| "Valley Of Dust" STORY
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 Posted:
Mon Oct 10, 2005 11:55 am |
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"Valley Of Dust" STORY
Valley Of Dust
Prologue
Rosalind’s hands were caked with paint. Her dark skinned hands were held palm open as she looked at the paint just thinking for a moment. A flickering fire illuminated her face. Her orange eyes matching some of the flames. She shook her hair to move it away from her face. Long black braid down to her shoulders. Each braid had a red or orange ribbon braided into it. She looked back at the paint in her hands then looked up towards Braxis across the fire. He had a notebook out on one hand and a small bible was sitting on his leg. He was glancing back and forth with a serene look on his face. He had dark green eyes and brown hair with tint of different colors in it. He could figure you out with just a glance of those eyes. She though about how eerie that had been the first time he had told her the story of her life. Now it just made her smile. He looked up from the notebook and caught her eyes. He closed everything and sat it down walking around the fire to her. He took some of the pain from her hands. He wiped it down her cheek.
“During these post-apocalyptic times, you’re gonna have to get a little dirty,” The mud and forest colored dirt smeared across her cheek evenly. Her orange eyes looked up at him a smile across her face. Her bright white teeth almost shined in the dark. “You may want to take those ribbons out of your hair though, usako,” she simply shook her head causing the braids to swing around. She wiped the paint off of her wedding ring and he grinned leaning in and kissed her.
Lender sat in front of the fire on the ground his legs crossed. His eyes were closed. He had short silver hair that spiked up out of his head. It was not because of age that was a natural color. He had dark brown almost black eyes. His sword lay next to him in it’s sheath. You never saw him without it. It told more about him that he himself did. It had a long silver blade and the handle was white gold with a twist of red designs on it in some language. Every one assumed that Lender knew what it meant though they themselves had no idea. He called it Meggido.. He said little, but when he did speak people listened. He had a voice that you had to follow.
Seifer had long red hair down to his shoulders. He sat opposite of Lender. He had a bow in his lap and was plucking then letting of the string. It gave a small humming sound to the their camp. He was always moving, always looking like he had something on his mind. He had bright blue eyes that shone out under his red hair. He was never quite silent, either a jingle or a humming sound, something always issued from him, giving him a sort of musical quality. There were others in their little group but for some reason Rosalind could not remember where they all went.
They were camped at the headquarters of the Thoul. There were hundreds of camp site set up, over the hill was the market and the inn. Most camped now with the downward fall of the economy. They had had to resort to a barter economy when the Brumos attacked the country. There were several regiments settling down for the night they all were retiring to their separate camp sites.
“Rosa, is there something wrong?” She tumbled out of her thoughts back to Braxis’s
eyes. She gave a small fake smile.
“I’m fine,” He looked at her seriously and put his hands on his arms then slid his fingers down them leaving streaks of paint, he looked deeper into her eyes.
“I can see something’s wrong honey” She shook her head.
“Just ghosts,”
A loud scream echoed over the camp sites. Not one of surprise or attack, a last breath kind of scream. Someone else was dead, or getting there. It was such a regular occurrence now people rarely paid it a thought. Braxis’s eyes closed tight for a moment, as if the scream had come from him. She touched his cheek. Poison, it happened more and more often with the amount of things ripped from labs and other toxic things taken by the Brumos. They were in the middle of a war people were going to die, people were already dying. She looked at him worried for a moment.
“Tell me Braxis, why did we put on paint when we are about to go to sleep?”
“Because we may get attacked in the middle of the night,” her smile turned down to a frown for a moment and he touched her ear and she looked back up at him. “Relax, I’m sure it will all be over soon,”
Another scream sounded and Rosalind’s head shot off her pillow she touched her face pulling away no paint and then shot out of the tent as she realized Braxis was not in there with her. It was sunrise, its light colors just starting to light up the sky. She wrapped her cloak around her tight. Lender and Seifer had Braxis in their arms and they were carrying him towards her. He screamed again and it felt like her heart was being ripped out. His sin looked yellowish, almost like a deflated balloon.
