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.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Monday, May 26, 2014
Who Does What: Jandy & Dechlan
As a tide-over until I get my thoughts gathered and channeled into the writing prompt that Trinity submitted to my blog a couple weeks back, I scrawled out a mixture of the "who does what" prompts for Jandy and Dechlan.
It's not much, but I think they're kind of humorous, so it should suffice until I find a spare minute/brain cell for the full blown prompt.
// shops for groceries //
They do this together more often than not. Dechlan can cover the essentials on his own, but Jandy has some peculiar tastes that change almost weekly, and so it’s hard for Dechlan to do the shopping without forgetting something. At the same time, she can’t be trusted to remember the basic staples such as milk, eggs, or bread, so they go together and that way they’re both content.
// kills the spiders //
Jandy hates anything with an abnormal amount of legs and shouts for Dechlan whenever she comes across a creepy-crawly. He fulfills his duty as bug-killer with humor and great efficiency. And Dechlan always gives her a hard time about it, because she was able to mouth off to Warren, who would’ve killed her in a heartbeat, but when it comes to any sort of insect, she’s standing on top of the highest object nearby and waiting for him to rescue her. He wonders how she ever survived with just her sister to kill the bugs.
// comes home drunk at 3AM //
They both know the cost and effects of too much alcohol and Dechlan is too disciplined to allow himself to be that lax, but Jandy might, if it were the anniversary of her sister’s death and Dechlan wasn’t there to stop her from going out in the first place.
// makes breakfast //
That would be one of Dechlan’s things he does in the morning, if they don’t have work. He’s up anyways and knows Jandy likes the slow wake-up call that she gets from him bumping around in the kitchen. Though she complains about her dreams featuring quite a few breakfast foods on the mornings that he puts together more than just cereal.
// remembers to feed the fish //
It’s usually Dechlan, unless he has a lot on his mind, then Jandy will quietly picks up the slack around the house that slips his memory. Those are the few times she will remember to get the staple items from the grocery mart as well. He just gets caught up in work and some things have to let, so Jandy just takes care of the things he normally does in their routine until he’s sorted everything out and is back on his a-game.
// decorates the apartment //
That’s a Jandy thing, to some extent. But it’s only when the urge really strikes. She and Jane lived week to week and didn’t have the money for much extra paraphernalia around the house around their apartment, so it’s hard for her to get over that and decorate. But Dechlan’s learned to pick up on when she really like a piece of art or décor and then eases her into a decision about getting it or not. They don’t have a lot, but their living space is tasteful in a somewhat eclectic manner as a result.
// initiates duets //
Good heavens does Dechlan not sing. Jandy will, if the mood strikes. Whatever song she’s heard on the radio lately is usually her song of choice and then she just sings it on a loop when she doesn’t know many of the lyrics. She’s usually too distracted to notice, but if she’s singing a catchy tune in the shower, Dechlan can sometimes be caught humming along. And that’s the closest they ever get to doing a duet.
// falls asleep first //
After so many years of working long hours with little sleep, Jandy values every extra hour of sleep she can get, so she’s usually the first to crawl into bed at night to sleep. Dechlan tends to stay up later on purpose, because he likes being able to lay awake and listen to the whispers of Jandy’s dreams. It lets him know where she’s at emotionally in her subconscious and it brings him peace to know that she’s resting and is safe. Jandy’s aware of his habit and lets it continue unimpeded because she watches over him too when he’s stressed out and isn’t sleeping much.
// which one is abysmal at roller skating and has to hold onto the other //
Jandy’s balance sucks when she’s not on her own two feet, planted on the ground. Jandy and Jane tried it once and they both ended up with bruised knees and scraped hands, so when Dechlan dragged her out to try again late one night when they both couldn’t sleep, she made him promise not to let her go because she was hurting too much from a rough two days already to add bruises from skating on top of them. He didn’t.
// which one gets hiccups every time they drink something fizzy //
That would be Dechlan. After Jandy worked as a serving girl at a night club for so many years, she’s pretty much immune to any weird side effects of the many weird drinks out there. But Dechlan, being the soldier he is and working off a pretty strict diet, has learned to steer away from anything carbonated. He made the mistake of drinking a soda in front of Jandy once. She didn’t stop laughing for an hour.
