#zodiac
-i find that people with uranus in the 12th almost always have conservative family or family with different beliefs than them.
-those with uranus in the 10th are in their element when going to protests or organizing social justice activities.
-venus conjunct uranus people are very magnetic and are often get involved with all sorts of people.
-mercury-uranus aspects seem to always know what to say to get people’s attention. they often say things just to get a reaction.
-those with uranus in the 3rd love to talk about their weird interests. they make sure that people know their weird quirks and ideas.
-positivesun-uranus aspects are known for being a little strange, but they own it and are loved for it.
-people with uranus in the 2nd have a weird relationship to their self-worth. they almost love and hate themselves at the same time.
-uranus in the 5th loves unconventional or maybe even frowned upon activities. they have fun by doing a lot of things that other people would be to afraid to do.
-moon-uranus often have a fluctuating relationship with their mother. they will go through phases of having a good relationship and then having big falling outs.
-jupiter-uranus aspects make somebody with an absurd and unconventional sense of humor. you will either hate or love them for it.
astrology and humor
-havingsaturn to moon aspects makes you much more calculated and serious.
-sun to jupiter aspects make for constant joking and general loudness
-pisces in the 3rd/5th makes for random or sometimes depressing humor. a lot of people may not really understand their jokes
-mars to jupiter/mercury aspects can have a more agressive way of expressive their humor. they are very teasing and are definitely the type of people to watch ‘fail compiliation’ videos
-jupiter in the 3rd/5th makes you incredibly silly or you may express your humor in an immature way
-jupiter in gemini thinks it’s hilarious when things go wrong
-cancer placement humor is dramatic and crazy in a good way. they sometimes have the best comedic timing
-mercury square jupiter makes for somebody who tries really hard to be funny, but never really hits the punchline right
-moon square jupiter creates an oversharer with self-deprecating humor
-jupiter in the 10th laughs about themselves and almost self-sabotages in order to crack a joke
⭐️synastry notes⭐️
-personal planets in somebody else’s 8th house (especially mars or venus) can make the 8th house person obsessive over the planet person
-those with venus/mars aspects have a lot of sexual chemistry
-with many mercury aspects comes good communication and deep/stimulating conversations
-having positive sun to venus aspects creates mutual attraction and a supportive relationship
-moon conjunct ascendant causes hypersensitivity and the ability to affect each others moods drastically
-negative mercury to mars aspects can lead to arguments. the mars person may be impatient and force opinions onto the mercury person
-having moon in the 2nd house will base the relationship on emotional satisfaction rather than romance. the 2nd house person could be possessive of the moon person
-mercury in the 11th house will bring open communication and a sense of companionship
-sun conjunct jupiter indicates generosity and sharing. you both tend to hype each other up
-havingsun in the 1st house brings infatuation. the 1st house person sees the sun person as the best thing that’s ever happened to them
-venus/moon conjunct saturn aspects can cause the saturn person to be controlling of the venus/moon person
-saturn square mercury can cause both people to fight for power or dominance over the other
☁️astrology observations☁️
-virgo moons can be loud and outgoing, but will always keep a part of themselves hidden
-somebody who has any scorpio/aries/taurus energy tends to be okay with making themselves uncomfortable
-people sometimes think too highly of or are intimidated by people with multiple capricorn placements
-capricorn 4th house can signify a loss of childhood or lots of responsibility
-taurus moons really enjoy spending their money
-people with positive moon or venus aspects have the biggest heart and so much capacity to care about others
-aquarius placements can be the biggest hypocrites
-those with earth energy can be quick to cut people off if they threaten their sense of security
-yourmercury and/or jupiter aspects reveal your sense of humor
-people who have more jupiter energy are lucky or usually rely too much on luck
-libra/virgo moons seem to stress over the silliest things, but they really just want everything to be the best it can be
-people with 12 house stelliums can have a ‘dead inside’ kind of vibe
astrology notes/observations
-those with leo placements are often “theater kids” or otherwise creative people
-taurus risings tend to blend into the background because of their reserved, observant nature
-those with moon to jupiter aspects can find that their emotions are consuming. every feeling is to the extreme
-people with pisces moons can be seen to stir up problems out of nowhere
-aries placements are more reserved than they are made out to be
-harsh saturn aspects give you a feeling of restriction in that part of your life
-aquarius placements can be very judgmental in effort to make themselves seem cooler
-gemini moons make the funniest people
-harsh mars to neptune aspects can lead somebody to be quite tired in life and can become incredibly unmotivated
-you can almost sense that somebody has 8th house placements. it’s not always easy to pin-point, but something about them is slightly sinister
-pisces suns can be way louder and extroverted than they’re made out to be
-virgo risings make amazing leaders. they may come off as nit-picky, but they really just want everybody to the best that they can
-mars to uranus aspects can cause you to hide all the little things that upset you, until you explode
-capricorn placements can be the biggest know-it-alls
-having a lot of sagittarius energy can make you perceived as standoffish
youtube
Hurdy Gurdy Man - Donovan (as used in the movie Zodiac.) Couldn’t be better.
Aries: It’s gonna burn. It’s gonna hurt. It’s going to feel like you’re dying. I promise you that you are not dying. I know, I know. But I promise, you survive this
Taurus; Stop healing other people’s wounds while you’re still bleeding out. Put yourself first. Learn healthy boundaries, and when to put yourself first, before it kills you.
Gemini: How long will you stand in place,? The world holds still for no one, not even you. So, how long will you stand in the same place where parts of you die and still act like it’s okay? When will you finally have enough?
Leo: Sometimes other people’s wounds get to shine. It doesn’t mean they didn’t hurt you. It doesn’t mean you aren’t as valid. But sometimes , sometimes someone else’s pain gets to take center stage. Be prepared. I’m sorry.
Pisces: You have nothing to fear. You panic over this coming storm. Did you not realize you are a mother fucking hurricane? You are love and hate and passion incarnate, act like it. There are stars in your veins, so you need to glow.
Cancer: Sometimes we have to sit with the pain. sit with it and unpack all the reasons why it hurts. Unpack all the reasons it is still hard to talk about after all these years. Sometimes we need to sit with the pain to work past it.
Capricorn: You are so smart. You deserve better then all this. When will you see that you deserve better than all this? I can’t make you see it, I wish I could, but you have to want it. Do you want it yet?
Virgo: You have to learn to live with the ghosts in the closet. They may not always be friendly, but you’re gonna have to co-exist. Those scars won’t go away. Those tattoos can only be covered up so much. So learn.
Saggitarius: No one said growing was easy. No one said it wasn’t going to be messy. This is going to be some of the most difficult shit. But you got this. You got this. I swear.
Aquarius: Don’t stop fighting. I know you’re tired. I know it’s heartbreaking. But don’t you dare fucking stop fighting. You have come so far, you are so close to winning. Just please, please don’t stop fighting .
Libra: Smile. There’s always tomorrow. So smile. Smile and find peace in yourself, because there is always tomorrow. Tomorrow needs you to smile. Tomorrow needs you to brave. So please, smile?
Scorpio: if you know they are posioning you, then you need to walk away. You can’t stay there and let them keep filling the tea with arsenic, not without admitting it’s suicide.
This week’s horoscope 7/7/2020
Aries: Sometimes you’re gonna be the villian in someone’s story. Doesn’t mean you are a villian. Doesn’t mean you are a bad guy. But you are their bad guy. You have to let it go, let them make you a monster. I’m sorry
Taurus; Be safe. You are on the right side of history. You are helping in a just cause. Just please be safe. We will need you when the dust clears. We have to rebuild from scratch, and we will need people like you.
Leo: You don’t always have to push so hard. You don’t always have to be the best. Sometimes it’s okay to give yourself a break. Sometimes competing it is enough. Sometimes even you’re allowed to just breathe.
Gemini: You have to chose. You have to chose to stay or to leave. Because once you chose you stop being trapped. It’s no longer a cage if you want to be there, right? So pick a choice and own it. You have to own it.
Pisces: You can’t run far enough way to forget. You can’t dig out the past and who they were. What they did to you will be there forever. So learn to accept. Learn to live. Learn to use the bodies they buried in your garden to thrive.
Cancer: Your head is lying to you again. I promise it is lying. I promise you are loved and special. You have to fight the demons in your head. Because we need you. We all need you.
Capricorn: Get sober. Get your life together. You are so much smarter then all of this. I still believe in you ya know. I still have faith you are more then this. But please. Get clean.
Virgo: Sometimes you have to walk past people you use to love. Some people you use to call friends. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do is keep walking. Don’t look back. Don’t question why. Try to pretend you won’t dream about them again.
Saggitarius: You need to be careful. You lost all the connections you came back to fix. You are not alone, as much as it feels like it. When this all crumbled I promise you are not alone.
Aquarius: You don’t need to keep looking over your shoulder. How many years and how many miles before you realize they can’t hurt you? The only one here to open your wounds is you. You can’t heal if you keep holding the knife they gave you.
Scorpio: Breathe. Just stop for a second and breathe. Are you sure? Are you really sure this time? Before you burn and build more bridges think. Is this really what you want?
Libra: eventually you have to stop counting. Eventually the bodies grow to high. Too many dates. Eventually you have to let it go. Eventually you have to stop going home and drinking in memory of the friends and family lost every other day. I know. I’m sorry
-this weeks horoscope
Aries: the world is not ending. I promise you the world is not ending. When it does not end, we will need you. The world will need you to help fix what we almost ruined. We need you.
Taurus; Eventually you have to let go. Own up to what you did wrong, sit with it, and let it go. You can’t think you were right forever and you can’t hold on to your wrongs forever. You have to let go.
Leo: Your city is a war zone, for a just cause, I know. Remember we love you. Remember we want you home safe. Remember when history looks back they will thank you. Thank you through the tear gas and blood. Thank you.
Gemini: Some time you have to grow. You can’t grow where it’s comfortable and safe. You have to grow, because we see great things in you. Because we can tell you can be so much more. You just have to step outside.
Pisces: The blood on your hands isn’t even your burden. It isn’t your fault for what choices they made. This isn’t your problem. Responsiblility is a bitch, but you did not deserve this. You do not own this mess.
Cancer: stop digging up your veins just to prove you are still breathing. The voices that come up at night are not your friend. The ghosts of the past can’t and don’t love you like the people in the present. You have to know that
Capricorn: Sometimes you have to give in. Sometimes you have to compromise. I know it’s hard. I know the way forward is clear. But be careful, you don’t HAVE to burn all those bridges, and some of them might save you later.
