Summer 2015 Short Story Contest

[Infected Mushroom]

How many stories can you enter for a contest?

[Luepola]

I'll be joining this if i can get my computer working in time

[Laerod]

Honestly, if you're not done, you shouldn't post your story. It doesn't really matter terribly where you post it in the thread, so you should wait until you're finished.

Meh, spur of the moment kind of thing; I'll probably delete it before the deadline anyways.

BUT NEXT TIME YOU SHOULD NOT READ IT WHEN I SAY NO PEAKING >:[

Might want to check up on what "peaking" refers to >=P

[Nazi Flower Power]

How many stories can you enter for a contest?

One entry per person please.

[Nurkama]

Honestly, if you're not done, you shouldn't post your story. It doesn't really matter terribly where you post it in the thread, so you should wait until you're finished.

Meh, spur of the moment kind of thing; I'll probably delete it before the deadline anyways.

BUT NEXT TIME YOU SHOULD NOT READ IT WHEN I SAY NO PEAKING >:[

It's spelled peeking.

Peaking is this.

[Nurkama]

Meh, spur of the moment kind of thing; I'll probably delete it before the deadline anyways.

BUT NEXT TIME YOU SHOULD NOT READ IT WHEN I SAY NO PEAKING >:[

Might want to check up on what "peaking" refers to >=P

Teehee.

[Infected Mushroom]

How many stories can you enter for a contest?

One entry per person please.

I see...

then I'm considering whether or not to switch out my existing story for a new one I'm thinking of penning.

I mean, I'm worried about the story I've already posted possibly being disqualified due to it being ''fan fiction.'' It's treading on a thin line I think.

I don't want to be disqualified right off the bat...

especially as there's something else I could potentially write that is equally if not more insane to read.

[Vrolondia]

Meh, spur of the moment kind of thing; I'll probably delete it before the deadline anyways.

BUT NEXT TIME YOU SHOULD NOT READ IT WHEN I SAY NO PEAKING >:[

It's spelled peeking.

Peaking is this.

I know what it means!

4. The point of greatest development, value, or intensity:

NO PEAKING 4 ME! MY STORIES HAVE NO PEAK! THEY ARE AS FLAT AS A BOARD! AND BORING! VERY BORING!

...Are you convinced yet?

[Unitaristic Regions]

Man I should have just posted mine immediately like I talked about, now I'm looking at it and having my inevitable "Baaaaw, everything sucks, I'm a horrible writer; why even live? *slash wrists*" reaction.

Does writing make anyone else bipolar? I typically either look at what I've written and depending on when I look at it think "I am a shining golden god!" or "I'm so embarrassed and ashamed I could die."

I'm highly insecure of what I write.

When I write something, it always looks fine. Then, a few days later, I read it again...

[Jacobania]

Here's my story. Hope you enjoy...

On a little green road, a little boy stood. He was a quiet boy, standing ever so proper like a man his age should, but in his young and adventurous heart, he wandered the world.

Stanley was his name, as was his father’s and his father’s father’s. He lived in Mitsville, a desolate little town with rats and rot so prevalent, the school children would count the mice on their way to the weatherworn mortar huts they called home. Like most everyone he knew, Stanley worked the mines during the summer while the children would play in the soot that covered the many nearby meadows. Year after year he craved to join them in their revelry, only to find himself once again upon the shallow road on which he now stood; the road to the mines which he so greatly despised.

“What if,” he wondered, “I left this little green road and played with my friends?”

He pondered on his dangerous thought. The very idea of what he had suggested in his curious mind was unheard of in Mitsville. Knowing the consequences of departing the path before him, he continued and left the thought behind him.

“What if,” he paused again and pondered, “I faked my death upon this little green road?” He wondered aimlessly how to achieve this, but to no end. With his chin to his chest, Stanley pressed onward in hesitant progression.

Upon his melancholic venture, he stumbled upon a deathly white wolf lying upon the forested curb. The young Stanley was paralyzed with fear, but only for a moment as he saw it was the creature’s final hour. With a sense of calming rejuvenation, Stanley walked towards the wolf with fervid gentleness, ready to turn in haste.

“Stanley,” the wolf whispered, “Why do you walk alone, Stanley?”

Stanley paused in horror as the beast coughed his blood into the soot-black sky. Cautiously, Stanley replied, “I cannot talk to you, Mr. Wolf, for I must not be late for work.”

“Oh, but you must,“ said the wolf in an eerie croak, “For we are here, and I am your salvation,”

Like a winter chill to a man’s spine, the rising wind caught Stanley off guard. Now undoubtedly mortified, Stanley muttered, “Salvation?”. The wolf looked into the young boy’s eyes with a hollow grin. Stanley opened his mouth to speak, but the wolf, again, coughed, startling him to silence.

“Yes, salvation” the wolf quietly said, “For if you stay here where you stand, all will be well.”

As foam and blood began to fall from the wolf’s mouth, Stanley finally panicked and brashly turned away from the horrid beast to escape, but fell upon the deserted road of brick and wild moss. As he turned back, the wolf had vanished and all was as it was before: desolate and dark with ash. Wiping off the foul dust upon his reddened knees, Stanley journeyed further down the ever winding trail, weary of mortal peril.

His journey was yet again halted when he heard a mild screech under his heel. Still stirred from his previous confrontation, Stanley sharply set his eyes to the ground and, to his surprise, saw an innocent little white-tailed rabbit.

“I’m sorry” Stanley rashly said.

“Not so loud,” replied the rabbit, “I can hear you just fine from here.”

“I’m sorry,” Stanley said again

“I know. I heard you the first time. What’s a young boy like yourself doing on a road like this, anyway?”

“I’m always on this road, Mr. Rabbit. I’m going to the mines.”

“The mines?” the rabbit interrupted, “Why aren’t you out playing like other kids?”

Stanley, for a moment, looked away towards the countless trees aside the brick pathway on which he stood. With his mind still adrift, Stanley said “I don’t want to talk about it”

“Oh,” the rabbit replied as he looked down, understanding the child’s emotional burden.

Stanley looked at the rabbit, and then proceeded to observe the trees again. The rabbit then lifted his ear, and, in a momentary panic, immediately turned to Stanley.

“There’s something in the distance,” the rabbit said.

The rabbit lifted his ear again, and, with widening eyes, turned again to Stanley and said, “We have to get off this road now! Follow me!”

Stanley and the rabbit then dashed into the forests to flee the unknown danger. Fumbling over nearly every obstacle, Stanley went into a light panic, frantically trying to catch up. The rabbit, seeing that Stanley’s flight was hindered by the vast wilderness, cried, “Hide behind this tree. Quickly!” So Stanley did as the rabbit had told him, and the rabbit disappeared.

Now alone, he dared not make a movement. Fearing the wolf he had met earlier to be close by, he barely even breathed so that he would not make any sounds. Then, Stanley heard the voice of the rabbit in the distance.

“Run!”

Stanley stepped out from behind the tree and a shot was fired.

He stopped. He looked down, only to see his hand red with blood. Raising his head, Stanley saw the white-tailed rabbit sighing in relief, although he wasn’t sure why.

“That should distract him,” The rabbit said as he ventured off into the wilderness.

The hunter raced towards the boy with unbridled tears flowing from his eyes. As Stanley fell to the ground, he saw something in which he had greatly feared.

Everything had now made perfect sense.

It was a dead white wolf with foam in its mouth, lying in its own blood.

[Nazi Flower Power]

One entry per person please.

I see...

then I'm considering whether or not to switch out my existing story for a new one I'm thinking of penning.

I mean, I'm worried about the story I've already posted possibly being disqualified due to it being ''fan fiction.'' It's treading on a thin line I think.

I don't want to be disqualified right off the bat...

especially as there's something else I could potentially write that is equally if not more insane to read.

After a quick glance, I didn't immediately recognize the source -- but that could just mean it's fanfic for something I haven't read.

If you want to swap it out for another story before the deadline, that is allowed.

[The High Lords]

Some good new posts - can't wait to see all of them!

[Unitaristic Regions]

Something I slapped together.

