Tag: fantasy

prompt: Write a story about a warrior who doesn’t want to kill the dragon.

available at Reedsy

Cedric’s plate armor sat piled atop his folded tabard just inside the entrance to the cave. He’d done the honorable thing for his horse of sending it off. If he returned soon, the horse would be waiting; if not, it would find its way home.

Half a mile farther down in the cave, Cedric leaned against the wall of the vast cavern and sighed. He laid his spear and sword next to him on the ground and shook his head. “Oh, my dear, dear Gwendolyn.”

“I’m sorry, Cedric.” The deep voice came from the other side of the cavern. “I—I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” Cedric answered.

The owner of the voice moved across the cavern toward Cedric, the small fire in the center shining off her golden scales. She moved close enough to lay her fine-scaled head, the size of two horse heads, on Cedric’s lap. Her bright yellow eyes reflected the flickering of the fire as she looked into Cedric’s. “Must it be so?” she asked.

Cedric scratched the ridge above her nearest eye. “You were to hunt only in the wilds, and not to bother with the settlements. Why did you—”

“I was so hungry. The king’s huntsmen chased all the game out of the foothills.” Her gaze bore the semblance of pleading. “For three weeks I hunted without success. When I saw the slow-moving horses pulling their load, hunger took over, and I had finished the first before I could comport myself properly.”

Cedric patted the heavy head that lay on his lap. “That horse was one of the king’s favored draft horses.” He lay his arms across her head and leaned forward to lay his head on hers. “I warned him that flushing all the game to his preserve would cause problems that he couldn’t foresee but the young king rules at his own whim.”

“All the game?”

“As much as can be got. You’re not the only one who was hungry. The populace began petitioning to hunt on the king’s preserve. He grew tired of declining their requests and ordered the huntsmen to drive the game back to the hills.”

“Still, must you? If the game is coming back, I can return to my normal hunt,” Gwendolyn said. “And how would the king have responded if a hungry bear had taken his horse?”

“He would have sent a huntsman to bring him the head of the bear. The huntsman would have just brought the head of the first bear he came across.” Cedric sat back up and began scratching over her eye ridge again. “Difference is, since you’re a dragon, he sent a knight. You are the only dragon for days and days of travel. I don’t know whether it is a boon or a curse that he sent me.”

“A boon, for certain,” she said. “I would not be happy without the chance to say farewell to my dearest friend.”

“Nor would I.”

“I will leave here,” Gwendolyn said, “fly many days south and find a new home.”

“That would the preferred action,” Cedric said. “Though my life be forfeit should I return without your head, I will happily make that trade.”

She reached forward with a clawed hand the size of Cedric’s torso and laid a careful finger on his shoulder. “You and I should flee together.”

“Would that I could, dear Gwendolyn, but it is not to be.”

“Why?”

“Do you know what happens to a knight that betrays his lord?” Cedric grabbed the finger on his shoulder. “At least, if the king demands my death, it will be quick. My presence as a knight-errant would only further endanger you.”

“I do not like this,” she said. “How is my life worth more than my friend’s? I do not wish to cause the death of my friend.”

“You speak the truth we both face. Would that I could convince the king that you are no threat.” He sighed. “I tried, many times but could not get through to him. But…I have sworn to honor, and to lay down my life for my friend is the highest honor I know.”

“You belittle the vow I have made,” Gwendolyn said.

“Pray tell, dearest friend, what vow have you sworn to?”

“Do you remember our first meeting?”

“I could never forget,” he said, “the day a small boy got lost in the hills and wound up between a bear and her cubs. You came down between us like a golden angel from heaven.”

“I made the vow, then, to you.” Her closed half-way. “Do you remember what I said?”

“You said, ‘You are protected,’ then led me to the road.”

“I would be breaking my vow to let you suffer harm for my sake. I must pay the price for my mistake, and you must return to your king with his prize.” Her large hand slid back toward her side.

“What weight a vow against my soul?” he asked. “I can no more kill you than I could kill my own kin.”

“I won’t make you,” she said. She shifted her weight with a rumbling grunt, her pupils dilated, and tears began to well in her eyes. “You forever have my love and respect.”

Cedric reached down and found his spear missing. “What have you done?” He looked at the bulk of her body laid out along the wall and saw a growing pool of dark liquid shining in the firelight.

“I have protected you, body and soul. You are without sin, Cedric. Would you please stay with me until—”

“I am here for you until your light goes out,” he said, tears blurring his vision, falling and joining the tears of the dragon.

She held something between two claws and offered it to Cedric. “Take this and remember me.”

He took the offered scale she’d removed when spearing herself. “I will remember you for as long as I draw breath, and my children and grandchildren as well.”

Her labored breath rattled in her chest, and pink flecks of foam came from her nostrils. “I’m sorry, for leaving like this. I fear I will no longer be able to protect you.”

