ethelinda writes

33, bi, snake-owner. I write fantasy with a dash of science fiction and horror here and there. Likely encounters: fantasy/sci-fi/horror stuff, dinosaurs, random history, pretty nature photography, book rambling, art that I like, and writing-related posts.

[psqqa]

the real tragedy of the vorkosigan saga, like, the real true actual tragedy of the vorkosigan saga, is that lois mcmaster bujold wasn’t able to Predict texting back when she started it in 1986

because like, we haven’t seen enough of gregor for me to have any real sense of the miles-gregor relationship, but if i was miles, and i was in the Imperial Service, and the Emperor, he in whose name all my actions and orders are carried out, was That Guy I Grew Up With, and i had his personal number (and idk what their relationship is like but miles would have his personal number), it would just be a constant stream of BarrayApp messages like 

“nearly suffocated in a tent buried under a meter of mud For You” [hypothermia selfie]

“found a corpse in the sewer For You” [selfie with pair of boots sticking out of sewage]

“stood naked in the snow at midnight For You” [hypothermia selfie #2]

“charged with high treason For You. again.” [handcuff selfie with middle finger salute]

[umamidjezhda]

#ivan made a group chat for the three of them#it’s called vorcousingans#they all block each other at least twice a week

[lannamichaels]

this is amazing and also kyril island would be great if miles is just texting gregor the whole entire time. although knowing miles, he would not give any complaints, it would just be gregor asking aral every morning “is X normal” and aral being like “why is miles simultaneously not calling home but also pestering the emperor about his socks not being thick enough” …also but like, when miles asks ivan to spy on the secured computer for him, ivan posts screenshots of it into their whatsapp group, so when Illyan tells Gregor there’s a breach in security they need to fix, Gregor is all sagely, “yes, Ivan told me himself”. Ivan: I did not tell him? Gregor: I interpreted this as being on purpose, because otherwise you’re in trouble. Ivan: oh, right, cool, I absolutely reported the problem *thumbs up*

(Ivan, per acc, never bothers using the imperial access he has, but look, he’ll also never remember that Gregor lurks on all the group chats, so it all evens out)

[lannamichaels]

okay also now that I’ve been thinking about this for a couple minutes, the idea of Gregor Vorbarra Lurks On Group Chats has *gotten to me*. He would be on so many group chats from his time at the Academy and eventually everyone would forget he’s on them or assume he’s left them, and it’s not like he says anything to remind them, but he absolutely reads them. Not immediately, he’s got them on mute, but he’ll bring them up to look at them for breaks between other things. And so he’s so very very very up to date on high level imperial business but also the most absurd minutia of imperial business. on one of the chats, someone says “huge emergency, lives are at stake, alert the emperor, the junior officers mess on the prince serg is out of coffee!!11!!!!” and they joke around about it, nbd, and then on the next shipment, there’s extra coffee with a note that it’s courtesy of the emperor, and everyone just assumes that someone forwarded it to someone’s cousin who put it in but NO ACTUALLY the emperor takes coffee orders these days.

[bixbythemartian]

okay Gregor Vorbarra would absolutely lurk, you are 100% correct

but also I’ve been thinkin about Mark because I believe Gregor would tell Ivan to put him in the Vorcousingans chat (I love that and I’m borrowing that) after they ended up meeting.

and, like, mosssstly Mark doesn’t use it, too much is going on, maybe he puts in updates about what’s going on with Aral during the whole ‘Aral’s heart gives up Part A’ situation (’the Count’s color is better and the Countess seems to be under less stress at the moment’) and how his raw data search is going (’nothing new today’) and just fuckin drops out of the group when he rounds up the Gang and they go to retrieve Miles

and when they get back Miles re-adds him to the chat and then it becomes a ‘dunking on Miles’ chat for about two weeks as they mock Miles for dying, being lost, and then still being lost when he was cryorevived. thereafter it becomes the ‘dunking on whoever most recently fucked up(or did something great)’. Gregor is rarely the dunkee at this point because he’s mostly through his self-destructive instincts and it’s not too long before he gets hitched but every once in a while a bad bill will get through and Miles will go ham in the chat (it gets much worse once Miles gets *involved* in politics) and Mark and Ivan mostly egg him on.

(Mark doesn’t participate toooooo much because he’s still not sure where the line is between humorous teasing and outright insult, but views it as educational, he does very good at asking leading questions to start some shit. it works best on Miles, who always catches the toss, as it were. the vorkosigan boys got the shit stirrin genes from both sides)

Gregor also becomes the dunkee once he gets hitched, mostly in the sense that all three of them are like WHERE ARE THE BABIES GREGOR PRODUCE SOME GODDAMN HEIRS NOW in various formats. like yes you found love that’s wonderful TAKE ME OUT OF THE RUNNING FOR THE LOVE OF YOU

I do have this idea that Miles does whatever the equivalent of deleting the app of his phone would be in their tech (removes the shortcut from his comm) when he’s being the little Admiral so due to the events of Memory (him coming home and expecting to be flipped back out to go on another mission and then getting fired and then like trying to work his shit out for a bit) he just never got around to reinstalling it but Gregor nudges him sometime before the Actual Ceremony but after Miles was offered the job and Miles logs back in and Mark *immediately* starts going off on him. pages of text, definitely crossing the line from dunking on to like actually being somewhat cutting (it’s really flattering if you look at it from a certain way, Miles thinks) but like normally they sort of jump in and are like ‘whoa now over the line’ if someone toes across it but Gregor and Ivan just let Mark go OFF

after the events of Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance Ivan won’t even look at his comm for like month and when he logs in there’s so many pictures of Miles laughing wildly in front of the sunken ImpSec building/construction zone. like, daily, sometimes twice daily, Miles went to the impsec disaster.

Sometimes he gets random passerbys to also be in the selfies. Simon and Lady Alys are in a small handful of pictures. At least one photo is of Miles laughing and Gregor frowning pensively at the mess. Mark is actually in one, both of them laughing (Ivan wisely saves that picture and sends it to Cordelia). Lady Ekaterin never appears, exactly, but fairly often it’s really clear that someone else is holding the camera because Miles is holding small children in both arms (they are also laughing)

[scifi-fantasy-horror]

by  terry weiPRO

[scifi-fantasy-horror]

by  Alena Aenami

[niuniente]

I need to ask: what is the nightless night??

It's a saying for summer nights in Finland, especially for the Midsummer night. Due the tilt of Earth's axis, the sun barely dips down the horizon for a little while. Finnish summer nights look like this at from 3am onward:

In the North, the sun doesn't set for 3 months, so Lapland's nights are like this:

This is really the darkest it gets during summer nights:

When winter arrives, it turns the other way around. All 180 degrees! The sun barely rises over the horizon (8 degrees only) and sets after 4 hours. Here's 12pm sunlight in December, the lightest time of the day when the sun is at its highest.

In Lapland the sun doesn't rise for 3 months. This time is called Kaamos and this barely light time lasts for a few hours. This is the lightest it gets during kaamos.

Here's a normal winter day at 3pm. 20-23 hours are like this.

It's weird to me to think that majority of the people live in areas where the differences between the sunlight aren't this drastic, going from an opposite to another, but the days' length are about the same over the year.

[ethelindawrites]

October 31

Fictober, Prompt 31 - "Take me with you."

Original fiction, dark fantasy.

Warnings: none.

---

Night had fallen, though the last lingering echoes of sunset still lightened the western horizon, a break in the trees showing thin clouds streaked bloody red along their undersides. The road led that way, shadowed by mostly bare branches. Wind whispered through the boughs, rustling the remaining leaves as October came to a quiet close.

There was a figure on the road ahead.

I hesitated, unsure both of my own decision and of what he might say, but in the end it didn’t matter.

I hurried forward, and gradually allowed my steps to become more audible on the packed earth of the road. Startling him would not make him more likely to agree.

“Wait,” I called, when I was close enough, keeping my voice low but not trying to make it sound human, as I had before. There was nothing to hide any more. “Wait, please!”

He paused at this, as he had not paused at my footsteps. I wondered if his hand was on his dagger under his cloak. I would not fault him if it was.

He turned only slightly, just enough to look at me over his shoulder, whatever he could see in the deepening dark.

We stared silently at each other for a long moment, my words suddenly sticking in my throat. This was the- the most astoundingly forward thing I had ever done, which seemed strange, given what I was, but was nevertheless true.

“Well?” he asked, patience running out, his tone wary but not angry.

My courage (a strange thing to suddenly need) rose slightly. The past weeks had been a mess, but he had not left until it was settled, and if he was not truly angry now…

“Please,” I said, finding my voice, “take me with you.”

He jerked in startlement, eyes going wide. “What?”

“Please,” I repeated, finding that all my former arrogance had flowed away, sometime in the preceding days. I hadn’t realized it then, but could tell the difference now. “Please, take me with you.”

As he continued to gape at me speechlessly, I realized that I could not have astonished him more if I had tried. He had expected any request other than this one. I felt myself curl in a little, suddenly sure this had been a mistake. If it was so unexpected—

Just as I was about to step back, he turned fully, the astonishment on his face shifting into something else, something lighter, something like

“You—” he hesitated himself, just briefly, then continued, “You would want that?”

