Emily (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2016-01-09 11:07 am
iluvroadrunner6) wrote2016-01-09 11:07 am
get your words out } { challenge tracking 2016
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Tracking for challenges entered/completed and all that jazz. Fresh new shiny one for 2016.
Directory:
PERSONAL GOALS:Finish Outstanding Requests COMPLETE GYWO Bingo: Complete All Belts Completing Requests
OFFICIAL CHALLENGES:1/9-10/16: Roll the Dice Challenge COMPLETE 1/24/16: Character POV Challenge COMPLETE 2/17/16: Character Challenge COMPLETE 2/27/16: Leap Day Challenge COMPLETE 3/13-19/16: Catch-Up Challenge INCOMPLETE 4/12/16: Stop, Drop, Write COMPLETE 4/23/16: Carrier Pigeon Challenge COMPLETE 4/7-26/16: Taxation With Representation COMPLETE 5/20/16: Time Management COMPLETE June 2016: Mid-Year Marathon INCOMPLETE 6/21/16: Summary Challenge COMPLETE 7/13-14/16: Two-Day Challenge COMPLETE 8/11/16: Stop, Drop and Write COMPLETE 8/26/16: What's in a Name Challenge COMPLETE 9/13/16: Roll the Dice Challenge COMPLETE 10/14/16: Five Minute Challenge COMPLETE 11/6/16: Stop, Drop and Write COMPLETE
2016 | personal goal: complete outstanding requests | COMPLETE
1/9-10/16 | roll the dice challenge | goal: 1,846 | COMPLETE
Written 1/10:
GRAND TOTAL WRITTEN: 2,869
1/24/16 | character pov challenge | 686 words
He also, more importantly, hates that this world is the one being designated “Earth One” while his world, his home is considered “Earth Two.” It’s not as though one world is more superior or advanced than the other, or through this one Earth all other Earths were made, but simply the egocentricity of the fact that their world is theirs and obviously must be the prime, and all other Earths are lesser as a result.
He also, however, can’t deny that if things were the other way around, he would have done the same with his own Earth, so he keeps himself quiet for now, because when everyone else in the room may just be as smart as you, it’s hard to really justify telling them what to believe about their own scientific progress.
And oh how the rush of progress marches on.
He hates that the world is not his own and he hates that he is confined to this space for the sake of the person who is more important to him than anything else, but that’s not something that is within his control right now. He hates that a madman from the future ruined his name in this timeline, a thing that is only secondary to Jessie in his eyes. Without his daughter and without his reputation, he is nothing to these people, merely a ghost of a man who betrayed them all, with his only companion a man who despises him and questions every decision he makes.
(You would think that with Jay and Harrison being the only two people on Earth One with a true working knowledge of Zoom, that they would be able to work together, but apparently Garrick can’t stomach Harrison’s ego any more than Harrison can put up with Garrick’s self-righteousness. Garrick isn’t willing to do what it takes, tied up in morals that will get people killed, and Harrison has to question whether or not the ends truly do justify the means.
If Garrick doesn’t have the stomach to do what needs to be done, then Harrison has to hope that Barry will. And if not, he’ll have a contingency plan. Just in case.)
He hates the flow of STAR Labs, something that should have been his but clearly wasn’t built by him. Nothing is where it should be, which hinders his progress, especially with Cisco chirping away in the background to leave his materials alone, to ask permission, but Harrison Wells doesn’t ask permission.
In fact, he’s built his life’s work on the concept of asking forgiveness, rather than permission, but in the end, what is there to forgive? He is working on the tools to change the world, and every advancement he completes makes people’s lives better. Isn’t that the end goal all along? Without risks, there is never any discovery, and Harrison Wells will not let it be said that he isn’t a man who takes risks.
More importantly than anything else, Harrison Wells hates that while he is not Eobard Thawne, he is not the Reverse Flash, he is not the “Harrison Wells” who gained their trust and affection, only to steal it away from them in a great act of betrayal, he is still following in his doppelganger’s footsteps. While he won’t be the one to drive the dagger into their backs, he will still be the instrument. Zoom wants Harrison to fatten Barry up like a Christmas Goose, push his speed to unfathomable levels before the rug is yanked out from under him. Betrayal does not leave a pleasant taste in his mouth, by any means.
