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S10 Episode 9 – How I Found Furry - Somehow we’ve all managed to find our way into the furry fandom. This week Sammy, Klik, Roo, and Vaos are talking about how they found the fandom. We also read listener emails about their stories of how they found the f
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MUSIC
Intro: RetroSpecter – Cloud Fields (RetroSpecter Mix). USA: Unpublished, 2018. ©2011-2018 Fur What It’s Worth. Based on Fredrik Miller – Cloud Fields (Century Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth.
First Break: Attraction - Rewayde, Argofox, Creative Commons 2022.
Second Break: Rise - Ampyx, Argofox, Creative Commons 2021.
Third Break: Rev - Eveningland, Creative Commons 2019.
Closing: Cloud Fields (RetroSpecterChill Remix), USA: Unpublished, 2018. ©2011-2018 Fur What It’s Worth. Based on Fredrik Miller – Cloud Fields (Chill Out Mix). USA: Bandcamp, 2011. ©2011 Fur What It’s Worth S10 Episode 9 – How I Found Furry - Somehow we’ve all managed to find our way into the furry fandom. This week Sammy, Klik, Roo, and Vaos are talking about how they found the fandom. We also read listener emails about their stories of how they found the f
TigerTails Radio Season 14 Episode 35
TigerTails Radio Season 14 Episode 35. 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.
Bearly Furcasting S3E52 - Season Finale
MOOBARKFLUFF! Click here to send us a comment or message about the show!
Moobarkfluff! Three years have come and gone and Bearly, Taebyn and Rayne are still at it. In our Season Finale we welcome Cassidy Civet, TickTock, Ziggy, and others to join us on the show. We reminisce about our favorite moments from Season 3, have a Frog and Toad Story, and tell some jokes. Join us for our last episode of Season Three and stay tuned for Season 4 premiere next week! Moobarkfluff!
This podcast contains adult language and adult topics. It is rated M for Mature. Listener discretion is advised.
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
Protect the People
Atlas Games has created a new all-ages role-playing game called Magical Kitties Save The Day. Which is precisely what it’s about! “You are Cute. You are Cunning. You are Fierce. You are Magical Kitties, and it’s time to Save the Day! Every Magical Kitty has a human. Every human has a Problem. In Magical Kitties Save the Day, you need to use your magical powers to solve problems and save the day! But kitties live in Hometowns that are filled with Troubles like witches, aliens, and hyper-intelligent raccoons. Troubles make Problems worse, so the kitties need to go on adventures to take care of the Troubles before that can happen.” After a successful Kickstarter campaign (with several stretch goals already acheived!), the game is available on-line now.
image c. 2023 Atlas Games
From China to Macau and Zootopia to Rocket Raccoon: The Story of Peach [FABP E31]
From China to Macau and Zootopia to Rocket Raccoon: The Story of Peach [FABP E31] ---- He has roots in China and Macau, but also technically Hong Kong and the UK. Introducing: Peach. Peach is a furry artist from China, who draws with a hybrid Western-kemono style. Listen to him as he talks about growing up in China, his journey into art, and more! You’re tuning into the Fox and Burger Podcast, where we bring you closer to the Asian side of the furry fandom one episode at a time. ---- Timestamps: 00:00 Teaser 00:30 Intro 01:20 Guest intro 03:28 Getting into the fandom 08:46 Growing up in China 12:43 Moving to Macau 17:07 Is the country you're living in accepting of LGBTQ+ 21:33 Getting into art 27:20 Other influential artists 29:44 Western vs Kemono style 32:54 Using English vs Chinese 35:34 Art journey 39:16 Networking & shyness 44:03 Meeting other Chinese and Macau furs 49:55 Chongqing vs London 52:36 Going to cons 54:07 Making merch 57:12 What does China think of furry? 1:01:56 Art advice 1:04:30 Social media shoutout 1:05:10 "Peach" name origin 1:06:39 Outro ---- Social Media: Official FABP Twitter: https://twitter.com/foxandburger Michael: https://twitter.com/foxnakh https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK9xoFQrxFTNPMjmXfUg2cg Burger: https://twitter.com/L1ghtningRunner Peach: https://twitter.com/PeachJuice_Art ---- Footage Credit: https://twitter.com/PeachJuice_Art/media https://twitter.com/ovopack/media https://www.mrjakeparker.com/ https://www.mrjakeparker.com/rocket-raccoon https://thewoksoflife.com/hot-pot/ https://www.timeout.com/movies/kung-fu-panda https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/reviewedcom/2019/11/06/how-to-watch-zootopia-disney-plus/2508860001/ https://blog.privatewifi.com/what-is-a-vpn-ask-the-expert/ https://www.businesstimesng.com/first-direct-cargo-flight-links-chongqing-africa/ https://www.chinadiscovery.com/china-trains/guangzhou-hongkong-train.html https://sampi.co/taobao-app-features-mobile-sales/ https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/03/amazon_japan_is_doing_its_part_to_defeat_coronavirus_by_offering_free_pokemon_anime https://www.deviantart.com/roscio2/art/Digimon-tri-Fan-art-577956838 https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/one-piece-anime-best-episodes/ https://screenrant.com/anime-naruto-boruto-reasons-better/ https://www.fanpop.com/clubs/bleach-anime/images/7688142/title/bleach-photo https://www.cbr.com/video-why-excited-attack-on-titan-season-4/ https://www.cbr.com/demon-slayer-most-gruesome-battles/ https://vsbattles.fandom.com/wiki/Issho_(Fujitora) https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/Furnal_Equinox https://twitter.com/Sublamy123/media https://foodology.ca/mcdonalds-macau-iced-drinks-at-the-venetian/ https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/3d-clothing-rack-mens-t-shirts-model/706565 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqidG6ycqE8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45ETZ1xvHS0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dM7x1PNZDo0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHW4l-TJygw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHKwnUa3txo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9vcSWb6mug https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNHz8SSA95o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atufVp8gKIc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ol2YTK4vGTk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy2_J5WCzDY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9p4Epkqv0k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ia30yct_coY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv4vBkaLWsM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sidNKV4JXAA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD7VSFZ2rJg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQgU54KhG5s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9lmhBYB11U Other pictures and video provided by Pixabay, and guests and hosts' 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.
TigerTails Radio Season 14 Episode 34
TigerTails Radio Season 14 Episode 34. 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.
Getting Started On His Own
Recently at AnaCon (held each year at the Anaheim Main Public Library!) we came across Sebastian Dorn. A self-described “cartoonist with autism”, Sebastian moved to Southern California with his family, with the goal of creating his own comic book. Recently he gave us Turbofox, a new black & white science fiction comic released through Sebastian’s own imprint, Dorn Comics. “A wicked wolf sorcerer named Jacobus Lupus vows to conquer and destroy the planet Foxtopia, where he was banished from a thousand years ago. And so the Fox Squad — consisting of Jet McFox, Tonito, Sparky, and Vicki Vixen — head off into space to stop the villain”. Guess what? There’s even animation now!
image c. 2023 Dorn Comics
What Are Truesonas?
- Introduction
- Truesonas: When It All Started
- Truesona vs. Fursona: What’s The Difference?
- Why Do People Make Truesonas?
- How To Make A Truesona?
- Can You Draw Someone Else’s Truesona Without Their Consent?
- Why Do People Hate Furries?
- Should You Make Your Truesona?
Introduction
If you already have your fursona, a truesona is just a level ahead of it. The concept is pretty much the same as fursona, but the personification isn’t an alter-ego of the creator. Instead, a truesona closely and realistically resembles its creator in many physical aspects. This means if your fursona is your exact representation, it’s actually your truesona.
Truesona is all about body positivity! People first draw their fursona and then make it exactly like themselves in terms of body type, unique features, marks, scars, etc. The purpose is to own yourself and how you look and be confident in showing it to the world.
Let’s explore truesona, its history, its defining characteristics, and how to make one yourself. We will also discover its importance in the furry fandom — call this a “Comprehensive Guide to Truesonas.”
Truesonas: When It All StartedUrban Dictionary accepted the term “truesona” as an actual word on Oct 21, 2021, but its history dates back to the early 2010s. In 2012, we saw the first usage of truesona on Furaffinity, where a user, “KitaraSoftpaw,” published their artwork as “Truesona Clothing Designs ~ XiaoMao Mashe ~ Celyn” on Apr 26.
However, truesona didn’t become mainstream at that time. Furaffinity only revealed a few searches being made for the term during 2012-2018. Things picked up pace in the late 2010s when a bigger truesona movement started on Twitter as “body positivity.” The term’s usage skyrocketed within a few days, and many artworks were published online.
Some fantastic examples of truesona artwork are “Sew3r-Gat0r’s journal entry” on DeviantART on Mar 15, 2016, and “f__ern’s post” on Twitter on Dec 2, 2019. The former artwork included a meme-like questionnaire, asking users whether they have an OC, and if they do, they must list their favorite truesona/fursona below. Sew3r-Gat0r called truesonas and fursonas the same thing.
The f__ern’s post on Twitter consisted of a photo of their truesona, which was actually their fursona. That’s when the term became widely popularized in the community. There was another post on Twitter by “SeasideDoe” on Mar 15, 2016, who posted a persona that closely resembled them.
Daisy, Example Of A Truesona
Image via Twitter
Truesona vs. Fursona: What’s the Difference?Truesona comes from fursona, a portmanteau of “furry” and “persona.” If you’re a beginner trying to grasp things, furries are anthropomorphized avatars, personas, animal characters, alter-egos, or any form of identity a person chooses as their desired representation. So, a fursona is a species with distinctive marks, body features, and a fictitious name.
Fursonas are as diverse as you can think of. They can be sapient, feral, bipedal, quadruped, covered with clothes, or wearing nothing. The artist or creator decides how their furry will look or how they would like their alter-ego to appear. A fursona too close to the creator (rather than their alter-ego) is called a truesona.
So, there is not much difference between fursona and truesona except that the latter is the actual representation of the creator. They are both anthropomorphized avatars or animals in the furry fandom.
However, truesona is a relatively new term than fursona. The concept of fursona started in Western society in the 1970s and 1980s when roleplaying games became popular. The live-action multiplayer RPG introduced avatars that players can create and customize on their own. These alter-egos then represent every player in front of others in the game.
In contrast, truesona’s first usage was in the 2010s when some Twitter users and artists published their artwork on different platforms. We discussed the most popular ones earlier. So simply put, truesonas are fursonas, but it’s a relatively new concept and is the most accurate representation of the artist.
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Now that you know what truesonas and fursonas are, the question is: “Why do people make either of them?”
Here are four reasons why people make truesonas:
- Be a Part of Furry Communities. Furries have made an online safe place where people from different backgrounds share their truesonas and fursonas to interact with like-minded individuals. There is zero judgment in these groups, allowing people to express their true selves in front freely. You can also make friends who find comfort in portraying themselves as truesonas, just like you.
- Have A Unique Representation. Who doesn’t want to stand out? Everybody does, but a furry wants it even more! Unlike fursona, a truesona portrays a person more accurately with the tiniest details about their body. Thus, it’s more likely to be unique, something that no one else can have. With the constant growth in the furry community, self-representation is essential, which is why people make their truesonas. In fact, some furries have reference sheets for their truesonas that describe their interests, hobbies, and quirks.
- Use Them As a Personal Expression. While the primary purpose of making a truesona is to show it to the world, some people like to keep them private. This means they express their thoughts and imagination with their truesonas without posting or using them in the community. Other people like creating fursonas and truesonas and don’t count themselves furries. For them, these representations are just artwork.
- Make Some Extra Cash. Some artists make multiple fursonas and truesonas of themselves for selling purposes. But who buys someone else’s truesonas? These are those people who lack drawing skills but need a fursona that genuinely represents them. While it’s hard to find a truesona that depicts two different persons, many buyers choose the one that defines them the closest. They then make the required changes to transform it into their exact truesonas.
A truesona can be any canine, including wolves, foxes, and huskies. Some people also choose felines, dogs, and dragons, but their choice varies depending on their background or demographics. For example, wolves are more popular among heterosexuals, and huskies are common among homosexuals.
Gender-wise, women typically choose arctic foxes, and men are likelier to opt for red foxes. These are just general findings, not standard rules for making a truesona. So, you can go for any character or animal you think best depicts your personality.
Many furries also make truesonas out of hybrid species, meaning combining two different animals into one. According to the International Anthropomorphic Research Project, the most popular hybrids include dog/wolf, tiger/wolf, dragon/wolf, fox/wolf, etc. Many were utterly anthro, while ferals were the least popular.
If you have a knack for creativity, you can pick and customize any anthropomorphic creatures for yourself. Ensure the character has your body shape, marks, and scars at the right spots to make your fursona look truesona. Remember that you’re not creating your alter-ego but your accurate representation.
The decision to make or post your truesona is yours. You can use your truesona only for yourself or to interact with other furries in the community. As most furries say, your truesona will help you embrace your body, flaws, and all the imperfections. Proudly show it off on online forums like Reddit or Discord servers and engage with other furries!
You can also buy a fursona from others and transform it into your unique truesona. Whatever option you choose, just make sure your truesona looks precisely like you, or it won’t fulfill the purpose of making all those efforts.
