Light and Magic – Mid-week Flash Challenge

Rowena gazed from one bottle to the other with an amused expression.

“Where did you get them?” she asked.

Alex grinned. “That would ruin the magic,” she told her.

Rowena picked up the closest bottle. The thick glass, worn and cloudy with age, held tiny golden grains that shone though the smudgy glass. She ran her finger across the label. “Sun dust,” she read and smirked.

“Don’t judge,” said Alex.

“I’m not judging–,”

“Yes, you are!”

“Sun dust?” Rowena raised an eyebrow at Alex as she picked up the second bottle. “And moonbeams? Really?”

“Read the rest,” prompted Alex.

Dutifully, Rowena held both bottles. “‘Sun dust, sprinkle anytime to add a little light to your life’, and ‘Moonbeams, scatter when needed to bring magic to your life’. Are you saying I need light and magic?”

“Don’t we all?” said Alex.

Rowena inspected the bottles again, tipping the sun grains so they sparkled in the evening sunshine radiating in through the bedroom window. Then she smiled and held the moonbeams, gently shaking the bottle so the tiny crystals shimmered. “It’s just sand and salt – rock crystal – or something like that.”

“You have no imagination, nothing!” Alex sighed.

“And you’re just an old romantic!”

“You wouldn’t have me any other way, Ro!”

Rowena grinned and placed the bottles back on the window sill then she gazed at Alex and sank down beside her on the bed. “I wouldn’t.” Her hand laced with Alex’s and she leaned in to kiss her gently on the cheek. “I wouldn’t change anything about you,” she said as she lost herself in Alex’s eager response.

An hour or two later Rowena woke, her hair mussed up and her mind fuzzy with romance. She glanced beside her but the bed was empty. Just a quickly scribbled note lay on the pillow and Rowena snatched it up. “‘Sprinkle and scatter… just do it’,” she read. She laughed and sat up, noticing that Alex had taken her coat and keys. Alex had a night shift at the veterinary practice. Rowena yawned and smoothed her hair.

The bottles still sat on the window sill. The sun had lowered in the sky and the day’s light was almost gone. The sun dust still glistened in the orange sunset, and the moonbeams turned silver as the sun faded and the moon rose. Rowena smiled as she removed the stopper from the first bottle and tipped a little sunlight into her hand. She giggled and threw it up into the air. She felt a little foolish as she caught her reflection in the mirror and sand landed in her hair, but she put the stopper back in the bottle and picked up the moonbeams. She spilled the glitter into her palm and again threw it up letting it settle in her locks.

“Light and Magic, I welcome you!” she chanted, then shook her head and watched the shimmering grains float about her.

She went to bed in the sheer romance of the moment, looking forward to Alex’s arrival home.

Rowena opened her eyes to a steaming mug of morning coffee and a kiss on her forehead. Nothing could possibly be more perfect. She reached out, but Alex stepped back with a grin on her face. “I see you invited, or invoked, light and magic then!” She chuckled as she brushed sand and glitter from Rowena’s pillow.

“I did, for all the good it’ll do me!” She reached out, picking up her coffee. “I wish I didn’t have to sleep alone so often though.”

Alex shrugged. “It’s part of the job, I’m afraid. Leave your coffee for a moment…”

Rowena put her mug down hopeful that Alex was about to join her in bed, but Alex picked up the mug and moved it out of her reach. Instead she moved to the bedroom door and pushed it wide open. In a single bound a large ball of fur launched across the floor and up onto the bed engulfing Rowena in a sloppy, furry kiss. A wet pink tongue licked Rowena and then fell back to sit on the bed panting, with a wide Golden Retriever smile across its face. Rowena squealed in delight as the ball of sunshine kissed her again. Rowena laughed and grinned at Alex then she crossed her hands across her heart as Alex lead a nervous, silver-haired German Shepherd into the room.

She sprang out of bed, followed by the excited Retriever, and knelt gently in front of the anxious dog, offering her hand to the timid creature. The Shepherd glanced at the Retriever and when the golden dog licked Rowena again, the pale Shepherd gently sniffed the outstretched hand and let Rowena softly stroke her head.

Alex spoke quietly, “They come together, the sun and the moon. Their owner died recently, with no family, and we won’t separate them. They’re like you and me, day and night. They belong with us now.”

