Thank you @renasdoodles for the tag! Here's an excerpt from a short story I've been on and off working on for awhile! This is the beginning of the first scene. Not sure how good it is, but I've been having fun working on it!
Tarrent was nothing special, and he knew it. He was a balding middle-age man with a wife—Vanya—and three daughters—Elidi, Thia, and Kinsley. He had an office job that he thought was important but really wasn’t, and he earned enough to live comfortably. He thought he was doing well and that he was a good and respectable man, and perhaps he was. It didn’t really matter, in the grand scheme of things. What did matter, was the handful of minutes he spent with the three Seers that resided in his town of East Gondul.
He was walking home from another day of work. It was a nice day, and his office was only a few blocks away from his home. At first, he watched the scenery. To his left, cars drove past, heading home from work, just like he was. To his right, there were residential homes where kids could be heard playing inside. It was the middle of summer, and they were enjoying the lack of schoolwork, just like his daughters were.
In the distance ahead of him, he could faintly see mountains covered in trees where it was well-known faeries resided. He’d always wanted to get training on how to deal with them so he could go hiking with his family there, but he never found the time. It was dangerous to go there without the proper knowledge, and it cost too much to hire a guide.
He checked the time—5:12PM—and remembered it was his night to prepare dinner for the family. He pulled out his phone and searched through a list of recipes he compiled to figure out what he wanted to make. He picked one, and carefully examined the ingredients. Was this something his kids would like? What about Vanya? Did he need to stop at the store for any ingredients? He couldn’t remember—were they out of salt? What about butter?
He didn’t realize he wasn’t the only one walking on the sidewalk anymore. A group of three, walking side-by-side and taking up the entire width of the sidewalk, headed towards him. He didn’t notice, too focused on the recipe on his phone.
It would have been expected that the three maneuver out of his way, distracted as he clearly was. He was already standing to the side, leaving plenty of room for them to do so, but these three had no intention of changing their course even slightly. So, inevitably, Tarrent and the three ran into each other.
“Oop—sorry! Wasn’t watching where I was—”
He noticed the bright clothes of Felicity first. Bright, colorful, not quite matching clothes with a smile that would liven any room if only it weren’t coming from her.
Then, he noticed Eula’s wide-brimmed hat putting a shadow over her deceivingly kind-looking old face and her vintage-style green dress.
And Bastian, who had a pale, acne-covered face and wore casual clothes, could easily pass for a normal teenager if it weren’t for his sinister smile that struck unease and fear to anyone around him.
“Seers-” he stammered. He tried to remember any other time the three of them walked anywhere near this area, but couldn’t. Why did they choose today to walk a new route?
“I’m so sorry,” he said quickly. “I- I should have been more careful. Are you alright? Can I help you at all? I’m so sorry for running into you, I will pay more attention in the future.”
If it were anyone other than the Seers, he likely wouldn’t have felt the need to apologize at all. After all, he wasn’t blocking much of the sidewalk. If he were any more to the right, he would have been on the grass. But because it was the Seers, he had to be careful.