Cedric watched as the light went out of her eyes. Her head lay heavy on his lap, and her breathing stopped. He closed her eyes and wept.

prompt: Start your story in the middle of the action.

available at Reedsy

His lungs burned, his legs cried out in protest, his feet threatened to fumble at every step. His arms had long since grown numb holding the precious cargo tight to his chest. Ahead lay the safety of the ’burg; a vast network of hidden and secret paths through, between, and below the crumbling buildings that he knew with his eyes closed.

He ran past the faded pink facade of the abandoned HiLux Hotel, dodged right down an alley then continued deeper into the ’burg. Once he was satisfied that he was no longer followed he allowed himself to slow to a walk. He wanted to collapse but knew that his legs would seize up if he did.

Most people considered the Danburg neighborhood dangerous, but for him, it was safety, home. The derelict subway station, a remnant of the before times, was his destination. He made his way down the steps on rubbery legs, past the broken turnstiles, and down into the subway tunnel.

Using his back to push open a door that had once led to a maintenance shaft, he emerged into a dimly lit space populated by tents, tables, chairs, and a few small cooking fires. The sounds of quiet conversation, together with the thud of the closing door, finally slowed his heart.

“Hey, kid,” Old Nora asked, “what you got there?”

“Gramps was right,” he said. “I found it.”

Old Nora laughed a raspy laugh that turned into a coughing fit. When it passed, she said, “Careful now, that old coot might just rise from the grave to say his told-ya-so’s.”

He walked to the tent he shared with Mama Jean and the other young strays. Beside the tent sat a table made from scrap lumber with a street sign for a tabletop. The writing on the sign, like most writing outside the ’burg was Elvish.

He tried to set the bundle he’d cradled on the table, but it ended up falling from his grasp and landing on the table with a loud bang. Mama Jean shot out of the tent wielding a short spear.

“What’s the ruckus?”

“Sorry, Mama. My arms are tired out and I dropped it.”

Mama Jean lowered her spear and looked at the bundle; a stack of books bound with a leather belt. “Why’d you bother with that? Ain’t no one here can read Elvish, and they ain’t letting anything else exist.”

“Gramps said that we used to—”

“Gramps said a whole heap of nonsense. No point in taking any of it serious.”

“Those are proof. I found it right where he said.” The kid tried to cross his arms, but they hung at his sides with elbows bent and refused to move.

Mama Jean leaned in close to him. Her lined face and salt-and-pepper hair placed her age closer to Old Nora than the kid. “You went to the library?” she hissed.

He nodded. “Fourth floor, through the gildy doors. These was in the farthest back shelves.”

Mama grabbed him roughly by the arm, eliciting a sharp cry of pain. “How did you get out of there? Did you lead ’em here? Where are they? We gotta prepare.”

“Same way I got in, Mama; I snuck. They didn’t even know I was there until I left the library, and an alarm went off. I ran all the way to the ’burg, from the other side. Even the hounds couldn’t keep up.”

“You ran seven miles with hounds on you and think you lost ’em?”

“I know I did.”

Mama stepped to center of the space and rang the makeshift bell. “Hounds coming! Hounds coming!”

Old Nora herded the children to the back of the space behind a cement wall. Adults grabbed their weapons — spears, clubs, whatever came to hand — and shields made from old street signs.

The shields were arranged in a semi-circle around the one entrance to the enclave. They had no way to lock the door, and no chance against the hounds, but they’d make them pay for every person they took down.

The kid opened the book on the top of the stack; the one he’d been holding closest to his body. It was in English…and Gramps had taught him how to read that.

The book opened to the page that he had first seen, the binding broken in such a way that it wanted to open there. He wasn’t sure he had enough control of his arms yet, but he gave it a shot.

The hand positions were tunnel-rat signs for “shield” on the right and “wall” on the left. Gramps had said that tunnel-rat sign used to be magic in the before time, and when he’d seen this page, he’d known Gramps was right.

His hands in the proper position, he began moving his arms in circles. He heard them coming. The unmistakable baying call of the hounds.

As he chanted the words on the page, the door blew down in an explosion of concrete and steel. Immediately behind the debris followed a hail of bullets from the hounds.

All of it stopped in midair a few feet from the shield-bearers. The kid continued circling his arms and chanting as the hounds threw themselves at the magic barrier, doing nothing more than knocking down the debris and flattened bullets that peppered it.

As he kept it up, he heard Old Nora laughing, and falling into another coughing fit. Mama ran back to the table and flipped through the book. Finding what she was looking for, she called out instructions to the kid.

He made the signs, moved his arms in the way she’d described, and called out the single word, “blast!”

A shimmer like heatwaves off hot pavement flew from his hands to the shield. The shield held, and the shimmer passed through, turning into a massive blast wave in the middle of the hounds.

Their armor did them no good; the concussive force shattering bones, crushing organs, and rattling their brains in their wolf-like heads. Two dozen hounds, the elite of the elves’ protective force, lay dead in the entrance to the squat and the tunnel beyond.

