#i knew when she was a hatchling that i had to make her as slimy as possible

[gemdragons]

[ID: Digital cel-shaded Flight Rising fanart. An aberration dragon stalks out of a pond rimmed with cattails. There is a high wall in the background with water pouring from two drains. The area is shaded by pine trees. End ID]

I call her Halloween Slime Baby because she was born in October and is very, very slimy.

Accent: Abberant Contaminant by flowerfalls

[myhusbandsasemni]

Amily

Content Warnings: death, painful punishment, mentions of eating people

........

Dirty, dark, slimy, and foul were all that Amily really knew. That was to be expected. She had been sold to the underground markets as a hatchling. The only thing she could remember of her parents was the soft clicking her mother had made over her egg. It was her earliest memory, and barely a memory at that. Just a distant sound in her ears when she was left alone in the dark and quiet for too long. She had nothing else to think about. 

“Crimson!”

The command was sharp and harsh. The man who had raised her in the filthy room in the basement treated her as an attack dog and called her Crimson. He had ignored her every time she’d told him her name was Amily. She didn’t talk very much anymore.

Amily stood from where she’d been laying, her wings settled over her body like a blanket. She turned, dressed in the hoodie and jeans she’d had to scavenge off corpses that she caused. He waved in the signal to come. She followed him, lips tight. She didn’t know any other life than this one. 

The man took her out to the city, giving her a smell that she would have to hunt down and kill. She didn’t ask any questions about it. Her master didn’t like it when she spoke. He tended to punish her for acting like she was anything more than a trained animal. 

She opened her leathery wings and took to the air, tracking the scent. She found the smell to a man in an alley. He was working out a bargain, it seemed. It didn’t matter to Amily. She was only meant to kill. She attacked quickly. She swept the non target’s head off his shoulders. No witnesses. No witnesses. Amily put her clawed hand through the target’s chest, and he spluttered, falling to his knees. She pulled her hand out of his chest and started rifling the bodies, hoping to find something good on them. She didn’t touch the money. She wasn’t allowed to touch the money. 

A shock rang out through her body and she collapsed next to the corpses, whining. 

“You weren’t supposed to kill the other!” the man yelled at her. 

She curled up. “No witnesses,” she hissed, clawing at the collar pathetically as the burning sensation continued. “Pleaase.”

The pain didn’t stop as the man stood over her. “I didn’t say that, did I?” he growled, upping the pain. Amily shrieked. That was unfair. There had been times in the past where he’d praised her for taking out witnesses without being told. 

The pain stopped and he pushed her with his foot. “Get up.”

She picked herself up, her wings around her ears as she tried to hide. 

“Pathetic creature,” he growled. “Come on.”

Amily followed him, her eyes lingering on the corpses. When she managed to make the master happy, or at least not angry, he let her eat the bodies. Instead, she was going to get old rotten meat. As a dragon, she could handle it, but she craved fresh meat. 

She wouldn’t be getting that tonight.

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[wavesofthewest]

Chapter 2: Ashes From A Stormy Heaven

Fate: 30-40 coli battles

Abstract sat submerged in water, holding onto the seaweed around him to stay where he was. The current flowing softly through him gave him peace and something to feel, which was something he needed at that point in time.

The eggs were about to hatch.

He was about to be a father.

It stressed him out. Even though it wasn't really for himself that he offered to be the father, Abstract was worried about how they would fare. And, goodness, he hoped none of the kids were fae. With two guardian parents, it wouldn't be explainable. Not to mention that he wanted to distance himself from them as much as possible. They weren't his children. They had his blood, but they were going to grow up with Sage and Blue as their parents.

A shadow appearing over the spot he sat in caught the fae's attention. Abstract sighed and let go of the seaweed, floating up to meet Blue at the surface.

"New record?" the guardian asked, helping him onto dry land. Abstract shrugged and looked around for any children that might be. To his relief, there were none in sight.

"I wasn't counting. I just needed a place to...relax, was all. The whole hatchling business is stressing me out, honestly. What if none of them survive? What if there's a fae amongst them? I can't even begin to think about how much could even go wrong... Dammit, why did I even agree to this in the first place? I wish I never did! It's all wrong," he sighed, lying back so that the sun could dry him off before going back into the cave. Blue stared at the fae and lay next to him, worried. It wasn't like him to act like that.

