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Nov. 1st, 2005 12:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zarahemlaI'm still working on Fanfic100. And yea verily, though I *cough* thinkthepromptsarestupid, I have written the first five stories. Only ... sigh ... ninety-five to go. At least they can be short. I need, like, a Dark Tower icon. :)
31. New Orleans
As they begin to see the city of Lud on the horizon, looming upwards as if to block all light, Eddie starts to hum a song he remembers his father singing. Eddie remembers very little of his father; almost nothing, you might say. But there is this song. As he hums, Susannah joins in, and her voice is better than his. Eddie stops.
"You know it too?"
"Sugar, you think you have a lock on the blues?"
"That's not a blues song!" says Eddie indignantly. "It's good old rock-n-roll."
"Then how come I heard Nina Simone sing it in a coffee house?" She breaks out again, belting like a torch singer as Eddie bounces her along in her chair. "There is a house in New Orleans / they call the Rising Sun ..."
"I know that song," says the gunslinger suddenly, and both Eddie and Susanna swivel around to stare at him. He starts up too, and his voice is even better than Susannah's. "And it's been the ruin of many a poor young girl, and gods, I know I'm one." To the astonished look on the other two's faces, he says, "Only we called it Gillytown and not that other place you said."
"New Orleans," says Eddie faintly. "Will wonders never cease."
"No," says the gunslinger. "I imagine they never will."
(prompt: "sunrise")
27. Evisceration
Jake's dad screams into the phone again about cutting off someone's balls. Jake can't remember a time when he didn't know in excruciating detail about how to eviscerate someone, or hack off their nose, or pop out their eyeballs. It's just the way his dad talks.
He wonders how it would be to go to the park with his father. Probably something along the lines of, "Catch that ball, son, or I'll rip off your arm and beat you with it." Idyllic.
He passes through the living room where his mother is busy at her typewriter. She inputs something, looks at it, shakes her head, and begins again.
"What are you working on, mom?" asks Jake.
"Oh!" She looks up and focusses on him for a minute, then smiles and looks back down at the keys. "Nothing really."
She always says that.
In his head, the clamor begins again. You're dead. You're not dead. Listen to me! The boy is dead! No he isn't, you idiot, he's standing right here!
Jake. Jake. You're dead.
(prompt: "parents")
43. The corpse
Three days before the strangers walk into Lud, Maud has this dream:
The town square. The dark faces of the hanged people. The battered face of Spanker, tipped obscenely sideways. His jaw, jigging up and down as it attempts speech. The voice of him, talking the language of doom.
"Maud," he says, "Maud." And in her dream she cannot speak, only stare, as he says "Maud," one more time and giggles, pieces of black flesh falling from his bones and dropping aimlessly onto the cobbles of Lud.
"I am the black man, the wizard. I come to you from far away and I bear a message."
Her vocal cords stop seizing and she is able to say, "Aye," very faintly. She can hear her own heart thumping like the god-drums; wham, wham, wham.
"They shall walk into town," hisses Spanker, "a man and another man; a dark woman and a boy. Which ones you shall meet, I do not know. But Maud, hear me well -- they will want to see the train."
"The train," she says softly.
"Yes Maud, the train. And no matter their words or their god-rotted guns, Maud, pointed at you, you shall not lead them to it. Do you understand?"
"No." She feels joy at saying it, for Spanker would never speak to her like this. A gentle soul, he was, and with only a little hurt in him. When they took him and did for him, she had cried a little, in the hole of her own place. "You aren't Spanker, so you aren't, and I don't have to listen to you."
"No, Maud, I am not Spanker," says that corpse, and then he reaches out with one dead hand and begins to choke her. As she gags for breath, clawing at his cold fingers, he continues: "But just the same, you must, Maud, you must listen to me."
She wakes in the cold light of dawn, feeling frantically at the marks ringing her neck. But they have faded almost entirely three days later, when she meets the gunslingers.
(prompt: "square")
44. The Demon
He still remembers the day he was trapped. His name, he has long forgotten; his occupation or his family members or the color of his hair. But he remembers the woman that did it, that put him in the circle and trapped him for eternity. She did it with salt and a speaking charm, but she had power behind her. He remembers her chanting strange words, thickening the air around both of them.
He remembers pleading with her and the look she gave him. Oh, he remembers the humiliation of it. She thought she had all the power. But someday she will forget, someday she will come into the circle again. And he has spent countless years planning his revenge. Oh, how hungry he is. Hungry for everything.
