Tag: fantasy

prompt: Write a story from the perspective/POV of a non-human or fairy tale character sharing their side of the story.

available at Reedsy

I sat in the cafe, looking out at the hustle and bustle of the city. The round-ears were always in such a hurry. Always one task or another to get to. How many of those tasks were evil schemes I will leave up to the reader to decide. This, however, is the story of just one of those nefarious plots; the worst one ever. This is the story of how a round-ear blacksmith became regent and ended the elven Kingdom of Elian.

When Queen Sylthia died in the nine-hundredth year of King Rikkan’s reign without providing an heir, the king married the young Princess Arina, barely three hundred years old to his two thousand. Within a decade, she bore him an heir, Crown Prince Sylber — this humble narrator. Much to my detriment, the princess died in childbirth.

The king was of failing health and rushed my education. Seers, mages, and priests were employed as my tutors. Even as a child, I sat in on meetings of the king’s council and learned the art of statesmanship.

I was barely two centuries old when the king died of a sudden fit. Knowing what I know now, it was likely a massive stroke. I was thrust on the throne while border skirmishes with the newly united dwarves of the northern mountains were threatening to turn to all-out war.

It was a delicate balancing act. I had to make concessions enough to the new dwarven Grand Chief to placate him and the tribes. At the same time, I had to ensure that those concessions were minor enough that the king’s council and the people wouldn’t oust me and place some easily controlled distant cousin of mine on the throne.

It worked for a while, until the round-ears blacksmith showed up. He came from the dwarf lands in the north and was allowed across the border by showing his handiwork. He knew the secret to forging mithral. The proof was in the shoes with which his horse was shod. A dwarf smith would never stoop to making horseshoes from the most noble metal.

He showed up in the capital with an ingot of mithral and requested an audience with me. Of course, I wanted to see this strange round-ears with mithral shoes on his horse.

My first surprise was that he was a she. I’d heard of dwarf women blacksmiths, I hadn’t heard of such a thing among the round-ears. The second surprise was that the shoes on her horse were war shoes. The toe of the shoe extended partway up the hoof with a ledge at the front that allowed the horse to rip through shields. There was no mistaking the blue sparks of mithral when the massive draft horse, freed from the wagon that carried her forge and tools and coal, ran down the cobble road faster than most riding horses.

The final surprise came when she handed me an ingot of fine patterned steel, then an ingot twice its size of mithral. Even at double the size, it weighed less than half what the steel did.

We already knew what mithral weapons could do against steel, but the dwarves controlled the supply and hoarded the secret to working it. Until Brenna the Smith, at least.

The ingot she let me hold was worth at least a hundred-thousand crowns. I asked her if she could make me a mithral sword. She said she could but would never make a mithral weapon to help a dwarf kill an elf or an elf kill a dwarf. Horses, she said, were a different matter, since they weren’t the ones with the mental faculties to declare a truce.

I allowed her to set up a stall in the outer market where she plied her trade for months. Every time I saw that horse of hers, however, a twinge of jealousy bit at me. Finally, I asked if she could make mithral war shoes for my best destrier.

“That,” she said, “I can do.”

I was ready to pay her as much as half a million crowns for the shoes, so long as they were properly fitted, included the striking plate, and had my sigil embossed on the raised toe. I told her what I wanted, and she stopped me before I made an offer.

“Bring the horse,” she said. “If it is of amenable temperament to be shod, I shall make the shoes and nails and charge only for the nails. They are harder to make than the shoes, after all, and must be made of mithral as well.”

Brenna the Smith enclosed her stall with cloth walls and began to work sixteen hours a day. She wouldn’t let anyone see how the mithral was worked. After several days, she had the shoes and nails ready.

After I examined the shoes and gave her my blessing to continue, she said she would need one more day in secret to perfectly fit the shoes.

She spent the next day with the horse closed in with her as she trimmed the horse’s hooves and made the final adjustments on the shoes. The next morning, I went with the exchequer to watch the shoeing.

“This is your last chance to change your mind,” she said. “I will charge only one crown for the first nail, two for the second, four for the third, and so on.”

The exchequer was looking for something to write with, while I thought only a little about it. I’d guessed I would end up paying maybe twice the value of the final nail, but none of the cost for the much more substantial shoes.

“You don’t know what you have, then,” I said. “I’ll take that deal.”

“And how do I know you’re good for it?” she asked.

“I am the king!” I said. “My word is backed by the entire Kingdom of Elian.”

With that, she nicked her hand and mine and shook. Some strange round-ears custom, I guessed.

The destrier was larger than most, nearly sixteen hands, and the shoes each had ten nails. I’d lost track of the price of each nail, but the exchequer hadn’t. His face blanched as reached a realization that I hadn’t.

After the last nail was driven and trimmed with mithral nippers that bore her own maker’s mark, she pulled a piece of parchment out of her apron with a bill of sale. Forty lines, one for each nail, with the price doubling every time.

The exchequer fainted. I balked, and tried to make her take the shoes back, but I was unable to.  It wasn’t some strange round-ears custom, it was the law of the land, sealed by magic commissioned by my father a century earlier. A blood-oath in the marketplace sealed a deal that neither party could back out of.

While the original purpose of the law and seal was to enforce the decisions of the court, it was written in such a way that it was binding even when the court didn’t set the terms. Brenna the Smith knew more about the laws of my own kingdom than I did.

I found myself unable to mount my horse, or return to the throne, or do anything in regards to the palace other than gather my toiletries and trinkets with no monetary value and walk away. When the king’s council asked what was happening, all I could answer was, “Ask Queen Brenna the Smith.”

Within the year, the king’s council was dissolved, a temporary parliament installed, and an election held for a permanent parliament and prime minister. Brenna continued as queen for another twelve years, brokering peace through trade deals with the dwarves, humans, and even the beastkin far to the east.

In the twelfth year of her reign, after convincing parliament to draft and ratify a new constitution without a monarchy, she declared herself no longer needed and retired to a small village to smith. The Kingdom of Elian was no more, replaced by the Elian Republic.

I met with Queen Brenna a few years after she abdicated. She had a smithy by the river, where the historical plaque is now. The Smithy Pub was built more than a hundred years later, and was never a smithy, and certainly not Queen Brenna’s. Hers was a crude, wooden building.

I asked her first, how she learned the secret of smithing mithral, and she just said, “Trial and error.”

Then I asked her why. Why did she take Elian and then essentially give it away. She said, “You elves were pouring all your resources into gearing up for a war you didn’t want. The dwarves were doing the same, their engineering and manufacturing geared solely towards weapons and armor. At the same time, the humans and beastkin were dealing with drought and crop shortages that could’ve been mitigated with elven resources and dwarven ingenuity. I thought of an outrageous plan and hoped it would work. It did.”

I do have to admit admiration, though. The new constitution Brenna championed gave everyone in Elian equal rights, regardless of caste. That, plus universal education and healthcare, and consistent trade with all the neighboring countries has made it one of the most prosperous nations, bursting with cities like this one, even if it is full of round-ears.

So, dear reader, are the round-ears all evil cunning … or just Brenna the Smith? Or perhaps I’ve seen it wrong all along. After all these centuries, I’ve come to grips with losing my birthright, my throne … and I’ve realized that it was the people of Elian that were promised to me as if they were mere chattel. From where I see it now, I wasn’t on the side of good, no matter how I wished it so.

As much as I hate to admit it, maybe Brenna the Smith was right, and I was wrong to think I owned the kingdom. Maybe it wasn’t evil cunning at all, but just part of her human nature.

prompt: Start or end your story with an empty plate, empty glass, or something burning.

available at Reedsy

The plate in front of Gormund gave him a feeling he hadn’t had before. The squash and rashers were gone, and he’d sopped up all the juices with bread. Now there was just the bare plate where there had been a beautiful, if plain, dinner. He wasn’t sure why, but he felt a lot like the plate.

He washed his plate and fork in the wash basin in his cabin and put them back in their place in the padded cabinet. It was turning out to be a lot of work to own a ship, even when he wasn’t the sailing captain. Decisions other than how to deploy sails, when to row, and when to anchor, all fell to Gormund.

A knock on his cabin door was followed by the “ship’s boy” poking her head in the door. “Sir … uh Gormund … we’ve spotted land where the maps show nothing. Captain wants to know if we go ashore or continue around.”

“I would like to see,” Gormund said. He followed the lass to the deck where Sailing Captain Mikka waited. The sailing captain was short and wiry, with overly large canines in a dun face. Rumors said he was one-fourth ogre, and stronger than any man. Gormund wasn’t sure about that, but he had seen Mikka lifting full barrels of water with more ease than he himself could.

The island didn’t look much different from the land he’d left behind in the east, with the exception of being smaller. The same sorts of trees and shrubs as along the coast they’d left behind many days earlier.

