#tootfic — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #tootfic, aggregated by home.social.
-
@Unixbigot hits the robot with an EM Pulse and strips it of anything useful. 🤣
-
"It's a robot, get it!"
"My pronouns are she/her, thank you"
"I don't care what you call yourself pervert!"
"Oh, have you been using the internet. Please let me explain"
"Explain what, vikker?"
"The three laws of privacy. A robot may not record video of individuals not wearing a privacy preferences beacon. A robot must delete recordings within one hour of a privacy revocation. A robot may not share video without a digital signature from all pictured parties."
"Whatever, WRECK IT, boys!"
"You may notice I said nothing about not harming humans..."
"Ooof, you hit me when I wasn't looking!"
"You want to watch the next one coming?"
-
Weena: A #TimeTravelingGhost Side Story (Part 1)
FanFic #HGWells #TheTimeMachine
#Wss366 Acrid #TimeTravelAuthors Whatever**[Note: this is a side story, with the original Hurburth not our protag.]
Weena woke with a start. The uneasy dreams that had haunted her since setting out for the Jade Pavilion had disturbed her slumber. In them, she heard the Mourloks snuffling, and when she looked for Hurburth, he was nowhere to be found.
Waking wasn’t much better. She knew the Things From Below were just out of sight in the forest trees that crowded round. They’d been hunting them ever since nightfall. But Hurburth was here. He’d driven them off every time the Deep Spawn attacked.
She wrapped herself around him. He made her feel safe, and she could tell he cared when he touched her. None of her kin had ever been like that. Once they met their needs, they lost interest. But not Hurburth. He was different.
The blaze he’d made was dwindling, and the night chill was setting in. She wasn’t used to fire. The kin didn’t have it. Instead, they huddled together to sleep, a cozy “society” waiting for the Golden God to arrive again. But there were no kin around to keep her warm.
She hugged her mate tightly. He was enough.
Her attention returned to the fire when an ember popped. Mourloks feared fire. It was too bad her kin didn’t use it. But who would tend the blaze all night the way Hurburth did? He was strange. Once he locked onto something, he kept with it. He would stay interested in the same thing for hours, maybe even longer.
She sniffed, detecting an #acrid scent. It was the odor of death: the smell of the Deep Spawn.
She sat up. The fire was almost out, and beyond it she saw glittering eyes.
Death had come!
[Continued Tomorrow]
-
#PennedPossibilities 1120: Saturday Word Edition: Share something from your WIP pertaining to the word “entertainment.”
Bolt is acting as the photographer for her friend Shugh as he interviews a male diva actor for a magazine similar to The New Yorker. Hers is a woman-centric society. The scene in this #excerpt hints that Bolt can be sexist as the actor being interviewed needles her.
Upstairs, Shugh hit it off with Morning Glory. Both men sought careers not often occupied by men. The actor-playwright became more animated as the magazine interview progressed, allowing me with my camera to fade into the background of the plush upper lounge of the theatre. By the time the long-legged delicate man started pacing as he told his life story, I had gleaned that his tale was glorified and larger-than life, like the man, his persona, his masks. His elegant pacing allowed me to move with my Flicka4, steadying myself using the back of a gilt divan, a bamboo formed-steel torchere lamp (one of pair), and then a black marble tea table to as I composed pictures of a celebrity, but a man, lost in thoughts about inflating the image he presented the world, finally dropping his actor's mask. I caught the sparkle in his eye. I caught flamboyant hands thrown wide, later framing his face as he sang a note. I caught an absentminded sneer aimed at an unnamed actress who'd worked to derail his entertainment career.
"I'm changing the way women perceive men," he declared. He sat abruptly on a hanger chair, one of those short shallow chairs built with a bench seat of a single plank of wood, finely finished glowing golden oak but uncushioned; it barely supported his thighs in deference to his hips, forcing the man to crouch. Also called a man's chair because a man looked really adorable hanging there when unclothed in a certain way. (It totally did Morning Glory.) That it made men shorter than any women in a room seemed like a plus, but then I was female. These days, especially in the city, I'd seen men leave a room in disgust if they saw one. Not Morning Glory! Probably furnished it here himself, stage managing, to spike the drama. Legs wide, crouching—his hands above his knees, framing his crotch—eyes narrowed and on me, his body language firmed up my perception of him.
Performatively male, sure of his good looks.
Aggressive.
Dominant.
He addressed Shugh still meeting my gaze. "Steamed Milk and Sugar—can I call you Milk? How does it feel working as her protégé? Do we live in progressive times?"
Hint, hint! I am a #gender #fiction #writer. If you think a hanger chair in this Basic Instincts scene is peculiar, realize that it is a male-oriented gender domination device analogous to what stiletto heels achieve physically with women in our society. Like many women today, Morning Glory is "owning" it (trying anyway) and changing the device's meaning.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
#PennedPossibilities 1120: Saturday Word Edition: Share something from your WIP pertaining to the word “entertainment.”
Bolt is acting as the photographer for her friend Shugh as he interviews a male diva actor for a magazine similar to The New Yorker. Hers is a woman-centric society. The scene in this #excerpt hints that Bolt can be sexist as the actor being interviewed needles her.
Upstairs, Shugh hit it off with Morning Glory. Both men sought careers not often occupied by men. The actor-playwright became more animated as the magazine interview progressed, allowing me with my camera to fade into the background of the plush upper lounge of the theatre. By the time the long-legged delicate man started pacing as he told his life story, I had gleaned that his tale was glorified and larger-than life, like the man, his persona, his masks. His elegant pacing allowed me to move with my Flicka4, steadying myself using the back of a gilt divan, a bamboo formed-steel torchere lamp (one of pair), and then a black marble tea table to as I composed pictures of a celebrity, but a man, lost in thoughts about inflating the image he presented the world, finally dropping his actor's mask. I caught the sparkle in his eye. I caught flamboyant hands thrown wide, later framing his face as he sang a note. I caught an absentminded sneer aimed at an unnamed actress who'd worked to derail his entertainment career.
"I'm changing the way women perceive men," he declared. He sat abruptly on a hanger chair, one of those short shallow chairs built with a bench seat of a single plank of wood, finely finished glowing golden oak but uncushioned; it barely supported his thighs in deference to his hips, forcing the man to crouch. Also called a man's chair because a man looked really adorable hanging there when unclothed in a certain way. (It totally did Morning Glory.) That it made men shorter than any women in a room seemed like a plus, but then I was female. These days, especially in the city, I'd seen men leave a room in disgust if they saw one. Not Morning Glory! Probably furnished it here himself, stage managing, to spike the drama. Legs wide, crouching—his hands above his knees, framing his crotch—eyes narrowed and on me, his body language firmed up my perception of him.
Performatively male, sure of his good looks.
Aggressive.
Dominant.
He addressed Shugh still meeting my gaze. "Steamed Milk and Sugar—can I call you Milk? How does it feel working as her protégé? Do we live in progressive times?"
Hint, hint! I am a #gender #fiction #writer. If you think a hanger chair in this Basic Instincts scene is peculiar, realize that it is a male-oriented gender domination device analogous to what stiletto heels achieve physically with women in our society. Like many women today, Morning Glory is "owning" it (trying anyway) and changing the device's meaning.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
#PennedPossibilities 1120: Saturday Word Edition: Share something from your WIP pertaining to the word “entertainment.”
Bolt is acting as the photographer for her friend Shugh as he interviews a male diva actor for a magazine similar to The New Yorker. Hers is a woman-centric society. The scene in this #excerpt hints that Bolt can be sexist as the actor being interviewed needles her.
Upstairs, Shugh hit it off with Morning Glory. Both men sought careers not often occupied by men. The actor-playwright became more animated as the magazine interview progressed, allowing me with my camera to fade into the background of the plush upper lounge of the theatre. By the time the long-legged delicate man started pacing as he told his life story, I had gleaned that his tale was glorified and larger-than life, like the man, his persona, his masks. His elegant pacing allowed me to move with my Flicka4, steadying myself using the back of a gilt divan, a bamboo formed-steel torchere lamp (one of pair), and then a black marble tea table to as I composed pictures of a celebrity, but a man, lost in thoughts about inflating the image he presented the world, finally dropping his actor's mask. I caught the sparkle in his eye. I caught flamboyant hands thrown wide, later framing his face as he sang a note. I caught an absentminded sneer aimed at an unnamed actress who'd worked to derail his entertainment career.
"I'm changing the way women perceive men," he declared. He sat abruptly on a hanger chair, one of those short shallow chairs built with a bench seat of a single plank of wood, finely finished glowing golden oak but uncushioned; it barely supported his thighs in deference to his hips, forcing the man to crouch. Also called a man's chair because a man looked really adorable hanging there when unclothed in a certain way. (It totally did Morning Glory.) That it made men shorter than any women in a room seemed like a plus, but then I was female. These days, especially in the city, I'd seen men leave a room in disgust if they saw one. Not Morning Glory! Probably furnished it here himself, stage managing, to spike the drama. Legs wide, crouching—his hands above his knees, framing his crotch—eyes narrowed and on me, his body language firmed up my perception of him.
Performatively male, sure of his good looks.
Aggressive.
Dominant.
He addressed Shugh still meeting my gaze. "Steamed Milk and Sugar—can I call you Milk? How does it feel working as her protégé? Do we live in progressive times?"
Hint, hint! I am a #gender #fiction #writer. If you think a hanger chair in this Basic Instincts scene is peculiar, realize that it is a male-oriented gender domination device analogous to what stiletto heels achieve physically with women in our society. Like many women today, Morning Glory is "owning" it (trying anyway) and changing the device's meaning.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
#PennedPossibilities 1120: Saturday Word Edition: Share something from your WIP pertaining to the word “entertainment.”
Bolt is acting as the photographer for her friend Shugh as he interviews a male diva actor for a magazine similar to The New Yorker. Hers is a woman-centric society. The scene in this #excerpt hints that Bolt can be sexist as the actor being interviewed needles her.
Upstairs, Shugh hit it off with Morning Glory. Both men sought careers not often occupied by men. The actor-playwright became more animated as the magazine interview progressed, allowing me with my camera to fade into the background of the plush upper lounge of the theatre. By the time the long-legged delicate man started pacing as he told his life story, I had gleaned that his tale was glorified and larger-than life, like the man, his persona, his masks. His elegant pacing allowed me to move with my Flicka4, steadying myself using the back of a gilt divan, a bamboo formed-steel torchere lamp (one of pair), and then a black marble tea table to as I composed pictures of a celebrity, but a man, lost in thoughts about inflating the image he presented the world, finally dropping his actor's mask. I caught the sparkle in his eye. I caught flamboyant hands thrown wide, later framing his face as he sang a note. I caught an absentminded sneer aimed at an unnamed actress who'd worked to derail his entertainment career.
"I'm changing the way women perceive men," he declared. He sat abruptly on a hanger chair, one of those short shallow chairs built with a bench seat of a single plank of wood, finely finished glowing golden oak but uncushioned; it barely supported his thighs in deference to his hips, forcing the man to crouch. Also called a man's chair because a man looked really adorable hanging there when unclothed in a certain way. (It totally did Morning Glory.) That it made men shorter than any women in a room seemed like a plus, but then I was female. These days, especially in the city, I'd seen men leave a room in disgust if they saw one. Not Morning Glory! Probably furnished it here himself, stage managing, to spike the drama. Legs wide, crouching—his hands above his knees, framing his crotch—eyes narrowed and on me, his body language firmed up my perception of him.
Performatively male, sure of his good looks.
Aggressive.
Dominant.
He addressed Shugh still meeting my gaze. "Steamed Milk and Sugar—can I call you Milk? How does it feel working as her protégé? Do we live in progressive times?"
Hint, hint! I am a #gender #fiction #writer. If you think a hanger chair in this Basic Instincts scene is peculiar, realize that it is a male-oriented gender domination device analogous to what stiletto heels achieve physically with women in our society. Like many women today, Morning Glory is "owning" it (trying anyway) and changing the device's meaning.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
#PennedPossibilities 1120: Saturday Word Edition: Share something from your WIP pertaining to the word “entertainment.”
Bolt is acting as the photographer for her friend Shugh as he interviews a male diva actor for a magazine similar to The New Yorker. Hers is a woman-centric society. The scene in this #excerpt hints that Bolt can be sexist as the actor being interviewed needles her.
