vignettes

[marycatelli]

This week's prompt is:
blink

Anyone can join, with a 50-word creative fiction vignette in the comments. Your vignette does not have to include the prompt term.

Comments

[marycatelli]

It vanished.
Faster than a puff of candle smoke before a sharp wind, it was gone. Lucie wondered for a minute if she blinked. Then, Autumn and Ciara had dispatched their shadows as swiftly.
Shadows danced as she turned. Their swords still glowed.
"This may have unwisely tipped our hands."

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

In theory, the server rooms were supposed to be strictly access-controlled. In practice, a surprisingly large number of non-technical people had access for various purposes. All perfectly legitimate, often essential, but done by people who didn’t understand the equipment surrounding them.

The latest was a tech from the robotics shop, retrieving a broken-down floor-cleaning bot. At least his line of work gave him enough awareness of computer operations that he didn’t do too much damage. But in the process of crawling under one of the racks to retrieve his bot, he’d managed to dislodge a critical cooling hose just enough to make a mess.

These days Steffi Roderick really appreciated the “blinkenlights” sign posted prominently in all of Purdue’s computer rooms back when she was doing her degree. Sometimes she was tempted to make one for herself and hang it at the entrance to the server rooms.

However, she wasn’t entirely confident that the people who most needed the warning would understand the message — or get the joke.

[marycatelli]

Must be real fun when the bot does it.

[marycatelli]

Rosaleen drew out the handkerchief and threw it on the carpet before herself.
"Let him say so himself, and then walk over this handkerchief."
Silence lasted after that. She fought against blinking, and looked from prince to prince.
Don't bite your lip, she told herself. You will find the prince.

[marycatelli]

Faster than he had known he could, he hid himself. His heart beat so loudly, and his breath came so harshly, that he thought she might find him by them alone.
She blinked. Then she blinked again. Then, her breath hissing out, she lashed out, water and wind blasting the air before her.
He shield himself as little as he could. She did not seem to pick out where the water did not go as it slid by him, to either hand. His gaze flickered back and forth, looking for a way to attack.
A large rock flew at her.

[marycatelli]

One knight shifted about behind her. Which, thought Dawn sourly, was more of a clue than he might have realized.
The attack glimmered so brightly that it cast her shadow before her. And then she heard the gasps as it dissolved.
She looked.
"Perhaps you are keeping yourself in proper readiness," said the knight, shamelessly. "There will be other tests. No knight trusts his safety to a raw and untried knight without it."
She did not speak. Or blink.
"There will be more," said another knight. "Many more."
Dawn still did not speak. If she had failed here, they would have justified them on the grounds that she had already failed and needed to show she had learned.
"Are you ready to leave yet?" came a cranky call.
"Yes, of course," called Dawn, and walked briskly out toward the road. A long day trudging was at least a welcome respite.