This entry centers around Alora and uses her perspective
From the day she was born until the day she died, Alora never stopped learning. She learned manners, she learned math, she learned people, and she learned magic. The one thing Alora thought she’d never learn, was forgiveness… or so she thought.
She was in her twenties, so young yet so old, when the world turned against her. Her parents assassinated, her people rioted, her servants vanished, and her sister betrayed her. She hated with all her being. Alora hated her parents for leaving her, she hated her people for their disobedience, she hated her sister for trying, taking her throne.
She wasted away, chained to her throne, her castle, her home as her armies fought and were defeated. As she hired mercenarys, as she hired witches. And one day, she decided to leave, go outside of her domain. There she saw a dying land. There were no people but the dead in the streets, no crops but the brown decaying remains, and she realized her kingdom was no longer here; it hasnt been for a while.
She neglected them. She abused them. She consumed them. She was never a queen. She was a tyrant. With this realization she let her tears fall. Her sister did not betray her, but it was she who betrayed her sister. She who betrayed her parents, her people, her servants.
She was mad. Mad with power, magic, grief. Obsessed even. To the point where her own sister had no choice but to go against her. And as her sister’s right hand man appeared, she couldn’t even fight back. She understood now. Everything was her fault and the only way to end this was to die. She must pay for her crimes.
And as the sword held high over her head, Alora did something she never thought she’d do. She forgave. She forgave her sister for leaving, for rising against her, and for killing her. Her sister was never in the wrong, and so she forgave and hoped to be forgiven in return.
This month’s entry features Leonora learning how to communicate with a new student and whoops I wrote a ton. I could have expanded on so much but honestly I didn’t want to make it so much longer, so I left out a lot of detail. ;.; I hope it isn’t… dry and confounding…
Leonora is a resident of the Cave and used to run a library/school for her tiny settlement until the villagers built a larger building for the whole community. All the characters but her and Caius are “new” residents and haven’t been written about before.
Kav wandered aimlessly among the streets of Heliosin. Most of the shops and stalls that lined his path were empty, but here and there an early riser could be seen setting up for the day. The cool morning air was dense with fog. A solitary bird called out to its brethren, urging them to greet the day with him, but the only answer to his summons was silence.
Kav was not an early riser. At least not normally. However, on this particular morning he had been sleeping under a tree, and had been woken by a shower of dew from a tree branch. Now he was wet, and miserable. “Serves me right for getting fired again,” he grumbled. Even as he said this though, he really couldn’t accept that it was his fault. How was he supposed to know the Baron’s daughter was allergic to nuts? Still, these things happened. He would just have to find yet another job to occupy his time. As long as they gave him a roof over his head and food, he would be happy.
Unfortunately, without any real skills, he was no use to anybody in this town. And if he wasn’t useful, he wasn’t fed. If he wasn’t fed. If he wasn’t fed, he wasn’t happy. It was a simple life, but one he was bound to live like his parents before him, and their parents before them.
Kav sighed and sat down against a wall, allowing apathy to wash over him. He supposed he would just resort to begging for today. There was no shame in that, right? At least he wouldn’t be pretending to be able to do something he couldn’t. It was better than stealing anyway…Or was it? Kav had never tried being a thief before. It was possible he was quite good at it.
A young man with bright orange hair strolled by just then. He looked like he might have some money on him. Deciding he had nothing to lose, Kav stood up, and pursed him. The young man was quite perky for being awake so early in the morning. He walked with a slight spring in his step, though his face looked rather serious.
As he rounded a corner, Kav grabbed at the wallet which was tied to the young man’s waist. And the next thing he knew, Kav was pinned to a wall. “Ow!”
“Stay, thief!”
“I’m sorry! Please let me go! I promise I won’t do it again.” Kav whimpered pitifully. It appeared he didn’t have the skills to be a thief either. “I’m just hungry.” He strained against the man’s hold.
“Hungry you say? So you would have another go hungry instead of soldiering on yourself? Where’s your sense of honor!”
Kav wasn’t sure how to respond to this. He didn’t know it then, but this was just the first first lecture on being honorable he would receive from the orange-haired man. The first of many more to come. It would take time for him to learn what the man named Sir Arius meant when he spoke of honor. But Sir Arius choosing to forgive him for his attempted thievery and giving him a meal was when Kav started to learn just what honor was.
Thanks to everyone who entered! :D It was super fun to learn about some of the lessons your characters have learned! Hopefully they remember them!
Crow’s comments:
thewordeater - What a great lesson! Coastal’s master sounds like they are a very wise teacher. :D I sure hope that Coastal remembers this lesson next time he gets too cocky! OregonCoast - Ninn and Sallie seem to have a really great relationship! It’s very sweet that Ninn is such a patient teacher, and I hope that Sallie grows up to be a great gardener. :D Kitsumi Mahon - Aww, poor Rhynn! It sucks to be so uncertain of yourself, and I’m sure that they have been very lonely. :C I’m glad that they met Augy, and I am interested in seeing their friendship (hopefully) blossom! Gabriel - Haha, aww, this was really cute! Poor Eryu, though! I hope his tastebuds recover quickly, haha. It’s really nice that Shiva got to learn a little bit about cooking from Eryu, even if he ended up making things a bit too spicy! 8D
Myla’s comments:
Losty - A great discovery! I love how you depicted Kamal finding and then manifesting his fire in your third paragraph; I could almost feel it in my gut too! Pyrrha - Poor Nikos! The feeling of getting lost is terrible, and I can empathize with Nikos’ feelings. I’m glad she found her way back! diaveborn - Lyn makes that couch look so cozy. I like how you used the active pose to really make her sprawl out. I wish I could curl up there too! Hyasynthetic - Ajax’s relationship with his magic and with Silver are captivating. I like how this short story gave insight into a bigger storyline. It made me want to read more about Ajax — will he learn to control his magic? How will their relationship develop? Jordii - What a sweet ending! I liked learning more about Khione — it is really interesting she had to live alone in the cold, and so happy she found someone who could free her from that. KeeperGreymuzzles - Oh my goodness, Holly and her uncles are so charming. This story sucked me right in, and I loved seeing how it developed. Every little girl needs an army of uncles to teach her things!! Vysal - The hardest lesson of all. Alora’s story is a sad one — living a life of such pain, and then to awaken to the destruction she caused.. I wish things could have gone differently for her! ): raus - This was an intriguing and in-depth look at Mycenians who may not fit in to society perfectly, and I loved it! I really liked how Mycenians came together and brainstormed ways to connect to Melia and how we experienced their struggles and hopes. It looks like their persistence is paying off! Hawkins - I was glad that Anna came through in the moment Clara and Jessa needed her the most — I have a feeling these three will go on to conquer many more demons! Zukana - An unusual, but wise teacher! It seems that Echo is also on his way to deeper wisdom, and will hopefully one day be a great healer. I loved how you tied in the recent earthquakes; that was a nice touch! Arintol - Kav learned an important lesson, though he wouldn’t have met Sir Arius if he hadn’t tried! I’m glad luck went his way — he seems like a nice guy, just fallen on a bit of a rough patch.
