raygungoth

The Tale of Split Rock Rena Deep in ground, and all around, with spiders everywhere, is a shimmering black that'll stab your back, and retreat to the caves a'fore dawn. There was a farmer named Taldain, once a thick, sinewy man whipped by the ravages of time into a sun-stained husk of his former self, his once plump wife Merra growing wrinkled and even thicker, and their boys getting old enough to start farms on their own. The time came at last when his fields no longer produced grain, so he packed up his donkey and his things, and he and his wife set off to the mountains where they would bother nothing and no one. One evening, as th

The Hopper and Utchusu Once all the spirits did not know where the animals should be. It was right after the animals had got made that the spirits thought they would get fed up very quickly with all kinds of chaos, so they went to the first hunter, Utchusu, who was out looking for food to bring to his wife, for she could get very irate if she had nothing to cook. They said, "man, you will need to make us a spear shaft for every animal, and each one must be a different size" and Utchusu agreed, not wanting to offend the spirits. They went to his wife Hetchea, and they said "woman, you will need to make us a spear head for every animal, and e

The Shield Lizard's Bet Many years had passed since the hopper had given up half his cunning to be with man and woman in their home, and he had prospered above all the other animals. Shield lizard looked in on them often from where he was in the world, and wanted to prosper so well himself. He wandered off into the jungle, seeking out the other half of hopper's cunning, which was also a hopper, and found her chasing dragonflies by a waterfall. "Hopper," he said, and she turned to see him. "What do you want?" she asked, "to play fivestones? I will win." "I want to live with man, too," shield lizard said, "I want to prosper like the other h

The Repentant Farmer There was once a farmer who lived at the edge of the Kingdom of Grasses on the plain of Serna, and he was also a woodsman of great skill. His carvings were the envy of his village and his wife was young and beautiful as she was wise in the ways of money and upkeep. One day, however, a priestess passed through and stayed the evening with him. She told him that she feared for his safety, that he never prayed or burned incense or made cocoa cakes for the spirits of the forest. He replied that if she had a husband and as many children as he had, she would not have time to do those things, either. She replied to him that he

Bruel counted himself lucky that he was able to find an apartment where he did, so far into the city and on the twentieth floor of a high-rise. Everything he needed could be found there, from the television to the couch to his great collection of books both new and old. Everything that is, except milk. One couldn’t quite think without a good glass of milk. That was, after all, the reason he was going out. He ran through his head a list of all-night stores that would carry milk. After great deliberation and thought, he decided on Frappe’s convenience store across from Antonio’s tailor shop on 34th street. He gathered his coa

 Part 1 Adam J. Thaxton March 04, 2007 The rain cheered and roared as an arena crowd as Chesstree fumbled with a set of rusted keys, some green with copper flakes and others simply cold and wet. Streamers of water ran down her dark riding coat and fogged the lenses of her archery glasses, perched on her forehead, since the shade brought by the dark clouds overhead obscured the blinding sun’s light. Her slick, dark violet skin shimmered with water droplets in the light of eternal street lamps, and her red eyes searched the shape of the door’s lock and quickly jerked back down to the keys in her hand. The scent of tar and steam

Beatrice Margot and the Dragon of Krosen County Adam J. Thaxton Beatrice Margot was walking along County Road 17 in Krosen county in the kingdom of Charnra, somewhere between abandoned cities left dead and dry from the famine, with the sun in the sky and the humidity bearing down. She eyed the empty canteen in her right hand and cursed the half-eaten sandwich in her left. The meal was good, the sandwich had real lettuce, real meat, and came wrapped in a real plastic bag, even. Frustrated, she eyed the overgrown rice paddies on either side of the road, then decided against refilling there. The last time, she had been sick for a few days,

In the cicada-bedecked summers we'd climb pecan trees that cried sliver-moon leaves while we shook branches, my friend and I. He wasn't on the swing set across the street; I could tell because the leaves were falling like I did through his attic ceiling but I couldn't hear the rust creaking. I found out next week he had drowned in Lake Okeechobee where a 19-foot gator was found; he fell off the boat and his parents wouldn't go in after him. I did not cry; only grandma's death could do that, and only five years afterward when Christmas came around and I realized I would never climb the pecan trees again or eat the chili she