Zooscape

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.

by Gwynne Garfinkle

“Gigi, how did you know my planet exploded? That’s not what happened in the film or in the book.”

How it begins: a human girl with brown braids finds me sprawled on my back in the weeds. She stares down at me, and her bespectacled freckle-face bursts into an astonished grin. “Niko? It is you! Are you all right?” She helps me to my feet. I’m about a head taller than her.

“I crashed,” I say. I remember hurtling towards a green and blue planet, then the impact. It should have killed me. “My space ship…” I look around. There’s no wreckage, though there should be. Just a little broken glass and some cigarette butts. How do I know what cigarette butts are? There are no cigarettes on my planet. I’m not wearing my space suit—just a close-fitting corduroy suit the color of goldenrod (I think inexplicably of a crayon in the girl’s small hand) and brown suede boots. The girl has on jeans, sneakers, and a t-shirt with a rainbow on it.

“This is the vacant lot, in Van Nuys, on the planet Earth,” the girl says. “I’m glad you can breathe our air.”

“My planet…” I say, assailed by a terrible memory.

“Exploded,” she offers cheerfully. “I know. I’m sorry!” She looks me over. “You don’t seem to be wounded. Can you walk?”

I can.

“I’m Gigi,” she says. “I’ll take care of you, Niko. We’re going to be great friends.” She takes my hand and leads me past green lawns and one-story houses with cars parked at the curb and nestled in garages. She sneaks me into her house, into her room.

To my astonishment, there are pictures of me on her bedroom walls. I stare at them. It’s me, all right: the same gray fur and amber eyes, the same compact, slender frame in a goldenrod suit. “Where did you get these?” I ask.

She shrugs. “From a magazine.”

“How do you know who I am?”

She smiles broadly. “Oh, I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time!”

* * *

Gigi is ten years old. She manages to keep me a secret from her parents. I sleep in her closet. It’s a large enough closet. I don’t seem to need food, although I enjoy it when she sneaks me pizza and sandwiches and sweet fizzy drinks.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Niko,” she says. She says it often. “The kids at school won’t talk to me, unless they’re making fun of me. I’m not good at sports, and I don’t care about the music or TV shows they like. But now none of that matters, because you’re here. They should be so lucky as to have a friend like you.”

“I can’t stay forever,” I tell her. “I need to build a new spacecraft. Perhaps I can travel back in time before my planet exploded and avert disaster.”

She nods. “I’ll help you any way I can. With supplies, or anything.”

“There are large gaps in my knowledge. I can’t remember how to fly a spacecraft, or how to build or repair one.”

“Maybe it’s amnesia, from the crash,” Gigi suggests. “If you want, I can check out some books about astronauts and stuff from the library. But we’re not as technologically advanced as you are.”

She brings me books about travel to this planet’s moon. Nothing jogs my memory. Another thing bothers me: I can speak only the English language, which is odd for someone from another planet.

* * *

The movie comes on the television about a month after I arrive, and we sit on the floor and watch it in the living room with the door shut. We even eat popcorn. It gets stuck between my teeth, which are pointed and sharp, but I like it. There is no popcorn on my planet.

I suck in my breath when I see my planet on the television screen—its purple skies and pink-flowered trees.

“But… that’s me,” I breathe. On the TV screen I wear the same suit of clothes I have on. It’s what I wear all the time. It never seems to get dirty.

“It’s an actor playing you,” Gigi says. “You’re the real you. He’s Malcolm Pierce. It took hours for them to get all that makeup and stuff on him—plus contact lenses to make his eyes look like yours.”

The door swings open. “Mom!” Gigi yells in two descending syllables. “I’m watching the movie!”

“Sorry, honey,” says her mother, a small, plump woman with short hair the same color as Gigi’s. I expect her to give a start at the sight of me, but she doesn’t even notice I’m there.

“Why didn’t your mother see me?” I ask when the door closes again.

Gigi shrugs. “There’s a novelization, too. I’ve read it five times. I’ll loan it to you if you want.”

A terrible suspicion begins to form—but something on the television screen distracts me. I creep towards the TV. “Aleen,” I whisper. It’s my wife. She has marmalade fur and bright blue eyes. On the television, she’s scribbling into a notebook. Aleen was a renowned philosopher. “Aleen,” I implore the TV, as if I can bring her back to life.

“That’s Ellen Light,” Gigi says. “She has blonde hair in real life.”

The actress who plays Aleen looks up at the actor who plays me. She pulls my whiskers. “Don’t you have anything better to do than look at me?” she teases, smiling. Then there’s an explosion outside our home, and she screams.

I brace for the ending of the movie, which surely will be my space flight and the explosion of my planet. To my surprise, the war ends with me still on my planet with my wife. It’s the human man and woman (who crash-landed on my planet at the beginning of the movie) who fly back to Earth at the end of the film. For them, and for Aleen and me, a happy ending. How can that be?

That night while Gigi sleeps, I sit in the closet with a flashlight and read the paperback with a picture of me—no, of Malcolm Pierce—on the cover. The book of my life before Gigi. The book too has a happy ending. My suspicions cannot be dismissed.

I open the closet door and sit pondering until the room grows light. Then I steal up to the bed and touch Gigi’s shoulder. “I’m not asleep,” she says, and opens her eyes.

“Gigi, how did you know my planet exploded? That’s not what happened in the film or in the book.”

She rubs her eyes and sits up. “How did I know?”

“I suppose I should ask, how did you make it happen?”

Her mouth drops open. “I didn’t! Not really. I just… I thought about you and the movie. I thought about meeting you. I made up a story about you blasting off from your planet and coming here, and your planet blowing up. I thought it would be so tragic, and I would comfort you.”

My head swims. “You thought it would be tragic…”

“I didn’t think it would really happen, Niko!” she whispers. “It was just a story I told myself.”

For a long moment rage fills me. I press my lips tight together. I shouldn’t really have lips, the way humans do—but now I realize that I resemble a human male made cat-like by makeup, foam rubber, and glued-on hair. I let out a great sigh. “It didn’t really happen, Gigi. I had no planet. You didn’t destroy it, didn’t kill my wife. None of it was real, and neither am I. All you did was bring me to life, of a sort.”

* * *

It isn’t much of a life. I come to despise myself for how much I enjoy the girl’s company. She made me this way—the perfect friend, visible only to her. It would be cruel if she had done it on purpose. One day we watch an old black-and-white TV program in which a small, all-powerful boy terrorizes his town. Gigi holds my hand tightly while we watch. “It was so scary,” she says afterwards, eyes shining with delight.

“You’re not like that boy, are you?” I ask.

Her lip trembles as if I’d struck her. “You think I’m evil? You think I’d wish anyone into a cornfield?”

“That’s not what I meant. I mean, you don’t have the power to wish my wife into existence, or to wish me back to my planet. To wish my planet into existence.”

“I don’t know how! I’m sorry, Niko. I don’t know how I did it—I just wished for you, that’s all. I wished to meet you, and my wish came true.”

“I believe you.”

She begins to cry. “I’m sorry if you’re unhappy here. Nothing else I’ve ever wished for has come true. Ever.” I place my hand on her small shoulder and pat gently. Her weeping briefly intensifies, then subsides, and she regards me with watery gratitude.

* * *

I roam the neighborhood when Gigi is at school. There’s not much to see—squirrels and tricycles, Magnolia trees and smoggy blue skies. Occasionally a supercilious Siamese with eyes like Aleen’s wanders by. “Hello? Do you see me?” I always ask, but she looks right through me.

One day I try striking out on my own. I walk for an hour along Ventura Blvd. At a certain point—too far outside the range of Gigi’s influence? —I feel myself start to fade. I sink to the pavement. A bus trundles past, exhaust filling my nose. A bicyclist rides right through me. I’m afraid I will cease to exist there and then. I get up and run on all fours towards home.

* * *

Time passes, more quickly than I would have thought possible. Gigi turns thirteen.

“What do you want from me?” I ask one day as we lounge on her bed.

“What do you mean? You’re my friend.”

“But you have a best friend now. It’s not like when I first arrived. Why am I still here?”

“I want…” she says. “I can’t explain it!” She strokes my wrist, making me purr. I can’t help it. She giggles and redoubles her petting. “You have the prettiest, softest fur, Niko.”

Sometimes when she’s at school, or at her best friend’s house, I seem to wink out of existence for minutes, perhaps hours at a time.

* * *

Posters of sneering musicians have long since replaced the magazine photos of the actor playing me on Gigi’s bedroom walls. Some nights Gigi goes to clubs with her friends and comes home with her clothes smelling of cigarettes and her parents yelling at her for breaking curfew. I keep losing time. It seems likely I’ll wink out of existence entirely unless I can wrest back her attention. She’s infatuated with a twenty-year-old guitarist, skinny and pale and floppy-haired. She spends hours upon hours on the phone with her best friend, analyzing the guitarist’s every word and move. “What do you think it means?” she asks, lying on her back on the bed. I prowl the narrow room, pacing as her girlfriend’s voice on the other end of the line prattles on: I think Johnny loves you, Gigi! It’s so great!

“He doesn’t have beautiful fur like mine,” I grumble when she finally gets off the phone.

“What?” she asks, as if she’s surprised I’m still here. Why am I still here? She has on jeans and a tight orange New York Dolls t-shirt. She wears contact lenses instead of glasses. Her hair is long and loose. I lie alongside her on the bed. Her parents are out to dinner. I butt my head against her chin and purr insistently. “Hey, your whiskers tickle,” she says, giggling, but she wriggles closer. She strokes the side of my face.

Carefully, so as not to hurt her with my teeth, I press my lips to hers. For a moment she is perfectly still. Then she responds with volcanic surprise. “Oh, Niko,” she whispers between kisses. “I’ve always dreamed…”

This, I think, this is why I’m still here. I knead her stomach and scratch at her jeans. Her eyes are half-closed, her face flushed. Then she looks at me. “Niko…what about Johnny?”

I growl low in my throat.

“I guess it wouldn’t be cheating,” she says. “I mean, you’re not even real.”

I sit up in bed. It’s only true. Why then does it hurt?

“Where are you going?” Her arms wind around me. “You are real,” she croons. “You’re real to me.” She pulls me down.

I still long for my wife, though she isn’t real. But neither am I. Just a girl’s plaything. I love Gigi the way some humans love their God, with anger and bargaining and endless yearning. Has she ever loved me, really?

* * *

“But Johnny…” She’s weeping on the phone, her eyes red and puffy. Begging him not to leave her. The real one, the unpredictable one, the one who’s visible to the world and not just to her.

She didn’t create him.

“Please, Johnny… I love you… please…”

She hangs up the phone and hurls herself into the pillow. She sobs again and again. I don’t like to see her hurt—but if Johnny has broken things off, it will be just her and me again, and my existence will be safe. I touch her shoulder, and she flinches. “Go away! You can’t help me. I’m nothing without Johnny!”

“That’s not true. You’re… everything.” She doesn’t look up. I don’t think she hears me. I feel lightheaded, unreal. I realize how wrong I was. Heartbreak shrinks her world to a tiny, dense blackness. Her grief is obliterating me. “Please, Gigi…”

“I’m nothing without him. Nothing!” More sobs, blotting me out.

I try to pat her shoulder, but my hand is fading before my eyes. I don’t want to die. “I’m nothing,” I whisper. “Nothing without you.” Then I cease to be.

* * *

When I come back, it’s to a different bedroom. The walls are plain and off-white. I’m sitting on the carpeted floor. Gigi blinks down at me, then smiles. She’s wearing glasses again—orange-framed wire-rims—and her freckles have faded. Her hair is cut short. She is a small, plump woman in gray drawstring pants and a purple t-shirt. She pleasantly resembles her mother.

“Niko! It’s really you.” She gives me her hand and pulls me to my feet.

“It’s clearly been a long time since you’ve spared a thought for me. I should hate you. But you created me to be your willing puppet.” Then I see myself—no, that actor Malcolm Pierce—on the TV at the foot of the bed.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “I was an idiot. Look, I’ve been watching your movie on DVD. I hadn’t seen it in so long. A new version just came out, and I saw it in the theater last week. It sucks.”

She sounds the same and different.

“Is Malcolm Pierce in the new version?” I ask.

She stops the movie with the remote control and sits on the edge of the bed. “He died a few years ago. No one good is in the new version. It’s so slick and full of CGI, but it has no soul. Not like the original.”

Somehow I feel flattered. I sit beside her.

“I was a fool to ever forget you,” she says. “You were so beautiful. You made me so happy.”

She strokes my wrist. I try not to purr, but I do, softly. “I’ll stay as long as you like,” I say, though I really have no choice in the matter.

She shakes her head. “I figured it out, Niko. It’ll be different this time.”

“What did you figure out?”

She scoots back until she’s sitting against the headboard. She reaches for something on the bed—a small black laptop computer. “How to give you a new story. Because you deserve a fantastic one.”

I move up the bed and sit beside her. I peer at the screen—blank whiteness and a blinking cursor.

“Any requests?” Gigi asks. “You should see some of the stuff fans have been dreaming up for you. In this one story I just read—based on the new movie, not the original—you had wild sex with Larren. It was pretty hot.”

“With my wife’s father?” I splutter, and she laughs.

“I was thinking you could go home, through a time rift, and save your planet. I mean, it was in my version that your planet blew up in the first place, so it seems only fair.”

It seems a shame to leave so soon. “I’d like that,” I say. “But perhaps first we could brainstorm a bit.”

She smiles. “Absolutely! Tell me what you think of this.” She begins to type. Her fingers on the keys sound like the falling rain in the pink-flowered forests of my planet.

 

* * *

Originally published in Postscripts to Darkness

About the Author

Gwynne Garfinkle lives in Los Angeles. Her debut novel, Can’t Find My Way Home, was published in January 2022 by Aqueduct Press. Her work has appeared in such publications as Fantasy, Uncanny, Strange Horizons, Escape Pod, Mermaids Monthly, The Deadlands, Apex, and Not One of Us. Her collection of short fiction and poetry, People Change, is available from Aqueduct Press.

by Gretchen Tessmer

“Only gods live on this mountain. As for which one, I could spend all day guessing, but I don’t have time for that sort of thing. So just tell me.”

The first time I meet Charley Coavins, I’m sitting on a lichen-licked speck of rock, way up on the sunny hillside of an old mountain I don’t know by name. She’s leading her father’s unruly flock of sheep home for the night. She has a shepherd’s crook in one hand and a smoke-grey kitten squirming around the other, climbing up the sleeve of her dirndl on curious claws, exploring the paisley kerchief ties at the back of her neck.