He will eat her alive. He will gulp down her blood, he will chew on her bones. He will fuck her blind. He will scream in her ear, howling those words, spitting them back at her. She will pay, that woman, that woman unwise enough to wander across his boundaries. She will pay, she will pay with every molecule of her being. He has sworn it, and so it will be.
(prompt: "circle")
14. Life By the Drop
In the autumn, the grass on the Drop turns brown, but in the early spring it is as green as a girl could want, dotted with daisies and looking like the most beautiful carpet in the world. Susan comes home, like as not, festooned in chains of flowers, and Aunt Cord gives her the usual sniff, the one that says, girl, when will you wake up and grow up? But Susan doesn't want to grow up; she's happy, at least mostly happy, riding across the Drop in her father's old shirt.
This is the spring, however, when she sees people watching her in town. She does not exactly know why women whisper when she comes out of the general store, their faces turned urgently towards one another. Why, coming out of church in a dress she likes especially, all the men are suddenly busy with a stirrup or mud on their boots. Only last year she had been able to say hello to anyone she pleased -- now, Aunt Cord hauls her along like a toy on a string, hissing "Come along girl, don't jabber all day!"
When she is hanging up clothes on the line, sometimes boys will come along the street and stop and talk to her. She likes the attention -- she likes to talk. Why is it that Aunt Cord hustles her quickly into the kitchen, saying something about the floor needing washing? A spark is beginning to fire in Susan's brain, but the blaze hasn't caught yet. In a week or so she will understand fully, when Mayor Thorin corners her in the loft of the church and says some very improper things. In a month or so, she will become his promised wife. In two, she will meet a boy who changes everything, and in four -- in four, she will be dead.
But right now, Susan smiles at Aunt Cord as she peels a carrot for dinner. Aunt Cord smiles back, for they haven't begun to poison one another with witch's hatred yet. Right now, the wind through the grass in the Drop is still soft.
(prompt: "green")
31. New Orleans
As they begin to see the city of Lud on the horizon, looming upwards as if to block all light, Eddie starts to hum a song he remembers his father singing. Eddie remembers very little of his father; almost nothing, you might say. But there is this song. As he hums, Susannah joins in, and her voice is better than his. Eddie stops.
"You know it too?"
"Sugar, you think you have a lock on the blues?"
"That's not a blues song!" says Eddie indignantly. "It's good old rock-n-roll."
"Then how come I heard Nina Simone sing it in a coffee house?" She breaks out again, belting like a torch singer as Eddie bounces her along in her chair. "There is a house in New Orleans / they call the Rising Sun ..."
"I know that song," says the gunslinger suddenly, and both Eddie and Susanna swivel around to stare at him. He starts up too, and his voice is even better than Susannah's. "And it's been the ruin of many a poor young girl, and gods, I know I'm one." To the astonished look on the other two's faces, he says, "Only we called it Gillytown and not that other place you said."
"New Orleans," says Eddie faintly. "Will wonders never cease."
"No," says the gunslinger. "I imagine they never will."
(prompt: "sunrise")
27. Evisceration
Jake's dad screams into the phone again about cutting off someone's balls. Jake can't remember a time when he didn't know in excruciating detail about how to eviscerate someone, or hack off their nose, or pop out their eyeballs. It's just the way his dad talks.
He wonders how it would be to go to the park with his father. Probably something along the lines of, "Catch that ball, son, or I'll rip off your arm and beat you with it." Idyllic.
He passes through the living room where his mother is busy at her typewriter. She inputs something, looks at it, shakes her head, and begins again.
"What are you working on, mom?" asks Jake.
"Oh!" She looks up and focusses on him for a minute, then smiles and looks back down at the keys. "Nothing really."
She always says that.
In his head, the clamor begins again. You're dead. You're not dead. Listen to me! The boy is dead! No he isn't, you idiot, he's standing right here!
Jake. Jake. You're dead.
(prompt: "parents")
43. The corpse
Three days before the strangers walk into Lud, Maud has this dream:
The town square. The dark faces of the hanged people. The battered face of Spanker, tipped obscenely sideways. His jaw, jigging up and down as it attempts speech. The voice of him, talking the language of doom.
"Maud," he says, "Maud." And in her dream she cannot speak, only stare, as he says "Maud," one more time and giggles, pieces of black flesh falling from his bones and dropping aimlessly onto the cobbles of Lud.
"I am the black man, the wizard. I come to you from far away and I bear a message."
Her vocal cords stop seizing and she is able to say, "Aye," very faintly. She can hear her own heart thumping like the god-drums; wham, wham, wham.
"They shall walk into town," hisses Spanker, "a man and another man; a dark woman and a boy. Which ones you shall meet, I do not know. But Maud, hear me well -- they will want to see the train."