Rowena nodded as she gazed at the two dogs, one as bright and as happy as the sunshine that streamed through the window, and the other as soft, mysterious, and gentle as night’s moonbeams, and her eyes filled with tears. “You’ve truly brought me both light and magic.”

I haven’t written or blogged for a while, but the Sun Dust photo Miranda, at Finding Clarity, chose for her Mid-Week Flash Challenge this week caught me. I love some light and magic…

Write up to 750 words inspired by the prompt photograph. I overstepped the rules this week, though, ending up with 874 words, but hey, it’s a cute short story and I loved writing it!

The Raven’s Call – Mid-week Flash Challenge

© Lisa Shambrook

The peridot-green tint of algae penetrated the wood, like it had been brushed on with a watercolour paint brush, like it was part of the mirror’s design. The wood, once damp, now flaky and dry in the barn, still sported delicate fretwork and inlays – though one touch and they’d crumble. And the glass, cloudy like a cataract, showed no reflection and mirrored nothing.

Rachel moved closer, her feet stumbling as she stepped over long abandoned debris and rubbish strewn across the floor of the barn. Chairs – covered in faded, torn damask, a tarnished bronze bedstead, garden tools with broken wooden handles, a pile of rusted metal-springs, coils, barbed wire, and myriad other lost items filled the space within the ramshackle walls. Rachel, however, noticed nothing but the mirror, as she shuffled forward.

Cobwebs floated to and fro in the light draught that drifted through the barn, as did the white hair framing her face, and she deftly brushed her errant tresses aside. Her flowing nightdress wrapped itself around her legs and she shivered. She smiled at the sensation the shiver sent through her. She didn’t think a shiver would have registered these days, she was so tired, so –

A bird flapped at the door, feathers rustling in the wind, and Rachel glanced back at it. A raven sat, perched with its head cocked on the splintered door. It watched for a moment as Rachel met its eyes then Rachel returned her gaze to the mirror.

She stood before the old looking glass, trying to see her face in its murky reflection, but only indistinct shadows stared back.

The raven cracked its wings in the silence and flew across the floor, this time landing noisily on the bedstead rail. Its feet clutched tight and Rachel watched its outline waver in the shadowy glass.

“Is it time?” she asked, her voice soft, and as quiet as the gentle spring breeze.

There was no reply, and she moved her hand to the decaying, rotting frame around the oval of glass. For a moment, as she touched it, the mirror was restored, a thing of simple beauty. She gazed into clear glass, her face surrounded by ebony hair, and her fingers young and slim. The wood – oak, warm, and delicately grained framed the mirror, and she was twenty-two, not eighty-two. The image faded, like the wood, and Rachel stood once more before the old mirror.

She smiled and nodded again. “It’s time,” she said, as the raven shifted behind her. She peered into the glass, and in it, or was it in her mind’s eye, she saw two people. The woman behind her, with raven black hair, like hers, wrapped her arms around Rachel, and Rachel let herself melt into the long missed and welcome embrace.

The mirror reflected nothing, as Rachel rested cold and unresponsive on the freezing floor. The raven, a ghostly shadow in the gloomy mirror, muttered and flew off soaring away into the cold, white morning sky.  

Miranda, at Finding Clarity, chose one of my own photographs for her Mid-Week Flash Challenge, and I’ve always wanted to write something for this picture that I took of an old crumbling mirror in my dad’s barn… so here we are.

Write up to 750 words inspired by the prompt photograph.

Hades Oven – Mid-Week Flash Challenge

Dead End by Svetlana Sewell

It was as black as velvet, thick with stifling heat, and she shuddered at the echoing drips in the narrow corridor. The breath she pulled deep into her lungs threatened to suffocate her in the clammy air. She shook her head, trying to rid her skin of the constant illusion of crawling ants, and tightened the frayed tourniquet tied about her left bicep. Yesterday’s wound was depleting more energy than she’d expected.

Today’s cuts and bruises were more superficial, and she took a swig of murky water from her canteen before stuffing it back into her damp rucksack. She was sweating more than she was drinking.

There was only one way into this broiling labyrinth of brick, and no other way out, and the men still waiting for her and the gem at the entrance knew it. She sighed and leaned against the wall, her head torch wobbling as she slapped the wall in frustration beside her. Her eyes stung as tears blurred her vision and defeat gurgled in her throat. The huge garnet jewel stowed in her canvas backpack, still grey with mud and dried moss, and heavy within its matrix rock, weighed on her shoulders and in her mind.

