Prompt: Love for You

Thanks to Katarina Zirine for permission to use her beautiful "Love for You"!

Seriana swept her outstretched fingers over the tall golden-red grass as she walked across the field under the brilliant sunset colors of the clouded skies. Her shoulders twitched as her gossamer wings fluttered behind her. Slender and clear, they would not carry her for many moons, until she had chosen her life’s purpose. By then, they would have stretched and grown thick and strong, bold and jewel-toned like her mother’s, or delicately tinted like her sister’s.

“Why don’t males have wings?” she had asked as a child. Her mother had laughed out loud, and her sister had giggled behind her hands, but they didn’t have an answer that made any sense to Seriana.

With no males in the House, Seriana could only watch them from a distance. Her sister seemed incurious, but she was about most things except their mother’s power. Seriana had no heart for political games. She wanted to explore the world. She wanted to understand. Everything.

Her childhood wings had withered and fallen off two winters past. She had buried them and danced with her crèche-mates under the next full moon, before she returned home to her mother’s House for the first time. She missed her friends, their laughter, their play, their touch.

Her mother only touched her to spin her around after supper and examine her budding crystal wings. “Hmm,” she would mutter, or a casual “Good” as she patted Seriana’s back, then turned away. Seriana had dreamed of her mother’s love for as long as she could remember. Now she cried herself to sleep at night and pined for her crèche.

A tall stalk of grass seed tucked between her thumb and finger, jolting her from her reverie. She stripped the seeds from the stalk in a smooth pull and held them in her palm. Looking up at the moon, already glowing in the darkening sky, she made her first choice toward her life’s purpose.

Sweeping aside her long golden curls, she bent her lips closer. “I have love for you. Find me.” She blew the delicate red seeds, and they fluttered into the air, opening into tiny hearts as they drifted away. Unseen behind her, the edges of her clear wings faded to a delicate ink, and then purple…

Dogs in House	Houdini
Music	Sting, “St Agnes and the Burning Train” and “Fragile”
Time writing	~35 minutes
May word count	9,796

Prompt: Traveler of Dreams

Thanks to Anna Butler for permission to use her beautiful image, “Third Step: Traveler of Dreams”!

“You can’t take that in the boat.” The crow cocked its head and shifted its feet on the candlelit lantern, looking uneasily at Driana’s armload of fur.

Driana glanced down at the placid hrmfox, who gazed implacably at the crow. Full grown, he was mostly thick fur and weighed a mere twenty pounds, his body dangling as he rested draped over her crossed arms, his tail stretching almost to the hem of her warm cloak. A slight twitch of his large, thin, bat-like ears was the only sign he paid any heed to the crow.

“He must come with me,” she insisted calmly. After all she had been through tonight, no snippy crow was going to stand in her way. She leaned over the side of the rowboat and rested the hrmfox on the forward set.

The silver-glowing dragonflies fluttered around her, darting over the boat and toward the water, then back, as if encouraging her to follow. They would lead her to Ambion, she was sure of it. The first dragonfly had flown in through the library window when she was searching the maps for a sign of the sacred island. It had landed on a map and fluttered its wings until she unrolled the crumbling parchment, then it had dropped onto the unfurled map with a purpose that made her examine it more closely. Ambion! The island sanctuary of her dreams did exist!

As she stood, the crow eyed her balefully. “Then I want the shiny at your throat, as well as your ears,” he demanded with a sniff. “He’ll probably try to eat me for my troubles,” he grumbled.

Sweeping her long black hair away from her delicate face, Driana pulled the ruby earrings from her ears and tugged impatiently at the pendant around her throat. She felt a fierce satisfaction when the clasp broke. She had never wanted them, never wanted to be wed, and never to a fat, oily, nasty man like Rupon. 

The crow could have his wedding gift to her, and gladly. She held them in her palm, and the crow nodded to the floor in front of the hrmfox. “Let him guard them, then,” he cawed, hopping from the lantern to the stern of the boat. “Well, are you planning to stand there all night? This goes much better if you actually climb in and row, you know. If you can figure out how to do that.”

