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Challenge #05013-M264: Secrets Kept Sacred

The midwives’ guild has seen some strange things- and sometimes discretion is the most important thing they can offer -- Weirdlet

When is a Guild not a Guild? When it has no chapterhouses, no schools, and little in the way of formal prenticeships. When there is no set uniform and the tools are those that the practitioners find handy, and are only available locally. Where the school is at two pairs of knees, and one is the patient. Yet, despite all of that, they are all unified in ethics and spirit.

Rule one: Save as many lives as possible.
Rule two: Tell the truth unless it puts rule one at risk.
Rule three: Get the expectant co-parents the fuck out of the area, they are more hinderance than help.
Rule four: Listen, understand, and leave your judgement between your ears.
Rule five: Sometimes, it is necessary to be sure that there won't be a birth.

Midwives don't have to be married, though they usually were. They knew all the secrets of their area of service and kept them tight and secure. That is, if they were any good. Nobody liked to tell the truth to a gossip, and truth can save more than one life.

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Challenge #05012-M263: Surprise Royal Appointment

Dex and his family are invited to a surprise party for a local group of kids who admitted they'd never had a birthday party before. -- BKF

Many children attending the Arachismont Public School went by one name. Many also stayed in the attached boardinghouse and went home for the weekend. It was an initiative so that many children could interact with their contemporaries as normal. There were no ranks beyond personal accomplishment. Those who were ahead were expected to help those

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Challenge #05011-M262: DIY Entertainment

Unfortunately, the Ship's Human was bored -- InterNutter

Long haul missions are no place for an active Human. Nevertheless, every ship with business in the Alliance is better off with at least one Ship's Human. The best hope is to have enough enrichment strategies to keep their Human or Humans entertained between destinations.

The crew of the Pack Animal Pilgrim had never thought that a Human could get bored with the enrichment.

They had complete access to the Archivaas' digital library. All

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Challenge #05010-M261: Driving Purpose

So tired they could barely think straight, they forced themselves forward, just one more ridge, one more rise... until they collapsed against a beautiful white feline being talking to two individuals wearing bright colors and passed out. -- BKF

One more step. Just get there. Not far now. Lift one foot. Place it in front. Follow the path. Lift the other one. Place it in front. Look up. See the camp.

Goal in sight.

Tents and vehicles spread out in a previously

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Challenge #05009-M260: Be it Ever so Patchwork

It was stormy and a mixed family of hellkin and haruk'ai were stuck, the wheel of their carriage in the mud. Two kids run out to drag them to the large farmhouse, leading the family's horses to the barn, so they can find rest and shelter. The two kids, still preteens, were trying to care for the farm and what's left of its animals by themselves, their own families, sadly, gone. -- BKF

Unwelcome People are, generally speaking, always prepared to run.

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Challenge #05008-M259: To Learn is to Teach

The exchange program at the magic school has been going swimmingly- but it’s made for some interesting learning experiences well outside the classroom, as different cultures- and species- learn how the other half does magic. -- Weirdlet

War is wearying. It's especially wearying for the longer-lived species that have the alleged privilege of watching several polities repeat the same mistake ad infinitum. It's even more wearying when the mistake is in attacking them.

There's also the creeping dread that one day,

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Challenge #05007-M258: Handle With Extreme Care

The local wizards’ college is doing well enough, but a formal complaint has been lodged against them by the caretaking staff about garbage collection.

The students need a crash course. If it glows, buzzes, or moves, tell the staff before they pick it up… -- Tergon

Properly trained and educated, a Wizard is no threat unless they want to become one. Trained Wizards know what they're doing. It's the ones still in training that you have to watch out for.

They're lazy,

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Challenge #05006-M257: Little Tricks

"The Eater of Socks" Blamed by Sir Terry but who or what steals socks, pens, the thing you had in your hand 5 seconds ago. -- Knitnan

There had been six socks in the washtub when Ygrun started hir laundry. Five remained to hang on the line. The chalk was missing from hir reminder-list slate, and ze swore ze had put it on the shelf by the door. Hir knitting was left on one needle, and the other was gone without a

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Challenge #05005-M256: Handy Gifts

Just what every girl needs! My own tool kit. -- Knitnan

The gift was way too heavy to be a new purse. Too large to be the makeup kit she'd been drooling over. Too small to be any part of a cute new outfit. Which meant that, once again, Dad had no flying clue about her.

Baeronice opened it anyway, and felt her heart sink. Blocky. Utilitarian pouch. Black, hard-wearing fabric often touted by the Survivalist Bros that Dad watched on his

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Challenge #05004-M255: The Shape of Fear

Sometimes, to change a world and save lives, you only have to LOOK scary. The rest does everything else on its own. -- BKF

The Xenophobia Wars rarely raged. They ebbed and flowed like the tides, if tides could wash randomly through polities at their own whims. The Elves fought the Dragons, D'varuv, Harukh'ai, Drakkonbred, and Dragonkindred alike. They fought the Gobellin, Gnomes, and when there were Humans, they fought the Humans too.

And when the Elves weren't fighting them, they were

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Challenge #05003-M254: Worthy Becoming

Find out who you are, and then do it on purpose -- Weirdlet

[AN: Hats off and respect to Dolly Parton, who lived by those words and is an example to us all]

There's no record of the first Halfbred. None know who they were, what their ancestry was, or how well they may have lived. Common conjecture posits that it was how Drakkonbred became a species, but some people will theorise anything.

In certain centuries, Halfbred folk were rare. It was

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Challenge #05002-M253: Found Wanting

I may not be licensed, but I will hold this child. They're crying, they need help. I don't give a damn about your rules. You're not licensed either, and watching a young child wailing in fear and discomfort without aid is cruel. -- BKF

[AN: I understand the spirit of the prompt, and am writing for that. With reference to https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-04984-m235-post-trauma-trauma-comfort ]

Prentice Medik Jarl, do you understand the charges you are answering for today?

I don't, sir.

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Challenge #05001-M252: Circle of Kindness

A part of the boogey's bitterness was the people before, the ones who were driven out and the house slowly fell to state it was in, was they put POISON in the milk. The child had heard that much, and one of the gifts, thanks to her family's help, were little pouches of antidotes and treatments for symptoms that can last ages from such poisonings.

https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-04982-m233-redemption-from-horror -- BKF

The special powder came in a small, waxed paper

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Challenge #05000-M251: A Fifth of Scheherezade

Wraithvine nearly drowns, is awakened to Chance giving hir CPR and Scramble retrieving hir hat and the group's belongings. Fortunately, save for some food supplies, they lose very little. -- BKF

Thunder in hir ears. Burning lungs in need of air, not the fluid currently invading them. Fading light. A confusion of things in hir sight.

Hir goddess whispered to hir, Not today, my lovely.

Small hands on hir chest. Lips on hirs. Air in hir lungs and the taste of someone

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Challenge #04999-M250: Unappealing Case

A litter of wayward kittens, barely weaned, become very attached to "Dex" following him around trying to get cuddles. -- BKF

There's a certain amount of chaos in every life. For example, his father the King had occasionally had to sit the Blood Throne whilst pulling double duty as his infant daughter's favourite bed. The trick, Dad said, was to carry on as if everything was perfectly normal and to let others turn it into a problem.

"And then," Dad said with

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