“I don’t know why I didn’t think of this sooner,” Gary said with a happy sigh. It was the first time he had been comfortable in months.

Sadie gazed at her new husband, happy that he seemed to be content. Then she looked up at the swirling mass above them, looking almost like a small cloud. “I think you were too pre-occupied with other matters.”

“I suppose so.” He laid his head back, closed his eyes, and smiled.

Sadie continued staring at the cloud. She was a little less enthusiastic about it. It felt too much like he was controlling the weather. What if his cloud somehow interfered with the local atmosphere?

He opened his eyes and looked over at her. “Are you okay?”

“How long do you think you can keep it going?”

He shrugged. “It doesn’t take much Power, so probably as long as I want. Doesn’t it feel amazing?”

She nodded, still staring at the cloud, slowly spinning just below the ceiling. He noted her twisted lisps and chuckled. He scooted closer to her and pulled her into his arms. For once, he didn’t feel like touching her only made him more miserable. He kissed her, settling in for a long moment. Soon, though, he felt the heat returning. He ignored it for a while, and then broke the kiss and looked up.

“Apparently, I’m a little too distracting,” Sadie said with a mischievous grin.

“You definitely are.” He continued to rub her shoulder with one hand while staring at the dissipating cloud.

“It will be nice to have relief now and then, anyway,” Sadie said soothingly. She didn’t want him to get upset about the heat again.

“There has to be a way to make it work without me,” he mused. “Our Power performs on its own after we send it to those needing mending. Power works completely unbound when it’s used in Power lights and cooling cabinets.” He looked over at Sadie. “I’m going to figure this out. But not right now.”

---

Prompt used: What if your character came up with a great new invention?

No punches had been thrown, but we all clearly heard Ted tell Dom that he was going to kill him. I hadn’t seen how the fight started, but someone in the crowd said Dom had said something bad about Ted’s girlfriend. I knew that couldn’t be true. Dom once felt bad when he had to insult someone in character, in drama class.

He stood there with a look of sheer terror on his face. I looked around at the others in the crowd. There were guys there at least as big as Ted, and some who I would have thought nice enough to stand up to the bully on someone else’s behalf.

I don’t know if it was fear of Ted or indifference to Dom that no one was trying to intervene. I thought about every school fight cliché I’d ever seen:

Even bullies won’t hit girls. What if that isn’t true?

The person being bullied will be humiliated and angry if they are defended by a girl. Would Dom react that way?

Ted took Dom’s books and handed them to his friend. Then he moved closer to Dom, towering over him. I saw his hand form a fist, clenched tighter than a dog’s bite.

I made a split second decision and ran forward from the crowd. I had a plan—probably a bad one—to extract Dom from the scene without embarrassing him.

“Dom!” I said as cheerfully as I could. “There you are! You were going to walk me—”

The blow came unexpectedly, and I fell to the ground. The gasp from the group rang in my ears. Or was that just the pain I was hearing?

---

Prompt used: A fight breaks out between a muscular person and a much weaker person who is clearly being bullied. You decide to intervene.