《Pint-Sized Prompt-Fills: December 2017》 Snowfall After the snowfall at Silver Park, two adolescent females with biologically blue skin and Crayola colored hair chucked snowballs at each other. Kits was winning. Her purple hair partially escaped its ponytail as she pitched the next snowball at her redheaded competitor, Kaia. They were something like sisters and bickered as such.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. ¡°Jeez!¡± Kaia took a practical ice ball to the face. ¡°Thought we agreed no magic.¡± Kits could control temperature, but she hadn¡¯t used her magic. She rolled another snowball. ¡°I didn¡¯t. You¡¯re the cheat.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll show you cheating.¡± Kaia transformed into a fox to dodge Kits¡¯ next pitch. Giftstery Because of a series of events involving wishes and world-hopping silver dragonflies, Kits was used to abrupt and unintentional travel. Because of that, she was used to scavenging. Because she scavenged, she sometimes ran into things that didn¡¯t make any sense. Example: there shouldn¡¯t be a teacup, delicately painted with intricate flowery designs in gold on white porcelain, complete with matching saucer, halfway down the slope of a volcano. Someone had to have put it there, but who had teatime on a landmass ready to erupt? Kits leaned down and lifted the teacup. She turned it over. Its gold and white design made the blue of her skin more pronounced. Her nails were a paler shade of blue, much like human fingers are a shade or two different than the flesh of a person¡¯s fingers. Finding a teacup standing calmly on its saucer halfway down the igneous slope was ridiculous enough, but the weirdest thing was there was a note inside. With the teacup upturned, the note fluttered to the ground and Kits, who¡¯d had quite the day swimming through lava¡ªunharmed thanks to her immunity to temperature¡ªused her magic to make sure her fingers weren¡¯t hot enough to burn the note. She picked up and unfolded the scrap of paper.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. Calligraphic swirls of black ink mocked her illiteracy. Her translation spell didn¡¯t work on written symbols, only spoken language. She pocketed the note, hung onto the teacup, and got pulled into a series of events that forced her to forget all about it. Until on an unrelated world constructed mostly of crystalline formations, she found another one. Same deal, a teacup with a folded note inside. Same tea set. This time, Kaia was with her. Unlike Kits, Kaia could read. It wasn¡¯t that Kits couldn¡¯t read at all, just that she couldn¡¯t read the note¡¯s particular language. Kaia had apparently spent time on a world that used the note¡¯s language long enough to learn, and served as Kits¡¯ translator. ¡°I should most probably put this here,¡± read Kaia. ¡°It¡¯s signed Desiree.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know a Desiree.¡± ¡°Me neither.¡± ¡°Hey, wait. I found another one of these by a volcano once. Hang on.¡± Kits dug in her pockets. She¡¯d scavenged a puffy vest and removed its lining for more pocket space, and had to dig for a while to find the other note. ¡°What¡¯s this one say?¡± ¡°Same thing.¡± Warm Thermal manipulation was doubtless useful during confrontations, but Kits preferred its softer uses, like keeping people warm. Because of Kaia¡¯s ability to shapeshift into a fox, Kits considered most creatures people. In an alleyway near a smelly dumpster, Kits encountered a cardboard box full of kittens. With the dark and the rain, they must¡¯ve been freezing. So Kits kept them warm until morning. Her magic had no visual cues. The temperatures she manipulated simply rose or fell, and she¡¯d developed impeccable control. At dawn, the smallest kitten gave her hand a nuzzle, and Kits¡¯ affection warmed the air even more.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Senses The blindfold thing was a dare. Kits had arrived unwillingly on an unfamiliar world as usual, and had landed smack in the middle of a citywide battle, cheek scraping pavement. She¡¯d picked a side, helped the scrappy band of superpowered humans win their territory back from beastly creatures, and earned friends and bruises along the way. After cauterizing wounds to save lives and flash-heating a metal garbage can of highly flammable debris until it ignited to light the night, Kits reclined on the sidewalk and stared up at the stars. She was so spun around she couldn¡¯t reorient herself. Maybe this was a different galaxy or something. Wouldn¡¯t be surprising. Really should be used to this by now. ¡°And here I thought the beasts were the weirdest thing I¡¯d ever see,¡± said a guy with brown cowlicked hair who could turn invisible. He sat with his hands outstretched toward the fire. He was one of the ones Kits had saved from bleeding out. She¡¯d gotten to him while he was still invisible, in the nick of time. ¡°Then poof, there you were. Must be how people feel when I turn visible again. That other power of yours is freaky though. Lucky you¡¯re on our side.