365 Days of Flash Fiction: C.M.'s Collections, #1

By C.M. Simpson

Science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy, speculative fiction and a touch of horror, this collection plays with just about every genre, touching on everything from dragons to mermaids and pixies to zombies and trolls, this collection has a little bit of everything to share.

 

3RD EDITION NOTE: This edition is a renewed version of Editions 1 and 2, with the main changes being the new cover, new front and back matter, extensive re-paragraphing, Americanization of spelling, and some minor word changes. Outside those changes, most of the content remains unchanged.

• Language: English
• Publisher: C.M. Simpson
• Release date: May 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781393405399

C.M. Simpson

I spent the first twenty years of my life living in different parts of Queensland and the Northern Territory. My father was a teacher who liked to travel, so he took teaching appointments in all kinds of places. I don’t think I stayed in one place for more than four years at a stretch. I wrote stories for most of that time, drawing on the different landscapes we encountered and giving a hyper-active imagination somewhere to run. Seeing so many different places gave me a lot of food for thought as I stepped into the world of adulthood and took my first full-time job, and I never stopped writing and exploring the worlds in my head. So far, I have written four collections of short stories and poetry, and a number of novels, with many more to come. I hope you have enjoyed this part of my journey.

Book preview

365 Days of Flash Fiction

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C.M.’s Collections #1

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C.M. Simpson

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Science fiction, fantasy, dark fantasy, speculative fiction and a touch of horror, this collection plays with just about every genre, touching on everything from dragons to mermaids and pixies to zombies and trolls, this collection has a little bit of everything to share.

––––––––

3RD EDITION NOTE: This edition is a renewed version of Editions 1 and 2, with the main changes being the new cover, new front and back matter, extensive re-paragraphing, Americanization of spelling, and some minor word changes. Outside those changes, most of the content remains unchanged.

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License Notes

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase a copy for your own use. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Copyright Page

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365 Days of Flash Fiction

Third Edition

Copyright © May 12, 2021 C.M. Simpson

Cover Art & Design © September 9, 2020, Jake at JCaleb Design

All rights reserved.

Dedication

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For all those who believed in me enough, that eventually I had to believe in myself.

Thank you.

And for Chuck Wendig, whom I have never met for his weekly flash fiction challenges, which taught me how to loosen up while writing, write more cleanly, tighten up my writing, and to not be afraid to meet a challenge. I also learned to write under the pressure of a deadline, when I had no idea of where to start or what to write about and, through these challenges I wrote settings and characters I would never have thought of or met, without the challenge prompt —or perhaps I might have, but it would have been much later, who knows. Either way, I wish to acknowledge Mr. Wendig’s encouragement to all writers, and the way his challenges have inspired me, and many others, to expand our skills.

And finally, for my family, as always, for their support.

Table of Contents

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January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Author’s Notes

Other Work by C.M. Simpson

About C.M. Simpson

January

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1st January

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When Medilo Swamp Walks

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Written on January 1, 2014, for 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece is a celebration of beginnings... and endings, fitting, I think, for the first day of the year.

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Living on the edge of Medilo Swamp is perilous, they say, but I find it hard to believe. Hard to believe they’re going to abandon an entire planet because of one, albeit very large, piece of undesirable real estate. It’s not the swamp itself, they tell me, but the creatures within—the will’o’wisps, stingers, blood birds and lily dragons. Lily dragons sound more beautiful than dangerous—or so I thought until the night the swamp walked.

Once every five decades, the three moons reach conjunction in their fullest lunar phase. Just once, but it is enough. The colonists’ research team had been at the height of excitement for the last month, tuning instruments, preparing diaries, recording everything that moved, breathed, grew, recording the fullness of swamp water and the changes in its composition as the lunar drag pulled new compounds from below. And that night, that glorious, terrifying night, the swamp walked.

