"A stinkin' Drow!" Moira growled in a tone steeped with racial resentment, "Ye brought a black elf into this place of sanctuary!"

"Calm yourself, Moira" Selura urged, "You can not hold this child responsible for the deeds of his kin. Besides, I think t…

Story is marked as mature

Having failed my dears, I sent myself to the corner as punishment. I've been there more than a year.

Maybe they're now safer from me, but I'm not safe from them, and they're still not pleased.

But I was thinking. I've been saving my energy all this time. …

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

A human would not have heard the pounding through the heavy rain, but to the keen ears of an elf, the sharp noises were easily distinguishable. Upon answering the door, Selura found not the source of the knocking, but a hastily wra…

A few heads turned to look at her. She ignored them, focussing on Nick. "Put this on," she said, handing him an identical suit.

"What the hell?"

"We don't have much time. Quickly!"

He looked at the hazmat suit, dropped it, and ran to the front of the bus.…

Story is marked as mature

Story is marked as mature

I'm summoning Sydney, and by my reckoning he'll appear Thursday, spade in hand, bearing lilies.

My brother Sydney, Doctor Ferris, and my darling Annabelle mourned me....but I'm not gone.

It faltered; the gash I'd opened enveloped me as we both smothered in muddy ichor.

I acted without thought, and It was not at full power; my death matters not.

As it slithered, triggering Ferris's mesmeric command, I gripped the spear hidden within my coat.

Hours later, the space was enough for it to climb past me into the dusk.

Smoothing away soil, I caressed it; the eye followed me, studied me, compelled me faster.

Burrowing tenderly with my hands, I could but adore this beast that had summoned me.

The sudden daylight and air seemed to revive the being; the mental ringing increased shrilly.

After digging all day yesterday and into this morning, I found it, 76 feet down.

Her laughter broke the silence.

Ed knew, at the sound, what had been lost; what could never be recovered. The wait was over, and now the fight, or the flight, would begin. He cursed the urge he had yielded to: a hunger for light. A spark of knowledge: her…

The Water Seller stood on the steps of the palace after every meal. Her arms itched, the sand dust like a second skin, caked on to keep her safe from the three suns' heat. She shifted from her right to left foot and dipped her rag back into the bowl.

Th…

At the conclusion of the firefight I moved two of my controlling units closer to the High Senator. Local sensor capability had been significantly degraded due to defensive countermeasures deployed during the exchange of fire, which included the city datal…

The initial exchange of fire lasted a hair more than seventeen seconds. At the ten second mark, I authorised my remaining two units to initiate fire. Extended firefights tended to become undesirably disordered.

The heat haze effect generated by my defens…

There were over five thousand individual signatures in the KGX/STP Level 4 concourse. If I had wished, I could have called up gender/age group/life expectancy graphs for them, or details on any single individual. I knew everything the city knew.

I also k…

Astarlane was not with them. She was gone, folded into her cloak on the other side of the fire, her mind somewhere else entirely. She had been here before, in brief moments and scattered audiences, but she sensed this time was different.

She floated towa…

It wasn't until they were playing "Taps" that it really hit John. Three hours of hand shakes and condolences, and it was a 19 year old cadet with a bugle that struck home.

General Larson was dead.

He'd taken a ship from McMurdo to Montevideo, a red ey…

Jim Sanumá parked his car, such as it was, far enough west of the airport not to be seen. Retrieving its cargo from the glove compartment, he gave the lock mechanism a sharp kick. It folded sharply, forming a rough box shape, which Jim shoved into the dit…