#ddrp2026

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Daily Drabbles for 6/11/26 - 6/15/26

6/11/26 Of course, my stories won't be good for anything if I cannot figure out how to get Captain Dash out of the predicament I've placed him in. Whenever I am stuck on a scene, or on any problem really, I find that taking a moment to focus on other things and then coming back with a fresh mind is most helpful to finding a solution. It seems contradictory that thinking less, rather than more, on a problem should yield better results, but the human mind is a strange thing. I'm sure that I will find a way to save Dash.

6/12/26 It took over half the night, an alarming amount of alcohol, and far too many embarrassing stories about Sim's youth told to his peers before Dan was finally willing to open up about why he had come to see Sim. Sim was right, it wasn't about birthday month and it was big. Dan was worried about their big sister Tes. She'd kept in touch with Sim when he'd first started school, but her letters had been coming fewer and farther between over time. Sim hadn't actually heard from her in months. Neither had Dan apparently. He was worried about her.

6/13/26 The mountains were nothing but menacing to Kella now, but she couldn't leave them. She had dug up every record she could find on who owned the land on the mountain where Anzo and Sefu had died and found nothing. The small towns and villages at the base of the mountain were still reporting the same strange disappearances and sicknesses that had sent Kella and her companions up the mountain in the first place. The only thing Kella knew now that she hadn't before was that whoever was behind this was more than willing to kill to keep their secrets.

6/14/26 After all the trouble he'd put her through, Tiffany thought she'd get more enjoyment out of Detective Raven needing her help. He was just far too calm about the whole thing. Completely confident that Internal Affairs would come to the right conclusions and that he had nothing to worry about because he hadn't done anything wrong. While Tiffany did actually believe that Raven was innocent, she didn't share his confidence that his colleagues could be trusted to help. Neither did Raven's friend Chaz apparently. He was the one who had hired Tiffany, though she wasn't sure he could afford her.

6/15/26 The zombie uncle had immediately turned into a zombie the way Howard had suddenly found himself with magic powers. Howard and his uncle had lived pretty normally for a while, actually. Then a passing hoard of zombies had caught Howard's uncle off guard while he was outside tending to his rose bushes and he had been bitten. Howard had tried to use his magic to save his uncle and while he didn't stop him from becoming a zombie, at least he still had his mind intact. According to Howard his uncle was the same as before, just a little slower.

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Daily Drabbles for 6/6/26 - 6/10/26

6/6/26 The Hill Folk were a troupe of fairies that traveled the countryside luring in the unsuspecting with their music. Those who heeded the song of the Hill Folk were likely to be never seen again. And even those who did find their way back home were almost certain to soon die of wasting disease. The Hill Folk used to come around Kettlebrook county once a century or so, but with the growth of towns and cities their territory had been shrinking such that they could be expected about every thirty years now. It was getting to be a real problem.

6/7/26 Ella and Jack started out as competitors on the same heist. They were both after the same treasure. Some sort of golden trinket I think. It's not important. The point is they both wanted it and they were determined to get it before the other one did. They led one another on a merry chase for some time as they traded the gold back and forth between them. And all the while they were busy stealing it from each other the police were completely unable to help the original owner. He'd lose much more once Ella and Jack teamed up.

6/8/26 Sara was glad to have Elaine on this expedition. Elaine was a wiz with ancient and dead languages, if anyone could figure out if the carvings on the pillars were just decorative or some kind of language Elaine could. Arthur was also nice to have along on adventures because he was very good at carrying heavy things. No, but Arthur was very good at keeping their very modern equipment in working order and up to date. There were a lot of machines Sara used to analyze the many samples she took and Arthur understood exactly how all of them worked.

6/9/26 Emily was still getting her bearings in the local politics of Chestnut. It was an old town with a long history and longer memories from the older residents. There had been pushback against the hotel back when Emily's grandfather had first tried to build it and of course that resistance had returned when Emily came to town to try to finish what her grandfather had started. Folks were worried about Chestnut becoming a tourist town and driving out the locals with rising prices as rich vacationers took over. They'd all seen what had happened to Aspen Creek two valleys over.

6/10/26 Simone was kind enough to offer to drive Janet to her uncle's house, even though he lived a little ways out of town down by the Carter Preserve, and well out of Simone's way Janet suspected. Janet had been waiting long enough now that she was pretty sure her uncle wasn't coming to pick her up at the bus stop though, so she decided to take advantage of Simone's friendliness. Besides, it was nice talking to another girl her own age. Janet already really liked Simone and was glad that she'd know at least one person when she started school.

