursed to their party, they were eight lionesses strong, with the four cubs eagerly scrambling for attention among the pride until the heat of day exhausted them. Then they settled among the lionesses and napped. Shortly before the sun began to sink below the horizon, their lions appeared from the brush. Simba and Chumvi padded into the shade the lionesses had claimed and settled among them. The pride stayed there for a long time. Simba, Nala, and Tama recounted old stories, Chumvi played with his cubs beside Zira, and Sarabi and her sisters lay in the center of the pride, fast asleep.

It was only when the older lionesses rose that the Pride took any notice of the enclosing darkness. Sarabi stopped only long enough for a drink, before leading her sisters through the dark. Sabini and Zira trailed behind, while Nala, Kula, and Tama vanished into the darkness with surprising swiftness. Even the lions followed, leaving the cubs curled against the base of the tree, watching both water and land for predators.

It was Nala who found the hippos. With only six lionesses and Scar’s refusal to hunt, it had been impossible to bring them down before. Now, with Simba and Chumvi’s strength, the Pride encircled their target, Sabini and Zira half covered in water as they approached. Normally the hippos had little to fear from lions. Now, the overturned it with brute force, and opened it before it’s struggles ceased.

“How do we kill it?”

Zira pushed past Simba, sinking her hind claws into the  animal and opening it’s belly. He hesitated from the meal, half-horrified at eating a living creature. The lionesses had no such problem. They enclose so thickly Chumvi had to force his way in among the senior lionesses. When he at last ventured closer, Simba found only Nala was willing to budge aside to give him room. The effort led to snarls from Tama, but this was a feast they had not had in years. There was no shortage of prey. 

Afterward, the called the cubs, Aisha, Vitani, and Kovu suckling at Zira’s belly while Nuka picked at the meat left on the creature’s hindquarters. Simba stretched out beside Chumvi, belly full and confident in his newly won territory. With two strong males at their head, the Ndona Pride had nothing to fear. 

[ramblingwritingtime]

Cleo Katazinsky Casual day wear

[ramblingwritingtime]

Anastazia von Dobein Casual day wear

[ramblingwritingtime]

Helen von Dobein Casual day wear

[ramblingwritingtime]

Lorna Danek Casual day wear

[themeaningofgentle]

Wanda Rygard Day Casual Clothes

[ramblingwritingtime]

Lorna is not special. She sleeps in a thin simple bed with pale white and green sheets. Come morning, she usually eats two eggs with sausage and a chili sauce that anyone who had ever dined within a hundred miles of Mexico would turn down if they were starving on pastel plastic plates with one of her five forks which would remain in the sink until she had nothing to eat on. She drives a three year old Honda Accord Sedan to work, joins her team of coworkers in studying the best places along their route to seek mineral deposits. She sits with several of her coworkers at lunch, some of them discuss what they will bring on next week’s expedition and others argue over the geophysical data assessments they intend to complete after returning to work. Lorna joins the latter group, being enough of a veteran to know the basic of packing for expeditions in the pacific, and after lunch she steals chocolate from the main office’s jar and tucks herself into her neighbor’s desk in an attempt to help determine if the data they were studying was an oil or mineral deposit.

After work, Lorna returns home to her two bedroom apartment in northern San Diego which she shares with a polite, if skittish, Ph.D. student in physics and makes herself golden potato cauliflower soup, which she eats over her computer because they never did determine what that data suggested. Afterward, she throws clothes in the washer and adds her dishes to the rapidly growing pile in her half of the sink, placing the white bowl haphazardly in the cooled pot and dropping her spoon to the side. Her hamper is only half-full, as she makes a point to clean them every three days, and while her clothes dry she steps into the shower emerges forty-five minutes later hair smooth and skin coconut scented. By the time she hangs her loofa and folds her laundry into drawers and returned to the kitchen for warm tea and a small bowl of cherries, her roommate has dropped the mail on the bar and vanished. She keeps the rent bill, a letter from Berkley suggesting she donate, and throws the junk into the trash.

Her computer sings merrily as she returns to her room, and balancing a tray while closing a door, holding mail, and nearly tripping over her cat, a short gray tortoiseshell with an orange stripe down her face and a long tail that tended to be directly in the way of any passing human. By the time Lorna was settled on her bed, Apple had sprawled across her pastel green pillows and begun to stab her in the side with her clawless white paws. Much later, as Lorna fell asleep, the cat nudged to the side, she began a long, deep purr.

