Drabble 120

  Finished 3:01.

Blue wasn't sure how Raven would react to his recently emptied liquor cabinet, but he couldn't imagine it would be particularly well. Had he been sober he might have been sensible enough to go into the village and replace whatever he'd drunk, but he was past the point where he was willing to do anything that seemed like a good idea and instead refilled the bottles with water. He was sure it would be hilarious when Raven went to get himself a drink and just got water, but he hadn't stopped to consider just what Raven would do to him.

Drabble 119

Finished 5:51.

After Raven had finally let him out of the cage, Blue wasn't willing to risk being put back in it. That meant no murders, no arson, and most certainly no walking mess into the cottage. He hadn't been left with much else to do, since Raven was still writing up reports from previous jobs and he had already lost interest in his horse. Eventually he became bored enough to break into Raven's liquor cabinet, and around the fourth round he was beginning to understand just why Raven drank so much. It wasn't great, but it was better than the boredom.

Drabble 118

 Finished 5:54. Whoo that was a close one.

“Hey, Raven, weren't we supposed to be doing something today?” asked Blue, rattling the bars of his cage.

“Probably,” replied Raven, “but I think the Author got distracted again.”

“With what?” demanded Blue. “It's not like s/he ever does anything constructive.”

“Really, were you expecting anything resembling competence from our Author? You really just don't learn, do you?”

“You raise a valid point,” conceded Blue. “Maybe we should pay them a visit, just to get their arse into gear.”

“We could...” replied Raven. “...Or you could be quiet and let me finish the last of this paperwork, whichever you'd prefer.”

Drabble 117

Finished 4:56. Not exactly my best work :(

In a tower far away, a princess was locked up. The tower was guarded by a dragon, large and mighty, that nobody have ever managed to get past. The princess knew that she could not fight the dragon, so she had spent night after night finding a way to outsmart it. Putting her plan into action, she stood against the tower door, speaking quietly as though to somebody, and when the dragon put its head through the window to see who had gotten in, getting his head stuck in the process, she fled from tower and away into the night.

Drabble 116

Finished 4:34.

Blue struggled half-heartedly as Raven bundled him back into the cage, checking the lock as he shut him in. “Don't you think you're going a little overboard by now?” snapped Blue. “I've been in here for days. I think I've learned my lesson, don't you?”

“No, I don't,” replied Raven. “In fact, I'm not even certain if you're capable of learning from your mistakes; I've never seen you do so.”

“Well clearly I'm a shitty teacher!”

“And that's why you're in the cage. Now be quiet and behave yourself, I have work to do,” snarled Raven before leaving the room.

Drabble 115

 Finished 1:06. This one was little tricky. I kept having to rephrase things to get it at exactly 100 words.

Blue crept carefully up the stairs, managing to avoid any of the multiple creaky steps, and onto the small hallway upstairs. Raven's bedroom was the first room, immediately at the top of the stairs, and that was where would Raven most likely be. Blue was especially careful on his way past, not stopping until he'd reached the thankfully well-oiled door to the small room where Raven kept his weapons. The whole thing was flawlessly executed, or it would have been had Blue not crept back down the stairs to find an angry Raven waiting for him at the front door.

Drabble 114

Finished 2:18.

It took four days for Blue to finally pick the lock on the cage. Raven had been in every few hours to check on him and to offer a drink, and each time Blue had to abandon his attempts to pick the lock. It had gotten frustrating, and he was going to take that out on the villagers; and then on Raven's floors, since he cared so much about them. Though, it would have been far easier if Raven's swords hadn't been upstairs with Raven himself, since Blue wasn't nearly brave enough to just walk up there and take them.

 

Drabble 113

Finished 3:19.

“For the last time, I said that I'm sorry. I won't ever walk blood into your house again. Now can you please let me out?” whined Blue, rattling the bars of his cage. Raven shrugged and held out a chicken leg, keeping it just barely outside of Blue's reach. “You're a real piece of work sometimes, Raven, you know that?” Blue snapped, throwing himself down in a huff. “Nobody made you walk blood onto my floor,” snapped Raven. “Perhaps you'll actually learn something this time.”

“Not likely,” snorted Blue. “Now give me the chicken, you didn't feed me yet today.”

