vignettes

[marycatelli]

This week's prompt is:
shelter

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]

"Here's to hoping the fleeing soldiers found shelter without much trouble," said Liam grimly. "They can still be a peril. Especially to the farmers."
"I have sent patrols," said the captain. "We may have to shelter them ourselves. Those whom we find. At least we have tents for our own."

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

How much longer would this solar storm continue? Already the storm shelter was feeling more crowded by the minute -- and you didn't get to become an astronaut if you couldn't handle tight quarters.

It would've helped if they hadn't needed to turn off all non-essential electronics. Ray understood the rationale -- it lowered both the risk of damage and the drain on the power systems. But it meant that they were stuck down here with nothing but each other's company to pass the time -- and as luck would have it, they didn't have a single decent storyteller among them.

[marycatelli]

Sometimes you have to have the most basic and ancient of skills.

[starshipcat.livejournal.com]

Felethya had never realized just how sheltered she'd been until being thrown upon her own resources. Those first days had been a nightmare of hunger and cold -- so when Sarkandiv had asked her if she wanted to work for him, she hadn't thought twice. Right then she'd take anything that would give her hot meals and a warm bed to sleep in.

In retrospect, she'd been incredibly lucky. He could've been a pimp who would've let her out to an endless stream of lecherous men. He could've made her a serving-girl for hire, sending her to one house after another to do the lowest of menial work.

Instead he'd brought her into his business, where her nimble fingers had proven apt to setting type. Delighted to have someone better than the average run of printers' devils, he'd taught her the basics of editing, and was now entrusting her with ever-increasing responsibility.

Responsibility that was now putting her in the public eye. How long would it be before the family that had disowned and abandoned her would notice her new status?

[marycatelli]

complications, always complications!

Perhaps she should have gone by a new name and denied everything.

[marycatelli]

"You can build a proper one, with little smoke," said Lucie, scrambling from the wagon. "If we have the wood. Then the trees will be shelter enough from prying eyes."
Karlos swung his legs out and stood. Ciara looked a little sour, as if she expected them to follow her.

[marycatelli]

Nothing showed any sign of shelter or food, as far as she could see. She walked down the hill, staying far enough from the stream to avoid slipping in mud or having to clamber over rocks. Birds sang in the trees, and the brook babbled, and Sylvie told herself that the mercenaries would be loud enough for her to hear.
Down and down through stands of oaks where acorns rolled underfoot, through groves of beech with silvery bark, and the sun inched across the sky. Dark trees appeared ahead: a stand of fir trees, too thick for her to see the other side of them, and the stream flowed through it.
Snowfall stopped and meowed. Sylvie walked on. Snowfall stayed close by her feet, which did not hearten her. The stream flowed steadily, almost flat, no longer gurgling. Nothing grew in the shade of the firs, it was so dark.

[marycatelli]

The petitioners came crowding into the shelter of the outpost, looking about it. Townsfolk, not villagers, and not the poorest sort of townsfolk, either, from their garb. They told Leonard that they had come to speak with the knights in charge of the outpost, about ill councilors in their town.