Writing Exercise Fun II

My writers group, the Ink Slingers Guild, meets roughly every two weeks and we create super fun “blurbs” using a few words and five – eight minutes. We share them every week here: www.InkSlingersGuild.com

A while back I shared some of my favorites and thought it was time to share some more. Below are the words that were chosen for the exercise with the blurb I threw together. I hope you enjoy them!

• Cake
• Cup
• Truly
• Sly

Mauri watched the cake sway in the heavy wind. The dragon, in his excitement for the cow now running through the meadow, took off eagerly. The Cake was dangerously close to toppling and unluckily for the bride, her father was there wobbling back and forth, arms out with a scary look in his eye. Mauri feared that if the cake did go, Sally may lose a bit more than a cake when he lost his sense of humor. He was a truly good wizard, well known actually but never, ever let him mess with food. It was never a pretty sight.

Mauri frowned and took a slurp of her wine. Her lip caught on a splinter in the cup and she licked blood from her lip. Her eyes roved the guests looking for someone to cover the cake to get the food allergy wizard away and also to checkout who might be her after-wedding meal.

The dragon chose that moment to land not far behind her. She could smell the blood from the cow. She rolled her eyes and took another slurp of wine. Glancing at the barn she saw the sly little one who had let the cow out. The farmer probably wouldn’t be very happy but the bride was paying pretty well so maybe he won’t get the magistrate involved. One can never tell these days. Tossing the cup behind her, Mauri strode to the back of the seated guests and took a chair for herself.

Normally she wouldn’t give these things the time of day but it was her great, great, great granddaughters wedding after all.

• Cellophane
• Late
• Terror

Kate threw the cellophane container on the floor. When it merely hit the floor with a soft rap, she lifted a doc marten encased foot, the kind with the metal toe, and brought it down heavily. The container dented slightly. Huffing out curse words she jumped repeatedly on the container until it was broken in half. The cellophane still held tightly on its roll. Shrieking, Kate opened a drawer looking for scissors, anything that would damage the offending item. When she turned back, Jerry stood, mouth ajar, terror lines wrinkling his forehead.

“What the hell is your problem?” he whispered.

“The cellophane. I couldn’t get it off the roll,” she whispered back, instantly feeling the tears filling the corner of her eyes.

Jerry shook his head.

“Come on, leave it. We’ll be late for the buffet if we don’t go right now.”

“But what about the dish? Everyone is expecting magic fish stew.”

“Oh god. Tell them the cat ate it.”

• Dire
• Statue
• Responsive

Katy stared at the man on the ground. He had been dead for over five minutes now, the blood pooling beneath him. He obviously had gotten himself into a dire situation and the response team Katy had called apparently wasn’t very responsive. She had called over an hour ago. She didn’t know how to handle a gaping wound in someone’s gut. She just had to sit with him and let him breathe his weird fishy breath on her until his gills stopped moving. With the exception of the nasty wound in his side, he would make a beautiful statue right now. It was her first time dealing with a Merman and damn. It really was a shame, the whole gaping wound thing. Now she had to stay until the response unit came to keep the friggin water sprites away. They seemed dead set, Katy laughed under her breath, at getting a bite of the dead guy. She frowned wondering if there was some magical benefit to Merman blood or skin or some other fluid. Waving a hand at yet another sprite, she breathed a sigh of relief when she heard running on the dock behind her. Finally!

• Soap
• History
• Key
• Gnome

Eyes squeezed shut, Mira tried to wash the soap from her hair and was failing miserably. Someone had broken her usual bowl and she was having to use a stand-in that she could barely fit her hands in leave alone her heavy mass of hair. Someone knocked on her door, presumably Shelly, her lady-in-waiting.

“Come, in!” she hollered, “I’m drowning in soap!”

She heard the door close and the key twist in the lock. A set of gentle hands lifted her hair, one hand helping to hold her head up, the other pouring water from a pitcher.

“Oh thank you so much,” Mira said, “I had no idea how I would going to get out of that one,”

“Indeed,” the deep voice said. Mira froze but the water on her face was too full of soap for her to dare open her eyes.

“Who are you?” she asked timidly. Men were not allowed in her room.

“I was informed that you might need a certain flower for a certain ailment,” the voice said while gentle hands still washed soap from her hair.

Mira pulled away, searching the table for a wash towel.

“I need no such thing! Who would say such a thing?”

“A young gnome was certain you would need such a flower,”

“Well, I don’t know any gnomes, young or old that would ever be so rude,”

“Your history does allude to that fact,” the deep voice whispered as she blotted her face with a towel.

“How dare you!” Mira cried as she pulled the towel away and turned only to find her room empty and her door open, Shelly standing wide-eyed in the hall.

“Did you see him?” Mira demanded.

“See who?” Shelly asked as she bowed her head.

• Saturated
• Snarky
• Crystal

Once the towel was saturated with blood, Chally took the dripping mess and held it over the cauldron. The bubbling brew hissed and popped as the blood hit the surface. Hem stirred it slowly, long gloves covering his hands and elbows. He smiled at Chally.

“Are you going to feed the remains to Sooch again?” he asked with a glance at the freshly gutted body on the floor.

Chally shook her head. “Last time I did that he barfed all over the house. I just don’t trust human blood to sit well with him now.”

Hem made a disappointed noise. “Seems like such a waste,” he commented. “Where’d you find this one?”

“Some snarky bitch at the club. Even the guys wouldn’t hang around her long. Plus I got this cool crystal necklace from her.”

“Bonus,” Hem said as he removed the long metal spoon and whispered the spell for long life.

© 2015 Lisa Barry