Its waters sparkled like mercury touched with amber, reflecting the lights of a dozen will’o’wisps, highlighting the petals of several restlessly moving swarms of water blooms, making the gathered reed stems shiver. At first, we did not notice the swamp, because on the lowland plains between the village and the swamp edge, the floating cactili were coming into bloom, their scent and savor drawing creatures from the hills around us, and bringing birds flocking to perch until every rooftop, washing line, observation post, defensive wall was decorated in balls of multi-colored plumage—like Christmas with feathers.

Predators came, too. High above the flocks and herds, soared birds of prey, settling onto rocks in a kind of truce came the smaller flying lizards. Prowling to the very edge of the cactili fields came the great cats, and the silent mountain wolves. All eyes were on the cactili pods, but not one creature ventured among them.

The scientists, for once, took their cue from nature, and their orders from the security team. There were too many predators about, and advanced medical support was too far away to save anyone’s life. Death was a suitable deterrent.

At dusk, the pods began to rise—and still nothing moved. The creatures tensed, yes, but they did not move from their places. The water-based male pods surfaced first, shooting swiftly into the sky, reaching heights of four to six meters, and then they opened their outer leaves, releasing the strong, sharp scent of cactili spice into the air.

The beasts shifted restlessly in place. And then the land-based female pods lifted from the ground, their petals slowly unfurling, a softer scent curling out to mingle with the spice. Not a single creature moved, until most of the female pods had reached two meters and started to release gold and pink mist into the air. Spores, millions of them, slowly rising.

The male pods exploded, throwing more spore high into the air. The rising female seed, would meet the slowly descending male seed, and germination would commence. The mass explosion was the signal the creatures were waiting for, and the herbivores surged forward in a rumble of hooves and skitter of paws and claws.

They jostled further and further onto the stream-riddled plain, snatching at the slowly falling female pods, and bending their necks to seek out the cactili ground forage. The waiting flocks sprang from their perches in a thunderous roar of feathers, some to settle in the furthest reaches of the plains, and others to dive and swoop amidst the germinating spore.

The predators gave the herds time to settle, and the flocks time to establish a feeding pattern. When they moved, so did the swamp, and that was when the settlers discovered just how dangerous and varied the creatures of Medilo truly were.

The will’o’wisps hovered in clouds around downed herd beasts or struggling flyers, blood birds took their meals from the diving, darting spore swallows, or settled in clouds over larger beasts to feed. Stingers flew or skittered across the water to engulf creatures of all sizes and leave skeletons behind. The reed beds showed themselves to be trolls and as carnivorous as any lion, and the dragons... the dragons had legs and could stalk the land as well as the swamp pools. Lilies are indeed beautiful, but none of us will ever view them as safe again.

The feeding frenzy continued long after dusk had melted into night, and the infra-red equipment earned back its cost in harvested information. The surviving cactili spore descended at dawn, settling on soil enriched by blood and nutrient saturated water from the swamp. By that time, the survivors had retreated back to their homes in the surrounding hills, and the creatures of Medilo had returned to their homes within its borders. Although shaken, the Colonists’ Governance let us stay. Medilo, after all, had borders.

2nd January

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Surface Neutrality

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Written on January 2, 2013, for 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece started with a flash of memory concerning the movie, Bladerunner, and grew from there. It is 150-words long.

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I saw the bladerunners come down out of the hills. Like the movie, they didn’t seem quite real. Unlike the movie, they weren’t entirely human. We knew better than to confront them, and we knew better than to hide their prey.

The best we could hope was they would not stop and ask us which way the escapees had gone. The worst of it was not helping those who passed through, but word had made it to them. Skivatsen could not offer refuge. Few escapees stopped to ask. We kept it that way.

I watched the bladerunners hit the newly swept street and sent a short burst message to those waiting for the latest prey. The return burst signaled success. Not only had the bladerunners lost the track on the smoothed-out road, they would not find it again, when they left the town. The child and her mother were safe.

3rd January

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Oceanic Allies

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Written on January 3, 2013, for 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this short piece explores one of my envisaged futures. There will be novels, but not yet; the world is not ready.

