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I don’t like this country. I don’t like their living buildings, which breathe and shift and watch the people scurry below them and upon them and within them like old, patient gods, disinclined to brush away the minor disturbances we cause them. I don’t like the now-haunted skies, all murky greens and blues edged with sickly yellows and purples, like a bruise, where before they used to be dark and velvety, swept through with speckled opalescence. I don’t like the distant war cries that wail like faint alarms, mournful and vengeful all at once, between the battling factions overhead. But the thing in the tower—that I do not mind so much. It is bound, just as I am, and so I feel a kinship with it, though its chains are much larger and made of star-stuff, while mine are made of iron (also star stuff, but tempered). I appreciate that without the thing, the war would come crashing down upon all our heads, sweeping us away like a great and ruinous wave. The thing watches—and the battalions know they are being watched, and so they keep their movements limited to the heavens. I like that too; so perhaps it is not that I like the thing in the tower, but that I am grateful to it. I wonder if it is grateful to me at all, for the company I provide it, though it isn't willing company. The two of us are so very alone, here in this tower. Fictober is a challenge where writers respond to a prompt a day for the whole of October.
This year's prompts are from Deep Water Prompts on tumblr.
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 Photo by Alex Haney on Unsplash Now I know what you’re thinking--hello, it’s Vegas, I really should’ve expected this. The problem is, I didn’t drink anything but virgin drinks last night, because I needed a clear head but also to blend in at the club. So I had one of my henchmen (Dex, a whizz at mixing drinks and poisons) replace the bartender for the night so I wouldn’t blow my cover of party woman by obviously imbibing non-alcoholic drinks.
So how did I end up here, in a heart-shaped bed in a room liberally decorated with red and white kitschy romantic decor, with a floor strewn with wilted rose petals, wearing the cursed rings I was trying to track down?  Photo by Adam Kring on Unsplash For now, we must respect the boundaries and the danger they pose to us. We go through the world deafened by cotton and soft wax in our ears, so they may sing without ensnaring us. We learn to speak to each other with the hand signs one of my grandfathers, who has long lost his hearing, teaches us, and develop it further, for they are mostly old soldiers’ signs. We go out paired with our hounds, who alert us to what we cannot or do not notice with one of our senses so restrained. And we never, ever swim in the waters, never even approach the shores without a partner on the watch, ready to pull us out of the clutches of any sirens who become hungry. Bathing is done using the streams that lead into the loch or the rainwater we collect. For all that they can and will eat us, given the opportunity, they are not bad neighbours. They do not bother us if we do not bother them, their presence keeps us safe from other trouble (for their songs lure and trap the monsters of the woods beyond the plainslands just as well as they do humans), and they trade us fish and kelp and other bounties of the sea for the things we make, like combs and baskets and nets, for they seem to be fascinated by our tools and craftsmanship. And one day, one day, they will trust us enough to share the secret to, and a spark of, their Seaflame, and we will never suffer the cold and wet of winter again. Fictober is a challenge where writers respond to a prompt a day for the whole of October.
This year's prompts are from Deep Water Prompts on tumblr.  Photo by Marius Zetzmann on Unsplash Mama’s always got her priorities straight, unlike me. I get distracted, sticking my nose places just to sniff the different scents out. Which is, she says fondly, only to be expected, and I’ll grow out of it as I grow up—or at least, learn to be wiser about it.
I pad towards the side of the barn, where it’s crooked enough for me to scamper up the walls to the roof with ease. The spirit is still where I left it, and it doesn’t shift as I stalk towards it, squinting my eyes against its brightness and moving carefully, conscious of the long drop on either side, the breeze tugging at me. “Spirit!” I call up to it. The spirit flickers and flashes, a conflagration of floating light, like a rainbow that is also a cloud that is also a ball of heatless fire. Like the sun, but far closer and prettier. It doesn’t really move, but I get the sense that it’s looking at me, even though it doesn't have eyes like mine or any other creature’s eyes that I know of.  Photo by Viktor Talashuk on Unsplash This mortal means to cause me trouble, I can tell. He thinks he can handle me, thinks he can bind me and bend me to his will. He’s not the first to think so, and he won't be the last. And weak as I am right now, he may be right. But as I grow in strength, so will I grow in power. He will subjugate me—but only for a short time.
