Saturday, June 30, 2012

Cast Your Spell

As a get to know you exercise for the Literary+ group over on Google+, we wrote a fun bio about ourselves then were paired up to write a 300 word flashfiction based on our partner's bio. I was paired with the delightful Sanna Caduri and this is what she gave me for her bio:

"Sanna is of the weird kind.
She usually doesn't go into her head alone, because it's scary in there.

Writing is an essential part of Sanna's life. In one way or another she is always writing.
She's a witch and if you think that writing fantasy is a cliché, screw you. :p
In her stories the princesses are most likely to kill you, Beauty and the Beast will find themselves in the same body.

Short stories are Sanna's favorites, but she is also working on bigger projects right now.
Or, should be working on them. ;)"


And here's my flash (297words):

Even deep into the night, the west wind blew hot across the open plain. Her hair danced in a wild tangle that glinted white streaks of moonlight like glyphs floating around her head. She climbed a small rise and cast her gaze across the fields. A smile flitted across her lips as she lifted her arms; eyes shut, head tilted back and palms open to the sky in supplication.

Curled at her feet lay the great feline Dawon, named after the goddess Durga’s fierce mount. The weight of his mighty presence a comfort as she prepared the way.

Her breath slowed in time with the gusting wind. Her heartbeat sped to match the lusty cries of the field crickets. Dawon stood and leaned heavily into her leg; he grounded her even as the earth opened up around them. She screamed as the power pulsed up through her feet and out her palms.

The sweet agony of creation coursed in her veins like icy streams of bitter cold. She opened her eyes. Light glared out from empty sockets scorching the fields within her view. She clapped her hands once overhead. Once at her chest. And once at the lowest reach of her arms.

The place beyond opened with a great tearing of reality, which bled out in anguished cries of sorrow or terrible suffering. The gash grew wide and she laughed. Laughed with joyful abandon at what she had wrought. Dawon nudged her dangling hand with his great head.

“Only out of destruction can there be renewal,” she said calmly, though existence shrieked around them. “Even we must follow at the end of it.”

Dawon’s rumbling purr, like the crashing of distant waves, acknowledged her words. He knew, as she knew, they’d craft another world in due time.