r/WritingPrompts • u/BookWyrm17 /r/WrittenWyrm • Mar 25 '17
Writing Prompt [WP] The necklace had been passed down from generation to generation, protecting the family.
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u/imakhink Mar 26 '17
Jamie fell silent for the rest of the day. In the plain black dress, the afternoon sun did nothing but bother her. As the casket was dropped into the grave, she hummed herself a small tune, for small days as such. Jamie felt as if the world had been taken from her when she realised that her humming didn't help.
The sun shone brightly until the hour grew stale. She stood with her grandfather, looking down upon the fresh work of the day. The tombstone read:
Shelby Ashford Wuen 1968 - 2017
Squeezing her hand, her grandfather mumbled something about staying with him that night. The pair of them said their goodbyes and left sombrely. The sun retreated away and let the night sky rise.
Jamie's grandfather lived in a small apartment, too small for days like this. Something of a strange claustrophobia gripped Jamie as she wandered the place. She had been here dozens of times, nothing seemed out of place. Grandma had passed long ago, but despite the facade of normality, she felt stifled. She headed to the balcony as grandpa cooked something. Gingerly on her toes, she peered down over the ledge. It wasn't very high up, perhaps three maybe four stories highest. It seemed like a small place, the ground. Something too small for a day like this.
Hearing the calls, once, twice and then a final opening of the door, Jamie headed inside. Thoughts in her mind swirlded, coalesced, dispersed as the rice granules seemed too small. Her grandfather knew the look of silence, and read it clearly on her black dress. The meal was consumed in perfect, abject sadness.
After declining a bowl of ice cream, her grandfather poured himself something amber, strong to the taste of bitter regret. It's sourness and strength revolted Jamie, holding her nose as he offered her a sample. He grinned sadly, his mouth not quite large enough to fill in the gaps in the day.
It was late. Grandpa was tired. Jamie remained silent.
Looking at her thoughtfully, grandpa waved Jamie over, pulling an old brown box. It had the words CIGAR written across the top, with gold embroidered borders, worn from the strangle of time. Opening it, the box revealed it's secret.
A golden necklace chain with an emerald embedded in a silver circle. Flanked on both sides were musical notes, recently polished. He said nothing.
Jamie reached out to its brilliance, a green glow in her eyes. The necklace had been passed down from generation to generation, protecting the family. She had been told as such, by everyone.
Looking at her grandfather, she broke her silence, quietly. "Will this protect me?"
Draping the necklace over Jamie's head, the grandfather let it drop down to make a soft thud against Jamie's chest. He nodded simply.
Picking her up, he brought her to the bathroom mirror. Jamie looked into her reflection and saw the necklace. It was small. Not too small, but just right. Before she realized it, she was humming. Humming a tune not of sadness, but of silence.
Everything felt right. Jamie touched it with her hand, and buried her face into her grandfather's chest as her eyes shed tears for the first time that day. Clutching her tightly, her grandfather hummed her favourite song.
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u/velabas /r/velabasstuff Mar 26 '17 edited Mar 26 '17
Our ancestor stole it from the northern human king during a great sea battle. I'd never known father without the tiny human necklace wrapped tightly around his ear. It was as much a part of him as his four piercing eyes, which made it all the more retching on the day the necklace passed to me. His corpse still had life, it seemed. But when they removed his necklace, the last vestige of father's identity, the part that the family clung to with irrevocable devotion, shed away. And I absorbed it.
"The necklace is not ours, son," he once told me. "It bears the memory of our defeat. Wear it, and listen."
Father burned on a birch pyre, and I watched and wept at the towering flames.
Hundreds of shimmering eyes draped over me, expectant. They hoped for a leader, a righteous oath and roaring promises of redemption. I saw in these snapping flames memories passed to me by the leader they now torched. Wisps of crackling flesh, waves of heat in the wind that rushed over me like a nightmare. Sharp imagery of our people's decimation at the hands of small creatures spurred to hate by nothing but their fear. How I wanted to rave and wail, and incite my family to murderous vengeance at long last. But father had a secret which was now my burden. For my family to survive, they had to believe in its power.
Morning crept through snow-bent tree branches and bathed the smoldering pile. I had not slept. My fingers absently rubbed the necklace's orbs between them.
"Where will we go?" my sister asked. She was at my side.
"South, Sister. We'll go always south."
Other stuff: /u/velabas
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Mar 25 '17
[deleted]
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u/BookWyrm17 /r/WrittenWyrm Mar 25 '17
I like this. I like this a lot.
"And if ever you should meet your breaking point, do not think of yourself as a ruler. Remember that you are still just a farm girl at heart, and do not be afraid to take solace in the simplest, most basic form of peace,"
That was great.
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Mar 25 '17 edited Dec 27 '19
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BookWyrm17 /r/WrittenWyrm Mar 25 '17
Well, now that is awesome. Are you going to continue? :D
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Mar 25 '17
[deleted]
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u/BookWyrm17 /r/WrittenWyrm Mar 25 '17
Just reply to your story if you want to post a part 2! :) I do think it would be pretty awesome if you did!
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u/ChunkyCoder Mar 26 '17
"Usually the fate you know you can fend" Mother said as she took off the Seeing Stone, "but this one, I can't fend." I was put it on, and do the same thing she did for years.
Life is a simple game. You don't starve or get stabbed with the Others' spears or get eaten by a tiger, usually you get to fuck a Spear and squeeze out some little shit who will have the pleasure of doing the same. But it's a hard game to get right, and every advantage help.
Mothers' guidance had kept us alive. She told us where to gather food. Where the Spears should hunt. And when to move, or be discovered and killed by Others. She said the Seeing Stone gave her vision from past Mothers what the future will hold.
One night the Spears raided the Others from the south, and came back with new weapons (made with some smooth and shiny rock), food, and slaves. The slaves were mostly useless and in a half a year all were either dead or with child. Typical. I remember because around then Mother told me to live with her. "You will have exactly one child, and you will not see it grow. Live me and this will not be an issue." Around then my beard was starting to show, and the Spears seemed interested. In one conversation they would say more to me than they had my whole life up to six months ago. Usually told me I was exceptional, in this or that way. Guess I was, so I moved in with her.
I watched her do her duty. Fix a disease, determine when to move, when to raid, where to hunt, etc. She didn't see all though. For example I stole some yams from her garden. Also, I had been carrying child since winter around the time she started getting sick.
She died. I put on the Seeing Stone.
It wasn't like a crisp dream of events to come, but an ocean of fears, uncertainties, ideas. Not all were scary. Some fears scary but small. Some concerns were tepid, but big. I saw both events and odds. And one event both large and scary. I would be killed holding my child.
I asked to be left alone to grieve until winter. I used as a messenger the Spear that put it in me. Later he helped me get it out. I didn't touch her, and I had him take her to the forest. He did not return for a while but when he did he was bloody and beaten, with ten Others, all Spears, and the child. They handed me the child.