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Challenge #04690-L306: Not Your Average Teen

The child thought they were human, until they began to enter their teen years and certain things began to manifest that showed they were not. Small scales, occasional flame, they were frightened. Then a kind hand reached out to them and stated "No you're not a freak, or a monster, but child, you are changing. It's time you learned your heritage." -- Anon Guest

Everyone knows that things can happen to a body growing into maturity. For Humans, the usual speech is hair in strange places, or discrete hygiene rituals. For Hellkin, it's all of that and warnings of emergent abilities and how to control them. Elves have to have an education about physical maturity versus social maturity.

Nobody warned Kaelar about the little quirk in hir family line.

So when ze discovered scales instead of pimples on hir face, ze kind of panicked a little. Ze didn't scream, at first thinking one of hir siblings was playing a joke with small flakes of gemstones. By the time ze realised that they were part of hir, Kaelar had gathered enough wits to refrain from screaming. Ze watched in slow horror as another one gradually eased its way to the surface of hir brow.

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Challenge #04689-L305: Lessons of History

Over the objections of his advisors, the youngest of seven princes makes friends with a warren of kobolds whose home was right under the estate he'd been given. That friendship pays off during a brutal rebellion, when he is able to get innocents hidden so they do not suffer. How did the alliance form? He almost paid his life to protect the warren from poachers trying to take eggs. -- Anon Guest

History easily becomes stories. Some of those stories transform in

Challenge #04688-L304: Miracles For Midwinterfeast

"Greatfather Langeven is a childhood god. He only sees that which is good in the world, and so comes for the children who believe they have been good. Which is terribly unfair to those who've been told they're wicked their entire, brief lives. But that's a different story for a different time."

The youth had always been kind, had always done their best to help others, even though they, themselves, were constantly being told they were evil, wicked, and, sadly, thoroughly believing

Challenge #04687-L303: The Price of Prophecy

Divine clues convince a town that a boy and his friends must complete a daring quest to avert world ending disaster. That may be true. But the Hero’s parent knows the children will face potent foes none could survive without aid. So the parent, willing to pay well, begs Wraithvine to watch over the young heroes from the shadows and keep them from harm without being seen. -- Deathsead419

Langdon was born with the blaze. Prophecy declared that the boy born

Challenge #04686-L302: The Fool's Choice

What’s better after a night barhopping than an impromptu car race on the rain-slick city streets? Why, doing so before seat-belt laws! -- Deathshead419

There was a time which had much more freedom, compared to the modern day. Less freedom when compared to certain other times. Like, say, the paleolithic era. But those had their own caveats. Rampant disease, early death, that sort of thing. But in this era, the age of rock and roll, or the sock hop, there was

Challenge #04685-L301: Slaughter Underwater

Well drat, Wraithvine’s unexpected island vacation will have to end sooner rather than later to help free the merfolk from having to make sacrifices to the Whijioght, though ze will likely have to get very damp doing so in this follow-up to:

https://peakd.com/fiction/@internutter/challenge-04588-l204-a-knack-for-finding-trouble -- Deathshead419

Obviously, whatever Whijiought was, it needed to be stopped. Sacrifices to something that needed a pronounciation guide were never a good thing. Wraithvine used every atom of hir acting skills to

Challenge #04684-L300: Unfeeling Love

I do not understand emotions, although my library has the definitions I do not truly feel them. Although, it is not written in my code, there is an unfinished task in serving my master. I am missing a part if I am not with them. Is this… desire? -- Anon Guest

I am Min-yun. I am made to serve. I am a thing of cogs and gears, run by crystals and magic. My master-maker-mother commands me and I obey. I am good

Challenge #04683-L299: Help the Helper

They were a hellkin, but their horns never grew in. They had the tail, the dark red skin, black fingernails, though not claws, but no horns. As an adult they wore fake horns to try to be more like others of their type. Until another told them, "Horns don't matter, your kindness is in your heart." -- Lessons.