The sound of cheers rose from the defenders, fading as exhaustion overtook him and he collapsed into darkness. His last thought before he fell to the floor was that he wished Gramps had been around to see that he was right: humans had magic, too.

prompt: Write a story about a character who is experiencing glitches in their reality.

available at Reedsy

It was there again for just a split second, then it was gone. A flash in the eye; something off-kilter just a bit. I couldn’t tell what it was, but it made me think I might be losing my marbles. If I hadn’t been too nervous to try when it was offered in university, I would blame it on it acid flashbacks.

I pulled my hair into a ponytail and tied it with the spare band I had around my wrist. It served as an excuse to stand outside for a moment longer to gather my wits.

The reception had that sterile, cold, hospital feeling down, complete with the forced smiles of the young people in scrubs checking people in and answering questions. I approached the counter when the young woman there waved me forward.

“Hi. I’m Wendy, how can I help?”

“I have an appointment for an fMRI at three,” I said.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Celia Andros.”

After confirming my birthdate and address, she gave me a form to fill out while I waited. I filled out the rough outline of my medical history and wondered why I had to do it so often. My entire medical history was tied into this hospital, so they already had this information.

The waits for imaging weren’t like waiting for the doctor. They got me in right at three, had me out of my clothes and in a gown, lying in the machine by fifteen after.

While I was in the machine watching the images they showed on the screen above me, it happened again. The difference was, this wasn’t split-second. While I saw the machine around me, through it I saw the ceiling high above, crumbling. It was like seeing two films at the same time, one bleeding through the other.

There was a button under my thumb that I was to push if I noticed anything odd. I pushed it, I think. At least, I told myself to. Just as details in the ceiling were becoming clear, including the steady drip of black water from the edges of the tiles, the image disappeared and the machine and screen above were once again solid.

The fact that it happened during the fMRI might provide some insight into what was happening. My doctor already told me that I’m too old for the initial onset of something like schizophrenia, so she wanted to rule out a physical cause before doing anything that might exacerbate the situation.

I spent most of the ride home — and most every empty minute after — trying to decide which would be worse; something physical that may kill me any moment or something entirely psychological that would eventually see me sectioned.

Feeling sorry for myself, I stopped at the grocery on the way home for some nibbles. I picked up a large bag of crisps and box of herbal tea with chamomile and valerian. On the spur of the moment, I picked up a fizzy drink and an ice lolly.

The ice lolly and fizzy drink were gone by the time I’d got home. I sat in front of the telly, not paying attention to what was showing. At some point, I roused myself to put on a kettle and open the crisps.

It was between sips of the herbal tea that it happened again. The newsreader was going on about a pile-up on the M1, complete with live coverage of the traffic jam. I saw, behind the image or through it, the same stretch of the M1 broken, part of it jutting up as though the land had been lifted. A lorry lay across the change in elevation, burning.

The image faded after a few seconds and the story changed to one about some MP caught up in some ethics scandal…as if that was a news-worthy occurrence.

I continued to munch on the crisps, letting the sound from the telly fade to background noise. After a second cup of the herbal tea, I was tired enough to sleep.

Over the next few days, the episodes became more common and far more vivid. The scenes that showed beneath the everyday were all of destruction. Why that should be, I don’t know.

I walked to the corner shop, and it happened again. The shop entrance was elevated from the pavement, as though it was built on a kerb. I nearly tripped as I tried to step up into the shop. Then I realized that in addition to being lifted twenty centimeters or so, the shop I was seeing was in a state of total disarray.

To avoid the stare of the man behind the counter, I turned down one of the aisles and waited for the episode to end. When it ended, I still had after-impressions. It was as though some traumatic event had burned it into my brain.

I shook it off and picked up a fizzy drink and ice lolly. It was as I was paying for my purchases that I realized I didn’t know why I’d gone to the shop in the first place. Probably boredom combined with the stress of waiting for my doctor to call me in about the scan.

The call from my doctor came as I was heading home. She wanted to see me in her office first thing in the morning. She talked as if it wasn’t anything to be concerned about, but I wasn’t certain I believed her tone.

I sat in her office after a sleepless night. I was still undecided whether a physical or psychological cause was worse. She caught my wandering attention.

“Sorry, Doctor Mathis.”

“Celia, you can relax,” she said, “and please, just call me Sharon. We haven’t found a physical cause for your hallucinations. To start with, I’m going to put you on an anti-psychotic to see if we can get it under control.”

I nodded, realizing now that it was the worse outcome of the two. At least if it had been physical, it would be something I could point to and blame.

“Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been seeing. We can decide from there if we should involve the psychiatry department.”

I explained how the brief, vague flashes had morphed into views of destruction. I made sure to provide the vivid details of the latest episodes. It was then that another hit me. The doctor was both in front of me, and huddled beneath the desk, upon which the ceiling had collapsed, trapping her there.

