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A new full-color graphic novel for young readers: It’s called The Wondrous Wonders, written and illustrated by Camille Jourdy. “Hurt by her parents’ divorce and struggling to accept her new step-family, she decides to run away and live alone in the woods. But she soon discovers that she’s far from alone. Jo stumbles into a fantastical world full of tiny elves, talking foxes, and mischievous, multicolored ponies known as the Wondrous Wonders. Her new friends are on a mission: Rise up against Emperor Tomcat, the tyrannical leader who rules the enchanted forest they call home. Can Jo find the courage to vanquish an evil empire and get back to her family before dinnertime?” Find out now, in hardcover from Macmillan. (Merry Christmas and a Blessed Solstice!)

image c. 2023 First Second

Bandit, BcB and Abbey try homemade candies by Bluesugar, sent in from Denmark! What is your favorite kind of candy? Share with us! Bluesugar candy orders: https://twitter.com/BluesugarDK/status/1537380924870082561 (Available flavors may vary, contact vendor for more info) SEASON 9 SURVEY 1: https://forms.gle/wSkM8YZh2BwkXUCW6 See more at: http://www.TheRaccoonsDen.com FACEBOOK: http://www.Facebook.com/TheRaccoonsDen TWITTER/X: http://www.Twitter.com/TheRaccoonsDen FURAFFINITY: http://www.FurAffinity.net/user/TheRaccoonsDen INSTAGRAM: http://www.Instagram.com/TheRaccoonsDen TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@theraccoonsden #TheRaccoonsDen #TRDs9 #BluesugarDK

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Moobarkfluff! Taebyn and Rayne join Bearly for a fine time on the show.  We hear about upcoming events, some news of the odd, we learn about animals that are missing to science. Taebyn tries his tongue at a classic Dr. Seuss story: Fox in Socks, and we play Star Trek Mad Libs.  All in all we have a great time and laugh a lot. So join us, won’t you, for this flufftacular journey! Moobarkfluff all you furs! 

 

Taebyn YouTube 

Taebyn Merch at Fourthwall 

 

Wild Bills Soda 

Merch at Redbubble 

Merch at Bonfire 

Merch at Fourthwall 

This podcast contains adult language and adult topics. It is rated M for Mature. Listener discretion is advised.

Support the show

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

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

Bearly Furcasting S4E34 - Title to be entered later

Hello! Welcome to a summary of recent news in the furry community. Links below are what was mentioned in this broadcast: Alfurnative https://www.alfurnative.nl/ https://twitter.com/alfurnative https://t.me/Alfurnative/169 https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Alfurnative In regards to me talking about a Flipper being used at the con, It happened to me at BLFC and not FC this year. Anthro Northwest post on their TOS update https://twitter.com/anthronw/status/1731065300689535350 Further Confusion 25th Anniversary! https://t.me/furtherconfusion/509 Midwest Furfest numbers https://t.me/FurFest/378 https://t.me/FurFest/380 BLFC https://t.me/biggestlittlefc/1032 https://t.me/biggestlittlefc/1030 Canfurence statement https://twitter.com/canFURence/status/1737289894064451916?t=cJpr8DfG7Q1ge0yaJvrqlQ&s=19 If you like the work I do please like/follow/share to support the channel For faster updates, check out my telegram channel https://t.me/grovelreports Subscribe to show support https://www.youtube.com/c/GrovelHusky/?sub_confirmation=1 Grovel Reports Studio made by Kydek https://twitter.com/FluffyKydek Banners used in the channel were made by Slushi https://twitter.com/Slushi3Brushi3?s=09 Music created for Grovel Husky by Whooshagg https://whooshagg.com/ Many thanks to Da Bean for taking photos/recording https://twitter.com/MagotterD Grovel Reports Dec Edition 2023

In this episode, we recap how FABP performed in 2023, our travels and adventures this year, and take a sneak peek into the future of the pod in 2024. From me and Burger, we wish you a merry Christmas and happy new year!!! ---- Timestamps: 00:00 Teaser 00:43 Intro 01:41 Reflecting on 3 years of podcasting 03:18 Michael’s updates 06:06 Michael’s travels 10:43 Burger’s updates 13:20 What Burger misses about Texas 16:09 Podcast stats 22:02 Our favorite guests from 2023 25:08 Burger's favorite moments in Asia 29:08 Michael's favorite moment in Asia 33:47 Making improvements 38:02 YouTube Shorts 40:48 Future plans and changes 44:36 What does the audience want to see? 47:52 Thank you guys!!! 48:46 Social Media Shoutout 51:09 Outro ---- Social Media: Our official Twitter: https://twitter.com/foxandburger Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/foxandburger.bsky.social Michael: https://twitter.com/foxnakh https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK9xoFQrxFTNPMjmXfUg2cg https://bsky.app/profile/foxnakh.bsky.social Burger: https://twitter.com/L1ghtningRunner http://www.youtube.com/c/LightningRunner https://bsky.app/profile/tenghai.bsky.social ---- Footage Credit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hot_9BXh64k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=houAPM62j0Y https://furget.anthro.asia/2023/about https://fsq.anthro.asia/2023/index-TH https://kicks105.com/whataburger-offering-free-honey-butter-chicken-biscuit-tonight-for-sfa-study-break/ https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/11-questions-anita-mechler-yalsa/1200px-ihop_logo-svg/ https://www.americangrocer.co.uk/collections/taco-bell https://logos-download.com/55175-taco-bueno-logo-download.html https://texasislife.com/business-tech/taco-cabana-is-offering-free-lunch-for-kids-all-summer-without-any-purchase-requirements/ https://logos-world.net/trello-logo/ https://tech.co/project-management-software/trello-review https://www.oflox.com/blog/what-is-youtube-shorts/ https://twitter.com/richard31103/status/1226211105665503233 https://twitter.com/RoanVtuber/status/1647953848538140674 https://foodseeing.com/de/bangkok-the-pizza-company/ http://webapi.bu.edu/the-pizza-company-menu-thailand.php https://www.insiderecent.com/singapore-airport-lounge-no-1-asia-pacific-134.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_giOJLfkYGM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zr1m7YDG2ZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIqsXp_ecUI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_b7hc_iuVs0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJNTeUt2B4I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fLJCKIk9DE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt7lpqdbNgA https://youtu.be/E_foQN_xDJc?si=r2RzP4k0YVF6jFld https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1KMa7tiLsI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf865lqA4Zo Other pictures and video provided by Pixabay, and guest’s and host’s personal footage. Intro/Outro Music: Drown Me Out - YVEN ---- The Fox and Burger Podcast is one segment of our production house, Fox and Burger Productions. The podcast’s goal is twofold: 1, to know more about the Asian furry fandom; and 2, compare and contrast the Asian fandom with the Western one. If you have a guest that you would like to see on the show, please PM us! We will also take questions for our guests, so don’t miss this opportunity to know some amazing furs.

