The prompt for this week's competition at Brigit's Flame is "Chaos." Thinking about it reminded me of the D&D concept of the Chaotic-Good character. This entry is actually a rewrite of a story of mine that was published some time ago on a web site called RITRO. It's a fantasy of sorts. I hope you like it. (Edited to add the missing word "graceful" in the second sentence.)
Jared wandered down the main street of the town of Westgate on a beautiful spring morning. He was a handsome young man; tall with the athletic yet graceful physique of a gymnast. His oval face featured bright green eyes and he wore a soft leather cap over his brown curls.

On all sides, people bustled to and fro, intent on their own errands. Westgate was the largest place he had ever visited. Far more people passed in and out through the huge gates than he had ever seen in one place before. He tried not to gape at the chaotic ebb and flow of horse and foot traffic. He had never been in such a large city before. He calculated that there must be hundreds of people living here. It might even be possible for someone to live here and not know everyone else in town.

He wandered at random thorough the streets, enjoying the sights. He whistled as he walked, watching the faces of the passersby, paying particular attention to the females.

"Psst... farm boy."

Jared saw a pretty, dark-haired girl. She was dressed in an elegant dress of green silk and her pale peach colored shift beautifully set off her complexion. She stood at the mouth of an alleyway. Waving her hand in his direction, she gestured for him to come closer.

He approached her, swept his hat off his head and said, "Yes, miss? What can I do for you?"

"You’re not from around here, are you?"

"No, miss. I just came to town to go to the market. Is there something I can do for you?"

"Well, you can—" and she leaned close to his ear and whispered her request.

"What?" A bright red flush crept slowly up his throat. "I hardly know you."

"You’d be the first, I swear." Her large, darkly-lashed brown eyes searched his for some sign of agreement, some sign of interest. When he didn’t back away, she continued in a rush. "Listen, I’m not the kind of girl who does this, but since the dragon showed up..."

Jared put his arm around the girl and kissed her softly on the cheek. "I understand," he murmured. He kissed her again, on the lips this time. Then he wrapped an arm around her shoulder and half-led, half followed her back into the alley.

Sometime later, he emerged from the alley, looked around, adjusted his clothing and continued his ambling stroll. A bit further down the street, he heard, "Psst, farm boy..."

He turned to find yet another young girl, leaning out the window of a small cottage. She was even prettier than the first with long red hair and creamy skin. She leaned forward and Jared was sure that her breasts would tumble out of the low-cut neck of her gown.

"This is going to be a good day," murmured Jared under his breath. Then he went closer to the building and looked up at the girl. "What can I do for you, miss?"

"Well, there’s a dragon in the neighborhood and I thought maybe you could help me by—" she paused, her cheeks turning a shade of red even brighter than her hair. Jared nodded in understanding, looked around to see if he was being watched, and then went into the cottage closing the door firmly behind him.

It was nearly mid-afternoon when Jared reached the market. He pulled a small collapsible stool out of this pack and seated himself in an out of the way spot next to the stall of a merchant who sold herbs.

Even in that out of the way spot, he was propositioned several times during the course of the afternoon. He told one or two of the prettiest that he would meet them later. He glanced up several times in the direction of the large mountain that overshadowed the town. The skies were a clear, bright blue, but once or twice, he thought he saw the distant shape of a dragon as it soared through the still air.

Finally, the day was over. Jared followed the road out of town towards the mountain passes. When he neared the peak, he slowed down and started looking from side to side. "Hey," he shouted. "Where are you?"

He hadn't gone far when a large dragon landed at the side of the road not more than ten feet from Jared. He approached the dragon, whistling merrily.

The dragon put out one leg so that he could climb up onto its back. Once he was seated comfortably, it took off, bunching its powerful hind legs to leap into the air. Once they were high enough, the dragon twisted its long neck to look back over its own shoulder at Jared. "Are you ready to leave so soon?"

"Don't want to push my luck."

