Day 71 of 365 Days of Writing Prompts: Write a character inspired by a day of the week: Sunday.
Erin: Mom was always a good protector of us kids. She made sure that we were filled up with everything we needed. She had food on the table without any help and little appreciation. She made sure our souls were just as happy as our bodies were. When I was feeling down I always knew she would be there. And she was. She was a perfect place to land, so I did fall into her security frequently.
Shannon: Sunday is very peaceful. She can calm any storm of emotions you can throw at her. You won’t see one sign of fear on her face as she battles different demons. She’ll breathe in your troubles and teach you to do the same until they all dissipate back into the universe. In her own quiet way she’s the strongest person I know. The thought of carrying on without her can make you a little anxious to continue on, but you know she’ll return, and that promise is enough to keep you going.
And our cast of seven is complete!
Pelky Sisters 
I sat, serenely, across the grass from a bespectacled girl in an oversized maroon cardigan that spread out behind her like a bird’s tail. Around her hazel eyes were light brown dots and a mass of brilliant red hair framed out her soft face. From my position, all I could see were pages strewn across the dry grass, fluttering gently in the breeze as she inhaled contentedly. Though the sheets appeared blank, I could sense something coming off them; some sort of electricity was wafting from the emptiness and felt like wayward emotion. It was as though her breath was giving the words she wanted to write the power to appear on the page in invisible ink. But when I watched a couple pass her, giving her lots of room, they glanced at the pages of an unwritten book with curiosity written on their faces.
When they took a seat at the closest bench, there was more energy between them; an almost magnetic attraction as they sat on the cold metal, crushed together. I glanced back at the fiery-haired girl in time to watch a faint slip of a smile curl one side of her lips, creasing her entire face. Before her, one of the pages shone with ethereal illumination and I shot to my feet, confusion and concern for secrecy battling in my mind of supremacy.
Suddenly standing before her, I found myself speechless, but her response was a sincere smile and a silent motion for me to take a seat. Without my own volition factoring in, I found myself seated in the warm grass facing the strange girl.
“Eliza, I’ve been expecting you for the better part of a week. Whatever took so long?” she asked monotonously, barely betraying any emotion at all. But that was irrelevant to me; she had done some enchantment in the middle of a crowded courtyard. Glancing around nervously, though, I realized that no one was pointing or whispering as though they’d just witnessed something fantastical.
Turning back to the strange girl, I sighed, “I had a list, Sally, and you were last. Don’t know why,” I replied to her question, still preoccupied with the students milling about. “What did you do and why does no one else appear to have noticed it? That was pretty magickal,” I stated, trying to keep the awe out of my tone.
Chuckling lightly, she closed her eyes, turning her face to the bright sun and grinning up at it. “I am taking in, amplifying and returning people’s most abstract emotions,” when she spoke there was a sense of wonder in her tone. She continued on in the same voice, “None but someone who knows of magick would see it; a trick taught to me by one of the senior members of my coven.” Slowly dropping her face, she opened her glowing eyes, “I’m a writer, Eliza. I think in emotions, so I am forever searching for new understanding of them. This kind of thing gives me that; showing people what a little more passion or excitement or fury can do.”
We both just sat there for a long while. People wandered by the odd setup; glancing over their shoulder meekly and whispering ideas. After a few minutes, I cast a charm for better hearing and was able to listen to the guesses people came up with, relaying some to Sally, “That couple that just passed us, in the red shirts, think you’re tarot reader and this is how it’s done. Oh, that group of girls giggling at us thinks you can’t think of an idea to write so you’re hoping something will spontaneously appear on the page. But they think I’m here because I believe that’s what is about to happen; I think that’s more embarrassing for me, honestly.”
Giggling lightly, Sally finally spoke up, “Well, if this group wants people who can perform magick tricks, I’m sure they want to meet me.” As she began to clean up the glowing pages, she paused and added, “I say that in the least egotistical way possible. I didn’t mean to sound arrogant.” When she was finished packing up her things and storing them neatly in a canvas bag, she got to her feet. I followed her and began to walk away when her voice called me back, “What if this group isn’t like my coven and we don’t use magick properly?” That thought had never occurred to me, even though I knew of the rules in my old coven, and there didn’t seem to be any at the Dryad Society.
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Created to Write:
“So, Heather is not your daughter?” T’Challa asks Steve.
Steve looks at Heather. She’s intently listening to Shuri as she goes over different designs for a leg. Heather absently rubs at the nub where her old leg used to be.
“She’s… not. Biologically. But…”
“You love her, as your own,” the king finishes. Steve smiles, nodding.
“That’s a nice way to put it.”
T’Challa watches the two young women, “Tell me, Captain, what would you say Heather’s defining trait to be? I have noticed she is stubborn, brave, loyal, with an even temper, among many other qualities.”
“You have not seen Heather’s full range of anger,” Steve chuckles, “if someone hurts or threatens her family, she can be as fearsome as you.”
T’Challa smiles faintly, “Well? What do you say is her greatest trait? Or her worst attribute?”
“Why do you want to know?” Steve asks.
“I’d like to know who I am keeping under my roof. Your friend is a victim. But your pseudo daughter is a mystery to me.”
Steve looks back to Heather a little more. He sees her smile at a joke Shuri makes, and asks a question. Her face crunches when she doesn’t understand Shuri’s answer, ready to ask for a simpler answer.
“Heather…” Steve says fondly, “has faith. She too has been a victim, but not in the same way as Bucky. She… she was treated like a lab rat, something to watch, but not consider human. She was hurt, scarred mentally and physically. When she came home, I… I didn’t see the excitement for life anymore. She believed she had left a part of her behind.”
“How long ago was that?” T’Challa asks.
“About a year and a half,” Steve answers.
“She was young.”
“Still is.”
“And she looks different than you described,” T’Challa also points out.
“That’s because of her faith. She relied on God, and how her Savior would hold her, because she never could on her own.”
“So, she is Christian?” T’Challa clarifies.
“Yes,” Steve says.
“If I am not mistaken, people who took Africans many years ago deemed themselves Christians,” T’Challa says, measuring Steve’s response.
“Heather is different.”
“Enlighten me,” T’Challa says.
“She has a light she brings with wherever she goes. That light has saved me on multiple occasions,” Steve admits, “that light was supposedly gone when she was broken. But when she found God again, or rather God opened her eyes, that light seeped back into her life. She never takes the credit for that light, whether she knows its impact or not.”
Steve sweeps his arm to Heather.
“The young lady you see here is not the one I met almost three years ago. She is also not the hero I trained before her capture, nor the victim failing at picking up broken pieces. She is stronger in will than I’ve seen, and though she will stumble and fall, I have no doubt that she has faith in God to pick her back up.”
T’Challa is silent for a moment, in thought. Then he turns to Steve, offering his hand, “I will allow her to stay here. I suppose she will show me herself just what kind of character she possesses. But I have little doubt it will be different than you describe.”
Steve takes his hand, “Thank you, King T’Challa. I owe you more than you know.”
“My sister is loving her company,” T’Challa says, nodding to the interaction.
Steve chuckles. “Heather will never turn down a good friend. She has a short supply of them.”
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