Greet + Writing: Prompt Challenge // Trinity (pt. 1)

    Hey, hey, look who's keeping with a monthly goal of at least one blog post. I'm really proud of myself right now, to be honest. Sort of. The "part one" is the reason for the sort of.

    You know, when you cram in a lot of television, a horde of people visiting, and a transcontinental move into a couple of months, brain power really starts taking a nose-dive on you. 

    But. Two new followers to my blog in the last couple of weeks. I have no idea where you two came from, but welcome aboard and be prepared for an erratic schedule. ^_^

    To catch people up, last month (at least, I think it was last month...) I posted a prompt challenge here on my blog for my followers to get a little bit of dream world alternate 'verse reward and as a challenge to myself and lovely follower Trinity sent me the following prompt.

    "Okay, so Jandy and Dech play bodyguard to Sean and Lindsey, because Jaydn and Jasen are trying to kill them. Then use, "Where did it go?" she mumbled over and over again, sitting on the floor, back against the door, half empty bottle of wine in one hand and a handgun in the other." And I want to know who snores."

    I have been slowly (slowly) working on this prompt since then and am just now hitting four pages/2,912 words. Since I anticipate a continued slow productivity rate, I'm going to post what I've got every three pages. So today is the first three pages, then the next post will be pages four through six, and so on and so forth.

     Hopefully that makes sense, and if anyone has questions, leave a comment on any of my posts. I don't bite, will get an email heads-up, and get back to you as soon a I can. Which could either be hours or days, depending on when you catch me. Cough.

    Also, all characters within the following writing excerpt have been featured in previous posts. You can check the tags somewhere off to the right of your browser for the name of the character in question and read up on them. The world(s) this prompt is situated in has not been before featured. Brand new 'verse for alternate 'verse characters. But, just for a quick run down, J&J are Jasen and Jaydn. They're complicated. D&J are Dechlan and Jandy. They're mentally linked. S&L are Sean and Lindsey. Her parents are recently dead and he's a childhood friend. Check previous posts for further explanations. 

    With that said, forward ho!


// J&J //

    A face. A news report. A government file. A single word.
    Eliminate.
    Too young. Too relatable. Too close.
    She switched off the tablet and picked up her comm. to send a message with a meeting point. They had work to do. And the sooner it was done, the better.
    
