Chilled (Pumpkin Pie, Cheeseburger, CCM + Root Beer Float)
‘Verse: ☼ The Sun, Radiant ☼
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Pumpkin Pie #1 (ghost/ghost story), Cheeseburger #10 (srsly), Chocolate Chip Mint #11 (translucent) + Root Beer Float (script)
Rating: PG-13 (death)
Title: Chilled
Summary: A moonlit night invites stories, both fact and fiction.
Notes: Still not 100% happy with this, but NaNo approaches and I must be done.
[The scene: Nighttime, a camp in a forest clearing. SUSANNA, TOBIAS and MATTHEW are sitting around a small fire. A fourth man is within a tent nearby, sound asleep. Occasionally, an owl hoots in the distance.]
SUSANNA: Is His Majesty sleeping yet? Matthew?
TOBIAS: Oh, I’m sure it is so, but let us keep our voices down anyway. Who knows what manner of beasts are in the forest this time of night? Who knows whether-
SUSANNA: I wasn’t asking you, you know.
TOBIAS: (continuing, undeterred) -the native folk will be pleased to have us here, either?
SUSANNA: To be honest, I am more worried about the beasts. Their Queen has forbidden attacks, I hear, and she is much beloved.
MATTHEW: There is nothing for it, in any case. We will just have to stay alert, and if we are attacked, be ready to defend His Majesty.
TOBIAS: Of course.
SUSANNA: Of course.
MATTHEW: How about a story? Susanna, your heroism in the Battle of Taryuna is legendary…
SUSANNA: Ah, but I do not think it would be wise to speak of the War while we escort the King to a peace meeting.
MATTHEW: True enough. Tobias?
TOBIAS: I have something. A true story from my native village, a tale of-
SUSANNA: Wait. You aren’t from a village. You told me you had never left the capital until you enlisted!
TOBIAS: Must you always ruin everything?
MATTHEW: If it’s a story you’re telling, I don’t particularly care whether it’s true or not.
SUSANNA: Let’s assume it isn’t.
TOBIAS: Fine! This story - which may or may not be true - takes place in a little village in northern Fallstar, years ago, during a winter so cold that no crops could be planted the next spring, as the ground was frozen solid. A winter so cold that families had to bring their livestock into the houses. A winter so cold that the Frozen Lady came to visit…
[SUSANNA and MATTHEW lean in, listening.]
TOBIAS: They say she was beautiful, in a way, refracting light like a crystal, like a diamond, with long hair like shards of glass. She left no footprints, but floated above the ground. What her blue fingers touched turned to ice and shattered. Her voice, wailing in the village square on the night she appeared, sounded like many; many voices in a cacophony that also managed to come together in beauty.
‘It’s so cold,’ she cried. ‘I can’t get warm!’ Her voice echoed in the houses, and several of the village men leapt out of bed and threw open their doors, thinking, in sleep-addled states, that a child was mistakenly left outside, crying out for help.
Of course, the Frozen Lady is no child, no human, nothing even of these lands. No beasts hunt her, and she eats no beast.
But the men of the village that awakened did not know this, and opened their doors. A great wind, a blizzard with not a snowflake within, swept up before their doorsteps and blasted them with unnatural cold, stealing their breath and freezing them solid in a matter of seconds. While the doors hung open, the wind crept through the houses of these men, sending their wives and children to the long lonely sleep as well. And so half the souls in the village were gone in a single bitterly cold night.
When the feeble sun rose, it was to cast pale rosy light on the scene of a massacre. For have no doubt, my friends: the Frozen Lady had sent that wind, with whatever intention a monster can have, to kill those families. The remaining people had no idea what swept through the village that night, and for that they are lucky. And, as far as they know, the Frozen Lady has never returned to the village…
SUSANNA: But…
TOBIAS: What?
SUSANNA: But it can’t end there! This monster shows up, kills a bunch of people and just- just disappears?
MATTHEW: Oh, of course it can end there. Unfinished tales can be just as unsettling as those masterfully wrought. Isn’t that so?
