anke

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

Thessaly had composed new songs since sailors had gotten wise to how to cross her sea unscathed.

Deep, dark, and slow like a whale’s heartbeat, her voice sank, and swept the seafloor. In the bright shallows the sand grew much-articulated legs as crabs were drawn to her and dug themselves out of their hollows. Further out, it was the big octopuses, tentacles streaming behind them as they hurried to find the source of the melody.

Thessaly shifted it, halting the animals’ motion. She would have to practise making them do what she wanted, but it was a good start.

I'm now halfway through the April A to Z challenge, with fiction with at most 100 words. The prompt "Mermaid" came from Lyn Thorne-Alder, "minions" from Ellen Million.

If you have prompts for later in the alphabet, please give them to me - I have 5 for Q, but none foe R or T.

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

“Who thought he would make a good judge?”

“What do you mean?”

“Quite apart from the fact that he is a mass-murderer and arsonist, shouldn’t a judge be level-headed, not prone to violent outbursts?”

“Oh, well, it works. Not many people oppose him. Or contradict him. People who have a mind do not want to make him angry.”

“And you put… that there as a reminder?”

“Makes for less violence all around.”

“A huge pile of skulls and one donkey-jawbone.”

“Look, he has obviously been chosen for the position by God, or he wouldn’t have managed ‘…that’.”

I'm attempting the April A to Z challenge, with fiction with at most 100 words. "G is for God Touched" came from Royce Day.
If you have prompts for later in the alphabet, please give them to me.

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

Kondarans! Arrogant, lazy... Mirab was an example of the type, being put out at the thought of having to learn a new language - it had never crossed her mind anyone would not speak her own. Teaching it had fallen on Daaren, and he was not about to complain about it, given that he had been another one of the strays the local keep was in a habit of taking in. The girl’s attitude grated on his nerves, anyway.

Mirab’s companion, Firo, seemed an exception from the rule, modest and diligent, and trying to mediate between the girl wrapped up in herself and the real world. It was he who suggested they could translate a story, for them to offer as entertainment and as thanks for the hospitality. The idea even roused Mirab’s interest.

“Oh, yes! A tale about Sir Garob!”

The name seemed vaguely familiar to Daaren. “What is he known for?”

“He was a knight who travelled to barbarian places to teach people to defend themselves. To teach them courage and honour. Only he and his page. How brave he was.”

“Ah. I heard stories that came from Harred.”

“That sounds like the place where he fought a bloodthirsty griffin.” Mirab was blind with hero-worship for someone she never had met. Firo was more perceptive, judging from the nervous looks he gave me.

Daaren nodded. “In Harred I heard tell of him. A Kondaran noble too stupid to care for his own horse or gear, so he had to have a boy following him and do the work.”

“Stupid?!”

“Or maybe lazy. Certainly, though, arrogant and stupid with that. He was set to killing a griffin that at the time hunted near the town. People tried to tell him it was a bad idea; there was a cyrnag with the griffin; they left the herds alone and occasionally traded with the people in Harred.”

The girl yelled something in Kondaran too slurred and rapid for Daaren to catch more than something about lies. He talked right over Firo trying to calm her down.

“I’m not making this up. I am telling the story as it was told to me. Do you want to hear the rest, or not?”

“Not.” She pouted, sulking like a girl half her age.

Firo tried to smooth things over. “Maybe we should try with the story of Saya and the good fairy. It is less long also.”

Mirab gave him a sour look. “You do it, I don’t care.”

“I’ve never heard of a good fairy.” The very idea raised Daaren’s hackles. But he did appreciate the boy’s efforts. “So tell me of those fairies you have down south.”

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

I walk through a forest, the cool breath of leaves familiar and soothing. For a short time a flowering tree’s perfume overpowers the subtler smells of soil and growth. It lingers.

It takes me a while to realise that the air changed afterwards, a trace of rot and fever tainting the air. Looking for a way back I see the colours and shapes have shifted. I could still name the species, but theyy all look like they have grown slightly off.

There is no trace of my passage, no way back. I swallow a lump that sits in my stomach cold as stone, and walk on. The forest is not big.

I notice brighter light just before I squeeze between two bushes that don’t quite touch yet. The clearing beyond smells of fresh green, and only the contrast with my last breath shows me how poisonous the air had gotten.

There is a waterfall veiling a cliff, feeding a small lake. I step to the water’s edge. There is no ripple, even though there should be.

I should not touch this.

I take a step back without thinking. My reflection rises from the water, smiling wickedly, its hands behind its back. It opens its mouth and I turn to run, behind me a trilling birdcall breaking from my reflection’s throat, loud enough to hurt my ears.

Something trips me. I try to get my feet under me, but there’s something around my ankle - a black hand. I kick at my shadow’s head as it gains dimension, but my foot passes right through it, kick at the fingers curled around my leg, but my boot passes through my shadow, only scraping my own skin.

My shadow, black but half-transparent, featureless, crawls over me and pins me down.

