You'll all have to blame the truly talented Celia Stanton for this one. She's got me hooked on these sentence prompts. Now these were not all all easy to do, so any feedback you have would definitely be welcome! (BTW, this chapter will not fit the timeline of the rest of Down the Road- there was just no way to pull that off!)
BTW, I own nothing except the DVD. Catch a clue already!
01. Step
Before loosing his marbles, Ambrose would have been able to explain in excruciating detail why dancing was one of the few activities that could bridge the gap between the hemispheres of the brain; now, Glitch only knows that it's one of the few that makes him feel complete.
02. Squeeze
There really shouldn't be anything comfortable about the gun digging into her hip or the faintly mildew drenched scent of clothing left too long in an old house, but DG finds it so.
03. Dirt
Though Ozma knew they had no proof, the tabloids still reported regularly on the developments in the supposed 'romance' between the Slipper princess and her laconic Commander of the Guard.
04. Late
It didn't matter if he was years, months, or moments too late; all that mattered was his Adora was dead.
05. Money
DG tried not to scream; how the hell did they expect a mediocre small-town waitress to act around all this sudden wealth?
06. Aid
Sometimes, after making an innocent joke that nearly sparks a diplomatic incident over dinner or discovering yet another coveted item that Central City just didn't have, DG wishes someone could have written a copy of 'The Idiot's Guide to the O.Z." just to cut through her Othersider confusion.
07. Myth
It was growing increasingly difficult to find sanity in a country where 'history' read more and more like a truly twisted fairy tale.
08. Piece
She hadn't once touched the Emerald in the months since that terrible night; instead, it collected dust in a drawer by her bed, a piece of a past she loathed and a future she was no where near ready to face.
09. Child
Though outwardly a woman, Az worries that her mind is barely more than that of a child too long kept locked in the dark.
10. Confess
Forgiveness is the last thing Tutor expects for his part in the hunt for the emerald; still, he can not lie to his Queen after all these years.
11. Trick
Even after his transfer from one tin prison to another beneath the city, Aiden Zero wondered how the Cain boy had manage to so utterly dupe a man old enough to be his father.
12. Out
Cain wonders why, after all the horrors he's faced, he finds he's most terrified of one young woman and the chance that eventually she might order him away with those two tiny words.
13. Best
Hot cocoa after midnight and the kind of gossip that makes her normally outspoken sister blush bright red and stutter: these, Az decides, are the moments that she's survived for.
14. Mother
It takes years and a tiny dark-haired daughter of her own before DG can understand why she could so easily accept that she'd been 'adopted;' it was simply that Emily was so obviously blonde.
15. Book
She hadn't thought anything could surprise her, but when (on a tour of the old Southdown Abbey near Finaqua) she encounters a soft spoken preacher man with a mass of steel gray hair and an air of controlled violence, she can only stare in mute amazement and wonder when exactly Joss slipped from the O.Z. to California.
16. Victim
It is the only request Az has dared to make in the aftermath of the Sorceress's reign, but it is one she feels she can't help but ask: she never wants to hear herself called a 'victim' as somehow she doesn't know if her psyche can survive that simple word.
17. Power
If there was any one reason that the Sorceress found herself vanquished, it was this: she never did learn that selfish greed might always be overpowered by selfless compassion.
18. Redeem
She has nothing to say to her accusers, for, after all, how could mere words soothe the wounds left from years of torment?
19. Bleak
Though she tries desperately to keep him from seeing, Glitch can't help but notice the pain in the older princess's eyes every time he enters the room.
20. Shrapnel
Cain knows he's been hurt before—hell, he's survived grenades, bullets, and one truly hellish prison—but he finds it's the sight of tears in her blue eyes that cuts him deeper than anything that he's faced before.
21. Humane
She'd never been a proponent of capital punishment on the Other Side, but in the face of the Council's other ideas for those found guilty of crimes against the Crown, DG suddenly realizes just how merciful a simple death sentence can be.
22. Anger
For wrath, there is no more perfect visual than the sight of icy rage glinting from cold blue eyes.
23. Team
She's amused to find that the members of the Eastern Guild eventually bring to mind nothing more sinister than the idiots she remembers attending the hometown football games she'd loathed all through high school.
24. Terror
After fifteen years, Lavender Eyes still wakes up screaming from dreams of her younger daughter's death at the hands of her elder.
