A picture says a
thousand words. Write them.
Mission: Write a story, a description, a poem, a
metaphor, a commentary, or a critique about this picture. Write something about
this picture.
Be sure to tag writeworld in your
block!
http://writeworld.tumblr.com/post/87391588361/writers-block-a-picture-says-a-thousand-words
The battle raged for what seemed
like days. The light and noise frightened the local villagers so badly that
they abandoned their homes and went up into the mountain to hide in the caves.
When they came back, the village
was damaged; the soldiers had raided it for supplies and valuables but luckily
most of the buildings were still standing. Not like their crops and fruit
trees; they were all destroyed.
The villagers felt justified in
searching through the abandoned camps for anything the armies had left behind.
They buried any bodies to stop disease and ploughed back the churned earth into
straight furrows. They didn’t know which side had won and they didn’t care. It
didn’t make much difference to the day-to-day life of the villagers.
The girl was sent out to find any
stray livestock. The noise had frightened them too and most had startled and
broken the fences the first night. The others probably got eaten.
She had walked quite some way when
found the dead soldier in the ravine; his blue uniform damaged and dirty. He
lay flat on his back with his hand above his head. He looked as if he was
sleeping, but oddly, the earth under his head was blue. As if the colour had
leached out of his uniform and stained it somehow.
She had never seen anyone with
such fine pale skin and delicate features. His hair was even light coloured,
almost silver. The colour looked like some of the old people in the village but
his skin was not wrinkled or aged. She leaned down to look closer and noticed
that the hair in his eyelashes and brows was dark. Had something happened to
him to lighten his hair? Or, like she knew some women did, did he dye it?
He looked so different that she
wanted to touch him. His features were as fine as glass. She touched his cheek
and was not surprised that he felt cold. Then she brushed a fingertip over his
eyebrow and jumped back a foot when the eye opened. He wasn’t dead.
He tried to speak, but only
croaked something she didn’t comprehend but she did understand. Water.
Carefully she poured drops from
her drinking flask into his mouth. His colour improved immediately. And it
seemed to get more blue, especially his hair. Once he had the water
inside him, he rolled over and as the skin of his face touched the blue puddle,
it sucked up the blue hue from the ground.
She blinked. “What w-was that?”
He understood that. It took him
some time to find the words, as if hers was a language he seldom used. “My...
blessing? No... gift... manna?” he tried.
She was confused. “It’s
magic?”
He nodded.
“And it kept you alive?”
Another nod. “The fight, no battle.
Who won?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.
They’re all gone.”
With a groan, he threw his body
back on the ground.
“Don’t do that! You’ll hurt
yourself.”
He rolled onto his side and curled
up. “Let me die.”
“You can’t stay here,” she said.
“Someone will find you.”
“I... don’t care.”
“Well, I do.”
He glanced at her. “Spoils of
war?” he said in his own language and then he laughed.
She frowned at him, suspecting he
had made a joke at her expense.
“Fine.” He took a deep breath, but
it hurt him to do it. “I am yours.” His hand reached out to her. “Help me
move.”
Racking her brain, she was trying
to think where she could hide him, and bring food and water without raising
suspicion. The shepherd’s hut might work.
It wasn’t until later that night,
when she was in her own bed and sleep evaded her that she started to worry if
she had even done the right thing.
~~~~
© AM Gray 2014
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