As some of you may know, since last thursday, Venezuela suffered a national blackout that left about 99% of the country without electricity for close to 100 hours (about 4 days), after which the electric power came back, but unstable, not staying ok until yesterday, and at least for me, internet conection didn't came back until this very morning.
Why am I telling this?, well, since 2019 started, I promised myself that I would write the 
As such, here there are the freewrites from friday 8 (504), to wednesday 13 (509), no link to the prompt post because well, I'm treating this as a compilation rather that and answer to those individual post. I hope they are enoyable.
Friday 08, Prompt 504: “Jiterry”
He had always been smart and quite curious, just not very daring, and as such, in his town there weren’t many stories about him doing something worth mentioning, apart from the few basic spells he managed to make. He was just the son of the town’s doctor and teacher, the boy who always carried a book around and to whom you could always ask some random fact about any random stuff and receive a correct answer. But this time he had something in mind, this time the book was more advanced than usual.
He sat in front of an old tree, big and with a thick bark, just a few leaves left. It was said that hundredths of years ago this tree gave shadow and rest to the Legendary Hero Sienom Vol during his travels, and if that was true, it probably was the only being still living that had direct contact with the man, other than the High Druids of Whitehorn. He doubly and triple checked the procedure, everything was fine, from the runes around the tree, the strategically placed mounds of metallic dust and the Chestnut Oil lamp burning in front of him. Just one thing left to do.
The thin blade got close to his left hand, the right one jittery until the very moment the edge cut through the first layer of skin, and the some more until blood started coming out. Wincing in pain, the boy let some drops fall right into the Ignition Rune. From there, each and every marking on the floor lightened up, and the acute smell of the metal dust formed tendrils of smoke that mixed with the aroma of the chestnut oil, and then surrounded the old tree before concentrating in the shape of a face right in front of him. The smoke was absorbed but the face stayed, and after a tense second, the eyes and the mouth opened, and the plant asked: “who are you boy?, I was sleeping so well before being bothered…”.
Saturday 09, “Marguerite, A Weekend Freewrite”
Spring rolled around, and it occurred to me that I hadn’t been home in two years. Everything looked the same, but this was the kind of place where change happened slowly, so it wasn’t a surprise. The yellow leaves of our regional symbol crowned the top of the trees that populated the townsquare where I was reunited with my old playmates, boys and girls proud of their humble origin, but also eager to know more about the life in the capital, and about why I had such heavy bags under my eyes.
I said because of heavy studying, which frequently also consumed the hours after sundown, but they had their own explanation in mind: the famous nightlife of Lyss, and the many bedsheet adventures a person with coin and/or charm could have. I tried to negate that, but my blushing cheeks invalidated any arguments, so they pried and pried, interested in knowing if I finally “popped my cherry”. It seems that the still didn’t know anything about Sarah and I, and it was better that way; also, I did have a brothel story I could tell.
“If I get into bed with you guys, I lose my clients”, she had told us, the woman with long and curly red hair the shade of hot copper, with eyes as icy as a white dragon’s heart, but the loveliest voice and demeanor possible, at least for those who didn’t make her mad. Marguerite was the star of “Skyward Manor”, the most luxurious pleasure house in the capital, and not-so-secret outlet for leisure spending and the ruin of our most humble Bards. She was beautiful, smart, a pleasant company and if the boasting of some upperclassmen was true, blessed by the Goddess of Love Herself, and even when on her free time, she liked to chat with anyone, including random academy students like the group I was with.
They may had been too insistent on a discount, so her comment wasn’t as mean as it could, but even then she apologized and explained, after looking around, for some reason. Skyward Manor was a complex business, based, between other things, on reputation and the jealousy of patrons. “Some of them, as nice as they may act, think of the girls in the manor as just trophies, to be abandoned if they ever associate with people of lesser category than them”, hard truth, but something to be expected. Nevertheless, in her eyes I could see something more, and I definitely stared too much because she caught me looking and winked at me.
“Was that everything?” my childhood friends asked, sounding disappointed, and I said yes. But that wasn’t all, while they started gossiping again about future marriages, my mind went back towards Marguerite, and the note she somehow left inside my bag, “In the catacombs by the Rosewood District, entering trough a trapdoor in the abandoned theater, far back in the tunnel, say what I drank today three times. See you there”
That night had many things going on, and between other things, I learned about the true complexity of Skyward Manor’s business, and the bindings that kept Marguerite and other girls tied to it, under the watchful eye of shady people that mixed Old Magic with basic instincts to accumulate power.