"Hey, hey. I thought you were supposed to be our raving optimist! Always focusing on what's best, cheering us up when we need it. Don't give up on it now, Ab. Come on in, see the kids. They're beautiful - and they want to know all about their Uncle Abstract!"

Surprised, Abstract sat up abruptly. "They can't be old enough to be sentient yet, can they? I thought it took longer than that. As in days, weeks or months even. Not just a few minutes."

Blue giggled and raised her tail to show a young fae hanging onto the tip. "Turns out fae are rather clever. She's already speaking in broken phrases and imitating her siblings. We haven't figured out a name for her, though. We're not sure what fae children are usually called, so I figured we'd ask you for help."

"Let me have a look at her," Abstract said, reaching for the child. The hatchling let go of Blue's tail and flew into his crest, making him laugh. When she calmed down enough for the older dragon to have a look at her, he could feel protective feelings begin to emerge. This was a pure dragon who had yet to see the wonders - and horrors - of the world. He couldn't just stand by and let everything crash onto her all at once.

"She looks like heaven on earth, to be honest."

"Then that's what we'll call her. Heaven." Upon hearing her name, Heaven flew in a figure-8 and landed on Blue's head.

"Hevven! Hevven!"

The two older dragons smiled at the hatchling's innocence. They walked back to the cave, and Abstract was curious to see the other hatchlings. He just hoped at least one of them was a guardian.

As soon as Abstract saw the three dragons in the cave, he knew something was off. The golden fae in the corner was barely breathing, but none of the others noticed as another, smoke-coloured hatchling was taking all the attention by trying to do things that would hurt him. He walked towards the suffering fae and watched, horrified, as she turned to him with wide eyes and vomited a large amount of water before lying still.

At about the same time, Sage had turned and saw the fae standing there, almost paralysed by the sight. She walked up next to him to ask him what the matter was, saw the dead hatchling and rushed over to the child. Abstract thought he could see tears form in her eyes, but none came out.

"Storm? Storm, are you okay? Come on, get up, you need to get out of this pool of...of...slimy water, come on, answer me, Storm... Storm...? Storm?"

"Sage..." Abstract began, but a choked sob from the older dragon cut him off.

"She can't be gone. We already lost the other egg, we can't lose half the nest, we can't...Storm has to wake up, she has to, we can't...just...be left with Ashes and his other sister..."

"Heaven," Abstract automatically corrected. "Her name's Heaven."

"Still..." The guardian choked on another sob and lifted the hatchling's body carefully onto her back. "I...suppose we'll have to send her off, then... Are you guys coming? Or should I do this on my own?"

Abstract saw Blue leave Heaven with her brother - apparently named Ashes - and follow Sage out. The fae considered following them but felt it was better if the parents did it alone. Storm wasn't his daughter - he didn't know the worst pain from losing her. Instead, he focused on bonding with the two living siblings.

"Hey, you two. Anything interesting down here? I bet you can't wait to be up and flying with your parents. It's honestly a joy...feeling free in the air. Then again, the ground isn't that bad either."

The hatchlings looked up at him, and Heaven tilted her head as if she understood - which she could have, she was developing much faster than most hatchlings do. Ashes went back to gnawing on the rock he held between his claws. Abstract couldn't help but smile. They were going to be fine. They were missing two hatchlings, but they were going to be okay.

[fictionadventurer]

I still have some lovely flash fiction prompts that I am excited to get to, but after I finished the story from yesterday’s post, I was blindsided with a plot for another story using the same prompt, and I suddenly find myself with a stereotype-filled space western. I didn’t even try to keep this one under 250 words, because the rambling voice is rather the point of it.

I apologize in advance for the dialect.

The Ballad of Ma McKenzie

If y’ever find trouble in the asteroid belt, sing out for Ma McKenzie. She looks like the flutteriest little granny who ever knit a sweater, but she’s been ranging the belt since before the days of grav generators with no weapons but a sword her Pappy used in the Second War of Mars. She’s a mother to the miners and an angel to the travelers, and she’s near enough the only hero in the belt worth the title.

