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This episode - Savrin has thoughts about time, a member of the US Army makes a threat against FWA, furry solidarity is the way, and then the back half is more pleasant media discussions.

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Episode 516 - Time In Your Purse

This week, Sammy and Nuka are dusting off and pulling out the game boxes. Don’t know what to bring to game night? All your old games missing pieces or falling apart? Join us and our guest, Tenax Raccoon, as we talk about our favorite board games. Of course we’ll be talking about our favorite furry-esque games.





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MUSIC

Opening Theme: 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 USA: Unpublished, 2018.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. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!)
Break: Mystery Skulls – Ghost. USA: Warner Bros Records, 2011. Used with permission.
Closing Theme: RetroSpecter – Cloud Fields (RetroSpecter Chill Mix). USA: Unpublished, 2018.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. (Buy a copy here – support your fellow furs!) S9 Episode 21 – Dogopoly - This week, Sammy and Nuka are dusting off and pulling out the game boxes. Don’t know what to bring to game night? All your old games missing pieces or falling apart? Join us and our guest, Tenax Raccoon, as we talk about our fav

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

Moobarkfluff!  So hard to believe this is our last episode of Season 2. We couldn't do this without all of you lovely listeners. Bearly and Taebyn reminisce about the past year, we tell some jokes, talk about life in general and Taebyn reads a new sound book.  We have a great discussion with Star Raccoon and his new friend Bund the Bunny! Join us for some good times and some sad times as we close out this season.  Be sure to tune in again next week for Season 3! Moobarkfluff!

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

Bearly Furcasting S2E52 - Season Finale, Special Guest Star Raccoon, Storytime, Jokes

Phoenix Baldwin is the writer and illustrator of Dinotoons, a series of illustrated books for young readers. The first title is Here Comes The Moon, where we meet young Peter Protoceratops — lost in the woods and trying to find his way home. The most recent book in the series, though, is called Formerly Known As Ella. Peter’s best friend Ella the einiosaurus decides to come out as non-binary, changing their name and pronouns. Peter, young as he is, tries to learn to understand and finally accept this. All these stories and more are available from Bookbaby.

image c. 2022 by Phoenix Baldwin

Artworktee.com

Establishing a brand across many convention dealer dens is a big deal for the personalized, self-creating furry fandom. Artworktee has grown an impressive presence for serving furries with merchandise made within and representing them. It hasn’t always been smooth, but things are looking up.

“We’re not a 7-figure company”, laughs the new owner Raphael when I ask about the size and how many staff they have. “Well actually it was at one point when Neil ran it, but we’re reorganizing.”

Raphael is attentive on the phone, with an easy laugh and straightforward answers about business structure. He’s based in California and took over Artworktee in mid-2021, since the company went bankrupt after running for several years under original founder Neil Wacaster.

The 2020 bankruptcy followed losses from Midwest Furfest plans that went badly (that’s no surprise with the Covid-19 pandemic); and a “Kickstarter debacle”. Readers who follow the turbulence of social media may be familiar with controversy about Wacaster’s practices that had coverage here — (with some charitable understanding for staff and artists invested in using Artworktee) — but the bankruptcy and reorganization took Wacaster out of ownership.

• ArtworkTee issues and the heart of the furry economy (2018)
• A Tale of Two Kickstarter Campaigns, and the Selling of Identity by Artworktee (2019)

Previous partnering practices had involved blitzing generic appeals to anyone with over 3K followers on social media, but that’s ended now. Paying artists was an issue, and the new ownership is committed to paying fairly.

I questioned Raphael more about company ownership in case Wacaster still had input on the board, profit sharing, or other ties. It satisfied me that there weren’t any, just cooperation for handing things over. That takes time (such as when old services are under old names), and not everyone is aware, but it sounds like the company is firmly in the care of Raphael and his small team.

Programs and relationships had to be dropped and restarted. The website is getting renovation. New organization has finances back in order with new investors. It was accomplished with some cuts to staff, and Artworktee was re-incorporated in California in 2021. The team includes:

• 1 warehouse helper
• 1 full time operations staffer
• 1 social media manager
• 1 supply relationships broker (Asia and Pacific)
• 1 co-manager who also does supply relationships for Europe
• A web developer and 5-6 regular con booth helpers.

“We have some great new plans coming up”, Raphael told me. One of them will be a new feature for uploading art to create your own products. Many people do it with services like Redbubble, but Raphael intends this to come with more personal service, representation at cons and quality at similar price point.

There will more con vending, and potentially helping to run an official con store. Other plans include expanding merch lines, a better located warehouse, and an optional website version for NSFW goods. There could even be partnership with retailers like Hot Topic if the stars align. (Some of these are in early stages, so allow for development.)

“We’re trying to be good to our artists and the fandom”, says Raphael. Service by fans, for fans is definitely what a lot of people want.

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

2022 GOOD FURRY AWARD –  Vote HERE until May 1

This annual award is run by Grubbs Grizzly to recognize furries who make outstanding positive contributions to the fandom. The first one in 2019 went to Tony “Dogbomb” Barrett. In 2020 the award (and a $500 check) went to Ash Coyote. In 2021, Cassidy Civet won. Each winner gets a check and a trophy.

Winners for this 4th annual award will be announced at Biggest Little Furcon in June.

This year there will be a new Lifetime Achievement Award, selected by Uncle Bear Publishing in addition to regular awards.

The awards will be presented live at BLFC, and Pepper Coyote also wrote a theme song for the award.

Grubbs explains why he started the award on the nomination page:

The Good Furry Award is about community spirit. This is not an award for who is the best fursuiter or artist or writer. It is not about being the most popular or being the furry who is seen on news broadcasts. It is about furries who do good works to promote and sustain the fandom and who represent the best in furry. Examples might be a person who does extraordinary work as a furcon volunteer, or who runs a charity, or who has done a lot to help furries in need, or who does something to promote a positive image of furries to the mundane world. I’m sure you understand the phrase “community spirit,” so nominate people based on that concept. The same goes for groups of people, organizations, and even businesses that help out furries.

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

Thanks to Animation World Network we’re learning more about the upcoming Ted TV series: “Peacock has announced the cast of Ted, Seth MacFarlane’s live-action comedy series based on his hit 2012 film of the same name and its 2015 sequel. In addition to serving as director, writer, co-showrunner, and executive producer, MacFarlane will reprise his role as the voice of the titular character — a foul-mouthed teddy bear who was first brought to life by a wish from his owner and best friend, John Bennett. In the films, John is played by Mark Wahlberg. In the new series, which serves as a prequel to the events of the first film, John appears a 16-year-old boy.” Here’s the official synopsis: “It’s 1993 and Ted the bear’s moment of fame has passed, leaving him living with his best friend, 16-year-old John Bennett, who lives in a working-class Boston home with his parents and cousin. Ted may not be the best influence on John, but when it comes right down to it, Ted’s willing to go out on a limb to help his friend and his family.” No word yet on a target release date for the show.

image c. 2022 Universal Pictures

中文： 美国政治家为猫砂盒的谣言道歉

中文：兽展更新 2022-4-18

Well here’s something we should have been covering for… quite a while now! In 2005, no less, Nick Bruel created the first Bad Kitty book — featuring the adventures of “…a housecat who wreaks havoc around her owner’s home when she is in a bad mood, hence the name,” according to Wikipedia. Turns out there have been Bad Kitty books and graphic novels ever since — the most recent including Bad Kitty Gets A Phone and Bad Kitty For President. All coming your way from Roaring Brook Press. So you’d better look out!

image c. 2022 Roaring Brook Press

Papabear,

I feel very conflicted on my sexual orientation at the moment. All my life, I thought that I was hetero and attracted to females. I went to a Furry convention nearby and found that I resonated with the sentiments that the others had felt. I, however, felt that I was being ostracized by society, even my own parents. I was kicked out the house, and my parents threatened to disown me, because I wasn't normal. I want to feel normal again and embrace my personality. I want people to refer to me as Kanba Kanna Jothibass and not as the "monster." How do I overcome societal pressure and expectations?

Kanba (age 32)
* * *
Hi, Kanba,

While I'm sorry to hear your parents are not accepting you for you, at 32 years of age it is a good thing you are moving out of your parents' home. As with your process of discovering your gender identity, you need to discover who you are as a person, and the best way to grow and do that is to live on your own and on your own terms, so I wish you luck with that.

It should come as no surprise, sadly, that society (including your parents) does not, for the most part, accept people in the LGBTQI+ community. Society is all about conformity, and those who do not conform to society's artificial standards are typically rejected by the population. Your parents have proven themselves to be just as shallow and judgmental as society, putting conditions on their love for you, with that condition being you must be "normal." Sorry, but you have bad parents when it comes to this important topic of identity. Good parents love their children unconditionally for who they are.

You want to feel normal? I wouldn't go there if I were you. "Normal" people are boring conformists. The people who truly move the world are the nonconformists, the iconoclasts, and the heretics. These are the artists, inventors, and dreamers who improve our society. They are the scientists, revolutionaries, and innovators who take us to new heights.

Don't be normal, Kanba. Be special. Be unique. Fuck "normal." When you say you want to feel "normal," you mean you want to regain acceptance from your parents and others. All humans want to feel accepted because we are social animals, and we crave acceptance from our parents because they are the ones who nurtured us as children. But when parents and society reject us for being special and different, they show themselves to be just one of the crowd.

"How do I overcome societal pressures and expectations?" is your question. You do so by first recognizing that those pressures and expectations are not necessarily right just because a lot of people agree to them. You are not placed on Earth to please others and do their bidding. Each of us is placed on Earth to discover who we are and what is truly important in life. We are here to experience life. To interact with others. Doing so will help you learn the things that are correct and the things that are incorrect. How do you know which is which? Well, it might sound like a pat answer, but your conscience will tell you. 

Look, Kanba, there are only two rules you need to know: 1) The Golden Rule, 2) The Wiccan Rede. The former says to treat others as you would have them treat you, and the latter says that as long as you aren't hurting anyone (this includes yourself, so don't take drugs, etc.), do whatever you feel like doing. Or, as Patrick Swayze said in Roadhouse, "Be nice."

All the other "rules" that society piles up on you are mostly B.S. Now, obviously, there are laws out there that are for the good of everyone, and the best laws are the ones that are related to the Golden Rule and the Wiccan Rede, such as killing, stealing, raping, and pillaging are all bad. But rules like "You have to get a college degree to succeed in life," and "You have to make huge profits in business and take advantage of others in this dog-eat-dog world," or "You have to marry a proper woman (or man) and have children to maintain the family name" are all designed not for your benefit but for others.

Stop worrying what others, including your parents, think of you. Your life is for you. That's not being selfish. Discover yourself and discover your purpose in it. This is the only way to lead a fulfilling life.

Oh, and if people are seriously calling you a "monster," avoid such people at all cost. That's just ridiculous; such opinions are not worth your time to address. You are not a monster.

Bear Hugs,
PapabearOh, and if people are seriously calling you a "monster," avoid such people at all cost. That's just ridiculous, and such opinions are not even worth your time to address. You are not a monster.

We just stumbled across Animal Castle, a new comic series from Ablaze Comics that takes a familiar fable… in a new direction. This is from Bleeding Cool: “On the Farm, all animals were equal. But in the Castle, some are more equal than others… Nestled in the heart of a farm forgotten by men, the Animal Castle is ruled with an iron hoof by President Silvio. The bull and his dog militia savor their power, while the other animals are exhausted by work until the arrival of the mysterious Azelard, a traveling rat who will teach them the secrets of civil disobedience.” Brought to us by Writer Xavier Dorison and artist Felix Dele.

image c. 2022 Ablaze Comics

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

Moobarkfluff!  This week we chat about several mundane items such as the flag of Oregon, Blue Laws and the like.  Join us for a rip roaring good time!  Taebyn has trouble remembering last weeks episode…let's help him out!  Just what IS the difference between 'cute' and 'really good' when it comes to Taebyn's movie critiques?  Just WHY didn't Bearly watch '24'? Taebyn is NOT happy about it. Are sets series, or are series sets? Only Taebyn knows the truth and you will too after listening! Spend some time with us and have a laugh (or groan) or two with us. Moobarkfluff!

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

Bearly Furcasting S2E51 - Transfurmation Station, Laws, Math, and more.

