[Mage] Snippets

[lslaw.livejournal.com]

( An exchange of texts )

(Lost) If Neve never went to Arcadia...

[akonken.livejournal.com]

"Nancy?" the familiar baritone echoed through the house as the front door closed.

"Shit." I tugged on my leggings. So much for my lazy day. For the thousandth time I congratulated myself on having the foresight to ensure our bedroom was on the ground floor. I called out "Coming!"

That was apparently done for the day, however. I jerked my head toward the window and muttered "Out, you."

Out he went, timed perfectly with my opening the bedroom door. It was almost a ritual, though usually synchronised with the girls coming home from school, not-

"George!" I said brightly, pressing against him. "You're home early."

George was in sales. George thought he was hot shit in sales. I'd thought so too, when I didn't know better. He wasn't, though.

"Got sacked," he said sullenly. "Get me a beer."

It was always "get me a beer." I smiled hatefully. "Of course, darlin'. Comin' right up."

This was how it always went. George would last a year or two, maybe more, and get fired for doing something stupid. I could do a better job. Hell, a lot of his successful ideas did come from me. Idiot.

Luckily, these companies were always stupid too. They'd hire him, and pay him a stupid enough amount of money so I could be a stay-at-home mum and we had enough of a cushion to keep us through his stretches of unemployment.

I just couldn't have as much fun during them.

I sighed as I pulled a couple of Buds from the fridge. I was going to have to cut things off with Jeremy - at least for now. Jeremy with the gorgeous arms and the ringlets. Jeremy who knew how sexy he was, and thought I was still sexy too. Jeremy the girls' gym teacher.

I'd be stuck with just George. Again.

Why couldn't someone take me away from all this?

They called me mad! (November challenge)

[akonken.livejournal.com]

It's been years now. I was scarcely more than a girl, a quiet and shy thirteen-year-old, when she began to come to me. I thought it was a dream at first, but then I became enamoured with the stories based on what she was and, of course, with her. She was so bright, so vivid to me, with her blonde hair and green eyes and pale skin. I wished and wished I could be as beautiful as she was.

And then, on my sixteenth birthday, that's what she gave me: eternal beauty.

Then she shaped me into what she wanted me to be - not physically, of course, but mentally. She sculpted my mind like someone whittling a piece of wood, making me into her perfect ideal of a childe. She cast away the name Rosemary as being too old-fashioned (she always thought me old-fashioned, and she was so obsessed with being modern, as these Carthians often are), and made me into Rose. "The Rose of England," she laughed, mocking the American accent I was never able to get rid of.

She was glorious in every way. She was awful, and awesome. I was full of awe for her.

I hated her, and loved her.

She never released me, but now I am free. I've escaped her clutches.

Now she's in my clutches. I watch her dust sift from one hand to the other, staring hypnotically at it. Still somehow she is beautiful. Even as dust. The rest of her is in me. Now I am as beautiful as she was, as powerful. Now I will rule, as our clan should. I will have control.

I and I alone.

(no subject)

[jholloway.livejournal.com]

( November challenge: cryptid hunt )