Piñata.

Nov 23

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Previous | First

I took a seat by the TV. Emma the front desk girl brought me a piece of the cake, but I wasn’t really hungry. Nobody showed any further interest in me, as usual. The party wasn’t really anything special for me; they brought in cake every week at the slightest provocation and donuts if nobody could think of anything to put on a cake.

Still, it was my birthday and I probably wouldn’t be getting anything but Stevens’ dud piñata. I spat confetti out of my teeth, and tried to remember this morning’s Motivational Life Coach e-mail. “Being interesting is an action,” it’d said, “So go out and do it.” I spent some time trying to think how that could be motivational, pondered for a while whether it really meant anything at all, and had just about sunk into a rather despairing collection of thoughts about how the world had reduced me to the point where an e-mail forward was my biggest impetus in life when I realized it was time to get back to work.

The empty piñata head was sitting on my desk when I got back; it watched me blankly as I worked on the SWAT report and continued trying to get all the confetti out of my mane.

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1st draft [partim] – Shine.

Nov 16

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Previous | First

The subway screeched as it came to a stop at Chinatown Station.

“All right, this is where we get off,” I said.

“Oh is it really?” Jan said, getting up.

I punched his arm. “None of that.”

My favorite place to eat out here was a tiny little place off a little blind alley; I don’t think it even has an English name.

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WIP – Blake.

Nov 10

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I’m going to take this somewhere eventually. Previous/First

Things were not turning my way, though, as I got ready. I’d lost a button on my favorite shirt; I cut my fingers trimming my facial fur, and when I went down to the bus stop in the rain—did I mention it was raining, too?—when I got to the bus stop, I saw my bus had already left.

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1st draft [partim] – The day Ralph and I switched places.

Nov 9

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Previous

Ralph didn’t intervene as I tried to recover. I was glad of it, too—I was embarrassed enough I needed to be alone. By the time I’d calmed down, wiped my face, and felt I could face the world again—or at least try—dinner had already ended.

Fair enough; maybe I could face the world, but I didn’t really feel like facing campus again today.

I missed Ralph. Stupid evening shifts.

I headed back to his place, and I was so distracted by my own thoughts about my future that I didn’t notice Ralph had taken over my body again till we were walking through the front door. He went to his weight room, sat me down on a bench, and we started pumping iron.

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1st draft [partim] – Mori

Nov 3

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Previous

The kelvin handed me his candle and crossed his arms, still watching Munk waving his spear at the ram.

“Munk!” I said.

He came back to the edge of the arena where I was. The ram stayed put, watching.

The whole place was just too quiet. I jumped down on the golem’s head and took the spear.

The monster started charging again.

I took the candle and lit the spear on fire below the head. Whatever wood it was made of caught fire easily—thank heaven—and blazed.

I took aim at the oncoming beast.

“I hope this works,” I said.

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1st draft [partim] РPi̱ata

Oct 27

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First/previous part

Since it was my special day, I got first swing at it.

They cleared out some space in the break room to set everything up and soon the whole office was crowded round as Stevens tied a blindfold on me.

“Watch the mane,” I said. “I don’t need more tangles.”

The wolf snorted and put the bat in my paws. “You’re cool,” he said, spinning me around several times. “Go for it, old man!”

I heard the office girls cheering as I started swinging upwards. Whiffed it. Tried again, still no luck.

Stevens started making fun. I ignored him.

I swung again, and connected—but the piñata didn’t break. I swung again at the same spot, and nearly fell over as I missed altogether—darn thing must have still been swinging.

I waited a second and gave it another go, and this time broke it open with a good solid whack.

I was doused in a shower of… confetti?

I took off the blindfold. Definitely confetti.

Stevens scoffed. “No candy? What a gyp. I paid fifty bucks for that.”

The crowd dispersed to get their sugar rush elsewhere—mostly flocking to the cake in the corner—and I tried to shake the stray bits of paper out of my fur.

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1st draft [partim] – Shine.

Oct 20

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Yeah, so I decided to continue on from my last Shine scrap and see if I could make a proper story out of it.

Jan was no longer the scrawny fox he had been when I’d first met him; a few weeks of eating with me had him up to looking healthy. It didn’t look like he’d be sporting a paunch like mine anytime soon, though.

“All right,” I said, “Let’s get out of here.”

We went down to the street and headed to the subway station. People shaded their eyes as we went by. I ignored them; not fifteen minutes ago they’d’ve been doing the same for the sunset, and my light’d be past them just as quickly.

Jan sat across from me on the subway car. I saw my light in his eyes.

“You don’t hafta sit there, you know,” I said.

“What, and let someone else enjoy this view?”

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Scrap – Blake

Oct 15

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This is actually almost too small to post, but then I guess most of my scraps are.  This is sort of a new quasi-didactic project I wanted to start, and I spent most of this writing period trying to figure out who’d be involved and what they were like.  It’ll be Blake and a new character, a marten by the name of Emmett.

It was my first date with Blake. Sure, we’d hung out with friends before, run into each other on the promenade, but tonight I’d asked him out officially; he’d given me that subtle smile of his and said “Sure thing, marten.”

I was pretty nervous.

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1st draft [partim] – The day Ralph and I switched places.

Oct 6

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The previous section of this draft was posted a month ago.    This outcome is something I had not at all expected would happen, but it seems inevitable, really.   I know it ends pretty weak here; in draft it’ll be smoothed to segue better into whatever ends up happening next.

“You’re in my chemistry class, aren’t you?” he said, to the burly human in line in front of me.

Ralph’s smiles were infectious, even with my face cracking them. At least, they felt that way from the inside. The guy was not won over. “Yeah… so what?”

By the look he gave me, you’d think I was some new species of pond scum—uninteresting and distasteful.

“I just thought that—”

“I’m not interested in speaking to you,” the guy said, and turned back to face the front of the line.

Ralph turned to face the mouse girl in line behind him. “What was that about,” he said.

“Everyone knows you’re gay,” she said. “You do realize that limits your social circle, right?”

I didn’t know what people thought about me, so of course Ralph couldn’t have.

I’d like to say Ralph handled it gracefully, made a joke, and shrugged it off, but he didn’t get the chance—I took over, fled the cafeteria, and hid under some stairs in the music building, crying, for a good long time.

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1st draft [partim] – Mori

Oct 2

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The previous part of this was posted last month.  I can definitely see a few things that’ll need fixing on the second draft.

I sat on the edge and watched the golem attempt to fight off the monster ram, waving the kelvin’s spear back and forth.

The ram, for its part, seemed to have calmed down, and was watching Munk with an expression that oscillated between indifference and confusion as the spear went back and forth.

“It only wanted me, didn’t it?” I said.

The kelvin I spoke to nodded, keeping his eyes fixed on the arena.

“I have to go back down there, don’t I?”

The kelvin nodded again.

“How’m I supposed to beat that thing?”

The kelvin didn’t answer.

I didn’t come prepared for this.  What’ve I got? My bare hands—but I’m a flabby alchemy geek, that won’t do me any good.

Clothes on my back; not likely to be helpful.

I have a golem, and my golem has a spear.  But my golem is inept at violence by design and the monster won’t fight it anyway.  No help there.  And flimsy alchemy geek arms wouldn’t handle a spear any better.

I have my environment.  An arena full of armed gryphons.

Right, and one unarmed gryphon.

With fire.

“May I borrow your candle?”

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