OFFICIAL EVENT Love: A Quartet of Prompts

[Dusk]

Love: A Quartet of Prompts​

I'm Dusk, and I'm more than just a romantic backdrop. The season of love is upon us, so why not share that love with our characters? For this activity, I've come up with four prompts to be released weekly. Take one or more of your characters and write something with them using one of the prompts. You can write for as few or as many of them as you wish. And just because a second prompt has been added doesn't mean you can't still do the first. To sweeten the deal, you'll get a trophy for participation. This event will last the entire of February, so have fun with it, and I look forward to reading what you have to share!

List of Prompts​

i. First Love
ii. Platonic Love
iii. Old Love
iv. Fleeting Love

 

[Dusk]

It's been a week, which means it's time for our second prompt:
Platonic Love​

 

[Dusk]

A day late, but for the third prompt:
Old Love​

 

[Fluffy]

PROMPT: FIRST LOVE​

Tonight was a perfect night for a swim in the waterfall basin. Even though the sun was gone, the air was warm. And there were thousands of dazzling stars in the sky, providing light and guidance to those who should look up.

To be honest, the stars didn't interest him much. Not tonight. Wyatt's gaze was locked on his friend, Morgan, who sat on the grass across the way. He looked so content over there, which was good to see, considering how much stress they'd been under these past several days. Then again, their whole lives were stressful. Being raised in a laboratory makes for a lot of tension. They were no longer in that hellhole, though. So, they could look forward to some good days and good nights, just like this one.

As Wyatt continued to gaze at Morgan, his heart raced rapidly in his chest. The thumping was so loud that he could hear it in his ears. His stomach felt slightly sick, too, and his hands were shaking above the water. These symptoms came up almost every time he looked at Morgan. They got worse if Morgan talked to him, and worse still if Morgan smiled. Nobody had ever made Wyatt feel this way before. He didn't know what to think of it or what it was supposed to mean. All he did know was that he was drawn to Morgan. The strange illness he experienced didn't make him want to get away from him. Quite the opposite.

Finally, he tore his eyes away so he could swim in a few different patterns. The whole time, he thought about Morgan. Morgan might be out of his sight but he wasn't out of his mind. He thought about his handsome face, his cool-looking hairstyle, his lovely voice, his attractive figure… Truly, it was like he'd been infected. In his head, it was nothing but Morgan, Morgan, Morgan. His brain felt unable to focus on anything but Morgan.

What did all of this mean, he once again wondered? The word 'love' came to mind, but he was hesitant to use that word due to never knowing real love before. The laboratory was a loveless place and the scientists were loveless people. Wyatt didn't want to completely rule out the possibility, though. Perhaps he did love Morgan. He certainly cared about him a great deal, and he could admit he was attracted to him. Did he love him too? Could that be what these feelings indicate?

Sighing tiredly, he hesitantly sent his eyes back over to Morgan. That did no favors for his racing heart, but damn, he just couldn't look away. Morgan was so… Beautiful. So wonderful. So loyal and true. All he wanted to do was gaze at him as if he were a painting meant to be admired.

Desiring to be near him, Wyatt got out of the water and walked over to Morgan. Taking a seat beside him, he decided he would star gazing with him. At last, the stars had his attention, but it wasn't undivided. Every so often, he stole glances at Morgan.

It just couldn't be helped, because…

He loved him.

 

[sele]

First Love.
Modern fantasy; ft. my scientist, Ansel & @ikaroa 's witch, Terra. ​

A pulse of darkness bloomed with crushing weight outward from where Terra radiated chaos. Magic summoned itself, drawing its own rituals and calling up more power, making Terra its conduit. With each overpowering wave, it'd felt to Ansel as though his identity were being macerated into an illogical pulp - blended across timelines and unfamiliar perspectives.

The reality magic had overcome Terra.

Despite their safeguards, despite their careful and cautious approach. Even in all of that, they had been too arrogant to believe they could – together – contain that sort of power. Their bodies – her body – was not a vessel designed to carry such a thing, this realium; and now that substance burned fissures through its organic containment. Through her.

They had been too arrogant, and he felt the suffocating guilt of that realization far too late. He felt it for his ache toward Terra's suffering. He felt it in each pulsing tidal wave of darkness that swelled out in every direction from her racked body.

Each time that current of nothingness – and everythingness – washed over Ansel, when he felt the confusion of place, time, and self jar his bearings, he knew she'd carried these experiences within herself all along, too.

For her, he had to keep his footing.

He'd lost track of where they were for the damage the reality magic had warped into their setting, leaving it umbral and dizzying now. He'd lost mental bearing on when this surge of magic had overcome her, too. But these weren't the details that'd help save her, he couldn't get lost in trying to hold together the pieces that were irrelevant to the ultimate goal in that urgent, desperate moment – whenever or wherever it was taking place.

He didn't care what happened to Atlas, to Gemma, to anyone or anything else here. That was the cold truth of it if he had to make a choice now – on where to focus and who to help. He had to home in fully on himself and on Terra. She was the one that mattered enough to fight reality itself for.

