Another story from Charney - Sue Purkiss

 Lynne Benton recently posted about a workshop she led at Charney, the Scattered Authors' Society summer retreat/conference. You can read her post here - but basically, what happens is that someone chooses a word, and then you write about it for fifteen minutes.

I really like this exercise. I tend to spend far too long thinking, and far too little time actually writing. So a task like this is very good for me!

Here's one of my efforts. The word was 'tramp'. I haven't edited it, though I was really itching to - it felt as if that would be cheating!

She'd tramped the roads for so, so many years - more than she could number. It was her punishment for what she had done, for her great betrayal. Because of her, the magician had been trapped. It had been so easy: he'd thought he was invulnerable, but she had been beautiful then, with flashing eyes and starlight trapped in her long dark hair. 

She'd trapped him in a crystal cave. It had all gone as she had planned - until she had stood before him to gloat. She couldn't resist it, though she'd known it was foolhardy.

His eyes, dark as coals, had gazed into hers. He hadn't spoken, even when she'd taunted him. Tiny flames had begun to flicker in those black pupils. She'd found herself mesmerised, caught up in a swirling cloud of darkness. And then she was on the road, pounding along relentlessly, never able to stop: the years, the centuries, trickling by.

And always, as she walked blindly on, she remembered that as the dark cloud enveloped her, she had dimly heard the sound of crystal shattering. 

And she'd known that Merlin was free.

And that one day, he would find her.