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Tea and Scones...

 The villain wondered about villainy, as he sat down for tea and scones.

    The concept of villainy was straightforward. Wanting revenge, the payout, the power. Always at it with a master plan. Always the stone heart, the uncompromising rigidity, the unyielding course that heroes consistently tried to break. There was certainly an exhausting quality to it, somewhere just above stockbroking and just below motherhood—though some might suggest its all part and parcel (depending on the mother).

    But there comes a time, the villain thought, when anyone wants to sit down for tea and scones. 

    Could one just stop a course of villainy? Settle in? Be one of the masses of normal people? What was one to do with one's brain in such a circumstance? Research? Bah. Perhaps he could try and organize cats, it, like villainy, being a fruitless endeavor. Villainy was fruitless, because in the end, you couldn't take it with you. No matter how many pyramids you built.

    He supposed quitting was really a matter of whether or not he had killed anyone. Had he? He didn't think so. Not that he had been particularly stringent about it. He probably should have been. But at the time he hadn't been thinking about scones. 

    No, he was nearly certain he hadn't killed anyone.

    He sat down to his tea and scones.

    No one seemed to care very much that he did.

    No one ever does, much.

If an Eldest Daughter...

 The girl would not slow down. Not for anything.      Yes, she was wearing a red cloak.      Yes, there was the basket draped over her arm.      The hunter tried to chat. The wolf tried to way lay. But the girl would not be stopped.     Not even to be polite.  As she walked on, she shook her head in annoyance. People just did not realize how quickly baked goods went stale.
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And Everyone Forgot All About It

 Once upon a time the world burst into chaos. This is unsurprising, as it happens, for it rarely affects humans (at least of the upper classes).       Only this time, even the very rich felt its fells and shakes. The rivers ran wild and drank up fields. The mountains laughed uproariously and spewed their chortles at great lengths. The vines ran up and down, in thick briars, covering square footage in the same way that a sip of whiskey floods the body. The animals went off their rocker, and it is enough to say that the sheer tonnage of their feces was legion. Which is all to say, everyone felt it. How could they not when even the birds sang their tunes to the beat of drums that came up from the depths of dark places?       The people traveled up to avoid damage. But up, for mass, does not last forever, and chaos cannot sustain perpetuity.      It all settled down. Eventually. When the wind kissed the chaos and told it to hush. ...
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A Witch's Order

 There was once a boy who, at times, tended toward the depths of despair. The tendency made itself known around 4pm on a Wednesday, which was the day and time his father sent him each week with bread for the old witch. The boy was not at his best around old witches.      He had seen that a witch's potion could bring back someone from the brink of death. Too, he had seen what a witch's curse could do. Just last year the blacksmith had been cursed for letting his wife suffer illness without remedy too long. He would get an anvil to the foot, the witch had said. It was no surprise when it happened three weeks later. And just last week, the tailor had turned away a widow who could only pay half. The witch had given him a verbal shake down, and the next day he had sewed himself by both trousers and drawers right into the suit he was making for a lord. His assistant had to cut him loose. What, the boy often wondered, might she do to him?       The boy t...
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On Beauty

 What she wanted was this: to add beauty.       What that meant was confusing.       Beauty in print and practice was wise and witty, without obnoxious overtones. Clever, though not obviously so. Beautiful in essence and form, while both hinted at sultry. Old enough, but not to look it. Gentle, with gravity. Sarcastic, with levity.      Exhausting, she thought.       Why? she wondered.      Did anyone care enough about all this to form it?      Oh, she had tried. Trying that came from peeking out from behind corners and wanting to avoid the bitter. In her first moments, she had thought that beauty was something else entirely. Print and practice gave her the recipe, and try as she might, the cake fell, was too dense, not light enough, not sweet enough. All of it lacked the new thing, the clever bit that made all attempts seem like oil in cracks, the authenticity that was yet anot...
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