Friday Flash Fiction

Another Friday, another round of flash fiction from the Alinar authors.

Our new theme was suggested by Robin. If you would like to suggest a theme you want to see us tackle, we're always looking for new prompts! Just leave us a note in the comments.


This week's theme: muddy




Out of the Mud by Kallysten
featuring the characters from Checkmate
550 words

Coming home from visiting Don at the store, Vincent parked in the driveway and for a few seconds watched the intense rain beat the windshield. The spring storm didn’t look like it would abate any time soon, so there was no point in waiting for the rain to stop. Finally getting out of the car, he rushed to the front door, shoulders hunched, splashing water with each step.

He had his keys in hand but the door was unlocked, as usual. Lilia had once told him that locks were for people who didn’t have fangs. He tried not to argue about that; some things were not worth fighting over.

It was also a gesture of peace if he toed off his shoes in the entrance and shrugged out of his jacket rather than tracking water inside. He was surprised to see that Lilia’s leather boots, on the mat behind the door, were wet, too, and splattered with mud. Had she gone out in the rain?

“Lilia?”

“In here.”

He followed her voice to the living room and, of course, the fireplace. They had only lived there for a few weeks, but it was already her favorite spot in the house – that, and the oversized tub. She was standing with her back to the roaring fire, wearing nothing more than her underwear. Her jeans and shirt – Vincent’s shirt, he noted, amused – were piled up on the right side of the hearth, mud staining them both. She was toweling her hair dry.

Vincent approached slowly, his eyes roaming over her, enjoying the lovely view she made. She caught him staring and grinned, then threw the towel at him.

“Dry yourself. You’re going to catch your death.”

He grinned back and ran the towel over his hair. “Would you worry that much if it didn’t mean your death, too?”

She huffed and turned to the fire, rubbing her hands together toward the flames. “Funny, Jordan. Very funny.”

He grimaced as he watched her. He wanted to ask her to take a step back so she wouldn’t get burned, but any such advice was likely to be met with little more than scorn or an eye roll, so he didn’t bother. Instead, he draped the towel over his shoulder and came to stand behind Lilia, his arms easily sliding around her. She shivered when he pressed his mouth to her neck over the silver scar he had left on her skin what seemed like so long ago.

“You went out in the rain,” he said, his lips still caressing the Mating marks, and his tone made the words a question.

Lilia arched her neck a little more and rested her arms over his, entwining their fingers. “Hmm. It’s nice to be out during the day, sometimes.”

The admission surprised him; she wasn’t one to dwell on things she couldn’t do. “What did you do outside?”

She turned in his embrace and gave him a mysterious smile. “You’ll see.”

“See what?” Vincent asked – or at least he tried to. She covered his mouth with hers mid-word, and for the next hour or so, Vincent didn’t worry about anything, not even the mud on Lilia’s clothes.

But a few weeks later, when tulips, daffodils and hyacinths started blooming all around their yard, he remembered, and understood.

~*~

The Warlord by Lily Graison

(unfinished work-in-progress)

901 words

Brielle woke to the sound of silence. The camp was quiet for the first time in days. Only the hiss and pop of campfires and the soft whining of the horses were heard.

She pulled the fur wrap they’d acquired three nights ago to her face and peeked out from around her edges. No one moved and she lifted her head, looking at those sleeping around her before sitting up.

The moon was high in the night sky, the stars twinkling in the thousands. The soft calls of a night lark whistled from the trees and Brielle pushed the furs away before reaching up to make sure the braid in her hair was still in place.

She’d rejoiced the moment she realized all these men wore their hair long. Most left it to fall freely down their back but some wore braids. If it weren’t for their size, one would mistake a man with hair so lush as a woman. She hadn’t worried about wearing her helm in their presence and Dalek hadn’t forced her too like he did in every other camp.

Of course, the state of her blonde locks wasn’t anything to be proud over.

The minute they realized not one fair-haired warrior resided in this camp, Dalek had found the nearest water pot and dirt mound and mixed a muddy paste to wash through her hair. The strands felt hard and brittle, coated to the root with diluted muddy water. He’d laughed at her when he was finished and she reminded him that everyone thought he was illegitimate for his brown locks. He’d sobered then, straightening his shoulders before covering her face with mud.

