ThursThreads, week 469

Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-tying-tales-together-week-469/

Spitting dirt, I wiped my face and grimaced. This wasn’t the first time I’d woken up with a faceful of mud, but this time was different. I didn’t belong on the ground, I belonged under it. 

Then I heard that laugh. 

“You thought you could escape from me that easily?”

I spat a chunk of grass and worms in her direction. It matched her soul. “Easily? Do you have any idea how much work it took for me to get that fool to kill me?”

“That was your fault. You’re the one that convinced him that your very existence was the key to his remaining on the throne.”

I climbed the rest of the way out of my grave and looked at what should have been the hole in my chest. She’d learned a new trick. “That was before ‘Til death do you part.’”

“Quit whining. We’re parted, okay? Your oath has been fulfilled, you are a free man before queens and gods.” She reached out a hand to help me up. 

“Why am I back then?” And why did the touch of her hand on mine get me so excited? Hadn’t I learned that lesson the hard way?

“Because He’s back. And that oath binds you from beyond the veil.”

#ThursThreads, week 468 – 9th anniversary!

Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-9th-anniversary-week-468

“Past is Prologue”

Before the door slides fully open, the memories flood in. The smell is the trigger – it takes me back, and in an instant I’m 12 again. Lonely and afraid, on a world that wasn’t my own. Home wasn’t safe, so I ran to the first escape hatch. In my case, it was the cargo spaceport with lax security.

The same instinct that made me run was my shield in my new life. I knew which predators would just take what they wanted and leave and which would demand more than I could give. I knew who in the “ask no questions” labor market would give me tools to climb the ladder and who would kick me when I was down.

It turned out the skills I built in this dark place were exactly the ones I needed for a life in politics. After all, the mob and the Senate were pretty much the same thing. Not that I stopped at something as prosaic as having a seat at the table. Soon, I had the only seat.

I was running again now, but this time there’d be no escape hatch. I’d done too much to too many people. My instincts kicked in before the assassins showed up, and I had just enough friends left to get me back here.

The place I’d hid when I first arrived was still here, though I no longer fit in such a small space. I curled up outside and fell asleep, dreaming of home.

250 words
@drmag00

#ThursThreads, week 466

Prompt: https://siobhanmuir.com/thursthreads-tying-tales-together-week-466/

Anniversary Dance

The tears stung his eyes as he looked into the setting sun and waited. The darkness would bring the passing of one year and the beginning of the next. Not that it made much of a difference, one second was much like another.

The gods knew he would never be a prince, not after what he’d done, but a man? Could he just be a man, like so many he passed on his journey?

He saw them as they went about their lives, eating a meal or building a house or sitting with a family, and he wondered if they’d accept him as one of their own. If he opened a bottle of wine or pushed a cart of stone up a narrow, twisted path, could he spend an hour, a day, a week as one of them?

Probably. Likely. The people he passed had trusting smiles and hearty laughs. He thought they’d welcome him with the proverbial open arms if he approached them as one of them. As just a man.
But what if they knew what he’d done? What if he told his tale in its entirety – not just the good parts filled with caring and kindness. But the other parts, the ones that defined him? The ones with betrayal and anger and dismay?

What would they say then?

Better not to ask. He set his pack on his back and walked on, not a prince, not a man, but an outcast, just like everyone else.

248 words