January 2026
Gifts from on High
ChatLegend Scroll Logs
Month of the Weasel, Third-Day
ExHeroGirl:
Dad. Did you have to send a recorder through the gift portal?
TranscendantChaos:
Ah, it’s there already! Good. Should I send a dizi? Or maybe bagpipes? I thought a recorder was simpler to learn while still appropriate to your current geographical milieu. Has he mastered it yet?
ExHeroGirl:
No, because I haven’t given it to him
TranscendantChaos:
You should. How else will you know if he has talent?
ExHeroGirl:
Dad. He’s three. Let him have a childhood.
TranscendantChaos:
You were two and a half when you started playing clear melodies on the dizi.
ExHeroGirl:
I was an outlier. Also times were different. You can’t expect him to be the same
TranscendantChaos:
But of course I can! I know his lineage. There are immortals in his bloodline, you know.
* * *
Month of the Tiger, Fourth-Day
ExHeroGirl:
Dad. A jian? Really?
TranscendantChaos:
You need to stay in practice even though the wars are over, correct? It’s just running around after your child, with an edge! Heh.
ExHeroGirl:
I’m afraid he’s going to cut himself. He’s too young for a sword
TranscendantChaos:
Well then you are going to have to be fast enough to stop him! You cannot tell me the hero of the Three Gorges Battle cannot handle one toddler.
ExHeroGirl:
What is your goal here, Dad?
TranscendantChaos:
He is my grandson. Surely he has some talent somewhere. You are his mother, you need to draw it out of him. I’m too far away to do it myself so I am just supplying the equipment.
ExHeroGirl:
I’m his mother, and I’m saying no more edged weapons until he’s old enough to choose what he wants.
ExHeroGirl:
Nobody’s on the cusp of war here and I’m more concerned about his emotional development than his level of achievement
TranscendantChaos:
Fine. I will look for something less injurious. At least let me know how he does with the jian.
* * *
Month of the Swallow, Sixth Day
ExHeroGirl:
DAD.
TranscendantChaos:
I take it the lion came through! Is it still moving? I thought keeping it animated would be better than a stone lion coming through the gift portal.
ExHeroGirl:
It’s still moving and I don’t know where you thought we were going to KEEP a moving stone lion. Certainly not in the house!
TranscendantChaos:
Of course not. Stone lions live outside. Have you forgotten? They are guardians. Oh wait, in pairs. Maybe I need to send you another one.
ExHeroGirl:
DO NOT.
TranscendantChaos:
Or maybe I should send you 44 of them. That would be funny.
ExHeroGirl:
DO NOT.
TranscendantChaos:
Or even–
ExHeroGirl:
DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT SENDING ME FORTY FOUR DEAD LIONS OR I’M TELLING MOM
TranscendantChaos:
Aiyo. Let a grandfather have some fun, at least. Won’t trial the child, won’t train him–I thought a magical pet would be neutral territory. What does your husband say?
ExHeroGirl:
He says this is between me and my side of the family
TranscendantChaos:
Smart man, staying out of it. I like him. Even if he is not a hero like you are.
ExHeroGirl:
You don’t need to be a hero to live a good life, Dad.
TranscendantChaos:
Certainly. But it helps. And it helps you live a long one.
ExHeroGirl:
If you survive.
ExHeroGirl:
…
Thank you for the peaches.
TranscendantChaos:
Yah. I remember you always enjoyed them. The ones you have there are–
ExHeroGirl:
Yes?
TranscendantChaos:
Different.
* * *
Month of the Dragon, Twelfth Day
ExHeroGirl:
Ok the invisibility cloak is actually a pretty good gift
TranscendantChaos:
Oh! I remember I used to get into TONS of trouble as a boy with it and–wait, wait. I sent that months ago!
ExHeroGirl:
Yeah, I intercepted it. I’m screening everything you send through now
TranscendantChaos:
Well that is just boring. Why did you hold onto it for so long?
