Creative Corner

@TidalMoonrise

warning: suggested death, uh. dark stuff. um I don't even know. just a heads up.

"The last flight"
866 words

The city was sinking into disrepair. People were starving on the streets, and the waste was building up so that the air was heavy with the stench of it. It had once been a beautiful city, with the streets paved with cobblestone that had been so carefully placed. Cobblestone that was now filthy, chipped and missing in places so that the carriage wheels became damaged each time they were unlucky enough to fall into one of the holes left by the stones.

The city was dying, and no one was willing to save it. At least, not anymore. We had been a caring people once. Everyone had helped out, and the children were raised by the whole neighbourhood, not just their parents. We had been that kind of community, helping those going through less than fortunate times and coming together in a crisis. We had all cared so much, and that had become our downfall.

They had come in all at once, a great iron-clad army that smashed through what small defences we had had, and brought fear and sickness and starvation along with them. We had thought that we were strong, because we were united as a community. But we had no fighters, no diplomats or polititians to speak for us. We could do nothing but huddle in fear as the soldiers ripped babies from the arms of mothers and violated and killed where they would.

They swept through our beautiful streets and our gleaming cathedrals, and left blood and filth and mud and worse things in their wake. The air that had once been filled with laughter filled with screams in those early days. The screams and cries of those who were watching everything they had known and loved go up in flames.

The army had come with a commander, and he had been the worst of all the soldiers. I had never learned his name - I don't think he ever spoke it to any of us, because the people of our once beautiful city were only there to bring him food and scrub his bedding. I watched everyone I knew and cared for die under his command, and still none of us fought back. Even I had been too afraid, too naive, too weak.

The screaming eased as more time passed, and we became used to the new cruelty of our existance. We learned to accept that sometimes our friends didn't return home, because the commander or one of his soldiers had taken or killed them on a whim. Mothers held their children close to them, but learned not to beg their partners not to go to work each day, because it didn't matter if the men were home when the soldiers came through those doors, they always got what they wanted anyway.

I had been a tinkerer back when our city had been beautiful. The shining cathedrals had boasted my workmanship in their windows, the stained glass set into intricate metal detailings. They had all been by my design, and I had known happiness each time that I had looked upon them.

The windows were broken now, along with my spirit, and everything else. But I had not yet finished tinkering. There was one last project on my workbench, almost complete, and then I would lay down my tools forever.

I positioned the next piece of glass where it needed to go, and fetched my solderer from the fire. It was not pretty work, this last project, because my hands were not as steady as they once were. They shook with every movement, and tears blurred the edges of my vision. But pretty or not, it was my last piece, and I would see it completed. My fire burned hotter behind me, and the sweat trailed down my back as I worked.

When it was complete I lifted it gently. It was not anything like what I had made before, and I was afraid that it would shatter, but I had attached the harness carefully, and to my relief, it held. I strapped it to my back and made my way up the wrought iron stairs that edged the building, all the way up until I stood on top of the world, at the edge of the building, looking down at the ruined city that had once been my home.

I spread my arms, and with them, the glass wings that I had crafted so carefully. It had taken me days to finish them, and only minutes before the people down below on the broken cobblestone streets saw me, recognised me, and turned to watch.

I had no pretty speech planned, no hope to give them except the light that shone through my glass wings, painted with all the colours that had graced our once beautiful city. I offered them one last glimpse of all the beauty that they had once lived among, the rainbows of colour and joy and laughter.

I let them all look one last time, and then I closed my eyes and took that final step forward, and I fell.

My glass wings shattered upon the broken cobblestones, along with the last shred of hope of a doomed people.

@TidalMoonrise I'm glad my thread inspired this one! It will be helpful in making sure you write more. I'll try to enter this round, but if not the next!

@TidalMoonrise May I please be added to a pinglist if there is one for whenever there is a new prompt posted?

@TidalMoonrise
Word count: 1126

“When all that remains is Darkness, be a Lantern unto the world.”

Canith traced his finger over the D in darkness continuously as he stared out the window into the endless night sky. The stars twinkled defiantly against the black, casting their meager illumination down upon the city of Eagle’s Reach. The city had not been named for its altitude, but rather for the heights to which its towers reached. Turrets pierced any low-hanging clouds that swept off the sea, giving the impression that those who sat in the highest rooms sat in thrones above the world.

But Canith knew better. Tonight, no clouds sheltered the lower buildings from his view. He pushed to his feet, leaving the book behind him open to its fateful page, and moved silently across the stone floor towards a pair of stained glass doors. Reaching out his hands, he touched the cool glass before pushing them open and stepping out onto the balcony.

