Ah! Those were all great. I loved the variety you all brought to them.
@TheTimCrow Has The Prompt. (Next rollover is Thursday morning, with @BlackDragonRaider.) I look forward to what’s next. 
The prompt is:
The Gift of Betrayal
Lets see where this goes.
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Edward was sitting in the drawing room, carefully putting together a house of cards. He looked up.
“When first we came here,” he said, “our hostess asked us to tell stories of chysalides. I had another story at the time, which I shied away from. But today, perhaps it is fitting.”
The Caterpillar Must Die
We like to tell stories of the hungry caterpillar, and the beautiful butterfly it becomes. But who considers too deeply the how? We have only to see the outside shell of transformation, the hidden mystery, the chrysalis.
But I tell you, for once I tried this, if you break open a chrysalis too soon, you will not see a butterfly born before it’s time, its wings budding out like a new tooth or a calf’s horn. If you break the chrysalis too late, you will not see the caterpillar curled around it’s stomach ache, dreaming of what it will become. If you break it halfway through the change, you will find only liquid. To change, the caterpillar must dissolve itself into its component cells and allow the knowledge of how to become a butterfly consume the parts of itself that remember its life as caterpillar.
A philosopher will tell you that this is a gift: that in betraying itself into its cocoon the caterpillar allows an act of creative destruction. A naturalist will tell you that evolution is peculiar: that living things want to be alive, and the myriad ways they pursue this course are near infinite in number. I confess I merely find it disturbing.
&&&
Edward slammed his hand down on the table hard, so the tower of cards fell. He began to rebuild it, the faces of the cards showing."
“Today,” Edward said, “by God’s grace, we are halfway through the dark. On the day we leave here, we will not be as we were, parts of ourselves are being consumed, are being remade, even as I speak. We betray ourselves every day. Let it also be our gift.”
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Count Nicolo Alberti steps forward. “My homeland is infamous for treachery. Something about our methods of government, or perhaps our character, seems to breed it. And yet, there are those whose betrayal goes beyond the ordinary, and who so gain infamy by it. and so I give you the story of:”
Duke Alfonso of Melian
Melian is a rich and powerful city in the north. With a strong geographic position astride a wealthy trade route, its Dukes, the Spathi, have long been able to dominate their neighbours and wage war upon their rivals. But the most infamous of these Dukes was Alfonso.
Alfonso was never meant to be Duke. He had an elder brother, Frederico, before him, and that brother had two sons, Enrico and Ricardo. Indeed, Alfonso gained distinction by loyally serving his brother, in war as a general, and in peace as an ambassador and administrator. He was Duke Frederico’s most trusted servant, and always acted in his interests.
But one day, Frederico rode to war against Ascia, and fell in battle. The ducal throne immediately fell to Enrico, but as he was still a child, Alfonso was appointed Regent, to rule until his nephew was of age. At first, all appeared to go well. Indeed, when a band of nobles was discovered plotting to murder Enrico and place his younger brother on the throne to serve as their puppet, Alfonso had them all publicly tortured to death in the city square. But after that, he was ever on his guard, and took greater precautions for the safety of his young charges, keeping them so tightly guarded that they became practically prisoners. On the few occasions in which one or other of them was seen in public, many commented on their sickly appearance, and some began to wonder if the Regent was not slowly poisoning them.
And then Ascia renewed its war, and it began to go badly. The child-Duke Enrico appeared to give a stirring speech, but it did not inspire the troops, and a major battle and several subsidiary towns were lost. After this, the merchants of the city, who had lost a great deal from trade with those towns, began to murmur that Enrico was not fit to be Duke, and that Alfonso, the stronger man, should take his place. They organised a secret delegation to put this proposal to Alfonso, promising to acclaim him Duke if something were to happen to his nephews. Alfonso agreed to this proposal, and when a tragic fire burned both of his young charges to death in their beds (though some say they had been stabbed and mutilated before being burned), he accepted the offer of the Dukedom. And his first act as Duke was to order the arrest of those merchants who had supported him and have them put to death, ostensibly for profiteering. After all, if they had betrayed his nephews, what guarantee did he have that they would not betray him in turn? Thus Alfonso repaid the merchant’s gift of betrayal with a similar gift of his own.
