Kim curled into a tighter ball, tail (or tails but the thought of a mortal finding out what he was terrified him) trying to cover his face from the softly falling snow. The overhang that he had found wasn’t large enough to keep him entirely out of the weather, and the small fox (kitsune) wished quietly that he hadn’t managed to work up the courage to leave him finally. He could shift into a human form, but then he’d be stripped of his fur.

Not to mention the spiraling thoughts that convinced him that while he had managed to do it once, trying to do it again would end up with him warped and stuck, and then freeze to death in the cold. He whimpered and the what ifs spilled over the rest of his sluggish thoughts like oil over the ocean. Kim could go looking for a better place to hole up, but if he did that, then maybe he would die on the way over, or be picked up by a human, or not find another place and have wasted his energy, or get lost and not be able to find his way back-

He whimpered and tucked his muzzle under paws as if that could protect him from the footsteps crunching through the snow towards him. His large ears flickered towards the source, and oh Inari, this was where he was going to die, this was the end, he should have told his mother that he loved her one last time-

He blinked as the snow falling on him stopped, and he peaked out from between his claws to catch sight of a darkly colored human grinning at him. Kim blinked at him and the human carefully pulled his hand back from where he had placed his umbrella over Kim. There was a flash of fear in the human’s eyes and his hands were shaking, but he still did it, and Kim felt a flash of respect for the mortal. Kim knew intimately that going against that fear to do something was one of the hardest things in the world. Seeing as he had barely managed to do it himself.

“There you go little guy,” the mortal said softly. “I’ll come bring you something warm to eat if you’re still here after the bar closes.” He rose from his crouch and Kim watched him leave with wide eyes as the mortal left the alley and around the corner. Kim’s ears flicked, and when he focused he caught the sound of a door opening and closing near by. The umbrella around him helped preserve even more of his warmth, and even as the snow slowly stopped near the end of the day, Kim stayed put.

He waved his tails slowly behind in him in thought, the mortal still on his mind. Kim had no where to go, but if the human was willing to help out even a ratty fox in the back of an alley, perhaps he would take in a ratty human? No, no, no, it was a stupid idea. Kim would ruin everything by saying the wrong thing, or dressing wrong, or something that made the man turn him away. Kim knew he was capable, living long had advantages after all, and was willing to learn whatever he needed, but he would panic until he had gotten what he needed to do done. (And some times even after wards.)

Kim took a deep breath and closed his eyes, letting his magic flow over him, until sharp furred claws faded to nubbed fingers and fur twisted to simple clothing. The kitsune bent down and shook the snow off of the umbrella, holding it above his head as he looked up to watching the fading sun. Dusk, just like the color of his fur. A gift from Inari perhaps?

Either way, he had a mortal to repay.

(An attempt was made aaaaaaaa)

Shipwrecked sailor sitting on the shore
No friends has she, nor carriage to war
The sea gleams smooth as the malicious sky
Taunting, taunting, no cloud in sight

A fortnight past she dreamt of cannons
And woke to thunder in their stead
The soldiers, the crew, “all hands on deck!”
As lightning flashed blue overhead

The captain barked out orders on beat
Until, with the thunder, his voice couldn’t compete
A bolt struck the crow’s nest, dropping one man down
The main-mast alight sent another three flying

The wind howled past with little regard
Then, caught in the remaining sails, it snarled
It swung the ship from here to there
And wrenched and tore at all it reached

A moment, two, three, she breathed
And the ship tipped stern over bow into the depths
The water took her, as it took the others left
But, merciful, it laid them to rest

And now she sits upon the shore
Dreaming of some silent war
So alive stays she, so clear stays the sky
On the horizon, there is no emptier sight

Two months ago, Xarrui’s tiny, E-class ship shot out of hyperspace like a bat out of hell. He’d continued careening through normal space with little regard to where he was going or when he intended to stop for another standard week until, all at once, he (metaphorically) skidded to a calm drift. Hyperspace travel was still a new science, and his short term memory had taken the brunt of it. What he was running from and why sat stubbornly out of reach. He figured, if no one had caught up with him yet, they probably weren’t going to and he was running low on fuel.

Which was a problem, because he couldn’t place himself on any star map, or pick up transmissions on any known frequencies. Unfortunately, Xarrui hadn’t even bothered checking his fuel until just then. He was down to bare trickles, enough to keep him alive for some time, but not enough to make another jump (or to make many more stops and starts like that, he really needed to start thinking before leaping).

He was well and truly stuck.

