urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:prosepositive Writing: It's Just Words! Writing: It's Just Words! 2004-09-29T00:55:00Z urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:prosepositive:588 kemidra@livejournal.com The Only Bee in your Bonnet 2004-09-29T00:55:00Z 2004-09-29T00:55:00Z She didn't know where she was going. Don't cry yet, don't cry yet. Oh my god. Hang onto the shock, the numbness. Just for another minute. The most important thing was just to get the fuck away from there. She could still feel his cold gaze on her back.<br /><br />What happened? How the hell had it come to this? SHE was supposed to be in the right here? How had he managed to turn everything around on her again? This time not just to make her feel guilty, but to make her look stupid. She knew what he was capable of. She knew that he could use his wit with all the skill and precision of a surgeons scalpel. He could, depending on what he considered necessary, nick and cut the flesh so quickly and with such subtlety that the specks of blood formed before you even felt the pain. Or he could cut deep, so deep that you might never recover, and how the blood flowed then. She'd hoped that if he was sure of her, he'd never, never turn that cold, biting sarcasm on her. She knew she was playing with fire. But when you're young, you know, you can't really imagine what it feels like when your heart bleeds. You accept, with idealism and imagined wisdom, that you may be hurt by this. But pain helps you grow, you tell yourself. Experience is the only real teacher. <br /><br />But clinging to that thought now, with his the chill of his amused gaze still burning in her memory, is about as useful as clinging to God when he takes the life of a child you love. Fuck experience. And fuck God too. I was supposed to do everything right, she thought. I should have been more confident, I should have stood my ground, I shouldn't have let anything but disdain show in my eyes. That's what you're supposed to do. Because you CAN'T let him see that you're hurt, or you're just confirming he has the ability to hurt you.<br /><br />And all that jazz.<br /><br />Oh my god. I can FEEL it, she thought. My chest hurts. It hurts so bad. Her hands were shaking as she held the lighter to the cigarette. She sucked on it like it was an oxygen tank.<br /><br />In many ways, it was. urn:lj:livejournal.com:atom1:prosepositive:453 2004-09-28T22:02:18Z 2004-09-28T22:04:15Z Nighttime - Some damned bar or other in a little-known reality<br /><br />I knew something was wrong shortly after I'd stepped into the common room. The bartender was far too smarmy and didn't even seem taken aback by my looks. Not that I'm <i>horribly</i> ostentatious, but the white hair and black skin should've gotten <i>some</i> reaction. I mean, when you're a goddess you have to show it a bit, even though you wear a nice cloak-and-hood contraption to keep your goddessness under wraps. Still, you wanna have <i>some</i> eldrich sense leak out around you, or what's the point, eh? Besides, you might win a believer or two.<br /><br />Oh, yes, I'm a goddess. Surprised? Hey! <i>I</i> wouldn't know if you were surprised or not, so just <i>don't talk to me about omniscience, yes</i>? There are Deities and deities, and I don't rate the big 'O'. I've only a minor presence in five continuums or universes or whatever term floats your celestial barge of sky-cows, and my little plot of worship ain't getting any bigger right now. Which is mostly why I'm in this dump of a tavern.<br /><br />I put down my cup slowly, wondering if I should increase the old mystical presence by willing a minor feat of some kind, like turning really rotten beer into the finest urine, but it appears the clientele were already working on that with mixed success. Then <i>it</i> stepped into the room.<br /><br />I immediately knew him, the man who appeared to be a common drunkard of uncommon filthiness, wrapped in a shabby black cloak and wide-brimmed hat, face furiously fuzzy with hair. The arcane !bzzt! are adept at disguise, and, being only servitors, have no reason to leak a bit around the edges. However, I <i>am</i> a goddess, you know, and mortals can't fool me. Hardly ever, anyway.<br /><br />He staggered to my table, ignoring the go-away-if-you-want-to-keep-your-fluid-level-up looks darted at him by the other patrons, and sat.<br /><br />"H..ha..have a drink?" he exhaled. I leaned back quickly, feeling my eyebrows slightly singed. The fumes made me wish the !bzzt! were less adept at disguise.<br /><br />"Sure, tall, dark, and fuzzy. Have one on me." He gaped a scraggly smile. I gracefully held up a beringed hand to summon the bartender, who promptly smarmed over, trailing a metaphorical streak of oil.<br /><br />"Oh, yes, miss, yes. Yes?" he burbled. I darted him a slightly luminous glance from underneath the hood, but he just stood there and bobbed, goober-faced. Very wrong, but I couldn't risk any tricks just yet.<br /><br />"I'll have wine, and buy for scruffy, here." I turned my eyes to the !bzzt!-cum-wino. This was the nexus conjunction. Whatever followed would depend on what the !bzzt! ordered.