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lastinnett-writer · 1 year

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My new ebook is available today on Kindle Unlimited.

Happily ever afters really are possible.

Spell & the Heart is a collection of timeless tales, brimming with wonder and magic. From ancient myths to beloved fairy tales, such as Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, and Little Red Riding Hood, these stories capture the essence of their origins while also offering a fresh and modern perspective. Lesser-known myths such as necromancy and neo-pagan Lunarpunk round out this compilation.

In Spell & the Heart, you'll meet heroes and heroines who challenge fate, confront their fears, and discover the true power of love. You'll journey into enchanted forests, brave dangerous quests, and witness the triumph of hope over despair.

Whether you're a fan of fairy tales or mythology, Spell & the Heart will transport you to other worlds and leave you enchanted. So curl up with a warm blanket and let yourself be swept away by the magic of these timeless tales.

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lynnwriting · 6 months

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I had planned today to be able to make some announcements of a few projects I’m working on to bring y’all some, what I assume would be, fabulous content. (I mean, I wrote it. Why wouldn’t it be?)

All jesting aside, alas, the holiday weekend took more from me than I anticipated. Instead of wasting an entire blog post on this, I’m just sharing my blurb here. That said, these exciting new offers I have in the works will have to keep stewing for the time being, but they are coming! It might even be a special, non-Wednesday, announcement so you’ll have to stay tuned!!!!

#musings #am writing #am writing fantasy #indie author #author update #Jewish fantasy #indie writer #fantasy short story #fantasy short fiction #writing Lynn #Jewish fantasy author

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sarahnourwriter · 1 year

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It was five years ago today that my short story, "Medusa at the Morgue," was published by Wild Musette Journal, and chosen as the issue's title!

Sadly Wild Musette Journal no longer exists, and copies of this issue are no longer available. But if you wish to read my modern retelling of the Greek myth of Medusa, send me a message and I'll let you read it!

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a-kind-of-merry-war · 3 months

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A guy doing marine research into phytoplankton is far out to sea and waiting for the samples to be ready when he spots a fast-moving ripple in the water up ahead.

Fully aware that this spot is home to a migratory orca pod, he assumes he's stumbled across an orca hunting a seal and settles against the railing to watch, because it's not every day you get to see that.

The ripples get closer, the shadows in the water more defined, the water choppier, and suddenly the orca and its unfortunate prey are zooming directly towards the boat and he's waiting, breath held, for them to duck right underneath--

When the water breaks, the ocean sprays, and he's suddenly smacked fully in the face by a very wet, very confused, and very pretty merman, throwing them both down onto the deck while the boat rocks as a confused and now quite hungry orca dives beneath it.

The merman, it turns out, thought that the boat was an ice float and didn't realise his mistake until it was too late. But he's very thankful for the impromptu rescue, and wow don't you have nice arms, and holy shit you've got legs, can I touch them? Is that weird? Can I touch them anyway? And your hair--

So of course they get to talking because they're both utterly fascinated with the other, and soon the sun has set and the samples are long-since ready and the moonlight is making the ocean look black and they part with the knowledge that they'll never meet again, and a kiss, and a lingering look over the shoulder for all the things that can't be...

And the researcher gets back to land, moors his boat, readies his samples. He packs up his things, shoves them into his bags, and prepares to go home. He steps onto the jetty boards and thinks of the merman and the solid wood beneath his feet seems to sway for more than one reason.

There's a splash. He turns, pulled as if by the tide, and there's a ripple in the water. A face. A pair of eyes made black by the moonlight.

And this is how the researcher acquires a merman boyfriend who helps him find samples and the merman acquires a human boyfriend who rescues him from whales.

#short story #i guess?#original fiction #merman #mermaids #queer #fantasy fiction #writers on tumblr #writeblr #writers #guess what suckers this is just a one night in hartswood AU!!!!#mer!penn 4 LIFE #this is NOT a prompt lmao #im happy for you to use it with fanfic or w/e tho #but not original fiction #on account of how its my idea for a book

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whereserpentswalk · 8 months

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Hermit crabs are weird animals. They don't make their own shells, they steal them. If you live in a coastal city like I do you'll be somewhat familiar with weird creatures that live in the ocean but aren't fish. And sea snails don't shed shells, they only leave behind shells when they die. Hermit crabs are living in corpses basically, sometimes long dead corpses.

