#(shelter. food. clothes)

[dollelujah]

Gentle reminder that if you support a $15/hr minimum wage, you support it for artists too.

[thegreenleavesofspring]

The Time Sea

@inklings-challenge I hope this fits the requirements because I have bullied this into its final form.

~~~~

Gritty sand beneath her, and she dragged herself higher up the strand, the waves lapping greedily at her sodden dress. Tiny rippling wavelets washing up to pull out again with a dizzying feeling of the ground itself rushing from beneath her. She shivered there awhile, barely conscious of the lightning limning the roaring sea behind her in silver, painting the cliff above her white. The thunder blended with the noise of the waves, none of it touching her consciousness as she drifted.

The heavy black of night slithered into the dark grey of a stormy dawn. She came back to herself, shivering violently in her wet dress. The waves that had deposited her on this shore retreated down the sand, now. Her fingers were numb, hair clinging to her face like seaweed between sand grains. She brushed ineffectively at her face with shaking hands and blanched fingers. Hypothermia, her mind supplied helpfully, and then, get up and walk, it will help warm you up and you may find shelter.

She stood and looked at the cliff rising above her. It was a very small cliff, as cliffs went; only five or six times her height. The thought of trying to scale it in yards of drenched material and with numb fingers made her quail.

The storm had not passed over, though the rain had ceased for the moment; a sudden crack and roll of thunder made her jump. She glanced out at the tide – starting to come in again, now, but not quickly; she had a few moments – and backed up to look up at the top of the cliff.

Lightning flashed very helpfully in that precise moment, drawing her eye up towards the castle crouched atop the hill above the cliff. It seemed a very vampire’s lair, all sharp spires and sheer black stone and cramped window slits with no light in them and flying buttresses spiderwebbing between the towers. She rather fancied she saw bats dancing around the top of the tallest tower as tiny black specks.

It was the least inviting building imagination could conjure, but she was of a very practical turn of mind, and even the least inviting building with all its imagined horrors would be less dreadful than waiting on this narrow strip of cliff-bottom beach to be sucked back into the hungry waves behind her, or dying slowly of cold.

The castle’s inhabitants, it seemed, enjoyed trips to the beach, at times, for a thorough exploration of the bottom of the cliff revealed a narrow twisting path up the rock-face. Perhaps, she thought to herself as she hoisted her bundle of skirts – all shape lost in the ocean to a formless mass of heavy cloth, crusted stiff with salt – they came down on finer days than this, when all was sunny and the sea was calm and glass-green. Or perhaps, she thought humorously, they were vampires indeed, and descended only on the full moons to dance gruesome dances upon the strand.

The castle was further away than it had appeared from the beach, and rain started sheeting down just as she attained the grass at the top of the cliff. She heaved a deep despondent sigh, her hair slicking down around her face and shoulders all over again, shivering uncontrollably now, and started her forward slog, clutching her stomach to try and keep warm. Thunder shook the skies and ground around her, rattling through her bones. Lightning shot white and violet and indigo from sky to ground, and she peered forward at the castle each time, orienting herself off those jagged spires. A pebbled path ran from castle to cliff, but now it ran with water, a miniature rapid rushing along and tugging at her feet.

She was too tired to fight the current, slight as it was, and stepped off into the grass beside the path. The water rose to her ankles as she splashed through puddles, washing the salt and grime of the ocean from her feet and replacing it with tiny blades of grass and fragments of leaves and one very startled frog that rode on her arch for two steps before leaping away with a disgruntled cro-oak.

Her stomach had ceased its growling complaints and her mind was nearly as numb as her extremities by the time she fetched up against the rough stone and wood of the castle. She took a stumbling step back from the unyielding wall and looked around and realized that the path had widened into a drive and swooped right up to a broad shallow front step and a niche with imposing double doors. An unlit torch was set in an iron bracket to the side of it; if it had ever blazed with fire the wind and rain had long since snuffed it.

She considered sheltering in the door nook for all of half a second before another gust of wind sent her stumbling forward a step. Her mind made up, she mounted the stairs, wadded her hand inside a length of her voluminous sleeve, and lifted the massive iron knocker.

It fell with a boom that echoed through the house and faded into the thunder a half-second behind it. But the door was not even latched; the weight and momentum of the knocker pushed it ajar a few inches. She took a hitching breath and peeked in through the crack and then pushed the door open a little farther and slipped inside, leaning back against the rough wood on her hands to close it as she took in the hall.

It was long and narrow and soared to heights she could not see in the dark; the lightning coming in the windows insufficient to show the ceiling. At the far end of the hall – a mile away, it seemed – a tiny fire glowed in a massive fireplace that entirely dwarfed it. Open, doorless entryways to other rooms gaped cavernous to either side, black and opaque as pitch. The walls were bare and carved into sharp pillar motifs, climbing high out of sight. Everything was sharp and spiky and looked deeply uncomfortable and unhomelike, but there was a fire at the end of the hall and she was so cold…

Her footsteps echoed across the bare floor – marble perhaps; it was hard to tell in this dimness – rising all the way to the distant unseen ceiling and reverberating off all the walls over and over before whispering away into silence. But she did not let it stop her; she lightened her footfalls as much as she could and hurried over to the fire, whimpering in gratitude as she held her hands into the hearth itself to stick them over the anemic flames.

