I realized this evening that while I have a fairly clear picture of how I want to start my post, I have no idea of how to finish it. So I'm going to give it another day's thought and hopefully post something Monday night.
I'm assuming this means that the rest of us are free to add to the Dream Kingdom, and hopefully inspire you? If not you'll have to delete this post (which is not a problem if you do!) and I'll add something after yours :)
Mine: "That sounds like something out of Lord... of... the Rings," said Josh. His words slowed down and his face became blank. "I think you've broken him," said Olivia. "Which one of us gets to be Prince Reimar next?" King Brekstan smiled. "Sit down," he said. "There are a lot of memories to come back, I don't think it's really surprising that Reimar is taking a while to assimilate them. Why don't you tell me about yourselves while we wait?" "I think we ought to plan how we're going to get out of here," said Olivia. "We're all together at least, and we know where the enemy is." "All around us," said King Brekstan mildly. "Very well, let's plan an escape. Did Nystor say why we'd been kidnapped this time? Please don't tell me he was telling people that my mother was a washerwoman and I had no legitimate claim to the throne again." Dylan drew out a chair from the table and sat down, keeping one eye on Josh who looked as though he was talking to himself under his breath. "He said that the whole Dream Kingdom could be remade if you and Reimar were both killed," he said. "And then the fish-people-" "The Islanders," interrupted Brekstan. "–yeah, them, they could recreate the world how they wanted it." "How?" "What?" "How? If everything's been unmade, who's going to remake the world the way they want it?" Dylan frowned, trying to remember everything Nystor had said. He could remember a frozen lake and a lecture on shells, but... "I don't know," he said. "I don't think Nystor got to that bit." "He kept lecturing us," said Olivia. "Like we were children." Brekstan's hand covered his mouth briefly as he scratched his nose, which might have concealed a smile. "He does have a tendency to go on a bit," he said. "Well, he did have a tendency to go on a bit. I suppose that's over now." "Can the Islanders sort of... set things up so that everything gets created the way they like before they destroy everything?" asked Olivia. "Like, they imagine the world destroyed but they're still here so they can reimagine it back together again?" "I doubt it," said Brekstan. "The Islanders first of all don't use magic much -- they don't trust it a great deal, and of course they live out here where it's erratic at best and unrealiable most of the time. The magic they do use tends to be simple and direct, so that if it goes wrong it's easy to fix. Destroying and recreating a world doesn't sound simple to me. Nystor might have thought differently I suppose." "So are they going to destroy the world then?" Dylan was looking more and more confused. "And if not, why are we prisoners?" "All questions best put to Nystor," said Brekstan with a sigh. "I wouldn't put it past him to have given them something that could destroy the world though. He would probably have been assuming that he'd be around to control it, so we'd all end up with a world that Nystor like. Probably one with him as some kind of demi-god."
Dylan and Olivia thought about that. "There'd be a lot of lectures, wouldn't there?" said Olivia. "Church would not be fun," said Dylan. "You think?" said Josh. Everyone turned and looked at him. His face had animated again, and he looked somehow older than he had before, and was standing more confidantly. He looked at Brekstan, and bowed. "Father," he said, sounding a little formal. "It's been a while." "Reimar," said Brekstan warmly. He stood up and hugged his son. "It's been far too long, I've missed you. I wish we'd managed to bring you back in slightly better circumstances though. This isn't really how I'd expected our reunion to go." "Nor I," said Reimar. "I think I can remember intending to bring you a gift back with me, but I seem to have forgotten it." "Ah, but this young lady is gift enough, said Brekstan, gesturing to Olivia. She blushed, and then immediately scowled, furious with herself for blushing. "Dad," said Reimar sounding as embarrassed as Olivia. "Stop it. Anyway, I do seem to have brought something back, but I don't think it was my doing. Nystor seems to have wrapped some spell around me. I can perceive it, but I can't see what it does." Brekstan took a step backwards. "Ah," he said thoughtfully. He looked at Olivia. "And you say Nystor wanted to destroy and remake the world?" Everyone turned a little pale. "I'm a time-bomb?" said Reimar, and Dylan was sure he could hear Josh's voice in there behind the Prince's. "Possibly," said Brekstan. "Or you might be how Nystor was planning on remaking the world again, so you might be exactly what we need if the Islanders really are going to destroy us. It's sort of hard to tell." Dylan squinted at Reimar. "I can't see anything," he said finally. "Are you sure?" "We're in the magic-suppressing tower," said Olivia. "Don't to listen to anything you're told?" "Not when it's Nystor lecturing again," said Dylan. "Then how come Josh can see it?" Reimar pulled a strand of seaweed from the ropes that had been binding him from his arm, and concentrated. It stiffened and became silvery, and looked sharp. "Nothing's suppressing my magic," he said. Both Dylan and Olivia immediately got looks of concentration on their faces, but nothing happened. "It's just you," said Dylan trying not to sound disappointed and failing. "This is definitely Nystor's doing," said Brekstan. "I wonder what the old fool had in mind?