So when you did. Mabye something will want your bones. The hard parts of your body you leave behind after the soft parts are all gone. Something that doesn't have bones of it's own to enjoy and to keep it steady.

And whatever takes your bones won't do it out of disrespect. It needs those bones just like you once needed them. Those bones will keep it safe and alive just like they once kept you safe and alive. It's not a human taking them, but it's still something that will use and love those bones just like a human would. And you don't need them anymore.

So mabye, if you're ever near an empty beach in the winter, or a forgotten bit of rock under a bridge, or a mostly empty subway station in a coastal neighborhood, leave some human remains out. There's something that might be living there that could use them. Not as a sacrifice, but as a gift to a neighbor.

#196 #my thougts #my wriitng #my writing #short fiction #flash fiction #horror #my worldbuilding #worldbuilding #creatures #cryptid creature #cryptidcore #cryptids #eldrich horror #eldrich horrors #monster #sympathetic monster #urban fantasy

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redglassbird · 1 year

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I will NEVER get over the fact that I can write stories. Like I can weave threads of whimsy in a whole new world and make people feel things if I weave them well enough???? Stories are worth so much!!! Lines of poetry are literally currency to me like I get to write little lines and then writing little lines helps me notice things when I read other peoples' lines????? Magic! Whimsy! Characters! Words! Words! Words!

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sophia-sol · 2 years

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Every year at about this time (...very approximately) I post a reclist of 10 short stories I particularly enjoyed reading in the last year, all of which can be read online for free. Here's the latest list, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

1. Sestu Hunts the Last Deer in Heaven - MH Cheung Beautiful and odd. A story of what happens after you've killed the gods, the unexpected realities and the things you have to live with. I love stories about after the climactic things traditional fantasy narratives are about, and this one excels!

2. If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You - John Chu Two butch Asian weightlifter dudes bonding with each other and then dating, and one of them happens to have superpowers, but the superpowers aren't the focus. This is SO charming!!

3. Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold - SB Divya This is a really cool retelling of the classic fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin from the Rumpelstiltskin character's pov, building out the world and his background and making him a sympathetic character with a specific history. Haven't seen a fairy tale retelling quite like this before and it's great! And I say that as a connoisseur of fairy tale retellings.

4. A Farce to Suit the New Girl - Rebecca Fraimow A troupe of Jewish actors in Russia, in a time of political upheaval. This story has such a good and powerful feeling of activity and forward momentum, and of the way a community supports people even if things are weird or complicated! I love every single character and how firmly they are themselves.

5. Sheri, At This Very Moment - Bianca Sayan The sacrifices you make to spend time with the ones you love - a snapshot of one brief visit together, out of two lives that only rarely get to align. Made me teary the first time I read it!

6. Spirochete - Anneke Schwob An engaging second-person pov story about possession and identity. It has such a great sense of timing! And the last line GOT me even on second read when I hypothetically knew what was coming!

7. To Embody a Wildfire Starting - Iona Datt Sharma Ahhhhhh this story is so good at embodying the horrible complexities of the choices people make in the worst of situations, that good and bad and divine and evil and just plain personness can all reside in one being. Also it's about a dragon society and the revolutionary humans who tried to make everyone into dragons, and also about parent-child relationships, and also about a bunch of other things. God it's good.

8. Obsolesce - Nadine Aurora Tabing Is it really me if I don't have at least ONE story about robots in my rec lists? (actually I just went back and checked and in multiple previous years I inexplicably didn't, maybe it wasn't me writing the reclist in those years lol) ANYWAY who wants to have sad feelings about robots again! I know I always do! In a world where anyone who has a physical body instead of having their consciousness transferred is more and more obsolete, no matter if your body is human or robot, what do you hold onto? This one has a real good melancholy tone.

9. Letters from a Travelling Man - WJ Tattersdill ....does what it says on the tin. Letters to a dear friend, from a man travelling for the first time to the unfamiliar part of the world that friend comes from. I love the sense of place you get from the letters, as well as the deep and abiding importance of this friendship in both their lives. Another one I cried over!

10. Texts from the Ghost War - Alex Yuschik Another epistolary one, but this time in text messages instead of letters, and between characters who start the story antagonistically! About mech pilots in a ghost war, and making connections, and finding things to care about, even when stuff sucks. I love them!! (also, I am inescapably me, whoops, it took me until I read some fanfic of this story to realize that almost certainly the story was meant to be canonically shipping the two leads, I never notice romance unless there's anvil-sized indications.) Anyway this is a really good story!

