“Hey, wait a minute. That’s only 5 days of prompts!” you cry.
You are perceptive, dear reader. For you see, I only completed five of the prompts this week. It is my anniversary with my husband today, 10 years since we first got together (we’ve only been married for 2.5, but this is a different sort of milestone and we wanted to celebrate it too), and we have absconded to the mountains where we got married for a long weekend away. We’re having a lovely time, and getting to ski the mountain we got married on was a blast! As such, I did not get around to writing a short piece for either yesterday or today. I might still do them after we get back, and then add them on to next week’s wrap-up, but we shall see. In the meantime, here are the handful I did write this week!
February 16th – Creed
“That man is dangerous,” Rei snarls. “He has no creed, no code to live by. He’s a phantom, Kori, and he’ll drag you down to the depths of hell if you get too close.” I’m not listening. My eyes are drawn by the handsome face in the dossier. I will make him mine.
I was struck by the idea of someone with no code, moral or otherwise, no rules, no faith of any kind, and thought that perhaps such a person would be dangerous. We all believe in something, so what sort of person wouldn’t believe in anything? Someone without a creed is an enigma, simultaneously intriguing and to be feared. Kori clearly has no qualms about it though.
February 17th – Greed
An airy tinkling signaled the arrival of a new customer. Lucy grinned warm welcome to the waif of a man casting nervous eyes about her shop. “Welcome to the Devil’s Vice, stranger. We’ve got what you need to succeed.”
He set a laden pouch before her. “You got any greed?”
The vss365 host for the month was feeling a rhyme to pair with the previous day’s prompt of creed, even using a rhyming scheme in her post giving the day’s prompt. Not wholly intentionally, probably entirely subconsciously, I also used a bit of rhyme in my little sketch about a shop that will sell you vices by the bottle. I’m very proud of the punnery in this one.
February 18th – Infiltrate
Felix slammed a fist on the desk, watching the monitors with growing agitation as silent alarms flared. “How did they infiltrate the interior so quickly?”
“Looks like they had help, sir.”
A familiar smirk appeared on the cam. His former partner was supposed to be dead.
I started this one with the idea of a training sim going too well. No actual stakes, but still getting past all the traps and security with ease. As I reworked things to fit the character count, it turned more real. And then the realization that the infiltration was real led to the answer of how it worked so quickly. A phantom from the past! I may have a problem, lol.
February 19th – Purpose
It’s always a thrill to watch Mai work. Not a wrong word uttered, a motion wasted, a reaction miscalculated. Even now, lying bloodied and battered on the floor served a purpose. After all, her enemies were always at their most vulnerable when they thought her broken.
The line “This, too, serves a purpose” flew into my head with the prompt, and I tried to work it into the post. I worded and reworded and changed things around but I still didn’t quite hit the note I was shooting for. This was one of those prompts that frustrated me because I felt like I just needed like 10 more characters to make it perfect. Still, Mai is incredibly manipulative, and even getting beaten to a pulp has its purpose for her.
February 20th – Soldier
The training was harsh and cruel, but necessary. If Todd wanted to survive against the invading Mosari forces, he needed to be able to fight like them. Fae could always use another soldier, especially a vengeful Terran, but too often she pitied him; he was just a child.
I’ve been feeling my alien invasion characters a lot with these prompts. This is what, the 4th I did with them? Or maybe it’s only the 3rd. Still, using the same characters in more than one of these prompts is rare for me. And when I read the prompt, I immediately thought of Todd as a child training to be a soldier in Fae’s resistance army. But I also thought about Fae having reservations about it due to her secret history with his parents and not wanting him to have to join her fight but knowing she needs every body she can get, no matter how young.
Ok, that wraps up another “week” of daily Twitter prompts! If you missed them, week 1 is here, and week 2 is here. I’ll keep doing them through the last week of the month, and as I’ve been doing, I’ll collect them here with insight behind the stories. Next week’s might be longer if I do end up working yesterday’s prompt (solution) and today’s prompt (peace).
We head home tomorrow, but first we’re swinging through my mom’s for my grandma’s birthday dinner. I’ll probably have the usual Sunday update post up in the evening? But if I don’t, I’ll get it done on Monday. I’m still taking the day off anyway because we were supposed to take a long weekend together, but he’s planning to go in to the office for a bit in the afternoon which means I’ll have plenty of free time to work on writing.
Have a lovely rest of your weekend! See you soon!
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Closet Full of Notebooks 