"Explain this to me again. What makes you so popular?"

"I think they figure that by doing it with a stranger, word won't get around and they can keep it a secret unless they need to tell. Besides, by picking someone who is just passing through, they don't need to make a long-term commitment. Either way, nobody wants to be a virgin when there’s a dragon in the neighborhood."

The prompt for week three of the November competition at Brigit's Flame is Limelight. Here is my story...


"Good morning, have you read the paper?"

Rubbing his eyes, Bob Everett tried to focus on the alarm clock. Six forty-seven in the morning, it said in large blood-red letters. Who got up that early? "Course I haven't read the paper," he said hoping that his voice didn't have that just woke up quality. Sleeping late was one of the reason he had become a novelist in the first place but he didn't want anybody else to know that. At first he wasn't awake enough to determine who was calling so early. Finally he managed to identify the voice of his agent, Stan.

"Guess who has a book on the New York Times best sellers list?"

"I don't know," said Bob, "Stephen King?"

"Not right now, no. The number one book on the list right now is Roses for Red by Violet Beauregard"

Bob said nothing for a full minute. Then he simultaneously sat up so fast that it made him dizzy and dropped the phone's cordless receiver. His whoop of joy was so loud that his wife woke up. "Whassup?" she mumbled.

"Sorry, sweetheart," he whispered. He leaned over and kissed her and then dug through the blankets for the phone. "Still there, Stan?"

"Of course I am. I should have known this was coming. I had a call from the publisher yesterday. They want to know what Violet's next book is going to be about."

"I don't know yet, they haven't published the last book I wrote yet."

"Yeah, and about that…"

Bob waited patiently. He heard Stan shuffling through papers on the other end of the phone. "They want a picture for the back cover."

"No."

"Obviously. But what are we going to do?"

"Tell the truth?"

"Normally I would agree, but you pretended to be Violet. You gave her a life story. Heck, she even has a MySpace page."

"But that was for the public. Don't they know that Violet Beauregard is a man's pen name?"

"Well, no, not really. You know how Phoebe is. She likes writers who use their own names. She hates pen names because then the author can't do the talk show circuit."

"So we have to give Violet a face," said Bob.

He stared off into space, trying to think where they could find someone to be Violet. Then it he knew what to do. "Call you right back," he said and before Stan could say any more, he disconnected the call and put down the phone. He kissed his wife again and then said, "How would you like to be a famous writer?"

The prompt for week three was besieged. This is my take on the prompt...


Last night I dreamed that I returned to Mars. Under a rose-colored sky I strolled across the rusty soil into the shattered bio-dome I once shared with my bride. Our possessions lay scattered where we left them, covered with the fine pink grit that floats on the omnipresent wind.

When I awoke, it took me several minutes to remember where I was. Then I looked out the window and saw the full disk of Earth floating serenely over the lunar landscape and the memory of my months of recovery at Moon-base Asimov returned.

When we signed up for our homestead on Mars, we had high hopes. My wife, Alice thought it was romantic. "We're the new pioneers," she said. "Someday they'll tell stories about us."

I tried to temper her enthusiasm. "We won't have any neighbors to speak of," I warned her, "and as low on money as we'll be at first, we won't be able to go to the spaceport on Friday night."

"Don't worry," said Alice as she kissed me. "You're all the company I need."

After a few weeks in our little house on the Martian prairie, her enthusiasm wore thin. She started talking about going back to Earth. "Who could help if one of us gets sick?" I was outside the dome, tending the algae beds and I looked up at her, surprised. Before I could think of an answer, she said, "What if we get pregnant?"

My suit made me clumsy as I stood up. I peered through the visor of her helmet, trying to see her expression. "I guess we'll have to wait a while for that," I said as gently as I could.

I saw the tears streaming down her face as she turned and stumbled away across the algae fields. When I returned to the dome, her eyes were red and she was silent all through dinner.