#annual rec list #short stories #short story recs #fantasy #science fiction #sff

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strangelittlestories · 5 months

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When the adventurers reached the next town, they were horrified to find the inhabitants gathered by the river in order to dunk a witch.

The party drew their weapons, summoned their magicks (both divine and profane) and demanded the townspeople cease at once.

The people of the town who were not actively holding the witch underwater formed a quick circle to elect a spokesperson. That spokesperson stepped forward with palms outstretched and begged the visitors to stay their righteous wrath! The scene unfolding was not what they thought.

How exactly, inquired the party Paladin, did we manage to misinterpret the fact that you are currently dipping a witch in and out of a body of water? Because, oh gosh, if this is a humorous misunderstanding, then it is a *doozy*.

The spokesperson conceded that, yes, the people were currently in the act of dunking the witch in the river and then pulling her out again, before pushing her back in again. However! They were not doing this as any kind of test or punishment, but simply allowing the witch’s magic to diffuse into the water. This would ensure bountiful fishing and also make it nicer for the local water spirits.

But, the Rogue interjected, does the witch not have any strong feelings about this?

I should say she does, replied the spokesperson, she thinks it’s a marvellous time!

At this point the witch - in the act of being lifted out of the river - did indeed give out a screech of delight and proceed to scamper up the bank, before cannonballing back into the water with an almighty splash.

The party Wizard admitted this did look like fun and asked if she could have a go.

Well, remarked the Paladin as the group relaxed by the water to watch the frolicking, I’ve never seen a magic user used as a mystic tea bag before. Truly, these local traditions have a unique kind of magic to them…

Indeed, added the Rogue, you could say the place is quite literally *steeped* in it.

And this is how a strange little anarchist commune of a town founded the world’s first water park.

#writing #microfiction #short story #flash fiction #fantasy #water park #witches #puns #well kinda puns #feghoot #a weird one

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dnschmidt · 14 days

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New Short Story: William and the Clockwork Devil

In this clockpunk portal fantasy, a young man named William finds himself transported to another world. This strange place seems like the Middle Ages, but the villagers are threatened by mechanical monsters and centaur highwaymen.

A masked doctor explains that poison has driven the kingdom mad, and William is the only remaining knight. Is the doctor trustworthy, or has he been struck with the madness, too? William must choose between pretending he's brave enough to battle an invincible clockwork dragon, or letting the masked doctor "cure" him with medieval brain surgery.

Available for Kindle for just 99 cents.

#kindle #short story #fantasy story #clockpunk #plague doctor #portal fantasy #creepy #short fiction #short stories #dark fantasy

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lastinnett-writer · 1 year

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I’m going to start a new thing where I’ll post a cozy fantasy short fiction each day to warm your heart. So here it goes -

The elven maiden beckoned the weary travelers home. All they had to do now was pass through the portal to the elf kingdom of Reh Belanore. Aelrius looked forward to seeing his sister again and having a cup of her specially made Morning Sun tea that calmed the soul. They’d catch up while lounging on her balcony overlooking Lilypad Lagoon where tiny fae flitted from flower to flower. It was good to be home.

Free image from Pixabay

#writerblr #my writing #writing community #cozy fantasy #writers on tumblr #my words #female writers #indie writers #indie authors #fantasy #short fiction #fantasy short story #fantasy short fiction #cozy fantasy short fiction

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ameliathornromance · 3 months

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“You’re okay,” you reassured. “We’ll be okay, I promise.”

Leaning over the edge of the boat, your Orc Boyfriend said in a gruff voice, “Orcs were not made for water travel.”

All you could do was rub his back. “We haven’t even set off yet…” you mumbled just low enough that your partner couldn’t hear.

The two of you had decided to go and explore the wider world. It was a tough and scary decision for you both to make. You both had never ventured beyond your homeland, and your Orc had never faced the prospect of being separated from his caravan.

When he had first announced his intent to travel with you, the whole Caravan had erupted with disapproval. He had silenced them all with barks of reassurance... Although you weren’t exactly sure how he did it, given the yelling and shouting.

Eventually, the Caravan warmed up to the idea. They even offered to escort you both to the docs, but you both declined.

A whole encampment of Orcs suddenly appearing at the docs? People would assume they were trying to plunder a ship and then everything would go to Hell.

