Alphabet Islands - Prologue

There weren't always dragons in the valley at the centre of the mountainous island of Aversion Aerie, but there were now.

These ones, not much bigger than a small horse or large pony, had appeared a generation or two ago, during the time of the Great Banishment. This was the source of no few jokes, told in naughty whispers awa from the hearing of their disapproving elders. This evolution also led to the Ace Arrows, apparently a pun that made the elders who were in on the joke scowl and mutter angrily, becoming perhaps the most formidible airforce in at least living memory.

It started, as such things usually did, with an Idea.

That was to say; coming up with a flimsy plan with more holes in it than a sieve, and touting it as the perfect solution.

Sea levels had been rising for decades, and weather events becoming more extreme for nearly as long. A not-inconsiderable section of the world’s available land-mass was no longer fit for habitation. Instead, large areas were now underwater, leaving behind islands that had once been mountain ranges.

Rather than admit to ignoring the warnings that ecologists and other scientists had been screaming for years, a small but vocal section of the population with more power and ego than sense promptly blamed “the Gays rebelling against the Natural Order”.

Their proposed solution: banish everyone of certain orientations to the newly-created Islands, a significant distance from the mainland, where they were sure to die out in the space of a generation.

At first, people were angry at what they saw as an Eugenics program, but then they all realised what it meant. Not what the Vocally Intolerant had intended, but what the actual result would be. The Government, in their ignorance of everything outside of a 90’s Television and Movie Queer Stereotype, had shot themselves in the foot.

A more apt comparison might suggest that they’d blown off the entire limb.

The world was divided into far more than ‘Straight’ and ‘Not-Straight’, and so far, the biggest cause of Gay children... were Straight people. Even if the Straight Straits had only produced equally straight children, the various non-straight orientations didn't automatically preclude reproduction.

Besides, anyone who had seen a collective of Lesbians around timber... well. The heavily-wooded Lesbian Island was soon significantly less forested, as was the island assigned to the actual Gays, and two small fleets had sprung into being; The Pansexual Pirates and Bisexual Buccaneers.

The seafarers made their homes in a cove set aside on each of the islands of All-Welcome Atoll, and the "Alphabet Islands", as they were sometimes dubbed, quickly put aside the small island that was mostly beaches and suddenly found itself host to a heard of unicorns, designated as Both-Ways Bay, for the Pirates and Buccaneers to make port. Trans and Non-Binary people had their own Island, Transitional Tolombo, a single tidal island that effectively became two for half the day when the landbridge was covered by water, or migrated to one of the other islands, depending on their inclination. The Asexuals took to the skies, riding on the dragons and giant birds who had previously remained beyond human reach, but quickly evolved in concert with their new riders, who came down only to tend the farms on the highest peaks, which sustained them.

But the Straight Straits soon found themselves overpopulated, or losing their children to the Alphabet Islands. They began to cast covertous eyes to where they had once exiled those that they blamed for their troubles. But the Alphabet Islands would not be so easily subdued this time, and that is where this story begins...

If you liked this story, check out my other original works on Amazon and Vocal! Check me out on Medium for non-fiction and other articles!