Sentence starter #9: 300 words: FANTASY theme

[Doctor Setebos]

Week 6 - week of 2/2/09

Sentence starters (http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/tags.php?tag=sentence+starter) are a fairly simple concept. I'll post a sentence. You write everything that follows that sentence. That's it. It's just flash fiction. Make it interesting. Make it compelling. Make it yours.

The count for this starter is 300 words. Remember: the word count isn't meant to be a hard and fast goal, merely a suggestion. But for those that wish to use sentence starters as true exercises in forced writing, it will be welcome practice in attempting to stick to set goals.

Fairies, dragons, wizards, and castles. This sentence starter should feature some sort of FANTASY theme. It can be any period, any style, any time, any world. It doesn't even have to include fairies or dragons. But it should be obvious just from the telling that the theme is fantastical in some way, shape, or form.

Here is your sentence starter:

The clouds parted slightly and sunlight filtered down for the first time in what felt like ages.

[VerseD]

The clouds parted slightly and the sunlight filtered down for the first time in what felt like ages. The swamp outside Turpendar was no place for a man to roam, a leech-ridden den under the grey of fog and the brown of ancient and willowy branches that dangled in the watery sludge like a girl's fingers from a boat.

Against all sense and council Lykos went alone into that pathless bog. His horse came with him, laden with food and blankets and tools for excavation, but one horse is hardly the worth of a man at arms. The last to go into the swamp in search of trasture, Prince Amir, brought forty men, all of whom vanished. The Prince alone came back from the swamp, only he was dead. His bleached white skeleton shambled to the gates of the city in clattering armor and collapsed in a pile of bone and steel -- or so the legends say.

Lykos scoffed at such warnings, for he had many times before dispelled grave danger as hearsay. They usually sprang up around places with untouched riches, ripe and ready for capable hands who could bypass the rotting traps or the native tribes that guarded the old hoards of kings. Lykos did not believe in monsters.

His horse's feet went squash squash in the muck. The swamp was no place for a horse, but he needed something to carry out the prizes he intended to win. He led the horse from four paces ahead, picking out a careful path through the muck with his heavy-booted feet that fell lightly as leaves. The animal, a great black gelding, ignored its master and suffered its own way.

(I actually wrote the whole story out but can't transcribe it since it's 1 pound for 30 minutes. Sometimes I envy those who bring laptops when traveling.)

[bean]

The clouds parted slightly and sunlight filtered down for the first time in what felt like ages.

Greedily, Sorin stretched his arm from the cage as the sun tickled and excited his pale green skin. He felt himself regaining strength and considered pulling away from the light in case it would stop him from dying.

To Sorin, death now seemed an attractive release from the leering eyes and intruding hands of his captors. Sorin had used the last of his magic sending deadly spores up the shaft of the man who had assaulted him with more than hands. He'd died screaming as his body slowly fed the fungus growing up from his mid-drift and for a week Sorin was thrown into an iron box without light to tame him. Iron held no particular power over him like it did some of the other caged creatures, but the lack of light and only the small cup of water given him each day were starving him just the same. Sorin was a very young Leaf but already his extremities had faded from a rich vibrant green of a young Leaf to the pale green of a Stem. Morosely, he waited for his limbs to turn brown and crumble to dust at the slightest touch.

Sorin counted himself a failure. Leaves were supposed to drift away from the mother tree in order to fill themselves with knowledge and magic before returning, but he had been both brave and greedy. Most Leaves drifted into the welcoming forests to the south of Mother Tree or spent their time in the northern mountains, minding the subterranean fields of the dwarves and growing fat on the magic light of the lichen. In the farmlands to the east, the humans and halflings had long-standing partnerships with the Leaves who excelled at magic that enhanced growth in fields. But Sorin was an adept at magic and wanted to discover new knowledge in his drifting so he chose to drift west into the Akrost Empire.

He had learned first hand that the tales of the cruelty and craven nature of the people of the west were true, and now he would die here by being starved in a cage for no other purpose than to earn money for a carnival.