A bang from behind her startled her badly – she jumped and turned, scanning the hall. A staircase she had hitherto not seen, set back where the wall had fallen away – she had not seen it in her rush to get to the fire – rose to split into opposite directions. A thin wavering light hovered on the balcony of the second floor (she supposed it was the second floor) – a torch, held aloft in a hand cast deep into shadow. A tall figure held it; she caught a glimpse of a large hooked nose and robes the color of blood beneath silver-streaked auburn hair, two black eyes glittering like moonlight on a forest pool deep beneath craggy brows.

“Welcome, traveler,” the figure rumbled; a man’s deep voice. She shivered, staring up at him, caught in – not fear, precisely. He did not sound hostile or threatening. Unease, perhaps. Awe. Mind-numbing exhaustion.

When she did not respond he continued, “A room is being prepared for you. I… did not expect visitors tonight. Perhaps I should have,” he added lower, as if to himself, but the vast chamber caught his voice and carried it to her clearly. “My hospitality is not what it would usually be. Nonetheless, you will find water for washing, and food, and a change of clothes – though they may not be precisely what you are used to, they will serve for tonight.”

She found her voice at last, tongue heavy and throat sore with salt; her voice came out in an unfamiliar rasp. “Thank you, kind sir.”

His robes shifted; she caught a glimpse of a pale strong hand as he waved it dismissively. “It is my job. When you are ready, ascend these stairs and come down here where I am standing. There is a torch in the bracket beside your room.”

The promise of a wash and warm dry clothes and food was enough to send her scrambling for the stairs upon the instant. But she paused a moment at the top, looking up at the massive diamond-paned windows that rose before her. She had not seen them from the beach, nor approached from an angle that permitted view of them. But now she stood a moment, gazing out upon the storm-lashed ocean, the sun hidden behind frothing masses of grey-black cloud. Arcs of lightning speared down from the heavens to the water below, showing for just a minute waves high as buildings and hills and black as tar, shining like obsidian for fractions of a second.

She shivered, so very grateful to no longer be adrift in that furious sea, and turned to go up the staircase to her left. There was no sign of her host, now, but his torch had been left, as he promised, outside an iron-chased door.

It looked more like a dungeon door than a guest’s bedchamber, but she did not take time to worry about it, pushing the door open. A gasp of utter relief from her chapped lips – a fire, much larger than the one below, roared in the cozy little fireplace. The stone floor here was covered with a thick sheepskin, and a giant brass tub sat waiting and steaming before the hearth. Covered dishes sat on a small table in the middle of the room with a single chair drawn up; a four-poster bed stood against the far wall, buried under layers of quilts and blankets. A small heap of folded clothes lay atop it, and a single fluffy towel.

Part of her wished to take forever in the heavenly hot water, but cramping pains in her stomach alerted her that this would not be a good idea. She stepped out and wrapped herself in the towel – warming by the fire during her bath, soft as a summer cloud and almost as white – moving as close as was safe to the fireplace for a few moments. Her shivering had finally subsided in the bath, but she still basked in the heat, her skin prickling as it slowly warmed back up.

The food was simple and heavy – stew with beef and potatoes, some kind of green leafy vegetable, rolls split in the top with pats of butter pushed in to melt into the bread. A large mug of tea sat beside the plate and bowl. She scarcely paused to give thanks before falling on the food, devouring it down to crumbs and smears of gravy.

For all she knew, the master of this castle was indeed a vampire. But he had yet to offer her harm, and indeed had been very kindly and welcoming to the waif that had blown in his front door. The sheer exhaustion weighing on her now annihilated any reasonable caution. With no concern that it was, beyond the storm, still broad day, she hied herself right into that inviting bed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was broad daylight when she woke up again, too, the storm passed at last. She lay a minute, looking out at the azure-washed sky. Not a cloud to be seen anymore, but only an endless blue as deep as the ocean beneath it.

Out from beneath the heavy blankets – a drab dark green, but warm and cozy and slightly scratchy – and over to the window. The surf still ran high, the waves topped with foam as though the clouds had fallen from the sky to the sea. She stared, oddly mesmerized, for far too long, until hunger pangs reminded her that it would perhaps be prudent to seek breakfast.

She turned. The table had been cleared of its dishes, a single folded piece of strange parchment left in its place. She opened it and stared blankly at the script within; nothing she recognized.

She shook her head and set it aside, lifting the dress hung carefully over the back of the chair. It was nearly as strange as the writing on the odd parchment, with thin sleeves that clung to the arms and a bodice that laced almost up to the neck and a severe lack of ornamentation. But it was a delicate rose-pink that pleased her much more than the deep purple of her own dress, and it swept modestly all the way to the floor. Perhaps even more importantly, it was easy enough to get into without assistance.

The castle was nearly as intimidating by daylight as by thundering dim, severely plain without any relieving decorations. Dark blue-grey walls and black marble floors swallowed light, returning only a reluctant polished shine. But the vast windows at the stairs had an even better view of sea and sky and horizon than her own window had had, and she found herself arrested once more by the eternally shifting palette of blues and greens and greys.

She stood, lost a moment in time, as she watched the ocean, before turning and descending the stairs. A table had been set up before the massive fireplace with its comically small fire, and a hearty if simple breakfast laid out across it. Two chairs were pulled up before the table, and she assumed her mysterious host would be joining her.

She sat down, resolutely ignoring the tempting smells wafting up from the food spread across the table. Her stomach growled and she dug her fists into her gut to silence it, looking around at the stark hall and the sunlight sliding across the floor rather than the meal spread out.

The silence was oppressive. There was not even a clock to show the time passing, only the black stone walls and black marble floors and the bright yellow sunlight creeping back towards the near wall and the slowly cooling food.

