Having given up a considerable amount of ground in the matter of the muscle truck, Mother Bigger was intent on making sure her erratic spouse would at least be able to drive it properly.
Had she been less irritated, though, she might have been more persuasive.
“There are,” she said, “towing courses available at the gliding club. Shall I sign you up for one?”
Brenda winced. “Silly woman. He won’t never lie down for that.”
“Sign me up for one what?”
“Sign you up for a towing course. You’ve never towed before.”
“A course? Why? How hard can it be?”

©️jj 2021

Because life can be interesting when you are a character in a video game…

The key fitted and as Milla turned it the doors began to glide silently open. Inside it was dimly lit from…somewhere. There was no obvious source of light, but the room was illuminated. The three ryeshor walked in cautiously, looking around at the plain stone walls, each with a door in the middle. The door they had just entered by slid shut and suddenly the light dropped into shadowy darkness. Milla froze as something chittered and scuttled nearby. Beside her she felt rather than saw as Pew raised his staff. Then the tip glowed like a miniature sun. Milla just had time to register that the room seemed to be full of spiders before the other two ryeshor exploded into action beside her. String’s boar shot into the middle of the room and all the spiders attacked it. Moments later a rain of burning sparks fell from the air, and the smallest spiders disappeared. String sliced some spiders with his sword and then Pew snatched a ball of fire out of thin air and threw it at the remaining arachnids instantly incinerating them. Strangely, even though it had been in the middle of the conflagration, the boar was untouched. It tossed its head and made a grunting noise before trotting back to String.
Milla was still standing stock still, her mouth slightly open. She closed it as Pew and String quickly checked the doors.
“I think you two have done this before,” she said trying to sound as if this was something she was fine with, but to her own ears her voice sounded thin and reedy.
“Yup. Just a few hundred times.” Pew told her. “All the doors are locked which must mean…”
“It’s a ring event,” String finished for him, just as four large spiders appeared, one in each corner of the room.
Milla squeezed her eyes shut as sounds of exploding fireballs and squealing grunts from the boar echoed back from the walls. When she opened them again String was grinning and Pew was brushing a hand over his collapsed crest, looking tired.
“I’m low on manapower and the boss mob is going to spawn any moment.”
“Ooops sorry, brov. I blew mine on Pigsy here mid combat. It’s on a four minute cooldown.”
“Is that like…magical power?” Milla asked a sudden idea forming in her mind.
“Yeah. Exactly that. I can’t cast any more spells without it.”
Milla gripped the pendant she wore in one hand and reached the other one out towards Pew. A white glow surrounded him and his flattened crest slowly straightened. Then he grabbed her arm and spun her round behind him. A gigantic spider had appeared suddenly, just where she had been standing a moment before. She tried not to look at the crouching mass with its sharp pincers as Pew, String and Pigsy brought down fire and mayhem on it. Then Pew was pushing the hilt of his dagger into her hand.
“Free Pigsy!” he yelled over the roar of exploding spells, staff still pointing at the monstrous spider.
Free?
Milla looked around for the boar and for a moment couldn’t see him. Then she realised there was a cocoon of spider web writhing on the floor. Trying to ignore the hideous bulk of the spider which was rearing up on six of its legs to confront the two male ryeshor, she slipped under its body and cut as fast and carefully as she could. Pigsy wriggled free of the last restraining threads and shot back into the fray. But the spider had sprayed it’s webbing at Pew and whilst String and the boar kept it occupied, Milla had to slice through the sticky silk to free him. She turned back to see the spider rear up, glaring at her and rolling it’s spinners to cast a web at her, but even as it moved to release the engulfing strands, a final shot from Pew hit home and it collapsed in a heap.
The grating sound of the doors opening was drowned out by a victorious whoop from String.
“That is healer gear,” he crowed. “Mine, brov, all mine.”
Pew looked too exhausted to care and Milla wished she had more manapower to give him but the pendant had lost its brilliance.

We will return to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook next Sunday.

Wrathburnt Sands was first published in Rise and Rescue: A GameLit Anthology.

Let’s make a toast with coffee or raise a mug of tea
To friendships that we’ve known before and those still yet to be.
Let’s share a cup of kindness and bring them all to mind
The people we still keep in touch and those we’ve left behind
Let’s give a moment here and there in life’s so busy daze
To those who’ve held our hands in troubled times in different days.
The names that still can bring a smile when we their deeds recall
Even if it’s been a while since we heard from them at all.
The bonds that weave our friendships may be weak or maybe strong
They may last just a holiday or for all our life long
So make a toast next time you pause for just another cup
And think of those you call your friends – and maybe call them up.