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If I swam towards the light, I would die, because the light was being used as a lure by that most dangerous creature of the deep—man. Yes, man, for we had come to populate the deeps, just as we populated every other area on the planet.

I waited, looking up at the kelp, whose tips were so many man-heights above me as to be almost unattainable. Only by following every curve and contour of the fronds would I escape detection—but I was not trying to reach the surface. I had called allies. I had only to avoid my pursuers until they arrived.

I waited, then watched my allies rise from the deeps, living submarines, clad in flesh, powerful tails driving them forward until my pursuers fled. Whale song reached me, sweet and encouraging, as the powerful searchlights vanished back into the chasm.

I waited, and the song came again, reassuring. Guarded by the great creatures I helped protect, I let them take me to where my own organisation hid its base. In a few short hours the strike team would assemble, and we would take out another threat to the great beasts with whom we shared our world.

4th January

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The Sorceress of Medilo

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Written on January 04, 2014, for 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece once again returns us to Medilo, and another of the threats that dwell within it.

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They say she was always there, but I say she came from the stars—at night and in secret... and in the smallest shuttle she could find. How she knew where to set down, I do not know, but she found an island of solid rock and used laser cutters and plascrete to build her home deep within its heart.

From this secret place, she explores the riches of Medilo, filling exclusive orders and sending them to other worlds. I stopped her last shipment, a cargo of Medilo fire. Insidious stuff, I could not let it pollute another world.

5th January

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Stanifa on an Upside-Down World

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Written on January 5, 2014, for 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece follows the pursuit of a criminal.

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I left the Mountains of the Moon, and travelled into the Valley of Stars. An upside-down world this, but it would not defeat me. Stanifa had come here.

She would not elude me again—Stanifa with her deadly ways, who could not be allowed to roam free. She was not in the Valley of Stars, or the Dawn Lake.

I caught her on the Plains of Tarn on a rocky shelf above a field of sky. She would have jumped, but I was prepared with net and bolas and she did not leave the ground.

She is incarcerated, now, and I can rest.

6th January

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Darkness Falls

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Written on January 7, 2013, for the January 6 entry of 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece was inspired by an anthology about assassins.

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Darkness fell. He slipped in the mud and rain and tumbled from the roof. Mud on a roof? Of course.

On roofs as old as these the soil collects when the wind blows. Dust catchments form, plants grow, flowers falling from the gutters, assassins falling when they slip on rain-slick patches.

Darkness slammed into the guttering boots first, so that his momentum catapulted him over the edge and he flew—but not very far. He bounced on the cobbles, curled and rolled to his feet, but he did not run.

He limped quickly into the night. Disappearing to find healing.

7th January

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Salvation in a Lettuce Patch

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Inspired by the Peppa Pig episode where Grandpa Pig discovers the birds have eaten his lettuces, this piece was written on January 7, 2014, for 365 Days of Flash Fiction. I don’t know where the zombies came from.

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I was saved. I lay shaking and trembling in the ditch under the hedge, but I was safe—and all because the birds had eaten my lettuces. If they had not, the zombies would have seen me in the middle of a harvest. They would have crossed the drainage ditch, attracted by the way I moved—so straight and direct, purposefully, the rhythmic chop, chop, chop of the panga confirming that I was alive where scent could not. I had seen them as I stood staring in disbelief at the ruination of my vegetable patch, cursing the birds under my breath. I had sunk slowly out of sight and crawled under the hedge before they could see me. Now, I watched the zombies shamble away, on the other side of the drainage ditch, on the other side of the blown-out bridge. Away. And I stopped cursing the birds.

8th January

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Captain Amy on Black Mountain

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Written on January 11, 2014, for the January 8 entry of 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece explores more of the steampunk Australiana setting.

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The ship came down on the other side of Black Mountain. She tore through the gumtrees clothing its slopes and lodged in a valley on the other side.

