#authorsnet

[authorsnet]

authorsnet is back for its second event! for this month, we would like our members to write a piece about the folklore within their wips. you can interpret this prompt however you like, and don't forget to be creative with it!

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post a snippet of any bit of folklore from your wip!

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entries close on 31st july and this event is open to members only. good luck!

[ninazeniks]

—  ATLAS AND ATHENA

genre: new adult / urban fantasy

pov: third person, present tense

themes + tropes: rivals to lovers, forced proximity, found family, war and rebellion, betrayal, very unreliable narrator, masks and the people that see through them, anti-heroes, grief, angels and wings and flying, complicated family dynamics, conspiracy theories, identity reveal, working through trauma, undercover shenanigins, spies and double agents, everyone has a motive and a side to the story.

status: outlining, first draft

wip page | wip tag

— SYNOPSIS:

an angel falls out of the sky. 

a girl is shot in the stomach.

a spy goes to an auction.

when a mission goes abruptly sideways, nina rhodes, agent and sharpshooter for the ambigiously named agency — a network of spies and espionage working on both sides of the law; good and evil, mortal and divine — is partnered with atticus sideris, archangel and member of the elite, dangerous themis guard, dedicated to preserving the order of the divine realm.

an order that is in jeopardy. ages ago, in centuries lost to the clutches of time, the divide between mortal and angel was impenetrable. eventually, over thousands of years, the bloodlines mixed, and angelic divinity seeped into the mortal realm, enough so that most ‘mortals’ have at least a modicum of divinity. archangels, those angels entirely pureblooded, live within the Aether, the divine realm literally above the mortals, with their own rule of law and a reaffirmed boundary.

a human rebellion was had. 

a truce was formed. 

the flames were not smothered. 

now, ten years after one of the greatest terror attacks on record, a human bringing down three of the infamous themis guard, someone is producing divine weapons, able to harm archangels, for mortal use. the issue — divinity makes mortals feral. combine that with a bioengineering company looking to genetically alter mortals to carry more divinity, and a second war is on the verge of erupting.

nina and atticus, mortal and archangel, are assigned to a task force to dismantle the weapons smuggling ring. but when nina unwillingly finds herself the target of another investigation, and atticus helpless to reveal the truth, they have to work backwards, finding the connection to themselves and their team, even as they try to keep their truths from each other.

— CHARACTERS:

nina “athena” rhodes. mortal. 24. sharpshooter turned spy. empathetic, bright, neurotic, stubborn, analytical.

atticus “atlas” sideris. archangel. immortal. commander. surly, reserved, loyal, protective, tormented.

manon moreau-popova. mortal. 25. assassin. cold, cunning, defensive, callous, evasive.

ismena dhaniels. archangel. immortal. enforcer. brave, afraid, passionate, intuitive, blunt.

reuel kovac. mortal. 27. liar. vindictive, relentless, charming, rash, self-serving.

taglist below the cut, ask to be +/-

general: @noloumna @kazino @incipientdream @mahalii @adaparkwrites @perditism

[ninazeniks]

excerpt from embers and infernos chapter 46 : a bad plan | wc : ~1400

in honor of hitting my nano goal and 100k on eai, an excerpt from one of my favourite scenes!

image transcription and taglist under the cut, ask to be +/-

wip page | wip tag | intro post

embers and infernos: @wildswrites @herondalelucies @sautrns @duvyena @aepreall @hekat-ie @unholieds @writeblrfantasy @wickerring @sourrcandy @kahaaniyaa

general: @noloumna @kazino @incipientdream @mahalii @adaparkwrites @perditism

“Ilya?” Murphy’s voice spilled from the radio, measured.

Before she could speak, I clamped my hand over her mouth and snatched the radio away. Her gasp cut off, muffled into my palm.

She jolted in panic, trying to break away, but I gritted my jaw, pinning her shoulders to the back of the chair with my elbows — I cringed as she hissed when the joint dug into her bruised one — and hooked my ankle around hers, using my longer limbs to hold her still.

