Tea

@flashfictionfridayofficial prompt 252: Spill The Tea. Word count: 437

Part 3 of Mimir

‘Come on, spill!’ ‘No.’ ‘Come on! I have to live vicariously through your family! Gimme!’

Spill the Tea

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Word Count: 218 Fandom: Star Trek, sixbeforelunch's incredible Vulcan-focused Pi'maat series on AO3 (set in The Next Generation / Deep Space 9 era) Pairing: sixbeforelunch's wonderful Vulcan OCs, Veral/T'Lin Link to the first story in Pi'maat, where this scene is shown from T'Lin's perspective: Kal'i'farr heh T'naehm (only visible if you're logged into AO3)

A Kiss For The Unwell

My entry for @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt #251 — Out There, read under the cut or on Ao3 here 🏵

An Alien Find

Characters: Gem, Pearl

Wc: 987

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt 251, “Out There”

Ao3: Here!

When Gem settled on the mountain with her dwarf friend, Impulse, it wasn’t just because of its advantageous position, far away from civilization and with a river on the skirts of the mountain.

The landscape across from her… there was no word for it other than alien.

I have once again done something weird with the prompt 🫠 Kind of a follow up to last week’s flash fic, Thanks to @flashfictionfridayofficial and the anonymous prompter!

[Image ID: white text reading ‘FFF251 Out There’ on a photographic background of a starry night sky.

End ID]

the job gets done, but you worry some, i know

word count: 627

Content Warnings: animal endangerment mentioned in passing, discussion of religious manipulation and abuse

—

The water isn’t half as warm as Letha would like and the crisp air of the night against her the remains of her dress worse, but she pulls herself along the shore until all she feels is grotto stone. Her pistol is ruined, saltwater wet, and her chest feels fit to burst for the earlier lack of air. And the squid, poor creature.

Convergent Histories

a @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt

Jenny feels in place, mostly, enough that she forgets, sometimes, with maybe days or even weeks until something stuns her still when she tries to piece apart what it is, what it means, what it means for her. It’s not hard. It looks like home, for the most part, sounds like home, smells like home when the fog hits and there’s barely room to see. Even the big differences are so ubiquitous she’s used to them, and forgets.

But then she’ll mention offhand a book they had to read in school, something so central to the canon no one hasn’t heard of it, and there they are. Blank looks all around. Maybe it exists here, some version of it, by some different title with half the words stripped, under an author with a name that isn’t quite right. It’s never anything at all like what she remembers.

What do they read here? She asks, and they give her lists, give her stacks of library copies, or folders full of text files, or their own precious books as they tell her be careful, it’s my favorite. And that feels similar enough, the structure and cadence not unfamiliar, the characters textured and real, the worlds wonderful and horrible and mesmerizing. The weight of them is the same in her hands, the smell of them, the edges rough or smooth against her fingers. The words blur the same as she grows tired, the tablet lands the same on her pillow as she drifts off to sleep. The stories are stories, still.

Thanks to @flashfictionfridayofficial for the prompt!

~

For this week's @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt!

This is the moment that kickstarts everything, when Saoirse meets a guy on a night out and agrees to head to his place, only for there to be a catch.

Word count: 377

—

“Where are you taking me?” Saoirse asked, her hand interwoven with a lad who pressed his other hand to the wall and made it shimmer.

She wondered if this was how she’d meet her doom, dragged to some unknown spot like too many women and girls before her.

The lad brought her to a wooden hovel, the floorboards creaking under their footsteps. Dust coated the place for days, floating in the air illuminated by faint rays of sunlight. “I told you, we’re going to my place.”

“Right. How far is that, then?”

He stopped at the door, his hand gripping the loose handle. “Do you not trust me? Honest to God, I’m not one of those men.”

She baulked at the question, at the seriousness of his tone.

Beyond that door she could swear she heard voices, the exact words muffled by the walls. The sudden change of scenery made her hesitate. “Just answer my question.”

“If you’re having doubts about this, I’ll bring you back, no questions asked. But if I was one of those men, I would’ve done what I needed to by now.”

“Hmm…” Saoirse still had his hand in hers, the freckles on her skin highlighted by the faint slivers of light. Everything within her screamed to go back, head home and face the trouble from her parents for having stayed out in a random field past Athenry until the dark hours of the morning. But she didn’t fancy her parents’ ire right now.

“What do you mean by ‘go back?’, where are we exactly?”

He gave her a smirk and a wink, opening the door and pulling her towards him. “Let me show you.”

She got shoved out the door, having to readjust herself to the blast of sunlight. People bustled through the streets, wearing cotton dresses and loose pants, yet none of the men seemed to be topless. Gazing up at the buildings, she wondered if the pair went back in time. Only thing is, this lane didn’t resemble Shop Street. Or any street she knew, really.

She couldn’t take the awe off her face. “Ruadhán, what time period is this?”

He laughed at her interpretation, now beginning to walk down the cobbled path. “The present, obviously. Welcome to Arobyre, dear.”

—

Tagging the Lady's Lament taglist here (ask/comment/message me if you'd like to be added or subtracted): @the-ellia-west @guessillcallitart @thelaughingstag @thereadingfoz @glassstardust22124 @wip-nook @bigboicol-theflamingcol @original-writing

Happy flash fiction friday ! (Or Saturday morning...) haven't done one of these in a loooong time but I want to get back into writing 🙈

Thanks @flashfictionfridayofficial for organising this!! Always good fun 🩷

Thunder - 584 Words

The rumbling woke Alice up. Usually, she slept like the dead in her cabin and it was rare for her eyes to seek the world beyond 2am but tonight, she discovered through crusted eyes and a beam of phone light, it was already half three in the morning.

