wHAT ARE QUICKFICS?
Occasionally, I’ll post three one-word prompts for folks to respond to, and then write a small fiction piece based on the words you guys give me! Typically, the story is connected across users, so that together, the fics for one day read as one narrative.
Fic days posted without advance warning on social media.
April 2, 2020
Prompts: color | place | mundane object
ONE
@kairahara - tangerine | the county clerk’s office | toothbrush
Myra paced the cobblestone road before the county clerk's office, hands shaking as she compulsively hugged the folio clutched to her chest.
Inside the folio, a map.
A lot of people came here with maps, but Myra was relatively sure that the clerk had probably never seen a map like this one before.
No mortal had.
The door groaned open, the inset window pane rattling behind her as she closed it.
The tangerine-haired clerk pushed his glasses back up his nose, not bothering to look up as his fountain pen scritched away, translucent wings tucked in close behind his back. He was nested in behind a counter, stacks of paper walling him in, and Myra had the uneasy suspicion that he was a permanent resident of this office. "Mm, can I...help you?"
"I, uh ... " Myra cleared her throat, setting the folio down on the ledge above his desk. "I need a permit, and to register a deed."
"Permit for what," the clerk mumbled, frowning at the piece of parchment he'd been scribbling on.
"A permit for auguration. For, uh, reading ... the future-"
The clerk snorted. "I am very well aware of what auguration is."
"Well, I-I need a permit for it."
At last, the clerk glanced up. "There's a two-day waiting period for the permit. Which I hope you were aware of, given the request. We'll need time to verify." He slipped a piece of parchment from the bottom of a stack, setting it delicately before her. "If you please. One prophecy, which we will verify. Or not, as the case may be.”
Frowning, she began searching through her shoulder bag for a fountain pen.
The bag contained what was left of her life before the map.
A lone toothbrush, a pack of stale candies, two books her mother had given her, a blank roll of butcher paper she'd been using to record her days ...
Aha. She grabbed the pen, and blew out a breath, steadying her chaotic thoughts to listen to the singing in the back of her mind.
Best post an advert, Myra wrote. The red-headed clerk is accident prone, and I'm afraid you'll be in need of a replacement.
"Is this a threat," the clerk sneered, taking the parchment from her.
"No." It wasn't a threat, so much as a convenient warning.
The clerk rolled his eyes, shaking his head as he set the leaf aside. "And the deed?"
Myra blew out a breath, opening the folio. "It's a portal," she explained, unfolding the map. "A portal to the dragon realm."
TWO
@bowlickmusic - sky magenta | pluto | light bulb
Stepping through the gate from the dragon realm, back into her own world, Myra was met with a melted-candy sunset.
Has so much time passed, already?
The dragon at her side gave an indignant snort, curls of smoke twirling from its nostrils, and then with a hoot, it shot up, into the sky-magenta clouds.
Myra watched the dragon for a long moment, wondering what it would feel like to fly that high.
The dragon masters had wondered as much, though, and they'd paid the price. Their own crisped hides had been the toll for seeing the world from atop a star.
She'd make camp here, tonight.
As much of a camp as it would be.
She owned the deed to the dragon realm, but that didn't mean squat when it came to these parts. The faerie folk would have heard by now, and whispers would spread across the county like wildfire.
Sooner or later, someone was going to come looking for a fight.
Myra stretched out in the grass, using her bag as a pillow, and sighed, letting her eyes wander the stars. The little dragon would likely spend the night hunting, and gods only knew if she'd see him again after that.
She had no skills as a fighter. Didn't even have a bedroll.
But as she watched the heavens, a faint smile was left dancing on her lips.
She had the power to lose upon this world a dragon. A small one, that was true. Yet Pluto was no less for its small size, and the words of men could not knock it from the sky.
Such was the dragon.
And such was Myra.
As darkness fell, she brought her hands above her as she lay, and carefully, she began to trace the familiar wards along the star-points. As her finger passed over each star, a small glow would illuminate the night just above the gate to the dragon realm, a tiny lightbulb of hope.
Perhaps she could not wield a broadsword or throw a punch that could knock a man cold.
Myra could ward like none other, though.
