rix_scaedu

I wrote this to aldersprig's third prompt and it turned out to be the origin story of the character who turns up in the last few paragraphs of The Funeral And The Wake. It runs to 701 words.

James Waltman was a tall, skinny eighteen year old who was new in town from he wasn’t saying where. He put an ad in the newspaper classifieds offering ‘objects found’ and was making living expenses from that. He’d even been able to make some friends his own age, Steve and Joshua. Unfortunately his ads and success had attracted the attention of Thomas Warszawski, a very unpleasant man who wanted James to work for him, which was why Steve and Joshua were kneeling on the floor in front of James and Warszawski with guns pointed at their heads.

“It’s very simple, James,” Warszawski said, “you take my money and find what I want, or your friends die. If that doesn’t work, then I keep finding people to kill in front of you until you give in. Like that girl who lives down the hall from you, and her kid.”

James could tell that the man meant it and that his thugs would carry out his threat – one of them would even enjoy it. He considered his options and said, very quietly and reluctantly, “Okay, you win. Give me a few minutes.”

“I thought so.” Warszawski smirked. “And just like I thought, it’s some sort of super mojo, ain’t it? Pity you don’t have some sort of fighting schtick to go with it, kid, ‘cause without that, you’re just the very bottom of a very small heap.”

“You wanted half a dozen boys my age that no-one would miss, right?” James confirmed the mobster’s requirements and, when the man nodded, let his power go to work. After a few moments he pulled out a notepad and pen to write down an address. “There you are. Now, let us go.”

Warszawski took the paper and said, “Now, was that so hard? Just in case though, you three stay here until our birds are in the bag.” He smiled and went off to make a phone call.

Half a nervous hour later, the phone rang and Warszawski answered it, “So? All good and in the bag? Great, take them to the airport to be shipped out. Yeah, they should know better than to go out partying with cash and no id, shouldn’t they?” He put the phone down and walked back to where the three black kids were being held. “Mike. Tadeusz. These boys are free to go,” he paused then added, “until next time. Skedaddle boys, and don’t be strangers, heh?”

“Yes, Mr Warszawski,” answered James. “We won’t Mr Warszawski. Come on, guys, let’s go.” The other two needed no urging and they didn’t stop moving until they were out of the building and on the next block.

“Jim,” asked Steve, “what did you just do? Isn’t he going to ship those other kids to someplace nasty?”

“Some place very nasty,” agreed James, “which is why I made sure he’s picking up people who thoroughly deserve it. Now, step lively you two, we need to get home and pack.”

Joshua replied, “Pack, why?”

“Because at two in the morning, when Warszawski’s people aren’t watching us, we’re leaving town for LA and then we’re getting out of the country.”

“Man, why are we doing that? It’s the other side of the continent.” Steve was incredulous.

“Because we need out of Dodge and aside from each other, we’ve got no reason to stay here,” answered James.

“Well, yeah…” That was Joshua.

“Besides, I may have just started a gang war.” James was listening to his power as he had it look for solutions. “That address I gave Warszawski was where Danny Martello’s psychopathic second son was partying with his closest friends.”

“Chris Martello?” Joshua sounded shaken. “I went to the same high school. That guy is seriously dangerous.”

“Why do you think I gave him up and not someone else?” James stopped and looked both ways before crossing the street. “We definitely want to be out of town by nine tomorrow morning because that’s when Mr Martello is going to find out who grabbed his son.”

“Warszawski and Martello?” Steve sounded resigned. “There’s no way we can run far enough or fast enough.”

“Yes there is,” said the boy who would become The Broker. “Trust me.”

I wrote this to kunama_wolf's anonymous prompt and it came in at 606 words.

“Well, it was back when there was water on the moon,” began Warial before he had to duck the seat cushion Tala threw at him.

“You said you were going to tell me a true story,” Tala told him, “but that’s how humans start stories about things that never happened!”

“She has a point,” agreed Lasrial. “Her aim is getting better, too.”

“Used to be that beginning just meant a very long time ago,” put in Dorthiel, “because the gods did try to put water on the moon, back when they were establishing things, but it wouldn’t stay.”

“Why not?” Tala was diverted, at least temporarily, from whatever tale Warial had been going to tell.

“I was in the room once when someone spent half an hour explaining that, with diagrams,” replied Dorthiel, “but I didn’t really understand it. I think they meant that the moon isn’t heavy enough to hold on to water, but I could well be wrong.”

Tala asked, “So, where did the water go when it left the moon?”

“You know, I really have no idea,” said Dorthiel, “and you’d think that if you had enough water for an ocean, a couple of smaller seas and lots of lakes, then you’d notice when it turned up somewhere else, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s probably all over the place,” commented Eluriah, an angel with black and dark brown banded wings and a fondness for twin swords. “I mean, water evaporates and goes up to form clouds. So if the water on the moon did that and kept going up because the moon couldn’t hold on to it, well where would it stop?”

“So there could be clouds floating around in the space beyond the moon?” Tala was fascinated.

“If there are, then the air the gods tried to put on the moon must be out there too – I think that there was the same problem with that as with the water,” added Dorthiel. “I do know that they tried longer with the air than with the water – apparently some of the lunar gods were very keen to get the same type of life up there as there is on the ground.”

“The same type of life?” It was Lasrial who’d picked up on that.

“There is life on the moon,” admitted Dorthiel. “I understand that it’s mainly simple plant forms that one of the older gods created to demonstrate that life could exist under the moon’s conditions but that you and I probably wouldn’t recognise them as a proper plant. Certainly there’s nothing up there capable of worship or belief, although I remember one of Xenophormor’s angels being very excited about a creature his divine master was working on that would live on the lunar plants.”

“Xenophormor?” Tala looked around the table. “Should I know that name?”

“You’ve no reason to,” said Lasrial sombrely. “He died on the same battlefield as my first master.”

“I’m sorry,” apologised Tala, “I didn’t mean to-.”

“Don’t be silly,” Lasrial dismissed her concerns with a wave of his hand. “How were you to know? Besides, how will you learn anything if you don’t ask questions?”

“Well put,” agreed Dorthiel. “Xenophormor was a moon god who was slain in the Death War, as were the other gods who were most interested in establishing life on the moon. Our remaining Lunar Trine have other interests and so the matter remains where it was.” He finished on a pensive note but then added brightly, “Now, wasn’t Warial going to tell us a story that may or may not have happened when the gods were trying to make water stick to the moon?”