Storyfeather

A birdwatcher who's determined to discover an unknown species stumbles upon a strange little sparrow. Genre: Science Fiction   Excerpts: "It's a blue cardinal, look." "There's no such bird, Andre."  "That's because no one has seen him, until now."  Andre submitted to the group that he had spotted a Labrador duck on a recent work trip. The Labrador duck was not a new species. It was an extinct one....

A stegosaur scientist uses her own body in her experiments to achieve a physical feat that seems impossible for a dinosaur of her kind…flight. Genre: Science Fiction   Excerpts: "Modifications! Glint, what you're proposing is more than modification."  "How?"  "Magnets!" "Sometimes people don't know they need an invention until it's invented."  "Know your limits, Glint. I'm trusting you to stop if...

The captain and crew of a vessel-for-hire cautiously agree to help a banished merman prince find his hidden realm in exchange for a lavish undersea treasure. Genre: Mythology   Excerpt: "What did he look like, Captain?" someone asked. "Did he have long sharp teeth, like a pike fish?" "No, I've heard they're more like a shark's or piranha's."  "Either way, there are rows of them, so—"  "Let the cap...

Our ancestors possessed powers and protections that were lost upon the destruction of a machine that had only one function, providing each person with a name. Genre: Mythology   Excerpt: Tempest and storm. Disease and death. Creatures who hunted humankind as prey. Beings who pursued humankind out of evil longing. The name generated by the Arcanomen provided protection from all these dangers. If an...

A thief and an investigator each try to convince the other to accept the truth about the unparalleled treasure that is the Flaming Jargonelle. Genre: Mythology   Excerpt : And the thief spoke. "Most of the stories say that when the Flaming Jargonelle is struck by any kind of light from brightest sun to dimmest candle, it appears as if it were made of fire. Sometimes a smoldering fire, sometimes a...

In the alley behind the factory where they toil, two friends discover something that may lead to their salvation...or to their doom. Genre: Fantasy, Mythology   Excerpt : The statue was a depiction of a "vas vespertilio," an idol carved specifically to be the vessel for containing fundamental powers, specifically the powers of the four elements. Each element was contained in the gemstone that repr...

A man opens his new briefcase and discovers that something else lies beside his files, something…vast. Genre: Mystery, Mythology   Excerpt : "Once," she started, "the world was filled with different beings than the ones that now fill the world." They were just as wondrous. And just as terrible. But in different ways. For ways changed with time. As it would come be, it was so in those days as well,...

A cartography vessel mapping a sector of space that's expected to contain nothing of interest encounters…something of interest. Genre: Science Fiction, Mystery   Excerpt : "This thing is changing by the hour. We may not have time for Vessel 86 to arrive before something even more intense happens." I walked on a few steps before I realized that my crew mate had stopped short. I turned and walked ba...

Hoping to find some inspiration and direction in life, an aimless young woman buys a top hat at the estate sale of a magician. Genre: Mystery, Mythology, Science Fiction   Excerpt : Ro checked the bookcases and found some intriguing titles. Animating Your Crafts Finding the Right Writer to Type on Your Haunted Typewriter  Philosophy and Alchemy: A Foundation  Illusions to Fool the Physical Senses:...

When two friends hear a commotion in their mysterious new neighbor's apartment, they go to check, only to find the door open, and the apartment completely empty...well, almost empty. Genre: Mystery, Fantasy   Excerpt : The only object in the entire apartment was lying on the tiled kitchen floor. Broken into several pieces. A mug. I could make out a design on one of the larger shards. An eye. A wid...

A tourist is stranded after a mysterious incident destroys all the paths leading to the tourist's home, a seemingly identical city that once existed just beyond the surface of a mirror. Genre: Fantastical Mystery   Excerpt: "I'll be damned," I heard a voice say. My roommate's voice. And she…saw me. She saw me vanish. She saw me reappear. She saw me without stripes on. She saw my fluted ears peakin...

An elven traveler grants a king a priceless power in return for an equally priceless treasure. Genre: Fairy Tale   Excerpt: The elven traveler leaned closer and whispered to the girl. "What kind of life can he give you? Closed off and cloistered? Stuffed into corsets? I can give you a life of mischief and adventure."   The Wheel of Fiction Turns. What did it land on this time? Each Season 9 story...

