#peterpanprompts

[writeblrs]

Our May 2019 prompt list will be words taken from J.M. Barrie’s “Peter Pan”, author suggested by the wonderful @n1ghtcrwler. Tag us in your responses and don’t be afraid to write in any order! 

Adventure

Faith

Trust

Pixie Dust

Forgetting

Fly

Dreams

Sacrifice

Skipping

Star

Clap

Never

Forever

House

Grow Up

Joy

Cleverness

Ticking

Sinister

Stories

Youth

Spring-Cleaning

Believe

Island

Crying

Bravery

Shadow

Unfair

Night-Lights

Lift

‘til Morning

[charlie---writes]

Day #1 - Adventure

The moment the boy started running, he couldn’t imagine stopping. There was too much guilt and shame chasing close behind — He could never stop.

His mind wandered for a few strides then snapped back as he changed direction again, zigzagging the thickening forest. Each step sent a burst of light erupting across the grass. If he looked back, he’d see his fading footprints, muddled, as if whoever belonged to them was weaving incoming arrows or stumbling with a head injury. The boy was suffering neither scenario, but he was suffering.

He could never stop running. But if— If he could stop, it would be at the door of a house in the woods. Living there would be a man and a woman who would look out their window, wondering what all the noise had been. They would see the magician and not see a boy running away, but their son. They would recognise him immediately regardless of the fact that they had only seen him as a baby and the boy would recognise them immediately regardless of the fact he had no memory of them. He would look into their eyes and see his own staring back. He would listen to them speak and hear his own voice. They would call him by his name and the boy would think: “That’s it. How hadn’t I realised before? That’s the only name it could ever have been.”

There was a flash of light ahead. Maybe it was them?

The boy was, generally speaking, an unusually pragmatic boy. He didn’t need anyone else at least, he didn’t think he did or, more specifically, he didn’t usually think he did. In this moment, he just wanted someone to find him and help him and give him room to breathe and somewhere to sleep.

As his first adventure out into the world, the boy was rather successful. He did find someone.

[themightytej]

May 6 Writing Prompt

@writeblrs May 6, 2019 prompt: Fly

“So…you’re a witch, Jackie?” Lori was supposed to be meeting with John today, but he was running late from work and she was stuck waiting at the house with me. “What does that even mean?”

“I practice magic.” I sat down at the table opposite her, sliding her coffee over, then the sugar when I was done adding it to mine.

“Right. But, does that work? Like, is it real magic?”

“Yes.”

“How have I never seen magic before? Is there some conspiracy to hide it, like in the movies?” I sighed and looked into my mug for a long moment before turning back to her.

“No, it’s–it’s just difficult. There’s always a cost involved. So very few people who pursue it stick it out, and the rest just, I don’t know, never notice it? I think people who don’t actually deal with magic think of it as something big and flashy, witches flying by on brooms and wizards calling down lightning and magic just generally serving as a sort of wild card to complicate our lives. So everything that isn’t that gets overlooked.”

“And that’s not accurate? You can’t fly?”

“I mean, I probably could, if I worked with an air or bird spirit or paid a pretty heavy toll. The fundamental forces don’t particularly like to be toyed with. I’ve never found it worth the effort to try, I guess.”

“So what do you do?”

“Mostly I study the flow of energy, or commune with spirits. Other stuff is more rare, honestly, I do it when I have to but that basic stuff is really the only reason I can at all. Like, I animated a statue once, but I wouldn’t do it again unless I really had to.”

“Most of that doesn’t sound like magic.”

“What do you think magic is?” I asked before taking a drink.

“It’s power, isn’t it? Raw influence over the world, control of the elements, a force barely contained by your vast learning and will?”

“That’s nice for movies,” I said with a chuckle, “but really, it’s just a connection to the other world. There’s a spiritual backstage to reality, and changing things there can change them here. Sometimes it’s more efficient to make changes if you’re working with the spiritual side than with the physical side, and sometimes it isn’t. Magic just gives us the option.” We sat in silence for a few minutes while she looked into her mug and slowly rubbed her hands over the ceramic.

“Do you help people with it?” she finally asked. I took a deep breath.

“Well. I try. Sometimes I can’t, and sometimes–sometimes what people think is helping isn’t, really.”

“Maybe that isn’t your place to say," she snapped. I went to say something, but then stopped. Before I found an answer, we heard the door open, and knew the conversation was over.

[writeblrs]

31. ‘til Morning

[charlie---writes]

Day #2 - Faith

Seeing his brother in a hospital room was the one thing he wasn’t surprised about in this whole situation, though he had expected it under completely different circumstances. The day of the fire? The days following where he had no idea where Robin was? He had spent more time racing down hospital corridors than anyone ever should. This was different though. He wasn’t here for Robin.

Mac stayed at the door, wondering if he was welcome - knowing he wasn’t. Marianne saw him first while Robin was too transfixed by the boy who lay still on the hospital bed. She approached with a look of pity and warning; Mac stepped back into the corridor.

“He’s okay,” Marianne assured, nudging the door closed - it was old, stiff and not very cooperative. 

“And Robin?” That wasn’t the question he was really asking.

“They’re both okay. We’ll be able to leave soon.”

That meant no, his brother still didn’t want to see him.

Marianne offered that smile which said, “Just give him time.” The same one she had offered over and over again - twenty years - because she always knew what he had meant to say.

Just one conversation, that was all he needed. Just one opportunity to say sorry but he was a kid stuck in that house too and he just did what he thought was the best thing to do at the time— A tenner. A fucking tenner! And he should’ve done more and he should’ve got them out of that so much sooner, all of them. Did Robin think about Pete? If she was the one who survived, would Robin talk to her? 

