writing-far-too-badly-old

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

Hey, worldbuilding exercise: Give the people in the world sensible, understandable but completely wrong assumptions of how their world works. Even if their scientific knowledge of exactly how or why something happens is limited, people have a remarkable skill of observing cause and effect, and it adds realism that they would come to a logical but incorrect conclusions based on the limited knowledge that they have.

Observation: Anyone who is placed to rule either as the king or in the king's place eventually goes insane. While a new king or queen may start out sane and even, they will slowly inevitably become progressively more and more unhinged, and safeguards must be placed to handle them before it happens. Even a regent of no royal blood, who sits on the True Throne and drinks from the King's Goblet, will eventually lose it, while a regent that never physically takes the seat of the True King will not. Conclusion: While all power has the potential to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely. That, or the throne itself is cursed. Probably both. Actual explanation: The King's Goblet is made of lead. Anyone who spends decades drinking from it is going to get brain damage.

Observation: The people who meticulously follow sacred rites in all they do, from cooking and healing to the handling of corpses, say the right prayers at the right times, do cleansing rituals correctly and use sacred materials suffer less illness and death. Conclusion: Obeying holy rites protects you from evil spirits and the wrath of the gods. Actual explanation: Most of the rites and rituals are matters of hygiene, the substances and materials that supposedly ward off evil are actually somewhat antibacterial, and doing things that prevent food contamination and the spread of germs simply lowers the rate of infections and the spread of disease.

Observation: This stranger from a strange land acts very differently from the people here, is oblivious to the proper customs and does not notice when she has insulted people. She averts certain materials, does not look people in the eye, and when asked of why she does things the way she does, she cannot explain. Conclusion: The people of this land and their customs are completely unfathomable, and there must be a cultural taboo about explaining their ways to outsiders. Actual explanation: Having a sample size of exactly one person is far too small to make assumptions about a whole people. Also this lady is really just autistic, and oblivious to her own peoples' social customs as well.

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

You know what’s more fun than worldbuilding that makes some fantasy races EEEEVIIIIIIILLLLL!!!!? Worldbuilding that gives the different races cultural differences that help explain why there’s a lot of conflict between them:

Goblin culture doesn’t have a concept of “Property”. A stick on the ground and a tool in a locked shed are equally up for grabs if a thing needs doing. They casually take and leave things all over their communities, eat from communal pots, and genuinely Do Not Understand why the Core Races are so Angry and prone to Violence all the time.

Consequently Goblins who live near Core communities develop a reputation as “Thieves” despite not even having a *word* for that. (The closest word they have is more like “Greedy” and it means a person that hides things so nobody else can use them, and it’s a surefire fight-starter to call a Goblin that)

Common Orc Spiritual beliefs hold that a Soul can only grow stronger by overcoming Challenges in life, and see intruding on another person’s Challenge unasked for as not just Rude, but Deeply Harmful. You’re Stealing their chance to Grow. Asking for help is deeply personal and doing so can be both a way to grow closer with them or a too-personal intrusion, depending on your existing relationship with them. An exception is Children, as far as most Orcs are concerned, all Children are fundamentally the responsibility of the Whole Community, regardless of whose child they are, or even if said child is an Orc at *all*.

This means that Orcs who live near Core neighbors often seem Rude and Standoffish if not outright hostile, because they neither ask for nor offer aid even in times of trouble, and respond to unasked for aid themselves with Anger. There are even rumors that they Steal Children, because if an Orc finds a child lost in the woods they’re pretty much immediately going to start feeding it, and if they can’t find where to bring it back to, or it doesn’t seem to be well cared for, they’re just gonna keep it. 

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

Moving Blogs

For reasons, I'm now moving to writing-far-too-badly.tumblr.com

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

Lasers and Logic Gates Ch 1

I have a vague idea of a UF series, and I'm going to try and see if it works.

Elementalists had a very rigid power structure. Or rather, there were a series of structures for different situations. The most common was the Standard Power Scale. It was, quite simply, how much damage a single Mage could do if given thirty minutes to prepare and thirty seconds to attack.

For whatever reason, there were generally three standard deviations between each of the different Elementals. Earth Mages stood at the top, followed by Water, Fire, Air, and finally, Light. This, of course, discounts the Secondary Elements and other less common Elements, but the five most common Elements made up the vast majority of Elementalists.

It made sense, after all. A Earth Mage could literally tell the stones in a building to break and they would. A clever Water Mage would either undo specific parts of a foundation, make a water saw, or flood the region depending on what needed to be destroyed. There was too much that Flames couldn't burn quickly enough for Fire to be able to catch either of the two top Elements. Air, of course, was even lower. It took time to build up a good cyclone, which the test didn't allow for. But, all four of these classes had the tests for damage they excelled at, and were all called in for different sorts of destruction.

Not so the Light Mages. Light couldn't do anything but blind, so Light Mages ended up as entertainers or assassins. After all, warping the light so no one can see you is a great way to move undetected.