The gem, bundled inside her jacket, carried value she didn’t want to give up, but trapped inside the tunnels the stories she’d heard as a child were slowly resurfacing as desperation grew. Was the legend worth the aggravation? Could the myths carry truth? And, within the miles of hallway could she find the gem’s fabled haven?

There was always another way out, no one would ever build a labyrinth without an escape route; it was unheard of. And it was – except within the oppressive dungeons of Hades Oven.

She moved on, her fingers trailing over the ruby moss swathed brickwork. Never ending walls stretched through the obscurity, until she turned a corner and a silver doorway greeted her. The door stood ominously open, streaked with broken and decayed latticework shining in her torch light.

She tried to see beyond the darkness, but the rays bounced off the walls, artificial light glinting like a dead end. Fatigue pounded and her sweat turned cold. This was it, the end of the eternal hallway. There was nowhere else to go, nowhere else but back.

The noise of her own blood pumping through her veins thundered through her head as she gazed at the mottled silver smeared across the walls like fog, like ice. A wry smile flickered across her face. Her final moments of torture, as she baked beneath the earth, would be the imagery of ice, of mist, and of cool water running down the bricks. An illusion in her rattled and ragged dried out mind.

Then she moved across the threshold into the tiny room, and pulled the door closed, its hinges creaking tired and worn, until it clicked shut. She slipped her backpack off her shoulders and smiled at the weightlessness she felt as she slipped to the floor, the bag landing with a thud beside her. She took a last look at the small room, the beam of her torch flashing over the silvered bricks, and she switched off her light. Darkness enveloped the room and she sank into the corner to await her end in death’s antechamber.

It wasn’t completely dark. A burgundy glow emanated from her bag. Even through the thick canvas and dirty jacket the garnet smouldered. Trembling fingers tugged open the bag and turned it upside down. Dust billowed and the gem bounced on the concrete, and in the red light a tiny switch shone. She grabbed it and as the lever came away in her hand, bricks crumbled. Light, as white as heaven, flooded the tiny space, blinding her. Then the dust settled and running water crashed past the opening. Still squinting, she pushed out and gulped in cool fresh air. Without another thought she stuffed the gem back into her bag, and stepped out beneath the torrents of waterfall. A valley stood before her, miles away from the labyrinth’s entrance, and offering freedom. She’d found the haven and Hades would have to wait.

Really wanted to write something for this photo provided by Miranda’s Mid-Week Flash Challenge prompt. Something suffocating about this image, by Svetlana Sewell, that needed a story.

Write up to 750 words inspired by the prompt photograph.

Books – A Different Story for Every Reader

When you pick up a book and lose yourself inside its pages,
you are creating your very own unique experience.
The way we see a book, its characters, its places,
and its plot, as we read, is exclusive to you.

Books are emotive, controversial, grounding, escapist, factual, fiction, and so much more. Books often mean different things to different people, and that’s fine. Some people have never picked up a book in their life since leaving school, some can’t live without them. I’m in the latter group. Books were everything to me as a child, and have remained a major part of my life. I was a loner, quiet and introverted, and books helped me survive the tough times. If you couldn’t find me, I’d be curled up somewhere with a book in my hand escaping into another world. I read, I drew, and I wrote.

Books became more than just reading material – they became what I wrote, and how I try to earn a living. I love creating characters, and worlds, and a tale people can escape to.

The Lord of the Rings – My writing – Of Zombies and Lies – A Symphony of Dragons, and Human 76 – © Lisa Shambrook

I recently said I have had trouble reading this year, and I have, it’s been an unsettled year, and the ability to curl up, untroubled, and read hasn’t been an easy place to find. The same could be said about my writing too, but I have opened a few books and lost myself in them. Twenty Twenty has been about finding comfort, and that’s been in both television and books. I rewatched all of Star Trek, currently rewatching Doctor Who, and I’ve been reading a Star Trek Enterprise book, and am rereading His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. The best bit is that I’m rereading (The Amber Spyglass) right now in tandem with Cait, who hasn’t read it before.

