Dedicated member of the Aristata and romantically involved with Winter, the founder and leader. To outsiders she seems silent and serious but only because she’s only able to speak to those she’s known enough to be comfortable around and even then can only manage a whisper. Those close to her know that she’s relaxed, with quick wit and sometimes crude humor. She’s fond of horses and spends a lot of time caring for and training the Aristata’s horses. Viper is observant, and clever, but her loyalties can get in the way of processing what she knows deep down to be true. She’s afraid of having to decide her own fate rather than go along with someone else’s plans and ideas. The unknown of the future and whether something is the right or wrong choice is overwhelming but can’t be avoided forever.
“Is that for him?”
Winter’s voice made me turn as she stepped in beside me. I answered her with a silent nod. I didn’t know how much speaking I’d be able to do right now anyway.
“Did you make that?” She leaned over to see it and I nodded, opening my hand so she could get a better look at it resting on my palm. “Wow, I didn’t know you could carve like that. When did you learn to do that?”
I sighed and hung my head as I managed to half-mumble, “a long time ago.” It was all she or anyone needed to know. Even as I swallowed back against a spike in my heartbeat I thought it was probably more than I cared to reveal about my old life. She’d be able to make guesses and it made me uneasy.
But Winter knew better than to pry. “I see.” She paused, glancing up at the people waiting ahead. “You’re planning on giving it to him, right? I can walk with you if you like.”
I nodded and stood up straight away from the wall. It would be easier standing with so many people I didn’t know with her beside me. Someone I could defer to if anything happened, someone who could speak for the both of us if she needed to.
Bristlecone is fun because it’s about solving a murder and lying about who you are but also it’s about the horror of leaving one stage of your life for the next one and the grief that comes with not being able to go back to how things were and it’s about facing the uncomfortable, upsetting realization that to live the life you want you have to make those choices and go through those dilemmas yourself and no one can decide for you. It’s about the fear that comes with not knowing the “right” answer, not knowing if you’re making the right choice, and choosing between your own happiness and what you love and what’s considered good and right. It’s about being pushed into independence without feeling ready, but is anyone ever really ready?
Happy storyteller Saturday (glad we’re bringing this back)! Your characters go to the county fair! What do they eat? What rides do they go on? Who gets so into petting goats they forget to even look at rides? Who wins a questionable number of clearly rigged games? Who gets their face painted? Who overhauls their entire aesthetic based on booths of scarves and accessories? Who finds something hyperspecific to learn about while the others tap their feet impatiently? Etc.
(that last one is based on me going to the county fair and becoming so engrossed in a local history lecture at the museum exhibit I did not even go check out the rides)
(pretend it's still satuday lol)
This is such a fun idea!!! I'll answer for Viper and Honey from Bristlecone!
Food they eat - Viper will go for a variety of sweet things (mini donuts, cotton candy etc..) and while Honey is a bit less adventerous, he would like the corn dogs!
I have to admit I am not familiar with a lot of fair rides, but in very vague terms Viper would be all for the roller coasters, and Honey... Would not be. He'd be the one more into petting some goats and looking at chickens than being strapped into machines that are going very fast.
They'd both be able to win a suspicious amount of games, Viper because she's clever and might be able to work out just how a game is rigged in order to play around it, and Honey because, if he wanted to, he could probably ask the gods of his world nicely for good luck and they tend to listen to him. He wouldn't though because he'd feel bad calling on them for something not actually important.
Honey gets his face pained and Viper laughs at him about it.
If Viper got her hands on cool sunglasses she would probably never take them off again. She'd probably buy multiple pairs.
Viper would also be the one to get super into some random little niche thing at the fair and listen to everything someone had to say about it. That also means that Honey ends up having to be there too to help her communicate with them, and he'd probably end up interested after a little while himself.
Happy Writeblr Summerfest! A question to Viper - How does she form bonds with her fellow mercenaries despite her secretive nature?
