#flash fiction fun
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Mystrade Monday Prompt #82
For March 25, 2024
“I wouldn’t have done this with anyone else.”
The game is to write a flash fic this weekend and post it here (or with a link to the fic on AO3) on Monday with the hashtag Mystrade Monday.
Flash fiction is a complete story that is less than 1,000 words. 360mg is complete fic of 360 words with the last two beginning with “M” and “G” in any order. Please spread the word.
Hot tip: if you tag @mystradepromptsandscenarios , we’ll reblog it.
Don’t forget to add your fic to the Mystrade Monday Collection on AO3.
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Puedo ayudar con eso
Gregory Lestrade respiró profundamente... para evitar reírse.
Y es que si se le escapaba la risita que la situación le producía, seguro y su amado esposo pasaría del estado de exaltado frenesí en el que estaba, a otro de cólera segura en menos de un parpadeo. Y es que Mycroft estaba tratando de arreglar el almuerzo en el que Gregory había estado trabajando desde hacía un par de horas, como hacía todos los domingos en los que ambos coincidían en casa, desde hacía ya cinco años, mismo tiempo que llevaban viviendo juntos pasando de amantes, a pareja oficial y finalmente a esposos. Greg nunca se cansaría de agradecer a Anthea por esos preciosos días juntos, porque sin ella, Mycroft no aclararía su agenda nunca, y siempre se aseguraba de agradecérselo a la mujer con algún detalle por aquí o por allá. Y con el tiempo, la asistente personal de Mycroft había llegado incluso a esperar con ilusión esos pequeños detalles, además de ver con satisfacción como su empleador por fin tenía una verdadera vida propia.
Y en cuanto a la situación del momento, bueno, sucedía de vez en cuando, en serio.
Gregory era completamente consciente de que a Mycroft no se le quemaba el agua solo por el mero hecho de que el hombre vivía de té; pero todo lo demás entraba en el área de desastre a la vista, sobretodo porque mientras crecía, Mycroft nunca había sido muy adepto a siquiera aprender a freírse un huevo; pero su señor esposo era terco cuando quería, y una vez que soltaba la frase "Puedo ayudar con eso", Greg sabía que todo iba a irse al traste en pocos minutos.
Un gruñido siguió a un chisporroteo de aceite desde la sartén donde Mycroft intentaba por todos los medios, y de manera infructuosa, salvar los filetes de pescado a medio freír que Greg se había pasado la mañana marinando.
- ¡Puedo arreglarlo! ¡Solo espera y verás! - insistió Mycroft corriendo hacia el cajón donde Greg guardaba los guantes de cocina que generalmente solo sacaba cuando hacía algo en el horno, y volvía a tomar la espátula en un intento de darle la vuelta a los filestes sin morir en el intento.
Greg no dijo nada, limitándose solo a asentir, morderse los labios y ver al siempre compuesto ‘Hombre de hielo’ del Gobierno Británico, perder los estribos ante los filetes que se quemaban por partes... por no mencionar el olor a quemado y el humo oscuro que ya inundaban la cocina.
Y bueno... un fin de semana con pizza y pan al ajo no los había matado antes, y no lo haría ahora.
Mejor ir buscando el momento adecuado para marcar a la pizzería y hacer el pedido, sin que Mycroft se diese cuenta… y de paso le pedía a Angelo que incluyese una bonita rosa roja sobre la caja, para que luego de apagar el fuego, se apagase también la molestia de Mycroft.
Y ahora… ¿Dónde estaba el extintor?
The End
@mystradepromptsandscenarios
#greg lestrade#mystrade#mycroft holmes#mystrade monday prompts#flash fiction fun#mystrade monday#spanish fanfiction
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The Sith
5.
"I think you lost your underwear somewhere, Darling."
He could not formulate a response, his voice betraying him, as only incoherent sounds escaped his throat, embarrassing sounds more akin to shrieks and whimpers. His senses was totally overstimulated by the feeling of a hot wicked tongue mercilessly licking across his overheated sensitive flesh.
The Sith’s golden eyes sparked at him in mocking amusement.
"Sith got your tongue?"
Masterpost
#star wars#obikin#anakin skywalker#obi wan kenobi#sith obi wan#jedi anakin#fanfiction#writing exercise#flash fic#fanfic#star wars fan fic#flash fiction#The Sith#for fun#writing#implied smut
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"I don't want to fight you." The first knight said - both their lip and their muscles quivering.
"I don't want to fight you either." Said the second knight - various parts of them were also quivering but not unattractively so.
"But it looks like we have to fight." Said the first knight. "Because of our irreconcilable but equally valid moral outlooks."
"Yes," said the second knight, "it looks that way."
They looked at each other and in that look was sadness, but also defiance and a little bit of excitement.
"You're a really good knight."
"So are you."
"Maybe after all this is over - if we both survive - we could take the armour off and cuddle?"
"I'd like that."
When the two of them fought, the earth shook. And, despite the falling rubble and gasps of the local populace, they each thought that the ground trembled just for them.
#microfiction#writing#queer ass knights#short story#flash fiction#fun fact this was originally inspired by the trailer for captain america civil war
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Peace, if not forgiveness.
The Black Knight knelt at the end of his bridge. One arm hung useless at his side, crooked and bloody. There was something ragged in his breathing that gave away another injury - cracked a rib or punctured a lung. He was broken, but the breaking had just given him more jagged edges to cut with.
Like flint. Like bone. Like volcanic glass, glittering in the sun.