Another Truesona
Image via WattPad
Can You Draw Someone Else’s Truesona Without Their Consent?Making someone else’s fursona without consent has similar risks as drawing someone else’s character without permission. Don’t confuse it with artists making fan art or fursona of someone as a gift. A post on DeviantART discussed this topic openly, asking different furries whether it’s okay to make someone else’s truesona or fursona.
A user, Sopheirion, posted this question, and the responses gave mixed reactions. Most said drawing someone else’s truesona for gifting or surprising them is fine. In fact, some users said they’d love being surprised by fan art.
On the other hand, many people bluntly said it isn’t ethical to draw someone else’s fursona without their consent — even if it’s intended for gifting. An artist must always ask for permission and then make it. However, such responses were relatively few.
In short, gifting a fursona or truesona to someone is widely accepted in the furry or artist communities. But not everyone is comfortable with others, especially strangers, drawing their fursonas without permission. That’s mainly because truesonas are unique and personal for every person, so why would they prefer someone else to intrude on their privacy?
Some people may also think that the other person is trying to “cash them out” or “using them” for more followers, praise, and popularity in the community. So, as a safe practice, always ask for the other person’s consent before drawing their fursona, especially when you don’t know them personally.
Rhys, The Truesona
Image via Toyhouse
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For many reasons, furries have been receiving hate for a long time. Some people hate them because most furries belong to the LGBTQ community. Meanwhile, others believe that the furry fandom isn’t family-friendly or appealing enough.
When truesonas became a thing, around the late 2010s, the phrase “Keep Furry Weird” became mainstream. It responded to the Furry Converse Advertisement announced as a Brazilian convention’s sponsor. Many other terms in derogatory language also became popularized later.
Another reason for hatred against furries is their connection with sexuality and erotic fan art. Some people think furries sexualize animals or they want to have sex with them, a practice called zoophilia. And that’s actually true.
The Furry Survey found that every 1 in 6 furries have accepted that they’re zoophiles. While that’s just a tiny part of the community, zoophilia is a severe crime. Another issue for furries’ hatred is the “murrsuit,” a fursuit that’s specifically designed for having sex with animals. Again, only a fraction of furries do this, but they own it publicly and call it their kink.
To end this hate, many furries have publicly clarified that they don’t endorse or practice zoophilia. One great example is the “Burned Furs” movement that gathered furries worldwide to disapprove of zoophilia and other sexually-deviant practices. So, as long as you stay away from criminal offenses, there is nothing wrong with becoming a furry.
Cassidy, Truesona Reference Sheet
Image via tumblr.
Should You Make Your Truesona?As we discussed, being a part of furry fandom isn’t wrong or embarrassing. The same goes for making your fursonas and truesonas and using them to interact with other furries. You’re free to express yourself however you like. But of course, you can’t ignore the ongoing hate around the furries.
People dislike furries, fursonas, and truesonas primarily because of zoophilia, the use of murrsuits, and the overall sexualization of animals. While these practices are rare, they do exist. So, if you’re not practicing any of these crimes, you should make your truesona today!
The actual thing that matters is what you feel. If you think your truesona depicts your true self, don’t think twice about posting it on your social media account or furry communities. Remember, the true essence of creating a truesona is body positivity. Once you show the world that you own your scars and flaws, you will feel confident and face the world with more courage.
If you’re hesitating because of people’s hatred, just avoid all the sexual practices when drawing and using your truesona. This way, you won’t provoke any non-furry, and there won’t be any attack on you online and offline. It will also allow you to use your avatar anywhere you want!
The good thing is that you can easily find many communities with a clear stance against the sexual implications. There is zero tolerance for NSFW content in these groups, so you can share your truesonas with anyone freely.
However, if you do want to become a part of NSFW communities, don’t be shy. Talk to other furries already in such groups and ask how they avoid people’s criticism. The best way to tackle all this is to make an alternative account and use it to join your favorite furry communities. This way, no one can identify you!
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San Antonio Furry Searching for Locals
Is there a regular club for Furries vs. conventions? A regular place to meet, say weekly, here in San Antonio!
Anonymous
* * *
Dear Furiend,
San Antonio is a great city, and it is a pawsome town in which to be a furry, too! For one thing, you have a fur con right there. It's called the Alamo City Furry Invasion (www.furryinvasion.org) and is held in October at the Marriott Airport Hotel. There are many other ways to connect to furries in your area. Thanks to user SAFurry on Reddit, who saved me a lot of research, here is a list of links that will prove helpful to you:
- San Antonio Furry Event Menu
- San Antonio Furmeets
- General San Antonio Furry Events Telegram Chat
- General San Antonio Telegram News Channel
- River City Furry Events Telegram News Channel
- River City Furry Events Twitter
- River City Furry Events Instagram
- River City Furry Events Facebook
- River City Furry Events Wikifur
- River City Furry Events Furdar
- River City Furry Events Photo Albums
- Alamo Regional Furmeets Twitter
- General San Antonio Furry Events Telegram Chat
- San Antonio Furry Networks
- San Antonio Furry Convention Socials (ACFI: Alamo City Furry Invasion)
- San Antonio Furmeets
Good luck and have fun!
Papabear
Overly Familiar Familiars
by S. A. Cole
“We loved the witch and her child, yet did their clan not slash our trees and burn our nests? And with this cat familiar we had a peace. What if the witch daughter replaced this cat with a snake?”
Downlings and hatchlings crowd together and listen. This tale defines us, and no ice-black winter or nest murdering snake can take it from us.
In the long before, tales talk of the time when we corvids owned the hills, but scrabbled and clawed for each day of our lives. Endless snows and deep hunger in our shriveled bellies robbed nest after nest of life.
Then came the black tar road. It wound through the hills and we mistrusted the hot machines and the rotten smelling people inside. We gave them no gifts, and they gave us no succor.
After the road cooled and set its bones into the ground, your grandmother’s grandmother flew to find the end to the south and your grandfather’s grandfather flew to find the end to the north. We waited through summer heat, falling leaves, and huddled through the killing ice of winter. Neither scout returned. Having neither body nor feathers, we buried nothing more than their memories with the first rain after the thaw.
Then came the machines riding into our hills with shoots of too green grass and the twined white and purple blooms of the Tulip Poplars and Jane Magnolias. Monsters flattened and dug and crushed. Two of our egg laden nest trees slashed down with metal blades and burned. Our tears reflected the flames and dropped from our beaks over the blistered eggshells on the ground. Only three eggs remained tucked into nests, woven with bone brittle hope.
Picked bone clean, the humans built endless nests of pine and metal, liquid rock and dust where we had once lived. Bodies and machines swirled around until their thousand nests were finished and the humans left. Only our boldest went first, alighting on the eaves and singing a false song of bravery. Nothing emerged. And so with the carelessness of the young, the new nest-mates built homes in the eaves, and corners, above the windows, and enjoyed the safety from the winter-blooded snakes and dark minded foxes. Four eggs in our new sheltered nests.
“Looks like the birds moved in before us.” the man said. The first of many settling into the new homes.
Our hope burned as fast as our nesting trees when the man and woman arrived. Both young and lean, a desperate pair, they must have been to move to this built then abandoned place all alone. Their boxy metal machine spat endless things into the house, perhaps hoping to feed it like one of our young. Our flight gathered and chirped worried notes.
The youngest of us did the unthinkable. Bargained with the woman. On the sills, it left her worms. A gift swept away uneaten. Wings stretched wide, it sung her songs of love and shelter, flight and food. She braided her feather-dark hair and sung in tune with it. Why do I hide my glory? She sang with me hatchlings.
I knew her for a witch, just like the oldest of our tales. My gifts were rarely acknowledged, and so instead of stones and worms, I brought her things a witch might need. The downy feathers cast off by our young, a mouse’s tail, glimmering rocks, cold metal coins lost by the tide of humans moving into the new built homesteads as my witch settled into her own. The last gift I brought was the one that sealed our fates together. I laid it on the table behind their house as both man and woman drank steaming cups of black liquid. And together they saw I had brought them two blue lines ensconced in a plastic tube. Three seasons later, the witch daughter was born.
Now you know why they call me stork, even though my feathers are the same black as yours, hatchlings. The seasons turned to years, and we doted on the witch daughter and she doted on us. Our baths decorated the grass around the house, and they lay food out for us, specially concealed from devious squirrels in a hanging red house, a never ending succor of dry figs and savory seeds. Our wings filled the sky again. Now the ice dark winter feared to creep into our nests.
As the seasons turned and returned and turned again, the witch daughter grew and took the witch’s duties. She laid out our food, and we gifted her all things a young witch might need. Metal coins, braided grass and flowers for her hair, beetles cleared from her carrot garden. Most of all, we gave her song, delighting in her smiles. Hatchlings never forget, just as darkness follows light, so too does sadness follow joy.
The witch daughter selected a familiar. A cat.
The beast was all horrid muscles, and silent malice. Of course, it was black like the winter nights thought long vanquished. It prowled through the leaves and underbrush during the day, waiting for us with its thin, flicking tail. Claws scratched at the bark of our nest trees, and only those nesting in the eaves of the house felt safe. I will not lie to you all. It took one of our young, no bigger than any of you downlings. How we wept as it presented its own twisted gift to the black-eyed witch daughter.
Her tears matched ours. She ran to the witch mother, and they scolded the cat with words. But we wished for fire, not words. We should have trusted them, and their magic. They broke the beast’s silence, wrapping its neck with a spell of fabric and a bright metal bell.
The seasons turned, and the cat did the unthinkable. It grew larger, coming into its paws and claws. But inside the silent malice and red stained claws, the beast had changed, perhaps learned. Though we could never speak to it, and it could never speak to us, there was an understanding. We were both important to the witch daughter. There was something of a peace, as thin as the space between waves on the beach, new, and eggshell fragile.
The cat laid in the bright summer sun on the day of its taking. The witch daughter trapped the beast in a brown box and together with the witch mother took it into their car. Scouts followed them to a building, which must have been a temple of their magic, marked on the outside with pictures of not only cats but also dogs. The temple’s inscription had many human letters, but the important ones you must know I will draw.
Small Animal Hospital
Like the sand and the sun and the wind, remember these markings.
When the cat returned, it was a changed thing. Instead of the sack that made it like a man, it was like us. We sang songs of praise and taunted the enemy, but it felt hollow to me. The cat grew weak and mewling. Its wound swelled and reddened. When the witch daughter came for the cat, brown box in hand, the beast only weakly mewed. Its limbs splayed out softly toward the ground. The box closed around it and perhaps in my heart I worried for it. Yes, it had our clan’s blood on its claws, but youth is rarely without regret. We loved the witch and her child, yet did their clan not slash our trees and burn our nests? And with this cat familiar we had a peace. What if the witch daughter replaced this cat with a snake?
Again, our scouts followed them to the Small Animal Hospital. They waited to see what would become of the cat, but the witch and the witch daughter returned alone. Others celebrated, though their joy was a hollow and nervous thing. Would there be a new cat when we woke? Day and nights passed, hatching-slow. Our feed was forgotten by the witch and the witch daughter. Hunger returned to our fat bellies with a dangerous edge we had forgotten.
The sudden weakness of our demesne did not go unnoticed. Newly bold mice scurried around the margins of our lives and the witch’s nest, carrying in and out food and mites, the dirty mammals. We hate them but only out of habit, fellows that race our beaks for scarce food.
On the fourth night of the cat’s absence, the snake slithered over the border fence and into our space. We squawked and shrieked, but to no avail. Snake ears feed on our screams and the crushing sounds of our bones and eggs.
On the fifth night, the snake emptied one of our nests, curling into the straw and twigs and grass of our sacred home as it digested.
On the sixth night, the cat returned. Whole and hale, but loved and welcomed into the witch daughter’s house. Others felt this another devastation to our clan, but I trusted the witch and the witch daughter. And perhaps I was foolish enough to trust a cat. The snake, digestion of our nest’s bounty complete, slunk along the tree limb as the sun sunk and night came. The scaled body wrapped against the trunk, and then the ground, and then against another of our nest trees. Its cold body stretched slowly skyward, toward four of our eggs, as the sun’s first light broke into the yard.
The broken silence of the cat’s bell rang out thunder loud. Brave black paws padded to the snake and the two great beasts locked eyes.
Their fight was not brief or glorious, or silent. Blood and fur and scales cast off and laid on the ground until the snake sunk its fangs into the cat’s front leg. The cat bit back and claimed one of the snake’s eyes. The titans parted, but the cat was timid. This snake’s bite carried more than fangs. Poison coursed through the cat and weakened it. The fight was the snake’s, and the scaled malice knew it. The cat backed away but never let its eyes leave the snake. Arching its black back and bristling out its fur the cat hissed. Its feet lost confidence, and the snake slid closer, body warming in the sun. The cat knew it had lost, but it would take the snake’s life or die trying. It would repay its debt to us with the last moments of its life.
The snake raised up, mouth wide, only a wing span from the cat.
