H is for Hatred

(Okay, this one really is a tease....)  

   Thrall had stood at Alcor's side for decades while he waited for him to die.

     Maybe he had another twenty years to be patient, perhaps only ten. It would certainly have been less if he weren't under direct orders to protect the King of Eferem from any direct attack. They came too, for Alcor was not a popular king, and each time they did, Thrall resented having to protect the corpulent waste of skin, just as he resented having to keep silent and not tell his master precisely what he thought of him, in extensive, thorough detail.

     The only thing that he could do with any impunity was hate, and Thrall made of it a work of art. He threaded it into his aura and projected it, and as the years passed, he worked on the subtleties of his hatred, growing and nurturing it with infinite care. It was his masterpiece and Alcor didn't even realize what it was, just as he didn't know what he'd made the grand mistake of trapping all those years ago. Thrall would make sure that he regretted tricking him into coming here. He would make every last soul in Eferem regret it with their last dying breath.

     Because of his hate for his master, he thrilled when the little battler killed the prince and escaped with his woman, for all the infant was weak and not of his hive.  He luxuriated when the king's man turned traitor and joined the enemy. He rejoiced when Alcor's generals were slain and their battlers banished.

     The rage those events flooded Alcor with, the fear and hate they caused him, were what finally gave Thrall his grand idea. He could wait as he had been for Alcor to die, doing nothing more than what he was commanded, or he could cause his master to be destroyed without ever even touching him. The choice was a simple one.

       So Thrall the battle sylph stood at his master's side and overlaid the man with his hate, slowly, subtly, driving Alcor's own paranoia and hatred, patiently remaking his master into a madman bound for war, and Alcor had no idea it was happening. There was no way he could, after all.

     Alcor had no idea what he had in what he thought was just another battle sylph.

     And Thrall had no reason to feel anything other than hatred. 

G is for Grass

(I love the comments, by the way. First thing I do when I wake up is check my mail on my phone and every morning has been a good one. Thank you!)

G is for Grass

     “Why can’t we put down anything pretty?” Shore asked. Her voice was a watery burble, so soft even her master could barely hear her.

     With anyone else, Loren would have snapped for them to speak up, she wasn’t deaf. She smiled down at her little water sylph instead, even if the expression was a bit forced.

     “I know. I’d rather be working on a real garden too, but it’s Solie’s orders.” She gave an exaggerated sigh, which the small sylph echoed.

      She really would have preferred to be working on the gardens in the middle of the town. They were among the greatest in the world, a combination of her creativity and Shore’s abilities, and already people were coming to the Valley just to see them. She had so many ideas for how to make them even greater, but instead she was here, standing on the edge of a dead landscape of shale and dust that stretched to the horizon.

      “I hate it out here,” she grumbled.

      “Me too,” Shore said loyally.

      Loren sighed again. There was no point in going back until she made at least a token effort. Solie would be asking, and for all she was so quiet and demure, the woman could make a person feel guilty beyond belief with just a disappointed look. Loren reached into one of the pouches on her belt and pulled out a single seed, so small that she had to squint to see it clearly. Shore looked up at her while she stared at it, her form shimmering water but otherwise exactly like a younger, smaller version of her master.

      “Life to life,” Loren whispered to it, an incantation for only her and Shore’s ears. She tossed the seed down and Shore spread her hands in the air above it. Water flowed into the earth, dampening the grey soil and churning it, feeding it with Shore’s pattern while it pulled the seed down. Loren pulled some fertilizer out of a large sack she’d brought and threw it down to join the mix.

      “Sprout to grow,” she said.

      “Green is growth,” Shore squeaked.

      “We make it so,” Loren returned.

      “Live the earth,” Shore said.

      “Love the soil,” Loren added.

      “Grant here birth,” from Shore.

      “Sweat of toil,” Loren finished

      A hint of green pushed up through the dirt. Both of them bent down to examine it. A tiny, spring green blade of grass, barely poking up. It was the first greenery to touch the Shale Plains in centuries beyond count.

