Tag: more odds than ends (Page 7 of 20)

Allergy season

The hiccups were more annoying but

Sneezes wouldn’t end

***

An extremely brief experiment tonight, so here’s a bonus raccoon. Midjourney thinks that’s a juice box, by the way. He might have also stolen someone’s wallet and a pack of cigarettes by the look of it, but who could blame that adorable face?

More, over at MOTE!

“Gloves,” Halima said without looking up.

“Talk to me like I’ve never been around manuscripts before,” June replied lightly, pulling on her own pair. “What’s the museum want?”

“Help figuring out what they have, mostly.” Halima pushed back a long curtain of dark hair, revealing eyes red from dust. “How did someone just ‘happen’ to find 15th century documents in their attics?”

“And palimpsests,” June added, studying the traces of writing underneath the inked lines. “Even older. I love those cat drawings the monks did.”

“Better,” Halima announced smugly. “Take a look at this one. Some sort of legal agreement, a land sale.”

“Whaddaya know…”

“Yep. Guess this monk had opinions on the landowner.”

The women stared at the early medieval drawing.

“Yep,” June said, and hovered her finger just above a red and black horned finger. “The devil really is in the details.”

***

More at MOTE!

June’s fingers clenched on the stairwell windowsill in utter disbelief. It took her mouth working three times to cooperate with her throat, and another few seconds for her lungs to remember to suck in oxygen.

Her voice still came out a wheeze. “Whaaaaa?”

The petite woman she shared an office hallway with stopped half a flight below. Dr. Christa Pham gazed upward in bewilderment. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Wha?” June tried again, and cleared her throat. She pointed over her shoulder, although it felt like a wild flail. By the look on her colleague’s face, it was. “Who thought it was a good idea to set up another festival in the courtyard?”

Christa tapped a sensible flat with impatience and headed for the next landing. “What on earth are you talking about?”

June felt the blood drain from her face. “I can’t go through that again just yet,” she mumbled. “It’s too soon since that blasted Renaissance Faire popped up.”

The folklore professor studied the view out the window. “Ah, lovely, they roofed it over this year.”

“You knew?” June felt her throat start to close again and tried to massage her neck with oddly frozen fingers. “What is it this time? The campus chili cookoff?”

“Interdepartmental trick-or-treating,” the other woman said brightly.

June sat down heavily on the cold tile stairwell. Oxford flats headed her way, and it was all she could do to focus on the shining leather.

“Relax,” Christa said dryly. “It’s a career fair. Happens every year. Didn’t you see the email?”

June grasped the railing and her colleague’s extended hand in another, hauling herself to her feet while wanting to collapse limply with relief. “As long as I don’t have to suddenly run the whole thing, we’re good.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

She kept a grip on the handrail until they reached the bottom of the stairwell, releasing it with reluctance.

Christa paused before opening the door to the chill New Hampshire autumn air. “Do try not to swordfight anyone this month, June.”

***

This week’s prompt came from Leigh Kimmel. Who thought it was a good idea to roof over the courtyard and turn it into another exhibit hall?

Mine went to nother Mike, who also fixed the randomizer (thanks, nother Mike!): “For the last time, it’s not funny to mix up the water caltrops and the baby bats!”

Check it out—and play along!—over at MOTE!

“Rain,” Hayes said inanely, staring out his truck window at the rolling water that had appeared out of perfect blue skies not moments before. He felt like he’d had to shout the word over the downpour. “Worse than predicted.”

Kea smirked upward, Geo perched on her shoulder. “No one ever pays attention in the rain. We’ll be able to sneak right into the dragon lady’s home.”

“Wait, you did this?”

The Fae peeked out from behind her eight-year-old human seeming. “You have a lot to learn about magic.”

“Could have just stayed at the office,” Geo grumbled. “Where it was nice and dry.”

“I’m sorry, did a frog just complain about it being too wet outside?” Hayes asked incredulously.

“I have a delicate constitution,” he said primly, and set a long-fingered hand on Kea’s braid. “Nor do I want to be eaten as an amuse-bouche by a dragon.”

Hayes nearly dented the steering wheel to keep his hands from shaking. “My boss is an actual dragon?!“

***

A quick blurb this week for MOTE, inspired by AC Young’s prompt about the weather. It was a trade this week – go check it out!

Gunnr groaned at the hope on her roommate’s face and nearly shut the front door before making her way into the townhouse.

“Svava,” she warned. “I could feel you getting ready to pounce the second I turned onto the street. And unless you have a horn of mead, you’ll hear nothing.”

A faint hmph came from the footsteps heading toward the bar. A few moments later, her sister pressed a long-familiar carved horn into her hand.