The sun was low over the hills of the island and seemed to be setting right there. “Can we wait a few minutes to decide?” he asked the sailing captain.

“Aye, Gormund,” the captain replied, “we’ve plenty of time to watch the sunset.”

They watched the sun set behind the hills of the island and Gormund nodded. “I think we should check the island.”

“Aye. We’re bound to find fresh water. It’s the right time of year for kumquats, too, assuming there are any on the island.” Mikka held out the looking glass that Gormund had gotten as part of the same table stakes that won him the ship. “It’s a bit dark for my eyes, but you might be able to spot a good place to make landfall.”

Gormund shook his head. “I’m no good at that. That’s why you’re the sailing captain.”

“Fair enough. We’ll stay put here for the night and make landfall in the morning.” Mikka began shouting orders and Gormund watched as the sails were stowed and the anchor dropped. In a matter of minutes, the ship was stopped and ready for a quiet night.

Gormund wasn’t awfully tired, but he thought he might turn in until there was a cry from the crow’s nest.

“Dragon! Dragon coming!”

Mikka pointed the looking glass to the eastern sky where the lookout was pointing, then handed the glass to Gormund. Gormund looked through the glass for a few seconds and smiled.

When he put the glass down, he saw that the crew were readying weapons. “No!” he yelled. “That’s Elodie. She’s a friend.” Gormund stood in the middle of the deck and waved his hands over his head as the dragon circled, then skimmed the water to come to a stop next to the ship. She floated there in the ocean the same way a duck might in a pond.

“Hi, Elodie.”

“Hello, Gormund.” She carefully lowered her wing where someone was nestled along her side. “I’m afraid I went too high again.”

“Lidia!” Gormund leapt over the side of the ship, landing in a roll on Elodie’s outstretched wing. He picked up the unconscious orc woman and carried her over his shoulder to climb the rope ladder the crew dropped after him.

“She wouldn’t leave me alone,” Elodie said. “She stood in the woods day after day, demanding I talk to her, tell her where you were. After I gave in and talked to her, we ended up in business together. I’ll let her explain that when she wakes up, though.”

“I’m glad that you two are friends. Jenna too?” Gormund  asked.

“Yes, Jenna too.”

“How did you find me?”

Elodie squinted with a hint of mischief. “I knew you were special, so I allowed a part of my spirit to be bonded to yours. If you are ever in danger, I will know.”

“Why are you here, though? Isn’t it a long way from home?”

“It is. Gormund, when I realized you were getting close to the Isle of Desires, I knew I had to warn you. As long as I was coming, there was no reason not to bring her along.” Elodie snorted smoke from her nostrils. “The island is dangerous. It will play with your perceptions, feeding your desires until you are trapped in a waking dream, never to leave. If you must go ashore, please be careful. I can’t go there, as the spirit of the island is too strong for me this far from my mountain.”

“Thank you for the warning and thank you for bringing Lidia.” Gormund saw the orc starting to wake up and knelt next to her. “Will you stay here tonight?” he asked.

“I thought that was obvious,” Lidia said, while Elodie answered, “No, it is too cold for me here. I must return home. I will let Jenna know you are here safe.”

“Thank you,” Gormund and Lidia both replied.

With that, Elodie surprised everyone by diving into the ocean, only to come shooting up from beneath the surface. No sooner had her tucked wings broken the water’s surface than she spread them and began pumping herself skyward to return to the east.

Lidia had recovered enough to stand with Gormund’s assistance. “I brought dried fruit. Point me to the kitchen and I can make some tartlets.”

“What? In the kitchen? What a strange place for that.” Gormund tried to brush his unruly hair from his face. “We, uh, don’t have those, but I have a pot in my chamber you can use.”

Lidia looked at Gormund confused for a moment. “Oh! No, not toilet, tartlets.”

“What’s that?”

“How about I show you? It’s a sweet treat.”

“Okay.” Gormund looked to Mikka. “Can she use the gallon … gal-thing … kitchen?”

Mikka laughed. “Aye, I can have someone show her to the galley. And I can find her a berth — that’s a place to sleep.”

“Oh, uh,” Gormund looked between the two of them. “If she wants, she can sleep in my bed. But only if she wants.”

Lidia gave Gormund a kiss on the cheek. “Yes, Gormund the Sweet. I was hoping you’d say that.”

“Of course,” Mikka said, “it’s a bit late to start now, but the cook fires up the oven at three bells of the middle watch for the day’s baking, and you’ll be able to bake your treats then. For now, I’ll have the ship’s boy show you where the galley is, then show you to the ship-master’s cabin. If that’s all, Gormund?”

“Oh, right. I’ll let you get back to captain stuff and go clean up my room.” Gormund returned to his cabin and looked for anything out of place. He didn’t have much, but he made sure everything was neat and tidy. His belt with scabbard and coin purse hung from a hook on the wall.

He remembered the wash basin and dumped the dirty water out the window into the sea. Putting the basin back, he saw himself in the dull mirror above it. His hair was every bit as wild as it had been when he first met Lidia and Jenna. There were a comb and brush that had come with the ship. He picked up the comb and tried to pull it through his hair.

It stuck in a tangle, and he found himself unable to free the comb without painful pulling. He was  still struggling with it when Lidia came in. She closed the door behind herself. “You stuck?” she asked.

“I was trying to destrangle my hair,” he said.

“That’s okay. I like doing it. She picked up the brush and sat at the head of the bed. Sit here and let me help.”

He sat between her legs, and she began working on his hair. “Elodie exaggerated,” she said. “It took her less than a week to come out to the woods where I was yelling for her. I knew where to look, because her magic made all the crops grow overnight. The closer to her, the taller they were.”

She managed to work the comb free and kept working. “The farmers needed hands at an odd time of year and didn’t have money to hire them. Since Jenna and I had plenty, thanks to you, we gave the farmers loans. The out-of-season crops made their money back, plus our interest, plus a tidy profit for the farmers.

“The more we talked with Elodie, the more we realized we had a business opportunity. All those  farmers needed somewhere safe to keep their money and nowhere is safer than a dragon’s home. So, Jenna, Elodie, and I started the Mountain’s Tail Bank.

“Elodie keeps the money safe and gets a cut, which she promptly spends on jewels, and she created a sort of hidden portal in the woods to her cave. Some of the best-looking mint grows there. She says you did that.”

“I just gave her the seeds. She used her magic to make it grow. It sounds like a lot happened with you since I left.”

Lidia giggled. “With me? You’ve got yourself a ship.”

“Didn’t mean to, but it’s helping me follow the setting sun and moons.”

“So true. The crew has a new name for you; Gormund Dragon-Friend.”

“Well, at least it’s right this time. I do have a dragon friend.”

Lidia hummed as she worked on his hair, and Gormund let himself be lulled to sleep. He woke in her embrace, more comfortable than he’d been in more weeks than he could count.

He sat up and saw flour on her sleeve, and a sweet on a plate waiting for him on the table. It looked nothing like what she’d said. Instead, it was a tiny pie and was delicious.

Gormund met the captain on the deck and gave him a nod.

“We’re going ashore today, lads,” Mikka said. “Remember what the dragon said. This island is dangerous. We’ll be going in groups of four. If your fellows seem to be losing reality, get them back to the boats. Otherwise, we’re looking for water, fruit, and maybe some fresh game. Launch the boats!”

Three boats were lowered to the water, and each was manned by four crew, except the last which had four crew plus the captain and Gormund. The boats also hauled looped lines from the ship to the shore to allow pulling the empty barrels to shore and the filled barrels back to the ship.

The island was small but covered in dense forest. Gormund pointed at the hills behind which they’d watched the sun set the day prior. “Can we maybe watch the sunset from up there today?” he asked.

“Aye, for sure, Gormund. It’ll take hours to fill the barrels for the next leg of the sail.” Mikka made sure all the crews knew what they were meant to do and set off for the hills with Gormund at the lead.

Despite his size, Gormund moved through the brush with a smooth silence that came from years of surviving in the wilds. As they moved, he pointed out skeleton after skeleton among the  trees. He stopped after a short while to pick fresh kumquats and wild beans, offering some to Mikka.

“These are good,” he said, holding up a bean, “but those will make you sick for days.” He pointed to a nearby plant that looked almost identical.

“How can you tell the difference?”

He picked a leaf from the edible beans and a leaf from the other. “See the drop shape at the end of this leaf? That’s the tears you’ll cry from being sick by it. That’s how my nana explained it.”

They ate a snack of tangy kumquats and vaguely sweet beans. “You move like a drunken ox in the brush,” Gormund said. “If you watch how I move, you can be Mikka the Silent. If you can’t be quiet, you’ll never be able to hunt.”

Mikka laughed. “Aye, lad. I’ve never been one for hunting. My fortunes lay more with the sea than the land. You seem to be comfortable on both, though.”

