What Inspired The Spirits In Your Wip?

Pills and Pain

I reach out my fingers, aware they are shaking,

My body is sore, and I'm worried it's breaking,

I glance at strange pills, and fear what I'm taking.

Is the pain in my legs really worth what I'm staking?

My body is sore. I fear it might shatter,

I sit in my bed, pills still on the platter.

The ache in my bones refuses to scatter,

My hesitation remains, but soon, it won't matter.

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Write between 100-1000 words. It can be any genre, in any text format and 18+ is fine by us, just please tag accordingly.

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✨ And now, the new prompt!

[#FFF264 Counting Clocks ]

Why are there multiple clocks? Why are they being counted? Is time running out? Is it just a simple clock maker's daily task? Do the clocks bring distress or relief or something else? Get writing and let us know! Go, go, go!!!

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The Collective <3

Thank you for the tag, @indoorghost

OC mood board tag game

It took me a while to get the pieces together.

This is a mood board for a villain of my Main WIP (working title) Bloodmage. His name is Luis :]

It's been a bit of a crazy year, and my procrastination has put me into a deadlock with this project (especially in the last couple of months), so any work I can get done on it is helpful. This was pretty fun. Thanks for the inspiration!

No pressure tagging

@renasdoodles @kuebiko-writing @creatrackers @somethingclevermahogony @laisley-writes @aalinaaaaaa +open tag

LOVE YOU MY MMOOTIE

*Runs and hides behind a wall in terrified introvert*

Margaret enjoys listening to people's problems; it helps to keep her grounded and reminded that she isn't the only person suffering in the world. She takes comfort in the fact that she isn't special and that her problems aren't anything new. That means that there are others like her and that even when things are hard for her, Margaret can always lend an ear. Sometimes, it's hard to bear, but in the end, Margaret still listens to people because she wishes someone had listened to her.

She has her vices, but she doesn't usually hate herself for them since she is human and trying the best that she can. When she was younger, Margaret hated her weakness, but as she grew, Margaret was able to learn to be kind to herself.

Heads Up, Seven Up

Share 7 lines from one of your WIPs

Thanks for the tag, @renasdoodles

I haven't reached the editing faze of my WIP yet, so you just get the unedited insanity that it is at the core.

Taking a deep breath, Owen released his hold. Maren had finally calmed down once he got her out of the water and rested.

Well calmed down in the fact that she was currently unconscious. He still had to go off into the woods to look for anything that could help fight the withdrawal symptoms.

This was fun. Thanks for the tag!

No pressure tagging: @kuebiko-writing @davycoquette +open tag

Clarity

@flashfictionfridayofficial

FFF263 In the Meadows prompt

1317 word count (I'm sorry it's a bit over... I tried condensing as much as I could.)

CW: violence, referenced forced drug use, a bit of body horror, and dehydration.

Summary: Maren wakes up in an unfamiliar meadow with a clear mind after years of living under a fog.

On an island surrounded by great forests sat a meadow hiding from the ocean. Laying among the blades of grass that swept by her like waves on the ocean, Maren woke in a state of listlessness. She was utterly exhausted, and without the aid of the deep to facilitate her navigation, she was stuck against the cool earth, blind to all but a gentle warmth on her skin.

Usually, she was quite sluggish between hunts, struggling with even the most basic of thoughts, waiting until they charged the water with those fowl drugs, sending her into a frenzy. Occasionally, she would have bouts of clarity, usually just long enough to witness the end of her hunt, but now it felt like her mind was sharper than it had been in years. With this new freedom, Maren’s thoughts drifted to the fathomless depths of what had until recently been her home.

With a clear mind, Maren did not remember it with the fondness she had felt when her brother was given the opportunity to show his devotion to the queens, or in the reverence that had surged through Maren’s entire being when her sister was accepted as a royal guard.

‘Oh how fortunate you are, Maren, to have been bestowed with the favor of our queens.’

How many lonely nights in the empty nursery had she prayed for such a thing before her naive devotion had doomed her? No, she had long lost any reverence for their tyranny, and her thoughts of that place had turned just as rotten as her limbs in the burning darkness of the mines.

Musing about her isolation, Maren could see herself for the pawn she had been. Her mother had warned her long ago, but the queen’s guard had claimed her mother was a traitor, not to be trusted. She had been ripped away from Maren before those precious lessons could be ingrained properly, and so, like a fool Maren had fallen for every lie they’d fed her, burying the barbed hook of their deception deeper into her throat until she wasn’t even a shell of what she had once been.

Another gust of wind swept by, drying her skin. Despite her newfound clarity, all of these revelations were little comfort in the face of her demise. Maren would have laughed at the irony if the queens had left her a proper mouth. At least death didn’t seem so painful as the screams of her victims had made it sound. The executioner, the being that even the queens had grown to fear as a monster, was going to die, dried up on land like some hapless fish that had unwittingly beached itself.

