19. He spread his elaborate wings…
Today’s Prompt
19. He spread his elaborate wings wide. Both looked perfect, with colors like stained glass backlit by sunlight.
400 Creative Writing Prompts Workbook Story Prompts for Journaling, Blogging, and Overcoming Writer’s Block Compiled by Debra Chapoton All rights reserved Copyright © 2020 by Debra Chapoton
Response
Eldemere rolled his eyes slightly but bowed his head in acquiescence. He spread his elaborate wings wide. Both looked perfect, with colors like stained glass backlit by sunlight. Samira realized that it had been quite some time since she’d paid attention to the beauty of her old friend’s wings. The interplay of colors, green, orange, and yellow predominant among them, drew one’s eye into a contemplation of both strength and solidity. Eldemere’s wings were truly an excellent expression of his own personality.
After settling among the crags, finding flat sections upon which to rest, the two fairies pulled rations from their belt pouches. As they took small nibbles from their food bars, Samira noticed movement coming from the shadows under the rock outcroppings around them.
“Eldemere,” she said in a very soft murmur, meant to be heard by her fae companion but without much movement or her face or mouth in the hopes of not letting whatever was near know that she knew about their presence. “Have you noticed the movement that seems to be coming from under the rocks around us?”
“Yes, highness. I was waiting to see what you’d like to do before reacting.”
“Have you caught a glimpse of who’s come to see us?”
“Not as of yet, your majesty, but I have caught small hints of a scent very similar to rabbit. I wouldn’t put any stakes on being correct, as we yet don’t know what they are.” Eldmere replied. “Can sense anything?”
Samira had been trying to do just that, reaching out with her magic to see what she could determine. As her sense fanned out, she immediately noted that there was a great deal of life beneath and around them, despite the inhospitable look to the barren patch of upthrust rocks.
There was nothing unusual about that. Samira always marveled at how life found a way to be present in almost any environment, burrowing its way into whatever small niche it could find in which to flourish.
The presences closest to them, however, the ones observed, seemed both more substantial than the tiny sparks of life within the rocks and under the ground, and at the same time more tentative as they either eased around them in slow movements or skittered from one spot to another as if startled.
When Samira brought her magic to bear on an individual, her mind’s careful brush revealed another mind, not simply animal, but also not very complex. He, for she felt it was a he, seemed simple, curious, and very very wary.
“I don’t believe them to be a threat,” she told Eldemere to relieve any concern he might be feeling. “I’d like to meet them. If you would, stay still and try to not to look threatening.”
Eldemere gave her a quizzical look as she hid her own half smile. He was not one to receive teasing easily.
She reached out again with her magic, finding that same mind closest to her.
Hello, little one, she said to the creature, suddenly aware that she might be feeling a vastly simplified version of what the Great Tree might have been feeling as it deigned to speak to her. Would you come out? I’d like to see you.
