Menu

Subscribe

Just Add Prompt

A 4662-post collection

Challenge #01843-E019: Reminded of the Babe?

Don't do something permanently stupid just because you're temporarily upset. -- Anon Guest

My mother said/ I never should/ play with the faeries in the wood... - nursery rhyme.

The fae folk had her baby. Toddler. Even though her child could walk and talk after a fashion and perform simple tasks, Esa was still her baby and would be so until the day Risso died. Which might be soon, considering that she was marching into Fae territory with naught but her apron and her rolling pin to protect her and her Esa. Well. That, and one secret weapon that she had in a sack on her back.

They let her get in. They always let you get in. It's getting out again that's the worry. The fae like to have sport with mortals, and making you think you've won is their favourite game. So it was no surprise to find herself faced with three identical Esa's and a smug Fae making her guess which one was her Esa.

Risso hit the smug fae with her rolling pin. "I said give me my child, not fart me about," she snapped. "You give me back my Esa and I will keep my sack tied shut."

Support me on Patreon / Buy me a Ko-fi

Continue Reading

Prompts remaining: 12 Submit a Prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!

Challenge #01842-E018: A Place to Fit

The adventures/escapades of a Numidid raised by/among humans -- TheDragonsFlame

[AN: This continues on from this thing ]

Family is more than the people that excreted you, so goes the galactic saying. Family can be a bunch of loner weirdoes and their adopted Numidid keet called Pip. Scavenger M. DeVries and his daughter, Pip, cut quite a figure in the news, and they did so for all of forty-eight hours.

Because that was when the Galactic Alliance rediscovered a colony world

Read more »

Challenge #01841-E017: The Biological Solution

[End the story with this sentence] “Behold... the mighty predator.” -- TheDragonsFlame

First came the epithelials, and there was the Dust Problem. Amelioration worked, to a degree, but cleansing schedules soon became hell for multiple species. And someone discovered Fhitts and Squidges. Small, jellyfish-like animals that floated around via hydrogen gas bags. They either filter-fed as they drifted around on the air currents, or -in the case of the Fhitts- jetted about in active pursuit.

Then the Fhitts and the Squidges became

Read more »

Challenge #01840-E016: Toxic, Useless, and Ugly

"A man of words and not of deeds, is like a garden full of weeds." -- Knitnan

"I will work so hard," he said. "I won't even have time for golf. I won't have time to tweet. I'm talking bloody knuckles. I'm talking wearing out the grindstone with my nose. I'm talking twenty-four-seven. Hard. Sweaty. Work. For you. For all of you." And then he spent more days on the golf course, on holiday, or on leave than any other leader to

Read more »

Challenge #01839-E015: A Grand Day Off

Shoes off, comfy clothes, and good read. No phones, no Internet connection, a little bit of Heaven, and Room Service thrown in. Best Break Ever! -- Knitnan

Sometimes, you just need to get away. And sometimes, the problem with going anywhere is that the things you want to get away from tend to follow you around. And today, Ana needed to get away from the entire world.

To that end, she had carefully arranged this day. A new book. A collection of

Read more »

Challenge #01838-E014: Hour of Need

It had been a hard day today, she Needed chocolate! -- Anon Guest

So. Let's recap. Best beloved and most capable person in the house arrested for a crime they couldn't possibly commit. On a day when she had needed to run around between four different destination, with stops on the way to pick up whatever. And stops at the bank to get her running money for the week because their mutual funds had been frozen and their family still needed to

Read more »

Challenge #01837-E013: The Helpful Cup

Hot sweetened tea and maybe a biscuit or sandwich will help to solve most problems. -- Anon Guest

In the grand scheme of things, Britanians never expect much out of the Tea Lady. Some sage advice, a rambling story about their youngest, and, of course, tea. If you knew how to play your cards right, you might get a Jammy Dodger or a Scotch Finger. That was the way it had always been. Until Ambassador Harry.

So far, she had helped the

Read more »

Challenge #01836-E012: Debunked Beliefs

Non-human sentients are used to thinking of humans as impossibly durable daredevils of highly questionable sanity. However, historical human science fiction, pre-first contact, typically has humans depicting themselves as either ordinary everymen and everywomen in a world full of sentients who were stronger, smart, harder to kill, and/or had space magic at their disposal. Humans were surprised when their cynicism didn't play out. Aliens are shocked that humans could have ever considered themselves as such. -- Anon Guest

"And this one

Read more »

Challenge #01835-E011: The Caring Gap

Their world was games, and Facebook and selfies. Then they wound up in an emergency ward and discovered electric lives are no substitute for the real thing. -- Knitnan

[AN: You clearly have no understanding of modern connectivity. AKA: "You dang kids get off of your social media and get a real life!" ::shakes cane::]

Alice was technically a Cam Girl and technically a Gamer. In reality, that meant grinding assorted games for a pitiful income per game per hour, and taking

Read more »

Challenge #01834-E010: The Stakes

A wager will often get results when pleading fails. -- Anon Guest

One has to be wealthy to be eccentric. If you're poor, you're just odd. People could tell that Felwar Nassidd was an eccentric from a long line of eccentrics. The first dead-giveaway was the name. The second was their Wagers of Benevolence.

They laid a two hundred billion dollar bet that a town wouldn't be able to completely convert to green energy, and feed the populace proper nutrition at the

Read more »

Challenge #01833-E009: Revenge is Purring

If you truly hate someone give them a baby bear. Comment from Historical source. Nobody mentioned Bears just get big. But what if you give them a pregnant female house cat? -- Anon Guest

Across societies, across worlds, there are things that could be counted as gifts - but definitely aren't. Drum kits for the hated one's children. A bear cub. A baby ape. A dragon's egg. All of those and more can only be called trouble. And then there is the

Read more »

Challenge #01832-E008: Rightwise Born... er... Monarch?

"Whomsoever shall pull this sword from the stone is rightwise born King of England."

"Oh! Lookie! I've pulled it out," she said. -- Anon Guest

She was short. She had the sort of chubbiness born of years of feast and famine, with the body deciding to set up ample stores in case of famine. And she was clearly a scullery maid in the entourage of one amongst the many knights, ne'er-do-wells, and nonesuch that had gathered to try their luck.

The maester

Read more »

Challenge #01831-E007: It's Not a Good Night...

Orange traffic cones which mysteriously appear after drunken parties, and other weird stuff the clean-up crew encounter. -- Knitnan

Of all the unexplainable phenomena in the known universe, the most unsolvable is that of humans and spontaneously-manifesting traffic cones. They only appear when everyone at the party is too inebriated to recall where they came from, and no means of recording said party have ever picked up where they come from. Even security cameras can't catch their appearance. Whenever the cameras are

Read more »

Challenge #01830-E006: The Important Stuff

When two humans have animosity between them, their crew mates get very nervous. Just yesterday, Human Marty discovered Human Seth was attempting a mating ritual with their offspring... -- Anon Guest

[AN: One of the good things about my future is that Pedophilia is eradicated on all but a few, really skeevy colony worlds. And those ones have an underground railroad thing going on to make sure the perversion dies out. Also -dear Nonny- I do not appreciate the implication that gay

Read more »

Challenge #01829-E005: Working Holiday

Terpsichore, Muse of Dancing - conga line, Nuf Said! -- Knitnan

Even divinities need a holiday. After inspiring dancers to do new and interesting things with their bodies, with their costumes, even with lighting and how they made the music they danced to - while they were dancing - even a divine force needed a breather.

But a goddess of dance must go where she is worshipped.

You could spot her if you tried. There's just something more about the embodiment of

Read more »