The Raffle:
We had 15 qualifying entries this month, so we will be drawing our standard four winners. Each will receive a random Cave Capsule!
Congratulations to KeeperGreymuzzles, Hawkins, Pyrrha, and Kitsumi Mahon! Each of you will be receiving a random Cave Capsule shortly, and participation prizes will also be distributed ASAP!
The Spotlight:
This month’s spotlight is awarded to raus’s submission! Raus, please let us know which of August’s OotS items (Meteor Shower or Cityscape) you would like for your prize!
The full submission is quoted below, but you can also read it in its original post here.
Patience and a Steady Paw
also contains an amateur take on a condition vaguely similar to parts of the autism spectrum and synesthesia perhaps so please don’t kill me, I mean for this to be fantasy enough to fit within the MC canon.
I mean for Melia to actually have a magic-based disorder where she perceives different things than “normal” people. She experiences a kind of sensory overload brought on by a sort of synesthesia-esque condition and is deaf. She is also unused to people, which I may expand on later but this is written from just the info Leonora can gain at this time. Spoiler is Melia was lost or abandoned, she doesn’t know, and where she was in the Cave, lost and alone, made her very disoriented for a long time and really worsened her condition. Certain people really stand out to her and bother her because of her different perception experience, be it auras they have or latent magical stores/abilities etc. Movements disturb the magic around her and she acts to minimize pain/overload to herself. She also is not socialized and acts like a wild child, so that adds to her inability to communicate.
Leonora had never encountered a student like her, in all honesty. She was quiet, yet at times more than a tad reserved, and quite unlike the majority of her small class of students. Sure, Caius had always trumped Leonora herself in introverted plaintiveness, yet this diminutive rose pink pup was altogether not a bit like Leonora’s adopted son. Caius would often hole himself up with a book for hours or hover around the younger children while Leonora taught a lesson to the older ones, but this girl was a child unlike Caius even when he had entered his most stubborn phase of avoidance.
Her name was Melia, perhaps short for Amelia, and she was brash at times and yet more often tittered about in frowns and jerks, shunning contact as much as she would shrink behind larger ineki upon entering a room. The young green and brown drasilis boy, son of the head carpenter, would terrify her and anger her intermittently, sending him into a surly mood fraught with what Leonora surmised was insecurity. Caius bothered Melia the most, which positively baffled and distraught Leonora, since she was bound to keep an eye on Melia every possible moment she could. Should Caius even attempt to hand her the afternoon snack, Melia would shriek at him and utter a fierce distress growl, grabbing the tail of her nearest classmate in order to create a diversion. For one so intent on escaping confrontation of any kind, Melia was incredibly fixated on keeping herself within arms’ reach of others and would rather remain distressed than be placed or left in a room by herself.
Of course, Leonora had read plenty of methods and theories on child care and development. Her years of experience served her well in most cases, and Caius’ perceptive eye was invaluable in finding out what problems ailed the children’s tiny society. All this and outside help was still insufficient, and this frustrated Leonora beyond her own belief. How could one child be so helpless and yet eschew such attempted loving care?
The third day after she had been placed in Leonora’s class, outside help had been offered and accepted in the form of Shelton, the rather gruff but sweet and attentive drifter who had brought the lone girl to their settlement. Shelton had hoped that, in placing Melia with not only a dedicated care-taker but also a small group of friendly peers, Melia would adjust to social life eventually. Three days of grief and disruption of all workings of the library were enough for the parents of several of the children to demand his help. Shelton had come, yet his appearance had only set Melia into a rage. Caius had remarked to Leonora after the day had ended that perhaps Melia’s fear that Shelton had come to take her back to a place without other faces was what had set her off. Shelton’s help was still needed regardless, and it had taken the three of them three more days to calm her enough to let her stay in the classroom with the other children during the school day.
Nothing was working much better, four weeks after Shelton and Melia’s appearance. Leonora was terribly upset. Stress had never been kind to her, especially when it raged and stormed like a huntress on the prowl for—well who could know what? Leonora could never find it in herself to simply give up on a child, but until Melia had been placed in her care, she never had been this unable to reach into a child’s mind and figure out how to approach them. Melia was illiterate, unmindful of language, and ignorant of any other sort of communication Leonora had tried. Dejected, by the end of the fourth week, she had been entertaining the thought of bringing Shelton back into the classroom once more to start over when a timid young man had placed a plain brown book on her front desk with a timid paw.
With Caius watching the class for the afternoon before each parent retrieved each child, Leonora had parked herself at her desk in the main library room for the rest of the day before the library was to close. The days of running both library and school out of her own home were long gone, and now Leonora had a prime vantage point from which to see the majority of the main large room, yet she had been so preoccupied with her dismal thoughts that the young ineki had startled her terribly.
“Sorry! Sorry Miss Leonora. I didn’t mean to scare you.”
The brown speckled feline smiled sheepishly, his green eyes full of genuine guilt. Leonora knew him as one of the newest immigrants to the town, the father (or was it elder brother?) of the young cream and yellow feline Reece. Arden… Alben… Landon…
“Allen!” Leonora sighed in relief as the name slid back into her mind. The guilt she felt over nearly forgetting the man’s name was assuaged by the thought of the man’s son, who was one of her brightest pupils yet. “It’s perfectly fine, I was simply thinking. What may I do for you Allen?”
Allen’s smile turned into a pure gesture of delight as he bounced twice to the tips of his paws and down. Leaning downward against the desk, he slid the book toward Leonora as she straightened herself to si straight in the chair.
“Miss Leonora, I have this for you. It might help, a bit, maybe,” he offered, giving no other explanation as his excitement rose.
Intrigued that he should phrase his offer in that way, Leonora chuckled and lowered her gaze down to the book. Old, or perhaps only travel-worn, the book was bound in a tight brown cloth which had been rubbed in a large stripe across the front cover. The Mute Answer the Cave Gave to Me: A Spiritual Discussion of the Sensitive and Their Speeches was the name of the book, though what that overly scholarly-sounding title meant was escaping Leonora at the moment. She looked back up to Allen and gave a pleasant smile, aware that her eyes showed question enough.
“Ah! Oh, um,” Allen stumbled, then, finding his footing again, placed a paw purposefully onto the center of the book. “It’ll help with her. The girl. The mute girl. The prob-proble—the uh, the troubled girl. The, uh—“
“Allen!” Leonora cut him off with a raised paw, then nodded solemnly, “I understand who you are talking about. Everyone would know who you’re talking about. I must ask you how so, however. I am quite busy and truly I have no time to read these days, sadly.”
Allen nodded enthusiastically, unperturbed by her cutting him off. His stumbling grew less apparent now. Leonora noted that he must have a stutter.