Still being relative. Ilya squirmed, thrashing, but for all her combat training, she wasn’t used to physical fighting, she was injured and tired, and I was a bigger opponent who caught her off guard.

Out of the corner of my eye, Dante and Matt were frozen, Dante’s hand hovering over his gun.

She settled a little, tensed to listen as I raised the radio to speak, still awkwardly holding her in place.

“So, a funny thing happened this morning,” I spoke, out of breath — she put up a hell of a fight, but trying not to give it away.

It took a long moment before Murphy spoke, not expecting me, evidently.

In the shockingly loud silence, Matt twitched forward, but froze again mid-lunge. Hadley stepped in front of him. She refused to look up from the floor, head tipped, with her jaw a sharp curl of tension and her arms wrapped protectively around her chest, but she moved. It was enough to keep Matt in line.

He stared at her, grey eyes dark and stormy, something I couldn’t quite name flickering in them. It wasn’t good.

“Astin,” Murphy said, finally, terse. “Where’s Ilya?”

Ilya pulled her ankle loose, and stomped on my foot, hard. I grunted.

Dante edged forward again. “Dimitri —.”

Ilya’s fingernails clawed the back of my hand and I jumped, hissing out a breath at the sharp little stings.

“Astin, let me be frank,” Murphy spoke again, and this was the voice of the president, not Ilya’s closest ally. Now we were getting somewhere. “If she’s hurt, this partnership is going to become very unpleasant very quickly.”

“Dimitri,” Ramsey spoke this time, stretching an arm in my direction.

“Ilya’s fine,” I insisted, trying to wrangle her into place. “She’ll be here in a minute, I just need a word with you first.”

This plan was already far off the rails — Murphy knew something was up, and I wasn’t going to be able to hold a conversation like this, preoccupied with Ilya.

“Shoot,” he said flatly.

“How would one go about hiring an assassin from KovIn?”

Silence again. Eventually, he said, “Vall has private channels, with the memos Ilya found. I’d assume she’d get someone over them. Or even face to face, without a trail.”

The eyes in the room burned into me. I was grateful I couldn’t see Ilya’s. I could imagine, though, dark and lovely and livid.

“What happened?” He asked again, static roughening his low voice.

Ilya had gone still again, and I took a moment to catch my breath.

“We had some company. Why don’t you tell me what happened at KovIn — maybe there’s something you want to say before Ilya gets here?”

Ilya inhaled sharply, breath brushing cool against my skin.

Across the table, Myeong’s eyes shot wide in her head and she tensed at whatever she saw on Ilya’s face, bracing for impact.

The twitch of Ilya’s head, tilting to the side under my palm was my only warning before —

Her teeth sunk into my palm, breaking the skin, with a sharp puncture of pain flaring up my hand.

The shout tore from my lungs against my best efforts, echoed through the room by Myeong and Matt, and I reared back like her teeth burned me, blood flowing hot down my palm.

She used my break to slam the chair back into my gut, chasing the breath from my lungs, and I had to double over with a gasping groan, dropping the radio back to the table with a clatter. She tried to stand, but I still had a leg thrown over hers, and we went down in a tumble of limbs, Ilya following after me.

I cracked my head on the tiled floor, the lingering bleach fumes permeating my senses, and the throb echoed the pulsating in my hand.

Ilya fell sideways out of the chair, crash landing on her back, on top of me, knocking her skull against my chin, and my head smacked into the floor again with a glancing blow. Stars spilled across my vision.

She scrambled away, but I was helpless, dazed, blinking the spotted film away from my eyes. Time slowed, dragging like cold honey.

The static blurred with the buzzing at the base of my skull and my heartbeat in my ears and I drifted for a moment, unmoored as I pulled my bearings together with clawing fingers.

It was too late by the time I realized why Ilya was fumbling at my waistband. The part of my brain currently rattling around my skull was caught in the night before, with the same hot fingertips pushing my shirt up my body, tracing bare skin and muscles revealed in its wake.

It wasn’t helped when a familiar warm, weight dropped back to straddle my thighs.

Click.

The combat trained part blinked back on high alert with that noise, even more familiar.