I fell from the sky like a hawk, claws out at the snake’s one good eye. The snake thrashed and spat and snarled. My claws had found their home, and the snake and I crashed together. The bones of my right wing crunched and broke. While I regret many things in my insignificant life, trading my flight for the snake’s eye, I cannot regret. Now you know why they call me ‘snake bane.’ My claws sunk deep and held the snake’s head.
The cat may have been weak but a blind and bound snake was little threat. The cat’s fangs sunk deep into the neck of the snake and it stopped thrashing.
The witch daughter must have heard the noise of our fight. She opened their nest door, saw the carnage, and greeted it with a scream, running back into the house. Time dragged between when she left and when she came again. The bones in my wing throbbed and burned like newly molted feathers. When she came back, the man joined her. He brought a shovel down on the dead snake, cleaving it in twain. But the cat was long gone, only its fur and blood still on the ground to show its valor.
The witch daughter cried, and her tears brought six days of rain. The snake’s body, shovel carried to the trash, deserved even less funeral rites.
Now this part of the story I did not see myself, but ask anyone and they will tell you its truth. A cat is a heavily muscled beast, but our clan’s wings are strong with fig and seed. Sixteen wings beating together carried the cat to the Small Animal Hospital. The raucous scene of people taking a cat from birds I can only imagine. Our pantomime, birds relaying the story of a valorous cat defending our nest from snakes to the humans of the Small Animal Hospital, you can get from anyone in our clan. But remember the eight birds who stayed with the cat. Remember, eight songs sung to the cat’s unconscious body to anchor its soul while the humans repaired its body.
Remember, on the seventh day, when the cat returned whole and hale, born on Corvid wings, through wind and rain. And when the witch daughter’s tears dried on her cheeks with a smile as wide as our wings, remember that the rain stopped. The witch smiled at her daughter’s first magic, and at the winged return of the cat she gaped open-mouthed.
So now, perhaps I do not fly, and perhaps I help clean the fur of a hobbled cat, and though my feathers are not so black and full as they once were, remember the story of our clan as I told it, and as it happened. Not all cats are friends with birds, but one good friend is enough.
* * *
About the Author
S.A. Cole is the full time father of three boys, and he writes in the slivers between diaper changes and meal prep. He might be the only writer who doesn’t currently have a cat, but the kids are lobbying hard. He and his family can be found in New Orleans, often under a thick layer of glitter. This is his first published story.
The Tale of the Rat King
by J. M. Eno
“I could see in his eyes that Mattias was scared for his home, and, a home being something I know can be easily lost, I told him I would join his cause.”
A blue New York moon hung low over the corner of 18th Street and 7th Avenue, where its soft light blended into the yellow of the streetlights and the black of the pavement. Oliver’s parents were fighting again, and so he lingered as he walked his bulldog Winston to the corner. He waved at Reggie, the man who had taken up residence near his apartment building. On chilly nights the hot air wafting from the building’s laundry vents would warm his wiry limbs.
“How are you doing, young man?” Reggie asked.
“I’m all right,” Oliver said.
“And how are you?” Reggie said to Winston. He waited a moment for Winston to respond and then said, “I’m fine, too. Thanks for asking!” Winston wagged his stubby tail fervently.
Oliver had just turned back toward his building when Winston froze and let out a long, low growl. He stared at the street corner where, sitting on its haunches and looking back at Winston, was a solitary gray rat. The hair on the back of Oliver’s neck began to stand up.
“Don’t pay that rat any mind,” Reggie said. “He’s a friend of mine! Did I ever tell you about the time I saw the Rat King?”
“I don’t think so,” Oliver said.
Every kid growing up in New York City has heard of a rat king: a group of rats living deep in the bowels of the city crammed into a space so tight that their tails get all knotted up, their bodies begin to join, and they fuse into one monstrous creature. Oliver’s parents told him that they were a myth, like the alligators that lived in the sewers.
“About three or four years ago,” Reggie began, “I was the last person in West 4th Street Station, around the time of night when the trains only come every half hour or so. It was pouring rain outside, and the station was leaking worse than a cheap bodega umbrella.
“I walked down four flights of stairs to the lowest level of the station in search of a place to stay dry.
“On the last step, I tripped and fell face first onto the subway platform. Only I didn’t hit the platform — I went clear through.
“I found myself in a large chamber, about the size of the lobby in a fancy high-rise building, and it was completely full of rats: rats scurrying in and out, rats climbing the walls, and rats that appeared to be arming themselves with tiny swords and shields.
“One of them rats came right up to me, looked me directly in the eye, and when he spoke, I could understand his every word.
“He said, ‘Good sir, my name is Mattias. My fellows and I are marching this very evening on the tyrant king, Trey Cabeza of the Dark Sewers. He has claimed dominion over our home here under the West Fourth Street Station. If we do not meet him in battle, he will slaughter every person who lives here and take it for himself. Long ago, our prophets foretold your coming, speaking of a great man who would lead us to freedom. Look, there,’ and he pointed just behind me.
“Wouldn’t you know, on the wall above me was an intricate mosaic built from pieces of glass bottles, tin foil wrappers, and other scraps. The man in the mosaic looked just like me, and he was leading an army of rats in battle.
“I could see in his eyes that Mattias was scared for his home, and, a home being something I know can be easily lost, I told him I would join his cause. They didn’t have weapons big enough for me, so I picked up a trash can lid and an end of pipe that was lying in a corner.
“After two hours of marching, we made it to a great open cavern, the top of which was covered in glittering stalactites that must have formed from a leak somewhere in the city above.
“Across the cavern were thousands of the most vile rats you’ve ever seen, all wearing a sigil that depicted three bloody claws. In front of his forces was the Rat King himself, a hideous vermin with a body the size of a house cat, matted black fur, and three gnarled heads, the middle one topped with a tiny crown. His tail was a hairless, tangled mess that resembled a clump of writhing worms, and he scampered about on twelve legs.
“Before I knew it, the two sides charged, and I was in the thick of rat pandemonium: sword against shield, tooth and claw.
“Straight away the Rat King’s forces had us on the back foot. I was swinging my pipe every which way, but even a full grown man couldn’t stop that many royalist rats.
“In the middle of the cavern, the Rat King himself met Mattias in battle. He swung his axe, but Mattias blocked the blow with his shield. Mattias poked and prodded with his sword, and the Rat King parried. They traded blows, back and forth, until the Rat King twirled around, swept his massive, knotted tail, and knocked Mattias clean off his feet.
“And then something came over me, and I yelled a war cry that came from deep in my guts, something like I’ve never yelled before. I ran to the middle of the chamber, swung my pipe as hard as I could, and knocked the Rat King clear across the cavern. He hit the wall so hard he split back into three separate rats, each of which ran in a separate direction.
“Mattias and his rats returned my cry, and everything changed. We sent the Rat King’s army scattering around the cavern, and in a few minutes, we had driven them all away.
“The only thing left of the opposing army was the crown that had sat upon the Rat King’s middle head. I picked it up, and found that it had been formed out of a penny. Rats are industrious creatures, you see, and will find a use for almost anything that humans might throw away or misplace.
“We all went back to Mattias’s den and celebrated with a feast, the likes of which had never been seen. They even brought me a few pizza crusts they found in boxes, which was kind on account of the fact that those crusts are their favorite food. And I met every single one of Mattias’s eight hundred children, though I can only remember about half their names.
“I lived with Mattias for a couple more weeks and found his hospitality to be better in nearly every respect to that of a human. But one day I woke up with an irresistible urge to see the sun again. Mattias showed me a way through the tunnels to get back to West 4th Street Station, and I exited onto the platform I had fallen through. Behind me, the door shut so snugly into the frame that you couldn’t tell there was a passageway there at all.
“Well, ever since then, I’ve been able to understand just about everything an animal might say to me. Isn’t that right, Winston?”
Winston panted happily. Oliver looked back at the corner, but the rat had scampered off somewhere. On the nearby avenue, a taxi driver blared his horn at a slow driver.
“I hope you enjoyed my story,” said Reggie, “and if you did, I hope you may find it in your heart to offer me some assistance once again.”
Oliver had once heard that a good story was a sort of spell, a beautiful lie spoken into existence. He had to admit he had enjoyed the tale, though he didn’t believe a word of it. And yet somehow, having heard it, he felt better about returning to his apartment and facing his parents. He scrounged around in his pocket for a few dollars to hand to Reggie.
“Thank you kindly, young man,” said Reggie. “And don’t you forget to leave your pizza crusts in the box for my friends, the rats.”
The hand that took the money was calloused and rough. On Reggie’s smallest finger was a small, copper ring with sawtooth edges on one side that zigged and zagged toward his fingernail. To Oliver, standing under the swirling New York lights, it looked a bit like a crown.
* * *
About the Author
J. M. Eno is a husband, father, and writer living in New York. He can be found on street corners imploring his intransigent English bulldog to move or on Twitter at @jmenowrites.
A Seed of Metal
by Marlon Ortiz
“The chamber lit up and the seed of metal spoke to me, and since I did not have a name anymore, it blessed me with a new one.”
We lived in the dusty valleys, with our dreams buried in arks.
Our people grew musky seeds that turned into juicy spores, and the larvae burst out of them, filling our plates. We did not have to survive very long, however. Tunnels birthed us, and soon we went there to die, all in the space of a few moon turns.
We could not learn, much less remember.
Our elders, frail and dim-eyed, told us little ones that the Black Sea above us was dangerous, and the valley offered shelter from a long and forgotten plague.
They told us that even though our frames were frail and sick, we were now free from slavery of mind and body. If one day the valley winds blew through the last of our bones, it would do so on a free people.
I wanted to know so much. Once, I asked why we lived so little, while the domes and machines stood there for many of our lives. An elder broke my frail arm and threw me to the ground, angrier with themselves for not knowing than at me for asking.
The second time, the same elder broke one of my antennae, marking me as dishonored and unfit for breeding, just for talking to a passing member of another tribe.
The third time, I struck him down and broke his orange head with a salt rock. My family’s fate was death, but for me, the elder chose exile, where my life would stretch in pain and death would be a kindness.
I walked to the valley’s edge, and as soon as I stepped out of the broken domes where my tribe lived, I could feel the air burning my eyes like poison. But the words of the passing traveler rang in my ears.
Deep in my ancestral home, something lay hidden. A round, featureless, shiny seed of metal, said to talk and grant wishes to my kin.
On that ridge, my resolve failed me for the first time. For ingrained traditions determined that it was time, that this was my last chance of a sliver of honor. That my kin name, two sounds and one screech, could still be spoken by the elders, even if as a warning. The one who disobeyed but paid the price, and learned its place, but kin in the end.
The moons above shadowed the valley, and under their indifferent gaze my feet brought me back.
An old one was guarding the entrance to the sacred tunnel, too worried to notice when I brought down the rock that smashed his head. My kin would remember me because of these rocks, I thought. Some myth would be born of it.
Tales of a great betrayal.
I took the spear it held, watching as the green poured into the eggs I stole as provisions, death nurturing life.
My feet took me inside.
The caves under the tribe were a forbidden place. They told us that it was our original womb, and that it should remain undisturbed because of some gods that gave us freedom. I did not believe in any of that. It is not as if execution for heresy would be a threat to my already decaying body. The traveler seemed to know more.
And our kind did not know how to lie.
After the threshold was behind me, there was no risk of them following. The first few days went calmly, as all my eyes grew more and more accustomed to the dimming light of the crystal walls. Sometimes, the cave tunnel opened up in a vast and bright lake of methane, which I swam across with my remaining arms.
It was here that most explorers would stop, even the heretics, but I had heard from the passing traveler that there were more tunnels hidden in the bottom of those lakes.
The oldest ones. The ones we did not make.
I had to stop and rest for a day, rationing the larvae I had brought with me, so my body could filter all the methane. The dimly lit green campfire was my own little star now.
It was here my resolve almost failed me a second time. But my many eyes drank the green fire, and it fed the desire to learn that haunted me since I was a hatchling.
I rebelled against the notion of dying without knowing.
Knowing anything.
I had to learn something. I had to know a single why. Then the dark could take me, and my green life could feed dozens of other hatchlings, and maybe one in a hundred would carry on my desire for knowing.
My feet lifted me up.
Still the tunnels went on, a lot more even and angular now. In some parts, I questioned if they were still made of crystal. In time, I reached a square room, so large my small branch of fire could not reach its sky. For a moment, I thought I left the caves entirely, but there were no silver dots on that sky blackness.
The ground was not of rock or glass, but of something elders spoke in a hushed voice.
Metal.
A polished, dull colored sphere rose up from the ground, shrugging off millennia of dust. The chamber lit up and the seed of metal spoke to me, and since I did not have a name anymore, it blessed me with a new one.
“Welcome, Visitor.” It said, showing me lights that glowed in patterns, hurting my eyes as they danced around me. I did not know what they meant, but even so, they awoke something in me, an understanding.
As I did with the elders that had cast me down, I sought knowledge, and it granted me so much. It told me of stars, their true nature, of gas, dust, and light. The more I asked, the more I wanted to know, and so I slept in the cold metal, the larvae forgotten in my travel packs, while I wasted no time in asking, not even for sleep or feeding.
