SF Drabble #459 "And I'll Cry If I Want To"

They caught each others' eye and slipped away from the throng to meet and commiserate in the corner. Lieutenant Kirk whispered, "How long has he been going now?"

Forsythe didn't have to look at his watch again. "Four hours."

In the middle of the room: the Yourian ambassador, surrounded by party-goers, laughing his wide-mouthed laugh, bellowing incomprehensible jokes and stories, naked but for his purse-harness and his downy feathers and his worryingly growing erection.

Forsythe was coming to the realization that his night was only just beginning. "I think he's drunk."

"He's drinking orange juice."

"I don't know his chemistry."

Five Sentence Fiction: "Engulf"

It rips through the forest towards the houses, it tears through the houses towards the church, it sweeps through the church towards the mill, it only hesitates at the river's width. It takes to air on leaf and ember, it wafts up and spins and dances, it circles and descends, it alights and catches and begins burning anew.

It rolls down the hillside, it guts the barn and the stable, it creeps across the yard, it marches through the field furrow by furrow. It begrudges the first drizzled droplets and curses the burgeoning rain. It hisses and spits and sputters and dies.

Fantasy Drabble #371 "Hamadryad"

She slept, and while she slept the wood grew around her, a canopy stretching out in all directions to shield moss from sun and encourage its spread, to cool the dirt and prosper the damp.

Where the foxes and deer walked so after them came the men on their feet and their horses, until the path was so well-trod that nothing would break through it to sprout.

She woke, but only just. She lazed there in comfort, waiting. Soon, he will be born, grow, prove himself worthy of me, come lean against the tree for a spell, and be mine.