Flash Fic Challenge: Gone With the Moon

 Gone With the Moon

“It’s a complete mystery,” the stablemaster told me, between bites of a banana. “We found this stray dog wandering around in the night and managed to shut it in an empty stall, away from the other animals. Only when we went to check it the next morning, it had completely vanished! No sign of it anywhere, and the stable door still locked!”

“I see,” I told him. “Nobody got bitten, I hope?”

“No, we were very fortunate.” He set the rest of the bananas aside and proceeded to show me the side stable that the animal had vanished from, with its complicated lock that needed two hands to work, and the split door still bolted. “It was docile, so we only bolted the lower half. Even if it got over the door, that doesn’t explain how it got out of the stable.”

“No,” I agreed, “it doesn’t.” I left it at that, decidedly not pointing out that it had been a full moon last night. Guess what this werewolf did, once the moon set and I had two hands again to unbolt a door and work a lock?

Flash Fic Challenge: Grinding Exceedingly Fine

 Grinding Exceedingly Fine

 Content warnings: death, war, injury

 

The building had been a chapel once. Now it was a triage space for the war outside. Rafe moved through the chaos like a otter through water, noting, assessing, deciding. That one was gory but minor. That one urgently needed evacuation. That one was treatable. That one was survivable. That one - was not.

Their mouth tightened ever so slightly. Treatable wounds first, then assess again. Save those that could saved first, then do what they could for those who - couldn’t. They flexed hands already chapped from constant disinfection, and then reached for the nearest, dwindling, stack of bandages and the nearest set of injuries, while stretchers came in laden with wounded and left laden with bodies. Others moved between the beds too, cleaning and bandaging, cauterising and amputating.

Finally, finally, Rafe’s stretch of beds was dealt with. They cleaned their hands again, and went back down to walk the lines of the dying. This time, they offered not bandages and medicine, but a gentle touch or a gentle word. A hand to hold, a strained joke, a smile.

“I used to be good at football, before this,” one of his patients gasped, nodding at the battered ball lying in a corner.

“And you’ll play again, someday,” Rafe lied in return, smoothing damp hair back from a clammy forehead. “Send me a ticket to the match. But for now, it’s time to sleep.”

The patient smiled. Hazel eyes closed softly. They would never open again.

Rafe exhaled very quietly and rose back to their feet as a new wave of casualties rushed in. Later, they would grieve every lost patient, but for now all they could do was keep up with the unending work of it, while outside the war rolled on, grinding them all underfoot.

 

 

Flash Fic Challenge: Beneath the Marshes

 Beneath the Marshes

 

Nobody was supposed to go near the marsh. The elders said that there was a monster imprisoned under it, and when he writhed in his chains, poison dripped into the waters.

If there had been a monster, which Gwen had no doubt about, the prison had been abandoned long ago, and the part of the marsh that made you sick could easily be avoided if you were careful. She wasn’t foolish enough to go near it when anyone could see, but she had no parents left and two younger siblings to feed, and the good parts of the marsh were full of fish and edible plants.

So she went quietly. She tickled fish, and dived for cattail roots, and stood firm when the will’o’wisps swept around her. They wanted her to follow, she knew. To lure her into a bad part of the marsh where she would (if they were lucky) die or drown and they (or the monster) could devour her.

From a distance it might have worked. From a distance the will’o’wisps looked like flickering lanterns.

This close, however, they looked like someone had spilled a whole bagful of tiny white balls and left them bobbing around in the air.

So no, she wasn’t going to follow them again. Not today. Not until her sibs were grown.

Once was enough.

She had seen the monster - if he was a monster and not the man he looked - looking back at her from one of the poison pools. Eyes as blue as marshfire, skin as pale as a will’o’wisp. His name, he said, was Arthur.

He called her sometimes to come back. To sleep beside him in this marsh as his queen.

But Gwen had promises to keep, and miles to go before she'll sleep.

Flash Fic Challenge: Rose Tinted Lenses

 Rose Tinted Lenses

 Tap. Tap. Tap.

Alex flattened themself behind the ancient rollercoaster. Six feet away, everyone was going about their usual business, up and down the road, in and out of shops, chatting to friends, without ever glancing in Alex’s direction.

Three feet away, thin black tentacles tapped on the first boards, soft as dripping water, relentless as clockwork, and coming ever closer.

Alex edged sideways, their eyes darting to find somewhere safe.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A new set of tapping came from behind them, and Alex’s breath came faster, even as a whisper crawled across their skin.

“Silly human, you could have been safe. You should have followed the crowd. You should have worn your contact lenses.”

Alex wanted to shout back that they didn’t have contact lenses, that they had never worn contact lenses, that they didn’t need them. Shouting would give away their location though. They bit down on their lip instead.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

A tentacle came down within inches of Alex’s shoe and they flinched. One elbow clattered noisily against the rollercoaster.

Six feet away, nobody took any notice. It was as if none of the people could see or hear anything out of the ordinary.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Alex broke and ran for the crowd. Surely they could get away from all of this, lose these - these tapping things - in the everyday world.

