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Grilled Cheese is a product of Village Compute

Version devBuilt at: 2026-10-17 00:44:39 EDT

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“It’s a big change. Are you ready for this?” she asked, giving Izzy one last chance to change her mind.
Izzy caught the woman’s eyes in the mirror. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s time.”
Before she knew it, her hair was pulled into a ponytail, braided, and tied off. A few quick snips later, it was gone, dropped into a resealable bag ready for donation.
“Now,” the hairdresser said, “let’s talk about style. You don’t have much left to work with. Any ideas about what you want?”
Izzy hadn’t thought that far ahead. The plan had always been to cut it off. She never gave any thought to what came after.
“I don’t know,” she said finally. “Just…make me look cool?”
Mel Waverly - These Words Remain Unsaid, chapter 8

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“Fuck if I know, Zoe. I’m just saying you hardly need foreign money coming in to set barbarians off raiding civilized lands or disaffected warriors to turn their skills to their own profit.”

“Uncivilized’ people are hardly a rampaging horde,” Zoe objected.

“Of course you’d say that, you’re one of them! But we both know for some people, raiding Macedonia or their other neighbors is a way of life. As long as they don’t catch you or they go after some other group, it’s very lucrative. I know you know this.”

“There are no coincidences,” Richard said as he stood. He looked out to the sector. “I made a grave error in thinking I was ensuring Veronica’s safety by keeping her sequestered. She left during the raid because we were all distracted and couldn’t stop her. The Circle picked her up because Decimus wanted to use her against us.” He turned back to Ferris. His expression reflected the weight of their choices. “Don’t you find it odd that Ort’s men attacked Rollan over tainting a vat of cream with dye? Decimus has been messing with Rollan from the shadows for a very long time. Now he can’t. Rollan has caught on. He is gaining power. Decimus is going to strike. It is up to us to be prepared.”
Ferris winced as he pushed away from the wall. The plasma wounds on his back stung with the release of pressure. “It has been astonishing,” Ferris said as he centered his breath. The pain lessened as his muscles relaxed. “Rollan has nearly destroyed everything that Titus created.”

An excerpt from the first draft of my book A Thief's Guide to Happily Ever After: She stands and crosses to Melirin, clasping her shoulder. “Hey, I’m going—”
A fist flies out, and Ness rears back, her face searing with pain, as she cups her tender nose. “What the fuck?!”
Melirin scowls. “Don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“I wasn’t. I was waking you up to tell you I’m going for a walk but you had to go and attack me.”
“You should’ve said my name or something.” She shoves to her feet, raising her voice. “You can’t just touch someone and not expect some sort of reaction.”
“I didn’t want to wake Thias.”

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“You'd best be getting back” said Gary. “Not that I'm trying to … it's late. I don't want you falling asleep at the …”
Gary and Scott were standing on the beach watching the pewter coloured sea and feeling the cold gusts filled with tiny droplets of rain.
“Come back with me,” said Scott.
Gary shook hid head. “I was a highly paid professional once. My mind was filled with useless knowledge that was obsolete as soon as I mastered it. How to code terminate and stay resident routines in MS-DOS, how to swap out a failed disk in a RAID 5 unit, how to zero out the root password on a SPARC server by changing the jump switches.”
“Gobbledegook to me,” said Scott.
“Those things are ancient history. There have been thousands of useless facts since. They're all…”
“Lost like tear drops in the rain?” suggested Scott, grinning.
Gary chuckled. “Always something new to learn, courses, certifications then it's obsolete when the next version comes out and you have to start again. The point is, people think it's funny - the old guy who keeps the campsite immaculate for a pittance. But, up here, I've been happier than I've ever been. That court win means I can spend the rest of my life here.”

“All of us in the mountains, we don’t have a priest or priestess, so it’s such a blessing for you to visit us!” The man was grinning widely.
“I’m honored?” Loke watched the bird flying around over the governor’s head.
“Yes! Be honored! Let us honor you! You were looking for the platform, right? I can show that to you. We keep a good guard on it. Those missionaries from the villages like to come and raid and destroy artifacts, so we like to nip it in the bud. Those Tumben people are nothing but trouble.”
“I’m sure not all of…” Loke was cut off by the governor but in a non-jovial, booming voice.
“ALL OF THEM.”

The dryness in his mouth was passing, the knot in his stomach easing. Arthur stared straight into Lancelot’s eyes. ‘I’m fine with it. It would be OK by me.’
Lancelot hunted in his gaze for the truth. Then he laid on his back, his movements considered. With his hands on his stomach he stared up at the ceiling. ‘How did you know?’ he finally asked. ‘That I like her?’
Arthur blew out a puff of air. ‘It’s kind of obvious? I just—I didn’t want to see it, before. But now I do.’
Lancelot rubbed his face vigorously. ‘Sorry, Art—’ He dropped his hands with a sigh. ‘—I tried.’
Arthur turned over on the small camp bed, which squeaked and complained as he tried to get comfortable. He closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep. ‘It’s good, Lance. It’s all good.’
He awoke before sunrise, when Lancelot’s room was pale and grey, felt surprisingly comfortable cocooned in the sleeping bag and duvet—cosy, warm. He thought about last night. Gwenhwyfar and Lancelot. It made sense.
He sat up and pulled on his Young Moral uniform—undershirt, shirt and jumper, then untangled his legs from the sleeping bag to don his trousers and socks. He checked his phone for the time, listened for movement in the rest of the house. But everything was still, and Lancelot was fast asleep.
He lay on his stomach, his arms thrown above his head. Twilight diffused into the room through the gap in the curtains. Dressed, and with nothing to do, Arthur raided his bookshelves. He’d forgotten Lancelot mostly read non-fiction, mostly stuff about space; tugged the first novel he found from the shelves. He went to sit at the end of his camp bed with his back pressed against the bedside table, where the light was best, and read.
‘Is it morning?’ Eyes closed, Lancelot turned his face towards Arthur. ‘I literally just fell asleep.’
Arthur lowered the paperback novel, his arm propped over his knee. ‘Couldn’t sleep?’ Lancelot grunted. ‘Hard luck, volunteering’s soon.’