I nodded, not daring to move otherwise.

“But isn’t this your- your territory, or something? Don’t you have to be here?”

“It is,” I confirmed, “or it was. We— It is better, usually, to be settled somewhere, to have an anchor, but…”

But this was no longer a place I wished to be settled, I did not say. He seemed to understand anyway.

“But it is not a necessity, and sometimes it is good not to be so tethered to a place,” I continued, voice low again. “Sometimes our anchor can be—Can be a person, if they so agree.”

Confusion and the last of his hesitation fell away from his face, leaving him open and smiling as he had been for most of his time here.

“I didn’t think you would want to leave,” he confessed, and then nodded firmly. “Yes. If you’re wanting to come, then please, come with me.”

Relief, another sensation I had learned only recently, flooded me.

“I will,” I told him, and reached out.

He reached back, linking his hand with me, and then we continued west along the road together. The night deepened around us, no more lingering light of sunset. The hymns of the October wind took on a darker, eerier tone, and the forest on either side was neither empty nor silent.

But together, we would fear no road, and no future.

---

Happy Halloween! The "hymns of the October wind" line is lovingly borrowed from the song All Hallows by Aviators, which is a great Halloween song.

That's it for Fictober for this year, and many thanks to @fictober-event for running it!

[ethelindawrites]

October 30

Fictober, Prompt 30 - "Don't ruin this."

Original fiction, fantasy/fairy tale. Part three of three of my weird take on Cinderella. Part One (Day 28) and Part Two (Day 29).

Warnings: none.

---

Mother and Lorena were immediately obsessed with the notion that one of us might catch the Prince’s eye, especially when the ball was being held for the purpose of finding him a wife.

I feigned as much enthusiasm as I could.

Ellie and I did not speak about it.

She wanted to come, and the phrasing of the invitation would certainly allow for it. I might have been able to put in a word with Mother (there had been some whispers, during our usual social rounds, wondering what had happened to the household’s third daughter), but I did not.

I told myself it was because we had already agreed that I shouldn’t champion Ellie’s cause to Mother, just in case.

My motives were not so straightforward as that, but Ellie did not actually ask.

We did not kiss anymore, but still sat next to each other on the few nights I could manage to sneak down to the kitchen.

I told myself it was enough.

--

“Stepmother,” Ellie’s voice came hesitantly from behind us just as the carriage was pulling around. “Could- Could I come to the ball as well?”

I spun, faster even than Mother and Lorena.

Ellie had made herself a dress.

She looked even lovelier than usual, even in a pale (possibly faded) blue. An old dress of her mother’s, I guessed, reworked to fit her and bring it closer to the current style.

She had made herself a dress…and she hadn’t told me.

Hurt warred with a desire to pull her close, to murmur all the compliments she deserved for both her skill and how beautiful she looked.

“What, in that?” Lorena scoffed.

Ellie tilted her chin up, stubborn. “I know it’s not as fancy as—”

“As required for an event of this caliber,” Mother finished smoothly. “You’ve done well to manage so much, child, but it is quite unsuitable. And whenever did you find the time?”

None of us missed the warning couched in that question.

“After all my chores were done, Stepmother, I promise,” Ellie was quick to assure, her head still up.

“Hm,” Mother said, “I will be checking once we have returned of course, so you’d best go over everything again. If there are potential Royal visitors in our future, the manor must be in the best possible state. Come along, girls.”

She swept out, cutting off Ellie’s last attempt to protest. Lorena followed immediately, her nose in the air in a way that she thought made her look haughty and elegant, but really just made her look stupid.

Hands clenched in the satin and brocade of my own gown, I couldn’t help but meet Ellie’s eyes.

Fury and humiliation and hopelessness were all that greeted me.

I turned away before I could see her tears, and before she could see mine.

--

I knew immediately that it was Ellie, when the ‘mysterious,’ ‘foreign’ beauty arrived at the ball in stunning blue gown, and shyly took the smitten Prince’s hand.

Neither Lorena nor I had made any impression on him, nor had any of the dozens of other women here tonight vying for his hand.

Ellie did make an impression.

I sympathized.

Huffing and turning up my nose when Lorena suggested we should go spy on them in the garden, I sought out another partner, one of the many men on standby to make sure that the dance proceed smoothly even though all the women were really here just to have a chance at the Prince.

I hid my jealousy and heartbreak behind as smooth a face as I could manage, and, when I had managed two dances without stumbling, made a decision.

What I had wanted more than anything for Ellie was for her to get out, and to be happy.

If marrying the Prince would achieve both of those things for her, then I would not stand in her way.

--

Ellie was still here.

In the days following the ball, she was back at the manor, quiet and ash-smudged and subservient around Mother as always. Mother suspected, I thought, though Lorena didn’t. But Ellie said nothing, did nothing, and made no move to come forward even though I knew that she knew the Prince was looking for her.

I was sure, because I had tucked one of the announcements saying as much into her folded up bedding, sneaking briefly into the kitchen one day when I was sure she was cleaning elsewhere and I could snatch a moment away.

Nothing happened, and I frowned to myself often, wondering what was holding her back.

It wasn’t me, I was sure of that much. But she might be reluctant to leave the manor, to leave her childhood home, which would be lost to her forever if she simply ran away. The announcement had said that the Prince was actively searching for his missing love, so eventually he would make his way here.

(I had so many questions I wished I could ask her: Where had she gotten the beautiful gown and slippers? How had she gotten to the ball? Why had she left so quickly, and so early?)

Ellie did not speak to me, and I did not go down to the kitchen at night.

--

The Prince arrived unexpectedly one day a few weeks later, having wended his way through more populous areas. The short notice would have been a problem, if I hadn’t already decided what I was going to do weeks ago, and prepared.

Mother locked Ellie in the kitchen.

I played my part, tried on the glass slipper dutifully, and secretly sighed with relief when it did not fit. Lorena shoved me aside then, and made a production out of her turn, which gave me the opening I needed.

I slipped out of the parlor, and ran for the spare keys.

I threw the kitchen door open, and for the first time in weeks met Ellie’s startled eyes across the space between us.

“He’s here,” I panted, although she must know it, must know why Mother had locked her in. “He’s here.”

Then, because it hurt too much to look at her again just as I was going to lose her for good, I ran for the stairs.

The bundle of money, jewelry, more sensible clothes and a few books was already waiting. In the hubbub of Ellie trying on the slipper, it was easy enough to slip out. I lingered only long enough to see the joy on her face as the Prince escorted her to his carriage, to be sure I had done the right thing, and then I left.

I wasn’t sure where I was going, exactly, but I would not stay in this house. If Ellie could endure all that we had forced upon her all these years, I could only harden myself to whatever hardships might lie ahead, and try.

--

I had not been hungry, or cold, or alone before. It was hard, and I cried many bitter tears, but I did not turn back.

Eventually, I found a small village where the mayor was new, and in need of a bookkeeper to help sort out the monetary abuses of her predecessor. Offering silent thanks to Ellie for all of her help during the long, cold winter nights, I was able to prove my ability to do what the mayor needed, and she hired me the same day.

It was still a much plainer, rougher life than I had been used to, but it was better than the open road, and it was far better than the manor.

This life was honest, and earned.

--

They year had turned, and winter was nearly upon us. The mayor had kept me on to do the village’s accounts regularly, determined to prove to her villagers that she would be honest with them. Gradually, others hired me as well, and by now I had enough work to keep my days full, to afford a room in the one small boarding house, and to eat as well as I wished.

It was enough, I told myself on many days, and it was almost the full truth. It was good. But it was not quite the full truth to say that it was enough.

I was still alone.

Until the early winter day when I left the mayor’s house, walking home with the sun already low, and found Ellie waiting outside the boarding house, wrapped up in warm clothing of good quality, of the sort that a wealthy merchant’s daughter might wear.

Not what a Princess would wear.

“Alicia,” she said, and smiled hesitantly at me.

“Ellie,” I breathed, chest tight, and felt tears spring to my eyes. Then sense returned, and I blinked them away. “Why- Why are you here?”

A visit? Plainer clothes would make sense for travel.

“I came to find you,” she said, stepping forward. “I came to find you and ask if I could” She paused, took a deep breath, and then held my gaze as she continued, “to ask if I could stay.”

Stay? Why would she— Involuntarily, my hands rose, palms out, even though she hadn’t come any closer. “Stay? Why would you—? No, no you shouldn’t—” I swallowed, unable to hold back the tears now, unable to bear the hope. “Don’t ruin this- this chance for yourself. You can’t be here to stay, what about—” I couldn’t say it, but choked out, “Don’t ruin your life for me!”

“It’s only thanks to you that I have any chance of any life at all,” she said softly, and I buried my face in my hands, truly weeping now and unable to stop, even though we were still out in the middle of the street. “I have given up nothing that I wanted to keep.”

I wept still, and didn’t dare look up even when familiar hands settled on my arms, pulling me just a little closer.

“I have given up nothing that I wanted to keep,” she whispered, “except you.”

Burying my face against her cloaked shoulder, I sobbed, and clung too tightly.