The Bleak Place

On the horizon the sun hung, dying its own private death, signalling a sickly dusk on the city’s warped streets and leaking houses. The many bricks of this place stank of unspecified liquids and vague corruption, hinting at the disasters of the past and prophesying the horrors of the future. Their once virile brown colour had now eroded into that of mud, surface covered in the rust of ancient blood.
It was in this twilight that two figures crept, the silhouettes of their bodies pressed against the crumbling walls, now climbing over a some rotting fences, then running through the dried-up grass of gardens, barely pausing to shoot a glance at such lost potential. The citizens of this bleak place did not reflect much on their fate: such is the nature of survival; those that are filled with the rush of adrenaline and the pump of a terrified heart can little afford philosophical reflection.
The one in front raised a hand as they approached a particularly low building, so squat and torn at the bottom, it resembled a ragged pustule bursting out of a ruined skin, nearly all its surface covered in bleached signs and anarchic blood-paintings. All that gave away its previous function now, was the oven-chimney jutting out of its side and the sign the figure with his hand up stood on, depicting a fresh loaf of bread.
“Seems a solid place,” he said to his companion, trying to control his raging fear, “It would work.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” The other said, voice shaking, “Baked goods do not last all that long…”
The one with his hand up looked back, irritation born out of panic lining his voice as he spoke: “Ain’t the dam’ bakery we looking for, ‘tis the dam’ house the baker lived in! Place is built like a bunker, ugly one at that, and ‘tis not such a stretch to believe the man saw all this coming and built in expectation of it, nah?”
“A bunker-bakery? Eh… it would be worth the risk, but... we really need shelter for the night. We really, really-”
The one up front did not wait to hear him finish, instead walking over to the building, his broad body casting wide shadows onto the houses nearby, their silent posture relentless and threatening. He was never careful, his companion thought, always too brash, but he followed him down the street nonetheless, both careful to walk on the balls of their naked feet, even more careful not to touch anything that might make a noise.
Indeed, they were a ragged bunch, their clothes tattered strips of cloth of faded colour and their skin sun-burnt yet brown. Over their sharp eyes, fat locks of hair hung, thick and unwashed.
They were lean, covered in a criss-cross of scars, the rash one more so than his friend.
As they pressed their bodies against the walls of the bakery, near-panting with cropped-up fear, their patchwork shirts clinging to their bodies, sure to leave a fine lining of salt on their skin when and if the sweat dried, the rash one hissed: “’Tis it, little man,” the sick light illuminating his rash expression of triumph.
“Fuck off, Ryk.”
The one that had just spoken was tense, his eyes looking from here to fro, checking the open doorways and looming alleys, but found nothing: all was silent. Indeed, even the wind had no power here, leaving the smells of rot to float through the air unabated.
Ryk shot him a glance and said: “Keep it together, Urd.”
He clenched his jaw together, opened the door slowly, his feet tapping on the ground as soft as his body would have it, beckoning Urd to follow him with a thick arm.
As they walked inside, Urd let his eyes trail along the furniture and goods, all covered in a generous layer of dust, and soot: for some reason or another, the back of the building had been blasted away, charring the buildings’ tables and floor. Through the hole more pale light seeped into the building, made of that which had been eroded for so long now. It shone some peace upon the ruins, and seemed to Urd to be a small kindness, in its own way. God was dead. Only the sun was left now, however soon it might be extinguished.
He traced a finger along a crust of bread: a rock’s surface would not have felt differently, if perhaps more clean.
“Fuck!”
“Hm?” mumbled Urd.
“’Fuckin’ wall is broken, ye blind Dutch git. No shelter when day dies. If dis ain’t no ‘bakery-bunker’, we’re fucked.”
Urd nodded. Right. Should have thought of that. He said: “Well, it would be possible that there is a trapdoor somewhere…”
He crouched, looked underneath a few tables. Behind him, there were some harsh sounds: likely Ryk flipping over couches.
“Should we be so loud?” Urd said.
“If yer’ scared, go fuck off.”
Always a hospitable lad, dear Ryk.
“Too rash,” Urd mumbled, “So rash…”
It was truly a dank place, although not quite ridden with the musk of evil that had infected this city so dearly, it felt as if its soul had been ripped through the hole so unsubtly blasted in the wall. The bakery was a shell.
“Nothin’,” Ryk whispered, his fingers pawing through the sand on the stones, ‘Nothin’ at all!’
Urd shook his head and, shaking a little, crept to to the hole, feeling the sun’s meagre warmth consoling his skin. It was now nearly gone, lighting up the horizon in a dawn so pale it looked as if cancerous piss had spread itself over those far-away mountain peaks.
“We’re fucked,” He said, “So fucked…”
It was, of course, their arrogance that was to blame. Even the most careful gambler is at risk of deeming himself a ‘natural’ if his luck strikes true enough times, to then take the fall is his darkest and most undeserved self-assurance. And Urd and Ryk were much, but not exactly careful.
Urd kept shaking his head, tears now showing in his eyes as the light disappeared. The sun was the only thing left that could embrace him with a mother’s warmth: now it was gone, and it left them, all alone and scared. In his head, that one childhood rhyme abounded, that one wisdom no one understood, left to them by the videos in the bunker, repeating again and again in schizophrenic determination. He whispered it out loud:

“Listen Child,
Do this for me.
Live not Loud,
And do not See.

Be blessed with that,
A wileful yawn,
Look not for that,
Which swallows Dawn.

The Sight will blind,
The Ears will falter,
The Tongue will still,
But the Nose shall alter.

Out there it doth Lurks,
Creeps and it does Wait,
it What follows Dark,
And doth People ate.“

Ryk stood, minding little his step, and came standing next to Urd as the pale yellow of the final light was gone. Night did not wait: it crept over the houses like an impatient shadow, the ever-omniscient fog thickening like it was to be the courier of its coming. No man should be outside at this time. At home, Urd and Ryk had had the great bunkers, the underground dwellings were humanity cowered as night cloyed over the land. But here, in the city? There would be no relief.
“Ryk,” Urd said, growing more pale, “I just realized something.”
“Hm?”
“What if… what if this bakery appeared to others too as a shelter, as some ingenious bunker but above-ground? What if it was intact, then? What if the wall was too thin and the Night… the Night came in by making this hole?”
Silence as the bakery went black and the fog seeped in. There was a stink, now, rotten like sulphur and dung, and there were sounds of creaking and moaning, ever so softly. Ryk peered out of the hole.
“’Tis the houses…”
Urd followed his gaze, and with great horror saw what his half-brother meant: the ancient houses, constructed in the glorious time of legendary queen Victoria, were moving, swaying, from left, to right, to left, to right, terribly hypnotic, side by side. Their windows and doors seemingly replaced by holes of darkness, it seemed as if they had eyes and a mouth: all gaping and staring at the two boys as they moved. The crumbling mortar keeping them together seemed to suffer, as creaks erupted from the buildings.
“This would not have been how mother would have wanted me to die…” Urd whispered.
“Dam’ yer fuckin' ugly motter! ‘Tis not ‘ow fatter would wan’ et!”
Would any father want such a fate as was coming for his sons, however estranged they might be? Urd’s startled mind wandered in absent wonder and shock, as the houses continued to sway like animated corpses. From the creaks their unnatural movement opened in their stony skin, thick liquid oozed like pus, leaking onto the pavement and slithering towards the bakery in small trickles. Urd stared at them: such heaving and intense darkness! Death was mesmerizing, tru-
A hand slapping the back of his head.
“Run, ye git!”
They turned. Ryk bashed open the bakery’s doors and they hurtled out on to the streets, near-gagging from the fog that they breathed and near-crying from the shock, but their pounding heart flogged them onwards. The street shook, their cobbles flowing wave-like as the houses at both of its sides continued their mesmerized dance.
As the air rippled along with the ground, Urd stumbled and tripped, the stone no longer to be trusted. The floor rose, then fell, dropping him and shaking his body. He coughed, screamed, scrambled to his feet and screamed for his mother but she was dead and would not hear. He looked for Ryk, but his half-brother ran on, only looking back at Urd with terror in his eyes.
Urd yelled: “Wai!” but his brother turned his head away and ran. Between them, the dark pus trickled its way through the street and so they were separated. Urd looked: what way, what way? But there was but the dark stone of street, the dark brick of house, and the pus, the pus. Clawing at his hair he ran into an alley.
Above his head lisping voices seeped from the window-sills: “Brother, brother, come find me! Save me!”
These empty echoes floated through the air, taunting him and burrowing in his ears.
“BROTHER! BROTHER! BROTHER!”
Urd wanted to scream, but his breath had left him, and so he begged it to stop, but the voices continued, the shrill destroyers ripping through his head and drilling at his skull. As his resolve faltered and his mind crumbled, he put his hands to his ears, and ripped. There was no more sound, just the feeling of wetness at his head and pain, pain, pain…
He felt himself pant through his heaving chest, his eyes burning as if blood-shot. He wanted to run, but he had reached a dead-end. Clawing at the wall of the house blocking him, he felt his arms sink into the stone: when he pulled them back they dripped stinking mud and writhing maggot. He moaned. The house collapsed.
The insects were in his mouth instantaneously, biting at his tongue and ripping shreds off of it. He could not die now! He brought his hand into his mouth, and ripped.
As he thrashed about, body contorting, he could still see the houses as he came out of the pile, bending over, their doorways hungry maws… and the teeth that came from those doors! Yellow, sharp, twisting outwards, and the stink… he could not bear the sight of his death. He brought his hands to his eyes, and ripped.

Below is the story's official explanation, for who is interested, but if you want your own interpretation, don't read it!:

The 'fog' is actually leftover gas from biological warfare, which drives whoever breathes it insane, making him/herself kill him/herself. The sun counters its effects. It's actually hinted at in the rhyme: it messes with your senses by breathing it (the Nose that 'alters'). The ones that took shelter in airtight bunkers before 'the war' survived only to find mutilated bodies when they came out and they think some horror kills you at night, while you actually do it to yourself. The reason they have weird names and talk odd is because time has advanced, and so has the English and Dutch language. 'Rick' is 'Ryk' and 'Sjoerd' has become 'Urd'. 'Urd' speaks very formal English because it's his second language: he's actually from Holland.


Extra, for those who didn't get what wasn't all too obvious: Urd and Ryk are scavengers who got too cocky: they went scavenging at what seemed to be a bunker, but it was, in the end, just a bakery.

[Respubliko de Libereco]

Something I slapped together.

