Always recognize who the real monster is. — Before Laeryna was thrown into the dragons’ pit, the courtesans sat on the edges of their seats to see how she might be torn limb from limb. Stoking King Halvare’s ire had seemed to earn her such novelty for the moment. …

#100StoryChallenge — No21 — Painted stars ran like a shower down her bare back. Her handmaidens had painstakingly drew each pointed star with their fingertips till she was a body of constellations. They said the gods would not look at her even once if she did not decorate herself as if she were a…

Never make a bargain unless you know the rules ahead of time. — The witch promised Ophelia that she would one day wear a crown. “Yes, yes, I see it clearly, dearie,” the crone said with a chuckle in her voice. “You’ll be a queen soon enough, trust me. Do I look like a liar?” Ophelia leaned in, her hands folded in a…

A Poem — there was an orbit we couldn’t deny as passion plays erupted between the selves we knew and the ones we pretended to be. you could have chased me across this labyrinth of love, but the time wasn’t right as we circled each other instead. oh, the red of me stood against…

#100StoryChallenge — No20 — The bride often wanders the graveyard where she breathed her last. Her beautiful gown trails the ground, snagging and tearing on the roots, but she does not stop her haunting patterns. She is ever on the watch for the return of the man who left her — her groom, her…

#100StoryChallenge — No19 — The first thorns began to grow from Briar Rose’s skin on the eve of her sixteenth birthday. “What’s happening to me?” she asked her fairy attendants, and they simply looked upon her with pity in their eyes. “You’re becoming the curse,” one said. “I’m so sorry, dear Rose. …

That good girl is gone. — The day Amina turned eighteen, she left her father’s house for good. Though her mother pleaded with her to stay, Amina still walked out with all her worldly possessions crammed into a rolling suitcase. Her father, notably, was absent from the teary procession as Amina made her way to her…

A Poem — pastel promises were the stuff of your dreams, anything to make me cooperate with your mixed agendas as I slowly lost myself to darker horizons. love letters scattered to the wind on the day you left me behind, off to better pastures somewhere out there in the great wide world where I couldn’t hope to…

#100StoryChallenge — No18 — “Oh, don’t look so put out. It was just a tiny clause in the contract, love.” “Let me out,” the woman said, her eyes burning into him. The devil smiled and flicked one hand towards the doors, opening at the pull of his power. She still glared at him, but…