We’ve hit 20 prompts and 47 submissions! Go us!

I’ve decided to update the prompt schedule to every two weeks. Since Maddy and I are busy and behind, I’m switching to a more sustainable schedule. With that said, I have TWO REMINDERS:

Prompts don’t expire!

There is no submission limit!

So if you want to submit something for a prompt from months ago, please do! If you have three ideas for the same prompt, submit all of them!

The list of past prompts is always located here, but as of right now, here are the prompts we’ve had so far: red ❤️, cage 🔐 , dream 🛌 , eve 🕯️ , dance 🩰, gift 🎁 , change 🦋, brandy 🥃 , silver 🫴🏼, snow ❄️ , carve 🪵, road 🛣️, button 🧥, kiss 😘 , bead 👒, wine 🍷 , jest 🤣 , flower 🌺 , enough 😤, memory 🤔

Happy writing!

We'll be taking a little break on posting new prompts! There are still loads of backlogged prompts here if you're in need!

Chivalry died, and Chade had done nothing.

“Chivalry was an excellent rider! He wouldn’t have fallen off a horse!” Chade argued with his brother, the king and Chiv’s father. Surely he’d want to know.

Shrewd looked at him with reddened eyes. “We all make mistakes, even Chivalry.” He shook his head as though to clear it. “Desire sent some men to check. The horse had been behaving strangely that morning and Chiv had insisted on riding despite this.”

Chade’s jaw clenched with words he could not say. He found a civil tongue. “Surely it would do no harm for me to check.”

Shrewd’s face went flat. “Do you doubt the Queen?”

Chade had been trained to lie since he was a child. “Of course not, my king. It is only—“

“My son is dead, Chade. Do not make it worse than it already is. He is dead and gone, and Desire’s men confirmed the cause.” The King turned away from his assassin, and Chade was dismissed.

This one is set somewhere in Assassin's Apprentice.

It was beautiful the day Chade went to pick flowers.

He would become distracted every once in awhile, coming back to himself with his face turned to the sky, his eyes closed, just feeling the warmth of the sun on his skin, the kiss of the breeze. Each time, he would shake himself free of it and turn his eyes toward the meadow.

He looked for dark green leaves, oval in shape, with bell-shaped flowers, purple at the opening and fading to greenish yellow at the base. He excised one plant, roots and all, and tucked it into his basket.

He looked for a shrub with silver-green leaves that were white and furry on the underside, with leaves that split into threes near the steam, to split again and again, terminating in rounded tips. The flowers were small bunches of yellow. He found one that still had a few buds and pulled it out of the ground. It joined the basket.

He went to the wetter part of the meadow, his eyes searching for different purple bells, for different partitioned leaves. The bells would be a deeper shade of purple and grow in clumps while the leaves had pointed tips. He squawked when he spotted it, and the sound startled him. He thought he’d trained himself out of making sound without purpose, but perhaps he had spent too long in the sun. The meadow was far enough from civilization that, in the unlikely event someone saw him, they would think him an omen instead of a person. The Pocked Man was known to haunt these woods, after all.

Chade pulled this final plant up from the roots, and it too joined the basket. Belladonna, wormwood, and wolfsbane, all plants his apprentice would need to know from root to stem. It would be more educational if the boy joined him in these expeditions, but the boy’s absence from his daytime duties would be noticed. Still, Chade would do his best to bring the meadow to the boy.

He turns back to the castle, his steps slow, and soon he had to pull up his scarf to cover the lower half of his face and his hood to hide the rest. Even so, he went on a hidden route back to the castle, avoiding the places people liked to walk and linger. He slipped between a gap in the guard patrols to make his way to the door to the castle, the only entrance he made use of anymore. It too was a secret.

This is set in my Fool's Fate Fix It AU <3

I shut the door on my friend.

"Sir?" Revel called from behind me, and I turned out to find him in the small glow of the candle he held. Tavia and Mild were with him too, lingering on the stairs while Revel was above them on the landing. Anxious concern was written all over the faces and rendered them rooted to the spot, not knowing whether if to step closer or flee. I bitterly hoped the Fool's screaming hadn't woken up the rest of the estate.

"He's fine," I stepped away from the door, the sound of my feet, although bare, prominent in the fragile silence. "Just a nightmare. Please, go back to your beds."

With action being lifted from their wearied shoulders onto their lord's, the three broke from their spell, and fatigue crept to where alarm had kept it at bay. Revel shifted to hold his candle in both hands, and glanced at the Fool's locked door, but didn't say anything. As I stepped to the landing, Tavia ventured, "shall I make a cup of tea for Lord Chance, sir?"

"No, no, I will take care of it. Please, to your beds," I ushered them again. I longed to rush past them, but could not, and when the echoes of their footsteps vanished into the night within the mansion, I rushed the steps two at a time and crossed the hall into the kitchen.

Above the faded embers, a pot was quietly simmering, its faint steam rising to meet the hearthstones. A kettle rested on the workable, awaiting the morning tea. I filled it with an amount of chamomile and valerian I knew wouldn't be too bitter for the Fool's taste, and poured two ladleful of water the dried leaves. Like a tidal wave, the Fool's screaming had wiped all tiredness from my body, and left me with the sole purpose of caring for my friend. There was more I could do to ease him besides tea.

With nothing than my nightclothes, I stepped into the kitchen garden. The wind was gentle, but had the bite of winter, and the gathered clouds promised rain to come. I walked between the rows of raised garden beds of herbs and climbing vegetables until I reached the one I sought. Lavender, almost black against the night still standing tall despite the downpours it had endured. I snapped its stem, and suddenly recalled a different flower, in a very different room. The Fool's deadened eyes, then his sneer. The weight of him in my arms and I carried and deposited his body on the bed. My own words, pounding my mind like a war drum, so bitter I could choke on them. No amount of lavender could ever settle the memory of that tumultuous, ill-fated moment. It was a cataclysm, a shattering between us that I could not conceive of mending. But the Fool had let me. Like he had said, that moment would forever remain between us, but we could have many others. I had not given him flowers then; perhaps I could start now.

“I dreamt there was a wolf caught in ropes, being tugged in all directions. Each owner shouted at the wolf, ‘Come, dog! Heel!’ And the wolf wanted to obey, to become a dog, but there were too many leashes.” I took a thoughtful pause before addressing my audience. “Tell me, Ratsy, what do you think that means?”

I looked toward my stuffed friend, and he said and did nothing. This was not surprising, but it seemed rude not to ask. But the dream was so obvious, and an answer hardly seemed necessary.

“You’re right, of course. But what to do about it?” I spun Ratsy’s scepter around thoughtfully, back and forth. When I grew tired of the motion, I stopped, and he faced away from me, his furry rear and bottom all I could see.

A slow smile crept over my face. “Wolves do love moons, and I dare say I have the palest moon of all!”