// which one listens to new songs on loop until the other can’t stand it //
It’s not always even new songs, but if Jandy finds a groove that she enjoys a lot, it can be put on replay for a couple of days until she has her fill of it. Which is two days too many for Dechlan, but they’re learning how to compromise. Two days of music in exchange for two days of quiet, depending on the situation. On very rare occasion, he enjoys the song too and doesn’t mind having it on a running loop. There is always the bonus of how very alive Jandy becomes when something loud and with a good beat comes on.
And so, yes. I have to run now. Memorial Day stuff. Thanks for the patience!
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
It's not much, but I think they're kind of humorous, so it should suffice until I find a spare minute/brain cell for the full blown prompt.
// shops for groceries //
They do this together more often than not. Dechlan can cover the essentials on his own, but Jandy has some peculiar tastes that change almost weekly, and so it’s hard for Dechlan to do the shopping without forgetting something. At the same time, she can’t be trusted to remember the basic staples such as milk, eggs, or bread, so they go together and that way they’re both content.
// kills the spiders //
Jandy hates anything with an abnormal amount of legs and shouts for Dechlan whenever she comes across a creepy-crawly. He fulfills his duty as bug-killer with humor and great efficiency. And Dechlan always gives her a hard time about it, because she was able to mouth off to Warren, who would’ve killed her in a heartbeat, but when it comes to any sort of insect, she’s standing on top of the highest object nearby and waiting for him to rescue her. He wonders how she ever survived with just her sister to kill the bugs.
// comes home drunk at 3AM //
They both know the cost and effects of too much alcohol and Dechlan is too disciplined to allow himself to be that lax, but Jandy might, if it were the anniversary of her sister’s death and Dechlan wasn’t there to stop her from going out in the first place.
// makes breakfast //
That would be one of Dechlan’s things he does in the morning, if they don’t have work. He’s up anyways and knows Jandy likes the slow wake-up call that she gets from him bumping around in the kitchen. Though she complains about her dreams featuring quite a few breakfast foods on the mornings that he puts together more than just cereal.
// remembers to feed the fish //
It’s usually Dechlan, unless he has a lot on his mind, then Jandy will quietly picks up the slack around the house that slips his memory. Those are the few times she will remember to get the staple items from the grocery mart as well. He just gets caught up in work and some things have to let, so Jandy just takes care of the things he normally does in their routine until he’s sorted everything out and is back on his a-game.
// decorates the apartment //
That’s a Jandy thing, to some extent. But it’s only when the urge really strikes. She and Jane lived week to week and didn’t have the money for much extra paraphernalia around the house around their apartment, so it’s hard for her to get over that and decorate. But Dechlan’s learned to pick up on when she really like a piece of art or décor and then eases her into a decision about getting it or not. They don’t have a lot, but their living space is tasteful in a somewhat eclectic manner as a result.
// initiates duets //
Good heavens does Dechlan not sing. Jandy will, if the mood strikes. Whatever song she’s heard on the radio lately is usually her song of choice and then she just sings it on a loop when she doesn’t know many of the lyrics. She’s usually too distracted to notice, but if she’s singing a catchy tune in the shower, Dechlan can sometimes be caught humming along. And that’s the closest they ever get to doing a duet.
// falls asleep first //
After so many years of working long hours with little sleep, Jandy values every extra hour of sleep she can get, so she’s usually the first to crawl into bed at night to sleep. Dechlan tends to stay up later on purpose, because he likes being able to lay awake and listen to the whispers of Jandy’s dreams. It lets him know where she’s at emotionally in her subconscious and it brings him peace to know that she’s resting and is safe. Jandy’s aware of his habit and lets it continue unimpeded because she watches over him too when he’s stressed out and isn’t sleeping much.
