So when you say you want to see a sliver of the evil, are you saying you want a hint as to where the character went wrong before they did? Or do want a story about an actually evil character?
~TGRF.
Either is really fine. I had in mind either a glimpse of what made them evil or displaying their evil in a way outside of the confines of a battlefield. And when I use the term 'evil' it's pretty open ended. Not literally evil, but whatever badness caused them to be recruited and then fight for Utgar.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheAverageFan
kevindolacould the hero in question be a Kyrie, or do they have to hail from a different world?
~TAF, will think about it
It can be a Kyrie, although I would request it be from a time period where Valhalla is not at war, or at least prior to this character becoming active within the war.
So when you say you want to see a sliver of the evil, are you saying you want a hint as to where the character went wrong before they did? Or do want a story about an actually evil character?
~TGRF.
Either is really fine. I had in mind either a glimpse of what made them evil or displaying their evil in a way outside of the confines of a battlefield. And when I use the term 'evil' it's pretty open ended. Not literally evil, but whatever badness caused them to be recruited and then fight for Utgar.
Re: Fan Fic Contest - Deadline: October 27th, No word limit
I may or may not enter this one, as I am more busy than usual and haven't done much writing as of late. Inspiration may strike before then, but we'll see. Honestly not entering may be more merciful on Kevindola since he did not post a Word Limit and you know how that goes with me
~TAF
TAF was the Storyteller...
in THE ENEMY'S LAST RETREAT
Re: Fan Fic Contest - Deadline: October 27th, No word limit
Hey guys, I haven't completed a fanfic in a little over a year. Couldn't pass up this prompt though, so here goes!
WARNING: Contains gruesome content, though I did dial back some of the details.
Spoiler Alert!
A little girl sat in a peaceful meadow. Her skin was a rich olive brown and her hair black as night. Two small black wings sprouted from her back. She was yet too young to fly. Another kyrie circled above. He was her father, and he watched over her with love in his eyes. The little girl hummed to herself and picked apart a flower.
Suddenly she squealed in fright. A snake had emerged from the grass to strike at a mouse. In an instant, her father was by her side, taking her in his arms and raising her away from the scene unfolding before her. He did not shield her eyes.
“Runa, daughter,” said the large, powerfully built kyrie, “don’t turn away your eyes, girl. Death is a part of life. It is no more than a door to something more.”
Runa watched the snake coil round and round it’s struggling prey, until at last all life had left the mouse. Runa stopped struggling and watched with keen interest as the snake devoured the mouse whole.
Then the strangest thing happened. The snake turned its gaze upon the young kyrie, and a soft, hissing voice not much more than a whisper emerged in her mind.
Kill to eat not eat to kill. The one that consumes like Mitonsoul is the pawn of the Dragon. Fire his fate and blood his visage.
The harbinger slipped back into the tall grass. Runa felt dizzy. She did not hear her father speaking to her in a worried tone. Blood dripped from her nose and eyes as she passed out in her father’s arms. The large kyrie took to the sky, catching a powerful warm current and speeding toward the cottage he shared with his wife and children.
“Runa.” The voice seemed distant.
“Runa!” It came again.
Her eyes blinked open slowly, and gradually focused on the gaunt, starving face of her younger brother, Fenweil. A worried look was in them. He lay on his side beside her and was shaking her with his hand. She felt she must have slipped into a dream. No, not a dream, a memory. An old memory. She tried to shake her head but didn’t have the strength. Her bones showed through her skin, and her wings were all but featherless.
Slowly it came back to her. Valhalla was suffering the worst drought in its history. It blanketed the whole plain like a curse. A curse? No! She must not think such thoughts. Then she remembered how her father and mother had left to find food weeks before and had never returned.
She coughed.
It was dry like the parched plain on which they barely existed.
She coughed again.
It was wet with blood.
Her little brother weakly reached out and took her hand. She looked in his eyes; they were wide with terror. She could see he was barely holding on.