However, the ends justify the means. Harrison Wells may be a cold man of science, may be a person who believes in progress and advancement above all else, no matter who gets hurt, but there is one person whose safety resides above all others. Life is a game of chess after all.
If Harrison needs to sacrifice Barry to protect his daughter, then that is a call that is far too easy to make.
2016 | gywo bingo | goal: complete all belts
2/17/16 | character challenge (part 1) | 992 words
When the reader first meets her, she’s a teenager, and true to most teenagers, she tends to fly by the seat of her pants and hope that the end result comes out in her favor. She almost never knows what she’s doing, let alone monitor what comes out of her mouth, and at the end of the day, she has the capability to offend, endear and confuse all in a matter of seconds. She does have the best intentions at heart, however, even if that isn’t entirely clear, and there’s a lot of things that she’s doing her best to grow into and assert her mark on the world. She’s transitioning from “child” – the stage of life where most things are handed to her without any real responsibility – to “adult” – the part where she has to make choices for herself and bear the consequences of those actions at the same time – and she’s doing it with the grace of a colt who is still awkwardly learning to walk.
For the most part, Bess looks like your average teenager. She has bright red hair which hangs to about her shoulders, pale skin and green eyes and her personal style is an eclectic mix of a number of different things, all as though she’s trying on different identities to see which one fits her best. From stylistically torn jeans to nerdy t-shirts and converses, to her mismatched nails and what comes off as hipster leather corded jewelry, she’s a girl who’s opted to wear a lot of different hats and somehow be able to pull them off without too much complaint. As far as the outside world is concerned, she is typical for her age group. And like with most people who live in the space between magical and mundane, the outside world view is only really scratching the surface.
Bess is magical, but the kind of magical where she lives trapped between the two worlds themselves. She has just enough magic to be interesting and important – precognition is her weapon of choice – but not enough where she will have the powers, longevity and prominence of the other magic users around her. In a lot of ways that’s a good thing because she’s a teenager – she believes herself to be invincible enough as it is – but growing up in the world of magic means you have to do a lot of growing up very quickly. Tapped at the age of fourteen to ascend to the position as the Oracle of Delphi (a lifetime appointment, made by Apollo himself for oracles and seers of his choosing), she knows how serious the things she sees are and the consequences that come from them. She’s still young, but her mind is constantly being bombarded with the past and the future, so she really is much more mature than she acts. In many ways, her immaturity and lack of a mental filter are a coping mechanism as much as anything else to deal with the things she sees and reassert the fact that she is still a child, even if she isn’t playing with childish things, and that this shouldn’t be her responsibility yet.
Luckily for her, her patron doesn’t really care about her maturity or lack thereof. Apollo is the closest thing she has to family, and is her lifeline in a lot of ways. He’s taken responsibility for her, and while she isn’t blind to the wrongs he’s committed in the past (Cassandra of Troy being a prominent one), she also likes the power and security that comes with her title and she likes to think that he’s learned from his mistakes over the thousand years since Cassandra was the focus of his attention. Whether or not she’s right or wrong will come with time. Apollo makes sure she lives well, however, and has everything she needs, as well as making sure she attends school, though it’s at a public high school with an appropriate mix of magical and mundane a like.
Magic is hidden in this world, but also more of a subtle thing, a play on energy and an awareness of that energy, and how magical a person is determines how much they can access. Deities and other prominent mythological figures who have found the means to obtain immortality are far more powerful than oracles like Bess who can only access as much as their precognition allows.