A cold breeze met him, rushing past him into his library and curling about as it sought to toss pages into disarray.

Let it, Canith thought as he strode out into the night.

He pulled his bright cloak, a mosaic of varying shades of all colors, about himself as he moved towards the edge marked by a banister made of black stone and accented in obsidian. When the tower was created, long before the Day of Eternal Night, it would have absorbed the sunlight throughout the daytime hours and used the heat to magically warm the city below him during chilly nights.

But that was before the sun died.

Since then, the world of Varil had started to use the moon to count its days. New rituals were created to thank the gods for sparing their world even after the strange and tragic death of the sun deity. Warmth, once cast down from the sun, now emanated from the earth below, keeping everything and everyone from freezing.

The moon had set about an hour ago, and it was Canith’s turn to be the Lantern.

Wordlessly, he cast back his cloak as he looked over the city. Far below, he could see people and horses moving along streets and bridges, passing through markets and carrying about their everynight business. The coastal winds tossed Canith’s cloak about behind him. The sound of whipping cloth transformed into a soft tinkle of glass as Canith started to feel himself pulled back with the gusts. Quickly, he tucked his new wings to his back.

He moved a hand to the banister and easily pushed himself up onto it as he watched the world below. Firelight flickered in many windows, warding off the darkness that threatened to envelop them all. In the shadows that filled the gaps of light, Canith could sense the creatures lurking, sniffing out their nightly prey.

Three people had died last night alone on Amia’s watch.

He spread his wings and leapt into the air, letting the salty breeze catch him and carry him between the other turrets. The glass wings held his easily aloft and sparkled meagerly in the starlight above. Tucking his wings close, he arced downwards, falling through the night air before he snapped his wings out with a subtle clatter and circled over the lower streets.
People stopped to stare up at him. A few people even waved and children pointed and gasped. The beginning of each watch was always his favorite part of his job. The awe and gratitude in the eyes of people he didn’t know, it gave value to every hour spent in mediation and pouring over the Code.

He spared them a wave back before he turned his attention to the shadows. The watch always started with a hunt. Banking over the streets, he scanned the alleys and corners of the city. While many creatures of darkness could walk through the firelight, the most dangerous stayed hidden, coiled like serpents ready to strike from their holes. The vampires were the least of his worries. No, when the sun had died, beings crafted from the essence of shadows crept onto the world and curled up within the darkest spaces to wait and breed.

They were trying to take over Varil, snuff out every light and claim the world for their own. The Watch were the primary defenders of the cities throughout the world. People of all races and creeds had banded together against the darkness that sought to devour their home. The gods had gifted them cloaks of color that could capture the light of the stars and moon and store it for use.

A scream caught Canith’s attention and he quickly arced down an alley, his eyes searching through the inky blackness. And then he saw her running, sprinting from light to light as though seeking islands in a dark sea of chaos. An undulating mass followed her, only visible in the edges of the light where the shadows rippled and coiled away from the dim glow of candles in the windows.

The woman sought the safety of the street where lanterns kept the beasts at bay, but she wasn’t going to make it.

Canith swept in, landing in the darkness between the woman and her pursuer. Lost in her terror, the woman continued sprinting for the street ahead and the protection it offered. Canith spread his wings in the shadows, watching the darkness.

There was a pause, a moment where time held its breath. All went silent around Canith.

You cannot fight us, a voice whispered in his mind.

“Watch me,” Canith said aloud as he closed his eyes and willed his wings to shed light.

The alley burst into a flare of brilliant multi-colored lights, and Canith heard the creature scream in his mind. He willed the light to shine until the scream had faded into an echo.

You cannot banish the darkness. We always return.

These damned creatures always said the same damned thing when they died.

The problem was, Canith knew they were right. The Watch would destroy what they could and more would take the place of the fallen. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure the woman was nowhere to be seen before he leapt back into the air to find the next enemy.

It didn’t matter that they were right. He knew when he accepted his promotion into the Watch that the fight would be endless, that he might die any day fighting against an enemy countless as the empty spaces between the stars. He was only here to do what good he could with the time he had, to help hold them off until an answer was found.

This was his world. He was not giving it up without a fight.