Sunday 10, Prompt 506: “Meditate”
A veil of darkness is well received this time, because it makes room for the solitude needed to talk with oneself. A conversation like this was needed, the master told her disciple, it was the first step in the young elf’s chosen path, and she will have to repeat it many times in the future, of that the white haired woman was sure.
Now, no distractions, no incense or calming music other than an almost absolute silence that let Caelynn hear her own breathing, feel her heartbeats in the pulsing of the veins in her neck. No, she was still too nervous, she needed the stillness of that poem’s pond before the frog jumped in, because the answers would only come after she was a place that invited them in.
Breath. Breath Caelynn. She calmed herself enough to not feel the blackness beyond her eyelids, just the one inside them. Time didn’t exist, she breathed. Space didn’t exist, she breathed. Her body started to feel light, and the darkness around little by little dissipated into a pristine white void, no up or down, left or right, but she felt fine, at peace. A silhouette appeared in front of her. The frog jumped into the pond, she could ask her doubts away.
Monday 11, Prompt 507: “Hunger”
They were walking the streets of yet another city of that sun-beaten country. People looked at them warily, with their sunken eyes and thin body frames giving away the general misery of living in a tropical land infested with the winds of a dying revolution that tried to change things for the better. Few people, mostly sick or injured ones, with the healthy young and adults joining the rebellion, and the rest running away to where they thought they were safe.
But they were never quite safe, Fabricia knew that, war reached to them either directly or trough cuts in food and water supplies, because even the innocents had to pay, all to keep resources away from the rebels and in the hands of the kindom’s soldiers, including the band of mercenaries she belonged to, the Raging Drakes.
This time they weren’t ordered to kill, they were just passing through, but in the eyes of her companions, she could see the barely contained bloodlust, a kind of hunger so different that the one who made happy children into bony specters walking the streets, searching for anything to desperately put into their mouths. Was this fair?, she knew it wasn’t, but since when was the world always fair?, she had to block her mind of this, block her soul from this, and keep walking, and hope that all would be over soon.
Tuesday 12, Prompt 508: “Beads”
Everything was blurry, but he kept going forward, the walls were made of stone, that much he could tell, but not much more. How he came here he couldn’t tell, but staying wasn’t an option, there was something to reach at the end of the hallway, and there was something to run away from.
Fast, faster because a feeling of dread was eating him away, and ghostly images of blades and a symbol chased him from behind every corner he passed. Sweat in his forehead and a curse for every little cobblestone that threatened to make him fall. Ahead, something was shining, from beyond where the hallway ended.
He reached an open space, with an elevated altar of shorts in the back. He still heard the ghostly threat getting close, but in front of him, four things made him feel safe, complete. Two pairs of floating beads of light, a couple green and a couple purple went right towards him, towards his eyes.
He woke up. No random nightmare, he knew. The symbol that chased, those colors that entered him, he hoped to decipher before it was too late.
Wednesday 13, Prompt 509: “Pound Cake"
He craved it, he need it. For as much variety and deliciousness as the Academy’s buffet had, there was one thing that it lacked, and it was just the thing that Sebastian wanted more than anything else right now.
It was comfort made food, a cloud of simple deliciousness made with a pound of four ingredients: flour, whole eggs, butter and sugar. Just that, an oven and a potent hand to mix them well. He thought about it after failing an exam, but the biggest problem was: student dormitories didn’t have anything to cook a cake in, and the kitchen was closed to anyone who wasn’t part of the staff.
So, how did he manage to enter the magically protected place?, by bribing one of the working goblins in there of course!, it may have been just an assistant, but that greeny little person had a big curiosity for new things, especially in they meant eating something yummy. And so, a travel to the nearby market and some hours later, the human and the goblin were with their eyes glued to the closed and windowless door of the terracotta oven.
“Is it done yet?” asked the green one in his high-pitched nasal voice. “Just a few more minutes” answered the young man. But while those couple of minutes passed, something not entirely good started to happen: the smell of burnt dough, and far more smoke than any firey misshapen dessert.
It was chaos them both opening the oven to see a monster of charred foodstuff getting bigger and bigger, as if inflated with anger. Did they managed to kill the oven beast?, did they saved themselves from the Headmistress punishment?, yes and kind-of, and they also learned the hard way that a certain vendor sold flour of things other than wheat.