Fantasy

Beneath the Cypress - Xander Arrives
The swamp is a mysterious place, full of secrets and hidden wonders. For Caju, there was nothing quite like an adventure in this flooded forest. As the sun began to rise,the morning light flickered through the cypress trees, causing the water below to seemingly dance. The birds and frogs created a harmonizing symphony with their respective songs of celebration for this new day.
By Holly Rae4 years ago in Fiction
Alpha & Omega
Shrill wailing pierced the still night, waking Embyr from a deep sleep. She grumbled as she lumbered to her feet and looked around to find the direction of the cry. Silence met her for a moment before the wailing began again quite a distance behind her toward the ocean. Usually, her exceptional hearing was a blessing, but tonight it felt like a curse. The cry didn’t come from any beast she knew.
By Michael Mayer III4 years ago in Fiction
The First Dragon Rider
Ezekiel didn't actually like being a dragon all that much. Sure, the epic wingspan, fire-breathing and riddle-weaving were grand up to a point. But have you ever tried to manage a 30ft wingspan in an enclosed space? Accidentally incinerate the help when you had a cold? Don't even start on the competitions for best hoard; it's simply not all it's cracked up to be in the stories. The mere effort required to find a decent cliff or field to have a good run up for take off these days is enough to dissuade the elder dragons from flying entirely. What with the humans burning and building and busy-bodying their way into every cave, nook and cranny, real estate has become an absolute nightmare.
By Rebecca Lee4 years ago in Fiction
The All-World
How did it come to this? It was all that Mirovin could keep asking himself as he and his fellow rangers had witnessed nothing but chaos. Shear calamity was unleashed as meteors flew down on their world as they witnessed the Cratering of the All-World from Astear’s skies. Not just meteors, but monsters too? Strange reports had been coming in of unforeseen creatures. Black holes large as the sun, seen from the skies, supposedly leaking out legions of unspecified ilk.
By C.T.D.4 years ago in Fiction
Stryggid
The light of an early November sun drifted lazily through the trees of the grotto, casting it in shades of ochre, yellow and umber. Its crisp, cold light seemed to dance as the trees swayed in a wind that smelled of ozone and overripe apples, heralding the arrival of a storm in the next hour or so. Styrggid sighed to himself, unwinding his body from the aspen he had been resting in. The rain wasn't dangerous to him, not like it would have been if he were a few centuries younger, but that didn't mean he enjoyed being caught in it. It was time to return home.
By Daniel Bradbury4 years ago in Fiction
A Girl and Her Mother
A tree doesn’t have eyes. It doesn’t have ears or a mouth, and yet they see everything. Every step, or broken branch, and hidden nest they know about. And they whistle this news through the forest. Through their branches, their leaves; humming in the wind. Their trunks sway with the weight of words passed from branch to branch. They know everything. And they know what happened to Aria Miletos.
By Joanna Lynne4 years ago in Fiction
Like Grapes From the Vine
“No, no, it is too early.” A human child sat upon the vine-wrapped pedestal within the forest clearing, hands sifting through a small basket for what remained of her snacks. She seemed to be blissfully ignoring the shadow above her.
By Henry Fisher4 years ago in Fiction
The Ninth World
Before the massacre, before that damned king tore down the tree, before I found the child alone in those cursed woods, I confess I never knew that much about humans.
By Steve Hanson4 years ago in Fiction
Echoes of Legend
As Melisandre Carpathian climbed the rocky cliff, with babe clutched in hand, knowing she could never return to the Forgotten Keep where her King, and her queenship resided, she tried to stifle the tears. Wracked with dread, bloodied and scraped from her twilight escape, she pushed the emotions into the void, knowing all the while that her only chance was Zanthor's hopeful mercy.
By Branden Kerr4 years ago in Fiction
A Song of Shadow and Stone
The bells tolled in the distance, marking the night and warning the village of the coming offering. Every year this night comes and every year it haunts the forlorn parents of Wrenwood.
By Anna Darlene4 years ago in Fiction
Rocks
In Kaeseriel’s three centuries of life, she had never once seen a humanoid child alone. The girl stood about twenty feet from her, partially hidden behind the trunk of a leaning black spruce. She wore wolfskin clothes to fend off the biting cold that looked to be oversized, judging by the many thin leather straps cinching the baggy covering to her arms and legs. A few strands of black hair long enough to frame her curious face drifted free of the hood, which was pulled tight into a circular porthole. She had orcish heritage of some measure, which Kaeseriel surmised from the girl’s faint gray complexion and the tiniest tips of two tusks peeking out from below a trembling lower lip. This made sense to Kaeseriel – it meant she had finally entered Valdas, the eastern reaches of which were the ancestral lands of the orcs, who had long since woven their blood and history with that of humans. What didn’t make sense to her was the girl’s apparent solitude.
By Joe Fry4 years ago in Fiction
A Whisper On The Winds Of Fate
It’s an odd thing, Saraya mused, knowing that every step I take is another step closer to death. She kept her pace even, straightened her spine, and elongated her posture. She knew that to the crowd, opinion was split. Most thought her mind had rotted away from grief, and that the story she spouted was pure nonsense. Those who believed in the lore of their people quietly waited for her to either become a lying martyr in death or the Seer who foretold the dawning of a new era.
By Allen Longstreet4 years ago in Fiction