“Yes, the bed on the ship is very comfortable. The only thing that makes me uncomfortable is this dumb bag of coin that bangs against my leg all the time.”

“Why did you bring it?”

“In case this is where the sun and moons set. Then I’ll be done with the ship and can give it to you.”

“What?” Mikka stopped with a partially chewed bean in his mouth. “You’re going to give me the ship? And then what? Swim home?”

Gormund popped a kumquat in his mouth and chewed it slowly. “I forgot about that part. But I still plan on giving you the ship when we get where we’re going.”

They continued to the top of the hills and sat. “I thought this island was dangerous,” Mikka said.

Gormund shrugged. “The less danger you look for, the less you find.”

“Unless it finds you,” Mikka grunted. His face went blank, then he stood. “Yes, the ship.”

Gormund listened to the captain crashing back down the hill the way they’d come. He thought Mikka might want to try to bag a hare and chuckled. “You’ll scare all the game,” he called out after him.

A figure appeared to him on the hill. She looked like Lidia, but he knew it wasn’t her. “Hi,” he said. “Who are you and why do you look like Lidia?”

“I am Lidia,” she said.

“Nope. You don’t move like her, and you don’t smell like her.”

“Clever.” She changed her form to that of a small human woman with brown skin. “What are you?”

“I am Gormund, also called Simple Gormund, Slow Gormund, Gormund the Gormless. I like Simple Gormund the best though, but you don’t have to actually say simple. Slow Gormund is silly, since I’m very fast, and Gormless is even sillier, since I have a ‘gorm’ right there in my name.”

“I see.” She leaned closer and stared into his eyes. “What are you looking for, young man?”

“I’ve been looking for a snipe for more years than I can count. Since I was seven. So, I’ll keep going toward where the sun and moons set until I find one.”

“Don’t you want wealth?” she asked, showing him the hillside littered with gold coin.

“No. I have too many already. It’s more than I can count, and it’s heavy and bangs against my leg when I walk.”

“What about fame?” The gold coins turned to adoring crowds cheering his name. “And adoration?” Scantily dressed women and men surrounded him.

Gormund shook his head hard. “Too much detention. I don’t like it.”

The crowds disappeared. She changed back to the form of Lidia. “I know you like attention from  this one. I could be yours, Gormund. Don’t you want me?”

“I like Lidia, but you aren’t her.” Gormund sighed. He stood and turned to go back down the hill but stopped for a moment and poured out the contents of his coin purse in front of her. “Thank you for the fruits and water from your island. I hope that’s enough for it.”

With that, he headed back down the hill where he found Mikka and the crew standing stock still in a trance. The barrels had already been pulled back to the ship but none of the crew were getting into  the boats.

Gormund picked each one up and put them in the boats. He tied each one to the haul line and signaled for the hands on the ship to pull them in. He climbed into the last boat and rowed back to the ship himself.

The crew was pulled aboard by the hands still on the ship, including Lidia. She gave him a big hug and a kiss on the lips. “Are you okay?”

“I, uh…”

“You’re not under the island’s spell too, are you?” she asked.

“Uh, no, just … you kissed me and I felt like my plate was all filled up.”

“You’re cute when you blush, Gormund.”

Mikka began to come around. “How did you avoid that?” he asked. “Every little thought was turned into a fantasy. The illusion was so real.”

“Well, I was just thinking about Lidia, and she was there, but she wasn’t. Didn’t move right, didn’t smell right. Smelled like poison oak. Other than that, all I thought about was the tiny pie and hoping there were more.”

Lidia laughed. “There’s plenty more.”

As soon as the crew had their wits back about them, they set sail around the island, leaving it far behind them before the sun set over the western sea. Gormund was sated on tartlets, enjoying the evening air with Lidia when Mikka approached him with a box.

“Let me see your purse, Gormund.”

He handed the empty purse to the captain. “Why?”

“The crew pulled together a reward for saving all of us on the island.” Mikka poured mixed coins into Gormund’s purse, to where it could barely close.

Gormund groaned. “But I don’t want—”

“It would be rude to refuse,” Lidia said.

“I don’t want to be rude,” Gormund said, accepting the heavy purse with a sigh.

Mikka grunted. “I saw an illusion that you were planning to give me the ship.”

“Not a delusion,” Gormund said, “real.” He stood and took Lidia’s hand, leading her to his cabin for the night.

prompt: Write a story from the point of view of a ghost, werewolf, vampire, or other supernatural creature.

available at Reedsy

Abalon looked at the visitor. In his centuries as Hell’s Arbiter, he’d never met his counterpart from Heaven. In fact, he’d never met any celestial being any higher ranked than a lowly worker. “Welcome, Arbiter Galadriel.”

If this was a first for Galadriel, she didn’t show it. “Well met, Arbiter Abalon. I’m here to help.”

“Please, have a seat,” the demon said, materializing a large, cushioned chair behind the angel. “It will make room for your wings as needed.” He spread his leathery wings and folded them again in demonstration.

Galadriel didn’t sit down so much as go from standing one instant, to lounging casually in the chair the next. “Listen, Abby, I’ve been at this for millennia. Since before you were created. If you don’t know the story of how you were selected as Arbiter, I can fill you in.”

“I know the story, Galadriel.” He wanted to tell her not to call him ‘Abby,’ but he didn’t want to provoke her. “I can assure you, I have no designs on capturing or injuring you or any other celestial being. We just can’t figure out this human.”

He waved his clawed hand and the human in question appeared in a holographic image atop his desk. Unlike the others in Hell, her cell displayed nothing. There were no scenes from her life to relive, no guilt, no regrets. The door stood open, yet the human sat leaned against the wall, eyes closed, humming a tuneless song.

“What else has she done?” Galadriel asked.

“She showed up in her cell, which means she believed she belonged in Hell, but—” he threw his hands up in exasperation. “There’s never been any sign of guilt or remorse, no failing of empathy, nothing to review.”

“Psychopathy? Did she somehow bring it with her?” Galadriel leaned forward, studying the image of the human.

“No. We scanned her and found her empathy fully engaged.” Abalon sighed. “I even … threatened to torture her to get her to leave.”

“You what?” Galadriel’s gaze grew hard. “If you don’t want to follow in the footsteps of your predecessor, you’d better have a good reason for—”

“She was not tortured,” he cut her off. “It’s obvious she doesn’t belong in Hell. I appeared beside her in the cell, but she felt no fear. I told her that she should leave her cell and go to Heaven where she belongs. When she refused, I told her we would torture her, flay her alive, burn her with fire, and repeat it over and over.”

Abalon shook his head. “She just said, ‘If that’s what it takes to stay here, then do it.’ I felt sick at the idea and haven’t bothered her since.”

Galadriel’s eyes softened. “Abby, may I go talk to her?”

Abalon nodded and pointed at the wall where the open door to her chamber appeared. Once again, Galadriel didn’t so much move as just shift position from one millisecond to the next to be standing inside the chamber.

“Child, why do you stay here?” she asked.

The human woman opened her eyes and looked at the Arbiter of Heaven. “Oh, an angel now. You can go away. You’re not going to convince me to leave.”

“That’s not why I’m here.” The angel seemed to float down to a seated position on the floor. “I’m just curious why you’re staying.”

“Do I have your word that you’re not going to force me to heaven before I’m ready to go?”

“What’s your name?” the angel asked.

“Tandy.”

“Tandy, I’m Galadriel, and you have my word that no-one will try to force you to heaven before or after you decide you’re ready to go. All we can do is tell you the doors are open.”

Tandy took a deep breath and blew it out. “My brother.”

“What about him?”

“He’s a believer.” Tandy shrugged. “I wasn’t. I didn’t believe in all the god, devil, heaven and hell shit. I found no evidence of anything supernatural to support any sort of belief in it.”

“And now?”

Tandy laughed. “I figure there are two possibilities. The first, it’s all real and I’m in a place called Hell.”

Abalon had gotten tired of watching from a distance and moved to stand in the door. Galadriel focused on Tandy but didn’t prod for her to continue.

“The second possibility,” Tandy said, “and the one I most prefer — is that I’m unconscious, maybe close to death, and all of this is my brain firing wildly and making shit up.”

“You prefer solipsism to the possibility that what you’re experiencing is real?” Galadriel asked.

“Honestly? Yeah. I mean, I’d rather be fucked in the brain than have to admit my brother was right about all this.” Tandy laughed, even as tears began welling in her eyes. “I love him, you know. I’d do anything for him. I used to say I’d go through hell for him, and now it looks like I’m making good on that.”

“What does that have to do with you staying in Hell?” Abalon asked. “Your brother is a believer and, I presume, believes he’ll go to Heaven.”

“That’s just it. I was in the hospital, hours left to live. He held my hand and told me that he thought he was going to Hell. He didn’t say what, but he said he did something terrible.”

