Instant Story

Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Challenge #01364-C269: Here There Be Werewolves

Tidally-locked Lycanthropy Planet. Details here. -- RecklessPrudence

Rough seas, of course. Rounding the Cape to the trade winds inevitably involved rough seas. It took a good captain to deal with just that. But of course, things had to be trickier. Sailing the Cape had to be done in full daylight or not at all, because the Moon shone her full face on the southern hemisphere. Which left those dangerous lands populated entirely by werewolves.

And even with all these precautions, there was still a crewmate or two who found out that she had that peculiar gene. They could keep their wits - though barely - through their first change, if they had the help of the sun. And from there, they would become immigrants to the dangerous southern lands. Swapped for the few who could not or would not change under the moon's staring influence.

Captain Bernes glared at that malevolent orb a she rose above the horizon. Pale and blue, but still there. Still hypnotising good North crew to the deadly south. Still rejecting her own children to keep things balanced.

Bernes focussed on rounding the Cape. Shouting orders from the helm and praying that this time, there were no new crew who were going into the terrible Terra Australis[1]. The burning southern lands of poison, venom, flood, fire, and sharks. Sometimes, all of them at once. And the savage, tearing blood-roos[2].

Past the keel-scraping reef. Past the capsizing waves. Past the sail-tearing winds and into smoother sailing. Barnes hated this part.

"Sound off! Sound off! All hands say 'aye'!"

Five. Ten. Fifteen 'aye's. And one 'awooo' before the rest of the crew gave their 'aye'.

Damn.

Now they had to stop in at Perth.

Smitty submitted to the muzzle like a good kid. Let the others put covers on her claws. She padded up to Bernes with her new tail between her legs and her ears flat against her head. "...'m sorry, Captain," she murmured.

"Can't be helped, Smitty," Bernes sighed. She made a point to grip the kid's shoulder, and not pet her on the head. "Nobody knows until the crossing. You... you just try and keep your wits with you, eh?"

Smitty nodded, and waited for her new 'buddy' with the requisite leash. If she could keep her wits, she would never need it. But if they needed it, they needed it ready.

"Australia isn't as bad as they say it is," Bernes soothed. "If it was, there wouldn't be nearly so many Australians, right?"

Smitty had a shy smile. Too conscious of her new fangs. "Propaganda to keep us off their sheep," she said. "Not that we're that desperate."

Oh good. She was already at home with their comedy.

[1] Of course Australia is full of werewolves now.

[2] The first werewolves botched a few hunts. Now there's werewolf kangaroos. Fun times.

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Challenge #01363-C268: Household? Prison?

A kitten discovers her new family expects her to sleep in the laundry at night. -- Anon Guest

Fun day! New smells. New foods. Lots of play. Lots of pets.

Then the humans, the feedme's, did something strange. The smaller ones went away first, then the big ones took her into a bare, cold room, put her down, and left. And they shut the door. And they had turned out the light.

There were crunchy-noms. And good water. And a soft thing.

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Challenge #01362-C267: Apocollapse Now

All the signs were there, amongst the storm and fire-streaked sky appeared The Four Horsemen, War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death stood ready, then one of them said, "Oh Shit! It's Them!" Enter the Other four horsepersons, those of the Apocollapse (hope I've spelt it right),and proceed to avert the Apocalypse, by infecting the big four. -- Knitnan

[AN: No you didn't, but I fixed it.]

You know the drill. Seas boiling and turning to blood. Fire in the sky. The Kraken

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Challenge #01361-C266: The Rogue's Fall

[Person 1]: It's important to face the consequences of your actions!

[Person 2]: (Leaps out of a window) -- OohLookShiny

Hwell had to admit, this did look bad. He took stock, as was his habit when he got into these snags.

Hands and feet bound, check. And not in anything fancy, either. Just regular, good old-fashioned iron cuffs and chains that hobbled his ability to run. And his captors had been so inconsiderate about the design, too. There was no easy way

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Challenge #01360-C265: Signs of True Love

"Why?"

"My only explanation is that I'm very tired, and I never made very good decisions in the first place," -- OohLookShiny

Mel had slept through the crash at 2AM, but in her favour, it happened relatively far away. She had no idea what was happening until closer to four, when Lus' swearing filtered through her dreams.

There was a trail of blood and broken glass. There were scatters of medical strips in the middle of a larger mess of blood and

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Challenge #01359-C264: Oi Oi Oi

Humans and various aliens discover a new planet at the same time. One one side, the aliens are being blindsided by weather, earthquakes, volcanoes etc. On the other side the humans are having snowball fights, counting lightning strikes, geyser watching and bathing in the geothermal pools.

