Instant Story

Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Challenge #00553 - A178: Monstrous, Not a Monster

(based on your SPG/MiP crossover)

Francoeur’s initial efforts to help with the wounded, being generally scared of the soldiers, figuring out he can carry tons of resources and singing to everyone.

They still ran the cabaret, though it was starting to be more of a hospice and partially a hotel. More and more soldiers came in, and more and more saw him in all his monstrous glory.

Nothing gets a soldier reaching for their weapons faster than a seven-foot-tall flea.

“No, wait,” Lucille tried to shield him with her diminutive frame. “He is harmless. He would not hurt a flea.”

“He is a flea,” added Raoul. “But he won’t hurt anyone.”

“That’s a flea?” said the General. He still had his hand on his gun.

Francoeur cooed nervously and cringed behind both his guitar and Lucille.

“Fleas drink blood,” said the General.

“Not Francoeur,” Lucille shook her head in emphasis. “He eats fruit and vegetables. Not blood.”

He chirped an agreement, adding a nod.

The general finally took his hand off his weapon. “Doesn’t he talk for himself?

Half a smile. A generous shrug. "He prefers to sing.”

Raoul played a few, prompting notes on the piano off to the side of the stage. Francoeur soon joined in with his guitar, singing a melody he had sung hundreds of times before.

“He’s a rum ‘um, no mistake,” said one of the 'walking wounded’ Tommies in the audience. “Hardly speaks a word, but he can sing up a storm.”

The General came right up to Francoeur and poked a chin-palp. “So it talks? Let it speak, then.”

“…please do not do that…” For such a big bug, Francoeur had a tiny voice.

This greatly amused the General. “We can’t enlist 'im. He ain’t human and sending something like him in would just make the enemy angry. He’ll still have to volunteer his services to help the boys.”

Lucille made a face. “Doing what?”

*

“Orange juice,” Francoeur sang. “Seltzer water… Lift your spirits, wet your whistle, have a drink from humble me. Just a giant singing flea… Cool your throat, bless your lips… before you go home in ships.”

Half of the Tommies couldn’t see him. Their heads bandaged. Some were hallucinating. Those who were conscious and still had their eyes, they heard his song before they saw him. Cracked jokes about his size and the usefulness of his large shadow.

As long as they were smiling, they were not a threat. And as long as they were smiling, they didn’t see him as a threat.

And, in a pinch, he could carry a soldier to a hospital in a very big hurry.

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Challenge #00552 - A177: Mischief at Work

Pretending to be an exhibit at the waxworks museum.

The real trick, of course, is to blink or change poses when no-one is watching. Or, in the case of this waxwork exhibit, adopt a pose when someone approached.

She had hers already. Propped up at the writing desk and staring at the blinking cursor. In some, she actually dropped off to sleep like that, and nobody noticed the difference.

At least she didn’t snore sitting up.

But this time, she

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Challenge #00551 - A176: Party Life

Person 1: Didn’t you blow up a planet somehow while you having a year long kegger?

Person 2: First; it was merely rendered uninhabitable. Second; the party lasted two and a half years. — RecklessPrudence

There are generally two ways to react when one is the last of one’s kind.

Kirov chose the other one.

He had but one life to live, though it was a long one, and elected to enjoy every last moment. He travelled from world to world,

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Challenge #00550 - A175: Black-boxing It

Taken from an author talking about a piece of tech in their setting:

They’ve tried reverse engineering the displacement engine before. It goes a little like this:

Your moon is now a pretzel.

Your research is invalid. – RecklessPrudence

“So what is it?”

“I can’t figure it out,” said Helba, getting her facts out in the open. “I know what it does, it makes the gravity in this… place…” Station, ship&

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Challenge #00549 - A174: Absence of Wenching

http://yoquinto.tumblr.com/post/78790240270/okay-but-a-story-about-an-asexual-pirate-who-gets

I really should stop sending these t you every time I find them, sorry.

