Tag Archive | prompt: thimbleful

May/December/?, a Tootfic/microfic/Thimbleful Thursday

May5

“I’m five hundred years old,” he complained, as he’d been complaining for weeks. In his mind, it meant something.

The two who had slipped into his bed didn’t seem to agree.

“So?” asked the woman. “I’m two hundred and fifty. He’s a hundred.” She tilted her head at the other man, sandwiched up against Mr. 500.

“So,” the youngster smirked in turn. “What’s that make this? May/May/December? April/August/December?”

“I think,” he said slowly, looking between the two who were so very determined to be his lovers, “that we’re going to need something of a bigger calendar.”

Written to yesterday’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt and also tootfiction – 500-character-or-less fic for Mastodon

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1320084.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Laboring, a Tootfic/microfic/Thimbleful Thursday

May3

He never knew.

That was the point: that he would not, could not know.

She climbed the tallest mountain & swam the coldest river. She didn’t post a picture, didn’t write about it, didn’t even tell her mother.

She walked on hot coals and, when she was done with that, collected plants from 6 continents and small animals from 37 nations.

She wrote a treatise on her journey which only one being besides herself would ever read.

And then, and only then, was she allowed to be loved by him.

Written to April 6th’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt and also tootfiction – 500-character-or-less fic for Mastodon

I had to add a word to get it in the 90-to-110 range…

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1318468.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Tootfiction/Thimbleful Thursday: Nest Egg

May1

“The idea,” Ron explained, “came from putting a fake egg into a nest to encourage the bird to lay there. So…” He put $50 and a ceramic egg in the safe-deposit box.

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Iva complained. “It’s all about saving money, encouraging YOURSELF to put more cash away. Not just… hoping someone else will lay eggs in your safe-deposit box.”

“Well, if I’m wrong, we move it all to the savings account and go from there. But if I’m right…”

Both of them were surprised when, upon opening the box a month later, they found $100 and 15 ceramic eggs.

Written to April 20’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt and also tootfiction – 500-character-or-less fic for Mastodon

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1316765.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Over the Moon

Apr28

“I’m Peter Pan,” Flavia sighed. She was floating half a foot off the floor, bouncing up and down, useless yellow moth-wings fluttering.

“Tinkerbell,” Rémy countered with a grin.

“Wendy,” she retorted. She was her whole height above the ground now, and so was he. “Other people smile and I float. Think of a happy thought.”

“A happy thought?” Rémy’s smile turned fond and warm. Flavia bounced another six feet in the air, Rémy right behind her. “You’re right here.”

They were heading for the moon with no sign of stopping.

Written to yesterday’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt and also tootfiction – 500-character-or-less fic for Mastodon

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1314351.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

A Month of Sundays – Tootfiction/Thimbleful Thursday

Apr18

She woke on Sundays.

The world was small, quiet; the landing site nearly self-sustaining, but when she’d slept a month she’d woken to find the smallest robot bumping into walls, so now she woke on Sundays.

Her calendar marked thirty-one Sundays. She woke, X’d the date, took notes, transmitted data, checked the fields.

The robots did most of that. Still, she had to do something.

The calendar had 12 months of Sundays. On “Christmas” she made eggnog. For “New Year’s”, she cried at old songs.

On Leap day, they finally reached her.

Written to Jul 30th’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt as an experiment in tootfiction – 500-character-or-less fic for Mastodon

Actually, in this case, this version is slightly longer to fit in the Thimbleful requirements. The Tootfiction version here – https://tootplanet.space/@aldersprig/34252 was only 80 words.

… and now that this text may be longer than the story…

Oh yeah! Inspired by the Wired comic for Interstellar, which I liked better than the movie.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1308575.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Tootfiction/Thimbleful Thursday: New Leaf

Apr17

The trees in Haleth Forest were unlike those anywhere else. They had not grown but had been created. In every one of them, broad leaves spread out, waiting for pen.

You could climb the trees to read someone else’s tale unfolded leaf after leaf or you could climb higher to find pages that had not yet been written on.

There, you could write your own story on new leaves, untouched by hand or pen or tale.

Some people used it to gain immortality.

Some used it to gain a fresh start.

Written to Dec 29th’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt as an experiment in tootfiction – 500-character-or-less fic.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1307784.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Tootfiction/Thimbleful Thursday: At Arm’s Length

Apr12

She’d learned early that the thing to do was hold your-gloved, armored-arms out and push. The things weren’t clever, weren’t strong, were just persistent. With your arms held in the direction of the things, you could plow through. Facemask down, coat on, push.

The first time had been a surprise. She’d come out the other end pleased to survive. After that, she pushed everywhere. Need food? Push. Need a new hideout? Push.

When she pushed and someone pushed back, she was briefly stumped.

Written to March 30th’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt as an experiment in tootfiction – 500-character-or-less fic.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1304631.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Black Thumb, a Thimbleful Story

Mar17

“Shit.” Consia flopped down by her failed garden. “I have a black thumb. I can’t keep anything alive.” She ran her fingers through dead leaves. “Carrots! The book said they were great for kids.“

She wasn’t talking to anyone in particular – the cat didn’t care, and there was nobody else around. Her house had been isolated before everything ended; half her neighbors had died and the other half had fled. That left her and the cat. She was running out of food from her neighbors’ cupboards. “I’m going to die because I can’t grow a freaking carrot”

“You know, you could just come with us.”