Virgo: Learn to sit with yourself. The drugs and pills and booze and distraction can only get you so far. Sit with yourself. Let go of your past. Let go of me. Please.
Aquarius: Be careful because wolf in sheep clothing can feel safe. Can feel calm. Do not trust them, the claws are just under the surface. We love you. Stay safe.
Saggitarius: You don’t need them. I know. I know. It feels like it. It feels like they are your air. You don’t need them. You deserve more. Please see that you deserve more.
Scorpio: you are only hurting yourself. You are only adding more scars. Stop. Stop trying to dig the veins out of your skin. Stop trying to kill yourself for others.
Libra: some scars do not heal. Some scars you just live with. Some scars you just survive. Some things are just how they are, and the people who did it will never apologise to you for it.
Aries: the world is not ending. I promise you the world is not ending. When it does not end, we will need you. The world will need you to help fix what we almost ruined. We need you.
Taurus; Eventually you have to let go. Own up to what you did wrong, sit with it, and let it go. You can’t think you were right forever and you can’t hold on to your wrongs forever. You have to let go.
Leo: Your city is a war zone, for a just cause, I know. Remember we love you. Remember we want you home safe. Remember when history looks back they will thank you. Thank you through the tear gas and blood. Thank you.
Gemini: Some time you have to grow. You can’t grow where it’s comfortable and safe. You have to grow, because we see great things in you. Because we can tell you can be so much more. You just have to step outside.
Pisces: The blood on your hands isn’t even your burden. It isn’t your fault for what choices they made. This isn’t your problem. Responsiblility is a bitch, but you did not deserve this. You do not own this mess.
Cancer: stop digging up your veins just to prove you are still breathing. The voices that come up at night are not your friend. The ghosts of the past can’t and don’t love you like the people in the present. You have to know that
Capricorn: Sometimes you have to give in. Sometimes you have to compromise. I know it’s hard. I know the way forward is clear. But be careful, you don’t HAVE to burn all those bridges, and some of them might save you later.
Virgo: Learn to sit with yourself. The drugs and pills and booze and distraction can only get you so far. Sit with yourself. Let go of your past. Let go of me. Please.
Aquarius: Be careful because wolf in sheep clothing can feel safe. Can feel calm. Do not trust them, the claws are just under the surface. We love you. Stay safe.
Saggitarius: You don’t need them. I know. I know. It feels like it. It feels like they are your air. You don’t need them. You deserve more. Please see that you deserve more.
Scorpio: you are only hurting yourself. You are only adding more scars. Stop. Stop trying to dig the veins out of your skin. Stop trying to kill yourself for others.
Libra: some scars do not heal. Some scars you just live with. Some scars you just survive. Some things are just how they are, and the people who did it will never apologise to you for it.
Aries: the world is not ending. I promise you the world is not ending. When it does not end, we will need you. The world will need you to help fix what we almost ruined. We need you.
Taurus; Eventually you have to let go. Own up to what you did wrong, sit with it, and let it go. You can’t think you were right forever and you can’t hold on to your wrongs forever. You have to let go.
Leo: Your city is a war zone, for a just cause, I know. Remember we love you. Remember we want you home safe. Remember when history looks back they will thank you. Thank you through the tear gas and blood. Thank you.
Gemini: Some time you have to grow. You can’t grow where it’s comfortable and safe. You have to grow, because we see great things in you. Because we can tell you can be so much more. You just have to step outside.
Pisces: The blood on your hands isn’t even your burden. It isn’t your fault for what choices they made. This isn’t your problem. Responsiblility is a bitch, but you did not deserve this. You do not own this mess.
Cancer: stop digging up your veins just to prove you are still breathing. The voices that come up at night are not your friend. The ghosts of the past can’t and don’t love you like the people in the present. You have to know that
Capricorn: Sometimes you have to give in. Sometimes you have to compromise. I know it’s hard. I know the way forward is clear. But be careful, you don’t HAVE to burn all those bridges, and some of them might save you later.
Virgo: Learn to sit with yourself. The drugs and pills and booze and distraction can only get you so far. Sit with yourself. Let go of your past. Let go of me. Please.
Aquarius: Be careful because wolf in sheep clothing can feel safe. Can feel calm. Do not trust them, the claws are just under the surface. We love you. Stay safe.
Saggitarius: You don’t need them. I know. I know. It feels like it. It feels like they are your air. You don’t need them. You deserve more. Please see that you deserve more.
Scorpio: you are only hurting yourself. You are only adding more scars. Stop. Stop trying to dig the veins out of your skin. Stop trying to kill yourself for others.
Libra: some scars do not heal. Some scars you just live with. Some scars you just survive. Some things are just how they are, and the people who did it will never apologise to you for it.
Aries: the world is not ending. I promise you the world is not ending. When it does not end, we will need you. The world will need you to help fix what we almost ruined. We need you.
Taurus; Eventually you have to let go. Own up to what you did wrong, sit with it, and let it go. You can’t think you were right forever and you can’t hold on to your wrongs forever. You have to let go.
Leo: Your city is a war zone, for a just cause, I know. Remember we love you. Remember we want you home safe. Remember when history looks back they will thank you. Thank you through the tear gas and blood. Thank you.
Gemini: Some time you have to grow. You can’t grow where it’s comfortable and safe. You have to grow, because we see great things in you. Because we can tell you can be so much more. You just have to step outside.
Pisces: The blood on your hands isn’t even your burden. It isn’t your fault for what choices they made. This isn’t your problem. Responsiblility is a bitch, but you did not deserve this. You do not own this mess.
Cancer: stop digging up your veins just to prove you are still breathing. The voices that come up at night are not your friend. The ghosts of the past can’t and don’t love you like the people in the present. You have to know that
Capricorn: Sometimes you have to give in. Sometimes you have to compromise. I know it’s hard. I know the way forward is clear. But be careful, you don’t HAVE to burn all those bridges, and some of them might save you later.
Virgo: Learn to sit with yourself. The drugs and pills and booze and distraction can only get you so far. Sit with yourself. Let go of your past. Let go of me. Please.
Aquarius: Be careful because wolf in sheep clothing can feel safe. Can feel calm. Do not trust them, the claws are just under the surface. We love you. Stay safe.
Saggitarius: You don’t need them. I know. I know. It feels like it. It feels like they are your air. You don’t need them. You deserve more. Please see that you deserve more.
Scorpio: you are only hurting yourself. You are only adding more scars. Stop. Stop trying to dig the veins out of your skin. Stop trying to kill yourself for others.
Libra: some scars do not heal. Some scars you just live with. Some scars you just survive. Some things are just how they are, and the people who did it will never apologise to you for it.
Aries: the world is not ending. I promise you the world is not ending. When it does not end, we will need you. The world will need you to help fix what we almost ruined. We need you.
Taurus; Eventually you have to let go. Own up to what you did wrong, sit with it, and let it go. You can’t think you were right forever and you can’t hold on to your wrongs forever. You have to let go.
Leo: Your city is a war zone, for a just cause, I know. Remember we love you. Remember we want you home safe. Remember when history looks back they will thank you. Thank you through the tear gas and blood. Thank you.
Gemini: Some time you have to grow. You can’t grow where it’s comfortable and safe. You have to grow, because we see great things in you. Because we can tell you can be so much more. You just have to step outside.
Pisces: The blood on your hands isn’t even your burden. It isn’t your fault for what choices they made. This isn’t your problem. Responsiblility is a bitch, but you did not deserve this. You do not own this mess.
Cancer: stop digging up your veins just to prove you are still breathing. The voices that come up at night are not your friend. The ghosts of the past can’t and don’t love you like the people in the present. You have to know that
Capricorn: Sometimes you have to give in. Sometimes you have to compromise. I know it’s hard. I know the way forward is clear. But be careful, you don’t HAVE to burn all those bridges, and some of them might save you later.
Virgo: Learn to sit with yourself. The drugs and pills and booze and distraction can only get you so far. Sit with yourself. Let go of your past. Let go of me. Please.
Aquarius: Be careful because wolf in sheep clothing can feel safe. Can feel calm. Do not trust them, the claws are just under the surface. We love you. Stay safe.
Saggitarius: You don’t need them. I know. I know. It feels like it. It feels like they are your air. You don’t need them. You deserve more. Please see that you deserve more.
Scorpio: you are only hurting yourself. You are only adding more scars. Stop. Stop trying to dig the veins out of your skin. Stop trying to kill yourself for others.
Libra: some scars do not heal. Some scars you just live with. Some scars you just survive. Some things are just how they are, and the people who did it will never apologise to you for it.
I went a big adventure this last weekend and I’ve been spending the last couple days recovering. And we’re also moving out of the country next week, so I’m kinda working on getting everything sorted to get packed and so on. Not very hard, mind, because we still have to exist in this space until we move. So.
BUT. I wanted to respond to @enchanted-lightning-aes and @papercutsunset when they tagged me in Word Finds. Even though one of them was almost a month ago. (I actually just forgot that one because of all the things we’re doing to get ready for departure.)
Anyway, here you go!
act, stumble, warning, pay, rake,beef, proof, and rise
act
Tristan found himself between the much smaller girl and the dangerous Scorpio, arms outstretched. The man returned to his hissing and snarling. Tristan jerked back from a strike of the tail, the actunbalancing him and causing him to fall. Isolde yelped behind him. As the tail drew back for another strike, Tristan spun around on the stair and scooped up the girl, an easy task for his large, muscular form, and bolted up to the main floor of the house.
stumble
Hestumbledupon a page with a sketch of a girl, not much older than the young Taurus. Splotches covered the page, the charcoal smeared unintentionally, a name scribbled along the bottom. His nose stung, eyes wet, and he slammed the journal shut. He remembered her. He remembered her.
warning
Tristan had the morning lecture to agonize over what to tell Jorgus. He settled on warning him of the possible vast cost of horn powder, something that he did not expect the Jones family to have. The bull seemed to accept that and thanked him – thanked him! – for telling him. Isolde joined him for lunch to ask what the spell entailed and if he knew of a way to make some sort of item, a totem that might perform a similar function. In all the excitement of the last several weeks, he had all but forgotten about his father’s suggestion that they locate his mother’s spellbooks to find the spell that recharged the wards.
pay
A sharp inhalation brought him to consciousness, startled out of sleep by the bustle of activity around him. The Wives had just started to get up and pack away their bedrolls, Miss Sherla assigned the task of cooking breakfast. She made sure to cook an extra set for each of the boys. Tristan offered to open one of his jams. Orla advised against it, but Miss Sherla promised she’d payfor it if the others didn’t sell well. The jam made its way around the foggy morning campfire and even Mrs. McTiernan sputtered out an admittance of deliciousness.
rake
I feel like I could have this one in a scene, which makes me want to add it.
beef
There are a people in this setting with Cattle-like appearances, so we’ve removed cow from the setting. Which means beef wouldn’t be a meat, in-universe.
proof
“So, would you be willing to hunt down whatever is in the woods, Alden?” A smile found her features, a mask that Tristan understood.
