★ Title: The Cursed Blade

★ Voice Age (M): Adult (30–46)

★ Voice Age (F): Adult (26–42)

★ Language: English

★ Accent: Neutral American

Script:

[Mid-story — she finds him trying to rid himself of the cursed sword alone]

M: "You weren't supposed to find me here."

F: "You weren't supposed to be here alone. How long has it been speaking to you?"

M: "That's not — it doesn't speak."

F: "Kael. How long."

M: "Since the bridge. Since I used it on the soldier who was going to — it doesn't matter. The point is it's my problem to solve."

F: "The point is you've been carrying a cursed weapon through my camp for three weeks and lying to my face every day."

M: "I didn't want you to—" 

F: "What? Help you? What a terrible thing to do." She held out her hand. He looked at it for a long time.

M: "It'll hurt you if you touch it."

F: "Let me worry about that," she said. He gave her the blade. It didn't hurt her at all. Something moved across his face that she decided not to name yet.

★ Title: Crown of Ash

★ Voice Age (M): Adult (35 - 52)

★ Voice Age (F): Adult (32–48)

★ Language: English

★ Accent: British RP

Script:

[Opening — enemy general and queen, first meeting across a negotiation table]

F: "I expected someone older."

M: "I expected someone less composed, given the circumstances."

F: "My city is surrounded. Composure is the one thing I still control."

M: "A fair point. I'll remember that." He set his sword on the table, hilt toward me. "I'm not here to accept your surrender."

F: "Then why are you here?"

M: "Because the Emperor is wrong about this war. And I need someone on the inside of these walls who knows it too."

F: I looked at the sword. At him. "That's either the most dangerous thing anyone has said to me in ten years of war." 

M: "Or?" 

F: "Or the most useful." I did not touch the sword. I sat back and studied him with the particular attention of a woman who has survived this long by reading people correctly. "Talk," I said. "Quickly."

★ Title: The Tide Caller

★ Voice Age: (M) Adult (28 - 44)

★ Voice Age (F): Adult (25–40)

★ Language: English

★ Accent: Irish

Script:

[Late in story — she's used her power to the point of collapse, he finds her on the shore]

M: "How much did you use?"

F: "Enough."

M: "Enough to sink the fleet or enough to kill you?"

F: "Both felt equally important at the time."

M: "Seren." He crouched beside her. She was half in the water, and the sea was still moving wrong — responding to her breathing. "Look at me. Are you still in it?" 

F: "In what?" 

M: "The tide. Are you still calling it?" (A pause.) 

F: "Mostly."

M: He took both her hands. He'd been told not to touch a tide caller mid-pull. He did it anyway. "Come back," he said. Not a command. Something else. She looked at him for a long moment, and then, very slowly, the sea went flat. 

F: "You're not supposed to do that." 

M: "I know." 

F: "You could have been dragged in." 

M: "I know that too." She didn't let go of his hands. He didn't either.

★ Title: The Fox and the Warden

★ Voice Age (M): Adult (32 - 48)

★ Voice Age (F): Adult (22–36)

★ Language: English

★ Accent: Neutral American

Script:

[Midpoint — he's caught her poaching in the sacred wood for the third time]

M: "Third time."

F: "I know how to count."

M: "Third time I let you go."

F: "Generous."

M: "Idiotic, more like. Why do you keep coming back?" 

F: "The wood calls me. I don't expect you to understand that." 

M: "The wood calls you." 

F: "Mock me if you want." 

M: "I'm not mocking you."

F: A pause. He looked into the dark between the trees.

M: "It calls me too. Has since I was seven. That's why I became its warden."

F: She stared at him. "Then why do you keep turning me out?" 

M: "Because you take from it rather than tending it." 

F: "I take what it offers." 

M: "That's not what offering looks like."

F: He held the gate open.

M: "Come back in daylight. I'll show you what it actually wants to give you."

F: She looked at the gate. At him. "This feels like a trap." 

M: "Everything interesting does."