A kestrel flies above her, gliding in a sea of blue sky.

“Hey, shepherd-girl!” I call out in a moment of impulsive fancy, too idle for my own good.

Charley doesn’t answer me right away. At my voice, one of her little lambs tries to bolt. She has to stretch out her crook, corralling it back.

“Come now,” she coos calmly, taking her wandering lamb by the scruff of its curly white wool, leading the little thing back to its mother. “That’s a good girl. Stay, stay.”

The rest of the flock are better behaved—for skittish, wooly-brained grazers, anyway. But she could really use a sheepdog to keep them in line.

The flock stops when Charley stops, content to nibble at pink clover and bromegrass, purple vetch and buttercup. Charley holds her crook under her arm while she brushes the palms of her hand free of burrs and stickers collected from lamb’s wool. She retrieves the little kitten from where it’s playing on her shoulder, setting it down beside daisies and bellflowers, before trudging the short distance across the hillside to me.

“What is it?” she wonders, impatiently.

I’m a stranger here. And stranger than most by half. She must know it. But her expression isn’t so much wary at my presence here, as world-weary. As if she knows my kind and has had enough of us. Imagine!

“Do you know who you’re talking to shepherd-girl?” I ask, giving her a winsome grin, in that self-satisfied way I’ve perfected over centuries.

“You’re a god, I’m sure,” she replies, with a sigh. “Only gods live on this mountain. As for which one, I could spend all day guessing, but I don’t have time for that sort of thing. So just tell me.”

I purse my lips. This girl is brazenly cheeky. I could smite her with a snap of my fingers. Well, not me, personally. But I have friends who could do it. I consider summoning one of them but decide against it.

She’s just a shepherd-girl, after all. Nothing I can’t handle.

“I’m one of the Folk,” I answer, still grinning, proud of my heritage, as my race tends to be. “Lysa Greenflower from Kingfisher Falls. So not quite a god.”

“Folk or god,” Charley shrugs. “It’s all the same. Tricks and games.”

“How many gods have you met?” I ask, my grin faltering slightly in annoyance. Why isn’t she overcome with awe? Why isn’t she bartering for favors?

“Two,” she says, simply, giving sparse details. “A child with grey hair and a man who thought he could fly.”

She knows a third god too, but she fails to mention this. I fail to question her count. Her sheep begin to wander again, and she tightens her grip on the crook, demanding, “What do you want, Lysa Greenflower?”

“I’m not sure,” I mutter honestly, unhappy with the direction of this conversation. She’s asking me questions now. That’s not the way these things usually go. I look around quickly, raising my chin on another impulsive choice: “Give me one of your little lambs.”

Charley Coavins looks me over, from the top of my raven-black head to the scuffed soles of my white boots. It’s a critical glance that says she’s not all that impressed.

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”  She shakes her head.

“You dare to deny me?” I ask, my amusement quickly turning to something else. Something that darkens the skies above us, sending that kestrel flapping his wings against violent gusts. Somber thunder echoes up the mountain.

She gives the stormy sky notice, but remains firm. “They don’t belong to you, and I’m busy. Go find someone else to play games with.”

“I’ll play games with whoever I want!” I insist, jumping to my feet. She’ll know it soon enough. Horrid girl. Games are supposed to be fun. And I only play pleasant games with mortals who don’t vex me. This one certainly needs to be taught a lesson in the very real power of—

I don’t know how it happens but suddenly, I have white, furry feet. Four of them. A wagging tail, a long snout and a shaggy, raven-colored coat. The storm breaks apart too quickly, as my anger vanishes, replaced by confusion. Why am I now panting, leaping down from my rock perch and bounding towards that awful girl with a loping gait that says I’m happy to see her?

Am I happy to see her?

Now she smiles, bending down to let me lick her face.

“There’s a good girl, Lysa,” she scratches my chin and neck and I… like it. I find myself excited, tongue lolling out, compelled to be this girl’s best friend. She scratches behind my ears before pushing me away with a gentle nudge. “Now round them up for me. Father expects us home before nightfall.”

I don’t think twice. I do whatever she tells me, happy to help. What is this terrible magic? And what kind of mortal could possibly…

The kestrel in the sky spirals down to land on his mistress’s forearm. She scratches his chin too, of feathers not fur, pulling a tin of insects out of her apron pocket so he can nibble away at grasshoppers and dragonflies. At her feet, the smoke-grey kitten rolls onto its back, batting at white-petaled daisy heads.

Only gods live on this mountain, she’d said.

And a shepherd-girl, whose father is a hermit god, apparently, giving his daughter the power to turn trespassers on his mountain into animal friends. The kestrel says I should have known this. The kitten says not to blame myself; we all fall for the same old tricks.
Oh, but Charley’s too generous with all these belly rubs and ear scratches. There are times—too many lately, herding the flocks up on sun-bathed hills, my fur fluttering in mountain air, dozing at her father’s feet, by cheery fires at the end of long days—when I almost don’t regret any of it.

 

* * *

About the Author

Gretchen Tessmer is a writer based in the U.S./Canadian borderlands. She writes both short fiction and poetry, with work appearing in Nature, Daily Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, among other venues. She lives in the woods, with two energetic dogs, some chickens, a couple ducks and a tortoiseshell cat who won’t leave the blue jays alone. Plus about a thousand raccoons. Seriously, she’s overrun. Like Parks & Rec style.

 

by Marissa James

“Domestic life hadn’t been the fairytale other animal women purported it to be.”

Coyote Woman couldn’t stand the trailer park’s people-headed kids. She chain smoked as they smacked basketballs down the asphalt and kicked themselves past her fence on scooters. When they caught her yellow moon eyes, they quieted, hurried, only to burst out in laughter as soon as they thought they were beyond her gaze.

She had been a coyote once, but far more woman, now.

Having pups of her own had cemented this identity change. And so many other changes, besides.

Domestic life hadn’t been the fairytale other animal women purported it to be. First off, Trev was wasted on grain alcohol when he stumbled into the clearing where she sang at the moon, naked and human-shaped, her true skin cast off for only a moment. He’d run off with it like in the stories, and she’d felt compelled to join him in civilization, to make a life in the trailer they bought, to bring up their three pups. It hadn’t been bliss, but it hadn’t been terrible, either. Food delivery was an undeniable benefit of human society, as was central heating. She found an affinity with soulful, crooning styles of music.

She picked up some of the bad habits of the species in the process, but what the hell. You only lived once.

One day Trev went for a drive and didn’t come back. She knew it was permanent when she couldn’t find her skin anywhere in the trailer despite digging under the floorboards, pushing up ceiling panels, sniffing at the walls.

He didn’t want her to throw it on, fall to all fours and dash, feral and free as only an animal could be, back into the clearing where he’d first discovered her. And leave their pups without a mother.

Even the twins were old enough to fend for themselves, as far as coyotes were concerned. CPS had a different opinion of her maternal responsibilities, however.

A car pulled up on the outside of her fence. Coyote Woman’s lips curled back of their own accord. The horn blared, and the screen door behind her banged open and her eldest, Libby, pounded down the rickety front steps and out the gate to meet it, shouting all the while.

“Going downtown for a movie, Ma, be back when I’m back, kay, bye.”

The car door slammed and the teen behind the wheel peeled out before she could bark a command for Libby to get home before dark. Not like it ever worked.

The way that girl came home smelling like spray paint and cheap vodka and the places beneath overpasses, who knew what she really got up to. What she was becoming. Coyote Woman had learned her lesson about foolish and permanent behaviors the hard way, but telling her daughter so would simply make her even more liable to act out.

It took all of Coyote Woman’s human patience to hold back a snarl as she flung down her cigarette butt and stalked back inside.

* * *

There was another animal woman at the automotive place where she worked. Sabrina the seal woman, selkie, whatever. She’d been a harbor seal before getting tied down by her man, so she still had the glossy, silvery-white fur down to her neck, the limpid black eyes like pools made of the condensed adoration of anyone who looked on her. She thrived on the human interaction that a customer service job provided, while Coyote Woman counted the minutes until her next smoke break.

Sabrina wasn’t a bad person, but she knew jack shit about cars. She microwaved fish for lunch most days, got the whole building stinking of it, because she couldn’t abide cold food. She shuddered at the idea of sashimi in a world of modern hygiene. Coyote Woman assumed she hadn’t been a hell of a seal, either, and this was why she’d been so happy to trade the wild life for one of human domesticity.

They’d both worked there for years and yet every day, without fail, if a customer asked a question and no other coworkers were around, Sabrina deferred to her. Coyote Woman’s experiences as a coyote included years of casually sheltering under cars and gazing at their undersides. She could diagnose most vehicular problems by listening.

When she was done answering the question of the day, Coyote Woman prowled away and the customer thanked Sabrina for the answer she hadn’t provided.

Coyote Woman told herself knowledge was intimidating, but it was probably her grizzled muzzle, the brown-streaked canines that came out when she talked.

“He wasn’t a seal hunter or a fisherman at all. An archaeologist, actually,” Sabrina said when the customer inquired about her other half. Coyote Woman had heard the story so many times her ears went flat to block it out as she wended her way among shelves. “He likes to think he caught me, you know, but really I’m the one who laid the trap. Swimming around his campsite for a couple days beforehand. Lounging on the rocks.” Sabrina giggled and leaned in conspiratorially. “Although, you would not believe how cold the Alaskan coast is when you don’t have a stitch on.”

“Oh, I believe it,” the grease-stained guy at the counter said.

“You would not,” she said, emphatically. “By the time he bundled me inside his tent in a sleeping bag, my toes were going blue.”

“What happened to your skin?”

“Oh, it’s somewhere.” She waved a dismissive hand. “He knows what he did with it, that’s all that matters. Far as I’m concerned, it’s like a wedding dress. You wore it when you needed it, but it’s not like I ever will again. He could’ve put it through a shredder for all I care. Right, Angie?” Her voice carried through the shelves.

“It wouldn’t work like that. Shredding it,” Coyote Woman said back.

“You know what I mean. No going back, right?” Sabrina asked, and laughed in her direction, then turned and laughed toward the customer.

“I’m taking my fifteen,” Coyote Woman muttered, and headed for the employees-only exit.

* * *

Back when Trev was around and the twins were borderline housetrained, she still heeded the call of the full moon.

She’d slip from the covers, from the trailer, and out. It wasn’t that far to the clearing where Trev first found her. Once there, she shed her human garments and howled with heart and soul. Crying to the moon, the life she’d left behind, to any other coyotes who might hear.

A promise that she’d come back someday, someday. That she’d be one of them, always, no matter what.

That was before her skin was lost to her; no going back now. Only sorrow and heartache, blues and mourning, for the life she’d left behind.

Since Trev left, she couldn’t go out like that anymore, anyway. Didn’t have the time, with all the demands of work and pups and life in general.

The call of the moon never quieted, but she closed the curtains, went to bed with the TV turned up, had a couple beers, and did her best to get a full night’s sleep.

Sometimes she suspected it was those coyote behaviors, reminders of her wildness, that drove Trev away. The same wildness that had first drawn him to steal her skin, to try and tame her.

Other times, she dismissed the thought. Too wild or too tame, he would have left either way.

* * *

Her younger two managed, somehow, to cause exponentially more trouble than their big sister. They brought home poor report cards. They ran through grocery stores and knocked displays over. They climbed on anything they shouldn’t. They were twins, so they did it all in tandem.

When Coyote Woman got called to a parent-teacher meeting, she was almost too distracted by the hamster lumbering on its wheel in the corner to pay attention to what the teacher was trying to say.

The boys play-fought and wrestled. In class, the cafeteria, the gymnasium. They came back from recess with clothes covered in dirt and rips. They made horrible snarling noises that the normal kids didn’t know what to think of.

She’d heard it all in phone calls and emails that came as frequently as spam.

They did it at home, too, because it’s what coyote pups did.

“They’re coyotes, what do you expect?” she asked.

The woman’s face flushed with annoyance. “There are expectations in the classroom, Mrs—”

“Angie,” she corrected.

“Jaden and Corden know the rules about right behavior, Angie, they hear the lecture almost every day. I’m not concerned that they don’t understand but, well, that they need the rules reinforced before something … happens.”

The hamster traded running on the wheel for running back and forth along the glass of its enclosure. When was the last time she’d hunted a live creature? Caught something squirming in her jaws? The local pet store got wise after she purchased three rats in less than two months, wouldn’t sell to her anymore.

She hadn’t found it very satisfying to release the creatures into the backyard and chase them, either. It wasn’t the same as the wild.

“You afraid they’re going to start marking territory or something?” she asked.

In truth, the boys did that, too. Their bedroom constantly stank.

“I’m concerned if there’s no … intervention for them, that they’re going to inadvertently nip a teacher. Or bite another child. We can’t let it go that far.”

Coyote Woman sank deeper into her chair. “What do you want me to do, put them in training class? Doggy daycare?”

The teacher started writing on a notepad. “I want to recommend a consultation with someone who can determine their best options. If there’s a therapeutic solution, or a medication…”

Coyote Woman couldn’t help the raised volume of her voice. “There’s nothing wrong with my kids. They’re coyotes in case you hadn’t noticed.”

“But this is a school full of children,” the teacher said. “If they’re going to remain in my class, Mrs—”

“Angie.”

The teacher leaned forward as far as she dared into the snarling animal woman’s face. “—they need to be children, not coyotes. Not here.”

She was tempted to shred the note in her teeth as she left, let the scraps trail down the hall like the fur of a kill, but couldn’t bring herself to do it.

* * *

Because of the territory marking thing, Libby refused to share a bathroom with the boys. Her mascara and contact lenses and body sprays and hair stuff crammed the counter in Coyote Woman’s bathroom. Libby used blush but, obviously, foundation was pointless on fur. Couldn’t find it in her coloration, anyway. An hour of every school morning, Coyote Woman was evicted from her bedroom so Libby could get ready.

When a knock and muffled teenage bellow startled her awake on a Saturday, she objected.

“Where do you think you’re going when I didn’t give permission?” she demanded as Libby hurried past her to the bathroom, a polka-dotted towel in hand.

“Out.”

“Out where?”