¡±This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. ¡°No problem.¡± Kits flopped her wrist dismissively. ¡°You fed me. And I only have the one ability. The appearing act was cuz of a dragonfly.¡± ¡°Just the temperature thing, then?¡± ¡°Basically. But it¡¯s super useful if you¡¯re clever.¡± ¡°Wit over might.¡± He smiled. ¡°I can get behind that. Besides combat and cauterizing, how else do you use it?¡± ¡°Thermal awareness comes in handy.¡± ¡°Like heat signatures?¡± Kits nodded. ¡°Explains how you found me before I bled out.¡± He contemplated. ¡°How sensitive is it? Your thermal awareness?¡± ¡°Pretty good.¡± ¡°Bet you¡¯re a good scavenger.¡± ¡°Even blindfolded.¡± Bells Kits and Kaia shared the world-hopping dragonfly problem, which was complicated in itself. Sometimes they wound up separated. This world greeted Kaia with bells. She was in fox form and remained as such, which meant a child preparing for a festival saw her materialize out of thin air and scurry under the cover of frosted bushes.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. ¡°A god,¡± said the child, pulling on his mother¡¯s sleeve. ¡°My bell summoned a god!¡± ¡°It did, did it?¡± The mother sounded tired but indulgent. ¡°And what did your god look like?¡± ¡°Fluffy and red.¡± They rang their bells. Kaia listened to the chimes. Cozy Fallout was generally terrible, but sometimes it left pockets of good on ravaged worlds. This time, Kits arrived in a pool of sweet-smelling lavender liquid that sat smack in the middle of magical detritus. The world around her was far gone. Spires of impressive buildings tilted sideways in memories of earthquakes, there was a putrid stench on the wind Kits recognized as corpse rot, and the sky wheezed in an anemic palette under two moons¡ªone of them cracked across the atmosphere as if it had been hit with a cosmic projectile. The lavender pool rested unharmed, its own pleasant scent so soothing once it got in Kits¡¯ nose that she barely noticed anything else for a while. Since the lavender liquid resembled water enough to do so, she bathed, then languished there half-submerged, wondering how to feel. Her own little oasis at the center of this broken landscape. Once the novelty wore off, she grieved, becoming a proxy for the world¡¯s potential lost history. Surely the rest of this world had been as beautiful as the lavender pool, and now that pool was all that remained of what must¡¯ve been a gorgeous civilization. Kits¡¯ sorrow froze the lavender liquid.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. Bonfire Kits always got to do the cool stuff, but Kaia had her own set of skills besides shapeshifting. Being Kits¡¯ other half meant she was immune to temperature too, though she couldn¡¯t directly manipulate it. When Kaia wound up on a world that was convinced she was a witch, this became hilarious.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. The paranoid denizens of that world made this big raging bonfire and strapped Kaia to a wooden post in the center of the kindling. They chanted at her while they stoked the flames higher, hotter. ¡°Here¡¯s an arcane magical secret for you. My kind of witch doesn¡¯t burn.¡± Steamy On a world with gears reworked into all manner of technology, a fashionable young woman sat in her corseted dress atop a square of cloth she¡¯d spread across the greasy concrete floor of a factory and drank tea. Her name was Desiree, she had long blue hair gathered into voluptuous twin braids, and her bright coloration didn¡¯t match her surroundings. She had a compulsion for leaving odd things in odder places, and had earned the nickname Crazy Dez.Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more. Steam rose from her cup over impeccably cosmeticized lips as she watched the sun tint through the window grime in golden hues. Sticky Kits awoke to the smell of spiced confection. She wasn¡¯t where she¡¯d fallen asleep. Dragonfly must¡¯ve moved her while she dreamed. Little brat. She picked herself up and surveyed her surroundings. She was in a house with brown textured walls and bright, sugary d¨¦cor. By some miracle, she¡¯d never encountered gingerbread before, so she didn¡¯t know exactly what the walls were made of, but the smell of them assured her they were edible. And probably delicious. Given her previous experience with the dragonflies, she assumed the quaint atmosphere of this cute little house must be a farce. She