The Bleak Place

On the horizon the sun hung, dying its own private death, signalling a sickly dusk on the city’s warped streets and leaking houses. The many bricks of this place stank of unspecified liquids and vague corruption, hinting at the disasters of the past and prophesying the horrors of the future. Their once virile brown colour had now eroded into that of mud, surface covered in the rust of ancient blood.
It was in this twilight that two figures crept, the silhouettes of their bodies pressed against the crumbling walls, now climbing over a some rotting fences, then running through the dried-up grass of gardens, barely pausing to shoot a glance at such lost potential. The citizens of this bleak place did not reflect much on their fate: such is the nature of survival; those that are filled with the rush of adrenaline and the pump of a terrified heart can little afford philosophical reflection.
The one in front raised a hand as they approached a particularly low building, so squat and torn at the bottom, it resembled a ragged pustule bursting out of a ruined skin, nearly all its surface covered in bleached signs and anarchic blood-paintings. All that gave away its previous function now, was the oven-chimney jutting out of its side and the sign the figure with his hand up stood on, depicting a fresh loaf of bread.
“Seems a solid place,” he said to his companion, trying to control his raging fear, “It would work.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” The other said, voice shaking, “Baked goods do not last all that long…”
The one with his hand up looked back, irritation born out of panic lining his voice as he spoke: “Ain’t the dam’ bakery we looking for, ‘tis the dam’ house the baker lived in! Place is built like a bunker, ugly one at that, and ‘tis not such a stretch to believe the man saw all this coming and built in expectation of it, nah?”
“A bunker-bakery? Eh… it would be worth the risk, but... we really need shelter for the night. We really, really-”
The one up front did not wait to hear him finish, instead walking over to the building, his broad body casting wide shadows onto the houses nearby, their silent posture relentless and threatening. He was never careful, his companion thought, always too brash, but he followed him down the street nonetheless, both careful to walk on the balls of their naked feet, even more careful not to touch anything that might make a noise.
Indeed, they were a ragged bunch, their clothes tattered strips of cloth of faded colour and their skin sun-burnt yet brown. Over their sharp eyes, fat locks of hair hung, thick and unwashed.
They were lean, covered in a criss-cross of scars, the rash one more so than his friend.
As they pressed their bodies against the walls of the bakery, near-panting with cropped-up fear, their patchwork shirts clinging to their bodies, sure to leave a fine lining of salt on their skin when and if the sweat dried, the rash one hissed: “’Tis it, little man,” the sick light illuminating his rash expression of triumph.
“Fuck off, Ryk.”
The one that had just spoken was tense, his eyes looking from here to fro, checking the open doorways and looming alleys, but found nothing: all was silent. Indeed, even the wind had no power here, leaving the smells of rot to float through the air unabated.
Ryk shot him a glance and said: “Keep it together, Urd.”
He clenched his jaw together, opened the door slowly, his feet tapping on the ground as soft as his body would have it, beckoning Urd to follow him with a thick arm.
As they walked inside, Urd let his eyes trail along the furniture and goods, all covered in a generous layer of dust, and soot: for some reason or another, the back of the building had been blasted away, charring the buildings’ tables and floor. Through the hole more pale light seeped into the building, made of that which had been eroded for so long now. It shone some peace upon the ruins, and seemed to Urd to be a small kindness, in its own way. God was dead. Only the sun was left now, however soon it might be extinguished.
He traced a finger along a crust of bread: a rock’s surface would not have felt differently, if perhaps more clean.
“Fuck!”
“Hm?” mumbled Urd.
“’Fuckin’ wall is broken, ye blind Dutch git. No shelter when day dies. If dis ain’t no ‘bakery-bunker’, we’re fucked.”
Urd nodded. Right. Should have thought of that. He said: “Well, it would be possible that there is a trapdoor somewhere…”
He crouched, looked underneath a few tables. Behind him, there were some harsh sounds: likely Ryk flipping over couches.
“Should we be so loud?” Urd said.
“If yer’ scared, go fuck off.”
Always a hospitable lad, dear Ryk.
“Too rash,” Urd mumbled, “So rash…”
It was truly a dank place, although not quite ridden with the musk of evil that had infected this city so dearly, it felt as if its soul had been ripped through the hole so unsubtly blasted in the wall. The bakery was a shell.
“Nothin’,” Ryk whispered, his fingers pawing through the sand on the stones, ‘Nothin’ at all!’
Urd shook his head and, shaking a little, crept to to the hole, feeling the sun’s meagre warmth consoling his skin. It was now nearly gone, lighting up the horizon in a dawn so pale it looked as if cancerous piss had spread itself over those far-away mountain peaks.
“We’re fucked,” He said, “So fucked…”
It was, of course, their arrogance that was to blame. Even the most careful gambler is at risk of deeming himself a ‘natural’ if his luck strikes true enough times, to then take the fall is his darkest and most undeserved self-assurance. And Urd and Ryk were much, but not exactly careful.
Urd kept shaking his head, tears now showing in his eyes as the light disappeared. The sun was the only thing left that could embrace him with a mother’s warmth: now it was gone, and it left them, all alone and scared. In his head, that one childhood rhyme abounded, again and again in schizophrenic determination. He whispered it out loud:

“Listen Child,
Do this for me.
Live not Loud,
And do not See.

Be blessed with that,
A wileful yawn,
Look not for that,
Which swallows Dawn.

The Sight will blind,
The Ears will falter,
The Tongue will still,
But the Nose shall alter.

Out there it doth Lurks,
Creeps and it does Wait,
it What follows Dark,
And doth People ate.“

Ryk stood, minding little his step, and came standing next to Urd as the pale yellow of the final light was gone. Night did not wait: it crept over the houses like an impatient shadow, the ever-omniscient fog thickening like it was to be the courier of its coming. No man should be outside at this time. At home, Urd and Ryk had had the great bunkers, the underground dwellings were humanity cowered as night cloyed over the land. But here, in the city? There would be no relief.
“Ryk,” Urd said, growing more pale, “I just realized something.”
“Hm?”
“What if… what if this bakery appeared to others too as a shelter, as some ingenious bunker but above-ground? What if it was intact, then? What if the wall was too thin and the Night… the Night came in by making this hole?”
Silence as the bakery went black and the fog seeped in. There was a stink, now, rotten like sulphur and dung, and there were sounds of creaking and moaning, ever so softly. Ryk peered out of the hole.
“’Tis the houses…”
Urd followed his gaze, and with great horror saw what his half-brother meant: the ancient houses, constructed in the glorious time of legendary queen Victoria, were moving, swaying, from left, to right, to left, to right, terribly hypnotic, side by side. Their windows and doors seemingly replaced by holes of darkness, it seemed as if they had eyes and a mouth: all gaping and staring at the two boys as they moved. The crumbling mortar keeping them together seemed to suffer, as creaks erupted from the buildings.
“This would not have been how mother would have wanted me to die…” Urd whispered.
“Dam’ yer fuckin' ugly motter! ‘Tis not ‘ow fatter would wan’ et!”
Would any father want such a fate as was coming for his sons, however estranged they might be? Urd’s startled mind wandered in absent wonder and shock, as the houses continued to sway like animated corpses. From the creaks their unnatural movement opened in their stony skin, thick liquid oozed like pus, leaking onto the pavement and slithering towards the bakery in small trickles. Urd stared at them: such heaving and intense darkness! Death was mesmerizing, tru-
A hand slapping the back of his head.
“Run, ye git!”
They turned. Ryk bashed open the bakery’s doors and they hurtled out on to the streets, near-gagging from the fog that they breathed and near-crying from the shock, but their pounding heart flogged them onwards. The street shook, their cobbles flowing wave-like as the houses at both of its sides continued their mesmerized dance.
As the air rippled along with the ground, Urd stumbled and tripped, the stone no longer to be trusted. The floor rose, then fell, dropping him and shaking his body. He coughed, screamed, scrambled to his feet and screamed for his mother but she was dead and would not hear. He looked for Ryk, but his half-brother ran on, only looking back at Urd with terror in his eyes.
Urd yelled: “Wai!” but his brother turned his head away and ran. Between them, the dark pus trickled its way through the street and so they were separated. Urd looked: what way, what way? But there was but the dark stone of street, the dark brick of house, and the pus, the pus. Clawing at his hair he ran into an alley.
Above his head lisping voices seeped from the window-sills: “Brother, brother, come find me! Save me!”
These empty echoes floated through the air, taunting him and burrowing in his ears.
“BROTHER! BROTHER! BROTHER!”
Urd wanted to scream, but his breath had left him, and so he begged it to stop, but the voices continued, the shrill destroyers ripping through his head and drilling at his skull. As his resolve faltered and his mind crumbled, he put his hands to his ears, and ripped. There was no more sound, just the feeling of wetness at his head and pain, pain, pain…
He felt himself pant through his heaving chest, his eyes burning as if blood-shot. He wanted to run, but he had reached a dead-end. Clawing at the wall of the house blocking him, he felt his arms sink into the stone: when he pulled them back they dripped stinking mud and writhing maggot. He moaned. The house collapsed.
The insects were in his mouth instantaneously, biting at his tongue and ripping shreds off of it. He could not die now! He brought his hand into his mouth, and ripped.
As he thrashed about, body contorting, he could still see the houses as he came out of the pile, bending over, their doorways hungry maws… and the teeth that came from those doors! Yellow, sharp, twisting outwards, and the stink… he could not bear the sight of his death. He brought his hands to his eyes, and ripped.

Below is the story's official explanation, for who is interested, but if you want your own interpretation, don't read it!:

The 'fog' is actually leftover gas from biological warfare, which drives whoever breathes it insane, making him/herself kill him/herself. The sun counters its effects. It's actually hinted at in the rhyme: it messes with your senses by breathing it (the Nose that 'alters'). The ones that took shelter in airtight bunkers before 'the war' survived only to find mutilated bodies when they came out and they think some horror kills you at night, while you actually do it to yourself. The reason they have weird names and talk odd is because time has advanced, and so has the English and Dutch language. 'Rick' is 'Ryk' and 'Sjoerd' has become 'Urd'. 'Urd' speaks very formal English because it's his second language: he's actually from Holland.


Extra, for those who didn't get what wasn't all too obvious: Urd and Ryk are scavengers who got too cocky: they went scavenging at what seemed to be a bunker, but it was, in the end, just a bakery.

I suppose that, as a judge, I'm not supposed to read the explanation?

[Unitaristic Regions]

Something I slapped together.