Upstairs, Shugh hit it off with Morning Glory. Both men sought careers not often occupied by men. The actor-playwright became more animated as the magazine interview progressed, allowing me with my camera to fade into the background of the plush upper lounge of the theatre. By the time the long-legged delicate man started pacing as he told his life story, I had gleaned that his tale was glorified and larger-than life, like the man, his persona, his masks. His elegant pacing allowed me to move with my Flicka4, steadying myself using the back of a gilt divan, a bamboo formed-steel torchere lamp (one of pair), and then a black marble tea table to as I composed pictures of a celebrity, but a man, lost in thoughts about inflating the image he presented the world, finally dropping his actor's mask. I caught the sparkle in his eye. I caught flamboyant hands thrown wide, later framing his face as he sang a note. I caught an absentminded sneer aimed at an unnamed actress who'd worked to derail his entertainment career.
"I'm changing the way women perceive men," he declared. He sat abruptly on a hanger chair, one of those short shallow chairs built with a bench seat of a single plank of wood, finely finished glowing golden oak but uncushioned; it barely supported his thighs in deference to his hips, forcing the man to crouch. Also called a man's chair because a man looked really adorable hanging there when unclothed in a certain way. (It totally did Morning Glory.) That it made men shorter than any women in a room seemed like a plus, but then I was female. These days, especially in the city, I'd seen men leave a room in disgust if they saw one. Not Morning Glory! Probably furnished it here himself, stage managing, to spike the drama. Legs wide, crouching—his hands above his knees, framing his crotch—eyes narrowed and on me, his body language firmed up my perception of him.
Performatively male, sure of his good looks.
Aggressive.
Dominant.
He addressed Shugh still meeting my gaze. "Steamed Milk and Sugar—can I call you Milk? How does it feel working as her protégé? Do we live in progressive times?"
Hint, hint! I am a #gender #fiction #writer. If you think a hanger chair in this Basic Instincts scene is peculiar, realize that it is a male-oriented gender domination device analogous to what stiletto heels achieve physically with women in our society. Like many women today, Morning Glory is "owning" it (trying anyway) and changing the device's meaning.
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
62 Years ago, Mother of All, Horsebreeder Clan lands
Joy had fifteen summers to her name. The following year she would be expected to commit to a path of learning. One that would lead to the sort of life she wished to live. Most of her friends would continue in the Horsebreeder Clan.
Far above, she could feel Dives Swiftly. She had spotted a large waterbird. It would make a fine dinner for the family. And a good feed for Dives Swiftly as well. Joy sent approval, and the hunting bird, true to her name, dove on the unsuspecting bird, breaking its neck with the impact, and then steered the limp body to the ground near Joyful Finder.
"Good strike" Joy said, as Dives looked at her. She took out her knife, and neatly cut the belly of the bird open, and Dives started to feed.
"I am thinking of leaving."
Dives paused, and looked at her, whistling a query.
"Next year a Scout will visit. I think I will go with them."
Dives whistled again.
"There probably will be little chance to hunt."
Another whistle.
"I know better than to try and talk you out of it."
Dives went back to eating.
"Now I have to tell Dad and Father."After Dives finished her meal, Joy finished bleeding the bird, and then carried it home, sending an image of a roast ahead.
She felt Father's excitement at the idea.At dinner, late that evening, her parents paused in their eating, and looked at her. Dad spoke first "Joy, is there something on your mind? You feel, well, a bit off."
Joy sighed.
"It isn't that Copper Digger kid again is it?"
"No, Dad, it isn't that. I think she's learned her lesson."
"Then what?"
"I know what I need to do."
"Great!" her Dad exclaimed.
"What is it, Joy?" asked her Father.Joy poked her plate.
"Oh no! She wants to join the Sailmakers! Shipping will be doomed!" her Father cried out. Joy's lack of skill with a needle and thread was infamous, even now.
"No", Joy smiled sadly, "But you might wish it was."
Her Father grew serious "What then?"
Dad spoke up "You know that we will always support you. No matter what."
"I intend to go with the Scout that will visit next year."There was a stunned silence.
Her Dad reacted first "You mean to go to the stars?"
"Yes. I want to be what Lorn was. To learn the ways of the Stars, so we can be enough to end the Raiders for good."
"You will have to tell the Council."
Joy nodded "But they cannot deny me."
"No, they cannot. The treaty says as much."
"We will miss you, Joy" her Father said softly.
"And I'll miss everyone here. Except Dives."
Both her parents looked surprised at this, and she shrugged. "Dives inists that she'll come along."
Shaking his head, her Father gave a wry smile "I swear, she thinks you are chick that still needs to fledge."
"Maybe she's right, if this is what Joy means to do" Dad replied.The following day, her parents started to make arrangements to take a message to the Council. And showed Joy how to read Lorn's diaries.
#SF #SciFi #SFF #SpaceOpera #microfic #tootfic #MicroFiction #ShamanSpace #IAmWriting
-
RE: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/112497915608418589
#PennedPossibilities 1119: MC POV: How did you learn your most valuable skill? Who taught you, and why is it so important?
[I will keep Bolt SFW, promise! Tl;dr tootfic follows, nevertheless.—RS]
A surprising number of my skills are self-taught. I must be a genius, even if'n I've done a lot of stupid things. My most valuable skill is flying, naturally being as I'm a day angel, but flight kindergarten failed me epically. Everybody fledged but me by 3. Despite the incentive of being picked on by all the girls in school (boys knew better), it took being shoved off a cliff at 10 before I flew, and then but for Mom and Uncle teaching me to land, I taught myself everything else. Turned out live'n in the world 3D is—My Stars!— flapping awesome, not at all frightening as I'd wound up myself into thinking. Flew into my share of lamp posts, but still, flap'n it! Spending more time a-wing than walking, I became an athlete, captaining the flight and field team, learning stunt flying, flight dance, and tandem. None of it more valuable than walking and running for the flightless in the long run, except, I guess, tandem.
They teach you never to fly close to anybody. I remember distancing from flight kindergarten. It was reiterated by every PE teacher there after. Knock it into your head, they do. A "primary feather length at wing tip; your height above." Feather fields will tangle if'n you're too close. You'll lose lift, they say, maybe crash, but that never made sense to me having learnt to fly late.
I experimented with all sort of crazy, consider'n that I skated out of most of the knocking of "flight stuff into my head" for the seven years everybody else was flying and I wasn't. I dove hard into precision flying, which meant warping my flight feathers hard, sometimes twisting the up and down fields to push away from or get sucked toward things like cliff walls or between tree trunks in a dense forest. Called decompensating. Dangerous? For you, unadventurous noob, maybe! I finally could get a finger length close to things—close enough to suck your hair and feathers against bark, rockface, and occasional stupid people who do their deer in the lantern light imitation seeing you, they think, flying into them—so why not boys? (Girls thought me a masculine muscle nerd! Their loss.)
While I found victims volunteers to fly near me in middle school, it was that first semester in high school that I perfected my awareness of my wings in space, and theirs, close up, and got boys to understand what I'd learnt. It helped that in high school, finally, the boys were less shy (especially the seniors) and dangling flying with us touching really helped incentivize them. Me, too, actually. I got better. They got better, caught the tandem fever, though we got chewed out by Coach when she saw, before she stopped noticing since we didn't kill ourselves. Our team morale soared. We started winning. I became captain of an otherwise male team. I got my string of ponies (stallions only).
Good times.
Valuable? Actually, valuable?
Well, a dozen years and lots of stupid decisions later, I have a friend, Blue, who is a praetorian training to protect Rainy Days. We encountered her in the sky, and I ended up flying stunts around the guy with her mirroring and challenging my agility, pushing me harder, apparently to test my limits, and to piss me off. I'm too competitive for my own good! She correctly figured out it was me who taught Blue flying tandem; it was the definitive skill that got him a job that was very unlikely for a guy to get.
Rainy Days praised me. She's far better at tandem techniques than me. Still. The Director of Home and the Nine Outer worlds praised me. My Stars!!!
Valuable? Flap yes!
Yet. Even considering when she left with Blue, the stress of me stupidly challenging the most important woman ever shot me out of the sky. I nearly crashed trying to land, then puked so hard, I thought some of my liver came up.
I still would challenge her again, given the chance. [Big words, Bolt! Read the quoted story for the second round. —RS]
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
RE: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/112497915608418589
#PennedPossibilities 1119: MC POV: How did you learn your most valuable skill? Who taught you, and why is it so important?
[I will keep Bolt SFW, promise! Tl;dr tootfic follows, nevertheless.—RS]
A surprising number of my skills are self-taught. I must be a genius, even if'n I've done a lot of stupid things. My most valuable skill is flying, naturally being as I'm a day angel, but flight kindergarten failed me epically. Everybody fledged but me by 3. Despite the incentive of being picked on by all the girls in school (boys knew better), it took being shoved off a cliff at 10 before I flew, and then but for Mom and Uncle teaching me to land, I taught myself everything else. Turned out live'n in the world 3D is—My Stars!— flapping awesome, not at all frightening as I'd wound up myself into thinking. Flew into my share of lamp posts, but still, flap'n it! Spending more time a-wing than walking, I became an athlete, captaining the flight and field team, learning stunt flying, flight dance, and tandem. None of it more valuable than walking and running for the flightless in the long run, except, I guess, tandem.
They teach you never to fly close to anybody. I remember distancing from flight kindergarten. It was reiterated by every PE teacher there after. Knock it into your head, they do. A "primary feather length at wing tip; your height above." Feather fields will tangle if'n you're too close. You'll lose lift, they say, maybe crash, but that never made sense to me having learnt to fly late.
I experimented with all sort of crazy, consider'n that I skated out of most of the knocking of "flight stuff into my head" for the seven years everybody else was flying and I wasn't. I dove hard into precision flying, which meant warping my flight feathers hard, sometimes twisting the up and down fields to push away from or get sucked toward things like cliff walls or between tree trunks in a dense forest. Called decompensating. Dangerous? For you, unadventurous noob, maybe! I finally could get a finger length close to things—close enough to suck your hair and feathers against bark, rockface, and occasional stupid people who do their deer in the lantern light imitation seeing you, they think, flying into them—so why not boys? (Girls thought me a masculine muscle nerd! Their loss.)
While I found victims volunteers to fly near me in middle school, it was that first semester in high school that I perfected my awareness of my wings in space, and theirs, close up, and got boys to understand what I'd learnt. It helped that in high school, finally, the boys were less shy (especially the seniors) and dangling flying with us touching really helped incentivize them. Me, too, actually. I got better. They got better, caught the tandem fever, though we got chewed out by Coach when she saw, before she stopped noticing since we didn't kill ourselves. Our team morale soared. We started winning. I became captain of an otherwise male team. I got my string of ponies (stallions only).
Good times.
Valuable? Actually, valuable?
Well, a dozen years and lots of stupid decisions later, I have a friend, Blue, who is a praetorian training to protect Rainy Days. We encountered her in the sky, and I ended up flying stunts around the guy with her mirroring and challenging my agility, pushing me harder, apparently to test my limits, and to piss me off. I'm too competitive for my own good! She correctly figured out it was me who taught Blue flying tandem; it was the definitive skill that got him a job that was very unlikely for a guy to get.
Rainy Days praised me. She's far better at tandem techniques than me. Still. The Director of Home and the Nine Outer worlds praised me. My Stars!!!
Valuable? Flap yes!
Yet. Even considering when she left with Blue, the stress of me stupidly challenging the most important woman ever shot me out of the sky. I nearly crashed trying to land, then puked so hard, I thought some of my liver came up.
I still would challenge her again, given the chance. [Big words, Bolt! Read the quoted story for the second round. —RS]
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
RE: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/112497915608418589
#PennedPossibilities 1119: MC POV: How did you learn your most valuable skill? Who taught you, and why is it so important?
