Conversation With A Tourist

I wrote this to ysabetwordsmith's fourth prompt.

“Oh no, I’m just visiting.”  The white haired, broad nosed, dark skinned, sun blackened man finished rolling his cigarette and started smoking it.  “Not much on at home for me till at least next year so I thought I’d take advantage of the cheap airfares and come over here to take a look around.”

“And you’re walking the whole way?”  The woman with the black hair looked at him as if he were crazy.

“I find you can’t really know a piece of land until you walk over it.”  He puffed on his cigarette.  Because he was standing downwind of her the smoke didn’t blow over her or what she was doing.

“There’s much in what you say,” she agreed continuing with her scraping.  “What do you think so far?”

“The plants and animals are mostly different but things work in together much the same.  Your lot don’t adjust to the dry as well as ours from what I’ve seen.”  He tapped his cigarette ash off to the side away from her.

She looked at him sharply and her hands were still for a moment.  “You’ve seen much of drought, have you?”

“It’s always around me,” he smiled and blew smoke into the wind, “it always has been.  Decade at a time sometimes, if that’s the way the dance goes.”

She put her scraper down and stood.  The little, natural sounds around them stopped.  “Who are you?  What are you?”

“I am, as you are.  But I am only visiting, I will leave.”

“And the drought will go with you?”

“As the dance allows.  The full measure of the dance depends on dancers I have never seen and the closest measure on the Pacific twins.”  He chuckled.  “They used to just be swirls of water, you know?  And now they have names.  They’ll have personalities next.”

“That’s a thing humans do,” she nodded.  “Look at Coyote.”

“From what I’ve heard, I should look out for Coyote.”

She laughed.  “That too.”

Background Piece Poll

I've just count up the pieces I've written for the July Prompt Request so far and I'm three over the point were I should have asked what you want to see in a background piece.

So, what would you like to see in a background piece?  Don't be shy, tell me!

After The Fairy Tale

I wrote this to aldersprig's fourth prompt.  This continues in After The Fairy Tale II and After The Fairy Tale III.

“No!”  The pig herder, a slip of the girl really, crossed her legs, folded her arms and glared back at the king from her chair.  “I will not marry some friggin’ prince just because I managed to unenchant him.  If he was any use he would either have unenchanted himself or never have gotten himself enchanted in the first place.”

“What do you want to do?”  The king leaned back in his own chair on the other side of the desk.  There was a certain pungency to the firm minded young woman seated opposite him.  No doubt it had a lot to do with pigs, physical labour and infrequent ablutions.

“Go home.  Look after the pigs.  Hope Tom the woodcutter, young Shepley or Shrimblestraw Jack asks me to walk out with them.  Avoid enchanted…anythings.”  She continued to glare at the king.

“You would prefer one of these young men to my son?  Why?”  The king steepled his fingers in front of him.

“Physical competence, for a start.”  She leaned forward.  “And they have families who won’t look at me like something the cat dragged in.  Can Your Majesty honestly tell me you won’t have this chair burnt after I leave or that you’re looking forward to introducing me to the other kings?”

The king gave her a tight smile, “If you will excuse us for a moment, my dear?  Sir Wendell, with me if you please.”  He rose and walked to the far end of the room, the knight who’d been standing behind his right shoulder following him.  With his back to the peasant girl he said quietly, “Damn it all, Wendell, she’s right.”

“I hear a ‘but’ in there, Sire.”  The knight had been the King’s right hand man for internal matters for years.

“I want all of that for my grandsons – common sense, practicality, fire and determination.  She crossed her legs at me!”  He suppressed a chuckle.  “My wife does that when she disagrees with me.”

“Nice knees, pretty ankles and a good head of her own hair.”  Sir Wendell cleared his throat.  “Nice cleavage too, if you like that sort of thing.”  He did.

“She won’t have Prince Terrence, so what’s to do?”  The king knew there were options but he didn’t voice them.

Sir Wendell had no such qualms.  “There’s always the one in the tower.  It would solve both problems.”

“Should we do that to her?”  The king looked over his shoulder with a pang of guilt, his subjects’ safety was his responsibility.

Sir Wendell put a comforting hand on the king’s shoulder, “Needs must, Sire, needs must.”