I’m still treacherously close to the start of this year’s NaNoWriMo, and I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to write yet. At all. Bupkis.
The lack of an entry idea is bad, yes. But not knowing what I’m going to do once I go in is sort’ve par for the course for me. In 2012, the year I actually won, I had a story in my mind about an asshole with a bow and arrows. That was it. As my story ideas go, it was fairly light, even for me. But it sounded fun.
I write voices. Meaning, I write a lot of dialog heavy stuff. But it gives me the entryway I need into finding out who I’m writing about. And then I sort’ve pin story to that. It doesn’t always, or even often, work. But it’s my process.
I haven’t looked at that story, Fwip!, since roughly the point when NaNo ended and I sent in my word count to get credit for the win. It was, as I recalled, an ugly mess. Some of it wasn’t even really writing so much as emails and messages to myself and two of my muses about how stuck I was, where do I need to go, just what the fuck was this whole mess supposed to amount to anyway. I have carried that with me, even with the thoughts that, you know, I wouldn’t mind doing a sequel to that piece of garbage at some point. Not because it’s worth it. Just because I think I have a smidge of an idea and a title for book two.
But that’s all factored on pure ignorance. Because, if I don’t look at what I wrote, how do I know that there’s even anything there? Oh, sure, the muses gave me words of encouragement (during). But that’s how these things work. Talk him down off the ledge before he actually climbs atop it and decides to jump. That’s more helpful than you might realize.
Point being, in a drawer (virtual though it might be), a story isn’t a story. Or maybe it is. Something, something Schrodinger’s Novel.
Today, for no reason beyond me being lost for what else to do, I opened the drawer. I jumped partway in because I was taken by my chapter title (and how I guess I decided to do all of them, a mix of two things for each title). And then I read, again, what was basically dialog.
And I’m maybe a little in love with it now.
That doesn’t mean that there’s really anything else there. Because it’s a small-ish part of a small-ish chapter of a small-ish incomplete book.
But maybe there’s a small-ish bit of hope that it could be something. Some day. If and when I get off my ass. Of which there’s almost no-ish hope at all.
Anyway, because I like it enough, here’s the bit I read. It made me smile. It made me laugh. It made me think, hmmm… This seat of my pants thing may work this year too.
Unedited because Fuck It All.
Nobody likes surprises
– They also don’t enjoy an arrow to the face.
“How many do you want me to kill, Brillo?” Doone offered.
The half-sized man glanced around the clearing. By his count, he’d come here with sixteen men, and, thanks to some spectacular zen archery bullshit his ex-partner had picked up in their absence from one another, he was now down by five. It was still a better number on his side than Doone’s, with just him and his traveling companion that Brillo didn’t recognize, but…
Five shots. All of them kills. Sick kills at that.
“Whatcha’ got there, Doone? That some kinda’ magics in yer hands. Like yer axe.”
Simon picked up on the fact that this guy knew about Doone’s hatchet. That meant, in his mind, that the two had a history, deeper than just the name exchange. Simon had been awoken by the sound of screams in the night, and had seen Doone standing over the few dying embers of their campfire, the godbow in his hands. He saw two of the arrows let fly, one in quick succession after the other, and heard the bodies of the men he’d aimed them at hit the ground somewhere out in the darkness. That’s when this small man, this Brillo, as Doone had called him, offer to talk peaceably. One of Brillo’s men hadn’t agreed to it, apparently, so Doone had to shoot him down as he came up from behind.
“Maybe I’m just a better shot than I was, Bril. Or maybe your men are just easier targets.”
Brillo didn’t believe either of those to be true, but didn’t like the alternative any better. Magic was nice enough, you could get your hands on it. But it was a shit-ton of cruel to the man on the wrong end of it. Bril wasn’t directly in Doone’s aim at this exact second, but he felt like it wouldn’t take much.
“How’s bout we talk then. We work out what we got to say, you and me, and my men and you don’t have to kill each other no more.”
