Sunday December 9th, 2018

The exercise:

Write about: the gift basket.

2 comments:

Greg said...

Well, I very much like how you left Empires, though Morganna may yet join us in saying farewell to the characters, so it may not yet the complete end. I was actually expecting you to send Ben and David on their way, so finding them all still together was quite a nice surprise. The last few lines... well, that was a bigger surprise still. It seems like there's still more tales to tell there.
This time round has been fun, it's felt a little more like we're getting the hang of writing to a 12-month schedule, and the pacing felt a little tighter. Some years we've ended up rushing the ending -- in fact, I think back when we started with Mejaran we ended up rushing a little.
I think my favourite parts were probably meeting the Marias, who are very memorable characters, and... well, your last post :)

Right, I haven't got a lot of time, so no Derby today.

The gift basket
"Is there caffeine in this wine?" asked Uruk. He sniffed it: it was sweet, and almost cherry scented, and was a brighter red in his glass than he felt a wine should be. He tilted the bottle slightly so that the label was more legible in the light. "There's... der rote Stier in here? What's that?"
"Permitted additives," said the elf smoothly. "What's in your bag?"
Uruk shifted on his stool and casually kicked his bag further under the table. It squelched.
"Only it's dripping," said the elf.
"A gift basket," said Uruk with obvious reluctance. He looked down at the floor, but when he looked up again the elf was still watching him. "There was a beholder in Duke Yggdrasia's tower, and they always have the best gift baskets."
More silence, until Uruk felt compelled to break it again. "There's some lovely eyeball flowers in there," he said.
"Whose eyeballs?"
"Goblin, mostly," said Uruk, and refused to say any more on the matter. After five minutes of waiting, the elf gave up.
"Enjoying the wine?" he asked.
"Chablis?" said Uruk. "With this rote Stier. It's... fruity."


Marc said...

Greg - thanks, I'm quite happy with how it played out as well. And yes, I could see coming back to it. Still pondering how next year will play out, but now I'm thinking about monthly visitations to all our previous yearly tales, maybe taking them in turn. Maybe running with one for a while if momentum appears. We shall see.

Hah, thank you for the caffeine reference with the wine :) Also: I like the back and forth between these two :D