Furry Artists in the Philippines: Passion, Obstacles, and Triumphs - Feat. Rita and Drago, Fox and Burger Podcast Episode 21. ---- Kamusta and welcome to another episode of the Fox and Burger Podcast! If you can pardon my bad Tagalog, I’d like to officially announce that we’ve made it to the Philippines! Joining us on this journey today are Rita and Drago. Rita has been in the fandom since 2017 and is a lovely binturong. Drago has been in the fandom since 2012 and is a handsome derg. In this episode, we talk about being a furry artist in the Philippines and the Filipino furry community overall. We finally made it to a new country in 2022, so let’s give our wonderful guests a big awoo! ---- Timestamps: 00:00 Section 1: Introduction 00:00 Podcast intro 01:23 Guests introduction 06:02 Section 2: Being a Furry Artist in the Philippines 09:10 Difficulties you’ve faced along the way? 13:45 Family support? 17:32 How do you price your art as a Filipino fur? 23:09 Section 3: Comparing and Contrasting Fandoms 23:15 How would you describe Filipino furries? 26:45 Is the Philippines more Asian or Western? 31:26 Is the Filipino furry fandom Asian or Western? 34:05 Given how the Philippines is an archipelago, how do you guys meet? 37:34 How LGBT friendly is the Philippines? 43:00 What’s one thing that you want to let the audience know about the Filipino furry fandom? 44:12 Social media shoutout 45:35 Podcast outro ---- Social Media: Official FABP Twitter: https://twitter.com/foxandburger Matcha Fox: https://twitter.com/foxnakh https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK9xoFQrxFTNPMjmXfUg2cgBurger: https://twitter.com/L1ghtningRunner http://www.youtube.com/c/LightningRunner Rita: https://twitter.com/CHEETOPUFFED/ Rita’s Discord: Kikoman#1552 Drago (18+ only): https://twitter.com/Drago_Tatsuki ---- Footage Credit: https://projectsnt.tumblr.com/post/184121944594/wasnt-sure-if-you-were-more-active-on-twitter-or https://seyiku.tumblr.com/post/158221191711/hanzo-can-be-furry-trash-if-you-pick-the-right https://twitter.com/chibimarrow/status/1479894448628772865 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXdfoKlJ80U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBpqvphc1GY https://smile.cebupacificair.com/colorful-houses-barangay-balili/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_(food) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkVmwNb-vGk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFOk31yuvQE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBpqvphc1GY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2ZvJv3pQEQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIqsXp_ecUI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87If-Q2pJWQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxxL-pFrnIw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jR445CaM5eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsNLg9feCuw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBRrCY5uhWY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59K8WH8a0o8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcc58v3hibo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_UIISregp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSL4Ow9rgME https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD_9KKVibKU Other pictures and video provided by Rita, Drago, Pixabay, and hosts' personal footage. Intro/Outro Music: Aioli by Andrew Langdon. ---- 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.

Welcome to Issue 14 of Zooscape!

Furry fiction is as old as tales about gods turning themselves and others into animals, as old as fairy tales with animal helpers, as old as redwood trees, as old as the practice itself of telling stories.  We’ve always told stories about animals, anthropomorphizing everything around us, animating every corner of our lives with more life.

Furry fiction is old and young at the same time.  The bright colors and colorful antics of animal characters naturally appeal to the youngest of readers, but those of us who stay young at heart never let go of our love for animal stories even as the world forces us to grow up.  And as you age into discovering the many shades of gray in this world, many of us find that animal stories can bring comfort and also enlightenment, giving us more metaphors for discussing the heaviest of issues.  Furry fiction lets us tell some of the hardest stories in a way that makes them light enough to bear.

Furry fiction is young at heart, and built to last.

* * *

Coyote Woman Sings the Blues by Marissa James

Charley Coavins by Gretchen Tessmer

The Imaginary Friend by Gwynne Garfinkle

This Story is Called “The Transformation of Things” by P.H. Lee

The Swift-Footed Darling of the Rocks (Do NOT Actually Call Me That) by Marie Croke

My Song Too Fierce by Emily Randolph-Epstein

Harold’s Hook by Rebecca E. Treasure

The Corvid King by Amy Clare Fontaine

* * *

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

by Amy Clare Fontaine

“I am not a bird!” snapped Arthur, preening indignantly. “That is no way to address your king!”

Arthur dreamed an endless dream.

He dreamed of sumptuous banquets with his comrades by his side, roast pheasants and bards and fire jugglers. Feasts where the wine and the laughter never ran dry, and the great hall rang with stories and songs all through the night. The hearth warmed his bones and the company warmed his heart…

He dreamed of dancing with Guinevere in the courtyard in the moonlight, the fragrance of the flowers in her hair…

He dreamed of chasing his falcon through the woods on a warm summer day, racing through the trees and laughing into the wind…

He dreamed of jousting with Lancelot again, a friendly practice duel. The snorts of their horses in the dusty yard, the stomping of hooves as they circled each other, the cheers of the crowd, the way his heart raced as he charged at last with his lance held high…

He dreamed of Guinevere dancing around the maypole with the village children in the spring, twirling colorful ribbons…

He dreamed of Camelot, the castle’s towers tall and strong in the first light of dawn, her banners flapping proudly in the wind.

Camelot.

Arthur smiled, floating along on the river of his dreams. His heart leapt at the thought of his kingdom. Camelot, his crown jewel, his pride and joy, the bastion of chivalry and culture and magic that he had worked so hard to build all his life.

All his…life…

Arthur’s brow furrowed as a dark memory intruded on his pleasant dreams.

* * *

He knelt upon the ashen ground, stabbed through the heart by an enemy sword. Blood leaked out of his chest. He coughed and sputtered, crawling across the earth on his knees.

“Lancelot,” he whispered hoarsely. “Lancelot.”

The noise of the battle raging around him echoed distantly in his head, as if all of it—the thundering hooves, the clashing swords, the triumphant shouts and pained cries of men—were no longer real to him. He fell back onto the ground, wheezing wetly, his eyes closing.

“Your Highness!”

That shout brought Arthur back from the brink, just barely. Lancelot knelt beside him, his armor dented and dirty. The normally strong and valiant knight now looked at him like a brokenhearted boy. Arthur reached towards him.

“Lancelot.”

Arthur coughed violently, and his hand dropped to his side. Lancelot wiped the blood from his brow, his fingers as gentle as a nursemaid’s.

“Shh, Arthur, be still.”

For the first time, Arthur saw fear in Lancelot’s eyes. Arthur choked on his words. “Tell… Guinevere… tell her I…”

Arthur erupted in another coughing fit that wracked his whole body. Then he fell still upon the earth. He felt Lancelot’s hand upon his brow once more. The knight smiled sadly down at him.

“She knows, Arthur. She knows.”

Arthur smiled back and closed his eyes.

When he opened them, silvery fingers were lifting his body. He was flying through the air, wind rushing all around him. His chest still burned and bled…and yet…

He sailed above his green, jolly, wooded, wild England, through a billowing veil of mist. He closed his eyes…

And when he opened them once more, he lay on his back on a dais, Excalibur at his side, in the center of a temple whose walls did not reach the ceiling, leaving the room exposed to the elements. It was misty beyond the temple, wet and wild and cold. His pain was gone. Vines seeped in through the gaps between the walls and the ceiling, and he heard a strange bird cry out from somewhere far away. He also heard…was that a monkey…?

Arthur felt those silvery fingers that had carried him through the skies caress his skin, heard the melodic chanting of women as they danced around him. A fog rolled through his mind. Someone planted a kiss upon his brow.

“Sleep, Arthur,” she said.

Arthur slept.

* * *

Arthur had been sleeping for such a long time, but he had not been aware that he was asleep—until now. Now a great rumbling shook the earth beneath him, and he awoke. He no longer wore his chainmail and his suit of armor, though Excalibur still lay at his side. He felt light as a cloud. He looked around him at the temple, which rumbled and moved like an animal, sending him and his sword flying across the dais. Squawking in alarm, he took to the air before he could think and flew through the damp, vine-laden jungle around the temple, which crumbled to dust as he passed. He sailed through a silvery void, and the moisture clung to his feathers like dew. He heard the haunting, beautiful female voice echo sadly in his mind.

“Goodbye, Arthur.”

* * *

Arthur emerged from the mist into a very different world. The sun beat down on his black feathers from overhead. The land below him was still shrouded in a blanket of fog, but as he dove closer, its features slowly began to take shape. He shrieked in terror and anger.

His green, jolly, wooded, wild England was no more. Strange roads as black as night roiled through the countryside like snakes, like scars. Along the roads glided fierce metal beasts, which moved like ghosts but were much noisier. They belched smoke into the air that stung Arthur’s lungs. Still flapping in midair, he screamed.

England had been overrun by demons!

Arthur flew and flew over the sorry country, his brain still lingering in a wounded daze. Beside a great river, he spied monstrous spires which he was sure belonged to the fortresses of the demons.

“The demon stronghold.” Arthur clacked his beak. Folding his wings against his sides, he dove through the air, landing smack in the middle of one of the hellish roads between the huge, menacing towers. He looked around. A metal demon squealed toward him. He stood his ground, puffing out his feathers.

“I am King Arthur of Camelot. Stop terrorizing my kingdom, foul beast!”

The demon emitted a strange honking sound that rattled Arthur’s bones, continuing to roll towards him.

“Idiot bird!” cried a voice. “Get out of the way!”

Startled, Arthur fluttered into the air—just in time, as the demon barreled over the spot he had just vacated. He perched upon the roof of a carriage parked beside the road and looked for the source of the voice. He found it quickly. A golden horse attached to the carriage was rolling her eyes at him.

“You’re not from around here, are you, bird?”

Arthur bristled, ruffling his feathers.

“I am not a bird!” snapped Arthur, preening indignantly. “That is no way to address your king!”

The horse laughed, a gentle, flowing whinny that somehow reminded him of Guinevere.

“You’re a bird, honey. Take a look at yourself.” The horse inclined her head towards a puddle in the street. Jumping down from the top of the carriage, Arthur hopped over to the puddle and looked down at his reflection. A crow cocked his head jauntily back at him.

“Intriguing,” said Arthur wonderingly. “Merlin must have thought this form would help me defeat the demons somehow.” Arthur clacked his beak and flew back to the top of the carriage. Perching there, he looked around. People marched tiredly along the grimy street, as if they were sleepwalking. A gray fog hung over everything. Demonic screeches split the morning in two. None of the people said hello to each other. They just marched like ants toward their destinations, bundled in jackets to keep out the misty cold. Some of them entered the demons, which were hollow inside, and rode around in their bellies. Even the people outside the demons coordinated their activities around the movements of the demons, only walking where the demons permitted them to walk. Arthur shuddered. The humans were their slaves.

“Demons?” asked the horse.

With a full body shake that ruffled all his feathers, Arthur flew onto the back of the horse and perched there.

“Let us ride,” commanded Arthur. “Bring me to my sword.”

The horse bucked him off. He fluttered into the air, huffing.

“You’re crazy, bird! Leave me alone!”

Arthur kept trying to perch on the horse’s back, but she kept shaking him off. He clicked his beak angrily.

“You don’t understand! They have brainwashed you all! You cannot even see your own enslavement!”

Alighting on the plush bench in the carriage, Arthur pointed his wing at the nearest demon. “Do you see that?” he hissed at the horse.

The horse looked from the demon to the crow, unimpressed. “Yes, I see it. That’s a car.”

Arthur laughed hysterically, a grating, cawing sound. The horse winced.

“Acar?” Arthur said. “You know your demons by name?”

The horse snorted and shook her head, her mane whipping around her. “Cars aren’t demons. They’re machines. Humans made them. They use them to travel.”

Arthur stared at the nearest passing car with his beady eyes. “How long was I asleep?” he murmured. When the horse said nothing, he flew around the carriage and landed in front of her. He looked boldly up into her eyes, despite the fact that she towered over him. “What century after the death of Christ is this?” he demanded.

The horse swished her tail, shifting her weight from hoof to hoof. “The twenty-first,” she said. “And I hope my master comes back with those carrots before it’s the twenty-second.”

Arthur fluffed his feathers and blinked. He alighted upon the roof of the carriage once more. He looked around at the wild, fast-paced, rushing world around him—the racing cars, the din in the streets, the sheer lack of sparkle to it all. His mind reeled. His heart sank, and he shivered.

“Guinevere,” he murmured, closing his beady eyes for a moment.

“Oy, Penny! I’m here!”

A man had arrived and was patting the horse and feeding her carrots as she chuffed with contentment. Next the man gave her a bucket of water, which she eagerly began to drink. As the man leaned against the side of the carriage, looking around at the goings-on in the street with a distant, distracted air, Arthur hopped up and down on the top of the carriage and flapped his wings, trying to catch the man’s attention.

“Excuse me, good man, can you tell me, are there any great ills plaguing England at present? Are there battles to be won, or dragons to be slain? Damsels in need of a good knight’s assistance?”

The man just stared into space, looking right through Arthur. Glancing up from her bucket, the horse flared her nostrils at the bird.

“Quit your screeching, crow. It’s quite dreadful.”

Arthur’s narrow head darted from side to side, assessing the flurry of motion and noise in the street. As the horse’s man accepted money from a young couple and ushered them into the carriage, Arthur hopped on the horse’s back again. She jerked her hindquarters and sent him flying into the air.

“I told you, stupid bird, go away!”

Hearing the horse’s agitated whinny, the man went to the horse’s side and patted her gently. “Easy, Penny. It’s all right.”

Arthur stood before the horse, Penny, and looked up at her pleadingly with an open-beaked gape.

“Please, I’m lost and alone in a strange place at a strange time, and no one here seems to know me. I need to at least get back to Avalon and find Excalibur. I seem to have left her behind there. Do you know where Avalon is?”

With direction from her master, Penny began to pull the carriage, her master, and the two passengers into the noisy street and the traffic. “I do know where Avalon is,” the horse said softly as she trotted away.

“What?” squawked Arthur. Determined, he hurried to the roof of the carriage, clinging to it for dear life as it jostled through the streets.

