Story Overview:
A young woman in need of a hero, an old woman in need of a heart, and a young man in need of a great deal of maturity: these are the gears that set Fate in motion. Crushed by the loss of her father in the Goblin war, Melody Morrist dreams of a hero to rescue her from the confines of her mundane existence, and the clutches of her wicked grandmother.
Though Maraude Morrist may be old and eager to rid herself of the task of raising the headstrong child of her foolish son, there is nothing she hates more than heroes. When a hero shows up at her door, promising everything that Melody most wants, she just can’t help what happens next! Can Melody and her would-be beau overcome the plot that Maraude sets before them, or will this fractured fairy tale end in disaster?
Rating:
This story is rated yellow, for infrequent coarse language, sexual references and gambling references. Historic medieval lifestyles and customs drive the story, and concepts such as courtly romance and marriage for benefit rather than love are present.
Spoiler-Free Author’s Notes:
The concept for this story came from a failed game of “Once Upon A Time.” It is a card game, purchased at your local game store, that encourages the age-old art of yarn-spinning: telling oral stories that are added upon by a group rather than a single person. I thought this sounded like fun, but within ten minutes of my husband and I tearing into the shrink wrap, it became apparent that oral storytelling was not my forte.
I felt that I could easily sit down and write a story around the concepts that I had drawn from the deck, but to try to navigate between them, with no time to sit and work out the wording to something that didn’t sound asinine, just did not work for me. In the end, I decided to do just that: try to write a story around a random set of drawn cards instead.
I had a full short story written out using the concepts from this method. However, another idea came to me while I was working on it; a random thought that I just couldn’t seem to look away from. It didn’t immediately hit me that I should include it in this story, but once I realized that it would make this story much more interesting, I had to add it. This inclusion will not be apparent until Chapter 3; my house of cards has taken some time to build. If I had to do it over again, I’d lessen this gap.
On a different note, this is an experiment for me. I tend to shy away from romance as a main plot, but Liar’s Dice comes very close to having one. It is equal parts romance, adventure and comedy in my head, but the fact remains that it is stronger on the romance than most of what you will see here at Ink Raindrops. (That doesn’t mean sex; it means good, old-fashioned fantasy romance. I don’t do erotica.)
I hope that this doesn’t alienate my audience, since most of what I write tends to be considerably darker in tone and theme. This is a departure from the norm, and should be viewed as such. The intent is to keep it fun, friendly and just the slightest bit wacky.
Team Liar’s Dice, as created by LooseLeaf! Characters are, in order, from left to right: Melody, Maraude and Armer.