"All those Roman busts were painted, you know," remarked Lea without turning, inking eyeliner onto the angel in the library courtyard fountain. It was as tall as she was, so she perched with her feet on opposite edges of the narrow plinth and anchored herself to the statue with her free arm.

Romy remained unconvinced that the librarians would approve. It really was beautiful, all the same. She'd mastered human skin tones, somehow, and been imbuing every statue she came across with life.

Lea dropped back into the fountain with a gentle splash and admired her handiwork, hands on hips. "That'll do." Romy's fear of getting caught was instantly replaced with a dread of squelching and dripping their way back through the library. Lea had not intended to step in the water at all, but had slipped when climbing the statue, and now accepted her fate.

"Why don't you have any normal hobbies?" Lea only brightened, a mischievous smile blooming. Romy rubbed her eyes and the bridge of her nose, chin on both thumbs. "Should we go check out the fountain in the rose garden as long as you're already sopping wet?"

Lea considered it, and then shook her head. "I do have plans for the frieze patterns there, and the fairies, but there are no angels." Romy looked up, puzzled, to meet a somehow even more mischievous smile. "I didn't pack my sans-seraph fountain pens."

(inspired by https://dirtyknight.life/objects/efb8d6f5-8ada-4e3b-8472-bfe983b529ea)

#TootFic

Mistress buckles the neural inhibitor collar behind my neck. I can’t see the controller in her hand but it must be activated; I notice fleetingly as awareness fades to a mauve fuzz. I am moving. It must be in response to a command, but there is no Me to understand it, just It. Me would have said this is terrible but it is peaceful. I exist to serve.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

#PennedPossibilities 1027 — SC POV: If you could master any skill, what would it be? How would you use it? Note: #tootfic.

[Devil-girl, currently a mob enforcer, autist, SC POV:] I looked at Bolt [the MC] squarely. "That's a weird question."

"I? Well. You went to huge trouble to attend the Directorate's school of thaumaturgy. Since we're working together, I thought it might be good to know…"

I wasn't the type to have personal goals, simply work goals. I made a point of studying everything— "But maybe that's the problem."

"I didn't mean to be nosey—"

I hugged her tightly, wings and shoulders, with my cheek against hers, before she could pout. Unlike me, being forced to work for criminal organizations had damaged my day angel coworker badly. All jock and often faulty unschooled intuition, she couldn't find the advantage even in the best of the worst situations, to turn a lose to a win, and tended to fold into fears. I tried to be as friendly as she, so it made logical sense to reciprocate, to see if it would help.

"Silly girl," I whispered into her ear. She was keenly aware of being a decade older than me, so I felt her react to the girl diminutive I'd used to take her out of fear mode. I chuckled, releasing her. "I know about your reporter friend. Learning from him the craft of interviewing is good."

"Don't tell anyone about him."

"I won't. So… is there a skill I could learn? Ah! I'd defo be mastering working simple miracles well."

"Simple?" Bolt clearly wanted to laugh but with me was always circumspect. "I've seen you go from here"—she popped out a wing, pointing—"to there. Pop! Blam!"

"That takes singularity maths, and I'm still working on getting that miracle right. Since I got scared into making it work the first time, I'm never sure the next time will work. You wanna example? How about turning a wheel on a cart, or better yet, creating a simple sprite."

"In your apartment building, you made so many—"

"Sprites? Simple ones?" I fear I scoffed.

I took a deep breath, found a standing mnemonic drifting in my mind, felt recollections of numerical matrix fragments melting into proper predicates, then with a sense of the random, and a feel for the impatient breeze cooling my skin and buffeting her wing feathers in the morning twilight, I made a snap-judgement codicil to take the place of targeting. Balancing happened instantly, congesting my horns. With a wish, I released an avalanche of bright digits crackling and shooting like burning embers across my arithmocosm, filling my halo.

I worked a miracle.

An apparition of rainbow light—a palm-sized spherical aquarium, filled with luminous colored oils circulating in frothy plumes—snapped into existence. The polychrome sprite drifted from between us and quickly away. Bolt fluttered back with a squee, mouth agape, the eldritch light illuminating her face, her fuzzy blue eyebrows becoming caterpillars trying to kiss. The sprite made like a butterfly, dancing back and around and askance on the wind, toward the nearest building as the escapement ran down, plumes slowing, and the precious few splendors I allowed it burnt away.

