The smallest agent, I:

The jot-and-tittle spy.

At times I can't be seen,

Both placid and serene.

At other times, a glimpse

Is seen. Like elves or imps

I flutter into view;

I'll not get caught by you!

.

I hide among the blooms

In fancy dining rooms

In da…

“Why are you kicking me out? What did I do?”

Jack wouldn't quite meet my eye, staring just past my shoulder. He looked so pathetic standing there, shoulders slumped, hands stuffed in his pocket. I almost felt bad for him. Almost.

I didn't respond though…

There was an abrupt change of context, so violent that Tenever felt himself feeling for the edges of the dream, but was thrown back by the immediacy of the scene.

The interior of an armoured vehicle was once again folded around him, but it was mostly ups…

The ceiling of Stormcrow's base shattered. She glared up at her nemesis.

"So-Lar!" she yelled. "What..."

"Where is she?" the hero bellowed. "Where is Jane?"

"You dare..." She stopped, confused. "Jane's missing?"

In a flash, So-Lar was face-to-face wit…

"Hraz'Elarion!"

"Hraz'Elarion, have you been climbing trees again? Look at the state of your clothes!" Selura fussed over the young half-elf. In truth, she was proud of the boy. He had grown up to be a compassionate, charming, benevolent contradiction …

No, I wasn't concerned about faceless, independent threats. I was waiting for a far more dangerous foe to show his face.

"Nothing at all in the last few days," the crewman said to me over a tumbler of whiskey. "Nothing 'cept for a whisper of some Martese…

It wasn't Neptune who found us first, though.

A pirate craft dropped down on us a few days later, plummeting from a heavy cloud bank where it had been lying in wait. It arrested its fall neatly and elegantly off our starboard side, heliographs stuttering…

Dust. It was the dust, Tenever had decided. A very simple phenomenon that somehow accurately described everything that was FUBAR about this current situation. Normally any arcane practitioner of just about any ability had at least one warded layer to prot…

The Walmart and its parking lot were gone, replaced by a fleshy dome. Colors swam inside, alternating back and forth between contaminated white of curdled milk and the oily yellow of spoiled butter. It heaved and sighed and rippled with jellied motion.

W…

I need to get my mind under control,

Or else I might not ever find success.

But when I try to focus, dread distress

Engulfs me. Like a damn’d, eternal soul,

I seem to see a future filled with fear

And torment, doomed to fail the friends I cherish.

My faul…

You reach out with your hands, ready to shove against the pushbar.

Yowtch!! It is burning hot.

You'd better get your handkerchief or something before trying that again.

The Silver Skies was surprisingly spacious, for a clipper. Wooden crates lined two cargo bays in the side of the ship, while a larger stern bay housed two launches and the larger items of cargo.

"The captain would like to apologise for the mess," the f…

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…

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…

Mornington did not need to close his eyes. Rather, there was a superposition of that which would be over that which merely was. Descending under erratic control, he fumbled with infinite possibility and finite perception. His exhalations slowed, turned to…

Story is marked as mature

Rain poured down in thick sheets, dense enough to severely limit visibility. I couldn't see the enemy troops--not a single soldier, tanks, or mech--but I knew they were out there ever since my radar and communications equipment stopped chattering. The sto…

Tenever landed hard, his wards snapping along with several ribs. Struggled, mind blank with pain, under the weight of Ferris' charred and burned body. Pushed and squeezed, wriggled and crawled out from under the remains of a man who had once been a frie-

…

"Which couple will brave the journey?" the gypsy matriarch asked her captive audience. She had bespoken a spell and sand rose like smoke and drifted towards me and the one that I wished was my partner.

The spell was listening to my heart, but if I let it…

Although the night was clear and cloud free, the streets were dark. A summer wind brought a refreshing coolness off the ocean and I stopped my midnight wanderings to lean against a building, letting the air wash over me. It was sweeter than expected, almo…

Story is marked as mature

Leland slumped looking at his hands. He could still hear each of the sour notes that they had drawn forth from the baby grand piano, the horrid music--no it wasn't music but noise!--hanging around, permeating the air like the stench of vinegar. What a tra…

"I used to be madly in love with you, but you pushed me hard away."

"No! When did I do that? I never pushed you away."

"The day you said to me that you would never try to steal me away from my family."

"I wouldn't. Family is important."

"But that was the …

Messenger dings again, the three inside the bubble becoming a four.

She wants to talk and still I don't want to bother her. Because I love her and I know she doesn't love me. She's reaching out for the first time in years. I don't want to fail her but wh…

Sound echoed through the winding passages of the fissure, ultimately coming from a great cavern where naked men danced in a circle. Ringing them, women beat drums and if not drums, their thighs or the walls.

There was only one light, a fearful red tongue…