What was your character doing last year during Solstice/Feast of the Immortals/(appropriate winter-time-celebration here)?
Share a vignette that is 400 words or less in this thread!
GREATFALLS
CHIVERST
Re: Last Solstice (Writing Prompt)
12/01/2021 01:24 PM CST
I'm going to cheat and use a vignette I posted this time last year and subsequently added to her journal on the wiki. It was actually the catalyst for the latest journal series called "Search for the Truth," where Rohese is trying to find out more about her family and the strange text under her skin.
https://gswiki.play.net/Eternal_Knowledge_(short_story)#A_Wish_and_a_Promise
>>https://gswiki.play.net/Rohese (prime)
https://gswiki.play.net/Eternal_Knowledge_(short_story)#A_Wish_and_a_Promise
>>https://gswiki.play.net/Rohese (prime)
EXNIHIL
Re: Last Solstice (Writing Prompt)
12/01/2021 01:52 PM CST
No single thing led to the moment. No single word, insult, unkindness, or contemptuous glance made him stand from his chair; the scrape of its feet upon the floor breaking the pall of silence. The steel in his father's gaze and the smirk on his lips conveying his exact thoughts about the sudden motion. His mother's scoff followed by a sigh and slow shake of her head, as if he had disappointed her in precisely the way she expected. They would later call it one of his tantrums, later use it as evidence that he was a failure of an elf and an adult, Gwynek mused.
He'd not give them a later. Because it was no single thing. No single event, word, glance, or gesture - rather it was the years of them combined, the cumulative weight of little insults, whispered scorn, loathing lided behind the eyes; of boundraies and borders and oughts and cannots and musts and nevers and ceaseless error. He'd ask if they loved him, or cared for him at all - and be told love had nothing to do with it, nor did care, nor did affection. Duty mattered, reputation mattered, honor mattered, discipline and dignity mattered - virtues Gwynek's parents wasted no effort in reminding him of their absence in his being.
So it was in his 29th year, as he sat at his parents table for an evening meal just a few weeks prior to the Feast of the Immortals, did it all shudder and collapse when he told them he intended to study wizardry. Both father and mother laughed, and reminisced about Gwynek's failures as a pupil. To underscore their points - His father asked him impossible questions about Ta'Vaalor's military history, his mother quizzed him about Elven systems of divination. After a while he stopped trying to answer, though they kept asking - chuckling and chortling as Gwynek stared meekly at his plate and held back tears.
In time the pair had ceased their humiliations. Silence filled the room. No single event led to the moment - Every moment had. Gwynek pushed back his chair, stood up, and walked from the dining room to the entry way. With no further word, he left his home.
He would not be a wizard. Fine. He would be something else. Something only he could be. So he walked in the direction of the Fortress, amid the silence and the lonely cold.
Gwynek started in February of 2021, so right about this time of year he would have left home.
GREATFALLS
Re: Last Solstice (Writing Prompt)
12/10/2021 01:50 PM CST
The fires in the grand hall were roaring but only the loudest pops and crackles were heard over the litany of conversations and the upbeat, rhythmic playing of the orchestra. Everywhere she looked were glittering metallic ornaments and ladies garbed in rich jewel toned velvet. Her own gown felt unnecessarily warm between the barrage of the fires and the density of the crowded room. It made her feel flush or perhaps that was the passing smile of a familiar face across the room.
Evergreen and gingerbread hung heavy in the air and she could almost taste the cinnamon and nutmeg of the mulled wine. Almost. Because none of this was real. Just another meditative daydream in an effort to escape the grim reality of her cold, dark cell somewhere in the labyrinthian building of the Ta'Illistim Keep. The pleasant noise of her dream was replaced by the constant patter of dripping water from the ceiling. A soft sob could be heard from down the hall within another cell. Uniana rolled on her cot and shut her eyes, trying not curse Ronan for the thousandth time. She hoped briefly that execution would come quickly, she couldn't take another winter in solitude. She wouldn't.
Evergreen and gingerbread hung heavy in the air and she could almost taste the cinnamon and nutmeg of the mulled wine. Almost. Because none of this was real. Just another meditative daydream in an effort to escape the grim reality of her cold, dark cell somewhere in the labyrinthian building of the Ta'Illistim Keep. The pleasant noise of her dream was replaced by the constant patter of dripping water from the ceiling. A soft sob could be heard from down the hall within another cell. Uniana rolled on her cot and shut her eyes, trying not curse Ronan for the thousandth time. She hoped briefly that execution would come quickly, she couldn't take another winter in solitude. She wouldn't.
