Grapes' Writing Exercises

"write about three random things"

"Please..." Lilac backed up from the two calamities, forcing her eyes to drink in the sight like a bitter poison. On her right was August. That name never failed to send chills up her arms every time the melody of it rang across her mind. The carefree attitude, the teasing voice whenever Lilac started to get a little too stressed out. Without that voice...Lilac had no doubt she would crumble.

On her left, however...

"Please help us!" a two little girls ran up to Lilac with wet, swollen cheeks. They looked so young, and yet, one girl's eyes had a familiar blue color that reminded Lilac of her own.

And the other girl's brown ones...

Lilac snapped herself out of it. The fight hadn't stopped. She had to carry on. But her feet seemed to freeze as the soldier in white and gold held out the torch to the ropes of a young boy crying for his life, and time seemed to slow down.

In a world where every community fends for themself, nobody can afford to be selfish, said something buried deep inside her. 

Then everything seemed to blur. She remembered pushing a torch out of the soldier's hand. With the experienced hands of a sailor, she untied the captured citizens who helped her knock their invaders down. Then she turned around to save August, the one she cared about more than anything else, like she subconsciously promised herself she would.

But August was gone. Soldiers in forest green capes fought tooth and claw against the white-caped intruders, but the one that had their hand pinned to August's mouth was nowhere to been seen.

Lilac screamed at herself to move. Screamed at herself to say something, to get help, to do anything. But she felt like an ice block.

"August," she choked out, staring out through the crevices of the pines to the ruined meadow, now damp with warm blood.

Then the exhaustion from the battle overcame her, and Lilac blacked out with August's name the last thing on her mind.

***

After that one fateful battle, Lilac became a machine.

The village talked about the woman with the steeled blue eyes and the sturdy iron blade. She was spoken of with awe, admiration, fear, respect. They saw what she wanted them to see. The ambitious warrior who always put her community above herself and climbed to the top of the pyramid with her bare, calloused hands after the disappearance of her love.

Lilac noticed how they always said the word disappearance, not death. That was possibly her least favorite part of living without August. The possibility that all this blame, all this guilt, all this anger was wrongly pointed at herself. That maybe August would return and Lilac could stop blaming herself for things that didn't happen.

But Lilac knew deep down that August was dead. She accepted it. She didn't deserve that sliver of hope that maybe her guilt could be forgotten.

Lilac channeled her anger into her rise to the top to get to where she was now. Head warrior of The Ones With The Daisies, what the other civilizations that occasionally passed by to trade said about them. The name was supposed to reference the sunny ring of daisy fields surrounding the village, but the nickname was obsolete. The meadow was now permanently ruined with dark red.

Lilac was proud of herself. She stayed strong, even behind closed doors, when nobody was watching but perhaps the ghost of August herself. When Lilac couldn't sleep and felt a cold air engulf her body, she glared at the air.

That's right. I won't cry for you, August. I won't give you that satisfaction.

And Lilac never did- at least for a very long time.