Omen

The flowers held on. The sky grayed and the trees lost their leaves in multi-colored piles, leaving skeletons with hands held up to the dreary heavens. The grass died in patches, grubs feasting on tender roots like maggots in rotting flesh until only puddles of mud were left.

No one took it as a bad omen or thought twice or even questioned why, because all across town, the flowers held on. Grassy wildflowers along the road, little splashes of orange and violet amid the dying brown. Carefully cultivated gardens bloomed in full color. In window boxes, tiny red heads with bright yellow eyes peeked up. On fences they climbed and multiplied. The air was thick with perfume.

It was "amazing" and "a miracle" and "a marvel".

By the time the first child died, it was too late to stop.

The Legend of the Children of the Earth

The Earthmother was strong and kind. She was known as the Grand Protector and the Great Balancer. She loved her children dearly and granted each with the weapons and defenses that they would need to survive. The Earthmother’s guidance and power stretched across the land.

When the invader known as man arrived, she embraced him. Her love, which had always been her greatest strength, became her folly. Man did not desire her love and did not follow her harmony. He cut her and destroyed her with singular purpose: to thrive on his own.

The Earthmother called on us, her children, whom she had cherished and bolstered for so long, to fight for her. We took on the task readily, for we owed her everything and her destruction would be ours. She gave to us, the cunning to fight the forces of man, but he was a formidable foe, with weapons that she had never seen. Her children fell.

With a heart full of grief, she used her weakening power to grant her remaining children the ability to transform and mimic man, so that we could use his weapons as our own.

It is said that the last to receive the Earthmother’s gift were the serpents and that for them, the transformation was so difficult, and so painful, that once they changed, they never wanted to go back. The council of serpents decided to infiltrate the ranks of man to destroy him from the inside, but they got lost somewhere along the way. They warned man of the coming invasion so that they could live comfortably by his side.

We have not won the war. We are prizes and trophies. We are hunted. We are clever, exotic pets. The children of the earth have grown disheartened. We do not feel the pain of the Earthmother any longer and she has quieted her cries, for she has lured her children to their doom at the hand of these invaders.

Those that fight the war still, do so in wary clusters of their own people. They fight for their own. Those that no longer fight have done their best to integrate and blend with the invaders. Ours is a dying kind.

Brother

The tortoises were restless that morning. They shuffled in their stalls and clicked in their throats. Petra smoothed her hand against the smooth nose of the one nearest her. It closed all four of its slitted eyes and quieted. As a girl, she had believed in omens and had seen them in most everything. She tried not to dwell on the uneasy herd, and chose to go about her day.

She pulled the milking bucket and stool off of their places on the wall and headed into the stall. She patted the tortoise’s rocky shell as she set up near its flank. It warbled at her morosely.

"Come now, it's not all that bad," Petra insisted. "We'll head out to graze by noon." The udders of the creature had grown heavy and swollen in the two days she had gone without milking it. Her farm hand was visiting family, leaving her to tend the whole thing by itself. It had taken her three weeks to teach him how to milk the things. It required a grip that was neither too hard nor too soft, pressure applied in the correct manner (which was different for each animal and each teat), and a bit of intuition. She had not had time to do all the milking. Perhaps this was why they were so anxious.

The bucket was half full of the nutrient rich cream when the urgent chime of her communications system sounded. She leaned back and craned her neck. Sheriff Calhoun was on the screen, his bulbous nose anchored in place by his thick mustache. His watery blue eyes shifted, a nervous tic that betrayed the rest of his calm facade. Petra frowned and wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. The tortoise stamped its cloven feet as she picked the stool up prematurely. She hauled the bucket out from under it so that it could not kick it over in its displeasure. It butted her in the chest with its beak-- a movement that could have been fatal if the creature had intended it to be. She scratched it under the chin until it quieted, and promised it that she would return in a little while.

"Sheriff Calhoun," she greeted neutrally.

"Ah, Petra," the man smiled in greeting. "Would it be alright if we came in for a few minutes?"

"Depends on who 'we' is," she frowned. The Sheriff had not had a deputy in a dozen years or so. He stepped aside to reveal two men in the pristine uniforms of the Galactic Federation.

"Come on in," she shrugged. The Galactic Federation did not meddle much in the affairs of the people that farmed the outer moons. Unless there were pirates fleeing in their direction, GF forces only stopped in every few years to recruit, or in off-duty capacities, to buy the goods they harvested.

Petra crossed the fields to greet her guests.

"I have a lot of work to get through today, so excuse me if I try to keep this short," she stated. Even as she said it, however, she began to fix a pot of coffee. She rarely had guests, but her mother had raised her with proper manners and she would not circumvent that simply because she was behind on chores. "What is this about?"

