#needs work

[toyotathonics]

she sunreef on my yacht til i explora her journeys

[else-creates]

WIP

Making Grime again....This one's a rough idea that needs a lot of work doing to it, but the basis of something is there.

[lilysofthefield]

my heart is quiet in an unconvinced way, heavy with every beat - undecided which turn to make as it stutters to work and here I sit, staring off and looking at nothing waiting, waiting, waiting

[exittotheartscape]

It didn't hit me until a short while ago that these two might need pokemon-ized outfits. This is a draft, playing with shapes and such to see what fits.

[enchantedfirewritings]

Slaytober Day 18-The Eye of the Needle

[sanity-jester]

Day 4: Juggle

[becausedragonage]

A Word With Friends

I was tagged by the wonderful @woundedsoul12!

Rules: Use the challenge word to write a sentence or scene and then tag a few friends. Happy writing! 

Word: Sanguine

Definition (Adjective): optimistic or positive, especially in an apparently bad or difficult situation. OR Definition (noun): a blood-red color

I decided that whether I thought it was perfect or not, I was finishing and posting this today. Enough of the never-ending pile of WIPs. So here you go, Emmerich and Alec just after Manfred's death.

A Word

“A word if you please.” Emmerich had found Alec in the dining hall, laying on the sofa with his boots on one arm and his head one the other. He looked as if he was, for once, doing absolutely nothing. Of course the wheels must be turning and the gears spinning, but he showed no outward signs of it. 

Alec smiled, sitting up and patting the seat beside him. “You caught me at a good time for it, although Lucanis is expecting me in a bit.” 

“Strategizing his next attempt on Ghilan’nain?” He waved off Alec’s offer and settled himself in the chair opposite. Settled was a bad word for it though, as stiff and brittle as he felt. The fight with Johanna had chipped away at the casket of many old worries. Manfred’s death threatened to unleash them.

“No, beating proper knife work into me on the sparring ground. He still thinks I rely too much on magic.” 

“Well, you are a spellblade. It seems to me you should rely on your magic.” 

“Hmm. Tell him that.” Alec shook his head. Poor boy. He’d seemed to think he was something special when they’d first met, but it hadn’t taken long to discover that the Crow’s mage training wasn’t anything more than somewhat competent. Now it seemed Lucanis might have similar complaints about more basic skills. But that was neither here nor there in respect to what Emmerich wished to talk about. 

“That is well outside my expertise, so I think I shall leave it to you.” He smiled, but it felt fragile. “But I do have something I’d like to discuss with you.” 

“Right. The word you wanted.” 

“Just so. I… I have noticed that you seem somewhat sanguine about our situation. We’re fighting gods, dragons, and horrible villains at every turn of the road, and yet you seem confident that we’ll find a way through this.”

“Well, I’m not sure what else I should think,” Alec said. He looked slightly confused. “If I didn’t hold to that, what’s the point of fighting?”

“Yes, I suppose.” Not the answer he wanted, but then he hadn’t really asked the right question. “But… It’s not quite that. You said before you aren’t afraid of death, and you know my view on that.” Nothing was coming out like he wanted it to. He’d carefully arranged the words in his head, setting them out like fancy dinnerware, but grief had swept them all away. “Manfred. Manfred is gone. More of us might be before the end of this. How does that not make you doubt? Make you worry?”

It was ridiculous that a mourn watcher more than twice his age should be asking this of Alec, but there it was. Emmerich’s specialty was death, and the comfort he could offer the undead as well as the living, but somewhere along the line he’d never truly confronted what a personal loss might do to him. True, his parents were gone, but he’d dealt with that mostly by not dealing with it, by nurturing the fear of his own death. 

Alec looked down at the table between them, taking a few moments before quietly responding. “I try not to think about it.” 

“That’s something I’m afraid I can’t do.” Not with Manfred’s body laid out on the table in his quarters. 

Again there was a long silence before Alec sighed. “I don’t know, Emmerich. I had someone die years ago and… I don’t want to think about it. Things get fucked up when I do.” He’d once mentioned that things had gone badly for him at house de Riva for a time and the pieces Emmerich had managed to gather seemed to hint that it involved a death, but it didn’t seem the time to press. “I just keep going. If it happens, there’s nothing I can do to bring them back, so I just keep going.”

Of course. Because the lad was barely twenty-five with more weight on his shoulders than anyone should expect. And here he was, adding more with silly questions. Perhaps he expected a Crow, with a closeness to death that almost rivaled the Mournwatchers, would have some special insight. Silly old man. 

Emmerich leaned back in his chair, picturing Manfred’s body on the cold stone. There was one thing Alec had said that he’d dismissed almost as soon as he’d heard it. There’s nothing I can do to bring them back. It was true enough for Alec, but not so for Emmerich. 

Except bringing back Manfred meant the end of a dream for Emmerich himself. Recovering Manfred was a bargain so heavy that another he’d planned on making would be forever beyond his grasp. There would be no lichdom, no eternity of research to explore. 

“Alec, if you could bring them back—”

“I would. In a heartbeat.” Emmerich suspected he wasn’t simply referring to his current companions.

And the cost? That wasn’t a question for Alec, he realized. And maybe he was a fool to even think it was a question for him. How much was Manfred’s continued existence worth, not just to him, but to those who’d gotten to know him? And what right did he have to deny Manfred that just so he could grasp at some prize most people could never have? He must think altogether too much of himself if he thought that was worth the loss of Manfred.

It was a moment of clarity that Emmerich could feel fading almost as soon as he thought it. He’d worn paths of dread around his death, and hope for lichdom in his mind for decades, and those paths threatened to turn away from his bit of self-reflection almost immediately. There was nothing for it but to act immediately. 

“Right then,” Emmerich said, standing up. “I think I’ll choose not to think of it. But first, I’ve an idea to make that a little easier. Come Alec, we’ve something to attend to in my quarters.”