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It’s February, and in honor of Black History Month we have been featuring some of the black authors that are members of the Furry Writers’ Guild. Today will be our last feature for the month, and we will be sharing an interview done with Jakebe T. Lope! He has had stories featured in Breaking the Ice: Stories from New Tibet, Historimorphs, and New Fables. Without further ado, let’s get to the interview.

—

FWG: Tell the guild and our readers a bit about yourself.

Jakebe: My name is Jakebe T. Lope, though I’ve gone by others in my day. I’ve been in the furry fandom since 1996, so I’m pretty sure that makes me a greymuzzle! I’m a long-time writer and blogger — my blog “From the Writing Desk” is a collection of personal essays about the writing process, my journey with mental health, the furry fandom, Afrofuturism, Buddhism, and politics. Currently, I’m writing serialized erotic fiction through Patreon under The Jackalope Serial Company.

FWG: What is your favorite work that you have written?

Jakebe: I’m really happy with “Nightswimming”, the short story I wrote for Breaking The Ice. It was my first published short story, and I really tried to stretch myself to capture the feeling of isolation within New Tibet and what would make anyone want to stay on that frozen hellhole.

I think the writing that means the most to me, though, are the essays I’ve written about mental health on From The Writing Desk. I come from a background with a serious stigma attached to mental health issues, and it means a lot to me to be open and honest about it, and help others who might be struggling with similar issues.

FWG: What do you think makes a good story?

Jakebe: I think any good story has to end with its reader feeling better about the world they’re living in. Even the stories designed to make us uncomfortable are guides for us to pay attention and work with that discomfort so we’re better able to deal with it on the other side. That doesn’t mean a story can’t just be dumb fun, but even light entertainment needs to leave us with the feeling that the world is a rad place, or it could be if we worked for what we believe in. 

It’s really hard to do this without browbeating an audience with some message. I think you need to be honest, fearless, and compassionate in order to achieve it. The best writing fosters that sense of instant, empathetic connection.

FWG: How long have you been in the guild, and what changes have you seen with regards to how writing is handled since joining?

Jakebe: Oh man, I’ve been in the guild for a while — so long I can’t remember when I’ve joined. I think writing has been largely democratized since I’ve joined, and it’s wonderful to see so many new perspectives popping up across the fandom, with so many interesting expressions of what brings us to it. It’s been really encouraging to see.

At the same time, I worry that there’s been a breakdown of the writing community because we’ve stopped listening to each other and become much more ego-driven. In my experience, there’s been less of a willingness to help one another with our craft and the realities of the market. I’d really like to see us return to a spirit of collaboration, guidance, and respect for the craft.

FWG: What does Black History mean to you?

Jakebe: Black history is American history. What my ancestors went through is the shadow side of the version of America we see in our history books and civics classes. A lot of us are shocked about what we’re seeing rising out of our fellow Americans in the current political landscape, but if we pay attention to the history of black Americans and the experiences of other Americans of color, we’d know that these attitudes have been around as long as the Constitution. This IS who we are; we’re just being forced to reckon with it.

At the same time, Black history helps me realize that resilience, perseverance, joy, and a commitment to working for my ideals are all a part of my story. My ancestors passed down amazing values and lessons to me, and it’s a privilege to get to be able to carry those stories and spread them as well as I can.

FWG: Do you feel that your Blackness has affected your writing?

Jakaebe: Absolutely. As a black man in America, you have to make peace with the fact that almost nothing you see is going to be from your perspective. The heroes we grow up watching and wanting to be like don’t necessarily look like us. I grew up queer and nerdy in the inner-city, so I’ve had a really difficult relationship with my Blackness because I’ve never felt accepted by my community. That feeling of being rejected by the dominant culture and my birth culture, of feeling alone and forced to make your own way, it’s always going to be a part of my work. I’m always reacting to that weird tension, of needing to belong but also realizing I never really have, and it shows in my writing. I’m still looking for my tribe.

FWG: Do you feel like the issues that affect the outside world affect your writing within the fandom or not?

Jakebe: They absolutely do. Since I’ve become more politically active I consider it a pretty core part of my job as a writer to find ways to express my perspective to a fandom audience that is largely white. It’s tough, when everyone in the community feels like they’re the underdogs in some way, to have a discussion about privilege or the blind spots they create. Furry literature can be a great way of exploring these sensitive topics in ways that folks are more likely to engage with.

FWG: Do you have favorite Black authors and has their literature affected your writing in the fandom?

Jakebe: YES. Ta-Nehesi Coates is my jam right now; he’s a fellow Baltimore native, and his personal essays have been a North Star for me in so many ways. He’s been killing it on Black Panther, too. 

Octavia Butler has been writing amazing sci-fi and fantasy from a racial lens, and I hope to be able to achieve her level of insight and sensitivity some day. Kindred is such an amazing book. It really shakes your image of American slavery, what it would be like to endure that, and what you would do to combat the forces that shaped it.

There’s three-time Hugo Award winner N.K. Jemisin; there’s Nnedi Okorafor, who also won the Hugo Award for her novella Binti; there’s Daniel Jose Older, who is killing it with urban fantasy through an Afro-Latino lens; there’s Samuel “Chip” Delaney, the great old sci-fi Grandmaster who paved the way for all of us in the game right now. 

It’s a really great time for Afrofuturist writers, and there are so many exciting stories being told that really break out of the traditional sci-fi and fantasy tropes.

FWG: If you could convince everyone to read a single book, what would it be?

Jakebe: I feel weird hyping this book after talking about so many excellent black writers, but if you haven’t read The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle it is really a singular work. It’s both an homage to really great epic fantasy and a deconstruction of it; at the end of the novel, even though everyone has achieved what they set out to do each character is fundamentally changed in a way that makes them — and the world — so much more complicated. It’s a staggering, heartbreaking novel, and I love it so much. Most people only know the movie, but the book is better by an order of magnitude and Beagle deserves so much more recognition than he’s gotten.

FWG: Any last words for our readers and guild members?

Jakebe: In order to be an excellent writer, we have to spend so much more time listening and observing others. Listening and absorbing other people without judgement is an overlooked skill, and I think the time is ripe for writers who can present an honest understanding of others without dehumanizing or dismissing them. In so many ways, our separation between each other is an illusion. Our reality is connection. 

—

You can find Jakebe’s writing on his blog From The Writing Desk and on his Patreon for serialized erotic fiction. You can also find him on Twitter both at @jakebe and @serialjackalope; as well as on Mastodon @jakebe@awoo.space. We hope you found this interview exciting and informative. We hope to continue these features next February for Black History Month as well as find other ways to feature black authors in the guild. If you have suggestions for how this might be done, please contact our public relations officer here. Until next time, may your words flow like water.

 

Join Bernie Sander’s Furs on Telegram.

Thank you for joining our movement! We'll never forget this moment. pic.twitter.com/vrSo3ANAUM

— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) March 1, 2020

This is OUR moment, and if we keep building our movement, this moment will go on until we win and build the world we demand! #NotMeUs pic.twitter.com/mMqoL6vpNU

— People for Bernie (@People4Bernie) March 1, 2020

How we got covered by KQED in A Secret Weapon of the Progressive Left: Furries by Nastia Voynovskaya.

There was no time for breakfast. It would take a miracle to find parking for the Bernie Sanders rally in Richmond CA. We were nearby and already together after a dance party the night before. Now we could see him speak with 11,000 supporters.

Candy, BerryPecanTart and Lux rode with me. Wild Child and Zahi were there, and Apollo Wolfdog, who we didn’t know, made contact from seeing us in the crowd. We were a litter worth of furries in the blocks long line to get in while Bernie’s motorcade passed 10 feet away. The blazing sun and fursuit photos weren’t as big as a wave from the man himself.

His speech praised supporters in attendance like Danny Glover, and Richmond city government officers. Their movement featured in the 2017 book Refinery Town: Big Oil, Big Money, and the Remaking of an American City (Sanders wrote the introduction.) The book followed the path of history that passed beneath our paws.

The rally was in a former Ford factory that helped win WWII while union workers struggled with segregation. The town’s industry then became dominated by Chevron, whose refinery sometimes has fires like one in 2012 that hospitalized 10,000. Sometimes I can watch these industrial accidents with binoculars.

Climate change in action — I saw this scrapyard fire a few blocks from the rally site in 2017.

Chevron’s millions bought the city government for a long time, gaining power over development or costs like liability for people getting sick from pollution. That changed in the 2000’s. Despite being vastly outspent, progressives took power. It was what Sanders hopes to accomplish with his 2020 campaign.

At the rally, the fire was in Bernie’s challenge for a leader who listens to scientists, not climate change deniers, and a message of #NotMeUs. Even a furry could feel a stake in it (such as their high LGBTQ membership.)

Later some online watchers worried that being there in fursuit could make Bernie look bad. But in the crowd, there was nothing but positivity. Kids just old enough to start voting got energized. A candidate for US Congress asked for help with his race. They wouldn’t stop asking for photos.

KQED took one. When I shared it, they noticed all the animal-people sharing it too. That led to meeting the reporter and giving tips on good furries to talk to. This Twitter thread covers how.

This furry news story from 2017 had an optimist point about bringing attention to causes. https://t.co/o8BLdua4bF
I was reminded of it when @ShahidForChange asked me for photos at Bernie's rally today. He said 1 volunteer like this is worth 50 in a crowd. #furries4bernie 1/ pic.twitter.com/DE1bLSQyR3

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) February 18, 2020

I can't speak about fursuiting at rallies, but I've had a fair bit of experience fursuiting at events like make-a-wish or relay for Life, and the positive effect on those people of us being out there and suiting is very obvious. Definitely not the stigma we expect!

— Inkblitz Furnal Equinox! (@Inkblitzer) February 18, 2020

Why Furries For Bernie? Quotes from those at the Richmond rally.

Lux Operon:

Bernie Sanders is a populist candidate, undeniably. He’s an underdog, a long shot. It wasn’t too long ago that he was hosting rallies in barns and backyards with 20 people in attendance. He’s struggled his entire life to be taken seriously. He’s almost like an imaginary character himself? How can we, furries, not identify at least a little bit with that? We all had a life before we came to the fandom, and for many of us it was a less than happy one. We all struggled to be understood and to be treated with respect. When we found our community and found an outlet of self-expression, we could discover who we truly were. The fandom is our pulpit, just like the presidential race is Bernie’s. He’s polarizing? He’s spirited? In another life, he’d be a furry.

If you’re asking me what his fursona would be, I would imagine it’s a secretary bird. Not only does it have the correct hair, but I can imagine Bernie kicking a snake in the head.

BerryPecanTart:

Well, as you know, back in 2017 at Anime Boston, Bernie’s benevolent presence was enough on its own to stop a fight of ultimate destiny between Strobes the Lynx and Jack Skellington. I can only imagine what peaceful reactions he can bring between the U.S. and the Middle East if he became president?

But in all seriousness, Bernie’s message of unity and togetherness in the face of overwhelming odds, from years of ridicule from constantly being on the right side of history, is something that us furries have understood too well. It’s a window of opportunity that has never been bigger in the history of the United States for an openly Democratic Socialist candidate to make it to the White House in over a hundred years.

And as a community that has opened its arms wide to the LGBTQ community and the first to push back hard against the alt-right (whether they been the Burned Furs or Furry Raiders), we understand the stakes better than anyone.

Wild Child:

Bernie means justice in desperate times!

Bernie means removing the crushing boot which the Establishment (Left and Right) and War Industrial Complex (see President Eisenhower’s speech on it) have held against the peoples’ throat for decades. This frees the people to be healthy, happy and live with dignity; Even when diginity is being a talking lion, frolicking with your friends. Speaking of, Bernie is a wonderful specimen of Lion, look at his poofy mane and magnanimous leadership!

Bernie means standing for the right thing, even when it is not popular. Bernie is honorable. Though to be honest, he needs to take off the gloves and confront war criminals like Biden.

The Facebook group Furries for Bernie:

Originally I made this page as a joke between me and my furry friends: wouldnt be funny if Bernie himself had a fursona and was an active member of our fandom? I made a few images that went with the page and slowly I realized people liked the idea! Bernie supports a lot of the ideals the fandom holds: LGBTQ+ rights, educational rights and animal rights. More than just being a supporter of Bernie personally I think the fandom of furries could get behind him for what he stands for.

"A Secret Weapon of the Progressive Left: Furries"

You heard it here first.https://t.co/UvqcPaOTb6

— Shahid Buttar for Congress (@ShahidForChange) February 28, 2020

Watch out for trolls…

When KQED (a PBS/NPR type channel) did a Furries For Bernie tweet, it drew tagging from small trolls who tried to sic big trolls on it. One they tagged is known as a Republican political consultant and deliberate spreader of fake news with 180,000 followers. Recently a Fox “news” story shared it with no news content; it was a naked boost for a twitter troll by major media. It showed how the playing field tilts.

More chat about getting involved. 

Arrkay: I think the Worst Year Ever podcast helped a lot for furries on the left. My brother is campaigning for Bernie on college campuses here in Canada. He was super awkward about furry stuff for years because of Somethingawful prejudices. After the podcast we had some great conversations. He tells me that the Americans abroad caucus is larger than any individual state caucus.

Patch: Why Canada, is it a lot of students and military?

Arrkay: I think students are the easiest to target.

Goku!: The next time Bernie comes to PA, I should really dress up in my rat suit- we could show rodent solidarity for him! Time to get in Brooklyn and have a hell of a time. I’d be perfectly fine just chilling outside and socializing with local citizens… but I wonder if they’d let me inside in fursuit?

Patch: No problem here, they just made me take off my head for a sec, they weren’t checking ID or anything either. Do it and use the hashtag if you do make it to the rally. Make a hashtag sign too, I must have gotten over 100 photos and would have seen more if I remembered to do that. They wouldn’t let home made signs inside but the crowds outside made it worthwhile.

Wild Child: One more reason to support… Bernie makes cruelty against animals a topic discussion more than most politicians, and he has a thriving Facebook page for it and platform policies on humane treatment.

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, please follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon. Want to get involved? Share news on these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for anything — or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here. 