Galadriel set a hand on Tandy’s shoulder. She didn’t say anything, but Abalon could sense the comfort flowing from the angel to the woman.

“Anyway, I promised him that if Hell was real, I’d wait for him there and get him free.” Tandy sniffed. “He doesn’t belong in Hell, he’s a good kid, even if he did something stupid.”

Abalon chuckled. “It doesn’t matter what he did, what matters is how he feels about it when he gets here.”

“What? What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means,” Galadriel said, “that everyone comes to Hell first. If there’s nothing eating at their conscience, they can move on to Heaven.”

“Oh boy, my brother’s screwed.” Tandy chuckled. “He is constantly wracked by guilt for things like thinking he didn’t tip enough, or he didn’t let enough people go in front of him in the checkout line at the grocery store.”

Tandy tilted her head. “Wait. Doesn’t that mean all psychopaths go right on to Heaven?”

Galadriel laughed. “Only if they get past their guilt. Every bit of guilt they were unable to feel in life, they will experience when they get here.”

Abalon’s curiosity got the better of him. “Even those that end up leaving for Heaven have some small thing to relive here. Why is there nothing in your chamber?”

“Since I had no belief in an afterlife, I made it a point to address my guilt and deal with it as it happened. I hoped to leave the world no worse than when I came into it, and maybe a little better.”

Galadriel smiled. “She figured it out on her own, without religion or holy books or anything else.”

Tandy looked back and forth between the Arbiters of Heaven and Hell. “Since you know I’m not going anywhere until my brother gets here, could you maybe bring me some books or something?”

prompt: A ritual meant to protect someone ends up putting them (or someone else!) in danger.

available at Reedsy

Syl covered his mouth to keep from making noise. He shivered as the click-clack of giant spider toes on laminate floors passed the cupboard he cowered in.

He breathed as little as he could, through his nose. As sensitive as his own senses were, he could smell nothing besides the wood of the cupboard, the roasted parsnip soup warming on the electric stove, and the earthy smell of the dire spider. Despite the sweat of fear drenching him, he could smell nothing of himself.

In that regard, at least, the ritual had worked. The part that didn’t work was worrying.

He’d asked the council to send someone around to check out an odor coming from his basement. Just a few minutes later, she’d showed up at his door just as he was starting his soup for lunch.

After a brief introduction, Anja had gone into the basement for only a few seconds before she crept back up into the sitting room. She pulled a spray bottle out of her bag, drew a symbol on the floor, and set the bottle on it.

“Dire spider,” she’d whispered. She then handed Syl a script. “Read this aloud.”

“Why don’t you read it?” Syl hissed.

“Human magic immunity … I can’t.”

Syl chanted the incantation, the symbol on the floor glowed, and then flowed into the bottle, which glowed. No sooner had the ritual finished than Anja grabbed the bottle and began spraying Syl and everything around him.

She pulled all the pans out of one of his lower cupboards, sprayed the inside of it, and told him to get in and hide.

The spray that seemed to work so well for a gnome like himself had no effect on her. Anja had sprayed him and his entire house before helping him hide, but that just meant her scent was magnified as the only thing that stood out.

The spider clacked through the kitchen again, opening and rummaging through the cupboards in a haphazard manner. If it were to open the one in which he hid … better to not think about it.

“Yoo-hoo!” a voice called from somewhere else in the house.

The spider stopped moving, dead silent.

“I’m here,” she called, “come get me!”

The spider scurried out of the kitchen in the direction of Anja’s taunts. What was she doing? The sound of the air-conditioner kicking on caught his attention. Her human scent carried on the current, amplified a hundred-fold. It came from the opposite direction of where she’d called out, though.

The sounds of the spider racing madly about the house filled his mind with images of Anja being bitten, paralyzed, wrapped in silk, and then sucked dry. Tears ran down his face. She’d given everything to protect him, even though she had no reason to.

The spider clacked down the hall of the floor above, heavy enough to make the floor squeak at the spot near the bathroom door that he’d been meaning to fix. At the same time, he heard careful rummaging through the upper cupboards, followed by Anja’s whisper.

“I’m just getting a little surprise for our eight-legged friend,” she said, “and I turned down your soup, so the bottom doesn’t scorch. Stay as quiet and still as you can.”

The human smell of her was undeniable. It was the smell of cinnamon and rose oil from her perfume, mixed with the sweat of exertion and what Syl thought might be a tinge of fear.

The spider had gone silent and so had Anja until she called out from the dining room. “Where are you, mama? Yeah, that’s right. I found your eggs in the basement. You don’t have long left, do you?”

Syl heard the scampering of the spider across the floor above, then down the stairs. By contrast, Anja’s footfalls as she ran through the house were nearly silent.

“Over here, you stupid arachnid!” Anja’s voice carried an edge of annoyance.

From the sound of it, Anja and the spider were both in the sitting room. He heard the door to the basement open. “Oh yeah, that gets you worried, doesn’t it? Afraid I’ll go eat your eggs or something?”

He heard the spider make the first noise that she’d made other than the clacking of her feet. A high-pitched hiss that sounded like something from a horror movie.

“This is for you,” Anja called in a sing-song voice, “come and get it!”

The spider clacked across the sitting room floor, Anja yelled out, and Syl heard the fire extinguisher discharging. The sounds changed, with the spider thrashing about in the sitting room. The basement door slammed shut as the spider continued to rampage in the sitting room, smashing up furniture and what sounded like spinning in circles.

The sound finally died down. He heard the basement door open, then a few more moments of silence.

“It’s okay now, Syl. You can come out.”

He emerged to find the kitchen untouched, while the sitting room was destroyed. The corpse of the dire spider lay where the sofa, now broken and thrown against the far wall, used to be. The spider’s head was covered with fire retardant. Anja was panting, exhausted.

“Did I hear you say eggs?” he asked.

“Yeah, there’s an egg-sack down there.” She pointed toward the open basement door. “That smell is the neighborhood pets that have been disappearing, all cocooned up, waiting for the eggs to hatch.”

Syl shuddered. “Ugh. Do I just burn those, or…?”

“I’ll call a friend that runs a sanctuary to come pick them up,” Anja said.

“I have a question, though,” Syl said, looking at Anja like she was suspect.

“Shoot.”

“Human magic immunity is an old-wives tale. Why did you really not do the incantation?” he asked.

Anja sighed. “You don’t know much about how protective magic works, I take it.”

“Not really.”

“The person doing the incantation is the person it works for, no one else.” Anja prodded at the dire spider corpse with her toe. “When my friend gets here, he’ll clean this up, along with the entire basement.”

“Thanks. I was surprised the council sent someone so fast.”

“We were concerned with the missing pets in the area, so I was already in the area investigating.”

“You were obviously prepared for something like this, so why did you use your protection on me?”

“I’m a safety inspector for the council. If I can do something to make citizens safer, I will.” She chuckled. “I wasn’t betting on dealing with a dire spider in the suburbs, though.”

“I bet.”

“You, however, need to apply to the council for a new fire extinguisher. And don’t put it in the cupboard this time. Lucky you haven’t had a fire.” She patted his shoulder. “If you need help mounting it, just let the council know when you apply, and I’ll see to it personally.”

Syl nodded. “Okay.” His eyebrows shot up. “Oh! The soup!”

Anja followed him into the kitchen. He turned the soup back up and stirred it, giving it a sniff. “Whew, not burnt. Thank you for taking the time to turn it down.”

“Nothing worse than scorched soup,” she said.

“Speaking of soup, would you like to stay for lunch?” he asked.

“I could do that,” she said. “I’ve got to fill out my report and wait for my friend from the sanctuary anyway.”

prompt: Tell a story using a series of diary or journal entries.

available at Reedsy

7/4/4 KC (21st Day, 4th Moon, 4th Year of King Creshal)

It’s still weird to write the date as KC. I keep wanting to write 1094 QE. Queen Elspeth ruled 1090 years; longer than anyone before. Old as she was, and stuck in her fashion sense, we still loved her.

HRH Creshal is her opposite in a lot of ways. He dresses in current fashion, but he’s just a sort of stick-in-the-mud personality-wise. That’s enough of bashing the royals for this entry. On to the good stuff.

I finally got my approval to visit Aramantia. Well, approval from here in Gell, but I’m still waiting on the mountains of paperwork I filled out at their embassy to be approved. I hope it shows up soon, my train leaves on 16/5.

I lined up a place to stay there. It’s a hostel that caters to women only. Not because I’m scared of them or anything, it’s just the cheapest place I could find. The exchange rate for the florin is crap right now, so I have about 3/4 of what I thought I would have for this trip.

It’s to be my last hurrah before I begin working as an accountant for the next few hundred years. I wanted to go into medicine, but there’s no free training for that, and without generational wealth it’s out of reach.