He rose to his feet as Akkis approached, but he did not stop the murmuring under his breath. He held up a hand to ask for patience as he finished whatever ritual he’d started.
If Akkis was born to be a fighter, he’d have simply started then. But before the war had started, he’d been a scholar. He was cursed with curiosity. Beyond that, he also knew he was an hour ahead of the main force, and that his only objective was to take the bridge. So instead of blitzing, he paused, let the human finish, then asked a question:
“What was that?”
“A prayer,” the knight said. “That the wicked will find peace if not forgiveness.”
“You’d pray for me?” Akkis asked, strangely touched.
“No,” the knight replied. “Me.”
Then he hoisted his bastard sword up with one hand and in one vicious swing, flung an arc of blood across the bridge. The fastest droplets almost made it to Akkis before hitting the dirt.
Akkis tried to see the knight’s gaze, but his face was inscrutable under the helm. The only thing he could feel was the palpable aura of hatred. Two eyes met the mask for almost a minute before the elf turned back. He walked carefully away, fading back into the woods, strangely afraid of the man on the bridge.
He could always pretend he got lost in a thicket somewhere. Let someone else test the monster on the bridge. Glory was nice, but living was nicer.
It wasn’t until he was sure that the elf was truly gone that the black knight fell back to his knees.
The real warrior was two leagues away, leading a charge. The man on the bridge, the man in the armor was not The Black Knight - he was Errol, the miner. His ragged breathing was black lung, and the limp arm was a wound that came from a misplaced swing of a sledgehammer. The blood was his own, drawn to intimidate.
He knew that eventually, he’d meet a scout that would call his bluff. That by the evening he was going to die, skewered on an elven blade. But for every minute that he could hold this bridge, for every scout he could drive away, he was buying time for another score of his neighbors to escape into the hills. He took a deep breath, and winced at the way it burned in his dust-scalded lungs.
Living had been nice, but this was better.
#hfy#fantasy#flash fiction#I guess I'm doing two warm ups today?#Fun times#Still can't think of a longer piece but at least I can say I practiced writing today#and this was fun too
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7 Minutes to Daybreak, or a story of the past told through a pocket watch. Flash fiction below the cut because the formatting made it long (it’s all item descriptions!)
-> [Check]
A pocket watch, brand new and sparkling in the darkness. You bought it with your first proper paycheck down here - the first decent wage you’ve ever had, really. Each tick sounds like an opportunity.
-> [Check]
Oh god, is that the time? Nights of recruiting for the Commodore’s little project have absolutely destroyed your sleep schedule, it seems.
-> [Check]
Your pocket watch. The casing has gotten a little pockmarked by the sea spray - or Zee spray, as that’s apparently sticking around. It’s a small luxury, one of the few you have on this desolate rock. At least it’s almost over.
-> [Check]
The way the dawnlight catches off your watch's face is rather hypnotic. You’ve had to stow the old girl in your breast pocket, for now. It’s so easy to slip into the light these days. But there’s work to be done.
-> [Check]
Small carved notches circle the face of your pocket watch, dividing it into 7 minute intervals. Your partner’s gotten into the habit of claiming he can get what’s needed out of a poor soul in 7 minutes or less - so the notches have proven quite useful, recently.
-> [Check]
Your pocket watch, recently shined to a sparkling finish. It sits warmly in the pocket of your new coat - a symbol of a rank you never could’ve dreamed of on the surface. Not a spot of blood remains on the thing, anymore.
-> [Check]
You can still remember the day you bought this watch, uncertain of the amount of money you held in your hands. Would the man who bought it recognize you?
-> [Check]
The tarnished metal of your pocket watch now bears what are most definitely bite marks in the metal. Perhaps you shouldn’t have let your son play with the d__n thing after all.
-> [Check]
You have a meeting tonight. You shouldn’t be late.
-> [Check]
Your pocket watch, once again stained by the zeesalt. The lights of Varchas are a long way off, yet. You count the seconds.
-> [Inspect]
The Gregarious Commander’s pocket watch. It’s easier to identify than his body is, despite the damage to its casing. It’s done.
-> [Examine]
Your father’s pocket watch. They gave it to you at his funeral, and among the hymns and weeping, the soft sound of its mechanism gave you some comfort.
-> [Examine]
It’s very, very late. Even through this haze, the watch will tell you that. Would your father have disapproved? Laughed at you? Laughed with you? You don’t know.
-> [Examine]
There’s so many scratches on the watch’s casing. The Theatrical Technician offered to help you set the mechanism in some finer metal, once, but you never accepted.
-> [Examine]
26 hours, 45 minutes, and a handful of seconds have passed since they abandoned you. You’re not sure when you’ll stop counting. Maybe you never will.
-> [Examine]
Your father’s old pocket watch. You’ve taken to wearing it more openly as part of your disguise here in London. It’s not particularly in fashion, but the weight in your pocket keeps you steady.
-> [Examine]
You’ve run out of time, haven’t you?
-> [Examine]
The entire trip back home, you were hoping there’d be a sign. One last clue. Something you could use, a reason to beg to stay. There was nothing. You watch the minutes tick away.
-> [Examine]
The pocket watch lays scattered atop a half dozen blueprints and schematics, plans to birth the dawn into a true sun. You have nothing else, anymore.
-> [Examine]
Your father’s pocket watch. The light - light from the sun you built - that dances across its metal tastes like freedom.
-> [Examine]
A new mechanism sits inside your old pocket watch. A necessary evil, considering the time difference between here, New Winchester, and London proper.
