#fff206

For @flashfictionfridayofficial’s prompt: “Sink or Swim”

Consider it the fifth installment of the lighthouse keeper shorts.

Rating: Mature

CW: peril, drowning

.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.

I meant nothing to the sea.

Humans were supposed to be more buoyant in water.

No one filled the open ocean in on that fact.

I told them we should have headed home long before the sun set — we had time to get back then, and we still had time when I told them again, and again, and then... and then the fog rolled in. The sun dipped below the far-off rocks we thought belonged the little fishing village from which we'd left. We could just keep sailing forward, they told me. Eventually we would be home, but until then, why not kick back, enjoy the trip for once.

How enjoyable is the trip now, James, I thought, with your dad's expensive sailboat in pieces and the tide ripping us one-by-one away from the sharp rocks that turned out not to be the fucking fishing village?

I held out the longest. My boyfriend and his idiot friends probably would have attributed it to how high strung I was, but it was more likely because I was the only one who hadn't been drinking. There was only so much of a beating I could take from the waves, and undertow I could resist, and cold I could try to shiver away. None of the lighthearted surfing movies I grew up on made drowning seem quite as terrifying as it really was. It burned — my lungs, my throat, my nose, the cuts and scrapes all over my body, everywhere the water went, it brought the stinging salt with it. I wondered after a while of clinging to that rock if it would be the lack of oxygen, the physical exhaustion, or just plain bleeding out that would finally sap the last of my strength.

(Spoiler: it was all three, plus a heaping side of crushing anxiety and a deep, dark sadness that AP English and a perfect GPA and burning myself out with extracurriculars and one last semester at Harvard meant nothing to the sea. I meant nothing to the sea.)

It tore me right off that rock and swallowed me whole, tossing and turning my body like a rag doll caught in the spin cycle. Just when I thought it was through playing with its food, the tide would change directions, allow me to break the surface just long enough to choke on rain, then yanked me right back down to drag my face across the sand. I might have begged it for mercy once or twice. I thought I heard it laugh. Glad someone was having a good time.

What felt like hours, days later, the pain finally started to fade.

Something massive collided with my side. It would have knocked the wind from my lungs if they'd had any left.

Naively, I hoped it was James, miraculously still alive and risking that precious gift to make sure I got home safe.

The sea wasn't quite done beating the shit out of me, it seemed; great, heavy blows connected with my spine, my chest, cracked my ribs, bruised my cheek—

"Cough, stupid!" something hissed inside my skull.

I did, and if I thought the water sucked going in, it was much, much worse coming back out. Again, a mighty fist smashed against my back, and again, and again, until it was satisfied I'd returned all that I'd unwillingly taken from the sea. If I died and all my good deeds meant anything at all to the universe, then God was a fucking asshole.

He laughed, thunderous and cruel, and smacked my back again.

The world went dark.

It returned far too bright and stinking of brine. My ingratitude offended the earth, apparently, because a sinkhole opened up beside my hip, rolling me towards — something solid. Message received, I was so grateful for the light and the fermenting salt.

"Good t'see drownin' didn't kill your sense of humor." Thick fingers gripped my jaw and shook it like I'd put something in my mouth a dog wasn't supposed to swallow. "C'mon, we got work to do."

I grimaced, cracking one eye open wide enough to make out the face of God. Beady eyes and rows of teeth greeted me.

"Am I in Hell?" I croaked without thinking any wiser of it.

The Devil laughed again. "Maybe," he sneered. "Depends on you." He rose, but rather than callously let the mattress fling me off the other side, his massive, scarred hand closed over my arm and yanked me to my feet.

"I don't think I'm in any state to—"

"Complain? Nah. You got a name?"

No sooner had it fallen from my tongue, it was swept away on a gust of wind.

"Idiot," he chuckled. "You're a Keeper now. Have to be smarter than that if you're gonna survive out here."

At least the anger kept me on my feet as he turned away. "And what's yours, then?"

The smile he cast over his shoulder wasn't friendly. "Xoctosz," he said. "Try to take it, Keeper."

"What are you?" I called after him. He beckoned me to follow. I dug my feet in.

None of the sharks I'd seen on my recreational dives had quite so many teeth. "Death." Again, he beckoned.

I curled my toes into the gaps between the warped floorboards.

"I'm not a patient man, Keeper."

"And what if I don't want to be your keeper?"

The windows all slammed open and the stormwinds rushed in. "Water's right there. You can leave any time."

FFF206 Sink or Swim - the weekly prompt by @flashfictionfridayofficial

Not my finest writing, but not perfect is better than not at all, so there it is. A short drabble about Newt's first day at The Witchfinder Army, enjoy.

"Reporting for duty, sir!"

"Good, good, a young man with manners. You don't get too many of those these days."

Newt felt it was a rhetorical statement, and chose, wisely, to remain silent. Not that it mattered, Sergeant Shadwell continued to ramble without waiting for an answer.

"Here, lad, this is your most important weapon in the war against evil."

"Scissors? I thought that a wooden stake is the weapon of choice against vampires."