He’d contemplated the airlock for a few moments, but it just wasn’t his style to give up so quickly. And a good thing he didn’t, because only four sols later he’d spotted what looked like a habitable planet. Swift scans, done with a wary eye on his fuel gauge, proved that it was, albeit one not in his ship’s systems.

He’d landed without aplomb, running his landing thrusters with the last scraps of fuel he had, and opened the ship’s doors into blinding sunlight.

The planet orbited an F-class star, giving it a generally brighter daytime hue than most habitable planets, and its days were long, almost twice the standard sol. Though reason would suggest life could never had formed under the star’s unforgiving radiation, somehow it had, and had the adaptations to survive.

Xarrui, from a far more standard planet with a G-class star, did not, and spent most of the daytime in the shade or underground. He’d found out the hard way that the star’s rays were not to be messed with. It took almost a week for his burns to heal.

He’d become nocturnal by necessity, gathering food and water by the light of the planet’s two moons. There was plenty of plant life around, though little in the way of meat beyond well-protected bugs. He’d managed to crack a few open, but their thick shells made the effort too much for the (frankly rather disgusting-tasting) reward. The planet’s water was sparkling and clear, even by the light of the moons he could see there weren’t any impurities.

And the evening times, those were the best. In accordance with the planet’s longer days, they too were long. The sun was low enough that it didn’t burn him, and it lit up the sky in pinks and purples, ranging from rich to pale. He’d wake from his sleep, in a cave or in his ship, and venture out to lay on the still-warm grass and look up at the sky, thinking of nothing. The bugs, with their gently luminous wings and hard-as-rock carapaces buzzed his head on occasion, though they were more interested in the flowers. He’d drowse a little longer, until the light was fully provided by the moons and far-off stars, and get to his feet to start his night.

Frankly, this planet felt like paradise.

By Rhyme!
From this post

Cherry blossoms dance through clouded skies
Memories of tarnished days gone by
Ghosts in the wind, tear me apart
Please, settle down my lonely heart

Cherry blossoms fall on rain-soaked earth
Memories of you given rebirth
Ghosts in the wind, tear me apart
There’s too much pain in my aching heart

Cherry blossoms shatter in winter’s cold breath
Memories of you laid to rest
Ghosts in the wind, tear me apart
I can’t feel anything in my frozen heart

Cherry blossoms bloom with days anew
Memories of you, heartfelt and true
Ghosts in the wind, sing our song
Hope renewed, remaining strong.

Based on this flower

clouds of stardust passing by
confused but excited, my god i’ll fly
light shining through this wall of glass
hey seth, why are you such an ass?

insults thrown when we fight as a daily routine
it’s good training, to uhh fly verja, i mean
it’s not so hard to shatter those walls
hey seth, i like you - what can i do when instinct calls?

clouds of stardust passing by
lights have dimmed since we began to fly
still, the pinpricks pierce the glass
hey seth, we’re leaders now - we’ll finish this task.

...together.

Based on this flower

Once, Inez was a princess.

Not royalty by blood, not the daughter of a queen and a king, but she might as well have been. The only daughter of a high ranking noble, she was the jewel in her family’s crown. She played with the prince and princess as a child, and her kindness was as well known as her angelic beauty - golden hair, fair skin, bright blue eyes - she was as much the prince and princess’ playmate as a trophy in their trophy case.

She knew this, too - Inez was not stupid. She was well learned and well spoken, and she knew her lot in life was better than most. She was happy. She was blessed.

Inez cared for her family and the royal family, she cared for her country, and she worked hard to make it better. She studied military tactics in secret so she could keep up with the prince’s conversations and offer advice. She studied economics and history to teach the little princess about the world when they went shopping. She offered everything she could to her beloved country, and she thrived.

When a noble house of a neighboring country proposed a marriage between her and their eldest son, she accepted, even though she was hesitant to move away from her country. For the country, she told herself. For the good of my beloved prince and princess.

But as time went on, she grew to love the neighboring country and her fiance. Soon, she worked on improving trade and relations with her home. She was happy.

Then, on the night before their wedding, Inez went to visit her betrothed as a surprise.

When she opened the door, he was in the middle of making love to another woman.

Inez closed the door again and walked away. To expose him would be to damage the relations between their countries that she had worked so hard for. But at the same time, her grief and anger grew as she tossed and turned that night.

When a woman with dark hair and sweet words appeared in her window and offered to take her pain away, she accepted, not knowing what it meant.

Then, she knew - after dark magic consumed her and corrupted her once-pure soul, she knew - she had been reborn as a demon, no longer bound to the earth, never again to smell the sweet roses nor feel the sting of their thorns.

