(#00029)

Rael had seen Augments before. Animals that humans normally called pets were genetically altered to be smarter, more able to do the things that humans did. They rankled him, but they were legal. Most were companions and helpers.

A very rare few were ability aids.

The female pushing the trolley bore no external signs of being less than fully able. Until she spoke.

“I want chocolate milk you’re in the way.” Each word fired out rapidly next to the other without emotion or inflection.

The augmented St Bernard by her side said, “We say ‘excuse me, please’.”

“Excuse me please.”

Rael moved himself and his burdened shopping trolley out of the way.

The female human lunged for the chocolate milk.

“Ah-ah. No-no,” said the St Bernard.

“I been good I want chocolate milk.”

“Sometimes food. You must brush your teeth more.”

“…'es, Nana. Sorry, Nana.”

There was a story there, of course. Everyone had a story. It was rude to pry and demand to know what it was. He knew more than one person who had  an Augmented pet as their only family. After the disaster of his first encounter, he made a habit of being the part of the community that stopped by to see if they needed any help.

Rael got his press-pak bricks of polenta and caught up on the couple, now having an argument over another treat.

“Excuse me, ladies?” Rael offered his card. “I’m available at discount rates if you should need help.”

Nana the St Bernard took the card with a, “Thank you. I appreciate the offer.”

“Your coat is pretty,” said the human.

Rael thanked her and went on with his day. Nana had been tailored, he had no doubt, to help a female somehow stuck at a particular progress level. All things considered, the dog had more rights than the human she was assisting.

Things had gone a long way since Gaspode, the first Augment in galactic history.

He, too, had been made to help someone who was not, strictly speaking, completely cogniscent. Human and dog, the pair made one functional entity.

Rael wished them every luck they could obtain.

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Challenge #00028: Don’t You Cry, Baby Mine

The sun shone brightly despite the time of year, but its warm rays brushed uselessly against heavy curtains. Inside the dark room, a father held his baby in his arms and prayed that the child would find peace. (darkfoxglove)

Sergei Darkholme, better known to the world as Azazel, wept for his son. He had his father’s tail and pointed ears. His mother’s blue skin. Less fingers and toes than normal, but he was healthy. Alive.

And stuck like that.

Raven stopped at the threshold. “Is he–?” she whispered, terror clear in the tiny squeak of her voice.

“Nyet. He lives. I have done tests. He has not your magic.”

“You can disguise yourself when you want to, why–?”

“He can not. He will never be able to. The way he is… he will always be. Blue. With tail. Uh… I forget english. The three fingers.”

“Tridactyl,” Raven supplied. He could see it in her face. She was just picturing what her ‘brother’ Charles Xavier would do to their son.

“Da. Spacibo.” He also knew what was likely to happen to him if Erik got his hands on their little boy. “What do we do? What can we do?”

“I have a friend in East Germany. Irene Adler. She… she sees the future. She’d be able to tell us the best thing to do. To… to make sure he’s going to be okay…” She joined him by his side, embracing the little boy who was positive proof of their love. So new. So tiny. So clearly in danger from the first breath he took.

“We will have to take back roads.”

“Yes. I’ll write her and let her know we’re coming.”

Their baby wriggled and yawned in his arms. “Your name is Ivan Darkholme. And no matter what happens… you are loved. Remember that, Ivan. Remember.”

He had his mother’s yellow eyes. And the owlish stare of babies the world over. In that, at least, he was normal.

Whoops…

I went to do my daily instant story for y'all, but…

I don’t have any prompts!

Help! I need some muse food, stat! Everyone who can see this, submit something! Ask something! Give me something to write a story with!

Challenge #00026: I Spy

 quietstorm81 answered: A mother finding out about her daughter’s crush via somewhat unethical snooping in a stash of love letters.

Station night was well and truly underway. She should have been going home. She should be closing down her office and leaving it all to the night crew. It was late and getting later. Her family would soon wonder where she was.

Sheppard would be wanting his bedtime story.

Lyr knew all this. She knew what she was doing was a slippery slope on Mt Morals. But…

The really big but…

Her eldest daughter was growing up and she was still growing into her precog ability. Despite all the safeguards, her daughter could get hurt.

And she’d been having nightmares about that.

The really worrying thing about nightmares for a precog, was that sometimes they came true.

So really, what she was doing was working on a hunch and putting her mind at ease. And fooling herself at the same time.

Lyr opened a data trace on Lyr Marken Junior, and found the password-protected folders in the personal data section in under a minute. Lyr stared at them. Just like the diary in the sock-drawer of days of yore… She could override that security in a cold second.