The next day I was watering the vegetable garden inside the dome when she came up behind me. "What if you were hurt?"

"What if you were? We'll just have to be careful." I took her in my arms and hugged her. "Why don't you go back to the shelter? Snuggle up with a good book for a while. I'll make dinner for you later." She went but I could see she wasn't happy.

After dinner that night I tried to settle the argument once and for all. I sat down on the edge of the bed where she lay reading one of Edgar Rice Burroughs' Martian adventures. "We can't leave," I told her. She didn't bother to look up so I leaned forward, placed one hand on her shoulder, and said, "We agreed to stay five years and we haven't been here six months." I pulled her close and said, "I'm not a quitter and neither are you. Let's just make the best of it one day at a time."

She shrugged and turned back to her book.

When pleading didn't work, she tried threats. "If you don't take me out of this horrible place, I won't be responsible for what happens." She bunched her hands into fists and waved one in my direction. "I swear that you will regret it as long as you live."

When threats failed to move me, Alice shut me out entirely. She stopped asking to go home, stopped worrying aloud about the terrible disasters that could overcome us, stopped threatening me with violence, and pretty much stopped doing anything else. When she wasn't sleeping she read--and re-read--books. I was no longer under attack; she had settled in for a long siege.

One day I got up as usual, kissed Alice, and headed out to the fields. About the time I was thinking of returning to the shelter for lunch, there was a huge explosion. Fear lengthened my stride in the low gravity until I loped along like some bizarre low-flying bird. When I got close enough to get a good look at the dome, I could see that it had been shattered in two different places. I watched in horror as the dome collapsed in slow motion, shards of glass flying in all directions.

By the time I found her, Alice was dead. In the protective air of the dome she wasn't wearing a suit. If the lack of air hadn't killed her the cold would have. She lay near the edge of our living area with a metal bar clutched in her hand. I went inside what was left of our shelter. Everything had been destroyed. Books were ripped to shreds and all of the supplies had been opened and spilled out across the floor.

The last thing I remember is turning on the emergency signal and laying down on our cot, the one intact piece of furniture in the shelter. The next thing I knew, a woman's voice was calling my name. "Five more minutes," I mumbled softly, turning onto one side and reaching out to hug Alice closer. When there was no Alice, I awoke to find a woman standing over me with a concerned look in her face.

"Where am I?"

"You're on the moon—Earth's moon. We brought you back here after your bio-dome was destroyed."

Alone in my hospital bed, I wiped the tears from my face. Alice was gone and my dreams of becoming landed gentry on Mars were shattered into as many pieces as the plexi-glass that had enclosed our bio-dome. I don't think I'll be going back. I was able to sell my stake to one of the fellows at the lunar base. He and his wife are leaving tomorrow. When I think about my time on Mars, I can't escape the thought that Alice was right. I didn't bring her home and I will regret it for the rest of my life.

I lay back down, closed my eyes and tried to find a more pleasant dream.

This is my entry for week three of the August 2008 Brigit's Flame writing competition. The topic was "Canary in a Coal Mine." It's not as easy as you think. This story is even longer than my usual pieces, about 1600 words. It wanted to be longer, but I resisted. Here it is:

"Why did you bring that thing?"

"Everyone knows that dragonets are highly sensitive to magic auras." I stroked the tiny, scaly creature perched on my shoulder.

"Tell me again why we're doing this," George paused in the act of coiling a length of rope. "I mean, what benefit is there for us in breaking into an empty house. You don’t really think the sword is there, do you?"

"He doesn't dare carry it with him," I replied. "He must have hidden it in a safe place until he can find someone a way to wield it. What better place to hide it than his own estate? Pip will find the sword for us. We'll be in and out before you know it."

George is a good friend, but he's not always the brightest candle in the box. Didn't he realize that if we recovered the king's sword, we would be set for life? No more starving through the winter, no more selling our services to the highest bidder. If we brought Dragonslayer back to the king, the reward would be enough so we could live in comfort for the rest of our lives.

