Cori held up the Passus to Cornelia.
“We found it among the flotsam in the Lion’s Head Galaxy.”
Cornelia took the device, pressing her finger into it’s needle point.
“Such a troublesome thing,” she sighed. “If only they knew, it would do them no good to posses anyway.” Regardless she closed her hand around it and with a passing thought, it vanished again.
Cori gasped. “Wait!”
The hunt would go on.
Tom could never get past the grandeur of the Palace after he had been to it. It was as if everytime he visited he noticed a new marvel.
But as time pasted and he learned more about the Princess and Xyacotal, the way he looked at it changed. He used to be impressed, even envious of the gilded walls and rich decor. Now as he walked past jewel encrusted decorations he wondered, how many could this have fed? He pictured The Sticks and how the Palace could have easily housed everyone, kept them warm and fed, but was reserved for only a few.
A/N: This is very much a in-joke, just for me.
Khark rested his chin on his staff and sighed.
“You know what I miss the most about earth?” He asked idly. Tess was flipping through a newly acquired book, it’s pages crumbling even as she coughed at the dust.
“What?”
“Memes.”
Tess and Ber both stopped to look at him.
“Really?” Ber drawled. “Not the sun on the bay, or the sounds of birds in the forest, Sebith forbid!” He raised his hands, grinning.
Khark flipped his heels over his head and balanced on the stop of his staff. “No. I have all of that here. But trying to translate the delicate cross platforming of mutating a phrase or image until it’s a dadsist mess is goddamn impossible.”
Tess and Ber glanced at one another. “That’s… a fair point.”
Far below them Destiny thought she cold make out the distant sound of water running, but the hole in the world was so big and dark that she could not see any farther than a few feet below the sudden drop off the cliff.
She looked at Aku. “Has anyone ever been down it before?”
He shook his head. “Not to my knowledge.”
A powerful wind punched up through the hole and Desinty leaned back as her hair was tangled by it’s grasping fingers. She tightened her hold on her walking stick.
“But that’s where we need to go?” She asked.
Aku nodded.
Destiny sighed and stepped forward. “No need to wait then.” She stepped into the darkness.
“Halfway there,” Tom muttered through his gritted teeth. “Halfway.”
This did not make him feel much better. His laborious day stretched infront of him, like a mountain cliff, rising straight into the sky and demanding that he find the strength within himself to climb it.
He leaned back slightly, shivering as his back made contacts with the tomb like wall of the building behind him. He was cold down to the bone, the wind stabbing through his patched coat like a driven nail.
He longed for a cigarette, if nothing else to keep his chest warm from the smoke.
Tom straightened back up with a hiss as he was appracohed by a patron.
“Halfway. Halfway.”
Physically, Kara was lying on her roof, starlight beaming down on her, eyes half lidded and body sprawled like a tossed rag doll. But really she was buried deep in her own mind.
“Do you remember what made you happiest, when you were alive?” She asked Raven. In the shared space of their minds, they were having tea.
Raven frowned for a moment.
“I can’t really remember what was real and what I dreamed when I was in that box,” she said slowly. “But I think I really enjoyed flying.”
Kara starred. “You could fly?”
Raven flashed her familiar smirk. “Like the clouds, darling.”
Coin
A/N: Sorry for the gap, everyone. We shall now resume.
Jov was carefully balancing a coin on the tip of his finger. As Cori watch, he flicked it off and caught it, the magic flowing from his hands to surround the coin.
“How do you do that?” She asked. The space in front of them was cool and calm as the surface of a mirror.
Jov passed it to her and Cori focused on holding it up.
<If you learn how to spin it, I’ll give you a kiss.> Jov’s fingers flashed through the air. Cori turned her head away to hide her blush. The coin wobbled and fell.
“I’ll remember that,” she muttered.
“Have you ever noticed that every snowflake is the same?” Ade remarked to Ekkule. He held out his hand, red and chapped from the cold and wind. Ekkule leaned over it and watched as two of the flakes they’d been struggling to clear away from the squash patch landed on the back.
Both were exactly the same. A delicate five pointed star that quickly melted with into Ade’s skin.
“Curious that,” Ekkule said. He paused in his brushing. “Didn’t the Faith say that everyone is made different, though?” He looked up.
Ade was gone.
Jude held her phone up and scowled.
“No fucking service, are you kidding me?” She sat down on one of the rough brown stones that littered that mountain side.
“Camera still works,” remarked her new photographer. Jude didn’t bother with his name and simply thought of him as ‘Scruffy-Man’. “That’s all that matters, right?” He added timidly when she shot him a glare.
She pulled out her pipe and began to pack it. “I’ll be happier when we’re out of the mountains,” she scoffed. She realized he was staring. “What?”
He shuffled. “I’ve never seen an Elf smoke before,” he mumbled.
Jude rolled her eyes. “Then get used to it.”
Spectra remarked that she thought she’d met one of the Five, once.
“I’m not sure. It’s not like they wear signs around their necks. And obviously they all have about a billion representatives at any time. I mean,” she waved her paw at Clio and Monaco, “look at us.”
“But I think that it was someone who worked closely with Air, or maybe Air themselves.” She was quiet for a moment. “They were tall. Long hair. Just standing on one of the beaches, looking at the stars. It must have been over a thousand years now. I just remember thinking it was strange and asking who they were.”
Spectra barked a laugh. “They never did tell me.”
The Wandering Planet was passing through a space cloud. Every morning Salai woke to a horizon bathed in a shadowed rainbow, studded with distant stars.
