Their bedroom was a disaster zone, clothing that had been pulled out of drawers strewn on random surfaces and briefing papers everywhere.  She sighed.  “Sam, did you deal with that insurance issue?”

“Sorry hon, I totally forgot about it.”  He looked up from the collection of gadgets he’d been fussing with on the bed.  “It’ll keep until I get back, I still need to finish that paperwork anyway.”

When he got back.  “Could you not be so cavalier about it?”  It irked her, the way he acted as if he was doing nothing more consequential than hopping a flight to Boston for the weekend.

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It was the glasses rattling in the cupboard that actually got Sara moving.  She put the quill down and shoved a corner of her notes into the book she’d been using to save her place. Not a day to work on her own projects, then.  Her normal receiving hours were on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, but she couldn’t always rely on her clients to show up then.  Or was today Tuesday?  She couldn’t remember.  She wandered toward the door thinking about it.  She’d had a milk delivery the day before yesterday.  Had that been Saturday or Sunday?

As she opened the door, the manticore had a massive red paw raised to knock a fourth time.  She gave an apologetic smile up into its face.  “Would you like to come in, or would you be more comfortable out of doors?”  With her clientele, she often had to go out into the yard.

“Thank you.”  The voice was strangely metallic, a steely clang behind each word.  Today, it appeared, was also not a yard day.  The manticore managed to fit itself through the door in a neat conjuror’s trick, settling carefully on the sitting-room carpet with its tail coiled around its feet.  She eyed the wickedly hooked tip of its tail, glistening with poison.  It had brushed against the end table on the way in, leaving a small and extremely hazardous smear of liquid on one of the legs.  She made a mental note to wipe it off before the cat got to it.

There was just enough room for her to get to her chair.  Sara made her guest a small courtesy and then sank into her chair.

“I am facilitator Sara.  What assistance can I render?”

Welcome to this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge! This week calls for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word NORMAL:

1: a : a normal line  
b : the portion of a normal line to a plane curve between the curve and the x- axis 
2: one that is normal 
3: a form or state regarded as the norm : standard

This time I decided to give a little bit of a follow up to this weekend’s incipit. Thanks for reading!

It was not until the third time that the manticore knocked that Sara noticed.  The knocks, at first polite, fell heavier and heavier until at last the thundering drew her from her books.

This weekend’s Trifextra prompt from Trifecta Writing Challenge requested a 33 word opening line to a novel. I have never been bowled over by “Call me Ishmael” (or indeed, any of Melville’s work), but after reading the prompt I spent most of the morning with the first line of Gene Wolfe’s Nightside the Long Sun stuck in my head: “Enlightenment came to Patera Silk on the ball court; nothing could ever be the same after that.”  I went with two sentences instead of one, since I think 33 words is an epically awkward length for a first sentence. 

In case you’re wondering if I know what happens next — no, I have no idea.  I’m kind of curious, though.  I’m imagining some sort of lyrical Patricia McKillip-esque fantasy.  Maybe I should write it and find out.  Thanks for reading!

This is this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge response.  This time around, they gave us a chance to write some longer fiction — no prompt, just between 333 and 3,333 words on a subject of our choice.  Many thanks to Andra for suggesting subject matter and Jessie for suggesting a way to wrestle with my profound lack of enthusiasm for short stories.  This follows last week’s The Secret, so if you’d like a little background on how Sarili got where she is, take a look.  Thanks for reading!

In the long list of stupid things she had done in her life, leaving before her people had decided where to settle might end up taking the prize. Sarili looked grumpily up and down the length of the dusty road, and then waddled off into the grass and sat down. She pulled a foot up into what was left of her lap and rubbed her ankle while she contemplated her stupidity.

They had told her not to do it.  How will you find us?  We can’t afford to lose each other now.  At least wait until we’ve found a home.  It had been a reasonable question given that they were planning to hide, to make themselves as unfindable as they possibly could.  She hadn’t listened.  She’d been too wild with grief and horror and the need to run, and the elders had been too devastated at the loss of the City, too overwhelmed by the task before them to do more than tell her not to.

I’ll find you, she’d said.  Just go, I’ll find you wherever you end up.  She would.  Eventually.  The question was whether she would find them before the baby came.  She hadn’t imagined time pressure and a condition that made it increasingly difficult for her to travel.  It had been months of not finding them.  It was what she would have expected, but it was starting to be a serious problem.  She was getting close now.  Her feet hurt, her ankles were swollen, and she was pretty sure that no one carrying this much extra weight in baby should walk this much.  If the baby came, it would be an end to safe searching.  The only way she could protect the baby on her own would be to walk off into the woods and hide.  Stay there, just the two of them, until her child was old enough to be able to search with her or be left alone while she searched.  It would be years.  This one last place to look — it would be just about the last thing she could manage before finding somewhere safe to give birth.