-> [Examine]
It’s lonely, up here. Every hour feels an eternity.
-> [Examine]
Your eyes glance across your pocket watch as the crystalline agony courses through you. How long do you have left?
-> [Examine]
Something’s changed.
-> [Examine]
The old, tarnished metal of your pocket watch burns hot in your hand. Hearts beat to its tempo. Eyes blink to its tick. You can never let it go. You can never fall out of time. Never.
-> [Search]
You scan the debris of the once dreaded locomotive for anything of interest that might float by. A metal banded glass hand clasps a small, brass pocket watch in a death grip, despite it being completely severed from its owner’s body. The watch itself is nothing to write home about - despite a complex mechanism, the style is hopelessly out of date. Not to mention the fact that it’s horribly banged up. If it wasn’t for the fading correspondence scrawled into its case, it would be completely unremarkable. Yet, the symbol exudes an undeniable power, despite the mechanism going silent within. There is not a doubt in your heart - this belonged to the Scintillating Harbinger, the glass wracked menace of the skies you just struck down.
[Take it? - Y/N]
#zeeposting#my fic#flash fiction#officer beverley#the scintillating harbinger#b#at least referenced#and introducing…!#the gregarious commander#Bev’s dad!#the hell-scarred surgeon#a special tool that will help us later!#and a secret third thing#:)#this was a fun experiment woo#the hell scarred surgeon
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how would you describe arrowfamily in canon? Cause i have seen conflicting things ranging from "Oliver Queen is a terrible horrible person" to "canon arrowfamily is what people think batfam should be like/if you want fanon batfam you want canon arrowfam" and it is confusing
Disclaimer first. A full, proper, arrowfam read-through is next on my list once I finally catch up with the bats, but I haven't gotten there yet. I have still read a whole bunch of comics, and by virtue of how the DC universe works, I've seen a fair bit of the arrows scattered throughout. (In particular, I've read a lot of Roy via Titans and Outsiders.)
So I can give a broad strokes answer here, but I'm not going to try to claim a deep meta analysis of the arrows yet.
I think the quickest way to explain the contradictory information is this:
batfam fans take up most of the space in DC fandom
for whatever reason, it has become highly popular bat fanon to use Oliver Queen as a scapegoat Designated Terrible Dad to show how much better and cooler and nicer Bruce is.
This is not a fair or accurate depiction of Ollie.
(Nor, for that matter, an accurate depiction of Bruce, but that fanon diversion is intentional and less like throwing shrapnel at a guy who isn't even part of this.)
People who actually read comics and like Ollie therefore try to push back on this extreme and ooc demonization of him, and also vaunt the arrows in general.
Said pushback is sometimes an exaggerated overcompensation.
Basically, no, Oliver Queen is not a terrible horrible person, nor even a terrible horrible father.
And I would say the canon arrows are a lot closer to what fans are desperately trying to find (or just make up) in the bats. There are various things that are true of the canon arrows/Ollie and of the fanon bats/Bruce that are not true of the canon bats/Bruce. [All post-crisis disclaimer.] Examples:
Ollie is outspokenly liberal and this is a well accepted piece of his canon characterization. (Meanwhile DC writers try very very hard to make Bruce Totally Apolitical and therefore acceptable to all readers. Not that anything is ever actually apolitical.)
Ollie also hates cops! And rich people! For a significant chunk of comics, he lost his fortune and was better off for it, realizing he could never be truly good if he were still a billionaire.
The common fan argument about how Bruce totally isn't abusive; he's a good dad who's just been written that way once or twice by bad writers is...actually not that far off from describing Ollie? He hit Roy once in a comic about How Not To Respond To Addiction; in another comic he was revealed to have secretly known about and abandoned Conner, despite this not lining up with previous comics showing how he really wanted to be a dad. Both of these things are canon and bad, no doubt! But he is also usually a lot better, and has shown an ability to grow and change. (Meanwhile canon Bruce just has a consistent pattern of abuse.)
Subjective, but Ollie seems to really think of himself as a father and delight in it in a way that Bruce just kinda...doesn't.
All the arrows, from what I can tell, actually like each other.
They don't try to murder each other either.
But, as you surely notice, being closer to batfanon desires doesn't mean the arrows literally are the fanon batfam. Like the bats, they are not a perfect model nuclear family (nor should they be!). They too have had conflict and dysfunction (Roy and Oliver stopped talking for a significant period of time!). And they do indeed exist in a comic book world driven by crime and superheroics and conflict, not a fluffy fanfiction world driven by comfort and interpersonal reassurances. (This is not a dunk on fanfic, which I love, just a reminder).
so tl;dr, the arrows aren't a perfectly fluffy fanon family either...but if you see a batfam fan throwing Ollie/other arrows under the bus to make their fave look better, that is definitely bullshit.
#*#ask#anon#*dc#dc#arrows#ollie queen#canon vs fanon#ALSO if you have come to dc comics via batfandom#and the thing you are MOST interested in is this idea of a big loving superhero/vigilante family#may i recommend to you: anything except batman comics#the superfam is very loving and supportive!#the flashes are perhaps the most functional and i hear are having a great run of comics right now!#wonder woman's cast is full of respect and love and bonds of sisters and warriors!#and yes even the arrows get closer on account of liking each other!#the bats are so goddamn dysfunctional and that's why i love them#and if you are on board with that too then jump on in and have fun#but if you are looking for a giant family that is all love#you are probably not going to have a good time. you are going to be desperately pulling out slivers of what you want#from a piece of fiction that is not actually designed for it. and indeed often designed for the opposite.#and that is not a failure of your tastes. but it is also not a failure of the fiction!!#it's a mismatch#you want to go read about wally west instead i think
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Mystrade Monday Prompt #74
For January 29, 2024
"I can help you with that.”