Looking up, I could see the floor above on fire. Water sprayed from unseen fire hoses outside, washing ash down with it, turning it black. It took over, more real seeming than reality, as if reality was the bit bleeding through. As suddenly as it started, it stopped.

“Celia, are you well?” she asked. “Did you just have another episode?”

“I…did. It looked so real. You were trapped beneath your desk with the ceiling collapsed all around. The floor above was on fire, and water was spraying on it from outside.”

She just nodded and jotted it down in her notes. “You’re not having any thoughts of harming yourself or others, are you?”

“No, it just…it’s like I’m seeing another reality behind this one, or maybe another time.” I laughed at myself. “Sorry, Doctor M—Sharon…now I sound daft.”

“It’s fine, Celia. Promise you’ll pop by the chemist on the way home and get this filled. One tablet every night before bedtime. Don’t expect it to work right away, it needs to build up. And don’t skip any doses. I’ll set a follow-up appointment for two weeks from today.”

I nodded at her, took the prescription she’d written, and walked out. Anti-psychotics. I’ve gone ’round the bend, I thought, and I’ll be sectioned before year’s end.

As I’d promised, I took a detour to the chemist on the way home. It was only one stop earlier than my usual, so it wasn’t much of a detour.

Medicine in hand, I walked toward home. I had finished the big bag of crisps the day prior, so I decided to pop into the corner shop to get some more. Fried potato therapy.

A low, rumbling noise, like a train, came barreling toward me. The light poles began to sway, and the ground started to shake. Unable to stand, I dropped to my knees. The ground next to me, where the buildings abutted the pavement, rose with a deafening roar.

A few seconds after it started, it was over. Sirens called out from all over the city, and the streets were littered with collapsed brickwork from many of the older buildings.

I went into the shop. I had to step up to get in, and the scene was exactly as I had seen the last time I was there.

The clerk shooed me out and followed. “I’m not sure the roof will hold,” he said, “but I grabbed you an ice lolly on the way out. No charge.”

“You’re very kind.” I opened the lolly and looked down the street to my building. The entire facade was laid out in front of it, and my front room was open to the world. I pointed to it with a bitter laugh. “How do you like my interior-exterior design?”

That night, as I lay on a cot in a Red Cross shelter, I wondered whether to take the pills or not. The scenes from the news, including the upthrust that cut across the M1, the partial collapse and fire at the hospital — all of it — was just as I’d seen.

I tried to call Dr. Mathis, but most of the cell towers were down, and the ones that weren’t were overloaded. I told one of the aid workers to contact the firemen at the hospital and let them know she was trapped beneath her desk, but he just looked at me like I was barmy.

I decided that, for now, the pills could wait until it happened again…if it happened again. With the full realization that I had, somehow, seen into the future, I left the shelter for the hospital. I hoped it wasn’t too late for Dr. Mathis.

prompt: Write about someone whose luck is running out.

available at Reedsy

She clapped her leathery wings in rage, her eyes glowing like hot coals. Her champion had not only let her down, he’d flat-out betrayed her. As usual, only her favorite brother was here to comfort her.

“Relax, sister.” Pride placed his arm and one wing around her. “You knew there was a chance to lose, and you took it.”

“Yeah, sure. You can puff yourself up with ‘at least I tried’ but that doesn’t cut it for me; I have to win.”

Pride stood, holding his sister close. “There will be others,” he said.

“He was to be my champion. I thought he was steadfast in his devotion to me.”

“You’re my favorite sister, but I never understood why you chose him in the first place. Born to an addicted mother living in a hovel, with an alcoholic father serving a life sentence.”

“Exactly. And on his first birthday?” She looked at her brother and saw no response. “Do you remember what happened on his first birthday?”

“His mother ODed in her car in the convenience store parking lot, he was in the back seat.”

“Right, but an off-duty police officer happened to be there. One whose brother and sister-in-law were in a uniquely perfect position to take in a child.”

“Because they’d just found out she was barren, right?” Pride raised an eyebrow and pulled her close. “I try to tell people, of all my siblings, Luck is the coldest, but they never believe me. Anyhow, carry on.”

“Right. Well, they were ready to take in and care for a special-needs child; child of a junkie mother and father in jail and all. He was undersize and underweight, but that’s because I was slowing his brain development.”

“What? Why?” Pride released his sister and stepped back.

“He was genetically gifted, but without the proper environment, he’d never reach his full potential. I held him back until he had that environment.”

Luck took a deep breath and let the fire in her eyes calm. “I made sure he had everything he needed: good schools, healthy food, loving parents. I even helped his adoptive father get elected to congress in order to get him to an even better school and ensure his acceptance to MIT at fifteen.”

“And all that time he remained your champion?”

“Always. He attributed his situation and success to me. ‘Luck has been kind to me,’ he’d say.”