Doone nearly pointed out that there hadn’t been an ‘each other’ so far, but decided that talking could keep that from even being a near possibility if done right. He aimed the bow lower to the ground, but didn’t put it away. “Talk’s fine.”
Brillo moved slowly, carefully, closer to Simon’s fire from earlier. It was near completely out. He clicked at one of his men. “Irv… get some wood and get this going again. It’s cold, and I want to see our guests.”
Doone moved closer to the hallowed-out pit Simon had dug as well. He didn’t sit, just shifted in his standing position. His arm stayed tense on the bow’s string, the arrow remained knocked. Irv came back before they’d said anything else and started stoking the fire with the wood he added to it. Simon just waited, as still as he could, and equally quiet. He wanted to keep all attention off of himself, but it wasn’t meant to be.
“Who’s yer friend,” Brillo asked.
Doone never took his eyes off of him. “This is Simon,” he said simply.
“Simon,” Brillo repeated. Then, looking to the novice himself, “And what are you and Doone doing in these parts, Simon?”
Simon started to answer, but Doone cut him off. “No. You don’t speak to him,” he spat. “You and I… we do the talking here.”
Brillo pulled off his woolen cap, and scratched his head in the fire’s warmth. His black, curly hair that seemed to run from his head down to cover his chin and cheeks absorbed the light, so his face that showed was nearly as dark. The only things shining were his teeth and a couple flickers of metal in his ears. “Well, see, Doone, I’m just assuming Simon here has more to say on the subject, since I can’t imagine you would’ve ever chosen to come round these parts again.” Simon’s face must’ve expressed some confusion, so he offered, “Doone’s not popular with some of the locals in this land.”
And that is different than anywhere else how, Simon thought to himself, but kept his mouth shut.
“We’re just passing through, Bril. On our way out of this land, won’t even be staying in the next. Be a long time gone before anyone even knows we’re here.”
“I already know though, don’t I? Me and the boys, we’ve been made awares, haven’t we?” He lifted his arms up, signaling his men. “Haven’t we, boys?” he called out, and they all answered with a “yip.”
Doone didn’t look up at anyone else, didn’t follow the voices. He just kept trained on Brillo.
“And what kind of cost would it be to treat things as you’re being unaware. How much would that be?”
Brillo chuckled. “Well, I think that might be pretty expensive, friend.” He looked around for Doone, indicating the presence that they both knew were out there. Only Brillo and Irv were in the light with Simon and Doone. The others had melted into the wood, but were obviously within ear shot. So close. “I don’t mean for me, of course. Naw… I’m as happy to cut a fair deal as the next man. But the boys… They have something worth more than money in mind.”
Doone let him keep going. “And that would be?” he said, knowing where this would lead them.
“T’would be yer ass, Doone. They each want their piece of it.”
“Tired of riding yours then, Bril?”
Brillo’s smile darkened at that, disappearing into the blackness of his beard.
“You know what you took from my boys, Doone. Hell, they were our boys, up till you turned on us. You betrayed the whole lot of us. Not just me.”
Doone looked over at Irv. “That true, Irv? You got a mad on for me like Brillo here does?”
Irv was a much bigger man than his leader. He was a bigger man than Doone, or Simon, or than most men Simon had seen. Broader than the young king Gerard, and possibly a head or two taller as well. When Brillo had sent him to gather more wood, Simon half-expected him to come back with an entire pine. But to say Irv was a quick man, that was something else entirely.
“You took ’em,” Irv said, in a long, drown out squeak that belied his form entirely.
Doone actually looked puzzled for a second. “Took what?”
“You took my stones!”
Simon assumed he meant some other magic items, some enchanted rocks or something that Doone stole to use as one of his multiple advantages on his quest to steal the bow of Kalmus. It seemed typical enough.
“Your stones? What do yo– Oh! Oh wait!” Doone actually began to smile himself. “You don’t mean…”
“Yer took his manhood, Doone!” Brillo accused. “You know yer did.”
