Challenge #03076-H168: Freedom By the Press
Ok, I gotta get in on this one! :-) I’ve been reading your stuff for a while now and I’ve not had the courage to post, but this sounds like the plot to one of the DnD games I was in and it was great, so anyhow!
The person that came in had the same story that many of the others did. A tale of woe where they’d been convinced the King’s rules were why the person lived in poverty and pain. Why they came to the palace suffering of an infection that could easily be treated, and cleared up in less than a month, with proper medical care and treatment. This person is highly intelligent, skilled, and knew to listen before they struck, but also knew how to play dumb. But more than that, this person had their own spies, their own little network, and once they accepted the deal, learned the truth behind their old Lord’s lies, knew just the perfect way to expose their former Lord in a way that they, and the other conspirators, were dragged into the daylight. The entire kingdom knowing exactly what they did and who they really were.
https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-03036-h113-where-and-how-to-cut – Revenge
[AN: Well, shit, now I have to think of something that will work]
A great man once said, Murder is for the unimaginative. If you kill them, two things happen - first, they don’t learn anything. Second, you end up playing into everything they said you were in the first place.
There had to be another way.
The sixth knife came with intense eyes and the kind of thoughtful mien that made sensible mortals quake in their shoes. She was the one Knife that didn’t come with a weapon, but interviewed every single one of the extant five Knives and then made an appointment to join them.
She was the only one to investigate everything. The King asked her why. “Because the Lords keep blaming you, and those who go to right wrongs become your guards. There has to be a reason. The reason is… the lords are masters of horseshit.”
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
I’ve seen a lot of videos going around of urban-dwelling critters coming to humans for help with various problems, ranging from boxes stuck on their heads to young trapped down a storm drain, and it’s gotten me to thinking:
On the one hand, it’s kind of fascinating that they know to do that.
On the other hand, setting any questions of how this sort of behaviour must have arisen aside for the nonce, does it ever strike you how weird it is that we’ve got a whole collection of prey species whose basic problem-solving script ends with the step “if all else fails, go bother one of the local apex predators and maybe they’ll fix the problem for no reason”?
well, come to think of it, we’re at the top of the food chain but we almost exclusively hunt and kill prey out in the country.
raccoons and possums and foxes and crows all succeed in an urban environment because they’re opportunistic and observant. and almost none of them would have observed us pounce on one of their species and then start eating it, you know? a lot of them would have observed that we scream and chase them out of wherever we don’t want them to be, but other animals are territorial too. but there’s a number of situations where humans feed whoever’s bold enough to take them up on the offer, and we do tend to pull garbage off of other animals as soon as they slow down enough for us to catch. ‘a human got me but nothing bad happened’ is a much more frequent thing than ‘a human got me and tried to eat me’.
anyway like, we’re masters of our environment, we make weird shit happen all the time, we have lots of great food and sometimes we share, and we almost never eat someone. it makes sense for urban animals, over the last century or so, to just keep an eye out for opportunities to use us, and to pass the habit on to their kids.
It really is a weird, funny thing. Like yeah, technically they’re predators, and they get pretty screamy, especially if you try to take any of their stuff… but given the chance it seems like they’d rather help us out and sometimes they’ll just randomly give you food, so???
I mean, I guess in fairytales and myths we’ve got our fair share of stories about dangerous people/creatures who might well kill you or otherwise ruin your life, but to whom people nonetheless turn for help in desperate circumstances. So it’s not like the perspective is exactly a foreign thing to our own mindset, really… It’s just that, y’know, we can’t actually go make a deal with the faeries when there’s something we can’t figure out.
(Which brings me to an interesting thought about the ubiquitous rule about never eating the faery food lest you find yourself forever unsatisfied with anything in the human world - and the potential parallels to the dangers of feeding wildlife human food lest they become addicted and too tame and dependent to be safe for either themselves or us. Hmm.)
Okay, but that last bit with the Fae…makes almost perfect sense.
Of the stories I’ve read, the food of the Fae, its origins and effects, are often strange and/or obscure.- Just like our food to most animals.
The Fae are strange beings that seem to know weird things that give them power or an edge over us.- Just like us to animals.
The Fae work and live by strange rules also often nonsensical or obscure to us.- Just like us to animals.
The Fae can easily obtain vast amounts of things we consider rare/precious/desireable, and have no problem with dishing it out wantonly for no other reason than amusement.- Just like us to animals.
The Fae sometimes are amused by having us around, but only on their terms and IF it amuses/intrigues them.- Just like us to animals.
GUYS, I SENSE A PATTERN….
