PROMT 3 (I'll do this one too, you don't have to unless you want :))

Write literally anything that uses one of these people as a main character http://imgur.com/gallery/Xu6BB (copy and paste in address bar, I can't do links here for some reason).

Writing Prompt 2

     In the UK there is an old tradition if hammering coins into gnarled old trees, as an offering, the idea being that you will get a wish if the deity or sprite or spirit accepts your offering. There is a link below. Write a story that features one such tree as a secondary or tertiary character, and uses but does not begin with the phrase "once upon a time."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036581/Mystery-wishing-trees-studded-coins-illness-away-sick.html

Prompt 1 Response: The Bandit and the Fox

            The crowd was silent. They always were at this point in the show – they thought it was the finale – it had been until Trevor grew tired of the silence.

            He stood at one end of the field, his black recurve bow gripped firmly in his left hand, his right hanging, relaxed, by his side, the fingers flexing one by one. He was looking over his left shoulder. His back was to the audience but it didn’t matter, the bleachers were down the field, so that his target was squarely in front of them.  She was scared. Even from a thousand feet away he could see that. She could see him through the visor of her metal helmet. What did she think of him, now? She was dressed in full plate armor “in case of accidents.” Really it was to make the volunteer feel more secure, nobody would do this unless they were offered the armor, by now they knew that.

            She’d been picked because one of their armor sets fit her well, and because she’d been dressed as an adventurer of sorts, in breeches and a tunic – she’d even had a rapier hanging off her belt. And Trevor had liked her hat, very piratey. He loved when the medieval fair patrons got into character and really played along. Playtrons, the fair folk called them.

            Trevor breathed deep. One. I’ll never forget whats-her-name. he thought. Two. He saw her standing at the end of the field now, in place of his volunteer, smiling broadly down the field at him. There is a slight wind, blowing down, left to right. Compensate. Too much. There. Three.

            He reached over his shoulder and in one swift motion drew an arrow, swept it down to meet the bow, sweeping up, and pulled back, so that his thumb tickled his ear just as the bow drew level with his mouth, and released. The arrow soared.

           

            She never told him her real name, insisted he call her Turvy, her stage name. Along with her sister, Topsy “For obvious reasons!” Topsy would say to the audience , giving her shoulders a little shake as Turvy shook her head in mock indignation.

            They were a comdy-tumbling-balancing-stiltwalking-act. One of the stage “shenanigans” acts that were one of four types of roaming fair folk. The others were stall owners, who set up stalls and offered games or goods or to have your fortune told or something of the sort. Trevor had an archery stall, too, which he ran with his sister, Nikki. Another were the straight forward performers; musicians and stand up comedians and the like. Finally there were the sort that Trevor was at the moment; field performers. Duelers and jousters, that one guy who walked about with a sign promising to narrate a portion of your day in exchange for money or food, the actors that would strut or stagger about, interacting with the patrons. And archers. Trevors act was an uncommon one – he was an “archery master, trained by Robin Hood himself! He once stood with but one arrow against England’s three greatest knights, and those knights, being wise men, turned and fled!” Nikki would shout, as she stood on a post for his introduction, “Death came for him once, as it comes for all men; He shot its hood straight through, and pinned it to a tree, and walked away, calm as you please!” That one always got a laugh.

            She always knew how to play a crowd, Nikki did. The only ones who knew better were Topsy and Turvy themselves. Topsy was a goofy blonde, who wore a full tunic and loose half-pants, the “anchor” of the routine. She would support Turvy as she layed flat backwards, Topsy bracing her sisters feet on her own hips, and holding Turvy’s calves tight. Turvy herself had short, wild red hair, and wore a tight shirt that left her stomach exposed, the better to show off her perfectly sculpted stomach, and tight shorts that went down just above her knees, which should off her equally well sculpted butt and thighs. Her part was to do the acrobatics and support her sister’s awkward comedy with a little bit of her own.

            They’d met at Trevor and Nikki’s first professional fair. Nikki had been saying that she wanted to take a bigger part in their performances. “Like what?” Trevor had asked as they walked by one of the stages when, from that stage came the shouts “WE ARE the  trrroublesome two-some!” “The sexiest sisters you will EVER see!” “The body bending-est” “Mind exploding-est” “most hilarious and most… strange, performers you will see today or ANY DAY!” “we are…”  now both voices joined in the shout “THE TUMBLING GYPSY JESTERS!”

            “They stole our idea!” Nikki said, a little too loud for Trevor.

            “Gypsies at a medieval faire are hardly new.” Their story was that they were gypsy orphans, who ran away from home to find adventures all over the world. Trevor, known as the “Half-blind Bandit.” Nikki’s idea. He wore a leather eye patch on his left eye with a narrow slit that he could see through, though he didn’t  need his left eye to shoot anyway.  Nikki was Fox. Simple enough but it suited her well, and she made it stick by wearing foxtails and weaving the old fox fur silencers from their bows into her hair. 

