Jennifer Melzer's Blog, page 6

Inktober Day 1: RING

Art has become something of a saving grace for me this last year. After finding myself in a very deep well of despair, I turned my sights to the stars and began painting and drawing in an effort to find something to feel happy and good about again. Turns out art is great therapy! I decided to throw myself into Inktober this month while plotting out my NaNoWriMo 2019 novel, since I won’t be doing much in the way of writing, so I’m going to try to post my Inktober contributions here every day as I complete them.

Today’s Inktober prompt was RING, and since I spend most of my artistic endeavors among the stars, the only logical response for me seemed to be planetary rings.

Flashy Friday: Severing Ties

It was the only way to sever the master’s ties. Bit by bit, he’d carve himself to pieces and fling them to the far ends of the riverbank until he no longer had arms to saw with.

Flashy Friday: Vow of a Million Lifetimes

From across the dungeon, Asin-al Liada watched the members of her party fall. Luatha of the temple of Nistaari was the first to fall, the lich dooming them all with that carefully planned strike against the cleric. The barbarian, Tom Barkskin, lie pinned beneath his maul, dead eyes staring at nothing. Laughing Isharti, the jovial halfling Asin-al had come to adore, was the last to die, one hand raised and ready to sing some musical note that would have likely revived them all, the other clutching his viola so tight they’d never pry it from his corpse.


 


Gripping her sword tighter in her hand, she closed her eyes and renewed her vow. A hundred years, a thousand years, the span of a hundred million lifetimes she would serve the Golden Dragon if only her ladyship would imbue her with the strength to put a stop to such evil and return her companions to the lives they deserved.


 


From her throne room, the Golden Dragon basked in the promise of a hundred million lifetimes of service before reaching out a talon and speaking one simple word designed to give her paladin’s party the lives they all deserved.

Flashy Friday: The Quill of Altered Doom

From the depths of a Hell he’d been destined to rule since birth, Anung Un Rama vowed to write his way out of the role in which he’d been cast.

Flashy Friday: The NDA

“What do you mean, you signed a contract?” Miles stared at Tess from the other side of the table, disbelief narrowing his eyes.

“Not a contract,” she rasped. “A nondisclosure agreement. I’m not allowed to talk about Mr. Feeney’s affairs to anyone, not even my own family.” Tess’s face blanched a little, her eyes widening as she felt the magic curling fingers around her vocal cords from within. “I’m not even allowed to mention his name,” she whispered.

Miles drew back in horror, watching strange hands writhe beneath her skin as clenching fingers reached, wrapped, began to tighten and suffocate her. “What is wrong with you?”

Shaking off the hands, she reached up to soothe her throat with gentle fingers and said, “Twenty-seven million dollars, Miles. That’s what’s wrong with me. If I can keep my mouth shut until the old man dies, I’ll never have to work again.”

Head drifting thoughtfully back and forth, he drew in breath through his nose, both nostrils flaring. Tess had always been a fool, just like she’d always been a gossip. His sister would be dead long before Mr. Feeney. Rumor said the man was going to live forever, and judging from the grasping hands beneath Tess’s skin, Miles believed it. He was a sorcerer of some kind, and everyone knew sorcerers were not to be trusted.

“You’re an idiot, Tessa. An absolute idiot.”

“And you’re jealous,” she smirked. “You’ve always been jealous of me, but I can do this. You’ll see! And when I’m rolling in money I’ll make you eat those words.”

“Yeah,” he started to back away. “We’ll see.”

Flashy Friday: Frost Giant Dreams

They were the children of frost giants, forced to sleep for a thousand years and dream of the future in slow rhythms as the world turned and grew and evolved. They grew, too, of course, though not quickly.

Their growth was slow like trees, bodies inching toward the light as the wind howled lullabies and tucked blankets of snow around them to keep them safe as they dreamed.

Flashy Friday: The More Deserving

“How many is this for them? Eight? Nine?”

“Eleven,” Ecor sighed.

“Eleven. It’s… a travesty. No one can take care of eleven children, not even the richest of men.” Niss stared down at the hovel, spying two of older children huddled together and shivering beneath a moth-eaten burlap sack they were using to keep warm. “Babies should go to the deserving,” she lamented, “not just anyone who stumbles home drunk in the dark and blunders into fatherhood.”

Ecor agreed wholeheartedly, of course, but it was too late to change things now. They’d been delivering babies to the undeserving since the dawn of time, while suffering the sorrows of those who could not conceive but desperately longed for a child of their own. Just last week an angry woman threw stones at him from her rooftop, cursing the storks for leaving her childless and barren after two decades of trying.

“It isn’t fair,” Nissa said. “It isn’t right.”

“But that is life, child. Unfair, unright. If we could change the world, we would.”

“We can change the world,” she declared. “We can put these children with families who deserve them.”

“No, Nissa. As unfortunate as it is, we cannot. Not without consequences you aren’t prepared to face. Now drop the baby down there for Mr. and Mrs. Miller and move on.”

Nissa glared at him, moonlight glinting off her squinted eye. He’d seen that look before, not from her, but others who’d defied the system.

“I’m not giving them this baby, Ecor. They don’t deserve it. I won’t.”

“Please, Nissa.”

And with that she spread her wings and ascended toward the clouds.

Barely raising his voice above a whisper, he said, “Wait. Stop. Don’t,” as she disappeared into the clouds.

There would be consequences, of course, but it wasn’t the first time some more deserving woman was gifted with a child in desperate need of love. And in truth, Mr. and Mrs. Miller wouldn’t lament not having another mouth to feed.

Flashy Friday: The Dragons of Candlour

Two years of skipping lunches, clipping coupons, skrimping and saving every penny he could get his hands on, and it’d been entirely worth it just to see her smile as the dragons of Candlour began their deci-annual migration. It was their ten year anniversary, too, which made it the perfect celebration.


 


Just before the sun breached the horizon, he set up the camera so they’d have something to show their children when they were older. He listened to her excited gasps and squeals, chuckling to himself as he realized he should have trained the lens on her. The dragons were glorious, of course, but not half as majestic as she was.

Flashy Friday: The Heads of Kings

She didn’t want to marry any of the kings who came to the palace from far and wide to ask her father for her hand. They were all old, many of them fat and smelly, and the way they ogled her as they sized up their future prize made Jezzen’s stomach feel heavy and full of jagged stones.

And Father didn’t care that they were yucky; all he cared about was the future, his kingdom, the power and prestige he would win by marrying her off to the highest bidder. It was the price she paid, he said, for being born a daughter instead of a son.

So she summoned one of the ancients the way she’d seen Master Renthlor do a hundred times as she spied on him from the eyes of the painting overlooking his private study.

The Ancient promised she would never have to marry anyone unless she wanted to, and it swore to make her queen as long as she fed it the souls of all who displeased her.

So, she started with Father. He loved her so much more now that he was dead, which made her sad, but it was better that way. And she was safe from the wretched old men who would do terrifying things to her in the name of power and prestige.

Flashy Friday: Its Giant Hands

Captain Egre stood, mouth agape on the starboard bow and uncertain how to proceed as the monstrous construct held the ship in place. The sea raged against the storm, powerful winds whipping and tearing the sail. Unmoved by the howling wind, unfazed by the torrents of rain, the construct had saved their lives, but to what end? And where had it even come from?


 


“Captain?” her first mate called above the roar of a raging sea.


 


“Hold your fire,” Captain Egre said, and she stared into the eerily glowing eyes of the monstrosity that held their very lives in its giant hands.