Gunnr took a moment to savor the exquisite carvings that commemorated a battle long forgotten. “They don’t make them like Magnus anymore.”

Svava raised her own horn. “To fallen heroes we carried to Valhalla.”

“Hail,” Gunnr echoed, and let the blueberry-orange blossom sweetness flower over her tongue before dropping her head back onto the soft pillows.

“So?” Impatience seeped into Svava’s voice. “This dating app is the most entertainment I’ve had since television was invented.”

“Disaster, as usual,” she replied, and let out a yawn.

“Oh, no,” came the fierce reply. “I’ll take your mead away if you try to fall apart on me before paying story tribute. Now spill.”

“Well,” Gunnr said, “I can’t tell you how the steak is, because we never made it to dinner.”

“And yet you’re not home early,” Svava noted, and pulled her tangle of braids and limbs off the couch. “Refill?”

Gunnr tipped her horn back and held it out. “Please. After tonight, I need it. This is getting ridiculous.”

“But it’s so amazing to hear.”

“Less fun to live through.” She yawned again. “The guy shows up, and suddenly it’s obvious why we’re at the one Western-themed steakhouse in town. I could have lived with the clearly just-purchased leather cowboy hat—”

Svava handed the drinking horn back with a snicker and rolled her eyes in salute at the horned helmet they kept hung in pride of place on their shared trophy wall. The helmet was an inside joke between the Valkyries, made of pink and purple plastic.

“—but I had my doubts about the string tie. But he tried, you know? Only too hard, because he went all macho and annoying. Even Magnus never called me ‘little lady.'”

“Ooof,” was Svava’s only commentary.

“That’s it? No tirade on feminism or how you’d have dropped him before reaching the great hall?”

She grinned, her face framed by two blonde braids that shone in the dimly lit room. “You’re clearly not done yet.”

“No,” Gunnr admitted, and stretched her legs before pulling herself into a comfortable ball on the overstuffed couch. “As it turned out, the steakhouse was located next to a bank.”

“Now we’re getting started.” Svava’s grin grew impossibly wider.

“As it turns out, Cowboy Jon soiled himself when the bank robbers blew the wrong wall. And then he ran, but bounced right off the server.”

Gunnr took another sip of mead, wistfully longing for the sizzling steak with its crisp diamond char pattern. It had looked delicious, even lying on the floor next to Cowboy Jon’s hat.

She flashed teeth at her sister. “He knocked over the food, the server, and abandoned his hat, but he fled so fast, he was the only one who made it out before the bank robbers turned it into a hostage situation.”

Svava waved a carefree hand. “Presumably, you took care of that.”

“Obviously.” Gunnr stroked the sword tattoo on her arm. “Though the ravens still need feeding. Anyway, I got caught by the police wanting witness statements.”

“Was anyone was about to admit they saw a sword-wielding Valkyrie?”

“The waiter suggested the bomb, and everyone basically nodded along and said they didn’t see clearly.”

Laughing, Svava drained her horn. “I love the power of suggestion.”

“Anyway, I grabbed spaghetti from that takeout place on the drive home, because the steakhouse’s kitchen shut down once the cops arrived. Which reminds me.” Gunnr dug into the pocket of her skinny jeans and pulled out a small card in a white envelope. “We have a gift card, if you still want to know how the food tastes. The waiter’s a believer. He saw everything and didn’t wish it away like the others.”

“The cops must have known the explosion didn’t kill the would-be robbers.”

“They chalked it up to little green men, I believe,” Gunnr said. “Though I’m starting to be concerned about how many of these stories are circulating around town. Someone will take notice of blondes wielding swords. I don’t want to move again just yet.”

“Maybe,” Svava mused. She stopped playing with the end of her braids and flipped her hair over her shoulder. “But can you imagine Cowboy Jon’s reaction when the cops show up to interview him?”

Gunnr’s smile was vicious this time. “I can’t wait.”

Her sister smiled as sweetly as the mead they’d been sipping. “Sister-mine? You might as well go get your trophy from where you left it on the porch.”

“You know me too well.” Gunnr untangled her legs from the pile of pillows and headed for the front door.

By the time she returned, Svava had already cleared a spot on the trophy wall, just under the shining plastic helmet. A spot just large enough for a brand-new leather cowboy hat.

***

This week’s MOTE prompt was inspired by Becky Jones’ spaghetti western suggestion. My prompt went back to Becky: “Castle doesn’t do any good if you forget to draw the bridge.” Check it, and more, out at More Odds Than Ends!

