crystalfic

[crystalfic]

Genevieve raked a loose strand of hair off her forehead and looked up grimly. 10:23, and the skies had darkened, but there was no sign yet of what the weathergirls had predicted.

Around her, her fellow doctors and nurses and hospital staff waited tensely. Some were still, some jittering foot to foot, some compulsively checking their field kits. None of them liked waiting when they knew they'd be needed.

Beside her, Bethany from reception muttered into her phone, coordinating the response teams. Every ambulance not needed for an urgent call-out was waiting at a different designated spot where they could reach emergencies easily. Gaps were covered by army and Air Force medics and truck drivers, the nearby ocean patrolled by Coastguard and Naval vessels ready to fish the slightly unluckier victims out of the water. Helicopters with nets had been vetoed; too much chance of an unfortunate man falling into the blades.

10:27.

"Here they come!" one of the nurses yelled, pointing up into the sky. Genevieve followed his pointing finger to see a black speck. And then another, a little further away. More and more, hundreds upon hundreds filling the sky.

Bethany's voice took on an urgent intensity.

And then . . .

Impact.

Genevieve could have happily gone the rest of her life without hearing the peculiarly soggy thump made by human bodies hitting the ground.

Triage checked him first; no point wasting treatment on the dead. But they were lucky, or perhaps not; the first victim of the fall was not just alive but awake, groaning and bleeding but still moving and talking.

Hospital staff bundled him inside, and Genevieve shifted her attention to the next casualty. This one was further away, having landed in the parking lot, and he was unconscious by the time a team wheeled him past at high speed.

Then the first ambulance wailed up and threw its doors open, and Genevieve was wrist-deep in trying to keep the man together for long enough to get him into the hospital.

~

Hours later, Genevieve collapsed into an unoccupied chair in the canteen. Hospital management had popped open the vending machines and told them to take what they needed, and the litter of open soda cans, drained water bottles, and empty snack packets proved exactly how welcome that had been to the exhausted staff.

A cup of coffee steamed in front of Genevieve, and she gazed at it with foggy eyes. The effort it would take to reach out and close her hand around it seemed like far too much, her arms shaking as the smell wafted to her nose.

Something light but warm settled around her shoulders, and Genevieve found the strength to loll her head back at an angle. "Beth."

"Gennie," Bethany said, tucking the blanket around Genevieve more securely and then flopping into the chair opposite her with a huff of air. "They're just finishing with the last few here. I checked with the nurses, your last patient is breathing on his own and he's sleeping. Prognosis is good."

Genevieve made a noise of acknowledgement, relief sapping even more energy as the stress that had fuelled her faded away. She'd be aching later, after she'd slept, but it was worth it. Men of all shapes and sizes and appearances had been saved from death or long-term injury, and she was calling that a bonus.

A clatter of feet on easy-to-scrub lino flooring brought a new burst of adrenaline, and Genevieve sat up and twisted around alertly. It was Mohammed, one of the surgeons, and given how hard he'd been working he was the last person she'd expected to see.

"Who is it?" she demanded, ready to hear that one of her patients had taken a turn for the worse.

Mohammed gasped a couple of lungfuls of air, licking his lips before he spoke. "Gennie . . . my last patient. It's your husband. He's alive."

We repeat. Get to a secure shelter and stay inside until the all clear is called. Do not leave your shelter under any circumstances. Meteorologists have confirmed confirm that, after roughly 10:30, for the first time in history, it’s gonna start raining men.

#stormy weather #my writing #it's raining men #writing prompt #urban fantasy #hospitals #injury #referenced injury

[crystalfic]

The Witch House

One morning there’s a cottage where there wasn’t one before, and you’ve heard this story before, so you’re wary. But it’s an elderly couple who live there, and they’re lovely people if a little odd sometimes, and somehow the sudden appearance of the cottage just isn’t important enough to investigate.