As far as her powers are concerned, she’s still growing into them which means she can’t always control them. She can have very powerful visions of major events, as dictated by the whims of the fates, and these can be summoned through various spells and rituals. Also, as she is fairly untrained, she can see pieces of a person’s past, present and future upon contact, though she’s working on learning how to block that out so that she can do normal things like shake people’s hands. When she’s assaulted physically, such as being hit or slapped, however, she’s often treated to visions of that person’s death, which can be immensely satisfying or vaguely terrifying, depending on who you are to her. (Nine times out of ten it’s terrifying, though.) Also, because she’s such a young oracle, she can often have a hard time separating her visions from actual things that have happened to her. This combined with her lack of a filter can often have her spitting out things that make no sense (when she meets one of the protagonists, the first thing she says to him is “Oh hey, it’s you!” even though they’ve never met before). This can be made even worse when she doesn’t often bother to go further and explain that she is an oracle, often leaving people, magical and mundane alike, to assume she’s some kind of crazy person.
(Which, to be fair, sometimes she actually is.)
2/17/16 | character challenge (part 2) | 1469 words
Bess really doesn’t want to see the woman who got her kidnapped, but there’s things she doesn’t understand. Things she needs explained that she can’t take to Apollo or anyone else. She needs someone who is an oracle in their own right, gifted with the talents she has to help her wade through the darkness and find the way to the light on the other side. Either way, at the end of the day, Cassandra is her only hope. She just hopes that Apollo doesn’t catch her in the act.
She makes her way down to Madam Cassandra’s, a tiny little psychic shop in the middle of Manhattan that she’s probably passed time and time again without ever really noticing it because no one in the magical realm actually believes that psychics like that are real, but she has to admit as she arrives, that this is an almost ideal place to hide. Anyone mundane wouldn’t know what they were walking into, and anyone magical would ignore it by virtue of dismissing it as a charlatan.
Maybe she could pull off something like this when she’s older. That is, of Apollo doesn’t have other plans for his golden goose.
She makes her way into the store, the door closing behind her with a delicate chime, and she looks around until she finds the caramel skinned woman who had approached her on the street that day. “You came,” Cassandra says as she comes around the corner, sounding almost surprised at the girl’s appearance as Bess is to be there. “I wasn’t sure if you would.”
“Well, you did get me kidnapped,” Bess points out. “Speaking of.” She takes a step forward and smacks Cassandra across the face, hard, and to her surprise, the woman takes it. She can feel the sting in her palm, but that’s something that’s going to have to wait for another time to deal with. Right now, she’s simply watching the way the woman’s eyes glaze over as the vision overtakes her. Bess clenches her hand closed for a moment, fighting through the stinging of her palm and hoping the other woman doesn’t get mad. “So you see it the way I do.”
“Apollo cursed me to see the worst of the world. That isn’t a ‘gift’ he would take away,” Cassandra steps back and rubs her cheek with her hands. “Was that really necessary?”
“You got me kidnapped.”
“You were the one who didn’t ask why.”
“Because I wouldn’t have believed you! I’m not a complete dumbass.” Bess huffs a bit as she adjusts the flannel overshirt she’s wearing over her Avengers t-shirt, before crossing her arms in front of her chest. “I thought you might be warning me away from something bad, not towards it.”
“It was necessary at the time.” Cassandra hesitates for a moment, before repeating, woodenly. “I’m sorry.”
“You should be.” It’s petulant and not actually getting anyone anywhere, but at least she said it. Then there’s an awkward beat, and she can’t help but be curious about the way she’s going to die. “Is it bad?”
“Do you really want me to answer that?”
“Can I avoid it?”
“Not really.”
“Then no. I guess I’d rather not.” There’s a pause before she cringes. “No, I actually – ”
“Elizabeth, I know you did not come here for me to tell you how you died so you won’t believe it.”
“ … Did you just full name me?”
“Why are you here, Bess? Risking your patron’s ire by consorting with one of his biggest mistakes.”
“Don’t you mean biggest victims?” Cassandra’s face remains firm on that point, and she sighs heavily, before reaching back and pulling her red hair up into a messy ponytail, rolling up her sleeves in the process and shaking out her hands. The hand that slapped Cassandra’s is still sore, but it’s getting better. “Alright, fine. Tabling that for later discussion.” She pointedly ignores the look that follows. “I had a vision on our way back, when Aaron was driving. I don’t know what it means, and I need you to help me figure it out.”
