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Taebyn returns to the show after being missing for a week.  Do 'second level' puns really work? Why are banana's a thing this week? Can Gnus make the News?We learn about sphere packing and how the penguins do it! Tune in and bark along! Moobarkfluff!

Support the Show.

Thanks to all our listeners and to our staff: Bearly Normal, Rayne Raccoon, Taebyn, and Ziggy the Meme Weasel.

You can send us a message on Telegram at BFFT Chat, or via email at: bearlyfurcasting@gmail.com

Bearly Furcasting S2E20 - Taebyn is back! Lots of puns and jokes, Math

We just got this in from the creator himself, Charles Brubaker: He recently released Katrina The Fuzzy Princess, an 18-minute animated short based on his web comic The Fuzzy Princess. It’s available to see up on YouTube now. “The short focuses on Katrina, a feline princess of St. Paws, who goes on a diplomatic mission to gain alliance with the humans, only to get into misadventures along the way.” Vocal talent includes Emi Koch, Aimee Smith, Ty Konzak, Nyla C., Brittany Ann Phillips, and Michael Malconian.

image c. 2021 by Charles Brubaker

Here’s a graphic novel series we came across, for young readers and fans of the feathery folk. Arlo and Pips is written and illustrated by Elise Gravel. “Like most crows, Arlo has a big brain. But Arlo has something else: a little pal who’s not afraid to tell him when he’s being insufferable! In the first of three episodes, a battle of the brains and bird-to-bird banter soon turns into an unexpected friendship. Arlo and Pips’ adventures include a visit the big city and the beach on their hunt for shiny things and French fries. Cool crow facts are included throughout the book.” Check out this series from Harper Alley.

image c. 2021 Harper Alley

Furry fandom social events are slowly regaining traction as COVID-19 slows down. Thus, more furcons are needing attendees to get vaccinated or have a negative test prior. Some furcons also have said they will no longer allow exemptions based on religion. Furcons are doing this after a few furries say they got COVID-19 after attending […]

Despite the pandemic’s momentum in the past year, many furries have planned for a post-pandemic future, including new furry events. On Wednesday (Sept 1), US non-profit Anthro West Open Organization, or AWOO, announced a new furcon named FreeFurAll. It will be held in the US state of Oklahoma. Their image then soured, as many furries […]

TigerTails Radio Season 13 Episode 28 Join the Discord Chat: https://discord.gg/SQ5QuRf For a full preview of events and for previous episodes, please visit http://www.tigertailsradio.co.uk. See website for full breakdown of song credits, which is usually updated shortly after the show.

This week: It's actually episode 498, we each did Siesta weekend our own way, a spite con in Texas' hat, and hot sauce. Also, Savrin is now old.

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Southpawscast 

Links!
Telegram fan chat: https://t.me/joinchat/P2iJg8tyj-KNGaci

Episode 498 - The Great Pyramid of Memphis - This week: It's actually episode 498, we each did Siesta weekend our own way, a spite con in Texas' hat, and hot sauce. Also, Savrin is now old.Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Southpawscast Links!Telegram fan

Rainbow Bridge is a new graphic novel written by Steve Orlando and Steve Foxe, with art by Valentina Brancati. The story goes like this: “Rainbow Bridge is about a 14-year-old boy, Andy, whose lifelong canine best friend passes away right before Andy is about to start high school. Andy has relied on Rocket for support ever since he was a toddler and Rocket was a pup, and now he’s not so sure about handling such big life events without Rocket in his life. When Andy gets overwhelmed and runs off to a spot that was important to the two of them, a dizzyingly colorful splash of light swoops down and carries Andy away to the Forever Fields, the afterlife paradise for animal companions. It turns out the Rainbow Bridge that pet lovers always talk about when an animal passes away is real, but humans are NOT supposed to cross it—especially humans who are still alive. If the Rainbow Bridge allowed Andy across, it must mean there is powerful unfinished business between him and Rocket. And as Andy soon discovers, animals who linger with unfinished business run the risk of turning into wraiths, vengeful, shadowy spirits that haunt the outskirts of the Forever Fields, driven by unresolved pain and trauma.  Rocket has always been there for Andy. Now it’s Andy’s turn to find his best friend and make sure Rocket gets the afterlife he deserves.” It’s available now from Aftershock, and Big Comic Page has a preview.

image c. 2021 Aftershock Comics

MOOBARKFLUFF! Click here to send us a comment or message about the show!

Lemnius Gryphs sits in for Taebyn this week. We tell a few jokes, talk about SpokAnthro, Spam and generally have a good time.  So join us for an hour of ridiculousness and jocularity. Tune in and bark along! Moobarkfluff!

Support the Show.

Thanks to all our listeners and to our staff: Bearly Normal, Rayne Raccoon, Taebyn, and Ziggy the Meme Weasel.

You can send us a message on Telegram at BFFT Chat, or via email at: bearlyfurcasting@gmail.com

Bearly Furcasting S2E19 - Guest Co-host Lemnius Gryphs, This or That, Grimms Fairy Tale, Trivia

If you have not heard of the APA-zine Rowrbrazzle — well, every self-respecting furry fan should. After the famous APA-zine Vootie closed in the late 1970’s, Rowrbrazzle took up the torch of the “new wave” of funny animal art and comics, and in so doing laid the groundwork for much of Furry Fandom to come. It was also a springboard for many creators who went on to much bigger things — artists like Steve Gallacci and Stan Sakai, and big names in animation fandom like Jerry Beck, John Cawley, and Fred Patten. One of the big draws of every Rowrbrazzle issue was the covers — the front cover and covers for each section. And now, MU Press have gathered together a big set of black & white and full-color covers in a new compilation, Covering Rowrbrazzle Volume One, “covering” the first 50 iconic issues. It’s available for sale over at Second Ed.

image c. 2021 by Bill Fitts

More from Dark Horse, this time for the cat-lover in your life. Or maybe that’s you. It’s called Cats! Purrfect Strangers, written by Frederic Brremaud, with art by Paola Antista and Cecilia Giumento. “A collection of light-hearted short comic stories following the lives of three young women and their cats. Best friends Manon, Erika, and Camille see adventure every day, but when all three become cat owners, everything changes–for better or for worse! Grow up with these quirky cats and share in all the excitement and fun that comes with raising a cat.” They let it out this October, right before Halloween — of course.

image c. 2021 Dark Horse Publications

This will only be a short one this month. We’re moving ahead with our plans for Oxfurred Comma – there will be plenty of blog posts and Author/Publisher Q&As going out through the entire month in October, and we’re also starting to get together a list of panels to run at the convention itself.
Of course, as with last month’s blog, if you wish to run a panel at Oxfurred Comma, then please do get in contact with us, as we’d love to hear from you!
Over the course of the next month we’re going to start announcing some of what we have scheduled, so keep an eye on our Twitter feed – as well as any announcements shared in the Discord or Telegram chats.

As always, there are plenty of short story markets open for submissions. Here are the ones we’re aware of, and think would be good fits for furry writers.

• Xenocultivars: Stories of Queer Growth – Deadline August 7th
• Arthropoda – Deadline August 7th
• SFWG’s Nightmare Fuel – Deadline September 15th
• The Nightmurr Before Yiffmas – Deadline October 1st
• Pirating Pups – Deadline November 30th
• FURWARD SLASH: A Furry Adult Techno-Horror Anthology – Deadline November 30th
• Isekai Me! – Deadline When Full
• Children Of The Night – Deadline When Full
• #ohmurr! – Deadline: Ongoing
• Zooscape – Reoccurring submission period.

Some of our members have had books freshly released, or are now available for pre-order. If you are a guild member and would like to be included in this section in the future, please remember to get in contact with us – we unfortunately will miss some!

Zooscape – Issue 12 available to read for free.

Stories are a vaccine for the soul, teaching your heart and mind to recognize different forms that lives can take, different ways of being.  When faced with the completely unfamiliar, we can panic, uncertain of how to react.  When the complete unknown is a deadly virus, that uncertainty of how to react can kill us.  When the complete unknown is simply a person with a different life story, a different way of seeing things… that uncertainty can make us hard-hearted and cruel. Literal vaccines are good for the body.  Metaphorical vaccines are good for the soul. So, read these stories, and share them with anyone you know who might like them. Also, get vaccinated, and tell everyone you know who’s medically able that they should too. We’re all part of one flock.  We must take care of each other.  We must learn to be kind, both with our hearts and actions.

Furry Fiction Is Everywhere, by Mary E. Lowd and Ian Madison Keller. Available for pre-order. Released September 10th 2021.

Have you ever read a book or novel and wondered why they even bothered to make certain character(s) in the book something other than human? Want to avoid that in your own work?
There are some simple steps you can take to make your anthropomorphic (or furry) characters stand out on the page. This guide will walk you through step-by-step how to build a believable furry species, world, and characters.

C.A.T.S.: Cycling Across Time And Space: 11 Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories about Bicycling and Cats – an anthology featuring guild member Alice Dryden. Available for pre-order. Released February 8th 2022.

Has your cat been plotting to take command of your spaceship? This and other important questions are tackled in the 11 science fiction and fantasy stories in this volume, told variously from the perspectives of humans and cats. A bicycle designer finds an exciting new technical challenge on a planet inhabited by felines. A wise cat tries to convince an excited puppy not to chase cyclists. On Mars, a cat helps save the life of their human after a quake. In other stories, a student must live with the consequences of magic gone awry, a cat contrives to go on a bicycle trip, a police robot learns empathy, a captured tiger lashes out, and a young sphinx finds her wings. 

Resistance, by J.F.R. Coates. Available for pre-order. Released November 5th 2021.

Book 3 of the Reborn series.
Centaura is not the safe haven promised to Twitch. A growing power threatens the fate of the planet itself. Twitch finds himself thrust directly into this plot, forced to take action against an enemy that is painfully familiar to him. With Captain Rhys Griffiths missing, it falls on Twitch to fight. He must become a greater starat than the one he was when rescued from Ceres. As his allies fall around him, Twitch needs to stand strong and tall against the familiar hatred. He must uncover the strength hidden within every starat.

Heretic, by J.F.R. Coates. Available for pre-order. Released November 5th 2021.

Book 4 of the Reborn series.
Rhys has been abandoned on Pluto, cast off by Snow for learning the truth about Amy and her Starat Freedom Union. Their target is clear. Terra is in mortal danger and Rhys is the only one who knows about the coming peril. But he is just one starat, voiceless in an empire of ignorance. Rhys must find new allies to help him as he delves back into the heartland of the empire, desperate to save the people who would rather him dead. If he is to succeed, he must uncover the secrets behind the empire and the Vatican on Mars. All the while, a familiar torment stalks him.

That’s all for this month’s newsletter. Please do send in panel ideas for Oxfurred Comma. We’re really excited to see how the second year goes. We hope you are as well.

Be safe. Keep writing.
J.F.R. Coates

Papabear,

Okie, why do Christians hate gay furry people? They have always been hating them, but they claim that they do "love" them. (Especially where I live. If you are gay, don't expect to be treated like a human, just hide it for your safety). My parents found out I was gay by guessing (they are good at it). Now they see me walk feminine, they make me walk again till they see I "walk like a man." They call me names ("sissy," it's annoying), and they just stress me a lot. Can you please help me?

Possible Snow (age 13, Alabama)

* * *

Dear Possible Snow,

Christians do not hate gay or furry people. True Christians who follow the teachings of Jesus Christ follow His command to love ALL humankind. There are dozens and dozens of passages in the Bible that tell us to love one another. For example, in John 15:12, Jesus says, "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you." Jesus doesn't say to love only fellow Christians or only straight people or white people or to hate gay people. Therefore, those who say they are Christians and then say they hate you for being gay (or for anything) are not true Christians. They are a sadly common breed of fake Christians that have overwhelmed the Church in America and around the world. 

Fake Christians get around the Word of God by saying things like: "Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner." This is just a convenient way of trying to get around what God (according to their own religion!) says so that they can pretend to love you but, in truth, they look down at you with contempt. I experienced a horrific example of this two years ago when I got married to Michael. We invited his only sister--a classic fake Christian--to join us at the ceremony. But she told us she preferred to go to her minister's retirement party than to be there for her only sibling. The reason, obviously, is that we are gay and the marriage makes her uncomfortable. Now, when I confronted her on this, she protested, saying, "But I LOVE you Kevin!" I call bullshit. Actions speak louder than words. She hurt me and Michael deeply because she is a bad sister and a bad Christian. Oh, the pièce de résistance was when she surprised me at the front door around Christmas time to hand me a Christmas card with a $20 Starbucks card in it. Good Lord! Oh, yeah, $20! That makes it ALL better!

Pardon my digression, but I think you see my point. You're asking the wrong question. Your question should be this: "How do I convert my parents from being fake Christians to being loving parents who are good Christians?" This is where the Bible comes in. Know your Bible. Read it. Find all the passages in which Jesus commands us to love others. If you need help, see whether you can find a minister who is not a homophobe (this might take some research, but they are out there). Also, I have a link on my website for Rainbow Ark, a resource for gay furry Christians. Check it out.

Good parents love their children unconditionally. Apparently, you need to teach them how to be good parents. This is hard to do living in a state like Alabama, which is the heart of Homophobe Country, but if you talk to them in a way they understand by using the Bible, there is a chance they might listen.