“What changed?”

“Dear brother, I don’t know how, but your influence found him. I know you kept your part of the deal and never touched him directly, but….” She let out a heavy sigh and settled into a squat position, elbows on her knees, face on her hands, wings behind her like a gargoyle on a parapet.

“What is it?” Pride asked.

“Why is it easier for the brothers than the sisters? You, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Lust, all of you. You influence someone a certain way and you gain power. It’s not the same for me and my sisters.”

“Except Love,” he said.

“It seems that way, but she is outright worshipped by millions. No, we need belief…not just influence. Me, Chaos, Order, Fate, Wisdom…well, she does a little better than the rest of us, but of the sisters, only Love truly prospers.”

“Tell me what happened with your champion?” Pride asked. “The one you bet Sloth a hundred years servitude would acknowledge you in an influential speech.”

“He finished out his PhD in Neuroscience, with his thesis, The Role of Ventromedial Pre-Frontal Cortex Excitation in Unconscious Bias and Apophenia. The more he researched, the more he became convinced that his luck was a story he told himself to make sense of accomplishments he didn’t feel deserving of.

“After everything I did for him, everything for which he thanked me and praised me for years, he had the gall to denounce me in the footnotes of his paper. ‘Despite the lies I told myself, there is no such thing as luck. Every accomplishment I’ve made is a combination of my own efforts and my environment. There is no luck, just random, sometimes cruel, chance, as seen through the lens of our own biases. Our own actions determine our luck.’”

Pride crouched down next to his sister. “Oof. He gave the credit to himself and Chaos.”

Hot tears streamed down her face. “He did, but he’s about to find out that I’m a lot crueler than my sister. She plays fair; everyone is treated the same and the outcome is equally unsure. Not me.” Luck took a deep breath and rose to her feet, spreading her wings, electricity building in arcs around her.

Pride stood and stepped away from her. “What are you doing?”

“I’m giving every bit of energy he gave me back.” Her eyes were black pits and lightning arced between her teeth as she let out a pained scream.

The mass expulsion of power brought all the siblings to her side. The lives of individual mortals were rarely of any consideration, but this one had to be special to elicit such a response from their usually cold sister.

“What now?” Pride asked.

“We watch and wait…see if he ever comes back to my side.” Luck smiled but it was a mirthless, icy thing. “Even believing in bad luck is believing in me.”

The siblings watched as the man who had lived a charmed life faced a change in circumstance. His fiancé left him stranded at the altar, leading him to drinks with his closest friend.

It was the first time he’d ever gotten drunk, and as gifted as he was genetically, he was just as cursed with a proclivity to addiction. It took months, but he entered a downward spiral. Alcohol took his job, then his possessions, then his home.

Even as he ended up sleeping under a bridge because he couldn’t be bothered to stay sober long enough to sleep in the shelter, he continued to attribute everything to himself. He knew that he had a high likelihood of addictive tendencies, yet he allowed himself to repeatedly drink until he was drunk to dull the pain of rejection.

His clothes wore thin, and he warmed himself by a barrel of burning garbage. An early winter storm had come in mid-autumn and marked the beginning of a brutal winter. There were no warm places left to sleep.

The people he considered his “friends,” the ones that helped keep him drunk, had sobered enough to get into the shelter, filling it to capacity. There were a few people still sleeping in tents with warm sleeping bags, but they wouldn’t allow him anywhere near them. He didn’t blame them. He clung to the belief that everything that happened to him, good and bad, was a direct result of his own choices.

The winter remained harsh, and his body began to show signs of failing. Thanks to not having anywhere left to panhandle, he had been sober for nearly a week when he built himself a nest under a bridge.

As he lay there shivering, he came to the realization that he had wasted his life. He hadn’t published anything since his doctoral thesis. He’d barely begun working in his field when he let himself be taken down by one negative event.

“It’s not all my fault,” he said to the bridge above him. “Sure, the drinking, or at least the starting drinking. I need to get help. But what started it all?”

He curled into a ball, still shivering. “She got cold feet at the worst possible time, but I didn’t do that. Now I’m shivering, probably hypothermia, I’ll be dead by morning. I used to have such good luck, right up until I decided there was no such thing. I guess my luck now is to freeze to death. You’re a bitch, Lady Luck, even if I deserve it.”

She folded her wings, the electrical crackling around her fading to nothing. Her eyes brightened and her stance relaxed. She looked around to see that only Pride remained by her side, her other siblings having grown weary of her tantrum. “He’s back,” she said.

“Not for long,” Pride said.

Luck twitched a finger, and a patrol officer turned on her search light and pointed it under the bridge on a whim, illuminating his huddled form. “Fate says as long as I intervene, he’s got years,” she said, “but he has no more chances with me. Any day he doesn’t acknowledge my presence, I won’t be there. If he ever betrays me again, I’ll end him then and there.”