We here at the Furry Writers’ Guild are proud to announce that voting for the 2019 Cóyotl Awards is now open! Let’s take a look at the great works of literature up for the vote.

Best Short Story:

“Dirty Rats” by Jan Seigal (The Jackal Who Came In From The Cold)

“Night’s Dawn” by Jaden Drakus (FANG 10)

“Pack” by Sparf (Patterns in Frost: Stories from New Tibet)

 

Best Novella:

“Minor Mage” by T. Kingfisher

“Love Me To Death” by Frances Pauli

 

Best Novel:

“Titles” by Kyell Gold

“Symphony of Shifting Tides” by Leilani Wilson

“Fair Trade” by Gre7g Luterman

“Nexus Nine” by Mary E. Lowd

“The Student – Volume Three” by Joe H. Sherman

 

Best Anthology:

“Patterns in Frost: Stories from New Tibet” edited by Tim Susman

“Fang 9” edited by Ashe Valisca

“Fang 10” Edited by Kyell Gold & Sparf

 

2019 Cóyotl Awards Voting Form

 

We hope to see many members of the guild come together to vote for their favorite works from 2019. Voting will remain open from March 1st through March 31st so make sure to get in that vote!

Welcome to Issue 6 of Zooscape!

As winter melts into spring, readers and bears alike awake from their hibernation.

Emerge from your cave, dear reader-bear, look around, and see the new stories we have for you to read!

* * *

Dragon Child by Stella B. James

Double Helix by Lucia Iglesias

The Bone Poet and God by Matt Dovey

The Hedgehog and the Pine Cone by Gwynne Garfinkle

As If Waiting by A. Katherine Black

The Adventures of WaterBear and Moss Piglet by Sandy Parsons

* * *

Once you’ve seen these stories—full of dragons and bears; creatures gigantic and minuscule; voyages both out into the universe and inward to the truest self—feel free to withdraw into your cave and read them in deep, dark seclusion.  But don’t hoard them like a dragon, keeping the stories hidden forever in your cave.

After poring over this treasure trove of words, savoring them, and delighting in them, don’t keep them only for yourself—share the treasure!  Share our stories far and wide.  As always, if you want to support Zooscape more directly, we have a Patreon.

Exciting news!

Zooscape has been nominated for an Ursa Major Award!  Thank you very much to everyone who helped nominate us, and if you enjoy Zooscape, please consider voting for us.  Voting is easy to do and open to everyone!

Have a beautiful spring, and we’ll see you this summer!

by Sandy Parsons

“He floated with eight claws extended, sailing his body like a kite, riding the waves between particles.”

Deep in the 100 mm petri dish, WaterBear and Moss Piglet played. Light signaled the arrival of Crystal Robin. She had so many fun toys. “What do you think she’ll do to us today?” asked Piglet. He was a very timid tardigrade.

“Maybe she’ll put us on the Merry-go-Round. We’ll get dizzy.”

“No, I don’t think I’d like that.” The last time Crystal had centrifuged them he’d been a tun for weeks. “I’m still trying to get back to my full size.”

“I like you the way you are.”

Piglet said, “I hope we are always friends.”

WaterBear said, “We are tardigrades, we will always be something. But being friends is best.”

Crystal was looking at the x-rays from yesterday. “I can see inside your tummy,” said Piglet, giggling.

“Is it very Rumbly?” asked WaterBear.

“It’s full of agar,” said Piglet.

“Oh bother, that must be left over from the last time she smeared us on a slide. I very much wish it were something sweet. Do you happen to have any trehalose in you, perhaps?” WaterBear leaned over and wiggled the hairy ridges which covered his snout.

Piglet hopped sideways. “I’ll need it if she freezes us again.”

Crystal talked to them while she fed them their lichens and moss and freshened their water. Her favorite stories were about Outer Space. “I bet you guys will be the best astronauts ever. There’s nothing you can’t survive, so far anyway.” Crystal created more games, fire and ice and pressure so nice. She always told the tardigrades what she was doing but the words were long and often muffled by the sound of lichens being chomped. Once, Crystal aerosolized them. WaterBear and Piglet, floating in the ether, waving eight stubby legs at each other. “Look I’m a Roll-y-Poley,” said Piglet, rolling into a perfect ball.

WaterBear tried it too, but he was a tubby tardigrade and no matter how much he clenched his paws and scrunched his snout to his bottom he couldn’t transform from long into round. He floated with eight claws extended, sailing his body like a kite, riding the waves between particles. When the experiment ended, and he was back in the 100mm petri dish, he felt positively withered, and didn’t shuffle or wiggle when Crystal shared the results. “You did so well, my little menagerie. I wish I could boop your cute snoots.”

“Did you hear that? She thinks we’re cute,” said Piglet.

“I don’t feel cute. I don’t even feel like me today.”

Piglet twiddled his front claws. “Do you want some of my trehalose?”

“No thank you. You’ll need it for the Big spearmint.”

“Wh-what are you talking about?”

“To the stars.” WaterBear pointed a claw upwards.

“I don’t want to, WaterBear. Here have my trehalose. I’ll stay here where its snuggly and moss and lichens are always close to my mouth.”

“Well, I won’t eat it all, but maybe just a taste?” When he finished, WaterBear hopped and scooted and wiggled until he was puffed out like a tardigrade again. Piglet had gone over to the edge, where the medium thickened, watching Crystal Robin’s assistants pack up the laboratory. WaterBear put a paw on Piglet’s back, to modulate the shock of the news to his moss piglet buddy. “All of us are going to Outer Space.”

“Even Crystal? But how will we get the lichens?” WaterBear tried to answer but Piglet scurried, creating trails through the media. “Maybe we can spell out a message? ‘S-o-m-e-t-a-r-d-i-g-r-a-d-e-s!'”

“She already knows we are here.” WaterBear put the three paws to his head. “Think of something else. Think. Think.”

“How about ‘O-u-t-e-r-S-p-a-c-e…N-O-m-o-s-s?’”

But it was too late. Hands clamped a cover on the plate and they jostled and gently sloshed as they settled into a new dark world. Crystal had packed them in foam and the last thing they heard was someone saying, “Rocket Park.”

“I will hold your paw, and whatever comes we will be brave together,” said WaterBear.

Once the 100mm dish was secured to a conduit on the Flange of the rocket, Crystal opened the lid and snuck a few snacks For the Ride. WaterBear tried to pay attention but he was sleepy from the nanoparticles Crystal’s team had spent all week injecting into the tardigrades to track them. They waited a long time for liftoff, Piglet twiddling his claws in between bites of moss and WaterBear taking one last traipse through the 100mm petri dish. Finally, the vibrations signaled the time to leave their Earthly home had come. “Stay by me,” said WaterBear, and they intertwined four sets of claws as the darkness and cold replaced warmth and light. The Flange shook and the conduit opened, and WaterBear and Piglet, media, food and all the other tardigrades floated into the Abyss.

Like reverse popcorn, the tardigrades turned into tuns, but WaterBear, who was even rounder in the middle now, couldn’t make his front claws meet the back ones. “Think, think,” he said, and Piglet, whose voice was muffled by his body, said “What’s wrong, WaterBear?”

“I think I’ve lost my tail.”

“Tardigrades don’t have tails, not even you.”

“Oh, well then, that’s a relief.” He was drying out fast, but still couldn’t form a ball. Then some space lichen smacked into him and his body reacted as it should. He was a tun, and Piglet floated next to him.

“Where are we going?” asked Piglet.

“I don’t know but at least we’ll be together.”

“Forever?”

“Even longer,” said WaterBear.

 

* * *

About the Author

Sandy Parsons writes literary, philosophical, humorous, and speculative fiction. She has studied physics, math, molecular biophysics, and medical science, but only ponders the fundamental nature of reality for fun these days. When not writing, Sandy is an anesthetist and an associate editor at http://escapepod.org/. More information and a list of publications can be found at https://www.sandyparsons.com/

by A. Katherine Black

“A comfortably mild light surrounded her, like that of the Four Moons.  Had night arrived?  Was she outside?  She cracked her eyelids.”

The fur on Aainah’s legs shifted as Jwartan’s tail wrapped around her ankles, seeking to comfort, or maybe to be comforted.  She reached for his hand, unable to pull her gaze from the enormous serpent stretched across the valley below, at the creature that could not be and yet was, and she realized she should be filled with dread.  But it was something else entirely that pressed against her ribs and somersaulted under her skin.  It was exhilaration.

Large as half the village, the serpent oracle was still as stone, impossibly dark.  Dark as all the tales told, rejecting the light of all four moons in the sky, as if this was something one could easily do.

It wasn’t until she and Jwartan broke through the treeline at the crest of the hill and gazed upon the serpent oracle that Aainah realized she’d never believed it was real.  She’d expected nothing but a gathering of boulders, maybe an odd line of fallen trees.  Because it had to be nothing, didn’t it?  Nothing but a tale exaggerated to impossibility, like so many other myths spun by the elders to keep young ones in line.  How could such a thing be true?

Just as no Onaphi could live at the river’s bottom, gripping the fins of sharp-toothed beasts and riding the undercurrents to far away oceans, just as no Onaphi could stretch and weave their fur into wings and take to the sky to battle the fiercest of predator birds, surely no Onaphi could step into the body of an enormous serpent and emerge from its eye with a wisdom so rich it could cleanse the most wretched of souls. Who could really believe such a thing, especially, as her mother had said, when no one alive had even seen the serpent with their own eyes?  Now facing the vast, motionless creature below, Aainah realized she’d expected, hoped, the journey alone would serve as her healing agent, would fix the wrongness that held fast and stubborn to the dark corners of her mind.

Aromas of unfamiliar territory floated up the hill. Odd grasses, dirt too metallic, unknown diurnal creatures hiding with hoards of wilting fruits. Scents wafted into her nostrils from the right and from the left, leaving a gaping hole in front of them.  An odorless void hung in the direction of the serpent oracle, as if her nostrils suddenly clogged with the mucus of sickness whenever she gazed its way.

Craning her ears forward, Aainah heard not even a tiny rustle.  Not the slightest sigh of movement ahead.  The entire clearing appeared as immobile as its giant inhabitant, as if holding its breath.  As if waiting, for her.

If they ran toward it, right then, they might reach the oracle before daylight hit.  Before the birds began hunting. There might have been time enough.

Jwartan gripped her shoulders. Shaking her gaze away from the serpent oracle, he asked that she give them one more day together. A final day.  One last moment of now, before whatever was to be came to be.  Aainah nestled her face in the crook of his neck.  It was her favorite place in the world.  She breathed in the dust of their long journey that clung now to his pelt.  Of course, she said.  She wouldn’t have it any other way.

What she didn’t say, despite the silent urging she felt from him, and from the village now many nights’ journey away, even from the impatient rustle of the trees overhead, she didn’t say she was sorry.  Sorry for this exhausting journey, sorry for this budding excitement at witnessing the oracle before them.  Sorry for being something other than what he wanted her to be. What everyone needed her to be.

Instead she slipped her arms around him and synced her breaths with his heartbeat, holding him close as she looked over his shoulder and through the trees at the Third Moon glistening above.  The Third was her favorite for the same reason it was disliked by everyone else.  It was the only moon whose face could not be seen, whose face was turned out, away from their world.  Toward the stars.

As a young one, Aainah would ask her mother the same question every day before their sleep.  What did the Third Moon see? What was it watching?  Each time her mother swept the question aside with a small but firm flick of her tail, telling Aainah the Third watched nothing at all, because it had no face.  How do you know, Aainah would ask.  Because there is nothing else to see, her mother always said. There is nothing outside the villages and the waters, the mountains and the forests. If the third moon indeed had a face, her mother always said, it would be watching them. Aainah had stopped asking such questions around the same time she decided that there was more to life than her mother knew.  Or than her mother wanted to know.

Curled together under a meager leaf shelter at the top of the hill, Aainah and Jwartan’s throats rumbled in harmony as they moved in hungry rhythm, until sleep insisted on taking its turn.  They woke at dusk, entangled, their dreams slipping away as the suns slipped from the sky.  He whispered to her then, of the future they must have.  Of the future they deserved.

She stroked his whiskers but held back the words dangling on her tongue.  She didn’t tell him that he was her only moonlight, the only beautiful thing in an otherwise bleak existence.  Didn’t try to explain the racing heart that screamed as she woke, screamed at the thought of doing the same work, night after night, of listening to the same stories and seeing the same faces, until every night crept agonizingly on toward a dull and hopeless forever. Her future in the village frightened Aainah to no end, more than the prospect of the oracle serpent devouring her alive, and she knew Jwartan would turn his ears against such a truth.

The final steps of their journey together took longer than expected.  They arrived at the serpent’s tail just as the first sun peeked over the horizon, spreading an uncomfortable warmth across Aainah’s fur as her eyes darted toward the sky, sure there were as many predator birds in this valley as in any other.

Engulfed in the shadow of the serpent’s tail, a tail that stretched higher than three of Aainah, she cursed the stories again.  They never mentioned how to wake this oracle.  Tales of the few who made the journey spent most of their words explaining the restlessness gnawing in the Onaphi’s gut, detailing how they didn’t fit in, how they couldn’t fit in with their tribe.  How they hid in their huts all night or paced the edges of the village relentlessly.  Their tails constantly twitched, even during sleep, and no task offered sufficient reward, no company calmed their minds.  These restless ones left the village long ago to journey to the serpent oracle, to beg for relief from the wrongness that infected their thoughts.  Some emerged from the eye of the serpent and returned to the village, returned to life a satisfied, changed Onaphi. Others emerged only to abandon the village in favor of solitude in the forests.  And there were those hopeless few who never emerged.

Gaining entry to the belly of this oracle might be a test, a trial.  Aainah consciously suppressed the anxious tic in her tail, wondering if Jwartan was watching. She didn’t turn to look.  Instead she kept her ears craned on the puzzle of the oracle, refusing to add fuel to Jwartan’s hope about her, about them.