The Bleak Place

On the horizon the sun hung, dying its own private death, signalling a sickly dusk on the city’s warped streets and leaking houses. The many bricks of this place stank of unspecified liquids and vague corruption, hinting at the disasters of the past and prophesying the horrors of the future. Their once virile brown colour had now eroded into that of mud, surface covered in the rust of ancient blood.
It was in this twilight that two figures crept, the silhouettes of their bodies pressed against the crumbling walls, now climbing over a some rotting fences, then running through the dried-up grass of gardens, barely pausing to shoot a glance at such lost potential. The citizens of this bleak place did not reflect much on their fate: such is the nature of survival; those that are filled with the rush of adrenaline and the pump of a terrified heart can little afford philosophical reflection.
The one in front raised a hand as they approached a particularly low building, so squat and torn at the bottom, it resembled a ragged pustule bursting out of a ruined skin, nearly all its surface covered in bleached signs and anarchic blood-paintings. All that gave away its previous function now, was the oven-chimney jutting out of its side and the sign the figure with his hand up stood on, depicting a fresh loaf of bread.
“Seems a solid place,” he said to his companion, trying to control his raging fear, “It would work.”
“Are you absolutely sure?” The other said, voice shaking, “Baked goods do not last all that long…”
The one with his hand up looked back, irritation born out of panic lining his voice as he spoke: “Ain’t the dam’ bakery we looking for, ‘tis the dam’ house the baker lived in! Place is built like a bunker, ugly one at that, and ‘tis not such a stretch to believe the man saw all this coming and built in expectation of it, nah?”
“A bunker-bakery? Eh… it would be worth the risk, but... we really need shelter for the night. We really, really-”
The one up front did not wait to hear him finish, instead walking over to the building, his broad body casting wide shadows onto the houses nearby, their silent posture relentless and threatening. He was never careful, his companion thought, always too brash, but he followed him down the street nonetheless, both careful to walk on the balls of their naked feet, even more careful not to touch anything that might make a noise.
Indeed, they were a ragged bunch, their clothes tattered strips of cloth of faded colour and their skin sun-burnt yet brown. Over their sharp eyes, fat locks of hair hung, thick and unwashed.
They were lean, covered in a criss-cross of scars, the rash one more so than his friend.
As they pressed their bodies against the walls of the bakery, near-panting with cropped-up fear, their patchwork shirts clinging to their bodies, sure to leave a fine lining of salt on their skin when and if the sweat dried, the rash one hissed: “’Tis it, little man,” the sick light illuminating his rash expression of triumph.
“Fuck off, Ryk.”
The one that had just spoken was tense, his eyes looking from here to fro, checking the open doorways and looming alleys, but found nothing: all was silent. Indeed, even the wind had no power here, leaving the smells of rot to float through the air unabated.
Ryk shot him a glance and said: “Keep it together, Urd.”
He clenched his jaw together, opened the door slowly, his feet tapping on the ground as soft as his body would have it, beckoning Urd to follow him with a thick arm.
As they walked inside, Urd let his eyes trail along the furniture and goods, all covered in a generous layer of dust, and soot: for some reason or another, the back of the building had been blasted away, charring the buildings’ tables and floor. Through the hole more pale light seeped into the building, made of that which had been eroded for so long now. It shone some peace upon the ruins, and seemed to Urd to be a small kindness, in its own way. God was dead. Only the sun was left now, however soon it might be extinguished.
He traced a finger along a crust of bread: a rock’s surface would not have felt differently, if perhaps more clean.
“Fuck!”
“Hm?” mumbled Urd.
“’Fuckin’ wall is broken, ye blind Dutch git. No shelter when day dies. If dis ain’t no ‘bakery-bunker’, we’re fucked.”
Urd nodded. Right. Should have thought of that. He said: “Well, it would be possible that there is a trapdoor somewhere…”
He crouched, looked underneath a few tables. Behind him, there were some harsh sounds: likely Ryk flipping over couches.
“Should we be so loud?” Urd said.
“If yer’ scared, go fuck off.”
Always a hospitable lad, dear Ryk.
“Too rash,” Urd mumbled, “So rash…”
It was truly a dank place, although not quite ridden with the musk of evil that had infected this city so dearly, it felt as if its soul had been ripped through the hole so unsubtly blasted in the wall. The bakery was a shell.
“Nothin’,” Ryk whispered, his fingers pawing through the sand on the stones, ‘Nothin’ at all!’
Urd shook his head and, shaking a little, crept to to the hole, feeling the sun’s meagre warmth consoling his skin. It was now nearly gone, lighting up the horizon in a dawn so pale it looked as if cancerous piss had spread itself over those far-away mountain peaks.
“We’re fucked,” He said, “So fucked…”
It was, of course, their arrogance that was to blame. Even the most careful gambler is at risk of deeming himself a ‘natural’ if his luck strikes true enough times, to then take the fall is his darkest and most undeserved self-assurance. And Urd and Ryk were much, but not exactly careful.
Urd kept shaking his head, tears now showing in his eyes as the light disappeared. The sun was the only thing left that could embrace him with a mother’s warmth: now it was gone, and it left them, all alone and scared. In his head, that one childhood rhyme abounded, again and again in schizophrenic determination. He whispered it out loud:

“Listen Child,
Do this for me.
Live not Loud,
And do not See.

Be blessed with that,
A wileful yawn,
Look not for that,
Which swallows Dawn.

The Sight will blind,
The Ears will falter,
The Tongue will still,
But the Nose shall alter.

Out there it doth Lurks,
Creeps and it does Wait,
it What follows Dark,
And doth People ate.“

Ryk stood, minding little his step, and came standing next to Urd as the pale yellow of the final light was gone. Night did not wait: it crept over the houses like an impatient shadow, the ever-omniscient fog thickening like it was to be the courier of its coming. No man should be outside at this time. At home, Urd and Ryk had had the great bunkers, the underground dwellings were humanity cowered as night cloyed over the land. But here, in the city? There would be no relief.
“Ryk,” Urd said, growing more pale, “I just realized something.”
“Hm?”
“What if… what if this bakery appeared to others too as a shelter, as some ingenious bunker but above-ground? What if it was intact, then? What if the wall was too thin and the Night… the Night came in by making this hole?”
Silence as the bakery went black and the fog seeped in. There was a stink, now, rotten like sulphur and dung, and there were sounds of creaking and moaning, ever so softly. Ryk peered out of the hole.
“’Tis the houses…”
Urd followed his gaze, and with great horror saw what his half-brother meant: the ancient houses, constructed in the glorious time of legendary queen Victoria, were moving, swaying, from left, to right, to left, to right, terribly hypnotic, side by side. Their windows and doors seemingly replaced by holes of darkness, it seemed as if they had eyes and a mouth: all gaping and staring at the two boys as they moved. The crumbling mortar keeping them together seemed to suffer, as creaks erupted from the buildings.
“This would not have been how mother would have wanted me to die…” Urd whispered.
“Dam’ yer fuckin' ugly motter! ‘Tis not ‘ow fatter would wan’ et!”
Would any father want such a fate as was coming for his sons, however estranged they might be? Urd’s startled mind wandered in absent wonder and shock, as the houses continued to sway like animated corpses. From the creaks their unnatural movement opened in their stony skin, thick liquid oozed like pus, leaking onto the pavement and slithering towards the bakery in small trickles. Urd stared at them: such heaving and intense darkness! Death was mesmerizing, tru-
A hand slapping the back of his head.
“Run, ye git!”
They turned. Ryk bashed open the bakery’s doors and they hurtled out on to the streets, near-gagging from the fog that they breathed and near-crying from the shock, but their pounding heart flogged them onwards. The street shook, their cobbles flowing wave-like as the houses at both of its sides continued their mesmerized dance.
As the air rippled along with the ground, Urd stumbled and tripped, the stone no longer to be trusted. The floor rose, then fell, dropping him and shaking his body. He coughed, screamed, scrambled to his feet and screamed for his mother but she was dead and would not hear. He looked for Ryk, but his half-brother ran on, only looking back at Urd with terror in his eyes.
Urd yelled: “Wai!” but his brother turned his head away and ran. Between them, the dark pus trickled its way through the street and so they were separated. Urd looked: what way, what way? But there was but the dark stone of street, the dark brick of house, and the pus, the pus. Clawing at his hair he ran into an alley.
Above his head lisping voices seeped from the window-sills: “Brother, brother, come find me! Save me!”
These empty echoes floated through the air, taunting him and burrowing in his ears.
“BROTHER! BROTHER! BROTHER!”
Urd wanted to scream, but his breath had left him, and so he begged it to stop, but the voices continued, the shrill destroyers ripping through his head and drilling at his skull. As his resolve faltered and his mind crumbled, he put his hands to his ears, and ripped. There was no more sound, just the feeling of wetness at his head and pain, pain, pain…
He felt himself pant through his heaving chest, his eyes burning as if blood-shot. He wanted to run, but he had reached a dead-end. Clawing at the wall of the house blocking him, he felt his arms sink into the stone: when he pulled them back they dripped stinking mud and writhing maggot. He moaned. The house collapsed.
The insects were in his mouth instantaneously, biting at his tongue and ripping shreds off of it. He could not die now! He brought his hand into his mouth, and ripped.
As he thrashed about, body contorting, he could still see the houses as he came out of the pile, bending over, their doorways hungry maws… and the teeth that came from those doors! Yellow, sharp, twisting outwards, and the stink… he could not bear the sight of his death. He brought his hands to his eyes, and ripped.

Below is the story's official explanation, for who is interested, but if you want your own interpretation, don't read it!:

The 'fog' is actually leftover gas from biological warfare, which drives whoever breathes it insane, making him/herself kill him/herself. The sun counters its effects. It's actually hinted at in the rhyme: it messes with your senses by breathing it (the Nose that 'alters'). The ones that took shelter in airtight bunkers before 'the war' survived only to find mutilated bodies when they came out and they think some horror kills you at night, while you actually do it to yourself. The reason they have weird names and talk odd is because time has advanced, and so has the English and Dutch language. 'Rick' is 'Ryk' and 'Sjoerd' has become 'Urd'. 'Urd' speaks very formal English because it's his second language: he's actually from Holland.


Extra, for those who didn't get what wasn't all too obvious: Urd and Ryk are scavengers who got too cocky: they went scavenging at what seemed to be a bunker, but it was, in the end, just a bakery.

I suppose that, as a judge, I'm not supposed to read the explanation?

I think that it might be useful to read it anyways: if you think it's ridiculous and doesn't fit the narrative, you should subtract some points.

Eh, or not, of course, since the story should be able to stand on itself. I dunno, your call .

[Forsher]

I call it Niemand. It's quite long by my standards.

The throne room gleamed. This was unusual. In normal circumstances king kept the shutters mostly closed and encouraged slovenly behaviour among both his guards and servants. (His nobles had more initiative and needed no encouragement.) However, it was the fifth anniversary of his coronation and the king had bowed to the advice of his vizier. The throne room was still dirty when said advice was delivered. In hindsight, this explained the opening salvo.

“What on earth is that stench?”

The king looked up from his iron throne – it was symbolic (the king before last had been somewhat tyrannical) – and fixed a dull, disinterested stare upon his vizier. Flicking a lazy, mousy brown fringe out of his eyes the would-be God-king deemed the question worthy of response in a typically languid manner. “Oh. We were entertaining a visit from Reginald, the Duke of…”

“I know who he is sire. And so does everyone in ear-shot.” The vizier was, as such people are, tall and thin. He was also bearded although out of deference to his liege this was unkempt and scraggly. The effect was rather like a slightly munted, looming teddy bear – as opposed to the more classical praying mantis. This was fitting because apart from his build, the vizier was most un-vizier like. He was a man of great learning but even greater stress and fluster. Some would have argued that running the kingdom had reduced him to a quivering wreck but strangely enough a few carefully promoted executions had caused a strange dearth of such arguments throughout the kingdom.

“So, what of it?” The king was more classically kingly. He was, for the most part, chronically lazy and prone to doing little more than observing all he could survey and remarking, “All mine”. However, were he in shape, the king was entirely capable or ruling with an iron fist from an iron throne as his father’s arch-nemesis (and uncle) had done. Even showy braggarts like Reginald, Duke of Everyone Knows Where (apparently) could hear the throne creak and wondered if the king would ever use it.

“Your coronation, sir, the fifth anniversary approaches. Delegations from many surrounding courts will be present…” It was a meaningful tailing off. The vizier was also sharp enough to recognise that it was a ripe opportunity for the sweeping bow. You know, the one where your head ends up below your knees. He may have been better suited to playing the role of the naïve young officer straight from Sandpoint but some classic vizier moves had managed to infiltrate the teddy bear. This was a good thing because, really, a proper vizier is like a butler who does nothing other than scheme and delegate, but mostly scheme. A butler, of course, also occasionally opens doors. The king didn’t respond so the vizier rose and continued, “Er, that is, some of your peers have, shall we say, different tastes?”