If it were only you and your Orc, people would stare yes, but there wouldn’t be as nearly as much panic. And you would let them stare.

What business was it of other people what you and your Orc did together? You were not being forced to go along with him.

The boat eventually unanchored... And you both were off.

Your Orc Boyfriend effortlessly bounced back from his sickness, insisting it was because of his diet, but you saw through his deception. The two of you watched as the land got further and further away from the boat.

As the land turned into a mere strip of green from the horizon, your Orc wrapped his arms around your waist from behind. He placed his head on top of your own.

A heavy sigh escaped him, causing you to look up. Placing your hands on top of his muscular forearms. “And there it goes,” he said, a note of finality rang through his tone.

You give his arm a squeeze. “And there it goes.” You echoed.

The both of you were due to begin a whole new adventure in the wider world... Who knew what excitement was waiting for you out there?

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therobotmonster · 2 months

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Chosen for What?

A short tale about chosen ones.

"There it is."

Johann's voice was barely a whisper but in the unnatural silence of the forest it might as well have been a shout. The knight took a step forward, oblivious to the crunch of his footsteps on the dry leaves or the sharp, almost metallic smell of the coming snow.

His focus was entirely upon the spear. It's shaft was made of white wood, polished so smooth he had mistaken it for marble, and the bronze spearhead was shaped like a elegantly stylized shark.

It was presently stuck within the ribcage of an obscenely oversized humanlike skeleton, which was itself entangled in the gnarled roots of a tree the size of a watchtower. The giant's bones were twice the size of a man's. More remarkably, they were made of pitted, rust-flecked iron.

Johann reached forward.

"HOLD!"

Johann froze. Even though the salvation of his people was mere inches away from his outstreched hand, he dared not ignore the voice behind him. He felt the wizard's hand grip him by the shoulder.

"You know it is not meant for you." Aldara said. She squeezed hard enough for Johann to feel it through his mail shirt. He remembered her saying that wizards aged only on the outside. He had no reason to doubt her on that point.

"And who is it for?" Johann hissed under his breath. "That scum?"

The scum in question was already walking toward the spear. Galen VonZent, the cutpurse and murderer. Galen VonZent, the spoiled, cruel son of a merchant house who killed his own father and nearly bought his way to freedom. Galen VonZent, who Alex 'sacrificed himself to save.'

"Galan, take the spear. You're ready." Aldara said, her voice heavy with the import of the moment. When Galan moved to obey, she slowly pulled Johann back away from the spear, step-by-step.

The tall, golden-haired man grabbed the spear with both hands, and began slowly pulling it free of the iron skeleton. To Johann's shock and disgust, the shark-shaped spearhead bent this way and that in a swaying motion, aiding in its release.

"The gods must be insane, or cruel beyond reasoning. If that beast is their chosen one."

"You aren't incorrect." The old woman chuckled. "But why say that now? Why not when we found him?"

"I had faith the gods had chosen well, that he'd grow into the role. But since we saved him from the gallows he has done nothing but confirm that he was right to be there. He has been cruel, selfish, cowardly, and petty at every turn." Johann's voice was a barely subdued growl. "And even if you do not believe me, he murdered Alex."

"I told you to give him a chance." Aldara said. Johann braced to be lectured about some hidden goodness or potential for redemption. "I'm glad you took my advice."

"What? You agree with me?" Johann gritted his teeth. "You should have let me at least try to pull the spear free. If he can do it, I certainly can!"

"Why is a prophecy like a worm on a line?"

"Again with your riddles! I don't know!" Johann barely managed to suppress a shout. "Is that why I am unworthy? A riddle?"

Aldara sighed. She smiled in that way that made Johann think of his grandmother, and his anger faltered. She spoke, clear and gentle. "Do you think the Gods would leave something this important up to chance?"

"Obviously not, that's why the prophecy-"

She squeezed again.

"Tell me, how do you ensure that a chosen hero isn't killed before they can save the world?"

Johann glanced back at Galan. The brute had managed to free the spear halfway, and was taking a self-congratulatory break. "Whisk him away as a child to be raised in safety? Assign a wizard to watch over him? Place other heroes along the path to help him?"

"So many moving parts." The wizard laughed. "The gods can try and play us like puppets, but free will is a wildcat in a burlap sack-"

"-you can take it wherever you want until the sack tears." Johann continued the adage. "And you'll get cut along the way regardless."

