Living on Writer's Block

Ramona chewed her lip anxiously. She looked down at the bouncing child beside her, whose eyes shone with hope. She cringed at the thought of dousing that sweet little face, but at the same time, how could she impose on the ship any longer?

“I suppose… I’m just stuck here… in this grey, horrible little town… just like before.” Samuel waited silently, watching the red streak in her hair mute to a dull, dead-rose sort of color and her eyes turn to a drab, hopeless grey.

Slowly she let herself down onto the cot, and laid her head back on the thin pillow crafted from an old flour sack, her lips parted in agony. Her chest heaved as she fought to calm her body’s nerves, willing away the pain. Her hands found the thin wool blanket and twisted her fingers into…

Ramona Redhawk. She is an assassin, sickened of her craft, and longs for escape. But how to manage that alone, when so many of the Matron’s other slaves will be sent out to hunt her down? Enter Samuel, and enter the beginning of the story. But who is she, really? Ramona Redhawk was inspired long…

The man died with an evil, satisfied smile splitting his face in half, his dead eyes fixed malevolently on Samuel. The captain quickly jerked out the dart, but too late; the fast-working toxins already had time, even in that brief moment of contact, to spread fire across him, racing through his veins and burning him…

He was covered in blood that was not totally his own; a faint grin curled his mouth, from the corner of which there came a trickle of blood; and sweat and exertion had pulled his hair loose from his ponytail to fall forward into his face, while his pale blue eyes gleamed with an unnatural…

Deep inside the Matron’s ship, Ramona woke up tied to a post with a gag in her mouth. She raised her head groggily, her eyes bleared and half-shut. Rope creaked around her chest and waist, keeping her tight against the post. Her wrists were tied behind her, stuck immovably between her back and the post;…

“If they beat us there,” Samuel muttered darkly, “I’ll give ‘em hell to pay for taking her.”

She gasped in shock.  There sat a man, in his forties, with faint gray stubble and salt-and-pepper hair, an aristocratic face, and an eyepatch over his left eye. Ramona stood up cautiously, still swaying. As she stepped back Samuel offered his arm genteelly and she accepted it gratefully.  “It’s Sebastian. Her steward. He’s the one…