She dreams, that night, of grey smoke against a bright blue sky, of men holding rifles which cracked sharply and often, ducking desperately into holes when screaming hellfire came across the fields of trampled wheat. Some were slow and died, some had no room in the closest hole and scrambled madly, half-running half-falling, scuttling along on hands and knees, feet spinning madly on damp dirt with the primal need for safety. One man beats out a boy - golden haired and baby fat still on his face, suddenly impaled with metal through his fine blue eyes, screaming and falling to the ground. Those who watched say nothing, only collect the child and sit him with the wounded and try to ignore his cries as they return to the walls. One man ducks under the bridge, kneeling on one level of dirt and propping his rifle on another, the wood giving him scarce cover be peers to the other side through wire and smoke. A sharp crackle, and then he slides down, returning to the men who half-watch anxiously from where they wait. One stands to high to see his companion, and falls backward with half his head missing. A scream of Rushing tears from one soldier’s throat.

The clock’s pale light reads 3:24am. It takes Lorna several moments to return to herself, lose the scent of smoke and the screams of horses and the shadow of clawed wire over her head. Her room is dark save for the light from her clock (she cannot sleep in the dark and come out of her nightmares so easily) She rolls over, taking her blankets with her, overheating but nervous. Apple has settled at the foot of the bed, and settling one foot against the cat’s side gives enough confidence to fall asleep again. She dreams of a shark with a vertical fin and flat head catching small rays with surprising accuracy and wakes to gentle tibetan chime. She spends two hours meditating before work to clear her mind.

She will soon share a small cabin with two other members of her team, on a weeklong expedition to interpret the condition of the wrecks on the seafloor, and hopefully discover others. When she returns home she will sleep for several days and attempt to convince Apple that she is an independant cat and didn’t miss her that much. She will wash her clothes and purchase tea to restock her cabinet and post on some social media site that she learned five new spanish words. She is sweetly, boringly, normal.

[ramblingwritingtime]

Wanda: Reference Lorna: Reference Helen: Reference Anastazia: Reference Cleopatra: Reference Sandra: Reference

[ramblingwritingtime]

Lorna is not special. She sleeps in a thin simple bed with pale white and green sheets. Come morning, she usually eats two eggs with sausage and a chili sauce that anyone who had ever dined within a hundred miles of Mexico would turn down if they were starving on pastel plastic plates with one of her five forks which would remain in the sink until she had nothing to eat on. She drives a three year old Honda Accord Sedan to work, joins her team of coworkers in studying the best places along their route to seek mineral deposits. She sits with several of her coworkers at lunch, some of them discuss what they will bring on next week’s expedition and others argue over the geophysical data assessments they intend to complete after returning to work. Lorna joins the latter group, being enough of a veteran to know the basic of packing for expeditions in the pacific, and after lunch she steals chocolate from the main office’s jar and tucks herself into her neighbor's desk in an attempt to help determine if the data they were studying was an oil or mineral deposit.

After work, Lorna returns home to her two bedroom apartment in northern San Diego which she shares with a polite, if skittish, Ph.D. student in physics and makes herself golden potato cauliflower soup, which she eats over her computer because they never did determine what that data suggested. Afterward, she throws clothes in the washer and adds her dishes to the rapidly growing pile in her half of the sink, placing the white bowl haphazardly in the cooled pot and dropping her spoon to the side. Her hamper is only half-full, as she makes a point to clean them every three days, and while her clothes dry she steps into the shower emerges forty-five minutes later hair smooth and skin coconut scented. By the time she hangs her loofa and folds her laundry into drawers and returned to the kitchen for warm tea and a small bowl of cherries, her roommate has dropped the mail on the bar and vanished. She keeps the rent bill, a letter from Berkley suggesting she donate, and throws the junk into the trash.

Her computer sings merrily as she returns to her room, and balancing a tray while closing a door, holding mail, and nearly tripping over her cat, a short gray tortoiseshell with an orange stripe down her face and a long tail that tended to be directly in the way of any passing human. By the time Lorna was settled on her bed, Apple had sprawled across her pastel green pillows and begun to stab her in the side with her clawless white paws. Much later, as Lorna fell asleep, the cat nudged to the side, she began a long, deep purr.

