Valley Apple Challenge

This year's apple challenge is to include:

"An apple with magical powers"

This could be a talking apple, an apple that itself is magic or gives someone else powers. Not writing fantasy? You can still work this into your story!

Everyone who takes up the challenge will receive 100 points toward the Great Points Race. The best one (I think of those read at the TGIO party??) will receive the trophy!

Come November, feel free to post your apple scene/snippet here and/or share on December 5th!

I miss the edit button. I looked over this, but I'm sure I've missed more than a few things.

...

“Do you ever want to do more than survive?” Xan asked me.

“I have enough trouble with just doing that.”

Xan looked over at me, and I shrugged.

“Yes, sometimes, but I wouldn't know what to do with myself if survival wasn't an issue. I have never had it not be.”

Xan nodded in understanding and walked over to a small chest. He bent and opened it carefully, almost reverently, and lifted out a wooden box. Xan came back over to where I was sitting, and passed me the napkin that had been lying on the other side of the picked over chicken carcass. I cleaned grease off my fingers and he set the box down. Xan lifted the lid to reveal a collection of items, all neatly ensconced in velvet within the case. He held onto the sides of the box, keeping it near him, and went very still when I leaned forward to look.

The contents looked like cheap children's toys. The old kind of toy that was left over from the mass production era that people now scavenged from waste heaps and sold at town markets. Among the collection there was a small green thing with pointed ears and a wrinkled face, a yowling plastic tiger, and a turtle. There were also plainer pieces that looked like little blocks with numbers on the side.

“What-?”

Xan let go of the box and carefully lifted out the turtle. He snapped its head away from its body and protruding from the body was a slim, open ended three dimensional metal rectangle, one half of its hollow interior filled with white plastic. I'd only ever seen something like this once before, and suddenly I understood the worth of his collection. “How-?”

“That's not the point. These are all useless.” Xan set the turtle gently back in it's place and lifted out a smaller box. He opened it to reveal another plastic item, slimmer yet bigger than the others. It had a partially eaten apple embossed on its back, a logo I couldn't remember ever having seen before.

“What-”

Again Xan cut me off. “It's like the others. There are things stored inside it; information. I got it from a man who says it has the answer on it. This will tell us how to beat the dragons. We were doing it before, and they burned the knowledge away. This might give it back.”

“Why haven't you gotten the information off it already?”

“This can't be opened in any technologists shop. The only place I know that can make it work is the King's Library. That's where we're headed.”

I sat back in my chair, not quite able to conceive what he was talking about. Xan tucked the device back in its box, and put that back into the hidden compartment of the larger box.

“We'll break camp in the morning.”

I watched him walk back to the side table cradling the case near himself, and wondered.

It took me a moment to realize I'd been dismissed, and get up to make my way out. I stood outside in front of the tent and thought about nothing. Someone nodded at me as they walked past and I snapped out of my stillness, without any idea of who had just gone by.

As I started moving away from the tent, I thought about what Xan had just said. That little metal apple device was supposed to save us? I wasn't sure that was something I could put my faith and hope in, but I had no better plans. Even if it didn't fix everything, as long as it didn't kill us, it would be okay. It was still something to work towards and I needed that.

So instead of ruling the world, iTunes will actually save the world? Now that's a story I want to read!

Love the way you used the apple in this challenge! Great idea! :)

I have added a magical apple YAY!

Post the piece!

You'll hear it at the TGIO party...and the spelling is horrible.

I'm not sure if mine really works with the challenge, but it works with my story, so it's okay. I may work on it more later, maybe change when he gets the apple so that you see the change that comes over him more of whatever. Such things are December's problem, either way.