“Humph.” The king snorted and dismissed the vizier with a lazy flick (what else?). After an hour alone in the gloom, the king departed himself, destined for bed. When he rose it was in good humour. His dreams were filled with assassins, but where his peers (of different tastes) would have been left wrecks, his dreams tended to end with dead assassins. Occasionally they ended up in stocks but mostly it was gibbets. However, his good humour dissipated. Thoughts of his peers reminded him of the vizier, who, as much as the king would have preferred to ignore it, did actually have a point.

And so, an army of soldiers (well, duh) were tasked with clearing out and cleaning up the king’s various palaces and other residences. A couple of recently discovered and possibly priceless were given the Herculean task of organising a royal clearing delegation to Reginald, Duke of Decay. Naturally, there was no overtime. This was only a slight point of concern as they very nearly got lost on the way and almost coked up their chance to earn their stays of execution. Surprisingly, the throne room was left in the hands of the king, who used the three long weeks as a form of exercise regimen. Well, lifting the (lighter) wooden throne of his grandfather was the exercise: the cleaning was left to the maids. It was their effort that restored the throne-room to his former state of glory back in the distant past of five years earlier.

“I don’t know why we bother.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re maids, right? It’s our job.”

The first maid looked at the third maid and sighed. She’d have looked at the second maid too but she was a lost cause. “Yeah, but that’s not the point. I mean, it’ll only be back to usual as soon as all the foreign nobs go home.”

The third maid opened her dull pinks lips to say something but the distinctly red and youthful lips of the second beat her to the punch. “Ah, if the king only had a woman’s touch.” This provoked groans from the other two and would’ve sparked a large conversation if the vizier hadn’t ordered them out: the king had decided it was time for a spot of impromptu cleaning. The vizier, though, had grasped the gist of the second maid’s point and conspired to linger long enough to hear a little bit more before the king burst into the room.

“…you’re dreaming…” The voice belonged to the third maid but the vizier didn’t know or care that. In fact, he’s probably barely registered that there were three maids. What interested the vizier was the fact that he and his liege had managed to overlook that ever so important dimension of kingship: queenship.

The king’s father had married late and the king’s mother had died relative young bearing twins – one of whom survived long enough to become the king. The vizier’s predecessor had, the vizier knew, spent a large part of his first decade on the job playing match-maker. The result was a lot of inherited initiative and the previous king’s belated union with an aunt of then then unborn Reginald – who himself was the closest embodiment of initiative known to man. The aunt was, in life, in much the same vein. It had been an exhausting experience for the vizier’s predecessor and the outgoer had tended to play-up all the other aspects of viziering during the one meeting the two had had. This, the vizier decided, explained why it had never really occurred to him. As for the king? Well, a man who encouraged filth because it was all he’d ever known was unlikely to contemplate a change in domestic circumstances. Yet, an heir was needed all the same. After all, isn’t the whole point of a king that there will be another one afterwards? But heirs implied wives. “This will require some thought.”

“Nonsense. Cleaning’s as easy as…” The king paused, the only really easy thing he could recall doing was, to be blunt, not cleaning which made for a sensationally silly sentence. Was kinging a word? He rallied, “As easy as, living!”

Muttering darkly, the vizier took this as his cue to leave (spotting is for plebs).


There are places in any kingdom where seedy, disreputable people go to meet would-be seedy, disreputable people. A non-insignificant portion of such places are known by the term ‘public houses’. Quite a few of these places, in fact, are known as, imaginatively, ‘Houses of ill repute,’ although neither the king nor the vizier knew that those were altogether different things (teddy bear really was rather accurate). In any case, the vizier was told to meet at The King’s Head which belonged to the former category although, outwardly, it could’ve been anything.

“Are you Monsieur?” The word was foreign and, so, mangled. This was appropriate because The King’s Head was a truly awful pub. The house music was non-existent, the food was nice and the beer cheap, plentiful and not actually cat’s piss. In short, it was nothing like the expectation. The vizier, who did not frequent pubs, felt as though he was missing out. He even managed to order a water without getting any funny looks.

“Oui.” For some reason, the vizier felt as though this was a response that was not meant to rhyme with ‘boy.’ He would have said something but Monsieur looked like a more bellicose version of the king, post cleaning-craze. Even worse, Monsieur showed several signs of having been that way for decades. His beard was greying and matted, which was impressive as numerous scars prevented much of it from growing. Torn hands and horribly scarred arms were made even rougher by the addition of numerous tattoos. The vizier assumed the rest of Monsieur, hidden by a heavy (torn, naturally) leather cloak or the wood of the table would just make the grizzled man appear all the more daunting. Yet, the vizier had a strange desire to wrap an arm round Monsieur and smile inanely. He managed to strangle the impulse and any resultant Kodiak moment was averted.

“I was told yoy are the man who knows people.”

“Her name is Sofie. Unless it’s Sofia. I forget. This is Andre. He will take you to her.” People are full of surprises – although the vizier knew why he’d employed Monsieur’s services. And, in hindsight, arranging marriages often settled violence so perhaps one needed, from time to time, to utilise violent agents. The vizier resolved to remember the insight and inscribe it in the margins of his predecessor’s notes/log. The resultant focus on trying to remember the insight came at the cost of paying attention to the specific direction that Andre, the man Monsieur had beckoned to whilst they talked, had been leading him. Thus, the vizier was surprised to find himself in front of a house, after dark: the sun had not set when they exited the King’s Head and turned, left? Right? Trying to remember something else, the vizier’s focus faded again.

“We’re here. Go alone.” And with that intrusion, Andre was gone.

The vizier blinked and, somewhat hazily, came to appreciate his suroundings. A fundamental skill of the classically trained vizier is constant awareness. Blinking in an attempt to make the flicker f a dulling torch take in more of a long, stone cottage surrounded by conifers? Firs? Trees and overgrown wild-flowers did not count. Still, it did the trick and the vizier and strode confidently up to the wicker door. A door which turned out to be set surprisingly far back in what was daub, not stone (how do you make that mistake?) and was very quickly just a black hole. The torch had died. And with no Andre and no light, the vizier’s confidence went with it. But, then, light!

“You must be…”

“Yes, I am Sofia.” The inside of the hosue was lit by a roaring fire and a couple of beeswax candles. The former surprised the vizier as he hadn’t noticed a chimney and why did a wattle and daub cottage have such an impressive stone hearth? It would have been a question for the ages had the vizier not seen Sofia in the light. As opposed to, say, the dark but really she was no longer a silhouette. The resultant, um, vision was tall and slender – not to the same degree that he was (a thin teddy??), but enough to make her remarkable for it. “I see you have noticed me.” It was disdainful. “I am not not who you are looking for.”

Coughing, the vizier managed to splutter, “You’re not?” Then he realised he was drinking, wine? No, mulled wine. Was that actually a thing? (He was not keen on vineyards either and, indeed, could not distinguish them from wineries. Not that the kingdom had many of either.)
“No, I am not.” Sofia flicked her long, remarkably silky, blonde-brown hair back over her shoulder and sat as she spoke. The effect was, naturally, noticed by the vizier. She pointed at a similarly rough chair. The vizier sat down. The intracicies of win production may have escaped him but even the most stupid of viziers knows the difference between suggestions and demands. “The king, or this king, needs a wife of good breeding, intelligence, ambition and fertility.”

Not being a classically moulded vizier, the vizier made a movement as if to interject with words like, “Now, hold on” or “Steady on”. Still being a vizier, he caught the microexpressions.

“I am, indeed, many of these things. But I know the woman who suits your needs the best.” The vizier knew what that meant and the vizier definitely knew what Sofia’s wry smile meant. A proper vizier would’ve sunk back at this point. The vizier leaned in.
“What is it, that is, my predecessor…”

“…mentioned that, er, my predecessor required things.” And for the first time, Sofia made a mistake. “Ah, but when did you meet? Viziership tends to be somewhat terminal.”

“Uh, the first day… I don’t… er, I was referring to his notes.” The vizier noticed a smile. He’d made a mistake. Now he sank back, although this is better suited to arm-chairs not glorified stools so he jerked forwards again and managed to garble a few words, “You can’t…”

The vizier didn’t notice as he fell forwards. He certainly didn’t notice being caught by Sofia, which given everything else he noticed when it came to Sofia said a lot about his state at the time. In fact, the only thing that he more clearly did not notice were the words she spoke as he was put back in his chair: “Hush now, Sofia is here.” But some part of the brain was still functioning, enough for his main memory of that night in the two months he spent stumbling around trying to find his way back to the castle was that of Sofia closing his eyes, and taking the goblet from his grip. A lesser man may have opted to not return but the memory came in tandem with another. “You, these notes do not exist. Understand?” Teddy bears are noted for their loyalty, not their survival instincts. Although, in fairness, the king was notable for a distinct lack of ruthlessness.

Of course, when you are lost it is just as easy to run to where you don’t want to be as to where you do want to be. Whatever the exact nature of the vizier’s arduous trek through forest and field, living off his wits but mainly a good line in not-actually-forged-but-technically-forged pardons for poaching, the man returned to his rooms in the palace (not a castle, which probably explained the first month’s terrible luck with directions) something of a wreck. He did not so much open his door as fall through it. The next morning brought the pain, of course. It always does.


The vizier’s room was cluttered. It was a particular kind of clutter, however, and had the distinct appearance of having been, once, considerably less cluttered. This was, in fact, the case: when the vizier had vanished two months previously the king had ordered the room to be turned over. The maids almost got the job but an afterthought suggested to the king’s internal thought process, such as it was, that it would be better suited to some trusty guards. This was obviously destined to be a mistake but the guards were duly summoned all the same. (The maids were sent home and told to forget about it. The palace very nearly did return to its default state.)

“Guards!” The king had a good bellowing voice. It was one his mother’s more genetic features. Indeed, in all the kingdom, only Reginald, Duke of Whatsit could bellow on equal or greater terms than the king. Intiative. It helps.

Anyway, the bellow successfully summoned three guards: two large, one small. The small one was told to bugger off and the big ones did the searching. This took a month if one includes the month long crash course in literacy that ensued. The delay coupled with limited dedication to the job, poor memories and a hard night’s drinking meant the guards did not notice the disappearance of the tome, ‘I, Vizier.’ Not that would have helped determine what happened to the vizier but it speaks of the poor calibre of the search that was executed. Thus, it was little surprise that the king had largely forgotten about things by the time a note was read to him. “Gone to consult M. re: C.”

“Ah. Nothing to worry about. Guards, release the prisoner. We have no need of a new vizier.”

