Short story? It's more or less at the moment of confrontation between the protagonists and some other person. Since part of the grading is on themes and so on I've had to pay pretty close attention to what message I'm getting across. Trying to work with rebirth, change, and some individualism. I saw a comment on here the other day that made me want to reverse roles a bit as well in that my protagonists (two people) are proactive and the antagonist has been passive and forced into the position so that perhaps if the POV was switched he could even seem like a protagonist instead.

The protagonists have very different motivations as well. One (not POV) has more traditional motivations ('because it's right') but this also makes him tentative and unsure because doing what's right doesn't mean he thinks he'll succeed. The POV knows those values probably are why they should be doing this, but also knows that's not the real reason why they're doing it (notoriety, ego).

The yet-unnamed antagonist just wants to stay where they are, but that goes against the society who are not just a simple nomadic people, but ones who burn down everything they leave behind. This is because the buildings are organically grown with pillars of bone and walls of flesh etc. but this takes a lot from the ground, so in the same way fir forests require forest fires, so too do their cities to re-fertilize the land. They have some reason why they have some reason why they've protected their home from the fire which I have yet to decide, but it has (or so the people believe) dire consequences if they were allow him to remain, so he has become a villain.

I haven't worked out how the end is going to work in terms of working with my themes (how the characters will/wont change), or even quite how to get across what I want of the world and characters in 1,500 words, but it's been fun so far so I'll see.

Sorry for the overlong explanation, I actually just had a brainstorm most of the latter half of that, so thanks a ton for asking!