Drabbles

Nico found Daaren cleaning the kitchen table, and placed a little metal disc on it with a click.

“What’s that?”

“Tax plaque. Has our telephone number, too, so if you get caught again some other full moon, the pound calls.”

Daaren didn’t touch it while working through the implications. “I won’t wear a collar.”

“I can fix it to a bandana. Which still goes round the neck…”

He sighed. “It works. Do me a favour and don’t use a red one, though.”

“What is it with you and red?”

He was wound up enough to snap. “Red is for targets!”

Nico watched the fairies dance in the reeds. "Are they laying eggs?"

"Yes. They stick them to the leaves. Another pest, on top of gnats."

"Can you use the eggs as fishing bait?"

"Not bait as such." Her host looked around furtively. No-one was near. "When I was small we'd drop the eggs in the water for the fish to eat. Made them act like they were drunk. Swim in circles, hit their heads on things... It made catching them with your hands easier. We stopped it after a big pike bit my sister. Don't tell the children, please."

The witch queen was satisfied with her newest work. She smiled at the master artisan as she handed him the heavy purse he had earned for delivering a working basis. Creating a truly perfect duplicate of a door in the Empress's palace was impossible - if for no other reason, then for the wood grain - but the fifth attempt had been close enough to link them.

Nodding and smiling as the artisan bowed, the witch queen considered rumours about herself. A mirror that could take her wherever she wanted if she stepped through it... would that things were so easy.

The assigned counsel made a show of looking something up, and gave her client a long look. She just had to ask, "Boils filled with cats?"

"They were small cats?"

"I mean, where do you get ideas like that?"

"Misspellings."

"Oh. Pus."

The client nodded.

He looks too mousey to be comfortable around cats. The attorney stared at her client, trying to find her professionalism, which she seemed to have misplaced

He fidgeted. "Well... it was just a hallucination."

"Really? Psychic attack rather than physical? That might work in our favour. At least with the cruelty to animals charge."

Diane picked through open shelves and big boxes, trying to find clothes that didn't clash, but were comfortable and sturdy enough to carry furniture in. She left the house wearing a sweater inherited from her older sister, a pair of jeans her aunt had been tired of, and a jacket worn ratty by a succession of cousins. She had inherited enough to fill up three wardrobes...

The trip took longer than planned, and yielded just one piece of furniture. Finding clothes to start filling it that fit and appealed to her had taken a long time.

So worth it.

When can you run away?

If your heartbeat pounds so loudly in your ears you can't make out the words of a challenge? If your arm falters, your fingers tremble, useless? If your mouth is dry as a dusty road, if your voice fled already, with your breath longing to follow?

But there was no difference between trying and failing, or failing for not trying. She'd be ridiculed either way.

"Gail? Do you need the blackboard?"

"No, I prepared handouts." As those were passed around, she clutched her prompt cards, cleared her throat, and began, "My topic is Nicolaus Copernicus."

Nico had the vague impression that the impact crater was too small for the body that had caused it. She also had the distinct impression that the molten mass at the bottom, deep iridescent green like beetle wings, was not a meteorite, particularly when it started moving.

It flowed together and rose, like a slime mold attempting to take on a humanoid form.

A psychic message flooded Nico's mind, which put it in words as "Fear not!"

After a moment's pause, she answered, "If you're going to tell me I'm pregnant, there will be trouble."

That left the angel confused.

Paell carefully climbed across the dragon's flank, knife in gloved hand. The overlapping scales were hot, only just bearable. The hide below them was worse. Hence the gloves.

You'd think those temperatures would be good for something. If it's a danger to dragonslayers—

With a scraping noise, some of the scales shifted, drawing Paell's attention. He stalked the rippling movement, waiting for an opening. Yes! The knife slipped in the gap and found its target.

It would be amazing if it wasn't so disgusting. Paell plucked the body of the rat-sized mite off his weapon and continued the hunt.

With his nieces either old enough they wouldn't break any of his individually glass-encased insects, or moved so far away they didn't come, John had a birthday dinner in his home again. It did not protect from surprises, though.

He stared at the joint present, purchased under the direction of his younger sister, if her grin was any indication.

"I remembered you were looking for one."

"May, I meant the species of wasp, not something you need specially made."

Hanging from claws on six spider legs from the roof of its cage, the startled tarantula hawk ruffled its wings.

He finally told her exactly how little he thought of her, enjoying the sight of her shrinking into herself with every attack. He had carefully considered his final blow beforehand.

"You will die alone, and no-one will mourn you." It broke something in her, but not what he'd expected.

"Good. I do not consider making other people feel bad a pursuit worthy of my time." Her smile was serene. "Go away, and never come back."

He had no words left that could touch her.

She was glad finally her doubts had been removed, and she was free of him.