closed her eyes and paid attention to the temperatures around her. Thermal awareness spread out from her in a sphere, and she felt everything within that range as tactile sensations. She felt the spikes and dives of temperature as if she were physically touching them, and she could spread her sphere of awareness a little farther if she moved her arms. Or legs. Or stretched her neck. She lengthened herself as far as she could, spreading her limbs, and twirled around slowly, feeling. Pretty much everything was chillier than ambient temperature, but there was a colder framework where the walls met each other, which indicated a different material gluing the structure together. Her thermal sense couldn¡¯t reach far enough to gauge the roof. That was fine. She didn¡¯t need a roof. She needed a door. She opened her eyes and found one. Locked. She tried the windows. Also locked.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Actually, they were more like glued shut. ¡°Hah, hah.¡± Kits put her palms up, beseeching the room with a dry tone. Because her translation spell had nothing to work with¡ªshe had yet to hear anyone speak on this world and therefore the spell couldn¡¯t mimic the language¡ªshe spoke in her mother tongue. It was full of doubleyous, soft consonants, and vowels. ¡°What am I supposed to do? Eat my way out?¡± No answer. She could melt her way out. Probably. But she didn¡¯t know how hot she¡¯d have to burn before the building materials gave, couldn¡¯t know how much damage she¡¯d do, and also¡­ she kind of didn¡¯t want to ruin such an adorable house. Not to mention it didn¡¯t belong to her. It wasn¡¯t the owner¡¯s fault a dragonfly popped Kits into existence inside their abode. And even though it also wasn¡¯t Kits¡¯ fault she was stuck, she never wanted to ruin someone¡¯s day. How crappy would that be? To come home and find a giant hole in the wall, burnt at the edges, and evidence that someone else had been inside your sacred space. Kits decided to wait. Maybe whoever lived here would come home and let her out. Maybe the misunderstanding could be sorted and afterward everyone could go about their day as usual. Time passed. The smell made her hungrier. She couldn¡¯t remember the last time she¡¯d eaten. A candy cane coatrack with its peppermint scent became very appetizing. The obvious finally occurred to her. No one was coming home to a place with the door and windows glued shut. She¡¯d melt her way out. For the sake of damage control, she focused her magic on the doorframe, heating the icing. It melted, slipping down the frame and door as it did. When she passed through the threshold, the icing clung to her in a sheen of gluey sweet stickiness, and she had to flail forward with an embarrassing amount of force to get free of it. She stood outside, arms held away from her torso, licking the remnants of icing from the corners of her mouth. Sneeze Although Crystal appeared to be ten years old by human standards, except for her pointed ears and gigantic layered fluff of curly brunette hair, she was more like two hundred. Notoriously intelligent, Crystal was the one who created the translation spell. That intelligence came with an incessant curiosity, which normally was an asset. Not today. Today, Crystal¡¯s experiment had gone wrong.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Kits sneezed and became a fox. Kaia sneezed and the field caught on fire. ¡°Hmm.¡± Crystal twisted her cat¡¯s cradle design into a different pattern. Kits sneezed again and changed back into herself. Kaia crouched inside the flames, annoyed. Penguin Every once in a while, a dragonfly put Kits underwater. That in itself wasn¡¯t terrifying, because Kits could swim pretty well, but she¡¯d wound up in water underground in the past and nearly drowned before she could navigate a way to the surface. She didn¡¯t want a repeat of that experience. Which was why finding herself underwater meant she swam hard and fast trying to reach air no matter how close the sky looked. She found herself in frigid water and swam upwards, almost immediately slamming into a blockade of ice. Like swimming, under normal circumstances, not a problem. Melt the ice. Simple. What wasn¡¯t simple was making sure her magic was under control enough to do so, which meant managing her emotions. Which was a bit difficult considering she was freaking out.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. The threat of suffocation can do that. With her heart hammering, heating her way out became insurmountable. Every time she melted partway through the ice, her panic would rise and freeze it over. Then something slipped across Kits¡¯ ankle. Slick and insulated, it was an aquatic bird. With her magic unreliable, she decided to follow the creature. It led her straight to a hole in the ice. One The walls of the multilevel maze were made of anti-magic. Black and slick, the material prevented cheating, such as climbing to get to other levels of the maze without use of plotted routes, and also what Kits wanted to do: melt her way to the exit.