// which one is abysmal at roller skating and has to hold onto the other //
Jandy’s balance sucks when she’s not on her own two feet, planted on the ground. Jandy and Jane tried it once and they both ended up with bruised knees and scraped hands, so when Dechlan dragged her out to try again late one night when they both couldn’t sleep, she made him promise not to let her go because she was hurting too much from a rough two days already to add bruises from skating on top of them. He didn’t.
// which one gets hiccups every time they drink something fizzy //
That would be Dechlan. After Jandy worked as a serving girl at a night club for so many years, she’s pretty much immune to any weird side effects of the many weird drinks out there. But Dechlan, being the soldier he is and working off a pretty strict diet, has learned to steer away from anything carbonated. He made the mistake of drinking a soda in front of Jandy once. She didn’t stop laughing for an hour.
// which one listens to new songs on loop until the other can’t stand it //
It’s not always even new songs, but if Jandy finds a groove that she enjoys a lot, it can be put on replay for a couple of days until she has her fill of it. Which is two days too many for Dechlan, but they’re learning how to compromise. Two days of music in exchange for two days of quiet, depending on the situation. On very rare occasion, he enjoys the song too and doesn’t mind having it on a running loop. There is always the bonus of how very alive Jandy becomes when something loud and with a good beat comes on.
And so, yes. I have to run now. Memorial Day stuff. Thanks for the patience!
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
Friday, May 16, 2014
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
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!
- 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.
- Fruit-flavored candy or chocolate? Ehhh... perhaps dark chocolate.
- Under what circumstances would you jump on a shark's back? Very, very extreme circumstances involving either my siblings or small children.
- 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.
- Batman or Iron Man? Iron Man, all the way. I don't really like anything related to DC.
- Fantasy or sci-fi? Sci-fi, but I'm not adverse to fantasy.
- 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.
- Favorite season? Spring/early summer.
- Is the Lochness Monster real? Not in my opinion, no, though it does make for really cool story ideas.
- Death by fire or death by ice? Death by ice.
- 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.
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
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:
AU!Who Does What Prompts:
One-Sentence Prompts from veiledinspiration.
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):
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.
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.
- Often times he would glance up, make sure she was still there, exhale a sigh of relief, then go back to work.
- She took one deep breath, accepted the fact that this party was going be a total train wreck, and walked in with a smile.
- He walked into the room only to find a dead body on the floor and two people sitting casually on the couch.
- I turned the corner in my car and immediately slammed on my brakes as he was standing in the street, his arms crossed angrily.
- 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.
- I reached under my jacket to feel what was wet and my hand came out from under my coat covered in my own blood.
- I would have said something different had I known it was going to be the last time I was going to see her alive.
- 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.
- Awkwardly enough, him tied and gagged to a chair was ALSO how they first met.
- I was tired, had been tired for quite some time, and was going to continue to be tired until I killed that sick psycho.
- If I had a nickel for every time I got turned into the feds by a bitter ex-boyfriend, I’d have 15 cents.
- 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.
- 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.
- As I looked around the room, the smoke, the laughing, the cynicism, the lies, masks, I realized that I was in the wrong place.
- Twisting off the cap, taking a deep breath, I leaned back and chugged, hoping to come out the other side in one piece.
- 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.
- If I walked forward, I would walk out on stage, but if I stayed still, the man would pull the trigger.
- I didn’t see the attack coming, but I should have known it would come from her.
- 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.
- 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.
- Had I not seen him myself, I would never have believed he was alive.
- I read it over and over again until I was 100% sure that I just been given the order to assassinate myself.
- Obviously I was going to have to take matters into my own hands, and that involved a prison break.
- "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.
- Over the course of the semester, she would come to love him, but right now she wanted to stab him in the neck.
- In that moment, I could see it all, I can feel everything, and I knew I was about to die.
- 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.
- He was dead, but that didn’t seem to stop him from standing in front of me, waving awkwardly.
- 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.
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Writing: Train Travel and Thrift Shop + Retake on the Locker Scene
Ha. Look at me. Posting more scribbles before a full month had passed.