Pretty good for a dozen-dozen sloppy quick draw approximations. I'd be hard pressed to duplicate it exactly.

Not exactly? That was easy.

"Wow…" Bolt's voice was like smoke drifting from her mouth.

I asked, "Do you have any idea of how complex that was?"

"Pretty easy, knowing you."

"Dozens of open irises arranged parallel to the sphere surface, unrelated maths for the colors, a recollection for the target to provide multi-axial oscillations to simulate the butterfly movement. I could go on. It all came to me in a hot mess. But, a simple colorless monochromatic sprite afixed 45° above my forehead that will turn as my head turns, what most 4-year olds master?" I made a very wet raspberry sound.

"You did that going up the stair to your apartment!"

"Did I?"

"Um." She frowned, looking askance as she thought, her tongue blipping out for an instant. "Well, it was yellow, and it orbited around your head—"

"Yeah, that."

"You gave it to me, and it followed me to the squats!"

"Exactly. Turning a wagon wheel to make a cart roll is a thing daemons do to make coin. Can't. Do it. For trying!" I growled. "Once, I had a so-called friend who helped me figure out how to make complex things work, when Simple failed. Had to nearly die to learn my best trick. Not sustainable."

"The dying bit?"

I nodded. "Simple is Hard."

"Which is why you're going to a thaumaturgy high school at your age?"

I narrowed my eyes at her, grinning nevertheless. "How old do you think I am?"

My grin was strategic. I didn't accidentally confirm she'd guessed right.

[Author retains copyright (c)2026 R.S.]

#BoostingIsSharing

#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #smallstory

A few weeks back we had a mains leak under the road outside our house.

The water people came out, checked their maps, and found that the pipe ran on the other side of the road. So they dug it up anyway to see where the leak was.

There wasn't one. So they dug up the road where the water was coming up, and found ... Nothing. No water, no leaks, no sinkhole forming. Not a single cause.

So they repaved the road, and went on their way.

And left a pile of asphalt on our verge to collect later.

Well, the kids went out to play, and a bit later Xanthy came back in with an odd look on her face.

"Mums? There's something weird going on out on the verge." There was something about the way she said it that had us following her back outside.

There, on the verge, was the pile of asphalt. Han had a bit of it in his hands, and was soaking wet. He grinned at us, and held the bit of road over his head. Water poured over him.

So Farah and I went over, and looked at the pile of rubble. Every single piece of asphalt was leaking water.

We looked at each other, and told Xanthy to fetch a wheelbarrow.

Some of it we used to make a water feature in the back garden. We sent some of the water off to be tested, and it came back as pure uncontaminated water with minimal trace minerals. So we have a couple of bits above some rainwater tanks, and use them to water the veggie patch.

One bit we put up on eBay.

A casino in the USA purchased it, and we retired.

We spoke to the water corporation about the rest. At first they didn't believe us. So we sent them a sample. Then they came over.

It took a bit of negotiating, but Farah is a commercial lawyer, and got them to agree to forgiving our supply bills in exchange for the rest of the rubble.

You may have seen that they have started to build a bunch of groundwater desalination plants out in the regional areas. This is completely a coincidence.

#SF #SFF #SciFi #Microfiction #microfic #tootfic #IAmWriting

Inspired by https://old.mermaid.town/@futzle/116654827551872532

It’s ludicrous that they don’t allow personal gravity banks on shuttlecraft—the chances of the singularity getting loose and eating the airframe are minuscule. Everyone talks about that famous disaster; I’ve done the research and there’s absolutely no credible proof that the loss of USS Thresher NCC-593 was related to a burst graviton weld.

#Tootfic #MicroFiction #PowerOnStoryToot

"After years of painstaking research in ancient grimoires and microcontroller logic, I have perfected it!" the professor exclaimed.

"What?"

"All printers are possessed. I've made a PDF which performs an exorcism."

"So you print it, and then the printer works?"

"Yes!"

"What if it won't print?"

#MicroFiction #TootFic #SmallStories