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. Not long ago, Desiree had passed through. Kits jogged around a bend, keeping to the middle of the route so as not to touch the walls, and found herself in front of an invisible ladder. The only reason she knew it was there was there was a candle burning on one of the rungs. Sugarrush After that thing with the giant gingerbread house, Kits reunited with Kaia and they wound up on another world together. Thanks to all that confectionary decorating, both of them were hyped up on sugar, which meant the compulsion to use their magic and expend energy was overwhelming. It made both of them twitchy, even more so because they shared physical sensations. It was part of being each other¡¯s other half. That was literal. Kits and Kaia were one soul controlling two bodies. Each of them had half of the overall soul. Separate minds, separate emotions, technically separate selves, but they were made of the same gooey center. When they both felt the same thing at the same time, especially in the physical sense, it compelled them to act a bit crazy. Doubly so for an internal sensation, such as a sugar rush that released an obnoxious amount of hyperactivity. The world they were on now was all snowdrifts and white expanse, bordered by a line of far off evergreens that held clumps of snow on needled branches. Snow was great for working off excess energy, and Kaia had just the way to do it.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. ¡°We hunt mice!¡± ¡°We what?¡± asked Kits. ¡°Mice! We hunt mice. I know how to do it, I can show you. It¡¯s super fun.¡± Kits thought hunting dragonflies would be a better use of their time, but the fact was she couldn¡¯t feel any dragonflies around with her thermal sense, and she did have a ton of magic bubbling up in her waiting for a release. Maybe a mouse hunt could put it to use. Kaia seemed certain, in any case. ¡°Like this.¡± Kaia shifted into a fox and padded across the snow. She stopped, tilted her head, and Kits heard what Kaia was hearing through their soul connection. A faint skittering below the snow. Kits also felt magnetic north through Kaia, which was a strange but not unfamiliar sensation, and then¡­ Kaia aligned herself, leapt into the air, and came down nose first in the snow, burying herself up to the chest with her tail in the air. Kits felt phantom cold on her own nose and arms and chest, but because she and Kaia were immune to temperature, it was simply that. A sensation without discomfort. What wasn¡¯t without discomfort was the taste of the mouse in Kaia¡¯s mouth. Sensation sharing also included taste. Talk ¡°Oh, mistletoe. We should most probably kiss.¡± ¡°Should we?¡± ¡°Probably.¡± ¡°Is this you playing up the Crazy Dez thing or are you being serious?¡±Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! Desiree giggled and swished her skirts around. ¡°That¡¯s not an answer.¡± ¡°Maybe it¡¯s best if I don¡¯t answer.¡± ¡°Yeah, right.¡± ¡°You have a nice smile.¡± ¡°And you¡¯re not as crazy as you let people believe.¡± ¡°Perhaps.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you mean probably?¡± Desiree giggled again. ¡°Are you going to answer my question or just stand there acting coquettish?¡± ¡°If I answered your question seriously, you most probably wouldn¡¯t believe me.¡± ¡°Anyone ever tell you you¡¯re confusing?¡± ¡°On occasion.¡± Myth By the time Kits realized her mistake, the damage was irreversible. She stared at the windowsill and the tiny whitehaired man who stood there. Well. Uh. Previously whitehaired, now scorched. His skin was charred too, though it wasn¡¯t burnt. But that definitely didn¡¯t deter his temper.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. ¡°You ruined it,¡± said the tiny man. ¡°You¡¯re not supposed to be here in winter! This is Frost¡¯s territory!¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry?¡± Kits felt bad, but she thought it was a reasonable mistake. He looked like a tiny human, and humans got cold. She¡¯d been trying to help. ¡°Jack Frost! Now he¡¯s gonna kill me!