The scorpion nodded absently.
“Excellent!” She looked to Tristan. “And when he comes back with proofof the beast’s existence, will you be nicer to him?”
rise
Impact again, this time from a fist, connected with his shoulder. He yowled and spun toward the source of the pain and threw out his own fist. He must’ve dropped his hammer in the initial fall. The moon might rise, give him some semblance of visibility. The heard the crunch of dirt underfoot and held up his arms to block an attack.
There ya go, folks! I’ll leave this as open tag to anyone that wants to participate, seeing as how I’m surprisingly busy. Your words, should you choose to accept the challenge, are: redeem, disappointment, thrust,andinject.
Not sure why I got tagged recently, but @ellierenae knocked on my coffin lid, so here I am. The words I’m meant to find I’ll be pulling from my original WIP, Book 1 of the Zodiac Chronicles, Mystery in Tauri (title subject to change). (I’ve been overworking my chapter 1 because people were paying attention to it. I’m not used to that.)
Thank you for the tag! Let’s get started.
consume
He lingered, letting the Taurus meander slowly. Something about that familiar stranger demanded his attention. He crouched by the porch, anticipating a much longer wait, but before the large Taurus could be completely consumed by the darkness, a lantern emerged from the house. He watched the lantern moved with cold confidence down the steps and several feet away from the structure. The familiar stranger paused and dug into his bag. He removed an item, allowed it to unroll, and muttered a single command word. Hunks of serrated metal along a chain came together and stiffened into a something resembling a cane. The figure adjusted his bag and lantern and continued into the darkness, compensating for a limp with the magical item. Confusion filled the Scorpio at the item, not as familiar to him as the stranger.
(This is in one of the chapters I was banging out near the end of NaNo, so uh… quality bad.)
love
Eli smiled. “Well. Do you mind staying for dinner, Isolde? Did you tell your father you’d be late?”
Silence filled the kitchen, only broken by the sound of gently sizzling meats and boiling potatoes. Tristan furrowed his brow, startled at the sudden tension.
“I’d love to stay for dinner.” Her voice had lost a bit of her excitement, though she had plenty to spare.
The old bull hummed. Something lay beneath the surface of her statement, one that both men recognized. A silent agreement formed between them; they would not ask and she would not tell. Tristan’s curiosity piqued with tales of mundanity from the other children, but he understood the precious need for secrecy from time to time.
(I have the word ‘love’ in my WIP often because Tristan and his father say “I love you” a lot. So I chose an instance that wasn’t… that.)
together
Eli lifted his head. “I thought we had a hunter in the village.”
Isolde nodded. “Oh, uh. Yeah. But Mister Eamon said he hasn’t been able to track the creatures movements for a while now and I… I don’t know if we’d even be able to afford it.”
Tristan sighed and returned to his meal. His father’s brow furrowed. “Isolde, you should let your father worry about these sorts of things.”
Her eyes fell, her spoon tapping against the plate. “He’s… He can’t.”
Eli’s voice softened. “He can’t?”
“He’s… been ill for a while now.” The rest of the table fell quiet, the gentle scrape of metal against treated clay silenced. She continued, nervous. “The… the Doctor has been treating him almost since he arrived and… some days are better than others, naturally, but most days are bad.”
A collection of isolated events came together in Tristan’s mind. Isolde’s melancholy about his father’s blindness, her sudden desire to become leader of the community and prepare herself for being mayor, her puffy eyes that one day at school, her excitement at the prospect of opening the village’s borders. He regarded her, her hands quivering, her nose red, eyes glassy. An epiphany began to crystallize in his heart: every person led a life that he could barely imagine, haunted by just as many issues as he.
And, unfortunately, I don’t have the word obsess in my WIP, though confronted with this knowledge, I may want to use it now. There are plenty of characters that might have an obsession, or appear to be obsessed with something or someone.
I don’t know that many people to tag, but uh… lessee…
@dragon-swords-prophecies@the-finch-address@enchanted-lightning-aes@athenixrose@master-duncan@n1ghtcrwler
Your words will be linger, curve, spite, lace which I chose completely randomly from a random word generator.
You are, of course, not obligated to participate. I hope that the notification at least brings you some happiness. :3
Zodiac Chronicles Book 1
Tristan attends what he thinks is a typical day at school. He does something atypical and pays the price for it with his blood. A small scratch, but enough to leave a lasting impression.
~6400 words
Trampled paths carved through a thin layer of snow in two opposite directions, converging on an old, small schoolhouse. The wider, well-trodden path of footprints led between a pair of farms to a road that led eventually to the village proper several miles off. The smaller path consisted of only one set of very large tracks, boot prints of an unusual size, that led to the small river beside the school. The owner of the large boots crouched by the bank and tucked a sealed bottle into the rocks along the river’s edge, well away from a collection of similar bottles. With any luck, the bottle would still be there by the time he got to it at lunchtime. Tristan turned back to the schoolhouse and eyed his large tracks, hoping that the midday sun might melt the snow enough to obscure them.
He lingered by the river to watch the other students funnel into the small door at the front of the schoolhouse. The door swung outward, held open by a kind bull on the verge of graduation. When the door had to be replaced some years ago, Tristan recalled the village carpenter stressed over the direction of the hinge for days before the installation. He returned every day afterward for a week to apologize for installing it wrong.
As he waited, he allowed his eyes to roam over the schoolhouse’s exterior. The paint chipped very slightly on the older slats of siding to reveal the numerous and varying colors the building had been over the years. He remembered well the year the teacher had organized the students for a day of painting the schoolhouse a vibrant green. The previous color, a faded pink, had been splashed by a graduating student’s experimental project for admittance into the doctor’s college in the capital. She had the carpenter and his wife provide her with information of how they treated the wood to maintain longevity and had the village’s merchers bring books back to describe how the paints earned their pigments.
The door cracked against the frame, the students finished filing inside. Tristan moved to join the wider path of boots and made his way to the door. He opened it gingerly and ascended the few short steps into the mudroom. He moved slowly, careful not to bump his large frame against the door or his horns against the doorframe or any of the other students. The village children paid him little mind, having their heavy woolen coats and other articles on the hooks along the wall. Stains marred the mudroom benches, the wood slightly bowed from years of harboring rain and melted snow. The floorboards creaked with every shift of weight, every step through the one-room schoolhouse. The whole building smelled of faintly of smoke from the small firepit and potbellied stove in the center of the main room, despite the pipe that extended up through the roof.
Tristan pulled the door closed, lifting up on the handle to set it properly in the frame. One step to the side and he lifted a small charcoal bit to scan for his name on the roster hung by the door. His eyes hesitated at the familiar names, ones he remembered from his first few years before the growth spurts started. After that, he stopped trying to remember the newcomers, to connect names on the list to faces. He found his name and checked the small box for his attendance that day.
Several of the girls seemed happy to see each other, giggling and shrieking with glee, leaning to whisper conspiratorially as they headed to their seats. Evelynn lead the group, smoothing and fussing with her hair as they walked, making sure her ringlets survived the morning. Tristan noted that the group appeared smaller, but the little herd never had the same numbers, its members dependent entirely on Evelynn’s whims.
The younger ones, the calves, moved awkwardly, as calves do, and climbed onto the benches to hang up their hats and scarves. Some preferred to stuff their things into the bins below the benches, too short to hang their things. After the removal of their hats, one of the calves became surrounded. Tristan just barely made out their young pronunciations of shock and amazement at the nubs protruding from the center one’s scalp. It would be several years for the nubs to turn into anything even resembling horns, but with the arrival of the nubs, that calf become the coolest and most mature among their little herd. He reflected on his brief moment of approval when his nubs arrived at a surprisingly young age. And struggled to forget the subsequent frustration and terror from his peers as the nubs grew larger and longer than normal at an alarming rate.
A frown pulled at his features and he dropped off his gear on his half of the mudroom. Despite moving to the furthest corner of the mudroom, none ever dared cross beyond the door except to check their attendance. He tried not to let it bother him. This left the boys of the class to wait to remove their gear. Ladies first, as the manners say. And calves have little sense of propriety. Having doffed his gear, Tristan gathered his materials for class, plus an ancient-looking leather journal.
As he finished pulling the drawstring on his pack, Tristan’s ear perked up at a voice that rose above the din.
“We didn’t think you or your brothers would make it today, Jorgus. Are you okay? What happened to your father?”
“Doesn’t really concern you, does it, Seamus.” A thud sounded as Jorgus threw his bag down on the bench under his hook. The adolescent bull had yet to grow properly into his limbs, gangly and long, his shaggy ginger hair left to grow over his eyes.
Seamus, a sturdy young bull with brown hair and a square jaw with the slightest bit of stubble, furrowed his brow. “I’d think it concerns all of us! The attacks have been happening more often, yeah? And with all our grandparents-”
Jorgus spun and growled at the older bull. “Seamus, I said drop it.” The tan and white splotched young bull jerked his head pointedly to his little herd of younger brothers.
The Jones boys, four young calves of varying ages and colorings, sported red and puffy eyes. Tristan glanced at the roster and wondered which brother belonged to which name. The youngest two of four sniffled openly, the older of the pair grabbing his younger brother by the shoulder to lead him to their desks. The youngest’s shoulders lifted and jerked in the obvious signs of barely contained sobs.
Seamus watched the calves, then shared a look with the other boys in Jorgus’s usual group. “We’ll… catch up on the way home, then?” He did his best to sound optimistic.
Tristan watched the boys offer support via a pat on the shoulder or some muttered promise and turn away one by one. The youngest, probably one of Jorgus’s brother’s friends, lingered, fussing with his pale splotchy fingers. Jorgus tilted his head slightly, the only indication on his shrouded face that he noticed the calf, and waited. A light thwack from another broke the calf’s resolve and he scurried through the room to his desk near the front and the younger Jones boys. Jorgus started to turn back to removing his winter gear and caught Tristan’s prying eye. He sneered and angled his horns at him. Tristan started and jerked back to his own preparations.