Alfonso went on to defeat the Ascians and regain Melian’s territory, and more besides. He is remembered as one of the city’s greatest Dukes. But all also remember his treachery and his later cruelties, and so while he is remembered, he is not remembered fondly.
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At the end of the Counts tale, Lady Yekaterina clapped her hands, and stared at the Count. “You tell a good story, but know that in this world, not all is as it seems. There are other stories, other dimensions in life, and they tell a different story. I knew this Duke of which you speak. Let me tell you a story about him.” She walked into the centre of the room, closed her eyes, and began to speak.
“Alfonso lay on his deathbed, living what he knew would be his last few moments on the earth. At times gone before, he had closed his eyes and seen a tunnel of light. He had travelled down this tunnel and seen before him an assemblage of people that he had known.
All these people gathered before him had passed on. Some were his friends and loved ones, some his foes and adversaries. In this place he realised that class, standing or outlook on life mattered not. All came together as one, and all came to consider Alfonso when his time was coming.
And that time was now.
He sighed. Though it seemed futile to him at this point, he looked back on his life, the decisions he made, and the path those decisions took his life on. He wondered if he could have changed anything about those choices, whether he could done more to avoid the anger and disfavour that he knew had heaped upon himself, but he came to the same conclusion that he always did - no, no he couldn’t.
He had to be a guardian, a protector to his nephew, for he knew there were swords and daggers in every corner waiting to take advantage of any misstep, any letting down of the guard.
And so he kept his charge hidden away, never letting him see the real world, for the real world was like an exotic toad - filled with a multitude of sounds and colours, but also a venom for which there was no cure.
And so, life proceeded on as the tales told it. Alfonso had a nephew, but one that had no chance of being a leader, because he had no chance of living the life needed to be one.
What was Alfonso to do?
It came to pass that the answer came to him, and despite all his efforts, he was powerless to provide the answer himself. Enricos death should have been a relief to Alfonso, lifting the burden from his overburdened shoulders, but instead it provoked him into a rage.
How dare my charge be taken away from me!
How dare that responsibility be lost! I have worked so hard, laboured so long!
If that is the way people want to do business, then let me show you how that business should really be done!
And so I attacked, warred against and punished anyone who stood in the way of my ducal responsibilities. Everyone else was but a pawn in a game of chess in which I had naught but queens. I fought, and I won.
And I bought prosperity, lands and wealth to our country. I did not compromise on my vision. I did what a ruler ought to do.
And now, finally, I die. What do people think of me? What will people do after I pass on?
As I ascend the tunnel of light one last time, I realise that this is not my place to be concerned about that anymore. People better than I have gathered to judge me and despite myself, I know that this time I must submit to that judgement. No more for the the levers and instruments of power. Now, I must let those machinations work me over and live with the output.
A figure walks out from the assemblage. To my surprise it is my nephew, who above all those standing there has been treated the worst as a result of my actions, and was the person I least expected to want to even talk to me.
He takes my hand. “Uncle, your time has come. Judgement must be passed, and you must stand and accept whatever happens. Know you now, we have seen your ills and evils, and they will count against you. But know also, as you do, that circumstance and necessity are powerful motivators in what we do in life, and they cannot be overlooked.”
Lady Yekaterina ceased talking, and opened her eyes. There was a long, eerily silent pause.
Count Alberti, finally managing to regain some of the composure he was sure he never lost, finally managed to stumble out “But what next? What was the outcome of the trial?”
Lady Yekaterina made a small smile.”That is something that mortals may never know until we have to do what the good Duke has done. What happens? Who knows? Who shall judge us? No one can tell. Only know that all in this world is not necessarily what it seems, and only when we pass into the next world will we know exactly what the sum of our life will be.”
THE END
'Just wanted to play Devils advocate because it’s always fun to do 
Also, this was a stream of conciousness bit of writing, so if it feels a bit disjointed, I apologise 
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It is later that night, when Lady Yekaterina and her guests partake of a light supper. She gazes reflectively at the porcelain bowl set before her, adorned with painted indigo flowers around the rim, and dips her silver spoon into the clear green soup inside. “Once upon a time,” she announces to her guests, “once upon a time there were two rogues who delighted in mendacity…”
Potée de Pierre Fabuleuse
Once upon a time there were two rogues who delighted in mendacity.