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Daily Drabbles for 6/1/26 - 6/5/26

6/1/26 The giant salamander men (Salamen, if you will) were perfectly normal other than the fact that they were salamanders. They spoke English just like normal people. They wore normal clothes, albeit modified to accommodate their tails. And while they were giant for salamanders they were about the same size as regular humans. They even talked about normal boring adult stuff while they played normal basketball the same as where Joe was from. Joe found himself both fascinated and slightly terrified by them. Sure, giant salamander men (or Salamen rather) sounded cool until they were standing right in front of you.

6/2/26 The forest wasn't so kind to Pippers as she raced back towards the palace grounds. She tripped over roots and her dress snagged on branches. Squeakers was squeaking like crazy. Pippers held on to him tightly. She didn't want to lose him in the woods. As Pippers reached the edge of the trees she slid to a halt and stared in astonishment. The palace was on fire. Great orange flames poured out of the windows, reaching up to the sky in alarmingly tall pillars. There was a lot of movement around the grounds, but Pippers couldn't see her family anywhere.

6/3/26 Proper funding and basically unlimited authority had gotten Evander a lot farther in his quest for the Artifacts than he had ever gotten on his own, but being at the beck and call of the Empire did get annoying sometimes. Especially when they sent him on assignments with Col. Those were always the worst. Which made it all the more annoying when the assignment itself actually sounded promising. There were rumors that Dragonslayer, the emperor before Eligus, had found one of the Artifacts himself, and now someone had gone and dug up the son of one of Dragonslayer's old companions.

6/4/26 Halley skated down the busy street on her roller blades. Angry adults yelled for her to be careful as she swerved around them without slowing down. Fortunately, the foot traffic started to thin out the closer to Val's shop Halley skated. Val lived and worked in a quieter part of Foundation, off the main streets. There were also plenty of empty lots great for skating around. That's how Halley had met Val originally. She had been out skating and found the repair shop. Which ended up great for them. Halley was as good with software as Val was with hardware.

6/5/26 Zaku crossed his arms and glowered out the window of the van as the desert hurtled by. He was still sour about having to let those bandits just get away like that. He was also feeling sour about Eyuna stealing the front seat from him, but he didn't want her to know that so he complained about the bandits again. Even though he knew Mo was right and there was nothing else they could have done. The next time they stopped for gas they could call the local cops, but that was about all they could do. It really sucked.

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Daily Drabbles for 5/26/26 - 5/31/26

5/26/26 Lucky was annoyed but there wasn't much he could do about it. The mountain would wait for them to figure out that it was their best option. No one from Golf was going to take it. Lucky was confident in his ability to reclaim it from anyone who tried to move in while he was out getting his people back. He wouldn't bother arguing with them. Well, maybe he'd argue with Denise, but just for fun. Lucky would follow them to Echo and all the other bases if that was what it took. They'd come back to the mountain. Eventually.

5/27/26 Aubra hadn't meant to kill her. She had only wanted to cause a distraction. Aubra and Crobus had spent weeks carefully planning their escape. Crobus was the one who had figured out how to get their hands on the explosives. Aubra was the one who had planted them. She may have overdone it a little. There had been two explosions. One for a distraction, and one to break open the prison walls. The distraction was where things had gone awry. Or gone horribly right maybe. Either way Aubra really hadn't meant to drop an entire building on their wicked warden.

5/28/26 With Riley's boss turning up dead there was nothing they could do to keep the police from getting involved. And of course like the idiots they always were the police decided that Riley or Sonia or both of them had to be guilty because they knew too much. Sonia didn't have much faith in the cops figuring out this one. Especially since she was still pretty sure that Riley's boss had killed someone and finding them was the key to solving everything. It would be tough though since Sonia was the only one who even believed in this other victim.

5/29/26 Arid and Sanity wandered aimlessly around downtown in the waning evening light as they chatted casually with each other. Sanity kept Arid up to date on all the local politics and gossip on the mountain. Arid kept Sanity up to date on the latest litter of piglets and how they were getting on. Most of the breeding sows on the farm had already had their litters for the season, but one pig had delivered late so Arid was able to give them extra attention. Sanity was always enamored with the piglets. Arid had to remind her how big they grew.

5/30/26 Jack wasn't sure that fudge counted as a candy, but he wasn't about to say anything about it to Candy. Jack was hopeful that the fudge was just the beginning of Candy branching out into a whole world of sweet treats. There were baked goods of course, pies and cakes and pastries and things. Jack wouldn't mind tasting Candy's take on those. Personally though, he was hoping to get her into frozen deserts. Ice cream and sorbets or whatever would be nice. Popsicles would be better. Snow cones would be best. Jack thought that would be perfect for them both.

5/31/26 The world was a ghost in the dawn's early light. Pale and ethereal. The half demolished stucco buildings rose up like monoliths, standing silent and empty over the deserted city. A slight breeze blew sand and debris across the cracked and parched ground. Strips of torn fabric hanging from windows and doorways fluttered softly. In the distance gunfire and explosions rattled and boomed in a constant rhythm through the air. But only in the distance. As golden rays slipped over the horizon and ignited the rooftops in a warm glow birds flitted about on budding branches singing their morning hymns.