The bang of a door upstairs startled her badly and she jumped before twisting in her chair to look over at the staircase. Her mysterious host was joining her at last, it seemed, his footfalls heavy and brisk as he descended the stairs towards her. “Good morning, lady.”

She rose at his approach. “Good morning, my lord.”

She studied him now, in the bright morning light. Grey-streaked auburn hair and a great curved nose, deep lines chiseled in his face around a heavy brow and kind dark eyes. He was truly absurdly tall, towering over her head and shoulders, a shapeless mass of deep wine-red cloak. It was quite impossible to judge his age; he looked perhaps middle-aged, save that there was some indefinable ancient air that hung over his shoulders like his garments.

He stood examining the table with a faint frown that looked rather forbidding on his heavy-featured face. “Did you not receive my note, lady?”

“I… could not read it,” she admitted, brushing nervous fingers down the thick material of her borrowed dress.

He turned that intense frowning regard on her person and she stilled. “Untaught,” he asked slowly, “or the script was unfamiliar to you?”

“It was… unfamiliar to me.”

He studied her a moment longer before sweeping a long hand, bones and sinews standing out beneath the skin, towards the table. “Please, sit and eat.”

He sat opposed to her and for awhile they both broke their fasts in silence. Only as their concentration lapsed into dallying did he brush his lips with an old ivory napkin and query, “And the dress. Was it also unfamiliar to you?”

She looked down at herself. In the bright morning light, it was truly lovely. But… “Yes, my lord, it also is unfamiliar.”

“My goodness,” the man murmured to himself. “I must be slipping. I have not misjudged an origin in… quite some time.” For some reason this last comment made him smile grimly.

She plucked up her courage. “My lord, I beg you to forgive my impertinence,” she began.

He gestured again, the craggy face settling into kindly lines. “I am no lord,” he interrupted. “You may call me… the Keeper, if you wish. Ask whatever you will, child.”

She squared her shoulders. “Where is this place, pray, sir? And do you live here all alone?”

“I do.” He reached languidly for his tea cup. “I am the Keeper of this castle, and of the shore below. The ocean below us is the Time Sea – people who are lost to the ocean are brought to my shores. It is my job to assess their original location and time, and send them home.”

This seemed entirely reasonable, but she had a concern. “And how do you do that?”

He smiled slightly. “Well, I am afraid you will have to cross the Time Sea again.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The boat was small and unprepossessing and she regarded with with deep wariness and distrust. Her dress was remarkably clean – the Keeper had put it in something he called a Washing Machine, deep in the depths of the castle – and returned to its old familiar shape. She lifted the bundle of her skirts, took a deep breath, and stepped into the rocking little shell of wood.

“And this will bear me home?” she asked nervously.

The Keeper brushed long slender fingers over the gold-embossed runes carved into the rim of the boat, the wood around them stained the same black that was between the stars at night. “It will bear you where I have told it to bear you, and I have told it to bear you home.”

Hours spent in a library taller than the hall downstairs, the maze between the shelves miles long, the domed arch of the ceiling made almost entirely of glass so that sunlight would pour in no matter the time of day. Maps and books spread out across the heavy oaken tables, dusty tomes that weighed as much as she did and were nearly as tall. Gadgets and gewgaws in crystal cases and on shelves and sitting upright on the thick forest-floor green carpet, gold and brass and silver and many other metals she did not recognize, amazing and incomprehensible. A map of the heavens all along wall that one could study for ten years and not examine all of it.

She wandered in awe-struck exploration while the Keeper consulted his books and his maps and his gizmos. It was, perhaps, hours that they were in that wondrous library, or maybe days; time seemed to pass differently here.

She could have spent ten years there without losing interest.

But amber light was stretching towards the far wall, the sun plunging towards its own brilliantly multi-hued setting, when at last the Keeper stood upright. “I believe I have found your time and place,” he announced. “It may be less fearsome for you to cross the Time Sea by daylight, so you will depart tomorrow – such as it is.”

The food that night was the food of her home – the sleep-clothes laid out for her were the old familiar type she wore every night. Her own dress awaited her the next morning, laid out carefully across the chair. The same breakfast on the table in the hall that she ate every morning.

It felt like having a piece of home with her here in this strange place.

It was jarring.

She sat very carefully. The rocking of the tiny boat made her uneasy, an instinct hissing that it would tip and dump her out again, that those waves were dreadfully large and rough.

“Are you ready?” the Keeper asked where he crouched on the slick wet boulder, holding her boat securely.

Her heart quailed, anxiety seeping up her throat like bile. “Yes.”

“Then may the Lord of All Creation return you safe home.” He shoved her tiny vessel out into the ocean and she suppressed the urge to clutch the sides by clutching her skirts instead, swallowing a nervous shriek.

“Farewell!” he called behind her, and she dared to carefully twist and look back. He stood still on his pile of rock some yards into the ocean. His shapeless robe wet to the thighs and clinging, even as spray and sea-wind alike whipped his hair. The spires of his dark castle behind him stabbing the sky, their secrets well-hidden behind the thick stone.

She rode the waves, the swells cradling her fragile boat like a mother cradling the soft head of her newborn, watching until the very tallest tower-peak sank out of sight. She sighed softly and settled into facing front again. For a long second, she was surrounded entirely by ever-shifting blue-green water, before another wave caught and lifted her high towards the cloud-daubed heavens above.

A strip of pricklingly familiar coastline ahead of her – docks and quays and shops and houses and ships and sailors and darting urchins and dogs. She gazed at it a moment in wonder and awe but no surprise at all.

