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He put his thoughts together in the same way he buttoned his shirt in the mornings before school, slowly from bottom to top. He knew the resistance existed. He knew people in the resistance went out at night. He knew Ingrid went out at night. He knew people in the resistance stole things and didn't like soldiers. He knew Ingrid stole books and called the green coats “bad guys.” He knew people in the resistance carried weapons. He knew Ingrid had a knife in her boot. He knew people in the resistance died.

And so he sat in the closet.

Drabble 28: The Case of the Fallen Book of Weather

It was snowing when the book fell out of the cart. Ingrid was walking down main street on her way to Oliver's when it happened. The woman leading the cart didn't notice and from the look of all the books jammed in the back, she didn't need the book. Ingrid's fingers closed around the spine and tucked it under her coat before she had even comprehended that she was going to reach for it.

[pre- Ingrid getting a job. pre- a lot of things? It would have to be early if this was THE book. After all, Liam loves weather like always... But maybe it's not THE book, but one of the books?]

It was Monday, the middle of winter, and her feet felt like leftover ice shavings melting away into numbness inside her too thin socks. Ingrid helped Oliver in the store on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. It made her feel better about him bringing her and Liam random loaves of bread.

In the back room, Ingrid pulled the book out from under her jacket and examined the cover. It was a violent shade of yellow with dull blue letters on it exclaiming, "Rain, Sleet, and Snow: The Book of Precipitation". To Ingrid, it sounded drab and not useful, but every book was a book worth saving.

And besides, she thought, maybe Liam would like it.

Drabble 25: Day in the Life 1

[A day in the life of Ingrid. Chronicling a day that falls in the middle of the novel. Or trying to anyway.]

Day Break: Ingrid's been up for an hour. She has "tidied" the apartment and copied important passages out of "The Creatures of The Forest" and hidden both the copies and the book under her mattress. Before breakfast, she will copy a poem, work on a speech to rally the troops, and make a batch of ink.

Breakfast time: Ingrid makes coffee for herself and burnt toast for Liam. [If there's bread.] She drinks her coffee, gets dressed, checks Liam's  homework, packs Liam a lunch of something, and walks him to school before heading into work.

Mid-morning: At work, she is told to staple packets of paper proclaiming "The Requirements for Owning Property" together. She realizes that the staples fail at holding together so many sheet of paper. She asks if she can use paperclips. After a yelling match, Ingrid is even a bigger stapler. The stapler works, but the pressure required hurts her already taxed right hand. She forces herself to learn to do with her left and is yelled at again for being too slow.

Lunch time: Ingrid is allowed to leave for lunch. Instead, she sneaks into the break room, steals a stale donut and a cup of coffee, and hurries to the fire escape just outside the break room's window. She eats the donut, drinks the coffee, and stacks the paper cup on top of eight other paper cups, all of which have accumulated because previous lunch breaks. 

Mid-afternoon: Ingrid falls asleep while coping "The New Curfew Regulations". She spills ink all over the good stationary and the hem of her right sleeve. She is yelled at and forced to stay late.

Dinner time: Ingrid misses dinner and the beginning of the secret meeting at the old farmhouse. She heads home to find Liam huddling in the closet. She tells him that she will always come home eventually, even though it tastes like a lie, and then heads out the door again to catch the end of the meeting.

Early evening: Ingrid narrowly misses running into Soldier on her way to the farmhouse. She is forced to run and duck behind a tree. By some fortune of luck, she doesn't have asthma attack. She precedes to the meeting. Once there, she is told that they have a new member. Surprised, but undaunted, she interviews the new recruit.

Bed time: Ingrid is further pushed off schedule because of the new recruit. She arrives too late to tuck Liam in. She drinks a cup of tea and eats a piece of fruit she picked from a tree on the way home. [What kind of fruit does Ing's world have?] She picks up her other bag, throws in the copies of "The Creatures of The Forest", and heads back into the night.

Midnight: Ingrid has been to Eudora's apartment, James's Orchard, and Tristin's cabin. She's exchange her copies of "The Creatures" for Eudora's copies of "Celebrations and Ceremonies of Old". She's taken a crate of apples from James and replaced them with a copy of the poem "Things That Linger". At Tristin's cabin, she leaves the crate of apples, except for four, and takes a battered book titled "Twilight" out from under the front porch stairs. It's Tristin's first stolen item. Ingrid can't imagine why a soldier would bother bringing such a book with them.

2 a.m. : Ingrid makes it back to her apartment. She fails to turn off the light before she falls asleep. It's a habit she's been forming lately and she's lucky she hasn't started a fire, but then maybe the world decided one was enough. She'll get about four hours of sleep and then start all over again.

Possible problems caused by scheduling: Sleep Deprivation. Over-scheduling. Under nourishment. Lack of quality time with Liam. Fatigue. Carpal tunnel.

Drabble 21: How's the Weather?

Cabel did not fall for her immediately. Broken hearts do not often fall again willingly. No, she must have passed by him for days, weeks, years before it even occurred to him that she was pretty. It took him even longer to get past Lucy's image and quirks and see her as her own person outside of the similarities and differences. For a long time Cabel's eyes followed her but not his heart.

She feel first. Fully. Completely. Terribly. Inescapably. She did not fall for his brokenness as some people fall. She did not love his daughter first, though she did care for her deeply. She did not like that she had fallen for him. And she was not stupid in love.