// D&J //

    The rap was added into her odd mixture of a dream, featuring a mind-numbing club track playing through her old apartment but there was a wheat field growing in the middle of it that wasn’t in any portion of her own memories. There was another sharp knock and this one roused Jandy a bit, but she elected to ignore it in favor of a few extra seconds of sleep. 
    They’d been in high demand as of late and thus their work schedule was hectic, equating to less sleep than she preferred getting. And judging by the clarity and insistence coming across her link to Dechlan, they were in even more demand than they had been ten minutes ago. Perfect time to bury her head under her pillow.
    “Hey, no, we got a call,” her partner’s voice came from somewhere overhead. Another soundless approach. Gold star to him.
    There was amusement with her train of thought that she poked at and then ignored.
    “G’way, Dech. Sleeping.” She managed, bleary and disoriented as she tried to roll over and away from awareness.
    The bed dipped behind her and the air felt very close all of a sudden. Wrapping her arms tighter around her pillow and burying her face in it, Jandy squeezed her eyes shut tighter. “No. No charm. No cajoling. I’m tired.”
    “And we have work to do.” There was a firm, albeit gentle, tug on her pillow.
    Relinquishing it without much fight, Jandy flopped onto her back again, reaching up to push her hair out of her eyes and blink at Dechlan.
    He was dressed and ready to walk out the door, no doubt having shaved and maybe even cut his hair while she slept, on top of eating and the rest of his morning routine. His brows raised under her scrutiny and a hint of a smile formed on his features. “Morning.”
    “I look like crap, don’t I?” she croaked, blinking sleep from her gaze before going after it with one trimmed nail.
    “No comment,” Dechlan shrugged, retaining his place on the edge of her mattress, leaning back on one hand. 
    Jandy felt him searching their link and reached back out of habit, trying to ascertain what he was after, staring at a spot on the wall as her attention drifted inwards. A memory of long hours lying awake, not hers, watching dreams of her life with her sister back in Kaido was open to her perusal. A rueful smile tugged at the corner of her mouth.
    Sorry, she offered, turning her head to look at her partner again, realizing his initial investigation had been an attempt to find out if he’d overlooked anything that would’ve caused the vivid imaginings of her subconscious. It happens when I’m tired. Like I sleep too deeply to keep up some barrier against them.
    It’s fine. I don’t mind. Tells me where your head’s at. One of Dechlan’s shoulders lifted in a half shrug. 
    She didn’t have to voice her mild amusement and acceptance with this, letting Dechlan feel them for himself over their link. Scoot over so I can sit up and tell me about this job.
    Her partner obliged, shifting further down the mattress without protest, mind already turning to the phone call he’d gotten earlier. Jandy followed his thoughts with her own, picking up details as they went, while she pushed herself upright. Pushing her fingers through her hair again, except in an attempt to tame it this time, Jandy pulled her knees up to her chest to get past Dechlan, resisting the urge to poke him, then let her legs drop over the edge to the rug on the floor.
    The cool air that inhabited the foot of space above the ground of her room caused gooseflesh to rise up along her arms and legs. Blowing out a long breath and trying to rub it away, she glanced over to find Dechlan already watching her.
    You’ve got that look again.
    Sorry.
    Jandy smiled, shaking her head a little. There was that grey area again, with that line they danced around, and that usual uncertainty about it. But she let it roll off her shoulders, straightening a bit and moving on. “Come on, you moved too fast through the call. What did Canton have for us?”
    “A couple in witness protection.” His focus was slower to follow hers, which was growing less unusual. She woke up sometimes with his residual thoughts from the prior night echoing through both their minds. It’d taken some getting used to but now, for the moment, she’d learned to just push past it. They couldn’t go there. Not yet. Even if it was on both of their minds and they both knew it. 
    “Doesn’t that make them the government’s responsibility?” She needed to move and so did, getting up to go rifle through her set of drawers, making sure the hem of her shirt was falling where it was supposed to. It was a curious case, though, and that made it easy to focus on.
    “Technically.” There was a muffled whoof and Jandy didn’t have to turn around to know that Dechlan had fallen backwards across her bed while they talked. “But they’ve already had two near misses and they want some extra hands on deck, so they reached out to Canton and he saw we had two free weeks.”
    “Two free weeks that were supposed to be just that—free.” Clothes, clothes. She needed clothes so they could go. Easier said than done. Being busy meant little time to do laundry. Or to get laundry done, more often. A lot of her stuff had to be dry-cleaned.  Company dress code policies be darned.
     Despite her train of thought, which tended to coax some amusement from her counterpart, Dechlan felt tired, though not with her. Pausing, she investigated. It was… their job, their schedule, their life.
     You know we’re almost done. Our contract is almost up and then we should be set financially to get out of here. Jandy dropped the button-up shirt and pinstripe pants—both of which she often entertained thoughts of burning--in her hands in a heap on the ground, going to crawl up the bed beside her partner again.
     He watched her progress, arms crossed behind his head, then leaned into her when she stretched out at his side, folding out one arm. Jandy settled into the dip between his forearm and bicep, cheek pressed against his skin as she sought eye contact. Those hazel green eyes that helped make up the person who embodied home for her now.
    What they shared allowed her to feel the gratitude in response to her thoughts, the reciprocation of the sentiment, the heavy weight of weariness they both carried, both their thoughts and emotions tangling and swirling together in an intangible and unexplainable mix. It was harder than ever to distinguish where her mind ended and his began with this proximity. Their connection worked over a distance, but the closer they were, the better the clarity. And here, inches from each other’s sides, with a large portion of their thoughts already in alignment, that clarity was crystal. Almost painful in its clearness, except not. 
    Jandy could feel his heartbeat echoing her own, beating near in sync with her own, and she drew in a quiet breath, unconsciously doing so in the same moment as Dechlan.
    Almost five years, they’d had this bridge between their minds. Five years, learning the inner workings of each other’s hearts and minds to the point of not being able to imagine anything else. Not being able to imagine anyone else. 
    She searched Dechlan’s face and he studied her in return, the arm that she’d rested her head on coming up so his fingertips could brush her hair. They were both so far past the human difficulty to hold eye contact by this point; those early days were fading memories now. No, it wasn’t perfect. They weren’t perfect. Sometimes their connection made her – both of them – feel as if their souls had been laid bare to each other. Which they had, but sometimes it hurt more than others.
    Her dark eyes stung with tears as she studied the thin, white scar leading down from his hairline to be just visible on his forehead. A mark that meant he could’ve been lost to her long before they’d ever crossed paths in Warren’s program. Jandy’s breath caught in her chest.
    The piercing ring of Dechlan’s communicator from the other room caused the pair to jerk, his head lifting in an instant to ascertain the situation and hers burying into his shoulder with a muffled grumble. 
    “That’s probably Canton telling us to get over there.” Dechlan commented, sounding far more at ease than he was actually feeling at that moment.
    Jandy stifled the urge to groan again, resigning herself to a sigh, and tilting her chin up so she could see his profile again, contemplating an attempt to plead for a day off. One brow rose as he glanced back in his peripherals.
    “No. We have to go.” He voiced his reply aloud instead of keeping it enclosed in their link, hoping to clear the weight in the air around them and get her moving.
    She didn’t want for it to work, but it was. Plus his comm. was still going off in the other room, which was doing nothing to keep the moment from slipping away, so Jandy resigned herself to another day of professional babysitting and sat up. Dechlan aided her effort with a hand on the small of her back as he got moving as well. 
    Following his silent request to clear off of the mattress, Jandy went to grab her dumped clothes—no doubt sporting a few wrinkles now that she could’ve cared less about—letting her partner shake out her comforter and leave it looking a bit more orderly before going to tend to his device.
    Jandy glanced a warning to Dechlan before going about getting ready for the day ahead, finding herself to be in the same place he’d been in just ten minutes earlier. Tired of this life and tired of having to put off shedding some light on their grey area. Very tired of it.
    As she sat down on her bed to zip into her short boots, they were both in silent agreement on that point.