Glancing to his sleeping form, she stood and made her way quietly away from the fire, darting into the trees a moment later. Finding a bit of privacy around so many men was near impossible and made living amongst them a daily challenge. More so than she’d first thought. Hiding from the world was easy when you could blend in but some things set her apart. Being a woman surrounded by the crude, disgusting behavior she’d had to endure with these men tested her patience.

The path to the lake was well marked. The warriors had driven the grass into the ground with the many passes they’d made in the area. When Miera Lake came into view, she smiled and ran to an outcrop of trees and shed her boots and clothing, unbraiding her dry, stiff hair and sighed as the last confines of the person she’d been forced to become faded away.

Wading into the water, she dove in, emerging moments later. She swam closer to shore, grabbing a handful of the small pebbles from the bottom and scrubbed her skin clean. Week’s worth of filth slid from her skin and when she no longer smelled the stench of her own body she sank below the waters surface, scrubbing her face and hair.

She’d been covered in dirt from the moment they left the castle. Hiding behind a layer of filth insured her obscurity. No one questioned a dirty warrior. Most expected it. One would question the fresh faced, sweet smelling skin of the smallest warrior.

Clean, she waded from the water, ringing the water from her hair. She knew Dalek would cake the mud back on the minute he saw her. He’d done so every time she washed.

Getting clean, only to have Dalek replace it was useless, but one could only stand their own filth for so long. If being clean only meant small moments of time, she’d take it.

Walking back to her clothing, Brielle bent and picked up her trousers, shaking the dirt from them. Dust filled the air and she turned her head from it and coughed.

Slipping them back on, she struggled to pull them up her wet flesh and reached for her tunic.

“I knew you weren’t no man.”

Brielle gasped and turned, stumbling back a step at the voice. Peering into the darkness, she saw him, standing by the trees. When he stepped into the clearing and she saw the smile on his face, her heart nearly stopped.

His gaze ran along her body until she felt violated. His smile widened before he licked his lips and took a step toward her. She snatched the tunic from the ground, holding it to her chest and took a step backwards. “I… this isn’t…”

She was at a loss for words and abandoned them when he stepped toward her again. She turned and ran, fumbling with the tunic before getting it over her head and darting through the trees.

“Don’t run, lass. I only want to talk!”

Brielle was nearly blind with fear as she ran through the trees. Her heart was pounding against her ribcage and her feet stung as small twigs and limbs bit into the sensitive soles.

A barrage of horrible thought assaulted her as she ran. She was a lone woman in a camp of men and one had found her after days of hiding amongst them. What would they do when they realized the plague that had killed thousands hadn’t taken every woman in the kingdom as everyone thought? One still remained. Her.

Hearing the man behind her, Brielle had only one solution. She had to seek the help from the one man she’d avoided since sneaking into his camp. The Warlord.

~*~

The Return of Sean O’ Neill by Candy/Alexandra

1073 Words

She could hardly miss the mud-caked boots lying on the front porch. Nor the sound of the lusty baritone belting out the Song O’ Morn, accompanied by the gentle slosh of water from the tin tub in the scullery.

Pressing her lips together, Fiona bent to pick up the carelessly discarded and equally muddy jacket and hung it on a peg before making her way down the corridor to the back kitchen.

Instead of going directly to the voice, she took a moment to fill an enamel bucket with cold water from the pump at the stone sink.

The singing stopped.

“Is that you, Fiona m’darlin? The voice enquired.

“That it is, Sean O’ Neill. That it is.”

“Well, come on in here, me beauty. I’m a little muddy and there’s places only a woman can reach. If you catch me drift?”

Stepping into the scullery, she tried not to notice the ripple of muscle rising from the dirty brown water, the black hair, softly curling at his nape, the smile that could charm a leprechaun out of his gold. Carefully placing the bucket on the stone floor, she searched for the anger instead.

“Don’t you my beauty me, Sean O’ Neill. Where have you been these past weeks?”