A tentacle curled lazily around their ankles, and they crashed to the ground right next to the road. Alex stretched out a frantic hand, begging for help, begging for someone to stop, to see what was happening. Pink-tinged eyes looked blankly through them, feet stepped over them as they thrashed, placid voices discussed the weather over their head.

Tentacles tapped up Alex’s body, pinning them tighter in place.

“No one will help you,” the whisper drummed. “They are all good people, nice people, obediently wearing their contact lenses. They can’t see you, no matter what you do.”

A tentacle wrapped around Alex’s throat. Three more bound their mouth shut. They tried to writhe, but even their hair was pinned down, immobile. Instead, they screwed their eyes shut.

“Oh, silly human, that won’t help you. But don’t worry, we’re going to be so kind to you. We’re going to give you lenses that you can’t take out, and you won’t see us ever again. You’ll just remember. Isn’t that nice of us.”

The tentacles were tap, tap, tapping on their eyelids now, thinner than ever, twining around their eyelashes and forcing their eyes open.

The last thing that Alex saw clearly was a rose-tinted lense approaching their eye, held by yet another tentacle.

#

It was a normal day. The weather was pleasant and the shops were crowded. And somewhere, just out of sight, Alex could hear water dripping.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

 

Flash Fic Challenge: Strike Night

 Strike Night

 

It all started when I'd just made assistant stage manager for our local theatre. That means I was responsible for begging, borrowing, making or otherwise finding all the props for each of the plays, looking after them while they were in our care, getting them on and off stage at the right time, and getting them back to their owners afterwards. It was the last day of this play, which meant three performances followed by set strike (and strike goes until we're finished removing everything even if it means we're still going at two in the morning)

Because it runs so late, the theatre company puts in a takeaway order with one of the local restaurants, so that the backstage crew can eat. It’s the task of the most junior crew member to collect the food before the restaurant closes. That night, the task fell to me. I hastily shoved various props into places they wouldn’t get damaged and ran down to the Mexican restaurant.

Inside, the server laughed when she saw me, and handed over the bag of food for the theatre without quibbling. “Here, you go, princess,” she said. “All as ordered.”

I nodded, took the bag, and hurried back to the theatre. It was shaping up to be a very long strike, and everyone was hungry. I didn’t remember until I was handing out meals that I’d shoved the prop tiara into my hair to keep it safely out of the way while my hands were occupied hauling furniture. No wonder the server had laughed.

I guess not many women get to meet their future wife in paint-stained jeans, a ratty t-shirt, and a glittering princess tiara. But me, I’ve always been the exception to that kind of rule. This time was no different.

 

Flash Fic Challenge: Zamboni

 Zamboni

Ice doesn’t remember what’s been drawn on it, but I do. Most of my job consists of taking the zamboni over the rink’s surface to remove all the sigils that the local ice mages leave behind.

Most of the mages are decent enough, they’re just exhausted after they’ve done whatever they’re doing, and unable to do more than the minimal cleanup that ensures they get to keep using the skating rink rather than wait for a pond to freeze over. If it ever does. Global warming’s hitting that sector hard.

But there is always one jerk in any bunch, and my local one left enough discarded junk (including a plastic toy horse just big enough to wreck things if the zamboni went over it) alongside the sigils that I was seriously considering getting him banned. At least his sigils weren’t anything special, just a load of good luck and swift travel crud that most mages grow out of before they were halfway through their apprenticeships.

Heck, even I knew they were crud and I wasn’t even formally trained, I just eavesdropped on the real mages getting lessons.

What I didn’t expect was for said jerk to have failed to remove the magic in the sigils as well as his trash. So when I brought the zamboni in and golden magic settled on us rather than the caster? Yeah, that was a surprise. Cleaning’s been quicker and easier ever since though, so I’m not repining.

Though that zamboni only works for me now. Who’d have thought getting magicked would give a machine opinions?

 

Flash Fic Challenge: Being Earnest

 Being Earnest

Ernest Hunt turned his head as he heard the familiar tap of a cane approaching and saw Nestor Locke's lanky figure picking his way through the library shelves. Ernest clicked his tongue quietly to let his partner know where he was. An equally soft double tap on the cane let him know Nestor was heading over to him, and he cleared the stack of books he was reshelving off the nearest chair.

He was just in time for Nestor to sprawl into the chair, long limbs draped over the edges, cane propped beside him. “Should have known I'd find you hanging around books.”

“Just helping out a little,” Ernest told him. “Somebody pulled every book on clown costumes off the shelf and left them in random piles.”

“What fun.” Nestor's smile was a little too thin and a little too sharp to reassure anyone, but its familiarity was comforting nonetheless.

“Quite.” Ernest placed a light hand on Nestor's arm. “It won't make me late home.”

Nestor covered Ernest's hand with his own. “I'll put your share of the takeaway in the warming oven anyway. Then if your students do start clowning around in clown suits, it'll be waiting whenever you finally make it.” He flowed back to his feet again. “And if they ask...”

“You were never here, I know.”

Nestor's grin was sharper than ever. “As always, we Hunt as one.”

“And I shall keep that thought Locke'd in my heart.”

They didn't kiss, but Nestor nodded to him, and turned for the door. Ernest watched until he vanished behind a shelf, and then went back to sorting his stack of books.