Good Luck,
Papabear

Welcome to Issue 12 of Zooscape!

Stories are a vaccine for the soul, teaching your heart and mind to recognize different forms that lives can take, different ways of being.  When faced with the completely unfamiliar, we can panic, uncertain of how to react.  When the complete unknown is a deadly virus, that uncertainty of how to react can kill us.  When the complete unknown is simply a person with a different life story, a different way of seeing things… that uncertainty can make us hard-hearted and cruel.

Literal vaccines are good for the body.  Metaphorical vaccines are good for the soul.

So, read these stories, and share them with anyone you know who might like them.

Also, get vaccinated, and tell everyone you know who’s medically able that they should too.

We’re all part of one flock.  We must take care of each other.  We must learn to be kind, both with our hearts and actions.

* * *

The Squirrelherd and the Sound by Emmie Christie

Mama’s Nursery by Gloria Carnevale

Moon-Eye by Garick Cooke

Moonbow by Jason Kocemba

Eye of the Beholder by Kara Hartz

How We’re Made by Christopher Zerby

Three Layer Apple Pie by Mephitis

Xerophilous by M. J. Pettit

* * *

As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.

by M. J. Pettit

“My great-aunt, eager to erase the old settlement from our memories, pushed the city through the next day’s heat. We traveled on wing-power alone as the stagnant airs provided little help.”

“Please stay.” Alaide starred at me unblinking and repeated her request. All night, she kept repeating those words like they offered me a choice I could make.

I shook my head. “We cannot.”

Alaide shrunk at the sharpness of my voice. I wanted to sound kind yet firm, but my voice sounded shrill. I carried no anger. Impatience maybe. I simply wanted her to understand. Already the city pulled me northward.

“I need to speak with you,” the scrawny bird said, looking me in the eye when she spoke.

I cast a glance at my daughter. The stranger carried no tribute.

“There’s something you must see,” she continued.

Oso trilled at the stranger’s presumptuous airs. I silenced my daughter with a sharp look. Something in Alaide’s confidence intrigued me.

“How can I help?” I asked.

Alaide spoke more tentatively now, casting nervous glances in Oso’s direction. “I’ve heard you are a most careful observer.”

“And how does a stranger expect to pay for an observer?” Oso asked.

Alaide turned to me for guidance. Oso’s question had clearly caught her off guard.

“Maybe you possess information of interest to a naturalist,” I suggested.

Alaide bobbed her head. “Yes, precisely. Information. I have discovered another city on the outskirts of this one.”

Despite myself, I joined Oso in trilling at the stranger. I couldn’t give credence to such a bizarre claim. Looking at Alaide again, I saw in her quick and jittery speech the demeanor of a berry-drunkard, a common enough vice among her kind. Follow her and she’d have me chasing down dreams and shadows.

Alaide persisted. “Listen. I saw it myself. A clutch of rodents have organized themselves into a city.”

“That’s impossible,” Oso said. “Everyone knows mammals return to a solitary life after they mate. They’re primitives, having lost the capacity for civilization.”

“I know what I saw.”

Oso raised her tail at the stranger’s challenge, but I hushed my daughter with a feigned peck. “Tell us again, stranger. Start from the beginning.”

Alaide described a clutch of tawny creatures living on the settlement’s outskirts. She observed the adults cooperating with another long after the reproductive season. Their city extended deep into the earth, having carved a honeycomb of burrows specialized for different forms of living. “You must see it for yourself,” she concluded.

Rodents this far south and organized into something of a city. I was intrigued. If nothing else, disproving the stranger’s story sounded like an adventure. It could be fun. We could become anything in the languid heat of the south. Why not naturalists in pursuit of mammals?

So I followed the stranger, even though the journey took longer than the night on her injured wing.

Alaide brought me to a sparse plain beyond the perimeter of the city’s protection. A cold, desolate place without a neighboring body to keep you warm as the day’s heat dissipated into the night air. Seedless shrubs clung close to the ground, blending into the desert. No guardians soared above to warn us of oncoming dangers. I pitied those consigned to the defensive line, but everyone had their purpose to serve.

Alaide hopped about the place without fear or reservation. “Why are you so nervous?” she asked. “Nothing out here will hurt you. This is my home.”

I shadowed her but kept my eyes on the horizon. Emptiness always left me unsure of what to expect.

“Watch.” Alaide disgorged the grain she insisted on carrying from the harvest. She stepped back and waited. Sure enough, the creatures soon approached. They moved tentatively. Their small, tawny bodies slung close to the ground, they circled close. The voles gathered around the meagre feast she provided. Tiny things, smaller than Alaide. Their speckled fur sagged loose off the bone as they scraped a life from the unwelcoming desert. The largest one plucked the individual grains her mouth and distributed them to the others. Her obsidian eyes were too large for the furry face, but the voles charmed me as they tumbled about and shared the grain Alaide had brought them. I counted a dozen scurry underground as the eternal sun rose.

“A promising sign–” I gave Alaide a gentle peck. “–but you err in calling this simple troop a city.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “They live cooperatively.”

“You might be right,” I said. “But I expect circumstances force these arrangements. We must wait and see. Only time will tell if they are capable of choosing fealty beyond necessity.”

“I’ve watched them for days. Haven’t seen any sign of a quarrel.”

“Then maybe friendship grows beyond the city limits,” I said. “Thank you for this gift.”

“What gift?” Alaide asked.

“Seeing this gives me hope. Maybe someday we won’t be alone.”

Alaide asked me to stay, but a prior obligation drew me back to the roost. As promised, I returned at dusk with a pair of my writing instruments so we could record of the colony’s movements. My crop carried seed from my family’s trove to share with the voles and the too thin Alaide. I made a quick flight from my burrow to the border. My excitement grew as I neared the site. I sang to Alaide when I saw her.

However, she dove into the exposed roots of a stump upon my approach. Her reaction puzzled me. Had she not welcomed me to this place the night before? I landed near her make-shift burrow and peered inside. Alaide cowered under a pile of plucked grasses, her pink comb poking through the darkness.

“Why are you hiding, silly? We’ve got work to do.”

“Why did you come bearing weapons?” the trembling comb replied. “You said we were friends.”

Weapons? What weapons? Then I remembered my instruments. They ended in the sharp points. How little I knew about Alaide. During our long flight together, she hadn’t sung of her kin as is our want. Why had she sought refuge among us? I was curious, but it had seemed impolite to ask.

I backed out of her burrow. I lay the instruments on the ground and stepped away from them to assure Alaide they posed no threat. “These aren’t weapons, friend. They’re tools to assist in our observations. Come out and I’ll show you how to use them.”

A tentative head poked from the burrow.

Alaide circled around my writing sticks, ducking down for a careful inspection. She tentatively poked at one with her foot then leapt back, half expecting it to leap at her like an awakened serpent. I laughed. She darted for her burrow, but stopped herself.

I apologized when I realized how my sudden movement startled her. “Best start with the wooden one. It’s easier to handle.”

Alaide found it difficult to balance, given her mending wing, but she soon learned how to grasp the stick with her foot. She dug its point into the soil and began recording the flow of relationships we witnessed: a father’s nudge, the nips of friendship, the city-like circle they formed at dawn. Despite a tendency towards fancy, Alaide had the potential to become an excellent observer. It didn’t take her long to perceive how the rodents operated within circuits of debts incurred and redeemed. Together we etched diagrams of the colony’s social patterns into the hard dirt, mapping the lines of cooperation among families.

“The sun is getting tall,” I said. “I should return to my burrow.”

I could already feel the heat peeling through my feathers. I needed the shade of my family’s roost.

“You could spend the day in mine.”

Alaide recoiled at my laugh, shrinking like she had when she thought I brought weapons. What to say? I could hardly tell her such a modest dwelling insulted my rank. “You’ve much to learn. I can’t spend my days here. I have certain obligations. My place is at the center.”

Alaide seemed unpersuaded, but I kept my promise and returned with my writing instruments the next evening.

I found her eager to restart the work. This time she did not hide at my approach. She dove into the vole tunnels, reporting back on the state of the pups. Six little ones nestled together in the deepest reaches of their colony.

And so began my double life in those final southern days. In the cool of the evening, I traveled to the outskirts to observe and record the vole’s complex sociometry. At dawn, I returned to the central roost to doze as the buzz of the city’s latest news enveloped me. Before I went to sleep, I took my instrument and added that night’s observations into the soil of the city’s library. Although some looked askance, I must confess I loved my double southern life, indebted at once to the city and the stranger.

* * *

“Please, Alaide, don’t ask me again.”

I wanted to sound firm, but my voice waivered. It always waivered in her presence. Alaide had a talent for coaxing me out of my old habits, of making my city life feel incomplete.

We had been observing the voles for three months when Oso brought word of my cousin’s death. When she first landed, I was delighted to see one of own choose to visit my observatory. I welcomed her, wrapping my wing around her neck and gave her under-feathers a motherly preen. I chattered about the day’s latest observations. The infant voles had begun venturing beyond their tunnels. Oso remained silent, patiently waiting for a break in my speech. Somehow, I failed to notice her grave expression.

Oso spoke without affectation. She related the facts as a good observer does. She loved her cousin, but she loved the city more. I had raised a good citizen. The news delivered, Oso returned to the air and flew to the city center. She did not wait for me to answer. There was no need. My response was already given.

I told Alaide we must finalize our observations and prepare for the city’s departure. A choice apparent to all. All but a stranger. Alaide failed to understand how Oso carried my decision with her, delivering it as part of her horrible news.

* * *

“How can you abandon this place?” she asked. “It’s our home.”

I had cast my vote that morning, but Alaide kept pestering me all evening, my second to last in the south. I wanted her to change the subject. All I wanted was to retain the traces of this place’s simple elegance. Was that too much ask? Apparently as Alaide kept betraying the memory by airing our disagreement.

“The city is my home,” I said. “This is mere settlement.”

“Then why do you waste my time writing our observations into the soil?”

“Writing etches both the soil and the mind,” I assured her. “How else could we prepare to carry the memories with us?”

“Please stay,” she said.

“We cannot.”

Her thinking remained as confused as before. I tried again. A city isn’t its territory. We can spread thin, extending ourselves a day’s flight or more, but a city has limits. Stretched too far and the peck order will break. Welcomed because of her injuring, Alaide continued to reside outside the order which protected and sustained her. She hadn’t been raised on songs commemorating the horrors of peck-right. The city must endure.

“Haven’t I taught you anything?” I gestured towards a vole returning to her tunnel. The grain I’d provided from my family’s store filled her cheeks as she disappeared to share it with the others. “Even this primitive colony survives on debts accrued and repaid.”

“And I suppose you owe me nothing.”

“There’s no way I could stay. You wouldn’t recognize me shed of the city.”

“Then become someone else, Xero.”

Easy words for a bird born without a flock. I imagined myself performing the entire course of the city’s labors: surveying the grasslands for the best feed; gathering the stores in case of disaster; defending the perimeter from violent strangers. The list left me weary.

“We could scatter,” Alaide said. “Graze for what we need. Together we could live free of all the cities.”

I shook my head. Scatter? If only it were so easy. On my many travels, I had flown over the wind-picked bones of those who esteemed themselves above the city. They died nameless. No one carried their memory. “You should travel with us to the north.”

Alaide simply flapped her not quite mended wing.

But more than her break bound her to this place. She came from a kind which refused to roam, content to breed in small clutches and to stick to this unchanging land. They never knew the fullness of the north. A failing strategy. Did the poor child still expect her family to return from the dead?

I was better off free of her.

Except a half-spoken debt lay between us. A debt which she refused to dissolve. That evening, I learned something new about Alaide and her kin. When they elected to pair, they did so for life.

* * *

The next evening as the day cooled into night, Alaide and I strutted through what remained of the central market. Having failed to dissuade her from staying, I could at least provision her for life after our departure.

“You don’t have to do this,” Alaide said. “I’ll be fine on my own. I was before. The seed will recover after the city leaves.”

“It is the least I can do,” I said. “Besides, I possess an excess of favors I need to spend.”

The ease with which we moved through the exchange surprised me. It had become as deserted as Alaide’s home on the perimeter. Little remained of the market’s former storefronts, the great clans having already gorged themselves for travel. Maps betraying long held family secrets were scrawled about the place for anyone to read. I pushed through samples of unripened grain and piles of discarded and broken instruments. A few unfamilied traders continued their barter, but most stalls lay abandoned. Some had etched into the soil the directions to semi-plundered fields. Once prized hordes; departure rendered the information near valueless. Outsiders, some winged and others not, scavenged through the remnants.

We paused before a jeweler, delighting in how her array of gizzard stones captured the fading daylight. A necessary digestive among other species, the stones had become desirable as tokens of esteem during our long time in the south. Alaide noticed me starring at a rosy gem. The pinkish stone mirrored the color of her crest. I pressed my peak against its cool smoothness.

“How much?” she asked.

I started. What would Alaide do with a gizzard stone? The time for accumulation had passed.

“Take it,” said the jeweler. “I’ll have to move on soon enough.”

Alaide lunged at the stone.

“We can’t,” I said, shuffling her away from the stall.

She looked back at her lost prize.

“Why didn’t you let me get you the stone?” she asked. “You obviously liked it.”

