The Mephit's Tales

It was not, by most standards, a perfect day for a picnic. It was rather on the windy side, and cool when clouds blocked the sun as they frequently did. But company picnics were ponderous things to schedule, and it had been decided to go ahead and have the picnic anyway. After all, so long as the clouds stayed light and didn’t bring rain with them, it wasn’t a bad day for a picnic.

In fact, Kelly found that there were some advantages to it. Namely, when the sun went behind a cloud and the wind picked up, it was a prime excuse for the cougar to cuddle in against John under the blanket they shared, and the otter was quite happy to gather her in close. If this hadn’t been her first chance to see him since her departure on a two-week trip for that same company, she’d actually have thought it was a pretty good day for a picnic after all.

(more…)

“Wait, does it truly feel unpleasant?”

The speaker sat back on his heels, eyes widening in surprise – and, given that “it” was something he’d just been asking for, a touch of remorse.  It was a thing he’d thought so basic, so elementary, that the notion of someone disliking it hadn’t crossed his mind – but that was no excuse. With a lover, any lover, assumptions were never wise.

(more…)

The beat was heavy and pervasive, impossible to ignore. It drove into Arverik’s skull, imposing its order on his breath, his heartbeat, even shaping the rhythms of his very thoughts. This was not a place where anyone with his sense of hearing could concentrate.

But the Tavar wasn’t here to concentrate, he was here to immerse himself in experience. And these humans really knew how to make music.

He leaned back against the bar and surveyed the crowd. Humans made up most of it, of course – this world had been theirs first, and even if it wasn’t their home, the Tavarri hadn’t descended in force; blending had been steady, but slow, in the years since contact. And this venue was built to human rather than Tavarri tastes. But there were some Tavarri sprinkled among them, too – and such a variety of them. Arverik had spent his early years in the Shukarat clan fortress, indeed, within its rarefied central spires. Everyone there had been close kin to the clan; most had been members of the core lineage.

In this one room, with maybe a dozen other Tavarri, he saw more colours and patterns than in all his childhood. It made having yellow eyes instead of green seem rather less significant, and that was another part of why he liked it here.

Seeing them all move together – Tavarri and their smaller, furless, tailless neighbours – was another part of it, of course. What the humans accomplished with mild intoxication, the Tavarri did just by forgoing ear protection: a bit of disconnection from the world, a dizzy whirl that let bodies bump against each other as they danced, and an easy camaraderie in which nobody minded that contact.

Still, he could only take so much of it at a time, and besides, he was getting hungry. He wove his way to the stairs.

(more…)

I wasn’t expecting to see anyone there. I hadn’t come by the point since I started at university, but I was feeling moody, feeling a need to reconnect with where I’d been. So I left my bike parked and hiked up the trail with a lunch bag, expecting to spend a bit of quiet time there.

I wasn’t expecting to see him there – and by the surprise on his face when he looked over and saw me, neither was he. “Cale!” The otter scrambled up to his feet, crossed the modest distance at a dead run, and threw his arms around as he collided with me.

What else could I do? I hugged him back, hard, as though it could make up for the time we’d been apart. (more…)

The key turned smoothly in the lock; the door swung silently open.

The big, brown-haired man made his way in, moving slowly and stiffly, absently reaching back to push the door shut and turn the bolt. It was hard to believe this place was his, and yet here he was.

(more…)

“Does it ever seem to you,” Nathan sighed, “that our lives are just a little bit… bland?”

“What?” Melanie blinked at him. “Bland? Nathan, you can fly at will and freeze someone in ice by looking at them. Tim can stop time. I can jury-rig anything I can imagine and some things I didn’t. We spend our days stopping people who can start fires with a stare, walk through the walls of bank vaults, break into houses through the phone lines, and who knows what else. And you think our lives our bland? My God, do you even listen to yourself?”

“Okay, okay.” Nathan held up his hands. “Bad choice of word. But think about it, Mel. Back when Lady M was still in charge, she’d take us all over the world, we’d see and do everything. We’d put a stop to people raising actual zombies with a wave of their hands, not just turning computers into zombie boxes with a touch. We’d save cities, and all at once, not just one convenience store at a time. Everything she did was larger than life, and the same was true of the ones she set out to stop.”

(more…)

“If you could be anywhere right now,” said the red-haired girl, “where would it be?”

