Character Castle 2.0
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Hans is well. Still the same Hans. XD
Lol, thanks. 🙂 I’ve been singing to myself for so long, I must be getting naturally better.
One day you'll be someone's favorite author.
Hey! That kinda happened to me! Not that I have a good voice, but I used to sound like a dying cat when I sung, and now that I’ve been singing to myself for awhile, I sound less like a dying cat! XD
"I threw stones at the stars, but the whole sky fell."
Hans is well. Still the same Hans. XD
@millennium XD Good to hear, LOL. 😄Hey! That kinda happened to me! Not that I have a good voice, but I used to sound like a dying cat when I sung, and now that I’ve been singing to myself for awhile, I sound less like a dying cat! XD
@mischievous-thwapling Dude, same here! LOL! I am 100% NOT a singer, but my parents said my voice was pretty; it’s just that I can’t FOR THE LIFE O’ ME sing an actual NOTE.Oh. Sorry for intruding on the conversation, LOL. 😝
Grammar Geek | Steampunk Enthusiast | Published Author | Winged Warrior | Avatar by RedPhoenix15
Dude, same here! LOL! I am 100% NOT a singer, but my parents said my voice was pretty; it’s just that I can’t FOR THE LIFE O’ ME sing an actual NOTE.
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Lol XD I totally know what you mean!!
And you’re totally fine; you’re not intruding at all! I mean, everything someone says is kinda in public view so… *shrugs*
"I threw stones at the stars, but the whole sky fell."
Erin wanted to cry. She was in a bizarre location, with bizarre people, and she wanted to go home. No matter how annoying Jackson was.
Not that she never cried. She cried alright.
In the middle of the night. When her door was locked and everyone was asleep.
The glowing book sucking her into yet another bizarre location was fraying her last nerves.
Erin pulled herself to her feet and looked around. Jungle-y and humid.
She scanned the surroundings with her device. Since the foliage was so thick, it was hard to see anything and her scanner would pick up any large creatures.
And there were large creatures alright, just behind a small outcrop in front of her.
Erin scrambled up and got down on her stomach, peering over the edge of the outcrop. Huge creatures grazed in the small valley below. Their green skin blended into the surrounding vegetation wonderfully.
Great, now she had to get past these things. Time to cry. Erin curled into a ball and waited to get eaten, beaten, or found by one of the crazy people.
Maybe her horribly loud sobs would attract someone with intelligence. Maybe if she died, she would end up home.
Home, in the stars, on her ship. Free.
One day you'll be someone's favorite author.
@millennium
ohhh, poor Erin! I feel so sorry for her!…
(Hans…singing…)
…
I feel I have miss something but am destined by the Fates to never know what it was.
I like singing. I have a nice voice. I cannot hit notes correctly to save my soul.:)To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.
Yeah…she’s rather emotionally unstable for the first half of my book. 😆😅
One day you'll be someone's favorite author.
Ehud whirled around, sure he saw someone just a couple secon–It’s a dinosaur recreation!!! He froze, gaping, half paralyzed by its close proximity to him. It looked just like a dragon and nothing like the drawings he found in all the picture-books he memorized when he was five. Historically, the animals were cross-bred and mutated into the creatures on the Flying Islands.
Jotting forward on all fours like a cat it curled its long pointed jaw out and hissed at Ehud, who jumped back and bolted up a tree. You can’t outrun a dinosaur, that’s just not any more possible than outrunning a tiger. At the bottom of the tree, the dinosaur growled a loud rumbling growl and Ehud tightened his death grip on the branch he was on. But it clawed the tree and then left.
Curious, Ehud craned his neck to watch it lope after another animal just like it (just between you and me, it a Deinonychus that I’m creatively theorizing on:). It must not have been hungry, animals don’t attack unless they’re hungry or you’re on their territory. Oh, which was why the dinosaur marked his territory by clawing the tree, just like bears do. That irked Ehud because those dinosaurs were supposed to be pack hunters. Also they were supposed to walk on two legs, but their bone structure is more similar to cats and squirrels with their big hind legs and shorter front legs and accordingly they walked on all fours. Ehud bet they were fast runners and long jumpers. Its second toe had a ginormous claw that was probably used to stab at its victims arteries and windpipes. The beast was about two people long and one person high. It’s really cool!
Except, it has treed him and Ehud is stuck and does not want to be disemboweled.