"Central Park." He forced out of his crushed lungs while another blast of chaos surged.

It gave him the focus enough to take a step forward; it'd become a singular, solid point for him to stand on amidst the black tides. Ansel was only human, and his mind and body were even less structurally fortified against this sort of thing than the witch's genetics provided to her.

He realized he didn't need to be stronger than the reality magic – he never would be. He just needed to do whatever it took to pull Terra out of its riptide. Even if it was only a nudge toward survival it'd be worth whatever the cost proved to be. If his test with just that one location gave him something solid to hold to – remembering Central Park and all it represented to him of her, them – he would push into that hypothesis harder, and for her sake. She hadn't had solid ground for so long. It could have been mere minutes, but within that reality vortex, and with Terra at the core of it, minutes or years no doubt were lost to reality's warping threads.

A version of Bram Stoker's Dracula had been made to say something in a film once that the book version of himself had not; something Ansel unconsciously felt the immensity of now - I have crossed oceans of time to find you. Ansel would cross through those black tides of reality magic for as long as his body could hold out. Every self-aware fractal of himself splintering against the realium felt that immensity.

Ansel wouldn't have been able to remember where he was born nor his parents' names at that point if he'd tried – but he'd shed trying to keep anything he didn't need to serve that very moment. His favorite color and his life work – it was all twisted and abandoned.

"The night Terra told Ansel about Bluebird. When Minerva purred between them. Central Park. A Midsummer Night's Dream. Coffee in the lab. Bagels in the break room. The way," Ansel gasped for breath, and emotion broke over that moment for him. He winced against the black tides that tried to sweep away his cogent awareness of his most precious memories. "--the way Terra's brown curls bounce to the sides of her face when she laughs. The way Ansel had longed to overreach through their boundaries and feel her cheek against his palm. The way Terra loves with ferocity and brilliance. The way Ansel worships her life."

He could hardly form full concepts any longer, but he shielded as much of these important memories as he could. He no longer had the ability to reference himself in a normal sense either. Reality hissed and twisted and flickered darker toward moonless midnight.

"Come back to who you are," he gasped against a sense of asphyxiation. But he was losing the ability to even describe or comprehend what that meant anymore, too. As the world screeched through shreds of things that'd happened in this reality and others, he willed a last offering at her alter before even his own sense of self was utterly pulled apart. He managed to grasp the last strand of self-identity for that important note to be left at her feet. The world contorted beyond recognition or function for the mortal man to endure. But his last, self-aware breath was for her.

I love you.

 

[Dusk]

It's time for our final prompt:
Fleeting Love​

 

[Lyrikai]

because I refuse to have a repeat of Inktober and owe you one!

Prompt: First Love

Lyrik Ion had never been in love before. What was love anyway? Sappy sloppy romance where people touched each other. They swapped spit and did numerous dirty things. Like holding hands! Kissing? Ugh. Why? Whyyy? Why was that of all things a symbol of love. His lips were made for singing, not for being sucked on by someone else's! Right?

Any other day he'd have been horrified at the idea of another person daring to want contact with his skin, wanting to hold him close and lay in his bed alongside side, lay out all their weird toiletries on his sink! Take over his couch? His kitchen? What a horrid wretched nightmare that would have been..!

...until he actually fell in love.

Well. Never let it be said that a person could be too old to find love, too neurotic, or too scared. Lyrik had always had his music. He had his screaming, adoring fans, his palace up in the clouds, and his butler handling all his important dirty chores. This sort of thing had just snuck up on him when he hadn't expected it. It came right up and bit him on the ass quite honestly. He should have been mad about that, really, but he wasn't. He wasn't mad at all, you see, because he was in love.

Love made his heart race, but it a good way! It gave that butterfly feeling in his stomach and got him all giddy and bouncy excited every time he was held or heard those sweet little words of affection, or, let's be honest here... being kissed. Having another person's mouth clamped around his in a manner that wasn't indicative with being given mouth to mouth because he'd passed out for some reason? Apparently. Evidently. It was actually a nice feeling. Who would have thought?

Now he got to wake up with someone else all curled up in the blankets on the other side of the bed. His bathroom sink could be invaded with whatever random nonsense! Whatever gods were up there already knew Lyrik's side of the sink was anyway. Now it was just extra cluttered, and that was perfectly fine! Now he got to step into the kitchen to whip up hearty breakfast, but he got to make two plates instead of just the one. Breakfast was a shared experience, and he loved that, too.

Lyrik Ion may have started out alone and content to remain that way, but love sure had changed him. It was frightening and he didn't know where it was going to continue to carry him, but he was going to go long for the ride! As far as it would go, he'd ride it! Damn the concerns about how many germs were in the human mouth or where those hands had been before trying to hold his own! He'd just have to brace himself and find out the hard way!

He'd enjoy it, too, because love sure did funny things to people.