The wave dropped her into a trough that propelled her forward quickly enough that she swayed back with a startled squeak. Another wave rose beneath her and crested and slung her forward like a stone from a boy’s sling, her boat overturning and vanishing under the waves behind her.

She thrashed amid bubbles rushing through the emerald water. Garbled shouts came to her submerged ears as she struggled to reach the surface. A hand seized the back of her dress and she was yanked up into open air, and then over the rough side of a crude wooden boat to land in a slippery pile of fish. Two bearded grizzled men stared down at her in considerable astonishment. “Where’d ye come from, missy?” the older one demanded. “An’ how’d ye get way out here?”

She blinked up at them. She had not realized how much she had missed the familiar accents of her people over the last two days. “My ship was wrecked in a storm.”

“The storm last night?” the younger, taller man asked, nodding. “The flotsam has been coming in today. But where have you been all this time?”

“All this time,” she murmured to herself. A dark pointy castle rose in her mind’s eye. “I was lost in the Sea of Time. But I am home now.”

[emocowboylover00]

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Important

[inklings-challenge]

2023 Inklings Challenge Stories By Theme

Feed the hungry

Give drink to the thirsty

Clothe the naked

Shelter the homeless

Visit the sick

Visit the imprisoned

Bury the dead

[walnutcookie]

i should redo my commission sheet sometime tbh .... i wanted to start very very very simple when i first started doing comms but i realize its very limited rn aaaa

is there anything yall would be interested in buying ? tweened gifs, simple cheap cookie run sprites, possibly customs? if youre interested or have any ideas i would very much appreciate asks🙏🙏

honestly if anyone is interested in smth not on my commission sheet im totally open to negotiate a price in dms

[caxycreations]

Just got out of a work meeting

Vent below the cut.

My face hurts

I'm not used to smiling so long

No it wasn't a genuine smile

It's the mask we call Business Caxy that smiles because a smile is friendly and friendly is good and good is business-appropriate.

It faltered once.

Just once this time.

When a Partner (one who works at the HIGHEST LEVEL OF EMPLOYMENT) in the company, who is so financially wealthy that she could quit today and never work again in her life, her husband could quit today and never work again in his life, and her son could NEVER GET A JOB and still be set for life (she admits these facts HERSELF)

said to all 40 of us in the meeting

"Money's just paper, it doesn't mean anything."

And now, as I sit here after the meeting, eating a beefy 5-layer burrito from TACO BELL that my roommate BOUGHT FOR ME because I don't have the money to spare for fast food if I want to make it through the month

I am reminded

The rich fucking suck.

"Money's just paper"- that paper buys medical treatment because healthcare is a scam. That paper buys food because we starve if we don't have it. That paper buys safety and shelter for us and our loved ones.

It's just paper, sure.

But it's pretty fucking important, and the fact it means so little to you means you don't deserve a goddamn cent of what you have, because I can list TEN PEOPLE I KNOW who, if I gave them $5 today, they would BEG me not to because "That's five dollars!! You don't need to spend so much on me, I'll be okay!" as they sit there with growling stomachs and aching bodies.

Meanwhile that woman sits in a $1,000 office chair at a $5,000 desk in a million dollar home and tells US that money is just paper.

I fucking hate the corporate elite. I swear to fuck when I get to the point I'm making as much as she is, not a goddamn cent beyond what I need is going to myself.

I'm taking care of my needs, my life goal of travelling, and if I know of someone in need I'm making damn sure they're sorted for as long as they need because I'll be fucking DAMNED if I ever turn into the kind of person that can sit comfortably on a multi-million dollar fortune while people around me suffer and I go into fucking ZOOM MEETINGS to tell those very people "Money's meaningless".

[winged-wolf-s-collection-of-arts]

thinking more thoughts!!

Kiley time-

I uh- kind of poured all my chaotic energy into her, and separated her from the rest of the npc cast? Otherwise the dialogue would get totally fucked, and my ‘I need to hit this story with a drama nuke’ desire would cause trouble.

So she’s uhhh off on her adventure of a different genre. (But stuff she does Will affect things... dun dun dunnnn) but dude Wow she would be so irritated by Jun. Good thing we’re going to Sanctuary to leave them and take Preston.... OR THAT IS WHAT I WOULD SAY if she didn’t want to be anywhere near the vault!! We’re going somewhere else, babeyyyyy! Maybe talking with him and Murphy would bring some understanding (is what I would say if I were doing big character development in the beginning but we’re not!!) Shoving my desire for conflict into this.

[ambrozians]

jade being an example of how quickly the child sidekick idea can devolve into complete weaponization of a child and how that experience carries into adulthood is one of the reasons why she is a great narrative foil for the titans, particularly the fab five.

none of the fab five's mentors are perfect parents and/or teachers. each of them have made mistakes that have hurt their children but, at the end of the day, they love and care about them, and they are also fundamentally good people who want to see good in the world. meanwhile, wen chang saw a little girl whose goal was to survive by any means necessary and was terrified of being forced back into the life she escaped. instead of nurturing her and helping her to overcome her fear, he manipulated her and dehumanized her. wen might claim that he loves her but that "love" is warped because he feels as though her created her (cheshire, rather). anything or anyone who reminds her that she is, in fact, a person capable of emotion and all the things that come with humanity is a threat to his "creation".

[robinsnest2111]

feeling very Hunted For Sport and untethered and like I don't belong anywhere in this world and like no one loves me in the unrealistic utopian way my mentally ill brain craves for some fucked up reason <3

[piplupod]

objectively a stupid thing to get irritated or upset by, but i really hate when people at the centre try to tell me how lucky i am for the life i live or how good i have it, esp when they tell me they had it sooooo much worse when they were my age. they do not know me. they do not know my life. they have no idea what my situation is.