This news is illegal in Russia.

In late November 2023, Russia’s supreme court declared the movement for gay rights to be “extremist.” Mentioning LGBTQ activity without condemning it can get you fined, imprisoned, deprived of bank accounts, and worse. The New York Times says “any news organization, blogger or even an individual” is at risk.

Russian homophobes have pushed for this authoritarian rule for a long time. In 2021, it was proposed against LGBT and associated categories, including furries. This led to Dogpatch Press reports about harassment of Russian furry events that foreshadowed the official ruling now.

The excuse is to “protect children” from gay adults who love each other, as if they were created by an international political group that doesn’t exist, rather than by human nature. Any sign of their existence can be defined as harmful propaganda. The definition is so broad and vague that Russia’s government can punish anyone for anything, even wearing a rainbow. (Fandom is for creative expression, which has a lot of overlap with identity expression, so claims to be apolitical can’t be counted on to protect anyone.) The effects have ranged from putting adult rating on My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, to murdering people in one furry’s story below.

While Russia’s government labels this extremist, they’re protecting people from cartoons while raising murder. People in this upside-down land need to flee for safety.

Take a good look at how stupid this is. It's a Russian government excuse for punishing anyone for any reason they want. That's what the right wing wants in America, too.

'My Little Pony' Gets Adult Rating After Russia Declares 'LGBT Movement' Extremisthttps://t.co/tpi9nVcLtZ

— Dogpatch Press (@DogpatchPress) December 11, 2023

The mission of FUR/HELP

Many refugees have dramatic stories of escaping danger, but few have guides like FUR/HELP, a Furry LGBTQIA+ Refugee initiative to save clients in post-Soviet regions and American Trans lives from persecution.

• https://linktr.ee/furhelp
• Support by donation
• Statement regarding the state of LGBTQIA rights in russia

YukiDeer, the founder and ambassador, explains their work:

We are working to help refugees since November 2022, and since then have helped more than 5 furry refugees escape to safe third countries to wait for their transfer to a destination asylum country.

We helped a person that withstood torture in a psychiatric hospital. They were loaded with drugs to a vegetable-like state just because they were transgender. Their family put them into the facility as far as we know, and basically had to flee with help of other nonprofits. FUR/HELP helped the person when they arrived to one of the post-Soviet countries. We provided funds for food, a hostel until they could find stable housing, and advice on legal conditions and how to find support and work.

We helped two transgender people in dangerous situations with advice on how to access LGBTQIA services in the USA to get help with housing, and helped other people find housing as well.

And finally, we helped 1 Ukrainian homosexual flee occupied regions of Ukraine with help of other non profits. It was scary.

We plan to base ourselves in Canada, but for now we are 100% remote, with people volunteering for us mostly in Eastern Europe.

YukiDeer’s bio includes IT worker, Twitch streamer, and maker of design and music with a lot of personal stake in this: “I actively act as a LGBTQIA+ rights activist in EU and NA regions. I was raised in Ukraine, but born in Russia. I’m also in the process of establishing Furry Philanthropy Community or FPC for short — platform for Furry run NGOs and singular philanthropes to coordinate humanitarian action.”

More soon about how and why YukiDeer established FUR/HELP, but let’s look at what refugees are reaching for.

The need for asylum and the benefit of humanitarian aid.

The legal process for gaining citizenship is easiest for people with means and opportunity, savings, a job, family, or partner to support them without burdening the system. Those conditions are lacking for many refugees who are forced to flee from disaster, poverty and violence in places that lack human rights.

Their alternative is to claim humanitarian aid with asylum. That’s not just a burden, it raises international security that benefits everyone already in a country by keeping neighbors stable. To get it, an immigrant may have little choice except to risk punishing conditions to cross a border without permission so they can apply. Law about border crossing doesn’t remove the human right to apply as a refugee – and because it is a long process, they have the status until it is decided.

There are common attacks at “illegals” and supposed crime they bring (immigrants may have lower rates than citizens) that don’t even try to count the benefit, or wasted cost to make the process harder. Reports of a recent surge in immigration to the USA will make this a big issue in coming elections. (Don’t forget that controversy about burdening the system has coincided with record high corporate profits.)

LGBT refugees can try to get help from a nonprofit like Rainbow Railroad, but such services seem to be stretched thin and hard to get. This common frustration led YukiDeer to found FUR/HELP for others while seeking asylum personally.

A “nightmare” with a lifeline from other furries – YukiDeer’s story.

YukiDeer hopes to have asylum one day soon:

I fled murder and help others do the same. I might not be fully safe myself, but after seeing how others treat refugees, I can’t just stand and do nothing.

So basically, at first I had my father threaten me with murder, then I had forced treatment in a mental facility just because of suspicion that I’m gay. Then came the worsening of LGBTQIA+ rights overall and it crossed the line of multiple murders near my home that had a person castrated just for being gay. I can’t disclose the details since I’m not in safety yet, but on my way to it.

Now with the risk of extremist title, it feels even more dangerous, I don’t feel safe even out of Russia.

I raised money to escape, tried to flee multiple times, and only the 3rd worked, thanks to Soatok who helped me with the financial side of the story. Without him, I’d be best case hiding, worst case dead or imprisoned.

That’s how a story of a simple streamer furry guy can turn into a nightmare.

Dogpatch Press asked for more thoughts about family relations, the experience of being confined, how it felt, and what kind of justice can happen there?

At the time of the threat I was under 18, I have a sister and she is a cisgender straight woman, she was treated harshly by my father, but of course not as harsh. He was pretty mentally unstable, he drank a lot and was tend to get physical, he did hit his mother and I witnessed it, plus he has connections to certain government related people, so that would make it pretty easy to threaten people. Mother heard the threat and didn’t do anything. The threats were sparse, but the verbal abuse and heated behavior happened daily. In my family I was the only one that got treated this way, and I’m also the only LGBTQIA+ person. No one in my family knows I am, they assumed I was gay.

Yes, I was in a mental facility with drug addicts, people with anger issues and two LGBTQIA people, I remember they were lesbian. My class teacher wrote a bad review about me suddenly after I happened to tell my classmate I was gay. I don’t know if she knew about it, but it felt too sudden. They used mental force and threats like “I wouldn’t be able to continue studying without attending”. Maybe they thought I would break and say that I’m gay. Thankfully staff weren’t bad, but they did feed me medicine without any description as to what it does and why I should take it, and if I didn’t take it, they would transfer me to a harsher facility.