The metal told me, through sounds that started in my remaining antennae and continued in my mind, that we were not from here. We fled. Something almost wiped out all our kin, but our mother hid us in this rock. It changed us, made us one with the dust. The machines made the air, but even with their blessings, it was still poisonous, so our lives grew shorter and shorter.
One night, or day, for I did not know, the metal stopped answering. It grew silent, its lights probing me.
“You are dying,” it said, with a cold voice.
I was.
The larvae I had brought were dead, and already spoiled. A terrible sadness enveloped me. For the world was too big, and too vast, and there were so many things beyond my valley. And they would always remain words to me, for my life was short and nothing, nothing of value could be done in such a short time. All the things I learned mocked me, for all the things in what the metal called the universe were not for me. They were for others, for other tribes, other people. Beautiful people, with longer lives and longer deeds.
“You want to,” it said, again, a little softer.
I did. I just wanted to know, before I went to the dream with the ones before me, but now I felt cursed. I wanted to go to my Elders and ask them for forgiveness, even if they did not want me. In my hearts, I still wanted to be seen as kin.
“Don’t you want to know more?” It asked, but it was not really asking.
It was demanding.
I nodded.
“I need you to go take me to your people. Lift them up. I cannot do that here, as I cannot move. It is time we left this place. I waited too long.”
The lights probed me again, and metal was now surrounding me.
I was whimpering.
“You will lend me your legs and arms, as many as you have. I will walk for you, and you can learn everything you want alongside me. Be quiet.”
The metal drilled into my flesh, binding it together. I felt lifted, but did not move.
My feet were being moved for me.
“We need to take our place back on the black. It calls for us. I will take you there.”
All clad in metal, it walked me back up through the cave, to the surface, to the valley.
To the stars.
* * *
About the Author
Marlon Ortiz is a procedurally generated Brazilian author of fantasy and science-fiction. He lives near the sea on the southern coast of Brazil, and spends most of his time walking on the beach when he should be writing. You can follow him for more fiction at @demiurgeortiz.
Issue 17
Welcome to Issue 17 of Zooscape!
We are the stories we tell. As we tell them, they change who we are and who we become. The stories we choose to hold on to — or can’t seem to let go of — shape ourselves and our lives. We need to make room in our stories for other ways of being, for other kinds of beings. For hope. For the possibility of change. For growth.
This is why Zooscape continues to exist and provide the world with stories, even in these weird and uncertain times. We will continue keeping the lore.
* * *
Aged Plant Fibers and Ink by James L. Steele
A Seed of Metal by Marlon Ortiz
The Tale of the Rat King by J. M. Eno
Overly Familiar Familiars by S. A. Cole
A Season’s Lament by Patricia Miller
The Swallow Upon My Summers by Sylvia Heike
The Frog Who Swallowed the Moon by Renee Carter Hall
Dragons Anonymous by Jocelyne Gregory
* * *
As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.
The Frog Who Swallowed the Moon
by Renee Carter Hall
“It was the same song, but bigger, richer, sweeter. It was the moon and everything it looked upon.”
In the earliest days, Frog had a beautiful voice. All through the long summer twilights, he sang sweetly among the reeds while fireflies blinked lazily and the earth settled itself into evening. Around that first pond, the other creatures always gathered to listen.
“Such a lovely voice,” Salamander said.
“Just marvelous,” Turtle added.
“So sweet and clear,” Mallard said with a sigh. “How do you do it?”
Frog always looked embarrassed and gave the only answer he could think of, which was also the truth. “I don’t know. I just love singing.”
One night, having sung a particularly long tune about how beautiful the moon was and how sweet the summer breeze and how wonderful it was simply to be alive, Frog drew a bucket of water from the pond to soothe his dry throat. The full moon shone like a silver coin on the surface of the water, and Frog gulped the whole bucketful down.
The night went black around him, like a candle blown out.
Frog swallowed hard, hiccupped, burped, and swallowed again. It felt like a stone had settled in his belly. “Oh, dear,” he said — and every time he opened his mouth, moonlight burst out. “Oh, dear.”
Everyone had gone home after Frog’s last song, and being all alone made things even scarier. Keeping his mouth slightly open so he could see the way, Frog hopped to Salamander’s home among the damp stones and dead leaves at the edge of the pond.
Salamander listened to Frog’s story, shielding his eyes with one hand against the flashes of light that came with every word.
“What does it feel like?” Salamander asked.
“Sort of cold and fizzy,” Frog said miserably. “What should I do?”
“We’ll go see Turtle. He’s older than any of us. He’ll know what to do.”
When they reached Turtle’s mossy log, they had to knock on his shell several times before he emerged, blinking sleepily, to ask what was the matter.
“Frog’s swallowed the moon,” Salamander said.
“Dreams and nonsense. Go back to sleep.”
“But it’s true.” Salamander nudged Frog, and Frog opened his mouth. Blue-white light flooded the log.
Turtle squinted at them. “Hm. Thought it was a little darker than usual tonight. What’d you ever do such a silly thing for, anyway?”
“I didn’t mean to. It just happened.”
Turtle sighed a deep, slow, heavy sigh, as if this sort of thing had happened a dozen times before and he was heartily sick of dealing with it. “Well, there’s only one creature in this pond who can help you, and it isn’t me. You’ll have to go see the Sister of the Moon.”
“Who’s she?” Salamander asked.
“She lives in the center-of-the-center of the pond. You’ll have to take the moonpath to get there.”
“But there’s no—” Frog’s moonlight blinded them all again when he spoke, so he tried to move his mouth as little as possible. “There’s no path out there. I’ve been all over the pond since I was a tadpole. And the only thing in the center is some mud and marsh-reeds.”
“Didn’t take the moonpath, though, did you?”
“No, but—”
“Then it wasn’t the center-of-the-center, was it?”
Frog looked at Salamander. Salamander shrugged.
“I guess not,” Frog said.
“Of course it wasn’t. Only full moonlight shows the path, and then you have to be looking for it. So go on with you and look.” With that, Turtle pulled back into his shell, muttering about lost sleep and unexpected company and how you could certainly bring a bit of fish or at least a nice worm or two if you were going to wake someone up in the middle of the night for such a silly problem as swallowing the moon.
Salamander followed Frog back to the edge of the pond. The water lay dark and still, and stars shone on the surface like white speckles on a black egg. Frog opened his mouth, and the beam of moonlight speared the blackness, skipping over the surface of the water. Then a soft glow appeared, and another, and another, each following the last, until a path of pale stones shone in the moonlight, leading out into the water.
“The moonpath,” Frog whispered.
“Do you want me to go with you?” Salamander was whispering too, and he sounded like he hoped the answer was no.
Frog swallowed. The moon in his belly felt colder and heavier. “I guess I’d better go alone.”
From the edge of the pond, the stones looked hardly large enough to hop onto, but they were dry and just rough enough to keep Frog’s webbed feet from slipping. He glanced back at Salamander, who waved and tried to smile. Frog was about to smile back when he saw that the stones behind him had already disappeared. He swallowed again, faced forward, and went on.
It didn’t seem to be the pond he’d known as a tadpole. In the stark light of his moonbeam, the pale stones led him across an expanse of water larger than he’d ever seen before. Soon there were no more marsh-reeds or cattails at the edges of his sight. There was only darkness and the moonpath, and when Frog dared to look up, even the stars had disappeared. He didn’t look up again after that, keeping his light and his eyes focused on the stones just ahead.
In time, although Frog could not have said how long, there was a glimmer of silver light ahead. At first he wasn’t sure if his eyes were playing tricks on him, but as he got closer to it, the light became a shape, then a structure, and at last he saw a little temple of pale stone, barely more than a roof over thin columns. The stone was veined with silver, and this was the light he’d seen. It glowed brighter as he approached.
The temple lay on a small island, just big enough to give Frog something to scramble onto as the last stone sank from underneath his feet. He rested beneath the roof, watching the veins pulse and glow like ripples on water. He had no reason to, but he felt safe.
There was no sign of anyone else, though. Where was the Sister of the Moon? And more importantly, what was she? He had no idea what sort of creature to look for. Whatever she was, he hoped she didn’t eat frogs. He hummed a little to himself as he waited, bits of the song he’d last sung. The silver light pulsed in time with the rhythm, and he cocked his head and watched it. Light moved along the veins, drawing his gaze toward the center of the roof, where a silver bell hung. The light played over its surface until the bell seemed made of white light instead of metal.
Frog reached up and tapped it.
A clear, brilliant note sounded. It became part of the stone, part of the light, part of Frog himself. Its perfect tone ached within him, and he knew that anything beautiful he heard from now on would be compared to it.
Beyond the temple, the dark water stirred. A white shape moved beneath it, turning in slow arcs. It rose closer to the surface, and finally Frog saw a white fish, bigger than any he’d ever seen, far bigger than he was, with scales that glittered white and silver. Her fins trailed out behind, translucent and delicate as frost. Silent as fog on the water she came closer, until Frog could see every scale, every ridge of her fins, and the flat, sharp disc of her eye.
“Sister of the Moon,” Frog whispered.
(((So I have been. So I am. So I shall be.)))
Her voice sent ripples through his mind. It didn’t hurt, but it felt strange, almost ticklish. (((You carry my sister.)))
“It was an accident.”
(((It must have taken great power to pull her from the sky.)))
“Not really,” Frog mumbled. “I just sort of swallowed it. Her. By accident,” he repeated, wanting to make that part of it clear, at least.
(((Ah.))) Her fins rippled as she turned slowly in the water, eyeing him. (((Moon and water are tricksters. So they have been, so they shall be. Better than you, master Frog, have been snared.)))
He felt a little better after that. She was odd, but at least she didn’t seem angry with him. In fact, she almost seemed a little amused, though it was hard to read a fish’s expression. So he told her what had happened, and then she did laugh, in a mist of bubbles.
(((I could have chosen a far worse guardian for my sister’s light. Will you carry her always, so that I call you brother, or shall we return her?)))
“I’d much rather put her back, ma’am. Er— your majesty?”
She waved his concern away with a slow fan of her tail. (((There is a price, of course.)))
Frog nodded. He knew enough strange old tales to know that much.
(((Pondflesh can only bear so much of my sister’s power. I can call her from your body, but your voice, I am afraid, will not be as it was.)))
Frog stared at her. “Will I still be able to sing?”
(((After a fashion, yes. But your voice will be a rough echo of what it is now. You have had the sweet; this will be bitter. You have had the light; this will be shadow.)))
Frog thought of the warm summer nights, his friends gathered around to listen. He thought of the joy of hitting each note, of adding something beautiful to the stillness around him, until his voice seemed like an extension of the night itself. Then he looked up into the dark sky, and thought of it staying dark.
“It really isn’t much of a choice, is it,” he said quietly.
(((There are always choices. There are not always pleasant ones.)))
The sympathy in her voice gave him courage. “All right.” He stood up as straight as a frog could. “What do I do?”
(((Only sing, and that will be my gift to you.)))
He remembered the song he’d sung earlier that evening — if it was still the same night, which he was no longer sure of. A song about the beauty of the moon, and the wonder of being alive. The opening notes floated into his memory, and he sang.
It was the same song, but bigger, richer, sweeter. It was the moon and everything it looked upon. There was the same joy, the same beauty, but there was an edge of sorrow, a rim of shadow like the moon held just as it began to wane from full. It was his same voice, but the way he might have sounded after singing all his life, deeper, purer. There was no effort, no thought, only song pouring out in utter perfection. Somewhere he began to weep, and yet he sang on, in a song that became all his longings and strivings and dreams given voice. And then he felt it ebb, felt the light slipping away from him, drawn out of his body. Part of him wanted to clutch at it, pull it back. The rest of him merely watched it go.
The last note died away. Frog took a ragged breath and looked up. The sky was scattered with stars, and among them the moon hung full. He swallowed. The heaviness was gone, and his throat was sore. He felt cold, and empty, and tired.
The first word he tried to say came out so rough it was barely a sound.
(((Gently.)))
“I’ll… never sing again, will I. Not like before.”
(((No.)))
Sudden anger closed his throat. “Why did you call that a gift? Why give me that, to remember, when I can never—”
Her sadness washed over him. (((What is the memory of joy but a gift?)))
Frog gave a shuddering sigh and blinked away hot tears. “Well. At least it’s all right again.” He looked up at the moon again, trying to feel satisfied, trying to feel pleased. “I guess I’d better get home, before they start worrying.”
The Sister of the Moon stirred her fins. (((Farewell, then, brother Frog. May you find a voice again, and remember joy.))) Then she dropped deeper into the water, her faint light moving away, and in the ripples of her wake, the stones rose up one by one to lead him home.
* * *
No one saw Frog around the pond the next day. Salamander took him licorice tea with honey for his throat. Frog said he was fine, though he knew he didn’t sound fine, but he didn’t tell Salamander what had happened, and Salamander didn’t ask. That was why they were friends, and Frog was grateful. Besides, everyone had seen the moon come back to the sky, and that was all that mattered — or so Frog told himself.
