Pandora Flower and The Outlaw

[Cross]

Two stories I've written recently. One is violent and the other is a bit feminine in style, but I like them well enough.

Pandora Flower
There once existed a flower. Such a beautiful flower it was. The colors shone even on the darkest night, almost giving their own sparkling light to their surroundings. But it wasn’t one set of colors as the field daisies and the lilies were, no, it was every color in the universe; the darkest of blues and the lightest of reds, the most gorgeous yellows and the most brilliant greens. It was truly the most beautiful living thing that ever existed. But she was lonely, for there was only one of her. As the men waged war over her possession, none held her heart. She waited for a thousand years before a single boy came to her pedestal. He was small and sickly, frail even. He worked in the castle of Queen Durana as a cleaning boy for all of the places the other cleaners couldn’t go. But that day, he decided to go to see the legendary flower. The queen had restricted the viewing of the flower, and she only now shared its beauty with the noblest of guests, but this boy wanted to badly to see it; and so he came into the room, creeping through the shadows until he came to stare down at the amazing flower. The flower, so intrigued by the boy, stared back up at him, into his eyes. He was pure, and simple. He held no self-serving right to others, or to her. His soul was kind and his hands tender; he wore the rags of a beggar, but held the spirit of a kind king.
‘So long have I waited for one like you,” the flower said unto him, casting her melodious voice into his mind. Unlike the others she’d dared to speak to, this boy only smiled, not shying away in fear or clutching at their head.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ was all he said, still smiling at her.
‘And you,’ she responded.
‘Me? No, I’m a ratty little servant boy, I wear not the colors of every flower of this earth, nor speak with the serenading voice of a thousand angels,’ he said, still unwavering.
‘You flatter me, but you must understand, I may wear the beauty of nothing else, but I cannot feel as people would. I cannot love as others do,’ she said, a sad twinge in her soft voice.
‘I can teach you!’ said the boy, ‘I can teach you to love and to feel!’
And from then on, the little cleaning boy would come and talk to the flower every day. They would talk and share stories, and soon, the boy found himself in love with the flower, and the flower with him. But one day, as the boy sat talking to the flower, the large crystal doors of the flowerhouse burst open. The queen’s guards charged in, yelling all sorts of commands, the feel being, ‘get away from the flower,’ The boy stood, his back to the pedestal, blocking their way.
‘Why! What do you want of the flower?’ he yelled at them.
‘The queen has ordered it destroyed. It is the cause of her sickness, she is sure!’ they said, pointing their spears at the small boy’s chest.
‘Of what convinces her of this?! The flower has been here for three years, and yet she only now is sick?’ the boy yelled back.
‘Just stand aside child, or we’ll have to kill you too,’ the guard said, stepping forward.
‘I’d rather die than let you hurt this flower,’ the boy said in a low voice.
‘Then you have sealed your fate,’ the guard said, stepping forward and plunging the head of the spear into the poor boy’s stomach. With a gasp, he fell to the floor, the screams of the flower echoing in his head as it felt his pain. Slowly, the guards advanced on her. The boy lay on the ground, staring up at her, unblinking, dying. With a scream that echoed through the minds of all in the kingdom, the flower burst from the glass orb covering her. Slowly, she morphed, taking on the shape of a beautiful young woman, her leaves turning to a silken green dress, her petals turning to shining auburn hair falling elegantly around her shoulders. Her scream became audible as she took form, standing barefoot on the marble steps that had been her home for the last three years. One of the guards turned and fled, the door crashing as he exited. The other three guards stood their ground, their spears pointed at the woman. They were never to be heard from again.
The room became sealed from the inside, the panes of glass covered by vines and leaves. Soon, the vegetation from the room spread, clutching at the huge castle, suffocating the stone walls and driving from the castle its inhabitants. Years later, a lone soldier, lost from his platoon, stumbled upon the ruins of the castle. Searching around, he found a crystal room, with only a small gap in the vines. Peering inside, he could see two flowers, their colors like nothing he’d ever seen, wrapped together, their heads almost pressed together as if in an eternal kiss.
-The Pandora Flower
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The Outlaw
Snarling, I stood from the table. The man across from me grinned a huge toothy smile.
“You bloody cheater!” I yelled at the man, startling the other bar patrons. The man simply sat there smiling at me. I had seen him palm the card, I’d actually seen the lying son of a ***** replace a card and yet he still sits there grinning like a stupid fool. We were in a small tavern off the main cattle route between Deilow and Creedance. It was a busy little place with at least ten people in the bar besides me, my cheating poker opponent and his two thugs. They all wore old buckskins with beaded threads hanging from tunic like flaps. I could see that they all wore at least one revolver and probably had one or two tucked away out of sight.
“What makes you think I’m a cheater?” the little man asked? He was short at fat with a handlebar mustache which quivered as he snickered at me.
“I saw ya replace those cards,” I said, pointing at the royal flush lying on the rough sawn wooded surface of the table.