Dragonslayer, the sword of the King of Rhodanthium had hung on the wall over the king's throne in the great hall for over a century. Only the true king could wield it. For as long as I can remember, the sword has accepted no master, not even the king himself. From the time that King Andrew took the throne from his grandfather, King Stefan, the sword had refused him. Now the sword was gone.

Rumors abounded that the sword was with the true heir to the throne. Princess Ana, the King's sister had disappeared shortly after he took the throne. Nobody knew where she went but the consensus was that she had been murdered by her own brother. That he had killed her to prevent any offspring of hers from making a claim to the throne. Even so, some insisted that she had run away and given birth to a child who would one day appear to claim his birthright.

Word on the street was that the Duke of Droflim had stolen it. It was common knowledge that the Duke craved the throne. Perhaps he thought that possession of the sword would convince the army to follow him instead of the king even though he was further from the throne than any of Rhodanthium's nobles. What possible use the sword would be to him was beyond me. He could wear it all he wanted to but as soon as he drew it from the scabbard, it would become so heavy that he would drop it immediately. If it had accepted him, the whole world would know about it. If it hadn't, then why had he kept it?

George and I were down on our luck. What small amount of coin we had in our possession had run out. The bread was moldy and the rent on our small room would be due in a mere three days. Pip, my tiny dragonet, would have no trouble feeding himself. He could live off the land quite comfortably. He even tried to bring food for us, dragonets are quite aware of the needs of their owners, but the one time he brought me "dinner" I learned to think about other things when he was around. I'm not quite ready to eat rat.

It didn't take much argument to get George to come along with me. He usually follows my lead. He may not be a genius, but he knows enough to know my ideas are much better than his. We waited until it was nearly dark and then into the grounds of the Duke's estate.

The last light of the dying day stained the western sky a deep maroon. In the East the sky was black and clear. The first stars twinkled madly. The carriage yard was empty save for the occasional blink of a firefly and the sleepy twittering of the birds settling down for the night. Beyond the gathering shadows the house was dark. George and I sprinted across the yard and approached the back door as quietly as two mice. The only sound was the rustling noise caused by Pip's wings as he adjusted his perch on my shoulder.

Taking out his tools, George swiftly picked the lock on the door and eased it open. We listened carefully but there was no sound from within. He stepped through the open door, gesturing over his shoulder for me to follow. Once we were both inside with the door closed firmly behind us, he whispered, "Now what?"

"Watch," I replied. I put up my hand and Pip jumped onto it, making a soft trilling noise as he did so. "You know what we are looking for?"

The dragonet nodded his head.

"Then show us where it is," I said to him as I simultaneously raised my hand over my head so that he could comfortably take off. He flapped his wings and took to the air. It didn't take him long either. He circled the room a single time and then flew up the chimney.

"Come back, Pip," I called. "We can't go that way."

I had to call him several times before he dropped down onto the cold hearth. He shook his wings to clear the ashes from them and then sneezed, emitting a tiny flame, shook his head and took off again, this time leaving the room through the doorway.

George and I followed Pip through the great hall and up the wide stairs to the second floor where we followed him down the hall to the Duke's private chamber. The walls and windows were draped with thick tapestries, now coated with a thick layer of dust and spider lace. The broad bed was heaped with pillows and soft comforters. George opened the shutters of his lantern wide so that we could see it all clearly. The rich reds, blues, and greens of the wall hangings, undaunted by their coating of grime, seemed nearly alive in the flickering light.

Pip alighted on the bed. Could it be that simple, I thought?

"Look under the bed," I ordered. George looked at me but didn't do anything until I said, "Come on, George, I'm too big to fit under there. Look and see if the sword is there."

While he got down on his knees and lifted the edge of the comforter, I looked around for anything else that we might sell for a few coins. There wasn't much. Lots of valuable things were in the room but they were either way to large, like the tapestries or too obviously belonged to the Duke, like the large seal that lay on the desk in the corner of the room.

