Written to today’s  Three-Word Wednesday prompt: Happy-go-lucky, Ignorant Joyous.  Fae Apoc setting, post apoc.

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Elves are wonderful. They provoke wonder.
Elves are marvelous. They cause marvels.
Elves are fantastic. They create fantasies.
Elves are glamorous. They project glamour.
Elves are enchanting. They weave enchantment.
Elves are terrific. They beget terror….
-Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett

Alwin was giddy. She’d touched him. She’d brushed her hand over his, and she had smiled at him!

The lady had called herself Titania. When everyone who happened to be nobody at all was claiming gods’ names – there was that thing with “Zeus” in Greece, that thing with “Hera” in New York City, and nobody really wanted to think about the problems with Czernobog in Buffalo – it wasn’t surprising that a beautiful woman would take on a beautiful name. But she wasn’t standing in the center of town declaring her godhead like those nutcases, or trailing fanatic followers like some of the others – Bast. Bast had been a bad case, according to the news.

No, she was just sitting in a bar – some might say “holding court,” but Alwin thought they were snobs. She was just sitting at The Last Dock, drinking beer and smiling that enchanting smile at everyone.

Alwin’s smile faltered. Her gaze had moved on from him – of course, she had other things to thing of, other things to worry about. But she was smiling at Joe from down the street now, and her fingers were brushing over his hand now.

He’d have to get her to look at him again. He’d have to do something to get her attention.

Alwin finished his beer and picked up a pool cue.

for the 3-Word Wednesday prompt here

From the middle of the apocalypse blogged on faeapoclive and FaeApocLive

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Sometimes, the 3 words just write the story.
3-Word Wednesday, Misery, Privilege, Stale.

“Misery is a privilege.” Her jail-keeper – her Mentor and teacher – dropped a heel of stale bread through the slit in the door. It was followed quickly by a very small tureen of what would probably be equally-stale water, and a very thin slice of sausage.

Cha didn’t answer this time. She had tried answering last time, and the meat had gone away. She sat, the way she had been instructed, head pressed to her knees, and accepted her instruction.

“Misery tells you several things. It tells you that you are still alive, first and foremost. It tells you what you want. And, like pain, it tells you what is wrong.

“So tell me, Charla, what is it you want?”

Cha didn’t look up. She had not been instructed to look up. “Ma’am?”

“It is a simple question… but it isn’t, is it? The first thing that comes to your mind will do for now.”

“Sunshine, ma’am.”

A second slice of meat slipped through the door slot. “Well, then, Charla, I think you better figure out how to find it. It’s time to start learning, dear.”

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Written to the Three-Word Wednesday Prompt: Docile, Inflict, Whimper.

Sparked in part by this post in little-details

He was docile when they put the device on him: he stood still in the harness they’d built for him and did not complain nor struggle.

It looked like the unholy cousin of a neck brace, a muzzle, and a slave collar, and it was built to inflict pain and to silence him. It encased his neck down to his shoulders and his face up to his eyes, and it was not removable without three keys. It looked supremely uncomfortable; it was even less pleasant than that to wear.

And yet he allowed it without fighting. He could have killed them all before they got the first chain on him; he could have stopped them long before they locked the contraption around him, but he stood still, passive. Docile.

It struck in Padma’s craw, watching him. Watching them. Part of her, the animal part, was screaming Trap, trap. Run away! The tiger allowed you that close only because he was getting ready to pounce.

The human part of her was cringing at the cruelty. They could have built the device to be kind, and they had not. They could have attempted surgical means of silencing. Those had not even been brought up as options. They could have – perhaps – asked him to not speak. Padma was uncertain anyone but her had even thought of that.

When the last technician fastened the last lock, only then did their prisoner whimper. It was a tiny sound – small enough that it would not have been audible in Padma’s observation chamber if it hadn’t been for the high-sensitivity mics situated around the subject.

But it was enough to send the technicians running, and, more importantly, it was enough to set off the devices fail-safes. Their prisoner fell to his knees, sweat beading on his forehead.

She should have them turn down the feedback. But Padma pushed the intercom button. “That’s good,” she told the technicians. They had done what they were told. They had risked the prisoner’s killing voice. “Leave him be, now.”

It wasn’t what you’d call living, the existence he’d succumbed to. Why had he done it?

Perhaps, Padma thought, in time she’d be brave enough to ask. For now, she turned off the lights in the observation chamber and walked away.

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