Science Fiction and Fantasy have this weird position they sit in, where they have the ability to explore big themes in powerful ways by changing the lens through which we look at them, and yet everybody writing them is doing garbage where a man in a tophat stabs another man and then a beautiful quirky girl arrives and they have the perfect zeppelin sex party the author never had. So, get your steam-powered condoms ready because your prompt is:

Write a story in the genre of science fiction or fantasy.

However, when you sign up you will be given a virtue, which could be a single world or could be a phrase, which your story has to explore somehow. I don't want to see a man with a big axe killing another man with a big axe in a dramatic way: I want to see some goddam profound thematic resonance you dogs. If you want an extra-difficult virtue, let me know but don't complain that it's too hard later.

Finally, we're going to have a shifting word count. The base word count is 1250, but, there will be word bonuses or penalties depending on how late you are.

WORD BONUSES
Between now and signup deadline: +750 words
Saturday UTC: +0 words
Sunday UTC: -250 words