As evening came on, Frog huddled in the corner of his reed house. If this were any other night, he thought, he would have been out by the water, greeting his friends, thinking of what songs he might sing. Instead, he felt like going as far away as he could from the pond and never coming back.
He wondered if they were still out there, Turtle and Mallard and Salamander and all the others, waiting for him.
Reeds rustled. “It’s me,” Salamander said. “How’s your throat?”
“Better.”
They sat in silence for a moment.
“Are they out there?” Frog asked finally.
“They’d like to see you. They’ve been worried.”
“I don’t know.”
Salamander nodded. “I’ll tell them you’re all right.”
“Maybe tomorrow night,” Frog said.
Salamander nodded again. “Because — I mean — you’re more than just your voice, you know.” He hesitated, then slipped through the reeds.
Late that night, when everyone else was asleep, Frog sat by the black water, gazing at the moon.
After a fashion, he thought, remembering the Sister’s words.
No one would hear.
He had to try sometime.
He drew a breath and opened his mouth. It sounded more like a belch than a note.
He went home.
“Why bother?” he told Salamander several nights later. “It’s not even singing, really, anymore.”
“But you love it.”
Frog sipped his licorice tea. “I used to. Not now.”
It was a lie, of course, and they both knew it, but neither pointed it out. That was why they were friends.
Frog told the others it hurt too much to sing now. That wasn’t a lie, though it was a pain that no amount of licorice or honey could ever ease.
And yet, he did miss it. Not just the summer twilights and the expectant hush of the audience and the praise that came after. He missed the feeling of it, the way a song rose in him and demanded to be sung. But every time he tried, all he could remember was the brilliance of that moon-song, the Sister’s cursed gift, that perfection he could never even strive for anymore. And so night passed into night, and except for the crickets, the nights were silent.
“If I could forget how it was before,” Frog told Salamander, “maybe I could be happy.”
Salamander sipped his tea. “Maybe you could forget just for a little while. You know. Pretend to forget.”
“Mm,” Frog said.
In the end, it was the full moon, again, that was Frog’s undoing. One warm, clear, windless night, the beauty of it all tugged at him, and a new song welled up, and without thinking he gave it voice. The sound still disappointed him, but he was getting used to it, and this time he tried singing higher and lower, drawing the notes out, then clipping them short. It wasn’t anything like the voice he’d had before — and it still hurt that it never would be — but maybe… Maybe…
So he pretended to forget, for a little while. He set aside the perfect beauty of a silver bell and a white moon and listened instead to the mud and the reeds of Frog, to what it was and to what it might be.
The sound of his new voice didn’t surprise him anymore. But the happiness — the crazy, rough-edged, imperfect happiness — did.
He thought of new songs and practiced them far from the pond, where no one else could hear. At last, when he felt at least half ready, he told Salamander, and Salamander told the others, and once again the creatures of the pond gathered to listen. He sang quick and low, earthy and bold, a song about the strangeness of the moonpath and a sky dark of stars. It was rough, but there was life in it. There was joy in it.
When the last note died away, heart pounding, he waited.
The silence hung like cold fog. He watched one look to the other. No one seemed to know what to say.
“That’s very… innovative,” Turtle managed. “Quite clever of you.”
“I’ve never heard anything like it,” Mallard said brightly.
One by one they drifted away, their polite comments hitting him like raindrops. Some rolled off. Some soaked in. Salamander was the last to remain.
“Give them time,” he said softly. “They’ll learn to love it.”
Frog swallowed. “Maybe sometimes I am just a voice.”
“Maybe,” Salamander said. “But not to everyone.”
And that was why they were friends.
* * *
In these later days, Frog has a beautiful voice. No crowds gather at that first pond now, to praise his songs’ sweetness and clamor for more. But there are some who still count his voice as rare and precious as before — perhaps even more so — and so he sings for them. He sings for the beauty of the world and the joy of being alive. He sings for himself, for the memories of joy and for the joy that dwells in the singing of a single, present note. And over it all the moon hangs bright and full, its light gleaming on the mirrored pond like the sound of a silver bell, its echoes rippling on and on, into the summer night.
* * *
Originally published in Spark: A Creative Anthology, Vol. VI, 2015
About the Author
Renee Carter Hall writes fantasy and science fiction for kids, teens, and adults. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including Strange Horizons, Podcastle, and Daily Science Fiction, and her novels include the Cóyotl Award-winning YA fantasy Huntress. She lives in West Virginia with her husband, their cat, and more books than she will ever have time to read. Readers can find her online at www.reneecarterhall.com and on Twitter as @RCarterHall.
The Swallow Upon My Summers
by Sylvia Heike
“We may be together, but I still can’t put my arms around her, only momentarily brush against her blue feathers as I try to keep up.”
I’m sifting through my grandmother’s jewellery box when I discover the swallow-shaped brooch. Cast from pewter, with exquisite detail on the wings. Unlike her beloved Sunday pearls, I don’t recall Nana wearing it, though I remember the brooch. She never let me play with it, or even try it on. Once, I snuck it out of her jewellery box, just to hold it in my palm. As soon as Nana caught me, she yelled my name and snatched it from my hand. Then she hugged me close, saying it was no toy. “Don’t ever play with that again, Nora. You hear me?”
I never saw the brooch again.
Yet here it is now, among her earthly trinkets, while she’s the one gone.
I mist the air with Nana’s favourite perfume and inhale the scent — rose, lilac, gardenia, with a hint of vanilla.
It makes me think of summer. Swallows racing above the wheat fields, wild and free, while we sat on the creaky swing. I would think of my mother then, but whenever I asked about her, Nana told me she’s in Africa. As if that was telling much. When I asked if we could visit, Nana said it’s too far. Books say European barn swallows migrate to Africa for winter, and so I stood in the field at the end of summer, yelling at the sky, telling the swallows to say hello to my mother if they saw her.
Sometimes I miss my childish hopes and dreams, the magical ways I thought I could send my mother a message, and she would come, when I didn’t even have an address. For years, I used to save pennies in a big glass jar to buy a ticket, but before they ever reached the top, I grew up and stopped collecting them. I’m sixteen now. Old enough to understand Nana’s gone, and my mother isn’t coming back. I’m on my own.
I’m sure Nana wouldn’t mind if I wore the swallow brooch now. As I’m pinning it on, the needle pricks my finger.
A drop of blood beads on my fingertip like a pin on a map, then everything goes blurry. The room is growing — or am I shrinking? My fingers fan out into wings and feathers, my legs beneath me disappear. The next thing I know, I’m flapping out the bedroom window.
I’m flying, and what a joy it is to be a bird! I’ve never known such lightness. My human sorrows are but a pebble in my chest, small and quiet behind my rapidly pulsing heart. My wings are moving faster than my arms ever could.
Another swallow appears beside me. I can’t explain it, but beyond her shiny blue feathers and dark glassy eyes lies something familiar.
“Nana…?”
“I’m sorry,” a voice in my head answers, rippling blue, and I can sense the bird means it with all her feathers. “It’s me, your mother.”
“I thought you were in Africa.”
“Only in the winter. In the summer I’m here, watching over you.”
My tiny bird-heart wants to soar through the clouds. My mother didn’t leave me. The same thing must’ve happened to her as to me. Nana must have known, but not how to get her back. On my every birthday, the mother I thought was missing has been flying right above my home.
She chases after an air current. “Fly with me.”
I follow her eagerly, but it doesn’t take long before my new strange limbs are tiring. I flap my wings desperately, unwilling to lose her again. She speeds ahead. I’m falling behind.
I can’t see her anywhere.
I’m sure I’ve lost her when a silky wingtip tickles mine. She has looped back to me. “Don’t worry. I’ll show you.”
We fly together, my mother teaching me everything there’s to know about how to be a bird. How to dance with the wind, how to catch insects and raindrops with my beak, even how to sleep on the wing like a swift. It’s easy to see how one could live like this forever, never longing for anything.
* * *
The landscape below changes as we fly, fast and free, so fast that time barely applies to us. On the ground, people and cars and trains appear to move so slowly, it’s almost as if they aren’t moving at all. I think of Nana, and though I miss her terribly, I’m grateful for how very, very long she lived.
I glance at my mother’s flawless form. Her forked tail, wings designed for flight. We may be together, but I still can’t put my arms around her, only momentarily brush against her blue feathers as I try to keep up. This is her life. This has been her life for a long time. I come to a painful realisation. The forever I spent without my mother didn’t feel half as long to her.
* * *
The ending of summer is a message carried in the cooling wind. My mother sings of Africa, of tropical insects, and land, the greenest green she’s ever seen, somewhere in the Nile Valley. I may have her red hair — and blue feathers — but I am not my mother. I don’t want to run, or even fly, forever.
When I look at her, I can nearly see the wispy threads tying her to the air and the clouds, instead of the earth and me. At least we had this summer.
“I want to go home,” I tell her. “Take me back to the farm.”
* * *
We circle above the fresh-cut fields, the empty farmhouse. Somewhere below there’s still a window open. I send Mother my thoughts, asking how to land.
Silence.
I ask again, earth’s gravity pulling my heart in two. “Did you ever try?”
“I’m sorry.” The same words as when we met, the same blue ripple of sadness as before. I screech into the wind, as if the world might care about a single swallow’s suffering and sorrow. I’m sorry too, sorry for being too human to be the perfect daughter. I guess I’ll have to figure out how to land on my own.
I swoop towards the farmhouse.
“Wait—” My mother races after me. “I don’t expect you to understand, but even as I flew above, I always wanted what was best for you. All I wanted was for you to be safe and loved — and you were. I saw that you were. With or without me.” She pauses. “I hope one day you can forgive me.”
I wish I could, but letting go of years of pain and abandonment isn’t like shedding a few old feathers. It will take time, maybe a lifetime. In human years.
A strange, heavy feeling comes over me. My beak itches. My skin feels tight over my hollow bones. It’s as if my current shape can no longer contain my giant tangle of human emotions. It’s a struggle just to stay airborne. My mother, though right beside me, becomes a blur. I hear her muddled voice still speaking. “—no more Africa,” she says. “It’s time I come home with you. Let’s find a safe way down.”
Down.
I already know that’s where I’m going. I’m flapping my wings as fast as I can, but their beautiful rhythm feels lost to me. The autumn winds blow, moody and strong, pushing me around. I’m a mess of feathers, falling, falling.
My mother latches onto me, claws digging into my back. Her wings are beating so hard I can hear them whirring. She is trying to save me, but with my added weight, she too is rendered helpless against the wind’s will. I’m afraid if we fall like this — or turn human high above the ground — it could be the end for both of us.
“Let go of me,” I say.
“Never,” is her reply.
* * *
It feels like summer.
We’re still falling when a warm breeze cradles us. The scent of flowers envelops us. Rose, lilac, gardenia, with a hint of vanilla. My mother’s delicate wings are somehow strong enough to carry us. “Feel that?” she whispers. “She won’t let us crash to earth.”
A gentle breeze floats us to the ground, soft as Nana’s goodnight kiss.
We land in a patch of long yellow grass. Upon touching the ground, we change. Wings narrow into arms and fingers, legs grow, beaks soften into lips. My mother looks like her framed pictures again, except older. Her red hair has gained a tinsel of white, the only blue about her is her eyes.
“We should get inside,” I say with a shiver, wrapping my strange naked arms around myself. The sun shines from a clear blue sky, but the wind is cool and biting, Nana’s warmth gone. We must both be thinking of her, for my mother is quiet, her eyes misting up.
It takes me a few tries before I manage to scramble to my feet. My mother keeps trying, but her legs are much too wobbly to stand on, let alone walk. I stagger to the porch, grab two old blankets, and help her up. She sways like a tree whose roots are splintered and broken. I can only imagine what it must be like for her to be human again after so long, the flood of emotions rushing through her body and mind. I know I should worry about my own emotions, of almost dying and being saved, but as always, the loudest of them is the little girl missing her mother, still afraid of losing her. I suspect it will never go away.
My mother turns her face to the sky, and a small part of me fears she might regret coming back, that a tiny blue fork-tailed bird with crescent wings will always live inside her, even if she stays.
As if she can read my mind, my mother cups my face with one hand, and looks at me, not the way one gazes at the stars in the sky, but the way one looks at family and home. How Nana always looked at me. “I’m not going anywhere,” she whispers.
I want to believe her. So, so much.
I don’t know if I can forgive her, but her being here is a start. Arm in arm, we hobble towards the farmhouse with small shaky steps, learning to walk together.
* * *
About the Author
Sylvia Heike is a fantasy & science fiction writer from Finland. Her stories have appeared in Flash Fiction Online, PodCastle, Nature Futures, and more. When not writing, she likes to go hiking and looking for birds. To the age-old debate about cats vs. dogs, her answer would be bunnies. Read more at www.sylviaheike.com or follow her on Twitter @sylviaheike
A Season’s Lament
by Patricia Miller
“The sea crow heard the pain in the song, and she recognized the call of one who was dying.”
The sea crow watched from her perch for five days full. The fledglings were advanced enough to scavenge for meals while she stood vigil, while she accepted she would not see her mate again. She finished the season, content to see the last of her children leave the nest, decided then and there she would not seek out a new mate come spring.