The Slow Regard of Silent Things – Clariel – His Dark Materials – My writing – © Lisa Shambrook and Bekah Shambrook

His Dark Materials, with its provocative and polemic ideas, is one of my favourite books, and alongside the books the current television series is also enchanting and enthralling me. I rarely look forward to a show as much as I do this one, we (daughter and I) literally squeal at the screen when it comes on each week, and both the casting and the adaptation’s writing has been superb. Every nuance and detail delights me.

Gormenghast – The Princess Bride – Novels – Human 76 – © Lisa Shambrook

It’s the epitome of escapism and fantasy and offers me a completely new world to live in. Cait and I were talking the other day about books and about how each book we read is different, each book is a different story to whoever reads it. When we read His Dark Materials together, what’s amazing is that inside our heads we are each seeing the story unfold in a unique way. Even alongside the television adaptation and the actors we see each week, it’s still different inside our minds. I first read the books fifteen or so years ago and the characters were unique to what I saw in my head as I read. The places, the developing narrative, everything that played out in my mind became my own interpretation. We talked about how the mulefa will be played out in the series on tv… (no spoilers please) and it’s a fascinating thought that every single person, including Philip Pullman who wrote the books, will have seen them differently. And that’s the magic of books!

Beneath the Rainbow – Windchime Cafe – Dead Sea Games – Tell a Beautiful Story – © Lisa Shambrook

I commented that maybe the writers of the current series will have to go to Pullman to decide exactly how to portray them, I mean, who better than the author – who imagined them up in the first place – to go to for advice? But it reminded me of a recent tweet Pullman posted saying:  ‘I can join in discussions about my books, because I too have read them, but my opinions have no greater authority than anyone else’s just because I wrote them.’

I love this!

I can join in discussions about my books, because I too have read them, but my opinions have no greater authority than anyone else's just because I wrote them.

— Philip Pullman (@PhilipPullman) December 9, 2020

Books are magic, they create worlds in your head, and if it’s different to someone else’s interpretation that’s okay. Your reading experience is yours, it belongs to you. And every book out there is a new world for whoever picks it up! What beauty there lies in that!

The Surviving Hope Novels – I found my family in a book – Under Rose Tainted Skies – A Symphony of Dragons – © Lisa Shambrook

So, if you’re inclined, go and pick up a book and lose yourself in the story, the description, the characters, and disappear into a new world for a bit. We all need a bit of escapism.

The boy, the mole, the fox and the horse – Ghostbird – The Castle of Adventure – A Symphony of Dragons – © Lisa Shambrook

Do you have a favourite book?
What do you read when you need to live somewhere else for a while?

My Writer’s Life – how plans go awry…

I thought you might be interested to know how I plan and achieve (ahem) my writing strategies. I enjoyed writing this Writer’s Lives piece for IASD (Indie Author Support and Discussion) group and decided to share my squirrely ways with you too.

I’m a creature of habit, but like a squirrel I’m jittery and anxious. I like routine, but have a degree in procrastination. So, my writing habits are well planned with the best intentions, but not always successfully carried out.

© Lisa Shambrook

I begin my day with plans that fit my control freak personality, but go awry as soon as I hit social media. It always starts with ‘just checking my notifications’, but finishes a few hours later after having been distracted by posts, blogs, and shiny things… My problem is beginning, but once I’m there the words flow and I easily slip away into another world.

© Lisa Shambrook

My laptop – on my lap, where else? – is where I begin, in my lounge with my German Shepherd at my feet, a hot chocolate in my squirrel mug, and chocolate within reach. I like being surrounded by pretty things and though my house is a chaotic array of disorder and a carpet full of dog fluff, I like sensory things to keep me focused. I always have acorn cups or hazelnut shells beside me, sounds odd, but I did say I’m a squirrel… actually I deal with several mental health disorders including anxiety, panic, depression, and Sensory Processing Disorder, and acorn cups are my stim of choice. Rolling a polished hazelnut shell or acorn cup between my fingers calms and grounds me. I also like having a scented candle alight, and flowers and crystals close by.

Out in the forest with Kira © Lisa Shambrook

You’re probably noticing that I ramble a fair bit… give me an inch and I’ll take a mile, but only with those I’m close to, otherwise I’ll keep my mouth shut and listen. Listening is fun – sometimes it’s what gives you a kernel of a story idea. Not just listening to people, but to everything. I let my mind wander, dog walks in the forest are perfect for this, and once an idea spins in my head I’ll be desperate to get it down onto paper. I fill notebooks with untidy notes and sketches. I’ll make maps, paint characters, and keep intricate detailed summaries, research, and annotations of every chapter that I write. I flip through these pages all the time as I write, and they are invaluable during edits and rewrites.