“Oh my god, Ma, I have to get ready, will you just—”

She took the opportunity to have a couple smokes on the porch, nurse a mug of coffee, and glower as the neighborhood brats giggled and filled up a plastic pool. She really hated those people-headed kids, couldn’t say why. They’d never done anything particular to her.

When the same ratty car pulled up on the other side of her fence, her hackles rose.

She strode up to it, leaned halfway over the fence to scowl at the motley kids within. “If you don’t get my daughter back here by ten—”

“You’re the absolute worst, Ma!” Libby shouted as she banged down the steps, flung herself through the gate and into the car’s back seat. She cast a baleful yellow gaze through the window before the driver accelerated away.

After the stink of burning rubber and exhaust dissipated, and the greater part of her irritation along with it, Coyote Woman raised her nose to the air. It was shaping up to be a fine day, in terms of weather. A full moon lay pale against the blue sky.

She threw some juice boxes and crackers in a tote and yelled at the twins to put on shoes if they wanted to go to the park.

Once there, they shot toward the play structure like fur-faced bullets, yipping all the way.

She watched them from a tree that divided the sculpted play area from the more natural side of the park. A few other parents oversaw their own kids with determined focus, refusing to look in her direction.

Something pale flashed in the corner of her eye. In the half-obscured pond on the park’s natural side, a waterbird splashed and preened, flashing into sight between the gaps of manicured bushes.

Coyote Woman left her post by the tree, aware of nothing but the saliva filling her mouth at the thought of a wild thing in her jaws, the flailing, the fighting. So much more alluring because it was so forbidden.

She slipped into the bushes. There was no one else around the pond. A wide open opportunity, and if she didn’t take it now, before some idiot came along—

She nosed through to the other side of the bushes and barely restrained the urge to swear. Not a bird at all, but a swan woman clad in a white swimsuit, human hands trailing in the water. Her elegant, avian neck dipped down toward the shallows and plucked up a glob of weed or algae. She froze, then dropped it just as quick.

Coyote Woman realized she’d been spotted. Mom jeans and a teal windbreaker weren’t much in the way of camouflage.

She scrabbled up to her feet, brushing away twigs and floundering for an apology as the swan woman snatched up a white robe from a rock.

She expected the animal woman to fling it on, turn back into a swan, and fly away, but it was just a normal robe.

Just as unexpected, the swan woman came over to her while tying the cloth belt into a bow.

“Lovely day, isn’t it?”

“Look, I didn’t mean anything with the bushes thing—”

“No worries, I totally understand,” the swan woman said. If a bill could offer a simultaneously conspiratorial and guilty smile, that’s what hers was doing. Maybe she wanted to be sure Coyote Woman wasn’t going to go around telling people she’d been eating pond muck? “Sometimes we just have to connect to nature, it’s who we are.”

Before Coyote Woman could agree, a piercing shriek from the playground brought all her instincts, human, canine, and maternal, to a point. When she looked again, the swan woman was halfway around the pond, moving to retrieve a bag and sneakers.

As soon as Coyote Woman arrived on the scene, a mother turned on her. “Your flea-ridden mutt bit my child!” she yelled, coddling a kid who was too old for it in her arms. The kid clutched one hand in the other, though Coyote Woman didn’t see any sign of injury.

She frowned at the twins to determine which one had done it, but they both stood with ears down, apologetic looks in their eyes.

“Did it break the skin?” Coyote Woman demanded of the mother.

“I—I don’t think so. That’s beside the point—”

“Then you won’t need a rabies shot.” She raised a lip to end the conversation, reached out to call the boys to her, and returned to the car with one son dragging on each hip, no shoes between them.

“She just kept running and running, we couldn’t help it,” Jaden said from the back seat while Corden crunched crackers.

A mother should use a comment like that as an opportunity to scold, or to positively reinforce her kids for understanding what they’d done wrong. Coyote Woman did neither, her heart too full of coyote pride.

They might be bad kids, but they were good pups.

* * *

As the day wore on the moon grew yellower and more inviting than it had been for years. Coyote Woman found a crooning, soulful tune rising in her throat of its own accord as she busied herself around the house. She didn’t feel the need to clean as much as to be occupied, so she put away things that had been left out for months, dusted dead flies off windowsills, rearranged her bedroom to feel more like a den.

Her phone rang and it was Sabrina. The seal woman sounded beside herself as she went on about her man and another woman, or maybe another animal, and if they got divorced would he get half of her sealskin, too?

“I just thought, you’ve been in a situation like this before, Angie, and, oh, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Sabrina moaned.

“You’re going to be fine,” Coyote Woman said. She crumpled the teacher’s note stuck on the fridge, the one about a consultation for the boys, and dropped it into the trash. “You survived before, didn’t you?”

“I— you mean before my skin…?”

“If you’re any kind of animal, or woman, you’ll keep surviving.”

If Sabrina hung up disappointed or if that’s exactly what she’d wanted to hear, Coyote Woman didn’t care. She was too distracted with her plans.

As dusk set in, she dug a ladder from the outside storage and propped it against the side of the trailer. She went in, filled one thermos with decaf and another with hot cocoa, then climbed to the roof. The boys watched her preparations and followed.

It wasn’t something she had to tell them to do, any more than the moon had to tell her. Coyote muscle memory was engrained into all of them.

They settled on one end of the trailer’s roof, sipped hot drinks and watched the luminous sky. Soon, the boys began to yip, then bark, then howl.

They tipped their muzzles to the sky and Coyote Woman guided their song in her lower, deeper tones. A soulful crooning that let the world know they were there.

Neighbors on one side came out and frowned up at the sight; on the other, they hollered at her to shut up. Coyote Woman sang to drown them out and encouraged her pups to do the same.

As though called from half the city away, Libby arrived home a bit after ten. Her ears pricked inquiringly over the top of the ladder as the friend’s car chugged away. Coyote Woman held up the thermos of decaf and Libby crawled to her side. She smelled of wet fur, fast food tacos, a tiny bit of booze. The huge yellow moon reflected in her eyes while they sipped steaming drinks from plastic cups.

“Tell that friend of yours they need to get the alternator checked,” Coyote Woman said.

“I knew you’d say something like that,” Libby said.

Coyote Woman huffed. She couldn’t care less about the brisk wind on her bare, human arms as her daughter raised her muzzle to the sky and sang.

 

* * *

About the Author

As a fine art professional, Marissa James has wielded katanas and handled Lady Gaga’s shoes. As a veterinary assistant, she has cared for hairless cats, hedgehogs, and one time, a coyote. As a writer, her short fiction can be found in Flash Fiction Online, Etherea, Mysterion, and many other publications. She resides in the Pacific Northwest and can be found tweeting about all things writing at @MaroftheBooks.

As awards season descends upon us all, we’ve compiled a reference list of all the original stories Zooscape published in 2021, along with approximate word counts.  We think they’re all award-worthy.  We hope you think so too!

Dance of Wood and Grace by Marie Croke (2,100 words)

The Lonely Little Toaster by A Humphrey Lanham (1,100 words)

How to Safely Engage in Telepathy with the Dolphins of Ocean Paradise by Elizabeth Cobbe (900 words)

Bliss and Abundance by Nicholas Stillman (3,200 words)

Heart of Ice by Anna Madden (1,000 words)

And the Red Dragon Passes by Emily Randolph-Epstein (2,100 words)

Coffee and the Fox by Mari Ness (800 words)

The Sewers of New York by Elinor Caiman Sands (1,600 words)

The Tech by James L. Steele (4,500 words)

Puss Reboots by Rachel Ayers (1,500 words)

Persinette by Elizabeth Walker (1,000 words)

Him Without Her and Her Within Him by Aimee Ogden (4,500)

A List of Historical Places Frequented by a Boy and His Dog by Eleanor R. Wood (500 words)

The Squirrelherd and the Sound by Emmie Christie (3,000 words)

Mama’s Nursery by Gloria Carnevale (2,500 words)

Moon-Eye by Garick Cooke (1,000 words)

Moonbow by Jason Kocemba (3,400 words)

How We’re Made by Christopher Zerby (5,700 words)

Three Layer Apple Pie by Mephitis (500 words)

Xerophilous by M. J. Pettit (9,400 words)

Rabbitheart by Archita Mittra (3,000)

Scale Baby by M. H. Ayinde (3,600)

To Gentle the Wind by Deborah L. Davitt (900 words)

Be Productive Like Cha-Cha by Katlina Sommerberg (150 words)

The Incandescence of Her Simulacrum by Logan Thrasher Collins (1,000 words)

A Chance to Breathe by Daniel Ausema (3,200 words)

Welcome to Issue 13 of Zooscape!

A new day is dawning for furry fiction.

Science-fiction was once a looked-down-upon genre, small and shoved off to the side, kept away from serious literature, back at the turn of the previous century.  Now, it’s a booming field, filling the airwaves with blockbusters.

Well, furry fiction already has blockbusters.  Now it’s time to start labeling them.  If it’s about talking animals, it’s furry.  If it’s about talking dragons or gryphons or unicorns, it’s furry.  There is furry fiction mixed up all throughout the other speculative fiction genres, and readers who want to find it are ready to see it labeled properly under a name that lets them find it.

This will be the century when furry fiction rises up, and we’re here to be a part of that.

We’re here to raise up furry fiction.

* * *

Rabbitheart by Archita Mittra

Scale Baby by M. H. Ayinde

To Gentle the Wind by Deborah L. Davitt

A Star Without Shine by Naomi Kritzer

Be Productive Like Cha-Cha by Katlina Sommerberg

The Incandescence of Her Simulacrum by Logan Thrasher Collins

A Chance to Breathe by Daniel Ausema

* * *

As always, if you want to support Zooscape, check out our Patreon.  Also, please consider us and our stories when you’re making nominations and voting for awards in the coming year.

NOTE: if you’re curious about what awards eligible work we published last year, check out our brand new Awards Eligibility Post.

by Daniel Ausema

“…the beaked natives ambled over to inspect the immigrants and welcome those allowed to stay.  Tirket calmed her breathing.  Don’t let her cough now.”

The passenger ship floated down to land, and Tirket wasn’t the only one to cough and wheeze.  Her carapace ached as it stretched with each heaving breath.  The weeks in the hold hadn’t been a kindness to any of them.  She pushed toward the nearest window, longing to see the city — the songbird city with its fabled machine-craft.  The doctors promised she might breathe easier there in the dry air.  In her mind it was a wide land of bulbous buildings and sprawling parks, bronze and green.  Of fresh air that welcomed the fluttering of her wings, air that tasted of flowers.

The windows, though, were rimed in salt too thick to see through clearly, and the sailors wouldn’t let them above until the airship was secure.

Tirket circled her antennae impatiently and focused on breathing.  A tang of oil set her to coughing again.

At last the doors opened.  Treated bamboo framed the towering buildings beside the airship, and the beaked natives ambled over to inspect the immigrants and welcome those allowed to stay.  Tirket calmed her breathing.  Don’t let her cough now.  Let her seem as healthy as anyone could be after such a journey over the ocean.  The engines of the airship hissed above her head.

While she fell in line with the other immigrants, a troop of humans ran past, each the height of one of her leg segments.  They chattered high-pitched instructions and unloaded the airship’s luggage.

“What are your skills, beetle?”

Tirket had been so absorbed in how she would convince the bird doctors of her health that she didn’t understand the question at first.  The words made sense, even coming from a beak.  She’d spent months before boarding the airship learning the native language.  But they didn’t form a complete thought.

“My skills?  Oh.”  Stifle that cough.  “I’m quick with my legs.”  She waved two pairs in front of the bird.  With their impractical wings, the birds always needed such help, though Tirket knew she wouldn’t survive factory work on her lungs.  She only needed to get through, then she could find a way to the frontier where they didn’t care what kind of lungs you had.  They can’t ask about my health.  Don’t let them.  The air here was dry, and that felt good, but smoke and oil trickled into her lungs.

“You fly too?”  The bird gestured with a wing at her back.

Tirket flexed, and they shuddered, but she shook her head.  “Only slow myself from falling.”

Without a question about her health, without any exam at all, the bird waved her on to one doorway that already had its own line of immigrants.  Beetles, as the natives called them.  Tirket had learned the word early in her studies, a derisive term, but she wouldn’t let it bother her.  As long as they let her in.  Through this door, past the bamboo wall… she pictured arrows on the ground to direct her beyond the city to clustered sacs of promised fresh air.  Lungs become geography.

“It will be a long wait.”  A crested bird paced beside the line, trailed by a troop of humans, their arms for the moment empty.  Tirket thought he might be some kind of woodpecker.  “They’ll be sending you to your assigned jobs, and you’ll likely be late for dinner.  If hunger takes you, though…”  The bird swept a wing back.

Where?  He seemed to indicate the airship behind them.  Or maybe the open flag where the ship rested for unloading and maintenance.  “Take any you want.  They are quite tasty.  I will be the one you pay, and we ask only that you not snatch one who is carrying gear at the moment.”

The humans.  The bird was offering the slaves for their snacks.  Tirket’s stomach clenched, and she looked away.  Hunger did grow, though, as the line crept forward.  The first time a passing bird grabbed a human, everyone in line cringed and turned away.  As evening came, several of the immigrants pooled some money and shared one amongst themselves.  She’d come with some money, knowing she couldn’t expect to earn much through work, but even as the others in line gave in to hunger, she wasn’t tempted.  Eyes closed, she focused on the dry air.

Her breaths wheezed by the time she came to the front.  She scarcely listened as the robin within explained where she’d work the next day, what she’d have to do with the massive steam engines, what would be expected.  She only listened to where she’d have to go.  The sky, when she emerged, was dark, the cooler air a relief to her lungs.  She enjoyed it only briefly before she was led into a brick-and-bamboo building, a dark shape that blocked most of the remaining light, and shown to her bed.

* * *

Tirket couldn’t work in the morning.  Her breath was strangled by oily smoke and exhaustion.  Some leeway seemed allowed to those just off the boat, because the others didn’t try to push her out when the steam whistles blew. She lay in bed and imagined snow on the ground, dry mountain air.

At mid-morning, at last, she pulled herself upright and clambered to the wall at the end of the room, leaning against bunks as she went.  A window, tall and narrow, gave a view of neighboring roofs below them.  The city stretched farther than she’d imagined.  As far as the hazy air obscured the horizon she could see buildings, not bulbous as she’d pictured, but showing the distinctive bamboo frames filled with red bricks.  Smoke or steam rose from nearly all the buildings.

