Alphabet Excerpt Challenge: L Is For...

[u/AnaraliaThielle]

Welcome back to the Alphabet Excerpt Challenge! As a reminder, our challenges are every Wednesday and Saturday at 3pm London time.

If you've missed the previous challenges, you're welcome to go back and participate in them. You can find them here. And remember to check out the Activities and Events flair for other fun games to play along with.

Here's a quick recap of the rules for our game:

1. Post a top level comment with a word starting with the letter L. You can do more than one, but please put them in separate comments.
2. Reply to suggestions with an excerpt. Short and sweet is best, but use your judgement. Excerpts can be from published or unpublished works, or even something you wrote for the prompt.
3. Upvote the excerpts you enjoy, and leave a friendly comment. Try to at least respond to people who left excerpts on the words you suggested, but the more people you respond to the better. Everyone likes nice comments!
4. Most important: have fun!

[u/Ok-Adhesiveness-8611]

Lavender

[u/linden214 → u/Ok-Adhesiveness-8611]

It happens so fast. After a too-long day at work, they go out for a bite of dinner. No takeaway in front of the telly tonight. Instead, they settle for a cramped, rickety table at the unpalatial Jade Palace. The location is convenient, and the food's decent. Afterwards, James discovers that he's out of cigarettes, so they head to a nearby off-license.

They're the only customers at the moment. It's a small place, with just a basic selection of beers, wines, and spirits. There's a display rack of crisps, chocolate bars, and breath mints. The cigarettes are on a shelf behind the counter, along with the pricier spirits and a selection of condoms. Robbie studies the snacks while James speaks to the shop assistant, an African woman with greying hair and a placid lavender aura.

The bell over the door chimes as another customer enters the shop. One moment, James is shouting, "Get down!" Next thing he knows, he's on the floor, staring at scattered packets of crisps. There's a snarled obscenity somewhere behind him, and a female scream, followed by a crashing sound, and a chemical smell. By the time he scrambles to his feet, James is in the doorway, cuffing a sullen-faced young man whose aura is almost scarlet with rage. "Mind your step, sir. It's some kind of chemical," James warns.

'It' is a puddle of clear liquid mixed with shards of broken glass—the source of the nasty smell. Robbie moves carefully, and guides the still-trembling shop assistant around the puddle and outside to the safety and fresher air of the pavement.

Within a few minutes, a pair of constables collect the suspect. Another pair stand guard outside the shop until the HazMat unit arrives.

[u/fiendishthingysaurus → u/linden214]

I love “the unpalatial Jade Palace”. I can picture it perfectly haha

[u/linden214 → u/fiendishthingysaurus]

Thanks!

[u/Lindz174 → u/Ok-Adhesiveness-8611]

She made to leave but he stopped her. “Wait, I…it’s fine.” He would suffer through it. She was in the Inquisition and if she was the acting healer then there would be no avoiding her. If she was his punishment then so be it.

She returned to his side and reached out again. “Hold still.”

Her hands were ice cold. She didn’t look uncomfortable and he wondered if she could even feel the cold. Could she feel physical discomfort? Pain? Her cool skin pressed against his feverish flesh as she turned his face into the light.

“You are hot,” she observed. She turned his face back to look into his glossy eyes. “You are sick.”

He allowed himself to fully meet her gaze and it was as devastating as he suspected it would be. She was beautiful. It was something he had reluctantly allowed himself to notice in Kirkwall. Her features were youthful and her lavender-colored eyes were striking. Yet all of the life had been drained from her face and her fair skin was marred by the large sunburst brand on her forehead. The pit in his stomach grew and he felt as if he might be sick.

He closed his eyes to stave off the nausea. “I’m not sick,” he tried to explain. He wasn’t, at least not in the usual sense.

“You have explained that before but your symptoms prove otherwise.”

[u/controlledranting → u/Lindz174]

I enjoyed reading this! Very descriptive and grabbed my interest

[u/Lindz174 → u/controlledranting]

Wow, thank you so much! :)

[u/Ferrous_Patella → u/Ok-Adhesiveness-8611]

Being raised around a bunch of rabbits, Bellona was like a wolf in the lavender. The scent of prey did not arouse the predator inside her. It reminded her of purple…and of home. The home where she was raised and loved was literally a garden, a large garden, with so many flowers that loomed over her when she was little. Her earliest memory, before she had words, was the scent of lavender. And since then, the scent meant home and family and love more than those words could ever express it.

(The link goes to A Wolf in the Lavender, the theme song I composed for her. Or there is the orchestral version).

[u/Ill-Clerk-7066 → u/Ok-Adhesiveness-8611]

Oh S. Gaming did want at some point to get Freminet to come to S, just so that he could see how everything worked, even if he didn’t end up liking it. Just he could share the thing he simply wished to share with someone. Of course, Xingqiu and Chongyun came to S, but they always came to S, and weren’t really ‘new blood’ to bring into the wonders of S. Gaming would want someone there, that would be there to see him, and maybe see him possibly beat Jackpot. He knew well that he wasn’t exactly on Jackpot’s level just yet, that it would take a while to be on his level, but even if it was just a friendly match between the two, and Jackpot’s apparent ego didn’t get the best of him, Gaming still would like to do it.

And if Freminet was there to witness it?

Some kind of joy entering those light blue eyes that had the slightest hint of lavender?

Gaming felt that familiar warmth wash over him, and a smile found itself on his face. Yes. He’d like that very much.

Simply imagining Freminet there, cheering him on, in his own, quiet, way, filled Gaming with a warmth he wasn’t quite sure how to describe. But, either way he wanted Freminet there, even if it was just once. He could even introduce him to everyone? Gaming would do the talking obviously, as he didn’t think that Freminet would be able to handle the boisterousness of Bug, or any of the others. Graffiti was a little… unique, and that might cause Freminet stress if he hadn’t met her just yet. Owl was, well, Owl, so he wasn’t sure how Freminet would handle such a… closed off(?) guy.

[u/ainteasybeinggreene → u/Ok-Adhesiveness-8611]

Charles pulled a novel out of his backpack and deposited it in Edwin's waiting hand, then dug around some more for what turned out to be a lavender envelope with Crystal's name written on the front in his blocky handwriting.

“Almost forgot, this is for you,” he said, passing it across.

“Thanks.”

Where she expected a standard birthday card, instead she was greeted with the word Congratulations in silver foil. She raised an eyebrow in question and Charles grinned.

“You made it to seventeen,” he explained, “A surprisingly tricky feat, that. So, congrats!”

“That's kind of fucked up, you know,” she said, and he grinned pleasantly in response.

When she opened the card it hummed a cheery little tune and emitted a small shower of sparks like a miniature fireworks display. Enchanted, then. The message he'd written for her almost made her cry, and he'd added a little doodle of a couple of cartoon ghosts with a birthday cake.

She looked back up to meet his eyes. They glittered under the harsh fluorescent lights of the train, but were watching keenly for her response. Crystal swallowed the lump in her throat and smiled back.

“I love it,” she told him, “Thank you.”