Part of him wished he could walk home with those boys, to make a group of friends and… do whatever friends do together. He wished he could talk about the orchard with them, about the plants along the path, about their crops, and the state of their land. He wanted to make friends his own age. But he knew how he looked, how they all looked more like his children than friends. Or perhaps younger brothers. He hadn’t grown any manner of stubble yet. The elder Lunars, those that heard the voices from beyond, told him that he had aged quickly, gaining a few years in a few months as a babe. Blessed by the Spirits, they called it. He called it a curse.
The commotion over, Tristan took barely a few steps to round the wall that split the classroom from the mudroom. He settled into the last bench at the table in the back left of the small open schoolhouse. This area in the back typically held the eldest students, the ones closer to the front reserved for the younger calves, or most in danger academically. He caught Seamus chatting with his neighbor on the other side of the aisle. Tristan held the bench in the back alone for years simply due to his size, too large to sit anywhere else in the room. He might block the view of the other students was the official reason, but mostly he took up a desk and a half on a good day. He tried not to think of the bad days.
Unbidden, he remembered vividly the pain in his chest the day the girl he typically sat next to, perhaps eight at the time, had complained before class that he had crushed her hand when attempting to use his ink and bone splinter pen. He barely remembered moving his arm out far enough to even touch her, painfully aware of his size even then. Not that the other students would let him forget it. The teacher had simply calmed the girl down and offered him the bench in the back. As he moved, he watched the girl’s best friend eagerly move up to take his seat with no objections from the teacher. He sat in the middle of the bench and spread out comfortably over the two-desk wide table. He felt his size for the first time and tears stung at his eyes. He looked up then as Miss Shaunessy moved to the blackboard and continued with class, though not without offering an apologetic smile. That remained his table for the following seven years.
He enjoyed the space the longer table provided over the years. In the early days of the schoolhouse, students normally shared one large desk, the top able to lift to reveal a compartment below. However, too many instances of one of the students at the desk lifting the table’s top without their partner’s consent resulted in broken pencils, splattered ink, or scattered papers. Deemed far too impractical for use by calves, the village’s carpenter frantically redesigned the furniture for single use. Tristan preferred the width, able to hide plenty of things in his desk that the others had to keep in the mudroom, under their desks, or in the river’s banks. He reveled in the ability to lean forward, elbows as wide as he wanted, his books and parchment and inkwell spread comfortably apart. He never had to worry about knocking over his own inkwell or his neighbor’s.
He placed the leather journal on the middle of the table, his inkwell on the corner with the bone splinter pen leaned away from the aisle, and his parchment squarely between the journal and the edge. Half the table for him. The other remained empty, as it did every day.
An aging Taurus woman, pale splotches covering more of her dark, umber skin every year, walked down the center aisle of the classroom to check the roster by the door. Wrinkles threatened at the corners of her eyes, a few locks of silvery hair escaped from the hair buns under each horn. She assessed the youngest calves first and shot harsh glances to the group of gossiping girls as she walked by. Evelynn greeted her with an overly saccharine, performative “Good morning!” Miss Shaunessy smiled to the girl, not nearly as hollow, but nothing like the warm and silent “Good morning” she mouthed to Tristan. At the head of the room once again, she smiled to the class and listed off her plans for lessons that day. Calves first, as their attention span dwindled as it grew toward lunch, then the higher education lessons for the older children.
“This morning will be the next chapter of history for the calves. After that, a bit of arithmetic as a class. After lunch, we will be going over the essays I assigned you last week, then we will work on our spells and rituals together before the end of the day.” Miss Shaunessy’s face pulled together slightly. “Please, pleaselook over the essays of your friends and neighbors. Some of you are very good with prose and could stand to share your skills with others.”
No names, but she stared very pointedly at a few of the students on the other side of the room. For Tristan she offered another warm smile, then an encouraging nod, all as she swung her attention back to the calves.
“All righty, little ones. Who can tell me what we went over yesterday?” A bright and happy smile took her face, her whole aura changing to matronly and polite.
As a calf, Tristan coveted her to act as his mother at home. When he brought the suggestion to his father, the bull fell into a melancholy. He remembered the oppressive silence that filled their small house for days afterwards, hating every tense and silent second. When his father finally broke the silence, he promised to tell Tristan more of his mother and encouraged him to seek out the journals and diaries she kept around the house. At his young age, Tristan did not understand all the words in the books he found. It became a nightly ritual to read the books together before bed, at least until he could read them on his own.
“We talked about the Bindings, Miss Shaunessy.” Aishling, Evelynn’s youngest sister and lookalike, waved a hand in the air.
“Very good Aishling!” Miss Shaunessy clapped brightly and started to pace as she lectured. “A very brief recap: The Bindings are what led to our ancestors, the Unbound, starting to evolve and change into what we are today. The result of these changes came in the form of the separation of what we now call Constellations. All of us here are called Taurus. But there are eleven others. Can anyone tell me what the other eleven are?”
For the first few years, Tristan eagerly engaged in the lectures about history and the Constellations and whatever else the teacher taught. But as the years moved on, he grew tired of the same information. Then the banishment to the back of the room. After that, his interests became focused on a different kind of history.
As the drone of teacher and student buzzed into the back of Tristan’s ears, his mind drifted to the work left in the orchard. Wasps had moved into a section of the trees that he needed to discourage from the area. An increasingly common occurrence, but nothing difficult. Fruits and flowers had been scattered under a few trees, easy enough to clean up and add to the compost bin or salvage for his jams and jellies. He still had several jars to fill. It might behoove him to check if any of the fruits and nuts could stand to be harvested. And that unknown flower at the edge of the orchard still haunted him. Once he identified it, he might be able to decide its fate. With the shorter days of the season, he pondered how much light he would have to work with.
Old leather straps creaked under the strain of turning pages after many years of neglect. Tristan loved the smell of these journals, the old paper and leather and glue. As the thin leather binding on the outside flopped open with a soft slap on the table, he jumped. He glanced up to find a few of the older students near him turn at the noise as they quietly “discussed” their papers. Their curiosity sated, they returned to their work. He focused his attention on the journal and the detailed diagrams with disproportionately scribbled but familiar handwriting.
The almanacs that littered his family’s home formed the physical connection between his father’s memories and his mother. Each one held notes in the margins, ink splotches, paints that bled through to the parchment beneath, the occasional hidden treasure of dried flowers between the pages. Curiously, every journal contained the same handwriting, no matter their age. Their sister journals contained a language so old not even Miss Shaunessy recognized it, though his father understood a few phrases. His father always dodged questions on how he knew those phrases and Tristan learned to limit his curiosity to what remained in the text.
Thumbing absently through the pages, scanning the detailed diagrams as they passed, he paused on a page and studied the flora depicted. He had started to lose hope that he might find his quarry, his stock of books running low. Only a few more journals and he would’ve had to ask Miss Shaunessy for the latest herbology almanac, though most of them contained the same information as his mother’s journals. But finally, his search had come to an end. It had to be the flower that appeared at the edge of the grove. He tugged a sheet of parchment out of his bundle and dipped his bone into the ink well on his desk to scribble the page number down. The journal contained that old language; he would have to seek his father’s guidance.
At midday, Valerie showed up for a visit. The village’s Postwatch visited Miss Shaunessy often, usually to drop off the special papers the teacher ordered for the roster, though not always. The pair seemed to be best friends. Valerie hauled the box of special order papers into the closet behind Miss Shaunessy’s desk and beckoned the older woman into the room. After a bit of whispering, Miss Shaunessy’s normally warm and grounded cadence shook slightly as she encouraged the students to take lunch outside. The class cheered and headed eagerly to the door. Tristan hesitated by the mudroom as the others filed out with their bundles and their herds. When no chuckles or insults found their way to him, he peeked outside and found the ground glistening with melted snow. He heaved a small sigh of relief, forced into a sharp exhale as Jorgus elbowed him out of the way. Tristan straightened up to allow the boy and his friends passage.
On his way to his things, Tristan caught sight of the Mayor’s daughter, Isolde, watching him from the other side of the mudroom. He furrowed his brow to her, a simple unspoken question. She stiffened, blushed, and turned back to her things to hastily throw her scarf over her head. It caught in her little female horns, the movement too fast or the girl still not used to her horns’ length. The flush moved to her ears as she untangled the knitted muffler to drape around her neck. He watched in amused confusion as she hurried outside with her wrapped bundle of food.
Tristan lingered in the building, watching through the windows as everyone else grabbed their bottles of milk or juice from the river bank. The hushed whispers from the closet gained a frantic and worried tone. Tristan resisted the urge to move closer and kept his focus through the windows. After the other students all split off into their herds and settled down for their meals, Tristan forced himself outside to grab his own bottle of juice. Despite a few snide remarks from the usual suspects, Tristan found his bottle where he had left it in the morning. A small thank you to the Spirits and he took his lunch around the back of the building. A small herd of rambunctious calves gathered around the smith’s son. Not keen to be injured by whatever tool the bull had brought that day, Tristan returned to his desk to eat his salad in peaceful loneliness.
The calves normally spent the time after lunch free to play outside as the older students took their lessons, but Miss Shaunessy herded them all inside with Valerie’s help. Afterwards, Valeria made her way back to her home at the Postwatch. Miss Shaunessy provided the younger calves with some harder math problems to focus on, a topic to discuss amongst themselves, and permission to borrow a few of the easier books from the bookshelf in the closet. She had to approve the book, of course, but everyone had to remain inside.
Dismissal marked an explosion of relief among the students as they darted from their desks and gathered their things. Today, however, the girls from that morning gathered together to whisper again, pointing to Jorgus occasionally. Tristan slowly gathered his books and papers and lifted his inkwell to stopper it.
“I told you to drop it!” Jorgus’s voice filled the small building, startling and quieting the girls for a moment.
Seamus and the herd of boys, all friends of the Jones brothers, shrunk away from their friend’s outburst. Tristan looked down to his desk, dotted with splatter from his inkwell, made by his jump at Jorgus’s shout, and pressed the stopper in. A bin under the bench in the mudroom held the spare cloths to clean spills with. He lifted his eyes back to the scene as the girls’ whispers grew again. Jorgus unceremoniously scooped up his things before Miss Shaunessy could approach him.
Seamus and the herd followed Jorgus and his brothers to the mudroom. Tristan rounded the wall behind his desk and crouched down to seek the box of throwaway cloth under the bench.
Miss Shaunessy clapped as she made her way through the classroom, checking desks for cleanliness. “Oh, and students! Miss Valerie informed me that from now on you are to travel in a herd as you head directly home.” A few of the students groaned. “It was also emphasized to not be out after dark for any reason. Winter has shorter periods of sun, which means you will have less time to dally. And there is always safety in numbers.”
