Friday, April 25, 2014

V is for Violence Spares Neither Youth Nor Elder

After skipping a week of participation, I have entered the Flash! Friday contest again for my Fantasy Flash Friday A-to-Z Challenge post of today.  You can read my entry, a 160-word story centered on a Knower as he witnesses both a youth and an elder prepare for battle, here.

4 comments:

  1. Patrick, Yaron's blessing is quite scary, "May the blood of our enemies feel cool on your face.”
    I enjoyed reading your flash fiction.

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    1. I suppose it is quite scary. It's meant to relate to the warrior's removing their headdress to give them more freedom in combat. Without the headdress to keep their face cool...Thanks. I enjoyed writing it.

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  2. An intriguing glimpse at this world. I'm curious how the blade and the tree signal war. Is that what warriors in that land do to prepare for war? Is the man throwing the knife someone of import? Why is the Knower upset to give the blessing? Just the idea of war? Are you writing more on this at some point? I think it could be a piece of something larger. I think it could be really cool.

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    1. Wow, lots of questions. Let's see...

      That's one example of how warriors prepare for war there. The significance of the man throwing the knife is that he is a relative youth, hence the title. The 160-word limit for the contest made it very difficult to show the Knower's distaste for war in a proper manner, but to answer your question, he's upset to give the blessing because he knows that if he hadn't used his Seeing Stone to see the enemy preparing for battle the old man wouldn't be preparing for war. Perhaps the Knower even has some incite into the old man's fate in the forthcoming battle (I didn't leave enough evidence for that to declare it true). I doubt I'll write any more of this. I write a ton of flash fiction and I try to keep it flash fiction. But thanks. If it weren't for a contest with prompts I would consider adding a few hundred words. If you like my writing style you can always go through my flash fiction archives. There are tens of thousands of words of prose on this blog for free.

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