In retrospect, that was bound to change sooner or later. Too many Shadow Bloodlines were left unaccounted for, and too often, those Magics didn't develop until later in life. Such was the case for Marvin Alderson.

Marvin had been a doctoral student in Physics when he woke up one morning and realized that he could feel light. Well, feel it in a way other than normal.

Thankfully, a MG unit was patrolling nearby and felt the disturbance. They escorted Marvin to the holding cells and introduced him to the world of Magic.

At the end of his fourth year of training, as was customary, Marvin was taken through the different courses. He scored relatively low on most of the exams, which made sense. He was taking the test as a fourth year mage, not a fourth year mage student. His peers had all been studying since they were young, and most had bloodlines rich in Light power.

Then they reached the Standard Power Scale.

As it turned out, Marvin had been working on a project without telling his mentor. As he later explained:

"Continuous lasers are hard to make for scientists because you have to find systems where meta-stable energy levels exist at the right separation from a non-stable non-ground state. I, on the other hand, can just make photons at a fairly tight wavelength range and make virtual mirrors in the air."

When the time came for the test, Marvin sat very still. A few of his classmates watched, curious what he was attempting. Only one or two of them actually noticed the system he was building.

The thirty minute timer went off and suddenly the building in front of Marvin caught fire and collapsed. By the time the timer ran out, the building had been completely erased.

The test taker noted his response:

"Huh, so that's what happens if I let it cascade for half an hour."

Marvin's score put him above the median Water Mage, a nearly unheard of feat for an Air Mage, let alone one of Light.

The Standard Power Scale was modified in future years as the technique spread.

"After all," the other Mages agreed, "thirty minutes is far too long to prepare."

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

The History of Construct Combat

Construct Combat is called the king of sport, and for good reason. Its origins lie in the early days of Mage warfare.

Before the Great Families had even been formed, war between Mages was brutal. Every Mage in a tribe would be forced to fight, and the entire Magical population of the losing tribe would often be killed or permanently bound away from their Magic.

Of course, these wars precluded any sort of development. If you had a project that would take 50 years to complete (as so many of the most prized enchantments do), there was no way you would be able to complete it.

And so, in time, tribes agreed to duels of single combat. One Mage would stand for the entire community and duel to the death.

There are a number of theories as to how the shift away from single Mage combat happened. Some theorize that the hyper-specialization inherent to dueling was unsustainable. After all, outside of a duel there's nary a time that a Mage really needs to be able to launch all of their power at a single target after a long countdown.

Others theorize that the duels had the same issue as the general warfare. After all, if you lose five of these combats, you've still lost your five best Mages.

Others claim that the defensive constructs weren't progressing as quickly as the combat abilities. As duelists came with more and more enchantments, certainly they quickly approached the limits of most defensive arrays.

Regardless of why others believe it happened, one fact is indisputable: the first duel with a construct.

Before the Fall of the Great Families, there was a Family of Mages. They were not a Great Family, despite having existed for at least as long as any Great Family. They also refused to join with any of the Great Families, as they were proud of their own Magics.

For this "crime", the Great Families formed an unspoken agreement to destroy this Family. Invented cause after invented cause was levied against them until it was clear that they would quickly be destroyed if this continued.

According to the Family's histories, their leader prayed for a deliverance. Waking in the morning with knowledge, the leader and a holy man worked to craft a man of clay, which they called Golem.

The next day was the duel to permanently displace them from their last piece of land. The Great Family Locus claimed that the land within five hundred leagues of this Family's city were theirs.

Into the battlefield stepped the Locus Heir. He had won his past seventy duels, and was seen as unbeatable by any. The Golem entered from the other side.

Contemporary records show that there was little dispute about the entrance of the Golem as champion. After all, building a full body construct could never be as effective as a Mage, or so the Great House believed.

The Golem won the duel, and the Family was allowed to remain in their home. In their histories it is said that the Golem returned to dust when the treaty had been signed, its task completed.

After that, every Great House began research into fighting constructs. When they fell, the sport as we know it arose.

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

Honestly I should've expected this. It was my first family reunion since I reached majority, and no one had been shy about recruiting before.

"Live forever!" my great uncle, the lich said, "join the ranks of the undying."

"If that's life then I'm undead," said my great aunt, High Priestess of the Church of Light. Despite my great uncle's bounty on Church of Light members' heads and the Church's standing bounty on any undead life, the two never came to blows at family events.

"When you're our age you'll understand a work life balance," they said.

"While I would never recommend lichdom, personally-," my-

Um...

I'm honestly not sure how to say "the person who was a brother-in-arms with my third cousin five times removed's wife" any more efficiently.

"-being a vampire comes with an untold number of benefits."

"Like never being able to go out and enjoy the light of the sun?" my third cousin's five time removed's wife retorted.