Driana suppressed a smile. No one spoke to her like that. Ever. She kind of liked it, although she wouldn’t let the crow know. She pulled up the horrid frilly hem of her wedding dress and climbed over the edge of the small boat. The oars were already resting in their rowlocks, and she picked them up with practiced ease. Pampered child princess, sold into marriage she may be, but she had grown up the baby sister to six older brothers. She was used to being underestimated.

She smiled more grimly. After tonight, she didn’t think people would be so quick to underestimate her. As she leaned down and wrapped her hands around the oars, her cloak pulled back to reveal the stain of Rupon’s blood on her white sleeves…

Dogs in house	Houdini, Brindle
Time writing:	~35 minutes, interrupted
October word count:	17,572

Prompt: Midnight in the fractal garden

Thanks to Tatiana Kondratova for permission to use her beautiful fractal image "Ledi Makbet"!

Sarah balanced on the broadloom pedals, sliding the shuttle side to side, pulling the cross bar close to seal each slender line of the fractal design. It was easy to get lost in the rhythm. Left foot down, right hand push, left hand return, right hand catch, left hand pull the bar, right foot down. She wove herself into the fractal dance.

Tonight, she kept an eye on the chrono, not losing herself completely as she usually did on the loom. She hadn’t told Lari her plans. The child would never have gone to sleep if she’d known. As it was, she had drifted off on their sleeping mat above the loom, lulled by the familiar sounds of Sarah’s steady rhythm.

Lari was too small to operate the big loom, but she was already a master weaver on the tabletop. Sarah had to admit Lari’s sense of design was already better than her own, and she was considered the town master. Lari would be able to go anywhere as a fractal weaver. Sarah never wanted to leave Jemena. She loved the comfort of familiarity. But ever since she could walk and talk, Lari had wanted to explore and know more. Sarah already knew that one day Lari would leave her.

Sarah knew her mother would have disapproved of her plans. “She’s too young,” Mama would have said, shaking her head and tapping her shuttle on the table. Even once she was too old to work the foot pedals for long, she still kept weaving on the tabletop loom until her hands were too curled and weak to hold the shuttle any longer. She had died that winter, no energy for living when she could no longer weave. The world queen would have envied the fractal robes she wore to her grave.

Sarah had buried Mama’s cherished fractal roses with her. All but one – the first one Mama had taught Sarah to use, before she took Sarah out into the garden at midnight to choose her own fractal rose. Sarah could still remember the night Mama woke her in the still darkness. “Come, my love. I have a surprise for you. We have to go out to the garden.”

“Mama, I am so sleepy!” Sarah had yawned as wide as her mouth would stretch, rubbing her eyes and pulling her hair from her face. Mama wrapped a blanket around her and pulled her from the sleeping mat. “Come on, sleepyhead!” She teased. Sarah couldn’t remember seeing her mother so excited. She looked younger, with a girl’s smile on her face.

Remembering now, so many years later, Sarah realized her mother had been young then. Younger than she was now. She stowed the shuttle and climbed off the pedals. The floor always felt extra flat and unmoving after she had been on the loom for a long time. She thought it might be like being on a ship. She’d heard that people complained about how odd it felt to walk on land after rolling on the sea.

It was time. She climbed the rope ladder and felt her own excitement rise. Opening the wooden box she kept at the foot of the bed, she poulled out the tray of fractal roses, some still glowing after all these years. Running her hands over the familiar patterns, like old friends, she lifted the one her Mama had first given her, then the one she had chosen that first night in the garden. She sat on the edge of the mat and stroked Lari’s bright yellow hair. “Come, my love,” she said softly, echoing Mama’s voice from years ago.

Lari woke easily, not the sleepyhead she had been. Her eyes lit on the flowers and grew wide as saucers. She knew without being told. Jumping up, she pulled the blankets from the mat around her shoulders. “Let’s go, Mama! Let’s go!” She tugged Sarah’s hand to pull her up from the mat and led the way down the ladder, bouncing in her excitement.

