This 300-word story won first place in the 2022 Queer Sci-Fi flash fiction contest. The rules were simple: 300 words or less; unmistakably queer protagonist; fantasy or science fiction; adheres to the theme (this year it was Clarity).

Ruti’s Prayer
by Lloyd A. Meeker

Again Arum had not visited, let alone answered. Ruti’s gift had been inadequate to attract the god as he passed by. Even though he was only an apprentice shaman, Ruti knew he’d felt Arum pass — the birds had stopped singing, and the breeze scampered through his wattle house as if the walls were made of bushes scrawny as his arms.

His prayer, that Tegon, the most beautiful warrior in the village, would return his love, love that made his whole body ache, remained unanswered. It seemed Arum required a finer gift than the smoke of sweetgrass rising on the song of his flute, but Ruti …

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