// S&L //

    “We’ve been talking with Miss Angelo and we’re going to set up an apartment a couple of districts over for the two of you under an alias we’re building. ” Maximoff Canton explained to Sean, who sat with his hands clasped together as he took in the security firm’s director’s words. “Before then, we have you two  booked at a hotel downtown.”
    As he always was nowadays, Sean remained aware of where Lindsey was at as best he could. She stood by the window a handful of paces away, watching the outside through the cracks in the shades. It’d been a better morning for her. And he hated to have to think in those terms, but Lindsey tended to ricochet from catatonic to temperamental to just plain broken depending on the day. Today she’d just been quiet. Responsive, but only when asked pointed questions.
    “Wasn’t Miss Angelo supposed to be here?” Sean asked, resisting the urge to scratch the back of his head, tamping down his mild frustration. No need to give an even greater dead giveaway that he had no idea what he was doing in this situation. Television and a year of university life didn’t do much in the way of preparing one for witness protection. And wasn’t the lawyer supposed to be in touch with him about all this?
    “She said she had something to attend and would be running late,” Canton wasn’t put out, though he did glance at the clock on his desk. “My people are behind schedule as well, so it should be fine.”
    “You said they weren’t your standard fare team. How did you mean?” If they had to sit here until everyone decided to show up, he might as well get as much information he could.
    “First, most of my teams of two or three are all male, for effectiveness and professionalism’s sake. If I need a female and the few on my payroll are otherwise engaged, I usually contract with another firm. Scott and Sparks are one of my more successful teams, despite her lack of professional military training.”
    Sean was pretty sure he heard an unspoken “which I still don’t understand” hanging off the man’s sentence, but didn’t say anything about it. He leveled his stare at the older man instead and said, “We appreciate whatever help you can lend, sir. She—“ Sean glanced at Lindsey, who had turned to listen to the conversation and was staring off into space. “She’s been through a lot and I’m really hoping to get through the hearing without any more incidents. Having a team on board whose purpose is to stick close will be welcome.”
    Canton took in his statements and then nodded once. “We don’t hire people who don’t know how to do this job, Mr. Becket. You both will be in good hands.”
    A sharp knock interrupted the conversation and Sean rose when the sudden noise startled Lindsey out of her reverie with a quiet gasp. 
    “Come,” the CEO called, standing and allowing the young pair a moment while the door opened .
    Lindsey was quick to nod that she was okay when Sean reached her, managing an unsteady smile. He caught her elbow to keep her close, seeing the glassy shine of tears in her eyes, and shifted to see who had come. 
    “Nice of you two show up,” Canton remarked with a disapproving downturn to his mouth that was noticed by all present.
    They had to be Scott and Sparks, as Canton had called them, Sean surmised after a few moments. Which was which, he didn’t know, but the man had a definite military aura to him and stood almost a full head taller than the woman at his side. Her dark eyes and darker complexion suggested different origins than her partner, and although she bore none of the trained professionalism of her counterpart, they both had an ease at each other’s side that bespoke a strong bond. 
    “Sorry, sir, we got back in late from our last engagement. It was a bit slow going this morning.” The male said by way of greeting, casting a glance towards Sean and Lindsey’s direction but then refocusing on his boss.
    “Just be on time next time.” Canton took his seat again. “Scott, Sparks, I’d like you two to meet Sean Becket and Lindsey Donovan, your next clients. Mr. Becket, Miss Donovan, this is Dechlan Scott and Jandelyn Sparks.”
    Sean towed Lindsey over and shook the hands of the bodyguards. “It’s nice to meet you both.”
    “Call me Jandy.” The woman said with a slight smile and a calculating gaze that rested on both him and Lindsey for a few beats before she exchanged a quick look with her partner. 
    “Shall we get down to business?” Canton addressed the four of them and Sean let his attention turn to the man behind the desk once more.


