Michelle turned the corner, bumping into a strange looking man and blanching as he pulled back his coat. He blinked eight times in a patter and she reached to fix her bra strap, a silent conversation of signals going on amidst a rather large crowd. She made her hand look like a gun and the man smiled, offering his hand to her.
“Hello darling, let’s go home.” He said, noticing her reluctance to take his hand and snatching her with a soft hiss of warning. He pulled her along behind him, until they walk the four blocks to the ‘bad side’ of town. The man pulled her around by the elbow and sucker punched her in the jaw, sending her sprawling against a cement wall.
“Bitch, where is it?!” he growled, crouching down and pulling her face to his, the toothy smile deadly and cold. She squirmed, pulling something out of her hoodie, but Razuko was too quick, snatching up the black packet and swiping a fist across her face, splattering her in her bloodied nose. Michelle inched away as she clutched her nose, not crying a single tear; the packet was a fake.
Then she saw him as he pulled out his gun, pushing it up against her forehead.
“If this is another of yer tricks, you whore, I’ll blow your brains half through that wall.” He growled, waving the packet in front of her, his finger easing onto the trigger. “And if it ain’t… you’re still dead.” He said, pulling the trigger. Michelle cried out as she tried to dive away, not noting the scuffle of a man bowling Razuko over, the bullet going through her hero’s shoulder.
Michelle was up and running, dodging around the deepest corners of the shadows until she was well winded, though one set of footsteps followed her, unnaturally fast. As she saw the man coming to her with the hand gun she back up to the dead end corner.
“No, please, please… I’m pregnant…” She whimpered, sobbing and searching the wall desperately. Instead of the ring of another gunshot, Michelle felt soft, familiar lips over her own.
“I… I know baby, it’s my little one. Shhh.” Joshua whispered, placing the gun in the back of his belt to wrap her up in a tight hug, wincing at the burning in his left shoulder. Joshua’s mind ran with Michelle’s, both of them relieved to know the other was alive.
“Oh Michelle, I’m so sorry…” Joshua whispered, holding her out at arms length to look at her, his shoulder having left blood smears across her neck and cheek when they hugged. He tried to wipe up the smears, only making them worse and frowning. Michelle’s face was covered in her own blood, swear and dirt, her hair matted and crusted from the sidelong fall into a puddle of street muck. She was shivering and soaked now, her hands scuffed up badly.Michelle sniffed and sobbed so hard she could barely look at him, her hiccups seizing every now and then. She shook her head as he was about to speak again, pulling him close and backing into the shadows again.
Michelle collapsed to the ground, exhausted now, her legs too weak to support her. Her lover tried to soften the fall, slipping under her to cradle her against his chest as they sat on the lone patch of weeds in the deep darkness, two lost souls alone in the silence. Finally, he reached out to run his hand along her face, tucking her hair back to give her a soft kiss.
“How is the baby?” she heard Joshua whisper, barely beyond consciousness.
“Wonderful…” she muttered, her half closed eyes closing when she tilted her head. She felt his forehead against hers just as they both fell asleep on that long and troubled night.
A rough back story, rewritten from the old one more to my liking.
Name: Lilithia Cryso (Do'Urden)
Age: (Drow years) - 63 Race: Drow
Alignment: Chaotic Good (Refer to THIS for more information on alignments.)
Eyes/Hair: Purple w/ gold silver highlights, snowy white/lavender hair.
Weapon (s) of choice: Scimitars, bow, spells.
Backstory: Her mother had been posing on the surface as a high priestess of Mieliki until she could get Drizzt to sire the girl. She held most moral aspects of the drow until she ran away, just after she had murdered her mother. Lilithia was born in Menzoberranzan to an ex- high priestess of Mielikki and raised to be a skilled fighter to replace her second sister as weapons master after her mother killed her sister for going against Lolth. The emotional scarring drove her out into the Underdark, until she ran into Drizzt as he was returning to see what had become of his daughter. After a heated battle, he learned that she was the girl he searched for and took her back with him to the surface, in the hopes he could save his daughter.
