Episode Four: MAABB
A triangle formation swooped low over their perch. Tr'lia twisted her neck and arched back to examine the players. Not one of them had a shiny green head. Beside her, Lili crunched a trio of jeweled crickets. Her bill snapped as she pulled each bug...
Last Man Standing
The eggheads always said we'd never do it, but they never once said it wasn't possible. Sitting on my knapsack in a mud-filled trench, this seems like a ridiculous thing to ponder, but the thought lodges in my brain as soon as our Captain gives word...
Episode Five: MAABB
She pressed her red bag higher up under her wing and hopped sideways toward the cave opening. From the side passage, the low whistle of her father snoring echoed against stone walls. The tunnels made him sound larger, more menacing than a squat sparrow...
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...
Prologue
When the labor pains sharpened to the point she could no longer deny them, Askeila packed herself a bag and hid it underneath the rickety bed. She wrapped a soft arm around her midsection, managed to heave herself onto the mattress, and after a break...
Rats
A rat walked into a bar. It wasn't that big of a deal, really. We've got rats in this join all the time. I should know. I own the place. We got Whiskers Mahoney in here every Saturday for a chat with his boys, and even now, if you looked over in that...
STI- A Dangerous Hope
Millie bent over the sleeping possum and frowned. He'd wandered in and out of consciousness for half the night, and the wound in his side had turned angry and red an hour in. Whatever made that cut hadn't been clean, and she weighed that fact alongside...
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...
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...
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...
STI-The Soup is Ruined
Millie's daughter-in-law was an angel. When Jeremy brought home the diminutive red squirrel, she'd questioned how so delicate an animal could thrive alongside her robust son. Patricia surprised her. Raised in a nest with six rowdy siblings, the girl...
STI- Teresa's Discovery
The skunk screamed, muzzle stretched into a wide gap and pink tongue curling around the single, terrified syllable. Hector moaned, let his lashes flutter and peeked just enough to be sure she had no weapon, that he wasn't about to be beaten or...