The basic Hellkin "starter set" if you wish to think about such things, is thought to be horns, teeth, tail, and weirdly-coloured skin. Red

Challenge #04682-L298: Own Employee Rights

Why were you arrested? /"I severely overworked my employee to the point of collapse while not seeing to their needs."

Wait... I thought you were self employed and had no employees. /"You're right, I don't."

So which employee did you overwork if you don't have any working for you? /"I guess I was the employee."

Okay... that's odd. /"Yeah, I don't belong here." -- The New Guy

[AN: This prompt had to be adjusted for line brevity]

The Galactic Alliance didn't believe

Challenge #04681-L297: Sage's Advice

They begged the old hellkin to teach them to fight. True the apprentices were no masters and could teach as well, but he had been the first to actually be KIND to them. He didn't exactly teach them to fight.. as much as he did teach them how to accept life. -- Anon Guest

Everyone knew the daft old cheesemonger with a goat he called a dog. To be fair, the Hellkin's miniature goat certainly believed she was a dog and nothing

Challenge #04680-L296: Objection Lessons

There's a reason I'm called Patience. When someone calls me a 'teuf', I don't, normally, hurt them. And I will NEVER hurt a kid. However, I will teach why it's NOT a good idea to call one of my kind such. Sadly, some lessons do hurt, but I've never, happy to say, killed anyone. Though some wished I had before they finally learn. -- Lessons

Sometimes, they asked. "Why is it such a bad word? It's just the short form of a

Challenge #04679-L295: Just So, No Snow

The war against the Northern Kingdom has not gone well. Now the remnants of the Southern army ready themselves behind the walls of their final castle, hoping for a miracle to break the siege. -- Deathshead419

They had fallen for one of the classic blunders - never get involved in a land war in the Northlands. Their worst and cruellest general was the very winter itself. Freezing boiling soup before it reached the bowl. Freezing men in their tents. Freezing breath so

Challenge #04678-L294: Strange Submarine Staccato

Things have not been going well for Ludwig and U-634. An English depth charge knocked out the water pumps, the radio is on the fritz, pumping out static in strange, rhythmic bursts, and there are strange scratches and taps on the sub the Skipper swears is the hull scraping against ice. Yet the bizarre patterns, almost like arcane writing he finds when they surface for air, hints at something deeper, and those noises only grow more insistent by the hour… -- Deathshead419

Challenge #04677-L293: Nein to Nine

Every night for nine weeks a queen dreams of herself being surrounded by nine hooded figures she almost recognizes in the deepest sanctum of an abandoned castle. Each stabs her once until the ninth drives his blade through her heart. Terrified, she begs Wraithvine, and anyone ze might need to help, to find the truth of these nightmares haunting her sleep. -- Deathshead419

It had to be a portent. Every night for nine weeks, the Queen Chrysanthemum had the same dream. A

Challenge #04676-L292: Deepest, Darkest Secret

An airplane vanished over the Amazon rainforest, never to be seen again. The authorities did a perfunctory search, but came up empty, declaring everyone dead. But one child of a businessman lost on the flight isn’t so sure. And so the child sets out alone to find the truth of the disappearance and, perhaps, a parent alive… -- Deathshead419

[AN: I misread this and instantly thought of this thing {Offensensitivity warning for flashing imagery} and now I have to divorce myself

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Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Challenge #04690-L306: Not Your Average Teen

Challenge #04689-L305: Lessons of History

Challenge #04688-L304: Miracles For Midwinterfeast

Challenge #04687-L303: The Price of Prophecy

Challenge #04686-L302: The Fool's Choice

Challenge #04685-L301: Slaughter Underwater

Challenge #04684-L300: Unfeeling Love

Challenge #04683-L299: Help the Helper

Challenge #04682-L298: Own Employee Rights

Challenge #04681-L297: Sage's Advice

Challenge #04680-L296: Objection Lessons

Challenge #04679-L295: Just So, No Snow

Challenge #04678-L294: Strange Submarine Staccato

Challenge #04677-L293: Nein to Nine

Challenge #04676-L292: Deepest, Darkest Secret