She wandered the aisles, calling out names attached to messy desks. Liam Jones, Isolde Cennaire, the MacBanions, Kevin McGabhan. At one desk, she picked up a piece of paper and squinted at the top corner. “Oh, Jorgus Jones, it appears you left your essay here.” She placed the paper back down.
The called names sighed and headed back to tidy whatever Miss Shaunessy called them out for. It helped with the bodies attempting to cram through the door at the same time. Apparently one of them had managed to forget a whole tool. Must’ve been the young bull Tristan avoided at lunch.
After checking the whole room, Miss Shaunessy caught sight of Tristan. “Oh, Tristan, I noticed you weren’t paying very close attention during lectures today. Did you need help with anything I covered?”
Heat found Tristan’s cheeks. Miss Shaunessy noticed far more than he gave her credit for. He rarely gave her anything to pay attention to, after all. He shook his head in answer and grabbed a cloth stained with spots of paint and ink from the scrap bin. He brandished the cloth at her with a hopefully gentle smile by way of explanation.
As he stretched to his full height, she leaned back slightly to keep her eyes on his. No fear entered her features. She merely smiled back and patted his arm. She shifted out of his way and walked with him the few steps back to his desk. A small gasp drew his attention. “You don’t have anyone to walk home with, do you, dear?”
He shook his head absently as he cleaned off his desk. Silly question.
A soft and wrinkled hand lifted to tap her fingers against her chin. “You do live alone on the other side of those woods…” She paused, her eyes darting through her thoughts before focusing on him again. “Would you like me to go ask for an escort for you from town?”
His expression darkened immediately with all the heavy and unhealthy thoughts his father attempted desperately to cleanse him of. She pulled back slightly, eyes wide, and he tempered his expression with a gentle shake of his head.
An uneasy smile crossed her face. “No, I suppose you’re big enough to handle most things on your own. But you’re still just a boy, despite outward appearances. I just want to make sure you’re taken care of, is all.”
His breath hitched.
“You mean someone was attacked last night!?” A brown-haired girl with the smallest horns in the group lifted her fist to her chin, brow knit with concern.
Evelynn, the ringleader of the girls and owner of the largest horns, nodded as she made her way to the mudroom. “Isn’t it just awful? And the attacks are getting more frequent. That’s why they want us to walk in herds now.” She gestured to a pair of girls, both younger, as they scrambled for their things. “You heard that right, calves?”
The two calves, one girl and Aishling, chorused a “Yes, sissy!” and proceeded to haphazardly don their layers of clothing. The youngest children moved quickly, faster than their teenage counterparts, thanks to the small growths on their heads not yet formed into horns. Evelynn rolled her eyes and continued on to her hook to don her own set of weather gear. Miss Shaunessy smiled absently at the children and patted Tristan on the arm before wandering back toward her desk.
“But my father told me it was-“ Evelynn glanced at the group of boys across the mudroom and whispered loud enough for them to hear. “-Branach Jones that was attacked last night.” The girls shared a gasp with varying reactions of surprise. “Jorgus’s father-”
“You keep my family’s name out of your dirty mouth, Evelynn!” Jorgus burst through his group of friends, finger pointed sharply at the pale, splotchy ringleader of the gossipers.
Miss Shaunessy stopped in the middle of the building by the firepit. She shared a look with Isolde still at her desk as she turned to the commotion. Tristan dropped the rag on his desk and moved into the mudroom. Though he had no intention of intervening, his size intimidated most folk, forcing cool heads in tense situations. Noone had caught the quake in his hands yet, too focused on their own anger.
Evelynn swatted his hand away as she crossed her arms, big brown eyes glaring daggers into him. Her friends and sisters fanned out around her to cross their arms at Jorgus, though not all of them had their heart in it. One girl stayed behind, the brown-haired one, and glanced at Tristan.
Jorgus narrowed his dark eyes at Evelynn, his head angled to brandish his longer and sharper horns at the girls. His friends, too surprised at his actions, hesitated before stepping in beside their friend to brandish their horns, smaller than Jorgus’s but still as harmful if used properly. Though the youngest Joneses did not involve themselves in the standoff, their friends brandished their nubs as well, eyeing the older bulls for correctness.
Evelynn did not appear fazed, though the tremble of her voice betrayed her. “My father told me that yours was injured last night while they were hunting. He said they had to take him to the doctor because his injuries were so severe.”
All the posturing broke. Whispers of “The Doctor?” moved through both groups, each losing their members to gossip, conjecture, and fear.
“He’s fine. He’ll be home by dinner tonight and tomorrow we’ll work on tilling the land.” Jorgus cracked his neck.
Evelynn’s lip curled. “I’m sure the Doctor will also finally let the Lunars go home, too, then? I haven’t seen my Mamó in so long. I guess if you say so, it has to be true. But, then again, your family has been saying every harvest will be their biggest yet. Until counting day comes and you show up with barely a cartload.” She grinned, confident in her victory.
Jorgus tilted his head the other way, alone in his threats. “The doctor told me himself that Pa would be back by tonight.”
Miss Shaunessy stepped slowly down the center aisle toward the two little herds of teens. She caught Tristan’s eye and nodded at him to step down. He lowered his shoulders and stepped back a bit, but remained ready in case Jorgus made the wrong decision. He had no idea what he might do, but better that he get hurt than someone else.
Just as Miss Shaunessy crossed into the mudroom, the energy between the herds changed. Evelynn rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Young bulls and their posturing.” She grabbed her things and stormed out the door into the chilly winter air. “Come on, girls!”
Most of the girls shot hateful looks as they grabbed their things quickly to follow Evelynn. The brown-haired girl that did not join the posturing, moved slowly to grab her things and hesitated at the door. Jorgus crossed his arms at her. She squeaked and disappeared through the door.
Jorgus growled and stalked back to his desk. His small herd of friends and brothers stayed in the entrance and moved to begin dressing in their jackets and scarves. Isolde hesitated at her desk, but returned to packing up her things. Miss Shaunessy heaved a small sigh and trotted down the center aisle back to her desk.
It didn’t take long for the herds to drift outside to wait for any stragglers. Only Miss Shaunessy, Jorgus, and Isolde remained in the schoolhouse building. He hoped, despite his own solitude, that Jorgus or Isolde had a group to walk home with. Especially if the monster sightings proved to be true. He hoped that Jorgus’s father recovered and that Evelynn’s gossip proved to be only that. But in the case that Tristan’s hope had no basis in reality, he knew the only tangible thing to do. He knew the only thing he wanted his whole life.
“Uh, hey, Jorgus.” Tristan lifted a large hand to wave awkwardly to the young man.
Jorgus jumped at Tristan’s low timbre and backed away, eyeing him up and down as he jammed a few scraps of paper in his bag. “What do you want, cull bait?”
Tristan’s brow furrowed despite being used to the insult. “I just… uh, wanted t-to tell you that… um, I-I’m sorry about your father. I know how… how difficult it is to-to worry about your f-father and, uh… I guess you’re the-the man of the house while he’s injured. A-and at least you still have your-your mother and your little siblings-“
Jorgus’s mouth lifted in disgust as Tristan rambled, his eyes shrouded under his shaggy hair. “What are you rambling about?” He thrust the last of his items into his satchel.
Tristan lifted a hand to the shaft of his horn to grip it and rub absently, a habit from when they had hurt growing in. “If… If you need any help-“
Jorgus spun on the larger boy. “Help!? From you?” He dropped his satchel on the desk. “I can’t believe you haven’t gotten it through that thick skull of yours that nobody even wants you here.” He scoffed. “We’d want your ‘help’ even less.”
Isolde tightened the leather strap on her stack of books and papers. “Jorgus-“
Jorgus shook his head and turned to her, poking a finger at her face. “No, not even from you. Mayor’s daughter, as if that excludes you from suffering just like the rest of us.” Something imperceptible crossed Isolde’s face. “I heard your father is sick. From that plague. The one from before. That it’s coming back. Despite all that stuff your father or the doctor say.” His jaw tensed for a moment. He looked back to Tristan. “I also heard it’s your fault. You and that foreigner father of yours. Your mother knew about it and cast a spell to protect your land, but nobody else’s. That’s why you’re safe. And we’re not.”
Tristan’s arms quivered. He shouldn’t have said anything. He should’ve just gone home, alone, like he did every night. He closed his eyes and gripped his horn tighter, his other arm lifted to cover his torso. He wanted to disappear.
“And then you have the nerve! You continue living here, coming to this school, as if you have any right!” Jorgus angled his head down to brandish his horns again. “You and your father should be driven out of town!”
A sharp pain on his arm startled Tristan. He inhaled sharply. Blood blossomed on the sleeve over his torso.
“Tristan!” Miss Shaunessy bolted for the scrap fabric Tristan left on his desk.
Jorgus, stunned, raised a hand to touch his horn. It came back red. He shook his head, muttered something, and grabbed his satchel. Isolde hurried around the desks and stumbled as Jorgus pushed past her to run from the building.
“Come here, poor child.” Miss Shaunessy pressed the fabric to Tristan’s arm. “That boy… He may be a handful but ever since his horns grew out the way they did…” She looked to Tristan’s face. “Don’t take it too personally. Like you said, he’s having a rough go of it. It was nice of you to try to connect with him and offer to help out.”
Isolde hovered by the edge of the row. Tristan looked to her, chest empty. He never should’ve tried. He knew what the town thought of him and his father. He knew better. Tears welled in his eyes and he pressed his hand to the cloth. Miss Shaunessy released him with the promise of salves or something, but Tristan had to get out. He had to go home.
He moved back to his desk and found Isolde holding his satchel, all packed and tied and ready. He barely registered the act, how she had moved so fast, and accepted his bag. He dropped the fabric and satchel on the mudroom bench to slip into his woolen clothes. A stray thought reminded him to be careful of the wound bleeding onto his jacket as he only had the one. He growled. All because the town hated him. All because of a stupid rumor.
He grabbed his bag and ripped the door open. A few groups of calves lingered and chatted as they headed back toward the village. Jorgus’s brothers and their herd had waited for him, despite his protestations, and crowded him to point at his bloodied horn.
Tristan’s blood. He stomped down the short stairs. Fury overtook him, strengthening him to speak without a stutter. “All I wanted was to help, Jorgus Jones!”
Jorgus spun around at the voice. Terror pulled at his features at the massive bulk of Tristan charging toward him. He whipped back around and moved swiftly for the path that led back to town.