★ Title: The Last Seer

★ Voice Age: (M) Adult (28 - 44)

★ Voice Age (F): Adult (30–48)

★ Language: English

★ Accent: Neutral American

Script:

[She is the last oracle; he is the soldier sent to protect her — midpoint argument]

F: "I've seen how this ends."

M: "Good. Tell me."

F: "That's not how it works."

M: "Then what exactly is the use of a seer who won't see?"

F: "One of us lives. I know which one. And I am telling you — as clearly as I am able — that I am not interested in it being me." (Long silence.)

M: "So you've already decided." 

F: "The vision doesn't ask my opinion." 

M: "Then neither do I."

F: He moved to block the path.

M: "You don't get to show me a future and expect me to walk into it like a good soldier."

F: "You don't have a choice." 

M: "Neither do you. Because I'm not moving."

F: She stared at him — this man who had been assigned to her like a problem to be managed — and felt the vision shift, just slightly, at the edges. She had not accounted for stubbornness this specific. "The fates won't like this," she said. 

M: "The fates can get in line."

★ Title: Spellbound

★ Voice Age: (M) Adult (25 - 40)

★ Voice Age (F): Adult (25 - 40)

★ Language: English

★ Accent: Neutral American

Script:

[Two rival mages forced to share a binding spell — late story, it's wearing off]

M: "It's fading."

F: "I know. I can feel it." I pause. "You'll be free by morning."

M: "We'll both be free."

F: "Right. Yes." Another pause. "You can stop finishing my sentences after that. I know you've found it irritating." 

M: "I haven't found it irritating." 

F: "You've found it invasive, then." 

M: "I've found it—"

F: He stopped.

"It hasn't been what I expected." 

F: "No. It hasn't." We were quiet. The binding had done strange things to both of us — we feel the shape of the other's thoughts, not the content, just the texture. I knew the weight he carried without knowing its name. He knew the loneliness of my practice without knowing its history. 

F: "I'll miss it," I said, very quietly. 

M: "We could cast it again, voluntarily."

F: I looked at him. "That would be extraordinarily inadvisable." 

M: "Yes ... do you want to?"

★ Title: A Thief In The God's Court

★ Voice Age: (M) Adult (30–46) · God

★ Voice Age (F): Young Adult (22–36) · Thief

★ Language: English

★ Accent: Neutral American

Script:

[Opening — she's been caught mid-theft inside a god's vault]

M: "You picked the lock on a divine vault."

F: "Technically I picked three locks. The last one was impressive, I thought."

M: "You're not afraid of me."

F: "I'm terrified of you. I'm just better at talking when I'm terrified." 

M: "What were you sent to take?" 

F: "Who says I was sent?" He looked at her with eyes that were doing something unsettling with the light. 

F: "...The obsidian compass. Third shelf. I was told it was yours and that you wouldn't miss it."

M: "Who told you that?" 

F: "Someone who clearly doesn't know you." She met his gaze. "Are you going to kill me?" 

M: "I'm going to make you a different offer." 

F: "I'm going to regret this." 

M: "Almost certainly." He sat down and folded his hands. "The person who sent you has something of mine that actually matters. Help me get it back and you may keep the compass."

F: She looked at a god, sitting in his pillaged vault, watching her with patience that was clearly very old. "Fine," she said. "But I want it in writing."

★ Title: Dragon's Debt

★ Voice Age: (M) Adult (40–60) · Dragon

★ Voice Age (F): Adult (28–44) · Knight

★ Language: English

★ Accent: British RP

Script:

[Mid-story — she returns to settle a debt from a year ago; he's been waiting]

M: "You came back."

F: "I said I would."

M: "Humans say many things." 

F: "I'm aware. I came anyway."

M: She set the sealed case on the cave floor between them. "Your scale. I kept it safe, as agreed." 

M: "And in return you want the name." 

F: "I want the name."

M: He was quiet for a long time. For something this large and this old, quiet had a weight to it. "The name of the man who burned your village is Tareth Vane. He serves the Second Court. He will be in Korrath by the next dark moon." 