    Alright. So. I think that's all I have at the moment. I need to go help my mom find her brain, attempt to remember how to do a Spock-style mind meld, and act as a translator in general. Woot woot.

    As always, thank you for the patience, and all comments, thoughts, and critiques are welcome in the comments below.

    Ad astra per aspera.
    To the stars, through difficulties.

The Sunshine Award + Prompt Blurb

    Wow is this late. It's been a crazy two weeks playing pseudo-mom while real mom is out of town and blog posts just don't factor into running a house.

    So the various blog awards continue to go around and I got nominated for the Sunshine Award by Hannah from Sister Sketches.

    The Rules for the Sunshine Award:
    - Thank the person who nominated you
    - Answer the questions they asked you on your respective blog
    - Nominate another batch of bloggers (eleven being the standard)
    - Question them (evil chuckle)
    - Notify them that they have been nominated
    - And post the award image on your blog

    I highly doubt I will fulfill all the rules, as I don't intend to spend very long on this post so I can try and work on other stuff this evening. 

    Thank You to Hannah for nominating me for the Sunshine Award over at Sister Sketches. It really means a lot to me that you nominated me for this award!

1. Which number (1, 2, 3, etc.) is the best, based on it's personality and morals? (Example: 7 is best because of his wise and patient personality.) I honestly do not know what to do with this. Really don't. I like the number 62 but I've never tried assigning personalities to numbers.
2. Fruit-flavored candy or chocolate? Ehhh... perhaps dark chocolate. 
3. Under what circumstances would you jump on a shark's back? Very, very extreme circumstances involving either my siblings or small children.
4. Would you rather grab a handful of cow poop or drink milk straight from the cow? Grab the cow poo, because I have no idea what type of bacteria might be in fresh, fresh cow milk.
5. Batman or Iron Man? Iron Man, all the way. I don't really like anything related to DC.
6. Fantasy or sci-fi? Sci-fi, but I'm not adverse to fantasy.
7. Three years of famine, three months to be destroyed by your foes, or three days of the angel of the Lord destroying throughout all the coasts of the land? Uh.... maybe the three months, but I don't quite understand what's being destroyed by my foes. So I'll go with that one.
8. Favorite season? Spring/early summer.
9. Is the Lochness Monster real? Not in my opinion, no, though it does make for really cool story ideas.
10. Death by fire or death by ice? Death by ice. 
11. Out of any animal, what would be your dream pet? Recently, it's been a German Shepherd, maybe even an MWD, because you can adopt retired MWD's and that sounds like a really special experience.

    And I think that's all I'm going to do of the Sunshine Award stuffs. Which I apologize for.

But I need to work on some other things tonight as well while I still have a brain.

    In the lines of those other things, Trinity, I am working on your prompt. And I even have a small blurb to prove it.

