Time distorts even the greatest legends, making them soft and malleable, turning them into doddering, soft old men who pamper children that bribe them toward kindness with milk and cookies. And though Odin reveled in his role as Jul Father, taking great pleasure in the jolliness his very spirit brought to children of all ages, […]
Flashy Friday: Ellorine’s Dancing Feet
Ellorine’s dancing feet are a curse upon all who wear them, but first that curse fell upon Ellorine, though they say it was not entirely Ellorine’s fault. It wasn’t her fault she flirted with Mayavar’s consort at the ball, anymore than it was her fault he flirted back, and when he asked her to dance, […]
Flashy Friday: Tempting Death
Death played spectator to her sport, and she always felt him watching her, but they both knew the thrills she sought were far better temptations than the needle she used to sink into her arm. If Death was going to catch her, she wanted to embrace him like a lover and go down knowing she’d […]
Flashy Friday: Even In Death
The people gathered around her body, awed and heartbroken, dumbfounded and silent. She’d been their protector and guardian since well before a good many of them were even born. They knew not who felled her, for none was brave enough to confess to committing a crime so dark and heinous the punishment would be far […]
Flashy Friday: The Lady’s Long Sleep
And so she took back Excalibur, descending into the lake once more. She would sleep within the lake, guarding the greatsword until the next worthy king came to claim it, though she knew as she closed her eyes it would be hundreds of lifetimes before she woke again.
Flashy Friday: Sleeping Gods
“Don’t give up,” Sissy said. She held out her offering to the old forest god, a part of her trembling inside, both in fear and anticipation. Every day, she’d come to encourage the god, to remind him that there were still people who not only believed, but needed for him to be real. He […]
Flashy Friday: Not a Harvest God
Every day the people in the village brought offerings to the small shrine in hopes of appeasing the god they believed took up residence there. Good favor would mean larger crop yields come harvest, they said. It would mean fewer deaths during the long winters. But Henrietta knew in her soul there was no god at […]
Flashy Friday: Her Name Was Death
It was the one time each year she could move freely among the children, giving in to her own child-like nature without fear or consequence. No one looked on her in dread because on that night there were far scarier things than Death: monsters and fiends and devils and ghouls. And they were hungry, so […]
Flashy Friday: Old Gods On Display
They put the old gods on display in the desert after the Great Purge, trapped them in glass cages and set them out like ancient relics or antiques for the masses to gawk upon and poke at like children at a zoo. Spectators brought their image capturing devices and posed in front of the display […]
Flashy Friday: Dropping Hope
He was tired of holding onto it, clutching it in his hand, fingers gripping so tight the bright white edges of it seeped out through the cracks between his knuckles. It wriggled softly against his palm, tickling his skin almost affectionately. At his back, the sounds of an argument that existed long before he was […]