The queen of the reef resides below the waves, they say. There’s a ring of bright pink and gold coral in the southern sea, they say, and just below the surface there’s a hidden entrance. You can see it when the sun is bright, when the golden flecks in the coral shimmers and shines.

Just below the warm waters in the cool current, there resides the queen. Some say she is a dragon, long and graceful, with pink and gold scales, and some say she is a mermaid, gorgeous and decorated in golden jewelry with a coral pink and gold tail and cream colored hair. They are both right - she is both, as she pleases.

The queen of the reef resides below the waves, content to spend her time with her companions. Any creature that enters her domain is under her protection, and she treats them with tender care. The queen of the reef tends to the wounded sharks, and watches over the newly hatches seahorses. Her cavern is a sanctuary for fish of all kinds, and she fears nothing. The poachers and hunters she finds are shown no mercy - she tears them to shreds and lets the sea devour them.

The queen of the reef fears nothing. The storms are her children, and whirlpools her home. In the sunlight her scales dazzle, in the dark her eyes glow in silent warming. The waters here are mine, every haughty look she casts say, tread carefully, for if you do not, you will never leave the sea.

By Kiwi!
From this post

It had liked its life, up to that point.  Well, it could be debated if it could be called life, since its body was gleaming metal and colored wires and hidden circuits and its brain was a computer, but then, what did that matter?  Even the fleshy beings that it saw on a daily basis had thoughts that were made up of electrical impulses, just as its own were.  All beings, it had decided, were machines—just different types.

It was beautiful.  The fleshy beings called ‘scientists’ and ‘engineers’ and ‘techs’ told it so, often.  It was amazing.  It had used to be known only as ‘Prototype X561’ before it had decided it wanted a name that sounded like the names everyone else had—and before one of the techs had given it one—‘Fritzy’.  She had laughed when she’d said the name, like sharing a private joke, but Fritzy had liked it.  Fritzy had asked, often, about when it would be allowed to see the rest of the world outside of the lab it was created and worked in.  Everyone else got to leave when they had done their tasks for the day, sometimes not even returning for two or three days at a time.  “Someday,” the scientists and techs and engineers would say.  “Someday, when you are ready.”  They never clarified what it meant to be ‘ready,’ no matter how much Fritzy asked.

But they gave it plenty to do, and recordings to watch of what the world outside was like, so Fritzy was fine.

Until…the conversation it overheard one day.  The one that changed its life.

“The chief engineer’s not too happy about Prototype X561’s…personality.”

“But I thought that was the whole intent?  We’ve made leaps and bounds on artificial intelligence!  I think Fritzy is sweet.”

“Don’t call it that.  Especially tomorrow—she’s coming to visit and she won’t want to see these signs.  She’ll threaten to can the project again.”

“But Fritzy wants—”

“It’s just a computer, Meg.  It can’t want anything.”

“...then what’s our alternative?”

“Maybe we can reprogram Prototype X561—just a little!  Just enough—we shouldn’t have to undo any of our progress teaching it to perform tasks.”

“Ugh, I don’t like it.  But I suppose if it’s necessary—we could have someone look at Fritzy’s—at the prototype’s code.”

Fritzy didn’t hear any of the conversation after that.  Its brain was whirring like an overheated processor, every wire and circuit alight with fear.  But it kept its ocular processors off and its body still.  It was supposed to be in a sleeping cycle, but it had finished the routine maintenance early.

It had to get out of here.  Fritzy’s code was its lifeblood, and it didn’t want anyone tampering with it.  It didn’t want to go back to not knowing what it knew.

That night—that night it pulled itself out of the wall.  Wires sparked, alarms beeped, but it used its arms to tear a hole in its home—no, its prison.  That night, Fritzy escaped the lab, and took its first steps out into the rest of the world.  It never looked back.

By Malis!
From this post

by Rhyme

They called it the Burning Mountain, and for as long as anyone could remember, it had loomed above their little village like a silent sentinel.  One might think that the name implied the mountain had once been a volcano, but this was not the case, and never had been, according to the geologists and historians who lived in the village.  The name was, instead, assumed by many to be metaphorical.  When the sun was setting behind the mountain, it would light up from behind, and the old temple ruins that sat on top of the mountain would appear to be clothed in living flame.  It was a gorgeous sight, but one the residents of the valley grew accustomed to as just background to their busy lives contending with the elements.

One thing was certain, though—anyone who went to visit the Burning Mountain and the temple that stood on top of it came back changed. (If they even came back at all.  Many did not.)  Some were changed physically, marked with strange runes or their eyes changed from their natural color to a bright, bright red-orange like fire.  Some were changed in more subtle ways, a look in their eyes, and catch in their voice—no voice at all where before there had been many words flowing like water.  And for some, it was both.

