Kimio dropped beneath a thorny, overhanging arm of the monstrous blackberry bramble that concealed his and Fruyr’s fort from less inquisitive eyes. The moist residue of a late, spring rain muddied the lining of an abandoned burrow, which served as the fort’s natural entryway. Kimio slid down the burrow, soiling the light-colored linen of his trousers, wearing out the traction on the soles of his sandals, and caking his bare toes in mud. He landed on the muddy floor of the single-chamber fort, with a squirming, squealing piglet tucked under his armpit…
Author Archives: zreshicaia
Harpaphe Haydeniana
A many-legged, miniscule marauder, / A stealthy, silent soldier, / Feeds upon the decaying and the dead. / With a mouthful of rusty needles, / He fertilizes the forest floor, / Decorates his shiny, black, skeletal armor, / With mustard-yellow war paint, / Warns away the furry, bucktoothed giants, / And the feathered, beaked pilots, / Tempted to pierce and crack / The forest infantryman’s bony plates, / And receive a mouthful of cyanide…
A Hiatus
Enclosed within a small, dark space, twelve-year-old Oaklyn sat uncharacteristically still, and with her knees pressed tightly against her chest. The moon plucked waves from the body of the sea. The waves tossed the boat that rode them. The boat rocked the wooden crate that carried Oaklyn to who-knows-where. Her stomach churned. Designed to transport produce, not people, the rough wood of the crate splintered Oaklyn’s tender, bare feet. Tears streamed down her cheeks when she remembered how her day began…
Discordance
I should have ignored the music box. A twinge in its familiar song drew me out from under the bedcovers. I feared the disrupted lullaby might startle the baby awake, but the baby snoozed, and still, I was restless. I swung my legs over the side of my bed and gingerly lowered my feet to the floor. I tiptoed around the toys scattered about the floor and snuck across the room to the small end table beside the baby’s crib. I swiped the music box from the table, turned it over, and inspected its winding key. I spun the key thrice before I realized my mistake; I had not opened the box. I flipped the box over and opened the lid no more than an inch. My fingertips curled over the rim of the box, halfway in and halfway out. I paused and blinked…
Where the Arrow Halted
Kylas rested his elbows against a steel railing, which ringed the main deck of the Larkspur and prevented tipsy or otherwise clumsy sailors from toppling over the rim of the deck to a laughable, untimely death. Officers of the Cloaked Hive—the specialized militia Kylas served—cared little if one of their worker bees drowned. Stupidity, like weakness, was best uprooted before it could sprout into full-blown incompetence. The officers of the Cloaked Hive installed the railing only to appease inspectors and to protect the company’s public image. Renowned for its ruthlessness and its effectiveness, clients hired the Cloaked Hive to sweep the most dangerous fields clean and leave not a trace of themselves behind. If worker bees met laughable deaths en route to one of those fields, they disgraced the company; tainted its public record as a one-stop solution to scheming aggressors…
The Aftermath of Ordera
Wondering what came before? Curious about the nature of untamed magic? The prehistory of Interrealmeus and the legend of Forgotten Matriarch Ordera is summarized in this lore post.
Mourning the Moonlight Switch
I pity those who cross my path / When the moon insights my wrath / I never plan to wound my friends / I cannot say what the wolf intends…
House of the Maddened Son
When a second son was born, the D’Nier household grew cold to its heir. Annias was more amicable than his elder brother. Edward closed himself off to the world, locked himself in his bedchamber with charcoal and parchment, and sketched haunting images from beyond the grave. Edward’s attendants recounted what they saw as the guise of demon possession. Lord Rastan D’Nier collected his son’s sickening sketches, tied the boy to a pillar in the ballroom, and set the sketches ablaze. Edward writhed against the ropes that bound him, shouted, and screamed…
An August Confession
In August, the clouds disappeared from the cerulean sky. The vibrant sun scorched the grass, which grew atop the cliffs that lined the riverbank. The sun’s reach dipped to the river below, evaporated the upper half of the river’s winter-accumulated depth. Tips of formerly invisible boulders peaked out from the surface of the water. Where the river calmed, the water was lucent. An aesthetic array of smooth, colorful stones decorated the sandy riverbed. Sturdy crawfish scampered atop rocks or burrowed beneath them. Glistening, rainbow-scaled trout spawned in the calmest, underwater pools. They swam the length of the river, braved the rapids, weaved in and out of the rocks, but never acknowledged their crawfish neighbors. They scattered only as the sandaled feet of two fourteen-year-old adventurers cut the water and steadied against the slippery riverbed…
Tale of a Sputtering Spark
A deceitful act encapsulates, / Taints, represses, and destroys / Innocent eyes and trusting souls / Color drains and greyscale paints / Across the once blissful dreamscape / That encouraged joyous naïveté…