Friday Flash: Blood

So . . . this idea came to me today. I didn’t even use an image prompt like usual. I am not entirely sure if it is a good idea, but I decided to go with it anyway.

Blood wreathed the mountain like morning fog.

He stood on his snow covered fields and watched. The lower peaks were still green and white. But he suspected the blood-path of the high mountain lords would engulf the whole mountain before spring.

He looked at the ground, pictured the winter seeds safe under their blanket of snow, and wondered if anything would survive to ripen in the summer.

He took a deep breath and shivered in a fierce gust of wind. The blood tang was sharp in the air. Blood and the musky fire smell of their dragon slaves. They were in the air.

He looked back; his household watched him. Some were wary, some with patience, some with contempt, but they watched him.

Time to go. And damn any who thought him a coward. No one could survive the upcoming war. No one.

Friday Flash: Sucking Water

I made it! I got a #fridayflash and it’s still Friday where I am.

She lay back on the rough wood, smiling into his eyes. The wasteful expanse of miles of clear blue water around them was exhilarating.

The sun was warm. Fuzzy white clouds skated past above in the azure sky. A small one detached itself and wafted in their direction.

“Where are the others?” she asked.

He gently stroked down her shoulders. “Passed out. Poor bastard drank too much.” Smugness there, pride in his decision to drink slightly less. 

She smiled. “Excellent.”

She raised a fist, punched him in the throat. He flopped over to the deck, gasping. She followed up by banging his head against the wood several times. His eyes rolled up into his head.

She got to her feet, dusting off her hands. Work was tough, sometimes.

The craft hovered above the ship now and she lifted her arm, thumb up. A large pipe dropped into the water.

They were going to suck up all the clucking enemy’s water. Give them a taste of their own medicine.

Friday Flash: Fourth Birthday Parade

This fridayflash is for the fourth anniversary bloghop at the friday flash website. The idea is to write a story 400 words long about the 4th anniversary/birthday of something. After several false starts, I finally managed. I was inspired by this picture:

A few excerpts from the Annals of Dead or Lost Colonies:

Dear Julie,

The colony has just gotten the order for the hyperspace module. It’s taken a year, but we finally have it. This will be the first of many letters until you can come here.

I have a house. It’s small, but it has a garden. It’s ours, free and clear.

The hypo gardens are not doing well. Except for the lantern cherries. I don’t understand it. There is a group studying the problem.

Yours always,

Ben

 

Dear Julie,

I miss you. Will you come soon? I’ve added two bedrooms to the house for the children. There is plenty of space. Hyperspace travel is very safe, don’t worry.

The colony celebrated our third birthday with a grand parade. I was in the lead float, as the directory of horticulture. It was quite wonderful.

The lantern cherry have become our biggest – our only! – export. They are in demand and tasty. I suppose it’s good they grow bigger here than anywhere else. They look more like giant melons than cherries. But I don’t quite understand why nothing else growing.

Yours always,

Ben

 

Dear Julie,

I’ve been promoted, dear. I am now president of the horticulture department. The last president died quite unexpectedly in the Greenhouse A. Poor Jerry. At least he died at work. Greenhouse A is where we first started the lantern cherries. We have ten, now.

The colony’s fourth birthday is in a month and we are providing cherries for the decoration. The last of the flowers died months ago and we haven’t been successful in growing any others. Not even marigolds. It’s baffling.

I do wish you would come. I know the ships scare you, but hyperspace travel is so fast these days. You wouldn’t have to spend months on a ship in normal space. I dearly want to see the children, dear.

Love yours,

Ben

 

Dear Julie,

Don’t come! Stay away! God, I am glad you never came.

The cherries destroyed the parade. It was mad. They exploded and attacked and will take over the planet shortly.

This will be the last message I send.

I am going to blow up the greenhouses and take as many of the cherries as I can.

This is why nothing else grew. They’ve been devouring them, the murderous, subtle lantern cherries.

I bet they killed poor Jerry.

Yours forever,

Ben

Friday Flash: Queen’s Quill

Trying to figure out a Friday Flash story whose title started with Q was a challenge, but I think I managed.

The queen’s quill lay on the desk, temptingly close. Its carved silver handle gleamed in the sunlight.

Qut wanted to touch the beautiful orange feather. So strange. What bird could have such iridescent orange and red feathers?

She stroked the smooth silver. It was warm to the touch. She glanced over her shoulder, listening. She heard only the slither of silk. The queen was still getting dressed.

She picked up the quill pen and caressed it softly, like a mother touched her baby’s head. Qut dipped the quill in the red ink and wrote a word on a blank sheet.

“Excellent choice, dear.”

Qut whirled. “My Lady, I was -”

“I know what you were doing.” The Queen smiled. “I am quite pleased. Quite pleased.”

“Oh – I, uh, thank you.”

“Go on.”

Qut turned back to her sheet and wrote another word. There was a sharp pain her left palm and when she looked, she saw her palm was spotted with blood.

“Quite beautiful, dear.” The Queen smiled, took the quill from her hand jabbed it into her heart. “You’ll make such perfect ink.”

Friday Flash: Muse Wanted

So . . . inspired by a comment on Twitter.

MUSE WANTED

Sonia Lal is recruiting.

Sonia is seeking a top-notch muse, familiar with all classical works and everything in the science fiction/fantasy genre. Must be focused on author needs, up to and including providing such pleasure as can inspire and relax.

She has a number of ideas in development. Hours may be long. Rewards will include a fraction of all payment from products sold.

Please apply at storytreasury.WordPress.com

Friday Flash: Reborn

This flash was inspired from an image on 500px. I cannot find it now, but it was gorgeous. It has 312 words.