I’m a plotter, I like to know the beginning, middle, and end before I start, but as authors will tell you, our characters like to improvise and take us on journeys we didn’t expect, so you have to allow for digressions and detours. In real life I don’t like change, but in my writing life changes are exciting and inspiring! We writers are nothing if not a mass of contradictions. My first three published works were inspired by emotional issues and became a trilogy of three girls, three lives, three stories composed with the melody of hope. As grief is faced, hope becomes the only force to cling to and build upon.

Beneath the Rainbow, Beneath the Old Oak, and Beneath the Distant Star

Since then, I have put together a lyrical collection of dragon themed short stories, and a unique collection of post-apocalyptic tales that weave together into a larger story with fourteen other lovely authors. Right now, I am rewriting and editing a fantasy series set two thousand years in the future where the landscape of Wales has turned into a whole new country… and the rumble of dragons has returned.

A Symphony of Dragons, Human 76, The Seren Stone Chronicles

I love writing and, as a skittish introvert, disappearing into an imaginary world is a solace that I’ve enjoyed since I first picked up a book as a child and vanished into my imagination. Come and join me!

How do you settle into writing, reading, or whatever you love doing?

Book Spine Poetry

Sometimes when you’re feeling tired or uninspired and you need to
find your creativity, you can find it in unexpected places…

A few years ago I discovered Book Spine Poetry and had a go. This week, after meltdowns and shutdowns I needed to recover my imagination and found it on my bookshelves!

Poems can be long or short – whatever you choose – just grab a few titles and see what you can conjure up.

An inspector calls love in the present tense,
reasons to stay alive.

(J.B. Priestley, Catherine Ryan Hyde, Matt Haig)

Across the wall – I capture the castle,
the castle of adventure.

(Garth Nix, Dodie Smith, Enid Blyton)

How to stop time, 
just one look, second star to the right, 
and a Hatfull of Sky.
The slow regard of silent things, linger…
Hold tight.

(Matt Haig, Harlan Coben, Deborah Hautzig, Terry Pratchett, Patrick Rothfuss, Maggie Stiefvater, Harlan Coben)

Snow sisters linger, before I die…

(Carol Lovekin, Maggie Stiefvater, Jenny Downham)

The ice dragon,
catching fire,
falling across the wall,
looking for Alaska…

(G.R.R. Martin, Suzanne Collins, Sharon Dogar, Garth Nix, John Green)

If I stay…
Tell no one.

(Gayle Forman, Harlan Coben)

Tell me what’s on your bookshelves and make poetry…

Give it a go.

 

For the Love of the Moon – Mid-Week Flash Challenge

© Lisa Shambrook

Cara moved slowly down the jetty, enjoying the warm weathered wood beneath her feet. She stretched her fingers by her side, flexing them and releasing pent up anxiety. Air caressed her naked skin and with conviction she pushed her shoulders back, ignoring the twinge of pain, and rotated them in unison, smiling wryly at the cracking sounds her bones made echoing in the humid night air. She drew in a deep sigh then let her breath ride on the breeze that fluttered about her.

The stars twinkled like diamonds studded in blue satin and Cara was exactly where she wanted to be.

Dainty steps took her to the end of the pier and she carefully lowered herself to the broad pontoon, her mouth opening as she smiled at the sway beneath her. Her knees were noisy too as she bent and dropped to the floor, but they would soon be eased.

She sat, her hands flat on the deck beside her, leaning back slightly to gaze up at the sky. The Milky Way stretched across the night and she wondered what it would feel like to float up into the sky.

Cara let her feet dip into the water, toes first, testing the temperature, then her legs up to her calves. She welcomed the flow about her toes as she gently moved her feet.

Water and stars…and my moon, Cara breathed out her words, almost silent thoughts, but a soft whisper took them from her mouth.

She jumped at the hoot of an owl and water splashed about her toes, and she laughed as the bird soared across the lake disappearing into the dark woodland at the shore. Bats also darted, seeking gnats and midges, but Cara felt akin to them and enjoyed their swooping paths.

