Cliffsong

Flash Fiction - Fantasy

NOTE: All flash fiction and stories based on writing exercises/prompts posted to the Talebones homepage are free for everyone to read!

The prompt for this flash fiction story came from The Great Substack Prompt Celebration, hosted by Fictionistas.

I returned to this tale and filled in the backstory with The Sleeper, The Singer. Feel free to check that out first for more in this world!

If you like this little story, and you want to see more like it, please let me know with a like, comment, share, or restack!

And for more fiction fun of various shapes and sizes, subscribe for free!

---

They were standing on her grave, and their blunderbusses were already in their hands.

I wonder: if they had known where they were standing, would they have chosen differently?

Far below me, the sea thrummed against the feet of the cliffs, glinting in the low sun. Just minutes earlier I had been peering out across the all-too-familiar horizon, as if I could will myself across that chasm to the world beyond. And now I was trapped against the expanse like a spider against glass.

"Come quietly," said the one in front—their captain, by the golden dragonfly pinned to his lapel. "You will not be harmed."

I laughed. They startled.

I knew where they were planning to take me. Quietly or no, once you were taken to that place, there was no return. Perhaps this captain was a liar. Or perhaps no one had told him what this truly was. Who I really am.

Only a dozen of them were here to take me. It would not be enough.

The captain stepped forward, and now he was standing on the place where I had pledged myself to her. Where she and I had joined hands over a sea unnaturally calm, watchful. In her eyes I had expected fear, even the softest glimmer of worry. Her kind always seemed to have something worrying them, something pulling them in every direction.

But there had been none. She had shown nothing but impossible trust in me, that all the years she would be giving me were worth it, though I could not repay that debt. She knew, and gave me her hand—her life—anyway.

Maybe I had pulled her, shipwrecked, from the waves, but it was she who saved me. They could not have known that I had wooed her, loved her, married her, lived out her lifetime, and buried her nearly two hundred years before they stood upon her grave, with their blunderbusses already in their hands.

What short, strange lives their kind lead.

Behind them, I could see the stone cottage where she and I had built our love. The fields beyond where sheep had once grazed, studding the pasture like clouds. The garden, now empty.

I could almost see her ghost weaving in and out of the foxglove skeletons and wind-crooked trees, feet bare.

"There's nowhere else to go," said the captain with the dragonfly pin, bringing up his blunderbuss. "This is where it ends."

They could not have known. Would they have chosen differently, if they had known?

I knelt. They startled.

I stretched my palms out upon the shale, and it was surprisingly warm under my hands. Generations have passed, and yet we remain, you and I. This is all long overdue.

I had already lived hundreds of lifetimes. What was one more? Why not do it all again?

Mistaking my posture for surrender, they began to move forward on tentative feet, lifting their blunderbusses level with their hearts. No one had told them who they had been sent to capture. No one had warned them. 

Would they have chosen differently?

I took one last look past them at the cottage, the fields, the sea, her grave. Over their shoulders, I could see her dancing on the hillsides of the island that was supposed to be my prison. Because of her, it had been my home. The only one I had ever loved.

I straightened. They startled.

"I will be reborn," I said, because they deserved to know.

And then, I sang the cliffs down upon us all.

Thank you for reading!

If you enjoyed this tale, please click the heart to like it, leave a comment, or tap the button below to share with others!

If you want to show appreciation with a one-time donation, use my PayPal-based Tip Jar:

For more fiction like this, delivered straight to your inbox, subscribe now! For full Archive Access, become a $30/year paid subscriber!