Years go by, and they’re part of the village. She makes the best food you’ve ever tasted, and you’re pretty sure that she bakes extra cakes for those children bold enough to steal a cooling one from the window sill. Oh, she’ll yell at them, but nothing bad ever happens. (Except when Henry fell face first into a cow pat, but you’re pretty sure that was an accident.)

He’s the one that people go to for advice; everyone, not just the adults. Children ask questions, and he takes them seriously, and his knowledge is beyond any other person you know for sheer depth and breadth. Teenagers confess their troubled hearts, and he tells them that they are not the first to feel this way and that they need to talk to whoever their feelings are about. Adults, who are not so different from children and teenagers except in scope, come quietly in the evening and leave looking less stressed. (Or, sometimes, more.)

A few years down the road, the village loses him. Your village gives him a good burial, and you all look after his widow because you know what’s owed. The house starts to need maintenance, after that, but no matter what people do to patch it up, it never quite takes. She just smiles and offers them a fresh pear from the tree in her garden. (It’s always in fruit, and people carefully do not ask.)

One day, the door falls off, and your neighbours go in to find her lying peacefully in bed. You bury her too, next to her husband, and when you return to the house you find that the walls have begun to crumble and the pear tree is dead.

It’s next spring before anyone has the heart to tear down what’s left of the old house. The people of the village will build a new one, you decide, for whatever wanderer next comes through needing a home.

When you dig down for the new foundations, you find enormous bones, bent as if some monstrous chicken died sitting. After some discussion, you bury the bones next to the old couple’s graves. It takes five strong adults to move each one, and each claw is the size of a tall man’s leg. You do not comment on this, nor on how the old pear tree has entirely dissolved away in the winter storms.

The day after the new house is finished, you wake up to find bright curtains at the windows and a round-bodied young woman living there. She has a smile like spring, and the cherry tree in her garden never runs short of fruit.

~

(This story was inspired by a sculpture made by hellenhighwater, original post is here.)

#my writing #fantasy #short story #baba yaga #of a sort #the witch house

[crystalfic]

Whether the Weather

The sound of shattering glass didn't bother Jenny. Aoife's old hero name might have been 'Lightfoot', but her powers had no effect on her clumsiness. At least, Jenny thought fondly, she didn't have to worry about Aoife hurting herself on the shattered shards. The way she could hover above any surface meant that she could stay above any broken glassware.

The sound of her wife screaming did bother Jenny.

Jenny catapulted herself into the kitchen, her powers straining for whatever available moisture was in the vicinity. Aoife lay on the floor, awake but dazed, and two figures in heavy combat gear loomed over her with rifles in hand. One looked up, a mask blocking their face, and Jenny's felt a surge of the same rage that had once destroyed buildings and livelihoods. Nobody hurt her wife.

Water gushed out of the sink, bottles burst as they gave up their contents, and the laundry was abruptly drier than long-buried bones. Water didn't need much space to get in, to get around or under, and it all leapt to her command.

Part of it splashed against their masks, soaking through air filters and blinding them. Some darted down the barrels of their guns, and it might not make them unusable but it would make them hesitate to fire. A tiny wave washed under their feet, their boots sliding on the frictionless surface as she held their boot soles away from the floor, and Aoife slammed one foot towards them from where she lay forgotten on the floor. It didn't connect; it didn't have to. Bodies were also a surface, and Aoife could kick like a shire horse with or without her powers.

One of them thumped against the countertop by the broken kitchen window, and Jenny encouraged the assassin back outside with a focused burst of water to the torso. She could hear him screaming as he dropped three storeys, but she couldn't bring herself to care. If he was lucky, he'd land in old Mr de Luca's flowerbeds.

She knelt by the second attacker, ripping his mask off with a little liquid assistance. "Who sent you?" she demanded.

The young man—a boy, almost—swallowed as he met her furious gaze, his eyes wide and his lower lip between his teeth.