“It’s ok,” she said, her voice barely more than a whisper, “you’re going through the door. The door to a better place.”
With great effort she held his gaze. A strange shadow entered his eyes as he slowly closed them forever, and all strength left him as though his breath had been stolen away.
Then, slowly, steadily, drops of water began falling to the ground. It fell faster and faster until it was a torrential downpour. Runa lay, looking upon her brother’s body, the last victim of the drought. She felt no anger. She did not curse the heavens. She did not grieve. She was cold to death.
After a few moments she rolled over, and began pulling herself toward the door. Before she reached it, it swung open. Standing there, with the rain pouring down behind him, was her father. He was healthy and strong like he was in her dream. Not the half-dead kyrie who had left in search of food. Over his arm he carried a sack, which he tossed aside. He picked up his daughter and carried her out into the rain.
Runa sensed something was off about him, but as the blessed rain tickled her face, she allowed herself to be lost in ecstasy.
When she woke, she was laying in her own bed. Her father bent over her, holding something. Her eyes focused and she realized it was meat. She ate it slowly; she could do no more. If she was startled that the hand which fed her was a blood red, she did not have the strength to express it. She ate some of the food her father gave her, then slipped into a primordial sleep. This went on for several days, and slowly but surely Runa regained her strength.
On the seventh day, Runa woke, and again her father came to her with the meat. She sat up, but instead of taking the meat she grabbed his arm, and tried to focus. Her father did not pull away. The blood red color had spread almost all the way up his forearm. From there her eyes traveled to his chest. It was bare, but for a heavy black amulet that hung about his neck. It was a circular disc about the size of a man’s palm. Pressed into it was the image of a sinister face, with two horns sprouting from it. The eyes were two small rubies with tiny green emeralds as the pupils. As she stared at it she slowly found herself becoming mesmerized.
Shaking herself she let go of his arm, and looked up into his eyes. They were no longer a soft hazel, but a murky black.
“What happened to you, father?”
“It’s not important right now.” His voice was still the deep mellow thrum she remembered, “What is important, is that you regain your strength, we have a long journey ahead of us.”
“Where are we going?”
“To a place that will make you strong.” He placed a tender hand on her cheek. “You look so much like your mother.”
“Where is mother?”
Runa looked into his eyes and saw a note of sadness and…regret? No, shame. “Your mother didn’t make it,” he said, “She died up in Jotunheim.” He did not give her time to grieve, but placed a hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her back down on the bed. “Rest.”
When she woke, she found herself a hundred feet in the air. Though she was fully grown, her father carried her as though she were light as a feather. There was determination in his eyes, and by the light of day she could see that the red color had almost completely covered his body. He lighted on a hill top, and set her down. Tiny blades of grass were just starting to peep through the soil. The breeze was fresh and clean and smelled of rain.
Her father reached down and handed her some more of the meat he had brought with him. When Runa took in her hand she almost dropped it in fright. Her hands and arms were turning the same blood red her father’s was turning.
“It’s ok Runa,” her father said, “It is a good sign.” He paused, then said, “It is time I told you where we are going.”
Runa sat down on the ground across from her father, and looked at him intently. She was feeling much better. Her body was fleshed out, her wings almost strong enough to fly, and strength flowed through her veins.
Her father began his tale, his face indomitably straight, but there was a note of sadness in his voice. “Your mother, Olga, and I travelled for days, and then weeks. We found parched berries and scrawny rodents to keep ourselves alive, but nothing we could bring back. We were travelling through Jotunheim when a band of bandits attacked us, filthy human swine. We let a few of them live in Valhalla after they’ve served out their filthy lives on Mitgard, and this is how they repay us. One hurled a lance which shattered your mother’s ribs, and skewered her like a boar. She did not even have the strength to scream.” Tears formed in Runa’s eyes, as he continued the note of sadness turning to fury, “I threw myself upon them. I had no weapons so I used my teeth. I lunged for their throats, ripping them out. The taste of flesh so close I could not resist myself and devoured them. Three of the bandits, half their number, fled, leaving me to my meal.”
