It can be very easy to lose track of time. How is it, that the one unchanging system in our lives, inevitably passing every moment, can fade until we don’t notice which day it is? Perhaps it is the very nature of constancy, where our attentions are pulled ever to and fro by the changes that we have to respond to. In a week like that, the prompts are here, waiting, and if you miss a day, well, you can always come back and do them anyway, no pressure.
| Burner | Hot Air | Launch! |
| Cedar Sanderson | He needs to do the dragonoscopy test… | Becky Jones |
| Fiona Grey | “…made with advanced flirtation processes. Not filtration? That’s a typo, right?” | nother Mike |
| AC Young | It turns out, dragons do not like thistles. | Cedar Sanderson |
| Becky Jones | As they drew closer it became clear that not only was the station habitable, it was in fact… inhabited. | Fiona Grey |
| Leigh Kimmel | As we approach the finish line… | AC Young |
| Padre | “On rainy days like today, the best thing to do is to snuggle up in front of the fire and read.” | Leigh Kimmel |
| nother Mike | The new virus turned people’s skin green, but it looked good! | Padre |
What fun it must be, to soar through the air at the mercy of the winds, no ties to the ground, no control other than in elevation. Nothing you can do up there, but watch the unscrolling panorama of landscape below. You can’t leave to drive in to work and take care of a crisis, you can only relax and unwind and see what happens next. Kind of like reading a book, if it’s a good one.
| Spare | The house held every indication of hosting a stray octopus in the basement. |
| Spare | “And if we knew, we’d never have started the journey, let alone ended up at…” |
| Spare | Red chimes at midnight |
| Spare | I was once called a god. I… do not recommend it. |
| Spare | No-one on seeing the score at half-time would have predicted the result would be this close. |
| Spare | There were frogs in the soup, swimming… |
See you and your responses in the comments below, some day this week perhaps. Drifting in from time to time to read them may help you escape your cares a little, and inspire your own imagination!
More Odds Than Ends 
This week, Leigh Kimmel’s breath of hot air was: As we approach the finish line…
What sort of race will it be?
—
The Red Dragon hurtled through space. Somewhere in the gas giant’s rings was the last checkpoint. Then it was a straight shot for the finish line, and hopefully glory.
Gatrin Feliba was the captain of the Red Dragon, and was currently at the helm. The only other member of the crew was Delik Gaktib, who was primarily the ship’s engineer.
Gatrin guided the Red Dragon into orbit around the planet, and then kept his eyes locked on the scans, trying to find the checkpoint as quickly as possible.
There it was! But Gatrin slowed down. One of the planet’s moons was passing very close to the checkpoint, and it was safer to approach with care.
Then … Another ship shot past and approached the checkpoint at speed. It was the Green Dragon. It sought to pass too close to the moon – and was caught by the slight gravity. Even the slight deviation in path was enough to cause a collision.
The Green Dragon span, uncontrolled and leaking air, away from the moon.
Back in the Red Dragon, the communications board lit up upon receiving an emergency assistance request from the Green Dragon. Gatrin flipped the switch to alert Delik to the emergency unfolding in nearby space, and accelerated the Red Dragon after the Green Dragon.
A sudden light on the scans – the Green Dragon had launched an escape pod, two lifeforms inside. Since the ships in this race had a crew of two, that was everyone. Gatrin adjusted course to pick up the escape pod.
As the escape pod docked with the Red Dragon, the Green Dragon exploded. The two ships were sufficiently far apart that the explosion was only noticeable on scan.
Gatrin left Delik to greet their new guests, and turned the Red Dragon around to head back to the checkpoint, still in the near vicinity of that pesky moon.
Gatrin had successfully negotiated the path past the moon and through the checkpoint before the Green Dragon’s crew made their way to the bridge to thank him for picking them up.
Gatrin turned the Red Dragon for home and accelerated the ship to max speed.
A short time later, and the Red Dragon crossed the finish line.
