Weekly Writing Prompt & Exercises
------------------------------------
Theme -- Character

Prompt -- Write a situation where your character has to make a choice: do what's right in their opinion and face the dire consequences, or capitulate, go against the values they hold, for the sake of self-preservation.

Challenges --
o Flip the dilemma: make your character a villain.
o Stack the odds: make the character's need to capitulate overwhelming.
o Underwhelming gimmick: make the dilemma over something seemingly inconsequential.
------------------------------------

Tak could feel the thinness in his connection. It'll be okay, he thought to himself, but the voice inside his head lacked conviction. He couldn't lie to himself, not about this. He shouldn't have been so reckless when choosing an anchor. Not when so much was at risk.

He swung his staff around him in warning causing the encroaching four-legged beasts to skitter back. He swung again, with a snarl, driving them further away, but they weren't discouraged; only cautious.

For a moment he considered fleeing. Panicked as he was, white-knuckled grip on his staff, feeble connection with the Oongung, fleeing seemed the only reasonable course of action. If he fled the beasts would be distracted by his catch long enough to let him find safety.

Shifting his stance, his foot made contact with the bundle he was protecting. It toppled over, flopping heavily onto the ground. He could let them have it and flee, they wouldn't give chase over an easy meal.

But she needed it. And he needed her.

He could feel the Oongi at the other end of his connection. In his mind he could feel the discomfort of the being. It came across as a sudden, intense flash of heat. Unable to contain the power, it spurted forth from his eyes, melting into the pelt of the beast he had been watching. The creature cried out, its howl turning to gurgling as the blood in its throat trapped its wail. It fell to the ground, burgundy stains across its white fur deepening as it died.

The connection suddenly seemed weaker. He cursed to himself, damning these selfish creatures, and damning his own foolish haste. Had he not jumped to make the connection as soon as he realized he was surrounded, perhaps he could have fought his way out with his staff alone. Now, filled with power as he was, he was rooted in place; afraid despite the energy that boiled inside him. He couldn't kill the Oongi, he couldn't bring himself to do it, but the beasts were closing in.

Their emissive eyes, like small balls of blue smoke, all seemed focused on him. As they began to close in, they looped around the verdant trunks of the trees, their snarls scorning him, their lips lusting for his catch, their teeth tipped sharply to rip at his skin.

The Oongi seemed to sense his embroilment; the connection trembled with fear. Even as his mind raced to make a decision, the creatures continued their careful approach. They were close enough now he could almost smell the death on their breath, feel their teeth ripping at his skin.

Turning in place he counted them. Seven kreshels remained. One would have given him a fair fight, seven impossible. Powerful as he was now, however-- as he turned his attention inward, the Oongi lashed out. In a flash of power it destroyed itself, taking its own life before Tak could master the power of its life force.

Sunlight sprinkled through the leaves of the tall trees and dripped onto his face. Pain filled Tak as he awoke, and wracked him as he got to his feet. His hands were blistered from where his staff must have splintered and buckled under the force of his power. Emanating from his feet, blackened and scorched grass raced away from him as if reeling back in horror. The bodies of the kreshels were scattered, their fur singed and their skin stinking as it burned in patches. Tiny puffs of blue smoke danced into the air as the poisons it secreted boiled away.

But they were soon forgotten as his attention caught on something else; a small, smoldering pile not a foot away. He fell to his knees and frantically shifted through the ashes trying to gather what meat he could, but even as he scattered the ashes, he only revealed more, until eventually the ashes gave way to grass and dirt. Furious, he ripped at the surviving blades even as tears ripped away from his eyes.

He was alive, he thought, irony shouted within the silence of his mind. But with the last of the edible creatures scattered to the winds, it would be impossible to find real meat before it was too late. He was alive, but she would soon be dead.