Martha.net

1. For a few desperate heartbeats canvas and rope were the only thing holding them aloft. Then with a coughing roar the engine finally caught fire and flung them forward into the winds.

2. Magic is only as powerful as the people who wield it and nothing stops a cat for long.

3. It’s the basic concepts, the ones they thought would be the easiest, that the translators stumble over. Eating is breathing and hunger is sunset– they’ve got so little common ground that neither side can find the words that fit.

4. Paying someone to kill you is a lot easier said than done and Tal was getting tired of trying. The only time he’d managed to find someone to pull the trigger the man had missed his heart, then fled before firing a second shot.

5. No one goes out in the afternoon, at least not if they can help it. There are no trees here, the sparse vegetation come up just above her knees and trends more toward cacti then bush.

1. Snow covered the forest in a darkening blanket, for the moment held aloft by leaves grown massive in the tiny gravity.

2. Ambushes are actually relatively easy to predict when your opponent is reduced to medieval warfare– but sometimes you have to take the route you know is dangerous and hope your luck is good enough to make it through.

3. It doesn’t matter how in fashion a style is, zebra stripes only look good on zebras.

4. “Last one in’s a rotten egg!” Ric dashed towards the hot springs with gleeful whoop. Ty was only a half-step behind and gaining ground.

Yuma made no move to follow. “Aren’t those sulfur springs?”

“Yeah?” Rill frowned, confused. “So?”

“Then wouldn’t it be the first one in the pool…?”

5. Someday they would look back on these few terrifying hours and he wondered if their choices would seem as rational then. The world was so much simpler when you were about to die.

1. Years went by without the expected contact, but he wasn’t programmed to care. Stuck in a simple if/then loop, he waited for the signal that would trigger the shift from terraforming to colonization– but it never came.

2. What, why, who, where– all valid questions when it came to murders, but it was how that drove everything in these sorts of cases.

3. “Pardon me, but were you going to eat that sheep?”

4. Every line he’d ever stood in had started with A and ended with Z. His whole life was alphabetized and Zach Zuckerman was used to coming last… this time it saved his life.

5. Anna stood silent, a small quite pool of calm amid the riot. No one else seemed to notice her, but William could feel her gaze even across the square.

1. “Faith, Charity, Temperance– the Madison’s really need to stop naming their girls after virtues, it doesn’t work.”

2. Other people might have passed him by, but she was feeling charitable. And that was how her Wednesday went from ‘good’ to ‘@!#%@#!’ in roughly forty seconds.

3. This would be the deciding moment of her career, unless, of course, it wasn’t… and then she really wasn’t sure what to do next. There were no second tries at masterworks.

4. “Can’t we work this out?” He dodged as a larger chunk of what-ever-it-had-been fell off with a wet thud. “You’re being unreasonable!”

5. Quests, as a rule, rarely ended peacefully, but she was determined to make this one an exception.

1. The problem with running for your life is that at some point you have to stop and it’s very very hard to get moving again.

2. Nicknames were the price you paid for being young, so said her Uncle Buck, but Abby didn’t mind. Even when they teased that Abby was short for Gabby, it suited her just fine– Abagail didn’t have the nice same roundness to it and besides, she hated drawing L’s.

3. “Greatness comes with time.”

“And talent,” she objected.

“Well yes, it helps, but most of it’s just patience and dumb luck.”

4. For each man that fell, two wardens rose in it’s place– thin, unnatural creatures built from scavenged bone and steel, infused with the burning hatred of the dead.

5. Somewhere in the darkness death was waiting for them… Thankfully, death snored.

1. The years had been kinder to the city that he would have thought, the twisted masses of concrete and steel still kept rough council against the skies.

2. The difference between a school and an academy depends on who’s holding the checkbook and Sir Vincent James had a very firm grip indeed. Which meant our classes, while in general were the same as any other, had a very different bent when it came to specifics. It didn’t take long before we were known as Apocalypse U.

3. “Just smile once in a while, I think– okay, don’t smile, definitely don’t smile. Are those fangs??”

4. Even the oldest members swore that the names of the founders of The 5 o’clock Society had been lost to the ravages of time, but Brian thought it the alcohol haze might be more to blame. Either way, the grand traditions those founders had passed down were treated just as venerably as if they’d come from Washington himself. Only George probably didn’t play quarters after work…

5. Falling and flying were almost the same, and she took to both as easily as she had to water.

1. Rebuilding the world didn’t take nearly as long as they’d thought it would– at least as long as you defined ‘world’ by the five mile radius around their house. The electricity might be gone, but the local hardware store had plenty of tools and they had nothing but time.