[Hopefully this doesn't change things too much that you'll have to rewrite or rethink anything!]
All right, god damn Marc, let's get on with this already.
Mine:
"Whatever it was," Reimar said as he tested the balance of his weapon, "he's made sure that I will be our way out of here."
"That's going to be a lot of bodies," Dylan said, staring at the door. "And a lot of blood."
"Well, what do you want to do?" Olivia demanded. "Would you rather them kill us?"
"No, Dylan's right." Brekstan looked as though he had a bad headache coming on. "If we go that way we will leave enough Islanders in our wake that they could be stacked higher than this tower. Those that remained would be ruthless and inexhaustible in their vengeance."
"You got a better idea?" Olivia threw her hands up in frustration. "That's the only way out of here as far as I can see."
"There is always another way," Reimar said as he turned slowly in place, examining the room inch by inch. "And in this case... it is through that wall."
"And how are we..." Dylan began before trailing off as Reimar strode to the wall he had just pointed toward. The silvery weapon was a whirling blur in his hands and he was muttering something too quiet for the others to make out.
"Stand back." Brekstan wasn't panicking, but there was enough urgency in his voice to get Dylan and Olivia to the opposite side of the room in a scrambling few seconds.
"What's on the other side?" Dylan asked as the blades of Reimar's weapon made contact with the stone wall. Dylan winced, expecting screeching or something worse, but they made barely a whisper as they began gouging a circular hole.
"The sea," Brekstan said with a small shrug. "And here it comes now..."
"So... what now?" Dylan asked. They were standing on a beach that appeared to have not hosted visitors in several years, everyone trying to ring water out of their clothing. Aside from Reimar, who had somehow remained perfectly dry during their wild flight over the sea. "What comes next?"
"If I'm not mistaken," Reimar began with a sad smile, "it is time for you to return to your homes."
"Our what now?" Olivia asked.
"What's going to happen here?" Dylan asked. "And... does Josh get to go home too?"
"The Dream Kingdom shall continue on as it always has," Brekstan said, spreading his arms wide. "The Islanders will try to seize control. We will stop them. Over and over and over again. Until, perhaps, the day comes when we will not."
"As for your friend," Reimar said, "I will send him back with you. This is not his home, nor is it his war. Despite what he's going on about inside my head right now."
"So that's it? You'll just... send us back?" Olivia asked. "We'll wake up in our beds like none of this ever really happened?"
"Will we... will we remember any of this?" Dylan asked.
"That is up to you," Reimar said. "I can preserve your memories of this place and your time here if you wish. Or all traces of what you've seen and done can be wiped clean. It is your choice."
"We'll need to agree," Olivia told Dylan. "No way can one of us remember and the other doesn't."
"No, that would be a recipe for going completely nuts," Dylan agreed.
"I don't mean to rush you," Reimar said with an apologetic smile, "but your time is running out. Nystor was not lying about the time limit - I need to release you before your stay here becomes permanent. And yes, Josh, that would be a bad thing."
"Right." Olivia looked at Dylan. "I can't imagine forgetting all of this."
"I don't want to," Dylan told her before turning to Reimar and Brekstan. "One last question though?"
"Of course," Reimar replied, just as Brekstan said, "It's the least we could do after all you've done."
Fantastic work! (Well, as always :) ) I will have a look this weekend and see if there's anything left for me to add, but I did enjoy Reimar's consideration of the problem and Brekmar's recognition that some things are just cyclical.... I think you even handled the problem of what exactly happened to Josh rather elegantly; I kind of chucked him into limbo with the Reimar revelation, so thank-you for that. I've sent you an email (Eloosive) with what I'm thinking of for the year-long prompt; please take a look and see what you think. As I say in the email it might be a bit too odd to work, in which case I'm happy to think of something else. Oh, and thank-you for letting me pick the prompt again!