I loved her so much. She was here. She was here for me.

“It’s the same,” I said at last, when my tears had finally eased. My voice was hoarse, and I was sure my face and hair were in a state. “I have given up nothing that I wanted to keep, except you.”

She kissed me then, despite my messy face, and held me close. It was dark now, and a few flakes of snow began to drift out of the sky.

“We’ll figure the rest out together, then,” she promised.

And with the rest of our lives stretching out before us, to live as happily as we could learn how to, we did.

The End.

[ethelindawrites]

October 29

Fictober, Prompt 29 - "Why are we whispering?"

Original fiction, fantasy/fairy tale. Part two of three: link to Part One (Day 28).

Warnings: none, other than the usual implications of abuse in any take on Cinderella.

---

Our presentations at court did not go well.

Mother had insisted on the traditional peach-colored dresses for both of us, which looked all right on Lorena but terrible on me. I had not argued. Once there, Lorena could not stifle a case of nervous hiccups, and I stumbled in my curtsy to Their Majesties.

For once, I felt glad to be just one of many young women present. I did not say this – Mother would scold me for it.

“If only the Prince had been there!” Lorena wailed during the carriage ride home. “I’m sure I could have caught his eye.”

“There will be time for that later,” Mother said, but looked as though she agreed. “It is enough for now that you are both presented, and can properly accept invitations. It expands our social opportunities.”

I did not sigh, or wince. Fortunately, Lorena continued to chatter (as grating as her voice often was), so I could safely look at the window, watching the landscape pass.

It was a relief when we reached the manor, and more so as evening set in. I did not allow myself to think about why.

I had slept the past three nights, to make sure I wasn’t too tired at court, but tonight I took my books (and one extra) and crept downstairs to the kitchen once Mother and Lorena were asleep.

“How did it go?” Ellie asked once I had settled myself at the table and she had exclaimed over the new book I slid over to her.

I hesitated, then shook my head. “Badly. I stumbled. And I look terrible in peach.”

(I looked terrible in most things, really. More and more I looked in my mirror and was forced to acknowledge to myself that I was not pretty. Not hideous, certainly, but not pretty, no matter what Mother claimed.)

Ellie grimaced sympathetically. It made me feel a little better somehow. “It’s so many layers, isn’t it?”

I nodded. Then, feeling daring and guilty all at once, I said, “Lorena got hiccups.”

Ellie’s face did something strange, as if she thought she should grimace in sympathy again but actually wanted to laugh. It looked funny.

She was still prettier than I was. She was pretty.

My stomach jolted a little with the thought, one I hadn’t ever quite had before, but I still found myself smiling wryly as she lost the battle against a giggle and hid it behind her hand.

“We’ll have to go to more parties now,” I said, allowing my displeasure with this idea to show now that it was safe. “Dances and things, in the evenings.” That they would run late, and probably interrupt this late-night studying with Ellie, did not improve my opinion of them.

“Ah, I suppose so,” Ellie said, her giggles subsiding. She looked a little wistful about it, looking down at the book in her hands, smoothing work-worn fingers over it.

The warmth in my stomach at our shared laughter soured, turning cold.

Of course if…if things had been different, then Ellie would probably have gone with—

Suddenly hyper-aware of the kitchen around us – the kitchen– of Ellie’s sleeping pallet near the fire, her threadbare clothes, her ash-smudged face, I found my ears ringing. The book in her hands, available to her only because I was sneaking them out of my own room, one or two at time, for her to read. My stack of studying books, casually tossed on the table. My warm, rich nightgown and shawl and slippers. My warm, soft bed, waiting upstairs.

Ellie was – should have been – my step-sister. She was a servant.

I didn’t realize I was swaying, vision going strange at the edges, until Ellie was suddenly beside me, her hands on my shoulders, her eyes wide with alarm in her pretty face. “Alicia! Are you all right? Are you sick?”

“I—” I rasped, gulping air suddenly, my vision slowly clearing. I stared at her in horror. All of her drudgery, and all of our taunts – of my taunts – over the past years stretching out in my mind. “Ellie, I—”

I wasn’t sure what, but something in my expression allowed her to guess what I had been thinking.

“Ah.” She made sure I was steady in my seat, then rose and shuffled back to her own. She didn’t say, ‘It’s all right,’ and I was glad.

It wasn’t all right, none of it…and I didn’t think I could fix it.

No, I told myself, more and more tired of the lies: I wasn’t brave enough to try and fix it.

Ellie, watching me, shook her head. “Don’t,” she said softly. “Don’t. I’m” she stopped, doing me the courtesy of not lying to me. “Your mother won’t abide it. Don’t take on that burden.”

“But you…” This was Ellie’s home, I thought, feeling momentarily sick again. I swallowed it down.

“Do you think,” she asked, very quietly, her eyes suddenly very hard, “that you would be safe, if you insisted?”

This wave of nausea was less because of the question, and more because I knew she was right to ask it.

Faintly, I shook my head. Strangely, she relaxed again at that, and allowed me a wry smile. “The books are enough.”

They were decidedly not enough, but they were something I could manage. I would, I decided then, see what else I could do without arousing any suspicion from Mother or Lorena.

“What did you want to go over tonight?” Ellie asked then, gesturing to my books.

Swallowing hard, I allowed her to change the topic.

My bed was not welcoming later that night, and I slept badly.

--

Things changed, over the next few weeks.

As I had suspected, more evening social engagements meant fewer nights that I had the time or the energy for extra study. The relief of doing better with the Mathematics tutor would have been enough to keep me trying on the nights I could manage it, but seeing Ellie made it even better.

I did not think too hard about why that was. It wasn’t lying, I told myself (another lie), if I just didn’t think about it. It would all catch up to me eventually, but for now I was glad for a couple of hours where I didn’t have to hold myself so rigidly.

I left her more books, a few at a time, and brought down treatises and textbooks as well at her request.

“I always loved numbers,” Ellie told me one evening, her head bent over one of my old literature books, and mine over my mathematics, “so Papa taught me a lot of mathematics when I was younger.” We left unspoken the fact that her formal schooling had stopped when he died, and she devoured everything I brought her eagerly.

She was very smart, in addition to being very pretty. I surprised myself by feeling pleased, rather than jealous, as it became clear that she picked up everything much more quickly than I ever had. I wondered what lessons would have been like, if it had been Ellie there with me, instead (or at least in addition to) Lorena.

That thought made me feel bad all over again, though, so I set it aside.

--

It was a bitterly cold night.

This had the good effect of canceling any evening social engagements, and gave me an opportunity to sneak down to the kitchen. But even the kitchen fire was struggling against this cold, I discovered, and Ellie was already huddled up on her pallet (now supplemented with some additional blankets at my insistence).

I put my books on the table, but didn’t hesitate to join her when she gestured me over.

This close to the fire, tucked into the same blankets, it was still plenty warm enough.

We had rarely been this close, and I flushed a little, looking away.

“Here,” she whispered, and snuck an arm out to pull a small basket closer along the hearth. “Let’s have some of these.”

“What are they?” I whispered back, peering over.

“Some of the last chestnuts,” she showed me. “We can roast them, and they’ll be warm.”

I nodded, and watched her do it. I hadn’t ever had roast chestnuts before, that I could recall.

She whispered about finding them out in the woods, back in the fall, and tucking some away for the winter nights.

“Here,” she said, and handed me one.

It was hot, and I dropped it into the blankets in surprise. Ellie giggled, and picked it up carefully, blowing on it before holding it up for me to take a bite. I did, gingerly, and was pleased with the burst of heat and flavor on my tongue.

“It’s good,” I said, still whispering. “Why are we whispering?”

She laughed again, and made me take another bite of chestnut, her fingers brushing my lips. “I don’t know! It seemed like a whispering kind of night.”

It did, somehow. My lips tingled.

She ate the next chestnut herself, then fed another one to me. I ate it carefully, not sure what to do with the way she was watching me.

I took the next chestnut and fed it to her. Her eyes were bright, though she wasn’t smiling. It didn’t feel like a bad thing. She finished it with precise bites, her lips just barely grazing my fingers as she took the last one.

We were already so close, I didn’t know who leaned in first, only that we were kissing.

It was warm, her lips a little chapped and mine a little worn from nervous biting.

It was strange.

It was good.

--

Spring arrived, and slowly the manor warmed. The dining hall probably would be a tolerable temperature now, even at night, but neither of us suggested that I should go back.

Warmth had long since become the least of my reasons to study in the kitchen.

We sat and read together now, just as often as we studied separately. Ellie had taught me enough that I was keeping up mostly on my own with the Mathematics now, not perfectly, but with acceptable scores on my examinations. (Mother and the tutor took this as proof that I had just been lazy before. I did not attempt to say otherwise. It didn’t sting as much as it once would have.) I almost even enjoyed some of it now.

At Ellie’s request, I told her about the parties and dances we attended, describing gowns and suits and repeating the best jokes that I had heard during those evenings out. I attempted to teach her a few of the dances, but wasn’t too good at them myself. Her laughter made it worth it.