I felt scared, not knowing who to talk to, since I didn’t have anyone in my life I could trust except people on the internet, so my streams became that place. I hated my family more and more, since I felt that they won’t bring me anything but hurt. I felt envy at people having a good family, cried when I saw people hugging, kissing or displaying “good family vibes” publicly, same goes to those that didn’t have to hide. I just felt really envious and hurt.

I saw the murders via news articles, they happened with same motive and in same proximate region. I didn’t witness murder, but I was in a dangerous area, we had people shooting, and drunk people hitting someone pretty often. I don’t know who did it personally, but I know why, because they happened to be gay. If they got what they deserve, I don’t know, police didn’t seem to react at all, all was said that “It’s under investigation”.

Final word from YukiDeer:

It doesn’t take much to help others. Just empathy and a strong will.

Help has no borders. LGBTQIA+ refugees are not defined by their oppression, but by their resilience.

To join us in our mission as a volunteer, donate to us as a contributor or ask help as a refugee, simply go to our social media at Linktree: linktr.ee/furhelp

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

It’s finally time for another Tales From The Guild! It’s been many years since our World Tour, so we’d like to officially announce the third anthology edited by the Furry Writers Guild – Blood and Water! This anthology will be published by Fenris Publishing.

Previously, we have had Music To Your Years, themed around music, and World Tour, themed around travel.

Blood and Water will be themed around family – those bound by blood and the family we choose and find. Give us your best families – those that are perfect and wholesome or those dysfunctional and chaotic! Families can be defined by blood and shared relationships, or they can be the close friends we develop through hardship. However your family works, we want to see it! We are looking forward to seeing what stories you can create that fits in with this theme!

The editors for this anthology are all guild staff: J.F.R. Coates, K.C. Shaw, Resolute, and Scribbles Cheetah.

What are we seeking:

• Short stories up to 6000 words in length. (Anything more than this, query with the editors).
• Stories must be furry/anthropomorphic in some capacity.
• Stories must be themed around ‘family’ in some capacity – though interpretation of this theme is open.
• Stories should not be explicit in adult content. The anthology is aiming for PG13/M content. Let the editors know if you’re not sure how your story will fit.
• Stories can be of any genre, so long as they fit with the overall theme.
• We do not want any stories that portray topics like racism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, etc in a positive light.
• Previously unpublished stories are significantly preferred, but reprints may be considered if the story is right.
• Authors do not need to be a FWG member to submit.

Other important details:

• Stories should be sent by email to furwritersguild@gmail.com – with the subject line Blood And Water – [Story Title] in a .doc or .docx format. Please include your name on the first page only.
• Multiple submissions are allowed – up to three per author. A maximum of one story per author will be selected. Please no simultaneous submissions.
• Payment is 1c/word.
• Submissions open 1st January 2024.
• Submissions close 31st March 2024.
• All stories should receive a response by 30th April 2024.
• Expected release will be at Megaplex or MFF 2024.
• Publication for this anthology consumes the First Worldwide English rights for your story. Exclusive Digital and Print rights for a period of twelve (12) months following the first date of publication are required, and non-exclusive worldwide rights to digital and print publication of the Work in perpetuity.

We can’t wait to see what you come up with! Happy writing!

Peter Rabbit is more than a CGI nostalgia cash-grab. Arrkay disseminates the 2018 film and talks about the balance between modernity and nostalgia. Merch, Sweet Tees and stuff: https://culturally-fd-merchandise.creator-spring.com/ Support Culturally F'd: https://www.patreon.com/culturallyfd Listen in on TEMPO TALKS with Tempe O'Kun https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIPk-itLl1jPyIK2c7mK-LpbvfDNqfcSW Check out Tempe O'Kun's books "Sixes Wild" and "Windfall" here: http://furplanet.com/shop/?affillink=YOUTU2907 Here's a playlist of his other Culturally F'd videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIPk-itLl1jPS7tnT4hdJwBI-CeLF8Kb_

The Dragons of Ember City is a new full-color graphic novel series for young readers, created by Shane Richardson and Sarah Marino (both of whom are animators at Nickelodeon). The first book in the series is called Happy Spark Day. “Drake, Li, and Runa are three young dragons in Ember City, where a dragon’s spark is their special power and every dragon’s spark is unique. Ember is a city that burns brightest when its citizens use their sparks to help each other and their community. The more they use their spark, the brighter Ember City glows and provides for all its dragons. Can Drake, Li, and Runa learn to get along after uncovering their powers?” All this and more from Simon & Schuster.

image c. 2023 Aladdin Books

And now for something altogether different… Night of the Living Cat, a new black & white manga created by Hawkman and Mecha-Roots. “A virus spreads across the world, transforming all humankind into wild, slavering, furry beasts: Cats, to be precise. Those few survivors who remain human take refuge in the dark corners of the earth as they fight back against the feline horde. Kunagi, a man with no memory of his past yet a deep knowledge of cats, struggles to hold on with only his wits and a will to survive. Yet the virus transmits merely through cuddles, and Kunagi finds kitties so hard to resist! Is his willpower strong enough to withstand this hair-raising cat-tastrophe?” Find out from Seven Seas.

image c. 2023 Seven Seas Entertainment

TigerTails Radio Season 15 Episode 07. Join the Discord Chat: https://discord.gg/SQ5QuRf For a full preview of events and for previous episodes, please visit http://www.tigertailsradio.co.uk. See website for full breakdown of song credits, which is usually updated shortly after the show. If you like what we do and wish to throw some pennies our way to support us, please consider sending a little tip our way. https://streamlabs.com/tigertailsradio/tip * Please note, tips are made to support TigerTails Radio and are assumed as made with good faith, so are therefore non-refundable. Thank you for your support and understanding.

We came across a brand-new comic from Boom! Studios called Animal Pound. It goes like this: “When animals grow tired of being caged, killed, and sold off-it’s only a matter of time before they’ve had enough… When an uprising puts a pound in control of the animals, they quickly find themselves as comrades, united against everything that walks on two legs. But with this newfound power comes a sudden challenge: how best to lay the groundwork for this new democracy as they write their first constitution!” Written by Tom King (Love Everlasting) and illustrated by award-winning artist Peter Gross (The Books of Magic), Animal Pound comes to comic shops later this week.

image c. 2023 Boom! Studios

This came to us out of nowhere, but now we’re very, very curious. John Krasinski has written, produced, and directed a new live-action/CGI fantasy film called IF, starring Cailey Fleming. She plays a young girl who discovers that she has the ability to see people’s imaginary friends (known as IFs for short). She also discovers that the mysterious Man Upstairs (played by Ryan Reynolds) has the same ability. Now a group of IFs are begging these two special humans to help them find new kids to be with now that their own have grown up and abandoned them. As you can see from the trailer, there’s a lot of anthropomorphic interest here. It’s scheduled to be released next May.

