trail mix, guava, fudge ripple, whipped cream, butterscotch and sprinkles... mmm!
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Night Business
Rating: G
Challenge: Guava #12: don’t leave home without it, Trail Mix #14: office
Toppings/Extras: none
Wordcount: 363
Summary: One of Prowse’s many missions begins: business as usual.
Notes: Pre-abduction. Just for fun. Double lj-cuts always fail me, so there's a poem called "Seashell Girl" also under the cut, as part of the BtS challenge.
“Another little task for you tonight, Mr Prowse,” Ashdown said briskly as soon as his aide entered his office in central London, rain dripping from his oilskin cloak. “There’s a note on the bureau.”
Taking off his weathered tricorne hat and hanging it on a dainty stand by the door, Prowse walked wordlessly to the open bureau and instantly found a little envelope with his name on it in Ashdown’s exquisite handwriting. Why he couldn’t just tell him, he didn’t know-clearly he felt that it would aid Prowse’s memory to have it written down in front of him. He gently pulled out the flap and opened up the parchment inside.
Silence re-engulfed the room as he read. The oil lantern spread a treacle-warm glow over the inside of the plush office, and rain silently pearled and dropped down the large windows. The sky was broody and already dark, with great rain-clouds like bruises clotting up its smooth surface.
“Another one on Pentonville Road?” mused Prowse. “You’re going to start bringing down the property prices, sir.”
“That is regrettable, but a risk I am willing to take,” Ashdown replied shortly. “Will you be needing anything?”
“No, sir,” Prowse replied. Ashdown merely nodded vaguely. They both knew that Prowse carried his throwing knives upon his person at all times, and more besides. He did not very often use a pistol, however-Prowse was of a generation of men that saw no honour in a soulless gun. Never had he derived enjoyment from killing people, but he had become numbed to its feeling long ago now, and felt nothing at all. It was a dog-eat-dog world. Journalists that knew too much, trading competitors, spies in the company and people conspiring with pirates: they all had to go. If Ashdown commanded it, so it shall be.
Ashdown was not much awed by the loyalty of his most important aide, worker and bodyguard: he expected it, and no less. He did not glance up from the ledger he was scrawling in now as Prowse slipped from his office once more. It really was quite remarkable, how silently he could move.
“Good man,” Ashdown murmured to the still air.
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Seashell Girl
Rating: G
Challenge: Guava #15: life is but a dream, Fudge Ripple #13: doubt
Toppings/Extras: butterscotch, whipped cream, rainbow sprinkles
Wordcount: 260
Summary: Camila Santos wonders if Jacob Graham ruined or blessed her life.
Notes: Poetry roll! Basically, the birth of Liddy from Camila’s point of view.
Seashell girl is waking again,
A memory, or was it a dream?
Colours leaking out of her brain,
Trying hard to remember the scene:
Caged in a set of iron-strong arms
A curly smile that makes her ache,
A tiny kiss that makes her warm:
She was his for him to take.
Seashell girl is a girl no more,
She’s got no time and a lot to do:
Cleaning windows, scrubbing floors,
Scrabbling for money and for food.
A hungry mouth that’s like a void,
Pain in her legs again and again,
She can’t show it when she’s annoyed
And sometimes she weeps at the world’s disdain.
Seashell girl remembers being strong,
Remembers all her fights-
Now she’s a mother and she hasn’t got long
To sleep during the summer nights.
For a living now she cleans clothes
When she used do what she wanted,
Every day she feels herself growing old
And her memories become haunted.
Seashell girl lies in the small bed
That she shares with her daughter:
The powdery smell of her baby’s head,
As the windows run with water.
The world is soft and blurry now
And they’ll just doze a while,
Perhaps she’ll never adventure now-
But oh, she loves that child.
Seashell girl walks on the beach
Feet crunching in the shingle,
The horizon’s tight and out of reach
And her breath and the sea mist mingle.
She smiles as she watches her daughter play
So in love with the whole world:
A new generation, a whole new day,
She’s the next seashell girl.