"The task gets no easier by adding more cats."

"Then how?" Johann asked, somewhere between sullen and frustrated.

"If you need to make sure only someone who is worthy can take the spear, you make the spear ensure that anyone who takes it-"

The wizard paused, a wide satisfied smile on her face. It was not the smile she had worn when they were joyously feasting with the elf-folk five days into the quest. It was the smile she had worn when she made Vorn the Destroyer's blood turn to water in his veins.

Johann's gaze was thusly occupied when the sound of Galan's sharp, anguished scream ripped through the air.

"-is worthy."

Johann turned slowly. As a knight he had heard enough death rattles and screams to know that he didn't want to witness the cause Galan's banshee-like shriek.

When he finally did turn fully, his gaze did not meet a horrifying eldritch mutilation as he expected. Instead, there stood Galan, holding the spear reverently with both hands.

Though nothing outward had changed, every aspect that Johann had found lacking was now plainly there in the lines of his face and posture of his body: compassion, thoughtfulness, maturity, competence, sincerity... even hope. Everything was there behind those eyes.

Everything except Galan VonZent.

#short story #mini-fiction #free will #chosen ones #fantasy story #drabble #tropes

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malcolmschmitz · 5 months

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This time of year's hard. Treat yourself.

After treating the Queen's pets, Sawbones wants nothing more than to put as much distance as possible between themself and Her Majesty. But when they stop in a small village to buy supplies, they're forced to to take a detour to take on another patient-- a Cockatrice in crisis! Oh, and help a family suddenly left homeless by a wild sorcerer's awakening. If they must. If there's really no one else around to handle it. …Is there really no one else around to handle it? Nope, just one beleaguered veterinarian on the run from the law. Let's hope Sawbones gets out of town before the witch hunt turns on them.

My short story, "The Cats and the Cockatrice", is up for sale TODAY-- on Amazon, Smashwords, and wherever ebooks are sold.

#ebook #cats #lgbt fiction #lgbt fantasy #plague doctor #the cats and the cockatrice #my writing #short story

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whereserpentswalk · 1 month

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People don't realize how liminal it is to be a time traveler. How you don't ever really feel like you're in the time you are. Even when you're in your own time, everything is off, your coat was something you bought in interwar France, the book you're reading on the train is from a bookstore you had to visit in Victorian London, even your necklace was given to you by a Neolithic shaman, from a culture the rest of the world can never know. You find yourself acting strange even when in the present, much less in the past you have to work in.

You remember meeting a eunuch in 10th century China, and having him be one of the only people smart and observant enough to realize you were from a diffrent time. You could talk honestly with him, though still you couldn't reveal too much about your time. And it was still so strange hearing him talk casually about work and mention plotting assassinations. You're not allowed to but you still visit him sometimes.

You remember that the few times you were allowed to tell someone everything it was tragic. You knew a young woman who lived in Pompeii, who you had gotten close to, a few days before she would inevitably die. On your last day there you looked into her eyes, knowing soon they'd be stone and ash, that the beauty of her hair would be washed away by burning magma. And you hugged her, and told her that you wanted her to be safe, and told her she was wonderful and that you wanted her to be comfortable and happy. And you let her tongue know the joy of 21st century chocolate, and her eyes see the beauty of animation, knowing she deserved to have those joys, knowing it wouldn't matter soon. And you hugged her the last time, and told her she deserved happiness. And when you left without taking her it was like you were killing her yourself.

You want to take home everyone you're attached to. There's a college student you befriended in eighteen fifties Boston. And you can't help but see him try to solve problems you know humanity is centuries away from solving. And you just want to tell him. And it's not just that, the way he talked about the books and plays he likes, his sense of humor. There's so many people you want him to meet.

You feel the same way about a young woman you met on a viking age longship. She tells stories to her fellow warriors and traders, stories that will never fully get written down, stories that she tells so uniquely and so well. She has so many great ideas. You want so dearly to take her to somewhere she can share her stories, or where she can take classes with other writers, where she can be somewhere safe instead of being out at sea. She'll talk about wanting to be able to do something, or meet people, and you know you're so close to being able to take her, but you never can, unless she accidently finds out way too much then you can't.