image c. 2023 Paramount Pictures

With the Pandemic of Covid-19 still ongoing, the group hosts a video chat to catch up. See more at: http://www.TheRaccoonsDen.com FACEBOOK: http://www.Facebook.com/TheRaccoonsDen TWITTER/X: http://www.Twitter.com/TheRaccoonsDen FURAFFINITY: http://www.FurAffinity.net/user/TheRaccoonsDen INSTAGRAM: http://www.Instagram.com/TheRaccoonsDen TIKTOK: https://www.tiktok.com/@theraccoonsden #TheRaccoonsDen #TRDs9 #Covid19

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

Moobarkfluff! Today Taebyn Ascends to Radishhood! Who would’ve thought it? We hear three new Catfumations. Rayne gives us the answers to last weeks OMQ’s. We get a good furry amount of bad jokes, talk about news of the odd, Rayne tells us what is like while diving when a cruise ship goes over you. We get into yet another discussion about time travel paradox’s. Join us for these topics and so much more on this weeks episode of Bearly Furcasting! Moobarkfluff all you furs! 

 

Taebyn YouTube 

Taebyn Merch at Fourthwall 

 

Wild Bills Soda 

Merch at Redbubble 

Merch at Bonfire 

Merch at Fourthwall 

This podcast contains adult language and adult topics. It is rated M for Mature. Listener discretion is advised.

Support the show

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

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

Bearly Furcasting S4E33 - Aquatic Chaos

by Deborah L. Davitt

“So it was that she found herself ten thousand feet above the sea, racing through clouds heavy with rain, chasing a trio of galleons laden with treasure that were running before the wind — but the seabound vessels couldn’t match her airborne craft for speed.”

The gibbet creaked under her weight as she shifted in place, coiling her tail up, out of reach of the crowd here in Port Royale — most of whom wanted bits of her fur as keep-sakes, it appeared. They’d probably fight over her earrings and jewelry when it came time for her corpse to be removed from her tiny prison.

Not that they’d have a hope of making her earring’s luck work for them, of course.

But that’s what she got for being famous — the Dread Pirate Grace Morraine, scourge of the skies. Her great flying ship, the Elektra, couldn’t save her now.

She licked a paw and straightened her whiskers. There was no point in going to her death untidy.

Guardsmen pushed their way through the crowd, leveling their halberds to do it. The raucous noise of the Parrot and Monkey voices in this tropical port of call faded as those good citizens sidled away from the guards and their sharp-edged weapons. “Oh, good. There’s to be a trial after all,” Grace said, rising to her feet. The gibbet swayed around her. “I thought you were just going to let me raisin away in the sun for the fun of it.”

The guardsmen — Dogs to a man — winced. “Come along,” their leader said, producing a key and unlocking the door of the swaying gibbet. “The Magistrate wants to see you.”

“Do I want to see him?” Grace wondered out loud.

The Dog closest to her grinned crookedly. “Oh, yes. He’s about to make you an offer you shouldn’t refuse.”

The Magistrate was, of course, a Poodle. Long of nose, disdainful of expression, with curls of hair piled atop his head. (Grace was sure it was a wig, well-powdered.) “Grace Morraine?” he said, regarding her through his pince-nez glasses. “There are two ways this meeting can go.”

She stared at the pitcher of water at his elbow. She hadn’t had so much as a sip in two days. “I’m listening.”

“One, you can say no, and you can go back to your gibbet.”

“Let’s say that I say yes.” She flicked her tail insouciantly, but her heart wasn’t in it. “Do I get to live?”

“Aye. You’d take this letter of marque,” he held up a piece of paper, “and you’d agree to continue your depredations on the shipping lines, leaving, of course, the ships of your countrymen strictly alone.”

She felt her eyes widen. “And the catch is?”

“You sell the cargos you capture to us. For a price we set. You pay your taxes. You become–” The magistrate barked out a laugh. “–an honest citizen.”

Grace considered this. With the only other alternative being the gibbet — a gibbet she didn’t see herself getting out of anytime soon, and the Elektra someplace distant, waiting for signs that her captain lived or died — she didn’t see that she had much choice. And yet, could she trust the magistrate?

All signs pointed to no. He’d find some way to swindle her out of her freedom, soon enough. There might be political pressure on him to show results against the podencos soon, and he might not have the manpower to do it without pirates on his side.

Still, trust him or not, she didn’t have much of a choice. “Where do I sign?”

“You can make your X right here — oh, aren’t you clever, you can sign your name.” The condescension made her twitch, but Grace soothed herself to expressionlessness. Her hackles didn’t even rise.

Well, hardly rose, anyway.

“Congratulations. You’re no longer a pirate, Grace Morraine. You’re a privateer.”

Within a week, Grace found herself back aboard the Elektra, her second-in-command yielding the tiller back to her hand with surprising grace — she’d always had Eason marked out as an ambitious sod who’d take control of the ship and not cede it back without putting it to a vote among the crew. “Privateering’s not a bad move, for the moment,” she told her crew, half Cats, the rest Parrots, Monkeys, and the occasional Badger. “Anyone who signs the marque lifts the death sentence against them. So we chase the podencos and take their cargo. Same as we would have done anyway.”

The crew accepted her word, to her great relief. She hadn’t wanted to have to recruit new sailors if the crew as a whole had been too disgruntled at the change of their fortune’s winds.

So it was that she found herself ten thousand feet above the sea, racing through clouds heavy with rain, chasing a trio of galleons laden with treasure that were running before the wind — but the seabound vessels couldn’t match her airborne craft for speed. “Bring the lightning cannons to bear!” Grace shouted, touching the pearl hanging from her ear for good luck.

The Elektra began her dive-bombing routine, letting hot air out of the balloon, reefing her sails, and plummeting towards the galleons. Grace plunged the tiller forward, adjusting pitch and yaw, as her sailors clung to the rigging and belted themselves to the cannons. Lightning sparked in her cannons, and then shot out, blue-white, across the dark indigo of the sea below…

And then the thunder of the cannons hit her, and Grace whooped in joy, ears ringing. This was life. This is what made life worth living, the glory of the hunt, the thrill of the chase. She didn’t play with her kills — oh no. But she circled the galleons, strafing their decks, sending crewmen — all Dogs, all podencos, leaping overboard to avoid the blue-white lightning that sizzled fractals into the wooden decks, and set the sails on fire.

A ragged volley of answering fire came from the galleons — their lightning was red, and shorter-ranged, so Grace danced the Elektra just outside the reach of their cannons. “Just surrender, you daft buggers!” she shouted in a gap between thunderclaps. “Heave to, and prepare to be boarded!” Her fur bristled from the electricity ambient in the air, making her look twice her normal size.