“I know—I see—I mean. ‘She’s mute,’ that’s what everyone says. She’s wild. This says it—well they—they are different. Sensitive. Magic and uh, the Cave uh, and uh, well sometimes there are those born who experience different things differently and uh…”
Trailing off, he had seemed to notice Leonora’s lack of understanding, so he paused and took a breath to collect his thoughts. Frowning, he chose his words slowly and carefully. “Some children are born with different amounts of senses and sensitivities to the magic that are a lot more than most. These children are always born in the cave and are not carved or Lost. They are born too close to lots of magic, and it makes it hard for them to talk and whatnot because normal interaction hurts their senses too much.”
Leonora caught on to what he was referring to and gave a short intake of breath. “Sensory overload? That just may be what she is experiencing! If it involves other forms of perception—magic—then maybe that is why her reactions hadn’t really seemed to make sense to us so far! Thank you, Allen! I shall indeed read this carefully and see if I cannot find some solution to our troubled girl.”
Leonora took the book from his paws, flipped the front cover open and hastily glanced over the author and publishing information, then looked back up to Allen’s eyes.
“Would you tell me why you brought this here to me? What made you think of this kind of sensory overload?”
Allen shrugged and nodded toward the far end of the library. Leonora realized he was indicating his usual spot near the adult non-fiction.
“She acts kinda like my aunt. She’s deaf—my aunt is. She got injured in a cave in and can’t touch others, something about her sense of touch gets messed up when she does. Textures bother her. Something about her brain—but she acts a little different, has to pay attention to her surroundings in case someone says something to her or comes close to touching her. The girl reminds me of her.”
Leonora thanked him once more, then returned to looking at the title page. Allen’s son, Reece, came bounding over then and tugged on Allen’s tails from behind.
“I should. Ah, home. Reece will be wanting supper soon. I have another book, the one that I used to learn to sign to Aunt Leah and that I used to teach Reece for visits to her. I can bring it, tomorrow.”
“Yes, please,” Leonora said, smiling broadly and waving politely to young Reece. She definitely wanted to begin unraveling Melia’s world as soon as she could.
_____________________________________
Reece and his father had been meeting with her every day for two weeks by the time she had felt able enough to approach Melia. Clumsy paws and uncertain movements had turned ever so slowly into sure motions and deft paw signs. Leonora knew she would have months yet before she would feel comfortable in her way of signing, but her meager survival vocabulary was enough now for her to feel confident in attempting to teach Melia. Knowing she must at least appear sure of herself and confident in Melia’s ability to communicate, Leonora had decided she would teach Melia as best she could instead of letting Allen stumble through in his way or Reece awkwardly forge too far ahead too fast. This way, both Leonora and Melia would be learning and teaching each other, at least if Melia took to the signing.
When Leonora sat Melia down in the quiet study room behind the classroom, she saw the girl was agitated as usual being apart from the commotion. Whatever experiences she had endured being alone in the caves before Shelton had found her, she was a averse to solitary moments as always and had yet to grow accustomed to being left alone. At least now, Leonora mused, she and Shelton could take her on her own as long as the both of them were here.
“You’re sure this will work, this signing?” Shelton asked, his eyes trained on Leonora’s paws as she laid out the objects she would be using in front of her. “It’ll get through to her?”
Leonora shook her head, her paw pausing over a small loaf of bread she was sliding to the front of her array of objects. “I’m not sure, but it can be tried just as anything else can be. I’ve been studying her for a while now and I think as long as we all learn together, she will take to it at least some. She adores you now, Shelton, and I know if we both ‘learn’ from each other, she will take notice.”
“Huh. She always was curious when we talk together. I know she understands we both have her best interests in mind.”
Leonora hummed quietly and placed the last object on the table, a cup of water. They both looked toward Melia, who was sitting across from them and wrapping her paws tight around her shoulders with a tail tucked between both paw from around her arms. She often tugged her own tails when she was focusing, so Leonora knew at least she was trying to watch them. Small grunts and hums issued from the pup’s snout, but these were all normal enough for her, so Leonora felt she was comfortable enough to watch.
“Melia,” Leonora began slowly, mouthing the words explicitly in the exaggerated way she had taken to when addressing the girl. “Today we’re going to learn how to talk. Talk. How we talk.”
As Leonora spoke the last word, she brought her paw up to her snout and motioned fluidly and slowly, eyes trained on Melia’s own and watching for any distress or failure to maintain attention.
“Talk,” Shelton repeated, gaining Melia’s attention for a few seconds as he mimicked Leonora’s hand gesture. “Leonora and I are talking.”
“Yes, we are talking to each other. We talk.”
Leonora then picked up the bread and mimed biting into and tearing a hunk off of it before she comically swallowed the imaginary bite.
“This is eating, I eat.”
She set the bread down and repeated, this time signing the word for ‘eat.’
“Miss Leonora is eating. She eats. She eats food.”
Melia watched them, for once rapt. Her eyes were wide and her paws were pulling hard on her tails. Over and over Leonora and Shelton took turns using one sign, then another. They patiently moved through the small collection of bare necessities, generalizing as best they could, then repeated the ones they had already covered. Each time they moved onto another, Melia would watch first Leonora and then Shelton, her grunts quieting as they began to sign to each other for basic things and answer with the word and the thing being requested. Melia miraculously kept watching, her eyes following their paws at times and others their mouths. If at all she had ever made any sign of progress, this was it.
At the end of their session, Melia had waved and gestured for them to repeat signs, which to Leonora was the greatest feat they had yet accomplished with the pup. Since she had been spending the past two weeks both watching and studying Melia’s movements and temperament changes, she felt maybe she would have a chance at unraveling Melia’s world within soon. As she had exhausted her small repertoire of signs and movements in the first session, Leonora knew from the second teaching session onward, she and Shelton and Melia would all have to learn from scratch, but perhaps soon they would be able to all understand each other and Melia could give them a glimpse into her mind. Only the Sorceress knew how much Leonora had tried so far to understand the girl.
In the month and a half that Leonora had known this girl, she had frustrated and worried Leonora beyond her ability to stand it. Stressed and at her wit’s end, she had expected to have to wave Shelton and his ward onward, to leave this settlement for another in the hopes that the next or the next might have someone with the ability to communicate with the pup, yet now she was able to sit down with her and draw some sort of acknowledgement from Melia. A start, though rocky, was still a start. Leonora had never had to learn as painstakingly as she had in these past couple of weeks and though she was mentally exhausted from studying both about Melia’s condition and ways to deal with her, she was exhilarated at the idea of helping this girl and her guardian simply talk.
At least in holding her attention, Leonora had reached that very first slippery step. Sorceress willing, next session she was going to get Melia to sign back at her.
raus
And now for September!
Prompt: Ch-ch-changes Guest Judge:Chou Prompt Type: Mixed Media
We are shaped by the changes and obstacles that we must overcome throughout our lives. Nothing lasts forever, and every little experience we have makes its mark on our histories. Tell us about a time your character faced a change in their life, and how it impacted them. This change could be big or small, so long as it had some sort of lasting effect.
And a small update to our guidelines!
Recently, we have had a number of submissions utilizing photo manipulation. This is a cool medium to explore and we enjoy seeing some of the creative things our players are putting together! That being said, it can be difficult to quantify the amount of effort expended on such a project as compared to written or drawn submissions. As such, we will be requiring that any photo manipulations submitted from September onward also include a one paragraph written piece as well. This paragraph can be in character, explain how the photo manipulation matches the theme, or be a snippet of story.