Together, they went out to the garden, lit by the full moon. Even without it, their path was well marked by the glow of blooming roses. They opened at night, reaching their full flower at midnight. Jemena was revered throughout the world for her fractal rose gardens. A fractal rose plucked at its peak would bloom forever and inspire the artistic designs of whoever held it. Anyone who held a fractal rose could recreate its design, but only a few were true masters. Sarah was the tenth generation of master weaver in her family. She knew in her heart that Lari would would be the eleventh – the greatest fractal weaver the world had ever known.

Lari ran wide-eyed from flower to flower, admiring the glowing petals as they slowly opened to reveal their designs. “Choose carefully, Lari. Your first rose will become your trademark design. You’ll have many others through the years, but this is the one you will use the most. Make sure it pleases you.”

Lari scooted around the last of the roses and turned to the lotus pond. Sarah’s eyes widened when she saw a glow in the pond. She had never heard of a fractal lotus. Lari bent down and called out, “Oh, Mama, come look at this! It’s so beautiful!”

She reached out and touched the glowing lotus with gentle fingers. Gripping below the base, she snapped the flower cleanly off its stem. She ran to Sarah with it cupped in her hands. Sarah knelt to see it. The delicate petals formed a colorful mosaic of pinks, blues and purples. The center gleamed a soft gold. The inner bud leaves were still unfolding. Sarah looked at Lari’s rapt face. Her eyes reflected fractal designs in the golden light.

Dogs in house	Houdini, Maize
Time writing:	~45 minutes
October word count:	16,230

Prompt: He didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know

Oof. I hit the grass hard, but I didn’t dare rest on my back. Ebbe would stab at me with his walking stick. He reached down a hand to pull me up, but as I wrapped my fingers around his wrist, his gaze shot up past me. At the look on his face, my heart sank. Mom.

I twisted around to see her standing under the wisteria gazebo Dad had planted the year they bought the house. The year I was born. The year Dad died. Just standing there, with her hands at her sides, staring at us. How long had she been there?

She didn’t look at me, just Ebbe. “Danny, take a walk, please.”

“Mom, please, we were just—”

“Danny,” she said sharply, without raising her voice. There was no arguing or pleading with that. I jumped up without Ebbe’s help. He reached up and patted my shoulder, and I gave him a small smile before I turned back and huffed past Mom, stuffing my hands in my denim jacket pockets. She didn’t acknowledge my passing, just waited. I hesitated one step behind her. I wanted to say something, touch her, beg her, hug her. Anything. I shook my head and kept walking.

When I returned, I stood on the porch and watched through the frosted windows. I could see her moving around the kitchen, making dinner for the first time in months. Since she got her big promotion at work, Ebbe had taken over more and more keeping up the home, keeping up with me. If I stood out there any longer, I wasn’t going to want to go in. I pushed through the front door and carefully hung up my jacket on the coathooks, rather than tossing it on the wing chair like usual.

I walked as far as the kitchen entry and leaned on the open door frame.  She kept chopping vegetables and didn’t look up at me. “Mom—”

“Danny, I’m sorry. For everything. You don’t understand now, but someday…”

Suddenly furious, I punched the whitewashed wood and shouted, “Someday? Mom, you’ve been too busy to notice, but it *is* someday. I’m grown up. I’ll be out of here soon. And Ebbe is the only one—”

“How dare you?” She slammed the knife down on the chopping block, scattering celery bits everywhere. “I’ve done *everything* for you—”

“Everything but be here,” I shot back. I knew the house was empty around us. I could feel his absence as strongly as I always felt his presence. “Ebbe’s been here my whole life, Mom. How about you?” I jeered. “And now, *now*, you what…kicked him out?”

She deflated. Like I had poked her with that knife she still held. Her shoulders hunched forward, and I suddenly realized she had been crying. I couldn’t remember ever seeing her cry. Not. Ever.

“Danny, it’s not like that. Ebbe promised me he wouldn’t…try to…influence you.” She sniffed and drew in a deep ragged breath, reinflating herself as she stood upright again. Her voice had a hard edge I had never heard. “He swore a blood-oath to protect you, not to expose you.”

“He what? What are you talking about, Mom?” I stepped into the kitchen, hand up, pleading. “Mom, what did you—”

“I’m sorry, Danny. Ebbe’s gone. It’s for the best. I know you won’t believe me now, but maybe someday…” She drifted to silence, looking like she had more she wanted to say. But she shook her head and started sweeping up the celery with the blade.

