A Year of Whimsi

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 7: 045 Phobias

Dolle attempted to read the book her teacher had assigned to her as the words blurred together on the page and the steady pounding of the rain on the stone lulled her to sleep.

She looked up to see her teacher asleep in a chair with her feet on the table while Kirsch tried her brother's patience in his lessons on how to read. "I could teach him." She said.

"You need to study." Mald told her.

Dolle glared at her brother and he stared back, there was no disagreeing with him.

A flash of lightning lit up the dim library and a soon to follow bout of thunder brought the sound of breaking waves down upon them. Her teacher woke with a start and looked around quickly as she made her way to her feet with her sword in her hand.

Dolle looked at her teacher as she sheathed the sword and sat back down. Her teacher was strong and brave and skilled enough in both magic and sword to best the best in any competition and it puzzled Dolle how her teacher could be scared of something as simple as a thunderstorm.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 7: 046 Suicide Note

Idell walked slowly through the halls of his parents' castle and took great care not to let the heels of his boots click on the bare stone.

"What is this?" His sister asked from a junction behind him. He spun around to see her with a glare she had learned from his mother and a piece of paper in her hand.

"It is a letter to mother not you." He said as he straightened his back.

"It is a suicide note." His sister said, "you know a war is coming and you plan to run through a dozen kingdoms and into the empire, for what? A girl who has been banished?" His sister had taken on her tone with him, one he normally would have listened to in a heartbeat.

"A mage who can stop it." Idell said before he turned around and walked away, "I am going I will deal with the consequences when I return."

"Make sure you do." His sister yelled after him, "mother will not be pleased if I give this to her."  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 7: 047 Emotional Paranoia

Inside a stone room that would be large for a house but was on the smaller side in the Lethean Castle the queen and her war council gathered around a table covered in maps and food.

"You should eat something." Thath said quietly as he grabbed a piece of bread and one of the ever present apples.

"They are poisoned." Theline said as she ignored the food that he attempted to hand her.

He took a bite of his apple, "You are being paranoid."

"I am being paranoid?" Theline said a little louder than the white haired commander of the guards had expected from his comment. The rest of the room quickly returned their attention to the contents of the table.

"Yes." Thath said as he swallowed his bite of food. "Nothing here is poisoned, if it was we would all be dead. It has been years since someone tried to poison your food." He felt it was best to leave out that it was because it was the least effective way to dispose of her since she had never been one to eat reliably. The fact, he knew, would only give her more reason to skip meals and so that part went unsaid.

Theline stared at him, and glared at him, before she grabbed the apple from his hand.
 

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 7: 048 Missing Puzzle Pieces

A metronomic plink of dripping water on a shallow metal dish marked the passage of the steadily drumming rain while a storm raged on the open ocean.
Taiya stared at the ripples as they reached the edge and turned back in to muddle the clear ridges. She placed her finger on the bowl and froze the water. The rain continued to drip and formed a puddle on the surface, caught within the first ridge.

"The missing pieces." Taiya said as she watched the first partition overflow. "But where do you fit in to this little brother?" She asked the water as she released it from its frozen tableau.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 7: 049 Black Balloon

A table made of slats of wood held together by screws sits in a park as grass grows tall and clouds fly by. One day a child bored with the idle days of an unusually long Autumn walks by the park and sits on the bench.

The child pulls out a pocket knife and carves a hole in the wood, then in a moment of childhood brilliance, adds a little triangle and drags the blade along the wood creating a squiggly line for a string. Clouds are added in to fill in the sky and short scratches decide where the ground stands before the child runs away to a mother calling "dinner time."

The years pass, the wind and rain swells the wood and wears the sharp edges smooth, dirt collects in the grooves and stains the lighter wood black.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 8: 050 Graffiti

An imprint in the sidewalk
made by someone's hand,
initials carved by lovers
remind us where we stand.
The footsteps that we follow,
ephemeral as waves upon the sand,
after shadows pass and sunlight falters,
it remains; our chosen brand.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 8: 051 Empathy

"I know how you feel." Five words she had never spoken, five words she had never heard. She realized how much weight they held, how much she had despised them when uttered by people who had no idea and no clue. How much she had wanted to scream at their lies. How much she had desperately wanted them to be true.