Tristan growled. He wanted to stop him, to make him understand, to hold him responsible for injuring him. So many emotions threatened to split him open. “Everyone should be allowed to help each other! We’re a community! That’s what it means to be a community!” In his frustration, he looked to the rest of the students that had lingered to gawk.
A loud thud drew everyone’s attention. All eyes turned to Jorgus, groaning on the ground, a large root split through fresh soil at his feet. He writhed a bit and got to his hands and knees. A shrill chuckle came from further up the path. Tristan caught Evelynn through the blur of his tears, hand in front of her mouth, as she laughed at the unfortunate bull on the ground. The rest of her group chuckled, one by one, with varying degrees of mirth. The laughter spread through the rest of the students, including Jorgus’s little herd, even his brothers. He grunted as he stood and bolted down the path, past Evelynn and her friends, horn still pink.
Tristan sniffed and continued to wipe his face, the cold winter air unpleasant on the slight moisture around his eyes. He slipped his satchel over his shoulder and checked the sleeve of his coat. A chill wind whipped past him and his hands hurt. He left his other accessories in the building. He turned around to head back inside and almost bowled over Isolde.
“Oh! Excuse me, Tristan.” She smiled brightly to him, in an uncomfortable way he could not place.
He barely nodded and attempted to move past her.
She gently placed a hand on his arm. He froze, eyes on the contact. He recognized her mitten, knitted by his father some winters ago and sold by the village seamstress Ciara. His brow furrowed. Her other mitten lifted to offer him his forgotten accessories; mittens similar to hers, a long scarf knitted by his father with a less intricate design, and a warm knitted cap that he tied around his horns. He muttered a thank you and dropped his sack on the ground to don the accessories.
She held his items as he donned them individually. “I agree with you, by the way.” He lifted his wet eyes to her. “We should be allowed to help each other, as a community. I think it’s just awful that we are so discriminatory to those that are sick and injured. Or who have been in the past.”
He nodded absently. Paranoia and fear shook his fingers. He looked up to the rest of the students, those that lingered, and found hateful glares. Isolde, the mayor’s daughter, held high regard among the town, high enough that even her father’s illness did not dull her priority among them. To find her speaking to him? He snatched his scarf and easily tossed it over his horns to drape from his shoulders.
Before she could continue, he hurriedly wandered away from her, down the path to the thick row of trees that separated his orchard from the school. He barely heard Isolde sputter after him, the crunch of dead plantlife under her boots with a few steps. He heard the whispers of the other students, however, and quickened his step. He should know better. And so should Isolde.
Tristan attends what he thinks is a typical day at school. He does something atypical and pays the price for it with his blood. A small scratch, but enough to leave a lasting impression.
~5400 words
Trampled paths carved through a thin layer of snow in two opposite directions, converging on an old, small schoolhouse. The wider, well-trodden path of footprints led between a pair of farms to a road that led eventually to the village proper a several miles off. The smaller path consisted of only one set of very large tracks, boot prints of an unusual size, that led to the small stream beside the school and back to the door. Tristan eyed his large tracks as he closed the schoolhouse door and hoped the midday sun might melt the snow enough to obscure them.
The school stood in that spot, by the thinnest part of the river, for a number of years. The most recent coat of paint faded on the building to a dull and muddy green, a project started and enacted after one of the older students tested a new magical mixture shortly before graduating to the capital’s college. The newest addition to the building a replacement window after one of the younger, more rambunctious of the students broke the glass with the tool brought from his father’s smithy.
Tristan backed away from the door and turned slowly, careful not to bump his large horns on the doorframe or any of the other students. The villager children paid him no mind, hanging their heavy woolen coats, hats, and other cold weather gear on the hooks in the mudroom. Stains marred the mudroom benches, the wood slightly bowed from years of harboring rain-slicked coats and melted snow. The floorboards creaked with every shift of weight, every step through the one-room schoolhouse. The whole building smelled faintly of smoke from the small firepit in the center of the main room and the aged wood of the old building.
Several of the girls seemed happy to see each other, giggling and shrieking with glee, leaning to whisper conspiratorially as they headed to their seats. Evelynn lead the group, fussing with her hair as they walked, making sure her ringlets survived the morning. Tristan noted that the group appeared smaller, but the little herd never had the same numbers, its members dependent on Evelynn’s whims.
The younger ones, the calves, moved awkwardly, as calves do, and climbed onto the benches to hang up their hats and scarves. Some preferred to stuff their things into the bins below the benches. After the removal of their hats, one of the calves became surrounded. Tristan just barely made out their young pronunciations of shock and amazement at the nubs protruding from the center one’s scalp. It would be several years for the nubs to turn into anything even resembling horns, but with the arrival of the nubs, that calf become the coolest and most mature among their little herd. He reflected on his brief moment of approval when his nubs arrived at a surprisingly young age. And struggled to forget the subsequent frustration and terror from his peers as the nubs grew larger and longer than normal at an alarming rate.
Tristan frowned and dropped off his gear on his half of the mudroom. Despite moving to the furthest corner of the mudroom, none ever dared cross beyond the door. This left the boys of the class to wait to remove their gear. Ladies first, as the manners say. And the calves have little sense of propriety. Having doffed his gear, Tristan gathered his materials for class, plus an ancient-looking leather journal.
“We didn’t think you’d make it today, Jorgus. Are you okay? What happened to your father?” Tristan’s ear perked up at the voice of one of the other boys.
“Doesn’t really concern you, does it, Seamus.” A thud sounded as Jorgus threw his bag down on the bench under his hook. The adolescent bull had yet to grow properly into his limbs, gangly and long, his shaggy ginger hair left to grow over his eyes.
Tristan turned and watched Seamus, a sturdy young bull with brown hair and a square jaw with the slightest bit of stubble, furrow his brow. “I’d think it concerns all of us! The attacks have been happening more often, yeah? And with all our grandparents-”
Jorgus spun and growled at the older bull. “Seamus, I said drop it.” The tan and white splotched young bull tilted his head pointedly to his little herd of younger brothers.
Four young calves of varying ages and colorings sported red and puffy eyes. The oldest of the group glared between the older bulls and moved into the schoolhouse’s room. The other two sniffled, the older of the pair grabbing the younger by the shoulder to lead him to their desks. The youngest’s shoulders lifted and jerked in the obvious signs of barely contained sobs.
Seamus watched the calves, then shared a look with the other boys in Jorgus’s usual group. “We’ll… catch up on the way home, then?” He did his best to sound optimistic.
Tristan watched the boys offer support and turn away one by one. The youngest, probably one of Jorgus’s brother’s friends, lingered, fussing with his pale splotchy fingers. Jorgus tilted his head down, the only indication on his shrouded face that he noticed the calf, and waited. A light thwack from another broke the calf’s resolve and he scurried through the room to his desk near the front. Jorgus started to turn back to removing his winter gear and caught Tristan’s prying eye. He sneered and tilted his horns at him. Tristan started and jerked back to his own preparations.
Part of him wished he could walk home with those boys, to make a group of friends and… do whatever friends do together. He wished he could talk about the orchard with them, about the plants along the path, about their crops, and the state of their land. He wanted to make friends his own age. But he knew how he looked, how they all looked more like his children than friends. Not just because of his incredible size, because as the older Lunars told him, those that heard the voices from beyond, he had aged far too quickly, gaining a few years in a few months as a babe. Blessed by the Spirits, they called it. He called it a curse.
He took the last bench at the table in the back left of the small open schoolhouse. This area in the back typically held the eldest students, the ones closer to the front reserved for the younger calves, or most in danger academically. He held the bench in the back for years simply due to his size, too large to sit anywhere else in the room. He might block the view of the other students was the official reason, but mostly he took up a desk and a half on a good day. He tried not to think of the bad days.
Unbidden, he remembered vividly the pain in his chest the day the girl he typically sat next to, perhaps eight at the time, had complained before class that he had crushed her hand when attempting to use his ink and bone splinter pen. He barely remembered swinging his arm out far enough to even touch her. The teacher had simply calmed the girl down and offered him the bench in the back. As he moved, he watched the girl’s best friend eagerly move up to take his seat with no objections from the teacher. He sat in the middle of the bench and spread out comfortably over the two-desk wide table. He felt his size for the first time and tears stung at his eyes. He looked up as Miss Shaunessy moved to the blackboard and continued with class, though not without offering an apologetic smile. That remained his table for the following seven years.
He enjoyed the space the longer table provided, a protoype desk for the others that had survived the years. In the early days of the schoolhouse, students normally shared one large desk, the top able to lift to reveal a compartment below. It eventually became deemed impractical, forcing the village’s carpenter to redesign the furniture for single use. Tristan preferred the width, able to hide plenty of things in his desk that the others had to keep in the mudroom, under their desks, or in the river’s banks.
The aging Taurus woman, the pale splotches covering more of her dark skin every year, walked down the center aisle of the classroom. Wrinkles threatened at the corners of her eyes, a few locks of silvery hair escaped from the hair buns under each horn. She assessed the youngest calves first and shot harsh glances to the group of gossiping girls as she walked by. She nodded a warm and silent “Good morning” to Tristan and turned back. At the head of the room once again, she smiled to the class and listed off her plans for lessons that day. Calves first, as their attention span dwindled as it grew toward lunch, then the higher education lessons for the older children.
“This morning will be the next chapter of history for the calves. After that, a bit of arithmetic as a class. After lunch, we will be going over the essays I assigned you last week, then we will work on our spells and rituals together before the end of the day.” Miss Shaunessy’s face pulled together slightly. “Please, please look over the essays of your friends and neighbors. Some of you are very good with prose and could stand to share your skills with others.”
No names, but she stared very pointedly at a few of the students on the other side of the room. A warm smile found Tristan, then an encouraging nod, all as she swung her attention back to the calves.
“All righty, little ones. Who can tell me what we went over yesterday?” A bright and happy smile took her face, her whole aura changing to matronly and polite.
As a calf, Tristan coveted her to act as his mother at home. When he brought the suggestion to his father, the bull fell into a melancholy. He remembered the oppressive silence that filled their small house for days afterwards, hating every tense and silent second. When his father finally broke the silence, he promised to tell Tristan more of his mother and encouraged him to seek out the journals and diaries she kept around the house. At his young age, Tristan did not understand all the words in the books he found. It became a nightly ritual to read the books together before bed, at least until he could read them on his own.
“We talked about the Bindings, Miss Shaunessy.” Aishling, Evelynn’s youngest sister and lookalike, waved a hand in the air.
“Very good Aishling!” Miss Shaunessy clapped and started to pace as she lectured. “A very brief recap: The Bindings are what led to our ancestors, the Unbound, starting to evolve and change into what we are today. The result of these changes came in the form of the separation of what we now call Constellations. All of us here are called Taurus. But there are eleven others. Can anyone tell me what the other eleven are?”
