Lessons On Chains
Stella carried her yarn bag up six flights of stairs, across the tenth floor apartments, and up two fire escapes every morning before work. She sat on the building's air conditioning unit, poured herself a cup of black coffee from her late husband's...
Before The All-Dark
I peered out from the Burrow at a world gone chill and dim. Skeletal trees guarded the flat sky. Both suns hung low on the horizon, even this near to midday. The above-ground stretched as far as my eyes could see, full of nothing but shadows and...
Episode Twelve: MAAB
P'rao waited for her on a public perch within sight of the apothecary's cave. He preened his feathers to a high gloss, and watched the air traffic in and out of the cliff aerie and the pedestrians waddling back and forth across the valley's bare...
ET5: Milyi's Decision
Horatch watched the hunters come. He'd tucked deep into the nearest rut when the girl screamed, and now his turret eyes scanned the jungle. The fronds shifted on all sides. The ring of humans closed in like a noose. Milyi still lay in the vines. Her...
The Crime
The Crime Milyi stared down the path where Rani had fled. She inhaled the settling dust and felt a gloom settle over her. Her chest tightened. She stiffened, stood taller, and made her way around to the front of her home. Grandmother and Kaiga...
The Gazelle Joint
The Gazelle Joint (The following events pertain to two characters owned in full by Monbai.) Ginny shifted from one foot to the other and eyed the spiral pillars to either side of the _Gazelle Gourmand's_ front entrance. The high glass windows were...
Episode Eight: MAAB
P'rao adjusted his angle and dropped like a stone until his talons just hovered over the wispy grasses. He flexed his claws and twisted to see Meech on his right, just now descending to a skimming altitude. Beyond his friend, the green wall that marked...
Episode Nine: MAAB
Episode Nine: The cave yawned near the bottom of the aerie wall, in the public area but far enough from the social vugs to be secluded. Marked for business and not fun. Tr'lia flew past it twice before fixing her eyes on the rim and coming in for a...
Live Cargo
"I don't take on live cargo." Cici reached under the collar of her jumpsuit and scratched the dense fur beneath. "What else you got?" The spaceport lighting made a kiln of her radiation resistant suit. She flattened triangle Corgi ears against her...
Episode Seven: MAAB
She tugged on a bit of grass, and the strands parted from the mat, pulling free. Tr'lia held the smaller bit in her beak and hopped two bounces to the right. The fiber had cost her the rest of her festival money, and it wasn't very good quality at...
Episode Si: MAAB
**Much Ado About Bluebottles: (continued)** P'rao waited for them under the bleachers. Tr'lia landed on the highest perch, three beats before Lili's impact rattled the dried timbers. She saw him twist his neck up, caught the flash of green in the...
Eleven
Tr'lia got used to the smells faster than she'd expected. Her curiosity over Mr. Steen's specimens helped, kept her mind distracted, focused. After the first day she learned to keep one eye on the cages at all times, and now she walked with a permanent...