The game is to write a flash fic this weekend and post it here (or with a link to the fic on AO3) on Monday with the hashtag Mystrade Monday.
Flash fiction is a complete story that is less than 1,000 words. 360mg is complete fic of 360 words with the last two beginning with “M” and “G” in any order. Please spread the word.
Hot tip: if you tag @mystradepromptsandscenarios , we’ll reblog it.
Don’t forget to add your fic to the Mystrade Monday Collection on AO3.
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Writing exercise
I wanted to have some fun and do a little writing exercise, so I've written some short disjointed flashes of a perhaps larger fic, inspired by this prompt list.
I'll be posting one a day for the next fifteen days.
The Sith
"I have dreamed of your legs wrapped around my waist," the Sith whispered against his ear, sending a tingle down his spine in anticipation.
When a hot mouth sucked his earlobe in, biting none too gently, he gasped in pained pleasure, writhing against the strong body that held him trapped between it and the cold wall.
A moan escaped him at the sensation of a well-trimmed beard brushing the sensitive skin on his neck, but he refused to give in too easily and he managed to force out, "maybe if you ask really nicely I can make your dream come true."
"Oh, darling," came the purring reply, "you know our little game better than that, you'll be the one begging at the end."
2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.
#star wars#obikin#anakin skywalker#obi wan kenobi#sith obi wan#jedi anakin#fanfiction#writing exercise#flash fic#fanfic#star wars fan fic#flash fiction#The Sith#for fun#writing#implied smut
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Sirius Black, The Nosebleed God of Blunt Force Trauma
(ok so this is heavily inspired by my conversation with @black-sparroww, who slid into my DMs to talk about nosebleeds and came up with the lovely idea of Sirius Black as a God of Nosebleeds that i couldn’t get out of my head) (tw: blood, so it’s below the cut!)
When you’re a Nosebleed God, you end up wearing a lot of dark clothing. Sirius can’t count how many white shirts he’s ruined with the blood dripping down from his face. Plus, he always has two black eyes, and while he suspects he looks quite dashing and dangerous with them, they do sort of scare off potential love interests.
Regulus, of course, is the Nosebleed God of Pollen. Fucker. He wears white all through the fall and winter, when the leaves turn yellow and fall off and the plants stop reproducing. Regulus finds potential love interests just fine.
Pollen isn’t quite as dramatic as Blunt Force Trauma, though, so Regulus’ temples tend to sit empty. Sirius’ shrines attract men after bar fights and skateboarding accidents and baseball games gone wrong. He watches as they pray for a speedy recovery, for a straight nose, for a bag of frozen peas to press to their face. They hold the backs of their hands to dripping noses, red smeared across lips and chins. They look around at each other, searching for reassurance. Sirius tries to give it when he can. He hands out cool washcloths, scented lavender for that little extra something. They wince at the look of him and accept the washcloths, averting their eyes, as if he’s any worse off than they are.
Most men come to him once, twice maybe. He’s not used to seeing familiar faces. But there’s one man who pops up like clockwork, once a month and maybe more often on lucky months. This man is tall, maybe even taller than Sirius, with messy hair and patched-over rips in his trousers. He always half-smiles at Sirius, never looks away, shamed, like the others do. And he lets the blood drip all down his face, down to the chest of his cardigans. Sirius finds it charming.
Today the man sits towards the front of the shrine, staring up at a painting of Sirius with a glowing halo. He’s grinning. Sirius can tell even by the back of his head, from the set of his shoulders.
“You’ve never seemed all that angelic to me,” he says, tilting his head.
Sirius steps up behind him and places a hand on his shoulder. “I’m not,” says Sirius.
They sit like that in silence, Sirius’ hand burning where it touches the man’s shoulder. He wants to remove it, put it back in his pocket. He wants to leave it there forever.
“Do you ever wonder about me?” the man asks, tilting his head up to look at the ceiling. Not at Sirius.
“Yes,” Sirius says, honest at least. He wants to ask a million questions. He doesn’t know where to start.
“Remus,” says the man. When Sirius stills in confused silence, he continues. “My name. I’m sure that’s your first question.”
Sirius nods. “Sirius.”
Remus chuckles. “I know.”
“Still, it’s polite to introduce yourself,” Sirius says with a sniff. He may not have been raised well, but he was at least raised with good manners.
Remus turns to look at him, fresh blood running down his face. His nose looks crooked. Sirius wants to reach out and touch it.
“I can fix that for you,” he says.
Remus grins. His lip splits. “Don’t you always?”
Sirius reaches out a hand, cupping Remus’ jaw. He brings the other up to Remus’ face and rests two fingers on his nose. His touch is light, but Remus winces anyway. Sirius’ bloody nose has long since stopped hurting, but he winces with sympathy anyway. He shuts his eyes, focuses his energy, and heals. He can feel the circles under his eyes grow darker as Remus’ nose straightens and sets. Opening his eyes again, Sirius finds Remus staring back at him in wonder.
“Thanks,” Remus says, standing up and sticking his hands in his pockets. He turns to leave.
“Wait,” says Sirius. “Are you coming back?” He sounds desperate, he can hear it in his voice. But this is what he wonders the most, every time Remus walks into his shrine. Will this time be the last?