And if he could never be forgiven, just let him have a relationship with his nephew. Just let him stand in the same room and see that they were all okay, despite everything.

“I’m going back in,” Marianne said. “After all this dies down, you should come over for dinner.”

“Yeah, I’d love to.” He had to believe that one day, it would happen. He had to have faith that things would be okay, one day.

[writeblrs]

26. Bravery

[writeblrs]

7. Dreams

[themightytej]

May 4 Writing Prompt

@writeblrs May 4, 2019: Pixie Dust

Each of the posts I make for Tall Tales as prompt responses go into the drafts to be used within the actual story on my website, so you guys are getting what amounts to sneak peeks. This one, however, is a full story that I’ve been planning for a while, called “Trespasser,” instead of a story snippet. 

Robert Partridge never seemed to get the impressive bucks. Sure, he’d get a deer each year, but it was rarely anything worth mounting. The meat was good, but this year he desperately wanted to get something he could show off to his friends without fear they’d have bagged a better one.

He lived on a state road outside of town and knew about a large wooded tract of land that rarely anyone drove by. He’d spent the summer and fall poking around, and was now very certain there were deer worth his attention hiding behind those trees. He also knew no one else was hunting there; the No Trespassing signs and rumors in town about an overly protective owner, as well as state game lands nearby, kept most hunters occupied enough. But when he looked into the owner to try and get permission to hunt there, he found it apparently unclaimed, the signs having been posted without the proper legal process to make them binding. It seemed he was probably in the clear to go there, but he knew it would be worth his time to check with the guys who seemed to know everything about the lands surrounding the town center.

So he spent part of last evening in the Four Winds Bar, waiting for Thompson. They weren’t close, but he knew Thompson well enough from nights at this bar to know he’d be by, and he’d have answers. It was three beers and two lost games of pool before Thompson arrived, and Robert was getting antsy.

“What is it, Bob?” Thompson asked, having barely taken a seat before the younger man was sidling up to him.

“I was wondering about that stretch off 949,” Robert said, taking a seat and waving for another Yuengling.

“Which one?”

“You know, the one no one hunts.”

“For good reason, kid. What’re you thinkin?”

“I looked it up, and it ain’t owned. The signs ain’t legal or nothin.”

“It’s owned.”

“By who? No one ever goes there, there’s no house nearby, everyone talks about some owner but no one seems to know who they are!” The bartender delivered their drinks and gave Thompson a look that asked about Robert. Thompson waved him off and finally looked at Robert.

“Look kid. Not everything is on some book somewhere, not everyone who got a claim likes to come into town. I’m tellin you, leave it be.” The two went back and forth for another twenty minutes, Robert wanting answers and Thompson having nothing more solid than what he’d already offered. Annoyed, Robert left to get some rest and prepare for the season to start the next morning. Thompson, the bartender, and three others watched him go, the streetlights catching in their eyes like a flashlight in the eyes of a cat.

Now Robert was in a tree, looking out over a rocky brook and a small clearing that looked like it hadn’t been touched since the Earth was new. It was surprisingly warm, as the brook lacked any ice and there were still some flowers in bloom. The dawn was just starting to threaten the horizon when he finally spotted a deer approaching the water. He pulled his gun up to line up the shot and confirm it had a suitable rack. With his attention focused on the deer, he had no chance to see the arrow coming that buried itself in his shoulder.

He screamed, dropped his gun, and fell out of the stand. He heard a loud crack and, checking, he was convinced his leg was broken. He took short, sharp breaths, trying to avoid making too much noise or passing out from the pain, as he tried to drag himself toward the water. Hooves came into his field of vision, and his gaze followed them up to see what owned them.

The body was certainly that of an elk, large and muscular, with patches of moss and mushrooms apparently growing in its fur. Where the neck should have been was a lean humanoid torso, dark like the forest. Its head, for Robert couldn’t tell a gender from anything he saw, had pointed ears, long hair woven with flowers and leaves, and massive antlers with spider webs and vines hanging between their points. It was holding a crude bow and glaring down at him.

“You come to kill,” it said, clearly but sounding more like a branch breaking than a voice.

“I-I’m sorry, please, I didn’t mean-”

“You didn’t mean to get caught. You have broken the ancient pact.”

“I didn’t know! What pact?! What-please, let me go, I’ll do anything, I swear, just-” he paused, trying to catch his breath.

“Yes. I believe you will.” The fae raised its hand, and shimmering light began to gather like sand in its palm from the nearby flowers.

“Is-is that...pixie dust?”

“You humans insist on naming everything, as if you have the right to define it.” The fae blew at the substance, which flew over and landed all over Robert’s body. He took a deep breath, waiting for it to heal him, but instead he began to feel pressure building around his legs. When he looked back at them, there were roots emerging from the ground and wrapping around him.

“What-no! What is this?!” The roots lifted him upright, causing him to scream as they applied pressure to his broken leg. The fae seemed to be looking beyond him, and as he regained focus with shallow breaths he managed to turn his head enough to see vines and sticks coming together into a tight bundle that started to move on its own and stand upright. He could feel the tightness moving up his body and, looking down, saw that everything from his waist down was buried in the bottom of a tree. He looked frantically between the fae and the slowly animating bundle of material as it gained moss and grass, giving it a more defined form.

He begged, as the wood covered more of his body and pinned his arms. The fae ignored him, walking over and touching the bundle. It was a changeling, he began to remember from old stories, as it took its first breath and molded into a clearly human shape. He tried to scream but no one was listening. The last thing he saw before the wood closed over his eyes was the changeling, shifted to look exactly like him, turn and walk out of the forest, the morning sun flashing in its eyes like a cat’s.