"The train," she says softly.
"Yes Maud, the train. And no matter their words or their god-rotted guns, Maud, pointed at you, you shall not lead them to it. Do you understand?"
"No." She feels joy at saying it, for Spanker would never speak to her like this. A gentle soul, he was, and with only a little hurt in him. When they took him and did for him, she had cried a little, in the hole of her own place. "You aren't Spanker, so you aren't, and I don't have to listen to you."
"No, Maud, I am not Spanker," says that corpse, and then he reaches out with one dead hand and begins to choke her. As she gags for breath, clawing at his cold fingers, he continues: "But just the same, you must, Maud, you must listen to me."
She wakes in the cold light of dawn, feeling frantically at the marks ringing her neck. But they have faded almost entirely three days later, when she meets the gunslingers.
(prompt: "square")
44. The Demon
He still remembers the day he was trapped. His name, he has long forgotten; his occupation or his family members or the color of his hair. But he remembers the woman that did it, that put him in the circle and trapped him for eternity. She did it with salt and a speaking charm, but she had power behind her. He remembers her chanting strange words, thickening the air around both of them.
He remembers pleading with her and the look she gave him. Oh, he remembers the humiliation of it. She thought she had all the power. But someday she will forget, someday she will come into the circle again. And he has spent countless years planning his revenge. Oh, how hungry he is. Hungry for everything.
He will eat her alive. He will gulp down her blood, he will chew on her bones. He will fuck her blind. He will scream in her ear, howling those words, spitting them back at her. She will pay, that woman, that woman unwise enough to wander across his boundaries. She will pay, she will pay with every molecule of her being. He has sworn it, and so it will be.
(prompt: "circle")
14. Life By the Drop
In the autumn, the grass on the Drop turns brown, but in the early spring it is as green as a girl could want, dotted with daisies and looking like the most beautiful carpet in the world. Susan comes home, like as not, festooned in chains of flowers, and Aunt Cord gives her the usual sniff, the one that says, girl, when will you wake up and grow up? But Susan doesn't want to grow up; she's happy, at least mostly happy, riding across the Drop in her father's old shirt.
This is the spring, however, when she sees people watching her in town. She does not exactly know why women whisper when she comes out of the general store, their faces turned urgently towards one another. Why, coming out of church in a dress she likes especially, all the men are suddenly busy with a stirrup or mud on their boots. Only last year she had been able to say hello to anyone she pleased -- now, Aunt Cord hauls her along like a toy on a string, hissing "Come along girl, don't jabber all day!"
When she is hanging up clothes on the line, sometimes boys will come along the street and stop and talk to her. She likes the attention -- she likes to talk. Why is it that Aunt Cord hustles her quickly into the kitchen, saying something about the floor needing washing? A spark is beginning to fire in Susan's brain, but the blaze hasn't caught yet. In a week or so she will understand fully, when Mayor Thorin corners her in the loft of the church and says some very improper things. In a month or so, she will become his promised wife. In two, she will meet a boy who changes everything, and in four -- in four, she will be dead.
But right now, Susan smiles at Aunt Cord as she peels a carrot for dinner. Aunt Cord smiles back, for they haven't begun to poison one another with witch's hatred yet. Right now, the wind through the grass in the Drop is still soft.
(prompt: "green")
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-01 09:04 pm (UTC)huh. i used to have a couple DT icons. i wonder where they went.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 04:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 03:37 am (UTC)Aspen has some DT icons, I do believe ;)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 04:40 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 01:26 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 04:42 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 10:55 pm (UTC)(Also, if you're looking for DT icons, this one is from a batch of pretty pretty ones made by
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 05:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 06:46 pm (UTC)Icons I can come up with, I think. What would you like?
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 05:37 pm (UTC)I stole an icon from
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-09 06:49 pm (UTC)I'm SO glad you did, though. :)
And huzzah for pretty icons.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 07:35 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 05:38 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-02 10:44 pm (UTC)Hee, and I alsomightthinkthepromptsarestupid. Oh wells.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-03 05:39 pm (UTC)But ... you better get workin' on your (stupid) prompts. Muahahahahaaaaa!
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-16 12:28 am (UTC)I took up Roland Deschain for fanfic100 and thought I would pass by and say howdy.
Glad to see you have made headway into the prompts. I'm only have, um, lets see, 100 to go myself. :-D
Particularly liked 'New Orleans'. I now have the song rolling around my head...
Hope you don't mind if I friend you so that I could keep track of your fics. Think you are doing great with the five so far.
Good luck on the rest.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-11-16 05:06 pm (UTC)