#flashfictionfridays

[landofspaceandrainbows]

Thx to @flashfictionfridayofficial for the prompt!

~

A continuation from last week's ficlet -

As he emerged from the pulsing heat of that place, Cap could feel a rush of strength returning to him as he dragged himself back to the surface, and back to where the starlight - and sunlight could hit his skin.

He laid his bundle of treasures in the small weeds next to his dented spacecraft. A few knobs of bluish-white crystal, bits of a deeper blue the people here called lapis lazuli. And a few treasures - bits of raw metal and a dirty yellow substance that thrummed with power. cap heard a bit of humming and smiled as his new "alien" companion laid out a bunch of veggies among the crystals. As he tossed a gem to them, he noticed - among the glow above his skin, most of it was still his usual red, but the sun-colored glow had changed to match this planet's sun. A bit of yellowish green dancing in the night air.

[landofspaceandrainbows]

TY to @flashfictionfridayofficial​ for the prompt

....

The substance leaking from the wound in his side pooled glimmering on the floor in little pools and splashes like molten silver, as he stood before the anvil.

The cave was warm, and the great hammer blows rang out across the deep cavern as the thing worked, and his words came out in between the blows of the hammer.

.  

"I. Can. Fix. One. Thing. For. You. Here."

.

The winged one looked away from the stalagmites and the great pool of molten ruddy orange to the sword, the orange light pricked on it's broken edge, he was starting to see how that edge was shaped in more ways than he could see before, from it's dull bar-of-steel origins to the complete sword it would be once again....

A feather dropped, from where his wing no longer was. He looked back at the blade. "Fix the sword" he said, "can you do that?"

The creature turned god knows how many eyes on him,  but the sword was lifted from his hands. And somewhere in some corner of his clockwork soul he felt a gear advance and some piece of the universe "snick" into rightness, although other parts were left wrong.

....

The Smith waited listening until the winged one had left, and gotten far, until he had left the planet and the last sound of his wingbeats on lava was nothing but an echo.

Funny little corvid.

His one leg dragging awkwardly across the floor,  he knelt down and dipped his palm into one of the glowing pools of bodily fluid.  The crippled smith stared at his hand gleaming like silver. He pinched the feather off the floor and used a scrap of wire to affix it to a necklace chain and toss it to the nearest small lizardfolk. 

"Oh Psyche, lord and lady of heart,” he spoke,  “do you mind if i borrow one of your people, she's needed?  Tell her one of those confounding sharp animals she likes will be involved if it helps?"

As he returned to his bench he cocked what passed as his head as if listening to s something.

Hammer. Hammer. Hammer. His voice rough from disuse, he muttered under his breath as he worked.

"I didn't say i would fix only one thing, this still counts."

Time was like that, precise and slippery at once. The winged one would have to learn to ask questions more carefully next time.  And mayhaps in time he would learn that. Those with The Beat in them tended to find it again.

[landofspaceandrainbows]

Seer of Time

ty to @flashfictionfridayofficial​ for the prompt!

Jade: See

in dreams she sees another sky nights of gold and clouds of white and through the clouds' smeared mirror dim she seeks the sight that lies within and makes her fingers memory of cretaceous times and what may be

and she winds another crimson thread to utter what is that lies ahead the visions go, the thread remains her fingers are a tangled rainbow skein and even the lady of shallott can, one day, in tomorrows webs be caught

and yet between the knotted ends she reaches a hand to loves and friends this secret only the rabbit knows that she will fall down before she bows

[landofspaceandrainbows]

Ty to @flashfictionfridayofficial​ for the prompt!

warning for captivity

He laid his banjo down against his lap and whispered a prayer.  He could just barely see the one whose sweet voice he heard, but his imagination filled in the details he feared, chained, and shackled fast to the big cypress on that far cay, his shirt torn, when he squints he thinks he can see the faint red flame of Mal's hair through the distance and the uncertain light. Finn lets the banjo fall, and his fingers reach out sideways towards where he knows his bow and arrow lies. The soft wet crackle of the arrow snapping reaches his ears.  His fingers fumble, seek another, find it, a quick grasp and bring it up to sho... the feeling of something, smooth and faintly cold and just a little sharp, rest pressed into the skin of his arm. He tries to tug his arm away, to bring it to his b... but it digs in deeper.  In fact there are many such somethings oddly perfectly spaced, and between them wetness. 

