Writing Prompt

WRITING OBSTACLE

Personify your favourite animal into a character.

Think about the behaviours and physical appearance of the animal, and how these traits might be reflected in a human.

Writings

The Lady Sow and Her Runt

Long ago there lived a lady with rosy skin and a noisy disposition, her nose was large and she struggled to breathe causing her to grunt and groan and snore much to the behest of her husband. She was a clean lady, taking good care of her body despite her willingness to eat any and all manner of things. She often bathed in baths filled with mud which she claimed kept her skin young and healthy.

The lady birthed several children at once and despite the objections from her peers breastfed them two at a time. Her youngest and seventh to be born, who the local villagers named the runt, always got the last of the milk and was therefore smaller in comparison to his siblings.

The lady was a kind and intelligent mother, bettering all the men in her village at mathematics and arithmetic, making enemies of many of them.

One day as she soaked in her mud bath her home was invaded by the villagers who believed her intellect was due to witchcraft, they dragged her out kicking and screaming as mud flung about the room and followed her out into the village. They stuck an apple in her mouth and proclaimed her Lady Sow as they roasted her alive on the pyre.

Her body may have gone to the earth, but the lady’s spirit lived on and she cursed the crops so that no food would grow and the villagers would eventually starve. Her children were blamed and all, but the runt followed in their mother’s footsteps. He took a blade and slaughtered all who were guilty by slitting their throats as they hung upside down in his shed. Their blood watered the ground beneath him and grew the most glorious crops known to man. He and The innocent villagers thrived on the land their blood was returned to.

Raven Haired Woman

Raven rode into town on her buckskin horse. She’d heard the sheriff of Coyote’s Call had cleaned the town up in a little over a year. She was sure this would be a risk, but it’d be a risk worth taking. The bank, as a result of the lack of crime and surplus of miners, contained all the shiny gold Raven could ever want.

“Let’s see what you’re made of Sheriff Fox.”

Raven rode slowly through town—no need to tip people off that she was in a rush. She stopped at a general store next to the bank. The hitching post was worn from use. Fresh white paint garnered the old building, and new black letters in all capitals screamed “HARE’S WARES” over the awning.

“Who’s there?!” The merchant about jumped out of his white shirt at the sound of the door opening.

“Just a traveler. Need to restock before I hit the road.” Raven avoided eye contact, but keep up the neat of the conversation. “Heard y’all have one helluva lawman here.”

Mr. Hare shook his head with a great bucktoothed grin, as if this were a personal achievement of his. “That about sums him up right there! Not a scoundrel brave or stupid enough to rouse the Sheriff! My if I haven’t had a holdup in two years now. Why, just five days ago I was speaking to Mrs. Hound about the…”

Raven walked the shop and browsed the wares, only half listening to the incessant babble spewing forth from the silly rabbit. In silence, she investigated the little general store for any convenient entry she could use as a getaway after she struck the bank.

“…but you know Sheriff Fox! I suppose he just has a weakness for black haired ladies! Anyways, Miss kitty left about—“

“What did you say?” Raven just had a terribly bright idea.

“Why the Sheriff! The way he fawned after Miss Kitty before she left town became a sort of wildfire with the town gossips! It’s all anybody would talk about for months. Poor Sheriff Fox wouldn’t even leave the jail for days. Probably licking his wounds. Poor soul.”

Mr. Hare wiped the perspiration from his forehead with his sleeve, as if having a conversation with himself was equivalent to plowing a field. Raven mostly kept her mouth shut after her interruption. The way the man talked didn’t give much room to speak anyway. She quickly gathered the supplies she needed, noted the stairs to the second story window, and put her goods on the counter.

“Well, speaking of black-haired womenfolk, you wouldn’t happen to be here to break our Sheriff’s heart, would ya?” He smirked at the wit of his dull jest.

Her eyes shines under the brim of her dusty black Stetson, grinning to the thought of the gold she’d soon have. “I might just be.”