#DiceGames: Day One

Timony Souler's DiceGames challenge: three days, three dice rolls, three prompts. My first prompt is: “A red-haired vixen is trying to kill you. Deal with it.”

Auburn slammed the young woman against the wall. She lifted a hand to her victim’s throat, resisting the urge to finish her writer. Maybe she had a good reason for torturing her and the other characters.

“I’m sorry about what happens to you. I’m sorry about what happens to your… uh, family and friends.” Emilia peered over crooked glasses. She lifted a hand to push them back, but the though died under Auburn’s glare. “But you’re in a story and a story needs conflict or it suc—”

“Shut up!” Auburn’s fingers twitched. Her nails grew longer, sharpened into claws. “I don’t care what the parrots of writing blogs are repeating.” The shapeshifter lifted a hand from Emilia’s throat and set it on her shoulder. After a moment’s pause she continued through gritted teeth, “First you sent me to anger management and now you’re doing horrible things to me and the other characters.”

“I’m a writer! That’s more or less what we do.” She tried to shrug.

Auburn rolled her eyes. That was her writer’s excuse for everything. Why couldn’t she write something nice like children’s books? Then again that would mean no profanities, bashing heads or seducing people.

“Then stop writing.” She arched an eyebrow. “Or I will stop you.”

Emilia’s jaw dropped and her eyes widened. “I can’t…”

Auburn lifted a finger and drew it slowly across Emilia’s throat, leaving behind a white line. “Then I’ll have to kill you.”

“I know you, I created you. You don’t kill unless it’s necessary.” She pressed against the wall, trying to disappear between the stone’s seams.

“Try me.” The shapeshifter grabbed her hand and lifted it before her face. “And I can always cut off your fingers. We’ll see how you write then.”

“If you stop me from writing you’ll kill yourself. You only live on the pages and in the readers’ imagination.”

Auburn’s finger went lax, allowing Emilia to wrench her hand free. She stared at her writer, or tried; the smudges on her glasses almost hid her eyes. On impulse Auburn wiped her glasses with the sleeve of her dress. There, now she could see her writer’s fear better.

“You have a point.” She stepped back. “And the thought of hurting someone nice, it just doesn’t feel good.”
Emilia sighed and pushed her glasses up again.

Auburn crossed her arms. “You’re going to make this up to us. I want a happy ending for everyone.”

“Even the villains?”

“What? No, of course not.” She leaned against the wall. Anger tightened her features as she spoke, “The villains deserve my fist in their face and a life in a dragon’s gut.”

“If a happy ending makes sense, then I’ll write one, but I can’t annoy the readers.” She lifted her hands as Auburn opened her mouth to object. “You want your part of the story to be read? If I had you ride off into the sunset on a white fool’s dragon, with a strapping young lad, while chomping down a chocolate pastry…”

“All right! But if you kill me off, make it a big scene.” Auburn spoke the words slowly, “No off-the-page death.”

“I don’t think I’ve created anything capable of killing you, but all right.” She lifted her glasses off her nose and stared at them in disbelief. “Did you just spit on my glasses?”

The shapeshifter gave her a flat stare.

“Never mind, just go back to Verannia.” She waved her hand in dismissal. Auburn turned to leave. “Wait, how do you know about blogs?”

The shapeshifter shrugged as she opened the door. She looked over her shoulder and grinned. “I go through your mind when I’m bored.”

Emilia’s jaw dropped. “Just go. I need to plan a scene where you knock the marrow out of a skeletal demon.” She buried her face in her hands and muttered, “Pihkura*, what did I get myself into.”

*Emilia likes to use obsolete finnish swear words, such as “pihkura”, “pahkura”, “kehveli”, “himskatti” and “himputti”.

Character Anger Management

When I saw the prompt on Timony's blog, I immeadiately thought of Auburn, one of my characters :)

Auburn lifted her head from the table, mouth hanging slightly ajar as she stared at the odd man. So he was going to teach her how to resist the urge to threaten the other characters.