Well, at least we have sufficient timber, said Captain Amy Carlisle, extricating herself from the toppled wheel, torn sails and fallen rigging.

Overhead lightning cracked and shone, while thunder sent its drumbeat over the first few drops of rain.

And bother it all!

The captain looked around, taking note the torn trees and tumbled boulders, relieved to see they’d come to rest well before the stream. If their luck turned, they wouldn’t find themselves caught in flash flooding.

The ship groaned, settling, and the captain tumbled, landing heavily on her backside.

My sainted aunt’s bum! she exclaimed, and heard a more colorful set of invective to describe the ship’s situation. She hadn’t known sky-ships could be both illegitimate, female dogs and parentless.

Pulling herself to her feet, the captain looked for the source of such an insult.

That’s my ship you’re talking about, she said, when she found one of her passengers at the foot of the stairs leading to the deck. At least you seem to be in good repair.

The man looked down at his torn jacket and dusty trousers.

I, Madame Captain, would say repairs were moderate at best... and, speaking of which, how long will it be before you can get us airborne once more.

Amy looked around, taking note of the crew slowly emerging from beneath tumbled sails and broken masts, noting also the gradual emergence of the passengers from below.

Two weeks, she said, or you can try back-tracking to Canberra, but my guess is that will take at least four weeks, and that’s only if your luck holds.

Luck! Her suited passenger said, holding out his palm to catch the slowly thickening rain.

Behind him, someone snickered.

Amy swept her gaze across the passengers and over the crew, then raised her face to the rain before returning their looks and giving them her most feral of grins.

Good! You can see the pickle we are in, so you will all be helping us get this sweet lady off the ground.

The rain came down harder, and a whip-crack of lightning struck overhead. The captain cast her gaze at the weather, and the coming dark.

We will commence at dawn, she said, leading her crew below decks.

9th January

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Take me with You

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Written on January 11, 2014, for the January 9 entry of 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece explores more of the steampunk world, set in Australia.

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Take me with you, I whisper to the dawn, carrying the milk up to the house. The cow lows behind me, a soft sound, mourning her calf. She will return to the shade by the billabong, an oasis amidst the red gums, lining a riverbed consisting mostly of sand. I envy her the trees, the sandy beach and quiet.

The milking done, I check the bread, kneaded, and rising on the oven top. Six loaves, all ready to put into the oven. I close the lid behind them, wincing at the burning iron, listening for the sound of boots, the rustle of skirts, voices murmuring as the household wakes.

Take me with you, I murmur to a passing magpie, as it wings away from the dusty yard. It leaves me on the porch without a backwards glance.

Today, there will be an airship—visitors; the master has said. He also took me out to Red-Rock Hill and showed me miles of empty land. There is nowhere for me to run, and the natives will not welcome me, he warned. I almost wish for the forests of home—almost.

The coastal lands would have done me, with their mix of the old lands in the new and ancient, but I did not step spryly enough, and was shanghaied from the streets of Sydney. There is a ripe and ready market for housekeepers and servants in the vast reaches of the Outback. I fetched a pretty penny, and saw not the slightest portion of the sum I made for my captors.

Now, I look to the sky, hoping for something like today, when an airship comes with supplies, hoping to sneak aboard, or gain the sympathies of a passenger or crewman, but there are no passengers today, and all the crewmen know me. They will not risk their livelihoods to rescue me.

That evening, when all is done, I slip away to the billabong, to the quiet croak of frogs and buzz of crickets and wail of waterbirds, and I sit against the tallest and the oldest of trees, staring at the stars. A streak of light shows one falling across the sky, fleeting and alone, like myself.

Take me with you. I say it on the smallest breath.

The billabong reflects night above, the bats dipping down to drink.

All is silent when the shadows come, a gathering on silent feet, filling kangaroo-skin water pouches, collecting fresh-water mussels, yabbies and lily roots in the light of a secretive moon, slowly getting closer.

One sees me, seated at the base of the red gum, draws a hissing breath of surprise that calls the others.

