A very short story, as promised. Not scary at all. 😛 I just had the idea and wrote it in an hour. So… enjoy!

-Ben

P.S., It was on her shoulder. 😛 [You’ll only understand after you read. 😉 ]

 

“I can’t do it!” exclaimed the Author, throwing up his hands. “My ideas are gone! My fingers won’t type! My characters are flat as pancakes, and my plots are an endless string of cliches. I can’t go on like this!”

“Well,” said the Mysterious Figure, “Your books about me were rather popular. Why not bring me back from the Void of Marvois, where I’ve been locked since the end of the trilogy? You could do a spin-off or something. It really is quite cold in here.”

“Now hold on,” said the Heroic Gentleman, waving a white-gloved hand impetuously, “You were thrown in there for a reason. The world has no use for Mysterious Figures who can’t decide if they want to help the villain or the hero. Half the time, you were helping me find the way to Highland to rescue my beloved, and the other half you were trying to kill me with magically enhanced meteors.”

“You forget,” said the Mysterious Figure, rather irritably, “that I was trapped here by a particularly nasty spell, cast by the High Dark Overwatch in an attempt to trap you. My sacrifice left you free to destroy the Key of the Third Overwatch, resulting in your victory over the forces of evil. And all I got was a pretty marble tombstone with my name on it. I’m not dead, I’m just trapped, yet you opted to leave me here and-”

“Yes, yes, we were talking about me!” interrupted the Author.

“The way I see it,” rumbled the Tower, “You lack originality. Always mimicking the popular trends, copying characters you see in other books. Truth to be told, I think I’m one of the few original characters you’ve written, and all I did was tell Heroic which path to take to the City of Overwatch.”

“And you fell on the Legion of the Dead,” added the late Dark Overwatch, taking a sip of coffee. “Half my army, dead in an instant.”

“Ah! Right there!” The Author leaped from his seat, banging his knee on the desk and knocking over his own cup of coffee. “You only fell on them because I couldn’t figure out another way to kill them. The Heroic Gentleman wasn’t powerful enough, and the Mysterious Figure was busy being mysterious. The whole book hinged on that battle, and I couldn’t think of a way for the good guys to win, so I had Tower lose his perch on the cliff and tumble down upon the horde. A lot of crushing and dying and monsters exploding, but it was all a big show to distract readers from the fact that I, the almighty Author, couldn’t come up with a plan for Heroic and his compatriots. It was all a blasted waste, a bloody farce. Thank you,” he added, as the Dark Overwatch refilled the upset coffee cup.

“You’re welcome. And yes, that whole Tower bit was somewhat too convenient, but it worked, did it not? Anyway, sword-and-sorcery books are out of style these days. You should have added a science fiction element, or some-such. Maybe give me a robotic arm, or have Heroic be a genetic experiment grown in a lab.”

“That’s it!” shouted the Heroic Gentleman. “The future! Do a spin-off where we’re brought back to life in the future! A mad scientist could rescue Mysterious from the void, resurrect me and my team, and pit us against some sort of supernatural alien presence!”

The Mysterious Figure nodded slowly. “Perhaps the scientist could be my descendent. You did hint at me having a son.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Even my cliché ideas have cliché ideas!” lamented the Author. “That’s been done to death.”

“Then why not invent a new genre?” said the Heroic figure, rising to his feet. With a wave of his arm, the plates of his shining armor melted and transformed, becoming the leathers of a wild-west cowboy.

“A Western. How exciting,” sniffed the Author.

“Ah, but there’s a twist!” With a flourish, Heroic drew a curved sword from his side, twirling it with expert proficiency. “Blades instead of guns. And,” he wagged his fingers, conjuring a ball of fire with a flash of mystical sparks, “Magic abilities! So, new territory, yet enough of the old to make you comfortable. Besides, my fireballs are a staple of your books. I would ride a grey horse, an enchanted one at that, who can run faster than a bullet can fly. A white scar will mar my face, placed there by an ancient shaman to protect against evil.”

“And I,” intoned the Overwatch, becoming a skeletal figure clothed in writhing shadow, “Would be the Silent Rider, the Twilight Cowboy, a dark menace that feeds off the gold that runs through the mountains. My presence deadens sound, my footsteps melt the sand, a mere touch from my cloak causes animals to die and cacti to wither.”

“Hmph” said the Author, but his expression had begun to brighten. “You may have something there.”

“I shall accompany Heroic, of course,” said the Fair Maiden, shifting slightly on the couch. “I’d wear my western outfit, maybe the black dress with the blue corset, and an eagle-feather in my hat. A light dress, of course, enough fabric to keep out the sand, but not so much that it inhibits running. I’d have an enchanted scar as well.”

“On your face?” Inquired the Author, dismayed.

“Of course not.”

“Then where?”

“Somewhere else,” she replied, raising an eyebrow. After a brief second the Author caught on, blushed, and pretended to scribble notes on a blank sheet of paper.

The Fair Maiden brushed a strand of deep-brown hair from her brow, her gaze lost in the distance as she thought. “I’d like a supporting role this time around. Maybe a shopkeeper or a chemist, who leaves her job and follows Heroic on his brave quest. Anyway, I’d better not be captured again. If it’s clichés you’re worried about, there’s a glaring one right there. I could use a rifle or something, give Heroic some cover as he fights.”

“No guns,” reminded Mysterious. “If you were a chemist, perhaps exploding potions or something of that sort. The Indian magic sort of things.”

“Not magic, science!” said Maiden, speaking with greater excitement as she warmed to the topic. “Science in a world of magic, something they don’t understand. Something Overwatch, ah, excuse me, something Twilight wouldn’t be able to stop in the end.”

“That’d do it,” said Overwatch/Twilight, shaking the last drop of coffee into his bony mouth.

“Excellent, excellent!” crowed the Author. “And Mysterious? What will you be?”

Mysterious thought for a moment. “Perhaps the ghost of an old Cherokee, dwelling in an ancient dagger that Maiden finds. My songs can bring rain to the dry desert, washing away the foundations of the Twilight Cowboy’s mighty mountain fort with a great flood. And, I suppose, I could sacrifice myself to stop Twilight’s cursed cloak, leaving him open to Heroic and Maiden.”

“What of me?” asked Tower, leaning over several thousand feet to peer down at the others’ heads. “Do I have a part?”

“My dear Tower!” exclaimed the Author, “You will be the Spirit of the Desert, the guiding force that brings the protagonists to the Cherokee’s dagger, the force that leads them across the burning deserts and the rocky mountain ranges, the force that, in the form of a snake, coils about Twilight’s ankle, dragging him from his black steed to the bleak lakebed where the final conflict shall ensue!”

And he set his empty cup on the desk with a triumphant clatter.

“It is good,” said the Heroic Gentleman, sheathing his sword.

“It is good,” said the Fair Maiden, closing her small box of medicines.

“It is good,” said the Twilight Cowboy, drawing low his black hat.

“It is good,” said Cherokee, fading away into the stone knife.

“It is good,” said the Spirit of the Desert, and, drawing the world within himself, became a funnel of thoughts and ideas that whirled into the Author’s mind.

“It is good!” smiled the Author, and began to type.