Ilya had just flicked the safety off on my own gun.

I swooped back to reality sickeningly quick.

For the second time today, Ilya was aiming straight between my eyes. She wouldn’t miss this time.

She was fury incarnate pinning me to the floor, legs falling to either side of my thighs in a mockery of the night before. Her delicate features were twisted with rage. Her eyes, struck wide with disbelief and anger, such a dark brown they were only a half a shade from black, were swallowed by the pupil, and her hair, that same near-black, had gone from shower-frizzed and damp to mussed and wild, tangled around her face.

A smear of blood dragged from her full lips to her chin. My blood where my mouth had dragged the night before. Her lips parted, breath wheezing in pained gasps — the side she’d fallen on was her ruined shoulder, I realized, and the lines on her face were not just upset, but teeth-gritting agony  — as her chest heaved under the oversized shirt. I could see the outline of the bullet, that damnable bullet, through the pocket; I could see the strap of her bra where the shoulder had fallen wide off her narrow shoulder.

She trembled with rage, but her hand was steady where she levelled the barrel at my face.

She spoke through her teeth. “Give me the goddamn radio. Right now.” Her voice was flat and hard, near inflectionless, but she was livid. It was coming off her in waves.

Her voice broke the bubble we were in, and noise flooded back through the ringing in my ears, through the drip of my blood on the floor.

This was Agent Reyes.

“Told you it was a bad idea,” Hadley muttered, almost feeble as she handed over the squawking radio — Murphy was near frantic over it.

“So you knew, and you let it happen anyway,” Ilya snapped, pointed enough to make Hadley — unflinching, impenetrable Hadley — cringe away when she snatched the radio from her hands.

Hadley backed away, pressing against the wall, as far as she can get from the terror on my lap. She kept Matthias and Dante between us, a reversal of the previous position. Both men had their hands resting on their holsters, but no guns were drawn. Even as Matt looked especially twitchy, watching Ilya keep the gun trained on my head with one hand.

Myeong’s eyes were huge in her head, startled, but not surprised. She knew Ilya better than the rest of us, after all. I knew Ilya wasn’t going to appreciate this plan, but I hadn’t anticipated the degree to which it was unacceptable to her. Perhaps I should’ve, thinking back to how she’d reacted our doubts, not of herself, but of Murphy before.

[authorsnet]

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[sultanah]

@authorsnet​ event 01: first meetings — Najm Abbas and Sana Ahmed

Prequel to OUR VENGEFUL DESIRES

When one takes the pledge of the Dhimr Academy, one should not intend to break it.

Najm supposed intention was too big a word here. He had not planned to break the pledge, nor had he known that he would. But time had the tendency to alter plans. 

Seven exits. Twenty-four guards on duty. Thirty-six classes in session. One Qubba—one, one, one.

He gasped, hand flying to his head as a blinding pain erupted at his right temple. Najm reached for something to hold onto, trying to steady his steps as fire spread through his mind, his own skin hot to the touch.

Focus. Let the details come to you.

Seven exits. Because this was the largest academy in Arijwan, the most prestigious. One only highly qualified Sahera—or in his case, highly rare—were privy to attend. Twenty-four guards. He had counted the few lining the roof, as well. For insurance. Thirty-six classes. Because he had memorized the Academy’s schedule his first night here. One Qubba, because there was only one word he remembered his mother shouting on the night she died.

Najm dropped to the floor, his knees hitting the tile with enough force to make him gasp. The pain was receding, white spots now littering his vision instead. He tried to focus on a small beetle, pleasantly tottering along the seam where stone met tile. He let his mind calm for a minute more before trying to stand again.

His professors had developed many words to describe Najm since his arrival—special case was the one he’d come to expect. Ticking bomb was one they favored in his absence.

None of which seemed to adequately clarify why Najm’s affinity was the only one that brought about so much pain.