A handful of children gathered around the storyteller. The children were sleepy from a rich dinner and the warmth of the fire, but still they clamored for one more story.

“Hush,” she said. “Very well. One last story.” And she began to speak.

Blood seeped across the sky like slow-moving clouds.

She watched and feared.

Around her the villagers paused to watch for only a few wing-beats before hurrying to their homes. They knew what it meant, too. They wanted to be gone before the thrice-cursed priests arrived.

She ignored the pitying glances. Ignored, too, the icy cold and red pellets that fell from the sky and froze in her hair.

She knew her beloved would come back to her; he had promised and he never broke a promise. No matter that the foreign priests turned him and the host he commanded into so much red mist.

The priests, grim in their bright red trousers and robes, did not see her. Fools. Perhaps they thought her a statue.

One pushed past her to the village square she guarded. But the moment his sleeve brushed her arm, he turned to ice. The other priests, seeing this, charged her with knives and scimitars. All of them disintegrated into the cold night.

“And that is why none dare attack us even today,” concluded the storyteller. She smiled and shook her head at the shouts for more. “Off to bed with you now. Go.”

When they were all safely asleep and the room rang with silence, she rose and went to look out the window. There, the same bit of land she had defended so many centuries before. Others had built a white marble statue of her there, but glorified the details of her face.

Still her beloved had not come. But she would abide until he was reborn as the man he was meant to be.

Friday Flash: Without Me

This Friday flash is inspired by this image from Wiki Commons:

A soft, warm wind stirred his hair and he looked around, grateful anew for his luck. Lush green growth provided fresh food all year around. He would not leave it.

His brother cleared his throat and he turned toward the canal. His brother, poor sod, wore a fine woolen tunic. The boy was too proud to wear more appropriate clothing.

“The first summer caravan leaves in the morning. You’ll go with it.”

“Father said -”

“I don’t care what Father says. If you want to live, you won’t either.”

The boy shook his long, blond hair. Northern men didn’t cut their hair. Another tradition he’d broken.

“I won’t leave without you.” Stubborn conviction rang in his voice, as hard the mountains buried under mounds of snow ever year.

“Father is murdering, conniving coward. He killed our mother. I won’t ever serve him, brother.”

“Not him. The village, the reason our mother sacrificed herself. The omens -”

“-are wrong.”

No belief in the boy’s eyes. He only stared like a wolf with his prey in sight.

Shivering at the image, he turned and walked to the house. “You leave tomorrow. Without me.”

Friday Flash: The Introduction

A new, odd sort of drabble. It is exactly 99 words. I don’t know what to make of it.

Strange mysterious items dropped through windows – magically, as if glass didn’t exist. They plunked onto the sleeping laps of car residents. Their oblong shapes made odd objects d’art on snow-covered lawns.

People everywhere woke to the sound of bells and the fleeting sense of something passing. They pored over their new property. Poked and prodded them with sticks, dogs and scanners.

Television personalities expressed puzzlement; experts spoke stern warnings.

Ultimately, when opened, they revealed pens that wrote equally well on paper and screen. Writers were overjoyed.

The event went down in history as the day the aliens introduced themselves.

Related articles

• Flash Fiction Friday: A Jar Full of Juice (rnfontenot.wordpress.com)
• Friday Flash: Land Grave (storytreasury.wordpress.com)
• Friday Flash: A Wish for Power (storytreasury.wordpress.com)
• Friday Flash: Bleed for your Beloved (storytreasury.wordpress.com)
• Where Do You Get Your Ideas- Friday Flash (melissalwebb.wordpress.com)

Friday Flash: Land Grave

So . . . yeah I had speeches on the brain today. Don’t ask me why.

Greetings, my people

I come to you today fresh from the land grave of my beloved daughter.

She has surpassed all expectations. She has left this world, but she took with her many hundreds of the enemy. Hundreds more of them may yet follow, as their frail mortal flesh deteriorate in hardship.

Her forward waters and winds caused such damage to the enemy as to make recovery a long, costly affair. Their homes are destroyed and most mortals in the vicinity are left without life’s essentials.

We do not intend to allow the enemy such time as they need to recover.

To this end we have sent our youngest son to their shores, to coat their world in ice and darkness.

For the first time in her life, our second daughter knows joy. The poison the enemy slips into our waters has crippled her limbs, but in the wake of our enemy’s destruction, she knows joy. As do your children.

Our people who are poisoned, we shall starve the enemy in turn. Our people who are dying, you shall be avenged! We will poison their earth, as they have poisoned our waters.

And we shall live! We will move forward as the true heirs of this world.

Our waters will rule.

We will rule.

Friday Flash: A Wish for Power

I don’t believe this flash has a story or even constitutes a complete scene. Maybe a complete scene. But it’s the only thing in my head right now. That’s probably a sign of exhaustion. I am posting due to encouragement from Twitter. Go Twitter!!!

Someone’s groin pressed too close, but there was no room to twitch away. The crowd was too close, noisy, and upset voices called out: “Move in, move in, move in.”

If only there was space to move in.

The bus driver shouted: “Let them off. Get off and get back in.”

No one moved, but instead held fast as the departing shoved themselves a clear path.

The bus crawled along, bypassing hordes of waiting people. Someone, exhausted, crouched on the floor. Her hands moved from purse to her folded legs, caressing many other calves, knees and ankles in the process.

People sped past on bikes and skateboards and their own legs. Below, the river was as calm as sunlight.

And then – freedom. People disappeared like flung droplets to the trains, the taxis and the still-dark streets.

A hard plastic chair never felt so good.