She saw how his eyes passed over here with a sort of matter-of-fact-ness. She watched the sadness. She was terrified of the way he was rusting-out inside, and she knew she had no power. For to love someone was not enough to make them love you. And to love someone so wholly oblivious to your love was not enough to get them to love themselves.

He had seen her a total of 731 times since Lucy's death. She was like the painting in a hotel lobby that the doorman walks by every day without registering. Day in and day out, all he thought was, "It's a painting." But then on one especially slow night when the air falls heavily about his still hands and his eyes weigh with boredom, it befalls him. A sudden, childlike curiosity, an abrupt need, to take-in the painting. And before him all along, it stood in its golden and pink splendor.

"Zelphia?" He asked, not quite sure of what he wanted to say. Perhaps he only wanted her to turn around.

"Yes?" She glanced over her shoulder at him. Her eyes surprised when they met his face and not the back of his head.

He stood quickly, almost knocking over his chair. "Sit down," he said urgently. "I'll get the tea." Don't go. Don't go. Don't go yet!

She blinked. "I... Well, alright." She walked slowly to the other side of the table and sat down. This was a dream. She stared at the brilliant blue wallpaper. Yes, a dream, surely wallpaper wasn't that blue...

"How's the weather today?" Cabel asked. He hadn't been outside in days. Not since he'd taken Ingrid to the park last Saturday. Or was that the Saturday before last?

"The weather?" Zelphia was flabbergasted. "It's..." Her voice faltered. He asked you about the weather, you buttonhead! She silently berated herself. She cleared her throat. "It's windy. Very windy." The leaves rained like wrinkled sunshine outside the window.

"Oh." Cabel stirred sugar into their cups. "... Do you like the wind?"

"I like the leaves," Phia responded.

"But not the wind?" Cabel handed her a warm tea cup.

"Well, I don't not like it..." She stared into the murky tea. "Do you like it?"

Did he like the wind? He had to search his mind to remember. "No," he decided, "I always feel like it's pushing on me."

"Oh." They sipped their tea awkwardly. Phia chanced a glance up, and they caught each other staring. Carefully, they looked away. The sound of their swallowing echoed in the tiny kitchen. Both were embarrassed. Both set down their cups with a clink.

Cabel caught her eye again. "Would you like to go for a walk?"

"Yes," Phia said and immediately abandoned her tea and the awkward-filled kitchen.

Notes: So many adverbs. I have failed you. I am sorry.
Awkward tea dates?
Sometimes I feel like getting to know people is just about ignoring a lot of awkwardness xD
Zel and Bel... Phia and Cab... Zel and Cabel... Zel and Cab... Phia and Cabel... Zelphia and Cabel... Gah, how to shorten?
(Thanks goes to Rand for Zelphia. Who knew my sister could be helpful??)

Drabble 20: Sweet Sixteen

Well XXXXXXXXX! Oliver thought. The sound of  it in his mind like crackling flames. XXXXXXXXX! But he said nothing. He stood there in the forest next to her as they hid in the shadows and watched the way the magic vines wrapped and unwrapped themselves.

They were stealing time. He was stealing time for Ingrid.

Instead he said, "What are you thinking about?"

Because it was clear she was making some kind of association in her mind or creating a new world or a better future or a plot to dunk him in the river...

She blinked thrown by the volume of his words like they'd reached her on a different audio wave than everything else did. "I'm thinking," she said, "about how small the two of us are. I'm wondering if it would be possible to slip past those vines. I'm pondering what Mom and Dad could have been yelling about. And I've decided to join the resistance."

"The resistance?" The words tasted like honey wrapped in silk, impossibly sticky and smooth. His eyes traveled down to her toes then back up again. Ingrid was not what he would call good resistance material...

"Yes." She had never sounded more sure of anything. "In three days, I will be sixteen," she reminded him, "and then I can officially be a resistance member."

Her voice had dropped to a whisper as though the vines could hear her and would spread her secret.

"What about your asthma*?" Oliver asked. Please don't do it, he thought. Ingrid, you can't do it. If you go, why should I stay?

"They don't have to know." She was being stubborn. She was hardly ever stubborn.

"Ingrid..." How could he convince her? How could he keep her safe and sound?

"Don't tell me I can't, Oliver." Her jaw was set, and he could feel the defensiveness blocking out her fear. And suddenly, he saw it, the moment she decided to be reckless.

He opened his mouth to tell her not to do it, but she was already running toward the vines. Of course, he followed.

Notes:  *asthma, I don't think they term it this. That's very much our word...
This is before her parents' death. Ingrid's allowed to be reckless without worrying about the consequences for Liam....

Drabble 19: A Sun-kissed Hurricane

It was storming the night Ing's mother died. The trees were whipping against each other, and the rain collapsed to the ground like many exhausted parachuters [Is this a word? This should be a word. If this isn't a word, I am sorry, okay? Okay.]. Ingrid sat on her father's lap, wrapped in his arms, and stared at the lightning bolts until she saw stars.

Cabel was staring at a piece of colorful paper, and Ingrid said, "Duck."

"That's right," he told her. But it suddenly brought to mind the game he'd heard the other worlder's talking about, Duck Duck Goose. [Okay, I keep interrupting with commentary, but yeah right, Self. Why would soldiers be taking about Duck Duck Goose??] He couldn't help but think that Lucy should be shown as the goose. After all, she was the one they would chase. Of course, he didn't know.