I taught Ellie the embroidery stitches that I was competent with, and she taught me practical things, like how to mend a tear or replace a button. Once I could do it well enough, we sometime did the mending together, and I was relieved to help lighten a burden for her, however small.

We kissed, sometimes, not every time, but we always sat close, leaning together if nothing else. It felt safe, and right, the way few things ever had. Although I hadn’t said anything to Ellie, I was starting to save away some money, and to think about ways to help her get out.

(To get both of us out, I hoped. But a tiny, niggling bit of doubt held me back. I had been cruel to her too, for so long. Why would she want to stay with me? It didn’t matter. She shouldn’t be stuck like this forever. I couldn’t fix the past, but maybe it wasn’t too late to do the right thing in the future.)

During the day, we put on exemplary performances of being just as distant and cold to each other as we had ever been. I was no longer cruel to her, unable to stomach the thought, but Lorena was nasty enough for two, and Mother just as bad, if in a subtler way.

My eyes felt opened now, though, to the ways that subtlety was turned against Lorena and me as well, and turned us against each other.

It was a relief to (mostly) no longer care.

Everything was going smoothly, and although I didn’t have a long-range plan yet, I felt sure that I would think of something soon.

Then, invitations for the Royal Ball arrived.

[ethelindawrites]

October 28

Fictober, Prompt 28 - "I don't have to explain myself."

Original fiction, fantasy/fairy tale. Part one of a probable three.

Warnings: none.

---

A voice from the door startled me: “What are you doing?”

I turned and regarded Ellie with as haughty a look as I could summon at half past midnight. “I don’t have to explain myself,” I told her, “especially not to you.”

It probably would have been more effective if my voice had been less stiff, if my shivering were less obvious. I had supposed that the extra layer and a warm shawl would be enough, but without a fire, the dining hall was cold at this time of night.

Ellie raised one eyebrow ever so slightly, then bobbed something that could be considered a curtsy and left, closing the door behind her.

I pulled my single candle closer, holding my hands near it for a moment to warm them. I knew that Mother insisted it was important for us to understand Mathematics, so that we could keep the accounts in our own households whenever we married, but numbers did not come easily to me.

With our days full of lessons and social outings, there was no extra time during reasonable hours for me to try and learn what came so much more easily to Lorena. I would not fall behind her in this, or in anything. I would not be a disappointment to mother.

Allowing myself to feel nothing except determination, I bent over my books again, determined to get this right.

--

When Ellie interrupted me again, two nights later, she at least had the decency to knock lightly first.

Of course, I had slipped into a half doze, worn out from our usual long days combined with shorter nights, so I startled anyway.

“What?” I snapped when she peered around the door, covering my frustration with anger.

She didn’t quite flinch back, but it seemed like a close thing. Then she straightened, and said, “It’s warmer in the kitchen.”

“What?” This time it came out bewildered. I blinked at her, my exhausted mind not following.

“It’s warmer in the kitchen,” she repeated, and I hated the sense that she was being patient with me. “If…If you want to come work in there.”

“Won’t that interrupt your beauty sleep?” I taunted automatically, then snapped my mouth shut.

Ellie’s lips pressed together in a thin line, and I could tell that she wanted to taunt back, but didn’t quite dare.

She should have taken advantage of the opportunity – it wasn’t like I’d be able to tell Mother about it without explaining what I was doing up in the middle of the night.

After a moment, Ellie shrugged, and left.

I hesitated. I’d gotten almost nothing done, and while a warmer room probably wouldn’t help with staying awake, the cold wasn’t doing that either, and it was hard to either concentrate or write when my teeth were chattering.

Winter was only just beginning, and I didn’t know how long I might need to do this.

Carefully, I gathered up my things, pulling my shawl tighter before tucking my books into one arm and lifting the candle out and away with my other hand, so I wouldn’t drip wax on anything.

I hesitated again at the door into the kitchen, but eventually eased it open awkwardly and peered in.

Ellie blinked at me from where she was brushing her hair out on the bare wooden chair she kept near the fire, surprised.

“You offered,” I muttered, and slipped in, pulling the door closed behind.

It was, blissfully, much warmer in here than in the dining hall. Not much brighter, with the kitchen hearth banked for the night, but definitely warmer.

Cautiously, I made my way to the table, and set my candle down, watching her as she watched me. At last, she nodded, and I felt a little bit of tension drain away.

I got back to work even as she laid down on her pallet near the fire and seemed to fall immediately to sleep, apparently not bothered by my scratching pen. I didn’t make any effort to be quiet, of course, but it wasn’t like studying was a noisy activity in the first place.

Telling myself I was not jealous of the fact that she got to sleep now and I didn’t, I determined to get at least five more problems right before I would slip back up to my own room.

--

After two nights where I let myself sleep, worried that I wouldn’t be able to hide my midnight studies from Mother and Lorena if I stayed up too many nights in a row, I slipped back downstairs after the lights in both their rooms were out.

Early habit took me in the direction of the dining hall, but as my candle illuminated the long, cold, room, I found myself hesitating.

It really was awful in here.

My knock at the kitchen door was too light, my hand raised before I was really certain I wanted to do this—

But then Ellie had opened it, and we were staring at each other in surprise.

“I—” More words refused to come, my throat tight. Besides, did I really need to request permission to be in the kitchen of my own home? I refused to ask.

Ellie watched me in silence for a moment, frowning, but then slowly opened the door wider and stepped back to let me in.

Scowling for reasons I didn’t quite understand, I swept past her as gracefully as I could and piled my books on the table, setting the candle down carefully nearby. The fire was still burning tonight, so the room was a bit brighter than it had been before.

Neither of us said anything as I got to work, and Ellie returned to whatever chores she was apparently still doing at this hour. Eventually, she settled in her chair near the fire with one of the books that Mother had permitted her to keep.

She was so quiet and still as she read that I forgot she was there, and accidentally let out a hiss of frustration when I got my sixth problem in a row incorrect. Why could I not understand—

“What are you working on?” Ellie asked.

My cheeks flushed hot with embarrassment at being observed, and I turned my head away so that she wouldn’t see. “Nothing.”

A hesitation, then, “It didn’t…sound like nothing? And you’re staying up so late…”

“As if you aren’t,” I snapped, but quietly, still not looking at her.

“But I am usually up this late,” she pointed out, and the chair creaked under her. “Let me see.”

“What would you” I started to say, alarmed, but by the time I turned my eyes back, she was already at my shoulder, surveying my books.

“Oh,” she said in recognition. “This is pretty sim— I mean…you’re struggling with this?”

Several scathing things gathered at the tip of my tongue, but I bit them back. I wasn’t sure why. Only, her question had not sounded like a taunt.

I couldn’t answer, though, so I just looked away again, staring at the closed kitchen door.

“What parts do you find difficult?”

Surprise drew my eyes back to her. Was she…offering to help? Did she even know any of this herself? Mother had never included her in lessons with Lorena and I. Swallowing, hesitant, I shrugged.

“All of it.” The confession came out as barely a whisper. If the wind outside had been any louder, it would have been inaudible.

Ellie paused, and held my gaze for another long moment. At last she asked directly, “Would you like some help?”

I struggled with my pride. To show weakness in front of Ellie, who was little better than a servant…but something in my stomach twisted uncomfortably when I realized that it would be even less acceptable (less safe) to show that same weakness in front of Mother or Lorena. Mother was already disappointed enough in me for my shortcomings in this. She had even begun to talk of punishments if I did not improve sufficiently.

“Yes,” I said at last, the word still barely voiced. Then, because it refused to stay on my tongue, I spat, “please” as harshly as it would come.

That got me another barely raised eyebrow, but Ellie went and got her own chair and came to sit next to me.

She read through the problems that I was having trouble with, and looked at my work, frowning thoughtfully. Then her face brightened. “Ah! I think this is where you are going wrong.” She explained, and although I could see that her words were saying the same thing as the book and the tutor…somehow the way that she said it was different.

“Oh,” I said, involuntarily, because suddenly I could see where I had gone wrong, and why.

By the time I slipped back up to my room that night, I had done ten problems on my own, and gotten them all right.

--

“Well,” Mother said a couple of weeks later as she reviewed the marks from our morning tutors over luncheon. Ellie had already served us, and moved on to other chores until it was time to clear the table. We had not looked at each other.

“Well,” Mother repeated, setting the papers down, “it is good to see that you can at last do your basic mathematics competently, Alicia.”

Lorena snickered, but stopped quickly at Mother’s glare. “Don’t snicker, Lorena, it’s unladylike. Really, girls! You’re to be presented at court next week, and I will not have you embarrassing me.”

“Yes, Mother,” we murmured in practiced unison, looking to our plates.

Although a small part of me had hoped for more praise, I knew that Mother was right. I had only just reached a barely acceptable level. But even that was more progress than I could have dreamed of making in just two weeks, and I could not help a small, quiet feeling of pride.

--

That night, there was an extra book in my stack when I snuck downstairs and into the kitchen.

I let myself in, and told myself I wasn’t relieved to find Ellie still awake.

“How did it go?” she asked when I had gotten settled at the table.

