A Flurry of Feathers and Wings

4) Prompt: a hostage situation

"I think negotiations have broken down,” I said, holding my forehead in my hands. Dealing with this woman was giving me a headache.

"The hell they have, I'm still willing to deal."

I glared at her, trying to not let her see my fists being balled under the table. "Your 'deal' is the same thing it's been since we started; you haven't budged at all!"

She shrugged, smiling condescendingly . "I said I'm willing to deal, not to change my demands. It's you who won't just give in."

“What you’re asking for is way beyond what I want! It’s too much!” I growled at her. Time was running out; checking the clock, there was only five minutes until it would be too late.

“Nothing’s too much to the person who wants what I have,” she said, her Cheshire grin getting bigger.

I considered my options; give in to what she wanted, be a damned fool, and at the same time be a hero. Refuse; walk into a living room of friends and family, tell them I failed, and have the parlor of death hang over our heads. Joy.

“Fine.”

She sat up straighter, apparently not thinking I’d give in. “You sure? No going back on this?”

“Yes, yes, just give it to me.”

“Two weeks washing dishes, no using the machine? Foot rubs anytime I want for a month? Date night at a place that doesn’t include the words ‘steak’, ‘bar’, or ‘grill’? Those cute shoes I saw yesterday?”

“Yes, damn you, yes, I said yes, will you give me the damn remote already?!”

She sighed, a little disappointed her fun was over, and slid the TV remote across the table. God, she was cutting it close, kickoff was in two minutes. She got up and went to the fridge. “Remember, you spill it, you clean it, and tell John to keep his boots off the coffee table this time.”

“I hate you.”

She smiled sweetly and kissed my cheek. “I love you too honey.”

I grabbed the remote and stood up, mumbling something under my breath and walked into the living room. Fifteen pairs of eyes of looked at me expectedly. I held the remote up, triumphantly.

“Ladies and gentlemen;

we have football.”


( The list )

2) Write a scene with a drunken mythological creature

“Professor?”

“Yes, yes, what is it?”

“What is it that phoenixes eat?”

Professor Gel puffed, never looking up from the numerous papers of numerous languages displayed in front of him. “Technically, they don’t have to eat or drink anything; immortal rebirthing from flame and all that.”

Yukkum looked from the phoenix alight on its perch, to the professor and back. “But when they do…”

“A little of anything any normal bird would ingest. Fish, meat, dead meat, sweetened water; I myself prefer berries, mainly because the kitchen allows me to pilfer their stocks before they throw out whatever they won’t serve us anymore.”

“Oh.”

A moment went by before the professor crinkled some papers under his hands. “And just what to do you mean by, ’oh’, you increasingly irritating git?”

“Um, I think the berries you got might have fermented before you gave them to Ice.”

“Oh?” The professor finally looked away from his desk. “And why would you suggest that.”

“Your bird is drunk… sir.”

Professor Gel cocked his head to the side, his unkempt hair doing well to simulate canine ears, and left his desk to move closer to the perch. “Continue student. What leads you to this conclusion?”

Yukkum blinked, not quite sure why his teacher was suddenly going into his teaching mode, but sighed and figured it was better than being ignored or forbade from the offices. “Well, the waver of the neck, her eyes look fogged over, I think she’s emitting the equivalent of a ‘hiccup’ and, well… have you ever seen a phoenix of green fire?” Ice gave another of her “hics” and cocked her own head at the professor, which resulted in her head resting against an emerald wing, completely upside down.

“Fascinating,” was all the professor could say for several minutes, staring in scholarly wonder at his inebriated pet. “Yukkum,” was said so suddenly he jumped at his own name, “run down to the herbology green houses and procure some of that smoke-weed Professor Vacco is splicing together.”

He took a few steps towards the door before turning around. “May I ask, since I don’t believe it to be of any help, why, sir?”

Professor Gel looked over and gave that toothy grin he and his colleagues were famous for.

“Because, once this old bird sobers up, I want to see what color it will turn when we get it high.”


