Clare-Dragonfly

Title: Fatherhood
World: The Ursulan Cycle
Word count: 1,227 (total: 2,357)
Rating: PG
Notes: To ysabetwordsmith's commission for more Ursulan stories. I love Morgan so much, I just keep writing about him. (Which is weird, because normally I prefer to write about female characters!)


Morgan wanted to carry the baby home in his own arms, but his mother insisted that the wet-nurse take her, even though she would be walking and they were riding and the road was all mud from storms. That should, perhaps, have been his first sign. But he was so focused on little Morwenna, her tiny pink toes, her silky dark hair, that he couldn’t think of anything else.

He rode beside her all the way home, making the wet-nurse walk by his stirrup. “Isn’t she sweet? Look at her, sleeping so peacefully. Is she the sweetest baby you’ve ever met, Eleanor?”

The wet-nurse shook her head, smiling. “I wouldn’t know, master. I’m my mother’s youngest and I never had a baby of my own. But she does seem awfully sweet. What does her name mean?”

Morgan frowned. “I’m not sure. But it’s lovely, isn’t it? Mother, what does Morwenna mean?”( Read more... )

Title: The Most Beautiful Fountain in Affamarg
Word count: 346 (total: 925)
Rating: G
Prompt: wyld_dandelyon's: The most beautiful fountain in Affamarg
Notes: This is set in Torn World! Hopefully I didn't miss anything I should have read before writing this because I have not nearly read all the articles yet XD

Note that this is not canon until/unless approved by the canon board.


There are two parks in the city of Affamarg. (Actually, Affamarg, as a well-designed and beautiful city, has a great number of parks, but only two parks come into the story.) They happen to be across the street from each other, one on the north side and one on the south side. They are very different parks; the park on the south side has many sharp angles, made of metal and stone, arranged into beautiful geometric patterns, while the park on the north side is full of bushes and flowers, flowing over and through each other, in lumps and bumps and messy parts. Both are extremely beautiful in their own way. Both also contain fountains.( Read more... )

Title: Seeking Shelter
Word count: 303 (total: 3,210)
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: smeddley's: The storm's path
Notes: Hey, look! I wrote a Wasteland story with an actual sorceress in it! Considering how important a part magic is to my conception of this world, I haven't done much with it.

This got a lot creepier than I expected as I continued it...


The trees were whipping around them. The wind was coming faster and faster. Piri knew she had to get her family—her friends, but her family of choice—to safety. But which way? Where was safety? She wanted to climb a tree, but it wasn’t safe. The children were all crying. Her friends were trying to calm them down, but not having much luck.( Read more... )

Title: Through the Snow
Word count: 419 (incomplete total: 610)
Rating: G
Prompt: aldersprig's: Shoveling a path to the world.
Notes: This takes place two or three years after Harvest Day, and further into the winter.


Mama was sick. She said she wasn’t, but Tarnik knew better than that. Her belly and her feet were all swollen up, and she didn’t want to get out of bed. She kept making Papa bring her cups of tea and bowls of soup. Tarnik remembered how Papa had brought him lots of tea (even though he didn’t like tea) and soup the last time he had a cold.( Read more... )

Title: East
Word count: 305 (total: 705)
Rating: G
Prompt: kayim's: Crossroads
Notes: I ended this at what felt like a natural point (er, not that you can tell) but Sirna and Ayol's story is definitely not over, so I hope I'll write a sequel to it at some point. I hope nothing horrible happens to them.


It was hot. And Sirna was exhausted, even though she’d only woken up two hours ago. They weren’t sleeping well, because there was nowhere to sleep. And she couldn’t sleep too soundly, because she had to take care of her little sister, and there was no one else to help with that. There was only them.( Read more... )

Title: On the Trail
Word count: 405 (total: 2,591)
Rating: R for blood (not appearing in this section) and implied sex
Prompt: ysabetwordsmith's: The trail left by a unicorn
Notes: Look, it's Kaede again! Unfortunately, this story did not want to cooperate by being in the first person (as Bigfoot Hunting did), so I've switched pronouns instead--Kaede's gender is very flexible. I'm not sure how well it works.


Kaede’s cell phone rang in the middle of the night, waking him. That was never a good sign. Groaning, he extracted his arm from under the girl in bed with him and grabbed the phone. He fumbled it open and pressed it to his ear. “Hugh?”( Read more... )

Title: The Other Side of the Gate
Word count: 865
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: aldersprig's: My favorite house back in Rochester had a gate with no fence.
Notes: I haven't finished this, but I have almost five thousand words so far and I don't know how much longer it's going to be, so I decided to give up and post the beginning so I can move on to the next prosy and then, hopefully, finish this one later.


Maricia had expected to really hate moving to a new town at the beginning of her senior year of high school.( Read more... )

Title: The Interdimensional Antique Shop
Word count: 326 (total: 2,361)
Rating: PG
Prompt: ysabetwordsmith's: A fence who sells stolen goods across the dimensions by use of a portable gate.
Notes: This is interdimensional, so it's actually set in two of my worlds!


“You can sell it, right?” asked the small thief, not entirely without hope. Kerry wasn’t sure whether the grubby child was a boy or a girl, not that it mattered. In Garthier they taught all their children to steal.( Read more... )

Title: A Witch in the Kitchen
Word count: 415 (total: 2,149)
Rating: G
Prompt: Crowdfunding Creative Jam: A woman who gives up witchery to be a chef, but has a hard time not making magic in the kitchen.
Notes: Everything I know about commercial kitchens I learned from TV shows my sister was watching.


“Ms. London.” The restaurant owner, a salt-and-pepper-haired woman with copious laugh lines at the sides of her eyes, reached out and shook Louisa’s hand firmly. “Welcome. I’m so glad we could attract a chef of your caliber, after what happened with the last one.”

Louisa smiled. “Thank you, Ms. Lafayette. I will warn you again, I’m out of practice.”

Ms. Lafayette waved airily as she showed Louisa into the kitchen. “I’m sure you’ll do wonderfully. You had such a successful career before you took that break, and I’m sure you cooked for your family, didn’t you?”( Read more... )

Title: Gathering Herbs
Word count: 333
Rating: G
Prompt: moonwolf's: The use of herbs in magic - either fantasy magic or pagan magic(k).
Notes: This isn't quite the use of herbs, but it is the gathering of them. Also, look! A new (to readers, not me) world!


Palua felt she had just drifted off to sleep when she felt her shoulder being touched. Her training held; she woke instantly, memory returning without a pause, and knew it was Usian, the elder priestess assigned as her mentor. She rose silently to keep from waking the fellow novices with whom she shared a room, slipped her shoes on, and pulled a coarse brown cloak on over the simple shift she wore to sleep in—deliberately identical to the clothing all priestesses wore night and day. Usian was dressed almost identically, though her cloak was more finely woven and pure white, the sign that she was a full-fledged healer.( Read more... )