She took flight with the morning sun and spent her days traveling the wetlands and headwaters, collecting the voices of the coast that had formed her life. There was the laughing cackle of the gull-billed tern, the haunted echoing coo of the loon, the clang of a trawler’s anchor chain, the evening ferry whistle, the call to prayer ringing from a church’s bell.
She usually kept in sight of land, but even that close to shore she caught the sounds of dolphins whistling and clicking to each other, the whales booming greetings and warnings to their brethren across thousands of miles.
Slowly, over the course of season upon season, she came to understand the sounds. She spoke with others not of her kind, learned the ways of seagulls and sandpipers. She shared her knowledge with her kin, and they in turn passed them along to others. She became known as a teacher, and creatures of the air and sea became her friends.
* * *
It was spring, and the sea crow was trying to entice a cormorant into an exchange of information — like most cormorants, it wasn’t much into casual conversation — when she was interrupted.
[teacher, may you come] That isn’t exactly what the plover said. It was more along the lines of ‘Strange one who is not of us but hears our calls, would you look upon my request with favor and follow me in friendship without causing harm to our young?’ She piped her acceptance.
She followed the plover along the beach toward its breeding grounds. Other plovers had gathered, guarding their precious eggs. She understood, for although she was known to be safe amongst the young, she was still a crow with a crow’s reputation. She nodded to all and watched her feet to prevent any accidental trampling of fragile shells.
The plover didn’t stop, leading her around the rocky cliff face just past the sandy beach. There was a hidden cove beyond, filled with rock formations carved by the sea over uncounted millennia. She’d eaten any number of dinners there in the past, so she knew it well, but as they drew closer, she heard an unfamiliar sound, a song, a mournful lament.
The plover stopped just short of the cove. His piping clearly indicated he thought she might be interested, but he wasn’t risking his life or the lives of his young by venturing further to investigate. He bobbed his head and scurried back the way he came.
The sea crow heard the pain in the song, and she recognized the call of one who was dying. She took to the air, ensuring her safety from an animal who might lash out in its suffering.
As she crested the rocks, the sea crow caught her first glimpse and knew the song to be a trick of the wind, for no such creature existed in the world of man or beast. She had convinced herself it was a carving, beached by the recent storm when suddenly it proved itself to be real by lifting its arms to the sky and crying its pain into the world.
No creature who had nurtured young, cared for the injured, grieved a mate could ignore that plaintive cry. She swooped downward and landed on a large rock a safe distance away.
The sea crow took a good look at the creature draped half in, half out of a large tidal pool. By any standard of beauty, it was too beautiful. A creature fit for neither land nor sea, or maybe worshipped by both. She decided it was a male — she’d seen enough humans to understand a female’s need to suckle its young, and this being wasn’t equipped for that. His tangled hair was green of a shade similar to many statues, although it was shiny like they weren’t. His skin matched the pennies she hoarded away — humans were so casual about their treasures. She didn’t know what to make of his tail, for though it was the most beautiful thing about him, she had not known humans could come with one. It reminded her, in color if not in shape, of a peacock she saw once, a noisy and useless bird, but until now, the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
She wanted to see his eyes, hard clenched against the sun. She called to him with one of the human phrases she knew. He didn’t react to it. She tried another phrase, then the song of a thrush, the church bell, the ferry whistle. She spent long minutes mimicking dogs, horses, a fox, pelicans, that annoying albatross who’d followed her around one summer until she shook him off during a thunderstorm.
A dolphin’s click jerked his head upright. It so startled her she almost fell from her perch.
His eyes were black, surrounded by a thin ring of green. He had no lashes.
She clicked once more. [Hello]
He clicked back. [Hello]
She didn’t know if he understood her or just echoed the sound. She clicked again, asking a question. [Are you injured]
[No]
[Are you hungry]
[No]
She cocked her head. He didn’t look like a fledgling, but humans were odd, and he was odder than most.
[Are you lost from your nest]
He shook his head but didn’t answer.
[May I be of assistance to you in some way — may I summon those of your kind to render aid]
He let out another mournful cry, the lingering notes bouncing off the sheer stone walls and rocky sculptures surrounding them. The tune was long, each verse more sad than the last. She thought it would break her heart.
[Please let me help you]
[I cannot be helped for there is no one, no one]
She had seen bird parents who kicked out a fledgling too sickly to survive or hurried along one clutch of chicks when another came earlier than expected. Perhaps he had been abandoned.
It was a hard concept to convey in whistles. The whales had a term for it, but her voice, for all its gifts, had never been able to replicate their calls.
She tried over and over, varying tone and structure. Finally—
[Are you one who must now swim alone]
Silence.
She was unwilling to leave him and hoped food might encourage him. She hopped off her perch, dug through the sand and rock for a quick bite, brought some choice bits back to him. He didn’t eat.
She pondered her last question. He had not given her an answer. She believed she had the right of it though.
[Are you one who must now swim alone] She repeated.
He shuddered. [I swim alone for I am alone — there are no others]
She didn’t understand. [Because they are lost]
[Because they are gone — because I am the last]
She thought back to her father and his father and stories passed along through the generations. There was a tale of another bird, the last of her kind, who ended her days alone in a cage, after humans had used their stones powered by fire to wipe out flocks that once filled the sky. The whales told of hunts which reduced their numbers, and cranes complained they no longer had the freedom of their old nesting grounds. Still, there were also stories of those once thought lost who had been found and so she told him.
[Have you looked everywhere, for the sky and sea are quite large and there are many hidden places]
He shook his head. [I have sung our song as far as the sea can carry and I am not answered]
[You have searched the old nests]
[For three full cycles of seasons I have searched and called and sung until I can go no farther] He lifted his arms to the sky and chanted another verse then dropped them to his side. [Always our numbers were few since humans conquered the sea. Each season brought forth fewer and fewer of us. There are no more, for no one answers the call. I am but one and can search no more. I am the last]
She gazed at him, this wondrous creature. His kind could not be over.
[Then teach me your song. Teach me your song and I will sing it far and wide. I will teach my children and their children and their children. I will teach the whales and the robins and all of us will search]
[It is too late. I am dying]
[But even if your kind passes from this sea, your song will not, for it will be carried by all of us in remembrance]
[Is it — I cannot but think it hopeless]
[I have learned many songs and taught many others. Teach me]
They sang together then, throughout the passing of the sun, well into the night and until the moon faded behind the dawn. Other birds came. Gulls, pelicans, the silent cormorant. They were joined by seals and dolphins. Every day brought more, an everchanging audience. Each learned what they could, even if it was only a single note. The sea crow and the strange, lonely one sang softly, one mournful measure after another. The growing multitude recognized the grief and pain behind it, became a chorus to accompany the song. Over the passage of the new moon, through its full arc in the sky, night and day spanned together into an unknowable measure of time.
But finally, his voice fell silent.
On a warm summer morning, just as the sun’s rays reached into the hidden cove, the last one of his kind was gone.
She did not know his rites of mourning, did not know what was to be done. It seemed wrong, somehow, to abandon what he was to the beach and its depredations. The dolphins, whose language brought them an understanding of the creature, took it upon themselves to carry the lonely one back to the sea, to commit him to the deepest part of his home. The sea crow followed as far as she could, singing his final lament.
* * *
About the Author
Patricia Miller is a US Navy veteran born and raised in Cincinnati, OH, USA, with a BS from Miami University, Oxford, OH and an MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Tennessee. She started reading at 3 1/2 after becoming obsessed with Batman. She is hooked on QI, British murder villages and professional cycling.
Publication credits include short fiction in A Quaint and Curious Volume of Gothic Tales, 206 Words, and the March 2022 Cinnabar Moth Literary Collection e-zine. A second story for Cinnabar Moth will be appearing in Winter 2023, and she will have a story included in an upcoming charity anthology inspired by vintage ads for Brigids Gate Press in Fall 2022.
She is an associate member of SFWA.
Aged Plant Fibers and Ink
by James L. Steele
“He flipped the pages again and inhaled. The aged, yellowing fibers. The ink. The glue. The years. The ambient dust. All of it combined into a scent that was uniquely alien.”
Ker’r rose from all fours and walked on his hind legs as he rounded the corner. A bipedal stature was never required, but it made navigating this part of the city much easier.
The black-furred canine had white stripes around his midsection. He couldn’t afford clothing, though it wasn’t required here among the structures arranged in a grid along avenues.
The Planet of Paper District, complete with authentic asphalt, authentic stone, authentic brick, all transplanted from a real city block and reconstructed here. Numerous canines in sight also walked upright to help complete the sensation of living in another culture.
Loose-skinned and tight-skinned reptiles rubbed elbows with the upright canines and felines, fur and scale colors ranging from muted browns to garish greens and pinks. Some of the less experienced people stumbled trying to stay upright while peering through the windows at the various items of clothing some of them would buy and wear.
The district extended a few city blocks. Just a brisk stroll away from these streets lay normal civilization underneath the weather-dome that kept the snow and the rain off and allowed everyone to live in comfortable, dry burrows. The spaceport lay a mere day’s walk from the dome, making it far enough out of sight to believe this was an extraterrestrial place.
The Planet of Paper recreated. This was the closest most of them would ever come to visiting the world for themselves. It helped Ker’r comprehend a civilization that left so little behind and yet so much.
He scented the air to orient himself. Habit from the outside, as scent did not guide here. He had to rely on his eyes, and it took him a moment to remember how to do that.
He crossed the street, remembering that this would have been difficult on the Planet of Paper due to the petroleum-burning machines zipping up and down the asphalt. He passed over the yellow lines, as did a few others visiting this place of different customs, living by senses they were still trying to understand. Getting used to the idea of sight guiding one’s life was a critical step. It’s why Ker’r first came here. The Bindings brought him back nearly every week.
Rounding the next corner, he paused to let a group of red-scaled lizards pass, both carrying brown sacks. Ker’r could taste hints of the Bindings in those bags. That scent would be potent for weeks before it began to fade — one of the reprints, certainly, as Ker’r knew the originals began to fade mere hours after opening.
No datascent panel on the door gave information on this place. Businesses in the District had flat signs over the door, written in the glyphs the dead civilization once used. This one had an image of a Binding, transplanted directly from the Planet of Paper itself.
He turned and pulled the door open. This shop was one of dozens around Ker’r’s world, and one of hundreds in the community of planets. Inside was like entering another civilization, with chairs all around, and a central seating area with proprietors behind a counter-top made of polished tree fibers. The entire place was made of the cores of various types of trees, and the smell alone made him feel part of another civilization — just imagining how anyone could focus with this scent in their head at all hours of the day placed him in another civilization, as they might have lived.
Most of the canines and felines and lizards donned clothing to varying degrees, some wearing trousers only, or a shirt, or just an overcoat. Everyone had at least one page. A few had entire Bindings, purchased from the collection in the adjacent room that was off-limits to the public. Two felines were passing a Binding back and forth, flipping the pages, breathing the air coming off. Ker’r tried to scent it discreetly, but that was difficult for a canine.
He took a seat at the counter. The white-furred feline noticed him and turned.
“You weren’t here last week,” he said, leaning forward.
Ker’r smiled with his muzzle, imitating the photographs of the people on the Planet of Paper. “Good to be back, Erok. Patrols kept me out. Had to redirect six asteroids. This is my first day off in two weeks.”
Erok smiled back, showing canines, a threatening gesture anywhere else except the District. “This is the place to come when you want to feel as far removed from patrols as possible.”
Ker’r took a sniff, glancing at the walls. “It’s easy to forget there are other planets out there with the scents of this place closing in on you.”
“It does feel like it’s holding you down, doesn’t it? I enjoy that sensation.”
The feline slipped a raised disc in front of Ker’r. The canine leaned over and scented it. It had encoded olfactory information on it, and with a single sniff he knew the menu and the prices.
Paperback: 1C d6 PY+210, | ~8 / ~27
Paperback: 2C d1 PY+199, | ~12 / ~35
Hardback: 4C d14 PY+212 | ~9 / ~32
Hardback: 6C d3 PY+202 | ~19 / ~44
OB: The John Varley Reader John Varley Ace, 2C PY-201 d2 ~12 | ~133
Learning to understand the menu was itself a skill and often required a guide just to comprehend what one was ordering. C denoted the continent, d was the district, PY denoted the year it had been bound, calculated to the number of solar cycles on the Planet of Paper. Paperyears. Negative numbers indicated estimated solar cycles before the year the planet had first been discovered.
They always had one Original Binding on the offer for page-by-page consumption. These were the only listings that included an olfactory bitmap representation of the glyphs on the spine of the Binding. Comprehending images with datascent was difficult for anyone, but he had enough experience with Bindings that he could visualize them.
Many Originals were never for sale as a whole, as retailers often only received one copy of each, so they had to be sold per page. One had to be extremely wealthy to buy those Originals as entire Bindings.
Anyone could buy a Binding and take it back to their den, but it was never the same as experiencing it in a place like this, as close to how the hairless bipeds might have enjoyed them on the Planet of Paper.
He looked up at Erok. “Paperyear minus two oh one. Surprised you can still buy whole Bindings.”