"Petra duMarcos," one of the soldiers said. He pushed his visor up, which was some kind of courtesy, or else he wanted her to be able to see his full face so she could see how serious he was. "Sister of Valentin duMarcos." Although he phrased it as a statement, it was followed by silence long enough for Petra to realize he was asking her to confirm.

"Valentin is my brother, yes." It was not a secret in any capacity. "Sheriff Calhoun could have told you that."

"We're just being thorough, ma'am. Are you aware of your brother's current standing with the law?"

"If he's on the wrong side of it, then yes. My brother is a low down crook and smuggler."

"Are you aware that he is currently under investigation for murder?"

"Murder. You think Valentin murdered somebody?" Petra's flat expression did not change much. "Do you mind if I smoke?" She asked as a courtesy as she pulled the pack out. The soldier made a forthcoming gesture and waited in silence as she lit up and took the first drag. "Well, it was only a matter of time before he graduated to big-boy crime."

"You were not aware of it, ma'am?"

"I was not. I'm not surprised, but I wasn't aware of it, either."

"Is your brother here, Petra?" Sheriff Calhoun asked. The two soldiers twitched and looked at him in obvious displeasure.

"Here? That's what this is about? You're coming to find out if Valentin is here?" she scoffed. Smoke curled about her head lazily.

"Harboring a fugitive is a crime, ma'am."

"That's a nice law. A good law. But Valentin is not here."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Yes, I'm sure about that."

"We have the records of your bay doors. You opened them at three o'clock this morning, local time."

Petra's jaw tightened. "One of my tortoises is sick. I called the veterinarian when it looked like it might be getting worse. You must have seen that I opened the door to let him out at four thirty in the morning, local time. You can call him to confirm."

"Petra, there's no need--" the Sheriff started. Petra cut him off with a sharp hand gesture.

"There is no need for you to be here." She looked at each man in turn. "Do you want to know why? Because the last time that I saw Valentin was seven years ago, when our mother was on her deathbed. He came home then. And when mother passed? He didn't stick around for the service. He stole two thousand credits from me and then disappeared without a word. So, if my brother comes here looking for refuge, I'll give you a call and you'd better bring a body bag to collect him in."

"...Thank you for your time ma'am. If he does show up, please give us a call," the man offered her his card. She stared at him sourly until he set it down in front of her.

"I'll be sure to do just that. Thank you for the warning. Sheriff, I trust you know your way out?" He tipped his hat to her and led the two men down the hallway.

Petra took a long drag and exhaled through her nose. Her hands ached from being knotted so tightly for so long. She eased them open, flexed her fingers.

A clap interrupted the silence in her house. It was followed by another, which quickly grew into applause. "Excellent performance. I mean, it gave me chills." Petra turned to see Valentin set his hip against the doorway. He looked as at-ease as he ever did, with his hair slicked back and his grin so big it thinned his lips. He had an attractive smile that masked his lying tongue perfectly. "For a second there, I thought you were going to give me up."

"I was tempted," Petra stated, and Valentin laughed. She had already worried her cigarette down to the filter. She smashed it into the ashtray on the table and lit a second one.

"Sis, that habit'll kill you," he reminded, his voice sing-song. He raised his hands in surrender at her pointed glare, but his smile was still as earnest as ever. He pulled two cups of coffee from the freshly brewed pot and set one down in front of her. Petra watched him claim a seat on her kitchen counter. Her brother had always had good intuition. Perhaps he had sensed that if he sat too close, she would give into the temptation to grab him by the hair and smash his face into the table until it was a bloody pulp.

Petra picked up the hefty ceramic mug with the same hand holding her cigarette and took a sip. The steam and the smoke swirled together to form odd patterns. "So, is it true?" Her voice was as flat and unamused as when she had spoken with the officers.

"What?" Valentin asked, eyebrows arched up to create that perfect illusion of confused innocence. Petra glared.

"Did you kill somebody?" She watched the tiny cracks in his mask, the little flickers of real emotion that were impossible for anyone that had not shared a crib with him to read. He looked guilty, confused, and kind of lost. She made sure to keep her cold indifference firmly in place.

"I didn't kill him, but he did die." He looked at Petra, tried to read her reaction. After a few seconds, he turned his coffee around so that the handle faced the opposite way and took a sip from it. "I didn't kill him, but I was there when he died. You have to believe me, Petree," he turned wide eyes on her. It was too much. The childhood nickname and the purposefully lost look, the touch of desperation in his tone. Petra exhaled smoke in his direction.