My reflection walks up to me, one foot in front of the other, and smiles. “Well done, sister.”
I buck and scream, but they ignore me.

My reflection brings her hands to her front. She’s holding two iron spikes and a hammer. I freeze in panic. To her my shdow has no substance, either; she bends down through it and drives one spike through my heart, into the ground. My heart stops, I can’t breathe, I can’t move; the world turns silent. All that’s left are my thoughts. Why am I not dead yet?

After stroking my face, saying gentle words, my reflection drives the other spike through my skull, in between the eyes, out of the back of my head, into the ground.

Time shatters. No thoughts, no breath, no control. Only pain and fear that will not end.

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

The wind howls in the hollow tower of Yeranem, mourful sounds like a dirge played on a bone-flute. Legend has it that's what it is.

The giant Halaefea taught mortals the secrets of fire and tools, and the gods of the Heavens killed her for what they called treachery. To make sure neither the other gods of the Earth nor the gods of the Underworld could restore Halaefea to life, they scattered her bones.

Around her spine grew the mountains of Vaenn, and now there are a thousand rumours concerning what could be found in the hollow where the marrow used to be.

Her ribs were scattered in the sea, forming the foundations for the atolls of Gwandeh, Jirael and Mdaeh.

The small bones of her hands and feet the gods of the Heavens scattered over the desert of Kyriemakeitikosh, where to us today each is a lone mountain.

Her long bones they kept for themselves. They carved a trumpet from her right thighbone, and spears for their Chosen from the bones of her arms and shanks.

Halaefea's skull, the house of her mind and soul, half-blackened from the wrath-fire that killed her, they put in the highest heaven, with the greatest treasure that is the sun, guarded by the great army of stars. Her clan can't conquer the heavens to save her, and she is out of reach of the ghost-talkers, even the Greatest Shade itself.

Her left thigh bone, now, Joraen, wanted for a weapon for themself, Koruen, wanted it as a hammer for their forge, Gesion for a flute. They argued among themselves and with their siblings, until Joraen started a fight, in the course of which an end of the bone broke off. Ayanaiss said they should send the bone back to Earth, pretending it a token of respect, and so it was done.

The thighbone struck the ground and buried itself deeply enough to stand firm as a mountain. The gods of the Earth, unable to exact their revenge, mourned their sister, and left her remains in peace, as is all gods’ custom.

Mortals found Halaefea's thigh, the strangest white mountain eyes had ever seen, and settled there, carving their first homes into the bone itself.

And, do you know, sometimes a ghost-talker will say when they stayed there, in the centre of the tower that is the heart of Yeranem, they heard echoes of Halaefea's life, in the wind howling in the hollow where her marrow had been.

Happened when the origfic_bingo prompt "tower" met me reading the title "Learning the Bones of the City" by Lyn Thorne-Alder

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

Don’t you hate it when you sit in your favourite bar and just want a drink and some quiet and someone asks “what’s up?” Fred was just the type to do that to me, and yesterday she followed it up with “Are you still chewing on that self-defence overkill thing from last week?”

“Nah, that’s up to the courts now.” I would rather not have thought about that one again. Imagine you come to a scene with one person with several broken bones, and another calmly waiting for the police, that is, me. There’s way worse, sure, but it’s damn creepy when the person waiting is full of bullet holes. Did they have to fold up a human to suitcase-size, if they don’t mind being shot?

“So what’s new?”

“I’ll quit.” Hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that.

“What?”

“I just can’t take it anymore. There’s those freaks you can’t stop. How do you put handcuffs on a ghost? I saw one shove a person out of a window today. Right in front of me. Couldn’t do a thing.” And it knew exactly what it was doing, giving me a grin and a wave before floating through a wall.

“Shit.”

“Right.”

That at least shut her up for a short while, but she started up again. “Still, most cases are normal crimes, nothing but regular humans.”

“Doesn’t feel like it, lately.”

Fred shrugged. “A blip in the statistics. Don’t rush things.”

I snorted. “If at least there wasn’t that much up in the air with civil rights for those freaks. There’s your problem right there. Call them human rights like you should, and it all becomes easier.”

Fred pulled a face. Her problem, she’d started the conversation.

I picked up my half-empty glass of beer again, and she kept staring at me while I drank, which got on my nerves. “What’s up with you now?”

“Just wondering if it’d make sense for you to join that new unit for supernatural crimes.”

“And handle more of that shit? Are you crazy?”

“They are looking into ways to neutralise, ah, unusual threats, and are bound to be the best informed on the general topic of all of us.”

Put like that it wasn’t that far-fetched. Still disgusting. Fred raised her hands, “Just a thought.”

“I’ll think about it.”

I’m still thinking.

Inspired by the prompt "A cop who keeps encountering preternatural creatures and incidents that make it harder and harder for him to do things "by the book," which he wants to do." by Elizabeth Barette aka ysabetwordsmith.
Sponsored by Tango

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

That little kerfuffle last summer? Yes, I had my part in that. I was a bit down on my luck and squatting in an old house down towards the river, and one night I wake up to yelling and banging - sounded like someone was trying to take down the door, which made no sense since it was not locked.