I first met Ma during the Ruthenium Rush of 2330. No matter what them schoolmaps say, there’s worlds of space between one rock and the next, and I’d been floating for three days, hoping the next rock I saw wouldn’t already have a miner squatting on it. I’d just started a game of checkers with the maintenance bot when I heard a scrabbling in the wall. Next thing I knew, there was less wall than there were before, and a lot more Martian voidworm scraping cross my floor. Quicker’n spittin’, I sent a distress call from my belt-comm, hoping someone’d show up in time to gather my bones. Them big purple worms are longer than pythons and meaner than crocodiles, and between me and the bot, I didn’t think we’d hold it back for longer than five minutes.

That was all the longer Ma needed. Her ship docked without my knowing it, and when she came into the hold my heart about stopped, cuz I thought I’d hafta save this soft ‘n’ wrinkly granny from the voidworm, too.

She pulled that rusty sword from her belt, and it looked like a toothpick for that big old worm. It left off knawing my arm and lunged for her, ready to swaller her, sword and all.

Before its teeth got a taste of her, she stuck the point of her sword under that worm’s chin. Now, voidworms got a hide tougher than the hardtack at Europa Station, so that sword didn’t so much as make a scratch on that worm’s slimy outsides. But somehow that worm hung on that point as if Ma had mounted it for display.

Ma shook her head at that worm and clucked her tongue. “You naughty little thing,” she said, just as if its eye weren't bigger than both her fists. “You’re making a right mess of this nice man’s ship.”

The worm screeched at her and wriggled off the swordpoint. My stomach fell to somewhere round my ankles, but Ma didn’t flinch. Quicker than I could blink, she had an arm over the top of that worm’s neck, its big teeth pinned ahead of her armpit as it tried to wiggle round and take a bite of her noggin.

“Now none of that,” she said, as if it were nothing but a naughty pup. “You can’t scare me with them choppers and there’s no use even trying. So why don’t you just calm down and we’ll get you somewheres you won’t need to bite no one’s insides?”

While she talked, her voice got lower and all relaxing-like, sweeter than the first breath of clean air when you get back planetside. And that worm stopped screeching, and then it stopped wriggling, and soon the worm that could strip a man to bones in minutes was chirping and cooing like a newborn Venusian sunchick.

Ma dropped it to the deck, where it lay as still as hydraulic tubing. She pulled a rope from her belt, wrapped it round the worm’s muzzle, and tied it with knots I’d never even dreamed of. Then she dusted her hands on her trouser legs and turned round to look at my sorry battered self.

“Ag ih meh,” I sputtered.

Ignoring my flabbergastedness, she said, “Trick I learned in the Saturn rings. Them worms’re drawn to sound vibrations, and they’ll tumble off to sleep if’n you talk at the pitch their mamas use on hatchlings. He’ll be calm enough for an hour or two. More’n enough time to get a bit o’poison in his belly and pitch him in a nice bit of void. I hate doing it to ‘em, but he won’t suffer none, and I can’t leave him to nibble on the next miner ship that wanders by.”

Having got a bit of my brain back, I offered her a hand. “I’m right lucky you came along, ma’am. I didn’t expect no one to tangle with a worm by choice.”

“Had no choice,” she said. “My ship ain’t much, but she’s ultralight-quick, and she’s got a comms array that can hear a flea sneeze on the sun. I make a point of helping any man in the Belt who needs it.”

“Well, I’m mighty grateful you reached me in time, ma’am. The name’s Walter Lake.”

She gripped my hand harder and grinned. “Joan McKenzie, but everyone calls me Ma, and you’d best do so too if’n you plan on staying in the Belt for good.”

Well, as you see, I did stay, and a lot more easy in my mind now that I knew Ma was wandering tween the rocks. She saved my life a dozen times before I stopped counting, and I don’t doubt she’d do the same for a slicked-up planet boy like you. Don’t go looking for trouble now, but if’n you ever find yourself in a bind, ain’t no one better than Ma to get you out of it. Now shut up and give me a sip of that whiskey. I ain’t had a decent drink since they shut down the stills on Ceres.