More Writing!

This is a little snippet of the most recent piece I've been working on. To put it in context, the two main characters, Tess and Grayson are a shape shifter and a mind reader respectively, in a world where mind readers are distrusted and shape shifters are outright hated. In this passage, they've recently met when Tess' village was razed and pillaged by a group of pirates who did the same to Grayson' village. They're going to the courts of Lord Henry, a local nobleman to ask for permission to cross the border into Ardos, with whom their country, Althrance, has had closed borders with since a recent war. They intend to use Tess' ability to shape shift to manipulate him.

“Gods,” Tess muttered as the sheer height of Lord Henry’s hold came into perspective. Even in the rain that was pattering down, it was magnificent. Tess barely believed it was only a day from her town. Henry’s hold rose from down in a valley, but that did little to mask the height of the building. It was all light colored stone, except for the stained glass windows in the attached chapel. The squat buildings surrounding the hold, but still within its walls were a mix of stone and wood, but none half as grand as the stone building at the end of the road Tess and Grayson were making their way down. No one but Tess seemed impressed by the building. But the largest building Tess had ever seen was only three stories, and was a thin, unimpressive gray stone building.

So, despite the rain, Tess had her hood pushed halfway off of her head and was gaping at the building, until Grayson pulled it down low onto her head. She glared at him reproachfully, but no remorse passed across his face.

“They’ll get suspicious,” Grayson warned, looking around surreptitiously at the city watch men that periodically crossed the pairs path. When three watchmen passed, Grayson tugged his hood low over his eyes.

“Don’t like mind readers. Noticed I’m tall. Think I am one,” Grayson said when the trio tightened their grips on their halberds almost imperceptibly as he and Tess passed.

“Maybe they think that because you are one?”

“Guess so. Doesn’t make sense. Mastyri control half of Althrance and mind readers are still making them nervous. Humans,” he said with distaste.

“Worse if they knew what you were,” Grayson said, giving Tess and unreadable sidelong glance.

“But I don’t intend for any of them to find out, do you? Speaking of which, when do you want me to change? It should probably be soon if we don’t want too much suspicion. I can’t exactly be doing it inside Lord Henry’s complex,” Tess said, looking at the buildings beginning to crop up with increasing frequency to either side of them as they neared the hold.

“Need to be close enough that I can read him. Figure out what Lord Henry wants to see.”

“Hey, but we also need to be far enough away that I don’t get seen shifting,” Tess said, again nervously glancing at Grayson, then at the guards. She couldn’t trust Grayson to guard her if she was caught. He’d probably turn her over in return for a reward he could use to help kill the pirates. She didn’t even know that that wasn’t his entire plan in bringing her to Lord Henry. She looked at him again, but when his gold eyes shifted over, she looked away suddenly at one of the watchmen. Grayson frowned.

“Stop that. Suspicious that you keep looking at them.”

“Hey, you’re not one look away from being executed. I know what happens to shifters in… well, everywhere. And I don’t want to get hung. Or beheaded. Or apparently dragged apart by wild dogs, if you believe the rumors from Thalten.”

“Mostly not true.”

“Mostly? Wonderful.”

“Sometimes you people don’t get killed. Sometimes you just kept in some Lord’s hold,  or some nobleman’s castle.”

“Oh, because slavery is so much better. Can we just get this over with?” Tess asked, as the road began a dangerous slope down towards the hold.

“Found him. Alright. This way,” Grayson said. He took one of Tess’s arms. He roughly pulled her to the side and into a narrow alley with no outlet between two low stone buildings. Grayson stood, arms crossed over his chest, glaring at the few people who walked by. He cut quite a menacing figure, almost seven feet tall, one hand resting lightly on his battle axe.

“Brunette, brown almond eyes, skinny and short. Feminine face,” Grayson called back, “Can you do that?”

“I can do whatever I want to do as long as it’s vaguely human.”

Tess turned her back to Grayson to stare at a crack in the wall at the end of the alley. She pulled an image into her mind of a fisher’s daughter she met at a market once, until it occupied her mind. She shuddered, like a swimmer who’d just climbed out of icy water. The grey curtain of smoke began to form, swirling in haphazard edits around her, reaching towards but never brushing the walls. She cursed quietly, making the profanities into almost a prayer of pain as her tall body jammed itself into a petite frame, but when the smoke cleared, her face was calm and entirely different.

“Does this look about right?” Tess asked, straightening out the maroon dress she now wore. It wasn’t the one the fisher’s daughter had been wearing. That’d been brown and rough and coarse. She figured if she was going to impress a Lord, it’d be better to be in a tight fitted silk red dress, with a gold belt wrapped just under her ribs. She fiddled with the clasp of the belt, then ran her hands down either side of the her face, from cheekbone to chin then back up again. Grayson turned to look at her. His face was stony. It’d gone a bit pale, or as pale as a Mastyri’s skin could go when he saw her entirely changed form, but he quickly forced away his emotions and nodded once curtly. Even though his surprise was gone, he hadn't bothered to hide his distaste, or the lingering look of fear that hung around in his eyes.

“Did I get it wrong, or are you just freaked out that I’m a shifter? Afraid I’m going to kill you and steal your face?” Tess said, flashing a grin she knew would be cheeky on her new face. Grayson turned and stalked into the street, but she still heard him mutter under his voice.

“That’s crossed my mind. Yours too.”

I intended to write another NaNo this month with the plot involved in the above writing, but unfortunately I was way too busy. So this plot will have to wait until another time, I guess.