2. Magic didn’t flow from the hills like water, it stretched like old rubber, stubborn until it hit the snapping point. The rest of the party quickly learned to stay out of Heather’s way– she was used to the effortless rush of the mountains, hill magic left her frustrated and cranky. Cranky mages, even if they weren’t as powerful, were still bad news.

3. “Kindness is only ever repaid in traffic tickets and spilled coffees.”

“Well that’s a great attitude,” Keri rolled her eyes as she helped Gerry sop up the mess. “I bet you’d blame the rain on him if you could.”

“He broke my umbrella, does that count?”

4. Rabbits made much better companion animals than cats, they knew all the nooks and crannies of the forest and never led you wrong when the hounds were on your tail. They might not be good at hunting, but she’d left that side of the chase behind in Elm River.

5. Money was worthless, scraps of paper that fed fires and padded shoes. The inherent flaw of printed currency was that it was only worth something if both parties agreed.

1. “‘More or less’ is not an acceptable answer to ‘Is this going to explode?’”

2. “Now we shall see the truth of things!” She raised the staff into the shaft of sunlight and the prism coated k’Vlish with fractured magic.

3. “Very well,” he dismissed the charges without ever looking up from his book, “Next case.”

4. Quests were for heroes, this was more of an errand– an errand that involved dragons and knights and princesses, but not in true fairy tale fashion.

5. “Understanding comes in time,” Uulan bent to help him restack the stones, “no one expects you to be perfect.”

“I do,” Ris muttered.

“You don’t count.”

1. Making the best of a bad situation was ingrained, defiant hope ground down through flesh and bone until it underlay everything they did.

2. These were no false birds or fairy tale dragons, but true heirs to the Pteranodon line. He managed not to scream as they dove headfirst off the mountain, but he might possibly have made a sound during the spiraling decent as the winds skipped them back and forth across the ash-filled sky.

3. Death and taxes couldn’t hold a candle to the tide.

4. Go ask the Siren, she’d said, as if it was as simple as fetching water from the well. As if the journey wouldn’t take her across the seas and the price of the answer wouldn’t be her soul.

5. Universal translators worked with ideas, not words, and it took them a while to filter it out enough to learn each others names. She still thought of him as Bright Spice that Blooms in Winter and it amused her to think he did the same.

1. Other than the lack of air, the planet was actually quite pleasant.

2. Ice flashed its way along the blue-metal railings, tiny lightning strikes carved out in frost.

3. Open doors aren’t always invitations.

4. Killing him wasn’t the hard part, it was keeping him dead that was starting to get annoying.

5. Looking back across time was no easier than looking forward. No two minds saw history the same way and he fought down the trails of communal memory in search of her.

1. It was a faint sound, a wavering cry all the more disturbing for it’s tenor.

2. The light was creeping across the ground inch by inch, consuming everything that could not flee.

3. A world without magic was– different. Transforming them from Gods to tinkerers, but having lost nothing in the process.

4. This was the last of it, three shimmering grains of sand and then the life he’d horded so carefully would be spent. He wasted them all on one last night with her… and spent eternity without regret.

5. Something, something– it was there just on the edge of hearing, and it was driving her mad.

1. There are no seasons here, nothing but the migration patterns of the local wildlife even hint that there is any solar orbit at all.

2. Push does finally come to shove, but everyone’s disturbingly polite and diplomatic about things while people are dying to prove a point.
3. It never rains, per se, the fog just gets thicker and thicker until water condenses on every available surface.

4. Angels don’t sing, not where we can hear them at least. You only know they’re coming into range when your bones begin to hum and your ears pop under the pressure.

5. “If you could have anything what would it be?”

“That’s a stupid question and I plead the fifth.”

“That’s not the point.”

“Incriminating me very damned well is the point, and what I want is none of your bleeping business anyway.”

“… Did you just get bleeped?”

“Yes, now bleep off and let me out of this bleeping room.”

1. Sometimes he went deaf slowly, sounds fading away into gradual nothingness. Other times it was a sharp snap of silence the severed his connection to the world.