The three galleons slowly surrendered, lowering their flags. She could see sailors throwing buckets of sand on the flames, buckets of seawater. Trying, desperately, to save their own lives by putting out the fires.

Eason, a pure white Cat with a black eyepatch that concealed a missing eye, came to stand at her side at the tiller. “You want to go down yourself?”

“No, I trust you to handle it. The terms are that they turn over all their gold and gems, their wine and liquor.” The first would make the Magistrate happy; the latter would keep her crew happy. “They can keep their tobacco and cotton. We don’t have the hold space for that, anyway.”

“We should get a second ship, so that we do have the hold space.”

She shot him a sidelong look. “And you’d captain her?”

“I’ve proven my loyalty, haven’t I?” Eason countered.

“With the spoils from these three lovelies, we might be able to afford a second ship,” she agreed after a moment. “And yes, you have.” For the moment, Grace thought, but she kept her misgivings tucked behind her eyeballs. Give him command of his own ship, and he might depart on the next fresh breeze, and all her hard-won spoils with him.

Of course, the reason she was letting her executive officer lead the boarding party was because she had a niggling feeling that once the goods were hauled aboard, he’d just up and leave her on the galleon below.

On the other other hand, he could have just left her in port, without a ship to turn towards privateering.

To trust, or not to trust. The eternal conundrum.

Grace hovered the Elektra over the lead galleon, and the descend ropes dropped, sailors from her ship swarming down with Eason, while still more sailors with muskets stood at the railing of the Elektra, giving them cover in case the podencos decided to get frisky.

Then box after box of gold bullion began winching their way to the Elektra’s cargo hold. Barrel after barrel of Madeira wine — to the cheers of her crew. Each galleon was scavenged completely of its wealth, and then the Elektra, groaning a little under the weight, headed for the clouds once more.

“It’s a good life,” Grace told Eason as he came back aboard. Her tone was nearly a purr.

“If you can survive it,” he agreed, and for a moment, that knife’s edge was back. To trust, or not to trust.

But she put out her paw, and he took it in his, and she hauled him over the rail and back aboard. “Set course for Port Royale!” she called to her crew, and their cheers drifted down from the sky, touching even the waves below.

Tomorrow, she’d have to deal with the Magistrate. The sure-to-be-rigged ‘legitimate’ markets of Port Royale, which would surely try to shortchange her on the price of gold, the value of the gems, and the cost to repair the Elektra where the galleons’ crews had pockmarked her underbelly with musket balls. Tomorrow, she’d have to deal with taxes and credits and debits, the lack of honor in her fellow creatures, and more.

But today? Today she was sailing into a sunset, and a glass of rum waited for her in her quarters. Tomorrow could take care of itself for a few hours, while she basked in the glow of the present.

 

* * *

About the Author

Deborah L. Davitt was raised in Nevada, but currently lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and son. Her award-winning poetry and prose has appeared in over seventy journals, including F&SF, Asimov’s, Analog, and Lightspeed. For more about her work, including her Elgin-nominated poetry collections, The Gates of Never and Bounded by Eternity, and her chapbook, From Voyages Unending, see www.edda-earth.com.

by CB Droege

“These were the monsters I had been sent to kill? It was clear that these two were anything but monsters.”

The plan was that we would drop onto the airstrip, clear the LZ of lizards, then the plane could land, and we’d off-load the heavy artillery. It didn’t quite go down like that, though. During the drop my chute got tangled, and I was steered off course, dropping me just off the beach outside the fence. I was sandy and dripping, much of my equipment waterlogged and useless, including my radio and gun, but I was the lucky one. After coming ashore, I watched the plane circle for another ten minutes, then it flew off north, back toward the mainland. It was clear that the rest of the team was not able to clear the LZ as planned, and they were likely dead.

“Some kind of big dumb lizards with big dumb teeth,” Harris had told us during the mission briefing on the plane twenty minutes earlier. “Apparently, some rogue scientist opened a portal to an alternate earth populated by giant carnivores, and some of them got through.” It was always some idiotic scientist. Those people are dangerous: opening portals, doing genetic experiments, or signaling alien spacecraft. Science should be outlawed if you ask me. “The scientist and his crew are dead,” Harris continued, “but a construction worker and his family are trapped in the event zone. We’re being sent in to take the beasts down and rescue any survivors we can find. Luckily, the whole place is closed up with fences, and it’s an island anyway, so containment shouldn’t be complicated.”

I was the only survivor, other than the pilot, and he would be home and safe soon. I was wet and cold, and night was coming. I needed shelter, and in the distance, I saw a small cabin up against the fence, so I set out. I was half a kilometer away when I spotted movement. I was happy at first to see another person, but the movement was strange, alien, so I ducked behind a nearby tree, and took out my spyglass, which was luckily waterproof. From my cover, I spied the cabin, and saw Talon for the first time, though I wasn’t calling him that yet.

He was in front of the cabin, standing where the grass turned to sand. He looked like a raptor with a nearly horizontal spine, supported on two thick legs. His trunk was balanced by a thick tail that nearly brushed the ground. His body was covered in heavy wrappings, including what looked a bit like a turban on his head. His forelimbs ended in three-fingered hands, and he was bending over a firepit, with a flint and steel, attempting to start a fire.

The door of the cabin opened, and another came out, the one that I would eventually call Lizzy, once we were amicable.  She was dressed in similar wrappings as Talon, making it clear that these were intentional; not just dressings, but clothing. She took a few steps down toward the beach and made some growling sounds. After a few weeks, I would come to understand some rudimentary phrases in their language, and they in mine, but at this point, I only really noticed her teeth, which were mostly flat. I remembered enough from biology class to know those were the teeth of an herbivore, though I later discovered that, while they never ate the flesh of the rodents I caught around the cabin, they would sometimes catch and grill fish.

Lizzy spoke with Talon for a moment, and he spoke back, and then she returned to the cabin, and he to his fire-building attempt.

These were the monsters I had been sent to kill? It was clear that these two were anything but monsters. They were people. Cold people trapped in a strange land. Of course, I would learn about the real monsters later, the terror lizards who had also come through the portal, and the three of us would have to work together to survive once they eventually broke through the fence, but this first day the only challenge was diplomacy. I wasn’t really thinking about things like ‘first contact protocol’. I was mostly just wet and cold.

I set my waterlogged gun aside, in case they would know what it was, and I approached their camp slowly and with hands raised, not understanding then that this was a sign of aggression in their culture. Lizzy came out, and we three faced off for a few minutes, not understanding each other at all. The misunderstanding didn’t last though.

My first bit of real diplomacy was showing Talon how to use my lighter.