they see somebody who is exceedingly polite and unerringly kind and shows up in nice clothes most of the time. they see that i draw in a sketchbook. they see that i work on the jigsaw puzzle. they see that i hold the door for people. they see that i greet people and ask people questions about themselves in a way that makes others feel seen and heard and appreciated.

now what the fuck are they getting from that that makes them think they know anything about me or my mental health or life situation!!! if anything they should be curious because I share so little about myself with people, I tend to keep things focused on others because that's safest for me. do they not question why i am at the mental health centre so often if i apparently seem like i have such a great life ????

[butchlifeguard]

you, challengers fan! do you have any idea of how much pro athletes make

[wildlyironicbee]

@inklings-challenge

This...is about as finished as it's going to be for now: time and the characters got away from me.

But, that being said, I had a ton of fun with this—it’s been ages and ages since I’ve pantsed anything. (And I don’t think I’m quite ready to leave this world alone just yet, so maybe I'll finish it to my satisfaction someday!)

------

Stairs to Nowhere

News of the death of the king took three months to reach the Gap.

News, even news as important as this, always took three months to reach the Gap—that little sliver of no man’s marshland wedged between the northern border of Meath and the southern border of Kithage. It was said among both kingdoms that only the strangest of folk lived there: those with nowhere else to go or no desire to be found.

Marta, as she was calling herself these days, ran the only tavern; a small, stooped thing aptly called The Battered Kettle. She had no love for the king and would’ve been unbothered by the news if the messenger—a screeching kestrel—hadn’t swooped into the tavern in the middle of the dinner rush and startled her so badly she dropped a full tray, shattering several mugs and spilling ale down her skirt and all over her freshly mopped floor.

“Oh, Rat’s bones,” Marta swore. She swatted at the kestrel with her now empty tray, flicking foamy ale across the room. “You nasty thing!”

Her tray never came close. The kestrel ignored her spluttering and swooped down to land on the bartop. Patrons sitting at the bar hastily pulled their plates and cups back as it spread its wings wide and cried in a loud voice, “The King of Meath is dead!”

There were a few surprised gasps. Across every table, heads leaned together, and murmurs spread throughout the tavern.

“Has an heir been chosen?” called the butcher from the back of the room, his voice loud and clear (as was polite when speaking to a king’s messenger).

The kestrel flapped its wings and said, “No heir has come forth! The chamberlain seeks those whose face matches the other! Only those such as these shall be crowned!”

In the middle of the room, Marta cut herself on a piece of broken mug. She swore quietly, sucking on her cut finger.

“That old chestnut again?” said the blacksmith from the bar. He turned his head and spat on the floor. “Didn’t they try that the last time?”

They did. Oh, they did. Marta remembered.

But what she said was, “Don’t you spit on my floor again, Riad.” 

At least Riad had the decency to look sheepish. “Beg pardon, Miss Marta,” he said. “Forgot my place.” He scowled at the kestrel over his drink. “Just don’t like messengers poking their beaks where they aren’t needed, is all.”

The kestrel’s head twisted back and forth as it looked at Riad, but it didn’t rise to its own defense. As the minutes stretched on and it became clear the kestrel would say nothing else, conversation throughout the tavern resumed. 

Marta stalked behind the bar with her tray full of broken pottery and flung it on the counter. It skidded a foot, shards clinking, as she quickly bandaged her hurt finger and wrung out her ale-soaked skirt over the mop bucket to try and hide her trembling hands.

It had been years—years and years and years—since she’d heard that wretched prophecy and now here it was again, thrown back into her face like her journey had never mattered. That Rachel had never—

Cold air hit her cheeks, and she raised her head just in time to see a tall man open the front door and slip inside, his cloak drawn close about his shoulders and his hood up over his dark hair, damp with rain. Marta, recognizing him, waved him over just as the kestrel spotted him and screeched again:

“The king of Meath is dead! The chamberlain has sent messengers to every province and town!” the kestrel said, flapping its wings. “He seeks those whose face matches the other!”

From the other side of the tavern, someone called, “You said that already!” to scattered laughter.

“How long ago was this message made?” Marta asked the kestrel as the tall man came behind the bar to stand beside her.

“Three months and five days,” the kestrel said.

Marta nodded, expecting this. “And no one has been found in all that time?”

“No one,” the kestrel answered. It hopped back and forth on the bartop and looked at her expectantly.

Marta sighed and reached for a jar of birdseed on a shelf beneath the bartop. The kestrel looked down its beak at it before screeching at Marta indignantly, ruffling its feathers. 

“The last messenger we got was a pigeon,” Marta said with a shrug. “Take it or leave it.”

The kestrel gave a haughty flap of its wings, said, “Leave it,” and took off. Someone pulled the door open, and it took to the gray skies and disappeared. 

“And good riddance,” Marta muttered. She turned to the man beside her and smiled warmly. “Narl, take off your cloak and stay awhile. What can I do you for?”

Narl didn’t return her smile. “I need your help,” he said quietly. “I’ve…found someone. Two someones.”

“Two someones,” Marta repeated. She glanced behind him and, seeing no one, raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve got them squared away,” he said with a little shake of his head. “They tend to stick out, if you catch my meaning.”

Marta stilled. “In what way?” she asked. It was a struggle to keep her voice steady. 

Narl gave her a look. “You know what way.” 

Marta nodded. She did.

Instead of saying so, she turned away from Narl to grab more mugs to replace the ones she’d broken and filled them with ale from the large keg behind the bar. Carefully arranging them on her tray, and then her tray on one hand, she squeezed past Narl and said in a low voice, “Come back when everyone’s gone.”

Narl inclined his head and slipped back out the door as Marta returned to her patrons with a fixed smile on her face and a slow dread prickling like sweat down her back.

