Writing Explorations: Week 68, Falling Investigator

[The Mood is Write]

My Writing Explorations series of exercises are a chance for users to explore new concepts and practice the art of raising two fingers to Writer's Block while screaming obscenities to fickle muses: to rebel against the idea that a person requires a mythical force inside them to make new and amazing things.

No. Listen well, users: there is no being inside you waiting to be let out. You are the writer, and in this exercise, you are given a place to push not only against Writer's Block, but also against the forces of stagnation. Feel trapped in your genre? Explore a new one! Stuck with a singular archetype? Do something else! In this thread, you will not be critiqued unless you request it. Should you wish it, I will happily offer my thoughts on how it might be improved, but I will not comb looking for fixes: this isn't the place: this place is for safely trying new things and indulging a love of writing.

Shake the bars of your cell block and roar, writers!

[fieldbox=How do I take part?]You can write to one or more (or none) of the prompts, the theme in the thread title, the bonuses—hell, you can even cast aside all of what I offer if you get a different idea.

The whole point is "get writing!"[/fieldbox]

Prompts:

1. A grizzled old detective has seen it all, but he has a weak spot for white cats. Tell the story of how he became involved with the fantastical.
2. He should have died, but instead he was kidnapped by an immortal, and his aging stopped. What adventures does he have?
3. The protagonist is sent to investigate what mere soldiers cannot. Instead of letting the soldiers handle the situation once he discovers its source, the protagonist decides to handle it himself. He doesn't have the unnatural abilities of the soldiers.
4. Fae are causing trouble, one of the supernatural police department's detectives has gone rogue, and a fae drug dealer previously allowed to keep his business in exchange for offering information freely to the department has apparent ties to a case of multiple missing persons.

Bonus Rounds:

• Write in a random genre.
• "Why aren't you afraid of me?"
  "Seriously? I've worse nightmares about getting fired."
• "Queens don't cry, remember?"
• "I'd die for you. I'd kill for you. If you take another of my fries, I'll just plain kill you."
• "In a fight, they're lethal. Around each other, they melt."
• "You gave up your life for five centuries. The least I can do is give you a house."
  "That is not a house. That—that thing is gigantic!"
  "It has a fully-stocked wine cellar."
  "Sold."
• "He's such an idiot, he can't tell blood from marinara sauce!"

 

[noodle]

"In a fight, they're lethal. Around each other, they melt."

Barry's voice infiltrated Asher's thoughts, and he glanced away from the couple laughing over a meal in the corner. "I see that."

It was a strange concept to him- that two people who had been so fierce just hours before could act like lovesick teenagers with the drop of a hat. The two were very different, as well. A happy man with messy white hair and a tall, muscular frame, a single remaining eye shimmering green- and then his wife, a thin woman with pitch black hair, a silver streak to match her metallic eyes running through the left side of the long strands.

And then there was the man sitting in front of him. He was older, shoulder-length black hair, stubble, and band merch making him look a lot like a rock singer. He was colder than both of the couple's members and carried himself in a way that caused an aura of death to impose on those who dared approach.

Yet that woman had hugged this older man so dearly after the three of them had intervened in Asher's fight with the mech. "So..." Asher swallowed, fidgeting. He felt quite awkward here, but he supposed he was part of this team now. And he had been told to ask questions.

"So?"

"What's your relationship with Luna?"

Barry chuckled, his deep, gravelly voice sending chills up Asher's spine. "Daughter."

"But..." Frowning, the blond teen glanced from him to the woman at the other table and back. "She turned into...a dragon. You were teleporting and...stuff." Honestly, he'd been so preoccupied with watching the dragon and the pyrokinetic do their things that he'd forgotten to pay attention to the man. Then his frown deepened. "And you don't look old enough to have a kid that old."

"Ever heard of adoption?"

"...Oh."

A few more awkward moments passed in silence, and then Asher worked up enough courage to do it. His food was gone, and he was still hungry. So he reached over and slipped one of the fries from Barry's tray. The man's glare almost instantly formed, and he started speaking in a creepily calm voice. "Look, kid. You're part of this team now. That means I would die for you. I'd kill for you. But if you take another one of my fries, I'll just plain kill you."

 

[PoetLore]

Dirk Traxy had been a gumshoe for as long as anyone could remember. He'd spent time in the limelight after solving difficult missing person's cases, and he'd seen a lot of death and senseless crime as well. Today was the day. Time to close the office and spend a little time relaxing and puttering around in his horribly neglected garden.

He shoved his awards, and framed license into a box, along with the contents of his desk. He had movers coming for the filing cabinets, desk and wall of bookshelves, but he added the desk lamp to his small box of things he considered a bit more sentimental. Not to mention that the dozen or so pictures of cats would likely soil his hard boiled tough guy reputation.

He waited for the movers to arrive and load up their truck, and then he locked the door behind them. He took the keys to the office manager in the lobby and smiled a sad smiled, "here ya go Ed...been a good long run...."