“But, sir, we were getting somewhere. He was about to spill. He knows where viziers come from! I know it!” Unexpectedly, this was the small guard: dismissing him saved time.

It was on that day that the face-palm was born.

A month later it would’ve been deployed again. It wasn’t, because the vizier’s room had been given a wide-berth ever since the search had concluded so no-one witnessed his temper tantrum at the state he woke to. More significantly, no-one saw the bit where the head-floor resulted in an unconscious vizier. Once he regained consciousness the pain was doubled: he’d calmed down enough to feel falling face-first on a stone floor. Much face-palm material. Such non-use. It took a few hours for the pain to subside but the state of the room distracted the vizier from any hunger that he was surely plagued with. Then he remembered that Sofia never told him where the right woman was.

“Vizier!” In hindsight, Reginald, Duke of We Know Damn It, was perhaps superior through practice. Potential. It’s not everything.

“Yes?” It was snappy. Viziers don’t snap, except right at the end, just before they’re caught. The king didn’t notice.

“Where have you been?”

“Oh… uh… yeah.” The vizier, suddenly, looked sheepish. Praying Mantises never look sheepish. Teddy Bears don’t usually either but it was in their repertoire.

“Well?” And, suddnly, a hulking great, generally slovely boor of a man was as matronly as they come. His Great Uncle, to many a would-be assassin’s surprise, had been the same. Of course, they’d also been surprised he wasn’t his brother but that was the point.

“I got lost on my way baclk… Er, I undertook an important impromptu survey of your majesty’s many wonderful and varied parks and forests, sire. Um, we have a poaching problem. Epidemic even.”

“Hunting?” Lazy men don’t hunt. Lazy men, where-ever possible, do nothing.The vague interest was unusual. Or, it had been, two months ago. “Vizier, why bother with such things when the coronation is but ten days from now?”

The vizier took the oportunity to double-take – the king, his king? Mostly remembering something that was to happen and, what’s more, chastising him for not doing something about it? “No, sire. Ten days is when the guests start arriving for the anniversary which is in a month… Oh, shit, they start arriving in ten days! What have I been doing?” Teddy bears. Typical.

At this point, the king began to laugh. It was a proper booming laugh, like one expects of a king. It was powerful enough, in fact, to break the flow of the flustering. The vizier watched as the king’s mirth died down (kings have mirth, you see). Was that a tear in the eye??
“Sire, I suggest we arrange a hunting trip to the Old Forest near Sandpoint. It is but two days, by horse, from the palace.”

“And two weeks on foot!” Instinctively, the vizier braced for the pat on the back. The king had changed. He knew travel times! Although, in truth, it was only two weeks on foot if one couldn’t hack the hills on account of being, for sake of argument, a city-boy vizier. The vizier didn’t fall over either once the king calmed down enough to deliver his dismissal: “Now, off with you vizier, you have much to do. Oh, and send me the steward.”

And, suddenly, the vizier knew what had happened. In his absence, the stweard had filled in for the vizier, which made the vizier the steward? IT wasn’t quite right. “I give advice, blast it!” The whisper did not trouble the king who had, for whatever reason, bounded away in a manner quite uncharacteristic of the chronically lazy. In fact, the king had given off the distinct impression of having spent a lifetime in a cell wearing some sort of mask. Buckets of energy and the pervasive thrill at being free. Still, the vizier had a steward to find. It was probably the ‘cleaning’.


Far to the north of the palace and even further north than the Duchy that all knew the whereabouts of, a woman named Sofia addressed a letter to a Prince by way of a king. It was a nasty little letter which could have had nasty little implications. This did not happen. Instead, a prince became a king and a daughter became a sister, and a couple of other things happened that were all lost on the much delayed invitation to visit some relatively unimportant country that was somewhat damp and to the south. Being a new king in hasty circumstances, the ex-prince decided to take his entire court along so people would remember him. So what if it was some weird foreign custom of celebrating a five year anniversary? And so it was that a daughter who would’ve stayed at home, ended up at a ball instead.

The woman named Sofia also dispatched another letter. It went to a vizier, which was ironic because it was very short. “Take(n) Care.” The vizier understood but had to rage against the heavens all the same.

As a result, when a special envoy arrived at the Northern Palace – a beautiful and expansive building – the envoy found no-one at home and froze to death trying to reach the nearest inn. Very sad. Especially for the envoy’s cousin who felt responsible (because he was).

The throne room gleamed. Over the last few months this had become usual. Even the King and his cousin and grown used to the sparkle of the expensive mirrors from lands across the sea and to the south. The iron throne had even been gilded with gold and appeared more throne-like than ‘torture chair’. This had taken some weeks to achieve and cost a goldsmith an arm and a leg (it’s a privilege to work for the king and don’t forget it!). But the king wondered what it was all about. Sure, the other royals had been impressed. They’d loved the Old Forest and had been delighted at the banquets at Sandpoint. They had seen the glory of the palace at night and marvelled at the palace’s nearby city in the daylight. In short, they’d found the perfect setting to connive and arrange and nearly go to war without appearing at all unfriendly. Hell, they’d even been amused by Reginald, Duke of ‘Well, I don’t think I caught the name.’ But, what was the point?

The vizier smiled. Clearly the steward had been unable to answer the question so the king had come crawling back. “Well, sire, it’s an exercise in branding.”

“Say what?” The king had become more like his old-self the longer the other royals had been around. It was probably the endless symbolism, the vizier decided. Do that, do this, no not that way.And they were still waiting on the final delegation: expected in time for the anniversary and its faux-coronation in a week’s time. Or, perhaps, it was the waiting for it all to be done.

“Well, this is how this lot are all the time. We have to play the same so we stay relevant. In case, for instance, war breaks out – people need to remember that we matter. Do anything else and they’ll invade us without even noticing. It’s the way it is.”

“And we do that with balls and hunts and banquets?”

“Well, yes. And we have a lot of ground to make up, sir. You father and his predecessor ruined our reputation, sire. All that lot started to think of us as some backwards little country sitting on an island.”

“But why play the game at all?”

The vizier sighed. This wasn’t actually like the old king. Well, it was like the old king because it was the old king but … he knew what he meant. “Because it gets played regardless of what we do, sire.” The vizier paused and looked out the now permanently (when occupied) unshuttered windows. Clouds of smoke rose from the domain: the hustle and bustle of a city barely aware of the goings on at the palace but envious all the same. “Sire, there is always someone who wants a bit of cake and decides to take it.” The vizier surprised himself at the metaphor. It was well tailored, at least to the king he remembered. Hopefully it struck home: the king even at his worst, had enjoyed thinking of his domain in possessive terms. That was a very kingly thing. It was part of the game. The first move, almost.

The king didn’t really react. The vizier cocked his head. Another approach? Ah. “They must remember that we are here. That we are like them.” This was, in fact, a better way of putting it than any of the vizier’s ideas. Never in a million years would the vizier have expected the reasoning to have come from his king. Yet, it was not right to speak. This was a silence that spoke, as they say, volumes: the king would speak next, it just wasn’t Time. The king moved, but not to speak. With a grace the vizier had not previously noticed, the window frame was filled. The vizier stood aside and admired the regal silhouette. Yet, still, it was not Right. Seconds became minutes and the sun began to sink. After what seemed like an age, the king spoke. “We’re missing something, aren’t we?”

The vizier coughed. Or, rather, someone who was standing where the king though the vizier was, coughed. The king turned to listen and knocked the vizier, who’d moved closer to the window to see the view, to the floor. The king didn’t notice. A few months ago such contact would’ve meant a lot. Now things were more formal. Viziers were less important. Thus, the king raised a hand to see the cougher and the vizier stayed silent. The figure turned out to be female.

“Yes. I do believe you are.”

---

I'm not sure how widespread the term munted is. Rest assured it is a word.

I suppose that, as a judge, I'm not supposed to read the explanation?

I think that it might be useful to read it anyways: if you think it's ridiculous and doesn't fit the narrative, you should subtract some points.

Eh, or not, of course, since the story should be able to stand on itself. I dunno, your call .

One of my stories a couple of contests ago had a notes section. This was mostly to explain terminology that isn't necessarily used universally and to provide context for the references/objects of dislike.

[Nazi Flower Power]

I call it Niemand. It's quite long by my standards.

The throne room gleamed. This was unusual. In normal circumstances king kept the shutters mostly closed and encouraged slovenly behaviour among both his guards and servants. (His nobles had more initiative and needed no encouragement.) However, it was the fifth anniversary of his coronation and the king had bowed to the advice of his vizier. The throne room was still dirty when said advice was delivered. In hindsight, this explained the opening salvo.

“What on earth is that stench?”

The king looked up from his iron throne – it was symbolic (the king before last had been somewhat tyrannical) – and fixed a dull, disinterested stare upon his vizier. Flicking a lazy, mousy brown fringe out of his eyes the would-be God-king deemed the question worthy of response in a typically languid manner. “Oh. We were entertaining a visit from Reginald, the Duke of…”

“I know who he is sire. And so does everyone in ear-shot.” The vizier was, as such people are, tall and thin. He was also bearded although out of deference to his liege this was unkempt and scraggly. The effect was rather like a slightly munted, looming teddy bear – as opposed to the more classical praying mantis. This was fitting because apart from his build, the vizier was most un-vizier like. He was a man of great learning but even greater stress and fluster. Some would have argued that running the kingdom had reduced him to a quivering wreck but strangely enough a few carefully promoted executions had caused a strange dearth of such arguments throughout the kingdom.

“So, what of it?” The king was more classically kingly. He was, for the most part, chronically lazy and prone to doing little more than observing all he could survey and remarking, “All mine”. However, were he in shape, the king was entirely capable or ruling with an iron fist from an iron throne as his father’s arch-nemesis (and uncle) had done. Even showy braggarts like Reginald, Duke of Everyone Knows Where (apparently) could hear the throne creak and wondered if the king would ever use it.

“Your coronation, sir, the fifth anniversary approaches. Delegations from many surrounding courts will be present…” It was a meaningful tailing off. The vizier was also sharp enough to recognise that it was a ripe opportunity for the sweeping bow. You know, the one where your head ends up below your knees. He may have been better suited to playing the role of the naïve young officer straight from Sandpoint but some classic vizier moves had managed to infiltrate the teddy bear. This was a good thing because, really, a proper vizier is like a butler who does nothing other than scheme and delegate, but mostly scheme. A butler, of course, also occasionally opens doors. The king didn’t respond so the vizier rose and continued, “Er, that is, some of your peers have, shall we say, different tastes?”

