The fire popped, showering sparks unheeded against the stone.  Cloth of gold burned surprisingly quickly, it turned out.  Burned – melted?  Mira stared at the remains at the edge of the hearth.  A little of both?  There did seem to be some gold left.

“This is not happening.”

That did not, strictly speaking, seem to be true.  She tried to come up with something to say.  “Why did you leave it so close to the fire?”

Var’s head whipped up, stung.  They’d had other things on their minds when he’d taken them off.  “You said you were cold!”

“I meant for you to keep me warm, idiot!”

“It wasn’t in the fire until you kicked it.”

“I can’t help being ticklish.”  He probably hadn’t meant to tickle her, but…  So they were a little awkward still.  They were figuring it out.

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“The tea tray for Herself.”  The tray slid onto the table.  Marthe picked it up and sailed down the hallway to the Headmaster’s office.

“Lise.”  The Dean was struggling not to laugh.  “Thank you, Marthe.”  The Head, in full dragon mode, gave her an irritated flap of the hand.

“You want to take the students out to try their skills at an actual stone circle?”  The Head picked up a cup.  “Have you seen what Celia produced with a simple conjuration just yesterday?”

Marthe shook her head and set out a plate of cakes.  That had been ugly.

The Head, catching the movement, gestured with her cup.  “See?  A disaster in the making.”  She narrowed her eyes at the Dean in an expression meant to be terrifying.

Marthe hid a smile.  The Head might bluster, but the staff knew what sort of woman she was.  She never failed to remember their service.  Not with money or words.  It was the Dean whose easy smile accompanied their Christmas envelopes, while the Head glowered conspicuously at the students’ holly boughs and stopped just short of saying “Bah, humbug.”  But the servants’ quarters were always warm, even when ten-foot snowdrifts buried the castle doors.  A nice piece of magic, that.  And food in the servants’ kitchen stayed fresh far longer than it should have, so that no matter how late a worker dragged in, there was always a hot meal waiting.  There was never anything she’d have to stop and be thanked for, but the staff knew.

Marthe cleared away a collection of old cups onto the tray.  Was it the same in the privacy of their bedroom?  Did the Head ever say those words to him?  Or did he just know it all the same?

“I can reverse anything they do wrong, you know that.”  His voice was full of patient affection.

“Fine, then.”  Marthe heard the softened voice behind her as she closed the door.  “If you like.”

This week I’m combining prompts; Trifecta Writing Challenge asked for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word REMEMBER (verb):

The girl sat in the stone window-ledge.  She was graceful, beautiful, talented, all the gifts given to her at her birth.  She’d had plenty of time to wonder if they had been worth the cost.

Below her, the castle spread in silent grandeur.  In every room, sleepers, hardly seeming to breathe, left where they had fallen.  In the slanting autumn light, the air sparkled with dust that drifted and turned, but never hit the ground.  Not here.

She hadn’t understood at first.  Alone in the stillness, the unwaking bodies of two handmaids on the floor next to her bed, she had finally realized.  The prince hadn’t come.

At the thought, her eyes fell to the brambles surrounding the castle walls.  She saw no bleached skull, but she thought she knew what had happened all the same.  She imagined she could see the spot — just there, where the roses bloomed in dusky glory every summer.

He had died.  And then the funny thing had happened; the angry fairy’s power at last had broken.  The girl had no idea how many years had passed until then, or how many since. The cruelest joke was that it was the “kindness” of the fairy who had saved her that had kept them all trapped.  The fairy had caught the castle out of time until the prince should arrive.  And then he never did.

So here she was, still sixteen, a phantom of longing drifting through the halls, promise eternally unfulfilled.  Outside, the seasons turned.  Inside, she waited for the last spell to break.  She closed her eyes and wished that her parents had not been so eager for magical gifts, that they had let her birth go unremarked and let her take her chances with an ordinary life.   When the distant geese flew by, obedient to the dictates of time, ordinary seemed like the most extraordinary thing she could imagine.

In the courtyard below, a yellow leaf ceased its eternal circling and slipped down to touch the pavement.