He didn't know that today his worst case scenario was actually true. She wasn't coming back. She was indeed being chased by a bunch of green coats and golden buttons.

How many medals would her killer be wearing when she sank into the Lake? Three? Eighteen? Seven? Ten, he decided. Ten was a decent number. Ten seemed like enough to get away with murder.

He bounced Ingrid on his knee gently. He imagined what he'd tell her if Lucy didn't come back tonight. "Ingrid, your mother's went into the lake." "Ingrid, your mother's never coming back." "Ingrid, please don't follow in your mother's footsteps." "Ingrid, your mother is dead. Time for bed." "Ingrid, it's only a half life for Papa now." "Ingrid, could you go on without us both?" "Ingrid, I love you, but daddy's very tired." "Ingrid, I'm not going anywhere. You need me, and I am here. And I love you to the other side of the enchanted forest and back."

Yes, that seemed about right. The little girl in his lap had fallen asleep, her strawberry blonde hair sticking up like a sun-kissed hurricane.

Oh Ingrid, Cabel thought, I'm not sure what I'll do if you turn out to be as wild as your hair.

Notes: I really don't appreciate this one very much, but it's a drabble so it doesn't have to be perfect. That's kinda the point, right?

Drabble 18: Falling, Falling, Falling--

She felt like the world had gone and blown up while she was away, just in the other room. The heavy silence settled and neither had noticed her as she came down the stairs. She remained quiet. She wanted to catch the clues that lingered in the air between them.

But neither moved, neither spoke, and the moment stretched wide and glided upon paper wings like an airplane forever descending to the ground. Falling, falling, falling--

"You love her, don't you?" Oliver asked. There wasn't accusation in his tone. It was soft, resigned. It was just the way that Oliver had always seemed to her, half gentle resignation and half wildfire anger. He was forever held in extremes, and she was forever trying to balance them.

A pause. NF stared at his feet. Ingrid wished he'd just say no and get it over with, wished he'd say nothing forever, wished maybe he'd say yes...

NF shook his head slightly. "I'm in love with her. I do not love her. I am in love with her. Or I am in love with the idea of being in love with her, and I cannot tell."

NF hated his own words. He shouldn't be having this conversation. At least not with a man who was clearly so in love with her already.

Oliver's teeth clenched, and he stared at NF. Ingrid stood on her place on the stairs, three from the bottom, and watched the slumped line of NF's shoulders and the tight lips of Oliver. She wondered why they were having this conversation, and who had brought it up, and how did she move without them knowing she'd been there?

"Get your shit together." Oliver said. It was one of the few other worlder expressions that he appreciated.

Ingrid was startled by his fierceness. It would be days before she understood it, but now she only questioned motives and came up with none.

She backed carefully up the stairs and bounced back down. They both turned to look at her, one haunted, the other ashamed. She attempted her best smile.

Notes: This is a fictional moment and conversation. That is, this is a fictional moment that doesn't take place in my fictional novel. xD Ingrid doesn't hear it and Oliver and NF never have it so... Yes... Just for the record, NOT illegal!

Drabble 16: Meet Me. Meet Me. Meet Me! (Sorry Gaga on the brain.)

"Thanks," Cabel murmured, brushing past her. His purple eyes skipped away from her as though burned by the image of her skin.

Don't say thanks that way, Lucy thought, it makes it seem as though we are strangers and I have just complimented your new shirt.

She slipped her hands in her pocket and tried to act causal as though the boy of her dreams hadn't just stabbed her in the stomach. She should have known. She wasn't even supposed to be here. She didn't really exist.

And then her fingers found it, a note.

It read:
Meet me. Midnight. West Shore of the Lake. 

Notes: Can't write properly. Too busy plotting!

I've been thinking maybe Ing's people have a distinct magical look to them? Strange colored eyes and hair, maybe? I feel like their should be a physical difference between the other worlders and "The Fairy People" who aren't actually fairies. Blah blah... Hints: purple eyes, but I really don't know...

Drabble 15: Loyalty.

He was giving him that look. Determined eyes. Set jaw. Arms at the ready.

NF hated the forest. He hated the vines. He hated the darkness. He hated it, all of it. And yet, here he was, leading a group of his own into the unknown for closer look at this wild magic. They'd been at it all day and they were going to be at it all night.

Their orders: "Explore the forest. Find magic source." Because that was possible. Really possible.

And for some reason that look was driving NF insane. He did not want that look. He never wanted that look! "Stop it!"

Soldier was startled. "Stop what?"

"Looking at me like that!" NF was exasperated.

"Looking at you like what?"

"Like... Like... You'd follow me to the ends of the earth or something!"

"I am not following you to the ends of the earth." Soldier scuffed. [He seems to do that a lot...]

"That's not what I meant. I just mean... I just..." Lead yourself. He wanted to say. "I don't want to lead people into places I know aren't good for them, and you're not helping!"

"What are you talking about?" Soldier's voice had taken on a distinctly teenager tone.

"You with your loyalty and the yes, I will follow you even if this seems like a horrible plan. I just... The other guys in the group trust me so much because you keep being all NF, he's the best! Yeah! I don't want them to think I'm awesome. I don't want them to agree." NF pulled at the ends of his jacket. "It would be better for them if they ran away screaming about how stupid their leader was."