He thought he saw somebody some trees away. He wasn’t sure whether or not a the dinosaur could climb. So he sat there, curling his legs around the branch for support. Slowly raked a hand through his hair. And tried to decide what to do.
“Ok…” He yanked his jacket off over his head and pulled a rolled up plastic bag out of a pocket, unwrapping it and dangling it from the end of the branch. “Ok…Need this…that…oh look I still have some gum…and that…”
As he proceeded to rifle through his pockets, Ehud stuffed most of the items in the bag, the pocketknife in his mouth and the parachute string looped around his shoulder. By the time he finished the bag was stuffed and that didn’t even count his pants’ pockets. There was a bit of a rustling behind him but he ignored it. Ehud pulled out a battery and the aluminum gum wrapper, then he folded the wrapper and connected the ends of it to the each end of the battery, which then began to heat up. Pulling the pocketknife out of his mouth, he chipped a hole on the farther end and dug the battery into it. Then he thought better of it and snatched his bag off that end of the branch onto his elbow.
Once the branch burned enough for Ehud to snap it off, he pulled it onto his lap, repeated his process until he got four reasonably long sticks, stuck them together into an intersect then used the paracord to wrap them together, knotted the sleeves of his jacket on two ends and tied the bottom end of his jacket to the other two ends with the parachute cord. He prepared to spring with it but froze.
“Actually..actually I better test run it first…” Strapping the rest of the cord to the center of his gerryrigged chut he hurled the thing in the air. It plummeted to the ground much faster than he’d like to fall. “Ok, so jackets do not substitute for canvas. Wait a sec…”
Ehud tied the cord like a levy around the branch while he pulled up the failed chut and dropped to the ground on the jacket kite like an elevator. It still hurt landing. A lot. He tumbled almost three yards to lessen the impact.
“Ow. Just plain ow.” Ehud muttered indignantly at the broken chut, rubbing his bruised arms. Luckily no dinosaur came to gobble him up so all in all he was pretty ok. After a couple minutes forging he even found three huge eggs as big as ostrich eggs. So he used his jacket as a bag and carried them along, wondering exactly how he intended to cook them with no cooking supplies or even hot water. It didn’t even occur to him that the mother dinosaur might be nearby.
Ehud didn’t really have a home but he really missed his brother and his best friend and sometimes he missed his dad. Being alone with a bunch of dinosaurs was really cool for about five minutes, Ehud was terrified of not being able to find anybody. First thing first, he needed to find a safe base to live when the dinos got hungry. Food. Water. Some odd noise coming from the oversized rosebush?
“Um…” Maybe he should explore it. “No, wait, that’s a bad idea.” But…
It only took a couple seconds for Ehud’s naturally inquisitive nature to win over his acquired supply of common sense. Cautiously, he ducked behind the bush brushing aside just enough of the foliage to see after setting his bag down and his jacket. The roses smelled incredibly strong, he’d never smelled anything like it. Back home there was a flower shop Rosario tried to work at for a bit but none of the flowers were real although some of them had a “synthetic” fragrance. He was more used to the smell of gas and blinding gri–Is that a girl? Oh crap that’s Miss Murder!
Bolting back behind the giant bush, Ehud scoured his brain for something he could do. Meeting Erin, especially alone or in a dark alley, was the absolute last thing he wanted to do right beside math and geometry. But she’s curled up in a ball and that odd noise…Ehud blinked, remembering all those school years not having any friends. In a second he quietly perched cross-legged in front of her and just stared, not sure what to do. Grownups are unstable, he didn’t want to get shot trying to comfort her and he definitely knew better than to hug her. If she stayed here like that the dinosaurs would eat her. Why was she crying, why would he cry in this scenario?
“Nobody ever comes to save you,” he muttered inaudibly enough she probably wouldn’t hear “no matter how long you wait…or how hard you try, people always hate you for something or never see all of you…”
Ehud fidgeted uncomfortably as he tried to formulate a safe environment for crying. Which would probably be safer minus the dinosaurs. Nobody ever actually took him seriously and that used to hurt for the longest time. That probably wasn’t Erin’s devil though.
“Everybody just tries so hard to be tough and smart and beautiful and tear each other down to be the best…I just guess the worst thing about being strong is, after all that work to stay on top of it, nobody ever offers you a hand…” Ehud notes her sobs were subsiding a little and started to get worried. Now really wasn’t the best place for a heart to heart anyway but she seemed so suicidal. Carefully, Ehud swiped the gun she’d been using and began to poke the gum out of it with a tick pipe cleaner (from his pants’ pocket) because they’d probably need it.