Finally looking up his eyes take in scales, like little mounds and faintly gleaming, white as milk, white as egret feathers, white as the spray on the waves the wind worries and in the eyes there are specks of distant stars.  "Thorondor" he whispers. 

 Finn slips onto the lord of all crocodile's back, his dark hair and skin glinting with gold blending in with the shaded waters, and the two strike forth for a rescue, hidden in the shadows.

[landofspaceandrainbows]

For the @flashfictionfridayofficial​ prompt “come back”.  Ty for the prompt.

 ὁμοφροσύνη (homophrosýnē) - noun,  “like-mindedness”

Penelope's fingers gripped tighter around the shuttle of black thread as she passed it through another loop of black thread, it's small loop joining the overall pattern in the swathe of black and gold lace, her spider daemon went scuddling between the strands, making rows of gossamer spiderlace that would be quick and easy to rip out, dissolving under touch. Falling away from the olive wood frame it stretched on, just like the graceful olive wood of her two person bed.

This prank would keep the suitors in the hall below occupied for another night She smiled, when it came to pranking, the two of them were simply the best there is.   She watched with a lift of something like joy, as the orb weaver also added elegant silken borders to the shroud, right now her legs working a gossamer eight-lobed knot into the design.

Meanwhile, on a boat out to sea, tossed on lapis waves, four eyes looked up at the stars and the glow of the soon-rising sun, the scarab beetle demons smaller but sharp eyes searching for the last vestiges of the milky way.  The man has left his charts aside for the moment and scribbles several constellation patterns into the wood of the boat.  amongst them is a lacy pattern, looking like a particularly symmetrical tangle but over time showing eight distinct lobes.

Many would look and see only a idle doodle, but for those who understand the language it speaks, the design says one thing within it's curves.  Spelling it out in a sort of alternative to letters: "Come Back to Me" . 

[landofspaceandrainbows]

Shattered Sunshine - aka The Shield of Echidna

thank you to @flashfictionfridayofficial​ for the prompt.  i’ve been thinking about this for a while actually, ever since some of my classicist (someone whio studies ancient greece and rome) friends pointed out that “sweet bro and hella jeff” works as the Shield of Achilles for homestuck. this is a follow up to the previous flash fiction friday story here

It dangled from a chain in her hand, a breeze of bitter cold wafted up from the strange cold object as it hung, faintly vibrating with the icy chill.  Colors and shadows crawled within it, and as Jade raised her arm higher and the object ascended, it passed into a beam of sunlight.

John squeezes her other hand, reassuring her as the shattered sunlight, razorblades dripping with the colors within the object, strike the frozen lake below.  He gasps and Rose and Dave let out a quiet half-breath as the razor-beams trace out the shape of a shield, concentric circles radiating outwards, on and in the lake ice.

In the center of the shield, the rays of light traced the contours of the clouds of Skaia, hidden among them and peeking out is the rayed sun and for some reason.... two moons?  One limed in green and the other traced in pale, eye-vibrating pink by a shatterd beam of light.... the faint suggestion of the checkered fields of the battlefield below them all, burned just faintly, slightly into the surface by the beams of light, more a suggestion in the pattern than anything.

In the next ring of the circle building itself below her in the frozen lake, there showed two great cities, buttresses, and spires reaching up in such perfusion it looked like a forest made of gems, in the great city of Prospit there was a celebration going on, perhaps a wedding?? the white king and queen holding hands and bowing their heads together, eyes narrowed in slits of joy.  And a great court of law, and along the edges, a relay race? a letter passed on to one small, skinny, lanky figure barely visible compared to the crowd elsewhere, with a bag over her shoulder.

