Writing Prompts

Here's a few quickies.

I just got back from Denmark where my wife committed concierge assisted-suicide after a long battle with stage four metastatic breast cancer.

When I returned home and opened the mail, there was a card from the center addressed to my wife with a customer feedback survey: “How did we do?”

[WP] The guild has forbidden you from using any of your experimental brews and concoctions without being tested beforehand. But considering that you all are about to die, you'd rather take a punishment later than death right now.

The pain was intense, and I have to admit that it was clouding my judgement. The bottle's contents swirled slowly, a silent seduction in glass.

That bottle, blown by Mentcalf Ferlong, was one of his best works. Crystal clear, lines as graceful as a dancer's, had sat upon my shelf for seven years. Not a spec of dust, not a hint of blemish. It was captivating empty; the mystery of it's contents made it so much more compelling.

Seven long years. That shelf had held beakers, vials, jars, bottles, filled with the best of my art, stable and sold. Time had emptied that shelf repeatedly. Time had robbed me of my ability to restock it. The pestle was heavier, the burner smaller. Men had sought my shop from the far provinces once. And now.. Now even my neighbors purchased their elixirs from a township over. My reputation had fled with my strength. My clarity of mind had dwindled with my supplies of stocks.

And now, I was left with old hands, old eyes, and that damned swirling temptress.

At my height, I questioned the stolid strictures of the guild's leadership. Oh, never out loud, you mind me. Never where they might hear. Such words reaching their ears would have given cause for scrutiny of some of the resources I'd been buying, or a few of the tomes that I'd acquired. I had read the forbidden text at first with the same skepticism with which I'd been trained, yet still they spoke in a voice that resembled a voice of my own, heard only deep in the night. The words stirred flame within me, and that flame had ignited a night's work which I barely remembered. I recalled a feeling of deep power, a sense of mastery of craft that I'd never felt again. I had only the vague memory of elation.. and that bottle.

I should have destroyed it. So should have Trion, my guild chapter master, when he'd seen it. His anger had been towering on sight of the bottle, and he'd demanded, insisted, on a complete inventory of my books and resources, many tossed to the fire. But the bottle.. He'd been staring at it, just before he left, when he ordered me never to make use of it. I'd almost asked what he thought that I should do, but something in his eyes, distant and captivated by that slow swirl, kept me silent.

And now, as the pain wracked me, I had decided that I'd waited long enough. I picked up the bottle; the swirling sped, the bottle felt warm in my hands. My hands were shaking as I removed the stopper, and I lifted it to my lips..

I couldn't move. Fear bolted me to the floor, frozen. What had I to lose? This shop was a derelict, what little life was left me would be a race between starvation and sickness. What had I to fear? The contents turned, and while they could kill me, I would at least know.. finally know, what I had wrought.

I drank, and silence overtook me.

That was seven days ago. I flex my talons, feel their strength, and I smile, as much as my muzzle will let me. My wings long to stretch, to cup the night air, and lift me over this village. I am nearly ready, my transformation is nearly done. I feel a moment, only a brief moment, of regret for the time I wasted, for those many years on the shelf, but I let it pass, and think once again of what path I shall take to Trion. It's a short path.. as the dragon flies.