In addition, please remember to be respectful and properly source any photos used. Always ensure that the original creator of the piece permits its public reuse!
Space was much louder than Laika thought. Under the rattling and banging and gutteral roar of the engines, there was something else – a constant noise that had nothing to do with the earthly sounds of her ship, her pounding heart, her ragged panting. There was a hissing, as if space itself was whispering its secrets to her. She strained to listen, but things were getting hot, so hot…
There were no windows in her ship, but she saw pinpricks of light, twinkling like the stars without. Darkness threatened the edges of her vision, forming a starscape that pulsed in and out of focus. The vision of space behind her eyes warred with the metal and machines in front of them.
listen… the whispers said. hang on. let go. listen…
The starscape pulsed in time with her heart, and the inside of her ship was replaced with snatches of memory. The vaguest sense of warmth, milk, brothers and sisters and safety… She saw the street she used to live on, the garbage she ate and puddles she drank from. She saw the lab she was taken to one winter morning, asked to do incomprehensible things but warm again at last. She saw the machines and the needles and the people, so many people, all patting her and touching her and sometimes hurting her but never meaning it.
Finally, the most painful memory of them all - She saw the children she had played with the day before launch. For Laika, people were mostly hands and smells and gestures, either kind or gruff or mean, but always lumbering and powerful. Children, though, children were all faces and laughter and light to her, kindness and joy and endless love. The memory-children blazed like the sun, like laboratory spotlights, like stars. They opened their mouths but only the hissing of space came out, louder now, drowning out the clunks and rumbles of her failing ship.
Listen… Do you hear it? It’s almost here…
She tried to lean forward but the straps held her tight. Her ears swiveled this way and that, trying to locate a sound that was all around her. She closed her eyes but it made no difference – the starscape was inside her head and outside the ship, with everything between useless and invisible. Her heart pounded in one last furious burst of speed, and then began to slow. Her head became heavy, too heavy to lift, and she relaxed, slumping against the too-tight straps. listenhangonletgolistenhangonlistnletgolisten…
“I can’t believe she’s gonna make it!”
“She won’t, if you don’t concentrate and help me get these tubes out of her!”
“What kind of monster straps an innocent being into a tin can and flings them into space without an air conditioner?”
“You know what kind. You know what system we’re in.”
“oh… right…”
“Poor thing. We’ll get her patched up good as new, with a TranslationMod so she can tell us where she wants to go next. It’s the least we can do.”
Laika’s eyes were gummy and hard to open, her body ached deeply and felt like stone. She was laid on a table, cool but not cold, firm but not hard. The voices were somewhere above her, and she felt herself being unhooked and detached. She was being separated, from the web of machinery that linked her to her ship, linked her to earth, linked her to the lumbering men of science that had strapped her in so far away and not so long ago.
Those voices… They sounded like the children she remembered, all sunlight and laughter and starscapes. One of them patted her head gently, and the tender love in the caress burst in her head like music. Laika listened, and her tail began to thump gently against the table.
The feline Ineki never had been one for groups, in fact, she’d never been one for other Ineki in any sense. She often preferred staying in the trees, away from any others of her kind. Relaxing in the sun, listening to creatures in the grass, writing, drawing, those were the things she enjoyed. Would she call herself happy? No not really, but she was content. In her writings, she always made up love stories, prince charmings, even vampire romance novels. She’d draw cute couples, either ones she made up or ones who passed under her tree while she was thinking. She wanted someone to share her life with, but she never went anywhere, so she doubted that happening anytime soon. So she used her mediums as coping. She imagined herself in these stories some times. It helped. She figured this was all she needed.
Something change her view on life however. One day, when she was resting in her usual spot, quite the commotion happened below her. Looking down, she spotted a dog Ineki and an array of scattered objects. Metal, glass vials, books, papers, pens. Too much for one creature to be carrying, but as he moved to start picking it up, it was apparent he was alone. He was soon dropping it all again. Shaking her head, the feline knew she’d be getting no peace with him around. Standing and stretching on her branch, she lept down, landing next to him, causing another clash of noise as the dog was spooked. With a soft chuckle, she moved to start gathering up some of his things.
“Sorry about that. You looked like you needed another paw, or four.” Looking over at him, she paused. He was just staring at her, glassed cocked to the side and mouth open slightly. She blinked at him. He almost looked like one of those love-struck fools she wrote about, but it seemed that pause was the moment he needed, as he jumped up and fixed his glasses, starting to gather up his items quickly.
“No no. It’s fine. I’ve got it. Didn’t mean to bother you. I’ll just be getting this and.. Going. Right. I must be going.” He spoke so quickly. She couldn’t tell if he was in a rush or just embarrassed to have dropped all his things on the ground. With a shake of her head, she continued helping pick all the items up.
“I insist. The name is Sand. I can help you get where you’re going. This is a bit much for one person to carry.”
“Oh alright. I’m… William.” He introduced himself, finally getting all his items gathered between the two of them. “I work at the nearby research facility. It’s where I’m headed.” He explained, starting to head down the road.
“Research? What’s that like?”
“I just… Research things. Different things. Wildlife, weather, air toxicity. Chemical reactions.” he probably could of kept going, but he stopped himself there, chuckling with a small smile. “That sort of thing…”
“That must be really cool. Do you think you could show me some things?” Research. That was a totally new subject to the loner of a cat. She supposed it wasn’t much different than the observing she did daily, but this sounded so much more exciting.
“Oh… S-sure? When we get there I can show you around. It’s the least I could do!”
The pair got there fairly quickly, though most of their journey was in silence. Neither really having much to say to the other Ineki they had just met. Once they made it inside, any words the feline had thought of were gone. The place was huge! So many bright lights and screens. Not to mention all the bustling Ineki going back and forth, notebooks in hand. William seemed to fit right in, really, but it was far more than Sand was use to. William forged ahead, leading his small feline helper right through the throng of other people as though he did it every day. Which he probably did, now that she thought about it. He led her back to a smaller room, where a smaller group of their kind moved about tables, chatting and even laughing together softly.
Watching him sit his load down, on a table in the room, she followed suit, careful not to knock anything over. The next few moments went a bit quick for the feline Ineki. He began introducing her to all the others he worked with. Names and faces became jumbled, but she did her best to greet each of them. Then he was showing her gadgets and chemicals and telling her about his work. He must’ve been doing this sort of thing forever. He was so quick to list names and functions, and he seemed so excited to be sharing what he loved to do with someone. She found herself enjoying the time spent with the happy canine, and even enjoying the company of the other workers in the room, at least the ones that stopped to speak with her.
She ended up staying in their little work space until lunch came, and went. Her eating what the workers offered her instead of heading off to find her own food. When work was over for the day, more than one asked her if she’d be coming by again. Before she could say no, William was there saying Sand was their newest intern. Not even thinking about arguing, the feline just grinned at her new co-workers. It was going to be tough, learning everything William already knew. Everything had seemed so foreign to her, but it was all fascinating, and maybe it wouldn’t be too bad having this group there to teach her.
