#ismwriting

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

WIP Wednesday/WIP Whenever

Thanks for the tag @avas-poltergeist!

Completely unedited draft 0 Radzig Kobyla content!

It was too late to be of any use, as was most of the past for all its savor, but the thought persisted and seeped through like rain: Sir Radzig never had cause to measure his stride against any man. Save one. The young knight Kobyla had received an invitation that even the red roses of Cesky Krumlov could only choke on in jealousy. So, pulse hammering in every vein except anything feeding his brain, he spent a fistful of the gold meant to prop up the sagging manor of Dvorce on a clever hound instead. Among the other guests and their curs, it loped lightly and heeled well. Its master left rather more to be desired. The boar ran, his spear jabbed empty air; the roe deer sprang, his hunting sword shaved off a trophy of a few brindle hairs. But then in the dappled shade of the beeches, a red shadow flashed between the horses’ hooves - the hound cut off its escape - and drove its golden vermin eye onto the steel point of an arrow shot from horseback. This was how Radzig Kobyla of Dvorce proved himself no noble hunter, but a pest-slayer. An executioner, a wicked hand with the wickeder fox. And finally Wenceslas, grinning cheekily the last morning of their hunt in Beroun’s woods, stretched out his royal leg and bested him by a heel. That was how a king walked. And thus, a knight. How fared then more ordinary men?

Tagging: @sabraeal, @claudeng80, @littleraeofsunshineda, @helena-thessa, @rednightmare18

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @littleraeofsunshineda last week, lol - apologies for the slow response!

Zizka and Katherine early days snippet

Tagging: @sabraeal, @claudeng80, @avas-poltergeist

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Last line game

Thanks for tagging me, @squidpro-quo!

“So Izana sends two commoners to clean up his own mess, to do the work that generations of Wisteria would not. And there lies the reward waiting for Lady Shirayuki - to live forever as his ready and willing cheques piece, happily at his paragon of a brother’s side.” He snorts. “And what will Sir Obi have? A place at the table, how nice. That endless longing of his as his companion to follow him into the grave, too cowed and starry-eyed by his table scraps to reach out and -” “That,” Mitsuhide whispers, “is enough.” There’s a regretful, merciful silence. “I bear no ill will for Lady Shirayuki or Sir Obi, and I do not laugh at their expense.”

Tagging: @avas-poltergeist, @itspotatobee, @sabraeal, @claudeng80

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Nanocrymo 2025 Day 1

1,819/50,000

Best work:

The men were half in metal, still reflecting twice as much stuffy gray cloudlight and boasting half as many nicks and bits of rust as any brandy-bellied lout of a catchpole could ever dream to afford in this village. Long, wide tassels fell from beneath the half-armor nearly to their ankles, switching between old red and warm dun, and they wavered and parted and swung together when the men shifted their legs uneasily. The boy was wrapped in a bedsheet. She stuck a finger in one of the men’s faces. “You’d better dress that poor child better, or it’ll be all over town tomorrow that some half-naked infant caught his death on Goody Goda’s doorstep, and wouldn’t everyone love one more excuse to gossip and whine about just what I ate to keep from starving during you boys’ war. Hmph.” “Goody Goda?” The soldier did not sound interested. Interest was hard to come by when you crossed the waters of ninety, not even interest in the secret to such an elongated life, because when they looked at you and saw how it was, they promptly didn’t want one for themselves anymore. “The house of Ama Goda in Shulya?” “Who’s asking?” The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and not because the air reeked of lightning.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

My Current NaNoCryMo Project

Title: Beasts of Elenghul Genre: High fantasy Setting: Snowy active volcano, fantasy Second Great Awakening -> fantasy Victorian era Synopsis: It's been an age since the last long sleep, when the Wanwathin race last passed their usual winter in the presence of their forefather. It's been many more ages than that since they lost sight of their guiding star. The newest generations have been born short-lived and unsightly, and for some of them, a growing movement in the bowels of their fair settlement will take them to a city rife with offerings too tempting to refuse.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

For the drabble ask: Ryuu and Obi and an umbrella?

“They’re all the rage in Tanbarun,” Obi laughs. “Don’t you want to be fancy?”

“No!”

As with most tasks of a tactile nature, Obi’s hands require only one attempt to fix the umbrella’s position on Ryuu’s shoulder. “You’ve got reach on me now. You’ll stop us dripping all over the Miss’ shiny new diagrams.”

“I don’t think arm length and height are as correlated as that,” Ryuu says by way of complaint. “This is heavy.”

“You’ll have to do most of the real heavy lifting eventually anyway, kid.”

“Why?”