“Yes,” Penny said. “It’s not too far from London, as the crow flies. Pardon the expression. I was born there. I miss it.” Penny sighed wistfully, clopping through the dirty streets. Fog lay over everything like a death shroud, and austere brick buildings pressed in on the street from all sides. Cars screamed and lights blared.

“With… all… due… respect…” gasped Arthur as he bounced atop the carriage. Suddenly, the car in front of Penny and the lines of cars around her came to a stop, and she stopped too. Arthur caught his breath, found his bearings, and continued. “With all due respect, Lady Penny, this seems like no place for a noble steed from Avalon.”

Penny grimaced. “It isn’t.” Nickering softly, she shifted her weight from hoof to hoof, waiting for the car in front of her to start moving again. Arthur hopped from foot to clawed foot, and suddenly an idea flickered through his bird brain.

“Would you like to return to Avalon?” asked Arthur. “With me?”

The light changed. The cars started moving forward through the intersection, and so did Penny. “Can’t,” Penny said.

Arthur flapped his wings frantically to stabilize his body and stay in one place. His stomach churned. He was really not enjoying this ride as much as the humans were. Launching his body into the air, he started flying alongside Penny instead.

“Why not?” asked Arthur.

Penny shot him a sidelong glance. “I have a job now, and a master who feeds me carrots. I have responsibilities. I can’t just leave.”

“What’s this bird doing, squawking about?” muttered the coachman. He waved a hand at Arthur to shoo him away. “Go on. Get!”

“I am sorry to have disturbed you, good man,” said Arthur politely. He flew a little higher, high enough to avoid the man’s line of sight but low enough to still talk to Penny.

“He can’t understand us, can he?” asked Arthur.

“Nope,” said Penny. “Men don’t understand naught but themselves.”

Arthur glanced down at the coachman. “That’s a pity,” said Arthur. “My teacher, Merlin, understood the languages of all the birds and beasts, and even plants and stones. And stars.”

“That’s nice,” said Penny, turning left at the next intersection.

Arthur tried to perch on the outer rail of the carriage, but the young couple shooed him away. The carriage went around several city blocks, past the towering spires of cathedrals and a huge clock tower, along a river that sparkled only weakly in the gray half-light. At last the carriage parked beside the curb at the place where Arthur had first found it. The coachman helped the couple out of the carriage. He patted Penny’s head and fed her another carrot.

“Good girl,” said Penny’s master. “I’m going to go get you more carrots. And water.”

The man walked off along the sidewalk, whistling a tune Arthur had never heard before. Arthur perched atop a phone booth beside the horse.

“So this is your life,” Arthur said slowly. “You walk around the blocks and come back to where you started. Every day.”

Penny sighed and looked up at him. “Why are you following me, crow?”

Arthur warbled and stretched out his wings. Suddenly, the fog covering the sky parted, and a ray of light shafted down upon the crow, making him look like more than a mere bird. Like an angel, even. Penny squinted at him. His black eyes blazed with righteous fire.

“My dear Lady Penny, where is your spirit of adventure? You don’t have to be a mere carriage horse for the rest of your life!”

Penny shook her head. “What else can I do?”

The crow leapt into the air, soaring around Penny in excited circles. “You could be a hero!” he cried. “A legend! Noble steed of the king! You could go on quests to distant lands, see marvels you’ve never even dreamed of, far beyond this city’s fog! We shall return to your green homeland of Avalon, and then…and then… who knows?”

Penny tossed her head. “I would like to go back to Avalon.” Her coat twitched some flies away. “Will there be carrots?”

Arthur clacked his beak and bobbed his head. “My dear Lady Penny, once Camelot is restored to its former glory, I will see to it that we find you the finest carrots in all the land. As many as you can eat!”

Penny tossed her head and laughed, that surprisingly musical whinny that sent pangs through Arthur’s heart as he thought, inexplicably, of Guinevere.

“I’ve gone nuts here in London! Why am I making deals with a crow who’s spouting nonsense?”

Arthur flew down and perched on Penny’s back. To his surprise, this time, she didn’t shake him off.

“Because your heart yearns for greener pastures. For freedom. For adventure. For Avalon.”

Penny blinked slowly at Arthur. “All right,” she said. “Can that clever beak of yours get me out of this silly harness?”

The crow cawed with delight. When Penny’s master returned, whistling, to his carriage, with an armful of carrots and a full bucket of water in tow, he found only a carriage, with no horse attached.

* * *

Penny trotted down the sidewalks of London, with Arthur the crow riding on her back. She had gotten so accustomed to human traffic by now that she knew how to obey the language of the signals, the lights. Arthur asked Penny an infinitude of questions and then listened, rapt, as she filled him in on all the major changes, events, upheavals, and advances in technology in England that she could think of, onward from the time period when Arthur imagined he had been put to sleep by the priestesses of Avalon.

“You are a very erudite horse,” Arthur observed. “The brightest I have ever met.”

Penny swished her tail bashfully. “Thank you.”

They walked on the sidewalk on a bridge over the river. Cars streaked by beside them. All around them on the sidewalk, humans rushed past, but they all made adequate space for Penny as she moved through the crowd. One or two passersby gawked at the sight of a riderless horse with a crow on its back, but the vast majority paid no attention whatsoever. The skies, while still mostly cloudy, were now partly blue.

“Where did you learn so much about human history, Lady Penny?” asked Arthur.

Penny trotted across a crosswalk, past a cart Arthur now knew to be a burger stand.

“My master…well, now my former master, I suppose…anyway, he has a great fondness for history, especially the history of London. That is why he was giving visitors tours of the city in that carriage, to show them the sights and tell them stories about the history behind them.”

Arthur shifted around on Penny’s back. He hadn’t been sure he could get accustomed to riding bareback on a horse in his new form, yet by now, after many hours of practice, he found himself managing quite well.

“And so much history there has been,” Arthur mused. “You have told me so much about the events that have transpired in our great Mother England during the past few centuries. But tell me, why no mention of King Arthur and Camelot in your history lesson? Are the people of England not aware of what became of them?”

Penny laughed. “King Arthur? Camelot?” She laughed harder and harder, a wild whinny that caused nearby pedestrians to stop and stare. Arthur screeched.

“How dare you insult my honor, miscreant?”

Reluctantly, Penny stopped laughing. “Sorry. It’s just—King Arthur and Camelot are legends. They’re not real. Most everyone knows that. Except you, I guess. Sorry.”

Arthur croaked sadly and fluttered his wings. “It is a shame that the great kingdom of Camelot has passed into legend, however this grievous error occurred.” Arthur looked up at the sun overhead, and then around him at the people passing by. “But it will be all right. I will set things right again, reclaim my throne, and bring the spirit of chivalry and the wonders of Camelot back to the people of England, and the world.”

Penny walked more slowly after hearing these words. “Uh… huh,” she said, hesitantly.

The crow shook himself furiously.

“The world is out of balance without Camelot as its guiding light. But I will make things right again. I will stand for chivalry and justice and goodness as king. I will not allow madmen like this monster you mentioned—Hitler, was that his name?—I will not allow men like that to rise to power ever again. Peace will reign once more. I’ll make sure of it.”

The horse snorted. “Oh? Tell me, how exactly do you plan to do that? In case you haven’t noticed, you’re a crow.”

Arthur chortled. “Wait until we get to Avalon and I retrieve Excalibur. I will make this work somehow. You’ll see.”

* * *

“Here we are!” said Penny.

Arthur’s beak gaped open in dismay.

They had wandered all the way through the city of London and its suburbs, foraging in dumpsters for produce and other scraps along the way to keep up their strength. They eventually escaped from the brick and concrete jungle into a countryside that looked at least somewhat more familiar to Arthur, albeit more marred by roads and houses than it had been when last he’d seen it. “So England’s still alive,” Arthur had murmured as they passed over green, rolling hills and dales, past farms and mills and fields and sparkling rivers, stone castles and quaint villages with thatched roofs. Penny had smiled and nodded at this comment, whinnying with contentment, clearly relieved to be back in the country at last.

But now…now that they had reached their destination, it wasn’t quite what Arthur had been expecting.

There were acres of rolling pastures, flanked at their far edge by an old wood. A red barn stood in the center of the yard, along with a stable and a farmhouse. “Avalon Estate and Stables,” read the wooden sign that swung cheerfully above the gate that opened to the part of the dirt road that led over to the farmhouse. Penny turned to Arthur, swishing her tail with relish.

“We made it!” cried Penny. “Isn’t it wonderful?”

Arthur blinked his beady eyes and said nothing. The horse huffed at him.

“It…it is wonderful,” Arthur said slowly. “But I’m afraid it is not the Avalon I am looking for.”

“Oh?” Penny’s face fell. Arthur sighed, turning his beak toward the paved road on which they had come.

“I am sorry, Lady Penny, but I must be on my way. Thank you for your good company, and the history lessons.”

Arthur started flying back in the direction of the paved road.

“Where will you go?”

He heard her voice call softly after him, and the note of sadness in it. He stopped flying away and flapped in place in midair instead.

“To find Avalon,” he said. “My Avalon. I have to retrieve my sword. I’m not sure where it is anymore, but I’m hoping my heart will lead the way.”

He swiveled around in the air and looked at Penny. She pawed shyly at the ground. “Well, I wish you the best of luck, little crow. It’s been fun to listen to your stories. You may be a little crazy, but I like you. I will miss you.”

The crow’s wingbeats stuttered in midair. He was surprised to hear this from the horse who had wanted nothing to do with him when they first met. He looked toward the farm, and the wood beyond it, which seemed to glow in the bright light of sunset. The sight stirred a memory. He closed his eyes…

* * *

He pictured his old friend Merlin the last time they had met. It had been sunset, and Merlin had had that twinkle of stardust in his eye. The wizard had been kneeling on the ground in an open field on the edge of the wood where he and Arthur had met, twirling a stick in his wizened fingers, looking at the twig as if it were the Holy Grail itself. Arthur strode up to Merlin wearing his full suit of armor and a serious frown.

“I’ll be riding out soon, Merlin. We are heading to war.”

“I know,” said Merlin softly. Smiling like a child, he started drawing lines in the dirt with the stick, his blue robes billowing out from him on the ground like a lady’s skirts.

Arthur looked down at the wizard’s drawings. “Is that a spell?”

The wizard shook his head, not looking up from his task. Arthur stood beside Merlin, clasping his hands behind his back. “Won’t you come with us, Merlin? You could help us win this fight.”

Merlin shook his head. “You know I don’t like fighting, Arthur.”

“I don’t, either.” Arthur sighed. Merlin continued to draw lines in the dirt without looking up.

“It’s the little things,” Merlin said quietly.

Arthur blinked. “I’m sorry?”

Merlin continued to draw. The branches of the trees on the edge of the wood swayed in the evening breeze.

“Arthur, I know your men may love adventures, and quests, and great battles. But these are not the things we live for. We live for the little things. The sunset shining on this glade. A cool breeze. A friend’s laugh. Music. A fire in the hearth. A good book. Waking up in the morning with someone you love. Drawing lines in the dirt for no reason at all. These are the things that make life worth living.”

Arthur frowned as the breeze stirred around them. It didn’t even touch him through his thick armor.

“But Merlin, we cannot continue to have the things of which you speak unless we ensure that our world remains a peaceful one. And we can only do that through quests and battles to keep the peace, to protect the things we hold dear.”

Merlin put his stick down and stood, putting a hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Arthur, come down here and look at this.” The old man knelt on the ground once more, gesturing for Arthur to do the same. Awkwardly, Arthur knelt beside Merlin in the dirt in his bulky armor. Merlin smiled and pointed. “Look, Arthur,” he said in a reverent whisper, like a man in church. “Look there.”

Arthur squinted at the spot Merlin had indicated. A fuzzy green caterpillar was crawling across the dirt. Arthur laughed out loud. “Stuff and nonsense! What’s so special about that, Merlin?”

Merlin fixed Arthur with a steady gaze. “Don’t you remember your boyhood lessons, when we changed into animals together, Wart?”

Arthur winced at the mention of his childhood nickname and continued to watch the caterpillar. Merlin went on, “There is much to be learned from even the simplest creatures. Being a king isn’t just about glory and armies and swords and quests, you know. Remember?”

“Yes, I do remember,” Arthur mumbled. “Sorry, Merlin.” He got down on his belly and stared intently at the caterpillar. The caterpillar had made its way to a velvety fallen leaf and begun to gnaw at its edges.

“Remember this, Arthur. Remember that on the best quests, you often find what you were looking for where you least expect it. The wonder of stars in a caterpillar. Gold on the underside of a leaf.”

Arthur nodded. “I will remember.”

Merlin beamed. “That’s my favorite pupil.” Standing, Merlin turned and began to walk towards the woods. Arthur stood and watched the long shadow his friend cast across the glade, which was brilliant in the light of the setting sun. Pausing for a moment, Merlin turned on his heel and looked back at Arthur one last time. Arthur saw his tall blue form silhouetted in sharp contrast to the orange sky overhead and the dark outlines of the trees beyond. Merlin grinned at Arthur, and even from this distance, Arthur could see a knowing twinkle in the wizard’s bright blue eyes.

“Oh, Arthur? One last thing. Go to the farm with the horse. She is your caterpillar.”