His crooked grin left her in no doubt that the Sheep Inn had seen a visit before he’d decided to deposit half a field in her bathtub.

“Ahh, well, now there hangs a tale. Would you believe me if I told you’d I’d actually been doing some work for a change?”

“Not a chance, Sean O’ Neill. More like you got drunk and fell in a ditch.”

“Aww, Fiona.” He shot her another leery grin “I love that flash o’ fire you get when you’re angry. If you’ll be giving me back a little scrub, maybe we can go upstairs and put that passion to good use?”

“I’ve better things to do, Sean O’ Neill.”

“Come on Fiona, you know you want to.” 

It was the wink that did it. The knowing wink that told her he not only thought himself a gift from God to womankind, but that he also knew full well she’d spent the past two weeks fretting and waiting and watching at the window for his return.

“I know this, Sean O’ Neill.” Picking up the bucket, she upended it over his head before he could react. With a spluttered curse, he rose from the tub causing a tidal wave of water to spill over the rim, soaking the front of her dress, her boots. Before she could turn and run, he had her fast by the arm.

“I love a woman who plays hard to get,” he said, pulling her close. “Come join me,”

“Don’t you dare, Sean O’ Neill. The water’s filthy and me in my Sunday best.”

“You could take it off?”

“I will not.” He had her flush now, against his hard and very naked body. A feeling she remembered all too well.

“As you wish.” Another tidal wave as he lowered himself, jamming them both in the tub, her kneeling between his knees, held down by the weight of her water-logged dress and the circle of his arms. The scummy brown tide seeped into her bodice, moulding it to her body. He looked, of course. This was Sean O’ Neill, after all.

The sexiest and possibly the most infuriating man in the whole of Fearhn County.

He wasn’t going to win this one.

“Let me go,” she said, with all the dignity she could muster, given that her hair had escaped the pins and was now hanging over her eyes in damp spirals. How dare he look like a sea-god when she probably looked like a drowned rat.

Mercifully, he did. She hauled herself from the tub and twisted her skirts, wringing out the muddy water onto the scullery floor. She might have forgiven him even then, had he not laughed out loud at her predicament.

She gave him a winsome smile. “All right, you win. You know I can’t resist you, Sean O’ Neill. Would you like me to wash your back, now?”

He did, and after a few moments of slow lathering he was almost purring under her hand.

“The water’s getting cold. Would you get out of the tub and I’ll dry you?”

“That’s more like it, woman.” He rose with his usual swagger and stepped from the tub. Diligently, she dried him off. All of him. Paying particular attention to a part of him that had definitely taken on a life of its own.”

Dropping the towel onto a stool, she moved to the door and glanced coyly over her shoulder. “Well, are you coming?”

Picking up her skirts, she ran back up the corridor and stopped at the foot of the stairs. Lord but he was magnificent in all his naked glory, but tonight he was to learn that he wasn’t quite as charming as he thought.

“Would you fetch your boots in from the porch,” she said as he appeared in the hall. “We don’t want the whole neighbourhood knowing you’re here, at this time of day, now do we? I’ll clean the mud off them tomorrow for you. Give them a bit of a polish.”

“You’re an angel, Fiona Heany, so you are. I don’t deserve you, that I don’t.” He leaned in, lips pouted for a kiss, but she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him away.

“The boots, Sean. They’re dirty. Do we want the whole neighbourhood saying I let you go about with dirty boots?”

“Very well,” he mumbled, glancing down at himself. The man didn’t have a modest bone in his body. Flinging the door wide, he stepped out onto the porch and bent for his boots.

She took a moment to admire his taut and very naked backside before stepping nimbly to the front door and slamming it shut. Throwing the bolt, she turned and leaned against the door, a hand over her mouth to stifle the laughter.

“Fiona!” His voice, an urgent whisper on the other side of the door.

Checking the bolt was secure, she ignored his urgent pleas, lifted her wet skirts and crossed the hall to climb the stairs. Sooner or later, he’d find the loose catch on the sitting-room window.  And if he didn’t, well there was always the shed.

Perhaps she should slip downstairs and loosen that catch a little more…