Tag / flash fic month

by booksoverlookedblog

FFM 16: How To Sell Your Home in 11 Easy Steps


Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. I do not consent to this work being summarized or fed to generative AI, and anyone who does so is a big dweeb.

July is Flash Fiction Month! I’ll be sharing short short stories here through the month of July. I’m in the process of selling my home. Since I’m running out of time for a story today and don’t want to fall further behind, here’s a rant. Stick around after the story to read the poem I wrote on the same topic.

An Easy 11-Step Guide to Selling Your Home

  1. Get your house ready for showing. Purge every scrap of personality your home has. There can be no art on the walls. There can be no plushies on the bed. They don’t matter. Only your granite counter tops matter.
  2. Find a realtor you like. You may wish to meet with a few of them before you decide who to go with. The deciding factor should not be if your realtor has a cool accent or likes your cats. But if he has a cool accent and likes your cats, that’s a big plus.
  3. If your house is fit for a sexless robot to live in, it’s time to schedule showings and open houses. You must hide all evidence that a human lives in this house. Remove all trash cans. Make sure all the books on the shelf are non-controversial and for display purposes only. Hide all cat furniture. You have to pretend that the cats don’t live here, even though they will follow prospective buyers around for the whole showing and take naps on your realtor.
  4. Get kicked out of your house repeatedly so strangers can look at it and then tell you they hate your bathroom decor.
  5. Look on Zillow and secretly judge your neighbor’s houses that are on the market.
  6. It’s been two months, and this sucks. Consider buying a Saint Joseph statue to bury in your yard.
  7. Change your mind about buying the statue. If your mom found out she would think that you’re becoming Catholic again and would get too excited.
  8. Besides, you tried to throw out a broken Virgin Mary statue during the initial purge, but the bag it was in ripped and paint splashed everywhere on the newly power-washed patio. Decide it’s best not to mess around with more statues of holy figures.
  9. Explain to your non-Catholic friends why it’s not idolatry, not really, and that even ex-Catholics love a good religious statue.
  10. Just accept that this is a deeply weird and frustrating experience, but at least you got a poem out of it.
  11. But also if you don’t get any offers soon, you’re getting the damn statue.

Selling Your Home is a Deeply Weird Experience

We begged and fought
to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars
on 1,700 square feet.
We signed the papers. We laid a stake.
This is ours.
No one can take it from us.
This is our home.

My territory is 1,700 square feet
with high ceilings and beige walls,
nubby carpets, a creepy door.

My territory is new granite countertops,
a rebuilt fence
years of love and work
and every picture hung on the wall.

And now–
anyone can come into my territory.
I must smile and welcome them.
Hope that one of them will want to beg and fight for 1,700 square feet.

But all I want to do is snarl.

by booksoverlookedblog

FFM 14: The Queen and The Seal Lord, Pt. 2



Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. I do not consent to this work being summarized or fed to generative AI, and anyone who does so is a big dweeb.

July is Flash Fiction Month! I’ll be sharing short short stories here through the month of July. This part 2 for The Queen and the Seal Lord. I really thought that part 2 would be the end of it, but this is at 999 words already, and I want to give this story a proper conclusion. Which means that there will be a part 3 at some point. Whoops.

Gráinne felt it only a moment after Raghnall heard it. Intruders on a navy ship. She was on her feet at once, cutting through the peace ties on her sword with a letter-opener from her desk. “Raghnall, see to your crew. And for fuck’s sake, get some trousers on.”

Raghnall had checked his weapons with his Réalta, his first mate, as was protocol. He dashed toward the cabin door, Gráinne just footsteps behind. The selkie froze mid-stride and let out a noise somewhere between a yelp and a gasp. He staggered where he stood, then gripped the wall for support. “Someone has my coat.”

Not just someone. A selkie and his seal coat parted at great risk. There were few he would have given it to willingly. Raghnall’s sudden weakness — his stooped posture, knees trembling — came from someone with ill-intent handling his coat.

“Stay here,” Gráinne demanded and shouldered past him. Just past the door to the captain’s quarters, Gráinne saw Réalta dead. The deep puncture wound at the base of her skull told Gráinne that the seal maiden had no chance to fight back. Whoever had done this had chosen stealth, not brute force.