"At least I don't have to buy flea shampoo, and I don't have to shave after stressful encounters."

"ENOUGH" that would be one of the angels or demons we'd summoned at some point and adopted.

Oh, no that was actually all of them in concert.

Explains why reality bent a little.

"WHAT PATH HAVE YOU CHOSEN?" they asked in concert. I guess I understood. Having someone from our family join the ranks of the damned or saved would be a feather in either side's cap, and converting one was an even larger feather. Both sides benefited from me choosing immediately.

I watched my family split in two. Half went to stand beside the angels, and half went to the demons.

Suddenly I understood why everyone was so intent on my choosing now.

I was the last member of the family to choose, and we were exactly split. Whichever side I chose would have the upper hand on arguments forever, since all new members of the family had to be approved by a two-thirds vote of the members.

"Remember that choosing a side doesn't mean you have to be a god-botherer," a few of my relatives on both sides pointed out. Despite being technically aligned with Good or Evil, the Druids in my family all cared more about Nature than anything else.

"We'll both love you either way," my parents called from both sides of the room.

Both of them were Blood Mages, and both were healers. They just came into their powers from completely opposite directions.

"What if I pick neither?" I asked. There had to be another option, right.

"THERE IS NO CHOICE OTHER THAN TO LIVE FOR OTHERS OR TO LIVE FOR ONESELF", the unified voice proclaimed, "TO BE INDECISIVE IS TO CHOOSE FAILURE."

I realized that I'd made my decision a long time ago.

"I won't be following any of your paths," I said. Everyone seemed to nod at that. There was no point in following someone else's dream, after all.

"I will become a Scribe and a Keeper of Knowledge." Some brows started to furrow at that. Was that Good? Evil?

"Great Uncle," I said, turning to the lich, "there are Magics you know that could save countless members of the Church of Light that they would have no issue using, do you not?"

"I do. Sloppy Magic is sloppy Magic. Just because a spell was powered by the soul of a forsaken child doesn't mean that you can't optimize it to run on a drop of the caster's blood."

"And Great Aunt," I turned to the High Priestess, "You have forbidden knowledge of other liches long since destroyed, do you not?"

It was clear that the family was starting to understand what I was going to do.

"HOW WILL YOU PREVENT OTHERS FROM ABUSING THIS SYSTEM?" the chorus was starting to fragment as some of the beings began to agree with me.

"My plan was to require seekers of knowledge to come with new knowledge themselves, at least at first."

"My order already has libraries," another of the priests responded.

"Would I be welcome there?" my father replied.

That was how the Library first came into being. Nowadays it's where we host most of our reunions, because it's designated neutral ground.

You family consists of Paladins, Necromancers, Werewolves, Vampires, Angels and Demons. All of them try to peer pressure you, a teenager, to take up their craft. At the next family event they expect you to have made a decision. You decided against all of them.

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

Magic Worldbuilding

"Joseph, I have to ask, what got you into Theoretical Ritualism?" His weekly meeting with his advisor normally centered around a single topic. Apparently this week was his motivations.

Thankfully, Joseph knew this answer well.

"I must have been in high school, since that's when I would have learned the Spellform for a minor illusion. I watched some Bard playing a song and weaving a light show as she did. The way the Mana moved was identical to one of the variations I'd memorized."

His advisor seemed a little confused by the immediate jump into recollection, but she let him continue.

"I asked my tutor about it. I think I asked something like 'if Bardic Magic is so different from what I'm doing, why did it look the same?' He took me out to a forge, and I sort of assumed that he was just ignoring the question."

It was clear that he needed to wrap up the story quickly. His advisor hated when he wasted her time, but Joseph couldn't think of how to share the story any faster.

"He pulled out a thermometer.

'What temperature is the glass?' he asked.

'It looks like it's around 1500.'

'What temperature is this piece of iron?'

'Also around 1500.'

'So they're the same?'

'No, that's ridiculous.' That's when it really struck me. The Spellforms looked the same because the way I looked at them was the same. I was seeing that light was being bent to show something different. From there I really got interested in what was objectively true."

"I'm not sure I follow."

"I guess like, in the real world, no two rituals are actually identical. There's always going to be some difference in timing, or in moon phases, or in the specific celestial alignment. How can we know which of those things are relevant, let alone the factors we don't know how to measure or don't know exist? In Theoretical Rituals, all that we do is inherently true. It should grow only from the base axioms we have to assume true to do Magic."

"Interesting. That's not the answer I expected you to give, but I suppose it makes sense." His advisor was clearly in thought, so Joseph stopped for a second to try to collect his own thoughts.

"Do you still think that Bardic and Ritual Magics are the same?" she eventually asked.

"I really don't know. That question got me into Theoretical Magic, but then I just fell in love with the Ritual content. Is there an answer?"

"There are plenty of hypotheses, but I think that could be a wonderful idea for a thesis. I know that Mgr. Theolos is teaching his seminar on Theoretical Bardic Construction next Spring, and I think that would be a good class for you."