As she discovered kind of 'filth' she was, she thought about returning to Menzoberranzan where she 'belonged', because of her evil past. Eventually Drizzt broke through to her and taught her properly, turning her cold outer shell away and polishing her into a fine fighter, and a beautiful young woman. He taught her about the gods after he learned that, like his father, she had never particularly favored Lolth, but had hidden her 'wild side' to keep out of harm's way. When Lilithia told her father she wished to leave, he obtained a set of scimitars for her as a parting gift. (Poison and Paradise.) When asked why she kept her mother's name, she told him she didn't want to 'tarnish his good name with her own wrong-doings.'
Drizzt was praised by Lady Alustriel when he returned Lilithia to the surface, and as a gift, she enchanted Poison and Paradise to return at Lilithia's call, whenever they are removed or knocked from her range of reach. Lilithia obtained the powers of Lolth by capturing them in a charm she wear on her neck, along with the unicorn head charm that was a gift from Drizzt also. (Drizzt encouraged, in a joking manner, that Lilithia should turn Lolth's own powers against her.) Lilithia has dreams of becoming a ranger, but has vowed first to right the wrong her mother left on the surface.
(A picture of Lilithia. Edited by me, owned by Anna Rigby.)
As with most of my writing, I managed a page of something with a promise... It's kind of sad, but preying on the strong emotions such as love, anger and grief can bring about some quality work. I've got a rough idea of the storyline, and I might work on this more if I don't work on documenting my work books (seven months of writing from during school).
Michelle Lita Hansen- Startling blue eyes and raven black hair. Aged around twenty-two, pregnant by her (deceased) fianceé Joshua Maugave. She stands 5'3". In the story, some of her background is presented but not to spoil that part, I won't add it. She was eighteen when she met Joshua and they dated on and off for some time before he proposed, six months prior to his murder by Pero for helping the cops to bust one of Pero's 'rat holes'. Michelle is a general outcast, but somewhat wealthy. I'd disclose more of her background but as of yet, I have to mesh the details. (Ha, like most of my work, nothing's ever truly finished...) On to the story.
Ashes on the Water.
Michelle knew well who it was when her phone began to buzz, the soft sound seeming unordinarily loud to the din of a summer rain storm. She pulled the phone out with trembling hands, hoping, with all her heart, that Pero hadn’t found Joshua. She flipped it open, putting it gingerly to her ear as she shifted on the top of the dumpster in a dark alley, sheltered from the rain under a balcony. “Hello?” She asked the quiet of the line. She cringed and shifted again as she heard his smooth voice. “Hey, Swan. We caught our… ‘rat’. We’re going to leave the body somewhere you’ll have a decent time finding, no worries.” His voice was pleased, even happy. Then a ruckus of laughter sounded out on the other end, before it cut out to nothingness. She shook, gasping like she’d been hit in the chest with a steel mallet “You… you bastard!” She screamed, her hand darting out to throw the phone against the alley wall fifteen feet into the rainy darkness. Her sobs came hard as she knelt on the dumpster, pounding her bare fists against it in a grieving rage. Then everything went black.
She awoke the next morning, to the sounds of garbage trucks on Monday morning. Quickly, she shrugged off the slurping feeling off falling asleep after crying hard, her head wobbling as she scrambled over to pick up the cell. Without a second thought, she shoved it deep into her pocket, knowing the picture message that she’d received would be some sick puzzle Pero had planted for her. What would she do? Pero’s lackey’s had likely ransacked Joshua’s apartment and burned it down by now. She had nowhere to go, back home wasn’t even an option. Her parents had gone so far as a restraining order from her younger brother after they learned that she’d carjacked a truck and driven two hundred miles to escape a loan shark that had been after her. She frowned as she thought back, still guilty now after her younger brother’s near death. Michelle hadn’t seen the boy in six years, since he was just a toddler and she was fifteen. She’d been the queen of Marindon Avenue, sneaking out at night and getting into the worst fights. But she’d changed, she changed… she pleaded still. She moved as she heard the truck behind her, pushing up her hood and hiding her hands deep in the single pocket on the front. Joshua’s sad smile donned on her thoughts, last night before he ran. He was trying to keep her safe, keep their unborn child away from Pero’s sick world. He’d run, trying to catch a flight to France in an effort to lure Pero out of the country. Pero had been too smart. She knew that Pero himself had probably crawled out his