A Monstrous Gear

Yesterday I said I’d write two disembodied dialogues, but I only wrote one since it got rather involved. I couldn’t remember the second series I’d planned yesterday yesterday. I can’t remember it today. That sucks. I was hoping to inject a little personality into my main character and I feel certain that dialogue was key to a scene.

Oh well. I’ll mark that up to my subconscious editor cleaning house.

I think the best I can do is make a bit of a scene listing here:

  • Introduce MC
  • MC discovers skin writing
  • MC explores SW
  • MC consults with ‘medical personnel’
  • MC is discovered
  • Murdered fisherman is discovered
  • MC is linked to dead fisherman
  • Mayor is introduced
  • Brother Gaine arrives
  • Jury is summoned
  • MC is convicted/denounced/shunned
  • MC and Gaine escape fire
  • Gaine takes MC to [monastery/school]
  • MC meets fellow SWrs
  • MC finds acceptance with fellow SWrs
  • MC overhears Gaine speaking suspiciously about the fire/circumstances
  • MC abandons [monastery/school]
  • MC returns to Song to find out what happened during the fire

>pop<

Now I recall the conversation. It wasn’t long at all.

“You’ve been playing God with my life,” MC said. She wished she could drop dead that moment so those could be her last words. MC expected a slap or a denial or a retort. Gaine sighed. Before he turned his back on her his head dipped slightly. She interpreted the movement as shame, but hardly believed it so.

“Yes. And I’ve played God with many other lives over the sprawl of my life. Doing so is my curse.”

Her mind thought, “Fah!” but her lips never parted to interject.

“Most of those lives lesser than your own. Maybe a handful greater.”

Her anger croaked out: “Who else?”

“Mine for one.”

She was glad he still faced the window or she never would have loosened her throat to ask, “And how does that life, your life, measure against those others? How does it measure against mine?”

He turned like a monstrous gear in a huge machine. His arms crossed during the motion and his eyes met hers. He held that contact until she had no other choice but to simply vacate his room.

366 words on day 499