E.M. Swift-Hook

I bought a book today
And dived beneath its skirts
It took my mind away
And shook it till it hurt
It took my preconceptions
And turned them outside in
There was not one exception
It found out all my sins

Today I bought a book
With little expectation
My certainties it shook
And brought me complication
The words the author found
Expressed each small emotion
And brought my mind around
Heartbreak and devotion

I bought a book today
Wherein my soul left earth
There is no more to say
Except that books have worth

©️Jane Jago

Designer Dogs

Me and my rat terrier, Gyp, have opinions on a lot of things – like beef, cheese, beer, television. And designer dogs.

Do. Not. Buy. A designer dog. 

They are mongrels – and often not as healthy as proper accidental scruffs. When I wanted a dog I found a farmer whose terrier bitch had got out and mated with a dog or dogs unknown. I gave him a tenner for Gyp who is an excellent companion – if a bit inclined to fart under the dinner table and bite visitors.

He’s an ugly little sod and his hair is the bane of my life, but there again he wasn’t specially bred for his face or not to shed hair on the Aubusson.

However, I do like all dogs, though, even the poor designer chaps. So why am I so against idiots paying a couple of grand for an ‘oodle’?

I’ll tell you why…

When me and Gyp amble along to the pub we meet a great many ‘oodles’ with their shiny collars and special fleece coats and often ridiculous haircuts. They are never let off their shiny red leashes and their walk buddies ignore their pleading eyes as they fiddle with their smart phones or count their steps on their twitbits. Meanwhile Argus, or Tweedledum, or whatever the poor animal is called, has been demoted to a mere accessory and is expected to look beautiful but not to need fun or affection.

We see the poor animals watching Gyp with envious eyes as he scuttles about in the undergrowth. We watch the yummies treat their dogs like status symbols and our contempt for them knows no bounds.

So. Unless you want a grumpy old lady and a bad-tempered terrier to creep up behind you one day and liberate the dog you don’t bloody deserve, here are a lost of things You Do Not Do.

Don’t buy a designer dog. Go to a shelter and adopt a dog.

Don’t get your dog a stupid haircut

Don’t put stupid clothes on your dog

Don’t drag your dog along behind you and ignore it

Basically if you have a dog it should be your best mate. 

If you don’t understand that you better just bugger off now, before Gyp pisses on your shoes.

The gnomes expected the truck to be returned immediately. But no. It sat smugly in the driveway while a loud-voiced battle went on indoors.
“Ma money’s on the woman,” Hamish declared.
“Don’t be a fool. He’s lost so much face in the last few days that he’ll have to dig his heels in,” Brenda disagreed.
The front door flew open and five shouting biggers boiled out onto the drive.
Mother attacked low.
“Are you seriously telling me you are prepared to drive this to the goff club?”
“I am.”
“You’ll never become club captain driving it.”
He grinned. “Precisely.”

©️jj 2021

She made to stand and I halted her with one hand. ‘Was it yourself who sustained me while I slept?’
‘It was, Great Lady.’
I pulled her head towards me and placed my fingers on each cheek and then on her forehead.
‘You are marked as under my protection now. It is a small thing, but all I have to give you.’
A reddish tear ran down her cheek. ‘Not so small to a Mother whose Mate has found another he likes better.’
‘Is that the case?’
‘It is lady. The copper coins your scribe paid me will ensure that the small one and I eat for another moon.’
I turned an inquiring face to my own Mate, who picked up my thought and smiled.
‘Where are you and the small one living?’ he asked. ‘The nest of the drones of my ex-mate’s household. They have been kind.’
‘There is room in this nest. We should have accepted a fertile female long since, but I have no desire for anyone but my Mate. Should you decide to come and live here, I will do my duty by you, but I will not pleasure you. Could you live under those circumstances?’
I thought the young Mother looked obscurely relieved, but she answered with proper modesty. ‘I could. If the Lady would not be made unhappy.’
‘I would not. Sister. How do they call you?’
‘Owl.’
‘Very well Owl. You shall be my nest sister. I am called Aaspa, you would say Swift Stinger, and our Mate is Aascko, Fast Killer.’
Owl looked as if tears were close once more, so I pulled her to me and caressed her smooth skin, feeling a response beyond sisterhood. Aha, I thought, that is how you are made little one. I spoke to her in my most honeyed of tones.
‘Be happy, small sister. And how is the little one called.’
‘He has no name. My Mate would not name him.’
She looked towards Aascko who showed his fangs in a gentle smile.
‘I name him Owlet until he grows enough to find his own name.’
Owl beamed at us, then turned to the care of her babe whom she wrapped in down and placed on a ledge to sleep.

From Aaspa’s Eyes by Jane Jago

Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…

If you’re old then it’s time to begin
To think about how life has been
To look back and dream
Of what might have been
Not to set out and try every sin!

