Prompt (517)

In fairy tales and fantasy, two types of people go in towers:  princesses and wizards.

Princesses are placed there against their will or with the intention of ‘keeping them safe.’ This is very different from wizards, who seek out towers to hone their sorcery in solitude.

I would like a story where a princess is placed in an abandoned tower that used to belong to a wizard, and so she spends long years learning the craft of wizardry from the scraps left behind and becomes the most powerful magic wielder the world has seen in centuries, busts out of the tower and wreaks glorious, bloody vengeance on the fools that imprisoned her. 

That would be my kind of story.

small reminder: the world needs your stories, even the ones you’re not sure are “good enough”

The Hero dodged. Too slow, the Dark Lord swung down his battle ax and cleaved a rock in half. The Hero went for his opening, but the Dark Lord parried. The Hero jumped over another swing, then feinted an attack. The Dark Lord anticipated the feint and swung at the Hero's sword's mid-arc, sending it flying. The Hero stumbled back from the blow, then rolled when the ax came down where he fell.

The Hero retrieved his fallen sword and smiled cockily. "I can do this all day."

The Dark Lord froze at that. The Hero launched into another attack. Dark Lord halfheartedly blocked his blow. Another attack. Block. It felt slow and deliberate, like a training exercise.

"What's wrong? Getting tired?" The Hero snarked.

The Dark Lord planted his ax in the ground. The Hero sensed something was different and stepped back. The two foes apprehensively waited for the other to make a move.

That's when the Dark Lord removed his helmet.

"I am," he said simply. He tossed his helmet to the side. "I am getting tired."

"You think it can just end? Like that?!" The Hero shouted. "After everything you did?!"

The Dark Lord's glowing eyes bore into his.

He picked up one of the skulls littering the ground around them, and tossed it to the Hero's feet.

"Whose bodies litter these battle grounds?" The Dark Lord growled. "Did you ever wonder?"

The Hero stared down at the skull.

"Ours," the Hero said lightly. He kicked the skull back. "A millennia of reincarnations made to come here and die over and over."

The Dark Lord stepped on the skull. It cracked, then crumbled into dust. "You're ready to do this for another millennia?"

The Hero faltered then. "As long as it takes," he whispered.

"As long as it takes for what?" The Dark Lord said.

"I... I just want to rest," the Hero admitted. "But time and time again, you razed my village and destroyed everything I love. You've taken everything, and now you get to call it quits and say you're tired? I've been tired this whole time."

"Your village turned away my people when we had nothing," the Dark Lord said. "We took what we needed by force."

"Don't you dare try to come off as the victim--" the Hero started in, but the Dark Lord interjected.

"We were desperate, and turned to forces we never should have trifled with. In turn, so have yours. Neither us have known love and peace since this started."

"Quit trying to act like we're the same," the Hero snarled, but there was a broken edge.

"We need to end the cycle," The Dark Lord said, and started towards him.

The Hero narrowed his eyes and raised his sword. The Dark Lord, undeterred, loomed above him. The Hero shook.

"Run me through, Hero," the Dark Lord said. "Slake your bloodlust. I will come back as many times as it takes."

The Hero held out his sword. The Dark Lord bared his throat and closed his eyes. A bead of blood dripped from where the blade grazed his throat.

The sword clattered to the ground.

The Dark Lord tilted his head.

"I don't want this," the Hero said.

The Dark Lord held out his hand. "It's time to rebuild, then."

The Hero took it. "I'll hold you to that."

You and the Dark Lord are destined to be reincarnated to fight fight one another throughout time. After 1000 years of fighting, the two of you decide to sit down and actually discuss an end to this conflict.

utterly beautiful

I don’t care if this world breaks me, cause I was already a wreck in the making, so I will love you gently, hold your hand to help you up, come in to volunteer for a friend, show up to artistic events to celebrate other’s achievements, take the pictures for that evening, then fade into the background as silent as an echo on a blank canvass. I will unbury your skeletons, take note of the world’s diseases, pull those weeds, and plant the seeds so you can live to see hope blooming, and feel a soft breeze as you finally walk free from every tragedy that was haunting your psyche. I will write a world of compassion and beauty and disappear before you can even remember seeing me.