Dylan woke because he fell out of bed. The sheet and duvet tangled him up, slowing the fall and only just bumping him on the floor, but it shocked him awake. He flipped over quickly, instantly worried, and then stared at the ceiling trying to understand where he was. He ought to be standing on a beach, feeling cold and wet.... On the other side of his bed his mobile started singing a Katy Perry song -- the ring tone he used for Olivia because it annoyed her. Suddenly it didn't seem quite so funny as it had when he'd first chosen it. He struggled free and answered the phone, noticing that the light through the curtains suggested it was probably late morning. "What took you so long to answer?" demanded Olivia. "I was starting to think you'd figured out a way to stay behind." "No," said Dylan. He rubbed his chest; it was covered in fine sea salt. "No, I just fell out bed before you rang." Olivia burst into laughter. "Yeah, yeah, well I up now. You're calling because you remember it all, right?" "Yes," said Olivia. "I'll call Josh now, make sure he made it back." "Let me know," said Dylan. "I don't really understand what happened with Reimar and him there at the end." Olivia rang off and Dylan opened the curtains, wondering how long he'd have to wait before Olivia was off the phone and he could call Josh himself. He looked out, then looked at the time on his phone. "How the hell did it get to be 4pm?" he wondered out loud.
***
Monday, the three of them gathered in the middle of their Physics classroom, dropping their bags on the fourth desk in the row of four so that they'd have the row to themselves. They were still talking through everything that had happened and trying to remember it all; Dylan had being trying to dream himself back there and had no luck, and he was sure Olivia was trying too. They were deep in conversation about the magic sword that had frozen the lake when the teacher walked in and asked for silence in a voice they recognised but weren't expecting. Shocked, they looked up -- their usual teacher, Mr. Gambit, was not the man at the front of the room. Instead there was an elderly man with a beard, a tweed suit that looked like it belonged in a previous century, and a briefcase with familiar symbols on it. "Quiet class," said Nystor, a strange smile on his face. "I want to talk to you today about the laws of physics and how they interact with imagination."
[OK, so it seems I couldn't leave him complete dead after I killed him... sue me :-P]
Greg - I would say, without getting into too much hyperbole, that this is the absolutely perfect ending for this story. Thank you for this. It feels so much better leaving it here than where I'd stopped.
And so another yearlong prompt can be marked... complete.
9 comments:
I realized this evening that while I have a fairly clear picture of how I want to start my post, I have no idea of how to finish it. So I'm going to give it another day's thought and hopefully post something Monday night.
I'm assuming this means that the rest of us are free to add to the Dream Kingdom, and hopefully inspire you? If not you'll have to delete this post (which is not a problem if you do!) and I'll add something after yours :)
Mine:
"That sounds like something out of Lord... of... the Rings," said Josh. His words slowed down and his face became blank.
"I think you've broken him," said Olivia. "Which one of us gets to be Prince Reimar next?"
King Brekstan smiled. "Sit down," he said. "There are a lot of memories to come back, I don't think it's really surprising that Reimar is taking a while to assimilate them. Why don't you tell me about yourselves while we wait?"
"I think we ought to plan how we're going to get out of here," said Olivia. "We're all together at least, and we know where the enemy is."
"All around us," said King Brekstan mildly. "Very well, let's plan an escape. Did Nystor say why we'd been kidnapped this time? Please don't tell me he was telling people that my mother was a washerwoman and I had no legitimate claim to the throne again."
Dylan drew out a chair from the table and sat down, keeping one eye on Josh who looked as though he was talking to himself under his breath.
"He said that the whole Dream Kingdom could be remade if you and Reimar were both killed," he said. "And then the fish-people-"
"The Islanders," interrupted Brekstan.
"–yeah, them, they could recreate the world how they wanted it."
"How?"
"What?"
"How? If everything's been unmade, who's going to remake the world the way they want it?"
Dylan frowned, trying to remember everything Nystor had said. He could remember a frozen lake and a lecture on shells, but...
"I don't know," he said. "I don't think Nystor got to that bit."
"He kept lecturing us," said Olivia. "Like we were children."
Brekstan's hand covered his mouth briefly as he scratched his nose, which might have concealed a smile. "He does have a tendency to go on a bit," he said. "Well, he did have a tendency to go on a bit. I suppose that's over now."
"Can the Islanders sort of... set things up so that everything gets created the way they like before they destroy everything?" asked Olivia. "Like, they imagine the world destroyed but they're still here so they can reimagine it back together again?"
"I doubt it," said Brekstan. "The Islanders first of all don't use magic much -- they don't trust it a great deal, and of course they live out here where it's erratic at best and unrealiable most of the time. The magic they do use tends to be simple and direct, so that if it goes wrong it's easy to fix. Destroying and recreating a world doesn't sound simple to me. Nystor might have thought differently I suppose."
