Day 14: "Escape to the North" (Fairy Tales, Tower, PG13?)
Title: Escape to the North
Fandom: Fairy Tales
Characters: Tower, witch, prince, and girl
Words: ~540
Rating: PG13?
A/N: As ever, regarding typos. Also, this is sort of masturbation, if you accept that towers ain't got hands and have to make do.
Escape to the North
When one is made of stone, one's perspective on time and scale is not like that of any human. The period of a day is but the blink of an eye. If stone constructs had eyes. Still, you take my point.
Naturally, it follows that decades are as days, and that the tumbling down of the rocks until the tower appears entirely flattened, is merely slumber.
When the witch found the place, tipped to one side, the rooftop resting against the nearby hill, she looked at it for a long moment, watching the stones repile themselves upward, just a bit to encourage her, then set about raising it back up entirely. It didn't take much work before it was ready for her to use to her liking, and at first, she did just that, preparing the peak, racing up and down over and over. And then, she left.
It stayed there, waiting and anxious, while she went away and came back, and from then on, the tower had an inhabitant: someone lodged at the very top, sometimes leaning out the single tall thin window, and other times pacing and prowling and generally behaving, as one might expect, as one ready to burst free at the first opportunity. She never left her attic, and she learned to gently tickle the tower's side with a long fall of hair, for which the tower rewarded her by rocking her at night.
At regular intervals, the witch returned to visit the inhabitant, scaling the side of the tower, her feet tracing a path up the south side. Shortly thereafter, she would go back down the same way, slow and steady. Brambled bushes grew up around the base of the tower, but they didn't deter her; she pushed through them and climbed up anyway and in fact, as far as the tower was concerned, this only enhanced each trip.
It wasn't long--in the opinion of the tower, which, you will recall, was made of stone and therefore had a different sense of perspective--until a second visitor set about scaling its side: feet up and feet down, and between the newcomer and the witch the trips up and down were coming faster and faster. The tower shivered, its peak damp with morning dew, and anticipated each trip, each push of legs through the bush, each rapid climb to the peak, each descent and pause.
And then, one day, something changed. One ascent was followed by another with no descent, and the tower, shuddering with pleasure and confusion, had only a moment to appreciate what came next. The newcomer and the witch struggled, and he pushed her out the window. She slid quickly to the earth and landed, her skirts a pool at its base.
"Do you trust me?" asked the newcomer.
The inhabitant did, and the tower was glad; the newcomer and the inhabitant climbed out the window to the peak of the roof and from there, after a deep breath, leaped northward together, flying free on an updraft and the billowing balloons of the newcomer's cloak before drifting down to the ground in a depression half a mile away.
The tower, satisfied, slowly tumbled down once more, resting in a sidelong heap amid the brambles.
Fandom: Fairy Tales
Characters: Tower, witch, prince, and girl
Words: ~540
Rating: PG13?
A/N: As ever, regarding typos. Also, this is sort of masturbation, if you accept that towers ain't got hands and have to make do.
Escape to the North
When one is made of stone, one's perspective on time and scale is not like that of any human. The period of a day is but the blink of an eye. If stone constructs had eyes. Still, you take my point.
Naturally, it follows that decades are as days, and that the tumbling down of the rocks until the tower appears entirely flattened, is merely slumber.
When the witch found the place, tipped to one side, the rooftop resting against the nearby hill, she looked at it for a long moment, watching the stones repile themselves upward, just a bit to encourage her, then set about raising it back up entirely. It didn't take much work before it was ready for her to use to her liking, and at first, she did just that, preparing the peak, racing up and down over and over. And then, she left.
It stayed there, waiting and anxious, while she went away and came back, and from then on, the tower had an inhabitant: someone lodged at the very top, sometimes leaning out the single tall thin window, and other times pacing and prowling and generally behaving, as one might expect, as one ready to burst free at the first opportunity. She never left her attic, and she learned to gently tickle the tower's side with a long fall of hair, for which the tower rewarded her by rocking her at night.
At regular intervals, the witch returned to visit the inhabitant, scaling the side of the tower, her feet tracing a path up the south side. Shortly thereafter, she would go back down the same way, slow and steady. Brambled bushes grew up around the base of the tower, but they didn't deter her; she pushed through them and climbed up anyway and in fact, as far as the tower was concerned, this only enhanced each trip.
It wasn't long--in the opinion of the tower, which, you will recall, was made of stone and therefore had a different sense of perspective--until a second visitor set about scaling its side: feet up and feet down, and between the newcomer and the witch the trips up and down were coming faster and faster. The tower shivered, its peak damp with morning dew, and anticipated each trip, each push of legs through the bush, each rapid climb to the peak, each descent and pause.
And then, one day, something changed. One ascent was followed by another with no descent, and the tower, shuddering with pleasure and confusion, had only a moment to appreciate what came next. The newcomer and the witch struggled, and he pushed her out the window. She slid quickly to the earth and landed, her skirts a pool at its base.
"Do you trust me?" asked the newcomer.
The inhabitant did, and the tower was glad; the newcomer and the inhabitant climbed out the window to the peak of the roof and from there, after a deep breath, leaped northward together, flying free on an updraft and the billowing balloons of the newcomer's cloak before drifting down to the ground in a depression half a mile away.
The tower, satisfied, slowly tumbled down once more, resting in a sidelong heap amid the brambles.