The serpent’s lack of motion, its lack of breath, was unsettling.  Like the river monsters who lie in wait, still and deep under the surface of a stream, anxious to swallow whatever poor creature wandered too close.  Feeling too much like one of those poor creatures, but not knowing what else to do, Aainah reached out and scraped a claw across the serpent’s solid body.  Her sharp touch made no sound, left no mark. Pressing a full hand to the serpent’s side, Aainah felt an absence of cold, and an absence of warmth.  It was like touching emptiness in solid form.

Sharp pain pierced a finger. Hissing, she jumped back, but could find no blemish on her hand, no spot tender to the touch.  Still, something had bitten.  Or stung.

She turned to Jwartan, to say something, although she didn’t know what.  The serpent’s shadow extended even over him, standing several lengths away, protecting him from the harsh daytime suns.  He, at least, deserved relief from the heat.  He’d done nothing wrong, only volunteered to accompany Aainah on this journey.

So many years of courtship, so many nights on this exhaustive journey, and yet there he stood, at the end of it all, his back turned on her, just as the rest of their village had done.  Just as her own mother had done, when Aainah finally stepped across the threshold into unclaimed territory, bound for the serpent oracle.  Jwartan’s hands were on his hips, tail decisively raised. Fur rested on his spine in resignation, his posture said as much as his silence.  Said all she needed to know.  Come back different, it said, or don’t come back.

Aainah wholeheartedly agreed.

A chirping sound pulled her attention back to the serpent. Three lines of light appeared on its skin, at the level of Aainah’s chest.  Like sticks laid in rows, the lines gradually merged together in the direction away from Jwartan.

An invitation.

One last look at Jwartan. Would she see him again?  She soaked the sight of him in, his soft grey fur, the lovely bold stripes that zigged across his back.  He may have turned on her, as was the custom, but now his ears were slightly, unmistakably tilted in her direction.  His plea from their last dusk together, whispered fiercely as they’d curled in shelter against the setting suns, circled in her mind. He’d tell everyone she’d made it through the serpent, if she’d only turn back then. He’d promised.  They’d never know.

But she would.  And the question would remain.  That unnamed question, rooted deep in her gut, consuming her joy before she could even taste it.  Sucking the color from her future until it was all but a dry field, bleached in the merciless light of the high suns.

Standing at the tail of the serpent, Aainah was now destined for one thing or the other.  To emerge from its Eye a free Onaphi, released from the grip of this restless curse, or to be consumed by the oracle beast.  She spoke inwardly to the Third Moon.  As the Third endured eternal scorn by the rest of the village, Aainah had always offered it her love, secretly. Quietly. She admired the Third, that it continued to rise night after night, to hold strong its place among its kind, despite the ridicule from her village and likely many others.  And now she cast her inner voice out toward the place where the moons hid from the suns.  This time, for the first time, she sent a request.  She asked for a share of its strength. And its courage.

There was nothing left to do now, but go.

Touching the center line of light on the serpent oracle’s side, Aainah found a surprising absence of heat.  The pads of her feet crunched dry gravel as she walked in the direction of the converging lines.  Nearing the turn of the tail and the unshaded side of the beast, she prepared to bake under the suns, and to keep one eye on the sky.  She wondered if the serpent would have her walk the full length of its body sunside, wondered if those who’d never returned hadn’t died in the serpent, but had simply been plucked from its side by some lucky predator bird who happened to be scouting the area.

At the very tip of the serpent’s enormous tail, only steps from the edge of its shadow, a doorway appeared, suddenly, noiselessly, revealing a darkness deeper even than the serpent’s outer skin.  Deeper than anything Aainah had ever seen. She stepped inside.

The floor of the serpent’s belly was slick, yet dry.  Nothing was visible beyond the light cast by the doorway, and that light closed in on itself, shrinking quickly to nothing before Aainah could react.  She stood for many breaths, blind, considering her options.  She might speak a greeting, or she might simply walk forward.  With no other ideas springing to mind, she took a step, followed by another.

Her feet made no sound against the belly of the serpent.  Neither did her breath.  She stopped to breathe deeply, wrapping her arms around herself.  In the soundless void, the rise and fall of her chest offered little comfort. She tried to speak.  Pressing a hand to her throat, she felt the vibrations of her neck, as her mouth formed words that amounted to nothing.  Had the serpent already decided to consume her, beginning with her voice?  Her blood pulsed under her coat, running faster and faster around her insides, as if looking for an escape.

A harsh medicinal scent flooded her nostrils, similar to the crushed herbs the village healer smoothed over cuts, but stronger by multitudes.  She doubled over in a fit of silent coughing.

Sharp stabs hit her feet, releasing a chorus of pain.  She jumped reflexively, and landed at an odd angle, twisting one leg.  She curled into a ball, wrapping her tail around quivering limbs.  An urge gripped her mind.  To run, to search for the doorway and pound on it, to scream for Jwartan.

But then what?

Would he forgive her foolishness, for undertaking a pointless journey?  Would he expect her to be different?  Could she pretend to be different?

Fierce itching began at her torso and spread quickly, wrapping around her body until every speck of skin under her fur burned.  Attempts to scratch caused the burn to build, until it became something barely tolerable.  Was this how the serpent ingested the unworthy?

A wind of cold hit just then, providing a slight relief from the itching.  But this wasn’t just cold. This was a freeze.  Pressing in from all sides, threatening to steal her breath.  As if she stood at the highest snow-capped mountain top, all her fur cruelly plucked away. A fleeting wish flashed through her as her mind grew dim. If only she was instead on a mountain top, bird nests be damned, at least she could gaze upon the Third Moon once more, before her body slipped away.

Her thoughts narrowed, iced over along with her body, slipped from her grasp until there was nothing left but quiet.  Nothing but darkness.  Deep chill coated in heavy silence.  Tipping sideways, she curled as tightly as she could, attempting to trap the last of her body’s warmth as cold enveloped her. If this was the end, it had come so soon.

Feeling fell away. Thoughts cracked.

Jwartan’s face floated in the near void of her mind, his eyes relaxed, whiskers slanted in the expression he sent her so often, secretly, from across a crowded room, in the way he let her know he was thinking of her.  His fur fell away, then, as did his eyes and whiskers, leaving nothing but a gaping emptiness in his grey face, unreadable. Like the Third Moon.  She spoke to the moon, then, and also to Jwartan.  If this was the end, it had come too soon.

Dim light seeped through Aainah’s eyelids, although they remained closed.  She lay on her side, curled tightly, wondering how many breaths had passed.  The cold was gone.  Ideas, memories, feelings, all poured back in.  A comfortably mild light surrounded her, like that of the Four Moons.  Had night arrived?  Was she outside?  She cracked her eyelids.

She was inside a room, windowless, yet somehow lit by unseen moons, or unseen fire.  Floor, walls, and ceiling each curved, one blending into the another, all with the same colorless hue of the serpent’s outer skin.

Standing on shaky legs, Aainah noticed the floor give slightly to her step, like soil would.  Yet this floor was not a gathering of countless grains, but one complete piece.  Circling, Aainah turned her ears in all directions, listening for any sound as she scanned the surroundings.  The serpent might have given her light, but sound was still absent.

Why had none of the stories told of what lay within the belly of the serpent?  The answer laughed within her.  What if they had?  What story could she tell, so far?  Color absent of color, darker than dark, colder than cold, a noiseless room lighted by absent moons or unseen fire?  Her head lightened with the absurdity of it.

Aainah slowed her pacing to stand, waiting to see what the serpent would do next.  As if responding, a doorway opened.  She stepped through.  It led to another room, about the same width, but longer.  A light wind kissed the fur on her tail, and the doorway behind her was gone.

Sound flooded in.  She could hear herself breathe again.  She chuckled.  Her voice sounded strange, different than she remembered it.  She jumped at the appearance of a shape, on the wall next to her.

It was the size of a grown Onaphi, of Aainah.  Through it, she could see the grounds outside the serpent.  It was night.  The Fourth Moon was visible, grinning large and friendly in the sky as it surveyed the scene.  She stepped closer to the opening, just close enough to glimpse the Third Moon.  It was small and blank, as usual, its face looking other places.  Reminding Aainah that there were other things to see.

Scanning the grounds through the opening, Jwartan was nowhere to be seen.  So that was it.  He had already left.  How many days and nights had passed while she lay frozen inside the serpent?

Aainah reached a hand out and passed it through the opening.  The air outside was coarse, draped in dew.  This doorway was real. She could leave.  She couldn’t possibly have reached the eye already, yet the serpent was granting her an exit.  Why?  Was she cured?  No, she was sure she wasn’t.  She felt like the same Aainah.

It was her mother who’d first recognized Aainah’s need for the serpent’s healing.  Aainah may have hid her sorrow and restlessness from the rest of the village, even from Jwartan, but her mother was in the habit of looking deeper than others felt comfortable. The moment she’d shared her idea with Aainah, that she travel to the oracle and address her pain, the words could not be undone, took on a weight and strength only truth could sustain.  Aainah stepped beyond the village’s boundary three nights later.

Before turning her back on her daughter, Aainah’s mother had whispered her farewell, the red stripes under her chin barely moving as she spoke in the same hushed tone she’d used to tell stories to Aainah long after dawn had broken, while her siblings curled together in contented slumber.  As the rest of the Onaphi lined the edge of the village, their backs already turned on Aainah, her mother looked her in the eyes one last time and told her that she would make it through the serpent. All the way to the Eye. And whatever happened then, Aainah would become her true self.  Aainah asked her mother, in a voice too small for her body, “but how do you know?”  Her mother’s only response was a purr, soft and steady—a sound Aainah hadn’t heard from her mother in many seasons—as she turned her back on Aainah.

A line of dryness crept across Aainah’s arm as she pulled her hand back into the belly of the serpent.  She was not done here.  The doorway collapsed at the very moment Aainah’s hand returned.  Shadow appeared in the corner of Aainah’s vision.  An opening, to another section of the serpent.  A familiar tic pulled at Aainah’s tail, but she had no interest in suppressing it this time. The jittery feeling it betrayed wasn’t annoyance, and definitely wasn’t the boredom of village life.  It was anticipation.  A few quick steps, and she ducked into another room within the belly of the serpent.

As if someone had reached into the sky and covered all moons but the Third, this room was dimmer.  The doorway closed behind her.

Like the others, this room was also empty.  Or so it seemed, at first.  A noise behind her made Aainah jump nearly a full Onaphi length and hit her head against the top of the serpent’s body, bending her neck painfully before she fell to the floor.  She stilled, slowed her breathing, and listened.  Rustling.  Just behind her.

On all fours, tail stiff and ears craned, Aainah turned, and came face-to-face with a child.  Small, with a soft pale coat, it crouched against the wall, tail wrapped around its hands and feet.  It shivered, although the room did not feel cold to Aainah.  She breathed in deeply and found an absence of smell, not only of the child, but also of herself.  No whiff of earth caked to her feet, no lingering aroma from the last meal she’d shared with Jwartan.

A black spot decorated the fur around one of the child’s eyes, eyes that seemed too serious to belong to a child.  All in the Onaphi village bore stripes on their coats.  All but one.  The only Onaphi Aainah knew with spotted fur was a strange elder, the Counter, who slept outside the door to the village store room, right in the middle of the blazing sunlight, and spent every night with its back bent, counting and re-counting the village’s supplies.

Fidgeting and prowling the back rows during village gatherings, as young Onaphi do, the youths would whisper, speculate, suspect the Counter had been birthed in another village, far from their own.  This idea remained more story than truth, as adults refused to discuss the matter, and the young were afraid to approach the spotted elder, who only spoke in numbers.

Come to think of it, Aainah was sure the old Onaphi had a black spot over one eye, just like this child.

Aainah relaxed her posture and offered from her throat a soft, pacifying rumble, as she approached the child.  It was indeed young.  The child hadn’t yet grown fangs. How had it survived in the belly of the serpent?  Aainah wondered if its language was similar to her own.

“Do you speak, young one?”

In the blink of an eye, the child’s shivering ceased.  Its tail loosened from its body and raised a few finger-lengths off the floor.  Its ears craned toward her.  She spoke again, lessening the rumble in her voice, to provide clarity.

“Need help, young one?”

The child visibly relaxed and emitted a mild rumble from its own throat. It was starting to trust her.  She took another step forward, but the child slid away in equal measure.  Now wanting not to endanger the fragile bond only just formed, Aainah remained where she was and leaned back on her haunches, to match the child’s posture.

Stories of Onaphi journeying to the oracle were so few, so old, she hadn’t even considered she might find another person within the belly of the serpent, but she supposed it made sense.  Other villages must also lay within journeying distance of the serpent oracle.  But a child?  What sort of village would turn its back on a child?  What sort of child would be sent away? It must have been lost.  Must have stumbled upon the serpent and hoped for shelter inside, safety from flying predators and baking suns.

The child’s tail raised until the tip was visible over its head, as if being startled by a stranger within the body of an enormous serpent was already entirely forgotten, or was something that happened every night.

“Who you are?” Its voice was odd, words confused as a child might do, yet spoken with a clarity that reminded Aainah of a story-teller, of the Onaphi tellers, who stored the lives of all villagers past and present neatly within their minds and let pieces of those lives tumble from their mouths in clear patient tones, to be snapped up by rapt ears and reborn in slumbering dreams.

“Am I?”  Aainah’s throat rumbled in an attempt, she was aware, to reassure herself as much as this child who was not at all childlike. “I am Aainah.”

“Are you, are Aainah, friend?”  Its eyes, intent, almost wise, transfixed Aainah.  Made the small thing look less and less Onaphi.

Studying the unexpected little one before her, Aainah realized she’d only seen people from other villages a sparse few times in her entire life.  She felt her tail raise still and high above her head, as enough questions to fill three store rooms quickly piled up within, waiting at the back of her throat.  Controlling her curiosity with some effort, she said, “I am glad to be your friend.  If you want.”

Purring as it stood, the child walked the few steps between them and bent to nearly meet with Aainah’s nose where she sat.  Its lack of scent was distracting.

“Aainah friend, come with?”

The child giggled as it evaporated into mist.