Adeleide, if you told her the sky were blue, would diligently explain that it was truly “periwinkle” even if a close consultation of the Indice di Colore del Vetro Colorato kept by the Doge of the Drowned Cities would reveal that the exact shade was “ultramarine”. She was incorrigible.
Her partner, or rival, or friend, or lover, was named Bertilak, and he dreamed fondly of giving false confession on his deathbed. The less that could be said of that the better.
One dark and stormy night, Adeleide and Bertilak were trudging along a narrow mountain road that wound higher and higher into the vertiginous peaks. They were leaving a prior engagement as weavers and tailors to a gentleman of high degree, and though their diaphanous silks and delicate gauzes had led to a breezy, joyful time for the populace in the town square - and educational also! - they thought it best to leave before the final round of applause.
They came upon a village that seemed set upon by disaster - what houses had not met with fire had been cracked by rolling stones from the high mountains, and those that had been afflicted by neither showed a creeping green mold that harboured illness, or at least, looked like it should. Only the Town Hall in the heart of the village had light in it, and warmth. They pounded on the door.
Reluctantly, it creaked open, held by a wary man on the inside. Adeleide immediately declaimed, “Imagine! Leaving your Aunt Addie out in the cold!”
The man inside said, “Uh!”
“Here I am, content to perch in the corner and weave and spin, and mind the children -”
“Not to mention your Uncle B,” said Bertilak, “so diligent in the fields and orchards -”
“ - to let us stand out here and shiver. Tchah!” exclaimed Adeleide.
“Tchah!” mourned Bertilak.
And they swept inside before the doorkeeper had more to say on the matter.
It was warm in the great hall, though dim, but though it was the time for making supper, or warm soup, or for baking fragrant barley cakes on the hearth stones… nobody ate. Adeleide peered at a bundle of carrots half-hidden under a woman’s homespun skirts. Bertilak’s sharp eyes noted a cured ham stuffed into a corner and guarded against all comers. There had been Hard Times in this village, and all inside were terrified of losing what they had to a hungrier mouth, and so - no-one ate. Adeleide’s stomach grumbled. Bertilak’s knees shook with impending starvation.
They lifted themselves up to their full height (which was not, to be honest, a good deal) and announced that, tonight, the meal would be on them.
From a pocket, one of her many pockets, Adeleide produced a rock - a very pretty rock, with shades of turquoise (or possibly periwinkle) peeping through the grey. She showed it to the crowds as a thing of wonder, through which she, and people she loved, might never go hungry. Bertilak requested the simple boon of a cauldron of water and time and space at the hearth to cook. “For,” said he, Potée de Pierre Fabuleuse is no simple meal, it is gourmet, for people of Taste and Distinction.”
The people were all very hungry, and food is always just a little bit fancier when someone else cooks it for you, and soon Adeleide and Bertilak were hovering over their gently bubbling cauldron. They exclaimed, as they stirred it, how savoury, how fragrant. “But,” said Bertilak thoughtfully, “it needs a little something.”
“Nothing but the best for these good people,” said Adeleide.
“Perhaps a little salt, do you think?”
“Alas,” said she, “I have none.”
One of the villagers heard and - very hungry, and very much looking forward to being fed - volunteered a small handful of coarse white grains. Adeleide and Bertilak thanked him enthusiastically, for they wanted only to give of their best this night. But then, Adeleide remarked, sotto voce, “If only we had some carrots, I always prefer the Tuscany variation of Potée de Pierre Fabuleuse.
Well. Who wouldn’t volunteer perhaps one bunch of carrots for the Tuscany variant?
And so it went. A little stock, some chopped up onions, ham boiled off the bones and the marrow dissolving gently into the broth… Around midnight, there was a very good cauldron of pottage to be had, fragrant with herbs and rich with meat and tender vegetables. All in the hall ate well, and slept better, except for Adeleide and Bertilak, who slipped out with the dawn.
They had dined very well that night. But what was better, the important thing, the best thing…
They had done it through trickery.
”And I have always eaten well in the company of Adeleide and Bertilak,” Lady Yekaterina remarks. “Though I must caution you that, also, they always steal my spoons…”
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I’m gonna have to bow out of this now, because despite the lockdown and all, it’s Easter, and things have gone from bad to absurd, and I really can’t give this the attention it duly needs. I pass the prompt on
Okay.
Today’s prompt is Feather.
As there are a couple of open prompts at the end of this cycle, @BlackDragonRaider, you can pick one of them up if you change your mind.
