Clockwork

Everything’s different now.

It all started when the store closed. That store was my life. I spent hours each day, tinkering and toiling away on those ancient toys, those mechanical fossils to bring them to life. Long ago they had made children smile, but they’d been tossed away, not even allowed the dignity of being treated like antiques.

Those incredible toys were thrown out like garbage, and I gave them new life.

The store never made much money, but I got by. The job was everything. My restorations meant something. But then Mr. Tenny cancelled our contract. I was kicked out. And again, all those toys were forgotten and abandoned. We were thrown out like garbage.

Duality

A planet torn by prophecy and an ironic twist of fate, Parralos was a world divided. Two supercontinents on opposing sides of the world warred and battled for thousands of years over a rivalry spoken of in the broken utterings of an insane dreamer.

His words, immortalised in scripture and kept forever in the Temple of Twins, described two children born of the same mother. One would be the saviour of Parralos, and rise to protect the world, and the other would threaten to destroy Parralos. These children would be known immediately by their jet black hair, a feature no others on Parralos shared.

Hold it close

The child sat on the floor, curled up and hunched over. They were holding something, keeping it close to their chest, protecting it. It was as if they were nursing a newborn kitten.

They leant their head down and placed a soft kiss on the object. Glancing back up and peering about them, they were vigilant, wary of everything. The child was keeping the object safe like a mother bird protecting her eggs.

Tales of Stuff

Earlier today, I tweeted that I wanted to try to get back into doing projects I’ve been working on for a while, in some cases years. I figure this is a good place to list all of those projects and give little descriptions of them. Might encourage me to actually do something. Might not. We’ll see. So here’s the list:

ICE CHAMPION
A project started by a strange word combination session I had with Esoteric, which is thus far a single post here on this blog and a few little plans and things. It’s the adventures of eskimo siblings Ina and Kimo, who I have just realised has a name kind of like ‘eskimo’, which I swear was unintended.

BLACKJACK
A story with another strange inspiration, this time a liking I took to the pants of enemies in FFVII, I began writing this for NaNoWriMo last November. Unfortunately my writing crashed and burned, but I still want to restart it. It’s a pirate story with machine guns pretty much.

CIRQUE RYOGA
Probably the biggest project I have, and one that’s been bouncing around in my head for a long time. It centres on the titular Cirque, which is a cover for a group trying to collect magical artefacts for safekeeping.

PATCHWORK
At the moment I’m considering this a comic, but we’ll see. A superhero comic without superpowers which follows the lives of a naive young hero and a police officer whose attempts to stop costumed killers leads to tragedy.

THE STUPEFYING BLOCK-HEAD!
A comics parody (I guess) which is filled with fun stuff I thought up completely on my own. Okay some of it Safeer was involved with too, but at the time it had nothing to do with Block-Head and I just sort of included it.

There’s a few more, but these are probably the main ones I’m thinking about now, and some of the most fleshed out. For example, Cirque Ryoga’s end is pretty much planned out, and much of how to get there is also.

We’ll see where I take things from here. I’ll be sure to inform you of any progress, imaginary reader.

-Vyperchild

** Btw, it’s Easter, so happy chocolate holiday, again.**

It’s story time, kiddies!

ooh look at me, posting twice within a few hours ooh.

I was bored and not really tired, so I decided to treat you to a story. This has not been planned, so chances are it will turn out better than my NaNoWriMo back in November.

THE KING OF CASTLE N’SAD

N’Sad, the desert kingdom, stood proudly in the midst of the sandy dunes. It was a special kingdom, protected by the Great Veil, a shroud floating high in the sky that held back the heat and glare of the sun. This afforded the kingdom times of prosperity and peace.

In Castle N’Sad, the King sat upon his throne, attended to by his servants. In such times, the King was free of worry, and he had become complacent in his role as a steward, rather than guardian, of the kingdom. His servants brought him food, dressed him in his robes and carried him through life. As repayment, he sowed his sacred seed amongst his concubines, ensuring his noble life be carried on into the next generation.

Next to the throne room was a long hall, and at the end of this tunnel was the Queen’s quarters. She was with child. In fact, she was with many children, and it was through her that the royalty of N’Sad would continue. She was bedridden, and was late into her pregnancy, attended to constantly by handmaidens who knew that the Queen was the single most important being in the whole kingdom. Without her, the kingdom would die, even in such peaceful times.

However, as the sun rose to it’s peak above the Great Veil, the peace that had been known for an age in N’Sad ended. A dozen giants from distant lands crossed the borders into the desert kingdom. The towers of N’Sad were toppled in single swoops by the humongous monsters. The people were scattered about across the sands as the giants bashed at the kingdom as if the world was their plaything. One of the giants took a gargantuan weapon and brought it down upon Castle N’Sad itself, laughing maniacally all the time.

In the throne room, there was panic. The complacent king was shocked into action, although his only decision was to save his Queen at all costs. He and the handmaidens and other servants sought desperately to carry the pregnant queen from her room and through the long hall.

But unbeknownst to them, one of the giants had prepared a cataclysmic event, creating an artificial flood to wash away the desert kingdom. The torrents poured down upon the sands and washed through Castle N’Sad, drowning all in it’s path. The King heard the screams first, and then the water, as it came gushing down the long hall from the throne room. Turning to rush back the way they came, the servants Lifted the Queen one last time, but the waters were too strong, and the Queen’s chamber was flooded. The Queen and all the servants were dead.

The King, however, was blasted through a wall as the water tore through the Castle, ripping down the structure as if it were carving through air. The King, battered, bruised, nearly dead and with his people either lost or in disarray, simply stared up at the face above him. It grinned madly as it lifted its weapon.

The King gazed up, past the giant’s face and saw the sun through the Great Veil. The Veil had protected them from the wrath of the sun, but nothing could protect them from these monsters. This was it. The death of the King of Castle N’Sad.

With one mighty plunge and a hearty roar, the giant felled the King. The end of a royal line in a matter of moments. The end of a kingdom in little more.

Then the giants, content that their work was done, sat down upon the ruins of N’Sad and continued to play with the remnants. They pieced together the wet sands and forged flawed replicas of the Castle N’Sad, fallacies to torment any survivors. But then a thunderous clang shuddered through the air. The giants’ work was done.

They each climbed out of the sand pit and went back to their classroom. The corpse of the King of N’Sad floated amongst the remains of his tiny little world. His ant hill kingdom in the desert.

THE END

SO THAT’S AN IMPROMPTU STORY WITH NO EDITING (except for a stupid grammatical error Forte pointed out grrrr ) AND HOPEFULLY AN UNEXPECTED TWIST ENDING.

Pretty shit though. Thoughts?

-Vyperchild

** Castle N’Sad = Sand Castle. Just in case you didn’t pick up on that. **

How do you think you’re going?

The guy tells everyone to move on to part two.
After a while he begins to make his way around the room again.
“How do you think you’re going?”
”Alright.”
”Good.”
Then he moves on to the table next to me, and asks,
”How do you think you’re going?”
The kid mutters,
”Fine.”
”Good.”
Then he moves onto the next table (“How do you think you’re going?”) and gets similar responses.
Then onto the next table (“How do you think you’re going?”), and the next (“How do you think you’re going?”), and he circles the room.
Then he reaches a kid who is clearly having trouble with part one.
”How do you think you’re going?”
”I don’t really get it”
So he stays a moment and explains. Then he moves onto the next table, but the struggling kid still doesn’t really get it.