Details: http://deathcomes4u.tumblr.com/post/149643799993/humans-are-weird -- Anon Guest

The crew of the Curious George had assigned the human to hauling the water cart. So far, the human had advised portable solar shelters in

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Challenge #01358-C263: Mundanity

The "Do Something!" set of questions used by Mothers everywhere, usually beginning with "Have you?" or "Are you". -- Knitnan

The wake-up call had been put together by someone who had heard of roosters and decided to improve by adding louder elements. Cal got out of hir bed-nook before the automatic discomfort protocol could start running low currents through hir body.

Ze barely got time to yawn and stretch before the automated staff management program, inevitably nicknamed 'mother' and variants thereof, kicked

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Challenge #01357-C262: Strange Encounters

"Why is there a man convulsing in the halls?"

"Don't worry, the king's men will see to him."

"That's... not what I asked," -- OohLookShiny

The new Ambassador for T'kerrrita was taking the Tour. Since it was between Ambassadorial Meets, the Tour was meant to acclimate them to the most amount of civilisations in the least amount of time. And, naturally, one of the stops was Amalgam Station, which always had a solid volume of Ambassadors at any given time.

Unfortunately... one

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Challenge #01356-C261: You Need More Tests

Diagnostician in a world similar to our own, but with one major difference. -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: I'm pretty sure I did one of this prompt for Undertale once upon a time... Gotta shake things up this time.]

Headline news had once been Magic Is Real!. But that was a long time ago. Cryptids, monsters, and assorted paradimensional beings came out of the woodwork. And humanity did what it did best - it bred with them. Which lead to some... interesting medical revelations.

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Challenge #01355-C260: Communication Issues.

Followup to Challenge #01326-C231, here: 'It’s not even consistent; it varies wildly by geographical region, ancestry and personal history of the individual, which, like, how is a poor anthropologist meant to know that sort of detail? How do humans divine this sort of thing upon meeting new members of their species? Do they have some sort of associative telepathy? No? Argh!'
(source) -- RecklessPrudence

The planet known as Beach had met the Galactic Alliance, which meant that they had a

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Challenge #01354-C259: One Cheesy Dragon

This post, which lead to this art. Fic away! -- RecklessPrudence

Tara McCreedy looked down at the living sample. It stretched all six of its limbs and allowed its peculiar wings to flutter. "Okay," she allowed. "I can see what it is, I just want to know why."

"Er. This is more of a sketch," the lead scientist of this lab wouldn't meet anyone's eyes. "See, I thought it might be cool to have dragon cheese from real dragons, um... so I

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Challenge #01353-C258: Baffling Footage

Imagine this being the only news clip in existence for this time period (like the comment says) after Shayde pops up, and people asking her about it. -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: Amalgam happens 500 years in our future, but I can deal]

Shayde didn't expect a ceremony. Usually what passed as her work was catching up with news and events she had missed[1], gathering favourites, and occasionally explaining things to a small audience of concerned Archivaas.

Today... the entire theatre was booked

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Challenge #01352-C257: Lilo and Stitch Go To College

Since there's no chance of this ever becoming an actual TV series, I'd like a fic, please. -- RecklessPrudence

[AN: Ask, and you shall receive. Eventually]

Things were... okay. Sure, having a bigger family helped in certain areas. There were more hands to pay for everything, but there were also more mouths to feed. They struggled, here and there, but in the end, it was... okay. They managed.

And then it was time for Lilo to go to college. She applied for

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Challenge #01351-C256: You Try to Teach Them...

Corvids. Just... Corvids. (link)

(btw did you know all modern corvids are descended from Aussie ancestors? Well, technically Australasian ones, but close enough) -- RecklessPrudence

Ravens are widely recognised as one of the more intelligent birds on the planet Earth. Substantial evidence for this includes the fact that they have learned how to tame humans.

Humans tend to object to that minor fact. They will go on endlessly about how they were the ones to teach corvids how to communicate in their

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Challenge #01350-C255: The Tale of Sir George (No, the Other One)

Who says a young dragonling can't grow up to be a wonderful knight? -- OohLookShiny

All things begin small, but for some, small is relative. For the hero George, it began with an egg the size of a shorn sheep, and a merciful hero turned blacksmith who honoured a monster's dying wish.

I cannot change, the beast had said. My baby is not hatched. Raise them... to... be good.

Sir Menkhol had obeyed. He took the egg to his home and forge

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