Writing Prompt #1: Response

Check out this fantasy version of part of Cardinal's Mission Log #3!

Writing Prompt #1: Rewrite a scene or reimagine a character in a way that changes major details, but doesn’t lose the heart or core of the scene/character. This scene/character can be something you’ve written, but it doesn’t have to be.

For this prompt, I decided to pull from Mission Log #3 of The Cardinal Directive. I have tried to make this explanation as spoiler lite as possible, but if you want to go into the original story completely blind, you might want to do that first before checking this article out.

I decided to rewrite the scene where Alison and the ranger find Garrett again, and to take a lot of inspiration from the writing style of Sleepless rather than Cardinal. The idea was to take an idea that was originally in a science-fiction fantasy universe and instead view the scene as though written in a fully fantastical world.

Names, setting details, technology, weather, writing style, and many other things have been altered to express this alternate version of the sequence of events. My goal was to present a version of the scene that was recognizable to anyone that had read both, and yet different enough that you could read this version of events without having read Mission Log #3 and A) understand and enjoy it and B) not heavily spoil the events of Cardinal.

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Rumor had it, this forest was cursed.

Stay out of the Marled Thicket, they whispered and warned. Those that do not will seldom return.

It was a childish thing to believe something in bedtime stories and tavern-bound whispers, and still the thought lingered in Avaren’s mind, taunting the edges of her vision and tickling at the subtle points of her half-elven ears.

She’d been through the Thicket before, in better times and better weather. It was a trek many a courier had made, following the long, narrow road that cut through the vast wilderness.

It was far faster than going around, and barring any interference from the local wildlife — bears, wolves, and the like — the road was pleasantly devoid of your average troubles. Local superstition had long since driven even bandits and highwaymen far from this place.

In the daytime, it was a lovely ride, shaded and full of birdsong. Riding with the other couriers, Sainira and Geir, they would often make conversation or pass the time with song. Even alone, the Thicket had always stricken her the same way any other wildplace had.

Tonight, the thicket showed her a different face.

Her friends were scattered to the winds, and the roiling storm tested her will and mettle, pushing both her and her horse to their limits. She pulled her cloak tighter around herself, suppressing a shiver.

Her heavy wool cloak was standard issue for couriers, and it had served her well through many years of rain and snow. Tonight though, it offered little respite from the cold. What protection it provided had long been used soaking up the wind-battered rain for the last several hours.

A lull in the rumbling thunder let through the noise of a man, his voice calling out from behind her. “We’ll be turning back soon! I doubt your friends could have made it this far on foot. We must have missed them.”

She glanced over her shoulder, barely able to make out the huntsman. He was an older man, a human, gruff with a scar laden body beneath thick leather armor. The sword at his side and crossbow beneath his cloak marked him and the other man as Blackwardens. Huntsmen.

She didn’t know what his employers wanted with her. Being truthful, Avaren had begun eying the darkness of the woods, wondering which devil she’d rather take her chances with. This one had seemed… merciful, for lack of a better word, but she doubted that came from the goodness of his heart.

At the same time, playing along was perhaps the only way she might be able to find her friends again. With the storm carrying on like this, Geir and Sainira could be dead by morning if they weren’t able to find shelter. Even if they did, they’d still be stranded in the woods come morning.

The man’s counterpart had already ridden ahead, releasing his dogs and following them into the forest while Avaren and the remaining huntsman stayed on the path. For the first few hours, she’d heard their bellowing howls echoing through the trees, but as the storm had rolled in, they were steadily drowned out.

All that remained was them.

Avaren, the Huntsman, their two horses, and his hound.

The torrential downpour, lightning cracking across the sky, and thunder quick to follow. The sound of their horses’ hooves pulling through mud and water beneath them.

“Just a little longer!” She called back, “we can’t let them die out here.”

They’d gone far off the beaten path by now, trading the thick, wet mud of the road for slogging through dense vegetation and shallow puddles along the forest floor. The dog kept ahead of them, swinging his head from side to side as though certain he had some sort of scent. Mud caked him to his underbelly, but he still did not slow.

Reluctantly, the Huntsman seemed to acquiesce, and they pressed on.

Nearing the end of another hour in these conditions, the dog suddenly stopped. His tail raised, staring into the darkness in front of them. The Huntsman clicked his horse forward, getting beside Avaren and putting up a hand. “Hold here — I think he’s found something.”

The fireglow of their lanterns was a pitiful thing, the flickering light arguably only making it harder to see anything further than their noses. The horses shifted uneasily, snorting loudly with their ears pointed in the same direction as the dog.

As lightning struck, illuminating the forest once again, the brief flash of light revealed something up ahead. If she’d have blinked, she easily could have missed it — the silhouette of a tall man, lanky, in a tattered courier’s coat. On foot. Shoeless. It was hard to say for sure with how briefly the light had lasted, but she was almost certain she’d picked out the pointed ears of a familiar half-elven man.