Tensing, Aainah turned in tight circles, scanning the room.  The child was gone, as was the mist.  Her head felt heavy and light at once.  Her vision lurched.  She stumbled, tripped over nothing but her own confusion, wondered if the child had been snatched by something as unseen as the moons in this place, or if the child had been nothing but a creation of her own mind, a mind that must now be far beyond help’s reach.

A breeze tickled the backs of her ears, carrying with it scents.  Welcome, familiar aromas. Grounding smells.  Of gravel, of weeds and trees.  Of Onaphi, one Onaphi in particular. She turned with caution, unsure whether she wanted to lay eyes on the things she sniffed.

He sat in the doorway, posture tentative, wide eyes fixed on her.

“How did you get in here?” She approached the doorway and sat, opposite him.

“I’ve been waiting outside. It’s been two nights.” His whiskers trembled.  “You look awful.”

She surveyed herself, saw what Jwartan saw. Clumps of fur were missing, all over her body, the skin underneath scabbed and abnormally colored.  Thoughts slipped from her grasp, scrambled too fast around her mind to be caught. She searched his face.  He answered a question she didn’t ask.

“A doorway opened. I thought I was imagining it.  But then I walked in.”

Despite the scents, despite the voice, she wondered if he was real.  Unsure what to do, she began counting her breaths, silently, expecting him to disappear into mist after each exhale.

“Is this part, am I part of the serpent’s test?”

“Maybe. Yes.”

“What has it done to you?”  Tears spilled from his eyes.

She reached through the doorway, smoothed the wet fur on his face.

“It’s over, isn’t it?” His throat rumbled. “Come home with me.”  He leaned through the doorway and rubbed his cheek against hers, reached for her and pulled her into his embrace.  Nuzzling against his neck, she felt everything that was home.  Warmth, stories under the light of the Four Moons, savory fish just pulled from the fire, children racing between rooms and wrestling in giggling piles, sparking laughter in even the most serious of elders.  Jwartan would always be home to her, all that home could be.

“You’re better now.  You’re fixed, aren’t you?”

He was as he always had been, warmth and tradition, just as Aainah realized she was still, she remained, all that she had been.

“It’s not finished.”  She withdrew from his embrace.  “I’m not ready.”

He stilled.  “What’s happened in here?”

Words could not explain.  “Not enough.”

His tail bushed, ears tilted away.  “I can’t wait forever.”

She’d never seen the value in games like this. Especially now, after the freeze, after watching a child vanish before her eyes.  “I understand.”

His shoulders sank.  He looked to one side, maybe toward a doorway. His exit.

“Remember us.”

He stood and began walking, his tail dragging on the floor, as the doorway between them collapsed before her eyes.  Tears clouded her vision.  She’d been too harsh.  He hadn’t deserved that.  A new doorway opened a few steps away.  She immediately walked through.

Nothing like the other rooms, this one was lined on either side with what looked like glistening trunks of trees with slick, silvery bark, like a river-buffed rock, nearly sparkling.  Like ribs.  She was nearing the serpent’s head.  Nearing its eye.

She walked through the ribs of the serpent.

The shining bones apparently protected no organs, no blood, nothing that she could see.  Nothing except her.  As she walked, tall windows opened between the ribs.  Aainah squinted at the bright midday light that poured into the serpent, almost reaching her feet. Though she could see plant life out there, soaking in the nectar of the suns, no breeze trickled through, no scent of trees or grass.

Sitting beneath a tree was Jwartan, holding out a wide bawn leaf in an attempt to shade his feet.  She’d thought he’d be running back to the village, after what he’d said, to join everyone else, everyone who wanted to be there.  Yet, despite his hard words, it appeared he was willing to wait, even to sit fully awake, surrounded on all sides by the blaze of high suns.  For her.

Aainah watched him as she continued through the serpent’s ribs, as he shifted deeper under the tree’s cover, until his face was no longer visible.  She walked until the sight of Jwartan was well behind her, until she’d nearly reached the other end of the serpent’s belly.  Until movement outside snagged her attention and pulled her to the window before any thoughts could be formed.  Two birds glided toward the tree, toward Jwartan’s meager shelter, until they circled above, their wingspans as wide as half the tree’s height, their beaks easily larger than an Onaphi head.

Only Jwartan’s feet were visible under the bawn leaf, and they didn’t move.  Clearly he couldn’t hear the predators. Maybe he’d fallen asleep.  Who wouldn’t in the height of day?  She screamed his name.  Her voice echoed through the belly of the serpent, but clearly didn’t escape the oracle.  She pressed her hands against the invisible skin of the serpent, the skin that showed her love nearly snatched, nearly eaten. Hard as stone, it didn’t budge.  She kicked and slammed and snarled as the birds glided down, down, until they were nearly above the top of the tree.  They would land soon, on either side of Jwartan.  He’d have no way out.  He’d die, in the most horrible way, all because of her.

“Let me out!”

The unseen skin covering the window disappeared, and Aainah fell through, screaming his name.  Jwartan dropped his leaf shade and stood as the birds hollered, their hunt interrupted.  They circled tightly and dove toward Aainah, who lay half in and half out of the serpent’s window.  It was Jwartan who screamed her name this time, told her to run, as he climbed the tree to dive under thicker leaf cover.

The air hissed as it parted, making way for the two birds diving her way.  She scrambled backward, back into the serpent, only a body-length away from death when she made it inside and yelled at the serpent to close the window.

One bird reached her before the other.  She heard nothing as its beak cracked and shattered against the serpent’s invisible skin, now apparently back in place.  The second bird steeply turned upward as the first collapsed in front of Aainah, its skull misshapen as blood quickly spilled into the ground.  She looked to the tree and saw nothing. Jwartan was safe.

Sinking to the floor and wrapping her tail around her shaking limbs, Aainah tried to still her panicked heart, soften the gasps escaping her mouth.  It was over.  All was okay.

But it might not have been.  Look what Jwartan had risked, continued to risk.  For the sake of someone who barely knew how to love him back.

All the windows within the serpent’s belly closed at once, forcing her vision to adjust to the milder lighting. A doorway opened at the end of the room.  Only a few steps away. Darkness, deep silence, lay through the door, offering no hint of the next trial that awaited.

The promise of something more sparked anew within her breast, quieting her heart.  She would continue.  Jwartan’s risks would not be for nothing.  She walked through the door.

Light raised to a perfect dim.  Curiously curved tables scattered around the room and lined its curved walls.  The tables were taller than those they built in the villages.  They held puzzling shapes, like small tools, attached to their surfaces.  Aainah wandered the room, considered whether she should try to touch or move some of the tools. She was examining a table along the far wall when the serpent spoke.

It was the perfection of the voice, ageless, foreign, similar to that of the child but too clear to come from an Onaphi throat, that led Aainah to realize who was speaking.  Its words were hard and exact, like a stone smoothed to perfection in a way no Onaphi could never achieve, in a way only a mighty volcano might accomplish.

“You have done well.  Your body is healthy and strong.  This means you now have one more choice to make.”

Aainah leaped backward when the wall before her sprang to life.  It was as if she could see into another serpent’s head, an exact copy of the strange room in which she now stood.  As if a window had opened to show Aainah not the grounds outside the serpent oracle’s body, but another time within its body.  It showed other Onaphi, one after another, standing within the serpent, nearly where Aainah herself stood. She looked around to confirm she was alone, yet she looked back to the window to see that no, she was not alone.  Despite her head swimming at the experience, nothing could keep her eyes from the stories laid out before her.

A brown Onaphi with white stripes stood before a table.  Its mouth and throat moved in words Aainah couldn’t hear, and then it walked through a doorway, into a room not much bigger than the Onaphi itself.  The eye of the oracle.  It leaned against the back wall, its ears in a resting position, as soft and peaceful as those of children in sleep, and the doorway closed.  More Onaphi appeared on the screen, one after the other.  Some walked into the small room, others left out another doorway, one that led outside.  All of them, each Onaphi, when they left, held their tails high and turned their ears forward, intent on their choice.  Which of those leaving the serpent had returned to their villages?  What happened to those who elected to remain?

The choices of countless Onaphi played out before her.  Each chose one of the serpent’s Eyes, either stepping into the small room or leaving the serpent’s body.  Just as Aainah grew accustomed to seeing these scenes that were somehow happening and not happening in the very room where she stood alone, she froze. A face emerged that she recognized.  She would know that face anywhere.

Aainah left her mother, an elder, back in the village only a handful of nights ago, yet the Onaphi in the scene before Aainah, with her red striped chin, was also undoubtedly her mother, but with a stronger posture, a fuller coat.  Brighter eyes.  It was she who’d told Aainah to seek the oracle, she who’d told story upon story of the few who’d made the journey and returned, yet Aainah’s mother had never mentioned that she’d walked through the serpent herself.

Aainah held her breath as she watched her mother, so young, speak silently to the serpent. So very familiar was her mother’s face, Aainah thought she could almost make out what she was saying.  Almost, but not quite.  Of course Aainah knew the choice her mother had made, so long ago.  And yet…

Maybe it was because she knew her mother’s movements so well that she saw something in the young Onaphi she’d not noticed in the others who’d just chosen their fate before Aainah’s eyes.  The younger version of her mother had made her choice, had walked through the eye that led outside, and while she held her tail high, Aainah noticed the slightest twitch at its tip.  Just once.

Maybe it was from watching her mother so closely during all of her growing up years, to see if her mother would reward her for a job well done or punish her for one of many defiances, that Aainah understood so well the position of her mother’s ears.  They faced forward, yes, but they weren’t as eager, weren’t as sure.  Not craned fully forward with complete contentment and full acceptance.  One ear held back.  Tilted, ever so slightly, still trying to soak in the sounds of the serpent her mother had left.

Aainah’s mother had always seemed so sure, yet she’d felt regret, back then.  Had others been regretful, also?  Had those who stepped into the small room felt just as much regret as those who returned to the outside?

“The time is now, Aainah the Onaphi.  It is your turn to choose.”

Two doorways opened.

“Return to your life, and be assured your visit is greatly appreciated.  Choose the other doorway, and you will leave your home, never to return.  You will travel to another place, far beyond the stars in your sky, where other creatures wait, happy to be your friend. Some there are Onaphi, most are not.  Most will look different, speak different, think different.

“All will be glad to know you.”

Aainah’s tail fell to the floor.  Another place.  Not to return.

Jwartan was still outside, waiting. She stepped toward the doorway to see him standing against the tree again, leaning against the trunk.  He faced another section of the serpent, his profile strong.  His jaw set.  The suns cut a sharp angle past the cover of the tree, spilling heat across his back, but he did not move.  His devotion was clear.  He would endure pain for her, would support her always.  She could walk outside, tuck into his embrace, return with him to a shared future within the village.  He would accept her, she now realized, exactly as she was.  He would never question.  But she would.

She was at the end of the serpent oracle’s journey, and she was still the same Aainah.

“It is your turn to choose.”

Her tail lifted as she soaked in the vision of her Jwartan, standing under meager cover, surrounded by the heat of the blazing suns, waiting for her.  She said only two words, quietly.  His ears perked, tilted in her direction, followed by his head. They faced each other across the barrier of the serpent, across a distance greater than the number of steps it would take to cross. She closed her eyes and dipped her forehead forward, imagining it meeting Jwartan’s.

She left the doorway that led to Jwartan and walked toward the other and through, then leaned against the back wall of the tiny room.  The doorway closed in front of her, leaving all but a small section the size of her face, a window. Pressure enveloped her body, holding her still, yet allowing her to breathe.  Her tail tried to twitch, but it was held fast, curled around her leg.

Watching through the window, she saw the small room, the eye of the oracle, somehow lifted up, pulled away from the serpent, raised until it was above the serpent’s body, as if the eye had grown wings.  The tree that sheltered Jwartan was visible for only a second as the land quickly fell away.  She couldn’t hear her own laughter as birds flew across her vision, apparently unaware of the wonder that was happening at that moment.

She considered, as the land drew away, maybe she’d simply lost her mind.  Maybe she still laid frozen just inside the serpent’s tail. Another part of her, the part brimming with a joy that swiftly lighted her thoughts, decided it didn’t matter.  This journey was worth more than four lives in an Onaphi village, real or imagined.

Mountaintops slipped past, as did the searing light of the suns.  An enormous gray rock came into view.  Though it loomed larger than she could have dreamed, she recognized it immediately.  It was the First Moon.  Her gut shifted as she curved around its rough backside before moving on to the Second, purple and oddly fogged over.  And then the Third lay before her.

She glimpsed its side.  Her tail would have twitched like mad if it could have.  She was about to see its face.  The thing no one saw. The thing her mother told her didn’t exist. But then her mother hadn’t told her everything.  A few breaths passed, and then the face of the Third spread before her.  Her heart swarmed, as broken, discordant parts inside of her coalesced, finally, into something that felt whole.

Dark, dimpled, she could see its nose.  Its eyes.  Facing out.  Facing her.  Behind the Third was a strange pocked thing, with patches of color and soft clouds drifting over.  That must’ve been her home, where children darted in and out of rooms and birds prowled the sky, where her mother remained.  Where Jwartan stood.  Yet the Third didn’t care about such things.  Facing away from the land, away from the mountains, away even from the serpent, the Third only watched the stars.

Aainah now felt pity for her beloved Third Moon, forever stuck in place among its family, unable to accompany her on this indescribable journey.  With her inner voice, Aainah thanked the serpent for freeing her, for sending her to a place where she would not be considered wrong.

As the land of the Onaphi and the Third Moon both fell away beneath her feet, she spoke silently. I will go in your stead, but rest assured.  A part of you travels with me. She relaxed into the serpent’s embrace, as countless stars passed before her eyes.

 

* * *

About the Author

A. Katherine Black is an audiologist and a writer.  She adores multicolored pens, stories featuring giant spiders, and almost everything at 2am.  She lives in a house surrounded by very tall and occasionally judgmental trees, along with her family, their cats, and her overused coffee machines.  Find her on flywithpigs.com or on twitter at @akatherineblack.

by Gwynne Garfinkle

“There were no dog-eared pages, no underlines or annotations. Purple climbed inside and pulled the pages shut.”

