Large fluffy snowflakes glided from the sky and cascaded to form banks of thick velvety snow inches deep, coating tree branches and cushioning rocks, transforming fir trees into white ladies. Then the sun rose, and the air warmed, and the snow turned to hard pellets of sleet that struck through the branches, sticking to everything. The snow melted and hardened. Ice melted, thawed, froze again, melted, dripped. Shapes rose from the branches, growing into twisted piles of ice and sleet, stalagmites rising from the forest. A sequence of drips gave them arms and pointy heads. A cardinal tilted his head and watched with interest as freezing raindrops blobbed out round shapes as if they were little tree snowmen.


Inspiration: Fairies art project. https://www.instagram.com/p/BfWUHe8APwL/?taken-by=cloudscudding
Story potential: High enough. Medium high.
Notes: Turns out they're a bunch of horrible pervs. Imagine all the places water goes as part of its life cycle. Things like a bathtub, can get gross with that, esp. if drain problems so they just hung out in the bathroom watching for a couple of days.

Flames devour the clouds, while we stare in open horror. I do not know if there will be any more rainbows during my lifetime, because I do not know if there will be any more rain. I heard a rumor that some corporation signed a deal that was read to grant the cloud herders the right to do this, to vaporize our clouds and chase the vapors into their water collectors. I don't understand the rules that make it more advantageous for them to do this than to mine asteroid belts for frozen water, but something about the rules of ownership and claimed versus unclaimed space makes it easier for them to get their water from a planet instead of deep space that I guess is considered communal. "Mama, why are they eating the sky?" my three-year-old whimpered, burying her face in my leg. "I don't know, honey," I said. And although I didn't say it out loud--because you don't make promises like that to a small child, not when you don't know how long it will take or even if you will succeed--I promised to myself that I would find the answer to her question, and somewhere in there, the way to make it stop. I would see a rainbow again before I died.


Inspiration: "Drones in the Valley" - Cage the Elephant
Story potential: Medium.
Notes: Eh.

One of the disadvantages of having a bound water spirit inhabiting the very-highly-priced flat is, apparently, not having access to your bathtub. In all fairness, I suppose it's better than the neighbor who has something hot and angry living in an old cast iron stove in his kitchen--wait, no, no it’s not. They just added a new range for him. Did they add a new bathtub for me? No. Not enough room. Instead, I get a shower stall and a feeling of no privacy every time I shower, whether the curtain is closed or not. I don't think the sprite is interested, really. They say she's one of the oldest in the building, maybe the oldest. They say she isn't at all resentful towards the occupants, since we didn't bind her. Not even the owners of the building bound her. Of course, they didn't unbind her either, not that it's all that simple. I was told that a group of activists did try ot unbind her, about twenty years ago, and all the standard cantrips failed and the nonstandard ones they tried rebounded something awful and ended up with all the activists in the ER choking on water pouring out of their lungs. She didn't react then, either. I guess she knew it wouldn't work. At least, I'm told she didn't react, and that it wasn't her work that killed one of them and left the others with permanent lung scarring. I hope not. Having a creepy water spirit in the bathroom is bad enough, without suspecting that she's a creepy, murdering water spirit.


Inspiration: http://www.flickr.com/photos/closetartist/10280672874/
Story potential: Medium
Notes: And then the water spirit does something.

The riparian nomads were known to the water spirits, and vise versa. This did not help their popularity in the communities that they visited. Anyone untouched by the same kind of drownings, sudden floods, and other waterborne calamities was not viewed popularly, no matter that their caravan barges held all manner of useful things and their plays, put on by torchlight on the wide boards of their barges, brightened dull lives. Oh, they were looked forward to, but they were not exactly trusted. Who knew what evil bargain they'd struck with the sylphs to allow them free reign of the rivers? The sylphs knew. So did the nomads. They knew, and their eldest sons knew. Sometimes the boys came back from their year beneath the water moonstruck and unable to concentrate on anything else until they fell over the railings--

Inspiration: "riparian" - related to or living on the bank of a natural river or watercourse.
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: I like the idea of a culture of water-gypsies with a dreadful bargain, but that's background, not a story. Basically, I was writing along and naturally the locals are suspicious of the outsiders, and the outsiders are poor misunderstood--but no, wait, what if there *is* a dreadful bargain?

William the Silent frowned when the stadtholders came before him with their complaints, but he saw the way that it would go. Their dikes were failing, one and all, and there was only one option before them that they saw: to buttress themselves against the world. His military advisors, chomping at the bit to actually fight a war and justify their positions, saw another option: invade the neighbors and force them to make space. The water level was rising, and there was no denying that soon the stadts would be drowned by the waters unleashed on them by the first worlds in their great industrial race. The Netherlands had contributed their share to that, of course, but it was a small share, surely not enough to justify them--

Inspiration: A history entry about William the Silent and the Netherlands' revolution. Of course, this is *not* intended to take place in that time.
Story Potential: Low.
Notes: Option 3: Waterworld!

The "Complete Moisture Solution" pack wasn't as advertised, he thought, scowling down into his basement. Sure, there hadn't been any more leaks--but now there were those disgusting glowing, pulsing leach-like things wrapped around all his pipes. They were creepy and weird. They muttered quietly to each other, and he thought they sometimes sang in high-pitched whistles at night. Of course, it was always silent went he came down to check, but he wasn't fooled. He could hear them. He knew what sounds were normal and what were not. It was creeping him out, and he'd decided that it was time they left his house. He would hire an honest plumber, if he could find such a thing, a man who'd come in with some spot-weld and some new pipes or seals or whatever it was that plumbers used, and soon, there would be no more--

Inspiration: "Complete Moisture" Dry Skin Lotion
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: And he tries to be rid of them, and that's his mistake. Simple.

The drought was because the earth had cried so much that all her water had leaked away. The drought was because the people were unfaithful. The drought was because of the dam upriver. The drought was because of the changing wind stream that was blowing all the clouds away from our settlement. The drought was because old Mrs. Galley looked sideways at a tree that was really a nature spirit, and the creature took offense and put a curse on our whole village that wouldn't be lifted until Mrs. Galley was dead. That last theory, everyone laughed at. Which is kind of funny, because we eventually found out that that was the real reason. All that changing weather patterns and dams breaking up the air terrain and general--

Inspiration: "Audio Slide Show: The Faces of Africa
The photographer Jehad Nga discusses a series of portraits he took in Somalia and Kenya during the worst drought the Horn of Africa has seen in 50 years. "
Story Potential: Medium.
Notes: Actually has some potential. Kinda wry. Maybe more science fiction in fantasy trappings than this snippet is showing as.