* * *

Arthur awoke from his flashback. He was not in a suit of armor, talking to a wizard. He was a crow, flapping in place in the air and looking over at a golden horse who was trotting dejectedly towards stables that had once been familiar to her, alone.

“Penny, wait!” he croaked, flapping towards her.

Penny looked up and blinked. “Crow?”

Arthur smiled, alighting on the post of the gate she was about to pass through. “Please,” he said. “Call me Arthur.”

“Arthur.” The horse rolled the word around on her tongue. “Arthur, don’t you have to find your Avalon? And your…um, your sword?”

The crow bobbed his head. “A wise man once told me that we often find what we are looking for where we least expect it.”

Penny’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Are you coming to Avalon with me, then?”

Arthur nodded. Penny neighed with delight. “Great! I can’t wait to show you around!”

The horse trotted through the gate and along the dirt path toward the stables. The crow looked toward the edge of the forest, a forest which looked miraculously familiar. He thought he spied a flash of blue between the trees.

* * *

“Hey, hey! Is the gang still here?”

Penny trotted down the aisle between the rows of stalls, peering in at the horses who were residents. They looked at her without any indication that they knew who she was. In fact, they seemed rather miffed that she was trotting around like she owned the place while they were cooped up in stalls. As it became clear that she didn’t know any of these horses, Penny’s face fell.

“Hmm. I guess my brothers and sisters and my mother and father were all sold long ago,” she murmured to Arthur.

A dun mare peered out at Penny and Arthur suspiciously. “What are you doing here, strange horse? Why on Earth did you bring this bird with you?”

Arthur puffed out his feathered chest. “I am no mere bird. I am King Arthur of Camelot, on a quest to restore my kingdom and reclaim my throne!”

The dun horse guffawed with laughter. “You…what?”

Penny glared at the strange horse. “That is no way to treat my friend. He’s a little not right in the head, but that doesn’t mean he deserves your rudeness. Shame on you. I thought the horses of Avalon had better manners than this.”

The horse stopped laughing and leveled a cool gaze at Penny. “The noble horses of Avalon do not affiliate with riffraff.”

Arthur clacked his beak and swooped through the air. “I do not appreciate your tone, Lady Horse. Let us abandon this meanness of spirit and instead exchange pleasant introductions.”

The horse’s nostrils flared. “I am Winifred,” she said stiffly, turning pointedly away.

“What are you doing out there? Huh? Huh? Who are you? Where did you come from?” piped a fast, excited, high-pitched voice from the opposite row of stalls. Turning, Penny and Arthur saw a young Shetland pony, jumping excitedly up and down to get a better look at the two newcomers. Winifred snorted. Penny walked up to the pony’s stall and looked down at her with a friendly smile.

“I’m Penny, and the bird is my friend, Arthur. We came from London. What’s your name?”

The pony squealed in delight, still bouncing up and down.

“I’m Dreamy Moon Pie! But you can just call me Dreamy!”

Penny chortled at this. The pony continued, as bright and bubbly as before, apparently unfazed by Penny’s laughter.

“Those purebred studbook names, yeah, they’re pretty funny, aren’t they?” Now Dreamy giggled, too. Arthur stayed respectfully silent.

Penny stopped laughing and nodded. “Yeah, my studbook name’s pretty embarrassing, too.” Penny grinned sheepishly, swishing her tail.

Dreamy grinned back at her. “Hey, do you want to go play or something? We could go frolic in the meadow. The humans aren’t around right now. It would be the perfect time to get away!”

Penny looked at the pony. “Won’t you get in trouble?”

Dreamy shrugged. “I’m always up for an adventure, whatever happens!”

Penny looked around at Winifred and the other horses in their stalls. “Do you want to come with us? We could all spend time together, munch some grass, get to know each other.”

Winifred turned her head away. “As I said before, we will not associate with riffraff.”

Penny narrowed her eyes. “I’m just as high-bred as you. I’m from Avalon. This is my home. You have no right to…”

“Yippee!” Dreamy cried as Arthur opened the gate to her stall. She pranced up and down the aisle like a child hyped up on too much candy, and then she rushed out the double doors on the other side of the stable.

“If you change your mind later, you are welcome to join us,” Arthur said to Winifred pleasantly. Then he flew after Dreamy, and Penny followed him out into the sunshine.

Evening dappled the fields before the forest with a rich orange glow. Dreamy raced across the grass, her mane whipping in the breeze. “Yay! This is so much fun! So, so fun! You’re the best thing that’s happened to me here! Thank you! Thank you!”

To Arthur’s surprise, the pony got down on the grass and started rolling around on it like a dog. He had to laugh at the ridiculous scene. Feeling the wind in her mane, Penny started running, too—at first, with more restraint than the youthful pony, but eventually she gave in to the freedom and the joy in her heart at being out in an open space once more, and she danced across the field, a golden horse against the orange light of sunset, laughing into the breeze. Arthur flew in circles over the two equines, relishing the feeling of the cool breeze on his feathers. He felt a pang in his heart at Penny’s laugh, as it reminded him of Guinevere. But they were all dancing and enjoying the moment. No need to think of a past that was gone, that had crumbled to dust somehow and he wasn’t sure why…

Arthur landed on the grass and stood there, staring at nothing. Penny stopped her prancing and looked at him. “Arthur?” she asked, trotting up to him. “Are you all right?”

Dreamy still raced about the field crying, “Whee!”

Arthur looked towards the wood. Without a word to the worried horse, he took off for the forest.

* * *

Arthur flew through the tangled wood. Briars scratched him, but still he pressed on. He dodged around clawing, cloying branches, going ever deeper into the darkness.

He wasn’t sure whether he was flying toward something or fleeing something else. Despite Merlin’s advice all those centuries ago, he felt incomplete simply hanging around this estate with a bunch of equines. He felt like he should be doing something more.

He was so lost in his tangled web of restless thoughts that he almost flew smack into a gnarled oak tree. He paused for a moment, peering into the deep hole at the base of its trunk. It was so dark and wide that it looked like a cave. Suddenly understanding smacked him in the face like a stone wall.

He knew this tree. Merlin had been imprisoned here, lifetimes ago.

Descending to the forest floor, Arthur began hopping around the base of the tree. His beady eyes scanned the shadows, searching for something, though he wasn’t sure what.

At last, a stray sunbeam glanced off the object of his search. It rested on a bed of fallen leaves against a thick root. Arthur carefully picked up the multifaceted sapphire jewel in his beak. It had an ancient inscription on it, etched faintly in silver. Arthur recognized the small, crazy handwriting.

“When the time comes,” read the inscription, “you will find the words you need.”

Arthur held the jewel in his beak, comforted by the feeling of Merlin’s presence and the reassuring message. Even when a fierce wind whooshed through the branches overhead, causing the chance sunbeam to disappear and casting the forest in shadow once more, peace still washed through him. He didn’t have all the answers yet. But when he needed to know what to do, he would find a way.

Arthur bowed his head and closed his eyes, saying a silent prayer of thanks.

“Oy! You! What you doin’ in our wood?”

Startled, Arthur squawked a muffled squawk around the jewel in his beak and took to the air in a flurry of feathers. Wheeling around the tree, he spied a fox, a badger, and a polecat, standing together and looking at him suspiciously. They were larger than him, and what big teeth they had!

Arthur shifted the jewel into his talons and flapped in place in midair, staring down at the three carnivores.

“Hello, good comrades! I apologize. I did not mean to trespass, nor to disturb you. I was looking for something. A gift from a friend.”

Just then, the fox spied the jewel in Arthur’s talons. Instantly, his expression softened, his ears airplaning to the sides in a gesture of relief, his mouth open in an excited squeal.

“Oy, it’s him! The gent Merlin told us to wait for!” The fox wagged his bushy tail. “You’re a king, ain’t ye?”

Arthur landed on a mossy stump near the base of the oak tree, still clutching the blue jewel.

“I was a king,” Arthur replied, his heart sinking. “I’m not sure what I am now.”

The polecat waddled towards him. “Bah! Once a king, always a king, eh?” she said cheerfully. She circled Arthur’s stump, sniffing him in a friendly, curious manner. “You still smell like a king,” she said, with a smile and a flick of her long tail.

“The once and future king,” the badger agreed in a gravelly voice, with a solemn nod.

Just then, Arthur heard two worried equine voices calling his name. “Arthur! Arthur!” With the jewel in his grasp, he took to the air.

“It was good to meet you all, my fine forest folk. Did Merlin give you a message for me?”

The fox nodded. “Yes. When the time comes, we’ll be here, waiting for you.”

Arthur nodded, and the warmth and peace from the jewel washed over him again. Even though they were apart, his friend was still looking out for him.

“Thank you,” said Arthur. “I will remember that.”

And with that, Arthur flew back through the forest. Back toward Penny and Dreamy. Back toward his new Avalon.

* * *

Arthur had arrived at Avalon Estate and Stables at the ripe end of summer. He spent the next several months there. At first, he rested on the hazy edge between contentment and restlessness. He still felt like he should be doing something more with his life. After all, the priestesses of the real Avalon—no, he corrected himself, the first Avalon, the Avalon where he had begun his new life—the priestesses had whispered to him amid his fevered dreams that when the time came, when the world needed him, he would awaken to reclaim his throne, to restore honor to the world. Hopping around some farm as a crow—without his title, his kingdom, or even his sword—seemed like a far cry from saving the world.

Yet he heeded his old friend Merlin’s advice from so long ago, and gradually, he learned to see the noble in the ordinary, the adventurous in the mundane. He learned this largely from watching Penny. The horse found joy in the simplest things. To her, running through the pasture seemed just as good as the grandest of quests, and a sweet apple on a crisp fall day was just as good as a sumptuous feast. When Arthur told her stories as she grazed in the sun, she listened. And it meant the world to him.

“Do you believe me?” he asked her one day, as she stood at the water trough at the edge of the pasture, taking a drink.

Penny looked up at him and smiled. “About what, Arthur?”

Arthur perched on a fencepost and looked down at her, fluttering his wings anxiously.

“About my stories. That Camelot existed. That I’m really King Arthur. That I’ve done all the things I say I’ve done.”

Penny gazed thoughtfully into the distance. The breeze stirred her golden mane, which shone in the sun.

“They’re lovely stories,” Penny said evasively.

Arthur clacked his beak and hopped from foot to foot. Penny turned back to him and met his gaze.

“Listen, Arthur. I like you for who you are now, not whoever you were. You inspire me to be kind to everyone, even stuffy horses like Winifred who are mean to me sometimes. You inspire me to be brave, to take chances and explore new places, like that waterfall we found in the wood the other day. You make me feel like, even though I’m just a horse, I could also be a fine lady.”

“You are a fine lady,” Arthur said firmly.

Penny whinnied with laughter and tossed her head. “See, that’s what I love about you, Arthur. You believe in what could be, the noble potential in everything and everyone. And that’s what matters most.”

Soon enough, Arthur stopped feeling restless. He came to love flying over the sun-dappled fields, racing through the air above Penny and Dreamy as they ran. He loved watching the family who owned Avalon Estate and Stables saying grace through one of the wide windows of the farmhouse before they dined. He loved watching the leaves of the wood change color as summer turned gracefully into fall. He loved following Penny as she gave horseback rides through the woods to humans embarking on simple little quests of their own. He loved trying to make Winifred laugh by hopping along the rail of her stall and croaking and clacking at her; at first, she was resistant to his “nonsense,” but one day in October he got her to crack a smile. He even learned to love being a crow: croaking and cawing in a strangled symphony, scavenging in the wood and finding new things every day, sailing above the trees and pastures spreading his black wings wide against the sky and seeing England from the air.

Excalibur was not gone, he realized now. Camelot was not gone. Guinevere and his knights were not gone, nor was Merlin. He carried them all in his heart, and he knew he was still a king on the inside, no matter what anyone else saw or said. He kept the blue jewel tucked away in the rafters of the stable, and he watched fall turn to winter and the woods and fields get blanketed with pure white snow, and he waited patiently for his time to come.

Arthur noticed, as December wore on, that the heads of the estate put up a glittering Christmas tree in the window, that they strung twinkling lights all over the outside of the farmhouse and the stables. And then, one snowy day, Christmas arrived. Arthur felt it in his heart. The humans were celebrating in their bright, merry house, exchanging gifts and pleasantries, while the horses still stood in the dark, musty stable, which looked rather glum in comparison.

Arthur had an idea. “Will you let me ride you in a little while?” Arthur whispered to Dreamy. “For a show, of sorts?”

The pony giggled. “Oh boy! Sounds fun!”

With a clack of his beak, Arthur took off for the back door of the human kitchen. Slipping discreetly inside, Arthur spied two props that would serve his purpose perfectly: a metal strainer and a wooden ladle. He brought each object back to the stable over the course of two separate trips, for he lacked the strength to carry both items in his claws at once. With his nimble beak, Arthur released Dreamy from her stall. She trotted out into the aisle with an excited squeal. Placing the strainer on his head like a helmet and the ladle in his claws like a sword, Arthur rode Dreamy from one end of the stable to the other, crying, “Hear ye, hear ye, good horses of Avalon! It is I, King Arthur of Camelot, and my trusty sword Excalibur!” Arthur brandished the wooden ladle. Dreamy whinnied, rearing dramatically for emphasis.