"I don't know any Bardic Magic though," Joseph protested halfheartedly. Truthfully, it sounded really interesting.

"I guess you have 10 months to learn then," she said, handing him a list of books to look at.

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

A Dazzling Screen

For some reason I've realized all the FFF prompts I've written for end up being whatever I've rabbit-holed that week. That trend continues today. @flashfictionfridayofficial

Most of the Theoretical Ritualists Joseph was studying with hated that they had to take a class on not just practical rituals, but fully constructed ones. Personally, Joseph was glad for it. Not only did it mean he had some time where he wasn't allowed to beat his head against the wall of not understanding the fundamental rules of reality, but it also helped him see how the ways different materials took to glyphs and lines explained the theoretical glyphs people used.

When he mentioned that to his advisor, Joseph was glad that she agreed.

"I'm glad you got there on your own," she said, "most students take a fair amount of prodding to understand why you need to understand Concrete Rituals in order to truly learn Theoretical Ritualism. Now, what are you really here for?"

"I have an idea for a project," he said, "and I just wanted to make sure it wasn't too far out there."

She gestured for him to continue, so he did.

"My idea starts from two Concrete facts. First: mis-lain channels for Lightning can have small arcing. Second: when you have a rapid set of lightning bolts you end up with a tone."

"I think I can see where you're going, but continue."

"I plan to use these two facts together to make an instrument. Each note on a keyboard would be associated with a specific alternating Mana rate through the system. In theory, you should be able to tune it to produce actual music."

"How would you ensure that you don't end up frying your circuits, as is common in the Lightning arcs?" Joseph hadn't seen his advisor this excited about a project for ages, so he felt like he was on the right track. Thankully he had an answer.

"I thought about that for a while. If I have an alternating Lightning generator and a general Mana sink, the Lightning should preferentially follow a path to it. Then it's just a matter of tuning each an alternating generator to each frequency I need for a keyboard, and there are no circuits to burn." Joseph knew he was rambling a bit, but it was such an exciting project for him.

"How far have you gotten on the construction?" His advisor looked interested, but the question reminded Joseph of the rules that he was absolutely breaking.

"University policy states that I'm not to build any intentionally ungrounded Lightning circuits without explicit approval from the Dean or my advisor," he recited.

"For the purposes of this conversation, say that I gave you that permission at the start of the term. How far have you gotten?"

"Let me show you." Jeb opened his storage, noting again that he would need to get the engravings refreshed soon. They'd function for a while longer, but the efficiency would keep getting worse until he did.

"It's not totally in tune, but-" he was cut off by his advisor pressing a key.

Lightning arced across the tablet he'd bound to hover slightly above and behind the keyboard. A harsh but recognizable tone came out.

"What about chords?" she asked as she played a simple melody.

"I'd considered that. There were ways to modulate the circuits so that I wouldn't have to hard-build each note, but those all ended up monophonic. I wanted to be able to play-" the sounds grew louder as his advisor found the intensity knob and started playing a piece.

.

"This should be fine for your final project," she said, acting as though she hadn't spent the past ten minutes playing different songs on the keyboard. "What else will you add, though, since you have time?"

That was fair, he did have another few weeks until it was due.

"I was thinking that I'd add different colors for the different notes, but I'm not sure how. There's the part of me that wants to do similar colors for notes that share harmonics, or maybe just a gradient with pitch but-" thankfully she interrupted him before he went too far off topic.

"I knew that having you take that music theory class would come back to haunt me," she said with a wink. "I think a pitch gradient would serve you better than anything else, given that most of your class won't know too much tuning theory."

.

It was finally the day to demonstrate their final projects. His classmates actually studying Concrete Rituals mostly came with solid state constructions that were marginally more efficient than some predecessor. His other Theoretical classmates had mostly made aleatoric pieces, where different random events caused lights or flames to erupt.

"Joseph, if you would show yours?" he realized belatedly that he'd never talked to the instructor about the project.

Joseph unveiled the keyboard. It wasn't too impressive, looking as it did like a scripted keyboard and music stand. All the extra effort he'd put in to carve black runes on black slate felt worth it when he played the first note and red lightning shot across the tablet.

He went through the entire piece he'd practiced, showcasing the full range of the instrument. Lightning of all colors flashed across the screen as he did, and his classmates were transfixed.

Once he gave his demonstration, Joseph went through the schematic for the instrument.

"What's the point?" the instructor prompted. None of the other Theoretical students had been asked that.

"It makes music and light at the same time." Truthfully Joseph didn't know how to answer that question. Quite frankly, there wasn't a point to the project other than the project itself.

"That it does, and by the same effect no less. Good effort." That was a relief.

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

5:45 I swear, the weeks after a full moon are always the worst. Sure, full moons have the occasional trapper or hunter drunk on liquid courage who gets mauled by a (completely within their legal rights) wolf on their own property. But it's after the full moon that the annoying ones come out of the woodwork.

