Every Tuesday is going to be prompt day here at Fictional Worlds. These prompts are simple phrases or words meant to trigger an emotional response. You can write anything you want to them. I suggest you do a freewrite, either from your point of view or from that of one of your characters. You could also write a poem or even a short story about it.
Sometimes these prompts will be more rigid exercises, like letters or diary entries. If you would like to submit a prompt that you've found useful, please email me at diannalgunn@gmail.com.
Your prompt for today is 'Falling in Love'. My own response to it is below.
Falling In Love
PoV: Aslandial
For centuries I have watched other people fall in love. I have written of lovers many times in my histories of the Isles. Important humans have a habit of doing strange things when they are in love, and changing the course of the Isles by the things they do in such a state.
I always thought that I was above love; that, like Those Who Are, I was unfeeling. I have since learned two terrible secrets. The first is that even Those Who Are have fallen in love and are capable of feeling emotions. The second is that I am the closest thing to one of Those Who Are in this universe except for Loki.
I am in love. And my love is terrible. I have fallen in love with an Elvish woman who, no matter what she does, cannot fall in love with me in return. She belongs to the Lord of the Elves. She was smuggled on this ship so that once here she could become wed to him. They are fighting now, but even still, he would have my head before I would have even a moment with her.
But I think the fall was the most painful part. I never really believed in love at first sight, although in my histories I speak of it often because it is what the humans thought they had. I fell in love with Emilia from looking upon her beautiful face once.
It haunted me, it plagued me, it followed me around. I was hers in my mind but not in my body, and that is the way it still is. But I was not at first conscious that this was what was happening to me. I thought that the image of her face returned to my mind so frequently because I was terrified when I saw her. I feared she would come for me.
She did not come for me. I grew ill upon reaching the Guardians-hell, I was ill before that-and they told me that I must go back for her. My love is as strong as that of one of Those Who Are, they said, and I must be with her or I will only be ill.
So I returned, and the walk was long, and I was ill, and so it became twice as long. And now I am here, and I am with her, but not really with her, and I am in love.
I never thought this would happen to me.
Dear Diary,
Though they hail me a great warrior I grow sick of this fight; we all hav our beliefs, why can't we just accept it? Fidolius and Appollinia can never fully be one. Not after the scars that tore the countries apart centuries ago. And we Elves would never submit to a human ruler, nor to be made to worship Fidolian Gods.
Things were peaceful only two years ago; Astarael and the monster were happily married. It is his foolishness that has led to this war. This war that will destroy our people. He thought he would make the kingdoms as one. He came as close as anyone will ever get; my people were right to distrust his kindness to our Goddess.
She fell for his romance; Dracon led it to happen-all of the Gods in their own way are at fault, but it is not as though he were a human whose mind they could simply read. He was a God with his own secret thoughts and his own barriers around them.
The call for war came. He said that if she and the others would not willingly make Appollinia a part of Fidolius, merging the kingdoms, that he would force them to. And he already had his army ready to march; he had seen this coming. This has always been the nature of Fidolian Gods; to want all for themselves and be willing to take it by any means necessary. Fidolian men have much the same thoughts and will fight any fight for their Gods. Appollinians are quite happy to just live peacefully side by side with the other kingdoms and races; our Gods believe in peace. We do not see war as the answer-but when forced to resort to the fight we fight well.
I've lead a force now for a little over a year. We, the Elves, defend the Appollinians; they are our friends and allies. They have been since before the Great Alliance and we have not forgotten this allegiance. They share our Gods, who the Fidolian Gods seek power over. That and the Fidolians never liked us much; they have always coveted our long lives and graceful bodies. Always wanted to live for centuries. I can't imagine why; though we learn much and see much they do not have the time to experience, as much of it is bad as there is good.
Most of the humans a century from now will likely not know what it is to fight a battle to the death, to brutally kill soldiers, men and women alike, cutting them down in droves. Most humans a century now will probably not know what it is to lose a sister or a brother in the war-let alone right in front of their eyes. In a century, humanity will not as a whole remember what the battlefield feels or looks or smells like. But I will, and so will every other Elf and Drakor that does not die in battle this war; we will remember, and quite likely live to see the next war.
In a century I will not have forgotten this blood bath. In a thousand centuries I could not forget this blood bath; watching villages burn from a distance. I know that when they can they break through our forces and destroy our people, villages, temples. But I know that the damage we have been able to do is ten times what Fidolius has managed. They have not even made it to Elvish borders, though both Appollinia and the Drakor lands suffer.
We take their food and their water; whatever we can find in the villages is our ration. My group has gone too far past the border. Supplies can no longer reach us, and I am beginning to wonder if we should simply take a fort and stay there for a while.