For the first few years, Tristan eagerly engaged in the lectures about history and the Constellations and whatever else the teacher taught. But as the years moved on, he grew tired of the same information. And then banished to the back of the room. After that, his interests became focused on a different kind of history.
As the drone of teacher and student buzzed into the back of Tristan’s ears, his mind drifted to the work left in the orchard. Wasps had moved into a section of the trees that he would need to discourage from the area. An increasingly common occurrence, but nothing difficult. Fruits and flowers had been scattered under a few trees, easy enough to clean up and add to the compost bin or salvage for his jams and jellies. He still had several jars to fill. It might behoove him to check if any of the fruits and nuts could stand to be harvested. With the shorter days of the season, he pondered how much light he would have to work with.
Old leather straps creaked under the strain of turning pages after so many years, the thin leather binding on the outside flopped open with a soft slap on the table. Tristan glanced up to find a few of the older students near him turn at the noise as they quietly “discussed” their papers. Their curiosity sated, they returned to their work. He focused his attention on the journal and the detailed diagrams with disproportionately scribbled but familiar handwriting.
The almanacs that littered his family’s home formed the physical connection between his father’s memories and his mother. Each one held notes in the margins, ink splotches, paints that bled through to the parchment beneath, and the same handwriting throughout. Their sister journals contained a language so old not even Miss Shaunessy recognized it, though his father understood a few phrases. His father always dodged questions on how he knew those phrases and Tristan learned to limit his curiosity to what remained in the text.
Thumbing absently through the pages, scanning the detailed diagrams as they passed, he paused on a page and studied the flora depicted. It had to be the flower that appeared at the edge of the grove a few days ago. He tugged a sheet of parchment out of his bundle and dipped his bone into the ink well on his desk to scribble the page number down.
At midday, Valerie, the village’s Postwatch, visited. Not a rare sight, as she seemed to be best friends with Miss Shaunessy, but the pair engaged in a bit of whispers. Miss Shaunessy’s normally warm and grounded cadence shook slightly as she encouraged the students to take lunch outside, the sun shining brightly for long enough to raise the temperature a few degrees. The class cheered and headed eagerly to the door. Tristan hesitated in the mudroom as the others filed out with their bundles and their herds. When no chuckles or insults found their way to him, he peeked outside and found the ground glistening with melted snow. He heaved a small sigh of relief, forced into a sharp exhale as Jorgus elbowed him out of the way. Tristan straightened up to allow the boy and his friends passage.
On his way to his things, Tristan caught sight of the Mayor’s daughter, Isolde, watching him from the other side of the mudroom. He furrowed his brow to her, a simple unspoken question. She stiffened, blushed, and turned back to her things to hastily throw her scarf over her head. It caught in her little female horns, the movement too fast or the girl still not used to her horns’ length. The flush moved to her ears as she untangled the knitted muffler to drape around her neck. He chuckled quietly, despite himself, as she hurried outside with her wrapped bundle of food. Tristan returned to his desk to eat his salad in peaceful loneliness.
The calves normally spent the afternoon free to play outside as the older students took their lessons, but Miss Shaunessy provided them with some harder math problems to focus on, a topic to discuss amongst themselves, and permission to borrow a few of the easier books from the bookshelf in the closet. She had to approve it, of course, but they all had to remain inside. While the calves groaned, the older students shrugged it off easily enough, distracted by their own lessons.
Dismissal marked an explosion of relief among the students as they darted from their desks and gathered their things. Today, however, the girls from that morning gathered together to whisper again, pointing to Jorgus occasionally. Tristan slowly gathered his books and papers and lifted his inkwell to stopper it.
“I told you to drop it!” Jorgus’s voice filled the small building, startling and quieting the girls for a moment.
Seamus and the herd of boys, all friends of the Jones brothers, shrunk away from their friend’s outburst. Tristan looked down to his desk, dotted with splatter from his inkwell, made by his jump at Jorgus’s shout, and pressed the stopper in. A bin under the bench in the mudroom held the spare cloths to clean spills with. He lifted his eyes back to the scene as the girls’ whispers grew again. Jorgus unceremoniously scooped up his things before Miss Shaunessy could approach him.
Seamus and the herd followed Jorgus and his brothers to the mudroom. Tristan rounded the wall that separated his desk from the mudroom and crouched down to seek the box of throwaway cloth under the bench.
“Oh, and students! Please do not forget to travel in a herd as you head directly home.” A few of the students groaned. “I’m just telling you what I’ve been told, sweetings. They also emphasized not being out after dark. Winter has shorter periods of sun, which means you will have less time to dally. And there is always safety in numbers.” Miss Shaunessy sauntered the length of the classroom as she spoke to fix Jorgus with a particularly intense gaze. He sneered. She turned around and caught sight of Tristan. “Oh, Tristan, I noticed you weren’t paying very close attention during lectures today. Did you need help with anything I covered?”
Heat found Tristan’s cheeks. Miss Shaunessy noticed far more than he gave her credit for. He rarely gave her anything to pay attention to, after all. He shook his head in answer and grabbed a cloth stained with spots of paint and ink from the scrap bin. He brandished the cloth at her with a hopefully gentle smile by way of explanation.
As he stretched to his full height, she leaned back slightly to keep her eyes on his, but she did not show any fear. She merely smiled back and patted his arm. She shifted out of his way and walked with him the few steps back to his desk. A small gasp drew his attention. “You don’t have anyone to head home with, do you, dear?”
He shook his head absently as he cleaned off his desk. A silly question.
A soft yet wrinkled hand lifted to tap her fingers against her chin. “You do live alone on the other side of those woods…” She paused, her eyes darting through her thoughts before focusing on him again. “Would you like me to go ask for an escort for you from town?”
His expression darkened immediately with all the heavy and unhealthy thoughts his father attempted desperately to cleanse him of. She pulled back slightly, eyes wide, and he tempered his reaction to a gentle shake of his head.
An uneasy smile crossed her face. “No, I suppose you’re big enough to handle most things on your own. But you’re still just a boy, despite outward appearances. I just want to make sure you’re taken care of, is all.”
His breath hitched.
“You mean someone was attacked last night!?” A brown-haired girl with the smallest horns in the group lifted her fist to her chin, brow knit with concern.
Evelynn, the ringleader of the girls and owner of the largest horns, nodded as she made her way to the mudroom. “Isn’t it just awful? And the attacks are getting more frequent. That’s why they want us to walk in herds now.” She gestured to a pair of girls, both younger, as they scrambled for their things. “You heard that right, calves?”
The two girls, Flora and Aishling, chorused a “Yes, sissy!” and proceeded to haphazardly don their layers of clothing. The youngest children moved quickly, faster than their teenage counterparts, thanks to the small growths on their heads not yet formed into horns. Evelynn rolled her eyes and continued on to her hook to don her own set of weather gear. Miss Shaunessy smiled absently at the children and patted Tristan on the arm before wandering back toward her desk.
“But my father told me it was-“ Evelynn glanced at the group of boys across the mudroom and whispered loud enough for them to hear. “-Branach Jones that was attacked last night.” The girls shared a gasp with varying reactions of surprise. “Jorgus’s father-”
“You keep my family’s name out of your dirty mouth, Evelynn!” Jorgus burst through his group of friends, finger pointed sharply at the pale, splotchy ringleader of the gossipers.
Miss Shaunessy stopped in the middle of the building by the firepit. She shared a look with Isolde still at her desk as she turned to the commotion. Tristan dropped the rag on his desk and moved into the mudroom. He had no intention of intervening, but his size intimidated most folk, forcing cool heads to arguments.
Evelynn swatted his hand away as she crossed her arms, big brown eyes glaring daggers into him. Her friends and sisters fanned out around her to cross their arms at Jorgus, though not all of them had their heart in it. One girl stayed behind, the brown-haired one, and glanced at Tristan.
Jorgus narrowed his dark eyes at Evelynn, his head tilted to brandish his longer and sharper horns at the girls. His friends, too surprised at his actions, hesitated before stepping in beside their friend to brandish their horns, smaller than Jorgus’s but still as harmful if used properly. Though the youngest Joneses did not involve themselves in the standoff, their friends brandished their nubs as well, eyeing the older bulls for correctness.
Evelynn did not appear fazed, though the tremble of her voice betrayed her. “My father told me that yours was injured last night while they were hunting. He said they had to take him to the doctor because his injuries were so severe.”
All the posturing broke. Whispers of “The Doctor?” moved through both groups, each losing their members to gossip, conjecture, and fear.
“He’s fine. He’ll be home by dinner tonight and tomorrow we’ll work on tilling the land.” Jorgus cracked his neck.
Evelynn’s lip curled. “I’m sure the Doctor will also finally let the Lunars go home, too? I haven’t seen my Mamó in so long. But I guess if you say so, it has to be true. But, then again, your family has been saying every harvest will be their biggest yet. Until counting day comes and you show up with barely a cartload.” She grinned, confident in her victory.
Jorgus tilted his head the other way, alone in his threats. “The doctor told me himself that Pa would be back by tonight.”
Miss Shaunessy stepped slowly down the center aisle toward the two little herds of teens. She caught Tristan’s eye and nodded at him to step down. He lowered his shoulders and stepped back a bit, but remained ready in case Jorgus made the wrong decision.
Just as Miss Shaunessy entered the mudroom, the energy between the herds changed. Evelynn rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Young bulls and their posturing.” She grabbed her things and stormed out the door into the chilly winter air. “Come on, girls!”
Most of the girls shot hateful looks as they grabbed their things quickly to follow Evelynn. Maeve, the brown-haired one, moved slowly to grab her things and hesitated at the door. Jorgus relaxed slightly and straightened his head to glare at her. Maeve squeaked and disappeared through the door.
Jorgus growled and stalked back to his desk. His small herd of friends and brothers stayed in the entrance and moved to begin dressing in their jackets and scarves. Isolde hesitated, but returned to packing up her things. Miss Shaunessy heaved a small sigh and trotted down the center aisle back to her desk.
Tristan furrowed his brow. Only Miss Shaunessy, Jorgus, and Isolde remained in the schoolhouse building. He hoped, despite his own solitude, that Jorgus or Isolde had a group to walk home with. Especially if the monster sightings proved to be true. He hoped that Jorgus’s father recovered and that Evelynn’s gossip proved to be only that. But in the case that Tristan’s hope had no basis in reality, he knew the only tangible thing to do. He knew the only thing he wanted his whole life.
