“So what’s your favorite animal?”

That makes Lou pause from doodling in her notebook. _Her favorite animal?_

“Just one?”

“If you had to give your all time favorite right here, right now, what would you say?” Roman asks.

The whole group, Lou, Roman, Jeremiah, Bell, Cross, Marta, and Amelie, are in Jeremiah’s living room. All lounging, not focusing on homework at all, even though Cross has bee...

Sleek and elegant with a soft, warm coat, sitting there, effortlessly pulchritudinous. Her ears sleek and perked, with velvety fur lining the inside. Two dainty paws stand sturdily next to each other. But the adorable view of the kitten isn’t the same from every angle, because sometimes what you first see overshadows what you don’t. Her tail still curls up when she’s being pet, but instead of furr...

I shivered but couldn’t make my legs run away. The howling was beautiful. The soft gray fur and the poise. But the eight legs and eight eyes were horrendous. How could I love an animal that scared the beejezus out of me? And here I was now wondering. Will it attack me? Maybe it senses my terror. That’s when it spat something that looked like white foam from its mouth. Towards me. In seconds I was ...

The jaws opened wide, revealing rows of jagged bloodstained teeth. The skin was rougher than sandpaper, making you bleed if it touched you. It was the color of chocolate, and wings protruded from its back. It supported itself with six impossibly skinny legs, and it used its dead black eyes to see. It was the size of the poodle, allowing you to see every gruesome detail of its hideous body. It was ...

The creature howls, and there’s a rattling sound. I find myself rooted to the spot as it approaches.

The liquinox.

It’s a lot bigger than it should be if ———‘s vague explanation of what it was was correct, standing almost twice as tall as me if I had to guess. What should be fur in the Earth counterpart is made entirely of shimmering blue and silver and green scales, a certain beauty in them. B...

Isle of Galapondra, 1856

Dearest Emily,

It is upon our return to this, the smallest of the Durindral Islands, that I come to write what I fear may be my last correspondence. If Galapondra is a name familiar to you it is because I wrote about this uninhabited, desolate grassland in a letter to you some eighteen months prior. You may remember, my love, that I mentioned we were to leave our few rem...

The night before his death

You took a long walk with him

Unusually long, so I asked him

Where you guys have been

He smiled and began his tale

You happily wagged your tail

After all, you and he were best mates

Strolling cheerfully, going to places

When I saw you lying next to him

In the shed on that late autumn night

I recklessly asked both of you again

What on earth has happened

Your brood...

Eight articulated legs

with belly low to the ground.

Short stubby limbs goof for burrowing,

with a long back and red hour glass marking.

My bites are silent and deadly,

but I can give gentle kisses on your belly.

I miss you when you are gone,

wait patently for your return.

With beefy black eyes,

with a death wish in disguise.

Tessa🦋...

✅📝good!...

I prayed my air tank would last such a long encounter. I’d made it deeper than most had dared to at this time of day. Desperation guided my trembling limbs.

There it was. Bobbing the length of two cars in front of me. No doubt pondering my intrusion. Its figure drifted toward me and I was filled with repulsed awe. The way it undulated. Its translucent glow. My “Guide to Mystical Whatchamacallits”...