M: She absorbed this.

F: "That's enough time." 

M: "Enough time for what, exactly?" 

F: "To end it." 

M: "Alone?" She picked up her sword belt. 

F: "As planned."

M: He looked at her for a long, considering moment. "Your plan is insufficient," he said. 

F: "I managed—" 

M: "I will come with you." She stopped.

F: "You're a dragon." 

M: "Yes. That tends to help."

★ Title: The Undying Wood

★ Voice Age: (M) Adult (28–44) · Fae

★ Voice Age (F): Adult (26–42) · Human

★ Language: English

★ Accent: Neutral American

Script:

[Late in story — she must leave the wood or it will keep her; he's known this longer than she has]

F: "You knew. How long have you known?"

M: "Since the third month. The wood started growing toward you."

F: "And you didn't tell me."

M: "I didn't want you to go." 

F: "That's not—" 

M: "I know what it is. I'm telling you anyway."

F: He looked at the tree line. The old trees — the ones that had stood since before the word old had meaning — were bent toward her. Even now.

M: "If you stay another season it won't matter what you want. It will keep you." 

F: "Maybe I'd be kept willingly." 

M: "Not after the first century."

F: She looked at the trees. At him. The distance between those two things was everything. Come with me." A silence so old it had its own texture. 

M: "I can't leave." 

F: "Can't or won't?" 

M: "In my case they've always been the same." 

F: "They don't have to be." He looked at her, and for one moment something moved through his face that was entirely, terribly human. Then: 

M: "Walk to the edge with me ... I want to see how far I get."

★ Title: The Storm Breaker

★ Voice Age: (M) Adult (32–50) · Storm Mage

★ Voice Age (F): Adult (28–44) · Admiral

★ Language: English

★ Accent: Neutral American

Script:

[Climax — mid-battle at sea, the storm is out of control]

F: "Can you stop it?"

M: "I called it. I can't uncall it. I can only ride it."

F: "That's not the same as stopping it."

M: "No. It isn't." A wave hit the hull. Both of them grabbed the rail. 

F: "What do you need from me?" 

M: "Hold the heading north-northeast. Don't let anyone adjust it regardless of what the storm looks like. And—" 

F: "What?" 

M: "Don't let go of my hand." She looked at the hand he'd extended. Around them the sky was splitting. 

F: "Why?" 

M: "Because I'm going to go somewhere very loud and I need something quiet to come back to."

She took his hand. He closed his eyes. The storm above them screamed and then — very slowly, like something enormous being steered by something small but very certain — began to turn. 

F: "It's moving." 

M: "Don't let go." 

F: "I'm not letting go." 

M: "Good. Neither am I."

★ Title: The Mirror Realm

★ Voice Age: (M) Adult (28–44)

★ Voice Age (F): Adult (28–44)

★ Language: English

★ Accent: Neutral American

Script:

[Midpoint — trapped together in a realm where lies are physically impossible]

F: "You should know — in this realm, you cannot say anything that isn't true."

M: "I'm aware."

F: "So everything you've said since we crossed the threshold—"

M: "Has been true. Yes." A careful pause. 

F: "Including the part where you said you weren't angry with me about Velanthor." 

M: "Including that part." 

F: "And the part where you said—" 

M: "Let's not inventory it." 

F: "You said you trusted me more than anyone alive." 

M: "I'm aware of what I said." 

F: "You sounded surprised when you said it." 

M: "I was." Silence. The Mirror Realm reflected everything back without edit. 

F: "I'm not going to pretend I didn't hear any of it." 

M: "I'm not asking you to." He turned to look at her, and in this place where nothing false could live, his expression was entirely unguarded. "I'm asking you to wait until we're out before we talk about what it means." 

F: "Why?" 

M: "Because out there I can choose what I say. In here I can only tell the truth, and the truth—" He stopped. 

F: "The truth what?" 

M: "Is more than I'm ready to give you in a realm with no door to leave by."

