it sucks but at least I wrote one, finally
Challenge: A Different Point of View
Canon: pre-anime
Genre: drama
Length: 1,500
Rating: G
Task: Only a vague similarity to the Mary Sue challenge, I swear. Your mission is to write one or more of the CCS cast through the eyes of an original character - whether that original character likes or deeply hates them. MUST be either first person or limited third person.
In the year of our Lord eighteen and three, the eighth day of November, this Reverend was called upon by his congregation for a trial against a wicked craft. A stranger to the town of How Caple, his unorthodox skills and clear disdain for the church hinted at dark practice.
In the otherwise silent study of Reverend Rowan Williams, a quill scratched the words in his neat calligraphy. Mere inkstains on parchment in a flickering pool of candlelight, mere words that could never really tell the story of such a bizarre trial. He could try but they would never tell of the strangeness of the accused, a man who looked upon a mob of suspicious and frightened villagers and smiled.
His name was Reed, British in name but a foreigner to our land. He came from the East, bearing such odd objects of Oriental make and able to speak strange tongues. His manner was polite but aloof, and never did he entreat our townsmen to grace his hall. Neither did he attend our Sunday Service.
The peculiarities were only the beginning. His rare appearances in the village unsettled the people, but the oddities of the weather after his arrival unsettled them more. Rainfall when the rest of the country was beset with dryness, storms of most spectacular lightning that came out of season, and an unusual frequency of rainbows.
He dwelt in the Reed Manor of his father’s family, which had lain empty for much of a decade, and hired no servants. Yet our townsfolk did many times bear witness to loud and strange noises from within his estate, and also sightings of a mysterious nature.
How the accusations piled upon one another in the meeting house this day. One man claimed he saw a girl riding in a cloud, another swore he saw a woman in a pink gown dancing through the gardens. A shrill and hysterical woman insisted that a bizarre creature, like a lion bearing the wings of a bird, snatched a cooling pie off her kitchen windowsill - terrifying her so much so that she dropped in a faint. The unruffled Reed asked how that last one could possibly be linked to him and she was quite bereft of an answer, but unswayed in her certainty.
Most terrifying to the congregation was the safety of their children, many of whom found a fascination with the Mister Reed and his Oriental artifacts. Many times the young and impressionable children told their parents of his fabulous ‘magick tricks’ with bubbles and fireflies, and pockets full of neverending sweets.
The breaking point came the previous Monday, on the night of All Hallow’s Eve. Almost every child in the village claimed to see fairies and ghosts in the night air, and hysterical parents demanded that Mister Reed come to trial for his actions. Confronted with the accusations of almost everyone in the town, the defendant’s only concern was if the children had an exciting evening.
It was a confession of guilt, as far as the assembly was concerned. I asked him many times if he caused the visions, and he invariably replied that he could not compare to the imaginations of our children. Yet neither would he deny responsibility. As final proof of his dark arts, I furnished the idolatrous cards I had taken off his person before the trial.
Often children told their parents that, in addition to his many tricks, the wonderful Mister Reed could also tell the future. They claimed he predicted the future with these strange cards, and his predictions were eerily accurate. The Reverend had heard of this witchcraft before, but he was surprised to see these cards differed from those heathen cards of the gypsy folk.
I asked this man if he believed he could read the future in these cards. He smiled in that strange manner and replied that he merely related that which he saw. I informed him that it was heresy to make such predictions rather than place faith in our Lord’s guidance.
And Mister Reed, in his infuriatingly calm manner, replied that he was grateful the Reverend acknowledged he could indeed predict the future. Such an answer flustered the Reverend, spoken before his watching congregation, and he denied there could be any such skill.
I allowed him to perform his reading of the cards.
Mister Reed had showed him a card labeled Dark, and told the Reverend this was his soul. He then turned over a card with a little girl, and said what he desired was Power.
I do not recall the specifics of his ritual.
The Reverend asked him directly if Mister Reed believed in some other power than the Almighty, and Mister Reed replied that he believed in all things he had seen and many he had not. The Reverend asked him if Mister Reed engaged in the practice of witchcraft, and he answered that he engaged in the practice of improving the world.
Are you a witch? I asked, at last, quite impatiently.
And Mister Reed told him that the answer to that was quite simple and very obvious. If it had not come to the Reverend yet, it would soon enough.
Having all but declared his own guilt, I had no choice but to end the trial.
It was more than sufficient evidence in the townsfolk’s eyes; mollified, they returned to their homes. Mister Reed was escorted to a locked shed beyond the meeting house that served as their jail. Twilight fell, and the town selectman and his wife took a dinner to the doomed man.
Inside the still-locked shed, they found no one. An angry crowd stormed his manor, again, and found no one or nothing. A table was the only furniture left in the vast house, and on it an envelope addressed to Reverend Rowan Williams.
It’s very obvious, Reverend, is it not? The many witches that the church has prosecuted and executed in the past could not have been, for the simple fact that they could not escape. As for me…
Now you know.