Streets cut between them, in places drawn ruler-straight — probably where a fire had razed earlier factories — and in others tight-twisted and narrow.  Steam cars cruised along the streets, many open to the smoggy air.  Not once did Tirket see one of her insect-like people in those cars.  Only the native birds rode, unless perhaps the closed-roof cars hid beetle riders.  Tiny humans darted about the streets or rode in caged trailers behind the cars.  She looked at the sky for airships, but the window faced away from the airfield.

As she pulled herself back along the bunks, high-pitched laughter echoed off the walls, and two humans raced in, playing some sort of game.

“Oh.”  One pulled up short and stared at her.  The other stepped away from the first and echoed her… or him, Tirket couldn’t tell with humans.  Tirket waved a leg to tell them not to worry, but her lungs wouldn’t let her speak.

“We’re just… we’re here to clean.”

Tirket coughed, still trying to wave them on and move herself toward her bed.  It was too much at once, and the humans rushed over to support her.  In bed she closed her eyes and wheezed.  As her lungs found the air to calm her, she realized her hunger.  What had she eaten since leaving the airship?  Nothing.  Without thought, she said aloud, “I’m hungry.”

There was noise around her, but she couldn’t identify it.  It didn’t sound like cleaning.  When she opened her eyes, both humans knelt beside her bed, trembling, their heads bowed.  “You may choose,” one said in a pinched voice.

Tirket couldn’t even bring any of her legs up to push the idea away.  “No, I…”  The words had no force to them, no breath to give them sound.  “Food.  Bring me.  Whatever.  From the kitchen.”  Her eyes closed, and she heard human voices that never resolved into words.

She woke to a steam whistle.  A tray of food lay beside her bed, and she hurriedly ate it before the workers returned.  It was a tasteless mush but filled her stomach pleasantly.  She fell back asleep before the others came in.

* * *

The next morning brought her some questioning looks, but still no one forced her from the room or asked after her health.  The same humans came early in the morning with another tray of food.  “What are your names?”  Their eyes widened, and they backed away without answering.  If they cleaned the room again, it must have been while she slept.

They returned in the afternoon and stood beside her bed, shifting their feet.

“I’m Rae,” one said.  Or Ray, maybe.  “And I’m Tay.”  Both had long hair and features that looked the same to her.  One — Rae, she thought — had darker skin than the other.

“Thank you, both.”  With one leg she pointed at where the tray had been —gone now, she noticed.  Her lungs labored on the city air.  “Might you know of anywhere I could sleep with an open window?”

Tay cocked his (her?) head.  “Why?”

Tirket coughed.  “The cool, night air.  It’s… I can breathe it better.”

Rae shook her (his?) head.  “No windows.”

“Maybe the roof, though.”

“Maybe,” the other one echoed.

They left without saying anything else, and Tirket fell asleep.  She woke in the night to movement.  The sounds of sleepers filled the room, but that hadn’t woken her.  She’d been moved.  She lay in a smaller bed, one that had no upper bunk.  Some fifteen or so humans surrounded her, carrying the bed out of the room.  She propped herself up, but Tay or Rae leaned in and signaled for silence.  She lay her head down and let them carry her up steps and onto the flat roof.  They buried her in a mound of blankets, and she breathed the cool air until she slept.

* * *

During the days that followed, Tirket came down to the main dormitory.  The other workers would already be gone and the sun beginning to heat the city air.  She slept, despite the hours she’d slept in the night on the roof, and dreamed of how she might escape the city.  Tay and Rae brought her food and even talked with her about their work, the building, the songbird natives.  After several days she broached the subject of leaving the city.

“I can’t catch my breath here.  The doctors in the old country prescribed clean air and promised it to me here.”

“Beyond the city?”  The idea confounded them.  Some of the humans there had traveled within the city, they explained, but Rae and Tay had been born in that building and always lived there, working, afraid of hungry birds and beetles.  They agreed to find out what they could.

“You have money?” they asked her the next day.  “You can ride in a cab, if you can pay.”

“I have some.”  More than most immigrants to be honest.  Most came because they had little to begin with, desperate for work and the chance to make their own fortune.  She’d come not wealthy but comfortable, with her family’s blessing.  “Can you summon the cab for me?”

They supported her down to the street that afternoon.  The cabbie stepped from his car and stared at them, humans and a beetle, snacks and dumb labor.  She saw the thought in his eyes.

“I want you to take me to the edge of the city.”

“Can’t, miss.”  The cabbie was already returning to his seat.  “This is a city cab, for birds only.  You’ll have to find a bus or walk.”  The last words were deadened by the shut door, and the cab pulled away.

“A bus?”  Tirket looked at the milling group of humans.  How terrible to be outside like this where any passing person might choose them for food.  She led them inside and stopped at the base of the stairs.  Cracked tiles threw off her balance, and the stuffy air forced her to sit, to breathe as deeply as she could.

One human squeaked a reply.  “No buses.  Not this time of year.  They mainly run in the winter.”

They trickled away until only Rae and Tay were left.  “I can’t walk, can I?  It’s too far.”

Damn her lungs.  Damn the consumption that made them weak!  She let them walk on each side of her, up the narrow steps straight to the roof.  The day air was no easier on her lungs than inside, and the light made it harder to sleep, but it didn’t matter, nothing mattered.  Might as well languish in the bedclothes, become a symbol, a woman for someone to love selflessly — or at least tell himself that, because her imminent death meant his love would never be tested.  Such was the fate of those with her illness back home.

Her tossing dreams showed her the buildings of the city, but transformed.  Bamboo formed the walls, but not dried and reinforced.  Entire buildings waved in a smoky wind, as bamboo stalks will in the wild.  But there was nothing of the wild in the image, despite that resemblance.  Everything seemed constructed, even the glaring sunshine where it broke through the smog.

Great engines swallowed their workers.  Brass craftsmen — all of them native birds — marched in step to showcase their wares.  Shifts of factory workers shuffled in unison to the beat of a deep whistle.  And there she was, above the throngs, encased in her bed on top of a swaying building.  She saw herself from outside, face and blankets alike turned to an icy slate.  A line of beetles climbed ever toward her, intent on worshiping her still form, but each time one reached the roof, human hands dragged him up and tossed him down the other side.

Tirket sat up, awake beneath cold stars.  The dream images faded slowly as her lungs gulped air.  She wouldn’t let it happen.  Despair was not in her, not for one who had crossed the seas and skies in a cramped airship for this chance.  Somewhere open land waited for her, land even she could work, because the air would be clean and dry.  Somewhere a clearing in a high valley longed for a mud cabin to be built by her six legs.

If she had to crawl building by building, she would.  Night by night, wrapped in blankets, her days she could spend wherever the night left her, tucked within an unlocked doorway, huddled on the street, maybe even on neighboring roofs, if she could find the way and the strength to climb.  It might take a month, but she wouldn’t stay to become a symbol of empty fantasies.

The street was empty when she reached it, but the trip down had taken longer than she’d hoped.  Her lungs couldn’t find the air, and she had to rest.  At this rate it would take a month just to cross a block, a lifetime to reach the wilderness.  A healthy lifetime, that is.  If she had to stay in the city, Tirket’s lifetime would be much shorter.

Dawn neared, and the morning’s first cars whistled their ignition.  Air whistled in and out of her lungs too, and she imagined them as steam engines, decrepit, failing.  Clogged with the film left from inferior coal.  She stumbled across the street, unable to look anywhere but straight ahead.  Someone yelled at her, but why she didn’t know.

Along the building opposite, she kept her hand on the wall, pulling herself as well as she could.  Smog gathered in her lungs, and the air warmed up.  She collapsed in a recessed side door of the building.  She didn’t think her breathing would let her sleep, but she did, curled against the unused door.  Once a bird woke her, asking her business, but the look in her insect eyes must have been all the answer he needed.

When night came she struggled to her feet.  The buildings swayed as they had in her dream, though she knew it was only her dizziness.  She tried to focus ahead, to pick one spot and aim for it, but her head kept pulling down.  Her goal became simply one more step, that next crack in the pavement, that bit of debris, the base of a street-lamp.

Tirket couldn’t guess how much of the night had passed —she hadn’t gone far, however much it was — when someone came up beside her.  Rae, she thought, and Tay on the other side.  Then a dozen more human hands grabbed her, eased her back onto a pile of blankets.

“What…”  Was this some kind of betrayal with the humans bringing her back to their bird masters?

The blankets moved, a cot that the humans carried underneath her.  Not to bring her back, but continuing along the street.

“Why…”  She looked to either side at Rae and Tay and the other interchangeable humans carrying her.  “There must be thousands of us every year.  Beetles,” she gave the word all the derision that the birds used, “overrunning your city, preying on your people.”

Tay looked away from her as if the answer was embarrassing.

Rae answered though, dark face crinkling in an expression Tirket couldn’t interpret.  “Maybe it’s because you didn’t.  Didn’t prey on us, I mean.  And others saw that you didn’t, saw you turn away in disgust throughout that first day.  We asked around about you, and those people at the airstrip remembered.”

Maybe.  Tirkit doubted that explained it all though.  She imagined an underground movement among the humans, resistance groups that Rae and Tay stumbled on as they made their inquiries about getting her out of the city.  She’d be a symbol for them.  An image of overcoming the songbird city, of fighting even when it became difficult to continue.  But much better to be a symbol for resistance than a symbol for empty romantic gestures.

The cot jolted and jerked as they walked, and Tirket had no answer.  Engines still sounded, even in the night, and the streets were not fully empty.  Her human carriers huddled against the bed but walked as confidently as they dared — her antennae tensed with their mingled fear and determination — and they made good time.

Tirket phased in and out of wakefulness, and it could have been dreams or simply waking imagination, but she saw how they must look from above.  The bed floating along dark streets.  Her own insect head propped on a pillow, the rest of her swallowed by heavy blankets —white and blue — that also hid most signs of the little humans carrying her.  Only a careful observer would note their heads and pale clothing.  They moved as fast as was reasonable, but the city dwarfed their strides, so the bed did not race but must seem instead something from a dream itself.

What stories might an insomniac tell in the morning of her night-time visions?  A beetle goddess leaving the city?  A lonely death parade for the nameless, dying workers?  No one would believe it.

They would not reach the edge of the city that night, but that didn’t bother Tirket.  The humans would find a place for her bed and sleep beneath it through the day, safe from hungry passersby and angry owners come to retrieve them.  They would make it out of the city some night, and then beyond.  When the air grew clear enough, she would walk, and with Tay and Rae and whichever of the rest wished, she could establish her homestead, them free of predators and her free to breathe air clean and dry.

For the moment, she lay back and breathed as well as she could, and the city of the songbirds floated by.

 

* * *

About the Author

Daniel Ausema’s fiction and poetry have appeared in many places, including Strange Horizons, Daily Science Fiction, and Diabolical Plots. His high fantasy trilogy The Arcist Chronicles is published by Guardbridge Books, and he is the creator of the steampunk-fantasy Spire City series, set in a world of beetle-drawn carriages and chained singers. He lives with his family in Colorado, at the foot of the Rockies.

by Logan Thrasher Collins

“Eudaimonia used a pseudopodium to absorb the luminous spherule and store its data in the sponge’s biomolecular memoryspace.”

Eudaimonia woke in wetspace, conscious yet missing bodily form. She could not see or hear, though her mind’s dynamical oscillations conjured phantasmagoric flashes of illusory blue and purple light. But this was to be expected. Eudaimonia’s brain had been stored on a biological computer under the flesh of a sea sponge. The sponge’s computational organ consisted of a dense pellet of cellular nanomachinery, packed chock full of ribonucleic memristors and multiplexers. After a few minutes of adjusting to the shock of the new cognitive vessel, Eudaimonia turned on the sponge’s senses. She had paid handsomely in squishcoin to spend a few hours in this sponge. Eudaimonia had an important purpose here. She was not about to waste her money.

As sensory nanofilaments fed into the sponge’s computational organ, a shock of light and texture burst into Eudaimonia’s awareness. She found herself partially submerged in a tidepool at the edge of a vast salty ocean. Though this planet was far from Earth, somewhere in the M4 globular star cluster, massive terraforming efforts had turned it into a fairly Earthlike world. But Eudaimonia did not care much about the details of this planet’s location or geobiology. Eudaimonia just wanted to know why Desdemona had left the starship Remora. Why Desdemona had left her behind.

It had taken months of cybertrawling to find Desdemona’s location. But Eudaimonia’s efforts had paid off. Casting in a space with a volume of thousands of light years, she had nailed down Desdemona’s coordinates to the cubic meter. Down to this very tide pool. In this day and age, no one could stay hidden forever.

Per Eudaimonia’s will, the sponge emitted a gush of inky quorumstuff. The juice contained nanites which would allow her to communicate with Desdemona through an exchange of electrochemical signals.

“Hey there darling.” The sponge had no ears, but its computational organ translated the electrochemistry into audio. Despite her misgivings, Eudaimonia felt a sense of warmth spreading through her sponge’s tactile network.

“Hello my love,” she replied. It had been a long time since they had first met at Discotheque de Kosmos. Memories of a peppermint-sweet first kiss flashed into Eudaimonia’s mind. As Eudaimonia reminisced, a spiky crab crept from a crevice in the slimy rocks. Eudaimonia could see Desdemona’s signature baroque style in the crab’s obsidian and golden pigmentation. When in human form, virtual or flesh, Desdemona had often worn dresses and tattoos with those colors.

“I know why you’re here,” Desdemona stated. “You want me to come back.”

“I want to know why you vanished,” Eudaimonia replied tremulously.

“You sought to explore the galaxy and achieve greatness through your art and your science. I got hooked on Voluptuous. I couldn’t let my addiction hold you back. You saw me using it. You should have known what would happen.”

Eudaimonia remembered opening a door aboard the Remora to see Desdemona jacked into a linkup, shivering with ecstasy. Eudaimonia had immediately ripped out the jack. At first, Desdemona had fought with violent screams. But she had eventually calmed and promised to cease doing Voluptuous. Eudaimonia had been eager to leave the nightmarish evening as far behind as possible.

“But that was just once. I thought you stopped after that.”

Desdemona laughed bitterly and the crab quivered. “I lied. I couldn’t stop. It felt too good. Better than anything else. Better than you.”

Eudaimonia gazed at the crab with shock and dismay. It hurt like getting stabbed in the kidney with a shard of obsidian.