“Oh, just because you accuse me of cheating after I win, we should rematch, or more over, I should forfeit?” he snickered, reaching forward and scooping the large pile of coins toward his side of the table.
“You son of a-!” I bellowed at him, whipping my six-shooter from its holster at my waist. The two tall goons at either side of the fat little man reached for their guns. Flipping the gun up, I fired it into the chest of the one to the left, jolting him back onto a table behind him. The other had gotten his gun out when I turned on him. Cocking the gun with my free hand, I fired again, hitting the second scumbag in the right arm, sending him reeling onto the bar from where he slid onto the ground. The fat little man had frozen and now stared up at me with a look of half sarcasm, half fear.
“Now, I expect you to admit to yer misdeeds and hand over my money,” I said, turning the gun on the little cheater. Slowly, I pulled back the striking hammer with my thumb and pointed it between the man’s beady little eyes.
“I’ll tell ya what boy. You can go fu-“ I stepped from the bar, a large sum of coins in my pack and two more bodies to my name. The one man I’d shot in the arm still lay on the floor moaning; the other two, one with a bullet in his chest and the other with a hole between his eyes, still lay in the bar where none of the other patrons dare to touch them. As I walked down the dusty street, I could see the sheriff emerge from a building to the side of the rough road, a rifle in hand.
I could hear the crunch of the dirt beneath my feet and the howl of the wind blowing across the godforsaken plain outside the town. I could feel the creak of wood as the sheriff and his deputies walked slowly along the covered wooden walkway, following me. Turning, I came to face them, my hat rustled with the breeze.
“Stop right there boy,” The tall sheriff yelled, pointing his rifle from the hip in my direction.
“What do you want?” I yelled back, yanking my handkerchief over my mouth and nose, feeling the rough wool rub against me, blocking the dust blowing in the wind.
“Don’t play dumb boy, I got a runner tellin’ me ya just shot the three Dewey brothers in cold blood in the tavern,” he yelled back, motioning for his two deputies to spread out. Doing so, they drew their own pistols and stepped into the street. I grinned under my mask and unclipped my holster pin.
“Oi!” yelled the sheriff to a man inside a window just out of sight, “tell the party we got a boy in a brown sun hat, red face handkerchief, brown shirt and black leather chaps, we need some help,” he tried his best to keep me from hearing, but I caught everything.
“Sir, I have to quarrel with the law, just let me on my way and we won’t have any trouble,” I yelled to him as the deputies both pointed their pistols at me.
“One thing before we kill ya, what be yer name?!” yelled one of the skinny deputies, snickering egotistically. With a single motion, I pulled my pistol from its holster, spinning it once, I brought it to shoulder height and fired, hitting the snobby deputy in the leg. With a yelp, the other fired his gun. Spinning, I dove forward onto the ground, sliding almost six feet. Coming out of the slide, I rolled onto my back and fired again, dropping the second deputy. The sheriff fired his rifle, but I rolled to the side and to my feet, cocking the gun again, I brought it to face him, his hand still on the bolt to **** his rifle again.
“Once last chance officer!” I yelled at him, “Let me go, or die,” With a sharp motion, he yanked the bolt on the gun back, but didn’t have the chance to push it forward to drop the round into the chamber. He fell, a chunk of lead embedded in the wood of the wall behind where his heart was.
Slowly, I walked over and picked up the rifle and looked into the dead man’s eyes.
“This didn’t have to happen,” I said and turned away to find the silent deputy crawling away, the other had feinted and possibly died from the shot to his leg.
Holstering my gun, I plodded over to the poor man and grabbed his arm and pulled him to his feet. Wrapping his arm around my shoulder, I helped him limp to a bench under the cover of a porch. Turning, I could see a doctor down the street, waiting to come tend to the wounded, I assumed the other Dewey brother had died by the fact he wasn’t in tending to him.
Motioning the man over, I turned to the poor lawman.
“This didn’t have to happen,” I said, “if you hadn’t fired at me, you’d still be in one piece,” With that, I turned and started to walk away from the bleeding man.
“Wait!” I heard him croak quietly. Slowly, I turned back to face him, “What’s your name?” he asked, looking at me through tears of pain.
“My name is Mike, and don’t forget it,” I said, grinning at the man before turning and plodding off down the road and into the dust storm of a plain in front of me.

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Please note that most of my writing isn't quite this violent ^^ :/

[cafolini]

You have got to be a young person. I think it's written all over. You have a lot of talent for writing. Keep it up. Well written.

[Cross]

Aye, I'm seventeen.
Thanks for the compliments and comment.

[hillwalker]

Both interesting reads - and both showing quite different styles.

I can't say I'm a fan of either genre - fairy tales or Westerns - but who knows what else you are capable of?

Of the two the first works better - there's a gentle pace to it that leads to a satisfying conclusion. The second takes longer to get into because we're trying to figure out what's happening while fighting our way through the rather weak descriptions (a huge toothy grin' ??) and rather feeble dialogue.

Keep writing - you've got talent.

H

[Cross]

Thanks much for the crit mate.

The first one started out with a bit more inspiration and I had kind of an idea where I wanted it to lead, while the second was kind of written as stuff popped into my head.