#fable archer

Because I'm the writer.

“He is so creepy,” Curry hissed once the pair had gained the safety of the stairwell and paused to breathe.  “I don’t know how you can stand him.”

Fable put on her best Chairman Birch frown and patted Curry on the head.  “Practice, my dear.  Practice.”  Both girls broke down into a fit of giggles and began climbing down flight after flight of stairs through the center of the pyramid-shaped station.  Finally, they came to the access door for Sleep Deck C, where both girls bunked, along with another thirty or so Formers.

The deck was one cavernous space, with support pillars placed in almost painfully precise rows between equally straight rows of cots.  The whole room was whitewashed: floor, ceiling, pillars, even the cupboards lining the lower half of each wall for the residents’ personal belongings.  The deck fairly glowed when the window shields were lowered to admit the sunlight through the upper half of the walls.  Thankfully, the shields were raised today due to a storm on the surface, so the only glow in the deck came from the buzzing fluorescent lights placed strategically around the ceiling.

As Fable headed directly to her cupboard in the corner, Curry flopped down on her own bed near the edge of the empty deck. Fable figured the other residents must have been down on Recreation Deck or in the Commissary, making the most of the rare day off.

“I thought we were going to hide and take the day off,” Curry whined, her voice somewhat muffled by the arm she had thrown dramatically over her face.  “I don’t want to spend my one free afternoon this month down in those dismal labs.”

Fable fumbled with the tiny buttons down the front of her dress.  “We don’t have much choice,” she called from behind the cupboard door.  “I had to say something, or we would have been stuck down in that stuffy auditorium all afternoon with Birch.  You know he never misses an opportunity to lecture on the greater good.  Surely the labs are preferable to that.”

“I suppose.”

I have a little brother.  He turns 10 tomorrow.  He is the first (and often final) test for my characters, settings, and plots.  He's a good listener, and he brings a critical but non-judgmental perspective to my projects.

Today, he was on a roll.

He saw me writing character descriptions and wandered over to see which project I was working on today.  Within five minutes of introducing him to my characters and settings, he had managed to reject ALL my characters' hairstyles:

You know, Sis, Fable is a blonde person's name.  There went my raven-haired heroine.

Romulus should have hair like you - you know, dark.  That's my hair color.  "Dark."

What's Curry's favorite color?  It should be green.  Her hair should be green, too.  Well, okay then.  I might actually be able to turn that into a plot point. 

And my villains, Birch and Bell (who he calls Birch and Belch)? Sis, what other hair colors are there?  Red!