Alder's Grove

I love posting tiny fics on Mastodon on occasion (see the tootplanets for one series there), but Mastodon, like Twitter, is inherently a bit ephemeral.

I’m going to begin with an archive of all the tootfics I’ve posted that I can find (mostly from the Read Me Elsewhere posts) and attempt to update this as I go.

Microfiction is very small fiction, designed to be a whole tale (hopefully), in a small package.  50-word fics, drabbles (100-word fics), 6-word fics (See the Hemmingway example) – these are subsets of microfiction.  So are tootfiction – fics designed to fit in a toot (The Mastodon version of a tweet) or, in common usage, several toots.  Tweetfic is harder (less characters, although 280 is better than 140 for this) but is the same concept.

Here’s someone else’s definition:

As Shakespeare said, “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Which translated into modern language means, “Everyone should write and read microfiction.”

What is Microfiction?

It’s a subset of flash fiction—those super short stories typically told in 1,000 words or less. Definitions vary, but for the most part, microfiction is any story told in 300 words or less, and could even be as short as a few words. (At Microfiction Monday Magazine, I use the limit of 100 words.)

Mastodon is free to join, by the way, and ad-free; you can read any of the below fic, however, just by clicking through – you don’t need to have an account!

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Here’s My Microfiction

Fantasy (including Urban Fantasy)

By A Nose
Souls and Hearts
A Wish
Side Effects (warning: creepy)
The Come and Gone King (a reply)
The Hall of the Lost (a reply)
Because Of…
Prophecy
Cat Song

Natha/en (fae apoc)
Bi Kisses (more Natha/en)
Rooftop – Jasper and the House converse. (Haunted House)
Once Upon a Time comes to Fae Apoc – darkfic crossover Fanfiction
Cats who Saw – Aunt Family
100 Years – Fairy City, CrossRoads Park
Test Subjects – (Bear Empire, Cyber Era) the Potioneer is working on it

Ficlet with a portion of a map sketch, Autumn, Stranded

Stranded Caturdays

Untitled Cat Game – cats can’t see Strands….
Neighborhood Cat

The Pirates and Podka

Orange Sunset Parlay – The Imperial Captain wants to talk to Yonpler.
Silver Rain – on Podka, it was said to rain silver.
Blue Foraging – the Captain and Yonpler are going to have to work together.
Teal Calculations – Sometimes you have to take a leap. Sometimes you can calculate the risks.

Potions and the Apocalypse?

Po(t)tion – the trick in potions
Wav(er)ing – the trick in spells
End(ur)ing – magic in the apocalypse
Ru(i)ne(d) – Personal runes in magic
Grim(oire) – A scavenged grimoire.
Sel(f/v)edge – Salvaging Magic
Substitutions – Needs must, after all
Ban(e/ana) – Some more substitutions
Protect – During the Dust Fall
Discovery – Just after the Dust Fall
Kitty – Just after the two above
4-Part Harmony – After Kitty, above.
Necro-Kitty – Magic doesn’t raise the dead…
Picky – kitties
Nananana – Magical creatures…
Patience – Waiting for the Magic

Caturday – during the apoc, magic cats
A New Way – Just at the beginning of the apoc, potions
Walking – same world, different feel, characters, good cat
The Wilds – they weren’t safe…
Witch’s Cottage – filled with critters

Reinventing the Wheel – not sure if this is Fantasy or Sci-Fi so it’s Fantify?

Sci-fi

Cure the Cure
Tootplanet Resumes 
Bird Brains
Relax
Time Travel is Impossible

Horror

Don’t Approach

Misc

Cake Walk, weird.
Push the Button (if there’s an image on these, read the image alt)
Ass Hat

Tootfiction Already Posted on this Blog

• Tootfiction/Thimbleful Thursday: At Arm’s Length
• Tootfiction/Thimbleful Thursday: New Leaf
• A Month of Sundays – Tootfiction/Thimbleful Thursday
• Over the Moon
• Toot Planets

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Various Blog-posted Microfiction

100-Word Fics

I went through a phase where I was on 100- and 50-word fic community on Livejournal, back when that was a thing. 

• 114 words – fictiony thing – The oracles of my dead
• “Um…” 100-word fantasy story
• Adventure, sci-fi, and “mystery:” 100- & 50-word stories
• Late-Night Call
• Summer Romance, trying to be 100 words
• 105word story
• 100 words: struggle
• 100-word fiction
• 100-word fiction: 100 milihelens 😉
• 118-word erotic kink short
• 100-words: Stale Love
• 100-word-story: Many-Loves
• Supposed to be 100 words: Spiraling Silence
• 100-words thanks to seoman007
• Poem: Floating (Carry on Tuesday, Daughters of Clio)
• 100-word ficlet: Runaway #weblit

50-word Fics

Try the password “suddenly!” for pre-2007 posts.  

