The knife was not made to cut this. (Drama, 260 words)
Spring flowers had been tangled into his long hair while he danced with the other children, rejoicing in the end of winter.
His fingers hurt; raw from gripping too tight, too desperate.
His friend liked to braid his hair, so his hands had something to do while he told him of his day, of his dreams, of everything.
Pain shot through his head when he pulled too strong but he didn’t care for it or the loss.
His first love liked to pick, delicately, a single strand to press a soft kiss into it like a whispered promise.
The knife had difficulties cutting through and nicked his hand instead, the blood mixing with the other grime.
He never understood the fascination non-elves had with his kind, singing ballads of their otherworldly elegance and how the moon illuminated their hair like starlight in the deepest night.
He couldn’t see but his hand could feel how much still needed to be cut.
One of them had grabbed him, using the moment when his guard was down to pull him by the hair.
A bloody nose given.
The last of his long hair fell, single strands sticking to his hand filthy from blood.
No more tangled fingers. No flowers, fragrance sweet, No songs about his beauty.
Tomorrow he would catch up to them. Tomorrow he wouldn’t be caught in starlight flowing from his shoulders. Tomorrow his hunt would come to an end. Tomorrow would be a feast.
Mahandrir hated his life. (Slice of Life, 259 words)
It should have been so simple! Guard the entrance and be rewarded with some of its riches. But those . . . weirdoes had to arrive, claiming to search for some dwarf that’s in there. It was an odd group of people, especially that orc. That one was wily, even went so far as to cry in front of everyone.
But the most odd thing of all was, that Mahandrir was now accompanying these people to see if there was some truth to their claims. And hinder them from taking all the riches for themselves.
And from there on it all went downhill.
Mahandrir wished the poison had killed him. Instead, he was lying prone on the ground, unable to escape the torture that was the orc singing! The others didn’t seem all too bothered by it. That crazy elf seemed to enjoy it even, munching on some cheese and swaying cross-legged to the horrible noise. The drow seemed to read something, he couldn’t quite see her from his position but her tiefling friend was in full view. That one was half lying on the ground and half leaning against her friend. She was playing with one of the spider legs, making it twitch by poking at the nerves.
The orc came closer, interrupting its singing but not the plucking of the lute.
“Cheer up, friend! My song will make you feel better in no time!”
The orc stopped right beside him and Mahandrir’s personal hell began again.
A collection of 12 “50 words stories” based on prompts... Not all of them are exactly 50 words long.
The string of her lute had snapped. This should not have been a problem, her dad had taught her how to change them, and how to tune the instrument. Still, Heidi had been sitting here for an hour. Her big hands were just not made for fragile work like this.
A quick and painless death was what Myr’s religion stood for, what the priests had taught her from a young age; no need to prolong suffering, a quick death was better than a painful recovery. And yet people put flowers on graves, visiting them again and again. It was as if the pain the dead were spared, the living wanted to inflict on themselves.
Armor on, armor off, armor on. Tis was not stealthy, she knew that, so she had figured hey, this one’s definitely a trap, I’ll just walk through and if I get hit, it’s better if I do wear the armor this time. Gouda and Chadriel had looked at her with concern when she had announced that plan. Now that she was almost bleeding out, Cheddar frantically tending to her wound, she realized she probably should have just stayed home.
Gouda had not expected death to come for him today. When he was honest, he had not expected it at all, not for another seven hundred years or so. He had rolled his eyes whenever his parents had alluded to him being but a child with his 18, 19, 20 years, but now that the hole in his stomach was about to rob him of centuries to come, he was inclined to agree.
He had not really made it his mission to be an element of chaos wherever he went, it had just sort of happened. When you thought about it, nothing about Ithelan’s life was truly chaotic. He did have clear goals, he knew what he wanted, took what he needed. The chaos he left in his wake, though, well, was that really part of him once he left it behind?
Mahandrir wanted to scream but no sound was kind enough to leave his mouth, he was not granted that relief. He was no stranger to being paralyzed, but the excruciating pain radiating through his body, making him unable to move, to breathe, was enough to make him want to pass out. He was not granted that, either.
Myr’s warhammer had taken many lives. Well, not many, but it had done its job. Hit, smash, done. Puddle of blood, death, no pain. Unfortunately, this time she had missed her target (why did these goblins have to be so short?) and hit a barrel of explosives. Welp. This one would not be painless. Good thing she still had a spell slot to fix herself afterwards.