She left a small window in the ward for the rust-colored dragon, and prayed that it would return. They were mistrustful creatures, of this, there was no question, but perhaps seeing that Myra offered freedom, and shelter too, it would come back.
Myra would've, if someone could have given her the same.
THREE
@lauren.esh.gough teal | lagoon | watch
"Eww!" Myra wiped the sludge from her face, coughing. "No! No splashing!"
The dragon glared, and with one smooth movement, thrust a wing into the lagoon, sending water and mud in a spray across the shore.
Myra had taken to calling the dragon Lester. She'd considered something else, like Spot or Rusty or Birdie, but in the end, she didn't really think he would've appreciated anything so unassuming.
So, he was Lester.
Lester the Jester.
The teal water rippled out behind Lester as he assumed the pose of a swan, gliding across the lagoon as ifhe hadn't been flailing and splashing about moments earlier, determined to soak the coastline through.
"You should be more careful, taking your pet out."
Myra whirled, heart dropping.
A water demon was leaning against a nearby tree. With skin like the morning sky and hair like charcoal, she was spinning an orb of water lazily in the palm of her hand. With the twirl of her fingers, though, the orb morphed into a dragon, flapping its wings in flight yet suspended in place above the demon's hand. The demon met Myra's gaze, and in a single movement, smacked the water dragon from the air with her other hand. "See," the demon grinned, flicking the water droplets from her fingertips. "You never know what tragedy might befall your friend."
"That's some big talk, coming from a puddle," Myra snapped.
Lester had drifted over to the shore, now, and was eyeing the water demon with curiosity.
"There's as bounty out for this beautiful creature," the demon said coolly, crouching down to gesture Lester over.
Myra grimaced, looking down at her watch. The watch hadn't told time in years. But she was rather a fan of dramatics, and the gesture seemed- pun intended- timely.
Of course, there would be a bounty out already.
It hadn't taken long for the rumor of the gate to the dragon realm to spread across the county, and Myra was sure that the countryside strewn with half-eaten livestock would be testament enough as to the veracity of the rumors.
"And you, a water demon, has deigned to warn me."
"He is of the fire, I, of the water," she cooed, scratching Lester beneath the chin. His hind leg began to thump away, and he was, to Myra's eyes, a very scaly, fire-breathing dog. "We are kin. We look out for each other." She glanced up. "I can help protect him. And you."
"In exchange for?"
A grin split across the water demon's face. "In exchange, my dear, for the soul of your first-born child."
FOUR
@rsp4717 green | the beach | key
The county clerk was waiting where Myra had left him, contemplating her application for a booth of~ and her deed for the gate to the dragon realm.
And of course, she'd left her dragon Lester with the water demon by the rocky beach of the lagoon, as people were inclined to do, when they sold the soul of their first-born child off.
Myra didn't know if she trusted the water demon, but she had made a soul-pact with her, so trust didn't really matter. They'd sealed the agreement in blood, and there was no going back from that.
Not even for a demon.
Myra cleared her throat before the clerk's station, but he didn't glance up.
"Excuse me."
Nothing.
"Hi, I-I submitted an application for a deed-"
The clerk sighed, exasperated, eyes not moving from the leaf of parchment he was reading. "Yes. I am ... aware."
"Well?'
"Well, what?"
"Is ... the application approved?"
The clerk set the paper aside, clearly inconvenienced. Then, reaching for a desk drawer, his wings twitched, and he pulled out a small envelope. "You'll need the key."
Myra pressed her eyes closed, a sound of discomposure breaching her lips. "A key? But I-I've already gotten in-"
"A mistake. A mistake the key will rectify, should another..." He slid the envelope across the counter. "Should another follow your steps."
Myra narrowed her eyes, suspicious. The faerie folk kept their secrets, and unquestionably, the clerk's loyalties lay with his people before the office.
"And the county clerk's office just happened to have a key to the gate to the dragon realm," Myra asked quietly.
But the clerk was already back to the sheet of parchment he'd been studying when she walked in, a look of annoyance blooming across his face. "Mm."
Myra frowned, dropping the key into the palm of her hand.
Green with age, it'd been a gleaming copper key, once, but time had set a patina across the metal. Faerie-made, unquestionably, but that only left more questions that it answered.
A dragon named Lester. A water demon with a claim to the soul of her first-born. A faerie key to a forbidden realm.
