1. The clouds seal off the sky, a grim undulating wall of gray that thwarts her attempts to chart their course. By the fifth day she can only answer ‘at sea’ when the prince asks where they are.

2. Superstition holds that cats walk closest to the spirit world, but even here, where the barriers are thinnest, superstition is all that they can claim. Mice, on the other hand…

3. It’s easier not to try– and the days turn to weeks turn to months and it isn’t until some well-meaning coworker murmurs condolences that he realizes a year has passed.

4. They’d tried creating magical companion animals once, as a way of expanding their mana pools. Melding human and animal into a coherent whole… Their students’ students still whisper tales of the disastrous results centuries later.

5. The downside to waking from cryogenic slumber into a futuristic world is that no one knows how anything works. Kate glared unhappily at her current handler who was honestly confused as to why her charge kept asking such strange questions. If a hovercar worked, why did it matter how?

The mud is deep this time of year, cold from the ice melt and thick as paste it tugs us back at every footstep. The king had wanted a omen, and apparently for once the mountain was happy to provide.

Whatever cheer the party had started with was long gone by the time they reached the sun rest. Only the king’s driving desire to see his questions answered by something more than mere mortals keep them climbing. Not that they hadn’t briefly debated the merits of letting him climb his own damn mountains without them, but the honor guard was the honor guard, little things like mud and weather weren’t supposed to slow them down.

There was the traditional petition of the mountain, followed by the traditional offering, followed by the traditional long ass wait as forces beyond their ken pondered the question. Or were just lazy. Right now the soggy, cold, and thoroughly bored honor guard was betting on lazy. It wasn’t completely unexpected for the mountain to take days deciding on a response, so they had already begun setting up camp at the base of the monument when the king came barreling down from the sun rest.

Apparently the mountain wasn’t too keen on the idea of railroad tunnels.

These snippits are copyright Martha McMahon Bechtel and may not be reproduced or distributed without express permission. All rights reserved.

Technotari Tags: Fiction, Fantasy

1. There was nothing really noble about questing, when you got right down to it. After all, the only reason they were out here saving the world in the first place was because they didn’t trust anyone else to do it right.

2. Fish were not to be trusted.

3. The sun was an odd shade of amber, mottled and rough and full of bugs (if you squinted just right.)

4. The most disconcerting thing about Quarry Lake was that you could see all the way to the bottom. Or at least to the mouth of the mine, which spread like an inkblot against the pale tan of the rocky bottom.

5. She smelled of rice fields and mist, and the faintest hint of fox.

These story prompts are released into the wild per Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License, so sayth their author Martha McMahon Bechtel.

Technotari Tags: Writing Prompts