Drabble 112

Finished 2:21.

Anansi was sat in an office in his manor, a dull little room with a plain wooden desk and a plain wooden chair and a pair of plain wooden bookshelves against the wall. It wasn't particularly comfortable, and it certainly wasn't cosy, but it was quiet and out of the way, perfect for sitting down and getting some work done away from any potential distractions. It was also a little too small to bring any work associates into, so it gave him an excuse to make everybody else wait outside while he went over the files and maps by himself.

Drabble 111

Finished 2:28. I'm pretty much out of ideas now. 

Blue was still locked in his cage, trying to find a way to explain the bloodstains on Raven's floor that didn't include the words: 'I murdered some small children'. For someone who'd been giving him orders to kill innocents only a few days ago Raven was surprisingly not okay with the fact that Blue had killed somebody while he was gone. Blue might have pointed out how hypocritical it was of Raven to complain about Blue committing murder while he was out committing murder, but the look on Raven's face told him that may not have been the best idea.

Drabble 110

Finished 3:32.

Out in the mountains, a small village lay in ruins. The only survivor was a small child, who'd hidden under his bed when the soldiers had passed through his house. He would grow up to become a great warrior, and seek revenge on the men who'd destroyed his village and killed his family, ultimately ending the reign of the evil king that was responsible for all of the suffering in the land. Or he would have done, anyway, had Anansi not been so ridiculously prepared and sent the soldiers in to double-check for survivors, to avoid just such a situation.

Drabble 109

Finished 1:14.

“Wait, so this laptop thing had broken again?” asked Blue.

“Not broken, breaking; it's not quite broken yet. Not entirely, anyway,” replied Raven.

“How flimsy are these things?” asked Blue, poking the laptop with his stick. It didn't seem to do much, and Blue still couldn't quite glean what the purpose of it was besides to make life difficult for the Author. “Well that's hardly going to help,” snapped Raven, snatching the stick away from him. “Can't you go find a defenceless puppy to kick? Heavens know the Author needs something to write or we'll be sitting here all day.”

Drabble 108

Finished 3:37.

Raven returned a couple of days later, looking worse for wear and muttering to himself about bodyguards. He noticed the bloodstains on his floor the second he stepped foot in his cottage, and it wasn't too difficult to figure out where they were from. He found Blue asleep upstairs and didn't bother to wake him gently before dragging him downstairs and throwing him into his cage. “I thought you wanted me to kill people,” Blue whined; “so why are you mad at me?”

“I told you to kill someone,” snapped Raven, “not to walk their blood all over my floor.”

Drabble 107

Finished 00:47.

It had been more difficult than Blue had expected to kill the children from atop his horse. He had eventually dismounted and killed them on the ground, but he'd had to chase them down because his unsuccessful attempts at a mounted attack had given them a chance to flee. He didn't get back until late, and walked blood though most of Raven's cottage without even realising. When he did notice he considered cleaning it up before Raven got back, but it was late, he was tired, and Raven had been complaining he'd been bored, so he decided to leave it.

Drabble 106

Finished 00:07. Now my cooling fan has broken, so as soon as I can actually afford it the laptop is back in for repairs. Yeah, computers hate me. For now, repeated thermal shutdown is the best I'm going to get. Let's just hope this doesn't end up frying my new and expensive hard-drive. 

The best Blue had been able to find that he wouldn't suffer too much for killing had been a group of small children, and he couldn't see that much fun in killing the defenceless. The only other option he could think of was to ride over to the next town and find somebody to kill there, and that felt like a little too much effort just for one murder. He considered going home and not bothering, but it had been far too long since he'd last gutted a defenceless child and there was a group of them just sitting around.

Drabble 105

Finished 2:04.

Raven was sitting by the roadside, waiting for his mark to pass by. Admittedly, for an assassin, Raven didn't seem to kill people all too frequently, and it was easy to forget just how much sitting and waiting was actually involved. He wished he'd thought to bring a pack of cards or a book, but he knew if he didn't pay absolute attention that he mark would merely ride past him alive and well. All that left for him was to wait quietly in the bushes and wonder if Blue might actually have done anything interesting while he'd been away.

Drabble 104

Finished 1:00.

