After dinner, when the adults were sitting by the fire, his grandfather with his feet up and his mother with Cala in her lap, Cy slipped out into the alley behind the house.  His father’s saber gleamed in his hand, the only thing that seemed to make sense any more.  He raised in front of him, and started the first of the sword drills his father had taught him.

His aching back started to loosen.  Cy wasn’t sure he’d had a single good day in the last ten months, but today had been worse than most.  He had tripped and put his hand through a piece of silk still on the loom, and his grandfather, normally restrained about Cy’s shortcomings as a weaver, had blown up.  His mother had said she could salvage it.  Cy knew better than to believe her.  His clumsiness had cost them probably two weeks’ work in materials.

He was probably the world’s worst weaver.  He was the only one of them beside his mother who was big enough to work the loom, but the work he did made his grandfather raise his eyebrows and shuffle it into the back cabinet.  They were accumulating a disturbing number of second-best sheets and rug rags.  Even his spinning was a total loss.  Brevar was better at it than he was, and Brev was only seven.  Cala would probably be better at it as soon as she started walking.

He heard the door open, and a square of light fell at his feet.  He ignored it, and led the saber into the next exercise.  An irritated huff came from behind him, then a soft voice.  “Let him be, father.”  An inarticulate grumble followed, then his audience withdrew and the light disappeared.

The saber cut cleanly through the night air.  Up.  Across.  Spin, and down.  In his mind, the pattern stood out like a lacework of light, and for once, things were simple.

Welcome to this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge. This week calls for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word
ALLEY (noun):

1: a garden or park walk bordered by trees or bushes
2a (1) : a grassed enclosure for bowling or skittles

  c : an area in a baseball outfield between two outfielders when they are in normal positions
3: a narrow street; especially : a thoroughfare through the middle of a block giving access to the rear of lots or buildings

This one follows on last week’s response.  Thanks for reading!

Cy stared down at the gleaming saber. It lay unwinking on the rough kitchen table with the handful of other possessions that were all that had come back. A ring, a pair of daggers, a heavy purse of coins that would be the last payment from the company. That was all.

He reached out to touch it, running his fingers along the watered blade. His father had let him hold it, had even let him practice with it once to celebrate his twelfth birthday. It had always been there at his father’s side, as inseparable from him as his arm.

An age-spotted hand knocked his hand away from it. “No more of that, boy.” His grandfather’s face was like a thunderstorm. “That’ll lead you nowhere but the same place it took your father. You’re a weaver now.”

Cy hardly saw him. All he could see was the saber, slowly starting to blur. A familiar smell surrounded him, and he felt hands on his shoulders. His mother turned him to face her. Her hair was a mess and her hazel eyes were reddened, but her voice was reassuring. “It’s all right, sweetheart.” She reached up to touch his face. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to go live with your grandfather now. I’m going to need you to help me take care of your brother and your sisters. Can you help me do that?”

Cy rubbed roughly at his eyes, and nodded. His mother smiled. “I know you can. You’re going to do just fine. Now why don’t you come help me get the girls packed up.” She turned away from the table.  The new man of the house squared his shoulders and followed.

This week’s prompt from Trifecta Writing Challenge asks for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word NEW (adjective):

1: having recently come into existence

2 a (1) : having been seen, used, or known for a short time (2) : unfamiliar
b : being other than the former or old

3: having been in a relationship or condition but a short time

Thanks for reading!

It wasn’t the first time she’d said the wrong thing on an internet date.  She stared glumly into the remains of her gin fizz.  The joke, okay, but did she have to say that thing about the walrus?

A little pure silliness while I’m wrestling with computer problems today, in response to Trifecta Writing Challenge’s weekend prompt, which called for 33 words to follow the beginning “It wasn’t the first time.” Ever have things come out of your mouth before you thought about them? Yeah, me too.

Stars shine down on stone.  Though the sun is gone, the air still crackles with summer, a scorching breeze ruffling the grasses.  A faint, sweet scent of blossom rides the wind, carried from the sea of tala bells that dance among the brambles, luminously blue in the moonlight.  It is as all of the plains, but for the stones and the man.

The stones are everywhere, large and small.   Some are taller than a man, and curiously squared, some no more than pebbles.  The grass and the brambles and the flowers engulf them.  The centuries passed since the city fell and was left to decay have long since blown away the mortar and the bones.

A single figure appears, picking his way among the stones.  From a certain angle, he shimmers curiously in the moonlight, the sort of trick that makes men rub their eyes and shake their heads.  A careful observer might notice that where he has passed, the grass remains unbent, unbroken, but there is no one, and so the oddity goes unremarked.

