jaws-of-hope

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15 words of hope .1

Come home. I don’t care if the war isn’t over. I’m worth fighting for too.

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Who’s the real you? The person who did something awful, or the one who’s horrified by the awful thing you did? Is one part of you allowed to forgive the other?

Rebecca Stead, Goodbye Stranger (via thequotejournals)

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Bass Lake is a serene stop off the Blue Ridge Parkway in North Carolina. With miles of trails wandering by the lake and through the forest, you’ll enjoy every minute of your visit. Taking pictures along the parkway is a passion of photographer Jim Ruff, and this golden sunrise is his favorite shot from this winter. Photo courtesy of Jim Ruff.

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VI. Similitude

6th: Pick a cliche. [In this case, “cut from the same cloth.”] Write a story based on that cliche; the phrase does not have to directly appear in the narrative. You are welcome to use multiple cliches.

Canon.

His fingers stroke the curve of her shoulder, and Joceline turns to rest her head against his chest. Jim settles his arm around her: these stolen hours leave him less afraid to touch her.

There is still hesitation, so in the space between heartbeats, she asks: “Somethin’ on your mind?” He shakes his head, lifting his free hand to brush back his hair. “Just taking it all in.” “I mighta bought that the first six times we did this, but it’s a bad deal to buy it now.” She smiles, looking up into that handsome face. “Just don’t quite get how it is you keep ending up here,” Jim says. There’s a hoarseness in his voice that’s familiar, though the causes are different now. She rolls her shoulder under his hand, and his fingers wander over the taut muscles of her back. “I want to,” Joss says, simply. “So I find ways.” “For which I’m very grateful, but if I start prayin’ my thanks, some god’s gonna notice and intervene.” “Only if you want ‘em to,” Joss says, and the sigh that gusts from her raises goosebumps in its wake. “Like hell, anyway.” “Like hell,” he says, laughing.

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I think some people are just inexplicably bonded. Drawn by forces beyond their own comprehension, they have no choice but to gravitate toward one another. Destined by fate to keep crossing paths until they finally get it right.

L.B. Simmons (via quotemadness)

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cacozealous for joss

Cacozealous: imitating badly

I thought maybe he could … Ryvera says, and when she doesn’t finish it doesn’t bother Joceline.She already knows what Ryvera thought Kovan maybe could.

Just say it, Joss thinks. Maybe he could replace Nieodemus. Except he can’t, of course, because Kovan tolerates her, barely, for the sake of being near Ryvera. Nieo had loved them both.

Hadn’t he? Joceline wonders, and hates wondering because she can no longer expect an answer. He had to have loved them both.

The alternative is unbearable: if he hadn’t loved Ryvera, too, then he had tolerated her for the sake of being near Joceline, and she had never noticed.

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#163

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Sleepy eyes and a mind full of you.

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Early mornin’ groovin’.. 🎵☕ 

© Susan Kramer August 2016 All Rights Reserved

near Portland, Oregon US PDX

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The things you want, you never get them. And if you do, they’re not what you thought they’d be. But you’d still do anything to keep them. Because you’d wanted them for so long.

You Will Know Me, Megan Abbott (via hotelsongs)

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I am a healer. I help people in the hopes that one day I will learn how to heal myself, too.

gracieth7 (via wordsnquotes)

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First Night

So I re-wrote my Day 25 story from Site Write as it needed some desperate repairs. @starcunning @sparklepriest @brothersemberfell

Your beard is growing thicker on you jawline. Your eyes look shocked and sunken when you look in the mirror of the vanity. You can’t quite hold anything properly anymore and a dull ache has begun in your chest. Your mind has been clouded with a fog that hides a monster roaring behind it ready to bring an ache. You watched her, with her bright hair and stern jawline so identical to your own, the one you asked to do this for you- for the both of you. Her hair has grown a dull color and her eyes look as hollow as yours.

She’s in pain, with her back arching off the bed and ragged gasps ripping from her throat. How she tosses and turns and sometimes screams for a mercy that no one can bring to her. People have come by, visitors with anxious faces. Sho’tase sits by her side and holds her hand and whispers to her. How close their faces are as they plead gently to each other. Felo’thore paced by the door till he was tired of it. He flinched when she screamed and wrung his hands blue when he watched her back arch horribly off the bed. You can hear his footsteps outside the closed door now, fretting and fluttering about the house. Cassiopeia’s footsteps echo his with soft chirps to your husband.

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Ardent

The stone stinks of mildew; the taunka’s fur steams with blood. If Joceline could, she’d put everyone from the room—just herself and her patient. It isn’t the sound that bothers her, the soft susurrus of breathing and the shuffling of armor. It’s the eyes.

In combat, no one looks at her. If they did, they’d know.

She takes a steadying breath, forcing the thought from her mind. Her fingers stroke the cover of her libram, opening it on her lap. The seconds she loses she hopes the mandalas will make up for. They help her focus; her mentor in the Silver Hand thought them strange. But Althalos Manadar was not an elf. Still, when he had felt the way his spirit swelled to trace their forms with their fingers, he copied them into the pages of his libram. They’re a crutch, but then what else does one use to help their weak footing?

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When Doves Cry

[listen]

Your Grace,

Believing this war is at its end, you asked the soldiers who fought it for an account of what the past months have taught them. Here follows my lesson, which I hope you will take some wisdom from.

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Keeping Promises

Joceline.

He whispered her name in the darkness, like a prayer upon his lips.

Let me keep her.

Beathyn opened his eyes to the freezing blackness that were the Winterspine mountains. He was here to do his duty. Building upon his successes planting mines and disrupting enemy movements in his small guerilla assignment given to him after Warplanning, he was sent a couple of days ahead of the main force of Felthier’s army. His mission, mine the passes. Cut off Frost-Lord Rabaanaaster from receiving reinforcements from the countless numbers of undead that waited beyond the mountains. After which was to regroup with the main force, and his lover, before their assault. Which was slated to start later today.

One more pass.

Gathering his things in the darkness of his survival, he peeked into the icy wasteland that bore no life. Scanning the twisted forms of trees that rose from the snow, he chewed on a tuber root that he had scrounged up the day before. His field pack was crammed so full of the components of seaforium that he had no space for rations. But he made do. The blight couldn’t taint everything. The fact that he still lived despite what happened to him in Icecrown was proof enough.

Moving like a shadow, the ex-paladin emerged from his camouflaged hideout. An arcane silenced hunting rifle cradled in his arms, ears twitching at every noise that was made. After moments of tense silence, he froze as shades flitted between the warped branches of the forsaken forest. He recognized the dark shapes in the forms of men from the unnatural way they jittered as they moved. Servants of a greater host.

Joceline.

He did not have had his connection to the light anymore, so he prayed to love instead. His assignment was going to take longer than expected. But though he feared he might miss the chance to fight by his lover’s side, Beathyn did not rush.

No me without you. They had repeated to each other like promises.

He wouldn’t rush. Not here. Not now.

Beathyn didn’t break promises like those.

@starcunning