Contemporary Fantasy

Genre: Contemporary fantasy
Summary: At full moon, a were-moths biggest problem may be realising how much humans suck.
Notes: Based on a title the Pulp Titles Generator spat out. :D
Warnings: Killing of insects and implication of violence against humans.
Words: 248

In someone’s garden, a moth sat on the bark of a tree, and waited for the moon to clear the next roof.

It was nervous, which was unusual for a moth, and angry, which was even moreso. Something was wrong. More complicated than it should be.

When the moon illuminated the tree and the moth, turning brown wings grey, the moth grew. It shifted some feet to a crack in the bark to take its growing weight.

The emotions became clearer, and thoughts joined them. It’s a trap. It looks like a moon and its a trap.

The moth let go, and fell on just one pair of knees. Its middle limbs were almost gone, its wings small in relation to its body and useless. It stretched, and grew, straightening up, using the tree to prop itself up.

It peered at the house, cautiously, not wanting to be seen until it had grown to its full shape.

A blueish lamp hung on the porch, its light attracting night-flying insects, killing them when they touched it. Humans. They were not even there, they just hung it there to kill, kill, kill.

The moth’s hand, covered in fine, grey-brown fuzz, but big and square and strong, flexed slightly on the bark. I can tear the thing down.

The moth grinned, a feral expression that just seemed to come with the teeth. It ran its short tongue over them. They might tear flesh, if the lamp-setters came out.

Setting: Terra M
Genre: Modern fantasy
Summary: The garden is not as peaceful as it could be....
Words: 100

Setting: ?
Genre: Contemporary fantasy
Summary: What if it were possible to store and transfer emotions?
Notes/warnings: none
Words: 679

Now that’s a weird way to wilt, Henry thought. One of the dozen cheap roses whose petals were yellow with red edges had turned grey. It looked a little squished, but not wrinkly at all, felt still cool to the touch, and even had the same fragrance as the still bright ones.

With a shrug, Henry threw out the ruined flower.

The next day brought two more discolored roses, and no success in the internet search about the phenomenon. Henry snapped a few photos and posted them online.

He checked for comments first thing in the morning, but found “looks photoshopped” as unhelpful as a crazy story that seemed to belong in a fantasy book.

When he checked on the flowers in the sitting room, they had their colour, though meanwhile they started drooping a little. The canvas print of poppy on the wall, however, had had the colour leeched out of it in a quarter circle. The lower right was entirely grey, with a narrow gradient between the changed section and the part remaining bright. When he looked closely, in the very corner Henry could spot a tiny hole.

On the way home from work he picked up supplies, and set a trap as had been suggested. Considering the bowl of neon green glue, he put down some old sheets in addition.
It turned out he needn’t have worried.

The bat-like little creature got stuck in the glue, and wasn’t strong enough to tip the bowl over. Its wings drooped miserably in the grey gloop, at odds with the cheerfully-bright yellow-red-green striations of its skin.

What does one do with a colour vampire?, Henry wondered.

I couldn’t listen to Jelena planning to push for prosecution for long; it was too painful. “Please just let it lie.”

She skewered me with a look as if I had been the one who’d killed her brother. “Instincts or not, they are still bound by laws. He was murdered, and no-one’s interested!”

“Jelena, I’m sorry, but that’s how it is. Pushing will do no good. You know what’ll happen? They’ll point out he went drinking and stayed out too late. They’ll say he should have been at home that night, or at the very least gone by car, not on foot. They’ll say he must have been pulling tails or picking fights, call him a troublemaker.”

I’d talked myself into a rage, too, and bit my tongue on it, turning away from Jelena’s wide, scared, and still furious eyes.

She said, slowly, “He did not—”

“I know. I know. I’m sorry.” I knew how it hurt, and I didn’t want her to go through the same. “I hate it, too, but that’s how it works. What people who knew him say doesn’t matter to most officers, or attorneys, or judges—or reporters, for that matter. What those that count will say is, a monomorph going out on full moon nights is asking for trouble.” Maybe my words were swaying her, or maybe not. Considering that it was her life… “Just think carefully about what you would be going into before deciding, all right?”

Inspired by the prompt "What about the rights of people who *don't* change in a world were were-_____ people have been the majority for most of recorded history?" by LilFluff

When the doctor asked, “Where does it hurt?”, probably thinking it was funny, Alma swiped the air in front of her face, after a moment’s consideration indicating a spot the width of her hand from the tip of her nose.

“Right here.”