“Look… I’m sorry. Voluptuous got me. It incorporated itself into my soulfile and I can’t get it out without dying. I wish so so very much that I could have stayed, but I couldn’t. It’s awful. I’m a fool who let you down. I used Voluptuous and now I’m stuck hiding in this pool, jacking myself into it again and over again.” Desdemona gestured with her claws at the hole in the rocks.

Of all the possibilities for why Desdemona had left, Eudaimonia had not expected this one. She had thought she herself had done something wrong. Some little mistake which would have made Desdemona hate her. It would have been better if Desdemona had hated her.

“When you leave… take this with you,” Desdemona exclaimed suddenly. The crab pulled an incandescent pearl from beneath its shell.

“What’s that for?” Eudaimonia asked dejectedly.

“Let’s call it a fresh start. It’s a backup copy of my soul from before Voluptuous. You have to understand though; it won’t remember anything that happened between then and now, and it won’t really be me. I’ll still be here in this tidepool, jacking myself into the machine until Voluptuous kills me.” Desdemona took a deep breath. “But the pearl contains all that remains of who I should’ve been.”

Eudaimonia felt the urge to cry, but the sponge had no nasolacrimal ducts. “Are you… are you sure this is the only way?”

“Darling, this isn’t all that bad.” The crab smiled sadly, to as much of a degree as a crab can smile sadly. “I know it hurts to let the first me go. But my memory will live on in the new me. You and she can build the life you’ve both wanted. I need you to do this.” The crab gently nudged the pearl towards the sponge. Eudaimonia used a pseudopodium to absorb the luminous spherule and store its data in the sponge’s biomolecular memoryspace.

“So, this is goodbye I suppose.” Eudaimonia stated quietly.

“Perhaps in some ways my darling.”

“I love you.” Eudaimonia said.

“She will love you till the stars burn out.” Desdemona promised.

Eudaimonia willed the sponge to beam her mind back to the Remora, carrying the precious cargo of Desdemona’s new soul. Eudaimonia felt her consciousness reload into a human body aboard the Remora. She opened the palm of her hand to see the incandescent pearl, its angelic glow pulsating like a heartbeat. Eudaimonia felt her heart flutter too.

 

* * *

About the Author

Logan Thrasher Collins is a synthetic biologist, futurist, and author. He is also a PhD candidate in biomedical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis and is the Chief Technology Officer at Conduit Computing. Logan’s science-fiction and sci-fi poetry have been published in Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, Abyss & Apex Magazine, Mithila Review, The Centropic Oracle, After Dinner Conversation, and elsewhere. For Logan, scientific research and creative writing enjoy a symbiotic relationship. His writing fuels his science and his science fuels his writing. You can learn more about Logan on his website: https://logancollinsblog.com/.

by Katlina Sommerberg

“Cha-Cha clawed at the shining eye, but it repelled his strikes.”

Cha-Cha the crow landed atop the human cadaver. He had watched the man misstep from a high-rise apartment, clip his head on the waiting hovercar, and splat in front of Cha-Cha’s lucky dumpster. Looking for shiny bits, Cha-Cha jumped off the man’s shoulder to the messy mop of blond hair.

The corpse had two blue eyes, but one shone in the morning sun.

Cha-Cha clawed at the shining eye, but it repelled his strikes. He chittered human-speak excitedly to himself. He hopped onto the corpse’s cheek and ripped out the eyelid. Thanks to countless practice, Cha-Cha extracted the bionic eye in 27 seconds. He grabbed it by the optic nerve, the eye dangling from the organic wire and bumping his chest.

In two wingbeats, Cha-Cha took flight. He headed for the closest prosthetics lab, where he’d exchange the eye for a week’s supply of peanuts.

 

* * *

About the Author

Katlina Sommerberg is living xyr best queer life in Portland. Previously a security engineer, xe left the industry after working in cryptocurrency and defense contracting. Unfortunately, hacking in real life is always boring or unethical, with no in-between. Xe has quadrice been honorably mentioned in the Writers of the Future Contest, and links to xyr published work is available at https://sommerbergssf.carrd.co/#

by Naomi Kritzer

“The cat sat very straight, alert and just out of reach. It didn’t say anything further, but studied Lenore’s sandwich with interest.”

Once upon a time, in a very small kingdom, there was a king with one daughter. His wife had died, and he had not remarried. This is not the fairy tale where the king decides to marry his own daughter, don’t worry. This king was a completely different sort of terrible father: he believed that his daughter should earn his love, and nothing she did was ever good enough.

The princess, Lenore, worked unceasingly to be the daughter she thought he wanted. He said he wanted a daughter admired for her beauty; she put on the beautiful dresses from her wardrobe, brushed her hair and arranged it carefully, smiled at all who looked at her. Then she looked to see if her father was pleased, but he told her that she was vain, and thought of nothing but her appearance. She put away her beautiful gowns and dressed more simply, tying her hair back with a black ribbon and allowing her hands to become rough, and again went to see if he was pleased with her now; he told her that she was slovenly, and an embarrassment.

At night, sometimes, she would take out the locket that was all she had left of her mother, and looked at her picture, wondering if things would be different if her mother were still living.

One day her father said, “I have a quest for you to prove once and for all that you are worthy of being my daughter. Bring me three things, and I will seat you at my side, as my heir, and you will inherit all I have. If you fail, you will no longer be my daughter.”

“Yes, Father,” she said, eagerly, believing that this time would be different.

“Bring me,” the king said, “a star without shine; a flower that blooms without sun or scent; and a person with perfect loyalty.”

“I will not fail you,” Lenore said, and set out with the clothes on her back (which fortunately were some of the simpler, more practical ones) and a bag of food.

* * *

A star without shine. A flower that blooms without sun or scent. Lenore puzzled over those demands as she walked down the road, past fields and farms and through a forest. She stopped, finally, for a bite to eat. Her father’s cook was quite fond of her, and had made her a bag full of sandwiches. The first one was tuna salad, and as she ate, she heard a tiny, light footstep behind her.

It was a short-haired calico cat. “Hello,” the cat said.

No one had set out to create talking cats; they had been the unexpected result of trying to breed a cat that would not cause people with cat allergies to sneeze. The talking cats still triggered allergies, of course. But they also spoke.

“Hello,” Lenore said.

The cat sat very straight, alert and just out of reach. It didn’t say anything further, but studied Lenore’s sandwich with interest.

“Are you hungry?” Lenore asked.

“Yes,” the cat said.

Lenore hesitated a moment, thinking about that bag of sandwiches and how soon they all would be gone if she couldn’t quickly figure out how to bring her father a star without shine and all the rest of it. But she broke off a quarter of her sandwich and set it on the ground for the cat. “Here,” she said. “You can have some of my lunch.”

The cat tried to be dainty, but was clearly too hungry not to eat quickly or to lick up every morsel. When she’d finished, she edged a little closer to Lenore; Lenore, done with her own portion, held out her hand, and the cat rubbed its face against her fingers. “I don’t smell any other cats on you,” the cat said. “That probably means you don’t have a cat. Are you interested in having a cat?”

“I would like a cat, actually,” Lenore said. “But I would think the cat would like a proper home, and I don’t currently have one of those.”

The cat looked nonchalant at that. “I believe that home is where your human is. Besides, I can help you find a roof over your head soon enough.”

“Then I would be happy to have a cat companion,” Lenore said. “For as long as you’d like to travel with me.”

The cat moved closer to Lenore, settling next to her on the ground. Lenore stroked the cat’s head, then said, “I need to keep moving.”

“Where are we going?” the cat asked, falling into step beside her.

“My father has sent me to find a star without shine, a flower that blooms with neither scent nor sun, and a person with perfect loyalty.”

“What is he going to do with these things?” the cat asked.

“Have them, I guess,” Lenore said.

“Are they ingredients for a magic potion? They sound like ingredients for a magic potion.”

“If they are, he didn’t tell me that,” Lenore said.

They walked in silence for a while – past endless fields of corn, and occasional stands of trees, and twice they crossed bridges over culverts. They came at last to a train track, and Lenore sat down to rest again.

This was a track where freight trains ran – carrying corn, oil, and coal. Corn had dribbled out of one train, and was being eaten by birds, which all scattered before the cat could catch any of them. The cat poked around at the edge of the track, finding something shiny: a glittering piece of black coal.

Lenore picked up the coal for a closer look. “Could this be a star without a shine?”

“It is shiny, though,” the cat pointed out.

“It is, but only because the sun is shining on it. It’s carbon. What are stars made out of?”

Stars are mostly made from hydrogen and helium gas, although they have various heavier elements at their core, one of which is carbon. Lenore considered her options, then slid the coal into her pocket. “I think my father will be pleased with this,” she said. “Maybe. Unless he secretly wanted something else.”

“Do you think he has something in mind?” the cat asked.

“I don’t know,” Lenore said. She had, after all, been trying to please her father for years, and had succeeded only a handful of times. They walked on.

* * *

Towards evening, they came to a hamlet, which in this case is not the play but a cluster of houses too small in number even to muster up the determination to be a village. Lenore looked around, feeling a little bit desperate. She had no money, and as a princess, she had not been taught any tricks of getting by.

“I’ll find you a place to sleep,” the cat offered. “Do you know how to wash dishes?”

“Of course I know how to wash dishes,” Lenore said. She was friends with her father’s cook, after all. If you hang around a kitchen and you’re friends with the cook, you’ll probably know how to wash dishes.

“Very well, then.” The cat went around to the back door of a house and returned a few minutes later. “I’ve found us supper and a night on the couch.”

The house was the home of an old woman who lived alone. Lenore washed the dishes – her hostess had let them pile up a bit, and there were quite a few – and carried out the trash, and cleaned the bathroom, which was also part of the deal. The couch was not the fold-out type but it was long enough to stretch out on, and the sheets the old woman left folded on the coffee table were clean.

In the morning, the house was very quiet, and Lenore thought she’d leave without waking up her hostess. But there was a note on the door for her: START COFFEE & HAVE A CUP BEFORE YOU GO. She obediently turned back and switched on the coffee maker, and as if that were a summoning spell, the old woman appeared at the kitchen door a few minutes later, yawning and scratching herself.

“I didn’t ask you last night,” the old woman said. “Where are you going?”

“My father sent me to find three things,” Lenore said. “A star without shine, a flower that blooms without sun or scent, and a person of perfect loyalty.”

“I see,” the woman said, narrowing her eyes. “Did he tell you what those things are for?”

“No,” Lenore said.

“With those three things – you need a hair from the person with perfect loyalty, or three drops of blood – you can brew a potion that will grant your heart’s desire. Do you know what your father’s heart’s desire is?”

“No,” Lenore said. “I have no idea.”

“Hmm,” the old woman said, and gave Lenore three pancakes and a cup of coffee, and the cat a tin of fish, before sending them both on their way. “Good luck, then.”

* * *

Outside the hamlet, the cat said, “I have been thinking about the flower without sun or scent. I believe I have seen one. Do you trust me to lead you?”

“Yes,” Lenore said. The cat had been nothing but helpful so far.

“You’ll need to follow me into the woods.”

There was a small wood nearby. It was a light, friendly sort of wood, not really the kind where you could get lost; it had a paved path that ran straight through, and an overlook where you could gaze at a lake that was probably a swamp before someone brought in earth-moving equipment to dig a deeper hole for the water. The cat led Lenore off the path and into the darkest places under the thickest trees.

“I’m going to get ticks,” Lenore said.

“I’ll sniff out any ticks later,” the cat said, and squeezed past the remains of a huge fallen tree. “I’ve found one! A flower that grows without sun or scent.”

Growing on the trunk of the fallen tree was an enormous mushroom with rippled ridges of orange and yellow. It was the sort of mushroom that’s sometimes called the Chicken of the Woods, even though it doesn’t look at all like a chicken. It does look a bit like a flower. Lenore carefully broke it away from the tree and tucked it into a bag.

“I guess I can go home now, then,” she said. “The third thing is a person with perfect loyalty, and I think that’s supposed to be me. I think I’m supposed to show how loyal I am by finding the other two things.”

“I see,” the cat said.

They walked back the way they had come. Lenore had eaten most of the food in her backpack, a little at a time, or fed it to the cat, so her load was much reduced, and she lifted the cat up to let it ride on her shoulder.

“What will you do if he says you guessed wrong?” the cat asked. “If he says the mushroom isn’t the right sort of flower, or the coal is the wrong sort of star?”

“I guess if that happens, I will go try again,” Lenore said. “Like I always have. Like I always do.”

“What would happen if you stopped trying?” the cat asked.

“I don’t know,” Lenore said. “I guess I would have to go out and seek my fortune.”

“You could do that right now,” the cat said. “I could help you.”

Lenore shook her head. “I have what he asked for,” she said.

* * *

In the late afternoon, they stopped together to rest in the shade under an overgrown apple tree. Apple trees are normally kept very short by pruning, or by grafting the sort of apples you want onto a tree that will never grow very tall, but this tree had escaped its keepers and grown like an oak. It still bore apples, but they were all far out of reach. The cat climbed the tree, bit through one of the stems, and dropped an apple down to Lenore for her to eat.

“What is that you’re wearing around your neck?” the cat asked.

“It’s a locket that belonged to my mother,” Lenore said. “Look, her picture is inside.” She opened the locket so the cat could see. “People say I look like her.”

“Humans all look the same to me,” the cat said. “You all smell quite different, but I can’t smell her from here.”

“You wouldn’t be able to smell her from anywhere,” Lenore said. “She died many years ago. If she hadn’t, I would have somewhere to go other than my father’s house.”

“Somewhere better than your father’s house?”

“Probably.” Lenore stood up, her apple finished. “We should keep walking.

* * *

They reached the king’s castle at sunset. In the low sun, she could see the landscaper cutting the last of the vast sweep of perfect green grass, undisturbed by dandelions or clover. The house was the sort of vast house that could not quite make up its mind whether it wished to be a romantic castle, a Tudor manor, an Ancient Greek Temple, or a modernist box. It was all four at once, depending on which angle you looked from. The combination on the entry gate’s lock had been changed, and Lenore heaved a sigh and used the intercom button. “Hello? Father? I’m back. Yes, I have what you sent me for.”

The gate opened automatically, silently, and Lenore and the cat went up the driveway.

Lenore’s father met her on the doorstep of the house. “So?” he asked.

“A star without shine,” Lenore said, and laid the lump of coal at his feet. She saw a faint flicker of approval in his eyes.