~~~

The two someones were a boy and a girl, maybe twelve, maybe thirteen, maybe younger—Marta had never been good at guessing ages. Brown hair, brown eyes. Twins, Marta could tell that for certain. She could always tell when people were twins.

The kids stood behind Narl and peered at her curiously. Narl was right, they did stick out. Their faces—dirty and hungry—could have belonged to any child with the misfortune of growing up in the Gap, but their clothes were another story and Marta stared with no small amount of wonder at their puffer coats, dyed brighter colors than any dye in the Gap, even obscured as they were underneath a layer of dirt. Then, she looked down and, oh Rat’s bones, the girl was wearing Cookie Monster pajama pants.

Marta couldn’t help but laugh in delight at the sight of them, ignoring the way her eyes stung.

But when the kids started at her laughter and reached for each other’s hands, she stifled it immediately with a dismissive wave of her hand.

“Oh, forgive me; come in, come in,” she said, smiling. “You must be starving.” 

The kids stared at her blankly. The boy narrowed his eyes and clutched at his sister’s hand and said nothing.

Marta’s eyes narrowed too, but because of the kids. She turned her ire on Narl. “They don’t understand us, do they.”

Narl pressed his lips together and slowly shook his head. “They speak English.”

Marta scowled. English. Of course. She hadn’t heard anyone speak English since—

With a shaky breath, she banished those thoughts and started over.

“My name is Marta,” she said to the kids, carefully sounding out the words. The English felt strange in her mouth—too harsh, too foreign. “What are your names?”

The kids stared at her.

“You speak English,” the boy said.

“Yes,” Marta said. “Though, please forgive me, I am a little rusty.” She paused. “Are you...hungry?”

“Yeah,” the girl said immediately. The boy frowned at her, and she frowned right back. “What? I am!”

The boy’s frown deepened as he turned to Marta. “We don’t have any money.”

“I assumed,” Marta said with a wry smile. “Narl can cover the bill, can’t you, Narl?”

Narl narrowed his eyes. “You know very well I don’t know what you said, so no.”

Marta snorted. “He said he’d be happy to,” she said to the kids.

The girl leaned against her brother. “I don’t think he said that,” she whispered. The boy nodded.

Marta laughed and gestured vaguely at the tables and upturned chairs in the dining room. “Sit, sit,” she said. “I’ll grab, uh.” Her mind blanked on the English word. “Stew? I think is the word?”

She disappeared into the kitchen before either of the kids could correct her and ladled out three bowls and arranged them on a tray beside a loaf of bread. Taking slow, deep breaths, she stepped back out into the dining room.

The kids (and Narl) had pulled down a few chairs and arranged themselves at a table in front of the hearth. The dwindling fire cast strange shadows across their faces. The boy and girl leaned against each other, whispering in low voices, while Narl wrote something in a small notebook. All three looked up when she returned and set the food down in front of them.

Narl dug into his meal immediately, humming his enjoyment, but the kids poked cautiously at the contents of their bowls, wrinkling their noses.

“It’s...a kind of soup. I’m not sure what the vegetables are called in English,” Marta told them. When the boy gave her another suspicious look, she tried again. “Just...think of it like, um...” She cast around for the right word before settling on, “Potato? Soup.”

The girl immediately brightened. “Oh, okay!” she chirped, scooping up a large spoonful. “I love potato soup.”

The boy watched her carefully as she took a bite and smiled. She nudged him. “It’s so good, dude, try it.”

The boy did, slowly at first, but after two cautious bites he devoured the rest of the bowl with relish, while the girl did the same. Marta was quick to slice up the bread and slather it with butter before handing it to them too. She didn’t need to explain this one—she’d learned early on that bread was bread no matter what universe you were in.

When the bowls were emptied and the bread reduced to crumbs, the kids leaned back in their chairs, full and happy and more than a little sleepy. But Marta couldn’t let them go yet: she had questions.

“Alright, now,” Marta said, leaning across the table. “How long have you been here?”

“Uh…two days?” the girl said. She looked to her brother for confirmation, and relaxed when he nodded. “Yeah, two days.”

Narl nodded his own confirmation when Marta’s eyes flicked to him.

“And what are your names?” she asked.

“Oh, that’s easy,” the girl said. “I’m Laura and this” – she elbowed her brother – “is Link.”

Marta blinked. “Like—like from The Legend of Zelda?”

Link slammed his palm down on the table hard enough to make the dishes rattle and pointed at her. “I knew it!” he cried. “You’re from our world!”

Laura gasped and stared at Marta. Her eyes were very, very round.

Narl leaned back in his chair fiddling with his pipe in his hands. “I take it he figured it out?” he asked mildly.

Marta glared at him. “You’re not thinking of smoking in my tavern, are you?” 

Narl rolled his eyes but put his pipe back in his pocket. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

“How did you get here?” Link asked excitedly. “When did you get here?”

“Did you come here the same way as us?” Laura asked.

“Depends,” Marta said, folding her arms across her chest. “How did you get here?”

Link launched into their story. They’d been camping with their parents up in the mountains. Laura and Link had gotten their own tent this year, and when they’d seen the small, worn-down stone stairs in the woods (The stairs that led to nowhere, Marta mouthed along with him), well. It had been the perfect spot to pitch their tent, with the stairs as their own little front porch. They’d gone to sleep that first night, safe and full from hot dogs and s’mores…and had awoken to an entirely new forest in an entirely new world with no tent, no parents, and a very startled Narl staring at them.

After that, things were…messy. Marta remembered her own first days in Kithage—remembered the shock of waking up in another world, the language barrier, the strange food, the soldiers waving swords in her and Rachel’s faces—so. She knew a little about what these two must have gone through to get all the way from the border of Kithage to here.

“But Mister Narl was with us the whole time,” Laura said, smiling sweetly at the man in question (and Narl, who only understood his name in that sentence, smiled back). “So it wasn’t all bad.”

“What year was it when you left?” Marta asked.

“2012,” Link said, and Marta blinked in surprise. She and Rachel had left in 2023.

“Can you help us get home?” Link asked quietly.

Marta considered her answer. Laura was still smiling, but Link watched her with a wary expression, and she knew that he knew she didn’t have a good answer for him. 

She couldn’t lie to him. “I don’t know.”

Link’s shoulders slumped and Laura reached for his hand again.

“But—you’ll try?” Laura asked.

Marta looked at Narl, but his expression didn’t change. She sighed. “I…I don’t know. I—it’s been a—a long time. For me. And I never—I haven’t found—”

“It’s okay,” Laura said. “We can help you get home too.”

She reached across the table and patted Marta’s hand once.

Marta drew her hand back, startled, and barked out a short laugh. “Thank you, kiddo, but I’ve been here over twenty years,” she said. “This is my home.”

