For kc_obrien‘s prompt.

They called her Rose Red, which wasn’t that far from the name her mother had given her, when she danced on the stage. And they called her other names, as her pretty old-fashioned dress with all its rose-petal layers p e e l e d o f f, one tissue-thin layer at a time, as she cracked jokes and danced, shimmied on the stage and sat on the patron’s tables, asking about their wives and their day at work.

She was a star, in that way a burlesque dancer could be, a phenomenon. She was famous all through the city, at least among certain people. She was so well-known people were said to be able to identify her chest in a line-up and her voice in a crowd, and both, oh, lordy, both were quite impressive. She was Rose Red.

And she could, in a plain brown dress and a hat, walk through downtown and never be noticed. Her famous voice became less stunning by far when she took on a higher-pitched, feminine titter. Her amazing chest was hidden very well by current fashion and an expensive tailor. She could be Esdora Ende, the sempstress, and nobody the wiser.

She lived a double life, quite contentedly… except that it was really a triple life.

Because, in the dim hours when the stage had gone dark, long before Esdora would be expecting business, Rose Red put on another hat, and a mask, and a low-cut suit coat over men’s pants, and The Night Thorn stalked the streets, patrolling.

She had a kick like nobody’s business, a punch that surprised even the police officers that found her targets, and the horsewhip that she used as her signature weapon left many would-be burglars and muggers smarting and bleeding. She was famous, for that whip, for her lace-clad cleavage, for the jokes she made as she rescued innocent civilians and as she caught wrongdoers in the act. Many burglars, many police, swore they’d know her if they saw her, but many of them sat there watching Rose Red dance none the wiser. And a few brought their sewing to Esdora and never saw either famous face in hers.

And through it all, she smiled. Who knew better than a stage performer the art of misdirection?

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For kay_brooke‘s prompt.

They used the weather against them. They knew, after all, how to handle the snow. Their enemy did not.

So they stayed ensieged, locked in their city.

Summer turned to fall, and they moved deeper into their territory, ceding land when they had to, moving to the higher ground at the center of the city.

The enemy pushed forward, slowly, inexorably. They had never been stopped. Sometimes they took their time, as they were here, but they were never rebuffed, never defeated. And they would not be defeated this time. No man, no strategist, no army could beat them.

And the city, slowly, retreated, folded in on itself, gave up the lower ground, as it did, every autumn, as winter encroached on the city, as the snow began to fall. They people moved into their tight little winter houses, packed together under the hill, where they could conserve heat, where they could conserve energy.

The enemy, who were never defeated, certainly not by a little snow, plowed on forward, taking gleefully the land the city abandoned. They stomped through the late-October falls, and the November hail and blizzards. They bombarded through the first week of December.

And then the real storms came, the second week of December, when the enemy had really begun to think they were winning. They were bivouacked a mile into the city, stretched out around the whole city like beads on a string, camping in abandoned houses. Abandoned summer houses, with wide doors and no fireplace but the cooking fire. And then the snow fell, they were trapped, trapped and unprepared.

And when they were trapped, the city struck back.

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To lilfluff‘s prompt

Casey woke up, showered, got dressed, went to work, stopping for a breakfast pastry and a hot drink on the way. Worked for ten hours, with a half-hour break for lunch, went home, cooked dinner, went to sleep.

Nine days out of ten, with a break on the tenth day – and on the tenth day, Casey went to the park, and lay out in the sun, reading a book, enjoying the cacophony of the other 10% of the population taking their day off. The sun was warm, the rain had fallen early in the morning, and the cheap paperback was entertaining, if one Casey had read before.

“Have you ever wondered,” the girl on the next blanket looked a little nonuniform, her hair wild, her tunic trimmed with bright embroidery. Maybe an artist? They had more leeway in such things.

“Wondered?” Casey didn’t wonder.

“What you did before?”

“Before what? Yesterday, I worked. Last week, I came here and read a book. Before that, I worked.”

“And before that?” she prompted, leaning forward, encroaching on Casey’s blanket.

“Before that? The same as…” Casey trailed off. Was life really that boring? Was every day so similar that there really was no memory of the past? “The same as every other ten-day.” But was it?

“You see? I am thirty days into a mural. I will be done in thirty more. But I cannot remember any other mural I’ve ever worked on. And neither can anyone else I talk to. It’s as if we have no history beyond thirty days ago.”

Work, sleep, eat… Casey tried to remember further back, and could not. “That’s impossible.” But was it?

“I think we’re past that stage,” the artist said dryly. “I think now, we should be on to ‘why.’ And, of course… ‘how.'”

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