This was a prompt posted by Wiwaxia Silver: “May I request for a vial of your insanity?”
I put a blackberry in her hand.
“I don’t understand. I was told that a vial–“
I took my spoon out of my teacup and tapped her nose with it, the metal still warm. “You don’t ask for insanity and understanding. One destroys the other.”
Continue reading “The Warmth of a Gentle Fire”This was an image prompt. I knew a little about the source material – this is an image of a warrior who struggled to pursue her profession against perceptions of her gender. It gave me an idea of why she might be so angry.
This story isn’t about Casca, but it is about someone in a similar position.
This image is the work and property of user ‘Josu Herniaz’ on Artstation, and is used here with the artist’s permission.
I forced him back. His sword came at me again, heavy and overpowering. I deflected it with my sword, but it wasn’t enough. I leaned the angle of my shoulder into the blow to glance it off my armor and despite all I had done to divert the force of it, my joint complained, something inside burning painfully. Now past his sword, I rammed the hilt of my sword into his throat. He went down like a tree, clawing at his throat, and I leaned over, sword poised to strike. His left eye, steel grey, the target of my sword, filled my vision as the target of my strike.
Prompted by a request to assign professions a mythical animal that suits the role, This beginning of a story was born. It’s the beginning of a strange bond, and there may be more later. This story is still not yet free.
I went to the vault, intending to clear it. The time – lock would engage soon, and we didn’t want anybody getting stuck. The massive wheel was heavy, but spun without resistance, not even a squeak. I pulled the door open,and looked in at a huge red lizard, looking back at me in startlement.
No. That was no lizard. That was a damn dragon. Fire erupted, just a wisp, and I slammed the vault shut, turning the wheel. Hell no. To hell with that. Maybe someone slipped me something and I was hallucinating, but I wasn’t going back in there without backup.
The intercom crackled on. “Officer! Wait!”
That voice. That pitch, that command. I wasn’t used to hearing it plead, but…..”Miss Kerris?”
“Who is that? Is that Tolson? O’graf?”
“Slate Grey, ma’am.”
There was a pause. “Is that a joke?”
“You’d have to ask my parents, ma’am. Ma’am…..are you alone in there?”
“…..Yes. Please let me out.”
I’d never heard her say please, either. I spun the wheel and pulled the vault open, coming face to face with …
“Miss Kerris.” I leaned around her to look into the vault, but it was empty.
“Please keep what you saw to yourself.”
“Miss Kerris . . . what are you?”
“Listen, Officer Grey, if you cause trouble for me, I will make you disappear, just like that. This bank is mine. I built it from nothing, and I will not risk losing it for the life of one human. You will keep my secret, one way or another.”
My mind was reeling, a a corner of it had hidden away from emotion. It had a plan. I bottled up thw swirling panic, and let that corner run on autopilot. “It’s just a little surprising, ma’am. You looked pretty fierce.”
She stood a little taller. “I was pretty fierce – looking, wasn’t I? And majestic.”
“Very majestic, ma’am. Noble.”
“Carry on, Grey. I may have use for you later. Stand ready.”
She walked away, strutting a little more than normal, and I sighed in relief. I don’t know what I just stepped in, but it looked like I was okay, for now. I left my feelings bottled for the moment, to process later; I still had work to finish.
A beeping started up behind me, and I went to look around the vault briefly, before closing it. A row of lights lit up, a series of thunks as the vault locked itself for the night. Maybe the vault was the wrong word. Maybe it was more properly a hoard.
Ms. Kerry -Tasiel Kerry, more appropriately, though her birth certificate said Tasha – went home to her flat, a little extra spring in her step. Noble, he’d called her. Sure, she’d prompted him, but humans just didn’t know how to give compliments. “Pretty,” and “lovely,” as if her pride should be in her appearance. He had complimented her character – ferocity and nobility!
She closed her door behind her, and leaned back against it, allowing herself an undignified little dance of delight as she kicked her heels off, directly onto a shoe rack. It’d been so long since she’d gotten a proper compliment. She would have to reward this man with his silly name. Slate Grey. Might as well call him Grey Grey. Double Grey. She’d think of a better name to embarrass the human with later.
She strode into her bedroom and to the bed strewn with gold coins. She undressed, reveling in the cool air on her skin after the heat outside, and threw herself onto the bed of coins. Reaching over her head, she scooped her fingers through the coins, holding a few aloft. An aureus, a yin yuan, a floren, and a bezin. Not originals, of course, replicas of particular coins she owned, those locked in a safe in their cases, with their certificates. But still gold, most of a purity higher than the original’s standard. Paper money just wasn’t the same. It was so flimsy, you couldn’t feel the value of it. She scooped a handful of coins over her stomach, smiling, sheltered once again with her treasure.
As she luxiated in her gold, she thought back to her compliments. She knew she was letting them influence her, but she didn’t care. She’d let the childish human manipulate her, for now. It felt nice to get real compliments, for once.