"You didn't ask for these orders."

"No," he shook his head, "but neither did they."

"Well," Soldier said, "we all asked to come here. We all asked to become soldiers. So let's just do our job, yeah?"

"Yeah."


Notes: People are so going to ship them. THEY ARE JUST BEST FRIENDS, OKAY?

Ugh, I'm not bleeding very well tonight. I'm just tired. I'm sorry xD

Ingrid and Liam really need a last name. What do to do with the documents...? How to fix plot hole? I just need them to exist without existing... #things writers say that make people think they need the looney bin...

Drabble 14: Wind

Find Sticks and Feathers in Meadow.
Grab String from Kite Shop.
Dumpster Dive for Cans.
Steal Hair Ribbons from Ing.
Assemble.
Hang from window in apartment.

Ah! I can't write this. It's just so cute that it has to be included in the novel, darn it!

Scene/Side plot: Liam makes a wind chime.

Notes: I'm sorry, no drabble, but I swear one's been written in my head. I can't write it because illegal! Blah Blah I hate this rule. Blah Blah. Come on, November!

Things that have to do with wind for future reference: Paper airplanes. Breezy curtains. Whirl wind of leaves. Kites. Waves. Flowing hair. Open windows. Running into the wind. Blowing dresses. Ribbons. Blankets. Book pages. Bending flowers/grass. Breath. Goosebumps. Mittens. Scarves. Umbrellas. Slanted rain. Tornadoes. Shingles. Sail boats. Branches against windows. Howls. Clouds. Feathers. Flight. Birds. Wings. Stop pushing on me! Slammed doors. Wind Chimes.

Drabble 13: The Cure For Loneliness

I am lonely, Ingrid thought. I am lonely. I am lonely. And it became a cry that filled her lungs and prevented breath. Sadness cuddled against her chest. She was not afraid of enchanted vines or enveloping lakes. She was afraid of endless space and empty years.

Love, she thought, love is the only cure for loneliness. The paper crumbled in her hands as she pulled a blank sheet from the neat stack, and dipped her quill in the ink and began to write that love.

 The cure for loneliness: love.
 And she did not want to be alone.
 If love was the ground beneath her feet, she was walking on air.
 I need you, she thought. I need you. Your sadness. Your love. Your happiness. Your willingness to share my bad thoughts.

I worry about what I'll do if you no longer exist, Ingrid wrote, and I wonder what you'll do if I no longer exist, and I cannot determine which scenario is better because I would gladly die before you, but I do not know what would be worse, to leave you alone in this world or to watch you leave me.

Ingrid stared at the ink in disbelief. Those were not her words. She was surprised by the leaking of her eyes and she wiped at them quickly and reread. "But I do not know what would be worse, to leave you alone in this world or to watch you leave me." She ran her fingers over the sentence.

She saw two people deeply intertwined, heads bent and resting against one another. She saw their laced together fingers and the way that their eyes held secrets. She saw them break and fall apart before her eyes and she watched as one held onto life crookedly, leaning drastically to the left, and the other crumbled into nothing but a pile of ash. The remaining figure wobbled and fell to its side. Its tiny, dull eyes watched the ash fly away.

Ingrid was struck by this, struck by love, struck by loneliness, struck by loss. Love wasn't the cure for loneliness. Love was the reason it existed.

She was suddenly very afraid of her own words. She promised herself that she'd sooner jump into the lake than love.


Notes: Random Fragment I have no idea what to do with: To be bent like a willow tree is to provide some shade and cover.

Poor Ingrid. I wish I could hug you.

Drabble 12: Ink Stained

Ingrid was ink stained. Perpetually. When she was five years old, she had tipped her inkwell and the blackness had seeped across her writing desk, spilled onto her dress, and oiled up her skin. She was half girl, half ink when her dad found her, examining her stained fingers with fascination. "Look, Daddy," she had said, "I'm a raven."

She was still waiting for her wings.

Some days she couldn't write at all. Some days she sat and sat at her desk in the old farm house. She stared listlessly out windows, paced slowly across the room, through the house, laid on her bedroom floor, and gazed blankly at the ceiling. She'd lay there and think, "Please, please, words. Please. Please. Words. Please." Over and over again. Her own personal litany.

The hard wood floor would press into her back, a comfort in her wordless world. Her hands would register her breaths from their place on her stomach. The seconds would tick by like gathering dust. The loneliness would come to her on tiptoed feet and sink into her skin.

She imagined a thousand spider webs wrapping around her, holding her in place. She was never moving again. The pressure of not moving would build up within her, pressing from inside as the spider webs pressed from outside. They squeezed her insides together, packed her into her body, her body into its shell, and she was nothing.

She was air. She was wind. She was nothing without her words, but a girl. She was only a girl. She became shapeless and undefined. She became not herself. She was not herself, alone in her room, on the floor, without words.

"Please, please, words. Please. Please. Words. Please."

Her eyes slipped shut, and she looked for metaphors on the backs of her eye lids. She fought hard for some kind of alliteration, but she searched in the wrong places and did not check the tips of her tiny toes. She saw all the words fleeing away from her, falling down air vents, squeezing through the floor boards, sliding out of the windows and doors.

"Ingrid!" A call from the bottom of the stairs, but she did not hear it.