Simon gasped. “Doone! You didn’t! You… castrated…”
“No!” he laughed. It was a hard, surprised laugh, but it made Irv shake just the same. “I mean, well, I didn’t. Not personally, not take them myself.”
“No, you had that wench take ’em fer you. Irv here thought you were being nice, setting him up to… well, making him a man. But yer did the opposite! And I mean, the exact opposite!”
Doone had actually loosened his grip on the bow now, had his hand, still holding the arrow, pressed up to his face, trying to contain himself. “No… Well, okay. Yes. I did pay her.”
Irv was more than shaking now. He stepped forward, stomping through the fire as he came, ignoring it completely. Before he got much closer, though, Doone had gotten the arrow back into the bow and had it up, very up, to Irv’s face level. This stopped the lumbering man in his tracks, but just barely.
“I don’t want to shoot you, Irv.” He then called around to Brillo. “Call him back, Bril. I don’t have many options left of where I can fire this arrow into him without killing him.”
“Come on back, Irv,” Brillo called.
“But… my stones,” he whimpered.
Brillo clicked again, and Irv slowly turned around and went back to his leader. There were some chuckles Simon could pick up in the woods from the other men.
“Why would you do that, Doone?” Brillo asked, patting Irv on the back (his lower back) to console him.
Doone shrugged, but kept vigilant hold of the bow this time. “You know why. We needed a virgin. You know what we were after.”
“That wench’s sister was yer virgin!”
Doone shook his head. “No. Turned out she wasn’t.”
“Wasn’t once you had gotten on with her, no.”
This was true. “Irv was all we had,” Doone continued. “I was just protecting our asset.”
“Weren’t protecting his assets very kindly, were yer?” Brillo pointed out. “And the worst of it, the damned thing… It didn’t even matter. That horse took right at Irv the moment he came up to him. Gored out his stomach, took six months ta heal.”
“It wasn’t a horse,” Doone stated. “And besides, you were as hopeful as I was we’d get those hooves. The score we had lined up! And look at Irv. He’s fine now. No worse for the wear.”
“No worse..? Look at him! He’s practically skin and bones compared to what he once were! Barely half the man…”
“Or less,” Doone countered.
Simon couldn’t help himself, “That’s skin and bones?”
Brillo just kept on him. “And that’s just one of us, Doone. But we each got a story like it. We each got a reason to want to see you stuck, inside-out, on a pike somewhere under a bright sun. You done never shoulda’ come back where the boys and I could get at you. You shoulda…”
And a quick movement from Simon’s left leapt past him, straight at Doone. Doone didn’t even release the knocked arrow, he just pressed the bow forward, the arrow’s tip puncturing the would-be assassin’s larynx. The man began to fall, but Doone kept hold of the arrow between his fingers on the string, pulling it with him as he pivoted and turned round to a second man, coming up behind him. He let it fly then, and that one took the shot to his cheek, going straight through the other side of his face into yet a third man, hitting that one square in the chest. That one fell into the fire at Brillo and Irv’s feet. Irv stomped on the burning corpse before it ignited further, kicking it out of the flames. “I hate the smell of burning flesh,” Irv said.
“We know, Irv,” Brillo agreed. “Since we were boys.”
Brillo himself didn’t make any overt movements. He and Irv just waited for the heat, both literally and figuratively, to die down again. He didn’t signal to his men to hold back, but they knew better now. They weren’t going to get the drop on Doone tonight.
Eight men down. Half their number. Doone’s quiver wasn’t even empty.
“What are yer doing here, Doone?” Brillo asked again, directly this time.
“Like I said. We’re passing through. Be gone soon enough. Didn’t come looking for a fight.”
“But a fight’s all yer ever finding, ain’t it?”
Doone kicked at the man who was bleeding out of two holes in his face. “Guess so. Didn’t say I’d look away from one if I saw it coming at me.”
