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Taking Flight – an incomplete flight for Patreon

Jan10
I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but November ’16 had a lot of, ah, false starts.  So here’s another one, the beginning of the first story I started about flying.

Problem was, it’s sort of a nice setting image but it doesn’t want to go anywhere. 

🐦

Taking flight hadn’t been the easy part; it’d been terrifying, horrible, and, for more than a couple minutes, Parastoo had been absolutely certain she was going to die.

But every child did it, dove from the next, caught the wind, spread their wings, and flew – or missed, and tumbled, climbed back up and tried it again.  Every child had to fly, if they wanted to ever be an adult, if they ever wanted to really leave home. Continue reading →

Through the Portal – an incomplete catgirl invasion for Patreon

Dec7
Last month had a lot of not-quite-there stories, things that seemed good at first but didn’t quite work. While we’re gearing up for December’s prompt call, here’s the first of those “almosts” – thanks to DaHob. 
🚀

The invasion happened overnight (as far as the Americas were concerned, at least).  The portals opened, circles of blue light no bigger than a porthole, in bedrooms and offices and stores and streets around the world, and then they closed again, just as the sensors were starting to detect them.

There were witnesses, of course; even in places where it was midnight, not everyone was sleeping, and in places where it was daylight, the portals opened in very public places.  All of them told the same story: Continue reading →

Complications, a story for Patreon

Nov30

“And I hope I never see you again!”

The door slammed shut with a clang of finality.  Karl leaned against the wall and put his hands over his face.  It wasn’t dark yet; he had maybe fifteen minute till the moon came up.  It didn’t matter.  He couldn’t go after her.

He shouldn’t go after her.  Melody had been nothing but trouble from the first time he’d seen her.   She liked to tease, fine.  She liked to flirt, fine.  Sure, he got a little bit growly sometimes but he wasn’t an animal, well, all right, he wasn’t a monster, well… look, he wasn’t a bad guy, okay?  He wasn’t going to make a scene just because his girlfriend wanted to smile at some other guy.  Only assholes did that, and if Karl was sure of one thing, it was that he wasn’t an asshole.

She liked to nit-pick.  That got to him worse than the flirting, because the flirting, he knew she was trying to rile him up, but it was easy enough to just sit back and watch the way she moved, and the way all the guys knew she’d come in with him and was likely leaving with him.  Karl wasn’t a bit guy, but he had that air of menace thing down to an art form, and he made guys twice his size nervous.  But the nit-picking?  He wasn’t going to try to intimidate his girlfriend, and Melody didn’t really stop otherwise.  He wouldn’t beg her, he wouldn’t give in to all the dozens of things she wanted him to change on any given day, and he wouldn’t apologize for being himself.  So he got yelled at, and did not yell back, or snarl, or look in the least bit scary.

He didn’t even know what the last straw had been.  He didn’t particularly care, or, at least, he didn’t want to care.  He couldn’t go after her.  He shouldn’t go after her, with the moon about to rise.  He did his best to not be intimidating, but the wolf inside him had no such compunctions.

And he couldn’t, because she’d taken the key to his Moon-time cage with her, and Karl could see his cell phone.  On the other side of the basement, on the nightstand.

He banged his head against the wall again.  At least the moon would be here soon.

Want more?

Certain Things Remain (to One), for Patreon

Oct21

After Fated.

“He’s your cousin.” Karen’s mother made the word sound positively scandalous.

“It’s not as if he’s my first cousin or something,” Karen countered tiredly. She’d already had this conversation with a sister, two cousins, and her mother’s aunt Betty. “To find a common ancestor — and only one of them, I might add – you have to go back up two family splits to a great-grandmother who married three times. Gerry down the street is more related to me than that.”

“But…” Her mother made a distressed noise. “You’re not supposed to… supposed to…”

“The power has damn well decided I’m going to be childless. Fate has pretty much determined I’m going to be loveless. And I don’t have some other sister or cousin available to become the Aunt.”

“I know.” Her mother’s voice was spiraling upwards. “I know you never wanted this, Karen-enna, but that’s how the family happens sometimes. It was bad enough, you taking in those twins… but now you’re going to go and marry your cousin? Are you trying to get the family to censure you?” Continue reading →