You remember the longship that you met that young storyteller on. You were there before, two years ago for you, ten years later for the people on it. The young woman who told you stories wasn't there ten years later, you had been told why then but you only realize now, her uncle, who ran the ship, had been one of the first people to convert to Christianity in his nation. He killed her, either for not converting or for sleeping with women, you're not sure, but he killed her, and bragged about it when you met him ten years later.

You talk to the storyteller on the longship, ask her about the myths you're there to ask her about, the myths that she loves to tell. You look into her eyes knowing it's probably less then a year until her uncle takes her life. You ask her if you think that those who die of murder go to Valhalla. She tells you she hopes not, she doesn't see Valhalla as a gift but as a duty, she hopes for herself to go to Hel, where she wouldn't have to fight anymore. You slip and admit you're talking about her, telling her that you hope that's where she goes when she's killed. You hope to yourself you'll be forced to take her to the twenty first century, you're tempted even to make it worse, you want to have ruined her enough to be able to save her.

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the-modern-typewriter · 5 months

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And so they all lived happily ever after.[1]

Theodore could finally breathe.

The two of them had bought the quiet, peaceful cottage that they had always talked about[2] and filled it with things[3] because they were allowed to do more than simply need now.[4] They were allowed to want, and build a home because home no longer had to be wherever the resistance had camped up for the night. Honestly, Theo had thought he’d be dead before that ever happened. Being born the chosen one, nobody had ever expected him to survive fate long enough for the aftermath, least of all him. [5]

Didn’t that mean he had the earned the right to be happy, now?[6]

“Theo.” She sat opposite him at the kitchen table, and took his hand, and looked at him like the world still needed saving, like he hadn’t done enough. “This isn’t working,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

It came out of nowhere.[7]

***

“I don’t have nightmares,” he said.[8] “We won. I killed the Shadow King, if anyone should have nightmares-”

He forced his expression to ease. He shouldn’t resent Adina her nightmares, if she had them. He knew the battlefield they had met upon. In a world of blood and conquest and power that made him feel like he was going to sizzle from the inside out, she had been a cooling balm. She had made him a man, instead of something out of legend.

“I know you were there too,” he continued, because she was acting like he’d somehow forgotten that. “But it’s over.” Didn’t she see that it was over? “Whatever nightmares you have, we’ll get through it together, yeah? They’re only dreams.”

“Memories.”

His jaw clenched. “They can’t hurt you unless you let them.”[9]

Her mouth clicked shut and she swallowed hard. At some point, during the argument, they’d both surged to their feet. Her arms were crossed against her chest, defensive, like either of them should have any need for defences anymore. They were safe with each other. She knew that! Before she started this conversation, they had been fine. Hadn’t they been fine?

“If there was a button that could make me feel differently,” she managed. “I would hit it in a heartbeat. God. I’m not – I know this isn’t your fault. I’m not saying that. I know you’ve gone through enough. I know this isn’t fair, but I—”

“You just need time.”[10]

They had time now, didn’t they? Walking through the woods filled him with a calm he’d never known before. The green trees, dappled by sunlight, made it impossible to dwell on the cold feeling of bloodied stone against broken bones. Everything was light, and air, and the freedom to run.

There were no people to be responsible for, no important envoys to encroach upon the time they managed to snatch together, always wrenching them apart. It was him, and her, and they didn’t have to live in a stolen moment anymore. Wasn’t that enough?[11]

“How can you be so okay?” Adina’s voice crumpled on the question, so small, and it felt like a knife between his ribs because it sounded like an honest question too. “After everything…” Her eyes were big and desperate - he recoiled. He could finally breathe, and she would have him drown.

After everything, he was allowed to be okay. Was he supposed to live forever feeling guilty for everything he could have done better? Was he supposed to have died too?[12]

Maybe, yes, in her story he should have.

It was easier to love a legend than a man. It was easy to make promises to someone who wouldn’t live to hold you to them. For a second, he hated her, more than he’d ever hated the Shadow King. He didn’t want to be a thing of hate anymore. He didn’t want to fight anymore.

“Everything?” He repeated, oh so softly. His fists curled, nails digging into his palms hard enough to draw blood and he didn’t want to ever draw blood again either. He stopped. He relearned how to breathe. “You do not get to hold ‘everything’ against me, Adina. I did everything you asked of me. That all of you asked of me. For you. For this.”

“Theo…”

“We love each other.” He turned away because he couldn’t look at her. “That’s all that matters. We’ll get through this. Happily ever after.”

She flinched in the corner of his vision.

