vignettes

[marycatelli]

This week's prompt is:
warrior

Anyone can join, with a 50-word creative fiction vignette in the comments. Your vignette does not have to include the prompt term.

Comments

[marycatelli]

Odd to receive a formal invitation from two girls who slept in the same castle, but then, it was tea.
Ava walked down the corridors. A governess talked nonsense about how tea and diplomacy were as important to the kingdom as swords and battles, and so worked the same way.

[marycatelli]

This one hadn't even had a sword. What sort of noble didn't have a sword? Was not the entire point of having a nobility was that they could serve the king in battle?
Maximiana would not trust them to, but that hardly altered their duty to be ready at need.

[marycatelli]

A little girl looked frightened. "What if they all kill dragons and marry princesses and never return? Or fight off entire armies, or win tourneys?"
The three graybeards before the Wandering Bear all laughed.
"One will return to be the king's heir," said the oldest. "Even with a bride, perhaps."

[marycatelli]

One maid whispered she would giddy with joy to marry a warrior as great as Sir Guillaume.
"And that's why you'd never marry one," whispered back the woman overseeing them. "He's marrying a great lady, and she knows how to act like a great lady. Not like some country chit."

[marycatelli]

Women screamed. Men shouted. One or two were even coherent; someone asked where the king's warriors were, to defend the land from these monsters.
"Where is the wizard? Why is he not fighting this evil?"
A man brandishing a pitchfork stalked down the path, and fell, and did not stir.

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

Nicky looked up at his father. "So what is the difference between a warrior and a soldier?"

Spartan lifted the boy onto his knee. "A soldier fights as a member of a unit, a team under discipline. In the Soviet-Afghan War, the mujahideen were warriors, while the Soviet forces were soldiers."

It was a simplified answer, suitable for a bright child who'd overheard an adult conversation which aroused his curiosity. No point in discussing the ways in which various elements of 40th Army fell short of the ideal, including his own actions in that fateful ambush, actions he knew only from others' accounts because he had no memories of them.

[marycatelli]

Very important distinction, though.

[marycatelli]

"You have talked up a storm about the wonders of this warrior," said Rodger, coldly. "You will cease to talk. You will act. Or rather this warrior of yours will act. If he dies, he dies. A warrior who can not survive a battle is of no aid to me."