Starting Over
Blueberry Yogurt #10. Across the Miles
Story : knights & necromancers rewrite // ( old stuff here)
Rating : G
Timeframe : Book One
Word Count : ~900
I've wanted to start over for a long time. My goal is to build off of all the random stuff I have done so far to try to get a full, coherent work. *fingers crossed* A lot of things will change, but a lot will also stay the same. So here's the new beginning. No previous knowledge of canon needed to follow it. Also, people who are good at coming up with titles, how do you do it? I need one, badly.
With a sigh, Rune pressed the heavy temple door shut. As he gave a silent count of ten, the cat picked her way across his feet, batting his legs with a swing of her tail as she slipped between them.
He gripped the handle and pulled, just enough to open the door a crack, and peered, blinking, into the bright morning light beyond.
The oak was there, ten paces out, as it always was. Its knotted trunk greeted him like a familiar face from behind the altogether unfamiliar low picket fence that now ringed it and its leafy branches stood stark against the backdrop of buildings that surrounded it in place of the woods Rune had grown accustomed to. A straight cobbled road lay where the winding dirt path had been and the hum of traffic told him much busier routes were just out of view.
The cat wove her way back around to press her nose to the opening. Rune caught her with a foot and pulled her back as he shut the door again.
“Should we give it one more try?” he said and she meowed at him curiously.
He decided to give it more than a few seconds this time and so he leaned his back against the sturdy double doors, arms crossed and legs stretched, to think about how best to pass the time.
“I was going to look in the garden for breakfast,” he said. “But I suppose we left it behind again.”
If he expected any sympathy from the cat, he would have been disappointed. She was crouched beneath him, sniffing at the crack between the doors. Rune was used to her indifference. It wasn’t as if he had a lot of conversational options. The rest of the room’s occupants were cast in stone, and the way all seven sets of vacant eyes were trained unblinkingly on him now only reminded him why he didn’t like standing by the door. So he continued to address the cat.
“I suppose if it’s still there when I open it again, we could just go exploring.”
He thrust a hand into the deep pocket of his cloak and fished about until he found a piece of chalk. He closed a fist around it for a moment before replacing it. Perhaps the one saving grace of a home that never stayed put was that you could never truly get lost. Of course, knowing you could find your way back and anticipating what you might encounter in the meantime were two different things. Still, it looked like a pleasant enough city.
Rune had just about convinced himself to open the door again when it shuddered from a sharp knock on the other side. He leapt and spun to face the doors and the cat dashed past him to take refuge behind the central altar and its towering statue.
No one knocked on that door. Ever. It was as if it wasn’t there. Rune figured whatever will it was that the thing possessed that made it go flitting about the countryside was also determined not to be bothered by random visitors as it did so. He still wasn’t certain how he’d managed to find it himself.
It took him a moment to compose himself enough to call “Hello?” Though it occurred to him then that trying to talk to someone through the massive doors was perhaps not the most effective plan.
He grasped the handle and pulled and the door swung in. The street was still there and it was still empty.
“Hello?” he called again, clutching the door as he edged around it.
There wasn’t so much as a shadow or even a footprint to suggest anyone was about.
He took another step. “Is anybody there?”
The meow at his heels told him the cat was attempting to overcome her apprehension as well.
From outside, the face of the temple appeared flat instead of its true rounded shape, just one of many unremarkable stone buildings, butted up against one another in a row. There wasn’t enough room between them for the cat to squeeze through, much less someone large enough to have reached the knocker.
That left the alley where he now stood. Equally poorly spaced buildings ringed it on three sides. The fourth opened some ways down onto a broader avenue. Each had at least one door that opened onto the alley. Whoever had knocked could have passed through any of them or gone down the road.
Rune was scanning the alley, pondering over why the temple would let someone knock in its door who was only going to run away, when a bolt of white and orange shot past his legs. At first, he figured she’d seen a squirrel, but the cat didn’t pounce, she tore off down the alley towards the street.
“Hey!” Rune called after her, but the cat kept racing forward without so much as a look back.
Rune ran after her. The door banged shut behind him, thoughts of the strange visitor forgotten for the moment. He could always find his way back to the temple, but he was fairly certain the same did not apply to the cat.