He hung his head in shame. “I was so focused on satisfying my hunger, I completely forgot about your mother, and not until I had picked their bones clean did I hear her feeble cries for help. By the time I reached her side she had expired.”
Bitter tears flowed down his face into the dirt. The blood red pigmentation spread to the rest of his body. Runa flung herself into her father’s lap and embraced him. They both wept for Olga and for Fenweil, who had died in their hut. Something stirred in Runa’s memory that caused her to tremble.
Kill to eat not eat to kill. The one that consumes like Mitonsoul is the pawn of the Dragon. Fire his fate and blood his visage.
The blood red color of her father’s skin made sense to her now, but why am I turning red? And what is Mitonsoul? She wondered.
After a time, they separated and her father continued his story. “I noticed the blood red color on my fingers only after burying your mother. I couldn’t make anything of it other than the humans were poison so I pressed on hoping to find a cure, or at least some food to bring back to you and Fenweil before perishing of the affliction. What I found was beyond my wildest dreams!”
“What did you find?” Runa forgot her grief and questions for a moment getting caught up in her father’s excitement.
“I found the most amazing cave. The tunnels were crude but sturdy and covered with the strangest markings. There were figures in the paintings. Creatures with the heads of jackals, the arms of bears, and the legs of some monstrous cat. They appeared to be dancing in some form of ritual, when suddenly, the figures moved. Every head snapped around and looked at me. Then they took off down the corridor. Desperate for a cure to my affliction, and hoping this magic could help me, I took off after them.”
Runa was totally entranced in the story, unsure of whether to believe what she was hearing.
“The tunnel eventually opened into a large cavern. In the center was a bubbling spring, and over it hung the amulet which I now wear round my neck and also a strange helmet that appeared to be the subject of the imprint on the amulet. The cavern walls were filled with the figures I had seen before, and more were coming in droves. There was a humming coming from somewhere, I knew not where at first, but it grew stronger as more of them poured into the cavern. At last, it seemed that there were enough of them to form a sound I could barely make out. It sounded like a kind of chanting. ‘Oot Guh Huh Huh, Oot Guh Huh Huh.’ Over and over again it went. I felt myself drawn to the water. Perhaps it was my thirst or some form of magic, but I went to the water, dipped my hand in and drank. Immediately, strength coursed through my body, my wings grew strong, and my hunger died. ‘Oot Guh Huh Huh. Ut Guh Huh Huh.’ The chanting had changed ever so slightly. Then it stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
“A face rose from the pool. Inky black, and in the shape of a dragon head. It spoke in a grating whisper. It spoke to me of having the power over death, of a world where only the law abiding would be permitted to exist. The amulet was no longer hanging over the spring. It was now around my neck, and I felt as though I had the strength of ten kyrie warriors, like the vallkyrie of old. The helm remained where it was, menacing atop its pedestal, its curved horns twisting upward. The voice spoke to me of the power of the amulet and the spring to draw forth armies from other times and realms.
“Do you understand daughter? With this we can put an end to not only the wars that plague Valhalla now over the scant resources left after the drought, but also all wars! We can rule Valhalla, and usher in an era of peace and order the likes of which have never been seen before!”
Runa was stunned, trying to take it all in.
Her father lowered his voice, and said in an understanding, though no less excited tone, “It is the world your mother and brother would have wanted. It is the world I would have wanted for them. Just imagine it! I would be known as King Dagr the Just!”
Runa said nothing, her head was spinning from all she had heard.
Her father bent and picked her up, “Rest now daughter, and all will be made clear when we arrive.”
