Chances Thrown

I cast Rewind.

The Dark Lord swung his mace.

I fired an ice bolt. It failed to stop him crushing her head.

I cast Rewind.

The Dark Lord swung his mace.

I fired a fireball. It failed to stop him crushing her burning head.

I cast Rewind.

The Dark Lord swung his mace.

I summoned a bone automation. It failed to stop him crushing her head with a boney handheld weapon.

I cast Rewind

The Dark Lord sighed.

"How many tries you want at this?"

I was thrown just long enough for him to throw the mace through my head.

Credit Where It's Due

Farspace Outpost 47 was one of the more popular locations for traders to hand in Alliance credits. They had lots of nanobuilder power with two supernova converters, plus one of the best tech crews around.

So the trader striding into the office turned no heads.

"Welcome, repairs or supplies?"

"You have price for everything, yes?"

"Everything the Alliance can give to independent traders, yes. Weapons, I presume?"

"The station."

There was a long pause.

"That's 200 trillion-"

Him having earned that amount selling slaves was enough of a scandal for everyone to not focus on him now owning an Outpost.

Seen Through

They spent a year on planning and setting it up. Finding where the underground poker game was held, sneaking in cameras across five months, crafting the backstory just right to get an invite, everything was building to this night, they were a well oiled machine in the lead up.

Coming to blows, bullets, afterwards was likely, sure, but you'd have thought that was because they failed.

Instead they fell apart after their guy didn't need to cheat as he got lucky, and they argued about if they should take the money and run or cheat in the next game instead.

The Only Option

Between the two apprentices, Matur was the one that showed the most promise. Bienae managed to mess up a transport spell so badly his fruit knife vanished.

Matur therefore got all the attention, all the opportunities. Maybe that is why he turned to the darkness, why he threw away his soul in pursuit of ultimate power.

Bienae was not anyone's choice to try and stop Matur, but every direct attack had failed, so attempting to reason with him was the only choice left.

It utterly failed, of course, but as Matur gloated over him, a knife reappeared in Bienae's hand.

Lowpoint

They both were having the worst day of their lives when they both went to grab the same chair.

He'd lost his job, his car died, and gotten a positive test result back from the doctor.

She'd woken up to a "Dear Jane" letter from her now ex-husband, then found out he had run off with her former best friend, and then that he'd cleared out their bank accounts.

They both wanted the chair, neither thought they could handle another loss.

They both went to speak, and both heard the same pain in the other's voice.

They helped each other.

Fleetship Banquet

The distress call was suspiciously short on details. Regulations were clear, distress code, name of the ship, location, any other important details. This one was just a call for help, and the coordinates, just outside a nebula.

There was a Fleetship nearby, and so they were ordered to divert and check it out. They reported that they found the ship, and were investigating.

Soon after, a distress call went out that followed regulations to the letter.

The third ship the nebula caught had a captain that taught it how to be more emotionally stirring, after which food started arriving exponentially.

A Statement, But Also A Drabble

I am keenly aware of my limits in terms of reach and importance, in most regards but certainly about my place as a writer.

I don't believe I'm a bastion of artistic expression, nor is anyone looking to me to be their main source of artistic inspiration. (In the unlikely event I am, i thank you, but also I think you should broaden your horizons.)

But as a small part of the mass of content creators on the internet, I know I'm supposed to keep creating, for all our sakes.

But as you can probably guess, it's getting really hard...