Murmurs went up and down the rows. Holiday resorts. Families. Idyllic destinations. More than a few settled for their own beds.

One big, brown-haired fellow just grunted.

“Come on, Matt,” urged the redhead. “There’s got to be some place you’d rather be than here, isn’t there?”

“Oh, sure there is, Jamie,” the big guy drawled. “But what’s the point in thinking about it?” He shrugged, lapsing into silence.

(more…)

Alan was cold, wet, sore, and had a pounding headache; all in all, not one of his better days.

Gingerly, he touched his brow, then his temples, then ran his fingertips over his scalp. There was a lump toward the back of his head that he quickly learned to avoid, but while his fingers got wet, they didn’t encounter anything sticky. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? (more…)

Adren twirled, letting his hair swirl around him, coal-black over his snowy, grey-spotted pelt. When it came to rest, a thick lock of it was hooked over his shoulder, running down his body and over his hip.

Not, he fancied, a horrible look for him, but he made no particular effort to keep it there when he straightened. No, he had no want of a studied, arranged appearance now; it was enough to know that his hair was as free of knots and tangles as he’d thought.

(more…)

It was supposed to be a routine day. No doubt it would have had some significant developments to deal with, but they would have been normal developments.

Having the expected “courier” from Northridge Fields turn out to be none other than Damion Northridge himself upset that routine in a hurry.

Servants bustled around, dusting, washing, mopping, in general tidying in a great hurry. The kitchen staff were called in early and immediately launched into frenzied activity. The butler took stock of available options and assembled a platter of refreshments and wine, which he personally bore at the Mistress’s side as the Northridge carriage came to a halt at the front portico.

(more…)

Karim eyed his sample jar with some rue.

There was a very light sheen to it – the faintest of glows, too dim to show as such in anything but deep darkness – but that was part of the preservative enchantment on the glass. Its contents were thick, opaque, and off-white.

“Aren’t you going to use it?” a voiced hissed in the great emptiness behind him. “After you went to such lengths to acquire it…”

“Having you watching me is not making this easier,” Karim shot back, anxiety putting an edge on his tone. He swallowed; this was not a being he wanted to offend, even if that being seemed to regard the whole business as wonderfully amusing.

(more…)

Eric dropped down to the dirt and took a breath of fresh air.

“Here we are,” the bobcat said, turning toward the back of the truck. “Off the grid for five days.”

“You sound way too happy when you say that,” Will teased from the other side of the truck. “Sure, it’s a pretty place and all that, but did you have to pick somewhere this isolated for our little weekend getaway? You saw that road, my poor truck barely made it up the road!”

“Yes, I did.” Eric grinned as he started undoing the cargo net. “I know you, man. If I’d picked somewhere closer – say, somewhere with electricity – you’d have been plugged in all weekend and we might as well not have bothered!”

(more…)

Darius was expecting a quiet day. Reach one city, drop off his packages, receive some new ones, move on – in all the time he’d been a courier, that was how his days had gone. Sometimes he stayed there for only a short time, sometimes longer, sometimes he spent the night; it all depended on how tired his beast was, and how far he could expect to get before nightfall. At the moment, he was looking forward to a warm meal, a cold drink, and a soft bed once he arrived at Gervin’s Vale.

His plans did not include the whiff of an arrow past Jadetalon’s wing, but this, in fact, happened.

(more…)

Snow was falling as she stepped out into the gardens. Already in covered the ground in a thick blanket of white, and still more fat flakes were drifting down, sparkling in the light of the lanterns.

She left her retainers at the door, striding slowly along the paths. The cobblestone mosaics were hidden under the snow, and the sweeping hem of her robe didn’t move nearly enough to make those patterns visible again; still, she had walked these paths more times than she could count, and in snow or summer, under sun or moon or stars, she could always find her way.

Beyond the stone walls, the city never slept. Here, though, all was tranquil and still. Not even birds disturbed the perfect silence of the night.

(more…)

What was I to do?

My sire the great horse-tamer delivered me into Bellerophon’s service. As Poseidon’s chosen, the man brought glory to himself, to me, and to his patron. Kings sent him to his doom for that which he had not done, and with the favour of the gods he met that doom and emerged triumphant. He could have been an inspiration to the just, a warning to the wicked. He could have owned honour beyond telling as a hero of the ages.

(more…)