We’re all, in our own ways, battle-tested and driven by lessons learned as life carries us forward. If we’re sufficiently fortunate, we learn from others’ mistakes as well as our own, and carry on the wiser. And if we can throw those disasters at our characters, so much the better. Let’s make it interesting.
| Foreword | Novel | Afterword |
| nother Mike | When the sun came out, it revealed a perfect shambles… | AC Young |
| AC Young | The pegasus troops formed the advance party. | Padre |
| Becky Jones | The frogs seemed to be enjoying the downpour. | Fiona Grey |
| Padre | The camping trip went wrong in every way it possibly could. It was perfect! | Leigh Kimmel |
| Leigh Kimmel | I feel as if I’ve been working on this thing forever | Becky Jones |
| Fiona Grey | “No punching catfish. Do we really have to have this conversation again?” | nother Mike |
No characters were harmed in the making of this post…yet. Luck be a lady, they’ll come through just fine, and better for it. Resilience is a learned skill.
| Spare | D-plus-80yrs |
| Spare | Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah |
| Spare | “Without [event], I wouldn’t be here.” |
| Spare | Now I am become Death… |
| Spare | The gypsies left a bloody knife in the bar after the party… |
| Spare | Once, we fought for freedom, and won. |
Stay lucky, all.
Image generated by Fiona Grey with MidJourney, which perhaps is slightly confused.
More Odds Than Ends 
My offering this week is up: https://acyoungauthor.substack.com/p/virtual-invasion.
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y’a know, teaching history that way, with virtual simulations, might be a whole lot more effective than the endless names and dates that I was supposed to memorize, and mostly failed to keep straight… Good idea! Now, can we get the teachers to start doing it?
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[…] This week’s MOTE challenge was issued by Leigh Kimmel: I feel as if I’ve been working on this thing forever. I’ve been working on my own back yard garden and have come to view it as a potential refuge. Of course, now that Texas is heating up, I won’t be sitting out often, beyond the early-morning-first-cup-of-coffee time. If you need something to distract you from the heat, mosey on over to More Odds Than Ends and check out the other responses. […]
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[…] This week, a belated return to the Marble Witch thanks to Nother Mike’s froggy prompt – and we traded punches with catfish to boot. […]
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are they going to do Singing In the Rain?
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But of course.
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which reminds me https://youtu.be/evgEJlOPoeo?si=u1fwyc4HYHc9bo3I
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Fiona Grey eavesdropped on someone…
“No punching catfish. Do we really have to have this conversation again?”
[hum, farm pond, pet store, veterinarian? Who’s punching, and who’s talking?]
Henry looked at the twins, and shook his head. They were both soaked, and rubbing their knuckles.
“So, do I have to guess, or are you going to tell me?”
The twins bit their lips, looked at each other, and Herman looked up at Henry and said, “Well, yes, we were fighting with the catfish…”
Henry shook his head.
“No punching catfish. Do we really have to have this conversation again?”
John stuck his lip out, then said, “ But, Dad, they were spitting at us!”
Henry frowned.
“Okay, tell me what happened, from the beginning.”
Herman nodded.
“We wanted to have a picnic, since it’s such a beautiful day. So we put out a blanket, down beside the stream, and started to eat. That’s when that big old catfish that you call the monster came up and spit at us! Then the others followed him, and spit at us! That’s when we waded into the stream and started punching them! What else could we do?”
Henry rubbed his chin. Then he nodded.
“Ha! Boys, it sounds to me like that old catfish was trying to get your attention, and he did. Tell me, did any of your food end up in the water?”
The twins looked at each other. Then they shook their heads.
“I don’t think so,” John muttered.
Henry smiled.
“That’s good, because I think those fish were begging for you to toss them some food. If you did, they’d spit the next time they saw someone there. Still, trying to punch them… did you manage to get close to any of them?”
Now the twins looked disgusted.
“Well, actually, I couldn’t really swing my arms in the water. It was like someone was holding me back.”
Henry nodded.
“That’s right. Trying to punch a fish is like boxing with someone pulling back on your arms. It makes you look ridiculous, and it doesn’t really hurt the fish. Okay? So next time, try this. First, put your blanket a little further away from the stream. That way the fish won’t be as likely to try spitting. Second, if you can, try giving the fish some food a little ways downstream from your picnic. That way they will be eating down there, not trying to get your attention. Think you can remember those two things?”
Both of the boys nodded.
“Good. Now go inside and dry off.”
As they scurried into the house, he chuckled, remembering times when he had tried punching the catfish…
[hum, maybe…]
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And now mine is finally up on my LiveJournal at https://starshipcat.livejournal.com/1542667.html
I couldn’t get it where I wanted it to go, but I think it needs to be a much longer work than I’d planned, or maybe part of something else that’s large enough for the necessary worldbuilding information.
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This week, AC Young proposed, “The Pegasus troops formed the advance party.”
Playing with a concept I wrote as a poem a couple months ago, this is a fantasy version of the battle of Vienna, when the Winged Hussars arrived…
It was at dusk that we spotted them. We had been besieged for 3 months. Three long months of dwindling food, fights at the gates, on the walls, and in the depths of the earth, and the constant fear that our sacrifices were in vain.
We had sent out messengers when we spotted the hordes of the sorcerer lord on the horizon. His orcs were on the march, backed by the effriti he had bound to his service and other elemental spirits that supported him. But we didn’t know if any had gotten through to our allies in the North. For all we knew, we were alone and would fall unmarked and unmourned with no help to be had. That it was all in vain.
But at dusk we spotted them on the far horizon. Our lookouts, looking to the north, spotted, dark against the sky, the brief silhouette of a small flock of pegasi on the wing.
We were unsure. It might have been a wild flock, passing by on their way to their birthing pastures high in the Eastern mountains, but it was the first hope that we had seen. We knew that the Pegasus troops formed the advance party and the scouts for the Riverlands. And it was enough to help us hold on for one more day.
The next day at dawn, we knew. The cavalry of the Northlands came thundering down on the wings of the dawn. Heavy cavalry in shining armor as the core, centaurs with horse bows on the flanks, and minotaurs with two-handed battle axes out front. And the advance pegasi scouts we had seen at dusk holding off the enemy’s arial troops.
We sortied in support. For we knew we were not alone. And we were saved.
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