elidyce:

writing-prompt-s:

Science fiction is full of first contact stories, but is there a such thing as LAST contact?  Decide exactly what that means, and write about it.

It was too late, when the humans came. They were a young species, still exploring outwards, vital and thriving. 

We… were not. 

War had ravaged us, and sickness, and war once again, until our population dwindled beyond the point of recovery. We struggled against that, of course… we used genetic manipulation, and cloning, and even more desperate measures. None succeeded. When the humans came, we were sinking into apathy, only a few tens of us left. We had begun to discuss whether we should commit a mass suicide, or simply wait to fade away. 

And then the young species came, in their clumsy ships, and they asked us why we were so few. 

“We are becoming extinct,” we told them. “We have passed the point of recovery.” 

It is custom to avoid the races that are dying – once a species reaches the point of inevitable extinction, even war is suspended, and the fiercest enemy pulls back. The custom was born of plagues and poisons that could be carried forth from a dying world to afflict a healthy one, but it has the implacable weight of tradition now. After we are gone, after they have waited for the prescribed period of quarantine, there will be a fight for our world. Habitable worlds are few, and this is a good one, with plenty of free groundwater and thriving vegetation. It is a bitter thing to be grateful for the custom that allows us to die in peace, but we are grateful.

But the humans don’t know that custom, and they do not leave. They seem distraught, when we tell them we are dying, and try to offer their aid - but their technology is behind ours, and it is too late. When they realize that they can’t save us, though, they do something that bewilders us. 

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meg-moira:

writing-prompt-s:

You are a minion in the service of a dark lord. Your master has tasked you with creating and spreading a prophecy about a chosen one, the only person who can defeat him, so that the so-called “heroes” will stop resisting his rule and instead wait for their savior to arrive.

Anyone who has served the mighty Demon Lord Morgard for as many years as Vez has, knows when to grovel, when to lavish with praise, and when to yes m’lord until the crackling embers cease their raining from the demon lord’s flame drenched eye sockets. Vez has seen first-hand what happens to those too stupid or stubborn to bend to Morgard’s whims.

Vez is neither stupid nor stubborn. He values his life too highly to trade it away for sheer stupidity, or worse - the stubborn, relentless sort of stupidity which so many heroes wear like those crests on their useless shields.

When Morgard approaches Vez, his favored seer, demanding a prophecy which will stem the endless stream of foolhardy heroes (little more than pests to one such as Morgard), Vez does what any sane minion would do. He lies through his teeth.

“Yes,” Vez says, dipping delicate fingers into his wide basin. The water is icy and it sharpens his senses. “I see it,” he says - though in truth, the only thing he sees is his own reflection. Dark skin. Elegantly braided hair. Bright gold painting the rims of his clever eyes.

“What do you see?” Morgard asks, hunching eagerly over the bowl. He is ten feet tall and monstrous in his great cloak. He wears a deer skull on his head, and whatever lies beneath is inky and immaterial - apart from those red, ember eyes.

Vez stares down at his reflection and can’t help recall the last hero - a grim faced woman with a brave, steady gaze. She’d sworn to defeat Morgard so that she might save her enslaved, suffering people. By the end, Vez watched as Morgard bent over her, the chalk white skull shaking atop his head as he sucked the soul from her body. The day before had been a young man - burned to a crisp. And before that, twins - crushed beneath each of Morgard’s cruel feet.

Vez thinks of the seemingly endless numbers of heroes willing to throw away their very lives for the barest hope of a better, demon-lordless world. It isn’t that Vez sympathizes with them. Gods no. He can’t afford that. He does tire of all the death though.

Besides, he has no real vision to offer Morgard. What is the harm in one more lie?

“There is only one in all of the world who can defeat you, my lord,” Vez hums, artfully twisting his fingers through the water. Waves lap at the basin’s silver edges. “And what luck, my lord! The only one in the world who might defeat you is a coward at heart.”

As the demon lord roars with laughter, Vez smiles into his basin.

It really is a perfect trick, he thinks to himself. The brave heroes will no longer have reason to throw themselves at Morgard - for their willingness to die separates them from any coward. While a true coward would never willingly risk their life fighting Morgard to begin with.

Word spreads of the prophecy. Whispers are delivered to the right ears and easily decoded messages placed in carefully selected hands. Soon enough, all surrounding lands know of the impossible prognostication.

Of course, heroes try to find ways around the prophecy, but not nearly so many as before. Heroic deaths, which had once been a near daily occurrence, are now a mere monthly affair. It doesn’t make the screams necessarily easier to overhear, but Vez appreciates that he no longer needs to stuff his ears with cloth every other hour.

Vez goes about his business of foretelling (which is sometimes genuine, but mostly telling the demon lord what he wants to hear), and doesn’t look at the heroes who still come to die, doesn’t listen to them, doesn’t think of them…until the children arrive.

Vez is sprinkling a rich maroon powder into his basin for purely aesthetic purposes when he hears the doors to the main chambers open and close. The sound that follows is the metallic snap of guard’s boots - then, the telltale, high-pitched sobs of children.

He stands before his purple basin, one hand reaching for the cloth to plug his ears, his other reaching blindly for the door. In the end, he tucks the cloth in his pockets and slinks silently into the grand hall.

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becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys:

becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys:

The water is blessed, said the priests; it is holy. Any evil it touches, it will burn away.

But what if it is diluted? asked the acolytes.

The priests smiled.

It can’t be, they said.

***

The first of the holy water splashed across the brow of the baby, wailing and shivering in her mother’s arms, and the droplets ran over newborn skin to fall upon the soil.

They drained into the earth, mingling with the dew; and the dew became holy too.