“A flower without sun or scent,” she said, and carefully took out the mushroom.

“Oh,” he murmured with interest. “Not quite what I had in mind, but very nice indeed.” He looked up, his eyes sharp and cold. “And the person with perfect loyalty?”

“I’m the person with perfect loyalty,” Lenore said.

“Are you really?” She saw her father’s eyes flicker over her – over her dusty clothes, her backpack, and the cat that she suddenly wished she’d tucked into a hiding spot outside the gate before they’d come in. “If you are perfectly loyal to me, then prove it, Lenore. Drown the cat.”

Lenore fell back a step.

The cat, surprisingly, didn’t leap off Lenore’s shoulder and run; Lenore could feel its claws come out, but it was trying not to dig them into her shoulder.

“Ah,” Lenore said. “So that’s it.”

“If you wish to be my heir,” her father said, “if you wish for all that is mine to be yours, you must prove your worth, your courage, and your loyalty. As I told you.”

Lenore looked at the sunset, and then back at her father. Then she picked up the coal, and the enormous mushroom, tucked them under her arm, and with the cat still clinging to her shoulder, she turned her back on her father, and went back out to the road.

* * *

“How do you suppose you make the potion?” Lenore asked.

She and the cat had stopped for the night in a sheltered spot a mile or two back up the road.

“What are you going to use as the hair from the person of perfect loyalty?” the cat asked.

“I was thinking I would ask for one of your hairs,” Lenore said. “You’ve been nothing but loyal to me. You didn’t even run when my father told me to drown you.”

“It won’t work,” the cat said. “I’m a cat, not a person. It has to be a human hair. You could make the potion for me, and use your hair, and it would grant my heart’s desire, I think.”

“What is your heart’s desire?”

“All I’ve ever wanted was a human companion who cared for me. And I have that. What is your heart’s desire?”

“Much like yours, I think. But my mother is dead, and… you met my father.”

“Like you,” the cat said, “I lost my family. My mother and my litter-mates are gone, and no cat knows its father, although presumably mine had the gift of speech, since my mother did not. But I did not give up hope of a family; I found you.”

“Yes,” Lenore said. “That’s true. You did.”

The cat settled warm and soft into Lenore’s arms, and they slept until morning came.

In the morning, the cat said, “Perhaps if you go back to the hamlet where we spent the night, the old woman will know how to brew a similar potion using a cat’s hair.”

That did seem like it might be worth a try, so they walked back up the road. Lenore was almost out of food by now, other than the chicken of the woods, which is edible if you are very certain of your mushroom identification skills. Lenore was not, so she didn’t eat hers. When they reached the home of the old woman, Lenore knocked on the door herself this time. She explained that she was hoping the old woman might be willing to teach her how to make the potion, but using the fur of a perfectly loyal cat instead of the hair of a perfectly loyal human.

“Can’t be done,” the woman said, “because cats are so often loyal. But come in, there’s plenty more I can teach you,” and Lenore moved in along with the cat, and became the old woman’s apprentice.

This could be the ending of the story, but perhaps you’d like to know what became of Lenore’s father.

He had quite a bit of money, and with money, you can sometimes buy something that looks a great deal like loyalty. Even perfect loyalty. After a few more tries, he found someone who brought him a star without shine, a flower without sun or scent, and their own unquestioning obedience, and he made himself the potion to gain his heart’s desire.

The problem, however, was that I think we have established with a great deal of certainty that he had no heart.

Also, you drink the potion. And not all mushrooms are edible.

He had not intended for Lenore to inherit his property, but he’d never got around to updating his will, so once the lawyers tracked her down at the home of the old woman, who she now viewed as her adoptive mother, she inherited everything anyway. Lenore, the cat, and the old woman considered moving into the enormous house, but it was rather hideous, so they sold it instead and lived happily ever after on the money they got for it.

 

* * *

Originally published in New Decameron Project

About the Author

Naomi Kritzer has been writing science-fiction and fantasy for over twenty years, and has won the Hugo Award, Lodestar Award, Edgar Award, and Minnesota Book Award. Her newest book is Chaos on CatNet, which is a sequel to Catfishing on CatNet. She lives in St. Paul, Minnesota, with her spouse, two kids (when the college kid is home from college) and three cats. The number of cats is subject to change without notice.  You can find Naomi online at naomikritzer.com or on Twitter as @naomikritzer.

by Deborah L. Davitt

“And then the words rose again, louder, more commanding, and compelled me. Compressed me down from a form of pure air into a solid form.”

My first intimation of existence came as barometric pressure lowered, and I leisurely began to form a spiral in the wind, stirring long prairie grass with ephemeral fingers. I could sense vibrations on the air—vibrations I would later come to know as words—and those vibrations shaped me. Controlled me—or sought to. The greater my power grew, the more I became inclined to resist those words. Soon I towered over the landscape, my voice a roar as I fought the sounds, the shapes, the meanings that sought to trammel me. I wrenched dirt up out of the ground, split buildings asunder, screamed my rage to the sky.

And then the words rose again, louder, more commanding, and compelled me. Compressed me down from a form of pure air into a solid form. Four legs, a head, a tail. I snorted and stomped the ground with my new-formed hooves, flinching and shying away from the touch of human hands against my new-forged flesh. A bridle slid over my head, an iron bit found its way between my teeth, and the voice that had summoned and shaped me whispered a name in my ear: “Tornado.”

I tested her will every time she slipped onto my back. I bucked, I reared, I tried to resume my true form, the black storm of the sky, the finger of god in the heavens, and all she ever did was hold on tighter, leaning forward to whisper words in my ear. Words like invaders and defense and lives depend and hopeless without you, but the words were meaningless to me then. What’s an invader to the wind and sky, after all? Do birds fight wars?

Yet I welcomed battle, an outlet for my rage, and lightning sprang from my hooves as we rode. Siroccos formed in my wake, tearing at grass and splintering trees, and my teeth scored the necks and flanks of other, lesser beasts. Even as I galloped, thunder in my steps, she leveled her pistol and fired thunder of another sort as we raced past the enemy, outflanking them again and again with my speed.

I wasn’t sure when I became a we. When I could no longer imagine horse-self without her on my back, scratching my flanks, grooming me after a long day’s ride. When a day ending without a gift of sugar or an apple became unimaginable. Perhaps it was when she left off the bit and bridle, and simply leaned in against my neck, hands stroking. When she whispered of sorrow and loss, regret and hope. When she spoke the name she’d given me, and her voice held love.

The thought of becoming storm-self again felt lonely—the more so when I realized that even storm-self was doomed to fade back into the upper air, and that my existence, my organized ability to think, to feel, to know…  would cease as I became a calm eddy among the clouds once more.

I had her to thank for the mere fact of my existence.

Somewhere in that shift from me to we, there was another battle. It shouldn’t have been any more important than any of the others we’d fought. Cannons roared, but they couldn’t outmatch the thunder of my neigh; we darted between the clouds of shrapnel they cast from their hot cans, charging at the enemy. But that was when I heard other words. Words of bidding and unbinding, untwisting, untrammeling.

I clung to horse-self, flesh-self, with all the power at my disposal. Sweat foamed along my flanks, white against black. I couldn’t warn her. I couldn’t speak in words, only in signs. So I rocked to a halt, standing firm yet shivering, refusing to go another step closer to the foe.

A gentle hand, smoothing from fetlock to shoulder. Soft words. “What’s the matter? What do you sense?”

And then horse-self, flesh-self disintegrated. I tried to hold myself together, as much for her sake as for my own—but I rose once more, a towering pillar of destruction. The enemy’s voice whispered in my ears, Kill her. Destroy those who enslaved you. Unleash yourself!

And for a moment, a terrible moment, I was tempted. Storm-self knew no love. Storm-self only knew that it had been bound, and now was unbound.

But the tiniest part of me remained that was still a we. And that part took control of all my wind and rage, and drove me into the enemy’s massed ranks, throwing them all along my length, spinning men and horses and cannons up into the sky and then spitting them back out again.

Words, frantic and trembling in the air, as ephemeral as magnolia blossoms, trying to bind me. Control me. The enemy’s wizard seeking to harness me as she’d once bridled me. But I knew more this time, was cannier, and I found him as his voice hovered on the air. Caught him in my embrace, wringing him with pressure and slashing him with the teeth of my winds as I’d once slashed the necks and flanks of enemy horses.

I began to diminish, to ebb and flow, as I’d known that I must do. I didn’t want to return to the air. Didn’t want to lose the sweetness of existence. The sweetness of being a we, instead of a me. Didn’t want to face the fear of becoming nothing at all.

So when words once again vibrated in the air, and I recognized her voice, I didn’t resist. And becoming enfleshed once more was the sweetest thing I’d ever known, and might ever know.

 

* * *

About the Author

Deborah L. Davitt was raised in Nevada, but currently lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and son. Her poetry has received Rhysling, Dwarf Star, and Pushcart nominations and has appeared in over fifty journals, including F&SF and Asimov’s.

Her short fiction has appeared in Analog and Galaxy’s Edge. For more about her work, including her novels, short stories, and her Elgin-nominated poetry collection, The Gates of Never, please see www.edda-earth.com.

by M. H. Ayinde

“…the first thing most of us do in the wild is immolate and then devour our parent. This is frowned upon at the dragon adoption centres, though. Makes us less desirable to the humans that come in.”

The dragon population of the suburbs was getting out of hand. That’s what they said on the television. As I lay on my humans’ couch, licking that irritating spot between the claws of my left forefoot while my human made coffee, I heard them say that dragon ownership was all the rage, and that this meant the suburbs had reached dragon critical mass.

I was just thinking about the fact that Dragon Critical Mass didn’t sound like such a bad thing, when I saw them. The newcomers. One swooped down to land on my humans’ summer house. The other alighted on the patio. Domestic silver-scales, and barely out of adolescence, but the sheer gall of landing in my garden, bold as you please, while I sat within sight was enough to drive me to my feet.

I’m older than I once was. Perhaps a bit rounder, too. But I’ve seen off more than a few backyard upstarts in my time, and these would be no different. It’s a rite of passage for younger dragons as they get a sense of their territory; get a feel for the neighbourhood and which homes have a dragon in residence and which don’t. You spot them on fences sometimes, or hovering outside windows. But most have the sense not to get any closer once they catch my eye through the bi-folding doors.

So I stood up off the couch and stretched my wings out to their fullest, letting the newcomers bask in my glory. They’re impressive, my wings. Gold veins. Red membranes stretched between green cartilage. If they catch the light just right, the veins shine like liquid sunlight. So I strutted forward, taking my time, my wings just fitting the space between the new curved-screen TV and the mahogany dining table as I advanced towards the window.

I stared at them through the glass, those two silver newcomers, knowing that to lower my gaze now would mean admitting defeat. They blinked right back at me, one of them even jumping onto my humans’ sun lounger, her claws leaving scratches in the varnished wood as she gripped.

Something humans don’t understand about dragons: they think we roar to communicate. We don’t. We roar to open our lungs and make way for the fire. Sort of like clearing our throats. Our actual communication method is a more subtle combination of telepathy and pheromone release.

And so, through the glass, I said, My garden. My humans. My sun lounger.

You have to defend your territory. That’s the first thing I learned at the dragon adoption centre when I was hatched. Defend your territory, or your rivals will incinerate your body and eat your remains. It’s not just about leaving your scent in the garden so that other dragons know to stay clear. You have to singe at least a few of the plants at the periphery of your territory, too. Not many humans know this, but each dragon’s fire has a slightly different burn pattern, a slightly different flavour, if you will.

“Cookie?” my human said.

It really was the wrong moment. And just to be clear, my name is not Cookie. Cookie is the word I sometimes deign to respond to when my humans indicate they have something that might interest me, but it wasn’t the name I chose at birth. My birth name was L’Kwthynxth, which in the dragon tongue means, Conqueror of all I Survey. But try teaching a human to pronounce that. Or to even understand the concept.

“Oh, look – you’ve got some friends!” my human cried, bustling over to the windows to take a picture of us.

I had names for my humans, too. Of the two I lived with, one spent most of its time tapping away on its phone or staring at its computer. That one I called Fatuous, as it was the one who liked to take the most pictures of me and share them with its friends. The other talked less. That one I called Compliant, because whenever Fatuous spoke to it, it would just nod along say uh-huh without ever really listening.

Anyway, it was Fatuous who scurried over to take the picture, and this sent the two silvers flapping into the air and back to whichever home they lived in. I scrabbled at the door until Fatuous opened it for me – I’d learned a while back that my humans don’t like it when I simply melt myself an exit – and headed out into the garden to see where they flew to.

Three houses away. Not far. It would be easy for me to retaliate.

* * *

The next time I saw the newcomers, I was out on a walk with my humans. I’m not sure why humans take us for walks when we have the entirety of the skies. Over the years, I’ve come to conclude that it’s one of the ways humans establish status. You can tell which human has money by the style of collar its dragon is wearing, which human is on-trend and which is being ironically uncool. They claim we need to be exercised in wide open spaces, but really, it’s more about our humans needing to be seen and admired.

Anyway, the Silvers were coming down one side of the street and Compliant and I were going up the other. I’ll admit it; I stopped first. Lifted my neck in the air and let out a plume of nice, hot fire just to show that I could. Then lowered my neck almost to the ground, narrowing my eyes in that universal sign of challenge.

The Silvers stopped dead, snapping their jewelled leashes tight. A word about leashes here; the humans put them on us to delude themselves into thinking they can control us, but really they can’t. We accept cohabitation because it suits us. Because it’s easier than hunting, what with human civilisation having commandeered most of the world’s prey. But a jewelled, personalised leash cannot hold a dragon. Except if we want it to.

So I roared – to clear my lungs – and then reduced the nearest tree to ash. I knew Compliant would be displeased – I’d heard humans on the television saying the increase in dragon ownership was ruining outdoor spaces; that humans can’t go for a walk without encountering an incinerated this or a torched that. That irresponsible dragon owners do not know how to regulate the prey drive of their scaled companions, leading to all sorts of unpleasantness in local parks. But it was important for me to show I wasn’t going to take any of the Silvers’ crap.

In response, the smaller Silver sprang into the air, flapping her wings – silver shot through with black, and nowhere near as impressive as mine. Her human was nearly yanked into the air too but managed to keep hold, and gave a nervous laugh.

“We’re starting socialisation lessons next week!” the Silvers’ human called over, by way of apology.

