The Confabulator Cafe

Tag: Seventh Sanctum

  • The Tower Princess

    Prompt: I survived the war between the kingdoms by hiding in a tower.

     

    I was the last to arrive at my own palace when they returned my father’s body from the kingdom to the north, wrapped in a white shroud.

    Peace. It was a word that held no meaning for me anymore. It was all that the kingdom could talk about, but it didn’t live inside of me anymore.

    They fussed over me on my way down to the throne room. I’d chosen a dress of the darkest emerald, almost black but with the barest hint of life beneath. It was an unlucky color for a wedding. It was the wrong color for mourning. It was the right color for me, today.

    My father’s throne room. My mother’s throne room when he went to the border forts to fight. By rights, it should be my throne room but the crown prince from the north sat on the throne as I entered. My betrothed. I would be permitted to take the chair beside him once our two kingdoms were bound in holy matrimony, where I would be decorative rather than effective. A pact made long before the war started. A white silk cord wrapped around my wrist heavy with charms the prince had sent before the war. Childhood things. Old things worn smooth by my fingers over the years.

    As the queen, I had the right to revoke that betrothal. (more…)

  • Wayward Witch

    I gently placed my hands upon the young man’s broken body, listening to his gurgles and knowing he was well beyond my abilities. Still, I had to try. I delved inside with my power and saw his heartbeat fading, the breath growing short and the light fading from within. Someone in the crowd started sobbing as I pulled my hands back. There was nothing I could do. No one could stop death, not even the strange woman from the hill.

    A couple of soldiers escorted me from the tent as they laid a cloth over the young captain. Leila stood outside, waiting to defend me should they decide his death lay at my feet and not the enemy’s. Her services were not needed as the widow shrieked curses towards the sky instead.

    “The cost of this war is growing far too high.”

    “The cost of any war is too high. Sadly, it is one that many are apparently willing to pay.”

    “They shouldn’t be. Over a hundred dead just this day, and that number would be higher if you hadn’t been here to help the others.”

    I didn’t know how to respond to that. Ever since I was little, people had come to me for healing. My mother had been afraid that my talents would invite misfortune, but as my gifts had never brought harm, all accepted me warmly. I had learned quickly that not every wound could be healed and even though my talent grew as I did, I would never be able to stop the inevitable. To try would be madness.

    “Death comes to us all eventually. Sickness, accidents, the passage of time. It does not matter. Everyone must step through that door eventually. Some just meet that fate trying to shove others through it.”

    Leila stopped, grabbing my arm. “How can you say that! Are you so cold you do not mourn the great loss of these young lives?”

    “Of course I mourn them! Leila, I have seen death far too much in my life already. It hurts to see so many go to it, but I know that nothing I can do could stop it. What would you have me do? I am not a warlord. I am not a Queen. I have no authority save that given to me by those seeking my help. My powers are limited. Finite. I am a healer, not a goddess. You yourself have explained that to others several times.”

    “I know that, but there must be something.”

    “There is. Beg the gods for peace and do your best to help in any way you can. It is what I do.”

    *** (more…)

  • Nicholas Does Science

    Nicholas and his fascinating obsession with science.

     

    Their home wasn’t enormous, but it was more spacious than average to afford extra room for books and research. It was also located near the center of the underground town and had belonged to Storykeeper families for generations. “Nicholas, where are you?” Eidald called as he searched the house room by room for his adopted son.

    “You know that boy is probably in your study. I think he may love those books more than your father ever did.” Zofiya looked up from the pile of chia seeds that Nessa, their daughter, and she were harvesting.

    “I suppose I should have thought of that first.”

    “Yes, you should have,” Zofiya’s words were brining with hostility as they had been for the past ten harvests. Just when Eidald thought her ire was lessening it would flare back to life. “When you find him, tell him to come help separate the seeds.”

    “Actually, I had something I wanted to show him.”

    “But not Nessa?” Zofiya’s words were laced with daggers. Nessa hunched lower as if she could escape remove herself from the middle of her warring parents.

    “If she wants to come along, she can join us,” Eidald answered slowly, knowing that he was surrounded by a minefield of wrong answers.

    Nessa looked back and forth between them before finally whispering, “Uh, okay.” She brushed her hands off and hurried to Eidald’s side.

    “We’ll be back in time for the dimming meal.”

    “You probably shouldn’t have said that,” Nessa whispered on their way to the study. (more…)

  • Wednesday’s Child

    Prompt: It was Wednesday, the day of kindness.

    The sun dipped low on the horizon and with its descent, Savina could feel the tension settling into her shoulders. In the reddening sky, the smiles on everyone she passed felt sinister. A reminder that the truce of today would not continue through the night. She resisted the urge to clutch her knapsack to her body. She forced herself to keep walking with her head held high.

    Once she left the crowded market, her steps quickened. She had to make it to her hideout before the night settled around her. The path through the woods was treacherous in the dark, full of roots that came alive in the night to snag ankles and cracks that opened in the ground to swallow feet. She could not afford to have an injury when the sun rose.

    In the morning the villagers turned into a band of pitchfork-brandishing and torch carrying monsters.

    The day of kindness. What a misnomer.

    It was the day that the villagers let the outcasts come into town.

    They fed them.

    They bathed them.

    They cared for their injuries.

    If they were sick, they gave them medicine.

    After all, where was the fun in hunting prey that was too weak to put up a fight? (more…)

  • Erowid, BME, & Little Details

    I like writing about addicts. I don’t know why. I suffer no addictions myself. No addiction more serious than cigarettes has touched my family. But there’s something fascinating about a character whose motivations stem from something dark and hard within them.

    Herein lies the problem: write what you know utterly fails me here. I lived with a friend who smoked pot when I graduated high school1; I have a handful of relatives and friends who roll that way as well, or used to. That’s it. Beyond my skin-deep understanding of the lifestyle of mid-twenties recreational pot smokers, I need research. For that, I have Erowid.

    I have a love/hate relationship with Erowid. The layout is ridiculous; it’s like someone designed it in 2001 and hasn’t looked back. But you know what? The information is great, and there is a lot of it. Psychotropic plants and legality and chemistry? Seriously, if you’re going to write about a drug, check it out.

    Body Modification Ezine (BME) is another interesting resource for writing about characters — and it feels significantly more modern! They’ve got a pretty solid wiki and there are lots and lots of photos and thousands of personal stories. I feel like it’d be a solid resource for character concepts., if you were writing about someone with heavy modifications or wanted to see inside the head of someone who does.

    My other favorite? Little Details on LiveJournal, which has the ever-so-awesome tag line “A Fact-Checking Community for Writers.” It’s not supposed to replace the basic Google/Wikipedia search, but rather to augment it with personal experience. Like, first the page (as of this writing) has posts about what to call a collection of dragons, help translating phrases into Chinese, how two semi-nolbes would refer to a Pharaoh in conversation, and my favorite post — wherein the author was convinced not to write the story in question: “Would mandatory gayness shrink Earth’s population?”

    To go a little more mundane, I couldn’t name characters without Seventh Sanctum. It’s got a generator for pretty much everything — there are fourteen different categories of generators, and sub-generators beyond that. If you just need a placeholder or if anything will do, it’s the place to go.

    1. And, you know, once in a while I helped. I’m not ashamed of it.