Posts Tagged ‘Write On Edge’

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Posted in Fairy Tales, Fiction on February 19th, 2014 by Annabelle – 5 Comments

The fire popped, showering sparks unheeded against the stone.  Cloth of gold burned surprisingly quickly, it turned out.  Burned – melted?  Mira stared at the remains at the edge of the hearth.  A little of both?  There did seem to be some gold left.

“This is not happening.”

That did not, strictly speaking, seem to be true.  She tried to come up with something to say.  “Why did you leave it so close to the fire?”

Var’s head whipped up, stung.  They’d had other things on their minds when he’d taken them off.  “You said you were cold!”

“I meant for you to keep me warm, idiot!”

“It wasn’t in the fire until you kicked it.”

“I can’t help being ticklish.”  He probably hadn’t meant to tickle her, but…  So they were a little awkward still.  They were figuring it out.

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Blowing Smoke

Posted in Fiction on November 11th, 2013 by Annabelle – 11 Comments

“The tea tray for Herself.”  The tray slid onto the table.  Marthe picked it up and sailed down the hallway to the Headmaster’s office.

“Lise.”  The Dean was struggling not to laugh.  “Thank you, Marthe.”  The Head, in full dragon mode, gave her an irritated flap of the hand.

“You want to take the students out to try their skills at an actual stone circle?”  The Head picked up a cup.  “Have you seen what Celia produced with a simple conjuration just yesterday?”

Marthe shook her head and set out a plate of cakes.  That had been ugly.

The Head, catching the movement, gestured with her cup.  “See?  A disaster in the making.”  She narrowed her eyes at the Dean in an expression meant to be terrifying.

Marthe hid a smile.  The Head might bluster, but the staff knew what sort of woman she was.  She never failed to remember their service.  Not with money or words.  It was the Dean whose easy smile accompanied their Christmas envelopes, while the Head glowered conspicuously at the students’ holly boughs and stopped just short of saying “Bah, humbug.”  But the servants’ quarters were always warm, even when ten-foot snowdrifts buried the castle doors.  A nice piece of magic, that.  And food in the servants’ kitchen stayed fresh far longer than it should have, so that no matter how late a worker dragged in, there was always a hot meal waiting.  There was never anything she’d have to stop and be thanked for, but the staff knew.

Marthe cleared away a collection of old cups onto the tray.  Was it the same in the privacy of their bedroom?  Did the Head ever say those words to him?  Or did he just know it all the same?

“I can reverse anything they do wrong, you know that.”  His voice was full of patient affection.

“Fine, then.”  Marthe heard the softened voice behind her as she closed the door.  “If you like.”

 

This week I’m combining prompts; Trifecta Writing Challenge asked for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word REMEMBER (verb):

And this week’s Write at the Merge gave us two pictures and quotes; the one that caught my imagination was “This tornado loves you.”  This is a follow-on to The School if you’re interested.  Thanks for reading!

Sleeping Beauty

Posted in Fairy Tales, Fiction on October 23rd, 2013 by Annabelle – 11 Comments

The girl sat in the stone window-ledge.  She was graceful, beautiful, talented, all the gifts given to her at her birth.  She’d had plenty of time to wonder if they had been worth the cost.

Below her, the castle spread in silent grandeur.  In every room, sleepers, hardly seeming to breathe, left where they had fallen.  In the slanting autumn light, the air sparkled with dust that drifted and turned, but never hit the ground.  Not here.

She hadn’t understood at first.  Alone in the stillness, the unwaking bodies of two handmaids on the floor next to her bed, she had finally realized.  The prince hadn’t come.

At the thought, her eyes fell to the brambles surrounding the castle walls.  She saw no bleached skull, but she thought she knew what had happened all the same.  She imagined she could see the spot — just there, where the roses bloomed in dusky glory every summer.

He had died.  And then the funny thing had happened; the angry fairy’s power at last had broken.  The girl had no idea how many years had passed until then, or how many since. The cruelest joke was that it was the “kindness” of the fairy who had saved her that had kept them all trapped.  The fairy had caught the castle out of time until the prince should arrive.  And then he never did.

So here she was, still sixteen, a phantom of longing drifting through the halls, promise eternally unfulfilled.  Outside, the seasons turned.  Inside, she waited for the last spell to break.  She closed her eyes and wished that her parents had not been so eager for magical gifts, that they had let her birth go unremarked and let her take her chances with an ordinary life.   When the distant geese flew by, obedient to the dictates of time, ordinary seemed like the most extraordinary thing she could imagine.

In the courtyard below, a yellow leaf ceased its eternal circling and slipped down to touch the pavement.

 

This week I’m combining the Write at the Merge prompt from Write On Edge and the weekly Trifecta Writing Challenge.  Write at the Merge gave us the word “pine” and a photo of leaves falling on a deck, and Trifecta gave us the third definition of the word “phantom” (noun):

And of course, a little fairy tale retelling.  Thanks for reading!

The Pea

Posted in Fairy Tales, Fiction on August 14th, 2013 by Annabelle – 15 Comments

Evadne stood behind the hulking armoire and stared as the middle-aged queen thrust something under the lowest mattress and tiptoed triumphantly out.  Evadne sighed.  What the hell kind of place was this?  The house was beautiful, a vision of architectural details without and sumptuous within, but if it hadn’t been raining, she would have gone off to sleep in a haystack.

She probably should have known from the way they’d reacted to finding out she was a princess.  The prince, it transpired, was having trouble finding a wife.  Evadne had opinions on why that was, but her attempts to indicate that it was really none of her business had gone completely unnoticed.  Neither of them seemed to grasp the fact that Evadne wouldn’t have taken the man as a gift, much less competed for him.

