Out of Place

Kasai didn't know what to make of the tall brick wall ringing the city, much less the noise and bustle beyond it, through the great bronze doors. She couldn't imagine anyone in her family living in the cramped apartments crowding the narrow cobbled streets.

But her mother's cousin did, and that's why she was here, dodging piles of horse manure and women in bright silks that looked down their noses at her.  She couldn't understand what they said to each other. The language here was all wrong.

Supposedly they spoke the same language as she, but Kasai found their nasal-vowels confounding. She could not find words in the furious and rapid chatter, There were so many people and so many streets, winding and weaving around haphazard brick buildings that seemed to bend over the street.

But they didn't. Kasai knew they didn't.  If they did, they would fall.  And they didn't fall. Still, they did not put her at ease.

She craned her neck to find the signage at each of the streets. There were never any words, for which she was grateful, as she knew none. Images of birds and trees guided her to her relative's apartment over a shambling bakery with a dusty stoop.

The whole way she felt that she had followed a maze and by the time she stood there, staring at the door she wasn't certain she'd know how to turn around and leave the city.  Kasai's inability to remember every turn she had taken on her way here was the only thing that prevented her from fleeing.

Then, the door opened.

Writing Prompts

In order to get myself to post more, I'm giving myself assignments!  I'm choosing prompts with I will post the first week of each month and will be writing to them over the course of the month.  As today is the 7th, I'm starting at the tail end of the week, but hey--it's a start.

Why prompts?  I love writing exercises. They push me a little bit, get me out of my standard train of thought, but I don't feel that I need to write anything more than a snippet at a time.  If they lead to a short story, good.  If they don't--so what?  They're fun, they can help work out knots in one's main WIP, develop a skill that needs a little work, and I never feel my time is wasted on them.

So there are three more weeks in February.
Here are 9 prompts:

1. A character out of place, new to a city/town/time/planet
2. Describe, in detail, a single room in a manner that conveys the emotional state of the POV character.
3. Enemies, alone, trapped in a situation where neither can kill each other or do one another any real harm--what happens?
4. Construct a scene with dialogue alone, that still gives a sense of setting/place.
5. Action scene with an unskilled main character, out of depth
6. Escape from a magical institution (temple, school, estate) by a non-magical character
7. Best friends learn something about each other that could change the nature of their relationship, and cannot tell each other what they know, while in a situation forced to interact socially (either privately, or in public).
8. Magical being loses ability and is forced to live among humans--but telling the story from the perspective from an unsuspecting human.
9. Princess in a tower: refuses to believe she deserves the imprisonment, but she does (the POV of a villain! hard for me).

If you like any of these and want to use them, feel free! I just came up with them, so there's no site to quote or anything.  But, if you do, I'd love to read them, so be sure to let me know.

I will also be open to any prompts you might have for me for March.