Plot Picture Challenge 32

[Greenie]

A picture is worth a thousand words, as is often quoted.
How does the picture below speak to you? Perhaps as a poem? Perhaps a roleplay idea? Maybe a story?
Whatever comes to your mind, write those words down! All is well and welcome, whether a couple of sentences or more!

 

[Take Without Touching]

Scintillating sky, chanting wind, a liquid path that flowed across taupe colored earth. She hadn't yet realized this was a dream. Miles and years had passed behind her as she walked.They told her not to go on. Yes, the flowers, the grasses, the trees- each spoke in a voice soft and sweet, telling her there was little point to press on, that she would never get as far as she wanted.

Regardless of this advice, feet carried her forward across those miles and years. Finally, a bird came to rest in the path before her, its plumage ruffled and torn. Blood stained its white feathers, and its eyes held a predatory hunger. Camille stopped, for she knew this thing had been traveling for miles and years across the flowing stone and rippling stars, a good many more than herself.

"Why do you go on?" it asked.

Camille shrugged. "What else am I going to do?"

 

[PoetLore]

Deandra stared up at the intricate mosaic upon the wall in the great hall with wonder. Belendriel, the old sorceress, had told her that the mosaic was the key to an ancient prophesy but as she stared at it she could not see any such thing. When the time was right, she would understand. How many times had she heard that? A million maybe more it seemed.

her Mother came up beside her and set a gentle hand to her shoulder, "Do not trouble your mind Dea...the time is not yet come."

She sighed and looked away, "When will it be time?"

"No one knows Love...but do not hurry it along. It may not be a pleasant thing." The queen kissed her daughter's head and continued on her way.

Not many days hence, an odd sort of scent permeated the castle walls and turned the stones of the walls red like blood. Dea looked at thee walls and ran to the mosaic trying to figure out the prophesy. Surely her father knew, or her mother, but neither of them were there. How could they not see the red stones and realize they were part of the images of the prophesy?

It was then that a woman appeared in the hallway with her and her glowing fiery skin seemed to heat the entire space with thick heavy air. "The child of prophesy lives I see."

Dea stood straight and proud. She had no idea what the woman was talking about, but she didn't want her to know it. "She does." She said having no idea it was her.

"You dare to challenge me?"

Challenge her? Oh dear, what was going on? "I do!" she said but it wasn't her, it was some ...force with her. Half her mind was strong and assured and the other half was cowering in fear and doubt.

A cruel laugh echoed through the hall, "So be it child...so be it."

Fire flew from the hand of the woman and Dea was screaming internally, but her hand calmly rose and her wrist flicked and the ball of fire was encased in ice and fell to the floor. There was no expression on her face, but her mind was shocked and full of wonder as she watched this battle unfold before her, as if she were a mere spectator.

The woman became more and more enraged as her attacks were thwarted without more than a flick of a wrist or a breath or air from Dea's lips. She growled and screeched as her body transformed into that of a fiery winged bird and she flew at Dea with force and power. But as the prophesy on the wall foretold, a swirling icy wind enveloped the fiery bird and the swirling winds closed in and tightened upon the bird until it was frozen solid in perfect flight and fell to the floor of the hall.

Dea felt the spirit leave her and then when she looked up at the Mosaic she understood the prophesy completely and for the first time, saw that the girl in the mosaic was her.

 

[Doctor Jax]

"Ma'at!"

Naomi yelled after the bird that had led her this far, and she looked up to see still more desert. Not for the first time, she wondered if this was an exercise in futility. How was she supposed to find the Sage of the Air, much less ask him for a bag of the North Wind for Mother Abska? It seemed an impossibility, and she thought of her sister, imprisoned in a cage of thousands of fingers, trapped by her own spoiled mouth. Oh, had she only been kind to that beggar woman rather than mock her for her lack of children. Diann had told her to not say such things. Now her sister was being punished for her stupidity.

"Ma'at!" Naomi shouted again, looking around for the bird that had thus far led her on. Had it been an agent of Mother Abska? That she was to die here in the desert, without a drop to drink?

Something trilled far off in the distance, and she turned to it hopefully. The bird was sitting upon a log, its white plumage bright under the full moon that illuminated the entire desert in a landscape of cool blue and black. She wrapped her cloak about herself tighter, the cold biting at her nose with needle teeth, as she made her way to the bird.

"Ma'at, you have to wait for me," Naomi warned with a huff, before her hard-earned breath was stolen from her, her eyes drawn to a palace that seemed to materialize along the horizon just under the full moon. She gazed upon it in a marvel, the place a sprawling edifice of blue-white marble, tiled in magnificent patterns of blue, gold, and white. Alcoves and balconies and terraces dotted the entirety of the palace that seemed to spring, wholesale, from the sand, and Naomi stumbled towards it. However, before forgetting herself, she turned back to the bird, and she bowed low to it.

"Thank you, Ma'at, faithful servant and wonderful creature," she intoned with all seriousness. "You are an impeccable friend, and I shall not forget this."

The bird trilled again, flying over her head towards the palace, and a shiver passed over Naomi as she stared at the mirage. With plodding footsteps, she journeyed towards the palace.

 

[noodle]

Samuel Adler was a simple man. He liked cats and painting, and that was it. Of course, that didn't mean he was any good- he thought he was, but no one else seemed to. He sighed, stepping back and examining the canvas that lay before him with critical eyes.

It was the first piece he didn't like. He knew he could do better...but it was done, and he wasn't going to try to fix it. There was no point anymore, was there?

He'd quit his job to pursue art, and there was so much time on his hands now that he'd spiraled into a never-ending loop of self-destruction. Alcohol was his vise, and cigarette smoke permeated his apartment. It even overpowered the stench of his oil paints.

His money was gone.

His family had abandoned him.

This wasn't going to work. No one believed in him.

It was time to start over, right?

...No.

He banished such thoughts from his mind, and, a new resolve brimming in his eyes, gripped his brush again in paint-stained fingers. He could do better. No, he would do better. Giving up was not an option.

And he was going to prove himself.