Maybe she wouldn’t be a loner if this was the kind of people she could hang out with.
Hope it’s alright. Was fun to try at least heh ^^;
This one feaures my pet Meridianshttps://www.mycenacave.com/profile/pet/6393 and in time I hope a future custom pet of Oogway, though the main focus pet is Meridians herself and her changes.
Meridians sat her tears welling and falling unheeded save for a damp paw that occasionally scrubbed her face. The wisewomen had been proclaiming for at least a week, maybe two ahead, but aside from vaguely noting their dire warnings, her interests in their sayings went unnoted. She was too absorbed in her very, very ill child Oogway. She sat in deep shock after losing him and then took up her quill to craft a letter to them in reply as her voice was rendered useless among her tears.
“I’ve never been interested in Astrology beyond the usual ‘huh, that’s interesting’ said the Gemini as I collected tidbits of information and compared readings with patterns I’d already noticed.
I watched with detached interest last week as the buildup to the full moons, eclipses and other proclaimations occured. Endings and beginnings I watched with only a part interest as my own focus became completely absorbed as my baby, my coatimunde Oogway became severely ill, prompting a hospitalization with a doctor hours away.
My mother’s heart was wrenched apart as we had to leave him behind for the first time in over 7 years. He’d never slept away from home. We left him with his soft music and favorite blue and yellow dragon plushie. Over the weekend we bumped into walls, not able to focus on our work, barely able to focus on the care of our other kids, trying to bolster one another that the antibiotics would work, it was only a severe kidney infection.
Your moons and signs marched forward, mechanically. Endings, beginnings. Our doctor and staff worked tirelessly, but as the infection was supressed, it became clear Oogway’s kidneys were failing. We spent Monday afternoon with him, each of us holding onto a paw, petting his face, letting him know we were there, he hadn’t been abandonned, they wouldn’t let us stay with him but we so desperately wanted him to come home with us. He seemed to rally, seemed the best in days, he wanted to fight on. We wanted to give him every opportunity.
Tuesday came and went in agonizing slowness as a new treatment had been ordered in on Monday. It arrived! We under went a power outtage, delays, and then the irritation that the new treatment had yet to be given. I was beside myself, ordering the staff member to stop talking with me, attend my Oogway!!!
Agitated, we went to the beach as the sun was setting. Long ago we spent almost every clear night on the beach, watching the sun slide out of sight in hopes of catching the green glimpse flash across the sky. We watched, but I wished we wouldn’t see it, didn’t want to see one as I was frightened for Oogway, so desperately wanted him to rally.
Endings. It comes as no surprise, but our little man took it unto himself to take away the choice to ease him over. The doctor said we would have had to make the choice in a couple of days as his kidneys had completely failed on Tuesday. He slipped away. Our little sweet coati boy had decided it would be too hard on us, and he slipped away quietly with as little fuss as he could.
You speak of new beginnings at this time. I’m a shell, numb, shattered and in shock. In the vacuum after he left I sit and hold his dragon plush. I don’t know or care about new beginnings, but the astrologers were right about endings.”
This story features a young Atropos, her old home, and how her life changed when her power started to awaken.
Atropos stumbled blindly in the cave, the faint glow from her siblings having disappeared quite a while ago. She was too small and young to provide any light of her own- and they knew it. They’d left her behind once again, knowing that their parents wouldn’t say anything about it. After all, who would care for the weak being that she was?
However, she continued to walk in what she hoped was the right path, wings catching on the unfamiliar stones. She turned, left, right, left, left, stepping down her trail of pure hope and guesswork.
After a while, she stumbled upon a large, open cave. Excited that she had finally made it home, she ran through the opening-
-only to find that the cave was empty, and that there was nothing waiting for her but an empty stone wall.
Atropos sighed, giving in and collapsing on the ground. She was lost, away from home, and no one was going to come look for her.
She didn’t cry, no, Atropos never cried. No one in her family cried. Too many years had engraved it as a sign of weakness in their minds, passing it down to every being that was born into that large, dysfunctional family.
So Atropos simply laid there, closing her eyes, debating whether to go out or to just keep still and wait for death to claim her. She opted for the latter, at least until she could drag herself out of the hole of self-pity that she’d dug herself. A hole, a place lower than any other she’d met. Her siblings would say that it was only fitting, as ones who couldn’t use their power belonged in low places such as that.
However, Atropos was startled when she saw a small glow light up the tunnel. Jumping up, she turned around, eager to see who had taken pity on her.
No one. No one was there. No footsteps- or any noise, really- down the long, winding tunnel. However, the glow still remained, taunting her with the false hope of someone that actually did care for her.
Wait. Glow?
Slowly, Atropos turned her head, staring at her own body. Sure enough, the deep purple scales were in fact the source of the faint glow. Unable to stop a rather unprofessional grin from splitting her face, Atropos ran back down the tunnel, using her new light to guide her. Maybe, just maybe this would allow her to be accepted.
Maybe, just maybe, this could be the start of her freedom.
Forgot to link it here when I originally posted this, but here‘s my entry for this month! It features Maelstrom (though he remains unnamed and/or is referred to by a different name throughout).
My entry for the month, featuring Casimir as the main voice with plenty of appearances from John and Eirian. It’s fluff and mostly nonsense, be warned.
Casimir was already feeling a little droopy in the wings by the sixth hour of his relatively tame ten hour shift, even if he was just doing standard appointments today rather than ER or diagnostics he was already feeling the hard turn around between yesterday’s 24 hour shift and this one. He may not need much sleep, but he still needed more than he’d gotten it seemed.
He just had no desire to mooch around their silent house wondering what had been important enough to call John into a warzone and if this would be the time he’d come back in more pieces than he’d left in, they’d survived enough battlefields that either of them tempting fate any further made his feathers itch with anxiety.
But John, loving cavalier bastard that he was, dove head first into anything he thought he was needed for, leaving Casimir to bury himself in work and research until he got that “All’s well I’m coming home” call that took the lead weight out of his chest.
When he’d become the nail-biting home-spouse he wasn’t actually sure.
He’d just finished a basic appointment, shifter took a nasty fall in their four-legged shape, didn’t feel the hairline fracture until they had to walk on two feet again, and was scribbling down notes in the patient file worrying his lip between his teeth and trying not to smudge the pen ink while he wrote when a mildly harried looking Mary from the front desk materialized in the corner of his vision, waving a offensively bright sticky note with some urgency.
“Casimir? Casimir? Hey your husband John is on line one, said he needed to talk to you ASAP?” She sounded a bit worried, though whether it was because of John calling or the number of times she might have had to have said his name he couldn’t have been sure. Mary was one of Delilah’s new underlings, and while she was nearly as good at her job as Delilah herself she hadn’t quite learned the rhythms yet, meaning she didn’t understand why the mention of John calling dropped the lead weight from Casimir’s chest down to the pit of his gut at terminal velocity.