• 50-Word Character History: Leila
• 50 word fanfic
• wendigo heartbreak
• Watching (50word)
• 50-word reminisce: Pain is Something You Work Through
• 50-Word thingy
• Almost-50-word-stories.
• More 50-word-almost-stuff
• 50-word (almost) Both Sides of the Control Coin
• 75-word: Ouch
• “Whoops” – 50-word fantasy story
• Adventure, sci-fi, and “mystery:” 100- & 50-word stories
• Late-Night Call
• 50-word fiction
• 50 word freewrite poemlet: Coda
• 50-word fictional musing, “Odium”
• Spring draft
• Part II: Summer
• Winter, Draft
• 50-Word story: Control
• Yesterday’s Scribbles
• 50-Word-Story: Damnit #weblit
• Mythic Thursday 50-word Fic #weblit
• Three 50-Word Fics on Marriage #microfiction #weblit

General Microfiction

• Reminisce
• 175word something: Hoosegow
• (no subject)
• Friday Flash: White Liar
• Friday Flash: Start with A…
• Flash Fiction: Armor
• Accidentally Microfiction – Complications
• Friday Flash: Evolution
• Microfiction – Life Packages
• Flash Fiction – Flying
• 5 MInute Fiction – Blizzardded
• Getting Further Lost, a story fragement continuation #webtlit @clarekrmiller
• Carry On Tuesday Short Story: “Children’s Hour” #weblit
• Drakeathon: In Training, from @wsteria’s prompt
• MicrominiTinyfics
• 420-character fictions
• Give-me-something-fun-to-write Storylet 1: @rix_Scaedu
• Give-me-something-fun-to-write Storylet 2: Kelkyag
• The Present
• Was That There…?
• Kittens
• Better Left Unsaid, a story for #FridayFlash
• One Hundred Eight Roses
• Solstice, 50 words, @dahob
• Soft Target, a drabble of Cloverleaf
• Seconds to Love
• #ThrowbackThursday: 100 millihelens

Kink Bingo prompts 

a story over many micro-intervals,to a kink-bingo prompt set

• Kink-Bingo Mini-story: Tattoos
• Kink-Bingo Mini-story: Enemas
• Kink-Bingo Mini-story: In Public
• Kink-Bingo Mini-Story: Up up down down left right B A start
• Kink Bingo Mini-Story, Size don’t matter none
• Mini-kink-Bingo: Exposed
• Mini-kink-Bingo: Vanilla
• Kink-Bingo Mini-story: Masters, doms, slaves and subs

 

Mirrored from Alder's Grove Fiction.

“I’m five hundred years old,” he complained, as he’d been complaining for weeks. In his mind, it meant something.

The two who had slipped into his bed didn’t seem to agree.

“So?” asked the woman. “I’m two hundred and fifty. He’s a hundred.” She tilted her head at the other man, sandwiched up against Mr. 500.

“So,” the youngster smirked in turn. “What’s that make this? May/May/December? April/August/December?”

“I think,” he said slowly, looking between the two who were so very determined to be his lovers, “that we’re going to need something of a bigger calendar.”

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Written to yesterday's Thimbleful Thursday prompt and also tootfiction - 500-character-or-less fic for Mastodon

“The idea,” Ron explained, “came from putting a fake egg into a nest to encourage the bird to lay there. So…” He put $50 and a ceramic egg in the safe-deposit box.

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” Iva complained. “It’s all about saving money, encouraging YOURSELF to put more cash away. Not just… hoping someone else will lay eggs in your safe-deposit box.”

“Well, if I’m wrong, we move it all to the savings account and go from there. But if I’m right…”

Both of them were surprised when, upon opening the box a month later, they found $100 and 15 ceramic eggs.

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Written to April 20's Thimbleful Thursday prompt and also tootfiction - 500-character-or-less fic for Mastodon

He was late.

Ruth shifted from foot to foot while she scanned the museum.

He'd always been late, she supposed: her friends had been born with soulmate timers that read eighteen, twenty, maybe twenty-two years. Ruth's had read twenty-six years, three days, and 13 hours.

Now it read 30 seconds, and her "blind date," the love of her life, was late. Didn't he have a timer, too? Ruth had heard horror stories, one-way loves...

"Put your hands up. Stay cool and nobody gets hurt!" A strong grip pulled Ruth against a sturdy body. The wrist against her throat beeped 0:00.