"Wake up you!" hissed Demetri, Sorin's jailer, as he rattled his cup that smelled strongly of death to Sorin against the cage's iron bars. It was well known to the Green Folk that humans drank the rot of dead fruit flesh to become befuddled by it's poisons, but while the Leaves received special training to not show their disgust of the practice, it, nevertheless, remained unsettling. "I said get up ye useless weed. The show be about to start and the mornin' crowd be tellin' the evenin' what they thinks." Sorin tried to rise, but thought better of it. If they put him in the iron box again, he'd not get to enjoy the sunlight dappling on his skin, but he'd die faster. Sorin considered it an even trade.

With his eyes shut and his thoughts turned inward, Sorin was not prepared for what came next. Demetri suddenly tipped the huge bucket of water he was carrying towards the lion's cage over the young leaf's body. In reponse, Sorin gasped and stood upright in a falsh. Demetri laughed at Sorin's transformation from sloth to full alertness thinking he had merely woken a lazy performer when in fact he had fed a feast to a starving man. Sorin was not content to merely let his body soak in the water like a sponge, but knelt to the ground and lapped up the water with his tongue.

When Demetri returned, the cage was dry and Sorin stood up in his cage, arms held outside the bars outstretched into the sun. Sorin felt the green rising up into his skin as the sunlight warmed him and grew his magic. His despair and anger filled him amplifying the magic until it took over and Sorin became the vessel of the magic rather than it's worker. He felt his legs elongating like the older members of the Green Folk called Stems, and he grew erect with rapture as his legs turned tendrils sank between the floorboards of the wagon and into the rich, dark soil below.

The sun came full out as the clouds parted and Sorin sang an ancient wordless song that spoke of harmony, nature, and balance. The humans at the show all stared in wonder at Sorin, completely enraptured by the performance. Demetri was so enthused that he had not yet thought of the money he would make that evening when people returned to hear the song of the Green.

No one noticed the spores drifting slowly through the air.

It wasn't until later in the day that Demetri began to cough up blood. He retired to his wagon, but soon the entire village was sick. Sorin cried as he saw a grandmother coughing up blood herself, take a sick grandbaby from the ground where her daughter lay dying.

He knew he had been taken by the Green, and that his choices were not his own. Time already felt shorter to him. With patience, he waited for his body to elongate further into the limbs of a tree. Soon, more men would come and they would marvel at how this village became a ghost town overnight and at the huge tree grown up from the middle of a caged wagon in the village square. They'd marvel that the crops in the area were doing the best they'd done in years, and the emperor's botanist would eagerly visit the village to study the new plants and flowers that sprang up around the village square.

[bean]

VerseD - I'm just going to assume that the story ends with a slashable between Atreyu and Lykos who both lose their horses in the swamp of sorrows and console each other with their love.

You know, since you didn't finish it.

[JRR006]

All right. I'm really, really bored, which is code for "I don't think it's very good." I'm also legitimately bored and have forty minutes until my next class. So here you go:



The clouds parted slightly and sunlight filtered down for the first time in what felt like ages, and this batch of humanity was, on the whole, very disappointed. The dials in the square had stood empty of the sun’s telling angle for a week or more, and Nature had reasserted her lethargic pace. Men spoke easy, friendly words, instead of snapping tensely at one another as they wore their minds threadbare trying to keep pace with the merciless march of time.

The scene in the square was approaching pastoral: the day’s duties had been done, and with no artificial bonds keeping men in subservience at their desks or workbenches a spontaneous gathering had formed on the village green. Their burg was on the main trade routes of the empire, and they had been one of the first outland settlements to find themselves held captive by sun dial clocks. Seven days ago the sky had gone dark as dusk at the day’s zenith, and what the High City tradesmen and entrepreneurs would call “anarchy” – that was, not signing over every waking hour to industry – had set in.

The days of darkness were foretold by the sages in the High City, it was said, and it meant that battle was at hand between a magician-tyrant and a soldier-hero. Where was this battle to take place? That the sages could not say. Somewhere far away, where such things still mattered, somewhere without docile machines and an enlightened tax code.

The sporting gradually ceased and people looked up as the clouds above began to roil and creep and retreat, gradually revealing a wider swath of blue sky.

The first golden bands of sun teasing the square meant that the prophecy was fulfilled. Somewhere, a hero had slain a dictator, and re-enslaved them all.


Edit: Oh, how I hate that stilted voice I lapse into whenever I try to write fantasy.

