Prompt: What do you do when you inherit something that you don’t want? Part 3

…Continued from Part 2

"You held your own just fine," Sarah said, lips twitching as she tried to keep a straight face. "Here, have another Pringle."

He growled low in his throat. "Hold on to those. You're going to need every bit you've got."

She laughed out loud, but it was cut short by the fae standing in the road in front of them. Sarah slammed both feet onto the brake and screamed. The truck spun and slid toward the immobile beast. Sarah closed her eyes, sure she was about to commit an immortal sin. She felt rather than saw the power wash over the truck and freeze it in midair, jerking her against her seatbelt, though the former dog sitting next to her didn't so much as sway.

She unlatched the seatbelt and kicked open the door, eyes blazing with fury. Swinging free, she stomped toward the beast, still standing unmoving with the truck's right fender pressing against its knees.

"God and goddess, Swarthod, what if I had killed you? What are you doing here?" She punched the beast, who looked more like a pile of rocks than anything living, in the center of its chest. 

With a grinding chuckle, he wrapped his arms arms her and swung her around. "No kill Swarthod. I wait you here."

Sarah pulled back from hugging his neck. "You waited? All this time? Oh, Swarthod, what am I going to do with you?"

"Go home now?" He lowered her to her feet.

She took his hands and looked up, reaching up to lay her palm against his cheek. "You know?"

He nodded, rasping the skin of her palm. "Felt it."

"Yes, we're going home," she said. A beam of light shot from her forehead, and she clapped her hand over it. "Dammit, reason number four hundred and fifty six why I left this place. It was a statement, not an oath!"

Swarthod's grinding chuckle made it hard to understand his next words, but Sarah knew what he meant. 

"Yes, it's an oath now, I guess." She sighed. "Come on. You can ride in the back."

Swarthod's face split in a grin, and with a single leap, he jumped over the cab and landed with a resounding thud in the back of the truck.

"Great. There goes the suspension," Sarah grumbled, climbing back in the cab. "She glared over at her companion. "You enjoyed that, didn't you," she grumbled. The laughter rumbling in his chest was his only reply.

To be continued?

Dogs in house:	Houdini, Brindle
Music	Martine Kraft, Fragile Mind
Time writing	30 minutes
July word count	2,954

Prompt: What do you do when you inherit something that you don’t want? Part 2

…Continued from Part 1

Chimes jangled overhead as she pushed open the door and felt the welcome rush of almost-cold air. She nodded to the giant who sat behind the counter, bald, muscled and tattooed. He nodded back over the car magazine he held. She walked down the aisles, remembering past visits, and pulled plastic bags and packages off shelves and hooks, dumping them on his counter, along with a Diet Coke. “I’ll take a 5-gallon drum, too.” He looked up with eyebrows cocked. “For the dog.” He shrugged. She paid cash as he swept the junk food into a plastic bag for her.

“Think this’ll tide you over for the next 110 miles,” he joked.

“Oh, it’ll be a lot farther than that,” she muttered. He shrugged and went back to his magazine.

Hauling the five-gallon drum from the porch, she didn’t bother to look around before tossing it one-handed into the back of the truck. She climbed in and opened a tube of Pringles, holding one out for the dog. “That’s all you get, though. Don’t look at me with that tone of voice.” Her lips twitched at the old joke. She tucked the bag under her seat. The rest were for barter. She just hoped it would be enough.

“Next stop 47 miles,” she obligingly read the sign aloud, then started counting second. “Seventeen, sixteen, fifteen…three, two, one!” The “one” came out as a shout as she jerked hard on the steering wheel and punched her foot on the gas. The dog braced all four paws on the seat and somehow stayed upright.

You had to surprise the open gate, or it could block you for days. Such a prima dona pain in the ass.

Aren’t they all? She grimaced again, as the truck’s engine disappeared in front of her, then the cab entered the gate, and the world disappeared from the rear-view mirror.

"You enjoy that, don't you," growled the dog. His body had stretched until his feet touched the floor, and his muzzle had widened to reveal curved tusks jutting from his upper and lower jaws, crossing each other so that his mouth could no longer comfortably close. His rich brindle coat was now iridescent, with a mane from his crown down his back, to the four whip-like tails that curled against the seat. He reached out with his arms and clicked his six sharply curved claws against the dashboard in annoyance.

Continued in Part 3…

Dogs in house:	Houdini, Brindle
Music	Martine Kraft, Fragile Mind
Time writing	30 minutes
July word count	1,486

Prompt: Dislocation, or I'm not where I'm supposed to be

Imabras swam in the crystal clear depths, chasing a flighty pod of blethen. When he could swipe a few with his paw, he swept them into his wide jaws and crunched through their scales into the salty bite of their flesh. Little morsels – hard to make a meal of them, but they were fun to chase.