Jenny leaned in a little, water creeping up the side of her face to mimic the closed-faced helmet she'd once worn as the supervillain Hurricane. "Who. Sent. You?" she snarled.

The boy swallowed. "Immateria," he squeaked. "She wants to make a statement, show everyone that no hero is safe from her reach."

There was a shuffling noise behind her, and Aoife hooked her chin over Jenny's shoulder. Jenny's water-formed helmet shifted aside to make room, moulding lovingly against her wife's face. "A-rank villain," Aoife provided. "I tangled with her once or twice while I was working with Lancer, but I'm not in her league."

A small, vicious smile sliced across Jenny's face. "Unfortunately for Immateria? She's not in mine." She leaned closer to the boy, close enough to smell him sweating. "Go back to your mistress, and tell her that retired Powers are off limits. Tell her that if she thinks that those in their fifties and sixties are easy targets, to think again. Tell her that old Powers are the ones who survived." She grinned, showing the false teeth she'd had implanted after one too many battles. "And tell her that Hurricane will be very unhappy if she has to make that point again."

You’re a retired S-tier supervillain. After you retired, you married a B-tier hero. You are forced back onto the stage when an A-tier villain attempts to kill your spouse.

#my writing #superheroes

[crystalfic]

There are lavish balls and parties, every night. We cannot go within, but we can see. There are cameras, inside, and sometimes the party spills into the impossibly green garden that surrounds the palace itself. Ships pass by just to watch the distant dancing, to hear the laughter that makes no sound in the vacuum of space.

Ships do not land at the palace, but the tables are always full of delicious food and expensive drinks. The princes and princesses lift their glasses to their lips, smiling, before the dance whirls them away again.

It has been decades since the parties at the Palace grew into a galactic sensation. The inhabitants of the Palace play into it, charging ships a small fortune for premium viewing sites or better camera feeds, which I suppose is how they can afford to keep going.

Few people stay to watch another night. Perhaps that's good, or they'd see what I see.

Even the best of the cameras are old. They were installed not long after the first cruise ships chose Palace Orbit as a sightseeing destination, and the quality of the videos feed is nowhere near as clear as modern cameras. Don't get me wrong, it's live footage; they've proved that over and over. They just have a reason for ensuring the footage is a little grainy.

The cameras are live. The dancers are not.

The rubbery plastic of their cheeks is beginning to crack, after decades of running through the same semi-randomised actions. Their clothes, once lavish, are beginning to fade and wear out. The artificial food, uneaten by those who cannot eat, is beginning to gather dust from the disintegrating clothes. Even the magnetic tracks that carry them on their nightly entertainments have begun to hitch - I have put in a maintenance request, but I have heard nothing back yet.

I will wait, spinning here on my little asteroid around the bigger one that holds the Palace. Time does not matter to me.

Perhaps I should send another maintenance request for my own habitat. The hole in the window is still open to space, and it has been a long time since I had oxygen in here.

Deep Water Prompt #3120

The Palace sits under its dome, shining and impenetrable against the obsidian void of space. I hear they keep the gravity low inside, so the princes and princesses all but float across the floor.

#my writing #horror #scifi #space #automatons

[crystalfic]

Reblog if you write fic and people can inbox you random-ass questions about your stories, itemized number lists be damned.

#yes #ask me anything #that story I wrote ten years ago? #go ahead

[crystalfic]

Hey! I absolutely adore your work, and I read all that I could find!

I don't really know what is a ping list, but I suppose it is to tell people when there's more stuff from Yesterday's Legacy? If it is, I'd love to be a part of it, please!!

Added! Aplogies for the delay.

[crystalfic]

Hi! I just found Yesterday’s Legacy and I’m in love <3 Any chance I could be added to the ping list?

Added! Sorry for the delay, the ask got buried.

[crystalfic]

He turned the stopcock back on and, trailed by the anxious homeowner, trotted back upstairs to turn on the bathroom tap. It coughed, spluttered, and then settled down into a steady flow.