Words crowded on my tongue, and I gave up, shoving the extra book I had brought at her instead. It was just an old novel that I’d been gifted two years ago, not even all that interesting, really. But Ellie wouldn’t have had a chance to read it, and I was pretty sure by now that she only had four books of her own, old and worn, the ones Mother had let her keep. She definitely wasn’t permitted to use the library.

Shock widened her eyes, and she reached immediately for the book, only to hesitate at the last second. “Are…Are you sure?”

I nodded, refusing to meet her eyes.

She snatched the book up quickly, cradling it against her chest. “Thank you! Oh, Alicia, thank you!”

I couldn’t remember the last time she had said my name. My throat was tight, and I shook my head. It felt…strange. To see such joy over a single book. It didn’t…it made my stomach feel strange, and not in a good way. It was just one book.

“It’s been so long since I— Thank you!”

I hadn’t thought about what it would be like, to never have new books to read. I shoved the thought aside.

At last, the words on my tongue untangled themselves, just a little bit. “I passed, today,” I whispered. “I passed.”

Ellie’s expression brightened again as she looked up from the new book. “Did you? That’s wonderful!”

That made my stomach feel strange again, swoopy. Not bad, this time. I turned away and scowled to cover it.

But the last two words slipped off my tongue, just loud enough: “Thank you.”

[ethelindawrites]

October 27

Fictober, Prompt 27 - "You could have died!"

Original fiction, horror.

Warnings: vampire, implied violent death(s), nothing graphic.

--

“There you are!” She scowled over at where I stood hesitantly in the doorway. “Where have you been? I’ve told you not to be out so late, and without even trying to let me know where you were.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, the words strange in my mouth. The sting of the usual scolding felt muted, at least a little bit.

“Well, what are you standing there for? Come in!” She turned away, and I took a careful step over the threshold. “There’s work to be done. Did you think you’d get out of it if you slunk off somewhere? With your sister out of the house now, there’s more work for fewer hands, so you’d better put those notions right out of your head.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again. The words came more naturally now, but still not quite right. “I’m sorry, I— I encountered a vampire.”

“You what?” she shrieked, spinning to stare at me, horrified. “What on earth possessed you to wander into the territory of those creatures? You could have died!”

I closed my eyes, swallowed against the terrible thirst, felt the strange, unpleasant shifting of my teeth.

I opened my eyes again, and looked right at her.

“I did.”

Then, I stopped fighting the thirst.

[ethelindawrites]

October 26

Fictober, Prompt 26 - "I'm sure this has never worked, ever."

Original fiction, sci-fantasy/technomagic. Continuation: part one (Day 1), part two (Day 5), part three (Day 7), part four (Day 15), and part five (Day 22). This the sixth and final part of this story.

Warnings: monster/eldritch horror, technically suicidal ideation (characters prepared to sacrifice themselves).

---

Vivi and I stared at the console screen, torn between horror at what Lin’s original plan for the world-eater had been and the first kernels of hope that we might still have a chance after all.

Lin seemed to have believed that a newly hatched world-eater could be led…if you could control its nearest source of food, namely, the planetary shell that it had hatched out of.

“So, she was going to guide the remnants of the planet, via magic, to get it near enough to the Phean system worlds that it would naturally devour them next, thus enacting her revenge for…something,” Vivi summarized, voice flat.

The further writings we had found deep in Lin’s encrypted files had finally shed light on her goals, though even here she did not seem to list the specific wrongs for which she had wanted revenge.

Regardless of what they were, I could not imagine any crime for which the destruction of an entire planet would be the appropriate punishment.

We had put a stop to that much of her plan, at least. But that would only mean that some other random worlds would be devoured instead, unless we could find a way to use this to our advantage and somehow do what no one (to our or Lin’s knowledge) had ever done before: destroy a world-eater.

“That seems to be the short version,” I agreed with Vivi’s summary, pulling up a map that Lin had created of her proposed route. It was another reason for the spellwork within the planet’s crust, and the extensive and so far astoundingly effective shielding that had sprung up around the whole facility after that first enormous earthquake as the world-eater started to hatch. Lin had intended to be around for this part, so she had ensured that her compound could survive the hatching.

That was good news for us, at least temporarily. It was giving us the time to look for more information, and even the possibility that we could lead this thing somewhere was more of a plan than we had ten minutes ago.

But it wasn’t enough.

Something about the map was niggling at my mind, but I could quite pin down what it was. It was a pretty straight shot from here to the Phean system, without too much else in the way—

A straight shot…except for the way her planned route deliberately curved out and around the two largest-mass stars along the way.

“Vivi,” I breathed, “Vivi, look!” I zoomed in on that section of the map, highlighting the curves.

She saw what I was thinking immediately, but still looked skeptical. “Really? Don’t you think someone would have figured that out by now?”

“They didn’t necessarily have the magic or the technology that we do now, the last time one of these things was around,” I argued.

“She could just have been trying to avoid letting the shell pieces get pulled in. It’s not necessarily a danger to it, just to the food supply.”

That was true, but it didn’t change the fundamental point: “Is there anything else we can try?”

Vivi met my gaze, then slumped a little, closing her eyes. “No.”

“Look,” I told her, and pulled up a separate, clean map of surrounding space, and then started typing in criteria as fast as could: active, minimum mass, proximity to habited planets... The computer dimmed stars that didn’t match the growing list of specifications, more and more growing dark on the map. “We just need to find…here.”

An active star, its mass just a little larger than those Lin’s route had avoided, and as far as we could get from any habited worlds while still being within her estimated radius of how far the world-eater could be led. Whether it would be far enough, I wasn’t sure, but it was our best shot if the first part of this plan didn’t work.

“I’m sure this has never worked, ever,” Vivi grumbled, but then nodded, only a little reluctantly. “I suppose it can’t have worked if no one’s tried it.”

“It may have occurred to someone, but were they able to do anything about it?” I asked, and she conceded the point.

I pulled up the programming that would allow us to get the shell pieces moving through space, but paused to meet Vivi’s eyes again.

She looked back at me, steady.

Our chances of survival had already dropped to zero when the ships were destroyed, or so we had thought. Hope was a difficult thing to balance against that earlier certainty…but really the only hope here was that we could destroy the world-eater before it could destroy any habited planets.

Plunging into a star would not be my first choice of a way to go…but I supposed we didn’t need to wait quite that long, just long enough to get the world-eater where we needed it.

“Do it,” Vivi said, confirming our joint resolve. We would attempt this, whatever the cost.

I settled down to the spellwork, glad that Lin had written up notes for herself. They weren’t quite as good as full instructions would have been, but I wasn’t completely in the dark. Vivi settled at a nearby console to try sending another tight beam of data out with our expanded knowledge.

Just in case.

Accompanied by the almost-disturbingly light tremors that rocked the facility within the bubble of its shielding, reminding us of the cataclysmic hatching happening beneath our feet, we set to work.

--

Watching the newly hatched world-eater open its…its mawto chomp into the nearest piece of planetary crust, now floating free, was not an experience I could ever fully put into words. It was certainly alive, and equally certainly was not any kind of life as we knew it. It seemed to be mineral in its composition, almost rock-like, but its three limbs moved smoothly to hook chunks of shell toward the protruding mouth, with some kind of body beyond that.

Vivi and I stared at the vidscreen for long moments, too long, attempting to comprehend it.

She shook herself out of it first, then prodded me. “We’d better get all this moving, or it will eat everything and we won’t have anything for it to chase.”

I sat down, set my hand on the integration pad, and started pouring magic into the spell.

The drain surged, and I gasped against a spike of pain…but then it steadied, and the lines of magic within and between the floating remnants of the planet’s crust began to move, the one in which this facility remained first, the others slowly dragging along after.

Finding that its next piece of meal had drifted out of range, the world-eater performed a shifting of its form that made my head ache to watch, and then was following us. One limb still reached forward toward its nearest source of food, the other two now behind it, doing something to propel it into motion.

It seemed wrong, somehow, that something so large could just drift through space, silent and dark, a mere shadow against the black unless you were already too close.

Vivi’s hand closed around my shoulder in a tight, supportive grip, and I nodded, but didn’t pull my eyes away from the console, monitoring the spell as the steady drain on my magic continued. Vivi could take a turn if needed, but Lin had intended to do this herself, so I should be able to manage it.

“I’ll see if I can find anything else useful,” she said after a few more minutes, and left me to it.

So far, the plan was working.

--

I tried to vary our speed between “fast enough to get somewhere” and “slow enough for it to keep up and occasionally get another chunk of shell to eat.” It needed to feel that these pieces remained its closest and best source of sustenance, or it would leave in search of something closer and easier.

That I nearly lost it once, the first time I tried going a little faster, left me sweating and nauseated for hours, in spite of Vivi’s assurances. She forced us both to keep to our regulated rations of water, but I could no longer remember when either of us had last eaten.

Neither of us was hungry…and it was unlikely to matter, anyway.

We didn’t have long.

The spell moved us and our tethered string of bait ever closer to our destination.

The world-eater, driven by hunger and instinct, followed.

--

“Demir!” Vivi’s startled cry jerked me out of meditation (the best compromise I had found between powering the spell and getting needed rest).

