Prompt Used: 1. Days on end without food or water.
Genre: Character / setting study; adventure? Genres confuse me.
Fan fiction / original fiction: Original fic.
Characters: Ares, a mercenary / hunter who works alone.
Warnings (if applicable): None.
Wordcount: 292 words.
Author's Note: It's a short little study on my character and a potential location for my NaNo. Not my best writing, but the point is to practice with Ares, my main character. If anyone cares to read and offer feedback - thank you in advance. :)
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Ares has seen better days. She's also had better jobs as well, but she accepted this contract, and unpleasantness be damned, she's going to find this creature and kill it, and then she is going to demand a bonus for dealing with the weather on the way to this thing.
Because going into a wasteland, where the only scenery is blasted trees and burn marks, is stupid on the best of days, and suicidal on the worst of days.
Ares isn't out of water or food, thankfully, but she's cut her rations again, just to be safe. Sure, she wants to be at her strongest when facing this thing, but she also wants to survive the journey back out of this place.
There's another blasted tree, and Ares leans against it for a moment of rest. She doesn't know the history of this specific wasteland; she can't say why the the burn marks scarring the ground haven't faded since her last visit several years ago, and she can't say why life hasn't even tried to return to this land.
She suspects magic, or something equally destructive, but there's no telling, not with how strange this world can get.
The tree breaks after a moment, and she stumbles. The poor tree had been long dead, and weaker than she expected.
So she wipes her hands on her shirt, never mind that her shirt is as dusty as she is, and gets back to work. She'll find her quarry eventually, and she'll stick her sword into it, and then this will be over and she'll have a bed and money and lots and lots of water.
Ares raises her hand to shade her eyes as she scans the landscape, then begins to travel again.
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Written for
thewyrmx, and out of my need to prepare a bit for NaNo.