Nothing terribly long, but it is Jandy. The first portion is continuing off my last drabble challenge, with Jandy and Gage Continuing Escapee Adventures, and then I found that I had originally written that locker room scene with Jandy and Dechlan in a notepad. So I typed that up and am throwing it in here as a bonus.
The train hummed and thrummed around Jandy in a way that was not as soothing as having Dechlan’s activities running in the back of her head, but it was getting there. Anything besides the dead silence that had been making it difficult to concentrate during her waking hours.
Again, almost without meaning to or even thinking about it, she searched for him, seeking relief from the echoing quiet that made a near-physical ache rise in her chest.
It wasn’t as bad as when she’d lost Jane—she doubted anything would ever be as bad as that. Dechlan was still alive; their connection was unharmed, intact, just weakened by distance.
Lost in her thoughts, Jandy wasn’t prepared when a bump on the tracks below them made the car jolt and that motion caused her to slide on her make-shift cot enough for the pain to flare across her upper abdomen.
A quiet gasp escaped her before she could help it. Gritting her teeth as an afterthought, Jandy tried to breathe slow and even, lying still, her mobile hand fisted, in an attempt to keep from irritating any other portion of her injured anatomy. Not an easy thing to do, to say the least.
Jandy was just quelling the urge to give in and voice a handful of choice words—a habit Dechlan had made a point of breaking her of and the only reason she underwent the effort to not—when Gage spoke.
“You okay?” He sounded both weary and wary, neither of which were too surprising.
She took a moment to get herself together before speaking, reminded of how little she actually knew about either of the Daxtons in those moments. “Yeah. I would just give a lot for a bottle of some hard alcohol right about now. Or, you know, morphine or something.”
There was a snort of humor off to her right, out of sight. Granted, most everything was out of sight as her position on her back only put the four sides of the train car and the roof within eyesight.
Needing a distraction, Jandy gripped the crate under her with her useable hand and used that hold to elevate herself. Gage, sitting with his back to a near identical crate on the ground, watched her progress with a cautious gaze, but didn’t offer to aid her. Yet. Jandy was grateful. She would have to learn to deal with this new, unfamiliar pain and the sooner, the better for both of them.
Once she was upright, nails digging into the wood beneath her, she forced out “What’s the plan then, chief?”, desperate for something else to think about besides the way her injuries seemed to be set on fire, her head pounded, and everything else ached like she’d been thrown from a bull.
The man glanced at the expensive silver watch on his wrist, the long sleeves of his dress shirt from their op the prior night rolled up past his elbows. “We’re going to get off at the next stop, which should be a fair-sized hub. We need to figure out how far we’ve come, get a new set of clothes, and see if there’s anything we can do to make movement easier for you. We’ve got a long ways to go yet.”
The promptness of his reply told her that he’d already been working out the different steps they needed to take in order to continue further for some time.
His reminder of their clothing state caused Jandy to hazard a glance down at her own evening wear. Former evening wear. Now she wanted to be out of the torn, blood-stained, and uncomfortable dress as soon as possible. If she hadn’t been so familiar with Gage, the state of her disattire in his presence would have made her edgy. But she was at least comfortable having him around and she wouldn’t have put it past Dechlan to read the male Daxton his right when it came to her. Or, his lack thereof.
Four months linked mentally to Dechlan had allowed her the chance to realize just how much protecting those he cared for was a part of who he was.
Burying the ache that rose from the loss of her counterpart’s presence, Jandelyn moved to sit on the floor, favoring her side, diagonal from Gage, and let her head lean back on the crate. They would have a few more hours of travel in this unorthodox transport and then she would get to relearn how to walk with cracked—or broken, it was hard to tell—ribs.
//
Jandy sat on the floor of the small thrift shop in Stoney Run, a decent-sized city with a larger train depot then anything much else, Gage had informed her, trying to recoup her energy. The not-so-stealthy walk from the far end of the train tracks had been a long, grueling excursion, even with Gage’s help.