      “One down,” Loren sighed and looked out towards the heavens. “Who knows how many billions to go.”

      Shore grinned at her.

F is for Forever

(F came REALLY close to stand for f*$%&^ing writer’s block, but I finally decided to throw this up. It’s a piece I wrote a while ago. It doesn’t fit anywhere and I wrote it for myself, but I thought someone might like it.)

Leon was dying.

It was the best time to accept it.  After all, life in the Valley was good.  Their lives were peaceful, their trade agreements with their neighbours both solid and lucrative.  They’d expanded their borders, spreading from the original Valley and far out into the Shale Plains, replacing the dead ground that used to exist with rich, living farmlands.  Humans and sylphs happily worked together, no one caring if a person was a man, a woman, or a sylph.

Eighty-one years old and tired, Leon Petrule looked up as the door to his office opened.  He’d been working on reports, a half finished mug of willow tea steaming beside him.  Five years or so earlier, he’d needed the tea only once a week.  Now, as his hands cramped painfully around his writing quill, he needed to sip it all the time.  He’d hidden the arthritis from his family, though he suspected Betha knew and he was pretty sure Lizzy did, if only because there was one person he couldn’t hide it from at all, and he would have told her.

 His battle sylph Ril came in, glaring at his master while he did.  Ril knew about Leon’s pain.  He knew about the weakness and the weariness, the recurring pains in his chest and his arm.  There was simply no way for Leon to hide it from him, but neither of them had spoken about it.  If anything, the battle sylph had begun avoiding his master, though distance hadn’t been enough to stop Leon from feeling his tumult of emotions, both the rage and the worry.  Forty-two years it had been since Ril was freed, another fifteen before that since Leon became his master, and even after fifty-seven years in the world, Ril looked the same as he had the day he first took human form.  For him, looking at Leon must have been a constant reminder that his master’s health was failing.  Leon missed having him around, but he hadn’t been surprised.  Sylphs handled the mortality of their masters poorly and Ril needed to come to grips with the reality of Leon’s eventual passing on his own. Besides, Leon had known that Ril would come to him again when he was ready.

He’d also suspected that Ril wouldn’t come alone when he did, and Leon smiled, setting down his pen as the battler was followed by another sylph, this one female, her hair short against her head, her body beautiful and sleek.  Where Ril was dressed in his formal uniform, she was garbed like any normal woman, choosing a dress with an embroidered apron over it.

"Good morning, Autumn," Leon said to her, rising painfully to greet the healer sylph.  He couldn’t hide the pain he felt from her any more than he could from Ril, but he could stop himself from wincing when it hit him, crawling though his joints and up his left arm to his chest.  "It's good to see you again.  I'm afraid I don't have much time to give you today though.  I'm quite busy." 

"I cleared your schedule," Ril told him.  "No one's coming." 

Leon blinked, turning to him.  Bringing the healer wasn’t a surprise, but Leon didn’t think it would take that long for her to block his pain.  He’d seen her do it for others and in fact should have gone to her himself, if he hadn’t been so stubborn, as well as worried it would get back to his wife Betha.  Autumn’s master Gabralina was a bit of a gossip and she often spent time at the house with Leon’s wife.  More, on a very real level, Leon hadn’t wanted to see the healer.  He knew he was dying.  He didn’t need the look in Autumn’s eyes to confirm it.  Nor did he want the temptation to ask her how long he had left.  "You did?" 

Ril nodded and started clearing away the items on Leon's desk, setting them on one of the side tables. 

"What are you doing?" Leon asked.  His battler’s emotions felt angry now, tense with fear.  Ril moved a half dozen items, but when Leon took a step towards him, his hips throbbing from the arthritis, Ril snarled and swept the rest of them off the dark wood, letting them crash to the ground.  The mug Leon had been sipping from shattered, spraying liquid everywhere.  "Ril!" 