            For the rest of that day, as Trevor worked the stall, giving people fitting bows and however many arrows they paid to shoot in his and Nikki’s makeshift range, with the hay barrow targets, Fox stood out front, yelling challenges to passerby “YOU, sir! Do you have what it takes to win glory and honor in the name of your ladylove? Come test yourself, I say! Test your skill, the strength of your arm! If you can bend MY bow, you can shoot thrice for free!” Nikki was five foot nothing and a hundred pounds soaking wet, so that got plenty of men to try. She was almost as good an archer as Trevor himself, and pulled a whopping 80 pounds on her bow – Trevor pulled 60, but he could shoot three arrows into a target before the first one hit – his grand opening.  They rarely had to give out free shots.  They had to give them out to Topsy, though, as strong as she was. Though the results were three arrows farther away from their intended target than either of the archers had ever seen. Turvy laughed so hard she almost fell off her stilts. And when it came time for Fox and the Half-blind Bandit to perform their feats of skill, riding by on horses and shooting a row of targets square in the middle, spearing fruit off of posts and splitting their own arrows, Topsy and Turvy were in the front row, yelling their support “AMAZING!” “STUPENDUS!” “I wonder what else he can spear with such skill?” “You lads had better have a shield on your belts if you think to woo THAT little lady!” The crowd loved it, and Fox and the Bandit were booked for the whole summer the next day.

            After that first show Turvy had approached Trevor with a suggestion of a team performance for the next week.

            Turvy was fearless, she stood in front of a wooden board, juggling grapefruit, occasionally tossing one high over her head with a high pitched “pew!” and Trevor would spear it to the board midair. She got him and Nikki using flu-flu arrows, which made a satisfying fwwwwwwmp as they flew to their target. And finally, she came up with the grand finale, which she and Topsy both agreed the archery show lacked. She would stand at the end of a field, five hundred feet away with an apple on her head, in front of a wooden post. Laughing, hands on hips, completely unguarded. She looked sidelong at the crowd, cracking jokes, not telling them what was about to happen, though everybody knew. And suddenly, fwwwwwwmp. And she would step away, from under the apple, now pinned to the post, and bow. And the crowd would roar in applause.

            At the end of their last show for that fair – a long one, it was held every weekend for a month – she kissed him full on the mouth and shouted “My hero! You saved me from that wicked fruit!” The crowd laughed and Trevor blushed.

            “Do you want to team up for other fairs too?” He asked as they walked off the field, arm in arm. She never answered him. She smiled, kissed him again and ran to meet her sister.

            Trevor had hoped to meet them before they’d packed and left, but they had only their own equipment for the day to pack, and Trevor and Nikki had a the whole of the archery range to deal with. They were gone long before the range was put down.

            At the next fair Trevor and Nikki both knew that Fox would not be the one to stand with the apple on her head, unarmored for the shot. “But I have an idea!” The first day of that fair Nikki spent the whole morning speaking to anyone who wore full armor, and finally she returned to their stall, which The Bandit had been working alone for most of the day, with one of the jousting knights, who agreed to take the shot. Eventually Trevor and Nikki had enough to buy two sets of plate armor, one that could fit each of them, if it came to it, but Nikki always tried to get them a volunteer, now that they had some way to ensure – for both the fair and the patron in question – that nobody would die.

            They never found Topsy or Turvy, performing or in the crowd, again. Nikki tried to find which fairs they’d bee in, but Tevor tried to ignore her, and they only found out after both the Fox and the Bandit and the Gypsy Jesters had been booked, both acts being so successful.

            But between the moment when he loosed his arrow, and that when it hit its target, he always felt again the strong press of her lips against his, the little bite of his bottom lip that nobody had seen, he saw again that tumble of red curls bounce against her cheeks as she smiled at him, her eyes over bright.

            Fwwwwwwwwmp-pop. The arrow sailed towards the volunteers helmet, but before she could flinch it had passed over her, into the apple which had exploded on contact with the wide, flat head of the arrow, which continued past and struck the shield of the knight standing behind her “for support.”

            “You rogue! You threaten my lady, and you challenge me?” With one smooth motion he unsheathed his sword and called “TO ARMS!” To the crowd. They responded with a raucous war cry, and the other knights charged onto the field from behind the stands. Trevor loosed one flat tipped arrow after another at the charging knights. When they hit armor, the knights fell, “wounded,” though plenty were charging with raised shields. Half the knights fell before they reached The Bandit, but he soon found himself surrounded and out of arrows.

            From the front row of the stands, the king stood and called “Bring him to me! To face the kings justice!” They marched Trevor down the field at sword point until he stood in front of the stands. Whereupon the king called the volunteer to him, now relieved of her heavy armor – Nikki’s armor. “We shall defend the slight to your honor, brought on by this rogue, this criminal! What say you, people?” The crowed cheered or booed until the king called for “Silence!” And when it fell, Nikki emerged from the front row, jumping down into the field and pulling away a cape that had disguised her. She was holding a small bow, only thirty pounds, not that the audience knew that, and a quiver hung from her hip filled with flat tipped arrows. Quick as anything she shot down the knights surrounding her brother and with a wave and a bow, they were off.

            They greeted the crowed after the show “in disguise” as beggars, and soon had their hats overflowing with tips. They sometimes got chocolate coins or apples for tips – phone numbers often enough as well, but as The Bandit was looking down into his hat, pretending to be entirely blind, this time,  a scrap of paper fell into it. He picked it up, grinning, expecting another phone number or love-note, but saw only one word. “Lily.” He looked up, quickly, forgetting his character, but saw nothing. He stood and looked around quickly. He thought, maybe, he saw a tumble of red curls turn a corner around a booth, but…

            “Pay attention, you’re blind!” Nikki kicked him in the shin. She was right, he went back to begging for tips, thinking of  lilies. 

Writing Prompt #1

Write a short story with the action of the main character shooting an apple with an arrow and the line of dialogue: "I'll never forget, whats-her-name..." GO!