Writing Prompts: Trick's Crew #1

[dreaming_dragons]

 So, yeah, writing. Meet the latest of a very big collection of OCs, guys. These aren’t really chronological, and are basically words that I take and go ‘alright, brain, what comes to mind?’. Generally the main premise is that Mallory, a fourteen-year-old with some long-standing issues, makes a deal with a wandering entity named Trick. The bargain generally stands that if Mallory becomes Trick’s servant/human link/sometimes possess-ee whenever Trick wants to go out and interact with the world more directly, Trick gives Mallory a ‘family’, actually going out of her way to make sure it works out. I was still sort of figuring out characters when writing this so I apologize in advance if this seems a little disjointed. Comments are also appreciated!

Rum:

“What’s the matter?” Karl asked once he’d noticed the distinct look of displeasure on Tully’s face, nose scrunched and brow furrowed like she’d just smelled something downright unnatural.

“…Nota fan of the way it smells.” She finally said, gesturing absently to the liquor bottle on the counter. “Just didn’t expect it is all. If I got time to realize it I’m not…as caught off guard.”

She’s fumbling, sinking down and hunching over as though expecting some kind of admonishing. He just shrugged in a hint of ‘well, alright then, suit yourself’, and downed his glass.

Pyramids:

She had expected Trick to look more invested when she came to telling about Alaska, but the question she hadn’t quite thought she’d hear was ‘Do you remember the name of the mountain?’.

“Uhh, Mount McKinley.”

And she certainly did not expect Trick to simply sit back with a ‘continue’ gesture, smiling at the ceiling like something Tully’d said about the whole thing made perfect sense.

Machine:

Her gloved fingers slid a bit over the slick metal, fire flickering faintly as she tried to detach the joint cleanly. Sparks, for all of the frenetic energy Tully was putting into replacing his elbow, was trying to see if he could read a book one-handed.

Guild:

What was this that she’d picked up, exactly? She couldn’t call them minions, it kind of implied that she just fired orders at them, which she didn’t really do or send them out on EVIL plots. Club wasn’t the right word either, too juvenile. Band? No, not that either.

Guild maybe? Granted, they would have to be the guild of something. What to be the guild of…?

“Hey, Tully, you got a minute?”

“…!! Yeah, sure, what?”

“If we were a guild, and by we I mean all of us, what do you think we would be the guild of?”

“…will this affect our immediate or distant futures in any way?”

“No, just me thinking. And on that note, we’re a bit too diverse to be a particular element, Nur’s too honest to be a trickster so that’s out…”

“Well, yeah, we’re all kind of different…”

“…wait, different…different…that’s it, got it, thanks Tulls.”

“…You’re welco-.”

Alright, they were a guild of misfits, at least in her mind. And this was alright with her. Now, with that mystery solved she went on to contemplate the exact reasoning behind mayonnaise.  That cumulated exactly fifty seconds later when she remembered that mayonnaise was an utter mystery in and of itself, the least of which being why anyone would like the stuff.

Halfway:

She kept the house going sometimes, she and Karl. Karl more or less handled things from the outside, and she made sure that their makeshift family kept the place from blowing sky high. Sometimes, though, it felt like she was really only meeting things halfway. Days strung out, especially in the winter once Mallory moved entirely into her uncle’s house, and the stress from her parents began to steadily clear. Without immediate problems to tackle, sometimes her mind just went, grey, almost like back then except, there was no reason for them to be anymore. Things were, pretty good right now, honestly. (She stubbornly quashed the little voice that murmured about how it wouldn’t last, how she would be alone again.)

 So, why the grey now?

 It found her sitting in the living room, quietly watching the fields outside of the window as the moon rose in the sky. A few minutes later, Sparks had clunked over and plunked himself to the floor next to her, putting an arm beside her on the sofa.