@TidalMoonrise

(Please ping me for new prompts)

The woman looked down at the cobbles below, debating wether or not to jump. She had tried before, but at the last moment, she had snapped open her wings, deciding not to end her life on that day. She never had the courage to do it, but she knew that eventually, she would. it was only a matter of time until her emotions got the best of her. No matter what everyone else said, she always felt worthless, like no one really liked her for who she was.

The light of the moon filtered through her stained glass wings, casting rainbow reflections on the building adjacent to her's. She kneeled down on the wall placing her slender head in her hands. Her wings remained out, she couldn't fold them very easily since the glass was thick. They needed to be, to support her in flight.

What am I supposed to do? Should I throw myself off this building and end it now, or should I continue to live a life that brings me so much pain?
The woman stood back up and jumped off the roof, her stomach dropping out as she fell. she opened her wings and soared through the sky, flying in front of the large full moon. It looked like a pale disc of white silk, and the woman smiled at it. The moon and sun were one of the few things of beauty in the world. She flew in through a window in the top of a tall building. The room was her workshop and bedroom, and the place where she spent most of her time. The woman gently reached to her chest and unbuckled the strap keeping her wings on. She gently eased them onto her workbench, shoving other small projects, trinkets, and tinkered objects to the side to make room for the glass objects.

The woman walked to the corner of her loft and collapsed on her bed, the old thing creaking under her weight, as little as it was. She pushed a button on the console next to her bed, and a curtain of velvet flew over the window she entered through. Then, she pushed another button and a sheet of fabric retracted from a window on the roof of the building. She gazed up at the thousands of stars, imagining the fiery balls of exploding gas that made the tiny lights she could see now. The moon wasn't quite overhead yet, but she knew it would be soon.

She lay there for a long time, contemplating the nature of her situation, and potential ways to get out of it. Her machining and tinkering shop pulled in some income, and made her two best friend, but it didn't feel like enough. It never did, nothing ever did. She felt a nagging and tugging sensation on her heart and mind, showing her images of the people in her lives' time without her, what they would be like if she was dead. It never occurred to her that they may miss her, or be devastated by her death. She only thought of the little things that they may not miss, like how she kicks in her sleep, or how she spends o=most of her time tinkering with objects, or how she was a complete introvert.

Eventually, the woman fell asleep, her restless mind hopping from subject to subject in her dreams. When she woke up, one thought was open and prominent in her mind. She knew a solution to her problem.

The woman walked over to her table, resolved to do what she knew. She took a large, sturdy hammer to her desk and squeezed her eyes shut, aiming it. She brought the hammer down, crushing the art that was her wings. Only then did she see a note attached to her door.

Maia

Please meet me at the balcony at sundown. We need to talk.

All my love,
Inis

In that moment, Maia knew she had made a mistake. A tear trickled from the corner of her eye, then another, and she cried out, screaming at the loss of her beautiful creation. She shoved her hands into the class and covered her face with them, adding droplets of blood to her tears. Inis. It had been so long.

Word Count: 714 words, sorry it's a little short.

@TidalMoonrise

Word count: don't tell me how to live my life I kid, I love you sh

My brother had once asked me what I would do to survive. "Anything," I told him. "Anything."

The city was in ruins. An outsider looking in would see pink rooves and ivory towers. It looked like a city of dreams and hope, but the streets were made of thievery and blood.

I made my home in a forgotten tower, stealing away with pieces of metal and glass. This was what I had become in the years since my brother left, but it was enough. I would succeed, and be free, or I would fail, and be free nevertheless.

Months later, my work was finished. I climbed the tower further, my project wrapped gently in a bundle of blankets. The sharp edges pinched into my sides, and I let them. Eventually, the stairs gave out to smooth floor and I walked the bridge. I stood before the city, a world beneath my feet.

Very carefully, I took out my project.

Wings, delicate and strong all at once, caught the light. They were made of glass and metal, the colours radiant and bright. Wings of my own creation, and I synched them on my back. I did up all the straps, mindful to do them tight. I would not fall, I told myself. I could not fall.

The city was laid out before me, a blanket of pink and grey. Ahead, the sun broke over the mountains and lit up the walls that had sealed me within this ruined city. My eyes on the open sky before me, I spread my arms, my wings spreading with them. I thought of my brother, beyond the wall.

Anything, I had told him. Anything.

@Mypilot

I feel like our stories are kind of opposite. Also, your word count is 279.

@Lightshadow101 Ha, yeah. Also: [quote name="Mypilot" date=2017-08-06 23:26:46] Word count: don't tell me how to live my life[/quote]

@Mypilot
Sorry. I just wanted to tell if you wanted to know :)