"So are they going to destroy the world then?" Dylan was looking more and more confused. "And if not, why are we prisoners?"
"All questions best put to Nystor," said Brekstan with a sigh. "I wouldn't put it past him to have given them something that could destroy the world though. He would probably have been assuming that he'd be around to control it, so we'd all end up with a world that Nystor like. Probably one with him as some kind of demi-god."
Dylan and Olivia thought about that.
"There'd be a lot of lectures, wouldn't there?" said Olivia.
"Church would not be fun," said Dylan.
"You think?" said Josh.
Everyone turned and looked at him. His face had animated again, and he looked somehow older than he had before, and was standing more confidantly. He looked at Brekstan, and bowed. "Father," he said, sounding a little formal. "It's been a while."
"Reimar," said Brekstan warmly. He stood up and hugged his son. "It's been far too long, I've missed you. I wish we'd managed to bring you back in slightly better circumstances though. This isn't really how I'd expected our reunion to go."
"Nor I," said Reimar. "I think I can remember intending to bring you a gift back with me, but I seem to have forgotten it."
"Ah, but this young lady is gift enough, said Brekstan, gesturing to Olivia. She blushed, and then immediately scowled, furious with herself for blushing.
"Dad," said Reimar sounding as embarrassed as Olivia. "Stop it. Anyway, I do seem to have brought something back, but I don't think it was my doing. Nystor seems to have wrapped some spell around me. I can perceive it, but I can't see what it does."
Brekstan took a step backwards. "Ah," he said thoughtfully. He looked at Olivia. "And you say Nystor wanted to destroy and remake the world?"
Everyone turned a little pale.
"I'm a time-bomb?" said Reimar, and Dylan was sure he could hear Josh's voice in there behind the Prince's.
"Possibly," said Brekstan. "Or you might be how Nystor was planning on remaking the world again, so you might be exactly what we need if the Islanders really are going to destroy us. It's sort of hard to tell."
Dylan squinted at Reimar. "I can't see anything," he said finally. "Are you sure?"
"We're in the magic-suppressing tower," said Olivia. "Don't to listen to anything you're told?"
"Not when it's Nystor lecturing again," said Dylan. "Then how come Josh can see it?"
Reimar pulled a strand of seaweed from the ropes that had been binding him from his arm, and concentrated. It stiffened and became silvery, and looked sharp.
"Nothing's suppressing my magic," he said.
Both Dylan and Olivia immediately got looks of concentration on their faces, but nothing happened.
"It's just you," said Dylan trying not to sound disappointed and failing.
"This is definitely Nystor's doing," said Brekstan. "I wonder what the old fool had in mind?
[Hopefully this doesn't change things too much that you'll have to rewrite or rethink anything!]
All right, god damn Marc, let's get on with this already.
Mine:
"Whatever it was," Reimar said as he tested the balance of his weapon, "he's made sure that I will be our way out of here."
"That's going to be a lot of bodies," Dylan said, staring at the door. "And a lot of blood."
"Well, what do you want to do?" Olivia demanded. "Would you rather them kill us?"
"No, Dylan's right." Brekstan looked as though he had a bad headache coming on. "If we go that way we will leave enough Islanders in our wake that they could be stacked higher than this tower. Those that remained would be ruthless and inexhaustible in their vengeance."
"You got a better idea?" Olivia threw her hands up in frustration. "That's the only way out of here as far as I can see."
"There is always another way," Reimar said as he turned slowly in place, examining the room inch by inch. "And in this case... it is through that wall."
"And how are we..." Dylan began before trailing off as Reimar strode to the wall he had just pointed toward. The silvery weapon was a whirling blur in his hands and he was muttering something too quiet for the others to make out.
"Stand back." Brekstan wasn't panicking, but there was enough urgency in his voice to get Dylan and Olivia to the opposite side of the room in a scrambling few seconds.
"What's on the other side?" Dylan asked as the blades of Reimar's weapon made contact with the stone wall. Dylan winced, expecting screeching or something worse, but they made barely a whisper as they began gouging a circular hole.
"The sea," Brekstan said with a small shrug. "And here it comes now..."
* * *
"So... what now?" Dylan asked. They were standing on a beach that appeared to have not hosted visitors in several years, everyone trying to ring water out of their clothing. Aside from Reimar, who had somehow remained perfectly dry during their wild flight over the sea. "What comes next?"
"If I'm not mistaken," Reimar began with a sad smile, "it is time for you to return to your homes."
"Our what now?" Olivia asked.
"What's going to happen here?" Dylan asked. "And... does Josh get to go home too?"