damned rat hole to have the fun of shooting Joshua down in the Westfield Church that Joshua had been hiding in. Suddenly, the tears again, her sobs loud enough to draw the attention of several passer-by strangers. She saw a woman carrying a toddler, a beautiful little brown haired girl with the deepest green eyes. She smiled half-heartedly as the mother coddled the child and nuzzled her cheek. Soon, she’d have her own baby. But the kid wouldn’t have a father. Michelle was too busy suffering to notice that a young girl had been running after her, the mother shouting from a street café some ways down the street. “Miss!” The little girl shrieked, “Miss! Miss! Wait!” Michelle turned finally, stopping to crouch for the short little girl to talk to her. She couldn’t even put on a fake smile, and the little sad face the girl had broke her heart in so many more ways than Joshua’s death had. She glanced back at the little girl’s mother and sighed. “Miss, you dropped this.” She said, leaning back on her heels all proud as she held out the golden locket. Michelle slowly reached out to take the locket, sniffling and smiling as she pulled the little girl close. “Thanks. Do you have a name so I can tell my baby girl about you when she’s as old and smart as you?” Michelle asked, hugging the girl and smiling when she nodded. “Hanna.” The little girl giggled as her mother rushed up and put a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry miss, Hanna’s sometimes too friendly.” She said, looking to Michelle’s barely showing belly and grinning in a kind way of knowing. Michelle shook her head and replaced the locket around her neck, tucking it into her hoodie and smiling. “Oh no, she’s gorgeous. I hope my baby is just like her, when she’s grown up.” She told the woman, glancing at the girl as she turned to leave, waving at her. “Bye Hanna.”
Hannah and her mother turned to walk back to the café, Michelle headed down the street again, to where, she didn’t know.
Felt a poem coming on while listening to Iris by Goo Goo Dolls. Something funny I remember saying to a friend about all the times I've felt a poem coming and then been disappointed and frustrated when I only managed to stare at a blank paper for two whole hours.
"Being a poet is much like having bowel problems. You know you have to use the bathroom. But once you're there on your stone throne, nothing comes until you leave... then you're even worse off."
Only Invisible
I don't want the world to see me. You know that they won't understand.
Everyone only tells me how life's so great, Yeah, my plans must be grand.
If every time I reach for the stars, My steady hands just get swatted down.
If every time I reach for a heart, My hand gets pushed away with his frown.
I start to wonder where did I go wrong. I can only blame my failures on myself.
But as soon as I see I was right all along, I can see all my memories crumbling on their shelf.
Is there a 'forward' to look to? My past is in shambles.
I wish I was only invisible. Maybe then I wouldn't have to listen to everyone around me ramble.
Oh, I wish I was only invisible. So that I could float away.
I could be moving. I could be ethereal.
I wish I was only invisible, To become what I can't be.
I keep walking, I'll keep on a thousand paces more. Until my feet are too tired.
I'll keep searching for a heart that doesn't reject. Maybe I'll be baptised by fire.
I can only keep going until I find my stars. Until I find my heart.
Then, I will only be invisible. I'll be ready to fly far.
I'll only be invisible, Except to hearts and hands that understand.
A short excerpt from a piece of writing I've been toying with lately. It's Still a bit rough, Keyandri as a character is not too clearly defined as of yet. He/she (it has no gender really.) is the over-seer of the Fate Stone, which is given a short reference in the excerpt. Keyandri most often takes the form of a female human or female elf, occasionally a quickling, pixie, faery or the sort. Keyandri cannot immitate any other living being, as far as becoming a clone.
Remora found the Fate Stone in the form of a Nintendo paddle in an old antique shop at a mall. (The Stone can take any form it so chooses, to change depending on where in time it lands or on different planes.)
This excerpt is about Keyandri watching over Remora and Drizzt (I don't own him. R. A. Salvatore does...) As they journey through the wilderness in some unknown place.
(Picture of Keyandri. Unknown artist, not my work. Keyandri is my own in the writing.)
Keyandri watched the two new partners from not far off, blending in with shadows as easily as if she was one herself. She could sense the call of the Fate Stone; it had called to her across many hundreds of miles. How a human from an alternate plane could wield it, she had no idea. The Fate Stone controlled one’s fate, across centuries, across the planes of existence. It could move a person before or after their birth moment to the time that they were, originally, thought to belong.