"Slowly. I knew deep down of course that I could probably trust them, they rescued me after all but... I don't know. I didn't want to talk about any of it. Still don't. Of course that meant they were a little wary about me, and so was I, but I think they eventually just accepted that they could get to know me without knowing who I used to be. We all spend a lot of time together and secrets or not you get to know people after a while, and after a while longer start to trust each other. They know me as I am now and know they can depend on me."
Been a while since I actually posted writing lol. More Bristlecone! (@concealeddarkness13 @pen-of-roses)
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In the quiet my footsteps crunched against the packed dirt between the barn and our camp but quickly the chatter and laughter around a warm fire at the center of our tents drowned it out. Annie was telling one of her stories, long-winded as usual but she spoke well enough that anyone only realized how long it had been once she finished and by the snap in her voice it was coming to a close. I slipped into the circle and took my place by Winter’s side. She greeted me with a kiss on the cheek and an arm around my shoulders and I found the all too familiar spot on her shoulder where my head fit perfectly to rest it. She smelled like lavender, hair still damp from when she must have washed it earlier.
“Pick-up went alright?” Winter whispered as to not interrupt the end of Annie’s story which held Theo and Honey enthralled.
I nodded and fished the package from my vest to place it in her hand. She tucked it away with one hand and held mine with the other before I could retract it, softly running her thumb over my knuckles.
She kissed the top of my head. “Thank you, Viper.”
Somewhere the coyotes began to sing once more, sharp and airy through the dusk as Annie finished her story and calm quiet fell over everyone around the fire. Stark leaned forward with a stick to poke at it, shifting the fuel so the fire could better reach the unburnt edges, and beside him Theo leaned back against his hands.
“So,” he jutted his chin towards Winter. “What are we still doing here boss?”
A blunt way to ask perhaps, but Theo had always been one to get straight to the point, and by the way all eyes turned to Winter anticipating her answer he wasn’t the only one wondering. I too had wondered whether we would be here much longer. I had my doubts that we had what it took to handle an investigation like this one. The only one who didn’t seem as invested in Winter’s response was Honey. He kept his head down focused on the sunbleached bone he was busy grinding down to powder. A green flash in the low light though betrayed he was watching too.
“Well,” Winter took a long breath like she often tended to do right before speaking. Whether it was to give her enough air or enough time to think before answering I wasn’t sure. Maybe both. “I can’t say for sure yet, is the short answer. I don’t feel right packing up and leaving Lady Alabaster on her own now that Honey confirmed her son was in fact murdered and not just missing. She’s worried that whoever did this might come after her next, perhaps to settle some forgotten debt. I have spoken to her about what she would like and she said, for the time being at least, that she finds some comfort in having us here and having extra eyes, ears, and though she didn’t say this part, guns, around. She will keep paying us along as we stay here at her request.”
Theo shrugged, firelight glinting on the metal grommets of his eyepatch. “Good enough for me. Pretty good contender for easiest contract we’ve had in a while.”
“Now, I’m not so sure about that.” Annie leaned forward on her chair, wrinkled and sun-spotted hands wringing together, massaging at the joints. “It could get sticky if we end up getting involved in the Alabster family and their affairs. Whatever she may or may not have done to get herself and her family targeted, is it really our problem to solve?” She paused, eyes flicking up to the mansion towering above with it’s few lights still firelit. “Depending on who or what is behind all this I wouldn’t want them to decide that we’re so entangled with her to make us a target too.”
“Come on now Anna-girl,” Theo said, “don’t you think it’s a little too late for you to decide you prefer caution now?”
She rolled her eyes and knocked the side of his head with a well-aimed flick of her finger, smirking when he flinched. “Careful now, better watch what you’re saying there scamp.” Settling back in her chair though her smile faded. “I have a bad feeling about lingering here, that’s all. Like something’s been in the air ever since that boy came back home.”