"The Dream Kingdom shall continue on as it always has," Brekstan said, spreading his arms wide. "The Islanders will try to seize control. We will stop them. Over and over and over again. Until, perhaps, the day comes when we will not."
"As for your friend," Reimar said, "I will send him back with you. This is not his home, nor is it his war. Despite what he's going on about inside my head right now."
"So that's it? You'll just... send us back?" Olivia asked. "We'll wake up in our beds like none of this ever really happened?"
"Will we... will we remember any of this?" Dylan asked.
"That is up to you," Reimar said. "I can preserve your memories of this place and your time here if you wish. Or all traces of what you've seen and done can be wiped clean. It is your choice."
"We'll need to agree," Olivia told Dylan. "No way can one of us remember and the other doesn't."
"No, that would be a recipe for going completely nuts," Dylan agreed.
"I don't mean to rush you," Reimar said with an apologetic smile, "but your time is running out. Nystor was not lying about the time limit - I need to release you before your stay here becomes permanent. And yes, Josh, that would be a bad thing."
"Right." Olivia looked at Dylan. "I can't imagine forgetting all of this."
"I don't want to," Dylan told her before turning to Reimar and Brekstan. "One last question though?"
"Of course," Reimar replied, just as Brekstan said, "It's the least we could do after all you've done."
"Will we be able to come back?"
Greg - you're welcome to add to this if you wish. Or we can leave it here. Either way is fine with me.
Also: 2018 has arrived. I do believe it is your turn for the yearlong prompt. Shall we aim for January 10th for it to begin?
You don't need to send it to me before hand, just have something ready to go by then. Let me know if there any issues with that.
Fantastic work! (Well, as always :) ) I will have a look this weekend and see if there's anything left for me to add, but I did enjoy Reimar's consideration of the problem and Brekmar's recognition that some things are just cyclical.... I think you even handled the problem of what exactly happened to Josh rather elegantly; I kind of chucked him into limbo with the Reimar revelation, so thank-you for that.
I've sent you an email (Eloosive) with what I'm thinking of for the year-long prompt; please take a look and see what you think. As I say in the email it might be a bit too odd to work, in which case I'm happy to think of something else. Oh, and thank-you for letting me pick the prompt again!
Dylan woke because he fell out of bed. The sheet and duvet tangled him up, slowing the fall and only just bumping him on the floor, but it shocked him awake. He flipped over quickly, instantly worried, and then stared at the ceiling trying to understand where he was. He ought to be standing on a beach, feeling cold and wet....
On the other side of his bed his mobile started singing a Katy Perry song -- the ring tone he used for Olivia because it annoyed her. Suddenly it didn't seem quite so funny as it had when he'd first chosen it. He struggled free and answered the phone, noticing that the light through the curtains suggested it was probably late morning.
"What took you so long to answer?" demanded Olivia. "I was starting to think you'd figured out a way to stay behind."
"No," said Dylan. He rubbed his chest; it was covered in fine sea salt. "No, I just fell out bed before you rang." Olivia burst into laughter. "Yeah, yeah, well I up now. You're calling because you remember it all, right?"
"Yes," said Olivia. "I'll call Josh now, make sure he made it back."
"Let me know," said Dylan. "I don't really understand what happened with Reimar and him there at the end."
Olivia rang off and Dylan opened the curtains, wondering how long he'd have to wait before Olivia was off the phone and he could call Josh himself. He looked out, then looked at the time on his phone.
"How the hell did it get to be 4pm?" he wondered out loud.
***
Monday, the three of them gathered in the middle of their Physics classroom, dropping their bags on the fourth desk in the row of four so that they'd have the row to themselves. They were still talking through everything that had happened and trying to remember it all; Dylan had being trying to dream himself back there and had no luck, and he was sure Olivia was trying too. They were deep in conversation about the magic sword that had frozen the lake when the teacher walked in and asked for silence in a voice they recognised but weren't expecting. Shocked, they looked up -- their usual teacher, Mr. Gambit, was not the man at the front of the room. Instead there was an elderly man with a beard, a tweed suit that looked like it belonged in a previous century, and a briefcase with familiar symbols on it.
"Quiet class," said Nystor, a strange smile on his face. "I want to talk to you today about the laws of physics and how they interact with imagination."
[OK, so it seems I couldn't leave him complete dead after I killed him... sue me :-P]
Greg - I would say, without getting into too much hyperbole, that this is the absolutely perfect ending for this story. Thank you for this. It feels so much better leaving it here than where I'd stopped.
And so another yearlong prompt can be marked... complete.
Post a Comment