It was cold out, the kind of cold which cuts right through clothing no matter how many layers one wears. Bone-chilling, some call it, because the cold cuts through skin and hair also, cuts right down deep until one feels one can never be warm again. Sharp, bitter wind darted now and again in gusts, chasing litter down the lonely streets and banging ( Read more... )

Princess Olindra was an unusual princess.  Although beautiful, she was also willful, a skilled fighter, far more intelligent than she was supposed to be . . . and so on, and so forth, just like every other willful princess in the history of willful princesses.

Well, prince after prince refused to marry her, saying she wasn’t a real princess.  What ( Read more... )

 (ech-ooshkya), a Scottish waterhorse, found mainly in the Highlands.  Similar to the kelpie, except instead of inhabiting creeks and rivers, is found in the sea, fresh- and salt-water lochs.  Can shapeshift easily (more easily than the kelpie) into a fine pony or horse or a handsome man.  While it will accept sheep and goats, and is attracted to ( Read more... )

Layers ( Read more... )

Story from prompt.
Prompt: Exploding wine, lots and lots of boxes, a griffin named Jasper

It is a little known fact about griffins, but things tend to be destroyed around them.  Vases crashing to the ground, tea boiling over, red rubber balls popping, and even (on one particularly memorable experience) wine exploding.

I didn’t ( Read more... )

Well, it approacheth.  I'm leaving for St. Andrews, Scotland in about two weeks.  Actually, I could be ready to go within a couple days, really; I'm half-packed and lacking much company -- pretty much everyone I know is already back in school.  And I wouldn't mind studying again.  Term doesn't start until 1st October, though.  That's plenty of time ( Read more... )

At least, I used to.  Now . . . now I have something else in my mind.  Something which makes me believe that flying isn't so impossible after all.  Not possible for me, perhaps, but I have seen people flying.  It's true.  Not dreams or hallucinations like a first thought, and so very different from my own fantasies.  People, real people soaring ( Read more... )

Teddy was not sore from sitting all week on the top of a narrow wooden bookshelf.  It was one of the (few) benefits of living in the form of a stuff animals.  Still, he was glad when the time came, and he was able to slip off the bookshelf and stretch into his normal form: one very much like that of a human.  Well, except for one thing.

The magic.

( Read more... )

            I was sitting in the café, drinking tea as I so often do.  It was a naturally sweet tea, black with plenty of cream.  Beside me lay a square ceramic plate with curved edges. It was white and simple, and held nothing but crumbs and oats from the snack I had had - a “Vegan Oat Bar.”  It tasted much better than it sounded. But then, food ( Read more... )

The Sandking is not king of much at all: just a rather large hill with some cacti growing around the edge.  The hill is made of entirely sand.  Sand, however, is not a very good material for making hills out of, so whenever the Sandking sat on his hill, the sand would slid out from underneath him and trickle farther and farther from the top, until ( Read more... )