If there had been a higher power, and her wordless prayers had been heard in the darkness of her isolation, then maybe she had been spared from living in that hell any longer. After so many years of being a puppet, Maren wouldn’t be picky about the means of her salvation, and this was already too grand a fate for a monster such as herself. After all the innocent lives she had taken in the name of the queens, she deserved a far greater punishment. She accepted this death and was glad she could greet it in her own right mind.

As time continued to pass, Maren could feel her muscles gradually beginning to shrivel down as her breathing became ragged and the warmth against her skin continued to sap the life from her veins. Maren’s mind was fluttering away, split between fragmented memories of faces she could barely recall, until she felt something warm suddenly pressed under her scorched skin, lifting her up from her grassy resting place. The sudden shift cracked her skin at odd angles, causing sharp spikes of pain to run across her body, but she made no effort to move. Even with the sudden sensation of a beating heart coursing underneath her, the dehydration was too far along for Maren to comprehend anything until she suddenly lost track of the pulse and felt water enveloping her.

WIthin seconds of being submerged, her cracked skin healed over, and she began to explore the area, exhibiting a level of curiosity she thought had been lost to youth. A strange sense of wonder overtaking her foggy reason. Once satisfied with her findings, Maren turned her attention to the surface, she could sense another presence, and her newfound curiosity drove her to inspect.

“** ****, ****** *****.”

It was a strange chirpy language, nothing like the deep bellows she was familiar with from the Briney Court, but not entirely unpleasant. Even if she couldn’t understand the words, at this range, Maren was fairly confident when it came to gauging intent, and the voice sounded relieved. The emotion confused her, and after a brief hesitation, Maren found herself getting closer to the edge in an attempt to form a connection with one of her functional arms.

As Maren’s arm came in contact with an outstretched hand, she felt her limb quickly entangle the arm above to establish a connection. A flood of information cascaded freely into her mind as Maren saw the world through this creature’s eyes and understood his feelings, at least on the surface.

It wasn’t a skill she relied on, and had only resorted to it as a form of interrogation or out of pure desperation from isolation in her moments of clarity, and on every occasion she was met with a flood of negative emotions that were strangely absent here. Interested to find out more, Maren decided that it would be good to spark discussion with the creature so she could properly take in the terrain from the stranger’s eyes and enjoy the strange company she found herself in.

“Why am I here?”

She could tell he was quite shocked by her sudden intrusion into his mind, and flinched, waiting for him to pull away, but unlike the fear or anger that she had so often experienced with her own kind, the individual seemed more amused than anything.

“The tank you were being transported in broke open in the crash, I think? I was worried that I ate everyone, but if they were transporting you like that, then they probably deserved to die anyway...”

There was more that he wanted to say about that, but he stopped. There was no reason to pry about his eating habits, but at the mention of a tank, Maren quickly skimmed through his latest memories, carefully extracting what she was looking for. It was more of a glass coffin filled with stagnant water and salt crystals as far as she could tell. Frustrated by the torturous design, Maren pulled away, severing their connection while trying to remember how she could have ended up in such a thing?

“* ***** *** *** **** **** ********.”

The unintelligible words once more filled her mind, pulling it away from the putrid memory. Wondering if he had any more information about the situation, Maren quickly re-established the connection and caught his assumption that she had been kidnaped. A laughable conclusion, but he didn’t know any better. No one made it in and out of her cave alive, not while she was on the hunt, it was more likely the queens had drugged her last victim with something stronger than usual and tried to dispose of her for good. Though why they would go through all the trouble of shipping her in a glass coffin was a complete mystery. Whatever their intentions, there had been an intervention of some sort, and those involved had been properly taken care of.

“Thank you for saving me.”

A warm sensation spread through the connection as he exhibited genuine happiness at her remark. The surge shocked her slightly, but she found that it was an easy sensation to get used to. She had been given the salvation she longed for, and this creature had been the instrument to accomplish it.

Note: This is Maren after years of experimentation, all in the attempt to make an eldrich creature artificially. I use the term arms in place of tentacles because tentacles sounded a bit weird when I was writing it, and 'arms' has been used as an acceptable term, so I just went with it instead. Sorry for any confusion.

Last Line Tag

Thanks for the tag @kuebiko-writing

Sorry for the late response.

This is just a bit of my little bloodmage WIP giving a bit of perspective on Billy's motivations

Forest Guardian’s were, above all else, the protectors of nature and were often referred to as its shepherds. Long had they used their power and gile to protect their flock. That had been fine when the humans still held reverence for the sacred, but as that reverence faded, humans had changed. They become far too dangerous to rely on traditional methods. Defeat after defeat forced the shepherds to evolve, and Billy had been no different.

Handing his staff over to the strange human he watched as the living wood of his shepherds crook was twisted into a more fitting tool, no not just a tool, this thing was a weapon that he would use to sow vengeance.