She let them stay unsaid as she sat down, those words if they were true would make themselves known in time.
 

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 8: 053 Strangers January 11, 2013

A silence broken by the clink of metal on glass and the crunch of apples held the attention of and highlighted the deliberate way Dolle refused to look Theline in the eye. Theline moved the food on her plate around and knew the gaurd behind her was watching to see that she ate. Her daughter was a stranger and it was her fault.

Theline took a deep breath and picked up her plate. The clinking and crunching stopped as she walked the length of the table and sat down in the empty seat next to her daughter.

"You should eat something before you give that guard a heart attack." Dolle said after a moment of complete silence.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 8: 053 Pockets

"Have you seen my pocket?" Dolle asked as she stopped with a slide and a skid in the mud.

"Your pocket? How do you loose a pocket?" Trindle asked as Tilli looked up from the map laid out on the table. "How do you loose something attached to your clothes?"

"Her pouch." Tilli said as she reached into the pocket of her coat and pulled out the worn pouch made of a cloth that had once been a light green but had faded to an off-grey color with the help of dirt.

She handed it to Dolle who checked the clasp, quickly opened it, and inspected the contents.

"For all your advancements I do not see why you have not attached your pockets to your clothing so you do not loose them." Trindle said

"What is so important about that one?" Tilli asked as Dolle tied it to her belt. It was not the first time the mage had lost it and frantically searched for it.

Dolle muttered something that went through a few languages before she walked away. Tilli shook her head and placed her hands back inside her pockets for warmth.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 8: 54 Having a Stroke

Kirsch shoved the bottom of his pant legs into the sand coated and mud dyed leather of his boots and decided that he had sat around and behaved long enough.

"Want to have some fun today?" Kirsch asked as he spotted Tilli walking down the hall with Den who had lost the constant company of his twin in favor of a library.

"What type of fun?" Den asked as Kirsch fell in step with them both.

"Nothing that involves freezing to death I hope." Tilli added when Den sneezed from the cold he had come down with after their last adventure.

"Not if we do it right." Kirsch said as he ran a hand through his hair.

"What do we do?" Tilli asked

"Depends, do you want to mess with your brother or the Apple Queen?" Kirsch asked.

"Dolle." Den said, "Fren is liable to accidentally light us on fire with the amount of sleep he has been getting." Tilli snorted and Kirsch nixed the idea of any trouble he would cause for the desert mage.

"Couldn't Dolle do the same thing?" Tilli asked.

"She could." Kirsch said and smiled, "but it would not be proper. And beside that, I will be taking all the, uh, heat."

"So what do we do?" Den asked. Kirsch told them, and after a quick trip to their rooms and a very helpful Tanno for supplies and the kitchen for two dozen apples they set into motion their plans for a very eventful day.

Dinner arrived with most of his plans carried through and the restlessness caused by days of aimless wandering and hours of playing stones had turned into a rekindling of the trouble he had gotten into in the City.

Kirsch strolled into the dining hall just late enough to be noticed with rumpled clothes and a trail made by patches of mud knocked off with each step. He smiled at Dolle in what was the third dress of the day with a matching hat to hide the temporary color change of her hair to a brilliant apple red.

He sat down with every eye on him and made an effort not to lift the legs of the chair and cringe at the sound of wood on stone. A grey coated servant brought in what had become his standard fare, he waved off a second bowl with food of unknown origin.

"You should not be so picky." Dolle chided him in the mountain language of the warring lands, one he had picked up and mostly forgotten. She kept her voice soft and pleasant with a smile on her face, the words were for him alone.

"I would not be so picky if they had food I liked." Kirsch said as he passed over the silverware for his fingers, "I hear you made a fuss over the apples today."

Kirsch let his grin break into a laugh as Dolle let her's fall, "You little moor rat." She yelled as she stood up, displacing the table arrangement in the process.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 8: 55 Promises

The wind blew off the ocean and brought with it the magic that it had gathered in the birthplace of the void, it hit Ri cold and sharp and unrelenting. She sat on the edge of the cliff staring half into the rocky waters below and half in to the past.