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Daily Drabbles for 5/21/26 - 5/25/26

5/21/26 Blake had noticed that there were a lot of things his mother didn't like to talk about. Anything to do with her past for starters. She had all these friends from all over, but Blake had no idea how she'd ever met any of them. For his whole life she'd never left the village they lived in. She never even showed any interest in going anywhere else. Despite Uncle Rico's frequent invitations for them to come visit him in his home country. For a woman who never left home a lot of people from all over seemed to know her.

5/22/26 Moe shook Trix out of her trance. Things were still in motion out on the track, but Chance was just sitting in a wrecked kart in a ditch in who knew what condition. The race workers were already on their way to them, but there were a lot of crashed karts to get to and Trix knew just how bad things could get after an accident like this. If it was an accident… Trix shook her head and followed Moe as he raced towards Chance. She couldn't let herself think like that. Sometimes these things really were just accidents. Sometimes…

5/23/26 It just wasn't fair that the class Cara was most interested in was taught by the worst teacher in the whole school. His name was Jackman but everyone had another name for him they used behind his back. It involved adding a rude word between the Jack and man in his name that was reflective of his temperament. Jackman also seemed to have it out for Cara specifically for some reason. He was way harder on her than he was on anyone else, and he never let her get away with anything. Cara was determined to pass his class anyway.

5/24/26 Between the Dark Riders and Dice, if there even was a difference, it was looking impossible for Maxine and Dan to make it back north. It also didn't help that neither Dan nor Maxine knew the area. Even Dan had never been this far south before. They were trapped in the middle of Dice's territory and they didn't even know where to hide. And while Dan was against the idea, Maxine was starting to realize that they were going to need help from a native if they wanted to make it out. The problem was finding someone they could trust.

5/25/26 Jordan was distracted from whatever the weather doing by his phone blowing up with texts. Austin had texted to ask if Jordan knew anything about some crazy stuff going on downtown. Jordan did not know anything about that beyond what vague details Austin had just shared with him. Then Taylor of all people had also texted Jordan. He didn't even know she had his number. They'd always been friendly but never really friends, though they had both gone to the same summer camp years ago where Jordan found his crystal. Taylor also had one and apparently hers was glowing too.

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Daily Drabbles for 5/16/26 - 5/20/26

5/16/26 After a while Tori started to feel bad about leaving Hugh alone to deal with the masses. Not that he wasn't enjoying himself, but it was a holiday, and Tori was sure that he had wanted to spend time with her. The Gomez costume was kinda sweet even if it was cringe. Tori supposed she could put up with a little humiliation in the name of the Halloween spirit. Tori was mildly embarrassed by how easy it was for her to throw together a Wednesday costume last minute. She needed to either give up being goth or get over herself.

5/17/26 Vina paused at a fruit stand with Delia who kept picking up apples and then putting them back down without choosing any. Vina glanced back at Arsus and Libo. Libo was standing at attention and scanning the crowd while Arsus was casually chatting with another vendor. Vina smiled. Arsus may have been new in town, but it seemed like he already knew everyone. He could probably tell Rea and Thano apart. Vina called him over. Supposedly to help with picking out fruit, but mostly she hoped that his relaxing presence would help Delia calm down and open up a little.

5/18/26 Tabby and Marcus worked on their homework for a while. Marcus always insisted that they put school first. Tabby didn't really care, but they didn't have anything else going on at the moment so she went along with it. She'd become a much better student since she started hanging out with Marcus. He could never relax when he had a school assignment hanging over his head. Although, he had a hard time relaxing even when he didn't. Sometimes Tabby suspected Marcus enjoyed being stressed out. Like he didn't know what to do with himself if he wasn't worrying about something.

5/19/26 There was plenty out there in the night to go bump. Most of the time Poppy wasn't too worried about any of them. Crazy Great Grandpa Harry had taught his family well. Poppy had the store pretty well protected against the most dangerous stuff. She kept herself pretty well protected too. She had her mint tea that she was always drinking, and besides her pepper spray she also had a spray bottle of salt water. She kept a big spray bottle of salt water behind the counter in case of emergency as well. 'Ocean' water worked great against most creepies.

5/20/26 After how long it took to actually get inside the place, Sark had to say he was a little disappointed in the shrine. It was all stone pillars and uninteresting tapestries. Even the magic orb was a bit of a let down. It was just a big glowing glass orb sitting on a stone dais in the middle of the shrine for everyone to see. Sark didn't get what the big deal was. The old men had mentioned something about the orb protecting the town or something but Sark had not been paying attention at all. It was probably fine.