This week I’m combining the Write at the Merge prompt from Write On Edge and the weekly Trifecta Writing Challenge.  Write at the Merge gave us the word “pine” and a photo of leaves falling on a deck, and Trifecta gave us the third definition of the word “phantom” (noun):

The queen sat by the fire and hummed softly to her son, rocking his cradle softly.  The king, delighted by a boy, had yet disapproved of her choice.  A ridiculous name, he’d said.  Not fit for the heir to a kingdom.

And yet she’d had her way.  She always did, now.  Her father had sold her, and the king had locked her in a room full of straw and threatened to kill her, but that was over, all over.  She was the queen who had spun straw into gold, and if there had been another in that tower room, if there had been promises made, that had been before.  She was the golden queen and could do no wrong.

They burst into the room, an angry swarm of king and advisors and guards, and the imp.  The imp stood alone with uncanny grace, skin dusky, eyes only for her.  He raised his hand, and a hush fell, the kingdom’s great men choked to silence on their own choler.

“It is the third day, and your last chance.”  His voice was like smoke and forest honey.  “Can you guess my name?”

She met his eyes for a long moment, the months of waiting and knowing and powerlessness all boiling to the surface, plain on both their faces.  Then she smiled, and reached down a hand to touch her sleeping son.  “Rumleskaft.”  The king reared back as if bitten.  She could see the imp smiling out of the corner of her eye.

“You have me.”  He made a half bow.  “What is your wish?”  His golden eyes were knowing.

She gathered up the baby in her arms.  He opened his eyes sleepily, and a flash of gold showed through the brown before he gurgled happily and closed his eyes again.  “I wish to leave this place.”

A deep bow, then she was in his arms.  “As you desire.”  Rumleskaft touched the baby’s cheek, then wrapped the darkness around them and swept them silently away.

This week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge called for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word GRACE (noun):

Ailea stared at the door.  She knew about his vanished wives when they married, but his smile had been so sweet.  She’d trusted him and been happy.  He’d asked her to leave that one room alone; she’d agreed.

But — there was a smell coming from it.  An acrid, organic smell drifting faintly into the hallway.  And there was something seeping under the door, a thick red-black substance she was afraid to touch.  She couldn’t help wondering — what had happened to them, anyway?

She put the key in the lock and turned.

When he found her, hours later, she was still flat on her back.  There was a heart-shaped bruise on her forehead like a brand where an ornamental paperweight had hit her on the way down.

“Your mother insisted I take it all.”  He was apologetic.  “I would have trashed it, except I think her best friend is a witch, and she had a manic look at the wedding.  I’m not sure it’s safe.”  He started pulling crocheted blankets and wobbly hand-thrown urns off the pile.  “It’s the jams that get me.  At least, I think they’re jams.”

Her ankle was sticky with the horrifying ooze that turned out to have come from an overturned jar.  “Let’s not find out,” she croaked.

He made a devoutly affirmative noise and dug.  The stench was terrible.  She recognized it, now — her mother’s attempt at making handbags from home-tanned leather.  She’d tried to forget that phase.

“I’m not sure this is enough room.  We could get rid of the stuff Lakshmi left when she ran off to Ishendi.  She seems to be enjoying being a belly-dancer too much to bother sending for it.”

She sat up, finally.  “It’s fine.  We’ll shove it all back in and brick it up.”

He gave her that sweet, unassuming smile.  “Whatever you like.”

She reached out one dusty hand to touch his cheek, caress the ridiculous beard.  “I love you.”

His face was like the sunrise.  “I love you too.”

This week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge called for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word BRAND (noun):

3a (1) : a mark made by burning with a hot iron to attest manufacture or quality or to designate ownership 
     (2) : a printed mark made for similar purposes : trademark
b (1) : a mark put on criminals with a hot iron 
     (2) : a mark of disgrace : stigma <the brand of poverty>

So here’s another reimagined fairy tale for you.  (For the full list, click on the Fairy Tale category on the sidebar or check the Fiction page.)  Thanks for reading! 

