Weekend Challenge: Keep It Simple, Silly!
I thought about getting fancy for the weekend challenge, but I haven't even started sorting and wrapping presents yet and haven't finished holiday cards. And I'm guessing I'm not alone!
So for our weekend challenge I'm offering up a simple favorite of mine: Three nouns, a random place (one generic place, one specific), and a love quote (some ( Read more... )
and the use of the 3 nouns from the second set (still hoping to work in the quotes and the places):
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“Suppose you have a plan…” Nepo sat down next to him, seeming to groan and struggle with great effort without making a sound, and held his hands out to the flames. He had intentionally avoided Donn’s proximity as much as he could, a status both men had seemed to prefer, and though Donn bristled now to have the tracker so close, this conversation was to be expected.
The end of their journey was near. There was little need for pretense any longer.
“Tomorrow I’ll see Hallister. From there it’ll be St. Albans, then home.” He would report the chain of events, what was found, who had lived and died, announce his change in status and his claim on LaGuardia, and once he was confident of the support of HOPE and Hallister, he would return to LaGuardia to stake that claim.
“You could send the HOPE soldiers on their way…send her with them if that’s her…”
Donn shook his head, glancing over his shoulder to where the pale woman huddled beneath the furs and cloaks she had been provided. It had been necessary to clothe her from the start, to provide her additional means of warmth or else risk her dying. It would not do for his gift to Francis Lord to be dead upon arrival. Now, however, he was not certain he was willing to part with her.
“I’ll take her there myself,” he muttered, voicing his wavering intent. “And the report’s coming from me. They can wait a few more days.”
“Don’t think they want to.” Nepo rubbed his hands together and then tucked them under his arms to keep them warm. “You’ve got things from here. I’ve got things to do…”
“You’ll stay with her tomorrow til I’m back.” Nepo scowled and Donn quickly continued. “Bringing the soldiers with me, a show of good faith, but I need someone to manage the ruffs, keep them in line and off her til I send for her or come back to…”
“I’m not a babysitter…”
“For what I’ll pay you, you’ll be anything I fucking tell you to be.” Donn flicked the stub of the ivy leaf cigarette he had found and taken the opportunity to enjoy, a rare indulgence that had taken his mind off of his tender leg into the fire.
“So you’re paying me now?”
“We both wanted to get back to familiar territory…that was different. Now that we’re here, I’ll pay you for your service. Don’t need signature agreements. You do it, you get paid…you bail on me and there’ll be no place in this fucking country that I won’t find you and end you…”
“Like to see you try.” He was used to Channon’s bravado and he knew that, for all the bluster and talk, the boy needed him too much to follow through. He might make a show of trying in the hopes to intimidate Nepo into compliance, but he knew as well as Nepo that he could not succeed even if he tried.
“I will.” Tired of the conversation, thinking he should get a drink and then sleep off his exhaustion so that he would face Hallister as clear-headed as he could be, he struggled to his feet, refusing Nepo’s offered assistance, and limped away in the opposite direction of their captive. He could not indulge tonight. There were no walls, no opportunity for secrecy or privacy here. Best to sleep and avoid that temptation…and avoid further argument with the tracker.
Nepo would do as he was told. It was what he was paid to do.
But first, he had a letter to write, a letter to send.
If he was going to establish a presence in Kennedy, make himself welcome here, he needed his wife at his side.
Maybe then he would be able to be rid of the anthro he could not keep out of his head.
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