Muscle -5minutefreewrite, a Chibera Story

improv (67)in #freewrite • 6 years ago

For https://steemit.com/freewrite/@mariannewest/day-353-5-minute-freewrite-monday-prompt-muscle

Strong STRONG STRONG.

These words kept thumping through Shalgarth's head. I am strong

But even as he thought them very intentionally, very emphatically, he felt behind every word the tinge of a lie. He was no longer strong. Sure, most of the muscles were still there, but he could not stand on his own two legs. The little Pumpkin dwarf had removed most of the shards of his armor from where the bayberry briars had thrust it into his flesh. He was healing, he knew, and that required strength, his mentor has told him. Sometimes your greatest strength can be your patience. It had never been his greatest strength. His greatest strength had been his muscles. And now those were torn to shreds, at least the ones in his calfs. He supposed he could take solace in knowing that, were an enemy to come within reach of his great arms, he could hug them to death. They'd have to be willing to come to him, though.
The young-looking dwarf woman hustled around the camp, collecting the morning's dew from succulents into her pouch like a rogue ransacking jewels.

He thought he'd saved her, and here she was, having saved him. Basic humanoid decency, he supposed at the time, but he'd expected her to escape him after that. After all, he'd essentially chased her to this point, attaching his own quest to her cleverness. Now he was in no position to chase her, and yet she hadn't abandoned him, even after he was as safe as any broken knight could be. She made camp and invited travellers to join their camp, they shared their meals with her, and by association, him, and she shared her music with them. For being, "just a fiddlemaker, not a fiddler", she certainly coaxed beautiful sounds from the fiddles she made. And she was quick. They'd been at this campsite only a week, and she'd crafted two fiddles already from the wood of the forest, with only the tools in her pack, and borrowing a few hairs from the equines.

Pumpkin now sat with her head bent over a fret, lovingly shaving shards of wood from what he couldn't imagine wasn't already a finished product.

"Could I hold one?" Shalgarth's voice waiver, nearly shy, in spite of his accustomed bellowing boom still accompanying the words.

Pumpkin considered this great hulk of a man. He looked dangerous and pitiful, like some wild beast that had a leg caught in a trap and had resigned itself to its fate. Sometimes you could befriend those animals. Sometimes they bit and tore viciously and unpredictably.

She kept her distance, but held out the second fiddle she had made to him. "This one is less finicky."

That was all. She sat back, turned her eyes back to the fiddle in her hands, and gave every impression of someone who had tuned out her surroundings. As he took the instrument from her, he was not fooled. I'm not a very great fool

#muscle #chibera #fantasy #game

6 years ago in #freewrite by improv (67)

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wandrnrose7 (65) 6 years ago (edited)

Delightful reading... I really need to go back and read all of these because every one of this series I have read so far I have enjoyed tremendously. Patience has never been my greatest strength, either. I love the piece about fiddle making.

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