Monday Flash Fic - Old Magic

New entry for the Monday Flash Fic. Visual inspiration is this:

Word count: 139

Waking up to find a large, hungry, and somewhat confused bull shark hanging above the bed was not an every day occurrence for Ethel Higginbotham. The traditional saying was that it was raining cats and dogs, so she knew her magic was going a little out of control when, after a night spent dreaming of her previous incarnation as a mermaid, it became apparent that it had instead been raining sharks and whales.

Ethel was easily the oldest in her coven, and this kind of thing - dreams taking control of a witch's abilities and bleeding through into reality - was usually an early sign of dementia, although she hadn't heard of it being quite so dramatic before. Or, given the proximity of such a large mouth full of so many rows of very sharp teeth, quite as terrifying.

Monday Flash Fic - A Cracking Time

My latest entry for Monday Flash Fics.

Here's the visual inspiration:

This little vignette is set in the Jenkinsverse universe, and takes place some time in the six months leading up to the "little green paws" incident. It is NOT canon - unless Hambone sees it and declares the awesomeness to be too good to pass up!

For those unfamiliar with the Jenkinsverse stories, the idea behind the stories is that Earth is an extremely dangerous level twelve "deathworld" - a planet so dangerous that most aliens will die within hours or even minutes of setting foot on it. As a result, Humans are incredibly strong and resilient compared to most aliens, and have innate tactical skills which far outstrip those of even the Corti (Roswell Greys - previously unchallenged as the most intelligent alien species). Also, even the most insignificant of Earth's viruses or bacteria can be devastating to alien life.

The Hierarchy is the space illuminati - the dominant faction of the Igraens, a species of digitised sapients responsible for ontold numbers of atrocities, beginning with the extermination-by-asteroid of the V'Straki civilisation 65 million years ago. The Hierarchy's goal is to exterminate any and all sapient deathworld species, which they view as a threat to their (secretive) dominance of the galaxy.

The Gaoians are mustelid-like sapients with a clan-based social structure who have only recently joined the interstellar community. They are generally favourably disposed towards humanity as both species face many of the same prejudices. The dominant Gaoian clan is the Clan of Females (about 20-25% of the population) which completely controls the more numerous males' ability to reproduce, granting "mating contracts" based on merit. The result is a comparatively fast rate of evolution, with few males getting to reproduce at all, and only the most impressive - like Daar or Regaari - siring large numbers of cubs. Daar is the Gaoian equivalent of Hafthor Julius Bjornson (AKA "The Mountain") and one of the few aliens physically powerful enough to defeat a human, while Regaari's intelligence is easily the equal of any Human or Corti.

Regaari and Daar, along with the other characters, are all soldiers in the SOR (Space Operations Regiment) a joint NATO-Gaoian military force made up of two teams: JETS (Joint Extra-Terrestrial Scouts) and HEAT (Hazardous Environment Assault Team). The Human HEAT members are the product of a Corti drug, Cruezzir, which is normally used to speed up healing following severe injury. This, combined with the structure of human muscle tissue, allows for rapid muscle growth, resulting in immensely powerful - and immensely heavy - warriors. So yeah - the combined weight of Warhorse, Righteous, Titan, Highland, Regaari and Daar is easily more than a tonne!

Cruezzir also increases intelligence, by extending and expanding the brain's ability to assimilate large amounts of information. Unfortunately that doesn't necessarily improve common sense...

Total word count: 653

 Daar caught sight of their reflection in a small lake – no, a tarn, that's what Highland called them - and chittered quietly to himself. If there was anything the group didn't look like just now, it was the premier Human-Gaoian strike team. Kovač still wore her silk dress, and Warhorse, Righteous, Titan, Highland and Regaari were still in their tuxedos. Daar had refused to wear one; Human clothing might be fine for a Whitecrest like Regaari, but it didn't work with his Clan Stoneback aesthetic. No self-respecting Stoneback would ever hide his scars.

The little cottage they were approaching was about as isolated as it was possible to get, one of only a pawful on an island so small it didn't even have a ferry service, and more than a hundred miles from any real city. Highland had said it was in the “Outer Hebrides”, which was apparently where his mother was from. Clearly he got his physical toughness from that side of his family; no Gaoian could live somewhere like this. Daar was even surprised that Humans could, although perhaps he'd just underestimated Human hardiness again.

You'd think he'd know better by now.

He cast his mind back to the vidphone briefing they'd had from Stainless during the chopper ride over from Edinburgh. A Hierarchy biodrone had stolen a jump beacon, but was killed before she could activate it - which would have been fine if she hadn't managed to send it onwards to this place instead. Stainless believed another biodrone was enroute, so the SOR needed to get there first. Failure was not an option: a jump beacon would allow the Hierarchy to bypass the Guvnuragnaguvendrugun-built system shield, and turn every city on Earth into another San Diego in a matter of days.

“Anything?” Warhorse asked Kovač.

“No EM of any kind,” she said, looking intently at her scanner. “Or any sign of a Hierarchy cloak.”

