#promptober

What a crazy month! I was able to get through every prompt, some easier than others, and managed to come up with some more solidified scenes and characterizations and relationships.

These are all set in my Zodiac setting with original characters. Some of them are royal, some of them are Chosen Ones, some of them are non-magical, some are magical, some are broken and doing their best.

1.  Competitive? Me?
2.  It wasn’t us! Promise!
3.  Spoiled for Choice
4.  Still Much to See
5.  Believe in Yourself
6.  Go Home, You’re Drunk
7.  What Kind Fellows
8.  Cooking Lessons
9.  Is It a Little Spicy in Here?
10.  You Know What They Say About Cats
11.  Negotiations Running Smoothly?
12.  Just A Walk in the Garden - Trigger Warning
13.  Honesty
14.  Bragging Rights
15.  That Time of Year
16.  It’s Not a Lie
17.  Melancholia
18.  The Calling
19.  Memento
20.  Routine Inspection
21.  Boys, Stop Fighting!
22.  Discovery
23.  Siege
24.  Not By Choice
25.  Interrupted Bedtime
26.  Just For a Little Bit
27.  Cold Storage and Warm Cider
28.  Secrecy
29.  Escape
30.  Don’t Panic
31.  Memorial Service

Home – Holiday Traditions – “Take me with you.”

Sophie intends to ask Valash to attend her closing ceremonies for the Virgo Festival in secret, but he has other plans.

~1300 words

—

In the days leading up to the end of September, Valash ventured out into the city on more than one occasion. Sophie woke to find him gone from their bed, no note left in her room or messages left with any servants. Only when he returned in the evening did she have the opportunity to ask where he had disappeared to. His only response had been a vague, noncommittal “Out.” She had several reasons not to trust him, but she also wanted to be the one to make the steps to do so, so she let him continue the routine again.

But the final day of the Virgo Festival came and with it an event that required her presence. She would perform a small ritual for the Spirits, thanking them for their blessings and wishing them well for the rest of the year. She wanted Valash to be present for the holiday’s tradition. Though with his disappearances, she found no appropriate time to ask him.

On the eve of the final day, she cornered him in his separate room, packing a small bag. “Valash?”

He glanced to her as he collected a few necessary articles from around the room. “Ah, Your Grace, I’ll just be a moment. Dinner?”

The Virgin Queen shook her head. “N-no… Why are you packing?”

The muscles of his jaw worked under the skin. “Headed home.”

Her brow lifted, a weight in her chest. “I… I thought this was your home now?”

He glanced to her again before turning to face her, his eyes wide. “Oh… Your Grace-“

“Don’t call me that!” She felt tears prickling at her nose. “You’re leaving!”

His wings fluttered ever so slightly. “Sophie.” He took a slow breath. “There’s just something I have to do. I’ll be back in a few days.”

She sniffed. “Then why the secrecy, why the formality? What are you hiding?”

Feathers fluffed and he reached into his pocket. “I… I just didn’t think anyone else would care.” He produced a handkerchief and offered it to her.

Frustration built up in her chest, her fingers tensed into claws. “Of course I’d care if you left! Why would you think otherwise!”

The handkerchief hovered awkwardly between them. “I had every intention of returning so… I suppose I didn’t think about how the leaving might affect you.”

Her eyes rolled, her nose stuffy from unshed tears. “Where are you going, then?”

He looked to the handkerchief and lowered his arm. “Lotuserna.”

The Lotus Capital had fallen into disrepair in the years following the Great Cataclysm there years prior. It existed primarily as a den for Ophiuchus and the Serpentarius people even after the defeat of Ophiuchus herself. The new Djinn would require years to fully cleanse the area of the deity’s influence.

Sophie furrowed her brow and gently drew her finger along her lower lid. “You’re going to work on the seal with Idania and Tristan?”

“No.” The handkerchief returned to his pocket and he returned to his packing routine.

“Then… Why are you going?”

“Visit my parents.”

Sophie blinked. “But… They… Valash, you don’t think-“

“Their grave.” He pushed the items into his pack with an aggressive force, his wings rustling a bit.

His sudden flare of quiet frustration caused her to shrink into herself. “I’m sorry… I just… I have the closing ceremony tomorrow and I hoped you might be able to attend.”

His brow furrowed for a moment. “I’m supposed to be your dirty little secret. Why would you want me there?”

