This is a small collection of prompts for my other story Fairytales and Lullabies. They're not entirely crucial to the overall plot of the other story, just a collection of random moments and prompts that I'll add to as I proceed with the main story.

Elf Tales and Drabbles

Small Moments
#1 – Blink
Rick sees his six-year old daughter walking down the street with an arm full of heavy picture books borrowed from the town library. He playfully nudges her from behind upon greeting her.

"Hey, L'lil Darlin'. Mighty light-reading you've got there. Would you like me to take some of those for you?"

She only shakes her head and reinforces her hold over them. "No Dad. You can't help me all the time. I need to learn to do things on my own."

Her words stun him so long that they make it to their house before he can manage to say another word.

#2 – Mommy
She's never said it before, but she sometimes wishes she didn't see her mother so often at night. Then maybe it would be a little easier to call the woman she grew up with by the word she craves to use every day. After all, Michonne's earned it. She's the one who's been there. The one who kisses her skinned knees and elbows, the one that makes her breakfast, the one that taught her how to handle a knife, the one that gives her advice when she needs it. She's the one that's been there.

And yet, whenever it feels like she's about to work up the nerve to call her by it, she's sees the face of her birth mother all over again and the word transforms in her throat into the woman's name instead. She sometimes thinks about asking her mother permission to use it for the woman, but she never does.

#3 – Junk
The word isn't used very often anymore. Since the dead started rising up, new life is given to everything. If it can't serve its original purpose, maybe it'll serve a new purpose instead. Things that might have seemed like inconsequential items are soon transformed into tools, machines, supplies, and sometimes decorations even. Pallets are bedframes, benches, and tool sheds, tires are shoes, chairs, and playground equipment. Even old burned out lightbulbs can be repurposed. With a touch of imagination anything and everything can be transformed into serving a brand new purpose. In this world, there is no such thing as junk.

#4 – Chocolate
The taste is odd and stale after years in the package. Judith doesn't know a time when it had tasted fresh. She shrugs the strange aftertaste away though and accepts another piece from her older brother.

#5 – Storm
The rain pounds against the window. The building shakes when thunder erupts like bombs in the sky above them. She sits in her father's lap as they watch the water fall from the sky out the window. She doesn't shrink with fear, though, but listens and watches in hypnotic amazement. The boom doesn't scare Judith the way it does other kids. It always felt comforting to know that even nature sometimes needed to scream.

#7 - Nightmare
Everyone in town gets them. Late at night, Judith hears the thump, thump, thump of Carl as he takes those thoughts and mounts them on his bullseye. He spends the rest of the night tossing darts at them, hoping maybe he can kill them again where they'll stay dead this time.

Michonne rises and practices out in the yard under a black sky, with no one but the stars and moon for company while she pantomimes her old battles, hacking away at the unseen threats and hoping the exercise with exhaust her enough to get back to a dreamless sleep.

Sometimes her father paces the kitchen late at night, thinking deep and pouring over plans and projects, believing the needs of the community will distract him from the countless demons he seeks to escape.

And Judith… well, Judith keeps making the charms, recharging them under the moon when it looks like they've begun to lose their potency. As more time goes by she learns ways to make them last a bit longer. She can't make the nightmares go away for good, but she can improve her craft at least.

#8 – Wolf
One is good, and one is evil and they are in constant battle with one another. The one who wins depends on which is fed.

As Judith looks at the two men, their leader beside their enemy, the old parable comes to mind. A horrible shiver courses through her just then, for it seems that the one that is evil is destined to always win, as he is the one they all continue to feed.

#9 – Butterflies
"Every truly good person becomes one when they die." She told him one day as they admired several on the porch banister. "They lit up the world while they were here, so they come back to us in this form. But every truly bad person becomes a tick, since they did nothing but live off of others. But we don't see as many ticks as we do butterflies so deep down, there were a lot more good people than bad."

#10 – Angels
The class is let out early when they hear the hum off in the distance. Like a stampede, every person in town rushes out of whatever building they're in and their eyes turned to the sky, marveling at the relic of a forgotten civilized past and dreaming of the day when they'll land to speak with them.

#11 – Fairytales
The voices come out of the radio but their faces are never seen. In her mind, Judith pictures a flock of birds and the majestic swan queen, speaking for them and reminding hundreds of unseen listeners of what life was like long, long ago, tales of an age Judith will never know and one others sometimes wish they could forget. Because remembering makes them want, and wanting something that cannot be is sometimes worse than never knowing at all.

#12 – Heritage
"What was mom like when she was alive?"

"She was a great mom. She was sweet and kind and she had a really great singing voice, and she liked poetry."

"Poetry?"

"Yeah, she used to recite poetry when I was little. She let me sit on her lap and she'd read me poetry that she wrote sometimes. They were a little like your spells in a way."

"What else do you remember?"

"Well, she used to hang up decorative glass balls around the house everywhere, sort of like stained glass and mostly in the windows. She said it kept out bad luck. She also hated salt, not sure why but she just did. She kept a journal and notes sometimes, but she never let anyone read them. We lost them, though. She'd also spray this homemade mint stuff around the house to keep out spiders and mice and other pests. There's not a whole lot I remember about her now, though. Sorry."

"It's okay. I just wish I could have known a bit more about her."

"I though you said she visited you at night and stuff. Like a ghost or something?"

"Yeah, when I was little—er. But not as often anymore, and there are questions I want to ask her but..."

"…Yeah… me too."

#13 – Ancestors
"What's the difference?" She asks her dad.

"Well, Vikings are more from Norway and Iceland. And they sailed all around the world in search of other lands to conquer, sort of like pirates. Celts were content to just stay in their homeland most of the time. And they came from Europe, mostly England and Ireland. But they all had their own warriors and such."

"Did they have witches?"

"Yeah, pretty sure they did."

The confirmation made her smile.

#14 – Pet
Judith tries to shoo the puppy off her side, but he yips and bounds, eager for attention from his owner. She can't show him any affection right now, though, since her owner at the moment stands behind her watching the scene and searching for weaknesses to exploit when needed.

#15 – Magic
"I never really believed in it." Her father tells her one day. "It just wasn't for me. But it's alright if you do. If it makes you feel stronger or better about things, you believe in it. In this world, you need all the help you can get, and if it helps, do it."