¡± Soap Desiree didn¡¯t used to indulge her compulsions. There was a time, years ago, when she ignored them. Of course, that was before her grandmother came to visit on the night of the winter festivities. That year changed everything. Desiree¡¯s home world had festivities for every season, but winter was the harshest season of all, which meant people took the winter season¡¯s traditions more seriously than the others. No one outright said it, but it was understood that to disregard the winter traditions meant to bring bad luck to the household. Or workplace. Desiree lived at her workplace, as did most of the female staff of the factory. Desiree¡¯s grandmother didn¡¯t respect festivities. She¡¯d also raised Desiree then dumped her at the factory once she came of age. The factory was a front for a seedier business that society at large turned a blind eye toward. Men had their vices. The factory¡¯s working staff catered to them, Desiree included. The factory¡¯s winter festival was meant to be a reprieve, where all the female workers could get together and have a party with whatever decorations and food they desired. It had become tradition to weave yarn into puppets that resembled the bosses and sew leftover gears into dress hems, shaping the designs into flowers with thorns. Desiree was humming a festival tune, stitching a thorn into place, when her grandmother invaded their space.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°A word,¡± said Desiree¡¯s grandmother. ¡°How kind of you to join in our festivities,¡± said Desiree brightly. She stitched another thorn and ignored the compulsion to toss the needle at the far side of the room. Silly, silly. There was no reason to throw sharp objects. No reason at all. But the strangest thing was the compulsions were worse when there wasn¡¯t a reason for them. ¡°Hello, grandmother.¡± ¡°You¡¯d rather I speak here, in front of your coworkers?¡± ¡°How¡¯s your latest painting?¡± ¡°Misdirection will get you nowhere. I¡¯ll be heard regardless of where you are.¡± Desiree put her stitching aside and fiddled with the needle. That spot near the door, at the far end of the factory from where she sat, looked more and more appealing. Her grandmother stared down at her, then knelt to meet her at eye level. ¡°Throw it,¡± said her grandmother. ¡°There¡¯s nothing but silliness behind the urge.¡± ¡°You know better than that.¡± Because Desiree didn¡¯t throw the needle, a furious man got inside unhindered. Fun With such a hectic life, being thrown around unfamiliar worlds without any warning, Kits had to take fun where she could get it. The dragonflies hadn¡¯t ever put her somewhere she couldn¡¯t breathe, which meant there was usually some moisture in the atmosphere, or the components to create it. When it was humid enough, she froze the air¡¯s moisture, molding it into ice sculptures of people she¡¯d met in her travels. And sometimes, through no fault of her own, she left the fruit of her labors behind. See aforementioned dragonfly problem.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. The sculptures melt, but are beautiful and accurate depictions. Reveal The dragonflies were silver, forged from souls by those souls¡¯ third wishes, and both a part of as well as commanded by a little girl. She floated in the air above a grassy field, barefoot and giggling, with the tiered skirt of her blue sundress billowing in a breeze of invisible aura, as the dragonflies took their places in her hair, holding her golden bangs out of her face. Crazed green eyes and an equally excitable grin made up her expression, which appeared no more than ten years old by human measurement. The little girl prided herself on being magical. What she wanted most was more dragonflies. Her favorite thing in all the worlds was to force a wish out of a wisher.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. The little girl was sadistic and always had been. Ever since the day she was born. Some really are born evil, and she was among the most depraved. She had no reason for enjoying the things she did, the torture and torment of those in her vicinity, but she enjoyed them all the same, and it would be wise if ever you saw her or her dragonflies to run in the opposite direction. Not that it would matter much, once you attracted her attention. She landed lightly, causing not even the faintest of stirs in the grass, and paid attention to Kits, her favorite wisher. Kits was on another world, thanks to this little girl, but could never escape the scrutiny of the dragonflies, nor could any other wisher. The only place the little girl couldn¡¯t reach was someone¡¯s mind. Only thoughts were private. But she also had the attention span of a child, being one, and could only pay attention to one wisher at a time. To pay attention to Kits was more habit than anything. NoeL Between Kits and Kaia, Kaia was better at hand to hand combat. In a fight, Kits kept her opponents from touching her by adjusting her body temperature. She burned them, or gave them frostbite, or a combination of both. Not many creatures can resist the automatic response to get away from something too hot or too frigid.