You know the ones I'm talking about. They had a suspicion that Jan down the road was a werewolf, so they set up cameras to watch when the full moon happened. The same sort of people who join HOA's without a second thought and whose idea of a good neighbor is someone exactly like them.

Well, complaining into my court mandated journal isn't going to get my work done. Let's see how many people I need to visit and convince to drop their crusade today.

.

Twenty.

Of course.

Because far be it from Alice the vampire to do anything but be her most aggressively blood-sucking the same night that she knows Bob is going to be shifting.

Anyways, off to house one.

20:46- a recap of the day. "Good morning, ma'am. I understand you've been having some trouble with-" five years on the job have taught me not to look like I know what I'm here for "-some dogs?"

"No, it's that new neighbor of mine, Robert or something. He's a werewolf, I just know it."

"What proof do you have?" She seemed a little surprised that I was willing to entertain her story at all.

After a quick discussion and a trip to Bob's house to see his (admittedly very wolf-like) dog, my first house was done. Thankfully the rest of the werewolf believers were simple enough to convince otherwise.

Bob's good people. Perfectly able to tell the lies we need to keep him hidden. Other agents don't love that he insists on shifting on full moons but it is his legal right, so more power to him.

That just left the three people convinced Alice was a vampire. We'd called her to let her know what was happening, but that might not matter at this point.

The first address brought me to a church. "First Free Church of [Redacted]", to be specific. When I walked inside, someone misted me with what they probably thought was holy water. I wasn't going to correct them, and not just because that would bring up too many questions.

"You can't convince us she isn't a vampire," the minister said. He'd managed to photograph her turning into a flock of bats.

Well, that was damning (excuse the pun).

Thankfully, a look around the room showed that the rest of my appointments for the day were all here.

A quick explanation into the treaties vampires had to follow didn't help, though I didn't really expect it to. Fundamentalists like this don't trust the government anyways.

Their explicit plans to kill Alice, on the other hand, worked far better. A quick dash around the room found them all in cuffs, and the police arrived a few minutes later.

Shockingly, it turned out that this church had been manufacturing and selling hallucinogenic drugs illegally.

Well, another day another dollar. Alice got the normal reprimand for forcing us to involve mundane authorities, but until someone actually makes an attempt on her life I doubt she'll change.

Then again, since attempts on your life from a vampire hunter are the only times vampires can freely feed, maybe that's been her goal all along.

Eh, above my pay grade.

You are a hunter in a world where supernatural is regulated yet largely unknown to the public. Vampires receive blood bags from the government, and werewolves get medicine to help them through full moons. Your role nowadays is tracking down wannabe “hunters” and giving them a reality check.

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

Worldbuilding Wednesday?

I know it's Thursday but

If he was being honest with himself, Joseph was glad that the world wasn't run by the Aristocracy anymore. The advances society had seen in the past two centuries should be proof, but he knew his family wouldn't agree with him.

Even though the rest of the world was modernizing, House Locus was doing its best to avoid moving forward. They were the only former Major House that still employed brownies, and even they had unionized.

Still, there were times that he was glad that his family was as regressive as it was. It certainly made doing research over breaks easier.

Where most of the Major Families had made a show of donating their collections of treatises and formations, House Locus stubbornly refused to part with any of its treasure. They wouldn't even share a list of titles, which meant that Joseph was probably the only person in his class who even knew where to find a copy of the Summa.

"Summa Abstracta" was the seminal work on Theoretical Rituals. It was explicitly cited by every Doctor for five centuries, and implicitly for another seven.

Unfortunately, after a little over a millennium of use, the Aristocracy realized how damning the book was to their power. Coded within the lines describing optimal formations were critiques of every piece of the power structure.

They called for the destruction of the book, and every House followed suit.

Every House except for Locus apparently.

When Joseph asked the Librarian, he explained.

"House Locus has always respected critiques to power. Moreso, we know that books with important knowledge remain important for longer than popular opinion goes in a direction."

As Joseph opened the book, he knew that his thesis was going to blow his advisor away.

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

"Trick or Treat!"

It was our first Halloween in the town, and my wife and I had stocked up on candy. We weren't sure how many kids would come to our house, but at worst we both enjoyed frozen candy bars, and we had a new deep freezer.

As the sun started setting, we turned on our lights and prepared for children to come by. We watched the houses around us fill with goblins and superheroes, but none visited us yet.

We'd already known that the town was fairly insular, so we weren't too hurt. Small towns take time to trust strangers, and that's what we still were.

Still, it was nice that at least someone came by.

"Oh, and what are you?"

"I'm a wizard!" the child exclaimed. Their hat was almost too adorable. We gave the young wizard a candy and they ambled back down the porch.