No pressure tags: @kuebiko-writing @renasdoodles @davycoquette @flurrysahin ,

@literally-just-zay @creatrackers @somethingclevermahogony + open tag

(Let me know if you want to be taken off the tag list)

Thanks for the prompt @davycoquette !

I kinda already posted the Owen one before, but I drew a picture of Maren (with a new head) and liked how it looked when I combined them.

If anyone else wants to try the prompt, then have a go!

Wolf Hunting?

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Exerpt from Tori's story and part of my Bloodmage WIP. Fair warning, I was very tired when editing, so just know things might be a bit messy.

Warnings: Mentions of torture, violence, mutilation, and a monster drawing at the end of the story.

“Tori, I have something to tell you…”

Then the room lit up with red light, and Ma was ripped away from him just as the words were being spoken. 

Checking his gun again, Tori stepped deeper into the moonlit forest grumbling. He needed to get this blasted favor over with and find where Ma had been taken to. The old man in the village seemed to know something of what was happening, but he was too frail to force information with Tori’s preferred methods, so he’d decided to play nice for now. Just deal with a blasted wolf in the woods, and he would get what he needed, simple enough.

In the short time he'd spent listening to their excuse for not dealing with the creature, Tori had noticed at least three capable people in the town and doubted that this was going to be something simple. Much to his irritation, though, he didn’t have time to employ his usual caution, or maybe the idiots had just started wearing off on him more than he’d like to admit. The thought of Owen and Embers' satisfaction of their influence left a bitter taste in his mouth. They wouldn’t need to know. 

He wasn't a skilled or seasoned trackef but paying close attention to the paths that he’d been instructed to look out for. There were definitely tracks of something big, and in addition to paw marking, there were signs of something big being dragged through the area. Any wolf that could make tracks of that size wasn’t something he wanted to be close to, even with his gun. Frowning at the size, he contemplated turning back to try torture after all, but a growl froze him in his tracks. 

It shouldn’t have been able to get so close to him. Turning slowly, Tori scowled at the creature looming several feet away from him. Its matted fur was covered in bits of half chewed flesh and fur that dangled from the unkempt locks of blood-stained gray-brown hair. Tori didn't fail to notice that where hind legs should have been, there was a large snake tail that flicked back and forth in irritation as it held a small squirming bug in one clawed hand. 

Tori’s breath caught in his throat as he began cursing internally, how was that a blasted wolf? A vein in his forehead throbbed as the creature swallowed the bug and turned its attention towards him. By its smug expression, Tori was sure it felt that he would be a quick meal, but it was in for a rude awakening if it thought that He’d go down without a fight. 

Raising his gun level with the thing’s head, tori fired off 2 rounds in quick succession altering his fire for the second shot towards the direction that the beast seemed more likely to move. The first round grazed its ear, but as planned the second landed squarely in the things right eye as it lunged towards him. 

Jumping to the side, Tori fired off another set of rounds hitting the creature in the side, but still it didn’t even flinch, turning its trajectory to grab onto Tori’s shoulder digging its teeth through the layers of protective clothing like they were nothing. Letting out a grunt of pain, Tori quickly reached to his belt and pulled a knife free stabbing it into the creature’s throat over and over as it sank its teeth deeper, snapping his collar bone like a rotten twig. Letting out a scream of pain he felt his mind flash with white for a minute before pulling his knife free and driving it into the creature’s left eye. After a scream of confusion, the creature pulled back with a roar of pain and quickly retreated several feet, slower than the last time. 

“Do you think I’m going to let you get away with ruining the coat she gave me?”

The hatred in his voice might have surprised him if the situation didn’t tick him off beyond reason. Tori’s blood began to pump more rapidly than before as he let the gun fall from his right hand. This creature didn’t seem very affected by bullets but his knife did the trick. His right arm was useless right now, but the creature was partially blind. 

Without giving it time to recover further, Tori rushed the creature driving his blade into its throat as he let a claw graze the side of his head. That was okay, he could work with a bit more head trauma. His blade struck true, severing the creature's artery. This time as he pulled away the creature tried to bolt away from him, but the frustrated man jumped onto its back and quickly stabbed his knife into the creature’s throat again and again. 

The motion continued until the creature’s cries of pain were drowned out by his own frustrated screams. What the hells had she wanted to say to him blast it? Tori let his arms go limp as he looked down at the bloodied creature below him. With the excitement of the battle dying down he felt his stomach beginning to twist in pain as a sudden hunger overtook him. The disgusting creature, mutilated beyond recognition looked almost as appetizing as Ma’s cooking, and like a man possessed Tori leaned down devouring its corpse as the full moon shown above him, bathing the forest in red light. 

I was playing around with ink today, and other than some frustrations involving uncooperative ink, it was pretty fun.