“Please.” He closed his eyes. “You want to talk about everything? After everything, let me have this. Give me this. It is the only thing I ever asked of you.”[13]

She exhaled a shaky breath. The silence stretched. Then, she kissed him sweetly, gently, like everything was okay. She whispered the words against his lips:

“I’ll try.”

***

It was better again, after that. Their fight became another battle of the past to be buried with their dead and forgotten.

In the mornings, they would paint the sunrise that they had once spent hours trying to picture, when the endless night of the Shadow King’s reign felt like it never might never break. The first time Theo had seen that the sky could truly be pink he thought maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t made it through after all. But he had. In the afternoons, they would walk hand in hand through the woods and he would tell her about all of the new growth he was learning about. He liked the names. The colours. The hope.

It wasn’t perfect. Now that she’d pointed it out, he stirred sometimes in the night to find her awake still. When he caressed her face in the dark his hand would come away wet with silent tears.[14] On those nights, he would kiss her honeyed and slow because he didn’t have to kiss her like she was oxygen anymore, until she melted in his arms and smiled again. [15]

The weeks turned into months, which turned into years.

She stopped crying, with time. She healed.[16]

The shadows were gone.

And so, they all lived happily ever after.[17]

----

[1] Happily ever after! It was just another bloody thing to fail at, wasn’t it?

[2] He’d always talked about it. He was happy. The cottage was perched in the middle of the woods, far enough away from civilisation that she could pass days without seeing another person. Sometimes, it felt like they must have lost, because the world that she knew wasn’t there anymore.

[3] She shouldn’t resent him his clutter. He deserved clutter. She knew he deserved clutter, his houseful of little wooden figurines he carved, after everything.

[4] She hated the clutter.

[5] It was a terrible thing to want happiness, but not know what to do with peace; she’d learned to love him fighting. But now, he loved gently, sword forgotten, armour laid to rest, and that was not the version of him that she’d fallen love with.

[6] She missed the man she’d fallen for.

[7] She couldn’t do this anymore.

[8] Because he was the only one who had truly suffered.

[9] Was it so simple? Had she got it wrong? Was she merely not trying hard enough to move on? His expression told her that, yes, she needed to try harder. They were supposed to be a team but, to his mind, when it came down to it…he’d been the one alone against the Shadow King, hadn’t he? So, if he could heal then why couldn’t she? She hadn’t been the one buckling under the weight of prophecy. She had no right.

[10] That was the other thing everyone always said, along with happily ever after. Time healed all wounds. She just needed time. But how much time was that? Too much, it seemed. There had been a woman she met in the aftermath of the battle at Sunburst fields. She had lost her lover. Adina couldn’t remember the woman’s name, only what she had confessed when no one else was there to hear her.

[11] The woman said, “I’m not allowed to mourn her. No one knew we were together, you see. She had a husband. But she loved me, and I… no one will ever know now, and I must mourn her like she wasn’t mine to mourn. Like I might mourn a stranger.’ The woman’s voice dropped barely audible. "And I think it might just kill me. How do you heal a hurt when you have to pretend it’s not there? Like it’s a papercut instead of a bullet wound?"

[12] He fought to protect her. To protect all of them. In his story, she was the victory he came home to. She was his happy ending. She was not supposed to be broken.

[13] He had fallen in love with her when she was selfish. A good, selfless girl did not love in a stolen moment, after all. Stolen moments had to be taken from someone. But he didn’t want selfish now. He didn’t want someone who had done battle, who had hurt, and been hurt. He didn’t want a woman with a shadow in her heart.

[14] And, so, he fell out of love with her in the way that a person forgets their wallet on the train – with that stabbing sense of panic, of leaving something vital behind, without yet being able to place what was gone.

[15] Instead, he fumbled and groped for the debris, the receipts, the bits of change and dust at the bottom of the bag of them that had meant something important once. He began to look at her like a stranger when she reminded him that she was sharp. That he had loved something sharp, once.

[16] He looked for clues for what was missing.

[17] He would never find her.

#Not sure the footnotes work for tumblr but here goes #but another story of mine I don't think I've shared on here #happily ever after #short story #writeblr #fiction #creative writing #original fiction #fantasy

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ivynightshade · 1 year

Text

fatima aamer bilal, from the heart beats for two.

[text id: how can i not love you violently when all i have ever known is / violence in the name of love?]

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