Link’s mouth fell open. “Twenty years?”

“That’s horrible!” Laura cried.

Marta stood with a loud scrape of her chair and started gathering up their dishes. “It’s very late,” she said. “We can…talk about this tomorrow. Okay?”

“But—” Laura said.

Marta looked at Narl. “Do you need a place?” she asked not in English.

“Please.”

Marta nodded once. “I’ll set up a couple rooms.” She eyed the puffer coats. “And…I’ll see what I can do about clothes.” She took a deep breath, let it out again. “Rachel’s should fit her, but him...”

“I’ll handle his clothes tomorrow,” Narl said.

Marta gave him a tight smile. “Thank you.”

She took the dishes to the kitchen. When she returned, Link and Laura sat on the edge of their seats, looking like they still had a thousand questions, and Marta had no desire to answer them yet (or at all).

“Come on,” she said. “Let’s find you two a bed.”

“We’re not tired,” Link said, yawning.

Marta smiled despite herself. “Let’s find you one anyway.”

“’Kay,” Laura said. She nudged her brother, and they stood on unsteady feet and followed Marta upstairs.

The Battered Kettle was not a well-established inn. Visitors were exceptionally rare in the Gap, and when they did visit, they rarely stayed long. But Marta had a few rooms above the dining room set aside for those rare occasions, and it was to one of these she led the kids.

She left them standing in the doorway as she busied herself with turning down the covers on the large (and somewhat dusty, but that couldn’t be helped now) bed and starting a fire in the small hearth.

“It’s too late for a bath, I’m afraid,” Marta said to fill the silence. “Too dark outside. But we can see to that in the morning—and see to some new clothes too. Help you blend in.”

“Oh. Thank you,” Laura said softly. She rubbed her eyes.

Link opened his mouth and hesitated. Marta waited, sitting back on her heels in front of a cheery fire, but he slowly closed his mouth again. Whatever he wanted to ask could apparently wait until tomorrow.

Marta stood, joints creaking. “Bathroom’s a chamber pot in the corner, I’m afraid,” she said, snorting when both kids wrinkled their noses. “I’ll leave a basin of water to wash for you outside the door in the morning. Good night.”