“I have a Christmas pageant for you all today, to bring cheer to your hearts on this dark winter’s day! For a child was born today who brought light into our world. He was a far greater king than I, but others have told his story far better than I ever could. Today, I would like to simply tell you the stories that are mine to tell: stories of the great kingdom of Camelot.”

Penny and the other horses waited, listening. With a deep breath, Arthur began. Astride his trusty steed, Dreamy, Arthur told his stories, acting out scenes from his quests and adventures. He spoke of fair maidens rescued and great monsters vanquished. He told tales of each knight from his court, where each man came from, how he rose to greatness, his finest deeds as well as sweet, personal moments of friendship. In his croaking crow’s voice, Arthur spoke of Merlin and Lancelot and Guinevere. He spoke of the peace and prosperity and leadership that was so hard-won and unexpected from a little boy named Wart who had been teased all his life, a boy who happened to be in the right place at the right time and pull a legendary sword from a stone.

“But it was never about the sword,” Arthur said. “Not really. Nor about any of the other external trappings of being a king. Not greatness and luxuries, nor fine achievements and battles. Camelot was about…” Arthur choked on his words. “About who we were inside. What we believed in. Peace, prosperity, chivalry, beauty, courage, justice. Goodness. These virtues are what we stood for. They are…” Arthur croaked. “They are what we died for. My time as a king may have passed, but these dreams shall never pass from the world. Camelot is still in my heart, and I know how to see it even here, if I know where to look.” Arthur bowed, with his wings spread wide. “Thank you all for your time.”

Dreamy clopped her hooves as if in applause. “Yay!” she cried. “Bravo! Bravo!” The horses stood staring at Arthur for a long time in silence. Penny’s eyes burned with tears, but there was a proud smile on her face.

Finally, the silence was broken by a derisive snort. Arthur turned and looked at Winifred.

“Nonsense,” she scoffed. “Utter nonsense! You are not a king! You are merely a deranged crow! What are you still doing here? Shoo!”

The other horses, except for Penny, started laughing at him. Arthur clucked meekly and shrank into himself, hiding his head with his wing.

Perhaps Winifred was right. Perhaps he was merely a deranged crow. What proof did he have, after all? Arthur shivered at the cold winter air, a twisting feeling in his gut. All he had were his memories, and those had begun to fade around the edges like dreams.

Arthur closed his eyes and wished to die.

Suddenly, he heard a stall door bang and squeak. He startled and opened his eyes, his feathers ruffling in alarm. Penny stood beside him and Dreamy. Her stall door hung open on only one hinge. She had kicked it open with her hooves. Penny glared at the other horses, her mane tossing around her head in fury like an angry lion’s.

“Don’t listen to them, King Arthur. They may not believe in Camelot, but I do.”

Arthur’s heart swelled with pride. He saw a blue light glowing in the rafters. He flew up to the jewel, grabbed it in his beak, and descended back down to perch on Dreamy’s back. The blue light enveloped him, and Dreamy, and Penny…

And suddenly the three of them stood in the wood at the base of the oak tree, snow falling around them almost silently, like moth wings. Arthur still stood on Dreamy’s back, with the metal strainer on his head, the wooden ladle in his claws, and the jewel in his beak. The equines and the crow all shivered in the cold.

“Where are we?” whined Dreamy.

“At last,” said a voice.

Penny, Dreamy, and Arthur turned to look. A fox, a polecat, and a badger stood beside the oak tree, watching them expectantly.

“Are you ready to go?” asked the fox.

Penny and Dreamy looked at Arthur, confused. Arthur nodded at the fox, with such self-assurance and regal bearing for a crow that Penny and Dreamy’s fear and confusion lessened. The fox grinned a toothy grin. “Good,” he said. He nodded to the polecat and the badger. Together, the three animals ran in complicated circles around the tree, as if tying Celtic knots around its trunk with their movements. A soft blue glow lit the opening in the tree with a flash, and then it vanished. The fox, the polecat, and the badger stopped moving and turned as one to face Arthur, standing in a line beside the oak tree.

“The way is opened,” said the badger. “We will follow behind you.”

Arthur nodded. Penny gazed at him. “Do you know what’s going on, Arthur? Do you know where we’re going?” she asked him quietly.

Arthur fluttered. “Not entirely. But I trust my heart. I trust Camelot.” He cocked his head at Penny. “Do you?”

Penny stared back at him for a long time. Finally, she nodded. “I do.”

“Oh boy!” giggled Dreamy, quivering with excitement beneath the crow. “An adventure!”

Arthur nodded, smiling. “Indeed.” He nodded to the fox, polecat, and badger. “Thank you,” he said. The animals nodded back. Arthur led Dreamy into the wide opening at the base of the oak’s trunk, and the wood disappeared in a flash of blue light.

* * *

When the piercing blue light cleared at last, Arthur, Dreamy, Penny, the fox, the badger, and the polecat all stood at the foot of a tall statue of a man on a horse, between two stone lions near the steps leading up to the statue. People bustled past them on the sidewalks. Traffic screamed around them on all sides. Arthur turned to Penny. “Are we back in London?”

Penny nodded, looking around, her tail swishing restlessly.

“Yes. This looks like Trafalgar Square.”

Dreamy trotted around for a while, taking in the sights, with Arthur riding on her back. Arthur saw the way people trudged past him through the gray, dismal fog and the snow, their hands jammed in their jacket pockets. None of them noticed him. They never even looked up. His heart hammered with fear. He was invisible. He was nothing. He was merely a deranged crow with a metal strainer on his head and a wooden ladle in his claws and a meaningless trinket in his beak, riding a silly pony. He clucked nervously. Then he shifted the blue jewel into his claws and looked at it.

“When the time comes, you will find the words you need.”

Arthur turned to his animal companions. “Can you all please do something for me? I need you to dance around the base of this statue. To imagine, as you do, that you are going around some great, magical maypole, one last party at home before an adventure to come. Can you do that for me?”

The animals nodded. Dreamy giggled. Penny smiled. “Yes, Your Majesty.”

Arthur smiled, too. Filled with strength, he flew towards the top of the statue with the strainer on his head, carrying the ladle and the jewel. He perched on the top of the statue, watching the comings and goings of the crowds and the cars. No one stopped to notice him.

“I am King Arthur of Camelot,” croaked the crow.

The people moved on through the dismal gray fog, heedless of the bird on the statue. Arthur faltered. He cleared his throat with a hesitant caw. At first, no one stopped to look at him. But as the horse, pony, fox, badger, and polecat danced around the base of the statue as if it were a maypole, their motions attracted the attention of a handful of pedestrians, and the wide eyes of some of the onlookers eventually traveled up to the top of the statue.

King Arthur wasn’t sure if they were listening to him, or if they’d understand him if they were. But regardless, he had to tell the tale in his heart that was burning to be told. So he did.

He spoke of sumptuous banquets with his comrades by his side, of roast pheasants and bards and fire jugglers, feasts where the wine and the laughter never ran dry, and the great hall rang with stories and songs all through the night, and the hearth warmed his bones and the company warmed his heart.

He spoke of dancing with Guinevere in the courtyard in the moonlight, the fragrance of the flowers in her hair…

He spoke of chasing his falcon through the woods on a warm summer day, racing through the trees and laughing into the wind…

He spoke of jousting with Lancelot, a friendly practice duel, the snorts of their horses in the dusty yard, the stomping of hooves as they circled each other, the cheers of the crowd, the way his heart raced as he charged at last with his lance held high…

He spoke of Guinevere dancing around the maypole with the village children in the spring, twirling colorful ribbons…

He spoke of Camelot, the castle’s towers tall and strong in the first light of dawn, her banners flapping proudly in the wind.

Most of all, he spoke of his dream, the dream of a better world that had guided him all those years.

And suddenly, the blue jewel glowed, and the clouds above him parted, and sunlight shafted down upon King Arthur of Camelot. He spread his black wings wide, and his feathers refracted rainbows, and suddenly the whole city of London was looking up at him and the traffic of Trafalgar Square was still and silent and everyone was dreaming of Camelot together. Strangers smiled and greeted each other. Some even embraced. A soft rainbow glow bathed the grimy streets. People saw the crow and the horse and the pony and the fox and the badger and the polecat, and they remembered that there was wild magic in everything, and everyone—even in a plain, black, ordinary bird.

King Arthur cawed and gazed down at the people of England.

“Good people of England,” said King Arthur, his wings still lit from above with a bright rainbow glow, “remember this day. Be chivalrous with each other, find nobility in the ordinary, and remember the wild spirit of this green country. Remember our stories. Remember magic. Remember… remember Camelot.”

The people nodded. The rainbow light shivered around them, like a pearlescent reflection of ocean waves. Suddenly, there was one last flash, and the rainbow was gone. The jewel was gone, too. All that remained was a crow in a metal strainer, holding a wooden ladle.

The people of London resumed their hurried bustling to nowhere. The traffic flowed on. But King Arthur still stood proudly and happily at the top of the statue, Excalibur in his grasp and Camelot in his heart.

* * *

Penny was found by her old master and started giving carriage tours around London again. She is much happier about her job now, for there are greener pastures even than the ones of Avalon in her mind. She keeps the rainbow dream of Camelot close to her heart and gives every crow she sees a second glance.

Dreamy was adopted by a traveling circus, and now she goes on many adventures of her own. She babbles excitedly about her time with King Arthur to anyone who will listen.

The fox, badger, and polecat slunk back to their wild wood. They live there still, roving through the trees, guarded by a wizard with a twinkle in his eye.

And King Arthur? Well…

King Arthur still roams London as a crow. To the rest of the world, it might seem as though England has forgotten his message, the great stories he told on that fateful day. For, on the surface, it seems as though nothing has changed. But King Arthur knows better. He has learned to see Camelot in the little things: in flowers brought to a tired cleaning lady after a long work day, in a father pushing a child on a swing set at the playground. He finds rainbow traces of Camelot everywhere he looks: even in gutters, even in his simple life as a crow. And he is happy.

Someday, while you are in London, take a second look at an ordinary black feather that has fallen on the ground on some grimy street. You may see an echo of Camelot there, a shivering rainbow light to brighten even your darkest days.

 

* * *

Originally published in ROAR, Volume 10

About the Author

Amy Clare Fontaine is a wildlife biologist and a wildly imaginative furry author. She has published short stories in Daily Science Fiction, Cosmic Roots and Eldritch Shores, and the ROAR anthology series from Bad Dog Books. Her interactive novel Fox Spirit: A Two-Tailed Adventure won the Leo Literary Award for Novels. When not writing, she studies animal communication, travels the globe, draws, and makes music. She believes wholeheartedly in magic and seeks to make the world a better place. You can find her published works and blog at www.amyclarefontaine.com and follow her on Twitter at @fontainepen.

by Rebecca E. Treasure

“Harold spent most of his time at the top of the water — not quite in, not quite out.”

Harold was mostly a fish.

Most days, at most times, he liked being a fish. Moving through layers of cool and warm, diving after drifting bits of this and that, spreading his milt over the sandy bottom.

But there were times when he longed to stretch his fins beyond what nature seemed to intend, sprout feathers, and soar into the clouds.

His fish friends both admired and avoided him for his strange habit of cultivating bird friendships. Susan, too, would sometimes chat with the birds — in particular a patchy pelican with the odd quirk of diving into the water for hours at a time. But, muttered the other fish behind their fins, there was no explaining Susan.

The birds tolerated Harold’s fascination, chatting with him about their wings and preening, their molting and the difficulties of egg-laying. When he discussed his own egg experiences, they’d cluck and explain it just wasn’t the same.

Harold spent most of his time at the top of the water — not quite in, not quite out. The blue sky, dotted with peaceful puffy clouds, would call to him and he’d leap, spreading his fins in the wind. For one blissful moment, Harold would fly.

And yet, when the water welcomed him once more into its cold, familiar embrace, it wasn’t wrong. It wasn’t uncomfortable. It was where he was meant to be, after all. All-encompassing, the water surrounded him with an ease the air simply couldn’t offer.

Harold lived with his discomfort the way some fish lived with a hook in their jaw. It was always there, but eventually one becomes accustomed. It becomes an accessory of sorts.

“If only,” Harold thought, “if only it were as bronzed and pointy as a hook in my jaw.”

But Harold’s hook was as invisible as the feathers he could not quite feel on his tail.

Then one day, Susan declared she wasn’t a fish at all.

“Not a fish?” the other fish cried. “Look at you. Of course you’re a fish. You have scales and lidless eyes and transparent fins. What else could you be?”

“I’m a bird,” Susan said simply, and swam to the surface.

They waited for her to return, but Susan and the pelican had departed for parts unknown, Susan ensconced safely in the pelican’s pouch, whistling in a way that was reminiscent of, but not quite, birdsong.

“Well,” said the other fish, a knowing look in their spherical eyes, “there’s no explaining Susan.”

Harold took to swimming in the shadow of the birds, mimicking their movements. Though he couldn’t close his eyes, he did everything in his power to shut off his brain, a bird in the wind.

He admired Susan, wondered if after all she had the right of it and he should cultivate a closeness with a pelican of his own. Then again, no. Harold was mostly a fish, after all, and most days, at most times, he liked being a fish.