Now he rifled through the racks of clothes with a focus reminiscent of Dechlan while she worked to not curl into a ball of pain. The proprieter was already eyeing them with the look of someone comfortable calling the cops on suspicious patrons. And boy, did they fit that ticket, between the visible bruises, the tangible injuries, and their attention-drawing clothing. Gage’s jacket was around her shoulders, shielding her immobilized shoulder and arm but doing nothing for the raw scrapes and deep purple marks on her legs.
Pushing her loose hair, with only the remnants of its curl, out of her eyes, Jandy considered weighing in on what Gage was taking off the rack, but knew that whatever he got would be functional. Not pretty, but Jandy was done with dressy for a very long time. Not to mention, the fewer eyes they drew, the better for everyone.
Gage snapped his fingers, drawing her out of her thoughts with a jerk. “Hey. You should look at the jeans. I want to be out of here in ten minutes. Need a hand?”
Arching a brow at him, Jandy got herself up using her good hand planted on the ground and making sure not to stretch out her damaged side. Coming to her feet brought her into the stream of burning daylight that was coming through the filthy front windows and illuminated the water-stained walls. Squinting against the light, the female turned to find the women’s pants.
“Check for small sweatpants over there,” Jandy commented to her companion as she started rifling, looking for anything close to her size that wouldn’t be a pain to wear.
She heard Gage pause in his own search, then resume a few beats later. “Copy. Look at the shoes, too.”
Just what she needed—a reminder of her scraped and dirty feet, the cost of losing those admittedly-stupid heels sometime before they’d gotten on the train, while she’d been unconscious. Letting a silent sigh escape her and with her bad arm braced along her battered ribcage, Jandy settled into her seaerch, trying to keep from imagining that Decklan was nearby.
//
The sky had clouded over by the time they had found clothes, gotten changed, and straggled back to the rail depot. Gage left her out beside the building’s wall, the hood of her ratty sweatshirt pulled up to cast the bruises on her face in shadow. He wore a ball cap that would perform the same function along with a dark gray jacket that complimented her blue sweatshirt and faded denim jacket that was a couple sizes too large in order to accommodate both her bound arm and the sweatshirt that kept it from sight.
Rain started to spit from the dark clouds overhead, staining the sidewalk and splattering on her pants. Jandy let her head fall back, protected under the roof’s awning. Everything was happening more quickly than she was almost able to keep up with.
It’d been twenty-four hours since she’d stood in the bathroom back at base, feeling like she’d be ill to her stomach with nerves. Since then, she’d been a prize on Gage’s arm, had the snot beaten out of her, escaped from the organization that had killed her sister, and was now on the run with a man she knew hardly anything about. Without the man that she wanted most at her side right now.
The only thing about Blogger is that I have to take my documents from Microsoft Word, transfer them to a Notepad, so that the format isn't totally screwy on here. Thus, it doesn't transfer over my italics, and I have to go back through and put them in and it's just a pain in general. Just to be random.
Onto the retake! Just as a mild warning, this one could be seen as a bit more mature than the last one.
Jandy was fairly sure that the ill-tempered European woman who’d put a day’s worth of time into her appearance would have an aneurysm—or at least a fit—if she threw up right now.
Trembling hands gripped the edge of the locker room sink. Slow breath in, even longer out. Get it under control.
Dechlan was detectable on the fringes of her thoughts, but he felt distracted and Jandy was fine with that because she couldn’t have handled his reaction at that moment. Anymore emotion than was already roiling in her and she really would be ill.
The brown of her eyes had been covered with a pair of contact lenses that were an eye-drawing azure and it was that gaze that stared back at her in the mirror.
The hard part was that Jandy knew what this was. She hadn’t been given any information on this job, but her appearance was telling.
When she and Jane had been living in Akita, she’d juggled two full time jobs and a part time when she had the energy to spare. One of those jobs had been as a serving girl in a high-class night club—a position she’d procured by not being one of the women her age addicted to drugs—that would get crazy around two in the morning on a regular basis.
Right now, her attire and make-up could have rivaled that of any of the women who had walked into that club on the arm of a man who man a point of showing how deep his pockets were.
The dark outlining to her eyes, the high pair of platform heels, the short hem and plunging back of the dress that matched her eyes. All of it had a purpose. Draw attention, intimidate lesser men, intoxicate those who thought they had a chance.
