Happy Monday! I hope all of you had a good weekend and didn’t spend it obsessively wondering if the packages you sent would all make it in time. I tried not to obsess, but I suspect some things will be late this year no matter when I mailed them. I’m trying not to think about it too much and keeping my fingers crossed that the postal service comes through. I know they can take on rain, sleet and snow, but this holiday back up might actually break them. But that is a worry for another time. For now it is time for the first writing prompt of the week. Pens and timers at the ready? Excellent. Thet the words spill out.
I’ll admit, this one was a hard one for me. I wasn’t quite sure where to take it when I saw the sentence. I kind of like where it was going though. I’m pretty sure I spun my wheels (mentally speaking) in there a bit so it would need a lot of editing to be useable, but I think there is something worth keeping in there. And edited pieces aren’t the point of this. Getting words out to kick start your brain is. So my brain is warm, how about yours?
And as a reminder (Yes, I will remind you until January 1st) Smashwords Year End Book sale is on. If you are looking for something to read check it out. It lasts until January 1st.
Monday, December 21st: It is a master of deception.
“It is a master of deception,” he told her. “This perception of perfection.”
As usual she ignored him and studied her own reflection. How many times had they gone over this? He lost track. Still he knew he had to try. He knew where this path would lead. He knew where it always led.
Her obsession with perfection would lead her to ruin as it had so many before her. He suspected that beyond personal heartache, she would do a fair amount of damage to many others as well. The fact that she started out as such a beautiful woman, a woman others called perfect would, in his opinion make the situation worse.
‘And then there is her power,’ he thought. Few others combined her beauty with such power. It could be used to do good. He could see glorious things for her if she did so. It would be a beauty that out lasted any sort of physical perfection. It would be eternal beauty, albeit of a different sort.
It was an angle. He tried to recall if he used it before. As she studied her reflection, stroking fingers across rose petal soft cheeks and studying the sweep of long laches that needed no enhancements, he turned the thought over and over trying to find a way to convince her.
He opened his mouth, “Your…” He began. It was as far as he got.
“Silence,” she commanded. Her voice no longer held the gentle tones she used with those who thought of her as perfection. There was a note of steel to the voice, a flick of power. It stopped his voice more than a simple command.
“Tell me,” she asked. “Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest one of all?”
He sighed. How many queens had asked this of him? Still he was bound by the laws of magic to answer.
“I have searched the land over, my queen and truly you are the fairest in the land.”
She smiled because she knew that just as he had to answer, the magic governing him would prevent him from lying.
“Still, your majesty,” he continued. “This belief in perfection, it is a deception.”
“A deception,” she said. Her voice a soft coo, now that she had his answer.
“Yes,” he pressed. “It is a deception to believe that perfection is anything more than fleeting. True beauty lies not in the blush of a cheek or the luster of hair. It lies within, and that beauty will not fade over time. If you would just…”
“My beauty will not fade,” she commanded with the same voice she used before. Power was etched in the words. “I will not allow it. I will remain the most beautiful, the most perfect in the entire kingdom.”
He opened his mouth, but she was already standing, turning and leaving the dressing room. He knew he could follow, flitting from one reflective surface to another, but there was no point. At the moment she would not listen. Still he felt the stirrings, the shift that was to come. Time would leave its mark. It always did no matter how much power one possessed. Sooner or later another would come to eclipse her. Someone always did.
But this queen was too powerful to ignore. She would not simply wail at the uncaring shadows of time. He suspected she would do something more active, and more disastrous. He would have to find a way to get through to her before it was too late.
Ten til Midnight 