Yesterday I sent a messenger team-three of my best men, two Elves and one Drakor-to cut a path back to the border and see if we have orders, to inform the main force of our progress. And now my men and I lie in wait for their return. I have no doubt that they will return soon and in one piece; I just do not like lying still in enemy lands as though waiting for the next wave of soldiers.
Humans can continue wars like this for centuries, and I always wonder how. Do they really replenish their population fast enough? Or their food? Or water? We set fire to their farms, to their fortresses. We steal their water for our own armies. I suppose this goes both ways-I know they've destroyed quite a bit of Appollinian forest-but how is it sustainable?
I went for a walk just outside of our campground two days ago. There is a river not far from us, and there is a thin layer of trees that surround this river. I found a child, a very skinny child, covered and dirt lying on the ground beside the river. It was a girl child, Fidolian clearly from the shape of her face; I could not help but pity her. It is not her fault what has gone on here. It is a pity that she must suffer-that two entire nations must suffer-for the foolishness of her God.
I brought her back here and have not let the men near her. She doesn't speak, but she eats and drinks and likes to sit with my horse. I'm not really that surprised. I just wish I understood their language so that I could make her feel more welcome. She won't leave my tent for fear of the other soldiers.
She woke up as I was carrying her back and tried to run but she was too weak. She was screaming something in Fidolian, though I did not understand what. I know a few words in their language, but I doubt the word she was screaming was useful in the diplomatic situations I've had to use Fidolian in. Later I said hello to her, and managed to get across that I mean her no harm, and since I have been trying to find someone in the camp that knows the language.
I know Appollinia will win this war. I know this because we have fought Fidolius before, many centuries ago. The humans have forgotten it but it is still taught at Elorian-many things are taught at Elorian that are not taught throughout the rest of civilisation. We have more power than they do; we have more soldiers and with Elves and Drakor they would need to outnumber us severely to win. We might be fighting here for quite some time but I predict a quick victory.
I did not want this child of Fidolius to die; when Shalorin returns from messenger duty I will have him teach the girl our language. He knows Fidolian very well-and he will not harm her. I see the dirty looks my men give her when they walk into my tent. They don't see that she is a human being and worth just as much as any similar child from Appollinia.
Luckily I know enough that I can tell her 'food' and 'water'. I even managed to ask her if she had a home-in very crude words-and understand that her response was something about fire. Poor child has lost her entire family to a war I am sure she does not understand. I will not just sit by and let her die like the men and women who have stood in our way. She will do us no harm, Shalorin and I can handle the youngster.
I must rest now, and pray that the Fidolians do not find us tonight; I am in no mood for an attack upon our camp.
~Alaendril
Writing is in large part a learning process. A writer needs to be open to new things; this is why we have classes and workshops and books about writing. Not all things will work for you, this is true. We're all different. You probably won't find a class that's absolutely perfect for you. A method won't always work.
But if you don't try new things, how can you possibly know? Everything changes; our writing should too. Let's take the example of a well known author, JK Rowling of the Harry Potter series.
People change and grow as readers as well as writers. Though as a child they delighted me, I can't read the first four books of this series anymore; I've grown to a point where they seem dull to me. The writing isn't bad, necessarily, but it isn't as compelling as later books.
JK's writing grows. While her ideas are great, her writing was only mediocre at the beginning; I can understand to an extent why she collected over thirty rejections before finding a publisher for her books.
The seventh book is dark, it's intense; you just can't put it down. You can tell she's grown as a writer by the way she tells the story. It doesn't feel like it's designed for children anymore, or even young adults. With the sixth and seventh book she truly crosses age groups, and this is what all books hopefully will do.
If you're thinking about taking a class, do it; you never know what you might pick up. If you're thinking about trying a new genre, try it. Only with practice, feedback, and experimenting do we grow better as writers.
Of course, this goes into the outside world as well. Our writing is enriched by the experiences we've had, by the things we go through each day. We become better at writing not only with practice and feedback, and experiments in the writing world, but by changing ourselves and trying new things in our own world. By seeing more in life, we can draw on more when building our worlds and when writing in the one we live in.
Try something new; maybe it will work for you, maybe it won't. But that experience may very well provide you with an idea for a great story. The experience of seeing your first real taste of a new culture may give you a little detail to add more depth to your world. It's not guaranteed-but it's more likely that you'll get an idea by doing something than by sitting around on your butt.
Learn something new today. Read about someone else's writing process. Sign up for a writing class. Try a new sport. Read about a new culture. Plan a trip if you can, somewhere not too far but where life is different. You'd be surprised how much changes with only a few hours' drive.
Learning helps you with both your writing and your normal life. Writing is a learning process-and as much as we may hate school (I do), writing is more fun to learn about, and you'll never make it any further than where you are already if you don't.
They say we all learn something new every day; maybe we don't really learn something new every day, but we can at least learn something new every month or two. So go Google something you don't know much about, and see where the internet leads you.
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