X.H.

I grew up never knowing my father. I can honestly say that I never missed that aspect of my life and I only remember a wonderful childhood with my single Mother. I was a little confused as to why she never dated anyone else, but it never concerned me until I was about nineteen. In the year leading up to my eighteenth birthday, Mum started getting increasingly skittish and paranoid, also pushing me to apply to universities and get my life onto a good path after high school. I just assumed she was being a normal, over protective Mum. That was until I found the boxes of postcards in the attic.

My eighteenth was just Mum and I. It was a perfect and quite day at home; but when morning came, she was gone.

It wasn’t until a year later when I was cleaning out the house of clutter that I found the postcards from a X.H. There was never anything written explicitly, but it was easy to tell he was bad news. Especially when most of the contents contained demands – one being that she join him once I was eighteen, no questions.

I showed the cards to the police but they did nothing, so I changed courses at university to give me more skills and resources to look into my Mother’s dangerous contact and disappearance. A year and a half later, I was still hitting dead ends but apparently, my digging had caught someone’s attention. Or rather, a whole lot of someones.

Which is how I came to be 26, and working for the NSA with my heart torn between bringing my Mother home alive and putting a stop to a man third on the most wanted list.

Prompt: Cleaning out your parents’ attic, you find a shoebox full of postcards from a person signed X.H. addressed to your mother that date back from the day of your birth to your 18th birthday.

A Thief in the Night

The thief stumbled down the steep forest slope, his lamp barely lighting his path. Envelope clutched in hand, he looked back towards the building he’s just escaped. Hearing enraged voices echoing down into the valley, he urged his legs on and headed straight for the river below. Reaching the water’s edge, he leapt into the boat he’d tied off earlier and pushed himself into the South running current. As he dropped his oar into water, he could see thirty-odd guards chasing after him. Little too late they reached the waters edge and the man slowly paddled his way downstream.

Once out of view, he pulled his oar into the boat and lay on his back, letting the current rock him gently onwards. He studied the shapes carved into the rock face that now lined his small vessel’s path; their familiar forms bringing him comfort.

Finally he released the envelope from his tight grip and began to read the contents in his lamp’s warm light. As the moon appeared from behind a cloud, a single tear escaped the thief’s blue eyes and when left to darkness again, the boat continued gently on it’s lonely journey to it’s destination unknown.

—

Prompt: Thief, envelope, forest, desk, and lamp.

It’s been a while since I’ve uploaded anything, so here’s a quick little piece I wrote up while in class. I have a feeling I’m not finished with it yet, but this is all I’m writing for now. :3
Amber. xx

Diary of Secrets

FOUR YEARS AGO.

12th of February.
Dear Diary,
Last night I had the most unusual dream. It felt so real, yet I woke up in the middle of it so I knew it wasn’t. It started off as a blur of images as though I was walking down a corridor of endless moving pictures. I felt the need to stop at one point so I did and then a door appeared beside me. I opened the door and walked into my step-mother’s study; she was talking to one of the guards. They were talking about the kingdom and some changes that she wanted to make to it. I walked over to the window realising that they either couldn’t see me or just didn’t notice me. The flowers were gone from the blossom trees below and the only colour left in the garden were those of the evergreens and step-mother’s personal flower garden that she kept flowering with her magic. I tuned back into the conversation just in time to hear the guard mention me. I looked at my step-mother and startlingly, she looked straight back at me with an icy glare and said, “well deal with her later”. I woke up covered in sweat and couldn’t go back to sleep. I didn’t know what to think of it – still don’t actually. I just hope I never have a dream like that again.

15th of February.
Dear Diary,
I’ve had that same dream again every night since the first. I don’t know what it means, but it feels so real and it scares me! I keep hearing more and more details of the conversation as each night goes by and I can’t unsee it. Every time I look at my step-mother I just see the hard stare she gives me in the dream. I don’t know what’s going on or what to do. Perhaps I should tell Father?