Cheers.
Count Nicolo Alberti begins at breakfst. “Feather, eh? That does bring a story to mind:”
The most cunning of birds
Many philosophers have debated which bird is the most noble - whether it be the Eagle, which is sacred to Zeus, or the Hoopoe, who are descended from King Tereus and renowned for their wisdom, or the immortal Phoenix. But which bird is the most cunning? Many think it might be the Crow, which uses tools and can be trained to do tricks, or the parrot, which can mimic human voices. But none are as cunning as the thief-bird.
The thief-bird lives in the mountains on a faraway island. Brilliant green, it is the bane of the local shepherds, preying upon their flocks, and especially young lambs, though it will happily eat carrion or anything else it can find. Like many birds, it will steal small objects. But the thief-bird’s reputation for cunning comes from how it overcomes almost any obstacle the shepherds put in its path. It unlatches gates and doors to steal what is within, and moves stones to find what is buried beneath them (even using levers, some say). One shepherd hid his flock inside every night to save them from the thief-birds, but the thief-birds lit a fire in his roof by striking sparks from flints held within their beaks, then took one of his prize lambs when he fled his sanctuary. When the shepherds unite to hunt them, they warn one another with their loud calls, then fly to harry their homes which are left unguarded.
Merchants occasionally cross these mountains, and have to pay a toll to the thief-birds of coins, buckles, broken straps, and food. One merchant refused, and hired guards to drive them off. But when he camped, the thief-birds descended on his wagons, taking out every nail and peg, undoing every buckle, chewing through every strap and cord, so that when he woke there were just jumbled piles of wood. He was forced to leave all his goods behind as a penalty, and ever after he paid the birds whatever they demanded.
Many years ago, the famous explorer Iago Cucinari brought back one of these birds to Floria as a present for the Duke. The Duke was amazed to see it shackled with chains on both feet, a heavy collar, and contained within not one, but two cages, with complicated locks. “Surely,” said the Duke, “this is not necessary to contain a mere bird”. Despite Cucinari’s protests, he ordered it contained within an ordinary cage within his aviary. Of course, by the next morning it had escaped, but worse, it had broken into his chambers and stolen his best jewellery, which it then used to buy passage back to its home. And that is why the thief-bird is the most cunning of birds.
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“Once upon a time, a girl was given to a monster,” Yekaterina says, sitting in the library and staring through foggy window glass at the pouring rain. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, it’s common enough. Traded for peace, or wealth, or to remove a household encumbrance, or simply that it is too much trouble to walk with her in the woods and so keep her from harm… It happens, my loves.”
The Thing With Feathers
Once upon a time, a girl was given to a monster. She was very beautiful, as her people counted these things - a long oval face, and strong black brows, skin like ivory seen by firelight and the way she walked, ah! she walked like birdsong. It was said by some that envy had a part in her sacrifice but, what lamb cares whether it is thought beautiful when a knife is at its throat?
They set her on a crag on the heights of a mountain, wrapped in a cloak of her own weaving, and told her to Stay, there’s a good girl. And she did, for as her people counted these things “good” meant doing as you’re told. The wind cut at her like knives. The air tore at her hair. It was a relief, almost, when a thing with feathers dropped out of the sun and bore her off in her sharp talons.
And then, at the monster’s lair, there was nothing. Only a tiny, comfortable manor house set on a green meadow improbably high in the crags, full of books and musical instruments and fine flax and wool to spin and weave if she wished, and brightly coloured birds to sing to, if she wanted, and at night - company. Just a strange, courtly person who claimed to serve the house, who had a voice like a bass flute and told the girl all the wonders she had seen in the world, before she became trapped in the darkness. She listened, also, did the voice, to all the secrets the girl wished to share. It was love of a sort, what they did in the dark.
Tchah! Time passes as it does to us all. In time the girl begged for a visit home, for she remembered the family that sacrificed her fondly and wished them to know that she was well. She was granted this, and returned after a week, brimming with stories of marriages and births and new fields bought and broken up with a plough.
It might be asked if envy prompted some of what happened, envy towards one who had found a gentle fate and whose back would not be broken, whose fingers would not roughen with labour unless she really, truly wanted it to. Perhaps the cousin who handed her a flint in a tinder box, who asked her seriously and gently Just how far can you trust someone you’ve never seen? truly meant to teach the girl wisdom. What does the lamb know of such things?