Gráinne spun at the sound of uneven steps behind her, but it was only Raghnall, who by now had availed himself of a spare cloak, which was tied around his waist. His already ashen skin was growing lighter and lighter. “Is Réalta…”

“I’m sorry.” And Gráinne was. For all her differences with Raghnall, she had always liked his first mate.

“They’re taking the coat inland,” Raghnall said. His voice did not hold the rich timbre that Gráinne liked, one of waves lapping at the shore. He collected his weapons from Réalta, a trident and net, and short club that he normally wore on a belt. “If they bury it—”

“I know.” Disgust filled Gráinne. It was one of the unspoken laws of Fae war. Stealing a selkie’s coat was an unforgivable act. If it were to be buried under a black oak tree overnight, Raghnall would die. “Stay here,” she said again.

Raghnall bared his teeth. “It’s my coat.”

“And you’re in no shape to go after it,” Gráinne snapped back. “Stay in the water. It’ll help. I’ll be back before nightfall.” Before Raghnall could object, she threw herself overboard. Docked in the harbor, the ship wasn’t in deep water. Gráinne moved through it was ease, as though she were walking on dry land. When she reached the shore, she placed her bare palms on the ground, closed her eyes, and felt.

The land was part of her, and she was part of it. It couldn’t tell her who had stolen Raghnall’s coat, but she could feel the wrongness of someone, speeding away from the harbor. She sensed the person’s direction, and the vile tang of retribution they carried with them. This creature was moving at full speed, but not fast enough to avoid being overtaken by Gráinne.

She whistled for her horse, a silver dappled courser, who trotted out to the queen. Gráinne mounted easily, not bothering to saddle the mare. They understood each other, in the same way that the sea offered her only passing resistance and the land told her the direction of her quarry. They raced across the sand, following the thief.

The tracks told Gráinne the thief was traveling on a wild boar. Fierce, nasty creatures that rarely tolerated riders. That narrowed the possibilities of her quarry down some: Fir Bolg, true Orc, or Fomorian. Gráinne’s parents had established an uneasy truce with the Fir Bolg some decades before, and Orcs had no use for stealth. Fomorians were sea raiders, and had never entered into a treaty with the crown.

Finally, Gráinne spotted the boar and its rider. Fomorian, just as she had feared. Gráinne spurred her mare forward. She wouldn’t cut off the Fomorian’s path if she had another option. Her mount had been trained for combat, but she didn’t want it going against the boar’s deadly tusks. Instead, she took the sling that she carried on her belt and loaded a stone into it. The first shot missed her target completely. The second bashed the Fomorian in the back of the head.

The Fomorian lurched forward with shock, then wheeled their boar around to face Gráinne. It was a misshapen humanoid, muscles bulging in strange places and limbs with extra joints. It held a pike in gray-green fingers. Thin, yellow hair covered not just its head, but its entire face. It wore a fur coat spotted with gray and brown; Gráinne instantly recognized it as seal skin. Not selkie, but the selkies considered the animals their cousins. Raghnall would’ve had the Fomorian’s head for that.

Under its arm was Raghnall’s coat.

No Fomorian could resist a challenge by the Tuatha Dé Danann, even a half-human one. It dug its spiked heels into the boar’s side, and charged.

Gráinne found herself wishing for her glaive. She shifted to dismount, but as soon as she did, her courser ran at the boar. Gráinne called out for the horse to retreat, but the mare refused. Instead, she kicked up her powerful back legs, knocking the Fomorian out of its rope saddle. Without its rider, the boar abruptly changed course. It was distracted for now, and Gráinne hoped it would give in to its fatigue soon.

She sprang from her mount, sword in hand, and ran at the unseated Fomorian. It jabbed at her with its pike. Gráinne ducked replied with a kick to its stomach, throwing it off balance. She whirled and smashed the hilt of her sword on the side of its head, stunning the foul thing. Then, she took its head. It was a kinder death than Raghnall had given it.