// J&J //

    A face. A news report. A government file. A single word.

    Eliminate.

    Too young. Too relatable. Too close.

    She switched off the tablet and picked up her comm. to send a message with a meeting point. They had work to do. And the sooner it was done, the better.

   

// D&J //

    The rap was added into her odd mixture of a dream, featuring a mind-numbing club track playing through her old apartment but there was a wheat field growing in the middle of it that wasn’t in any portion of her own memories. There was another sharp knock and this one roused Jandy a bit, but she elected to ignore it in favor of a few extra seconds of sleep.

    They’d been in high demand as of late and thus their work schedule was hectic, equating to less sleep than she preferred getting. And judging by the clarity and insistence coming across her link to Dechlan, they were in even more demand than they had been ten minutes ago. Perfect time to bury her head under her pillow.

    “Hey, no, we got a call,” her partner’s voice came from somewhere overhead. Another soundless approach. Gold star to him.

    I went with a whole new setting in order to get everyone in the same spot more or less in the same time stream. Futuristic, almost sci-fi, with some inter-planetary travel going on. At least, Jandy and Dech are saving up to go elsewhere, and Jase and Jaydn have been everywhere. 

    With that, I believe I shall close.

    Thank you again for the nomination, Hannah!

    Ad astra per aspera.

    To the stars, through difficulty.

Prompt Challenge, from You to Me

    Alright, so I'm trying something new and exciting. The title might give you an inkling of what it is, but I'll give you the ten pages of backstory before clarifying further.

    I was poking through Tumblr the other day and wandered across several prompt challenges on people's blogs. Usually, they're used as prompts for fan fiction. But I always enjoyed the thought of those alternate universe prompts, even though I don't write fan fiction. 

    This led me to consider, why not just collect a bunch of prompts of various types and then pose them to you guys, my awesome followers, to pick and choose from. Let you guys challenge me as a writer and have some fun while doing it. 

    I have no idea whether or not this'll take, but figured it couldn't hurt. 

    In that line of thought, everybody is game. Character-wise. Whoever you'd like to choose, with whomever. Then you can choose any combination of the prompts I've dug up. There's a few different types, so yeah. I'm actually quite excited right now, despite being rather exhausted.

    And as a disclaimer, none of the following prompts are mine. I found them on Tumblr and just did a little editing.


AU!Setting Prompts:

• space au
• law enforcement au 
• historical au
• military au 
• bodyguard au 
• college au 
• supernatural beings are known au
• office au 
• high school au
• restaurant au 
• circus au 
• western au 
• sports au
• coffee shop au 

AU!Situation Prompts:

• pretending to be married
• game night
• handcuffed together
• snowed-in
• next-door neighbors AU
• fantasy AU
• apocalypse fic
• sharing a bed
• road trip
• kissing to save the day

AU!Who Does What Prompts:

• who controls the netflix account and what have they dominated the suggestions with by watching
• who snores
• who has an embarrassing ringtone that the other calls them in public just to get it to go off
• who sleeps on the top bunk if given the chance
• who plays the piano at 6 in the morning to wake up the other 
• who has accidentally set something on fire by attempting to cook a birthday meal 

One-Sentence Prompts from veiledinspiration.