I'd like to hope that it was the first kid breaking the ice that caused the rest to come, but I have my doubts. The full-size candy bar we gave out probably helped just as much.

We'd gone through most of the candy by the time the crowd had completely died down. Just as we were about to turn off the lights and enjoy a candy bar under the moon, we saw one last person walk to the door. We were the last door on the block with our lights on, so it made sense they'd come to us.

"And what are you?" we both asked. Truthfully, this was one of the first children we didn't actually know right away.

"Myself," she said, giving a small curtsy. "Do you have any candy left?"

We handed her a candy and off she went.

November came quickly, and it was raining the second time we saw her. I heard a knocking on my door and went to see who could be there in the rain.

"Do you have anything sweet?" It was the girl who was herself. Apparently she hadn't bothered dressing up for Halloween at all, since she was in what looked like an identical outfit.

"Do your parents know you're here?"

"Probably!" It was hard to know how to respond here. On the one hand, it was a small town. It probably wasn't building any bad habits to encourage her to talk to strangers. On the other, what if it ruined her dinner or something?

"Let me check. Would you like to come in?"

"No that's ok!" Truthfully I was glad she didn't. I wasn't sure I wanted a strange girl in my home.

Rummaging through my cabinets, I found an orange. That should be fine, right? I thought to myself.

"Thank you!" she skipped off into the rain.

The neighbors weren't too helpful when we asked what it was about.

"Oh that's just how she is," they explained. "Must just be her way of welcoming you to the neighborhood." After assuring us no one would mind if we gave her some fruit, we felt more comfortable.

It took about a year for us to figure out she only came at 9pm.

Another few months taught us it was only on the full moon.

But, it took until our child was born for us to really understand how strange it was.

Our little one was constantly growing and changing, but the girl at the door never did. The rest of the town was just warming to us, so we weren't sure how to bring it up. What if we were just imagining things? We'd be right back to the crazy city folk in their minds.

Still, by the time that our daughter turned eight, she still hadn't changed at all. That time, our daughter answered the door.

"Hi! Who are you?" our little one asked, still excited about the prospect of new people.

"My name is Clarity," she answered as my wife and I made it to the door.

That was strange. Had we never asked what her name was?

"Do you have anything sweet?" At least that hadn't changed.

"My parents say I shouldn't have sweets after dark." Oh the sorrow of an eight-year-old. Bone deep and as ephemeral as the wind.

"We have an apple today," I said, hoping to keep the conversation short.

"Thank you!" the girl, Clarity, walked away again.

"Can I have an apple?" There was really no way to tell our daughter no after that.

A month later, Clarity came again and our daughter answered the door again.

"Clarity! Welcome back!" Our daughter rushed over to hug the strange child. "Do you go to a different school?"

It made sense she'd ask that. Clarity looked basically the same age as our child.

"Maybe? Which school do you go to?" After confirming that she didn't go to our daughter's school, the girl again asked for a sweet.

This time Angela was prepared. She offered her prized candy bar, some reward for doing well in classes, we'd gathered.

"Where'd you get the candy? I thought you weren't allowed sweets after dark?"

"My teacher gave it to me for doing well on my last test! I had the best score in the class!" Well good to know that was true at least.

"Maybe I should join your class," Clarity responded.

The next day Angela came home and told us that Clarity was in her class now.

The following month, Clarity came over to study, not just to have fruit and leave.

When Clarity asked to spend the night the next month, we couldn't think of a reason to say no.

We all woke up the next morning and had breakfast.

"Thank you for everything," she said.

As the door closed, I could tell that was the last I would see of Clarity.

We thought Angela had forgotten about her. She didn't really talk about her now missing friend at all, and we weren't sure how to bring it up, so we just didn't.

But, she grew up and went off to college. We were looking to downsize, so when she wanted to move back to her hometown, we were more than happy to sell the house to her.

She called the night of the first full moon.

"I think I just saw my imaginary friend from childhood."

There’s a girl who knocks on your door at exactly 9pm on every full moon, expecting sweets. It’s been more than ten years and she’s never aged a day.

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

I looked at my assignment, checking for a final time before my client for the day came in.

"Good morning, Bobby," I said. "I understand that you've just come into a Power."

"Flames started speaking to me." The eight year old in front of me was clearly terrified, but that made sense.

People who hope for a Power generally assume it'll be something obviously heroic. Flight, or super strength, something like that. Or, they get some obviously evil Power like raising the dead. Even ignoring how reductive that dichotomy is, too many people end up like Bobby here with a power that doesn't fit into a nice easy box.

"I'll be honest with you," I said, trying to sound comforting, "most people you meet are going to tell you that you should use your power to extinguish fires like a hero."

"They scream when I try," Bobby said, tearing up as he clearly remembered the first time he used his Power.

"And when they hear that, criminals will try to recruit you. They'll tell you that there's no way your power can be used in today's society, so you should burn it all down. Would your flames like that?"