“And what makes you think I would be of help? Or care for that matter?”
“Because it’s obvious you know a shit ton more than me, okay?” she sighs. “You’ve been alive for a thousand years, I’ve been alive for seventeen. Contrary to popular belief, I am one of those teenagers who does not think she knows everything.”
“How refreshing,” Cassandra replies dryly. “That doesn’t explain why I should care.”
“Because it involves Conchobar mac Nessa.”
The one name stills the woman across the room from her, weighing her options for a moment before making her way over to the round table in the center of the room. “Show me.” Bess takes a deep breath before making her way closer. She sits at the chair across from her, and Cassandra extends her arms across the table palms up. “Give me your hands and close your eyes. Try to focus on the memory of the vision you have, rather than trying to dredge through the remains of my life, if you can.”
Bess makes a face as her hands hover over Cassandra’s, not quite taking the leap yet. “I’m not very good at that.”
“Then let me make the connection.” Cassandra lets her hands drop to the table. “Close your eyes, pull up the memory of the vision from your mind.”
Bess does as she’s told, dredging around in her memory until she finds the moment in question. Aaron sitting in the police station, a woman with vibrant red hair (not her) sitting across from him, and Aaron’s future partner entering the scene to disrupt the rhythm of their banter and suddenly a pair of hands are gripping hers tightly. She doesn’t know what else to do but hold on for the ride, squeezing Cassandra’s hands tightly as the vision is ripped from her and replaced with something else. Something also involving a dark haired man, a slick suit and this very shop. Bess can feel the heat of the flames licking at the back of her neck, feel the taunts strike at her like barbs as he tries to get under her skin and get her to cower before him, but she never does.
Of course she does. Cassandra of Troy doesn’t cower before gods who have broken her. Why would she cower in front of a man who has lived long past his usefulness?
Before she can learn more about that particular scene (obviously the future, she thinks) the hands are ripped away from her again, and she is jolted back to the present, to the sight of the other seer’s scowl and a finger in front of her face. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”
She sighs and nods. “Fair enough. What about my vision?”
“You don’t have to worry. It’s not happening for another ten years.”
“But what about Aaron?”
“He will be fine.”
Bess isn’t sure she buys it. It seems far too easy and convenient for it to be that simple. But there’s also a voice in the back of her head telling her that Cassandra is meant not to be believed. She doesn’t know which one to trust, but she takes the comfort as it is for now.
“If he isn’t, I’m gonna come back and smack you again.”
Cassandra purses her lips, before shaking her head. “Is there anything else, or can you get out of my shop now.”
Bess makes a face at her, before getting to her feet and moving to grab her bag laden with various buttons of different sizes. Before she reaches the door she pauses, before turning to glance back at her again. “Do you think you can teach me?”
“Teach you what?”
“How to control it.”
Cassandra looks up at her for a moment, studying her face carefully, before shaking her head. “Apollo cannot know of my involvement.”
“I won’t say a word to him. I’ll tell him I’m going out for … track or some shit.”
The face is still skeptical. “You will have to learn to control your tongue.”
She makes a face. “I can do it.” There’s a pause. “Maybe?” She sighs, before shaking her head. “Never mind.”
“You will learn,” Cassandra says gently as the teenager turns to go. “We all find a way in the end.”
Bess considers quietly, nodding for a moment, before turning and making her way out the door. “But will it make a difference. That is the five million dollar question.”
2/27/16 | leap day challenge | goal: 2,900 | COMPLETE
GRAND TOTAL WRITTEN: 3,400
3/13-19/16 | catch up challenge | goal: 5,600 | INCOMPLETE
Grand Total: 4,317
4/7-26/16 | taxation with representation | COMPLETE
4/12/16 | stop, drop, write | 365 words
It's a simple question, one that Charlie has asked her a thousand times before and the answer is always the same. Dylan trusts him because they are friends, and he's worked very hard to earn that trust. The difference being, the only time he asks is when he's sure that this isn't that serious. Dylan's reaction to dipping her fry in her milkshake isn't going to impact her view of him, or of anyone else for that matter. It's simply a way of daring her to try and do something fun, just this once.