TOBIAS: Quit it, you. You’re ruining it.
Challenges/Toppings/Extras: Pumpkin Pie #1 (ghost/ghost story), Cheeseburger #10 (srsly), Chocolate Chip Mint #11 (translucent) + Root Beer Float (script)
Rating: PG-13 (death)
Title: Chilled
Summary: A moonlit night invites stories, both fact and fiction.
Notes: Still not 100% happy with this, but NaNo approaches and I must be done.
[The scene: Nighttime, a camp in a forest clearing. SUSANNA, TOBIAS and MATTHEW are sitting around a small fire. A fourth man is within a tent nearby, sound asleep. Occasionally, an owl hoots in the distance.]
SUSANNA: Is His Majesty sleeping yet? Matthew?
TOBIAS: Oh, I’m sure it is so, but let us keep our voices down anyway. Who knows what manner of beasts are in the forest this time of night? Who knows whether-
SUSANNA: I wasn’t asking you, you know.
TOBIAS: (continuing, undeterred) -the native folk will be pleased to have us here, either?
SUSANNA: To be honest, I am more worried about the beasts. Their Queen has forbidden attacks, I hear, and she is much beloved.
MATTHEW: There is nothing for it, in any case. We will just have to stay alert, and if we are attacked, be ready to defend His Majesty.
TOBIAS: Of course.
SUSANNA: Of course.
MATTHEW: How about a story? Susanna, your heroism in the Battle of Taryuna is legendary…
SUSANNA: Ah, but I do not think it would be wise to speak of the War while we escort the King to a peace meeting.
MATTHEW: True enough. Tobias?
TOBIAS: I have something. A true story from my native village, a tale of-
SUSANNA: Wait. You aren’t from a village. You told me you had never left the capital until you enlisted!
TOBIAS: Must you always ruin everything?
MATTHEW: If it’s a story you’re telling, I don’t particularly care whether it’s true or not.
SUSANNA: Let’s assume it isn’t.
TOBIAS: Fine! This story - which may or may not be true - takes place in a little village in northern Fallstar, years ago, during a winter so cold that no crops could be planted the next spring, as the ground was frozen solid. A winter so cold that families had to bring their livestock into the houses. A winter so cold that the Frozen Lady came to visit…
[SUSANNA and MATTHEW lean in, listening.]
TOBIAS: They say she was beautiful, in a way, refracting light like a crystal, like a diamond, with long hair like shards of glass. She left no footprints, but floated above the ground. What her blue fingers touched turned to ice and shattered. Her voice, wailing in the village square on the night she appeared, sounded like many; many voices in a cacophony that also managed to come together in beauty.
‘It’s so cold,’ she cried. ‘I can’t get warm!’ Her voice echoed in the houses, and several of the village men leapt out of bed and threw open their doors, thinking, in sleep-addled states, that a child was mistakenly left outside, crying out for help.
Of course, the Frozen Lady is no child, no human, nothing even of these lands. No beasts hunt her, and she eats no beast.
But the men of the village that awakened did not know this, and opened their doors. A great wind, a blizzard with not a snowflake within, swept up before their doorsteps and blasted them with unnatural cold, stealing their breath and freezing them solid in a matter of seconds. While the doors hung open, the wind crept through the houses of these men, sending their wives and children to the long lonely sleep as well. And so half the souls in the village were gone in a single bitterly cold night.
When the feeble sun rose, it was to cast pale rosy light on the scene of a massacre. For have no doubt, my friends: the Frozen Lady had sent that wind, with whatever intention a monster can have, to kill those families. The remaining people had no idea what swept through the village that night, and for that they are lucky. And, as far as they know, the Frozen Lady has never returned to the village…
SUSANNA: But…
TOBIAS: What?
SUSANNA: But it can’t end there! This monster shows up, kills a bunch of people and just- just disappears?
MATTHEW: Oh, of course it can end there. Unfinished tales can be just as unsettling as those masterfully wrought. Isn’t that so?
TOBIAS: Quit it, you. You’re ruining it.