At that, Remus tips his head back and laughs, as if he’s sharing an inside joke with only himself. “Yes,” he replies. “I’ll be back. I’ll see you in a month.”
He walks out of the worship space and into the light. Sirius watches him go.
#wolfstar#sirius black#remus lupin#this is wolfstar and a microfic#but not a wolfstar microfic#ya know?#anyway. the product of some fun late-night (on my end) dms!#tw: blood#em goes micro#ish#i would really call this more of a flash fiction#but who's here for semantics! not me
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Want Better Things
“You thought that was a bioweapon?”
The translator broke down for a second as the creature did a sort of broken exhale. Connotations were all that came through. Vague implications. Pity, the software flashed. Disgust. Anger.
A pause as it decided.
Sadism.
Valta was already backing away. The final decision didn’t change his behavior, it just made the hall feel far, far too short.
“I didn’t order it deployed. I didn’t make it.”
The thing was staring at him, and he couldn’t look away. The two eyes moved in such perfect tandem that he didn’t think it was conscious. It only had binocular vision because it only needed binocular vision. Always the predator, never the prey.
And now it was moving in on him.
“Oh, but what if you had? Then I could tell you all the things that were wrong with it.”
One of its hands - a sprawling, five fingered spindly thing - traced carelessly along the station's walls.
“No incubation period. Symptoms arrive within 40 minutes of exposure. No time to spread undetected. Minimum should be one week. Embarrassingly low.”
The pressure the thing was putting on the wall increased, the gentle glide turning into a buzzing scratch. Humans were strong, but not strong enough to cut through metal like this. The suit had to be powered and clawed.
“Spread through contact. Limited waterborne. No airborne. Intended mechanism of infection is viral load being put on hands from scratching, and then passed into the environment. Pathetically inefficient.”
The translator was working, but the thing was overeunounciating each word. The meaning was being passed along by a clean, helpful voice in his suit, even as the sound was being passed on through the environmental speakers. And the sound was dreadful - clicks of ceramized bone jarring against each other, wet muscles modulating air into something sharp and rasping.
“Mechanism of death? Lysis overload. Could be dangerous if it was transmitted into the lungs, but since the initial load tends to be dermal all we wind up with-”
It took its helmet off.
It took its helmet off.
It took its helmet off it took its helmet off it took its helmet off in a biozone it -
It looked a little pink, actually. A little scratchy. It lifted a delicate, taloned hand and rubbed its face against it for a moment before finishing.
“-is a rash.”
Valta’s prey drive had glued him to the spot. It was too close. The stupid, stupid part of his brain that still thought he was grazing on Duranga hoped that if he stood still long enough, it might not notice him.
The human paused a moment before continuing.
“Do you know why they sent me? Alphonse Ericsen, PhD, MD, civilian doctor, here to speak with you?”
Valta’s snout twitched. The suit translated the gesture for him.
“No.”
“Because one of our grunts is a dumb fuck,” the human said simply. “And he spent two days fighting on your station with his helmet off. He got infected that way and brought back your stupid, itchy plague to our carrier ship, and now we’ve all spent the last 8 hours scratching ourselves raw. But the jokes on you, because when we were treating that guy you know what we found? That he was in the asymptomatic phase of a COVID infection. So if this-”
It gestured to its pink face with a snarl.
“-is your idea of a bioweapon, then COVID is going to be your apocalypse. But if you work with me, and shut everything the fuck down for the next three or four months, I might be able to save most of you.”
Valta unstuck at that. He’d spent weeks down here, worrying about nothing more than the next skirmish. Now he was looking at a genuine existential threat.
“...What? Why would you help us? We wanted you to die. All of you. I wanted-”
The human cut him off with an exasperated wave of his hand.
“You wanted something stupid. Doesn’t mean I have to join you. Best I can do to fix you is keep you alive and hope that you feel ashamed later. That, I genuinely look forward to. Now come on, you’re going to be the one explaining to all your friends what’s at stake here. My bedside manner is so bad that they limited my patients to virology slides and USMC marines. I think that’s actually one rung below the guys that just dissect cadavers.”
Valta would’ve made an amused hum at that, but something already felt scratchy inside his throat.
#hfy#more flash fiction#I think I just needed a little brain break from pushing for larger works#fun tho#I really loathe HFY where the moral is like 'what if humans comitted war crimes and it was BASED'#so I tried doing one where it was 'what if humans took the moral high ground and like didnt do war crimes'.#the doctors prayer: that you live long enough to know what a dumbass you were#HASO#Humans Are Space Fae#sci-fi#770 words i think
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Signal Boosting!
Welcome to the FMK: F*****, Marry, Kill Flash Exchange
This is a flash exchange based around the old game / meme of FMK. Each person picks sets of three characters and their exchange partner gets to gift them three fic snippets or small sketches, one involving on-screen or implied f****ing, one involving marriage or domesticity, and one for any sort of murder / assasination attempt.
Nominations and Sign-ups are both live until September 24, 2023!
You can nominate fandoms and tags you want to see here, and then wait for them to get approved:
Each gift either a set of 3 100 word minimum stories or 3 doodles / sketches.
#exchanges#gift exchanges#flash fiction#fmk#FMK.#mcyt#multifandom#this isn't MCYT specific but i think MCYTBLR could have some fun with this
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Flash Fiction Friday: On the Edge
Silvia gripped Theo’s proffered hand tightly, aware that her claws were digging into her friend’s palm. Theo flinched, but it was her habit to put a brave face on everything, and she was grinning again a moment later. “Don’t worry. I won’t let you fall.”