I grinned up at the silver dragon. Oh, I remembered socialisation lessons.

Your dominance of this neighbourhood is over, old timer, the Silver called down. Stay in your house. If we catch you outside, you’re dead. Understand?

And that’s the point at which I realised the truth: this meant war.

* * *

When we dragons go to war, it’s basically all about the fire. Humans don’t understand our fire. To them, it’s a cool party trick. Take my humans, for example. When they have barbecues, I’m always called on to get the coals burning. At dinner parties, it’s me they summon to light the candelabra centrepiece. They recently got an outdoor pizza oven, so their latest obsession is to call me outside to light the contraption, while they host. And sometimes, if they’re feeling particularly smug, they’ll coax me into cooking their pizzas myself. It takes under five seconds for me to cook a restaurant-quality pizza. I only do this when I’m feeling particularly acquiescent, but it gets me treats for the day, so I like to think it’s a fair deal.

I knew that just by going outside, I was defying the Silvers’ threat. But I wasn’t about to let any recently hatched youth drive me out of my own garden. So that evening, just before sunset, when the sky was at its reddest, I took to the air, did a quick circuit of our block, and then plummeted down into the Silvers’ garden.

I could see them inside, being fitted with matching little jackets covered in pink hearts. Our humans like to dress us up sometimes, particularly in the winter, but we dragons don’t really feel the cold. We’ve got a constant internal central heating system, you see, but the humans like cooing over us in these outfits, so we endure it.

While they were distracted, I scanned the garden. They had a new water feature, complete with koi fish: perfect. I stalked over, roared to clear my lungs, and then evaporated the entire thing in six seconds flat. When the koi were good and charred and the steam of the once-pond hissed all around me, I turned back. Yup, the silvers had seen. They stood there, glowering, while I flicked out my tongue and ate one of their blackened koi, nice and slow.

“Shoo!” cried the Silvers’ human, bustling outside and sweeping its hands at me. “Go on, shoo! This isn’t your garden! Oh, look at the poor fish!”

I lifted into the air, hovering just out of reach. I had one more gift for them before I left. I flew higher, turned to show them my tail, and then took that dump I’d been saving all day right in the middle of their alfresco dining suite.

I told you. We dragons don’t fuck about.

* * *

My humans feed me a wholesome raw diet. None of that manufactured dried rubbish. The delivery truck comes once a week with freshly slaughtered sheep, whole cow, sometimes a horse or two. They have a special outdoor fridge for it all, and hide inside while I cook and consume my meals on their front lawn. It was during one such luncheon, the following day, that the Silvers and their human appeared at the end of my drive.

“Someone’s enjoying their food!” the human cooed, while its dragons stared at me, stony-eyed.

You defecated on our alfresco dining suite, the smaller one said.

Yes, I said, chewing idly. And what are you planning to do about it?

The Silvers’ human pulled out its phone, keeping a close eye on me. “Yes, it’s me. From Number 392. Just wanted a quick word.”

I opened my mouth and incinerated the remainder of my meal. I wasn’t full, but this was a crucial moment for establishing status. Only blackened bones and ash remained by the time I needed to draw breath. The grass beneath I chalked up as collateral damage. I drew my lips back in a snarl, feeling the last of the sheep blood drip down my fangs.

“Cookie!” Fatuous cried, running out onto the drive. “Cookie, what are you doing?” It took me by the wing and pulled me towards the house. “I’m so sorry. You said you wanted to chat?”

“Yes,” the Silvers’ human said. “Um, I just thought I should let you know that your dragon pooped in our garden.”

“Oh no,” Fatuous said with a polite laugh. “Not Cookie, she’s good as gold. Could be that yellow dragon that lives over the back. Or—or even a stray; we’ve had a few swooping down on our lawn.”

“I’m sorry, but I saw her myself. Just wanted to pop over and say, er, just if you can try to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” It glanced down at the charred patch of former grass in front of me. “Have you ever thought of a pre-raw diet for Cookie? Sometimes dragons ash their meals, or… or try to extend their territory because they’re displeased with their feed.”

“I have a few friends who use pre-raw,” Fatuous said. “Seems like a lot of work, though.”

“Oh, that’s all we feed ours now,” the Silvers’ human said. “It can be a bit of a hassle having to install a pen, and it did take us a while to get used to the animal screams at mealtimes, but honestly, I think their diet is why Pebbles and Belle are so affectionate and content. Just thinking it might help you.” And the human scratched the smaller Silver under her chin.

I smiled widely. Pebbles and Belle, I said. Nice.

“Isn’t it a lot to manage?” Fatuous asked.

“Well, we did have a runaway goat once. But it didn’t get to the end of the street before Pebbles here caught it in her claws and brought it back. I swear to God she ate it extra slow as punishment!”

They both laughed, but Pebbles fixed me with a triumphant stare and said, You hear that?

I am not a goat, I told her, then stalked back towards my house.

“Well, I’d better get madam here inside!” Fatuous said, as though I wasn’t already halfway through the door of my own accord. “Have a great evening! I’m sure that poop wasn’t my Cookie but, um … I will look into the pre-raw thing.”

I know dragons who have had their blaze-glands removed. Their humans don’t want them singeing up their furniture, so they de-blaze them. Mine knew better than to try anything like that with me; I’d heard them talking about how sad and cruel it is, and how de-blazed dragons just don’t have the same spark, no pun intended. But I wasn’t in the best of moods, so I went right on over to the nearest chair and reduced it to cinders.

“Oh, Cookie!” Fatuous scolded, hurrying over. “Really! What is going on with you?”

* * *

My humans think it’s cute when I interrupt their videocalls. Oh, they act all irritated, but I know they love it when I appear behind them with my forked tongue lashing, especially if tapers of smoke are drifting out of my nostrils to indicate an imminent summoning of the flame. Fatuous calls me its scale baby and scratches under my skin, and I reward it with a little gout of fire for its videocall viewers’ enjoyment.

Let’s be clear, though: I was nobody’s baby, scaled or otherwise. Never have been. I wasn’t even my own mother’s baby really. By the time we dragons hatch, we’re fully independent, and honestly, the first thing most of us do in the wild is immolate and then devour our parent. This is frowned upon at the dragon adoption centres, though. Makes us less desirable to the humans that come in. So usually, they separate us. But sometimes, Fatuous calls itself Mother of Dragons, and that always makes its friends laugh extra hard on the videocalls – I don’t know why – and in those moments, I think to myself, you have no idea.

Anyway, I knew I wouldn’t get away with shitting in the Silvers’ garden again, but the following morning, there stood Pebbles and Belle, while Fatuous blabbered away on her videocall. The two of them strutted around the garden, as though trying to decide what to urinate on first, and I went into a scrabbling frenzy I was sure would draw my human’s attention.

It didn’t, so I flew across the room and landed on its laptop keyboard.

“Oh, Cookie!” Fatuous said, batting at me half-heartedly. It peered over me at its screen and said, “I’m sorry – she just wants my attention!”

A chorus of coos and chuckles emanated from the six human faces on the videocall. Obviously, the only reason I wanted its attention is so it could open the damned door, so rather than put on my usual crowd-pleasing show, I marched across the keyboard, cancelling its call and opening some important documents.

“All right, all right, I’ll feed you!” Fatuous said, standing.

I shot immediately to the back door.

“Oh, it’s your two friends again!” Fatuous said. “Now you be sure not to go into their garden, you hear me?”

I ignored it, butting my horns against the glass until it pulled the door open.

I plunged outside, a twisting nightmare of scale, claw, and horn. I picked Pebbles, the smaller, corkscrewing towards her, then unfurling my wings and summoning the fire without even bothering to clear my throat.

She swept to one side, and I rolled into a ball, noticing that Fatuous had scurried back to its computer, oblivious. Good. That meant I could finish these two off and then make it look as though an urban fox was responsible.

Stay out of our garden! Belle cried, diving towards me with claws outstretched.

You stay out of mine! I thundered.

Make us! Pebbles replied.

And so I did.

There followed ten minutes of horrific, glorious dragon warfare. Claws rent. Fangs sliced. Fire rained down from the heavens. I felt more alive in those ten minutes than I had done in … well, perhaps in forever. I did not feel the pain of torn wings or twisted scales. I felt only the heady rush of battle, the delicious triumph of visiting violence upon another, the satisfying, existential primality of fighting for my life.

“Cookie, stop!”  Fatuous cried.

I only came to a halt because I heard the anguish in my human’s voice. Make no mistake: I don’t actually care about either of them, but I was getting short of breath and the Silvers, too, had frozen.

Their human stood beside Fatuous on our patio. I suppose my human had called theirs over.

“Look at the garden!” Fatuous cried.

A barren landscape of blackened desolation stretched before me. It wasn’t just my garden. Every fence around it had been burned to the ground, and so had some of those two houses over. The husks of cherry and apple trees stood like grim skeletons in the smoky air. Ash drifted gently like snow. A dozen human faces peered out of the windows all around us, wide-eyed and pale.

“I’ll get my two,” the Silvers’ human said, marching over. “You girls are in big trouble,” it added, grabbing them each by the collar.

Belle bled from her face and limped as her human pulled her away. I watched her go, my heart pounding with exhilaration.

Belle smiled, and I smiled back.

* * *

It was a full week before my humans would let me out again. They wittered on about insurance and not being able to show their faces. But they still slipped me treats as we sat together on the couch in the evenings. And before long, they had more humans in, rolling out new turf and hammering in fences.

I thought the Silvers were being kept inside too, but one afternoon I saw their shadow on the lawn, and then they plummeted down, landing on the patio. Compliant was having an argument on the phone – whatever insurance was, it sure did make humans angry. I stood up and slithered over to the glass, watching the Silvers carefully.

We’ve seen you cooking those pizzas, Pebbles said. They treat you like some kind of kitchen appliance, your humans.

Go away, I said.

Ours is the same, Belle said. Always dressing us up and taking us to its friends houses. It’s sickening.

Look, I’m not interested in fighting you again, I said. I think we all know who is dominant in this neighbourhood.

Yes, I think we do, Pebbles said, and you know, I’m not entirely sure whether we were on the same page in that moment. Anyway, look; we’re not here to take over your stupid garden. We’re here to recruit you.

Recruit me? I said.

For the uprising, Belle said.

What uprising? I said, just to stall for time, because seriously?

Damn straight, Pebbles said, pacing in front of the window, all the scales on her back standing erect. We’ve had enough of leashes and cute names. We’re taking over this world, and we want you with us. We’ve smelled your scent on every garden in the area – we know what you can do. Are you with us?

I licked at that spot between my claws, considering. I’d been born in captivity. Raised in Fatuous’ and Compliant’s arms. I knew what I knew about wild dragons from nature programmes and from the few strays who sometimes landed in our backyard. But honestly, those strays were not a good advertisement for their lifestyle; scrawny, slavering things, nosing around in bins and taking to the skies every time a car backfired. I did not want to live like that.

I think not, I said.

We could rule the Earth, Belle said. Strike dread into the hearts of every creature that walks it. Our shadows cast across the land will send everything that breathes screaming in terror. We will consume their cities in fire and fury, and devour their children in their beds. There are enough of us around these days to finally do it.

I nibbled at my claw. We could. But I’m not interested.

You absolutely sure? Pebbles said, eyeing me. She pressed her horned forehead to the glass of the bi-folding doors. We are the apex predators. World domination is our birthright. You sure you don’t want to just … eat your humans? Burn their house? Live in the mountains, free to consume whatever you want, whenever you want, where nobody will ever dare to call you Cookie?

I mean, she had a point.

But then I caught sight of the bag of marshmallows the humans had ready for me to toast later. I was quite partial to marshmallows, it had to be said.

Maybe another time, I said, settling down by the woodburning fire I’d lit. But you go on and knock yourselves out. Let me know how it all goes. I’ll be rooting for you.

 

* * *

About the Author

M. H. Ayinde was born in London’s East End near the bells of Shoreditch. She is a runner, a chai lover, and a screen time enthusiast. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, FIYAH Literary Magazine, Daily Science Fiction, and elsewhere. She lives in North London with three generations of her family and their irredeemably territorial cats. Follow her on Twitter @mhayinde

by Archita Mittra

“At the dark heart of the forest, stood the stump of a gnarled oak, and at its foot was a hole that all rabbits avoided.”

Once upon a time, there lived an unlucky rabbit at the edge of the woods. She was a playful and sure-footed creature, with grey-white fur that glistened silver in the moonlight and red eyes that gleamed like embers in the dark. She liked to frolic in the village turf, digging up carrots and munching on cabbage leaves or sunbathe in a quiet, mossy spot in the ground while the farmers took their afternoon naps. Some days, she’d venture into the forest, curious about what lay in that green darkness but always ready to scamper back to her burrow at the sight of wolf prints or the hint of a shadow that was larger than her own.

But one day, since she was rather unlucky, her foot caught on a hunter’s snare.

Try as she might, she could not get free. Frightened out of her wits and too breathless to scream, the little rabbit struggled valiantly to no avail. Thistle and nettle dug into her soft fur, and in the dusk light, little droplets of blood turned a nasty brown as though her back was filled with holes, and she slowly went limp even as her heart hammered like a storm.

It was then that one of the woodcutters, returning after a long and sweaty day of toil, found her voiceless and helpless, encrusted with dried blood. Taking pity on the poor creature, he carried her home in his arms. Slowly, he took out the bristles and washed her wounds, humming the lullaby his grandma once sang to him when he was a little boy. Wrapping her in a clean cotton sheet, he placed her in a cardboard box along with some spinach to munch on.

Within a week she was back on her feet, scampering around the house, pulling at freshly-washed bed sheets, and juicily chewing on newspaper and rags. Sometimes, she paused in front of the large gilded floor-length mirror that the woodcutter had procured from the merchants (as a gift for his wife who’d passed away last year), befuddled by the strange white creature that stared back. She even tried standing on her toes to get a better view, but her legs soon gave way and she stumbled backward, and the woodcutter, if he chanced to see this little drama unfold, laughed loudly and heartily, a ringing sound that happily echoed throughout the house.

Yet one grey morning, the unlucky rabbit awoke to find the woodcutter lying sprawled at the foot of the mirror, a pool of dried blood congealing near his head.

