101. All The Small Things

Tess stretched and yawned in the morning sun as she stood at the entrance of her cave. The morning was already half gone and there were loads of people up and about already. Over the opposite side of the canyon was the pool that they had created to supply them with fresh water. Some people were gathering it, and Tess could see the small collection of people with tubs that were used for washing.

There was a small party descending from the heights, with woven baskets around their shoulders, which would be a foraging party coming back.

A man was just sitting outside his house, with tools laid out as people brought items up to him and he fixed broken household items.

Tess leaned against the wall of the cave as she looked out over this nation that she had built. It was all the small things that were going on that brought a smile to her face. Just watching two people greet each other, or people work in teams to achieve the small daily tasks of life.

Then she spotted Darren walking up the slope to her cave, carrying a net of small berry like fruit that made a very sweet juice. She smiled even more at that. All the small things made this life worth living.

100. I’ll Always Be There For You

Karise stood up, and the other two could hear the trembling in her voice as she told them. “You two should go.”

Adrianna and Vesper looked at each other, then talked in unison. “Dearest Karise, why would we leave you?”

Karise half turned towards them as they stood up. “I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

They simultaneously took her hands as well.

“No one knows what’s going to happen. That’s why it’s called the future.” Vesper smiled at Karise.
Adrianna squeezed the other girl’s hand. “We’re not going to leave you Karise. We can’t leave you. You are everything to us.” Adrianna brought up Karise’s hand to her mouth and kissed it.

Vesper lent her head forward and touched their forehead together. “Dearest Karise. We will always be there for you. We couldn’t live without you anymore. We’ll stand with you, no matter what comes our way, because you are the most precious thing to us in this world.”

99. Don’t Wait Up

Leah carefully arranged her shirt so that you couldn’t tell the gun was sitting in the small of her back, and then tugged the front down so that people would be drawn to looking at her cleavage, rather than anywhere else.

Hearing the honk of a horn outside, she grabbed her purse off the table and stuffed it into her pocket as she flung the jacket from the back of her chair over her shoulders.

Running down the stairs, and flew past her dad and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “Don’t wait up!” She called back to him.

“Just a minute young lady, where are you going?” He called back to her.

“Out!” She replied, as she waved back at him and closed the front door.

The car was waiting just outside as she bundled into the back and said “Go, go go! Hit the gas!” to the driver.

Her dad managed to reach the front door and look out after the car as it sped away from the house.

“Nice timing. How did you get your dad to agree?”

“I didn’t I failed to tell him anything about where I was going or who with.”

“What did you tell him?”

“To not wait up.”

98. Worry

Raquel sat on the edge of the school roof. It was the highest building on the island, and built on a slight hill, so from here she could see for miles upon end, almost from one coast to the other, although it was a little smudged on the horizon. A storm was rolling in from the sea. It promised to be a big one.
She turned over the locket that Light had given her. It was loosely cupped in her hands.

Light had told her not to worry. What a waste of breath that had been. Of course Raquel was going to worry about her.

A phone call away, she had said. Well the number wasn’t working, it just went straight to voice mail, and that had started a week ago. No postcard either, saying sorry I broke the phone. It didn’t take a genius to work out that something, somewhere, had gone wrong.

And all Raquel could do was worry.

It was why she hated her sister so much. For just leaving her here, with nothing to do except worry about her. Even though she knew what Light was doing and why, and how it was good that she had a normal life to come back to. She hated worrying. And she hated her twin for making her worry all the time.

97. Doubt

Meg had an expression that rivalled thunder on her face. She had one hand holding up her chin and the other tapping out a staccato beat on her desk in her cabin.

Her first mate shifted nervously as he stood in front of the desk.

“So, you think they won’t show?”

Meg stopped her fingers dead on the table and the first mate winced.

“No, they’ll show.”

He waited for the explosion and when it didn’t come, tentatively spoke again. “So what are you so tense about?”

Meg huffed and threw herself back into her chair, rocking it on its legs. “There’s no doubt that they’ll show. What I doubt is every other promise that they made. My mother is not a women who sticks to promises she makes. I doubt that they will hold up their end of the bargain, and I severely doubt that they will just go along with the little plan that we’ve cooked up.”

“So we do we do about it?”

“We set up a little cheat of our own.”

“But we promised that we wouldn’t. She might not keep her word but we do.”

“I promised that neither me or my crew would do anything. But I know some fellows who are neither me or my crew.” She grinned.

96. Adore

Arabella pushed Lydia towards her dressing table and chair.

“Sit.” She commanded the tiny girl.

“Mistress, you really don’t have to…”

“But I want to! I adore doing your hair. Are you going to tell me not to?” Arabella turned her biggest pleading eyes on the smaller girl.

Lydia smiled shyly. “Of course not mistress. I just don’t want to be a bother.”

Arabella smiled and motioned for Lydia to turn and face the mirror. “A bother is the last thing you are to me Lydia.” She picked up her brush and started to comb through the long pale blonde hair. She then stopped and held the brush to her mouth as she thought of something. “I’m not a bother to you, am I Lydia?”