And now, the girl was where she belonged. Keyandri could sense, also, her will to return home. Hadn’t she meant to be taken away when she had taken the stone? Most of the fate Stone’s wielders were happy with where they were taken, often without understanding or knowing. This girl couldn’t begin to understand the depth of responsibility of having that stone. Errtu would want it, to reach the mortal planes. Keyandri knew she had to do something, slipping back into her infinite plane and calling out to the mist for which to scry, to keep a safe eye on the two.
Halfbreed Rise - This was inspired by two things. My best friend found a gorgeous photo of what one of my other friends roleplay characters' parents might have been like. (Elf mother and a drow father, as seen in the picture below.) He asked ever so kindly if I would scratch something up and I managed to, but it's in limbo. Can't seem to get the nerve to finish it. The sample is below, chapter one of Halfbreed Rise.
(Picture of Niviba (left) & Zabine (right). Uknown artist, not mine. I own both characters, in the writing.)
Many summers ago, a young and inexperienced Zabine, a dejected drow, left his home of thirty seven years in the Underdark and came to the light above. His morals were much too different; his mother was constantly in distress about his lack of bloodthirst. His three brothers and one sister denied him, saying he was a mutt, a piece of rabid trash that had made his family worthless, and beyond that, his father denied siring such a complete failure. He had suffered more than his share there, but what was to come was not all the best either. Many people of the surface turned him away, spat on him. Several threatened him. All based on his race, drow. People talked, throwing him awkward glances, and gossip rose. His path was not easy, until by chance, he ran into little Niviba, as she was drawing water on a full moon summer night.
Niviba was a sprite youth when he met her, her cheeks rosy in the faint, graceful moonlight and her cheekbones high. He approached her from behind, cautious of the young girl’s reaction to seeing him. He didn’t want to scare the little girl, but he had no idea she was an elf. Niviba’s slippered foot rolled over the rock beneath it, sending her forward almost into the open well. It only took a second for her scream to alert Zabine, his body moving like liquid ebony to catch her round the waist with his trunks for arms. As he backed away from the well, his arms still around her, she didn’t struggle. He stopped, looking down into her face, lips agape in awe at her perfect beauty in the soft glow of the heavens.She didn’t push him away as many normal people might have, in fear. Then again, she wasn’t normal. He noticed her cute ears, long, like his. She had two little rings near the tip of one, and a tattoo there. The symbol of a high and noble house. She turned in his arms to face him, reaching up to his ears, moving her hands across his face. She had never once seen such a dark skinned elf, or was he a drow? She didn’t care, he had no weapons at all, in fact, he had just saved her.
“You’re very handsome.” Niviba commented, stroking his cheek and smiling. He wanted to weep in the image of her perfection, the way her cheeks rose when she smiled, her pearlescent teeth and heavenly blue lagoon eyes. If he had white skin like her, he might have turned bright red like a burning sun. For the first time in his life, he began to stutter.
“Th-th-thank y-you…” He gasped, nodding as if trying to convince the words to come. He smiled, his arms shaking where they lay around her waist, his hands sweaty. She laughed, the laugh of a thousand breeze-blown lilies tinkling. It was the most amazing thing to Zabine. He had never felt so wonderful, and compared to the misery, it felt like a dream. But he was very much awake. And the way her breasts looked confirmed that, although too long a glance might get him in trouble. His eyes wandered away from her chest, taking in the light armor she wore. She had the strangest, most alluring tattoo across her hip, his hand reaching to touch it. She didn’t flinch, but she made a noise that startled Zabine. She closed her eyes, pressing her hip into the cup of his palm as he opened it.
“Sorry!” He gasped, pulling his hand away. She then became spooked, jerking back and opening her eyes. She closed her gaping lips, biting the bottom corner.
“Oh, that… that felt good. I’m… uh, I’m Niviba.” She said, smiling again. Zabine cursed himself inside, gulping and trying to keep from falling over in fright. How had he ever come so close to such an angel? Without scaring her or worse, being turned away or threatened with the end of a sword.
“I’m Zabine…” He trailed off. They both smiled, swinging into the Elvish way of doing things, between a girl and a boy, about to be a man. Niviba took his hand, careful not to startle him. They both knew what was thrumming in their chests, and it wasn’t their heart. Zabine’s hand, the one not linked between the fingers of hers, snaked its way back down to her bare skinned side, stroking the flesh. He rested his palm on the round of her thigh, his thumb making circles that caused her muscles to relax. She closed her eyes again, sitting on the well, careful of her beautiful dress.
