(FICTION) (Thanks to Judy Hendrickson, awesome newsletter subscriber, for the idea for the story. This is Part 3 of the story. Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here, Part 3 is here .)

On the way back to Lavender’s cabin, Grant the horse explained to her that Trigger (not Mr. Trigger) normally wore eyeglasses, and thus, he couldn’t see where he was going. Since the man was carrying the horse (much to Grant’s delight), Lavender devised a way for Grant to guide Trigger, using his back leg to nudge the man when he wandered too far to the left, and his front leg to nudge him when he strayed to the right of the path. In this way, they made good time. Trigger himself didn’t speak—he was likely too winded from carrying a horse across his shoulders.

By the time they arrived at the cabin, night was beginning to fall. Lavender left horse and man outside and went in to tidy up a bit while Trigger caught his breath. She made coffee and brought a cup out for the man and a bucket of water for the horse.

“Are you badly injured,” she asked Trigger.

“No, not really. I have a bit of a bad back—”

At that, Grant rolled his eyes.

“—but the only thing that’s actually wrong with me is that I can’t see. I seem to have broken my spectacles in the fall.” He pulled a pair of bent and cracked eyeglasses from his pocket. They were, indeed, broken badly. “I don’t suppose you can fix them, young lady?”

“No, I don’t think so,” she replied. “But I might have a potion that can fix your eyesight, so you won’t need them.”

“Jolly good!” Trigger cried. “Then I shall be able to go back to my work!”

“And what is that?” Lavender asked.

“Why, I’m a sharpshooter.”

Lavender stared, her heart suddenly in the pit of her stomach. A sharpshooter. “That means … you kill people?”

“Well of course!”

Rather than say what she was thinking—that killing people, or animals, or insects was against everything she believed in–she clamped her mouth shut and went back into the cabin to think about what she was going to do.

(To be continued.)

(Judy’s prompt was “Lavender Quill, a solitary witch that is into crystals, candles, herbs and crochet (hidden spells she weaves for friends and family), is alone at the cabin after her parents both died three years ago.  She finds a man out on a trail, hurt and unconscious.  Grant is a marine sharpshooter who saw too much and wants to find solace in the quiet mountain, but someone is after him and he managed to get away after a desperate chase.  She uses her skills to patch up his wounds and he slowly comes around.  With her visions and other gifts, she assists him in getting to the truth and forms a bond with him, as he gets under her skin and awakens her soul.  Together, they get the bad guys and help each other heal on the mountain.”

This would make an awesome novel! Me being me, and keeping it a short story, I plan to turn the idea on its head a bit. Hope you don’t mind, Judy! *waves to Judy*)

---

Here are the JusJoJan Rules:

1. Just Jot It January starts January 1st, but it’s never too late to join in! Here, we run on the honour system; the “jot it” part of JusJoJan means that anything you jot down, anywhere (it doesn’t have to be a post, it can even be a grocery list), counts as a “jot.” If it makes it to your blog that day, great! If it waits a week to get from a sticky note to your screen, no problem!

2. I’ll post prompts at 2am my time (GMT -5). The prompt will be the word in quotation marks in the title of my 2am post. You don’t have to follow the prompt every day, but that will be where you leave your link for others to see. You’ll get a prompt for every day except Wednesday, when the prompt is simply my One-Liner Wednesday and on Saturday, when your prompt will be the Friday Reminder and Prompt for #SoCS, which will appear at about 9:30am Friday. Each prompt post will include the rules.

3. Please ping back or link to the daily prompt. To ping back, just copy the URL from the daily prompt post, and paste it anywhere in your post. Check to make sure your link shows up where you want it to, and go back occasionally to see other bloggers’ entries – the more you visit others, the more they’ll visit you! Note: A) The newest pingbacks will be at the top of the comments section. B) Ping backs only work if you’re blogging on WordPress. Everyone else must paste a link manually.

4. Tag your post JusJoJan and/or #JusJoJan.

5. Write anything! Any length will do! It can even be a photo or a drawing – you’re going to title it, right? There’s your jot!

6. If your post is NSFW, do not ping back. Please leave your link in the comments with a warning.

7. If you’d like to, use the JusJoJan badge so that others can find your post more easily.

8. Have fun!