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It was the impetuousness and inexperience of youth that stayed the stallion’s nerve. After all, foolishness was often mistaken as bravery. As the wyverns maw gaped, dripping ichor and viscous spittle from every ivory point - in that putrid breath, the unicorn scented death - the acird sourness...

Curiosity spurred the stallion forward. A rancorous flock of sea-birds were wheeling and plunging in fevered excitement. The piercing squalls were deafening, raising in pitch and fervor as each moment passed. What it was that had frothed the birds up so - certainly - was worth a look. With an...

The skeletal branches of yew and silver-birch trees reached skyward - bare save for the new green buds of spring growth. Tightly coiled fiddlehead ferns and thorn apple wove a thick, spongy carpet beneath the thicket canopy - enough to hush footfalls in the eerie stillness. The first true storm...

“Half’a mouthful ought’a do it. You’d do well to take a swig, too, matter of fact.” Quill offered an absent nod toward the brown bottle; it was little more than an educated guess. Traipsing across the galaxy had gained the human nothing past basic medical know-how. Luck would have it that the...

A lopsided grimace rippled across Quill’s features as the Arethusian retched – either a product of the poison coursing through biometic veins or the unsteady lurching of the Hirearth. The empathetic cast of his green eyes, however, cleared at the tidbit Sulya offered up. It was a tad...

Quill let a chuckle slip through his worrisome smile; the sound eked queerly through gritted teeth. “Don’t you go worrying your pretty little head about that. She’s a Cinntak.” Any offer of aid would have no doubt gone rebuked by the cantankerous captain. Even if her mood weren’t so foul, it...

Sulya’s indignation, his sloppy barrage of curses – Quill missed out on the dramatics that both Arethusians were so immersed in. The near-inaudible crackle of bio-mechanic relays had narrowed the human’s attention to a pinpoint. He stared at Sulya’s frayed bio-ware with the unabashed surprise of...

Salt ash scuffed-up from the bone-white flats coated both wastelanders from toe to tip by the time they trudged into town. Underneath the blistering midday sun, Rook looked to be little more than a corpse – shuffling petulantly and covered with a ghostly pallor of desert chalk. Rivulets of sweat...

By luck of the draw, Quill had come out the other side of the Arethusian escapade unscathed. Outdistancing the queer acid-retching projectiles and sizzling electricity bolts had been managed only by Sulya’s forced proximity. Lead, the Arethusian had bid him, and so he had done. Save for the...

Illusions slithered across the dunes, shimmering and heat-slick. Even from Newt’s precarious vantage point, posted haphazardly against the roof of the transcontinental tour bus, the city was just a greasy smudge on the horizon - obscured by the blistering heat. The glossy shine of daylight...

Insurrection. Hysteria. Quill’s carcass hadn’t been the only one attempting to hastily escape the sudden chaos that gripped hydroponics; each and every step toward freedom was hard won. Bodies buffeted and jostled in consternation, panic driving them like a dim-witted, stampeding herd. Steeling...

Quill was deaf to sound save for the panicked tempo of his own heartbeat. Apprehension had drowned out the incessant ruckus of the hydroponics district and tunneled his vision. Conflict, though Quill was no stranger to it, was not something the human enjoyed indulging in. Even now, as he...

Incandescent. Ethereal. Resplendent. Quill groped for words that might make a suitable description for the beauty but his low-brow, urchin’s education forced him to settle on ‘pretty’. Still, merely saying the Arethusian was pretty hardly covered it. The iridescence of cobalt-blue scales...

Incredulously, Quill’s dark brows knitted; Sulya’s query pegged him not only a foreigner, but a cultural neophyte. Basic knowledge of what commodities were in supply and demand came with the territory of interstellar travel. Being off-planet, agricultural goods were quite a hot commodity. Not...

The Arethusian's blatant solicitation struck Quill as suspicious. The bribe had come quick, too quick for the mundane excuse Sulya had given. But the terrestrial said nothing – nor did his features change to give indication that he’d even heard. Only a causal curiosity glinted in the mossy...

Iridescent, prismatic colors flittered faintly over-top of puddles; oil-slicked wetness where wetness ought to not have been. Gingerly, Quill side-stepped a particularly damp patch of the rivet-dented metal street paneling, trying in vain to not wonder just where the puddle had manifested from...

The air boasted the syrupy thickness of artificial gravity – never quite correctly calibrated for a terrestrial’s molecular density – yet Quill suffered on through. Braving the crisp, chemical sterility of recycled oxygen and less than agreeable atmospheric pressure was a necessary discomfort...

Senkou was, of course, correct. Straylight hadn't been watching where he was going. Preoccupied with the prospect of a full belly, the silver foal’s focus had narrowed to a pinpoint. An apology started to form tentatively at the end of the colt’s tongue as he watched the Pegasus squirm...

The cloying staleness of recycled atmosphere was the ever-present perfume of a drifter colony; Enceladus 9 was no exception. From the flattened scrap-metal ‘ground’ to the towering, obsolete mechanical obelisks that served as a pantomime of living accommodations, it reeked of poorly filtered...

Sheer, blundering momentum fueled the force of impact. Even if Straylight had noticed the other colt barring the path, there hadn’t been any time to avoid the collision. The unicorn crashed full force into the silver foal. With a high-pitched yowling, Straylight ended up in a tangle of his...