Gunnr fiddled with her water glass, making designs of the rings left by condensation atop the stained wooden table nestled in the back corner of the restaurant. She had to stop herself from automatically forming patterns her date wouldn’t appreciate. An ability to create magical portals to Valhalla wasn’t exactly first date conversation material.

Although her date in question was about to be late, and if he didn’t show up out of breath and full of apologies, she wasn’t sure she’d stay for dinner. Even if the smokiness of good barbeque did make her mouth water.

Anyone who thought Valkyries—reformed Valkyries, she sternly reminded herself—didn’t have military precision and a whole lot of self-respect to boot needed a lesson. Why, the number of idiot warriors who’d wound up wearing their mead rather than drinking it—

She cut off her train of thought and stood as a man who actually resembled his photograph raced up to her table, hand extended.

“Gunnr, right?” At her nod, he continued. “I’m so sorry. I showed up early, then only realized I went to their other location across town when I walked inside.” He gave a half apologetic smile and squeezed her hand before letting it go. “Anyway, you look beautiful, and I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long.”

Plausible. The other location had to shut down last year. But how did he not notice it’s a kebab restaurant now? Gunnr told her internal worthiness detector to shush as she smoothed her skirt and sat back down. “It’s nice to meet you in person at last, AJ.”

He smoothed his beard and gave her a once over as he settled in and picked up the menu waiting for him, catching the server with a waved hand and rattling off his order. And hers as well, waving off the server before she could stop him.

Gunnr gritted her teeth. “I don’t drink sweet tea.”

“You’ll love it,” he reassured her. “It’s great here.”

Something tense in her neck twitched with a painful twang. She slapped the menu off to the side, the plastic slightly sticky under her fingers with the ghost of sweet barbeque sauce.

His eyes roamed over her again, this time with a faint frown. “Yes, quite the beauty, aren’t you? Other than the tattoos.”

Her free hand crept up to stroke the ravens decorating her bare shoulder. “I beg your pardon?”

“A little aggressive, don’t you think? Ravens, swords, wings. You’re covered.”

“Aggressive?” Gunnr stared. “My name literally means ‘war,’ and you think my tattoos are aggressive?”

She pulled her phone from her skirt pocket with one hand, texting a quick frowny face to her sister Bryn. It had been their emergency exit signal since they were children, although the frowns had been on faces then, not screens, and filled with exaggerated nuance lost to technology.

“Maybe if it were a dainty butterfly or a flower, someplace hidden, that comes with a cute innocent story. Not, like…a drunken Cancun story.”

AJ shrugged. “I don’t think it’ll work out between us, honey. That’s a dealbreaker for me.”

Her phone pinged with a message. Sorry. It’s early. Are you sure?

Gunnr firmed her jaw and gave the message a thumbs up, then dropped the device back into her pocket. “I don’t believe you’ve given me enough of a chance to be your ‘honey.'”

“We can still split dinner if you want,” he offered, and turned to study the restaurant’s other patrons.

Her phone rang. The opening strains of Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” rose through the dining room, cutting through the din of conversation and silverware.

“Rude,” AJ commented primly, and finally turned to meet her wrath. His face paled behind the dark beard.

“As rude as ordering for someone you’ve just met, then asking them to pay for it?” Her voice was a silk-wrapped bar of iron, ready for the forge. Centuries of experience watching her sisters told her that storm clouds swarmed around her head.

She could feel the crackle as lightning ran down her white-blonde hair with a friendly hello, dancing with the freedom she’d not permitted the battle-storm in well over a decade.

Her phone stopped, and silence filled the room. It rang again. It would continue ringing until she answered.

“As rude as showing up late with lies on your tongue?”

Gunnr’s wings burst forth from the shoulder blade tattoos AJ had sneered at earlier.

da da da DAA DA da da da DAAAA DAA

Her phone stopped ringing.

AJ was the only person stupid enough to relax.

The rest of the diners broke and ran when the music restarted a third time. Though it might have been the ravens comfortably perched atop her shoulders.

They can handle wings and lightning, but never my lovely flying death omens. Gunnr licked her lips and gave the birds a fond smile as they launched to circle above her date, cawing.

“Uhhh…” AJ attempted. “Maybe I should go.”

The sword tattooed on her arm vanished and reappeared in her hand, winds whipping stray paper towels around the restaurant.

“I am the chooser of the slain!” she howled into the storm. She dropped her head and bared her teeth at him. “And you — you — are not worthy.”

She headed for the door with a shimmy of her hips, her steps almost dancing to the familiar music of death and battle. “Come back when you’re done with him, my feathered friends.”

***

Finally done, a few days late, after some house hiccups. Thanks, A.C. Young! I weaponized your Wagner inspiration. Leigh Kimmel got my prompt about the villains’ newsletter last week. And onto this week!

