Tag Archive | prompter: lilfluff

Fountain Fishing

Aug12

Fountain Fishing

This is set in (one of ) the world(s) of the Hidden Mall – Abby and Liv have been travelling through a series of multiverse malls, many of them abandoned. Actually, many Abby-and-Livs, Sandy-and-Vics have been travelling – this is a different Abby & Liv than those in the main story. 

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Abby glared at the fountain.

This was the prettiest mall they had found yet. This was the nicest mall they had found – empty, at least – in all of their explorations. But something about it was also just, well, sterile.

There were no food courts. There were no trees, not even fake ones, no plantings, no stores selling anything edible – even the clothing was stiff and formal and so very sterile.

There were fish in the fountains, though.  There were fish in this biggest fountain especially, big ones, koi maybe, darting in and out of the very symmetrical, very smooth sculptures which obscured the bottom of the fountain, leaving it in shadows. 

So Abby had figured out a fishing pole and line with various things stolen from various stores, and she had sat down here with her hook and she had, well. Continue reading →

Felis U

Dec10

Um. 

🏛️

“Okay, I have to admit that was fun.” Samaya glanced back at their History classroom and then looked over at Reggie with a hopeful smile. 

“Mmm.  Fun.” He was definitely not smiling. 

“What do you think they’ll do next?” she tried. 

Reg – who she’d met yesterday at orientation – was so far less enamored of Felis U’s idiosyncrasies than Samaya was. 

Then again – They’re willing to give you a full ride, and they’re accredited and they’re decently known.  You know we can’t afford to pay for college for you, not with your father being ill…

Samaya had just been glad it hadn’t turned out to be some sort of thin veneer over a work camp or something even worse. But she sort of wanted someone else to be enthusiastic with her. 

“Mm.  Maybe a dog?” Reggie shrugged, still unimpressed. How he could be unimpressed was beyond her, but maybe he was made of rock.  Continue reading →

Pumpkin, Spice

Nov7

I cannot find that I posted this anywhere. If it’s a duplicate, apologies!

☕

“All right, I have three partial dictionaries from back then.”

Aatu waited patiently for Vijaya to finish digging through her piles.  “And – hrm.  One cookbook from that era, or, I mean, three pages of it.  Free of charge, Aatu, as long as you give me a sample when you’re done.”

“Thanks, Vijaya.  You’re a lifesaver.”

“Nah, I’m just a word-saver.  Go on with you.  Kairu is going to want to know what you want well in advance, you know.” Continue reading →

Post-Scar City – continued

Sep7

So … let me know what you think about this one?

The Earthers that greeted them as they disembarked were nothing like Adeline had expected. 

They were wearing clean, smooth skirted jumpsuits that were clearly some sort of uniform, little booties with flat heels, and masks covering their noses and mouths.  They immediately handed Adeline and the other Habitaters with her the same sort of masks. 

“It can take up to three weeks for the immune system boosters to completely kick-in,” one of the Eathers explained.  “Until then, you want to avoid as much fluid-to-fluid contact with new people as possible.”

Adeline shared a look with Geordi.  As if they didn’t know basic health protocols! Continue reading →

Post-Scar City – a beginning

Aug17

So: I had something on my fiction list titled post-scarcity, and LilFluff, in his… Fluffiness, called for Post-Scar City. 

Technically, it’s a Post-Scar University, with some influence from The 100 and AM Harte’s Above Ground.

This is an introductory chapter.  Don’t know what I’ll do with it after this, but it does seem to, well, introduce things.

🏫

Adeline pressed up close to the screen that showed their descent, wedging between two taller people that she didn’t know while still trying not to lose her hold on Geordi’s hand.  “It looks… green.  Really green.”

“I’ve never seen so much green,” one of the tall people agreed.  She peeked up, but she didn’t recognize their faces, either.  They were tall, and blue-eyed, with dark hair, and both of them looked the same.  They must have either come from one of the other Habitats, or from the other side of Lazarus Habitat. “It doesn’t —  It can’t– where are the scars?”