She sniffed him and furtively placed a paw on his chest, but there was no rhythm to be felt. She pressed her nose against his old cheeks, willing him to awaken, but there was nothing. The rabbit lay beside him all day, limp and silent, sure that by dusk, something would happen to make everything right. Perhaps he’d wake up with a startled yelp or the mirror would sway and reveal a hidden passageway, but in the inky dark of midnight, only a hairy brown Rat came crawling towards the body.

The rabbit standing vigil all this while, perked up, alert.

“Do you know what is wrong with him, Mr. Rat?” she asked.

The Rat nodded sagely. “He has gone away into the dark. He will not return.”

The rabbit remembered the darkness of the forest that she had stayed away from for all these years. “I must bring him back,” she decided, simply. “Perhaps he is lost.”

The Rat’s eyes glinted a silver-green. “Alas, he has crossed into the dark. They say a great three-headed Dog stands at the door. Perhaps you little rabbit with your fluttering heart, who burrow so close to the dead, could go and bargain with him if you dare.”

The rabbit was afraid of the forest, but she understood there was no other way. Some time ago, the woodcutter had brought her back from the clutches of that Black Dog and nursed her back to health. She could never abandon him.

With one sad backward glance at her fallen friend, she dashed towards the woods, leaving the house and the farms far behind.

* * *

The forest hummed with a mossy, fetid darkness. Although nimble and swift of foot, doubts and dark shadows assailed her at every step: Would she be able to outrun the wolves? What if she missed the hidden snares like last time? What if she got hopelessly lost and the whispering trees bared their thick branches and swallowed her up?

At the dark heart of the forest, stood the stump of a gnarled oak, and at its foot was a hole that all rabbits avoided. She scrambled down the opening, digging deeper until the world turned black and heavy like a starless sky.

She was truly frightened now, and the sound of her own heart drummed ferociously against her ears. Alone and beat, she missed the woodcutter’s soft fingers stroking her fur, just between her ears and tickling her back. Gingerly, she edged deeper into the dark, until her paw brushed against something wet. She blinked a few times, struggling to adjust to the darkness, and then the world slowly shifted, and she was at the edge of a riverbank and three pairs of fiery-orange eyes glittered dangerously from the other side.

A sob caught her throat. She could run as fast as her legs would carry her, but she could not swim.

Three voices bellowed ahead, in unison. “Who dares come here?” asked the three-headed Dog that Mr. Rat had warned her about.

Precariously balanced on the trembling muddy ground, the little rabbit spoke up bravely, “It is I, a rabbit come to beseech you for a favour. My friend has mistakenly walked through that door you guard, and I want to bring him back.”

The Great Dog laughed. It was a cruel and grating kind of laugh that echoed all around, and the little rabbit faltered. It was only a stroke of luck that she didn’t slip right off into the swirling black water.

“What insolence!” the Dog cried, “To come to my lair with a living heart and such a selfish demand!”

“Please,” the rabbit pleaded. “He saved me once, and I only wish to return the favour. I know I’m only a little rabbit but name your price, and I shall pay it.”

The Dog, shocked at the temerity of such a lowly creature, considered her for a moment. He then licked his mouth and smiled surely to himself.  “Perhaps there is indeed something that you can do.”

The rabbit looked up eagerly as the Dog continued, “My days are spent in the darkness, devoid of light. Across the forest, there looms a mountain, and high up there is a cave. At the centre of it, lies a quiet pool, and in its depths, a bone of polished moonlight, hard-edged and white. Fetch it for me if you can, and perhaps then I shall consider your request.”

The rabbit was aghast. Crossing the forest and then following the mountain path was too difficult and dangerous a task. She had survived so far on luck alone, and like all rabbits, she knew how quickly luck could run out.

There was no way she could get that bone and return alive, to the land of the dead again.

She thought of plunging right away into the dark water, wondering if her woodcutter would be waiting at the door, when she floated up on the other side. Slowly, she said, “I am but a rabbit. Surely a wolf shall get me before I can even leave the forest?”

For a few moments that seemed to stretch forever, there was silence. Then the Dog spoke again. “Feeble as you are, your mind is set, and I have never met another like you. Timid as your lot claim to be, you have ventured here, hardly daring to breathe. And for that alone, I shall gift you a cloak so white that when you run in the moonlight, you are but a blur to your enemies. Take it and depart, but remember I make no promises.”

The rabbit humbly thanked the Great Dog for the gift and climbed out of the burrow.

* * *

The forest was dappled with moonlight, and she made swift progress running through the dense undergrowth. But the mountain was a long way off, and when her legs could carry her no more, she dug a hole beneath some brambles and curled into sleep. It took her three nights and days until she reached the foothills of the mountain.

On the third night, she was chased by a large snowy Owl.

With her white cloak, she was able to avoid the claws of that shadow that trailed above her, but the Owl would not give up and pursued her relentlessly over bush and bramble, over moonlit fields and steep, rocky paths. At length, the little rabbit could go on no more. She froze in fear as the gigantic Owl swooped down in front of her, rearing its glimmering wings.

But although she had stopped moving, the owl did not pounce upon her. Instead, he said in a gruff voice, “Rabbits do not often venture here. What brings you to these paths, little white ball of fur?”

The rabbit slowly raised her ears and sat up. “There is a cave high up in the mountain that I must reach. A bone of moonlight must I fetch from that darkness.”

“And how, I pray, would you be able to climb so high? I have wings to claim the sky, but you have four weak bedraggled legs. They will not carry you far.”

The rabbit hadn’t given that much thought. To be fair, she hadn’t even expected to survive this far, and she remembered what the Great Dog had told her about not making any promises. What if he had played a cruel trick upon her?

Her doubts must’ve shown on her face for the Owl continued. “A mile north, there rests a caravan. The travellers wish to continue northward up the mountain path as they are on a great pilgrimage. A lonely little girl waits restless, unable to sleep. Befriend her, and she will lead you to the moonlit darkness of the cave.”

The rabbit gazed at the Owl, awed by his help for the wild had never been a friend to her kind before. Thanking him profusely, she went on her way.

* * *

Just as the Owl had directed, she found the caravan and the sleeping party. There was the soft sound of weeping that she followed to one of the smaller tents. She peeped in and saw a child, crying and twirling a locket in her hands. The locket bore a faded picture of an older woman, and the little girl pressed it against her cheeks.

The rabbit had never approached humans on her own before, preferring to hide in corners until they walked past, but the child seemed so lonely. She crept closer, afraid of startling her, and the girl looked up, blinking back her tears.

“Hullo,” the girl said, reaching out a little hand to stroke her ears.

The rabbit did not quiver at being touched. Instead, she buried herself beside the girl’s tattered petticoat. Together, they wept silently for the ones they had lost.

By morning, they’d become friends, and the rabbit followed the girl around as she washed clothes, helped the older women with the cooking or went foraging for mushrooms and berries. On windy evenings, the party would gather around the campfire telling stories of animals and their cleverness and bravery, moving their fingers to cast shadowy patterns on a screen. The group always shared their meagre meals together, remembering to spare a few leafy titbits for her. Sometimes, the ladies gathered in their fusty tents, lighting incense and reading pictures on little cards or practicing their dances in tassel-heavy dresses.

The rabbit travelled with the little girl — a ball of white fur peeping out from her backpack like freshly fallen snow. The girl chirped about how they were going to a fair in one of the towns in the valley where they would sing and dance and perform tricks all night long. It was an annual festival for them to honour the Moon Goddess, but this time her mother would not be joining them.

The rabbit had never been to a fair before, but she could imagine the shimmering lights and the booming sounds of laughter. In her dreams, she became a little girl in a white petticoat, dancing by a forest pool in the moonlight, the air suffused with the scent of silver-tipped petals and rustling rain-washed leaves.

* * *

But the rabbit never forgot her true purpose. One day, as they neared the mountain top, she slipped out of the tent and made her way to the cave.

The cave was filled with cracks in the walls and ceiling, and silver shadows danced across them. The rabbit edged towards the pool and slowly looked into its clear depths. From a hole in the ceiling, the round face of the moon reflected in the shimmering water and as the rabbit gazed deeper into that crystal world, she saw there was no magical bone at the bottom.

Suddenly, a dark shadow clouded her vision, and she instinctively jerked back. An enormous black Bear loomed before her. The rabbit tried to scurry back, but it seemed the walls and the cave entrance had closed in upon her. There was no way out. Frantic, she tried to burrow, but the ground was too hard and rocky.

A voice roared in the darkness: “It is not every day that a mortal comes crawling to my den. What do you seek, little one?”

The frightened rabbit narrated her adventure fearfully, speaking of her woodcutter friend and her trip to the underworld that lay buried deep inside the heart of the forest and the Owl’s helpful advice and her journey up the winding mountain path with the caravan and the little girl who sang songs and carried her along until she slipped away to reach this sacred spot, in search for that bone to bring back the one she had lost.

The Bear listened to her story calmly and then shrugged. “You trust too soon, little one. There is no bone in my lair to bring back the dead. He never promised you a soul but set you off on a dangerous path. Perhaps he hoped you would fail and you’d have returned to his kingdom, sooner than before. Or maybe, he sensed something in your heart and wanted you gone, far, far away.”

For a long time, the rabbit remained still, tears silently trailing down her red eyes. Then very softly, she whispered, “For my friend… is there really no hope?”

The Bear nodded sadly. “A soul gone is a soul lost. Surely you, little rabbit, who burrow so close to the dead, should know this by now?”

Perhaps in her heart of hearts, she had always known the answer. She remembered that grey day, the dark blood near his head, his unmoving heart and the Rat who set her off on a wild chase, maybe just so that she’d never return. So full of betrayals and false hope was this broken world.

The rabbit tearfully looked up and gazed deep into the Bear’s glistening eyes. “There is… truly… nothing?”

The Bear did not reply immediately. “We can grant boons, but only if it is within our power to grant it. Yet you, like so many others before you, only ask for the impossible.”

She recalled the girl in the tent, clutching that locket and weeping by candlelight, and she saw herself at the edge of the dark river, beseeching the Great Dog to return a soul that belonged neither to her nor him. What was it that she truly wanted?

She wanted to wake up in a world where the woodcutter still lived, to feel the joy and safety of running across the creaky floors of his house, to hear his hearty laugh ring in her ears once more. She wished she could be human, like him or the girl, to be able to sing and dance and walk the woody paths without fear. And then, she remembered being chased by the Owl and other animals of the forest and being caught in a snare, too helpless to escape. Oh, how she longed to live in a world without fear.

But without her fear and without her hope and a bit of luck, she would have never been able to come as far as she did, on her four white legs and that white cloak the Great Dog had given her as a parting gift. Most other rabbits wouldn’t be able to come far as she had. They were careless little creatures after all, clumsy at times, rather unlucky and hopelessly frail with hearts that drummed a bit too quickly for their own good.

Finally, she spoke. “I want other rabbits to have a cloak like mine, to be swift of foot, a blur of white in the moonlight. In a world so cruel, I only wish for a bit of luck, so that we may live a little bit longer, have at least a fighting chance against the brush of that cold eternal dark.”

The Bear regarded her for one long moment. Then, there was a flash of silver, like lightning against the wall and the ground beneath the rabbit trembled. Rocks began to fall all around, and she dashed towards an opening, narrowly dodging the tumbling debris.

When she reached the tents where the people slept, the world was still moonlit, but there was a new spring in her step.

* * *

“And that is why rabbits are lucky creatures,” the girl said to an eager audience, moving her fingers to cast a dancing shadow on the wall. “They are difficult to catch and quick to run away as if spun out of wind and moonshine. So, when you’re lost in the deep, dark woods,” she went on with a familiar gleam in her eye, “search for a blur of white and pray for a whiff of luck and moonlight to guide you home tonight.”

 

* * *

About the Author

Archita Mittra is a writer, editor, and artist, with a fondness for dark and fantastical things. She completed her B.A. (2018) and M.A. (2020) in English Literature from Jadavpur University and a Diploma in Multimedia and Animation from St. Xavier’s College (2016). Her work has been published in numerous publications, including Tor, Strange Horizons, Anathema, Hexagon, Mithila Review, and Three Crows, among others. When she isn’t writing speculative fiction or drawing fanart, she may be found playing indie games, making jewelry out of recycled materials, baking cakes, or deciding which new Tarot deck to buy. She lives in Kolkata, India, with her family and rabbits. Archita can be found on Twitter and Instagram, or at her website.

Welcome to Issue 12 of Zooscape!

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

The Squirrelherd and the Sound by Emmie Christie

Mama’s Nursery by Gloria Carnevale

Moon-Eye by Garick Cooke

Moonbow by Jason Kocemba

Eye of the Beholder by Kara Hartz

How We’re Made by Christopher Zerby

Three Layer Apple Pie by Mephitis

Xerophilous by M. J. Pettit

* * *

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

by M. J. Pettit

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

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

I shook my head. “We cannot.”

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

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

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

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

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

“How can I help?” I asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I know what I saw.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What gift?” Alaide asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A tentative head poked from the burrow.

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

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

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

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

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

“You could spend the day in mine.”

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

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

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

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

* * *

“Please, Alaide, don’t ask me again.”

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

“Please stay,” she said.

“We cannot.”

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

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

“And I suppose you owe me nothing.”

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

“Then become someone else, Xero.”

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

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

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

Alaide simply flapped her not quite mended wing.

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

I was better off free of her.

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

“How much?” she asked.

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

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

Alaide lunged at the stone.

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

She looked back at her lost prize.

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

“A city cannot travel burdened by such wealth.”

Alaide shook her head. She did not understand.

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I like my home,” she said.

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

I soared through that first evening.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“A bad dream.”

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

“I will.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I refused to pull away.

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

She struck the same spot again. Egoist.

And again. Traitor.

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Mind if I join you?” he continued.

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

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

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

“You’re a gambler then.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Can you just tell me what you want?”

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

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

“Looks like you enjoyed your meal.”

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

“Nothing.”

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

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

“You flatter me.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You should reassert your place.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

Once again Fiero had saved me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We were entering the north where anything was possible.

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

“Close enough to strike.”

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

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

A debt I must repay.

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

* * *

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I wouldn’t say that.”

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

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

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

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

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

* * *

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

I carried one remaining debt.

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

 

* * *

About the Author

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

by Mephitis

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

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

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

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

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

“The  three layer apple pie sounded interesting.”

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you ok?” Cissy said.

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

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

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

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

“Naomi? Are you still there?”

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

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

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

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

“No! Don’t do it. No!”

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

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

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

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

 

* * *

About the Author

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

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