Jandy shifted to stand up straight, ignoring her churning stomach and stepping into her shoes, all too aware of how their height had been chosen to further augment the image she’d been created to fill.
Previously dark eyes flickered to the door, closed for the moment, then back to the mirror. Jandy wished she could say she had no idea how to be the type of woman who could fulfill this role, this… appearance. But she couldn’t, because this was who her mother had been, who her friends had been. This was the type of person she’d worked around for three years, day in and day out, and who she had learned to be when the moment called for it as a result.
Jandy knew how to walk like those women, talk like them, smile like them. Seduce like them. That’d been the world she’d struggled to keep both herself and her sister afloat in, when everyone else had been content to drown.
In the back of her mind, she felt Dechlan’s focus shift to her, but knew she wasn’t ready to face his thoughts—not yet. Her ability to keep him out was far, far less impressive than his, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to drown him out for the precious few minutes that she needed.
Finding a memory of a pounding beat, deafening lyrics, and the thump of her own heart, Jandy ran her hand through her loose hair. It, too, had undergone hours of treatment and the tousled look her short, brown locks now bore could easily have been hours of work or a happy accident, depending on the eye of the observer.
She practiced smiling, the blood red lipstick on her lips stretching to accommodate the expression. It looked real because she’d had to learn to hide the exhaustion, the stress, the hopelessness that had weighed heavily on her shoulders as she worked to support her family of two. All for naught, as it turned out.
Her smile took on a sardonic edge just as there was a light rap at the door that echoed through the locker room. Then Jandy realized that Dechlan was very there in her head, despite her thoughts drowning him out, and that he was waiting for her to let him in—literally and figuratively.
And there we go. Scribbles! And now I need to go work on science and my parents and I are watching The Island with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. She's been kicking butt for a lot of years.
Thoughts, comments, and critiques are welcome, as always. Thanks for reading!
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
Nothing terribly long, but it is Jandy. The first portion is continuing off my last drabble challenge, with Jandy and Gage Continuing Escapee Adventures, and then I found that I had originally written that locker room scene with Jandy and Dechlan in a notepad. So I typed that up and am throwing it in here as a bonus.
The train hummed and thrummed around Jandy in a way that was not as soothing as having Dechlan’s activities running in the back of her head, but it was getting there. Anything besides the dead silence that had been making it difficult to concentrate during her waking hours.
Again, almost without meaning to or even thinking about it, she searched for him, seeking relief from the echoing quiet that made a near-physical ache rise in her chest.
It wasn’t as bad as when she’d lost Jane—she doubted anything would ever be as bad as that. Dechlan was still alive; their connection was unharmed, intact, just weakened by distance.
Lost in her thoughts, Jandy wasn’t prepared when a bump on the tracks below them made the car jolt and that motion caused her to slide on her make-shift cot enough for the pain to flare across her upper abdomen.
A quiet gasp escaped her before she could help it. Gritting her teeth as an afterthought, Jandy tried to breathe slow and even, lying still, her mobile hand fisted, in an attempt to keep from irritating any other portion of her injured anatomy. Not an easy thing to do, to say the least.
Jandy was just quelling the urge to give in and voice a handful of choice words—a habit Dechlan had made a point of breaking her of and the only reason she underwent the effort to not—when Gage spoke.
“You okay?” He sounded both weary and wary, neither of which were too surprising.
She took a moment to get herself together before speaking, reminded of how little she actually knew about either of the Daxtons in those moments. “Yeah. I would just give a lot for a bottle of some hard alcohol right about now. Or, you know, morphine or something.”
There was a snort of humor off to her right, out of sight. Granted, most everything was out of sight as her position on her back only put the four sides of the train car and the roof within eyesight.
Needing a distraction, Jandy gripped the crate under her with her useable hand and used that hold to elevate herself. Gage, sitting with his back to a near identical crate on the ground, watched her progress with a cautious gaze, but didn’t offer to aid her. Yet. Jandy was grateful. She would have to learn to deal with this new, unfamiliar pain and the sooner, the better for both of them.