She turned away from that violation of privacy and checked the more public chat feeds. Hello. That was an inordinate amount of drafts… They were all addressed to one particular male who shared some classes with Lyr Junior.

Hah. that explained the sudden interest in Five-D Calculus.

She bought up his file. Handsome kid, in the latest fashion for patterned-colour buzz cuts. No piercings, but a heritage tattoo. Interesting. He was descended from the Punaba tribe. Nice to see kids recognizing their histories instead of trying to ignore them. Pity for the Markens that their own genetic heritage would have to be a patterned shoulder-band. In a complete circle.

…not that most people’s heritage wasn’t like that, when you looked far enough…

Let’s see… No criminal record. Not an excessive number of behavior corrections in the schooling system… Smart, but Marken women were always big on the brainy sorts. And no data in his files about Lyr Junior.

Would it be telling if she gave her daughter the speech about the fine lines between crushing on someone, obsessing about someone, and stalking someone?

Lyr went back to the saved drafts. Emails. How quaint. Her own disaster-crush in the puberty-zone had involved brush calligraphy and a wax-sealed envelope. She read a few of her daughter’s drafts.

Clumsy. Awkward. Eerily beautiful, in their own way… But all varied attempts at asking a boy who didn’t know she existed to please notice her. All harmless. No red flags.

“You’ll have to pay for mis-appropriating Security property, Officer Marken.”

Lyr yelped. Sherlock, her Cuidgari boss, was looking over her shoulder. “I probably deserved that.”

“Every parent does it,” said Sherlock. “That doesn’t mean it’s right, and it doesn’t mean I approve.”

Lyr shut down her searches and dug out an Hour coin. “I apologize to the office for my indiscretion.”

“The office accepts, provided such indiscretion is not repeated.” Sherlock took the coin. “Talk to her. You get better results if it’s mother-to-daughter instead of officer-to-suspect.”

Lyr sighed, shutting down her station at last. “Yes, sir.”

[Want more? Submit a prompt or ask a question!]

Challenge me?

Once again, I am bereft of fiction prompts to write an instant (shortish) fiction based thereupon.

So, once again, I ask you, my dear readers, to challenge me to do something you’d like to see done.

Anything at all.

Submit a prompt, ask me a question about my pet universe, or even pop a thought into the answer box below. In return you will get your very own free miniature fiction here on my blog for the enjoyment of all.

Feed my hungry, hungry muse.

I mean, I can’t work on my trilogy every hour of the day…

Chalenge #00026: Young Love, Stay Love

 quietstorm81 answered: Old couple commenting on young couple having an awkward but visably loving first date in a park

They took the ramp up to third balcony level in Big Tree Park. Poor Mal’s knees wouldn’t let him do stairs, any more.

Their usual bench was occupied by a young couple, so they took the next one. It was good to sit and watch the green things grow. And some of the things that weren’t exactly green because of their alien biology.

“Ah, they’re hanging the lanterns,” said Mal.

Bri squinted. “They are?”

Mal simply removed Bri’s glasses, cleaned them on his shirt, and put them back on.

“Oh, they are.”

They laughed. Two old farts sharing a familiar joke.

“I think it’s got a little bigger,” said Bri.

“They were hanging the lanterns when you proposed,” Mal had a dreamy smile.

Bri had to kiss it. “Action replay over on our bench.”

Mal looked. “Sweet Powers, were we ever that awkward?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t have to be so definite about it,” Mal sulked.

“I think I was twice as awkward. You weren’t doing any asking…”

Mal sighed. “All that fidgeting. Just kiss each other and be done with it.”

Bri smirked. “You took your sweet time about that, too.”

Mal shook his head. “All that fuss about how I looked and whether I was saying the right things. And how I was sitting and what I was doing with my hands…”

“Aw. There they go. ‘Of course yes’ or, 'I’ve been waiting for you to say that’ and hopefully not, 'Whadahuh?’ like you did.”

“I did find my tongue eventually. For a proper 'yes’. Just to stop you crying.”

“Difficult to track down after you swallowed it, eh?”

“Ha! And then some.”

They watched the two young cogniscents on the next bench entangle their limbs and finally kiss.

“They look like nice young men,” commented Mal.

“Ladies.”

“At the risk of repeating myself… whadahuh?”

Bri cackled. “Exobiologist, remember? I can tell.”

“Like you let me forget…” Mal laid his hand on Bri’s and their fingers intertwined. They watched the lanterns turn the giant tree into a fairy palace.

“The birdseed cart should be coming by, soon.”

“Feed the birds, two Sec’s a bag…” came the distant song of an individual who wasn’t very far removed from the birds themselves.