“You can detect those?” wondered Daar.

“Scotch Creek and Clan Highmountain reverse engineered their cloaking tech,” she said. “We can't replicate it ourselves yet, but we can detect if it's being used within a roughly fifty-five kilometer radius. This scanner is a prototype, and this is its first real test.” Kovač turned back to Warhorse. “I recommend you tread carefully all the same.”

“Always do,” he said.

“Was that what happened to my scales?” she asked

“Or Stainless's decking?” said Titan.

Warhorse gave that puppy-dog grin of his, then turned back towards the cottage. “Ready boys?”

Getting into the cottage proved disconcertingly easy, and the emptiness of the place filled Daar with dread. They hadn't come to the wrong place had they? Human-built jump beacons were large by galactic standards, and therefore difficult to hide, but their search still came up empty. What if it was somewhere else?

“Any way you can detect if it's here with that scanner?” asked Warhorse, coming into the room Daar had just finished searching with Kovač.

She fiddled with the scanner. “There's the lithium power cell,” she said. “It's... beneath us?”

Titan, Righteous, Highland and Regaari came in just then, and they all stood in the middle looking at the wooden floor. “I guess we'd better start rippin' this thing up then,” said Righteous.

“Not sure you'll need to,” said Kovač, taking a step back towards the door. Daar heard what she meant a split second later – a thin, ominous cracking sound. The floor bowed, then gave way under the combined weight of well over a tonne of muscular male Humans and Gaoians.

Daar had the good fortune to land on Warhorse. Not that Warhorse would've described it that way, but even a Gaoian as tough as Daar would've risked serious injury from a ten-foot fall. The first thing Daar was conscious of, though, was his Whitecrest cousin's excited chittering in his ear.

“Found it!” yipped Regaari.

Response to Celia Riley's Article on the Election of Trump - Part 1

Warning: this is a long one.

I just read this article by Celia Riley, and I strongly recommend that everyone read it because it's a fantastic response to the election of Trump as POTUS. As someone who's survived abuse repeatedly, I found myself agreeing with every word that Ms. Riley has written.

But ...

(Those who know me just knew there had to be a but in here somewhere!)

… there was a notable and significant absence from the roll-call of groups the author named. That isn't to say the ones she did name don't deserve to be there. Every single one does, and for very good reasons described at some length in her piece. But it does highlight a certain myopia which I think needs to be challenged.

And given her background (conservative Christian) and mine (LGBT, raised by evangelical parents) it shouldn't take too many guesses to guess why I noticed it, and why I was disappointed, but not surprised, to find it was missing. So I guess I have some thoughts about this.

Since they divide nicely in two, I'll put the second set in another blog post (I'll post it first, so scroll down on the front page of my blog) but firstly here's my response to Celia herself. And Celia (and any other conservatives reading this) I hope you recognise that I am trying to be respectful, and ask that you read this with an open mind and prayerful heart, and let God instruct you as to whether I am right or wrong.

Response to Celia Riley's Article on the Election of Trump - Part 2

Firstly, if you haven't read my other related post, I recommend you do so first. It's important to understand where I'm coming from, as otherwise some of what I have to say here won't entirely make sense.

So how should conservative Christians opposed to Trump act towards the LGBT community?

(Actually, you could easily remove the “opposed to Trump” part, because so most of this applies more generally.)

Celia's article, which inspired my two, has at its core a simple but powerful and important message: we do not have to reconcile with our abuser. This doesn't mean we shouldn't forgive them, as she pointed out; it means that those who have harmed us should not expect reconciliation, and we should never be under obligation to provide it. As someone who has been abused repeatedly, more often because I have a disability than because I am queer, it is something I agree with entirely.

However the election of Trump has altered the situation. It places two groups which have historically been at odds on the same side. Those two groups are the LGBT community, and those conservative Christians who, like Celia, recognise Trump for what he is and the threat he represents. I believe that, in this case, some form of reconciliation between these groups is necessary if we are to limit the damage Trump is capable of doing, and this means some understanding of the other side's perspective is required.

Specifically, I think that Christians need an opportunity to learn about and understand the perspective of the LGBT community, and why we view Christians as our abusers, because my experience has been that very few Christians have any real understanding of why we have spent the last several decades (longer than I've been alive) campaigning for the rights we are demanding.

This need to change.

Turning the Tables

This is for the regular Monday Flash Fic run by Helena and Brigham.

I sniffed the air as I walked along the landing. There was only one intruder, and he was feeling confident and... what was that? Anticipation. Excitement. He was looking forward to this.

As I rounded the corner to look down, the intruder had just started climbing the stairs. Whatever he was, he was no ordinary human, but he didn't look entirely like a wolf either. The arms and legs weren't so very different from my own, but the head was a grotesque caricature of a wolf. The lips were drawn back in a snarl of rage, and the creature's eyes and inch-long teeth gleamed in the light of my torch.

I remembered what Malcolm had said: not all werewolves were like Juan Pablo, totally indistinguishable from wolves in their shifted form. Some could only manage a partial shift. This one looked like some kind of nightmare hybrid, and it was coming at me fast.

