Writing Resources from Fifteen Minutes of Fiction

Truthful

Ha ha! He believed truthfulness mattered. Oh well, paradigms were often slow in changing. Perhaps this jaunt among the locals would turn out to be more engaging than I had formerly anticipated. An eyebrow lifted (always the right one) and my lips wormed in place. A, perhaps, misplaced ferocity entered my vision. Truth, as in "The Truth"? Preposterous.

A street-corner preacher and an intersection of believers. Perfect.

My fingers limped into the air, a physical sign of weakness--a lure--it steadied my focus when I could move my hands. Dizzying them with my vocabulary was only half the fun. It was a calm gesture, not fist-like or bladed, the fingers seemed gibbled and lacking virility. It was a hand offered out, seeking assistance--the hand of a man desiring a simplified answer from a complex man for a simple mind.

She pinched me! In public! Again! "Woman!" I fumed, I growled and I quivered. "You leave them alone." It was simple and straightforward, the less she said the less I could twist. She knew that, and had known that, long before she had caged me with this metallic circlet. And she blamed me for being devilishly conniving.

At least she hadn't dragged me away by the ear. I eluded eye contact with her. And the public. I was involved in greater games than any involving these citizens. Yet... it was odd how removed I felt from them.

Geographically we didn't live far from the peasants of this land. But I was a mystery to them. So much so that they barely knew I existed. The thought beckoned chagrin which transmogrified into ironic mirth. Some Ven I had turned out to be. A "scholar for the people", not a chance.

Perhaps I should have felt some obligation to them, toiling away enmeshed in their tribulations and fears. But I knew my studies could only be of any use to later generations. We, as a race, had survived the End--barely--and now kings and generals sought to finish us off. I had power enough to be free of their petty squabbles. The crushing and forging of nations was too ethereal of an enterprise for my tastes.

But summons from the Emperor were different. She knew I would do anything to avoid pampering any man in a throne--and that's why she trailed me so doggedly. "You intend to pain me every pace of this process, don't you?" Her silence dared another word from me. Journeying with her to play jester for the Emperor. Chance and Choice had forsaken me!

But I am an expert, a highly specialized expert, and it'd be best off for the world, and myself, if my expertize lay dusty and forgotten for generations. Unless...unless the Emperor summoned me because we were not done with the End--or it with us.

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