Story : knights & necromancers rewrite // ( old stuff here)
Rating : G
Timeframe : Book One
Word Count : ~900
I've wanted to start over for a long time. My goal is to build off of all the random stuff I have done so far to try to get a full, coherent work. *fingers crossed* A lot of things will change, but a lot will also stay the same. So here's the new beginning. No previous knowledge of canon needed to follow it. Also, people who are good at coming up with titles, how do you do it? I need one, badly.
With a sigh, Rune pressed the heavy temple door shut. As he gave a silent count of ten, the cat picked her way across his feet, batting his legs with a swing of her tail as she slipped between them.
He gripped the handle and pulled, just enough to open the door a crack, and peered, blinking, into the bright morning light beyond.
The oak was there, ten paces out, as it always was. Its knotted trunk greeted him like a familiar face from behind the altogether unfamiliar low picket fence that now ringed it and its leafy branches stood stark against the backdrop of buildings that surrounded it in place of the woods Rune had grown accustomed to. A straight cobbled road lay where the winding dirt path had been and the hum of traffic told him much busier routes were just out of view.
The cat wove her way back around to press her nose to the opening. Rune caught her with a foot and pulled her back as he shut the door again.
“Should we give it one more try?” he said and she meowed at him curiously.
He decided to give it more than a few seconds this time and so he leaned his back against the sturdy double doors, arms crossed and legs stretched, to think about how best to pass the time.
“I was going to look in the garden for breakfast,” he said. “But I suppose we left it behind again.”
If he expected any sympathy from the cat, he would have been disappointed. She was crouched beneath him, sniffing at the crack between the doors. Rune was used to her indifference. It wasn’t as if he had a lot of conversational options. The rest of the room’s occupants were cast in stone, and the way all seven sets of vacant eyes were trained unblinkingly on him now only reminded him why he didn’t like standing by the door. So he continued to address the cat.
“I suppose if it’s still there when I open it again, we could just go exploring.”
He thrust a hand into the deep pocket of his cloak and fished about until he found a piece of chalk. He closed a fist around it for a moment before replacing it. Perhaps the one saving grace of a home that never stayed put was that you could never truly get lost. Of course, knowing you could find your way back and anticipating what you might encounter in the meantime were two different things. Still, it looked like a pleasant enough city.
Rune had just about convinced himself to open the door again when it shuddered from a sharp knock on the other side. He leapt and spun to face the doors and the cat dashed past him to take refuge behind the central altar and its towering statue.
No one knocked on that door. Ever. It was as if it wasn’t there. Rune figured whatever will it was that the thing possessed that made it go flitting about the countryside was also determined not to be bothered by random visitors as it did so. He still wasn’t certain how he’d managed to find it himself.
It took him a moment to compose himself enough to call “Hello?” Though it occurred to him then that trying to talk to someone through the massive doors was perhaps not the most effective plan.
He grasped the handle and pulled and the door swung in. The street was still there and it was still empty.
“Hello?” he called again, clutching the door as he edged around it.
There wasn’t so much as a shadow or even a footprint to suggest anyone was about.
He took another step. “Is anybody there?”
The meow at his heels told him the cat was attempting to overcome her apprehension as well.
From outside, the face of the temple appeared flat instead of its true rounded shape, just one of many unremarkable stone buildings, butted up against one another in a row. There wasn’t enough room between them for the cat to squeeze through, much less someone large enough to have reached the knocker.
That left the alley where he now stood. Equally poorly spaced buildings ringed it on three sides. The fourth opened some ways down onto a broader avenue. Each had at least one door that opened onto the alley. Whoever had knocked could have passed through any of them or gone down the road.
Rune was scanning the alley, pondering over why the temple would let someone knock in its door who was only going to run away, when a bolt of white and orange shot past his legs. At first, he figured she’d seen a squirrel, but the cat didn’t pounce, she tore off down the alley towards the street.
“Hey!” Rune called after her, but the cat kept racing forward without so much as a look back.
Rune ran after her. The door banged shut behind him, thoughts of the strange visitor forgotten for the moment. He could always find his way back to the temple, but he was fairly certain the same did not apply to the cat.