14/5/4 KC

The king gave a speech today about strengthening our borders and blah-blah-blah, isolationist dog-whistles. Then more blathering about increasing our military industry and maybe bringing back the draft. He was dressed in a designer leaf-core suit, all bright colors and flowers, while talking about building war machines and increasing the size of the army. How out of touch can a person be?

I don’t care. I got my paperwork from Aramantia. Talk about cutting it close to the root. It came with a welcome packet of stuff like where to exchange foreign money. The sample of their exchange rates looks better than what I could get here. I even checked it against the rates on the date printed on the page, and it was a lot better than what the banks here were offering.

The welcome packet was probably six times fatter than it needed to be, since it’s printed in a dozen languages. They even included calendar converters. Instead of thirteen, they only have twelve moons, “months” they call them, but they have like 30 or 31 days for most instead of 28.

I have to pack. It would be nice if Marli or Constance would come and help, but I shouldn’t expect it, I guess. Ever since I said I was planning this trip, all my friends started pulling away. I didn’t expect those two to leave me, though.

It hurts not having them there when I go out and people talk about, “she’s so tall,” and “her ears are so short.” Whenever they’d call me a “half-breed” or some such thing, Marli and Constance would step in and set them straight. I don’t think I’m mixed, but even if I was, why should that matter?

15/5/4 KC

Tomorrow is the day! The day I leave on my trip. I ended up staying up most of the night packing. 

I tried calling Marli and Constance, but both of them have blocked my number. Marli’s number even gave me a message that said, “Blocked because you’re a traitor!” At least my neighbors are nonjudgmental enough to keep track of my mail while I’m gone and water my plants.

I’m trying to decide if I want to wear something comfortable or dressy tomorrow. I’ll either wear my running outfit or go full leaf-core with a flowy, flower-print skirt, sandals, and a color-splatter top.

They’re both laid out. Tomorrow me can make the choice. Today me is going to order some takeout and go to bed early.

16/5/4 KC

I didn’t write anything in here on the train, since every time I tried, I got motion sickness. Anyway, the hostel is nice, and everyone here is really into my clothes. I guess leaf-core hasn’t gotten here. As if it ever would.

Where I’m tall and have short ears at home, here in Aramantia — the Republic of Aplya as they call it here — I’m shorter than most women, and everyone keeps commenting on my “long, pointed ears,” and how “cute” I am.

I’ve only been here for about six hours, but I think I’ve been misled about what I would find here. My whole life, I’ve been told that humans are brute animals, only focused on war. As if their role in the War of Kingdoms was the only thing they’ve ever done. I mean, that ended seventy years ago, in 1022 QE.

Yeah, if it hadn’t been for the humans joining in, and supplying equipment to us and the trolls, the orcs would’ve taken over the continent. They bombed the shit out of us for three years and our best strikes back were weak in comparison. The deciding factor of the war was human industry.

I decided that since I understand enough of the language, I should see what the human news is talking about. It seems that HRH Creshal is actually in the middle of a deal with the humans to buy tanks, anti-aircraft missiles, and some fighter-bomber jets. So much for all his talk of Gellic industry.

Of course, they’re also talking about the buildup of the trolls north of Gell, and how ill-prepared we elves are for war. The news people place the blame solely on the king, as he closed all the human military installations and airbases.

He can’t be blamed, though. Parliament passed it, based on a referendum vote to disengage from the humans that happened just a year before the queen died. I think the idiots running the conservative party are to blame for all of it.

Sadie and Ally, a couple of the other women in the hostel, are watching the news with me and asking if I’m here because of the trolls. I explained that I’ve always wanted to visit, and the timing just worked out the way it did.

21/5/4 KC

I’ve gotten hooked on social media. There’s a thing called Lupr (like, looper) that’s just a bunch of short videos of a minute or less. We can’t get that in Gell, but my phone handles it fine while I’m here — with a new SIM card, anyway.

Sadie and Ally, who are staying here long term like me, are trying to convince me to do a “Ten Shocking Things About Humans I Didn’t Know” video. I don’t know if I will, but I started keeping track of them.

· Human hairstyles are not all designed to show off and enhance their ears. In fact, humans with large ears might even try to hide them.

· Tipping is common. I don’t know if it’s a human thing or strictly a Aplyan thing, but they tip everyone here: servers, baristas, barbers and stylists, taxi drivers, even ride share drivers.

· They are some of the friendliest and most open people I’ve ever met. Waiting for public transport, they’ll just start up a conversation.

· Related to that: they make friends like elves make cups of tea. You talk to a human once you’re still a stranger, twice you’re an acquaintance, and the third time you’re a friend. That’s what it seems like to me, anyway. Sadie and Ally seem to consider me a friend. They even call me Els for short. I like it better than Elspeth.

·  Humans are way more up front about romance and sex. I’ve been propositioned dozens of times since I’ve been here, but not all of them have been comfortable. Sadie had to chase off a few of the guys, and one pushy woman. She’s a mixed martial arts fighter, whatever that is. It seems to scare them off.

· The food. Oh, all the gods. The food is so varied, and complex. They have produce from all over the world, along with cooking techniques and dishes just as varied. I’m afraid I’ll get fat here, if I’m not careful.

There’s lots more, of course, but those are the ones I could  think of right off the tip of my ears.

Tonight, we’re going out to see a movie in 3D. Something about giant robots and monsters or something, I don’t know.

22/5/4 KC

The movie was bad. So bad. But so good, too. I don’t know how to explain it. While it was going, I was hooked. At no point could I look away from the disaster on the screen. After I walked out and thought about it, though, it stopped making sense. If Dr. Evans had just told everyone what was going on, they could’ve resolved it in the first ten minutes, before the entire coastline was turned to rubble and ash.

I had to show my ID to get in, and the guy selling the tickets got excited when he saw my passport and visa. He said it’s a permissible work visa, and if I want a job, to come back and apply. I think I might, since my money won’t last for the entire time I’m here.

Ally wants me to go on a “blind date” with her cousin tonight. I thought that meant that we wouldn’t see each other, but it just means we don’t see each other before the date. She says he’s a good guy and won’t fetishize me. I think she just wants someone to go on a double-date with her, since it’s a first date for her.

Another thing to add to the list.

· Humans don’t do arranged marriages or have a reproductive health department to tell them who they can and can’t boink. (Sadie’s word. I think it’s funny and I like it.)

2/6/4 KC – 13 May, 2025

What a busy week! I’ve been out with Malcom three times now, and he’s every bit as charming and sweet as Ally said. Wish I could say the same for her date, but Sadie, Malcom, and I sat with her after that first night, eating ice cream and talking shit about her date. It turned bad almost right away, with some racist remarks about “my kind” being a drain on human society.

Malcom immediately told her to shut up, in far more colorful language. Ally didn’t put up with it any more than her cousin and then caused a scene that got us all thrown out of the restaurant. I haven’t encountered that anywhere else, but Sadie has warned me that there are more people like that out there.

Malcom says that he’ll always stand up for me, whether we’re friends or more — or even enemies. It’s sweet, but I think the gym woman could’ve wiped the floor with him. He’s small for a human man, but his heart is huge.

I’m getting used to the human calendar. Malcom’s been helping me with that and helping me improve my Aplyan. He talked me into doing a DNA test, since he got a two-for-one offer and Ally already had hers done.

In the meantime, I’m working at the movie theater three days a week for pocket money. It’s a fun place to work, and I can watch any movies I want, and can even bring a plus-one. I’ll try to bring Malcom, Sadie, and Ally to one movie a week, each.

27 May, 2025 – 14/6/4 KC

Malcom showed me my DNA results. I am mixed. My father, who died in the war, was at least one-half human. I never knew, and I don’t think my mother did, either. If she was still around, I could ask her. As Sadie said when I talked about her death, “fuck cancer.”

Malcom is an immigration lawyer. It means he makes terrible money compared to other lawyers, but he knows all the ins and outs of what it takes to move here permanently.

I only bring that up because there’s a special provision for part-humans. I can get a scholarship to one of the universities, and on gaining a degree, can apply for citizenship. It means I could study medicine, like I wanted to, but couldn’t afford to at home.

The more time I spend here, the less I want to leave. I’m picking up an extra shift at the theater in order to build up enough money to decide at the end of my visa whether to ship all my stuff here or go back home. Is it really home without Marli and Constance, though?

I splurged on a couple calls on my new SIM. Both of them hung up as soon as they heard my voice and then I got a “blocked” notification. Future me can figure it out. Today me has a shift at the theater to get to.

30 July, 2025

I’ve made up my mind. I’m applying to the University to study medicine. It’s 9 or 10 years of study, but I have time. I’m trying to find a place to live that’s not too far from the University, which happens to be close to the theater anyway. Ally’s decided she wants to stay here, too, so we’re looking for a place we can share.