“A city cannot travel burdened by such wealth.”

Alaide shook her head. She did not understand.

I shared with her the lesson of the family who carried too much. My mother first shared this story with me when I insisted on taking our nest on my first journey to the south. Mother laughed and gave me a gentle preen. She traced these words into my downy feathers. There once was a clan near the very summit of the peck. They used their position to acquire unimaginable wealth. They held the tallest roosts, the deepest stores, brightest jewels, the sharpest weapons. Every richness one could imagine. When the southern call came their mother refused to abandon all she accumulated in the north. She persuaded her daughters and sons, sisters and brothers to carry their seed and stones and weapons into the southlands. She thought herself wiser than her aunt-of-us all. Once the city arrived at its destination, she would be ready. A quick coup and the old peck would fall. However, the riches they carried proved an unexpected burden. The wealth weighed down her family, forcing them to fly low to ground. She lost most of hers as the city scaled the mountains sheltering the northlands from the barren south. She alone survived but wished herself dead. By the time the city roosted, she had fallen so far down the peck that no other clan could see her. She shrunk and shrunk until she became a nameless speck of dusk swept out to sea by one of the north’s autumn storms.

“So you see, the city travels with its order. Nothing else,” I concluded. “All acquired wealth must settle in one place.”

The city could only afford to travel with its most sacred debts.

One look told me Alaide only wanted to argue again. That was a memory I did not want to carry so I flew off, abandoning my friend to navigate the scraps of the exchange on her own.

* * *

She found me again later that day as I sorted through my burrow, the one carved high in the rockface I’d called home. I counted out the remains of my earthly wealth. A heap of near forgotten scraps, shimmery rocks, and dulled writing tools at the rear of my private trove. I dug through these treasures, taking time to select what items my crop might carry to our new territory. The great discard pleased me as I freed myself form the weight of too much accumulation. I savored the memory as each object passed out my door and landed with a crash on the ground far below.

Her jagged flight squelched any hope that Alaide would be strong enough to migrate. She came only to say farewell. As she approached, I noticed it wasn’t her injury which hampered her movements. No, she clutched the stone from the market. She deposited it at my feet before landing.

“Something to remember our time together.” She looked pleased with herself.

Alaide’s head swiveled between me and the untouched stone. Only a stationary bird would be foolish enough to give such a parting gift. I grasped the stone with my beak. It felt lighter than expected. A manageable burden. I swallowed it without mentioning the unwanted weight. I could always part with it far from the settlement. Alaide would never have to know.

Alaide down in the discard accumulating below the burrows. “Why are you abandoning all your treasures?”

“We don’t need them,” I said. “The north replenishes. I only bring what is needed for the journey.”

“But it is all your possessions,” she said.

“A city’s wealth does not travel,” I explained curtly, eager to return to the discard. “We carry only the memories.”

Alaide’s arrival reminded me of our unsettled debt. I eyed what remained of my belongings. None suggested an adequate gift.

The answer was obvious. “You should stay in my burrow,” I said, unable to contain my excitement. “No one will bother you this high off the ground. You’ll be safer here.”

“I like my home,” she said.

Having refused the gift of my burrow, I bequeathed to her my finest instrument for writing in clay.

“You discard things too easily,” she said. “Besides, I prefer my own.”

Alaide turned her head from every gift offered. Whether due to stubbornness or ignorance, I could not say. It didn’t matter. The result was the same. She departed my burrow having refused to annul the debt she held.

* * *

I awoke to the sound of thunder and heavy rain. An ocean of a storm, the kind only known in the north. It wrenched me out of my uneasy slumber. My bones reverberated with its thrum. I tilted my head upward and opened my beak, thirsty for the release of those first drops. Time for a good drink before the torrent accumulated below into a regenerative floodwater.

I held my mouth open, but my tongue remained parched. The storm left it unkissed even though thick clouds dulled out the sun.

Then I remembered. Half asleep, I’d mistaken our shared wingbeat for the start of a downpour. The swirling swarms of the gathering clans filled the sky with their clacks and their caws, heralding the arrival of moving day. The shared wingbeat drowned out the songs of any one clan. Womp, womp, womp. The city was one. The thrum knotted us together. Time to release my hold. I teetered towards the tip of my branch to get a better look. The city crested overhead and dove towards my roost. I stretched my wings in preparation for the long flight then launched myself into the heart of the swarm. As I entered the city, the synchrony of wings sent a cool breeze over me. It passed through my feathers, soothing muscles tense with anticipation. As I twisted and darted through the swarm, I greeted distant cousins, cast aspersions at former rivals, and flirted with newly remembered lovers. I pushed through my beloved city until I found my rightful place, tucked between my siblings and my children.

Our wings turned the southlands into dustbowls. The earth mushroomed below us. Our departure wiped away the symbols we’d etched into the dry soil. The storm erased our settlement from the earth. Gone were the histories of this settlement, the funerary records, our calculations of air currents, the once guarded maps to now raided stores. The city flew as one, bonded by our most primitive debt, the one carried not in song but our shared movement.

I flew in pride of place, assuming my late mother’s position near the flock-head. Oso flew beside me on her first return to the land of her birth. My kin fanned around us, daughters and sons guiding their own daughters and sons. The richness of my fold gave me lift.

I soared through that first evening.

But amid all my reacquainted, each one beloved, I caught not a glimpse of Alaide’s familiar pink plume. She somehow resisted the city’s northern call. Alaide had made her choice. She elected to remain in the southlands. Had I ever truly known her? No, she came to me as a stranger and that was how we parted. I’d only known the illusion of familiarity. What kind of creature refuses to forgive the debts of settlement? Perhaps she was some kind of miser, forever hoarding more and more debt. Our songs told of such tricksters haunting the desert, lying in wait to ensnare the unwary and feast on their stranded bones.

Oso screeched as my wingtip struck hers. I apologized for this slip. Somehow, I’d glided out of formation as my mind wandered. The city demanded I keep to the course. The journey required my focus. Deserved it. I could not let my imagination get the better of me. I was hardly some fledging fresh from the nest.

Despite myself, I continued dwelling on my memories of Alaide. She presented a greater puzzle than any I’d found in nature. How was I to reconcile the gruesome descriptions of the debt hoarders with the kindness she showed? She intended no malice. She only wanted the best for me. Yet, there I was flying northward saddled with her final gift. Though the gizzard stone weighed against my crop, I must confess the added burden wasn’t entirely unwanted.

The route taken soon silenced those who accused my aunt of directing the city for too long. Throughout our time in the south, she had pushed her children to their limit, but the map they provided proved true. Indeed, she remained the city’s miracle worker. She used the cover of night to shield us from harshest desert heat. Just as the rising heat tired even our youngest, we arrived at the first oasis seen since our departure. From there, we would follow the course of a now vanished river. The map-makers who had flown ahead returned with promises of steady rains within two weeks’ flight.

Wading into the cooling waters loosened my seized muscles. I immersed myself in children’s gossip as they imagined their future lives in the north. The half-remembered green hills carried promises of abundant rains, termite feasts, and a returning interest in mates. I caught myself reminiscing again about my abandoned lovers, men who passed unnoticed in the south despite living as neighbors.

The next evening, when my aunt gave the command to lift, I found myself still tired from a day’s fitful sleep. Something made my body refuse the wind’s lift. My wings ached and lagged. I teetered like a fledging. My struggle sullied the symmetry of my family’s formation. My kin did not hold their tongues. The source of my sickness was apparent to all. I carried a debt on the journey. It weighed against my conscience like the gizzard stone against my crop. Its weight lured me southward.

At our next landfall, Oso approached me. “Promise me you’ll discard that ugly thing.” She gestured towards my swollen gullet.

By then, I knew I did not want to settle accounts with the stranger Alaide. To cancel our debt would mean forgetting about her and our time in the south. Someday the city would return. “We are all allowed to choose what we bring on the journey. I don’t judge your choices. The least a daughter could do is respect mine.”

“Fair enough.” A reluctant emissary, Oso avoided looking me in the eye. “But I fear my mother has been enchanted by the stranger.”

I extended myself to my full height. “Don’t be superstitious.”

Oso met my stare. “Last landfall, I heard you speaking to it. In your sleep, you still speak to your southern wife.”

“A bad dream.”

“Then promise me you’ll get rid of that stone,” she said. “We cannot afford to carry your excess debts.”

“I will.”

And yet when the evening call to the air came and we again took to the air, I did not dispose of it. The stone remained safely cradled in my crop.

My great-aunt, eager to erase the old settlement from our memories, pushed the city through the next day’s heat. We traveled on wing-power alone as the stagnant airs provided little help.

Though my body knew the determination these long flights required, my mind kept wandering far from the flock. I pictured Alaide unable to secure food for herself or attacked by some creature emerging from the desert depths. The more I pushed these thoughts to the side, the stronger they became. These intrusions mangled my navigation, pulling me lopsided, even though no currents pushed us off course.

I wobbled and careened. Oso wordlessly assumed my position and I eased back. When my aunt finally called for the flock to descend into a canopy of trees, it came as a relief. I followed my daughter to a roosting spot near the top.

As soon as my feet touched the agreed upon branch, the rest of my family retook to the air. They gathered further up the tree.

This game was familiar to me. I was blessed with good children and caring sisters. By teasing me, my entire family conspired to lift my spirits, distracting me from the day’s terrible flight. I chased after them. They scattered again. They reassembled as an inward-looking circle at an even further reach. As I drew near, their backs arched. Only silence met my welcoming.

I approached Oso, my eldest, my dearest, only to find her coiled and ready for an attack.  She was near unrecognizable with anger. Best attempt a calming preen. I swooped in to praise her on a good day’s travel, to thank her for supporting the city when I could not.

My daughter would not listen. She launched into the air, her ever-sharp beak upturned.

I refused to pull away.

Her blow struck between my ribs. It carried an accusation. Careless one.

She struck the same spot again. Egoist.

And again. Traitor.

The third blow knocked me off the branch. It dropped me like a rock released on high intended to crack open a stubborn shell.

The eyes of the city fixated on me as I tumbled through the branches, my body refusing to respond and defend myself. I hit the earth hard.

Crumpled, unable to move wing or foot, I waited for Oso to descend and finish the job. I waited, but she just left me. Feeling returned in the form of tiny muscular twitches. I tucked my wings close to my body to protect my tender underside. Those on the lower branches kept hushed and pretended not to stare, but their eyes fixed upon me.

None of my family came. Not to finish the job nor to see if I was alright. My family was ashamed of me, ashamed of the debt I forced us to carry. So ashamed they refused me even recognition and cast me out of our nightly roost. Oso’s final blow told me everything. I’d relieved myself of any debts still owed my family. We were nothing to each of other. I was forgotten. An orphan. A stranger.

* * *

At the bottom the tree, with no favor to give, I met Fiero.

Well, strictly speaking, Fiero’s family occupied the middling ranks, but my new journey began at the base.

With Oso’s blows still sending twinges throughout my body, I was determined to see the city reach the northlands. I needed to learn to climb. My survival required this. Climbing was an odd experience for one high born, but I wasn’t without hope. I wasn’t some sightless fledging fresh from my egg.  If the voles managed to survive in the scarcity of the desert, I could make my way on the outskirts of a northbound city. Soon opportunities would grow as thick as the grasses of a northern meadow. By the time the city resettled, certainly everything would be forgiven. Plenty had a way of easing the burden of unpaid debts.

The family where I first landed rustled about their chosen branch, shifting their bodies and extending their wings just enough to deny me a steady foothold. Despite the cold welcome, I lingered. Surely at least excuses would be made, apologies sincerely expressed. They offered none. Instead, the matriarch struck. Her feigned blows hit my beak rather than my throat or my belly. Like Oso she did not wish to draw blood, but her blows made abundantly clear her pity, if not contempt, for my poor choices. She would not accept a fool unable to unburden herself from the debts of her southern life. The one unwilling to unsettle.

Darting from branch to branch, my reputation preceded me. After the fourth or fifth failed attempt at securing safe passage if not an undying familial bond, I realized the city remained entrenched in its southern ways. The hope carried by the northern rains had yet to reach us and our long exile left few willing to take a risk on one in the position I now found myself.

Maybe I could complete the journey on my own. An unpleasant thought, but not an impossible dream. This wasn’t my first migration. How difficult would it be to follow the flock? The asymmetry of solo flight displeased me, but at the bottom of the tree few other options presented themselves.

I rested on a gnarled twig of a branch, a spindly thing barely capable of holding my weight off the ground. A solo flight it would be.

There Fiero found me. “I didn’t think your kind could see this far down.”

I caught myself laughing at his stupid joke. For the first time, my situation felt absurd rather than unbearable. Mostly, I appreciated the small act of recognition. “Just passing through.”

“Mind if I join you?” he continued.

The branch creaked where he landed. He moved sure-footedly towards me. “You look like someone in need of a friend.”

“Careful,” I said. “You don’t want to get too close to an orphan.”

“I’m not worried,” Fiero said. “We’re northbound to the land of changes. Anything can happen there.”

“You’re a gambler then.”

“When you’re this far down the peck, it pays to be. Besides, I’ve a feeling you’re worth the risk. Come, join us.”

With a whistle, Fiero launched himself. I followed before he changed his mind or I lost him in the crowd of the city.