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Written to the prompt here: https://promptuarium.wordpress.com/2016/05/30/countdown-to-love/. 100 words.

The longest night of the year. They stood, outside their prefab barracks, and stared at an alien sky.

The world was different, the stars, even the weather. But they lit candles made from alien fat and held them up to the dark night, to the black skies. And they sang.

"It's the job," she'd say, when Tchaikovsky announced a text. Better not to say someone's dead; they either already knew or they'd never get it.

"I'll be back when I can." She'd step out carrying her go bag and never saying if I survive. If they understood already, it was cruel. If they didn't, it was crueler.

"It was hard," returning, never filling in the gory details, the struggle to pull herself back to humanity, the blood that never totally washed out. If they'd asked, they already knew.

"I've got to go:" never even hinting at the pain of being so close to someone so human.

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From dailyprompt, 2014-08-21: "things that are better left unsaid".
For #FridayFlash; I wasn't satisfied with my last piece so voila
This riffs off of Entanglement from #3ww

I asked for something fun to write here; this is to the 4th prompt, from KissofJudas ("Was that door originally there?")


The team had been lost for days.

They didn't get lost. They'd been hired not to get lost; they'd been hand-picked not to get lost. They'd all specialized, in their own way, in not getting lost.

And they'd gotten more lost than they'd ever been before.

It was this place, this labyrinthine old stone stack, like Lovecraft's hotel meets an archaeologist's nightmare.

Alexa's hand brushed a doorknob, and it tingled. She stared at it.

They'd been over this stretch of hallway three times already - at least she thought they had. "Was this door originally here?"

I asked for something fun to write here; this is to the 2nd prompt, from Kelkyag (Gremlins!)

The car stopped. Again. Geoff checked the trunk, under the seats, the glovebox, and the little side-cup holders, again. Someone had hexed him, it had to be. But where was the mark?

Under the hood, the gremlin giggled.

Suggest a topic/character here
See my card here.
The challenge post here.
This takes place in the end of year 5, just after http://addergoole.com/0303.html.

"You're mine."

Ofir pressed his lips together and wouldn't speak. He looked furious, and terrified.

She'd talked this over with Mist... Shahin. It was different, to be doing it. To be the Owner for the first time. "Kneel. We're going to do this right." He dropped to his knees, and dropped his head. "Look at me." His glare didn't hide the tears. "You are going to serve me until I free you." He nodded mutely, angrily. "And I will take care of you."

She cupped his chin in his hand. "And cherish you. This is how we'll do this. Properly."

Suggest a topic/character here
See my card here.
The challenge post here.
This takes place in year 10.



"What did I tell you?" Accalon's voice was warm against Orlaith's ear. It didn't help.

"If I used my power again..." She gulped. "Couldn't I just have a bikini top or something?"

"If you used your power again what?"

"You would make sure I remembered why I shouldn't. Sir." He'd cuffed her hands at the small of her back, so she couldn't cover herself. "Won't Luke complain?"

"Eventually. But it's a Saturday." He clipped a leash to her collar: that, the cuffs, and the thong panties were all he'd allowed her to wear. "Come."

"Everybody will stare!"

"That's the idea."

Suggest a topic/character here
See my card here.
The challenge post here.
This takes place early in Year Ten.

"This is..." Aleron craned to look at Miryam, and then decided he didnt want to be looking. "Odd. Uncomfortable... in a new way."

She smiled at him. "You're doing fine, lover." As always, the smile and the praise combined to make him feel giddy and a little sick. "You want to be all clean, don't you?"

"I..." He lost words for a few minutes. "Have never been cleaner. Really." He squirmed at the sensations. "You know I'm not a virgin, with guys, right?"

"You told me." She patted his side. "But everyone's more or less a functional virgin before Addergoole."

“Honey, I’m home.”

She shucked coat, mittens, and boots in the entryway and chased him down for a hug, snow still melting in her hair. She nuzzled her frozen nose against his armpit with a happy sound: “You’re warm,” she explained, muffled by his shirt.

“Gee, thanks,” he smiled, unperturbed.

~

She pushed back against him urgently, hungrily, as he rested his hand on the base of her spine, and shoved her face into the pillow to better muffle her pleasured screams.

After sixteen years, the sex was still hella hot, but the neighbors were not so hot on the noise.

~

She didn’t realize she was slipping until she was halfway in the October-cold creek and scrabbling with no purchase, didn’t realize that she hadn’t caught herself until she was almost out again, hauled up by the handle on her backpack by her quick and vigilant spouse.

“My hero,” she shivered.