[I will keep Bolt SFW, promise! Tl;dr tootfic follows, nevertheless.—RS]
A surprising number of my skills are self-taught. I must be a genius, even if'n I've done a lot of stupid things. My most valuable skill is flying, naturally being as I'm a day angel, but flight kindergarten failed me epically. Everybody fledged but me by 3. Despite the incentive of being picked on by all the girls in school (boys knew better), it took being shoved off a cliff at 10 before I flew, and then but for Mom and Uncle teaching me to land, I taught myself everything else. Turned out live'n in the world 3D is—My Stars!— flapping awesome, not at all frightening as I'd wound up myself into thinking. Flew into my share of lamp posts, but still, flap'n it! Spending more time a-wing than walking, I became an athlete, captaining the flight and field team, learning stunt flying, flight dance, and tandem. None of it more valuable than walking and running for the flightless in the long run, except, I guess, tandem.
They teach you never to fly close to anybody. I remember distancing from flight kindergarten. It was reiterated by every PE teacher there after. Knock it into your head, they do. A "primary feather length at wing tip; your height above." Feather fields will tangle if'n you're too close. You'll lose lift, they say, maybe crash, but that never made sense to me having learnt to fly late.
I experimented with all sort of crazy, consider'n that I skated out of most of the knocking of "flight stuff into my head" for the seven years everybody else was flying and I wasn't. I dove hard into precision flying, which meant warping my flight feathers hard, sometimes twisting the up and down fields to push away from or get sucked toward things like cliff walls or between tree trunks in a dense forest. Called decompensating. Dangerous? For you, unadventurous noob, maybe! I finally could get a finger length close to things—close enough to suck your hair and feathers against bark, rockface, and occasional stupid people who do their deer in the lantern light imitation seeing you, they think, flying into them—so why not boys? (Girls thought me a masculine muscle nerd! Their loss.)
While I found victims volunteers to fly near me in middle school, it was that first semester in high school that I perfected my awareness of my wings in space, and theirs, close up, and got boys to understand what I'd learnt. It helped that in high school, finally, the boys were less shy (especially the seniors) and dangling flying with us touching really helped incentivize them. Me, too, actually. I got better. They got better, caught the tandem fever, though we got chewed out by Coach when she saw, before she stopped noticing since we didn't kill ourselves. Our team morale soared. We started winning. I became captain of an otherwise male team. I got my string of ponies (stallions only).
Good times.
Valuable? Actually, valuable?
Well, a dozen years and lots of stupid decisions later, I have a friend, Blue, who is a praetorian training to protect Rainy Days. We encountered her in the sky, and I ended up flying stunts around the guy with her mirroring and challenging my agility, pushing me harder, apparently to test my limits, and to piss me off. I'm too competitive for my own good! She correctly figured out it was me who taught Blue flying tandem; it was the definitive skill that got him a job that was very unlikely for a guy to get.
Rainy Days praised me. She's far better at tandem techniques than me. Still. The Director of Home and the Nine Outer worlds praised me. My Stars!!!
Valuable? Flap yes!
Yet. Even considering when she left with Blue, the stress of me stupidly challenging the most important woman ever shot me out of the sky. I nearly crashed trying to land, then puked so hard, I thought some of my liver came up.
I still would challenge her again, given the chance. [Big words, Bolt! Read the quoted story for the second round. —RS]
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
RE: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/112497915608418589
#PennedPossibilities 1119: MC POV: How did you learn your most valuable skill? Who taught you, and why is it so important?
[I will keep Bolt SFW, promise! Tl;dr tootfic follows, nevertheless.—RS]
A surprising number of my skills are self-taught. I must be a genius, even if'n I've done a lot of stupid things. My most valuable skill is flying, naturally being as I'm a day angel, but flight kindergarten failed me epically. Everybody fledged but me by 3. Despite the incentive of being picked on by all the girls in school (boys knew better), it took being shoved off a cliff at 10 before I flew, and then but for Mom and Uncle teaching me to land, I taught myself everything else. Turned out live'n in the world 3D is—My Stars!— flapping awesome, not at all frightening as I'd wound up myself into thinking. Flew into my share of lamp posts, but still, flap'n it! Spending more time a-wing than walking, I became an athlete, captaining the flight and field team, learning stunt flying, flight dance, and tandem. None of it more valuable than walking and running for the flightless in the long run, except, I guess, tandem.
They teach you never to fly close to anybody. I remember distancing from flight kindergarten. It was reiterated by every PE teacher there after. Knock it into your head, they do. A "primary feather length at wing tip; your height above." Feather fields will tangle if'n you're too close. You'll lose lift, they say, maybe crash, but that never made sense to me having learnt to fly late.
I experimented with all sort of crazy, consider'n that I skated out of most of the knocking of "flight stuff into my head" for the seven years everybody else was flying and I wasn't. I dove hard into precision flying, which meant warping my flight feathers hard, sometimes twisting the up and down fields to push away from or get sucked toward things like cliff walls or between tree trunks in a dense forest. Called decompensating. Dangerous? For you, unadventurous noob, maybe! I finally could get a finger length close to things—close enough to suck your hair and feathers against bark, rockface, and occasional stupid people who do their deer in the lantern light imitation seeing you, they think, flying into them—so why not boys? (Girls thought me a masculine muscle nerd! Their loss.)
While I found victims volunteers to fly near me in middle school, it was that first semester in high school that I perfected my awareness of my wings in space, and theirs, close up, and got boys to understand what I'd learnt. It helped that in high school, finally, the boys were less shy (especially the seniors) and dangling flying with us touching really helped incentivize them. Me, too, actually. I got better. They got better, caught the tandem fever, though we got chewed out by Coach when she saw, before she stopped noticing since we didn't kill ourselves. Our team morale soared. We started winning. I became captain of an otherwise male team. I got my string of ponies (stallions only).
Good times.
Valuable? Actually, valuable?
Well, a dozen years and lots of stupid decisions later, I have a friend, Blue, who is a praetorian training to protect Rainy Days. We encountered her in the sky, and I ended up flying stunts around the guy with her mirroring and challenging my agility, pushing me harder, apparently to test my limits, and to piss me off. I'm too competitive for my own good! She correctly figured out it was me who taught Blue flying tandem; it was the definitive skill that got him a job that was very unlikely for a guy to get.
Rainy Days praised me. She's far better at tandem techniques than me. Still. The Director of Home and the Nine Outer worlds praised me. My Stars!!!
Valuable? Flap yes!
Yet. Even considering when she left with Blue, the stress of me stupidly challenging the most important woman ever shot me out of the sky. I nearly crashed trying to land, then puked so hard, I thought some of my liver came up.
I still would challenge her again, given the chance. [Big words, Bolt! Read the quoted story for the second round. —RS]
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
RE: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/112497915608418589
#PennedPossibilities 1119: MC POV: How did you learn your most valuable skill? Who taught you, and why is it so important?
[I will keep Bolt SFW, promise! Tl;dr tootfic follows, nevertheless.—RS]
A surprising number of my skills are self-taught. I must be a genius, even if'n I've done a lot of stupid things. My most valuable skill is flying, naturally being as I'm a day angel, but flight kindergarten failed me epically. Everybody fledged but me by 3. Despite the incentive of being picked on by all the girls in school (boys knew better), it took being shoved off a cliff at 10 before I flew, and then but for Mom and Uncle teaching me to land, I taught myself everything else. Turned out live'n in the world 3D is—My Stars!— flapping awesome, not at all frightening as I'd wound up myself into thinking. Flew into my share of lamp posts, but still, flap'n it! Spending more time a-wing than walking, I became an athlete, captaining the flight and field team, learning stunt flying, flight dance, and tandem. None of it more valuable than walking and running for the flightless in the long run, except, I guess, tandem.
They teach you never to fly close to anybody. I remember distancing from flight kindergarten. It was reiterated by every PE teacher there after. Knock it into your head, they do. A "primary feather length at wing tip; your height above." Feather fields will tangle if'n you're too close. You'll lose lift, they say, maybe crash, but that never made sense to me having learnt to fly late.
I experimented with all sort of crazy, consider'n that I skated out of most of the knocking of "flight stuff into my head" for the seven years everybody else was flying and I wasn't. I dove hard into precision flying, which meant warping my flight feathers hard, sometimes twisting the up and down fields to push away from or get sucked toward things like cliff walls or between tree trunks in a dense forest. Called decompensating. Dangerous? For you, unadventurous noob, maybe! I finally could get a finger length close to things—close enough to suck your hair and feathers against bark, rockface, and occasional stupid people who do their deer in the lantern light imitation seeing you, they think, flying into them—so why not boys? (Girls thought me a masculine muscle nerd! Their loss.)
While I found victims volunteers to fly near me in middle school, it was that first semester in high school that I perfected my awareness of my wings in space, and theirs, close up, and got boys to understand what I'd learnt. It helped that in high school, finally, the boys were less shy (especially the seniors) and dangling flying with us touching really helped incentivize them. Me, too, actually. I got better. They got better, caught the tandem fever, though we got chewed out by Coach when she saw, before she stopped noticing since we didn't kill ourselves. Our team morale soared. We started winning. I became captain of an otherwise male team. I got my string of ponies (stallions only).
Good times.
Valuable? Actually, valuable?
Well, a dozen years and lots of stupid decisions later, I have a friend, Blue, who is a praetorian training to protect Rainy Days. We encountered her in the sky, and I ended up flying stunts around the guy with her mirroring and challenging my agility, pushing me harder, apparently to test my limits, and to piss me off. I'm too competitive for my own good! She correctly figured out it was me who taught Blue flying tandem; it was the definitive skill that got him a job that was very unlikely for a guy to get.
Rainy Days praised me. She's far better at tandem techniques than me. Still. The Director of Home and the Nine Outer worlds praised me. My Stars!!!
Valuable? Flap yes!
Yet. Even considering when she left with Blue, the stress of me stupidly challenging the most important woman ever shot me out of the sky. I nearly crashed trying to land, then puked so hard, I thought some of my liver came up.
I still would challenge her again, given the chance. [Big words, Bolt! Read the quoted story for the second round. —RS]
[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory -
“First time on a planet?”
“Is it obvious?”
“Who told you to wear the metal foil on your head?”
“Tour guide said there was the chance of an electron storm”
“They were having a lend of you, luv.”
“Oh. They told me to ask for a respirator because the atmosphere is being shut off for repair tonight, was that a joke, too?”
“Yes, darl. It’s true about the sunscreen, though.”
-
Mother of All, Divesen Station, ten minutes after Athena's docking.
Alaine was shutting down the systems, when an STC broadcast came in. He monitored it, and then called out "Captain? You'll want to hear this!"
Engel twitched a little, and then gestured to Alaine, who rewound the message and played it back over a speaker.
"Bright Sky, Bright Sky, we have new approach data for you. Proceed to planetary coordinates attached, and make planetfall. Flight patch attached, you are cleared to enter restricted airspace."
Then came the reply "Divesen Control, please confirm planetfall."
"Bright Sky, confirmed. Rerouting ordered by Scout Commander Finder."
At that, Seeker, who had also been listening, gasped.
Engel turned "Seeker?"
"Uh, Captain, that is my grandmother. Only she retired from the Scouts over forty years ago. And she was just an ordinary Scout."
"Do you know why Bright Sky is being ordered planetside?"
"No, no idea at all."
"Sir?" Alaine cut in.
"Alaine?"
"Sir, I've heard of this before, surely you have too?"
"What do you -" he paused "Reactivation? Of course, but Scout Commander? They only -"
Alaine finished his sentence "are found at Scout bases. So they have a base here now."
Seeker took over "But that means the treaty has been rewritten. Scouts were forbidden to be on planet unless they were part of a clan. What..." and she broke off.
"Seeker?" Alaine looked worried.
"Uh, I have been summoned to the Council Chambers. We all have. Now." Seeker reached for the intercom.
"Hold!" Engel commanded.
Seeker stopped and looked at him.
"I am, apparently, the Captain."
"Sorry Captain. Permission to summon the crew?"
Engel shook his head and stepped over, taking the intercom "All hands, secure your stations, and proceed to the bridge immediately."
Seeker nodded.
A few minutes later everyone aboard was in the bridge.
"Right, we are being summoned to the Council. Best behaviour. Meantime the Captain is heading planetside," Engel announced, "Dyani, lock safe?"
"Inner and outer green, sir!" she replied.
"Very good, break seals."The crew moved out into the station. There was no-one waiting.
Seeker took the lead "Follow me.""
#SF #SciFi #SFF #SpaceOpera #microfic #tootfic #MicroFiction #ShamanSpace #IAmWriting
-
Mother of All, Divesen Station, ten minutes after Athena's docking.
