Swiftly Told Tales (Taking Prompts/ Requests!)

The Manufacturer and The Journalist

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Hey peeps! I've been hashing out a lot of words lately for this exciting thing I'm considering. So. Here. Plus feels. Need to get it out. Also, I miss writing for you guys!

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An aura of injustice, the need to avenge an already lost vengeance accented by sluggish slow tears. Her entirety gone taut, heavy; filled with an unsteady understanding that today marks the year anniversary since that death defining day. The day that won't leave her closed lids, won't stop brushing against her bruised memories. Dragging her through the reality of it all, be it day or night, kicking and screaming to let the terror cease. A broken off plead to forget and move on. To pretend that her fallen comrade who had climbed over smoking cobbles to get her to safety was still breathing beside her. An anxiety ridden man doing the extraordinary, for no price, for no fame; simply fighting against ruined rubble and captivating flames that entrapped his one of few friends.

Her friend, he was ten years older, lonely and isolated in his high castle of fortunes. Protected from hell and himself. Silk sheets, marble countertops, and the largest view looking out to a world passing on despite him and his walls. Over the years of knowing him, she'd spot that withered rope of his meant for her calloused hands only, knotted and dwindling to almost simply threads. Recognizing that thread of hope dangling over the edge of his cemented exteriors, rough and wary, asking like a flower lost in a forest to climb on over.

Somehow, at some point, she had found purchase and slowly ascended the wall without damaging it as best she could. Instead, she respected it. Tried to understand it. Though that did come with a few trials of tribulations, like everything in life, she supposes.

From professionalism, sitting down over cooling caffeine whilst drilling the man with concerned questions, to something unfamiliar altogether. A gentle companionship of sorts, like a partner, but quieter, more sensitive and deep.

Plentiful amounts of frustration, interviewing, and laughter later, she was wrestling keys into submission against a painstakingly stubborn knob, swinging open a thick oak door to an empty house with scribbled instructions left on the entrance room table. No assistants, staff or cooks, just a locked away confinement with trusted access to one.

When he returned last autumn after a two-month business excursion brandishing a limp massaged into his hip, swaggering his stagger, he had said it was a weapons showcase gone wrong. If that were true or not, she wouldn't know. Sloshing scotch and bare feet padding softly on polished floors, no clicking of healed formal shoes, simply rolled up jeans and a days growth of stubble, they'd begin their banter. His eyes always wandering, always strained, always persistently pressured to swing a cautious gaze to his own very wary reflection coloring passing windows.

He'd always say that he was bigger than the body he's in, or the brand marking his cheques, the rumors sung beyond the war zone. A man meant for more, equipped with a whipping wit, smart as a tack. Too smart, she'd say. More advanced and aware of the soiled foundation he glides on. But still very much so human. Again, maybe too much so.

She never thought that after endless days in the field, a journalist caught reporting crossfires, that it'd be the base camp that would be the end target.

Recalling winters claws wound tight around her torn off-duty sweater, whisking through her charcoal painted pants. The azure of the dollar sized moon hung solid in the sky, gleaming against her crimson shimmering skin with a pale assurance. She was going to be okay, she must be okay, she will get out of this; her friend was calling for help, waving down men in kevlar, matching the raid of the night. Shouting clarification, reaching for his wallet, his ID-falling with a whip and crack after a bullet catapulted from a smokey guns empty chamber. ("Jason!" ). Can still hear his echoing whimpers, can see clear as the present moment him sputtering against his crusty clotted lips and diffidently dying.