At the Del Fenwickian border, 409 days after a wizard cursed the REALM…
Current Version:
“Hey, pretty mamma, you wanna come home with me?”
Belinda responded with the side-eye Victor had come to expect.
Victor had been asking Belinda out for years, and she had always given him one lame excuse after another. She would say that she was dating some other guy. Or that she had just married that other guy. That she was having a baby with that other guy. Or that she was too sad about being widowed during the destruction of their village. With each new excuse, the effort that Belinda put into “playing hard to get” only made Victor more certain that she wanted him, and badly.
Just the day before, Belinda told Victor that she couldn’t go out with him because she’d just been turned into a vampire. As if she thought Victor would abandon his romantic advances just because the lady of his dreams had sprouted fangs and could no longer be seen in mirrors.
“At least let me show you some of my original artwork,” he offered.
The side-eye intensified and began to smolder. “First off,” said Belinda, “let me remind you that we’re living in a refugee camp, and your ‘home’ is a musty tent you share with four other guys.”
“Three other guys,” said Victor. “I can arrange for two of them to be elsewhere, and the third guy never leaves his bedroll, so he’s practically just a piece of furniture.”
“Second,” the woman continued, “your original artwork is mud that you’ve finger-painted onto strips of tree bark.”
“All-natural materials are trendy.”
“Third, getting back to the unavoidable part about us living in a refugee camp, it’s difficult to get into any kind of romantic mood in this environment.”
Victor shrugged. “Life goes on, you know?”
She glared back at him.
“Um. Did you have a fourth reason, or is that all of them?”
She sighed. “Fourth, you come on way too strong. It’s off-putting.”
“Too strong. Off-putting. Let me write that down, these are excellent notes.” He removed a strip of bark from his pocket and made a muddy mark on it with his index finger. “Can I at least buy you lunch?”
“I’d love a fillet of salmon, poached, with a creamy dill sauce and a side of asparagus.” Belinda took a deep breath and looked dreamily up at the sky, as if smelling the food in her imagination.
Victor frowned. “I have a crust of stale bread I’ve been saving for a special occasion.”
“Goodbye, Victor.” Belinda walked away with a shake of her head.
When she was gone, Victor consulted the blue notepaper he’d kept in his other pocket. “Your Wordler 409 Horoscope: Taurus, romance is in the air if you can find the right approach. The Word you seek will bestow a date with the lady of your dreams. As a bonus, it will keep you from being transformed into an enchanted, flame-covered, skeletal servant of the Word Wizard’s curse. Good luck!”
He looked from the paper to the mud-covered bark strip and back. “Come on too strong, do I? Well, maybe I do. But I can be coquettish when I have to be. I can be more bashful than any guy in this camp. I can be so modest and shy, she’ll never know what hit her!”
Pumped up on a newfound lack of confidence, Victor strode off demurely, intent on overwhelming his beloved with an underwhelming approach.
Web3 Draft:
- Listed on OpenSea
- Listed on Rarible
- Pinned to IPFS
Revision Notes:
To be added.