With the boy coming home dead of course there would be a feeling that something had changed. The last hope of him coming back alive was gone replaced by grief and the fear that whoever did this might not be done. That whoever did this might not even be all that far away. If anyone else had expressed apprehension I would have likely dismissed it but coming from Annie... She’d lived longer than any of us and experienced more than her share of misfortune, and on the rare occasions she felt foreboding it rarely turned out to be over nothing.
The silence around the fire suggested the others might have thought the same. Even Theo kept his mouth shut. He hardly believed anything to do with premonition or even the gods half the time but he believed in Annie.
In the process of writing an emotional chapter/scene and stuck in the predicament of feeling emotional about it not being able to tell if it's because:
a - I'm actually writing this very well and it actually is an emotional scene and is coming out as such.
b - The song I'm playing on repeat to get into the mood is working too well and is not actually a reflection of the writing quality.
c - I am sleepy which sometimes makes me feel more than usual.
Viper connects some dots one quiet evening. (POV: Viper)
@concealeddarkness13 @pen-of-roses
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Honey leaned back and away from his work in a fit of coughing. Head kept down I watched him in the edge of my vision where he sat lit in soft lamplight. The gun he carried, I’d remember it anywhere. I’d remember the filigree, the pattern and shine in the metal, and the way Rita Cathartes had held it in her hand when she shot my parents for nothing more than to rob them, I’d remember it anywhere.
Rumour had it she and her husband had been caught somewhere around this region of the valley and executed for their crimes. How long ago exactly I couldn’t remember, but... My eyes shifted between wandering and focusing on the bird taking rough shape in my hands. Honey said he was eight when his parents died. He said he’d been with Cecil for some seven or eight years. Assuming he lived with Cecil starting when they died, that could be the right time for when I’d started hearing word of their death.
Even now that I was thinking, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say he had the same wavy, dusty brown hair as Rita did. Her freckles too. If he had been eight when he started living with Cecil, given how long he’d be there it would put him somewhere between sixteen and nineteen.
My hands stilled and I fixed my gaze on the ceiling as I calculated the years. How long ago had it been? Fifteen years? Sixteen years? Something like that. An uncanny feeling crawled up and down my skin, raising the hairs as it went. I watched Honey as he sat focused and meticulous and exhausted. She may have been pregnant when she shot my parents. He may have even been born shortly before.
It almost felt like watching a ghost. Like an unnerving deja vu. He would have loved her and by the sounds of it she would have loved him too.
Finally doing some more writing on Bristlecone, (POV: Viper)
@concealeddarkness13 @pen-of-roses
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Theo sat alone in our little circle of tents and only noticed me when I came into the peripheral of his good eye. He shut his book and just as expected he didn’t even bother to pretend to put on a hopeful face.
“Kid’s dead?”
I nodded. That was one way to put it. Maybe it was luck I’d run into Theo first. He didn’t care to sugar coat anything, blunt as an overused knife. It wasn’t often Callid nudged luck in my favour but I’d take what I could get.
“There's more to it.” I whispered, hoping that in the quiet of the morning he could hear me without having to lean over. “Where’s Winter?”
He pointed at the manor. “Inside. I’ve heard the countess might be coming down with something. Wonder if it’s the same thing that knocked her husband off.”
Then this family would seem to be all but cursed. Maybe we should leave too before it started reaching for us too. I hooked my thumbs into my pockets, rocking back and forth from heel to toe.
“Honey’s sick. Fell in a river. He shouldn’t be contagious.” Just in case Theo started worrying. He didn’t fare will with threats of infection.
“Appreciated.” He opened his book then half-laughed to himself. “The warning, not that the boy’s going through it.”
He started reading again and I left him to it. There wasn’t much else to discuss anyway. I wanted Winter to hear the details of what Honey found first. She would know better how to disperse that information, and who should be privy to it. Better than I would anyway. I wouldn’t know how to start.