“Welcome to the Character Anger Management class of 2012. I’m Bert, your instructor. I’ve written many stories with placid characters and with my help you too can become calm and collected.”

It was her writer’s fault. She’d talked about how people made a resolution for every New Year. Hers could be to tone down the anger, since the other characters were afraid of her. No one had outright complained, though, likely because they were too scared to do that.

Auburn’s eyes wandered up and down his odd attire. “What the hell are you wearing? I’ve seen my writer in weird clothes, but…”

Bert frowned. “They’re called jeans. And where’d you learn the word ‘hell’? Aren’t you from a fantasy world?”

“My writer uses the word all the time. Oh, and ‘for the love of all that is good’ and ‘perkele’, although I don’t know what that means.” Her brow creased as she sought other words her writer used to describe her and other unruly characters. “Well, too many to list.”

“Uh, huh... Well, let’s get to know each other, shall we?” He nodded to a thing of muscle and horns. ”You can start.”

“You annoy me, I rip tongue out!” The ogre lifted a club above his head.

“If anyone annoys me, I will rip their tongue out, clean the window with it and insert it in their—” She fell quiet. Everyone stared at her. Even the ogre was giving her a wary glance. Didn’t they recognize creative threating when they heard it? “Why are you looking at me like that?”

The instructor’s mouth hung open, his pen dropped to the floor and rolled to the far end of the room. Silence fell again.

“Overkill.” The ogre muttered.

“Ahem, we’re trying to learn not to use such language.” He walked over to pick up the pen.

Auburn shrugged. “Well, I haven’t learned yet.”

“I see…” Bert gnawed the end of the pen. “Moving on, we’ll now discuss what pushes our buttons.”

“When people interrupt or try outdo me!” The ogre growled.

“Don’t blame others if you can’t come up with better threats than ‘rip’ or ‘tear’.” Auburn snorted as she brushed a curl of hair of her face. The corners of her mouth began to tug upwards, next to the ogre sat a rather handsome pale young man with dark hair. “Hello there.”

The man smiled revealing sharp fangs.

“Look at me when talking to me!” The ogre stood up, his club lifted high.

“No longing gazes here. I’m sure your writers have plans for you—” Bert’s word and possibly life was cut short by the ogre’s club.

“You interrupt me!”

“My writer was paying for this!” Auburn pulled her dress over her head as she changed. Coppery fur covered her body and fingers sharpened into claws as a shriek of fury escaped her maw.

She dodged the ogre’s clumsy swing easily. Her jump landed her atop the beast’s head, her claws scratched futilely the thick skin. The eyes would be vulnerable.

“Stop it!” She heard Bert shout, but it was too late. The rush of battle sang in her blood, nothing could stop her.

“Why is my character bound like Hannibal Lecter?” Emilia’s mouth gaped as Auburn was rolled in. The shapeshifter rolled her eyes. “I know she has a foul mouth, but a muzzle?”

“Your character started a fight with an ogre and almost killed the poor monster. Then she tried to… passionately kiss a vampire. When he tried to bite her, she knocked his teeth out. You’re lucky they have surgery for that nowadays and that the ogre lives,” he drew a deep breath,” otherwise you’d be in deep trouble, missy. Goodbye!”

“Sorry Auburn, I had a chat with my boyfriend and turns out you’re his favourite character.” She pushed her smudgy glasses back up her nose. “It got me thinking, maybe other people will like you too, and if you did tone down your temper you wouldn’t be you anymore.”

“Mmh.”

“I’ll let you go when we’re back in Verannia.” She gnawed her lower lip for a moment before adding, “I don’t want you attacking any characters on the way there.”

“Mmh!” Auburn’s eyes narrowed dangerously.

“And please don’t attack me when I release you?”

“Mmmh…”

“Thank you, Auburn.” Emilia grabbed the handles and began rolling her back into the story.