A cursed young woman seeks the aid of a queen who walks through dreams to reach a sister trapped in eternal sleep. Genre: Fairy Tale   Excerpt: "Turn back," the queen said. "I want no curses in my kingdom." Clara explained as quickly as she could. "I am not the only one who is cursed. My sister. My husband…" "And it was one who cursed you all?" "He taunted me. He told me that what I love would be...

In a realm where the learned are held at the highest esteem, a fool is called upon to challenge a trickster.  Genre: Fairy Tale   Excerpt : "I visit you because I am curious." "I think it's because you want to be the first trickster who understands a fool." The trickster laughed. "My dear Sovereign, no one amuses me as you do. But I must tell you. To a trickster, everyone is a fool."   The Wheel o...

A visitor from another realm encounters an overwhelming and mysterious phenomenon that bears further investigation, rain. Genre: Fairy Tale   Excerpt: "When I was young, my mother told me a story about the rain. I was afraid of it, you see. And what she told me didn't help much with that." He winked an eye at me. "My mother was quick to embrace and kiss her children, but she wasn't one to coddle o...

Even before the mountain began to rumble, one mortal had begun to doubt his decadent gods. Genre: Mythology   Excerpt: We are descended from a powerful people. So it is said. The most powerful our world has ever known. Their might unmatched. Their domain unending. Their eyes all-seeing. I am nothing next to them. I am a blade of grass underfoot. A mayfly blinking in and out of existence. A mortal....

Troubled by the tragic tale of a queen, who suffered because of a quarrel between two gods, three children question and alter the story. Genre: Mythology   Excerpt: For the thing that lurched from shadow to shadow had been summoned by godly powers and imbued with godly powers. As it passed, it left behind a trail of slime that smelled of sulfur and rot. So the guards had no trouble in finding it....

A philosopher, a mage, and a swordsman are sent on an impossible quest from which they know they will not return alive. Genre: Mythology   Excerpt: The philosopher felt her heart go still. She felt the cold steel of the swordsman's sword quivering by her right side. She felt the warm spark of the mage's magic prickling by her left side.  In that moment, and none other since, she had wished her fri...

The story is told of how nine little gods came to be honored at a feast where they dared not show their faces. Genre: Mythology   Excerpt: The new mortal-made masks were so fantastical and magical that they could not easily be distinguished from the masks of the gods. A few called it blasphemy. (For we humans can be fools this way, don't you agree? Seeking and seeking for wonder, and fearing it wh...

In a realm cursed to lie under a gray veil, one man accepts a job patrolling a neighborhood to watch for unauthorized breaches. Genre: Fantasy   Excerpt: He had given up on his childhood fantasy when he realized that people had already found ways to break the curse, and had tried those ways and failed. He had given up when he learned that some of the ways had never been tried and never would be, b...

The terrifying night phantoms that haunt a once-forbidden wood are never seen by day, until one morning when an ordinary man encounters a phantom trapped in the sunlight.  Genre: Fantasy, Mythology   Excerpt : Something terrible had come into the world. Something evil. Invisible, intangible. Some corruption that could not be perceived. And therefore could not be fought. By the time it had a grip o...

A person struggling with heartbreak is drawn into the history of a garden filled with morbid beauty. Genre: Fantasy   Excerpt : Branches terminating in skulls. Transparent petals whose vessels glow white as bleached bone in the dark. Bright yellow leaves whose soft serrated edges exude a dark red liquid that drips and pools and stains the ground like the signs of a crime scene. Such sights could I...

An uncertified magician, who's not allowed to cast enchantments in the city proper, finds odd jobs to do in the outer city. Genre: Fantasy   Excerpt : I got into this business at the wrong time. Now that huge factories could crank out standardized magic components that anyone could use, without even a basic understanding of the primary forces and how to shape them, not too many people were interes...

A dog and a boy wander through a carnival. One of them is terrifying. One of them is sweet. Guess which is which. Genre: Fantasy   Excerpt : "There's a pit bull in the ball pit!" someone cried. The children saw Angel, and they began to flee. Angel opened his mouth enough to bare his teeth, but not enough to use those teeth. Children screamed and flapped their arms and were pulled up out of the pit...

A folklorist is swept up in a journey to find the proof that supports her seemingly preposterous notion about porcupines and fairy tales. Genre: Fairy Tale   Excerpt : Tommie's conjecture concerned the many fairy tales where a sudden growth of thorny vines encompassed a tower or a castle to protect, or more likely imprison, a young woman possessing some degree of power—a princess of surpassing bea...