She dreams, that night, of grey smoke against a bright blue sky, of men holding rifles which cracked sharply and often, ducking desperately into holes when screaming hellfire came across the fields of trampled wheat. Some were slow and died, some had no room in the closest hole and scrambled madly, half-running half-falling, scuttling along on hands and knees, feet spinning madly on damp dirt with the primal need for safety. One man beats out a boy - golden haired and baby fat still on his face, suddenly impaled with metal through his fine blue eyes, screaming and falling to the ground. Those who watched say nothing, only collect the child and sit him with the wounded and try to ignore his cries as they return to the walls. One man ducks under the bridge, kneeling on one level of dirt and propping his rifle on another, the wood giving him scarce cover be peers to the other side through wire and smoke. A sharp crackle, and then he slides down, returning to the men who half-watch anxiously from where they wait. One stands to high to see his companion, and falls backward with half his head missing. A scream of Rushing tears from one soldier’s throat.

The clock’s pale light reads 3:24am. It takes Lorna several moments to return to herself, lose the scent of smoke and the screams of horses and the shadow of clawed wire over her head. Her room is dark save for the light from her clock (she cannot sleep in the dark and come out of her nightmares so easily) She rolls over, taking her blankets with her, overheating but nervous. Apple has settled at the foot of the bed, and settling one foot against the cat’s side gives enough confidence to fall asleep again. She dreams of a shark with a vertical fin and flat head catching small rays with surprising accuracy and wakes to gentle tibetan chime. She spends two hours meditating before work to clear her mind.

She will soon share a small cabin with two other members of her team, on a weeklong expedition to interpret the condition of the wrecks on the seafloor, and hopefully discover others. When she returns home she will sleep for several days and attempt to convince Apple that she is an independant cat and didn’t miss her that much. She will wash her clothes and purchase tea to restock her cabinet and post on some social media site that she learned five new spanish words. She is sweetly, boringly, normal.

[ramblingwritingtime]

Worst Fears vK.

It is known that when a Dragonrider dies, their dragon dies with them. It is possible, however, for a dragon to die and leave their Rider alive. It does not happen often, and when it does, the Rider is often so broken they cannot function. 

This does not help when she wakes in the middle of the night, asleep on soft furs or silken sheets, missing hard scales and heavy breath and fierce heat. She has seen a dragon die, blood blooming from her chest and eyes losing their color as her life left her. Many nights she dreams of sunlight crimson eyes turning grey and dull as the lifeblood of the great red dragon leaves this world.

There is a deep connection every Dragonrider feels, as familiar as thoughts and skin and air. It lies in their skin, phantom wings feel tears and intangible blood drips into eyes and spears pierce the skin but cannot be found. It lurks beneath their thoughts and reason, for a red dragon is a great and terrible foe, to whom mercy is unheard of and fire and blood rule. Breaking that connection is as death to any rider. 

Her dreams do not give her the comfort of madness.

Many nights she brushes her hands across scales when her claws skitter along and cannot pierce, rests her head against the muzzle of a creature which is magic and fire incarnate, and remembers that a dragon is a great and terrible foe who offers death to a challenge.

[warriorcatsinfo]

ShadowClan kin.

[ramblingwritingtime]

Birchfall

Birchfall believes he only betrayed one cat.

He tells Whitewing of his indiscretion privately. By dawn the next day the entire Clan rumbles with the rumor. Birchfall says nothing about the avoidance of his Clanmates or the concern in Bramblestar’s eyes. Dovewing and Ivypool watch him with bristled tails, Cloudtail ignores him with fierce determination, and Daisy speaks too loudly when gossiping to an already angry Brightheart, who sweeps her kits against her with her tail and fixes Birchfall with a gaze that makes his pelt feel hot.

Admitting to Whitewing that he never loved her was not harder than losing Applefur. When he found her body half-hidden by bracken on the forest floor he pressed his muzzle into her pine-scented fur and mourned. If she had a choice she would have died fighting for ShadowClan territory, so he had helped Marshbird bury her there. When his kin refused to speak with him he lay his head on his paws and remembered his last sight of sleek brown fur, wondering if she was worth not being able to bury his mother.