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Kaia didn¡¯t have that issue. She was immune to temperature too, and used quick shapeshifting as a strategy. Against Kaia, temperature didn¡¯t matter. And she was fast. Punches and kicks and knees to the ribs hurt. They hurt even more trapped beneath Kaia. Evil Some worlds aren¡¯t friendly. Kits tries, but she doesn¡¯t look like most inhabitants, and some worlds treat that as a reason to greet her aggressively. Sometimes Kaia surely gets the same treatment, but not nearly as often or to the extent as Kits. Kits doesn¡¯t have the benefit of shapeshifting, and as a rule she¡¯s not as scrappy as Kaia when it comes to covering terrain with stealth to avoid a confrontation.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. This world apparently loved confrontation. A bipedal individual clad in what must¡¯ve been military attire pointed a weapon at Kits. ¡°Why are you blue?¡± ¡°Why are you not?¡± Hog The little girl in the blue sundress stood next to a decorated tree. The shiny wrappings of presents gleamed with the reds and blues of the lights strung along the tree¡¯s needles. A window with its frame clumped with snow added grayish ambience from outside to the living room scene, and a couch in warm colored leather lounged beneath the window. No fireplace. One silver dragonfly flitted back and forth by the little girl¡¯s head, in and out of the festive twilight¡¯s light. It was the wee hours of the morning. On Earth.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The little girl stared at a boy around her age who¡¯d come downstairs and was holding a handwritten list. ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± asked the little girl. ¡°It¡¯s a Christmas list for Santa. Mom and Dad said I was supposed to leave it on the table, but I wasn¡¯t finished writing it until now.¡± The boy shifted his weight. He didn¡¯t know this little girl, but was young enough to still believe in unexplainable things. ¡°Who are you?¡± ¡°What¡¯s Christmas? Why¡¯s it have a list?¡± ¡°For Santa. He gives you what you ask for if you write it down.¡± ¡°A wish granter!¡± The little girl grinned. ¡°Just like me!¡± Slide A lot of worlds have playgrounds. The apparatus is always a little different to account for whatever species mainly inhabits the world, but there is one consistency usually there. Slides. Swirly slides, half-frozen straight slides, slides with rectangular chutes, other chutes shaped triangularly with rounded edges, slick rubbery sloped slides, all manner of distances between the slides¡¯ exits and the playgrounds¡¯ grounds.Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. Kaia made a point to try them all, in both her fox form and her natural blue-skinned redhaired yellow-eyed bipedal default. Her favorites were the slipperiest. The ones that opened out into sand, which crunched in colder climates. Bonus That day, Desiree knew she should probably pack up her tea set and stuff it under her voluminous skirts, along with her square of picnic cloth, before heading into the work area of the factory. Work area being the term for where the men went to fulfill their desires, and where the workers were expected to entertain them. Ever since the winter festivities, the work area had become a more dangerous place, and all of the workers held in them a cautious jittery energy barely concealed beneath veneers of wooden flirtation. Desiree took a different route than usual to the factory floor, because there were more possibilities flooding the alternative route, and more possibilities meant more choice, and maybe one or more of those choices would relieve her of some of the dangers that certainly lurked in her work day below. She walked through stone corridors and rickety catwalks lit by the decrepit ceiling¡¯s latticework high above, and paid attention to the convergence of possibilities which were always present and which she felt in an aquatic current around her. On the steel stairwell leading up to the catwalk, a fox appeared out of thin air. On its ear, for the briefest of moments, was a silver dragonfly. The dragonfly flitted away, but not before Desiree had felt the flood of possibilities it represented race over her in a current so oppressive it resembled a waterfall. ¡°Oh!¡± Desiree wobbled back a step and put both hands on her face. ¡°I feel I¡¯ve tripped over a spook!¡± The fox whirled around and stared at her, and Desiree knew there was no possibility it was an ordinary fox. ¡°Are you a spook?