The Dhimr Academy was an ancient, large building that seemed devoid of light at any time of day. Stone arches made up the halls, diamond-shaped porcelain rising up from the sides in decorative circles. There was no effort spared in perfecting such a prestigious academy. And Najm should have loved it. The Najm he used to be might have. He might have marveled at the intricately carved birds raised against the inside walls. The swirls of color exploding beneath the high-raised dome at the main entrance. Or the library with levels of shelves too high for his reach, and too advanced for his mind.

But he had not been that boy for many months.

He rose on shaky legs, leaning heavily against the wall. If his memory served, and it always had, there were eighteen minutes left before someone—likely a guard, possibly a professor on his way to his next class—noticed that Najm was not where he was supposed to be. And if the headmaster’s threats served as well as Najm’s memory, then he had to get back before then.

“I was told you were clever, but only an idiot would try to sneak past the headmaster’s own office and expect no consequences.” 

Najm startled, his legs nearly giving out under him as he whipped around to face the voice.

A short girl, years too young to be on this floor, with hair cropped under her chin and an amused glint in her dark eyes stood there. Her arms were crossed, head tilted to the side. 

Najm tried to prevent his mind from springing into details but it had already slipped its leash—her concealed fists were clenched, meaning her abilities were currently in use, and since Najm had not heard her approach, that meant she was a Silver. The beige dress she wore fell loosely around her, short sleeves connected to the fabric giving the appearance of a bird’s wings mid-flight. And the Silver threads weaved around the neckline confirmed his theory about her Sahera affinity. A Wielder of Winds. She was too young for this floor, but evidently, her control surpassed her age. She had been moved up a few levels. 

And the only reason she would know the concealed back door to the headmaster’s office was only a few steps away, was if she had been one of the students who had played a prank on him months ago.

“Sana Ahmed,” he said, wincing. He forced his breathing to even. Let the details come to you.

She hummed, a small smile curling her lips, “you are not supposed to be down here.”

Najm swallowed. He was still recovering from his last burst of power, and he knew that any response his mind might generate now would be a lie. He settled for a shrug.

“What happens if they find you?” she said, apparently happy to keep active a one-sided conversation.

Najm said nothing. It hurt too much to lie.

“I’m told I can be reckless,” she added thoughtfully, raising a hand and uncurling her fingers one by one. Around them, abandoned classroom doors were being pushed open by an invisible hand. “Do I want to be here when they find you?”

Najm watched her for a moment longer. There was a door at the end of the hall flanked by two guards on the outside. If she wished to allow it, that door could burst open and they’d both be caught out of class. She looked much too amused at the situation, and Najm had heard enough about the students here to realize none of them truly cared to mind themselves. 

But then, none of them were being forced to come here against their will.

“What do you want?” he said finally. He doubted she even realized what he was offering. A truth. Truths didn’t hurt. Truths were easy, the world was made of them. Truths were the details his mind overflowed with. But not everyone deserved the truth, just because it was there.

Her eyes gleamed with victory and a flick of her wrist slammed shut the few doors she had opened. “Is it true you are a Gold?”

Najm clenched his jaw, the word had already become a sore bruise against his thoughts. “Yes.” 

“Will you let it kill you?” 

Najm was struck for a moment by how matter-of-factly she spoke. When the Kashif had revealed to Najm what his affinity was, his tone had been grave, almost sad. He had told him, your mind is not your own. And then paused. It had occurred to Najm then that at this point an adult might stare meaningfully into his eyes and demand he never forgets their words. 

But he had not understood then that being a Gold meant never forgetting. 

When he spoke again his words were quiet, filled with the fire that haunted his dreams and filled his thoughts. Those same flames turned determined. 

“Never.”

Sana watched him for a moment, her gaze curious. 

“Good,” she decided finally.  She turned away as if to leave before hesitating, glancing back once. It occurred to Najm that while him being there at that exact time, in that exact place was entirely purposeful, Sana had appeared there by coincidence. 

Coincidence, the thought echoed in his own mind, almost mocking. The world is hardly ever that careless.

“Stay,” Sana said, at last, her words quiet. “Neither of us needs to be here alone.”

