This week I am finally, FINALLY, participating in MamaKat's Writers Workshop. Are you in need of a muse too? Head on over there, choose your prompt and write what comes to mind. I did.
I chose prompt #4.
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The world around me is so very quiet. It's so quiet, I can hear the soft padding of the field mice as they scamper through the grass. The whole world hangs on a breath, waiting. Just waiting.
Waiting for me to catch on. They tell me the fate of the whole world rests in my hands, but I don't believe it. It's impossible. I was born to a lowly innkeeper. I am plain and average in every way. I have accelerated at nothing. My friends tend to laugh at me often. I can never seem to remain on my feet. I think I have had more bruises in my short lifetime then Rocky Balboa in a boxing ring. So how could the fate of the whole world rest on me? It can't. It just can't.
It's not like I have a really difficult decision to make either. I have a role to play in the "Saving of the world" as we know it, but I have to figure it all out on my own. They didn't even spare me a clue. Not even one.
Perhaps I should back up a little and give you the Cliff notes version on what's happening today. Maybe YOU can help ME figure out what to do. What say you?
Twenty years ago, a baby was born with a gray shadow on his knee. It's been said through the years, that when this infant is born, it is the beginning of the end. The baby has grown. He's lived in riches, he's lived in rags. He has experienced all facets of life, but still, he has decided that everyone must die unless he finds the famed Ruby Amulet worn by his forefathers in ages past. No one knows where this Ruby Amulet is. It is said that whomever wears the Ruby Amulet is consumed by greed and evil. No good can come of it. It is also said that this baby's father, the most evil man to ever live, will come back from the Spirit world to conquer the lands he once controlled long ago because of this amulet.
Spies were dispatched to find this amulet, buried and hidden by the priests long ago. Legends began circulating that there was one person who could wear the amulet with no adverse affects, and restore peace and order to the universe. This person must be pure of heart.
And so the search began.
About a year ago, rumors that the amulet had surfaced began. It's been said that a small boy possesses the amulet, given to him by his mother at birth, just before she passed. The evil king's henchman have been hunting up and down the countryside trying to find this boy and bring him before the king. He has been cleverly hidden until now.
Ahead of him still lies the hardest part of his journey. He must travel to the valley and stand in the very lowest center of the world and return it to the earth, where it really belongs. He's been lucky so far, using the magic stones and potions people give him along his way. He had to stop somewhere though, and it was just my luck that he would stop at my humble doorstep. Somehow, the amulet began glowing and I was told that I would be a great asset to the saving of the world. How I am to do this still remains a mystery.
I thought (hoped) maybe it was because I gave him food and shelter, but I was wrong. I really must figure this out because the henchman are getting closer. I can hear the sound of the metal hooves pounding on the soft earth, making the earth cry out with tears of pain. The ground from this point on only gets rougher. No one has survived the desolate barren place that lies before the boy. He MUST go on. If only he could fly....oh! I've got it!!
I must hurry. But, it has to be perfect. Quick and perfect, that's the key.
I sat down before the town's only artist, sitting behind me with a needle and ink. He stabs my skin carefully, tracing fine lines of hot stings across my spine, my shoulders, my lower back. The more he works, the less pain I feel as my body begins to adjust to the feeling of pain that is encapsulating my back. I must do this though. The stories are right. The boy must have wings.
He is finished. Tears roll from his eyes as he admires his work. Flashes of yellows, pinks and blues I catch in the mirror behind me. The colors rise from my back, and I feel a short blast of pain, as my wings unfold from my back. My gorgeous tattoo. The wings that will fly the boy across the barren wasteland. The wings that will save the world in all their golden, shimmery butterfly beauty.
Wings that will free my soul.
(P.S. Be sure to stop in tomorrow and find out who gets this week's Best Scoop of the Week!!)