“Poisoned?” They nodded, “Get him to the tent,” They had a large tent set up just outside of the woods and then smaller camps for each person and one for Rosalind and Braxis, which would be a single if she didn’t hurry. They laid him on the table and Seifer started to paly with a clasp on the pocket of his pants. Lender watched Rosalind, looking calm but she knew on the inside he was running through all sorts of possibilities. Rosalind took a deep breath holding her hand to his chest and then closed her eyes. A small green and purple light shone from between her eyelashes for a moment then an orange light shot from her shoulder to her fingertips then into his chest. She opened here eyes. Her irises had a small line of orange light around the outside. He opened his eyes and looked up at her He grabbed her hand. He was sweating heavily, but his skin was slowly changing back to it’s regular color. Seifer and Lender smiled. Lender put his hand on her shoulder.
“Good job,” She nodded.
“Let’s get him to our tent please,” the boys picked him up and carried him to the tent she opened the flaps to let them in. They laid him down gently. She grabbed a bottle of water from one of her packs and a washcloth. She ran it over his head gently “Braxis…” she took his hand and his eyes opened slowly. He was shaking, the magic was moving through his veins fighting the poison. He had to stay awake. Braxis squeezed her hand. She put a pillow underneath his head and flung a soft purple blanket over him. He grabbed her shoulder as she turned to look at Seifer and Lender.
“Where’s the scrabble board honey?” She turned back and smiled.
“It’s in the kitchen you know that,” he nodded and his eyes started to roll back into his head and she smacked him across the face leaving a giant red mark. He growled as the pain woke him up more.
“If you fall asleep you won’t be able to play anything,” she said then stroking his face. She ran the washcloth over his face after dumping cold water onto it. Seifer and Lender sighed slightly. Seifer nodded towards the forest.
“We need to catch back up with Haine, Boqt, and Kiften,” Lender nodded and they headed back towards the woods. She only followed them with her eyes for a moment. She turned them back to Braxis. All of a sudden he took a deep breath his back arched his eyes lit up green and orange for a minute then it dissipated then with perfect clarity he looked up at her.
“Poisoned?” She nodded in return. His voice sounded dry and crackly.
“What were you guys fighting?”
“A group of skeletons, we hunting for some berries and herbs. We didn’t even hear anything before they came up,” She touched his cheek
“You have to be more careful, this isn’t like the war, they sneak up on your back now,”
“I know usako, I know,” He lifted his hand slowly and touched her cheek. She smiled then turned from him getting some food out for him. “Our life should not be like this,” he added, almost a whisper, “What if someday we want to have child? I think if I heard that news now I would cry, I do not want anyone to have to live like this,” She turned back to him and tucked some of his hair behind his ear.
“We have awhile before we start worrying about that dear,” He smiled and nodded. “Let me go get you some food, we only have some dried bread in here. She started to leave the tent and he caught her wrist.
“Don’t leave Rosalind,”
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"All I want to do is read poetry from a burning building"-David Lerner
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Posted:
Mon Oct 10, 2005 12:10 pm |
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Out of curiosity, are you a novelist Booky or have any of your stories been published before or have had experience with book clubs or some sort of other writing oriented group?
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| seifer |
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Posted:
Mon Oct 10, 2005 2:46 pm |
Highwind
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i think its good. it sure has potential all right.
my question, how old are you? not sure if you mentioned it, and you didnt list your bday, so i was just wondering bc thats some good writing.
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Posted:
Mon Oct 10, 2005 3:05 pm |
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WOW  ... Wow again...
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Posted:
Mon Oct 10, 2005 5:44 pm |
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Thanks guys  I've never had anything published. I took a creative writing class for a semester in high school. I'm 17.
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| Bookburned |
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Posted:
Mon Oct 10, 2005 5:46 pm |
Paladin
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Heh Heh oops. That was me sorry guys
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"All I want to do is read poetry from a burning building"-David Lerner
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Posted:
Tue Oct 11, 2005 12:27 pm |
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I'm glad I didn't Didn't Die ....woot....Btw its funny to see you post as me...But thats what happen's when you let your man use your computer...