So I take the big flashlight and check, and find some girl leaning against the door from the inside, holding up the handle trying to keep folks outside from getting in. She looked at me, eyes wide like anything and glowing, close to a panic, and when a racket started up in one of the rooms, I didn’t blame her. Sounded like quite a few, so if half circled through a window…

“Move aside a bit.”

“They want me dead.”

“I noticed. Move aside, and get ready to follow me that way.” I pointed to the back of the house, and she nodded. I wedged one of my hair sticks under the door - it was the closest to a wedge I had on hand, see? It bought us a bit of a head-start.

She could have outrun little old me, no problem, but she followed me, poor little thing. That house was a really old one, with a root cellar with a heavy trapdoor, and it seemed like the safest place to me.

“There’s no way out!”

“Stay calm. We’ll just wait them out.” It wasn’t all that easy. We had to both hang from the ring on the trapdoor, but the weight of the three of us was too much. Folks from the mob gave us a break sometimes, when they needed it, but we had to pay attention.

“We’ll die here. We can’t wait them out forever.”

“Werewolf, right?”

She nodded.

“Not from here, eh?”

To that she shook her head.

“We don’t have to.” Just then another attack on the door distracted us. I’m glad gravity was on our side, really.

After a long while we could not hear anything going on outside any more, but then, as I said, the door was thick and heavy.

“I’ve been running and hiding for days; they just won’t give up.”

“And what day is it now?”

“Tuesday.” No idea, the little pup.

“No, in moon-phase.”

“Waning, half moon.” After a moment she added, “Only just past.”

“Thought so. See, werewolf hunting season is only half of the month, half-moon to half-moon.” She didn’t look like she got my point, so I said, “Between waning half and waxing half, you are a person, even here.”

“But not yesterday? That’s crazy.”

“Yep. But useful, right now.”

We waited a bit longer, just to be sure. But we did get away without a problem. I just had to find a different place to stay.

Based on the prompt "Waning Moon" by Eliza Gebow, combined with the prompts "eccentric" and "deadline" from origfic_bingo

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

The candle lantern was a heirloom that woke bittersweet memories. It had belonged to Kat’s grandmother, whom she loved. The loss still hurt, after all those years, but this little memento helped her remember the good times.

Kat would light a beeswax candle, its light still warmer through the yellow glass, its honey-fragrance mixing with the smell of hot metal and taking her back to evenings spent listening to her grandmother’s stories.

She would sometimes nod off. It was those occasions upon which the spirit of the lamp entered her open mind, mining for memories of lullabies and embraces.

The spirit brought them forth into Kat’s dreaming mind, rebuilding a shadow of the utter safety she had felt as a child.

It kept her seeking the lantern out for company, more when she was in need of support, vulnerable. Singing old songs no-one else would hear, the spirit took wisps of Kat’s life for itself, feeding its own essence. Knowing there was a risk the lamp would disappear in an attic or worse, it resolved to be careful, make her last, but she tasted so, so sweet.

The title was a prompt by Tango

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

“You don’t look happy.”

“And you know why. This is big. And messy. But mostly big.”

“Your first serial killer, eh?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?”

“She killed people and ate them. No wonder you’re losing your appetite.”

“Tch. Be serious, will you? Laws on murder predate the emergence of supernaturals. My client targeted vampires exclusively. They were already dead. That meets the definition of corpse mutilation.”

“Oh. Yes. Very messy… You might end up with being a vampire being a case of interfering with one’s own funeral...”

“The hell with it. It must be cleared up some time.”

Based on the prompt "A cannibal serial killer murders and eats vampires" by alternatesocks

Originally published at ankewehner.de. You can comment here or there.

Polishing the library’s outer gates was not Gwen’s favourite job, but it beat fixing a jumped elevator chain, to pick one random example. She would have preferred replacing the iron bands that both strengthened and decorated the portal with stainless steel, which did not require careful oiling to guard against rust that often, but, well, tradition.

Gwen was nearly finished with the right wing when she noticed she had company. One of those little fancy automatons. After a moment’s observation - the angle was not that good from atop the ladder - she noted it was humanoid, with spindly legs. That kind of built always needed extra magic for balance, which seemed like a waste of effort to her.

The robot was carrying a paint can and brush. It looked up at her before turning its attention to the door.

“Has anybody sent you to help?”

It did not answer, which was no surprise, and carefully applied some of whatever was in the tin to the iron bindings near the lower hinge. Gwen grinned. Someone had to have cooked up a varnish that the Guardians of Relics deemed sufficiently clear, or some other rust retardant.

Her eyes nearly fell out of their sockets when she saw the iron turn orange-brown and puff up lie pastry dough.

“HEY!” She flung the polishing cloth. It went straight through the automaton, which disappeared a moment later like a mirage.

Gwen climbed down the ladder and touched the blotch of corroded metal. Some flakes came off, most falling, the smallest sticking to her fingers.

She would have to start believing in the Rust Gnome.