“I guess…it kinda seems a little pointless to me.. everyone trying to get a little attention, acceptance or meaning…Sometimes life just seems like a deep big blackhole always sucking away everything you put into it, so does it even matter if you try…?” He ran a hand over the barrel, trying to focus on the task, and jerkily wiped his blurry eyes with the back of his arm.
“I guess everyone just wants a home…ya’know, some place where being yourself is just good enough…where people stop noticing what you aren’t and start being happy for what you are…and then at some point you don’t really wanna live anymore, you just wanna go home…” Ehud glanced up to suddenly find her watching him with the same eyes feral eyes he’d seen on a cornered and caught off guard wounded. He flinched and nearly dropped her gun.
“Uh…h-here!” He handed her the rifle back. Wait that was a really stupid move, he realized two seconds after he said it. She glared at him warily, in his mind he could almost hear her calculating whether or not to kill him and escape. It wasn’t a plausible course of action and they both knew it, but right now she felt extremely unpredictable to him. Out of habit, he made a move to stuff his hands in his pockets but he didn’t have his jacket on so he actually couldn’t do that. Without his jacket on Ehud felt very vulnerable and wrapped his arms around himself as if to ward off a chill. People are dangerous, especially when they’re hurt.
“What’s your favorite color? I like pink! How old are you anyw..er…?” He faded off and waited for her to decide what to do. He determined to ignore her crying unless she wanted to talk about it so he asked her questions to give her an outlet to pretend everything was fine.
The best thing to defuse a situation like this was to give the other person as much control over the situation as you can so they won’t feel they have to take it. If she did want to talk he’ll ask questions and listen as well as possible. But he hoped if so she’d talk in fragments and be incoherent because he had a feeling he would not like her backstory and it wouldn’t make him trust her any more than he already didn’t.To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.
Erin was faintly aware of something watching her. She always knew when someone was watching her. It was her sixth sense. It was probably a wild animal here to eat her.
Accept she didn’t sense animals watching her. If she did, she’d know every time Sander padded up on his silent paws. Not that Sander was an animal. That seemed a cruel way to think about him. He had more brains than her probably. Definitely not an animal.
That meant a person was watching her. Watching her cry.
Erin attempted to cease her tears and slowly they subsided. She slowly looked up while groping for her gun.
Gun…her gun was in the hands of Ehud. She gritted her teeth and narrowed her eyes at him.
He pushed the gun quickly back to her and fidgeted. At least she was a threat to him. Even short people like her can be intimidating. Ha.
She wondered if she should kill him, grab his supplies, and make a dash for the nearest spaceship. Or he could help her.
But if she stuck with him, he might murder her. Not that he could get close to killing her. Not after fifteen years of experience dancing with death.
Ehud asked her something about her favorite color and that his was pink.
Pink. Yuck. I prefer grey. Grey like Sander’s fur. Grey like clouds, and loneliness, and Feelix’s hair.
She gathered herself together, pulling her hair into a high ponytail, brushing away her tears, and straightening her uniform.
She turned her dark gaze to Ehud. “Let’s move.”
One day you'll be someone's favorite author.
Whoo hoo! Nice posts, @millennium and @this-is-not-an-alien !
This is gonna sound weird, I just want to make sure so stuff isn’t confusing, but you guys saw my post on page 15, right? The one where Colma falls out of a tree? XD
"I threw stones at the stars, but the whole sky fell."
@mischievous-thwapling, we’ll save you!
One day you'll be someone's favorite author.
@mischievous-thwapling
Yes, we’ll save you! Probably!
(Man, Colma is so resourceful tho, I like how she makeshifts a crutch and all)To be a light to the world you must shine in the darkness.
@millennium and @this-is-not-an-alien
Thanks, lol!
And Cathy, thank you again! I think Ehud is SUPER resourceful! I mean, how in the beginning he used candle wax for his injured leg (it was candle wax, right? I don’t totally remember, that feels so long ago) and how he got down from the tree!"I threw stones at the stars, but the whole sky fell."
LOL! Well, I don’t think you’re trying to be a writer – I think you are one! If you write, you’re a writer – no doubt about it.