The deserted town sloped away before them, suspended over the emptiness. Where the town ended, so did the world. At the bottom of the main street, past buildings which leaned towards oblivion, over fissures and rifts, lay the edge. Below the sharp cliff was a yawning drop, and then nothing but eddies of blue mist fluttering over the endless void.
Theodora Vismoore appeared unbothered. She skipped over piles of rubble as though they were only bumps; over cracks as though one misplaced foot wouldn’t send her tumbling to her death. She was even humming as she went. The sunny dress she wore - which she termed as ‘completely horrible’ - was pulled through her legs and tied around her waist, a precaution that Silvia wished she had taken with her own. One hand clutched Silvia’s paw, helping her stay steady, the other pointed her father’s - Lord Vismoore’s - sabre in front of her, though its point wobbled. Her father was a bulky, heavy man, with a sword to match, and Theo was still only eleven.
“Won’t Lord Vismoore notice you took that?” Silvia whined. “I don’t like this, Theo.”
Theo snorted. “That man wouldn’t notice if I stole his trousers. He’s completely out of it these days. Come on. It’s this way.”
That morning Theo had begged her mother incessantly to let them take the carriage out for the day. Silvia felt certain that Lady Vismoore had only agreed to get her nagging daughter out from under her feet. She had nodded over to where Silvia waited by the table, clutching an empty tray to the front of her servants’ dress and said; “Though you should probably bring a leash if you’re taking your dog with you.” She then burst into crowing, staccato laughter.
Lady Vismoore was not a cruel woman by habit. Her servants were well-treated. The people who resided in her demesne lived heartily. Nevertheless, when Silvia was found, a sodden, mangy ball of fur in the woods below Castle Vismoore, Theo had to beg incessantly for days on end until her mother relented and allowed Silvia to be taken in.
Silvia scratched at her neck. She was still mangy. Her cascade of blonde curls had grown back, but the raw splits in her flesh were not healing. She was falling apart, piece by piece. “Who lives here? Is there a doctor or something?”
“Nobody.” Theo stopped, perched on a treacherous fallen wagon, tucking locks of her wavy silver hair behind her ears and peering around at the sprawl of streets. “This place has been abandoned for years, ever since the last big collapse. So-” She dropped her voice low and grinned, waggling her eyebrows. “-I suppose I should say, nobody living.”
“A ghost is going to help me, then?” Silvia rolled her eyes. “Come off it.”
“Or a spirit, or- I’m not sure what she is. Let’s just say she’s a witch.” Theo spotted her target and leapt from her perch with nonchalance that made Silvia’s stomach drop. “It’s this way.”
They made their way through the side-alleys to a crumbling shrine - more ancient than the buildings around it by far, its weathered limestone facings cloaked thickly with dirt. The carvings and engravings were smoothed down to rounded, indistinct clumps. The entire place reeked, a sour and musty stench trickling thickly from every crack. The stone door was inlaid with tarnished silver. Theo hammered the pommel of her sword upon it. “Hullo? You there, Ma’am?”
At first there was nothing but the groaning of the wind and the distant calls of birds, left behind outside the town. Silvia tugged at Theo’s sleeve. “Theo, let’s go h-”
“Aaaah-aaaaaaaa.” The moan shook Silvia’s bones, vibrating sharply from behind the door and she jumped away. Theo reached out to steady her. “Thou hast returned, fool child. Thou shalt not thieve it from me.”
“I know, I know, I shan’t,” Theo grumbled. She braced herself with one foot on the ground, and the other up on the slanted door frame. “Do you remember our deal, lady?”
“I am to heal your sweetheart in exchange for my freedom,” the voice sighed, “I recall.”
Silvia frowned. “Sweetheart?”
“I- I don’t know where she got that from.” Theo’s pale cheeks were turning a bright shade of pink.
The voice grew louder, drew closer, now bubbling through the cracks around the door. “Is this to be the day? Thou hast brought the girl?”
“Yes.” Theo hefted the sword. “And something to try and pry these doors open. Ready?”
Silvia shrieked.
Miasma spewed from the door. Black smog billowed and pooled, reeking and acrid, stinging where it came into contact with her skin. This was the byproduct of magic that had robbed her of her family and even now ate away at her flesh. She remembered falling into the swamp, gasping, suffocating, the mist probing hungrily into her and scorching her lungs.
She ran. Silvia’s claws scrabbled at the flagstones of the street, desperately trying to haul herself away from the danger, breathless. Her foot caught in a crack in the stones and she fell, sliding backwards, past the shrine, careening towards the edge.
Theo’s arms clamped around her, the other girl’s body weight pulling them into a roll. They slid, and bounced, and eventually crashed, slamming into a wonky lamppost that creaked under their weight. They lay there panting, tangled in each other, staring at the distant blue pooling below.
“Okay. We don’t have to do this,” Theo murmured into Silvia’s pointed ear. “I’ll drop it. Let’s go home.”
Blood matted the fur at Silvia’s elbow. A new, stinging wound that would not heal. “Perhaps… another day.”
“Another day.”
@flashfictionfridayofficial :3
Taglist (DM to be added or removed): @indy-gray @sam-glade
#First time doing this!! Exciting stuff. I had fun#The Tectomancy Saga#This is a little prequel piece for Bound By Stone And Blood#I have been wanting to write a bit about Theo and Silvia's childhood for a while so this was great#And thanks to sam-glade for proofreading :3#BBS&B#Flash Fiction Friday#Writeblr#Bound by stone and blood
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The Copper Crown
FOR @flashfictionfridayofficial
Word count: 974
Male x Male
[Henry needs a distraction from his looming wedding. He meets a wandering Knight.]