-they have arcane social conventions and the punishment for not paying the correct respects right is banishment, if you’re lucky, and death if you’re not.
-they have wild and unexpected parties where you’d least expect to find them, but if you’re bold enough to entertain them they’ll feed you and caress you and play with you all night.
-time runs strangely in their realm. their homes are summerlands: warm and bright, no matter the season. there is always fruit on their tables. but not everyone who comes in from the cold is let back out again.
-their games are cruel and complex and unfair, but if you can beat them by their own rules you will access riches beyond imagining.
-sometimes they just fucking fuck with you, the fuckheads.
-they will absolutely steal your children away. when your children return— if they ever do— they will come back strange. they will have magic earrings or necklaces or bracelets. they will know things they shouldn’t. they won’t know things that they should. your strange children might survive, might even prosper, might take wives and husbands and have children of their own. but they will always be marked by their time away from your world.
-the price for pissing them off is always death. sometimes just you. sometimes your whole community.
-if you are very good, and very smart, and very brave, they will grant your wish.
This actually provides a good explanation for why you have such inconsistency about whether their wish granting is benign or perversely twisted. They can’t fully understand you or your attempts to communicate either. They grant wishes the way you would grant a squirrel’s wishes: with lots of guesswork, assumptions, and projection.
And like that trope where they grant a wish perversely and then get mad at you or punish you for being ungrateful? Looks a lot less like utterly asinine unreceptivity to criticism and a lot more like how you might react if you try to help a wild animal and it bites or claws you.
(via geekhyena)
Challenge #03036-H113: Where and How to Cut
In a quiet meeting room several met. Each one of them carrying a blade. Each blade were of various conditions of care, or lack thereof. As had became tradition, these blades were exchanged amongst each other, no blood upon them, and then thrust into a soft wooden half-sphere that lay upon the table showing each hand was empty. They discussed why they came to the palace, why they had once wanted to kill the king. What they had learned from the King in their year of sitting at the side of his throne. Some of these individuals were much, much older now, with more than a few battle scars, and some, like Dag, were quite young. The lords were getting restless, it was time to let potential knives know what their lords were really up to.
A spin off of this prompt. https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02971-h048-tools-of-politics – The Knives
There were five of them now. Kris, Dag, Lundi, and the ladies, Pel and Fawn. All of them had created the Council of Knives with the King’s consent. Something was rotten in the realm, and each Knife knew where the fault lay. Their bloodless blades went into the knife block as a sign that they were not a danger to the king.
“The lords under the King want to live by their own rules,” said Kris, the first among them. “I’d wager it won’t be a month before another deluded young soul comes in the night with a blade of their own.”
Pel, who actually got past the guard of Knives, added, “It won’t be a month. These lords think that being a King is all of the benefits and none of the responsibility. Lord Baisingr, Lord Basingbrooke, Lord Felroth… he sent two of us. They lust for power and power alone. And there’s mine… Lord Dreev. He’s insidious.”
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
The fae smiled, sharply: “Give me your name, child.”
“Uhhhhh. Stick.”
“What.”
“Does Leaf work better? I’m just kinda looking around this clearing. Look, I’m trans, I haven’t decided on one yet, I’m throwing some spaghetti at the wall, you know how it is.”
Fae are born with features sharp and narrow, yet this one seems to soften as Moss looks at it. Its grin— sharp, teeth gleaming, its eyes— cutting, searching, the jut and pull of its jaw enough to scratch glass. It does not blink. Branch does not blink. It softens.
“I said, give me your name, child.”
“I still haven’t picked one,” Grass defends, even now still hoping for a way out of a faeries deal.
“No. But your parents did. Give me your name, child, and it shall no longer be yours. The entity of your name shall no longer exist, and you will be free for whichever name you choose— Leaf, or Stick, or Lichen.”
“…oh.” says Petal, and in the next moment a name falls from their lips. It is not their name. It never has been. The fae is sharp and cutting and witty, that moment of softness an imagined slight.
“Very well, child. Be warned of mushroom circles, should you lose your name again.”
“Okay,” Mushroom smiles, and the Fae pulls itself away from their reality in a swirl of feathers and silk.
When they go home for the first time in two months, their mother frets over them in a way she had not since they were a child, and she calls them by no name at all.
Goddamn. This is my favorite version of ‘faeries take your name’, that’s it, we can all go home now.
The fae said trans rights
(via katy-l-wood)
Challenge #02971-H048: Tools of Politics
The king’s new “Knife” has been there for several months. At the end of the year, he had absolutely no intention on using his blade. He understood, now, what was really going on, information he made very certain others knew, albeit, subtly as he knew there were those who were still like him out there.
