Squirrel Tree Inn
Deep in the boundary of the Oakthorn forest, nestled beside the road that leads from Brambleward to Sunnydown, you will find the Squirrel Tree Inn. Run by a family of grey squirrels, the inn is built into the trunk of a massive oak. It is both shelter...
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...
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...
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- Hector's Plight
Hector pulled the blanket around his body and leaned into the wind. His fur rippled, silver across his shoulders and back but fading to a pale ivory along his belly. He limped along the dark roadway, stumbling when a loose stone rolled beneath his...
STI- The Toad's Prophecy
The toad had slept in her yard for seven seasons. He moved very little, spoke even less, and aside from a brief week when the snows covered his warty hide and she feared he'd freeze solid, had been no trouble at all. Millie's friends had suggested she...
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...