“Tight on time,” said Bri.

“My favourite part of our day,” smiled Mal.

Bri got two Second coins out and waved with them to the birdseed cart cogniscent, who ruffled his plumage and saluted in recognition.

They took turns throwing seeds to the birds that filled Big Tree park with song and guano while the birdseed cart trundled onwards.

“Feed the birds, two Sec’s a bag…”

One of the young couple looked up from their embrace. “How much?”

Mal and Bri looked at each other and laughed.

[Want more? Submit a prompt or ask a question!]

That was my last challenge prompt

I think I’ve been doing moderately well with my challenges, so far. Anyone is welcome to submit a prompt, and it doesn’t have to be fanficcy.

Anything you’d like to see written, I’ll make an honest effort to write.

Anything.

Take me at my word. Submit a prompt, ask a question, or even give a prompt in the answer-space below.

Want to see what I can do?

(#00021)

“This is strictly arts and crafts, you understand?”

“Yes, Sara,” intoned Forge in the tired mien of someone who’d been through this before.

“*Just* the available materiel.”

“Yes, Sara.”

“No wibbly-wobbly jiggery-pokery.”

Sigh. “Yes Sara.”

“And no tricky little gadgets to speed up the process.”

“Yes, Sara.”

“Todd, darling, you may frisk him.”

“Man. I thought you said this would be fun,” said Forge as Toad’s clammy hands got way too personal in his space.

“I’m still living the consequences of your last episode of ‘fun’. mister Walkingbird…”

Forge winced. Names had power and his full name had the power to make him want to dig himself into a deep, deep hole until it went away. And Sara had somehow found it out.

“Shuttingupandbehavingmyself,” he managed.

“Good.” Sara’s ruffled feathers appeared to settle. Despite the fact that she didn’t actually possess feathers.

It never paid to be too metaphorical around mutants.

“This is compound A. We mix it with these ingredients in this order. This is compound B. We mix it with those ingredients in that order. Don’t mix them until we’re ready. These are lumps of clay with the precise volume of said finished compound once it is done. We do not borrow clay from anyone else’s pile.”

“Yes’m.”

“Over here on the wall is my articulation to clay volume chart. Do not remove it. You will design something horrific to pop out of a locker and *ONLY* that. Are we understood?”

“Yes’m”

*

Five hours later…

“TOLSTOY BEAUTEOUS-DAWN WALKINGBIRD!”

“I didn’t do it!”

“Prove it!”

“Do it, yo,” advised Todd. “'Fore she kills yo’.”

“I thinkIbetterrun…”

[Want more? Submit a prompt or ask a question!]

(#00019)

It was a dark and -o god- stormy night. The bums that usually cleared out five minutes before the little tip saucer appeared on their table hung around and actually dropped change on the saucer.

Pennies, for the most part. The occasional nickel, crying because it was alone. And one ancient-looking coin and a string of cowrie shells.

Aisha freshened up the weirdo’s coffee and said, “We prefer legal tender, here.” The coin was surprisingly heavy and almost disgustingly filthy.

“That coin,” slurred the bum, “could buy this whole block. ‘Sgotmy face on it.”

“Sure it does,” smiled Aisha, subconsciously checking her avenues for escape. She had to take it, because otherwise the bum would forget the money - or in this case, filthy old junk - actually belonged to Aisha and take it back.

“It is also a powerful totem against lightning.”

_It’s a good thing we only serve coffee after hours…._ At the risk of repeating herself, she said, “Sure it is,” and scraped some of the filth off. Some really old imagery. “This is a very weird picture of… Thor? Isn’t he s'posed'a have a hammer, not a spear?”

“Thor. Ha!” Thunder punctuated their conversation, as if objecting to the outmoded blasphemy. “Thor gets all the freaking credit. Followers. Comic books. Movies. Now he’s swanning around like Fabio and more 'me me me’ than backstage at the opera. *Thor*…”

“Oh… kay. I needed a reminder why it’s never a good idea to chat with customers. Thanks for that.”

“There are older gods. Better gods. Purer gods. From the first places! We came before *any* of those simpering posers from the north. Or the east.”

None of the other bums seemed interested in rescuing her. Or calling for more coffee. Or fake-calling for more coffee in order to rescue her. _It’s official. Chivalry is dead._ “Of course there are.”

“Ancient. Like that coin. They say Croesos invented coins, because he is whiter than those who did invent them. Just like they have Thor instead of the mighty Shango!”

“Shango? My nanna used to tell me about Shango…” Aisha checked the coin again. That wasn’t a badly-rendered breastplate. Those were badly-rendered breasts. Shango the Thunder Queen. Who split the air with her spears of light.