Fiero’s family welcomed me with wings spread open and bellies exposed. After brief introductions, we spent the day’s rest rehearsing a new formation. They repeated their favored movements until I memorized the new pattern. By dusk, we moved as one.

When my aunt gave the call to depart, my new family elected to linger. The city lifted and crested above us, wings beating northward.

Fiero waited until the last family departed. He then gave the call and my adopted kin took to the air. We flew a half day behind the main flock, defiantly stretching the city to its limits. I struggled to keep pace with my new clan. My ribs still ached where Oso had struck. I felt weak, barely alive.

Fiero left his position at the cone to come find me at the rear. His approach worried me. Perhaps he regretted his latest investment. A bet ill placed. If so, he hid it well. His voice gave no hint of disappointment. “Come with me. I’ve a secret to share with you.”

Fiero broke formation and I followed. We took an eastward breeze over a devasted landscape scrubbed of life. For the first time since the city’s migration began, I found myself enjoying flying. Fiero inspected the ground, clearly noting markers along some determined route. His map led to an oasis untouched by the flock. The pool looked deep. The grain succulent. This place puzzled me. Why hadn’t the aunt taken us along this route? Surely, the entire city would benefit from such a feast.

Fiero hovered about the feast, failing to exercise both his claim to discovery and his peck right. I waited for some cue. Was this some kind of test? His posture signaled no such thing. He seemed relaxed and unconcerned.

“Can you just tell me what you want?”

“We’re beyond the city’s reach. You’re free here. Eat, Xero. Drink.”

That was good enough for me. I gorged myself on the overripe grain.

“Looks like you enjoyed your meal.”

I nodded. I realized then that I hadn’t been dwelling on the weight of the gizzard stone. It had been forgotten, if only momentarily. “Well, your map proved true. What do I owe you?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?” I didn’t believe him. The city ran on debts. Fiero could not afford such extravagant gifts. “Then my friendship will have to do for now.”

“A wonderful gift,” he replied, “if freely given.”

“You flatter me.”

Fiero shook his head. “I honor you, as one should.”

“One more favor then. Can I ask, how did you know about this place?”

My question pleased him. “Our aunt isn’t the only one capable of employing map-makers.” His words carried the right hints of scandal. “It could be our little secret, if you want.”

I did want. His trust made the grain taste that much sweeter.

“It makes one wonder about our aunt, doesn’t it?” he said. “What else does she withhold so that her peck right survives another year? Why must we all suffer to satisfy one old woman’s sense of order?”

His bluster did not fool me. I wasn’t a fledging fresh out of my mother’s nest. Fiero spoke a big game because he sought a mate. A powerful one capable of collecting certain debts. He welcomed me because he hoped my fortune would return with our arrival in the north. A cunning strategy, but a gamble which would fail to reward him. “Perhaps I should complete the rest of the journey on my own. I’m destined to disappoint you. My family will not forgive me. I won’t be able repay you. Not in the way you wish.”

“You should reassert your place.”

“And restart the peck?” I shook my head. My mother warned me of the path of pride. That one always led to war. “I couldn’t.”

Oso had exercised her right and would do my place proud. I did not begrudge her. When I showed weakness, Oso’s swift actions allowed the city to endure.

Fiero did his best to camouflage his disappointment in my answer. “Then don’t worry about it. We are in flight. This debt stays here. I won’t carry it into the north. You can start your life there free.”

With his crop loaded with enough grain to share with his family, Fiero took to the air and found us a swift current. Swift winds tickled my feathers. High above the scorched plains, Fiero darted and I dodged. Or I feigned at dodging. No animus hid behind our movements. We danced like we were already northern lovers.

Before we rejoined the city, Fiero swooped in close and whispered. “Today should remain our little secret. Promise?”

I gave Fiero my word. The one gift I could give. Such a small token considering all I had received.

* * *

The night passed quickly in the company of Fiero’s family. Their intricate formations came easily to me. My movements echoed theirs as if by instinct. Even with the strong headwinds coming off the flock’s peak, the journey proved less difficult than before. The youngsters’ excitement for the northlands — the abundance, the feasting, the first loves — was contagious. Each night brought a new landscape filled with the sway of novel grasses and the buzzing of meaty insects. Proud of the city’s progress, I found myself dwelling less and less on the weight of the gizzard stone. As the night winds grew cooler, the stone came to feel lighter and lighter.

I barely noticed the ground we covered. Each morning brought a richer landscape. A few sleeps from our final landing, I found the hint of a creek we’d been following expanded into an actual river. Excited by the journey, I elected to explore rather than sleep.

What critters might I discover along the shoreline? The riverbank pulsed with life. Insects which skittered and the fish who broke the waterline to trap them. All of nature’s drama on display in one place. Alaide strangely not there. It seemed I couldn’t leave behind my so-called southern wife.

Lost in my memories, I didn’t hear the rustling through the tall grass until it was too late. I froze, although I was certain the serpent sensed me.

A sharp pinch at the nape of my neck told me I was done. But it was a beak, not fangs. It tugged at me and I was airborne. My rescuer’s grip loosened as my wings beat for themselves.

Once again Fiero had saved me.

Below, where I had just stood, a serpent slithered back into the grasses after an unsatisfying lunge.

My newfound kin pursued the snake into the thick grasses. They plucked at its spine and pulled the beast into the open. They swooped from high, stabbing at the snake with their beaks. They went for its eyes first. Blinded the beast lurched to the spot where its attacker once was, only to receive a blow from the opposite direction. Their beaks made quick work of the once fearsome monster. It suspected nothing. It mistook our civility for weakness. My kin moved like an army.

My family struck with remarkable efficiency, the likes of which I only heard about in songs my mother sang. Those old wartime songs she loved but left her teary.

The battle only lasted a few minutes. It left the snake gouged and bleeding. I hoped the sorry thing wouldn’t live much longer. My newfound family dismembered the poor brute with military-like precision.

Fiero followed every strike, every tear like the movements had been well rehearsed. His chest swelled with pride.

I knew then. I had known earlier but had been too afraid to say the words. I still hesitated. Once the accusation was made, I couldn’t retract it. Saying the very words risked putting them into action. “You’re preparing for war.”

Fiero refused to acknowledge me. He took off for higher airs.

I chased after him, except this time we weren’t dancing. Fiero evaded me and I wanted answers.

“You plan on overthrowing the aunt,” I continued. I spoke in whispers, fearing the city might overhear me. “You want to establish a new peck order.”

Fiero dove deep into the grasses. He landed where their thickness might give him some cover.

“Or even maybe a flock free of peck right,” he finally answered. “Just imagine a life without debts.”

In the gleam of Fiero’s eye, I saw a world where no one owed anything to the city, where everyone lived free. Free to steal. Free to fight. Free to kill. In the gleam of his eye, I saw endless war, devouring first my siblings then my children then my grandchildren. His war would end my family, wipe every trace of us from the air and the earth. Inevitably the war would turn the city itself into dust. All our sacrifices for nothing.

“You want the city to end.”
“Maybe the time has come.”

We were entering the north where anything was possible.

“You could help,” Fiero said. “The aunt-of-us-all grows ashen. You still count among her nearest kin. Given time, she will welcome you back to the fold. You can get close.”

“Close enough to strike.”

Fiero nodded. “Would you do me that favor?”

What was I to do? Fiero was there when I needed him. His family welcomed me among his own when all the others met my approach with turned backs. They loved me, trusted me. They fed me when I was weak. They saved my life. I owed Fiero a tremendous debt.

A debt I must repay.

So I showed him mercy and went straight for the throat.

* * *

News of Fiero’s death sped through the city. The airy rumors spiraled higher and higher throughout the night. A lovers’ quarrel. An accident caused by a diseased mind. Everyone knew the northern rains awakened our passions, and I’d been unwell throughout the journey. Some said, it served Fiero right. He should have known better than to try and save a lost debtor like me.

My diseased constitution proved a convenient cover. My new family made no claim against their loss. Instead, Fiero’s kin generously promised to take care of their wayward sister. I knew better than to question my good fortune. Without their leader, my adopted family fell back into place. When the command came to take to the air, we no longer lingered at the rear of the flock to observe, to plan and plot. We rejoined the city like nothing had happened. Peck right would not dissolve.

Everyone seemed committed to the fiction of normality or at least the hope of the rich northlands repairing old wounds.

I was surprised when the aunt-of-us-all approached me with landfall. Reluctant to acknowledge one foolish enough to retain a summer wife, she sent Oso in her stead. The request was simple but imperative. We congressed high above the flock.

“You’re still with us, Xero,” my aunt said. A statement of fact. No, a possible question. “I’m surprised.”

Did she doubt my loyalty? After all, I had flown with a traitorous family for a number of weeks. I demurred. I loved the city. It was my home.

“Another puzzle to consider. Your new kin haven’t demanded payment for their loss. They seem eager to forget the whole unpleasant affair. Odd, don’t you think?”

How foolish to count myself the greatest observer while I dwelled in my aunt’s roost. My talents paled next to the one who discerned every pattern, heard every rumor. The city’s secrets unfolded before her. Had she orchestrated my fall? Sent me into a trap? I kept silent, waiting for my aunt to reveal her next move.

“Some might say you saved the city,” my aunt explained.

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“I would. As far as I’m concerned, your debt is paid. You could leave us.”

“Thank you for the offer, but I choose to remain.”

“You misunderstand, Xero.” My aunt’s voice tremored. It pained her to speak the words I forced her to say. “How do you expect to stay? You saved the city. The debt which bound us together no longer exists, yet you insist on carrying the one you owe another.”

Hers wasn’t a kindly suggestion. A possibility offered. My aunt presented me with no gift to renew my bond nor would she accept one in return. She issued a command and addressed me like I was a stranger, a guest tolerated only for so long. I was not of the city. Not anymore.

High above the city, as my aunt swooped away and left me alone, I learned its final lesson. A lesson my mother never taught me. One for which she likely didn’t have the words. An unspeakable lesson which coursed through our city and underwrote our constitution. To live free of debts is to live free of love.

* * *

I shed the city and the city shed me. We settled accounts a day’s flight from the great feast. When I departed the green hills of the north were within sight. I tried following the course that the aunt-of-us-all set but kept finding myself pulling away once airborne. A city made of strangers was no home for me.

I carried one remaining debt.

I elected to fly south. I flew southward because I loved the desert and I knew she loved me.

 

* * *

About the Author

M. J. Pettit is a full-time academic and occasional writer of short stories. His fiction has previously appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Compelling Science Fiction, Nature, Toasted Cake, and Riddled with Arrows.

by Mephitis

“An entire book of recipes and that squirrel had to pick that one.”

My tail thumped the ground. Oh, crap, I thought, I must have left my spell book at Cissy’s. Deep breath. It’s ok; the protection spells make it appear as a cookbook to non-brethren.

“Hi Cissy, this is Naomi,” I said into my phone chewing on my lower lip. “Did I leave a large blue book at your house last night?”

“Yeah, Namoi, you did. I was feeling domestic and thought I’d bake a pie from it. You can have a slice when you pick it up.”

I gulped. “What are you baking?” Please, please, be making cookies.

“The  three layer apple pie sounded interesting.”

I collapsed onto my couch. An entire book of recipes and that squirrel had to pick that one. “Did you follow it exactly?”

“Sort of. It had a strange ingredient list; I had to go buy some stuff. Didn’t find everything.”

I released a deep breath. She was seeing more than she should, but still, it should be ok. I’d just go to Cissy’s, enjoy pie and coffee, and get my book back.

“Oh, yeah, I did put nuts in the bottom layer. I am a squirrel after all; I really like nuts. My mother always put nuts in her apple pie.”

I choked, hard. It took a moment before I could talk again.

“Are you ok?” Cissy said.

Croaking, I responded, “Yes. Yes, something just caught in my throat.” How had she added that missing ingredient? But it was still just a pie recipe.

“The last time I made it, I put lots of slits in the top crust.  It needs lots of slits.”  Not really, but I didn’t know to ask about the top crust any other way.

“I never make two crust pies,” Cissy said. “I made grandmother’s crumb topping. That tastes much better.”

I held my phone at arm’s reach, and stared at it, my arm fur trembling.

“Naomi? Are you still there?”

“Yeah, yeah, Cissy, I’m still here.  Um… did you put cinnamon in that topping?”  I held the phone in both paws, mouthing say no, say no, say no.

“Of course, that makes it extra yummy.  My entire house smells of applely cinnamon goodness right now.  It’s almost done.”

Shit! Not cinnamon, too.  “Cissy, turn off the oven. And do not open the oven door.  Do not open the oven door.”

“But I have to. My oven door doesn’t have a window.”

“No! Don’t do it. No!”

I heard a loud scream that was suddenly cut off. Shit, she had opened the oven door.

I sprinted out my door, dialing my best friend. “Julie, meet me at Cissy’s. We’ve got a major problem.”

“I’m busy at work now. I get off at four.”

“Now, Julie, now!” I screamed as I ran a red light, a skidding truck missing my bumper by inches. “I forgot my spell book there, she baked a pie from it, and unknowingly opened a portal to the third level of hell.”

 

* * *

About the Author

Mephitis is a grey muzzle skunk who first encountered the furry fandom in 2000.  Since then he has attended many cons in the southeastern US. His skunk fursuit head sports a blue tuff to capture the punk era he never participated in.  He has a huge skunk collection of plushies, figurines, and everything else you can make skunks from.