2. Peace, like war, is never a solid state; it twists and bends as the politicians fight back and forth across the long wooden tables. But out here, on the edges of the kingdoms where it comes down to imaginary lines drawn in the dirt, they’ve stopped caring. Crops still need tending, animals need feeding, and children need to be kept out of their neighbors orchards.

3. The aliens had wanted to be accommodating, taking human forms and features in order to put the world at ease– but the ambassadors quickly convinced them to refrain.

4. “We come in peace.” Jack was doing his best impression of a benevolent dictator while the small group behind him kept watch for any sudden movements.

“And heavily armed.” The spokesperson for the village looked unimpressed

“Sometimes peace isn’t mutual.”

5. There’s nothing quite like dying together to cement a relationship.

1. So this is how the world ends, with a sort of hiccup and the sound of someone making tea.

2. Life is rarely about the large choices, but the truth is it doesn’t have to be– mountains can be moved with spoons as well as bulldozers.

3. Dragons were as old as the bedrock, put in place when the world was first formed from the mists. Performing tasks understood only by the First Men and continuing on their slow methodical paths around the world.

4. “Think about it like this, if we don’t go we won’t die.”
“Okay, I really don’t think that’s as inspiring as you want it to be.”

5. The tree arcs out from the cliff, branches littered with tiny lavender flowers and wide waxy green leaves shaped like hands folded in prayer.

1. The city ends in a stumbling rush into the sea, as if the builders had been laying mortar as it fell. The rubble only adds to the illusion and she carefully picks her way among the artistically off-kilter houses, still half-expecting them to fall.

2. ‘Speak now or forever hold your peace’, is much more compelling when when someone is holding a gun to your head.

3. She’s never woken up before the sun before. A lifetime of sleeping in has left her unjaded to the stark beauty of the sunrise and she takes a moment to watch while Stephen packs the tents.

4. They refused to speak of it later, not because the words weren’t sincere, but because ‘normal’ life had no room for relationships built on terror.

5. Drip. Drip. Drip. Tiny, shiny drops of blood. Dance along the knife blade, quick-quick crimson shower. Dru watched the hypnotic roll of the droplets as they flowed along the steel, humming a cheerful and woefully inappropriate tune as Michael worked.

“Luv, have you ever even seen the Smurfs?” He asked.

1. They are Givers of the Last Gift, ghosts walking the battlefields robed in vibrant yellow. Yellow for the sun, and the warmth, and the flowers that spring from their footsteps. As many a man that prays this day for the white of the healers, prays for the touch of the yellow.

2. School changes you, forces you to adapt to the fact that Darwin’s Law is alive and well in suburbia.

3. Werewolves are myths and have always been myths, but people love to cling to what they know and our killer seemed determined to keep them happy.

4. The thing she missed the most from Earth was eggs. There were no birds here, no reptiles, not even a platypus to keep things interesting. Breakfast just didn’t seem the same, even if Eric had managed to find the local version of pancakes and bacon.

5. Space was vast. Really really vast. She squinted at the map, zoomed in, zoomed out, and sat back in the chair with a sigh.

“We’re lost?” Scot gave her a worried frown from under the console where he was still trying to rewire the aft landing controls.

“Nope, but it’ll take us a month to get in range to signal for help.”

There was a pause. “I think I’d prefer we were lost.”

1. She took her grandfather’s sword and went out in the world to seek her fortune. Two years later she came back home with a tinker’s wagon, a talking donkey for a husband and a burning desire to never ever seek fortunes again… So fortunes took to seeking her instead.

2. Silences are long and short, heavy and pregnant, empty and still. They creep into the places between words, between breaths, and multiply until you can’t breathe for drowning in them. Which is why I never stop talking, it’s the only way to stay safe…

3. “This is the part where things get messy,” he gave her a pointed look and she frowned, confused.
“What? Oh yeah, got it, that’s my bit.” Her grin was back, only this time it had way too many teeth.

4. No one knew why they called it the Singing Rocks– true, the wind did make noises as it wound through the honeycombs, but the screams and wails could hardly be called singing.

5. No one could out-Evil the Magnificent Missy McCormack on her best day and this was certainly not her best day.

1. The sun breaks through the clouds in fits and stutters. It’s not enough to dry their wings and lift them from the mud, but it’s too much light to keep pretending what their slogging through is merely dirt and rain.

2. The first betrayal hurts the most, but after that you settle in and learn to play the game.

3. It’s always night in Yndora.

4. “Death first!” Coupled with his trademark dramatic pose, the Hero’s battle-cry never failed to inspire terror in Evildoers everywhere.

