vignettes

[marycatelli]

This week's prompt is:
cruel

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]

She half-wished they would attack. The creep across the floor was cruel, though she reminded herself with every step that she had fought once and not done well, or found it pleasant.
She would have to learn.
The doorway loomed ahead of her. At least now she had a rear-guard.

[marycatelli]

"They flee for the forests," said the king.
"That would still be cruel," said Rosaleen. "How can they plow and get the harvest in without the men who hide?"
"Ah,"said the king. "King Henry trusts only men from his own kingdom to find soldiers. They do not know the land."

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

Someone had Shepardsport Pirate Radio playing on their computer. Ken Redmond recognized the song. "Nick Lowe's 'Cruel to Be Kind.' Takes me right back to the summer of '79, right before I started junior high."

Brenda nodded politely as her father reminisced of a time she knew only from history books, when there was still a Soviet Union, and human cloning was still a Cold War secret. Maybe it was a simpler time in some ways, but she knew all too well how easy it was to remember one's youth through rose-colored glasses.

Maybe it's just that you've had to grow up a lot faster here on the High Frontier, so those memories haven't time to take on the warm patina of age.

[marycatelli]

Ah, life.

[marycatelli]

Henrik already grumbled that it was a cruel thing, to make valiant and noble knights rise this early in the morning, to act as caravan guards, and Karl moved. They were on the way in moments, which at least curbed the grumbles.
The sunrise eased the gray and the chill, and after a bit, Henrik began a merry drinking song.
Florangela rolled her eyes. Karl began to count the furlongs before the prisoner could distract Henrik. Assuming the prisoner could distract him.
He looked over a slope to a village when Henrik grunted.
"Is that our prisoner?" he said, incredulously.