But it wasn’t long before the girl’s curiosity in the night burned her far worse than flame. When she thought that the voice that loved her slept, she struck sharp flint against rough steel once! twice! The sparks did not catch. A third time she tried to call fire, and lit a tiny tallow stub of a candle.
Light blossomed in the room, rich as a lily. On the bed, laid with blankets of the girl’s own weaving, lay a woman who was winged, and beautiful. She sighed in her sleep and whispered the girl’s own name. Then her eyes, her hawk-gold wild eyes opened.
They stared at each other, the girl and the hawk.
The hawk screamed, and leapt for the window, and was gone.
Lady Yekaterina drums her fingers on the cool glass, rat-a-tat-tat.
“She is no longer beautiful as her people count these things. When I met the woman her skin was burned dark in the sun and her hair chopped short and ragged. Her brows are the same though, dark and glossy, drawn like bird’s wings.
“She still walks like bird-song, though I don’t know for how much longer, burdened as she is with shoes of iron, for walking, and a bundle of stone bread, for eating.”
Yekaterina clicks her tongue, thoughtful. “I let her sit at my hearth one night, for the story of her life, and sent her on her way with a scrap of food in her belly and wine on her lips. As to what happens, when she finds her lover…”
Yekaterina shrugs. “I shall tell you when I know.”
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At dinner, one of the guests brought out a dusty box of Christmas crackers that had been found in one of the hidden crannies of the attic, and gave them to whoever would.
Edward Farthing gravely pulled the cracker with the companion next to him, smiled at the bang, and carefully teased out the party favour - a delicately molded silver feather. “Count Nicolo today favoured us with a story of the most cunning of birds. I will tell you now of the cleverest.”
The King of Birds
Once, long ago, when all the birds spoke the same tongue, the oldest, but not necessarily wisest, birds called the birds together and announced that there must be a king, and all those assembled would need to choose who it would be.
Of course, while birds of a feather may flock together, here assembled was every feather imaginable: spotted, hard, striped, soft, long… there was even a very aged Archaeopteryx there to observe the proceedings although, when asked, it shook its creaking head and insisted that while paleontologists might disagree on the matter, it did not consider itself to be a true bird.
Oh, the arguing. Oh, the incessant noise, the squawking, the cawing, and the numerous pretexts presented to name a king: the largest, the smallest, the fastest, the hairiest… as many choices as birds were present. Finally, they managed to come to at least one point of agreement, that the bird that could fly highest should be the King of Birds.
Up they flew, up, up, up, the great eagle, the wise hoopoe, the hawks and falcons, the twittering sparrows, the red-breasted robins, the great-winged albatrosses. Some were left behind: the humble kiwi and the belly surfing penguin gazed up, up, up as the mass of their cousins flew ever higher until it was a small speck in the clouds. Then the birds began to tumble down, one by one, gasping for breath from the thin air, until only the greatest of birds: the eagle, the phoenix, the vulture, the crane - each strained wings and breath and sinew to reach the highest thinnest air. At last the eagle took a great beat of its wings and smiled smugly to see its competitors spread their wings and fall spinning to the ground. It let out a great cry of triumph and then felt a small thing leap from the feathers of its back. A tiny wren had hidden herself between the eagle’s tawny wings, and at the last, when all the eagle could do in the blackness so near to outer space was drift and hold its height, the wren fluttered her small wings and climbed even higher.
Edward paused. “I suppose I might use this story as a metaphor for the hardy souls who first took humanity into space… It is of no matter.”
The eagle fell and the wren fell, and they tumbled near to the ground where the little wren hastily hid herself in a briar hedge.
There was more arguing, there always is, but at the end of it all the birds agreed that, really, their King did not need to be the strongest of birds - so long as it was the cleverest.
&&&
Edward smoothed out the folded paper crown he had found in his cracker. He placed it on his head with great solemnity and said with a twinkle: “As the Monarch for tomorrow, I do not pretend to be the cleverest. But let our theme be Majesty.”
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They are all in the gardens again, though the weather is blustery, the wind tugging at dark trees and pulling at the guests’ clothing. Lady Yekaterina ignores the impudent air and lounges on the low stone wall that defines the reflecting pool, now scattered into many broken images of the cloudy sky, the woods around them.