She heard a soft, “Good night, Miss Marta,” as she closed the door behind her.

~~~

“How’d you even get them to come with you?” Marta asked Narl later, two drinks in and the kids long asleep.

Narl shrugged, leaning back in his chair. “I remembered a few phrases you used to say.”

Marta groaned. She remembered what kind of phrases she used to say. “Narl, please tell me you didn’t swear at them.”

Narl’s cheeks tinged pink. “I…might’ve?” When Marta made a slightly strangled sound, he said defensively, “Well, it worked didn’t it? They laughed, even.”

“Oh I’m sure they did,” Marta said. She and Rachel had been very...creative when they’d first arrived and realized no one understood them. If Narl remembered even a tiny portion of the stuff she used to say…

Marta thumped her forehead on the table. Narl laughed, and she rolled her head to the side to look up at him.

“So, what’s your plan, then?” she asked. Narl sobered immediately and she continued, “Because they’re not going to be able to stay here forever. Someone will come looking.”

Narl grimaced and Marta sat up.

“Someone’s already come looking, haven’t they?”

Narl made a soft sound of confirmation in the back of his throat. He took his pipe out of his pocket and fiddled with it.

Marta nodded. She’d expected as much. “Which is it—Meath or Kithage?”

“Meath.” Narl shrugged one shoulder. “The chamberlain isn’t so anxious to crown anyone after three months of power. If I had to guess.”

“Mm,” Marta said. Narl’s guesses weren’t always far off the mark.

She hesitated before her next question. “Why did you bring them here? Be honest.”

“I want you to come with us,” Narl said simply. “To Meath. See them crowned.”

Marta bristled. “No.”

“Becs—Marta, listen. They need someone,” Narl insisted. “Someone who understands what they’re going through.”

“And that someone does not need to be me,” Marta said. “How—how can you even ask me that? After everything we went through—after Rachel?”

Narl raised his hands in supplication. “I know—I know I’m asking for a lot—”

“Try impossible—”

“But they need you,” Narl said, pointing fiercely up the stairs. “I can keep them safe, but I can’t understand them, language barrier aside.” He grunted in frustration. “I can’t be what they need.”

“And what do they need?” Marta snapped.

“A guide,” Narl said. “A—A teacher. Someone who knows—”

But Marta was already shaking her head. “No. Narl, I...I can’t be that. For them. Not after—”

She stopped. Sighed. “Those kids won’t want to rule anyway. They just want to go home.”

Narl was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t think they’re going to have a choice.”

“I did,” Marta said harshly. “Why are they any different?”

“You didn’t,” Narl said, looking down at the table. “You might think you did, but you didn’t. Your choice was made for you when Rachel died.”

Marta pushed back from the table so fast her chair crashed to the floor behind her. She ignored it. “I’m going to bed.”

She left before he could say anything to stop her.

[thegreenleavesofspring]

Maybe publishing part of my @inklings-challenge story will help motivate me into finishing it.

~

It's also entirely unedited, so bear that in mind.

~

The Time Sea

Gritty sand beneath her, and she dragged herself higher up the strand, the waves lapping greedily at her sodden dress. Tiny rippling wavelets washing up to pull out again with a dizzying feeling of the ground itself rushing from beneath her. She shivered there awhile, barely conscious of the lightning limning the roaring sea behind her in silver, painting the cliff above her white. The thunder blended with the noise of the waves, none of it touching her consciousness as she drifted.

The heavy black of night slithered into the dark grey of a stormy dawn. She came back to herself, shivering violently in her wet dress. The waves that had deposited her on this shore retreated down the sand, now. Her fingers were numb, hair clinging to her face like seaweed between sand grains. She brushed ineffectively at her face with shaking hands and blanched fingers. Hypothermia, her mind supplied helpfully, and then, get up and walk, it will help warm you up and you may find shelter.

She stood and looked at the cliff rising above her. It was a very small cliff, as cliffs went; only five or six times her height. The thought of trying to scale it in yards of drenched material and with numb fingers made her quail.

The storm had not passed over, though the rain had ceased for the moment; a sudden crack and roll of thunder made her jump. She glanced out at the tide – starting to come in again, now, but not quickly; she had a few moments – and backed up to look up at the top of the cliff.

Lightning flashed very helpfully in that precise moment, drawing her eye up towards the castle crouched atop the hill above the cliff. It seemed a very vampire’s lair, all sharp spires and sheer black stone and cramped window slits with no light in them and flying buttresses spiderwebbing between the towers. She rather fancied she saw bats dancing around the top of the tallest tower as tiny black specks.

It was the least inviting building imagination could conjure, but she was of a very practical turn of mind, and even the least inviting building with all its imagined horrors would be less dreadful than waiting on this narrow strip of cliff-bottom beach to be sucked back into the hungry waves behind her, or dying slowly of cold.

The castle’s inhabitants, it seemed, enjoyed trips to the beach, at times, for a thorough exploration of the bottom of the cliff revealed a narrow twisting path up the rock-face. Perhaps, she thought to herself as she hoisted her bundle of skirts – all shape lost in the ocean to a formless mass of heavy cloth, crusted stiff with salt – they came down on finer days than this, when all was sunny and the sea was calm and glass-green. Or perhaps, she thought humorously, they were vampires indeed, and descended only on the full moons to dance gruesome dances upon the strand.

The castle was further away than it had appeared from the beach, and rain started sheeting down just as she attained the grass at the top of the cliff. She heaved a deep despondent sigh, her hair slicking down around her face and shoulders all over again, shivering uncontrollably now, and started her forward slog, clutching her stomach to try and keep warm. Thunder shook the skies and ground around her, rattling through her bones. Lightning shot white and violet and indigo from sky to ground, and she peered forward at the castle each time, orienting herself off those jagged spires. A pebbled path ran from castle to cliff, but now it ran with water, a miniature rapid rushing along and tugging at her feet.

She was too tired to fight the current, slight as it was, and stepped off into the grass beside the path. The water rose to her ankles as she splashed through puddles, washing the salt and grime of the ocean from her feet and replacing it with tiny blades of grass and fragments of leaves and one very startled frog that rode on her arch for two steps before leaping away with a disgruntled cro-oak.

Her stomach had ceased its growling complaints and her mind was nearly as numb as her extremities by the time she fetched up against the rough stone and wood of the castle. She took a stumbling step back from the unyielding wall and looked around and realized that the path had widened into a drive and swooped right up to a broad shallow front step and a niche with imposing double doors. An unlit torch was set in an iron bracket to the side of it; if it had ever blazed with fire the wind and rain had long since snuffed it.

She considered sheltering in the door nook for all of half a second before another gust of wind sent her stumbling forward a step. Her mind made up, she mounted the stairs, wadded her hand inside a length of her voluminous sleeve, and lifted the massive iron knocker.

It fell with a boom that echoed through the house and faded into the thunder a half-second behind it. But the door was not even latched; the weight and momentum of the knocker pushed it ajar a few inches. She took a hitching breath and peeked in through the crack and then pushed the door open a little farther and slipped inside, leaning back against the rough wood on her hands to close it as she took in the hall.

It was long and narrow and soared to heights she could not see in the dark; the lightning coming in the windows insufficient to show the ceiling. At the far end of the hall – a mile away, it seemed – a tiny fire glowed in a massive fireplace that entirely dwarfed it. Open, doorless entryways to other rooms gaped cavernous to either side, black and opaque as pitch. The walls were bare and carved into sharp pillar motifs, climbing high out of sight. Everything was sharp and spiky and looked deeply uncomfortable and unhomelike, but there was a fire at the end of the hall and she was so cold…

Her footsteps echoed across the bare floor – marble perhaps; it was hard to tell in this dimness – rising all the way to the distant unseen ceiling and reverberating off all the walls over and over before whispering away into silence. But she did not let it stop her; she lightened her footfalls as much as she could and hurried over to the fire, whimpering in gratitude as she held her hands into the hearth itself to stick them over the anemic flames.

A bang from behind her startled her badly – she jumped and turned, scanning the hall. A staircase she had hitherto not seen, set back where the wall had fallen away – she had not seen it in her rush to get to the fire – rose to split into opposite directions. A thin wavering light hovered on the balcony of the second floor (she supposed it was the second floor) – a torch, held aloft in a hand cast deep into shadow. A tall figure held it; she caught a glimpse of a large hooked nose and robes the color of blood beneath silver-streaked auburn hair, two black eyes glittering like moonlight on a forest pool deep beneath craggy brows.

[shareyourideas]

First Time Camping: 6 Essentials For The Ultimate Outdoor Adventure

[inklings-challenge]

Rough Count of 2023 Inklings Challenge Stories by Theme

Feed the hungry: 22

Give drink to the thirsty: 12

Clothe the naked: 18

Shelter the homeless: 24

Visit the sick: 11

Visit the imprisoned: 8

Bury the dead: 18

Obviously, a lot of these are inflated by stories doing several or all genres.

I thought "burial" would be higher based on what I saw when compiling the archives. A quick glance suggests that while it may not have the highest number of stories, it's probably the theme where the most authors chose it as the only theme.

[thefaestolemyname]

Internet Archive just sent me an email reminding me they have tons of free audiobooks and uh I figured I should pass the message along.

The Internet Archive has tons of free audiobooks

Universal Access to All Knowledge for the win!