Member-only story
The Lightning Run
Aoife plays an unusual sport.
For @flashfictionfridayofficial’s 15/08 prompt: Lightning Strikes Twice. Featuring Aoife Harkin, Beauregard Horvasse, and Germain Wagner-Jeanneret on a day out. Rated T, 896 words.
The field stretched forward near to four hundred yards — a quarter of a mile was the official distance, although this wasn’t a real strike court. Aoife had seen real strike court on television, where each fifty yard span was marked with circles or hexagons lined in the grass or the wood chips.
This wasn’t like the official courts. It was just a makeshift field, tattered flags at the end and the beginning with the edges cut into the lawn, and the mid-line cut halfway across too. Standing at the edge of the field, she could see where the strikes landed most often, see where the grass was singed and seared, where it was darker, where the ground was pockmarked and dimpled from repeated strikes or hard landings.
Germain was standing with a parasol rested on his shoulder, idly twirling it between gloved fingers, his dark hair tied up in a very neat bun. It made him look more severe than she was used to — meeting him previously, at Toothsome Delights, she’d seen him wear his hair down, or in a much looser bun than this one, strands framing in his face.
