🌙 nanowrimo 2022 — day 25 update 🌙
word count ; 20,028 / 25,000
progress ; i seem to have more fun creating backstories and writing future scenes than anything chronological... but words are words! and in writing angsty conversations i accidentally wisely discovered the final arc for the story O_O anyway, here’s an excerpt introducing another character! Adelade agreed to escort Pebble to her orchard, and they arrive to find the trees burned. It appears to have happened a long time ago, but they also discover a mysterious camp nearby. In her grief, Pebble charges in...
the butcher’s lament 🌙 chapter 3 glimpse —
“Wait, Pebble—” And there she went, again, hiking down into the grove with the confidence of a fool.
Adelade considered waiting among the trees, witnessing the next few moments, gathering a better understanding of the small campsite’s residents—but then she imagined Pebble’s little body full of arrows or sliced in two, and the waiting became less comforting.
Just as Adelade began to stand, someone ducked out from under the main tent’s canopy.
Tall, silver-haired, dressed entirely in black. Holding a longsword casually, in a single hand. Adelade sought instantly after Pebble.
“Hello down there!”
Adelade sought quicker. The hill was steep, wrought with bramble, each step crumpling underfoot. Another shadow emerged from the canopy, but adrenaline narrowed her vision to the black-shrouded figure now advancing up the hill. Pebble showed no signs of stopping, that lunatic—
“We saw your campfire! I will have words with your leader!” Pebble mustered quite the bellow, but her voice quaked as she shuffled down the slope. “You, yes you! Did you do it? Did you burn my orchard?”
They moved like a wind breath. Adelade glanced them over amid scrambled steps; padded in charcoal leather, lower face concealed in a scarf, hair a feathered mist and clinging to their neck. They seemed taller every moment. Their broad shoulders shifted, arms gliding like a dancer, raising their longsword out in anticipation. That monstrous, white-steel longsword.
They were Championed. There was no doubt. Adelade drew her daggers halfway.
Pebble faltered, just barely. She recovered with a mightily spoken, “I demand you take me to…”
The champion climbed past her without a word.
Adelade faltered too, just barely, blistering with the belated realization, they’re going to kill you— Fire filled her thoughts and chest, and she unsheathed her daggers in a sparking blur.
And still too late. The sword swooped up under her chin, and Adelade fizzled to a stop.
They stared at each other.
The champion’s skin was sallow marble and their eyes warm ash. Something weighed heavy in their hooded gaze, something apathetic and calm and very nearly arrogant. Brow arched high and unconcerned, they pressed their sword a half-inch forward and nicked the skin of her throat.
Adelade didn’t remove her stare, and she didn’t drop her weapons. “Take your one chance then.”
Beneath the soft, skin-tight mask, their lips twitched. Perhaps in a smile, more likely a sneer.
“Hey, I spoke with you first, and we’re not attacking just talking, so you stop that right now—”
As Pebble brazenly reached to tug their tunic, the champion turned and shoved her shoulder back. Pebble staggered with an oof – and for once provided a useful opportunity.
Adelade charged into the champion’s side with the full burning immensity of her frustration. Despite their towering height and steady footwork, they did not expect this. And the hill was quite steep.
A sheer moment before Adelade violently tumbled head-over-heels down the slope of the hill and into the grove below, she heard someone else yell. Something like a warning, almost a friendly greeting, nearly a plea not to fight. But it didn’t really matter halfway. Leather grunted, blades vanished, earth and bramble tore across her cheeks and ignited a savage pain in her wounded side. Adelade lost her bearings and a bit of consciousness for several bleary, earth-churning moments. Then she came to an awful, shuddering stop.