How To Find What You Came Here For

Welcome to the worlds that populate my brain!
The short stories you find here are the product
of a vastly overactive imagination
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Thursday, January 19, 2012

Persephone's Tears

Click HERE for original


Anise shoved at the heavy skid, ignoring the sweat pooling between her skin and the gray coveralls she wore.  A glance over her shoulder at the fading light hurried her along.  The water would be coming back soon. 

For the first time since she’d come to Persephone, indentured for an impossible sum, she had some hope.  The rise and fall of the ocean tides had hidden this cave from every other miner in her camp.  They’d stuck close to the well-mapped tunnels, preferring safety over the chance of a finding a big strike.

She was after something bigger, something that could fund a trip back to her homeworld.

The ground shifted under her boots, restless and rumbling.

“Time to go,” she muttered.  She’d found some good stones, nothing that would catch any undue attention, but enough to offset what she was charged for her tiny tent and two meals in the mess.

As she turned, the toe of her boot caught on the edge of the skid, tumbling her down the slope of the natural shaft she’d been working.  Her light bounced away as she landed in a heap.

“Perfect…that’s just PERFECT!” her scream of frustration echoed endlessly and followed her to the corner of the small gallery she’d landed in.  She bent over to pick up her wayward light when a flash of red had her knees going weak, and she sat down hard on the smooth rock.

"Persephone’s Tears.”  Her shaking hand reached out to pry the first of the three glowing stones from the porous rock they’d been born in.  A Tear the size of a grain of sand could pay an indentured’s way home, and cradled in her palm were three stones the size of a baby’s fingernail. 

She was going home.







This post was written in response to a prompt from Write On Edge with a 300 word limit: 
“The cure for anything is salt water….sweat, tears or the sea.”
~ Isak Dinesen, pseudonym of Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke
If you are going with Fiction, have your character resolve a problem using one of the three (or all three!!!). 

Please tell me what you think of Anise's story in the comments! 

22 comments:

  1. I love it! Isn't there a planet in the Firefly Universe named Persephone?

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  2. Yeah, I shamelessly pinched the name. Ran across a recipe for Persephone's Tears and it just lit up for me. HAD to use it - plus, I can imagine gemstones as the tears of a planet, trapped in rock.

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  3. very cool - I hadn't even clued in to the firefly connection, but I like the tie between greek mythology (Persephone wanting to leave the underworld) and Anise wanting to leave Persephone.

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    1. Thank you Lexy! I love the old myths - 5 years of Latin in high school ensured that I read them all. I like to have little connections, even if I'm the only one who knows they're there...but it's even better when someone catches it!

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  4. A very unpredictable take on the prompt. I like Ansie's story so far. Nice work.

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    1. Thank you! I like to go for something off the beaten path. What cracks me up is when I go look at what other people have linked up and discover they were walking that path with me!

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  5. Fantastic! You provided enough context for the reader to understand the larger picture without having to go into a lengthy exposition. Well done. I have to say, this is actually just the kind of thing I've been wanting to read lately - as a fantasy addict who also loves sci-fi, I really enjoyed your use of Greek mythology here.

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    1. Thanks Christine! I'm finding that I really love the short story format - it suits my ADD I guess.

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  6. Love e idea of the tears as valuable jewels. Great beginning

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    1. Thank you Carrie! I remember seeing several things in the past, where a woman is crying and her tears turn to gems. That's probably where it started in my head.

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  7. Oh, this is really wonderful! I got so much of the context in so few words, which is truly an accomplishment. I'm very excited for Anise to get home. :-)

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  8. Such vivid writing. I am new to Write on Edge, but I am looking forward to reading more. Awesome!

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    1. Welcome to WOE Denise! There are some really awesome writers that link up for these prompts, and it's always interesting to see what everyone else comes up with.

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  9. This has such an otherworldly feel to it, and I am interested to see what becomes of her.

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    1. Thanks Angela! She's just found a fortune - maybe she'll head back home and start an empire?

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  10. I love it! I want to hear more about her. It's so super-natural and different. :)

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    1. Thank you RJ! Anise has plenty of room for fleshing out...especially since we don't even know what she looks like! LOL

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  11. I feel to shout woohoo for her! You definitely drew me in but then again I am a sucker for sci-fi :D

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  12. I immediately thought of the TV series Firefly when you I read Persephone. I adored that show and this post is just wonderful! I can see a lot of back story with this. Is there or will there be more??

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