¡± asked Desiree. The fox twitched its ear, tilted its head in a human-seeming gesture, then darted away. As it went, a river of possibilities chased after it. Desiree felt the rush of that river¡¯s influence as a cool sensation against her shins. She swished her skirts out of the way reflexively, then patted the fabric back into place. Emotions she hadn¡¯t felt in a long time welled in her, as if the fox¡¯s possibilities had swirled a current of Desiree¡¯s own into existence within her heart, and she wondered what it might be like to pursue the fox. To follow those streams wherever they led. Would it be freeing? Or would it lead to another cage? Desiree thought it through. She didn¡¯t really believe in good or bad, but she certainly believed in consequence. She also believed all currents of possibility eventually intersected. She couldn¡¯t imagine it worked any other way. From what she¡¯d experienced, decision is what altered the course of those currents. This was a chance to make her own decision. She could decide to alter her own current of what¡¯s possible. Why was she so afraid? No, not afraid. Thrilled. Oh, it would be such a dream, to let the current take her.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. For now though, the fox was gone, and that rushing wellspring current hadn¡¯t come from the fox alone. Desiree knew for certain the silver dragonfly had brought with it far, far more possibilities than the fox. If the fox had been a river, the dragonfly was an oceanic wave. A bell sounded from the factory floor. Leaning over the railing of the catwalk, Desiree watched as the patrons made rivers of their own, some more than metaphorical. She breathed in her tiny world, the grime and the chrome and the filth, her corsetry clamping against her lungs. And she decided if she ever saw that fox again, or the dragonfly, she¡¯d let the current take her. Before she could do that, she should probably descend into her usual routine. The currents of possibility told her the most opportunities would arise if she continued as normal and fulfilled whatever the men wanted from her. Patience, as her grandmother would say, sometimes brings more possibilities than action. Desiree was a naturally patient person. She lowered herself down the stairwell with an air of unhurried ease, lifting her skirts just so, and gained the attention of one of the newer patrons. At some point between flirtation and the act itself, she unhooked her tea set from beneath her skits and placed them both aside. Unsanitary events followed, one after another, in Desiree¡¯s corner of the factory floor. A factory, thought Desiree absently from underneath her patron, yet they won¡¯t allow us to produce anything. Not one thing. Before all this, her grandmother used to paint, and those were the images that invaded Desiree¡¯s mind, landscapes and cityscapes and prophetic scenes from the world outside this¡­ this den. That probably-not-fox had appeared out of nowhere. Had the dragonfly¡¯s possibilities arisen from nothing? Desiree turned her face away, which wasn¡¯t something the boss of the factory allowed. She made a little sound to deter any suspicion from the man she was pleasing and added a well-practiced shudder. Then she stared through half lidded eyes, past her thicket of cosmeticized eyelashes, and found herself looking directly at the fox. The fox seemingly had stopped in the middle of a step and turned to stare back at Desiree with an expression that was not vulpine in the least. The possibilities came over Desiree in a wave, and she closed her eyes against the man¡¯s grunts. When he was finished with her, he clothed himself and departed, as they always do, leaving Desiree to reconcile the trembles in her abdomen and limbs. The factory floor welled cold. Her tea set beckoned with little streams of its own subtle opportunities, and the fox sat down and watched the man go. Desiree collected herself and her tea set, folding it under her skirts, and waited, because the dragonfly would probably appear of its own accord very soon. Desiree could feel that in the swelling of currents against her flesh. In the meantime, she waved her polished fingers at the fox, quirking her mouth into a smirk. To see what it did. Her little gesture made some of the fox¡¯s possibilities change course. The fox tilted its head. It did nothing more than that. Then the dragonfly reappeared. Its possibilities swirled into creation before it had fully manifested in front of Desiree, and all those possible currents swept harshly over her as if they wanted to push her over. She swayed with them, swishing her skirts. She extended one finger toward the dragonfly. It and all opportunities it contained landed lightly on her outstretched finger. Desiree felt the dragonfly¡¯s current sweep her into an inescapable torrent. Then she spoke her wish. That was Desiree. Patient. Compulsive.