Dropping back onto her pillow, she pulled the sheets tight over her ears and waited for the storm to pass. Only it never quite did. As one thunder clap ended it seemed another had simply been waiting to pick up the tune, pulling up to the orchestra with determination to out compete its fellow player.

Alice opened her eyes.

The window adjacent to her bed sat still and quiet. A sliver of silver outlined it's curtained disguise. It never changed. She crept closer in her bed and reached out, peeling back until she could just see through the corner of the glass.

It was still.

The grass below lay unmoving, the sky pricked with hundreds of pinhole stars and the obnoxious full moon looked down at her with a smirk.

The "thunder" grew louder.

Alice dropped the curtain. She shuffled back until her back hit the headboard and she gathered up all her sheets into a tight bundle about her.

The noise continued. It sounded more metallic now, like girders aching in a skyscraper caught in the midst of a hurricane. But the house didn't shake. It felt hollow and empty and silent as if even the rats had abandoned her. But the rumbles kept coming.

There were pops now too, like wood on a fire, and it seemed they were concentrated on one side. The side of her bedroom window. Alice grabbed her phone. She didn't have anyone to call, not at three am, and she knew she couldn't call the police about a storm but the weight in her hand seemed to be a comfort. A child's favourite toy.

Alice took a breath. Then she tore open the curtain.

Nothing. Just the overgrown grass of her empty garden and the thin fence that provided the first line of defence from the sprawling forest beyond. The trees seemed to stare back, only certain trunks visible in the low light, the leaves muddling with the shadows. They seemed to mock her fear.

Alice refused to look away. Eyes locked, she reached up, unclicked the latch and let the window drop open. The cold rushed in along with the sound, like a ships horn roaring into harbour. She gave an uncontrollable shiver, spiders running along her arms. She'd never liked the forest. All that quiet, all that darkness, all that unknown. She hadn't wanted to move to this post, testing soil samples for radioactivity. There was plenty good land in the south by the sea, why did the government need to farm here too?

Alice braced herself on her window frame and stuck her head out. It was louder than a jet engine and now finally the cabin seemed to hear it too, shuddering beneath her fingers.

The trees seemed to shake too. But not like the walls. Or like her. They shook with ease. They shook the way a person who's sat still for too long does. Shaking a wrist, stretching a leg, cracking a neck. It seemed to her that more slivers of grey were splitting from the trunks. Two side by side stared back at her. Eyes. One gave a wink. Alice threw herself back inside.

The forest was alive.

She had to run.

Deferred Momentum

@flashfictionfridayofficial prompt - "out there"

“What do you ssssuppose is out there?” Crawly asked speculatively, resting his chin on Aziraphale’s knee.

Aziraphale absently petted him, then went back to peeling some sort of curved yellow fruit he’d found. He made a pleased little sound as the peel gave way, revealing a paler yellow.

“Oy.” Annoyed, Crawly nudged the angel’s arm. “Aziraphale.”

“Hmm?”

“What do you ssssuppose is out there?”

“Out where?”

Crawly sighed. He hadn’t known Aziraphale long. They’d been stuck in the Garden together for months now, watching the humans explore their new environment. Crawly had already run out of things to explore, and was bored out of his mind.

“Out there.” He flicked his tail towards Eden’s towering stone walls. “Y’know. The rest of Earth?”

--prompt from @flashfictionfridayofficial (funnily enough, it's also the title of my WIP. :) )

"Can you imagine this place?" Jessica gestured at the open Selerina Ocean, as aquamarine as the gem itself. Waves lapped gently across the dull sand, of which Jessica picked up a handful of it and try to form it into glass. Clenching onto the grains, she closed her eyes before letting it all go again, forming little crystals.

Caroline lifted one of them to her ear, pretending it was an earring. She tilted her face towards Jessica, trying to conjure a reaction from her.

"I see you like my creation, Cary," Jessica giggled, "you would like seeing some of the markets here."

"But wouldn't they be the same as it is back home? With different fruits and vegetables and stuff? Or is it like a farmer's market?"

Jessica grimaced and bit her lip. She didn't note Caroline's question, much less what made her ask it in the first place. Instead, she imagined herself tasting a berry from the western forests, glistening in pink and oozing out translucent juice. She glanced at Caroline, narrowing her gaze before sweeping small shards of glass at her.

"What are you doing, Jess?" Caroline asked, opening her palm. Only a bit of smoke appeared.

"Of course everybody goes to markets! They bring food and sometimes make magical fruit! You wouldn't imagine it because--it's not in front of you!"

"I know you have powers, Jess, but I didn't know of a magical world until twenty minutes ago. I still think they only belong in books."

"Which you don't read," Jessica snarked, before a piece of seaweed approached them. Caroline picked it up with her bear hands, before finding something crawling on her.

Out There

@flashfictionfridayofficial prompt: "Out There"

Fandom: Good Omens

Crowley liked to wander. Had since the Beginning. Get up there and cause trouble, they'd said, and he wasn't going to tempt Hell or Fate by sticking around in one place for long.

And the Earth was interesting. He'd started in the Garden, but the whole thing was a garden, really. Verdant plenty everywhere he went. He roamed the biomes, enjoying the endless iterations of leaf and flower and root that ranged far out of the starter set they'd created before the Beginning. As humans spread, he roamed their places too. Always something new.

But then there was this angel.

Out There

Writing a drabble for this week's @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt: "out there"... with some classic CSI...