Paula's Prompts

On Wednesday, March 15, 2017, Paula Wyant posted a prompt involving a cage, a good luck charm, and a sudden rainstorm. Every Wednesday, she takes the time to post a prompt. As the Keeper of the Cauldron of Eternal Inspiration, I strongly recommend these prompts. They're quite refreshing if you crave the beautiful, the speculative, and the inspirational. To check them out for yourself, go to ptwyant.com.

Personal tragedy stuck me in the middle of a huge pile of work. I had some trouble moving forward while coping with it. This delayed me in typing up and posting my response. I'm here with it now. Or rather Shelley is here with it. My waifish hero from another world, who took the name of a poet from our world decided to respond to this. I'd like to weave his response into my Work In Progress, 'On the Other Side of the Mask', if I can.

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Gilt wallpaper, flowers, and marble floors. Lord Ruthvyn’s estate was more beautiful than the church cells could ever hope to be. It was as if the chapel and the naves had spread themselves throughout an entire manor. 

“It’s still a cage, though,” Shelley murmured. He rubbed his arms against the chill. It didn’t matter if he was in the church or the manor. The air always nipped at his arms with chilly, invisible lips, drinking up his warmth. 

Only one thing could heat him up. His good luck charm. The song he and Byron had created together. 

Shelley parted his lips and began to sing in a hushed voice:

“I am thine and you are mine

This is plain to see

I am thine and you are mine

For this is what’s to be…”

The sky growled outside. The faint patter of the rain began to tap against the windows. Water ran down down the glass, bluring the vision of freedom outside. What ever made Shelley think he could escape out there? Lord Ruthvyn’s gardens awaited, with all the figures trapped in marble and topiary, waiting to come alive at the sight of fleeing flesh. 

Shelley closed his eyes tightly. 

A voice begin to sing, some distance away with a boy’s sweet clarity. One particular boy’s unflagging spirit, refusing to give in, or bow to fate. 

“I am thine and you are mine

With all my soul I agree

I am thine and you are mine

And so it shall ever be!”

Shelley smiled, feeling lighter than he had since he’d been separated from the other half of his soul. Byron was still here, somewhere in the house. Shelley would find him, no matter where Lord Ruthvyn had concealed him. 

After all, he and Byron were bound together by their mutual song. No one, not even the Pale Lords of Paradise could keep them apart.