Then in the night, another knife came, but instead of the king, they met the other ‘knife’ living within the palace. It was time for a talk.
I thought it might be fun to have one would-be assassin meet a former would-be assassin?
https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-02891-g334-a-precision-instrument – LongTalk
He lived longer than the year he had expected. He had learned far, far more than he had expected in less than a handful of months. Yet, all of this did not cure one thing that Kris had thought was another ailment in his litany of woes. He had trouble sleeping an entire night. Thusly, he took it on himself to guard the King’s hallways in the small hours in which he found sleep impossible.
That was how he met a young lad named Dag. He was a shepherd, if the piebald wool of his clothing was any indicator. Like Kris had once, this spotty teen was sneaking along under the cover of the night with a dagger in hand. The boy froze in the halls, trying to figure out who or what Kris was.
“Let me guess, Your Lord of the land sent you to right a grievous wrong. You think killing the King is going to save your fellows back home and you’re willing to lay down your life for that.”
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
Times are troubling and hard right now-but never forget, your Beet loving Grandmother loves you very very much and wants you to be safe.
And for you to eat your vegetables.
(via everqueen12)
Challenge #02922-G365: Danger in Ignorance
It is the modern era. Faerie folk and other such beings are considered nothing but old stories. But, sometimes, stories are real. She was born with the gift to see the supernatural for who they were even if they hid amongst the normal modern world. She could understand their languages no matter how old or obscure it was. And read their words. From the most ancient to the most modern. And yet, as she grew older, she learned this was something handed down from mother to daughter for generations. An ability now quite rare as most of those that once had those gifts were often destroyed or otherwise came to harm long before they could bear children. Her family being one of the last. – Anon Guest
There are places where a certain kind of person can glimpse into the Mythical. Some call them crazy. Some presume they’re on drugs. In recent centuries past, they called them witch and killed them without mercy. Those with more than a modicum of sense learned to pay lip service to the dominant way of thought, and whisper to their gifted young to not talk about that with anyone who wasn’t safe.
Of course I won’t tell you how to find them. There’s still people who will kill them for what they do. As for what they do? They stop incursions. They solve problems. They keep the peace. There are, after all, other worlds that others can’t see. Without those who can glympse, the world would be utter chaos. Well. More utter chaos than what’s normal for these days.
You wouldn’t expect to find a fae infestation in Bumblefudge[1], Kansas. Melanie blamed those “cutesy” fairy doors people added into their gardens for the “aesthetic”. Some people just weren’t careful about who they invited. Since this was an especially dry region, they had put it into a rock garden with some succulents. A blessed rock garden, for criminy’s sake! All you needed was the capstones and you had a standing circle! Right on the ley lines, too. Urgh. Karens were so gosh-darn fudging moronic sometimes.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02891-G334: A Precision Instrument
He sits upon a seat on the balcony over-looking moonlit gardens. From behind a curtain, a young man comes, blade drawn, to take his life. Oddly enough, while there were some guards, he actually waved them away and asked the lad to come closer so he could have a talk with the young assassin.
“I currently rule as king amongst my people. We have the Cardinal Law, ensuring that no one, no matter how poor they are, is left without at least good, wholesome, food, clean water, and shelter, even if it must come out of the royal treasuries to pay for it. And no matter how wealthy or powerful a person is, they are forbidden to mistreat the ones that serve under them. They are not allowed to refuse to pay their fair share of taxes just like I, and everyone else, does. Yes, I do pay my taxes, that’s only fair after all. We do everything we can to make life in these lands as pleasant as possible for our people. And yet even as you stand there with your blade in your hand threatening to end my life so another can take the crown, do you realize how little freedom this crown brings? The sacrifices a ruler must make lest their land fall to ruin? Where you must think of your people’s health, safety, and well-being above all else, even your own happiness? Tell me… do you truly understand the cost of a crown?” – DaniAndShali
“Lord Baisingr said you would lie,” said the would-be assassin. They spoke with a lower-class accent, suspiciously from the under-valued areas of Lord Baisingr’s own realm. The King suspected Lord Baisingr himself of using agents to agitate the people his sublaws victimised. Lord Baisingr was already under investigation by his peers, peers who understood the necessity of the King’s Laws.
“Did he tell you in person?” said the King. “Or have they passed along the message through other speakers?”
The would-be assassin scoffed. “Lord Baisingr is too important to talk to me… I heard everything by the Lord’s Bards. They tell the news. They tell people what’s important.”
“Nothing from the King’s Bards?” asked the King.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]