18 Results in the "short stories" category
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Blog
in another life
prompt: in another life MDZS modern AU, xiyao. References a canonical death. – The sword plunges through his chest and he wakes gasping. “What’s wrong?” Xichen mumbles from the adjacent pillow. Although Xichen’s skin is hot where he touches it, Meng Yao shivers. “Nightmare.” “No more horror before bed.” Xichen’s arms engulf him. Against Meng Yao’s ear, his heart beats. Beats. “I asked you…
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Chapter
The Night Immortal
It was past four a.m. and he hadn’t slept. He needed to be up in a couple hours if he was going to make the meeting with his editor. He couldn’t postpone a fifth time. The storm had been raging since he’d gone to bed. The curtains were thick enough to block the lightning, but coastal storms always unsettled him. He could never sleep through the wind. He turned over, shoving a pillow over his head, but he could still hear it. His mother had called him a night owl since he was a child—better…-
4.2 K • Completed
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prompt: a change in the weather – As the sun stroked the last of a flower’s faded petals, it said “Don’t be afraid” and it said “Go to sleep; you’ll see me again after the winter.” From a nearby garden another flower whispered, “But isn’t that one an annual?” “Shh,” beamed the sun.
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Chapter
The Edge of Light
The ghost was throwing leaves again. Every morning around ten o’clock, it grabbed handfuls of them off of the shrub that grew alongside the parking lot. The ghost had no strength (new ones never did), and so the leaves did little more than scatter across the gravel drive. On a windy day, they might blow into the street as she walked by. Noa didn’t know the woman. She passed by the restaurant at the same time each morning, in pencil skirts or trousers, a leather handbag thrown over one shoulder.…-
3.8 K • Oneshot
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Blog
the Taos hum
prompt: the Taos hum (a low humming noise, like a distant bell, or low rumbling thunder in the far distance) Post-canon MDZS; implied past xiyao. Xichen’s not doing too well in this. 3-sentence warm-up for @ficwip’s retreat weekend! – There it is again—the rumbling, a hum deep in the ground that makes his hair stand on edge, the sound Wangji claims he cannot hear,…
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Chapter
Bluebird
He came with the rain, decades ago when the forest here was still saplings, back when we were growing sod and Mama was crying every night that the drought would ruin us. I heard him before I saw him that first time, a cheerful whistle coming up the road. “Don’t talk to him,” the neighbors whispered. “That boy’s bad luck.” But he’d been friendly and young, as young as me, the only other person under thirty anyplace I could get to on foot. A year older, maybe two. I’d never asked.…-
2.2 K • Oneshot
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prompt: a last-minute change in plans – “What a view!” his own voice echoed back at him as he snapped a picture of the gorge. Laughing, she pulled him back from the cliff and into her arms. It wouldn’t do to kill him yet, not until he’d changed the will.
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Chapter
Trees
They emerged together in a new life as twin saplings in the damp, black mulch. Their seeds had spun down the previous autumn and lodged in the soil. They hadn’t blown away like the others. She was alone with her consciousness, an innate sense of being; she had been once, twice, a hundred times before; so had he; and they had been—together. Without eyes or mouths, they could no longer see or speak to each other and they were too far apart to touch, but beneath the soil, their roots spread and twined…-
1.3 K • Oneshot
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