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Thierry inched backwards into the shadows of the dark and hot holding room. He knew that if he could just hide in that nook, he'd be safe for a little while.
“Psst. Hey kid!” A voice hissed out of the darkness next to his ear. He flinched, and looked around, quivering with fear. Chami pulled up her hood and pushed her goggles up her forehead. She smiled at him, placing a finger on her lips to signal for silence. She gently pulled him close to her body and put her mouth as close to his ear as she could without spooking him. “I'm going to get you out of here. Be as quiet as you possibly can, okay?” He nodded dumbly, staring at her with disbelieving eyes. Angels DID exist! She gently lifted his emaciated body, 'Poor kid barely weighs 60 lbs!' she thought to herself as she tucked him into the swaddling pouch on her front. “There's an apple in there for ya, kid. You have to wait until we're out of the building to eat it, okay?” He nodded silently and ducked his head as she snapped the pouch shut. She crawled up the wall and then started making her way out of the building via the ceiling. Once she was outside, she crawled up another wall to a roof, opened her wings and launched off.
“Alright kid, you can eat the apple now,” she said, and she heard a vigorous crunching from inside the pouch as she sailed over the city towards Schrieker's house. “Daddy Hawk, I've got a package for you, I'm on my way right now.”
“Roger that, Big Sister, I look forward to seeing your face.” Chami smiled and focused on steering herself.


She landed on Schrieker's roof ten minutes later, becoming visible just as she came down the final ten feet to landing. Mantella squealed with delight at the sight of her sister, and Chami immediately pulled off her hood and goggles. She unsnapped the pouch, and Thierry popped his head out, his eyes hugely brightened and his smile rejuvenated by the vitamin rich apple he'd had, the first food he'd had in two weeks.
“Hi there,” Mantella said gently, hugging her sister, and Thierry between them, “I'm Mantella. What's your name?”
“Thierry,” he said softly, staring at them all in wonder. Schrieker came out and gently lifted the boney child out of the pouch, and carried him down the stairs into the kitchenette. He sat him down in a chair and put a plate with hot pizza and garlic fingers on it, along with a big glass of clean, clear water.

Crystal cool clear (killing) water.

That song is never going to leave my brain.

Wrote my apple scene yesterday :) will edit it in December in time to share at the TGIO party :)

Here's mine. finally. *rolls eyes at self* It only took me ALL DAY to type and edit this piece. (except that I didn't really edit). Stupid, crappy attention span.

Quote:Serena slammed the green door behind her and stumbled down the rough stone stairs. Somehow, despite the dark and the tears clouding her vision, she made it to the hard-packed dirt floor of the cellar-cave. She felt along the dirt and stone wall for a few feet before pressing her back against it and sliding to the floor. Serena's bag fell and an apple – the breakfast she had grabbed from the kitchen that morning and never got around to eating – tumbled out onto the floor. It went unnoticed; she hadn't even realized that she had dropped the bag.

David was dead; Dean might not make it through the night. Still, all Serena could think about were the images running through her mind. Memories of a life she had forgotten until David – her brother! – had nudged her and said her name, her real name – Seren – with his last breath. The great dragon had died, died saving her, after all these centuries and all the battles he had fought in. It wasn't the grief that consumed her, however, but those memories of their past together – the last battle they fought together, the pact they had made to come back when they were needed.

After their long lives together, she was really, truly alone. Her brother was gone, killed by the only other dragon alive on earth, a dragon that was holding her human fiancé and would probably kill him. Serena already felt defeated before she had even started.

"You are the true Guardian, Seren. My job was only to protect you," David had told her, struggling to get the words out through a jaw clenched from the pain.

"Seren." She jumped and looked around her for the source of the unfamiliar voice that had not come from the memory she had been replaying. There was nothing – nothing but the apple that had fallen out of her bag. "Seren," it said again. "You know what you need to do."

As she started at the talking apple, Serena realized that the cave seemed different from the other times she had been in it. She heard water dripping in the background; she could see the tunnel systems in the dark corners. Was it just because she knew they were there now, or could she actually, somehow, see them? Because the not-a-rock, with its dim glow, that sat atop the pedestal in the middle of the space hadn't brightened enough that it would have brightened those corners.

Until now.

"You know what you need to do." As the apple continued speaking, the light got brighter and brighter; she felt a heaviness in her chest – like she wanted or needed to do something so bad that she felt the physical effects of that need and desire through her entire body. She felt weightless.

Yes. She did know what she needed to do. Serena stood and moved to the pedestal.

Re: We just read your apple challenge. You were met with tremendous applause!!

(This is Aurora :P )

Let's see that awesome winning except posted Liz, proud owner of a shiny shiny apple trophy!

Congrats to Liz! It was hilarious!! And also brought back many memories of word challenges :P

I HAS THE GOLDEN APPLE!

I will include the section I read...as soon as I find my laptop....it's lost in the back of my car.

just as fun the second (third?) time! love it :P