Alaine was shutting down the systems, when an STC broadcast came in. He monitored it, and then called out "Captain? You'll want to hear this!"
Engel twitched a little, and then gestured to Alaine, who rewound the message and played it back over a speaker.
"Bright Sky, Bright Sky, we have new approach data for you. Proceed to planetary coordinates attached, and make planetfall. Flight patch attached, you are cleared to enter restricted airspace."
Then came the reply "Divesen Control, please confirm planetfall."
"Bright Sky, confirmed. Rerouting ordered by Scout Commander Finder."
At that, Seeker, who had also been listening, gasped.
Engel turned "Seeker?"
"Uh, Captain, that is my grandmother. Only she retired from the Scouts over forty years ago. And she was just an ordinary Scout."
"Do you know why Bright Sky is being ordered planetside?"
"No, no idea at all."
"Sir?" Alaine cut in.
"Alaine?"
"Sir, I've heard of this before, surely you have too?"
"What do you -" he paused "Reactivation? Of course, but Scout Commander? They only -"
Alaine finished his sentence "are found at Scout bases. So they have a base here now."
Seeker took over "But that means the treaty has been rewritten. Scouts were forbidden to be on planet unless they were part of a clan. What..." and she broke off.
"Seeker?" Alaine looked worried.
"Uh, I have been summoned to the Council Chambers. We all have. Now." Seeker reached for the intercom.
"Hold!" Engel commanded.
Seeker stopped and looked at him.
"I am, apparently, the Captain."
"Sorry Captain. Permission to summon the crew?"
Engel shook his head and stepped over, taking the intercom "All hands, secure your stations, and proceed to the bridge immediately."
Seeker nodded.
A few minutes later everyone aboard was in the bridge.
"Right, we are being summoned to the Council. Best behaviour. Meantime the Captain is heading planetside," Engel announced, "Dyani, lock safe?"
"Inner and outer green, sir!" she replied.
"Very good, break seals."The crew moved out into the station. There was no-one waiting.
Seeker took the lead "Follow me.""
#SF #SciFi #SFF #SpaceOpera #microfic #tootfic #MicroFiction #ShamanSpace #IAmWriting
-
Mother of All, Divesen Station, ten minutes after Athena's docking.
Alaine was shutting down the systems, when an STC broadcast came in. He monitored it, and then called out "Captain? You'll want to hear this!"
Engel twitched a little, and then gestured to Alaine, who rewound the message and played it back over a speaker.
"Bright Sky, Bright Sky, we have new approach data for you. Proceed to planetary coordinates attached, and make planetfall. Flight patch attached, you are cleared to enter restricted airspace."
Then came the reply "Divesen Control, please confirm planetfall."
"Bright Sky, confirmed. Rerouting ordered by Scout Commander Finder."
At that, Seeker, who had also been listening, gasped.
Engel turned "Seeker?"
"Uh, Captain, that is my grandmother. Only she retired from the Scouts over forty years ago. And she was just an ordinary Scout."
"Do you know why Bright Sky is being ordered planetside?"
"No, no idea at all."
"Sir?" Alaine cut in.
"Alaine?"
"Sir, I've heard of this before, surely you have too?"
"What do you -" he paused "Reactivation? Of course, but Scout Commander? They only -"
Alaine finished his sentence "are found at Scout bases. So they have a base here now."
Seeker took over "But that means the treaty has been rewritten. Scouts were forbidden to be on planet unless they were part of a clan. What..." and she broke off.
"Seeker?" Alaine looked worried.
"Uh, I have been summoned to the Council Chambers. We all have. Now." Seeker reached for the intercom.
"Hold!" Engel commanded.
Seeker stopped and looked at him.
"I am, apparently, the Captain."
"Sorry Captain. Permission to summon the crew?"
Engel shook his head and stepped over, taking the intercom "All hands, secure your stations, and proceed to the bridge immediately."
Seeker nodded.
A few minutes later everyone aboard was in the bridge.
"Right, we are being summoned to the Council. Best behaviour. Meantime the Captain is heading planetside," Engel announced, "Dyani, lock safe?"
"Inner and outer green, sir!" she replied.
"Very good, break seals."The crew moved out into the station. There was no-one waiting.
Seeker took the lead "Follow me.""
#SF #SciFi #SFF #SpaceOpera #microfic #tootfic #MicroFiction #ShamanSpace #IAmWriting
-
Mother of All, Divesen Station, ten minutes after Athena's docking.
Alaine was shutting down the systems, when an STC broadcast came in. He monitored it, and then called out "Captain? You'll want to hear this!"
Engel twitched a little, and then gestured to Alaine, who rewound the message and played it back over a speaker.
"Bright Sky, Bright Sky, we have new approach data for you. Proceed to planetary coordinates attached, and make planetfall. Flight patch attached, you are cleared to enter restricted airspace."
Then came the reply "Divesen Control, please confirm planetfall."
"Bright Sky, confirmed. Rerouting ordered by Scout Commander Finder."
At that, Seeker, who had also been listening, gasped.
Engel turned "Seeker?"
"Uh, Captain, that is my grandmother. Only she retired from the Scouts over forty years ago. And she was just an ordinary Scout."
"Do you know why Bright Sky is being ordered planetside?"
"No, no idea at all."
"Sir?" Alaine cut in.
"Alaine?"
"Sir, I've heard of this before, surely you have too?"
"What do you -" he paused "Reactivation? Of course, but Scout Commander? They only -"
Alaine finished his sentence "are found at Scout bases. So they have a base here now."
Seeker took over "But that means the treaty has been rewritten. Scouts were forbidden to be on planet unless they were part of a clan. What..." and she broke off.
"Seeker?" Alaine looked worried.
"Uh, I have been summoned to the Council Chambers. We all have. Now." Seeker reached for the intercom.
"Hold!" Engel commanded.
Seeker stopped and looked at him.
"I am, apparently, the Captain."
"Sorry Captain. Permission to summon the crew?"
Engel shook his head and stepped over, taking the intercom "All hands, secure your stations, and proceed to the bridge immediately."
Seeker nodded.
A few minutes later everyone aboard was in the bridge.
"Right, we are being summoned to the Council. Best behaviour. Meantime the Captain is heading planetside," Engel announced, "Dyani, lock safe?"
"Inner and outer green, sir!" she replied.
"Very good, break seals."The crew moved out into the station. There was no-one waiting.
Seeker took the lead "Follow me.""
#SF #SciFi #SFF #SpaceOpera #microfic #tootfic #MicroFiction #ShamanSpace #IAmWriting
-
Mother of All, Divesen Station, ten minutes after Athena's docking.
Alaine was shutting down the systems, when an STC broadcast came in. He monitored it, and then called out "Captain? You'll want to hear this!"
Engel twitched a little, and then gestured to Alaine, who rewound the message and played it back over a speaker.
"Bright Sky, Bright Sky, we have new approach data for you. Proceed to planetary coordinates attached, and make planetfall. Flight patch attached, you are cleared to enter restricted airspace."
Then came the reply "Divesen Control, please confirm planetfall."
"Bright Sky, confirmed. Rerouting ordered by Scout Commander Finder."
At that, Seeker, who had also been listening, gasped.
Engel turned "Seeker?"
"Uh, Captain, that is my grandmother. Only she retired from the Scouts over forty years ago. And she was just an ordinary Scout."
"Do you know why Bright Sky is being ordered planetside?"
"No, no idea at all."
"Sir?" Alaine cut in.
"Alaine?"
"Sir, I've heard of this before, surely you have too?"
"What do you -" he paused "Reactivation? Of course, but Scout Commander? They only -"
Alaine finished his sentence "are found at Scout bases. So they have a base here now."
Seeker took over "But that means the treaty has been rewritten. Scouts were forbidden to be on planet unless they were part of a clan. What..." and she broke off.
"Seeker?" Alaine looked worried.
"Uh, I have been summoned to the Council Chambers. We all have. Now." Seeker reached for the intercom.
"Hold!" Engel commanded.
Seeker stopped and looked at him.
"I am, apparently, the Captain."
"Sorry Captain. Permission to summon the crew?"
Engel shook his head and stepped over, taking the intercom "All hands, secure your stations, and proceed to the bridge immediately."
Seeker nodded.
A few minutes later everyone aboard was in the bridge.
"Right, we are being summoned to the Council. Best behaviour. Meantime the Captain is heading planetside," Engel announced, "Dyani, lock safe?"
"Inner and outer green, sir!" she replied.
"Very good, break seals."The crew moved out into the station. There was no-one waiting.
Seeker took the lead "Follow me.""
#SF #SciFi #SFF #SpaceOpera #microfic #tootfic #MicroFiction #ShamanSpace #IAmWriting
-
#TimeTravelingGhost EP 12: Post 130, 1,802,701 CE, Middlesex, UK
#Wss366 Tall #TimeTravelAuthors 09/5. Plant Grow
The fairy dance ended as suddenly as it had started. One flute cut off mid-verse, and the other trailed off right afterwards. No one seemed alarmed or surprised. Most stopped in their tracks, while a few continued prancing for a few moments more before joining the rest and slipped away.
Weena tugged on my arm and gestured at the building behind the trees. “Coome. Hoomee. Eeat.”
I nodded, and we started toward the woods.
The whole way, my new friend held my hand and babbled to me in a mixture of melodic syllables and fractured English. After asking a few questions, I realized I wouldn’t learn anything useful. She either didn’t know the answers, couldn’t communicate them, or I failed to make myself understood. As such, I retreated into my thoughts.
I considered what I’d learned. I knew a fair amount about this world, or at least H.G. Wells’s theories. Meeting the fairies, for that is what I still thought of them as, had been fortunate. If I had followed the path, I might have run into the Morlocks. But about myself, I remained ignorant except for what short flashbacks had shown me.
It was beyond frustrating that I remembered a “fictional” book more clearly than my own history.
The woods soon ended, and we emerged into a wide glen with an enormous ruined mansion in the center. Lichen grew thick on its walls, and time had shattered its #tall stained-glass windows. The remaining geometric panes had slumped like wax candles left in the sun. I doubted the fairies had built it. Instead, some forgotten civilization must have done so.
That thought offered a glimmer of hope. Remnants of that race could still exist. If I found them, I might learn more.
Returning to my survey, I noted #plants heavy with berries, small fruits, and pea-like pods growing throughout the glen. There was no sense of their being planted by the fairy folk. The herbage sprouted in random swatches or alone, just as the wind had scattered their seeds. Amidst this lush abundance, a wide variety of melon vines snaked along the ground. Here too was an untended bounty of yellow, green, and dappled gourds. At the forest's edge grew trees laden with red, purple, and topaz globes. It was no surprise that the protagonist of H.G. Wells’s story had mistaken this for a utopia at first.
#TootFic #NMFic #TimeTravel #HistoricalFantasy #UrbanFantasy #Mythpunk #Serial #Sapphic #Slowburn
-
#TimeTravelingGhost EP 12: Post 130, 1,802,701 CE, Middlesex, UK
#Wss366 Tall #TimeTravelAuthors 09/5. Plant Grow
The fairy dance ended as suddenly as it had started. One flute cut off mid-verse, and the other trailed off right afterwards. No one seemed alarmed or surprised. Most stopped in their tracks, while a few continued prancing for a few moments more before joining the rest and slipped away.
Weena tugged on my arm and gestured at the building behind the trees. “Coome. Hoomee. Eeat.”
I nodded, and we started toward the woods.
The whole way, my new friend held my hand and babbled to me in a mixture of melodic syllables and fractured English. After asking a few questions, I realized I wouldn’t learn anything useful. She either didn’t know the answers, couldn’t communicate them, or I failed to make myself understood. As such, I retreated into my thoughts.
I considered what I’d learned. I knew a fair amount about this world, or at least H.G. Wells’s theories. Meeting the fairies, for that is what I still thought of them as, had been fortunate. If I had followed the path, I might have run into the Morlocks. But about myself, I remained ignorant except for what short flashbacks had shown me.
It was beyond frustrating that I remembered a “fictional” book more clearly than my own history.
The woods soon ended, and we emerged into a wide glen with an enormous ruined mansion in the center. Lichen grew thick on its walls, and time had shattered its #tall stained-glass windows. The remaining geometric panes had slumped like wax candles left in the sun. I doubted the fairies had built it. Instead, some forgotten civilization must have done so.