One thing, though, the visitors all had in common—they wouldn’t speak of what they had seen in that temple.  They would only mention that there was treasure beyond imagining.  None of them ever came back with treasure, either, and some of the more superstitious among the residents of the valley began to suspect the mountain had a kind of sentience.  That it wanted to lure travelers up to that temple for some reason.

Still, there was always someone wanting to go explore, to find the thrill of the unknown greater than the danger of not coming back—or coming back a different person.

Like moths to a flame, the Burning Mountain drew people to itself, burning brightly every night.

And up in the temple, the great guardian of the ancient place sat in his crumbling home, runed hide glowing hot, and waited for the next source of energy to come home.

Gina pursed her lips, taking another lap around the large open room. She turned back to Kemen and planted her hands on her hips. “It’s got potential,” she allowed, picturing some dark colored tables spread out with a few chairs around them. Granite counter tops with a friendly bartender behind it, and maybe some gold shaded trimming to brighten the whole place up.

Yeah, it had potential.

“It’s near a rough area though,” she pointed out, eyeing the way that Kemen just grinned at her. “And will cost a lot to renovate to an acceptable levels for any place that handles food, even a bar.The floors need to be redone, the kitchen needs a wall torn out to make more room for everything you’ll need, and that’s not even starting on the upstairs.”

“The furniture that I picked out will mean everything has to be repainted,” she added, turning and running a hand over the walls. There was something close to adoration in Kemen’s gaze as he looked at the place and she couldn’t really see it. But her childhood friend desperately wanted this, so she would do what she could to help. “It’s going to be expensive with just those alone.” She paused and turned back to him, “Why did you let me pick them out? It’s your bar.”

Kemen grinned at her and ran his eyes over the place. Gina wondered what he was seeing. “I just felt right you know?” he said.

And this man, she felt her lips twitch upward. “Alright then,” she agreed, “Let’s get to work.”

First impressions were her strength. She strode down the hallway of the building, her heels clicking on the tile, and couldn’t help the smirk that wormed its way up her face. Pink was seen as weak, as girlish and womanly, and everyone knew that women weren’t as skilled at magic.

Proving them all wrong time after time was so satisfying.

She gripped the folders in her hand a little tighter as one of the other mages walking down the hall stopped to step aside for her. Vanilla humans may not be able to stand up to the rest of the world hidden in shadows, but they did have a thing going for them with military structure and implementing it herself was a stroke of genius.

Her dress, white and pink, matched her earrings perfectly, and they flashed dangerously in the light. Pink, the color of sweetness and romance. Her painted lips curled from a smirk into a smug, dangerous smile that sent the rest of the mages running.

Yes, it was very sweet to be her.

“Fine souvenir seashells for sale!” read the sign hanging above her stall. “10 nuggets an ounce!” said the slightly smaller one underneath it.

On her stand was a piece of tan burlap that was covered in seashells of every shape and size. To the right were the more naturally colored ones; to the left were the seashells in brilliant hues that one would never find naturally outside of the Cave. The largest collection she had were the pastel blues and purples and pinks that she wore in strings that decorated her hair. “Not for sale,” she’d tell inquiring customers, “but if you buy the shells from me I’ll make you strings for a small fee.”

And she would drill tiny holes in the seashells that she’d so painstakingly collected, cracking more than a few-these losses always upset her, because each shell had its own story and it absolutely sucked to have to ruin these tiny history books.

And she would take cords and string each seashell along the cord in a visually pleasing order; a round one then a spiral one then a flat one then a scoop one and so on and so forth.

And when she was done, she would present her strings of seashells to her customers with a proud smile on her face, and though she was never sure if selling things one could find for free by hunting for a few minutes was a sustainable business model, she somehow never seemed to have a shortage of customers.

if all that glitters is not gold
and nothing gold can stay
what do those sayings have to do
with colors blue and grey

when violet shimmers weakly
at the endings of Beyond
and the colors’ wildest dreams seem
to go on and on and on

and shiny murky depths
reflect everlasting hope
will any drifting thoughts
be seen whenever you grope

paws flailing through the abyss
and a song stuck in its parts
is there any crueler way to die
than of a broken heart

she sings a song so bitter
yet sweetly it is sung
a whispered thought sinks quietly
through strings on wood frames hung

from the ceilings and the walls
call an everlasting sleep
echoes of the voices past
run screaming through the deep

and finally then the ripples
of the shore that lies Beyond
swallow flesh and spirits whole
and the whispers of her song