Myra sighted.
And it wasn't even Wednesday.
December 14, 2020
Prompts: weather | color | an item you keep on your desk
ONE
@eliasirving – rainy day | teal | a bronze bust of FDR
Raindrops plunked down on the aged windowpanes, and Grace pressed his nose against the cool glass. It was mesmerizing, watching as the gray sky let loose hell, water pouring down the roof of the garden gazebo only to give way to the dancing water sprites that formed as the water hit the paver stone path that encircled the gazebo.
Wiggly little creatures, the sprites cackled as they shook their watery limbs, getting acquainted with this brief existence. Sent from the Skies Above, they tended to the garden—with pointed fingers and gleaming teal eyes, they skipped about the flowers on these rainy days, caring for the flora.
Grace was rather fond of the water sprites. He’d been admonished time and time again not to torment them, but their dance enticed him so—surely it could not be so bad to run and dance in the rain with these tender creatures who loved the plants as he did?
He’d donned his raincoat and boots, lost in the thought of traipsing through the rain. He’d yet to outgrow what some fondly called his “charming romanticism,” which meant that he lived with his head in the clouds and couldn’t hear them calling criticisms up from the ground. That was fine, Grace had decided, because this dancing with the water sprites and living in the clouds was a much better way to be anyway in a world being cleaved in two.
The Crevasse was a split running through the center of their world.
It’d appeared a few years ago, and ever since, strange things had begun to happen.
The water sprites did not come as often as they had when Grace was a child, though nobody seemed to care about that.
And things, strange things had begun to fall through—a few rocks, at first, and then a desk. A dragon flew through, once, but had taken one look and turned right back around, flying back into the blackened void it’d come from. Last week, a bust had come flying out, the bronzed head of an old man labeled flinging itself out of the split in the earth and landing square in the vat of soup being peddled by the soup man in the town square, and it had caused general uproar, for more than getting soup everywhere, it’d broken the routine of which they were all accustomed to, and nobody really liked change, here.
With a wistful sigh, Grace stepped out into the rain. No use dwelling on such things.
Though, as he made to watch a gaggle of water sprites tending to the azaleas, he did wonder.
If a dragon could leave this world through the Crevasse into the void, surely he could, too.
TWO
@bowlickmusic – sleet | azure | a spool of thread
Rain turned to sleet, and Grace grew cold and tired, and the water sprites melted into slushy puddles of soon-to-be-ice on the garden paths.
But instead of returning inside, his soaking feet carried him into the middle of town to gaze at the Crevasse. At least twenty feet across, it severed the earth to both horizons, no end in sight.
He watched as a book came hurling out, landing in a half-frozen puddle in the street, pages bleeding ink in the wet. But it was not the color spilling in the sleet, nor the book itself that caught his eye, but rather, a bright azure slip of paper tucked in the pages.
Grace stooped down, picking up the book.
The note had been penned quickly, that much was clear. Tugging it out of the pages, shielding it from the weather, the hasty penmanship was evident, splatters of blood—at least, he assumed it was blood, brown and oxidized—across the paper.
Send help.
Grace’s heart caught in his chest.
No. No, that was impossible, that someone would’ve hurled this book through deliberately. What if nobody picked it up? What if nobody saw the note?
He turned the book over in his hands. How To Sew A Fool-Proof Parachute, the cover read, which was all well and good, and rightly heroic, but…
A great copper kettle came flying out of the Crevasse, and it was only the shout from the crowd beyond that drew Grace’s attention. He ducked, eyes wide, kettle flying just where his head had been moments ago and crashing through a shop window, a scream and the tinkling of broken glass following.
Best not linger here.
Stepping into one of the shops—not the one hit by the rogue kettle—Grace took a moment to flip through the book in the peaceful dry of the inside.
There were sketches, a spool of thread on the title page, little diagrams here and there…
What a curious thing.
A fool-proof parachute.
The book offered no further clues as to who had sent it through the Crevasse.
That mattered little, though, because Grace knew exactly what he had to do. He turned, exiting the shop and making for the fabric district a few streets over.
Someone in that Crevasse needed help.
And what better to arm oneself with before jumping into a fantastical and bottomless split in the world than a fool-proof parachute.