John never called him in the middle of a shift and had to talk to him. Not once in these years even though emergencies. And this must have been written all over Casimir’s face because Mary’s brows knitted together in concern as she guided him over to the back of the closet the passed for a file room where most everyone on staff took vaguely private calls.
“John? You never call me at work, what happened?” Casimir didn’t even wait for a greeting when he picked up the phone.
“Well hello to you to Dovie.” It was him, and he sounded fine, tired, but fine, Though there was note of nervousness to the pet name that usually was said so easily that caught Casimir’s ear.
“What’s going on?”
“Well. Cas, it was a bit of a mess here, residential and badly overrun which is why I decided to be part of the response an-”
“Are you coming home?”
“Yes but there’s something else.”
Oh no.
“Did something happen? Who did you lose or were you hurt? Wait where was this? It isn’t out in-”
“Cas! Babe hold up a moment and let me explain okay?”
Casimir’s mouth shut with an audible snap, partly from irrational irritation and worry wriggling around in his chest and partly because even if that was a soft snap John so very rarely snapped at anyone it stung. On the other end of the call John exhaled heavily and he heard him shifting something around an muttering.
“Look, in the aftermath, we were digging out survivors and there was this really young baby girl found, her mother killed protecting her from the wreckage, no other family anyone knows about. But she’s a winged Nephilim Cas, Zee recognized her for what she was. She’s so little and you know what the system is like, they can hardly handle the older children not to mention the young ones. And they aren’t even close to being set up for a Nephilim of any age, particularly not a winged one with the medical requirements that might come along and someone said something about you being really the closest thing to an expert on angels in the mortal realm -” there was a brief pause and more shuffling on John’s end of the call, Casimir hoped he was taking a breath. “And, well, it seemed like the best thing to do was to bring her home with me, just until we’re sure she’ll do alright in the system or something.” He sounded nervous, trailing off into a hesitant silence for a response.
Casimir blinked blankly at the far wall. Was John saying he was bringing a small child home with him? How young was ‘really young’? And a winged Nephilim at that? The idea of a nephilim child in his house made Casimir’s wings feel prickly and his hair stand on end, intellectually he knew there was nothing inherently bad about them beyond whatever is was that made their health so fragile, at least not that any of the very few in history had shown. But he had the same strange ingrained mistrust for them the rest of his species had.
Except for perhaps Zevekiel from the sound of it, but he might have been even farther from his original species than Casimir himself.
Casimir realized he’d just been staring in silence and not responding for, how long had it been? When John breathing a heavy sigh cause the line to crackle.
“Casimir, look, I can’t just leave this kid alright?” Use of the full version of his chosen name brought Casimir’s brain sharply back to now with a decision made.
“No, no John it’s fine I’m just…” He shook his head even though the mage couldn’t see him, switching into a medical mode because that he could manage right now.
“Bring that child home with you and call when you arrive, I’ll check her out completely and well, we’ll sort out anything she’ll need while she’s staying with us from there. Did someone onsite check her out?”
Fifteen minutes of prep conversation later Casimir hung up the in house line and stepped out of the file closet looking more than a little dazed, wings hanging low and thoughts no all there, instead he was in his head running over lists and logistics and the more complex idea of having John come home with a child.
Fuck.
Delilah was leaning against the counter as he wandered by in a daze, not even acknowledging her curious greeting which was more than enough to get the lion of a nurse to look at him a little harder. She knew he’d just been on the phone with his husband, which never happened, so whatever this was had been big enough to rattle him. Delilah looked at the schedule and back at Casimir, yeah she didn’t need that vacancy on staff today.
“Casimir.” She repeated it until he finally looked at her stern expression squarely.
“Casimir go home. I don’t know what in the Realms John called you about but obviously you’re not going to be of any use here today and you’re already well past any reasonable amount of hours. Shoo.” He looked like he was about to protest but the middle aged half fae raised her clipboard threateningly. She was a solid foot and then some shorter but her look was enough to quell any half hearted protests Casimir might have been able to come up with and he found himself being shepherded to fetch his things and was out the door in only a few minutes, blinking at the doors closing behind them and Delilah’s kindly parting words telling him that anything he needed, he should call, whatever it was.
The seraph tugged at the two feathers hanging from his ear softly, the familiar texture helping him think. First so errands maybe, just so he wasn’t lurking at home waiting for a call, then. Well. After that who knows?
This, even if it was temporary, was going to be quite a change, if hopefully a small one.
Three years on -
There was the sound of an office door opening and it was followed by a familiar child’s laugh and equally familiar clomping footsteps.
Someday, Casimir liked to imagine, John wouldn’t walk like a dragon with it’s tail in a trap, someday.
Today wasn’t that day though as he thumped into the space Casimir had, a few years previously, claimed as an office for himself as the hospital building had expanded with Eir propped on his hip and laughing at something or other with the grey unicorn plush she couldn’t live with out clutched in her little hands.
In reality the room was just one of the now defunct clinic exam rooms, but that just had the added perk of running water and extra outlets, no water cooler visits needed and it made it far more alright for his family to just wander in like this. Though a glance at the clock told him they were wandering in because he’d lost track of time again.
“Regular shift hours eh?” John teased by way of a greeting, almost drowned out by Eir cackling he was running late with the unmitigated glee of a child catching a parent’s misstep. John grinned wider at that and lowered Eir to floor, allowing her to sprint the short distance to Casimir with her tiny partly fledged wings fluttering in excitement to tell him all about her day wrecking havoc with the help of ‘amalth’ the plush unicorn.
Tired as he was from today and every day before it, Casimir found his well of affection the tiny Nephilim was more vast and endless than even his scope of perspective and liked to rear it’s head at moments like this to make listening to the rambling tales he, admittedly, only caught half off between the speed she spoke and the occasional crisscrossing of languages, something that genuinely brightened his day. Whatever world his daughter saw he had no conception of, but it was interesting alright.
And to think, he’d once thought she was just a small change in his life.
My entry for September, featuring Limerence following her breakup/split from Mara and her finding of young Arcana.
Limerence couldn’t exactly say she was a creature that lingered. Lingered on decisions, lingered on action, lingered on… Well, anything. She was a creature of the moment; a jumper - not a thinker. No, she’d always lived on one philosophy. If you think something, do it. Still, there was one thing that had anchored her. Mara, with subtle emotions and habits that Limerence couldn’t quite understand. Mara, who was the opposite of her blunt and rash nature. Mara, who had left her in the middle of the night and had never returned.
Limerence couldn’t quite put into words how she had felt. She’d cried, but sad was too shallow. She’d spat out insults, swore, lost her appetite. Her anchor was gone, and she’d been left adrift. Nothing to pull her back to reality and say; “you’re being too foolish”. Ultimately, she was at a loss.
At a loss, for a couple of weeks.
“Yo, have a cigarette?”