“Humph.” The king snorted and dismissed the vizier with a lazy flick (what else?). After an hour alone in the gloom, the king departed himself, destined for bed. When he rose it was in good humour. His dreams were filled with assassins, but where his peers (of different tastes) would have been left wrecks, his dreams tended to end with dead assassins. Occasionally they ended up in stocks but mostly it was gibbets. However, his good humour dissipated. Thoughts of his peers reminded him of the vizier, who, as much as the king would have preferred to ignore it, did actually have a point.

And so, an army of soldiers (well, duh) were tasked with clearing out and cleaning up the king’s various palaces and other residences. A couple of recently discovered and possibly priceless were given the Herculean task of organising a royal clearing delegation to Reginald, Duke of Decay. Naturally, there was no overtime. This was only a slight point of concern as they very nearly got lost on the way and almost coked up their chance to earn their stays of execution. Surprisingly, the throne room was left in the hands of the king, who used the three long weeks as a form of exercise regimen. Well, lifting the (lighter) wooden throne of his grandfather was the exercise: the cleaning was left to the maids. It was their effort that restored the throne-room to his former state of glory back in the distant past of five years earlier.

“I don’t know why we bother.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re maids, right? It’s our job.”

The first maid looked at the third maid and sighed. She’d have looked at the second maid too but she was a lost cause. “Yeah, but that’s not the point. I mean, it’ll only be back to usual as soon as all the foreign nobs go home.”

The third maid opened her dull pinks lips to say something but the distinctly red and youthful lips of the second beat her to the punch. “Ah, if the king only had a woman’s touch.” This provoked groans from the other two and would’ve sparked a large conversation if the vizier hadn’t ordered them out: the king had decided it was time for a spot of impromptu cleaning. The vizier, though, had grasped the gist of the second maid’s point and conspired to linger long enough to hear a little bit more before the king burst into the room.

“…you’re dreaming…” The voice belonged to the third maid but the vizier didn’t know or care that. In fact, he’s probably barely registered that there were three maids. What interested the vizier was the fact that he and his liege had managed to overlook that ever so important dimension of kingship: queenship.

The king’s father had married late and the king’s mother had died relative young bearing twins – one of whom survived long enough to become the king. The vizier’s predecessor had, the vizier knew, spent a large part of his first decade on the job playing match-maker. The result was a lot of inherited initiative and the previous king’s belated union with an aunt of then then unborn Reginald – who himself was the closest embodiment of initiative known to man. The aunt was, in life, in much the same vein. It had been an exhausting experience for the vizier’s predecessor and the outgoer had tended to play-up all the other aspects of viziering during the one meeting the two had had. This, the vizier decided, explained why it had never really occurred to him. As for the king? Well, a man who encouraged filth because it was all he’d ever known was unlikely to contemplate a change in domestic circumstances. Yet, an heir was needed all the same. After all, isn’t the whole point of a king that there will be another one afterwards? But heirs implied wives. “This will require some thought.”

“Nonsense. Cleaning’s as easy as…” The king paused, the only really easy thing he could recall doing was, to be blunt, not cleaning which made for a sensationally silly sentence. Was kinging a word? He rallied, “As easy as, living!”

Muttering darkly, the vizier took this as his cue to leave (spotting is for plebs).


There are places in any kingdom where seedy, disreputable people go to meet would-be seedy, disreputable people. A non-insignificant portion of such places are known by the term ‘public houses’. Quite a few of these places, in fact, are known as, imaginatively, ‘Houses of ill repute,’ although neither the king nor the vizier knew that those were altogether different things (teddy bear really was rather accurate). In any case, the vizier was told to meet at The King’s Head which belonged to the former category although, outwardly, it could’ve been anything.

“Are you Monsieur?” The word was foreign and, so, mangled. This was appropriate because The King’s Head was a truly awful pub. The house music was non-existent, the food was nice and the beer cheap, plentiful and not actually cat’s piss. In short, it was nothing like the expectation. The vizier, who did not frequent pubs, felt as though he was missing out. He even managed to order a water without getting any funny looks.

“Oui.” For some reason, the vizier felt as though this was a response that was not meant to rhyme with ‘boy.’ He would have said something but Monsieur looked like a more bellicose version of the king, post cleaning-craze. Even worse, Monsieur showed several signs of having been that way for decades. His beard was greying and matted, which was impressive as numerous scars prevented much of it from growing. Torn hands and horribly scarred arms were made even rougher by the addition of numerous tattoos. The vizier assumed the rest of Monsieur, hidden by a heavy (torn, naturally) leather cloak or the wood of the table would just make the grizzled man appear all the more daunting. Yet, the vizier had a strange desire to wrap an arm round Monsieur and smile inanely. He managed to strangle the impulse and any resultant Kodiak moment was averted.

“I was told yoy are the man who knows people.”

“Her name is Sofie. Unless it’s Sofia. I forget. This is Andre. He will take you to her.” People are full of surprises – although the vizier knew why he’d employed Monsieur’s services. And, in hindsight, arranging marriages often settled violence so perhaps one needed, from time to time, to utilise violent agents. The vizier resolved to remember the insight and inscribe it in the margins of his predecessor’s notes/log. The resultant focus on trying to remember the insight came at the cost of paying attention to the specific direction that Andre, the man Monsieur had beckoned to whilst they talked, had been leading him. Thus, the vizier was surprised to find himself in front of a house, after dark: the sun had not set when they exited the King’s Head and turned, left? Right? Trying to remember something else, the vizier’s focus faded again.

“We’re here. Go alone.” And with that intrusion, Andre was gone.

The vizier blinked and, somewhat hazily, came to appreciate his suroundings. A fundamental skill of the classically trained vizier is constant awareness. Blinking in an attempt to make the flicker f a dulling torch take in more of a long, stone cottage surrounded by conifers? Firs? Trees and overgrown wild-flowers did not count. Still, it did the trick and the vizier and strode confidently up to the wicker door. A door which turned out to be set surprisingly far back in what was daub, not stone (how do you make that mistake?) and was very quickly just a black hole. The torch had died. And with no Andre and no light, the vizier’s confidence went with it. But, then, light!

“You must be…”

“Yes, I am Sofia.” The inside of the hosue was lit by a roaring fire and a couple of beeswax candles. The former surprised the vizier as he hadn’t noticed a chimney and why did a wattle and daub cottage have such an impressive stone hearth? It would have been a question for the ages had the vizier not seen Sofia in the light. As opposed to, say, the dark but really she was no longer a silhouette. The resultant, um, vision was tall and slender – not to the same degree that he was (a thin teddy??), but enough to make her remarkable for it. “I see you have noticed me.” It was disdainful. “I am not not who you are looking for.”

Coughing, the vizier managed to splutter, “You’re not?” Then he realised he was drinking, wine? No, mulled wine. Was that actually a thing? (He was not keen on vineyards either and, indeed, could not distinguish them from wineries. Not that the kingdom had many of either.)
“No, I am not.” Sofia flicked her long, remarkably silky, blonde-brown hair back over her shoulder and sat as she spoke. The effect was, naturally, noticed by the vizier. She pointed at a similarly rough chair. The vizier sat down. The intracicies of win production may have escaped him but even the most stupid of viziers knows the difference between suggestions and demands. “The king, or this king, needs a wife of good breeding, intelligence, ambition and fertility.”

Not being a classically moulded vizier, the vizier made a movement as if to interject with words like, “Now, hold on” or “Steady on”. Still being a vizier, he caught the microexpressions.

“I am, indeed, many of these things. But I know the woman who suits your needs the best.” The vizier knew what that meant and the vizier definitely knew what Sofia’s wry smile meant. A proper vizier would’ve sunk back at this point. The vizier leaned in.
“What is it, that is, my predecessor…”

“…mentioned that, er, my predecessor required things.” And for the first time, Sofia made a mistake. “Ah, but when did you meet? Viziership tends to be somewhat terminal.”

“Uh, the first day… I don’t… er, I was referring to his notes.” The vizier noticed a smile. He’d made a mistake. Now he sank back, although this is better suited to arm-chairs not glorified stools so he jerked forwards again and managed to garble a few words, “You can’t…”

The vizier didn’t notice as he fell forwards. He certainly didn’t notice being caught by Sofia, which given everything else he noticed when it came to Sofia said a lot about his state at the time. In fact, the only thing that he more clearly did not notice were the words she spoke as he was put back in his chair: “Hush now, Sofia is here.” But some part of the brain was still functioning, enough for his main memory of that night in the two months he spent stumbling around trying to find his way back to the castle was that of Sofia closing his eyes, and taking the goblet from his grip. A lesser man may have opted to not return but the memory came in tandem with another. “You, these notes do not exist. Understand?” Teddy bears are noted for their loyalty, not their survival instincts. Although, in fairness, the king was notable for a distinct lack of ruthlessness.

Of course, when you are lost it is just as easy to run to where you don’t want to be as to where you do want to be. Whatever the exact nature of the vizier’s arduous trek through forest and field, living off his wits but mainly a good line in not-actually-forged-but-technically-forged pardons for poaching, the man returned to his rooms in the palace (not a castle, which probably explained the first month’s terrible luck with directions) something of a wreck. He did not so much open his door as fall through it. The next morning brought the pain, of course. It always does.


The vizier’s room was cluttered. It was a particular kind of clutter, however, and had the distinct appearance of having been, once, considerably less cluttered. This was, in fact, the case: when the vizier had vanished two months previously the king had ordered the room to be turned over. The maids almost got the job but an afterthought suggested to the king’s internal thought process, such as it was, that it would be better suited to some trusty guards. This was obviously destined to be a mistake but the guards were duly summoned all the same. (The maids were sent home and told to forget about it. The palace very nearly did return to its default state.)

“Guards!” The king had a good bellowing voice. It was one his mother’s more genetic features. Indeed, in all the kingdom, only Reginald, Duke of Whatsit could bellow on equal or greater terms than the king. Intiative. It helps.

Anyway, the bellow successfully summoned three guards: two large, one small. The small one was told to bugger off and the big ones did the searching. This took a month if one includes the month long crash course in literacy that ensued. The delay coupled with limited dedication to the job, poor memories and a hard night’s drinking meant the guards did not notice the disappearance of the tome, ‘I, Vizier.’ Not that would have helped determine what happened to the vizier but it speaks of the poor calibre of the search that was executed. Thus, it was little surprise that the king had largely forgotten about things by the time a note was read to him. “Gone to consult M. re: C.”

“Ah. Nothing to worry about. Guards, release the prisoner. We have no need of a new vizier.”