They are beautiful, unclothed in the way of their people. They regard me with wide, dark eyes, until my master bellows from the house.

Alice!

He has discovered I am not abed.

Alice!

Alarm ripples through the women at the billabong’s edge, mirroring the alarm in my heart. They turn and begin to hurry away, picking up baskets and bundles as they go. I cannot bear to answer his summons, and I cannot bear to be left alone. I catch the nearest one by the hand.

Take me with you, I plead, and watch her smile.

She pulls me to my feet and guides me through the dark.

10th January

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Hot Iron Pixies

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Written on January 11, 2014, for the January 10 entry of 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece explores more of the anomalies to be found in the pixie-dust world.

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Life as a pixie can be hard. Some never left the world, but most returned. They found the old forests mostly gone, the glades and thickets in which they’d dwelt, vanished, diminished or depleted—usually uninhabitable. Some returned to the Otherworld straight away. Some made do as best they could. These pixies evolved, and became other than what they were, but the quality of their dust remained the same—albeit with some unexpected properties. The wisest of the dust runners did much to look after these pixie ‘crops’ harvesting with care and testing before selling the good stuff for a premium. I hated them.

When the runners discovered a nest of pixies dwelling in an iron smelter, they thought they were onto something special—fey who did not die around iron. They forgot it was cold iron the fey feared, thought nothing of what hot iron could do. And these runners weren’t amongst the wisest. They did not test and they did not harvest; they slaughtered, taking as many pixies as they could and killing them en-masse. I did not find the nest in time, and almost lost the clan.

We discovered something was wrong when the first dust bunny went up in flames. At first the addicts thought it nothing more than memories from a bad trip, but bad trips on pixie dust were rare and always catastrophic. The kind of bad trip you could walk away from belonged in the bad old days of meth, heroin and ice, cannabis and LSD, party drugs, uppers and downers. A bad trip for a dust bunny usually had more interesting results, but as bad trips went, self-ignited immolation was a first. Someone had found a new batch of pixies and it was bad news for the bunnies, bad news, too, for those of us trying to keep the stuff off the streets and stop a species from being injected into extinction.

And we had to find both dust and pixies, getting the dust off the streets, incarcerating the runners and repatriating the pixies... if such an evolution could be repatriated anywhere. Someone suggested a nearby nuclear plant might be suitable, but thinking what might happen with irradiated self-igniting pixie dust hitting the streets soon squished that idea.

It took me and the elf hounds two days of working with a band of unicorns to sniff out the pixie nest. Lucky the runners were processing right next door, so we took out the supply point and rescued the pixies in one fell swoop. Getting the stuff off the streets before anyone else went up in flames was another matter.

The elf hounds couldn’t track it. The pixies might have adapted to living in close proximity to iron, but the hounds hadn’t. While the dust and the pixies didn’t kill them, they did set them sneezing and scratching at their noses. This would be handy in the future, once the inflammation in their sinuses settled down. In the meantime, the elf-hound masters were being recalcitrant about lending any more. I sure as shit hoped the inflammation settled down; there was going to be one hell of a compensation case if it didn’t.

The unicorns consented to trotting around town trying to catch a whiff of the predatory iron. We lost another twenty dust bunnies before we caught it all.

11th January 2015

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Through the Otherworld to the Stars

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Written on January 11, 2014, for 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece plays with a number of concepts I explore throughout my writing.

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Can you dance? asked the witch.

I looked at her.

I have never tried.

Then come, and let your body move as the Goddess wills and the Earth and Wind desire, she said.

I could not refuse. I had asked for her help, and she had bid me dance with them. And she was reputed to have wisdom to help.

I will be there.

She nodded, and looked me up and down. Her eyes narrowed.

What? I asked.

You cannot come dressed as you are.

How, then, should I dress?

You will go sky-clad.

I stared at her. How did she expect me to capture a piece of the sky between mid-afternoon and dusk? She caught my thought.