Cara gazed at the moon. All her life she’d worshipped the deity of the night sky, softly lighting the dark and showing her that even when she wasn’t whole she was still full of depth, and mystery, and power. She smiled at the moon and lifted her hands, cupping them about the orb before her then closing them in a prayer.

Thank you, she whispered.

She shuffled forward on the deck and lowered her body to the water. The little strength in her arms left her and she let herself go, plunging with abandon. She didn’t hear the splash she made, just the bubbles and the oddly comforting gurgle that rumbled in her ears as she slipped down through the water.

For a moment she let the water envelope her, like a cocoon, then she moved her arms downwards and kicked her feet. She broke the surface and swallowed a deep gulp of air, her feet and hands still paddling. It was colder than she’d expected, and it took a moment to adjust her breathing and relax her body, but soon she stopped agitating the water and let it lap at her chin, her hands gently undulating beneath the surface and silver hair spread like a watery spider’s silk.

Her creaking joints quietened, the pressure easing as water supported them and pain lessened as if leaching into the liquid surrounding her. Slowly Cara let her body rise and floated with her head back, half submerged. No sound but the lapping water, and nothing to see but the stars and the moon bathing her in white light.

Still floating, Cara let the moon bless her, its gentle rays soothing away her pain and hurt. Stars shimmered and glitter rained down in spirals like winter snowfall. She smiled, meds kicked in and fatigue faded replaced by lofty intoxication. She was alone in the world, completely and utterly, and when they finally came looking they’d wonder, but they’d never know. Not until she was home.

Cara gazed up at the moon as water closed over her face.

The moon smiled, Selene smiled, waiting for her beloved to return…

Stars and the moon enthrall me, so loved this prompt picture by James Wheeler – Moonlit Dock for Miranda’s Mid-Week Flash Challenge.

Write up to 750 words inspired by the prompt photograph.

The Sign of the Dragon – Mid-Week Flash Challenge

The stones rocked inside Arla’s gnarled hands and clattered to the table. The old hag’s forehead creased and Talita’s parents leaned forward with expectation. When the runes were tossed at her birth the expression on her parents’ faces said it all

Arla’s finger shook as she read the symbols and sealed Talita’s fate.

***

It began with herbalists working with essential oils to calm her fervent spirit and treat thickening patches of skin. But as ridges hardened Talita fought her childhood with rage and passion that threatened fire.

Scales decorated her body and wing buds began to push through her shoulder blades, and it ended with the ashes of surgeons glowering in the scorched dust of her furious breath. Copper hair glinted in sunlight as her parents closed the book on her burgeoning puberty and iron doors became her prison gates.

***

“’tis true love that will release her,” Arla’s last hurried words rang through Talita’s parents’ heads and suitors were summoned as their daughter turned from teen to adult. But when faced with the abomination that swept through the Eastern wing of the castle every man turned tail and fled.

Talita watched the exodus from her window and curled her wings about her. She wasn’t sad at the sight of the fleeing men, but loneliness and desire bit deep within her belly, roiling like a black cloud on a thundery day. The time had come and as night fell Talita rocked the bars at her window, gently teasing dry brick and clay with her fingers until the iron rods bowed and fell free.

Moonlight filled the room and Talita cast a last glance behind her. The bed, a huge four poster, sat swathed with drapes of dusty velvet, scorched and singed, lost amongst the vastness of the room. A mirror blackened with soot reflected tears and frustrations and fury. Her wardrobe doors lay broken on the stone floor, discarded clothes strewn like ghosts of fabric, torn and beyond repair. Her life lay in tatters of dreams and destruction.

She released the binding cloth that swathed her body, no more a piece of clothing than a mere mantle, and climbed onto the windowsill. She crouched swinging her tail, coiling it about her. She remained hunkered, one hand clinging to the last bar for a moment, then stood and leaped, spreading her wings and soaring up into the sky.

Storybooks told her that dragons lie to the north and she dropped into the cold currents that pulled her from home. She flew for days, stopping to rest in caves and sleeping by burning logs, and each day her limbs grew colder and her scales spread further. Her hair thickened like wire and coursed down her spine like a bronze, wavy waterfall.

Finally, after weeks of solitude, beneath the crescent moon, far, far in the northern lands Talita whirled and somersaulted, and called with every fibre of her being. Her call echoed and in the still night air an answer sounded, echoing back with vigour and urge.