Evadne dropped down next to the bed and shoved an arm in to fish for whatever the queen had left.  A hard, grainy lump rolled under her fingers, and she pulled it out.  A pea.  “Seriously?”  She dropped her forehead against the preposterous tower of mattresses, where it sank in with a squish.

God, she was glad she was going home.  The weirdness out here never ended.  But her father hadn’t been born a king; he was an old campaigner, and when he’d sent her on this trip, it wasn’t to end up with an heir incapable of dealing with a lumpy mattress.  Just a few more days.  Evadne reached up, yanked the covers off into a nest on the rug, and slept like a log.

“How did you sleep?”  The queen smirked.

“Beautifully!” Evadne said, cheerily shoveling down as much breakfast as she could manage.  “Thanks for the pea, by the way.  Such a practical gift; flowers and food all at once.” She stood up and walked to the door.  “I think I’ll take it with me, if you don’t mind.”

She waved, stepped out into the sun, and smiled.  Dad always did like a garden.

 

This week, a return to my fairy tale retellings as inspired by the gorgeous photos of The Breakers for the Write at the Merge prompt this week.  I also worked in this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge, which called for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the work GRASP (verb):

Thanks for reading!  For more fairy tale retellings, click on Fairy Tales on the sidebar or check out the full list on the Fiction page.  

Allure

Posted in Fiction, Tacar on March 21st, 2013 by Annabelle – 3 Comments

Camilia gave a gurgling laugh at the sally and laid a hand on the Lord Magistrate’s shoulder.  She saw him appreciatively following the line of her neck and long bare arm and smiled.  He had known her father too well to be genuinely swayed by her femininity, but she found that very few men actually minded being charmed by the Empress.  She crinkled her eyes at him in parting, and turned away to find the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

He was standing on the balcony, the last echoes of sunset on his face.  He was, as ever, slim, tall, and elegantly dressed, the note-perfect performance of a man who had been at court since long before she’d been born.  He had been appointed to his position by her grandfather and had not been young then, but of course that was nothing for the Tevalle.

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The School

Posted in Fiction on March 13th, 2013 by Annabelle – 7 Comments

They sailed down the main corridor talking about the class schedule.  As always, James let Lise set the pace, trailing just slightly behind despite the difference in height.  Lise stopped dead as a teenager wearing glittery lip gloss reeled past, juggling a bubble full of barely-contained flame between her hands.

“Hey!” Lise bellowed.  “Get that out of the hallway.”  She stabbed a finger at the door of a workroom.  The student giggled, God help her, and stumbled through the door, the flame surging dangerously as she went.  Lise pulled the door shut behind her emphatically.

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The Forest

Posted in Fiction on March 6th, 2013 by Annabelle – 16 Comments

She was waiting when he wandered in, stupidly lost.  The trees here all seemed taller than they should have been; he was hot, tired, and he couldn’t imagine how it could be taking him so long to find his way out.  And then, in the clearing, an incongruous sight: a dark-haired woman sitting on a great rock with her knees drawn up, the green light of the leaves on her face.  He drew up, startled.  It was his kingdom, it was all his, but she looked at him with a detached curiosity, like a piece of interesting mold on a rock she had just turned over.

“So you finally came.”  Her voice, light and clear, took him off guard after the hour of wandering and shouting for his men.  He opened his mouth, but then she gave a smile that struck him dumb.  “Do you know where you are?”  He scowled.  Lost.  He was idiotically lost on his own lands, a ridiculous indignity for a man like him.

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The Woods and the Wolf

Posted in Fairy Tales, Fiction on February 25th, 2013 by Annabelle – 13 Comments

Her feet carried her slowly, unwillingly, down the forest path.  A hush had fallen, and the gentle clatter of branches and the quiet squeak of the fresh snow under her boots were the only sounds she could hear.  The wolf was pacing her out at the edges of sight, no more than a grey whisper among the grey trees.  It wouldn’t come any closer, not yet, but she could feel it waiting.

She pulled the crimson cloak closer around her against a cold she barely felt.  It had been a gift from her grandmother, a token of an affection that now made her skin crawl.  Under the sun, the cloak flamed, impossible to miss.  Here, under the trees at the last tail of dusk, it faded to the color of old blood, melting into the dark as if it belonged there.  The obscurity was strangely comforting.

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The Twelve Dancers

Posted in Fairy Tales, Fiction on February 18th, 2013 by Annabelle – 35 Comments

Worn-out shoes.  That’s what it came down to.  He was risking his life for worn-out shoes.  He shifted back on his heels in the mud, and raised his fingers to the place where a thorn had torn a sticky gash in his neck.  He’d had far worse, but it was all of a piece with this whole night.

The thing had stank from the beginning.  Find the secret in three nights or be put to death?  What sort of offer was that?  But the king was a father and fathers got desperate.  He hadn’t been far from desperate himself — out of a job, out of money, about to exhaust his options.  No one seemed to want his nicked and battered sword or equally battered self.

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The Apple

Posted in Fairy Tales, Fiction on February 12th, 2013 by Annabelle – 11 Comments

The stillroom was a wreck.  Elanne pressed a frustrated hand to her face, and surveyed the damage from between her fingers.  The floor glittered with shards of glass, here the remains of a green bottle, there what was left of a clear one, and all of it glistening with the spirits she’d been storing here.  A sweet, herbal tang filled the air so thickly she could almost taste it.  She didn’t need to wonder what had happened.  Her stepdaughter.  Of course.

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