Thursday September 26th, 2019

The exercise:

Write about: outside influence.

I dunno, just seems... timely.

2 comments:

Greg said...

You're dropping hints about things happening again :) Catch up with comments so you can tell me about it!

Outside influence
Pestilence let go of the end of the rope, a blue nylon climbing rope that he’d picked up from the climbing-supplies store in the middle of Ezcaray, and dropped the last metre and a half to the rocky surface. The cavern stretched out around him on three sides; on the fourth the roof sloped dramatically downwards and only stopped thirty centimetres above the ground. If you were a snake or a small dog you might fit through, but even well-greased humans with the incentive of an angry cave bear chasing them would fail to get inside the gap.
There was a small yip that Pestilence felt carried more than a hint of pride, and Hilda trotted out from under the roof there. She had something in her mouth; it struggled feebly and she shook her head sharply, jerking it from side to side. Something clicked, a tiny sound that seemed loud in the silence of the cavern, and whatever it was died. For a moment Pestilence felt like there was something watching, an outside influence seeking a way in, but he pushed it aside.
“Good girl,” said Pestilence. He reached out to pat her, but Hilda, wary that he was trying to take her prize off her, leaned away from him. He stood up again, and waited for the rest of the gang to climb down the rope.
“—u’ll get rope buuuuurns” drifted down from somewhere high above, and then Famine slid down the rope at top speed, his hands and knees not actually touching it but just fractionally above the surface. Tiny blue flashes along the length of the rope gave an indication that he could be going faster still, and then he stopped at almost exactly the same point Pestilence had, his feet level with Pestilence’s head, and dropped off the end of the rope.
“Scuffles is a bit of a nervous nelly, fam,” said Famine. “Why’d you let him pick up all the climbing gear? Spill the tea sis, it’s steaming.”
“He did the heavy lifting, dad,” said Pestilence. Famine winced, and Pest shrugged. “He got the two guys running the shop to get grumpy enough that they decided to take it out back and see which of them was lint. While they were doing that we rifled and he wanted early Christmas presents, so he got the full sack. Mummy?”
Famine patted Pestilence’s shoulder. “I would say you shouldn’t even try,” he said, “but actually, it’s like you’re giving a disease to the language. It’s very you, sis. Keep it up.”
“Keep what up?” War knuckled down the rope as athletically as a gorilla, and if he didn’t currently look like Thor on steroids he might have fitted that description as well. “Where’s the dog?”
Hilda yipped again, slightly muffled as she was still carrying the dead thing she’d found, and War smiled. “Good girl,” he said, his voice astonishingly quiet and gentle. “Now where’s the kid?”
“Still up the rope,” said Famine. “He was doing things with carabiners.”
War looked puzzled. “The locals?”
“Ha, no sis, metal clip things that go with the ropes.”
War looked even more puzzled. “Is that a fetish thing? This isn’t a holiday, he can’t just go off and sex with stuff until we’ve finished sorting out the Infanta.”
“No si—”
“—Imagine if he tried having sex with the Infanta,” said Pestilence, interrupting. Famine cut off, and all three pondered this for a moment.
“Fine,” said War. “He can play with his clips and ropes then if it keeps him out of trouble.” He jerked the end of the rope, and called up, “Scuffles! Get down here! Now!”

Marc said...

Greg - eh, this one was just Trump related. Amazingly, three weeks later, he's still in power.

Pest's attempts to keep up with Fam are delightful. And War... continues to be War in the most wonderful ways :)