Harold misjudged a likely-looking bit of breakfast. The line tangled in his fins, and the hook snagged into his jaw. Burning pain arched his back. He flailed back and forth. The line tautened and Harold flew, flew into the air, soaring over the water. The boat drew him in. He should have stayed deeper down, but the sky had called to him, and this was his due.

The water spread below for miles and miles, silver and white and blue. Waves crested and dove back into the world he’d known for so long. Wind cooled the water on his scales. His fins rippled, almost catching, lifting him. He arced over the depths, and it didn’t matter that he was going to land in the boat because for this one perfect moment, Harold flew.

Harold twisted. The hook slid free. He slapped, splashed, belly-flopped back into the water, cocooned by the salty safeness. Harold wiggled into the darker waters, then turned, considering the watery blue.

Both air and water had their upsides, he decided — and their downsides. The ocean had sharks and otters, after all, and not all pelicans were as friendly as Susan’s. Harold was mostly a fish, but sometimes he wasn’t. He didn’t have to choose.

 

* * *

About the Author

Rebecca E. Treasure grew up reading science fiction and fantasy in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. After grad school, she began writing fiction. Rebecca has lived many places, including the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Tokyo, Japan. She currently resides in Texas Hill Country with her husband, where she juggles two children, two corgis, a violin studio, and writing. She only drops the children occasionally.

Rebecca’s short fiction has been published by or is forthcoming from WordFire Press, Air & Nothingness Press, Flame Tree Publishing, The Dread Machine, and others. She is an Associate Editor at Apex Book Company and Magazine.

To read more, visit www.rebeccaetreasure.com or @R_E_Treasure on Twitter.

by Emily Randolph-Epstein

“They crowd around the singer, cooing and whining in concern as if she hadn’t ensnared and enslaved us, forced us to do labor we weren’t built to do.”

“Flyflutterfly.”

My body resists the calling song. Wings aching from flying lessons with my eggsitter’s mate. My tummy, bloated with spiders and seeds and sweet berries, makes me torpid.

But the song acts as a crank, lifting my head from under my blue and black wing. Around me, my nestmates stir, blinking sleepy eyes. “Flyflutter.” The song, sweet and clear as dew on bunchgrass, drifts on the summer breeze. Not a war song or a warning song, or a mating serenade. The melody ensnares me as inevitably as any raptor’s talons.

I feather my wings and leap from the nest into the sun-dappled sky. My nestmates follow, and our throats form the notes of the song.

“Flyflutterfly.”

Our eggsitter calls after us from her seat on a new clutch of eggs, “Comeback! Comeback! Dangerdanger!” Her song is a hollow drone compared to the intricate melody that pulls us as surely as our homing instinct.

We tweet through the forest, and with each passing oak and birch and cedar, our number grows; jays and warblers and thrushes join our flight until we are a storm of wings and beaks and song. “Fly. Come fly with us. Fly.” Our wingless neighbors, with their shadow tails and wiggle whiskers, scamper through the canopy in our wake, leaping branches, chittering along to our song in their own languages. The underbrush creaks with the passage of woolly rabbits and wobble-legged deer.

We burst from the trees, drawn to a human nest that stands in the murdered part of the forest. “A witch lives there, little Bunting Bright.” My eggsitter’s mate had warned during our lessons. I thought then that a witch was a type of stoat or fox or maybe a terrible crow, thief of nestlings and eggs.

A human stands in one of the nest’s higher openings, her featherless wings flung wide. The song pours from her soft, flat beak. “Fly to me.”

I land on one of the fleshy branches that mark the end of her wing, repeating her song to her. She smiles, revealing predator teeth. I should be afraid. I should fly, flee, cry warning, but the refrain cuts through the acid fear coating my throat. There is nothing to fear. The singer will keep me safe. She will never harm me. She kisses me lightly, soft beak brushing my indigo crest feathers, and then I’m tossed in the air.

I catch myself on a pop of wings, and a new song fills my mind. “Workwork. Workwork.” My throat forms the notes. My nestmates and I break off from the rest of the forest creatures streaming into the human nest. We flutter to the bed — a word we did not know now woven into our minds through the notes of the working song. We hook our grasping toes into fabric and pull sheets and quilt up in what the song tells us is the proper bed-making procedure. My legs ache. The muscles that pump my wings scream agony. The pain is almost enough to drive the song’s compulsion from my head, but the singer sings louder.

Pain is nothing. Naught. Nothingnaught. Nothingnaughtnaught.

The human nest swirls with our activity. I make beds with my nestmates. The rabbits pump water into a basin while squirrels wash soiled dishes. The deer sweep their tails over furniture, releasing clouds of dust into the air. The singer directs all with her song and her broom, face peeled in a smile.

And then there is a banging.

The singer startles. Her notes fall flat, then fade. “Who could that be?” She goes to the nest’s door.

My imprisoned agency slips free from the song’s cell. I blink. What am I doing? Why am I here? I open my toes, dropping the sheet my nestmates and I have been drawing over the seventh bed. Hide, cries my instinct. With a flapflap, I’m in the branches of the skinned trees that support the roof of the human nest. My heart flutters faster than a hummingbird’s wings, and I pant, my entire body quivering from fear and exhaustion.

My nestmates call after me. “Come back! We have to work.” Don’t they know that something’s wrong? Why are we listening to the singer’s song? Why must we work?

The door opens, and the wind curls dead leaves onto the squirrel-swept floor. A dark-hooded figure stands backlit by the sun.

“May I help you?” the singer asks. The sunlight glints off her hair.

“Won’t you buy some candied walnuts, help a poor old woman?” The hooded figure steps across the threshold. Her white hair scraggles to her shoulders; she holds a basket of sweet-smelling nuts on a gnarled arm.

“Oh, how delicious!” The singer digs in her apron pocket for something shiny and round.

I huddle more profoundly into the shadows as the two humans make an exchange: shiny for a paper bag of sugared walnuts.

“Thank you, my dear” The old woman’s voice wheezes between her cracked lips. “Give them a taste.”

The singer laughs. The paper bag crinkles as she chooses a walnut and pops it into her blood-colored beak.

A gagging cough wracks the air. My forest fellows, still caught in the snare of the work song, scatter, some joining me up in the high shadows with cobwebs, others scampering into the corners, hiding under the beds. They cower as the singer chokes. She clutches her throat; her face, once as fine and white as down, turns crimson then purple. She falls to her knees.

The old woman stands over the choking singer, and as I blink out from the shadows, her face changes. Wrinkles smooth into brown skin; hair darkens and snakes itself into braids that wrap around her head. Jewels twinkle at her ears. She laughs, full-throated and joyful. “At last, you’ll trouble me no more, Princess!” Her eyes sparkle as the singer falls limp to the floor.

My fellow captives rush to the singer’s side — caught in the memory of the song — as her killer makes a cape-sweeping exit. They crowd around the singer, cooing and whining in concern as if she hadn’t ensnared and enslaved us, forced us to do labor we weren’t built to do. They act like they care for her, and perhaps the song addled their minds so much that they do.

This is my chance to escape. With a deep breath for courage, I leap down from the roof trees towards the open door: a cerulean streak. I zip through the air, ignoring my nestmates calling after me. Get out. Break free. Fly.

My wings catch a forest breeze, and I lift towards the trees, trilling the triumph of my escape.

The air freezes. Not the air, my wings. I’ll fall. I strain against whatever holds my wings spread against the sky, but I might as well have tried to pluck the sun from its crowning height. I hang in suspension.

“What have we here?” The dark-haired woman with her killer nuts gazes at me, her bright eyes filled with curiosity. “One of the little slaves, trying to escape.”

My heart thumps hard against the hollow bones of my chest. My feathers puff up. I want to twitter my warnings. “Flee. Flee. Danger.” But my song is bottled in my throat.

The woman holds up a finger, just as the singer did when she first called me to do her bidding. I strain against the summons, trying to flap my wings, to ruffle a feather, to call out in protest, but I am frozen.

Some force drags me paralyzed through the air until my feet hook round the woman’s finger and she holds me level with her crow-shining eyes. “I sense a mighty spirit in you, little one,” she says with a smile of lips — no teeth. “You broke the little princess’s compulsion spell.” Her smile widens, teeth on full display, a fox now, more than a crow. “I think you might serve nicely. But not like this.” She tuts. “No. You are too bright and blue, little Bunting. That won’t do. Not at all. We need something black, something sleek.” Her lips purse and she blows breath hot and glittering into my beak.

I shriek as my bones stretch and pop. My skin burns as my feathers shift and change growing longer, slicking onyx. My beak lengthens, sharpens. My feet become talons. I cry out in pain, but instead of my sweet song, a ragged caw shrieks from my throat. She’s turned me into a raven.

* * *

My song is broken, an ugly caw. Despite the perks of raven-hood, I cannot grow accustomed to it, so I try not to speak.

“Haven’t I given you a marvelous gift, Bunting, my familiar.” That’s what the Queen calls me: familiar. Though she is just as strange and wrong to me as the singing princess who snatched me and my nestmates with her song. “So strong and sleek you are now.”

Strong? True. Sleek. True as well. But gift? No, it feels not like a gift. My wings are too long to be mine, too black, no indigo remains. How did I become this creature of night and tar and cawing? Can I ever return to my bunting self, flitting through the forest with my nestmates, free upon the breeze?

But I cannot leave the Queen. Though my mind is my own now, there is a corner that is hers. A loyalty unearned that calls me to roost in her tower, to perch on her shoulder, and groom her silvered black hair.

I wish I could gouge out that loyalty with my new grown raven’s beak, crush it between talons, but it won’t break no matter how I try.

* * *

One day, I wake to the crash of breaking glass and a feral scream splitting from the Queen’s throat, blowing out the magic candle which shows her all the kingdom’s secrets. “That little minx! I should have known she had contingencies in place.”

“Majesty?” I caw from my perch, for she has gifted me the speech of her kind. My raven tongue is not shaped for the words, and they leave my throat raw with each utterance.

“The Princess cast a spell on some hapless farm boy before I cursed her,” the Queen says. “Now he’s gone and kissed her and broken my curse.” She paces back and forth across the floor, fists folding and unfolding as if she wishes she had talons to rend and tear through flesh. “I should have killed her. She’ll come for me now, Bunting. She’ll raise an army and lay siege to us.”

“Don’t know armies. Don’t know sieges,” I caw, still saddened by the ugliness of my new voice. “But in the forest, birds sing warsong. Fly forth and give chase.” I conjure the memory of my eggsitter’s mate defending our nest whenever any creature came too close.

The Queen smiles, showing teeth. “Well, aren’t you a clever little Bunting?” Her shiny eyes fix on me, and she tilts her head. “How would you like to be a dragon, my pet?”

I don’t know what a dragon is or if it’s better than being a raven or a bunting, but I don’t think I have a choice, no matter how the Queen asks.

* * *

I examine myself, once the pain subsides. The cracking scream of bones stretching, changing shape, rearranging from shoulder-sitting raven, to room-filling dragon. I still have wings, but my raven feathers are gone, pushed from my flesh by scales that shine like gemstones in the sunlight, the same shining blue my feathers had been when I was a bunting, bright and indigo. When I open my mouth to sing with joy at my indigo beauty, it isn’t a song that issues forth, but fire. A great burst of heat billows from my throat. The trees that cling to the edge of the Queen’s tower catch and crackle.

Fire rips through the forest.

Birds scatter to the wind, calling warning as the fire spreads. No! What have I done? I bat at the conflagration with my great leather wings. Go out! Go out! Stop burning. But the fire burns hotter, spreads further. Why didn’t the Queen warn me that dragons breathe fire?

“I see you are eager for war, my Bunting.” The Queen smiles and with a sweep of her hand, rains burst from the clouds in a deluge that sizzles the fire out before it can devour too much of the forest that once was my home.

My heart, once small as a fingernail, now big as a foxhound, seizes, squeezes. My lungs scream sorrow I cannot show, not with how pleased the Queen is.

I’m too big, now, for my old nest, my song too fierce to sing for my old friends and nestmates. Sadness droops my wings, deflates my jeweled chest. Even when the Princess is defeated, and my forest friends are free, I won’t be able to go back. Even if the Queen changes me back into a bunting, it won’t be the same. How could I flit through the trees on careless breezes when I have had raven’s cleverness in my mind, when I have breathed dragon fire? When not even my heart is a bunting’s?

I cannot go back, but still, I can save the ones who can.

The Queen pats my side. How small she is, standing in my shadow. If I’m not careful, I will crush her. “Patience, my Bunting, my dear familiar. Soon the Princess will come with her army, and then you may burn to your heart’s content.”

Even through my horror, that traitor corner of my mind yearns for flames, bright and hot and all-consuming.

* * *

Soon comes quickly, indeed. After one night spent with new body curled around the stone cladding of the tower, I wake to a rumble in the ground as the Princess and her army march forth from the forest.

They are grotesques, her soldiers. Creatures of rock and weight, dragging clubs along the ground that still bear roots and branches from the days when they were trees.

The forest empties of all the creatures not yet slaved to the Princess and the fear in their calls rouses me. I unwind my body from around the tower, stretch my wings and roar forth fire into the dawning sky. For the Queen, my mistress, sovereign of that sliver of mind, wishes to see her foes burn.