She took his seal coat and tied it around her waist for safe keeping. Her mare was still standing alert, watching the boar trot away. Gráinne mounted her horse, and turned seaward. “Hold on, Raghnall. I’m coming.”

by booksoverlookedblog

FFM 12: Pact-Sworn

Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. I do not consent to this work being summarized or fed to generative AI, and anyone who does so is a big dweeb.

July is Flash Fiction Month! I’ll be sharing short short stories here through the month of July. More notes at the end of the story.

Leif had tranced badly for two nights straight. His trance state was rarely pleasant, walking through memories that he’d rather forget. Sometimes he was fortunate enough to have what he suspected his non-elven companions referred to as “dreams” — peaceful moments that showed strange but beautiful things. Sometimes they even showed himself as he wished to be, not as he was.

For the past two nights, his trances had brought him back to Doerin Oloth, the Autumnal Equinox. The nightmare of Lolth invading his mind, leaving Her venom in his soul. A great honor. A blessing.

A curse.

When Leif had awoken with a gasp in the cellar of Trollskull Manner, far from the drow city Menzoberranzan, spiders were gathered around them. His wrists, his throat, clustered together on the spider brand on his neck. He didn’t dare brush them away.

On the third night, after another trance full of spiders and old rituals, the bundle appeared. It sat on the end of Leif’s cot, wrapped in a pouch of spider silk, an oversized egg sac.

The moment he touched it, the strands dissolved into darkness. Inside was a thin book, its cover woven with black silk.

Leif opened it. It was a list of spells that he had never used before, some he had never heard of. The instructions for each were precise.

They were all written in his own script.

“Nau,” Leif hissed in the drow language. He let the book drop from his hands. “Nau, nau, nau.“

She had seen him.

Lolth had so many clerics, warlocks, worshippers. Leif had thought that was enough to keep the Spider Queen’s many eyes away from him. If he lived a small life in Waterdeep, if he didn’t displease Her, if he stayed far away from anything resembling life in the Underdark…that should have been enough to make Her forget him.

But Lolth did not forget.

Leif hurled the book far from himself, trying not to retch or scream or crawl out from his skin. He wanted to do all three.

But it wouldn’t remove the filth already in his soul.

It wasn’t unusual for Leif to be up earlier than the rest of the party. He needed half as much rest as they did, and sometimes refused to trance at all. What was unusual was that he’d ventured upstairs to the first floor of the pub they owned together. Leif tried to avoid the summer light as much as he could. The kettle was boiled, museli heating on the stove, and Leif was scrubbing his hands. For the sixth time.

It made no difference.

Yahg, always an early riser, was the first in the kitchen. The half-orc’s face was always hidden behind an iron mask, the mark of his order. Leif sometimes thought he should do the same, but thought it might draw more attention to him.

“You’re up early,” Yahg remarked.

“Yes.” Leif dried his hands on a dish towel. His fingertips had gone wrinkly.

“And dressed for winter.”

It was true. Leif had given into the summer heat and neglected his usual layers of clothing, at least in the tavern. Now he was back in the cloak, gloves, and scarf that he normally wore in public. “So I am.”

“Is something wrong?”

No one had ever sincerely asked him that question until two years ago, when Leif had first left the Underdark. He still didn’t know how to answer.

But he knew that Yahg would actually care about the answer, and try to fix it. Or offer him compassion and wisdom. And, worse, he would look at Leif through the narrow slots in his mask and actually see him.

“No,” Leif said after a too-long pause.

Yahg accepted the answer, and ladled out two bowls of museli. One for himself, and one for Leif. “Eat,” the monk instructed. “Everything’s a little easier on a full stomach.”

It’s DnD night, what do you want from me? Leif is my drow warlock PC, who really did not want to be a warlock. In-game, he got Pact of the Tome when he hit level 3, which he would’ve been incredibly freaked out about. But his party members are learning that Leif is kind of like a stray cat. Try to approach him and he’ll run; it’s best to let him come to you. I had originally planned a more hopeful ending, but it didn’t flow well, so you’re stuck with drow angst.

I have two other Leif stories! One from last year’s FFM, and one from this year’s.

FFM 1: Spider Whelp
FFM 6: “You’re the druid?”