Her teeth clicked as her jaw clenched. “I do so hate when you call yourself that. Though I will admit that I had intended for you to remain… backstage, most likely cloaked to hide your presence. I… I meant to ask you sooner and I’m sorry I haven’t, but you’ve been so secretive and I didn’t want to make you think I didn’t trust you but I’ve been so nervous and-“

His hands found hers, a warmth exuded from his that felt uncommon, though she knew better. He drew her attention to his eyes, a bid for her to focus and not get lost in her own anxiety, her rock in the quaking of her mind. She smiled at the beauty in his eyes, the colors that mixed in his irises and made them unable to categorize with one simple utterance of blueorgreenor even gray. She had yet to find the precise poetic phrasing to describe them, or the rest of him. But he grounded her, and she nodded.

“I’m sorry I didn’t think about the ceremony. It’s not as if it would fall on any other day. I just… This will be the first time I can visit my parents with a…” A meaningful expression softened his features. “With a happier story.”

The warmth from his hands spread through her arms, over her neck, and onto her face. How much of that warmth actually extended from his magic, she could not tell, but she felt the flush on her cheeks and tilted her head down to look at him through fluttered lashes. A rakish smile flashed on half his lips for the barest of moments.

“But… I’ll come back as quickly as I can to hear all about how it went.” He lifted a hand to her chin. “Is that satisfactory, Your Grace?”

She allowed him to tilt her face back up to gaze at him fully. That softness existed on his visage for much longer than any other instance. Home. She felt a deeper understanding of the word spread between them. A sudden need to stay with him bubbled within her.

“Take me with you.”

The words tumbled out of her without her permission, a thought given voice that had barely tickled at the edges of her consciousness.

His wings fluffed slightly, a muted surprise on his face. “You have to perform the ceremony, Sophie.”

She laughed once, more an exhalation than mirth. “I… Of course. I do. I have responsibilities. As a Queen, to my people, and to the Spirits. I just… I want to… share everything with you. To help tell your… happier story with your parents. If-if that’s all right with you, of course.”

That half-smile appeared and lingered for a few moments. “I’ll stay in Lotuserna for a few days, then, and await your arrival.”

Her brow furrowed. “Can you not wait to leave? We could go together.”

The smile disappeared immediately, his eyes away to any other section of the room. “I have to be there tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

She tilted her head to follow his distraction. “Why?”

He inhaled slowly, one hand drifted to the back of his neck, his wings flittering a bit. “It’s my parents’ anniversary.”

The weight of the date hit her. The last day of the Virgo Festival and the even of the Libra Festival. “Oh. Well. Do you at least have a place to stay?”

He looked to her, his hand dropping from the back of his neck. “I… I made arrangements to stay at the Virgo manse in Lotuserna. My sister is still staying there.”

His sister. A smile spread her lips but did not reach her eyes, a motion she practiced daily in the court. “Then you two can have your private memorial.”

He glanced sidelong at her. “And you will come after the ceremony…?” She heard a hope, a plea, on his voice.

Her smile brightened. “If you will have me.”

Valash’s wings almost spread, but he rolled his shoulders to control them. A quirk of having gained the limbs so late in life, this inability to control them as well as Alden or Idania could control their tails in response to emotion.

She grinned as a flush spread to his cheeks. He cleared his throat and nodded. “I’m sure my sister wouldn’t mind seeing you.”

Soothe – Fall Asleep in My Lap – “Don’t ruin this.”

After his injury, Garren goes overboard making sure William is cared for. To the point that the latter makes an escape attempt. This forces a brief conversation about boundaries and expectations.

~1100 words

—

It took months for a simple dagger wound to heal. William refused to stay still in that time. Garren trailed him through the Piscean estate they had set aside for him, tracked the Aries through the Revati markets, and even found him with a small bag at the bubble portals waiting in the queue to make his way back to the surface. William had claimed he just intended to visit Sima, but Garren knew the seas and knew that the submarine he intended to take would take him to the Cancerian settlement on the shore.

“I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times: if you need something, want something, or just simply want to get moving, let me know. We don’t know what removing the-“ Garren pursed his lips and glanced at the surrounding pedestrians. “We don’t know what will happen to you now.”

William rolled his eyes and struggled to maintain his stiff posture. His back had started to hurt in recent weeks, a new symptom of getting old. “Nothing. I’m just a normal bloke now. I’ll be fine. Able to live out my years as the AllFather expected.”

