flashfic
The Robot’s Math Lessons
Once, in a nation that spanned many stars, a robot made its home in the City of Ravens Feasting. It was a small city, as cities went, upon a world of small repute. But in the city dwelled a girl who liked to walk by the sea. Her parents had no reason to believe she would come to harm taking the shuttle down to the shore, and she often made the trip alone in the evenings, after she had completed her homework and chores.
The Alchemist’s Maples
In a quiet land, a great distance from the Lands of the Moon where she had grown up, an alchemist lived in a workshop that she shared with her friend the artificer and a single raven that occasionally condescended to be fed raw eggs and overstrong coffee. (It had yet, however, to produce any theorems.) The alchemist had long ago mastered the inner disciplines that extended her life, although she kept that to herself and her friend on the grounds that being pestered about immortality by importunate princes before breakfast was a nuisance no matter what your age, and in the meantime kept herself well-supplied by trading simpler potions to the local townspeople: glamours to tint your hair the color of peacock feathers, remedies for teething children, the occasional brew-of-inspiration for those who needed to make stirring speeches on short notice.
The Stone Egg
Once in a land of dragons there lived a great dragon queen who collected eggs. Not the living eggs of her kin, but rather the preserved eggshards of youngling dragons. There were gold-rimmed shards from the firedrakes that built their nests near volcanoes, and transparent, glass-like shards from the moondrakes who danced their wonder-dances during the new moon so that the land might not be entirely dark, barnacle-encrusted shards from the seadrakes who kept their eggs in the wrecks of galleons where eyeless human kings stared from devalued coins. All these the dragon queen arranged upon the shelves she had carved into her lair.
Magician’s Feast
Once, in a far land, there lived a magician whose great passion was not her studies but her food. In her youth she had applied herself passionately to her studies, but her particular school of magic emphasized asceticism and long hours of meditation. However, once she left her teachers and founded her own tower (she was enough of a traditionalist to prefer a tower, and humane enough to call it out of the earth’s bones in a remote location where it wouldn’t trigger seismic disturbances or ghost-plagues), her discipline began to slip. Away from her teachers and her solemn fellow students, it was not long before she began dreaming up feasts of custard and roast goose, couscous and eggplant, quail eggs and minty lemonades.
The Sea Witch and the Serpent
Once upon an oceantide, there lived a sea witch. Her home was not upon shore or cliff, but in a cup of woven kelp that had a tendency to drift. To deal with this, she had fashioned an anchor of crowns and bracelets linked together with chainmail belts and the indestructible tresses of long-haired princes. This freed her up to deal with important things, like herding clownfish (clownfish were very time-consuming that way, excellent hobby) and knitting moonlight/North Wind fiber blend whenever she needed a new sweater.
The Devouring King
The conqueror king was always hungry, that was what they said. He had a high crown of beaten gold savage-bright with charnel rubies and spinels and garnets, the roast browns of deep amber and hard-edged topaz. He had robes of prickly brocade lined with the furs of rare animals: the boar with involute tusks, the crested stag, even the black-and-gold leopard that spoke prophecies at the turning of the year. (That last he only wore for religious occasions.)
Lia’s Backyard
Lia found the ghost in the shards of the mirror. It was a shadowed ragged thing, hair hanging in its eyes except for the missing patch that took out most of its left eye (right eye? she had trouble with that sometimes) and part of its forehead. Nice hair, too, dark with a hint of ripple in it, water-silky. She liked to think that, anyway.
Ink and Paper
They hadn’t left him very good ink. It would have to do. Still, when he tilted the bottle back and forth, he noticed the slight sediment, and sighed. Well, it wasn’t as though he expected to get much more use out of this fountain pen anyway, with its cap-band that rotated round and round, and the slight brassing of the clip, and the worrying rattle it sometimes made.
The Red Braid
The woman had not chosen to be in the tower. They had taken her sword away from her, and her bow, and even her boots. They hadn’t been very good boots, that was a given when you were a soldier, but they had been better than nothing at all. (She could have insisted on better boots, given who she was, but that would have been cheating.)
The Workshop
She is not an angel, but angels visit her workshop. Some are crowned in light from the universe’s first exhalation. Others come with swords forged from final kisses, and still others bring wine pressed from ripe stars. (Angels have indifferent palates, but she is kind enough not to tell them so.)