★ Title: The Hollow King

★ Voice Age: (M) Adult (35–52) · King

★ Voice Age (F): Adult (28–44) · Assassin

★ Language: English

★ Accent: British RP

Script:

[She was sent to kill him; she didn't — now it's the night before the trial that will decide everything]

M: "You should leave. While there's still time."

F: "I'm not leaving."

M: "If you're in this city when the verdict comes—" 

F: "I know what happens." 

M: "Then you understand why I'm asking you to go." 

F: "I understand. I'm still not going." Silence. The candle between them was burning low. 

M: "Why did you spare me? At the beginning. I've never asked you directly." 

F: "Because you were reading to your daughter."

M: He looked up. 

F: "I had a clear shot. You didn't know I was there. And you were sitting on the floor of the nursery, reading to a child who was already asleep, because—" She stopped. 

M: "Because I didn't want to stop." 

F: "Yes." Another silence. "A man who does that is not the man they told me you were." He stood and went to the window. "I've done things that deserve what's coming," he said. "I know." 

F: "Then why—" 

M: "Because some things deserve a fair account before they're judged. And no one has given you one." She picked up her cloak. Not to leave — to stay warmer through the night. "I'll be here," she said. "At the trial." He didn't argue again.

★ Title: Ink & Exile

★ Voice Age: (M) Adult (28–44) · Ink Mage

★ Voice Age (F): Young Adult (18–30) · Exile

★ Language: English

★ Accent: Neutral American

Script:

[Midpoint — he reads the marks on her skin and understands what she is]

M: "Roll up your sleeve. The left one." 

F: "Why?" 

M: "Because I think I know what those marks are and I need to be wrong." She rolled up her sleeve. He looked at the marks for a long time without touching them. 

M: "You're Unwritten." 

F: "That's what they called it when they threw me out, yes."

M: "Do you know what Unwritten actually means?" 

F: "That my marks don't exist in the registry. That I'm a mistake. That—" 

M: "It means you're writing a new language." She stared at him. 

M: "These marks aren't corrupted. They're original. I've spent fifteen years studying every ink system ever documented and I have never—" He stopped. He looked at her differently now. "You have no idea what you are."

F: "They told me I was nothing." 

M: "They were afraid of what they couldn't read." He finally — carefully — touched the edge of one mark. It glowed faintly under his fingertip. He exhaled. 

F: "What does it say?" 

M: "I don't know yet. But I'm going to learn." He looked up. "If you'll let me." She had spent three years being told she was a mistake. This man was looking at her like she was a discovery. "Okay," she said. The word felt enormous. "But slowly."

★ Title: The Dead God's Name

★ Voice Age: (M) Adult (35–55) · Scholar

★ Voice Age (F): Adult (30–48) · Grave Keeper

★ Language: English

★ Accent: British RP

Script:

[Opening — he's come to her for access to something buried; she's been waiting for him]

F: "You're the scholar."

M: "How did you—"

F: "You're the seventh. The others gave up at the mountain pass. You didn't." She stepped aside from the gate. "Come in. It's cold and you've been travelling a long time." 

M: "You knew I was coming?" 

F: "The god told me. Which is unusual, since the god is dead." 

M: He stopped. "Which god?" 

F: "The one you're looking for. The one no one has said aloud in four hundred years." 

M: "That's not possible." 

F: "No. It's inconvenient, which is different."

She handed him tea without asking. He took it without thinking. 

F: "The god says you're the only person in four centuries to actually care about the truth rather than the power." 

M: "And that matters to a dead god?" 

F: "Apparently it's the one thing a dead god still has opinions about." She sat. "The name you're looking for is in the burial chamber below this house. The god says I may take you there." 

M: "Just like that?" 

F: "Just like that." She met his eyes. "Although the god also says you won't like what the name requires of you when you find it." 

M: A silence. "Did the god say whether I do it anyway?" 

F: "Yes," she said. "That's why you're the seventh and not the first."