1. Often times he would glance up, make sure she was still there, exhale a sigh of relief, then go back to work. 
2. She took one deep breath, accepted the fact that this party was going be a total train wreck, and walked in with a smile. 
3. He walked into the room only to find a dead body on the floor and two people sitting casually on the couch.
4. I turned the corner in my car and immediately slammed on my brakes as he was standing in the street, his arms crossed angrily.
5. Ordinarily this late at night, I would gently close the door so I wouldn’t wake anyone, but there was a psychotic killer behind me, so I slammed it. 
6. I reached under my jacket to feel what was wet and my hand came out from under my coat covered in my own blood. 
7. I would have said something different had I known it was going to be the last time I was going to see her alive.
8. In all the universes, in all the galaxies, on all the space stations, on all the docking bay substations, of all the gin joints on the promenade, she had to walk into mine.
9. Awkwardly enough, him tied and gagged to a chair was ALSO how they first met.
10. I was tired, had been tired for quite some time, and was going to continue to be tired until I killed that sick psycho.
11. If I had a nickel for every time I got turned into the feds by a bitter ex-boyfriend, I’d have 15 cents. 
12. In time, he, too, would come to hate her and loathe her very existence, but tonight she was a wondrous ball of light and happiness in a sexy, black, cocktail dress. 
13. After about three or four go’s at it, she gave up and went home, realizing she wasn’t destined for a life of crime. 
14. As I looked around the room, the smoke, the laughing, the cynicism, the lies, masks, I realized that I was in the wrong place.
15. Twisting off the cap, taking a deep breath, I leaned back and chugged, hoping to come out the other side in one piece.
16. Obviously, he was going to kill this man by the end of the night, but for now they had good brews, good ambiance, and he was good company. 
17. If I walked forward, I would walk out on stage, but if I stayed still, the man would pull the trigger. 
18. I didn’t see the attack coming, but I should have known it would come from her.
19. Somewhere along the road, at exactly what hour into the road trip I’m not sure, I began to realize how little I needed him in my life. 
20. Ostensibly, I would have to burn everything, kill everyone in the office, and and move across the country in shame if she said no, but I think it was worth it to ask her out on one date. 
21. Had I not seen him myself, I would never have believed he was alive. 
22. I read it over and over again until I was 100% sure that I just been given the order to assassinate myself. 
23. Obviously I was going to have to take matters into my own hands, and that involved a prison break.
24. "Where did it go?" she mumbled over and over again, sitting on the floor, back against the door, half empty bottle of wine in one hand and a handgun in the other.
25. Over the course of the semester, she would come to love him, but right now she wanted to stab him in the neck. 
26. In that moment, I could see it all, I can feel everything, and I knew I was about to die.
27. As I glanced over, the road zooming by, I could see the train was coming, but instead of slowing down, I pushed the gas pedal to the floor. 
28. He was dead, but that didn’t seem to stop him from standing in front of me, waving awkwardly. 
29. If I stayed, I’d most likely die a painful and horrible death, but if I left, he would suffer that fate for me.

    And then that's all I've got stored up, but if you've got a preferred genre or some other alternate setting or scenario you'd like to see, I am glad to oblige.

    Any combination or any of the above. One AU setting with a single character or one item from each list with three different characters. Anything you've got, I will give it my best shot.

    And because I just realized it might make life easier to have a short review of what characters I have written and posted in the past (collected by story):

• Breen and Garrett (concentration camp survivors, alternate verse)
• Cameron Armstrong, Ruusan Schaefe/Armstrong/Vhander (kids: Vivian, Ellora, Connor) Jaydn Schaefe, Jasen Drouais, Novarr and Sarris Schaefe (Zephron verse with Penny Kearney)
• Dechlan Scott, Jandy and Jane Sparks, Teagan and Gage Daxton (mentally linked dyads, Shattered Cage)
• Gil and Lorelai (sci-fi undercover)
• Jaz O'Haire, Haydn, other teammates (amnesiac black-ops captain turned leader of Busan)
• Ianthe and Isra (twin sisters, elder taken, desert land)
• Jaq and Alec (dragon-shifter, desert land)
• Kadin (futuristic professional fighter)
• Lane and Tess (amnesia, long-lived characters)
• Anastasia and Caesar (far more established long-lived characters)
• Sean and Lindsey (neighbor kids, her parents killed in a shoot-up of the house)
• Kelsey Delanie and Sergeant Alexander Marks (military verse; soldier and nurse)
• Nuada and Argyros Sylvester, Maggie, Carson, and Max (modern fantasy)
• Tatsuo and Shard (fantasy, dragon kind and elf)

    I added some taglines for what story the characters belong to, but if you're still confused, check the tag box off to the right for the name of who you're looking for. First name and it's alphabetized, so it shouldn't be too difficult.

    Well, then. I hope this makes sense and that it piques your interest as much as it has mine. If it does and you get this incredible urge to see Jandy and Jane Sparks in a college setting, drop me a comment (or send me a message if you're connected with me elsewhere) and I'll type you up something. I will be attempting to do five-hundred word minimums, but I never know when inspiration will strike, so there could be some long ones.

    As always, thank you for following my blog and taking an interest in my writing. See this as a way of my thanking you. ^_^ 

    Ad astra per aspera.
    To the stars, through difficulties.