( The list )

So I am back, officially, and officially I have a lot to catch up on. One of which being the 30 Days meme I had made myself and started back in June, and then solidly went to hell. Go me.

Since I only managed to get 9 days in, I'm going to restart the meme myself from the beginning. That means you lucky people get a bonus nine entries! Rejoice!

There are going to be a couple of changes though; sorry, it's just the nature of having a different life situation than when I started the last one. The changes are: I'm changing the word count to anything more than 200, but less than 400. I figure this will allow for more loose writing than trying to adher to the +/- 50 rule. Also, though not a rule per say, I probably won't be doing this every day. There's just too much going on elsewhere, but I will be doing it so that's the best I can offer at the moment.

Other than that, where goes nothing (again). Let's see if I can't come up with something (again) to start this off.

8) Write a scene as a cat

Ksjhsodi sod soidj fslkdj opw wo jsdo fwpwjf jskdfjo sdlks didjos lkw jod lksj dod osjwl so jdoijfwlkwje fewjr sdf

Sd wlke jos kw joakjlka sjdlfk oskw jwoij lckj wlke jrosijf nkj alkdf dfsfdl

(I wrote it like a cat)

( The list )

6) Write a scene with people talking, but without any actual dialog

Wow, she is really angry. Pissed, even. Wonder what I did this time.

Hmm; can’t think of anything. Specific, anyway. Can’t be the bank job, that wasn’t even me. The giant spider ‘bot walking through downtown, maybe, but it wasn’t like anyone even got hurt. Geez, you’d think she’d remember that I stopped doing that the last time I did that. Besides, that guy was old, it wasn’t my fault he started breathing funny!

Uh oh, hands are up, must’ve been something good, she’s never this animated for stupid stuff like robot armies. Yes, point and wave the finger in my face, that’ll teach me. Head bob is kinda cute. Wish she’d ditch the cape, way too retro for her style. Classic, yes, but- oh come one, is tying a lamppost around me really necessary? Really?

Yada, yada, yada, yes, I know, crime bad, can we move on already, yeesh. Same as the last speech, same and the next one. Maybe she’s pissed about last month. Like that was my fault! God, she wasn’t even drunk when she suggested the hotel. Waitaminute… no, I brought up the hotel, but she still said yes! And spending the next day in bed wasn’t my idea, so that’s still on her.

Wow she’s cute when she’s back lit by the sun. Okay, I take back the cape thing, she looks damn good.

She looks like she has another good fifteen minutes in her. Wonder if my battery will last that long? Or if she’ll even notice my mask has headphones.

( The list )

I went over the word count, but I think it was worth it.

4) Prompt: a hostage situation

“Give him back,” Katie yelled, beating and kicking at the door. “You are gonna be in so much trouble!”

“Will not,” Jake said, making double sure he had locked the door when he ran in. He glanced around the room, wishing his windows were the kind that opened.

“Give him back!” Kate said again.

“What will you do for him?”

“Why should I do anything, he’s mine!”

“Not anymore,” Jake taunted through the door. “He’s mine now, and you can’t do anything about it.” He giggled to himself as Katie’s yells and thumping at the door increased. Oh, he knew he was in trouble. His mistake was running into his room and not out the front door, but it was too late for that.

“Jake! Open the door!” The door rattled as she shook the door by the handle. She sounded near tears. Excellent! The only thing now he had to worry about if she went for the big guns and called- “MOM!”

Oh crap.

“Jake! What are you doing to your sister?”

“Nothing!” Buy some time, buy some time, buy some ti-

“He stole Spike when I got a snack, and I need him so Twilight Sparkle can write a letter to Princess Celestia, and now he locked his door and won’t give him back!”

What did she need the little toy for anyway, it was a dragon, girls didn’t play with dragons. He heard the heavy steps of his mother, then her voice right behind the door. “Jake. Give your sister back her toy and open this door right this instant, or so help me you’ll be sleeping on your stomach for a week!”

“But-“

“Right now!”

“You won’t get the paddle?”