In the city of Derse, the light carved deep it's shadowed streets, jade's eyes widened at the sight of drawn daggers and swirling cloaks catching them in defense here and there.  Elsewhere there was a hatemarriage, the black king present, not visibly smiling but somehow relaxation and pride showing in his stance.  A pair of lovers, white and black, trysts.... The great Derse choir wanders, and the beams of light carve the ice deep and subtle, over and over, to show the curves and subtleties of the shadows that would receive the usual silence and their song.

In a ring beyond the two great moon cities, yellow and purple, there is another ring,  a salamander farming mushrooms, a stream of lava being directed into a clockwork gear mold and a tool mold by some crocodiles, iguanas tending a poinsettias surrounded by waiting hummingbirds, turtles carving stone and tending to a cockle in a sandy dip.  A great herd of magnificent horses is guarded against a gear-chested lion by two dogs, snarling and fierce, with wings on their back and swords in their mouths.

A ring of mushroom orchards....

A slightly blue beam traces out the silhouettes of eight humans and groups of trolls and carapacians, heels kicked up dancing in the whirl of space.

And beyond, surrounding and embracing all, the horroterrors arise and fall in the great sea of the furthest ring......

[landofspaceandrainbows]

Though I don’t have a lot of time, a possible alternate ending for the Shield of Echidna/Cold Object series - based on this week’s prompt by @flashfictionfridayofficial​   :)

ty as always for the prompts, and happy pride month!

cw for mild erotic content.

It dangled from a chain in her hand, a breeze of bitter cold wafted up from the strange cold object as it hung, faintly vibrating with the icy chill.  Colors and shadows crawled within it, and as Jade raised her arm higher and the object ascended, it passed into a beam of sunlight. John squeezes her other hand, reassuring her as the shattered sunlight, razorblades dripping with the colors within the object, strike the frozen lake below....

She unwrapped the chill chain from around her frozen fingers, a imprint, like a silvery old burn, of it remained on her fingers.  Bits of lapis and peach, jade and lime, still clung to her fingertips.  With her other hand still wrapped in John's and Rose a formidable and comforting presence at her back, she flexed her stiffened hand and beckoned her friends closer. Dave hesitated, but soon he was was a similarly comforting presence before her, though he wouldn't always believe it. She leaned upward to kiss John only now noticing that his feet were no longer quite on the ground. She felt john's eyelashes brush little shivers against her cheek as rose's teeth bit into her shoulder.  a little bit of cobalt leaked from the scar on her hand and marked John with blue, and she suddenly Saw, that they would be a rainbow before the night was done.  

[landofspaceandrainbows]

ty to @flashfictionfridayofficial​ for the prompt

( cw violence )

She looked at the sky, again, and then out over to the huddled cluster of her "friends" nearby.

She still couldn’t quite get used to how the sky looked.

As she had just explained to the rest of them, when this process was done, another set of people would shoulder this burden, and they would be free, reborn in a earlier time, in a different universe, to accomplish their greatest wishes.

Right now she no longer felt much, but as she rubbed a little of her rusty blood off her arm she stared out at the growing spiral scratch of light across the music box's surface.  The very sky turning to points of light and static.  The music if this alternate universe slurring, slowing.  "This world's being blown out" she whispered, "make a wish."

She didn't know what the others wished for but she could maybe guess....  but as for her....

"I know a rust blood's life isn't long, but I'd wish to be there to look over the others,"

"and to watch out for Her Royal Witchness, i can't imagine she'd be much better in another life even grown up"

"and I'd like to get a chance to stab the one who did this in the face, if he even has one, and please,... I Beg You...."

* * *

In another life, in another universe, she curls up around the holes in her abdomen and slips free to join the chorus of the ghosts.

She sees someone familiar, and with a sinking feeling knows she will be able to hear her. "so do you want to help take him down?"

"Who?"

"The one responsible for all this."

"How?"

"The one who can harm him does not exist, neither does the world he’ll come from.... yet"

You sense another presence besides you, her future self.  She knows the next words to say.

"The wind blows all things clean, but the wind comes from the turning of the world.  Time moves all.  And responds to many hands, not just his.... And we?  have just come into possession of all the time in the world...."