She folded in on herself against the pain of the pelting magic and the truth of the void.

"Ri?"

"Go away Fren." Ri said as she shifted and felt the blades slide out of their holders, the ones that she could throw off the edge of the world and they would still make their way back to her.

"I am not going anywhere until you tell me what you saw in there that has been making you act so strange." Fren said when she grabbed the metal weapon and felt the edges slice her hand as she tore it free.

The red blood covered blade landed in the grass as her body went limp and the paper thin cuts healed. Fren grabbed her wrist, his hand encircling it and the empty holder, as she reached for the other blade, "Stop."

She let the effort fade but Fren's grip remained firm, "What was it?"

Ri refused to look him in the eye, she knew the truth and could see herself for what she was even if he could not. She was a monster, only capable of killing, she had always been and always would be. "It is nothing." She said as she wrenched her arm free.

"It is Calif or something to do with her." His words left no room for refusal or redirection.

"It is nothing." Ri said as she stared at the blood covered blade.

Fren picked up the blade and wiped it clean, "You are not a weapon or a monster, you are a human being, and one that I can see so much good in."

She took the blade and slid it back inside its place, "It is just an illusion."

"No it is not."

"You do not know what I have done, have not seen the blood I spilled, who I was."

"It does not matter." Fren said and held up his hand with the pinky finger extended, he smiled and she grabbed his pink with hers and pressed their thumbs together, she grabbed his wrist with her free hand and he did the same.
 

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 8: 056 Medicine

I stare at the bottle of medicine on the counter the sound of my breath loud in my ears, echoing inside my head unable to get out through the layers of mucus and congestion. I cough and through the constant shivers brought on by the cold my body is momentarily still.

I feel like death, no, death would not feel like this, hell could not be worse than this. Nothing could be worse than how I feel. Nothing.

Except, the taste of the medicine.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 9: 057 Social Ladder January 16, 2013

The sound of a flute drifted up to the clouds and the sky as a single wagon plodded along. When a young boy with a large blue hat stopped playing, the music hung in the air and survived on the wind for a few brief seconds.

"What is your name kid?" A red headed woman dressed all in green asked as he hopped off the wagon.

"Noddle Pawnrig." The boy said as he swung the single bundle he had onto his back, "one day it will be on the tongue of every person in the world."

The green garbed woman smiled and laughed as she tossed him a bundle of food, "Sometimes no one knowing your name is better."

"What does that mean?" He asked as the woman made a clicking sound and the wagon began to move. "Wait, what is your name?" he asked when she did not answer his question.

"The one you know is The Green Dragon." She called back as her wagon erupted into green flames before is disappeared and left only a bright spot in his vision.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 9: 058 Four-Leaved Clover January 17, 2013

My fingers ran over the spines of books, moving in and out with the gentle curve of the binding, until they stopped on the gold embossed red of the book I had come for.

My finger traced the letters until with a smile they jumped to the top and slid between the gap of the wood of the shelf and the top of the book, and pulled it free.

I slid my thumb along the closed pages and their rough cut edges that had been smoothed by time and wondered what notes or bits of writing J had left for me this time. I reached the top and found a gap in the solid wall of paper, a gap made by something placed between the pages. I let it fall open to reveal thick paper folded over a carefully arranged and pressed four leaf clover.  

[whimsicaldreamer]

Week 9: 059 Divorce and Separation

I sit in the back seat of the car staring out the window, my mouth shut tight and back straight, I refuse to sway as the car rounds the corner. My sister sits beside me, all smiles and happiness, I can see her move slightly, refusing to move as well. We round the next corner and I throw my weight into the turn and into her in a long over due payback of our favorite car game. The car turns again, this time placing me at the mercy of an opposite turn and feet wedged against the door.

The car comes to a stop and before the engine is turned off we are both out of our seat belts and halfway out of the car. I see a man standing down the road, next to a big red van that I know and I run. Twelve years have passed but a few faded memories from when I was barely old enough to form them tell me exactly who the man is. "Daddy" I say as I reach him and throw my arms around his shoulders, he is not as tall as I remember, and I am far taller than he does, but I am still forced to stand on my toes when he straightens his back.