Once she was upright, nails digging into the wood beneath her, she forced out “What’s the plan then, chief?”, desperate for something else to think about besides the way her injuries seemed to be set on fire, her head pounded, and everything else ached like she’d been thrown from a bull.
The man glanced at the expensive silver watch on his wrist, the long sleeves of his dress shirt from their op the prior night rolled up past his elbows. “We’re going to get off at the next stop, which should be a fair-sized hub. We need to figure out how far we’ve come, get a new set of clothes, and see if there’s anything we can do to make movement easier for you. We’ve got a long ways to go yet.”
The promptness of his reply told her that he’d already been working out the different steps they needed to take in order to continue further for some time.
His reminder of their clothing state caused Jandy to hazard a glance down at her own evening wear. Former evening wear. Now she wanted to be out of the torn, blood-stained, and uncomfortable dress as soon as possible. If she hadn’t been so familiar with Gage, the state of her disattire in his presence would have made her edgy. But she was at least comfortable having him around and she wouldn’t have put it past Dechlan to read the male Daxton his right when it came to her. Or, his lack thereof.
Four months linked mentally to Dechlan had allowed her the chance to realize just how much protecting those he cared for was a part of who he was.
Burying the ache that rose from the loss of her counterpart’s presence, Jandelyn moved to sit on the floor, favoring her side, diagonal from Gage, and let her head lean back on the crate. They would have a few more hours of travel in this unorthodox transport and then she would get to relearn how to walk with cracked—or broken, it was hard to tell—ribs.
//
Jandy sat on the floor of the small thrift shop in Stoney Run, a decent-sized city with a larger train depot then anything much else, Gage had informed her, trying to recoup her energy. The not-so-stealthy walk from the far end of the train tracks had been a long, grueling excursion, even with Gage’s help.
Now he rifled through the racks of clothes with a focus reminiscent of Dechlan while she worked to not curl into a ball of pain. The proprieter was already eyeing them with the look of someone comfortable calling the cops on suspicious patrons. And boy, did they fit that ticket, between the visible bruises, the tangible injuries, and their attention-drawing clothing. Gage’s jacket was around her shoulders, shielding her immobilized shoulder and arm but doing nothing for the raw scrapes and deep purple marks on her legs.
Pushing her loose hair, with only the remnants of its curl, out of her eyes, Jandy considered weighing in on what Gage was taking off the rack, but knew that whatever he got would be functional. Not pretty, but Jandy was done with dressy for a very long time. Not to mention, the fewer eyes they drew, the better for everyone.
Gage snapped his fingers, drawing her out of her thoughts with a jerk. “Hey. You should look at the jeans. I want to be out of here in ten minutes. Need a hand?”
Arching a brow at him, Jandy got herself up using her good hand planted on the ground and making sure not to stretch out her damaged side. Coming to her feet brought her into the stream of burning daylight that was coming through the filthy front windows and illuminated the water-stained walls. Squinting against the light, the female turned to find the women’s pants.
“Check for small sweatpants over there,” Jandy commented to her companion as she started rifling, looking for anything close to her size that wouldn’t be a pain to wear.
She heard Gage pause in his own search, then resume a few beats later. “Copy. Look at the shoes, too.”
Just what she needed—a reminder of her scraped and dirty feet, the cost of losing those admittedly-stupid heels sometime before they’d gotten on the train, while she’d been unconscious. Letting a silent sigh escape her and with her bad arm braced along her battered ribcage, Jandy settled into her seaerch, trying to keep from imagining that Decklan was nearby.
//
The sky had clouded over by the time they had found clothes, gotten changed, and straggled back to the rail depot. Gage left her out beside the building’s wall, the hood of her ratty sweatshirt pulled up to cast the bruises on her face in shadow. He wore a ball cap that would perform the same function along with a dark gray jacket that complimented her blue sweatshirt and faded denim jacket that was a couple sizes too large in order to accommodate both her bound arm and the sweatshirt that kept it from sight.