“Uh, hey, Jorgus.” Tristan lifted a large hand to wave awkwardly to the young man.
Jorgus jumped at Tristan’s low timbre and backed away, eyeing him up and down as he jammed a few scraps of paper in his bag. “What do you want, cull bait?”
Tristan’s brow furrowed despite being used to the insult. “I just… uh, wanted t-to tell you that… um, I-I’m sorry about your father. I know how… how difficult it is to-to worry about your f-father and, uh… I guess you’re the-the man of the house while he’s injured. A-and at least you still have your-your mother and your little siblings-“
Jorgus’s mouth lifted in disgust as Tristan rambled, his cheeks lifted to squeeze his eyes into narrow slits, his brow furrowed. “What are you rambling about?” He thrust the last of his items into his satchel.
Tristan lifted a hand to the shaft of his horn to grip it and rub absently, a habit from when they had hurt growing in. “If… If you need any help-“
Jorgus spun on the larger boy. “Help!? From you?” He dropped his satchel on the desk. “I can’t believe you haven’t gotten it through that thick skull of yours that nobody even wants you here.” He scoffed. “We’d want your ‘help’ even less.”
Isolde tightened the leather strap on her stack of books and papers. “Jorgus-“
Jorgus shook his head and turned to her, poking a finger at her face. “No, not even from you. Mayor’s daughter, as if that excludes you from suffering just like the rest of us.” Something imperceptible crossed Isolde’s face. “I heard your father is sick. From that plague. The one from before. That it’s coming back.” He looked back to Tristan. “I also heard it’s your fault. You and that foreigner father of yours. Your mother knew about it and cast a spell to protect your land, but nobody else’s. That’s why you’re safe. And we’re not.”
Tristan’s arms quivered. He shouldn’t have said anything. He should’ve just gone home, alone, like he did every night. He closed his eyes and gripped his horn tighter, his other arm lifted to cover his torso. He should disappear.
“And then you have the nerve! You continue living here, coming to this school, as if you have any right!” Jorgus tilted his head down to brandish his horns again. “You and your father should be driven out of town!”
A sharp pain on his arm startled Tristan. Blood blossomed on the sleeve over his torso.
“Tristan!” Miss Shaunessy bolted for the scrap fabric Tristan left on his desk.
Jorgus, stunned, raised a hand to touch his horn. It came back red. He shook his head, he muttered something, and grabbed his satchel. Isolde hurried around the desks and stumbled as Jorgus pushed past her to run from the building.
“Come here, poor child.” Miss Shaunessy pressed the fabric to Tristan’s arm. “That boy… He may be a handful but ever since his horns grew out the way they did…” She looked to Tristan’s face. “Don’t take it too personally. Like you said, he’s having a rough go of it. It was nice of you to try to connect with him and offer to help out.”
Isolde hovered by the edge of the row. Tristan looked to her, chest empty. He never should’ve tried. He knew what the town thought of him and his father. He knew better. Tears welled in his eyes and he pressed his hand to the cloth. Miss Shaunessy released him with the promise of salves or something, but Tristan had to get out. He had to go home.
He moved back to his desk and found Isolde holding his satchel, all packed and tied and ready. He barely registered the act, how she had moved so fast, and accepted his bag. He dropped the fabric and satchel to slip into his weather gear. A stray thought reminded him to be careful of the wound bleeding onto his jacket as he only had the one. He growled. All because the town hated him. All because of a stupid rumor.
He grabbed his bag and ripped the door open. A few groups of kids lingered and chatted as they headed back toward the village. Jorgus’s brothers and their herd had waited for him, despite his protestations, and crowded him to point at his bloodied horn.
Tristan’s blood. He stomped down the short stairs. “All I wanted was to help, Jorgus Jones!”
Jorgus spun around at the voice. Terror pulled at his features at the massive bulk of Tristan charging toward him. He whipped back around and moved swiftly for the path that led back to town.
Tristan growled. He wanted to stop him, to make him understand, to hold him responsible for injuring him. So many emotions threatened to split him open. “Everyone should be allowed to help each other! We’re a community! That’s what it means to be a community!” In his frustration, he looked to the rest of the students that have lingered to gawk.
A loud thud drew everyone’s attention. All eyes turned to Jorgus, groaning on the ground, a large root split through the soil at his feet. He writhed a bit and got to his hands and knees. A shrill chuckle came from further up the path. Tristan caught Evelynn through the blur of his tears, hand in front of her mouth, as she laughed at the unfortunate bull. The rest of her group chuckled, one by one, with varying degrees of mirth. The laughter spread through the rest of the students, including Jorgus’s little herd, even his brothers. He grunted as he stood and bolted down the path, past Evelynn and her friends.
Tristan sniffed and continued to wipe his face, the cold winter air unpleasant on the slight moisture around his eyes. He slipped his satchel over his shoulder and checked the sleeve of his coat. A chill wind whipped past him and his hands hurt. He left his other accessories in the building. He turned around to head back inside and almost bowled over Isolde.
“Oh! Excuse me, Tristan.” She smiled brightly to him, in an uncomfortable way he could not place.
He barely nodded and attempted to move past her.
She gently placed a hand on his arm. He froze, eyes on the contact. He recognized her mitten, knitted by his father some winters ago and sold by the village seamstress Ciara. His brow furrowed. Her other mitten lifted to offer him his forgotten accessories; mittens similar to hers, a long scarf knitted by his father with a less intricate design, and a warm knitted cap that he tied around his horns. He muttered a thank you and dropped his sack on the ground to don the accessories.
She held his items as he donned them individually. “I agree with you, by the way.” He lifted his wet eyes to her. “We should be allowed to help each other, as a community. I think it’s just awful that we are so discriminatory to those that are sick and injured. Or who have been in the past.”
He nodded absently. Paranoia and fear shook his fingers. He looked up to the rest of the students, those that lingered, and found hateful glares. Isolde, the mayor’s daughter, held high regard among the town, high enough that even her father’s illness did not dull her priority among them. To find her speaking to him? He snatched his scarf and easily tossed it over his horns to drape from his shoulders.
Before she could continue, he hurriedly wandered away from her, down the path to the thick row of trees that separated his orchard from the school. He barely heard Isolde sputter after him, the crunch of dead plantlife under her boots with a few steps. He heard the whispers of the other students, however, and quickened his step. He should know better. And so should Isolde.
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.
- Competitive? Me?
- It wasn’t us! Promise!
- Spoiled for Choice
- Still Much to See
- Believe in Yourself
- Go Home, You’re Drunk
- What Kind Fellows
- Cooking Lessons
- Is It a Little Spicy in Here?
- You Know What They Say About Cats
- Negotiations Running Smoothly?
- Just A Walk in the Garden - Trigger Warning
- Honesty
- Bragging Rights
- That Time of Year
- It’s Not a Lie
- Melancholia
- The Calling
- Memento
- Routine Inspection
- Boys, Stop Fighting!
- Discovery
- Siege
- Not By Choice
- Interrupted Bedtime
- Just For a Little Bit
- Cold Storage and Warm Cider
- Secrecy
- Escape
- Don’t Panic
- Memorial Service
Spent several hours lost in the Sims 4 sauce making a manse for the Scorpio Ambassador. I decided there would also be a guest house on the property but I had spent enough hours making it and didn’t want to make a secondary house today. I’m pretty proud of what I got though.
One of the sections in Scrivener is for characters. In the Characters section, there’s a place where you can put a picture. I don’t really have any final designs for a lot of people, but I do have some Picrew people, but I wasn’t really satisfied with the ones I had so I went to look up new ones. So uh.
Here’s Tristan Earthchilde:
The Protagonist boy. He’s meant to look older than he is with huge horns and green eyes. He’s only like 15 or so but he’s meant to look in his 20s. This is for story reasons. But, you know, Picrew.
He loves the orchard his mother left him with all the different and numerous trees and fruits they produce. He loves to make jams, jellies, butters, and preserves with the fruits and nuts. He isn’t fond of meat, but he will still eat it. He’s a nice boy that got bullied at school and didn’t take it well and decided to shut down and rarely interact with people outside of his father.
Tristan’s father Eli Earthchilde:
Eli is Tristan’s blind father. His horns are incredibly short for a Taurus (Picrew). He doesn’t have the same spots and design as the rest of the village. His magic isn’t exactly the same. He’s a kind, warmhearted, good-humored man with infinite patience for the villagers that treat him as an outcast. Despite his blindness, he is able to craft long-lasting woolen things for the cold clime of the village, mittens and gloves and blankets and scarves, among others. Despite the prevailing opinion of the villagers, almost everyone uses his knitwear during the winter.
The Mayor’s Daughter, Isolde Cennaire:
Isolde is the Mayor’s daughter. She used to be fairly popular, but has been spending time alone for a while. She seems seems bubbly and charming most of the time, working hard to earn her spot as the future Mayor. Her initial interest in Tristan revolves around this desire to be the best Mayor she can by starting early in bringing her community together. She does this by organizing a charity event for the Jones family, recently fallen on hard times.
Jorgus Jones:
Eldest of 5 siblings, he has to take on the sudden responsibility of Man of the House when his father is attacked and injured by some mysterious creature on a nighttime hunt. He never should’ve been out there anyway, the Jones family is farmers. But their land has problems and the family is only getting bigger. He presents as violent and short-tempered, but he’s as hardworking and reliable as they come. (His horns aren’t really that big, but they’re pretty big. But I had like 2 options for horns. Picrew and all.)
Tristan’s Dirty Secret, the Foreigner, Alden:
A stranger found in a burrow on the edge Tristan’s orchard, this man attacked him at first. Terrified that he had murdered someone, Tristan tied him and his tail to a support beam in the cellar. With a bit of care and attention, this red menace gradually shifted from feral beast to annoying roommate. He spoke a different language at first, but as the Taurus attempted to bridge the gap by learning it, he surprised them by knowing theirs. With a line of communication open, he revealed himself to be a thoughtful and protective Scorpio. (He has a scorpion tail, but, ya know, Picrew. He’s my banner though, and you can see the outline of his tail there.)
There’s a bunch of other characters, like the teacher Miss Shaunessy or Evelynn, the bitchy rich girl whose family owns the largest farm in the village. There’s also Jorgus’s 4 brothers and 1 infant sister. I made some new one-off characters for the big city they go to, which includes a Miriam Margolyes Taurus lady who owns a shop that sells the horn tip covers (mallows) and has bad cataracts. And a little Sun* Gemini bartender man. But they don’t need Picrews. I mean, not really.
So uh. For your consideration.