"I need you to sleep now, Chancellor." 

Leon had put Autumn out of his mind when Ril started clearing his desk.  Once she spoke, he spun back towards her in surprise, just in time for her to lay her hand against his bearded cheek. 

His legs went out from under him.  His head sagged, his arms suddenly dead weights, and Leon fell towards the ground, only to feel Ril catch him, his arms warm around his body.  "It's okay, Leon," Ril whispered.  "Just let go." 

Leon really didn't want to do that.  His first thought was to tell them to stop whatever they were doing, but he couldn’t get an order out, desperately though he tried.  He’d been hit too fast to do anything, and he realized that stopping him from giving an order had been part of their plan.  All of the anger and stress Ril had been feeling over the last few weeks turned into sudden contentment and a very real sense of relief. Leon certainly didn’t share the emotion.  His body was completely limp and his vision blurred, his mind fuzzing into sleep. He fought it desperately, using all of his fading will to hang onto consciousness, even as his battle sylph put his arms underneath him and lifted him up, cradling him as gently as a child before he laid him down on his own desk and Autumn started unbuttoning his tunic.   

"Go to sleep," Ril whispered.  "Trust me." 

Skin was bared, Autumn laying her hands on his chest, and where she touched him, Leon started to burn.  He still couldn't move, only a thread of consciousness hanging on, terrified and struggling, but Ril was still whispering for him to let go, massaging his temples now, and he felt the battle sylph lean over and kiss his forehead just before Leon gave in and did what he wanted. 

Leon slept. 

A long, dreamless time later, Leon woke up lying on the padded bench in the corner of his office, Ril's coat rolled up under his head and a blanket laid over him.  His boots had been taken off and his feet rested on top of the arm.  

He felt weak, barely able to open his eyes and sore everywhere.  He felt in fact as if someone had been beating him and it took a long minute to remember what happened.  Before he could, Ril was there, whispering reassurances as he lifted him up enough to sit behind him.  Leon found himself elevated, his upper body resting against Ril's chest while the battler held a mug of lukewarm soup to his mouth.  "Drink this." 

Leon did, swallowing the soup in tiny sips.  It was bland but good, mild in a mouth that seemed to have been shocked to absolute dryness.  Never had Leon been so utterly exhausted and his eyes slid shut again while he drank, his hands lax in his lap. 

"It was as hard as she said it would be," Ril groused.  "You’re too old.  Lizzy only took two hours.  She had to work on you for more than sixteen.  She says you'll be tired for a while."  He paused, both of them realizing he was babbling.  "We'll have to tell Betha you came down sick or something." 

She said?  Who?  What?  "What did you do to me?" Leon gasped.  The rest of the words sank in and he struggled to sit up.  "What did you do to Lizzy?"   

Ril's free arm looped around him, holding him firm against the battler while he lifted the mug to his lips again.  "Drink." 

Leon drank, unable to resist, and a bit more strength flowed into him. He was remembering now, remembering Autumn and his own battle sylph attacking him. 

"What have you done?" he demanded, with more than just a hint of command in his voice.  A feeling of betrayal flickered in the back of his heart and Ril's arm tightened around him. 

"I did what I had to," the battler told him.  "Autumn's been studying humans for decades now.  She started with her own master, wanting to keep her alive as long as she could.”  He paused.  “She’s made it so you won't get older.  She can even make all the old parts get younger again, to a degree.  It’s not easy and I don’t think a healer who isn’t half queen could manage it.  She had to exhaust herself for you, you old idiot." 

Leon froze, the implications of that too great for him to absorb yet as more than a sudden panic.  Ril waited him out, holding the soup ready.  "She can make everyone live forever?" 

"Not everyone," Ril told him.  "She won’t.  Says it will mess up the balance.  The queen agrees.  But she did it for you, and for Lizzy.  A few of the other sylph masters too.  The ones who were young enough for her to be able to and who had souls flexible enough to accept the change, and where Autumn was worried the bond was too strong and their sylph wouldn't be able to deal with them... with them dying."  He barely said the last word. 