Communications from the race control informed them that the Red Dragon had crossed the line first. Gatrin and Delik had won this year’s Dragon Space Race. And they were given a special award for rescuing the crew of the Green Dragon.
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o/` Those Magnificent Men, in their space-machines… o/`
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Fiona Grey sent the hot air balloon up with…
“…made with advanced flirtation processes. Not filtration? That’s a typo, right?”
[aha! What, exactly, got made with those processes? And what did the flirtation processes include? Eyelash batting, perhaps? Hum… well, suppose…]
Harry grinned when he saw the three teenagers huddled over the advertising flyer. He knew what that was all about. He walked over, and heard one of them read, ““…made with advanced flirtation processes. Not filtration? That’s a typo, right?”
He leaned over the table and put his finger on the flyer. The girls jumped back, but then smiled at him.
He said, “Nope, girls, it’s true. You’ve got it made with the advanced flirtation processes in the book, or you can go to one of the classes and really practice how to get a guy’s attention.”
One of the girls looked puzzled, and said, “How do you know so much about it?”
He laughed. “Simple. I’m married to the author, who decided to make it easy for women to catch the guys they want, and to avoid giving the wrong signals to the guys they don’t want.”
“But why do these flirtation processes work?”
He shook his head. “Look, we all know that when you bat your eyes and shake your hips, guys are gonna look, right? Well, my wife took it one step further. Just like a scientific study. She analyzed hours of video, and set up tests of the processes right here in the bar, and… hey, get the sampler and try them out. Even those basic flirtation processes are pretty strong stuff, and you’ll have the boys panting at you right away. Then get the book, or take the classes, and… with advanced flirtation processes, you are in control.”
He tapped the table, then turned and walked away. Behind him, he heard the girls start to talk. He grinned. Well, he could tell his wife there were three more hooked.
[oh, the book of advanced flirtation processes! Who wants a copy now?]
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[…] MOTE challenge this week came from Cedar Sanderson: He needs to do the dragonoscopy test… My prompt went to Fiona Grey. As […]
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Oh, my! Double trouble on its way!
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I answered Cedar’s challenge with this.
https://ornerydragon.com/2024/02/13/surprise-2/
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[…] Had some fun with the inhabited station – thanks, Becky! My prompt went to nother Mike. Check out more at MOTE! […]
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It’s the love boat in space? With pheromones!
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Too funny!
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Mine is up on my blog! https://cedarlila.substack.com/p/thistledown
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Whew! When a dragon and a hedge witch meet… and then… very nice!
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Lovely, absorbing, leaves me desirous to read the rest of the tale.
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Nother Mike suggested, “The new virus turned people’s skin green, but it looked good!”
“What do you think?!!!”
Randy looked up at Beth as she came out of the doctor’s office. Her formerly pale, pasty white, freckled skin was now a delicate shade of pale green. He would have thought she was cosplaying, what was that villain from the Batman movies, Ivy something? He had never been a big comics fan… except that her formerly dark red hair had changed to a dark brown.
“That’s… stunning! You look very… tree-like…”
“You don’t like it?”
“No! I love it. You look beautiful.”
Beth looked at him suspiciously, but could find no lie in his eyes. He truly did like it. “It’s the latest thing! The doctor injects you with a retrovirus and your skin changes to whatever color you desire. Your hair changes, too! The possibilities with this are endless!”
“I love it on you. It might take a bit to get used to, but you can pull it off.”
“I know! Think of the possibilities… Change your hair and eye color, change your skin color. Become whoever you want to be. All for a few thousand dollars.”
Randy nodded. He could see how it could be a great asset. He also suspected that more nefarious characters could use it, but Beth was too innocent and naïve most of the time to think about those kinds of things. That was what she kept him around for.
“It looks absolutely stunning on you. Let’s go out and see what the rest of the world thinks.”
Beth linked arms with him and headed out into the unknown future, a cheery smile plastered on her face.
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And now mine is on my LiveJournal at https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/1482436.html.
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