Malcom offered space for both of us at his place, but I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on the relationship. Yeah, relationship. Never thought I’d be interested in a man that is not only forty years younger than I, but human to boot. Of course, he still chuckles when he remembers how old I am, since he says that when we go out, it looks like he’s “robbing the cradle.”

15 August, 2025

Ally and I moved into our apartment. I meant to make a note last week about Sadie. She left the hostel to go on the fight circuit. She showed me some video of her matches from last year, including going toe-to-toe with an orc woman a head taller than her.

She’s so nice, but she looks scary in her fights. The fights are brutal. She lost to the orc, but not by knockout or submission, by just a couple points.

At the end of the fight, they hugged and laughed like they were best friends. Another thing to add to the listicle I’m not going do, I guess.

Classes start on 8 September, and I’ve already got my schedule and got things switched around at work so I can work around my classes. Ally got a work-from-home job on her computer. I have to remind her to log off in the evenings, or she’ll get so locked in her head that she’ll work until midnight.

Malcom is taking me out for a fancy dinner tonight and even bought me an evening gown to wear. I wasn’t going to accept it, but Ally piled on and talked me into it. She’s logging off early to help me get ready.

15 August, 2025

I almost asked Malcom to marry me. We haven’t been seeing each other very long, but — scratch that.

At dinner, Malcom told me he has every intention of marrying me and showed me the engagement ring. He said he wants to spend the rest of his life with me, but he knows that it would be just a short part of my life.

He doesn’t want to put me in a position where I feel obligated, so he said he’d wait for me to ask him, and if I never do, he understands. He also said that if it was too much, too soon, and I wanted to walk away for a minute, a day, a week or even forever, he understands.

He was so sincere when he said that his own desires were second to my happiness, that I almost asked him right then and there. What the hell? I’m not sure, yet, but I think I will — later. Maybe after I get my degree. Or after the first year. Maybe the first quarter. That’s a problem for later me. Right now me is too tired to think and too wired to sleep.

Sadie’s fight is online. I’ll watch that, then scroll Lupr until I sleep or pass out or whatever comes first.

prompt: Write a story with the aim of making your reader laugh.

available at Reedsy

“I haven’t, but it’s on my bucket list.”

– “Wot’s a bucket list?”

“You ogres have no culture at all, do you?”

– “You wot? We gots a lots of culture.”

“Like what?”

– “Like da Log Drum Festival.”

“What’s that?”

– “You don’t know wot a log drum is?”

“Of course, I know what a log drum is. A hollow log you beat with a stick.”

– “Right. Dat.”

“The festival, what is it?”

– “Oh. We builds a bonfire, beat on da log drums, dance around, and den go kill somefing to frow in the fire for eats.”

“One festival hardly makes a culture.”

– “Dere’s also da Skin Drum Festival.”

“The same thing, only with skin drums?”

– “No. Totally different.”

“Really? Is there a bonfire?”

– “Yeah.”

“And you beat on the skin drums?”

– “Yeah.”

“Dancing?”

– “Yeah.”

“Then you kill something, cook it in the fire and eat it?”

– “Exactly.”

“It’s the same thing!”

– “No! Totally different. Skin drums is not log drums, so not da same fing at all!”

“I’d sigh in exasperation, but you wouldn’t get it.”

– “Get wot?”

“Never mind. Any other cultural festivities?”

– “Oh! Children Drum Festival.”

“No. Tell me you don’t beat on children.”

– “Of course not. Da children beat on da drums.”

“Oh. Bonfire, dancing, and then you kill something, yada yada yada?”

– “Yeah.”

“Do you have any festivals that don’t involve killing something?”

– “Da Chieftain’s Festival.”

“Bonfire, drums, and dancing?”

– “Yeah.”

“Then what happens?”

– “Da chieftain shares da meat he brung for da feast.”

“Is there any cultural thing you do that doesn’t involve a bonfire, drums, dancing, and optionally very fresh meat cooked in that same bonfire?”

– “Da Midwinter Festival.”

“No bonfire?”

– “No. Too cold. We has it in da community center place.”

“Drums?”

– “No. Too loud inside.”

“Food?”

– “Yeah. Potluck.”

“Okay, that’s a little better, I guess. Then what?”

– “We plays bingo!”

“Ugh. Do ogres have any cultural things? More … highbrow. Like poetry, music that isn’t just drums, plays, anything?”

– “I told you. We plays bingo. We also plays hopscotch a lots.”

“Hopscotch? Surprising, that. But plays, like Shakespeare’s Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet?”

– “I ain’t played dose. Dey fun?”

“Forget it. Look, I’m just trying to find some kind of cultural connection here. What about clothes? Like, this kilt I’m wearing is Scottish, like me, and the pattern is my clan tartan.”

– “We has fancy clothes, too. Dis is my festival dress. I dressed up for you.”

“It certainly is a lovely brown.”

– “And look, I can wear like we does when festival start.”

“Oh, you can just pop those right out, can’t you?”

– “Better for hopscotch, see?”

“Don’t injure yourself.”

– “Feels good when dey is loose.”

“It, uh, looks rather mesmerizing, although perhaps dangerous.”

– “You funny little human. Not dangerous. I protects you.”

“Oh, that’s sweet. I…uh…can’t breathe…you’re squeezing too tight…and I’m right between your….”

– “Dat’s all da protects you get for now.”

“Thank you.”

– “So, wot is bucket list?”

“It’s a list of things I’d like to do before I kick the bucket.”

– “Why you kick da bucket? It leaks?”

“Not a literal bucket. It’s a euphemism for dying. You know what a euphemism is, right?”

– “I know euphemism. It’s wen da youf say one fing but mean another when dey being sneaky.”

“Not…exactly, but close enough, I guess.”

– “You sick? You looks healfy.”

“No, I’m not sick. I’m healthy and doing well.”

– “Den why you dying?”

“Oh, I’m not — at least not any time soon, I hope.”

– “Den why da bucket list?”

“It’s just things I think I’d like to try while I’m able. If I do them now, while I’m young and healthy, I won’t look back someday when I am dying and regret not doing them.”

– “Dat’s a good idea. I fink maybe I could makes bucket list and do fun stuff.”

“What are you — oh, your dress has pockets. I guess that counts as culture.”

– “Needs pockets for carry extra meats home.”

“Indeed. I see you have pencil and paper in there, although it appears stained.”

– “And dese.”

“Oh, yes, those would come in handy at a festival.”

– “Okay. I started bucket list.”

“What did you put on it?”

– “Is private.”

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to pry.”

– “Wot cultures you got?”

“We have the Highland Games, where we compete in traditional sports like caber-toss, listen to traditional bagpipe music, and eat traditional foods, like haggis. My favorite, though, is Scotch eggs for breakfast.”

– “No bonfire?”

“Not usually, no.”

– “Boring. Wot else?”

“Poetry. Of course, there’s Robert Burns … but there’s others as well.”

– “Robert burns wot? Bonfires?”

“No, no. That’s his name, Robert Burns.”

– “Dumb name if he not burns somefing. Anyfing else?”

“Highland music; the bagpipes and the….”

– “Drums?”

“Uh, yeah, the bagpipes and the drums.”

– “Even silly humans know drums is good.”

“But don’t forget the bagpipes.”

– “Dey sound like dying sheep stepped on by troll. Hurt ears.”

“That’s … that’s fair, I guess. But don’t forget the fiddle.”

– “Fiddle is fing wit’ squeaky strings?”

“It can be, if the player’s not very good.”

– “No good players, den?”

“Ugh. Never mind.”

– “Anyfing else?”

“There are Scottish playwrights, authors, musicians, artists — like Sir Henry Raeburn. He’s a bit famous.”

– “He not burns nofing too?”

“No, his last name is Raeburn.”

– “Why name people wot dey don’t do?”

“It’s um, a cultural thing?”

– “I knowed it. Culture is dumb. Except best ogre culture of all.”

“What’s that?”

– “Culture for making goat milk cheese.”

“Hah! That’s funny! You’ve got a keen sense of humor.”

– “And smell. You petted dog on way here, it rubbed on your left leg.”

“You can tell that by smell alone?”

– “Dog I can smell, dark fur on light trousers I see.”

 “I’m wearing a kilt, those are my legs — you’re having me on!”

– “Dat’s da goal.”

“I didn’t expect you to be so humorous. You just keep impressing me.”

– “Okay, if you says.”

“I…can’t…breathe.”

– “You said to press.”

“Oof. I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not.”

– “Kind of serious. If you wants.”

“Well, it’s possible. You’re very attractive. Not just for an ogre, but in general. Big strong woman like you, I’m sure you’ve had your pick of humans. So, to turn the original question back on you, have you ever had sex with a human?”

– “Not yet, but you’re on bucket list.”

“Seriously?”

– “This serious.”

“That’s — a whole roll — what, a dozen? You think we’ll need that many?”

