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This prompt was inspired by what I snapped at Oxy when we were at the top of Glastonbury Tor and he insisted on playing with my braid, pretending it was flapping about in the breeze.

Prompt: "I am not a windsock"

“I am not a windsock,” Thompson said.

“I am well aware of that, dear heart,” replied Madame Robespierre, “but the fact remains that we’re here; the craft is here; the intent to move along is here; yet we have come all this way only to have you announce that you refuse to actually execute said movement.”

The old inventor pulled at his beard with further irritation, peering over the gulch. “Things could prove tricky there, you know. Gusts and whatnot.”

The black-clad lady shrugged artfully. “For a man who insists upon his windsockless nature, you claim a fair amount of meteorological precognition. Would that you had had it before this strenuous climb we just completed.”

“I didn’t see you offer to help carry anything.”

This earned a soft laugh. “I think you forget the essential nature of our relationship. I am the one paying you. It entitles me to expect a certain level of manual labor from you.”

“And a certain amount of neck risking?” Thompson spat into the gulf, watching the spittle’s trajectory with interest.

“Quite.” She had turned to look down the goat path they had recently climbed. The base of the hill was becoming blurred by a faint smokiness. “Besides which, I remember you extolling the virtues of the apparatus.”

“Perhaps I did once,” said Thompson, not looking behind him. “You would have me pay for my former confidence, then?”

“Somebody needs to send word. I scarcely think I am made of aeronaut material. So, you are left.”

“Hearts find themselves calmer around the hearth than on the heath, madam.”

She spun round to face him. “A fine time to retreat, coward!”

He sighed, finally turning to look over her shoulder. His eyes widened, then narrowed. Controlling his breathing, he went back to arranging the wide silk wings.

“Madam, your words carry through to my heart. I will go now.” He tapped the wing, fiddling with copper levers to adjust the tautness.

Madame Robespierre frowned. “What?” She glanced over her shoulder, but could only see a smoke haze.

“Nothing more than you have convinced me.” He shouldered the wings as the hill detached itself from the ground, floating on the smoke layer.

“No!” she screamed. The hill tottered like a ship on rough seas. She grabbed wildly at Thompson’s flapping coat as he started to run to the cliff. He lost his footing and slid on the muddy grass.

“Madam, wait!”

But Madam Robespierre had already pulled the wings off his back, clutching them desperately to herself. Out of the range of his grasp, she strapped herself in and strode off the edge of the cliff, quickly rising with the smoky air currents.

Thompson watched with satisfaction as the smoke resolved itself into a hundred hungry mouths. There was a short scream. A reddish mist drifted across the cliff face, painting it with sticky color.

“The blood debt is complete,” he announced to the smoke, which murmured its acquiescence in enough languages to be understood. Picking up his tool satchel, Thompson headed down the settling hillside while the skies cleared for the first time in a baker’s dozen of nights.