"There we go," he said cheerfully. "Dry as a bone. No more leaks."

"Thank you, Jack," the homeowner said, the tension easing out of him. "What do I owe you?"

Jack smiled. "Call it a favour. And if someone else needs help, I'm happy to assist."

~

Jack knocked the last nail in and stepped back to view his work. The breeze failed to rattle the newly rebuilt fence, and he nodded to himself in satisfaction.

"Thanks!" said the farmer who'd asked for his help. "I owe you one."

Jack smiled. "I'll remember that."

~

". . . and the builders say that we'd need to get the whole roof re-tiled! For a couple of loose slates?" The woman's voice rose above the murmur and clatter of the coffee shop, and the background noise briefly dipped in response.

Her best friend patted her arm gently. "It's okay. I know a guy."

~

"And . . . goodbye virus." Jack sat back in the young man's computer chair. "And I strongly recommend that you get a decent antivirus and firewall, or this will happen again."

"Those are expensive," the young man complained. "And I can just get you to fix it for me, right?"

Jack smiled. "Can you?"

~

The doorbell rang.

Exhausted after a long day of disappointed hopes, the woman shuffled to her front door. If it was the neighbour's kid again, come to report on the hunt, she'd probably slam the door on them.

Hope revived in a dizzying emotional punch as she saw Jack, who carried a happily purring orange cat in his arms. "I believe you've been looking for this bundle of mischief?" he asked politely.

"Kipper!" she squeaked, plucking the source of all her worries out of Jack's grip. "Thank you, thank you so much, I don't know what I'd do without my precious boy."

Jack smiled. "Glad to help."

~

The civil servant put the phone down and buried his face in his hands.

His assistant, alerted by the sudden silence, poked her head through the door. "Is it that bad?"

"Worse," he said, muffled. "They've suspended any requirements for planning permissions. Some idiot's going to build houses on a flood plain and we can't stop them."

The assistant bit her lip, lipstick smearing on her teeth. "We could call Jack?"

The civil servant lifted his head out of his hands to stare incredulously at her. "Jack? Jack Oatfield? He does DIY!"

"And he knows people," she pointed out. "Half the city owes him a favour at this point."

The civil servant shook his head, but he also picked up the phone.

~

The girl viciously kicked the ball against the wall of her house, thumping it back harder and harder every time. Part of her wanted to take the ball around to the side of the house where the windows were and glory in the smash, but Jack had only just replaced the last broken window. She'd seen how stressed her mum had been about it, even though she hadn't been the cause of that one. She didn't want her mum to feel that bad again.

"What's up, kid?"

The girl stopped kicking the ball. "Oh. Hi, Jack."

"Your face looks longer than a rainy day. Anything I can help with?"

She stuck her hands in her pockets. "Not unless you can make the city council give us the Summer Fair back. We were going to have a school float in the parade, and a chocolate raffle booth at the fair, and my cousin's dad was going to bring his burger truck and he does the best burgers ever."

"Hmm. Let me see what I can do."

Jack inclined his head to her, face straight, and walked away.

~

The Summer Fair that year was an unprecedented success.

The homeowner gathered his fellow lorry drivers and volunteered their rigs as the floats. (This led to an impromptu agreement to help each other out, which in turn led to a wildly successful transport hire company.)

The farmer offered the use of a couple of fallow fields for the fair and parking. (A local stable owner liked the place so much that she relocated her riding school to the area, giving a steadier income stream for the farmer.)

The woman with the roof took on the organisation of the entire fair. (Which so impressed one local businessman that he offered her a better job.)

The young man with the computer virus designed and printed the leaflets and posters. (This helped him get a job with an advertising company in London.)

The woman with the cat knew some people at a nearby dance school, who brought the students to perform a few routines at the fair. (The dance school got so many new students that they ended up hiring the woman with the cat to deal with the admin.)