Previous published work includes stories in ROAR 11, Crossed Genres, nthZine, and
Bewildering Stories. In additions, he has written three academic books and numerous journal articles that he had to create as part of the monetary acquisition process to support con-going.

by Christopher Zerby

“I stood above him, wings unfurled, but what I saw in his face made me lower them. He was terrified.”

We had a fire going on the roof of the Museum, same as most nights, and I noticed him sitting on the edge of it, across from me. I’d never seen him before. He hunkered down in a big, black coat, holding out his pale, skeletal hands to grab a bit of warmth, laughing a little behind the rest, like he didn’t quite get the jokes. I figured someone must have brought him, but no one was talking with him.

Bang was there of course. So was Chittle, and Peapod, and maybe a dozen others, the usual crew. We had some juice someone snatched, and I felt drunk, maybe straddling the edge of wild. He was the skinniest thing. I mean, we were all skinny. We were made that way to begin with, and we were starving most of the time, subsisting on whatever could be snatched from the Apes or picked out of the garbage. You can’t be too proud. Besides, you can’t fly with too much meat on your bones.

I prodded Bang. “Who’s that? I didn’t see him fly in.”

She shrugged. “Don’t know. But I could eat him up.”

I thought I could too. He had massive brown eyes peeking out under long, dark bangs, and in the firelight his pale skin looked almost translucent. Gorgeous. The more I stared at him the more violent my desire grew. I felt a tickle in my gut, and the warm flush that always started down there.

I picked up my can of juice and got to my feet. I wanted to get over to him before Bang or one of the others made a move. I stretched as tall as I could get, jutting out my bare chest and spreading my wings wide. They all stared. Of course they did. My wings are beautiful, blue-black and huge, the biggest on the rooftop, maybe, except for Bang’s. Peapod gave an audible gasp. I’d been with him before, but I could have him anytime. The show wasn’t for him.

I pumped my wings sending trash and debris clattering across the rooftop, suffusing the air with my scent.

“Knock it off, Senna.” Bang shielded her eyes and shook her wings, a few feathers dancing free in the air, letting me know I was pissing her off. But it was a warning, not a challenge. Everyone else was entranced.

Except the new guy.

Oh, he was staring at me, alright, but he cowered beneath his coat. I tipped back my can and drank, felt the bitter juice burn my throat as a bit of excess ran down my chin, and strutted around the fire to where he sat.

I stood above him, wings unfurled, but what I saw in his face made me lower them. He was terrified. Not my intention at all. Maybe a little awe, a bit of lust would have been appropriate. He was tensed and ready to bolt. Although I didn’t see how he was going anywhere with his wings crammed under his coat.

I wanted him to stay. I held out my can.

“Juice?”

He didn’t move. The others had gone back to laughing and teasing each other when I dropped my wings, but it wouldn’t do to be rejected in front of a crowd. The moment seemed to stretch on way too long. Right before my annoyance tipped over into anger he took the can and drank. His bony hand trembled, from fear, cold, maybe both. It’s ok, I thought. The juice will warm you up and make you brave.

I pushed in next to him. I caught a nice whiff of his scent, felt the desire in my gut and wondered if he saw the flush spreading across my chest, but I stayed composed. I didn’t want to scare him off.

“I’m Senna.” I smiled. Not my best expression, but it worked. He smiled back.

“I’m Eamon.”

He wasn’t as small as he’d seemed hunched down across the fire, but he was emaciated. I could see the sinews in his neck, and his skin stretched taut across his face. I had the urge to fold my wings around him and hold him close in the dark and warmth. If I’d had anything to eat I would have offered it.

We passed the juice back and forth and gradually he relaxed.

“I haven’t seen you before.” I kept one eye on him and one eye on Peapod who was grappling now with another youngling I recognized but couldn’t name. They were playing. For now.

“It’s my first time. On the roof, anyway. I’ve snuck into the Museum before. At night.”

“The Museum? Why?” I didn’t even know what was inside the building. Once, somebody had vandalized the big sign hanging in front, scrawling an “UN” in red paint above the “Natural History.”

Eamon shrugged. I thought he might be pretty drunk already, a skinny thing like him.

“Where do you usually stay?”

He bit his lip, staring into the fire. “In Old City. I had to get out of there.”

I squirmed a little, forcing myself to relax, still trying not to be too aggressive. I sensed it would turn bad if I did, but I could smell him. Sweet and grassy. Fresh and new.

“Old City. Huh.” Old City was full of low buildings and Apes. Not a lot of safe spots. Nobody I knew stayed over there. “Why’d you have to leave?”

He took a long swallow of juice, not meeting my eye.

Peapod screeched and took off running, his bare feet slapping against the cold rooftop. Wings spread wide, he leapt into the air, gathering height with a couple of pumps, circling above the fire. Several other younglings launched themselves into the air, following him.

“Don’t come back without food!” Bang shook her wings and sat back, stretching her legs out so her feet were practically in the fire. Her predatory eyes glinted in my direction, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was staring at Eamon.

He noticed too and I felt him shiver despite the fire and the juice. His big brown eyes glistened as they met mine. He seemed so helpless. He raised his head, pushing against me, finding my lips with his. He trembled as I wrapped my arms around him.

Mine, Bang, mine.

* * *

No way Eamon would have followed me to the spot at the back of the roof behind the big steel vents if he was sober, but we finished the can of juice, I grabbed another off a youngling, and we drank that too. We didn’t talk much. I’m better with actions than words, so I kept sticking my tongue down his throat, and when I pulled him away from the fire, he didn’t fight.

There was a tangle of blankets and old clothes to climb into and the vents blocked some of the wind, so it wasn’t too cold. I was burning up anyway. He stood with his back to the lights of the city as I kissed him and slid my hand along his chest, my fingers tracing his jutting bones, and though he parried my every move, I knew he was warming by the telltale flush on his chest. The air was dense with our mingled scents.

He keened as I worked my way down his neck. It sounded more like pain than pleasure, but when he pushed against me I felt how much he wanted me. I nipped at his ear and he shuddered.

“Take off your jacket,” I whispered. “Let me see them.”

He broke away, taking a step back. Caught up in my own desire I lunged for him.

“No!”

He fought me off and stumbled in the pile of blankets, falling to his knees. He crouched, protecting his face with his bony arms and I stopped, suddenly aware of how I loomed over him, wings wide like I was ready to strike. I folded them back.

“Okay, Eamon. Okay.” I knelt, but didn’t touch him though my body screamed for it. It’s so hard to control. He panted, soft and desperate.

We stayed there for a long time until I grew cold. I settled into the pile, tucked in my wings and draped a blanket over them. After a time, Eamon moved closer and we nestled together. I still wanted him, still felt a little loopy from his scent, but it receded to a dull, lingering ache. There were occasional bursts of laughter from the other side of the roof, and once or twice in the distance I saw the dark silhouettes of flyers riding the air currents above the city as they searched for opportunity, perhaps an Ape out alone on a dark street.

Eamon saw them too. I kissed his neck, just below his ear. “Are you hungry?” I asked. “We could hunt.” I could tell something wasn’t right, but I couldn’t stop myself from touching him.

His huge brown eyes, so close, got hard all of a sudden, distant. He looked at me from a million miles away.

He stood and unzipped his coat. My pulse quickened. He dropped it to the rooftop and opened his wings. I cocked my head, trying to understand what I saw.

They were skeletal things. A few feathers clung here and there like the last few leaves on a dying tree. I stood and moved close. Ropes of lumpy scars crisscrossed the leathery skin, which was puckered and red. There were sores, gently weeping, and although he could move them a little, it was obvious he would never fly.

“What happened?” I felt a little sick, all the juice I’d drank roiling in my stomach. “How did you get up here?”

“I climbed.” His voice was raw and I caught the sour smell of fear and desperation. “I couldn’t stand to be down there any longer.”

I pictured him pulling himself up the side of the building, clinging to the bricks like an insect in the dark. Sneaking over the edge onto the rooftop hoping none of us would notice as he took his place at the fire. He looked so frail standing there with his ruined wings, so insubstantial, like he might blow away in the wind, but his eyes stayed hard, and he thrust out his bony chest in challenge.

“I’ll go,” he said.

Wings beat overhead in the darkness, maybe Peapod and his playmates returning. I hoped they didn’t see Eamon, his wings, his deformity. It would make them aggressive, agitated, that weakness.

I felt a little of it myself, but I shook it off and pulled him to the blankets. I started at his mouth and kissed my way down his body, taking my time, the sharp edge of my desire softened now with something new. I wanted to protect him. Now he was kissing me, hungrily. He lay back and I straddled him, wings spread, slipping him inside me as he began to keen once more.

* * *

I woke, still tangled in the pile, to Eamon pulling on his coat. I reached for him, sleepy, eager for him again, but he pulled away, his long bangs hiding his eyes.

“I have to go,” he said. “Before the others wake.”

I struggled to sit up, my head still muddled, half in dreams. “You can’t go now. It’s practically light out. It’s not safe.” Apes would be all over the city soon, going about their business. They weren’t always hostile to us, but we certainly weren’t loved, and they were strong. A full-grown Ape could shred wings, could shatter our hollow bones.

I’d seen it. A few weeks earlier, a youngling, Crescent or Crystal, something like that, got caught snatching a purse. The Ape grabbed her in midair by the wrist, squeezed and crushed it to powder. She got away, but I saw her that night curled up on the Museum roof, hand dangling useless as she clutched it to her chest. I don’t know if she survived. She stopped showing up.

“I can manage.” Eamon had the hard look in his eyes. “I manage every day.”

“But you can’t…” Fly. I stopped myself as he glared. “Don’t leave. I’ll go out in a while and steal us food. We can stay here.” I gestured at the blankets and gave what I hoped was an alluring smile. “Until dark. Then I’ll see you home.”

Eamon shook his head. “If I stay, you’ll have to fight her.” His voice was low and tremulous.

He was right. I’d seen how Bang looked at him. Things between me and her were coming to a head in any case. She was in charge, but I was on my way up and she knew it. I’d seen her fight a dozen times; she was fast, vicious. I wasn’t sure if I could beat her.

“I’ll beat her.”

He stood, hunched under his coat. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t want to be the cause, either way.”

I followed him over to the edge of the roof, fighting the urge to grab him and pull him back. I couldn’t help some of it. We’re made that way. But I also wanted him to want to stay with me, and I’d never felt that before.

“I’ll come back another night,” he said, slipping over the side. “I promise.”

I leaned over the edge, watching him painstakingly crawl down the side of the building. I was worried at first, but he never faltered, never seemed like he might slip. Despite his disfigurement there was something so strong underneath. When he made it to the street and strode off, coat wrapped around him, I knew I wouldn’t risk never seeing him again. I would follow him.

* * *

I soared high above the city, drafting on the currents, feeling the wind’s icy tongue lick my bare chest, my gut roiling with excitement the way it always did. Flying. It was everything.

I kept an eye on Eamon as he wound his way toward the Old City and even though I stayed distant so there’d be no chance he’d notice me, I never feared losing him. His scent filled my nose still, clung to me, mingled with my own. The flying and the thought of the way he moved inside of me during the night had me inflamed, and I darted and rolled, diving toward the rooftops and spinning away again. I saw others in the sky but they avoided me. They could tell I was aroused and might knock them to the earth in that state, and my wings were spread wide, wider than any of them. They were right to be afraid of me.

It took Eamon an hour to get to Old City, and there I had to be more careful. The buildings were low, Apes were everywhere, and none of our kind were nearby. Eamon seemed confident, however, moving with purpose. He hung to the edges of the street, avoiding the slow gridlocked cars and throngs of pedestrians, and no one bothered him. He was at home, part of the environment.

He turned on to a shabby side street and slowed his pace as I drafted above him. On one side a row of brown tenements squatted close together, separated by narrow alleys. On the other there were tiny houses, shacks really, dilapidated and ugly. Eamon stopped in front of one for a second as if catching his breath, and went inside.

I settled onto the roof of the tenement opposite and tried to get a look inside the squalid little structure that must have been his home, but the curtains were drawn. It didn’t matter. I knew where he lived and I’d approach him when it got dark and convince him to return to the Museum. Meanwhile, I would hunt and sleep.

Hunting was poor in Old City. There were no wealthy Apes with fat purses strolling about, and no tall buildings hugging the streets to be used as cover for a quick snatch and grab. I had to settle for a meal scavenged from the trash, but I didn’t care. I’d eaten worse lots of times, or gone without eating altogether. I made it back to my stakeout spot in the early afternoon, found a tarp on the tenement roof to hide from the bright sun, and curled up to sleep.

* * *

I woke as the sun was disappearing below the tall buildings in the distance. I shrugged off the tarp and sat on the edge of the roof, peering at the little house. A pale light glowed behind the thin, tattered curtains. I relaxed and waited.

At full dark I hopped into the air and landed on the sidewalk in front of Eamon’s house. The street was quiet, no Apes around. It was a moonless night and I felt comfortable I wouldn’t be spotted as I crept to the window. I peered inside through a hole in one of the curtains.