When his mother was angry, she’d fume in her study. She'd pen her displeasure on scraps of paper, never read by any other eyes but her own. When his father was angry, he’d storm out of the estate and partook to the warmth of liquor that muddled his mind. He'd return home the next morning smelling like the stables.
Henry had tried his mother’s form of distraction. Locking himself in his study, so when Elizabeth yelled, the wooden door would muffle it and hid the sight of her angry tears. He’d try to write down his frustrations like his mother. But the admissions in his own words; of his true character, one he could never utter into existence without repercussions to his name had been too much to bear. Even the act of writing it down made his hand quiver as he held the quill tight. A penned remorse for turning his childhood friend into an antagonist to his life because he could not love her the way she did. As she had done for some time.
And so, he followed in his father’s footsteps. He walked out the doors of his estate at the eve of his wedding and into a carriage, instructing the coachman to take him to the farthest alehouse. There, the name Briarwood would be nothing but an itch to the mind rather than an open revelation of his certain prestige.
He found refuge in a tavern with an intimate charm. The Copper Crown, with its flickering lanterns on the low-beamed ceilings, they casted an amber glow on tapestried walls and worn wooden tables stained with the heavy scent of ale. The patrons huddled in their respective tables, some conversations lively and merry, others echoed in gentle somberness.
The nobleman had found a corner to himself, immersed in the shadows of his thoughts. He drank the brewed ale hoping to drown the weight of his impending union with its heady warmth and ease the burden on his heart. But it seemed that he was rather inept in hiding his afflictions, as a man stopped by his table. And Henry’s ears alone became privy to the rich velvet tone of the stranger’s voice. His chaotic thoughts silenced by just a few words.
“Evening, care for some company?”
Henry looked at the man. Dark, tousled hair that danced a tint of red in the lantern light framed his striking face, sculpted well by time and hinted at years of daring adventures. His eyes, the colour of midnight, intense yet inviting, especially at how they wandered to study Henry in the same way his own eyes studied him. Manners told the nobleman to nod and offer a hand,
“H-Henry.” He mentally cursed at the stutter of his own name.
The man’s hand was large and rough. He shook Henry’s hand with the firm grip of a swordsman and sat at the empty chair,
“Callum.”
Their conversation flowed like a dance, a delicate interplay of words and silence that blossomed with intrigue. Henry blamed the ale for his sudden openness to this stranger, as court life taught him to be tight-lipped with information of his life. Though he does not downplay Callum’s adept way of unraveling his guarded heart, with a well-timed smirk, a dulcet chuckle, or a playful tease that bordered the temptations of intimacy.
“This place,” Callum gestured to the Copper Crown, “is where people go to find reprieval from their lives. What brings you here? Aside from the obvious desire for a drink?”
Henry hesitated; his gaze momentarily lost in the depths of his ale. "A wedding." he finally admitted, the word heavy with both duty and reluctance.
Callum's eyes glinted with curiosity. "Ah, weddings. Joyous occasions,” he stopped to study the defeated look on Henry’s face, “or so I am told. Are you... the blushing groom-to-be, then?"
A bitter chuckle escaped Henry's lips. "Yes. Though not willingly... it is a union born out of duty, not love."
Callum leaned back into his chair, his strong arms held across his broad chest as his eyes held a mischievous glint, “Well, that does explains a lot then.”
When Henry looked at him confused, Callum continued with his observation, his words laced with a teasing charm, “You look as if you're about to face a monster, my dear Henry."
Again, Callum had a way to weaken his defense as he laughed ruefully at the accurate analogy. His marriage did seem like a dreadful looming creature ready to pounce and devour him. As he did, Callum leaned forward and his legs briefly brushed against Henry’s. An accident, Henry told himself as his laughter slowly faded.
“Need of a rescue? Shall I be your knight in shining armour, and whisk you away from the jaws of matrimony?” He asked with a sly tilt of his – to Henry’s observation – very kissable lips.
Henry tore his eyes away from Callum as his neck felt like it was searing in heat, “I'm afraid, that I'm past the point of rescue.”
Undeterred, Callum leaned even closer, his voice a velvet whisper that held allure and a promised liberation, "What about a distraction, then? Something to divert your thoughts from your impending doom?"
He reached across to graze Henry’s hand with his own. The touch sent a subtle thrill through Henry, of a sensation he had long suppressed. He looked up to see Callum’s suggestive smile, the offer one he’d dreamt of for years yet never enacted on. Tonight is his last night as a bachelor and though Henry contemplated, his heart had already been set the moment Callum offered his company.
At last Henry nodded. "A distraction, yes. Even if just for the night."
They left the tavern discreetly, hand in hand and disappeared into the night. Henry returned home the next morning, smelling like the stables.
#flash fiction friday#flashfiction#a form of distraction#male x male#fiction writing#writblr#flirty#flirting#one night stand#fantasy writing#fantasy#writers on tumblr#I ran out of word count! The ending is rushed#this was a lot of fun to do#i love this#Not OCs just made for fun#flashfictionfridayofficial
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The Old Machine
For @flashfictionfridayofficial's Flash Fiction Friday. The prompt was:
[#FFF218 How Do You Use 'It'?]
This wonderful prompt has been brought to you by the one and only @potaeto-writes, thank you very much! What is 'it'? Why does someone not know how to use it? You better read that booklet with its fine-print! Whether your character tries to get the washing machine going for the first time or your scientist has created a rather complicated time-machine: We want to know how it's used! Write your story and tell us.