…amongst many other unlikely things…

“Thor has all the attention. Thor has all the glory. Thor has fucking comic books… But he is only pretend, compared to the mighty Shango!” Another thunder crash.

Pops, scrubbing away at the grille, stared through the service window at Aisha, who made desperately covert bail-me-out signals.

“I used to have the adoration of thousands. Thousands!”

“Poor you,” sighed Aisha.

Pops smirked and shook his head and shrugged. Pops-sign for “I’m not doing jack until there’s a fight.”

_Thanks a bunch, Pops._

“Now, I am lucky to have a few hundred who even know my name.”

“Poor you,” sighed Aisha.

One of the bums hanging out at the bar decided that outside was starting to look better than inside.

“I have been searching for a real warrior. Someone who cn stand to fight the battle ahead. A champion among champions.”

“GreatIhopeyoufindhim.”

“Him?” The weirdo laughed, and outside, a cacophany of thunder almost obliterated the sound. “No man is equal to a woman. Especially a young woman. Not even if he knows my name.”

Weirder and weirder. “Uh. What?”

“No man alive has the magic to grow another human inside him. No man has been born who can withstand the fight to bring a life into the world. No man can bear the brunt of menses like a woman can. He is simply not strong enough. No. You, Aisha. You are the champion I seek.”

The dirty hoodie slipped open during her speech. Shango. Old and withered, but still recognisably Shango. With her hair knotted into complicated buns on either side of her head.

Nanna once told Aisha that they were for knocking sense into her allies when they argued too long.

“And so they are, when I am close to you.”

The dirty old umbrella by her side was looking less and less umbrella-like by the minute. And Shango actually looked a little more… vitalized.

“Why me?”

“Because you know me. Because there is a part of you that believes. Because you look at these pale, sad men that have been made into gods and wish that just once, they would show someone like you in a position of power.”

“…more than once would be better…” mumbled Aisha.

“How about the opportunity to be a champion… every day?”

Most of the surviving imagery flew into her head. “Uhm. I wouldn’t have to run around in a skin-tight outfit with my boobs hanging out, would I?”

“Only if that pleases you.”

“No… I think that’d get the wrong kind of attention.” Aisha lowered her voice to a whisper as she sat opposite the ancient African goddess. “Way too many men.”

The mighty Shango grinned. “I was right to choose you. You will do well.”

[Want more? Submit a prompt or ask a question!]

(#00016)

Shayde winced as she filtered the young lizard girl’s enthusiastic babbling through her own understanding.

Yikes.

This kid had the worst case of wishful listening Shayde had ever seen.

“Danny…”

“Maybe I can take you to see the storm aurora. It only happens outside the left tail section for some reason? Oh! Wait. There’s like a historical theatre thing? Sometimes they do recreation shows, sometimes they show the old-style cinema stuff? It’s totally retro-cool.”

“Danny.”

“You could tell what was new and old from when you left? That’d like, be such a help on my thesis. How storytelling developed alongside technology in the pre-shattering era.”

“Danny!”

“What?”

“This isn’t a proper date. I never said it was.”

“But you said you thought–”

Life on the other side of let-down street wasn’t as simple as she’d thought it was, ten years and a million experiences ago. Shayde strangled a ‘you’re a good kid but…’ before it could form itself on her tongue.

“I made a mistake. I assumed things based on our text chats. And you’ve been assumin’ for the past twenty minutes, based on one word.”

Danny deflated. “I… thought we were getting along…”

“Have ye never had someone desperate to tell you every last detail about something they love beyond reason, but you’re bored stiff by? And have ye never wanted to avoid breakin’ their poor heart?”

“Oh, like Lyn Wikozt. Every day she has to tell me the latest thing this singer she likes has done? And what it means to her continued existence? And she just talks and talks and you can’t tell her you don’t wanna hear… about… Oh.”

Shayde summoned a smile despite the funereal mood descending on their group. “Clever girl.”

“…'msorryiwastedyourtime…”

“Na. Don’t feel bad about it. I know, right now, that’s a wee bit like tellin’ water not to be wet…”

Half a giggle.

“The best relationships are between people with equal standing, aren’t they? They make the best kind o’ teams. That’s why Superman never really got t’ stay with Lois Lane. It’s why lots of heroes are single. Wi’ great power comes a really sucky datin’ pool.”

A genuine smile.

“The most important bit is having someone ye can talk to… and listen to. You’ll find that someone. Maybe they’ve always been there. Maybe they’re just around the next corner. But when you do find 'em… tell 'em ye had tae break my heart.”

[Want your own story? Submit a prompt or ask a question!]