The blethen swam into a narrow channel, and Imabras dove after them, flattening his chest and spreading out his wide tail flukes to avoid the stinging anemone on the sides. The blethen must have triggered them, though, because they flooded the channel with their inky toxins. Suddenly, Imabras was blind, trapped between the stone walls. He panicked and began to trash back and forth, pushing in every direction, wedging himself tighter and tighter. He stretched his long, slender neck as far as he could. If only he could reach the fresh open water to clear the toxins from his head…

Darkness, but not the confined space of the stone channel. Imabras tested, flexing one arm after another up and down and around. Nothing around him. Why could he not see? He squeezed the film over his eyes, then the inner eyelids, then the outer lids. Sliding them open, he felt the biting cold salt water on his eyes. But he could not see. The anemone toxins? Salt water? Where was he?

Which way was up? Before he could panic again, he remembered the lessons of his youth. He was no pup, scared of the dark and cold. Drawing a mouthful of water, he let it slide down his long throat and drew out the oxygen to fill his lung bladders. Waiting to see which direction he would rise, Imabras tasted the strange water and knew he was someplace he’d never been before…

Dogs in house	Houdini, Brindle
Time writing	15 minutes
January word count	3,367

Prompt: Falling up

Thanks to Mukti Echwantono for permission to use his hauntingly beautiful photograph, "another dream"!

Kezhuan’s long, black hair hung in a curtain, or a cloud, in front of her face. Looking down past it, she watched her feet walking, moving one after the other from under the simple, white gown she didn’t recognize. Each step on a rubber mat, shaped like puzzle pieces, fit together across the ground as far as she could see. Which wasn’t far, under her hair. She swept it up and away from her face, and felt the water flow past her arm. She took a deep breath and felt it fill her lungs. Already full, none of the panic of that first drowning breath. Dreaming then. Or was this the reality? She didn’t know any more.

She could see nothing in the water, besides the puzzle floor. It was dark, but clear. She thought in light she would see forever. But up, up she could see lights dancing. Small, bright white, bobbing, floating, spinning. On the surface of the water, or above it? Close, or too far away to reach? Stars? She thought about the word, but could not remember what it meant. Small white lights, perhaps.

Stretching her arms wide, Kezhuan stopped walking and let herself float. Her face drew toward the surface, the lights, as if drawn by them. Her body stretched toward the puzzle floor, her toes pointed as if they could stretch a little farther and still touch. Her heart beat faster. Her lungs felt full. Full of water, longing for air, clean, cold, fresh air. A moment of panic, chaos. She closed her eyes and felt the water’s embrace. Safe.

What lay beyond? She knew she knew, but didn’t know. Could she breathe the air when her lungs were full of water? Too late for caution, she rose to the surface and her face pushed against the thin layer of water-and-air that held them apart. Head hanging back, hair pulling down. Go back, go deep, go safe. Her whole body yearned for the water. But her spirit longed for the air. She opened her mouth and breathed…

Dogs in house	Houdini, Brindle
Time writing	~20 minutes
December word count	4,631

Prompt: Cuckoo Clock Forest

Thanks to Gabriel Rano for permission to use her whimsical "cuckoo clock"!

It was time. Dabro walked into the thick pool, color swirling around his legs, too thick even to splash. He twirled his hands in the water, enjoying the designs. No need to rush. Now came the part he did not like. Submersion. He’d found it easiest to squat down and lean backwards into the pool, until it coated his neck, poured over his shoulders, dragged at his hair. He looked up at the starless sky and took a deep breath, gently blowing it out as he sank down. After all this time, he kept his eyes open.

He always emerged in the treetops, but never in the same place. The top of the canopy was thick and viscous like the pool itself. But the colors swirled and morphed into more detail as he climbed down the branches, so by the time he reached the trunks, he could see and feel every inch of the delicate green leaves and the rough bark of the gnarled tree trunks.

Over the years, he had run an extensive walkway of vines through the trees, under the crowns. The ground was…inconsistent. He was afraid to drop through it, too. What if he got too far away to get back home? The brook that flowed through the stream looked more like the pool than water, flashing silver in the filtered light. It wasn’t sunlight of course, how could it be? But it moved across the horizon and disappeared at night, just like home. The sky was as empty as his own.

It was time. The cuckoos were almost ready. Three had already bloomed while he was away, their fragile skins bursting open and peeling back to reveal the delicate clockface. They all kept the same time and faced the same directions. The twelve was at what Dabro thought of as three. He’d heard of a place where it would be pointing to seven, but he wasn’t sure he believed such ridiculous stories. Then again, consider where he was…

He walked along the broad, heavy vines, checking each cuckoo clock that had already bloomed. There was one seed pod still dangling low on its stem, and he made his way toward that tree. It had an old branch twisted into a comfortable loop, down low where the pod hung. Dabro hoped he’d be able to watch it open. He’d never seen a cuckoo clock bloom before.

Dogs in house	Houdini
Time writing	30 minutes, interrupted
December word count	2840