Bobby fidgeted a little, clearly unwilling to answer.

"You don't actually need to answer. We're here to offer you a third path. There are places that need to be burned, and especially if you can keep your flames contained to within a designated area, you can help tons of people with your power."

For the first time in the conversation, Bobby seemed like an eight year old should when they find out they have a Power. He wasn't nervous or frightened. He seemed hopeful.

"Would you like to go to one now?" I asked.

"I have to ask my parents," he said.

As it turns out, Bobby was great at his first prairie burn. As the rangers there explained how fire was essential to a healthy prairie, Bobby clearly saw a future for himself.

Today was a good day in the office.

We helped quite a few guys with Super Strength get into the construction business. I know this one Veterinarian who can speak with animals. Not everyone with superpowers wants to be out there fighting crime or robbing banks. That’s where our Job Placement Agency comes in.

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

Pride before the Fall

So, I've decided to try writing a short story a day through all of July. I'm really glad that FFF is today, because it makes finding that first prompt so much easier. Anyways, to the story:

I'd made my career living on a knife's edge. Each experiment I did would have had me ridiculed if I failed.

Instead, I grew more lauded with each.

In retrospect, that drove me at least as much as the work itself did. The feeling of being Prometheus, sharing the fire of knowledge, was just too tempting.

Where it all went wrong would be obvious to my competition, though they'd have said the same about each of my accomplishments. I'd been tying magic to science for years, which is where my advancements tended to come from. Truthfully, I was helping both fields. Mortal medicine gained new cures and elixers, and magic gained more efficient and reproducible flower spells.

That was the issue though, wasn't it. I had been working solely in flower spells.

I grew tired of the restrictions of flower magic. Any cure I made with them had to come from natural sources, which made industrializing so much harder. Too, what great genius was limited to working in a single small sub-field like that?

I reasoned that blood magic should be more efficient for healing, since it was focused entirely on the body, and it was infamously easy to scale up.

Being a well-known scholar has its perks. I was granted access to the section where blood magic tomes were kept. I wasn't going to use any of the spells, I assured the librarians, I was just curious how they were able to scale spells so efficiently.

I didn't find out how to apply that knowledge to flower magic, of course, but inside of a book I'm sure was written in blood on human skin I found a spell that claimed be able to bring back the dead.

It worked, of course, but I could feel the inefficiencies in the spell. That simply wouldn't do for my purposes.

So, I cut the spell down. Instead of resurrecting a full body, it would treat a small piece of necrosis.

It did nothing to treat the underlying illness, but we had antibiotics for a reason.

I've never been so glad that I had a breeding line of mice and a snake as I was for those months.

By the end, there was nothing overtly magical about the preparation for the salve, so I was able to get it through the government testing phases. The Mage's Council saw what appeared to be an industrialized flower magic and urged me to share a generalizable solution.

Within a few years, it was one of the best selling magics I'd made. Doctors everywhere were prescribing it as we learned how much more than skin necrosis it could heal. Anything the doctor or patient considered "dead" was an option.

It's obvious to me now that I'd forgotten I wasn't working with flower magic. There, the price you pay is the effort to make the spell and the materials themselves. Blood magic takes its costs elsewhere.

The patent was just expiring when the bill finally came due.

If I hadn't killed that first thing I raised immediately after, I might have learned that the spell only lasts about a month. When the month is over, the creature doesn't just keel over, but it erodes anything it worked with while brought back.

The modifications I made to the spell certainly changed both those factors. I still don't know what math the spell used shift the timescale or effects, but all of the miraculously cured people suddenly grew sick. The spell had shifted now to returning each ailment to the stage it would have been if never treated in the first place.

The first lawsuits came in within days, and the Mage's Council called me in for an inquisition.

As I watched my empire crumble around me, I knew that I could fix it. The librarians must not have heard anything yet, because they let me into the blood magic section again.

I know I can find the right spell if I keep searching.

--Final entry in the Journal of (Redacted). After being found guilty of use of blood magics, (Redacted)'s magics were bound and he was sent to (Redacted).

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[writing-far-too-badly-old]

Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial! Excited that my prompt was used!

Title: Mess of Us

Word count: 180

I take you by the hand now, dear one. We take the world by storm. In typhoons and monsoons, we are the ones that shape destiny.

For years we are there, friends side-by-side. I am the night, and you are the morning, but we are two parts of the same whole.

In rain, in shine, in hail, in sleet. We are snow in the winter and blistering winds all the same.

I come when the darkness settles to carry the moon, and you arrive with the brightness of the sun.

And when the days are longer and the solstice brings summer, we find ourselves here again. We are footsteps in the sand on pristine white beaches, marred only by our shadows.

The stretches of time elongate. The oceans reach far and wide. But in the unknown, I am here, dear one. My love, my friend. I am not lost to you in this burbling storm.