The words were running down the bathroom drains and hiding out in the tool shed. The words were climbing up and out of the chimney. The words were tumbling down the front porch stairs. Away, the words went. And away, she went with them.

"Ingrid! Hey! Ingrid!" Again, she was deaf to the calling.

The words were people she knew walking away. Away from the girl who was only a girl and not the girl with words. Away from a girl with bare, ink-less hands. Away from herself. She was watching herself walk away from herself.

Lonely. How lonely the world got once there were no words. She was alone with not even herself. "I am the wind," she thought, "and no one will hear my cries because to them, I am the cry." The world was so quiet. She could see it though, the wind as it blew through her room, tearing at the papers on her desk, scattering her already scattered thoughts, and blowing them clean away...

That's where Oliver would find her. He had called her name five times from the bottom of the stairs, and she hadn't heard a syllable. She was there with her eyes shut, the perfect imitation of a corpse. "Oh Ingrid," he whispered softly.

And that's the only thing she heard. That whisper. Her eyes would open slowly, and he'd hold out his hand to her and help her up.

"Come on," Oliver would tell her. "Let's get out of here for a while."

"Coffee?" Ingrid would ask.

And the answer was always yes. 


And she'd whisper just loud enough over the steam of her coffee, "Thanks for finding me."


Notes: Oh dear, that took a dark turn there for a minute. I wasn't expecting Ingrid to go there. She's perhaps a bit too dedicated to her words. Coffee solves everything, okay? Okay. (Well, tea does really, but Ingrid's more of a coffee person.)

Drabble 11: Wild Magic

The sun was gathering its last rays and sinking behind the forest when NF stumbled upon them, empty uniforms strangled between thick green vines. The empty olive green fabric hung there, suspended in time like a fly in the ointment. Wordlessly, he stared at it.

Feeling inched up his back and like a spiderweb, spanned outward toward his fingertips and toes. The flashlight in his hand shook, bouncing the dull, yellow light on and off the trees. He spun in a slow circle. His breath loud in the twilight. He heard a rustle in the trees behind him, turned abruptly, swore he saw the outline of a man, and then his flashlight went out. 

Shit. No plan of action came to mind. Man or no man. Was there a man? Was he going insane? Had he seen uniforms? Was something there?! 

NF ran.

Everything was loud. The sound of the air entering and leaving his lungs. The rustling of the leaves in the wind. The shuffling of the fabric as his legs moved passed one another. The loose button of his shirt as it hopped up and down to the rhythm of his run. The squeak from his belt buckle moving with his lungs. The zippers on his boots rattling against their own teeth. 

The trees were laughing, NF thought. The trees were laughing! 

His boot hit something. A bump in the road? A well placed vine? And he stumbled and fell onto the packed dirt beneath him.  

AND THEN HE DIED!

[Kidding, but I'm tired. Expect better stuff tomorrow!] 

Notes: This was fun. Magic is so fun! 

Okay, Sarahnade, it's technically tomorrow, but it's technically not because I haven't gone to bed yet! 

I'd like to say that I got interrupted half way through by my sister, explaining her afternoon and an entire episode of American Dad... xD

Not sure if this actually happens during the story or not... But fun stuff? 

Drabble 10: Silver.

Silver Envelopes. The mail came in shiny, smooth textured envelopes like pieces of gray tarp that had been drudged up from the bottom of the ocean. Water proof, opaque envelopes with bits of shadowed golden letters scrawled across their surfaces.

They had an electric eel touch. His fingers skimmed over his name, and he imagined it being washed away like a sand castle slipping back into the sea. The reality was being to get to him. He was drowning here amongst these strange people with their determined clinging.

He sliced the envelope open with his pocket knife and stared at the words unseeingly. He did not want to read this letter. He was sure it was filled with more demands that could not be met, more challenges to his conscience, more words requesting more evils to be done, more blood to be spilled, more money to be had.

Yesterday, he had ordered the capture and killing of a mother, a daughter, a teacher, a lover, a life giver. Because the people here had a way of giving things life, of making them more brilliant than they were. He was sure that all the goods they sent back home where damaged in transit because of the loss of these life giving people.

It had always just been a job for Fredrick, but it was beginning to get to him. The responsibility of his actions weighed heavy in boots. It was getting harder for him to raise his legs and take another step. He did not want to take another step.

No more, Fredrick thought, no more.

And that was the day that he jumped into the lake and waded underneath the waves. The world behind him was spurred into more chaos.

Drabble 9: Move.

WARNING. Depressing Drabble Below. Filled with bad things. Goodness, I didn't even know he was thinking such things until now.


Movement. This was listed among the things that got harder. To move. To be in motion. To run. To jump. To fly.

Maybe, he could fly. Of course, that required a jump. And that required a  roof. And that required stairs.

He couldn't do stairs. Fuck stairs.


He'd told her once. About thinking about it. About flying.

"Don't be absurd," she'd said, "I can't imagine living without you."

He told her she'd have to eventually.

She'd slapped him. Damn near pushed him down the stairs, and then she'd grabbed him.

He didn't hear the words that she'd mumbled into his shirt, but he'd stared at the tear stains for a long time before he went to bed.


Sometimes his whole vocabulary consisted of her name, a very long list of obscenities, and the phrase, "I'm fine."

He figured most of being sick was the cycle of reassurance. First he reassured them. Then they reassured him. Then he reassure them. Then they reassured him. Endlessly.