– “For starts. I has more at home.”

“Oh, I hope I can keep up. And there goes the dress again. They really are magnificent.”

– “If you no keeps up, at least it’s one fing off your bucket list.”

“Too true. Lead the way — oh, right here? Okay.”

prompt: Write a story with a number or time in the title.

available at Reedsy

Nonum Incarcera — Ninth Prison — also known as Nonum Infernum, Ninth Hell, The Pit, The Devil’s Asshole, and more frightening names, kept its secrets and prisoners bound up tight. The only sentence served at the Ninth was life. The prison sat in a volcanic valley, sealed by magic, auto-blasters, and the heavily guarded borders of the no-man’s-land where it was located between Dwarven, Elven, and Orcish nations.

Its founding during the Neoclassical boom of the early 18^th century was evident from its architecture, its Latin name, and the Latin titles for many of the personnel. Those historical holdovers were slowly being eroded, but with the long-lived races in charge, the pace of that change was glacial.

While all the races shared in maintaining the prison, the bulk of the inside guards were orcs, ogres, trolls, and hill giants. Outside, centaurs and fleet-footed elves patrolled the dead-end valley and cliff walls, while dwarves and dark elves manned the caverns that provided the only outside access to the valley.

Only the worst of the worst were sent to the Ninth, and the dwarves guarding the in-valley cavern entrance saw them all. Mad fae enclosed in cages of iron, power-corrupted sorcerers bound with magic dispelling chains, blood-thirsty warlords of all sorts bound hand and foot, some even hogtied. In short, prisoner transport was entirely safe for everyone but the prisoner.

That’s what made the entrance of the latest prisoner so odd. Dark elves walked alongside a human in prison garb, the three of them chatting and laughing. She wasn’t bound in any way and wasn’t brought in a wagon or cart. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the prison grays she wore, it would seem to be three friends out for a stroll.

Blasters whined to their ready state as the dwarves standing guard drew on the trio. The guard commander called out, “Stop there, and stand by for inspection! Lethal force is authorized.”

The three stopped, one of the dark elves holding out a clipboard in one hand, cuffs and shackles in the other. The second nodded at the human woman, who put her hands flat on top of her head. “Would you like me to get on the ground, or anything like that?” she asked.

The guard commander stroked his beard. “No, that’s not necessary, just don’t move.”

“You got it, boss,” she said.

The dark elf guard with the clipboard offered the cuffs and shackles to the dwarf guard. “If you think you need ’em, you can have ’em. She’s bein’ good, though. Hell, she volunteered to walk in when the transport wagon broke down outside the east gate.”

“You walked five miles to get here?” the dwarf asked.

“I did, sir,” she answered.

As the dwarf began looking over the paperwork for the prisoner, he was interrupted by the warden. “Praetorius, I need to talk to the prisoner in your office, please.”

“Aye, Dux Custodiae,” the guard commander said. “Would you like me to bind her first?”

“No, thank you. I will take those shackles and cuffs, though.” The warden, one of the only elves to work inside the prison, and perhaps the smallest employee in the entire complex, smoothed her uniform jacket and turned toward the human woman. “Please step through the metal detector and magic detector, then step into the office here.”

The woman did as told and took a seat across the desk from the warden. “What can I do for you, ma’am?”

“Ms. Palmer,” the warden said, “I’m Chief Warden Highoak. I’m in charge of the women’s wing of the prison.”

“Please, ma’am, Trish is fine.”

“Ms. Palmer, I’m confused by your record.” Highoak flipped through the papers that had been passed along by the dark elves. “Normal life for thirty years, then six ex-boyfriends murdered in two years.”

Trish shrugged and smiled. “I was set up. Didn’t do it.”

“Poison — utterly cliché. It seems like a severe lack of impulse control. You aren’t going to be a problem, are you?”

“No, ma’am. I just want to keep my head down and do my time.”

Warden Highoak leaned across the desk. “You understand, you are here to ‘do time’ for life, right?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. At least, until my appeal makes it to court. I’m sure my defense team can find the real killer and I’ll be exonerated.”

Highoak cuffed and shackled Trish and led her into the prison proper herself. Once there, she handed her off to intake with her paperwork. After a search, she was issued a uniform, mattress, blanket, pillow, and hygiene kit, and allowed to keep her notebook and soft-tip pen.

Based on the nature of her crimes, she wasn’t deemed a danger to other prisoners. As such, her new cell was in general population. Her cellmate was an ancient ogre, missing a hand and one eye, thinning grey hair hanging limp over a heavily wrinkled face.

“Bottom bunk’s mine,” the ogre said.

“Sure thing. The name’s Trish.”

The ogre simply grunted in reply.

Taking the hint, Trish kept quiet as she made up her bunk and set her sparse belongings on the little shelf next to her bunk. Once she was settled in, she wandered the common area. Those that seemed somewhat friendly she greeted.

A hill giant guard stepped in front of her. “Hey, fish! You need to understand something.”

Trish looked up at the guard’s face. “Yes, ma’am. What do I need to understand?”

“Gumgrut runs the floor here. She tells you to jump you ask how high on the way up.” The guard cleared her throat. “Unless she asks you to do something illegal.”

Trish looked at the guard’s nametag. “I don’t know Gumgrut, Officer Parumpf.”

“Your cellie,” Parumpf said.

“I thought that was the guards’ job? Or the warden?”

“If a guard tells you to do something, you do it or go to solitary.” The guard crouched down to put her face on a level with Trish. “If Gumgrut tells you to do something and you don’t, you might end up dead. Just stay clear of the troublemakers and contraband, and you’ll be fine. If you have a question or a problem, look for me or Officer Wallford. We won’t steer you wrong. If you just want to bitch about something, I’d recommend the bitch in the mirror.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Trish said. “Got it. Um, what time’s dinner?”

“Six. You’ll hear the call.” Parumpf stood. “Now get out of here. Library’s open, if you’re into that.”

Trish wandered around some more, making her eventual way to the library. Her eyes took in everything without any obvious ogling. It was clear that notes were being passed between the women’s section and men’s section through the library. The prisoners working in the library were in on it, and it didn’t seem the lone guard, a bored-looking orc, was paying any attention.

At dinner, she found a quiet corner in which to sit, where she was joined by a boisterous dwarf. She smiled and nodded along as the dwarf woman regaled her with grossly exaggerated stories of how she killed a dozen giants with a spoon because they annoyed her.

Trish knew better than to engage too much with someone so clearly unhinged. Instead, on finishing her dinner, she returned to her cell, where she found Gumgrut already asleep.

As quiet as she could, she climbed into her bunk, pulled out her notebook and pen, and began writing a letter. It was filled with the sort of boring inanities that one might expect of a woman with little hope of freedom trying to stay connected to family.

Beneath the inanity, though, was the real message. Encoded in the letter, she wrote:

Day 1: Arrived. Outer perimeter guards let me walk in without cuffs/shackles. Inner perimeter guards would have let me continue but met with warden who shackled me.

Smuggled in lock pick set, 4 100 krown notes — not internally! — sleight of hand only.

Notes and contraband passing through library. Officer Stormtooth ignored it all.

My cellmate is mob boss Hilda Gumgrut.

Officer Parumpf says Gumgrut ‘runs the floor’ — says I’m to speak to Parumpf or Officer Wallford if I have an issue. Have not met Wallford yet but expect they both defer to Gumgrut.

Expect to find ingress for contraband within original planned 90 days.

Bonus: I will try to find out how Gumgrut continues to run the family from inside.

prompt: Write about a portal or doorway that’s hiding in plain sight.

available at Reedsy

Angel watched the restroom door. A small, stout woman, barely taller than the doorknob’s height, with lime-green hair and a bright, reflective safety vest had gone in several minutes earlier and still hadn’t come out. She hadn’t locked the door, so the green “Vacant” still showed. Angel was so busy watching the door that she didn’t see the woman with the squirming baby until she was already at the door.

Angel opened her mouth to warn her that the room was occupied, but before she could say anything the young woman had gone in and locked the door. With the red “Occupied” showing, Angel wondered what was going on. Was the other woman still in there? Little person or no, she’d be hard to miss.

When the young mother re-emerged with her baby, Angel decided she couldn’t wait any longer. If the green-haired lady was still in there, that was on her.

There was room for a toilet, a sink, a baby-changing station that folded down from the wall, a waste basket below the paper towel dispenser, and just enough room and handholds for wheelchair users to qualify it as “accessible.” What there wasn’t, was a stout, little, green-haired woman in a yellow safety vest.

Angel looked at herself in the mirror above the sink while she washed her hands. I must’ve not been looking when she came out, she thought, or maybe she didn’t go in and I didn’t see it right.

There was a smaller voice that she ignored, trying to tell herself that maybe she didn’t see the woman at all. Angel rubbed the stubble on her head as she walked out. Her coworkers had teased her about having a breakdown and “going full Britney.”