"I don't have to believe shit, Valentin," Petra said coldly. "You're a conman, a cheat. You've been that way since you were old enough to blink. Maybe it's not your fault. Maybe it's a compulsion. That doesn't stop you from hurting everyone around you. Even people that you love, or claim to love." He opened his mouth in shock, a protest forming at the corners of his lips. Petra ignored it. "I will smuggle you off of this moon. I will give you some money if you need it. But when I turn around, we're done. I won't be your sister anymore and I don't want to see you ever again."

Valentin stared at his hands. Although he looked like a scolded child and a beaten dog, there was no doubt it Petra's mind that he was trying to find a way to get back in her good graces. She pursed her lips, unmoved. "I'm taking the tortoises out to pasture in three hours. You'd best be ready by then," she stated. "And if you steal so much as one credit from this house, I will skin you alive and kick you out of the airlock."

Valentin grinned at the threat. "Really, sis? Skin me first and then airlock me? Talk about overkill." He appeared undaunted by her repeating 'three hours' and ignoring his attempt at humor. 

more nano shit

The oak tree grew in the heart of the American northwest. Clean air, ample rainfall, and consistent temperatures allowed it to grow and prosper. The natives round their branches to be thick and sturdy and ideal for creating any number of tools. It wasn't until the settlers came that the great monsters were chopped down in their entirety. Hundreds of years to grow, and all that remained were gnarled stumps as far as the eye could see. Firewood, cabins, chairs, tables-- no matter what the craft, the hard wood served well. The trees, forever stationary, made it around the world in pieces and the huge steamships transported them-- in planks and completed projects alike, from port to port.

Mr. Harper was not always a practical man. He had his wife to keep him in check for that, and thus, was able to drift with his dreams and float with his fantasies until she nudged him on the shoulder and tugged him back to earth. He loved her dearly for it. She was not with him when he wandered past the lumber yard. It was far from a typical desitation, mind, but then, very little of Mr. Harper's actions qualified as typical.

He stepped into the large stone building (he found it amusing that a building that was dedicated to lumber would be built from stone, but he had no one to voice this to, and therefore kept his chuckling quiet and close to his chest) and eyed the impressive equipment that wound through the entirety of it. Great conveyor belts moved whole trees to various saws that trimmed branches and sheared bark and sliced the green wood. The place smelled of ash and the sweat of its workers, and most overpowering of all, the earthy smell of the trees themselves. He watched burly men haul branches thicker than his waist. Children were employed to keep the floors clear of the smaller boughs, and they scurried fearlessly between the legs of the giants, and under the conveyor belts.

It wasn't until he had stood for fifteen minutes or so that someone spotted him. The word spread through the employees with startling speed after that, and he could tell because their already tremendous productivity seemed to double. He belatedly realized that it was not likely every day that someone stood in their doorway with a suit as nice as his.

A short, dumpy man inquired politely as to his reason for attending their workshop. Having no other answer, Mr. Harper pointed at a large section of untreated oak and stated that he wanted to purchase it. If his wife had been there, she would have said something like 'oh, he is just fascinated by machinery' and they would have left. Mr. Harper spent fifteen minutes haggling over price (the end result which definitely favored him) and had to have a carriage called to have the great chunk of oak delivered to his estate.

"What are you planning on doing with it?" Mrs. Harper asked as they stood in front of his strange purchase. Her tone was more curiosity that irritation. He stroked his mustache. He hadn't actually thought about what he would do with a three-hundred pound piece of oak. ED sat atop it, idly kicking her legs and humming to herself.

"I think it should be a door," she remarked, and when her father's gaze beckoned her to go on, she gathered her feet under her and put her hands on her small hips. "Well it looks like it used to be a huge tree, and everyone knows that huge trees are fairy portals. Another word for portal is door. Therefore, it should be a door."

"Is that so?" her father questioned, and she nodded sagely before jumping into his arms.

Most people would have laughed at the adorable statement and catalogued it as something to bring up in amusement over dinners years later. Mr. Harper was not most people.

Sixteen years later, ED stood with a blindfold over her eyes, her hair cut short into a men's fashion and her slim frame bound beneath her academic uniform. "Father, it's quite impractical to keep a blindfold on me while you present a gift. It makes it rather difficult to see," she stated, and received a chuckle in response.

"Well then, remove it," her father responded. When she did, an airship enveloped her vision. It was old and tired, but it made her gasp all the same. "Can't very well be a pilot without one of these, eh?" He accepted her hurried kiss on the cheek and followed after her up the ramp into the belly of the ship. His smile never paused as she ran her fingers over every inch, calling out ideas on how to improve, and what needed to be done. Her excitement made him giddy.

