dark-fantasy
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A First Doctor fan fiction. In Good Luck, Old Man, the Doctor encounters a rogue Time Lord in sixteenth-century Paris, and something ancient that has been feeding on the city’s inevitable night.
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In St Barrow’s, Mistress Grimshaw’s charity opens her purse only for those who beg aloud before the parish. Judith Cox, widowed and cornered, finds a way to make the purse answer the want it knows best.
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Ralph Travers, a curate in Exeter, struggles with his conscience after inadvertently making the Devil, Bucky, known to children through a rhyme. As children start disappearing, he faces the consequences of his actions.
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At St Mildred’s, every blessing has a shadow. Cecily Scratcher waits beneath the lychgate to tell seven old warnings of beauty, grace, sorrow, roads, love, labour, and goodness, and of the children made to carry what adults should not.
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About a 22-minute read or a 34-minute listen. Three days after the battle at Arfderydd, Brother Robert searches for the missing bard, Merlin, amidst the devastation. As he and two others navigate the battlefield, they grapple with the dead king Gwenddolau’s unburied body, Merlin’s potential madness, and the need for a proper farewell.
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About a 15-minute read or a 23-minute listen. Rhett lifted the brush, then stopped. Charlotte’s face lay beneath the lamp, pale and beautiful, but not at peace. The docket said ‘Cerebral Haemorrhage’. Her skin said otherwise. For ten years, Streindarke had trusted his hand to soften truth. Tonight, for the first time, he meant to…
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About an 11-minute read or a 14-minute listen. This folklore tale warns against taking unbaptised children near the Smothing. When a family breaks the rule, they face dire consequences as their child changes, seemingly possessed. An old woman helps reclaim the child, but the experience leaves lasting scars. Villagers remember the tale as a cautionary…
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1,518 words · About an 8-minute read. In 1899 the photograph, ‘Horse Training’ was shot by French photographer, Felix Thollier. Said to depict free lunging, no other context was ever given and neither horse nor trainer were ever named. Until today.
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1,440 words · About a 7-minute read. In Streindarke, love is refined rather than suppressed, as Registrar Albrecht Baus discovers through his daily duties. While he certifies bonds, he grapples with the implications of his work and the weight of unrecognised love.