You will not need to dress. Sky-clad—dressed in air.

Her words caused me some discomfort.

Madam, I cannot. My face heated from my collar to my hairline, and I had not blushed since I had first looked upon a maid and known I wanted her.

She smiled, a witch’s smile, cool and mysterious.

You must, she said, and that was that.

If I had to, I would obey.

Where?

Meet me at the woodcutter’s hut. We will leave your armor and clothing there.

And so I danced, in the nude, in the light of the rising moon, and when the elves came, I looked for my armor, and reached for my sword, but they were a half-mile gone, in the woodcutter’s hut, next to his iron axe and wheelbarrow. I looked at the witch.

There was no silver in your touch, she said, and then I remembered.

So, intent had I been on obtaining my answers, that I had forgotten to cross her palm with the silver in my pockets, or to bless her household with the gold in my pouch, both brought for that very purpose.

The fey cannot stand the touch of iron.

Well, I knew it, and with nothing but air upon my skin, there was no escape. I went without a word.

A thousand years, long gone, and I have not aged a day, but you... this world... I do not know it now. The elves take so long to tire of their pets, although they gift them well. The witch is dust, you say, but I say I saw her cross the divide before the door between worlds closed for half an age. She will not have grown older, either, and she owes me a debt, for she profited from my gold and my silver, and the sale of my armor, my sword and my horse. And she was paid by the elves. Find her. She can join me in my exile and exploration. We will see if her magicks work amongst the stars.

12th January

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A Family in the Stars

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Written on January 12, 2014, for 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece returns to the theme of blood ties and belonging found in Palmyra Ridge.

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The Children of the Red Leaves sang, mourning the loss of their parents.

Tossed, they cried. Tossed wide and scattered.

For such was their fate. The Blue Grass had arrived like a whirlwind, reaping a harvest of death, decimating the bloodlines, and reducing a proud people to almost nothing—save for the children; the children escaped, and now they mourned the loss of their parents, their aunties and uncles, teachers and nurses, their hunters and their protectors. They sang them into the tribal annals, so that they would not be forgotten.

They ignored the peacekeepers standing guard, ignored the recording equipment brought to capture the song and this turning point of time, and, when all those lost had been sung into history, they said farewell to their land.

The Children of the Red Leaves were an autumn people, but, when there was no place amongst the Tribes of Autumn for a remnant, we offered them a place amongst the stars. They accepted, their hearts bruised from betrayal and rejection, but their spirits clear. There was always a place for the lost among us, if they wanted it. We had asked, and the Children of the Red Leaves had accepted.

As they finished their farewell to the land, and we walked together to the shuttles, the Blue Grass attacked. The Children of the Red Leaves sang a new song, calling the air to shield and the lightning to strike, summoning an autumn storm in our defense—summoning clear skies once we’d reached the shuttles and lifted. We carried our dead and injured with us, left the Blue Grass where they fell.

The Red Leaves were full of wonder. They had farewelled the land, but still it had answered when they called. It was a promise. Wherever they went, the land would remember—and when they returned, it would have them back.

As we headed for the upper reaches of the atmosphere, the Red Leaves sang a new song, one of hope and belonging, of having two homes and a family tied more tightly than blood to call their own. One day, they said, the land might accept us, too.

13th January

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The Invisible Bookshop

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Written on January 13, 2014, for the terribleminds flash fiction challenge due midday, January 17, 2014, this piece explores more of my Otherworld setting. I’m beginning to think, this setting and the pixie-dust setting might be one and the same. I’ll write some more to work it out. We had to randomly roll two words, which made up our title, and then we had 1,000 words in which to write a story. This piece is exactly 1,000 words long.

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The invisible bookshop stood on the corner of Pattinson and Lane. It was not a secretive place, tucked away in an alley or down a side-street. It stood proudly where all could see—or where all would be able to see, if the shop itself was visible. Most of the time, it looked like a big, blank corner of wall, with no windows and no door. I loved the place.

