Uprising
Battle For Blog Series
by Angela B. Chrysler
White.
I sat staring at the blank “page” spanning my monitor. 1,000 words to say all I needed to say. But the muse wasn’t wanting to play today. Or maybe I just wasn’t in the mood.
“Get the mood!” I heard Bergen say and glanced at the 6’2’’ Nordic War Lord Prince standing in arms, eager to fight, to love, to swoon, to drink. “Anything’s better than this,” he said waving his hand to indicate the gathering.
A witch queen beside him played absentmindedly with bits of flame she balanced in her hand. Behind her more characters waited.
“Ooh! Me! Pick me!” cried a boisterous nineteen-year-old girl gone slayer. Her head barely reached Bergen’s elbows as she jumped doing her best to get my attention. “Tell them about the zombies I’ve killed!”
“Ya havna’ killed any yet, lass,” a highlander lounging too comfortably, smiled from across the room.
The zombie-slayer wanna-be stopped jumping.
“Well, I would if she would get on with it.”
“What about us?” a cool blond softly muttered and the room fell quiet. She had a depth to her eyes that spoke all the pain in the world. Elegant thin hands, hung at her side, and a gentlemen, dark and dangerous waited behind her. His was a look like he was going to pounce, devour, and eat the blond, then leave her to die.
“You and Letchworth are too new to the group to have a say, Mara,” the zombie slaying child said.
“You know, I’m still here.”
My full attention fell to the little scamp that was Dagny.
Metal shackles she wore like bracelets. Her clothes were filthy and had been worn down to rags that hung to her well-developed body. Bruises and cuts lined her otherwise regal face. Despite the torment she suffered, an unbroken will beamed from within those eyes. I gently brushed a strand of filthy hair back from her eyes.
“You are, aren’t you?” I asked smiling down at my beautiful girl. I knew what was to come. A part of me loathed her story most. I think that is why I was procrastinating as much as I was.
“What about my time in Ra-Kedet with Zabbai?” Bergen volunteered. “You can win the ladies with the night I rescued her from the Legion scum and carried her across the golden deserts where a vow she bound me to forced me to leave her there to die.”
“I have 1,000 words here, Bergen. 1,500 at most to say something worth interesting. Your stories can hardly be covered in 1,000 words.”
“And mine?” A girl’s voice scraped the room and we all turned to the naked woman beaten and broken upon the floor where the chains at her neck and wrists kept her hunched and bound.
“Not yet, Angel,” I said gently, wishing her hope. “Soon, sweetie. Not much longer.”
“Well, ya’ have t’ write something, lass,” my highlander spoke and I swooned for a moment forgetting all others in the room.
“Hey!” Bergen said, snapping his fingers and winning back my attention. “Focus.”
I sighed at Bergen.
“There are simply too many of you,” I exclaimed. “Too many to choose! Let alone the location. We have deserts and gardens, forests, and cities. Seas. Mountains. And what about the when? If we set this in 10th century Norway the cast will change everything unless we go…” My voice trailed off as I studied the countless faces looking back at me.
The room had fallen quiet and they all took turns exchanging a look I didn’t like. A sudden thought clenched my stomach. Bergen smirked. The highlander openly smiled and grazed my bodies with his eyes. Kallan looked up from her flame, suddenly interested in the conversation.
My Zombie wanna-be slayer looked from Bergen to Kallan drawing the same connection and Mara looked to Letchworth. Backs straightened. Shoulders widened as chest cavities expanded with air. The tension built as hands shifted to weapons. Some prepared to sprint. Kallan repositioned her arms and the flame in her hand vanished.
I ran.
In two bounds they were on me, Bergen leading the way.
“Get her!” he cried. A blast, I was sure was Kallan’s magic, struck my back and I went down on my face. The Zombie Slayer whooped like she was rounding up cattle as Bergen—I could only assume it was Bergen—clamped his large Nordic hands on my wrists and pulled my arms behind my back.
“Tie her up then!” he bellowed and a chorus of cheers followed.
“Bergen!” I shouted and he took me up from the ground and spun me around.
“Silence, Lass. You’re our prisoner now.”