That was not the cat. Consia rolled to her feet to face three men, the foremost of whom was leering at her. They weren’t skinny. That was the first thing she noticed. How in the names of a billion gods-like-rats were they not skinny when the world had ended?

The answers that came to mind seemed no more reassuring than the man’s smile.

“I’d like to stay here.”

“Well, we were going to take your food, but I guess we can’t do that. So we’ll take you instead, put you to some use. And if we can’t,” he leered, “then… Long pig gets tasty after a while.”

Consia stared at them. “Excuse me?” Her voice was steel; new, strange steel. Something was growing in her.

“I said, darling, we’re going to work you or eat you.”

“I thought so.” Not steel. Ironwood. She was standing, growing taller. “No. Go away.”

“Oh, darling, I don’t think-”

The vine that shot out of his mouth wasn’t a carrot, but it looked like it would bear fruit. Consia stretched; the yard, no, everything came to life.

The formerly-dead raspberry bush up front caught his friends. Consia glanced at the cat.

“Those are yours,” she told it. “I’m going to see to the carrots.”

Her thumbs were solid green. She figured that was a small price to pay.

Written to yesterday’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt & part of my fae apoc ‘verse

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1279450.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Thimbleful Thursday: Musical

Oct28

In Tyeibon, at the height of the body-modification craze, they did not call it hourglass-shaped but violin-shaped, or, sometimes, cello-curved.

Women wore backless dresses draped low on their spine, and had installed strings running from neck to bottom, in imitation of violins. (Men, too, wore backless outfits, and their spines were decorated with ports and keys, but that is a story for another time.) Extreme examples would have tuning pegs worked into the decoration at the neck; the number of strings would range from three up to twenty. They would slide a small, arched bridge between spine and strings, to change the sound of the their music.

The strings were magical, of course. Human bodies, no matter how shaped, does not make the sounds that a hollow piece of wood does. But with these decorations, those bodies could be played like an instrument.
It had become the habit by this point for young rakes and old troubadours to carry their own bow around with them (as women carried their own reed and mouthpiece). Impromptu concerts might break out in the streets sometimes; a very clever musician knew how to create a song on the fly, to match the lady’s sound and key, for every body made its own sound.

It was beautiful indeed. Tyeibon came to be known throughout the Empire for the beauty of their songs and the shapeliness of their women, the strangeness of their fashion and the elaborateness of their courting rituals. They made the highest music there, the songs played in the court of the Emperor himself.
And then an enterprising young farmer-cum-musician slid a flatter bridge between the strings of a would-be socialite, and flattened his bow just so across her strings, and drew from her lean and strong body a twang unheard of in Tyeibon’s more rarefied circles.

In Tyeibon, they did not say hourglass-shaped but violin-curved, or, in a later era, fit as a fiddle.

Written to last week’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt & part of my Things Unspoken ‘verse

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1192916.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable

Thimbleful Thursday – Easy Street

Oct15

“I’m telling you, one more run, that’s it. Just one more score, and we’re on easy street.” Pell leaned back against the fence, grinning. “And this last one was a sweet one, wasn’t it? In, out, smooth as butter, no hitches at all.”

“Why is it,” Kell mused, “that every time you say something’s going to be smooth, I start to worry?”

“Well, that, my friend, is because you have no faith in me at all. Now, look, I’ve got all the info already. My source set me up good. You, me, Fell, the three of us in and out and kabang, we never have to see each other again, we never have to see nobody we don’t wanna see again.”

“This source.” Kell made the word sound sour and dirty, “that’s the question. They get, what, a quarter of our take?”

“Yeah, uh, something like that.” Pell shifted from foot to foot.

“And they give you the locations. But you’ve never seen them. You just dead-drop the money and get the information the same way?”

“Yeah? And?”

“And you never thought that was the least bit hinkey?”

“Why should I? I mean, Fell set us up. Fell’d worked with them before, and I know Fell from that Southwest job, you remember. Hellion set that one up.”

“And Hellion is such a good judge of character, too, aren’t they?” Kell’s headshake was more sad than upset. “Seriously, Pell, something’s just a little off about this.”

“Come on, Kell,” Pell wheedled. “Think about the money. Think about Easy Street. Not having to do anything else like this ever again, if we don’t want. Not having to work if we don’t want.”

“If it sounds too good to be true…” Kell muttered.

“Well, it’s not like this job is going to be a simple one or anything. We’re going to have to work damn hard for this last score. But once we do…”

“Easy street.” Kell wasn’t that hard to convince. People that were didn’t usually end up in their line of work. “All right. Let’s go.”

The building was just as the plans had suggested; the target was just where they were supposed to be, the security as easy as hacking a baby monitor. Pell handled the extraction with customary finesse while Kell handled the getaway car.

“See?” Pell drove into the drop-off site. “Easy-peasy, easy street.”

“You know,” Kell agreed slowly, “you might actually be right for… what’s that smell?”

“You’ve done quite well in acquisitions,” the voice over the car radio purred, as the gas knocked them unconscious. “But now I want you in a more front-and-center position in my slave shops. As merchandise, I think.”

Written to this week’s Thimbleful Thursday Prompt: Easy Street, and part of my d/s ‘verse. Probably.

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1187306.html. You can comment here or there. comment count unavailable