Eamon sat on a low bench, coatless, his back to me. His decrepit wings were open, but hung listlessly, and I felt a warm blush of shame to be spying on him. With his guard down he had none of the defiant hardness he’d shown in flashes on the Museum roof, nor the confidence with which he navigated the Ape filled streets. The sag of his shoulders reminded me instead of the way he’d huddled by the fire and cringed when I’d tried to force myself on him. My shame deepened. I would leave him alone, I decided, and come find him another night. As I turned, I caught a flicker of movement at the far end of the room. Eamon wasn’t alone.

A small, hunched, old man appeared. His smiling face was wrinkled and saggy, and a slack belly hung over the belt holding up his drab grey pants. What was Eamon doing with this tiny Ape?

When he passed from the dim shadows deeper in the room, I gasped. He was one of us. An elder. I thought I might be sick.

He had no wings, just two shriveled, black stumps and his back was covered with the same ropy scars Eamon had, the same puckered red skin. But no sores. His disfigurement had happened long ago.

A disease. The elder disappeared from sight again. Was this Eamon’s sire? Did it pass from generation to generation? Was that why they lived apart from the rest of us in this little hovel among the Apes, hidden away in Old City?

Cold terror gripped me. Was it contagious? I strained to touch my wings, to feel for sores. Was I infected?

The elder returned and set a tray on a small table. Eamon’s shoulders and wings shook, and through the thin glass I heard his muffled sobs. He shook harder as the elder gently rubbed his arm and whispered in his ear. When Eamon finally calmed the elder turned to the tray. He put on gloves, the brown leather stained and rotting, and busied himself mixing a paste in a bowl. He muttered as he worked, adding a few drops of liquid from a glass decanter. He mixed some more and approached Eamon with the bowl and a tiny brush. Medicine.

Eamon began crying again. I watched the elder’s profile as he bent to examine the tattered wings. Help him. Please help him. Despite the fear for myself, I wanted that, more than anything.

The elder squinted with concentration, mouth slightly open. He brought the glistening brush up, flicking his pink tongue to lick his lips. He smiled.

Eamon keened as the elder delicately brushed the base of his wing. The keening grew shrill. The elder’s look made me go cold. I knew it well, a mix of predatory zeal and consuming pleasure. The glistening patch on Eamon’s wing he’d painted blackened and puckered, and the elder’s chest and neck flushed an obscene pink.

My heart pounded as I rushed the door, yanking it open, wings spread wide, forcing my way through the narrow space with a shower of feathers. The elder dropped his bowl and it shattered, splattering his concoction as I leapt on him.

I pinned him to the floor, wrapping my hands around his flabby neck and squeezed until his pink tongue lolled from his mouth as he wheezed and struggled. He reeked of greasy, sour fear, and something else, something rotten below the surface, making me gag as I choked him. He turned purple.

“Stop! Stop it!”

Eamon flailed at my arms and my head but I hardly felt the blows. I tightened my grip. In my rage I beat my wings, knocking Eamon backwards into the table, upending the tray and tools, and he tumbled to the floor, despoiled wings in the air, tattered and vulnerable.

I released the elder who sagged, unconscious, and crawled toward Eamon, ignoring the debris crunching beneath my hands and knees. I pulled his thin body to me and wrapped my arms around him, rocking him back and forth, whispering apologies. He let me for a moment, but pushed me away.

“You shouldn’t have followed me.” He turned his back. “I don’t want you here.”

My body screamed to hold him, protect him, but I forced myself not to touch him. “I don’t understand, Eamon. Why was he doing that? Why would you let him hurt you?”

Outside, somewhere far down the street, I heard an Ape’s cackling laughter. I felt sick to my stomach.

Eamon stared at the floor. “He lets me live here. He looked after me when I was young. Now, I look after him.”

“No. Let him rot. He’s a monster. You don’t owe him anything.”

“It’s none of your business. I can’t just fly up to the rooftops where it’s safe, like you.” He bared his teeth and spread his poor, tattered wings as if he’d strike out, but he dropped them. “I look after him. He looked after me. I look after him.”

The words were mechanical, like he’d repeated them to himself night after night.

“I’ll look after you,” I whispered.

He shivered, his wings quivering. The elder groaned.

Eamon rushed to him and cradled his head. He turned to me: “Help me.”

We carried the limp elder to a dirty pallet in a gloomy corner, and laid him down with a pillow to pad the blackened stumps where his wings had been. He groaned some more. Eamon sat with him, whispering until he sunk into a deep, rasping sleep, then fetched a glass of water and set it beside the pallet. He sat beside me on the bench.

“You shouldn’t have followed me.” This time when he said it his voice cracked, his long bangs hiding his eyes.

“Come with me. Leave this.” I gestured around the small room, cluttered with dusty things, and the broken debris from the brief struggle. “I’ll protect you. I’ll feed you. Come with me.”

“I can’t,” he whispered.

“You can.” A fierce desire rose inside me at his vulnerability, even as it shamed me. I couldn’t help it. I was made that way. “I won’t leave you here with that thing.”

The close air was rich with my scent. It suffused us as we sat on the bench, legs almost touching. He cringed, nostrils flaring. I fought to keep my wings down, to not grab him.

“They won’t accept me.”

“I’ll make them.”

He didn’t meet my eye. “She’ll challenge you. For me.”

Bang. He was still right. She would. “Let her. I’m not afraid.”

Eamon crossed to the elder and stood over him, jaw clenched, the sinews of his neck taut and visible as he stared. Through the haze of my own aggressive desire I caught a whiff of a strange scent, complex, confusing. It held floral notes, a sad longing, even love, but something darker underneath made me scowl. A pungent loathing. The reek of death.

“I’ll go with you,” he said, and there was a terrible grimace on his face, the look I’d seen on so many younglings as they launched forward into a fight.

When he reached out I thought he might wrap his hands around the old man’s scrawny neck and finish the job I’d started, but he just pulled the blankets up a little higher. Now his face was unreadable, a placid mask. One perfected over time.

* * *

We had to trek through Old City because as slight as Eamon was, I didn’t think I could fly him. The Apes let us be; Eamon moved through the city almost as if he was invisible. It seemed to rub off on me as well.

We arrived at the Museum close to midnight. I knew the others were on the rooftop, and Bang would be there. I felt a twinge of fear even as a part of me embraced the thought of her challenge and my wings flexed in anticipation. But when I looked at Eamon, head craning on his thin neck at the building towering before us, I softened. He was exhausted, cowering under his coat, his eyes framed by dark circles. And he had to climb.

“I’ll climb with you.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to. I’ll see you up there.”

I took him in my arms. “I want to.”

We climbed. It was hard, much harder than I’d imagined. Eamon was agile and practiced, clinging to the porous bricks like a lizard, pulling himself over the jutting ledges. I sweated and grunted, struggling to keep pace. Eamon noticed and slowed. We settled into a rhythm, side by side, and the rooftop grew closer.

We were almost at the top when Eamon paused on a ledge to let me rest. I panted and tried to stay calm. I was wearing myself out with the climb. A whoop and some laughter drifted from the darkness. I had to force my wings to stay down. Bang was up there. Soon I’d have to face her.

“You asked me why I sneak into the museum at night,” Eamon said. “When we met.”

I wiped sweat from my eyes. “I did.”

“I look at the exhibits.”

I shook my head. “What’s an exhibit?”

His broken wings shuddered a little, with surprise or laughter I wasn’t sure. “You know. Stuffed animals. They’ve got dogs, foxes, giant cats. One of them has fangs, maybe five, six inches long.” I could smell his excitement. “There are things with hooves, things with horns. There’s an elephant in there, Senna, in the middle of a big room. It has its trunk raised high in the air, and it glares at you. Its eyes follow you everywhere you go.”

I’d heard of elephants somewhere. Big. Massive even. Grey. I nodded.

“But they also have Apes. Stuffed Apes. Some of them are normal.” His voice was disembodied, insubstantial as the wind whistled past. “But some of them, in the back, have tails. Fur. Scales. Long, pointed skulls, giant owl eyes.”

He moved close and I breathed in his wonderful scent. But it was tinged with something sour, something pungent.

“And some have wings,” he whispered.

I felt myself flush and I was glad for the dark so he might not notice. I couldn’t help it, but I was still ashamed. He was trying to tell me something. Something important. My mind was a muddled stew of desire.

“We’re experiments. They made us to be special, to be great, but we’re not. We are grotesques. Mistakes. Fucking mistakes.”

“No.” I shook my head.

“My sire.” He shook his head. “I mean the elder I live with. He told me. He helped me understand.”

I saw the elder, his smile, the flush on his chest. I imagined him plucking Eamon off the street when he was just a youngling, taking him in, making him feel safe, filling his head with these ideas. How could the Apes have “made” us?

“I’m not a mistake.” I spread my beautiful wings, beat them, once, twice, wafting my scent into the air. Let Bang smell it. I wanted to scream. I wanted to fly back to Old City, back to the decrepit little house and rip out the elder’s throat.

Instead, I pulled Eamon to me, wrapping him in my arms. “You’re not a mistake.” I caressed his damaged wings, hidden beneath his coat. “He did this to you. He’s the one who’s grotesque.” It was difficult to push him away, but I did. We had to a little farther still to go.

* * *

I went over the edge of the roof first, a bit clumsy, Eamon slipping over like a whisper to stand beside me. They were all there around the fire, staring.

Bang stood, eyes glittering, and raised her wings. They were large and crimson, a dark, bloody red. The others moved away from her. I took a deep breath and raised my own wings as high and wide as I could. I caught a whiff of her scent, an acrid spice I’d tasted before when she’d attacked others, and fought the urge to cower. I couldn’t show fear.

“You’re back, Senna.” Her eyes flicked to Eamon and she let her gaze linger, showing me disrespect, like I wasn’t a threat. Her chest flushed. “Give him to me.”

I took a step forward, clenching my fists. “No.”

Bang laughed still leering at Eamon. “You want to fight me over him? Why? There’s something wrong with him, isn’t there?” She took a step, pumped her wings. “Why doesn’t he fly?”

I smelled Eamon’s shame like a thick coating of oil in the air. “There’s nothing wrong with him.”

“Liar.” Peapod crouched behind Bang, wings up, eyes glinting. “I saw him last night. I saw it all.”

I wanted to rip his conniving, jealous head off. They all knew.

“Give him to me.” Bang took another step forward shoving a cowering youngling out of her way and kicked at the fire, sending a scatter of sparks into the night. “Or I’m going to take him from you.”

Eamon tried to come forward but I pushed him back. She would rush me, I’d seen her do it so often, and I didn’t want him getting caught between us. My guts roiled. Every cell in my body urged me to attack before she came at me, and I struggled to wait, not to lash out in fear and panic. She was grinning, showing her teeth, like she knew I couldn’t beat her. The others knew it too. I could smell their excitement in a confusing riot of jagged scent.

Bang leapt across the fire, a billow of black smoke rolling with her as she beat her wings and pummeled my face and head. I dropped to one knee as her sharp nails raked across my cheek and a hot wash of blood splattered in my eyes. She was strong. She drove me down onto the other knee but I managed to grab her wrists and we twisted back and forth trying to throw each other over. She spat and cursed. She reeked of musk, which drove my rage into a wild fury. Younglings screeched and danced above us in the air.

She glared, her eyes black and huge, spit flying from her open mouth. I let go of one wrist, and as her nails slashed my face again, I reared back and punched her, hard, in the jaw. Her grip loosened and I threw her down. I grabbed one crimson wing with both hands as I straddled her back and screamed.

“Senna! Don’t.”

I snarled. Eamon crouched before me, huge brown eyes pleading. The air was sickly sweet now, the younglings around us anticipating what was about to happen. Bang groaned. I could feel the delicate bones of her wing.

“Don’t,” Eamon said. “Please.” I stared at him. He was reeling me in, again, asking me to go against my nature. I tightened my grip on the wing, seeing the elder’s face as I’d squeezed his neck. It felt so good.

I slammed Bang’s head onto the rooftop, feeling her go slack beneath me. I ripped some feathers out and threw them into the air with another scream. It was part triumph, part frustration. I wanted to break her, take her place, but Eamon didn’t want me to.

He took my arm, stroking my heaving, blood covered chest.

He led me to the edge of the roof. The younglings followed, gathering around us, wings up and alert. They were confused, not understanding why I hadn’t crippled Bang, ending the fight properly, and they were aroused, dangerous. They wanted resolution.

Eamon ducked past me, unzipping his coat, slipping it off.

“No!” I reached for him but it was too late.

There was silence. I smelled fear. Some of it was Eamon’s, maybe some was mine, but it also drifted across the rooftop from the others. He turned slowly back and forth, spreading his wings, scars visible in the yellow moon light, and a gust of wind ruffled the few feathers he had left, lifting one off into the darkness. I tried to meet his gaze but he looked right through me. He was wearing his mask again. He posed for the younglings, for me too, body rigid and so still, he looked unnatural, unreal.

Peapod stared, lips puckered like he’d swallowed rotten meat, and most of the other younglings looked away, tucking and folding their wings.

I took Eamon’s hand, caressed it, felt his warmth. The mask fell. He looked at me, brown eyes wet, and his shoulders slumped.