--------------------
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, or at least one of them.
Canon: pre-anime
Genre: drama
Length: 1,500
Rating: G
Task: Only a vague similarity to the Mary Sue challenge, I swear. Your mission is to write one or more of the CCS cast through the eyes of an original character - whether that original character likes or deeply hates them. MUST be either first person or limited third person.
In the year of our Lord eighteen and three, the eighth day of November, this Reverend was called upon by his congregation for a trial against a wicked craft. A stranger to the town of How Caple, his unorthodox skills and clear disdain for the church hinted at dark practice.
In the otherwise silent study of Reverend Rowan Williams, a quill scratched the words in his neat calligraphy. Mere inkstains on parchment in a flickering pool of candlelight, mere words that could never really tell the story of such a bizarre trial. He could try but they would never tell of the strangeness of the accused, a man who looked upon a mob of suspicious and frightened villagers and smiled.
His name was Reed, British in name but a foreigner to our land. He came from the East, bearing such odd objects of Oriental make and able to speak strange tongues. His manner was polite but aloof, and never did he entreat our townsmen to grace his hall. Neither did he attend our Sunday Service.
The peculiarities were only the beginning. His rare appearances in the village unsettled the people, but the oddities of the weather after his arrival unsettled them more. Rainfall when the rest of the country was beset with dryness, storms of most spectacular lightning that came out of season, and an unusual frequency of rainbows.
He dwelt in the Reed Manor of his father’s family, which had lain empty for much of a decade, and hired no servants. Yet our townsfolk did many times bear witness to loud and strange noises from within his estate, and also sightings of a mysterious nature.
How the accusations piled upon one another in the meeting house this day. One man claimed he saw a girl riding in a cloud, another swore he saw a woman in a pink gown dancing through the gardens. A shrill and hysterical woman insisted that a bizarre creature, like a lion bearing the wings of a bird, snatched a cooling pie off her kitchen windowsill - terrifying her so much so that she dropped in a faint. The unruffled Reed asked how that last one could possibly be linked to him and she was quite bereft of an answer, but unswayed in her certainty.
Most terrifying to the congregation was the safety of their children, many of whom found a fascination with the Mister Reed and his Oriental artifacts. Many times the young and impressionable children told their parents of his fabulous ‘magick tricks’ with bubbles and fireflies, and pockets full of neverending sweets.
The breaking point came the previous Monday, on the night of All Hallow’s Eve. Almost every child in the village claimed to see fairies and ghosts in the night air, and hysterical parents demanded that Mister Reed come to trial for his actions. Confronted with the accusations of almost everyone in the town, the defendant’s only concern was if the children had an exciting evening.
It was a confession of guilt, as far as the assembly was concerned. I asked him many times if he caused the visions, and he invariably replied that he could not compare to the imaginations of our children. Yet neither would he deny responsibility. As final proof of his dark arts, I furnished the idolatrous cards I had taken off his person before the trial.
Often children told their parents that, in addition to his many tricks, the wonderful Mister Reed could also tell the future. They claimed he predicted the future with these strange cards, and his predictions were eerily accurate. The Reverend had heard of this witchcraft before, but he was surprised to see these cards differed from those heathen cards of the gypsy folk.
I asked this man if he believed he could read the future in these cards. He smiled in that strange manner and replied that he merely related that which he saw. I informed him that it was heresy to make such predictions rather than place faith in our Lord’s guidance.
And Mister Reed, in his infuriatingly calm manner, replied that he was grateful the Reverend acknowledged he could indeed predict the future. Such an answer flustered the Reverend, spoken before his watching congregation, and he denied there could be any such skill.
I allowed him to perform his reading of the cards.
Mister Reed had showed him a card labeled Dark, and told the Reverend this was his soul. He then turned over a card with a little girl, and said what he desired was Power.
I do not recall the specifics of his ritual.
The Reverend asked him directly if Mister Reed believed in some other power than the Almighty, and Mister Reed replied that he believed in all things he had seen and many he had not. The Reverend asked him if Mister Reed engaged in the practice of witchcraft, and he answered that he engaged in the practice of improving the world.
Are you a witch? I asked, at last, quite impatiently.
And Mister Reed told him that the answer to that was quite simple and very obvious. If it had not come to the Reverend yet, it would soon enough.
Having all but declared his own guilt, I had no choice but to end the trial.
It was more than sufficient evidence in the townsfolk’s eyes; mollified, they returned to their homes. Mister Reed was escorted to a locked shed beyond the meeting house that served as their jail. Twilight fell, and the town selectman and his wife took a dinner to the doomed man.
Inside the still-locked shed, they found no one. An angry crowd stormed his manor, again, and found no one or nothing. A table was the only furniture left in the vast house, and on it an envelope addressed to Reverend Rowan Williams.
It’s very obvious, Reverend, is it not? The many witches that the church has prosecuted and executed in the past could not have been, for the simple fact that they could not escape. As for me…
Now you know.
--------------------
Disclaimer: I do not own these characters, or at least one of them.