Evadne stood behind the hulking armoire and stared as the middle-aged queen thrust something under the lowest mattress and tiptoed triumphantly out.  Evadne sighed.  What the hell kind of place was this?  The house was beautiful, a vision of architectural details without and sumptuous within, but if it hadn’t been raining, she would have gone off to sleep in a haystack.

She probably should have known from the way they’d reacted to finding out she was a princess.  The prince, it transpired, was having trouble finding a wife.  Evadne had opinions on why that was, but her attempts to indicate that it was really none of her business had gone completely unnoticed.  Neither of them seemed to grasp the fact that Evadne wouldn’t have taken the man as a gift, much less competed for him.

Evadne dropped down next to the bed and shoved an arm in to fish for whatever the queen had left.  A hard, grainy lump rolled under her fingers, and she pulled it out.  A pea.  “Seriously?”  She dropped her forehead against the preposterous tower of mattresses, where it sank in with a squish.

God, she was glad she was going home.  The weirdness out here never ended.  But her father hadn’t been born a king; he was an old campaigner, and when he’d sent her on this trip, it wasn’t to end up with an heir incapable of dealing with a lumpy mattress.  Just a few more days.  Evadne reached up, yanked the covers off into a nest on the rug, and slept like a log.

“How did you sleep?”  The queen smirked.

“Beautifully!” Evadne said, cheerily shoveling down as much breakfast as she could manage.  “Thanks for the pea, by the way.  Such a practical gift; flowers and food all at once.” She stood up and walked to the door.  “I think I’ll take it with me, if you don’t mind.”

She waved, stepped out into the sun, and smiled.  Dad always did like a garden.

This week, a return to my fairy tale retellings as inspired by the gorgeous photos of The Breakers for the Write at the Merge prompt this week.  I also worked in this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge, which called for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the work GRASP (verb):

Raicha stood on the terrace and stared at the crocodile.  It was a gift from Kanjire.  Apparently Kanjirians considered ill-tempered predators an appropriate gift for foreign royalty.  Crocodiles were the symbolic guardians of their royal family, fine.  Still.  It was fifteen feet long and had made a spirited attempt to kill the men who had unloaded it; Camilia had been extremely impolite privately about the need to find somewhere to put the damn thing.  It was also, very clearly, a statement about the relative fitness of the ruling families of Kanjire and Tacar.  Tamedijl, who had been Kanjirian royalty before her marriage, had looked smug all day.

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Camilia gave a gurgling laugh at the sally and laid a hand on the Lord Magistrate’s shoulder.  She saw him appreciatively following the line of her neck and long bare arm and smiled.  He had known her father too well to be genuinely swayed by her femininity, but she found that very few men actually minded being charmed by the Empress.  She crinkled her eyes at him in parting, and turned away to find the Minister of Foreign Affairs.

He was standing on the balcony, the last echoes of sunset on his face.  He was, as ever, slim, tall, and elegantly dressed, the note-perfect performance of a man who had been at court since long before she’d been born.  He had been appointed to his position by her grandfather and had not been young then, but of course that was nothing for the Tevalle.

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He sat on a stump in the village square, leaning on his knees and turning his face up to the sun.  It was finally warm, and he felt a smile blooming.  The interminable northern winter felt like a crushing blow every year, but he could never remember being more grateful for spring.

A delighted shriek pierced the air.  A dark-haired toddler was staggering after a fluttering scrap of yellow just out of her reach, waving her chubby arms and babbling as she went.  She had managed to take off her shoes, he noticed ruefully, and her feet and legs were coated with mud.  He levered himself up and went to the rescue.

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They sailed down the main corridor talking about the class schedule.  As always, James let Lise set the pace, trailing just slightly behind despite the difference in height.  Lise stopped dead as a teenager wearing glittery lip gloss reeled past, juggling a bubble full of barely-contained flame between her hands.

“Hey!” Lise bellowed.  “Get that out of the hallway.”  She stabbed a finger at the door of a workroom.  The student giggled, God help her, and stumbled through the door, the flame surging dangerously as she went.  Lise pulled the door shut behind her emphatically.

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