This is the story of Purple and Green, two hedgehogs who were the best of friends. They rolled and played on the forest floor. The hedgehogs were spiny and guarded, but they knew how to reach each other. They feasted on berries and mushrooms, bright frogs and luminous snails, while they told each other the funniest and saddest and strangest stories they could think of. Some were stories they’d read in books, while others were anecdotes they’d heard from other hedgehogs or happenings from their own lives. Even calamities that had befallen them became fodder for their stories, offered up for each other’s enjoyment.

Then one morning, Purple found that Green had turned into a pine cone, armored and inanimate. Purple butted her head against Green, but instead of giggling or waddling in a circle or poking Purple with her snout, she wobbled and grew still once more. “Green, please speak to me,” Purple implored. “How did this happen? Did you will it so, or was it done to you? Are you under a spell?” Green didn’t reply. Purple couldn’t tell if Green had a heartbeat anymore, or a heart.

Purple sat with Green for a long time, waiting for the pine cone to come back to life. She told Green funny stories, but the pine cone didn’t laugh. She brought Green mushrooms and berries and the very best snails she could find and laid them where her feet used to be, but the pine cone made no move to eat them. Green’s silence and stillness became unbearable. Purple pushed Green hard with her paws and cried, “What is the matter with you?” Green wobbled, then grew motionless. Purple let out a snarl that turned into a sob.

At last Purple turned to walk away, but she turned back again and again, hoping Green would make some move to stop her. The pine cone didn’t seem to care. Green made no sign that she even noticed as Purple trudged away.

Purple wandered disconsolate through the forest, the vibrant green all around only reminding the hedgehog of her lost and silent friend. Birds chittered and sang arpeggios to each other. She was silent and alone, her eyes heavy with tears. Then an owl swooped down and tried to catch her in its talons, and Purple roused herself from her sorrow and ran as fast as she could. She crouched shivering and miserable under a thorny shrub until the owl winged away, hooting imperiously. The hedgehog worried that the owl might find Green, but she wasn’t near enough to warn her. Purple hoped that at least as a pine cone, Green would be safe from the owl’s predations.

The hedgehog crawled out from beneath the shrub and looked around. She had reached an unfamiliar part of the forest. Instead of leaves and fruit, the trees all sprouted books. Some of the trees, especially the smaller, younger ones, were sparsely leaved with volumes. The more massive trees were loaded with them.

Many books had fallen onto the ground. Beneath the larger trees, the forest floor was carpeted with volumes. Purple glanced at their covers as she walked over the books. Morocco leather bindings mingled with lurid paperback covers. She idly riffled the pages of one book after another. Some books appeared pristine, while others seemed to have been well-thumbed, even underlined and annotated. She wasn’t sure if these had been read on the ground or if intrepid readers had climbed trees to peruse them. She thought some of the books might contain stories that Green would enjoy, and then she remembered her loss afresh and began to cry. Her tears fell onto the book covers, and she dried them with her paws the best she could.

One book drew Purple’s attention. It was a paperback with green leaves and purple flowers on the cover. The hedgehog nosed it open. There were no dog-eared pages, no underlines or annotations. Purple climbed inside and pulled the pages shut. She wandered the forest of letters, black trees against an off-white sky. The words sheltered the hedgehog against the pine cone’s silence. Purple called Green’s name, and it echoed off the page.

The book held the hedgehog in its paper embrace, enveloped her in its clean and slightly musty smell. It rocked her to sleep. Stories sidled through her dreams, and she thought Green might be there too, flitting among the tales. First there was the story of a mother’s deep, winter-causing grief when her daughter was stolen away to the underworld; when the daughter returned, her mother’s rejoicings brought spring to the land. Next was the story of a lover transformed into a snake, then a fire, then a lion—biting and singeing his beloved as she held on—until at last, due to her determination, he turned back into himself, and not a wordless, eyeless tree.

Purple already knew these two stories, but the third was new to her. It was the tale of an inveterate reader who died before he could read the last chapters of a gripping novel and who spent his afterlife amid the book’s characters and situations, trying to figure out how it ended. He tried out tragic endings and happy ones, endings improbable and rote, until at last he happened upon the perfect ending, both unexpected and inevitable, and he was able to rest satisfied.

When Purple woke, she wandered deeper into the maze of words, towards the book’s heart, her own heart, the world’s heart. Green was part of that, whether the pine cone knew it or not. Purple became convinced that Green did still have a heart, whether or not she had a heartbeat. The book-forest was dotted with the small shrubs of the and and and but, the great towering trees of circumstance and loyalty, the bright flame-like flowers of grief and surprise. The words were beacons. The words were companions. The words were heartbeats, urging Purple on.

She kept thinking about the final story in her dream. She thought that Green would like that story, about the reader trying to find the ending to the book. I believe that Green is still alive, Purple thought. Even if she is silent and still, we are still alive, and our story may continue if I don’t give up.

At last the hedgehog came to a clearing and saw Green. Was she still a pine cone? Purple moved closer. Green stood alone in the empty space between one chapter and the next. Her spines—was Purple imagining?—no, it was true, her spines quivered ever so slightly. Green was a hedgehog again! She looked up at Purple. Something about Green’s eyes made Purple hang back, but all of Purple’s words rushed forth to say themselves. She told Green about the owl, and the forest of books, and the three stories. “But nothing seems real unless I can tell you about it,” Purple said. “Green, can you hear me? Are you yourself again?”

For a long moment she feared it was all for naught. Then Green waddled closer to her. “Yes, Purple, I can hear you,” she said, “and I am myself again, my friend.” She told Purple the story of her imprisonment in the form of a pine cone, able to hear but not reply, able to see her friend and the forest around her, but unable to be a part of any of it. She said she had turned into a pine cone twice in the past, before they became friends.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Purple asked.

“It was the one story I could never bring myself to tell you,” Green said. “I hoped it would never happen again. When it did, I heard you trying to reach me. I wanted to tell you not to go, but I couldn’t. It was a kind of death in life. Finally the spell ended, and I looked everywhere for you. I feared that you had given up on me and gone so far away that I would never find you.”

“I would never do that,” Purple said, reproaching herself for running from Green when her friend had needed her most.

“At last I came to the forest of books,” Green said. “I found this paperback and climbed inside. I got lost amid the shrubs of the and and and but, the great towering trees of circumstance and loyalty, and the bright flame-like flowers of grief and surprise. Finally I came to this empty space between chapters to rest, and you found me.”

Purple wept for joy. Her happiness was so intense, she felt it could bring spring to the land. Together the hedgehogs made their way out of the book and found their way home. After that, they frequently visited the forest of books, where they met other readers who ventured there. Purple and Green combed through many volumes on the forest floor in search of the most beautiful stories to share with one another. And when, in the course of time, Green became a pine cone again, Purple stayed by her side and told her stories as she waited for her friend to return to her once more.

 

* * *

Originally published in Lackington’s.

About the Author

Gwynne Garfinkle lives in Los Angeles. Her collection of short fiction and poetry, People Change, was published in 2018 by Aqueduct Press. Her work has appeared in such publications as Strange Horizons, Uncanny, Apex, Through the Gate, Dreams & Nightmares, Not One of Us, and The Cascadia Subduction Zone.

by Matt Dovey

“Choosing your own rune is… is the act of choosing who you want to be. It’s the moment of knowing yourself and defining yourself. Of finding your place in the world. But I don’t know who I am yet.”

Ursula lifted her snout to look at the mountain. The meadowed foothills she stood in were dotted with poppy and primrose and cranesbill and cowslip, an explosion of color and scent in the late spring sun, the long grass tickling her paws and her hind legs; above that the forested slopes, birch and rowan and willow and alder rising into needle-pines and gray firs; above that the snowline, ice and rock and brutal winds.

And above that, at the top, God; and with God, the answer Ursula had traveled so far for: what kind of bear am I meant to be?

She shouldered her bonesack and walked on.

* * *

There was a shuffling sound among the bracken, small but definite. Ursula hesitated, a dry branch held in her paws, her campfire half-built. Ambush wasn’t unheard of—so many bears sought God on the mountain that bonethieves couldn’t resist the chances to steal—but it had not been so large a sound, and she couldn’t smell another bear beneath the pine scent. It was something smaller, lurking in the dim light of the forest floor, behind the massive rough-barked firs that filled the slope.

“Hello?” she ventured, still holding motionless. “It’s quite all right. I’m building a fire, if you’d like to join me.”

A badger stepped out from the ferns, his snout twitching and cautious, a stout stick held warily in his paws. He eyed Ursula for a moment, weighing up the situation, and she gestured ever so gently to the fire she was building, trying to come across as safe, as friendly. As likeable.

He straightened and walked forward. He kept the stick before him, but Ursula understood. Bears could be dangerous.

Two more badgers followed him, one much smaller—”Oh, you’re a family!” said Ursula. “I’ll make a seat for you!”

She stood, turned, dashed back, dropping to four paws in her enthusiasm. She ran to where she’d seen a fallen log not twenty yards away by the river and hauled it back, her claws dug into its softened bark, dragging it and dropping it by the fire pit with a thud. She grinned at the family, proud of her resourcefulness—

The badgers cowered, the two behind the father with the stick, who tried to meet her eyes but couldn’t help glancing away for places to burrow and hide.

Ursula lowered herself slowly to sit. She made a point of picking up smaller twigs to lay on the fire, the least threatening pieces she could find. “Sorry,” she said quietly. “I forget how I can come across. Please. Sit down.” She concentrated on building the fire, determinedly not looking at the badgers, not wanting to startle them, trying not to let their fear hurt her nor to berate herself for getting carried away and upsetting others. For letting her shyness get to her: for overcompensating for it.

If only she knew who she was, instead of pretending so poorly.

“Thank you,” said Father Badger from the log, and Ursula smiled at him, keeping her teeth covered. “Forgive us our caution. We… have never met a bear before.”

“I’m Ursula,” she said.

“My name is Patrick,” said Father Badger, “and this is my husband, Willem, and our new daughter Ann.”

“And how old are you, Ann?” Another careful smile, friendly not fearsome, benevolent not bearlike.

Ann shuffled a little and squirmed in closer to Willem, who put an arm around her.

“She is a little shy,” said Willem. “We only met her an hour ago.”

“She’s why we came up the mountain,” said Patrick, smiling at his daughter. “Willem and I came to ask God for a blessing, and we found Ann burrowed alone beneath a root.”

“God showed you to her?” said Ursula eagerly, forgetting her calm façade in her excitement. “Is she near?”

“We never saw God,” said Willem, “and now we have no need. God has delivered us our gift already.”

“Oh,” said Ursula. “I mean, I’m happy for you! I really am. I just…”

“You hoped she would be near?” finished Willem.

Ursula shrugged, not trusting herself to speak. She put the last branch on the fire and hooked a claw around the strap of her bonesack, bones rattling inside the plain leather.

She felt, rather than saw, the badgers tense.

“You’re a bonethief,” said Patrick, voice flat and accusatory.

“We were warned of your kind on the mountainside,” said Willem, pulling Ann in close.

“They’re not my kind,” said Ursula carefully. “I don’t do what they do.”

“You carry the bones,” said Patrick. His paw lay on the stout stick, though if she truly were a bonethief it’d do him no use. She admired him that bravery, that certainty in his actions.

“Not all bears that carry bones are bonethieves,” said Ursula. “There is so much more that can be done. Please. Let me show you.”

She reached into the bag and started pulling bones out, laying them on the floor, runes up. She spoke as she did, her voice low and even, trying to defuse the situation she had accidentally escalated again. “Every bone is from a family member. They’ve all passed down to me, bit by bit. This one here was Aunt Maud’s, this one Uncle Arthur’s, that there is my Great-Grandma’s right arm. Every bear carries four runes on their body—well, usually, by the end… anyway—four runes carved into their bones. One is carved on the left thigh bone at birth by one parent, another on the right thigh by the other when they consider their child has come of age.”

“How?” asked Willem, still cautious, but curious too.

“Bear claws are sharp,” Ursula said. “I would show you with mine, but I don’t want to scare Ann.” She tried a smile again, only a small one, tentative, but Ann responded in kind. “My parents cut through my flesh to carve their chosen rune on my bones. Their words hold me up everywhere I go, even this far from them. My father gave me HOME at birth and my mother gave me WATER. It helps me miss them less, as if they’re with me wherever I am.”

The bones were all laid out now, and Ursula began to choose from them. SUN, from Great-Great-Uncle Morris. WIND to cross it: Grandma Oak’s breastbone.

“The third,” she continued, “is given to us by God, shaped on our breastbone from the very moment of our conception. None of us ever know our breastbone rune. It’s only known when we pass our bones to our family.” She began to lay the bones before the fire pit. SLEEP, the next.

“And the fourth?” asked Patrick.

Ursula paused. She kept her voice flat when she answered, trying not to let any emotion into her answer. “The fourth we carve ourselves, on our right arm.” She chose WAKE from the pile, and put it in place:

A hot gust of air blew towards the campfire and it flared into life, awakening to a satisfying crackle. A gentle, sleepy warmth washed over Ursula, and she smiled to herself in satisfaction, then began putting bones back into the sack.

“I’m a bone poet,” she said. “The bonethieves only ever work towards violence and supremacy. All the bones they steal are only to help them steal more bones. They never think of all the better ways bones can be used.”

“How do you know what to choose?” asked Ann. Willem looked down at her in surprise.

“Well, the contraries must share something to bind the square together but have a tension that will give it power, and the neighbors should resonate in sound or form to amplify it, and the whole has to work to the purpose. I suppose I know what to choose because I know my bones well, what I’ve inherited and what might work.”

“No,” said Ann. “How do you choose what you carve on your own arm?”

“Oh.” Ursula picked a branch up, nudged at the fire with it, re-arranged the piled sticks to get them burning better. She mostly only knocked it over. “That’s… that’s what I want to ask God about.”

“Why?”

Ursula stared into the fire. How to express it? How to encapsulate the paralysis of choice, the fear of choosing wrong, the strange position of not knowing yourself?

