Archive | August 2011

30 Days Second Semester: 7, Colder Weather, Stranded/Autumn

Aug1

For the 30 Days Meme Second Semester, for the prompt “7) prompt: frigid.”

Stranded World, Autumn. Landing page here and on LJ
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He said I wanna see you again
But I’m stuck in colder weather
Maybe tomorrow will be better
Can I call you then…

Autumn did not like cold weather, a contradiction to her name that some mistakenly found ironic (she’d given up explaining that she and her seasonal sib’s names were meant to be part of a complex allegory; it never helped). She planned her circuit of fests, fairs, and shows in a roving loop that left her in the North in the hottest parts of summer, and brought her to the South for winter. She spent the few really cold times staying with friends; her van had plenty of insulation, but it was still a van-RV, not really a cold-weather vehicle.

Sometimes the weather foiled her. Some nights, even in summer, or December in Texas, the weather dipped from cold to frigid, from extra-blanket to all-the blankets, and she found herself huddled for comfort in three layers of clothes, shivering and unable to sleep. Some nights like that, she found an all-night diner, and drew free sketches for the waitresses until the dawn came. Tonight, she huddled around a pile of letters and a cell phone, and tried to stay warm on memories and the sound of his voice.

“I want to see you again,” she murmured. Even calling was against their tradition; the request was out of bounds. But he (she hoped) understood. “I’m stuck in this snowstorm…”

“Soon, my beautiful tree,” he murmured back at her, his cadences made less lovely by the telephone, by the lack of body language or pen-flourish. “It will only be another month until our paths cross. And you’ll have a letter waiting for you in Arizona.”

Arizona, right now, seemed like a myth, a lie, a fairy tale a thousand miles away. She stared at the phone, knowing why they didn’t call. “I’ll look forward to it,” she said, feeling as if her voice was as cold as the air.

“I’ll see you in California,” he reminded her. “It’ll be warm there.”

The List:
1a) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
1b) the story starts with the words “It’s going down.” (LJ Link)
2) write a scene that takes place in a train station.
3) the story must involve a goblet and a set of three [somethings]
4) prompt: one for the road
5) write a story using an imaginary color
6) write the pitch for a new Final Fantasy styled RPG (LJ Link)
7) prompt: frigid.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/94402.html. You can comment here or there.

Deal, a further-further-further-further-further-etc-continuation

Aug1
A continuation of the Blizzard story, of which the beginning can be found here.
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Sandy gulped, and stared down at the… well, at the gnome, she supposed. “No,” she admitted. “No, I’ve never seen a gnome before.”

“And you still haven’t,” it cackled gleefully. “I’m a kobold, don’tchaknow. You tourists are all the same. Don’t know anything, expect to have life spoonfed to you, and, when it comes down to it all you want it,” it pitched its voice into a whine, “I wannnnnnna go hooooome.”

“Well,” she admitted, feeling a bit guilty about it now and a bit angry to be feeling guilty, “I do sort of want to go home. But mostly I want to know what’s going on.”

“Didn’t I say that?” the thing, whatever it was, snapped. “Want everything spoonfed to you.”

“And I didn’t say that,” she snapped right back at him. Behind them, the train whistle blew. “Oh, darn it.” She twisted to look at the steam-powered thing. It was lovely in its own way. “It costs one tech. What would a tour guide cost?”

“A tour guide?”

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Note: I forgot about this bit until Ada K. pointed it out so the next bit does not quite flow.  I’ll figure that out at some point.