Ha ha, yeah! Your’re right! No matter how bad the story is, it is writing 😀
@everyone
I used to take voice lessons, but listening to a recording of my voice — I don’t like, LOL. I do NOT. Also, I sing the best in bed and the shower.
I loved your post! The descriptions were awesome!! 😀 “like her molecules had been disassembled then put together again poorly,” That is such a great way to express that, LOL
Oh, poor Erin! She’s more vulnerable than she lets on to be! I feel bad for her 🙁
Oh! Ehud was so sweet trying to help Erin! And what he was saying was so true, but also so sad… Now I feel bad for two people! btw, I love his failed attempt at a chute thingy, LOL
@everyone
I’ll try to post as soon as possible! Sorry I’ve been absent for a while! 😉
I light the arrow, pull the bow,
Shoot that fire right through my soul.Ahab sat up, immediately aware of the pain in his back. He arched it with a loud popping sound, grunting slightly because it felt half-good half-bad. “This is what you get for being forty,” he muttered. It took a moment for him to realize that it hurt because he had just crashed through a dense canopy of wide, dripping-wet leaves. There was a large hole through the roof of branches, probably the path his body had taken when he fell…
“Right. The fool kid and the book. ‘I didn’t do it!’ ha, you did it this time, buster.”
Ahab stood up on shaky legs. He put a calloused hand on the scratchy bark of a thick tree to steady himself. Then he looked around to get his bearings. He was standing in a soft, round pile of long grasses set in the middle of a tiny clearing. The trunks of great plants and trees surrounded him, so closely-packed together that it was like looking at a wall of foliage glistening with dew and sparkling with big, bright pink and white flowers. If Ehud had been there, he probably would have picked a bouquet of the magenta blossoms.
But it wasn’t Ehud there, it was Ahab. And the man was confused — but not for long. “So it was the book… a sort of portal, I suppose. That’s the best way I can explain it, and no bother wondering about it. I’m here anyway. Well, I guess I had better start moving. This looks like a nest, and those look like some bones. Not a five-star inn, I take it.”
Ahab stepped gingerly out of the grassy pile, for while he was big and tall, exercise and practice had made him stealthy. He put a hand on the hilt of his sword and started off down a wide path made in the tangle of branches and plants.
“I hope I don’t run into the body that made this track,” he murmured as he observed the long, deep scrapes on several trees, the humongous piles of droppings and the footprints in it. While he knew he was totally capable of fending for himself, he would rather not do it just then. His back was still sorting itself out.
On he tramped, not sure where he was going. “I suppose I had better look for a way out of here, someplace safe, somewhere away from this beast. But I must still be in the castle.” He had deduced this once the jungle thinned out a bit and he could see the sky — through a thick film dimming the sun’s light. A clear roof of some sort. And as he kept walking, he suddenly emerged out of some wide bushes onto an overgrown, stone path that winded its way through the jungle. Weeds grew in the cracks between the stones, and ferns trailed across it in no set direction.
Ahab looked at it critically, wondering if there might be a booby trap of some sort on it… he picked up a long, sturdy branch and commenced to tread the trail, jabbing at each stone as he went. “The path must lead to some sort of exit,” he thought. He would have kept going on like this for some time, uninterrupted, had he not come across the girl when he turned a bend in the trail.
The girl — standing in the middle of the rumble-tumble path, her ax set up as a splint on her leg, her hair filled with twigs and leaves. They stood several yards apart, taking in the sight of each other. Ahab thought of going in the other direction so he could avoid her, but that meant going past the large creature’s rampage again. No, he would go on. He tapped his way to her, and she watched him with one eyebrow raised.
“Are you blind or something?” she asked.
Ahab looked her straight in the eye. “Not too much. I can still see your impudent little face.”
The girl drew herself up to her full height, which was about to Ahab’s armpit. She stared at him definitely, and he stared back at her. Finally, he decided he didn’t want to stand there any longer looking dumb, and so he attempted a smile. “I am going on my way. Feel free to follow, and feel free to leave.”
Then he trodded off, listening carefully for the clump of her feet on the stone; either coming his way, or the opposite. He felt slightly sorry for her. She seemed like a resilient girl — making that splint was a genius move. He decided he might assist her if she followed him; but only if she proved not to be a nuisance.
I light the arrow, pull the bow,
Shoot that fire right through my soul.
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