They met at the sea. Limerence could remember the waves perfectly, the bite of the ocean air. Arcana was different. Very different. Whereas Mara had been subdued in comparison to herself, Arcana was more intense. Young and full of fire, her life as wild as her hair. She was passionate, a smooth talker and a live wire. Her intrigue simply started with the fact that Arcana was an akaname like herself, the pleasure at seeing her own kind. But it wasn’t quite that simple, as they spoke. This person whose life had been so far different from her own.
“I don’t smoke.”
They spoke about their lives at full. Arcana was young, been cheated on, slept under more roofs then she could count on two, three, four hands. A wanderer, jumping from one place to the next. She’d settled on here for a while, said she’d made friends at the local bar. Limerence was not quite as young, lived under the same roof her whole life. Travelled a few times, but she’d always returned to the place she deemed home. They shared the same sense of humour. Limerence felt it. Not romance, at all. A sense of bond, similar to what she would imagine sisters to be like.
“Hey, mind if I stay with you for a bit?”
Lim had accepted, of course. The arrangement was good, and the noise of someone else in the house settled her. She took Arcana under her wing, and gave them both something new. A guardian. A companion.
She missed her old life, from time to time. But Limerence wasn’t someone who liked to linger.
Day One: Matthew blinked awake. What happened? He looked around to find himself on a cot in a tent, bandages wrapped around his chest and his left forepaw. Then he remembered the ambush. The team. He had to check to see that they were all alright.
Matthew jolted to his feet. A rather foolish move he reflected as pain exploded in his chest, sending shards of agony through his whole body. He gasped as he collapsed on the floor of the tent. “What did he do that for?”
“That looks like it really hurt.”
“Should we help him?”
Matthew didn’t recognize any of the voices surrounding him, but he was in too much pain to care. It was only a few moments before he slipped back into unconsciousness.
Day Two: “Is he dead?”
“Nah, he’s just sleeping.”
“He looks dead.”
Matthew’s eyes popped open again and he looked around. Voices? No, he was alone. He tried to prop himself up on the cot, but all his effort produced was a groan of misery. The tend flap parted then.
“What are you doing?” Eric the team’s medic asked. “Lay back down before you fall out of bed again and I have to get Colin and Jackie in here to get you back on it again.”
Once again, memories swirled back to Matthew. His team had been on another expedition into the cave’s depths. It was just another routine job. Except this time they had stumbled upon a cult of ineki mages hiding in a series of tunnels. It had been a grueling two days of tense watching when they had been ambushed.
“Is everyone alright?” he asked Eric. As one of the team’s scouts, Matt should have seen the attack coming. Which meant if something had happened to any of them, it was on him.
“Just get some rest. We can talk about what happened later.” Eric answered. “I’ll be in with some food in a bit.” “Ooo, food. I’m hungry.”
“We should get something to eat.”
“I agree, but how do we get any without being seen?”
Day Six:
Matt was hollow. Four seriously injured, including him. Three dead, including the Captain. That meant only five members of their twelve mycenian team were still on their feet. The return to the main settlements of the cave had been going slow. Matthew couldn’t do much other than sit in the back of the cart and be pulled along, ignoring the pain that wracked his torso whenever the cart lurched. “It’s so dreary today.”
“Should we leave?”
“But I like it here!”
Matt ignored the voices that echoed in his head. They had been pestering him ever since the ambush. He didn’t dare mention them to any of the others though. They would think he was going insane. So, for the time being he watched the others for any signs that they were hearing the voices too.
Day Eleven:
They were only two days away from a settlement now. “Ow! Glen, that’s my tail!”
“I’m sorry, there’s just not much room!”
“Would you two stop bickering? I’m trying to sleep.”
They were getting harder and harder to ignore. And there were always three. Not always the same three, Matt noted, but always three. Still, they couldn’t go more than half an hour without making some remarks or striking up a conversation with each other. Most of what they said was rather senseless. The others were beginning to ask him questions about his health and give him strange looks. Matthew did his best to act natural.
Day Fourteen:
He’d been in the city for a day now. The city leaders who had sent his team out questioned him about what had happened during the ambush. Matthew had avoided most of the questions insisting he had been knocked out early on in the fighting. Apparently he had given them reason to doubt his statements. He was being held in a hospital for observation and further questioning upon his recovery. “This place smells terrible.”
“The food is just as awful.”
“It’s not that bad!”
Day Twenty-Five:
Snapped. Mentioned the voices. Now committed to a facility.
Day Thirty-One:
He wasn’t really insane, was he? “What is he doing in a place like this?”
“How should I know? Ineki do the weirdest things sometimes.”
“I don’t think he can leave, guys…”
Day Thirty-Six:
Matt paced in his room. The only physical reminder of the attack was a lingering ache in his chest. He couldn’t be insane, it didn’t make sense. He hadn’t hit his head when he was attacked. There had to be an explanation for the voices. They had been attacked by mages, right? So maybe one of them had done something to him.
Day Forty:
Today was the day he would do it. Today was the day Matthew had gathered the resolve to talk back. He hadn’t been able to deny their existence, but never answering had made them feel more distant, less real. However, today he would face the problem dead on.
“Hello? Is anyone there?” he asked the air. “Who is he talking to?”
“How should I—”
“I’m talking to you,” Matt cut in. “Who are you? And what do you want with me?” You can hear us? A voice cam back after a moment of silence.
“Of course I can,” Matt groaned miserably. “Now who are you?”
That was when three little mice crawled out from under his bed. “I’m Channcie, this is my friend Glen and sister Sally.” The lead mouse said flatly.
Edit: drat, 4 minutes past the deadline :‘D I suppose you can ignore this post…
Thank you to everyone who entered this past month! We loved peeking into the lives of your characters and seeing what sort of changes impacted who they presently are. :)
Dove & Crow’s comments:
Jacq - This entry was incredible, Jacq, and informative as well! While I knew some basics about Laika’s story, I never knew many of the details. After reading I was prompted to do some research, and oof. ;; I really enjoyed the way your Laika associated the rising heat with the small, loving, warm moments she was shown. Lovely tribute! Nyhkan - Sand was such a cutie! I enjoyed that the opportunity for change fell, quite literally, just at her feet, and that she had the courage to try for it. :) I hope her experiences with William are as exciting as the stories she loved to dream and write about! I’d be very interested in reading more about them in the future.@Ny Losty - I’m a sucker for werewolf stories, especially those where the transformation is seen as a regular part of life or rite of passasge rather than terrifying. Laylah’s youthful excitement and curiosity were a lot of fun to read, and I’m glad she has her family’s warm support! I hope she can always find such joy in life - great character! Jenny151618 - I am so glad Bruce let himself go for this opportunity, even if he was frightened at the possible backlash from his peers! It’s so important to accept yourself, even if it means opening yourself to possible criticism. Not only did he help his family, but it sounds like he grew immensely at this competition. :) Thanks for sharing! OregonCoast - I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of Oogway, Oregon, and know what this piece must have meant for you to write. :( A loss of one so close is a difficult change to accept or to continue past, but I hope for healing for all involved, and that Oogway himself is peacefully resting now.
