writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia

I spent my writing time editing/plotting/brainstorming today so I don't really have anything new to post here. I sadly hit a roadblock yet again with the story I had been working on, but I'm hoping maybe it's just a hiccup and I can get back into it before the deadline next week. For the time being, here's this thing from a billion years ago. There are some sensitive issues being hinted at here but nothing overt.

The first time they tried to separate them was the day after the trial ended. News of the guilty verdict was fresh on the front page of everyone's morning paper and the government didn't need Eric any more. He'd done well on the stand, but now their star witness was nothing more than another ward of the state, one with a rapidly developing attitude problem.

They had no idea just how much a problem it was until they told him that he and Bobby were going to be placed in different homes. They said they were good homes, but Eric called them liars, stupid liars because didn't they know that there wasn't a home for him without Bobby? His begging, pleading, shouting words that no nine-year-old should know, fell on deaf ears. So Eric used his fists instead, his legs and arms and teeth.

He was a wild thing, like a cornered animal protecting its young and it stunned the cops that had to restrain him that one slip of a boy could cause so much damage. It took three of them, Bobby would remember. Three large full grown men to restrain one nine-year-old boy that wouldn't stop kicking, punching, biting, and screaming for his brother. Bobby was quiet, still quiet. He hadn't said anything in a long time, not since...

Eric's anger flared again. They couldn't be separated. He was Bobby's voice; someone had to look out for him, protect him. Their parents were gone, brutally slain. Why, why, would this so-called justice system take away the only things that had left: each other?

For the curious, they wound up not being separated and that led to a whole host of other things happening.

My mind goes to any of three characters (all lovebloodrhetoric's) when I think shadows and it was difficult to choose between them. But this one is the one I tend to associate with the shadows most.

They called them the Sons of Shadow. Led by the heir presumptive, the Sons of Shadow were forces to be reckoned with - if you could see them. They disappeared into shadows, into the night, umbral warriors who walked or leaped from shadow to shadow to stalk their targets. None were as skilled as the brother of the king. The Sons of Shadow had their counterparts in the Heirs to the Flame, mages who wielded fire as though they were red dragons themselves. As well they should for they were led by the king himself, who was as red-haired as the very dragons from which he was descended.

The Sons of Shadow were training today, all day. From the earliest dawn, when the rising sun cast long shadows behind each warrior, to the height of the day when the noontime sun meant the warriors would have to use their other skills, for there were no shadows substantive enough for any but Prince Tahir to use. They fought until sunset, when the prince left his second-in-command in charge and sought out the king. Since they were children, they spent every sunset they could together. Some things never changed, thought Tahir as he found his brother waiting for him, bathed in the deep reddish glow of the sun, his shadow stretching back so far it was like an invitation, one Tahir couldn't refuse.

He slipped into his brother's shadow, and traveled its length. He stepped out, right next to his brother's side, and like he used to do when he was still too young to speak, he reached up and tugged on the long red braid that hung down the left side of King Sadiq's face, longer than the rest of his hair, and a sign of his nobility. Tahir's was about as long, but night-dark where his brother's was blood-red.

Sadiq turned ice-blue eyes onto his taller, younger brother, his too-pretty mouth curving in the kind of smile that made sensible people nervous, and sent shivers of another kind down Tahir's spine. Together, they watched the sun loan its power to the night, only to take it back the next morning. Tahir didn't speak a word, and Sadiq said plenty as night fell and they retreated from the balcony. They'd come so far from the spoiled and dangerous princes they'd been, but the bond between them had never been stronger.

Man I miss playing them. And this is still not the prompt I keep meaning to write. I just know that one will wind up with a lot of feels and I'm not ready to write it yet.

Now for lunch.