Arachne's Writing Samples (Challenge me with a prompt?)

[ArachneJericho]

I write and code. Writing is rather harder than coding, so I thought I would post some of my writing samples up for critique and feedback, and also see if anyone has any prompts they want to challenge me with.

Here is a small piece first, which was written quite a while ago:

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The goddess of love has no heart. I was her sister; I should know.

Once I had her body hung from a hook next to my throne, after stripping every last sham of meaning from her shallow life of fine clothes and not a care in the world apart from a dance and a night with a pretty boy. They came begging me to release her, for once paying attention to the sister who truly mattered, the one of death and owls and night.

I let her go, the little wench. So many years ago, now celebrated in story as the arrival of spring.

One day, the paths of the dead lay silent.

I walked past the seven gates of Irkalla, where the guardians stood still, waiting upon no soul.

Finally, I stood at the threshold of the first gate, looking out into the domain of the living. I watched for the movement of reeds and water, listened for the sound of birds, smelled for the scent of growth and life; none were forthcoming. The air was grey, and above me I could not sense my brother Sun, nor my father Moon.

For the first time in my existence, I was afraid. It does not come easy to a force of darkness, and blind fear robbed my mind of all sense. I stepped onto the land of the living, a forbidden act for the queen of death—

—and survived.

I had always cursed my twin for her freedom in crossing between the lands of the dead and the living, as if it were no more than crossing a brook, as if on touching foot to the opposing side her existence would not be obliterated. She should have known better than to trespass after watching my condemnation to the shadows.

Had my sentence been lifted? I took another step, and brown dust drifted across my feet.

No. I was free because Irkalla had no further purpose as the endpoint of the living.

Yet where were the gods? Where was my mother, the great lady? Where was my brother, the Thunder? I called out to each and every one of them, repeatedly, and received no answer.

There was nothing left of them.

In the emptiness of the world, for the first time, I wanted to hear the bells on her feet, her coy voice teasing me that I would never be loved.

[ArachneJericho]

And for a change of pace, here's something scifi:

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I once thought S1526 the most beautiful designation bestowed upon any one of the student body. She was of the oldest class in existence, that rank so battle-wearied that only a few members yet remained alive.

I remember her now, standing in the moonlit courtyard, the long, blackened fingers of one hand jerking and creeping delicately, like the legs of a frightened spider, across her naked shoulder. It was newly manufactured, a sybrium-hybrid metal replacement for the one she had lost just before returning from Austria. By itself, it was a hideous chunk of armor and cybernetic wiring; on her, the new shoulder was evidence of the tearing passions of the God-at-war, a perfect ruin pursing against smooth flesh.

Behind the corner of a building, I steadied myself. This was a difficult time for her, readjusting to the silence of the Northern Keepaway after a year spent on the front of the 8th Continental War.

She was already turning her head in my direction.

“Friendly,” I said to break the silence, not wanting to trigger any defensive reflexes she might have.

“Designation?” She sounded flat and matter-of-fact, not at all her usual self.

I told her.

Her face lit suddenly, and she allowed me to approach.

Close by, she was even taller than I had remembered. She towered over me, skin and frame grotesquely repaired in the old ad-hoc manner. She smiled, showing long and sharp teeth, and reached for me.

I hugged her back. Her fingers pressed into my back like pins, and her shoulder plate was rough against my cheek.

She gave me a critical look-over. Perhaps she was searching for scars, because no training at the Academy was complete without at least one near-mortal injury they just barely brought you back over.

“I got my arm sliced open several times,” I said, “right down into the main artery.” I removed my jacket and started rolling back my sleeve, before I stopped, considering.

“Let me see.”

There was silence as she examined my arm.

“Automatic healing seems to be improving,” she said, a little too lightly, before letting me go. “No bones broken?”

I told her about the sybrium treatment. My skeleton was now made of the same stuff as her battle armor, stronger than bone and far less dense.

She whistled, shrill and strange through her teeth, and experimentally lifted me.

“You’re rather light,” she said, bouncing me a bit, “even for your age. So light that you must not be hurt much even if you fall.”