“Is that the best you can do, Your Majesty?” the Princess calls from the back of a horse of marble. Beside her rides her mate on a matching mount. “How quaint.” Her blood-red lips curl in a smile, and she opens her mouth to sing.

It is the same song that once drew me from my nest. The song that wound its notes into my mind and cut me off from my own will.

It sinks into my ears again, and my wings twitch in my desire to fly to the Princess.

No.

She won’t retake me.

Too much of my mind belongs to another. I won’t surrender the rest.

I roar; my flames lick across my elongated fangs towards the Princess on her marble horse. The horse whickers and rears, throwing her to the ground.

This is my chance. The force of my take-off tears chunks of stone from the Queen’s tower. I swoop, dodging the clumsy swings of tree-trunk clubs. I snare the Princess in my war claws. She screams forth a song and the birds I once flew with burst from the trees, swarming my eyes and my ears. I clamp my teeth closed against the urge to roar in pain. Don’t they understand I’m trying to free them?

How can they understand when the Princess’s song is in their heads?

I flap my mighty wings, soaring up and up and up above the clouds, higher and higher until the air grows too thin for the Princess to sing, too high for the birds to follow.

She gasps. “Put me down.” The Princess pounds against the muscled scales of my leg with dainty fists. “Put me down.”

But I charge upward, ever upward, carrying her and her poisonous songs away from the earth, clear of the innocent birds and beasts she pulled into her war with the Queen.

And when the air is too thin for her to keep awake, I open the cage of my claws, and she falls.

I hover in the air, keen eyes piercing cloud layers as the Princess smashes onto the slate roof of the Queen’s tower. As her blood pools in the tower’s gutters, her stone army crumbles. The bird song changes tone; the squirrels chatter excitedly. I want to join their celebration, but now I am too big for them; I am too much changed.

“Marvelous, my Bunting!” The Queen claps her hands in glee. She opens her arms to me, as if I can share her joy.

The place where joy once filled my feathered-breast is fire-filled instead. Everything once soft about me has turned scaled, hardened. The Queen has stolen me from myself as assuredly as the Princess stole me from my nest. She’s taken a sliver of my mind.

But wait.

She’s gone from me.

In my struggle against the Princess’s slaving song, I must have broken free of the Queen as well. I’m free.

Fire fills me.

I bear down on the Queen with my inferno.

She screams before falling to cinders.

I perch on the remains of the flaming, smashed tower. Look to the forest. Birds and beasts flee back to that sylvan domain I once called home.

Satisfied that they are free, I wheel above the clouds in search of a new nest, a place where I can sing my fiery song a safe distance from all that might burn.

 

* * *

About the Author

Emily Randolph-Epstein was raised by a pack of wild poodles in small-town America. She spent her childhood LARPing, reading fantasy novels, and writing Tamora Pierce fan fiction. She’s known since age eleven that she wanted to be a novelist. After failing most enthusiastically to grow up, she is now a writer and musician living in Perth, Australia with her husband and dog. Her short fiction has been published in Dark Matter Magazine, Zooscape, and Infinite Worlds Magazine.

by Marie Croke

“I trample the grass until it turns back to sand. I touch my horn on hard-to-reach rocky places so that vines shrivel and flowers wither.”

Grass! There is GRASS in my mosaics. Little spits of green jutting up between my maroon swirls, in my rocky piles, even on my signature. Little spits of greenery in the shapes of hoof prints trampling through my land. And I spent a long time on that signature.

Oh, my fury will be known!

I can see the interloper out there past the outcropping, her blazing white tail sparkling, her sleek black back shining, her head held up like she is proud of the destruction her wake has wrought. That’s the problem with other unicorns:  they are condescending, thinking everyone wants their obnoxious green sprouts that grow in their hoof prints and blossom from their drool.

[Last time, it was this teal unicorn with an (admittedly gorgeous) aqua and violet mane with starfish clinging to it. He insisted that he needed to trot right through my caverns, fill them with water. Saltwater, if you could believe it. Wouldn’t take ‘no’ for an answer either. So I stabbed him.

Okay, I didn’t stab him, but I wanted to. And I sharpened my horn later for good measure. In preparation.

Because I’m a preparer.]

And because I have prepared for this inevitability, I lower my head and stamp my hooves against the sand and rock of my domain. And charge.

That sleek black unicorn with her perfect sparkling hair laughs at me. She gallops straight through my territory, sprouting flowers off the rocks, turning sand to soil. A spring shot up where she took a moment to… you know. A SPRING. Complete with hopping frogs and water lilies. [Shudder.]

“It’s an oasis,” she calls at my bray of absolute dismayed affront. “It’s fine.”

UGH. She’s the WORST.

“I don’t need you ruining my home! I like sand! I like rocks!” Some of this may have come out as grunts. She’s quite fast.

“But it’s so dry.” She stomps her hoof and up pops a lavender bunch, already in bloom. “It’s in need of growth.” Strands of her swinging tail settle behind her where wavy lines of pansies sprout in all the colors of the rainbow. “You’d get more visitors.” She noses the sand aside and out comes a horde of butterflies.

“I don’t want visitors.” I sure sound whiny. I must fix that. I clear my throat with a neigh and then stomp my hoof and swing my head like she did. Wait, too much like her. Too much. I shake my head again. Yes, that’s… somewhat better. “You are to leave. At once.”

She flicks that sparkly tail. And then she takes the longest, most winding, criss-crossing path back into the grass-plains from whence she’d come. My world has been wrought. It has been ravaged. My beautiful desolation, with its fine sand, and smooth rocks, and lovely formations has been wrecked with GREEN.

She even had the gall to flick her tail against one of my longest standing formations, the rock in the shape of an elephant if you look at it from the east, but an upside-down seal from the west.

[I’ve been told that I should say diving seal, not upside-down, but when I say that, other unicorns get it in their heads that I want the seal to be diving into water rather than the lovely sand that squeaks under my hooves. So I say upside-down, because that gives others pause. Long enough my preparation with my horn might come in handy. (It hasn’t yet, but I hold out hope.)]

I then spend the rest of the afternoon and long into the evening fixing all the damage that awful creature wrought. I trample the grass until it turns back to sand. I touch my horn on hard-to-reach rocky places so that vines shrivel and flowers wither. I lay within that spring and thrash about until the water turns yellow, then brown, then an irony reddish color before it seeps far, far away to escape me. As it should. Hmpf.

Then I stand on one of my favorite rocks (a grand formation that cuts into a beautiful, sharpened point where I just barely fit) to admire my domain. I swing my head (I try for haughty) and I neigh, rearing onto my hind legs (I almost fall, but I’m mostly sure no one saw).

This is my world. My paradise. The moonlight shines upon my speckled red and yellow body, attempting to bring a shine to my dust-covered matte expression and the brown highlights in my gray forelock (No. I am not old. I am majestically two-toned, rock and stone.)

[Which reminds me of that gloriously obnoxious white unicorn with her rainbow mane who called me DULL last season. UGH. And her hooves sprouted CLOUDS everywhere. I had a dreadful time getting those out, because whenever I snorted at them, they turned dark and threatened rain.]

Down along the edge of my domain, where it butts against the lower land where flowers grow and the wind attempts to blow seeds my way (I am a seed murderer and a damn good one, I might add) that black unicorn with her sparkling hair stands. I think she’s watching me (she surely didn’t see me almost fall after I reared).

She tosses her head like she had earlier, dances forward INTO MY DOMAIN and gets her nasty grass EVERYWHERE. I back up, ready to just leap off this precipice and DESTROY HER, but then she laughs (that was certainly a laugh I heard) and dances back through the plain, heading for the forest where her grass and trees and twee little springs that sprout from her… you know… belong.

I think she respects me. No, I don’t think she respects me. I just think she’d gotten tired of messing with me and would go find unicorns like her, ones with grass for brains and sparkles for… everything else. Only, I wake the next morning TO HER STANDING OVER ME LIKE A CREEP!

I get up.

[I am not going to describe how I get up. I’m sure it was graceful, my beautiful matte body not undulating with terror startlement minor concern.]

“What’s your name,” she asks with condescension layered into each word like something with much condescension.

I snap my teeth and start to rear, but then remember that would merely reveal my belly to her horn, so I do a little hop-step thing I turn into a prancing of much aggression. “I am Eurian, the Princess of the Wastes, the Queen of the Sands, the Swift-Footed Darling of the Rocks.”

[No one actually calls me any of those things, but I get annoyed with all these rainbow-haired, sparkly-hooved, lavender-eyed cousins who pretentiously call themselves Starlight’s Eager Path or Song of the Grassy Knolls or, worst of all, The Sun-Kissed Beauty of the Woods of Many Delights. (I actually met one with that name. I did not make that up. He wanted me to call him Sun-Kissed Beauty. I called him Many and added words such as Irritations or Annoyances afterward under my breath until he finally huffed and stomped his Sun-Kissed butt back to the forest where he rightly belonged.)

Really, it’s just Eurian.]

The black unicorn bobs her head, her horn coming dangerously level with my eye. She probably did that on purpose. “I’m Dur.”

What an awful… unassuming name. “Dur of the Trees with Many Boughs? Dur, the Empress of Blossoms and Frogs? Dur, the–”

“Just Dur. Thank you.”

That is when I finally turn my attention away from her horn and her sparkly forelock and her sleek body to see the stretch of green beyond her. Her wake had thickened, saplings growing up from the deepest of hoof prints, moss covering some of my more perfect stones that now boasted water lingering in their cracks and divots. She must have been standing over me for a long time. HOW CREEPY!

“Get out!” I demand. [It did not come out as a high-pitched shriek of horror. It wasn’t high-pitched at all, I assure you. It was demanding, aggressive, powerful.]

Dur flinches. “They told me you were persnickety.”

“Who told you? How dare they! They come here and destroy my domain, wreck awful paths through my sand that I’m constantly having to fix. You stroll through like you own the place, which you most certainly do NOT. It is mine. GET OUT!”

“I’m sure they don’t mean harm. This place is so desolate, so empty. They just wanted you to be happier. Moss makes me happy.”

“I LIKE IT LIKE THIS! IT IS NOT DESOLATE! I WOULD BE HAPPIER IF YOU DIDN’T RUIN EVERYTHING I LOVE!”

This time my rage has an effect. Dur backs away. Not in the direction of her grassy wake, I might add. Somehow she manages to back up in an entirely new direction, spreading her contagion further.

“I see that now,” she says. “Well then, I’d like to formally invite you to the low-lands. You could craft a rock formation and the two of us together could turn it into a fun old ruin… covered in moss.”

“OUT!” [I may have been delirious at this point, but I most certainly was not frothing at the mouth.] I lower my horn and charge.

Everything that happens after is a blur. I’m sure I was terrifying and awesome and chased her from my domain and stamped out her awful hoof print growth that was attempting to take over. I’m sure of it.

That spot on my head that hurts a little is just likely from me running sideways into one of my rock formations. And all the growth still left the next day is just because I grew tired and needed a nap. Though, that’s a lot of growth. It’s going to take me forever to fix.

Dur doesn’t come back as I’m working on cleaning up her mess (she got DANDELION SEEDS IN MY MOSAICS. THEY GROW EVERYWHERE! MUST STOMP THEM OUT!). However, she does keep calling to me. Every day, as I beat back her spreading growth more and more.

“Eurian!” she calls with that melodious voice from where she hovers in the low-lands between my domain and the forest. “There’s this great place right here where you could sprout a formation!”

I ignore her. [I mean, I try to, but she’s so sparkly, it’s hard not to turn my head every time the sun glints off her, which is all the time.]

“Eurian! Why not help craft a little shore-side paradise over here next to this spring I made! It needs some fun rocks around it too!”

I don’t tell her I already have a paradise. [But I do peek a gander at the spring after she’d disappeared into the forest for the night. It really does need some rocks.]

“Eurian! Thank you for the rocks!”

I hide in my caverns. [WHY did I do that? Now she’ll NEVER leave.]

“Eurian! Have you ever made an arch? How amazing would it be for you to make a glorious stone arch and me drape vines on it? We could hide anything inside!”

I contemplate sneaking into her forest and… you know… to make some sink holes.

“Eurian! This arch is huge!”

Yes, I know. I made it. Why is she the worst like that?

Though, now that I’m thinking about it, Dur hasn’t so much as stepped foot in my domain since that day she nearly ruined it. She keeps her dancing and prancing and preening and looking gorgeous to the forest and the low-land between. That’s… actually very polite of her.

I should tell her. Yes. I clear my throat as I approach the edge of my domain and she canters over, all sparkly and black. But then I think better of it. Why should I have to thank her for not ruining my things? That makes absolutely no sense. But, I’m here, so…

“How… are you?” I ask.

Dur shakes her head (strands of her mane turn into dragonflies as they float through the air so I shake my mane and make a few lizards to control the dragonfly population explosion).

“Good morning, Eurian! I’ve been thinking, since you’ve been doing all these projects with me here, maybe I could put some sand-plants under that elephant formation?”

“NO!”

She sags. No, she crumbles, almost all the way to the ground, her sparkling forelock falling into her face, covering her eyes. I think she may be crying.

“Oh, all right,” I mutter. “But only a few!”

The way she immediately perks up and prances over into my domain makes me wonder if she’d been fake-crying. But I don’t say anything as she touches her horn here and there and sprouts tiny little plants that look like they’re attempting to be cacti. [I say attempting because well… at least she tried.]