The civil servant arranged the permissions for the parade and the fair. (He then quit his highly stressful job and became a travel writer. His online blog became widely known for its accuracy and thoroughness.)

And the little girl, who owed Jack nothing, had the best day of her life at the fair.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got a guy.”

You’re the guy everyone’s got.

#jack of all trades #liminal beings #my writing #is jack supernatural? #we just don't know

[crystalfic]

Hello, just found Yesterday's Legacy and it is glorious!! Also saw something about a ping list. Could I please be a part of that?? Thanks

Thank you! And you're now added to the list.

[crystalfic]

Any chance you’ve been working on chapter 3 of Yesterday's Legacy? I just found it today and can’t get enough

I am! Here's a snippet from Chapter 3:

A knock at the door startled everyone in the cottage, making Sam drop their second sandwich and causing Jamie to spill his cup over the table. Zehra shifted over so that she was between the door and Jamie, who'd gone paper-white at the interruption. Sam glanced at the older boy, then at Siobhán, who had recovered almost instantly and was ignoring the door while nibbling at some cheese. "I'll get it," they said, biting their lip. Mum and Dad answered the door all the time, it couldn't be too hard. Right? A second knock came just as they were about to touch the door handle, and they jumped involuntarily. Sucking in a deep breath, Sam opened the door. The man behind it smiled down at them. He had a kindly face with a short white beard, and wore fancy clothes with a lot of embroidery. Sam was pretty sure that the man's jacket was made of velvet, and the shirt looked all shiny. Probably silk? "Hello, young one," the man said heartily. "I am the Wizard of the Woods. You must have many questions."

#ask #yesterday's legacy

[crystalfic]

I want to read full book series for most of these (ignore my previous ask)

Aw, thank you!

My brain tends to wander off and throw worldbuilding/plots at me at any and all given opportunities, so there's always a possibility, but don't hold your breath for anything soon.

#ask

[crystalfic]

Hello I was told to send an ask to be added to the Yesterday’s Legacy ping list?

That's right!

You are now added to the ping list.

#yesterday's legacy

[crystalfic]

Consider this a writing prompt

Behind a weird newish black car whose designers were trying desperately to pretend it's not a station wagon:

Me: "That looks like a hearse. But like... a sports hearse." Housemate: "For when you're having a midlife crisis — and you're dead."

#writing prompts #vampires #werewolves #walking skeletons #my writing

[crystalfic]

The knight grinned at the dragon, eyes glinting bright and wild behind his helmet visor. "But you do. See, I've been watching while the idiots came and faced you, and their nobility and righteousness didn't stop you turning them into little piles of charcoal. I'm cleverer than they are, and I'm going to kill you, kill the princess, and take your treasure. Then I'll just have to tell the King and Queen that boo hoo, I couldn't save the Princess but I did avenge her, and they'll be too sad to stop me from killing them too and taking over."

"I think we've heard enough," said a clear voice from a tunnel which opened out near the top of the cavern. The Princess, wearing a dusty apron and with her hair pinned back, leaned on her broom and glanced at the dragon. "I'm certainly not inviting this one to dinner. If you would, Brenda dear?"

"For you, Millie, gladly," the enormous dragon agreed. "Please close the doors behind you, I don't want you or any of our other guests to suffocate."

The princess vanished down the tunnel, a slam of heavy metal doors following her as she took Brenda's advice. The knight, who had taken advantage of the dragon's apparent distraction to sneak closer, yelped as Brenda's tail whipped around his torso. With his arms squeezed to his sides, he couldn't fight back as Brenda lifted him slightly off the ground. His attempts at kicking bought him nothing.

"You missed two things," Brenda rumbled, lowering her head. The banked embers of her internal fires showed through her mouth as that immense jaw opened, the glow steadily brightening as she spoke. "One, you didn't get extra strength along with your fire protection. Two . . ." The glow began to dim as clouds of black smoke began to rise from her throat. "Two, you're not shielded against smoke. And you know what they say . . . there's no smoke without fire."