I wished she would stop treating me like a little brother. “I know how to roll into a fall.”

She hugged me again, hard enough to hurt a little, but I didn’t mind. She didn’t say anything else, though, which was strange. We stood together like that for a long time.

“It’s almost over,” I whispered into her ear. “I’ll come of age. My entire class will. We’ll be the new front and you and the others will be our generals.”

She shivered, and I held her harder, but she wouldn’t stop shaking.

“That’s how it’s supposed to be,” I continued, trying to remember how she related that torch-passing milestone to me, the night I cried because she was going to be away. She had called it “15-and-4″, that is, 15 year-olds for the front, and a general class four years older.

“I can’t do it,” she whispered back.

“You’re not scared?” She was well-known for her recklessness, which had earned her so many admirable war-scars.

She took a ragged breath. “I’m scared for you.”

“You’ve never seen me fight,” I said. With cover, I could drop a man from half a mile away. I could drop an entire line of them, even if they were running over rough ground at night.

She released her hold, and gently lifted my face. “You were made for peace, not war.”

That made no sense. I told her so.

She shrugged and said nothing, just looked at me as though she would eat me up with her lantern-ray teeth. Her eyes glittered with tears.

I will always remember that time under the blasted oak tree in the moonlight, just the two of us.

And I will always remember the morning she left us, her leave suddenly ended, eyes tiger-hard again, the chosen one of the God-at-war.

The 8th Continental war ended a few days after she reached the front.

She never returned home.

15-and-4 never passed.

[ArachneJericho]

Transcription of a dream I had:

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There were the warnings. First, a chill running down your spine; then, flashes of fluorescence and swiveling colors on the flanks of fish in the local pet store where Crimney was observing poisonous tree frogs.

We didn’t know what the warnings meant at first until the waters of the nearby lake churned and one of Cthulhu’s cousins emerged, rivers streaming down its tentacles, and its scaly skin a terrible grey-green that made you think of the squirming things you found beneath moist rocks. The stink was that of a fish-market gone to rot, maybe hundreds of them all at once.

The library was the only place it made sense to flee to. And so we did, with a tank of fish in tow, their colors rippling less the farther we got from Cthulhu’s cousin.

I had been trained by a wise old woman in the arts of Nerf gun handling, and had two large rifles made of real metal, along with a couple of Mavericks cast from steel. Nerf material is deadly to aquatic species; Nerf darts turn into orange arrowheads, video-game like, when they strike.

She was at the library, and had little advice for me, except to remember that, since they were only semi-automatic, to use the rifle as a blunt instrument when necessary.

The library basement housed Fantasy Flight Games components, so that we could learn, from black-and-white prototype cards for Call of Cthulhu, what was coming down the street. I picked up one, and I remember it turned into a full-color glossy of fish changing their colors.

Upstairs, Cthulhu’s cousin had opened the door to the second story, enormous four-pointed pupil backed against yellow right up against the door.

I fired the first shots and emptied out the rifle. Their sharp tips dug into squalid flesh.

The monster recoiled in pain, but only briefly, before it lashed out towards the door again.

So I beat it with the rifle several times, then fell back behind a low bookcase. I forget what Crimney was doing. Probably something to do with rituals, or playing a card game that had come to life, but I was focused on doing some damage. It’s hard to concentrate on anything else when a monster is thrashing outside your window.

I kept firing, and reloaded only with difficulty, thanking the stars that I had multiple loaded weapons, and two of which could deal melee damage.

Eventually, whether through the gathering of elder signs or the barrage of Nerf darts, the monster cried out, thrashed one last time, and disappeared in blinding white light.

Relieved, we hugged one another, and headed out to enjoy the day.

Unfortunately, another one emerged from the lake. But we knew how to deal with it.

And so we did.

[Tyrantauranox]

It all looks solid to me. I imagine that some of your visual descriptions would be trimmed once all the art is in place.

[ArachneJericho]

It all looks solid to me. I imagine that some of your visual descriptions would be trimmed once all the art is in place.

Yes, definitely! I'm learning to adapt to that. In some ways it makes things easier, in some ways harder!