“Kill it with fire” was an overused line and usually a vast overreaction to whatever the situation calling for that phrase happened to be. With spiders, though, Naeris did have a tendency towards overreaction. This inn would need some new interior design. But hey, at least they no longer had a spider problem.
Peperoni did not want to complain, seeing as he was on an important mission, and honestly, the people he was trying to help here had much more serious ailments than him, so he just shifted uncomfortably. Being a dragonborn with an itch between the shoulder blades was already bad enough, what with the scales and all, but a dragonborn in full armor? Today was going to be a long day.
Her best friend growing a featherbeard would not have surprised her – though it would have been a pain in the neck, seeing as she was allergic – and even an accidental burst of flames would have been something she was used to. This, though… Well, Tis mused as she sat down in front of the flowerpot once known as Gouda, she was just gonna have to wait here until he turned back.
Peperoni’s kind was often associated with the elements, which made sense, of course, as many of his kin stemmed from dragons that controlled fire, or ice or lightning. As such, people often assumed him impervious to the weather. If only that were true, he thought, as he hid his snout deeper inside his scarf. The cold sure stung.
It unnerved him. Or rather, she unnerved him. Her kind were the enemy, his enemy, and his body and mind reacted as such when he first met the half-orc. But what she was, was not the disturbing part, but rather her mannerisms and her actions. She was either naïve and harmless, Mahandrir thought, or she was the most dangerous of them all.
“Tis you don’t have to drink it, actually, please don’t.” (Everyone. 553 words)
“Tis you don’t have to drink it, actually, please don’t.” The worry in Gouda’s voice was hard to ignore. He was never 100% sure if his inventions would work, but to have him actively advise you to NOT try it out… he must have been pretty certain of his failure. … Unless you were talking about poisons, then his advice to not drink it probably meant he was pretty confident. And in a way, what Tis was now holding in her hand WAS poison.
“Someone’s gonna have to”, Mahandrir added from his place leaned against the wall, arms crossed, voice flat. Here was someone who wasn’t worried about the dwarven woman’s wellbeing. In a way, that was refreshing.
“We can come up with a different plan”, Gouda pleaded, trying to grab the vial from Tis’ hand, but she dodged, keeping her eyes on him, shooting him a warning look. Yes, he was worried. Tis tried to ignore the lump in her throat. Maybe she was just getting sick.
“If we had any other options you wouldn’t have been working on this for the past ten hours, would you?”, Myr chimed in while fiddling with the skull necklace around her neck: “We need to get in there, or at least one of us has to, and only the dead can cross that barrier.”
There it was. ‘Dead’. It wasn’t anything new to hear Myr talk about death, Tis just wished it wasn’t her own death the Tiefling was talking about. The dwarf shuddered.
“Let’s go over the plan one last time”, she said, trying to distract herself, “I’ll drink this, my heart stops for…”
“Three hours”, Myr helped out.
“Right. Three hours. The guardian.. thingies will find me, carry me through the barrier, I’ll wake up after three hours, find Heidi and the treasure, and get the fuck out. Easy.”
“Except you won’t be asleep, you’ll die. And if things go to shit you’ll stay dead”, Myr said matter-of-factly, and Naeris nodded in agreement. Thick as thieves these two, as always. Great.
“Wonderful”, Tis said, “but like apart from that we’re settled, right? I die, I get up again, I steal some weapons and fight my way through. Any other issues I may be conveniently forgetting?”
“Mostly we’re running out of time. The guards will be back soon, and we need to be gone by then. Either all of us, or at least everyone who’s alive”, Naeris said.
Tis looked around into the faces of her companions, and then lingered on Gouda’s. He almost looked like he was about to cry, his lips quivering.
“You don’t have to do this”, he said again.
“But you do have to decide, and you have to decide now”, Mahandrir added, pointing out the obvious. Tis knew he was right.
She looked Gouda right in the eyes, and with a weak smile, asked him: “Did you do your best?”
Her childhood friend looked like someone had slapped him, and for a moment it got very quiet in the room they were all standing in. Tis just waited. It seemed like a lifetime, but eventually, Gouda straightened his back and nodded. Tis felt the corner of her mouth twitch upwards: “That’s all I needed to know.”
And with that, she turned away, uncapped the vial, and downed its contents.
