Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

[cpolk]

15minuteficlets has the word of the week, and here's what came up:

As Gold, and Loss
connected to Copper and Iron are the New Black
but departing from Blood and Iron Fanfic
General Audiences

"Hear one who is authorized to speak," the man in the center said. He raised both hands, showing them as empty; the right swiveled, fingers pointing downward, and his littlest finger curled up to meet his thumb. The left he held up, tucking the littlest finger and his ring finger into his palm. The four people flanking him stood still, stared forward, and if they wanted to rush forward and raise the bruised and barely standing girl in a tattered black coat on the points of their spears, they gave no sign of it.

"You have some interest in a recent aquisition of ours," the man said. "I am prepared to offer her to you."

The girl swayed and wiped bloody dirt away from one eye, scrubbing with the back of her gloved hand. She did not speak.

"Is this not of interest?" The man asked, sliding forward one step, into a rectangle of light from a window, and the angle was right to make his eyes flash like disks of silver. "Or are you too wounded to hear my tender?"

"Don't touch me," the girl said. she croaked, through a throat that had not known water in a day.

"I wouldn't dream of it," the man said, his dime eyes intent on the copper rings on her fingers. "But you may do what is necessary, in safety."

She stared at him a little longer, long enough to make her insulting distrust plain before nodding. her legs buckled, she sprawled in the refuse and oily water in the cracked pavement, arms and legs spread, embracing a fetid bit of the earth...but a bit of the earth, still.

The ground trembled. Cracks grew wider, blacktop heaved as something beneath struggled to break free, and did. curling, fragile green shoots burst up, crawled toward the girl on the ground, and vines wrapped around her body, covering her in soft new green and infant leaves, raising her as trumpet flowers bloomed and puffed out their pollen like a bellows, coating her in a powder that sparked and disappeared into her skin. Skin that lost purpling bruises, jagged cuts, even grime as the vines did their work and set her on her feet. She was clean and whole, her hair and clothes tattered and smeared with what was once her blood.

"The offer," she said.

"The little girl," the man said, "and the secret of how we found her."

"Tendered for what?"

"In a year and a day, you will come to us. with every child you find, and awaken, and train. And we will choose one to serve us seven years."

Her laugh cut her throat. "Shall we come on a horse of black, and one of white, and the last on a bluid-red steed?"

"If you like," the man said. He even smiled. "We must live too. Do you think I would not stir to save my children? You are the key - your cousins."

"And you want a sacrifice to save your lives."

"For seven years. And then the next, exchanged in compact. To work together. I ask humbly, on bended knee. Help us to survive."

"And if I don't?"

"The child we have will do. Untrained, but her blood shall have value... for a time. and then we will need another."

"No! Give her to me," the girl cried, and the man tossed her a coin, gold and wide.

"It is done. We will meet again," the man said. A cry rang out behind him, and a girl who might have been six stumbled into the light, clad in spring leaf green, flowers plaited in her hair, rings of silver on every finger. she stepped on her skirts and landed hard on one elbow into a puddle, squealing in pain--and then in fear, as the five fair folk walked into a shadow, back to their land.

"No!" The little girl screamed. "Don't leave me here! Take me back! Take me back! Noooooo!"