Ed Birks nodded, "Sure has Mr. Traxy. Sure am sad to see you going, but you enjoy retirement. No one deserves it more."

"Thanks Ed...you take care now."

He walked out with his box and felt a hollow emptiness fill his mind and heart. Tomorrow morning he would have nowhere to go, and nothing to do. His entire life would be ..what? Over? It was hard to shake the feeling from his mind. He drove to his house and saw the moving van waiting for him. He waved and unlocked the door and shoved them where to put everything. They were nice young men and even put the shelves against the wall for him and positioned the desk as well as the filing cabinet. He tipped them generously and bid them good day.

The house was quiet, so very quiet. He sat down in his favorite lounge chair and rumpled the newspaper to slice the silence away, but it was soon back with a vengeance. Shoving the paper aside he marched out the back door and out to the garden. He still had a few hours of daylight left, might as well get good and tired. He went into the shed and pulled on his gloves and grabbed the bucket and started pulling weeds. it was a sad mess back there, where his late wife had once had beautiful flowers and vegetables growing. Poor Betsy...she shouldn't be gone before him. She should be the one back there enjoying the sunset of life, not him. How he had managed to elude being killed, or even seriously injured in his long career was baffling, but he had a low flying guardian angel or something.

He was about to finish when he heard a noise. He glanced over and saw something rustling around in his tulips. He reached in expecting it to be a squirrel or chipmunk but his hand withdrew with a white kitten curled around it. "Well...who are you?"

The cat looked at him with large purple eyes, "Azimuth...but you can call me Azi."

Dirk blinked, "Been a long day...I am hearing things."

"You do look tired...you should rest before I tell you why I"m here."

Dirk blinked again. "Maybe I should call a doctor." He rose and shook his head moving to the shed with the full bucket and a talking kitten on his free hand. He set the kitten down on the counter in the shed and dumped the weeds into the compost heap. He pulled off his gloves and washed his hands and then splashed cold water onto his face. casting his eyes over to the kitten he reached out and gave it's chin a little rub, "I bet you're hungry little one." he said and scooped up the kitten.

"As a matter of fact I am. Would you happen to have any mice about?"

"I hope not," he said as he walked thinking maybe he'd fallen asleep inside and this was all a dream. "But I probably have a can of tuna."

"Can...well..if I must." Azi shook a bit at the thought though.

Dirk got out the can opener and the tuna and then dumped it into a bowl and set it before the kitten. "Sorry I didn't have the mouse."

Azi nodded, "Quite alright. I remember that they are some kind of vermin ..pest .. or something here."

"You aren't from here?"

"Oh goodness no," he said as he took a tentative bite. "That is tolerable..." he said and ate a bit more quickly to get it done and overwith. He licked his paw and cleaned his face and then looked up at him, "Maybe I should tell you why I am here."

"That might be a good idea...also where are you from?"

"I am from below and we have a bit of a problem."

"Below?"

"Yes below, as in the underworld...hell? Whatever you choose to call it."

"A WHITE kitten is from hell"

"I was red...but...that was considered too obvious to be seen here. We have had...this is quite embarrassing really, but we have had a rash of escapes. Humans, minor demons, a few creatures...and we need a person with your particular skill set to round them up and bring them back."

"Bring them back how exactly? I'm not dead."

"Are you sure?"

 

[Doctor Jax]

"You're not seriously thinking about it," Yanni asked incredulously, the young, swarthy-skinned man leaning forward in his chair as the older gentleman before him checked several different guns for ammunition.

"What ever gave you the idea that I was?" the gentleman asked, his white mustache undulating with every word as he looked over his shoulder at his protege.

Yanni ran a hand through his straight, dark hair with frustration, and he interjected, "They're younger. They've had God-knows-what poured down their gullets and into their veins. Five of them could restrain a full grown aurochs, and you want to go after what's been picking them off."

"Well, see, boy, brawn cannot make up for brains, but it can vice versa," Grimley said sagely, stuffing each gun into a different holster strapped to his chest. "What they do not know is their greatest strength is also their greatest weakness. Yes - they have the Ampules of Lorenzi, and the lightning that goes with it. They've the strength of five men, the fortitude of twenty. But what they're up against feeds off the very concoctions we've shot them full of. And they're not used to watching their own backs anymore, if you understand."

"I don't. Enlighten me."

"Can you intimidate a bull? Even with a firearm?" Grimley asked his apprentice, checking the sight on the last pistol he'd pulled out, a revolver.

"No, of course not," Yanni conceded.

"Should the bull be intimidated? Can he be killed?"

"Yes."

"Why is he not intimidated?"

"He doesn't know better. He doesn't know what a gun is, and he's... not used to being threatened. He thinks he can plow straight through anything," Yanni said, catching on.

"Indeed," Grimley muttered. "But a mouse - a mouse is used to fear. It is used to constantly being on guard, and so when a man pulls out a pistol, it runs, it hides, and it lives to fight another day."

"And you're a mouse?" Yanni asked sarcastically.

Grimley looked at his young protege with a cocky twist of his mouth.

"I think a marten is more my style."