“What?” I asked, a bit groggily, turning my chair as best I could without taking my hand off the integration pad. “What is it?”

“Demir,” she said again, still staring wide-eyed at her own console screen, “there’s a ship.”

Alarmed, I jolted upright. “A what? Where? Did those pirates follow—”

“No,” she said, turning toward me apologetically. “No, I didn’t mean—I meant, there’s a ship here. It’s- It’s kind of disguised, I guess, or built into the facility, but it’s definitely a separate ship.”

I blinked at her, uncomprehending.

“It looks like it was an escape plan,” Vivi explained, triggering a standard spell to pull a three-dimensional schematic out from the screen, a lower part of the facility highlighted in brighter blue. “I’m not sure she was necessarily intending to survive, but it looks like she wanted the option to watch her revenge be enacted if she made it that far. So, there’s a ship built in here, where it would be protected until she wanted it.”

“Oh,” I breathed. “We could…”

“We might be able to get away,” she confirmed, her voice tight to control the emotion in it.

“The timing will be tricky,” I admitted. We’d have to get close enough that a surge of magic would keep the spell and the crust pieces and the world-eater moving past the point of no return, but get out before this little ship would be caught.

But with a ship, then the worst case scenario was that only one of us (me) would have to die: Vivi, at least, could escape with our data and get home.

And maybe, maybe we could somehow both make it out alive after all.

“I’ll go make sure it’s still flight-ready,” Vivi said then, her eyes narrowing as if she knew that I might try to send her off alone and didn’t like it. Time enough for that fight if it came to that, though, so I let her go with a grateful smile.

Stomach tight with hope and nerves, I turned to the vidscreen that pointed behind us, toward the leviathan still following in our wake.

--

We cut it almost too close.

Vivi had run almost a hundred simulations, all of which said that a reservoir spell tied into the guide spell and filled with every last bit of magic both of us had in us would be enough to keep everything moving after we got away in the boxy but space-worthy ship stored as a lower part of the facility.

She had shoved the simulation results in my face, and had refused to entertain the possibility of leaving me behind.

Still sick with fear that something would go wrong when neither of could fix it…I still had to concede that I did not want to die here, and gave in.

At the last possible moment, with everything else prepared by Vivi beforehand, we drained ourselves dry of magic into the reservoir spell, waited for three heart-stopping breaths to make sure that it was connected and draining properly to the guide spell, and then ran, gasping, for the ship.

The engine whined against the pull of the star’s gravity. Unable to boost it with any additional power, we held our breaths until it at last pulled free, speeding us away.

Would the world-eater notice our escape and its own imminent (we hoped) danger? Would the reservoir last long enough? Would—

Vivi took us out and out and out, far enough, and then slowed and turned, switching on the video feeds, making sure they were recording.

I wasn’t sure anyone would believe the footage (I wasn’t sure I would believe it if anyone else brought something like it back), but we couldn’t not capture this, whatever actually happened.

We saw the moment the world-eater grabbed for one of the last pieces of planetary crust and then shied back from the proximity of the star, saw it turn, shifting all three of its limbs to propel itself away—

—and fail.

It turned out that the way you destroyed a world-eater was with a star.

When it was done, and we were sure that it wasn’t going to somehow reemerge, Vivi started us for the nearest habited system.

For three days, neither of us spoke a word.

Some things, it turned out, were too big. Too big to have seen. Too big to have survived. Too big to know, at least for a time.

I thought we would both be all right, in the end. But right now…it was too big.

Once we seemed to be within range of the nearest sector law enforcement communication relays, Vivi sent out an encrypted emergency call, and we braced ourselves to deal with other people once again.

Whatever happened next, the two of us knew what we had seen, and that there were others out there who knew more than they let on, and that they did not seem to be on our side. Mysteries still to be solved, but…

Whatever happened next, we could be sure of one thing: world-eaters were not a myth.

[devinellekurtz]

The Starry Serpent

[ethelindawrites]

October 25

Fictober, Prompt 25 - "Do you know what time it is?"

Original fiction, fantasy.

Warnings: implied but unspecified looming disaster.

--

The door creaked open behind me.

“Do you know what time it is?” she asked softly.

Groggily, I lifted my head from my arms, blinking in the guttering candlelight. “’m awake.”

She laughed, and I felt her hands settle on my shoulders. “That’s not what I asked.”

“Late,” I mumbled then head falling back to my arms. I had to get this spell right, or we would be in trouble—

“There’s time yet,” she reassured me, understanding my answer. “Come, get some sleep.”

I sighed, silently agreeing, but didn’t raise my head just yet. Obviously I wasn’t going to accomplish anything more without at least a few hours’ rest, but the delay rankled. We did have a little time, but…

Lifting my head again, I peered through the window as best I could.

Outside, ash was still falling.

Through the thick, clouded glass, you could almost mistake it for snow.

We had a little time, but not much.

Still, I rose with her gentle hands to guide me, and blew out what was left of the candle. The delay would be worth it if rest would actually let me accomplish something again. I followed her out into the main room and joined her in our bed. The fire was banked and low, but her warmth lingered under the covers, and she pulled me close gladly.

Fortunately, getting up had not woken me enough to set my brain racing, and I felt myself drifting off properly almost as soon as I settled against her shoulder, and even the last, niggling little thought was not enough to keep me awake.

Outside, the ash was falling.

[ethelindawrites]

October 24

Fictober, Prompt 24 - "Is this supposed to impress me?"

Original fiction, fantasy.

Warnings: none.

--

Uzela turned her great, scaled head this way and that, surveying the vault. She paced forward through the wealth we had amassed so far, her steps more careful than I would have supposed possible for a creature of her size. I paced alongside her, not liking to go far.

Not that there was anything I could do now if this went awry. I knew the risk I was taking.

“Is this supposed to impress me?” she rumbled after a few more minutes. “The halls of your ancestors—”

“Best to leave the halls of my ancestors out of this conversation, don’t you think?” I interrupted, my own eyes narrowing.

Uzela turned just enough to pin me with a golden, slit-pupiled eye. “I have little first-hand knowledge,” she said. “The hoards of others are often known to us, at least in general scope.” I wasn’t sure if I could believe that or not, but took a deep breath and let the anger over past thefts pass.

I was trying to prevent that very thing happening to us, after all.

Returning to her original question, I said, “Whether you are impressed or not is irrelevant. All I want to know is: will you do the job?”

She looked away from me again, and was quiet for long moments.

“If I were to say no, what would you do?” The golden eye turned to me again, just barely.

I made sure my face was as hard as the mountain stone around us. “Did you think I brought you in here with no preparation or contingency plans?” That they were half guesswork was something she did not need to know.

A deep rumble in her chest, possibly laughter. “No.” Another pause. “Were I to say no, but turned and left now, what would you do?”

I held that golden gaze, feeling the pressure of her power, even though I did not think that she was actively trying to influence my mind. Not this time. “As long as you truly left, and posed no continuing threat…I would let you.”

This rumble seemed thoughtful. “Interestingly, I believe you.”

She surveyed the stacked treasures again. The vault was a little empty looking, I had to admit, but we had only been mining here for a few years. The mountains here were rich with many things, and our wealth would grow.

It would grow all the better and more surely if I could convince Uzela that the bargain I had offered was to both our benefit.

“That you have bargained in good faith intrigues me,” she said at last. “And as unimpressive as your hoard might be at present, it is clear that you and your people are industrious.” She shifted, maneuvering herself gracefully around and lowered her neck until her head was practically on the floor, level with my own.

To stand so close and unprotected so near to her large, sharp-fanged mouth caused my heartbeat to quicken involuntarily, but I stood my ground. If she had really wanted to devour me, the time to do it had been out on the mountainside.

Her gaze was even more intense like this, both gold eyes focused on me. “I accept your bargain, on the terms you gave me on the mountain.”

“And I hold to those, on the terms that you gave in turn at that time, and by the mountain I swear it,” I told her, scarcely daring to believe this was really happening, however hard I had worked for it. “I will have a proper contract drawn immediately.”

This rumble was satisfied, and she lifted her head again. “Very well. Where shall be my place?”

“The front of the vault would likely be less convenient for both us and you,” I admitted, “but you should choose an area that suits you.”

With that, she paced off again to better inspect the space and make a decision, an absent rumble acknowledging me when I called that I would return shortly with the contract.

Part of me was still reluctant to leave her alone in the vault…but we had already achieved a certain amount of mutual trust, and to hold to that going forward was the only way this could possibly work. And I wanted it to work, so I headed out of the vault.

For too long, our treasures had been at the mercy of those who would raid our mountains for wealth they had not worked for. Though far from alone, dragons had often been among the perpetrators.

I did not think anyone had ever thought to try hiring one as a guard instead. Uzela would be an expensive guard to be sure, but she would also be nigh unassailable. The mere strength of her reputation alone might save us from nearly all threats.

Whether this experiment would work or not, I did not know. But we were going to try it, and more now than ever before, I was sure it was worth the attempt.

[ethelindawrites]

October 23

Fictober, Prompt 23 - "This time, do what I say."

Original fiction, fantasy/horror.

Warnings: monsters/gross monster corpses (no great detail).