Mostly, he reassured himself that the shit would hit the fan.

Even though he didn't actually know. It wasn't like they'd told him a date. In fact, they told him it could be very far away. Maybe he'd even get gray hair. Maybe he'd see Liam grow up. Maybe he'd see Ingrid fall in love.

And maybe he wouldn't.


It had become a secret code. "Fuck stairs," he'd say. And she'd touch his shoulder. The lightest touch like butterfly wings, and he'd force in a lungful of air and breathe it out and go on.


Note: Blah Blah Blah. I'm sorry. I hope that wasn't too bad? I don't know. *words*

Drabble 8: Companion.

When you're in love with someone, you want to be a better person for them. And when she's not there anymore you lose your motivation. I mean, it wasn't like I was bad before, but everyone has this urge. This want to deserve the love that the other person is bestowing on them, and they try to do better even if before that they weren't "bad". 

But once that person is gone, not only has your motivation gone with them, but a chunk of your happiness  and your heart. A piece of who you were is gone. You don't just go back to being pre-person you. You're a different person when you fall in love. And you're a different, different person when you lose love.

Because they've changed you. They've changed the way you see the world. They've influenced you with their favorite things. They've created a space for their feelings in your heart. And that space, once ripped clean, can take a while to fill back up.

You can't just shove any random puzzle piece there. It has to have the right edges. It has to be the right color, have the right pattern, the right texture. It has to use the right paint, the right shadows. It has to feel like it belongs, like it fits, like it's not going to move to a different apartment because it's neighbors are stupid.

You can't create it out of the air. It takes moments of time combined with loving yourself for who you are. Because it's only when you love yourself that you can better yourself. It takes love to become better. That's why so many people aren't "good" until they find someone else who loves them.

I guess what I'm saying is that love changes people. And it's good to have a companion to lean on. It's good to have a soul you can share things with. It doesn't really matter who they are, as long as they listen. But the thing is when I lost her, I felt like I lost my only companion.

It took a while, you know? I mean, I was so in love with her that I didn't even make time for my friends. I drifted from them, and I saw myself doing it, but I thought it wouldn't matter. I thought she'd be all I needed. That's the problem with that kind of love. You start living for the other person.

When we left for the war, I was running away.

Drabble 7: Formal.

The lukewarm coffee didn't help, but it was there. It slid down his throat and created a block for the rising tears. If he drank enough coffee, maybe he'd never cry. His mother sat beside him. Her hand was was resting gently against his shoulder, and she didn't look at him.

NF felt oddly misplaced in time. He felt he knew everything and nothing. He was a thousand years old, and yet he had not learned how to walk. The air around him shimmered with heat and the hint of a storm, but he felt cold.

He was silent. He barely breathed, but his mother was all breath. She seemed to inhale on a gasp and exhale on a sigh. Her shoulders tensed and loosened, tensed and loosened, tensed and--.

Abruptly, she turned to him, calm. "You are my son," she said. His eyes were a reflection of hers, brown and warm like hot chocolate.

"Mom, I--" he began, but she cut him off with a wave of her hand. He saw the tears in her eyes and forced down another mouthful of coffee.

"No, you listen to me. You are my son." She gripped his shoulder, her fingers digging into his skin. "You are my son now, and you will be my son always." And for a moment, the entire world was silent, and NF realized that what she was really saying.

She stood up from the table, and her heels clanked together as she walked away from him. She didn't look back. But there next to her discarded saucer and cup was a picture of his family. All of his family.

NF held it to his chest against the brand new olive green fabric. He glanced around to all the white clothed tables filled with dresses and suits and more green fabric. The air practically vibrated with goodbyes, but as NF slipped the picture into his pocket, he could only think, "I'll love you always too, Mom."

Notes: Sorry, it's so short. But I've been told I have to get up in the morning.

Drabble 6: Flame.

When Ingrid was very small, her mother wrote and illustrated a story for her. A story that was too old for her, just yet. A story that her father would give to her when she was 10 as a birthday present a few years after he remarried. Ingrid cherished the story. She would read it many times. Eventually, she'd have it memorized.

The Pond of Lucky Ducks

For my lovely daughter, Ingrid,
May you be blessed with courage. 

On the first page was a brilliantly blue colored pond with a lonely looking yellow duck. The pond stretched the entire page. Rain clouds cluttered the sky with gray underbellies. They looked like miniature invading alien ships. There were no words on this page.

When she turned the page, it had begun to rain, fat blue gray raindrops that landed on the duck's feathers. A wind blew up waves on the pond, and the poor lonely duck began to be tossed side to side.

Once there was a lonely duck named Lucy. She lived her life on a peaceful pond until one day a storm came upon her and waves buffeted her feathers. 

The next few pages were only pictures like the first with Lucy, the duck, being pushed by the wind further and further away until on page six, Lucy washed up on a forgotten island.

Lucy was pushed out of her peaceful pond and onto a forgotten island. The trees loomed over her. Lucy was afraid of the trees with their olive green leaves, and she tried to stay as far away from them as possible. 

On the seventh page, Lucy the duck was shown gripping the edges of a rock with her wings and trying desperately not to be blown into the trees by the wind. On page eight, Lucy's wings slipped and she flew into the nearest group of trees.

The trees laughed at Lucy and their branches tore at her feathers. Lucy pleaded, "Please, I just want to go back to my pond. I just want to live out my life in peace."

