The prompt for this week is not a direct quote from his book, but it is inspired by it.
Prompt:
"I promise I'll return for you," he said.
But she didn't wait.
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My Response:
Splinters tore into her calves as she knelt on the wooden flooring. The press of the iron bar against her ribs was unyeilding and frigid, her own body heat not enough to warm the metal. Tara wore only her togep, a sleeveless, knee-length dress of tanned skins, tied at the waist with a thin strip of rawhide. Usually her sheathed braok hung near her hip, but the servants who found her, coming like cowards while she was sleeping, had stolen the blade, the largest of them slipping it into his robes before they even finished tying her hands.
Tara stared longingly at the one square of light in the room. The Regent's prison at this outpost only consisted of one floor of the government house. The stairs leading up and down took up one end of the room. The wooden planks that formed the walls of the room were lined with iron cages. Two special cages stood in the middle of the room separate from the others. One lone window let in streams of light from above the lower stairwell.
"Tara. Tara, forgive me." The other cell's ocupant pressed himself up against the row of blue metal between them, reaching his hand out towards her. Tara kept her head down, trying to press her body further into her own set of iron rails. The two center cages denied the prisoners even the slight comfort of a wall to lean against.
"Tara, I didn't want to try and make you out to be anything other than what you are. You've done nothing wrong. Nothing. I know you don't have the Touch, and when I get a chance to explain, they'll free us." He wasn't a young man, but neither was he old. At his temples, his dark hair was scattered with gray. His face was marked with creases both in his forhead, from scowling, and at the corner of his eyes, from smiling. He had been ambitious and passionate, fighting his way up the chain of command in the Regent's service, starting as the lowliest shoveler and now a minor magistrate in a dilapidated old fort. Maybe his current assignment wasn't grand, but it was stories above any of his old mates, many of whom had long passed on into the Netherlands after a life of hard service.
"I'll get my position back, and they'll allow us to marry."
Behind her mask of indiference, Tara listened to his pleas. She couldn't help but think he was trying more to convince himself than to comfort her. And yet, if he had just let things be, if he hadn't insisted on applying for a proper, Regent Approved, Union Certificate, they wouldn't be where they were today.
The tribes of the Touched mingled with the servants of the Regent only in the darkest corners of the land, but that was where they were. Tara had grown up half in the fort and half in the forest. Her mother had been a saralie ... a curse, according to the Touched. A woman willing to give her body to a man for a meal or a new dress was a shame to them. But the Code prevented them from throwing her out, and her daughter, though the spawn of disgrace, was still one of them.
Tara herself had learned to follow the Code of the Touched. She yearned for acceptance, and the kind hearted ways of her people had given it to her, wholeheartedly.
She had also learned the ways of the servants of the Regent. When Aarek came to the fort, she'd admired his bold personality, his command over his men, and the way the moons seemed to dance to his laugher. The day he'd taken her in his arms for the first time had been the happiest day of her life.
It would have been better if he'd known everything, accepted her for all she was, but for a time, the fact that he loved her at all was enough for her. Aarek was faithful to her, took her into his house, provided her with everything she'd ever needed or wanted and showered her with attention. She in turn had let him invent a past for her that excused his actions in taking one of the Touched as wife.
"I will tell them your father was a soldier, that you were raised in the fort …"Aarek's whining continued. This was the first time she'd ever seen him look weak. Almost, her heart was persuaded to steal over to him, to pull him to her chest with the bars between them, and to sing to him. Almost.
Tara wondered, if they asked him outright, if he would admit her mother was a whore. One thing was certain, no matter how truthful he believed he was when he swore she didn't have the Touch, he wouldn't be telling the truth.
The high magistrate called for him near the setting of the First Sun, when gloomy shadows crossed the land, and they were left with only the dim, blue light of the Elder Star. The servants pulled Aarek from his cage. His lips never ceased their cries as his hands, now tied, continued to stretch towards Tara.
"Tara, my beloved, I promise I'll return for you!"
Tara watched as the last servant descended the stairs, his head disappearing out of her sight.
She couldn't afford to wait. Waiting was leaping into the jaws of death.
She reached out and Touched a bar of iron.
Softly, she began to sing.
Slowly, the iron melted.
The evening air felt warm and heavy. A storm was rolling across the plains, unfolding its rain in the distance and blurring the line between sky and earth. The African sun set unnoticed behind the clouds, and a herd of zebras brushed their tails lazily against their rumps as they munched the basin grass.
ReplyDeleteA mother giraffe wrapped her long black tongue around the high branch of an Acacian tree while her calf cautiously watched the plains from behind her legs. He could sense something his mother seemed oblivious to. His muscles tensed and his nose twitched. His mother's ears snapped to attention, now aware of the danger.
Seizing the moment, a lioness powerfully leaped from her hiding place in the tall grass, claws bared and mouth open, ready to snap around her prey. Instinctively, the calf's legs began to pump beneath him, and his mother brought up the rear. The lioness, missing by inches and losing her most likely opportunity, did not give up and gave chase.
"Help me, Mama!" the calf seemed the cry as he stumbled awkwardly. His mother quickly and smoothly scooped him up onto her neck. Now that her calf was safely riding, the mother began to run faster, jumping triple her height to evade the carnivore
"Raaaawwr!" The lioness followed close behind, leaping acrobatically to keep up. The chase covered the plains in a matter of seconds. The giraffe, her son, and the pursuing lioness flew over trees, lakes, and mountains.
The race went on for ages, and the mother was beginning to wane. How could she keep ahead of the lioness who had endless energy? What would happen to her calf?
Quickly, she darted around a forest, up a cliff, and into a cave, hoping the lioness lost their trail.
But suddenly, a monstrous shadow loomed over head and an eerily familiar sound flooded their ears.
"Hey, baby. You ready to go home?" Two wooden giraffes and a plastic tiger fell to the hard commercial carpet.
"Mommy!" Nursery was over.
Oh my gosh! LOVE your post! Please tell me you're writing that book now!
ReplyDeleteYou know how when you're reading a book, it sits in your mind, and you keep thinking about it and you want to know what happens next? (At least, when I'm reading a good book, that's how I feel ...) Well, I've had that same feeling lately about this post. I come back to it, wondering who she is, why she's still wearing her "Touched" clothing instead of something more fitting for the base. I wonder why her love for him has waned. I wonder where she will go and what she'll do and what will become of him ... Who knows, maybe I will come back and flesh out this story when I have more time.
DeleteOh, and I love yours, too, by the way. I was a little confused how the mommy giraffe could throw her baby across her back ... but I'm sure my kids could figure out a way to do it! :-)