“Because.” Ryuu has spent enough years in the shade of Obi’s wing to inventory his smiles, but… “I’m getting old.”

Subcategory one: grins, and subcategory two: smirks, both land well within the scope of Ryuu’s literacy. Here is something entirely new.

Ryuu has no idea how many seconds pass him by in silent freefall. He should be grasping for words that keep slipping out of reach until Obi, as ever, swoops in for the rescue. Instead, the umbrella is the only discomfort in the rainy world. There’s pain, nothing atypical. But the look on Obi’s face makes it a kinder pain than any Ryuu has felt in a long time.

It can’t end. It’s such a desperate thought.

A grin is the last thing he sees before his vision goes black. He splutters; Obi’s gloved palm smears his wet forelock out of his face. “No more weaseling out of haircuts on my watch. I can look you in the eyes now.”

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

Arcane - jinx finds rio?

Veiled in oily Emberflit Alley fog, the door hangs ajar, not a single trap engaged. His hind brain, ever four-legged, whispers, RUN.

Familiar chittering noises waft faintly through the opening. Thugs, topside or bottom, wouldn’t have suffered a monster’s company.

Viktor walks calmly inside.

“You’ve got a freaky taste in pets, mister,” says the girl belly-down on his workshop floor, with deep approval. Across the shop, her bulk squashed belly-down in the tiny kitchen, is Rio.

“Traitor,” Viktor tells her. Rio purrs, her enormous eyes never leaving the girl’s.

She’s carefree, boots kicking in the air. “Rio isn’t a pet,” he informs her. “She’s… a stray. I take care of her.”

“Sure. Go ahead and die on that hill, pal.” Then she’s twisted to scowl up at him. With huge, violently pink eyes.

Interesting.

Viktor’s mind churns, calculating. Then he clicks the steel tines of his fingers, and Rio drags herself to him.

“She likes her head scratched,” he says, demonstrating.

“Why does she look all-”

“People hurt her, many years ago. Changed her body against her will.” The girl goes tellingly quiet. “I chose to help her adapt.”

The congress of girl and beast is like two binary stars tentatively brushing, then collapsing into one in a rush. Rio curls around the child, her head cradled between the twig legs, while the girl presses her face to the bruise-colored hide and coos. When Rio licks her face, she shrieks, “Gross!” in sheer delight.

Viktor circles them. The girl is fifteen. No, eighteen. No, older. Just malnourished. Unpredictable. Possibly manic, unless placated. He’s seen it a thousand times. Heavily armed. In the beginning, Rio broke half his ribs and almost bit his arm off twice.

“Can I help, too?” the girl whispers.

Yes. Stay. Here, I can help you.

This is the undercity. She can trust nothing that comes for free.

He says, “You wish to assist me?”

“Ye-”

“Absolutely not.” He opens the front door wide. “Shouldn’t you be in school or something?”

She tries every day for three weeks, nearly kills him five times. On the twenty-fifth day, she hauls over her entire repertoire of tools and snarls, “You want it? I can make it. I’ll prove it. So cough up, you piece of shit tin can. Whaddaya want?”

From behind, Rio rushes to slobber over the girl’s wrench collection. And Viktor smiles.

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

AnS, Umihebi, respect the sea

“Here’s some advice. Shit I needed to hear when I was your age.”

Kids’ve got no gratitude these days. The Toghrul chit just stares into the pounding storm, her drenched hair plastered across her stony face.

“Wanna do business with them?” She spits west into the churning waves and prays the curse chokes Wisteria in his sleep. “You won’t. In a few years, you’ll fold up your sails for the last time. Climb into bed with one prince or another, west or east. Maybe both.”

Tough crowd tonight. Toghrul simply watches her little wooden fleet, emptying by one chest of wax-wrapped goods and one Claw sailor at a time.

“You’ll be rich, foreign- not too foreign- and your boats’ll fly a castle’s colors. Your orchards and fisheries doled out as party favors. Your island full of yellowhaired men and their homesick wives and hunting dogs. You think I’m in the skin trade? You haven’t seen shit, kid. You don’t know how fast villages can disappear.”

Something hits home. “I’m guessing this is where you tell me what you really want?” Oh, Toghrul’s a princess in her own right, that’s for sure. She’s got the glower. “Now that you’ve finished robbing me.”

“Take their gold, girlie, I don’t give a damn. But giving them the sea? The sea’s gonna come for you one day.”

Toghrul snorts. “Unless I give you your cut.”

“So accusatory.” Umihebi gestures- come along. Finally, an interesting dinner guest. “But I’m a businesswoman too, at heart.”