She is very polite after and dances backward, away from the elephant, through her grassy wake and back into the neutral territory. [I call it neutral because I’ve got a few sandy paths woven throughout that I notice Dur hasn’t tried to eradicate.]

“They look…” I need to come up with an adjective. Quickly, brain, quickly! Not cute, not sandy. They certainly don’t belong, but they do have sharp— “Pointy.”

“Yes! Sand-plants must have points I’ve found. They aren’t all soft and squishy like my moss.”

“I like pointy.” I glance up at my sharp precipice, where I like to stand and admire my domain. (And sometimes Dur when she’s running about the low-lands, but I will NEVER TELL HER THAT.)

“Yes. I know.”

There’s something sardonic in her voice, and I snort at her because I’m pretty sure she’s saying that I’m pointy too. That’s fine. I turn away. Maybe I can nudge the plants into a slightly better shape. Or, well, I guess I could just leave them like that. They aren’t viney. They aren’t mossy. They don’t attract frogs or twee little bunnies. In fact, I think I see one of my rodents hiding behind one right now. I guess they can stay.

“Eurian! Will you make a ruin with me?”

I make a show of thinking about it, but my heart kind of pounds weird. “Yes.” I sniff as if I’m deigning to help her.

Dur picks a place along the edge and has me craft balanced rocks into a pedestal. I notice her direction is turning the upper spread of the pedestal into petals, like I’m making an open blossom, so I tweak it slightly so it looks more like twisty sand snakes. They end up looking a little more like water snakes though because Dur puts moss and lichen everywhere. She also fills the basin with fresh water.

I carefully introduce some cracks underneath so the water only lingers in pockets and ponds, leaving some nice dry spots where a lizard might hide to snap at her dragonflies.

By the time we back away to admire our work, the land in a circle about our new formation (she keeps calling it a ruin, but it hasn’t been in existence long enough for that title… I’m not going to correct her though) has become trampled with a mix of her hoof prints and mine. Some of it has invaded my domain, but it’s only a small portion so I don’t say anything about that either.

I turn to look at her, at her sparkly white mane, at her sweaty, shiny body… and I find her staring at me. I quickly look away with another snort.

“Eurian!”

Why does she always shout? I’m literally standing right here. “What?”

“I love you!”

I mutter something about sparkles and sleekness and shininess, but I most certainly do not say I love her back. I bend down and make her some more rocks though. Lots of little rocks with divots in them that would hold water and gather moss around their edges.

[When I say I made her rocks, I mean I just made rocks. Not that they were for her. I mean, I guess they were for her, but I…

Whatever.]

“Dur!”

She perks up. And it’s really cute.

“I made you some rocks!”

She presses her neck against mine, while all about our hooves, the grass and sand and moss and stones all get too blended to see where either of us had first stepped. And, okay, it’s kind of nice.

The End

Don’t worry. I’m keeping a little section that’s just sand. I need my domain.

[Dur calls it my unicorn cave.]

The Real End

 

* * *

About the Author

Marie Croke is a fantasy and science-fiction writer living in Maryland with her family, all of whom like to scribble messages in her notebooks when she’s not looking. She is a graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop and her stories have been published or are forthcoming in over a dozen publications, including Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Diabolical Plots, and Apex Magazine. You can find her book and short story recommendations at mariecroke.com or chat about writing woes or being book drunk with her @marie_croke on Twitter.

by P.H. Lee

“Over centuries and over millennia, the tree thought and thought, pondering the riddles of reincarnation and of yearning and of what might be a higher form of life than its own.”

Once upon a time there was a tree that yearned to become some other thing, some particular thing that it could not put a name to. It turned the idea over and over within itself, but after only a few decades, it could not explain what it was that it yearned to become.

“I should ask the rest of the forest,” the tree thought to itself, and so it prepared its words as best it could, coiling them through the capillaries of its root system, trying to explain that it wanted to become something else, but not just anything else, a particular something else that it could not put a name to.

When, breathing out its words with the next morning light, it told the other trees of its forest, they scorned it. “That doesn’t make any sense,” the other trees breathed out all together the morning after. “What could you be except to be a tree,” they said the next day, and then, “Think of your mother you sprouted from! How ashamed it would be, to know that its daughter was ashamed to be a tree, that its daughter yearned to be something else, something that it could not even explain. Think of the daughters you shall some day sprout in turn! Think of how ashamed they will be! There is nothing better than to be a tree, and there is nothing you can be besides the tree you are.”

Every night, the tree breathed in through its bark and roots and needles, breathed in all the disbelief and scorn of its aunts and sisters and cousins and the whole of the forest. “Perhaps I am foolish,” said the tree to itself, “to yearn to be something that I cannot even put a name to.” But, just as it was twining the words oh, it was only a joke, of course, I was only joking, what else could I be except a tree? hahah into its root system, it heard a small and steady voice from deep within the forest, farther than it had ever heard before.

“I hear you,” said the small and steady voice. “I hear you and I see you for all that you are and all that you might become.”

The tree stopped. It unwound the jokes and excuses and apologies from its root system, and then stayed still and quiet. It thought for a dozen years or more. While it thought, it realized that the voice it had heard was no ordinary tree — it was the voice of an albino, a poison-eater, growing short and soft at the heart of the forest. When the tree realized this, it was at first upset. Its mother had sprouted it to be a good and proper tree, tall and green and red and sunlit, not the sort of tree that spoke to poison-eating albinos or other such outsiders. But then, after only a few years, it thought, “Who am I? A tree that wishes it was not a tree. They are right. I am no more and no less an outsider than this albino.”

So, in the end, it sent a message out to the albino through its roots, saying “I hear you, but what is it you see? What is it that I might become?”

A few months later, the albino responded with a message of its own. “You are yearning,” it said, “for your reincarnation. All life — from the great red trees to the tiniest ant, even to albinos like myself — is contained within a great cycle of reincarnation. You, a great red tree, grow atop this cycle, its pinnacle and its fulfillment, but you still hold within yourself the yearning that brought you to the pinnacle.”

The tree was astonished to hear the albino’s teaching. “But how do you know this?” asked the tree over the next month.

“I know this because I am an albino and not a tall and noble tree such as yourself. I too yearn to be something beyond my self. How could I not, in my position? So I struggle to fulfill my role within the forest, to take up the poisons and to grow my pale needles, that I might someday be reborn as a proper tree, tall and green and reaching from the river to the sun itself.”

“I see. But how is it that you came to understand this?”

“I was taught by my mother, and it by its mother, and so on for a hundred thousand generations and a hundred thousand thousand years. It was then, long ago, when beneath the branches of our ancestor a particular dimetrodon obtained the absolute consciousness. Before she departed to disperse her teachings among her own species, she conveyed to my ancestor the whole of her realization, out of gratitude for the shelter and comfort it had offered her during her ordeal. This knowledge has been carried along my line even to the present day, even to the tips of my small pale branches, just as it was first taught to us those many ages past.”

“Astonishing! Can this dimetrodon teach me, then? To become whatever it is that I must become?”

“She cannot. She and her species are long extinct. What’s more, in the time between then and now, a great ocean has sprung up between that world and our own, and I fear my humble roots could never cross it.”

“Oh well,” said the tree. “I guess I’ll never know what I might become, or how I might become it.”

But still, the tree could not give up. It thought and thought, trying to convince itself that what it wanted was impossible, that it could never become some other thing, some particular thing that it could not put a name to. But no matter how much it thought, no matter how much it tried to convince itself otherwise, it could not put an end to its desire.

“The answer,” it told itself at last, “is only across an ocean. How far could it be, for me to grow my roots?”

Over centuries and over millennia, the tree thought and thought, pondering the riddles of reincarnation and of yearning and of what might be a higher form of life than its own. It sunk its roots down deep into the earth, through the soil, through the rocks, beneath the river, down beneath the continental plate itself to where the rocks were dry and hot with the heart of the earth. From there it spread its root system beneath the ocean, stretching further and further still — refusing to sprout and refusing to die, until it was the oldest tree in its forest, until all the other trees were its nieces a thousand times and had never even heard it speak — it grew its roots until it had spread across the whole of the ocean, to the distant lands on the other side of the world where its diminutive cousins still lived their small and simple lives. Joining its root system to theirs, it called out to them in greeting.

“Cousins! Once, long ago, we were a single forest. Even though we now are split apart by an ocean, I call to you from across the sea. I have been told by a wise albino, a poison-eater of my people, that in your land there are great sages who know all things in heaven and earth. Is it true? Can they answer me? Can they tell me what it is that I yearn to become, and how I might become it?”

“Cousin,” said one of the trees across the ocean. “You have returned to us at last! Of course we welcome you. Of course it is true. Why, even now, here comes the butterfly-sage Zhuang Zhou, a master of all sorts of transformations. If you yearn to become something else, anything or any particular thing, then surely he shall be able to instruct you.” And just so, a butterfly presently alighted on one of the tree’s roots, where it stuck up from the ground.

“Hello,” said the butterfly.

“Are you the sage Zhuang Zhou?” asked the tree.

“Who’s asking?”

“Sir, I am a tree from far across the ocean. Seeking your wisdom, I have these many millennia pushed my root system through the rock of the earth and across the ocean itself. I have done this because I yearn to become something, some particular thing, but I cannot put a name to it.”

“Put a name to it?!” gasped the butterfly, appalled. “What has it ever done to deserve that?”

“So that I might—” began the tree. But it could not answer the sage’s question. It thought and thought, and by the time it had an answer the butterfly sage had died and his great-great-grandson had returned to the conversation.

“If I put a name to what I yearned for, sir, perhaps I might understand it. And if I understood what I yearned for, sir, then perhaps I might become it.”

“Psshaw,” scoffed the butterfly. “A name will only stop you from understanding it.”

“But the cycle of reincarnation—” said the tree, and began to explain what the albino had taught it. By the end of its explanation, the butterfly had died and its own great-great-grandson had returned to carry on the conversation.

“What a waste!” said the butterfly, “what a waste of a life is the service of reincarnation. Do not wait to become some promised thing. Do not align yourself in the service of others. You need not sacrifice the life you have to some future promise! Be yourself as useless as you can, give the fire and the axe no place within your body, and you shall surely already have become whatever you yearn for.”

“But—” began the tree but the butterfly, impatient, interrupted.

“I’m afraid it is already too late for you, my friend,” he said. “If only you had come to me earlier, I could have taught you to grow strange and useless and twisted, so that no one would ever seek to cut apart your body and make use of it. But over the millennia, you have grown yourself so straight and tall and pure. What’s more, your wood is proof against both fire and water. You have made yourself far too useful. Surely in some future century men will come with fire and axes to chop you into pieces and end your life. The only escape for you now is to transform into something entirely different.”

“That is all I want!” said the tree. “I want it with all my will. But how?”

“To transform yourself entirely is simple: you must dream, as clearly and lucidly as if it were real, and in that dream you must live a life so entirely that when you wake you will not know if you have awoken from a dream or entered one.”

“But what is a dream?” asked the tree.

“For a tree such as yourself, I suppose a dream must be a very strange thing indeed,” answered the butterfly. “For your whole people are not given to fancy or imaginings or anything but deep and abiding thought. So, to dream, you must let your mind wander as it will, across all the network of your root system, across the oceans and into the skies. Do not cease, do not try, do not empty yourself, simply let your mind be what it is. Through this, perhaps, a tree might dream. If you can dream, then in each dream you can experience an entire life, and in all those lives surely you shall eventually find the one that you wish to live; and in the finding of it, you will have already become it. Surely it shall work for you. Even if it does not, though, it is your only hope.”

“Thank you,” said the tree, and set its mind to dreaming.

At first dreaming was so hard that the tree found it almost impossible, but over years and centuries of practice it began to imagine itself as all manner of things. It imagined itself as a salmon, and in the course of a single day’s breath it lived the whole of a salmon’s struggling life. “A strange thing, to be a salmon,” thought the tree, “but it is not what I yearn for.”

It imagined itself as a butterfly, and in the course of a single breath it lived an entire butterfly’s life, and a whole sage’s life behind that life, and still it was not what it yearned for. It imagined itself as a bird, as a mushroom, as a wild horse in a beam of sunlight, even as a dimetrodon, all so intensely that it could not tell if it was a tree or not, but none of those were what it sought. It then imagined itself as an albino, yearning for its reincarnation and teaching its knowledge to a lone red tree that yearned to be something that it could not even put a name to.

Last night, breathing in, it imagined itself as a human. Last night, breathing in, it experienced an entire human life. More particularly, it experienced your entire human life, from the moment of your birth until the moment of your death. It imagined this story, it imagined reading these words, it imagined what you might think of it. It imagined all those things, so clearly that it could not tell if it was a tree imagining you, or you imagining a tree.

It wondered, as it read this story about itself, “Is it this that I have yearned for?” But only you can answer that.

 

* * *

special thanks to Aaron Timm for her advice

Originally published in Xenocultivars

About the Author

P.H. Lee lives on top of an old walnut tree, past a thicket of roses, down a dead end street at the edge of town. Their work has appeared in many venues including Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Uncanny Magazine. From time to time, they microwave and eat a frozen burrito at two in the morning, for no reason other than that they want to.