When Runa woke she found herself in a dark cavern. Torches were lit around the circular atrium. In the center was a spring of water. The walls were just as her father described, though the paintings were still. She felt a dark presence stirring against her mind, and looked up to behold the helm her father had told her about in his tale.
“We’re here,” she heard her father saying. She turned and saw him sitting by the pool. He looked as though he had been there for some time.
“Where are you!?” He cried, and pounded his fist against the side of the spring.
“Father?” Runa questioned rising to her feet.
“Yes, morning dove?” She smiled faintly at the old nickname. He had not used it in nigh twenty years, but…always in parting—she shook herself.
“You said you drank from the spring right before the vision?”
“Yes, I did that!” He said frustrated.
“Well maybe it’s my turn.” She bent over the spring, scooped some into her hand and drank. The water was cool and clean. It filled her with strength.
The face rose from the pool again. Its aura filled the two kyrie with a feeling of great power. Then the voice spoke, “Who comes to me? Who disturbs my millennium of constant vigil for a second time?” The voice boomed through the cavern. A stalactite broke from the ceiling and fell through the apparition of the dragon head and slipped into the spring without a sound. The paintings on the wall woke up and started chanting again. “Ut Guh Huh Huh. Ut Guh Huh Huh.”
Runa was somewhat taken aback, but, feeling empowered, stepped forward and boldly stated, “It is I, Runa, daughter of Dagr of the Tribe of Vanir. Who are you?”
The mysterious apparition let out a booming laugh, “You are bold, and that is why I chose you. I am the dragon Utgar, the first and greatest calamity of the age, Lord of the Mitonsouls.”
“The Mitonsouls?” Runa asked.
“Don’t you hear them?”
“Ut Guh Huh Huh. Ut Guh Huh Huh.” The sound was a constant dirge.
“Serve me,” Utgar continued, “and I will make you and your father the
rulers of Valhalla, only feed me the souls of the vanquished.”
Something stirred deep in Runa’s heart. The memory of the little girl humming in the meadow. The smell of fresh bread coming from her mother’s kitchen, and the gentleness of her voice. She looked up her face set in a grimace, “No.” She said, only to realize too late, that Utgar had not addressed that last to her. Dagr was already on his knees, the Helm of Mitonsoul in his grasp.
Utgar’s laugh echoed through the tunnels. “Your father did not tell you? You are here only to seal our pact.” He again addressed Dagr, “You have held up your end of the bargain, now seal it, and become master of all Valhalla.”
Runa backed away, but wasn’t quick enough. Dagr lunged to his feet, and clamped the helmet firmly over Runa’s head.
“It’s ok baby,” she heard her father say, “Death is a part of life.” Flashes of red and black filled her mind. She screamed, but in vain. Visions slipped past her as her childhood, her brother, and her life before that cave was violently stripped away. At last, she found herself standing on a path. A pile of boulders lay to one side, and a grove of trees on the other. Mountains rose all around, and she recognized them as the Jotunheim. She saw her mother lying in a pool of blood with a spear through her, pinning her to the ground. Her father wrestled violently with six men carrying axes and swords. She saw him rip out their throats with his teeth, and witnessed three of them turn in fright and run. She saw him devour the three he slew. She barely recognized him as her father. Then he made his way over to where her mother lay. He carried her into the forest. Runa followed to see where he laid her, but instead she found him preparing a fire. She screamed as the last vestiges of her former self were torn away by the sight of her father butchering and cooking her mother and filling a bag with the pieces. She recognized it as the bag from which her father fed her.
When she woke she was no longer Runa, that’s just what she was called. She was something else. That scene in the forest played over and over again in her broken mind, until all that was left was fury, madness, and malice.
She lay on her back on the floor, and looked up into the eyes of a tall powerfully built vallkyrie.
The vallkyrie smiled down on her, a twisted, venomous smile, “Ah, daughter you have woken at last.”
She grimaced, “You can hardly hide yourself from me now, Utgar. No matter whose body you take.”