I’d always found ice cream to make hard conversations better, even when they weren’t mine. It worked almost every time. Smashing hard lumps of vanilla into chocolate syrup until they’d blended into a less aerated version of soft serve without sending frozen sugar into the air was an excellent focus to maneuver past the impossible. Or distract from anything worth avoiding.

Like this assertion that I might be able to keep my wisp of a fey daughter from crumbling into debris and motes of magic dust I couldn’t even see.

I prefer being an observer, even if I was a con man gone legit. No one’s ever suspicious of an eavesdropper at the ice cream shop.

“We’re wasting time, Hayes,” Geo said from his perch on my shoulder, and Kea nodded from her seat on the bench.

“I’m having trouble believing this is possible,” I admitted, and dumped my ice cream into the flower pot beside me unfinished. “Magic, through willpower alone?”

“No,” they said in unison.

“You’re a persuasion mage,” Kea said.

“That’s why you were a successful con artist for so long,” Geo said. “Why your penetration tests work, even when they shouldn’t. Which is using your powers for good.”

“You know what else would be?” Kea said with an edge an eight-year-old shouldn’t have. “I’d like to keep living.”

I looked at her, trying to see past the embodiment of my dreams. Trying to see anything but the embodiment of my lost wife and daughter.

“What bargain do I make?”

The words were a whisper, but her lips stretched into a smile anyway. “Now you’re starting to ask the right questions for a mage.”

“Not sure you can afford not to decide otherwise,” Geo said acidly. “Unless you want to end up a slave to her, possibly frog-sized? She doesn’t like you, you know. Perhaps she’d find a cockroach more useful than your current form.”

I lifted him off my shoulder and set him down on the bench, then looked at them both, hoping desire trumped skepticism. “What do I do?”

Geo opened his mouth, but no words came out. The compulsion spell, presumably. He gave Kea a bulging-eyed look of desperation.

She obliged. “You just want me to continue to exist past the deadline.” Her dark eyes were hopeful now, as childlike as her first exploratory bite of the discarded ice cream. “Persuasion mages work mostly on instinct and belief.”

I rested my hands on my knees and stared at the concrete wall in front of me, elbows stiff, and wondered if that’s why no one else had tried to come into this lovely garden spot while we were here.

“I don’t know how I can keep that up forever,” I said slowly. “Wouldn’t I have to continue wishing you to be alive? What happens when I fall asleep? Or dare to think of planning for—for the future?” I wouldn’t say the words out loud. “Isn’t it like not thinking of a pink elephant?”

“What?”

Geo sighed with enough force the bench rumbled. “Just get past the critical moment and it should be fine. You can do a single moment.”

“Which is in five minutes,” Kea added. “So figure it out, Dad.”

“You’re going to be a handful,” I retorted, and we settled into comfortable silence, watching customers enjoy frozen treats and a most enthusiastic Labrador puppy encounter ice cream for the first time.

If this didn’t work, watching him try to lick vanilla off his nose was a good way to go. It made Kea giggle, anyway, though I could tell she wanted to race over and join the rolling herd of organized chaos.

“Thirty seconds,” Geo warned.

I closed my eyes and felt the cold sweat of nerves break out at my temples, a habit I’d thought I’d long since controlled. But then, I didn’t usually delve into memory.

I’d lost the exact shape of her eyes until 24 hours ago, but I’d never forget the sound of my wife’s laughter. I’d tap into that joy to keep the daughter of my dreams alive.

In the end, it was anticlimactic. Kea touched my arm and grinned up at me. “We’re past the deadline.”

Struggling to smile, I felt tears streak my face in wonder as a burble of laughter escaped my throat involuntarily. “You’re sure?”

She nodded, a delightful grin on her face. “Didn’t you feel the magic pop?”

I had no idea what she was talking about, but pulled her and Geo in for a hug anyway, trying not to squash the frog out of sheer excitement.

That’s how I saw the meteor hit the ground, tightening my arms around them as the only protection I could manage in time.

It came as a ball of blazing flame and scattered screams, trailing soot and chunks of rock, clipping the edge of the ice cream shop and splashing a shower of dirt across unsuspecting vehicles.

A car alarm blared as I stood to inspect the damage—silenced by the wave of a pale arm in pristine robes emerging from the crater.

This time, my tears were of rage. Who knew hell would be this damp? To yank my daughter away, moments after she’d truly been born?

I’d be damned if the Marble Witch would win this time.

I probably was anyway.

***

Not quite as hoped, but out of time for now. This week’s prompt was a trade with Cedar Sanderson. Go check it out! Update! Not a trade. Inspiration came from Becky Jones.