She pretended their comments didn’t bother her, but they did. They wormed their way into her brain like a parasite, infecting her with self-doubt. Her fingers touched the burn at the back of her head. It wasn’t serious, but the pain reminded her that she’d had a good reason to shave her head.

A kid at his birthday party with silly string, plus his auntie with her back turned was a predictable outcome, judging by the amount she’d already had in her hair. The introduction of the birthday cake with lit candles, though, turned the next spray into a flaming projectile.

She still felt awful that she’d ruined his birthday party. There’s something about a grown woman screaming with her hair on fire that puts a damper on the mood. The ER doctor that shaved the back of her head to get at the burn — mostly first degree with a patch of second degree — was kind enough to shave off everything else. It was that or leave the ER looking like a horror movie villain.

Angel returned to the bench to wait for the bus. She still had forty minutes to wait. It was the big downside to living in the boonies — spotty public transportation. She found herself watching the restroom without meaning to. A thin woman with ghostly pale skin and deep brown hair, wearing a safety vest like the one worn by the woman that had disappeared, stepped into the restroom.

When the woman didn’t immediately lock the door, Angel jumped up from the bench and burst into the restroom. She was ready to apologize but there was no one there she could apologize to. A faint odor of ozone hung in the air, as though an electrical appliance had shorted in the room.

She ran her hands along the sink. When her fingers touched a spot of water on the edge of the basin, a shock ran up her arm, making her jump back.

Even as she boarded the bus for the hour-long journey home, she was trying to rationalize what she’d seen and felt. Maybe she’d seen a man and he’d gone into the men’s restroom. That, combined with static, probably from sitting on the plastic bench, explained it.

Her sleep was fitful, and she woke unrefreshed. The oddity of the restroom bothered her. She didn’t have to work that day, but she packed a lunch in her backpack and took the bus to the city anyway. Ignoring that it made her look suspicious, she watched everyone that came by in a yellow safety vest. The men’s room had a conspicuous “Out of Order” sign hanging from the knob and police tape crossed over it.

She was halfway through a sandwich when a thin man in a yellow safety vest looked at the “Out of Order” sign and walked past to the women’s room. Angel did her best to not look like she was watching. She saw him knock, then duck into the women’s restroom from the corner of her eye.

The door hadn’t had time to close completely by the time she got to it and burst in. The air crackled around the man as he sprinkled water from the sink at his feet. Angel grabbed for his arm and heard a crackle and pop as she was blinded by a blue flash.

Her vision returned, albeit with spots. The man was gone, as was the water he’d sprinkled on the floor around him. She dropped the now-squashed half sandwich into the waste basket and looked at the sink. Feeling silly, she cupped a hand under the automatic faucet and let the collected water drip on her feet.

She felt the hair on her arms stand on end, then found herself standing on a flat stone at the edge of a spring. The air was warm and heavy with the scent of lilac. Hummingbirds drank from flowers on a vine that Angel couldn’t identify. As her gaze shifted away from the immediate surroundings, she found herself facing unbroken wilderness.

Behind her was a road, not of asphalt or concrete or cobbles, but appeared to be an unbroken, smooth slab of granite. She walked out to the center of the road and looked down it. Flanked by trees on both sides, it led straight into the hills where she could see a glimpse of a city.

The sound of wheels crunching over gravel came from behind and she spun around to see what had to be a car. All the parts were there, four wheels with inflated tires, windows, doors, and a driver and passenger. Beyond that, though, it was odd. There was no room front or rear for an engine, and with how quiet it was she guessed it was electric.

The mismatched pair got out. The short woman with green hair she’d seen the previous day, and who she guessed was the thin, pale woman she’d seen after. She hadn’t noticed then, but the thin woman had ears with tall points on them. The shorter woman had her hair pulled up and had smaller points on her ears.

The two approached Angel and the shorter one spoke. “I’m Arva, and she’s Elynia. You’re a human, ain’tcha?”

“Uh, yeah, yes I am.” Angel looked around her again. “Where are we?”

“On the highway between the village of Ost and King City,” Elynia said, “by the Underworld Spring. Who are you, and how did you get here?”

“Oh, sorry. I’m Angel, and you both disappeared in the bathroom yesterday, so today I followed a man in—”

“An elf, you mean,” the thin one interjected.

“Elf?”

“Like me. He’s an elf, not a man. Man hasn’t been here for centuries,” Elynia said.

“So, you’re an elf.” Angel pointed at Arva. “Does that mean you’re—”

“A dwarf, right.” 

“Uh, okay, an elf, who was sprinkling water on his feet, and he popped away in a flash of blue light.” Angel shrugged. “I did what I saw him doing and then I was here.”

The small, stout woman said, “You shouldn’ta’ seen that. Ah well, what’s done is done. You’re the first human to cross in what … six, maybe seven-hundred years or thereabouts.”

“Um, cross? Cross what? You said the Underworld Spring. Is this the Underworld? Am I dead?” Angel thought she should be fearful, but all she felt was curiosity.

“No. This is the Overworld. You’re from the Underworld.” Elynia pointed at the spring. “That spring is one of the ‘matching places’ between our worlds. Humans built a city near it and turned the spring into a ‘Park and Ride’ as you call it. Beneath that parking lot and bus stop is the spring, and that’s where the water for your restrooms comes from. It’s the water that ties the realms together.”

“At least until it dries up on your side or ours,” Arva said. “You said he went into the ladies? Why didn’t he use the men’s? It works just the same.”

“Oh, it’s out of order or something. But there’s police tape, too, so—”

“Never mind, I don’t wanna know. The Underworld’s a mess.” Arva let out an exaggerated sigh and snorted. “I don’t suppose we’ll have time to make a crossing today, seeing how we got a human to take to the watch.”

“I can tell you’re all sorts of sad about that,” Elynia said. “Well, Angel, would you like to join us in the car, and we can head to the city? If not, we’ll call the watch to come get you.”

“They’ll just make us do it,” Arva said, flashing a badge.

“What if I just go back to the spring and sprinkle the water on my feet? Wouldn’t I return home?”

“You might, but the watch’ll still come after you.” Arva opened the car. “If you go with us, we can get your promise to secrecy and let you go. Otherwise, we noticed that humans don’t pay attention to people in safety vests. Especially when there’s a group of them, say, lugging all your belongings out of your home. No one would see the watch take you, and your neighbors would assume you moved.”

“Okay, so disappeared or go to the watch and promise to keep mum.” Angel thought for a moment. “Is it in the village, or the city?”

“The city, of course,” Elynia said.

“Well, I guess I could take a look at your city, but I’d really like to check out the village. The air’s so clean here, is everything electric like your car?”

“It’s not electric,” Arva said. “It runs on magic.”

“Right. Because that makes so much sense.” Angel crossed her arms. “I’m not a gullible child.”

“Yet you activated an ancient portal with a sprinkle of water, popped up to the Overworld, and think that everything still needs to work as it does in the Underworld.” Elynia laughed.

“Oh, yeah, that.” Angel got into the car and sat down, followed by the dwarf and elf. “Okay, take me to the watch.”

The doors closed and the car pulled onto the road and took off at speed. No one controlled it, and there were no controls to do so. “Mighty bold to just take command of my car,” Arva said.

“Take command? I was talking to you.” Angel sighed. “Sorry.”

“It shouldn’t take orders from anyone but me,” Arva said, “but you shouldn’t be able to activate the portal, either.”

“I told you I saw magic in a human yesterday.” Elynia wore a smug expression. “This is the one I saw.”

“I didn’t think it possible.” The dwarf stared at Angel. “I guess magic’s not completely dead in the Underworld, then.”

The city rose up before them, spires instead of skyscrapers, parks and green spaces everywhere, and the soft murmur of conversations without the noise of machinery. The watch building was a two-story stone structure that was clearly equivalent to a police station.

Angel entered to gasps as uniformed dwarves, elves, and others she couldn’t identify right off, turned to face her. She gave an awkward wave. “Hi. I’m a human and I got here by, uh, following a guy.”

After two hours of confused questioning, magical testing, and lots of ogling by the other officers, Angel signed a promise to not tell anyone else in the “Underworld” how to cross. She also found a common sense of humor in the dwarf and joined her and Elynia for an early dinner in the city.

Angel checked the time. “Crap. The last bus home is in ten minutes. I won’t make it back.”

“Why don’t you stay at my place tonight? We’ve got to put on the stupid vests and go back to the Underworld tomorrow anyway,” Elynia said. “You’ll get to see at least a little of the village.”

“Yeah, I could do that.” Angel thought for a minute. “What are you two doing at lunch tomorrow? I know this great place downtown. Little hole in the wall that does the best Mexican.”

They discussed their plans for the following day as they filed out of the restaurant and piled into the car for the drive to the village.