Dylan continues to stare at him skeptically, though the look goes a little flat when he asks her that question. "Of course I do. That doesn't mean I'm going to like it."
"Well, that's the thing about new things, darlin'," he teases in return, leaning back in his seat with his milkshake. "You never know until you try."
Dylan continues to eye him skeptically for a moment, turning the French fry in her hand before she finally gives in and dips the end of the fried potato into the top of the milkshake. She doesn't get much, only just the tip really, but it's just enough for the flavor. She pulls back, taking a bite before he can accuse her of chickening out, and considers for a moment.
Then she promptly makes a face.
"Oh, come on."
"Wrong kind of sweet and salty." She is not a fan, and Charlie's more teasing than anything else. She then picks up the ketchup dispenser next to her and starts to squirt some over the top of her French fries.
"Hey now," he says before pointing to her plate. "That's basically tomato sugar."
"Right kind of sweet," she points out. "Really more sour, though."
He sighs a bit, before shaking his head. "Alright, alright. I will take your word for it." Charlie finishes off his plate, before pressing a kiss to her cheek as he gets up to make his way to the counter.
"Where are you going?"
"To get the next thing I want you to try."
"What's that?"
He just turns and grins at her. "It's a surprise."
4/23/16 | carrier pigeon challenge | COMPLETE
2016 | personal goal: completing requests
5/20/16 | time management challenge | COMPLETE
TOTAL WC: 1,321 words
june 2016 | mid-year marathon | goal: 16,393 | INCOMPLETE
WEEK 1:
WEEK 2:
WEEK 3:
WEEK 4:
TOTAL WC: 5,121
6/21/16 | summary challenge (part 1) | 315 words
The machine in question – nicknamed the “Comet Rocket” by its creator, Professor Mark Franklin – proved to be an invaluable asset for the people of Mars and helped jumpstart the terraforming process tenfold. Now, ten years down the road, the crew that was sent to maintain it has completed their mission and are trading off with the new crew after a six month training period. A fresh group of twenty something rocket scientists and engineers are ready to continue the quest for Earth’s future, and as last reported to the world council organizing this mission, Mars could be ready for its first inhabitants by the year 2250.
Marisol Villanueva is one of those young engineers, arriving on Mars for the first time and excited to see the Comet Rocket in action. But when a deadly accident during a training session costs one of the returning scientists their life under mysterious circumstances, the rest of the ground team is left wondering if harnessing large chunks of ice from deep in space is really as safe as they think it is – and more importantly, can they save what’s left of this settlement before humanity’s last hope is lost for good.
After all – any help is six months away.
6/21/16 | summary challenge (part 2) | 1,170 words
“What?”
“Have an issue with moving vehicles?” he teases and she rolls her eyes.
“If I did, did you think I would have gotten in a tin can to travel six months through death and inky blackness in order to get here?”
“Maybe.” He crosses his arms in front of his chest as he studies her for a moment. “People do a lot of crazy things to be part of the next human frontier.”
She shifts her weight so that she’s leaning back against the wall before reaching up to fix her ponytail, pulling the strands apart to tighten the band’s hold against her head. It’s a gesture that’s more out of habit and an absence of things to do with her hands, but she doesn’t let her expression betray that.
“I don’t have an issue with moving vehicles on the ground.”
“But?”
“That was a very specific specification there. You don’t have a problem with moving vehicles on the ground but … ”
She stares him down for a moment, not necessarily willing to concede at this point, but eventually she huffs and looks away. “I’m not a big fan of elevators. Got stuck in one once when I was a kid, and it didn’t end well.”