25. Natural
DG couldn't help her unladylike snort of laughter: emerald green rabbits just weren't natural.
26. Never
She wasn't sure how she got the song from 'An American Tale' stuck in her head, but it proved for an oddly appropriate mental soundtrack as she searched for her parents in the strange world she'd awoken in.
27. Fidelity
He isn't sure he wants to know if his wife moved on after that fateful day at the cabin; on one hand, it might break his already battered heart to picture her with another, but on the other hand, it might clear away some of the guilt he finds accompanies his growing affection for his young charge.
28. Neglect
Though the Royal Family has been restored to the power and the throne in Central City, Finaqua and the Northern Palace are left empty of all but dust and the ghosts that haunt the silent halls.
29. Face
She'd sketched it a thousand times or more over the years, but DG finds she never tires of drawing the artful lines of her mother's face.
30. Lurk
Though named a valued part of the restored court by the family he's aided, at the celebratory ball, Raw keeps to the shadows, driven there by an all too familiar fear of the unknown.
31. Grow
Ahamo knows that he and the eldest Cain are far more alike than the other man might guess: for one thing, both men know the pain that comes with facing the hostile adult that's long since suppressed the freely loving child they remembered.
32. Skin
It takes something so simple to make her break down completely; the glint of cold metal in the moonlight, where her lover still sports a zipper instead of smooth unblemished skin.
33. Sick
When she finally catches the flu for the first time since reaching the O.Z., DG discovers something new to mourn when her father regrettably informs her that there is no chicken for soup.
34. Dare
Reading the morning's headline of "Princess Caught Frolicking Nude," DG wonders if introducing her sister to Tequila and party games might have been a bad idea after all.
35. Worth
It had cost easily a cycle's wages to get, but when the Princess Azkadellia finally smiled at him over an armful of bright purple baby bunnybury, Glitch knew it had been worth any price.
36. Last
To the surprise of her family, DG hardly ever wore her sneakers, but she explained that they'd always been her favorite pair, and she didn't want to wear them out too soon.
37. Year
Lady Falderol ducked as DG (having finally reached the end of her patience) snapped and aimed a vase at her head, screaming, "I know it's an annual, damn it!"
38. Prime
Despite having discovered her own parents were in reality robots, DG still can't help craving a copy of the new Transformers movie (preferable with so form of DVD adaptor that she just knows Glitch might be able to figure out.)
39. Taste
Though she's never seen him drink, his mouth on hers brings to mind the flavor of old whiskey, setting her skin to a smooth burn and tasting all the better for its age.
40. Beyond
This world is so beyond Australia that some times she wonders is she would have gotten as far if she followed the rainbow to its end.
41. Final
Staring at the mountain of books on OZian law she was expected to learn, DG prays this will be a test she can actually pass.
42. Event
The Queen stared at the paper before her (knowing that what she's about to write will sentence one of her daughters to a life of near slavery) until, with a heavy heart, she began to write: 'In the event of my death, it is my fondest wish that the throne be passed to my daughter…'
43. Secure
One thing you had to say about the Sorceress, when she designed a prison, she made damn sure that no one would ever be able to escape without help.
44. Ring
Az was often quiet, but her family only realized they'd never seen her truly speechless when she was struck dumb by the sight of a former Advisor kneeling at her feet, velvet box in hand.
45. Settle
Eyeing the crowd of suitors through the barely open door, DG found herself rather amused at the thought that Officer Gulch had once claimed he'd be willing to 'settle for' her as she was the only woman available at the time.
46. Energy
Cain, creaking from another night spent on the cold ground and musing that he'd be tempted to sell the head case for a single cup of coffee, wondered where the hell the little brunette got all that energy.
47. Center
Never a fan of geography, DG managed to start an hour's long argument with her Tutor over why Central City was so named, when it was located nowhere near the center of the O.Z.
48. Ordinary
DG realized she'd finally settled in when the papay runners ceased to strike her as at all unusual.
49. Voice
Az knows her sister still agonizes over that innocent desire to find the source of that long ago voice in the woods.
50. Hang
She muses (in an oddly detached sort of way) as she clings to the balcony that it's a lucky thing that's she's never been afraid heights.
Hope you liked it! And kudos to anyone who catches the crossfandom reference here! I think it's kinda obvious, but you never know. lol.