He does not love ShadowClan. He feels no loyalty to Blackstar, no love for the sharp pine needles under tall trees, he could not pretend to enjoy their prey even when Applefur was alive, but he goes to the border and collects pine cones and cuts his pads on needles for the sake of their scent. He hides them in the tallest tree he can find and when he can no longer stand being in camp he climbs to the highest branch that will hold his weight and tucks them in the hollow between the branch and the trunk.  Eventually, Leafpool rubs a poultice of coltsfoot and comfrey on his paws to sooth them and orders him to stay in camp until they heal. 

He does. He curls himself into the medicine den because staying under the gaze of the warrior’s in his own nest is similar to taking a nap on WindClan’s side of the stream. He watches as Dovewing sacrifices her Clan for her heart, wondering if ShadowClan would have accepted him if he had dared to follow Applefur. When his paws heal, he spends as little time in the camp as possible. 

He is obviously heartbroken. Leafpool and Millie know the look in his eyes very well. It has been reflected at them before. Still, Ashfur is dead and Dustpelt pretends his son doesn’t exist and Spiderleg tries, but his idea of support is lying next to his brother and occasionally glancing at the younger tom. Greystripe eventually takes him aside, but Birchfall is broken and has no energy to do anything save miss Applefur. 

Eventually he crosses the border. He climbs the tallest tree he can find and balances warily on a branch so thin it bends under his weight. He watches her Clanmates and wonders if Applefur ever climbed this high to see her forest. He returns to ThunderClan and Ivypool finds him with his head on his paws staring across the lake. He has been missing for an entire day and she doesn’t know what to do save sit next to him until he is ready to return to camp. Afterward, Ivypool makes it a point to hunt with her father every day. 

It is far too late to trade the loyalty gifted to him by birth for winning the right to sleep in a den from cats he has fought for prey and territory. Applefur is dead, and without her, no Clan is enough. He loved her every day he followed Ashfur’s paws. He lived for Gatherings and moments stolen with her. When he found her in the Dark Forest, he slept long nights and was happy when he didn’t have to fake injuries to stay in camp. Now he would do anything to have enough energy to dart after a mouse on his forest floor.

Applefur was beautiful and full of life and not a day passes that Birchfall doesn’t wish he had died in her place. All he has left is the feel of pine needles in his paws and the scent of the tree which clung to her fur. 

[ramblingwritingtime]

Ashfoot said nothing as they returned to camp.

Onestar did not attempt to comfort her. When they were across their border, he turned to his cats and assessed their injuries. Owlwhisker had been clawed across his pelt, and was worst off. He was leaning against Tornear heavily. Onestar led them through the patch of forest and across the moor slowly. In the voices behind him he heard no protest of his leadership in taking them to ThunderClan, only discussion of injuries and Crowfeather. 

As they entered the camp, Barkface stuck his head out of his den and glanced over the camp. After a brief moment, he vanished, only to reappear with horsetail in his teeth. He settled Owlwhisker on his side and quickly placed the poultice onto the warrior’s wounds. Ashfoot didn’t pause on her way to the warrior’s den, vanishing into the gorse without so much as a backward glance.

Onestar shook his pelt, feeling the sting of scrapes from the battle, but nothing worse. Then he turned to where Whitetail watched from the entrance to the nursery. 

“How was the battle?”

“It went well. Owlwhisker is the worst injured, and I think he’ll live. ThunderClan’s camp was overrun. I don’t know what they did with their kits.”

“Is Ashfoot all right?”

“Crowfeather was in ThunderClan. He has chosen to become Leafpool’s mate.”

“Leafpool is a medicine cat! How can she take a mate?” Whitetail pressed herself into his fur, her eyes turning to where Barkface treated the warriors with skilled paws. 

“Firestar intends to speak with StarClan after he has recovered. Until then, he said Crowfeather was welcome to remain as a warrior,” Onestar’s voice had turned bitter, but his mate ignored that. She brushed her muzzle across his pelt and frowned.

“You’re injured?”

“Barely. Only a few scrapes. They can wait until Barkface has helped the warriors,” Onestar glanced into the shadowed den behind them, considering her nest. “I will help you clean out the moss tomorrow.”

Whitetail purred her amusement, “Isn’t that a job for apprentices?”

“We have no apprentices,” Onestar replied, turning back to where Barkface was pressing a paw to Nightcloud’s belly.

“We will soon,” Whitetail meowed softly, pressing one paw to her belly. “WindClan remains strong.”

