the usurper. [revision of trigger #80]

In many ways he still resembled a man: two legs, two arms, a human torso, and even a face that still resembled his own. However, for every similarity, there was a striking difference from an ordinary human. He was well over eight feet tall. His skin was smooth and purple. From his forehead protruded two massive horns, each pierced by the ends of a chain connecting each horn to one of his wrists. This kept his arms from ever extending to a comfortable angle. His hands were human hands, but each was covered in a flame that never consumed his flesh. The pain was that of sticking one’s hand in flames and holding it there, but without the relief that would normally come when the flesh and nerves burned away. The constant excruciating pain had once driven him to madness, but  he liked to think now that he had long ago become accustomed to the pain. He wondered to himself if ever being free of the pain would drive him to a new madness.

Once, he had been a normal man. He had been transformed into his current form as part of his punishment for trying to take the throne from the rightful king.

Of his 700 years of imprisonment and solitude, he had known how to free himself for the last 400. Yet, he had continued to bide his time, to grow in power, to wait until the day was right for the inauguration of his carefully crafted plans. That day had finally come.

He closed his eyes, relishing the fact that his long imprisonment was coming to an end. He concentrated on the chains connecting his wrists and horns, snapping each in the center, so that they dangled uselessly. The Usurper opened his eyes and stretched his arms for the first time in 700 years. Magic was all that had kept his muscles from grafting permanently around their awkward shape over the centuries. It had increased the misery of these long years, but he knew that one day he would be free, and decided it was worth it to have use of his arms when the time came.

With the chains broken, he had to move quickly. Surely, the chains had been set with wards and alarms, so word of his escape was now beginning to reach others in the kingdom.

His cell was barely large enough for him to turn all the way around, and had but one remarkable door and no windows. His imprisonment was for life, so they’d considered just walling him in. Yet, King Rale wanted to be able to visit The Usurper occasionally to be sure he was broken and defeated, a performance The Usurper had perfected until several centuries earlier when Rale had grown bored of his visits and left The Usurper to rot in solitude. The Usurper grinned; it would soon be time to repay the courtesy of Rale’s early visits.

He waved his hand before him, and with a grinding screech, the massive metal door tore from its hinges and flew off into the distance.

He walked to the door, looking down some 400 feet from the lone prison tower. Below was nothing but waste and wilderness. They would never have risked placing his prison anywhere near people, they feared his influence would extend beyond the walls; that he might recruit allies to aid him in an escape.

He breathed in free air, and looked up at the hazy sun. For a moment, he rested his hand against the wooden doorframe, the fire surrounding his hands charring the doorframe. He smiled; a lonely, tired smile. It was finally time to reenter the world, finally time to take his vengeance, finally time to make things right.

the elementalist. [revision of trigger #103, water flames.]

I really am doing revision/rewriting/adding to old posts. I promise.

Here is a little of that.

As an elementalist, Henri knows things that most in our day and age do not. Our science, while truly enhancing much of the way we understand the world, has also done much to cloud our eyes from other truths we once knew.

Henri is one of those who remember. He sees the way the elements blur into one another at the edges, the way that earth can easily be made into water or fire, if one has the ability to manipulate it just a bit, to push it gently from one nature to another. He sees it so clearly, the way the fundamental elements of things can be shifted like pixels to remake something with only a thought. It’s not the smallest parts of something that make that thing what it is, it is how those smallest parts relate to one another and to the rest of the world. If one knows how to change and manipulate those relationships, vast power is available to them.

Henri is sitting on a bench on the riverside, bored. Flames are dancing on the surface of the water, drawing water up into a brilliant fire before returning it to water as it drops back into the river. His hand, out flat before him, gently slides back and forth in the air. He waves his hand forward and back, up and down, in a smooth slicing motion.

If anyone could see this happening, they’d surely be mesmerized or terrified, but no one can see. Henri knows he is alone, the wind and earth would tell him if anyone comes near. He would feel the pressure of their feet in the soft soil, feel their breath as oxygen converted to carbon dioxide.

He sits beside the Hudson River, biding time until his mission begins. Normally he loves traveling, but something about the last few months has him homesick. Beacon isn’t half bad, they even have decent coffee at a little place on the edge of the main strip downtown. Yet, he just wants to be on a plane back to Seattle. Or, more accurately, he wants to be getting off the plane back to Seattle, because he finds air travel tiresome.

His job this time around is simply to make sure that all but one of the applicants for a job at a local non-profit community organizer don’t make it to their interviews. He’s already taken care of converting the water in several radiators to dirt, taking care of those who live farthest from Beacon. Now, he waits until the morning and will be sure to throw up the appropriate roadblocks and obstacles to keep the rest of the applicants from making it on time.

It’s important that the right young woman gets the job. She’s been watched for some time, and this is the right place for her to begin catalyzing change just a stone’s throw from New York City. Like the smallest parts of an element, the smallest parts of a culture and society are the same. It isn’t about the individual, it is about the way the individual relates to the greater whole. Henri knows that as much as we all want to believe we are each in our own little story about ourselves, we are really all trees in a story about a forest. A story that needs a change of script. By shifting relationships at the smallest level, great change can occur, which is exactly what the Children of Saturn have been learning to guide for centuries.

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Friends, I need help figuring out what to do with trigger fiction. The span of months where I just had nothing left to live, much less write, has me so far behind that I’m overwhelmed to the point of paralysis. Even writing two a day would leave me behind for months.

I had a plan to switch gears at the half way mark, moving into a writing and editing phase instead of writing off the top of my head every day, but that means making it to halfway, and over a month late.

Any ideas in the internets?

our mouths were filled with laughter. [trigger #169]

When we were young, we were happier. There was a time when we were broke, jobless, and wondering how to pay the bills, but we smiled often and even our fights were ones of passion. We couldn’t afford our favorite foods, but our mouths were filled with laughter.

Now, we are secure and well kept. Yet, our laughter is gone. We have more than enough good, but the joy that sustained us has left for warmer climes, because our home is barren and cold.

We don’t even fight anymore, neither of us care enough. Sometimes, I imagine selling and giving away everything we own, leaving our security behind, heading out in a car to find adventure and hunt down the happiness we’ve lost. Then I decide that tomorrow is probably a better day for that, after we get just a bit more in the bank, in case something goes wrong.