Weekend Writing Warriors ~ Death by Bee

December 1, 2018 by Alexis Duran

Hello and welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, a blog hop where writers from a wide variety of genres share from their work in excerpts of ten sentences or less. A literary smorgasbord, to be sure.

I’ve been sharing from my current work-in-progress and will continue to do so until I run out of words or another project captures my fevered imagination. Snow is a re-imagined fairy tale with a prince in the title role. In this scene, Prince Gabriel and his manservant Webster are traveling home to Castle Rosenthal after a long absence. Webster, neither horseman nor outdoorsman, has been stung by a bee. He’s the first to speak. (You can read last week’s snippet here.)

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“Are bees poisonous? I feel a little faint.”

“Not usually, though some people puff up and find they can’t breathe after being stung.”

“I, ah, my breathing is a little…” Webster patted his chest and wheezed.

“Nothing to worry about, I suspect.” Gabriel turned to look down the road again. The fog had thickened. Only a flapping black and white flag on top of the tower was visible now. “Though some people do die from bee stings.”

“Rare, though, isn’t it? Death by bee?”

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I like bees. It was probably a wasp that stung Webster.

Blurb-in-progress:

Following the death of his mother the Queen, Prince Gabriel is called home by his brother, now King. Gabriel hopes for a reconciliation with his estranged brother, but all is not well at Castle Rosenthal. King Tristan has fallen under the sway of a scheming alchemist, the magical denizens of the bordering Black Forest are on the move, and Gabriel begins to fear for his life. Is the handsome huntsman in on a plot to assassinate him, or is there an even darker, more evil force afoot? A forced flight into the Black Forest may expose ancient powers at work, if only Gabriel can survive long enough to uncover them.

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Weekend Writing Warriors is a blog hop where writers from a wide variety of genres share from their work in excerpts of ten sentences or less. Click the link to check out the other writers participating today. It’s a great way to discover your next favorite book!

Weekend Writing Warriors ~ Schemes and Whispers

November 24, 2018 by Alexis Duran

Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the blog hop where writers from a wide variety of genres share from their work in excerpts of ten sentences or less. I hope everyone who celebrates Thanksgiving had a good one, and those of you who don’t, I hope you had a very nice Thursday!

I’m sharing from my current work-in-progress, a reimagined fairy tale inspired by the story of Snow White. In my world, Snow is a prince, the Huntsman is hot, but possibly evil, and dwarves are not cuddly, rosie-cheeked fellows named Happy. My first stab at a blurb is included below.

In chapter one, Prince Gabriel is returning home after a long absence. He’s traveling with his manservant, Webster, who’s having an altercation with a bee while Gabriel muses on his imminent homecoming. You can read last week’s snippet here.

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He supposed, once Webster was flung into the swirling mire of schemes and whispers that filled Castle Rosenthal’s corridors, this man too would draw away from him and regard him with suspicion, his manners poisoned by the slight veneer of contempt Rosenthal servants regularly got away with. How long before he started to call Gabriel “Snow” behind his back?

But he was a servant, so Gabriel shouldn’t care. Only, it had been pleasant to simply be master and servant for this brief journey.

“Is something the matter, your grace? Have I done something wrong—Ow!” Webster slapped his neck. “It bit me! The vicious little beastie!”

“No, Webster, I was thinking of something else.”

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Into the swirling mire of Castle Rosenthal

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Weekend Writing Warriors ~ No Demands

November 17, 2018 by Alexis Duran

Hello and welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors, the blog hop where you can sample a great selection of stories in excerpts of ten sentences or less.

I’m sharing from my work-in-progress, a reimagined fairy tale. There’s a pretty big clue at the end of this excerpt as to which fairy tale it is. In this scene, Prince Gabriel and his man servant Webster are returning to Gabriel’s home through less travelled forest roads. You can read last week’s snippet here.

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Gabriel calmly observed as a buzzing bee distracted his servant. Webster waved one hand frantically in front of his face, angering the bee and confusing the horse, who turned in an agitated circle. Webster was twenty, the same age as Gabriel. Taller and thinner to the point of being gangly, he had dark brown hair, a peppering of hairs on his pointy chin that might one day knit themselves into a beard, and pale blue eyes that found fault with everything they shrewdly took in.

He’d only served Gabriel a short while. Lord Craigmoor, Gabriel’s uncle, had assigned Webster to him because it wasn’t proper, nor safe, for a prince to travel the forest roads alone. Not that Webster was any protection, but he was company, and had learned to set up camp fairly well, though he complained endlessly about the bugs, the dirt, the thieving jackdaws and squirrels, his disobedient horse, the weather, trees that dripped pine sap, flowers that emitted irritating pollens, and rivers that ran too swift and were too cold.