“But, sir, we were getting somewhere. He was about to spill. He knows where viziers come from! I know it!” Unexpectedly, this was the small guard: dismissing him saved time.

It was on that day that the face-palm was born.

A month later it would’ve been deployed again. It wasn’t, because the vizier’s room had been given a wide-berth ever since the search had concluded so no-one witnessed his temper tantrum at the state he woke to. More significantly, no-one saw the bit where the head-floor resulted in an unconscious vizier. Once he regained consciousness the pain was doubled: he’d calmed down enough to feel falling face-first on a stone floor. Much face-palm material. Such non-use. It took a few hours for the pain to subside but the state of the room distracted the vizier from any hunger that he was surely plagued with. Then he remembered that Sofia never told him where the right woman was.

“Vizier!” In hindsight, Reginald, Duke of We Know Damn It, was perhaps superior through practice. Potential. It’s not everything.

“Yes?” It was snappy. Viziers don’t snap, except right at the end, just before they’re caught. The king didn’t notice.

“Where have you been?”

“Oh… uh… yeah.” The vizier, suddenly, looked sheepish. Praying Mantises never look sheepish. Teddy Bears don’t usually either but it was in their repertoire.

“Well?” And, suddnly, a hulking great, generally slovely boor of a man was as matronly as they come. His Great Uncle, to many a would-be assassin’s surprise, had been the same. Of course, they’d also been surprised he wasn’t his brother but that was the point.

“I got lost on my way baclk… Er, I undertook an important impromptu survey of your majesty’s many wonderful and varied parks and forests, sire. Um, we have a poaching problem. Epidemic even.”

“Hunting?” Lazy men don’t hunt. Lazy men, where-ever possible, do nothing.The vague interest was unusual. Or, it had been, two months ago. “Vizier, why bother with such things when the coronation is but ten days from now?”

The vizier took the oportunity to double-take – the king, his king? Mostly remembering something that was to happen and, what’s more, chastising him for not doing something about it? “No, sire. Ten days is when the guests start arriving for the anniversary which is in a month… Oh, shit, they start arriving in ten days! What have I been doing?” Teddy bears. Typical.

At this point, the king began to laugh. It was a proper booming laugh, like one expects of a king. It was powerful enough, in fact, to break the flow of the flustering. The vizier watched as the king’s mirth died down (kings have mirth, you see). Was that a tear in the eye??
“Sire, I suggest we arrange a hunting trip to the Old Forest near Sandpoint. It is but two days, by horse, from the palace.”

“And two weeks on foot!” Instinctively, the vizier braced for the pat on the back. The king had changed. He knew travel times! Although, in truth, it was only two weeks on foot if one couldn’t hack the hills on account of being, for sake of argument, a city-boy vizier. The vizier didn’t fall over either once the king calmed down enough to deliver his dismissal: “Now, off with you vizier, you have much to do. Oh, and send me the steward.”

And, suddenly, the vizier knew what had happened. In his absence, the stweard had filled in for the vizier, which made the vizier the steward? IT wasn’t quite right. “I give advice, blast it!” The whisper did not trouble the king who had, for whatever reason, bounded away in a manner quite uncharacteristic of the chronically lazy. In fact, the king had given off the distinct impression of having spent a lifetime in a cell wearing some sort of mask. Buckets of energy and the pervasive thrill at being free. Still, the vizier had a steward to find. It was probably the ‘cleaning’.


Far to the north of the palace and even further north than the Duchy that all knew the whereabouts of, a woman named Sofia addressed a letter to a Prince by way of a king. It was a nasty little letter which could have had nasty little implications. This did not happen. Instead, a prince became a king and a daughter became a sister, and a couple of other things happened that were all lost on the much delayed invitation to visit some relatively unimportant country that was somewhat damp and to the south. Being a new king in hasty circumstances, the ex-prince decided to take his entire court along so people would remember him. So what if it was some weird foreign custom of celebrating a five year anniversary? And so it was that a daughter who would’ve stayed at home, ended up at a ball instead.

The woman named Sofia also dispatched another letter. It went to a vizier, which was ironic because it was very short. “Take(n) Care.” The vizier understood but had to rage against the heavens all the same.

As a result, when a special envoy arrived at the Northern Palace – a beautiful and expansive building – the envoy found no-one at home and froze to death trying to reach the nearest inn. Very sad. Especially for the envoy’s cousin who felt responsible (because he was).

The throne room gleamed. Over the last few months this had become usual. Even the King and his cousin and grown used to the sparkle of the expensive mirrors from lands across the sea and to the south. The iron throne had even been gilded with gold and appeared more throne-like than ‘torture chair’. This had taken some weeks to achieve and cost a goldsmith an arm and a leg (it’s a privilege to work for the king and don’t forget it!). But the king wondered what it was all about. Sure, the other royals had been impressed. They’d loved the Old Forest and had been delighted at the banquets at Sandpoint. They had seen the glory of the palace at night and marvelled at the palace’s nearby city in the daylight. In short, they’d found the perfect setting to connive and arrange and nearly go to war without appearing at all unfriendly. Hell, they’d even been amused by Reginald, Duke of ‘Well, I don’t think I caught the name.’ But, what was the point?

The vizier smiled. Clearly the steward had been unable to answer the question so the king had come crawling back. “Well, sire, it’s an exercise in branding.”

“Say what?” The king had become more like his old-self the longer the other royals had been around. It was probably the endless symbolism, the vizier decided. Do that, do this, no not that way.And they were still waiting on the final delegation: expected in time for the anniversary and its faux-coronation in a week’s time. Or, perhaps, it was the waiting for it all to be done.

“Well, this is how this lot are all the time. We have to play the same so we stay relevant. In case, for instance, war breaks out – people need to remember that we matter. Do anything else and they’ll invade us without even noticing. It’s the way it is.”

“And we do that with balls and hunts and banquets?”

“Well, yes. And we have a lot of ground to make up, sir. You father and his predecessor ruined our reputation, sire. All that lot started to think of us as some backwards little country sitting on an island.”

“But why play the game at all?”

The vizier sighed. This wasn’t actually like the old king. Well, it was like the old king because it was the old king but … he knew what he meant. “Because it gets played regardless of what we do, sire.” The vizier paused and looked out the now permanently (when occupied) unshuttered windows. Clouds of smoke rose from the domain: the hustle and bustle of a city barely aware of the goings on at the palace but envious all the same. “Sire, there is always someone who wants a bit of cake and decides to take it.” The vizier surprised himself at the metaphor. It was well tailored, at least to the king he remembered. Hopefully it struck home: the king even at his worst, had enjoyed thinking of his domain in possessive terms. That was a very kingly thing. It was part of the game. The first move, almost.

The king didn’t really react. The vizier cocked his head. Another approach? Ah. “They must remember that we are here. That we are like them.” This was, in fact, a better way of putting it than any of the vizier’s ideas. Never in a million years would the vizier have expected the reasoning to have come from his king. Yet, it was not right to speak. This was a silence that spoke, as they say, volumes: the king would speak next, it just wasn’t Time. The king moved, but not to speak. With a grace the vizier had not previously noticed, the window frame was filled. The vizier stood aside and admired the regal silhouette. Yet, still, it was not Right. Seconds became minutes and the sun began to sink. After what seemed like an age, the king spoke. “We’re missing something, aren’t we?”

The vizier coughed. Or, rather, someone who was standing where the king though the vizier was, coughed. The king turned to listen and knocked the vizier, who’d moved closer to the window to see the view, to the floor. The king didn’t notice. A few months ago such contact would’ve meant a lot. Now things were more formal. Viziers were less important. Thus, the king raised a hand to see the cougher and the vizier stayed silent. The figure turned out to be female.

“Yes. I do believe you are.”

---

I'm not sure how widespread the term munted is. Rest assured it is a word.

I think that it might be useful to read it anyways: if you think it's ridiculous and doesn't fit the narrative, you should subtract some points.

Eh, or not, of course, since the story should be able to stand on itself. I dunno, your call .

One of my stories a couple of contests ago had a notes section. This was mostly to explain terminology that isn't necessarily used universally and to provide context for the references/objects of dislike.

It is up to individual judges if they want to read notes or not, and how to take them into account when scoring. Personally, I would take a lot of points off if a story didn't make sense without the notes.

[The High Lords]

13 days, everyone! Start spreading the word, we need more entries!

[Kalosia]

I just found out about this! It ends in a week? Given the other stuff I'm working on, I'm not sure I can do it this time. Maybe next year. I do have an idea for a story tho, maybe if it turns out I still have time I'll try it

[Laerod]

I just found out about this! It ends in a week? Given the other stuff I'm working on, I'm not sure I can do it this time. Maybe next year. I do have an idea for a story tho, maybe if it turns out I still have time I'll try it

There'll likely be another contest this year, depending on how fast judging goes =P

[Kalosia]

I just found out about this! It ends in a week? Given the other stuff I'm working on, I'm not sure I can do it this time. Maybe next year. I do have an idea for a story tho, maybe if it turns out I still have time I'll try it

There'll likely be another contest this year, depending on how fast judging goes =P

For the autumn?

[Forsher]

There'll likely be another contest this year, depending on how fast judging goes =P

For the autumn?

If the judging is more standard length, yes. If it's slow like it was when I was a judge, probably Winter.

I'm actually wondering if being stickied had the perverse outcome of making this less noticeable, the "Just another sticky" phenomenon.

[Respubliko de Libereco]

I'm actually wondering if being stickied had the perverse outcome of making this less noticeable, the "Just another sticky" phenomenon.

I've been wondering about that too. There's no obvious equivalent to bumping a non-sticky thread.

Adding "DEADLINE APPROACHING" or "X DAYS LEFT" to the title might catch people's attention. More generally, any noticeable change in the title would probably have some effect.

[Sciurus Arizonensis]

Entries:
The New Greek Republic - "Jericho"
Vrolondia
Infected Mushroom - "The Sacrifice"
Animal Farm United - "Beautiful Day"
Jacobania - "Stanley"
Unitaristic Regions - "The Bleak Place"
Forsher - "Niemand"

How do we submit?

[USS Monitor]

Entries:
The New Greek Republic - "Jericho"
Vrolondia
Infected Mushroom - "The Sacrifice"
Animal Farm United - "Beautiful Day"
Jacobania - "Stanley"
Unitaristic Regions - "The Bleak Place"
Forsher - "Niemand"

How do we submit?

If you'd like to enter, just post your story in the thread. It's good etiquette to spoiler the story.