Akazha had been slipping through the mud and the muck of swamps and the stench of dead towns. She had wrapped herself in dun and denim, old rags of clothing and layers of dusty, bland cloth. It was the sort of thing that many people were wearing, people that wanted to survive and get by and didn’t really have time to worry, right now, about fashion.

She’d covered herself up from head to toe – it was coming on winter, and she was in the North, so it raised no eyebrows and brought no questions, save one particularly handsy would-be mayor who ripped her veil of and stared at her ears, as if expecting them to be pointed. She ducked her head and didn’t look at people in the face when she met them, just mumbled that she could work if there was food.

There was sometimes work. More rarely was there food. Everyone was hurting, and everyone was scared. She did what she could, and didn’t stay too long. “I don’t like to be around people,” she’d say. “I don’t want to be any trouble.” Any place that could spare a little food for her, well, they could only spare a little, and she didn’t want them to start asking questions.

She wrapped the old clothes around herself like a mask, kept her head down and made no trouble. She was just trying to get by. They were all trying to get by.

She hadn’t meant to fight the monster, but she’d been in Fairview for less than a day, and she could already tell he was bad news. He was hurting the people. He was hurting the kids.

She stood up to her full height and let her colors show. Green and red, blue and yellow; her scales and her skin were all the shades of the rainbow and some never seen in nature.

They’d kill her, the villagers would, or drive her off. She hadn’t had a proper meal in months, and she’d been hoping this would be different.

Akazha stretched, feeling the rags around her tear off, and let her true colors show.

Written to today’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt, “Show One’s True Colors.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1145787.html

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The monsters were coming.

Ramona had grabbed every pistol and rifle she could carry and twice as much ammunition as a sane person ever needed, leaving behind an IOU and an apology to the departed gun shop owner. She might be able to take on an elephant.

But the monsters weren’t always stopped by bullets. She’d watched one on TV get up after an anti-tank missile. She needed something stronger.

The local Wal-Mart was still open: out of water, out of food, but open. She headed for the gardening section.

Armed with the biggest weed torch the store sold & two tanks of propane, Ramona finally felt properly armed.

Written to June 30th’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt, “Packing Heat.”

This entry was originally posted at http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1137309.html. You can comment here or there.

Content warning: slavery, humiliation, other things of that ilk loosely hinted at.

“Please, mistress.” Brock swallowed against his dry throat and his pride. “Please,” he repeated. He hated it. He hated the kneeling, hated the begging, hated calling her mistress.

He hated more the way she looked at him when he did those things, like he was a passably-trained pet. “You know what you have to do, dear. I told you.”

Brock ducked his head again. “Please, mistress. It’s… I can’t.”

“You can, my pet, and you will, or you will sit in here and starve.”

It had been three days with nothing but shallow bowls of water. Brock had started begging near the end of the second day. He knew already what the fourth and fifth day looked like. His mistress had her lesson plans, and she stuck to what worked.

Brock touched his head to the floor. “Mistress? Is there any other way?”

“There is starving, my dear. You do what you need to do to earn your food, the same as everyone else here.”

He swallowed hard against a lump in his throat. “I… I will do it.”

“I know you will.” She patted his head. “You’re a good boy, you know. You just have to be reminded.”

The praise felt hollow and horrible and good. Brock waited, basking in it and hating it, hating her and wanting her to say more nice things, and remembering, most of all, that he wasn’t in the clear yet.

“Now come here, dear. I’ll give you a little to tide you over. We wouldn’t want you fainting in the midst, would we? …again.”

Brock winced. “No, mistress.” He crawled forward through the small entryway in his cage. If he’d had any more pride to swallow… but he was long past that. “Is it…”

“Noone you know, pet.” She set a bowl in front of him, rice, with a trickle of sauce on it. Brock waited, patiently. He didn’t know whether to be pleased or worried by her answer. Someone new, it could go either way… “You may eat.”

“Thank you, mistress.” Waiting, thanking, holding still until he was told to move… Brock had learned many lessons since he’d been captured. Now he knelt forward and ate, slowly and carefully. The food was bland, boring… the food was food, and that was all that mattered.

“That’s my good boy.” He barely felt it when she clipped a leash on his collar. “Now come.”

Written to June 9th’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt, “Meal Ticket.”

Next: http://aldersprig.dreamwidth.org/1128176.html

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They’d grabbed a couple barrels and a door to make a “bench”; they’d hung a curtain, or at least a ratty blanket, over the room to make a “private” courtroom, and they’d pulled in five people to witness, Carter Westcott to serve as judge, and Ardell Aspen to serve as prosecutor.

There was no defense. I wanted to say something about that; I was one of the witnesses, because I hadn’t moved away from the curtain quickly enough – me and four others who’d been loitering around, wondering what they were going to do with Barton after – well, after. But considering the mood of our little community of stragglers, I stayed quiet. I’ve regretted that for years. I didn’t want to end up there, where Barton was… but still.

The prosecutor read off charges. Barton could hardly say he wasn’t guilty – I mean, they’d gagged him, but that didn’t matter when he’d grown feet three times normal size and big furry ears – but they made some pretense that it was a court and not a murder.

If I’d only gotten to him before they’d found him, maybe I could have helped in. Instead, I stood witness to his “conviction” in the most half-assed trial I’d ever seen.

And his would not be the last I’d witness, either.

This is written to today’s Thimbleful Thursday prompt

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