“Yeah, well, unfortunately there’s no stairs to the comet,” Trip sighs as he turns to stare out the window towards the large steel structure that housed the Comet Rocket. It’s not really an elevator exactly – there’s no track that it follows into space to dock with the comet, but there is a sensor that was planted the when the comet circled Mars for the first time and they managed to lock it into orbit. That sensor would guide the elevator car to the surface of the comet where they will latch on, ride the comet for the mining process and touch down safely back at the base camp a few days from now.
“Yeah, and hopefully this will be the first and last time I have to do it,” she replies. She’s been told that this is only a precautionary part of her training – being a bioengineer, she’s mostly focusing on the terraforming efforts and determining what genetic changes need to be made to their food that will allow it to continue to be edible as well as survive in the harsh portions of Mars’ atmosphere. The more they can grow, the sooner they can produce oxygen and hopefully make the planet a little more inhabitable, one day at a time. “Barring any emergencies of course. I don’t disagree with the decision to train everyone on everything, just in case, but … I wish it wasn’t such a rational one.”
As the car slows, Trip gets up from his seat and makes his way over to the closet housing the life support suits they’ll be using in the suit to help keep them breathing. “Well, don’t worry. The ten years I’ve been here, we’ve had relatively few emergencies – you said it yourself, this is just a precaution. Personally, I’m of the mind that enough precautions prevent the accidents from happening in the first place.”
“That’s sound logic to me,” she says with a small smile, before letting Trip walk her through donning the suit and making sure everything works properly. Once that’s done and the tram comes to a stop, she seals her oxygen mask and steps out onto the dusty red surface of the planet itself. She stops just as she exists, having been sealed in biodomes and greenhouses for the past few months and her eyes widen in response. “Damn.”
“I know,” Trip grins as he comes up behind her. “Pretty amazing, isn’t it?”
“Life changing.” Her voice is soft, but calm, letting her eyes wash over everything, before turning back to Trip with a nod. “Okay. Where do we start?”
He gestures for her to follow, talking to her through the comm system as they go. “This is the starting point of the track. The end is back at the base camp. Every cycle around, we’ll go up through the Comet Rocket, mine what we can from the surface of the comet, and release once we’re above the target location. This is all done through sensors, so you don’t have to worry about piloting it.”
“Then what do I have to worry about?” she asks as she goes to board the elevator car with him, which in a lot of ways reminds her of the elevator helicopter she saw once in the movies her grandmother used to watch with her, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She lets her eyes run over the buttons as Trip goes to point out each function before glancing back to her with a grin.
“We just have to make sure that the sensor is calibrated properly when before it leaves, when we arrive on the comet, and when we return.”
“Can things be thrown off that much?”
“You ever see one of those little self-running vacuum cleaners?”
“Yeah?” she frowns, not understanding the purpose of the question.
“In the old days, they used to bounce their docking ports all over the place, just from momentum pushing it away. Same concept. We need to make sure everything’s aligned so we don’t miss our mark and go shooting off into space.”
“Got it,” she nods. “Check sensors at all times.”
“Good.”
They start to make their way into the compact pod, and she watches attentively as Trip pushes a number of buttons to start to slowly draw them up into the atmosphere above. She tries not to look down as the world falls away around them, but she can’t help but look out, as the red of the planet fades into a richer blood orange color and the specific landmarks and pieces fade away.
“See? Not so bad, right?”
The inky blackness of space is waiting above them, sprinkled with tiny stars located far, far away, and she glances over with a grin and nods. “Yeah. This is pretty amazing.”
In the distance, she can see the comet coming around to make its approach and she braces herself for docking. Just before the comet is about to connect, the controls suddenly start going haywire around them and Trip launches into action.
“What the shit?”
“What?” Marisol demands as she moves to see what’s going on. “What’s happening?”
Before Trip can respond, however, everything comes to a sudden halt. The thrusters that have been pushing them forward die, and the sirens that had been sounding stop in sudden, sickening silence. Shortly after that, the ground falls out from under them and Marisol finds herself hurtling right back to the surface of Mars.