“This reminds me of the day they told me Pan is dead,” she says nonchalantly. This was a ways back - a thousand years or so? two? - and I was on a ship sailing by the island of Paxi. They called out from the shore to one of the sailors.
"‘Are you there, Tammuz?’ they cried. 'Go ye and tell them that the Great God Pan lies dead!'
“Poor man. Little Tammuz quaked in his loincloth but still, when the boat reached Palodes he delivered the news, his bones trembling like thunder and his voice ragged with divine grief. And oh, how the people wept.”
Yekaterina sets a little paper boat on the jagged water of the pool, to sink or swim as it will. "I’ve seen Pan in the woods since then, his legs swart and hairy, his pipes calling madness. His joy as he dances the world.
“It must have been his little joke.”
[As this long weekend has probably been distractingly busy for several players, I’m setting the roll-over for Tuesday morning. Cheers.]
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“Majesty? I feel somehow that I should write about a cat, or cats in general,” says Count Nicolo Alberti. “But I have a better story, which some of you may recognise from the work of that poet who visited hell. I give you:”
Greatness
Four kings met in hell. And as kings are want to do, they began to argue about which of them was the greatest, and what made a king and their kingdom great.
Duke Alfonso of Melian, renowned for his treachery and his military prowess, began. “The scholars of antiquity all agree: greatness comes from military might, from conquest, and individual glory. I am the greatest conqueror of my age, and while my achievements do not match those of Alexius, who conquered not just one world, but three, they are still great. None of my neighbours dared challenge me while I lived, and I expanded my realm. I am the greatest”.
Dominic Moros, the Doge of Amissia spoke next. “Under my rule my city built a great trading empire, not by conquest, but by commerce. It became the wealthiest in all the world, and its merchants built grand palaces roofed with gold. We were renowned throughout the land. Clearly I am the greatest”.
The Pontifix, Innocenti, spoke next. “Obviously the Pontifiex does not wage war, gods forbid. Instead, I patronised the greatest artists of the age, and filled the temples and my palace with paintings and statues and other artworks, leaving a lasting legacy and monuments to the gods. And what could be greater than that?”
The high priest Severus, who briefly ruled Floria, spoke next. “Under my rule Floria became the most pious of cities, united under one faith and purged of sinners. There can be no greater glory”.
The demon who had been sent to torment them all, spoke last. “I disagree with you all. There is in your land a small city, Albia. It is a peaceful realm, fighting no wars, and seeking no glory. It is hardly renowned for its wealth, being neither rich nor poor, but has enough to get by. Its people care not a whit for the gods, and the quality of its literature is such that it has occasionally been used by my master to torment the writers who come this way. But its people are well-fed, and happy, and fear nothing, its Queen Ferventi ruling under a principle that people are the most important thing in the world. While it is a small city, and I am just a demon, it seems to me to be truly great, and certainly the sort of place I should prefer to live”.
But the assembled kings agreed that this was just a silly idea, and went back to their argument.
3 Likes
That was lovely, Malcolm.
Day 9’s Prompt is “drop”
The group is in the dining room. Count Nicolo Alberti brings out a dusty bottle and sets it in the middle of the table. After it is decanted and left to settle, he begins. “My friends,” he says, “we are almost near the end of our captivity. This is the second-to-last story for each of us, so it marks the eve of our release. And so to mark this, I have had a bottle of wine brought from my personal collection. Given the theme of the day, I think I should tell you its story.”
The drinkable drop
The story of this bottle begins on a hillside near my home city of Floria, where the grapes that made it were grown. The soil of the hillside is not particularly good, and is unsuitable for other crops (except perhaps sheep), but has been under cultivation for grapes for centuries, supplying the citizens of Floria and nearby towns with wine.
The vines which produced the grapes which went into this bottle were planted some fifty years ago, and have been trimmed and cared for by the winemakers ever since. Every year the grapes are harvested and the vines trimmed back ready for the next.
These particular grapes were harvested twenty years ago. After growing through summer and taking on the flavours of sun, rain and soil, they were picked and trodden to a thick pulp. After fermenting for a fortnight, it was trodden again, and the juice was drained off into barrels to settle and mature. After a year, it was bottled for sale in Floria. I suppose my father’s butler must have picked it up at some stage, tasted it, and thought to himself “this will be good in twenty years or so” and cellared it. Having skilled servants has some advantages.