That thought offered a glimmer of hope. Remnants of that race could still exist. If I found them, I might learn more.
Returning to my survey, I noted #plants heavy with berries, small fruits, and pea-like pods growing throughout the glen. There was no sense of their being planted by the fairy folk. The herbage sprouted in random swatches or alone, just as the wind had scattered their seeds. Amidst this lush abundance, a wide variety of melon vines snaked along the ground. Here too was an untended bounty of yellow, green, and dappled gourds. At the forest's edge grew trees laden with red, purple, and topaz globes. It was no surprise that the protagonist of H.G. Wells’s story had mistaken this for a utopia at first.
#TootFic #NMFic #TimeTravel #HistoricalFantasy #UrbanFantasy #Mythpunk #Serial #Sapphic #Slowburn
-
#TimeTravelingGhost EP 12: Post 130, 1,802,701 CE, Middlesex, UK
#Wss366 Tall #TimeTravelAuthors 09/5. Plant Grow
The fairy dance ended as suddenly as it had started. One flute cut off mid-verse, and the other trailed off right afterwards. No one seemed alarmed or surprised. Most stopped in their tracks, while a few continued prancing for a few moments more before joining the rest and slipped away.
Weena tugged on my arm and gestured at the building behind the trees. “Coome. Hoomee. Eeat.”
I nodded, and we started toward the woods.
The whole way, my new friend held my hand and babbled to me in a mixture of melodic syllables and fractured English. After asking a few questions, I realized I wouldn’t learn anything useful. She either didn’t know the answers, couldn’t communicate them, or I failed to make myself understood. As such, I retreated into my thoughts.
I considered what I’d learned. I knew a fair amount about this world, or at least H.G. Wells’s theories. Meeting the fairies, for that is what I still thought of them as, had been fortunate. If I had followed the path, I might have run into the Morlocks. But about myself, I remained ignorant except for what short flashbacks had shown me.
It was beyond frustrating that I remembered a “fictional” book more clearly than my own history.
The woods soon ended, and we emerged into a wide glen with an enormous ruined mansion in the center. Lichen grew thick on its walls, and time had shattered its #tall stained-glass windows. The remaining geometric panes had slumped like wax candles left in the sun. I doubted the fairies had built it. Instead, some forgotten civilization must have done so.
That thought offered a glimmer of hope. Remnants of that race could still exist. If I found them, I might learn more.
Returning to my survey, I noted #plants heavy with berries, small fruits, and pea-like pods growing throughout the glen. There was no sense of their being planted by the fairy folk. The herbage sprouted in random swatches or alone, just as the wind had scattered their seeds. Amidst this lush abundance, a wide variety of melon vines snaked along the ground. Here too was an untended bounty of yellow, green, and dappled gourds. At the forest's edge grew trees laden with red, purple, and topaz globes. It was no surprise that the protagonist of H.G. Wells’s story had mistaken this for a utopia at first.
#TootFic #NMFic #TimeTravel #HistoricalFantasy #UrbanFantasy #Mythpunk #Serial #Sapphic #Slowburn
-
#TimeTravelingGhost EP 12: Post 130, 1,802,701 CE, Middlesex, UK
#Wss366 Tall #TimeTravelAuthors 09/5. Plant Grow
The fairy dance ended as suddenly as it had started. One flute cut off mid-verse, and the other trailed off right afterwards. No one seemed alarmed or surprised. Most stopped in their tracks, while a few continued prancing for a few moments more before joining the rest and slipped away.
Weena tugged on my arm and gestured at the building behind the trees. “Coome. Hoomee. Eeat.”
I nodded, and we started toward the woods.
The whole way, my new friend held my hand and babbled to me in a mixture of melodic syllables and fractured English. After asking a few questions, I realized I wouldn’t learn anything useful. She either didn’t know the answers, couldn’t communicate them, or I failed to make myself understood. As such, I retreated into my thoughts.
I considered what I’d learned. I knew a fair amount about this world, or at least H.G. Wells’s theories. Meeting the fairies, for that is what I still thought of them as, had been fortunate. If I had followed the path, I might have run into the Morlocks. But about myself, I remained ignorant except for what short flashbacks had shown me.
It was beyond frustrating that I remembered a “fictional” book more clearly than my own history.
The woods soon ended, and we emerged into a wide glen with an enormous ruined mansion in the center. Lichen grew thick on its walls, and time had shattered its #tall stained-glass windows. The remaining geometric panes had slumped like wax candles left in the sun. I doubted the fairies had built it. Instead, some forgotten civilization must have done so.
That thought offered a glimmer of hope. Remnants of that race could still exist. If I found them, I might learn more.
Returning to my survey, I noted #plants heavy with berries, small fruits, and pea-like pods growing throughout the glen. There was no sense of their being planted by the fairy folk. The herbage sprouted in random swatches or alone, just as the wind had scattered their seeds. Amidst this lush abundance, a wide variety of melon vines snaked along the ground. Here too was an untended bounty of yellow, green, and dappled gourds. At the forest's edge grew trees laden with red, purple, and topaz globes. It was no surprise that the protagonist of H.G. Wells’s story had mistaken this for a utopia at first.
#TootFic #NMFic #TimeTravel #HistoricalFantasy #UrbanFantasy #Mythpunk #Serial #Sapphic #Slowburn
-
#TimeTravelingGhost EP 12: Post 130, 1,802,701 CE, Middlesex, UK
#Wss366 Tall #TimeTravelAuthors 09/5. Plant Grow
The fairy dance ended as suddenly as it had started. One flute cut off mid-verse, and the other trailed off right afterwards. No one seemed alarmed or surprised. Most stopped in their tracks, while a few continued prancing for a few moments more before joining the rest and slipped away.
Weena tugged on my arm and gestured at the building behind the trees. “Coome. Hoomee. Eeat.”
I nodded, and we started toward the woods.
The whole way, my new friend held my hand and babbled to me in a mixture of melodic syllables and fractured English. After asking a few questions, I realized I wouldn’t learn anything useful. She either didn’t know the answers, couldn’t communicate them, or I failed to make myself understood. As such, I retreated into my thoughts.
I considered what I’d learned. I knew a fair amount about this world, or at least H.G. Wells’s theories. Meeting the fairies, for that is what I still thought of them as, had been fortunate. If I had followed the path, I might have run into the Morlocks. But about myself, I remained ignorant except for what short flashbacks had shown me.
It was beyond frustrating that I remembered a “fictional” book more clearly than my own history.
The woods soon ended, and we emerged into a wide glen with an enormous ruined mansion in the center. Lichen grew thick on its walls, and time had shattered its #tall stained-glass windows. The remaining geometric panes had slumped like wax candles left in the sun. I doubted the fairies had built it. Instead, some forgotten civilization must have done so.
That thought offered a glimmer of hope. Remnants of that race could still exist. If I found them, I might learn more.
Returning to my survey, I noted #plants heavy with berries, small fruits, and pea-like pods growing throughout the glen. There was no sense of their being planted by the fairy folk. The herbage sprouted in random swatches or alone, just as the wind had scattered their seeds. Amidst this lush abundance, a wide variety of melon vines snaked along the ground. Here too was an untended bounty of yellow, green, and dappled gourds. At the forest's edge grew trees laden with red, purple, and topaz globes. It was no surprise that the protagonist of H.G. Wells’s story had mistaken this for a utopia at first.
#TootFic #NMFic #TimeTravel #HistoricalFantasy #UrbanFantasy #Mythpunk #Serial #Sapphic #Slowburn
-
It was too late when we realised what the AI grift's endgame entailed.
After everyone settled that using copyrighted material as training input without compensation was a crime, the IP cartels came for the bedtime stories and the illegal learning centres. I was a kindergarten teacher before the jihad. Still am, just more heavily armed now.. Keep your head down! You wanna end up in readers prison?
-
"Thank you, but no"
"Ksjrhgh fnrgle"
"Sir you are very drunk, you smell unpleasant, and I am not interested"
"Ghvn drmk wm"
"I do not want your drink. I have a botfriend"
"BLRGL WRGNX"
"Ah, KX16, I was just about to page you. Please see this gentleman out, force level six. Use your judgement but perhaps break some fingers on his left hand, the one he groped me with."
-
#Airisu: The Crow and the Witch
Himeji Castle (Airisu POV): Post 63
#Wss366 Treble #TimeTravelAuthors 9/4 WhateverInside the passage hung a feline odor, strong enough to wilt feathers, and paw prints littered the dusty floor. We turned left in the direction most of them led.
“It’s walking on its hind feet,” Sumika said after a few meters and pointed to where the marks of the forepaws ceased, leaving only the rear ones.
“Indeed, that’s because it’s a nekomata. Be glad this passage is wood, not stone,” I replied.
“Why?”
“Because your ‘cute’ kitty can spit fireballs. I doubt it wants to burn its mistress’s home down.”
“Oh!”
“It could be worse. We might have run into a gotokuneko. They’re about #treble the strength.”
“Treble? What kind of word is that? Just say three times.”
“It’s a perfectly good word.”
“Whatever. And what about ‘gotokuneko?’ You’re not making that stuff up, are you?” Mistress asked.
“Moi? Me? Make stuff up? I’m wounded. No, I studied this kind of thing when I was a woman.”
“You know you’re a lot more human-like than when we first met. You almost talk normally, barring words like ‘treble.’”
“Awk, chicka, cawa! Pay attention, there are lights ahead,” I cawed, irratated.
“How could Glinda-chan say such a thing? Hmph! Just when I was thinking she had more than one brain cell, she says utter rubbish. But no, she’s nothing more than a three-toed sloth.”
#TootFic #NMFic #Crows #Otherkin #Fantasy #UrbanFantasy #TimeTravel #Serial #SlowBurn #Sapphic #Folklore
-
#Airisu: The Crow and the Witch
Himeji Castle (Airisu POV): Post 63
#Wss366 Treble #TimeTravelAuthors 9/4 WhateverInside the passage hung a feline odor, strong enough to wilt feathers, and paw prints littered the dusty floor. We turned left in the direction most of them led.
“It’s walking on its hind feet,” Sumika said after a few meters and pointed to where the marks of the forepaws ceased, leaving only the rear ones.
“Indeed, that’s because it’s a nekomata. Be glad this passage is wood, not stone,” I replied.
“Why?”
“Because your ‘cute’ kitty can spit fireballs. I doubt it wants to burn its mistress’s home down.”
“Oh!”
“It could be worse. We might have run into a gotokuneko. They’re about #treble the strength.”
“Treble? What kind of word is that? Just say three times.”
“It’s a perfectly good word.”
“Whatever. And what about ‘gotokuneko?’ You’re not making that stuff up, are you?” Mistress asked.
“Moi? Me? Make stuff up? I’m wounded. No, I studied this kind of thing when I was a woman.”
“You know you’re a lot more human-like than when we first met. You almost talk normally, barring words like ‘treble.’”
“Awk, chicka, cawa! Pay attention, there are lights ahead,” I cawed, irratated.
“How could Glinda-chan say such a thing? Hmph! Just when I was thinking she had more than one brain cell, she says utter rubbish. But no, she’s nothing more than a three-toed sloth.”
#TootFic #NMFic #Crows #Otherkin #Fantasy #UrbanFantasy #TimeTravel #Serial #SlowBurn #Sapphic #Folklore
-
#Airisu: The Crow and the Witch
Himeji Castle (Airisu POV): Post 63
#Wss366 Treble #TimeTravelAuthors 9/4 WhateverInside the passage hung a feline odor, strong enough to wilt feathers, and paw prints littered the dusty floor. We turned left in the direction most of them led.
“It’s walking on its hind feet,” Sumika said after a few meters and pointed to where the marks of the forepaws ceased, leaving only the rear ones.
“Indeed, that’s because it’s a nekomata. Be glad this passage is wood, not stone,” I replied.
“Why?”
“Because your ‘cute’ kitty can spit fireballs. I doubt it wants to burn its mistress’s home down.”
“Oh!”
“It could be worse. We might have run into a gotokuneko. They’re about #treble the strength.”
“Treble? What kind of word is that? Just say three times.”
“It’s a perfectly good word.”