Gabriel, in contrast, was never happier than when he was out in nature. He preferred to be by himself with only the woodland creatures for company, but he’d quickly become accustomed to Webster, whose constant stream of words merged into the background noises of the forest like the chatter of a chickadee. He made no demands on Gabriel’s attention and, knowing nothing of Gabriel’s history or family, didn’t judge, gossip or look sidelong at Gabriel’s near-white hair.

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Into the woods…

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Next week I’ll post a blurb and maybe even a title! For those of you wondering what happened to Jacqui the Cat, Book 4, well, I’m sooooo close. The story became longer and more complicated than I’d originally intended, as stories do, but I think I’m in the home stretch. Wish me luck!

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Weekend Writing Warriors ~ A Commanding Presence

November 10, 2018 by Alexis Duran

Hello there, and welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors. WWW is a blog hop where a bunch of writers share excerpts of ten sentences or less from a wide variety of genres. It’s like the sampler option at your local brew pub; you get to try a little taste of everything.

I’ve been sharing from my current work-in-progress, which is a reimagined fairy tale. In the first chapter, Prince Gabriel and his manservant Webster are returning to Gabriel’s home along a forest road. Webster, castle born and bred, is having some trouble with his mount. You can read last week’s snippet here.

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“You there,” Gabriel pointed at Webster’s horse in his most princely manner, “You must always stay three yards behind Tempest here, who is your superior. Do you understand?”

The horse, a rather skittish young chestnut, tossed its head, snorted, and took three steps back.

Webster shook his head. “I swear they do understand you, my lord.”

“They understand a commanding presence,” Gabriel said, and looked at man and horse sternly. “You must not be so polite to your mount.”

“I’ve actually been quite short with him on occasion, but it makes no difference. I’m not cut out to be a horseman, your lordship.”

“That much is clear.”

***

Well, this is much fancier than anything Gabriel would be caught dead in, but I love the artist. Ivan Bilibin. Image in public domain.

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Weekend Writing Warriors ~ No Sense of Propriety

November 3, 2018 by Alexis Duran

Hello and Welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors. It’s good to be back after a two week break. I attended two weekend conferences; one for writing and one for screwing my head on straight. Both were helpful, though the head still feels a bit off kilter.

Our hero, Prince Gabriel, also feels off kilter. In the last snippet, he’s on the road returning to a home he hasn’t seen in almost three years. He’s torn between nostalgia and fear at what he might find there. These snippets are from my current WIP, a reimagined fairy tale.

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Gabriel spent a few quiet moments brooding, sinking deeper into a state of anticipatory dread, until his manservant Webster rode around the bend in the lane behind him. Being less than skilled with a horse, Webster and horse charged past Gabriel without slowing.

“I must insist you halt!” Webster shouted at his horse. He tilted alarmingly in the saddle as the horse’s back end caught up with its front. Man and beast came to a stop ten yards down the road.

“Begging your pardon, my liege! This horse has no sense of propriety.”

Webster steered his mount back to Gabriel’s side, elbows stuck out wide, reins too long and loose in his hands. There was no point in correcting his technique, a fact Gabriel had learned on the long ride from Craigmoor.

“The horse only knows what you tell it,” he said, not bothering to hide a smile.

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How Webster sees himself. Illustration by Ivan Bilibin (1876-1942) Image in Public Domain.

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Weekend Writing Warriors ~ First Sight

October 13, 2018 by Alexis Duran

Hello and welcome to Weekend Writing Warriors. This week I’m sharing from a new work-in-progress. This story is a fairy tale mash-up along the lines of Gryffon Hall, set in the same world and infested with the same monsters, gremlins and shadowy goings-on, but with different main characters. I’m not going to mention the title yet, because I have this crazy idea that leaving the fairy tale it’s based on a mystery might be kind of fun, in an evil author sort of way. This snippet is the beginning of Chapter One.

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At the first sight of the red-tiled roof of Castle Rosenthal’s tallest tower, Prince Gabriel reined in his horse Tempest, and brought him to a halt. The castle was still nearly half a day’s ride away, at the far end of a long valley, but because it perched on a lone hill, Gabriel could see it from the sunny top of the distant rise where he’d stopped. Today the north watchtower rose up alone out of a foggy soup that clung to the castle like ghostly tentacles. To reach it, he would have to ride into the fog blanketing the valley, and be enshrouded in its dank shadows.

Gabriel shivered. He hadn’t been home in almost three years, and now that his mother the Queen was dead, he had less desire than ever to visit. But his brother, now the king, had summoned him.

Gabriel peered into the fog, attempting to see what awaited him in that cold, shambling pile of ancient stones. Memories, some pleasant, mostly not, crept out of long buried places. Visions of his father, dead so long ago, and now his mother, came and went along with pangs of grief.

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