 

* * *

About the Author

CB Droege is an author and voice actor from the Queen City living in the Millionendorf. He loves wizards and time-travel, but has an irrational distaste for time-traveling wizards. His latest books are Ichabod Crane and the Magic Lamp and Other Stories and Quantum Age Adventures. Short fiction publications include work in Nature Futures, Science Fiction Daily and dozens of other magazines and anthologies.  He also produces a weekly podcast, in which he reads other people’s stories: Manawaker Studio’s Flash Fiction Podcast.  Learn more at cbdroege.com

by Val E Ford

“He had taken it as his job over their several lifetimes, the killing of them both, so they could be together again. But Katy never remembered it being like this. Never such a choice.”

“Come with me…” Liam’s voice was scratchy from the tubes that had been sustaining him during the last bout of pneumonia and worsening health. He fumbled to unzip his fleece jacket with the hand that wasn’t holding hers.

An image burned itself into Katy’s being. She knew truth when she saw it; it was one of her gifts, to see the in-between spaces, and this was one, this was for her a liminal moment. She had to walk off this bridge alive today.

“Not this time, Love.” Katy stared wide-eyed down at the roiling floodwaters, hooked her knees through the space between the metal railings and moved her grip on him from a hand hold to a wrist hold. “You come back home and do it the hard way.”

“Katy… I can’t… I’m burning. It’s time. We have to go.” His voice extended into the realms beyond her ear’s ability to hear, and the essence of his elemental fire gift burned through their connection as he sent the command she’d been dreading ever since they’d realized he’d be living disabled for the rest of his life after the car accident. “I can’t live this way.” He sat on the balustrade, and his free hand pulled up on the orthopedic brace to lift his leg over the rail as she tugged at him to prevent the move. Even ill he was a great beast of a man and beyond her physical control.

He had taken it as his job over their several lifetimes, the killing of them both, so they could be together again. But Katy never remembered it being like this. Never such a choice. But maybe it had been; memories of other lives came on slowly, mostly after they found each other again. This time was different, maybe it was just that her attitude was different.

“I love you, Katy. We have to go.” His elemental fire was licking along his outline, breaking through into the air around him.

She fought his blazing command, bringing up the blessed coolness of the earth and binding the heat, sending it through her body and out her pores to meld with the wind and let it be carried away. “I’m not going. I’m not ready. You get back down here before you pull my arm off.” She started fighting his fire for him too.

“Katy! We. Are. Doing. This.” He swung his other long leg over the railing. “It’s just a step, Love.” He smiled and took it.

Katy tried to pull him back over the edge, but his mass only took a second to lift her off her heels; her knees around the rails were the only thing keeping her out of the air.  And by the moment she stopped trying to save him and instead save herself, his grip on her arm was winning. So, she breathed in the power of her connection with the spaces between and sent it flowing down the shining fluid pathway that anchored their souls together, down into the spaces between the cells of his heart muscle, and by the time she was done, so was he.

“Goodbye, Love,” she told her soulmate as his dying fingers slipped from their grip on her arm. He finished his long falling step into the flooded river alone. “We’ll find each other again,” she whispered as her tears followed him into the encompassing water below. She braced herself against the moment when their connection blazed and disappeared, and then she sat on the cold concrete for a long time taking in what it meant to be alone.

Over the next few weeks, Katy took to wandering the streets at odd hours on foot and in her car. She was unsettled, lonely, not sleeping, going long stretches between eating until a smell awoke her hunger and then she couldn’t stop. At first, she cried at silly things, sometimes everything, but after a while numbness crawled out of the crater inside her soul, and she started a new routine. She’d walk at first light to the bridge and cross, following the path along the shore until her feet didn’t want to go any further, and then she’d stop for a while, breathing in the sea air before walking back.

And then one day, like sun through a break in the clouds, she felt the moment he returned. And she cried because they were off kilter. A soulmate in diapers wasn’t an easy thought. But the crater inside her eased, and she slept well again.

And so, she started living again too. She started seeing clients once more, telling them the truths she saw in the spaces between their current selves and the ones they would become. She sketched for them their liminal scene, the one that might change them, the image that burned in her mind as she sat with them. And before they left, she gave them the picture along with whatever words seemed right. Often no words were needed; sometimes it was just a hug.

She was finishing a session with a client who had come because she was feeling upset with her marriage, and yes, she needed a hug. The picture had been of the client’s next-door neighbor opening the door to a motel room, and familiar shoes were sitting beside the bed. That hug went on a while, and when the woman steadied enough to step into her new life, Katy opened the door.

A squeal sounded under the woman’s foot as she walked out. A fluffy black and white Mountain Dog puppy cried on Katy’s doorstep, and when she picked it up, she knew.

“Hello, Liam.” A vision of herself and the slightly older puppy at obedience school with a chain collar and a leash filled her head. And she smiled, perhaps a little too long.

And so, Katy had a dozen years of friends and gardening and working and good doggie companionship, until the day Liam the dog started flaming and his wide muzzle and sharp teeth gripped deep into her lower leg, piercing the skin as he tried to pull her over the edge of the riverbank.

As she fought him, a vision filled her mind, she saw a huge set of balancing scales in a spotlight on a table. On one side a mess of her long hair and longer skirts showed the pile of bodies to be herself as she had been the five times Liam had drowned her. On the other side of the scales, she saw Liam lying pale and sprawled in his unzipped fleece jacket, seaweed in his dark hair as a spotted dog was lowered beside him. The scale barely righted.

“Fuck you, Liam! I am not dying today!” Her leg was on fire, and anger churned through her as she fell over the bank. They both rolled through the dried grass and blackberry vines and into the water. She hugged the big beloved dog, and with a practiced breath, she stopped his heart and watched him flop into the shallows.

When she got back home alone that night with stiches and burns on her calf, her tears were back, and she swore off pets.

When she woke up on Saturday morning, Katy took her graying head to the hairdresser and her sore knees to the gym, and she opened all the windows and burned sage in their house and pounded on her drum and let her towels and sheets dry in the sunshine.  Then she vacuumed dog hair off the couch and out of the corners and smiled as she made lasagna and savored their favorite meal alone.

Three months later a fuzzy black and white kitten crawled out of a stroller that a couple little girls were pushing toward her down the sidewalk. His littermates cried, their faces popping over the edge to see where he had gone. Katy picked him up, kissed him and ran to catch back up with the girls. “Enjoy this one, Love,” she whispered to the kitten. Katy scratched his ears and gave him to the youngest child. Liam the kitten yowled and bit the child. The little girl dropped him looking heartbroken.

Katy grabbed the kitten as he dashed around her legs, thumped his nose with her fingernail, and swaddled him tightly in a dolly blanket before handing him back to the child. “He’ll be better now I bet,” she told her. “He told me his name is Liam, and he loves tuna.”