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“Until dinner.”  Par finally left.  Thank heavens.  There wasn’t enough wine in the city.

“Did he propose to you, or is he saving that for dinner?”  A wickedly inflected baritone caught her ear, and Raicha turned with relief to see Par’s brother Avash.   “You could do better.”  He lifted an eyebrow suggestively.

“You don’t imagine my grandfather would let you anywhere near me, do you?”  Avash combined his brother’s middling social position with youngest-son ineligibility and a scandalous reputation for affairs with married women.

“Grandfathers never seem to approve of me.  Even my own.”  A regretful look that she didn’t believe for a second appeared.

“Well, mine is here,” she laughed.  “Go away before you get me in trouble, Avash.”

He winked and strolled off to the imperial balcony where Camilia and Sahmin were sitting.  He casually dropped into the chair next to Camilia.  Sahmin addressed a friendly comment to him.

Raicha froze.  She could see the corner of Avash’s mouth turned up ever so slightly.  Avash?  She had never caught so much as a whisper.  And joining her this publicly could only mean one thing.  She folded her lips under and firmly bit down on them to control the hysterical bubble of laughter that was welling up.  Her eyes darted around the room.  The Temeru patriarch had stopped with a glass of wine halfway to his lips and was staring toward the balcony with an expression he’d be embarrassed by later.  Raicha quivered.

“My lady.”  A servant bowed.  “Her imperial majesty invites you to join her to view the fireworks.”

“I think my view of the fireworks would be better from here.”  Dahla Faro’s face was furiously red.  Raicha’s great uncle – Camilia’s grandfather – caught her and gave her an amused glance.  Raicha quickly looked away.

“My lady?”

“Yes, by all means.  I would hate to miss them.”  Camilia turned and caught her eye.  Raicha choked, but her shoulders only shook a little as she sauntered off to join them.

This week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge!  33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word  FIREWORKS (noun)

“You know what we should do?”  He looked up from his laptop, face bright with enthusiasm.  “We should take a trip during my mid-semester break.  How about Kyoto?  You’ve always wanted to go to Japan.”

She closed her eyes.  “I won’t make it to April.”  The armchair was soft, but she still ached.  She clutched the armrest to stop the trembling.

“Of course you will.”  His stream of forced cheer continued unabated.  “We can take tours of the gardens.  If you’re feeling well enough, we can even stay at a ryokan.”  He started to pull up pictures.  She stared at the ceiling as a rain of imaginary tatami mats and tea ceremonies fell around her.

“Eric.”  She tried to cut through the flow.  “I’m not going to be able to take a trip in April.”

“Nonsense.  You need to stop being so pessimistic.  You’re going to be fine.  The experimental trial is working.”

It wasn’t.  The doctor had told her as much.  He didn’t want to take away all her hopes, but he wanted to be realistic.  Give her the time to say her goodbyes, put her affairs in order while she still could.  It would be – bad.  She was already feeling it, and it was only going to get worse.  Even if she fought through until April, there would be nothing left of her to sip tea and pose on bridges.

Eric had heard the same words she had, but they had skated off the surface of his mind.   In this, she was alone.  She looked through the open door into the bedroom, where her familiar nightstand stood, comforting with the weight of the bottle of pills she’d hidden at the back of the drawer.

“I won’t be going to Japan, Eric,” she murmured.  He wasn’t listening.  She got up and dropped a kiss on the top of his head.  He asked her a question that she barely registered.  “Whatever you like, dear,” she said before she drifted away.

Welcome to this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge. This week the folks at Trifecta gave us three prompts; here’s 333 words (exactly!) on the Lewis Carroll quote “What I tell you three times is true.” I will note that that’s a classic — Lewis Carrol is not the only person to have noted the truth coming in threes.  Thanks for reading!

Jack dropped down onto the stoop and stared blankly at the street.  Was that it?  The sun shone and a car drove by, just like it was any other day.  The reflected light flashed in his eyes.

“Are you okay, honey?  You look a little blue.”  A light voice came from behind him.

He reared back and gave her a revolted look.  Blue?  Men weren’t blue.  Chicks could be blue.  Men, men were… nobly stoic.  “I’m fine.”  Had he really been supplanted so soon?  He knew it would come in the end, but…

A hand carded through his hair.  “You should really be very proud.”  A mischievous note entered her voice.  “He didn’t just beat you, he owned you.”

Jack slanted his eyes at her grumpily.  That, regrettably, was true.  He winced as an ungodly honking noise started coming from the house.  Apparently the new champion had coopted his sister’s clarinet for his victory parade.