Rain started to spit from the dark clouds overhead, staining the sidewalk and splattering on her pants. Jandy let her head fall back, protected under the roof’s awning. Everything was happening more quickly than she was almost able to keep up with.
It’d been twenty-four hours since she’d stood in the bathroom back at base, feeling like she’d be ill to her stomach with nerves. Since then, she’d been a prize on Gage’s arm, had the snot beaten out of her, escaped from the organization that had killed her sister, and was now on the run with a man she knew hardly anything about. Without the man that she wanted most at her side right now.
The only thing about Blogger is that I have to take my documents from Microsoft Word, transfer them to a Notepad, so that the format isn't totally screwy on here. Thus, it doesn't transfer over my italics, and I have to go back through and put them in and it's just a pain in general. Just to be random.
Onto the retake! Just as a mild warning, this one could be seen as a bit more mature than the last one.
Jandy was fairly sure that the ill-tempered European woman who’d put a day’s worth of time into her appearance would have an aneurysm—or at least a fit—if she threw up right now.
Trembling hands gripped the edge of the locker room sink. Slow breath in, even longer out. Get it under control.
Dechlan was detectable on the fringes of her thoughts, but he felt distracted and Jandy was fine with that because she couldn’t have handled his reaction at that moment. Anymore emotion than was already roiling in her and she really would be ill.
The brown of her eyes had been covered with a pair of contact lenses that were an eye-drawing azure and it was that gaze that stared back at her in the mirror.
The hard part was that Jandy knew what this was. She hadn’t been given any information on this job, but her appearance was telling.
When she and Jane had been living in Akita, she’d juggled two full time jobs and a part time when she had the energy to spare. One of those jobs had been as a serving girl in a high-class night club—a position she’d procured by not being one of the women her age addicted to drugs—that would get crazy around two in the morning on a regular basis.
Right now, her attire and make-up could have rivaled that of any of the women who had walked into that club on the arm of a man who man a point of showing how deep his pockets were.
The dark outlining to her eyes, the high pair of platform heels, the short hem and plunging back of the dress that matched her eyes. All of it had a purpose. Draw attention, intimidate lesser men, intoxicate those who thought they had a chance.
Jandy shifted to stand up straight, ignoring her churning stomach and stepping into her shoes, all too aware of how their height had been chosen to further augment the image she’d been created to fill.
Previously dark eyes flickered to the door, closed for the moment, then back to the mirror. Jandy wished she could say she had no idea how to be the type of woman who could fulfill this role, this… appearance. But she couldn’t, because this was who her mother had been, who her friends had been. This was the type of person she’d worked around for three years, day in and day out, and who she had learned to be when the moment called for it as a result.
Jandy knew how to walk like those women, talk like them, smile like them. Seduce like them. That’d been the world she’d struggled to keep both herself and her sister afloat in, when everyone else had been content to drown.
In the back of her mind, she felt Dechlan’s focus shift to her, but knew she wasn’t ready to face his thoughts—not yet. Her ability to keep him out was far, far less impressive than his, but that didn’t mean she didn’t know how to drown him out for the precious few minutes that she needed.
Finding a memory of a pounding beat, deafening lyrics, and the thump of her own heart, Jandy ran her hand through her loose hair. It, too, had undergone hours of treatment and the tousled look her short, brown locks now bore could easily have been hours of work or a happy accident, depending on the eye of the observer.
She practiced smiling, the blood red lipstick on her lips stretching to accommodate the expression. It looked real because she’d had to learn to hide the exhaustion, the stress, the hopelessness that had weighed heavily on her shoulders as she worked to support her family of two. All for naught, as it turned out.
Her smile took on a sardonic edge just as there was a light rap at the door that echoed through the locker room. Then Jandy realized that Dechlan was very there in her head, despite her thoughts drowning him out, and that he was waiting for her to let him in—literally and figuratively.
And there we go. Scribbles! And now I need to go work on science and my parents and I are watching The Island with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. She's been kicking butt for a lot of years.
Thoughts, comments, and critiques are welcome, as always. Thanks for reading!
Ad astra per aspera.
To the stars, through difficulties.
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