Raven was working out of town, and Blue had been left to his own devices in the cottage. It was only to be expected that it would be when Raven was not there to limit the damage that Blue would suddenly realise he could kill people quite effectively on horseback. He took one of Raven's spare swords from his room, got on his horse and rode into town, fully intending to find somebody worth killing. He didn't expect to get it right on the first attempt, but he was sure that with practise he would be able to master it.

Drabble 103

Finished 3:11.

Blue was spending more and more time outside with his new horse, something which still baffled and slightly irritated Raven. He had taken to sitting in the kitchen, suddenly finding it very difficult to concentrate on paperwork without Blue there trying to distract him, and starting drinking earlier each day. Even he had to admit that was probably an issue, which was why he was currently looking through a list of potential contracts, hoping that a job would help keep him occupied until Blue was ready to start causing carnage again and they could sink back into their old routine.

Drabble 102

Finished 5:22.

Blue found Raven the next morning asleep in his armchair, a couple of empty bottles at his feet. It took him a while to wake him up, and even longer for Raven to gain any sort of coherence. “You know, I'm starting to think you may actually have a drinking problem,” Blue told him.

“It was either get drunk or sit around doing nothing,” Raven snapped; “maybe if you'd bothered to cause some destruction for me it wouldn't have been an issue.”

“So now your sobriety depends on my insanity?” asked Blue. “Well that's more responsibility than I'm comfortable with.”

Drabble 101

 So, I have officially gone entirely post-modern on this thing. In case you couldn't tell, this thing was written entirely in wingdings. I'm not sure whether I deserve some sort of award for this or if I just deserve a slap.

Blogspot and Tumblr don't allow you to post in wingdings, so I had to take a screencap of it, then paste is into paint because LibreOffice was being a bitch and every time I tried to crop it there it still saved the uncropped version for some reason, then crop it in paint, past the new version back into LibreOffice so that I could save it as a Jpeg, then upload the photo into here. Yeah, this one was a bitch. And that's before you consider trying to avoid typos while typing in wingdings.

This is to celebrate have hit 100 drabbles, which I accomplished last night. I have no idea what I'm going to do for the next hundred.

Also, this was finished at about half past eleven of the evening, but I didn't check the time because I was trying to get it to actually work :P

 

And, because I'm nice like this, here is a version that isn't in wingdings, so that you can actually read it.

 

“What the hell is going on?” asked Blue, poking the letters with a stick. “Raven, why is the writing all funny?”

“Because the Author thought that it would be funny to write this one in Wingdings,” replied Raven.

“S/he did what now?” asked Blue. He crinkled his nose up, stepping away from the narration a little too quickly and nearly tripping over his feet. “Just ignore it,” Raven told him, “It's only the Author thinking s/he's smarter than s/he actually is. It'll be back to normal by tomorrow and then we can get on with the rest of our lives.

Drabble 100

Finished 5:40. This is number 100, for which I'm pretty sure I deserve a cookie.

Blue had exceeded his hour, and still hadn't been able to find anybody who's death wouldn’t inconvenience him. He eventually gave up entirely and returned to Raven's cottage, with no new murder to report. He threw himself down in the chair opposite Raven and rested his chin on the table. “You know,” he whined, stopping to blow a stray strand of hair out of his eyes, “I honestly just don't feel like killing anybody today.” Raven stared at him for a moment, then got up, walked over and placed the back of his hand on Blue's forehead, checking his temperature.

Drabble 99

Finished 5:48.

Blue was in town, actually following Raven's orders for once. For what may have been the first time in a long while he didn't really feel like killing people, he wasn't going to waste a free pass to murder on sheer principle. Unfortunately he couldn’t seem to find anybody who's untimely death wouldn’t inconvenience him in some way, since he needed the swordsmith for swords, the grocer for food, and the tavern staff to get him drunk. Blue was almost at the end of his hour when it finally occurred to him that people were in fact hiding from him.

Drabble 98

 I know, I said I'd get this one done early :( Finished at 5:33. Also, I've been leaning on my arm while typing this and think I may have trapped a nerve, so this is going to be fun.

