Deliana rested in the flame. She felt no heat, no cold, only the whisper touch of its silver light flickering around her in infinite changing patterns. Like the maze surrounding her bower, simple in its elegant design.
She no longer
remembered the lure that had drawn her into the maze. Ageless beauty? Untold
wealth? Devoted love? Once she had walked between the white walls, delicate as
sheerest silk, impermeable as strongest stone. Once she had wandered through
the patterns, finding closed ends, retracing her steps. Wearying. Sleeping.
Despairing. Once she had stumbled into the center, fallen before the flame,
rejoiced in victory and freedom.
How had she
remained so long? At waking moments, she remembered the outside world. Did any
search for her? Surely no one braved the maze! She would not demand such a
sacrifice. She would not wish it on another.
Ahh, her eyes
flickered open. She had offered herself as sacrifice. She had entered the maze
in a bargain that she never believed she would win. Each step within the white
walls matched the frantic beat of a dying heart. They reverberated along the
walls like drumbeats, driving her forward. It wasn’t speeding up that terrified
her. It was slowing down. When she reached the center, the beats were so far
apart, she held her breath from one to the next, gasped aloud with each fading
pulse. Threw herself impetuously into the silver flame.
“Take me! Please!
Let her live!”
Rising up, floating in the flame, she heard
the distant beats strengthen, hasten, steady. She smiled and closed her eyes.
The sacrifice was worth it, she thought. She had not asked the price.
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Dogs
in house
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Houdini
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Time
writing:
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20 minutes
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October
word count:
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4,555
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Prompt: Trapped in Porcelain
ReplyDeleteGarderia placed the stiff white rose on the glass table with a faint clink. It was so realistic, she could even imagine she saw faint shadows of veins inside the petals. But that was just a trick of her mind. Even the most artistic casting could not influence the lay of the clay inside the porcelain. Could it?
She lay her forehead beside the rose. The glass chilled her skin. Her bats had brought her the rose, with no further explanation: an unusual level of cooperation from the night-time familiars, and maddeningly so. They had retreated to their roosts above the belfry, fast asleep in the daylight.
If it was not a cast; if it was a real rose... Her mind scurried from the implications, as her heart thumped in ill-advised excitement. Another magic-user in town could bode no good, her intellect reminded her.
She stood and crossed to the window. The wind blew stiffly; clouds raced across the sky. Awnings and pennants flapped silently in the town far below. Birds wheeled in awkward oblongs, struggling the maintain their direction. A tight group of crows careened above the rooftops, a dark mass adding and shedding wildly flapping members. Her crows.
Time writing: ~25 minutes
Hmm, bats and crows and a once-real rose? (I didn't mean to Suess,I swear!) I'd like to hear more about this...
ReplyDelete