I pulled him close, wrapping him in a protective embrace, and pushed off the edge of the roof. For a moment, we dropped. He was so heavy, despite his slight frame. Then I caught an updraft. Pumping my wings, struggling, I gained equilibrium and we rose. Eamon’s lips were against my neck, and his sweet, grassy scent, suffused me. Below us, the city was filled with lights. Somewhere out there, we’d find a place to land.

 

* * *

About the Author

Christopher Zerby is a Los Angeles based speculative fiction writer and a leading expert on imaginary robots. His stories have appeared in The Colored Lens, Five on the Fifth, and Murder Park After Dark. In a previous life he mixed records and drove around the U.S. and Canada in a van playing music. He regrets nothing. You can find him on twitter: @chriszerby or visit his website: https://www.christopherzerby.com/

by Kara Hartz

“How seriously would her report be taken if one of the first alien creatures she described was a perfect textbook fairy tale unicorn? She wasn’t sure she could bring herself to do it.”

Katelyn’s hands shook, making the image through her scope jump and blur. She gave up trying to look. It couldn’t be what it looked like. Well, maybe it could be. This planet hadn’t had a full astrobiology research team here before. She was the first human to set eyes on these animals. But still… no, it couldn’t be.

She’d been so determined not to harbor any preconceived notions about what alien life should look like. She’s wanted to be open to the most bizarre, the most alien beings possible, so she didn’t miss anything, that she’d been taken completely off guard by the so familiar, yet so impossible sight.

Before her lay a green field with a stream running off to the eastern edge, the alien had been standing with its back to her. It looked an awful lot like the hind end of a horse except for the silvery, sparkly tail that shimmered so brightly it almost hurt to look at. Then the creature had lifted its head, with its matching shiny mane, and… the horn. The single golden horn. How seriously would her report be taken if one of the first alien creatures she described was a perfect textbook fairy tale unicorn? She wasn’t sure she could bring herself to do it.

She laid her scope aside and pulled her camera out of its case. It had a tripod, so she wouldn’t need to worry about her shaking hands. She looked up to make sure the alien was still there. It had its head back down, returned to its grazing, but was still there.

“Report in, Number Four,” her radio buzzed. She snatched it up before Jose could ask again.

“Number Four. Subject under observation. Request minimal radio noise until all clear,” she whispered, and then held a hand over the speaker to muffle Jose’s response when it came.

“Understood.”

The unicorn was still eating peacefully, apparently undisturbed by the noise. She let out a breath she hadn’t known she was holding.

She snapped photos and made notes, creeping ever closer. The creature began moving away over a gentle hill in the lush pasture, and she followed. On the other side, the alien met up with a half dozen more just like it. The small herd greeted the newcomer, rearing up, and vocalizing with a sound like tinkling bells. They were so beautiful. Despite the cloudless sunny day, a rainbow formed in the sky behind them. This was totally insane. How was she possibly going to explain this to anyone? Katelyn wasn’t sure how long she stood there, tears welling up in her eyes, but she was proud of herself to at last remember to lift her camera and get some pictures before the rainbow faded.

As she took her photos, one of the aliens, she thought it was the original one she’d followed, turned to look at her. She realized then that she was standing out in the open, at the top of a hill no less. She squatted down, but knew it was too little, too late. But the creature didn’t flee. It approached. As it started back up the slope directly toward her, she stood back up. It paused, tilting its head to look at her with one eye, the sun glinting off its radiant horn. What could it be made of to shine like that? It didn’t look like bone, and it was so sharp!

She found herself walking slowly down the hillside until she and the unicorn were face to face. It gave a small tinkling whinny to her. She let out a laugh, her tears now flowing freely. It was like a dream.

“All stations report immediately. Alert! Alert!”

The alien cocked it head at the radio hanging from Katelyn’s belt. The other members of the herd had taken notice of her now, and were coming to join them.

“Number Four report. Something’s happened to Josh and Amy. Report in now.”

Her most ambitions daydreams about what she might discover doing astrobiology fieldwork didn’t involve anything as breathtaking as these unicorns. She was totally consumed with the magnificent creature in front of her. She held out a tentative hand.

“Katelyn, please respond. Please!”

An alien behind her nuzzled at the radio, knocking it from her belt and onto the grass, and silenced it with a hoof as it stepped around her. Katelyn didn’t notice. She thought the unicorn in front of her was going to put its nose against her hand, but instead, as its head neared, it gave her a gentle lick with its warm pink tongue. It was the happiest moment of her life.

* * *

“We found their equipment,” Jose said to the stern faced, grey haired woman on the small monitor in front of him.

“And…?” She shared his red eyes and tired voice. The whole project team was in mourning.

“All the same story. What they recorded in their notes and what they recorded on film are completely different. They all seem to have been attacked by the same type of small, pack hunting aliens. Really vulgar, vicious things. But their logs all describe other things: mermaids, unicorns, hobbits, and one – a miniature giraffe.”

“Hallucinations.”

“That’s what we think. We aren’t yet sure what caused it though. We scavenged a few… remains.” He looked involuntarily toward the ship’s deep freeze where biological specimens were stored. “Hopefully they’ll give you more information when they can be examined.”

“That doesn’t sound too hopeful. What sorts of remains?”

“Bones mostly. Some bits we aren’t too sure about. But Katelyn’s –” his voice faded, and he had to clear his throat to continue, “skull was found intact.”

“Oh. Umm, good, then.” The woman looked away. “Well, after you set the warning beacons and get on your way, I’ll look forward to seeing you home again. Be safe.”

 

* * *

Originally published in Cover of Darkness

About the Author

Kara has worked with animals all her adult life, from wild animal training at a theme park to volunteering with wildlife rehabs, farm animal sanctuaries, and the local SPCA. She currently works as a Registered Veterinary Technician in Northern California.

Like many writers, it was her love of reading that gave her the impulse to start to write. Science-fiction and fantasy were always the most fun for both.

During the pandemic, she is attempting to grow a garden and learning to play D&D with her family. Both are coming along with mixed results.

She blogs on many subjects at https://karahartz.com/ and can be found on Twitter @karabu74.

by Jason Kocemba

“She was lit not by moon or sun but by light from another world.”

It was late in the afternoon when I stepped out of the loamy dimness beneath the trees and into the brightness of the low afternoon sun. It would soon be hidden behind the cliffs of the valley, creating a premature twilight.

A large animal called out from the trees. I looked back into the gloom but could see nothing. What kind of wildlife lived in this valley, anyway?

I considered going back to Carrie and Billy at the campsite, but it didn’t really matter if I went back now or later: it would still be dark when I got there. Perhaps if I returned later the noisy animal would be gone.

That decided it.

I continued on, hearing the falls as a distant hissing rumble. And then I rounded an outcrop of bare stone and there they were, the Magus Falls: a five-meter-wide sheet of water that fell sixty meters down the cliff. There was the roar as thousands of tonnes of water fell to smash apart into a boiling torrent at the bottom. Tiny droplets of water billowed out as a thick mist, blown away by the water displaced air. A small loch had formed beneath the cliffs which emptied into a river that flowed away to my left. The rocks that were hammered by the deluge were bare, wet and dark. The farther from the water the greener the rocks became: carpets of lichens and mosses covered the tops of boulders and the face of the cliff, thriving in the constant misty damp.

I stood on the path by the shore of the loch and watched the water fall.

On the right, the path curved behind the curtain of water. It was dark under there. Was that a cave behind the falls? If so, I wanted to explore it, but: one, I had no waterproofs; two, no change of clothes; and three, it was already late. Maybe I could convince Carrie and Billy to come back tomorrow with swimsuits and towels?

The mist coated everything with tiny droplets of water, including me. My jacket, jeans and hair were spotted with thousands of them. I licked my lips and they tasted salty and tangy with dissolved minerals.

Then the whole world began to sparkle with golden light.

I looked behind me and saw the sun had lowered enough to touch the rim of the valley, and the last rays of the day shone on the millions of water droplets.

It was like magic.

As the sun sank behind the cliffs, the golden sparkles winked out as the shadow crept across the valley floor and soon the light was gone and I was left in shadow.

I looked up, and there, rising above the undulating surface of the river at the top of Magus Falls was the full moon. It was the largest moon I’d ever seen, it almost seemed too big for the sky. It rose higher and grew brighter as the sun set. The roar of the falls and the misty droplets covered me like a blanket.

I blinked. Long and slow.

My hands felt numb with cold when I wiped moisture from my face. I tore my eyes free of the moon.

The sky was dark. How long had I stood there watching the moon rise?

I glanced at Magus falls and the breath caught in my throat. The moonlight shone through the mist and produced an ethereal bow of silvery light. The edges of the bow faded through the colors of the spectrum to darkness. The curve of the bow reached half-way up the falls and then fell down beyond the dark ribbon of the path.

Not a rainbow but a moonbow. Its light there and not there at the same time. I didn’t want to blink in case it went away.

On the path, under the arch of the moonbow, a shadowy shape appeared from beneath the water curtain. It was shaped like a horse as it walked along the path and away from the crashing noise of the waterfall. When it reached the light of the moonbow, it walked in front of the glow. After a few more strides the shadow-horse stopped. It lifted its head and looked behind it, towards the water tumbling off the cliff. It stood motionless for several seconds. But now, with no change that I could see, the shadow-horse looked tense, as if ready to bolt.

<Danger/death/fear,> came a voice in my head. <Flee/away/run.>

The head of the shadow-horse began to glow silver like the moonbow. Between one blink and the next, the shadow shape disappeared, as if it were never there.

My heart pumped hard in my chest, thumping, thumping as I tried to understand what had just happened. What had been that voice in my head? Was I still in a trance under the spell of the moon?

The moonbow darkened. No longer silver, but redder.

My hands curled into fists. I pressed my teeth together. It felt like someone was tickling the back of my neck as the hairs stood up.

Another shadow appeared under the moonbow and flowed along the path. Its shape changed as it moved. Not once did it look like a horse.

The shadow stopped and I saw its eyes glow like the altered moonbow: a dark muddy red.

A deep growl vibrated in my mind. For a moment I didn’t know what to do. And then I remembered that the other voice in my head, the one that spoke, had told me I should run.

So I ran.

The path back towards the trees and away from the falls was moonlit and easy to follow.

The growl turned into a howl. It was more than a terrifying sound because it was in my head and I could feel what it felt: I felt hunger, I felt excitement, I felt joy and I felt hate. Waves of emotions washed my brain as it began to hunt me.

I ran along the path and into the trees. The path beneath the trees glowed even without the moonlight. I sprinted through the darkness.

Through the mind-link, I felt the shadow-beast reach the place where I had stood near the loch. I could smell my own scent in its nostrils. I felt the saliva fill its maw.

I began to find it hard to breathe. I was running too hard. I had to slow down, I had to, I couldn’t keep going at this pace. I’d exhaust myself and the beast would have me for dinner. I would need my strength to fight if it caught up to me.

<Courage/bravery/grit,> said the voice in my head. <Look/right-ways/observe.>

I looked and saw a silvery light deep among the trees. The same silvery light of the moonbow.

<Come/beacon/follow.>

In the stories, you’re told to never leave the path, but the glow was in the trees and I couldn’t see a path. I slowed to a jog (oh, how I wanted to run and run, faster and faster, not slower) and when I rounded a Rowan tree there was a narrow trail, edged by bushes, leading into the forest towards the light.

The hunger and menace and joy of the shadow-beast pressed into my thoughts.

I would be caught if I stayed on the path, and I didn’t want to be caught. Leaving the path was my only choice, my only hope. I ran onto the narrow trail where branches slapped me, grabbed at me, tried to trip me. A branch whipped the back of my hand. It stung. The bushes were thorny and hemmed me in on both sides. They offered no escape, no place to hide, only ensnarement and scratches. I followed the trail as it meandered through the trees. Sometimes I’d be running towards the light, sometimes to the left, sometimes to the right. Sometimes I couldn’t see the light at all until I made a turn and caught another glimpse of the glow. I had no idea in which direction I was running.

The shadow-beast loomed in my mind as it gained on me.

The trail turned and straightened. A bright light shone through a tangle of thorny branches ahead. I did not slow down, instead, I ran faster. At the last moment, I lifted my arms to cover my face and leapt. Thorns scratched and pierced my arms and legs and belly, my legs got tugged away from under me and then I was falling.

I landed on my arms and belly on soft springy turf. I lay there and gasped for breath.

I could smell blood, as if from the beast’s nostrils, my blood, and from the dark trees there came a howl of manic glee. I scrambled to my feet.

I stood in a circular clearing in the trees. In the middle of the clearing stood a horse. The horse’s shoulders were taller than my head. She was the source of the silvery light. It glowed around her head and flowed in rivulets down her neck and spread across her whole body. She was lit not by moon or sun but by light from another world. The edges of her outline did not seem to stay still, they moved and pulsed as if she could barely keep her shape. She turned her head to look at me and that’s when I saw the horn growing out of her forehead. It was the source of the light, the source of her majesty and power, the source of everything. She was more real, more there, than the grass and the trees. She stood super-imposed on top of reality.

She was Unicorn.

My eyes would not look away from her horn. The light on it pulsed, like breathing. It soothed me. Everything else but the light went away: my heavy breathing, the trees, my aching muscles, the moon, my pain, the shadow-beast that hunted me.

She knelt, one knee after the other, like bowing, and positioned her head to look at me with one eye.