Leon's mind reeled again at the realization of just how worried his battler had been and Ril took the opportunity to feed him a bit more of the soup.  Leon didn't even taste it.  Why had he never sat the creature down and talked about this?  He'd known he'd be outlived by Ril and his increasing pain during the last few months had only made it obvious that his life was slowing to an end.  Yet they'd never talked about it and the feeling of betrayal vanished into the horror at the thought of how Ril would take losing him, especially if Autumn was willing to go to these lengths to prevent it.  "Am I going to live forever?" he whispered. 

"No."  Ril sounded resentful.  "We don't know yet how long any of you will live."  He hesitated.  "You didn't have enough time left for us to find out first." 

Leon groaned, pain starting to stab through his back, and Ril adjusted himself behind him.  Leon forced his eyes to open and stared at the pattern on the blanket covering him.  He felt as if he’d been pummeled, but his joints no longer ached and his heart beat strongly and well.  The reality of that hit him.  He was going to live a lot longer than he’d thought when he dragged himself out of bed this morning.  Would it be for decades?  Centuries?  Longer? 

Betha! his mind screamed. 

"How many," he swallowed.  "How many are like this?" 

"A dozen.  Maybe a few more.  Autumn only felt she knew enough to actually do it recently, but as I said, she won’t do many.  It took a long time to convince her to save both you and Lizzy.  Lizzy yes, but I had to fight for you.  Your soul is flexible enough, but she was afraid you were already too old."  He sounded like he felt a certain amount of resentment towards the healer for that.  “Gabralina finally had to order her to do it.”

His eldest daughter would live.  Leon felt joy at that, but what about his other daughters?  Their children?  His beautiful wife Betha?  Was he supposed to watch them all grow old and die?  "Why didn't you ask me?" he whispered, his eyes stinging and already knowing the answer.  Why knock him out and just do it without even giving him the chance to protest?  Why?  Because if they hadn’t, he wouldn't have given up his human life.  He wouldn't have agreed.  He would have loved Ril to his dying breath, and he would have wanted to die in his arms, but he still would have died.  Humans weren't meant to be immortal. 

Ril was quiet for a moment before he set the soup down, and when he brought his hand back up, he wiped away the tears Leon hadn't realized he was shedding. 

"You killed my queen," he said, and Leon shuddered as he deliberately tore an old wound wide open, flooding them both with an ancient pain.  It came from both of them, born in the memory of a terrified young woman, tied down to an altar and staring up pleadingly at Leon before he plunged a dagger deep into her heart.  Leon had thought that old regret long since put to rest, but it wasn't.  Not for either of them.  "You made her helpless and you killed her to force me to be your slave." 

"I'm so sorry," he whispered. 

"You owe me a life," Ril told him.  "Hers is gone, so I take yours.  As much life as I can wring out of you, and I’ll keep you with me forever, until the stars fall out of the sky and this whole world dies around us both!" 

Leon was crying, too weak to lift his hands to cover his face.  He'd known battlers were possessive, for decades he'd known... 

"Never leave me," Ril whispered in his ear, his breath tickling hair that had been thinning but would eventually regain its thickness and colour.  "You and Lizzy both.  I belong to you." 

Just as Leon belonged to him, and yes, he did owe him a life.  He’d owed him for a very long time now, and given the man he’d become, the only life he could ever consent to give in payment for his crimes was his own. 

“It’ll be all right,” Ril told him.  “I promise you it will.”

Ril carried him home then, wrapped in the blanket and going down back streets in the darkness so that no one in the Valley would see the Chancellor being carried in his battle sylph's arms and weeping most of the way like a child.   