Liam the cat was her constant companion as she worked in the garden and sat on the porch. But she never let him inside their house, and she never fed him. He attacked everyone who came to the house, even the UPS deliverywoman. At midnight every night for a month, he scratched and yowled until the screens were shredded.

When summer was heating up and Katy couldn’t take the hot air anymore, she took down all the screens to have them remade with scratch proof materials and reinforced with grating. She was opening the back of her car, parked on the busy street in front of the screen shop, when she was struck in the shoulder by a flying twenty-pound black and white and burning fuzzball.

She stumbled and flung the cat away and nearly fell in front of a bus that slammed on its brakes. “That is IT, Liam! You want war?” she said, looking around and patting out the places where her shirt was scorched.

Then she felt the connection snap, and she was alone again in this world as the bus rolled away from a squished black, white, and red form.

The next morning, Katy woke up with mosquito bites layered over yesterday’s burns and scratches, so she made a special trip to the store for bug spray and let off a great blast before going to work.

Her first client of the day was Doris, who really just wanted to know somebody loved her. Katy’s talents failed her. The only image in her head was of Liam choking and burning, so she put Doris’s plate of cookies into a sandwich bag and reassured her that children leaving home for college was a good thing as she walked her to her car. Then Katy quickly drove back home and opened all the doors and windows.

She found Liam hiding under the couch and let him spend the next day on her arm, drinking and dying as mosquitos do. And when he was gone, slow salty paths traced her cheeks as the drops of her tears fell beside him and upon him. She buried his tiny insect body beneath their favorite rose bush and sat on her knees remembering when they had planted it.

She longed for solace, for a full life with him, the children they had never had and the feel of his arms around her. She reached her essence deep into the soil and let the energy that lives between flow upward into her being. She brought the power up into her heart and let the imbalance of betweenness affect her, let the spaces between cells and molecules disrupt, and felt her death nearing as the gentle rhythm broke.

And then the earth beneath her feet became hot and heavy, and a drop of fire fell from the thorn of a rose and broke her concentration.

“Thank you, Liam,” she whispered and cried a while, but didn’t attempt it again. She sat out in the cold night air feeling the beauty of being alive fill and restore her.

At midwinter, their connection renewed as he entered the world again. And when the image came, she could barely believe the beauty of it. Liam had chosen a new way. He was a preemie whose head was misshapen, and his heart was barely clinging to life. So, she moved 100 miles and went to the hospital and volunteered to do some cuddling.

272 long days after Liam came into the world as a teenage addict’s infant son, Katy held him as he took his last painfilled natural breath. And then she held the now sober mother, their once great, great, grandchild and helped wield the shovels and sing the prayers as the baby, Liam, met with the earth.  And a few days later, she brought the girl home with her.

When she felt Liam enter the world again at midwinter, she felt expectation as the days grew longer and spring once more filled her garden. And then one afternoon at the end of a nap as she rocked on her porch, a vision of the scales appeared again, nearly evenly balanced.

She started walking again, saying her goodbyes to everything she loved, wandering pets, laughing children, the woman girl who was growing in her own ways.  She walked often over the bridge and down nearly to the ocean, and eventually she started seeing a great sight, a black and white seal swimming along with her as she walked. And one day when Katy was ready, she took off her shoes, her knobby tender old feet exposed to the rocks as she waded into the cold water, and they went diving. And with her last breath she also took his.

 

* * *

Originally published in ROAR 9

 

 

About the Author

Val E Ford loves life and all the messy complications of being temporarily embodied.

by Kai Delmas

““Naughty, naughty wolf.” She wags her red-stained finger at me.”

I skulk among the roots and fallen branches of ancient trees. My hackles rise at the scent of fungal growth and decay. This is my dark forest and I am its wicked wolf.

The mice and rabbits scurry from my presence. They know their fate if they dare linger when I’m hunting. But such tiny rodents would only satisfy the hunger I feel for a short time. I seek larger prey, for the pit of my stomach is deep and hollow.

My ears prick up and I raise my snout. The birds’ chirping falls silent and a different song fills the forest. And with it a current flows through the air. Sweet. Red. I can taste it.

Strawberries.

My prey is near. My tongue lolls from between my teeth, my paws quicken, drawing me closer to that luring scent. Saliva drip, drip, drips as I make my way.

I find her path, follow the footsteps she’s left in the muddy track. I listen to her soft song and take in the rich smell of strawberries that linger where she treads. Her red cloak billows up ahead.

I rush down the path and prepare to pounce, to swallow her whole, to fill that hollow belly of mine and end the gnawing hunger within.

But something isn’t right.

She turns, freezing me in my tracks. Clear blue eyes and rosy cheeks greet me. She pops a strawberry into her mouth, chews and smiles, red dripping from her chin.

“Naughty, naughty wolf.” She wags her red-stained finger at me.

My jaw is ready to snap. Bite those little fingers right off. But all that I can muster is a guttural growl.

“This isn’t how our story goes.” She pulls another strawberry from her basket and bites down on its soft, red flesh.

My hunger grows and I want to lash out but I cannot. The clear blue sky above the treetops ripples and shimmers. I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I…

I shake off the wrongness that comes over me and watch the girl place a large rock into her basket.

I try to open my mouth, to question the girl, but my throat tightens. My teeth clench as I stare at the girl.

Her lips stretch into a wide grin, more wicked than mine ever could.

“It’s simple, really. Off to grandmother’s house I go.” She lifts another rock into her basket. “We meet and you go on ahead. Then we meet again. That’s what happens every time. Forever and ever.”

A shiver runs down my spine; my fur bristles and I’m overcome with cold. A rushing sensation is all around me; everything I see is blue and I cannot move beneath the rushing stream.

I drag in deep lungfuls of air and look back at the girl, her fingers red and sticky. The endless pit that is my stomach growls in protest and dread. But there’s nothing I can do.

This isn’t how our story goes.

I turn to leave and bound into the woods.

Her voice trails behind me, “See you soon.”

* * *

I find grandmother’s house. My very own footprints lead me there. They always do.

The hollowness of my stomach has grown, yet I feel heavy and sluggish. I creep up to the open door, my belly dragging on the forest ground.

Before I can announce my presence to trick the old woman, the scent of strawberries rushes over me.

“There you are.” The girl sits at the kitchen table, her smile wide and full of teeth.

“We’ve been waiting for you.” Her grandmother’s mouth stretches dark and terrible, mirroring her granddaughter’s.

My legs quiver and I drop to the wooden floor. They grab my heavy body and lift me onto the bed, belly up.

Too overcome with wrongness to speak, I whimper.

They cackle as the girl heaves her basket onto the nightstand and her grandmother pulls large shears from beneath the bed.

The girl opens her basket to reveal dozens of stones. “This isn’t how our story went the first time.”