“Not unless you don't open this door right now.” Jake sighed, his fun over, and opened the door. His eyes widened as soon as it revealed his mother and what she held, and she grabbed him before he could try to shut it again.

“You said you weren’t gonna get the paddle!”

“And you promised you wouldn’t fight with your sister. Guess which lie is gonna hurt more?”

( The list )

2) Write a scene with a drunken mythological creature

“I’m not gonna cut him off. You do it.”

“Screw that, he’s on your number, you tell him.”

“Hey!” The feathered snaked rolled his head over on the countertop, raising it and stared at the arguing bartenders. “Wassa problem? Tell me to mah faces… my feec…” He let out a loud belch that shook some feathers from his wings. “Do you who I am?”

“Yeah Mr. Q, we know. You’ve been in every night and let us know, every night,” Mallory sighed, starting to mix together a variety of bottles that all seemed to be red.

“Hey! Hey. Hey, hey, hey. I. Am a feared-ed-ed and worshippedfulling god. Gods? God. I, am a name to be feared! Eared. I am Quetza- Quetzee- how did tha go again? Quez-ah-coral? Quesadilla? Cutesy wootz ah who gives a crap, where the Spanish Hell is my human sacrifice?” His tail flopped on the bar, weakly knocking over a few glasses.

Mallory just sighed and brought over the tenth tall glass of dark crimson liquid of the night. “Here.”

The silted pupil came down to counter level and eyeballed the drink in front of him. “Whas this?”

“Your drink.”

“I wanned a human sacrifice.”

“That’s what that is, a Human Sacrifice. Same as the last nine you’ve had. Same as last night. And the night before that. It’s all you order.”

“No no no no no. I want a human sacrifice. Gimme.”

“You want… a real human sacrifice. Like beheading and all that?”

His neck feathers puffed out and he nodded eagerly.

“… fresh out, sorry.”

“What?! The hell, I am a valued customer, and I demand-” He tried to slam his tail down for emphasis but only ended up dumping himself off the stool. “Why, hello Mista Floor, fancy meeting you down here.”

( The list )

I made my own 30 Day writing meme; huzzah! As evident by the title, it's all about flash fiction and the short little snippets of inspiration to get you going (maybe). I tried to keep it as genre neutral as possible to allow for the greatest range of ideas. And hopefully their abstract enough to make for a wide berth of influences, but still direct enough that the prompt isn't confusing in what the basic idea should be. Or maybe I'm just overthinking this.

Basic rules: Try to keep it to 250 words per entry, give or take 50 words. Go wild with genres (ex; prompt 25 is "noir" but it's meant as more a mood/flavor). No poems; rhyming verse/prose is okay. Have fun.

Your month of prompts are:

1) Write a scene saying “hello”
2) Write a scene with a drunken mythological creature
3) Write a query letter for a fantasy (any kind) novel
4) Prompt: a hostage situation
5) Write a scene entirely in dialog
6) Write a scene with people talking, but without any actual dialog
7) Write something dirty (take that how you will)
8) Write a scene as a cat
9) Write a scene working from the title “Roses are Red, Violets are Dead”
10) Write a scene focused around a musical instrument
11) Prompt: a dragon and a princess
12) Write a scene at a sushi bar
13) Prompt: underwater
14) Write the final scene of a romance novel “Never Been Caught”
15) Prompt: shots fired
16) Write a scene on horseback
17) Write a scene with a character in a foreign land, unable to speak the local language
18) Prompt: the name “Thomas Daniel”
19) Prompt: in the marketplace
20) Write a scene with the opening line “I hate you; I just want you to know that”
21) Write a scene with a drink(ing) of some sort
22) Write a scene with children
23) Prompt: falling
24) Write a scene on a movie set
25) Prompt: noir style
26) Write a personalized rejection letter for the YA novel “Sparkle Lust”
27) Prompt: trapped
28) Prompt: overhearing a conversation
29) Write a scene about a [person] and their [animal]
30) Write a scene saying “good bye”

So yeah, hopefully this is fun, and you all enjoy it!