On the next page, Lucy was shown tangled in the angry trees' branches, and feathers were falling to the ground like leaves.

But the trees laughed at Lucy. They were jealous of her peaceful pond and wanted it for themselves. So they held onto Lucy and kept her barred between their branches. 

Another few pages passed with Lucy the duck sitting in different positions looking through the branches. 

Lucy was stuck there until another duck washed up on shore. This duck was strong and brave. He held within him the courage of an army. 

Another duck was drawn in darker yellow on the shore the forgotten island, standing tall on his webbed duck feet.

This duck told the trees, "Let her go! How dare you capture such an innocent duck!" 

The duck stood beneath the trees. His wings were spread out in a show of bravery.

The trees laughed at the duck. "Who are you," they asked, "to tell us what to do?"

The trees were shown whispering to one another and laughing behind raised leaf-covered branches.

But the duck would not have their questions. He responded, "Who are you to torture the innocence?"

The duck waddled about between the trees, tauntingly.

The trees grew angry and their leaves began to shake. They shook so hard that Lucy fell from their branches. "Run!" The other duck told Lucy. 

Lucy fell to the ground, and was drawn running onto the next page where she continued to run until she reached the water three pages later.

And she did. She ran and ran and ran until she reached the other side of the island and then she waited. 

Lucy sat by the water's edge and stared anxiously back in the direction she had come.

It wasn't long before the other duck came running out behind. "Quick!" He yelled. "Into the water!" 

The other duck was running across the page to her, sweat flying off his feathers behind him.

The couple of ducks waded into the water and swam away from the island as fast as they could. When they reached the shore on the other side, they were greeted with a great many astonished people. "How did you do that?" The people asked. 

A few pages were spent showing their passage across the water, and then a crowd of people stared at them. All with surprised faces. 

The two ducks looked at each other and shrugged. "We swam," They said. 

The ducks were drawn with their wings touching, looking relieved and exhausted.

The people stared at them for a long time, but eventually they gathered the ducks together with them. They welcomed them to their land. And for many years the couple of ducks lived happily with the people. 

The ducks' house was sketched with great detail, and the smiling ducks sat together on the porch swing.

But one day another storm came and with it, great stomping trees invaded the people's land. The couple of ducks tried to warn the people. "These trees are no good," they said. 

The two ducks stood in front of a crowd of people. Their faces were taunt with worry. Trees looked on in the background. 

The people blinked at them and said, "They are just trees, and they share their apples with us and ask for nothing in return."

The people walked away from the ducks, a good proportion of them went while rolling their eyes.

This was true. The trees did not ask the people for anything. Instead one day, they decided to take everything. 

One tree had a collection of books hanging from its branches. Another had various kinds of food. And the last tree had a few people sitting on its branches.

The couple of ducks joined together with other people to try to prevent the trees from taking away their things. For a while, they succeeded. Everyone was careful not to get caught by the trees. They ran in the darkness and hid in alleys when the trees passed by.

 A collection of people and the two ducks were hiding behind houses, wearing all black. And on the next page, Lucy was shown holding a baby duck in her arms while the other duck hugged both of them.


Lucy gave birth to a beautiful baby girl duck. She left her with her father when she left for her special mission. She was on her way to teach art lessons to two of her brightest students when the trees saw her and began to chase after her.

 Lucy's art supplies were scattered behind her as she ran away from trees that used their roots as feet.


Lucy the duck ran all the way to the edge of The Lake, and with no other option she jumped in. But the lake's water wasn't any better than the pursuing trees because it began to pull Lucy into it. It grasped her arms and legs and soon there was nothing left of Lucy. 

Lucy jumping into the water. Lucy's arms and legs being dragged by the water. Lucy disappearing until all that remained were big, blue waves.


Lucy was very sad to go into The Lake. She would miss her baby girl and her father very much. She would hold both of them in her heart and wait for the day when they would meet again.


The story ended with the three ducks all together in a hug. And at the very bottom in her mother's cursive was "I love you, Ingrid."


Later, when she was old enough to understand that her story wasn't just a story, Ingrid would ask her dad how mama had known that she was going to be swallowed in the lake. He told that her mother had always been writing different ends to the book. She wrote and drew new endings everyday. She was always telling him that it had to be right, just in case.

Ingrid often wondered what it must have been like to write your death multiple ways each day, but then once she got older and the reality of the war set in, she realized that while she herself never wrote her death, she did wonder about it. And every day she would think, "I could die." And she thought maybe she wasn't as far from understanding as she wanted to be.


When she was 16, the soldiers came into the house and searched it for anything that went again their cause. They left with many things, but the only one Ingrid remembered was her beloved story. They took it outside and lit a bonfire. Then they ripped the story page by page and set each aflame.

That was the day that Ingrid pledged herself to The Underground.
 


Notes: *sigh* I love Ingrid's mother. I really do.

I'm sorry if the quality of this slowly went down hill. I am tired. And now, I must sleep!

Illegal writing down of snippet stuck in my head:

The words swirled in the wind like colorful fall leaves. She was almost afraid to ask. What if she couldn't do whatever it was he wanted? She loved this man. She loved him so very much, but she did not love him the way he loved her. So many shades of love. So many colorful leaves... 

 

She took a deep breath, staring into the water that took things away and would soon take this man. It was the inevitability that gave her the courage to speak. “Name it.”