"Well, what do you know," said George. He backed out from under the bed, completely covered in dust, holding the Dragonslayer's scabbard. He brushed away the dust and started to pull the blade from its sheath.

"No," I cried. "Don't be stupid. If you pull the sword it will be too heavy to hold. You'll probably cut off a toe or something."

"It doesn't look too special," he said. "Are you sure this is the right one?"

"Of course I am. I saw it every day when I was growing up." I walked over to the bed and held out my hand. "Come on, Pip," I said softly. Pip opened one eye and trilling softly jumped to my hand and then walked up my arm to perch on my shoulder.

Sometimes life is good. You make a plan and it works just as you expected it to do. This wasn't one of those times. As we descended the staircase into the great hall, we heard the sound of at least a dozen horses thundering up into the courtyard outside the front door.

George froze. He looked at me, one eyebrow raised as if to say, now what? I gestured towards the kitchen. George shuttered the lamp until only the dimmest light shone to light our way across the room.

We had nearly reached the doorway into the kitchen when the huge double doors crashed open and about a dozen soldiers came into the room carrying a battering ram. "Stop right there," cried the captain. He drew his sword and another dozen soldiers entered through the now-opened doors with swords drawn.

This is the end, I thought. They're going to skewer us on their swords and take Dragonslayer back to the king themselves.

George had other ideas. "Is this what you are looking for?" He raised Dragonslayer in its scabbard.

"Hand it over," said the captain. "It will be much worse for you if you don't."

Slowly George pulled the sword from its sheath. As he did so, Pip took flight, trilling happily and flying around the room near the ceiling before settling on my shoulder again. To the amazement of the observers, me included, George lifted the sword over his head before placing it back into the sheath.

As one, the soldiers bowed low before George. "How did you know that the sword would accept you?" I have known George all my life and it never occurred to me that he was any more than the wanderer and sometime thief that I had met at the Purple Dragon Inn back when we were both teenagers.

"I didn't." He smiled and patted the pommel of the sword. "I knew we couldn't get away, so I was about to give them the sword. Then I heard this voice in my head saying, 'Pull me and show them who you really are.'

"So I did," he finished with a huge grin on his face.

I am a technical writer. I write about computer software for a company in New York City. Computers and computer programming started out as a hobby for me. I never really planned to be a technical writer. I wanted to be a writer... a writer of fiction. Somehow the stories and books I produced never seemed good enough to me and I never had the courage to submit them. However I did impose a deadline on myself. I said that if I reached the age of 30 and hadn't been published that I would give up on writing altogether.

All of a sudden one day, I realized that I was 29 and I still hadn't even submitted anything. Instead of getting brave and starting to submit stories, I took the easy way out. I wrote an article about computer programming and submitted it to a magazine called CodeWorks. They bought it and even paid me $50 for the privilege. That was the beginning. Because of that small success, I became a bit braver, at least where non-fiction was concerned, and when a programming magazine call Turbo Technix published an editorial looking for writers, I got brave and called them. The next thing I knew, I was talking to the Editor-in-Chief. It seems that no woman had ever asked to write about computer programming for them before and before I got off the phone, I had an assignment.

I also was lucky enough to become friends with the Editor-in-Chief. He sent me tools, books, compilers, and all kind of computer-related things for me to review. Through him I met a lot of interesting people and had the opportunity to do a lot of things I probably wouldn't have gotten to do otherwise, including working for Microsoft as a programming writer for four years. You probably have some of my work on your computer if you have the documentation for any of Microsoft's data objects on your desk. I wrote documentation for ADO, OLE DB, and ODBC as well as the first two releases of ADO .NET before I left to move back East.

I have had a few minor successes with fiction as well, but nothing to write home about. YET.

I'm looking forward to participating in the Brigits Flame community competitions starting with July. I need the competitive challenge to keep me going.