I took a stone from my pocket. It was meaningless, the kind of pretty thing she would have liked. It was also a life. I put the first of many on the shelf upon which we had laid Chuwa’s necklace of stones and shells.
I lifted his head, heedless of the greasy blood matting it, dragging him to the cliff’s edge as he struggled.
“Please! I have done nothing!”
“This isn’t about you!” In my anger, I threw him to the ground, and for a second it looked like he’d go over. He clawed at the rock and managed to hold himself back from the edge. Continue reading “Chuwa’s Judgment”
Write a three-paragraph story, starting every paragraph with the same sentence.
Photography by David Graham at https://www.flickr.com/photos/animal168/ .
The request for this prompt was merely “define this character”. I decided that her outward appearance of strength would not be what defined her.
I peeked through the tent flap and caught a glimpse of movement in the distance. A lookout. I shrank back to wait, then peeked out again. They would not stop me, of course, but neither would they leave me to myself. Finally, the way seemed clear. I rushed into the shelter of trees and darkness to the holy spring, the only place that was mine. Any other would be driven mad to walk here, they said. Perhaps it was true.
I looked into the water and beheld myself, painted in the patterns that marked me as the God-Chosen. I did not feel God-Chosen. Paint stained the water as I touched the surface, and it was like it washed the strangeness out of me. Suddenly I had to be clean. I scooped water, scrubbing the paint away. I rubbed my face and neck until my skin felt raw, and the paint bloomed into the water, carried away by the spring’s flow.
Finally, I saw my face reflected in the moonlight. This young girl, who was she? Not the God-Chosen of a tribe. The elder God-Chosen — my mother — said that the gods spoke to me through the spill of runes from my hands. But did they? My hands felt like a girl’s hands, clumsy and unsure. I heard no voices, and I made no promises as she had done. Perhaps it was for the best. The gods were capricious, and had used false words to toy with her before.
I touched the water as if laying my hand upon a friend’s brow, addressing my words to the reflected moon in the night sky. “My name is not Hesralta God-Chosen. I am Sryilla Tusfelt. I am a girl. And I am lonely.”
“Your mother was not lonely, at your age.” Continue reading “The Choosing of the Gods”
You’re passing a court house and a screaming man is being pulled from a police car. He pulls his arm free and points at you.
“You did it and I’m coming for you – dead or alive “.
There’d be peace, now. No more late-night parties. No more band practices. No more listening to the headboard crashing against the wall after he brought some prostitute home. We all complained about him, the entire building, but nobody ever did anything. The landlord didn’t care, as long as the rent was paid on time.
In the end, it was easy. Continue reading “The True Monster”
Another adventurer. I pull a sword six times taller than her off my back, whirling it effortlessly. “More meat for the grinder!”
My voice echoes and booms, the vibration felt resonating in the stone, and I knew they would feel it in their bones. It was intense and full of fervor, completely at odds with the boredom I felt within.
“You don’t have to do this.” Her voice is quiet and gentle, pure as a bell.
“Fool! I own this realm! There will be no escape for you!”
She seemed completely unmoved. She knew I wouldn’t strike until she drew her sword and started the fight – or she spoke one of the trigger phrases that would start combat. This wasn’t one of those phrases.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“No, little womanling, I want to do this! Your pain pleases me. Bleed for me, worm!”
“You don’t have to do this.”
I had three replies to this. I would cycle through them, then I would repeat the cycle twice more before I could decide that programmed replies were insufficient, and I would be permitted to devise intelligent replies. But nobody did that. She would hear me repeat myself, then fight me. She might go through the cycle twice, unsure if I was cycling through answers, or picking them randomly. It wasn’t possible that she would say this to me ten times.
After nine responses, I was completely unsure of her goal. Continue reading “Electronic Respect”
Alexander slammed his foot down atop the dead body, pointing his sword. “You’re next! There’s no room for altruism in the world I’m building. We fight to win!”
Spartas wiped a trickle of blood from the trickle at the corner of his lips, standing. “That’s why you’ll never win. Why you can never be allowed to win.”
Alexander rushed forward with a rising slash. Spartas leaned away from it with inches to spare, grabbing Alexander’s armor to thrust his sword into Alexander’s belly. His opponent whirled behind his grip, tearing himself free of that hand and bringing his sword to strike at Spartas’s back.
“Stop, stop.” Continue reading “Setting the Stage for Battle”
The moderator of a forum for humans, aliens, and sentient AI’s discovers a sentient in danger.
Due to the nature of this post, written in HTML formatting to mimic online forums, I had to make a choice. Either the whole HTML-formatted story can be presented on the main page as a preview, or none of it. With the prompt here to describe the story somewhat, I opted to keep this page orderly.
Continue reading “Sentences from Sentience”
Prompt Inspired 