A whole world on a single page!
The short story morsels of One Page Worlds are flash fiction adventures of all flavors. Every Wednesday will feature a complete story in one page, or the first page of what could be a novel or novelette.
Sharing the fun and geekery is the best part of writing! Please tweet or comment with your guesses on what genre, character, and job is central to each tale. Enjoy touring new universes each week with One Page Worlds!
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“Weyndust got men into this state of near-extinction,” Véser snarled, voice ricocheting off walls and into every ear present, including The Lady’s. “Each Ancestor in this room should be ashamed of themselves for proposing we give them more of it now.”
A hundred members and one sat at stone podiums amid granite walls. Véser’s storm-gray eyes gouged every fae Ancestor that dared to peek at his sharpened features. Formal glamours and seemings hid the emotions and expressions of each fae present, but not their gazes. Only the two grand clock hands built into the floor-and the fragrant fruits growing in mid-air the center-separated this AlterFae Chamber from a tomb. Not a knot of living wood in sight.
Véser’s lengthy green sleeves whip-cracked at each Ancestor when he jabbed a finger at them. “Men drain our lands and ship our fruits and herbs to their world. Even as their bodies implode from what they gorge on, they continue to consume for entertainment. Weyndust leads them to overconsumption, not survival as it once did. Had we presented gunpowder instead of weyndust, they would have sought science and construction. There are first wing accounts from the B.C. era in China and India of gunpowder’s roots. Let us go to that--”
“Quiet, Lord Véser,” Lady Saraya snapped, weyndust drifting from her hair as she stood. A hundred accents and one gushed from her lips. “The Lady speaks for all Ancestors with their own voices. Weyndust showed men the paths into Faerie so they might escape their earth’s perils and explore rich landmasses that we cannot. You would sacrifice all we’ve learned about our own realm to spare men? Extinction by gluttony was their choice. Faerie shall be ours again with them gone. If they recover as a race, the future earth humans will not make the same mistakes.”
Véser shot into the air, wings pumping. “Men have learned nothing of science. They can offer us naught. Use the AlterFae Chamber. Reveal gunpowder instead of weyndust. Send me to fix their past.”