-2024

Prompt #82(pt. 2)

(Y'all begged for a part 2, so here it is! Enjoy ;)

Part 1

By @writingpromptsworld

The villain huffed, their cheeks tinting a shade of red. They hoped it wasn’t noticeable to the hero. They were already feeling so embarrassed. “What do you know about being a villain.” They tried to sound annoyed.

The hero didn’t stop, though. They snorted, taking another step forward. “I was one, a long time ago.” The villain looked into their eyes; all they could see was honesty. 

“Right, sure. I believe that.” They babbled. How could the number one hero ever have been a villain? From what they could recall, the hero had endangered their life more than multiple times to save the civilians. 

The hero’s lips widened again, their eyes crinkling at the corners. It was hard not to stare at the hero. The villain licked their lips nervously. 

“You’re rather cute, you know that?” The hero teased further. 

The villain swallowed. “You–...what?” Their eyes widened, caught off guard. They were about to lose their cool and fall to their knees. It wasn’t fair– what the hero was doing. Using the villain’s inexperience to their advantage. 

“What? You are. First of all, you come in here, again,  sniffing my coat rather confidently. And lying about it–you’re not hard to read even in the dark. Then you ogle me shamelessly. I mean, how cute can you get, you know?” 

The villain let out an involuntary whine. 

The hero brought up a hand to the villain’s cheek, and the villain immediately nuzzled into it. “You should leave.” 

The villain didn’t move. 

“So desperate, it’s almost pathetic.” The hero mused, their thumb gently caressing the villain’s cheekbone. The villain sighed in response. 

The villain opened their eyes; their faces were a breath away. They stared at the hero's lips. The hero smirked, before closing the gap and kissing them.

The villain, in fact, stayed there the whole night.

"Do I even have a purpose?"

"You're the reason I'm tolerating this world at all."

Very cute flop and roll. Lovely animation.

silly werewolf transformation

What I've read before, I've loved. What I haven't read yet, I'd love to.

Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.

"You seem remarkably dispassionate these days," they said in a low voice.

The soft creak of the floorboards was the only sound. They seemed to shift towards you, and you recoiled from the brush of their fingers.

"We're strangers," you whisper, voice cracking. "We're practically strangers now."

The hero lay on the floor curled in on themselves, willing the pain to go away. The creaking and clinking from the other room told them the villain was rooting around in their stuff again.

"Ugh… Villain?" They called.

Silence.

"Villain, I know you're out there."

They groaned and tried to stand. Not a good idea.

"Villain, if you're out there, bring me my meds, will you? They're on the counter?"

A pause in the shuffling. Footsteps.

A pill bottle hit their face.

"Ow!"

The villain retreated.

Silence.

The hero shakily lifted the pills to their lips.

The villain returned with a bag of bread and a bottle of water.

The hero looked up at them questioningly.

"You're not supposed to take that on an empty stomach," the villain said simply.

"Who eats bread from the bag?" The hero grumbled, but they pulled out a piece to nibble on anyway.

"You're lucky it's not poisoned," the villain replied.

"Am I?" The hero groaned.

"Lot of pain, huh?"

"…Yeah."

The villain knelt down in front of them. "Good."

The hero glared up at them. "Any chance of giving me a break today?"

The villain snatched the half-eaten bread and bit into it greedily. "I think you forgot we're enemies."

The hero laid back down. "Yeah, okay."

Uncomfortable silence.

"So, uh, this normal for you?" The villain tried. "You look a little… Not good."

"I'm kicking your butt so hard when these pills kick in," the hero grumbled. "Can you at least get back to looting my house?"

"I mean, I could kidnap you right now," The villain said. "You're at your most vulnerable."

The hero threw the bread at them. "Just because I'm not up to fighting you doesn't mean I'm helpless."

The bag hit the villain's foot. They gave the hero a deadpan stare.

"I'll bite your ankles," the hero tried.

Then the villain kidnapped them, and they went to Urgent Care together.