--

I slashed out, separating the head of the last shuffling monster from its body. It collapsed to the ground with an unpleasant squelch. I turned a quick, full circle to make sure that it really was the last one, then flicked as much ichor off my blade as possible before sheathing it.

The suddenness of the attack had startled me, even though I should have known better. I closed my eyes, getting my instincts under control, though undoubtedly my companions would have gotten a look at my eyes and face by now.

The suspicious part of my mind wondered if the one had been trying to provoke an attack deliberately, in the hopes that I would reveal myself. I didn’t think he was that much of an idiot, or that desperate, but I couldn’t be completely sure, not having known any of these people long.

Still, they had hired me to do a job and paid fairly for it, so I would see it done.

But I’d keep my guard up while I did it.

Under control, I stalked back over to where the whole group had, fortunately, listened to my last instruction to take cover.

“Out,” I said brusquely, jerking a thumb. Terrified, stumbling, they made their way out from under the rock overhang, gaping at me and shying away from the monster remains scattered around us. The corpses would collapse fully into ichor, but not for a couple of hours yet.

“Is it now clear to all of you,” and here I turned narrowed eyes on the man who had attracted the monsters’ attention in the first place, “that I am not exaggerating the dangers here?”

They were all silent, wide-eyed…but they all nodded.

“You’re not…” one of the women started, her voice barely a whisper.

“Human? No, not as such,” I said crisply. “That has not changed the fact that you hired me to be your guide, that I intend to do my job, and that I am your only hope of making it through alive. Are we clear on these points as well?”

Nods again, all around.

“Fine,” I said. “If you do, in fact, want to make it to your destination in one piece, then this time, do what I say.”

With that, I turned and set off again, picking my way carefully through the corpses, moving slowly enough that they could match my path, if they paid attention. Once we were out on the clear path again (such as it was), I turned one last time for a headcount.

Everyone was still with me.

I hadn’t yet lost anyone getting through the Barrens, and I didn’t intend to start now.

[ethelindawrites]

October 22

Fictober, Prompt 22 - "No promises."

Original fiction, sci-fantasy/technomagic. Continuation: part one (Day 1), part two (Day 5), part three (Day 7), and part four (Day 15). There will be one more part after this one.

Warnings: implied monster/eldritch horror, air strike (but no people hurt).

--

World-eaters were supposed to be a myth.

We sent out what data we had anyway, in what we hoped was a secure beam to the nearest relay point. It would take a day or so at best to reach sector law enforcement and the trade fleet association. They would probably laugh themselves sick over it, but Vivi had agreed with me that we had to try.

While I was doing that, Vivi returned to an earlier task that we hadn’t yet succeeded at: cracking the encryption on Lin’s hidden files. It was a devilish combination of coding and magic that I was pretty sure was beyond me. “No promises,” she had muttered when she started, but Vivi was better at tricky, mixed hacking jobs – her mind worked through such problems from a different angle than mine did.

The regular seismic rumbles from…below…were getting stronger, and more frequent. Whatever we or anyone else were going to try, we had to do it soon.

I dug further into the unencrypted files, and found enough obliquely phrased information to round out what little about the world-eater myths I could remember.

World-eaters were alive, although the implication had always been that they did not fit into any of the standard categories of life that we used: animal, plant, fungus, or various microbial lifeforms. They were something else, and as such were not subject to the same restraints of life as we knew it.

They moved through space on their own, the legends said, and they ate—

Well, they ate worlds. Whole planets, bitten into chunks and consumed, heedless of anything that might be on or in them.

One document in Lin’s files suggested that they had a natural lifespan, and that at the end of it they did their best to find a suitable planet, into which they would lay a…seed, or a zygote, or whatever the world-eater equivalent was, and then die. Their bodies were then pulled apart sooner or later by various gravitational forces, scattering up into so much unidentifiable space debris.

The problem was that that natural lifespan was too long, from a human perspective. The myths, if they could be believed, spoke of “countless worlds” being consumed before a world-eater disappeared.

There was no myth I had ever heard that spoke of stopping or killing one. Lin’s readily accessible files were suspiciously blank on this point as well.

Hours passed. I left only long enough to get us minimal sustenance and water, but came back quickly. Whatever was going to happen, neither of us wanted to be alone for it. Vivi nodded in acknowledgment whenever I set something by her console, but didn’t speak.

“Yes,” she finally hissed in triumph, and I whipped around in my chair. Mingled code and spellwork flared red across several screens at Vivi’s console, followed by a series of pings as my flagging spells began to find things in these new files as they unencrypted.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I told Vivi, and she grinned at me briefly before the reality of things set back in.

We dove back in.

“Definitely seems like it’s in the process of…hatching,” Vivi offered within a few minutes, and I nodded.

“Do you suppose it would help if we could force it to come out early?” I wondered, peering at a set of spells that seemed like they would connect to the rest of the spellwork already spread through the planetary crust and maybe…no it wasn’t clear what you would do then. “It looks like there are some spells here that would allow us to send commands out to all the spells in the crust. Could we maybe…force it to hatch early?”

“Would it really be early, given that it’s started to hatch on its own already?” Vivi sounded skeptical. “And even between us, even with amplification, do we really have enough power to crack a whole planet apart?”

“Probably not,” I admitted, in answer to both questions. “But…what else can we do?”

We both turned our chairs to stare at each other.

“At this point,” Vivi said, “I think the best thing we can do is get out. Upload as much of this data as possible to the ship, and get out of here. We’ll start streaming the data out to help convince whoever needs to be convinced. Maybe we can linger nearby long enough to record it hatching, and see which direction it’s going. We might be able to get to the nearest planet ahead of it, in time to warn them.”

We were both silent for a moment, contemplating the fact that no amount of warning had ever allowed anyone to stop a world-eater before.

“We have to try,” I agreed anyway, because we did. Who knew? It had been so long since there had been any record of one. Maybe now we had sufficient firepower, both magical and mundane, to make a difference. “All right, I’ll go get the engine online, if you’re good to handle the data upload?”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

I suited up, and headed for the surface airlock closest to where Vivi had set the ship down. Lin’s ship, a small, two-person transport of middling range, was there too, but we hadn’t done more than a cursory inspection of it.

I was three steps out of the airlock when an alarm blared over the comm, barely a second before Vivi yelled, “Demir, take cover!”

The thunder of engines and the scream of a ship-killer missile were my only additional warning, and I dove for the airlock just in time, half falling in just before the blast hit.

The laser cannon kicked on, and Vivi scored several hits on the fleet of small pirate-type ships that we apparently hadn’t scared off sufficiently the first time.

Or, I thought, peering grimly out of the airlock at what was left of both our and Lin’s ships, they might not actually be pirates at all.

We knew that Lin, at least, had been trying to help the world-eater hatch, and these were the same ships which had shot down the other one when it appeared to be trying to harm the planetary shell.

For as much as I had seen in my life, what would motivate anyone to want to unleash such a danger was beyond me.

Overhead, two of the ships vanished back up into space, the remains of the fellows now strewn across the planet’s surface, smoldering. Vivi did good work, but it was unfortunately too late. I cursed my own complacency – all the signs had been there before, but we hadn’t put those pieces together, hadn’t been on guard. Whoever these people were, they might have intercepted our tight beam too.

And at least some of them had gotten away.

I sealed the airlock and went back down.

Vivi’s face was grim, anger at herself apparent in her face. “The ships?”

I shook my head, and she cursed blisteringly, turning away.

“Don’t,” I told her, “don’t. I didn’t think either. If it’s on us, it’s on us both equally.”

“We’re equally dead either way!” she spat, but then the anger went out of her, her shoulders slumping just a little. Defeated looked unnatural on her.

“Is anything damaged down here?” I asked, and she shook her head.

“Not as far as I can tell, I started the diagnostics going,” she gestured to a screen running checks on the structure.

“Well, we’re still sheltered temporarily then.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “That’s a start.”

She took a deep breath too, and nodded.

“We’ll figure something out,” I said, not at all sure that we would, but determined to try.

“No promises,” Vivi retorted, but mellowed it with a wry smile.

In the next moment, the floor rolled underneath us, sending chairs flying and dropping us both to the floor.

At the console I had been using, the biggest screen flared warning red as the seismic monitoring spells spread a diagnostic image across it. An enormous crack, stretching a full fifth of the planet’s circumference, had opened on the other side of the shell, shaking the entirety of it in a gargantuan earthquake.

The world-eater was hatching.

[writing-prompt-s]

You’re a mimic. You were disguised as a chair in a dungeon when an adventurer decided to take you as loot. You’ve actually enjoyed your life ever since as furniture in a jolly tavern. So when some ruffians try to rob the now-elderly adventurer’s business, you finally reveal yourself.

[bixbythemartian]

Okay, so- hey, hey! Stop with the screaming, you’re gonna wake people up! Shut up! If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead. Listen for a minute, already.

I was just minding my own-

I am so serious right now. If you wake Bob up, you won’t like what I do. He’s not young, these days, he needs his rest.

Okay? Okay.

Anyway. I was minding my own business. I was a fairly young mimic, I’d just really sort of settled into my first good morph. When you’re really young, freshly spawned, you sort of rotate through things, and you don’t quite get it right, most of the time.