[@Shepherd] - Wow! I was pretty nervous when John called, and definitely wasn’t expecting a child to be the resulting change! That’s quite an undertaking; thank goodness this change turned out for the better and no one was in trouble. :) Eirian sounds adorable - I’m sure she keeps her adoptive parents hands full! Awesome entry & cool characters, Shepherd! Condor - “While she learned to submit, she did not learn to forget.” - what a great line. 8| This entry was awesome, Condor, and the conclusion was marvelously written. I am impressed that Keket took hold of her own destiny so forcefully. Does she ever regret her decision? I imagine she doesn’t regret her freedom, but does she regret the means? Intriguing character! diaveborn - I love how your entry this month is Lyn juxtaposed over the ocean! It gives the sense that while remembering her lost loved one, Lyn feels adrift, or lost perhaps. It’s a great composition and seems to represent well how one feels when coping with a loss. Nice work! Zukana - What a cool awakening story! The imagery in your piece was so vivid, it felt as though I was experiencing everything Aeon was as he made his way through the cave and into the sunlight. I imagine it must be incredibly disorienting to cease being and then awaken somewhere completely new. I’m glad he has a partner to help navigate his new existence! Oxton - Moving on is so hard, especially when its forced upon you so quickly and without explanation. It’s great that Limerence was able to find some healing in the presence of another. This was a great entry to read, and I am impressed with Lim’s ability to push forward even in her confusion and loss.
Chou’s comments:
Pyrrha Oh wow, what a great turn of events for Atropos! They say it gets darkest before dawn, and I really love how Atropos became her own light at the end of the tunnel and found the way forward within herself. :) Very nice work! Hawkins Lab accidents are always cause for alarm, especially when you wake up as a cat! I really enjoyed this story, and I’m so glad it worked out for the best. Newfound shapeshifting must be a big change to adjust to, and I’m glad Billie learned to control it. Hopefully she doesn’t cause Ellis too much grief; I can only imagine how much fun being a cat in a lab must be. :) Lala Adjustment from a combat situation to civilian life can be tough in the best of circumstances - when accompanied by grave injury as well as the restructuring that comes with a life’s dream coming to an end, I can only imagine how James will work through these things, hopefully toward healing and comfort. I hope that Eliza is able to help him toward that end! It sounds like she’s ready to be his rock and support through everything to come. Thank you for sharing this! Azurrys Your piece took me on quite a journey, with many heavy themes and events. Regaining consciousness with nothing to go on but a hint of a memory and current context seems very jarring and disorienting, and I’m glad at least the younger group was able to escape. I’m interested in hearing more about what’s become of Malcolm-not-Malcolm, and what awaits him in the future. Thanks so much for sharing your story! Hyasynthetic You’ve done really well writing the dread and suspense into this piece - it was immersive and tense, nicely done. That said, what’s happened to Will’s family is awful. That’s a heck of a way to send a message, and I hope Will is able to bring some sort of peace to his family.
The Raffle:
We had 15 qualifying entries this month, so we will be drawing our standard four winners. Each will receive a random Cave Capsule!
Congratulations to Losty, Pyrrha, [@Shepherd], and Condor! Each of you will be receiving a random Cave Capsule shortly, and participation prizes will also be distributed ASAP!
The Spotlight:
This month’s spotlight is awarded to Jacq’s submission! Jacq, please let us know which of September’s OotS items (Unlikely Sight or Cute Ear Piercings) you would like for your prize!
The full submission is quoted below, but you can also read it in its original post here.
Space was much louder than Laika thought. Under the rattling and banging and gutteral roar of the engines, there was something else – a constant noise that had nothing to do with the earthly sounds of her ship, her pounding heart, her ragged panting. There was a hissing, as if space itself was whispering its secrets to her. She strained to listen, but things were getting hot, so hot…
There were no windows in her ship, but she saw pinpricks of light, twinkling like the stars without. Darkness threatened the edges of her vision, forming a starscape that pulsed in and out of focus. The vision of space behind her eyes warred with the metal and machines in front of them.
listen… the whispers said. hang on. let go. listen…
The starscape pulsed in time with her heart, and the inside of her ship was replaced with snatches of memory. The vaguest sense of warmth, milk, brothers and sisters and safety… She saw the street she used to live on, the garbage she ate and puddles she drank from. She saw the lab she was taken to one winter morning, asked to do incomprehensible things but warm again at last. She saw the machines and the needles and the people, so many people, all patting her and touching her and sometimes hurting her but never meaning it.
Finally, the most painful memory of them all - She saw the children she had played with the day before launch. For Laika, people were mostly hands and smells and gestures, either kind or gruff or mean, but always lumbering and powerful. Children, though, children were all faces and laughter and light to her, kindness and joy and endless love. The memory-children blazed like the sun, like laboratory spotlights, like stars. They opened their mouths but only the hissing of space came out, louder now, drowning out the clunks and rumbles of her failing ship.
Listen… Do you hear it? It’s almost here…
She tried to lean forward but the straps held her tight. Her ears swiveled this way and that, trying to locate a sound that was all around her. She closed her eyes but it made no difference – the starscape was inside her head and outside the ship, with everything between useless and invisible. Her heart pounded in one last furious burst of speed, and then began to slow. Her head became heavy, too heavy to lift, and she relaxed, slumping against the too-tight straps. listenhangonletgolistenhangonlistnletgolisten…
“I can’t believe she’s gonna make it!”
“She won’t, if you don’t concentrate and help me get these tubes out of her!”
“What kind of monster straps an innocent being into a tin can and flings them into space without an air conditioner?”
“You know what kind. You know what system we’re in.”
“oh… right…”
“Poor thing. We’ll get her patched up good as new, with a TranslationMod so she can tell us where she wants to go next. It’s the least we can do.”
Laika’s eyes were gummy and hard to open, her body ached deeply and felt like stone. She was laid on a table, cool but not cold, firm but not hard. The voices were somewhere above her, and she felt herself being unhooked and detached. She was being separated, from the web of machinery that linked her to her ship, linked her to earth, linked her to the lumbering men of science that had strapped her in so far away and not so long ago.
Those voices… They sounded like the children she remembered, all sunlight and laughter and starscapes. One of them patted her head gently, and the tender love in the caress burst in her head like music. Laika listened, and her tail began to thump gently against the table.
Jacq
And now for October!
Prompt: Campfire Tails Guest Judge:Meru Prompt Type: Mixed Media
The ritual of sharing scary stories is one practiced the world over, whether around a cozy campfire, whispered by flashlight during a sleepover, or exchanged in the deepest night to break the echoing silence. Many of these stories transcend generations, the details changing over time, but the terrifying core of their substance immortal. For October’s prompt, create a scary story, shared from your character’s perspective.
And an update to our scheduling!!
Starting in October and going forward, Mycenaissance submissions will be due on the 28th of each respective month! This will give each player four weeks to complete their entries, and gives staff a little extra time to get everything compiled, reviewed, and commented on. :) We hope that you continue to enjoy the Mycenaissance and thank you for your entries!
Dove
Gosh, thank you for the accolade and the nice comments, too! It’s really nice to know people read the things I put down!
I’d like the flying piggie please. *^*