The Last Course

"You want to talk about the past? I can talk about the past!

Don't shush me woman, you've been doing that for thirty years! It's about time we got this dirty laundry out in the open!

This family is built on a lie! With lie upon lie built upon it! That man in the painting, our illustrious monarch, the noble trader who built this outpost by himself for ten years! Well it's high time we admit the truth, that he was-"

The word died on his lips, as the 'heart attack' took him as he 'fell' onto my dinner knife.

Key Change

Out of all the sounds that would have surprised me coming from the other room, an otherwise jaunty tune played on a piano was low in terms of immediate danger, but high on confusion producing, since there wasn't a piano in there, as far as I knew.

As I slowly looked into the room, I hoped for a gramaphone. Instead a figure sat hunched over something that looked vaguely like a piano but wrong enough to make me scared. This must be a spectre, trying to lure me closer-

The sudden silence was worse, as I knew I was lost.

Guilty Birthday Focus

Just to be clear, I love my wife. It's just always so hard to focus on our wedding anniversary when my birthday is the very next day.

She insisted on that date, something her mother told her. She had her heart set on it.

But now I always feel guilty, I'm always worried I'm not focusing enough on that day over the next, so I usually go a little overboard with it.

At least I did, until I found out that what her mother said was pick that day so I'd remember it. That made me feel a little better.

Jill's Mastery

She liked to call herself a Jill of All Trades, as most of the tasks small villages would have for traveling adventurers she could handle.  From working a shift behind a bar through to dealing with giant pests, she could do it to an acceptable degree.

She regretted this overconfidence when she found herself in a dragon's grip (literally) tasked with negotiating a truce between it and an otherwise unassuming village.

Her negotiating skills were sharp, but the dragon seemed reluctant to hire her.

Until out of sheer panic she began to sing.

Thankfully she was master of one skill.

Her Point Of View

When the girl of my dreams told me she loved me, I would have looked around for hidden cameras if I hadn't been shocked frozen. When I finally found my voice, I asked the obvious question.

"Why? You're the most amazing woman in the world, beautiful and funny and intelligent and... Why me?"

She sighed and took my hand.

"If I can do nothing else, I hope to one day help you see yourself the way I see you."

And in all the time we had together, she never stopped trying to do just that.

She never managed it, though.

Gold Lifetime

It was dug out of the side of a mountain. It started off as an offering to a God, as a representation of their image in gold.

It then became part of the sacking of the New World, an otherwise unremarkable Conquistador taking it back home to Spain. It thus became a family heirloom.

Many decades later, it became a bribe to shut up a maid who saw too much.

A while later it became lot #5676.

It then went back to being an heirloom.

Then it was the murder weapon.

So I had to bury it, completing the cycle.

No Work Jack

The salesperson had assured the company that their robots, sorry, "Fully Articulated Person-Like Artificial Servants", could last for indefinite time periods without any support. They wouldn't go mad, wouldn't break down, they'd be just as friendly and efficient after fifty years as they would be after fifty minutes. So the company tossed one on each sleeper ship to look after it during transport.

When I woke up, I can't fault it on being as cheerful and hard-working as when I went to sleep. But I could fault it not actually doing anything to stop my shipmates dying in their pods.