It’s like learning how to walk for people, I think. You’re small, you don’t quite know what you’re doing… it’s a whole thing.

And I went chair. Now, that’s very exciting. Chairs aren’t a common mimic morph. For whatever reason- the gods? who knows?- most mimics end up containers. Trunks, chests, drawers, wardrobes, I had a cousin who was a barrel.

Chair, though, that’s good, though. No barbarian is gonna poke through your insides looking for loose change if you’re a good sturdy wooden chair. You might get sat on, but, heck, we’re pretty sturdy as a species. No big deal. And, honestly, easier to get some food.

Wha- no, we don’t eat people. We don’t eat flesh, that’s gross. We absorb magic. It’s why we tend to spawn in dungeons, lots of magic there. Though I pity the poor mimic clans that end up in a necromancer dungeon. Ugh.

Most adventurers have magic items on them, you absorb a little energy and get sat on for a bit, no big deal, easy meal. And you get a little variety in your diet, win for everybody.

Sure, we kill people from time to time. But let me ask you this: If you were just at home, minding your own business, and some big guy with no neck bristling with swords came along, bust into your house, walked into your room, and reached into one of your orifices to find valuables, you might take averse to that, don’t you think? It’s not like people don’t know about mimics. Take a little care, you know?

Anyway, I was still pretty young. I’d just settled into my morph. And this guy comes along and, you guessed it, no neck, bristling with swords. And he claps eyes on me and just stops, and stares, and I was like- kinda panicking, right? I’m thinking I messed up the morph, and he’s clocked me and now I’m gonna have to fight this guy.

And then he nudges his buddy and says ‘Hey, hey Jim, ain’t that the most beautiful chair you’ve ever seen in your life?’

And Jim’s like ‘yeah it’s a nice chair so what?’ and Bob- that’s the guy with no neck- he says ‘no, look at it! it’s gorgeous!’

I tell you, if I coulda blushed, I’d have been cherry red from top to bottom. When you first start to settle into a morph, you feel a little self-conscious, you know? You’re just starting to figure yourself out, and someone comes along and just says the nicest things. And he went on for a while. I was so flattered, best day of my life, aside from my first spawning.

Jim says ‘well just bring the damn thing! we have shit to do!’ so Bob does! Just picks me up and straps me to his back, and off we went.

And I went lots of interesting places, met some interesting people. I even ended up doing the watch at night a couple of times. Because Jim, sometimes he has this thing where he just falls asleep, he can’t help it, it’s not his fault. I had to help them out a couple of times. I was fond of the guy, you know? And most mimics don’t get to be part of adventuring parties, it’s just not done, so it was really neat to feel like I was a part of things.

Jim and Bob and their buddy Wade, they end up saving the kingdom, and they all go their separate ways. Bob went back to his home village- that’s here- bought a building, put me in the middle, and said ‘this is gonna be my tavern’. He hangs up his magical weapons around the bar- don’t bother with that, buddy, that glass is tougher than your ax, I promise.

Anyway, I’ve got plenty to eat. I even spawned a couple of times, helped fill out the place. I figure, save him a little money, I start my own clan, and there’s plenty of ambient magic to go around, the place is lively, better than some manky old dungeon any day, right?

Bob, he never quite figured it out. I think Jim was onto me, but Bob- he’s not bright. But he’s just the nicest guy, you know? He’s always got a kind word for someone. He’ll give you the shirt off his back. If you show up here hungry with no money, he feeds you, and often he’ll make sure you get some place to sleep and a job, if you’re looking. Everybody loves Bob.

And I really like people, that’s something I figured out about myself. I like the atmosphere here, too, there’s always new stories to hear. I’ve learned a lot, over the years, I’ll tell you what.

Now Bob, he’s not young anymore, and his kids well- they’re not the adventuring sort, as I think you have already sussed out. But they don’t need to fight, you know? That’s not the kinda life they need to lead.

So, bearing all that in mind, here’s the deal. You got two options. One- put everything down- nice and easy, mind- and leave, lock the door behind you, and this never happened. No harm, no foul.

Or… you can find out just how many times I’ve spawned.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this one and want to help support me, here’s a link to my ko-fi! If like this story and you want to read more, here is my masterpost, currently updated with all of my tumblr ficlets.

If you screencap this for another website, please be courteous and link people to my tumblr.

[bixbythemartian]

reblagging for the day crowd

[ethelindawrites]

October 21

Fictober, Prompt 21 - "What did I say?"

Original fiction, dark fantasy/horror. A follow-up to this piece (Day 9).

Warnings: murder (off-screen), blood sacrifice, eldritch horrors, violent death.

--

I walked carefully through the ruins of the basilica, lifting my robes with one hand to keep them from the dirt and soot and rubble strewn across the floor. Fire raged elsewhere in the building, and the roof was long burnt away or caved in. Smoke obscured the overhead view, but I knew the night was overcast beyond the conflagration.

The flames had swept quickly through this part of the building, mostly stone as it was, so it was a bit more intact.

The Pact-Makers did not understand the concept of mercy.

I did not much understand it myself, anymore, time having shown me too much of its results.

Sound ahead alerted me, and I quickened my step as much as possible. If I had found the one I sought at last, so much the better.

I had.

“The Voice” as his followers had worshipfully styled him for so long, was on his knees, scrabbling in the soot behind what was left of his throne, a crumbling wood and scorched metal seat. As I approached, quiet, he pulled out a large pack and nearly tore it open, desperate to look inside.

Whatever he saw relieved him, for he fastened it closed again, and then rose, pulling it on.

I thought he would bolt when he saw me, and a brief twitch of his middle-aged but charismatic features told me he wanted to. He fought the urge, however, and turned to face me, stepping out from behind the burnt throne.

“Have your demons had enough, sorceress?” he taunted. “Are you reduced to fighting your own battles now?”

“They are neither demons, nor mine,” I corrected, coming to a stop a few arm-lengths away, allowing my robes to fall and making sure I had a certain grip on my staff. “They are Pact-Makers, the Ones From Outside.” So naming them, I lifted my staff and tapped it upon the ground with intent. They would find this man no matter where he ran, but I wanted this finished now, and was happy to help guide them to their goal. “That you still know none of this, so many years later, marks you for the evil man you are.”

A roil of emotions crossed his face briefly, but then he calmed, baring his teeth at me in what could not quite be called a smile. “I have been careful not to involve myself in your heretic ways, sorceress. That does not make me evil.”

“It does, when you have ‘avoided’ the proper path by stealing that which rightfully belongs to others,” I said, keeping my own expression placid as around us, the air began to twist and writhe in an uneven pattern. “What did I say? What message did I send through your men those years ago? Did they not convey my words?”

“They did,” he allowed, flippant, “but of course we could not take heed of—”

He trailed off, at last noticing the twists of space that surrounded him. They widened, color and light shifting in ways that human eyes could not easily accommodate.

“What- What is that?” he asked, and for the first time sounded as frightened as he should be.

“As I told you,” I said, bowing my head respectfully as the first of the Pact-Makers came through, and receiving its version of a nod in return, “the only forbidden practice is to use another’s blood instead of your own. I told you that there were no circumventions of this law. I told you that there was always a price – the price of your own blood. And you,” I closed my eyes briefly to let an old echo of rage pass, “you did not take heed. You did not wonder if there was a reason. You did not suppose that you would have to pay the price.”

More and more Pact-Makers entered now, and I kept my gaze fixed firmly on their target. It was wiser to avert one’s gaze, with so many of them gathered together. To try to behold a crowd of them was to risk an unsound mind.

His eyes darted wildly between me and the Pact-Makers, the beginnings of a break already clear in his face. When he opened his mouth, sound emerged, but it was no longer intelligible.

“This one law of practice is absolute because the Pact-Makers do not allow an uneven bargain. When we make a Pact with them, it is to trade blood for power, and the only blood we can promise is our own. When we are robbed of the power that we contracted for, then the bargain is unfulfilled, and they will not allow that.”

His mind was not quite gone even if his words were lost, and he turned terrified eyes to me that begged for mercy as the Pact-Makers closed in.

I stared back, merciless. Today, I would see justice done.

“It may take them a longer time to find the perpetrator when you do not actually spill another’s blood and claim it as your own, but they can always trace a thief. When you murdered that young man for blood power? Then you became easy to find.”

He had kept that action hidden from all but a chosen, trusted few of his followers, of course, but for those of us connected to the Outside, the effects of such things reverberated and were known.

There was no more to say, then, and just as well. They were upon him, and a gurgling scream was the last sound he made. He did not have enough blood to pay all of his debts, of course, but they would extract every drop they could in recompense, and take what little could then be scavenged from his flesh and spirit.

I stood in respectful silence.

When the Pact-Makers had taken what was owed so that they could balance their Pacts as much as possible, they passed back to the Outside, some acknowledging me as they went. I gave my own respects in return.

Then, alone as I had been when I arrived, I turned for home.

I would make sure that the truth of what happened here was known. It would not stop everyone, and not forever, but for a time, we might all be a little safer in our work.