— TAGLIST (ask +/-) 

@aeternve; @gnymedes; @hennawar; @kamadevis; @naava-kaiho; @naazyalenksy; @rapunzelle; @revouries; @saifs; @talesofsorrowandofruin; @yaqarah; @adastrals; @chuchoters; @etoilesvp; @fictional-semantics; @herondalelucies; @vaelinor; @chazzawrites; @arkicts; @kalliopeian; @maharaanis; @eduardstudying ; @seamajorshanties;

[olimpias]

@authorsnet​​ event 01: first meetings – alex and francis

"Alex, this is Mr Francis Farraday-Tate," Ivy said, pointing to the young man Alex had already noticed. He was very pale, had dark, deep-set eyes and was leaning majestically in the corner of the sofa with such an arrogant expression on his face that Alex would hardly have dared to address him of his own accord. "He's a writer," Ivy added in a confidential tone. "Pleased to meet you!" exclaimed Alex cheerfully, holding out his hand. Hesitantly, Francis took it with his own, which was icy. "I am seldom in the habit of speaking to strangers," he said with dignity, "but I suppose it cannot always be avoided. In this case: the pleasure is all mine." The hint of an extremely distinguished smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"Now that's a cocky one," Alex said quietly to Ivy. "That couldn't happen to me!" "Don't pretend to be modest, Alex. It doesn't suit you." "Excuse me, I'm the most modest person I know." "As you can tell just by that statement, can't you?" In mock indignation, Alex shook his head and turned back to Francis, who quickly lowered his head as if Alex had caught him watching him. "So you're a writer, Mr Farraday-Tate," Alex said. The large, charcoal-coloured eyes locked on him. "Do you doubt that?" "Why no, I've just never read anything by you before. Are you any good?" "Don't embarrass the poor man like that," Ivy called over her shoulder. And addressing Francis, she said, "You'll have to get used to him being so direct. And just quite impossible in every other way, too. You could be straight up angry with him if he wasn't so terribly disarming, couldn't you?" Alex wrinkled his nose in her direction. "I wrote something once too," he said thoughtfully. "It was a sort of small play about a man who finds out his best friend is a murderer. In the end, though, he gets killed." "By his friend?" asked Francis, who suddenly seemed quite interested. "No, by a policeman who thinks he's his friend. It's a bit complicated, to be honest." Francis nodded. "Seems like it." "And you? What do you usually write?" "Ah," Francis said, sitting up. Obviously this subject was very close to his heart. "Do you know E. T. A. Hoffmann?" "But of course," Alex replied. "One of my favourite authors, in fact." "You know, all my life as a writer I have tried to write in that or a similar style, for example, Edgar Allan Poe-" "I see, you write old-fashioned horror stories!" "Well, I would rather-" "Now, now, that's wonderful! I just love that kind of story! I must read something of yours sometime, if you don't mind!" "No, not at all," said Francis, whose eyes were now positively shining.

general taglist: @wherewindysurgeswend​ @buster-keaton​ @bookphobe​ @write-gallagher​ @aphaimaniis​ @tragediesoftory​ @ortolon​

cosmopolitan taglist: @alias-levi @johnsonshildy @writerlywonders @buster-keaton @rememberedkisses @writingbyjillian @tragediesoftory @bulletgirl @bookphobe @cespye @aphaimaniis @mayawritesbooks @plutoslittlecosmos​ @fictional-semantics​ @ryns-ramblings​ @silverstqrs​ @chuchoters​ @ashen-crest​ @arkicts​ @generalblizzarddreamer​ @blindthewind​ @ladywithalamp​ @ravenetteviolets​

[authorsnet]

welcome again to all of our new members, we’re so excited to have you! for your first evet at authorsnet, we’d like you to post a snippet of any characters’ first meeting. this can be lovers to-be, enemies to-be, friends to-be...etc.

to join:

reblog this post                              

post a snippet of any characters’ first meeting (get creative with this! maybe add an edit alongside it or a header on top!)

caption your creations with:  “ @authorsnet​ event 01: first meetings —  [ snippet ] ”

tag your creations with #authorsnet

entries close on march 30th and this event is open to members only. good luck!