The other smiled, a broad, lethal grin.
Feeling like an old lurker. 15 years, wow. That's half as long as I've lived. Love y'all like family.
Last edited by Elven Lord; October 14th, 2017 at 05:52 PM.
Reason: Italics lost in original transcription.
Re: Fan Fic Contest - Deadline: October 27th, No word limit
Oh my...
I have a tale. Something written in the traditional spur of the moment style. Something written on the smallest shred of an idea. Something which seems to break all the rules of writing and yet appears to work. Something only 5 pages long. How is this possible?!?
I shall post it after it has had time to settle. A few days, at most...
Re: Fan Fic Contest - Deadline: October 27th, No word limit
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Grim Reaper's Friend
Oh my...
I have a tale. Something written in the traditional spur of the moment style. Something written on the smallest shred of an idea. Something which seems to break all the rules of writing and yet appears to work. Something only 5 pages long. How is this possible?!?
I shall post it after it has had time to settle. A few days, at most...
~TGRF.
Have you considered copwriting? That piece did everything a piece of effective copy is supposed to. The result is me on the edge of my seat saying "Darn it TG, just show me the bloody story" lol.
And yes, that story did come from me taking a bit of a dive off the deep end into a darker part of my imagination. I promise this is not a mainstay of my content. I can paint both roses and what happens when one plucks them too carelessly!
Feeling like an old lurker. 15 years, wow. That's half as long as I've lived. Love y'all like family.
Re: Fan Fic Contest - Deadline: October 27th, No word limit
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elven Lord
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Grim Reaper's Friend
Oh my...
I have a tale. Something written in the traditional spur of the moment style. Something written on the smallest shred of an idea. Something which seems to break all the rules of writing and yet appears to work. Something only 5 pages long. How is this possible?!?
I shall post it after it has had time to settle. A few days, at most...
~TGRF.
Have you considered copwriting? That piece did everything a piece of effective copy is supposed to. The result is me on the edge of my seat saying "Darn it TG, just show me the bloody story" lol.
And yes, that story did come from me taking a bit of a dive off the deep end into a darker part of my imagination. I promise this is not a mainstay of my content. I can paint both roses and what happens when one plucks them too carelessly!
I actually don't really know what copywriting is. I've heard of it, but never looked at it. Honestly I just forgot about the story because I've been developing my novels these past two days. Now that I'm finished with that for the moment, I'll check it over and post it. There were a few things I could improve if I recall...
Re: Fan Fic Contest - Deadline: October 27th, No word limit
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Grim Reaper's Friend
Quote:
Originally Posted by Elven Lord
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Grim Reaper's Friend
Oh my...
I have a tale. Something written in the traditional spur of the moment style. Something written on the smallest shred of an idea. Something which seems to break all the rules of writing and yet appears to work. Something only 5 pages long. How is this possible?!?
I shall post it after it has had time to settle. A few days, at most...
~TGRF.
Have you considered copwriting? That piece did everything a piece of effective copy is supposed to. The result is me on the edge of my seat saying "Darn it TG, just show me the bloody story" lol.
And yes, that story did come from me taking a bit of a dive off the deep end into a darker part of my imagination. I promise this is not a mainstay of my content. I can paint both roses and what happens when one plucks them too carelessly!
I actually don't really know what copywriting is. I've heard of it, but never looked at it. Honestly I just forgot about the story because I've been developing my novels these past two days. Now that I'm finished with that for the moment, I'll check it over and post it. There were a few things I could improve if I recall...
~TGRF.
Copywriting is basically just professional persuasive writing. Whenever you see an ad/sales letter posted on a website, or receive something in the mail trying to get you to buy something or signup for a webinar (etc) it's copy.
Feeling like an old lurker. 15 years, wow. That's half as long as I've lived. Love y'all like family.
September 27th, 2017, 05:17 PM
TAF was the Storyteller... 
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