ExHeroGirl:
Waited for him to get taller so I could spot his feet under the cloak
TranscendantChaos:
Pahhhhhhh what is the point of that?
ExHeroGirl:
It teaches him to crouch, and build up his quad muscles. That was a fun few days of chasing him around. Weren’t you the one after me for training him?
TranscendantChaos:
Oh! An invisibility cloak was all you needed?
ExHeroGirl:
That and he figured out the gift portal
TranscendantChaos:
He did what? Aiya, I just heard a crash, I might need to go investigate. Your mother is busy entertaining a celestial dignitary at the moment.
ExHeroGirl:
He was wondering where all his new toys were coming from and why they stopped and…he figured out how to make it go in reverse
ExHeroGirl:
Wait, why aren’t you also with the guests? Why are you here talking to me?
TranscendantChaos:
Dignitary traveling incognito. I pretend not to recognize him. What do you mean “in reverse”? I haven’t seen anything get returned?
ExHeroGirl:
The jian was involved, incidentally. He said he needed its parts for something
TranscendantChaos:
THAT’S MY GRANDSON!! Wow! A mage talent! We have not had one of those in the family for six generations! Why…why do I hear giggling?
ExHeroGirl:
He took his invisibility cloak with him and some of his favorite tools. So watch out for things being taken apart and not put back together
TranscendentChaos:
Oh no
ExHeroGirl:
Tell mom I’ll come by on CloudTransport in a few days to pick him up if he doesn’t get tired and reverse the portal back. Have fun being Ah-Gong!
TranscendentChaos:
Oh no
TranscendentChaos:
When did he get so fast?
TranscendentChaos:
Why did he get so fast?
TranscendentChaos:
Oh no
TranscendentChaos:
Oh no
TranscendentChaos:
Help
ExHeroGirl:
🙂
* * *
Ⓒ V.H. Chen
The Qalupalik
The qalupalik waits in the icy shallows, just the other side of a big boulder. She wears an amautik, the coat of mothers, and its big wolverine-trimmed hood hides her slimy green skin and kelp-like hair. She hums to herself as she waits. If she is patient, children will come to her. Arctic char fingerlings swim […]
Lizzie Williams’ Swampy Head
It was during those months of strangling, watery heat when Lizzie Williams first told us about the head. She kept it in a burlap sack and would walk everywhere with it slung over her shoulder. When she grew tired, she let it bump along behind her in the rusty dirt. It don’t mind, she told […]
Henrietta Armitage Doesn’t Read Anymore
Henrietta was light-headed. The old man slouching across from her had a sardine sandwich, so the waiting room reeked. Henrietta’s octopus enjoyed the stink, but she herself was nauseous. That’s why she was there: the dizziness, the hot bile, the drool.She turned to the girl beside her, green fringe poking from her pilling hoodie. Whispered: […]
Editorial: The Collection
I have a collection of octopuses. There’s probably an octopus in every room of my house, a tentacle waving at me from every doorway. I haven’t always collected them—I didn’t know anything about the animal as a kid. I’m mildly concerned about what a large collection of anything suggests about the collector. But there was […]
Mirror-hole
The mirror-hole appears on Haley’s sixteenth birthday as she’s putting on eyeliner. A huge, jagged oval in the middle of the mirror.Haley shrugs and puts on mascara. It’s not like she’s never seen a mirror-hole. Still, she doesn’t let anything get close to it.She waits until Friday before telling Jessica, while they’re in line for […]
Schism
Beneath Ibryn’s touch, the Instrument that Has No Name sings. It is a complex affair—it took them several years to learn. Many more to master. Playing it is a puzzle, a complicated maze of levers and keys and dials only decipherable by the immense processing power of their hive. To even coax out a single […]
Support Flash Fiction Online
Flash Fiction Online is a free online magazine that pays professional rates. So how do we make that happen? It’s due to the generosity of readers like you.
Here are some ways you can help:
- Become a Patron.
- Subscribe.
- Buy our issues & anthologies.
- Spread the word.