“There is power in four,” she said, still staring. “Four bones combine into a poem of purpose. All of them interact and reinforce each other. I have to choose my own fourth rune carefully so that my purpose as a bear is strong. But how can I choose the fourth when only God knows what my third is?”

“So you go to ask,” said Willem.

Ursula nodded, feeling small, shrunken by her uncertainty, so unbearlike. “Choosing your own rune is… is the act of choosing who you want to be. It’s the moment of knowing yourself and defining yourself. Of finding your place in the world. But I don’t know who I am yet. Other bears just seem to know, but me… I try to be what I think other people need me to be, but it feels like everyone wants me to be something different, and every time I think I know which rune I should choose something changes my mind.”

“It is admirable that you worry so much about others,” said Willem. “Perhaps you should worry more about yourself, though. It sounds like this should be about you, not about the world.”

She prodded at the fire again. It felt—strange, to vocalize what had been churning and building in her head for so long. Stranger yet to be telling it to a badger cub. She looked up to smile at Ann, not a calming smile, but a real smile, a vulnerable smile, a—

Patrick had raised his stick, and was looking past Ursula. She turned, frowning, staring into the gloom of dusk that swam through the trees. There wasn’t—no, a glint—eyes reflecting flame—then a snarl, and Ursula’s fur bristled in alarm, and a sudden gust of icy wind extinguished the fire and knocked the badgers backwards.

Bone magic.

Bonethief.

“Run!” shouted Ursula to the badgers. She scooped up her bonesack and went to run too, but Ann was so small, and ran so slowly, too slowly, and Ursula realized the badgers would never escape.

She dropped her bonesack and began digging through it for bones. She only had to slow the bonethief enough for Patrick and Willem to get Ann underground, then she could run too. She couldn’t risk her bones. The bonethief ran forward on all fours, bones held in his jaws: he was a huge grizzly, bigger than Ursula, his fur matted with green-brown moss and sticky sap.

He pulled up at the sight of her bonesack—not in fear, she didn’t think, but in avarice.

“So,” he growled, low and fearsome, “you’ve been thieving round here for some time.”

Ursula drew herself up tall, her fur raised, trying to make herself seem confident and sure. “I have not. I’m no bonethief.”

“Quite the sack of bones you’ve got there for a bear traveling alone. Or are those little badgers your companions, and not just a snack you’re luring in?”

Ursula risked a glance back at them—Ann had stopped to watch, and was refusing to be pulled away—and it hurt her to worry they might believe him for even a moment. Surely they already knew her better! But she had to seem strong and bearlike now: she couldn’t show any concern for smaller creatures in front of this other bear.

She lifted her snout. “My family has entrusted them to me and my skill. I am a bone poet.” She said this with as much pride as she could in the hopes it would impress the bonethief, forge a connection between them and allow her to talk herself out of this without any conflict.

But it did not. He laughed, a deep roar, a bellow of mirth that shook needles loose from the pines. “A poet? What fresh scat is this?”

His mockery stung, but not just because she’d failed to impress him. No, it stung because she was proud to be a bone poet, she realized. She was proud of the things she could do. She was proud of the connections she could make between bones.

She was proud of the way Ann had looked at her as she explained. She was better than this thief.

“I’m more deserving of these bones than you’ll ever be.” Her voice now was angry, not by choice, not to elicit a response from him, but because she meant it.

The thief grinned back at her, exposing his fangs. “Doesn’t matter if you deserve them. Only matters if you’re strong enough to keep them from me.” His paws moved to his bones, and he began laying out his square.

Not enough time to think, only to react. Ursula grabbed bones from her sack almost without thought, going by touch and instinct, and laid them out in a square:

The soil beneath the bonethief fell away like melting snow and the exposed tree roots started to twist and writhe, a tangle of wood squirming with life. The bear stumbled and fell into the trap, snarling, swiping at the roots as his back legs sunk into the soft ground.

Willem was scrabbling at the earth, burrowing, as Patrick stood before Ann with his stick held out. It’d do no more than scratch the throat of the bonethief as he swallowed. His bravery brought her heart to her throat.

The bonethief roared. “Stupid sow! I’ll take all your bones! I’ll rip yours from your flesh!” He grasped at the roots, hauling himself out of the loose mud.

Ursula rifled through her bones again. She had to do something else to slow him down, so she could—

No. She had to do something to stop him. If he didn’t get her bones, he’d chase someone else’s. He’d eat other small mammals he came across, hurt other travelers. But she was a bone poet, and she could outthink him. She could stop him here.

The bonethief was free of the earth now, arranging his small clutch of stolen bones to send another blast of icy wind; she could see the runes from here, WIND and WILD and STRONG and ICE. She chose her bones with more care, though no less speed:

Her square burst with light, and even knowing it was coming it was all Ursula could do to shield her eyes, positioning herself to protect the badgers. The bonethief was less prepared—staring greedily at Ursula, at her bonesack—and the full flash of light blinded him. He yelped in agony, in surprise, as the sight was burned from his eyes. If she had done enough he would no longer be able to read the runes on bones. She doubted he could recognize them by touch.

But he, too, had finished his square: and he was closer to her this time, and the blast of wind gusted hard. With her paws raised to shield her eyes from her own blast, Ursula was unbalanced, and she was knocked backwards, down the slope, all her bones scattering in the chill wind, and she rolled and fell towards the river and into the river and knocked her head and—

* * *

Icy water splashed at Ursula’s snout. Slapped at it, even. She stirred, groggily, and opened her eyes to a salmon flopping on her face. She swiped at it unthinkingly, knocking it away, then groaned as she realized how hungry she was.

With an effort, she hauled herself from the river and shook the water from her fur. In the dim light of dusk it was difficult to tell how exactly far she had fallen down the mountain, but the ground around her sloped only gently, covered in tall grass and meadow flowers closed for the night.

She was as far from God as she had ever been, and she no longer had her bones. She no longer had her friends—oh, she hoped Patrick and Willem and Ann had gotten away! Surely they were small enough and quick enough to avoid a blinded bear?—and she was not sure she had hope, either. It had taken days to ascend the mountain before, when she had her bones to intuit the way and catch leaping salmon and all the other little helps her poems gave her. Could she do it again now? What if another bonethief found her? Even without her bonesack to steal, she could be killed for her own bones.

But what else? Go home, and never know who she was? Never know who she should be? Could be?

Ursula pulled herself to her paws, cold muscles rasping, and dragged herself up the slope.

Walking on all fours in her exhaustion, her head bowed, the sun long set, Ursula trudged through the forest, stumbling wearily into alders and birches, knocking some over with a creaking, snapping shock of sound, loud in the silence of the night, stirring birds from their sleep in a panic. She fell into an atavistic trance: cold, hungry, determined, focused only on the ascent, forgetting even why she climbed, lost wholly in her drive to get higher, higher, higher.

So it was that she became aware of the light only slowly.

The color of it was the first thing she noticed. It was too blue for dawn. As she lifted her head to look closer, she saw the strangeness of the shadows—flickering, oddly angled, moving with each tired step like a broken branch swaying in the wind.

And she looked up at last, and saw a sleek black bear walking beside her, smaller, lither, and glowing gently.

“Hello Ursula,” said God. “Would you like something to eat?” God gestured towards a clearing, where three salmon hung by a small, crackling fire that could not have been there a moment before. Had the clearing even been there?

Ursula lumbered forward and fell onto her haunches by the fire, snatching one of the salmon with a swipe and chewing it in silence, still lost in her animal exhaustion. God busied herself with the trees as Ursula ate, shaping branches with a touch and humming softly as she did, new leaves sprouting where her claws danced.

“Have I—” said Ursula, once she had eaten, warmed, returned to herself—”have I walked so long I am at the top?” She looked about at the trees, but they were still broad-leafed, of the low slopes.

God smiled up at a rowan; she reinvigorated one final branch with an upwards stroke, stretching on her hind legs, then sat down before Ursula. She exuded—contentment.

“No,” she said, her voice high and clear like birdsong at dawn. “I am rarely at the top. It’s so desolate up there, beautiful as it is. The point of the mountain is only to see how determined pilgrims are. Patrick and Willem could never have ascended above the snowline, but they climbed so far on such small legs. If they had that devotion in them, if they were so driven by love, then Ann could do no better than their care.”

Ursula’s throat tightened in fear for the badgers. “Did they—are they—”

“Yes,” said God, “they are fine. You did enough. Thank you.”

Tension flooded out of Ursula like meltwater. The thought had weighed heavy, but—but they were well. She hoped they would be happy together.

“I believe, by the way,” said God, “that these are yours.” She reached behind where she was sat—where there had been nothing but grass and fallen twigs a moment before—and produced Ursula’s bonesack, clearly full.

Ursula lurched forward with a gasp, snatching the bag quite before she could comprehend the rudeness of what she had done, and to whom she had done it.

“There are,” said God, “a few more bones in there than before. You will be a better keeper for them, I think.”

Ursula’s breath caught in a sudden clench of nervousness, and she lowered the bag. So long spent climbing the slope, anticipating this moment, and now she couldn’t get her words in order. There was so much to say, such an entwined web of emotion and expectation and duty and hope and thought and fear that she couldn’t possibly order it anymore, couldn’t untangle it to find the starting thread, couldn’t do more than hold the whole concept of what she needed in her head at once, complete and connected and indivisible.

But she had come all this way, and perhaps if she just started. “About bones—”

“I know,” said God. “Of course I know.” And she smiled again, and stood up and walked over and hugged Ursula tight. Her glow expanded to surround them both, and the contentment too.

She spoke in Ursula’s ear. “The rune on your breastbone doesn’t matter. You can complete your own poem without knowing. You don’t need to know who you are to choose who you want to be. You don’t need to let other people’s choices in your past define your future. It doesn’t matter what I wrote when I made you in the swirling potential of the Before, when the path to your existence and that rune was laid in the What Nexts—it only matters what you feel now.”

“But I need to finish the poem of my bones! If I don’t choose the right rune to complete the four, to complement the three I’ve got, my purpose won’t be as strong as it could be!”

“Ursula, you are not a poem, you are a bear,” God admonished. “You do not have to be a purpose—you are the purpose. You are who you are, not what you can offer.”

God released Ursula, held her shoulders in her paws, smiled at her through brimming tears and a face filled with pride. “The words you have on your bones already were only meant to get you this far, when you could decide for yourself whom you wanted to be.”

Ursula choked back a sob, but the dam burst anyway, and she cried into God’s shoulder. With relief, with possibility. With acceptance.

God held her there a long while, as the sun rose and the earth warmed and the flowers opened to the sky.

“What do you think you will choose, then?” asked God. “I will help carve it, as an honor to you, and as thanks for saving the badgers.”

Ursula looked at her bonesack, and thought of all the poems waiting in there, all the combinations and implications and things that could be. And now, with the new bones, there were so many more possibilities, so much still to see and learn. So much still unknown.

“I don’t know,” said Ursula. “I don’t know at all, yet.”

And for the first time, that answer gave her contentment.

 

* * *

Originally published in Sword and Sonnet.

About the Author

Matt Dovey is very tall, very English, and most likely drinking a cup of tea right now. He has a scar on his arm where his parents carved a rune into his humerus: apparently it was BISCUIT, and yes he would like another digestive, thank you for asking. He now lives in a quiet market town in rural England with his wife and three children, and still struggles to express his delight in this wonderful arrangement.

His surname rhymes with “Dopey” but any other similarities to the dwarf are purely coincidental. He has fiction out and forthcoming all over the place; you can keep up with it at mattdovey.com, or find him time-wasting on Twitter as @mattdoveywriter.

by Lucia Iglesias

“…most families have a fossil or two protruding from the stone walls of their parlors. Often framed, pressed under a pane, long-dead cephalopods in glass coffins.”

I stepped into the bath. The stone floor sloped, a gentle helix, spiraling me into the steaming pool. Water beaded the cavern walls, as if the entire bathing cave were strung with pearls. Stepping through veils of steam, I spiraled deeper into the pool.

At the center, I was waist-deep. As water seeped into my pelt, I felt like a lodestone, water drawn to me like iron filings, turning my fur black and dragging at my edges. Sinking in, I found the sloping path with my fingertips and sat on its rim, water right up to my chin. Steam hung above the pool in gossamer sheets, so thick I could only see one pool beyond mine.

I closed my eyes and rested my head on the slick stone, letting the water creep between the hairs on the back of my neck. The smell of sulfur was thick in my throat, the smell of silver and geysers and fire in the belly of the earth.

I was hungry. I had been hungry for six days. Nothing made it go away. Mushroom steaks, lichen cakes, chicory coffee by the potful, even a fine filet of chanterelle. There wasn’t a delicacy in the entire cave city that would still my stomach. I kept catching myself daydreaming about his fingers.

* * *

Grettir has starfish fingers. I once told him so when we were out tickling amethyst anemones in the tidepools of the subterranean sea. He didn’t like it, but it’s true. He has heavy hands, fingers long and tapered, golden skin that’s always dry. Hairless. When I take his hands in mine, he flinches, tickled by the thick fur bristling round my fingerpads.

Cunning starfish fingers. Out at the tidepools, I used to collect specimens for him to sketch: a bucket brimming with ivory barnacles, indolent snails, indigo mussels, prickly limpets, spindly sea stars, and anemones balled up like angry fists. In his sketches: every spine and armored shell realized in hard charcoal. Every line, every shadow, every highlight alive. I have never seen Grettir throw away a sketch. He doesn’t throw away so much as a line. Every stroke is heavy with intention.

* * *

To distract myself, I dipped my face in the quicksilver water, watching the ripples melt lazily away as I shook sparklets from my eyelashes. Underwater, I ran my fingers down my arms, combing out the fur with my fingernails. Then I did my legs, my belly, my back. It felt good to get my fingers in my fur, combing through the knots. Sometimes it feels like I’m a sack of skin stitched too tight to my bones. Hot water and a good combing can loosen the seams.

I rubbed my back against the stone for a good scratch and felt my fur catch. When I cursed and wrenched away, I felt several hairs ripping from my skin. With my fingers, I traced back over the place and found a spine rippling the smooth stone. A fossil. A helix of lithified bone. Ammonite.

