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>