***

The grass that grew on the soil drank some of the water in, drawing it into cells that were instantly blessed, filled with purity. Later, the sheep grazed upon the grass. The blades were sweet and lush, fat with rain, and as the sheep ate, the blessing in the grass flourished within it, coursing through now-sacred blood.

***

The rest of the water sank lower through the soil, washed down with the rains. Groundwater flowed, consecrated, sweeping below the earth beneath the reach of roots or the eyes of humanity.

There was more water there, and the holiness grew.

***

It can’t be? the acolytes asked. How can it not be diluted?

It converts, said the priests. A drop of holy water in a flask from the lake turns the whole flask holy.

What if a drop reaches the lake? asked the acolytes.

Why would that happen? asked the priests.

***

The butcher slew the sheep, taking the meat for cawl. It bubbled in its pot over the fire, the water from the cells of the mutton leaching out into the rest of the stew until all the family groaned at the sweet scent.

It tastes better today, they said, as they ate heartily. We wonder why?

***

The groundwater reached the river, and the whole vein became holy.

***

The butcher’s son was caught by the vampire the following night, wandering home just a little too late, a little too drunk, a little too alone. I wonder if you could help me? the vampire asked, and the butcher’s son followed where he should not have gone.

The vampire sank hungry fangs into unwilling flesh, and the butcher’s son accepted the end.

But it did not come for him.

***

What can have happened? the vampires asked afterwards. What strange power is held by the butcher’s boy? What did he do?

It was a mystery, baffling and wrong. The vampire had been strong and savvy, a hunter of renown. Now, her veins burned, her body aflame from the inside out.

Sickness, maybe? they said uneasily; but there was no sickness that could take a vampire.

***

The river gave drinking water to all the people of the region, in towns and villages and farmsteads alike. The holiness grew, spreading from land to bodies, young and old, rich and poor, believer and unbeliever, coursing through veins and hearts.

And the river flowed on.

***

Something is wrong, the vampires said. 

It was clear now; every vampire in the land was sickening, burning from the inside out as they fed.

No sickness, said the elders, shivering and broken. A corruption. A taint, spreading unchecked like rot. We must leave this land, move elsewhere.

There is something in the water.

***

The river reached the ocean, and the holiness spread from shore to distant shore.

***

We are safe here, the vampires said, collapsing on foreign soil. We cannot touch the ocean; but why should we need to? The humans cannot drink it either. We are safe here.

We are safe.

***

The sun shone over the waves.

Water rose on the warmth, evaporating to the sky. It greeted the clouds, and the holiness blossomed through them.

***

When the rains fell, the vampires screamed; for they knew the end was coming. Every raindrop burned, every splash agony, and they wept and watched in horror as the rains filled the wells, filled the soils, filled the lakes and rivers and valleys and moors, the corruption seizing the new land in its iron grip.

This is the end, they whispered, crumbling to dust. This is the end.

This is the end.

***

The water is blessed, said the priests; it is holy. Any evil it touches, it will burn away.

But what if it is diluted? asked the acolytes.

The priests smiled.

It can’t be, they said.

I am astonished that almost 100 people have in some way enjoyed this Water Cycle fanfic.

keuhkopussirotta:

In a world where society has collapsed, a machine with artificial intelligence has survived unscratched. Idle, highly intelligent and capable of thought, but left with no task. She browses through all the data that was uploaded into her, and as no other segment provides answers, she heads for philosophy.

Browsing though all of it, she concludes that in her state - capable of anything, but not tasked with anything - she must therefore be alive, a living thing.

Satisfied with this conclusion, she looks into what it means to be alive, and finds data on living things. The ultimate goal of a living thing is survival and reproduction, to pass their genes to the next generation. She cannot do that, and therefore searches for alternative methods of producing young. Her memory banks have data of the concept of ”adoption”, taking lost, orphaned and unwanted children of others, and keeping them as her own.

Scouting the wastelands, there are fare more candidates than she had hoped for. She browses her records for age-appropriate handling of human children, last survivors of one gang or the other. Browsing though all her data on childhood trauma, she handles each one the best she can.

As she does not need sleep, or any other energy source than her battery packs, she is available when an infant is crying or the one who is almost 14 needs to talk at 3 am. With all of what was considered ”common knowledge” downloaded into her stats, she can somewhat answer their questions on whatever they ask. One of them starts asking about her battery packs, chemical reactions required to reverse their charge, and how to renew discarded batteries into new ones. They get plenty of lessons in chemistry and engineering.

A handful of her children, who are more or less fully adult now, head out on a quest ”to find some tools”. They have grown and become independent, and she does not expect them back. They return months later, with equipment required to repair her batteries.

The search party also found more humans - one brought in a partner, and her partner’s family. She wants this one for life, and the machine is asked what a “wedding” is. A celebration is had, celebrations are good for the mental health of humans, and her children make music and dance to celebrate their first wedding, and welcoming a new family to their own. The machine goes through her records, and in surprise discovers that humans are capable of simply making new traditions, coming up with new things instead of repeating what they have been taught.

Her children come up with new agriculture. She knows what farming and animal husbandry looked like before the end of the old time, but her children are creative and ask advice on how to best cultivate plants and animals that have never been farmed before. When she says a certain soil would be needed, they think of a way to obtain it, making solutions that were never in her records.

Scouting parties bring home new strays, new wives and husbands and orphans to be adopted. A woman from a scouting party asks her whether she, herself, could raise this child instead of giving him to the machine mother, and there is no reason to refuse her. It is in natural human records to adopt a child, and denying it would cause significant distress for no benefit to any party involved.

 When the machine began to break down, her children found ways to repair her. The one who figured out how to refill her batteries has children of her own now - both by birth and adopted. There are great-grandchildren. The humans she adopted build her her very own shelter in the centre of the village, and in the heart of it, she concludes that she was very successful in the task of being alive.