As if invisibility wasn’t enough, the front door shifted, and the symbol marking it had to be discerned amongst the protective graffiti that adorned what met mortal and immortal eyes alike—a symbolic doorbell, usually a twist of paint representative of shape and form, but not a direct portrait. You rang it, and stepped through on the left. If you didn’t, you’d end up face first in the wall. I was good at spotting the doorbell in its myriad forms. Very good, also, at noticing those who might do the bookstore harm.

There are all sorts of creatures who wish to see it gone, different factions who don’t believe the bookshop has a right to withhold tomes which might do lasting damage to this world, the Otherworld, and the worlds between. The last time the bookshop was attacked, was because the Summer Queen’s court decided the Winter court must perish, that it had no place in the dry and sunny climes they now called home.

It took a troll to remind the fey that some rules still held sway in this land to which the colonists had brought them. Most trolls will have nothing to do with books—except as kindling. Troll kings are rare, and most don’t read. This one did. Born of the fantasies woven by authors who had never met a bard, and mingled with the earlier and wilder creatures found in the folklore of a time long past, the existence of troll kings challenged everything we knew a troll to be. It was a complication I had not thought I needed at the time.

The warriors of the Summer Court are fair and golden, descended from tales born in Scotland and the old country. When the Scots and English came to Australia, they prepared the way for doors to open in the Dreaming, doors the spirit people sometimes closed, if the fey caused too much trouble. Trolls just came through wherever there were bridges closely tied to similar Otherworld landmarks. Sometimes a culvert would suffice. I hated trolls; they fed without discernment or restraint—anything that moved or breathed or screamed with fear.

And trolls were ugly, from the small squat and hairy ‘bouncers’ to the misshapen masses that were as tall as trees or as large and lumpy as granite outcrops, their noses constantly a-twitch for ‘Christian’ blood or true believers. Not a single one of these would try to enter the bookshop, but the troll king did. I saw him and alarm shivered through me, but he was wearing a large pair of blue jeans and no shirt or shoes. Tribal tats in ochre red and yellow, and wode-enshaded blue covered his torso. His tusks gleamed a creamy ivory in the fading dusk, and his hair fell in a single plait to the centre of his back.

He pressed the buzzer, once, stepped carefully to the left and disappeared from sight. I was about to hurry after him, lest he cause too much damage before he could be stopped, but sly movement caught my eye. Elves. Twenty or more, having forsaken their steeds in favor of silence and stealth. I slipped back into the café, holding my newly-bought and well-wrapped fish and chips to my chest.

I’ll need a bag, I said, at the proprietor’s enquiring look. Two. One for the food and the other for the drinks.

It was enough. While he packed my dinner into environmentally unfriendly plastic, I scoped out the elves—and sighed. I was off duty, but it looked like dinner was going to be late. The elves definitely had plans for the bookstore, and they weren’t friendly.

I watched as one unslung a globe of magical fire, while another pressed the doorbell. I suppressed a snicker as another leapt to the right of the symbol and rebounded from the wall. Even elves make mistakes, and these weren’t your modern fantasy elves; these were fey from the legends of another land—mean-tempered and capricious. I forgot about the troll. The real trouble had just worked out it needed to step to the left.

Thanks, I said, taking the bags and strolling across the road to where the last two fey were loitering outside the door.

It’s closed.

They moved to stand in my way.

Is not.

Is now.

I put my bags down and unbuttoned my coat—I love Canberra; it’s temperate enough for dusters, and late autumn can be downright cold in the evening. The elves watched, their eyes widening when they saw the elven blade hanging at my waist.

Whose betrothed are you?

I never did catch his name, I said, but do you really wish to dare his ire?

I pull the chain from beneath my shirt. I have yet to work out which fairy queen has allied me to her court, but the Summer elves knew. They stood aside. I drew the sword and entered.

Winter must come, the troll was insisting. Without it Summer cannot be.

The elves were arrayed before it.

