Writing Challenge - Magic

[in_the_blue]

Exactly a month ago, I posted my first writing challenge for all of you in my LJ. Afterwards, I took a poll and most people voted for me to run them monthly and in my LJ, as opposed to on some other time frame and in a new challenge community.

So. Monthly it is; in my LJ it is. Last month we focused on the sense of taste and I know there are still four more senses to go, but why be stuck in a rut?

Here's this month's loosely-defined DRABBLE challenge and the guidelines.

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Rules (Once again, Captain Barbossa reminds me they're more like guidelines):

• Fandom: any, so long as it's one you know well.


• Word count: 300 or less


• Main theme: Magic. Whatever that means to you or your character! Don't feel constrained by whether or not your character wields a wand, all right? And no comments necessary on the obvious double-entendre there.


• Ratings: No restrictions.


• Duration: 1 week. Challenge opens today and closes Tuesday, May 24.

Post your drabbles as comments to this entry. And yes, you can comment on other peoples' work. Feedback is always nice.

Ready, steady, go.

Comments

Fandom: Cowboy Bebop / featuring Vicious

[just-vicious.livejournal.com]

Note: it's hard for me to write as Vicious. He has no music in his soul but at least I convinced him to use the word magic once in this drabble. He's an odd one.

--Gwynne

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Once upon a time, there was a man. A young man, not much more than a boy, with certain expectations for the way the world should work. With certain expectations for his place in the world. And for how the world ought to treat him.

And for what the world owed him.

For the first time in his life he thought he was wanted. He thought someone loved him. He thought someone cared but no: like a snake no longer requiring its shed skin he was shunted aside, discarded, unnecessary. What they forgot--what those two forgot--was that snakes had fangs. Pushed aside didn’t mean neutered, made impotent.

Oh, no. If anything it made the snake stronger, more wiling to strike, more willing to protect its turf. Nothing unnatural about that: once a beast, always a beast; once a danger always a danger. Never underestimate a man scorned.

There would be retribution. He would get what he wanted, and it would be sweeter than the taste of blood under those fangs: even cold-blooded creatures had beating hearts. No creature in this solar system could survive without the pounding rush of blood, the give-and-take of right and wrong and of debts owed and debts paid.

The man had one tender memory untainted by pain: a kind woman’s face looking down at him, her hair black and wild around her smile, her eyes alight, her soft hand reaching out to comfort him. How old was he? Three, perhaps? Four? He cherished the memory, the only thing he knew that contained the faintest whiff of magic. The rest of the world could go to hell and he’d gladly wield his katana and help. But that one precious memory was his: no amount of debt or betrayal or bloodshed could erase it.

Snake.