“Geir!”

Avaren raised her lantern trying to catch a better glimpse at him, but he was already moving away, retreating deeper into the underbrush. She clicked at her horse, trying to get him to pursue, but received only a snort of solid refusal. The dog had tucked its tail as well, returning to the side of the Huntsman’s horse and tucking in close to the much larger animal.

Cursing beneath her breath, the half-elf slipped out of the saddle, dropping into the muck and water with a small splash. She tied her reins to a nearby tree before continuing on foot with her lantern, dancing between tree roots to keep herself on more solid ground.

Rainwater was already hard at work filling in the imprints of his boots in the mud. Again, she called out, “Geir! Where are you?! We have to get out of this storm!”

Still, no answer.

“Where is Sainira?! Is she hurt?”

Nothing.

Behind her, the Huntsman had similarly dismounted. “It doesn’t have to be this way, elf. My people will provide you with dry clothes and warm food if you come willingly!”

…

…Nothing.

Taking her chance, Avaren delved into the pitch, lantern in hand and eyes scanning wildly for even a hint of his silhouette. She slogged through the muck as fast as she could, certain that he couldn’t have gone far, leaving the Huntsman behind. He called after her, but his voice was quickly lost to the storm.

In her haste, though, she missed something just beneath her feet, tripping over a large mass on the ground.

Her lantern clattered away from her, the flame extinguishing in a puddle and leaving her in darkness.

Instinctively, she turned, putting her hands on the shape she’d tripped over. “Geir—”

But… it wasn’t him. Her hands landed upon the rain-riddled coat of a large animal. Upon a saddle. Upon an unnatural cavity in the beast’s flesh — still warm.

Her entire body shook as she realized what she was touching. Skin, frayed by the claws and teeth of some horrid animal, flaying them to the bone. Blood. It was all over her hands and had seeped heavily into the water all around her.

This time, her voice shook, and no words came from her.

Before she could react, she was suddenly yanked backwards, pulled away from the horse’s carcass and back into thicker tree cover. She gasped, taking in a breath to scream, but a hand slapped over her mouth before she could.

Thinking quickly, Avaren kicked out against the ground, driving them both backward much faster than her assailant had anticipated. They slammed into a tree with enough force that their arms released her, but just as she’d spilled forward and opened her mouth again to scream for the Huntsman, a voice from behind her — urgent and quiet — hissed, “Ava, no!”

She whirled around, bewildered to recognize who had spoken to her.

The Huntsman’s light had begun filtering through the nearby trees — incredibly dim, but just enough to make out defining features as her eyes adjusted.

A sickly pallor had taken the human woman’s face, her hair a tangled, stringy mess down her back. She shook in the cold, her clothes threadbare and plastered to her skin. Sainira grasped the side of her hood with one hand, keeping the rain out as best she could while the other reached out, pulling Avaren back into the tree cover.

As the Huntsman’s light fell upon the horse, he immediately recognized it and the Blackwarden insignia upon the saddle. He rushed over, illuminating more bodies in the wet grass and mud. Dogs — or what was left of them. No sign of the other warden. No sign of what had done this.

Until, breaking through the night air, there came a noise — a low, dissonant roar of something not quite human, and yet bearing far more resemblance than it ought to.

For a moment, the world froze. Even the rain seemed to slow, thousands of points of refracted light hanging around the huntsman’s lantern as he slowly set it down, reaching for his weapons.

Avaren’s mouth had gone dry, unable to articulate anything other than a shaking breath. Even if she had been able to speak, Sainira shook her head fervently, her eyes begging Avaren to not make a noise.

Silent as she could manage, the half-elf pointed past Sainira, back in the direction of the horses.

They hadn’t made it a step before the Huntsman whipped around towards the woods opposite them, bringing up his crossbow and firing a shot in a single fluid motion.

Avaren quickly picked out what he’d seen — a pair of pinprick eyes in the darkness between trees, reflecting the firelight. As the bolt sank into flesh, they vanished with a horrible wail.

…only to return a moment later, and this time, the eyes were not the only thing the light caught upon.

It stalked forward, lips pulled back into a snarl, revealing a set of large, gleaming teeth. Though it walked on two legs like a man, its joints were bent at odd angles, and its head was hunched forward. Its arms were long, and its hands were tipped with claws — each as sharp as a dagger.

As lightning flashed once again, they were left with an image that would haunt them for the rest of their days. Something not quite a man, but not quite an animal either. A lupine beast, with a thick mane of fur and standing at least seven feet tall, easily dwarfing all of them.

And, perhaps most hauntingly of all, a familiar, tattered woolen cloak that still clung to his shoulders.

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