“Whatever. And what about ‘gotokuneko?’ You’re not making that stuff up, are you?” Mistress asked.
“Moi? Me? Make stuff up? I’m wounded. No, I studied this kind of thing when I was a woman.”
“You know you’re a lot more human-like than when we first met. You almost talk normally, barring words like ‘treble.’”
“Awk, chicka, cawa! Pay attention, there are lights ahead,” I cawed, irratated.
“How could Glinda-chan say such a thing? Hmph! Just when I was thinking she had more than one brain cell, she says utter rubbish. But no, she’s nothing more than a three-toed sloth.”
#TootFic #NMFic #Crows #Otherkin #Fantasy #UrbanFantasy #TimeTravel #Serial #SlowBurn #Sapphic #Folklore
-
#Airisu: The Crow and the Witch
Himeji Castle (Airisu POV): Post 63
#Wss366 Treble #TimeTravelAuthors 9/4 WhateverInside the passage hung a feline odor, strong enough to wilt feathers, and paw prints littered the dusty floor. We turned left in the direction most of them led.
“It’s walking on its hind feet,” Sumika said after a few meters and pointed to where the marks of the forepaws ceased, leaving only the rear ones.
“Indeed, that’s because it’s a nekomata. Be glad this passage is wood, not stone,” I replied.
“Why?”
“Because your ‘cute’ kitty can spit fireballs. I doubt it wants to burn its mistress’s home down.”
“Oh!”
“It could be worse. We might have run into a gotokuneko. They’re about #treble the strength.”
“Treble? What kind of word is that? Just say three times.”
“It’s a perfectly good word.”
“Whatever. And what about ‘gotokuneko?’ You’re not making that stuff up, are you?” Mistress asked.
“Moi? Me? Make stuff up? I’m wounded. No, I studied this kind of thing when I was a woman.”
“You know you’re a lot more human-like than when we first met. You almost talk normally, barring words like ‘treble.’”
“Awk, chicka, cawa! Pay attention, there are lights ahead,” I cawed, irratated.
“How could Glinda-chan say such a thing? Hmph! Just when I was thinking she had more than one brain cell, she says utter rubbish. But no, she’s nothing more than a three-toed sloth.”
#TootFic #NMFic #Crows #Otherkin #Fantasy #UrbanFantasy #TimeTravel #Serial #SlowBurn #Sapphic #Folklore
-
#Airisu: The Crow and the Witch
Himeji Castle (Airisu POV): Post 63
#Wss366 Treble #TimeTravelAuthors 9/4 WhateverInside the passage hung a feline odor, strong enough to wilt feathers, and paw prints littered the dusty floor. We turned left in the direction most of them led.
“It’s walking on its hind feet,” Sumika said after a few meters and pointed to where the marks of the forepaws ceased, leaving only the rear ones.
“Indeed, that’s because it’s a nekomata. Be glad this passage is wood, not stone,” I replied.
“Why?”
“Because your ‘cute’ kitty can spit fireballs. I doubt it wants to burn its mistress’s home down.”
“Oh!”
“It could be worse. We might have run into a gotokuneko. They’re about #treble the strength.”
“Treble? What kind of word is that? Just say three times.”
“It’s a perfectly good word.”
“Whatever. And what about ‘gotokuneko?’ You’re not making that stuff up, are you?” Mistress asked.
“Moi? Me? Make stuff up? I’m wounded. No, I studied this kind of thing when I was a woman.”
“You know you’re a lot more human-like than when we first met. You almost talk normally, barring words like ‘treble.’”
“Awk, chicka, cawa! Pay attention, there are lights ahead,” I cawed, irratated.
“How could Glinda-chan say such a thing? Hmph! Just when I was thinking she had more than one brain cell, she says utter rubbish. But no, she’s nothing more than a three-toed sloth.”
#TootFic #NMFic #Crows #Otherkin #Fantasy #UrbanFantasy #TimeTravel #Serial #SlowBurn #Sapphic #Folklore
-
3 Months ago, Council Offices, Divesen Station.
Joy looked across her desk at the Scout. They were not human, but one of the many species that had been derived from Earth-species stock in the distant, distant past. Probably by the same unknown race that delivered Joy's ancestors to Mother of All.
"Well Scout Instructor you certainly are an unexpected reply to my request."
The vocoder on the Scout's chest translated the burst of colours that surged across their skin. "Arriving with the answer seemed an efficient solution to the restrictions limitations of travel times."
"You did cause something of a stir when you emerged. The biggest thing we've seen here before was a depot ship, and that was back in Lorn's day."
"Are apologies compensations regrets required?"
Joy smiled, and made a complex sign with her fingers, indicating a matter of little import "No, just a surprise."
"We sign now?"
"Yes, I have been authorised by the Council of Elders to sign this modification of the treaty."The Scout Instructor picked up the papers with one tentacle and looked through them. "All is in order correct." And it took a small box out of a harness, pressed the tip of a free tentacle into it, and then at the bottom of each page.
Joy took them back, and pressed her inked thumb against each page, and then signed her name.
A sign indicating an important query, "Are the lands territories properties clear for us to land arrive?"
"Yes, and airspace restrictions have been agreed to."
"Good pleasing efficient."
"It is for our benefit that we asked you to establish a Scout school here. Will the Maui be here long?"
"Apologies error, we understood thought you had knowledge. The Maui is permanently assigned to this station. In case of dramatic major intervention."Joy sat back in surprise. "They've assigned us a Frontier Class cruiser? In case we need to do a full interdiction?"
"Correct."
"I see. Well, thank-you instructor, I'll let you return to your ship and your duties."
"Very good yes Scout Commander."
"What?"A burst of bright colours washed across the sophonts skin and it handed an envelope to Joy "Your orders Scout Commander. You have been reactivated."
Before she could answer, it flowed out of her office.After a few minutes, Joy opened the envelope. Inside was a new Scout ID card, and her orders to establish a new Scout Base on Mother of All. Starting with a locally-based school.
So much for retiring.
#ShamanSpace #SF #SFF #SciFi #SpaceOpera #Microfiction #Microfic #tootfic #IAmWriting
-
#TimeTravelingGhost EP 12: Post 122, 1,802,701 CE, Middlesex, UK
#Wss366 August #TimeTravelAuthors 08/1. Introduce your story (optional: use the word "wish")
For a long time, all I could focus on was the blue sky. A single, wispy cloud floated there. Then, my eyes drifted down to a marble sphinx that loomed over me, wings folded at its sides. I examined, uncomprehending, the weathered stains and moss growing in the creases of its sides. Ferns grew on its paws, along with a solitary scrubby bush. I felt heavy, and my brain was fuzzy. Then the questions occurred to me: “Who am I?” and “Where was I?”
The situation was dimly familiar. Hadn’t I forgotten everything before? Right, there had been that alley with the graffiti of the Eye of Providence, or was it a pink coral pyramid with giant azure dragonflies? I #wished I could remember, but it was all a jumble.
“Think! Think!”
“Rabbits and Templars. I had been fleeing them. Why? A meeting… Cyprus… 1191. That must be why I’m wearing medieval priest’s robes. And something about their calling a meteor to destroy humanity.”
I shuddered at the image of a flaming ball crossing a blue sky. Suddenly, a hot flash caused me to flush, leaving me uncomfortably damp with sweat.
I parted the grass I lay in, looking for Emily, but I was alone in a forest of #august oaks: gnarled trees whose branches brushed the Sphinx’s sides. Tall ferns crowded its bronze base, a path threading through them.
“Emily?” I muttered. Then, turning my head to look for her, I saw an open meadow sloping away from me. In its center lay a large trampled circle where feet had beaten down the grass.
“Fairies?” I asked myself. But that was crazy.
It must have all been a wild, vivid nightmare. Who’d ever heard of fairies or rabbits with rifles? The vision of them in Nazi uniforms and Templar surcoats flared in my mind and then faded.
A dream? It all had to be a confused vision, and Emily must be a figment of my sleeping brain. Why did that make me want to cry?
A tear ran down my cheek.
Welcome to volume two of “Bijou the Time-Traveling Ghost.” We open in the far future, 1,802,701 of the Common Era, and with poor Bijou only vaguely remembering Emily, the Lapin Cabal, the Illuminati, Templars, and the Covenant of Judas.
#TootFic #NMFic #TimeTravel #HistoricalFantasy #UrbanFantasy #Mythpunk #Serial #Slowburn
-
McGruff's Bridge Part 3 of 3
#Fanfic #WanderingWitch #ThreeBillyGoatsGruff
#Wss366 MeccaWhile waiting for Elaine to arrive, Saya listened to thrushes in the bush, and Sheila continued smoking, much to the displeasure of the troll, as the fumes wafted down under the stone span.
After a pause, The Adventure of Nike spoke. “I can’t believe that troll. It said that I stank.”
Picking up a spray of elm leaves that had fallen from the trees, Saya hid her amused smile behind it. “Maybe you should go back and complain.”
“Humph.”
The two fell silent again until Elaine, the Ashen Witch, strolled up to the bridge. [Again, in case you’ve forgotten who that very handsome witch who had just stepped on stage and the bridge is, it’s me.]
Indeed, like the others, the local gulls had forced me out of the sky, and I was making my way to the Three Goats Inn and Tavern. The thought of their famous bread pudding and cream puffs hurried my steps. My heart lept at the sight of the bridge. I hurried across it only to have someone bellow at me from below. “Who’s that crossing my bridge?”
Turning, I found a huge, lumpy monster climbing over the span’s parapet. At four meters in height, it was a dominating figure. The leprous skin covering its enormous frame resembled lichen as much as anything else.
“I’m Elaine, and if you’re thinking of eating me, you should reconsider. Instead, I can recommend in…”
“Shut up! Two previous women promised me a luscious dinner, and here you are.”
“It wouldn’t have been those two ladies, sitting under that elm,” I said, pointing to where Saya and Sheila sat. “This is truly a #mecca for scoundrels. Even for a troll, you were foolish to listen to them. One would think a mountain goat had kicked you in the head.”
“Enough,” the troll thundered and charged toward me.
Modesty forbids me from describing how I dealt with the troll, but in the end, it went sailing over the parapet and fell into the river, where it sank like a lead stone.
As for my fellow witches, they were obliged to treat me to as much sausage, bread pudding, and cream puffs as I could eat.
[FINIS]
-
#Airisu: The Crow and the Witch
Okiku Part II (Airisu POV): Post 50
#Wss366 Warp #TimeTravelAuthors Whatever“Hurry,” Sumika said, holding out the basket. “Lady Osakabe’s crows are coming.”
I looked towards the castle and saw black dots growing larger by the second. It was too late to escape, so I did the only thing possible: I hopped into the basket.
“Clicky, clack, crolark.” It was cramped and smelled nasty in there. The only saving grace was that I could peer through the #warped weave.
Mistress draped a kimono sleeve over the basket, and my panic swelled. I had to use the human portion of my brain to force it down, reminding myself that if I struggled, I would damage my wings and feathers.
“Ack!!!” I cawed.
“Quiet! They’ll hear you!”
This was hard. I considered sticking my head out. That would make things much better. Then I heard a jumble of large-bills cawing.
“I don’t recognise her,” cawed the first voice.
“She's an outsider,” responded a second voice.
“I sense magic. Has a kitsune possessed her?” asked a third jungle crow.
“We must tell the Lady,” the second large-billed cawed.
“Clicktoo, look for a kitsune,” a commanding voice said. “The rest of you fly to the Lady and inform her a spirit summoner lurks in the town. I’ll watch her and come later.”
There was the sound of wings and then silence.
“Ha ha,” I thought. “My mistress is so smart! We showed those stupid spawn of a cowbird.”
I peeked out between the willow lathes and saw we were moving down the road. That explained the basket’s rocking. Up and down, I bounced, knocking against the sides. It was all I could do not to swear or say, “Stop that, you lumbering ox!”
#TootFic #NMFic #Crows #Otherkin #Fantasy #UrbanFantasy #TimeTravel #Serial #SlowBurn #Sapphic #Folklore #Yokai
-
Prince Charming Part 2
#FanFic WanderingWitch #SnowWhite
#Wss366 Hedge / #GreeneryDay JapanAhead, light streamed through a honeysuckle-draped arch. The air was sweet with their scent, buzzing with the song of bees.
