This is where I'm keeping stories that more or less stand on their own without being tied to another arc, although they may borrow characters from larger storylines.
1. Where Waves Begin by Memnalar, literature
Literature
1. Where Waves Begin
Since the day they destroyed the lighthouse, there were always fresh pickings on the beach. Tan's shoulders strained as he pulled the dragging-litter across the sand, leaving deep grooves over his footprints. He glanced back at the litter as he shifted the straps. A big haul, and not even two hours past daybreak. There must have been a battle at sea. Tan glanced at the horizon over the water, and wondered. Leader came stomping toward him, hit him in the jaw. Tan tasted blood. "You fall behind!" Tan could smell Leader's breath. He had eaten meat, and recently. Tan and the other Draggers had only hard, wormy bread and filthy water. "Keep up, or it's the whip." Leader grinned with red teeth, as he patted the black, oiled length of twisted roel-gut, wound into a tight coil at his belt. He loved that whip, like an extension of him. "Or," Leader's grin widened even more, so much that Tan thought the top of his head might split off, "Will you turn Killer today?" By now, the
In the end, after seven full moons, a dozen houses burned, and the bones of two-score villagers and seven unlucky knights had been strewn for leagues around, the farming clans took matters into their own hands. Heirloom silver from every house went into the smelter. Even the sullen, miserly old usurer was held down and fed whiskey until his silver molars could be pulled. They paid an itinerant bladesmith with as much coin, plum-wine and pelts as she could load on her wagon. They loaded the result of her craft into a huge, old siege crossbow left over from dozens of brushfire wars as this land changed hands from one king or another. And they waited until the next full moon, until they next heard the beating of leathery wings and claws skittering against the treetops. They would steel themselves with whiskey and plum-wine. They would aim for the center of the shadowy mass as it bent to feast. They would pray. Some balked at the plan of using the drunken moneylender as bait for
Before the War of Wizards, the Red Raven Inn was a legend on the banks of the Elsa. You could hear the skirling of the violins along the water for miles. Now, the strings were silent, and even the voices were hushed of a night, as everyone listened for thunder.
Tonight, they heard it.
"Shhh!" Old Cahill admonished the patrons, and held up his cane. As one, the grizzled farmers and river boatmen closed their mouths and looked up at the rafters. Barmaids paused, faces ashen.
Unmistakably, there it was, the distant peal of thunder. Of course, Cahill had been the first to hear. He always was.
Cahill frowned. "Girls. Set to. Close the windows
The children, as they always did, perched on the Stones for the Evening Telling. The Teller stood, face in white, Stick of Truths in his hands. When it was such, only the Teller could say stories and tell truths. All others were to stay silent unless called to respond. Even the Chief-In-The-Walls could not speak if he were in attendance, although tonight’s Telling was only for the children and Mums.
Behind the Teller, the Burning Mums tended the Telling Fire. It kept the Teller in silhouette, and the children’s faces sweaty with its heat, hotter than usual tonight. The girls especially scratched at the cloth over their mouths.
"You wanna see something cool, Peter?"
Marnie's hair was long, shaggy. She peered at me through it. Shy. Brown eyes behind black curtains.
Every time she said that, it was an adventure. Danny'd snicker at me. "Where'd she drag you off to this time, Pete? Catch a chicken and kill it? Pull the wings off butterflies?"
The whole town thought Marnie and her family were strange. Marnie was bullied at school. One time Danny shoved a cup of worms into her locker. Everybody thought that was real funny.
I didn’t. It was stupid. Marnie was just quiet. Her mom drank a lot, didn’t leave the house much. Her dad, well. He wasn't around.
In a special post-playoff promotion, the glass walls of the Cascade, the canyon of capitalism that formed the heart of the Gulf Orleans Special Administrative Zone, all went opaque. A drone swarm projected titanic images of bubblegum virtual-idol twins Akari Moment and Akumi Realize, excitedly blazing post-game analysis in chirpy, focus-group tested voices.
It was dawn, but the sullen, pink sun couldn’t compete with the perpetual industrial fog and the Akari and Akumi show on fire among the skyscrapers below.
Nuri tied back her hair against the buffeting wind, adjusted her respirator and popped out her right eye. She was tethered to
The stadium roof was a steel spider web, lit pink and red from above by digital sakura falling from a passing promo airship.
Nuri stood in silhouette against the giant springtime display behind her. Far below, pyros fired, bold colors reflecting from her left eye. A crowd roared. She shifted her weight, leaned against the metal support of the huge LEDs that craned over the stadium like wide-eyed insects. Final score. Somebody won, somebody lost.
Nuri clicked through her feed brought through her right eye. Money changing hands. She could see it pulse through the stadium like a heartbeat, fed through satellites, wire transfers, currency exc
Mister Curses was Gina's threadbare, stuffed black cat made of old t-shirts. Her abuela made him as a gift two Halloween-birthdays ago. Now abuela was gone, Mom was passed out again on the couch, and it was just little Gina, Mister Curses, the blinking security status panel, and the gunfire beyond the door outside.
She clutched the floppy cat to her chest as the shouting started. She didn't know the language, but it wasn't English and it wasn't Spanish. She'd heard it before, the men who ran the building they lived in and collected money or other things from Mom used it all the time. They scared little Gina. They scared Mom too, but she tri
She knew it made her father sad, how she always looked backward. Jenne would spend her time, when she wasn't studying, or even when she was supposed to be studying, face pressed into the eyeset, looking at the feeds from the left-behind telescopes that still made their journeys, like breadcrumbs between here and Earth.
Her sister would slap the back of her head, tsk, then say something about the boy she'd been talking to over the wave. That one on Charon, maybe. Seemed like a different one every time.
Josephine was a kid. She didn't remember Mom. She had no reason to look through Jenne's eyeset at the grainy feeds. Had no reason to glance o
It wasn't that May's parents didn't love her, or wouldn't miss her.
She could no longer go to school, and every tutor and nanny they brought home just couldn't stop chewing or move slowly enough to do the job. And the breathing. May's parents went through training, used circular techniques, never did anything strenuous around May. Diet, house, everything was a cushion. Nothing clicked, knocked, groaned or collided with anything else. May's folks had the act down cold.
But anyone else, no matter the training, always that one time they'd forget and sigh, and May would clamp her hands to ears and make that face. Her silent scream. Then the sho