There was no question of staying where I was. There simply wasn't room for Malcolm to maneuver. Not with these low ceilings. "Get out!" I shouted, then "window!" just to make sure Malcolm knew this wasn't the time to take the civilised route out through the front door.

By the time I reached our room, Malcolm had already jumped through the glass. I vaulted through, but wasn't quite quick enough. The intruder was right behind me, and moving fast.

I felt him grab me in mid-air, and sensed myself begin to react on pure instinct. My body was tearing into a million tiny pieces, and I was able to squash the urge just long enough to coil in midair, bringing the werewolf round me so that I landed on top.

Malcolm was a few yards away, having shifted on his way down. By the time the intruder was on his feet he was staring up into a gaping maw of four inch long razor sharp teeth. The bitter scent of self-recrimination rolled off the werewolf. We hadn't jumped through the window to escape him; we'd jumped because the bedroom was too small for Malcolm in his shifted form.

The intruder was so focused on his own foolishness, and my boyfriend's sudden increase in size and toothiness, he didn't see me give in to my own urge to shift.

A sharp snort from Malcolm was enough to send the intruder back on his ass, where the nine-inch claws on Malcolm's feet became more immediately apparent.

I began pulling myself back together, and turned to face them as I rose up from the gravel. Malcolm's head feathers fluffed and fell in inquiry.

"I think you made your point," I said. "He's not the scariest monster around."

Malcolm shrank back into his human form, the feathers withdrawing into the skin and dark hair sprouting to take their place. "Neither am I babe," he said, looking at me pointedly. "Oh, and you missed a few." He nodded at the gravel around me. I was surrounded by a seething mass of driver ants heading towards my bare feet.

The werewolf stared in increasing horror as my ants began crawling up my legs, gradually merging into me as they moved. Then he looked up, eyes bugging. "Seriously? You're a freaking army ant shifter?"

"And my boyfriend is a Utahraptor dinosaur," I said. "You werewolves are so passé."

555 words.

Angels in Shaggy Coats

Helena Stone and Brigham Vaughn run the Monday Flash Fic group on Facebook. You get given a picture to use as inspiration for 500-word flash fic. This is my first one.

 The Great Mother does not communicate indirectly through smell or sound or sight or touch. She creates thoughts within the mind. Not words, just the knowledge of what she wants of you. So when the Great Mother told me to go to howling-rock I didn't question it.

Not even once I'd recovered from the shock.

It was soon apparent I'd not be travelling alone. "You too?" I asked my sister, hurrying to catch up with her.

We arrived, and someone was already there. One of you, sitting, his rear limbs hanging over the end of the rock.

Intimidate. Not the word; the emotion and sensation of the action.

I was confused. The creature had done nothing to us, and your kind are dangerous. You can kill from a great distance. Wisdom told us to avoid contact.

Intimidate.

We do not disobey the Great Mother. So, with a glance at my sister, I moved onto the rock, releasing a low growl from my throat.

The creature stiffened, the short hair on the back of its head shifting subtly. It turned, and I saw and smelled its terror. It said something, tried to edge its way along to where it might escape, but my sister moved to block its path.

It began making the strangest sound, and liquid gushed from its eyes. Was it unwell? Something told me we were here to save it, but I could not see how, and now I feared it was close to death and we would fail in our purpose.

My sister headed away from us, perhaps given some new instruction. I sat and watched the creature.

Friendship.

If I didn't know better, I'd have thought the Great Mother was insane. But if the universe had gone mad, that would not have been the first sign.

Friendship.

The Great Mother really wanted me to make nice with one of you. One I'd been threatening and cursing just seconds earlier. But I am obedient, so I gave a little whine, lay down to show submissiveness, friendliness.

After several minutes the creature made a sound, but I could not yet comprehend your language. I could understand an outstretched hand though, and the pleasant tone of its voice, so I moved closer to sniff. Moments later I was discovering a new pleasure.

Your kind are dangerous, but your affection is wonderful.

My sister returned with a couple of pikas in her mouth. Food, and I needed it. The creature did not seem interested in sharing our meal, even though I could smell it had no food with it and we were a long way from any of your kind.

"Why?" I asked the Great Mother as the three of us walked down a short while later.

Wished to fall from sacred place. Asked for sign, should not end life. Could not let this one die yet.

I could not understand why our new friend would wish to end itself, much less how my actions might help.

Showed not ready to die. Showed love comes in many forms.

We reached the lake, and I smelled death. Death caused by one of your death-throwers. Two of your moving machines were on the wide black stinking-stone path, and inside one was the husk of one of your kind. Small, young, and covered in its own blood.

A death-thrower leaves a distinct scent on everything around it for days afterwards, but there was none on our friend from howling-rock. Another of you had done this.

Had our friend found its child's empty husk and seen only the end of its own life, seen no other future? I do not always understand your kind, cannot understand that reaction, but it is the only explanation I can think of.




624 words, so a little over the limit, but cutting down was not easy!