[alienmastermind]

@bean

Reading the snippet/pastiche/character study, there's lots good here, and not too much bad. Point of fact, nearly NO bad. Midriff is how it is spelled, I believe, though your spelling could be correct as well.

-- Point on Stems (Stems are parts of something growing, I'd use another word to describe living 'Green Folk'...Like Shoots or something like Sapling. Something that encompasses an entire being, and foreshadows the life cycle of the 'Green Folk')

-- Otherwise, a cool little tale about the bittersweet aspects of revenge.

* * * * out of 5.

[bean]

@alienmastermind - Thanks for the feedback!

The terms for the Green Folk are based on their jobs in their society. Leaves reach out and gain strength for the society while Stems uphold it. My exposition on this was indirect when I talked about how Leaves were supposed to drift from the Mother Tree. I didn't give as much of an explanation about Stems because I wanted the reader to figure that out through context. I'll reread it and find a way to make this more obvious. Thanks. Also, I appreciate the note on the correct spelling of midriff.

I worry about the pacing. You didn't get bored waiting for Sorin to resolve the situation and the resolution was satisfying?

[alienmastermind]

Not especially, as the story is about a plant. The pacing seems about right. :)
Not slow, methodical.

[Reverant]

Edit: Didn't realize this was nearly TWO YEARS OLD.

I'm not sure if I broke a rule by going over 300 words, but... I did. Here's my attempt.

The clouds parted slightly and sunlight filtered down for the first time in what felt like ages. The castle yawned lazily and blinked his sleepy archer windows at the sun.

Sun! He thought in surprise. Why, I haven’t seen you in a great while! Not since those wizards tried to break my gates with their silly ice magic! Ho ho, they sure did get a good boiling.

The sun, as usual, greeted the chatty castle with warm silence.

So you say, so you say! Thought the castle. He was in an unusually jolly mood, even by castle standards. His buttresses had just been finished by the gorbah slaves, a race of innately lazy feline humanoids that had some rather disturbing self-cleaning practices. His buttresses were fabulous though, and even the warrior-king Lord Swett had said so himself. The castle had much to be proud of.

Oh! Harry! He thundered to himself. The sun’s rays had generously baked away the fog that blanketed the green countryside, and his fellow castle, Hariztyzlich, now appeared on the horizon. The castle had never personally spoken to the other fortress (whom he’d decided to nickname Harry), but he felt a deep longing in his dungeons to do so. He’d never worked up the courage to do it, however.

The sun was shining bright today. The castle felt happy, proud, eager! Perhaps today was the day he’d speak to Harry! The lively castle inhaled deeply, and with a mighty groan, shouted the other castle’s name with all his might.

“Brrrrgghhhhhwhoooooooooooo!” shouted the castle.

Damn! That won’t do at all! He thought miserably.

Inside the castle’s innards, a young boy stopped scrubbing pots. He turned to his friend with a confused look plastered across his strangely British features.

“Oi, did you hear that?” Spenk asked.

“Hear what?” replied Ploff.

“It sounded like a bloody great big anus shouting “Harrrrryyy!’” said Spenk.

“A what?”

“An anus shouting-“

“An anus shouting? What does an anus have to shout about?” Ploff responded crossly. “Shut your mouth and get back to scrubbing before we get in trouble again!”

But it was too late. Master Scullion Peter Forkwipe, Lord of Silverware, Tablecloths, and Domestic Cheeses, had heard the distinct sound of his two apprentices not doing their chores.

“Silence, fools!” he boomed. “I rue the day I rescued you from that cow fire! Now scrub, scrub, scrub!”

Spenk sighed and, avoiding the withering look of Ploff, resumed scrubbing. He had heard something. Anyway, as far as he knew, his anus had quite a lot to say after some meals.

Neither boy noticed a hooded figure in the corner of the galley, whose cobblestone-patterned cloak made him nearly invisible against the wall. The figure stroked his mutton chops thoughtfully.

This boy! Could he be the one? Could he be the one the prophesies speak of? The figure wondered. He has the gift! Only one man in a thousand generations will be born with the gift to understand the language of buildings, scarves, and certain breeds of squirrel!

Thus begins the story of Spenk Castle-Mouth, the greatest and most strangely British emperor the land of Zkwirrelhausen has ever seen.