* * *

All he’s been sketching lately: spiraling shells locked in stone. Not uncommon in the cave city—most families have a fossil or two protruding from the stone walls of their parlors. Often framed, pressed under a pane, long-dead cephalopods in glass coffins. But Grettir likes the undomesticated specimens: ammonite on alley walls, or in the southern subcaverns still untouched by urban sprawl.

I watch his cunning fingers speak the specimens to life in charcoal and light. A language only he speaks—language of lines, loops, ellipses, sickle moons, sweet ratios—a symphony in black and white.

He gives his nub of charcoal to me so he can brush his hands clean and hold the picture up to the light. He angles it so the rays skating down a nearby sky-shaft skim softly over the page. It’s perfect. The ammonite on the page: alive in light and shadow. The ammonite on the wall: dead. Entombed in echoing stone. He holds the drawing out to me, fingers fanning off the page until he holds it between pinky and thumb.

“For you,” he says, his voice settling like dust on the cavern hush.

* * *

I pushed off the wall and stood up. Fed by springs boiling up through the earth’s veins, the pools never cooled, and I could already feel a film of sweat hot on my forehead. My stomach growled.

Angrily, I shook the water from my pelt, spinning so the spray pinwheeled out around me. I clamped my hands over my belly, crushing it silent, even as static electricity spooked the hairs around my fingerpads. The fur on my stomach stood up, dark spindles shivering in the steam.

This six-day-old hunger.

* * *

“For you,” he says again, holding out the picture to me. “You’ve had a hard week.”

I look down at my left hand, the half-healed crescent where my sister bit down to the bone. Six days tender. Red ridges wrinkling my fur. It’s hard looking after her, half-grown but all wild, nothing like I was at that age. As if the bear in our blood weren’t thinned with human, as if our forebear bore her, not our six-generations-great grandmother.

My sister, with her white pelt and our father’s blue-black eyes. All I want is to gather her up in my arms and tell her sister-secrets. But whenever I try, she shakes me off and paces the edges of the parlor. She hasn’t been allowed out since the biting.

“Trade you,” Grettir says, nodding at the nub of charcoal sticking out of my right hand. He holds the drawing out so that they almost touch, the charcoal and his index finger. That cunning finger, long and tapered, skin thin and golden, blue veins pale and fine as candyfloss beneath the surface.

I bow my head over our hands—his extended finger, the charcoal stick, thick and crisp—as if for a kiss.

I can’t help myself.

I take a bite.

 

* * *

About the Author

Lucia Iglesias holds a B.A. from Brown University and is pursuing her MFA in Fiction at the University of Kansas. Home is Oakland or Iceland, depending on the time of year, and she is a friend of cats everywhere. Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, Shimmer, Liquid Imagination, Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, The Bronzeville Bee, and other publications.

by Stella B. James

“Four years have passed now, and no one has come to claim her. I doubt anyone would believe a little girl has survived in these mountains within the dragon’s lair.”

From the mouth of my cave, I can see the destruction; thick pillars of smoke, almost black in color. I can hear the cries of many people, men and women alike. The villages are being pillaged, the castle under siege. I lay my head back down with a snort and close my eyes. Those silly humans have nothing better to do than allow their greed to consume them.

I hear her panting before I can spot her, and a man warning her to fall back. They are more foolish than the humans down below. Who would dare enter my dwelling? I haven’t bothered them in decades, why do they test me? I sit up on my haunches and give myself a shake, my wings spreading out behind me.

An aged woman falls to her knees at the mouth of the cave, clutching something to her chest. A man follows, a soldier from the look of his bloodied armor. I eye them with curiosity. It doesn’t seem like they have come to challenge me. But they couldn’t expect to seek refuge here either. What could have made them desperate enough to climb my mountain?

“Dragon.” The woman gasps out the word, her breathing still labored, but it isn’t spoken out of fear. No, it almost sounds like a plea. I straighten and glare down at her, letting a small stream of smoke dispel from my nostrils. She bows her head as the man wrenches her back to him, his hands clasping at her shoulders.

“It isn’t safe here,” he warns in a harsh whisper. I shake my head and chuckle in amusement. It isn’t safe anywhere at the moment.

“I have come to ask you a favor!” the woman cries out to me, ignoring her male companion. I cock my head to the side. Now this is interesting. I’ve been demanded my riches, my magic, even my death. But never asked. I nod my head once and she continues, “The princess is all that has survived. You must protect her. She’ll be our last hope.”

My eyes survey the mouth of the cave, but I see no woman, or girl. I’m not sure how old this princess is supposed to be. The woman seems to understand my confusion. With outstretched arms, she places a bundled up cloth in between us. I eye it for a moment, and then glance back at the woman. I’m tempted to set her on fire for whatever trick she is trying to play. But then the bundle moves.

It wriggles this way and that until a little hand snakes out. The cloth falls away, revealing a tiny face and wide eyes the color of emeralds. The princess is but an infant. Smooth skin, soft flesh, and dark, wispy curls. How am I to protect such a scrawny creature? She has no fur to warm her, no scales or teeth to defend her. She doesn’t even have wings to make her grand escapes.

The woman takes in my wide eyed caution and bows her head again with a barely audible please escaping her. I glance back down at the little creature, who simply waves her hands in the air as spit bubbles raspberry out of her mouth. With a grimace, I move my head down to inspect closer. The woman falls back on her bottom, the soldier having left her to jump in front of the swaddled youngling.

“You won’t harm her!” he shrieks, brandishing his sword. I snarl down at him, letting him have a good look at my pointed teeth.

“Do others know you are here?” My voice comes out on a growl, and he takes a step back. The woman moves in front of him and shakes her head.

“No one saw us. I’m sure of it.” Her hands clasp together in front of her, offering me her silent prayers. I close my eyes and sigh out in defeat.

“Flee from here and never return. I will keep the princess safe.”

The soldier casts a worried glance towards the princess, and then back to me.

“And if they come for her?”

“They would be foolish to come here. But if such an event were to occur, I’d make sure they’d learn not to make the same mistake twice.”

He nods his head at my answer and takes the woman by the hand. She allows him to drag her away, but before they are out of sight, she turns her wary eyes to me.

“Her name is Esmerelda.”

They disappear and that is when the tiny being decides to cry. I scrunch my eyes and flatten my ears best I can. I scoop her up in one claw and bring her closer. Her crying stops once she spots me, and her eyes shimmer with the remaining unshed tears. Her eyes are more beautiful than any jewel in my possession.

She wriggles herself free of the blankets and falls onto all fours. I snort in amusement as I watch her crawl in her clumsy way, much like a newborn dragon would. I don’t know anything about humans or the way they grow. I know their hatred, their greed, and their violence. I know their screams, their terror, and their taste. But she is none of those things. She is still pure.

Her green eyes take me in, and she gurgles out some made up language I can’t understand before her face breaks out into a smile. She reaches out to touch me, and I bring my snout close to her hand. My little princess is brave, that or completely foolish. Perhaps a little of both, but only time will tell.

“Oh, Esmerelda, what have I gotten myself into?”

* * *

She does this nearly every day. Her fingers grasp the lower branches, her feet find the rounded knobs. She pulls and pushes, grunts and gasps. She is getting faster now, her hands and feet having memorized the way. Her favorite branch sits thick and proud, swooping down where it meets the trunk.

She sits on the branch and scoots herself sideways toward the middle. I pretend to busy myself with my inner musings, but I’m aware of her every movement. Once she finds that perfect flat space of the branch, she moves to a crouch, and spreads her arms.

I hear her whisper, a small promise under her breath. I can do this. And in one swift movement, she pushes off from the branch. Her body sails into the air before bringing her back down. She doesn’t have the sense to scream. My brave little fool fears nothing. I stretch out my wing to catch her, and she rolls into my side.

She grips my scales and climbs up to my back, her hands and feet having memorized this as well. She climbs to the top of my head and peeks over until her head is level with my eye. She bares her teeth at me and growls. I let loose my own growl, but she simply sticks her tongue out and slides down my snout. She balances herself on the very end, her legs dangling on either side, and sets her chin on my scales.

“When will I fly?” Another daily habit. Oh, how she wishes to fly. She loves my wings. Even after I have set her in the furs of her bed, I will wake up to find her curled up in the soft leather of my wings.

“When you grow wings.”

She sighs, a small pout forming. “And when will that happen?”

“Maybe never. Not all dragons have wings.”

She sits up, steadying herself by leaning forward on her small hands. “You said the same thing about scales and fire breathing.”

I chuckle softly. She is quite inquisitive. “And it’s true.”

She slumps back down, the disappointment evident in her expression. “I make for a lousy dragon.”

“You’re the most beautiful there ever was.” And this is the truest statement I’ve ever spoken. Her hair is like midnight, her eyes shine in their emerald glory, and her spirit is wild and stubborn. She is more dragon than I at times. And she is mine. For the moment, my mind whispers.

Four years have passed now, and no one has come to claim her. I doubt anyone would believe a little girl has survived in these mountains within the dragon’s lair. I don’t know if anyone would recognize her for who she truly is. Or that she would recognize them as one of her kind. I dread the day when she stumbles into the world of humans.

* * *

It takes her another three years before she accepts that she is indeed a different kind of dragon. One devoid of scales, wings, and breath of fire. She is no less fierce for it. She lets her nails grow long to have claws like me. She grinds flowers and berries into clay, smearing the concoction along her face and arms to match my coloring. She bares her teeth and growls when angry. Her temper is as hot as the fire that flows from my mouth.

She wears the pelts of animals I have killed as her dinner. She still cannot bring herself to kill them, though she knows we rely on them for sustenance. Neither the wild nor the dragon she has grown to know could ever erase the purity of her soul. Her secret sweet loving nature only I am privileged to witness.

Her imagination has grown wild these days. She discovered the castle in the distance for the first time this morning. “What is that?” she asks, pointing to her true home.

“It’s called a castle.”

“Like the place in your stories?” I nod my head, turning back for the cave. She sprawls out on my back, her eyes studying the clouds above us. “Does a princess live there, like in the stories?”

The hope in her voice stills my heart. Do I tell her the truth?  “I wouldn’t know, Esme.” Yes, I am a true coward. But she is still too young, I tell myself. It makes me feel a little better.

“Maybe we should check. She might need saving.”

I sigh out and shake my head at her as if she has exasperated me. “She wouldn’t want us to save her.”

“Why not? We’re plenty strong.”

We stop at the mouth of the cave and I feel her slide off my back. She walks around to face me, her fists planted on her hips.

“And we’re dragons. Humans fear dragons. Humans save other humans.”

“Well, can’t dragons save humans too?”

“If there is a dire need to,” I say. She nods once at this, seeming pleased, and strolls into the cave. She makes me proud, and I find myself murmuring aloud, “Sometimes, we can even love them.”

* * *

The year passed by in a blur, but Esme’s curiosity only grew. I had ingrained in her the dangers humans could pose since she had come to me. Oh, but my stubborn little fool just can’t help herself at this traveling party that passes near our mountain. They are not from these lands if they brave coming this close to my lair.

Esme has seen plenty horses in her eight years of life, but never the tamed ones. She watches them, fascination in her eyes as they pass by in a steady trot. She ducks down further at the voices of the men, and I am relieved she has heeded my warnings. She looks bored until the party stops, and a woman steps out of the coach.

The woman is dressed in fine clothes, her dress a dark scarlet. Her hair is pinned up, but she takes this moment to let it down. Esme touches her own hair, her fingers barely able to pass through the snarled ends. The woman laughs, and it sounds like a rain shower of small bells. I am also almost as enchanted by this woman as Esme seems to be.

The woman speaks to the men a moment longer before climbing back into the coach. They crowd together, passing some type of drink between them, before setting off once more. Esme stays hidden in the grass long after they have left. I notice her restlessness later that night, and the way her hand constantly strokes over her wild tangles.

* * *

The tree she once tried to fly from is now her quiet place, the place where she daydreams. She stares at the castle and imagines what lays behind those magnificent walls. If only she knew that she is of that castle, having been born behind those very walls. I haven’t the heart to tell her the truth of what dwells there now. Knowledge of an enemy king who cut down her family would dash her fairy tale musings.

She demands to know more about humans, especially the ones we saw. “What is the one with the long fur called?”

I stall, not wanting to reveal the truth to her, but I am also her only teacher. I cannot lie. “That was a woman. A human female.”

“I have long fur on my head.”

I nod my head and watch her as she weaves flowers together in a sort of crown. If only she knew of the true crown that awaits her. “Because you are also a female.”

Her fingers continue working the small stems, bending and twisting. Her eyebrows furrow together as she mulls over my words. “And she did not have scales.” I let out a noncommittal sound of agreement. “Or wings.”

“And?”

She looks up at me, her emeralds sparking with their realization. “She is just like me.” The words cut through me. She has finally realized what she truly is. Will she learn to fear me now?

My next question weighs heavy on my tongue, but I must ask. “Do you think you’re human too?” She smiles as she holds up her completed crown, and I lower my head to the ground. She places it on the tip of my ear and stands back to admire her handiwork.

“No, I think you were wrong. She is just another pitiful dragon, like me.” The relief is overwhelming, and a small guilty part of me knows I should correct her. But perhaps she doesn’t wish to be human. Her soul is wholly dragon. I nuzzle her cheek and close my eyes.

“No, Esme, you are truly one of a kind.”

* * *

Esme ventured closer to the castle as she neared her ninth year of life. She became bolder in her investigations. She still believes she is a dragon, but humans are her newest obsession. She studies them from afar, as she doesn’t trust them yet. I hope she never trusts them.

* * *

She was picking berries the day they found her. The men shouted to one another, about the wildling they stumbled across. They asked her name. She answered honestly. Her greatest teacher forgot to teach her the value of a lie. It didn’t take long for them to put the pieces together. The lost princess, they gasped. I wish I could say I was there to witness this, but I only found out through hushed rumors.

Her shrieking is what alerted me. My Esme never cried out in fear. My heart pounded, the fire in my chest raged, and I charged down the mountain. But they had her on horseback, galloping away, and if I attacked them, she would perish with them. I would have to bide my time.