“I told you my name is Callix,” the Seeker said. “And you never told me yours.”

“Because I don't think that's relevant information to you.” Rowan paused, watching the man's body language. He was not coiled and on edge as Rowan was, assessing every little thing in the forest. He was calm, collected, almost appearing bored with the interaction. “Are we done now? Or would you like to continue your meaningless interrogation? I have nothing of substance to offer you.”

The Seeker – Callix, if that's what he demanded to be called – cracked his neck and leaned against the tree, crossing his arms over his chest. Too at ease. He wasn't worried for his safety at all. “Your Order has been rather quiet lately,” he said. “Most Rekshimyr Orders have been, actually. No raids or riots, no destruction of S'kekshayran temples. I haven't even seen any of you in the city recently.”

Rowan raised an eyebrow. “Okay. So what's the question?”

Callix shrugged. “Not really a question. More of a comment. The queen grows concerned when she hasn't heard from certain citizens of Vayashtos in a while, and with the child missing…well, you can imagine. She's been very on edge.”

“Mira! There's a…” Bert trailed off as he saw an unknown man sitting at the large table, drinking slowly from a cup of water.
“Sit, Bert,” Mira said quietly. “You were saying?” she said the man.
“Yes,” he took a drink of water again. “Fastriver was attacked by a large group of men on horseback. Thousands. We had been warned about half a day early, but we weren't aware of the numbers—they managed to conceal most of their forces in the woods south of the town. We had set up defenses expecting maybe a tenth of the numbers that arrived. Even Bee’Fa’Ga could only fight for so long. She took one of those oversized arrows to her tail.” He caught Mira’s reaction.
“Relax! I rested her on an empty hill as we flew here and treated it as best I could. The healer, Nock, is looking at her now and says she will be fine.”
“Bertram, this is Spine, a wyrmrider from Fastriver,” Mira said quickly, clearly wanting to get back to the issue at hand.
“Well met, brother,” Spine said and reached his hand across the table. “Word of your deeds has reached us all.”
Bert happily clasped the man’s hand, but wanted to hear more. “How are the people of your town?”
“We sent our young, old and infirm into the woods in advance of the attack. We lost many dozen fighters, but took hundreds of theirs.” He gave a grunt and rough smile. Clearly, he was proud of how they fought, but knew their losses were great. “They didn’t kill us all. We learned later that it was a distraction. Our Earth Mother was not harmed, but she said a lean man with Fox insignia raided her home.”
Mira slammed her fist on the table. “That’s where he was!”

“Why does he hate humans so much, anyway?” Valir asked.

“I’m not entirely sure. He didn’t talk about it, but there have been rumors. A long time ago, years before I’ve been born, he had a run-in with a soldier who raided the region where he lived with his family. The others said she hurt him, but wouldn’t say how. They got all weird on that topic, so I didn’t ask further. Probably all the broken bones.”

It takes a few steps back of its own, then lunges up and to it’s left, half running up the wall. My now empty hand closes on the other intact table leg as the animal drifts across the open hallway, twisting in mid air as it does so to land on the opposite wall feet first. I can see what it’s doing, and I decide to make one last counter, here and now. I pull back the table low and behind me, opening myself up to the animal.
It rebounds off the wall, leaving deep scratch marks in the wood, and launches right at my face, mouth open and snarling, but the table meets it halfway. I swing as hard as I can, nearly overbalancing with how much power I’m putting into it, and the table shatters completely apart, leaving me holding only two chair legs. The animal flies backwards down the hallway and hits the terminating wall there with a series of yelps of pain, but I can’t let it get it’s bearings again and charge at it again with both table legs held above my head and screaming like a crazed caveman.

“Where’d you get the gun?”
Boden touched the sparkgun hanging at his belt. “Cache. Back in the woods.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Duona’s Kettle,” he said. “Raided it before Lavoie. Hid a few things in case everything went sour.”
She studied his face. “Weapons of war. Aren’t you retired?”
“Trust me,” was all Boden could think of to say.
“I used to,” she said at last. “Crowbar?”
“Thief left it behind. Tried to steal our motor. We dealt with her. Thought it’d come in handy.”
“In a fight?”
“That,” said Boden, “or all sorts of situations.”
She looked satisfied with that answer, at least.

Reading hadn't been a thing for Mac. The occasional magazine, or maybe he'd pick up something Marcia kept around the house, but he tended toward television when he had idle time. Of course, the television in Valladolid – also its few small movie houses – were shockingly negligent where English-language material was concerned. Mac had taken to raiding Amazon for trashy action stories.
So he found a bench beneath a sheltering tree, folded open the dog-eared book, re-inserted the pages that tried their best to fall out, and leaned over, elbows on knees, to lose himself for a while in the exploits of forgettable characters.