She takes the shears from her grandmother and jams them in my gut. She cuts — snip, snip, snip — as if my skin were nothing but cloth. I can only watch in shock as pain washes over me.

She digs around and removes her hands, red and sticky. The scent of strawberries becomes too much to bear. I retch to no avail.

“You see, this story of ours has long been over.” The girl begins lifting the stones from her basket to place them inside my stomach. “But it will never be over for you. You’re wicked and you must pay for your wicked ways.”

I squirm but cannot get off the bed.

Cold envelopes me and the stones in my belly drag me down, keeping me at the bottom of the stream. I cannot move. I can never leave my sins behind.

“You’ve done this to yourself.” Grandmother dons her glasses and sews my belly up with tight stitches made of red thread.

“You deserve every second of it.” The girl pulls me out of the bed. My limbs stiff, my belly heavy with stones.

She leads me outside to the stream behind the house. Brings me to the edge.

I don’t resist.

I know she’s right. It’s too late for me to change.

She shoves me into the rushing water.

I sink down, unable to swim or move at all.

I’m cold. The sky ripples above me through the rushing stream.

All I can do is dream.

Of my dark forest. Of my paws thudding along the damp earth. Of the sun setting through endless trees.

Of the girl’s footprints in the mud and how I follow her scent of strawberries.

 

* * *

 

About the Author

Kai Delmas loves creating worlds and magic systems and is a slush reader for Apex Magazine. He is a winner of the monthly Apex Microfiction Contest and his fiction can be found in Martian, Etherea, Tree And Stone, Wyldblood, and several Shacklebound anthologies. Find him on Twitter @KaiDelmas.

by David Penny

“She accepted Death’s courtship. Afterwards, darkness was clear to her as water to a fish, and she knew no fear from unseen things.”

“Listen well, my precious ones, and I will tell you of our Mother, the Goddess of Secrets.”

The alley cat nosed more newspaper around her kittens. Cruel wind chilled all their bones. She licked stray whiskers, soothed hungry cries. They clamoured for her story.

* * *

In the beginning, the world was light. Many Gods, bright and cruel, roamed the land. People were of all shapes and cowered from the God’s self-important wrath. The God of Death was born from necessity and laboured eternally. You see, Death was smaller, less important in those times. He was just, and fair, and implacable in his kindness. Death did not know all then, and some survived when they should not, but that is another story.

One bright moment among many, a woman fled from the unkind Gods. She was beautiful, with graceful limbs and curving tail, proud as an arched whisker, and sharp of wit as a well-groomed claw. The Gods chased and laughed and fought amongst themselves for the right to claim the spark of joy in her heart. She was afraid.  The world was light with no dark places to hide. Death knew her and waited by her side. She begged Death, not for life, but for spite, to keep her joy away from the cruel Gods.

Death obliged, and hid her inside himself, the single unlit place in all creation. He gave her a choice — stay with him in darkness forever and be safe or leave into the light and meet her end with the other Gods. If she left, her spark would die with her, because Death had no power over other Gods at that time.

She stayed, and wept, alone. Death was also lonely, for no one whispered love to him in those times. He came to her softly in her first night, and she was blind, afraid.

Yes, my darlings, Gods can visit inside themselves. They drink paradoxes like we drink cream.

Death whispered kind words and gave her a gift, not of light, for that was beyond him, but of shades and shadows. He stole the black behind the moon, wrapped it with tender words and presented it on bent knee. She accepted Death’s courtship. Afterwards, darkness was clear to her as water to a fish, and she knew no fear from unseen things.

A joy shared is a joy doubled, so she shared herself with him, and Death claimed part of her spark, freely given. This was her plan. Death was a kind prison, but prisons chafed. She resented the freedom Gods gave themselves. She whispered her anger in Death’s ear and made up a secret that Gods could die. In love, Death believed her.  No more were Gods immortal in the world.

Death summoned himself for the first time. He slew a cruel, brilliant God in her name. The divine corpse-void brought the first proper darkness into the world. Death hid the dark in him to conceal his deed. Death grew, and the woman could stretch out once more. She murmured soft praise to her lover. The Gods did not see, for they could not conceive of their own destruction.

Again, she drew Death into her to share her spark of joy. Again Death slew in her name. Death grew once more. Three, and three, and three again were slain for her. She danced through the halls of Death and sang her joy through the echoing chambers of Death’s love for her.

The Gods knew treachery now, and came to kill Death, but Death would not come for himself. With the strength of her song inside him, Death threw back all who tried. The Gods discovered fear and withdrew from the darkness of his touch. Light flickered in the world, dangerous to all the people, for the void claimed any place where the divine light did not fall.

Death came to her once more for wisdom. She whispered into his ear. The Gods, so fearful of his touch, were herded outside the world, locked behind the void corpses of the nine, plucked from the body of Death, left where their Godly light touched the people but could not harm them. The woman filled to bursting with the nine-fold doubling of joy now returned to them. She bore Death’s shadowy children, every night, for many nights, each with a sliver of their shared joy. These shadows became night and filled the corners of the world where the light did not touch. People became safe in the darkness for the first time.

At last, she lay exhausted, curled inside a Death too small to contain her. Their last child and only daughter, with eyes that saw all, and ears that heard all, nestled in her arms. Death whispered all his secrets for there was no other way to express the fullness of his love. He shared his divinity as she shared joy. Unconfined at last, the Goddess of Secrets padded away from the safety of Death for the dark patches and secret ways of night. Her daughter followed, soft and sharp, kind and vicious.

All shadows whispered to her, and she knew all, from love found in the shade of a tree to the shadow of evil inside a twisted heart. She whispered all these secrets to Death, and none could ever hide from him again.

Her daughter’s children, and children’s children bore the co-mingled spark of joy from nine divine deaths. Death honoured each one, in memory of his undying love.

* * *

“And that, my kittens, is why you must watch everything, and peer into all spaces, so your Mother of Secrets can whisper to her love. Do this, and you can greet father Death as a friend until the ninth, when you will go with him forever.”

The alley cat licked her kitten’s foreheads once more and whispered her love into their ears. The wind blew colder. The kittens slept, for now. She looked up to see her friend, Death, waiting at her side, the fourth time for her. He stroked her kindly, once, and stroked the cheek of her youngest, and weakest, who blinked awake, eyes wide but unafraid. Death took only his due and the kitten tumbled back to sleep. They all slept soundly. Tomorrow was another day, and there were kittens to feed.

 

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About the Author

David Penny lives with his wife and daughter in Ontario, where he also plays host to their perpetual house guest and cat Louis.  When not writing, David likes to fiddle around with a violin and spend far too many hours prepping and running various TTRPGs.  He works in the civil engineering field, but would rather read stories of all kinds than more technical documentation.