Drabble 5: Haze.

His grandfather's eyes were hazy in those last moments. NF gripped his grandpa's hand tight between his two palms. He sat in the chair next to the bed, stared at the blue, tissue paper sheets, and wondered what you said to a man when you wanted to tell him it was okay to go, but didn't believe the words yourself.

His eyes climbed the blue tinted mountains back up to those hazy eyes. The world was a patchwork quilt made up of aquas, navys, and ceruleans. The only word that left his lips: "Grandpa."

The man in the bed had no reaction, and NF was struck with the thought. He can't hear me. It wasn't surprise that NF felt, but a stomach twisting sense of reality. The man in the bed had been unable to hear for quite some time now. His hearing had fled more and more each year.

Fiercely, NF wished it would rain, wished it would storm, wished he was Frankenstein and could strike his grandfather full of life. He wouldn't care if he created a monster. He'd follow this monster to the edge of the world and back if only he'd stay.

In an alternate reality, maybe he would stand up and scream, "Don't go!" exactly the way he wanted to. But in this life under the watchful eyes of his grieving parents he felt compelled to be good. To be in the right, even if inside his selfish thoughts were clawing their way into his heart.

Nothing he said would matter. He was aware of this. To his grandpa's deaf ears, even "I love you" sounded like silence. Words could only fail. They could not convey his love now. They could not spill his dreams and wishes and fears into the heart of a dying man.

He could only stare at the blue haze of his grandpa's eyes, grasp his hand firmly between his, and imagine that all of his thoughts were flowing into this grandpa's soul. Sadness leaked from his eyes. He did not release his grandfather's hand to wipe it away.

He couldn't, not yet. No, there was one last thought to send: the image of his grandpa sitting at the kitchen table three days ago with a smile.

That was his thank you. That was his "I love you." He could only imagine that it had actually been received. Maybe grandpa would get it when he was assigned his place in Heaven. He'd know what it meant. 

And with that, NF let him go.


Notes: NF wants to write this scene. He wishes he could write like the authors he reads. Later, he will ask Ing to write a moment for him... It'll be adorable!

I don't like this one. My writing is meh. But I am done, okay? Okay!

The loss of an ally...

Drabble 4: Snowflake.

The snowflakes fell like abominable gray ashes. The girl spread her bare, mitten-less hands wide above her head. She imagined every snowflake was a forgotten "I love you" spread wide across the sky.

The clouds went about collecting the neglected love and then it fell softly at people's feet all over again. "I love you," the snowflakes whispered past her ears.

Love was falling to the ground that day.

It melted and seeped into her socks. It tickled her feet until they were numb. The girl had barely stepped outside and already she couldn't tell the difference between the numbness in her feet and the numbness in her heart.

"I love you!" She shouted to the sky, just to see how it would feel, and then she whispered it steadily to herself in time with her heartbeat. Love on repeat until love lost its meaning and the snow became snow again.

"Honey?" The man found her in her nightgown and cold stocking feet. "What are you doing out here?"

She pivoted on her heel and turned toward him. "Daddy?" She asked, blinking the snow from her eyelashes.

"What, hon?" He reached for her hand, and together they started back to the farm house.

"Did mommy like the snow?"

Her daddy stopped and knelt next to her. "She used to build snowmen. Would you like to build one?"

The girl shook her head. "I don't like the snow." She said. "It's always falling, and it melted in my socks."

"Then we'd better get you some new socks, huh?" He smiled at her.

The girl nodded, and they started back toward the house again.

"Daddy?" The little girl bit her lip, glancing down at the imprints her feet left in the white covered ground. "Did you cry when the lake took mommy?"

"Yes," her father answered simply, opening the door as they stepped into the house. He lifted her onto the kitchen counter and pulled off her wet socks.

"Did you cry because you love her?" The girl watched the man as he pulled two mugs down from the high self and set the kettle on the stove.

"Of course, I loved your mother," he said.

"Loved her or love her?" The girl asked. She'd just been learning about past and present tense in school. What if love was only past tense?

Her daddy frowned as he grabbed the dish towel and dried the ends of her wet hair. "You might not understand now," he told his daughter, "but someday you will. Until then you're going to have to trust me, okay?"

The girl nodded. "About what?"

"Someday, you'll realize that love isn't just a verb. You know what a verb is, don't you?"

"Something you do. Like jump," The girl said. She loved words. She loved their meanings. She loved their uses.

"Well love isn't only something you do," the man said. "I love. I loved. And I had love."

The girl was confused. She watched as he poured the hot water into the two mugs and made them tea. He lifted her off the counter and pulled her to the table.

"Careful, it's really hot," he cautioned her. She nodded absently.

"Dad, how can you have love? You can't have a verb. You can't have jump."

"But I told you," he reminded her gently, "love is not only a verb."

"Then what is it?" The girl's blue eyes reminded her dad very much of her mother's.

"A gift," he told her. "Your mother's love was a gift. And so is yours."

The girl was quiet as she watched the snow through the window. And then, "Dad?" she asked.

The man laughed a little. "What, Hon?"

"My teacher said that each snowflake is unique."

"Oh?" The man stared out the window and sipped his tea.

"Gifts are unique too."

It was not the first time that his daughter surprised him with her observations. 


Notes: ... This makes me miss Ingrid's dad a little. #loving my characters too much