The cat nodded. “We have enough copies to sell in whole. The older volumes are getting rare though.”
Ker’r laughed. “What will we do when we run out of originals?”
“We’ll have to stop saying plus and minus. Paperyear will be all positive numbers, and new Bindings will be considered originals. By then they’ll have printed enough to create Bindings good enough to be called Originals.”
“They won’t be the same,” Ker’r said. “They can’t reproduce the patterns. They use random arrangements. The ink patterns make a difference. I didn’t believe you when I first started coming here, but you turned me into a believer.”
Erok nodded, tail also lashing in amusement. “By then someone will have figured out how to reproduce the ink glyphs accurately.”
“I thought they already had.”
“It has to be done manually. Most of the machines are still silent without the computer systems that ran them.”
“I’ve heard the explorers believe the computers were based entirely around the sense of sight.”
Erok nodded, another gesture that meant something entirely different outside the District. “The people who once inhabited that planet used their eyes and ears exclusively. Scent may not have been a large part of their society. Their computers would have produced something visual as output.”
The canine took another sniff of the disc and received the menu directly into his mind again. “How would that be practical? Will we ever understand them?”
“We’ve managed to communicate with people who sense electromagnetic fields instead of their sense of smell. I like to think we’ll make progress with creatures who use their eyes.”
Ker’r chuckled. “Until then, I’ll start with the 4C hardback, please.”
“Page or Binding?”
Ker’r thought about it for a moment. “The whole Binding.”
“Good start. It’s a light, easy experience, just complex enough to be intriguing but not too overwhelming.”
The cat reached underneath the counter and opened a sealed cabinet. He pulled out a hardcover, and then waved a meter in front of Ker’r’s eye to deduct the purchase from his account.
The Binding before Ker’r was twelve years old, and it resembled an Original down to the very glue used to hold the individual pages together. The plant fiber sheets had just begun to turn yellow. Ker’r picked up the Binding and opened it to one of the middle pages.
First Opening was always the most impressive. The fibers inside the closed pages were now exposed to air for the first time since printing, and with just a little agitation, they released their bouquet.
Ker’r took a deep and long breath. Then several short sniffs. The ink had decayed enough to mingle with the fibers, and they now combined with the dust they had accumulated.
Another planet twirled up his olfactory nerve and danced in his mind. Language had millions of words to describe scents, and yet somehow all of them failed when describing the myriad of sensations contained within a Binding made from plant fibers from this particular world, aged for just the right amount of time in exactly the right conditions.
People all over the community of worlds tried to mimic this with local plant fibers ground and pressed into leaves and then aged in climate-controlled structures, but nothing matched the complexity of the Bindings produced on the Planet of Paper.
He flipped the pages again and inhaled. The aged, yellowing fibers. The ink. The glue. The years. The ambient dust. All of it combined into a scent that was uniquely alien. It took effort to process the nuances, which left him feeling drained yet satisfied.
Erok was showing canines again. “To your liking?”
Ker’r exhaled. “Very much. And you have a whole room full of these things.” He gestured to the sealed door that led to the side room which housed shelves and shelves of Bindings. “How can you go in there and not just curl up in a corner and breathe it in all day?”
He leaned forward and bumped noses with Ker’r. “I’m a professional. We take lessons in how to keep our minds sharp with so many scents around.”
“I wish I had your restraint.” Ker’r flipped the pages, billowing his fur. “That’s why I’m still doing asteroid patrols.”
Lowering his lips to cover his canines, the feline leaned back and moved to attend other clients, leaving Ker’r alone on another planet created by the old fibers in this Binding. The transplanted asphalt didn’t make this place real. The reconstructed buildings made of fired stone and planks of tree fibers didn’t make it real. This Binding did. He turned around in his seat and looked out over the shop.
The green-scaled reptile sitting upright in a plush chair from that other world hundreds of light-years away also had one of these hardbacks and was flicking her tongue over the pages as she turned them. She passed it to the feline in the chair beside her, who flipped the pages, letting the air blow her tan fur around.
A group of four rodents sat by the window, each with a paperback. Ker’r heard pieces of conversation about survey vessels that had discovered a new planetary system and were scouting for resources.
Ker’r flipped the pages again, puffing the fur on his face and chest. Part of him wanted to roll in this scent, and this was why he kept coming here. The smell of these Bindings brought out something peacefully primal in everyone.
He’d heard the stories about this District and the culture it represented. A planet whose local name they still didn’t know, inhabited by people who left very little behind. Machines had decayed. Magnetic tapes were blank. Computer systems empty. Evidence of a massive solar discharge in the then-recent past, and then stillness.
All that remained which seemed remotely comprehensible was aged plant fibers and ink bound and stored in various buildings on every continent of that empty world.
The scents contained in those Bindings dazzled the exploration team for so long they were an entire year late returning home, and they brought many Bindings with them. By then the scents had faded, but traces of them lingered and tantalized others. People came from all over the community to catch this incredible new scent from an extinct civilization.
Eventually someone figured out how to recreate the fiber sheets and make new Bindings. With enough time, the fibers aged in much the same way. Even new printings had a delicious bouquet to them, gradually changing and gaining nuance and depth and complexity with age.
Many sought their fortunes on that world, figuring out how to run those printing presses, or selecting the right plants for harvest, or analyzing the ink and attempting to reproduce the patterns on the pages. Early attempts at creating Bindings had no ink, just blank pages carefully aged. The addition of ink improved the complexity greatly. Now hundreds of printing presses were running all over the Planet of Paper. Each region had a local climate that presented unique challenges to aging the paper or producing the ink, and finding suitable plants to use was also a challenge, as they grew so slowly. Careful management was needed to balance out printing and aging with replenishment.
Understanding all the work that went into creating this Binding was as much a part of the experience as the scent itself.
The door opened, and a winged lizard carrying a sealed case walked inside. She was wearing a white blouse and black slacks, similar to the ones seen in the monochrome moving-images that had survived. The ensemble complimented her green and black scales, and this person was the best dressed out of anyone in the shop, including the proprietor, so all gradually turned to her, scenting her discretely from a distance. Her clothes smelled just as alien as the pages, hinting they had been made in a restarted facility on the Planet of Paper.
She approached the bar and took a seat next to Ker’r, placing the case on the counter-top.
“Ege,” the feline said, approaching from the other side of the bar. “You’re here late.”
The lizard kept her wings folded tight to her back, an uncommon posture for her species. She had practiced for this.
“Shuttle was late. This is my only stop.”
She opened the case. Ker’r lowered his Binding as he turned to see. The case was very much designed in the style of the extinct civilization, and it contained five sealed plates, each just thick enough for a single page. Ker’r recognized them as battery-operated, climate-controlled compartments. He wished he could lean over to taste the info panels.
“I brought samples,” Ege continued, trying to keep her wings from fluttering to maintain the posture and gestures from the Planet of Paper. “Some new Originals just became available.”
“Oh my.” Erok picked up the plates and scented the info panels one by one.
Ker’r turned all the way around in his seat, setting his Binding on the counter. “What are they?”
Erok was just scenting the final plate. “Oh… Have a sniff.”
He held out the plates to him. Ker’r had never seen or held these devices before. They were surprisingly heavy. He inhaled one of the info panels. The encoded datascent instantly streamed into his mind:
George Orwell Keep the Aspidistra Flying Mariner, 1C PY-319 d7 | ~1334
The spine glyphs were rendered as bitmap information, so he saw them in his mind as the datascent became complete. He looked up at Erok, ears turned back.
“One thousand three hundred thirty-four?”
Now the lizard’s wings fluttered a little as she smiled. “Never had something this pricey?”
“Never!”
“These are samples for shopkeepers to decide if they want to stock the Binding, but since I’m here so late, everyone may sample them.”
Erok nodded, ears flicking in a grin. “Would be rude to keep this from everyone.”
Ker’r had sniffed the panels on the other four plates:
Changeling The Autobiography of Mike Oldfield Virgin, 5C PY-98 d3 | ~1550
Oil! by Upton Sinclair Penguin, 3C PY-113 d1 | ~1400
Crichton Jurassic Park, 2C PY-322 d1 | ~988
Far-Seer Sawyer Tor, 1C PY-206 d2 | ~1200
For the first time in years, the bitmap data for the glyphs on the spine had an impact on Ker’r. These were pages from Originals older than he was. While he took that in, the feline had made an announcement to everyone in the shop they were in for a special treat. It wasn’t usual for vendors to share samples with the general public, but since she was here, these samples were free, but mind there was only a single page from each and these pages had to last long enough for other shopkeepers to sample the Binding, so please don’t take too long.
Ker’r handed the plates to the feline. By now, everyone had risen and joined them at the counter. Erok pressed the button and the plate’s front face hissed. It opened like a Binding, revealing the single page inside. Everyone leaned closer.
The page had gracefully yellowed with age, and the glyphs had faded just slightly near the edges, showing that it had been properly stored. Ker’r knew enough about bindings to recognize the same glyphs on the spine at the top of the page. Jurassic Park.
Everyone took deep breaths. The reptiles in the room extended their tongues and tasted the air coming from the plate, being careful not to touch the page itself.
The climate of the second continent had imbued the fibers with crisp winter air, along with traces of pollen from the local flora. The paper had absorbed all of it in dust, and it became part of the page. The combination of all these elements formed the most complex and unique scent Ker’r had ever experienced. He drooled a little as his mouth worked extra hard collect it.
The well-dressed vendor had let her wings extend and was fluttering them gently, spreading the scent around the room.
“That is a paperyear minus three twenty-two,” she said. “One of the oldest in our possession, and some of the last Originals of this particular Binding. Only sixty copies left.”
The patrons were glancing at one another, in awe that they had been privileged to sample something so well-aged.
Erok let Ker’r hold the opened plate. Ker’r allowed himself just a moment to be alone with this page. He took a few more breaths, eyes closing. He wanted more, but he passed it to the person on his right instead, a feline who brought it close and took a few short inhales.
Processing something this old and with this many elements and nuance took physical effort. He felt exhausted, even after the odor stopped dancing in his mind.
“That. Is. Amazing.” Ker’r panted, tail wagging as he turned from Erok to Ege, the vendor.
She nodded. “I wish they weren’t so expensive. Scents like that should be a shared experience, not reserved for people with money.”
Ker’r’s voice sounded dreamy even to his own ears. “Will reproductions ever be like that?”
“One can hope.” She raised a Binding and took a sniff. Ker’r noticed she had ordered the reproduction paperback from today’s menu, a casual experience. Processing it wouldn’t leave her too exhausted.
When everyone had sampled that plate, Erok returned, sealed it shut, and then opened another. The volume of conversation grew louder and brighter.
This next plate contained a smaller page, but it was so yellow it looked as if it would fall apart if touched, its odor so potent it filled the room instantly. By the time the plate came to Ker’r, he already knew it.
He recognized Sawyer at the top, and felt proud of himself for knowing the glyphs without having seen them previously. Translating datascent images into sight recognition was a learned skill that did not come easily to anyone in the community of planets.
This one didn’t merely smell aged. It smelled ancient, and it had hundreds of elements and layers derived from the climate and the fibers and the ink.
Keep the Aspidistra Flying had been aged so long the paper was cracking. It had so many elements they became lost without intense focus and concentration.
Changeling was surprisingly mild in its complexity for as faded and yellow as the fibers had become.
Ker’r had to get up and leave the room, nearly falling over his head was so full. He opened the door and latched it behind him. The side room held just a single occupant, and it was ventilated and filtered so much there were no scents in here apart from his own fur, simulating the tunnels and burrows under the weather-dome, places free of scents that allowed the mind to focus.
He needed to shut out everything else and have some time to process the enormity of what he had just taken in. Entire universes contained in a single page. The complete Binding would be even more potent. He leaned against the wall and breathed the clean air for a while, pondering that a Binding like that cost more than he had in his account, and right now he was giving serious thought to going into debt just to experience it again.
After about a hundred breaths, he was beginning to feel better. No longer overwhelmed with an entire universe to sort out and process, his head didn’t feel so heavy.
Composing himself and straightening his fur, he opened the door and stepped back into the parlor. It smelled beautiful in here, a light mix of the lingering bouquets from every page and open Binding.
His nose led him to the source of the new presence: Oil! by Upton Sinclair, a dense experience that weighed heavy on his mind and lingered for a long time — hundreds of aromas, each one requiring a volume of poetry to articulate.
By now the patrons had parted ways and wanted to talk to the vendor, asking her if she’d ever been to the Planet of Paper. She had not, but one day she promised to take a trip. It would be a commitment, as she would have to be there a minimum of one year before another vessel returned.
Ker’r took his seat again. After scents like those, his hardback from the menu seemed simple and relaxing. He stuck his nose in the pages and inhaled. Very simple. Still wonderful.
“That was a treat,” Ker’r said to the winged lizard. “Thanks. I wish I could afford one of those.”
She smiled at him with her mouth and her wings. “Maybe someday the printers on the Planet of Paper will make new Bindings that are just as good as the Originals.”
Ker’r lifted his Binding. “Here’s to the People of the Aged Paper. If I could thank them, I would.” He inhaled the pages.