His gaze is inquisitive but oddly unmoved, his face clear and still as he walks through this graveyard.  He touches a stone here, another there. At length, he comes to the center of the ruin, and looks around him.  The devastation is complete, but there is life still, hidden among the rocks.   He turns and looks to the northeast, where the conquerors hide from the summer heat.  He looks to the east, where their god sleeps until dawn.  Finally, he looks to the north, where a new city has grown.  For a moment, his eyes, iris purple, seem to glow.

And then — and then he begins to laugh.  His laughter rings off the stones and whirls out into the night in a ribbon of light.  He bends and touches the center stone, a benison.  Still laughing, he gives a mocking salute toward the east before he vanishes, leaving nothing but a glow and a curious sense of hope.

Welcome to this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge! This week asked for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of DECAY (intransitive verb):

1: to decline from a sound or prosperous condition
2: to decrease usually gradually in size, quantity, activity, or force
3: to fall into ruin

I’d like to pretend that it’s 333 words exactly because I’m just that good, but really it’s because I cut words until it got there. This is something of a sequel to The Fall. Thanks for reading!

If you saw her on the street, you’d think she was the farthest thing from wild.  She was subdued, self-contained, oddly passionless.  She rode the bus, every day the same, scuffed penny loafers tucked neatly under her, limp white button shirt hanging slightly askew.  Her gaze drifted vaguely over the bustling commuters; did she even see them around her?

Perhaps not.  It was behind her eyes that the tempest lay.  The skies she saw were endless, and under them, fires burned.  Civilizations fell.  Dragons flew.  It was in the untrackable places her heart went that she really lived, unfettered and free.

This week’s prompt from Trifecta Writing Challenge asks for 33 to 333 words using the third definition of the word WILD (adj):

3: a (1): not subject to restraint or regulation : uncontrolled; also : unruly
(2) : emotionally overcome; also : passionately eager or enthusiastic

Thanks for reading!

He liked to refer to it, in later years, as The Trouble.  It had a pleasing weight to it with capitals added, a dignity entirely at odds with the actual nature of the events.  It sounded like the crucible through which a boy passed to manhood, or a vast national struggle, with a hero emerging from the tumult to lead his battered fellows to victory.

It sounded better that way– noble, inspirational.  On the rare occasions when he removed the capitals, he knew that he wasn’t that hero.  At best, he was the guy who wandered off in the second act, rattled some chains out of curiosity, and got eaten.  In his most honest moments, he was the damn fool in the prelude whose thoughtless, selfish actions set it all in motion.

But those moments were rare.  Self knowledge, never his gift, would do him no good now.  She had never forgiven him, so there was no point in penance.  That became part of the legend, the tragic ending of The Trouble that the hero was left to shoulder bravely as he staggered off into the distance.  It was such a pretty picture that sometimes he even forgot that the burden was his.

This week’s Trifecta prompt calls for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word trou·ble:

He was almost in love with her. She was beautiful — God, so beautiful.  She moved like a cat, even during the daytime — strong, lithe, so powerful that he couldn’t help but watch her across the council hall.  He stared, even when the debate had stopped and the council chief was tapping his foot and waiting for him to respond.  Then she’d look, and her eyes would laugh and promise him he was forgiven.

She was beautiful in the daytime, but it was at dusk that he could hardly believe her.  As the light faded, her black skin would melt into the night and her gray eyes glowed.  It was like a communion with a god he barely knew.  He couldn’t turn away.

And yet.  She laughed, she smiled, she touched his hand.  She was the best company he could imagine, but there was still something in her he couldn’t reach.  At first he’d splashed in the shallows, then floundered deeper.  Still she laughed and smiled.  You could fall as far as you liked, he thought, spinning so deep you didn’t know which way to turn, and yet never reach the core of her, still slide right past the place where her secrets lived.

He wondered if they understood each other.  Was it different, if you were one of them?  Was there was some quiet sanctuary deep in the heart of Maj Malai, far from human eyes, where they let the secrets fall, where she was nothing but herself?  Or was she an enigma, even there?

Welcome to this week’s Trifecta challenge!  This week’s prompt (to be written between 33 and 333 words) was enig·ma noun \i-ˈnig-mÉ™, e-\:

1: an obscure speech or writing
2: something hard to understand or explain
3: an inscrutable or mysterious person

Thanks again to everyone stopping by!

He’d moved out of sight, but he couldn’t escape the sound, the distant thunder of stone falling on stone, of walls toppling to the ground.  It was all day — all night.  Didn’t these conquerors sleep?

He waited, and watched.  Watched for survivors, travelers returning to the City unaware that the world had changed in their absence.

