winter

Watery and Grave (part one)

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

Enchanted to life as little more than festival entertainment, a quartet of ice sculptures find themselves abandoned, quickly becoming acquainted with danger as they flee from steaming food carts, fire-spewing domestic dragons, and the looming threat of a rising sun and a short winter.

As luck would have it, or rather as he forced luck to have it, Tavros Celliday, notary sorcerer and luck tracker, arrives to help them journey to the perpetually frozen north.  When he looks away from their luck, just for a moment, evil swoops in and snatches them away.

Oh and just wait until you find out who the narrator is!  (Yes, it’s me… but who am I!?)

(Estimated reading time: 1 hour, 22 minutes)

(estimated reading time for whole novella: 3 hours)

Watery and Grave

by

Blaine arcade

November 17th

An Overall Unlucky Day

The prevailing sentiment might be that luck doesn’t apply to infants, and that if it does the luck doesn’t take effect until the child is old enough to understand their lot in life. So even if either idea is true, it doesn’t apply here, as the four born that day were born at their full intellectual capacity.

I don’t know about unlucky, but the place they were born was certainly unusual: the fair grounds in the midst of that continent’s biggest annual celebration. It was called the Tiring Week, and it coincided with most large animals settling into their caves and dens for hibernation. On the human side of things they wore themselves out with revelry and craftsmanship, but the best naps they could muster afterward only lasted a day or two.

On day three of the Tiring Week there were many scheduled events including a sledding competition, a magical firework show, and the activity that resulted in the spawning of the four youths that we would call unfortunate if that luck debate was actually settled. Continue reading →

Cracker Warmer

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 2 Comments

Cracker Warmer

by

Blaine Arcade

(estimated reading time: 12 minutes)

At sixty-three it was the oldest thing out there, living or inanimate. The house behind was only forty-two. Everything older was off in the dark woods, grumbling, bundling up for the whipping wind of another late November night. The device was ready for anything, having weathered plenty of Cayuga winters already.

It was little more than a circular ceramic tin with a frayed cord tail, plugged into two more cords to make sure it could stretch from the counter outlet in the kitchen, under the closed front door, and out onto the lawn next to the three folding chairs with their legs buried in the snow. It gave off no light, and the faint smell wafting from it, like biscuits sun-mummified and siloed, was dragged away by the wind. Still, the three men were drawn to it. Continue reading →

Devilheart Diamond

~ Blaine Arcade ~ 3 Comments

The Krampus visited him once, as a boy, as a warning, so why would it return now, years later?  Why make an example of him at the most extravagant party he has ever attended, at the magnificent mansion of his long lost friend…

(reading time: 1 hour, 13 minutes)

Devilheart Diamond

Nice

“Tell me how to say it again,” Archie Vinpipe pleaded, mostly to distract from the rattling of the dark carriage.  Nothing but a pair of lanterns illuminated the surrounding forest.  The moon was hidden by dark clouds that continued to pour snow as they had for nearly two days.  Their driver was only able to press forward because of the trail left by the other guests and the excellent breeding stock of the four reindeer pulling the vehicle.  The way the driver told it, they were no more than nine generations from Prancer himself and could, when properly motivated, run several inches off the ground. Continue reading →