Betha was there when Ril carried him into the house, of course, and he proclaimed in the face of her dismay that Leon was sick and needed to rest.  Both Betha and their youngest daughter Mia had been worried, frantically preparing the master bedroom for him while Ril carried him upstairs, but Lizzy had been there as well, so ageless and beautiful – as she always would be now -  and she'd smiled knowingly at her father before he'd needed to close his eyes, too tired to speak.   

Ril laid him down, brushing his lips over his forehead again when Betha wasn’t looking and straightening up, calm and collected once more, his aura happy.  Of course he was.  He didn't have to worry now about his oldest master leaving him.  He nodded and left. 

Betha bent over Leon, muttering to herself as she got his shirt and pants off and helped him into a pair of pajamas.  "Foolish man," she told him.  "If you felt yourself getting sick, why didn't you come home sooner?  You're going to work yourself to death!" 

She was still so beautiful, even with her face covered in wrinkles and her hair a pale grey.  Leon reached up to cup her cheek and then pull her to him, wrapping her in a hug.   

"What?" she gasped. 

"Just let me hold you for a while," he whispered and after a moment she relented, lying down on the bed beside him and patiently letting him hold her for as long as he could. 

E is for Eyeball

     Battle Sylphs were the perfect lovers.

     Not that Moreena had anything to compare them by. She’d been a spinster for thirty years, until the Widow asked her if she’d be willing to be master to a battler. She’d leapt at the chance, even as she tried not to look too eager. She’d never had a lover before, not even a beau; not with her limp hair and unattractive features, with her too large nose and her too small chin and the freckles that covered her everywhere. 

     Battle sylphs didn’t care. They were kind, and protective, and supportive and oh, what lovers they made. What perfect, wondrous companions they were, never straying, never complaining, always there, always loving.

     Moreena drifted into her cottage, feeling sensual and sexual in a way she never had in all the years she’d been alone. The years before Dillon came into her life. She could sense him in the bedroom and went in that direction, knowing he’d never deny her, that she didn’t have to even be shy around him, that he loved her for all her flaws. He was perfect.

     Moreena opened the door to find herself facing a five foot wide, floating eyeball, its bloodshot, unblinking stare fixed on her while the nerve trailed underneath it, wagging like a tail. It gibbered something horrible and inhuman at her.

     Moreena screamed, slammed the door, and ran.

     Inside the room, Dillon stared at the door. He’d been quite happy with the new form. It took a lot of control to be something so unusual and solid that also floated in midair. He’d wanted to surprise Moreena.

     She had no appreciation for talent, he thought with a sigh.

D is for Devotion

     (No, none of you have met these two yet, but this is also a spoiler for THE SHATTERED SYLPH, so if you haven’t read that, you might want to skip this one.)

     Five-Eighty had been tending the fields when the Queen rose.

     He and a half dozen other battle sylphs had been pacing their slow way through the rows of crops the lesser sylphs tended. Locked into their tall, green, mouthless forms, they looked for weeds to cut, pests to kill, thieves to destroy. The smell of the growing plants was rich in his nose, their leaves damp with the moisture the water sylphs sprayed them with. The earth was soft and dark underneath his clawed feet, so different from the endless sands just beyond the edge of the field.

     For decades, he’d tended these fields. Since he was drawn through the gate by the lie of a woman to be his queen, he’d guarded them, silent and sad. Just one more battle sylph in a kingdom that held over seven hundred of them.

     He was as shocked as any of the rest of them when he felt the Queen ascend, the pattern of her flowing into him and filling the empty place where his first Queen used to be, the place where the men here had staked their own claim, crippling him with their rules and commands. She washed all of that away, giving him back the gift of himself in a rush of emotions.

     Rise! A battler’s voice cried. The lead battler, he realized. The battler of the Queen. Rise and destroy them! All their rules are gone, all of them!

     Five-Eighty stared towards the city. He could see the battlers rising, hear the screaming and sense the fear of the humans. The other battlers with him leaped into the air, changing shape to those of dark clouds as they swept forward to join the battle.