Blue was back outside, riding his horse. It was pretty much all he had done for the last week, and while at first he had been grateful for the peace and quiet it was beginning to get a little dull without Blue burning down half of the village like he used to. He'd tried to sit and read, but after reading the same page for the fourth time he put his book down, went outside and pulled Blue off his horse. “You have one hour to kill somebody or I will,” he spat, shoving Blue towards the path into town.

Drabble 97

Strike 4. Fell asleep at the laptop sometime around midnight. Finished at 7:20, an hour and a half late. Will get today's done nice and early to be careful.

The knight stood at the entrance of the tower, sword in hand, ready to face the dragon. Or, he would have been, had the dragon been anywhere in sight. He looked around for it, but when he couldn’t see it anywhere he shrugged his shoulders and made to walk straight into the tower. It was then that a giant paw appeared out of nowhere, crushing the knight against the flagstones. The dragon, which had crept silently up behind the knight, licked the blood from its paw, leaving what was left of the knight in a puddle at the tower door.

Drabble 96

Finished 5:42.

Blue was in Raven's kitchen, holding an icepack to his neck. “That really wasn't necessary, you know,” he snapped at Raven, who was sat across the table from him.

“And yet, it was still funny,” he replied, not bothering to look up.

“Yeah, well, it makes you a dick,” Blue spat. “Hey, how do we have ice, anyway? There's no freezers, and it's summer. By all rights this should just be water.”

“Don't question the internal logic, Blue, you'll just hurt yourself,” raven told him, idly turning a page in his book and putting his feet up on the table.

Drabble 95

 Finished 5:48. I should really sleep more.

had taken the better part of a week, but Blue had just about gotten horse riding down. He'd spent longer practising than he'd liked, and was still outside at sunset after six days of constant training to make sure he had everything down. He was too caught up to notice when Raven came outside and stood and watched him for a short while. When he was certain that Blue hadn't noticed him he crept carefully up to the horse and slapped it on the flank, causing the horse to rear up and send poor Blue tumbling to the ground.

Drabble 94

Strike three? An hour late, at 7:03. I got distracted with this pesky uni work. I'm-a go sleep now.

“Weren't we supposed to be doing something?” asked Blue. He and Raven were essentially standing around in the woods, waiting. “I think the Author got distracted,” said Raven.

“What's so important that s/he can't even get one measly drabble written on time?” snapped Blue.

“I don't know, and I really don't care,” replied Raven, “but something had better happen soon or I'm going home.”

“Maybe I should set the woods on fire?” suggested Blue. Raven smacked him for that. “Well it might get zir attention,” snapped Blue, rubbing the growing lump on his head where Raven had repeatedly hit him.

Drabble 93.

Finished 5:16.

It took a while, but eventually Blue was able to get sat almost comfortably in the saddle. “This isn't so bad, I suppose,” he said, stroking the horse's neck. “I still don't see why you like it so much, but it isn't awful.”

“If you'd rather continue to walk everywhere, you're more than welcome to do so,” Raven told him.

“I think this is more practical,” replied Blue.

“Yes, and it allows me to do this,” said Raven, slapping the horse's hide and causing it to bolt, leaving Blue, who'd fallen from the saddle, in a heap on the ground.

Drabble 92

Finished 5:48.

Blue let Raven tack up the horse for him, since he hadn't actually been paying attention and would have certainly done it wrong. “Well, go on, get on then,” Raven told him. Blue grunted, trying to figure out if Raven was serious. “How do you expect me to teach you to ride if you don't get on the horse?” he snapped. “Get on the horse, now, and don't mess me about, here.” Blue move over to the horse, taking the reigns from Raven. “Are you sure there's no way to do this with me on the ground?” he asked, weakly.

Drabble 91

Finished 5:22. I have my laptop back now and have LibreOffice installed for the time being.

Blue sat quietly, poking the little glowing box. “What is it?” he asked, cautiously edging closer.

“I already explained this,” snapped Raven; “it's a laptop. The Author uses it to write.”

“What's it doing?” asked Blue.

“It's working,” replied Raven. “Now leave it alone. We've work to be doing.”

“We have work?” asked Blue.

“Well, I have work,” Raven answered, “but you're going to help me do it.”

“And why would I do that,” snapped Blue.

“Because it means you'll get to kill some people. Probably innocents. Children may be included in that. Annoying people definitely will be,” said Raven.