"Vampires? Ah, they have never done anything wrong to me. No, lad, the real war is against witches!"

It was called The Witchfinder Army, so fighting against them made sense, in a way, though Newt wasn't too clear just what exactly was that sense. "This is really the purpose of the organization? I thought it was just a symbolic name."

"This is a serious war, and you have to brace yourself, the fight is not easy. Now, grab the scissors, and listen carefully to the instructions because I will not repeat myself. You got to learn on your feet, sink or swim. What is it going to be?"

Sympatry of Mermaid Kind

Word Count: 773

Themes: mermaids, fantasy, urban fantasy

@flashfictionfridayofficial

Aegaea’s head bobbed on the surface of the water, watching a crowd of tourists and locals alike gather around their little town’s dock. Just like them, she watched in wonder and awe, transfixed by the woman in the water.

Sink or Swim ( a parenting metaphor)

For @flashfictionfridayofficial 206 amazing prompt: sink or swim

It is how I taught my boys to swim. Placing them between myself and their dad, letting them go. Oh, they were in arms reach of us, no one was going to drown. The point, they learn to swim so they don’t sink. In the safety of our outstretched arms, they were free to learn, without fear, knowing we would save then.

As they got older and more proficient, the space between us grew. They had to travel more distance to reach safety. We could still safe them, were there need, but, letting them flounder a bit, gaining confidence to save themselves, made them better swimmers.

Eventually, we could watch from the beach knowing they would be alright in their own.

This is a good metaphor for parenting. At first, they need the safety of your arms. In the water of life, that is the only place they are safe. Everything has to be taken care of for them.

Then they start to crawl and, though they look back to make sure you are still there, they venture out a bit on their own.  Walking then running, but still looking for us, making sure you are still there to run back to.

With ever milestone, it is the same, starting school, first sleepover, first date. We keep giving them more room to swim freely.

for @flashfictionfridayofficial prompt #FFF206 Sink or Swim

Sranch stood beside the docks, watching the hustle of fisherman and dockworkers unloading that night’s catch. Cold waves lapped against her calves, lowering her core temperature further and further from normal.

The big boats unloaded, and the fisherman and dockworkers carried away the last loads then went home to sleep. Sranch swung her legs up onto the dock. The sky was lightening from the sun getting close to rising, and Sranch couldn’t be in the wrong place when it did.

Sranch was sitting in the middle of the dock watching a spider that had crawled onto her knife when Thorl’s boots clomped down the docks.

“You Sranch? Get in the boat, the sooner we leave, more time on the ocean,” Thorl said, glancing at the thirteen-year-old.

Sranch scrambled after Thorl into the tiny boat at the edge of the dock. The boat surged as Sranch was climbing in. Sranch jumped back, shocked.

“You coming or not?” Thorl untied the boat. “I don’t need an apprentice.”

Sranch stepped onto the boat. She stepped off the dock, pushing the boat forward. In order to stay in the boat, Sranch fell into the boat.

Seagulls flew around above.

Thorl let the waves carry the boat out deeper and deeper.

“When do we start fishing?” Sranch asked.

“We’re not fishing. You are. Shadow-fishers don’t work in teams.”

Sranch peeks over the edge of the edge of the boat, watching the mackerels swim.

“Maybe it would be easier if the sun was up higher, so we could see deeper into the ocean,” Sranch said as she let down a shadow-fish catcher.

“Then the fish would be deeper down. If you can’t find a shadowfish today, I won’t teach you, regardless of what Homas wants.” Thorl looked up from untangling the line.

When the sun was at the zenith, Sranch felt a tug on the line of the shadow-fish catcher. She pulled it up, only to find a cod.

She refilled the bait.

Before Sranch dropped the catcher down, Thorl said, “Add a mirror bit to it.”

Sranch took a mirror shard from the baitbox, and put it in with the bait.

With the shadow-fish catcher dropped, Sranch turned towards Thorl “I guess the mirror makes sense, it probably stops the fish from eating all–”

The line to the shadow-fish catcher tugged at Sranch’s hand, she pulled it up.

Nothing, even the mirror was gone. Sranch replaced the bait, even the mirror bit, and let the trap back down.

After eating her meal for the Sranch tugged at the line, the line slipped from her hand and the trap went much deeper.

When the sun was deep enough in the sky Sranch needed to squint when she looked out towards the deep ocean, the trap tugged again.

Sranch, tired from a long day rocking back and forth, hauled the trap up.

A fish came up with, its scales dark, capturing all the light.

“Guess you do have it in you, after all. I’ll start teaching you tomorrow. Feel free to eat that fish if you want, but all the rest we’re selling.”

(Written for @flashfictionfridayofficial​‘s prompt: FFF206 Sink or Swim. Not related to anything else I’m working on at this point but set using some of the Hell worldbuilding. CW: grief, near death experience, implied major injuries. Enjoy!)

A dreamer must wake or die.

 That’s the second lesson anyone with any affinity for Fate learns. The first is that Seeing is more burden than blessing, but you learn that on your own.

