Naturally now that I'm putting by Roulette baggies to more work, my genre bag went missing and I had to toss together a new one. I actually think I like this one better. Unfortunately it was made in a pell-mell rush in between morning errands and day plans. I'll be sitting down to edit my latest novel as soon as I finish this post up and was actually supposed to be on that an hour ago. Today's getting away from me! I'll see if I can't list out all the genres I've got collected in my bag to draw from so that you can copy it for your own usage tomorrow. Call it my Christmas gift to you!
Today's combination...
Genres
Heroic Fantasy
Slasher
Story Elements/Themes/Tropes
Unseen Forces
Temptation of Power
Transformation
Tell me that combination doesn't almost write itself! My first thought went to vampires, but don't know for sure that that's the direction I want to take this. Unfortunately it looks like this particular piece demands a lot of buildup, but I challenge anyone who reads it to write for themselves what happens next...
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Miggins stabbed the pitchfork into the hay and hurled it
over his shoulder. The visiting nobles horses wouldn’t feed themselves. Stab.
Toss. Stab. Toss. Same as any other day. Only it really wasn’t.
The barn was filled with strange horses, clearly thoroughbreds
but not any he’d ever heard of. Striped horses. Who’d ever heard of such a
thing? He couldn’t tell one way or the other whether they were white with black
stripes or white with black. And they bit. His forearm was wrapped with
bandages beneath his heavy winter tunic where one had taken great delight in
ripping away a chunk of his flesh. At least warhorses understood who it was
that fed them.
And the riders were just as strange as their mounts. Tall
and fair skinned, with red hair that sprung from their scalps like the flames
of torches. In the whole village, he was the only one with hair like theirs. If
it weren’t for all the freckles that had colored his face, it would be easy to
confuse them for his kin. At least so long as one didn’t look too closely at
how they carried themselves.
Nobles always walked like the ground was privileged for
their footstep. Stab. Toss. Stab. Toss. One had even stopped to look at him
with reptilian eyes as they entered the inn. Some inns had names, he understood,
in other towns where there might be call for more than one. But not here, in
Elmstock. Here there was only the inn, and the closest thing to nobility was
the mayor.
Now there were six nobles inside where it was warm by the
fire, away from snow and cold hay and biting black and white horses. Who came
riding into town two full hours after the sun went down? And at this time of
year, when the snow was almost knee deep? They didn’t even look like the cold
bothered them, dressed in flowing silks. They’re clothes had seemed to move and
wave like water as they moved, almost as if the cloth was alive. If the cold
didn’t bother them, then they should be willing to take care of their own
bloody horses out here in the cold. He bet none of them had ever been sent off
to perform last minute chores after thinking they were about to settle down to
a hot, well-earned dinner.
Stab. Toss. Stab. Toss. The frustration burned like an ember
in his chest and he held onto it, deliberately letting his thoughts coax it
into something hotter than it should be. Anger could keep a man warm. It
certainly beat being numb.
Stab. Toss. A skull glared out of the hay at him, empty eye sockets
blazing with a crimson light. Blood ran over the grinning mouth, painting the
teeth yellow teeth orange against the brown-black rotten bone.
Miggins screamed and staggered away, slipped on the
droppings one of the striped horses had left on the barn floor, and toppled
over into the hay. He came up in a flurry of straw, wide eyed and gasping for
breath. There was no sign of the skull. Only the disturbed hay and fallen
pitchfork belied that anything at all had happened.
Miggins blinked his eyes and wiped the sweat from his brow.
He tried to swallow but found his mouth too dry. That’s what he got for
thinking angry thoughts. He was seeing things. Unwholesome things. He signed
himself with the mark of the Hearth Master and rose to his feet. Finish
working, he thought, feed the horses and get inside.
Not feeding them wasn’t an option. Not if he wanted to keep
his job and home, which he very much did. Although if another skull popped out
of the hay he might reconsider. He might anyways, but in the morning, after a
good night’s rest and breaking his fast. After the nobles left to continue
their journey.
He readied the pitchfork for another stab into the stray
when a scream rent the air. A woman’s scream, shrill and full of an icy terror
that extinguished what little warmth remained inside of him and set the animals
to agitation. Blood dripped from the end of his pitchfork.
He screamed and dropped it. One of the striped horses reared
and bellowed, lashing his hooves in challenge. Another scream from the inn, and
Miggins took off. Everything in him told him he was going the wrong direction,
but the inn was his home. Whatever was attacking their guests would have to go
through him. He said silent prayer to the Hearth Master as he ran that
….
Ran out of time here. Please keep in mind that this is a RAW and UNEDITED FIRST DRAFT (and as such is bound to be riddled with more flaws than I can shake an over used metaphorical stick at) when you comment. Eager to hear your thoughts and ideas! Please comment below or share your own Roulette Stories :)
Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, make the mistake of thinking that
your muse is not a part of you or has a mind of its own. It is capricious on
occasion and sometimes stubborn, but that is not because it is willful. You
simply haven’t trained it. This is the reason why so many writers have odd
quirks and rituals for their writing process which seem almost arcane to
those who do not write themselves. Find out what motivates your creativity. Do
you write better alone? Surrounded by people but with headphones on? With pen
and paper or at a computer? At a certain time of day?