As the skies open up and droplets sprinkle like tears from the clouds, we are dancing in sunshowers, weathering through the mess of our lives.

also read on wattpad || buy me a ko-fi

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

Sunshowers

Sunshowers had changed. Once, they were a magical moment, where the light of day would shine as cool rain rushed down on you.

Technically, none of that was any different now. The devil, though, lies in the details.

In the past, rain was just water. Sure, some scientists might mention that rain formed around small pieces of dust, but you could drink rainwater, and many did.

Now, with skies suffused in halogens, we hide away from the rain each time it comes.

Except, what's the point?

Nothing is going to change. The skies are never getting cleaner, and the air gets a little harder to breath every day.

Before my grandmother left, I asked her what her favorite memory was. She looked through me, sorting through the years long past.

"It was when I was just a little girl," she said. "The skies were blue then, and clouds floated in whites and grays. One day, the rain started to come down as the sun peeked through a break in the clouds.

"I remember dancing then. I didn't worry about the fact that my dress was going to be soaked, I just laughed and sang while rainbows formed all around me."

Of course, she's gone now. I wonder if anyone else remembers the feeling of rain on their skin.

I checked the weather update. It was only really fluorine in the air tonight.

When it started to rain, I saw the sun peak out for just a moment.

I went outside and felt the rain on my skin. For a few brief moments, I understood how my grandmother must have felt those many years ago.

If it had been a chlorine day, I would have felt my skin catching fire. But, fate smiled on me, and it was fluorine. I hardly noticed the burn, gentle as it was.

The rain stopped, and I stopped dancing. I knew there was nothing anyone could do anymore, so I just laid down on the slab of steel.

The pain started.

I felt like I could almost feel my bones crystallizing into shards and tearing the blood inside me apart.

It was a sharp pain, but I knew it would be over soon.

As I lost control over my arms, the rain restarted.

I closed my eyes and remembered the dancing.

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[writing-far-too-badly-old]

The Battery Died

We'd known for years that the battery was going to die. The Makers had been very clear that it would only last for ten thousand years, and the exact time it was turned on was public knowledge. Heck, it even had a timer counting down the seconds until it emptied.

It's not even like we couldn't replace the battery. They also left us all of the tools and knowledge we'd need to build more. But, it was never worth the cost to build one.

At least, that's what Governance said.

Still, pointing fingers won't turn the battery back on. Believe me, we tried that more than enough.

Right after the battery died (after the panic and riots were quelled of course), Governance assigned a few engineers to rebuild the battery. Unfortunately, the process required power from the old battery.

A few years later, the Makers came back. When they saw the darkness on the planet, one came down to speak to Governance. Whatever hope we had that they would give us another battery was crushed when they flew off again, taking the directions for new batteries with them.

Apparently we were "clearly not capable of the responsibility that being a cosmic citizen entails."

The worst part is that I can't even blame them for that decision. We had a literal countdown to the apocalypse that we could switch at any second and never did. Now there's no battery life, and we're stuck with the darkness.

@flashfictionfridayofficial

[writing-far-too-badly-old]

It was one of those nights. The weather couldn't seem to decide if it wanted to rain or not, so I was left slowly growing colder as the mist slowly soaked my jacket. Still, I had a job to do, and the only thing waiting longer would do was make me a little colder.

The newest grave is always obvious to those of us who know what to look for. There are the normal tells: clear lettering, stone that isn't yet covered in dust, and of course the dirt that hasn't had a time to settle. Of course, I was looking at the more relevant one for me: a crying young girl. A quick look at the tombstone let me know her name was Clara.

I knew I'd have to choose my words carefully. At least I hadn't been assigned to the hospital. Ghosts here at least knew that they were dead. Still, tears could turn to rage.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She turned to me, recognizing what I was in an instant.

"No one came to my funeral," she said.

That was strange, though a look at the stone made it slightly clearer. She'd been over seventy when she died, so she wasn't some prom queen-to-be dead before her prime.

I realized she hadn't stopped talking, and hoped I hadn't missed too much.

"-and I know Joan and I haven't spoken since that Christmas, but I was hoping she would set it aside, if only for this."

I nodded gently and helped her to stand. There was nothing I could say to her to make that pain go away. The fear that no one would miss you when you're gone is present for everyone, and having it confirmed couldn't have been pleasant. Still, protocol was protocol.

"Are you planning to take revenge on anyone?"

She looked startled at the question. "No, I'm not mad at anyone but myself, I suppose. Looking back on these past few years, I don't know if even I would have come to my funeral if I didn't have to. All I want is to go to sleep."

"I can help with that. So, Clara, tell me about yourself." The night didn't grow any warmer, but it was a small price to pay for helping someone out. As the night turned to dawn, she seemed to realize that we were facing the east. She smiled, though I doubt even she noticed.

As the sun broke the horizon, her last words faded out as she did.

You find a girl crying next to a grave. “What’s wrong?” You ask. She cries harder. “Nobody came to my funeral.”