“There ought to be scars.”  Geordi’s right hand moved in the signs he used to talk most of the time.  “There ought to be — black, grey.”

She twitched her free hand in the same method.  “It looks like a hydro suite.  Or the sort of things that they show on vids of Before Times.”

Geordi had implants, had since he was ten, but they’d met in the creche, and when it came down to it, he’d always be more comfortable with sign than with spoken language. Continue reading →

The Meter Problem

Jun3
Originally posted on Patreon in June 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.

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This is all @lilFluff‘s fault. Brought on by a toot thread in a now-deleted server, quoted below. Science! ‘verse. 

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“I think we’ve got it!”

Liam stopped at the door and peered at his scientists.  They had to be his; they were in his building.

But he couldn’t remember what this room – tucked behind the break room and next to the fire escape – was even for.

The scientist looking at him looked like she’d forgotten what a brush was for, but she also looked thrilled.

“Tell me more.”

“The square meter challenge.  It was a problem for interns, twenty years ago.”

Liam made a mental note to make sure someone in HR knew about this department.

“And…?” Continue reading →

Mapping

May28

A ficlet of Fae Apoc and probably Addergoole East. 

🗺️

“What are you doing?”

Chlodovech looked up from his work to see a woman glaring at him.  “Surveying.” Wasn’t Amalasuintha supposed to be keeping people away?

“What for?”  The woman looked aggressive.  She was holding a pitchfork in a way that was clearly not ready to pitch any hay and her eyes were narrowed.

Chlodovech straightened up.  “It’s a school project,” he tried.  Truth, right? Truth was good? Useful?

“School project.”  She narrowed her eyes even more.  “You’re mapping my town for a school project.”

“Well, technically, we’re mapping all of former Pennsylvania.  It’s going very slowly,” he added ruefully. In part because of things like this. Continue reading →

We Meet Again (Strangers in the Stream)

Apr14

For my birthday weekend, I challenge(d) people to leave me prompts that would be fun for me to write and also that the prompted would enjoy reading enough to give me fun feedback on. 

Tall order, right? 🙂

🎂

“Shit, Dorian.”  Gianne eyed the bank of the overflowing river and then stumble-skipped down it, holding on to every branch and rock study enough to be a handhold; Dorian, an oversized golden retriever, stood at the top of the bank and barked helpfully.  “Shhh.”

The river was flowing fat and high, clearly over its normal banks, full of detritus, but none of that was what had caught her attention. The black hair with the single streak of white and the ashen face under it, barely held out of the water by the fork of a branch; it could be a corpse.  She was hoping it was still alive enough to save. Continue reading →

Obsolete

Jan20

When you listened to the old-timers talk, the problems were mostly space.

When you actually listened to them, the problem was space in specific areas, or space that someone wanted, or something like that.

But there was a “crowding issue”.  There were issues with too many people in NYC.  There were issues with lots and lots of people in places on the other side of the globe.  There were problems with obsolete technology.  As far as Rhini could tell, there had been a whole bunch of problems like that, or things people had thought were problems, and some really rich people had thought those problems were going to take over the world. Continue reading →

The Generation

Jan8

Amalie had been studying science since she was old enough to scroll through a book reader.  She had spent ten years studying astronomy before moving on to geology and then, in a move that surprised everyone, concentrated on botany for her secondary work.

Her younger brother had focused on astrology and astrogation the entire time, and could tell you from a two-second look at any star chart where they were and which way they were headed.  He wanted to be part of the Navigation Team. He wanted to be part of the Rulers who got to go up onto the Bridge.

Amalie just wanted to know everything.  She wanted, as she explained to her perplexed parents, to eat something more interesting, too, and to make something with a better protein balance that didn’t taste like the same old thing.  And if high-end botany was going to get that, that’s what she was going to study. Continue reading →