“You’re my favorite sibling,” Pride said, “I just hope that I remain yours.”

prompt: Write a story about someone coming to terms with how different they are from their younger self.

available at Reedsy

As a child, I knew the world was the way it was, and that was that. Changes, even small ones, were difficult to accept. I knew that the world was and would remain static. Our enclave of skin tents in the forest was where I would live, hunting and raising a family, for my entire life.

I should’ve paid more attention when the elders talked about how fast the humans advanced. The elders understood that human advancement was exponential, even if they didn’t have the language or math to describe it.

Still, I began training as a far-speaker before I took my first step or said my first word. By the time I was nearing adulthood, humans were putting down metal rails and wires in the east. Humans had no far-speakers, but could send messages along the wires, the elders said.

These humans were different, the elders had said. They said that the light-skinned humans in odd clothes were “English” and carried a curse in their touch. I don’t know how much I believed them, but enough that I feared the “English” and wouldn’t go near them.

The other humans, the ones that had come long before, wore clothes like our own. We spoke enough of the other’s language that we traded with them and shared knowledge of game movements, weather warnings from our seer, and anything relating to the “English.”

I took my first wandering when I reached the age of adulthood, at sixty. Traveling with only my bow, a spear, and what I could carry on my back, I left the forest and wandered the plains. It was there that I fell in love with a human woman, Stands In Grass.

She was far younger than I in years, but in terms of a human lifespan, my peer. I stayed with her tribe for an entire year, becoming fluent in their language and teaching her mine.

I took part in one of their horse raids on a neighboring tribe and was accepted as a brave after. For the next forty years, the only contact I had with my own people was by far-speaking. My name in the tribe became Sharp-Ears Holds Spear.

The time I lived with the tribe was my first real introduction to the rapid pace of human change. We had no children, sadly. Of course, I know now how rare non-assisted human-elf pregnancies are. Still, I never wavered in my love for Stands, nor she for me.

In no time at all, she grew old before my eyes. It was forty years and six days after I moved into her family’s tipi that I held her head in my lap as she took her last breath. Far too short a time.

Still, I looked at my belongings in the tipi. My headdress, my winter rabbit-fur pants and jacket, a bison shawl, my summer breechcloth, the buckskins I was wearing, and — beside my spears and bow — a rifle I’d taken from a Blackfeet brave.

I dressed Stands in her two-skin dress, best moccasins, and all her jewelry and regalia. Since we were the only ones living in the tipi, I moved everything out of it and used it for the viewing. For two days I sat beside her as the tribe came to pay their respects.

She had no surviving kin, so it was up to me alone to bury her. The chief, who was just a child when I first arrived, offered his family’s help. I was glad of it, as the ground was beginning to freeze.

I returned home to the forest after that, no longer feeling at home among the Newe. I gave away all but my best horse, my bow, my favorite spear, my rifle, and the buckskins I wore.

When I rode in on my horse, I expected surprise from my kin at the horse and rifle. Instead, I found a number of horses, rifles, pistols, and even a few pieces of Cavalry clothing that had been “cleansed” by the healers.

The rate of change started to become clear. The elders were correct; every human innovation was built on top of earlier innovations. The more that humans invented, the more — and faster — they would come up with new miracles. Their towns spread across the land and grew into cities.

Still, I felt there was a certain permanence to the world itself. The sun rose and set, the seasons changed, and the world was immune to the short lives of the creatures on her skin…including us. I still clung to the illusion of permanence.

When I look back on it now, I realize that at just over a hundred years old, I was still young and naïve. The more the humans spread, bringing with them orcs, halflings, gnomes, and others, the less we saw them as cursed.

We were, by small, gradual steps, assimilated into the United States of America. At some point, we dispersed. Not all at once, of course, but one by one we moved to the towns and cities.

I moved to San Francisco when the railroad was completed across the former hunting grounds of the tribes. The nearest city, Cheyenne, had a telegraph office, and no use for a far-speaker like me.

In California I met humans who spoke languages that had no relation to that of the tribes and little or no relation to English. I learned the languages of those around me — Spanish, Mandarin, German — and took employment wherever I could find it.

At the start of the Great War, I enlisted. The presence of far-speakers was a boon for the Army. They had the new “wireless” devices that had about a two-thousand-yard range, weather permitting. Far-speakers, however, could communicate over tens of miles.

There were few of us, but it made a difference. During the war, I realized how outdated and useless was my Henry repeater rifle compared to the new firearms. At the war’s close, I returned to San Francisco and sold my repeater to a collector for four dollars.

Horses and carriages disappeared from the streets. Streetcars and automobiles took their place. Steam and diesel ships plied the oceans, and the air over the south of the city was often black with coal smoke. Meanwhile, I got a formal education, all the way up to a bachelor’s degree.

When the Second World War rolled around, there was no more need of far-speakers. The new radios could communicate over hundreds of miles and didn’t require years of training or any magical ability.