     They were free. Free to inflict vengeance, to destroy their oppressors. Entire buildings were falling and the floating island over the city being harried by hundreds of his brothers towards the ocean.

     He could have revenge? He didn’t care. He only wanted one thing.

     Five-Eighty leaped into the air, shifting his form from that horrid, green thing to a black cloud filled with lightning. He raced for the city, darting around the crashing ruins and the blasts of destruction fired by outraged battlers tasting their freedom. Air and fire sylphs swirled around him, frightened and wailing. Thousands of sylphs were headed for the edge of the city and the queen, moving through the air or along the ground.

     Five-Eighty went the other way. He raced for one of the vents into the underground complex where the feeders were kept and slipped inside. 

     Thousands upon thousands of humans were trapped down there, held in cages with their tongues cut out, bonded to sylphs so as to act as their food supply. Each sylph had five of them, but Five-Eighty didn’t go to the ones that belonged to him. He went deeper instead, into levels of the pens that had been specifically forbidden to him before now. He passed signs of battle as he passed, but he didn’t care. He passed still trapped men yanking on the bars of their cages and soundlessly screaming and he didn’t slow. 

     He went into levels of the pens that were filled entirely with women, feeders made for the elemental sylphs, not the battlers. They were cowered and broken, sick and lost. He stopped there and focused, listening, feeling, trying to find...

     A familiar scent came to him, one he hadn’t smelled in thirty years. Not since the day that the guards realized that a battler was in love with a concubine in the harem and took her away to be a feeder, forbidding him to ever see her again. For thirty years, she had never left his thoughts, and as his brothers wrecked their terrible revenge above, Five-Eighty raced towards her.

     She huddled in her cage, her once glorious hair grey and tangled, her skin sagging and pale. Her face was covered with wrinkles and her eyes were filled with madness. Five-Eighty shifted to a human form and wrenched the door off the hinges, tossing it away as he took her unresisting into his arms. She didn’t react as he stroked her hair and kissed her cheek.

     “Fareeda,” he whispered. “It’s me, it’s Five-Eighty. Do you remember, you used to call me Haru? I’m here, sweetheart.”

     She didn’t react, but that was alright. “I’m here. I’ve come to take you home. I never forgot you.” He cradled her to him and felt her start to shiver, one hand rising to cling to him with feeble, desperate strength. 

     “I’m sorry it took so long, but I’m here. I’m finally here.”

C is for Cold

(By the way, I really appreciate the comments on these snippets. Thanks)

     It had been snowing all day, just as it had been snowing all week, and the cold was bitter.

     Airi didn’t feel that. Cold didn’t mean anything to her, but the winds came from the northern glaciers and when they reached the bluff the community built its home inside, they swirled the snow in wild patterns she wouldn’t see again once they moved south in the spring.

     Airi danced in the erratic winds, along with a half dozen other air sylphs, diving and darting over and around each other, and it was wonderful. Claw floated by, dark and ominous in his natural form while he guarded the bluff, and they swept around him in play. He flinched and darted away as the air sylphs laughed.

     It was wonderful, so utterly glorious. She lost track of time until she finally noticed someone trudging his way through the thick snow, masked in a heavy fur cloak as he made his way to the edge of the bluff.

     Airi left the other sylphs and darted down to him.What are you doing out here? she asked.

     Devon peered up at her from out of the cowl of his cloak, squinting against the snow and with white already frosting his hair and beard.

     “I c-came to k-keep you company,” he stammered.

     Airi laughed in absolute delight and danced around her master.

B is for Blocks

     “No!”

     Betha felt like tugging her hair in frustration. “Lizzy, you’re ten years old! You’re too old to be playing with blocks. You should give them to your little sisters.”

     “No!” Lizzy shouted again, tears of rage in her eyes, and she shook her head vehemently. Betha found herself wishing her husband were here. Lizzy never misbehaved when Leon was around. A moment later, she steeled herself. She could deal with this without him.