A fun fact: I work with kids and had them decide what the machine should be called based on their best guesses.
“How do you use it?”
Price’s breath tickled the hairs on the back of her neck.
“I don’t know.”
Ansley “Lee” Robinson scraped a soft layer of dust off of the top of the faded exterior of the machine with her palm.
What was once an enameled seagreen had become the mottled color of chicken starting to mold, but now she could see tiny glimmers of her own reflection staring out of fingerprints. It was an old bulwark. It might’ve been the green-gray of a whale’s back cresting the surface of the ocean. She held the boxy shape in her hands, shifting the sharp edges, so they wouldn’t dig into her. It looked like a large flat box with a smaller longer box on top, sort of like the beat-up red plastic cash register at school. Instead of numbers, it had a raised circular keyboard. Each key was about as big as a thumbnail.
“It’s one of those story typing machines,” Lee stated with the confidence of a tenured professor.
“Like from an old movie,” Price swanned towards what would’ve been a graceful landing on a stack of boxes had her grandma’s chunky red heels not caught the edge of the suitcase a pace to the right and knocked his butt right onto it, like a sack of dirty clothes on laundry day.
“Yeah, I guess,” she continued without looking up at Price’s usual antics.
Her own eye gleamed back at her, distorted in the streaky surface. She looked a second longer, then blew.
A wave of gray murk flew off or fell in clumps to the concrete floor. The ancient dust raised a fit of hacking, doubling her and Price over. The machine slipped in her hands. Quickly, she fumbled for the blocky shape with her small arms. With a horrible ringing and clattering from the machine, she gained purchase by jamming it into the soft spot just below her diaphragm.
“Lee! Y’all better not be in that damn storage closet!”
She and Price shared a single look and a fleet-footed departure. Him on bare feet, her with the typing machine under her hoodie.
She traded Price his abandoned socks the next day for his pack of new gel pens.
They sat on the playground bench, getting flecked with glittery pink, orange, green as they cracked the ink reservoirs open to dump them into a little plastic bottle they’d found near the slides. It looked like it’d held bubble liquid once. Now it had a concoction that was slowly turning a nauseous black.
Price pranced on his sneakers’ tiptoes as he practiced staggering around in front of the bench Lee was sitting on.
“You have to bring whatever you write on it to school, okay? I got those pens for my birthday.”
“It’s not like I’m using all of them,” Lee grumbled, but she knew in her heart of hearts that she wanted Price to be there.
“Yeah, but they’re still mine, so I get the first page.” Price teetered on a toe for a moment before he sank into the bench beside her. “I’m gonna put it in a frame next to my bed in the new apartment.”
Like the aftermath of a stone splashing into a pond, the two fell silent.
Her great grandparents had lived in her house prior to her grandparents who had lived there prior to her dad; she had always thought that she would live there as well. But Dad was always going on about the neighborhood being sold off to the city so white land developers could push into the block with new condos. Old Miss Mattie - who’d planted crepe myrtle trees down the block and knocked on their door every month or so to remind them about the neighborhood potluck had stopped coming ‘round. Dad had said she’d had to move. Then he sighed in that world weary way and shook his head. That had been when the stone had started to sink Lee’s stomach, then, that something that had been so assured for most of her life could be taken without her ever having realized it’d gone missing.
Using the borrowed time between Dad’s room door closing and the onset of drowsiness in her body, Lee dragged the typing machine out from under her bed. Setting the glass of water on her nightstand on the floor, she hefted the thing into the empty center. It didn’t take long to fish the improvised ink bottle out of her backpack, but it did take her the better part of that hour and several Google searches to find the name of the thing.
“Typewriter. I knew that,” she mumbled as she popped the letters ‘how to use a typewriter’ into YouTube on virtual keys. The blue-green behemoth stood perfectly still beside her. She almost felt as though it were waiting. Waiting as she stumbled through finding out it already had a loaded ink ribbon, cramming in a sheaf of notebook paper borrowed from today's math notes, and marveling that the typewriter had sat there all those years patiently waiting to be used.
The carriage moved as if oiled to click into place. A minute passed in silence, but nothing stirred except for the hum of cold air being spit out of the AC. She laid her hands on the keys.
“Springhill was never”’ she began to write, then opened Google on her phone beside her. She puzzled out different variations of
jentrefid
jentrifyed
jentreefied
until ‘did you mean?’ spat back out the correct input.
‘Gentrified.’
Under the painstaking guesswork of another fifteen minutes, she wrote:
“Miss Mattie never moved away and Price will not move because the city ran out of money paying lawyers. When we’re together, they can’t defeat us. We will live here and so will our children.”
When she set out for school the next morning Old Ms. Mattie waved at her from across the street.
#fff218#Flash Fiction Friday#creative writing#Writeblr#short story#my works#by quinn#I had fun with this!#thanks for the event
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Mystrade Monday Prompt #86
For April 22, 2024
"Not with that attitude.”
The game is to write a flash fic this weekend and post it here (or with a link to the fic on AO3) on Monday with the hashtag Mystrade Monday.
Flash fiction is a complete story that is less than 1,000 words. 360mg is complete fic of 360 words with the last two beginning with “M” and “G” in any order. Please spread the word.
Hot tip: if you tag @mystradepromptsandscenarios , we’ll reblog it.
Don’t forget to add your fic to the Mystrade Monday Collection on AO3.
(prompt courtesy of @stellacartography)
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