“Or course you aren’t my lady! It’s an honour to work for you. And..well.” She fidgeted with her dress a little. “I like spending time with you, I consider you to be my friend.”

“Oh!” Arabella squealed and wrapped the tiny girl in a tight hug. “You are just far too adorable. Of course we’re friends.” She brushed away a tear from the side of her eye. “Now turn back around. I want to try something new.”

95. Curious

Kelly had her bracelet off again. She was counting through all of the different charms on the bracelet that she had gotten on that holiday. No two were the same, although they were all cast in the same metal. It defiantly wasn’t something that you could buy in the shops over here though.

Here was a clock, then a mouse, then a sail boat, and a book, then a cat and a bus.

It was a rather eclectic collection of things around the bracelet really.

It was all in all, rather curious, as her mother was fond of calling it.

To be fair, Kelly herself was curious. She had tried to find that little shop again before they had left the city, but hadn’t managed to. Even though she swore she retraced her steps exactly, she just found herself in a little alleyway.

It would have been nice to. She really hadn’t had the time to look around the shop. And it was definitely a curiosity shop. The little man who ran it had pressed the bracelet into her hand so almost forced her into buying. Not that she regretted it, it was a lovely charm bracelet. It was just a bit mysterious in all.

Kelly was going to do a little digging around on the internet, see if she could find out anything about the bracelet, or that shop. A little curiosity never killed anyone. Well, except the cat.

94. Revenge

It was an eerie sight. The fog swirled around, and thinned just enough to make out a pair of whirling eyes, glowing blue in the early light. There was some sort of shadow which the eyes were sunk into, but it was just a shadow.

Keit took a couple of steps and, warily drew his sword.

Then the shadow smiled.

A huge roar sounded and reverberated around the volcano, and huge gusts of winds blasted the mists away from the shale beach. Keit scrabbled backward in horror as the huge blue dragon was revealed, wings outstretched to their full extent as she directly her maw towards him.

He tried to run, but it really didn’t make any difference.

The roar ended with a short, sharp snap as her jaws closed around the unfortunate man. Anyone close enough felt their stomach turn as they heard the sound of crunching bone and armour, followed by the sound of swallowing.

Myelin called out to her. “Kate?”

‘Yes?’

“Uh, are you okay?”

‘Interesting question. Physically, I am fine. Mentally, a little disappointed’

“Any particular reason?”

‘Revenge is supposed to taste sweet. But frankly, he just tasted greasy.’ The dragon made a face and stuck its tongue out. ‘If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find something to wash this taste away.’

Kate spread her wings and launched from the beach, sweeping more than one person off their feet as she did so. The taste of revenge was very sweet in her mind, but very much not in her mouth.

93. Hug

Ashley stretched out her arms and yawned. It wasn’t even particularly late in the day, she just felt sleepy. She let her flump back onto the sofa only to hit her back against something harder than she expected.

Looking up she saw that Dante was sitting on the sofa as well. He raised his hands defensively.

“Don’t beat me up, you fell onto me. I wasn’t expecting you to do that.”

Ashley looked at him with one eyebrow raised. “You really think I would ‘beat you up’ for something that wasn’t your fault?”

Dante looked down at her. “I choose to not answer on the basis that I think that question is a trap.”

“Good call.” Ashley yawned again, and then snuggled into his side.

“Huh?”

“Well if you’re sitting there anyway, you might as well make yourself useful as a pillow.” Ashley said, closing her eyes.

She felt Dante freeze for a minute, before slowly bringing his arms round her and shifting into a more comfortable position, every move taken as if he were about to set a bomb off.

After a few minutes of silence, Dante broke it. “How is this time any different from last time I tried to give you a hug? You almost took my arm off that time.”

“Not anything which would be an appreciable difference.”

“What?”

“Last time I didn’t feel like being hugged. This time I want a hug.”

“You make absolutely no sense.”

“Thank you.”

92. Comfort

Lara rocked the crying baby in her arms.

“Shush. There, there little one, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

The rain battered against the outside of the tent and Lara tried to calm her son down. He quietened down slightly.

“There we go, see, it’s all fine.”

Lightning flashed across the sky, and a few seconds later, the thunder rolled across the tent where they were camped and Daniel started to wail again.

“Shush.” Lara said as she rocked the babe in her arms and the tent flap was quickly pushed open. A gust of wind blew through the tent as someone came in and tried to quickly shut the tent behind them, struggling against the wind.

Lara curled up protectively around her child, trying to keep the wind off as Noah finally threaded the tent closed and stood up to brush his hood off.

“God awful weather out there.”

Lara smiled. “I know, someone in here hate it, don’t they little one.”

“Ah.” Noah came over to the pair of them. “I hear the wailing over the rain and wondered if there was a problem.”

Noah attempted to tickle the boy’s tummy but he just wailed as another crash of thunder was heard overhead.

“Shush my little one. There’s nothing to fear here. It’s just the weather.” She rocked her baby, comforting him with a mother’s natural instinct. She then smiled at Noah, “If you managed to hear him over the sound of this storm, then he must have a pair of lungs on him.”

“Has he not been straining your ears then?”

“Not really. I think he just wants some more comforting. Don’t you, don’t you.” She descended into baby voice.