Garren frowned deeply. “We don’t know that. I’m going to keep an eye on you until you’re fully healed and then-“

William sagged as they crossed the threshold into Garren’s temporary residence. “Gary, even if you’re worried about me, I can’t stay down here. All this water, all this fake air… There’s something wrong about it. Might be what’s makin’ me crazy, makin’ me heal slower.”

Garren slid the door closed behind him. “Fake air?”

William chuckled, cut short with the tiniest of grunts. “Nothing against the architecture or the skill you needed to make these bubbles, but… I’m a Fire Constellation, right? I need to be near-“

The half-breed spun around on his friend. “Fire! Of course! I’ll go get a fire going in the main room!”

The older Aries sighed and dropped his bag on the floor. Garren hurried past him and into he room with the fire pit. The house accommodated it, built a foot or so higher than other Constellations’ and hollow to promote airflow. Garren struck the flint at the dried-out driftwood in the pit that hung over the sea floor of sand. William pressed his lips together.

The fire sparked to life and the Aries had to admit, the existence of a fire within his line of sight improved his general malaise, soothed him somewhat. The half-breed spun around to him, a frantically happy expression on his face, and he gestured at the fire. William nodded begrudgingly and stepped into the room.

“There! This should help. I’ll make sure to keep it lit and stoked for you until-“

“Garren.”

The half-breed tensed immediately. His eyes fell. William hated these moments, hated having to remind someone of a reality they refused to face. He had done so for so long, breaking the news of a disappearance or a death or a refused leave. Having to break someone of a delusion they used to cope. Because reality would not wait for them to be ready. Hard truths came whether you wanted them or not.

He placed a hand on Garren’s shoulder as he lowered down to sit beside his friend. Garren kept his eyes on the dancing flame. “I can’t stay down here forever, Gary.”

The half-breed exhaled slowly with a puffing sound. “Are you sure?”

William nodded. “I’m sure. But that doesn’t mean I want to leave you, either.” Garren looked to his friend. “What?”

Garren’s expression became incredulous. “William Fymithral, are you saying you enjoy my company?”

The old Aries laughed. “Of course I do! Who else could’ve stood your nonsense for the last century, let alone four of them?”

“Then why would you run away from me?” The half-breed’s expression sunk into despair. He appeared genuinely hurt.

The speed at which Garren could shift his emotions always started William. He always felt like he understood people, could read where their feelings might shift over a conversation. But Garren held so many, perhaps due to their advanced number of years.

“I wasn’t trying to run from you, per se. I was just… tired of being cooped up? I hate to admit it, but the fire helps. So maybe… maybe it’s that part of me, the part that needs to be active and consuming. Probably overreacted, though.” He shrugged ineffectually. “I didn’t suppose someone so in tune with their own elements of water and air would be so… rigid?”

Garren narrowed his eyes at the Aries. “You’re not wrong. It wasn’t exactly right of me to keep you trapped in this bubble like a pet or something. I’m just… I’m worried.”

William nodded. “And we’ve talked about how your anxiety isn’t going to somehow stop whatever is happening to me. We have to take it as it comes. Right?”

The half-breed shrunk into his shoulders. “Yes.”

He made a gesture to pull the half-breed closer. “Burn that bridge when we get to it?”

The half-breed made a noise of ascension and allowed his friend to loop his arm around his shoulders.

“Good.” The Aries nodded and relaxed a bit. “So how about we talk about letting me go back to Hamal?” The half-breed groaned and dropped his head in William’s lap. “I should really check on my smithy, see how Marla is doing.”

Garren’s head snapped to William’s. “Marla?”

“Mmm. I told you about how I rented out my parents’ blacksmith over the years so I could keep ownership? The last resident won the last tourney if you can believe it.” William absently stroked his friend’s hair.

“I thought they stopped allowing women to fight in the tournaments.”

The Aries shook his head. “They did, for a while. But not on the books. It was a social thing. Like none of the Enforcers would wear a woman’s gear and stuff like that. She ended up having to buy a prisoner.” He chuckled. “That’s actually how I met Alden, you know.”

Garren laughed. “Oh, can you imagine if he actually got to be a Djinn?”

“Well, he’s Water-“

“Yes, yes, but even with the Water Elemental. Spirits help us.” Both men chuckled. “Do you want me to take us back to Hamal in one of my bubbles or would you rather travel?”

William’s face contorted as if he had smelled or tasted something vile. “Don’t ruin this.”

Garren frowned. “You hate my bubbles that much?”

The Aries rolled his eyes. “Gary.”