Talita danced and a dragon as red as rust wheeled before her, drenched in moonlight and stardust. Flames lit the indigo sky and embers flickered in their wake and Talita discovered her release.

Her last human traces vanished with bronze spines prickling down her back and her tail swished with ardour and arrow barbs. The dance beneath the moon heralded a new beginning.

***

“And that’s how grandma met grandpa…” soft words left the dragon’s mouth and she smiled as the baby dragon snuggled at her side and yawned, his needle teeth clashing as he closed his mouth and his eyes. “True love,” she whispered as her son fell asleep. “That’s all it took.”

No doubting I’d want to write for this photo (unable to find a source to credit) for Miranda’s Mid-Week Flash Challenge, I mean – dragons!

Write up to 750 words inspired by the prompt photograph.

The Moon – La Luna – Stirring the Soul

‘Don’t tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on broken glass’
summarised from a letter Anton Chekhov wrote to his brother,
this quote has resonated with not only my writing style,
but also with my love of the Moon.

The moon is paramount in The Seren Stone Chronicles and appears in different phases and forms within all three books. It’s been an inspiration to me since I was small and used to gaze up at the sky and imagine reaching for the silver globe… La Luna has been the muse for many a poet and writer and will continue to stir the soul while she sits and guards our night sky.

The full moon occurs every twenty-nine and a half days, so every few years there are thirteen full moons, this extra full moon – the second in one month – is known as a blue moon, hence the phrase once in a blue moon. As the moon’s cycle is over twenty-eight days, every nineteen years we’ll have a February with no full moon, known as a black moon.

I’m rather fascinated by the names of moons, and each month has a name given by the ancients to describe the manner of plants, animals, and weather during that phase.

© Lisa Shambrook

I am equally inspired by the names given to moons that orbit our planets… All my Amaranth dragons are named after moons or myths associated with the moon. It left me with a bit of a problem when I finished rewriting my final novel in the series. A dragon named Sedna had to be renamed, because Sedna in the early 2000’s was thought to be a moon connected to the planet *Pluto, but Pluto’s demotion to a dwarf planet in 2006 meant Sedna then became a dwarf planet too instead of a moon. *Note: Pluto will always be a planet to me…

Did you know that Mercury and Venus have no moons? Earth has just one: Luna. Mars has two called Deimos and Phobos. Jupiter, on the other hand, has seventy-nine moons; her biggest are named Io, Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede. Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system, larger than the planet Mercury. Europa also appears to be the best suited to finding an environment which could support life within our solar system beyond our earth. These four moons are spherical, but Jupiter’s other moons are generally rough shaped pieces of rock.

© Lisa Shambrook

Titan is Saturn’s largest moon, she has sixty-two moons, and Titan even has its own atmosphere. Titan is huge in comparison with Saturn’s other moons, and a theory believes there may have only been two moons but one broke up possibly creating Saturn’s rings and inner moons. Saturn’s moon Mimas is its most cratered and the Herschel crater gives it a Death Star look!

Uranus has twenty-seven moons which are named after Shakespearian characters: Titania, Oberon, Umbriel, Ariel, Miranda…and more. Neptune has fourteen moons and its moon Triton is as big as Pluto.

I love how Shakespeare has influenced the naming of moons! So many names are associated with our own moon. The Roman’s know Luna as Diana and Juno. Artemis, Aphrodite, Selene, and Hera are Greek Goddesses, Egyptian association with Isis, Hathor, and Seshat. She is known as Sedna by the Inuits, and Shing Moon by the Chinese, and the Celts named her Morgana.

© Lisa Shambrook

I have a gorgeous teeny tiny book on the moon, which sheds light on this celestial object. This quote from the little book echoes my own romanticism of the moon: The sun pours the light of consciousness over the world; the moon reflects the opposite: the dark of the unconscious. Such a beautiful and evocative proclamation which completely echoes my own sentiments.

Countless myths and legends are associated with the moon giving it an enigmatic and mystical aura, which draws us to moon gaze and contemplate. I love standing beneath it, watching and leaving the world behind.

© Lisa Shambrook

Recently I had my first chance to watch a lunar eclipse in a clear sky. I’d researched eclipses just the day before, for the close of my trilogy, and on 21^st January I set my alarm. At 11.30pm when I‘d retired for the night, the wolf moon had glistened large, a super moon close to the earth, in glorious light, and now at 4.30am it shone as a sliver, a bright crescent as the shadow of the earth moved across its surface. Within minutes the shard disappeared and the moon shone as a whole as totality swathed it deep rust red. It wasn’t long before it disappeared behind trees, but the sight of the lunar eclipse will remain with me as one of the wonders of nature.