“That’s… that feels good, Zabine…” She murmurs, opening her eyes to look up into his face. He saw the twinkle in her eyes as they reflected the moon. It made him smile, his teeth like a row of perfect stars, in a perfect line, sandwiched by an ebony box of flesh. Niviba moved her idle hand up over his ear, lulling him to close his eyes and tilt his head so she might better see his handsome amethyst eyes. He loved being touched by her soft, tender hands. It was the gentlest thing he’d felt since he had last seen his family, a few months or more ago. They both pulled their hands back, Zabine hearing the footsteps behind him. He gave a fleeting, apologetic glance before he kissed her hand and took off into the forest behind them. Niviba’s father had watched her with the drow boy, and he was not pleased at all. But for a few days, Niviba fought the man, finally sneaking out to buy bread, and hoping to run into the one with the lavender eyes. She hadn’t forgotten one detail of his face, his long ears and their crystalline earrings, his Godlike mouth and nose, his supple cheeks… every detail down to his taut and muscled chest. But still, it was not perfect. His toned body was a masterpiece, how she longed to touch it, to feel it with her hands. But she felt her heart drop when she stood in the market a whole day and never once saw Zabine. Niviba watched and daydreamed until she had to return home, to the yelling of her angry father. He gave her a much stricter curfew, and he enchanted all the money in the house to glow blue if she disobeyed his rules. One day, her mother asked her why her sewing was going so slow, as Niviba was mending her armor. Niviba began to weep, her longing for Zabine an open wound.
“I met a boy by the well, and… mama, I want him to court me. But he left, and papa…” She wailed softly, her mother pushing aside the project in Niviba’s hands to pull her close to her side.
“Sweet child, did this boy deflower you?” Her mother asked. Niviba shook her head. She wouldn’t tell her mother of the drow boy, Zabine.
“He gave me his name… and l-left…” Niviba would whimper. Her chest felt as if it had been slammed by a blacksmith’s forge hammer. Her other half, the boy that had been caught by a cannibal tribe hiding in the woods not far from her home, knew this feeling well. He had been caught stealing their food, and had been imprisoned. He secretly longed for his Angel. Even when the cannibals deemed him too lean to eat, he wept upon seeing the moon in the skies above his prison. He begged the Goddess of Fate to return her, for he felt he was not whole without her. Her image had been etched into the back of his skull, but with the days, it faded like a drawing. He wanted to touch her. He remembered the night they met as the only memory he wished would play over again. Slowly, it too became gray, and far off like her picture. That’s what broke Zabine. He was there, doing nothing to get out, to return to his Angel.
“My angel… yes, my angel… I must return tonight…” The boy muttered. He fell back on his denied heritage, slaughtering the first guard to come in and feed him with his bare hands and leaving the gruesome camp, each step in his run taking him farther. In his ears, her voice led him by touch, and by smell. It gave him strength. He could see well the next night, having been raised in the Underdark had given him great eyesight in the poorest lighting. After what seemed hours of searching, he found the well. He knew it was the right one, the elven cottage nearby was confirmation. He saw a pair of longing blue eyes in the window. Hers! As silent as the wind, he snuck up next to the window, placing a palm up against the glass. His heart was galloping in his chest, and he wasn’t sure if it was her. An ivory hand, smaller than his own, pressed to the pane from the inside, his shadowing it like a monster of the night. In that instant, the two were reunited for good. He let his hand slide down around the panes of glass, edging them up. He pried, one by one, all four of the sections out and used what little strength he had left to snap the wood crosser. He looked up into the darkened room, smiling in the moonlight at a teary-eyed Niviba. She leaned out the window, taking his cheeks in her palms like she had the night they met, her lips meeting his. Her tears ran down over his chin, but he closed his eyes, and all that was the world was them. Zabine reached up, his hands guiding her over the window sill so they could escape. She fell into his arms, still fully clothed. She hadn’t changed, she had been waiting, and she looked like she hadn’t eaten nor slept for a good amount of days. He kept his pain with held from her view, strong as he carried her away, and swift. He had left no true trace of their disappearance, less for her parents to know. They were free now.