He and Monaco would walk through the forests of thought, just staring through the crystalline treetops at the sky above. The shadows would refact the colors around them, making it like walking through a kaleidoscope.
“I suppose you haven’t seen the like,” Spectra remarked. She barked-laughed. “You and Monaco are still so young. And cute. And small.”
Even Eleonore seemed to find it beautiful, as Salai kept catching her on the roof, staring upwards.
“It feels as if I could fall into it.”
A/N: Tom is from a novel I hope to publish later this year.
When Tom was still a kitten, his favorite place was in the house library.
He would spend hours curled up in the chair next to the fire, looking through the books, at pictures and maps of faraway places. He’d read through the collection of scripts that his mother and father collected from the theater. He’d look through the window, dreaming about what his life would become.
After the theater had been bought and Tom’s life was changed, one of the first things to go were the books. In small stacks at first but by the end, the whole library was empty.
Now, while he was teaching Clyde to read, Tom couldn’t help but think back to that sheltered room and miss his books.
Mabarina didn’t understand when Barty gave her the ring.
“It’s shiny,” she remarked and tried to hand it back to him. He curled her hand around the silver band.
“You gave me a name. I give you the ring,” he explained.
Mab looked at the ring with renewed interest. She held it up and looked through it.
“For our union?”
Barty beamed up at her and she just had to reach down, grab his horn and kiss him.
“The inside summons a dagger,” he gasped when she released him. “But only for you.”
“My only love, you know me so well.”
Destiny liked the ocean. She had never been, in all her sixy some years of living. She liked the feeling of the deck vibrating as the waves crashed against it and the rhythmic swaying under her feet. It reminded her of a dance she knew, long ago.
Aku did not seem to agree, from the way his knuckles blanched against the rope he curled around his hands. Destiny clucked at him.
“You’ve been around the world more than I have, friend! You should be used to it,” she said.
“The sea is not a friend,” he barked at her as Destiny leaned over the side to look into the water. “I’ll not come after you if you fall in!”
A/N: This is world building for my romance novel series. Yeah. I said it and I meant it!
Lex was only four when his nurse maid took him out of his cradle and outside. It was a warm night and he only shivered and fussed when she put him barefooted on the ground.
“Hush, Lexxy. Look!” She pointed up and Lex craned his head back.
The Night Eye was only beginning to open. The silver light slowly grew until the whole orb was round, peering down at ground.
His nurse took him on her knee and bounced him. “That’s Orbis, Lex. He sees us all and we are his charges. So long as you can see his eyes, the Unseen can never hurt you.”
Magpie Jones had always found it difficult to ask for help.
Even when they were in primary school it was hard to admit when they needed someone else to step in and assist. Once Mags had done an entire biolab by themselves, forgoing sleep for forty-eight hours.
But now, with a castle full of the previously dead, Magpie had to admit they could use a shoulder to lean on.
“Hey, how long have you been here?” Aspen poked Magpie in the shoulder. “Have you slept?”
Magpie smiled. Having someone looking out for them wasn’t so bad.
Clyde noticed that Tom loved sweet things. He took maple sugar in his tea. He preferred honey nut sauce on his sauteed worms. Clyde caught the cat looking into windows of confectioners windows.
It seemed natural to get him the small bag of sweets. Clyde didn’t even think about why he did it.
“What’s this?” Tom asked, taking the bag and opening it. He let out a trilling purr. “Green drops!” He popped a few into his mouth, crunching loudly. “Thank you Clyde.”
Clyde could feel his tail begin to wag. “We have the rest of today to get through. Thought you might be hungry.”
He thought Tom’s bright eyed look was much sweeter than any candy.
Mairon held up the necklace from a cart she was unpacking.
Lex ran his fingers along the chain, reaching down to cup the large ruby pendant.
“This is lovely,” he said.
Mairon scrunched up her nose. “It was a gift. Or more like a payment.” Her words came out stiff and quiet. “It was from Scarma.”
Lex touched her cheek. “Would you like it sold? You do not need any kind of jewels to add to your beauty.”
Mai laughed and reached up on her toes to kiss him. “I rather it be donated.”
Sports
A/N: Even in the year 3000, Italians are smug about football. *Shrugs*
“I literally do not believe this is a thing anyone does for fun,” Maximilien panted. He was flushed, hair sticking to his face and neck, highlighting the scar around his throat.
Leonardo, the damned show off, was easily manipulating the ball with his feet, making it jump twist between his ankles like an affectionate beast. He laughed.
“I do! It’s deceptively simple, but takes an enormous amount of dexterity and endurance.”
Maxime made a face. “I have plenty of endurance!” He snapped, but groaned when Leonardo began walking backwards, taking the ball with him.
“Oh yes? Then why don’t you come get me, Maxime?” Leonardo grinned.
Peace
A/N: Spoilers? For AFAU? Maybe? Who knows!
“What does peace mean to you, Major?”
Chikara Haruka looked up from her desk. Miller was sitting next to the window, her mismatched socked feet resting on the window still. Outside the night was clear and bright.
“What?” Chikara snapped.
“Peace.” Miller held up her book with a smirk. Some ancient Russian novel. “I’m trying to have a discussion with you.”
Chikara snorted. “My peace would be a world without people like you in it.”
Miller held a hand to her chest, pantomiming despair. “Rude!” She laughed. “To be fair, I agree with you. The world would be more peaceful, but less interesting.”
Stories, both long and short. 