Birthday

The cake batter dripped down the inside of the microwave, looking not unlike the exploded skull (and contents of said skull) of an alien creature.

Apparently, irrespective of what was clearly good common sense, a microwave was not a good substitute for an oven when the baker had overslept and didn't have the required time needed for the cake to be baked in a conventional manner.

I sighed. Perhaps the three layer raspberry/chocolate/ goulash behemoth of a birthday cake had been a little out of the league of a beginner baker. Why was I even baking a cake anyway? Everyone who knew me, knew that my kitchen cupboards were filled with nothing but takeout menus and ammunition. The slide out herb/spice rack things were the perfect shape to hold my grenades for a start.

I sighed again. It was my stupid sister's fault. My stupid sister and her stupid french manicured friend had looked had looked at me so scathingly when i had turned up to the last soiree straight from work. So ok, not everyone liked the smell of gun smoke and ash but I swear to God it smelt a lot better than some of the animal hormones those women sprayed themselves with.

Normally I didn't let the looks get to me, sure I might not ever be the belle of the ball but someone had to take on the family business, and ever since our brother had absconded with the magician's assistant of a travelling circus, that responsibility had fallen to me.

And I was good at it. Good enough to silence all the naysayers, good enough to keep our family's position strong amongst the others jostling for position with the Crown and good enough that the others in my line of work treated me with respect, rather than a joke.

Which is more than could be said of the useless fripperies of the female persuasion who hung about and thought whoring their way to the top was more respectable than fighting.

Not that I bore a grudge or anything.

I looked again at the....thing in the microwave. Maybe it tasted ok? I reached out and dipped a finger in the batter and popped it in my mouth.

Hmm, I was going to have to seal and bury the microwave for the good of all mankind.

I scowled. I hated baking. But I hated my stupid sister's friends more. Not all men preferred 'feminine and ladylike women'. Not that I wasn't feminine, just because I wielded guns and axes.

And I could be girly if I wanted to. It's not as if acting weak and delicate like a limp doily was hard for chrisssake.

The batter glooped. Was it growing? I hurriedly slammed the microwave door.

I glanced at the clock. I had less than two hours until I had to present myself at court. Shit.

I looked around the destroyed kitchen in a panic - there had to be something I could do?! I refused to turn up empty handed.

My eyes lit upon the mostly full box of cornflakes tucked away in the corner. I grinned.

Who doesn't love chocolate cornflake cakes?

Hunting

The deer carcass creaked in the wind. The cold had sprung so suddenly in the night that it had flash frozen the meat. The windows to the hunting hut were now more ice that glass and already tendrils of frost had squeezed their fingertips through the cracks in the wood planking. My breath left ghosts of itself in the air.

I pulled the blanket tighter around me. He slept beside me, seemingly oblivious to the frozen air, the icicles forming in his hair, in his eyelashes. He slept on while his sweat formed, froze and fell from his skin with a musical tinkling sound.

My fingernails were turning blue, sea blue, blueberry blue, corpse blue.

I pulled the blanket tighter.

The fire had gone out an hour ago. I had tried to walk across the room to relight it but the floor was so cold it had clutched my feet to its grasp and refused to let go. There were now a few steps of bloody footprints leading from and to the bed. An abbreviated dance, the partner changing her mind at last second, just before the music starts.

The deer carcass continued to creak in the wind.

The walls were fully white now, the fingertips having stretched the holes wider and shoved their entire hand, arm, body, head, mouth, teeth through the gap, clinging to the walls, stretching themselves out, cocooning us in the ice and snow.

The lights went out, he still slept beside me and I could hear teeth grinding together in the dark.

I pulled the blanket tighter and listening to the deer carcass creaking in the wind outside.