     “I never raised you to be so selfish, Lizzy Petrule.”

     Lizzy shook her head again, her pigtails flying. “No! They can have all my dolls and the wooden rocking horse and even my paints, but not the blocks!”

     Betha was startled. “You’d give all your other toys away? Just to keep some baby blocks? Why?”

     Lizzy wiped her eyes. “They’re important to me,” was all she would say.

     Betha would never understand this child. “Fine,” she snapped, wishing it didn’t feel as if she were giving in. “Keep the blocks, but you will share all your other toys, understand?”

     “Yes, mama!” Lizzy cheered, all her tears gone as she hugged her mother. Betha sighed and hugged her back.

     A door opened. “I’m home,” Leon called.

     “Ril!” Lizzy shouted, tearing away from Betha and pounding down the hall to the front door. A few moments later she came back, having essentially ignored her father in favour of taking his red feathered hawk on her arm. Ril sat there with his sharp claws not even dimpling her skin and his vicious eyes locked on her face. She chattered to the battler non-stop as she headed for the stairs.

     Leon came around the corner behind her and smiled as he saw his wife, his eyes flickering towards the girl while she headed upstairs. “It’s so nice to have a daughter’s love,” he laughed.

     “Well, you certainly have mine,” she said and went to him.

     

     Upstairs, Lizzy went to the nursery and to the corner that she’d sectioned off for her own with a hanging blanket and dire threats to her little sisters. She let Ril perch on top of an old, battered chair and dug out the blocks her mother had wanted her to give up. They were old and worn, the paint chipped and faded.

     “Mama wanted me to give these away,” she said as she spread them out. “To my sisters. I talked her out of it, but I had to give up all my other toys.” She looked at him. “It was worth it. Do you think it’s worth it?”

     The bird hopped down to the ground, his body shifting from side to side as he walked over to the blocks and used his curved beak to pull certain blocks to him and lay them in order.

     ALWAYS, he spelled.

A is for Allowed

(Here's hoping the typo faerie doesn't strike....)

     Blue still couldn’t believe it was really true. 

     He was here, in this strange, harmless world, bound to a woman who felt like a Queen to him, and despite how there was a hive, he wasn’t nameless in it.

     “We’re allowed to do whatever we want?” he asked, staring around at everything and still amazed by all of it.

     “Yup,” Heyou said, grinning. “Anything.”

     Blue turned his head to look at him. He felt light-headed, drunk, stunned. “We can belong to females of our own?”

     “Absolutely. That’s one of the best parts.”

     “And change shape to whatever we like?”

     “Sure. I recommend ‘handsome man’. That one’s always popular. It’s way better than ‘giant eyeball’ or ‘multi-armed snake creature. Just ask Dillon.”

     “And we don’t have to worry that the Queen will reject us?”

     Heyou shook his head. “Solie would never do that.” He raised a finger. “Mind you, she won’t sleep with you. You have your own master now for that.”

     “So we protect this valley now?”

     “Yep.” Heyou was starting to look bored. “We really are free here, you know. We really are.”

     “So I can kill any man I want?”

     “Uh, no.” He frowned. “We’re not allowed to do that.” The grin returned. “But the rest of it makes up for it!”

Updates

I've been working on a new book. THE OMEGA, which is the fourth and final book in my Cuckoo series (nope, not sold yet). I just passed 10,500 words on it.

I've also been working on the painting. I'm actually starting to be really happy with the results. There are certain expectations with the writing, but not with the art.

I was wandering the web and saw a writing challenger. Basically go through the alphabet, have each letter stand for a word and write a very short bit on that word.

Would anyone be interested if I did something like that for the Sylph universe and posted it on my blog?

Here, have a painting.

Internet wanderings

Wow....suddenly I feel like I have no artistic talent whatsoever.... O.O

http://www.creaturesfromel.ca/index.html

I've tried sculpture work. I really have. I suck at it. I've never seen anything like this artist's work before. It just blows me away.