Only this time his opponent frowned instead of fled.

“Actually, wouldn’t that be death last?” The Evil Overload pointed out. “Strictly speaking, you aren’t bound to do much else after that.” He was polite, if still irredeemably Evil.

“Well fine,” the Hero paused for a moment. “Death before dishonor then?”

“Fair enough.”

And they got back to fighting.

5. Blue was the color of oceans and skies, endless empty spaces devoid of life-that-spoke– spaces where Vemordin would never find them.

1. Dogs are good at keeping track of times of the day, but not so much with days of the week– which is where the problem started…

2. Hatching Day was actually more of a hatching week, with clutches starting to crack shell on the third new moon of the year and running well into the waning moon.

3. There were no WalMarts in space, but there Company ships that traced flattened parabolas across the sky. Restocking rockets met them along the way, pushed faster than flesh could bear and oblivious to anything in their path.

4. Wishes were heard and answered by the Itty Bitty Kitty Committee, with special attention given to fish related appeals.

5. Insanity was infectious, spreading from Hive to Hive in a fractal pattern of death.

1. Practical Applications of Impractical Daydreams : Room 407A, Seating is Limited so all Time Travelers must apply at least two weeks after the class has been given.

2. They never think to check the in-betweens –places neither wholly this side nor the other– because the tiny pockets aren’t big enough for even the smallest of Kingdoms to take hold.

3. Never look behind you– never look and you never have to see.

4. “The world ended yesterday.”

Steven looked up at the man across from him on the bus trying to figure out what had prompted the conversation.

“See?” The man flipped the newspaper around so Steven could make out the headlines. “Didn’t even notice it myself.”

Steven shrugged, “Probably just a prank. Head Office would have told us, I’m sure.”

“Suppose we’ll find out when we try and get in.”

5. My father’s eyes were brown and mine were green– wasn’t too hard to figure out why mother had been sent home after I was hatched.

1. Snip-snap went the bones, Nip-nash went the teeth, and bit by bit the Devouring Soul was eaten away by Misty Von Vine and her Amazing Technicolor Mice.

2. Magic and Alchemy are both unforgiving arts, combining the two almost guaranteed failure– something Professor Albion should have known.

3. The truth is, the internet does forget.

4. Where the tower had stood only a vast pool of molten rock remained. Slowly expanding over the centuries as the heat from the volcano channeled through Nibs enchanted hearthstone.

5. If anyone else had seen the unicorn, they weren’t admitting it. Patrick wasn’t about to go blurting it out either– preteen humans were vicious when they sensed weakness.

1. Turns out Reality has a shelf-life.

2. Money changes everything. It shouldn’t, but it does, and now he’s trapped behind the family legacy he thought he’d escaped.

3. Every spell drains his life away, replacing his memories with those of his split-soul.

4. When a djinn asks you to dance, the right answer is never ‘no.’

5. Empathic magic cared what you felt, Literal magic cared what you said.

1. At first Glenn thought they’d reached the river, but as they drew closer the glints and ripples turned into a seething mass of snakes.

2. Immortal minds can’t fit into mortal shells. Even though they cut themselves down, paring away their memories to fit the glass slipper of humanity, the cracks are already there.

3. The moon is never full the nights my Mother’s demon haunts me.

4. She’d never thought of it as hoarding, after all wasn’t she taking good care of them? Protecting them from suffering? So maybe she might have kept one or two more princesses around than necessity demanded… but she was a dragon, it was tradition!

5. In the real world there is no ‘Fool Me Twice’…

1. “There are some fights in life that can’t be won, kid; he didn’t bring a gun to a knife fight, he brought a 50 cal. Just let it go.”

2. The sun rose over the eastern mountain range, a pale glimmer behind the curtain of clouds. Rain was a horrible omen for royal births, but the dragons were tired of waiting.

3. “It was only a dollar a stem last week!” She snapped, waving the bunch of limp herbs at the shopkeep. “What the hell?”

“It’s almost Valentine’s Day, what’d you expect?” He nodded at the throng of would-be potion makers who had flooded the market in search of ingredients to catch the perfect spouse… and to make antidotes, just in case.

4. He wants to rule the world, abet through corporate monopolies and company towns rather than dictatorships, but it amounts to the same thing.

5. It’s easier to collect them than she had anticipated; they watch their children closely, but their teenagers…