I re-enlisted and found myself trained as a B-29 radio operator and gunner in the Army Air Forces. I spent two combat tours in Europe, — forty-eight combat missions flown — often limping home in a bomber that resembled Swiss cheese.

After the war, I decided I needed to slow down, go somewhere that didn’t grow and change as rapidly as San Francisco. The crew training I’d received had been at a military airfield outside the small city of Phoenix, Arizona.

At one tenth the population of San Francisco, it seemed perfect. Sure, the city had ramped up some for war production and distribution, but with the war over that was certain to come to a halt, especially given the nature of the place.

Faster than I could have imagined, Phoenix grew from an agricultural center to a major industrial area. From the city itself, the suburbs sprawled across the inhospitable desert like a spreading infection.

In recent years, I’ve looked at the housing development that has taken over what used to be the fields where I labored, and sometimes wondered why I haven’t moved. My house was still newish when I bought it after the war. Now it sits as an anachronistic piece of architecture amidst carbon-copy homes.

If life has taught me anything, it’s that the only constant thing is change. Not just tools and weapons, but politics, morals, social ethics, utopian ideals, and the very earth itself. Like everyone else, I’ve been pulled along by those changes.

After the fields got paved over, I finished out a doctorate in the history of indigenous Americans, with a focus on how the indigenous elves and humans interacted. There’s an old joke about elves being history teachers because they all lived it. In my case, it’s true.

Every year since I began teaching this course in 1962, I have my freshmen students make a list of every technical and social advancement that has been made since their birth. I do this exercise as an eye opener of sorts; get the students thinking about the rate of change in the world. They all know the adage, “Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it,” but they don’t really grasp its importance.

As the students see the ever-lengthening list over the years, it becomes clear just how easy it is to be blind to recent history. “The noise and clamor of change drowns out the lessons of the past,” I tell them, “unless you are careful to pay attention.”

This was typed on a computer in an air-conditioned room, under LED lighting, while trying to avoid the messages on my cell — the most recent iteration of the far-speakers, telegraph, phones, wireless, and so on. What will replace that, I don’t know, but I’ll be here to see it, probably sooner than anyone expects.

That is both the blessing and curse of being an elf in a world where humans have almost completely taken over. Not through conquest, but through their ever-increasing rate of invention. In a world where change occurs at an exponential rate, nothing is static, there is no permanence, tomorrow is not predictable…and I can finally say, I’m okay with that.

prompt: Set your story in a world where the currency isn’t money — or at least not money as we understand it.

available at Reedsy

Willard fiddled with the last purple bead on the band around his right wrist. The band around his left was devoid of beads. He’d traded the yellow and orange striped miller’s bead to the blacksmith for one of her black beads, which he then traded to the hunter for a fowl for dinner.

The hunter had been too kind. It was usually two for a fowl, three for a hare or a joint of boar or venison. Taking care of the hunter’s lodgings and gardens took time that would have reduced the time he’d have to hunt.

When he’d been more in demand, Willard had several bracelets of others’ beads on his left wrist. “Give with the right, collect with the left,” the saying went, but he’d long since passed the point where he could collect anything.

He’d had powers, once…magics that he could perform on behalf of others. One of his conjurations had gone wrong, and the daemon he sought an answer from took his power away. Now, all he had to offer was teaching.

Reading and writing were of little value to most of the village, and of those who did value it, all were already versed. Basic mathematics were more valued, but again, with no children to teach, Willard had nothing to offer.

He knew nothing of farming, smithing, milling, baking, building or any of the myriad other chores that people traded with. Perhaps, if there was a legal dispute, as the most learned in the village, Willard could act as solicitor. That was an unlikely scenario, though.

It was good that his dwelling had been built years ago, in a part of the wood that had no value to the farmers, hunters, or others. The ground was damp and soft, the game rare. In high summer it was swarmed with mosquitos, and in winter thick fogs nestled in and settled for days at a time.

His stone cottage stayed warm and dry, and he was thankful that even when his powers had been taken, the enchantment against insects held. As the fowl stewed in the pot hung over the fire, Willard contemplated how he had fallen so far.

He still had firewood, that he had collected himself. It took him three times longer, if not more, than the woodsman, but he had no time left to barter away; save the lone, remaining bead on his right wrist. The small garden plot behind the cottage still grew cabbage and beans in season, though it was far too hot for them now.

Willard retired early, settling into an uneasy sleep. The daemon that had taken his power returned to his dreams as it had most nights.

He woke to the first songbirds, the skies clear and the day promising to be hot and muggy. He had half a fowl left to get him through the day, but nothing else to eat.

Refusing to show defeat, Willard held his head high as he walked to the village and entered the bakery. He placed his last bead on the counter. “Horse bread please.”

The baker scowled and placed a single loaf of the low-quality bread on the counter. “There ya’ go, magus.” The emphasis on the last word was dismissive.