After a too-long pause, the doctor launched into an explanation that Alma tuned out as soon as she caught the word “psychosomatic”. Unsurprised at having to add him to her collection of people who thought she was crazy, she feigned having to hurry to another appointment to speed things up to avoid breaking out in tears in front of the doctor. She had not slept through a whole night for a month, which left her exhausted and thin-skinned and frustrated.

On the way home familiar frustrations ran through her head. Whatever self-help gurus and the like thought, pain was real, not only in her head. The fact that it was outside her head was the problem. Questions of what was going on aside, something like teething pains in a jaw you didn’t have was hard to treat: there was no way to apply local anaesthetics. The general ones she had tried did not help, either. Instead, over time the pain grew worse.

The only thing that helped was heat, but bringing her face close enough to a radiator or fire that it relieved her from the phantom pain hurt the skin of her face and risked setting her hair on fire.

She did it, anyway, of course.

That evening she opened the door of the tile stove and nearly stuck her head inside, breathing the dry woodsmoke like a chamomile inhalation when she had a cold. When she exhaled in a sigh of relief, sparks flew from her nostrils and made the flames flare.

No. No, she must have been mistaken. Her breath had stirred the fuel, that was all.

Alma got up hoping to catch some sleep before the pain returned, noticing that her back hurt. She was too tired to worry about it. She could not bear thinking about the possibility that that new pain hovered behind her back, rather than digging into her muscles.

Based on the prompt "Phantom Pain" by Eliza Gebow.

“Thank you for seeing me.” Oneida bowed to Talaeshin, knowing that elves shunned skin-to-skin contact.

The foremost expert on orc history being an elf was unsurprising. Their long lifespans had made elves lore-keepers long before there had been historians. This one answered in a tone of cool disinterest, “Yes. You were very persistent.”

“This is important. May I…?” She waved a folder into the room and after getting a nod of permission slid past a big box standing partly in the was to the nearly empty desk. On it she laid out notes and photos of old human bones taken on site of an archaeological dig.

While she worked, Talaeshin said, “Few people treat matters of an extinct species as urgent.”

“History is important,” she answered without thinking. “And I wonder if history is wrong. These photos—”

“And wherever did you get those?”

“The dig at Crane Mountain, where they wanted to build a new hotel,” Oneida evaded, “but the important thing is that that there were toothmarks on those bones much too narrow for orcs, no matter what the press spreads already. Someone else needs to review this, of course, but if it’s true, it’s a strong argument for examining remains from older sites.”

Nodding, Talaeshin said, “No respect for the rest of the dead.” He raised his hand to forestall Oneida’s protest and continued, “Do you have any speculations what creature left these toothmarks?”

Forcing herself to not shrink back, she said, “One set at least is definitely elven. It seems… interesting.”

“No.”

“No? But don’t you see—”

“You fail to see, naturally, that this is not news.” Talaeshin’s tone grew sharper. “History is what we allow to be written down, and this we won’t.”

He made a sharp downwards gesture and Oneida found herself mute and rooted to the spot. She had never believed the stories about elves wielding magic. She thought she should panic, but her heartbeat was slowing down.

“You are right. Orcs were, in fact, mostly herbivorous.” He laid a hand on her shoulder and lowered his face to hers, smiling. “I, on the other hand, have inherited a recipe from my grandmother I would love to try on you.”

Based on the prompt "What if elves were actually horrible, and orcs were decent, but the elves have better PR so they've just managed to convince people of the opposite? " by Elizabeth Barette aka ysabetwordsmith

The chants rose slowly, shaping sounds not part of any human language. The acrid smoke of incense swirled as the air in the closed chamber started to move. Only when the candle flames changed from their natural colour to a dim midnight blue the glow of the diagram drawn on the floor with unsavoury substances became apparent. It brightened, spitting sparks as the chants crescendoed. A flash of light and a thunder strike, then silence, broken by genteel coughing.

A strange figure stood in the summoning circle, short, and with a fringe of hair framing its properly bald head.

"William Aloysius Coltrane."

"Yes?"

"You have been summoned and bound to our service."

"What?" The man in the circle straightened his glasses and peered up at the speaker. His opposite was about nine foot tall. The horns and goat's legs and all seemed to be way too realistic for a mask used in a prank.

"You will serve as our accountant for a year and a day."

A glance at the even more disturbing other figures around the cavernous room decided William against protesting.

"What does the job entail?"

It had to be a dream. He blamed the cheese sandwich.