E.M. Swift-Hook

The door opened with such force that it bounced back off the wall, and Hywel stomped in. His face was puce and he was waving a sheet of paper. Seemingly unable to speak he threw the paper on the table in front of Julia.
She read it and could feel the blood draining from her own face. It was an official complaint that the family of one Hywel Llewellyn, non-citizen, had been observed to be visiting a sub aquila residence without due authorisation.
The Villa Papaverus was not their own house, it was the residence that went with Dai’s job as Submagistratus and was owned by Rome. As such it was designated sub aquila which meant only Roman citizens and those non-citizens employed to work there were legally permitted inside.
“Oh merda,” she said softly. “I never even thought of that. Dai hates having that wretched eagle above our door.”
She passed the paper to Caudinus who read it swiftly then sighed.
“I am so sorry, I should have seen that coming. As I didn’t, I shall have to investigate.”
Hywel made a noise like a cat that has just had its fur stroked backwards,
“Sorry? Sorry that me and my entire family are being criminalised by your filthy Roman rules?”
Caudinus looked at him severely. “Hush man. Be glad I didn’t officially hear you say that. As I said, I do have to investigate. So will you just be quiet and let me think. Or is shouting and blustering at a pregnant woman something you think a good idea?”
Hywel subsided slightly.
“If this goes through the fine will take most of my livelihood for the last quarter.”
“Oh it’s worse than that,” Caudinus said his expression grim. “The fine would be the lightest of penalties. If it were deemed to have been done in deliberate defiance of Roman authority it could be counted as treason. And this complaint names you, your wife Enya and your step-mother, Olwen.”
Julia felt sick. Dai’s mother, sister-in-law and brother were being placed in real peril through someone’s spite.
“Treason?” Hywel echoed, his tone hollow and slumped into a chair, the fire and fury suddenly deserting him. Treason always carried the death sentence –  a humiliating and agonising death in the arena.
Caudinus swept the printed emails into a pile and got to his feet.
“Yes, treason. But if I have anything to do with it, it won’t come to that and I will make sure you are issued with passes under my authority so there is not a problem ongoing.”
“Isn’t there something you can do to dismiss this?” Julia asked, “It is your legal jurisdiction after all.”
Caudinus pulled a face. “It will depend on the nature of the complaint and who the complainant is. It could go over my head to provincial level and those damnable bureaucrats in Augusta Treverorum.”  He touched Julia lightly on the shoulder. “You mustn’t worry about this, you hear me?” His tone was stern. She mustered a smile more for his benefit than because she felt reassured. “And you come with me Llewellyn, I need to get some details from you, if you can guard your tongue enough to manage a trip to Viriconium with me?”
Hywel struggled to his feet looking shamefaced and anxious.
“Uh – yes. I’m sorry, dominus. I know it’s not your fault.  I’m sorry, Julia too – it’s just that…”
Julia held out her arms and Hywel walked into them to receive a quick hug.
“It’s alright,” she said, letting him go, “but for Enya and Olwen’s sake and the children, you have to keep a lid on your anger over this.”
Hywel nodded and Julia felt a little more hopeful when Caudinus dropped her a wink over his head. A short time later she saw Caudinus’ hovercar gliding along the driveway.

Pushing her own fears to one side, Julia took the time to walk her two wolfhounds, Canis and Lupo, in the orchard, finding their cheerful company helped lift her mood. Then she returned to the house and with the two dogs sleeping by hearth, she opened her laptop and started composing an email to Hook-Beak explaining why she couldn’t leave Britannia at this time and probing for more information about his new married status. She was just thinking about how she could best raise the issue of Hywel’s case to see if, as Praetor, Hook-Beak could short-circuit the legal process in someway, when the sound of heavy footsteps made her look up in time to see the door burst open for the second time that morning.
Dai stood filling the doorway, his expression like a thundercloud fronting a storm. A cold and feral fire burned in his blue eyes that made Julia shiver despite herself.
“You are leaving. Today. Now.” His voice was almost a snarl. “I’ve sent for Elfrida to pack for you. Two of Gallus’ men and Edbert will be your escort. I have made arrangements. You can stay with Didero in Londinium, he has an entire legion of praetorians there to keep you safe.”
Julia opened her mouth and then closed it sharply to prevent the unforgivable, vile, words she so wanted to say from escaping. Instead she got demurely to her feet and walked over to her husband, drawing herself up to her full height of almost five feet.
“Oh you are so right, husband, I am leaving,” she said, keeping her tone sweet. “But not for Londinium. I am going where I choose to go not where you think to send me. And right now I am not at all sure that I will be coming back.”

From Dying for a Vacation by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Big washed and hoovered his big car, took his goff sticks and his waders out of the boot and drove off.
“Where going?” Wee Willie wondered.
Brenda uttered a sarcastic huff of breath.
“He’s off to get his Chelsea Tractor.”
Numpty grinned. “I likes tractors.”
Mother Bigger must have had a premonition, because she sat on the patio inhaling gin as if it was going out of fashion.
The sound of a set of vulgar air horns announced Big’s arrival. Big and the biggest purple muscle truck you have ever seen.
Mother sighed and collapsed gently into the herbaceous border.

©️jj 2021