Lantern

this is the lantern I hope to make in ceramics, if the assignments allow for it...

More of Wren

Wren had laughed at Castonnei, she had laughed at Julia and Quincy. She had laughed when they mentioned training sessions, simulations, practice. She had laughed, but it had all been for show, a completely false bravado. Wren had been nervous at the idea of having to prove herself. She shuddered, internally, at the prospect of humiliation.

But when she had fallen, when she had stumbled or walked into traps -- many of which had covered her in purplish slime -- the others had not laughed. They had not jeered. This was a place of teamwork, Castonnei had told her, not a place of stinging jokes and biting comebacks. This, he had said, was a place of trust, and Wren was no longer worried about embarrassing herself. She was, however, worried that this little band of thieves might be the beginnings of a cult.

Wren thought about these things as she pushed herself up, a hand sliding in the cold, clear gel on the floor. She opened a communications line, and she knew a tiny light would be blinking somewhere in her head, signifying a successful link had been established.

"Fabian?" she asked aloud. Fabian Connected, read a translucent-blue overlay, blinking in her field of vision. It scrolled out of the way and left a small, slowly turning icon of a rotary dial of the same color, just at the edge of her sight.

"Wren," said Fabian. The robot's voice echoed slightly inside Wren's head, an effect she had designed herself. The transmission connected directly to her auditory nerve, another part of which acted as her microphone, so no one else would be able to hear her correspondent.

"What's this goo?" she asked him, squinting at her hand and switching on her visual link. "It was on the floor of the session room. Any ideas?"

"Quincy," he said, "has been working on a new defensive system." His voice gave away both pride and annoyance, for his creator's ingenuity and Wren's apparent ignorance, respectively.

"What's it do?"

"What it's just done," he said with the same mix of annoyed pride. "You slipped through the laser and onto pressure-sensitive areas of the floor. Even assuming you had escaped successfully, the gel is laden with nano-robots meant to track you and provide assistance in your arrest or capture." He sounded smug, in her head.

"Thank you, Fabian," she said and cut the connection. She would have given Fabian a friendlier personality, she thought.

"Take Cicero, for example," she said to the empty room as Cicero flew through the window to her in his many small, ornate, bug-like pieces.

"An example of what?" Cicero asked. He landed and appeared almost to shatter or melt as his pieces became yet more pieces. The reassembled themselves into an eight-inch approximation of a human. Like a fluorescent light, skin, hair, and a toga blinked into life, hiding Cicero's inner workings, Even Fabian didn't have holo-emitters!

"A good robot," Wren told him, and she patted his tiny head. He glared at her, feigned indignance playing on his face. Without warning, Cicero jumped and curled into a ball. When he landed, it was on the four paws of a sleek, grey cat with ice-blue eyes. He purred at her and said:

"Now you may pet me." Wren grabbed him and crooked him into one arm. She could not help but appreciate her own craftsmanship: he was indiscernible from a real cat, if one ignored the talking.

"You," she said, poking his pink nose, "sent me excellent telemetry." Cicero closed his eyes as she scratched behind his ears. It was true. Without Cicero constantly scanning the environment, her new program -- and several others -- wouldn't work at all. Wren depended on Cicero, her closest friend, as much as he depended on her for maintenance and power. Even his memory was linked to hers.

...more to come (?)

(p.s... this was really more... trying to introduce ideas... sorry if it's slow)

elves cry, too

Tears,

hot as

molten iron,

rolled

down his face.

One

by one

by one.

He pushed

a shaking hand

through his

long hair,

dark and brown

as stained oak.

A ring on

his hand

and a ring in

his pointed ear

clinked together,

and he thought

of ripping out

the latter.

Eyes the shade

of unripened

grapes

streamed more iron

down the cheeks,

spoiling the

handsome features.

The man,

the Fae,

glared at the

world

through his tears.

He smelled their

salt

and tasted blood

as his teeth,

sharper than yours and

sharper than mine,

sank into his

livid tongue.

Grief and

Rage and

Hurt

took their turns

overpowering him,

and they fought

for dominance.

He cried,

and he bled,

and he

poured out his

loss

'til the

world was gone

and he was

hollow

and dust.

Wren (yet another work in progress...)

Broken glass tinkled gently, quietly, for a split second before the shards were torn from this existence, this dimension. Wren was good. Wren was very good. She was handling her newest upgrades with professional ease, almost grace. With a twitch of her concentration, Wren's world flared brighter. She recognized the infrared and ultraviolet colors, even though they were new to her.

Gazing at the lasers which now rather overtly crisscrossed the room, Wren accessed one of the formerly empty portions of her brain. This section was suited for software, and she had written some impressive lines of code, herself. This was a new program, but in time she would access it instinctively.

Wren watched a yellow-white overlay of the room's contours settle in her field of vision, cross-hatched with the UV strands of the laser grid. Her goal, a door outlined in bright red, lay across the room. With a thought, various paths, indicated in green, simulated themselves across the space. They bore labels such as Easiest, Fastest, Acrobatic, and Footpath. With another thought, pressure-sensitive areas of not only the floor, but also the walls, were revealed to her. The program compensated, re-plotting courses. Easiest and Footpath disappeared.

Wren selected Fastest with an imaginary cursor and the information sat in a buffer section of her brain, near her spinal cord. She imagined she could feel it there, waiting, anticipation building. After another moment's suspense, she thought, very clearly, very deliberately, Execute Program.

Wren watched in a slightly detached way as the program told her legs how to run, how to jump. It told her arms how to counter-weigh and push off the safe portions of the walls and floor. The program told Wren's eyes where to look and her lungs when to breathe. It was working very well; Wren was pleased.

Halfway across the room, Wren's foot hit something wet, and it slipped. The program compensated, but the damage had been done. Cancel Program, she thought. Wren sighed, then groaned. Her head had hit the floor, and hard, just after it had passed through an ultraviolet beam.

Lights flashed between yellow and blue, and an alarm buzzed and whooped, alternating. End training session, she thought, enunciating each word in her head. Overhead lights kicked on, and the alarms ceased. They left a hollow ringing in Wren's ears.

A woman was just here. I could smell her through the glass. She smelled like the old library. It's a smell like dying books...

Kiss my ass, romantic comedy. The guy doesnt always get the girl. (That's the "hopeless" part of "hopeless romantic")

I want a credit card that reads "GOD" or "JESUS CHRIST" on the section for the name. That would NEVER be declined...

desolation

JUMP!

yup. grashopper. adorable.

:)

He's a toad.

He's cute.

Accept his cuteness.

(Or else!)

Hunter.

And that's when I knew...

Weeping, cradling the blackened, cauterized stump of my left forearm, I knew.

You were gone...

I cried in silence; my haggard breathing was the only sound.

I could still feel the sharp, hot metal in my right leg, though it had been removed hours before.

How I longed to hold you in my arms -- my arm -- just one more time. I wished I could tell you I loved you. Your face swam in my tears, and through their salt I could taste your kiss. Remnants of you burned me deeper than the explosions, the ensuing fires, had.

I wept and I bled and I wished for death. God, why couldn't I have just died!

But I didn't die. Not on the outside, anyway.

There was work yet to be done.

I had to find you...

I had to kill you all over, again...

My love. My tragic love. Not alive.

You're not alive.

Why can't you see that you're not alive?

I have to kill you, because you're not alive...

You have to die...

Because you're not alive...

Baby bunnies!!

My brother found baby bunnies while mowing!