Of course, its story doesn’t end there. To get here it had to come on a long voyage, across several worlds. At one stage brigands attacked my baggage train, and I suspect this bottle barely escaped being looted (though they did make off with my brandy, and a large wheel of cheese). It has survived unbroken, and hopefully with its flavour intact. But that will be for you to judge, when we toast the impending end to our captivity.
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Oh you tease, Malcolm 
[CW: This one is bloody morbid. Anyway.]
“As I was walking,” Lady Yekaterina says leisurely, perched in the seat of a high dormer window that looks down at a road where traffic once passed, and might again.
Care For A Drop
As I was walking along a quiet country road, I heard a man say, “Mind yer step, mate, bit of an unchancy step there.”
His companion replied, “Thanks, friend, wouldna’ want t’ break a bone unchancy.”
“Care for a drop?” the first man said.
“Don’t mind if ah do.”
They passed a few minutes in silence and drinking, then one suggested a bit of tobacco in his pocket.
“Nah, nah, friend, that stuff’ll kill ye.”
“Heh.” Then, “A lovely day, so it is.”
“Oh, aye. Grand comp’ny, too.”
“Always room for kindness, that’s what I say.”
“Too true.” After a moment, the second man said, “Well then, mustn’t be keepin’ you. You go on now.”
“If ye’re sure.”
“Oh aye, the evening’s coming on all pretty and ah want t’ go out with th’ sun.”
“Well then.”
The hangman pulled the lever of the gallows so that the condemned man took one last drop. And he died with a friend beside him.
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Thank you all, you lovely people, for participating. I’ve enjoyed your company and seen some lovely work. Last prompt!
Arise
Given what we’ve all been thru this last month or so…
Listen, listen and hear ye all!
The winter is fading!
The sun begins to show its strength.
The cold and darkness retreat into the haze of memory.
Arise, Arise all!
Arise the fresh spring grass, trodden down by bleakness
Arise the flowers, and let your colours shine through!
Arise all ye animals great and small, from your dens and burrows, your trunks and caves.
Arise all ye people, for now as ever before, the sun comes and the winter darkens your spirit no more!
Arise, and reclaim the land as your own! The sun will shine and the flowers will bloom.
Drive back the memories of winter! Arise, arise and rejoice!
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It is the last day, and the guests gather in the front courtyard, breath steaming in the bitter autumn air. A tray of stirrup cups is set on a low stone table, the silver goblets steaming from the heated wine - or something like wine - inside. Lady Yekaterina lounges on the frosty ground, insulated with thick sable fur and leaning her back against one of her great panthers. It purrs, sides vibrating, and bends its head around to rub its mouth against her slender fingers.
”What a pleasure it has been to have your company these last days,” she says. “I told you a tale of a bramble wood to start, and a woman named Aurora who dreamed its thorny dreams… I shall speak of one of them, if you care to hear it, of the still frozen time when the killing frost blankets the ground and all the things that live and grow sink into sleep.”
Bramble Dreams
This is the dream of the waiting wood, of the root sunk deep and the sharpened branch: If you cut me, I may bleed. If you break me, I will grow.
These are the dreams of the little birds, struck down in their thousands as the cold stops their hearts: When we fly together we claim the sky. Soon. It will be soon that we fly.
This is the dream of the winter wolf, haggard under the fur but her pelt full thick and fine: I can run a thousand miles and not tire; I can sleep on the ice and not die. I feed my children with my milk and my blood and their teeth grow white and sharp in our warm nest under the rocks.
This is the dream of the unborn flower, held in the darkness and the silence and the cold: I. will. rise.
Yekaterina shrugs. “Aurora always turns a pretty tale.”
She claps her hands together, hands white as frost. “It’s been marvellous having you here. Do come again soon.” Her brow furrows prettily. “But not at New Moon. I’ve other guests at New Moon and I… suspect you wouldn’t mix well…”
She stands suddenly, and her deep dark mantle stirs like bird wings.
“Take care, now.”
[And that’s a wrap, pretty much, though you can still fill any of the prompts if you’ve a mind.
I will be collecting these stories and running them into a prettily formatted document for everybody who participated, as a souvenir. If you’d rather your work not appear, you can let me know either in this thread or in a PM.
It’s been a pleasure spending time with you all - thank you for playing.]
Cat
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