* * *

They have her placed in the tallest tower. I peek into her window, the moonlight aiding me in spotting her. Her skin is a creamy white, her hair smooth as it fans out against her pillow. She looks just like the princesses I told her about. She has found her rightful place.

I turn to leave her, knowing that despite the heartache it will cause me, this is what is best for her. But she somehow spots me in the darkness. I hear her sniffles and turn around. She leans out as far as she can to touch me, and I place my snout close to her hand, just as when we first met.

“They washed away my scales,” she whimpers out.

“The smoothness suits you.”

She holds her hands out and hangs her head. “They cut my claws.”

“You won’t need to fight here.”

She looks back up at me, and fists a chunk of her hair. “They tamed my fur.”

I can’t help the chuckle that escapes me. My insistent little fool. “Then make it wild again.”

Her hands fall in front of her, her fists clenched into tiny balls. “I look like the humans.”

My heart stalls, then thunders in my ears. It is time. She must know the truth, and I’d rather her hear it from me. “That, my child, is because you are one.” The tears that stream down her face are silent and slow. They glisten in the moonlight, leaving fresh paths along her cleaned cheeks.

“Did you steal me?” The fear in those words break my heart. Does she think I am evil? Have the humans already filled her head?

“I saved you.”

She raises her knee, as if to climb out of the window. I back away, but it doesn’t stop her. With both knees on the ledge, her hands grasping at the sides of her window, she pleads, “Then save me again. I want to go home.” She will be the death of me.

“Esme, this is your home.” I nuzzle her cheek before whipping away into the night.

She calls out to me in the darkness, but I don’t turn back. As much as I want to tear off the top of that tower and scoop her up, I know I can’t. It is like the old woman said. She very well may be the kingdom’s last hope.

* * *

Nine years have passed. Nine long, lonely years. I tried to leave this place, to make a new home for myself. But what if, I ask myself, what if Esme comes back? No, this is home until the day she takes her last breath. I haven’t seen her since our last goodbye at the castle. I wonder what she looks like now.

I’ve heard stories, stories of her beauty and her strength. I’ve heard grumblings of her stubborn nature and her refusal to stay indoors. I’ve heard the whispers, of her obsession with dragons and wildflowers. I often sit by her tree and stare at her castle. It doesn’t sound like she has changed one bit, but there is nothing to indicate that she misses me. Has she forgotten me?

“Dragon!” I hear a female’s voice bellow out, echoing against the walls of my cave. It sounds angry and fierce. No one has risked challenging me in a long time. What woman would dare come here? Unless…

A tall, lithe woman, clad in armor meets me in the middle of my cave. Her hair sways behind her like a thick inky waterfall as she marches closer to me. She takes in the interior, her eyes studying the walls and the markings Esme long ago carved in as a child. Eyes that flash with their emerald glint. Esme.

“Why have you come, dressed as a warrior?”

“I have come to kill you!” It comes out as a roar, much like mine when in battle.

“Is that so?” I am goading her, but I long to hear more of her voice.

“Yes. My Coronation Day is next week, and if I am to prove to be a reliable ruler, I must slay you.” Her voice is nothing like the woman we saw on the road when she was merely eight. No soft tinkling sound for my little one. Her voice comes out in a raspy hard edge, commanding and strong.

It appears the kingdom wishes to rid itself of its resident dragon. I wonder, what threat I could possibly pose these days? I’d never attack the castle now that Esme resides there. Or perhaps they fear I’ll come back for her. “Is that what they told you?”

“Yes.”

I tap my claw on the floor, as if deep in thought, and smirk as her eyes study the movement. I wonder if she misses her own claws, or even remembers them. “Wouldn’t your blood alone prove you a reliable ruler?”

She huffs out, and I imagine real smoke would come out if she were as dragon as she once believed herself to be. She thrusts her sword in my face, her eyes glaring up into mine. I rest my chin on the ground and huff back, letting the warm steam wash over her.

Her eyes narrow, and her head tilts slightly. “Tell me, dragon, do I know you?” My heart sinks as her question confirms my worst fears. She doesn’t remember. Do I look that different? She hasn’t changed. Still so full of questions.

“Do you?”

“I’ve dreamt of you. I made you flower crowns and rode your back. I curled up to sleep within your wings and kissed your scales.”

I close my eyes, secretly delighting in the memories. Those puny humans couldn’t taint her dragon soul, though I imagined they tried. “Maybe you did know me, once upon a time.” I open my eyes and watch her take in my lair with renewed wonder.

“Why do I feel such hatred for you? I look at you and feel betrayed.” Her eyes glimmer up at me, more beautiful than my memories served.

I nod my head, remembering the way I abandoned her. Of course, she would hate me. “If you hate me, then you should kill me.”

She takes a shuddering breath, the tip of her sword pressing in between my eyes. Her bottom lip trembles, and she stills it with her teeth. “I don’t,” she whispers out, dropping her sword. “Not really. Deep inside, I feel we are one and the same.”

My heart swells. She is still mine, even after all these years. My precious little fool.

“What bothers you?” I ask as a  whimper escapes her.

She hugs herself and shakes her head, her eyes meeting mine. “I’ve only wanted to be fearsome, and I can’t even slay the mighty dragon to prove my worth.”

I straighten and bow my head in reverence. “You are the most fearsome being that has ever entered this cave.” And I mean it. Even when she was a wriggling little thing, all swaddled up in blood stained cloth, she scared me.

She sighs and leans on her sword. “I wish I didn’t have to kill you.”

“Do you want to rule the kingdom?”

She shakes her head in denial, not even giving it a second thought.

I nod my head and lift her chin with my claw. “Tell me, Esme, what it is you truly desire.”

She doesn’t pull away. She doesn’t fear me at all, though I could slice her in half if I chose to. Instead, she huffs out in an indignant way and juts out her chin. “You’ll think I’m silly.”

“I promise not to laugh.”

She closes her own eyes now and a sad smile barely lifts the corners of her lips. “I wish to fly. Then I could fly away from here and be free.”

I rumble out my approval and flatten myself to the ground.

“Climb on, my little dragon, and let me be your wings.”

 

* * *

About the Author

Stella B. James is a Southern girl who appreciates strong coffee and losing herself in fantastical daydreams. When she isn’t writing, she can be found reading romance novels of any genre, drinking prosecco while watching whatever she has left over on her DVR, or talking herself out of buying yet another black dress. She has published several short stories with various publications that you can find on her website, www.stellabjames.com. Check out her Instagram @stellabjames, where she shares her writing and inner musings.

Graphic Universe presents Monkey & Robot, a new hardcover graphic novel by Peter Catalanotto. “Monkey and Robot are friends—the best kind. They simply belong together, and it never matters that silly Monkey is furry, or that gentle Robot can rust. What matters is their sharing: movies and popcorn, games of hide-and-seek, a fish tank for… a hippopotamus? Joining the ranks of such noteworthy pairs as Bert and Ernie, Frog and Toad, and Henry and Mudge, Monkey & Robot celebrates friendship in this chapter book of four charming tales that are ideal for young readers.” It’s available now from Simon & Schuster.

image c. 2020 Graphic Universe

A usual roundup, followed by a fun interview with artists Taga and Pobaro.

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CNN: FBI announces charges

New FBI arrests are putting the heat on Atomwaffen Division. They’re a group with a dream: White supremacy through violent terrorism.

This is the “but not that!” clause you always get from free-speech defenders. Supposedly, neo-nazis just hold opinions you should tolerate, but you never get a good reason why. In truth, if you leave them alone they WILL hurt people. This group is tied to 5 murders.

Now add hundreds of swatting incidents, as announced by the FBI. “Swatting” is a terror tactic of falsely reporting a crisis to send a SWAT team crashing through a victim’s door. It gets people shot by mistake. Their international conspiracy targeted a US Cabinet official under Secret Service protection, journalists who reported about hate groups, and a vape shop. They did it for power, revenge, and a day off from school. (Really).

Doing terrorism to avoid homework sounds like the plot of a whole comedy movie about racist boneheads. For now, laugh at the dopes with me, a cartoon dog.

They’re more evil than geniuses, but they know furries reject nazis. They know tough guys fear being yiffed into oblivion with a Furry Apocalypse. They’re the type raised on easily-abused tech platforms with a mix of moldy old bigotry, ironic memes, and anime. Of course they know nazifurs. FBI evidence confirms it.

Breaking: Former Atomwaffen Division leader arrested for swatting conspiracy. Click below for court docs. @FBIWFO https://t.co/Ej1siMwAYo

— U.S. Attorney EDVA (@EDVAnews) February 26, 2020

The Atomwaffen Division leader was John Cameron Denton, alias “Rape”. (That’s con-badge-ready.) He’s a Texas man who took control after the 2017 arrest of founder Brandon Russell. Denton made propaganda art to spread fear, and it looks effective to gain recruits — if your life goals involve joining a prison gang, and you’re OK with art criticism in the form of a shiv in your liver.

In 2018, Denton’s Atomwaffen propaganda showed up in a Dogpatch Press report. There was an event in New Jersey being infested with nazifurs, and they spread it to target a black furry for harassment. Why? He asked them to grow up. Really. (The story was taken down to let some people move away from hate.)

Nazifurs threatened me for the story. Meanwhile a major reveal by ProPublica led to Atomwaffen Division swatting their office and a writer’s home. There was no sign of deeper ties at the time, but new evidence puts nazifur activity right inside the conspiracy.

fella got some judges and journalists, too, was picking his victims from Shodan so he could watch the cops do the actual swatting and share it with his friends and co-conspirators on a secret internet nazi IRC channel called #.graveyard

— Neural Culture (@neuralculture) February 26, 2020

Inside the Atomwaffen Division swatting conspiracy chat logs.

IRC is old chat tech but still active. Some neo-nazis favor it with a belief that young antifascists won’t be familiar with it and they can stay obscure without censorship. It’s also insecure so usernames can be stolen, or channels taken over if one server goes down. A techie fur I consulted called it a terrible idea.

IRC logs appear in the FBI document as excerpts without mentioning furry at all — so let me point out where it is!

The swatting IRC logs are from November and December, 2018. At least 7 members are in it. Two of the most active were from outside the US.

Leader John Denton (“Rape”) was led to IRC by someone named “Lion”. There he used voice conferencing (Mumble) to avoid leaving written documents. (It’s a practice in Nazifur activity too, like when Foxler organized a chat group to do false hotel room booking to ruin a con.)

Two members discuss getting a fursona for Denton (“Rape”) as a snow leopard. As the group propaganda artist, he would know furry art. (It’s interesting that alt-right figure Milo had one of those, although this was a year before his Midwest Furfest trolling.)

Confirmation of using Furaffinity on 12/7/18.

This was 6 months after the site banned hate group activity. It was 3 weeks after a furry interview with Jello Biafra (who wrote the “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” song they discuss). It was during the week of a video of Jello saying Nazi Furs Fuck Off. They’re in the middle of the furry discourse.

Saevyl may be a sergal or at least he shares an erotic body pillow of one:

Saevyl’s link: Kadd Dakimakura Cover – Adult Naked.

“Cuddle up with the Shigu Army’s tactician and one of Rain’s companions Kadd as featured in Vilous Green Chapter Episode 2: Dark Clouds of the Shigu! Pillow not included, this 160cm pillow cover comes with graphic male Sergal genitalia accurate with the universe!”

Saevyl was invited to swatting conference calls on Mumble, where the sergal link was shared on 11/18/18. Denton was very close to Zheme and used voice to have him pass invites. It was a henchman arrangement that brought nazifur discourse inside.

Zheme also uses Zeem/Zim (probably the cartoon) while Saevyl cites this anime:

“Siege Culture” refers to neo-nazi book author James Mason — who joined them at times on IRC.

Mason is an advisor to Atomwaffen Division, a paramilitary neo-Nazi terrorist organization … During a court case related to Atomwaffen, the prosecutor stated that James Mason “may well represent the most violent, revolutionary and potentially terroristic expression of right-wing extremism current today.” – Wikipedia

Will we learn more about nazifurs mingling with terrorists? It could happen by tracing names published on the FBI’s news release. At the least, this makes an absurd and scary reminder of how deeply furries have saturated into all corners of culture. Keep watch for what might creep inside.

Correction: Denton is one member who works on the art with others as mentioned here.

A TL;DR for those who may still be confused:

The FBI’s court document has chat logs from an IRC channel where AWD organized swatting. The FBI doesn’t talk about the furry parts, so this article points them out, with extra comments about how most furries oppose nazis.

Denton, leader of AWD, used a member “Zheme” to invite others in to avoid leaving written evidence. Zheme invited Saevyl. They discussed furry art, furries mobilizing against nazis, Denton’s awareness of it, and wishing nazifurs could get tolerated. Saevyl linked furry porn (a body pillow.)

They are familiar enough with furry activity to be closely connected, like wanting snow leopard fursona art for Denton and using Furaffinity, the 100% furry art website. They rub shoulders with nazifurs and Saevyl probably is one.

Like the article? These take hard work. For more free furry news, please follow on Twitter or support not-for-profit Dogpatch Press on Patreon. Want to get involved? Share news on these subreddits: r/furrydiscuss for anything — or r/waginheaven for the best of the community. Or send guest writing here. 

The other day I stepped outside the elevator to find one standing just outside, peering through the windows. I could see the poor creature was in distress, trying to comprehend what was happening. I tapped the glass to get its attention. The poor thing immediately reached for its reality escape device! (I think they call them “phones”.)

I wanted to learn more about humans, so I went outside and followed it. A few streets away the creature entered a building. Inside it were hundreds of humans sitting in tiny square rooms with big screens in front of them. Then it hit me. This must be the natural habitat of these mysterious creatures! I immediately understood why they always look as if they’ve discovered a distant land when they see us. These poor beings live their life in captivity. What struck with me most is that they seem completely fine with it. It makes me wonder what they could achieve if we freed them.

 

 

Article by Rythm as published in NordicFuzzCon’s “What the Fuzz?!” 2020, Issue #4

The entry Humans, The Strangest of Creatures appears first in FurryFandom.Es.

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