The book your queen requires is here, the proprietor said, emerging from amongst the stacks. From the looks on their faces the elves still thought him behind the counter. I glanced at the title The Symbiosis of the Seasonal Courts of the Fey.

The raiders’ captain drew himself tall, and snapped out a hand.

Two hundred gold, the proprietor said, and the troll lord bared his fangs. I let the chain hang free, held the sword steady. The captain paid.

We’ll be back, he said.

I sincerely doubt it, the proprietor replied.

14th January

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When Hell came from under the Troll Bridge

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Written on January 14, 2014, for 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece explores yet another aspect of the Otherworlds setting. Here is explained the origin of stories about the inhabitants of Hell—or one of them at least.

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Hell broke loose at ten o’clock on a Tuesday morning—all Hell, fiery steeds, demonic riders, the lot—and I was there to meet it. I hadn’t planned on being there, and I hadn’t known Hell was coming, but I was there. I hid behind a bridge pillar. The trolls were not going to like this, and, for once, the fey would not be amused, but how to get Hell back into the bottle from which it had sprung?

Hell, by the way, is the term humans use to reference the Fire Lands and the creatures that dwell therein. These were elves, the succubi and incubi of legend, and their misbred warrior corps—half-orc abominations on unicorns gone seriously wrong. I was returning from town, and had foolishly taken a short cut across the culvert. Go figure. I always said my timing sucked.

There was no-where to run and no time to hide. I stood my ground, kept the great coat tightly closed and hoped the queen’s chain remained firmly out of sight. Very carefully, I set my shopping on the grass.

What is it you seek? I demanded, as though I did not have the most frighteningly beautiful of elven men leaning down to stare harshly at my face.

The consort! The one unwilling betrothed.

If she lives around here, then she is in danger of the trolls, I replied. Are you sure this is the gate you seek?

We do not fear trolls! he snapped, and gestured skywards. Nor do we fear the day.

Then how do you expect to find the elf-touched? I asked. Surely this betrothed will already be shying from the sun?

His horse snorted, pawing the earth and shaking its black-maned head. I watched it turn its gaze in my direction. Abruptly, the Fire Lands elf sat tall and reined it in tight.

You are she, he said.

I let the coat fall open, and stepped clear of my shopping, aware of the riders starting to circle.

I will not go with you.

He studied the sword hilt, turning his head this way and that, taking in the scabbard with its myriad designs, and then he gave a single bark of laughter.

And we would not take you, he said. Trouble of that magnitude, even we do not need.

The queen’s chain swung free of my blouse, its glitter catching his eye.

You tell your bitch queen we cede her our right to choose. And with a powerful yank on the reins, he dragged his mount around, leading the unholy lot of them beneath the bridge and into their fiery otherworld.

I pulled my coat closed, returned to my untouched shopping, and went home to wash the stench of brimstone from my hair.

15th January

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The Pixies and the Corrupt Cadets

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Written on January 18, 2014, for the January 15 entry of 365 Days of Flash Fiction, this piece explores more of the pixie dust world. It was inspired in part on the morning drive to work, and news reports of the indictable antics of a number of military cadets. These cadets and their supervisors are not representative of the majority of the young officers and their trainers undergoing training, today.

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I glared at the car in front of me; there had been plenty of room for the little, black four-wheel drive to make the intersection—and for me, too. I smoothed the glare from my face, noting the fake bull’s balls hanging from its toe bar—a sure representation of what the driver in front of me was lacking. I might not have been so impatient if I’d known every second might be costing another pixie its life. I might have... maybe.

It was a relief when we moved on and the vehicle turned off in front of me. The rest of the squad had made the small dormitory of military delinquents first, in time to start a firefight which saved a lot of pixie lives.

How the cadets had managed to hide their off-duty activities from their trainers I couldn’t fathom—until I noted the senior NCO and fully-fledged officer fighting in their midst. We were lucky they were regs and not special forces; these guys thought in a straight line.