He watched for survivors, but that wasn’t what he saw.  With each carrying rumble, he saw the City.  He saw the bright mosaics he’d played next to as a child.  Gone.  He saw the fountain where he’d told Asiri he loved her.  Gone.  He saw the sunlit columns of the temple.  Gone.  His eyes watered, and he told himself it was the sharp summer wind.

He’d thought the thunder was the worst of it, but in the end, he was wrong.  What was worse was when the thunder stopped, and there was only silence and the wind on the plains.

This week’s prompt from Trifecta Writing Challenge. This week’s challenge was to write between 33 and 333 words using the third definition of the word thun·der (noun \ˈthÉ™n-dÉ™r\)

1: the sound that follows a flash of lightning and is caused by sudden expansion of the air in the path of the electrical discharge
2: a loud utterance or threat
3: bang, rumble

It’s good fun, this prompt business!

“So,” Raicha started.  “Sahmin Bahlaru.”  It was the first time since the wedding that she’d had the chance to talk to Camilia privately, and her curiosity was killing her.

Camilia smiled a little, and took a sip of her wine.  A bead of condensation ran down the side of the glass.  “Charming, isn’t he?”  Camilia’s head turned toward where he was standing by the fountain, talking to one of her half-brothers.

“He is,” she agreed dubiously, looking at him.  He was, certainly.  Pleasant, acceptably good looking, of excellent birth, entirely appropriate in every respect.  Camilia’s choice had relieved and disconcerted the nobility in equal measure, depending on how well they really knew her.  She could see out of the corner of her eye that Camilia’s nose was wrinkling in amusement.

She recognized that expression. Her suspicion deepened.  “Camilia, what are you up to?”

Camilia’s mouth turned up, but she shook her head.  “Raicha, really.”  She motioned lightly for one of the servants to adjust the awning above them where the sun had moved around the edge.

One of the late Emperor’s lesser wives swept past, looking as pinched as she had ever since Camilia’s coronation.  A sudden thought struck Raicha.  She put her head back against the chair, and touched her sweating wineglass to her cheek.  It was probably marring her paints, but it felt good all the same.  She tilted her head.  “I’m told Aila Sino is taking a second husband to administer the estates she just inherited.”  It wasn’t common for a woman to take multiple husbands, but…

Aha!  That earned her a slanting glance from those sharp green eyes, pregnant with mischief.  It was as good as a confidence, that look.  Raicha started to laugh softly.  “To your wedding, my dear.”  Camilia, still twinkling, solemnly clinked her glass against Raicha’s.  Raicha subsided into her chair, grinning.   They lay in companionable silence while Raicha began to review all the scandalously inappropriate men of their acquaintance in her head.

Second prompt!  This time a little fiction, in response to this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge. This week’s prompt called for use of the third meaning of the word  confidence (noun), defined as:

3 a: a relation of trust or intimacy <took his friend into hisconfidence>

   c : support especially in a legislative body <vote ofconfidence>

Happy February 29th!  There’s something a little crazy about the thought of it, isn’t there?  Sure, I know the earth doesn’t orbit the sun in exactly even numbers of days, adjustment is needed, blah blah blah.  But the fact is, this day doesn’t exist most of the time.  It’s almost mystical.  That really calls for something special.  Here are my thoughts on how to use this day to advantage:

• If you are salaried, point out to your boss that he/she has not paid you for this extra day and you are therefore taking it off.  Have you been complaining about something you’ve been meaning to do but have had no time for?  Go do that.  (If what you’ve been complaining about has been not being able to muck out the bathroom or fix your plumbing, sorry about that.)  Tomorrow, go back to your normal life and express surprise that what you’ve been meaning to do is suddenly done!

• Consider this one of those “missing days” you get in sci-fi shows or movies like “Groundhog Day” where no one will remember what you did and all consequences will be reversed at midnight.  Go out and do all the things you would do under those circumstances and see if anyone does in fact remember them tomorrow.  (Buying some nice note-cards for apologies might be advisable in case we are not in fact living an episode of “Stargate.”)  Reporting on any such experience is welcomed.

• If you are heavily pregnant and really hoping not to have your kid’s birthday come around only once every four years, meditate.  Focus on your breath and soothing thoughts.  Sleeping puppies, Wonder bread, mayonnaise.  Do not think about the Republican primaries.  Avoid spicy foods.  Cross your legs.  Good luck.

• Compose an ode to things that leap.  Grasshoppers, badly damaged vinyl records, frogs from Calaveras county.  Extra points awarded for haikus, sonnets, and sestinas, particularly if the subject matter is totally preposterous when put into that format.  Please feel free to post in the comments.

The wormhole ends at midnight, folks.  See you there!