The last things that the knight saw, before the smoke swirled his vision away, were two gigantic orange eyes.

Further down the corridor, one of the former knights pushed back the dust-rag that he was using as a sweatband and paused his hammering. "So, no need for another chair for dinner, then?"

"Not today," Millie agreed, patting his shoulder. "But finish it anyway, you never know who they'll send next."

The knight snorted. "Another poor 'volunteer' who's displeased the Prince, no doubt."

"My brother," the Princess said evenly, "will not be a problem after today."

*

Three months later –

"It's a good thing that you and your brother were the same size," Brenda said mildly as she watched her princess adjust her gauntlets.

One of the more senior knights, tired with her fiddling, took over and started shifting the pieces into position with the skill of long experience. "It should be one of us," he grumbled. "I told you, we should have kept our armour instead of throwing it out as a decoy."

"You know why it has to be me, Sir Evan," Millie said, with more patience than Brenda would have had after that many repetitions. "My bloodline is bound to the Temple, and if my parents won't step up to the one damn duty that they have left, I will." She sniffed her gambeson. "I'm going to smell like smoke for weeks after this."

"It's harder to get the smell out of leather than it is off metal. But cheer up," said one of the younger knights bracingly. "By the time you're halfway through the Temple, it'll be overwhelmed by the incense."

"And when you're finished with that," Evan said squinting his eyes as he examined the fit of her greaves, "maybe you can do something about that corrupt Councillor who's running this kingdom."

"Such a short to-do list," Millie said, raising one eyebrow as Evan straightened up and slid her helmet onto her head. Her voice took on an echoey quality as she continued, "Brenda, with everyone evacuating the capital, there'll be a lot of guards with itchy trigger fingers."

Brenda snorted. With her nostrils being large enough to inhale a cat in one go, it was a very impressive snort. "I'm old enough that my scales are nearly solid metal by this point. Crossbow bolts are not going to bother me."

"Safe travels, Silly Millie," said one of the youngest knights, who still thought he was funny.

"I'll be fine. You finish off that new table you're building, I expect to see it in the dining room when I get back," Millie ordered, her eyes blurring behind the slit of her visor.

Brenda, to Millie's everlasting gratitude, shifted around to block her from the huddle of well-meaning knights. "Hop on," Brenda said softly. "We've got a long flight ahead."

"Yes," Millie said, leaning briefly against her dragon. "Yes, we do."  

“Foolish dragon!” Proclaimed the knight. “My armor renders me immune to your flames!” “Foolish knight!” Sneered the dragon. “Not all dragons spit fire!”

#no smoke without fire #my writing #dragons #fantasy #writing prompts #implied death

[crystalfic]

@monobuu thank you so much for answering my prompt, I love it.

May I please prompt the following: Jaskier attempting to play his lute while running away from something?

If not, perhaps Jaskier attempting to play two instruments at once?

Thank you!

#the witcher #jaskier #fanart #I love it

[crystalfic]

A physically strong person's responsibility is to learn to manage that strength, not to go around ripping handles off doors and knocking the wind out of people when you pat them on the back.

A strong personality also needs to be managed carefully by the person who has it. Sometimes you need to do the emotional equivalent of picking up an egg without breaking it.

In fact, anyone can cause injury by not caring what damage they cause. It is not the responsibility of the person you injure to be 'strong enough to take it'. Physically, emotionally, or mentally.

If anyone can pick up an egg gently, then anyone can learn to be kind to others.

Once you become a certain age, it is your responsibility to unlearn behaviors that hinder your growth as a person.

#mental health #maturity #growing up

[crystalfic]

the microfiction you wrote about the possessed crown was AMAZING.

that's all I have to say. I just wanted to make sure you got some positive feedback, since you wouldn't have gotten a notification of my reblog. :)

Thank you so much! It means a lot when people leave me asks like this, I really appreciate it.

#crown and forge