“Hum,” I thought and then laughed at my pun. It looked as though there was a grassy clearing ahead. The sun would feel nice there. I could lie in the grass and eat the bread I’d bought at the last town. But wait, there was someone already there: a tall, handsome man standing next to a proud horse. The man’s elegant hunter’s outfit made it clear he was some kind of noble—“too bad.”
He looked up, smiling. “Have you come to see her too?”
“See who?” I asked and approached cautiously, peering through the grass to see what he was looking at.
There, in the middle of the clearing, was a crystal coffin. Inside was a woman wearing a brown peasant dress. Among the wilted remains of wildflowers that someone had placed on the lid was a bouquet of fresh roses.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” the man said. “I could stroke her hair all day.”
“Yes, it’s lovely,” I said. It was too: an amber-brown, lightened in streaks by the sun.
“And you are?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t want the Queen to hear I came here, so you can just call me Prince Charming. Many people do.”
“So you visit often, Prince Charming?” My sarcasm went unnoticed. I had met nobles like him before. Their charm chiefly resided in the threat of violence. That and the power to wave away such aggression as the victim’s fault.
I hadn’t failed to notice the short silver hunting sword at his side.
“Yes, she is so lovely. How can I resist? I’ve named her Snow White. Doesn’t she deserve it?”
“She is quite lovely, Your Highness. But I hear that if you kiss a sleep enchanted woman, she will wake. Have you tried that?”
“I’ve heard the same, but youth’s beauty fades with time. The lovely bride of today is a wrinkled hag tomorrow. I will let her sleep so she never fades. A gem forever brilliant for me to view.”
The poppies and bluebells nodded in agreement; whether to my ironic thoughts or his statement, I didn’t know.
The honeysuckle odor had suddenly cloyed, and clouds cast shadows on the grass.
I smiled and departed. I could eat my lunch elsewhere.
-
Prince Charming Part 1
#FanFic WanderingWitch #SnowWhite
#Wss366 Hedge / #GreeneryDay JapanThe day had started well. A gentle wind scented with verdant greenery stirred my hair. Bright violets bloomed along my path, mingling with yellow buttercups and brilliant orange poppies. Thrushes and titmice flitted in the #hedges. It was truly the kind of day where wandering the byways was a goddess-given blessing.
So wondrous was the day that I didn’t even mind the occasional burr that attached itself to my mage’s robes or the dense foliage that forced me to walk. The moss-covered path was easy on my feet. The occasional brook sang to me. Butterflies as bright as the star brooch of my profession delighted my eyes.
Who was this young woman so enamored with life?
It was me, Elaine the Wandering Witch.
-
Star-Cross Cookies: Part 3
#FanFiction #AscendanceOfABookworm
#Wss366 recreate/re-createArmed with Carnelia’s name, Rozemyne headed to the library, much to the dismay of her chief maid, Lieseleta. Rihyarda could have handled it, but Lieseleta lacked the experience and gravitas to control Rozemyne when she was fired up.
"Lady Carnelia!" Rozemyne shouted, bursting into the reading room the girl was using.
Lieseleta said just loud enough for the Aub to hear, “At least give her a proper greeting.”
“Of course,” Rozemyne replied.
“May I pray for a blessing in appreciation of this serendipitous meeting, ordained by the harsh judgment of Ewigeliebe, Lady Carnelia?” Rozemyne rushed through her greeting.
“You may.” The lady in question spoke barely loud enough to be heard and trembled like a winter leaf, which wasn’t surprising, given that the Aub had addressed her so suddenly.
“I need something red, romantic, and heart-shaped,” Rozemyne said.
“You might want to explain a bit,” Lieseleta said. She was overstepping herself, but the poor woman Rozemyne was addressing looked bewildered and on the verge of fainting in fright.
“Sorry, I want something to use with cookies for Star-Cross Day. Something other than those dreadful bugs! I don’t see how anyone could think coach beetles were romantic.”
Lady Carnelia stared, and then, as the word "romantic" sank in, she began to think. Her brows furrowed, and then a smile touched her lips. "There's the 'desert heart.' They have red, heart-shaped leaves and a mild, pleasant flavor. Perhaps you’ve had tea made from them.”
Rozemyne’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, that lovely mint tea. I think we export it. That would be wonderful.”
Lieseleta was used to Rozemyne’s use of strange words, but Lady Carnelia looked puzzled at the word “mint.”
Blissfully unaware, Rozemyne continued. “Mild, red, mint cookies with a heart-shaped leaf in their center. Perfect!”
Carried away, she rushed off to see the chef, leaving poor Lady Carnelia to recover in the now silent library.
[Sequel coming someday]
Tags: #SliceOfLife #AoaB #MicroFiction #TootFic #NMV366 #NMFic #Bookworm #Valentines
-
Star-Cross Cookies: Part 2
#FanFiction #AscendanceOfABookworm
#Wss366 recreate/re-create**The thought of her subjects eating cockroaches wouldn't leave Rozemyne's mind. What a dreadful tradition! Star-Cross Day, a holiday similar to Tanabata and Valentine’s Day, deserved better. Giving chocolates or making wishes would make more sense than eating bugs!
Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything similar to chocolate in this universe, but giving sweets to your love sounded just as nice. What could she create that women could give to their favorite person?
Mochi was the first thing she thought of. She’d just introduced that, but it was difficult to make, and the grain was expensive. Ferdinand said they should reserve it for nobles for the time being. Next, she thought of heart-shaped sugar candies. Clear, sparkly red hearts would be cute, but perfecting them would take time.
“Cookies!” she exclaimed as the idea came to her. Those were easy, and the recipe was widespread by now. It had to be different, though, and #re-create Valentine’s romance.
Red heart-shaped sugar cookies came to mind, but that would just be a different shape of an existing recipe. It had to be something special. Something that only bakers who bought the recipe could produce. Profits were important; there were so many books to buy.
Different. Romantic. Hard to duplicate.
“Humm…”
Nothing was coming to mind.
Help! “Who can I ask?”
She thought about the people she was close to, most of whom were in Ehrenfest or Dunkelfelger. Not only could she not talk to them, but it would also be unfair to ask them to work for the benefit of her duchy. As for her councilors, they were old folks without a romantic bone in their bodies. Nor could she speak to Ferdinand; she wanted to surprise him.
Wait, she knew! There was a woman who came to the library every day to read romances. What was her name?
“Carnelia!”
[Continued in next post]
Tags: #MicroFiction #TootFic #SliceOfLife #NMFic #Valentines
-
CW: Wss366 CW: References to self-harm.
Jinshi's Affection
#Wss366 Affection
Those familiar with The Apothecary Diaries can ignore this warning. You should understand the deeper meaning of the sensitive line.
Jinshi sat looking at the paperwork in front of him.
Authorizations to repair a storm-damaged warship: Approved.
Grain to replace a border garrison stores damaged by water: Denied. The commander could pay for that and be more careful with the stores in the future.
Timber for one of Sun Prince’s palaces: Jinshi started to approve it, then noticed who the forwarding clerk was.
“Got him for fraud,” he said to himself.
“Have this man seized,” he ordered a guard.
- A request for medical supplies from Dr. You. The usual items: cloth for bandages; common herbs; alcohol; realgar…
He stopped, his pen poised to sign. “Realgar, a poison,” he thought.
“Hmm, compiled by Maomao,” he muttered.
His eyes misted with affection. Then an image of the self-inflicted scars on her arm arose.
“I’m sure it’s for a good use, but just in case,” he said, and struck out the arsenic poison before approving the requisition.
#TootFic #MicroFiction #Valentines #NMFic #SelfHarm #SliceOfLife
-
Crow With No Name: Part 2
#Wss366 Redundant #MastoPrompt Lung #ScribesAndMakers Hogwash
I was definitely tripping. Wings? Feathers? I’d been dosed!
The world was full of psychedelic colors, some of which I couldn't identify. The sidewalk wasn't flat anymore. It was layered and cross-hatched with patterns and shadows that I had walked over a thousand times without ever truly seeing. The witch’s vial rolled lazily, a drop of liquid still in it—its taste bitter on my tongue.
Meaning flooded me. The shiny wrapper fluttering in the wind: sweetness clinging to foil. The neighbor—I already knew her: yelling, sudden hands, jerky steps that cut the air wrong. Her form shrieked like a warning siren.
She seemed to offer me a bag of treats: nasty-yellow; awful-gritty-browns; tasty-soggy-golden-flakes; yummy-meat-hollow bones.
It was #hogwash! Best to stay away. I didn’t decide that. I just knew.
None of it was #redundant: motion-sight, all saturated with meaning.
I was in the air before I knew it: Threat-Motion-Arm! I filled my lungs and let out a warning screech so that everyone would know. “Warning, Bad lady!”
I was free of the earth. “Caw, caw,” I cried. “I’m here!”
#TootFic #MicroFiction #NMFic #Crows #Otherkin #Fantasy #UrbanFantasy
-
Ikiryō 生霊
FanFiction #KaigaIdol #Phoebee (Commissioned by Phoebee)
#Wss366 MastoPrompt 12/18•──⋅☾Chapter 1 Part 2 of 2☽⋅──•
•─⋅☾Phoebee the 2.5D VTuber☽⋅─•“Thank you for coming, Miyakaki. I’m an idol and a 2.5-D VTuber,” she said, setting her drink down. “One of my acts involves playing a clone of myself. A week ago, someone impersonating me did a stream—my fans were certain it was me. They carried it off flawlessly.”
“I hope you didn’t watch it,” Kao injected.
“I tried, but it had been deleted.”
“It’s best not to watch those things. They're often cursed. But go on.”
“Then, a friend reported seeing me at a restaurant. They had even talked to the person, thinking it was me."
She bit her lip before continuing. "But I was streaming at the time. Last night, it finally called me. Talking to myself was disconcerting, to say the least. There were pauses and inflections just where I would put them. We shared the same hopes and fears. She asked if she could take my place at one of my shows."
“That’s worrying. It means it's getting closer to you,” Kao said.
“My Japanese manager urged me to call you. They were very concerned it might be an Ikiryō.”
“Or a doppelgänger. Either way, it sounds like it wants to take your place. Would you like me to perform a cleansing or an exorcism? In some cases, cleansing alone is sufficient. Ideally, both would be done—but there are also charms.”
“I don’t think it wants to replace me. It called me "Mommy" and cried a lot. Can I let it perform just one show, and then could you convince it to go home? Please!”
“That sounds like an Ikiryō. My mother would have called it a soul fragment. It’s risky, but if you want, we can follow your path.”
"I would dearly love to do that. I mean, if I were them, I would want that.”
The words had barely left her mouth before Kao and I both started reciting a mantra. When we finished, Kao explained, “It is best not to open some doors.” His voice was calm but firm.
“Sorry. But I would like to do it.”
“I suggest you take shelter at a shrine while the show is going on. I’ll give you an address. They can also give you charms to ward off further entanglement. While you're there, reflect quietly on any desires or attachments that still cling to you. If you recognize it, commit it to an ema: either a promise to fulfill the desire if it is wholesome, or a vow to release it. Be sincere but humble.”
Pheobee took out her phone. “I’ll tell her.”
Kao held her hand out in response. “Tell me where to send the message. I'll take care of it. There are already too many #cords that need severing.”
[To be continued later]
-
11/16 #Wss366 #crude #MastoPrompt #hunter #SundayLit Twist
#FanFiction #TheHunger 1983
“I must have died and gone to heaven. I see an angel.”
I looked over, taking in the speaker. Crude like his clothes: expensive, tasteless, like a gold-plated oil donkey gushing crude.
“I thik I’d too many.” I slurred, then looked at him. “Gin fizzy.” (Giggle.) “Lime twist,” and pushed my empty glass across the bar.
“You’ll hav’ta excuse me, powder woom.”
Pushing through the crowd, I stopped in front of the restroom and looked back in time to see him add something to my drink.
“A hunter,” I thought. But I was one too, fingering my razor-sharp ankh medallion.
#NMV366 #NMPrompt #NMSL #Vampire #TheHunger1983
#Drabble #MicroFiction #TootFic #FanFic -
Paper Cranes Part 3 (Good Fortune Cranes)
#FanFiction #IsTheOrderARabbit (#GochiUsa)
#Wss366The street was gorgeous, with each shop and stall adorned with strings of colorful cranes.