In the shade of the ShadowClan pines, a tall tabby she-cat placed a paw on the tail of the excited dark brown kit at her paws. She then leaned down to lick his fur into place over his struggles.

“Tallpoppy! I look fine!”

His mother gave him a disapproving look and pointed to his brother with her tail, “Marshkit looks fine. You need your fur to lie flat before Blackstar is ready.”

“Let me do it, then!” 

“Make sure you clean your ears. Applekit, come here, let me fix your tail,” she meowed firmly. Most of the Clan was settled in the clearing, aware of the impending apprentice ceremony. Blackstar and Russetfur had not yet appeared from his den, and Ivykit and Owlkit watched with wide eyes from the entrance to the nursery.

Just as she was finishing Applekit’s grooming, Blackstar appeared, Russetfur slithering from the den to where her kits peered at the camp, “Applekit, Toadkit, Marshkit, come to the front.” 

Applekit bolted to the branch where Blackstar balanced.  Toadkit was only a few pawsteps behind his sister, nearly running Taeneypelt over in her haste. Marshkit was more composed, padding through the gathering warriors to look up at Blackstar with large eyes.

“Tallpoppy, are you certain you wish to present these kits?”

“Yes, Blackstar. They are over six moons old and large enough to battle a warrior.”

“Very well. Applekit, you have reached the age of six moons and have shown yourself ready to be apprenticed. From this day, until you recieve your warrior name, you shall be known as Applepaw. Rowanclaw, you have become a strong and dedicated warrior and I hope you will pass those traits onto Applepaw.

“Toadkit, you have reached the age of six moons and have shown yourself ready to be apprenticed. From this day until you recieve your warrior name, you shall be known as Toadpaw. Cedarheart, you are a warrior who has shown great courage and forethought. I hope you will pass these skills on to Toadpaw.

“Marshkit, you have reached the age of six moons and have shown yourself ready to be apprenticed. From this day until you recieve your warrior name, you shall be known as Marshpaw. I learned much from Cinderfur during my time as his apprentice. He shared with me his loyalty and wisdom and I hope to pass those traits on to you.”

Blackstar lept from the branch to touch noses with his new apprentice, who looked utterly terrified to be apprenticed to the leader of his Clan. Cedarheart and Rowanclaw moved to meet their new apprentices as well, while the camp descended into yowls of greeting.”

Tallpoppy met her former mentor’s eyes over her Clanmates and raised her tail gently in approval.

Mistyfoot’s mid-day nap on the warm rocks near mouth of the river was very suddenly interrupted when Beechpaw’s screech sounded from upstream.

“Swallowtail!” The young apprentice sounded terrified, and Mistyfoot looked up just in time to see Blackclaw miss the dark tabby she-cat, who was swept by the current downstream. RiverClan had nearly lost Reedwhisker, their best swimmer, at the mouth of the river and cats were forbidden to swim there due to the current. 

If Swallowtail reached the current, she would die. Not even Reedwhisker could pull another cat out of that current. 

Mistyfoot sprang to her paws and in three quick leaps, was balanced on the last rock before the lake. As Swallowtail was swept past, Mistyfoot dug her front claws into her Clanmates shoulders. Swallowtail yowled in pain, but did not struggle even as blood bloomed under Mistyfoot’s claws.

Without her front paws, Mistyfoot was being dragged forward. She pressed her belly to the rock, dug her claws in, and hoped that Blackclaw would reach her in time. A loud splash indicated the arrival of more cats. Claws dug into Mistyfoot’s hind legs, and dragged her back onto the rock.

Carefully, she and Blackclaw pulled Swallowtail onto the small rock and allowed Beechpaw to help her to shore. While her Clanmates licked her fur dry, Swallowtail shivered. Her fur was plastered to her skin, paws shaking and eyes wide. She turned to Mistyfoot.

“I believe I should join the elders soon, if I can’t pull myself out of the current.”

“Nonsense,” Blackclaw answered sharply, “Reedwhisker was caught in the came current and he is one of our best warriors. Let us help you to camp, Swallowtail. Mothwing will know how to help.”

Mistyfoot said nothing, trailing behind her Clanmates with quickly drying fur. Nothing Mothwing could find would help a broken spirit, and she had seen the look in Swallowtail’s eyes only once before.