Measured Words

The writing exercise for today played nicely into what I have planned for the last bit of Shadows 10, so I figured what the heck! Here it is :) I have 10.3 written as well, and just need to find time to ype it up. We'll see - maybe later this afternoon.

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“I don’t think you’re very good at this,” the woman’s voice taunted in a sing-song tone. Marla shrank down into the b hollow between the tree roots, wishing she didn’t agree so fully with her pursuer’s assessment. She also wished that her back-up from the fort would arrive. It was weeks overdue, and at this point the situation had far exceeded the bounds of her training. The other woman stopped to chant the words of a spell, and a feeling of dread washed over Marla.

“I can see your terror, little spy. You’re not good enough to hide from me!” The footsteps drew closer, crunching ominously against the forest’s dry underbrush. Marla tensed, ready to bolt. “Ahh, there you are.”

The voice was filled with a malice incongruously matched to the woman’s appearance. She looked like any other refugee: dirty, scrawny, and tired. But there were other details which cloaked her evil in an aura of innocence. Laugh lines. Greying hair and sparkling, merry, eyes. The months of travel had left her thin, but Marla had no trouble imagining her with a little extra weight. It rounded out, so to speak, the image of a friendly matron, always with a cookie or a sweet in hand for a hungry or lonely child. It would have been all too easy for such a creature to lure in the abandoned children who’d followed this band out of the city. No one else cared enough about them to do more than notice when they fell silent and turned into automatons, waiting for her command to release the demons she’d bound into their shells. Most had barely even noticed until it was too late.

Marla looked up into the sorceress’s face, noting how cruelly her lips twisted downward into a sneer, distorting her otherwise friendly features. Springing forward, Marla swung a kick upward, landing it firmly between her pursuer’s legs. The woman doubled over in pain, and Marla was off, scrambling to her feet and tearing back through the trees towards the safety of the other camp.

DELICATE DREAMS PRINCESS W/HOR

My wallet (black fake fur with a glow in the dark skull in crossbones – it Is worn out but surely you can understand why I am loathe to part with it!) currently contains generic things. Credit and bank cards, some money. An old copy of my birth certificate. Various punch hole cards for free food and ice cream. Some other id, and so forth. Loose change. Lots of lint. Not much special. Except for two little tags I’ve been carrying around for years now.

They’re pretty innocuous, in theory. One if from Toys R Us, the other from a toy display at some grocery store – I can’t remember where I grabbed it. Maybe the Superstore in Fredericton.

My little cousin (well technically my cousin’s son, whatever that makes him to me) went through my wallet once, and asked me why I had them – why I’d felt the need to steal these price stickers. I told him they were funny. He disagreed. I told him he wasn’t old enough o understand. I think maybe I just have an intensely dirty mind. Maybe it’s both.

Barbie Nibbles Horse, $19.98.

What does that bring to mind for you? A perfect plastic princess, sprawled in sexless nudity on her hands and knees, looking up shyly, or maybe slyly, at the camera as she advances towards a rearing plastic stallion who is maybe a little more anatomically correct? Is this a toy store or something you might find on the top shelf of the seediest x-rated film stores? Barbie Nibbles Horse. Marked down from $29.99.

No one wants to shell out to watch you debase yourself in such bestiality, Delicate Dreams Princess…. Is that ‘with horse’ or just whore less an ‘e’? Only $19.99!