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Posted:
Wed Oct 12, 2005 7:28 pm |
Paladin
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Some little changes from the first section. The first section is now Chapter one. Here is a peice of chapter two. The first few chapter are going to be getting to know the characters. So here is the next peice. i would love it if more people would comment and tell me what i should put in it, or what i should work on. Thanks for the time.
Chapter Two
Seifer tugged on his bow, continuing the same humming noise. He looked across the woods remembering the row of fires he used to look at in front of the headquarters of Thoul. He closed his eyes and mumbled a song to himself. One that was around before the attack and computers were still around, when people still recorded music. Now they had gone back to basic passing it around. He pulled out a light green bandana and tied it and pulled back his hair. He stood up and stopped strumming the bow Lender looked up at him.
“Anything wrong Seifer?”
“Not really, just thinking. I’m going to take a walk I think,” Lender stood up uncharacteristically showing a little anger then he took a breath and calmed down.
“I’m not sure it is so good for you to go out alone right now,” Seifer looked at him for a moment then sat back down
“Then the terrorists win,” Lender smiled and sat down next to him. Seifer sighed and grabbed a biscuit out of his bag. He was not sure how the rest of his life was going to go but at this point he did not like the direction it was going. He missed his house, and his microwave. He had been young but he remembered how it was before. Before the Brumos had started popping up, before the war. Before they had reverted back.
He munched on the biscuit and watched the fir crackle at the air. He remembered heated houses, air conditioned houses. He rubbed his forehead, he was dying for some medicine. He had had a migraine for the past couple days and was really tired of the pain. He needed some kind of meat. He looked at Lender again. He stood up and wandered over to his tent. He should go find everyone else, make them go hunting with him. “Or,” he thought as he picked up his quiver, “I could just sneak,” He took off as quiet as he could. He was lucky Lender was near sleep or else Lender would have shot up and come after him.
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Posted:
Wed Oct 12, 2005 7:41 pm |
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1.Please change something before announcing the changes.
Your prologue still reads prologue instead of chapter 1
2. Hmm... the large difference in lengths between the two chapters bothers me. It makes it hard for a reader to get a firm grasp of the story. I'm going out on a leg and assume that some readers will get turned off by the length of the 1st one and those who did read through it will be shocked by the length of the second one.
IMO Unpredictability is good inside of the story not at the story.
3. It's better to list the changes in the first post by editing it. Some people don't like the idea of being shot back to reality with a change update instead of just reading the story full on.
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Posted:
Fri Oct 14, 2005 4:35 pm |
Paladin
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| Quote: |
| Hmm... the large difference in lengths between the two chapters bothers me. It makes it hard for a reader to get a firm grasp of the story. I'm going out on a leg and assume that some readers will get turned off by the length of the 1st one and those who did read through it will be shocked by the length of the second one. |
In the words above the story it says a PEICE of chapter 2, as in that was not the whole thing. I was hoping you would comment on the content of the story not the format
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"All I want to do is read poetry from a burning building"-David Lerner
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Posted:
Fri Oct 14, 2005 5:09 pm |
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| Bookburned wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Hmm... the large difference in lengths between the two chapters bothers me. It makes it hard for a reader to get a firm grasp of the story. I'm going out on a leg and assume that some readers will get turned off by the length of the 1st one and those who did read through it will be shocked by the length of the second one. |
In the words above the story it says a PEICE of chapter 2, as in that was not the whole thing. I was hoping you would comment on the content of the story not the format |
My bad
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Posted:
Wed Oct 19, 2005 2:49 pm |
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it's alright
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Posted:
Wed Oct 19, 2005 3:28 pm |
Highwind
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| Krutsiey wrote: |
| I'm going out on a leg |
not to be a pain in the badonkadonk, but i do believe its "go out on a limb" lol.
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If we don’t make it alive,
Well it’s a hell of a good day to die.
All our light that shines so strong
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Posted:
Wed Oct 19, 2005 4:06 pm |
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Oops my bad. Ok, I'm going out on a limb from now on
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| shiva |
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Posted:
Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:12 am |
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your story's certainly are good you know
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