7/13-14/16 | two day challenge | goal: 2,300 words | COMPLETE
DAY 2:
GRAND TOTAL: 2,603
8/11/16 | stop, drop and write | 239 words
Landon looks over at Liam like he's been slapped, almost as though the implication that he may not be completely prepared for this turn of events is an affront to his very being. Landon is a ballroom champion. He's been on stage since he knew how to walk. The "n-word" is not a word that is ever present in his vocabulary and he resents his boyfriend for implying such a thing.
"What? No. Of course not."
Liam studies him carefully for a moment, knowing that it really comes down to the curse of being known too well, and Landon tries his best to keep his composure, but after a moment he exhales with a loud huff and shakes his head. "Shut up."
Liam flashes him a shit eating grin, before moving closer and sliding his arms around Landon's waist from behind. "They're just pictures."
"They're pictures for what is potentially the biggest gig of my career. I get this job and ... I'll be getting gigs for the rest of my life."
"You really don't need those, you know." Liam smirks. "I'm your sugar daddy, remember?"
"I remember. That doesn't mean I want you to be." Landon sighs as he turns around, before shaking his head. "I have to do my own thing. You know that."
"I do." Liam sighs as he shakes his head. "Don't worry. You're going to do great."
"I hope you're right."
8/26/16 | what's in a name challenge | 243 words
Eventually she takes her place at the head of the table, letting the cane rest on the arm of her chair for a moment as she leans back and studies each of them. They are all men she has known for years, long before she’s come into a position of power at her husband’s company, but now they are all forced to take her seriously. They are required to kneel at the ring of power and give in to her demands, whether they want to and agree with them or not. And even on occasion, they are forced to admit that she has more savvy than she initially lets on.
“Well,” Lady Dahlia Chetham says as she makes her way to her seat with a small smile. “Where shall we begin?”
9/13/16 | roll the dice challenge | goal: 786 | COMPLETE
GRAND TOTAL WRITTEN: 839
10/14/16 | five minute challenge | 147 words
“What was that?” she asks, glancing over at him nervously.
“Nothing.” He responds too quickly, as though it’s more to keep both of them calm and not panic about the situation at hand. Being alone in the dark in the middle of a deserted area of the peer is more than enough to have them jumping to unnatural conclusions and he doesn’t want to encourage those kinds of thoughts if he can help it. “It’s nothing. It’s just a dog with barking into a pipe or a ridiculously huge cat. Definitely not anything that could do us actual harm.”
11/6/16 | stop, drop and write | 399 words
One day she would retain the fact that exit strategies are important. Unfortunately for her, Jessie and Aaron, today was not that day.
That, unfortunately, was how they wound up surrounded by goons in the middle of a empty warehouse downtown, with no way out, no back up, and no patience left on the part of her friends. "I knew this was a bad idea," Jessie sighed, glancing around the room as though that will fill in some of the blanks. "This is why we shouldn't let you make plans."
"Look, we obviously can't die here," Bess pointed out as she took a step back, feeling the solidness of Aaron's back behind her and scanning the room in front of her. "I had that vision, and you've got a very specific death coming for you, Jess."
"My kind of magic can be averted, dumbass," Jessie fired back, the frustration in her voice very clear. "So yes, I can absolutely die right here, if that happens to be the way this goes."
"Ladies!" Aaron spoke up from behind them, sounding exasperated if nothing else. "Can we save the arguing for later, and right now focus on the matter at hand, which is getting out of here?"
"How are we supposed to do that?" Jessie frowned. "There are at least ten of them and only two of us."
"Three," Bess pointed out.
"Two that I'm not super pissed at and actually want to survive."
"Wow. That is so not very Christian of you."
"Guys." Aaron was really not here for them to argue until they died. "There were three of us."
As he spoke, an arrow whizzed down past their head, striking one of the goons behind them. Another followed from the opposite side of the warehouse, and Bess looked up to see Jude taking aim from one of the rafters above, while Aaron's sister Kendra worked from the other.
"Now there are five."
"Okay," Jessie gave a small nod. "I like these odds slightly better."