[AN: Don’t you bloody dare stop! I love getting prompts FYI the post isn’t there any more, but I found this one thanks to searching: http://silentmercenary.tumblr.com/post/84994393370/yoquinto-okay-but-a-story-about-an-asexual :) If anyone knows where Yoquinto has gone, please let them know that their imaginings have become a thing]

In any bar, tavern, or lowly dive,

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Challenge #00548 - A173: Maybe a Not-Too-Distant Future

“It’s pronounced X”

“I thought it was Y?”

“No, that’s exactly the sort of mistake I’d expect from someone like you. I’m a /real/ fan, I’ve been an expert on this since before you were born.”

“Actually, it is Y, the kid was right, and you’ve no call to go around acting like that to people.”

“And who are you?”

“I’m the author.”

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Challenge #00547 - A172: Need to Know

Prompt: That trick where you come up behind someone and pop a paper bag to make them jump, most often portrayed when someone is working on something that could (but probably won’t) explode.

[AN: I must have hit a nerve on the Interwebs, yesterday. Twenty-three notes on one silly story because of an equally silly side-fling. Must resist the temptation to do that from now on]

To the Galactic Alliance, need-to-know information is information that every citizen, denizen and in denizen

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Challenge #00546 - A171: Witch on Trial

I don’t curse people, I bless everyone around them.”

The court murmured.

“It’s stated that you cursed Goodie Carswater and her garden wilted.”

“I did no such thing. And it’s a well-known fact that her little tearaways widdle on her wisterias.”

More murmuring. Apparently the only person who didn’t know this was Goodie Carswater. Who also believed that her sons could do no wrong.

“It’s also stated that you cursed Thou-shalt-not-covet Jones

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Challenge #00545 - A170: Acapella

It was a companionable quiet, with the rhythmic “whud, whud, whud” of the engine accompanied by various tapping and clanking of everyone doing their jobs. Eventually everyone’s noises gradually synced with the main beat and suddenly the Lion King happened.

“I swear sir, I left for four seconds and they started a musical number" 

Goryx stared out at the rows of humans - still working, of course - as they continued to sing.

"TILL WE FIND OUR PLACE,

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Challenge #00544 - A169: The Fine Print

If you’re going to make a year-long agreement, you’d better be sure you know whose year you’re using.

“What do you mean I’m still under contract?” Terry demanded. She tried not to make a fist around all her vital documents. “It says five years. It’s been five years. And forty-eight hours, and that’s only because it took that long to get all the forms filled out.”

“I’

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Challenge #00544 - A169: The Un-Secret

Dunno if you’ll like this one, but I ran across it:

“The thing about evolving on a death world is that you don’t really realize you’re doing so until you get the chance to leave it. Up to that point the presence of carnivorous monsters, venomous micropredators, extreme climatic conditions, geological instability, the most lethal cocktail of microbial and viral life forms in the galaxy and of course the crushing gravity, seemed entirely natural. Until we left Earth

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Challenge #00543 - A168: Sufficiently Advanced... Rituals

[In a discussion about technically-proficient people (of any subdivision) and the lies-to-children told to those they have to interact with]

I think we know why wizards just act all cryptic and stuff…

I imagine they had to keep explaining their knowledge of the arcane to the average peasant over and over again until they just got fed up with it.

And that’s how we get wizards, mages and sorcerers who seem to delight in not giving a straight answer. – RecklessPrudence

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Challenge #00542 - A167: One Familiar Face

“That’s 19, last question.”

“Ok, it’s a person, a guy, dark haired, kinda short, amnesiac, fast healing/possibly immortal, older than 200 years, uses bladed weapons, knows lots of martial arts, and fights against people trying to take over and/or destroy the world.”

"Yep.”

“Is it Wolverine?”

“What? No, it was Van Helsing.”

“…”

“…”

*dawning realisation*

No way…”

“Mr Logan?”

“Yeh, Tallwater?”

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Challenge #00541 - A166: Ancient Curses

Fragmen of stupri mauris. Quare non opus est? — RecklessPrudence

[AN: I ran this through a translator and got: “Piece of fucking shit. Why not work?” :D LOL ]

There’s working on repairs with trained technicians… and then there’s working with someone who’s learned certain things by rote as part of a holy ritual. Someone who - though she had the brains to work out that the rituals were supposed to be useful, and had successfully applied some of them in

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