I sagged against the door frame. “You sent him away? From me…from us? Mom, that’ll kill him.”

“Danny, don’t be so dramatic. It won’t kill him—”

“Yes, yes, Mom, it will,” I said as I jumped up, determined to go find him. “He saw it in his dreams.”

“Danielle Cassandra Atreus! Enough! That is why I told him to go! He wasn’t supposed to fill your head with such nonsense!”

I grabbed my jacket and punched my arms into the sleeves. “He didn’t, Mom. Ebbe never said a word. He didn’t have to.” I took a deep breath and looked her square in the eye. “I see his dreams. I see yours too.”

She blanched. I didn’t wait for her reply as I pulled open the door and marched out, slamming it behind me. Under the gazebo, I stopped and breathed deep. I looked up at the full moon rising. “Help me. Help me find him. I can’t do this alone.”

I opened my eyes wide to let the moonlight shine in. I looked down and saw the silver ghost of Ebbe’s footprints. “Thank you,” I whispered as I followed them out into night.

Dogs in house	None, and it feels very strange!
Time writing:	~50 minutes, including a little research
October word count:	1,782

Prompt: Not all monsters are monstrous, Part 2

Thanks to Raikuni for permission to use her powerful image, “Seedeater 1”!

...continued from Part 1

A boodhin emerged from the brush on the far side of the clearing, swinging its head side to side in broad swipes and spearing the ground with its thick claws at each lumbering step. It stood twice as tall as any hunter; its leg muscles bulged, each ending in four long, curving claws the size of Keffen’s hand. Its head was long and narrow, and it looked armor plated, as did the heavy scales that made up the thick ruff around its neck and mane that stretched down its back to a clubbed tail.

How could they possibly hunt this thing bare handed? Surely it would kill both of them in quick swipes of those massive legs and claws, or a snap of the heavy jaw that ended in a rough beakish point. Keffen smelt the sour scent of urine. He looked down and blushed to see he had dribbled onto the sanguot tree branch, leaving a blue trail where it ran over the bark and dripped down to the leaves below.

Rappeh nudged his attention back to the boodhin. Watch.

It sniffed the air, and Keffen’s heart pounded – had he revealed their position high on the sangout branch? No, the boodhin focused its tiny eyes on the bushes where it had entered the clearing. Keffen recognized the clusters of unripened sweet ghang berries, shining light green against the darker hues of the leaves and branches. The boodhin swung around and settled down, leaning to its side, exposing its smooth plated belly. It reached up and with unbelievable delicacy, picked several berries between its long claws and reached down to its side.

A tiny yellow beak squirmed out of the boodhin’s belly. Keffen stared wide-eyed as the boodhin patiently held a berry while a tiny black tongue licked it and finally wrapped around the berry, pulling it into the open yellow beak. The boodhin started a low rumbling, that Keffen realized was like a khayt’s purr. Another yellow beak peeked out next to the first, and the boodhin held a berry for it too. Keffen turned to Rappeh. “It carries its babies? That’s a female?” he whispered.

Rappeh nodded and leaned back on the sangout branch with a smile. “Not all monsters are monstrous, young hunter. Though there is no more dangerous foe than a boodhin mother protecting her young.”

He motioned down, and Keffen watched the boodhin, who now fed four hungry babes peeking out of her belly pouch. Rappeh continued, “If we killed her, we would eat well. But having killed her and her babes, what would we eat next year?”

He smiled, “You must also learn to see past the hunters’ tales. Fierce as they look, the boodhin is a seedeater. Not a predator. Aside from the mothers, boodhin are some of the most peacable creatures in Andoshen’s great kingdom.”

Rappeh He rested his head on his arms. “Get comfortable, young hunter. When she is gone, I will show you a nesting colony of heesim.”

Keffen felt his mouth water at the thought. His mother made the best heesim stew in the village. He vowed to bring home enough for everyone. For now, it was enough to settle back on the sangout branch and watch the tender boodhin, and ponder how different things could be from what they seemed.

Dogs in house	Houdini, Maize
Time writing:	~30 minutes
September word count:	20,115