She noticed his wince.  “It’s not like you aren’t just as bad when you win.”

“Claire?”

“Yes?”

“Stop helping.”

She laughed, ruffled his hair, and went back to the door.  “Join us when you’re ready.  The Lord Champion has decreed that we’re having broccoli and cheese with dinner.”

He slumped, and a sigh escaped him.  “I hate broccoli and cheese.”  Then he levered himself up, nobly assumed a congratulatory expression, and went back in to face the new ten-year-old Scrabble champ.

Welcome to this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge. This week calls for 33 to 333 words using the third definition of the word BLUE (adjective):

1 : of the color blue
2 a : bluish b : discolored by or as if by bruising
c : bluish gray
3 a : low in spirits : melancholy
b : marked by low spirits : depressing

Thanks for reading!

After dinner, when the adults were sitting by the fire, his grandfather with his feet up and his mother with Cala in her lap, Cy slipped out into the alley behind the house.  His father’s saber gleamed in his hand, the only thing that seemed to make sense any more.  He raised in front of him, and started the first of the sword drills his father had taught him.

His aching back started to loosen.  Cy wasn’t sure he’d had a single good day in the last ten months, but today had been worse than most.  He had tripped and put his hand through a piece of silk still on the loom, and his grandfather, normally restrained about Cy’s shortcomings as a weaver, had blown up.  His mother had said she could salvage it.  Cy knew better than to believe her.  His clumsiness had cost them probably two weeks’ work in materials.

He was probably the world’s worst weaver.  He was the only one of them beside his mother who was big enough to work the loom, but the work he did made his grandfather raise his eyebrows and shuffle it into the back cabinet.  They were accumulating a disturbing number of second-best sheets and rug rags.  Even his spinning was a total loss.  Brevar was better at it than he was, and Brev was only seven.  Cala would probably be better at it as soon as she started walking.

He heard the door open, and a square of light fell at his feet.  He ignored it, and led the saber into the next exercise.  An irritated huff came from behind him, then a soft voice.  “Let him be, father.”  An inarticulate grumble followed, then his audience withdrew and the light disappeared.

The saber cut cleanly through the night air.  Up.  Across.  Spin, and down.  In his mind, the pattern stood out like a lacework of light, and for once, things were simple.

Welcome to this week’s Trifecta Writing Challenge. This week calls for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word
ALLEY (noun):

1: a garden or park walk bordered by trees or bushes
2a (1) : a grassed enclosure for bowling or skittles

  c : an area in a baseball outfield between two outfielders when they are in normal positions
3: a narrow street; especially : a thoroughfare through the middle of a block giving access to the rear of lots or buildings

This one follows on last week’s response.  Thanks for reading!

Cy stared down at the gleaming saber. It lay unwinking on the rough kitchen table with the handful of other possessions that were all that had come back. A ring, a pair of daggers, a heavy purse of coins that would be the last payment from the company. That was all.

He reached out to touch it, running his fingers along the watered blade. His father had let him hold it, had even let him practice with it once to celebrate his twelfth birthday. It had always been there at his father’s side, as inseparable from him as his arm.

An age-spotted hand knocked his hand away from it. “No more of that, boy.” His grandfather’s face was like a thunderstorm. “That’ll lead you nowhere but the same place it took your father. You’re a weaver now.”

Cy hardly saw him. All he could see was the saber, slowly starting to blur. A familiar smell surrounded him, and he felt hands on his shoulders. His mother turned him to face her. Her hair was a mess and her hazel eyes were reddened, but her voice was reassuring. “It’s all right, sweetheart.” She reached up to touch his face. “It’s going to be okay. We’re going to go live with your grandfather now. I’m going to need you to help me take care of your brother and your sisters. Can you help me do that?”

Cy rubbed roughly at his eyes, and nodded. His mother smiled. “I know you can. You’re going to do just fine. Now why don’t you come help me get the girls packed up.” She turned away from the table.  The new man of the house squared his shoulders and followed.

This week’s prompt from Trifecta Writing Challenge asks for 33 to 333 words on the third definition of the word NEW (adjective):

1: having recently come into existence

2 a (1) : having been seen, used, or known for a short time (2) : unfamiliar
b : being other than the former or old

3: having been in a relationship or condition but a short time

Thanks for reading!

It wasn’t the first time she’d said the wrong thing on an internet date.  She stared glumly into the remains of her gin fizz.  The joke, okay, but did she have to say that thing about the walrus?

A little pure silliness while I’m wrestling with computer problems today, in response to Trifecta Writing Challenge’s weekend prompt, which called for 33 words to follow the beginning “It wasn’t the first time.” Ever have things come out of your mouth before you thought about them? Yeah, me too.