Super Wolf Blood Moon Lunar Eclipse 21st January 2019 © Lisa Shambrook

The moon is vital to the health of our planet – it rules the tides, and due to its gravitational power must have a subliminal affect over our lives too. We are made up of a high percentage of water ourselves, and where the moon influences the earth’s oceans, it’s scientifically likely it influences us and our moods too. It is said it influences poetry, emotions, intuition, energy, rain, reflections, meditations, memory, healing, plant life, farming, weather, and time.

The moon, waxing and waning, evokes reverence and wonderment.   

How does the moon affect or inspire you?
What do you love about the moon?

© Lisa Shambrook

Drained. Empty. Done. – Mid-Week Flash Challenge

Drained. Empty. Done.

That’s how I felt. Life had sucked me in and spat me back out, drained, empty, and done.

There was nothing left and nowhere to go, and I’d dropped to the ground with a whirlwind of emotion spiralling through my mind about an hour ago. Rage, disappointment, and anxiety had flooded my body, and I’d ridden the waves until they crushed me.

Now I sat in the dirt, my arms tight about my knees, rivulets of mascara smudging my cheeks, and a runny nose glistening atop my lip.

I threw my head back and stared up at the sky. Grey clouds rolled and mists closed in and I relished the pathetic fallacy. Mournful moors and lonely mountains spread before me and I howled. I bawled and let the tears flow afresh like a waterfall tipping over the edge of a precipice.

I felt better as the tears dripped off my chin and down my collar bone, sliding into my cleavage. I cried more, letting the liberty of anguish relinquish my anger. I shook with sobs, my breast rising and falling against the black swathes of chiffon. Guttural and organic, my cries echoed and spilled right out of me and into the gathering fog.

“Damn you!” I cursed with abandon and wiped my nose the length of my forearm. I was ugly crying now, but I didn’t care. I was far enough away to shout and swear at the drawing night without concern, and my blubbing continued relentlessly.

Finally my body was done – drained, empty, done.

I sniffed and wept, but there was nothing more to give.

I opened puffy eyes and blinked, wiped my nose again and cleaned my arm with an inconspicuous piece of chiffon, before dropping both hands to the ground and leaning back. I really was alone up here, completely alone. I took a moment to compose myself. Wiping my wet eyes with my fingers and smudging away the lines of black mascara with my thumbs.

I sighed, my body catching with every breath as the sigh escalated then I breathed out. A few more and calmness overtook my torment. Images of betrayal, of a cheeky grin, a guilty grin – my lip curled, but I lifted my hands and lowered them in a palliative movement.

I remembered my agony, up here beneath the glowering sky, and smiled with wry embarrassment. He was not worth those tears, that grief, and exhausted I let my head sink again to my knees. I stroked my leg, soft and smooth and worth more than him. In a gesture of acquiescence I lifted my left hand and felt something weightless alight.

Very slowly I moved my head, peering from beneath my hair and saw a chaffinch, sitting, as unperturbed as my morning hairbrush, in my hand. I raised one eyebrow and he cocked his head. Grey and pink feathers ruffled in the breeze and his tiny feet tickled my palm. Was I Cinderella? Would he speak?

I held my breath and he stared at me, his black eye glistening. He warbled something deep within his throat, but I didn’t understand. Then he zig zagged through the misty air ‘til he was gone. Then I understood.

I sniffed again, pulled out my reticule, and checked my face. Fresh mountain air would take away my puffy eyes and a quick wipe corrected the stains on my cheeks. A brush of powder, a sweep of eyeshadow, and a stroke of eyeliner was all it took. I got to my feet and shook out my dress, clouds of dark chiffon billowing like the cumulus above.

He wasn’t the only man at the party, and I’d spied a bloke in a grey suit and a pink shirt on my way out… I shook my head. I wasn’t done, after all.

Inspired to write for this photo literally just as it presents itself… for Miranda’s Mid-Week Flash Challenge and a digitally manipulated photo from RadioArts, this one is called Cadena de Amor.  You can find him on Deviant Art.

Write up to 750 words inspired by the prompt photograph.