Challenge [263]
May. 31st, 2011 02:37 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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kh_drabbleChallenge: [263] The Bad Guys
Title: In Which No Good Guys Make An Appearance.
Word Count: 567
Notes: This challenge is the best for pinging old ideas? Seriously, it's been in my head ever since I realized someone was missing from a certain Disney world - it just never got written. So. ♥
Also, I've had some serious writer's block for awhile, so I expect this is rusty and possibly awful. But it actually got written!
It had all begun simply enough, with someone running into the tavern, ranting about monsters. They’d started to laugh it off as overwork or too much drink when they heard the screaming.
Those who made it in time to see anything spoke about a monster, a thing like a child playing at being a soldier. If any child were made of darkness, with hands like the claws of a wild beast and eyes to match. Even worse was the lack of a body, and the questions it raised. How do you bury someone without a body? What became of the soul of someone eaten by a monster? What if the glowing light they’d seen the monster take had been his soul?
The questions were passed back and forth, and the fear grew. It wasn’t long before they were talking about hunting the creature down.
They looked to Gaston to lead the way, so he did - organizing hunting parties and scouring the woods for days. Most of those days were spent with nothing to show for it, and the last one involved running into another village’s hunting party. They were looking for much the same thing.
It was after this last, and telling the others to turn back to camp for the night, that he heard it. Something more than just the rustling of the wind, that led him to bring his crossbow up and turn back. Let the others rest, maybe, while he sees if this is anything worth following. (Let them see him return with the prize.)
As he gets further into the forest, the wind grows more unnatural. It almost sounds like whispering, almost feels like it’s tugging at his clothes. He tries to shrug it away, yet it persists until he reaches a spot that could barely be called a clearing.
“Is that it?” he snarls in disbelief. “There’s nothing here?!”
A dark voice whispers out of the shadows. “You were expecting something?”
He turns quickly, bringing his crossbow up to bear on it - and it is a man, as best he can make out in the slivers of moonlight making through the trees. Or... the first monster had looked like a child, Gaston remembers. And there is nothing natural about this man’s calm. “I was expecting a creature that’s been preying on the villages nearby.” he says slowly, and doesn’t lower the weapon.
“Are you a hunter, then?” he asks, and the amusement in his voice makes Gaston’s finger tighten just a little on the trigger.
His answer is simple enough, and full of pride. “The best in my village.”
To which the bastard laughs! Laughs, and replies, “Oh, but there are better outside it. Surely you realized?”
At which point he attempts to shoot the man, only to have him vanish. Staring at the emptiness before him and his bolt quivering in a tree, he felt the wind rising again. Then he turned, not panicking because he did not panic, but... concerned, as he found himself surrounded by silvery things.
“After all, I have what you might call a hunt of my own in progress here. I can’t have you showing up to interfere.”
They stop sending out parties when the last one returns with nothing to show for it but Gaston’s crossbow. It’s barely a week later when the demon of a dog shows up, seeming to lead the smaller monsters.
Title: In Which No Good Guys Make An Appearance.
Word Count: 567
Notes: This challenge is the best for pinging old ideas? Seriously, it's been in my head ever since I realized someone was missing from a certain Disney world - it just never got written. So. ♥
Also, I've had some serious writer's block for awhile, so I expect this is rusty and possibly awful. But it actually got written!
It had all begun simply enough, with someone running into the tavern, ranting about monsters. They’d started to laugh it off as overwork or too much drink when they heard the screaming.
Those who made it in time to see anything spoke about a monster, a thing like a child playing at being a soldier. If any child were made of darkness, with hands like the claws of a wild beast and eyes to match. Even worse was the lack of a body, and the questions it raised. How do you bury someone without a body? What became of the soul of someone eaten by a monster? What if the glowing light they’d seen the monster take had been his soul?
The questions were passed back and forth, and the fear grew. It wasn’t long before they were talking about hunting the creature down.
They looked to Gaston to lead the way, so he did - organizing hunting parties and scouring the woods for days. Most of those days were spent with nothing to show for it, and the last one involved running into another village’s hunting party. They were looking for much the same thing.
It was after this last, and telling the others to turn back to camp for the night, that he heard it. Something more than just the rustling of the wind, that led him to bring his crossbow up and turn back. Let the others rest, maybe, while he sees if this is anything worth following. (Let them see him return with the prize.)
As he gets further into the forest, the wind grows more unnatural. It almost sounds like whispering, almost feels like it’s tugging at his clothes. He tries to shrug it away, yet it persists until he reaches a spot that could barely be called a clearing.
“Is that it?” he snarls in disbelief. “There’s nothing here?!”
A dark voice whispers out of the shadows. “You were expecting something?”
He turns quickly, bringing his crossbow up to bear on it - and it is a man, as best he can make out in the slivers of moonlight making through the trees. Or... the first monster had looked like a child, Gaston remembers. And there is nothing natural about this man’s calm. “I was expecting a creature that’s been preying on the villages nearby.” he says slowly, and doesn’t lower the weapon.
“Are you a hunter, then?” he asks, and the amusement in his voice makes Gaston’s finger tighten just a little on the trigger.
His answer is simple enough, and full of pride. “The best in my village.”
To which the bastard laughs! Laughs, and replies, “Oh, but there are better outside it. Surely you realized?”
At which point he attempts to shoot the man, only to have him vanish. Staring at the emptiness before him and his bolt quivering in a tree, he felt the wind rising again. Then he turned, not panicking because he did not panic, but... concerned, as he found himself surrounded by silvery things.
“After all, I have what you might call a hunt of my own in progress here. I can’t have you showing up to interfere.”
They stop sending out parties when the last one returns with nothing to show for it but Gaston’s crossbow. It’s barely a week later when the demon of a dog shows up, seeming to lead the smaller monsters.
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Date: 2011-05-31 08:00 am (UTC)AND THIS DRABBLE. OMW. /flails incoherently
This is amazing. There was definitely a hole there and you nailed it down. Way to be. :Db
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Date: 2011-05-31 09:58 am (UTC)Thank you! I'm glad you liked it, I just kept picking over it and thinking it sounded too flat. -.-
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Date: 2011-05-31 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-01 01:39 am (UTC)*bows instead* <3
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Date: 2011-06-01 01:40 am (UTC)*applauds* <3
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Date: 2011-06-01 08:09 am (UTC)THIS. IS CANON.
THAT IS ALL.
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Date: 2011-06-01 02:48 pm (UTC)Thank you. ^_^