I slept late this morning, and I guess, considering that today marked the end of Daylight Savings Time, that I means I slept especially late. In my defense, the medication I’m on does make me a little drowsy, and I’m supposed to take it right before I go to bed.
So anyway, once I woke up, I spent most of the morning working on the Sunday crossword. I enjoyed the theme a lot this week, although a few of the shorter answers eluded me. Then, I joined a couple of friends for our weekly writing group, which hasn’t met in a couple of months. It was good to meet up again, in no small part because I slacked off last week and did almost no writing.
I’m not so sure about what I wrote today. It’s not exactly a story with any legs to it, but I had fun with it. It all started with this writing prompt my friend Maurice posted the other day:
“You cannot kill the beast by conventional means,” said Margyl. “It is far too wily for that.”
“A sword forged in the hellfire storms of Hades is conventional means?” Rhianna asked, incredulous. “Your conventions are a lot stranger than mine.”
“That is the way of mid-Earth,” said Margyl. “The star-fang beast may not appear as much a threat, but verily, it is — ”
“Wily. Right, I got that.”
She sheathed the bone-encrusted sword — forged, it was said, in pools of molten demon blood, centuries past — and sighed.
“Well I’m open to suggestions,” she said. “It’s not like we can just stand around here all day, twiddling our thumbs. How do I kill it?”
“The beast has felled many warriors, feasted on the bones of any foolish enough to venture into its lair empty-handed. Only the hardiest souls dare face its gaping maw. For truly is the beast — ”
“Wily. Yeah, you keep saying that.” Again she sighed. “You know, for a wizard guide, you’re kind of crap.”
Margyl nodded. “I have been told.”
“So I can’t kill it with the sword, Rhianna said, “but I can’t go into those caves without a weapon. If it’s a magic beast and can’t be killed by magic, would — I don’t know — this rock be less conventional?”
She hefted one of the stones from the desert floor.
“Could be…” Margyl said with a visible shrug.
Rhianna glared. “And how do wizards fare against rocks? Is there an anti-rock-upside-the-head spell in that book of yours?”
“You have the fiery spirit of a hero,” Margyl told her, though he took a step back.
“All right, fine,” said Rhianna, heading toward the cave. “I’ll try the stupid rock. If that doesn’t work, I guess I can always reboot.”
She paused at the dark entrance of the cave.
“Though if I get booted back a level, I’m skipping the whole wizard helper thing.”
You know, I notice that in my WordPress dashboard, “writing” is not among the most used post categories. I ought to look at rectifying that.