I study him, trying to gauge how much harm he’ll cause before I’ll be able to wrest control back from him. He’s not my preferred choice of Vessel—I don’t tend to go for murderers; they garner too much attention, and I prefer to remain unnoticed. But then again, I don’t have much choice.  Photo by Eric Prouzet on Unsplash It looks like a regular beach—pale water under the persistently cloudy skies lapping at the slightly pebbly sand at a regular rhythm, washing up the occasional piece of driftwood. It’s utterly empty, and remains so the whole time I’m there, even though the town’s just beyond the ridge leading to this beach. My only company is the v-formations of birds heading to warmer climes that pass overhead, calling mournfully to each other.
I set up camp out of reach of high tide, and I only leave to get necessities, like food that I don’t have to cook on my campfire or camping stove, or a hot shower at the community centre. On one such excursion, a few days after I arrived, I asked some of the locals why the beach was empty. Sure it was the tail-end of fall, so I wasn’t expecting swimmers, but I hadn’t even seen anyone out walking their dogs or enjoying a stroll. Well they do nowadays, anyway, but it’s a trend that first started with me and Seph.
See, I bring the dead back for a fee and for a cost, which are two different things. The fee is my going rate of three gold coins per body—real gold, mind you, though I don’t care about when or how they were minted. The cost though; that’s not about me, that’s about the necromancing. I bring back someone who’s died, who’s been to the Other Side, and not only that, but I bring them back in their original body, no matter how far along in the decomposition process it is. (Hey, I’m a necromancer, not a rejuvenator. They charge a hell of a lot more than I do and for good reason.)  Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash The Exterminator needed an apprentice, they said. He was remembering how to sleep, so it was imperative that he train up a replacement before it was too late.
“You’ll be perfect,” they told me. My parents didn’t really have a choice but to let me take the job. It was that or have me suffer from sleep deprivation and let our town be overrun. Now I don’t know about where you live, but where I live, there’s always an Exterminator and it’s always someone who doesn't sleep, either because they can't or because they've forgotten how to.  Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash It's once again my favourite month of the year, October! And as I did in 2019 and in 2021, I'm dedicating this month to writing short responses to various prompts. However, I'm not using the original Fictober prompts; instead I'm going to pull inspiration from the wonderful Deep Water Writing Prompts over on tumblr!
Every day (if all goes to plan), I will write a short post responding to a different prompt from that blog, with source links and any relevant images. The beginning of this month crept up on me, but luckily, I have Day 1 already prepared, so keep an eye out for that! I hope you're having a wonderful October. Are you doing any writing or reading challenges? Let me know!  Original image by Brian Patrick Tagalog on Unsplash SynopsisIn a world of magic that runs like lifeblood through the very earth, Ro is a rare outlier: a null. Magic doesn't affect her or work for her; she instead cancels it out. This comes in useful; as an assassin, Ro slips through all magical defences and snares easily. When two different contracts come her way, requesting that she assassinate Queen Alyss of Miraré's oracle for a truly obscene amount of gold, Ro happily, eagerly accepts the assignment. For one, she's never killed an oracle before. For another, the reward is practically a king's ransom, and Ro loves nothing as much as gold. It takes months, but eventually Ro gets herself into the perfect position to kill the mystical oracle...only she hesitates. Not out of any moral quandary, but out of curiosity. And that single hesitation has far reaching consequences for an entire universe, because the oracle isn't an oracle. He is something else far more influential than that, whether he knows it or not... CharactersAlyss | also called the Red Queen, ruler of Miraré through usurpation, one-time destined saviour of the world, currently attempting to forge an alliance with Teimor.
Ro | also known as Carrow, a null and assassin whose moral compass points to 'gold' or 'would be fun', depending on the situation. Sage | an oracle who isn't, motivated by a dual desire for revenge and finding a way home, full of secrets. Fintan | leader of the Order of the White Hare, a rebel organization dedicated to removing Alyss from the throne, also known as Fin. Jac | Ro's one-time guardian and current liaison for assignments. |
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