<Mount/live/escape,> she said. An image of muddy red eyes appeared in my mind.

She turned her head so that I could no longer see the horn. I blinked. My breathing stayed calm and easy as I approached her.

The muscles under her pearly iridescent coat twitched. The light played over her curves and shifted like crashing waves. Her mane was white. Jagged streaks of blue light ran down each coarse strand of hair.

I grabbed two handfuls of mane and it crackled. All the hair on my body began to rise as I was filled with electricity.

The hunger of the shadow-beast forced its way into my mind again and pushed aside my newfound calm. I turned and saw, through the tangled bushes, the shadow-beast attempt to enter the clearing. It followed no path but ran straight towards me. It crashed through the undergrowth, snapping some branches, but many, more supple vines wrapped around it so that it became entangled. It heaved itself forward inch by straining inch.

I tightened my grip on her mane and threw my leg over her back. She began to rise, which threw my weight forward, and I thought I was going to fall over the top of her head. The ground already looked a long way down.

Then she surged forward and my body jerked back, my arms whipped straight, my fists filled with her electric mane. I pulled myself forward to lie on her back. As my chest and belly touched her I felt pulled down, attracted to her by an invisible force.

In two strides her hooves drummed out a dum-dumdum canter on the turf.

The shadow-beast roared. The sound echoed in my mind and then a moment later in my ears. I screamed my fear and defiance back at it. Below me, her body vibrated against mine as I heard and felt her answering neigh: loud and strident like a trumpet.

She heaved below me and then I was weightless, I felt like I was falling, but I stayed stuck to her back. I looked down through a gap between my arm and her neck and I saw a tangle of branches below us. And then we were down, and trees, lit by her glowing horn, flashed past in a strobed silvery blur.

Through her mane, I saw another wall of branches ahead. She didn’t slow and she heaved below me and we were airborne again, flying for a long second, and then her hooves struck the turf and we burst out of the forest and into the moonlight. We thud-thud-thudded through the long grass and then we were back on the path.

I saw the moon before us, bright and high in the sky. We were heading back toward the falls.

“No!” I shouted. “The valley, the falls! It’s a dead-end!”

<Straight/winding/turning,> she said. <Past/future/now.>

I could do nothing, stuck as I was to her back. I was not going to fall off. I couldn’t. So I found the rhythm of her gallop and willed my hands to relax their grip on her mane.

<Scent/smell/hunt,> she said with a mind-picture of me. <Forever/chase/kill.> A mind-picture of the shadow straining to escape the branches.

The crashing sound of Magus Falls grew like someone had turned up the volume. The path was a blur beneath us. We ran towards clouds of water mist lit by moonlight.

And in those clouds, I saw the moonbow. It was dim, barely there at all, as it arced across the falls. She headed straight for the center of the arch and galloped faster. Her hooves thudded on the packed earth and then all I could hear was the plashing of hooves on water. Spray soaked me as she ran over the surface of the loch.

The glow around her head brightened and the moonbow responded. It shone stark and bright, as real, as there, as my impossible mount. Rainbow colors projected out from the edges of the bow and painted the billowing mist in reds and oranges and yellows and greens and blues and indigos and violets.

The moonbow and the multi-colored mist shifted color again. No longer silver, but bluer.

The shadow-beast howled. Through the mind-link, I felt anger and disappointment. It didn’t want to lose the prey. All I wanted was for the howl to stop and for my mind to be my own again.

I felt her muscles tighten and bunch under me. They released their power and we leapt under the moonbow’s arch.

The mind-link with the beast cut off in mid-howl, one second there, the next, silent.

There was a moment of spinning, a moment of dizziness, a moment of confusion, a moment of nausea.

Then it was just bright, so bright I had to close my eyes and bury my head against her neck.

We struck ground (not water) and slowed to a walk: clip-clop clip-clop.

I opened my eyes. We were in the bright, late afternoon sunshine. The sun was warm on my skin. I held handfuls of her mane in my fists. There were no sparks. My thighs slipped and I realized I was no longer stuck to her coat.

She walked towards the trees and the roar of the falls diminished behind us.

“Wait, stop. The monster-,” I said.

<Un-truth/shadow-beast/behind,> she said. <Shadow-beast/future/ahead.>

“I don’t understand,” I said.

<Truth/girl-child/wisdom,> she said. <Come/hide/await.> A mind-image of me again. <Wait/clearing/pass.>

I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

She said nothing.

It was cooler under the shadow of the trees. We walked on the path for a while and then diverted onto a side trail (a different one, I think, there was no Rowan this time). The bushes and branches and thorns did not touch her as we passed. She followed the winding trail back to a clearing. She walked to the center and then knelt without warning and I slipped forward, my arms and legs wrapped around her neck. I held on, fearful of falling over her head and touching the horn. Or being impaled on it.

Had this been her plan all along? Maybe it wasn’t the shadow-beast that hunted me, maybe it was her.

<Instinct/truth/perception,> she said <Moonbow/protection/fortune.> She tossed her head and I slipped further. <Live/girl-child/safe.>

I relaxed my legs and fell off the side of her neck and onto the short grass. It was good to be standing on the ground again; to be able to decide, on my own, where to go and what to do.

“Will you-”

She neighed, her message to be quiet was clear, even without mind-speak.

I recognized that neigh: it was the same sound I had heard earlier that afternoon when I had left the trees.

<Observe/girl-child/see,> she said. <Silent/hidden/mouse-like.> She nudged me with her soft muzzle towards the edge of the clearing. I shied away from the horn. I couldn’t look at it. I didn’t want to.

Around a tree at the edge of the clearing, I could see, by some luck or magic, a clear view all the way to the edge of the forest.

And on the path, right there, I saw myself. I was wearing the same red cap, the same blue jeans, the same walking boots, the same orange windbreaker.

It was me. A then-me.

Then-me stood on the path and looked into the trees. Was she wondering, as I had, what kind of animals lived in this valley? Then-me turned away and continued walking, having made her decision to go on to the falls. I lost sight of her as she became obscured by trees.

When I turned, the horn was right in front of me, a meter away and pointed at my chest. It was not glowing and it’s point looked infinitely sharp.

<Go/friends/return,> she said. <Silence/secrecy/ever-more.> The iridescent curving waves moved across her coat flared to brightness. She disappeared right in front of me.

<Girl-child/moonbow/life-gift,> she said and was no longer a presence in my mind.

I stood in the clearing and waited for something else to happen.

The trees around me were evenly spaced and large and old, and there were twelve of them. Between each trunk was the start of a trail, eleven in total. None had branches barring the way. Hadn’t all the trails been blocked by thorns and undergrowth last night? No, not last night, the night still to come. Maybe I wasn’t even in the same clearing.

I chose the trail closest to me and it led me back to the forest path where an earlier version of me had just walked. What would happen if I ran after her, to warn her?

I didn’t do that because that didn’t happen. I had no memory of meeting myself on the path. And if I didn’t remember then it didn’t happen. Right?

I hiked back down the valley to the campsite and my friends. I hurried and so made it back before it got too dark.

“How was it?” Carrie asked from beside the tent. Then she looked closer. “What happened, Jessie? You’re a mess!”

I looked down at the dirt and the grass stains and the bloody scratches. “Yeah.” I laughed, dragged my fingers through my hair. “I left the path and got lost. When I found it, it was too late so I came back. I never even got close enough to hear the falls.”

“Lost in the woods,” Billy said. He walked into camp with his arms full of firewood. “Well, I’m glad you un-lost yourself. Saved us the trouble of coming to rescue you!” Billy motioned at the firewood with his head. “Make yourself useful and grab a log.”

I took several large branches from the top of the pile in his arms.

“Let’s get up early and go see the falls tomorrow,” Carrie said.

“Okay,” I said, thinking of the shadow-beast. “Early is good. It’ll be better if we go together anyway.”

“Deal, as long as you don’t get lost again,” Billy said with a grin. “Now move it, we’ve got marshmallows to burn.”

 

* * *

About the Author

Jason Kocemba lives and writes in Kirkwall, Orkney and is the only male in a household of females (of which 2 are people, 2 are cats, and 1 a dog). He loves stories and is a lifelong consumer and creator of them. He is an optimist and has hope that he will learn from his mistakes (the Court of Self-delusion is still in session and the jury has yet to return with a verdict). If you like, you can find more on jasonkocemba.com.

by Garick Cooke

“For a thousand years the dragon’s children had ruled unchallenged, but a new people had risen in the north, and they brought war to the draks.”

At six months, he ate his sister while they were both still inside their mother.

On the eve of his birth, then, he emerged fat and one-eyed, with the scars of his first fight still on his hide. For the sun-loving draks, a night birth was ill-omened. They were a cruel people, but even among them, infant cannibalism was a thing of the dark past. Thus, doubly ill-omened, he was named Moon-Eye, and he became untouchable.

* * *

In deep time, the skies dimmed and the world cooled. The draks, creatures of light and heat, weakened and dwindled. For a thousand years the dragon’s children had ruled unchallenged, but a new people had risen in the north, and they brought war to the draks.  For many years, the draks fought a long rearguard action, always retreating to the south. But, clannish and no longer fecund, they were defeated piecemeal, until only Moon-Eye remained.

He was then a drak of something over six hundred years, a lean and battle-hardened veteran. In his youth, he fought many duels over his name, and in the long war against the moles, he had been its most savage proponent. His scaly hide, once bright silver, was now scarred and gray. He haunted the hills, preying on any mole who ventured out alone. He carried a saber crafted in the olden times, when the draks still knew how to forge unbreakable alloys. His name became a fearful legend among the moles. But they were many and increasing, and he was alone.

He went south, seeking legends. The fine mansions of the draks had been pulled down, but here and there he found an isolated tower, or a house hidden in the hills, and he took what he could find. Some of the old books still contained the knowledge he needed. The way led ever farther south, farther than any drak had traveled in his lifetime. But, at last, he found what he sought.

* * *

The dragon slept under a mountain.

Time had worn his refuge down like an old tooth, and its approaches were choked with rubble and scrubby trees. Moon-Eye spent three days excavating the entrance. Within, he found a tunnel of dressed stone. He spent another day gathering deadwood to make torches and set off into the interior. In the heart of the earth, far beneath the dead peak, he entered a vast chamber whose extent he could not guess in the blackness. Here the dragon lay prone on a bed of rock, his scaly length seeming endless. Moon-Eye walked all the way around him and then sat down to rest. Then he burned certain herbs he had gathered on the mountainside and said certain words he had read in the old books, and he waited.

It began later, much later, with a creak and a shudder that pulled him out of a dreamless sleep. The ground shivered, and he got to his feet and lit a torch. More time passed. His torch had burned away almost to nothing when the voice came out of the darkness: a huge, ancient thing, as if the mountain itself were speaking.

“What’s this? A starved lizard?”

He raised the torch over his head. Far above, he saw a face looking down. The dragon’s eyes gleamed like liquid fire.

Moon-Eye drew himself up to his full eight feet. “I am Moon-Eye.”

The dragon blew out a contemptuous breath, and Moon-Eye was buffeted by a sooty wind.

“In my day, children were taller. Why have you wakened me? I was dreaming good dreams of fire and brimstone…”

“Your Bat-Winged Eminence, there is trouble.”

And Moon-Eye told the dragon of the centuries that had passed, of the dimming of the skies and the decline of the draks. And he told him of the moles.

“Hmmm,” said the dragon, and fell silent. He had lowered his head to rest on his great forepaws and closed his eyes. Again, Moon-Eye waited. After a time, the golden eyes reopened and fixed on him.

“I have searched far in my mind,” said the dragon. “You do not lie. My brothers and sisters are silent, my children are no more, and there is mischief afoot in the world. You did well to waken me, little one. Now bow your head.” The dragon touched him on the brow with a black talon like a scimitar. “See now, as I do! With the all-seeing gaze of your mind, and not your feeble senses. You are half-blind from birth, but now when your eye falls on the enemy, it will be as if you strike him with your sword…”

The death gaze, thought Moon-Eye. He had heard stories of such things existing in the distant past. He had thought them all lies.

“Go back to the surface and await me there,” said the dragon.

* * *

The following day the ground shook and there was a great crash, as of huge stones shifting, and the dragon emerged from his rocky lair to perch on the mountainside. When he spread his wings, there came a vast creaking sound, like the wind in a forest of great trees.

“It is well,” he said, flexing his pinions. “They will still carry me. Now, I will see about these moles. I will turn over their cities like anthills and dig them out of the ground. Then I will burn everything to a cinder. This world belonged to me, once. The moles will learn to fear me.” He laughed, a sound that caused Moon-Eye’s head to ache. “Now, it is beneath my dignity to crawl over the earth like a snake, but follow me as best you can, little one, and you shall have your vengeance.”

The wind from those great wings knocked Moon-Eye down and flattened him against the stony ground. When he was able to look up, the dragon was a dot in the sky, arrowing away to the north.

He climbed to his feet and began walking.

 

* * *

About the Author

Garick Cooke is a California native but a longtime resident of Houston, Texas, where he attended the University of Houston on a full scholarship, studying Biology and History. He has worked construction estimator for over 20 years. He has four dogs and enjoys writing science-fiction and fantasy in his spare time. He has previously self-published an anthology entitled Similia, but “Moon-Eye” is his first professional sale.