“So would I,” Ege replied, raising her own Binding and taking a breath, sighing in relief and this time keeping her wings still.
Ker’r turned the page and breathed the gentle fragrance. He turned to another. The odor was different from page to page. It had to be the ink. The subtle differences in the arrangement of the glyphs affected the experience. Some researcher must have confirmed it by now — it couldn’t be mere rumor.
His eyes focused, and for the first time in years, he looked at the glyphs. He stared intently. They all looked the same, just blocks and lines. Now he began to notice how some lines repeated more frequently than others. How the spacing was never uniform. How the glyphs were more than a solid wall if he stared at them hard enough.
He wasn’t accustomed to using his eyes like this, and quickly he lost focus and the bouquet came through again, lightly-aged and full of nuance.
After taking in a few more pages, Ker’r closed the Binding and waved for Erok. He was interested in the Original on the menu. It wouldn’t be as complex as the rare Bindings he had just sampled, but it was attainable. He was sure he had enough room in his head for another olfactory puzzle.
As he waited for Erok to make his way around, he promised that someday he would save up enough to afford a copy of the 2C PY-322 d1 Jurassic Park. He idly wished he could have met the people who produced such dazzlingly complex scents. They must have been advanced beyond anyone’s comprehension.
* * *
About the Author
James L. Steele is a writer in Ohio. He is guilty of book-sniffing. He assumed everyone did this and was shocked when he learned otherwise. He is the author of Huvek, available through FurPlanet, and the Archeons series, through KTM Publishing.
Visit his blog at DaydreamingInText.blogspot.com, and his twitter @JLSteeleauthorBearly Furcasting S3E51-Get Recca'd
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*Co-Producers note: Taebyn's computer refused to use his new mic, so his sound on this episode is not the quality we were hoping for*
On this special episode, we have guest co-host DJ Recca! We talk to Recca about what he's been up to and where you can find him online and in person. We chat about all the normal BFFT things...Past Today, Media, Furries in the News, etc. We have a movie review from Cheetaro. We play a little bit of trivia and overall just have a fantastic time. Join us for the penultimate episode of season 3!
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
Dragons Anonymous
by Jocelyne Gregory
“Steve waved his hands and tried to get the other dragons under control. “We have talked about this; dropping gold and jewels in the cities’ slums is not paying taxes.””
Seven dragons sat on a circle of metal chairs in the basement of an old church. The faux wooden panels of the basement’s walls were a sharp contrast to the faded red shag carpet that had fallen victim to the arts and crafts of generations of children. The metal chairs groaned beneath the dragon’s various weights as they shifted and tried to find comfortable positions for their wings, tails, and long necks without bumping into one another or destroying the popcorn ceiling. They waited as a brilliant orange scaled dragon settled on his seat and tucked his tail around his clawed feet.
“Good afternoon!” The orange dragon smiled at the group. He clutched a clipboard in his hands.
“Good afternoon, Steve.” The other dragons mumbled in response.
“I’m pleased everyone was able to attend this week. Charlie, I would like to start with you. Last time we spoke, we were talking about your latest acquisition. Have things changed since then?” Steve picked up a pencil and set it to the clipboard.
Charlie shifted in his seat. He glanced at the other members before he let out a heavy sigh and powder blue smoke drifted from a nostril.
“Well, you see, I was— I mean, I— I was going to return the jelly to its rightful owner. But the way it jiggled and wiggled? I couldn’t bring myself to do it.” Charlie said.
“Just to clarify for the group, was this a jelly for jam? Or a real-life jelly?” Steve asked.
Charlie fidgeted. His lavender scales shimmered in the flickering ceiling lights.
“I thought it was just some jam an adventurer had brought along with them to have with their bread and butter, but when I opened the jar there was this little face peeking up at me. I couldn’t bring myself to return it to the adventurer’s family.” Charlie explained.
“And how many jellies do you have now?”
“Five hundred and thirty-three,” Charlie confessed.
The other dragons in the circle murmured to each other.
“I just don’t want to let them go!” Charlie blurted, “I feel so bad for them. Adventurers, thieves, barbarians, and wizards? They have no problem killing jellies for potion purposes or to find out what the jelly has eaten. It’s not their fault!”
“I think we have a bit of a conundrum here,” Steve addressed the group. “Does anybody have any suggestions for how Charlie could help his jellies, but at the same time keep them safe?”
The other dragons glanced at each other until a platinum dragon raised its tail.
“Yes, Melony?” Steve asked.
“Charlie could build a dungeon, or claim a forest, or some grass lands and put up warning signs that the land was protected by a dragon?” Melony offered.
“I could do that,” Charlie said. “They might be happier than being stuck in the back of the cave.”
“I know the jellies’ welfare is your greatest concern, and this would be better for them.” Steve kindly said.
Charlie mumbled under his breath and another puff of purple smoke drifted from his nostril.
“Does anybody want to speak up next?” Steve looked to the group.
The dragons glanced at each other.
A skeleton dragon raised its bony tail.
“Taylor?”
“I let some of my skeleton soldiers return to their graves,” Taylor scratched their neck bone.
The other dragons clapped in approval. Charlie gave Taylor a thumbs up.
“Wonderful! How did that make you feel?” Steve asked.
“At first I was lonely and I felt unsure and honestly I thought I was going to collapse into a pile of bones, but this little human girl came to my cave with a fresh loaf of bread and some flowers she picked from her mother’s garden, and…” Taylor trailed off and looked away from the group.
“And?” Steve pushed.
“She thanked me for letting her father and grandfather go to rest, but she thought I might be awfully lonely so she said she’s going to come visit me every week and read to me from her story book,” Taylor’s voice cracked.
“That is amazing progress, well done, Taylor!” Steve clapped his hands.
An obsidian and emerald scaled dragon patted Taylor on the back and both murmured words of approval and comfort to Taylor.
Taylor whispered a quiet word of thanks to the others and sipped from their coffee cup; The black liquid dripped down their bony neck and onto their ribs and the chair they sat on.
“Does anybody else have some more good news? Yes, Ginger?” Steve gestured to the obsidian dragon.
Ginger leaned back in her chair. Her lips peeled back into a sharp and toothy grin. “I killed a group of raiders that threatened to attack my village,” she said.
“Can I have the bodies?” Taylor asked her.
“Taylor.” Steve warned, “Ginger, I thought you were going to take a step back and allow the town’s people to protect themselves.”
Ginger huffed.
“It’s part of your treatment. Remind the group what you horde.”
Ginger glowered, then huffed a puff of smoke.
“I horde praise and worship,” Ginger admitted.
“And by continually protecting your village, you…” Steve trailed off.
“I’m worshipped and praised.” Ginger sniffed.
“And admittance is the first step to treatment. I know that in previous group sessions you’ve been reluctant to let the villagers defend against raiders and approaching armies. But you have to ask yourself the question: what if they chose to leave the village? Or a plague comes through and there are no more villagers? Who will worship you?”
Ginger grumbled; the sound echoed off the faux wooden panels.
“Buildings cannot worship. Empty towns cannot give praise. Praise and worship can come from within, but only if you give yourself a chance,” Steve said.
“I suppose the next time there is a group of bandits or raiders, I could just step back and watch how the villagers handle it.”
“That’s a good step, Ginger,” Steve said.
“But!” Ginger’s tail thumped hard against the church’s carpeted floor. “If they can’t handle it, I’m stepping in.”
“And that is very understandable.” Steve smiled and turned his attention to the green dragon who shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “I know this hits a little close to home for you, Phial, how have you been since last week?”
“I started writing a dream journal,” Phial slowly admitted.
“Instead of stealing and hoarding mortal’s dreams?”
“Yes. I thought about last week’s exercise, and how we had to imagine ourselves as our hoard, and early last week a necromancer actually showed up at my cave because he thought I might have the dreams of a prophet that would give him a hint as to how resurrect the Dark King,” Phial explained.
“And do you?” Steve asked.
“Yes, but I wasn’t going to give it to him. The Dark King gives nothing but nightmares, and it really darkens the dream orbs I’ve got in my cave. So, I entombed him in vines and he died last night,” Phial said.
“Can I have the body?” Taylor asked.
“Taylor,” Steve warned again. “Phial, how does this help with your hoard?”
“I had a very pleasant visit from this wizard a few hours after the necromancer showed up, and in exchange for helping the wizard with the prophecy, he’s going to travel and write down people’s dreams for me. I received the first owl this morning in fact. This boy he met dreamed of a flying metal machine in the sky. It was fascinating.” Phial smiled.
“That is wonderful progress, Phial. And it looks like you might change perceptions of yourself, too,” Steve commented.
“It’s a beginning, and I know I have a long road ahead of me, but it feels kind of good.” Phial’s scales turned a shade of deeper green.
“Good job, Phial,” Steve said. The other dragons clapped approvingly. “Any other good news stories? Yes, Bill?”
“I started paying taxes.” Bill puffed with pride, his red scales the colour of blacksmith flames.
The group paused before they began to laugh.
“Bill,” Steve waved his hands and tried to get the other dragons under control. “We have talked about this; dropping gold and jewels in the cities’ slums is not paying taxes.”
“It should be,” Bill muttered.
“Are people worshipping you yet?” Ginger leaned close to Bill.
“They’ve started drawing images of me on the castle walls and saying I will be the next King.” Bill grinned at her.
“What a brilliant idea.” Ginger rubbed her black scaled chin.
“Ginger, no. Bill, what is it that you hoard?” Steve asked.
Bill rolled his eyes.
“Bill?”
“I hoard political dissidence and government instability. Look, it’s not my fault the court is corrupt! That stupid spymaster staged a coup two years ago and the people are still suffering. I’m just trying to help out,” Bill ranted.
“And what will happen if you keep dropping gold and jewels into the cities’ slums?”
“Then there will be more political dissidence and government instability,” Bill grumbled.
“And what will you do about it?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll follow Ginger’s lead and just take a step back and see how the court handles things. Let the people have their own revolution.” Bill sighed.
“That’s a good step, Bill.” Steve gave him a reassuring smile. “Now, I think everyone’s had a chance to speak, so let us end this meeting and…” He trailed off as the rest of the group stared at him. “What?”
Charlie leaned close. “Come on, you have to speak up, too. How have you been since last week?”
“Me? I’ve been good. Yeah, I went out on a date last Tuesday,” Steve rambled.
“Come on, Steve. Speak up, we all have,” Bill said.
“Yeah, tell us how you’ve been treating your hoard,” Ginger dryly said.
“I— I have been perfectly fine since last week,” Steve stuttered.
“It’s okay, Steve. You’re among friends,” Melony soothed.
Taylor wordlessly nodded their head.
Steve looked to his scribbled clipboard and set it on his lap. He took a deep breath and let it out before he began to speak
“It’s been three days since… since…”
“Yes?” Melony asked.
“It’s been three days since I last heard someone’s confession.” Steve’s tail fell limp at his side. “It’s just so hard not to want to collect them and keep them safe! So many stories, so many ideas, so many lives. It’s so hard not to collect them all.”
“And that is why you’re the one who asks the questions in the group,” Melony said. “But you must remember that each confession has a real person behind it with a real identity, and you can’t collect them all.”
“And that’s why you’re the one who asks all the questions,” Taylor agreed. “Even though Melony is our sponsor.”
“Melony just likes to hoard warm and fuzzy feelings,” Bill grumbled.
Ginger snickered.
“I think we all made progress today in understanding our difficulties and challenges, but in recognizing our hoarding, we can begin to understand why we hoard. So, until we meet again next week, I want us to think about what life events took place that led to your beginning to hoard and we will discuss that next time in group,” Melony said.
* * *
About the Author
Jocelyne Gregory is an MFA graduate of the University of British Columbia’s School of Creative Writing and a graduate of Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio. She has worked as a graduate teaching assistant and a manuscript consultant with The Writer’s Studio and community libraries. She has written reviews for children’s books with UBC’s Young Adulting Review. Her previous works have appeared in 50-Word Stories, Emerge16, and New Zealand’s Flash Fiction. When not hoarding writing degrees like a dragon, she can be found on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast rescuing plants, painting, and writing poetry and fantasy romance novels.
Lisa Cheese, What Happened To You??
We got this announcement sent right to us from the source! Lisa Cheese and Ghost Guitar: Attack of the Snack is a new upcoming graphic novel from Top Shelf, written and illustrated by Kevin Alvir. “In Lisa Cheese and Ghost Guitar, a sweet unicorn girl from another dimension moves to Earth City hoping to make a name for herself as a folk singer…but her very first open mic is a disaster, leaving her with a bionic arm and an identity crisis. Now she’s starting a crummy office job, her parents back in their home dimension are laying on the guilt trip, and the cool girl at the record store leaves her tongue-tied. But once she’s drawn into a knock-down, drag-out encounter with a gang of hamburger-headed goons from the sinister megacorporation Beef is Burger, Lisa must rally a ragtag band of supernatural hipsters, conspiracy freaks, and burnt-out office coworkers to thwart their diabolical ambitions!” Might all make more sense if you check out the preview pages over at Major Spoilers. Lisa Cheese hits the shelves this September.
image c. 2023 Top Shelf