 If they apply to affinity, they apply even more so to the designated heir of Fate, her Child.

 In a silent cave in one of the regions of Hell, a demon drops to her knees as she removes her armour at a bedside. She peels off her vest, braces, masks and removes her boots. She tangles her fingers with her best friend’s, clenching and unclenching the cold hand. She lets go, just long enough to close the curtain separating them from the rest of the world and then returns to the bedside.

 She’s never needed words, but she needs them now.

 “The fungus is taking well to your bones.” Her voice is hoarse as she tries to will warmth and movement through the hand. “It’s healing the breaks. Noctern told me that.”

 Her voice cracks. “I think I did well, pretending I can go on. Ani offered to impersonate me if I needed to leave, but she’s—she’s done enough for us. She’s the one who figured out the throat damage, you know? And she says it’s your mind. So. She’s trying to see if she can meet you inside your own mind safely.”

 Her fingers tremble and she raises a hand to brush a stray strand. “I was the one who argued for you to be moved here. Time passes more slowly here, as you know, because I figured you would want to get back to your duties as soon as you get back. But I want you to stay.”

 “I always want you to stay, but it’s okay.” She shifts her weight to lean against the bedframe. “I love you, even if I don’t say that enough. It was—it was horrifying—finding you. Just… just floating in the River. In the shallows, at least, but—but still.”

             “Hello, Nyx.” She lets go, knife flying to hand as she turns, eyes cold at the new voice.

             “What are you doing here?” She spits, blocking the newcomer from stepping forward. “Haven’t you done enough harm already?”

             Fate looks back at her, pupilless gold eyes meeting hers. “Can I not visit my Child? You’re not the only one who has a claim on her.”

             “She died for you.” Nyx spits, “She died. Because. Of. You.”

           Fate looks at her steadily. “You seem to believe so. Why?”

             Fate glides forward, silver cloak gleaming in the dim lighting of the glow worms, and angles Her head forward as She settles at the foot of the bed.

             “Don’t you dare. I had to—I was the one who found her body there. I was the one who walked in and pulled her out and managed to get her in the time frame to pull her close enough to life to get her soul to stay. Okay. So, don’t you sit there. And- and pretend she doesn’t mean anything.”

             Fate pushes off the hood from Her head. “I don’t defend myself to you, Queen Nyx of the House of Night. Koya’s choices were her own.”

             “Don’t call me that.” Nyx hisses, claws extending as she steps forward. “Koya wouldn’t have done it if you hadn’t given her the Sight. She died because you messed with her mind enough that she needed to know what was true. So she stepped into the Void.”

             “And?”

             “Don’t give me that. It’s sink or swim, that’s what you all say. You and Time were the ones who told her about the Test in the first place. You were the ones who made her feel like she needed to walk through it to be worthy.” Nyx spits, one claw close enough that she would have taken Fate’s eye out of She was mortal. “She was always worthy!”

             “I see. Thank you for telling me.”

             Nyx recoils. “What is that supposed to mean?”

           “I felt Koya fall into the River, because the River is moving water of a sort, which I can feel.” Fate tilts Her head. “Hasn’t being her friend taught you anything, Queen Nyx? Fate cannot affect anything that it knows directly. She is my Child, I cannot even see her.”

             “Then how did you find this place?” Nyx demands.

             “It took some searching.” Fate opens Her hands and rises. She steps forward, looking upon Koya’s face. “She will breathe again. It is not her time.”

             “Frankly, I do not give a single flying fart if it was.” Nyx says, “I am not yours, and your rules do not apply to me. I will do anything to get her back.”

           “You spend a lot of time defying me, Queen Nyx of the Night.” Fate notes, “Or at least, you try to.”

           “Got a problem with that?”

           Fate waves a hand. “Oh, certainly not. Koya chose well, but she’s always had good Senses even before I named her my Child.”

             Before Nyx could retort, Fate runs one hand over Koya’s hair. “I’ll take my leave for now. But know that someday, I will catch up to you, Queen Nyx. And you may not like the consequences when I do.”

           She glides to the curtain, Her cloak floating behind her, and Her pocket watch clicking as it swings from between her fingers. It clicks twice as Fate reaches the curtain. “Oh yes, and she will wake. Make of that what you will.”

             The curtain sweeps close behind Her. Nyx settles back, heart thumping, claws receding back into fingernails.

             “That was something, huh?” She whispers quietly.

             And then she pauses. Her hearing is sharp enough that she doesn’t need to do this but she needs confirmation.

             She rests her ear against Koya’s wrist.

A/N: just a short of a werewolf daunted by a dare by their pals.^^ Word Count: 524 T.W/C.W: hydrophobia, i guess

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Crows cawed from trees towering over the ground of soil. A crescent moon hovered over the dark blue sky, where glints of stars surrounded it. Also stimulating below a lake's surface, casting rippling reflections on the water.

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#FFF 206 Sink or Swim

Avatar: Legend of Korra

612 words

CW: Implied sexual content

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A gift for @slowdissolve ahead of a busy day tomorrow.

Story below the cut.