“Look!” Chiya showed off a unique crane-shaped taiyaki [Note 1] that she had bought. “I have to learn to make these. Customers would love them: cranes, capybaras, cats, tanuki, and…”
“Usagi, rabbits,” the other girls chimed in.
Chiya nodded enthusiastically. “An Anko taiyaki with bean paste; cranes with custard…” She continued until she had exhausted all the possible animals.
The other girls had stopped listening and ran to a temple booth.
“I got a ‘Good Fortune,’” Rize said, unfolding the yellow crane he had bought at the temple.
“Mine is a ‘Tremendous Fortune,’” Syaro said, showing her blue crane to the others.
“It’s a ‘Bad Fortune,’” Chino said, holding out the red crane she had bought.
The girl selling them leaned over the edge of the stall, showing Chino a paper boat. “You’re so lucky. What you have is better than good luck. You can rid yourself of ill fortune by setting your crane sailing across the lake. All your bad luck will float away with it. Then come back and get a new fortune. Isn’t that wonderful—to exchange bad luck for good?”
“Yes, please,” Chino said, taking the boat from the woman.
Armed with the boat, they ran to the lake.
“Wow,” Megu said. The others just stared, mouths agape.
Before them, the lake spread out in an indigo-blue sheet. Light clouds floated above in an azure sky. A few paper boats floated lazily on the water’s #surface, amid dozens of cranes that had gathered there.
“Quadrillion,” Maya said in awe.
Chino placed her boat in the water, while Cocoa held her so she wouldn’t fall in. Then, carefully, she pushed the boat out into the lake.
“Oh, look,” Rize said as the boat sailed out among the cranes and then stopped where a gray crane examined it curiously.
Midori patted Chino’s head. “Looks like good fortune found you.”
Conclusion
[Note 1]Taiyaki
#ごちうさ #ご注文はうさぎですか?
#Wholesome #SliceOfLife #Yuri #FanFic
#MicroFiction #TootFic #Serial #NMPrompts #NMV366 #NMMP -
Imber Befogged (Part 2 of 2)
Better forward than back, she thought, and passed through the arch, where she stopped. The fog had disappeared, replaced by an unrelenting whiteness that was neither close nor far away but at an undefined distance.
The road continued, but a line of waist-high pillars ran down the center. She couldn’t tell how far they stretched. Their alabaster shade blended into the surroundings.
On each pillar was a globe resembling a soap bubble. Rainbow colors danced on their surfaces, contrasting with the stark whiteness of everything else. Common sense urged her to leave them alone. Everything here was strange and potentially dangerous. But her curiosity prompted her to take a closer look. Which would it be?
The latter won out as she #ditched caution. “Why in the name of the twin gods was I brought here if not to look?” she said, excusing her recklessness.
The colors swirled hypnotically, drawing her closer and closer until she could make out dim shapes in the bubbles. Her light touch caused the colors to riot, then coalesce into a blue sheen. The surface was smooth and hard under her fingertips, but tingled like a healer’s touch.
When she drew her hand away, the globe cleared. An Inacar woman stood in the center of the sphere. She was holding a bundle wrapped in cloth. Her faded shawl of Shaw design and simple, unadorned gold jewelry marked her as a commoner. A wave of sadness, longing, and grief swept over “The Imber.” The feeling dwarfed any she had felt before. The only thing that came close was when she lost her kitten, but that had been a mere shadow compared to this. It ran deeper, much deeper.
The woman held out the bundle to another woman wearing cornflower-colored robes indicating a lowly priestess.
“My child, its name is…” The woman began.
The priestess cut her off. “Names are unimportant. She is just a runner, no more.”
The vision ended, and “The Imber” touched her damp face. She was crying. The woman’s heartbreak lingered. It was like the rain seeping through the roof of one of the Runner’s towers, pooling at the bottom, soaking into the ground.
Though humble, the scene touched her deeply.
When she looked up, she saw stairs where the road had been. The pillars and spheres were gone. Tales whispered in the dark about the stairs’ safety were divided. Some said they led to the burning lands of the ancients, from which no one returned. Others said they would take you back to wherever you’d gotten lost. She favored the latter stories. After all, if no one returned, there would be no one to say where the stairs led.
She’d chosen correctly and didn’t have far to climb before she was on the proper road. She hurried along it. If she were too late, people might suspect she’d explored too deeply into the Wandering-Worlds.
By the time she reached Vas, she had already begun burying the memory of what had happened. It was a dangerous memory to have.
-
#TimeTravelingGhost Part 47: EP 4: 1937 Amelia Earhart.
#Wss366 #TimeTravelAuthors 9/29. Author's choice/promo
“At last! I thought no one would find us,” Amelia said. “Fred went to find water; we have none. He’s been gone a long time.” She waved toward a row of coconut shells on the clearing's edge. Her rambling speech gave no hint of what our eyes could plainly see: a rotting skeleton and the jungle visible through the aviator’s translucent body.
I whispered to Emily so that the apparition couldn’t hear. “In 1937, Amelia Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, disappeared while crossing the Pacific. I don’t think she knows she’s dead. We need to break it to her slowly.”
“I didn’t hear a plane,” Amelia resumed. “Did you come from Howland Island? We missed it. Thank goodness we spotted Gardner.” [Note 5]
Note 5 Gardner/Nikumaroro
[Note 6] It is a #cardinal sin to omit the prompt word, so I cheated.
#TootFic #MicroFiction #Serial #TimeTravel #NMPrompts #NMTTA #NMV366 #NMMP -
#TimeTravelingGhost Part 46: EP 4: 1937 Amelia Earhart.
#Wss366 #MastoPrompt #TimeTravelAuthors 9/27 Saturday excerpt (optional word: pleasant)
The ocean mist that was drifting in was #pleasant after the night's muggy warmth. The beach had been fairly straight until this point, but with the limited visibility, we almost fell into what I guessed was an inlet to a lagoon. Soggy, burnt wood was mixed with the sand, and its faint odor perfumed the air. We still hadn’t seen Amelia, and I was more convinced than ever that I knew where we were. It was the #worst option, the one place I’d prayed we wouldn’t find ourselves.
“I think I hear something,” Emily said, pointing inland.
When I listened, I thought I heard crying, but it could have been the wind. “That way is as good as any,” I said.
The sound faded as we walked along the beach. No matter how hard I listened, all I could hear was the wind, the surf, and the scuttling of crabs, some of which were as big as a cat or small dog.
The memory of a pretty papillon named "Rindy" floated up into my consciousness, and I wondered if he had been mine.
“There it is again,” Emily said.
This time, I could plainly hear a woman weeping. The sound came from in front of us, off to the right.
“Amelia, Amelia Earhart!” I yelled, and the weeping stopped.
“There’s a path,” Emily said, pointing to a rough trail leading inland through the trees.
“I’m here! Thank God at last,” came a shout from the direction the path led.
We followed the voice and soon found a clearing. In the center were the ashes of a fire, scattered coconut, and crab shells. The scent of the jungle and sea mingled with the sour-sweet stench of death. On the far side of the fire lay a rotting corpse. Crabs that had nearly picked the skeleton clean scurried away from our light. The word “#gross” almost escaped my lips.
Just beyond stood a woman dressed in aviator clothes. We had found Amelia Earhart.
#TootFic #MicroFiction #Serial #TimeTravel #NMPrompts #NMTTA #NMV366 #NMMP #historicalfiction
-
17: Burning down the Heavens
#FanFiction #OthersidePicnic #FateGear #EdgarRiceBurroughs
#wss366 #MastoPromptAfter that, things moved swiftly. A balloon ferried Captain Napier to the Fate Gear.
“You capitalist swine! How long have you been leading these running-dog lackeys?” Mina hailed Napier, embracing him. “Never mind. Wait till you hear what I’ve planned! We’re going after the ultimate tyrant. We’ll be burning down the heavens. My cabin, MiLord; the wind has ears. More importantly, I have a 100-year-old brandy looted from Emperor Muskrat’s yacht. Tiss sweet, like poetry, and smooth as silk.”
"#Better than yer rotgut grog and I'll hear yer plan. If it doesn't sound good after that bottle, we'll know it's Tommy rot," Napier said.
The two departed, leaving a scowling Nana with the Otherside pair.
“And what might you two be thinking, lollygagging in the rigging? You may be gunner’s mates to the Captain, but yer nothing but lumps of tar. Get ta polishing the brass or you’ll be wishing you were #home with the fishes.”
Soon, the two were polishing brass and whispering together.
“I don’t like how things look,” Sorawo said. “Mina’s plans to attacking a god.”
“Not just any god,” Toriko said. “The one they worship in Canada—well, actually all the West. He’s one mean hombre sending plagues, turning people into salt, and telling them to sacrifice their sons. His own son had to sacrifice himself to make God back off.”
“So you’re worried too?”
“A little,” Toriko said, putting her arms around Sorawo’s neck, burying Sorawo's face in her bosom. “Protect me.”
“Stop it, you perv,” Sorawo said, pushing Toriko away. “This is serious.”
“You’d better take my tits seriously.” Toriko pretended to pout.
“Whatever! Come on. I need you to stop messing around and listen.”
“Alright.” This time her pout was real.
“When I was looking for the mergaunt’s mother, I spotted a remnant of the portal the sorceress used. If things get bad, you can pull it open.”
“Not without Benimori”
Sorawo, about to protest, stopped. Caring about people was new to her. “You’re right, with Benimori.”
As they spoke, Napier and Mina left the cabin. Whether from the brandy or bravado, they both swaggered across the deck. Napier slapped Mina on the back, causing her to stagger. “I haven't heard anything so audacious in years. Here’s to burning down the heavens.” He raised the nearly empty brandy bottle and drained it dry. “Who’s the eunuch now!” he bellowed out, laughing as he slapped Mina on the back again.
“There she is!” someone shouted as the Fate Gear, Venus Falcon, and the two biremes raced away from Mercury.
Sorawo and Toriko looked up. Undulating in the sky was a black amoebic hole. The monstrous maw sucked everything around it into itself.
”I’ll get Beni!” Toriko said, heading for the galley.
Grand Conclusion Next Week.
#MicroFiction #TootFic #Serial #NMPrompts #NMV366 #NMMP #NMRTTFG
#UraPi #Steampunk #Pirates #Satire #PoliticalSatire -
Imber Befogged (Part 1)
#Wss366 9/25 #MastoPrompt 7-9/25
#Fog obscured the Wandering-Worlds. [Note 1] Though rare, it was not an unknown occurrence. Imbers [Note 2] who had found themselves befogged, reported finding their way back only by luck. Sometimes, Blades [Note 3] came for them later. It was best to keep quiet about what one saw in that #mist-shrouded landscape.
[Note 1] Wandering-Worlds: A liminal space affected by the imagination of wanderers. It serves as a shortcut between the floating continents.
[Note 2] Imbers: Individuals born with the power to walk the “Wandering-Worlds.”
[Note 3] Blades: Individuals tasked with hunting down and executing Imbers who break the law. They can suppress an Imber’s ability to walk the Wandering-Worlds.
“The Imber” only knew these things through rumors and stories told late at night. That was also forbidden, but when it was dark and no one could see the teller, stories would pass from speaker to listener. It was difficult to tell how distorted the stories had become as they passed from one Imber to another. “The Imber” doubted the stories of silver cities and feral undead monsters. But the fog was a thread that wound through all of them.
Now, “The Imber” knew that the fog was real because she was lost in it. The road she followed dipped downward rather than ascending. No matter how hard she tried to envision the road differently, it soon slipped back into its descent.
The road took a sharp turn, and she stood before a stone arch. Engraved words adorned its smooth white surface. The writing used an archaic form of the Shaw alphabet. “The Imber” studied the arabesque runes. Most of them were indecipherable. But scattered among the #sprays of flowers, she made out the words “History,” “Clay,” and a few common words.
Rather than enter the arch, she turned, looking to see if she could return the way she had come. However, the fog #snaked in heavy coils through the tumbled blocks that had once paved the road. Stories of undead monstrosities returned to her.
To be Continued
[Note 4] #FanFiction for a yet-to-be-published book, “Soul Fire” by Jesse Sprague.
#TootFic #MicroFiction #Serial #Fantasy #NMPrompts #NMTTA #NMV366 #NMMP