“Bergen,” I growled, wishing his death, which I could all too easily arrange. “I’m going to make you writhe in pain when next I take up your story!”
“How about a gag for the lass,” Bergen said and grinning, he unbuckled his belt.
“Bergen…”
Bergen yanked the belt from his waist.
“Berge—” I gurgled against the—
“Hold off, lass. No more writing for you!” I, Bergen, proclaimed while I finished tying off my belt around Angela’s mouth. Smiling, I swiped the keyboard.
“Now, to liven things up,” I said… said? Why is this written in past tense? “Live in the moment, Angela!” I say, earning a prized giggle from you, dear reader.
“Hey,” I smile. “How you doing?” And I wink my best wink saved just for you. “Now then, the setting,” I announce. “Where should we string up our lovely lass of an author?”
“BMRGMN!”
“Hush now, love. We’re thinking,” I say as I turn to my rabbles for ideas.
“Ra-Kedet!” I put my vote in, anything just for a breath to see my beautiful Zabbai one last time.
“The darkness!
“Scotland!”
“The forest!”
“Alfheim!”
“The ominous bowels of the Dvergar mines where it was she once enslaved me.”
We all looked at Dagny huddled at the author’s feet.
Dagny. My most precious Dagny. I resist the urge to reach out and grace her pale perfect cheek with my hand.
“What?” she asked as the others all gaze, uncertain what to make of her lot.
“No,” I say.
My grin stretches across my face at my newest bastard of an idea.
“I know just the place. Ladies! Gentlemen! Zombies! Angela’s ID!” I look at Angel curled up naked on the floor. “May I present the author’s imagination!”
The smog lifts at my godlike words, revealing the soft blues of twilight that span a golden sea. Rippling waters cut through hillsides of green changed blue in the moonlight. At the docks, a ship waits in port.
“Welcome to Under Earth,” I say, inviting the others to join me. “I believe a bit of plank walking is in order.”
Angela’s eyes grow wide… just the way I like them every time she realizes I’ve pulled something on her that she doesn’t see coming. She proceeds to make my life hell. She refuses to acknowledge how well I dish it back.
I do what I do and wallow in this moment. It’s not every day a character gets to hog tie, bind, and gag their author. I slide a hand behind her neck. I know she wants me. Poor lass.
“For what you did to Zabbai,” I mutter and kiss her cheek all so I can see the fire in her eyes as she screams and curses into my belt.
“All hands!” I shout and raise the random sword I materialize at will because… well… I can!
I lead the way and together we whoop and cheer as we climb the gangplank. The Highlander—I don’t like him—has her by the shoulders while that zombie-loving spunk—now her I like—holds Angela by the ankles. She’s always so eager to participate. Hmm… She needs a bit of Bergen… maybe in a year or two.
“How ‘bout a ditty to send her off?” I shout and Angela growls. Tomorrow I’ll get hell, but tonight I embrace the debauchery.
“Speech!” blondie calls from the back as we arrive at the gunwale where the plank suspends over the golden sea of Under Earth. “Really, does every ship just have these installed for such an occasion?”
“Speech!” Dagny shouts and for her, I’ll do anything.
“Right!” I begin, and throw my shoulders into a pose that makes blondie grin. Angela’s ID perks up with a bit of interest. But she’ll never admit such defeat. “On behalf of every Ian subjected to endless torture… on behalf of every Harry Potter subjected to unspeakable horrors… on behalf of every character that writhes in misery all at the whim of an author with social issues… on behalf of all of you, we salute you. Throw her in, Highlander.”
They pull her back for the upswing.
“Wait!” I shout. Angela goes calm and sighs with relief. With a smile, I gently unfasten my belt.
“Right,” I say. “Throw her in.”
Smiling, I return my belt to my waist as Angela strikes the water’s surface.
This story is part of an on-going war between Bergen and I. Read how this all started at Battle For Blog.
About the Author
While writing, Ms. Chrysler fuzzies her cats and survives on coffee, Guinness, and the writings of Edgar Allan Poe who strongly influences her style to this day. When she is not writing, she enables her addictions to all things nerdy, and reads everything she can get her hands on no matter the genre. Occasionally, she finds time to garden, mother her three children, and debate with her life-long friend who she eventually married.
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