WOW 555 Week 4 – Imagery & Symbolism (Plus a sale!)

Happy Friday!

So NaNoWriMo is in full swing, and it’s been a blast so far. I’m doing much better than I did last year – I’m actually slightly ahead of schedule, so yay! It’ll be exciting to see how Withered Legacy (The Breach #2) – did I mention that’s the new title? – turns out after this! I’m still not sure that I’ll have a complete draft, but I’ll definitely meet the word count and make a sizeable dent in the rewrite. Here’s hoping for a finished draft by January!

This week, continuing with the theme of NaNoWriMo, Wendy’s #WOW555 has challenged us to use color or imagery symbolically in the prompt below:

Our prompt today is for you to provide us with a scene that uses a color or image symbolically.

We’ll see how that goes. Without further ado:

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Fleeting

I tucked my coat closer, tightening my scarf and pulling my hat farther down over my ears. Nursing a hot chocolate as I sat on the swing set, I watched the snow fall, each flake swirling in the wind, too many for me to keep track. Suddenly, the flakes froze in place in midair, so it looked like my surroundings were inside a snow globe in suspended animation. It was beautiful, to be honest, and the effect spread for about ten feet around me in every direction – my personal globe.

“Are you always this much of a show off?” I didn’t bother looking behind me to make sure it was him. His energy signature was too distinct for me not to remember it. Instead, I chose to poke at a snow flake that hovered in front of me, watching it slowly dance away.

“Only when it’s warranted.” Crunching snow signaled his movement, and I felt as he took a seat in the swing beside mine, his outline in my peripheral.

“Showing off is never warranted. Besides, aren’t you afraid someone will notice?” I looked over at him, his appearance nothing out of the ordinary, despite our extraordinary circumstances. However, he wasn’t as relaxed as usual. “Are you alright?”

He hesitated before responding, his entire demeanor stiffening before it suddenly changed again, his shoulders slacked as he turned and smiled. “Yeah – just a lot on my mind.”

“If you say so.” Prying wouldn’t get me anywhere – I knew that much – so I switched topics. “What did you want to talk about? I’m freezing and don’t want to be here longer than I have to. Besides, I have somewhere to be. You know that.” My latest assignment – the first one without him – was waiting for me.

“I need you to do me a favor.” He stood from the swing, hands in his pockets, back turned towards me.

Something twisted in the pit of my stomach, and I didn’t like that I couldn’t see his face, so I followed suit, crossing the short distance to walk around him.

“And what’s that?” I leaned against the metal pole of the swing, trying to read him. It wasn’t until he looked at me that I realized he still maintained our snow globe, the flakes only now finally continuing to fall, slower than the rest, but falling anyway.

Without warning, he lowered his lips to mine, warm despite how cold I knew we both were. Stunned, I couldn’t move. It wasn’t the first time he’d kissed me, but it caught me off-guard nonetheless. He pulled back slightly just as quickly, his eyes reflecting something I couldn’t decipher. Lips brushing mine with each word, eyes glowing, he whispered, “Be careful.”

When he stepped back, snow fell around us naturally, the wind picking up into a gale, so I had to pull my scarf up to almost cover my eyes. His eyes, though they held a hint of a smile, were guarded.

~~~

Hope you like it! And don’t forget to check out the other submissions and vote for your favorite on Saturday!

Also, a quick announcement. I turn 24 on November 10th (dun dun dun!) and in honor of my birthday, Reckoning will be on sale at Smashwords at 75% off! So, mosey on over there on Monday with coupon code TP22M if you’d like a copy!

As always, think happy thoughts!

Image credit: Stock image found via Google search on www.shutterstock.com.

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