On 23 April 2014, these three words were chosen:
- Ice
- Border
- Shore
And these blurbs were written within five minutes….Enjoy!
NICOLE DRAGONBECK:
The sea had frozen over, waves of ice a wall against the silver sand of the shore. Tira shivered, pulling his fur-lined jacket closer.
“This is a problem,” his companion Greep said.
Greep towered over Tira, fully twice his height and at least four times as wide. Greep was one of the mountain elves, who were distantly related to giants. Not exactly inconspicuous, which was an even bigger problem.
“How are we going to get over the border?” Tira asked. “We don’t have much more time before they figure out where we are and find us. Even with my magic and your muscle, I doubt we can take down an entire legion of the kingsguard.” Greep growled and Tira rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t trying to insult you, I was just trying to be practical. We are fugitives now, remember.”
Greep nodded, the snarl still on his face. Tira shifted the back on his back. “We have to get this away,” he muttered to himself. “If they catch us with it, they’ll know.”
“How can they know?” Greep said. “They are all stupider than rock.”
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a wizard wouldn’t steal just any book from the royal library,” Tira said. “They’ll tear this book apart to find the answers.”
“Or maybe they burn it,” Greep said. “Keep secret forever.”
Tira stared at him in horror, and the far-off clank of armor and horses reached his ears.
LISA BARRY:
Sande stood on the shore of the very beach he learned to walk on and stared at the wall built along the border, far in the distance. His father had never been able to mend the breach of faith between his family and the one across the way and it ate Sande alive. Their two families had once been close, had shared this beach like families might only to be ruined by his grandfather faithlessness. The cool air tickled his neck and he pulled the heavy hood closer. A small hand gripped his own and he squeezed his sons hand gently. They still had a few months before the ice would melt and the winter had already been long but there was one thing his wife would never forget. Her own sister lived beyond those very walls and every year she brought a gift. She always went alone and Sande would watch her red hair from a distance and make sure she returned. His son giggled and pulled away to chase a bird. Sande started to smile with drums started to beat, quickly and heavily destroying the silence of the shore. The alarms were sound.
“Stay here!” he hollered to the boy and ran toward the border.
ERIKA LANCE:
She ran her fingers along the border of the tome. It was rough and leathery. The tome had been encircled with skin, of what creature she wasn’t sure, but through her fingertips she felt the suffering that each victim had experienced. This sent an icy shiver of pleasure through her.
She smiled eyes closed for some time. So very little in this realm gave her pleasure anymore, the moments she was able to experience she clung to as they seemed to quickly escape her grasp.
Her tower was specifically placed close to the shore. Actually sat about 300 footsteps into the water most of the year, and this was to keep her inside. She thought back to how clever the wizard had been to fashion such a simple prison. Since her kind could not cross moving water she was trapped.
But not rendered helpless. She flipped open the book, feeling the rush of voices of souls trapped inside and began from the beginning. The key was in these pages, and she would find it.
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