Abruptly, she went silent. The door to the bridge was locked. It was not this fact that bought her silence, but rather the door itself. The pale wood was intricately carved with a forest scene. The texture of the bark on the trees was carved with intricate detail. Individual leaves on the bushes were palpable. ED ran her fingers over the grains, experienced the scene with her fingertips and her eyes. The stream cutting through was lacquered more heavily than the rest, giving it a permanently wet appearance.

"It's your fairy portal," her father said as he pressed the brass key into her palm. She threw her arms around his neck and squeezed like she was five years old.

Three years later, as her smoldering wreckage of her ship tore in half and was swallowed by the depths of the sea, it was the engraved oak door that she and Percy clung to until their rescue.

---

OKAY SO THIS IS SO SHITTY I UNDERSTAND, I GET IT. Shhh. Shhh. But I could not stop snickering as I wrote it. I hope someone gets the joke. 

London-Hungry: Steampunk Tidbit

I - I wrote a thing, guys. It's weirdly written in terms of sentence structure and I don't know why but WHATEVER WHATEVER I'm just gonna post it. I also feel like the tense is fucked up but I'm too tired to fix it now. Any critique or advice in terms of grammar or character stuff is more than welcome. Like, yes please. Explanation in terms of character/plot at the end.

Steampunk snippets

I participated in MLS's midterm marathon at her school this year and had a great time doing it. Two of the stories that I wrote there were steampunk, and so close to NaNo, it really got my brain in that mindset. I am currently 10,498 words into my project, and every last word of it has been steampunk. HERE ARE A FEW SAMPLES. :3

The Date

“Today's the big date, huh?” Cassandra asked, one shoulder caught in the doorway to support her casual lean as she looked in.

“Today is the big date,” Sam agreed. She checked her outfit in the mirror again. The slinky black top accentuated her breasts without showing a lot of cleavage. The gray pants were tailored to hug her ass. They made her legs look very long. Compared to her daily wear of scrubs or worn jeans, she felt like she was ready to walk the red carpet.

“You have your exit strategy in case your mystery internet guy turns out to be a lying loser?” Cass asked.

“Of course,” Sam sighed. She tried to be optimistic, but an online correspondence was not the most reliable type of conversation. Optimism did not trump practicality.

“I look okay?” She asked with a slow twirl to show the full extent of her outfit. Cassandra reached back to unclasp her necklace, a simple silver affair with a diamond pendant in the middle, and fastened it around Sam's neck with a smile.

“You look beautiful.” She winked. A slick black tendril poked out of her nose, squirmed and withdrew. Cassandra put a delicate hand to her face, looked at the slimy trail that was left, and opened her mouth to speak. The only noise that came out was a sickening squelch. Her throat bulged. Her eyes rolled back in her head. A tentacle shot out of her mouth, thicker with each inch that emerged. A second one followed close behind. It fought for the cramped space. More and more squirmed from the depths. Cassandra's jaw cracked audibly to compensate.

Soon, Cassandra's willowy frame was completely obscured. The clear, pale skin of her face looked chalky, then gray. It seemed to be melting, and though nothing visibly fell off, as the change continued, the sharp juts of her cheekbones emerged like the bow of a sinking ship. The whites of her eyes shrunk away until only empty black caverns remained. Her striking features were reduced to a bleached skull held aloft by the writhing cluster of oil-colored tentacles.

“Hey, Sam,” it greeted. The skull rotated left, then right to orient itself.

“Hey, Perry,” Sam answered, trying to keep the disgusted horror off of her face. Perry's real name consisted of syllables unpronounceable by the human tongue, which sounded eerily like bone grinding on bone and the wailing of a fatal sea storm at night. Unable to hold a corporeal form on his own, he had entered into a sort of time-share agreement with Cassandra six months ago when she had been diagnosed with a rare bone cancer and given six months to live. Perry cured it without chemo or surgery all for the price of possessing her skull at pre-arranged times. Sam couldn't bring herself to approve entirely of the arrangement. Perry gave her the creeps.

“You look nice today. Going out?” he asked. He made a meaningless gesture with an appendage.

“Yeah,” she responded.

“Hope you have a nice time,”Perry hesitated, then retreated from her room. He said it so earnestly that she almost felt bad for being short with him. She slipped her heels on and clicked into the common room. Perry had donned his work cap at a jaunty angle.

“Look, Perry,” she started.

“Hey, Sam, quick vanity check,” he interrupted. Two small tentacles poked out of Cass's eye sockets and moved in sync: up, left, down, right, then pointed at her. Sam gagged at the display. “I was thinking, this way, people can know where I'm looking?”

“No.” She could not keep her face free from the repulsion she felt. “Don't do that ever again.” The demon deflated. The tentacles withdrew.

“Okay.”

Sam left before he could do anything even more cringe-worthy. She had a date, and she didn't want to puke before it.