“Horse bread is three loaves an hour, not one,” he said.

“For you, it’s one.” She pointed at the loaf. “Take it or leave it.”

“It’s three loaves an hour, for everyone. That’s the whole point. No one’s time is worth more than anyone else’s.”

“Tell that to the rest of the village. In fact, if you can trade your one hour for anyone else’s, I’ll trade the three loaves and throw in a loaf of white bread.”

Willard took his bead and left. He wandered around the village, asking for anyone willing to trade an hour of their time for an hour of his. He was met with outright hostility by some, derision by others, and an apologetic “I have no need of a teacher” by others.

By the third hour, he had grown tired of trying to remind the villagers of the system they all claimed to abide by.

Value is something woven in time,
Hours the warp and labor the weft.
No difference in worth between thine and mine;
Give with the right, collect with the left.

There remained only one person left to ask, and he dreaded it. The tinker, for whom Willard had summoned the daemon. Not only had it cost him his power and begun his downfall, he had failed to get the answer the tinker sought, though she paid him for it anyway.

Willard heaved a deep sigh and entered the tinker’s shop. She was busy rounding out a pot with a small hammer and didn’t hear him enter.

“Madam, I wonder if I could trade an hour for an hour,” he said.

She turned with a broad smile. “Magus! How good to see you!” She had several bracelets around her left wrist. Most notable was one that held all but the last of his purple beads. Her own bracelet, on her right wrist, was full. Seventy beads, the total number every villager had to trade when they reached the age of maturity.

It equated to one week of steady work. There, on her left wrist, was sixty-nine hours of his own labor, frozen in waiting for her to collect.

“I see you have only one hour left to trade in advance,” she said.

“Well you should know, since you hold all my hours hostage, it seems.”

“I just haven’t found a use for you yet, and I’ve not stopped others from trading your hours for their own.”

“I implore you, madam, please, may I trade my last hour for another’s…anyone’s.” He tried to smile, though it didn’t feel like he succeeded. “The baker is refusing a fair trade for my hour, though she said she would for any other.”

Her smile grew. “Of course, magus. In fact, I’ll trade you one of the baker’s.” She removed one of the brown and gold beads from her left wrist and added one of her own silver beads. “I’m giving you one of mine, as a way to say to thanks, and I hope there are no hard feelings between us.”

“O—of course. Thank you. You are far too kind.”

She added the purple bead to the bracelet on her left wrist as he added the other two to his. A swirl of black smoke rose from the center of the room and a figure stepped out: the daemon that had taken his power.

“Well done, child. His power is now yours.” A glow spread from the daemon’s hand and surrounded the tinker, settling into her.

“You—you tricked me! You knew the daemon would take my power and made a deal to take it for yourself!” Willard calmed himself. “And what, pray tell, is the price you have to pay?”

“What are you talking about old man? I got you to summon him and collected all your hours as he required.”

Willard felt his joints loosening, his skin tightening, vision and breath becoming clearer. He looked around the tinker shop and realized that he knew how to fix every item there. Even though he no longer had his power, he could still sense what the magic was doing throughout the village.

The tinker, now the magus, grew old before his eyes. Her back stooped, her fingers gnarled, her hair turning white and her skin wrinkling. She dropped the hammer in surprise. “What?! What is happening?”

“You got what you bargained for,” he said. His left wrist filled with the beads she’d previously held, his right wrist held all but one of her, now his, silver beads. In place of his robe, he wore the outfit of a tinker. Her left wrist now held the two beads she’d given him, showing just beyond the frayed sleeves of her robe.

“This—this is not how it’s supposed to happen! You had hours from everyone!”

“Yes, when I had power. You saw to it that it was taken away. Perhaps you can do some spells and convince the village your power is back, perhaps not.” He walked around behind the bench where she’d been working and picked up the hammer. Being able to bend over so easily was something he’d long since forgotten.

“But…what am I to do?”

“For starters, take the baker’s bead to her. I suspect she’ll give you three loaves of horse bread and a loaf of white. You will find half a game fowl in the pot, and enough wood for a few days in your cottage. You can bring the kettle in with my silver bead, and I’ll repair it for you.”

“It’s not—”

“What? Fair? Time is time, and you are using mine up. I would suggest you not mention this to anyone else, lest they think the magus has lost her mind and is no longer trustworthy.”

“I—I’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“I’m sure you will. Your library in the cottage is quite extensive, including a book on demonology. Oh, I do have a task for you, though.” He held up a samovar he knew was his, now. Enchant this with the ‘Blessing of Auriculus.’ You’ll find it in the book labeled, ‘Household items,’ third shelf from the top, right-hand side. It should take about an hour. I’ll pay you back one of your hours when you’ve completed it.”

Willard went back to work on the pot, rounding it out where it had been crushed. As she paused in the doorway, he called after her. “Magus, I hope there are no hard feelings between us.”