17th of February.
Dear Diary,
I had that dream again the night before last so I decided to tell Father yesterday. I told him everything I heard and saw in the dream and waited for him to respond. He was quite for a few moments staring off in the distance before he looked at me and asked if I’d told anyone. I said no, and he was adamant that I keep it that way. I especially needed to keep the information away from my step-mother. He said he’d explain why in a couple of days but for now I just needed to keep it to myself.

18th of February.
Dear Diary,
Today my step-mother wanted me to join her for tea. It was a somewhat odd request seeing as she usually didn’t acknowledge me these days more than was necessary. She asked about my studies and Father and then asked a lot about my magic such as: whether I’d been practising, if I’d developed any more gifts and many more questions like that. I remembered Father’s warnings and I didn’t tell her anything about my dreams but I’m so very confused.

19th of February.
Dear Diary,
I talked to Father today about Step-Mother’s little tea party with me and he seemed upset or worried. I assured him that I told her nothing about my dreams which seems to calm him a bit, but not entirely. I pressed him to tell me what was going on and he finally told me something. Only one little detail, but at least it was a start. He said my gifts were expanding and that I’m just coming into a new one. He wouldn’t tell me what it was – instead telling me once again that he’ll let me know soon. And also that I must keep this a secret from my Step-Mother at all costs.

20th of February.
Dear Diary,
Today the trees lost the last of their flowers and the wind turned cold.
Today I found out my Father died.
Today I was kidnapped.
And today I found out that with my new gift, I’d seen my Step-Mother plotting my Father’s death in my dreams days before it happened.

Thanks to a friend for this character development type prompt! These diary entries are in direct response to an older post of mine – the beginnings of a story that I’ve now decided to work on. In discussions about whether to write a novel or create a tv/web series. Amber. xx

IAWTW: Characters

Last week I challenged you to come up with some plots off the theme “Pat always knew this day would come”.  Now I challenge you to pick the one you liked the best and describe Pat.

So pick your favorite plot, sit back, close your eyes for a moment and then tell us who Pat is.

My name is Hypatia Gwen Amira. I am 18 years old and I was kidnapped four years ago. I’m still with my captors in fact, though it is now by choice. While living deep in the Eastern Woods, I’ve learnt many things, including some harsh truths about my dear Mother, who my father truly was, how to control the gifts I was born with and who my handsome, masked kidnapped was.

I have spent the last four years in hiding with my captors, who I now call friends, in an old wizard’s manor that stretches far and wide beneath the ground – the door to which lay concealed by magic against the bark of a tall tree. Kalen, my handsome kidnapper, says that I’m loosely related to wizards. Very loosely.. Yet no one knows exactly what kinds of being my father was. Nor I for that matter. They do know one thing though, apart from having family resemblance, I also bare two strange markings seen only on my father before me: three small gold dots under my right eye and a swirly sort of circular pattern on my left arm that seems to get more defined the older I get, but is as yet, still indistinguishable.

Aside from those strange markings, I also have my father’s hair: raven coloured locks that are pulled straight by the weight of the hair that falls down to my waist, and his eyes: icy blue orbs riddled with golden flecks. My small frame and pale skin are where I resemble my Mother the most. But that is where my resemblance to her stops.

When I first made the decision to stay with those who stole me in the night, my name was changed. From my Mother’s maiden name, Lamira, we dropped the first letter to make, Amira. At it’s core, Kalen and the others told me that Lamira means evil whereas Amira means Princess. “A much more fitting name!” He said to me happily. And with staying close to my Mother’s name they said it would be a sign of challenge and mockery. Seeing as she married into royalty through my Father by use of magic and deception.

No one calls me Pat anymore either. That was my Mother’s nickname for me… I always hated it.

For now, I remain with my friends and teachers. Learning all I can, so that the day I return to the city with my identity known, I will be strong enough to challenge my Mother and anyone else that she has deceived over the years. She wants my gifts? She wants my power and my heritage? She’ll get it. Just, not in the way she’d hoped for.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading this character description/extended plot from the second IAWTW Challenge from Chris Donner!

Amber. xx