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Daily Drabbles for 5/11/26 - 5/15/26

5/11/26 It's strange to me how people in town talk about the war. Like it's some far off minor skirmish that has nothing to do with their daily lives. And really, it doesn't. Life carries on in the center of the empire as usual. Only those at the fringes feel the full weight of the war. Having spent three years in the Occupied Zone I can safely say that it is no small thing. Sometimes I worry that my Captain Dash stories only further trivialize the war, but mostly I hope that they bring awareness to what's really happening out there.

5/12/26 Sim wasn't sure why Dan had suddenly decided to visit but he knew it wasn't for birthday month. They hadn't celebrated birthday month since they were twelve. Not properly anyway. Dan hadn't reached out to Sim at all since the siblings had parted ways a couple of years ago. He hadn't even written him one letter in all that time. For him to go to the trouble of actually coming all the way out to meet up with Sim in person, there must be something big that Dan wanted. Sim just had to wait for Dan to finally tell him.

5/13/26 Kella's physical recovery didn't take long. A couple of bullets had grazed her in the firefight and she'd picked up some nasty bruises from getting knocked around by the river, but somehow she'd managed to avoid anything worse than that. Once she'd had some proper rest Kella was back on her feet and fit for more fighting. Physically anyway. After the loss of both Anzo and Sefu, Kella found she had little motivation for fighting. Or anything really. She had nothing but a vague desire to understand what had happened up on the mountain and how everything had gone wrong.

5/14/26 Tiffany had never believed in coincidences. Not suspicious ones anyway. So when it started to look like the universe had it out for senior prom Tiffany was more inclined to think that outright sabotage was what was going on. And Tiffany wasn't about to stand for that. Prom was her one chance to be a normal teenager for once in her life. She was going to wear a pretty dress with high heels and have fun with her friends. Maybe even dance with Sean… If Tiffany was going to figure this out she needed to start thinking like Lana's dad.

5/15/26 Howard, the wizard, turned out to be pretty chill actually. Once he was sure that they weren't going to kill his uncle, the magazine reading zombie, he was happy to welcome them. Raleigh got the sense that he hadn't had any visitors for a very long time. The house, it turned out, belonged to the zombie uncle and Howard had been over playing some kind of tabletop role-playing game with friends when whatever happened (magic spell gone wrong, alien invasion, tear in the multiverse) happened. Howard, who had been playing as a wizard, had somehow ended up with magic powers.

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Daily Drabbles for 5/6/26 - 5/10/26

5/6/26 Most of Andrew's work so far had been in hunting down and dealing with magical pests. Mrs. Perry had pixies in her garden. Farmer Wiggins had gnomes. The Albertsons were certain that there was a snipe in the woods behind their house, but Andrew wasn't sure he believed it. Speaking of the woods there were the wood elves that apparently only Hazel knew how to deal with, and besides them were the glen fae who were a lot more traditional and you had to be very careful what you said around them. And that wasn't even mentioning the Hill Folk.

5/7/26 He called himself Jack so I suppose I will too. We fairies know how it is with names. And he had a bit of a look of a Fairy's Blessing about him so he had to be careful. Not so fair as you'd expect, but he was tall; one of the few who were actually taller than Ella. I think that might have been why she liked him so much. That and he was as big a troublemaker as her. They were a profoundly bad influence on each other. They enjoyed any evening that ended in running from the police.

5/8/26 Sara could have studied the pillars all day, but she was interrupted when Elaine and Arthur caught up with her finally. They had hung back while Sara made sure the booby traps were all safe, although considering how old the temple was it would be a miracle if any of the traps still worked. Which is what Sara always said even though it wasn't always true. Some ancient civilizations built their traps to last. Sara thought that was fun but Arthur and Elaine did not, so Sara couldn't really blame them for hanging back. But she could still tease them.

5/9/26 Emily liked to think she was open to the idea of ghosts. She was never one to be dismissive of somebody else's experience. But now that she was starting to have her own experiences the existence of ghosts was the last thing on her mind. It just seemed more logical to her that someone was trying to mess with her than that her grandfather's half-finished hotel was haunted. It had never even opened. He'd stopped working on it because he'd run into financial problems. There was no reason for it to be haunted. Sabotage was a much more likely explanation.

5/10/26 The thing Janet was most surprised to learn about Fellwood Falls from Simone was that the Carter family, her uncle mainly, was supposedly loaded. They owned most of the land around the town and had even founded the Carter Preserve. A large expanse of woods that was mostly wilderness but included some well known hiking trails and the eponymous Fellwood Falls. Aunt Bess had never mentioned any of this to Janet before. She had certainly never acted like they were rich. Probably all the money had gone to her uncle. Either way, Janet was even more nervous to meet him.